Mitch and Marshall Meet the Rhines

Michael

After you're done with the tour the Stanley Hotel bar is starting to fill up a bit more with Carnival attendees, panelists, and guests. And I'm not sure how many of these folks would be known by sight; I'm guessing on Thursday not all the guests have their official "HELLO MY NAME IS" badges on yet, but what I would like is to see how many people recognize Marshall. So Marshall, give me first a Carousing roll (this time using your standard rating, the one using HT) at a +4 to your skill due to Appearance, Status, and Reputation (Celebrities). Then I'll have you do a Reaction roll for the room.

Brant

>> SUCCESS by 8

Michael

All right, give me that Reaction roll: 3d6...

• +2 for the successful Carousing

• +2 for Reputation

• +1 for Wealth

• +1 for Appearance

and another +1 for a receptive crowd.

So 3d6+7.

Brant

>> 3d6+7 … 19

Michael

That is an Excellent (best possible) reaction, so, I mean, ultimately your choice here: Marshall can be the life of the party here and wrap the whole bar around his finger, or he can suss out immediately the important people in the room/attending the conference after mingling for an hour or two. We can also land somewhere in the middle of both those options as well, but it's your call.

Brant

What are the room’s dynamics — who are the VIPs, what are they doing, does anyone stand out?

Michael

So the room seems to be mostly filled with radio folks on this night before the Carnival kicks off: a lot of radio sales and management types, along with a few of the panelists who are going to be talking about the business (Tom Donohue seems to be a big hit holding court, along with Prof. Harold Mendelsohn from the University of Denver). There's a lot of back-slapping and business card exchanging. And drinking. Mostly the radio execs are trying to cozy up to Donohue and hear war stories about his establishing the freeform FM rock format. How can they take their stations out of the rapidly decaying AM ghetto and get those young listeners with the disposable income to listen to their ads? But over at the corner of the hotel bar, having a sedate dinner on their own, is an elderly couple who look profoundly out of place amongst all these loud, hard-drinking, wide-lapelled radio execs. The man is tall and broad and has a shock of white hair; his wife nearly as tall but much frailer-looking. They speak in hushed tones and are trying to enjoy their meal amidst all the hubbub. They are part of the conference, though; unlike many of the early arrivals, they've checked in and have dutifully affixed their name tags, although they're not visible from this angle/distance.

Jeff

Anyway Mitch will respond to Marshall’s nod towards the couple by squinting at them for about three seconds, then making eye contact with Marshall and nodding solemnly.

Brant

Marshall cocks his head. "So we uh ... need to go talk to ... them? Sorry, I'm not a hundred percent familiar with how your whole," he sort of waves his cocktail around in a circle, "thing works."

Marshall quietly ponders to himself if maybe the two old people are ghosts and only he and Mitch can see them. He then dismisses that idea as coke-fueled paranoia.

Jeff

“If we needed to talk to them, we’d be talking to them already. But, you know, they look nice enough. Not cops. Probably possessed of some mystic wisdom. Most of the people I meet are possessed of some mystic wisdom.”

“So, you know, not a huge deal.”

Brant

Marshall's gonna flag down Dr. Schoenfeld — AHEM — Dr. HipPocrates and asks if he knows who the two oldies are.

Michael

Dr. Hip squints at Marshall. "You don't know J.B. Rhine? I'm shocked."

Now that's definitely a name both Marshall and Mitch have heard of before, being deep into the whole human potential thing as they are. The godfather of parapsychology. The popularizer of Zener tests. The man who made Duke University the center of psychic research in the 1930s and arguably made ESP research into the "respectable' field it is today in 1973.

It's not like his face has been plastered over everything, though, since a lot of his most important work happened before television. But yeah! He's due to be a panelist on a couple of Aquarian-oriented panels this weekend but he and his wife Louisa do look quite out of their element here among the radio and ad sales boys.

Brant

"Oh! Damn, you know, I don't think I've ever seen him in person before? He doesn't look like the book jacket photos." Marshall will then politely dismiss Dr. Hip in the way of a monarch dismissing a courtier. He'll go up to the bartender and ask what Rhine and his wife are drinking; order them another round and head over there, all bright-white smiles. He'll gesture for Mitch to follow. 

