The Heroes of Ancorato and the Inordinate Privateers found themselves in the Interface, and not quite themselves. The lich Auberon tortured a Triad of Inbetween Men and followed one as it escaped into a node used to control the Spheres. Here, the Architects run strange experiments using mass illusions, with children who are linked to the  heroes. Before realizing who they actually are, these heroes-as-children united at the secret hideout of their storyteller, who had gone missing. They stopped a group of bullies trying to set fire to the locked tree house and find a way inside. There, amongst other clues, they found a plot board for the storytelling game that their two groups are playing. But something there seemed to be troubling the storyteller. Following clues that he had been taken, the groups explored a nearby campground and the Junior High School, finding more clues to something mentioned in the storyteller's notes, called "the Base Code." At the storyteller's other tree house, at his home, they found the injured Inbetween Man, Thatoou, just before the police arrived looking for them. They boys escaped with Thatoou and 

"As above, so below. As within, so without. As the universe, so the soul."
― Hermes Trismegistus

"You can never go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."
―  C.S. Lewis

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

This is not how it happened. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

The fates of heroes are bound together by stories.

The success of all your great undertakings to this moment have depended on your unlikely fellowship with one another. Not just amongst your parties, but between your groups, and at this table.

No matter what happens tonight, you will all always live in a universe where your tales are combined.

The paths of the Inordinate Privateers and the Heroes of Ancorato intersect again here, in the Interface: the place where you players meet this story in the Lakewoods that border Skeleton Lake just outside of St. Hintonbert. It’s a fictional landscape that every one of you instinctually knows. Because its where you grew up. Or at least close enough, that I want you to envision it that way.

When we tell a story about our pasts, we return to the foundations of how we became who we are.  That’s the base code of each of our universes.

As we begin, none of you are who you have been in this tale up until now. You are more yourselves, though only to the extent that any of us can be separated from the characters that inhabit us.

Each of you has come here looking for your missing storyteller…

Its Saturday morning. 30 October. Game night interrupted was yesterday. Sunday is Halloween. Chris’s costume was a secret. It was always a secret.

Besides farming, what is St. Hintonbert's main industry? Cheese // Despair // National Defence Research Facility

How is St. Hintonbert's economy doing? Amazing

What are the town's notable landmarks? Grain Elevators: Where else can you step on rusty nails? Get lumber-lung? // The statue of St. Hintonbert himself

What are the town's notable organizations? Stonecutter's Lodge

For what is St. Hintonbert infamous? Massacre during the Northwest Rebellion

What is the name of the Sir George Fisher Junior High mascot? Trojans

What is a secret know only to the kids of St. Hintonbert? The hidden spot under the bleachers for making out - it's know as the Fuck Pit or the Baseball Diamond.

It is a perfect Autumn morning.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR SATURDAY MORNING, ABOUT MEETING UP WITH YOUR RESPECTIVE GROUPS TO GO AND FIND CHRIS. WHERE DID YOU TELL YOUR PARENTS YOU WERE GOING?

The sky is a declaration of blue. The air is crisp. The colours of the trees aren’t just changing, they’re staging a revolution.

Preston, Tim, Derek and Dave –You’ve just arrived at the clearing near the frog pond where you’d all noticed that Chris has been spending an inordinate amount of time lately. It’s the place from which Scott said he’d been abducted by aliens.

Your bikes are splashed with mud and stick with bits of maize from the field you had to cross to get to the woods. Fortunately, there’s a well-worn path.

The pond isn’t large but it stretches from the clearing into the woods and is surrounded and filled with thick bramble and smooth mud.

THE BULLIES

When you get there, you aren’t alone. Four well known bullies from your school are there as well: Shawn, Boyd, Gord, and Lance. Three of them are stomping Chris’s red bike. It is bent out of shape. A third is in the woods: “Hey, I can’t get this fucking lock open.” Shawn answered, “Just burn it down.”

Gord sees you enter the clearing and gestures to Shawn who turns around. His aluminum baseball bat rests lightly on his shoulders.

“Well, well, well… Chris’s little boyfriends came for a circle jerk. What are you faggots looking at?”

Lance laughs… “Chris piss, ya bucket of piss.”

            WHAT DO YOU DO?

You smell smoke. Boyd comes out of the woods – “I set the fire, let’s get out of here… oh… right on… are we gonna stomp these little nancies or what?”

