Session 02 — Telephone

The morning after the Convergence, six people who barely know each other try to get off Spectacle Island, get paid, get some sleep, and — ten days later — get back into the same room. Everything that can be miscommunicated will be. Every motorcycle in this campaign now has opinions. A Spring Court fairy takes up residence on a garbage man's kitchen counter. And a detective slaps a manila folder onto a diner table and says the word cold three different ways.

Part One: The Warehouse at Dawn

Bo, Spat Out

The Grief-Eater is disintegrating dust on the factory floor and Bo is two hit points from unconscious, leaned over on something to hack up spores and fungal mucus. Session 1's combat didn't stop when the creature died — it kept going through Bo's lungs.

Jacques walks over. His first line establishes the working dynamic of the entire party for the next ten days:

"Hey, my namey. You don't look too good, huh? Give me a second, okay?"
— Jacques

Lay on Hands. Bo is immediately back to full HP. Cracks his back. Clears his throat. Nods.

"I don't — what was that? That was some powerful stuff."
— Bo

"You sure you ain't supposed to be a doctor instead of an enforcer?"
— Chandler

"The unhypocratic oath. First, do all harm."
— Chandler

The Three Sleepers

The three people pinned to the wall by dark fungal growth are freed as the remaining mycelium dies off. They cough out the same fungal gunk Bo just did and come to in sequence.

First up — an ordinary-looking man in Red Sox gear. He never volunteers his name. He doesn't speak to anyone in the party, doesn't answer questions, and keeps to himself until the Coast Guard arrives. He leaves with them.

Second up is Mai Xiong — Hmong woman, in her 30s. Stands up, surveys the warehouse, and decides immediately that the weird one in this room is Jacques.

"My, my, my, my name is Mai."
— Mai Xiong

"Oh — so strong. You look much stronger in real life than you do on the cards in the TV."
— Mai Xiong

She is a hockey fan. She has been on the team's trading cards. She is not shy about it. She takes Jacques's phone number before leaving the island.

Third up is Sapper Ripley — North End, Marine, globe-and-anchor tattoo on his upper right arm, clean since '76 and defensive about it. Was watching Game 6 at Fenway, blacked out after the Buckner error.

"Name's Sapper. Sapper Ripley. North End. Oh, I hate mushrooms. I don't even get the stuffed ones when I go to the Cateria."
— Sapper Ripley

Chandler clocks the globe and anchor without a roll — he was Army, he knows a Marine Corps emblem on sight. Sapper, mistaking Chandler's age, asks if he served in Korea. Chandler takes the hit.

"Only one of my gray hairs would put me in right now. Nam."
— Chandler

Sapper gives Chandler the nickname he is now stuck with: Kit Kat (Marine shorthand for Chandler Thomas — Kit Kat with Kraken).

Lee on the Notepad

Because Lee is still mute from the Grief-Eater's Wail, Chandler hands him a reporter's notepad and pen. Lee chooses to be belligerent and openly racist to Mai Xiong as soon as she tries to address him. He writes ugly things. He flips her off. Mai Xiong does not miss a beat — she flips him off right back.

"My name not Sandy, your name not Everett. What's your name?"
— Mai Xiong

"You write like a child."
— Mai Xiong

"You need to respect your elders."
— Mai Xiong

When she catches Pierre and Jacques silently flinching at something only they can hear — Lee's new telepathy, which is, at this point, roughly the volume of a megaphone inside their skulls — she diagnoses it in a glance.

"You nerds. This is some Spock bullshit. Hell no."
— Mai Xiong

None of the three captives have any memory of how they got here. Last thing they remember is the Buckner error on the Jumbotron at Fenway.

True Forms

While Bo and Jacques are standing close, crouched over samples of the remaining Luminous Hollow fungi, both men look up at each other and — for a single held moment — see each other as they actually are. This is not something the rest of the party sees.

Jacques sees Bo as an Orc. Skin color, tusks, all of it. Bo sees Jacques as what he actually is: a Winter-aligned Goliath. Eight and a half feet tall. Ritual tattoos running from forehead down the neck and arms. And — notably — all his teeth.

Lee's Voice, Relocated

While Jacques and Bo are having their moment of recognition, Lee — still mute from the Grief-Eater's Wail — discovers something new. He can push thoughts directly into other people's heads. Loudly, at first. Two people at a time.