Michael

As Marshall orders another round of white wine for the Rhines, he approaches their small table. It seems clear that the Rhines haven't had to deal with much attention from the carnival-goers today, as they both look somewhat surprised to have been recognized. "Dr. Redgrave, yes," J.B. says (they're both "Dr. Rhine" so I'll just go with "J.B." and "Louisa"), "pleased to make your acquaintance." It seems clear J.B. has heard of Marshall. Louisa is much more retiring, not out of any emotional distaste or shyness or anything, just because she seems very weak and tired. But J.B. is much more energetic. (If Mitch introduces himself, presumably as MJ Hearst, the Rhines will greet him as well.)

(And for the record, much as Marshall had some knowledge of Houdini being part of the predecessor orgs to SANDMAN back at the turn of the century, likewise Marshall's Security Clearance tells him that despite J.B. having been on the forefront of psychic research for the past nearly half-century, really in a lot of ways defining the field and its terminology, he has never been approached openly by SANDMAN. Of course SANDMAN didn't exist when Rhine started his work at Duke. Although his work and the Duke lab has been funded and surveilled by SANDMAN and CIA cut-outs since the war, the opinion of SANDMAN is that none of either Rhine's research and experimental subjects have been authentic, History B-touched psis or phenomena. It's not that SANDMAN would call him a joke or a charlatan; rather that his very limited ESP-based research has been a dead end, a cul-de-sac.)

Brant

Marshall will scoot into the booth and place the wines down; chummily compliment J.B. on his work ("Loved Parapsychology! Really ground-breaking stuff.") and ask them what brings them to the Carnival. Big smiles.

Jeff

Mitch will indeed introduce himself as MJ Hearst but not until it comes up organically, he’ll mostly just sit next to Marshall and listen and, heck, since I now have the power to proactively scan for History B energies I guess I’ll try to do that.

Michael

(That sounds like a solid next step, Jeff. I'll make a Sense roll now.)

Brant

Marshall will refer to Mitch obliquely as his "colleague."

Michael

Okay, Mitch doesn't sense any History B on either of the Rhines, nor anywhere in the Stanley Hotel bar/restaurant. However, I am going to say that a combination of Mitch's various powers of detection — his sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh senses of Detect, Aura Reading, Oracle, Serendipity, and Illuminated, and Weirdness Magnet — tell him on an instinctive level that there is some abstruse, weak, but certainly real synchronicity/connection between Dr. J.B. Rhine and that weird whispering History B pinhole down below the Houdini trap door in the hotel theater.

(Enjoy a critical success on a roll that showed no History B detected, Jeff.)

Hey, can you give me a Savoir-Faire roll at +1 to your skill for your Charisma?

Brant

>> SUCCESS by 7

Michael

J.B. sits back in his seat, "Oh, I suppose this is just an example of the usual interest among young people about the paranormal, ESP. I noticed they have an astrologer on the program as well?" He chuckles and Louisa smirks to herself. It's obvious that they find their resurgent fame among the Aquarian generation a little bemusing. At the same time, Marshall is 100% aware after a little self-deprecating small talk that the Rhines are taking advantage of every opportunity in the Aquarian Age—to reprint their books, to appear on television and at events like this one—as feverishly as they can. Picture those science fiction authors who continue to appear at SF cons after their non-genre novels don't catapult them into the mainstream. I mean, the Rhines are comfortable professors with a sinecure at Duke but that doesn't mean they don't want to give themselves a little bit of a cushion of security financially. (A lot of this is conveyed sub rosa in hints and asides during your small talk.) And who knows, they may meet interesting people and the Stanley Hotel itself, Louisa says, "is famous for its ghost stories!" As the two of you learned on your tour a little while ago.

Brant

At some point, Marshall will casually touch one of the Rhines — hand on the shoulder from a laugh, etc. — to make sure they are corporeal. Then: "Haha, ghost stories? Really?"

Michael

(Oh yeah, they're real.)

J.B. says, "Louisa and I haven't been ghost hunting or table tapping in... almost 50 years, isn't that right dear? Oh, we've talked to people at the Duke labs who believe they're haunted and worked with spiritualists in the lab as well, but... stories like those were our bread and butter back in the '20s, weren't they, Louisa?"

Louisa now seems more animated than she had been, "Oh, of course. I never lost interest, of course. But there were so very many charlatans back then as well. Bilking the poor innocent bereaved, such a pity, really."

Brant

“Y’know, my colleague MJ here, he and I just took a tour of this place? And the tour guide mentioned that Houdini performed here back in the day?”

Michael

At that, J.B.'s face goes from game and open and jolly to wistful, almost immediately. So too does Louisa's. "He was a great man. Great in all the senses of the word. A showman, but deeply humanistic and humanitarian. Soft-hearted with his friends, and an implacable enemy to those very charlatans."

