Casting Shadows

I have been stacking poker chips to represent Brownie Points and slide a stack over to Diego’s player then drop one extra on top. He was the first to really buy-in to the scene, his engagement has been contagious, and he is putting elements together in a way that draws on the source material. Lemmon has been quoting up a storm, but as a result of Diego’s chops as a straightman.

That act of reinforcement, at this moment, has some spin off effects, not the least of which is serving as a signal to all that Diego has raised a very important point.

While Gray is still calling for Dunhill, Lemmon gets serious for a moment, and suddenly realizes that he has been played. The player, a player, is not one to sit still for me putting a fast one over on him or his character, so we are off to the races as he begins to reflect the high Cool trait of the character to start riffing on what Diego’s Brains have made apparent.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” he holds up his arms (as demonstrated by the player, who also rises from his chair to pace a bit as he thinks). Pointing at the PKE meter, he accusingly asks, “Are you sure you are using that thing correctly?

“I assure you, it works, Dieter.”

“And it measures ghosts doing ghost stuff, right?”

Stent is roused from his shock enough to stop calling for Dunhill and to give Dr. Dieter Lemmon – a man with a PhD in Psychology and Parapsychology an accusing look. “You never studied.”

“Yes, Lemmon,” answers Diego – starting to see what Lemmon is getting at.

The group mimes sneaking out of the room with the Coke Machine and into the next area – a curiously hexagonal room with the open arch they have just come through and two locked doors on opposite walls to the left and right.

“The lights went out, the flashlights went out, Dunhill disappeared, but the PKE meter…”

“Kept on keepin’ on!” yells Stent. “Meaning…” he turns to Diego Spencer and answers with him in unison, “whatever did it wasn’t a ghost.”

The group turns to regard the Coke machine with suspicion. I quickly describe the room again, indicating that there is no door blocking the way out of this room, and if a person or persons had come for Dunhill from that distance, the ghostbusters would have to have seen them.

“I’d expect this sort of devious behavior from a Pepsi machine, but not Coke,” Gray says, unable to hide the sadness in his tone.

I call for a Hard Brains check and Diego’s player nods trades some Brownie points for extra dice before he sends his pool clattering across the table. We all know the attack to nab Dunhill when he so kindly stepped up to get Gray a Coke had to have come from the Coke machine, so success is set to indicate to the ghostbusters how it was done so quickly and quietly. The large pool of dice readily beat the Difficulty of 20, but the Ghost is showing on the Ghost Die…

With a slight smile on my face I shift my body to more directly face Dunhill’s player, a player I should add, that I asked to sit a little apart from the others at the very start of the session. His character is the most prone to getting upset when things get overtly supernatural, so to help his player feel that sense of vulnerability, I separated him from the pack.

Everyone chuckles a bit as they realize I am going to cut to Dunhill and I chuckle along with them.

“You are held upside down and the blood is pounding in your head. The muscular power in the body that is holding you firmly in a fireman’s carry is hard to resist. In the dim red lighting of an emergency backup power system, you see your assailant’s assistant reach out to pull a large metal lever (Room 25) and cackle to himself.

“That should keep your friends from bothering us!”

“Don’t be so sure!” Dunhill blurts out. “They’ve got the tools, and they’ve got the talent!”

“Come Prim! Bring our guest!” the cackling man crows as a rumble shakes the hall.

In that instant, the detail that I had been withholding from Dunhill’s player is dropped on him like a bomb. It’s not a person that is gripping him so tightly, but rather a giant preying mantis!

I quickly cut back to the group of three ghostbusters and remind them that the roll was successful, so I ask them to describe what it was that they did to reveal the secret of the Coke Machine. They describe that for a moment, everyone throwing in some funny detail and each knowing that I will interrupt them with the negative consequence of the ghost at some point.

When they get to finding the secret latch that causes the whole unit to swing open on a hinge on the wall to reveal a doorway behind, I take over.

I briefly describe a set of stairs leading down into red-lit darkness but then tell them they hear a faint hint of laughter before the roof of the stairway caves in!

Questions: How does the scene presented today connect to the prompt of vision?

Is there more than one way that vision is represented in today’s response?

Video Link: Later today I will post a counterpart video to this entry to expand on the techniques of Momentum, Contagion, and Reflection that have been used to build the scene, plus a look at Denial~