Delta Green - All Part of the Job

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 6b

Agent SETH arrived at the University about a half hour later, and Dr. Yarrow met him in the parking lot. The two headed to the address provided by the antique dealer. It was the home of an older man. He was short but stocky with a full head of white hair and dark-rimmed glasses.

SETH and Yarrow explained that they were doing a documentary on the Wheeler house, and they had received his name from someone familiar with pieces from the original estate sale. The man was happy to let them come in to take a look. He was in the middle of washing dishes, so he left them to examine the wardrobe alone.

It was in a spare bedroom, and it seemed to be made of a dark wood, or at least stained darkly. Neither man knew much about furniture or antiques. The cabinet of the wardrobe was about three feet deep and nearly seven feet tall. It stood on four legs which added to this height.

SETH opened the doors of the wardrobe to find that it was empty, but there was a full-sized mirror on the insides of each door. He immediately covered them with spare blankets. Dr. Yarrow examined the outside of the wardrobe while Agent SETH checked the empty interior for false bottoms, secret compartments, and the like. He didn’t find any, but he noticed that when he placed a bit of pressure on the back wall of the cabinet, the interior seemed to stretch. There was no sound, and it wasn’t as if the back wall actually moved. The pressure simply seemed to make the space larger.

He pushed again with the same result. A third push extended the interior space at least ten feet deep; easily beyond the wall of the room. Dr. Yarrow confirmed that the outside remained the same, and there was still about three inches of clearance between the wardrobe and the wall.

The doctor came around the front and was a little surprised to see SETH twenty feet or so away and stretching the cabinet space further. He stepped in and closed the doors most of the way until the blankets wedged them open so that a thick sliver of light filtered through.

Not long after, they heard a woman’s voice out in the room speaking in Italian. It sounded more like she was reading aloud or reciting something prepared rather than conversing. SETH turned on his audio recorder and held it to the doors, but neither man dared to peek out.

When the woman finished, they could hear a booming male voice.

“Chi chiama il mio nome?”

Neither man spoke Italian, but ROSE had been able to use her computer to translate before. SETH continued to record, and they would find out just what they were hearing later.

A second woman’s voice could be heard begging in English for someone, presumably the male, to not do what he was about to do.

“Scriverete il vostro nome nel libro nero,” came the male voice.

There was a blood-curdling scream, and then all was silent. Eventually, the two men peeked out into the room. It was just as it should have been, and there was no evidence of any others. They could hear the old man in the kitchen whistling as he washed his dishes. Apparently, he hadn’t heard anything.

SETH and Dr. Yarrow thanked the man for his time, and they headed back to Laconia. Dr. Yarrow drove, and SETH took the opportunity to email his recording to ROSE who was happy to translate.

It seemed the first woman was calling for someone she referred to as “the Dark Man.” She said she had made the necessary offerings, and if the Dark Man would present himself, he could claim his payment; two freely given souls.

The male voice had said something like “Who calls my name?” The first voice identified herself as Adele DiVittelo, the Man’s humble servant. She gave the second name as Isabelle Wheeler which was when the pleading in English began.

The Dark Man then said something like “You shall sign your name in the black book.”

That gave SETH and the doctor something to think about on their drive. When they reached Laconia, they headed to the address of the owner of the coffee table. The owner was an older lady, and the two men appeared to be interrupting tea time.

Agent SETH was convincing and charming enough that the woman allowed them in to examine the table. She even moved the tea party to the kitchen to give them room. SETH was a professionally trained psychologist, however, and it was painfully obvious to him that the woman’s motives weren’t out of courtesy or generosity. The women moved to the kitchen so they could watch from a distance and gossip out of earshot. This suited SETH just fine.

The table was made of the same wood as the wardrobe, and the dark stain would match. The entire center of the table was taken up by an intricate design. A triskelion, or triple spiral, marked the surface. The table surface was composed of three slats, and when SETH examined them closely, he noticed there were very slightly misaligned. He gave the center slat a firm push, and he was rewarded with a soft click. Inside the base of the table were three objects each tied down with rotting leather ropes.

