Modern/Delta Green - The Beginning of the End (Updated Daily: Sep. 8)

[talien]

Caprice, pistol out, made his way through the smoke and the screaming towards the van. All around them, Satan's Sadist bikers engaged with White Shadows.

A throwing star whistled past Guppy's ear, skewering the big biker near the flipchart in the forehead. He foamed at the mouth and fell over.

"We've got to get out of here!" wailed Guppy.

"Chill." Caprice threw open the door. Milliard was slumped over the wheel.

Caprice unceremoniously dumped Milliard. There weren't any keys on the body.

Caprice shoved Guppy in ahead of him and jumped into the cab of the panel van.

"Can you hotwire it?" asked Caprice.

"S-sure!" said Guppy. He wiggled under the steering column.

There was a thump on the hood of the car, thin blade drawn for a strike. Caprice fired his pistol three times, instantly cracking the glass. The safety glass was a spider web of cracks, making it difficult to see anything.

"Almost there…" said Guppy.

A blade shrieked through the top of the cab, just missing Caprice's head. He pointed his pistol upwards and fired the remaining bullets in his Beretta.

Another thump and a body bounced off the hood.

"Got it!" The van hummed to life.

Caprice threw the van into reverse and slammed the gas pedal. It lurched backwards towards the open exit.

Something thumped on the other side of the partition between the cab and the cargo area. "I think someone's back there…" said Guppy.

Then the tires blew out and they were tumbling over and over.

[talien]

Archive, Hammer, and Jim-Bean stood uncertainly at the entryway to Unit 23, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Amidst the swirling smoke and occasional spurts of blood, black figures darted in and out. Hammer kept his pistols trained on the entrance, waiting to see what came coughing out of it. Archive stood beside him, muttering an incantation.

Jim-Bean wandered into the melee, firing grenades at random.

FOONT! The explosion caused more screams.

The explosion masked the roar of a vehicle's engine as it made a crazy dash for the wide open exit.

Archive suddenly froze up. Eyes fluttering, he staggered.

Hammer took careful aim and squeezed off a single shot, puncturing the rear wheel. The van, previously barreling past them, suddenly took a sharp turn…right at Hammer and Archive.

"Move!" shouted Hammer. Catching a glimpse of Archive's slumping form, he slammed into him, knocking them both flat.

The van flipped over them, completing a full revolution before landing on its bent wheels. It teetered once, twice, and then was still.

A pitch-black winged figure flopped out of the van. It had webbed feet and hands, with a long snorkel like tentacle dangling from its face. Its skin was rough and catfish-like.

Jim-Bean got a good look at it as its black, pupiless eyes focused on him. He could feel the psychic pressure of a thing not meant for this world.

"Huh," said Jim-Bean calmly. Unphased, he reloaded the grenade launcher and took aim.

Before he could pull the trigger, it was gone. Guppy and Caprice ran around to the back of the van.

"Oh, hi guys," said Jim-Bean. "You just missed the Insane Horror from Beyond Time and Space."

Caprice dove into the van, rifling through the artifacts.

"Did you find it?" asked Guppy.

"Yes!" Caprice crawled back out of the van with the shillelagh he won in the bid.

"Not that, the book!"

"Oh. Nope. There's a book on torturing people and a book about physics, but nothing in Portuguese."

"Great," said Hammer, joining them with a rattled Archive in tow. "Whatever was in the van escaped with it."

"Well I guess we can go home then," said Jim-Bean.

Hammer cleared his throat and nodded in the direction of the continuing fracas in the warehouse.

"Oh, right." Jim-Bean fired his machinegun in the air. "May I have your attention please, gentlemen! The police will be here any minute. I recommend you leave before they arrive."

The smoke had cleared. White Shadows and bikers previously engaged in a death struggle stared blankly at Jim-Bean.

He cocked his grenade launcher for emphasis.

The White Shadows scattered, leaving dead bikers in their wake.

Hammer shook his head. "I hate tcho-tchos."

[talien]

Archive ticked off the items they had discovered: "…an African juju bag, a Hindu incense burner, a South American feather cloak, an ancient reading glass, a book on physics and sorcery by Sir Isaac Newton, a crystal ball, and a book on torture by Count Ferencz Nadasdy."

"Sounds like nighttime reading to me," said Jim-Bean.

"Were you firing…grenades into that warehouse?" Guppy asked.

Jim-Bean smiled. "Why should the ninjas and bikers have all the fun?"

Hammer, standing a bit apart from the other agents, was getting reamed out by Sprague over his cistron. After a few more grunts and nods, he hung up and marched back to his companions.

"Sprague's pissed, isn't he," said Caprice.

"You could say that. We lost all our police backup. No cops, no SWAT, and…" he looked specifically at Jim-Bean, "no Jericho Jets."

Jim-Bean snapped his fingers.

Hammer took a deep breath. "So it's up to us."

"Us?" asked Guppy. "Just us?"

"Just us," said Hammer. "Sprague and Warner were forced to work together on our warehouse raid, and Warner has control of the manpower. He refuses to give us any other agents. So now Sprague has to prove he was right about this damn book."

"What's so important about this book anyway?" asked Guppy.

"It's a Portuguese translation from the original Chinese, the last of the seven scrolls of Hsan. Written during the Tang or Song Dynasties, these scrolls contained much wisdom handed down in an oral tradition dating from the Hsia Dynasty. The knowledge in the scrolls took the form of riddles, prophecies, parables, and rituals passed down from the Heavens, through the Emperor, to his scribes and the learned men of China. The original scrolls have been lost for centuries. Confucius was the last man said to have read all seven scrolls."

