Operation Haruspex: Chapter Two

Continuing the Investigation into the Uncanny, using the Rogue Handler Supplement.

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this document are ©SolumProtocol, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Thumbnail Photo by Anton H: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-vinyl-record-145707/

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Olympic View Suburb, Seattle - August 6th 12PM

I let myself sleep in, reasoning that I and the dog needed all the rest we could get. Getting up at 11 on a Saturday was a luxury I rarely allowed myself, so I flipped through the demon book over my breakfast/lunchtime coffee. The dense prose and migraine inducing diagrams were an unpleasant way to spent he morning, so I skimmed it rather than doing an in-depth review. I didn’t learn anything useful so I would need to look over it in detail if I wanted to get anything useful out of it. After a fruitless half hour, I placed the book down and left it to review later. I looked over the Doctors bag next. The bag was well stocked with first responder and trauma gear that wouldn’t look out of place on an ambulance, as well as several, room temperature blood bags and grocery store ice bags. The blood was human, at least according to the labels, written in permanent marker. It didn’t look official and there was no hospital watermark on the bags. Upon closer inspection, they looked like heavy duty store brand Ziplocs, rather than official medical equipment. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. The blood was useless now, having been unrefrigerated for over a day, and that had just been when I had found them. I placed the bags in my fridge to be disposed of later, and tucked the doctors bag away for another day. Pulling out my phone and notebook, I made a quick call to Ellen McBurny about her dog. The woman on the other end of the line was almost incomprehensible as she openly wept with relief. I arranged to meet her at a park near her house, out in the Olympic View Suburbs¹. Bolt was still sleepy when I picked him up from the vet’s, but he perked up when we got to the park, dragging me around to his usual spots and snuffling happily. Eckart had given him another bath, and he looked like a brand new dog with his goat fluffed and clean, despite the wound on his side. Ellen McBurny arrived just before Noon, a trim woman in her late 50s with a meticulously formed bob of steel grey hair around a lined face that split into an open, honest grin as Bolt bounded towards her. She thanked me profusely and I made small talk, waiting for the right moment to begin an impromptu interview². Bolt had disappeared a few days ago, she said, from her backyard. She had been out of town visiting friends and her husband had been freaking out when he got home from work on Wednesday when the dog was gone. They had found a hole in their fence and their sitter had left the backdoor unlocked, so they had assumed he had run away. They had been searching the local area for the last few days, with no luck. I didn’t want to scare the woman, so I skirted over the state I had found him in.

“I found him in Tabitha Abel’s apartment.” I said professionally. “Is she a friend of yours?”³. Ellen’s face darkened.

“Abel?” She said, her obvious surprise mixed with a notice dose of anger. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course it was Abel.” She muttered.

“Not the doctors biggest fan?” I asked with a smile that said “You can trust me, I’m just a helpful, bystander, and certainly not a nosey federal agent.”

“That is putting it mildly.” She huffed angrily. “We started at the Woodland Zoo in the same year, back in ‘98. The woman is a savant when it comes to animals, but she forgets, willfully I suspect, that humans are animals too. I had more HR meetings with her than the rest of the staff combined. And God forbid she ever interacted with the public!” she exclaimed with a shudder. I could see why the two might clash as the conversation went on. Ellen was like an open book, and I barely had to prod her and nod at the right times to keep her talking, which was a stark contrast to what I had heard about Dr. Abel thus far.

“Why would she have taken Bolt?” I asked innocuously. Ellen scoffs.

“Her most recent fixation.” She almost spat, before taking a deep breath and picking at the hem of her coat. She took a step closer and whispered conspiratorially as she continued “Before I retired, I heard her make a lot of sideways comments about humans' destructive effects on animals. How pet owners should hold themselves to a higher standard, or something to that effect. She probably saw Bolt was home alone and thought she would teach me a lesson. If she wasn’t so ludicrously overqualified, she would have lost her job years ago.” I suspect that Mrs. McBurny assumptions were not entirely off base, and it was clear she could go on at length about Dr. Abel’s various personality flaws, but she soon confessed that she hadn’t seen the doctor since she retired a few months ago. and so had not been in a position to see the recent deterioration and erratic behavior Eckhart had reported. Still, she painted quite the picture of the missing woman, one that was far from flattering. I wondered if her colleagues at the Zoo held her in equal esteem.

