Episode 3: Ghost Stories and Campfires in Arizona

Cast:
Jay playing Simon
Barbra playing Kerrigan
Alex playing Steven
Reecca playing 'Becca

The team was sent to Arizona with two goals in mind; the first was to investigate a series of hauntings reported at the Casa Grande national monument. The second was to look into a request for help from the Alpha of Phoenix Lobos tribe (Lycanthropic Coyotes).

First some background. Evidently there are two types of Lycanthrope: those who can keep their disease generally under control - these are the Lycanthropes. Then the others; those who go feral and become human hunter. The Lupus. The former are tolerated with some degree of wariness by the magical community. The latter are rightfully feared and reviled by everyone. Why is this relevant? Because it is the principal task of the Alpha of a clan to maintain control over his clan to keep the existence of the clan hidden from the mundane world, and also cull those who are unable to control their disease for whatever reason; usually either the newly turned lycanthropes who cannot control themselves, or those who loose the ability to control themselves due to age.

In any case David Cobb of Glendale Arizona had made a call out to Nigel for some help with a local Conspiracy Theorist cum reporter named Nyle Doyle who was digging around a recent 'Animal mauling' case (you guessed it, a newly turned Lycanthrope named Jacob Quinn who couldn't control his disease). Nyle was getting awfully close to the truth, close enough that Mr. Cobb felt that if the clan acted the paranoid reporter would probably have some sort of 'backup' plan that would cause far to much exposure to the clan.

So the group came in under the guise of the Ghost Hunters location scout team to interview Mr. Doyle about his paranormal knowledge. During the course of the interviews the group found out several things; Mr. Doyal had discovered, or guessed or stumbled into an awful lot of information close to the truth. That Mr. Doyle, was paranoid, and borderline schizophrenic - with strong OCD tendencies. That Mr. Doyle had covered his block in electronic surveillance and had converted a old bomb shelter from the 50's into an offline 'data store' and Panic room. That Mr. Doyle had heard quite a bit about the Casa Grande hauntings (and was in the process of looking into it) and had leads on many other interesting tidbits such as: Maricopa County Sheriff Arapayo may in fact be possessed. That the McCain compound and the Governors' mansion may be haunted. That Fred Hargrove - who runs a Checkers in Glendale may be a lycanthrope (based on red light camera surveillance footage). That Mr. Quinn was not the first 'animal mauling', and that in fact such mauling are usually discovered about a week after the full moon. Most importantly (in terms of this case) Mr. Doyles girlfriend at New Mexico State was murdered / killed in an animal mauling - which he had able to link to Lycanthrope activity (but not prove).

Needless to say, Nyle and Simon got along swimmingly.

The long of the short of it all is that after a couple of interviews, a few 'ride-alongs' and Kerrigan breaking into his house (with moderate difficulty) the group was able to redirect Nyles 'research' (for now) while convincing Mr. Cobb that the best way to throw off Nyle would be to act less like a military unit and more like a local gang. We'll come back to the redirection and its consequences in a bit.

In the interregnum, the group took around the Casa Grande Monument. Evidently archaeologist teams and the site curators had noticed an uptick in 'oddities' of late; walls being seen through early morning mist, music on the breeze, heat visions of Union Soldiers marching south, an entire catalog of sights, sounds and smells that added up to something being off. When they questioned the curator, Daniel Sandoval, they found out that site grid C5-13 had been disturbed recently - and surveillance showed that most recently that area had been worked by Dr. James Richardson, University Illinois, Champagne-Urbana.

So Simon did his usual voodoo and found the professors course summary and biography. Naturally, he took a peek at the underlying code of the page to see if there were any embedded or traceable information, which naturally brought down the site thanks to an algorithmic ward which induced paralysis in the viewer, and deleted the page. 6 hours later, those effected snapped out of the stupor - and Simon went about scrubbing the local computers for any malware.

That night the group set up some surveillance and camped out.

Kerrigan woke up in the middle of the night, with the van surrounded by a mist. Out through it she swore she saw walls with torches, so she was off to investigate. Luckily, or unluckily, Simon heard her go and grabbed the others to follow. Thus the group emerged from the mist much to the surprise of the inhabitants of the City of the Sun as the city-pueblo was called. This caused a bit of consternation among the group, as their van was gone and why on earth was there a Pueblo village there now instead of a Wall-mart?!

Eventually everyone calmed down, and between some Linguistic derring-do, 'becca's languages and lots of hand waiving, the group was able to figure out the goings ons of the natives. The local Shaman took them to the Grand lodge which was what once stood at site C5-13 (imagine a pueblo Haggia Sophia. You get the idea) and the Kachina and mask artifacts within the temple. After further though, detect magics and deductions, the group came to the conclusion that the removal of one of the Kachinas had been the cause of the disturbances.

After a few days of this (not to mention the unmarried men trailing about after blond Kerrigan and Rebecca like lovesick loons) the group decided to check out the 'holy site' on Picacho Peak. They traded for some backpacks and dried fish, and headed off to the South East. After a week of traveling (while avoiding the hottest part of the day in the desert) they made it. At the foot of the peak thy found the dessicated remains and effects of a Union Squad - demonstrating that they were not the first group to fall though this hole in space/time. They also found a narrow, spindly path up to the summit.

On the summit, across a narrow path with cliffs on either side they found a cave entrance. Inside was a tomb / shrine that looked to be at least hundreds of years old. The group also found a chimney / stair to a second level - which hid a large mock up of the solar system all the way out to Neptune. After a bit of experimentation they discovered that moving earth caused the chamber to move through time. So the group carved a note down below, and meandered their way toward the future. Eventually, they hit the 1700's (although the group didn't know this at first) which revealed a new addition downstairs; a 'telephone' / monograph / player / thing. So the group dialed it up to see what would happen.

The magical phone device was answered by a young professor at Yale, one Mr. Franklin who was able to arrange rapid transport for the group back to Boston. There the group were introduced to a young Nigel Pennington who by the mechanism of various broom closets sent the group back to the modern era.

"So now you know why I hired you all." Said Nigel, "we'd all met before. It would be foolish of me not to hire you when you showed up." with a grin.

Amazingly, Nigel was not found horribly murdered the next day by Eugene police.

Armed with this new information about the identity of the missing artifact(s), the group headed back to Arizona to pick up the Van, figure out what to tackle next with the ghosts, and to deal with Nyle. So they decided to kill two birds with one stone: they set Nyle to researching Professor Richardson. Unfortunately for him, he was successful.

A few days later Simon received a frantic call from Mr. Doyle. He was under attack by some sort of skinless thing. The party rushed off to his aid. End result, one dead stalker demon, one flayed Nyle Doyle, one burned down house of Mr. Doyle, and Simons close encounter with a 'Lord Voldermort' (as dubbed by the group) with a nasty affinity for turning incorporeal or gaseous and producing EMP effects.

A few days later Simon received a 'if you get this I'm dead' package from Mr. Doyle. Within it was information about how Dr. James Richardson is a real person who had never been to Arizona and some hints about a 'Multiplex Group' of Chicago and a 'David Reardon'.

The body count was considered to be high enough to call the mission a success for now, and as such, the Group headed back to Eugene for debrief and RnR.