Solum Protocol - Recap - Part Two
The Case Files of Katherine Jones - Second Part
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Photo by Ann H: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-letters-forming-the-word-recap-on-wood-31824472/
Last time we covered The Baughman Op/Prologue, Haruspex, Kerebos, Winter Strain and Lost Herald. A double adaption and a breaking point later, here we are at part two of our Solum Protocol Recap. Let’s start straight where we left off.
Operation Broken Ace
Tools Used - Mythic 2e and Rogue Trader
There is no rest for Kat. Leaving Montana for a short flight home turns into something strange when she falls asleep and wakes up in Boston. Storms ravaged the night sky of the West Coast, causing her flight to go far, far off course and touch down in Boston, with no flight available until the following day. After terrifying a clerk, she calls a cab and decides to stay with her aunt, not feeling she has the emotional capacity to deal with her mother and her soon to be step father. Her heat sinks when the cab’s tire pops just outside the familiar family home she grew up in. Her dark feeling is justified when she opens the door to her mother’s house and finds a chaotic and violent scene. Her mother is dead, the house ransacked and then perfectly cleaned, but Kat can smell the tinge of something unnatural on the scene. She knows that this is because of her, and she was brought here to witness it, somehow. To make matters worse, a walking corpse enters the dinning room, looking and sounding far, far too familiar. Her father, missing for nearly a decade, returns as a seemingly sentient corpse, bound to the Order of Midnight. He takes Kat’s mother so that her body is safe and honored somewhere private and leaves Kat with the knowledge that she has gained far, far too much attention.
Jasper arrives, and drives Kat away from the scene. The decide to work together, although both can tell that their being there is no accident. The only mystery is if they have been pulled their by the Order, or by whatever it is that has taken an interest in them. They rest at a motel outside of Boston, then begin to investigate the next day. Kat recalls that her mother’s neighbor had a full set of camera's and after charming her way in and viewing the footage, they trace their lead to an underground waterway leading away from Boston. They follow the trail as best they can, eventually parking in a public park and pursuing on foot. They locate the perpetrators on a raft heading out, one human male decked out in standard assassin kit with jars containing Kat’s mother’s organs and one amphibious creature pulling the raft. Kat disposes of the man from long distance with a replica Winchester she had claimed from her mother’s belongings, while Jasper moves in to eliminate the creature pulling the boat. There is a wild fight, but eventually the creature surrenders and tells them its story. It is a deep one hybrid, a child born of one human parent and one parent from deep below the water. The Order sought to gain an advantage over Kat by eliminating her mother and claiming valued organs for a potential ritual. The Deep One was unknowing of the situation, and was essentially a get away driver. They spare it, much to Kat’s disgust.
Kat reports the previous days events to Landry, and then she and Jasper spend an intimate night together, too exhausted to ignore the mutual attraction and connection. Kat flies home the next day to see that she has been reassigned to a counter terrorism force, headed by none other than Katherine Oakes. The program wraps up around Christmas, and as she celebrates the new year with friends, she is attacked by a hit squad of Romonov gunmen. She eliminates them easily, traumatizing her friends and earning her a reprimand from Oakes, who benches her and tells her to behave moving forward. Despite this, Landry reaches out with a lead on the Order of Midnight, which Kat leaps at, flying out to Minnesota.
Operation Shadowed Past
Tools Used Mythic 2e, The Mythic Progress Track, Book of Random Tables - Modern
Kathas spent nearly a year with the counter terrorism unit. She picks up a smoking habit and a generally dark demeanor, the dark and violent nature of the work compounding with the trauma of the previous missions. The Kat that arrives in Minnesota is harder and less friendly but also more experienced. She links up with Tracy, Montford and new team mate Candela Reynolso, the tech expert that had helped them back in Operation Haruspex. The mission is simple, locate the Robinson family and eliminate them, as well as any projects they are under taking in the area. The Robinson family, a mother, father and adult son, are known cultists and entrepreneurs related to The Order of Midnight, and had left behind a mountain of data in their safe house. Pouring over the intel, Kat discovers a connection to a retired air force intelligence asset, John Anderson, as well as a report of a missing airman in the area. Investigating Anderson reveals the man is missing, but his son is at home, reporting that Anderson seemed to have started working again, investigating the Robinsons and some old, decommissioned air base close to the Canadian Border. Kat, Tracy and Junior Anderson are attacked by a representative of Robinson Pharmaceuticals who posses the ability to transform into a hulking, ice and fur covered monster. The three barely escape, and the traumatized child leads them to a hunting lodge to the south of Minneapolis, Anderson’s last known location.