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Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle - 2PM

The zoo was closed to the public for the next week due to renovations. If I was operating as Kat Jones, FBI Special Agent, and had probably cause for investigation, I could throw my federal weight around and threaten my way through the whole zoo, but as PI from out of state, I had to think of a different point of access. I had abandoned the wig, knowing full well that even with a reapplication, it would look equally ridiculous under light of day and instead but my hair into a tight, professional bun which when paired with the aviator sunglasses looked……equally as questionable, if I was being honest. I looked into the rear view mirror of my car, made a few final adjustments, and chanted a mantra in my head. I am Amanda Parsons, a Private Investigator from Minnesota via Houston. I’m investigating…..? What? I stalled, my mind oddly blank as I scrambled for a reason why a PI would be investigating an anti-social, middle aged Mammologist. If Tabitha Abel was as disliked at her job as Ellen had led me to believe, I might not get a warm reception if I’m looking into her disappearance. I pondered a few options, each more ludicrous than the last before settling on something daring.

---

“You can’t be serious.” Mabel Boyd said with open incredulity. The head of Zoo Security was a stocky woman with a good natured by implacable features. Whatever she had been expecting me to say as I flashed my PI badge, it certainly hadn’t been this.

“My client certainly is.” I say with a drawl, fully in Amanda Mode. Mabel continued to look at me skeptically as the guards behind her began to whisper amongst themselves.

“I just.” Mabel started, groping the air ineffectually, as though the idea was so ludicrous it is a tangible force in front of her. “I’m sorry, I just can’t imagine Dr. Abel being romantically involved with anyone, let alone a married man.”

“Not a human anyway.” One of the guards said in a stage whisper, earning a sharp look from Mabel, before she returned her gaze to me. I took a step towards her, a look of contrition on my face and offered her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“I understand your concern, no one wants to think the worse of their colleagues, but my client was very insistent, and she mentioned Dr. Abel by name.” Mabel Boyd eyed me crtically as I spoke. I had pegged her ex-law enforcement the moment I had seen her walking towards me as though she was on the local beat, but the look she gave me confirmed it. The “I suspect you are bullshitting me, but I have no idea how to prove it.” was a look I was very familiar with from years of having a State Trooper for a father. Honestly, if I hadn’t gone for the shock value of suggesting least liked woman in Seattle was having an affair with a wealthy married man, I got the feeling the woman would have seen right through me. Maybe she did, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she snored a laugh.

“Trust me Amanda, no one is expecting the best from Dr. Abel. If you had walked in her and told me she had killed someone, I would be less surprised than this. She’s so….” She groped the air again as she struggled to find the word. Another voice, likely the one that had chimed in earlier said

“Sexless?” There were chuckled amongst the guards, although Mabel shot the figure another dark look before nodding in agreement.

