Operation Lost Herald: Chapter Five

Feeling Dragged along by Fate 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.

Thumbnail Photo by Maria Pop: https://www.pexels.com/photo/dagger-with-a-blade-wrapped-in-red-silk-18821902/ - With Small edits

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A campfire, Leng - Sometime after Nightfall

The small log cabin was almost cute. It was jarring to go from the depths of an eldritch rainforest and then go knock on the door of a small, Pacific Northwest style loggers cabin, complete with large a stone fireplace and varnished walls, and yet, here I was. Bao threw Palmer unceremoniously on the bed, where she curled into a ball with a drowsy groan. He waved a hand, and the fireplace, as well as a number of candles in the room lit with unnatural synchronicity.

“Needless to say, if you fail, I will kill your friend.” He said amicably. “Your other friends and family will likely die in the ensuing apocalypse, but if any survive, I will find them, and I will cut out their hearts.”

“The threats aren’t necessary.” I said blandly. “Stopping an apocalypse is sufficient motivation, but thanks, I can tell you’re new at this and you're trying your hardest.”¹ He snorted a laugh, then seemed to catch himself and coughed awkwardly. This, more than anything else he had done, made gave me pause. He was almost human, albeit a cold and murderous one. But there was something in the stillness of his pose, and the dark, fathomless depths of his eyes that made me shudder. I almost asked him. What are you? But I stopped myself. What if he told me the truth? I didn’t want to know. He placed the ritual knife on the table in front of him, and gestured for me to take it.

“If guns can’t help me, what use is this?” I asked, holding it up and examining the blade. The point was sharp as a needle point, but the sides were blunted, and the blade was strangely angular, made up of several jagged, blunted edges.²

“It is used for rituals.” He said absently. He was staring fixedly at the far wall, his attention a palpable force in the air between us. “It is for extracting the heart of a victim. Stab it into his chest, and it will save you the mess of having to tear away flesh and bone.” I looked at the blade, and the nauseating angles of the cross guard. Looking directly at it was difficult, but I could make out a few unnatural lines of script carved into the handle. “Don’t look at it too much. You are still partially human, after all.” I tore my eyes away and stalked to the bed to kneel by by the bed.³ Palmer was awake, frozen in place and I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I need you to stay very calm” I said firmly. “Can you do that?” She nodded once, her eyes still wide. “I have to do something. Just a quick errand.” I was speaking to her like a child, and winced at the tone of my voice, but she nodded once again. “This man is extremely dangerous. Do not talk to him. Do not look at him. Wait for me to come back. Then we will go home, ok?”⁴

“Kat. I think I’ve fucked up pretty bad.” She said softly. No shit Palmer, you’re just realizing this now?

“We’ll work it out when I get back, ok?” I said, giving her a pat and a smile, aiming for reassurance, and likely missing the mark.

“There’s a lot I don’t remember.” She mumbled. “I think….I don’t think I’ve been fully myself. Not for a while. I’m scared to go back.”

“We’ll work it out when I get back, ok?” I said again. She nodded, but still seemed unconvinced.

“It’s time.” Bao said. I stood and walked towards him. He gestured at the far wall. I flinched a moment in surprise. The previously blank wall had been taken up by an incredibly lifelike mural. It depicted a large, stone interior with a tall ceiling, slabs of stone floated in the air, suspended by waves of golden wind. A figure stood in the middle, screaming. A white man in his middle ears with blonde hair and yellow light streaming from his eyes. Around the room, bodies lay slumped, and every bloody, sacrificial cut and wound was painted with excruciating detail.

“Do I just walk through?” I asked tightly. “That didn’t end so well for me last time.” He chuckled again, which was far from reassuring.

