The map of Avalidad will be included in a upcoming sourcebook for Postcards from Avalidad, the Postcards Companion, which will also feature a timeline of events for the near future setting, optional rules* for Psionics, a more detailed city guide, information about other corporations of note, a list of equipment and a table of random encounters using cards, among other things.
*All the optional rules are meant for *Punk, the preferred set of mechanics for Postcards from Avalidad (though it includes statistics for Actual Fucking Monsters as well).
The idea of organising a Rollerclash competition was Dr Bentley’s, when he took over his office, as a way to further distract the workers on weekend nights. A kind of violent entertainment that is contained inside a sports venue and doesn’t flow over into the streets, as sometimes happens with Deathfight and Mutant Mayhem. That’s the reason why he decided to base it on Rollerball, a science fiction movie classic from the 1970s. Each Rollerclash team is sponsored by a different corporation. These are the teams currently playing in Avalidad by order of relevance:
Brutal Deluxe (BurroughsTech) Underworld Blasters (Annexia Corp) Rage Lords (Bergen Group) Neon Rage (Nakajima) Gods of War (Kobayashi) Turbo Rangers (Matsui) Sword of Damocles (War Inc) Death or Glory (Hauser Corp) Meat Massacre (Skyswitch Corporation) Fatal Furies (Uncle Bill’s Guns) Sexy Slashers (Martinelli) Mean Machines (SecuriTech)
“And who by fire, who by water Who in the sunshine, who in the night time Who by high ordeal, who by common trial Who by very slow decay And who shall I say is calling?”
Leonard Cohen, Who by Fire
After doing some leg work, talking to the people at both the Iridum arena and the smaller venue where Malena acted recently, Doyle finds himself in need of help, he has now in his hands hours of surveillance recordings and no idea what do do with them. The stalker is still at large and he has no clues. Doyle arranges a meeting with Aziz Crowe in his office and puts him up to speed. Meanwhile, Isabella is having tea with her friend and is already aware of the troubles affecting the singer Malena, as well as her past story with Doyle. Isabella suggests ZoneSec should get involved and calls Aziz. She agrees to meet Doyle and Crowe at ZoneSec HQ.
Malena, lead singer of the Electro-Candombe band Malena y los Rio de la Plata
The three friends meet at the office over coffee, absinthe and a strange canned soft drink that a weird ginger kid has just handed to Doyle in the corridor. Being a scientist Nakatomi tries the drink and, after a energy burst, wonders about its contents and commercial possibilities.
Aziz asks his customized Personal Assistant, Natasha, do examine the surveillance recordings, while Doyle recaps the story and Nakatomi walks up and down the office. Aziz believes the crowded Hilton Hotel is not a safe enough place for Malena to seek refuge. She should be somewhere quieter and easier to control, like the Blue Parrot. Strangely both ex-lovers agree to the idea. A cunning plan is born: Malena will perform at the Blue Parrot to attract the pyromaniac stalker. ZoneSec can control the access to the bar and apprehend the criminal.
James C, star player of Brutal Deluxe Rollerclash team
Suddenly there is an unexpected visit: James C, the most famous Rollerclash player is insisting in talking to ZoneSec’s director right away. James, star player of the BurroughsTech sponsored team, Brutal Deluxe – is clearly disturbed: a teammate of his, Ironhead, died during a recent match. Though dying isn’t unusual for a Rollerclash game, James C is convinced it was a planned killing, the other player – bike driver Cletus Gunn of the Underworld Blasters – was clearly targeting Iron head during the whole match. James C claims he and the late Iron Head were being pressured by Pandemonium – the company that organizes the games – to retire. They had become big a starts, bigger then the game itself, and the corporate suits didn’t want that. Rollerclash shouldn’t generate idols for the masses. Aziz promises to investigate the case, while Nakatomi tries to set up a date with James C.
Back at the Blue Parrot, Isabella does a live RealSimcast with Malena to announce the concert for the next day to all her followers, making sure the news is widespread.
