3/2 - Colorado
Played: November 30, 2020.
Thursday, May 24, 1973. Night. Marshall is throwing a little party in his suite at the Stanley Hotel. Or not so little: by midnight, the room is packed with Colorado snow bunnies and all the hipper Carnival of Knowledge attendees. Richard Perry (“producer of Carly Simon, Barbara Streisand, Harry Nillson and others”), Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue (“KSAN & father of progressive radio”), Dr. Hip (“syndicated columnist on social changes”), and Michael Nesmith (the Monkees, the First National Band) are all in attendance; there’s booze and drugs and everyone seems to be having a good time.
Maybe too good a time: Mitch makes a critical failure on his Carousing roll. So while Marshall circulates, keeping the conversation lively, Mitch manages to take twice as much of everything as he should. He’s just starting to float off into space when a huge man with a booming voice and a European accent—an Olympic skier? a bodybuilder?—enters the room. Mitch tries to read the big man’s aura; another critical fail. He sees something… indescribable. Fails a fright check too. (He keeps his pyrokinesis under control, at least.)
The very large man stares at Mitch, but finding him in no condition to communicate, approaches Marshall instead. He addresses Marshall by name and asks to speak to him in the corridor outside. Marshall resists the effects of a SANGUSH glyph, and sees the truth: the oversized man is a kusarikku.
Marshall is agog, coked up and twitchy: “Who are you? Who sent you? What are you doing here?”
The kusarikku is grave, formal, pompous: “All will be revealed, Doctor. May we speak … in the corridor? Away from these … people.”
Marshall consents but begs off to the restroom first, “to fix his hair.” As soon as the bull-monster leaves the room, Marshall tries to make a break for it. He rattles the doors to the adjacent suites: locked. So he climbs out the window. Michael Nesmith says to Mitch, “What the hell just happened to Dr. Red?”
Marshall climbs out his hotel room window and down into the topiary garden. He finds himself surrounded by hedge lions, hedge rabbits, hedge giraffes… and the kusarikku. “Here will also be fine,” says the monster. Marshall leaps back in alarm. The bull-man holds up a huge hand. “Be not afraid,” it says. “I am here to tie up loose ends.”
Marshall squints. “In my line of work, that usually means someone’s not going home.”
“That is correct,” admits the kusarikku. “But you needn’t care for him. He should have been dead for fifty years.”
Marshall is confused. “Are you talking about Zeb?”
“Who?”
“Zeb,” says Marshall. “My gardener. The old guy? Who was working with E.L. Moore?”
Now the kusarikku is confused. “What on this planet are you talking about?”
Marshall touches the man-bull-monster to see if it is real. It is.
The kusarikku says, “You have discovered something that should have been taken care of, many years ago. I ask your patience, and non-interference, as I resolve this unfortunate issue that threatens both our worlds.”
Marshall says, in Sumerian: “What the fuck are you talking about, man?”
“The escapist,” says the kusarikku scornfully. “The man who utilized our techniques to entertain you cattle.”
Marshall twigs: “Houdini???”
“He used techniques that are not permissible to one of his station. He found a way to escape death. (Your type of death.) His wave form must be collapsed.”
“Man,” says Marshall, “you are talking to the wrong guy. Listen: I got a friend upstairs, you should be having this conversation with him. Cause this is out of my — I do not know what the fuck you are talking about.”
Back at the party, Mitch, still floating, is trying to give Mike Nesmith a tarot reading. Nez is bored with his post-Monkees life. He’s thinking about his legacy, wants to do something that will outlast him. Mitch brings up his affair with Nurit Wilde. A bellboy raps on the door, tells Mitch that Dr. Redgrave would like to see him in the garden. Mitch leaves Nez mid-reading, following the bellhop out to the garden (via the hallway, not the window).
The cool night air clears Mitch’s head a little. When he finds Marshall and the giant European in the garden, he tries again to read the big man’s aura, but again is blocked. Marshall uses Rapier Wit on Mitch, a jumble of Sumerian words with a powerful memetic punch. This snaps Mitch out of his daze and the effects of the SANGUSH glyph. Now Mitch can also see the kusarikku: a giant bull-monster, nine feet tall, with a bull’s lower body and hind quarters, a horned human head and human torso. Mitch also sees the creature is old. Its body, while huge and strong, is also weathered and bent. Its shaggy mane is grey.
