Operation Winter Strain: Chapter Twelve
Tying up loose threads 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 Jani Kantokoski: https://www.pexels.com/photo/house-on-fire-25490565/
The Church of the Five Days Dead - 1PM
I grabbed my MP5 and handed the carbine over to Jasper, and then we headed into the back room together.1 I didn’t think we would actually need them, but I wasn’t fucking around with anything in this operation, not anymore. The door opened to a short hallway with a single, sparse bedroom at the rear.2 The bedroom was spartan, a small pallet that had clearly not been slept in for some time, as well as a few hidebound journals. A quick glance over them revealed that the three bound together in what I hoped was twine were stamped with the black oil drop of the Order of Midnight. While likely as unpleasant as the other journals I had recovered from the other two cultists, It was hard not to wonder about the potential the use of them, especially as I seemed to be running into the fuckers at every turn. I picked it up flipped it open, earning a cocked eyebrow from Jasper.
“What?” I said. “You think we should burn it?” He shrugged.
“I honestly don’t know.” He said, flipping the page on the other book, a more standard looking hardback notebook from Barnes and Noble. “What are the chances it has something actually useful, and isn’t just a big litany of horrors committed by a fucked up, long lived monster?”
“Fair point.” I looked at the front page of the first one, which read. The Journal of Karl Lieberman, 1935. “At the very least, It seems to confirm the theory that this Karl, is the same Karl from Joe’s research.”
“Good to know, but it kind of underlines my point.” He said. I tucked the book into a small messenger back before looking past Jasper at the other book. A familiar, tight cramped hand had filled the notebook with pages and pages of script, each dated a few days apart.
“Walter Simms's?” I asked. Jasper nodded.
“Look. Last entry was a few days ago, just after we arrived in town.” I craned my neck to skim the last entry.3
“Looks like he was trying to get out of dodge.” I said with a frown. I looked over a bit more of the journal, flipping through the dry pages quickly. “He still sounds insane, but I don’t think he was a fan of the transformation of Karl from a charismatic leader to comatose flying monstrosity. Maybe it was a bridge too far.”
“At least one of these lunatics has a little bit of common sense. Still. I doubt he’s still in Arizona, let alone Sagebrush.”4 I glanced around the room. Apart from the books there was little else of note. I almost missed it, but as we made to leave, I saw something just behind the door. It was a small potted plant. A mushroom. It glowed blue in the dim light, and seemed to move on its own accord, bobbing in time with its own, silent pulse. On a small, hand scrawled note on the pot was the word “Oklahoma, 2003.” I picked it up tentatively, keeping it as far away from my body as possible, and we placed it delicately on the pile of things to be burned.
“You think that’s the original sample?” Jasper asked.
“Probably.” I said. “It smells stronger than the rest of it.” I said wrinkling my nose.
“We best get to it then.”5
We had moved the car a little closer to the area we wanted to take the most damage, the far wall. We had belatedly realized that we were destroying the car we had arrived in, but we found Vince’s car parked where he had left it the night before.6 The door was locked, but it was an old car, and I’m sure we could jimmy it open with a bit of time and elbow grease. I loaded a booze soaked rag into the gas cap of the removals van , and then we hurled the last of the Molotov’s down on the far wall, throwing all six bottles in rapid succession. The mushrooms went up in a gout of flame, and we ran as fast as we could for cover before the car exploded, knocking down the far wall and doing enough damage to the 2 walls connected to it that the whole building crumbled as we watched. The gasoline and alcohol helped the fire to spread, but I suspected it was the mushrooms that caused it to burn so brightly. We both shared a look and a deep, mold free breath through our noses and I relaxed slightly but the moment of peaceful reverie was interrupted by the squeal of breaks and the revving of engines.7 We tried to run for cover, but we were on the far side of the dune, and the cars came up so quickly that we were wrong footed.8 Fortunately we were off road, so we ducked down, trying to keep out of sight because I recognized these damn cars.9 All 3 vehicles had been parked outside the church yesterday, and they tore past us and parked in front of the still flaming ruins of the church. Doors opened, and a troop of vagrants got out of the car, each keening in a wail of grief and palpable pain. They looked over at us as one, all seeming to register our presense, but they didn’t make a move. There were 6 of them, all equally filthy and wide eyed.10 They took one look at us, and then as one, returned their gaze to the burning church. I raised my MP5 and aimed at them, but they made no move to attack us. Jasper had risen his rifle, but he hesitated. I didn’t.11
Whatever was in the vagrant's bodies that made them subservient to a horrifying, ancient monster also made them very flammable, as they went up in flames as easy as the mushroom men. Jasper’s eyes were distant while he helped me hurl them bodily into the fire from the outside, but they would catch as soon as they got close, and flash burn to ashes while we retrieved another corpse for the pyre. I thought we were going to have to siphon some of the gas from one of the cars, but the fire was still roaring when we dumped the last body in the fire.
