Chill: The Fourth of July Murders

Yesterday we began our brand new Chill campaign! (Cue the fireworks, which is actually pretty apropos for the case.) But first, a bit of background. 

Our game is set in Seward, Alaska. The SAVE HQ here dates back to 1964 (kinda); an earthquake and tsunami damaged the town and brought some Unknown attention. The HQ worked with the HQ in Anchorage (only about 2 hours north) for a while, but then in the 2000 infiltration lost most of their envoys and almost all of their digital records. Some paper archives remain, mostly from the 90s, and the HQ keeps them in banker boxes in an abandoned community center.

Now there's a small cell in Seward, consisting of four envoys and a smattering of contacts and allies. The envoys mainly work through a charitable organization called QCOM, helping local folks get assistance with housing, paying bills, food, etc as necessary (this also has the effect of helping them hear about weird shit as its happening). The envoys are:

• Amelia Rostov: Amelia is a local product, of Russian and Qutekack heritage. She is a community organizer, and has been an envoy since the mid 2000s. She walks with a cane and has a severe phobia about blood, which is a bad position for a SAVE envoy sometimes. Her Drive is all people have a right to live. 
• Britt Lepus: Britt is a transplant from Las Vegas, and has only been in Seward a few weeks. She is far and away the most experienced envoy, though - her family owns the Last Rabbit club in Las Vegas (it's on p. 135 of Chill if you care). Britt's Drive is simple: I was raised for this.
• Nicolas Failor: Nicolas came here to work on a fishing boat, and then something happened out in the bay. His boat went down and he was the only one of the crew to survive, and he saw something in the water. He doesn't know what, but he's still afraid of being submerged in water. His Drive is to stem the breach.
• Mercy Williams: Mercy is another local, an EMT who responded to a call about what appeared to be an overdose and turned out to be a dead body getting up and walking around. She's new to SAVE, but shows natural aptitude in the Restorative Art. Her Drive is to protect the community. 

So every year in Seward, there's a huge Fourth of July celebration that reportedly balloons the population from 2500 to close to 40,000. This year (July 2023) is no different, and the envoys are all taking part in different ways. Britt, only having been here a few weeks, is looking for work and is doing some part-time gigs as staff at B&Bs. Mercy is on duty, of course, working the first aid tent on Fourth of July Beach (which is mostly giving water bottles to people who are dehydrated, occasionally helping people who have drunk a bit too much, but it's been pretty mild this year, no ODs, no fireworks injuries). Amelia is working the QCOM booth, handing out literature and taking donations. Nicolas has been running people back and forth across the bay on his boat, and is presently chilling near a bonfire. The envoys chat - Amelia swings over to the first aid booth, Britt finds Nicolas in the crowd - but everything seems more or less quiet and normal.

Midnight strikes, and the fireworks display lights up the sky! Thousands of people on the beach ooh and ahh, and Amelia sees a woman run out of the woods, obviously distraught, and sprint for the first aid tent. She grabs her cane and goes to check it out.

The woman gets to the tent and runs up to Mercy, grabbing at her and babbling, clearly in shock. Mercy springs into action and gets the woman on a cot to examine her. She's got no injuries, but she's pale and terrified, and her shoes are caked in blood and sand. She keeps saying "they're dead, they're dead" and talking about blood (Amelia gets there, sees the blood, and turns around). 

Mercy manages to get the woman calmed down enough to relay some information. Her name is Jill Bowen, she's from Oregon, she's here with her husband. Mercy goes to find some police (since apparently there are dead people), and Amelia has Jill open her phone so she can get hold of her husband.

A moment later, on the beach, a man standing near Nicolas and Britt takes a phone call. "What? What happened to her? Yeah, of course, I'll be right there. First aid tent? Where-" Britt takes the cue and offers to lead him to the tent, and Nicolas follows. The man introduces himself as Archie Bowen; evidently something's happened to his wife. He explains to Britt that Jill doesn't like fireworks, so she went walking on one of the hiking trails to get away from the beach.