While they are doing the live, Natasha calls Aziz apart. She finally has news for him: a face was identified in the crowd at on of the concert, Lance Jones, a scientist that was jailed for stalking and trying to rape Ka’athryn years before. A worried Aziz calls a ZoneSec team to be on the scene immediately and Jones’ mugshot is distributed to both Blue Parrot and ZoneSec security.
It’s late, Borges is getting ready to go home when she gets a call from Clayton Reed. She and the rookies were just assigned to a security detail at the Blue Parrot to protect lead singer Malena. The team sets up a surveillance perimeter outside of the Blue Parrot, after a small territorial fight with the Blue Parrot bouncer about installing cameras inside the bar.
On concert night the Blue Parrot is at its maximum capacity, everybody wants to see Malena. In spite of all the security efforts everything goes wrong! Suddenly an explosion occurs inside the bar. Doyle quickly drags Malena out of the stage and into his room, while Aziz helps evacuate the place, and Nakatomi keeps her exciting live stream going.
Outside, the security team quickly jumps out of the surveillance van, dejected by the fact O’Malley’s face detector program proved useless. Borges quickly races to the Blue Parrot and puts out the fire in the kitchen. She is pissed of with how the amateurs handled the situation. O’Malley’s inspection of the fire zone shows nothing, there is no explanation for the explosion.
Lance Jones was arrested years ago for trying to rape Ka’athryn
They decide to check Lance Jones background, but find nothing in official channels: classified information. Being the proactive young man he is, O’Malley goes straight to the director for information. Aziz tells the team that maybe Lance Jones can start fires from a distance using biotechnology. Borges gets even more pissed off.
O´Malley tries to find the suspect by hacking the street cameras around the area. But there’s a weird pattern of cameras getting shut dow and he ends up missing the trail. At least now they know what building he came of from, so it’s time to go knocking on doors. On the 4th floor there’s a flat where nobody is answering. O’Malley tries to kick the door down, but ends up hurting himself. Borges shows him how to do it: “We shoot the door!”.
Inside they find a recently carbonized body. Time to call the clean-up team. The apartment has a view over the Blue Parrot’s kitchen; Jones probably needed to see the place to do whatever he did… O’Malley dives into the darkweb and find out they may have found themselves a psycho scientist with a psionic power to start fires. Borges is furious and calls Clayton Reed to let him know of the night’s mess and the fact the director retained information. After another call from Reed Aziz finally shares the full information with the team.
Now they have the full picture maybe they can catch him next time.
Aziz Crowe arrives home at about 5 a.m., but before he lays down besides Ka’athryn, he checks for forensic updates on the murder’s at Bentley’s mansion. Barbaroux’s DNA was found under one of the models’ fingernails, but the fabric belongs to one Sir Nigel Smythe, a retired British expat who runs the local Hellfire Club. Crowe has a premonition that Barbaroux is already dead and sends Zone Sec to find Smythe.
After finally going to sleep he has one of those strange psychic dreams: Aziz is inside an oven, alongside a roasting turkey. The headless turkey screams at him, with an outrageous accent French “Help me! You bastard!”. The dream lingers in his mind and once he awakens in the morning the first thing he does is to gaze from the window of his Olympian Tower penthouse and focus on the memory of the turkey. Unexpectedly his intuition points to the suburbs. Precisely to Dr Bentley’s Mansion!
Veronica, the Baboon
Crowe calls Michael Doyle asking his company to visit Dr. Bentley once again. He doesn’t want to call ZoneSec in just yet. He also asks a distracted Ka’athryn to call Isabella about a turkey Dr Bentley has in the oven. Isabella is delighted with the unexpected lunch invitation from William, and makes haste. Leaving the hotel she founds a very clearly disturbed Malena, but alas William is wanting.
While the trio is once again together Malena’s (Electronic Candombe star and Isabella and Ka’athryn’s friend) return is casually mentioned. This appears to deeply disturb Doyle. They had relationship way back when she was nobody.
They find Dr Bentley in his mansion lounging by the pool in Veronica’s company. Doyle insists in searching inside the Orgone Acumulator, an unfruitful venture, while the turkey is cooked for a late lunch.