"Can you hear me? This is in Pierre and Jacques' head."
— Lee (telepathic)

"Okay, I think I can talk like this."
— Lee (telepathic)

Pierre reacts to having a voice suddenly shouted inside his skull by yelping out loud. Jacques:

"Why are you screaming, huh?"
— Jacques (out loud, to someone thinking at him)

Part Two: Guns, Spotlights, and the Second Diatribe

The Squib Load

Pierre is carrying two guns: his own, which ruptured on a natural 1 in last session's combat, and Chandler's borrowed .38, which ruptured on a different natural 1 seconds later. Leonard asks to see.

"Let me take a look at that. I mean, it's probably just a squib load."
— Leonard

"Wait. Leonard — have you ever held a gun before?"
— GM

"No, but he's read manuals."
— Leonard

Chandler starts explaining, patient and deliberate: this is the cylinder release, this is the hammer, the hammer's two-stage, don't point that end at anything. Mid-monologue, Leonard pulls the cylinder, clicks it back in, spins it, clicks it together. Perfect. Mechanical check passed. The gun is not just fixed — it feels smooth and clean, like new.

"I'll be damned."
— Chandler

"You're cool, man. You know guns. You're so cool, man. You're more cool than I think you were."
— Pierre

Pierre then hands Leonard his own gun, which looks like a Looney Tunes explosion that Bugs Bunny put his finger into. Literal seawater drains out of it as Leonard turns it over. Mechanical check for Pierre's gun: no. The barrel assembly and frame both need replacing. Not this session.

"It was the first time I've actually ever held a gun."
— Leonard

Coast Guard on the Harbor

Before anyone can enjoy the moment, a loudspeaker cuts through the warehouse walls.

"This is the U.S. Coast Guard. We have been sent here by the Boston Police Department in search of a stolen boat. Come out with your hands up."
— U.S. Coast Guard

Followed immediately by a familiar voice grabbing the microphone.

"Give me that fucking thing. Give me that fucking thing. This is Detective O'Malley. Chandler, if you're fucking in there, I swear to God —"
— Detective O'Malley

Pierre hides his working gun in his boot on Chandler's advice. Lee cracks the garage door for Chandler to negotiate, gets spotlit immediately, and retreats.

O'Malley's Assessment

Chandler steps out with his hands up. Detective O'Malley steps off the boat. Exchanges cycle through predictable beats — how much do you want to know, how much do you not want to know — and then Detective O'Malley gets his first look at who else is in that warehouse.

"There's a garbage man, a hockey legend, a boy scout, Prince. You got fucking Prince in there, Harrow? And you adopted a kid from fucking Vietnam."
— Detective O'Malley

He pulls Pierre aside on the accent alone, and the ghost of deportation hovers.

"That's definitely not a Boston accent. It's not a Louisiana accent. It's not a fucking Florida accent. So, I'm guessing you're from somewhere up north, yeah? You got a passport? You got a visa?"
— Detective O'Malley

"He's a hockey fan."
— Chandler

"He's a — he's a hockey fan. Of course he's a fucking hockey fan."
— Detective O'Malley

The moment passes. Pierre, post-crisis, under his breath:

"We cool, man. We cool."
— Pierre

"Imagine if they found out you were French."
— Lee (telepathic)

The Hockey Handshake

Detective O'Malley pivots, and his tone shifts by ninety degrees, and he sticks out his hand to Jacques.

"Give me that hand. Give me that big fucking meat mug. The beating you put down on that man in the garden. You protected. You protected our boy. You know what? I don't care what happens with the rest of these fucks. You can get me front row tickets. I got you, bro."
— Detective O'Malley

To Burn or Not to Burn

Detective O'Malley takes one look into the warehouse interior, sees the full extent of the mold-looking mushroom horror, and immediately proposes arson.

"Fuck a crime scene. We're gonna have to burn this fucking place down. This is a black mold infection if I've ever fucking seen one."
— Detective O'Malley

"It's not black mold."
— Bo

"Hold on, Harrow. An expert is speaking. Mr. Garbage Man, sir. You say it's not black mold. How would you know that?"
— Detective O'Malley

"Well, for one — it's not black."
— Bo

A pull-aside conversation between Jacques and Bo establishes that they should probably, in fact, burn it — a CSI team stumbling into the residual fey growth would be dangerous for the unawakened. Bo agrees, and Chandler sells the plan to Detective O'Malley.