“Do not worry.” He said calmly. “Do you see there, on the far wall?” He pointed, and I had to squint to see what he was gesturing towards. There, in miniscule detail on one of the far bricks, was a tiny fire. I stepped closer. It was a mural, within a mural. A tiny, picturesque copy of the interior of the log cabin was there, with miniscule, stick figure humans. “That will stay open for an hour, then cease to exist. I suggest you hurry.” He said. I nodded, braced myself and then, without looking back, stepped forward.⁵

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Upstate New York. Time before Portal closes - 59:59 Minutes

Traveling through a painting on the wall was just as disconcerting the second time, for all that I had walked through it, rather than being shoved.⁶ The humid jungle air was suddenly replaced by a cool breeze that thrummed with energy. The scene before me was identical to the frieze on the wall⁷ down to the gusts of gold flecked wind that suspended the various pieces of debris around the room. I saw my target up ahead, a man of medium height that clutched his head, a silent scream of anguish on his lips as the golden energy surged around him and there was an acrid, herbal smell on the breeze, almost like meditative incense, but subtly wrong. I focused on my target and braced the knife in my hand.⁸ Unlike the portrait, the large stone slabs moved with an easy grace, orbiting around the figure in the center of the room like a miniature solar system.⁹ I ducked under the nearest slab, and broke into a sprint.¹⁰ I just had time to think hey, this might be easier than I thought when his eyes opened, revealing a golden, reptilian iris and then I felt a jerk in my stomach. I blinked, and found myself back at the entry to the room, stone slabs still swirling almost lazily through the air as the cultist let out a pained screech.¹¹ I almost laughed, because of course. Nothing is ever simple.

55 Minutes remaining

I rocked back on my heels and tried to take stock.¹² There were 5 slabs of stone, of various sizes, the largest the size of a hatchback and the smallest, the one furthest out, was about the size of an office chair. They weren’t hard to dodge¹³ and all moved at the same lumbering pace around him, which meant I could run in at an angle at a dead sprint and get to him, but what then? Did he need to see me to send me back, or was it instinctual? I would have to try again to find out. I ran at him again, from the front and found myself back at square one. Ok, so that wasn’t going to work. Could he do it repeatedly? I was in good shape and it was less than a 50 meter sprint at most, I could keep it up for a dozen or so laps.¹⁴ I ran hard, over and over again, starting to run as soon as my feet hit the ground at the start. I was breathing hard on that 10th sprint when he let out another scream.¹⁵ I shot back, but instantly knew it was different. I was sure he hadn’t been able to send me back as far, and I grinned at the progress before realizing I was in the path of the smallest rock.¹⁶ I tried to duck out of the way, but if hit me in the chest, bouncing off me at an awkward angle. I was lucky it was one of the smaller ones, but I was sure that shit was going to bruise.¹⁷

45 Minutes remaining

I walked the perimeter, trying to account for the new path of one of the stone slabs, but a few things happened at once, or at least, sequentially. First, Leroy screamed again. He had been moaning and letting out the odd, pained screech since I arrived, but this was different. It was angry. The smell of herbs and ammonia around me intensified, and the stone blocks began to quiver, their orbital patterns becoming erratic to match the once that had bounced off course. Lastly, and most dangerously, a block came careening directly at me.¹⁸ I scrambled, but it clipped me, nearly knocking me off my feet as I swore and righted myself before thinking fuck it all and breaking into a run.¹⁹ I didn’t know the paths of the slabs this time, their orbits having shifted, but I sprinted at an angle as best I could to avoid the incoming blocks.²⁰ His eye flashed towards me, reptilian gold,²¹ and I was back a handful of paces. Not the first spot, but further back than the second, so I fell into a crouch and observed for a moment to get my bearings. I could brute force it, edge closer and closer, and hope that eventually, he would get tired before me, but I had already been hit twice by these rocks, and if this swat armor hadn’t been top quality, I knew I would already have broken bones.²² I ran desperately to the side, trying to circle around as close to the stone slab’s orbit as I could.²³ He didn’t turn with me, so I trialed around the back as well as I could, stepping in time with a slab large enough to cover my body so that I could try the stealth approach.²⁴ I burst from cover and stayed low as I sprinted towards his exposed back, and I saw the muscles in his neck twitch just as I plunged the tip of the blade into his back.²⁵ It sank through flesh completely up to the hilt completely unopposed, as though I had stabbed thin air, and my momentum knocked us both flat. I pulled the blade back, and felt a wrench in my gut as reality warped around me.²⁶ I felt the floor shift under my knees, finding myself back at the entryway of the room watching the rocks circle, still buoyed on golden wind. Leroy’s form was still slumped where I had left it, unmoving. I looked at the blade in my hand. A heart was skewered on the blade, the tip having ruptured it perfectly and a single stream of blood trickled down the blade onto my hand.²⁷ I looked at my prize for a long breath, as it slid down the blade, but it was limp, deflating slightly as the muscles relaxed. Carefully I removed it, and held it in the palm of my hand. It was still warm and flecked almost imperceptibly with gold, and it felt much heavier than it should. I glanced at the form of Leroy, who had to be dead, given that I held his heart literally in my hand. Yet the slabs still moved, and shrouding his body, almost like a flickering patch of unreality, I could see a golden cloud, a serpentine form pulsing and writhing within it, almost like it was waiting.