There was a very sharp bronze knife, a bronze bowl which also had the triskelion design, and a leather-bound journal. Agent SETH discretely pocketed all of these items before thanking the gossiping old women for their time. He and the doctor left quickly.

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 6c

ROSE called SETH to let him know she was heading to the house. He asked her to wait outside since he and Dr. Yarrow were also on their way. The three of them met outside the Spooner Avenue house and briefly discussed the items found inside the table. SETH had only a few minutes to skim the journal, but that was enough time to determine it had been written by Isabelle Wheeler, and it detailed a period of nearly thirty years.

Isabelle Wheeler had been dying of an unknown wasting illness when Adele DiVettelo was hired to mend the curtains and other cloth items in the house. The journal detailed the old woman’s proposition as well. She claimed Isabelle’s sickness could be cured as long as she was willing to pay the price. Anything was preferable to a slow, painful death, and Isabelle had agreed.

The old woman had called forth the Dark Man, and the women both pledged themselves to him. Almost overnight, Isabelle’s disease faded, and she lived a quiet and healthy life until one night in 1955 when the Dark Man returned. He demanded that she finally fulfill her end of their deal by signing her name in his black book.

She refused, and the Dark Man revoked the health he had returned to her nearly thirty years earlier. Isabelle Wheeler’s last entry was in a very shaky hand, and it said simply that she could feel all the agony she’d avoided for three decades. She cursed the Dark Man and swore she’d never be his.

One other interesting piece of the journal detailed the spell the old woman had used to call the Dark Man, and it included a chant for dismissing him. It seemed that the only way to be sure of cleansing the house was to call the Dark Man and force him out, but SETH wasn’t sure that was a good idea. If he was really so much more powerful than the entity which had nearly killed three seasoned Delta Green agents, and had caused so much death and misery over the last 55 years, then how could they really expect to banish him? If they couldn’t get an angry spirit to leave, how could they expect to force out a demon, or as the journal called him, a god?

Agent ROSE had had enough of this house, and she took all of this personally. She felt that with the help of the journal, they could force out the Dark Man. All they had to do was find out what the spell required. They all went inside, and SETH set the bowl and knife on the table in the master bedroom which was still covered with Dr. Yarrow’s silk cloth. He then looked closer at the spell.

There seemed to be two ways to call the Dark Man. The first method wasn’t guaranteed. They could sacrifice many animals using the knife and bowl while speaking the words of the spell, and then have two people willing to give themselves to the Dark Man should he appear.

The second method, according to the journal would absolutely call him forth. That method required only the sacrifice of an innocent human in the name of the Dark Man while the words of the spell were recited. There was a spirited debate on just how to go about this.

SETH wasn’t willing to let anyone die just so they could call forth a being he felt they couldn’t possibly force out anyway. ROSE felt that with all the death that had come before, one more in the name of ending it for good was worth it. There was a big argument over the morality and ethics of a single murder to prevent many future deaths.

In the end, ROSE excused herself to visit the bathroom while SETH went to the den fuming. While in the bathroom, ROSE called to order a pizza from Papa John’s. She offered to pay double if it could be delivered as soon as possible. She gave her former codename from when she was in S-Cell; SAM. She then rejoined the others in the den.

When the doorbell rang, SETH answered the door. On the porch was a high school kid of about 18. He told SETH he had a pizza for someone named Sam. SETH told the kid there was no one there by that name, and he should just leave. Behind SETH, Agent ROSE waved a $20 bill and said “That’s me! I’m Sam!”

“No. No, you aren’t.”

“Oh, I am, too! And that’s my pizza!”

ROSE tried to get the kid to come in for a minute, but SETH blocked the door. Eventually, ROSE settled for throwing the money outside and having SETH accept the pizza. SETH watched the kid walk back toward his car, and ROSE used that opportunity to hide the bowl and knife.

