Keepers: Eric Fattig
Hunters: Karen Twelves, Adrienne Mueller, Sean Nittner
System: Monster of the Week
Supplement: Tome of Mysteries
Campaign Overview
Overview of the entire campaign here: Agents of Cisra
Adventure Log
Here There Be Monsters
Smoky Dreams
It has been two weeks since we performed the ritual to cleanse Wolfgang and Stasia of the Cursed Speech. Wolfgang disappeared briefly a few days before the two weeks were up, but we rounded him up, re-performed the ritual, and he’s now safely waiting out the two-week window.
Stasia sees Headquarters in her dreams. She sees herself walking into it and feels time passing faster than it should and horrible billowing purple smoke bursts out of every crack and door of the building.
It’s been a quiet couple of weeks and we all show up to work. Mordecai offers to get coffee. Malik has found a new lifehack involving tumeric to get his juices flowing. With Ginko. And Acai.
What do we do in downtime? Stasia is still trying to figure out what to do with the time lizard. Mostly paper work.
Stasia wonders about telling McCloud. Jessica agrees to send an expedited form.
Malik is concerned about changing our heating contract about a year ago. HE’s also got a magic eight ball disassembled on his desk. He starts googling purple smoke… and then there’s a metal clanking sound as giant metal shutters clank shut, red emergency lights come on and we hear a dull alarm in the distance.
We lay our hands on some gas masks and Stasia decides to go knock on McCloud’s office. Romeo is keeping it together, but he’s trying and failing to help keep people calm. McCloud’s not in there.
Director Compromised
Malik yells “iodine vapor” down the hall – regarding the purple smoke – and then starts trying to hack CISRA’s system to determine what triggered the alarm. Discovers it’s the ‘AMZ’ code. “Director compromised.” He gives a powerful raising-of-the-eyebrows to Jessica, who’s in the middle of trying to calm folks down. “The day we’ve been worried about has come to pass.”
Stasia check out McCloud’s desk while trying to call her (no signal). The screensaver is on on her desktop. The landline is also dead. She snoops past the screensaver.
Meanwhile is trying to figure what the biggest threat is. In her emails, Malik, now having run in to hack and finding it already open, she is saying obliquely that a group has brought “something” into “receiving” and she has gone there now. There are references to Yuma Arizona. The ‘entity’ is contained.
Malik now tries to figure out how to get to the receiving area. Power is shut down to the elevators. Main power is off. Best way is to go down the stairs, make it through the doors, consider going through the elevator shop. Go through labs, central records, and then down into lower receiving. Has access to an old subway system. The Weird Shit comes in this out. “All the safety doors are closed.”
The Break-out
Barb has donned her vest but looks confused. We decide to put her to work, organizing roll call and helping out folks in the neighboring offices.
Jessica swipes in on a storage room where ‘useful things’ are stored. We find gas masks and walk talkies. Romeo definitely notices.
We are the only three experienced field agents on site. We need to get down to receiving.
Stasia uses an incredibly crappy bag to stash McCloud’s laptop, gasmask, flashlight, etc.
The hallways are empty and dark. Everything is eerie, spooky, yet familiar. No issues getting down the stairs. We are spit out into the labs; lots of scientific equipment – some recognizable, some arcane.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang is currently being held, and is sedated. A woman is attending to him, but she doesn’t turn around or seem too concerned. We decide to check in. We see the woman is spider-legged Dr. Popov. She claims to be keeping on the straight and narrow and Malik is somewhat reassured that she’s slightly rehabilitated. The source of power, the cursed speech, is in front of Stasia and she could just take it. It’s something she could do. Just a voice in the back of your head. “If he does wake up, can you let me know immediately.”
Records
We head into huge, sprawling, central records. Malik stares wide-eyed at everything. We decide we don’t have the time and keep moving.
Receiving
The door is locked, but we move through the hinges. On the other side, we find Director McCloud, a courier who has brought a heavy box with a lot of glowing panels on the side and Dr. McCloud looks surprised to see us. She knows the response to the call Jessica gives. McCloud takes a deep breath. “There’s been a breach in the system. But we don’t have a lot of time to talk about that.”
“The contents of this box, when they escape, if they are not contained, will consume everyone and every identity in this office and when the lockdown lifts 24 hours from now, barring action on our part of the part of the secretary of the interior, it will get out.”