Jill has managed to explain that she found a campsite with three or four dead people. She isn't really able to say where, though. Mercy, Nicolas, and Britt team up with a deputy (Mike) and a volunteer firefighter (Danika), and head into the woods. They split up into two teams and each take a trail, and stay in contact with walkie-talkies. 

The envoys find the campsite in question, and it's pretty awful. They find a girl lying on the ground near the trail, and Mercy assesses her - she's alive! She's been struck several times with what might be a hatchet, her collarbone is cut in two, and she has defensive wounds on her forearms. She's still breathing, but bleeding out.

Mercy concentrates and calls on the Art - she's never used it under such dire circumstances, but she focuses and heals the girl. Her collarbone knits in seconds and the worst of the bleeding stops, and she stabilizes. She immediately starts to thrash in fear and pain, and Mercy tells Britt and Nicolas to check the campsite while she gets her calmed down.

They do, and find two more bodies, these two very much deceased. One girl, one boy, both late teens. The boy has a hatchet wound in his head, and Nicolas notes that something must have hit him with a lot of force to bury a camping hatchet through skull like that. The girl has been struck multiple times in the back and back of head, apparently as she was running away. Two tents, no damage, and Nicolas notes that the camping gear is new (not high end, not bottom of barrel - the kind of thing you'd buy if you were, say, camping for the weekend and needed gear quickly). A canvas satchel sits by the campfire.

Britt focuses a moment, feels the tingling, body-shiver sensation she's learned to associate with the Unknown. It's not a terribly powerful feeling, and it leads off to the north. But there's something weird about it, something she can't place. She rejoins the others, and Mercy points out that if there's someone out here with a hatchet, they need police presence now. She radios in to the first aid tent and one of the other workers confirms, calls in more help, and heads out. Word is starting to spread, and rumors are flying - it's a bear, someone shot some people, there was a fight. Amelia stays with Jill, and after a while sees police lights in the distance as a boat shows up. She spots Police Chief Arlen Gold amongst them, and goes up to talk to him. She explains the situation as best she can and walks with him to the campsite (he takes a call from Simon O'Boyle, the mayor, along the way).  

Meanwhile, Britt talks to the girl and gets a little more information. Her name is Stef, and she was out here with four other people - Corey, Chris, Neal, and Tara. Corey was the one who attacked them, but she isn't able to answer any questions about the circumstances of the attack; she's too delirious and in too much pain. Nicolas and Mercy look through the tents and find sleeping bags for five people total, so that's consistent. No violence or damage to tents or gear, so whatever happened, happened by the fire and then into the woods. Nicolas, a skilled tracker, finds a trail leading north, but also finds a pair of boots, a pair of socks, a flannel shirt, and a pair of glasses discarded in the brush. Confused, he also looks in the canvas satchel...and his heart sinks.

The satchel contains a few papers, which Nicolas recognizes as coming from SAVE's paper archives. They are instructions on the Incorporeal School of the Art. He shows them to Britt, and Britt confirms that the Incorporeal School is what envoys use to summon and interact with ghosts. "I think this might be our fault," says Nicolas.

The cops arrive, Stef gets put on a stretcher and taken out of the woods, the police take envoys' statements (Nicolas hides the papers) and the four of them huddle up to talk this over. The instructions have underlined sections on Eyes of the Dead (seeing incorporeal creatures) and Voice of the Dead (summoning and channeling such creatures), but Britt knows that you don't use those kinds of disciplines without a Protector (like Amelia) nearby to disrupt the process if it goes badly. The envoys theorize that Corey must have summoned something that he couldn't shake off - Britt guesses that the unfamiliar feeling she got was the ripple of that possession. How long would a possession like this last? Where is the creature taking Corey? Is he still dangerous? They don't know.

Nicolas suggests tracking him into the woods, but the others disagree. They're all exhausted, there are too many cops up there, and, as Britt says, you never go into a situation with a creature of the Unknown this unprepared unless you have no other choice. They decide to get a few hours of sleep and do a little more digging. Amelia knows Corey's mother (she works as a pharmacy tech in a local drugstore), so maybe she knows something. They do get one piece of good news - the fifth teen, Chris Tolliver, has been found safe. He was on the mainland during the attack. The envoys make a note to talk to him, too, as soon as possible.