You have been called in from New Amsterdam to eliminate a Sin. Each of you arrives separately at Grand Central Station, and boards a metro north train headed upstate. You hear the stop, and make your way back to the back car of the train. As you all huddle into the decrepit car, a warm smile greets you...
JORDAN: Please, take a seat.
He gestures towards the cleanest seats available, and yet they're still viscerally revulsive to the touch. The air smells of mildew with a hint of grease, crisp and cold. The car doesn't even have heating.
Leander sits and folds his hands in his lap. He looks at Jordan with an expectant smile. His back is straight, hands still, like a teacher's pet on the first day of school.
The stink doesn't seem to matter too much to Rift. They flop down in one of the seats with their leg propped up against the back of the seat in front of them.
RIFT: "Hi!"
Father Thomas moves to take the seat next to Rift and indicates for Spot to sit at attention close by.
Avery slumps on one of the seats, too exhausted to mind the poor condition of the train as he makes sure his luggage is in order.
JORDAN: "Welcome."
Jordan looks around at the new recruits with a quiet smile, then fixes his eyes on Avery. And welcome back.
JORDAN: "It's good to see you're still alive."
AVERY: "Glad to be out in the field again. It's been a long couple of years at the desk..."
JORDAN: "Hopefully this will be a nice way to get you settled in the field."
JORDAN: "Today we are engaging a LORD Class, Cat I. CAIN was alerted two hours ago about the disappearance of three students, all of whom were seen entering a college library and never leaving."
JORDAN: "CAIN is holding off a police investigation until tomorrow, investigating the site of the disappearances first is advised. It is likely that one of the missing students is the host. The three students are:"
JORDAN: "Darcy Sontag, F, 5'3". Kai Batista, X, 5'1", and Penny Mathison, M, 6'3"."
JORDAN: "Campus security is conducting their own investigation. To this end, you will be working undercover as students at the college, with the exception of Father Thomas, who will be posing as a new adjunct professor. Here are your fake I.D.'s. Don't let campus security discover you. We have enough to worry about as it is."
JORDAN: "The Library is at Lindenbrook College, and the school is currently on October break, so most students are not on campus. This is both a boon and a hindrance."
JORDAN: "Are there any questions?"
Leander raises his hand, but Rift interrupts.
RIFT: "Does my fake name have to be Robert? Anyone wanna trade?"
Jordan replies to Rift before answering Leander.
JORDAN: "Unfortunately, trading is out of the picture. It's got your photo."
JORDAN: (turning to Leander) "Yes?"
LEANDER: "Mine says 'Meemo Scheepers'. Do I need to do an accent? If the answer is yes, I have another question."
Jordan waves his hand, asking for the ID back. Leander complies.
A look of sadness and disappointment washes over Jordan's face as he looks at the ID. He grimaces, and you all can tell that someone is going to be held responsible for this. He hands the ID back.
JORDAN: "It'll have to do. Don't get caught."
Rift stifles a giggle.
AVERY: "How much time do we have before we get on campus? I might need a while to prepare..."
Jordan turns to Avery.
JORDAN: "You'll be able to prepare at the college. But don't take too long. There's evidence that this Sin is growing. Fast."
THOMAS: "Carl Bloomberg. It beats Meemo, at least."
JORDAN: "Also, you have an hour until we reach your stop."
AVERY: "Excellent."
He looks at the I.D. again - a David Bolscher, who could probably pass for a younger relative of his.
LEANDER: "What was your last name, Robert?"
RIFT: "Uhh, Braxton? But that's not my real name! I'm Rift. And you're..."
LEANDER: "Oh, should we share our real names, too? I'm still trying to memorize our fake ones. I don't want to get them confused."
JORDAN: "This is your new team. It would be best if you get to know one another. Your lives depend on it. My stop is almost here. Are there any other questions before I get off?"
THOMAS: "Is there any more information on the sin?"
JORDAN: "Unfortunately not. We don't even know who the host is."
THOMAS: "CAIN does seem to have caught this one early."
LEANDER: "Would you like some of Mother's pie before you go?"
JORDAN: "Yes, but only because of the rate at which it's growing. When October break ends tomorrow, it'll have thousands of students to pull into it's Kingdom. Make sure that doesn't happen."
AVERY: "Speaking of students, where can we find information about Lindenbrook? Or do we just have what the public knows about the campus?"
JORDAN: "There is nothing of note, other than it's quite a large library. Pretty too."
RIFT: "I wonder if they have comic books... Hey didja say you have pie?"
Rift manifests a third hand in the seat next to Leander and waggles their fingers.
LEANDER: "Mother has pie for all who desire it. Simply reach out, and partake."
RIFT: "Uh..."
JORDAN: "Don't go scaring them with your shadow just yet, Leander."
Leander holds his right hand in front of him, says "Thank you, Mother", and pantomimes eating a slice of pie, holding his elbow underneath his mouth to catch the non-existent crumbs.