SETH closed the door and yelled to ROSE that there was absolutely no way he was allowing her to kill that kid, but ROSE made a break for the garage. SETH gave chase, but as soon as ROSE was in the garage, the door to the house closed and locked on its own. The old garage door opener sprung to life of its own accord as well. Agent ROSE ran out yelling to the kid.

“Wait! You have to help me! Please, he’s crazy!”

“That guy? Is he dangerous?!”

“Yes. He has a gun! Please, come here! You have to help me!”

“No way, ma’am! Come with me, and I can take you somewhere safe.”

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 6d

Finding that he couldn’t get out through the garage, SETH ran through the master bedroom and climbed out the window into the backyard. ROSE could hear him coming, and she knew she needed to get this kid inside fast, but all she could think to do was to lift her shirt.

That definitely got the kid’s attention, and he took a few steps her direction. That’s when SETH came running around the corner displaying his badge and gun, and yelling for the kid to get his hands up, back away, and leave.

The life of a high schooler can be full of difficult choices, and here was one of those. On the one hand, there was easily one of the most attractive women he’d ever seen lifting her shirt and calling to him. On the other hand, there was a man who was probably her angry boyfriend or husband waving a badge, pointing a gun, and shouting.

The badge and gun won out, and the kid backed away. No sooner was he was in his car than he was out of the neighborhood. Crisis averted, SETH glared at ROSE. Agent ROSE just smiled and called Little Caesar’s.

That was enough for SETH. He put away his gun and badge, and he told ROSE he wasn’t having anything to do with what she was planning. As he headed to his rental car, he held up the journal and sarcastically wished her luck.

Agent ROSE shrugged and went inside to wait. She figured she didn’t need the journal since SETH had already sent her audio of the spell being cast. She was going to try it with the recording. When the delivery driver arrived, ROSE invited him in to wait a minute while she got her money. When the driver was inside and turned his back, she slipped behind him, cut his throat with the knife and caught the blood with the bowl. She then hit play on the recording and waited to see what happened. All the while, Dr. Yarrow was in another room carefully reviewing his camera feeds from the past few days.

After a moment, a large figure appeared before ROSE. He was at least eight feet tall with jet black skin and only a vaguely male body shape. There were no nipples, no genitalia, and instead of a face, the Dark Man had a large horn. He had no mouth, but his voice boomed from somewhere.

“Who calls my name?”

“That would be me.”

ROSE raised her hand. She seemed for all the world as if this sort of thing was simply an everyday occurrence.

“Why have you called me?”

“I’ve made the offering, and now I want what you gave Adele DiVettelo.”

“You’ve yet to make a true offering. This was merely enough to get my attention. Now … Why have you called me?!”

He gestured to the dead delivery driver as his volume increased.

“I want to sign your book, and then I want what you gave Adele DiVettelo.”

The Dark Man produced a black book and a quill from thin air and held it open for her. She signed the name of Adele DiVettelo.

“I already have that one, and she is not yours to give! Do not waste my time.”

ROSE nodded once more and signed the name of Dr. Emil Yarrow. The Dark Man said nothing but turned to face the doctor. As if hearing someone calling his name, the doctor looked up. He stood and walked into the room to look up at the Dark Man.

“I don’t understand,” were his only words.

He stood in silence for a moment more, and ROSE saw that his eyes were glazed over. She stabbed the bronze knife for his heart at the same time he swung a straight razor at her neck. They both missed and reset their footing. Dr. Yarrow’s movements were mechanical and almost puppet-like. He seemed to have only one goal: Slice the throat of Agent ROSE.

Dr. Yarrow swung again and drew blood, but ROSE kept fighting. The vicious, bloody, and deadly dance continued for nearly a minute before the next hit. Agent ROSE drove the knife deep into the doctor’s heart, and he collapsed dead.

The Dark Man nodded and closed his book.

“So be it, Gia.”

