Issue 01 - The Kooky Space Spook Affair, Part 1

That Morning …

Friday. Conference Room B. The main conference room, since Conference Room A was taken up by warehouse expansion.

Director Tony Sinclair briefing: Warehouse folks inventory: several items missing as of Thursday’s monthly inventory.
Everyone looks at Hope.
Nope – an array of things, like a robotic replica of an Easter Island Head that was used to attack the London Museum. And the 37th Most Accurate T Rex Skull.
Tosses us a paperclipped sheaf of papers.

Particulars by Monday. When the Governor is coming to visit.

Hope: investigating warehouse.
Kane: also investigating warehouse for obvious clues that Tony missed.

Cornell: Looking in the file for typos and formatting errors.


Benedict: looking into the file for missing inventory.

10-page document – 10 items, their history, their provenance and storage / inventory item. Newest is 8-9 years ago, one back to the 1960s. All things Benedict has seen – known quantities, typical items.
Kind of cool looking. Strange in their own way.

Benedict: The only connecting factor is that … they’ve all been in this warehouse.

Cornell: Typos. So many typos!
image

Location in the warehouse?
All were on the ground floor, within 5-6 shelves of one another.

Weights: up to a couple of tons.

Kane and Hope in the warehouse … multi-level, with catwalks.

Warehouse workers chatting.
Hope sneaks up ==> 2! - beaten by 3 shifts (fantastic! with style!)

  • R - No, no, Bennett, you’re being silly.
  • B - Ricky, they’re going to think I took the things! I just started here a few weeks ago. Spies! They pull a job and flee!
  • R - B, you came to work.
    These are the guys who’d be doing the inventory, with a senior staffer overwatching.
    Advantage: Bennett is a soft touch

Who was overwatching the inventory?
Kane is retired. So Tony chose him. So … no oversight.

Kane wanders over. Howdy.

  • B - (jumps) hey!
  • R - Hey.
  • K - (asks after R’s mother. She’s been having some tests. K will bring in cookies tomorrow.)

Now, about that small problem …

  • B - eep!
  • R - (pat on back)
  • K - how would you have taken this stuff? (terrifying B, tho R is blase)
  • R - Moving that head - crane? thru the roof?
  • K - Anything that would help transport or make easier to transport these items?
  • R - Oooh, always wanted to try this one out …

General Rules:

  1. If it’s in the warehouse, it may not work very well.
  2. Some of the labels are not accurate under close scrutiny.
  3. A lot of these things are very dangerous. Very. Dangerous.

Cornell - suggests we leave before the next meeting.

Hope - the two look like pretty average warehouse workers.
Walks up to them from another angle. “What was the most recent prior inventory?”
Down to the office to get records.
Run into us.
Benedict stays with Hope.
Cornell heads off to the warehouse to find out what was left behind, or what was nearby.

Inventory comparison over the years. Comments? Location changes?
Not much new bought recently. Nothing that stands out as something that could pull of this heist.

Cornell - looking for physical evidence.

Notice ==> 1 - Average … invoking a couple of things. +4 = Superb.
→ Boost (generic)

  • There was still dust where the things were.
  • But no sign of scrapes through the dust. They just vanished.
  • … the wiggins! about the locations!
    Announcement … Call the team. The budget may be impacted! (Hope leaves Bennett doing busywork research.)
    Science! Montage of equipment being pulled out. Geiger counters waved around. Benedict sipping tea.
    ==> 8 - Legendary!!
    The objects were definitely translocated, through the Odicsphere …

… flowing through the warehouse in a specific direction.

  • Benedict: done over a series of days. (recharge. repeated access) … last item several days ago. All on ground level.
  • Hope: anyone on the staff experimenting with odic tech? no, because those tend to go explosively bad, or reality-warping when good.

So, they have confidence in the tech or don’t care.

  • direction? 3-D space is kinda sketchy around Odic forces.
  • No Odic things in the area.

Cornell: thief may not have found what they were looking for the first time. Thus the time lag. Fishing. (Or … a random effect?)
Also, records of people with Odic knowledge.
Also, stake out to watch for more thievery.


That Evening …


… several hours later …

Warehouse is shut down for the evening. Most lights off.

Benedict (with Kane’s help), looking at personnel records. No current hires in Odic stuff. Past employees? Applicants? Folk in the COS area?

Cornell - studying Urdu, headphones on.
Cornell and Hope watching, on bean bag chair,
Hope is doing most of the watching.
10:30pm … Hope … maybe sees something wrong out of the corner of the eye. A glowing man!

Hope gets Kane’s attention.
Then Benedict.
Then Cornell, lifting one of his headphones.

Scooby gang look down. Kind of milling around the aisles, deciding what they really want something.

Cornell - borrowed knowledge. Use Odic Science to understand
==> Mediocre, + 2 FATE points, incl neurolinguistic hacker.
Insights:

  • This person speaks Russian. Mid-20th C Russian.

Hope - new vantage point. Away from Cornell. ==> Good. Hidden Vantage Point (2)

Cornell - Compel - Power of Positive Thinking. In Russian: “There’s a comrade here who understands the sacrifices for science, and want a conversation with them.”
They look up, sees Cornell, sees Benedict, Kane … and they are RIGHT IN CORNELL’S FACE.
Their large head is more like a helmet … visor partially raised … face is skull.

Benedict - slick martial arts … and hands/feet just move through the figure.
Boost: they hare completely immune to physical harm (but weak to … ______)

Kane - since punching didn’t work … talking. In Russian. Talk about your accomplishments!
Notice ==> Fantastic! Oh, yeah, that uniform is from the pre-Sputnik era Russian space agency testing!
Cosmonaut! Odinaut!

“Soldier! Halt!”
==> vs Injured Pride … 9! so roll … 3 Good! + 2 invocations, + 1 fate “Have I Got A Lie For You!” + 1 fate “Gentleman Adventurer” = 10!

Loses 2 stress, and out. “Sitrep!” Looks almost wistful as he begins his mission report …

“Taking things from here, bringing them back to the other people, and they promise to give my body back. Is it really 1992? Did not think I would ever see that year.”

NEXT ISSUE

The Questioning!


Minor Milestone (p 225): Swap rating of any two skills in a single mode, replace a stunt with another stunt, or rewrite one aspect that is the concept aspect.

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I checked the Refresh rules. It’s every issue, which is normally defined as one session (p. 155). If we reached a minor milestone at the end of one night, we refresh the next time we meet (p. 53). That said, it also sounds like the GM can declare an issue spans multiple sessions, so it’s up to them.

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