July 7, 1999

Hoyte: So it's agreed then?

Terrel: Agreed. I think this is the best way of finding the Witnesses before they do.

Hoyte: By God I hope so. And I hope we are ready by then.

Terrel: We'll find them. And you'll be ready. Let's get started.

---

Sunday, February 12, 2012. 2:28pm

I do apologize, Bacco/Terrel says. However I'll need you to trust me just one last time...

The helicopter tilts, speeding over the island.

Bacco/Terrel takes his pipe from between his teeth and points it up towards the roof. Arcane energy shoots from it and Frank and Tobias can see smoke starting to trail the helicopter. The craft begins to wobble from side-to-side, causing Bacco/Terrel to grab onto a strap with his other hand while otherwise looking unfazed.

He fires off another bolt and flames join the smoke coming out of the top of the helicopter. He plucks the pipe back in his mouth and turns to fold out a panel on the side of the cabin. It looks technological in nature but is covered in glowing arcane runes. Bacco/Terrel peers out the window, hand hovering over the panel as he watches the land go by.

As soon as the helicopter is over the water several things happen in rapid succession. He lets go of the strap he was holding with his left hand to grab his pipe again and fire one last spell, this time straight down, causing a huge flash of orange light to fill the cabin. Immediately after, he taps a combination onto the panel with his left hand and the cabin gets completely silent. Frank and Tobias can still hear themselves breathing (and perhaps saying a prayer of safety), but the rotor and engine noise become as quiet as if they were turned off. Finally, the rocking motion ceases and the helicopter flies in a straight path once again. Frank leans over to peer out the window and can't see any smoke or fire any more. He also can't see the helicopter any more; it's as if they are floating above the sea in a disembodied cabin.

Terrel sits back down with a whumph and buckles himself back in. I'll have to thank you for the inspiration Mr Byrne, he says. Invisibility is a really great way to stop anybody from following you. Only in a you've got to make it a little more showy if you want people to think you are dead.

The aircraft settled, Terrel unbuckles his harness and leans back, making himself comfortable. Most of what I'm about to tell you is known only by Gary and me. Nobody else in the worlds knows all of it. But since you are in this deep you deserve to know the truth...

---

Terrel explains that he and Gary Hoyte, many years ago, started THE Company as a for-profit enterprise in order to protect the world from threats originating from the plane of Shadow, as well as keep the existence of shadow creatures away from the mundanes as long as possible. But at the same time, Terrel created a non-profit organization called The Displaced, which is dedicated to protecting those accidentally transported here from Shadow who mean no harm, only wanting to live the new lives they've been stuck with. By all appearances they are two separate enterprises, but in reality they are two arms of the same beast. Between the two organizations, they handle anything that comes through from the other side, good or bad.

The Company earns revenue through government contracts and royalties on patented technologies (much of which comes from Shadow), then funnels much of that money to fund The Displaced. The Displaced, in return, funnels people and tech into The Company, giving Shadow transfers a place to work, while providing expertise in Shadow technology.

But they aren't the only pieces at play in the realm of Shadow-aware entities.

Tobias already knows about The Fellowship and the Fraternal Order of Vigilance. The Fellowship, like The Company, is dedicated to protecting the world from the more dangerous elements of Shadow, but they take a more "the ends justify the means" approach of doing business that some call ruthless or even borderline evil. They are not afraid to wipe out entire towns to combat a serious threat from the Shadow. The Fraternal Order is at the center of many outlandish conspiracy theories (including one in the movie American Treasure that alleged that the American Founding Fathers all belonged and hid Templar treasure under famous D.C. landmarks), but none of those stories are real. Behind their mask of public safety campaigns, career networking, character building, and community service, the Fraternal Order of Vigilance serves to train its members in ways to combat shadow creatures. The FOV sees any shadow creature as a threat, good or bad, and wants any extra-dimensional beings barred from our dimension forever.

There is also a third group, one that is both more secretive and more dangerous than the first two put together. This group has no public presence, but internally they call themselves the Order of the Crimson Dawn. Their goals aren't entirely clear, and that fact scares Terrel. What he does know is that they are intent on finding portals to the Shadow plane, whether natural or man-made, and he fears that their ultimate goal is to permanently merge the two worlds, which would have disastrous effects for each.

In order to uncover and eventually thwart the Order's motives, Terrel has infiltrated them under one of his many aliases, acting as a double agent. He knew the Order had its own spies in The Company, but he never would have expected them to make such a bold move against Frank and Tobias. He assumes that the combination of the value of the target they were seeking, along with the fact that they were completely "off book" and therefore had very little Company scrutiny, made them too ripe a target to ignore. His biggest worry is how the spies figured out what they were up to in the first place, since he took every precaution to keep the mission safe.