But Doyle is a stubborn gentleman and, after inspecting the murder scene one more time with Aziz’s help, he notices an unscrewed ventilation grid. The muck from the Orgone Accumulator makes it that much easier for Doyle to slide inside the crawlspace. After some twists and turns, the corpse of Jean Paul Barbaroux is found. That kinda ruined lunch plans!
Back at ZoneSec, Aziz is able to revive the last visions of the dead women and the designer. The visions point to the French designer being the killer, but something in Crowe’s gut makes him suspect Sir Nigel is involved somehow.
During the afternoon Isabella decides to drop by Babar’s Atelier to give his assistant Louise the sorrowful news. After drinking a couple of bottles of champagne to celebrate the life and death of Jean Paul Barbaroux – and Louise’s glorious new career – Isabella moves to the designer’s office to do a quick search. She finds some highly incriminating photos and a jacket belonging to Smythe with a matching missing pocket. She calls Crowe to tell him about the evidence and then focus her attention in trying the dresses Babar left behind. The late designer’s last work will be hotter then a roasted turkey.
Meanwhile Doyle arrives at the Blue Parrot to find a familiar scent in the air: Malena has returned searching for his help.She tells him about the weird events that happened during her latest shows. She may have a pyromaniac stalker for a fan. When Doyle asks why come for him, her answer is: “You are the only one I now I can trust!”
ZoneSec Blues
The team has assembled for the morning briefing. The task on hand is still Kurt Kilgore’s smear campaign. Patrick O’Maley, well-caffeinated, prepares to set up his plan. The boy’s innate talent for hacking catches Borges’ eye.
While Jana entertains the reporters with an improvised press-conference, Borges persuades Kilgore to step down by threatening to leak the fake compromising stories planted by O’Maley. It would be better for all if Kurt just gave up politics; and he does.
The team decides to keep an eye on Democracy Now! They make a short list of the next possible leaders to be ready to neutralise them.
The Operatives: Eva Borges, Patrick O’Maley, Jana Gibson, Mariza Olafson. The VIPs: Isabella Nakatomi, Michael Doyle, Aziz Crowe.
Mission Report
“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on. A psychotic is a guy who’s just found out what’s going on.”
William S. Burroughs
The Rookies:
After a week-long arduous training in the desert south of Avalidad, Patrick and Jana are finally back to civilization. For Jana it was a return to the tranquillity and comfort of the City, but for Patrick the novelty and excitement never wear off. Seeing Avalidad for the first time, the young tech takes another sip of his favourite drink and feels his heartbeat increase. While Lanyard gets closer to the heliport on top of the Zone Sec building, they see a tall muscular female waiting for them. “That is Eva Borges” Lanyard announces. “She comes out a bit bitchy, but don’t let her get to you. She’s really a bitch, but a nice one.”
As soon as the helicopter lands, O’Maley energetically jumps out, followed by Jana. They are greeted by a nonplussed Borges. “Welcome rookies!”
*They are picking them younger and softer by the day, Gibson is supposed to be Crowe’s wizard apprentice, but this guy…*
After crushing Patrick’s overenthusiastic reaction, Borges orders them to follow her. In the briefing room they are joined by Olafson. The hacker is even less friendly then her usual self, and not happy at all when Borges tells her O’Maley will be her responsibility.
The senior agents are showing the place to the new comers when, in the 1st floor cafeteria, they come upon a commotion outside: Democracy Now! is organizing a pacific, but very annoying, demonstration, right outside ZoneSec’s HQ.
Cue in to Aziz´z Crowe office. Clayton Reed warns the director about the new annoyance from Democracy Now!. The verdict is that the demonstration will annoy Dr Bentley, so let them proceed for now…
Hours later the protest escalates: Kurt Kilgore, Democracy Now! leader declares he will go on hunger strike until his demands are taken seriously. The media are going crazy.
Clayton Reed instructs the team to take some measures, at least remove them from the site. Borges suggests moving them near the Kobayashi tower. This is a good opportunity to test the rookie’s nerves. The moment the team steps out of the building they are surrounded by the media, while Eva and Mariza head up to meet Kilgore, Jana stays behind talking to the press.