“That’s the impression I’ve been getting.” I say dryly. “My client would be reassured if that was the case, but I try not to rule anything out in this line of work.” I smile my ingratiating smile and try not to lay it on too thick as I make my ask. “Which brings me back to why I’m here. I sure would appreciate a look around her office. Even a quick look at her calendar could be invaluable. Gotta check all those boxes.”⁴ Mabel looked conflicted. I could tell that under normal circumstances she would never let some PI waltz in and start poking around, but between the excitement of the guards behind her, and her own, palpable curiosity, she was clearly conflicted . Eventually she nodded, and gestured for me to follow her out of the waiting area, dismissing the other security guards with a pointed look and flick of her wrist. The hallways of the office building were quiet, the sparse echo of shuffling feet the only sign that there was anyone else in the building. Dr Abel’s office was on the second floor, near the back of the building⁵. I tilted my head as the faint sound of music played down the corridor as we approached the plain wooden door, and the music got louder as we approached, clearly coming from inside the room, but Mabel didn’t seem to notice, moving passed me to slip the key in and unlock the door⁶. The music, a classical number with a slow, plodding piano and jaunty violins rang out of the office, along with an unpleasant smell that had me wrinkling my nose. I look inside showed me the source. The floor room was mostly clean, but scattered around the room was no less than 6 knee high garbage cans, all filled to the point of overflowing, and each with a large assortment of food waste, torn paper and other, odorous objects. I still wasn’t sure where the music was coming from because while the floor was clear, the table and surrounding shelves were also overflowing, mostly with sheaf’s of paper and folders.

“Is the doctor always so messy?” I asked. Mabel looked around the room in disapproval, then shook her head.

“Nah, at least, not to this degree. She’s been out of sorts recently. Some of the animals got hurt from the old enclosures here, and she seemed to take it hard.” Mabel leaned against the doorframe casually, and waved for me to get about my business, so I moved further into the room to get a better look. The music was coming from an old record player on the far side of the room, a disc of vinyl spinning its way through an old classical track I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Next to it was a computer on a tall desk with the screen saver on and small swivel chair that had a few folder’s piled on it.⁷ Mabel watched awkwardly from the doorway as I searched the room, but I found little of interest, as there was little to find apart from some guidebooks for nearby cities.⁸ I thumbed through them quickly, finding a few hastily marked pages that had been bookmarked with sticky notes, mostly for animal exhibits, Zoos and Wildlife Sanctuaries. The music was starting to get to me, so I walked over to the player and lifted the needle before turning back to Mabel.

“Do other people come here often?” I asked. Mabel snorted, before giving a resounding no.

“Dr. Abel chose this room for her office specifically because nobody comes by here.” She said archly. I gave a cheery response, sensing that I was already beginning to outstay my welcome and took a seat at the swivel chair to tap the keyboard. The computer came to life, requesting a password, so I puttered around the desk while Mabel’s exasperated sighs increased in volume.⁹ Flipping the keyboard over, I found a sticky note with Dr Abel’s password, which was just the word “wallaby” and keyed it in. Dr. Abel’s desktop was barren, nothing but the bare essentials and the default computer background, but I opened up her email anyway, in the hopes she wasn’t quite as tech adverse as she appeared. Most was business as usual, so and I opened up the calendar to keep up the illusion of snooping on her personal life¹⁰. She had one meeting, on Sunday, blocked out for a half day. It was just called “The Work Continues.”

“What does that mean? Dr. Abel doesn’t work on Sundays.” Mabel had appeared at my shoulder with surprisingly subtlety, and she was squinting at the calendar reproachfully, but I tried to laugh it off.

“A whole half day? No location? No other Attendees? That’s a date, unless I miss my mark.” I delivered the line with confidence¹¹, but the charade was starting to ring hollow, and Mabel’s ex-cop instincts seemed to be kicking in.

“You know, I’ve known Dr. Abel for a while.” Mabel said. “I can’t imagine her connecting with anything without fur or 4 legs, and I’m starting to think you know that.” Her voice had lost the friendly, curious air, and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion. I feel a trickle of sweat run down the back of my neck. I may have overplayed my hand and turned a fascinating bit of gossip into something a bit too much to believe, but I raised my hands and decided to double down, racking my smile up a notch.

“Hey, listen, I understand. I mean, look at this place? All that I’ve seen since investigating this woman does not indicate a woman in pursuit of anything passed her profession, but I need to get enough facts to rule her out, or my boss won’t pay me. Some clients I could take a picture of this office, and send it along with my fee, but this lady has got a real dislike of Dr. Abel, and I’m going to need something concrete before I can even send along my expenses.”¹² Mabel continued to glare at me, but she took a step back, and her hand drifted away from the baton at her hip.