John Anderson is a grizzled and slightly manic older man, but he is keyed in well to the situation. After a frosty reception, both from Anderson and the climate, Kat learns of an old project in the area dating back to the 80s and 90s. A government sanctioned attempt to make a form of winter super soldier by mixing humanity with something old and evil. The project was titled Project Blackwood, and the subjects of this gained the ability to change their forms into the hulking monstrosity Kat had witnessed earlier. Kat calls it in to Landry, reporting the existence of Project Blackwood and Anderson’s connection to something called MAJESTIC. This sets Landry off, and he warns her not to trust Anderson and not to tell anyone else in the program about this. He tells her to destroy everything, and leave the name out of any report she gives, official or otherwise. The line goes dead as a storm settles in and the lodge is attacked by Mary Robinson and a hulking, transformed monster. Kat dispatches Mary with a well placed bullet to the throat, but not before the Blackwood subject chases Anderson out into the storm. By the time they find them and Kat puts the creature down, Anderson is dead.
The team heads to a Green Box to secure supplies, having a narrow escape from encountering more Blackwood subjects while on the move. They find an old photo showing The eldest Robinson with a number of other scientists, one photo in black and white, the other in color but none of the people had aged. Landry would later confirm that most of these men are still alive, and work for March Technologies. When they stop at a gas station, Kat sees a familiar sight, despite knowing it shouldn’t be possible. Cecil Bargain’s Pawn shop sits comfortably in the service station, and she enters it against her better judgement. Cecil is there, the interior exactly the same it was in Seattle. Cecil seems remarkably well informed, and when she shows him the photo she had found, he offers her a book, in exchange for some of the journals she had found in her travels. The book he provides contains project notes, written by one of the Robinsons, dating back to the 90s. With gear and intel secured, the team kidnaps Mr Stewart, the father of the missing pilot and target of the Robinson’s. They are able to intercept the Robinson’s attempt at kidnapping him, eliminating three Blackwood subjects before they can transform and extracting the man north, closer to the border and to ‘Pond 3’ - the current base of operations for the cult. Stewart reports that there was another project on going, using the mysterious Blackhawk helicopters to fly monsters over the border into Canada for ‘Field Training’. Something went wrong, and the Blackwood project was abandoned, with the aeronautics project being moved elsewhere. Stewart revels a secret entrance into the base, likely the reason the Robinsons wanted him in the first place, and they leave Candela to watch him while Montford, Tracy and Kat infiltrate the site.
During the infiltration, the team meet Kenny Yu, a Canadian operative searching for missing youths from over the border. They agree to work together and then are attacked by the younger Robinson and the leader of the new Blackwood Subjects. A fierce fight ensues, resulting in the defeat of both foes.1 Kenny is wounded, and Tracy remains behind to tend to his wounds. Kat, for reasons she doesn’t quite understand, carves the heart free of the monster’s husk. In private, she devours it, feeling strength course through her veins. This goes unnoticed by her team mates. Montford freezes in the next room, witnessing the emaciated form of ‘Algie’ the captured Wendigo and source of biological matter for project Blackwood. Kat burns the Wendigo and continues alone. Kat eliminates the rest of the cult and scientist operating in Pond 3, securing a strange radio, rescuing the Canadian children and arranging an extraction by the M-Epic (The Canadian Delta Green) B team. Kenny succumbs to his wounds, and begins to transform into a Wendigo, but Kat puts him down, much to her own grief. The crew returns the next day and destroys the sight, rigging the unnatural helicopters to blow the structure to smithereens, collapsing it under several tones of rubble.
