Charley Communes with the Dead
Michael
So it doesn't take much time for Charley to find the main electrical system down in the basement. She has to tiptoe around the dead, bleeding, and rotting girtablullû corpse to do so, going further down the hallway with the deserted barbershop and the blood-stained change-cleaning office to get there. I actually need you to resist Curiosity (succeed on a 12 or less).
>>>> SUCCESS
So unless Charley wants to inspect the body of a dead scorpion-man, she can continue on to the machine room.
Mel
To the machine room!
Michael
All right so when Charley gets there the door is securely locked, so it'll take a Lockpicking roll at a 17 (14+3 for your standard picks).
>>>> SUCCESS
Houdini begins trying to offer a little bit of backseat driving vis-à-vis picking a lock, but it's clear by the way Charley expertly cracks this fairly low-tech lock that she has the entire thing well in hand.
So let's start off with a quick inspection of the system. Electrician-18!
>>>> SUCCESS
So the system is still intact. But the hotel is not drawing on what Charley would estimate to be all its usual necessary power from the power grid. There's a good amount of the hotel, it seems, that is not drawing on the power. Individual meters and indicators show that the top three floors aren't drawing on any power at all anymore. (Man I'm reading about electrical rooms in big buildings and MAN they're complicated!)
Mel
Charley is wondering what caused the power glitch in the art room? And if she needs to leave here to go to the upper most floor that still is using the power and inspect it for any corruption?
Michael
Well, I think given some time and some testing you could do as much as possible from down here before having to go up to the 9th floor or something in person. But given the situation, this feels like a Paraphysics-15 roll (this includes a +1 for your Electrician roll).
>>>> SUCCESS
Houdini says, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking? That part of the building isn't there any more in any real way." Charley considers this, and realizes that they've lost the top three floors of the building to History B. Moreover, this loss is cascading down the building over time, leaving more and more of the building in a nonexistent state on this side of history. That leaves the power surging in all kinds of unexpected ways and any further loss of multiple floors could leave the hotel's electrical systems overloaded. Who knows, it could even spread to outside the hotel and cause feedback on the San Francisco grid. What would make sense to make sure this doesn't happen is to reduce the overall power to the hotel (which would partially explain why the lights were already browning out and flickering for hours before the sudden loss of floors 10-12.)
Mel
Charley will work on reducing the power to the hotel.
Michael
Engineer (Electrical)-16!
>>>> SUCCESS
Done. That should keep the power steady on floors B through 9 until the next... shift.
Mel
Ok cool. Now let’s get a look at the dead scorpion guy!
So the best thing that I can come up with is to have Charley go up to the front desk and monitor the situation there. Assuming most technical complaints would be directed to them. She will try to determine if there is hot spot (no pun intended) of technical issues that needs her attention. Or she could stay in the basement and quiz Houdini on how a séance works and see if they could contact the soul of the dead scorpion guy.
Michael
So yeah, unfortunately even the St. Francis is not fancy enough to have a computer system in 1973. I like the idea of Charley going to the front desk to check in on things (and in fact the telephone switchboard is back there, which we can cover in a little bit) but I do really like the idea before that of Charley's Curiosity getting the better of her and she and Houdini deciding to try to communicate with the dead girtablullû!
As Charley kneels down at the body of the scorpion-man, she feels within her mind Houdini looking through her eyes and speaking to her through Charley's connection with technology. "I never got the confront the kusarikku who gored me. We knew such beings existed, and I'd even willed myself to see a few of them over the years, but … I've never been this close to one — a dead one — for so long. We were led to believe they disappeared when their life-thread was ended, but as we're deep in History B here … obviously this one is still hanging about." "Their minds are so alien," Houdini says. "I remember the one who killed me called me 'a sub-creature.' What I wouldn't give to know what they know. Just a glimpse."
Mel
“Well let’s try and contact it’s miserable spirit! The hotel seems to be stable at the moment. Time enough for a séance!”
“I thought I saw a candle and some matches over by the switchboard.”