·        “I heard the cops found Chris. Took him home this morning.”

Scott, Ian, Graham, Ernest, and Ryan – You’re getting close to the clearing where Chris has been spending an inordinate amount of time hunting frogs… you hear an argument. You smell smoke.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

• None of you knew about this place.

• There’s a ladder leading up to a locked trap door. Looks like the BULLIES tried to break in; there are several buckets and frog-hunting equipment at the base

•  He has another treehouse in his backyard that you all knew about – his Dad built it; you guys have gamed in there a number of times; he lives in there most of the summer; he keeps a bunch of stuff there, but nothing as elaborate as this.

• This treehouse was built recently; obvious that no parent was involved

THE FIRE: Before anything else, this needs to be put out. 

THE PADLOCK: Treehouse has padlock hasp attached to the wooden floor, and a key padlock

INSIDE

• the place is filled with aquariums (12 of them) and each of these is packed with frogs at various stages of development from eggs to tadpoles to full frogs. 

•  All of his D&D books are here – filled with post-it notes, cross referenced; copy of Preston’s game, similarly annotated… annotations all refer back to an elaborate Conspiracy Board

•  Dozens of notebooks filled with elaborate campaign notes about Sentar and all the world-building he’s been doing, charts, graphs, hand-drawn pictures. Homebrew rules and monsters. You recognize a lot of it (imagine our Internet pages, in notebook form).

• There is also an extremely large collection of Choose-Your-Own Adventure books. Many of which are also annotated. Library books on astronomy and evolution.

• Where did he find the time to do all this???

CONSPIRACY BOARD

• LOOKING THROUGH HIS NOTES: This takes some time and effort…

• One of your big takeaways from all of this: The game he missed—the game you were supposed to have played—is not represented here in his notes. If you didn’t know better, it looks as though he had nothing prepared. Nothing at all.

CLUES AROUND THE CLEARING

• ADULT's SHOE: if they look around the pond, they find an adult’s dress shoe. Clear set of footprints towards a path in the woods.

•  PATH IN THE WOODS: Not far from the place where the path enters the woods, there’s a Star Wars action figure–a BOBA FETT—that ‘s been dropped on the ground. The path leads towards the cutline for the overhead powerline towers.

• TIRE PATH: Near where the path enters the cutline, there are tire tracks… you can still se the treads. There’s a CHEWBACCA action figure. Along the path cleared the overhead power line towers that run up from the dam on the North Saskatchewa River. The tire tracks lead back to the road. (SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL AVENUE turns into RR.7 at LEVASSEUR)  

•  LITTLE KIDS FISHING

  •  Little Kids fishing on Skeleton Lake – sure, they remember a WHITE VAN. It came out of the woods. Someone got out and opened the chain that goes across the road. Then it drove down RR.7 towards the Skeleton Lake campground, a few hour bike ride up the road. (though it’s closed for the season)

    • SPOOKY ISLAND (actually Armstrong Island) visible from here – the Haunted Old Estate House

    • Who has a key to the chain?

For those of you who grew up near Big Lake everyone knows that’s not what anyone calls it. Any more than the island visible from the shore is not really called Armstrong Island. It’s Skeleton Lake and that’s Spooky Island.

Before the dam was built on the North Saskatchewwa, flooding the surrounding farmland and expanding the size of the lake, Armstrong Island was part of the shore, and the three-story abandoned overgrown manor that dominates the island, once housed generations of the Armstrong family that owned all of this land. People who get to close, tend to go missing. Erosion, sinkholes, and sunken tangles are typically blamed, but your childhood lore is replete with urban legends that know better

SKELETON LAKE RESORT

Skeleton Lake resort is owned by Chris’s next-door neighbours, the Labontes. The father, an oilman, bought the place as investment or a tax dodge. During the too-brief summers, the resort has long been a playground for most of the families of St. Hintonbert, including yours. It’s about a half our drive from town, a few hours by bike. 

