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The Things in Appalachia, Episode 04

With McManley in town and five people now missing, the team is called to account by Sheriff Burke, hears about a "Chewbacca" picked up by a black sedan, and finally visits the Covenant in Auraria.
Arc The Things in Appalachia
Episode 04
Setting Dahlonega, Georgia and Auraria
In-fiction date Thursday, October 7, 1992, from about 3 p.m. to dinner time (the same afternoon Appalachia 03 ended)
Players present Andre (GM), Dante, Ezra, Zack, Rita
Previous Appalachia 03
Next Appalachia 05 (unrecorded)

Uncertain

The recording of this session is a single mixed audio track, so it is not always clear who is speaking. Quotes below are attributed only where the speaker is clear.

Synopsis

Donald McManley arrives with his mobile lab and takes charge of the evidence. Sheriff Carter Burke demands to know why the FBI turned up before anyone knew there was a pattern. The agents interview Frederick's mother through a translator and Gene's mother, Monica Cartwright, in person, then drive to Auraria, where the Covenant turns out to be poor, sick from its river, and fighting an eviction. Andrew Howard talks his way in to see a new recruit who is to be baptised that evening, the same man the cold open shows vanishing into red mud. (Appalachia 04)

Plot

McManley arrives

At about 3 p.m. the team is outside the hotel as McManley's RV pulls in. He complains that the town has no RV hookups. Huell Kendrick hands him the face in the bag; the team adds a bag of recovered remains, the two boys' shoes, and a small sample of blood from the mineshaft where Kurt Larson shot the creature. McManley grumbles that Kurt could have used a higher caliber and tells him to ice his elbow. (Appalachia 04)

The agents trade theories. The Biz and Huell float a yeti or werewolf. Kurt argues that it is an animal, not strictly human, and that the red light on it was inorganic, a recording or tracking device, which means people are involved. McManley proposes a huge man on meth and PCP; Kurt replies that such a man could throw him but could not be that fast. In the lot, a van and a shiny black Ford truck have a fender bender, and a suited man with a clipboard swaps details with a woman in a forest-ranger uniform. The team watches and does not approach. (Appalachia 04)

Man-to-man with Burke

Andrew phones Burke from the payphone outside the hotel. Burke reports that Aaron Richters has been reported missing by the distribution center, and orders the team to the station. In his office Burke lays it out: five people missing in two days, and the FBI arrived before it was clear there were even two. Andrew admits they do not know what is going on. Kurt describes the task force as an oversensitive early warning system that happens to be right this time, and suggests a curfew and a "truth-adjacent" cover story about a fatal tick-borne disease. Burke says he has asked the state police for help, asks the agents to call them too, and names the strongest man in town, a bodybuilder called Walter Sellers. (Appalachia 04)

Burke's own translator is two days away, so at the team's suggestion he sets up an elderly speakerphone and an FBI translator interprets by telephone for Frederick's mother, who speaks only German. She heard a clatter, no scream, and turned the corner to find him gone and his game on the floor. Kurt explains why the search paused: the shoe points toward an exit, and the cave-in is being excavated. (Appalachia 04)

Meanwhile the Biz returns a page from Jeff "Apple" Appleby, an old drinking buddy and newly appointed federal judge, who wants him in Las Vegas to celebrate. Andrew confirms the case will not wrap by Friday. (Appalachia 04)

Monica Cartwright

At her trailer, among wine bottles and a broken air conditioner, Monica recounts Gene vanishing while playing with "the Nick boy". She repeats a sighting of drunk off-season hunters in gray jumpsuits and sunglasses, in a Jeep with a big cage and shotguns. She adds that about a month ago a naked, hairy figure that looked exactly like Chewbacca stood at the end of her driveway with a backpack and then got into the back of a black sedan; Burke dismissed it because she had been drinking. She tells the agents not to come back without her son. Outside, they agree that Gene is almost certainly dead. (Appalachia 04)

Auraria

In Auraria the Covenant members stare. A shy young woman, Clover, says Willow had been sent by Elijah Ray to scout peach orchards and never came back with her samples, that she would not have abandoned the peaches, and that she had been fighting a little with her sister. She also says members get infections every few months from bathing in the river, which carries "a lot of runoff from the Spud Hut plant". Kurt leaves a stack of women's shelter cards; her answer to every concern is that they are getting a boiler. (Appalachia 04)

Mother Dahlia Riversand intercepts the team and installs them in the community center. Kurt's Investigate a Mystery (7, a partial hit) reads a community on the edge of economic viability: rough outhouses, many stills, frantic canning and quilting. Willow's friend River confirms the fight with Prim but does not think Prim is a murderer. Dahlia and River explain the land dispute: about a year ago "corporate goons" arrived with paperwork claiming the land. The orchard deal and the preserve sales are meant to pay for a lawyer. The eviction letters, of which Dahlia has only copies, name a law firm, Jackson and Lee's, and no client. (Appalachia 04)

