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The Radford Horrors, Episode 02

Back in Radford under a suspicious new boss, the team walks into an IRS raid, climbs a fence belonging to the Safe Environment Fund, finds a professionally scrubbed site in the woods, and ends the night getting rabies shots.
Arc The Radford Horrors
Episode 02
Setting Radford, Virginia: the Ferry Lodge, the Pay n' Stay, the Lonely Mountain Diner, the sheriff's station, the Sportsman RV Campground, the Safe Environment Fund fenced site and the Radford ER
In-fiction date April 1993, "a little less than a year" after the first Radford case; one afternoon, evening and night
Players present Andre (GM), Rita, Dante, Zack, Ezra; Ethan made a brief out-of-character comment early on
Previous Radford Horrors 01
Next Radford Horrors 03

Synopsis

Daniel Webster leads Andrew Howard, Kurt Larson and Huell Kendrick back to Radford, convinced they are a political dirty-tricks squad. Their hotel is raided by the IRS as they check in. Sheriff Molly Underhill tells them more people have gone missing, Phoebe Augustine among them, and that the missing FBI task force camped by the river before it vanished. The agents' map leads to woods fenced off by the Safe Environment Fund, whose guards taser Webster and shoot Andrew to no effect. The marked spot has been bleached clean, except for a glob of pearlescent goo that smells like the moth. That night a rabid mouse bites Webster in his motel bed. (Radford Horrors 02)

Plot

Getting there

Andre's recap adds detail to the briefing. President Ross Perot read the team's file on the first Radford case ("What the fuck is this? This says it was like a giant bug."), Director Sessions confirmed "it's a giant bug," and Perot fired him and appointed Rudy Giuliani. The team has half a day to pack. Webster brings body armor, a pump shotgun, a scoped revolver and recording equipment. Huell brings DEET and a police-dog training glove. Andrew brings dried pig blood and a bloodletting kit. Kurt brings a spear gun, his P90, a grenade, a claymore and gallons of pesticide. (Radford Horrors 02)

At airport security the spear gun is flagged: the paperwork is lost and Kurt has no badge. His Act Under Pressure fails, but a Manipulate Someone 9 gets it into the cargo hold after he shows the spear scar in his shoulder. Security swabs Andrew's maroon powder for drugs and is visibly disappointed. On the flight Huell tries to defeat the lavatory smoke alarm with wet toilet paper, rolls a 6, and is chewed out by a flight attendant. Andrew wonders aloud whether the moth they killed left eggs: "what's the caterpillar gonna look like? I hope we see one." (Radford Horrors 02)

From Roanoke they drive two rented Land Rovers. Kurt rides with Webster to get the measure of him. Webster says he did logistics at the State Department in 1978 for the rescue of Ross Perot's employees from Iran; Kurt offers CIA "wet work." Webster's Investigate a Mystery (8) concludes that Kurt is hiding most of his career and has "skinned somebody." (Radford Horrors 02)

The Ferry Lodge raid

On a Read a Bad Situation 14, Kurt spots a white van and two inexperienced watchers outside the remodeled Ferry Lodge, now "under new management." Webster books two rooms and insists on sharing with Kurt. As the keys are handed over, an IRS Criminal Investigations SWAT team storms the lobby. Kurt goes prone, draws, then pulls the pin on a grenade and holds it as a dead man's switch; a Manipulate Someone 11 keeps him from being shot. The desk clerk bolts for the back room, shreds documents and sets the file cabinets alight. Kurt tosses a stapler to fake a grenade, she sprints out, and Andrew catches her on a Protect Someone 11. The IRS leader, eight months into a fraud investigation, shuts the lodge. Kurt puts the pin back ("Kind of a fidget") and drops a caltrop in front of an IRS vehicle on the way out. (Radford Horrors 02)

That leaves the Pay n' Stay. Outside it a homeless man says he was kidnapped in a van by chimpanzees, "John Travolta" and "some ladies" with a mind-control ray, and escaped. The new teenage clerk, Charm, hands over keys chained to big red rulers and admits only to mold. Kurt hoses both rooms with pesticide. (Radford Horrors 02)