The kusarikku beckons Mitch to come closer. Mitch does not come closer. He dimly remembers kusarikku are fireproof, so he doesn’t try to burn it with his mind.
Marshall tries to explain: “He’s not here about Zeb. He says he knows Houdini, and that we shouldn’t interfere with … whatever is about to happen.” Mitch stiffens, his body language saying “Ix-nay on Eb-zay.” Marshall takes the hint and stops talking about Zeb. Marshall presses the kusarikku to explain exactly what it wants.
“I will attempt to explain,” says the kusarikku, “though it may be difficult for you to understand. This man, the one you call Houdini, said that he was invulnerable, that no prison could hold him, that he could defy even death. These are not boasts your kind should make.”
“Late in life, he learned to back up his boastful words. When close to death, he could trigger the ability to pass through solid matter. This brought him to our attention. It also allowed him to escape death. He left a trace of himself in every place he almost died. He is now trapped, divided between 53 locations on the planet where he once cheated death. In order for this offender’s wave form to be collapsed, he must be drawn out of the hole he is now in.”
Marshall asks why they should want to help the kusarikku.
The kusarikku: “He stole abilities no sub-creature should possess. Not only is this an offense to us, it is very dangerous to this world that we share.”
Marshall and Mitch, almost in unison: “We don’t share it!”
Mitch: “That’s the whole point!”
Marshall: “We share it with dolphins and shit, but not you guys.”
The kusarikku plods on. “His actions offend reality. They offend matter. If he is allowed to fully awaken, this planet will be shaken apart.”
Marshall keeps trying to cut to the chase. “Okay, but what do you want from us? Are you threatening us? Are you warning us?”
The kusarikku says, “In order for the offender’s wave form to be collapsed, he must be drawn out of the ‘hole’ he is now in. He can only be drawn out with your kind’s emotional triggers. I cannot do it. He is no brethren of mine.”
Marshall: “You want us … to do a Houdini séance?”
The kusarikku nods: “Use the primitive emotional connection you forged to draw him out completely.”
Marshall: “And you’re saying that if we don’t help you, Houdini’s ghost is going to, what? Blow up the planet?”
The kusarikku: “This man used skills he should never have possessed. He seeks to live, he seeks to survive. If you know how your kind stole history, you know about the contagion of belief. All it takes to trigger an avalanche is one falling rock. If he escapes from the state of stasis he is in, it will mean... incalculable consequences.”
Mitch largely avoids talking to, even looking at, the kusarikku, but eventually snaps: “Fuck you, man. You’re not even real! You think I haven’t had plenty of imaginary fiends all up in my business? I’m not scared of you. I mean, okay, yes, I’m terrified, but come on!”
The kusarikku regards Mitch with deep pity in its brown, almost cow-like, eyes. It reaches down and tousles Mitch’s hair, like a man petting a dog. “All will be well,” it says.
The GM looks up the GURPS rules for using Psychology on an incomprehensible alien intelligence. Mitch fails his roll, Marshall succeeds. Mitch and Marshall take a sidebar to confer.
Marshall: “‘Incalculable consequences.’ When he puts it like that, it’s hard to argue with.”
Mitch: “It doesn’t matter what he says. His words are semantically empty. You remember what I said before, about trying to guess what number a pathological liar is thinking of? Only he’s not even thinking of a number, he’s thinking of a piece of fruit.”
Marshall: “Ok, but … we were already talking about doing a Houdini séance anyway.”
Mitch decides he needs to do an oracular reading. He sits down cross-legged and reaches for his tarot cards — which are back in the hotel room with Michael Nesmith.
Mitch lopes back to the room to get his cards, leaving Marshall alone with the kusarikku. (“The worst thing that could happen is that he’ll lose patience and eat Marshall,” Mitch reasons.) Marshall paces the garden, still coked up, mind racing. The kusarikku tries to make conversation: “Earlier, you used an ariktu, a word weapon, on your companion, to awake him, to alert him to my presence. How did you learn such a thing?” Marshall’s not answering that.
Mitch returns with his cards and does a reading on the weal or woe of trying to contact Houdini with a séance. It feels like no tarot reading he’s done before. The cards work differently in the kusarikku’s presence. All the energies are right at the top. There’s no obscurity, no occult patterns to be deciphered. Patterns come off the bull-monster in waves.
