Solum Protocol - Recap - Part One

The Case Files of Katherine Jones - First Part

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Photo by Ann H: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-letters-forming-the-word-recap-on-wood-31824472/

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With 8 missions, 3 breaking points and more burnt bonds than you can shake a stick at, a lot has happened in the year and a bit since I started posting. The total word count so far is over 200,000 words, so before we start our finale I thought I would recap the whole shebang for a trip down Trauma Avenue.

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Prologue - The Baughman Op

Tools used - Last Things Last, Rogue Handler

Special Agent Kat Jones is tasked with ensuring that deceased operative Clyde Baughman didn’t leave any program related materials lying around for his family to find at his apartment in Seattle. Introduced to ex-Special Services asset Andrew Montford and History Professor Helena Palmer, the three cleared Baughman’s apartment and found the key to a cabin just outside the city. This cabin was far less clean, with a footlocker full of unnatural case files and a sceptic tank containing something unspeakable. Kat and her team eliminated the threat taking minimal wounds and destroyed most of the unnatural material, with Palmer taking a small journal with a picture that looked eerily like herself, taken several decades earlier. This fact is unknown to Kat until Operation Lost Herald

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Operation Haruspex

Tools used - Rogue Handler

Months later after rest and recuperation, Agent Jones has a renewed purpose - to destroy the unnatural wherever she finds it. Summoned from her office for some weekend wet work, Jones is tasked with locating Tabitha Abel, a missing Veterinarian working at the local zoo. She was witnessed by a friendly carving bizarre cuts on various animals, an action at odds with her reputation as an animal rights activist. Jones scouts her recent locations, finding an old pawn shop named Bargain’s Bargains. The enigmatic owner, Cecil Bargain, had a small Library of occult texts, and provided Jones with a copy of a book on sigils, supposedly purchased by Abel. After research and an unproductive visit to the Zoo, Agent Jones attempted to contact Abel’s father. Unfortunately, the house was being watched by a winged creature that had savaged the poor man, and nearly killed Kat before she was able to dispatch it with a shotgun. All clues led to a the sewers beneath the Zoo, as well as a strange, shadowy conspiracy involving the new director of the Zoo, Lester Roth. Kat, alongside agent Montford, confronted Abel below an old exhibit and confirmed that her attempts were to protect the animals from a strange, shadowy figure that had been haunting the Zoo since Roth’s arrival. After confirming Roth’s location, Kat and Montford infiltrated the zoo and located the man, deep in a trance. Kat staged his suicide in such a way that the FBI would be called to investigate, contacting her higher ups to ensure she was put on the case for any potential clean ups. Further investigations into Roth’s contacts, “The Order of Midnight” were cut off as soon as they began.

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Operation Kerebos

Tools used Mythic 2e

A few months pass, and Agent Jones is assigned an official case in the small town Summercrest, Washington. A young boy is missing, Daniel Ramirez, the child of a pair of federal workers. Kat’s real case is to Investigate the death of Program Friendly Gloria Yarbrough. Jones links up with Agents Montford and Palmer and gets to work, contacting the sheriff and coroner to keep up appearances. After failing to requisition more arms or supplies, Kat arranges to meet Tracy Castor, Gloria’s fellow park ranger at the last person to see her alive. They arrive at the ranger station just after sunset, finding a panicked Tracy and a small contingent of dogs acting in a strange and disturbing manner. Kat and the team extracted Tracy to the hotel, eliminating the dogs and taking one for study. The following morning, Sheriff Bosworth arrived to deliver the news that Daniel Ramirez had been found dead at the lake in the local park. Kat encouraged the Sheriff and his men to step down while she investigated, heading deeper into the trail to investigate the location the boy’s body was found. On the way, Kat had an unsettling phone call from her best friend Danielle, indicating she was in the hospital after a traumatic run in with an ex boyfriend. Shortly afterwards, Agent Jones and her team are ambushed by a man bearing all the hallmarks of death, apart from a limited capacity for speech and a violent temperament. Tracy, who had accompanied them and had limited medical knowledge, indicated that the man had been dead for a while before Montford had put him down for good. He also seemed to have drowned. Realizing Daniel could be affected, Palmer and Montford split and went to the corners office while Tracy and Kat investigated the lake. They found little evidence at the lake, and started investigating the main ranger station, but were stopped by a wave of fog that engulfed the station, revealing a strange, child like drawing on the wall. It depicted a beast with long, unnatural tendrils wrapped around many figures, most notable, a man with a sword and a crown. When the fog lifted, Tracy was gone, and Kat was alone.