“You’ve got one more minute, before I call my boss.” She said tersely. I turned back to the computer and tried to hurry it along. Tabitha’s email’s are all terse, single line responses, that withered to single word replies in the last week or so. I checked the drafts, mostly from desperation, and saw something much more interesting. A short paragraph, almost like a diary entry. It looks like it was started a few weeks ago.

Something wants to hurt these animals. A danger. I can see the fear in the animals eyes when I treat them, and half of them are sick with worry. My heart aches whenever I see them. I checked the camera’s and saw it. A figure at midnight, every night, after everyone has gone home. I need to find out how to protect them. Nobody else here can be trusted. Ellen was a bitch, but she cared about the creatures under her care. This new director

The email ended abruptly, and there was no email in the address bar, just a single word. “Seir.” Was it a name? I turned to Mabel, who was holding her radio with an intent to use it and smiled weakly.

“Any chance I could look at last week’s security camera?” Mabel’s eyes narrowed, and I hurried onwards. “There’s a good chance this meeting is recurring, and its on her work calendar. I can make it quick.” I added nrevously¹³. She looked at me with a slight curl of her lip. Whatever little good will I had earned had clearly evaporated, but she still seemed on board with the PI cover, if nothing else.

“You can’t possibly think this is going to show anything useful.” She said tersely. She raised her radio to speak, but I rushed over and laid a firm but gentle hand on her arm, before whispering urgently.

“This Zoo is Dr. Abel’s life. There’s no sign of anyone but her using her apartment, and my client's husband is an animal lover.” I grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen and jotted down the number of my burner phone. “Tell you what, we’ll call it a trade. I’m in town for another few weeks, maybe I can scratch your back, if you scratch mine.” I wink at her and she rolled her eyes. She looked like she was about to give me a firm no, but then there was a clunk! from behind me, and I span around just as the music started to roll out of the record player again. The needle had fallen, and the record began to spin again, a few lights flickering on the front of the machine¹⁴. I walked over to it and look around. The window was closed, and there was no breeze. Neither of these facts mattered however, because despite the music playing the power chord had been cut.¹⁵

---

There was definitely something suspicious going on at this Zoo, apart from the ritualistic animal mutilation. Mabel was completely unfazed when I showed her the seemingly haunted record player, and she started looking at me like I was crazy when I tried to convince her that a record player should not start playing on its own, especially if it isn’t connected to electricity. I realized, eventually, as her eyes went slightly glassy, that she had never even heard the music in the first place, and she couldn’t hear it now. She seemed dazed as we left the office, which honestly came as a slight relief considering how agitated she was getting, but it was unnerving how placid she was acting. She led me to a small room on the 4th floor filled with screens and hardware. She stood at the door like before, but her eyes drifted absently from me to a window with a view of the animal enclosures outside, barely aware of my continued presence. I tapped the keyboard and activated the security computer, which wasn’t locked, but had a truly atrocious file structure, complete with inconsistent naming conventions, duplicate video files and misnamed folders. I clicked through half a dozen folders with the same name with an incremental number on the end before I found the file I was looking for, footage from last Sunday. I ran it, and skipped through to just before midnight. A few moments of stillness as the footage cycled through the various enclosures before the camera flickered, and there it was, just outside the lion enclosure. A shadow. It looked grainy, and the quality of the video dropped sharply as the figure stood there, looking down into the enclosure while the Lions twitched and groaned on their sleep. I ran the video on fast forward and it stood there for about 15 minutes the vague, blurry shape seeming to solidify into a shape that was almost a person and then the camera flickered and it was gone. Shit.¹⁶