Michael
So are you going to go upstairs to the front desk before trying to contact this thing's spirit? Coincidentally as Charley is looking around for things to make the contact with the dead easier, Houdini pipes up. "Usually one needs a circle of … believers to attract any lingering waveforms that remain near the body," Houdini says sort of pitifully as Charley carries him off to her next destination.
Mel
I thought before I went upstairs. “We don’t have time to make it into an event Houdini. Let just for the fun of it just try it on our own. Look I’ll take this chalk and draw a circle and light the candle.” Charley proceeds to set up.
Michael
"Er, well... all right. I suppose given the proximity of History B, it can't hurt to try." And with that, Charley tries to sense the "ghost" of the girtablullû. There isn't a ghost, as she concentrates more fully on the dead body and whatever waves of probability might be around it. It's not a waveform, Charley can tell, like Houdini was while he was trapped between worlds … but in the girtablullû's brain, there lingers the faint remnant of quantum action, of electrical impulses, of some remnant of consciousness.
So that will be a Post-Mortem Electroencephalogy roll … usually that's a 15 but having been dead a few hours, we'll take that down to a 12, Mel.
>>>> SUCCESS
(damn it, I was hoping you would fail so I could christen your new power with a dose of Corruption )
In faint, fading electric whispers, Charley hears a voice in her head (yes, another). The voice of a kindly old man. "My life. My duty. My … programming. I did not guard what needed to be guarded. They stole it from me. Everything I waited for. Everything I was made for. I failed."
Mel
To Houdini, "Wow! It worked! I thought it might. But wow it really did! Okay … now what??? Oh! So, I think I'll say something like, 'Yes, you failed! You worthless excuse for a girtablullû! But redemption is possible. Tell your master who stole the sacred one in your charge?!' What do you think, Houdini? Oh do you think you can take over my voice? It will sound a lot scarier if you can."
Michael
So, give me a Detect Lies at a 15 (removing Low Empathy and adding Machine Empathy)
>>>> SUCCESS
Okay. So Houdini pauses after hearing this from Charley. For a good long while. He then says, "While I do think it is a good idea to intimidate and interrogate the Irruptor, I do not believe that my presence can help you in this. To give you advice on how to question him, which psychological approaches to take? Absolutely. But I cannot speak in your voice, Charley. The power to summon this … this ghost? It was yours alone. It came from your abilities alone. You are the medium." As far as Charley can tell, Houdini is telling the truth here; he's merely residing on a piece of hardware and whatever power she was able to raise to detect and summon the Irruptor's self from his dead brain is hers alone. It will be her voice that the dead memories of the girtablullû will hear and respond to.
Mel
"Ah well that's OK … I was just thinking it would be a neat effect. But, alright. So, unless you have issue with my starting approach, I will begin."
Michael
"No, no issue at all." Houdini's interior voice sounds a little shaken, though.
Mel
(Does she need to speak aloud to the creature or is this telepathic?)
Michael
It's telepathic. It's all electrical.
Mel
Charley focuses on the girtablullû’s mind. And remembering her dream and the voice of Morgan le Fay sedu, she uses her tone and presence as she forms thoughts in this dead creature's brain. "Yes, you have failed. But you still may redeem yourself, worm. Tell me now how was it lost! Who took it from you?!"
Michael
"A man and a woman. I was shot. I waited a generation or more to emerge from the sands of time. And I stung." A … proud pause? "But I could not stop them from taking the coin."
Mel
"One man and one woman took THE coin?! How could this be?! Do you not understand the importance of that most sacred coin?? You. You. Seasick crocodile!"
Michael
So this will be an Intimidation check. You don't have Intimidation, so it's Will minus 5, or 10. Given the situation and the... very similar circumstances to Mitch's interaction with the live kusarikku, I can offer you the opportunity to use Corruption to boost your Intimidation roll (Intimidation is a skill under the Innate NLP Talent).
