Juan Estevez - DEA Agent and former Undercover Cop
Victor Blue - FBI Intelligence Analyst and Hacker
15/08/19 Desert Rose Hotel, El Paso Texas
After a 20 minute real-time argument between David and Victor over what kind of fast food to get (they ended up getting Subway, but Juan stuck to MREs and jerky after their last mission), the agents headed back to their hotel and discussed what to do with the South American Fear Totem. Juan wanted to burn it, while Victor wanted to use it as bait for the demon (Juan: "We already have bait, and her name is Monique").
They decided to spend the rest of the day doing more research into the totem, Tintiasay (aka Tintin aka Tzitzi-Ya Ku), and the Monterro Organization. Juan looked into the Monterros with Criminology and found that their south american smuggling operation was a new and strange thing for the organization, and put two and two together to realize that Angel was going to go state's witness and get them locked up.
Victor got 9 degrees on Occultism while researching "Tintin" and found a wealth of intel:
- It has been around since recorded history started, but disappears for long periods of time
- It appears as formless black smoke (so not a ghostly girl)
- It has never been permanently "killed"
- It came to its victims at night and took their life force, killing them in days
- Somebody always curses the victim
- There were no mentions of any totems (???)
- Once cursed, nobody has ever escaped it (though one British man made it back to England and may have survived)
- There is a ritual that may be able to get rid of it, but it has never worked.
David analyzed the totem with Forensics, finding a maker's mark and lifting fingerprints off of it. A check into the FBI fingerprint database found nothing, though he did confirm that they matched neither Monique nor Angel. Figuring they had all the info from the totem that they were going to get, Juan went into the desert, doused it in gasoline, and burned it, careful never to touch it.
16/08/19 Ghost Hunters
Early in the morning, Monique called Victor again and told him that she had slept better last night, and was wondering if they were done with their investigation. He told her that they still weren't done, and that she probably shouldn't go back to the hospital for at least a few more days. Victor then asked her a series of questions: did she have any enemies (especially children)? Did she remember seeing the totem? Did she have any more electrical problems? Unfortunately, she didn't know anything interesting, though she mentioned that she'd worked at the Children's Hospital before transferring to the ER.The agents spent the rest of the morning compiling a list of about a dozen ghost candidates: black-haired, caucasian girls who had died at Providence Children's Hospital while Monique had been working there. Victor called Monique again, told her she might be haunted by a kid that had died at her hospital, and asked if she recognized any of the names on the list, or if she remembered any angry parents or whatnot. Again, she couldn't recall anything out of the ordinary.
Deciding to narrow down the list, the party started out towards the parking lot, but saw a latino man in sunglasses leaning the SUV and retreated back into the hotel room without being spotted. Victor launched his recon drone out the bathroom window and, after crashing it slightly, flew up and zoomed and enhanced on the video to get a closer look at him. The man leaning on the SUV was concealed-carrying a handgun, and Victor also spotted a second person waiting inside a grey sedan nearby, but couldn't see more through the tinted windows.
Victor ran the man's face and sedan's plates through FBI databases, but the former came up empty and the latter was owned by a holding company. Juan made a call to the local PD claiming to be witnessing a drug deal in the parking lot, but they didn't care. After debating what to do, Juan walked out to the SUV while David and Victor stood by; if Juan said "Christmas" over his earpiece mic, it meant that a firefight was starting.
As he got closer, the man stood upright and asked if he was Juan Estevez. Juan tried to play dumb, and almost succeeded, until the man pulled out his phone and showed Juan a photo of himself. Apparently "the boss" wanted to talk to the agents about Angel; they were to follow the grey sedan in the SUV to the meeting. Not wanting to start a firefight, Juan agreed and got the other two to pile into the SUV before following the other car on a drive across town.
Deal With The Devil
Victor set up a 24-hour deadman's switch to notify the authorities on the way, and soon they pulled up to a building undergoing renovations. The agents walked into the partially-finished lobby, the sounds of construction work echoing around them, and were escorted by the man (and the woman that had been in the sedan) to an elevator, which they were sent up, alone. The doors opened to a well-appointed waiting room, and a British receptionist told them to have a seat while the "manager" finished with her current business.
After a 5-minute wait, they were gestured into an office, where an older British woman sat behind a wooden desk. She introduced herself as Victoria Conway, and claimed that it was a pleasure to meet them. Victoria asked why they were interested in Angel, and Juan stuck to the "drugs" cover story. She replied that she'd thought they'd be after the smuggling angle, to which Juan replied "Smuggling drugs, sure". Victoria continued on that she'd like for a "friend" to "take care" of Angel so that he wouldn't turn state's evidence; in return, the party would receive assistance from her "organization" (clearly the Monterrero Organization).
David brought up that Angel was going to die in weeks anyway, due to his heart issues, but that didn't seem to sway Victoria, who subtly implied both that that would be too long, and that Tintiasay had been her organization's doing, though it had not gone according to plan. Now, they wanted somebody to clean up their mess, so that the demon didn't draw any more attention back to her. Victor asked if they were going to kill the party if they turned down her offer; Victoria said no (Juan: "That's a yes"), and merely stated that it'd be better for everyone if they worked together.
Victor tried to get more intel about the totem out of her, but Victoria claimed not to know much about it, and the man who would know had gone missing. The agents could, however, use her organization's extensive library to do their own research... if they agreed to help, of course. Juan was against helping a group that actively used the occult, claiming them to be the enemy. Victor wanted access to their library so that he could better combat the occult. David ended up the deciding vote, and sided with Victor, so they agreed to help Victoria "take care" of Angel and Tintiasay.
Victoria seemed pleased, and told them to speak to her assistant, who took them to the library. Inside a climate controlled glass chamber (rigged with a halon fire extinguishing system) stood a half-dozen shelves holding ancient tomes. On closer inspection, however, the tomes were written in modern English. David and Juan reacted in horror, but Victor seemed not to mind, so long as they contained info on the occult.
The agents researched the ritual to stop Tintiasay, and found it. Unfortunately, it would require a human sacrifice. Victor also found a possibility why Angel was dying more slowly than most victims of Tintiasay, and why it was targeting Monique: it was attracted to psychics. He found and copied down some rituals to test if someone possessed psychic abilities, as well as ways to hide their signature by creating a magic totem. Apparently, Tintiasay couldn't make somebody see ghosts, so whatever was going on with Monique and the ghost didn't directly involve it.
Figuring they had everything they'd need, the party left the library, were guided back to the elevator by the receptionist, and from there were escorted back out to their SUV by the muscle. They had many different threads to pursue now: killing Angel would probably have to wait until they had created the totem to hide Monique, which would take several days. And they still had a ghost to bust.
Notes:
This campaign's version of reality doesn't have the migrant concentration camps at the US-Mexican border, as the US government is busy doing different nefarious things under a pod-person replacement Trump. Also, aliens did 9/11.
A discussion of legality and jurisdiction ended with the GM saying we have a license from God to do whatever we want. I'll be sure to pull that out when we get pulled over by the cops with half a dead alien in the back seat. EDIT: The GM has contacted me to let me know that it's specifically a license to hunt aliens and untangle the conspiracy. But to me that sounds just vague enough to be anything!
Sadly, David's Very Handsome did not manage to seduce even a single female NPC.
Juan wants to burn the library and everyone involved.
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