---

Terrel leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his fingertips together in front of his face. So, my plan of action is thus: I can safely get you two to Company headquarters. If you show your faces there then the spies will no longer have the cover story of you being rogue agents, and since you don't have the bowl, they won't have any reason to go after you. I think I was successful in keeping any of the double agent Retcon Dons from contacting home base, so your appearance may even surprise someone into giving away their position. Thoughts?
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:59, Tue 14 Dec 2021.

"Run a sting operation," says Frank. "It's got guts, I'll give you that."

He thinks out loud as he works through the plan.

"We'll need an explanation as to where we've been and what's happened to us."

He pauses.

"In terms of who's the mole, as far as we know, the only person we told was John, so we should start with him. But there's also the watcher I asked him to send.

Those guys are invisible, so they could have easily determined where I was headed by following me instead of watching the house.

On the other hand, the Order might have made the connection between Toby and Bacco. And if they thought Bacco knew where that bowl was, might have decided Toby was worth keeping tabs on."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:30, Tue 14 Dec 2021.

"I'd be very disappointed if it was John." Toby says as he subtly shifts in his seat. "And we took commercial flights to the island, didn't we? We weren't as concerned about being followed on the way over."

At the mention of an explanation he gives a snort and a shrug. "Why not the truth? Abducted by a weird alien archive and shenanigans ensued. Only difference is that there was no bowl." Tapping his glasses and letting his hand brush the sword that was suddenly always buckled to his side, he added, "We'd have to explain this stuff anyway too."

"Me too, Toby, but we can't rule it out. Not yet," Frank replies. "Good idea—keeping our story as close to the truth as possible is a good tactic. It also removes the risk of the Order trying to cooerce us by threatening to expose a lie."

"Even if they could easily track our flights, they'd have to a have a reason to be following us in the first place," he says, turning to Terrel. "Do the Order know what we know? That Terrel and Bacco are the same person? Is it possible that the mole isn't in our organisation, but in yours?"

He explains his logic. "There was no reason for them to look at us in connection to the bowl until you made contact. Our connection to this whole situation is through you."

Terrel nervously chews on his pipe. I've been questioning that myself. But I've been keeping an eye on Baccho's estate on Patmos and our compound on Rhodes, and other than my chap Toby here, nobody's so much as Googled either of them in the last 48 hours. Now that Baccho's dead they won't have a trail to follow.

He leans back, not looking at the two other men in the cabin, but rather, staring up at the ceiling, eyes racing as they go through all the possibilities. In fact, I don't know why the Order would be onto Baccho, or even the Displaced, in the first place. For one thing, my alias within the Order is a timid, low-profile preacher named Reverend Paul. Even if his cover is blown, he has no connection to any of my other identities. I pride myself on my ability to disguise myself, which you two have probably already noticed...

He looks down at Frank and Tobias with a smile, expecting praise. He sees the look in their eyes and is perplexed. Then it dawns on him. You can both see me, can't you? Baccho and Terrel look exactly the same, right?

Of course that makes sense that the witnesses would be All Seeing. I should have thought of that, he mutters to himself; he would be impossible to hear were it not for the headset and microphone.

He barrels on, talking over any interruptions.

Anyway, since they targeted you, and sent Company agents, I can only assume the mole is on your side of the pond, as it were. I'm afraid I don't know who the players are, so I can't tell you if this John fellow is the one. Since I didn't even hear any rumors that there was a mole, I dare say whoever it is hasn't been there very long.

Toby looks back at Frank. "I don't know how involved you are at the company barbecues, but I don't really keep around the office enough to know the faces much. It's going to be an interesting first five or ten minutes while we see if they really don't know anything or are laying out a trap for us."

Frank looks surprised. "I take Diane and Bree to those sometimes," he says. "She likes that we can't spend hours talking about work. You should come to the next one — as long as our bosses don't turn out to be working for the bad-guys, of course."

"Okay, then I think we're set. Bacco—sorry Terrel—how do we get home from here? Presume this thing doesn't have anywhere near the range?"

He glances down at the water rushing past beneath them.

"One final thing— What's our exit strategy if this doesn't play out how you're hoping? I don't fancy spending the rest of my life in a federal prison, or worse."

Terrel beams like a proud papa as he taps the side wall of the helicopter. Oh this whirlybird can take us straight to the helipad at headquarters. I can make a show of my visit and cause a distraction while you sneak around and come in like any normal day of work. As for the exit strategy... if things go pear-shaped get your way to the roof and I'll get you out of there.