Your hunger is a weapon

My stomach felt like a yawning abyss, my throat was scratchy, as though I hadn’t had a drop of water for days and I was so, fucking, hungry. There was another bolt of golden lightning, not close to me, but enough of a reminder that I was still in danger and I comforted myself with that as I sank my teeth into the flesh and muscle of Leroy Wilbur’s heart.

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I dated three guys back in college. This was the sum total of my emotional and sexual experience, the FBI rating high in the top ten least sexual career choices available to a US citizen.²⁸ Two of the guys were your run of the mill shitty boyfriends, the kind of guy that thinks a massage and heavy breathing are the cornerstones of foreplay and forgets your birthday, but my third partner, who shall forever go unnamed, was different. I had never felt more full as a person than the three months we dated, both on a psychological and physical level. I don’t think about any of that much anymore, for obvious reasons, and I only bring it up because the entirety of that three month relationship was a shadow of how I felt as I ate that heart, warm blood pumping down my chin as I tore into every tendon, muscle and piece of flesh. I felt powerful, righteous and so utterly right in that moment that it scares the shit out of me.²⁹ I felt more myself afterwards than I had felt in months. Maybe even years. With every rend and tear of my teeth, the slabs around me quivered, slowing down until finally, they stopped, falling listlessly to the ground as the golden wind that blew through that charnel house died out. The only smell in the room was of blood, old and already stale. I breathed a sigh of contentment, and then turned on my heel and walked towards the wall. There was the mural, as it had been in the painting, depicting the inside of a dark log cabin, lit by a still campfire and candles. Two figures, cloaked in shadows, stood on the periphery, and I stepped through without looking back.³⁰

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The Plateau of Leng, Time unknown

I can’t help but wonder how I looked, stepping back into reality in the Plataeu of Leng with my mission complete. I felt alive, revitalized, like I had just had the best night’s sleep of my life. Blood still dripped down my chin, and it had splashed over the front of my flak vest. Palmer looked at me with a tangled mixture of shock, horror and something else.³¹ Something I couldn’t quite place. Bao just looked disinterested. He clapped his hands twice, causing the flames of the candles around him to flicker, before speaking.

“You made good time.” He observed. I gave him a toothy smile, which he returned. I wondered if mine looked as cold and inhumane as his.

“I held up my end.” I said, my voice cold. I felt different than the last time I was here. When I had left, Bao had almost seemed human, like I could trust that he would hold up his end of the bargain. Now, I wasn’t so sure. The candlelight that flickered showed a shadow that flickered and whirled, it’s shape in constant flux, and the dark pits of his eyes held a calculating edge.³² He held out his hand, palm up, that cold smile still on his face.

“My knife.” he said, a demand, not a question. I held it up, my eyes tracing the line from its tip to his heart and briefly wondered what the Tcho-Tcho’s heart would taste like. I felt full now, so it was more of an idle curiosity than the burning need that had smoldered within me earlier, but my thoughts must have shown on my face, for the Tcho-Tcho’s smile turned downright unpleasant as he chuckled. “As much as it would please me to watch you try, and fail, to claim my heart with my own blade, I would rather fulfil my obligation and put this whole bordel behind us.”³³ He flexed his fingers, and for a split second, his open palm was replaced by long tendrils of serrated shadow, sharp and deadly and undulating in sharp, sinuous movements. As quickly as it appeared, it was gone.³⁴ I heard Palmer swear softly behind me and shrugged my shoulders. The threat was clear. I sank the tip of the blade into the wood of the table between us.