Agent ROSE was a little disturbed to hear her real name spoken by this being, but she didn’t let it show. She stood up straight and spoke with confidence.

“I want what you gave Adele DiVettelo, and I want you to go and never return.”

“Very well. You have the Crone’s blessing, and I relinquish my claim to this ground. Always watch for me, Gia Jones, for I will come to you again.”

With that, the Dark Man was gone, and the heavy feeling in the house left with him. Now there was simply the matter of destroying and altering evidence. That was a Delta Green agent’s area of expertise.

SETH was long gone, and ROSE made her way home as well. Agent SID was so drugged up on hospital painkillers that he had no idea anything had changed, and no one had bothered to let RUBY know the curtain had fallen on easily the bloodiest Opera of their brief careers.

Wow! I've read this entire thread and it reads like a great game. I have not picked up Delta Green, but I have heard gushing reviews and your story hour has definitely got me interested. I have a few questions, if you do not mind the intrusion on your story flow:

1. Do you create these adventures or are you running published materials? If it is published, would you mind sharing the name of it? If it is your own design would you mind talking a bit about how you create scenarios?

2. It seems like your PCs go off the beaten (intended) path constantly. Do you find yourself ad-libbing regularly? How much familiarity do you have with the areas where the adventures take place?

3. The PCs die on a regular basis, not something I mind - just an observation. What is character creation like - is it very involved? Do PCs act fatalistic or cavalier towards the dangers they face?

4. How do you encourage your PCs to be proactive - if there's a lull in the game do you just throw more things at them or do you let them stew and try to figure it out?

5. Your profile says you are from Alaska. Are there a lot of gamers up there? Is getting folks together to play a non-mainstream game difficult? I'm in the middle of Illinois and it would be a little bit of challenge for me to find the right players for a game like this.

Finally, I mostly wanted to say good job on spinning a very enjoyable story hour. You know, ten years ago this story would have had tons of comments and lots of encouraging posts, but sadly in the last few years this forum has faded into the background largely. I hope you keep writing, because this is really fun stuff and I find your game fascinating.

I don't mind the intrusion at all. In fact, I welcome it. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. Call of Cthulhu has always been a favorite of mine, and Delta Green is an amazing setting. To answer your questions:

1. What I've run so far has been published material with moderate to heavy modification in some cases. The Operation titles are the actual scenario titles, and I can give you the sources if you're interested. I have written plenty of scenarios for previous groups, and I'll probably use them with this one soon. I haven't so far because Agent SETH's player has played in previous Delta Green games of mine, and he'd likely recognize some things. As of the end of Music From A Darkened Room, he is dropping out, and we have at least one new player to take his place.

When I run completely original scenarios, they are usually pretty heavily improvised. I tend to start with an idea like a particular entity, location, or theme. I then lead the characters toward an event, whether it's placing them at the actual event, having them stumble across evidence, or (as is the case with most Delta Green Operas), a mission briefing of some sort. I find that if I don't know what happened, my players will usually write the story for me as long as I listen to them. They like to develop theories and bounce them around, and a lot of the time, I'll pick something that sounds good and go with it.

At the same time, I do like tight, well-developed plots, too, so I do actually write some things out. I've found that my players love handouts like newspaper clippings, sample journal entries, etc ... and so I'll work those up when I have a chance. The Killer Out of Space is one where I did quite a lot of that. I wrote up lots of newspaper and magazine articles to set up the space shuttle story.

2. My players are very creative. They also play their sanity well. SETH and RUBY have high sanity, and they act reasonably calm, serious, and practical. SID and ROSE used to have decent sanity, and when they did, they were the same. As their scores dropped, they began to play their characters more chaotically and out of the box. I keep a spreadsheet with a chart to track the sanity of the group.

I tend to do quite a bit of ad-libbing, but that's something I've done for a long time, and I'm quite comfortable with it. As long as I know my NPCs and my setting, I'm good. Most of the time, my players can't tell the written bits from the parts made up on the spot. Before every Opera, I decide on a location, and I do a fair amount of research. The more it seems I know about the location, the more realistic the game seems, and realism is an important part of horror role playing.

