Ghouls in Atlanta, Smuggling in the Appalachians. Double Trouble!

 

Research

Having gained in competence, confidence and developed a core team, we have started to also develop an awareness of the kinds of things that we are expected to be investigating and we spent some of the fallow time looking for unusual things that might be worth our time. 

Our research uncovered two leads. 

• Camilla found rumours among the Atlanta Police that there is a retired detective, Joe Dawant, who is on some sort of wild goose chase to find out something about a bunch of abductions and murders of black children that have been going on since the 70s and had been poking around rich white families with kids. Further investigation suggested that this may be indicative of some sort of cult activity.
• Harriet discovered that there had been a large weapons shipment along with some unusual books and items per the request of a very wealthy client whose name was to be kept anonymous. She talked directly to the courier and was able to get detailed directions to the compound located in the Appalachians in West Virginia. The courier mentioned that the compound was well guarded. This was confirmed by her subsequent observation with telescopic lens and camera from a distance. She sketched out basic map and details about guards.

After discussing it amongst ourselves we decided to try and tackle them both, the cult behind child abductions in Alabama first, then the smuggling in the Appalachians. 

Atlanta

Joe Dawalt

We worked with Delta Green to get fake FBI credentials. Helen Atkinson and Jane Doe ride again. We landed and set up base in the Hilton Atlanta and tried to make an appointment to see Joe. Tristan was with us, Hibiki joined us later, her flight was delayed. 

Joe was out, but called us back. We agreed to go to his office and see him about the information he's got about the disappearing children.

Joe Dawant was an African American retired detective who now works for a missing person's agency in Atlanta. His office was small but he invited us in and started to share his information.

The enclave of Druid's Hill is small, rich and white. The second born of families there have been disappearing over the last 75 years - they just don't complete school. No one ever raised a hue and cry, which is odd for rich, white kids. 

Black kids from neighbouring areas have been disappearing, but only over the last 20 years and turning up dead. Their families don't seem distressed either, which is odd. The black kids are not all second children.

Joe gave us the exact number of children who have gone (in the module it's not easily found). For the white kids, there's not a pattern based on time, like every year, it seems to be only when the second child reaches a certain age (12-15) (possibly when they reach puberty?). The black kids have a wider age range.

The most recent case is Henry Venables, from Druid Hills Middle School. His parents also both died in a car crash, basically immediately after Henry's death. He has been survived by an older sister, Abigail, who is 19. There has been a gap of a few years since the previous disappearance. All the other white kids who disappeared, their close families still live in Druid Hills. 

The black kid that went missing alongside Henry Venables was Raquawn Nelson, he disappeared from Euclid Avenue. His family live in Oakpoint Apartments, just off Euclid. Raquawn was abducted and his body found about a week later, behind the Candor Street Buildings off Euclid Avenue.

Staff at the school got transfer papers for all the white kids, but not the black ones. The parents had filled out the transfer forms for all the white kids.

There is usually a body for the black kids, and they're often cut up badly. Joe thinks it's a hate crime but he is not an expert. Ask the ME!

The black kids were mostly abducted after school, because they need to be out of school. Some were skiving though, over the years. The living kids were telling each other stories, the boogieman, illuminati doing experiments and the like. Nothing that Joe takes seriously. 

Joe's working theory was that the black kids, who only started going missing in the 70's, were being killed by one person. Given it was over a period of 20 years that seemed plausible. Joe was pretty convinced that this was linked to the longer period of disappearances of the white kids. He thought that it was a human trafficking circle and one of them developed a taste for killing black kids.

Atlanta overall has plenty of organised crime, but Druid Hills doesn't really have any, and the surrounding area are pretty low crime too.

Affected white familes:

• Venables
• McCleskey
• Chambless
• Paulk
• Grigsby
• Gatsy
• Milbrey
• Swain
• Sumner
• Holladay
• Deavers
• Millirons
• Pentecost

The Venables were community leaders, but Joe was not sure if Abigail had taken up that mantle. They lived in a house called Stonehenge. They were, for the US, old money, dating back to the 1850's and quarries. Stone from their quarries was used in the Lincoln memorial.

Joe warned Camilla that the KKK were still active in the area.

Stonehenge House

Hibiki's flight arrived and she joined us on the journey to the Stonehenge house.

Harriet was disappointed. It didn't look at all like Stonehenge. It was simply a stone-clad large house. 

We spent a few minutes observing the house and noticed a few cars parked outside but nothing really obviously out of place, then went in and knocked on the door. Druid's Hills was very obviously a rich, white people's neighbourhood: people hanging out in cars tend to attract attention and whilst we could have flashed our badges it seemed more sensible to avoid a confrontation.