“Useful toy.” I said, feeling a slight sense of loss as I gave it away. The things I could do with it….. Best not to dwell on it, I suppose. “Now take us home.”

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This was an experimental chapter, both narratively and mechanically. I wanted to simulate a ‘challenge’ that wasn’t a fight, but still used skills, rather than a puzzle. I think it worked well, but mostly because she passed all her skills but two (the two that caused direct damage, obviously). She would have survived without her armor, but she would be in very poor condition, but I reasoned that the really good modern body armor has shock absorption and ways to mitigate brute force damage. The character stuff is moving along, she’s staving off that second breaking point surprisingly well, I would have thought she hit by now, but she is plodding a long nicely! What do you think? Let me know in a comment or a message and as always, thanks for reading!

1. Oracle: Is he amused? 50/50 06 Extreme yes

2. Oracle: Does it do what I think it does? Likely- 14 Yes.

3. Oracle: Palmer awake? 50/50 12 - yes

4. Oracle: Is it ok? 50/50 69 yes

5. End scene. Chaos Factor 6. Test Scene - 8 Scene as expected

6. Oracle: SAN required? Unlikely - 94 Extreme no (Now that I am more experienced, this should definitely have been a san test with 0/1 from the unnatural, at least.)

7. Oracle: Including golden winds? 50/50 52 Yes Scent? 50/50 42 Yes. Funky Moss

8. Oracle: Is there anything in the way? 50/50 08 Extreme yes

9. Skill: Athletics - 21/71

10. Not that simple? Shot backwards? Almost Certain 48 Yes.

11. Sanity(Unnatural) - 26/45

12. Oracle: are there 5 Rocks? 50/50 52 Yes.

13. Oracle: All moving at the same speed? 50/50 07 Extreme yes

14. Skill: Athletics - 43/71 Does he get tired? 50/50 47 Yes.

15. Oracle: Sending me less far back? Likely - 40 Yes. In the way of a rock? Unlikely - 44 Yes random event.

16. Dodge: 58/35 - Fail. Oracle: Continue on path? 50/50 100 Extreme No. Does it do d6 damage? Yes. 5 DMG (Armor absorbed it, for this size.)

17. Random Event PC Negative - Reward Fear.

18. Oracle: are they easier to dodge the bigger they are? Unlikely - 18 Yes. Size? roll d4=1 Next smallest. Dodge 71/42 DMG 3 (Armor still effective at this size.)

19. Skill: Athletics 50/71

20. Oracle: See me? Likely - 50/50 49 Yes

21. Oracle: Send me all the way back? 50/50 65 Yes.

22. Oracle: 40 feet away? 27 Yes. (More than 1 combat turn, FYI)

23. Oracle: Does he remain still? 50/50 53 Yes. Time for a risky move

24. Skill: Stealth: 11/29 Holy shit, critical hit

25. Skill: Melee Weapons(+20% From Stealth attack) 09/55 Oracle: Take heart instantly? 50/50 14 Yes.

26. Oracle: Knocked me back? 50/50 51 Yes.

27. Sanity(Unnatural) - 42/42 - 0 Sanity Loss

28. The sexual energy of Moulder and Scully is an outlier and should not be counted

29. Sanity(Unnatural) 39/42 (Why are you so ok with all this Kat????) Oracle: Sanity regain for killing hyperdimensional being? Unlikely - 18 - Yes. d4=2

30. End scene. Chaos factor 5. Test Scene - 6 Scene as expected.

31. Oracle: Disappointment? 87 - no.

32. Oracle: Does he ask for the knife back? 50/50 54 Yes (damn, I really want this knife haha)

33. I’ve been told that this is French slang for a shitshow or a cluster fuck.

34. Sanity(Unnatural) 01/44 damn with a roll like that I won’t even roll for Palmer.