Louisa interrupts in the way only married couples can. "Joseph, he only knew the tricks of the spiritualist charlatans because he was one himself." She smiles fondly at the memory.

"All right, granted, that is true," J.B. says with a chuckle. "But without Ehrich we would have never been able to debunk that awful Mina Crandon."

Brant

“I’m sorry, who’s that? You’ll have to humor me.”

Michael

J.B. dusts off his hands theatrically and says, "Dr. Redgrave, you must understand what the 1920s were like. I am guessing you and your colleague were not alive for any of them. The war and the flu, you see. Everyone knew someone who'd lost someone, even—and especially!—the young like myself and Louisa. Spiritualists were not just big business; every town in America seemingly had a palm reader or a séance circle. But they were also celebrities, just as sure as Lindbergh and Capone. Mina Crandon was one of those."

"Championed by Arthur Conan Doyle, Mrs. Crandon was famed for years for her ability to contact the other side. Charmed every member of the old Brahmin elite in Boston. Made a name for herself reading Harvard professors and the great-great-grandsons of Puritan divines."

Louisa says, "What she was was a glorified hoochie-coochie girl and a con artist," with much flourish and satisfaction. 

Jeff

Mitch shifts uncomfortably at the line about not being around in the 20s.

Also, Mitch doesn't know the story of J.B., Louisa, Erich and Mina, but speculates aloud it involves mistrust and a supposed debunker who turned out to be a confederate of the Red Ki--cough, of the supposed medium, sorry, frog in my throat.

Brant

Marshall takes this in and — unless Mitch jumps in with something — will engage in further polite chatter, just going with the conversation.

Michael

"Well," J.B. says, "more the 'verifiers' than 'debunkers' but yes, Mrs. Crandon was... well-practiced in manipulating lesser minds, as, er, my wife may have hinted at." But yeah, one thing that becomes clear over the course of the Mina Crandon story is that the Rhines both knew Houdini very well and carried on his debunking work after he was gone; J.B.'s followup on Mrs. Crandon occurred the year Harry died and was met with the immortal Conan Doyle response, "J.B. Rhine is an Ass."

Jeff

Mitch elbows Marshall and suggests, quietly but not so quietly that the Rhines can't hear, that he show them the thing, the piece of paper.

(When I spell out thing on my phone it get an autocomplete option of Thingol as in the High King of the Sindar, so that's nice.)

Brant

Marshall will rifle through his olive green blazer and pull out the Houdini rider list. He’ll slide it across the table and then look at Mitch. “My colleague MJ found this while we were on the tour. I figured it was just a piece of flavor — something for guests to take home.”

Michael

J.B. puts on his reading glasses and looks at it, smiles, hands it to Louisa. "Oh goodness. This is from when he began doing the water escapes. Bigger spectacle, bigger props. Imagine a little out-of-the-way former TB sanitarium putting all this in their theater just for Ehrich! But that's what a Houdini appearance meant back then... it would put your theater on the map."

Louisa looks at it. "This is original, this is no reproduction: see how it's yellowed? It's probably been here for more than fifty years! Where did you find it?"

Brant

(Marshall will wait a beat to see if Mitch jumps in. If not he’s gonna make up a lie about finding it in a corner of the ballroom.)

Jeff

Mitch sees no reason to lie and will declare that he and Marshall were wandering around and found it in an under stage area over that way

If Marshall pauses and Mitch senses he's looking for Mitch to speak up.

Brant

Marshall will let Mitch go with that. He’s here with them b/c Mitch pointed them out — he figures Mitch has a reason for his actions.

Jeff

Mitch isn't going suggest relocating to the under stage area just yet though mainly because Mrs. Rhine in particular might have issues with the ladder. There's a ladder, right? I think there's a ladder.

Michael

Yeah, that's right. A ladder and the area under the stage is a crawl/crouchspace (only about 5, 5 and a half feet high) so it's not going to be especially amenable for Louisa. J.B.? He might be able to scrabble/hunker down, with help.

Jeff

Okay, so Mitch describes where Marshall spotted the paper on fairly breezy terms, it's not his intention to entice these two seniors to a second location

Michael

"Extraordinary!" J.B. says. "Did you see any other props or anything down there?" (You did not see any Houdini-related props down there, or at least obvious ones, just a lot of old crates and boxes storing old equipment for stagecraft)

Jeff

"Not that we noticed. There were some crates in storage down there but they weren't labeled, were they?" Mitch is turning to Marshall

Brant

“Oh, no, no labels I could see.”