“I really hoped I would never have to do anything like that again.” Jasper said softly. He shuddered. “It’s getting easier. Do you find that?” I nodded. The vagrants hadn’t responded when I had shot the first one, and they had stayed non responsive as we gunned down the rest of them. We couldn’t let them live, not with what they knew, and what they had done and we knew they were capable of, but still. It was dirty work. And Jasper was right. It was easier than it should be.
“Come on.” I said, jingling a set of keys liberated from the pockets of one of the dead. “Let’s get out of here.”12
CIA Safehouse - 5 PM
We returned to the safe house just after sundown. I couldn’t speak for Jasper but I was bone tired, and I really hoped my part of this operation was largely taken care of. The battered SUV was in the driveway, and Jasper had received a text that the two handlers had good news. James Scott sat cuffed to the radiator in one of the back rooms, a lump forming on his head and largely insensate.13 Jasper shook his head mutely and walked to the fridge grabbing a soda before slumping into the couch.
“Did you pick him up off the street?” I asked Landry, who sat smoking and playing cards with Nate and Joe in the kitchen.
“You would not believe the farcical hoops we had to jump through, dear.” he said, an edge of exhaustion. “He sat in his office all day, while a pair of desk jockeys bounced us back and forth with forms and subsections and all manner of horrifying bureaucracy.”
“I don’t even think they were cultists.” Nate said, coughing around his own cigarette in indignation. “They just enjoyed jerking us around.” Landry grunted his agreement before continuing.
“We finally got in there an hour ago, and he had passed out, knocked his head on the side of the table and, much to my enjoyment, had started to turn a familiar shade of blue.” I peered down at the unconscious cultist, and as they said, a familiar blue tinge was visible just under his collar. I noticed that the heat wasn’t turned on.
“I’ve run some tests.” Joe said. “I’m fairly sure the cultists micro-dose whatever they dosed the victims with, either to build up an immunity or for some other purpose. I’m not sure if it warps their mind, but it definitely affects their body and his blood matches the victims to a T. I suspect he took a bit too much, and now he’s showing symptoms.”
“Fatal symptoms?” I asked, and Joe shrugged.
“Now that we know how to treat it, we could pump the heat up in that room and keep his fluids up.”
“But will we?” I asked, directing the question towards Landry. “It would be a much neater end if he were to die of the illness, right?”
“Neater for us.” Landry said, placing his cards down and taking a long drag of his cigarette. “Another illness popping up after a delay is going to cause questions, and likely a further CDC review unless we play it very carefully.” Landry took a long drag of his cigarette. “But honestly, that’s the disinformation departments problem, not mine.”
We spent the rest of the day, and the week, working on the cover story. As we weren’t masquerading as FBI, this was pleasantly relaxing for me, as the bulk of the work was with Landry, Nate and Joe. They had to fabricate a logical and medically sound argument for what exactly the Sagebrush Flu, or Blue Flu as the locals called it, was and why it had killed a handful of people, including a few CDC agents who should have been too healthy to die from Flu, and finally, why it had a brief resurgence in the death of James Scott, who died a few days after we brought him to the safehouse. The process was expedited with the recovery of the remaining two CDC agents, who were read in as little as possible, and assured that it was in everyone's best interest that their report aligned with Joe’s.14 The final report was far from ironclad, but it had what Joe called the “Holy Bullshit Trinity” In that it checked a bunch of bureaucratic boxes, was reasonable enough that people wouldn’t give it a second glance unless they had to, and, perhaps most importantly, it would be near impossible to disprove unless the Blue Flu came back.