"Your CSI guys aren't equipped like Venkman over there."
— Chandler (nodding at Leonard)

"I fucking hate that movie. My kid keeps watching it. Halloween's coming up. Do you know how much a Ghostbuster uniform is?"
— Detective O'Malley

Part Three: The Circle on the Concrete

As the party moves to leave, Leonard and Bo both look down at a particular arrangement of phosphorescent growth on the concrete floor and say the same word at the same time. The GM notes the difference in delivery:

The circle pulses briefly — the Luminous Hollow fungi around its edge contracting in synchronization with something the party cannot see the other side of — and then fades. The little red-dotted mushrooms retreat into the concrete. Nothing steps through. Nothing asks anyone's name. Bo, Jacques, and Leonard exchange the look of people who have just collectively decided not to poke at it.

"Not again. Not again."
— Jacques

Lee's Arson Job

Lee volunteers to handle the fire, professionally. He takes Pierre's Zippo, walks into the warehouse office — all those flammable 80s cubicles and decades-old filing — and spends fifteen minutes setting it up properly. No smoke while he's still leaving. The party walks to the far end of the island. By the time they reach the rocky shore on the other side, the entire warehouse is collapsing on itself in flame.

Part Four: Captain Madiera and the Harbor Crossing

The Tugboat

The boat they stole is gone. The Coast Guard boats are gone. Detective O'Malley is gone. What arrives, puttering in from the harbor mist, is a tugboat. Larger than anything that came to the island tonight.

At the wheel: Captain Madiera. Boston Harbor pilot boat captain. Crazy troll-doll black hair hanging out from under an old Gorton fisherman's hat. High water boots. Waterproof trench. She has been doing this her entire life, and she has been doing this particular favor for about twenty minutes and is already done with it.

"Drunk fuck O'Malley owes me big."
— Captain Madiera (approximately)

Leonard's Hypospray

Jacques points out — out loud, to Chandler — that Trudy isn't on the beach anymore. The motorcycle has vanished. Which makes the explanation they're about to give Captain Madiera about how Pierre "forgot his bike" a little harder to land.

Leonard casts Guidance on Chandler. In his hands: what looks like an 80s-era EpiPen. A hypospray. He stabs Chandler in the back with it mid-negotiation.

"Just helps you focus."
— Leonard

Chandler rolls Deception 18 (plus d4 from Guidance).

"I mean, you were driving the boat, and it's night, and I know you got your spotlight around, but it had to have been there, right?"
— Chandler

Captain Madiera accepts this.

"We're just going to put aside for a second that I just watched that young man stab you with something, and you were perfectly okay with it. Families get into some weird shit. Yeah, that's perfectly acceptable. I guess it could have been there."
— Captain Madiera

Trudy, Amphibious

Mid-conversation, Pierre is still on the beach, gone offline from the main group. Captain Madiera swings the boat around to pick him up.

The motorcycle comes out of the water. Pierre is on it. Riding.

"Oh, that's how he got it on the island."
— Leonard

"Wow. I don't know who put those mods on Trudy, but I'm happy."
— Pierre

Captain Madiera lets them off at the harbor in Boston with the hopes she never meets any of them ever again, because the front-row tickets Jacques promised are not worth it.

Part Five: Ten Days

The next ten days are a montage of six separate stories. They interlace loosely — Lee is sleeping in the presidential suite of Jacques's hotel for most of it; Bo is alone in his kitchen — but nobody sees anyone else regularly until the diner meeting on Day 8.

Payday

Leonard — The Hospital, the Library, the Society

Leonard visits Diane every day at Mass General. She is in Room 372, still comatose, and stays that way for the entirety of the ten days.

At the Paranormal Society, he talks. A lot. About Spectacle Island, about the ghost at Long Wharf, about the fungi, about the green flash, about everything he now has clearance to say out loud. The Society does not receive it well.

Gary Phelps blames him, specifically and openly, for what happened to Diane — for dragging her out to Long Wharf on readings he built with his own hands, and for coming back from it without her. Phelps isn't buying the ghost story. None of them are.

He spends the rest of the time in the library. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Celtic folklore. Anything referencing the Fae. GM verdict: he gains advantage on any Fae-related history checks until his next long rest. Specific facts are not granted — this is research, not revelation.

Chandler — Margaret Drummond

Chandler pulls on the thread he's had since before the campaign started: the deaths of the men from Phan Lộc. Drummond dead in Fort Point Channel with no water in his lungs. Tillman missing. Vance erased. Chandler is the last one standing.