Leaving the Ranger Station, Kat found the ranger struggling in the water. She pulled her free, and they tracked her attacker to a tree. Sheriff Bosworth was being harassed by a dog with a pink collar and had climbed up a tree to avoid being bitten. They confronted him, and found his memories muddled and confused. When they tried to bring him to the station for questioning, something attacked from the lake. It floated unnaturally, a mass of rubbery flesh and grasping tendrils and it attempted to drag the Sheriff into the lake before being dispatched by Kat and a terrified Tracy. Collecting evidence from the Sheriff and the trail cameras, Kat locates the mastermind of Gloria and Daniel’s death - Aaron Foster, the head of the Summercrest Historical Preservation Society. After disposing of Daniel’s body to ensure it doesn’t come back, the team begins a nighttime raid on the man's estate, capturing one member of the Historical Society and eliminating the target, but not before he conducts a sacrifice of his other cult members and summons another tentacled creature - this one larger and more vicious than before. The team eliminate it with no losses and many wounds and clean the scene, blackmailing the Sheriff to support a story that lays the blame firmly in Foster’s lap. Montford eliminates the last witness, and the scene is cleaned, but not before Kat finds a journal, indicating that this was another member of the Order of Midnight gone rogue, seeking his own power. The dog that had chased the Sheriff up a tree is seen again in increasingly strange places, on the side of the road a few hours out of Summercrest and even once or twice back in Seattle, leaving Kat unnerved but oddly numb.¹

Later, Kat reports to her Case Officer, Nolan Landry what she has discovered. At work, she runs into a CIA operative, Jasper Westbrook, who gives her a layered warning - The CIA is interested in the Order, and the Program can do only so much to protect her if she runs into them again.

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Operation Winter Strain

Resources Used - Mythic 2e, Rogue Handler

Months Later, Kat is summoned to Arizona for an off the books mission. She is called alone, as one of Landry’s few trusted assets to provide support in a mission gone wrong. She links up with Agent Nate, a case officer for another team and his two surviving team members, CDC agent Joe Byrd and, to her surprise, CIA operative Jasper Westbrook. The team were investigating missing CDC doctors when a body with bizarre symptoms arrived. The state of the body caused one of Jasper’s teammates to suffer a mental collapse and kill one of his own team before being put down himself. Kat joins the investigation, finding little of use on the body, but evidence of a struggle and a trail at the location the body was found, just outside of town. Strangely, the dog in the pink collar appears again, but this time is much less friendly. It pounces on Kat, sinking it’s teeth into her arm and leaving a nasty, jagged bite wound.²

The three of them track the assault backwards, finding an old warehouse in disrepair, but with voices from within. The place smells foul to Kat, a strong and unfamiliar scent that leaves her uneasy as they begin a raid. They find ragged, sickly men and women, and the remaining CDC team members bound and in great distress. They eliminate the cultists and prepare to retrieve the team, taking samples. A large, towering figure arrives, deposits jerry cans of gasoline and then retreats, leaving the team confused and disturbed. They burn down the warehouse, destroying the mushroom growths that permeated the building and the bodies of the cultists before retreating to a CIA safehouse in the suburbs. Their previous forward base had been raided by cultists, and Nolan and Nate had escaped with minimal supplies. Joe and Landry monitor the CDC agents, while Jasper and Kat attempt to retrieve the medical supplies they need from the CDC forward base. They do not have much luck, the cultists arrive and chase Kat away from the site and Jasper, leading to a confrontation in a neighborhood that Kat barely escapes after a tense standoff and a long chase. She eventually finds her way back to the safehouse exhausted. She also begins to notice some changes within herself. Her hearing and eyesight have improved noticeably, but it is her sense of smell that has improved the most, allowing her to pick up on even the faintest of individual scents, particularly those of unnatural origin.

The next day, Jasper and Kat investigate Deborah Graves, a local news reporter who had been following the CDC team around. Despite suspecting she may be dead or sick, she is very much alive but traumatized by something she had witnessed at a Church just outside of town while pursing leads of her own. She provides a file of her own evidence and asks them to leave.³ With the CDC agents vitals failing, Jasper splits off to run an errand for the local mob connection to secure the medical support and supplies while Kat hits the books at the local library. She turns up a few interesting titbits about the local church and a program run by a local town councilmember to ‘help’ the local homeless population, explaining the ragged appearance of most of the cult members Kat had interacted with so far. Her studies are interrupted by a pair of men in a moving truck who pursue her from the library. Kat runs, trying to lose them, but eventually hits a dead end. Rather than having to fight them, she is saved the effort when the towering figure from before emerges and snaps both of their necks with an easy, effortless twist of their wrist. A moment later, the towering form is gone, replaced by an attractive young women, seemingly in her mid 20s. She introduces herself as Nancy.