At home, Kat returns to work, finding that her job is stifling her with rules and procedure. She loses patience waiting for someone to call her and bring her in officially, so she starts looking into things on her own. She contacts Cecil Bargain and secures more books of interest, attempting to ignore where the man might have found them. Eventually she finds a date of some importance and reports it to Landry. When the time comes, she is ready to take the fight to the Order
Operation Network Outage
Tools Used - Mythic 2e, Mythic Progress Track, Little Town Eldritch
Called to Arkansas, Kat links up with a larger team than usual. Candela, Montford and Tracy are there, but so is Jasper and his team, CDC agent Joe Byrd, CIA wetwork operative Jesse White and DEA pharmacist Shirley Campbell. That isn’t the only surprise. When Nate and Nolan Landry bring them to a secure and isolated cabin, they meet the final members of their party, Agent Nancy and fellow Ghoul Zayd. The scope of the mission is simple, find the location of the ritual conducted by the senior leadership of the cult and stop the ritual from occurring, eliminating any members of the order they can along the way. Nancy feigns ignorance with Kat, pretending it is their first meeting, but then takes her and Jasper aside on a quick side mission to scout a wealthy neighborhood for suspicious smells. After it doesn't turn up any leads, Nancy confesses that she is sure the neighborhood is involved, as all of the deaths relating to the last ritual where staff at the large manors and estates. They return to the cabin and begin planning for the next day.
The team must investigate the three most likely locations for the ritual - an isolated places with certain geographies. The plan is to send a team to sweet talk the owners of the land while another team scouts the location. Nancy insists the ground will have a certain feel to it. The first location is infiltrated successfully, but the second has a surprise - the owners are dead, covered in strange, pulsing fleshy matter. Kat attempts to call a retreat to re-evaluate, but is grabbed by tendrils as a strange, multi limbed and fanged monster erupts from a pod and attacks. They pile into the car to escape, but it pursues, so Kat exits the vehicle and kills it. When no one returns immediately, she removes the things heart and devours it, feeling a drive to consume the heart of her kill. They secure the bodies and bring them back to Nancy, who attempts to read the mind of the corpse through a ritual. It back fires, and Nancy is trapped in the personality and memory of the dead woman while Kat desperately searches for more leads. She falls on old FBI processes and begins a surveillance of the suspect neighborhood, which turns up a lead when a group of burly types load a bunch of gasoline into a truck and drive off. Kat recognizes a clean up crew when she sees one and they pursue at a distance. They arrive at the 2nd site, but realize too late that it is a trap. The house is rigged to blow and when they get caught in the blast, the men attack. They are eliminated while Montford, Tracy and Kat take bad burn wounds from the blast. Kat is informed by Oakes via her cell phone not long afterwards that her cousin Markus has been kidnapped by the Order, and that her troops will try to resolve it.
Nancy eventually breaks out of her claimed memories, and identifies a target - The Umbral Choir. The men and women of the local wealthy gated community have been prolonging their lives unnaturally, taking wards from the state and adopting them, only to seize their identities and turn the children into mindless puppets for labor and general nastiness. This has been going on for centuries, at this point, and their alliance with the Order of Midnight and generational wealth has allowed them to go consequence free. The team pulls on Montford’s Russian mob contacts to arm up with fully automatic weapons and grenades before raiding the Umbral Choir at their isolated chapel. The mission is an overwhelming success, with the entire cult eliminated. When Kat’s hunger nearly overtakes her, Nancy calms her down, and the two bond over there increasingly powerful unnatural nature. Oakes calls with an update, reporting Markus has been rescued, and that she is going to meet them in Arkansas for a full debrief soon.
Kat is fairly sure the 2nd location is the site of the ritual, it had the dark feeling and smelled of dark work, according to Jasper, but they still have time before the ritual starts to head it off. Candela turns up a lead, one of the heavy hitters of the cult was witnessed on an ATM camera shortly before a brokerage exploded on the edge of Little Rock. This, however, is yet another trap and Kat is captured by Arthur Svyrean, one of the three leaders of the Order. He monologues as he drives them to a graveyard, showing contempt for unnatural beings and revealing that he and his companions stole some for of power from something old and unknowable. He intends to sacrifice Kat to sanctify the an area close to the 3rd site, but she cuts her cuffs free with a knife she keeps on her person, one that is unnaturally sharp. She pounces, killing Arthur and eating his heart before the Sheriff is able to stop her. Something was deeply wrong with Arthur, and rather than a rush of strength, Kat feels time stand still. Arthur’s reinforcement’s arrive, and Kat is able to dispatch them while her body burns with a strange, eldritch power but it soon wears off. She hears the screams and gunfire of her teammates who had come to rescue her and she runs to their aid, arriving in time to help dispatch the large, eldritch pod monster but not before it kills Montford and wounds nearly everyone else. Kat, no longer caring about anything other than blood, wrenches the heart of the pod monster free, eats it and passes out.