Borges is able to intimidate Kilgore to move the demonstration site for their own safety. Meanwhile, young Patrick tries to prove is worth by hacking into Kilgore’s MetaPlus account and posts some compromising “metas”.
Protesters move quietly, and all seems under control. But minutes after the team has re-entered the building, Reed calls them back, appearing to be in a bad mood.
“Have you seen the news?”
“Not yet, but they moved boss.” Borges replies. Reed cuts her up:
“Someone decide to hack Kilgore’s MetaPlus. And now he is accusing us of it. Did I order you to do it? Who did it?”
O’Maley assumes his guilt: It was really easy! I thought it was a good idea!” Clayton studies the rookie, looks suspiciously to the can the boy keeps sipping from.
“Did I told you to do it? Now we need to go ahead and discover some real dirt on the guy, not this child’s play. And what the hell is that stuff you keep drinking?”
Patrick smiles and proudly announces is home-made beverage: NutKicker, nobody is impressed, but everybody’s concerned.
After a long work and a lot of nut kicking, Patrick proves to be a very good hacker. Unfortunately, Kilgore is a boring fellow, with no skeletons in his closet. Who would trust someone like that in the government? After a debate between Crowe and Reed, it’s decided to go with defamation. Kilgore will be blackmailed before the fake story goes public.
The Party:
Suburbs of Avalidad, Mediouna upper-class neighbourhood: in one of the most luxurious mansions, a magnificent party is going on, chez Dr Bentley. There’s a party every other night, but this is the first time someone literally partied to death.
Natasha’s voice rouses Aziz in the middle of the night: “Urgent call from Dr Bentley”. On the other end a frantic Dr Bentley shouts. “They’ve hurt veronica, and I also have two dead bodies laying on the floor. Aziz come here as soon as possible. Now!”
Michael Doyle and Isabella Nakatomi were two of the party guests and, lucky for them, still alive. Like most guests, they are oblivious to the commotion going on on the upper floor, until they ear sharp cries, both human and simian.
Doyle is a busybody and Nakatomi is nurturing a strange unhealthy crush on Dr Bentley, so they are the only ones brave enough to climb the staircase to find out what’s going on. Dr Bentley is over himself: Veronica is bleeding from a small cut. Also, there’s that unpleasant business of the two stiffs. Isabella offers to help Bentley bandage Veronica’s cute little paw – while the baboon eyes her suspiciously – and Doyle offers to watch over the corpses.
Entering the room he’s rewarded with the sight of the two best looking corpses ever: the two models (they must have been models) were apparently stabbed to death and the murder scene looks like the site of some kind of ritual. While Doyle is playing the detective, Aziz Crowe enters the room. The presence of a real Zone Sec official doesn’t diminish the amateur’s enthusiasm (and not just because the corpses are gorgeous).
While wondering about the identity of the dead beauties, with the help of Natasha, they discover that both models Francesca and Inola had arrived at the party in the company of Isabella Nakatomi. Cue in Dr Bentley, a calmer Veronica, and Isabella. After the shock of seeing her friends dead and a ruined GivenXXX dress (Inola had leant it from her), Nakatomi confirms her friends’ identity. They were not really famous and have been involved on a small scandal that ruined fashion designer’s Jean Paul Barbaroux’s latest show. The models were both drunk and kept stumbling on the catwalk. The next day Barbaroux was the butt of the joke all over the City.
Suddenly, Dr Bentley announces there’s something stuck in Veronica’s teeth. After some effort, a piece of cloth is retrieved. Nakatomi quickly identifies it as the inner lining of a man’s tuxedo. Excited, the two amateurs sleuths go back to the party and try to identify who’s wearing a bitten coat. Aziz is left alone to think and also call the Zone Sec agents to secure the murder scene, and Bentley retires to put Veronica to bed.
After a quick search, the coat owner is not identified. Doyle, Crowe and Nakatomi chat about the fashion designer. Isabella refuses to believe “Babar” is the culprit, she knows his partying lifestyle and suggests they hunt for him.
