“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.
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.
FACTIONS FROM AVALIDAD: ZONESEC A unified security force in charge of enforcing the law in Avalidad, though it really works like a state police. Clayton Reed leads a shady spec-ops team – unofficially part of ZoneSec -, which was already featured in the core setting book. Reed and part of his group (Darius Jefferson, Eva Borges and Marisa Olafson) return in As Above, so Below.
FACTIONS FROM AVALIDAD: LIBRARY OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE (AGARTHA) After the Great Progressive Purge of the 2020s quite a lot of classical and popular books, movies, TV shows and musical albums became unavailable. There were some people who became collectors and curators of all the offensive and unsafe material in physical format, since the erasure had effects mainly over the digital editions. Mad Mike (pictured) is one of those. Through the decades he accumulated a gigantic stash of (previously considered) dangerous stuff, such as cult horror movies, stand-up comedy shows, sitcoms and, above all, 19th and 20th century books.
The Great Progressive Purge was just the way the process was later labelled, though there was never an authority actually doing the “purging”. Concerned “progressive” activists used the increasing power of social media – with the support of concerned traditional media, concerned governments and concerned corporations –, and coerced people to avoid the work of many authors and quite a lot of themes, deemed “problematic” and “unsafe”. Consumers were led to believe that liking that kind of content would turn them into fascists, and they sheepishly avoided “wrongthink”. Authors themselves steered clear of certain subjects, by fear of being deplatformed or cancelled. Companies were afraid to divulge “problematic” works, and those gradually became unavailable, even if they were never prohibited by law.
In fact, The Great Progressive Purge was much more insidious than state censorship, as people would likely rebel against that.The world never quite turned into an Orwellian 1984 dystopia – it was closer to a mix between Huxley’s Brave New World and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 –, the public shunned thought-provoking art and entertainment, because it made them feel uncomfortable and unsafe. In the end, there were very few book burnings; authors, either led by fear of being cancelled, or goaded by the masses demanding uniformity of thought, self-censored their work, and corporations secured mass stupidity by spewing out inane, fatuous (but “safe”) contents. People in general were happy and comfortable about the end result and sat there consuming, obeying, conforming and watching holovision. Luckily, in this fictional setting, a substantial part of the population eventually became rather bored and dared to seek thought provoking art again. Quoting Kurt Vonnegut (who, obviously, was among the “purged” writers): “so it goes…”
“I know this will all sound strange, the ravings of a madman, but I swear on my mother’s grave, everything I’m about to tell you really happened! It was a week ago, I was coming back from a pub…. And before you ask me anything about it, yes, I’d had a few drinks, but I can handle the booze, there’s no way spirits will bring down Pena Rodrigues, my friend! I can call you a friend, right? After all we are fellow countrymen…
Well, I was walking the streets, minding my own business, when I heard a strange voice, whisperin in a metallic tone, very irritating, very unpleasant. “Help me, old man, help me”. In that area I don’t usually stop when someone calls out for me, it’s not advisable, of course, not safe, but that voice sounded so fragile! It didn’t seem menacing… I went to take a look. Behind some garbage dumpster there was… something. Looked like a huge beetle, the size of a dog, with metal legs and pincers.
Okay, okay, I know now this is really sounding like the ravings of a drunken, silly old man, but you must have certainly heard the rumours. There’s talk on the streets about these… these half mechanical, half organic creatures. Supposedly they come from the future and bring some advanced technology with them. They say it’s thanks to these… things… corporations are able to produce miracles like Neuropods and other stuff. Biotechnology, and such!
Anyway, I’m a poor old sailor, I haven no tech knowledge, you probably know better than me what I’m talking about, mister big shot newsman! As I said, the thing, what they sometimes call “Machinatore”, asked for my help. It was injured, said it was involved in a dispute with others like him. Actually in the vicinity, amidst the debris, there were two piles of electronic components mixed with a gelatinous stuff, lying in a puddle of a white substance. Gross! The one talking to me had a slash on it’s carapace, it was dripping white fluid too, I suppose it’s their blood. I don’t know, man… Well, the tiny guy told me that, in exchange for my help, it would give me an “artefact”. Artefact is what it said. I know it meant some kind of technological prototype. This shit is worth a lot of money on the black market. Quite a lot! A brain implant, to boot, man, how could I refuse?
Then it made a very strange request: a pint of blood, a cup of semen, a car battery, some copper wire and a light bulb. Man, I know how this sounds, don’t give me that look, mister! That’s what the thing asked me! I was perplexed too, but it was no trouble at all. I asked it to wait for a few minutes, got the items it asked me for, and came back. But I was suspicious, man, I only delivered what it asked me for when it showed me the goods: a tiny metal thing, wrapped in a rag. Of course I didn’t know what the hell it was, but I pretended that I did, that I knew about these things. I handed it what was asked from me, took the package, and ran away from there as fast as I could!
Then I called a few fencers, explained what I had; the guys showed interest and said we’d probably do business, first thing in morning. Great, some money coming in, man! I went back to the Flesh Café, in Grand Socco, and had a few more drinks. I was nervous, you know? I also had me some Black Meat, because… well there were reasons to celebrate! Shortly afterwards, I went home. Or I was going back home because, in the meantime, somehow, I passed out in the middle of the street. When I woke up, my damn bad luck, someone had stolen the fucking artefact! Life sucks, mister, and I’ve never been a lucky man! Well, now, can you score me some Black Meat, man? I’m having the shakes…”
Pena Rodrigues, an Avalidad denizen, interviewed by Reynaldo Duque, aka Reporter X, for the Gonzo News RealBulletin