Jasper finished the mission, executing the remaining cultists, who are relatively powerless without their leader and hired muscle. Kat wakes up tied to a bed while she calms down, and then her and Tracy get drunk, toasting to Montford and promising that there will be no more secrets. Nancy leaves earlier in the morning, giving Kat her pager and disappearing before Oakes arrives to offer a half congratulations and half condemnation of the mission. Back home, Markus refuses to meet Kat, her presence being seen as a negative to his recovery. She also argues extensively with Danielle. She meets Nancy, and discusses her issues, both mundane and natural, and finds some comfort in their friendship. Kat see’s a figure in the apartment opposite, one she is sure is her father keeping tabs on her for the order, but she ignores it. Later on, Kat is summoned to work and given a lateral transfer to Portland to assist with a task force in desperate need of a guiding hand/diplomat. Kat isn’t sure if this is a punishment or reward for her current work record, but her friends agree to accompany her and help her move in to her temporary new home on the East Coast. That is when things start to go wrong.
Operation Fatal Diversion
Tools Used - Mythic 2e, The Mythic Horror Track, Rogue Trader and Little Town Eldritch
Travelling to Portland via the back roads, Kat is stopped by a fallen tree and a flock of strange, black birds somewhere just over the state border of Maine. Turning the car around, it becomes apparent that she and her two friends are stuck in a strange town, unable to escape without looping back. The town’s name is Velvet Creek. They pile into a diner after Kat find a disemboweled body and meet Kyle, a resident of town who is able to give them a rundown. The town is haunted by unkillable monsters who come out at night. There are sigils on some buildings, and as long as candles are lit within the structure, the creatures can’t come in. There is no escape. Kat does not accept this and in the night she has a dream of large, panther like creature emerging from the stars and indicating a building - a hostel. She heads out to explore it the next day, running into a man harassing a woman. Kat loses patience, disliking the man and the people he represents already and kills him, sending Markus and Danny back with to the dinner. She finds a young girl Jo in the hostel, who refuses to join them but offers a book that is very creepy and has a clue to the creature’s, called Townie’s in the book, nature and wants. Kat finds a smooth, metal green triangle, but when she touches it, it knocks her out, showing her a vison of a vast, monstrous entity which she barely escapes. Behind the triangle is a small niche with a book inside, the notes of Agent Worley from W-Cell. Someone from Kat’s organization had been here before, and the marks around town were thanks to them. Night falls, and two of the monsters arrive, teasing and mocking Kat but she ignores them until Kyle breaks and tries to escape out of the window. Kat drags him back, and the sun rises.
Kat research's her two books, finding a small map with other green triangles and a disturbing rendition of herself as a playful cat in the story book. Tracy pulls out an old radio that Kat didn’t remember bringing. She snatches it away and takes it with her. She sets out alone in search of more information, finding another journal behind a spelled green triangle and a book about hunters from the stars. She takes both, as well as taking the green triangle, as she had managed not to activate the spell on it this time. Returning to the diner to rest, the radio at her belt begins to hum and buzz and talk, offering advice which is something Kat does not enjoy. She rests, and the next morning Kyle requests that she goes into the forest to get supplies. Kat grumbles but accepts. She follows her nose, and is dismayed to find the body of Kyle, his brain missing. This was an attempt at a trap, but her unnatural senses led her to where she needed to be. The creature back at the dinner is not Kyle. Kat runs back to town, tracking down Kyle and confronting him while he holds Markus hostage. Night suddenly falls to everyone’s surprise, the cycles getting shorter and shorter, and so they flee and hide in an old fast food restaurant. Kat questions Not-Kyle while searching the place, finding a strange knife that flickers with veins of green, sigils marking the blade. Kat is fascinated by the knife. Not-Kyle reveals himself as a Stranger, a human hunting shape shifter, but Kat is spared learning more by the arrival of the same Townie’s from the previous night. They look knowingly through the glass window as the radio warns that something is wrong. The candle goes out, and the Townie’s break into the room. Kat uses the knife and paralyses one, killing the other. She feasts on it without seeming to realize, terrifying Markus who flees. Kat kills the other one while the radio tells Kat that Worley sacrificed himself to make this knife. Kat pursues Markus, who had been fleeing towards the town. There is a crack of a gun, and the townsfolk kill the creature pretending to be Kyle. Markus ignores Kat, and the townsfolk attack, pining Kat down as more Townie’s appear. They make a deal with the town, killing Markus and leaving.