"And the scrolls matter because…" asked Caprice.

"Together, the Seven Scrolls detail the key to the cycles of reincarnation and to the Heavens. Each scroll imparts certain levels of knowledge and they built upon one another, so that one cannot master the secrets of the seventh scroll without having read the first six. According to shipping records, Tiger Transit's already collected the other six scrolls. The seventh has been lost to history…until now."

"Let me guess," said Jim-Bean. "They get all seven scrolls and then bad stuff happens."

"Right," said Archive. "No one's sure what the last scroll was, but it's supposed to trigger a cycle of rebirth amongst the gods…"

"Probably a bad translation," muttered Hammer darkly. "One syllable off from the original Chinese and the whole world goes poof."

Guppy rubbed the back of his aching neck. "This is going to be a very dangerous mission, isn't it?"

"Oh come on, it's not so bad!" Jim-Bean threw one arm around Guppy's neck. "We can take on a couple of ninjas, right big guy?"

"That's not the problem," said Hammer. "Their headquarters, the Jade Temple, has a massive storage of Fumo Loco underneath it. And Fumo Loco is extremely combustible so…"

"No guns," said Caprice.

Before Jim-Bean could say anything else, Hammer barked at him, "and NO grenades!"

[talien]

This story hour is from the "Chinatown: The Jaded Temple," in Dragon Magazine #62 by Jerry Epperson for Top Secret. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca
• Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero/Gunslinger) played by George Webster
• Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (Jeremy Robert Ortiz)
• Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero/Acolyte) played by Joe Lalumia
• Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero/Field Scientist) played by Joseph Tresca (Free Video Training for Photoshop, 3ds Max, Flash, After Effects an more)
• Sebastian "Caprice" Creed (Fast/Charismatic/Smart Hero/Techie) played by Bill Countiss

There are a lot of gems hidden in archives of Dragon, back when a magazine was willing to fill its pages with a multi-page layout of an area that might – MIGHT – have something interesting in it. These were the days when vast pages would be taken up with scenarios that read more like blueprints, with no clear narrative path for the agents to follow. In this case, it's a temple that just happens to be hiding radioactive isotopes.

I knew that I wanted the agents to take on Tiger Transit's headquarters in full force, and that I would eventually need a layout for them to infiltrate. With the Portuguese translation of the Seventh Scroll of Hsan, the Focloro Verdadeiro, slipping through their fingers, the agents are rushed. There's no time for preparation – I threw them right into the next scenario. The twist is that the Tcho-Tchos are trafficking in Fumo Loco, which is highly flammable. That provided a fun twist: Sprague specifically prohibited firearms lest the whole place go up in flames.

This really perturbed Hammer, as I knew it would. But it also provided for some interesting twists. In the end, it comes down to Mok Bin Tau, leader of the White Shadows, and Jim-Bean, the increasingly erratic psychic abductee. We know this will end badly.


Defining Moment: Hammer gets fed up with not using his pistols.

Relevant Media

• Dragon Magazine #62
  Dragon Magazine #62
  : Source of the scenario.
• Delta Green: Countdown
  Delta Green: Countdown
  : Source of the Tcho-Tchos, the White Shadows, and Mok Bin Tau.
• Kung-Fu Fighting
  Kung-Fu Fighting
  : by Cee-Lo

[talien]

Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they did it with expert timing

--Kung-Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas

CHICAGO, IL-- The temple looked harmless enough. It was located at the edge of the area of the city known as Chicago’s “New Chinatown.” The building was constructed of wood and stone; most of the structure was obscured from view by a ten-foot-high stone wall encircling the grounds. A clump of small, leafy trees blocked the temple from casually prying eyes that looked through the single wrought-iron gate in the wall.

At night, the area just inside the perimeter wall was illuminated in spots, and human shadows could be seen moving inside the temple itself when a body passed before a lighted window. A lone guard patrolled the perimeter wall, his outline clearly discernible in the dim light. There were no other signs of movement outside the temple building.

Hammer lowered the nightvision binoculars he requisitioned in a hurry from the Chicago SWAT team. Sprague had ordered the raid so quickly on the supposed Tiger Transit headquarters that the agents weren't given much time to prepare.

"One guard, from the looks of it. Caprice, you still know your way around a rifle?"

Caprice leaned next to him on the roof of the building across the street from the temple. He grinned and patted the sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. "Sure, but won't that blow the place up?"

Hammer shook his head. "It shouldn't, not out here. We fired several rounds in a Fumo Loco greenhouse – blew out the glass first. So long as there's air circulating we were okay."

Guppy chimed in over the comm. "It's inside that you have to worry about."

"Uh…" Archive interrupted. "Where's Jim-Bean?"

Hammer looked through the binoculars again. "Son of a…"

A shadow that was undeniably Jim-Bean sauntered up to the gate. The soft glow of his lit cigarette marked his path.

"Looks like we are go," said Hammer. "Everybody move!"

The other agents joined Jim-Bean on the other side of the now open gate. He was smiling, with one arm thrown around the guard's shoulders.

"Jimmy, what the hell is going on?" demanded Hammer.

The tcho-tcho smiled at Hammer with a mouth full of filed teeth.

"Hammer, meet my new friend Morris. Morris, meet Agent Hammer."

Morris extended his hand. Hammer didn't take it. The tcho-tcho slowly withdrew his hand.