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Kat’s Apartment - 4PM

I left the Zoo behind feeling unsettled. Mabel never snapped out of her daze, and I between the creepy music, and the even creepier shadow man on the camera, I suspected the Zoo was haunted. Or cursed or something horrifying that wasn’t my area of expertise. That wasn’t my current mission, but someone would need to doctor that footage, and deal with whatever that shadow was. I slipped open my burner and sent a coded message to Landry, and got a response almost immediately. Diner at 7AM, tomorrow morning. That left me the night to do a little bit of digging. I didn’t turn up much about the Zoo online, but I found the new director’s name, Lester Roth, the man Tabitha Abel didn’t trust, and he started about a week before her behavior started to trend towards the uncanny. It was a lead, if a dubious one. I didn’t even know where to start looking for information about this ‘Seir’ word. Searching for it online brought up a lot of biblical pages relating to angels and demons, which was odd. I had seen no indicator that Tabitha was a religious woman, so I noted that down too. None of this brought me closer to finding Tabitha, but if I could figure out what she was planning on Sunday, I might be have something to actually give Landry at the meeting in the morning. I sighed and grabbed my car keys before heading out again.

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Elliot Abel’s Residence, Just Outside Seattle - 6 PM

Tabitha Abel’s father was an old retiree that lived in a homestead just outside Seattle. I had seen little to indicate that they had been in communication, but Tabitha’s book gave me a headache, and my skills were with people, not dense esoterica, so I found his address through the usual channels and drove out of town to pay him a visit. The Abel residence was a large plot of land, but he shared a hedge on the far side with a neighbor. I had seen no other names during my brief research, so I assumed he lived alone, and there was only one car, and old truck, parked in the long driveway. I parked the Jetta off the road, covered slightly by low hanging branches and untamed hedges.¹⁷ The bushes behind me rustled and my hand went to my sidearm¹⁸. There was something there, just for a moment, but whatever it was, it was gone now. The house had looked pleasant enough driving in, but it seemed eerie now that I was on foot. I walked down the driveway towards the door. There was still plenty of daylight left, but the entry way to Eliot Abel’s house was strangely dark, the canopy of trees in his front yard casting shadows across the front of his house and two things stuck out to me. The first was the symbol carved into the front door of the house, visible even in the fading light. The lines of the shape were a series of soft, nonsensical curves, forming a shape that made my eyes twitch when I looked at directly. I tried to follow one of the lines to the center of the shape, but it effortlessly curled into one of the tendrils, curling outwards¹⁹. The other thing I noticed was the smell. The closer I got to the door, the stronger the smell. It smelled like blood. I glanced around the decking that led around the back of the house and sure enough, there it was. Dark, still wet blood, and a lot of it. It led further around the back of the house, but I turned on my heel and went back to the car²⁰. I thought about the horrifying creature in Clyde Baughman’s septic tank every night, and I would be damned if I was walking into another situation like that without the appropriate gear. I unlocked the trunk of my car and retrieved the Remington pump action shotgun and armored vest I had stashed there last month. The Remington was untraceable, with the serial number filed off one of many that had been seized in a raid at the end of June and I had acquired the Kevlar at my own expense from a known, slightly suspicious supplier out of state between cases. I paid for it out of pocket, but it was worth it. I grabbed some extra shells and locked the trunk. I couldn’t remember the goddamned cipher, and had left the key at home, so I kept the message to Landry brief before shutting my phone off and advancing on the house, scanning the surrounding shrubbery with the Remington raised. I followed the blood trail around to the rear door²¹. Another nauseating sign was carved into the door, a bloody handprint dragged across it. I avoided looking directly at it and checked the handle of the door. It was locked, of course. Whoever was bleeding was inside the house, and there was an eerie, uncomfortable feeling out here that had my hackles on end, so I knocked on the door.²²