3. I make sure all of my players understand that Call of Cthulhu is in a cold and uncaring universe, and as such I am very fair but also uncaring. They know I won't actively try to kill them, but I won't save them either. That adds to the realism, but it also builds their trust in me. At the end of the Opera in New Mexico where four of the six characters died, three of the players immediately said "My next character is going to be <insert government agency/military branch>", and the fourth said "Here's my backup character." If that was a D&D game, the players may not have come back the next week.

The mechanics of character creation are pretty quick, but my players like to put some effort into character and background. They absolutely want their characters to survive and to win, and so they don't generally act quickly or take unnecessary risks except when roleplaying low sanity.

4. With this game, I like to let them take their time and think, but every once in a while, they need a little kick. In those cases, I might have an NPC say something off-handedly, but I prefer to let bad things start to happen so they feel urgency.

5. There is a pretty decent pool of players up here. The GM pool is a little thin, but I've always preferred that side of things anyway, and I generally get positive feedback. There are tons of Pathfinder games going around, so players look to me for something different. Agent SID's player moved here from Illinois just a little before joining the group, actually. And this is his first tabletop game.

Thank you very much for your readership and support. I do appreciate it. I'm not sure my players would let me quit running this game if I wanted to, and as long as I'm running it, you can be sure I'll keep writing it up. Please feel free to comment or ask questions any time.

Music From A Darkened Room - Agent SID's Epilogue

Agent SID rested comfortably in his hospital bed experiencing everything through a morphine haze. For what could have been hours, days, or even weeks, he drifted almost seamlessly in and out of consciousness. One moment, he was in the hospital, and the next, he was in a vivid dream. He began to get used to the transitions, and he even welcomed them. The blur between reality and dream was something his mind needed right now.

Hospital, dream, hospital, dream … field? Did he skip consciousness in favor of another dream? His dreams had become so vivid that he really had no way to tell. Up until just now, he’d been considering everything related to the hospital to be “reality”, and everything else to be “dream”. While the lines were quite blurred, there had been a noticeable flow from one to the other. This time, either he skipped reality and went to another dream, or this field was real.

It was warm, the grass was green, and the blue sky was sparsely decorated by various cloud shapes. From the hilltop, he could see deep valleys, rivers, forests, and mountains. This couldn’t be real since the last he knew, it was … November? December? It was … oh, he didn’t really care. This seemed real enough, and it was definitely peaceful.

SID found a dry spot in the grass and flowers with a flat rock. He laid back with his hands behind his head and his fingers laced using the rock as a pillow, and he watched the clouds roll by. It was so peaceful that he almost dozed off. If this was a dream, could he still fall asleep? Did it really matter?

He heard a dull, emotionless voice, but he couldn’t be sure where it had come from. It seemed to be all around, and yet nowhere.

“Subject damaged … stabilized … sub-optimal.”

SID blinked a few times, but he continued to relax and watch the clouds. The voice spoke again.

“Sub-optimal … frail … recommend full conversion …”

The voice was almost definitely coming from in his head, almost like a radio signal he couldn’t quite pin down. He hoped the voice wasn’t talking about him. Sub-optimal and frail weren’t words typically attributed to him. He was U.S. Army Intelligence. He was INSCOM “Black” Ops. Damn it, he was Delta Green.

“Delta Green … The one called Drake was correct …”

SID instinctively tried to shut off his mind for a moment. The voice heard his thoughts? Was the voice another of his thoughts? Stop thinking, Cramer. Stop thinking just in case.

A second voice spoke inside his head. This one was very similar, yet it was definitely distinct.

