Skip to content

The Things in Appalachia, Episode 08

The team finally enters the Spud Hut plant, where Jan Martense walks them four stories underground, leaves them outside a "break room" full of ape-men, and takes the elevator back up.
Arc The Things in Appalachia
Episode 08
Setting Spud Hut Georgia Regional Distribution Center, Dahlonega, Georgia
In-fiction date October 1992, a workday, directly after the truck wreck of Appalachia 07
Players present Andre (GM), Dante, Ezra, Zack, Rita
Previous Appalachia 07
Next Appalachia 09

Synopsis

Hiding from reporters over the Clinton surveillance story, the team follows the sheriff to the Spud Hut plant and bluffs its way inside, though not before Andrew Howard is recognised on live television. Plant manager Jan Martense leads them down to the Special Projects level, sends them to wait in a room with the door code 441, and leaves. The room holds five ape-men. The fight ends when Kurt Larson sets off a Claymore mine in the corridor. (Appalachia 08)

Plot

Outside the plant

With McManley called to process the truck cab, the team follows the sheriff to the plant. The Spud Hut trucks that had been everywhere are gone from the road. In the lot are a Fox 5 Atlanta van and the car of the investigator who has been looking into Spud Hut, chain-smoking out of his window. Kurt swears him to secrecy and tells him the wrecked truck carried only dirt, "not one potato". The investigator guesses, "Gold mining?" He warns that the plant's executive is high-strung and European: "I think he's Polish or Irish or something." (Appalachia 08)

The team decides to pose as reporters being escorted by the sheriff. Andre rules that he will make Kurt's Manipulate Someone roll himself and keep the result hidden. Andrew's unmistakable look would cost a -1, so the sheriff swears him in as a deputy and dresses him in the spare uniform of an absent deputy called String Bean; Kurt's fake European accent (Act Under Pressure, 12) adds +1. (Appalachia 08)

"Thank you for your time"

At the door the Fox 5 crew recognises "Andrew Howard with the FBI" and asks him, live, about the "Bill Clinton wiretap" and whether this is the next Watergate. Andrew says "Nothing," then "Thank you for your time," and power-walks away. The sheriff talks the receptionist, Charlene, into unlocking the door. On the threshold Andrew turns back, sweating, to add "Thank you for your time again." Andre adds that the clip of Andrew, sweating, turning back to say it again goes on to be replayed on the news about every ten minutes. (Appalachia 08)

Inside, Charlene asks for identification, and Kurt fumbles past an ID marked "Brazil" before finding a real one. Andrew's pager goes off with Big Bill's number, but all the phones are down. She leads them through corridors of workers hauling potato sacks, explains a fishy smell as the "new special taco sauce", and tells the Biz not to touch the sacks: Spud Hut potatoes are "never touched by human hands". (Appalachia 08)

Jan Martense

Jan is very tall, gaunt and sweaty, in an ill-fitting suit. Kurt introduces himself as CIA "assisting the FBI"; Jan says he grew up in East Germany and understands such arrangements. In the cargo elevator he asks whether they were spying on the presidential candidate. He calls the driver's death a "tragic accident". Told that the truck carried only soil, he promises to check every outgoing truck against its manifest and says he will not tolerate chicanery. Kurt's Read a Bad Situation (9) is ambiguous: Jan is a little squirrelly, but he is also a corporate manager talking to the CIA. The Biz's pager shows Big Bill's number just before it loses signal as the elevator descends. (Appalachia 08)

Jan keys the steel doors marked "Special Projects", takes them down a second elevator, and says, "Down here we do the toppings." Then he abruptly needs to "make an arrangement" on the internal phones, the external lines being out. He sends them to wait five minutes in a room down the hall, code 441, with chairs and a drinks machine, and rides the elevator back up to ground level. (Appalachia 08)

The break room

Kurt enters the code, props the dark room's door with his shoe and watches the elevator rise. The others wander the open floor. A group Read a Bad Situation (Kurt 9, Huell 8, Andrew 9, the Biz 11) turns up medical equipment, animal-handling equipment and shovels stashed where they should not be. The Biz, with an 11, is the only one to hear the door squeak; he turns to see a huge, pale, hairy arm probing out, with reflective eyes behind it, and shrieks. Shrieking and the rattle of cages erupt inside the room. (Appalachia 08)

Kurt decides to shoot his shoe out of the gap. Andrew, delighted at the chance of meeting a cryptid, takes the handle; every light goes out. On a 9 he gets the door open, Kurt shoots the shoe inside, and Andrew slams the door on a long-nailed hand. The door then bursts open into his forehead. His protection cancels the harm, but he is dazed, and several figures come out. (Appalachia 08)