Investigation check: 16. He finds Drummond's widow: Margaret Drummond, 58, Brookline. Through Detective O'Malley he gets the police statement she gave — three sentences. The nightmares, the drinking after 15 years sober, nothing else. She never told them what the nightmares were about.

He drives out to Brookline. Condolences. Soft questions. She opens up carefully.

"Wesley never talked about Vietnam. Not once. Not to me, not to anyone. The nightmares started immediately and never fully stopped, but I knew better than to push. He was a good husband, a good father, went to Mass every Sunday."
— Margaret Drummond

Then she pauses.

"But three weeks before he died, he started saying a word in his sleep. Fan lock. Fan lock. I'd never heard it before. I looked it up and I found nothing on it. I don't know what it means or why my husband was saying it in his sleep for three weeks before he walked into that damned canal."
— Margaret Drummond

She mentions Roy Tillman stopped by back in August for an afternoon — beer on the porch, dinner, gone in the evening. Nothing unusual.

Chandler tries to Columbo her — "Just one more thing, ma'am" — asking to see the bedroom and Drummond's military effects. She shuts it down.

"Young man, I know that people think that when others age, certain needs and drives disappear — the need to be close to one another. We did not have separate rooms. I am not Lucille Ball."
— Margaret Drummond

Persuasion fails. He thanks her. He visits the Ace Hardware in South Brookline where Drummond was manager — the staff loved him. Community drives through his church. Fair prices. Integrity. No secrets there either.

Pierre — Trudy, Trudy, Trudy

Pierre takes Trudy out for test rides starting day six or seven. She behaves like a large predatory cat: sometimes aligned with what he wants, sometimes deciding on her own to cross six lanes of traffic, run a red light, and nearly cause an accident.

"You two have a lot of the same ideas. 'Let's go for a ride, let's look at this view, let's hit the place on the way home.' But sometimes she'll turn down a different street."
— GM

On Day 9, he scouts his old apartment. The Diablos Red Saints are not watching the place. They believe he is dead. The neighborhood is clear.

He goes to the bakery below his apartment — Boval — and is recognized immediately by the patron and his daughter, Marceline, who have heard the story of his "death" and refuse to let him pay for the croissants.

"I'll still drop a five to the daughter. Hey, I'll let you have my key to my place. Just make sure the dishes are done, because I don't think I did the dishes when I left last time."
— Pierre

"Who do you think I am? I am not your maid."
— Marceline

A second five dollars changes her mind.

"Fine. I shall do these for you. Just these once. Do not make a habit of it."
— Marceline

Bo — The Spring Court Arrives

This is the big one, and it happens at the tail end of the ten days — effectively the morning the party is reconvening on November 7, when Bo finally gets around to working on the samples he's been carrying.

He's alone in his kitchen. It smells of controlled decay — kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha — and of a cat that doesn't move much. He uncaps the two sample vials he collected at Blount Fisheries side by side. The Luminous Hollow specimen leaps out of its container, consumes the dark growth specimen whole, and slithers back into itself faster than a mycological organism should be able to move.

And then the embers start.

A Fae circle begins to form on his kitchen counter. It hits the edge of a cast-iron pan, recoils, and reorients — the whole pattern shifts three inches to the side before completing itself. A small winged woman steps out. Feral. Impatient. Does not volunteer a name.

"I'm cleaning up. This doesn't belong here. I'm doing you a favor by getting rid of it."
— The Fey

She looks at Bo, alone in his kitchen, and jerks her head at the sample jar.

"Are you going to sit there, or are you going to help me?"
— The Fey

Bo, being careful with his words, agrees. She instantly locks him into owing a favor in return.

"You agree, so I am doing you a favor. Wonderful."
— The Fey

He places the sample jar into the circle. It vanishes.

The circle does not vanish.

"Does this make us roommates?"
— Bo

"No. I'm in my place and you're in your place. If I were living in your home, we would be roommates. This is the United Fae Nations here, as far as I'm concerned. I am in the embassy of the Spring Court right now."
— The Fey

"Speaking of which, can I have some of your blood?"
— The Fey

"Absolutely not."
— Bo

"That was worth a shot."
— The Fey

She takes up residence. She asks for a television. Bo cannot afford a television. She asks for a radio. Plastic case, specifically — iron is dangerous to her. She refuses kombucha: "I can't have any immortal food." She complains about the smell. She refuses to name herself, and Bo does not press for it.

