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The Summer Service, Episode 01

The task force spends its first full day in Marblehead chasing a vanished survey team, pulls a severed arm out of the surf, and sits through a sermon and a cup of fishy communion wine at the town's ocean-obsessed church.
Arc The Summer Service
Episode 01 (arc opener)
Setting Marblehead, Massachusetts
In-fiction date June 1992; one day, from morning until after the nine o'clock evening service
Players present Andre (GM), Dante, Rita, Ezra, Zack; Kira (guest) sitting in
Previous Radford Horror 08
Next Summer Service 02 (unrecorded)

Synopsis

The Paranatural Incident Task Force is in Marblehead to find a previous team of investigators, known to locals as "the scientists", who looked into illnesses after an offshore explosion and then stopped reporting. Working from that team's contact list, the agents learn that the blast came from the sea at 3 a.m., that fish have been dying ever since, and that a six-year-old who collapsed on the beach showed symptoms closer to a stimulant overdose than to gas poisoning. They find a severed arm in a black turtleneck sleeve floating among the dead fish, the Biz steals a strange crystal sphere from the motel clerk, and the whole team attends the nine o'clock service of preacher Amos Shaw. Afterwards Kurt catches an FBI counterintelligence agent who has been watching the Biz, and keeps it to himself. (Summer Service 01)

Plot

Field notes and the hallway payphone

In their room at the bed-and-breakfast on Gregory Street, the team goes through the previous team's field notes. The missing investigators interviewed locals who fell ill after the explosion, judged the symptoms inconsistent with natural gas poisoning, and wrote in their last entry that they were going to meet town leaders. Their contact list names the Cartwright family, Ma Gramoire, "Lana Scott" and Denver O'Donnell. Huell Kendrick resolves to keep better notes this time. (Summer Service 01)

The rooms have no phones, and the hallway payphone is occupied by a gossiping teenage girl. Kurt Larson sits down beside her and clips his toenails. His Manipulate Someone comes up 9, a mixed success: she will only leave if he shows he means it, so he squeezes a toe as though it were infected. Her mother opens the door, freezes, drags the girl inside and deadbolts it. A stranger on the line asks, "Marion? Marion, are you there?" (Summer Service 01)

Posing as an FBI consultant, Kurt calls the Scott number. Irene Scott answers "Scott Insurance, we do boats and cars" and says her daughter spent a couple of hours on a ventilator in Salem and is back at school; the scientists drew blood, promised to follow up and vanished. Ma Gramoire hangs up the moment she hears "FBI". (Summer Service 01)

Meanwhile Andrew Howard speed-reads the motel Bible. Rita's 11 is a full success. Alongside the ordinary text, the book sends Jesus to a sunken continent between India and Madagascar, which Andrew recognises as Lemuria; says Eden was taken beneath the waves; promises a physical return to Eden on Judgment Day; and rails against continental drift. The tone around Revelation has what the table calls Jonestown vibes. Andrew's verdict: "I think they might sacrifice people to a sea monster." (Summer Service 01)

Briggs and the arm in the surf

Playing tourists, the agents pass the front desk, where the clerk with the "Crypt Keeper haircut" now wears a name tag reading "Jester", and walk to the old working docks. There Andrew finds Briggs, a drunk fisherman and veteran with a prosthetic foot, dozing beside a barely floating boat and calling everyone "officer". Kurt shows his own bullet wounds and the two bond as veterans. Briggs blames "the goddamn Russians" for a 3 a.m. bombing about a week and a half ago that blew out every window near the shore and put glass in his groin. Since then there have been dead fish, weird weather, headaches and bad moods. He describes the church as against alcohol, given to sea baptisms of about forty white-clad people at a time and to speaking in tongues, and possibly older than the colony. He vouches for the cemetery keeper, O'Donnell, recommends the fort, warns them off local seafood, and points out the wealthy island across the bay. (Summer Service 01)

Walking the beach past broken and taped windows, Kurt rolls a 12 on Investigate a Mystery. The blast came from out in the harbor and moved inland, and at the center of the damage something black is bobbing among the dead fish. It is a bloated, fish-eaten human arm, fingers to past the elbow, in a soaked black turtleneck sleeve and black glove, the bone violently splintered. Huell buys a trash bag at Harvard's Bait Shop, and the team decides not to remove the glove in case the hand comes apart. (Summer Service 01)

From a payphone Andrew tells Diane he has found an arm. She promises forensics and recalls that the brief called the local police hostile. The arm goes into a cooler with ice and duct tape; Kurt's Preparedness roll (10) turns up Tiger Balm for under everyone's noses. The cooler rides in the trunk of the Biz's car with the windows down. (Summer Service 01)

The marbles and the Scotts

Back at the motel to shower, the Biz (Sharp, 9) notices that Jester is arguing in the back room and has left an open bag on the desk. Inside are about a dozen clear crystal marbles, slightly smaller than ordinary marbles, warmer than glass, very light and so hard that his new carbon-steel pocket knife blunts on one without leaving a mark. He licks one, then palms it and hides it even from his teammates. Kurt (Sharp, 11) catches three words of the argument: "weather", "quarantine", "unbeliever". Jester returns, snatches the bag, and tells Huell, who covers by asking for a toothbrush, that this is a "bed-and-breakfast, not a bed-and-toothbrush." (Summer Service 01)

At the Scott home, Irene and her husband Douglas introduce Lena, about six, who shouts "Strangers!", climbs into Andrew's lap and demands coffee. The day after the blast she wandered from a school trip at the fort down to the beach and was found unconscious, with breathing trouble, vomiting, a racing pulse, pinhole pupils, trembling, compulsive movements and sweating. She improved within eight hours. The Biz quietly shows her his marble; she is not interested. Outside, Kurt says the symptoms match a stimulant or amphetamine overdose. (Summer Service 01)