We knocked and Abigail answered the door herself. After we showed our badges she invited us in and led us into the library. There were sounds of a lot of children making noise in the living room, which was on the other side of the hall from the library. There were more than a dozen young children playing a game there. Abigail said it was the Druid's Hill Youth Association, which was run by a friend who is staying with her. She seemed to be properly dressed for a rich, heiress in the deep south, however she was not grieving despite the recent disappearance of her brother and the deaths of her parents. She was also not stressed about being interviewed by the FBI.

We asked about the situation. She told us that Henry had moved to Grey Malkin School in Michigan. But she was lying. She said that her parents' death was sudden and she tried to act more sad, but it was clearly an act. Harriet noted (and informed the others later) that Grey Malkin is one of the witch's cats in Macbeth.

Jeramiah Ashcot, the person who ran the DHYA was a close friend who was staying and helping her through it. He was a local funeral director, the YA normally met there. The Youth Association had been around for at least 100 years. Both Abigail and Henry had been in the Youth Association in their time.

Tristan challenged Abigail; he had gone out into the corridor and pretended to make some calls. He told her that her brother was not at the school. She pretended to be shocked, but was carrying on with the lies. She said she hadn't seen him since he went, but they've been trading letters, the last one arrived a couple of days ago. She said that she wasn't particularly keeping them.

Hibiki pushed "why are you lying?" and she replied that someone had kidnapped her little brother. She was trying to get the money together. She seemed to still be lying. We pushed harder and she pushed back. She made it clear that she knew something about organisations vaguely like Delta Green (possibly actually Delta Green) and asked what we had seen when she said that we wouldn't believe the truth and we said that we would. We're not supposed to tell the truth, but Harriet decided to tell a little bit. Whatever guided her that way, Harriet left out all the identifying details but decided to recount a little bit about the fight with Leland Schneider which turned out to be inspired.

This prompted Abigail to spill most of the truth. Henry was being prepared for a ritual so her father could move his spirit into Henry's body and take over. This was common in the area. She killed her parents to try and stop this, but she doesn't think it has worked.

Abigail thought that the possession route for immortality is profane and cruel. She thought that the "normal" route - becoming a ghoul, although she had a fancier name - was much more natural. 

Abigail told us Henry was being kept in the ghoul warrens, under the cemetery, but she was lying. He was actually upstairs. If he disappeared before the ritual, they would hunt us down. During the Heritage Homecoming event on Friday they were going conduct the ritual at the Stone Mountain.

Abigail told us that they have up to a year to complete the ritual, so if we run off with Henry, they will seriously hunt us for an extended period. Ghouls tend to be tough in combat, and can have strong powers on top but these vary by individual. She expected there to be fewer than 10 ghouls at the ritual on Friday, but she can't be sure of an exact number.

They require the brain of the deceased father for the ritual to work. We could destroy the brain, or substitute something else, and then the ritual would mysteriously fail to work. Whichever way we decided to go, Abigail was worried about the action being traced back to her.

The Ghoul Warrens were a network of tunnels, mostly under Druid Hill, but they extend under much of the city. The Chief of Police was part of the family. Not a ghoul or one of the recurring possessed people, but certainly in the know.

ME's Office

We went to the ME's Office and asked for all the records of the named black kids we had from Joe. We persuaded them that we really are FBI and took our time going through all the records in the ME's office to make sure we got them all, then we photocopied them all and took the copies back to the hotel. Hibiki and Harriet helped Camilla, our Forensics and Criminology expert, go through the files over the Monday night and through Tuesday. We ended up pretty sure it's not a ghoul. There's no sign of eating the flesh for example.

Harriet knew that ghouls technically don't need to eat flesh, but go insane if they don't. They also don't need to breathe, but fall into a coma if they don't. They are hard to kill, very resilient, but don't have specific vulnerabilities.

This basically took us all day Tuesday.

We planned to call Abigail and work out what was in the ritual containment fluid for the brain. If we could we would investigate the murders of the black kids as well. It's not strictly part of our remit, but we all felt strongly that we should put some effort into this if we could.

Wednesday

We called Abigail. She told us that there is no embalming fluid in the brain material, but also that there is none on the premises of the funeral home. It's against the religious beliefs of the director! (The ghouls want to be able to eat the bodies!)

We decided to try and get a sensor specialist and a Land Ground Penetrating Radar system, plus whatever else they recommend to map out the tunnels in the graveyard so we had a threat to take to the ghoul elders and could negotiate something with them.

Whilst we could go to the University of Atlanta, we'd have to gaslight whatever poor Post-Doc we get, so we decide to go to Delta Green. That will take a little while, so we needed to decide on our actions for the father's brain:

• burn down or otherwise generally vandalise the whole funeral home
• replace the brain with an alternative that Abigail can provide

Both of these seemed to be better done after working hours at least. This probably left most of the day open to investigating the murders of the black kids.