“Subject’s thoughts are erratic … chaotic … dangerous … recommend termination …”

Uh oh. He may or may not have actually been on a hilltop watching clouds. Reality and dream were seeming less and less distinct. His work for Delta Gr-- … His work may have pushed him over the edge. He wasn’t sure what “full conversion” was, but he knew damned well that he didn’t want termination. He was helpless, but he secretly rooted for the first voice to win out.

“Erratic … chaotic … dangerous … but valuable …”

“Too dangerous …”

“Controllable … recommend full conversion …”

“Termination …”

“Full conversion …”

There was a pause, and a third voice joined. This was a human-sounding voice, a man’s voice. The voice of God?

“Termination is not an option. The United States Army and Majestic have too Goddamned much riding on him.”

Okay then. So it probably wasn’t God. But it was familiar. General Drake? That was it; Brigadier General Justin Drake. The first two voices spoke in unison, and the general replied.

“Full conversion … with failsafe …”

“That’ll do.”

One of the fluffy white clouds suddenly went dark. A moment later, Agent SID was struck by three precisely timed bolts of lightning, and his body spasmed with each. Everything went dark, and when he awoke, he was in a hospital bed, but he wasn’t in a hospital room.

The walls, ceiling, and floor were concrete, and there were no windows. The room was lit by florescent tubes along the walls and directly overhead. There were several large vats with thick, churning grey slime, and next to his bed was a small cylinder on a wheeled table.

SID sat up, and a young soldier near the door stood from his chair to salute.

“Good morning, Captain. I’ll be outside when you’re ready. Your clothes are over there.”

The soldier gestured to a neatly folded stack of clothing before stepping through the door and closing it behind him.

Agent SID wasn’t sure just what was going on, but he sure felt better than he had in years. He dressed quickly and checked a small mirror on the wall to fix his hair. There was something off about the face he saw looking back at him. It was his, but it seemed somehow … not his. Also, there was the small matter of his neck; no scars from the dog bite, no scars from the razor.

SID washed his face in the sink below the mirror, and something didn’t feel quite right. Looking down at his hands, he realized the problem. No finger prints, no hand prints. They were smooth. This wasn’t his body. It looked like his, and he was definitely in it, but it wasn’t his. Agent SID kept his calm, but then a panicked thought hit him. Like a flash, in his best Michael Jackson or Madonna impression, his hand dropped to his crotch. He breathed a sigh of relief. Everything seemed to be in order.

Agent SID stepped out into the hall, and the guard escorted him through a maze of concrete and steel. After a while, they arrived outside a door, and the soldier knocked. A gruff voice from the other side instructed them to enter.

General Drake stood from behind his desk and looked at SID expectantly. Having been in this situation twice before, and going 50-50 on his response, Agent SID got it right. The general returned the salute and took his seat.

“Captain Gump, I don’t care what you were doing in New Hampshire. I know it was a Delta Green Operation, but it doesn’t concern me.”

SID took a seat and remained silent. There was no point in denying his Delta Green affiliation, but neither was there a point in acknowledging it.

“Captain, what does concern me is something that concerns the whole damned U.S. Army. You were slipping. You damned near wiped out a $20 million experiment with two swipes of a razor, and you did it in public. So what do we do about that, Captain? We throw more money at the experiment. You’ve been in this facility for ten months, and in that time some very big changes have been made. No adamantine skeleton or claws. No red, white, and blue shield. I’m going to be watching you closely, and if I catch you trying to be one of them X-Men, we’re going to have a problem.”

The general’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward. SID remained silent and felt himself instinctively leaning back.

“And for God’s sake, Gump, take care of this body. I can promise you it’s the last you’ll ever get. Am I understood?”

SID nodded slowly, but that wasn’t the answer the general wanted.

“Am I understood, Captain?!”

“Sir, you are understood, sir!”

SID wasn’t sure where the hell that came from, but it was the correct response. The general stood and saluted.

“Now get the hell out of my office and off my base.”

Agent SID was all too happy to do so, and he returned home to put his new body to the test.

