Monday, December 9, 2024

Chill: Burning Down the House

Both the song title and the band are references to events in this session. I'm a goddamn genius. Here's last time.

The envoys are at the Seward Rest Home, and things are looking generally bad - Mimi Renault, the woman who apparently sent them the coded message that led them here is missing. Amelia Rostov has the staffer that informed them of this get them the head nurse on duty. She also asks when the last time was that he saw Mimi. He says he's been off for a couple of days, but the last time he saw her was Wednesday (it is Saturday in-game). 

The envoys talk to the head nurse, and she provides a list of employees who have worked the last couple of days. Amelia asks if they have the staff to make these phone calls quickly; when the nurse admits that they don't, the envoys volunteer. They set up in one of the offices and make some phone calls, and learn that no one has seen Mimi since Wednesday. Her meds have been checked off, though, and they find discarded medicine cups in her trash. Mercy Williams confirms that she's not taking anything that anyone would steal for fun, so it looks like someone has been deliberately covering up her disappearance.

Amelia talks to Mr. Kenzo, the director of the facility. He says that he's not saying anything until the company's counsel gets here, but Amelia plays a little hardball. She informs him that the company is almost certainly going to hang him out to dry, but if he cooperates now, she and her people will back him up (and she gives the contact info of some local lawyers who might be able to help). Her relents, agrees to help however he can. Amelia asks about security cameras, and he says that they went out about a year ago and he's been asking the company to approve the repairs ever since. 

Britt Lepus runs down the list of names that she found on the notepad on Mimi's desk, and to their horror, the envoys realize that of those eight names, seven of them are residents (one is Valerie Stroud, the PRN nurse who showed up here to work and then disappeared) and four of them are missing (one is confirmed dead, and one moved out of the facility recently). One, Dottie Connaught, is still here, and Mercy goes to talk with her. She hands Mercy a card that says "I have expressive aphasia. I can understand you, but I cannot speak." She confirms that Dottie is OK, and that she hasn't seen Mimi lately (she is, more or less, and she hasn't) and then tells the staff to make sure to keep an eye on her.

One missing resident has now become five. Mercy calls Detective Winslow, the cop who was out here looking into Valerie Stroud's disappearance. She informs him of the disappearances and he says he's heading over there. The envoys, however, aren't going to wait.

Amelia asks Nicholas Failor and Britt to check the basement/furnace room - if there's a furnace, it's probably big enough to accommodate a body, especially if said body was dismembered ("thanks for that image," mutters Britt). The two of them find the basement and Britt Skeleton Keys her way through it. They don't find anything untoward - no drag marks, no bloodstains - but actually everything is too clean. Nicholas uses Postcognition and sees a man enter the basement, open the furnace, and dump stuff in from a plastic bad. Jewelry, personal effects...and pills. Then the man paces back and forth, before grabbing a mop and starting to clean obsessively.

So whoever this was obviously had something to do with Mimi's disappearance (and probably the others), but Nicholas doesn't recognize him. Figuring he might be an employee, though, he heads to the office to look at pictures from the place's site. Mercy and Amelia continue asking around about the missing residents, and Britt heads outside to have a look in the shed, the one building they haven't checked.

She uses Schematic on the building and learns that it's just one big garage - no walls or rooms. But she also learns that it's saturated with the Unknown, right down to the floor. She texts the group and is about to wait for them, but then hears a voice yell for help.

She uses Skeleton Key to get through the door, and on the other side of the shed sees an old woman...well, rather, she sees her head. She approaches, cautiously, and sees that the whole side of the room is covered with a gray-green mold. She tries scraping it away a little to see if she can free the woman, and realizes to her horror that it's just the head, affixed to the floor with the mold. The mold kicks up spores and Britt starts to choke, but Nicholas...

...well, back in the office, Nicholas looks at the staff photos and recognizes the man he saw as Dirk Bayer, the head of maintenance and janitorial services. He runs out to the shed and finds Britt, and yanks her back out of the room. The head on the floor opens its mouth and disgorges a swarm of black flies, leaving Britt and Nicholas sputtering and flailing, but able to leave the shed.

Mercy and Amelia run up, and see the other two back out of the shed followed by the swarm (the flies fly upwards and then disappear). Amelia draws a Line of Defense across the doorway and Mercy uses Heal on Britt, figuring if she's been affected supernaturally it's better to be safe than sorry. The envoys talk about their plans, but "kill it with fire" seems like the best option. Mercy runs down to the basement to find an accelerant. 

Meanwhile, the head calls out, offering to tell them all about the Anchorage HQ. Amelia eventually opens the door (but keeps the Line intact), and sees that the mold has slowly oozed its way across the floor, carrying Mimi's head with it. It offers information, and claims that Mimi had knowledge that they need. That's why it kept her brain. 

Nicholas spots a man running from the building to the parking lot. He peers closer and recognizes Dirk Bayer, and gets close enough to get a license plate number but nearly gets run down for his trouble. 

Amelia, repulsed, refuses the head's offer, and Mercy comes back with a can of paint thinner. They dip a scarf into it and Nicholas considers how to make this look accidental, but just then Detective Winslow arrives. Mercy intercepts him and brings him into the building, explaining the situation (but without mentioning Unknown molds or severed heads, obvs), and the others decide "fuck it" and light the scarf. 

The shed burns, and the envoys let it go as long as possible before sounding an alarm. Winslow gets the fire department there as quickly as possible, and in the wreckage they find the remains of Mimi's head and the hand of one of the other missing residents. Police also find Dirk dead - it looks like he lost control of his car and hit a telephone pole while speeding away. That wraps up the case, and as far as the authorities are concerned, Dirk Bayer killed those residents (maybe to try and collect their social security checks somehow?) and concealed their deaths. 

Seward Rest Home is shut down and the parent company magnanimously pays for the residents to be moved to other facilities. Alfred Kenzo testifies against the company and cuts a deal with the courts. And the envoys begin the task of sorting through the SAVE files from the Anchorage HQ.

Just before it burned, the head claimed "it'll come back." It might have been lying, but the envoys want to be ready just in case.

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