“Which it might.” He admitted. “By all accounts, the source of these mushrooms is somewhere in a cave underneath Oklahoma.”
“Leave that to the Program.” Landry said. “You’ve covered this up as best we can. I would have preferred if we had found the corpses stolen by the cult, but as long as the CDC are happy, I can’t imagine anyone else being interested.”
“Apart from the families of the deceased.” I pointed out.
“Anyone that can actually do anything, he means.” Nate said gruffly.
Our Russian friend disappeared at some point, not long after the CDC agents were up and about. That goddamn bitch stole the rifle, all of our medical gear and the MP5 and spare magazine, which I was not happy about. Landry pointed out that everything apart from the rifle was theirs to begin with, but still. It’s the audacity of it that got to me.
Nancy made contact with me eventually. I’m not sure how she got my cell phone number, especially because she had only ever mentioned a pager, but I met her at the library the day before the CDC report went out. She was lounging in a comfy armchair reading a raunchy spy thriller. She looked tired, but cheerful when I settled opposite her.
“Asked Nolan about me yet?” She said with a grin.
“There’s been a lot going on.” I said blandly.
“I saw. Try to leave Debbie out of it, if you can. Poor thing has been through enough.”
“It’s not my choice. I’m just the back up on this one.” I told her. I didn’t think they would lean on Debbie but she had been the only member of the press to take an issue with the official line on the Blue Flu. She was also hospitalized with extreme stress and anxiety though, so odds were about even if anyone from the Program would check in.
“The tunnels took some doing, but all the ones nearby have been collapsed. No more evil, possibly sentient mushrooms coming Arizona’s way, at least, not that way.” She was really doing this, going on like this was some official debrief. Unbelievable. I snapped when she opened her mouth to start talking again.
“What are you?” I asked bluntly, leaning forward. She blinked owlishly, then tilted her head and flashed a grin that had far too many teeth.
“I could ask you the same question, little hunter. But I don't think you’re ready to answer me yet, hmm?” My irritation seeped away quickly as I felt my blood run cold, and I broke eye contact with the woman. Her jackal headed shadow flickered behind her and turned to watch me, and I suppressed a shudder. “If we run into each other again, which, God, let’s hope that doesn't happen. But if we do, I’ll tell you what I am then. Hopefully, you’ll know what you are as well. Because take it from someone who knows.” She leaned in, placed a friendly hand on my shoulder and whispered, her accent suddenly strong and coarse in my ear. “You sure as shit ain’t human.”
I spent the last week in Sagebrush being largely unhelpful, drinking cheap whiskey and working as a sounding board for bureaucratic terminology for Joe’s report. I busied myself reading, a questionable choice, given the two pieces of source material, but I was curious. That turned out to be a terrible idea. The journals of Karl Liberman were unpleasant to say the least. I spent a day in the toilet being sick after reading about the man’s so called ‘transcendence' into a mushroom based flying killing machine, and I felt like I had the answer to half the recent missing persons cases in Arizona just flicking through what he did with his new found powers. Still, there were a few useful titbits about the Order of Midnight, mostly first names and basic descriptions, and I was sure the Program might be able to reverse engineer a location for those mushrooms from Oklahoma using the first book cross referenced with the original Miskatonic Paper.15 I wouldn’t say the experience was particularly life changing, but I certainly felt fucking awful.16
Phoenix Airport, Arizona, December 15, 2005 - 1PM
“So. When did all this start happening for you?” I asked Jasper. We were sat facing opposite directions near a coffee stand in Phoenix Airport. The rest of the team had already flown out earlier that day, but my flight to Seattle didn’t leave until the evening. I sipped a coffee that was mostly tasteless, unpleasant foam and unprocessed coffee grinds. Jasper was due to leave soon, and we had been given explicit instructions not interact, and if possible, not even to be at the airport at the same time as each other. Still. I had seen his eyes. And the continuous, twitch of his nose, like he was smelling something unpleasant. I had to know.