"Oh don't feel bad, Morris. Agent Hammer isn't the trusting sort like you and I are."

"What is going on?" asked Guppy nervously, out of earshot. "Did he hypnotize him?"

"Mind control," whispered Archive. "I had no idea he was this powerful."

"Did you even consider for one minute that you should have consulted with me first?" snapped Hammer. "There could be another guard. He could be faking it. There could—"

"He's not faking it," said Jim-Bean coolly, removing his arm from the tcho-tcho. "There are no other guards. And no, there aren't any alarms, not alarms that Morris knows of, anyway."

Hammer's eyes narrowed. "Did you just read my mind?"

"Guys, guys," said Caprice. "We've got a mission, remember?"

Hammer was very still. The other agents knew from experience that Hammer was only still when he was about to draw a weapon. "What are we going to do with this idiot now?"

"Oh that's easy," said Jim-Bean. "Morris, take out your knife."

The tcho-tcho hesitated for only a second. Then he drew a wicked-looking knife from its sheath at his belt.

"Jim-Bean…" began Archive.

"Hold it up," commanded Jim-Bean.

Morris held the knife up as if he were about to plunge it into someone. Or himself.

"Jimmy…" snarled Hammer. "You're pushing it with me. Tell him to put the knife down."

"What?" Jim-Bean snorted. "I was just going to ask him to give it to you. Give Agent Hammer the knife, would you Morris?"

Morris flipped the knife around and extended it handle first to Hammer. Hammer slapped it out of his hand and dragged the tcho-tcho into the darkness near one of the trees.

Inside was an open-air courtyard, with trees lining a stone pathway and obscuring the view of most of the yard. The pathway branched into two paths, each ending in a set of stone steps leading up five feet to a loggia.

Hammer cuffed Morris' wrist to it with a tie.

"Tell him to not move or make a sound," said Hammer.

Jim-Bean chuckled. "Man you're no fun at all."

"Maybe not," said Hammer. "But I'm still a human being."

"What's that like?" Jim-Bean continued his meandering journey into the courtyard.

[talien]

The loggia was an open-sided, roofed porch area that connected the various sections of the temple building. Pillars stood on either side of the hallway at ten-foot intervals.

"This place has got to be blanketed with a security network," said Guppy, checking his cistron nervously. "He's going to set off about a dozen alarms."

Jim-Bean didn't turn to address Guppy but had clearly heard him. "Relax. I can see ahead of us. There's no traps."

"How can you be sure?" asked Caprice.

"I'm sure," Jim-Bean said with a smirk. He waved a hand, and there were a series of clicks as double doors unlocked themselves and swung open. "See?"

Guppy hung back long enough to catch Hammer, who was bringing up the rear. "I don't like this. Jim-Bean is out of control. He's acting crazy. And I know crazy."

Hammer didn't look Guppy in the eyes. "I have a contingency. If I have to, I'll use it."

"But he's getting more erratic," said Guppy, struggling to keep his voice to a whisper. "He could put us all in danger!"

"I'll deal with it," said Hammer. "Worry about yourself. We need to find out where that book is, and my guess is that we're going to have to hack into the Tiger Transit database to do it. You do your job, and I'll do mine."

They made their way into a giant room with parqueted walls and floor of dark wood. The interior was s tastefully decorated in modern decor. The western section of the room contained three small, short-legged tables, each accompanied by six large throw pillows. The eastern part of the room had a longer dining table, also short-legged, with twelve throw pillows around it. A variety of items hung or leaned against the walls, mostly paintings and some canvas hangings of Asian poetry.

Jim-Bean looked around, unimpaired by the dim light. "There," he pointed with one finger.

More doors clicked softly open to a practice room. The southern two-thirds of the room’s floor was covered with large padded mats for practicing martial arts routines. On the uncovered floor were five single-unit saunas, a weight and bench-press machine, three punching bags, and a set of barbells, plus some thirty individual loose weights ranging from five to twenty pounds.

Jim-Bean kicked one of the mats. "There's something beneath here. A lift. And the switch is over…" he spun on his heel, pointing to the southeast corner like a human dowsing rod. "There."

The agents filtered into the room. "How big is the elevator?" asked Guppy.

Jim-Bean flicked a finger and the hydraulics system beneath them whirred to life. A fifty-foot-square platform around them began to slowly descend. "Oh, I'd say pretty big."

Dark flashes of movement blurred out of the shadows. They were surrounded by men in black outfits wielding thin-bladed swords. They all wore peculiar masks over their faces, expressions of fanged beasts, jovial fat men, and weeping courtesans.

"So much for not setting off any traps," muttered Guppy.

"Oh great," said Caprice. "More ninjas."

The leader stepped forward and slowly drew the mask away from its face.

It revealed the head of a mummified corpse, its eyes empty and dry and its wrinkled mouth open in an eternal moan, with a long moustache gauzy with cobwebs.

"Worse," said Archive. "Zombie ninjas."

[talien]

The ancient thing that led the White Shadows took another step forward. Archive held up the Elder Sign before it. "By the power of the Elder Gods, I repel you!'

The mummified White Shadow shifted into a combat stance…and then turned and fled.

Everything happened at once. The other White Shadows struck, shuriken hissing through the air. Jim-Bean held up one hand and they bounced a few inches from his face.

"Remember!" shouted Hammer, taking aim with his hand crossbow. "No guns!'

Then the White Shadows were upon them. Caprice ducked a sword swipe, unslung his rifle, and clubbed one of the Shadows across the head with it. The attack knocked Caprice off balance long enough for another strike from a different Shadow. Caprice barely blocked the blow in time with his rifle butt.

