Here is the previous session, and on we go! Back on Zoom, but hopefully just for this month!
The envoys head back to the ranch. Dylan asks Beth Anne to elaborate more on this "Jaworsky" character, and Beth Anne reiterates her adventures with the creature under the bed as a kid. During all of this, she hears him whispering, and she reveals that he agreed to help them with the "copycat", but required a favor of her. He hasn't named it yet, and he's never asked for a favor before. Vicki asks if Jaworsky is a butcher ("don't know, sounds like a butcher's name") and he whispers to Beth Anne that he certainly could be a butcher if that's what she wants. BB points out that making a deal with Unknown creatures is never going to be a good idea, no matter what they might offer, and they really need to make dealing with this thing a priority.
They arrive at the ranch and split up. Melinda helps Dee with dinner, Vicki and Dylan hit the books, Emily cleans and stows their gear, Beth Anne sits in the corner mumbling to herself (actually talking with Jaworsky), and BB introduces Dusty to Sweet Baby Jesus.
Beth Anne's conversation with Jaworsky is disturbing. He specifies the favor he wants (which I'm not going to put down here because my players read these write-ups), and when Beth Anne balks, he says that she ignores her promise at her peril. And then Beth Anne's mind gets fuzzy - she can't focus or hold a thought in her head.
Vicki and Dylan dig into folklore. Vicki discovers that "Jaworsky" means "sycamore" or "maple," and is a traditionally Jewish name. Looking further, she finds tales of the dybbuk, a ghost in Jewish mythology that normally possesses young woman (the ghost itself presents male). She points this out to Dylan, who has been trying to find something on the "copycat", but hasn't come up with much. The two of them bring their theories down to dinner, and Vicki notes that a prayer case called a mezuzah might drive off Jaworsky, if he is in fact a dybbuk. Dylan also notes that Jaworsky is behaving differently - asking for favors and so on, so maybe this thing that's been talking to Beth Anne recently isn't Jaworsky, but the copycat?
The characters are confused and tired, so they head to bed. Dylan wards Beth Anne's room, and she immediately feels clearer. They drift off...
...but then in the middle of the night, Vicki, Dylan, and Melinda wake to hear BB's dog barking his little head off. Vicki enters BB's room and sees him tossing and turning, and blood seeping from a wound on his shoulder. She tries to wake him but can't, and Dylan, not wanting to take chances, raises a Sphere of Protection. BB calms, and Vicki wakes him up easily.
He explains that he was dreaming that he was back in the church basement, where the envoys got their asses handed to them by a bunch of trolls. In the dream, he's holding Dusty, but Dusty wiggles out of his arms and runs into the dark. He hears something like a nail gun, and then something slashes his tendon and he falls. The trolls surround him with hammers and other tools, and go to work...and then he woke up.
The cut on his shoulder looks like it's from Dusty; Vicki figures he might have scratched BB trying to wake him. They disinfect the scratch and BB goes to sleep on the couch, and the others go back to bed. But the dreams return - and now Dylan has the dream, too. BB dreams that he goes berserk looking for his dog and fires a shot into the dark, only to see Dylan stumble out with a hole in his throat. He tries to heal him, but a troll bursts out of the wound, and BB wakes screaming.
Likewise, Dylan dreams he's hung upside down in that basement, with the trolls taunting him. There's a gunshot, and then he falls, and stumbles out, and sees BB holding the gun. BB grabs his throat and chokes him, and before he wakes he sees BB's eyes are the same sickly yellow as the trolls'.
Both of them wake up terrified, but BB is also badly wound. His nose is broken, he has bruises and lacerations all over him, and worst of all he has a hole through his left hand. Emily, hearing the screams, comes into the room, and after ascertaining that there's no immediate threat, dresses the wound. Dylan comes downstairs and after some dry-heaving at all the blood, explains what he saw.
Beth Anne wakes up, feeling refreshed, but then she hears Jaworsky's voice. He reminds her to complete the favor he wants, or else "more sleepless nights." Beth Anne joins them and tells them that she's not sure what to do - fulfilling the favor might hurt them, not fulfilling it definitely will.
The envoys talk about all this a bit more, and put in a call to Father Will to see if he knows a rabbi or someone that maybe could make a mezuzah. He agrees to make some calls. At that point Darnell walks in and gives them some news: A family has gone missing up near Kuna Cave, and a young boy reported that he saw a "bear" or a "gorilla" attack them in the caves. The characters remember a case they were on nearly 18 months ago, involving a sasquatch. Is that monster back, hungry for human flesh? Or is it the copycat?
Either way, this is happening now. The envoys gear up and head out to Kuna Caves (and Beth Anne is quiet on the way, reading something on her phone...). When they get there, they find chaos - media, police, EMTs. A group of cops is getting ready to go into the caves, and a young boy is sitting on an ambulance with a bandage on his head. Beth Anne charms her way over to him and talks to him about what he saw.
He says that he was in the cave, hiking with his parents and his sister, when his mother saw something behind him and screamed. Something hit his head and knocked him down, and everyone ran, but he must have run toward the cave entrance and his family ran back into the cave, where it's colder and darker. He describes the creature - a huge, hairy, thing with sharp white teeth. Beth Anne says she's seen it, too, and she and her friends are there to help.
Vicki scouts around and finds a hole leading into the cave, big enough to wiggle through. Emily, though, decides to follow the cops into the cave - she's not about to let another squad of soldiers die at the hands of the Unknown. BB and Melinda wiggle into the hole, but Vicki gets stuck. It takes them some time to get her free, and then Beth Anne follows, but Dylan panics (he's claustrophobic) and can't bring himself to enter. He heads back around to find Emily, but they've already gone in and the cops guarding the cave entrance turn him away.
In the cave, Emily sticks close behind the cops. The other envoys start heading deeper into the cave. A guttural, echoing snarl sounds, and the cops train their guns on it. The envoys hearing the snarl behind them, and then all of their lights go out.
Emily notes that her flashlight just...stops down a nearby tunnel. She remembers this tactic; the copycat used it to get her to shoot into the den. She calls out to the cops to take cover, and they do (as do the envoys, since they hear her yell).
At that point, the sasquatch appears behind one of the cops, picks him, digs its claws into his ribs, and pulls, ripping him open. Emily draws a bead and fires, wounding it and knocking it back into the dark. The envoys hears the gunshots and creep through the dark area to find the cops, and Emily desperately trying to save the wounded one's life. She can't, though, and Beth Anne gets through to her by reminding her about Mohammed - this isn't him, and she can't save him.
Emily sobers up and heads off into the dark, toward the sound of a crying child. One of the cops asks BB what the hell is going on, and BB tells him that there's no time for questions - there's something here, it killed a cop, and the envoys know how to fight it. The cop agrees and follows the envoys, but tells BB there's going to be questions later. BB agrees, and the bunch of them head into the dark.
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