Kat comes to in the morning, holding Markus’ body. A woman appears from the town, Anette, saying the townsfolk are split, and many of them didn’t want this deal. They just want to escape. Kat agrees to help Anette and her people escape the town in exchange for guidance to the Townie’s lair. Annette agrees and leaves to rally her people, while Kat sleeps. When she wakes, Annette guides her to a twisted tree, mumbling some nonsense and creating a pathway to some form of Sewer. Kat travels the path, hearing echoes from the past, and learning how the Townie’s came to be. Willow talks over the radio, encouraging her to hurry, that the creature behind all of this is waking up. Kat eventually arrives at a crypt, the sun still high. She kills the Townie’s as they sleep, but Willow reveals that while their body sleeps, the Townie’s minds wander the stars, killing, enslaving and ruling some distant star system. Kat is enraged, and devours their hearts, ensuring that their death is final, much to Willow’s astonishment. Kat eventually kills all of them and confronts the machine. It knocks her into the dream space, nearly killing her as it mindlessly flails against her, but she is able to return to awareness. She finds Willow’s body fused to the machine and, on a hunch, attaches one of Worley’s spelled triangles to the machine. This free’s the half dead eldritch god that sleeps beneath the town, and the world starts to fade as the creature begins to leave. Willow appears almost alive before Kat, and tells her that the creature is leaving, and taking the townsfolk with it. Kat begs it not to, but it is dead, and beyond her comprehension. Willow offers a choice, save some of the children, or save Danielle. The children are small, their minds different enough the creature can differentiate, and Danielle is new. Kat choses Danielle.2 Kat stumbles out into the town, the power keeping them there gone, along with all the townsfolk. Jo still exists3, and Kat realizes that the girl is not human, and so was left behind. Kat escorts both Danny and Jo to her safe house, a few hours drive from their location as Velvet Creek ceases to exist. The next morning, Danny is gone, leaving a note asking Kat to never contact her again.
Kat spends the next few months in Portland, bending rules to make her way through the case, using the lessons she has learned in The Program in her normal career. She gets away with it for now, resolving the case and returning to Seattle with a commendation that she barely notices. More alone than ever, Kat makes a decision. She confront her father, killing him before he can talk and make it harder, and then turns the body over to Oakes. In exchange, she demands a place with the team in the battle against the order. Oakes accepts, and directs to her Iuka Mississippi, where the final confrontation with The Order of Midnight awaits.
And that is the recap! This took much longer than I thought and those last few were done more from memory, so some of the beats might be out of order. I’ll go back and edit later haha. For now, if you have read all of this then firstly Thank You! and secondly, you are now prepared for the final chapter of Kat’s story. Operation FINAL SPRIAL begins next week! It’s the longest mission, of course, with a suitably moody epilogue. I can’t wait to share it with folks. Thanks for reading!
Breaking Point 2 reached - Gained the Heart Hunger Disorder
Breaking Point 3 reached - Totemic Compulsion - Special Knife
Jo is a Yithian. This will be relevant.
When you mess with The Abyess, the Abyess messes witg you.
Poor Kat. Driven by ghostly things not meant to be seen in daylight ..
Delta Green, Call of Cuthua (misspealed( vibes all around...
Really good!