Mel
(just a straight roll and see what happens)
>>>> SUCCESS
Michael
Heh, okay. Offering Corruption to players is as addictive as Corruption itself
The girtablullû begins speaking in an obsequious fashion to Charley, offering profuse and servile apologies for failing at its programming. It becomes clear that the scorpion-man considers Charley's voice in its (dead) head to be the voice of some kind of superior. In this moment, Charley receives a series of flashes of information on a subconscious level from the girtablullû's flickering memories: a sense of existing in quantum superposition in two timelines. In one, the girtablullû was not a girtablullû at all, but a man from Vienna named Arnold Batliner who became the St. Francis's coin washer. But in the other existence, the girtablullû was a scorpion-guardian of the treasure vaults of a temple to the Anunnaki in the grandest city of the Western Continent. Charley can feel the reality of History B, closer than she ever has before, in this thing's bifurcated memories (and the overall proximity of History B here in the hotel). More disturbingly, Charley's knowledge of quantum physics means she can actually understand this double existence on some level that ordinary humans cannot. Fright Check, succeed on a 12 or less.
"There is no apology I could offer that would in any way make up for my failure. I offer my essence up to you, my lady, for recycling and reprogramming … if that is to be my fate."
>>>> SUCCESS
Just made it!
Mel
"That is correct cretin. Apologies are pointless. You are pointless. And I asked you a simple question. The coin. What is its importance? And answer me carefully because right now. Recycling is too good for you."
Michael
"The coins … the coins of many worlds. The keys to the foreclosed futures and pasts. I was to watch the machines for any evidence of unauthorized irruption from … other histories. To guard any such coin. And on the day of my death, I found one. Its presence activated and awakened me fully here in this alien city. I knew why and how I had been inserted into this timestream. And before I even had a moment to find the other Six and report, I was killed."
Mel
"What!?" Charley screeches. "You nauseate me, Mr. Non! Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots!! How on the Red King's eternal being did you not locate the Six? Did you not know, you bad banana with a greasy black peel, who THEY are?"
(Charley is borrowing from Dr. Seuss)
Michael
"There was no time to make contact. I knew that there would be additional guardians to escort me to the top of the ziggurat, an Ocean Brother to create an army of willing kine as servants, but I was never able to make contact with either of them. This is my failure."
Mel
"And what of the Master Chronograph? That seems to have gone missing?"
Michael
"It is??" The girtablullû seems genuinely surprised. "These … these humans, did they remove it?"
Mel
"Did you never leave this crypt you fool!?"
Michael
The voice fades a little, whether out of a weakening of his electrical impulses or out of reaction to Charley, she's not quite sure. "I … I never did. I was killed almost immediately after manifesting."
Mel
"Now listen! Time is running out! Without the timepiece! Without the coin! Without the Six! It will be very difficult to awaken our blessed lord. But tell me how to find the Six and what to do once the Master of Time is returned! TELL ME NOW!"
"Tell me and you will be redeemed!"
Michael
I think we need a new Intimidation check. The spirit of the girtablullû has been kind of befuddled by this approach of your looking for information from him... he's too weak to resist but he might try to give up the ghost, literally. And again, you have the option of adding to your skill of 10 with Corruption.
(and because, let's face it, you have been acting like a šedu, even if it is only play-acting. )
Mel
Okay corruption please.
Michael
Okay, how much are you going to spend?
Mel
8
Michael
Okay, go ahead and roll Intimidation-18.
>>>> SUCCESS
"As I said, the three bašmu guardians should be here in the crypt. The kulullû to be wandering disguised among the people. And at the Place of Glory at the top of the tower, one to begin the sacrifices to bring our history back and one unseen, one who exists yet does not exist." The girtablullû then speaks a sentence or two in Sumerian. "And the clock — from "Vienna," hah — the clock to bring the people together in belief and thus synchronize the ziggurat with this timeframe."
"But if the clock is now missing, other methods will be needed to power the transition. Deaths. Blood. Sacrifices of cattle. But not killed by us. That alone cannot open the way. The killing must be done willingly by the humans on their own kind. The humans will need to be killed by their own."
Mel
To Houdini, “I think that pretty much covers it. Did you want me to ask him anything for you?”
Michael
"All I have for this thing is anger. Put him to rest."