Music From A Darkened Room - Agent SETH's Epilogue

The flight home seemed much longer for Agent SETH than it really was. Delta Green work was rarely easy, but when agents aren’t careful, people die. Sometimes people die precisely because agents are careful. He had spent a good portion of his life studying the human mind, and people still surprised him.

Agent ROSE had always been careful. She’d always been smart. She’d always cared about innocents. Just two winters ago in Denver, Agent SETH had given the order to torch the thing in the septic tank, and it was Agent ROSE who had taken him to task over it.

It was a long shot, sure, but ultimately it was possible that the thing in the tank was still a living, breathing human being. He gave the order with that knowledge weighing on him. He knew it was the right thing then, and he never wavered in that belief. Still, Agent ROSE had taken issue with it. More than any order before or since, that one order – those two little words – had caused a rift.

Fast forward two years, and cross the country: It was his turn to be disgusted at her actions. It may have been the only way to succeed, but the price was too steep. The thing in the septic tank had a very outside chance of being human, and its mind was shattered regardless. The pizza delivery driver – both drivers – had most definitely been human and innocent. It wasn’t their place to do what ROSE planned to do, and how she could believe that she was doing the right thing was beyond even his professionally trained comprehension.

No doubt A-cell would applaud her if she was successful. She had been the one to make the decision to lure an innocent kid to his death, but in doing so, all signs pointed to the success of the Operation. A successful Opera was really all A-cell cared about, and they would most likely commend her for securing that victory with only the cost of an innocent life or two, and her soul.

Would A-cell have been willing to do that themselves? ALPHONSE? ADAM? ANDREA? He had to doubt it. It seemed more likely to him that A-cell would have done exactly what they did in fact do. They’d have had someone else do the dirty work.

Okay, fine. He could break laws. He could kill people and creatures that had it coming. He could lead several successful Operas, but only if they were done his way. He couldn’t trust ROSE anymore. RUBY would blindly follow her cell leader. And SID … SID was a liability.

Nothing good could possibly come from having him on a Delta Green Op. Once, he was a good agent and soldier. Unfortunately, the job had taken its toll, and in SETH’s professional opinion, Agent SID should be locked away permanently for his own safety.

As soon as he made it home, SETH sat down and wrote a long email to A-cell. He detailed his concerns and his refusal to work with SID or anyone from R-cell, and then he sat back to await a response.

It was nearly a month later before he received his reply. Agent ADAM understood. RUBY was no longer a concern for anyone in Delta Green. As soon as SID was cleared to return to service, he would be reassigned to R-cell. SETH would receive two new cell members if and when they could be recruited or salvaged from other cells. All contact and cooperation between R-cell and S-cell was to stop, and SETH’s new contact would be Agent QUINN from Q-cell rather than ROSE.

This was all acceptable to Agent SETH.

Music From A Darkened Room - Agent RUBY's Epilogue

To say RUBY was scared might be an understatement. The only thing that actually scared her was that one of her fellow agents might realize just how terrified she really was. She’d joined Delta Green believing that she’d seen everything the world could throw at her. Her job – her real job – was all about nuclear disaster. What could be worse than that?

An unkillable, invulnerable ball of life-sucking alien color was a start. An evil, razor-wielding house put the nails in the coffin, so to speak. The threat of being vaporized by an explosion or wasting away from radiation sickness were nightmares she could handle. They were man-made nightmares.

She’d only played a role in two Operas, and she’d spent the majority of her time avoiding the things she’d been tasked with handling. If the others noticed, they hadn’t mentioned it, so at least that was something. In fact, even her own cell leader had left town without a word after the curtain fell. Agent SID was too drugged up to pass along any messages.

Agent RUBY had to find out the Opera had ended from a story on the local news. There had been a double murder at the house on Spooner Avenue, and thanks to the help of an unnamed pizza delivery driver who had apparently been one of the intended victims, the police had sketches of the suspects. The sketch of the man sort of resembled Agent SETH, but if it was him, they’d gotten the nose and hair wrong. There was no mistaking the woman in the other sketch. The detail and accuracy were flawless. It looked almost as if Agent ROSE had sat for her portrait.