He leaves, with notebooks and sketches and a jar of kombucha placed just outside the circle as a gesture of — something. He heads to the Park Plaza to find Jacques.

Lee — The Hotel Job

Lee does not have a job. Lee's apartment burned down. Lee is staying in the presidential suite of the Park Plaza Hotel with a French-Canadian hockey player and a French-Canadian biker. Ten days is a long time to do nothing.

He starts by lifting a housekeeping uniform from the staff locker room, memorizing the camera blind spots, and identifying marks.

Mark 1. A couple in one of the nicer rooms: Edward Johnson III, chairman of Fidelity Investments; his wife, Elizabeth "Lilly" Johnson, trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts. He enters during the day, disguised as staff. In her purse he finds a pearl necklace (value: $150) with her initials on the clasp — bad for fencing — and a security key for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He takes the key. Leaves the necklace.

Mark 2. A nondescript-looking couple two rooms down from Jacques's suite, staying in the second-nicest room. Permanent Irish Goomba entourage. Black-car transport. Lobster dinners. Investigation check comes back with nothing about who they are — their information is not available through normal channels. On the bed in their room: a Tourus fanny pack. Inside: $50,000 in $100 bills. Lee does not touch the fanny pack. He takes the $200 tip left on the dresser and leaves, doing a light round of actual cleaning so the room looks normal.

Total take: $200 honest money + MFA security key.

On Day 9, as he's scouting for a third job, the hotel maitre d' stops him in a hallway.

"I don't recognize you. What is your name?"
— Hotel Maitre d'

"My name is Campbell. I'm a new recruit here."
— Lee

"Really? I usually onboard all the recruits. Who pulled you in?"
— Hotel Maitre d'

"I believe it may have been Jones was my point of contact."
— Lee

"I'm not familiar with the Jones. What department does Jones work in?"

Deception check fails. The maitre d' starts walking Lee toward housekeeping. In the first hallway without cameras, Lee summons a knife into each hand — Soulknife — spins, and lays the man out clean with the pommel of one. Commoner; no combat skills; knocked flat.

He burns the stolen uniform in Jacques's presidential suite fireplace. Police arrive at the hotel on day nine.

"Okay, Lee, you got to get the fuck out now. I will give you some money. You are my friend. I will take care of you, but you cannot stay here. If the cops come, I get in trouble, and then we don't have this place to hang out."
— Jacques

Jacques hands him $100. Lee asks if he can take the room service plate of wings with him. Permission granted.

"As much as you can carry in five minutes."
— Jacques

On Day 10, Lee's voice comes back.

Jacques — The Host

Jacques doesn't get up to much. He gives Lee and Pierre a roof. He pages Chandler when asked. On Day 8 he does the Globe interview. He gets paid $1,200 a week not to cause further incidents, which he more or less manages.

Part Six: Three Cold Incidents

The South Shore Diner

Day 8. Chandler arrives first, his usual booth, cup of coffee and a plate of eggs. Jacques arrives second and breaks the table squeezing into the booth — the center pillar actually squeals in protest as the table shifts sideways. The coffee, sugar, and napkin holder slide.

"I think I see an old man with his grandson."
— Jacques (Session 01, recontextualized)

The waitress — never named in-world, Chandler privately calls her Ethel — assumes Jacques is Italian. He tries to explain Quebec. She offers him the Canadian specialty syrup. He tastes it.

"This is not syrup. What is it in English? Pole syrup?"
— Jacques

"It's fucking poison."
— Bo (later, when told)

Aunt Jemima corn syrup. The interview proceeds. The pancakes are actually Johnny Cakes — cornmeal, a Boston specialty — and Chandler orders his usual Reuben with roasted potatoes.

Jacques talks through the Cam Neely incident. The game against the Rangers. Terry Carkner on Neely all night — jabs, after-whistle hits, one that the ref missed. Cam crossing the blue line for a slap shot. Terry blindsides him. Jacques drops his gloves.

"I gave him a warning. I said, 'If you continue to do that with Cam, I will hit you.' I didn't want to fight Terry, but Terry kept on pushing Cam, and I could not let that slide. Cam is a good Canadian player. He has heart."
— Jacques

"He was on him all night. You can't do that. After the whistle blows, it's finished."
— Jacques

Chandler is polishing the angle — hero saving a teammate — when the phone rings for him at the counter.

O'Malley's Manila Folder

Detective O'Malley pulls up in a dark Ford Crown Victoria that almost flattens Bo in the crosswalk. He storms into the diner. Slaps a manila folder on the table. His meaty calloused finger taps it with every point.