Ear pro

Kurt's flashlight shows five pale, hairy, hunched, partly human apes. One picks Andrew up and throws him through the drop ceiling into the pipes; he fails to grab hold (5), falls back into its grip and is juggled. Another punches Kurt's dog whistle into his throat. Huell Kendrick rolls Kick Some Ass for 10 and shoots one through the neck by the light of Andrew's camera flash; it staggers into him and slams his head into a cinder-block wall (2 harm, stunned). (Appalachia 08)

With four creatures closing on him, Kurt makes a preparedness roll (7, raised to 10) and produces a Claymore from his belt. He sets it down, jumps back and yells "Ear pro!" The stunned Huell cannot react; the Biz (8) drops and covers; Andrew (10) happens to be thrown back to the ceiling, above the blast. The creature juggling him becomes a mist of gore and bone. Huell takes fragments and a ruptured eardrum, ending at 3 harm and semi-conscious; the Biz takes 1. Everyone is deafened, and the door frame and opposite wall are gone. The sheriff, who has been screaming continuously since the hand first appeared and who dived through the "break room" door when he saw the Claymore, peeks back out. (Appalachia 08)

Andre's tally at the end of the session is one creature dead, the one that was juggling Andrew, and three hurt: at least two badly injured by the blast, plus the one Huell shot through the neck. The four survivors have fled into the rest of the floor. Dante asks whether two are dead and Andre corrects him: "One's dead." About a minute and a half has passed since Jan's elevator went up. (Appalachia 08)

Cold open and framing

The camera glides down a steel corridor to double doors marked "Special Projects" with a keypad, tips down through a floor grate past pipes and hissing steam, and enters a nearly dark room of rattling steel cages. Hooting and shrieking build to a peak, then stop as a dozen shining eyes turn toward the camera. "We cut to credits." There is no "previously on"; the players recap the truck wreck themselves. The session ends on a cliffhanger. See the show. (Appalachia 08)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters

  • Ape-Men: five on the Special Projects level; one killed

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • Spud Hut keeps pale, partly human ape creatures caged on a hidden underground level, alongside medical gear, animal-handling gear and shovels.
  • The creatures can throw a man through a ceiling; they dislike the dog whistle and flee the blast.
  • Jan Martense delivered the team to their door and left.
  • The investigator independently suspects gold mining.
  • Andrew now reduces all harm he takes by 2, an upgrade Rita announced this session.

(Appalachia 08)

Open threads

  • Whether Jan meant to kill them, and who upstairs heard the blast.
  • Where the four surviving creatures went, and what else is on the floor.
  • What Special Projects is for, and how the creatures, the dirt trucks and the tunnels connect.
  • Big Bill's unanswered pages.
  • The photographs Andrew took during the fight.

(Appalachia 08)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"What kind of Scooby-Doo-ass bullshit is going on in this town?" Andre (as the investigator)

Quote

"Thank you for your time." Rita (as Andrew), to Fox 5

Quote

"Down here we do the toppings. Have you seen our menu?" Andre (as Jan)

Quote

"Are you kidding? I might get to see a werewolf, sir." Rita (as Andrew)

Quote

"Ear pro!" Dante (as Kurt), setting down the Claymore

Quote

"Who left the ape-men in the break room? Lenny." Dante

(Appalachia 08)

Table notes

  • "Thank you for your time" became an instant catchphrase, with jokes about the clip being remixed. See running gags.
  • The table compared Jan to Nosferatu, a "trash Dracula" and a Die Hard villain.
  • Clinton theories multiplied: Dante proposed an ape-man clone army and Clinton as the ape-man's father. During the recap he also insisted that the Biz "has nothing to do with" the scandal.
  • Andre made the Manipulate Someone roll in secret, over Rita's objection, "'cause it's more fun that way". See game mechanics.
  • A confusion over which way the break room door opens had to be sorted out mid-scene.
  • The session had connection and audio trouble near the end; the recording survived.

(Appalachia 08)

Continuity

  • Continues straight from the crash site in Appalachia 07.
  • Kurt says the team has "already tested an ape-man" and knows it had a human father. No recorded episode shows that test, which places it in the unrecorded Appalachia 05.
  • The players recall the surveillance equipment in the Clinton story only as "surveillance equipment"; Dante points out that the night-vision goggles were seen in the cold open of Appalachia 06, not by the characters.
  • The Biz has no bug left to plant on Jan. Dante's joke is that he "used them all up on Clinton".
  • Jan says he grew up in East Germany. The investigator guessed "Polish or Irish or something", and the players call him "that goddamn Polish guy" regardless.
  • Andre says here that the sheriff "dived into the break room". In Appalachia 09 he adds that "it was never a break room. It was just a door": the room behind it held the caged ape-men, and the door itself was blown away by the Claymore.
  • Leads directly into Appalachia 09.

(Appalachia 08)