THE MYTHS OF SKELETON LAKE

According to local legends the lake is haunted by the family of a headstrong Cree warrior. Making their way to a winter hunting camp, the young warrior insisted they cross the partially frozen lake to make good on a boast he’d made about his upcoming hunt. His pregnant wife and young son went through the ice. When approached by his wife’s family, he lied about what had happened, saying that she had gone out on the ice despite his warnings. The young man enjoyed the greatest hunt of his life that season and forced his lost family out of his mind. That Spring, as the snows thawed and the ice shifted, he woke up one morning and saw his dead wife’s frozen corpse appearing to stand in the jumbled ice pushed up against the shore, her mild eyes pleading lifelessly. He worked all day to dislodge her body and push out further from the shore, dismembering her in the process and sliding body parts into a hole in the ice. The next day, it was his young son’s frozen body that stood pleadingly at the lake shore. Frantically, the young hunter went through the same process. On the third day, he lay in bed a long time despite having to make water, dreading what he might find on the shore of the lake. He was relieved that there were no more corpses or angry ghosts to confront him, and he went about his day. By midday, he had almost forgotten all that happened, now being quite practiced at untroubling his guilty conscience. So, walking by the shoreline, he was taken by surprise to find a nameless newborn child frozen in the ice, staring directly at him. This broke his mind. Frantically extracting the body, he ran out onto the Spring ice to dispose of it where he had dumped the others. He slipped and broke through screaming and begging for his life. He was never seen again. To this day, it is said that anyone approaching Big Lake with a guilty conscience, will be haunted by visions of a skeletal woman wandering the shore hand in hand with a similarly ghostly child. To meet her gaze is to be doomed to perish in the ice.

Of course, there’s a white man’s version. Progress required the damming of the North Saskatchewwa river. That flooded the valley where the first homesteaders had built their community on the shores of Big Lake. Most of the grave sites that the developers promised to move weren’t moved, so every now and then, bones wash up on shore. This has only reinforced the power of the original story.

OLD MAN PLATT

Getting across the lake will mean getting into the boat house. And getting into the boat house means getting the keys from Old Man Scheeler, the handyman who lives out at the campground all through the seasons.

Mr. Scheeler works as the shop teacher at Sir George Fisher JH, and stays out at the lake. If he hasn’t tormented you in school, he’s tormented you at the lake. When he’s not at school (and sometimes when he is) it’s always drunk o’clock. This time of year, likely as not, he’s in a stupor in his cabin.

When you helped clean out the boathouse last summer, where do you remember seeing him put the keys. (BRAIN 10+)

GROUP OF CATS

• Scott, one of the cats, a calico, looks up at you. Narrows its eyes. It rubs up against the back of your leg. It looks like its tail has no fur on it. (Goes to pet it – It’s gone)

Four Graham Avenue, where Chris lives, is a big white suburban home with chestnut trim. It has a large front yard, and a sloping driveway. The front door is set beneath a long awning beside a two-car garage. There are mid-sized linden and mountain ash trees in front of large bay windows. The backyard is accessible on both sides of the house, both hemmed in by neighbours’ fences. On the left, through a grassy path; on the right, next on a sidewalk beside a dog kennel.

The backyard is large and open. Three of the five adjoining lots have no fences, giving the impression of a very large space. They are separated by a line of poplar trees, and a bit of a hedge, but can otherwise be walked right through to the streets beyond. There’s a shed, barbecue and picnic patio on the lower half of the yard. Separated by a small hill, in the upper half of the yard, there’s a large vegetable garden and a play fort, painted chestnut, that commands the entire area.

DEALING WITH CHRIS’S PARENTS: If the boys go to the front door, they answer (affable). They will let the boys go to the backyard but will watch them through the kitchen window. If the boys go to the backyard without knocking, Chris’s Mom calls from the kitchen window… “Chris isn’t here…” (slightly more irritated)

• Where’s Chris?:  “At the stable this weekend. He’s staying out there. Otherwise he’d be in the Fort! Haha.”

• How has Chris seemed? “Oh, you know Chris (laughs)! Lives in his own little world. That’s so nice of you to ask.”

• Can we go out back? (Response depends on the approach)

Parents ask the Boys what they know about BASE CODE (last thing they ask them)……

•  “Oh, it’s just something Chris has been talking about. You kids and your computer games!”

DEALING WITH CHRIS’S LITTLE SISTER: She approaches the boys once they are in the backyard, after Chris’s Mom talks to them.

• “Where’s my brother? I don’t know why my parents lied to you, but they’re acting weird. Chris is NOT at the stable. He went frog hunting yesterday and then didn’t come home.”

