Event - Appalachia: Confabulation (NETWORK)

[apocalypsehowmods]

Who: Rae Hargrave
What: An IC discussion for sharing information and making plans
Username: ambulatory
Warnings: Please add appropriate warnings in subject headings!

On June 5, everyone with an ADI-issued device will be added to a group channel by Pam Ruan, who immediately transfers control of the channel to an account with the username ambulatory and an ID picture of a world-weary caucasian woman. Within minutes of the notification that they’ve been added, characters will receive the following message:

un: ambulatory
This is Rae Hargrave with a mission status update for all ADI personnel currently stationed in Wolf Pen.

First, I apparently need to remind you that it is of the utmost importance that you do not inform the locals of the true purpose behind our visit. Not only does exposing ordinary bystanders to the supernatural place their lives in danger, but you also run the risk of handing information about yourself and about our operation to an avatar, either directly or via an unwitting informant. If you are questioned directly about your reasons for being in town or asking the questions you’re asking, deflect, deflect, deflect. It’s better to look like an idiot than to feed our enemies. If I catch wind of any more of these incidents, I will literally sit on you. If you think a local has already been exposed to one of the Entities and that it would do more good than harm to bring them into the fold, bring that to the higher levels before you act.


Second, and to the main purpose, this channel has been established for the purpose of sharing intel gathered since our arrival. Learned something? Tell the group. We’ve got a deadline looming in less than two weeks, and that’s assuming our assessments are correct and the Rumble Down Under is the intended ritual. You don’t need to have things all figured out to be of help here. We’re all putting this puzzle together, together and the piece you bring to the table could click with another person’s intel that you never would have thought was connected.

I'd like to see reports on the following, along with anything else you've picked up in your time here:

• Layout and any suspicious activity in and around the Bluestone Mine: what's the situation with the concert space and where are our entrances and exits? What have you been able to get out of the museum staff?
• Ditto for the Keppler Mine: who have you talked to and what have you seen? We may be running short on opportunities for additional recon here as reports indicate that the OSHA cover story is wearing thin. If you return to the Keppler, have a contingency plan for getting back out.
• Locations and movements of Avatars in the area, confirmed or suspected. Katie Dunn and Deepthi Anand are almost certainly in the area, and we have reason to believe the Desolation Avatar known as Pyre may also be involved. There may be additional Avatars we have not yet identified. While previous experience has taught us that Avatars of different Entities don't usually play well together, there's a first time for everything.
• Supernatural sightings in and around Wolf Pen: we have not yet ruled out the possibility that reported phenomena in the woods and the dump could be related to the ritual attempt.
• Public attitudes and interactions with town leaders: who seems to be allied with whom, and what are their connections to FYRE and the mines? Additionally, have you met anyone you believe may pose a security risk to the mission?

Third, action plans. Our aim is disruption, prevention, and ultimately complete nullification of the ritual attempt and its principal actors. We can expect that regardless of the specifics of the ritual, they will plan to inflict mass casualties, and I hope I don't need to clarify that we don't want that. While disrupting the ritual once it is already in progress is a tried and true method of forcing the dissipation of gathered Entity power and thereby preventing a rebound attempt, incapacitating the Avatars before they can enact the ritual also works as long as they stay incapacitated.

Brainstorm, spitball, whatever you want to call it. Try to be constructive, but be smart and speak up if you spot a potentially fatal flaw in someone else's plan. No idea is too weird or stupid to bring to the table, but some may be too weird or stupid to stay there. Whether we concentrate our forces in one place or plan a multi-pronged attack, we will identify the best plans brought forward and implement them to make sure the ritual doesn't get off the ground.


Fourth and last, Sheriff Ron Porter is currently under evaluation for recruitment to ADI and can be considered a resource with no need to withhold darker truths about the supernatural. However, as we are still performing a background check, we ask that you not share specific information about ADI's home base and regular operations with him as of yet. Again, no other locals are to be informed of supernatural threats without going through the proper channels within ADI.