Guppy patted himself down. He hadn't planned on engaging anyone in combat and was pretty sure he shouldn't be in a "high tension environment" according to his Majestic-appointed psychologist.

"Easy," he thought to himself. "This is just like a videogame. You're just fighting ninjas on an elevator. It's just a game…"

Then he found his taser.

A sword swipe just missed Guppy's chest. Guppy lunged in retaliation, shoving the taser in the guts of his foe and pressing the button.

The White Shadow jerked and twitched, stumbling backwards. He fell flat on his back.

"No guns means NO SPARKS!" snarled Hammer. He fired his crossbow and one of the Shadows went down, a bolt protruding from his head.

Caprice blocked another blow from a blade. He caught a flash of greenish fluid on the blade in the dim light. "They're using poison!"

"You do NOT want to be poisoned!" shouted Archive. "I lost a pinky that way!"

"How?" asked Caprice.

Archive dodged a sword swipe. "I ate it."

The fear of being poisoned energized Caprice. He swung his rifle around and smacked the White Shadow in the back of the head, felling him. Then, tearing a strip of cloth from the black-clad form, he tied the blade to his rifle: A makeshift bayonet.

Jim-Bean sighed. "Man I am really getting tired of this." He extended both arms and the weights in the room lifted into the air. "I suggest you all get down," he said quietly.

The other agents hit the ground.

The dumbbells spun around Jim-Bean faster and faster. One Shadow tried to duck through it and paid the price, blood spewing from his crushed jaw. The weights orbited Jim-Bean in two concentric patterns, the wind shrieking louder as the dumbbells blurred into dark circles. Then, opening his palms, the dumbbells fired outward.

White Shadows went flying in all directions, striking the walls of the elevator hard enough that the sickening crunch of bone was clearly audible. None of them got back up.

A few dumbbells remained, hovering steadily over the heads of the prone men that weren't finished off.

"Jim-Bean what are you…" asked Hammer.

"Finishing what we started," said Jim-Bean. He lowered his arms and the dumbbells smashed heads like melons all around them.

"Jesus!" gasped Guppy. Some kind of white fluid leaked from the mask of one of the White Shadows, the one he had tasered. Guppy stumbled as the world spun. "You just…you just murdered them all in cold blood."

Jim-Bean dusted himself off. "Oh please. They were trying to kill us. And if we didn't stop them, they would have warned the others."

"I think they're already warned," said Caprice, but Jim-Bean ignored him.

"I'm just staying on mission. Isn't that right, Hammer?"

The elevator stopped at a garage. It contained a complete workshop and sets of tools as well as plenty of parking space. On the western side of the garage was a dolly and several metal canisters. The sickeningly sweet smell was strong here – the canisters most assuredly contained Fumo Loco.

Hammer wiped the blood spatter off of his face. "Let's go."

The other agents dutifully filed out behind Hammer. Caprice tugged on Guppy's arm.

"He's…he's crazy," said Guppy, eyes glazed. "I used to think Hammer was a cold bastard. But Jim-Bean…he's not…human anymore."

Caprice patted Guppy on the back. "That's not our problem. C'mon, let's go."

Guppy gave one backward glance at the spattered heads, the crushed bodies. Then he followed the others.

[talien]

They were in the city’s sewer system. The walls and floor were covered with slime, which made footing treacherous. Jim-Bean led the way.

He stopped at a door. "They're behind here."

"Can you unlock it?" asked Hammer.

Jim-Bean shook his head. "I don't think so. It's an electronic lock."

"Guppy, you're up," said Hammer. "Open those doors."

Guppy pried open the control panel, spliced some wires, and hooked his cistron up to them. The door whisked open.

There was another door at the far end of the hall.

Jim-Bean stalked forward. "That's the computer room." Jim-Bean blinked. "More ninjas. Lots of them."

"This is suicide," said Archive. "We don't have much room to maneuver in here and they're waiting for us."

Jim-Bean smirked. "Don't worry. I'll stand in front."

"Guppy, you've got one job – hack that terminal. I want names, addresses, any information we can get our hands on," said Hammer. "Jim-Bean, your job is to make sure Guppy does what he does best."

Jim-Bean nodded.

"Caprice, this door's yours. Go."

Caprice set to work hacking the second door.

"Get ready," said Caprice. "In three. Two. One…"

The door whisked open.

This room was filled with a small but complete computer system, video monitors, alarm systems, and main overrides for the hydraulic lift systems and the lower level door locks. There were two chairs, one facing a one-way mirror and the other on the monitoring screens.

Throwing stars flashed through the air. Jim-Bean held out one hand and they clattered to the ground. Behind him, the agents returned fire with crossbow bolts.

Then it was a swirling melee. Caprice stabbed one of them with his makeshift bayonet, who went down writhing and foaming at the mouth. Archive's gun had switched to a knife – not a penknife, like he usually carried, but a big, wicked knife with blood grooves in it. Guppy hung back.

"You want to get to those computers, right?" shouted Jim-Bean over his shoulder. "Well come on!"

His grip on Guppy's shoulder was inhumanly strong. Dragging him along with one hand, Jim-Bean extended his other, and White Shadows parted involuntarily from a wave of telekinetic force. He charged forward with a shout.

Behind them, Caprice stabbed another White Shadow clean through his chest. The man's mask fell to the ground, revealing a noseless, grinning face dripping bloody saliva. He pulled himself forward on the blade, jaws champing inches from Caprice's nose. He was so close Caprice had a moment of clarity: pupils dilated, breath coming in gasps…they were high on something!