“About a year ago.” He said. He was facing away from me, our backs almost touching as he sipped equally shitty coffee. “We had a job hunting a cultist, out in Texas. No prizes for guessing where he came from. We didn’t know it at the time, but the Order of Midnight had quite a few washouts trying to make their own way. I was alone, separated from the group. I had been seeing this weird bird around for a while, I thought it was a hawk, but now I’m not so sure. I kept seeing it just out of the corner of my eye, you know? I’d had this really weird experience during the op, like a vision, and it had left me feeling really unsettled. Anyway, I saw this bird kind of everywhere, and I’m certain its the same one. Same tail feathers, same way it looks at me. First in Louisiana, then back home in Virginia, and then that final time, in San Antonio. It flew down onto my arm, and I felt this sense of peace, this comradery with this animal. Then it went for me, talons and beak and it really fucked up my face. Thought I was going to live with the scars forever, but you can barely see them now.” I felt him shift against my back, his hand tracing his face. “That’s when things started to get weird. Smells got stronger, sounds louder, my vision got sharper. But it’s the things we have to hunt down that smell the strongest. Unnatural shit. I can tell straight awya when someone’s mixed up in it.” He let out a long sigh. “Have you had a dream yet?”
“How would I know?” I ask softly.
“You’ll know.” He said firmly. “I don’t want to color your opinion, but trust me. This will sound strange, but once you have the first one, be careful. It happened for me just before something really fucked happened in my personal life. Now they happen more regularly, usually a couple of days before I get a call from Nate.” He reached back, and I felt him grip my hand, a brief before he stood to go. When he pulled away, there was a slip of paper in my palm. “Call me when the dreams start,” he said. “Then we can try to figure out what it all means.” He stood up, and made to walk away, but I stood and fell into step beside him. I looked up at him. I couldn’t get what Nancy said out of my head.
“Are we still human?” I asked in a whisper. He let out a breath, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Fuck, Kat. I don’t know. I fucking hope so.”17
This was a longer operation, but it’s wrapped up now! I don’t want to say I got lost in the threads playing through this, but it for sure went a number of ways I didn’t expect, and I was very relieved by those 2 close thread Random Events at the end. Hoping to get the Post Script written up soon! What did you think? What’s happening to Kat? Let me know what you enjoyed or didn’t and Thanks as always for reading!
Oracle: is there a Back room and a hole leading underground? Likely - 54 - No. Bedroom? Likely - 29
Oracle: Body of Walter Sims? 50/50 - 44 No. (Random Event - Move Away from a thread. Walter Sim Misuse Tension)
Oracle: Is Simm’s Running away? 50/50 - 15 Yes.
Oracle: Anything else of note in the room? 50/50 11 Yes Original sample from Oklahoma? 16 Yes. (Random event Close thread ‘Deal with loose ends.”) The dice are ready for Kat to leave Arizona haha
Oracle: Do the Cultist arrive before burning? Very Likely - 73 No.
Oracle: Door open? 50/50 78 No.
Skills:(Stealth) Both fail.
Oracle: Can they run us over? 50/50 81 No
Oracle: James Scott? Unlikely - 41 No. All 3? Certain - 85 Yes.
Oracle: Do they move to attack? Likely - 82 No.
Do they resist? 50/50 - 100 Extreme no,
End Scene. Chaos Factor 4 Altered Scene - 4 Interrupt - Nathan (and Landry) - Fight Bureaucracy.
This is continuing the ‘close thread’ random event from earlier.
Joe Skill: (Biology, Pharmacy and bureaucracy) All Pass.
My poor note taking strikes again. Kat lost d4 san, and gained 4% in her unnatural and occult skills form reading the book. She also regained Sanity from finishing the mission, but I didn’t note down how much. I’ll dig through notes and include it in the Post script.
End Scene. Chaos Factor 3. Test Scene 7 - Scene as expected
End of Operation Winter Strain.
It is so impressive how you handle the twists and turns to crate such an exciting cohesive story.
And the overarching threads throughout the operations add even more intrigue. Awesome!!
Nicely wrapped up. Intrigued to see what these animal ‘totems’ are and when the dreams will start.