Jeff

Mitch will try to steer the conversation to the topic of Houdini’s performances, what personal experiences the Rhines had with them, presumably they weren’t here at the Stanley for this particular performance, but...?

Michael

"We saw him perform a few times in the '20s," Louisa says, with a bit more energy and glee than she had when you two first walked over, "of course this was a very different show than it would have been earlier in his career. That's in fact how the relationship between Ehrich and Conan Doyle got started. It wasn't just Ehrich's insertion of debunking tales into his show, which served Ehrich well when he was starting to get a little old for straitjacket escapes. Conan Doyle wanted to convince him of the reality of spiritualism, and at the same time Conan Doyle was convinced that Ehrich could actually dematerialize at will.

"Conan Doyle was credulous after the war," J.B. says, "and believed all sorts of outrageous things. Fairies in the garden, transmissions from other planets, Houdini didn't merely escape bonds but vibrated right through them. Ehrich was very indulgent with Conan Doyle's beliefs until the Crandon case."

Jeff

Ok, Mitch is like, go on, go on. He's increasingly convinced that there's something that he's supposed to see here, something that will put Houdini's story in a new context for him, but he hasn't figured out what it is and he's getting frustrated by it. He's also kind of drunk at this point, he hasn't been pacing himself the way he oughta.

Brant

Marshall sips his drink.

Michael

(I would imagine, given that internal observation, that this might be an opportunity for Mitch to break out the cards.)

Jeff

Fair enough. Mitch will ask the Rhines if they mind him playing with the Tarot cards a bit while they talk, not trying to pitch it as telling their fortunes or anything like that (unless of course they want that, but I assume they'd pass).

Brant

Marshall lights a cigarette and flags down a waiter for another drink.

Michael

J.B. sort of wryly grins at Mitch's pulling the cards out; Louisa remarks upon Mitch's deck with, "Speaking of credulity," with a chuckle. "Oh now, Louisa, let's indulge the lad; after all we both know that the Tarot is better looked at as a way into one's own mind than anything else. A bit like a Rorschach blot, isn't that right, Dr. Redgrave?"

Jeff

Well, the difference between Mitch's oracular Tarot readings and his using-the-Fortune-Telling-skill cold reading Tarot readings is that the subject of the former doesn't need to participate or even be aware of it.

Michael

That's right. Although we've set it up so your cold reading with Fortune-Telling can act as your Sense roll.

Jeff

However they're comfortable, really.

Michael

"Well then, Mr. Hearst," Louisa says, "tell me how this weekend at the 'Carnival of Knowledge' (the sarcasm fairly drips off the words; Louisa's finished her second white wine!!) will go for Joe and me. Will we continue to meet interesting people such as yourselves? Or will our mountain weekend getaway continue to be filled with... shaggy-haired rock singers and... and drunken radio station ad men?"

Brant

Marshall orders a house salad.

Also bread for the table.

Jeff

"Well, let's find out." Mitch does a spread and from context it looks like Louisa is participating enough for Fortune-Telling to be the relevant skill.

Michael

Yeah, and I think before you roll, I'd like Marshall to aid with a Carousing roll, at a +5 to his skill.

He's been straight up plying the Rhines with drinks.

Brant

>> SUCCESS by 7

Michael

Cool, so Mitch gets a cumulative +3 to his Sense/Fortune-Telling roll.

Where the Rhines are coming from.

Where the Rhines are at now this weekend.

Where the Rhines are headed this weekend.

Jeff

Ominous.

Michael

(as usual with our Tarot vignettes, I am perfectly willing to let you in-character as Mitch extemporaneously interpret these cards/cold-read Louisa and J.B. and then have his Oracle sense tingle when he's gotten something right or really wrong, I've made all the rolls already)

Louisa looks at the cards, then out of the bar to the garden, where the night has gotten dark, and involuntarily gets a chill. "Very grey."

Jeff

I'm not sure where to begin, so: Mitch just stares at the cards for a few seconds. "That Four of Swords is freaking me out a little, man. The boat's upside down. Upside down isn't good for a boat."

"You're on a boat, you want to be going somewhere. You know the direction you're headed: down the river. Or up the river. But if it's upside-down, woosh, that all goes out the window."

Michael

Louisa says in a hushed tone, "the River Styx."

