Skip to content

The Summer Service, Episode 03

A sleepless Huell walks into a blood-soaked house, Andrew is warned off the water by a dead man in a dream, the communion wine turns out to be full of worms, and the trail of the missing scientists ends in a lighthouse basement.
Arc The Summer Service
Episode 03
Setting Marblehead, Massachusetts
In-fiction date Summer 1992; from about 10:30 p.m. on the team's second day through the following day
Players present Andre (GM), Dante, Ezra, Zack, Rita; Kira (guest) at the table without a character
Previous Summer Service 02 (unrecorded)
Next Summer Service 04

Synopsis

Picking up the night after the unrecorded submarine dive, the session finds Kurt sick with chicken pox and nerve agent and Huell awake for 48 hours and visibly fitter. Huell's walk for fries leads him to the wrecked, bloody home of preacher Amos Shaw. Andrew dreams of a gray-skinned dead man who asks whether he can order a nuclear strike. In the morning the lab reports a synthetic toxin close to VX, Big Bill takes the case toward the Oval Office, and Donald McManley finds worms swimming in the communion wine. A tip from Ma Gramoire sends the team to the town's lighthouse, where they find a glass-melting blast scar, a transmitting police radio, an interrogation site, and the missing scientists' field journal. (Summer Service 03)

Plot

The murder house

Back at the hotel after the dive, Kurt is feverish and freezing. His Tough roll, with +1 forward for looking after himself in the unrecorded previous session, comes up 8: no penalty, but a bad night. Huell cannot sleep at all. He is full of nervous energy and hungry, and Andre gives him +1 Tough for the episode. On his way out to McDonald's he passes a haunted-looking Jester, who gives him an appraising nod. (Summer Service 03)

Huell passes a house whose door has stood open for days with mail piling up, and knocks. Inside the house a lamp is tipped over, furniture is knocked askew, there are holes in the drywall, and a burner is still lit under a pan with its bottom melted out. His Read a Bad Situation (10) tells him nobody present means him harm. In the kitchen (Investigate a Mystery, 9) he finds bloody gauze and tweezers and a blood smear running from the stairs. Upstairs a long, bloody gouge runs through the hallway wall, and the bathroom door has been burst outward from inside. The bathroom is wrecked, with blood in the tub and sink and rags of skin on the taps. In the untouched bedroom (Investigate a Mystery, 12) are biblical scholarship, fringe books on Lemuria, clerical garments like those at the church, and a grocery bag holding about ten pounds of crystal spheres like Jester's. Huell calls the FBI switchboard from a payphone; the operator warns of a chemical-weapon exposure alert on Marblehead and pages the team. (Summer Service 03)

McManley arrives with his mobile home lab. He finds a full body's worth of blood loss, three or four days old. Andrew checks the porch mail: it is all addressed to Amos Shaw. Since Andrew met Shaw alive inside that window, the victim is someone else. McManley bags the spheres without knowing what they are and decides not to tell the local police. (Summer Service 03)

The gray man

An hour before the page, Andrew lies paralyzed while pool-water light swirls on his ceiling. A nude, gray-skinned man with a swollen, seamed skull and large bloodshot eyes squats at the foot of the bed. He apologizes for what is going to happen, tells Andrew again and again to stay away from the water, says "they damaged it" and "it can't cool itself anymore", and asks whether Andrew can order a nuclear strike. He says he wishes he were not dead, asks Andrew to hug his mom for him, kisses him on the lips and vanishes. Andre introduces a new mechanic, dread: Rita rolls 7 and Andrew takes 5. He does not tell the others about the dream. (Summer Service 03)

On the drive back Andrew studies Huell (Investigate a Mystery, 7) and sees that he is more muscular, that his hairline has come forward, and that he has a little of the same youthful glow as Shaw and Jester. Huell jokes that the priest slipped him methamphetamine. (Summer Service 03)

Washington gets involved

At 6:30 a.m. Kurt's rash has spread up his neck and arms, and he duct-tapes his hand inside a thermos of warm coffee. Diane pages: the CDC, FEMA and the NCEH are calling, the governor may call out the National Guard and close the beaches, and the toxin is "not VX exactly" but close, resembles jellyfish toxin and seems synthetic. Andrew tells her he now suspects an alien submarine rather than a sea monster. The radio reports a tropical depression moving in. (Summer Service 03)

Kurt phones an old weapons contact and asks for something big enough to kill the "glowy ring". Andre runs it as a Preparedness check at -1 forward "because it's such a big ask"; the 10 drops to 9, a mixed success: a deniable weapon with its serial numbers filed off will arrive "in a day or two". The Biz privately messages Andre a plan and rolls Charm, 8; the result is deferred. (Summer Service 03)

Andrew then briefs Big Bill Nelson, head of the Foreign Influence Task Force: the submarine dive, the stealth wreck with its capacitor turret, the bite taken out of it, the humming ring of lights, the cult, the spherical diamonds and the wine. Big Bill treats it as counterintelligence, says he will go to the Oval Office and try for a Navy submarine survey, and orders the team to find the missing scientists before the Guard arrives. (Summer Service 03)