During a press conference later in the day, a spokesman for the Laconia Police Department said they were still searching for information on the man, but the woman had been identified as a Financial Crimes investigator named Gia Jones. The spokesman did clarify that while he couldn’t give specifics of an ongoing investigation, both Ms. Jones and the unidentified man were only wanted for questioning at that time. Neither the Laconia Police Department nor the FBI were prepared to make any arrests.

That did it for RUBY. She and her fellow agents put their lives and jobs on the line, and even when the Opera ends successfully, there’s a very real possibility for prison time, execution, or worse. She began her Delta Green career excited about the prospect of saving the world. In only seven short months, she’d already begun to question whether the world deserved it.

Delta Green agents should be hailed as heroes, but due to the nature of their trade, they couldn’t claim their due. For all they did, their only reward was death, insanity, or incarceration. Well, not for her. She didn’t care which door led to which prize. She was taking what was in the box. She was claiming her retirement package while she still could. She was out. She was done. She was no longer Agent RUBY. She was once again simply Amelia Larce, mild-mannered Nuclear Emergency Support Team member. Good bye, Mythos horrors; hello, nuclear disaster. Such a relief.

Music From A Darkened Room - Agent ROSE's Epilogue

The flight home to New Mexico was a peaceful one for Agent ROSE. Her actions in New Hampshire weighed less heavily on her than she might have expected. She had taken one innocent life – maybe two depending on your definition – but in doing so, she had saved countless others from the malevolent force of the Spooner Avenue house.

Agent SETH was clearly displeased, but he could get over it or not. “The end justifies the means,” to willfully misinterpret Machiavelli. He could go home and pout all he wanted. She had made the difficult choices. She had taken the risks, and it was she alone who had banished the Dark Man. The Operation was a success, and Delta Green and all of Laconia, New Hampshire had her to thank.

As soon as she was home, ROSE checked her email. There was something from A-Cell, and the message had a video file attachment. The video was a news report of a double murder in Laconia, and then a press conference with the Laconia Police Department and the FBI. She watched the video a couple times before reading the email.

ROSE,
Please see the attachments. No need to explain. Your team was successful but sloppy. Cleanup is always preferable to cover up. The case has been taken over by the FBI and buried under stacks of paperwork. In the future, please don’t tax the group’s resources.
-A

Click to expand...

Agent ROSE shrugged and closed her laptop. It was time to relax before getting back to business as usual.

Business as usual lasted close to three months. While exercising at the gym one morning, Agent ROSE decided there had to be a better way to stay in shape. In fact, she knew just who to ask, and she’d call him as soon as she got home.

The Dark Man answered her summons, and he towered over her in her living room.

“Why have you called me, Gia Jones? What do you need of me, and why should I grant it?”

Agent ROSE explained that she would like it very much if he could grant her strength, stamina, and health. In return, he could name his price. His booming reply seemed to resonate throughout her home.

“Very well, Gia Jones. You shall have what you ask on one simple condition: In time, you shall find yourself in the land of Albion on a road between space; in the Sleeping Place. Seek out the library between homes, and retrieve a black, unnamed and handwritten octavo. This book, you will deliver to a bookshop of your choosing in New York City. Place it in the Religion section on any given Monday at precisely 8:36 in the morning. Do not fail in this, Gia Jones!”

And with that, ROSE could feel her muscles tighten and tone. She instantly felt like the picture of health and fitness. She also instantly felt alone as the Dark Man vanished. She knew she had probably set a dangerous precedent, but what did she care? She got what she wanted, and all she had to do was get a book from some library, and take it to a bookstore. Sure, it was cryptic, and probably unnecessarily so, but she wasn’t one to shy away from riddles and puzzles.

Is Gia Jones still under the control of a player? If so, how did you manage to keep the other players from strangling Gia's player?