The improbable trio heads to The Temple of Sound. It’s a painful experience for Doyle. Unfortunately, Babar hasn’t been seen for the last three days. Actually, it seems the party going designer has vanished from Avalidad’s night-life three days ago. Since Zone Sec can go everywhere and do everything, a visit to the designers apartment is added to the menu. Once again, no traces of “Babar” are found. The voice-mail is full of messages and the concierge confirms he hasn’t seen him, which actually isn’t unusual.
Abraham Zetina has reviewed the third and last Postmortem Giallo: The Sisters of the Seven Sins for his YouTube channel, Talking About Games. You can check it out here. You can also check his previews reviews for the other gialli here.
A *Punk character sheet for the Postcards from Avalidad tech-noir/ surreal horror game setting. There will be new (optional) PSI rules for the game, so this is still a beta version.
After five months and twelve play sessions, the first season of Welcome to St. Cloud came to a timely ending yesterday, on Halloween night. I’m pleased to report that, after all that time, we’ve barely scratched the surface of St. Cloud’s mysteries
SPOILER ALERT: even though no two playthroughs should be alike, the report includes information best kept hidden from players.
But before I get into the scenario’s events, the cast should first be listed: Silvia Clemente played Jessica Bishop, the local psychologist; Iola Yolska was Cynthia, the Woodrows (the most powerful family in town) youngest child; Ana Miguéns took the role of Gary McKay, a drunken journalist too curious for his own good; Manuel Sousa starred as Peter Anderson, son of Jim Anderson, St. Cloud’s clinic owner, he himself a doctor, recently returned to his hometown from New York. Pedro Franco joined us later in the role of Jean-Michel Dubois, a Canadian private detective.
We followed the main plotline for this scenario, (Not) Wrapped in Plastic, which means that a substantial part of the events revolved around the disappearance of Lucy, the Anderson couple youngest daughter and Peter’s sister. The first season ended with part of the mystery behind Lucy’s disappearance – and subsequent murder – solved. But if this was the driving storyline, many other things happened in parallel.
The story kicked off days before Peter Anderson and Patricia Halley’s engagement party, during which there was a blackout, and Lucy was kidnapped from the Northern Hotel, where the party was taking place. The common element between the characters was, at first, the clinic: Peter was preparing to start his job, Jessica had been practising there for a short time and Cynthia, in constant conflict with her parents since returning home from college, had started therapy. Gary McKay has, for the moment, little or no relation to the others, but shortly after this introduction, a strange event, witnessed by all, created a link between the four: they found a man wandering about Lynch Bay’s beach. The man appeared to be around 30 years old and was dressed strangely in a 1970s style. McKay recognised him as Robert Carpenter Fogg, who had mysteriously disappeared since the late 1970s and, during the following days, Cynthia took him under her wing, trying to help him unravel the enigma, with McKay’s help.
Always a believer in a supernatural explanation, Cynthia had in Peter a strong opponent: the doctor will remain an advocate of a rational explanation for what happened. Romance almost blossomed between Cynthia and Robert. Or it did, in fact blossom, but she never wanted to talk much about it. But it was not only Robert who led Cynthia to suspect supernatural manifestations in town. During her first days in St. Cloud she had an encounter with the Blue Dog and visions about an enigmatic Tibetan hermit. Noah, the old Carpenter Fogg mansion’s gardener, reassured her about this case: the Blue Dog is a benign entity as well as the hermit. On the other hand, Robert’s recurrent indispositions, during which he vomited absurd amounts of water (which proved to be salty), worried her.
Meanwhile, another incident aroused the group’s interest: while working at the family business (Halley’s Department Store), Patricia found a video surveillance camera in the women’s dressing room. Aided by the player characters, Patricia investigated the case. They eventually discovered that it was her own father, John, who installed the device and collected videos of customers changing clothes. The case was not publicised, but after the shock of being confronted with his guilt John became distraught. Shortly afterwards all memories of what happened were erased from the his memory, while a strange joy and a will to sing the standards overcame the Halley patriarch. Luckily, his voice is wonderful, he sounds a lot like Sinatra.