OOC: You know if Terrel could get you to the roof, you could go down a back stairway to make it out to the street unnoticed, especially if you can harness invisibility. Unless you have any more questions we can continue to the landing.

Frank nods. "Okay, sounds good. I take it we're headed there now?"

OOC: I'm happy for you to move things on to the landing. :)

This message was deleted by the player at 13:18, Tue 31 May 2022.

Eventually the conversation dies down and the three men enter into a long, nervous silence.

The journey is over 8 hours long; Tobias does some mental math and realizes the helo must be going at least twice the speed of the next fastest known rotored aircraft. Somehow (cough magic cough) it makes the trip without needing a refuel, either. The rest of the flight is fairly uneventful; at a few points along the way Terrel provides food and drink for the three of them to eat, but otherwise much of the ride is dull and quiet.

---

Monday, February 13, 2012. 3:53pm

A normal office might be starting to wind down by the time the helicopter arrives at THE headquarters, but Terrel-Hoyte Enterprises is no normal office. Many of the admin and support staff work a standard 8-5 work day, but the building is abuzz at all hours with returning agents, workaholic managers, and night-owl researchers. As Terrel predicted, his arrival did create a bit of a buzz, and a few muckety-mucks meet the helicopter at the landing pad. Terrel exits the vehicle and is easily able to lead the group away and inside, leaving the top of the tower empty, at which point Frank and Tobias have no trouble entering the building.

OOC: Where to first? THE Company has all the normal office departments you would expect (IT, HR, Accounting, Security) along with more unique ones (Requisitions, Vault, R & D, and so on). I don't want to limit you by creating a definite list.

Once Tobias does that math he's a bit less quiet, gently prodding Terrel about how the heck he's managing to pull that kind of skullduggery off, but does try to get some more shuteye on the way in as well; they'd had a long day after all.

When they arrive,  he slips out of the helicopter and walks with Frank towards the doors to the building. "If we trust John we should probably go there first and debrief. If not, we have to get this bowl out of the line of fire."

"Right now, you're about the only person I do trust, so we need to get this bowl somewhere safe," said Frank. "If I trusted Terrell, I'd suggest he holds onto it, but I don't."

"Do you have anyone you trust here?"

Terrel happily talks shop, but Tobias quickly figures out that aside from having access to more and better tech, and having studied magic for longer, Terrel isn't any more innately magical than anyone else. He is particularly proud of his smoking pipe-shaped wand that he discovered many years ago.

OOC: in case it comes up, you would know that there are various magic sensors/trackers around the facility, but given that the bowl was immune to Tobias's previous Detect Magic spell, you don't think it would be detected by anything. Additionally since it's not metal it wouldn't be picked up by a metal detector. It just looks like a clay bowl, so only people who would have reason to suspect it's more than that would have any need to give it a second glance. You do have to scan into the building (automatic retinal scan when you approach the doorway), but the process goes like normal.

Secondly, feel free to co-worldbuild and invent NPCs you reasonably think might be there.

OOC: That's actually a good question. DO I know anyone who might be trustworthy in my non-work circle?

Before this adventure, you wouldn't have had any strong reason to distrust anyone at the company. Everyone here from the top brass to the janitors have to have an extensive background check before even being brought in for an interview. While there's always an air of secrecy around the work you do, there's never that feeling of needing to look over your shoulder.

That being said, there are probably some that you know better and would trust more than the average random coworker, like former partners. You've worked extensively with John, but I'll let the two of you decide whether you trust him. Tobias in particular would probably have friends in R&D, and maybe Requisitions. I figure everyone knows someone at work who's a safe person with whom to bitch about the boss without fear of it getting back to the boss.

Outside of work, with a 16 charisma it's reasonable that he has a few friends who are completely uninvolved in The Life. Perhaps former coworkers from the CIA or other former jobs, friends from college, or people in the same apartment building. If there's someone outside of work that Tobias thinks is trustworthy, I won't screw you over and make him/her a secret mole.

Or at least, that's one possible future.

Monday, February 13, 2012. 3:20pm

Terrel interrupts Frank and Toby's quiet contemplations with a quick clearing of his throat. Gents, we are about 30 minutes from landfall. I suggest you start at the source, and root around for the mole at THE 'eadquarters. That's got to be where 'e's 'iding. I can cause enough of a distraction for you to get into the building undetected if you want. From there you'll 'ave to be quick, because that place isn't exactly built for people to be able to easily sneak around. Of course if you've got other ideas I'm all ears.