Caprice twisted the knife in the White Shadow's gut and hurled him away. He was still in his final death throws when Caprice picked up the Shadow's sword just in time to block another attacker.

"There's too many!" shouted Caprice.

Jim-Bean loomed over Guppy protectively, but somehow it didn’t make Guppy feel more secure. Occasionally a White Shadow would come too close, only to be hurled away by Jim-Bean's telekinetic shield.

"Take your time," he said calmly. "I'm in no rush."

"I'm typing as fast as I can!" Sweat dripped from Guppy's forehead onto the keyboard. Jim-Bean's unnatural calm only made him more nervous.

There was a grunt behind him. Guppy spun in the chair just in time to dodge a blade smashing through one of the monitors.

On the other end of the blade was Mok Bin Tau, the heavily muscled Tcho-tcho leader of the White Shadows. A few feet away, Jim-Bean got to his feet.

"Wow." Jim-Bean cracked his neck. "I actually felt that."

"You're goin tah feel ah laht morh," snarled Tau. Guppy guessed Tau's accent had more to do with the old bullet scar through his cheek than his ethnicity.

Tau withdrew his sword from the monitor, ignoring Guppy for the moment.

Guppy ducked beneath the console. He didn't need the monitor – his cistron, still connected to the Tiger Transit mainframe, was doing all the work.

Tau faced off against Jim-Bean as the White Shadows pressed their advantage. One of them tripped Hammer and he went down hard.

It was a reflex. Surrounded by enemies, blades bristling everywhere, Hammer did what he did best.

He drew his pistols and fired.

And the room exploded.

[talien]

Jim-Bean rose out of the ashes, sputtering. He looked around.

"I think I contained the blast," he said. "You guys can get up now."

Slowly, Archive, Caprice, and Hammer got to their feet.

"Where's Guppy?" asked Caprice.

"Here," said Tau, holding a blade against Guppy's throat. Guppy's eyes were wide with fear. Tau was edging towards the exit. "Don't make ah move or ah will kill him."

Jim-Bean shook his head. "No you're not," he said slowly. "You're not going to kill anybody. You're going to put your sword down and come over here."

The leader of the Tcho-Tchos froze. Slowly, his arm jerking unnaturally, every muscle fighting the instinct, he threw his sword to the ground.

"I said," Jim-Bean repeated, "come here."

Tau released Guppy. He took one halting step after another.

Guppy scrambled for his cistron. The explosion has ripped through the cable connection. The sputtering remains of computer parts were everywhere.

"Damn it!" swore Guppy. "I almost had their entire database! Everything, all the locations of Tiger Transit's operations…we could have taken the whole thing down!"

Nobody spared Hammer a glance.

Caprice yanked something out of the wreckage. "This looks like a hard drive. Maybe we can reconstruct it…"

"No big deal," said Jim-Bean. He patted Tau, who stood next to him, on the back. "Where's the Seventh Scroll?"

Tau strained. He looked as if he were trying to bite his own tongue. Or what was left of it, anyway.

"Cho Chu-Tsao took it…to Alulu Island."

"And why is she going there?"

"To perform…the Invocation of Yuk Lung."

Jim-Bean nodded. "See? This is so much easier when we're all friends."

"Yeah," said Hammer warily. "Friends."

[talien]

Tau and Morris were handed over to a Majestic safe house, where they would disappear into the bowels of special interrogation rooms. There was little doubt that what remained of Tiger Transit would be ruined. Either through the reconstituted hard drives or Mok Bin Tau's personal knowledge of their operations, Tiger Transit was mortally wounded – a weakness it could not afford in the cutthroat world of drug cartels.

A van picked them up.

"What were you able to find out Guppy?" asked Hammer.

Guppy reviewed his cistron. His face was still smudged with dirt from the explosion. "The scrolls were written during the Tang or Song Dynasties and may have originated from an oral tradition handed down during the Hsia Dynasty. They took the form of riddles, prophecies, parables, and rituals passed down from the Heavens to the Emperor."

"I've heard of these scrolls. Confucius was said to be the last man said to have read all seven scrolls. The originals have been lost for centuries," said Archive.

"Together, the Seven Scrolls detail the key to the cycles of reincarnation and to the Heavens," added Guppy. "Each scroll supposedly imparts certain levels of knowledge and they build upon one another, so that one cannot master the secrets of the seventh scroll without having read the first six."

"Interesting," said Hammer. "Not sure what this invocation is but it can't be good."

"It's a ritual of reincarnation," said Archive. "Whatever Cho Chu-Tsao's planning to wake up, it's already dead."

"It also seems like Tiger Transit broke off relations with Dawn Biozyme and instead started a dialogue with Hunt Electronics," said Guppy. "Something about similar research."

Hammer sighed. "We know all about that. Don't we Jimmy?"

Jim-Bean, who seemed to be in a daze, snapped out of it. "Huh? Oh yeah, red flowers."

"Buckle up boys," said Hammer. "We got the GPS coordinates from Tau. We're going in tonight."

"Right now?" asked Caprice. "I think I may be poisoned."

Hammer nodded towards Archive. "Archive can fix you up. We're going in hard and fast. Just us – Sprague's still not willing to commit resources to a mission that doesn’t have a clear threat, but he's banking everything on the intelligence we got from Armbruster." He looked meaningfully at Jim-Bean, but his companion didn't notice.