"Listen. In here. Three incidents. Ten days apart. Different neighborhoods. Different offices. Nobody talking to each other. I pulled them because the responding logs all note the same fucking thing. Cold. Not cold weather, just wrong cold. Wrong. Wrong. You get it?"
— Detective O'Malley

"I get it."
— Chandler

"See what you find. And Harrow, I'm not looking for a story. I'm looking for a thread I can do something with."
— Detective O'Malley

Chandler thinks back to Long Wharf and Diane's frost-fractaled skin.

"Hey. Just remember the girl on the docks, right? She was cold."
— Chandler

"Well, that's what the fucking water does."
— Detective O'Malley

"She wasn't in the water."
— Chandler

"Huh. She wasn't in the water. Okay, I'll keep my ear to the ground. Look into that, will ya?"
— Detective O'Malley

Bo Arrives

Bo pushes through the door of the diner just in time to see Detective O'Malley walking out. The detective stops in the doorway, surveys Bo's mass, and comments:

"You know, you make a better wall than a door, right?"
— Detective O'Malley

Bo takes a long swig from the jar of kombucha he has been carrying and exhales directly into the detective's face.

"Oh, what the shit is that? It smells like battery acid."
— Detective O'Malley

Detective O'Malley pulls a handle of Stoli from his coat pocket, downs it, and leaves. The car screeches off.

Part Seven: Telephone

What follows is the communication disaster at the heart of the session title. Chandler decides to call everyone to his apartment. In the Boston of 1986, this turns out to be a project.

"It is easier to communicate in a normal D&D campaign than it is in 1986 Boston."
— GM

Fifty-Three Beacon Street

Chandler lives at 53 Beacon Street, fifth floor, north of the Commons. He says 56 the first time. Corrects to 57 the second time. The address gets written down and passed to Jacques as "53" only after a third pass.

"The war really did something on you, huh?"
— Jacques

Leonard's Page

Chandler calls Leonard's home. His mother answers.

"Hello? Oh, did I win the sweepstakes? Did I win the sweepstakes? Oh!"
— Leonard's mother

Not a win. Chandler leaves a message for a piece on "youth interests in the city." She takes down two callback numbers. Leonard is not home — he's at Mass General visiting Diane. Chandler calls the hospital, works through Emergency → Optometry → Inpatient Care, and asks them to page a visitor.

The page goes out over the loudspeakers.

"This is the front desk of patient care calling for Leonard Holloway. Leonard Holloway, you are wanted at the front desk of patient care. Leonard Holloway."
— Mass General Inpatient Care

At the front desk, the nurse relays the message.

"Someone named Harold called. They left the number."
— Nurse, Mass General

Leonard rides a slow-as-death hospital elevator three floors down, finds the payphone in the lobby, feeds in 25¢, and calls back.

"Harrow?"
— Chandler

"Harrow? Oh — I thought someone said Harold. Harrow. Okay."
— Leonard

"That's what I said. Harrow."
— Chandler

Pierre and the Burger

Pierre is not reachable by phone. Pierre is on Trudy, who has developed her own motivations about destinations. She takes him — unprompted — to the South Shore Diner. He doesn't know why.

Pierre orders a double-stack Krispy Kreme burger with three slices of bacon and a strawberry-coffee milkshake. The waitress assumes he's Italian. He corrects her. Finishes his meal in a third of the usual time. Orders a second burger to go. Rides Trudy back to the hotel with a doggy bag in one hand, a case of Budweiser in the other, and neither hand on the bars. Just so we are on the same page as to the actual visual.

Jacques, Pierre, and Bo Converge

Jacques and Bo wait in the lobby of the Park Plaza. Jacques hears Trudy's engine, looks out the window expectantly, and instead of anything cool, what he sees is:

"The bike slowly coasts to a stop, kicks out its own kickstand, and goes sideways. And he gets off holding a case of beer in a doggy bag that says South Shore Diner on it."
— GM

"Alright, Gary, you're here."
— Jacques

The three pile into Jacques's blue Mustang with white racing stripes and head for Beacon Street. The drive takes 45 minutes because it's lunchtime and Boston traffic is a parking lot. They eventually spend $2.50 to enter a garage where the flat day rate is $12.