“Hello?” I called out. “Is somebody hurt?”²³ My voice was loud in the muted silence of the yard, and I held still for a beat, straining my ears to hear inside the house. I nearly jumped as a long, plaintive whine echoed out, but not from the house. I spun, shotgun raised and scanned the yard, but the yard was still empty. I could feel eyes on me, and I scowled outwards, irritation bubbling against the stress. I circled the house again, looking for another way in, reasoning I could probably smash a window at a push²⁴, but I found a possible entry after a few minutes of scrutiny - a window above the awning was open wide enough that the interior curtains flapped limply in the light summer wind. I glanced around, making sure the coast was clear before reaching up and sliding the shotgun on to the roof with a push. I jumped up after it and grabbed the edge²⁵, hauling myself up as smoothly as possible with the bulky vest on. I scooped the shotgun up and ran to the window, glancing inside.²⁶ The attic was a fastidious clean, except for a large corkboard on the far wall. Even from here I could see the telltale newspaper clippings and red string of mind map, and an extensive one at that. The room was clear, however, so I lifted the window and climbed in, closing it behind me and snapping the curtains closed, although it did little to ease the tightness in my chest. I took a look at the corkboard, and was not surprised to see a number of Zoos brochures, animal sanctuary advertisements and newspaper clippings²⁷. I looked at some of the headlines, mostly relating to bouts of sickness, unexpected death of beloved exhibits and reports of “Strange” goings on. Most of the reports on the latter were from the same news outlet, The Washington Watch, a newspaper I wasn’t familiar with and made a mental note to check out, as their headlines featured a lot of words that I knew would raise a lot of red flags with Landry’s analyst’s. The cork board seemed to be tracing a series of incidents and suspicious circumstances at various animal exhibits throughout the pacific northwest, unexpected and unexplained illness abound in seemingly young and healthy animals, usually ending in death, or a slow and expensive recovery. The issues seemed to date back about a year, with 5 days to a week between on case ending and another beginning. I should have brought a camera. Instead I propped the shotgun against the wall and pulled out a small notebook from my inside pocket, jotting down a few of the more important dates and names, the ones that appeared multiple times, or seemed particularly suspicious. There were 6 different locations, 1 animal sanctuary and 5 more traditional zoos, not including Woodland here in Seattle. I wondered if I dug into it, I would find that each zoo had experienced something similar; unnatural phenomena, spaced out staff and perhaps a shadowy figure on the security footage. I pocketed the notebook and picked up the shotgun before heading to the stairs and crouching down at the top. There was nobody visible, but as I took my first step I heard it; a soft voice mumbling something, just beyond the edge of my hearing. I walked slowly down the stairs²⁸, wincing as they creaked below my boots. The voice stopped, and decided to abandon this approach. I doubled my pace, and raised the Remmington, checking each open door as I passed.²⁹ I found the source of the voice lying in a pool of their own blood on the sitting room floor. They were mumbling again, nonsense words and their eyes were glassy as the stared blankly at the far wall. Judging by his age, and the passing resemblance to Dr. Abel, I assumed this was her father, Elliot. His eyes passed over me, unseeing as he continued to mumble, a hand held to a wound on his side. I glanced around the room, my eyes flashing at a small, leather bound book, open with cramped, handwritten script filling the pages. It was a journal, if I had to guess, but I ignored it for now. I crouched down next to Elliot and looked to see if there's anything I could do³⁰. The wound was nasty, blood still pumping out between his fingers, and the extent of medical knowledge came from a first aid primer in the Quantico handbook. I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help but keep pressure on the wound and wait for an ambulance to arrive³¹. I snapped my fingers in front of Elliot’s face, and tried to ask him a few probing questions, the most pertinent being, what the hell happened?, but he was incoherent and barely conscious. I swore softly, pulled out my phone, and prepared to call Landry.

---

Calling your handler on a cell phone was not the best policy. While it was unlikely there was a direct tap on either of burner phones, you could never tell who was listening.³² It rang, and rang, and then it hissed static at me and the line went dead. I checked the screen. It was dead. Which shouldn’t be possible. It had been fully charged, with good bars outside when I had texted Landry. I scanned the room for a landline, and jogged over but the line was also dead. I swore, loudly and at length. I scooped up the journal lying on the kitchen counter and tucked into my pocket, giving a final check to my shotgun before checking the front door outside looked clear, so I I went over to Abel and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“I’m going to get you to a hospital, ok?” I said to him. He moaned. I had no idea if he heard me, but I hooked one of his arms over my shoulder and hauled him to his feet. I was hoping I would be able to drag him out with a hand still on my shotgun³³, but he was a dead weight, and let out a loud, echoing moan and I had to flop back to the ground with him for fear he would wrench open his wound. I propped the shotgun against the wall by the door and tried again, this time with both hands. He was still mostly dead weight, but he seemed to be getting the idea now that I was carrying him more, and we shuffled towards the door. I opened it, and saw my car at the end of the driveway, poorly parked and I cursed myself for an idiot.

“I’ll be right back.” I told the listless man. I snatched up the shotgun and jogged down to the car. I fumbled the keys, my fingers clumsy, and I had to stop and scoop them up before resuming my jog. The seconds stretched, as I turned on the car and threw it into reverse³⁴. My wingmirror had been nudged by my original poor job parking, and I had to do an awkward series of corrections as I backed the car up the drive way. I hauled myself out of the car in time hear Abel start to weep, and a moment later, I saw why. A figure was crouched on the awning of the house, huge, bestial and wholly unnatural. A ragged pair of bat like wings were furled behind its misshapen mass, and the fur that coated its skin was matted with filth and blood. An odd number of shambling, mismatched limbs clung to the roof leaving deep furrows as its claws gripped the thick oak. Its eyes, like last time, were the worse part. Large, dark orbs filed with malice sat above a slavering, blood covered snout. It let out a bestial roar, and I felt the pit drop out of my stomach as it leapt into the air towards me.³⁵

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Thanks for reading! Enjoying the story so far or have questions about the process? Let me know with a comment!

1. Most locations I use will be fictional, although it wouldn’t surprise me if there was an Olympic View Suburb out in Seattle, as there is here in Canada.

2. Oracle: Did she know who stole the dog? No.

3. Oracle: Are they Friends? 100 - Extreme No.

4. Skill Check: Persuade 64/71 Success.

5. Roll on Sounds Table - Music playing - Eerie. Is it coming from inside the office? Yes.

6. Roll on Smells Table - Garbage

7. Skill Check: Search, specifically for unnatural elements. 90/71. Failure.

8. Roll on Sights: Travel Brochures. Clock Start - 90

9. Clock - 91

10. Oracle - Anything of note in Email? Yes. Father? No. “Secret Danger”

11. Skill check - Persuade 88/74 critical fail. Roll Clock X2 - 93

12. Stat Check - CHA X 5 83/75 Fail. Clock - 95

13. Skill Check - Persuade at -20% = 21/51 - Success. Full Disclosure, I probably gave myself way to much leeway in this scene. The critical fail alone should have gotten her kicked out of the Zoo!

14. Oracle Question - Does Mabel notice this time? +20%. No. Is this unnatural? Yes

15. Sanity Roll. 58/60 0 Loss

16. Sanity Roll. 24/60

17. Sounds Table - Rustling Leaves

18. Skill Check - Alertness 12/71. Is there Something there? Yes. Prompt “Power curse”

19. Sanity - 68/60 -1 SAN

20. Clock - 77

21. Oracle: Is there a body? No. Another Sign? Yes.

22. Clock - 88

23. Sound - A plaintive whine. From inside? No.

24. Skill Check - Search 67/71

25. Skill Check - Athletics 37/54

26. Sights - Conspiracy Cork Board

27. Oracle - What is the connection? “Cosmic Danger”

28. Skill Check - Stealth 72/10 Failure

29. Oracle: Is Tabitha Here? No.

30. Skill Check - First Aid 42/10

31. Clock - 90

32. Oracle - Does he Answer - Critical No.

33. Skill Check STR X 5 - 70/50 - Clock 98

34. Skill Check - Drive - 74/50 - Clock 100 - The Creature has arrived.

35. Sanity - 23/59. 1 SAN loss.