"Wait," said Caprice. "If we're going to Alulu Island RIGHT NOW…

"That means we're going via SPIDER transport."

"Damn it!"

[talien]

This story hour is from the "Righteous Triad Fists" by Allan T. Grohe Jr. in The Triad Sourcebook, "Mad Merc: The Alulu Island Mission" from Dragon Magazine #56 by Rasmussen and Thompson. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca
• Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero/Gunslinger) played by George Webster
• Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (Jeremy Robert Ortiz)
• Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero/Acolyte) played by Joe Lalumia
• Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero/Field Scientist) played by Joseph Tresca (Free Video Training for Photoshop, 3ds Max, Flash, After Effects an more)
• Sebastian "Caprice" Creed (Fast/Charismatic/Smart Hero/Techie) played by Bill Countiss

Righteous Triad Fists is a hidden gem buried in a supplement for a game that has nothing to do with Call of Cthulhu: The Triad Sourcebook for Hong Kong Action Theater. The design team received the rights to use elements of the Mythos from Chaosium, so when I was putting together my series of scenarios to take down Tiger Transit, I knew I had to include Righteous Triad Fists.

The plot from Righteous Triad Fists relied heavily on a pregenerated cast of characters, so instead I just took elements that might be useful – Colonel Feng Ho, and the hopping cultists. Yueng Ng Wa, the deep one bodyguard, makes an appearance in the next installment.

The Island Mission does most of the heavy lifting here, providing an island and a giant floating submarine dock. The agents almost didn't end up on the dock – they correctly decided that it was a job for Jericho Jets to blow the thing up, a decision Guppy and Caprice disagreed with. There was a tense moment where the team almost broke up, but thankfully I was able to prod the players into rejoining the plot, and then for good measure had them suffer the consequences of their actions.

Despite the significant amounts of detail spent on the floating drydock, the agents skipped most of the details and went straight for the control room. This worked out just fine in the end.

Defining Moment: The agents learn that the "horseshoe" is also a submarine.

Relevant Media

• Dragon Magazine #56
  Dragon Magazine #56
  : Source of the scenario.
• Delta Green: Countdown
  Delta Green: Countdown
  : Source of the Tcho-Tchos, the White Shadows, and Mok Bin Tau.
• Triad Sourcebook
  Triad Sourcebook
  : Source of Colonel Feng Ho and the hopping cultists.
• Skullcrusher Mountain
  Skullcrusher Mountain
  : by Jonathan Coulton.

[talien]

Picture the two of us alone inside my golden submarine
While up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere
And all the fools who lead their foolish lives may find it quite explosive
Well it won't mean half as much to me if I don't have you here

--Skullcrusher Mountain by Jonathan Coulton

30,000 FEET OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN—Agent Hammer had to shout over the roar of the SPIDER plane's engines. The agents were all dressed in wet suits with parachutes strapped to their backs. His voice was further muffled by a breathing mask each of them wore, a necessity during the pre-breathing period where their bloodstream was flooded with oxygen to flush the nitrogen from their systems. Microphones and earpieces within the masks helped somewhat, but Hammer still sounded like Darth Vader when he spoke.

"Alulu Island is located in the west central Pacific Ocean, about a thousand miles south of Japan between the Ryukyu Islands and the Bonin Islands just north of the Tropic of Cancer. It's an independent atoll not associated with any island chain. It's less than a mile in diameter from outer shore to outer shore, and is outside the domain of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. It's under 'unofficial' protection of the British government. British missionaries maintain an outpost on the island, which also serves as a weather station. We also had an undercover agent working there who suddenly ceased all communications with home base."

"Tsao's flying halfway across the world to get to this little island? Seems like an awful long way to fly to perform a ritual," said Caprice.

"Recently, a force of mercenaries assembled from the survivors of central African and Latin American campaigns descended upon the island. Shortly after this became known, all contact with the island was cut off. It is believed that Lt. Col. Feng Ho, commonly known as Mad Merc, is the organizer of this invasion. Guppy?"

Guppy punched a few buttons on his cistron, no small feat with the gloves he was wearing. An image of Ho flashed on their cistrons.

"In the aftermath of World War II, Ho was discharged from the Chinese Army after an incident in which many innocent civilians were killed. Since that time he has kept a very low profile. Since then, he served as a mercenary in military actions around the world. We believe Cho Chu-Tsao flew to Alulu Island to rendezvous with Ho, and that Ho is responsible for silencing all communications."

"Why don't we just—" began Jim-Bean.

Hammer held up one hand. "Before you recommend bombing the place with Jericho Jets, Majestic's not willing to intervene until reliable intelligence is received from the island. The primitive native population of something more than one hundred individuals who may be under forcible detention, and their lives as well as the lives of the missionaries may be jeopardized if military action is attempted."

"What's a couple of hundred natives…" began Jim-Bean, but Hammer cut him off.

"We will be inserted via HALO drop as close as possible to the missionary outpost, where Agent Powers was last reported before he disappeared. You all remember your training, right?"

They nodded. Guppy had earned his HALO badge after the incident in Poland.

"The cloud cover is pretty thick," shouted Agent Rudolph, the co-pilot. "We've already made three passes and this is as good as it's going to get."

Hammer checked his cistron, which was plugged into his breathing mask. Their nitrogen levels were clean.

"Switching tanks over," commanded Hammer.

"Switching tanks over!" the other agents responded.

Agent Pope, the plane's navigator, patted Hammer's helmet. The bay doors opened up, revealing a sky lit only by a white fluffy landscape below…clouds.