Session Two

This was a short session because outside factors were interfering with the time of the GM.

We decided that we needed more information about the structure of the funeral home, and its nighttime usage before we could really plan our best route forward. An overnight surveillance was planned. 

We contacted Delta Green for help with someone cleared to work with Ground Penetrating Radar and any other sensor devices they might consider relevant to survey the cemetery. Delta Green responded that someone would be available on Friday morning and we would have the tunnels mapped by the end of the day.

We made our plans:

• A simple drive by observation of the funeral home first thing to see how its built, rest for remainder of the day. 
• Overnight surveillance. 
• Thursday during the day we will investigate the serial killer
• Thursday night, either invade to replace the brain or commit arson. 

The Funeral Home

The building was plantation style, and whilst it was quite fancy, it appears to be predominantly wooden. Arson it would be! There was a storm cellar type entrance, outside to get down.

We rested during the day, taking shifts. Nothing happened, but just because we were being cautious doesn't mean there aren't people out to get us.

Near the funeral home there was a creek and a cemetery that provided us with views of opposite sides of the building from about 100m away. We bought a wetsuit so Camilla could hide in the creek without freezing (even in Atlanta it's going to be cold overnight in the water), and Hibiki was in the cemetery. This was the best combination of stealth, camouflage, observation and, for the creek, swimming between us.

The plan was just to watch lights going on and off, cars moving in and out and the like. Harriet might actually have been better at this, she's got the experience of many long nights doing it, but we were committed.

Throughout the night there was no activity, although there we knew there were tunnels under the town so if there was anything going on they are going through the tunnels. However, we're all more willing to risk burning ghouls and people who take part in soul transfers to prolong their lives than, say, a random cleaner.

A Side Quest into the Murdered Children

Harriet spent the night going through the records from the ME again, trying to use her military intelligence analysis skills to work out patterns in murders. As she went through the files, it became obvious to her that there is a trailer park with a high concentration of poor African Americans but zero murdered children. That seemed suspicious, like the murderer is not shitting in his own backyard. We decided to phone the police and give them an anonymous tip with this information as our best way forward. If the police decided to nothing we could let Joe Dawant know later.

It feels bad to leave this as a side quest. However, we have moved the investigation forward and, as Delta Green agents, a human serial killer is not really our remit. Only Camilla actually has legal investigation powers amongst the group of us. We've handed the information over to the police. If they don't deal with it, we can hand it over to Joe. There should be movement on the case at last.

A Bit of Arson, A Splash of GOO

We rested again, and spent a while concocting a nice flammable mix that should evade forensics looking for accelerants. The plan here was to break into the funeral home and for Harriet to use her demolitions skills to plant the device and try to make it look like an electrical fire, with a bit of chemical help. There were over 40,000 electrical fires in homes in the US per year, so whilst it would probably get into the paper, if there's no obvious accelerant, it was not going to be incredibly suspicious.

After dark, we headed over to the funeral home and went around to the back, through the cemetery. We broke in to the basement, which went unexpectedly smoothly, first to a storage room from there into the morgue. Abigail had said that the brain was stored in a secret room off "the meat locker". The storage room opened to the morgue - the meat locker?

We searched and found that one of the drawers seemed to have a really worn handle. When Hibiki pulled it the section of the wall pulled out and there was a corridor leading down to another door. Being amply suspicious we searched for traps and found... nothing.

We went along the corridor to the next door and opened it. This room was a kitchen with lots of stuff for preparing and cooking meat. None of us ever learnt to cook, that's 90's women for you, so we were not able to tell more. There was no meat hanging here, it looked like it had not been used for some time. We find packaging for Gate City Charcuterie. Gate City is in the Appalachians. (This may turn out to be familiar to Harriet but it wasn't clear at the time.)

There were two doors in the kitchen. One of them felt cooler to Camilla, so we opened it. Behind it was an interesting room with a mosaic on the floor and an inlaid pattern of lines, circles and helices. It is relevant to Nyogtha, a Great Old One associated with ghouls.

Session Three

Harriet is not familiar with Gate City, WV. 

Thursday night (continued)

In the Temple room as well as the mosaics there were two discs, one of iron, one of obsidian. They looked like they might be the base for ritual circles? Harriet was surprisingly cool about finding a shrine to Nyogtha. Nothing to see here, just move right along. Camilla and Hibiki didn't really understand the importance of it.

There was a rough-hewn tunnel carrying on from the temple room. Hibiki reckoned it headed towards the cemetery. We thought the other door off the kitchen was:

1. more likely to be a meat locker, because of proximity to the kitchen 
2. if it was a simple room, it would be easy to check, dismiss it and then head down the corridor.