Nancy was a friend of Nate and Nolan’s from the old days, although she is keeping her presence a secret for now. She has been working off the books on her own mission against various unnatural threats, most recently The Order of Midnight. The leader of the local cult is another member of The Order, but with their own agenda. Nancy and Kat question Debbie again, who seems to have had another episode and wandered into an old, abandoned house. They discover through her that there ware a series of tunnels beneath the Church, and Nancy suspects these lead somewhere much, much more dangerous. They agree that Kat and her team will tackle the church and the cultists while Nancy deals with the tunnels. Most of all, Nancy requests her role, and the tunnels, be kept a secret. Kat agrees, despite the woman smelling like grave dirt and corpses. They split up, and Kat gives a short, incomplete version of her findings to her team. Jasper, who had been doing undisclosed work for the Russian mob, introduces Kat to their new burden/helper, an unflappable mob doctor who, none the less, is able to get the CDC agents stable. Joe has spent all day examining the mushrooms, discovering a preference for cold temperatures and a weakness to heat and fire. Jasper and Kat rest and decide to monitor the church, rather than rushing in blindly. A mostly boring day goes past until, just before sundown, a young man drives up to the church. He is not part of the cult, and is in fact, Debbie’s assistant. Remembering the state Debbie ended up in, the two agents decide to intervene before the boy sees too much, but while they get there in time to save his life, they attract the attention of something horrible. A broken body, reeking of mold and cave dust and staring out with a single, unblinking eye in the center of it’s mass purses them, and they escape in their vehicle before it gets a chance to attack.

Jasper and Kat load up on molotov cocktails and automatic firearms and begin their assault first thing the following day, not willing to waste time. The crash the car into the side of the building and set it alight. They are able to gun down the creatures within and execute the large, monstrous creature, which causes a surge of unfamiliar, vicious joy in Kat that she has never felt before. A feeling of rightness. As the Church burns, more cultist show up, but seem distraught and dazed as their leader and home burns. Kat guns them down and throws their bodies into the fire, eager to leave the whole mess behind her. A final meeting with Nancy doesn’t shine any light on what the woman is, but she leaves her with a simple, chilling statement, indicating that Kat and Nancy aren’t so different - both are distinctly no longer human.

Kat has a conversation with Jasper before they leave, confirming that what is happening to her has also been happening to him. The sharpened senses, the drive to kill the unnatural and the uneasy, troubled sleep. He warns her to watch out for a dream, but doesn’t explain what kind. He only says that it indicates something bad is coming. At home, Kat spends time with her mother over the holiday period, taking some time to threaten her mother’s boyfriend before returning to Settle for work. Unfortunately, things do not remain calm. Kat’s friend Danielle is confronted by her attacker again, and she lashes out with a cocktail knife, wounding the man and dropping him to the ground. Kat finds them on the floor of Danielle’s work, her friend is scared and Kat has learned too many bad lessons from working for the Program. She takes the knife and kills the attacker, comforting her friend as she arranges for the body to be disposed of. The man is a member of the Romonov crime family, so she knows the trouble is unlikely to end there. On top of that, she has a strange interaction with Agent Palmer as the woman tries desperately to get Kat to listen to her somewhat crazed babbling. Kat ignores her breach of Operational Security, but is unable to figure out what the woman wants before Palmer disappears again. Soon, she is called to Montana for another job.

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Operation Lost Herald

Tools Used - Mythic 2e, Rogue Handler

Kat meets Agent Montford and a freshly recruited Tracy in Montana, along with Agent Landry. Unfortunately for all involved, Landry is not running the mission. This mission is run by Director of Security Katherine Oakes, and pertains to the whereabouts and actions of Helena Palmer. While the team doesn't know exactly why the higher ups are involved, Montford indicates that it can’t be for any positive reason. A hit team waits outside with the director while Kat and her team infiltrate a large house, the summer home of Professor Helena Palmer. Each of the agents, it seems, has been contacted by the increasingly distressed Professor, and something she has done has crossed a line with the higher ups. She is currently missing, last seen at this house. Searching the house, Kat finds a number of clues indicated Palmer was researching a spat of disappearances off the books. A dark feeling of foreboding emerges when Kat finds a footlocker belonging to Katherine Oakes with floorplans for a facility known as the ‘ICE CAVE’. Kat also finds pictures of a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Palmer, only dated years before the Professor was born.