This card is beautiful in a strange, immemorial, moribund manner. It is the card of the Dying God; its importance in the present pack is merely that of the Cenotaph.
Aleister Crowley
The Book of Thoth
The Knight of Discs is unique among his brother Knights. He appears to be shortest in stature. He rides a workhouse that seems more concerned with eyeing the lush grass than with conveying his rider. His helmet is completely raised, and he gazes at the fertile fields and hills, as in in contemplation of the harvest, not battle.
Lon Milo DuQuette
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
Partial success. Yielding when victory is within grasp, as if the last reserves of strength were used up. Inclination to lose when one is on the point of gaining, through not continuing the effort.
Lon Milo DuQuette
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
The cards tell Mitch:
If the kusarikku gets what it wants, Houdini will be dead forever. (The Hanged Man)
If you could save Houdini’s wave form, the knowledge he has would be a treasure beyond counting. (The Knight of Pentacles)
Is the kusarikku lying about the world coming apart if Houdini is not dispersed? Yes, it is. (The Seven of Swords)
The kusarikku regards Mitch’s cards with disdain. “This is what you’ve been reduced to? These parlor tricks? Once, you had power. Power far beyond this…” (gesturing to Marshall) “... this trickster. What has happened to you?”
Marshall interjects: “I don’t know what ‘power’ you’re talking about. We were slaves, man.” But he gives Mitch a suspicious look.
Mitch tells Marshall, “You’re acting like it’s a real thing, man. It’s not a real thing.”
Mitch looks up, finally, at the kusarikku. He says, “The cards tell me… you’re a big, smelly, poopy head.” He shrugs. “That’s what they say.”
The kusarikku snorts. “I do not understand how you have allowed yourself to be reduced to this state.” And stamps off into the night.
Mitch and Marshall make their way back to Marshall’s suite. Somehow, it’s 3 AM. The party’s broken up, the room is dark and empty. They confer. They note that the kusarikku didn’t show any signs of knowing about SANDMAN, or that they, or Houdini, were part of it. They note that the kusarikku didn’t seem to know about the Rhines. Mitch doesn’t want to get them involved if he can help it.
Late-night Marshall-and-Mitch logic leads them to an unexpected conclusion:
Marshall: “So… do we do this thing? I think we have to do this thing, right?”
Mitch: “I dunno, man. He wouldn’t ask us to do it if it didn’t advance the Red Kings’ agenda.”
Marshall: “Yes. But maybe our agendas aren’t opposed. Maybe, if we don’t do this, something will happen that is bad for him and bad for us. Maybe Houdini will open a gate to some kind of… History C?”
Mitch: “That’s interesting.”
Marshall: “This is such a fucked-up situation. I should call Granite Peak. What’s the protocol for this? There are no protocols for this. They don’t train you for this. If this is some kind of a ploy, it’s… it’s so obtuse that our minds can’t even comprehend it. So… we might as well just go along with it.”
Mitch: “We just thwarted an extremely elaborate plot to call one of those things into existence. And we succeeded! And now there’s one of these guys just… hanging around in the hotel, asking us to do a thing we were planning to do already? That seems suspicious.”
Marshall: “Or, or, or, maybe it’s just idiotic cosmological coincidence. Either way, why wouldn’t we just summon the ghost of Harry Houdini, if that’s what he’s asking us to do?”
Mitch: “Spite?”
Marshall: “What do you mean, spite?”
Mitch: “I mean, I don’t like that guy. I don’t want to help him. Do you like that guy?”
Marshall: “The bull-man? No, I don’t like him, but I’m not spiteful towards him. I don’t even know him! It’s like if I met… a generic Nazi. I’d hate him, but I wouldn’t be, you know, invested in him.”
Mitch: “Yeah, but what if the Nazi was insulting you to your face, saying ‘you used to be cool, man, what happened?’”
Marshall: “Good point. I forgot that the kusarikku specifically said that you used to be cool.”
Marshall thinks: That’s going in my report.
Marshall continues: “I think we should do it! It could be the coke talking, or maybe it’s just because the air is real thin up here. But I think we should do it. We’re here, right? You buy the ticket, you take the ride.”
Mitch sighs. “You’re right. We need to do it. I just wish we could do it while also spiteing that guy.”
Marshall: “Well … maybe we’ll get a chance.”