Peter, always the rationalist of the group, later had his first real shock while confronting the mysteries of St. Cloud: his middle sister Donna was behaving strangely and, at some point, it became clear that her mind was – or seemed to be – somehow controlled by Linda Fox, a high school girl who has a crush on Peter. Though believing in drugs rather than spiritual possession, he still suspected Linda’s involvement in Lucy’s kidnap and murder.
While passing through St. Cloud’s Carnival, the supernatural once again manifested itself to the characters through Zoltar, the fortune-telling machine. In addition to advising Cynthia not to enter a certain house (the mansion adjoining Robert’s home, currently owned by an eccentric writer, Ronald Macey) and advising Jessica to be cautious around “men in black”. Zoltar also suggested that Donna was really being possessed by Linda.
The supernatural definitely entered the characters’ lives during a hunting trip organized by Quincy Forbes, manager of the Woodrow sawmill, during which Stan Keller, Quincy’s best friend, vanished. Stan, who had fallen through a hole in the ground, was eventually found, but it was already late in the evening. Now, everyone knows that it is not a good idea to stay overnight in St. Cloud’s woods! When they tried to return home, they got lost in darkness and were stricken with a sudden fear of the dark. They were saved by the intervention of Jules Montaigne, a Native American deputy, whose closeness to the woods is well known.
Then the engagement party raised the weirdness level in town. The storm that raged over St. Cloud during the day culminated in a blackout. At that time someone kidnapped Lucy. As usual, whenever something strange happens, suspicion falls on the Nielsen, a family of inbreds who reside at the foot of Frost Peak. Peter, however, had his own suspicions (almost certainties): for him the involvement of Linda Fox and Ted Woodrow – Cynthia’s brother and the doctor’s rival since high school days – will never be questioned. In the days that followed, packages with Lucy’s severed appendages (two fingers, one toe and an ear) were left at the Anderson’s porch, accompanied by ransom notes. The notes were vague enough, they were only a ruse, nobody was expecting the ransom to be paid and the girl was already dead.
Lucy’s disappearance became the centre of attention from here on, but other enigmas, most of them already mentioned, got mixed up with the main investigation. And no matter how much Peter insisted on rationalising the facts, the inexplicable kept happening, as Lucy’s image started to disappear from all the existing photos, and even the memory of the young girl threatened to fade from the minds of locals. Peter’s insistence on retaining memories of his sister seemed to fight the trend and, after young Anderson’s death was proven, suddenly all the pictures returned to normal and the St. Cloudians remembered the young girl once again.
Cynthia and Jessica continued to try and explore the supernatural angle and brought psychic Dr Clarence Meadows to town. The psychic died of cardiac arrest when he tried to give a spiritual reading in Peter’s sisters’ bedroom. On the rational side, Colonel Black’s theory that most of the strange happenings in St. Cloud are due to the introduction of hallucinogenic drugs into the town’s water supply by an outsider, Glenn Cleveland, a drug dealer and leader of a pseudo-mystical cult, was frequently recalled. Although various tests made to the water (and also blood tests) indicated that the theory was misleading, some believed that the drugs were just innovative and difficult to detect.
Meanwhile, Walter Fox took the unusual step of hiring a private detective to investigate the case. Peter believed that hiring Canadian Jean-Michel Dubois was nothing more than a ploy to cover up the involvement of Walter’s daughter, Linda. But the doctor was wrong, Walter is Lucy’s real father, the fruit of an affair, one of Angie Anderson’s many extramarital relationships. Detective Dubois himself was quickly added to Angie’s conquests shortly after his arrival in town. The Canadian had a sexually prolific encounter, but nothing came out of it from an investigative point of view. Dubois was also keen in investigating the Glenn Cleveland angle, but by combing through the outsider’s cabin in the woods he concluded that there was little going on there, other than raves, orgies and drug abuse.