Worms

The team splits. Andrew attends the 7 a.m. service at the church, where his Sharp 9 shows that many congregants share the glow. Shaw is absent. A new priest, opalescent, translucent and slightly bloated like a drowned body, preaches against doubt. Andrew holds the wine in his mouth, but his Manipulate Someone fails on a 6 and the priest knows he did not swallow. He spits it into an empty Crystal Pepsi bottle outside and walks it past a student protest against the Seabrook nuclear plant at town hall to McManley at the post office next door. Under the microscope the wine is swimming with worms like tapeworms or nematodes. McManley prescribes ivermectin from a large-animal vet. The congregation drinks the wine three times a day. (Summer Service 03)

Kurt, Huell and the Biz visit Ma Gramoire, a 4'7" woman with a cane who will talk to the government only when it brings back her National Guard son Jordan. Kurt's Manipulate Someone (7) succeeds only if he acts at once, so he calls Big Bill's office from her phone and has Jordan requested for the deployment. Over grilled cheese and absinthe she says she was poisoned by dipping a toe in the sea, that the scientists got nowhere with the Board of Selectmen, and that they were going to check the town's only lighthouse. Kurt leaves drunk. Outside town hall the Biz flicks a cigarette into a protester's eye (Kick Some Ass, 10). Andrew greets the car with the news: "Guys, we have worms!" (Summer Service 03)

The lighthouse

At the taped-off lighthouse, Lena Scott runs up and hugs Andrew; the agents warn her parents about the water and the coming soldiers, and the family leaves. Kurt, at -1 forward from the absinthe, picks the gate lock on an Act Under Pressure 11. Behind the building the Biz rolls 14 on Investigate a Mystery: a crater, a scorched wall, and rock melted to volcanic glass, plus a smeared bloody fingerprint on the door post as if someone had been pulled away. Inside, every piece of glass is broken. Huell spots a police walkie-talkie with its button taped down and signals silence; Kurt hides it under blankets in the car. (Summer Service 03)

A second 14 from the Biz finds a hidden trapdoor with blood on its edge. In the basement Kurt (11) finds blood-stained ropes cut into short lengths, two teeth, two bloodied chairs set for interrogation, and an EPA field journal. Luminol shows a bleach trail from the trapdoor to where a car would park: someone was beaten here and taken to a third location, probably by police. The journal records the nerve-agent conclusion, unknown "taxidermy mash-up" fish, and normal-looking fish hollowed out by worms yet still alive, drawn as bags of worms. The scientists were threatened by the mayor and senior officials, and a local sent them to the lighthouse. That is the last entry. (Summer Service 03)

Cold open and framing

Andre narrates a teaser: Jester carries a tray of food at night to an ornate, chained house overlooking the sea and calls through the door, "Arnold? Buddy, you feelin' any better? I brought you some food." A wet, dog-like growl answers. The tray is yanked through the mail slot, the door and chains bounce, and the camera zooms in on the door before a cut to black and the credits. The occupant is Arnold Weathers and the house is his. (Summer Service 03)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters and entities

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The blood in Shaw's house is not Shaw's; he is missing.
  • The communion wine carries worms, which likely cause the glow. Huell, Kurt and Andrew are presumed infected.
  • The toxin in the water is synthetic and close to VX.
  • Fish in the bay are being hollowed out by worms and stay alive; unknown hybrid fish exist.
  • The scientists were threatened by the mayor and selectmen, then sent to the lighthouse, where someone was beaten and removed.
  • The team's reports are classified under the code word SKYHOOK. The chain of command runs from Andrew to Big Bill, to deputy director Floyd Clark, to the President.

(Summer Service 03)

Open threads

  • Who died in Shaw's house, and where Shaw is.
  • Who the dream visitor was, and what "it" is that cannot cool itself.
  • Who or what "Arnold" is, and Jester's role.
  • What melted the rock behind the lighthouse.
  • Whether the police are listening through the walkie-talkie.
  • Whether the diamonds are payment or by-product.
  • Pending: Kurt's weapon, the Biz's secret plan, McManley's lab results, the ivermectin, and Huell's decision about taking it.

(Summer Service 03)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"Hi, Andrew. I'm really sorry about all the stuff that's gonna happen to you. Your friends seem like nice people. You should stay away from the water." Andre (as the dream visitor).

Quote

"Are you high enough in your government to order a nuclear strike? That might work." Andre (as the dream visitor).

Quote

"I don't know what the CDC plans to do against the spinning death wheel under the water that eats ships for dinner, but, you know, maybe they can vaccinate it." Dante (as Kurt).

Quote

"There is a cult here with weird, perfectly spherical diamonds, drugs in their communion wine that make you hotter." Rita (as Andrew), briefing Big Bill.

Quote

"I've never liked people who can read." Andre (as Ma Gramoire), about the EPA scientists.

Quote

"Howard, come put your eye on the microscope, Howard. Don't be a coward." Andre (as McManley), delivered with no laugh.

(Summer Service 03)

Table notes

  • Dread arrives as a mystery mechanic that Andre says he is "borrowing from some of the Lovecraft games"; asked what it does, he says only "you're gonna find out", and Kira adds, "The answer is none of your business."
  • Huell's sudden fitness draws steroid, meth and hairline jokes all session.
  • The Biz becomes the party investigator, with +3 on Investigate a Mystery and two 14s at the lighthouse.
  • Zack and Rita both mishear McManley's "door knocked down" as the front door, briefly making Huell a suspect.
  • Andre ate McDonald's "for the sake of immersion".
  • Kira wants to adopt Lena Scott and repeats her nematode fact several times.
  • Dante: "Ask your doctor if being worms is for you."
  • A discussion of splitting the party (Andre: "it just kills all your players").

(Summer Service 03)

Continuity