The diner and the sheriff

At the diner Sheila greets "secret agent man," asks after "the one who blew up the toilet," and calls them local heroes. The old laundromat across the street is now the neon Douglas Pinball Emporium. Andrew rehydrates his powder in hot water and covers for it on a Manipulate Someone 9; Webster writes "Andrew Howard is a vampire?" in his notebook. Huell tastes it, then attempts a big breakfast of about 3,000 calories, rolls two 1s on Tough, fails a second Tough roll, and projectile vomits breakfast and blood across the bathroom stall. (Radford Horrors 02)

Molly Underhill is sheriff now, after a "battlefield promotion": the old sheriff had a heart attack and stepped back. She recaps the first case as the town knows it, with its cartel story, and reports new disappearances. Phoebe Augustine is supposedly at a California rehab "like Narconon," and lawyers have threatened anyone who looks into it. The FBI task force stopped by, then vanished. She hands over the lawyers' number, six missing posters and a map to the agents' campsite, and asks the team to do something about the Safe Environment Fund, which has been buying and fencing the woods. Webster reads the original case file, gets Molly's version in private, and distrusts both the cartel and the convenient church fire. (Radford Horrors 02)

The campsite and the fence

At the Sportsman RV Campground the agents cut open the missing team's locked tents. Huell's Investigate a Mystery (11) finds no sign of haste or foul play: five agents, a bag of moldy laundry, and a map of the woods marked with irregular polygons and an illegible scribble beside one boundary. Their car is still in the lot with two shotguns locked in the trunk. Kurt's luminol shows only a nosebleed on a pillow. A radio report a week earlier had said they were "chasing up some weird stuff." (Radford Horrors 02)

They hike toward the scribble at dusk, Huell insisting on walking. A quarter mile short they hit an eight-foot chain-link fence with barbed wire and a privacy wrap printed "Safe Environment Fund / No trespassers." It joins an older fence matching one of the map's polygons, so the new stretch probably went up after the agents vanished. Andrew scrambles up and tears the barbed wire apart with his bare hands, which sets a "solar light" whooping. Kurt struggles over (9); Huell makes it with help but falls and jolts his foot for 1 harm; Webster rolls a 5 and hangs from the wire by his coat until Andrew lifts him down like a child. (Radford Horrors 02)

Armed guards arrive on ATVs. Webster screams "FBI! Get on the ground!" and levels his shotgun; on a Manipulate Someone 5 a guard tasers him for 1 harm and the shotgun goes off wide. Kurt fires a P90 burst into the air and the guards fall back. Andrew's Kick Some Ass 10 puts a round through a guard's leg; the guard shoots him in the chest, and the bullet slows and stops an inch from his body. Webster's Investigate a Mystery (10) confirms that he saw it. Over a captured radio, a voice for the property owners orders the guards to stand down and promises "lawyers and emergency response." (Radford Horrors 02)

The scribble

With lawyers following and filming, asking again and again whether there is a warrant, the team reaches the marked spot. Kurt's Investigate a Mystery (10): many people have trampled through, the ground smells of bleach, patches have been dug up, and a tree has recently been cut down and removed entirely. Luminol shows nothing at all, not even wildlife blood. High on a branch is a glob of pearlescent, oil-sheened goo that smells of compost and rot, like the moth but stronger and sourer. Kurt scrapes it down with Huell's crutch. Webster tastes it: eye-wateringly bitter, then cold sweats, nausea, a sweet aftertaste and compulsive salivation. Andrew whispers, "Caterpillar slurry." Samples will go to Donald McManley and to Webster's own forensics contact. The site also holds locked shipping containers and a locked temporary building, which the team leaves alone. (Radford Horrors 02)

Three in the morning

Back at the Pay n' Stay, dead flies litter the beds. Webster leaves his camcorder running in a corner and wedges the door. At about 3 a.m. a foaming, stiff-legged mouse crawls up his stomach. He flicks at it with his gun barrel (9, mixed) and it bites him on the nipple through his shirt for 1 harm. Kurt pins it to the floor with the spear gun on a Kick Some Ass 10. Charm admits that bats in the building give the mice rabies, refunds them, and says she does not sleep there herself. At the ER a doctor says, "Not again. Not you guys." Everyone gets abdominal rabies injections, four doses over two weeks, at $3,000 a head. (Radford Horrors 02)