Jessica and Dubois visited the residence of horror novel writer Ronald Macey when he left home to be interviewed by local DJ, Jane Webber. Macey had joined the list of suspects for his eccentric behaviour, but also because Gary McKay, who once had an affair with Ronald’s late wife, Susan, believes the writer killed his wife. Cynthia, who had always suspected Ronald, followed Zoltar’s lead and refrained from visiting the house. Luckily for her, because both Jessica and Dubois found a scene worthy of a horror film: trapped by a black, dense substance that covered the outside of the house as soon as they entered, they glimpsed bizarre scenes inside: among other unpleasant surprises, they came across Susan’s mummified corpse and Gary McKay hanging in the attic. When they come out of the house all seemed to have been the result of an illusion. The fact that Gary was alive proved that it had been so. However, Gary himself began to doubt his own sanity when he was visited by Susan, who claimed to have staged her own death, and promised to reveal secrets about the town she has been investigating for the last decade.
And so we arrive at the outcome, having skipped a lot of details in the way. After Lucy’s memorial service, events precipitated:
Robert Carpenter Fogg continued to suffer his salty water vomiting events and Cynthia accompanied him to the Carpenter Fogg mansion, worried about his health. Jessica and Dubois visited her later and had an encounter with the mysterious Blue Dog, an “old friend” of young Woodrow. This time, as they followed the dog, the two found themselves in a strange landscape, a mountain where a stream runs from the foothills to the summit, and where a hermit waited for them with binoculars that allowed them to see beyond the illusions surrounding reality. Peering through the binoculars, Dubois saw indistinct figures in the midst of a pagan ritual, raping, killing and mutilating a young blonde girl.
The landscape faded soon after, and Dubois and Jessica chatted with Cynthia about what happened. During their conversation, Robert left the house unannounced. Minutes later he was seen by Peter – who had given a ride to Lynch Bay to a newly-arrived small circus troupe of four weird people: Rasputin, Rachid, Madame Margaux and the Piccolo Diavolo – undressing and entering the water. Several fishermen tried to rescue Robert, but achieved nothing, he had already disappeared. Peter warned Cynthia about it. Later she found a message left alongside Robert’s clothes: “I’m sorry but I can’t stay. I’m going back home. Goodbye!” Cynthia considered following him ‘home’, but after a few drinks in the company of Gary McKay she gave up the suicidal plan.
Angie, who harassed Dubois again during the funeral, waited for him for a second meeting at the Xanadu Motel, and confessed that she was the one to blame for her daughter’s death. Keeping onion rings in his coat pocket could, somehow explain the detective’s popularity among women… The detective tried to persuade her to point out other culprits, but Angie talked only about the cult led by Glenn Cleveland and, feeling unwell, entered the toilet, where she attempted suicide again.
Peter confronted Dubois about what happened in the motal, mostly interested in how involved his mother was in Lucy’s murder. Angie was, in meantime, hospitalized in Everett. Sheriff Steele, distraught and even thinking about resigning from his post, proposed to Peter that all this affair should be covered up and forgotten. Peter, until then a fierce critic of Steele’s work, comforted the law officer and urged him to keep up the good work.
Meanwhile Reverend Sanders, in desperation, seeks out Jessica: he claimed to be being pursued by a circus troupe because of a crime committed in Europe, two decades earlier. Sanders, with whom Jessica had a kind of open relationship, asked the psychologist for help and took refuge in her basement. He later handed her a strange shopping list, which suggested the practice of magical rituals.
Dubois, contacted Fox to tell him about the outcome of the case, and was hired by the businessman for a new mission: to find Glenn Cleveland. After saying goodbye to Jessica, Dubois left St. Cloud in search of the drug dealer. Peter also left town in the company of his fiancée, Patricia, and his sister Donna. His plan, to spend a season in New York and then get married in Las Vegas, before returning to St. Cloud to take over the clinic.
There were some minor changes to the map of Agartha in As Above, so Below (pages 94-95) while finishing the print version’s layout. It will be uploaded to DrivethruRPG and Postmortem Studio’s store but, while it isn’t, you can download it here:
