Operation Kerebos: Chapter Six

Finding A New Lead in the Delta Green RPG using Mythic 2E

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.

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Knight’s Lake, 3PM

There wasn’t much I could about the monster living in the lake, not by myself at least¹. Knight’s Lake was huge, and I didn’t have much of use apart from some camping supplies and a bolt action rifle that was likely older than I was. I gave the shore a wide berth as I scanned around for any sign of the other two². Two a pairs of fresh boot prints led, inevitably, back towards the shore. The lake’s smooth and peaceful surface roiled and there was a splash that rippled out, not to far from the edge³. I couldn’t see anyone beneath the water, despite how clear it was⁴, but Tracy’s pistol and Sherriff Bosworth’s hat were abandoned on the craggy rocks further up the shore. I knelt near the water and glared in, looking for any sign of movement⁵, but I couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Tracy! Sherriff!” I called out, my voice echoing off the water⁶. Shadows moved close to the surface and I placed my gun down to crouch closer to the water. Was that a hand? I reached for it, and the shadows below the water moved with a frenzies, jerky motion.

“Quickly!” I yelled, leaning further forward. I doubted anyone under the water could hear more than a muffled exclamation⁷. The hand didn’t break the water so I overextended and plunged my hand in. It was icy cold, far, far colder than it should have been, but my hand gripped a wrist that was slender and distinctly human, although it was slick with lake water⁸. I braced myself and hauled, slapping my other hand around their wrist and dragging Tracy from the water, coughing and spluttering as she collapsed onto me, soaking me in the process as she bore us both to the ground⁹. I rolled her over and she looked around, wild eyed. I hauled her to her feet and she snatched up the pistol, her eyes roving the tree line¹⁰.

“Tracy, come on, lets get away from the water.” I said soothingly, and she allowed herself to be led. She seemed shaken, but more angry than anything. Once we settled into the house, I tracked down a couple of towels so that we could dry off. The evidence bag with the hair in it was soaked, and a tiny, almost imperceptible puncture was visible in the top. The sample was still viable, only a small bit of lake water got in, but it was compromised. If we were tracking this case by the book, this could be a deal breaker. Fortunately this had already gone to shit, so I’m sure it would be fine.

“What happened?” I asked Tracy¹¹.

“That fucking Sheriff.” She spat¹². “He told me he saw something outside, and ran out, standing by the lake. I went with him, but the moment I drew level with him, he grabbed me and shoved me into the water. I was ready to drag myself out and give him a piece of my mind, but something got a hold of me.” She held up her arms, and rolled back her sleeves. Red marks, already starting to bruise, were wrapped around her wrists and forearms. Tracy paled when she saw them, and leant back in her chair.

“I thought I was a goner.” She said faintly.

“Why did he do it?” I asked. She shrugged.

“Its weird. He said he was sorry. I know him a little better than the other townsfolk, he checks in with us on anything relating to the park and he wasn’t acting much different from usual, if that makes sense. More stressed out, I guess? I thought he was having a panic attack when he ran outside.”

“Do you think he killed Daniel? Or that man we found?” She shrugged again.

“Maybe? I don’t know. He loves this town, and the people in it so I really can’t imagine him killing anybody, unless he felt he had too.”

“What about the thing that grabbed you? Did you get a good look at it?” I asked¹³.

“A little bit. It’s dark under the water. If I didn’t know it was impossible for a squid to survive in freshwater, I would have assumed it was just a pissed off octopod. It was all tentacles¹⁴, but it didn’t seem very strong.” She said. “I nearly got out of the water a few times, but it just had so many arms, and it’s heavy. Heavy than it should be.”

“Do you think we could fish it out and shoot it?” I asked.

“That’s sounds like a terrible idea.” Tracy said bluntly.

“I know.” I said with a sigh. “I would rather blow it up, but I have no idea where we would get depth charges out here.”

“The Sheriff might now.” Tracy said acidly, glaring out of the door with her arms folded.

“He certainly knows something.” I said. I dialed Palmer while Tracy tried to scavenge another change of clothes.

“You are going to have to give me longer than this if you want me to find anything.” Palmer’s usually absent voice had an edge to it as she answered.

“I know, it’s not about that.” I gave Palmer another brief update, and she agreed to look into the Sherriff while he tried to track him down.

“Montford is getting antsy.” She said quietly, once I had finished. “He’s thinking if we know the boy is coming back, we should just torch the body now and come to you.” She sounded slightly sick, and I hesitated. An extra gun would be useful, but Palmer’s research was more important.

“Can you find what you need from the Medical Examiner’s?” I asked¹⁵

“I can. Probably.” Palmer said.

“Then focus on that. We need more information. We’ll try to track down the Sherriff and get him to talk, then we can regroup. At the very least we need to kill this fucking thing in the lake.”

---

Tracy was ready to head out a few minutes later, an equally crumpled uniform scavenged from a trunk in the attic and her rifle held in white knuckled grip. She paused by the door, her head tilted to the side.

“Do you hear that?” She asked. After a moment I heard it too. A dog's bark, followed briefly by a familiar voice, yelling in pain. We shared a look, then broke into a run along the shoreline. I realized belatedly that the dogs we had encountered, the creepy, murderous ones with goat legs, had never made any noise, let alone the yapping, growling bark that currently echoed through the forest. The Sheriff was easy to find, having scrambled up a tree as a medium sized dog, maybe a Border Collie, barked up at him, throwing in the odd growl for good measure. The dog stopped barking when we arrived and gave a final, low timbred growl, before trotting over to heel in front of me. It tilted its head at me, and I looked into its eyes¹⁶. It looked healthy enough, with a glossy coat, bright eyes and a neon pink collar, but there didn’t seem to be a name tag or any kind of identifier.

“Keep your gun on him.” I told Tracy as I knelt by the dog. The collar was plain but well made, and her tongue lolled out as I placed my hand at her neck to check underneath it of any identifying information. Her tail wagged and she let out a pleased bark as I ruffled her fur. She seemed docile, although her eyes were a deep shade of yellow that I hadn’t seen before. She sat placidly at my feet as I stood, and joined Tracy in glaring up at the Sherriff.

“Get down from there.” I said. I put as much authority into my voice as I could muster, but I didn’t point my rifle at him, despite how tempting it was¹⁷. The Sheriff looked at me with wild eyes before nodding stiffly and dropping down heavily into the brush. He glanced at Tracy, who kept her rifle unerringly on him as he moved towards us.

“The FBI suspects that we could solve a lot of missing persons cases if we started digging up National Parks.” I said idly. He flinched slightly. Good.

“I suggest you loosen up, Sheriff. I’m running out of patience. I have played nice, I have followed the guidelines for liaising with out state side LEOs¹⁸. We come into most situations expecting a little hostility, but this is getting ridiculous.” I racked the bolt of my rifle, largely for effect, and narrowed my eyes. “Start talking, or we’ll dump your corpse in the river.” I hissed. His eyes glanced from me to Tracy and he flushed¹⁹.

“I’m sorry.” he said to her, his voice tight.

“Not accepted.” Tracy growled. The dog at my heels began to snarl, but I placed a hand on her head, and she stopped, her tail thumping on the ground. Strange little dog.

“Did you kill Daniel Martinez?” I asked. He flinched, bigger this time.

“What?” He stammered “No! No, I’m not a murderer!”

“But you know who did?”²⁰ I said impatiently.

“I think so.” He said after a long pause.

“I’m not getting any younger or patient, Johnathon.” I said through gritted teeth.

“It’s the Committee.” He said softly, his eyes looking around the forest, as though the murderer might jump from the bushes. “They didn’t used to be like this.” He insisted. “They used to just be one of those private, secretive groups, you know?” He said, almost like he was pleading. The competent and concerned Sherriff I had encountered yesterday was gone, replaced by an extremely paranoid and fearful man who looked like he was only one step away from breaking down completely.

“Enlighten me.” He said.

“The Summercrest Heritage Committee.” he said “My father was a member, before he died. It’s kind of like a town council? Everyone knows they run the place. They chose the Mayor, arranged my position, choose which projects get funding, everything.”

“And all it costs is what, one innocent life during a blood moon?” I asked sarcastically.

“No! Look, I know it isn't the way things usually done, but it was all in good faith. It was all mostly administrative. But it all changed when he came back to town last year.”

“He?” I said, feigning boredom. Finally, we were getting somewhere.

“Aaron Foster. His family built this town back in the colonial days. He’s been away for a long time. When he came back, things changed. The Committee had been pretty open before, if you wanted something done, you went to see them at their meetings, it was literally the worst kept secret in Summercrest, but then suddenly, everything was hush hush. No more meetings. They even stopped the newsletter.” The man was trembling, which was good. If he wasn’t afraid, I would have to spell out why he should be, and that would take time, and I was already sick of this town.

“It was just a few of the local troublemakers that went missing first.” He said limply. “The drug addicts and homeless that camped out on the edge of town. Suddenly, they were gone. A few concerned citizens asked us to investigate, and I did. But Aaron came to visit me not long after we started poking around. I don’t remember exactly what he said.” He frowned, as though he should remember, but shook his head briefly and continued. “We stopped investigating afterwards. The town looked cleaner…” he trails off, as though realizing what he had said. A look of confusion mingled with guilt and horror flashed across his face.

“You can process your emotions on your own time.” I said dispassionately. I suspected Aaron Foster was someone similar to Lester Roth, our mind clouding shadow man from my last mission, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe John Bosworth was a sociopath, or an excellent actor. Time would tell. “Why did Aaron take Daniel Martinez?” I asked sharply.

“He didn’t! Or at least, I didn’t think that he had. The Committee knows everything, so I asked him about it the day the boy was missing. I drove up to the Foster estate outside town. He told me the boy had probably wandered off and to search the roads going out of town!”

“The opposite direction to the National Park.” I said, my mouth twisting.

“We believed him.” He said glumly. “But when we found Daniel by the lake….”

“Things clicked into place?” I offered. He fell into a glum silence before nodding once.

“I’ve been having nightmares.” He whispered after a long pause. “About the lake. About drowning, and a darkness that whispers to me.” I shared a glance with Tracy. She shrugged slightly, but her anger seemed to have faded into a tense fear. I needed to reel this in.

“Guilt has a funny way of doing that.” I said. “Reminding you, even when you convince yourself otherwise, that you’ve helped someone evil walk all over you.”²¹ This time he didn’t flinch, but tears ran down his face and he collapsed to his knees. He started apologizing again, but I hauled him to his feet. “You want to make this right, Sheriff?” I whispered, injecting as much menace into my words as possible. “You are going to have to play this my way, do you understand?”²²

---

Knight’s Lake, 5PM

The Sheriff was silent on the short walk back to the Ranger Station. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but the dog also slipped away, hopefully back to her owner, but I didn’t have time to chase her down. I needed to call the others as quickly as possible. We had an address, The Foster Estate, and a target²³. It was on the other side of town, on the road to Spokane, so we could meet on the road. I was planning to make one final call to Landry, to see if this was a capture or kill mission, but I didn’t have a lot faith he would answer. As we walked along the shore, the Sheriff started murmuring to himself and fidgeting, his pace slowing until he stopped. I glanced back at him irritably, but he had his head bowed and his eyes were wide and glassy. I took a step towards him, but he didn’t notice as he continued to stare at his hands, muttering the word ‘no’ over and over.

“I think we broke him.” Tracy said, her glib tone at odds with the worried set of her brow.

“Not us.” I said²⁴. I glanced to the water, which was perfectly still and pristine. We were nearly at the Ranger station, and we had skirted closer to the edge of the lake than I would have liked, but time was of the essence. Bosworth had started trembling now, and he clutched his head, his murmurs getting louder, until he was yelling ‘No’ at the top of his voice. The surface of the water rippled²⁵, and I swore loudly as Tracy raised her rifle towards the lake. I stepped towards the Sherriff, ready to shake him or give him a few slaps to try and bring him to his senses, but the moment I gripped his shoulder, a creature burst from the water. The childlike drawing in the vision was eerily accurate to its form, 8 tendrils that connected to a featureless, sponge like mass off flesh.²⁶ Against all logical physics, the tendrils bucked and waved, and it moved through the air as smooth as if it was still in the water²⁷. It surged towards us, spinning like a top with its tendrils extended and I swore I could see something, almost like the shadow of a face in the fleshy mass²⁸. It looked almost comical, like bad special effects in a straight to VHS movie, but it was real, and judging by the way the Sherriff was screaming, it was not happy²⁹. It swam through the air and reached for the Sherriff as the man screamed in fear. I was so close to it, I almost didn’t have time to raise the rifle, but I fired from the hip as it advanced³⁰, and the bullet sank deep into the rubbery flesh³¹. Tracy cracked off a shot from behind me, blasting away a featureless chunk of its skin and causing its advance to falter slightly³². She screamed as she fired, a panicked, echoing scream of pure terror as her hand scrambled at the bolt action³³. The sheriff continued to scream, his firearm left unused in the holster at his hip as the creature descended upon him. One tentacle looped around his wrist, and the screams intensified as he flailed around, wrenching his arm free and desperately backpedaling towards the forest³⁴. I really didn’t want to wade in and smack the thing around with nothing but my gun butt and a rising tide of panic, so I took a moment to aim for the center of its bulk and squeezed the trigger again, hoping I wouldn’t hit the Sherriff³⁵. I hit it squarely in what I assumed to be its back, but apart from removing another chunk of flesh, I couldn’t tell if we were doing anything. My ears rang as Tracy yelled next to me, firing her own gun wildly³⁶, but the bullet went wide.³⁷ Sheriff Bosworth stopped screaming, slumping to the ground with a dazed look on his face as the creature scooped him up in its tentacles. eIt began to drag the unresisting Sherriff towards the waterline³⁸ and it was so tangled up in the sheriff that even at this range, I couldn’t risk a shot. I swore as I slung the rifle onto my back and advanced. I didn’t want to touch the thing with my bare hands, but I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s flesh was simultaneously spongey and plaint, but slick with something other than river water, and I grimaced in disgust as I grabbed at the tendrils³⁹ and wrenched it off the Sherriff slamming it to the ground while its limbs flailed and writhed around me.

“Tracy! Help me for fucks sake!” I yelled as the thing struggled and flopped in my grip. I pinned another limb with a boot, but I could feel something at the edge of my mind, like a headache just about to blow into a full migraine⁴⁰. It felt like time stood still for a moment before I heard Tracy rack back the bolt of her rifle and scream again. I glanced up as the muzzle flashed and I felt an impact along my torso and face. I nearly fell backwards in shock, but when I glanced down, I almost collapsed in relief. Her aim, or her luck, had stayed true. My body was covered in viscera, and the tentacles in my hands had gone limp. The large furrows and chunks of missing flesh made by the high caliber bullets had made a mess of the things center mass, leaving a limp and pulpy mess and the growing pain in my head had started to fade. Tracy had slumped to the ground and was in the process of curling in on herself, her rifle forgotten on the floor and I glanced behind me to see an equally catatonic Sheriff. I sat back on my haunches, breathing out slowly and steadily as the adrenaline continued to pound in my ears. I wanted to lie down. My body ached. It was hard to believe I had only arrived in this stupid, shitty town a day ago. I took a deep breath and let out a single, rage fueled scream before hauling myself to my feet and brushing myself off. Time to get back to work⁴¹.