"Welcome to the real villain of this D&D campaign: parking."
— GM

Lee and the Chinese Food

Lee, meanwhile, has been tailing Chandler the entire time. He took a taxi after Bo caught the bus. He's had binoculars (Fisher Price, yellow, $4) trained on Chandler's apartment building since Chandler got home.

His plan: get inside. His method: order Chinese takeout from Picking Boston Chop Suey, walk up to Chandler's building with the bag, and buzz apartments at random.

"Hello? I got delivery here. It's your address."
— Lee

"You have wrong address. I didn't order Chinese food. I ordered Italian."
— Random resident

"It's paid for. Somebody called ahead of time, said they had credit."
— Lee

"How did you already get payment? You can't pay over the phone. What future world is this?"
— Random resident

He works down the buzzer list until somebody unscrupulous buzzes him in. Drops the Chinese food outside a random door. Heads for the fire escape — the hallway windows leading to fire escapes are legally required to be unlocked in 1980s Boston, which Lee didn't know but appreciates. He maps Chandler's apartment from outside, identifies it as the fifth-floor front wall overlooking the park, and posts up in the hallway with his ear against the door of apartment 53.

When Jacques, Pierre, and Bo come up the stairs, Lee opens with:

"Hey, Jacques, you got to come clean with me right now. Who did you guys kill?"
— Lee

"What? I did not kill nobody."
— Jacques

"Did we kill someone?"
— Bo

"I heard something. I know you guys were talking about the graveyard —"
— Lee

"What the fuck are you saying, man?"
— Jacques

Lee tried to read lips through binoculars during the diner conversation. Rolled poorly. Got to make up what he thought they were saying.

A neighbor opens a door.

"Shut the fuck up! We're trying to sleep. I work third shift. Fucking French motherfuckers stealing our jobs."
— Neighbor

"You shut the fuck up!"
— Jacques

"No, you shut the fuck up!"
— Lee

"No, you shut the fuck up!"
— Jacques

"Oh, you can talk now."
— Chandler

Lee's speech has come back. He explains he figured it out on Day 10, had a sketchy back-alley doctor check him out, and the doctor pulled a knife and it became a whole thing.

Chandler herds them inside. All six are in the apartment for the first time.

Part Eight: Show and Tell

Dropping the Glamour

Bo puts his kombucha down and asks everyone to take a deep breath. He drops his glamour.

"And bam — he's an orc."
— GM

Lee throws a knife past his head on reflex.

"Kill it! It's winter! The fairy's got to him, man!"
— Bo (correcting Lee)

"Easy. Easy. Easy."
— Bo

Jacques follows suit. Eight and a half feet tall. Tattoos from forehead down through neck and back and arms. All his teeth. Ice blue eyes.

"You know, honestly, Jacques, you look the same."
— Lee

"All my family looks like this. I am the smallest one in my family."
— Jacques

"I find that one hard to believe."
— Leonard

The Powers Round

Everyone shows what they can do.

Chandler: points at a candle and lights it. Prestidigitation.

Lee: opens his fists and manifests a knife in each hand. Soulknife.

Pierre: decides to try. Starts doing "some voodoo shit" — a wavy chant, arms moving, muttering "yes" under his breath, clearly bullshitting. The GM asks him to roll a d6.

"You cast Shatter in the middle of Chandler's apartment."
— GM

3d8 thunder damage to Chandler's coffee table. The table turns into shrapnel. It looks, per the GM, like the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where the ship is exploding around the guy, except in this apartment.

"Shut the fuck up!"
— Neighbor

"What? Okay, so not enough you break my gun, now you have to break my apartment?"
— Chandler

Seconds later, there is a knocking at the door. Chandler opens it. Trudy is in the hallway.

The bike rolls into the living room, does a slow circle, nestles amongst the shattered coffee table remains — crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch — pops out her kickstand, and hangs there.

"No, no, no, no, no. Go do it in your own apartment."
— Chandler

Leonard: pulls out what he calls "a bag that has no bottom." Bag of holding. Opens it up. Reaches in — shoulder deep.

"Like he was inseminating a cow."
— GM

Lee flicks a quarter in. Leonard pulls it back out.

"So we can hide a body in there."
— Lee

"That's called murder, and you get a friendly visit from my friend O'Malley."
— Chandler

Jacques hands his hockey stick to Leonard, who deposits it into the bag and then pulls it back out. Jacques gets his hockey stick back.

What They Have Figured Out

Chandler lays it down — the Phan Lộc deaths, the voice in the harbor, the witness-must-speak dissociative episode, the ghost, the cryogenic coma, the green flash.