"Go! Go! Go!"

With a deep breath, Hammer launched himself out and away into space.

[talien]

The wind screamed past Hammer as he went into free fall.

He was dimly aware of the other agents falling beside him, arms and legs spread. Their altimeters clicked away as they descended.

For a little while there was nothing but Hammer's breathing. It was peaceful, silent.

They plunged through the cloud cover. The air was nothing but mist and Hammer could feel the dampness fighting to get through his suit. There were flashes of lightning here and there, but other than that it was quiet. White. Beautiful.

He fell out of the bottom of the cloud. The ocean glittered beneath them in the moonlight. A storm was roiling overhead, but it hadn't yet broke and the moon was still partially visible, illuminating the contours of the island.

It was the worst possible weather for a HALO insertion. But they had little choice.

"We're clear. Deploy parachutes in five…four…three…two..."

Hammer took a deep breath and set his jaw so that he wouldn't bite his tongue. He pulled the ripcord.

The parachute exploded out behind him. There was always that breathtaking moment between deployment and the parachute filling with air. In those moments men learned their fates.

The parachute deployed and it felt as if God flung him around by the scruff of his neck. Hammer grabbed hold of the parachute controls and steered toward the landing target.

The heads-up display on his mask showed that the other agents deploying, one after another. Guppy deployed his chute right on time -- Hammer was concerned that, given his past experience, he might deploy it too early. But Guppy was the least of his problems.

A red light flashed on his HUD to the tune of a soft but persistent warning beep.

"Jimmy, what's up?"

"I'm fine," said Jim-Bean.

Hammer had to concentrate on steering. He craned his neck, but in the darkness and with the storm swirling overhead it was hard to see anything.

"Why aren't you deploying your chute?'

"I don't need one," came the monotone reply.

"You can fly now?" asked Caprice sarcastically.

"Yes," said Jim-Bean.

The beeping became more urgent as they floated closer to the island. Hammer was close enough to make out some details.

Alulu Island was an oblong coral atoll that almost encircled a shallow lagoon. There was a thin layer of topsoil inland, away from the sandy, wave-pounded beaches. On the southwestern side of the isle, waves had carved a wide inlet that connected the ocean with the lagoon. On the northern side of the island, a shallow channel of water divided the island at high tide. Hammer aimed his parachute toward the island.

"Jimmy, deploy your chute."

"I'm already on the ground," said Jim-Bean.

The altimeter disagreed with Jim-Bean's assessment. But then, they weren't made for a psychic free-jumping like a madman. "God damn it Jim, deploy your chute! That's an order!"

Hammer was so caught up in looking around for Jim-Bean that he lost control of his parachute. It snagged on a tree and whipped him around, nearly slamming him head first into another tree. He came to rest upside down, spinning slowly in a circle one way, then the next.

There was the sound of lines snapping. Hammer fell unceremoniously to the ground, ten feet up. He rolled and came to his feet, pistols at the ready.

Jim-Bean, who wasn't wearing his chute or mask, stood over him. He was smiling. "Told you I already landed."

[talien]

The missionaries’ building was a small wood-frame house on the south side of the island. Hammer stealthily padded up to the veranda. It was marred by signs of damage and forced entry. The front door was hanging on one hinge, three-quarters open.

"Something very bad happened here," said Guppy, stating the obvious.

They all looked to Jim-Bean, who had one hand out before him, eyes closed. "All clear," he said. "Nobody's home that I can see."

They entered a main hall. It appeared to have been used as a triage area/emergency room/waiting area for the natives needing medical attention. Ten empty wooden chairs were lined up around the walls, and the walls were pockmarked in several places by what looked like bullet holes.

Caprice ducked into one room and Guppy followed. What’s left of a radio and a simple transmitter were scattered about. The few pieces of electronic equipment were all mangled by gunfire. Two chairs were overturned on the floor.

A bird shrieked in the distance. "Woooop! Woooop!"

Guppy ducked into an adjacent room. The words “Meteorological Office” were printed on the door to the room in English. It had been smashed open.

Radar equipment, a barometer, a hygrometer, a wind gauge, a weather vane, and a radio were housed in the room.

Guppy fiddled with the devices. They were all intact and operable.

"Wooop! Wooop!"

"What the hell is that?" asked Caprice from the other room.

"I don't know," said Guppy over his shoulder. "Something big and weird." He turned the radio on. Nothing happened.

Guppy pried the back of the radio off. Sure enough, there was a transmitting device on the back of it. He hooked his cistron up to it and tapped a few keys. It was a signal. A radio signal to another receiver not far from their location. According to the coordinates, it had to be just off shore – which didn't make any sense, as any boat large enough to have the radio signature he was picking up would have surely been grounded on the island's beach.

"Guys," Guppy whispered, covering the remote mic. "I think they know we're here!"

"WOOOP!" shouted something that was most certainly not a bird near the window. "WOOOP!"

"Oh you think?" Jim-Bean shouted back.

Guppy was about to put the device down when he heard it beep. A gyroscope was attached to the transmitter. And it had just activated.

"Uh…Caprice? Buddy?"

Caprice ducked his head in. "Yeah?"

"I think…" Guppy began to sweat. "I think I just triggered some kind of bomb."

Caprice walked in to get a better look. Without touching it, he traced the wire from Guppy's hand to the floor. Then he followed it into the floor.

"Hey Jim-Bean!" Caprice shouted.

Jim-Bean sauntered in. "Did you hear those weird noises? What's up?"