---

That was a little hectic. Say one thing for Katherine Jones; she’s a good shot! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next time!

1. Oracle: Is the Lake Large? 50/50 21 - Yes.

2. Oracle: Are there any easy to follow signs? Unlikely 21 - Yes. Sounds? 50/50 48 Yes ‘Rumbling Water’

3. Oracle: Can I see Tracy? 50/50 70 - No.

4. Oracle: Any sign of Tracy or the Sherriff’s stuff near the water? Likely 20 - Yes.

5. Skill: Alertness - 78/76

6. Oracle: Response from water. Likely 51 - Yes.

7. Skill: Athletics - 48/55

8. Skill: Strength X 5 - 01. Critical Success. Oracle: Is it Tracy? Likely 15 - Yes

9. Oracle: Does something try to her pull her back down? 50/50 66 - No. Random Event. Move away from Thread - Hair at crime scene

10. Oracle: Did Tracy go Temporarily Insane from Sanity Damage? 94 - Extreme No.

11. Oracle: Did the Sheriff push her? Almost certain 22 - Random Event: Move away from thread - Solve DM murder. ‘Change Friend’

12. Oracle: Did the Sheriff seem spacey/controlled? 50/50 75 - No.

13. Oracle: Did she? Unlikely 28 - Yes

14. Oracle: Was it stronger than her? 50/50 83 - No.

15. Oracle: Can Palmer find what she needs from the MI office? Likely 22 - Yes. Random Event. PC Positive - ‘Lure Animal’

16. Oracle: Does it look tame? 50/50 13 - yes

17. Skill: Persuade - 75/91

18. LEO = Law Enforcement Officer. Government organizations love acronyms

19. Oracle: Does he just answer the questions? Likely 6 - Extreme yes.

20. Oracle: Does he know who Killed Daniel? 50/50 53 - Yes.

21. There should be a gaslighting skill for agents.

22. End Scene - Chaos Factor 5. Test Scene - 4 - Interrupt Scene - Close Thread - Source of Animals.

23. Oracle: Is the address close to park? Likely 75 - No.

24. Skill: Alertness - 54/79

25. Tracy Skill: Alertness - 5/20

26. Oracle: Non-terene? 50/50 41 - Yes (This is a skill certain creatures in Delta Green have.)

27. Oracle: Is it going towards Sheriff? Likely 60 - Yes

28. Sanity: 41/49. -1 Sanity. Projected onto Bond with Mother.

29. Oracle: Is it faster than me? 50/50 24 -Yes. Is the Sherriff in the fight? Very Unlikely - 2 Yes. Is he Insane? Yes.

30. Firearms - 67/76 12+2 DMG (Heavy Rifle)

31. Oracle: Does it take full damage? Likely - 2 - Extreme yes (No armor). Tracy Firearm: 31/60 7 DMG

32. Oracle: Did Tracy go Temp Insane? Very Unlikely 12 - Yes.

33. Sherriff Vs Monster Contested POW - Both fail.

34. Skill: Firearms (Called shot and Close Range) 68/76 11+2

35. Oracle: Does this kill it? 50/50 62 - No.

36. Tracy Firearms (Called Shot and Close Range) 56/40 Miss

37. Sherriff Vs Monster Contested POW - Monster Critical Successes.

38. Sanity (Unnatural) 25/49

39. Opposed Roll: Kat Unarmed 23/61 VS Monster 94/??

40. Oracle: Does Tracy join me in melee? 50/50 88 - No. Does she shoot? 50/50 -34 -Yes - Tracy Firearms: 32/40 - 10 DMG. (If she had missed, I would have rolled luck to see if she hit Kat.)

41. End Scene. Chaos Factor 6. Test Scene: 8. Scene as expected.