LEANDER: "Who would be frightened of pie?"
Doggo sniffs around the floor where the crumbs ought to be
THOMAS: "Oh, quit that."
LEANDER: "What's wrong with your dog?"
JORDAN: "he does seem... a bit blue.."
RIFT: "Oh that's Spot!"
Avery hadn't really noticed Spot before now, and is really unsure what to think about this. dog?
THOMAS: "Ha, blue joke. It's a bound sin, which apparently doesn't mean it doesn't try to wander off a little. Hasn't hurt anyone, though."
LEANDER: "That's good. I was a bit worried about the snake at the end."
THOMAS: "Same here, to be honest! I dunno."
AVERY: "Oh, right, I hadn't worked with bound sins often where I was stationed. How long have you had it?"
THOMAS: "Months now. About 3 days before CAIN picked me up."
As the train comes to a stop, Jordan looks over his shoulder one last time at the new team he put together. It's hard to read his face.
JORDAN: "Don't die."
And with that, you're all on your own. Leander looks at Thomas.
LEANDER: "So when we're undercover, are we all supposed to be your students?"
THOMAS: "I don't think we have to commit to it, but that could work. Are you good at anything in particular, academically speaking?"
THOMAS: "Just to come off as more convincing."
LEANDER: "Not really."
LEANDER: "I know some plants! Flowers and such. Just from landscaping."
THOMAS: "That's fair. How about you?" He gestures at Avery.
AVERY: "Nothing comes to mind particularly, I just kind of struggled through college..."
LEANDER: "Is Robert even old enough to be in college?"
AVERY: "Oh! Right, I never introduced myself. Avery, but I'll be going as David Bolscher for this mission - and maybe a couple other people if we need to, but that's not important right now."
RIFT: "Father Thomas, why don't you pick something you're good at and teach us all really fast?"
THOMAS: "Uhh, what's this place's theology program like? Nah. Maybe we'll go with history."
LEANDER: "Father? Is that part of your undercover identity, or your real one?"
LEANDER: "Or did you mean... biologically?"
THOMAS: "Not that last one."
Rift laughs uproariously.
RIFT: "No silly! He's a priest!"
THOMAS: "It's why the getup doesn't bother me, ha."
AVERY: "That's... something else we should probably think about. Were the rest of you going into the library in those?"
LEANDER: "Was I not supposed to? They didn't give me any other clothes."
THOMAS: "Yeah, unless you brought something in Meemo's size, I think we're stuck with it."
RIFT: snorts "Meemo..."
AVERY: "Yeah, I'm afraid I've got nothing there. Is there a way we can make this work..."
LEANDER: "We're his students, right? We'll just say we're following his example. Maybe he made us wear these. He's in charge. He can do that."
THOMAS: "There are some fringe religious movement implications here which I'm not perfectly comfortable with, but...? Sigh, we can unpack all that sometime after we exorcise the demon."
LEANDER: "Honestly, I'm more concerned that we're still going to smell like this metro train. Are there any stench-based fringe sects we could claim?"
THOMAS: "I'm sure someone has bathing restrictions. But no."
LEANDER: "We can work with that!"
Avery blinks.
AVERY: "I mean, it could work...???"
THOMAS: "Well that means you're mismatched, right?"
AVERY: "That shouldn't be a problem. The person I'm posing as -"
He holds up the I.D. as he says this.
AVERY: "- works at the library. I'll just need to change before we get there. Speaking of which, I should probably get on that..." He excuses himself to the bathroom.
🎲 Our first dice roll is a fate roll, to see if Avery successfully makes it to the bathroom on the crowded side of the car without being interrupted. It's a 5.
Avery's suspiciously long restroom break goes mostly uninterrupted. Someone does knock on the door, but quickly moves on to find another restroom.
CANTRIP
Pick a blasphemy ability. You can use it without spending a psyche burst, but it is always used at CAT 0 if used this way.
Uniform
You make a brief edit of yourself. You can't do this in public (you need privacy, no matter how tenuous). This power makes you officially part of any profession or group with more than 5 members, with any necessary uniform, equipment, id cards, memberships, etc, and alters reality to make it so.
Even if people don't particularly remember you being part of a group, they may get a vague sense that you were a member.
You don't actually gain any particular skills and any changes you may have to be to your own person and must include things you could wear or carry in one or both hands.
Gain or grant +1D when you or any ally next acts to take advantage of this power.
The person you saw on the I.D. moves back to the seat Avery took, wearing slacks and a t-shirt with Lindenbrook's logo on it.
As the train pulls into the station, the cold air hit your faces. You take a taxi to the college, and arrive at the library with the setting sun.
LEANDER: "Shouldn't we wait for David?"
AVERY: "You called?"
The Library stands before you, looming. If you have any final preparations, now is the time.
Rift does a double take at Avery, but shrugs it off. They're not really good at faces anyway.
NEXT: TBA