Jeff

Mitch indicates the Hanged Man. "This one, I dunno. If I were tied up, upside down... again with the upside down... I'd be more upset about than Blondie here seems to be. Blondie might not be where he wants to be but he's resigned, right...?  Wait, the Styx?"

Michael

"That's what I always saw when I looked at the Six of Swords. Charon taking someone off to their death... but slowly." Louisa looks to J.B. J.B. says, "Well, we have been summoning the dead at this table, a little bit. Memories of companions long since passed." With that he taps the Hanged Man. "Looks like Ehrich to me."

Jeff

Mitch is deeply chagrined to have misread the Six of Swords as the Four of Swords. He's pretty drunk I guess.

Brant

"So uhh I'm sure this is a dumb question," Marshall sips his Mai Thai, "But why is that dude hanging upside down?"

Jeff

"The Hanged Man represents Prudence," Mitch says. " ... I dunno what that means, it's just always stuck in my head. I guess because it's incongruous. Like, what's prudent about hanging from your ankle? But yeah, I guess right now that must be Houdini."

Mitch is thinking these cards are pretty dire, like a-Rhine-will-die-in-their-sleep-in-the-next-twelve-hours kind of message, but he's reluctant to articulate that.

Michael

Fright check, my dude

let's see if you're getting the Fear, to paraphrase Brant.

(And then after that a control roll for Pyrok-1)

Jeff

Fright.

>> SUCCESS by 6

Pyro.

>> SUCCESS by 3

Michael

And Marshall's Mai Tai does not go up in a puff of blue flame 🙂

Jeff

Aw, we coulda had a fireball

Michael

J.B. says, "Prudence, eh? Forethought, preparation... those describe Ehrich to a T."

Jeff

Mitch tries to read Louisa's aura again, this time in hopes of getting an answer to the specific question "does she have more than a couple of days before her body gives out on her"

Michael

This probably counts as a new "use" of the power, so if you want to give the usual pair of rolls.

Jeff

>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 6

>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 1

>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 2

Michael

Okay, the deep aura reading this time around continues not to show any physical ailments that could lead to a quick death. In fact, if anything, Louisa's deep green aura has shown signs of growing brighter since you first read her 15 or 20 minutes ago. There's an emotion that wasn't there before: hope, perhaps, or a long-quelled faith or sense of spiritual seeking. A receptivity to the Beyond. That unique iridescence that indicates the Aquarian, or at least a willingness to let it into one's life.

On that note, Mitch can give me a Detect Lies roll. (net-unmodified by a combination of bonus from Aura Reading and penalty from using Detect Lies slightly out of purpose)

Jeff

>> FAILURE by 2

doh

Michael

It's okay, you'll likely still be getting some information from the Fortune-Telling cold read as the scene goes on. Having your aura sight up should give you some bonuses to that as you chat with both the Rhines.

Louisa's silence as J.B. talks about "prudence and forethought" along with Houdini seems meaningful.

Jeff

Hmm, I feel like the ball is in my court to move things forward but frankly I'm not sure how to proceed. Like, Mitch can't just blurt out Houdini Seance! Houdini Seance! apropos of nothing, can he?

Michael

Eh, the weekend is still young. 🙂

I'm fine with moving on to the first day of the Carnival if you guys want to tell the Rhines, hey, let's keep in touch over the weekend and maybe head to the theater to try to pick up on Houdini vibes at some point. Of course the theater will be being used for the larger panels all weekend, so during the day anyway it's going to be occupied...

I mean, being forced to eventually hold a prospective seance at night seems kind of wonderful, all things considered

Brant

I'm fine with moving to the next day and leaving the rest of the convo with the Rhines as read; however, as they depart the table, Marshall will ask Mitch, "So uh, what's up there? Is this like a ... thing we should be keeping an eye on?"

Jeff

"Well, if I was going to go on a journey to the land of the dead and I needed guides... I dunno, you think they'd be up for a Houdini seance?"

Mitch says "Houdini seance" like it's a thing.

Brant

Marshall raises an eyebrow. "Yeah ... yeah I think they would. You done one of those before? Houdini séance, I mean." As they get into the elevator Marshall will take a casual bump of coke and offer Mitch some.

Jeff

I can't imagine Mitch refusing.

Oh, to answer Marshall’s question: Mitch shakes his head. “No, no, no, man. I don’t believe in ghosts. I mean, not the kind people talk about. A Houdini séance, I dunno, it would be more about opening a way up, you know? Sending out a yo-what’s-the-good-word to whatever in the wherever, right? Yeah. Yes.”