“The Yuma entity.” “We brought it in at great cost. It has a lot of power around names. Do not speak its names. Do not tell it your name or any of your comrades names. It will let it in.”
It needs a strong electromagnetic pulse to stay contained. IT’s on battery power. When the battery runs out on the box, it will get out.”
After the Debacle of Hanson’s tenure, we put in precautions to prevent similar things happen again. In order to open the lower receiving doors, there is a retinal scan. If the system detects irregularities, it puts the lockdown up. Jessica, “Would you be willing to step down as director?” “Yes.”
Stasia heads into Central Records to look into the Yuma entity and also McCloud. She passes McCloud’s laptop to Malik to look in later. The battery supply for medical would give us another 30 minutes-50minutes.
Meanwhile, in Central Records
Stasia can’t overlook a file named “Malinovsky”. There are a series of Dr’s notes about her as a kid. Lots of family friend visits and doctors visits. Someone has been monitoring her since she was a baby. That ‘someone’ may have been CISRA. Her parents were getting a stipend. From CISRA. Birthplace is a tiny village in Alaska. She shoves the whole thing in her flimsy nylon background.
In the Lab
Dr. Popov is helping Wolfgang come out of his coma. We now have 15 more minutes. Malik furiously tries to hack McCloud’s laptop to determine what’s happening. He gets his netfriends to help him look into it so he doesn’t do as much. He wants to know without having to know – so he can just hand it to Stazia; trying really hard to know too much about her. He may … probably.. leaking some information to the outside world.
In some old case files from before her time here. The format’s different. There was an incident 15 years ago, she has it bookmarked. It’s more referenced than any other case. An incident where a small child (13 years old) went missing. Coverup story cobbled together. Inter-dimensional temporal rift. The team fell through, was lost in time and space. There was a flight booking a few weeks ago that she’s just come back from recently. She has visited this place frequently. The teen’s last name is redacted, but the kid’s first name is Todd. She has also been doing heavy interdimensional research pertaining to this case. The last detail. The password written on the stickypad that stazia found is ILLFindUTodd. She may have become tainted in the course of her research. Magical sensors were tripped by the biometric reader.
Malik puts the files back together.
Jessica and McCloud discuss transfer or responsibilities. She gives her the Director’s keycard. Director McCloud resigns her directorship. Agent Stillman becomes Director Stillman. She needs to restore full power from the Director’s office.
Malik starts juryrigging a defib-based electromagnetic pulse-maker. The lights start to flicker. The box starts shuddering. We hear an unearthly voice whispering, “Introduce yourselves.”
“Call me Aguilera.”
Wheeling
Stasia asks Popov to help move Wolfgang… somewhere else. Popov agrees.
Getting the Power Back
A fast sprint from Jessica, the Minister of the Interior will be pleased. She gives a ‘get back to work,’ speech and heads back downstairs.
Cursed Speech
Stasia tries to persuade Popov that she will be safer if Stasia is the only person in the room. Popov is skeptical. This is still her patient. “Can I trust you on this?” “Yes.” She gives Stasia some medical instructions. Stasia wants that dark side back and addiction.
Wolfgang starts to wake up, “You tried to take everything from us. The Circle will be avenged. BURN.” He tries… but he can feel something escaping from him and he realizes he doesn’t have it any more, but Stasia does. She offers to take Wolfgang with her. He would rather rot.
Wait a second
Jessica starts to process McCloud when she realizes Stasia is missing. And so is Wolfgang.
On the way out, Stasia runs into Mordecai, asks him to cover for her. “Is this goodbye?” “Give Jessica this.” She hands over the top page of her file. And takes off.
Flashback – Malik and McCloud
He pulls out her laptop and says, “You know, we just had to know. I’ll help you find Todd, whether it’s with CISRA or not.”
“It’s kind of you, but even the resources of the agency have not provided an answer. Forgive me for not holding out too much hope.”
“Stasia has a timelizard in her apartment…”
“Wait, what?”
On the hunt
Stillman authorizes Pancake Special for a retrieval mission on Malinovsky. Card from Venezuela – stating that she would have ‘had to tell her no’.
Winding Down
Malik is in a classroom when teaching about what to trust and the supernatural. When Mordecai opens the briefcase and there’s a manilla folder in there named “Todd”. With the team gone, he decides to do other things.
Mordecai
Goes back to academia and becomes a frequent consult. Teaching position in UC Davis. Maybe light some sparks.
Romeo gets promoted to field agent.