Guppy gulped. "I think I'm connected to a bomb."

"Can you take a look underneath this place?" asked Caprice.

"Sure." Jim-Bean peered down at the floor. "Uh oh."

"Uh oh!" asked Guppy. "What do you mean UH OH?"

"This entire placed is rigged with explosives," Jim-Bean said calmly.

Caprice sighed. "What's what I was afraid of. Don't move Guppy, and whatever you do, don't drop that thing."

Guppy didn't even nod. He just got very still, eyes practically cross-eyed staring at the triggering device. "Okay."

Caprice pulled a multitool from his pocket and slid under the table.

"WOOOOOP!" The cry sounded like it came from within the building.

Gunfire answered the cry. "Natives!" shouted Hammer from the main hall. "Lots of them!"

"Almost there…" muttered Caprice, seemingly oblivious to the combat.

Jim-Bean stuck his head out of the doorway to take a look. "You may want to hurry up."

"Almost…there…" said Caprice.

In the main hall, Hammer ducked behind an overturned table. "They're going to rush us!"

Archive had just finished etching a huge Elder Sign across the span of the room in chalk. He ran over to join Hammer. "Ready!"

The tcho-tchos living on Alulu Island surged through the doorways on both side of the mission. They had light brown skin, straight black hair and filed teeth. But they looked different than the tcho-tchos the agents had seen before, with an odd bluish-cast to their features and bulging watery-yellow eyes.

Hammer blasted two as they entered but more half-loped, half-hopped into the room, bristling with spears and bows.

He and Archive retreated to the radio room with the others, firing as they went.

"I did it!" shouted Caprice, holding up snipped green and yellow wires.

Archive began chanting. The tcho-tchos advanced, standing in a mass over the Elder Sign.

"Did what?" asked Hammer over his shoulder.

"There are explosives under the building," said Jim-Bean, as if he were reporting the weather.

"WHAT?!" shouted Hammer just as Archive finished his chant.

The eye at the center of the chalk pentagram opened, blazing to life with fiery fury. Natives shrieked as they burst into flames.

"Get behind me!" was all Jim-Bean got out before the entire place exploded.

[talien]

Bits of flaming wood landed all around them. Jim-Bean had his eyes closed, palms outward as if to ward off a blow. He dropped his hands when the wreckage stopped falling.

"So much for the peaceful native population," muttered Hammer. "Everyone on the island saw that explosion."

"I know where they were transmitting to," said Guppy. He pointed. "This way."

They marched off into the foliage. The inland part of the reef, although only a few dozen feet wide at best, resembled a tropical forest. The soil was thin and poor for farming, but substantial enough to support many growths of coconut palms. Tangled vines and low brush covered the inland area where the palm groves did not.

The agents burst out into the open beach. The reef encircling the lagoon was composed mostly of limestone and covered with bright and colorful coral. The beach was sandy but narrow; beyond the shore, the landscape sloped sharply upward.

Guppy looked down at his cistron. "According to my calculations, something with a huge radar array was receiving the signal from the mission. But I don't see how something that big could be…" he looked up. "…so close…to shore…"

Only a few hundred yards off sure was a huge, battleship-gray, horseshoe-shaped structure. The top ten feet of the complex was above the surface of the lagoon. Five crane mechanisms were visible around the perimeter of the top deck, framed by the night sky. Anchor chains stretched down at an angle into the ocean. Various seams and fittings were discernible. The horseshoe complex gave off a low, steady hum.

Six rotating searchlights were placed around the perimeter of the top deck, occasionally scanning over a statue at the center of the horseshoe. Connected by chains, the fifteen-foot tall statue was carved from a black glossy stone marbled with rust red and blue-green veins. It depicted a squaminous beast, hunched over, wings flared, with tentacles dangling from its face. It looked down into the emptiness between its two outstretched and clawed hands, as if to eat the world that’s not yet in its grasp.

"Whoa," said Caprice. "Guess we know what Tiger Transit's been spending their money on, huh?"

Hammer turned back to the team. "Okay, I think this qualifies as an overt threat worthy of—"

Jim-Bean practically squealed with joy. "Jericho Jets?"

Hammer nodded. "Yeah."

Jim-Bean flipped on his cistron.

"I didn't say you could call them in, Jimmy."

Jim-Bean's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"

Archive cleared his throat. "Uh, guys?"

"Because I'm lead on this mission, that's why." Hammer flipped his cistron on. "This is Agent Hammer. Natives are hostile. Target sighted. Requesting a PURGATORY strike. I repeat, PURGATORY strike at my coordinates."

"Roger that. Jericho Jets inbound," responded a female synthetic voice. SINNER.

Their cistrons all switched to a countdown. Fifteen minutes before the Jericho Jets would reach their target.

"Guys!" interjected Archive.

Jim-Bean frowned. "It's not because you're mission leader. It's because you don't trust me."

"No I DON'T trust you," snapped Hammer. "You've been going off half-cocked these past few missions and your powers are barely under control…"

"Hey!" snarled Jim-Bean in an uncharacteristic display of anger. "I saved your asses TWICE! You would have been burnt to a cinder back there if it wasn't for me. And back at the control center in the Jade Temple, that little stunt you kept reminding us about not doing nearly killed all of us. Who's acting erratically now, huh?"

"GUYS!" interjected Archive.

Jim-Bean and Hammer both turned to chastise Archive for interrupting. "What?" they shouted in unison.

"Guppy and Caprice are swimming out to the horseshoe."

Hammer lowered his cistron with a sigh.