So we decided to backtrack a little and check that room rather than head down the tunnel. We noticed this time that there were no ovens in the kitchen, nor other ways to cook anything.

Bingo! The meat locker. No doubt this time. There were a couple of fairly fresh corpses hanging up and several partially butchered human corpses and bits that were probably human although we didn't really stop to examine anything too closely. We also found the brain jar. We all kind of shrugged at what might well have had other people running and screaming. Such is life as a Delta Green agent.

We emptied the brain jar onto the floor and set the incendiary up near the electrical outlet. We exfiltrated and watched the funeral home from the cemetery. After a while we started to see ghouls rushing around with fire extinguishers and smoke pouring out of the building. Mission accomplished. 

We returned to the hotel and slept. This mission is nearly as bad as being in the military for wrecking our sleep schedule, and worse for trying to maintain an exercise routine. 

Friday

The guy with the ground penetrating radar turned up at 9am. We staggered down, still a bit bleary-eyed, collecting coffee on the way to meet him. He had a van, with his equipment in the back, parked nearby. We briefed him on the way to the cemetery and guarded him during the day, just in case. Harriet stayed close to him and chatted to him about how the sensors work during quieter periods. She won’t be an expert, but could use GPR and other sensors in future. 

During the survey three people from the Druids Hill Patrol turned up, suspicious about what we were doing. We told them that we were FBI and that we were investigating reports of a criminal gang involved in smuggling who are using the cemetery as a drop-off point. They wished us luck and headed off. That was one crisis averted.

Around mid-afternoon the survey was finished, although there was some still processing to be done for us to get the final map. However, the specialist assured us that he’d been getting good returns and would be able to get us a good map of the tunnels and the surrounding area later that day. We thanked him and arranged for him to send a copy of the map to our bosses as well. Then we updated our handlers in Delta Green just in case it all went pear-shaped.

We prepared for the meeting in the evening/night. It was going to be at Stonehenge, and whilst neutral territory would have been better, at least we knew the house. We decided it wasn't worth starting the meeting off badly by kicking up a fuss about. We also let Abigail know that her brother was safe from the soul-swapping process. We got a bit of sleep first, then headed off to the meeting.

At Stonehenge there were no additional cars parked outside, but we knew the ghouls like using tunnels to get around. We met the Council of Elders, led by Richard Venables. It's a group of six older men. (Abigail's comments about the sexism of the society were in full display.) He said that he, they really, were willing to negotiate in good faith and that he hoped this meeting would be as profitable as previous negotiations.

The negotiations went on for some time (several hours). Although they went back and forth in the end these are the terms we agreed: 

• A ceasefire between the ghouls and Delta Green with escorted inspections of the ghouls' facilities by Delta Green to ensure they are keeping to it. 
• A letter from us, strongly recommending cooperation between Delta Green in Atlanta, and Georgia to increase the political influence of the ghouls. 
  • We pointed out that none of us are based in Atlanta, so we could not offer more than a recommendation, but offering to make it a strong recommendation meant they were willing to concede the next point.
• The ghouls will cease their soul-swapping activities. 

During the discussions Camilla asked about where they got their human food supplies, but they declined to answer. (In fact they fairly suggested that, as investigators we ought to be able to work it out.) Having had a day to reflect and some time to think about what we’d seen whilst we weren't under pressure we suspected that the fresher bodies we’d in the meat locker were Abigail's parents. They were probably being cured, the older bodies were harder to identify. We know that there are "humans in the know," for example the chief of police, around and about. We don't know the numbers of ghouls here, nor the numbers of humans that know, nor how much human flesh they need to eat to prevent insanity but this might be enough. The presence of a food wrapper from Gate City Charcuterie in the kitchen downstairs suggests there's a wider supply chain as well, but we know there are multiple ghoul warrens and they might not all have a good supply.

It all wrapped up amicably. Abigail was happy. We had a treaty between us representing Delta Green and the ghouls in Atlanta. We wrapped up and went back to the hotel, planned our next steps and went to bed. This felt like another successful job.

Saturday - Moving to the Appalachians

In the morning we reviewed the case notes. There had been a large weapons shipment along with some unusual books and items per the request of a very wealthy client whose name was to be kept anonymous. Harriet had talked directly to the courier and was able to get detailed directions to the compound located in the Appalachians in West Virginia. The courier mentioned that the compound was well guarded. This was confirmed by her subsequent observation with telescopic lens and camera from a distance. She sketched out basic map and details about guards.