• He’s been taking the frogs up to the Fort out back and leaving them there

• He doesn’t let me go in there

• How has Chris seemed? He’s been up all night. In treehouse all hours. He’s writing constantly. Irritable and weird. Weirder than usual.

IF THEY GO TO THE BACKYARD, WHERE ARE THEIR BIKES?

Known to everyone in the neighbourhood as “the Fort”, although it is surrounded by trees it is not actually built into any trees. There’s a lookout platform from which you can see over the neighbours’ fences. It’s accessible by a ladder in the back. There’s a tire swing where Chris sits and reads comics. Underneath the lookout platform, there’s a single room accessible through a door and window facing the house. The walls of the inside are currently lined with blankets that you can see from the outside.

•  Tim, you and Chris have played many hours of Risk in here

OUTSIDE

• Frog Buckets and an aquarium

• Go-cart

 INSIDE

• There’s a rumpled sleeping area with a stack of comics and a camping lamp. Near the window, there’s small. Small table and chair. Stacks of empty notebooks similar to the full ones you found inside his other treehouse; and looseleaf paper. Writing implements.

• With the blankets covering the walls and window, it takes you a moment to realize that one has been set up like a wall to set off a small area:

o   There’s nothing inside but a bucket filled with pond water, some floating debris, and nothing else

THATOOU STARTS ASKING THEM QUESTIONS THAT THEY MISTAKE FOR THEIR OWN THOUGHTS

• Some thoughts begin to occur to you: Where is Chris? Where is the Storyteller?

o   Has he been taken?

o   I am hungry. Did anyone bring frogs?

o   Who are you? (Doesn’t recognize player names, recognizes character names… )

o   You are the Heroes of Ancorato, the Inordinate Privateers…

• "Do not be alarmed. I am going to reveal myself to you."

What at first glance had appeared to you as a pile of pillows and jumbled sleeping bags takes on a humanoid form. Crumpled up beneath a blanket.

Appearance: This creature looks exactly like you have all been taught aliens look like. It is small, roughly 3 to 4 feet tall, with a slender and delicate body that appears frail, lacking any visible muscle definition.

Its pale gray skin is smooth and hairless, almost translucent. Its pear-shaped head is disproportionately large, compared to its small body, with a high forehead and an absent nose. Its eyes are large, black, and almond-shaped, covering a significant portion of its face, lacking visible eyelids or eyelashes. They are intense and emotionless. Its mouth is a small slit with no discernible lips. It has spindly, long arms and fingers with four digits, and similarly thin legs bundled beneath it, though they appear broken and mangled.

•   I am in pain, and I need your help. All living things depend on you and how much you have learned. Are you ready?

…and that’s when the police arrive.

POLICE ARRIVE

• NIKKI approaches the guys while they are questioning Thatoou. When she approaches, Thatoou promptly disappears.

•  “There are police are here, looking for you guys… they’re acting weird too. I don’t like this. What’s going on? You have to get out of here…”

• The police enter the yard… cutting off two ways of escape

YOU HEAR IN YOUR MINDS: Please. They cannot find me. They will harm me and you. They are not what they seem. They are not in control of themselves

• FLIGHT: Towards front of house (16) Towards Gainsborough (10) Over the Fence (8) Towards Greer (6)

• CHARM: Let us go (18) We aren’t the kids you’re looking for (16)

•  BRAIN: Best Option (Chris dug a hole under the wooden walkway as a hiding place for his games of Vampire) Worst Options (6+) Better Options (8+) Best Options (10+)

• HIDE (VARIOUS): In a tree (18) Garden hedge (12) Neighbour’s Yard (9) Garden Walkway (5)

About half of the guys should get trapped hiding.

Overhear police: “So what did these teens do? Do they know something about the Base Code?” // “Nah. They’re wanted for questioning related to those two little kids whose bodies we pulled out of the Lake.” // “That is so messed up. Who kills little kids?” // “Yeah, I heard they were into that Dungeons & Dragons shit. Probably a Satanic cult.” // “I want to get in on a little enhanced interrogation before they get processed.” // “Get in line, man. I’m hoping that some of them try to run.”

*NIKKI: distracts police so that the guys can escape

*GETTING BIKES: Let these come up with a plan

THATOOU DEBRIEF

THE BASICS

• I am the only One-of-Us here

•  I am still too weak to travel.