Jeremy

Dahlia invites the team to that evening's baptism of a door-to-door vacuum salesman. Rita's Manipulate Someone (8) has Andrew play lost and haunted in a private aside; Dahlia tells him the devil is standing right behind him and lets him alone speak to the recruit through a tent wall. Jeremy assumes the FBI has come about "those deaths" and swears he did not know the vacuum cleaners were deadly. He is a Quaalude addict who lost his family and job, broke down near Auraria, and trusts the Covenant to run his life better than he has. (Appalachia 04)

While Andrew is away, Kurt and Huell needle a stony Covenant man with talk of cheeseburgers and stuffed-crust pizza until he storms off reciting Latin. Dahlia explains that the river water has been boiled and treated with chlorine tablets for about a year, since intestinal trouble began. The team leaves without stopping the baptism, and resolves to test the river and look harder at Spud Hut, after one more dinner there. (Appalachia 04)

Cold open and framing

White on-screen text reads "Dahlonega, Georgia". In a gas-lit tent a sweating vacuum cleaner salesman in a brown suit changes into a thin white robe and follows a candlelit path to a red-clay river, where four women in white kneel in the mud. An older man with high cheekbones kisses his forehead and hands him a jar of dark liquid with peaches floating in it. He drinks; the sound goes muffled and the camera tilts into Dutch angles. The old man chants in Latin and plunges him into the mud, and he disappears beneath the surface. The session has no recap and ends on Andre's remark, after a Hannibal Lecter joke about Spud Hut, "That is kind of a plot point of the show." See the show. (Appalachia 04)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • Aaron Richters is officially missing, making five disappearances in two days.
  • A hairy "Chewbacca" figure was collected by a black sedan about a month ago, which points to human handlers or a costume.
  • Men in gray jumpsuits with a caged Jeep and shotguns were seen in the woods.
  • The Covenant's river carries runoff from the Spud Hut plant, and members have been sick for about a year.
  • Someone has spent a year trying to evict the Covenant through the law firm Jackson and Lee's.
  • The Covenant's baptism uses a peach drink and immersion in red clay.

(Appalachia 04)

Open threads

  • What happens to Jeremy at the evening baptism.
  • Who is behind the eviction; the team suspects Spud Hut, without proof.
  • McManley's results on the face, the hair and the blood.
  • Elijah Ray, the last person to see Willow, has not been met; Andrew says he has an idea for that.
  • The suited man and the ranger in the parking lot.
  • Promised follow-ups: calling the state police, a child-protection report on the Covenant, paging the Circle Chasers.

(Appalachia 04)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"It's an early warning system that got tricked. It's overly sensitive, but this time it's right." Dante (as Kurt), to Burke

Quote

"I don't mean he looked a little like Chewbacca. I mean he looked exactly like Chewbacca." Andre (as Monica)

Quote

"We're getting a boiler." Andre (as Clover)

Quote

"You've got the devil standing right behind you. Do you know that?" Andre (as Dahlia), to Andrew

Quote

"Just one more dinner at Mr. Lecter's place, and then we'll start investigating him, I swear to God." Dante (as Kurt)

(Appalachia 04)

Table notes

  • "We're getting a boiler" became the Covenant's answer to every hygiene question, with the date slipping each time. See running gags.
  • The table groaned at another Spud Hut dinner while agreeing to it; Appleby's advice was "Don't eat the shrimp scampi."
  • Zack suggested the salesman sold Kirby vacuums, and Andre briefly retconned the brand before Dahlia named it as something like "Con-A-Wear".
  • Andre said the task force has handled about ten cases, most of them duds.
  • Ezra observed that Andre's NPC names usually carry a joke or a meaning and plainly do not come from a name generator.
  • Asked the day of the week during the Appleby call, someone at the table (probably Andre) says "I believe it's Wednesday". By the count kept in Appalachia 02 and Appalachia 03 it is Thursday.
  • Dice: Dante rolled a 7 on Investigate a Mystery despite his +3.

(Appalachia 04)

Continuity

  • Continues directly from Appalachia 03: the face, the blood sample, Kurt's elbow, Frederick.
  • Monica's "Chewbacca" and the men in gray jumpsuits follow up the staged footprints of Appalachia 02 and set up the body in the Chewbacca costume in Appalachia 06. Gray jumpsuits are also what the Spud Hut plant workers wear in Appalachia 02.
  • The cold open shows the baptism Dahlia invites the team to, which is to take place that evening.
  • The next session, Appalachia 05, was played but never recorded. Appalachia 06 picks up the following morning and does not say what became of Jeremy's baptism or the planned Spud Hut dinner.

(Appalachia 04)