The compound contained a large wooden mansion (see above). There was a gated gravel road that led from Browns Creek Road up to the house. She had seen about 20 armed personnel inside the compound, but suspected there might be more. The guards were armed with long arms, but it wasn't possible to tell if they were automatic or semi-automatic from the photos. They patrolled through the woods, about 200m into the woods, in threes, and in threes on all the doors.

We had a quick shopping trip to load up with whatever we needed and drove up to West Virginia. Camilla bought a ballistic shield and we also acquired audio and photographic surveillance equipment, night-vision binoculars, camping gear and the like.

Given it was a Saturday, we asked Delta Green for help looking up who owned the property at the address, since Harriet knew it. We found a friendly in West Virginia who was in the office and willing to earn some brownie points! We also booked a cabin about a mile outside Marlinton, which is about 5-10 miles away from the mansion. This seemed like it was far enough away to be unlikely to raise any automatic flags from anyone in the mansion, even if they have someone keeping an eye on all the cabin and hotel room rentals. 

Once we were loaded up we hit the road. Whilst driving, we got the name Peter Fletcher from our contact. The contact told us he was a stockbroker and we started a background check on him.

We arrived and stretched. Harriet went for a run and did some escrima practice. After working the kinks out, we decided to hit Marlinton and try to gather information by gently pumping the bar staff and the like. We discovered that the people from the compound came in to town about once a week for a major grocery order, and a group of about 5-15, usually 5-10, came in every couple of days to drink. There are other towns around, so it’s possible they drink somewhere else on the other night but we’re not sure. They tend to have "the south will rise again" white nationalist tattoos.

Tristan reached out to the CIA and tried to get them to infiltrate and investigate the compound for "terrorist activities" but we were not sure how long that would take. Typically it would require getting someone hired by the group, which might take days to weeks.

Sunday

Harriet and Camilla headed out on a "run" with cameras and mics, in padded bags and then in a day sack, to try and get better photos of the guards' faces and audio from the mansion. They stayed about 100m in the woods to make pretty sure that they can't be seen. Tristan stayed in the cabin and looked over the material Harriet had already gathered, with fresh eyes, and when the girls came back, started analysing the new stuff too. 

Our friendlies came back and told us that Peter Fletcher is a fake identity under an old SSN. This is an offence and we could have reported him for that. We decided to sit on it and keep it in reserve, in case we needed help. A police visit would probably only complicate matters for us.

We heard that the serial killer who was murdering the black children in Atlanta was arrested. He was the only person in the trailer park who had lived there throughout the period spanning the murders. He was a postal worker who flew the confederate flag but wasn't actually in any active hate groups so didn't raise any flags until we pointed out what was going on with the distribution of killings. That felt like a success too.

Most of us are under some time pressure now, we have real jobs to get back to, and we need to wrap this up by Wednesday, maybe Thursday, before we need to get creative with our employers. 

Session Four

We have a bit more information about the books that caught Harriet's attention. There were many volumes containing references to Cernunnos. There was also a notable oddity of an English copy of Guila do Folclore dos Apalaches. (aka A Guide to Appalachian Folklore by Dr. Ezequiel Vomlel)
A Guidebook on the Appalachians People and Folklore written a 19th century by the Portuguese Ethnologist Dr. Ezequiel Vomlel (who rumour had it had been everywhere and seen everything, which even at the time was considered to be a gross exaggeration†) was one of many guides written by the man which was purged and put out of print after the university quite suddenly tried to buy back as many volumes as it could and destroy them. The Ethnology department claimed there had been some gross errors in production, they wanted to avoid spreading disinformation§. This contributed to the rarity of the book. There was also a less valuable English copy that made it into circulation.
† Given what we know of, for example ghouls, it might not be though.
§ This is often cover for things like mythos information being included and then someone encouraging them to remove it from the public domain.

Tristan's analysis of the photos from Harriet's earlier reconnaissance revealed a few new things.

• There was a dog kennel with dogs in a hard to see corner. 
• The way the drive curves, the main entrance was on the back of the house from the road side
• There were about 30 guards, with about 20 awake at any time.
• There were non-armed people in the premises, an Indian looking guy (from India) and some children

Harriet knew that Cernunnos is an Elder Being not just a mythological character, but doesn't know any details about his regions of influence or similar. Dr Ezequiel Vomlel is regarded a bit like Herodotus in modern ethnology circles - he went out and did the work but his scholarship is considered very dubious. However, there's a collector's value to his works just from interest. (Herodotus is still known, and read, even though no one takes what he wrote seriously.) Occultists value the work of Dr. Vomlel because they consider there are "hidden truths" in them.

His books are valuable - an intact version like we have reported here is one of about 10 in the world.

In the evening Camilla and Harriet spruced themselves up and headed to the bar, each wearing a bug to help record the conversations.