Montford tells them the hard truth - If Palmer has been investigating the ICE CAVE, and has got as far as stealing floorplans, then she is as good as dead. The facility is a highly restricted area that no one is supposed to know about, and anyone who finds out about it without Oakes’ direct permission is killed or contained. The only reason Montford knows about it is because he used to work security there under Oakes, until he was reassigned. Montford essentially gives up at this point, but Kat isn’t ready to leave yet and with further investigation, she finds a basement hidden in the pantry. This basement smells off to Kat, and she discovers sigils and some form of circle of power, as well as intricate paintings upon the wall. A figure emerges from the shadows, bound within the circle. A Ky’nan warrior that Palmer had captured and questions, seeking an unconventional approach into the ICE CAVE facility. The figure promises to help Kat find Palmer if she releases him and throws in some information about what is happening to her to boot and so she smudges the circle of power to release him against her better judgement. The figure encourages Kat to examine the painting on the wall, depicting a lush jungle. In the back Kat can see a bob of auburn hair before a force knocks her into the wall, through the painting and into the jungle. She passes out as she hits the ground.⁴

While unconscious, Kat dreams of the Ky’nan warrior moving through the house and monologuing. He describes what she is, a hunter and feeder of creatures from beyond the stars. A blood thirsty killer, powered by a force older than humanity and as old as the earth itself, possibly older. The creature uses an unseen energy to attack Oakes and her kill team hidden in a van and the vision cuts out. Kat wakens in a jungle, the air heavy as she stalks forward. She finds Palmer quickly, pursued by a creature that is almost human, but reveals itself as a taloned, predatory monster while it attempts to capture Palmer. Kat kills it, rescuing her colleague who promptly loses consciousness. Left with a woman she thought was dead or mad in a jungle she has never seen or heard of before, Kat is too numb to panic. Salvation comes in the form of Bao, an emissary of the Tcho-Tcho and seeker of vengeance. Fortunately for Kat, she is to be the tool of his vengeance, rather than the target. He explains that they have arrived at the Plateau of Leng, a Nexus at the edge of reality. Bao will return them home if they do something for him first, namely, kill a member of The Order of Midnight. Kat is already sick of hearing people talk about this order, but agrees.

Boa gives Kat the three things she needs to succeed - A path to upstate New York and back, A dagger and information. The man she is to kill was Leroy Wilbur, a mid level cultists within the order. Like those she had encountered so far, he seemed to be performing a power grab, having sacrificed a number of Bao’s family and summoned some form of creature into himself. The ritual had gone wrong. Reality was breaking, and Leroy could no longer be killed through mundane means. Boa instructed Kat to cut out Leroy’s heart and then devour it, her status as a hunter giving her the ability to kill that which shouldn’t be killable. Kat is skeptical, but she sees little choice. She instructs Palmer to stay calm, and walks through another magical painting, arriving in a room filled with blood and crackling energy. Her target stands in the middle of a storm of stone and warping reality, and her attempts to run at him directly fall short. Eventually, she is able to sneak behind him, stab him through the back, and remove his heart. She eats it easily, much more easily than she would have imagined, and it tastes good.

Kat returns to the plateau, feeling vaguely sick but energized, and Boa is true to his word. He returns them to Palmer’s basement, and Kat can see that night has fallen. A brief fight with an invisible monster encouraged both to leave as soon as possible, and Kat contacts Landry. Palmer explains while they wait what happened to her. An aunt, or a grand aunt or possible even a much older relation was a witch. She was trapped in the ICE CAVE after being captured by the government shortly before Palmer was born. They bear a striking resemblance, and the aunt had been slowly trying to take over Palmer’s mind, using her to free herself. Arriving at the Plataeu broke the connection, but Palmer does not know for how long. Montford and Tracy arrive, and drive them to a hotel. Kat is grilled by Oakes, given a gun, and told to stand by. Oakes questions Palmer. She seems dissatisfied, and orders Kat to shoot. Kat does, reluctantly, but the gun is empty. Oakes had been testing both of them.

The next morning, the team is gone, and Kat has a ticket back to Seattle. Oakes ominously states she will be in touch. Kat never sees Agent Palmer again.

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Who would have thought recapping the story so far would take so long. I’ll end this part here. The events of Operations Broken Ace, Shadowed Past, Network Outage and Fatal Diversion will be covered in part 2! Thank you all for reading, and feel free to drop any questions or comments below.

1. 1st Breaking Point - Gained Disorder - Depersonalization

2. Adapted to Violence

3. A PC Positive here resulted in Jasper and Kat forming a Bond.

4. Adapted to Helplessness