To those of you who have spoken to Cindy Parsons, the newscaster, we'll be talking later. They are not an appropriate resource and should be treated as an innocent civilian. We do not want to pull them into any further danger than they already have been. Do not speak to them or to Wolf News.

Comments

un: hickey

[friendsfordinner]

Talked with a kid named Jimmy in the Keppler Mine. First and foremost, something's wrong with that kid. Something's wrong with the entire mine in general, but that kid seemed weird at points.

There's something in the Keppler Mine. It sang in my ear and made it so that everything was dark. The walls were closing in around me, there wasn't any light. It wanted me to go down further in the depths of the mine so naturally I did. It was just as bad down there but there was the smell of something burning as well.

I vote someone else go down in there next time. I can lend you my badge so you don't set off any of their security nonsense. But I don't do well with fire.

un: killerqueen

[demonicmiracle]

If you get no other takers, I can do it. Fire's no bother, the dark even less so

[friendsfordinner]

Thanks.

Obviously there's no actual fire. But whatever there is made me think there was fire, just like it made me think the walls were pressing in on me.

[demonicmiracle]

The fun part about this place is that things not being there doesn't mean they can't hurt you. Learned that one the hard way.

So if fire's an issue, you'll wanna steer clear. Pretty certain the Desolation is involved, and that's the MO for that lot

[friendsfordinner]

Can two of these things work together? Because Desolation sounds par for the firey course, but the song wasn't about fire. It was about being buried in the darkness.

[demonicmiracle]

Fairly certain there's nothing stopping them aside from their own egos

Which I reckon is an angle to work, if we can track the bastards down

[friendsfordinner]

Don't think tracking them would be the hard part. They want us down there.

un: AfricanGrey

[citizendetective]

And like it made us think we were being attacke in the woods....

[friendsfordinner]

Kind of wonder if there's something in the woods that they don't want anybody else to find.

[citizendetective]

Would you go back in?

un: milton

[bindlestifflost]

I talked to a woman whose husband used to work in the mines. She said he mentioned people hearing singing down there when they worked and darkness closing in sometimes.

She also said her husband saw his cousin die in a cave in where rock demons came out and hacked away the support beams. She called them tommyknockers.

[friendsfordinner]

Sounds exactly like what I experienced—minus the rock demons, of course.

[bindlestifflost]

The singing voice sound like a woman? She didn't say. Wondering if there's any conection with that and the woman the kid drew.

[friendsfordinner]

Yeah a woman. She was singing right in my ear. No clue what she looked like, though. Just heard the voice.

[bindlestifflost]

Makes what that guy told his wife more likely and lines up with some of the stuff the kid drew.

I don't like it. How did you manage to get out of it?

un: jelica

[musicdied]

Weird how?

Was there actual smoke, or just an acrid smell?

[friendsfordinner]

First point: Jimmy's accent shifted once or twice during our conversation and I don't know if he realized it. Have you ever been around someone who's just so determined to believe that nothing's wrong that they overcompensate? He gave me that feeling.

Second point: if there was smoke, I didn't see it as everything was fucking dark. But I could smell it and could feel the heat pressing up against me.

[musicdied]

Once or twice.

He probably didn't notice. Most people think they're much better at faking an accent than they actually are. Did he sound more or less like a local when it slipped?

[friendsfordinner]

More?

But admittedly I'm Irish and this is my first time in America as a whole so I'm not sure what counts for local. [ technically he's English but that's a whole other thing..... ] He sounded more like everybody else in the city.

[musicdied]

Americans are strange.

But I meant here, Wolf Pen.

He might be trying to stand apart, thinking he can impress some of the higher ups. Or he could have spent some time away and gotten into the habit. But it is interesting.

un: quill

[vrituom]

It sang at you?

[friendsfordinner]

It did. I don't know what it was but it sang at me twice.

[vrituom]

Do you remember what is was?

[friendsfordinner]

I don't know the name and don't remember all the lyrics. I'm British and normally from a hundred or so years in the past. My references aren't exactly the most up to date and it's damn hard to remember all the lyrics of a song when you're hearing it for the first time.

Remember the general gist of both songs though.

[vrituom]

Which was?