They stopped and took the tone of the room from a booth. It appeared that everyone deferred to an African-American man, which surprised us because they were all wearing tattoos that seemed racist, or at least related to the rise of the south. They were all dressed in redneck casual, not as a uniform, but it blended in well with the rest of the bar. 

We overheard a few comments: 

• They mentioned an upcoming hunt and that this would be the last night out for a while. 
  • This would be bad for our plans about breaking in the following evening.
• They moaned about hot-bunking. 
• Apparently the deer are funny/weird.
• There seemed to be a level of OpSec. Topics that they would stop each other talking about if someone started talking about it, but generally shying away from. 

Some of the group were playing pool in pairs. We cut in. It probably helped that we were two attractive women interacting with a bunch of men. Others were at the bar and scattered around at tables, but there was a bit of a focus towards staying close to their leader. 

Whilst playing pool we found out that the leader here was Gus. They worked for Joseph Mosley and they worked security and helped him run hunts for whitetail (a common type of deer in the US). They've all worked for him for a while (months to years), but only been here for a couple of months. The name Mosley seems to be a coincidence, despite all the fascist trappings of his security that Harriet reacted to. Later research showed his family moved here ages before the rise of the British Union of Fascists. 

Harriet moaned about one of her former bosses, real stories, fake details about time and places, to try and get them to bitch about Joseph. They listened to her stories, but didn't reciprocate. They were all full of praise for him. He has been saved, as have they. 

Camilla asked about a job for a (fictitious) cousin. They said that they have opportunities but that he should come during the day because they have hungry wolves around during the night. They said that they were all veterans, but they now had jobs for non-veterans, they needed a cook for example. 

Camilla asked about what saved them, the particular passage that they felt was most important. They trotted out a line about all of humanity being in it together, and it sounded... fake. Like it was a line from a cult rather than a properly thought through answer. We got a cross-section of their backstories. They all seemed to have been down on their luck, veterans getting into drugs, crime or extremism, and Mosley came along and rescued them, gave them something valuable to do with their lives again. Some were former squad mates, but they all had that saved from breaking badvibe.

Gus White was their trainer, and was now their… sergeant? Deacon? The vibe wasn't totally clear, but some position of authority like that. Their previous “posting” was basically a boot camp to whip them back into shape. Harriet suggested a mixture of prayer and exercise, they added marksmanship to the syllabus. The were mostly former army and marines. 

Camilla asked about their families. They did keep in touch with their loved ones, but there were no cell phones at the lodge, so it was intermittent, they wrote letters which were censored - they described it as “checked”. They could use the phone when they were in town. All of this was justified as “protecting the security of the hunters, who are very wealthy and guard their privacy.” They seemed happy with this, it felt unreasonable to Harriet. There was also no TV.

They told us that they had lost a few people to hunting accidents and "wild animals" in the hunt. They regarded it as part of doing penance. (What religion regards dying as part of doing penance? Giving your life for a bigger cause, that’s a choice every soldier accepts they might have to do. Whether it’s your country, your loved ones, at the final moment your squad mates is an individual thing. But it’s not a penance.) We tried to press them for more details however, they were really evasive. From the way they talked about the deaths and staying out of the woods, there was something weird going on, but we couldn’t really get more details without asking some really suspicious questions which didn’t seem smart when we were outnumbered 30:2. 

We left and briefly considered bugging some of their cars. However, they had clearly driven down in their personal vehicles and they were impossible to tell from the locals so we abandoned that plan. 

We headed back to the cabin and caught Tristan and Hibiki up on what we’d found out. Given the time pressure on us returning to work and the loss of opportunities with the guards being restricted to the compound we changed our plans. 

We decided we'd surveil the house from as many sides as possible, trail cams and the like to hide them. We would do this for 48 hours, to accumulate more information. In addition we would tell the CIA (through Tristan) about the "job opportunity." Then we would tactically withdraw so we can keep our jobs, and to research the names we've got. The plan would be to come back in 2-3 months time when we can get a few days off again. Everyone agreed, so we set off into the night to set up the surveillance.

When we were part way through setting up the cameras, and dodging the patrolling guards (they were using flashlights, in groups of three and relatively easy to dodge) and Harriet noticed that we were being stalked by something that looked like deer. However, there were sufficient differences in behaviour that it was obvious that they were not deer. Most obviously, they were stalking us! They did so for a while, then peeled off part of the way through our route, and we finished setting up the rest of the cameras in peace.

We surveilled the entrance to the compound for 36 hours, hoping to get lucky with the rich hunters arriving. During the first day, we saw nothing. During the second night we heard gunfire, strangely attenuated. From the sounds we were pretty sure it was multiple large calibre rifles. 