Waiting for nine o'clock

The team scouts the colonial church and decides to attend the evening service before approaching the priest. Andrew is paged by Dr. Khan of the Radford ER, whose lab has lost the blood samples from his clotting test. At McDonald's, where the Happy Meal toys are Halloween-themed in June, Diane reports that a forensics team under Donald McManley arrives in the morning. McManley is good but abrasive and has already called the team "flatfoots". Diane, unwilling to say the word aloud, asks whether this is "another M-O-T-H situation"; Andrew says it is a sea monster the locals are feeding, or trying not to feed. Kurt fails a Tough roll with a 3. (Summer Service 01)

The service and the man on the roof

The congregation mixes business leaders and fishermen. The Biz's 13 on Sharp sizes up the preacher: about sixty, but muscular, glowing and light on his feet, in homemade white vestments. Shaw reads Revelation 13 and preaches that angels are terrifying monsters built by God to wipe out sin, that good is not nice, and that the world comes from water and returns to it. Communion is wine only, and it tastes fishy. Huell drinks all of his and gets an upset stomach; Kurt sips, pretends to finish, and feels sweaty and off. Andrew and the Biz decline. Shaw introduces himself as "Mr. Shaw", assumes Andrew is government, scolds the Biz for swearing in "God's house", and calls the wine "a local variety". Kurt (Sharp, 7) sees a flicker of reaction he cannot read, and feels an iron grip in the handshake. (Summer Service 01)

Outside, Kurt spots a man with binoculars on the roof of a closed general store and reaches the fire escape on an Act Under Pressure 11. The man greets him by name and shows FBI counterintelligence credentials: "Richard", the Biz, has been a person of interest for a couple of weeks because his money problems make him vulnerable to leverage. Kurt threatens him, says the unit is his to handle, and lets him go. He tells the team only that it was "skeletons in my closet". Back at the motel, Jester is frantically searching his desk. (Summer Service 01)

Cold open and framing

The episode opens in TV style: a slow zoom into the mouth of a sea cave with the tide flowing in and out, something big moving inside, "and we cut to credits." (Summer Service 01)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters and entities

  • The thing in the sea cave, seen only in the cold open (minor entities)
  • The sea monster Andrew suspects, unconfirmed

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The explosion happened at 3 a.m. about a week and a half ago, out in the harbor, and moved inland.
  • Dead fish, strange weather, headaches and bad moods have followed it.
  • Lena Scott fell ill on the beach, with symptoms resembling a stimulant overdose.
  • The church's Bible places a sunken Eden under the sea and promises a physical return to it; the sermon dwells on a beast rising from the sea.
  • Shaw is unnaturally fit for his age and reacted to a question about the wine.
  • Jester's crystal spheres are warm, light and harder than steel.
  • FBI counterintelligence is surveilling the Biz over his money problems.

(Summer Service 01)

Open threads

  • What happened to the previous team, and whether the arm belongs to one of them.
  • What the marbles are, and whether Jester will trace the missing one to the Biz.
  • What is in the communion wine that Huell finished and Kurt sipped.
  • What exploded, and what moved in the sea cave.
  • Ma Gramoire, the Cartwrights and O'Donnell have not been interviewed; the "town leaders" are unidentified.
  • Kurt's secret about the counterintelligence investigation.
  • Andrew's lost blood test and possible clotting disorder.
  • A house near the payphone with its door ajar, and Halloween Happy Meal toys in June.

(Summer Service 01)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"I think they might sacrifice people to a sea monster." Rita (as Andrew), after speed-reading the motel Bible.

Quote

"I think every damned soul becomes a seagull. That's my little heresy on top of Catholicism." Andre (as Briggs).

Quote

"I found an arm." / "Ocean." Rita (as Andrew), phoning Diane.

Quote

"Was Christ not himself a fisherman?" Andre (as Shaw).

Quote

"Now, if I were at my old job, you would already be zip-tied to a chair, being Tabasco-boarded." Dante (as Kurt), to the roof watcher.

Quote

"We shouldn't be trying to speedrun the human sacrifice." Dante (out of character).

(Summer Service 01)

Table notes

  • Kurt's toenail clipping wins the payphone, with a +1 forward from Andre for the approach.
  • The toothbrush gag with Jester gets a callback in the last scene: Huell asks, "Lost your toothbrush?"
  • The arm smell soaking into the Biz's car, with repossession jokes and layers of Tiger Balm.
  • Jokes on McManley's name ("not a real manly") and on the marble being "wicked smooth".
  • Kurt fails another Tough roll ("this keeps happening").
  • Andre moves the other players out of the voice call for Kurt's private rooftop scene, then calls them back.
  • Dante, on the trash-bag errand: "In classic D&D fashion, every little thing becomes a thing."
  • Dante, on The Radford Horror: "Last mystery, we solved almost no questions."

(Summer Service 01)

Continuity

  • The case began in the last third of Radford Horror 08, where the team received the Marblehead file, checked into the Ram and Arms Inn, took the Sons of Adam Bible and found the survey team's journal. The inn and the church are named there; in this episode they are simply "the motel" and "the church". (Radford Horror 08, Summer Service 01)
  • Callbacks to Radford: the fight with the moth, Andrew's nosebleed, Kurt's leg injury, and the rooftop watcher Kurt hit with a car. (Summer Service 01)
  • The briefing in Radford Horror 08 puts the explosion "about a month ago"; Briggs here puts it "about a week and a half ago". (Radford Horror 08, Summer Service 01)
  • The survey team's contact list reads "Lana Scott"; the Scotts call their daughter Lena. (Summer Service 01)
  • The next session, Summer Service 02, was never recorded, so McManley's arrival is never seen. The counterintelligence thread returns in Summer Service 03.