"Am I the only one hearing voices and seeing dead people?"
— Chandler

"I think we all heard the voice."
— Jacques

"What voice?"
— Leonard

Leonard was drawn by his own readings, not a voice. Bo was led by the fungi, not a voice. Chandler, Pierre, Jacques, and Lee all heard some version of the Harbor.

Jacques teases out the key question:

"Pierre, did you make a pact with this voice?"
— Jacques

"I did not really do a promise, but it kind of said, basically, I would die unless I kind of agreed with it. So I kind of agreed with it. Like, I did not want to fucking die now. I wanted to go get back at the Red Saints. So I guess I did the pact. Or whatever you're talking about. A deal."
— Pierre

"I think magic was always in you. You just made a deal to make it come out."
— Jacques

Bo pulls out his sketch of the Spring Court fey and explains the kitchen embassy.

"I think it's my roommate now."
— Bo

"That is one fucked-up looking fairy."
— Lee

The group agrees to follow two threads next: the Spring Court fey living in Bo's kitchen— as a possible source of information about what's happening in Faerie and why it's leaking into Boston — and O'Malley's manila folder, three incidents, ten days apart, wrong cold.

Close

Pierre mentions that Trudy chose the South Shore Diner on her own during his ride today. Chandler catches it.

"Interesting. Your bike may know more than it's letting on."
— Chandler

"She ain't talking to me."
— Pierre

As he says that, Trudy turns herself over fully in the middle of Chandler's living room.

"God damn it!"
— GM

Session ends.

Open Threads

• Three Cold Incidents. O'Malley's manila folder: three reports, ten days apart, different neighborhoods, same log note — cold, not cold weather, wrong cold. Chapter 1's primary investigation, framed by the GM as Chandler's chapter.
• "Fan lock" / Phan Lộc. Wesley Drummond said the sound for three weeks before he walked into Fort Point Channel. Margaret heard an unfamiliar English-sounding phrase; what her husband was actually saying was the Vietnamese place name Phan Lộc — they're pronounced the same. Everyone who was at Phan Lộc is dying or dead. Chandler is the last one. Whatever is killing them is moving through dream.
• The Spring Court fey in Bo's kitchen Unnamed, feral, willing to answer in exchange for favors. Wanted blood, settled for a plastic radio. Bo owes her one.
• Trudy — what she is. She drives underwater. She chooses destinations. She turns herself over for emphasis. Pierre warlock-pacted the harbor; Trudy's transformation and her apparent intentionality are the pact's visible face.
• Diane — still comatose after ten days. Leonard visiting daily. No change. Chandler connecting her "cold" to O'Malley's three incidents.
• The MFA Security Key. Lee stole it from Edward Johnson III. The Museum of Fine Arts may or may not matter yet.
• The Mob Couple Two Rooms Down. $50,000 untouched. Irish Goomba detail. No public record under normal circles. Jacques recognized the man but didn't share the name. Watch this space.
• Jacques's Glamour Drop in public. Not that anyone would notice in Boston, but the Voices of Boston might.
• The Hockey Interview — page-one Globe story. Jacques is now a known quantity to any paranormal observer who reads the paper.
• Lee's Maitre d'. A witness to him summoning knives. Concussed, possibly not coherent about what he saw.

NPCs Encountered

Lingering Effects & Downtime Results

Loot & Notable Items

Memorable Moments

"Hey, my namey."
— Jacques

"There's a garbage man, a hockey legend, a boy scout, Prince. You got fucking Prince in there, Harrow? And you adopted a kid from fucking Vietnam."
— Detective O'Malley

"I am in the embassy of the Spring Court right now."
— The Fey

"Three incidents. Ten days apart. Cold. Not cold weather, just wrong cold. Wrong. Wrong."
— Detective O'Malley

"Wow. I don't know who put those mods on Trudy, but I'm happy."
— Pierre

"My name is Campbell. I'm a new recruit here."
— Lee

"It is easier to communicate in a normal D&D campaign than it is in 1986 Boston."
— GM

"Welcome to the real villain of this D&D campaign: parking."
— GM

"Hello? Oh, did I win the sweepstakes?"
— Leonard's mother

"Fan lock. Fan lock. I'd never heard it before."
— Margaret Drummond (pronounced "Phan Lộc")

"No, no, no, no, no. Go do it in your own apartment."
— Chandler (to Trudy)

"God damn it!"
— GM (session close)