Cold open and framing

Figures in blue gloves and bunny suits comb woods in a grid while a helicopter circles. The camera pans along a barbed-wire chain-link fence. A worker whistles; a supervisor in a suit walks over, takes a blood-streaked handgun and seals it in a Ziploc in a collection case. The camera pulls out across the fence to reveal the logo "Safe Environment Fund," and the episode cuts to credits. Andre said he would have played the credit music "if Discord hadn't broken it." (Radford Horrors 02)

Player characters

Non-player characters

Monsters and entities

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The first Radford case has two files: the FBI's, with a giant insect, and the sheriff's, with a cartel. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • More townspeople are missing, and inquiries are deflected to a rehab in California and a firm of lawyers. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • The missing agents left their camp calmly and headed for a spot now inside the Fund's fence. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • The Safe Environment Fund has armed guards, alarms, lawyers on call and a cleanup crew. The marked spot had been professionally scrubbed before the team reached it. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Something that smells like the moth left residue in the trees. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Webster watched a bullet stop short of Andrew, and ends the day "doing some recalculations" about his conspiracy theory. (Radford Horrors 02)

Open threads

  • What the goo is, pending two lab results.
  • What is in the Fund's shipping containers and temporary building, and who is behind the Fund.
  • Whether the lawyers who threaten the families are the Fund's lawyers.
  • The homeless man's story of a van, chimpanzees and a mind-control ray.
  • What the Ferry Lodge's new management was hiding.
  • Unchecked leads: the lawyers' number, the fence permits at City Hall, the Whateley boy in Roanoke and the burned church.
  • The team's legal exposure for trespass and a wounded guard. Andre said out of character that they were "legally in the wrong."

(Radford Horrors 02)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"I bled for this country. I continue to bleed for this country."

Dante (as Kurt Larson), to airport security

Quote

"Kurt, your reaction to somebody announcing that they're the police cannot be to pull a gun on them."

Ezra (as Daniel Webster)

Quote

"I don't want you to take offense at any of this, but I am recording everything. It's for my own protection."

Ezra (as Daniel Webster)

Quote

"Man, sketchiest environmental agency ever."

Dante (as Kurt Larson)

Quote

"Not again. Not you guys. What have you done this time?"

Andre (as the ER doctor)

Quote

"This isn't coming out of my coke budget."

Dante, on the rabies bill

Table notes

  • The count of people Webster believes Kurt has skinned rose through the session from one to two ("Two guys, but one event," Zack offered), and Zack later added a third. Andre ruled, "It was a spree skinning and not serial skinning." (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Webster brought his own silverware for fear of poison and records everything on tape, camera and camcorder. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Jokes about Andrew's drink included "white Blade" and "Flavor Aid"; Rita maintained he is not a vampire. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Zack rolled for Ezra's new character, whose sheet Ezra could not find. Zack's own dice were cold (6, a 4 on two 1s, 6) while Dante's were hot. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • The table argued at length about whether the trespass was legal. The players pleaded exigent circumstances. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Out of character, Ezra summed up why Webster's theory was failing: "Nobody's talked about Bill Clinton, nobody's mentioned the Rothschilds... You guys have talked about aliens and moths and woods and, like, shitty hotels." (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Andre's connection lagged badly during the fence scene. (Radford Horrors 02)

Continuity

  • Returns to the people and places of The Radford Horror: Molly, Sheila, the diner, the Pay n' Stay, the Ferry Lodge and the ER, whose doctor remembers the team.
  • Webster knows the Biz was caught photographing Bill Clinton in a hotel room, a callback to the Clinton surveillance scandal. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • When Rita mentions that Andrew has brought "that weird pepper spray" again, Kurt says, "My hand still tingles at night sometimes." (Radford Horrors 02)
  • The trespass leads to the Bivens lawsuit in Radford Horrors 03, and Giuliani's "acceptable fact pattern" order continues to hang over the case.
  • Radford Horrors 01 dates the briefing to "early April '93," and the team flies out at noon the next day, which places the return to Radford in April 1993. Asked how long it had been since the team was last in town, Andre said, "A little less than a year." (Radford Horrors 02)
  • The ER doctor here prescribes four vaccine doses over two weeks. In Radford Horrors 03 the same course becomes one injection every Tuesday for four weeks.