We didn’t see anyone going to the lodge the next day, so the next night we went to collect our cameras. We were stalked again, this time by two groups of three deer, but they keep their distance again, basically over the whole of our route. We successfully collected our cameras.

We headed back to work and made copies of all the relevant photos and footage, mailed them around and did our research and intelligence analysis. Our key findings were as follows:

• Jospeh Mosley is a member of the Mosley family who emigrated in the 1800's. 
  • We also got information about his wife, four children and home address (in New York). 
  • Wife is Hannah Mosley. 
  • He supposedly makes his money as a stockbroker, the same as his cover ID, but it's hard to find what stocks he owns.
• Ganish Ochterlony. This is the Indian person we saw earlier. He seems to be rich because he owns things. His father was in the Bengali army.
• Pavel Yennen. A Russian sniper with ties to the KGB. Quite elderly. 
• Benjamin Gill. An Australian. Not much known about him.
• Gus White is a former army drill sergeant. 
• All the rednecks are veterans. None were dishonourably discharged, but none went into good jobs on leaving their service either. They mostly did one or two terms.

Ganish, Pavel and Benjamin went out with multiple guards each, plus dogs, to hunt the "deer" - which is illegal (you can hunt waterfowl with dogs, possibly boar, but not deer). 

Our CIA person reported that Gill didn't return from the hunt. There were also guard fatalities, and they have bought in new faces to replace the fallen. The hunt wasn't successful. They were after the local legend "the King of the Glade." Yennen and Ocheterlony left after about a week. The next hunt is planned for the start of December 1996.

The people seem very Christian, they hold daily prayer services, go to a variety of local churches and the like. They do not seem to worship Cernunnos. However, all of them believe in cryptids. 

We planned our assault, grabbed warm weather gear, the Appalachians are around -8°C in early February. We also acquired tear gas grenades for the dogs and scent maskers in the hope that they'll help us avoid the dogs. We checked with the courier if he had delivered anything else but he hadn’t. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been deliveries of course, good operational security would have you change courier services. 

We planned our infiltration, a stealthy approach from the side of the building, in to the office, upstairs to the office in Mosley's suite, looking for evidence of what he has been transporting. Depending on what we find we might dig the Predator out of the Green Box and unleash hell on them.

Session Five

Buildup

9-FEB-96

In the time between leaving to plan and mounting the assault, or plans changed more than a little.

The new plan was to use the Predator from the Green Box to launch Hellfire missiles, one at what we were calling The Chapel (the room plans call it the Foyer) where they prayed together each morning, and one at the garage or the best vehicle to block escape. 

To facilitate this, Camilla trained as a drone operator (in GURPS, this is Forward Observer). Meanwhile, Hibiki trained as a sniper, as a civilian she started going to a long-range target shooting club and learning how, but given her other skills it amounts to the the same thing when push comes to shove. 

The plan was that she was going to set up to shoot someone a target in The Chapel after the Hellfire hit. Then we would mount an assault in force after hopefully killing most of their forces with the missile and levelling the field that way.

Harriet tried to do some more research into Cernunnos. She did confirm that he's a Great Old One. She didn't have the time or resources to separate the fact, mythology and pure made up bullshit of his powers, and those of his cultists into separate piles - it takes hundreds of hours of research with specialist tomes and the like, or experimentation, to work this out.

We are joined by Treilana in place of Tristan, for the assault. She is a sniper as well, but better suited to this sort of work than Tristan who tends to sit at the back and provide intellectual support - vital but not as useful in this instance.

The Infil

10-02-96 03:00 

We entered the woods on the house side, not far from the drive, carrying tyre shredder strips to block vehicles. We had just laid out the shredder strips when, although we were pretty stealthy, we were spotted by three groups of three Near Deer which were clearly approaching us. It appeared that us operating as a group of four was triggering their aggressive instincts. When we'd been a group of three in the woods the previous time, they had stalked us but kept their distance.

Combat ensued with the Near Deer. They were pretty tough. Treilana was blasting away with a Desert Eagle, Hibiki with a AWF-M (this is a German Army sniper rifle) both at the same target and the Near Deer just kept coming. Harriet shot one with a three-round burst from her carbine, however this was enough that her target did get slowed down.

After that first instant, we started becoming a bit more disciplined in our fire: 

• Hibiki aimed at a leg and blew it clean off. 
• Harriet, having slowed the first deer, aimed for the vitals on the next target in her group and although her third round went wide with the harder shot the Near Deer fell over, dead or stunned. 
• Treilana apparently blew the head off one. In fact, despite a good hit to the skull, it survived and dragged itself away, as we discovered at the end of the combat.

Sadly we had let some of them get too close. In particular, one of the groups got close to Camilla and Treilana and whilst one was pretty much hors de combat, the others attacked the women. One launched itself from a rocky outcrop, much like a wolf might, but antlers forward, straight at Camilla. But with her entry shield up and a step back she just brushed it aside. Another one attacked Treilana in a similar fashion, and she dodged too.

Harriet finished off her group of three, at least as a threat - they all retreated, still alive. Treilana severely injured her Near Deer after stepping back. Camilla shot hers, although less impactfully.

That finally broke the Near Deer, and they started to flee. We let them go, we were not here to hunt Near Deer, and they were surprisingly hard to kill. We felt pretty lucky to have got away without injury.

There was a lot of blood, but it looked odd, a reddish-green rather than the bright arterial red that we might have expectws, especially from the shots to the vitals. We spent a few minutes covering the worst of the blood and our tracks.

The fight itself lasted maybe five seconds, the cleanup a few minutes, but it felt far worse than a typical firefight because we were outnumbered by supernatural creatures. It was pretty easy to imagine how a less disciplined group might have been overwhelmed and take casualties or fatalities. If we had faced even a few more deer it might have been a very different outcome for us.

We decided that the relative safety of being in a group of three was the way to go, so we escorted Hibiki back to the road. We had only just put the shredder strips out, so we weren't that far into the woods, and the other side of the road has never had Near Deer to our knowledge. We had spent a fair amount of time there in our previous visits, so we felt confident about this. Hibiki was going to set up in a position so that she could cover the road and driveway. The remaining three of us went back into the woods, a bit more cautiously, making sure to mask our tracks and to set up our nest for the assault.

The Breach

0430
The second infil attempt all went smoothly. After a few minutes setting up and observing the house we noticed that there didn't appear to be anyone at home. There were lights on, but there were no guards and no patrols. We've surveilled this house a few times, there have always been guards and patrols before.

We discussed our options; we were really unsure about what was going on. We decided extra reconnaissance was in order. The drone was already in the air, and circling on autopilot a mile or two away. Nobody showed up when we brought it in and used its sensors. After 20 minutes nothing had changed.

Killing the personnel was not really the main mission: we were here to gather intelligence. Our planned assault was a nice by-product, a means to make our information gathering safer and also reduce the number of people with dangerous knowledge in the world. If they’re not here, we can do the intelligence gathering safely and easily. However, we knew that they were hunters, had they set a trap for us? So we decided to relocate, so we were on the same side as the office, the other side to the chapel, take out the cameras that covered the approach to the private office and wait to see if there was a response. That went smoothly and nothing happened, even after ten minutes.

The three of us moved to the edge of the woods, with Harriet and Treilana continuing to approach the house, whilst Camilla checked the drone's sensors to make sure nothing appeared. Again, nothing. Camilla put the drone on autopilot and joined us whilst Treilana scaled the wall, leading the way, then the rest of us followed and tried to enter Mosley's private office.

We ended up entering the main guest room so we cleared the building along the corridor to the main bedroom and found the office. We found a load of correspondence with family members, which we just took. Our next target was the main office downstairs which was appreciably bigger. This contained general administration stuff - deeds, purchases of household goods, records of maintenance work and the like, and a safe. There was a bit of jewellery and some more sensitive but essentially similar documents in the safe. From the main office we moved next door, to the library. We searched for interesting books and the like, but we hit the jackpot when Camilla found the door to the secret room.

In the secret room we found the records that we were looking for and a collection of books and a variety of other artefacts, as well as another safe. There were a lot of other materials, ritual materials, robes etc.

We spent a while sorting through this, dividing it into stuff to take and stuff to leave. We decided to blow the rest of it up. Basically we could take pretty much everything, because we could load up one of their trucks, drive it down to our SUV, transfer everything and drive away. However, we left the robes and other paraphernalia specific to their style of (Hermetic) magic; it’s not relevant to our needs. There were multiple gold bars, so our slush fund has been topped up again. 

We cleared the rest of the house and found tracks - we determined that the inhabitants had left en masse about an hour before we arrived.

We took a while to rig the place to explode from the gas cookers, oil burners etc. and left with a real fire behind us.

The Aftermath

Several days later the CIA asset informed us that one of the little girls woke up screaming around 0145 that the house was going to burn down and everyone was going to die, and that she was also scared of the road. So they packed up, left and marched through the woods to town. Given what we did, they were treating it as a major revelation from God. We found it disturbing that they seem to have an accurate precognitive talent available to them.

We have a load of material to research, but that will take it's own sweet time. We haven't completely killed this off, but we've got a CIA agent in place for another year, potentially longer so we'll monitor what they do. We've blown up their base of operations, acquired all their research materials and although we don't have the information about their network in a useable form, we do have it, and we're going to spend the time working it out. All round a major success.