•  Your games are more real than you think.

•  I am an Inbetween Man.

•  I assure you, I am not an actor.

• Your characters are avatars [LIE – the KIDS are in fact the AVATARS]

• How can I get you t believe me.

WHAT DOES YOUR CHOICE OF GAMING CHARACTER SAY ABOUT YOU? YOUR HOPES, YOUR FEARS, YOUR NARRATIVES ABOUT YOURSELVES & THE WORLD?

IF YOU COULD WEILD ONE POWER OF YOUR IN-GAME CHARACTER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
(Write it on a card)

REVEALING MORE

• I am what you might call an Inbetween Man. If you would prefer to think of me as an alien, that is less accurate, but may be easier to believe.

• Where is Chris? He was bringing me frogs to eat. They are delicious and filled with nutrients.

•  Thatoou can confirm that the police and likely other authorities have been dominated by Auberon. Whether he has discovered the Base Code, he is using his approach to Arcana to begin accessing it.

• Auberon have been here for roughly 14 years by this node’s temporal velocity. I could not increase it. (Thatoou exists outside temporal velocity – I have only been here for a few hours for me since I escaped from Auberon’s clutches)

•  “If Auberon has taken Chris, then it will not be long before he knows where to find me, and through me, access to the BASE CODE. With that, he could begin to reprint all life in the Spheres. In effect, it would make him the most powerful magical being in the Spheres.”

•  I believe I will require assistance. I have put this off too long. It is likely that your Storyteller is in grave danger.

• BASE CODE: They are the rules governing the Spheres.

THE INTERFACE

• The Interface is running on what you might call auxiliary power. Any effort to access the healing facilities would alert Auberon to my presence.

•  There is not sufficient energy or resources to bioprint a new body that could withstand combat with Auberon.

• The one thing we realized too late that neither we nor our machine-intelligence systems had the creative imagination for potential outcomes… for understanding the inherent messiness of actual stories. We [PAUSE] look to humans such as yourselves to help us learn storytelling…”

• I imparted what I could to your AVATARS through your Storyteller--Chris. I have tried to hide from Auberon. But he is wily and determined. He is a monster. Depraved beyond all imagining.

• You must take me to City Hall. What you might call the “keys” to my INTERFACE PORTAL are inside the Public Library there.

• Chris knows enough that Auberon will be able to deduce its whereabouts once he extracts the information.

• Auberon will extract the information by whatever means necessary. To save Chris, to save the Spheres, time is running out.

THE LIBRARY

• Thatoou needs three books

o   Any Choose Your Own Adventure story

o   Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan: “The mind is a consequence of its anatomy and physiology and nothing more”… I always like that sentence. Very elegant.

o   Steel Fenris and the Ballad of the Inordinate Privateers by Thellonia Froop

•  “I assure you they are there. They are the keys he needs to unlock my… spaceship… Using that, we can rescue Chris and I can defeat Auberon.” (THIS IS A LIE)

HALLOWEEN

As Halloween approaches… remind players… nudge them to dress for Halloween. How will they bring Tahtoou with them

Costumes

• Ernest: A Bell Curve

• Ryan: Han Solo

GETTING CHASED BY COPS, MIBs

• Kids on bikes headed from Point A to Point B on twisting suburban roads…

• Kids notice that they are being followed by a black Ford Sierra with tinted windows.

• Another one joins… tries to box them in…

WHAT DO YOU DO/HOW DO YOU ESCAPE/WHERE DO YOU REGROUP

CONTACT PARENTS

• “The police were here looking for you. You and your friends haven’t been getting into trouble, have you?”

• “Does this have something to do with the Base Code?” (moods change: some persuasive, some angry)

•  “Don’t you lie to me. I know you’ve been lying. Tell me what you know about the Base Code! Where are you hiding it?”

RETURN TO THE TREEHOUSE

• Its been emptied out. All the choose your own adventure and gaming books are gone.

BULLIES, AGAIN

If the bullies were not definitively dealt with, bring them back.

Halloween – before the boys go to Skeleton Lake

• “You know the cops are looking for you.

•  (AWE) “What did you guys do?”

•  “Did you really kill those little kids? That’s messed up! WHO could think you wusses could do something like that?”

• “Are you satanists?”

It will be a short distance to the bullies helping our heroes… see what they say. (CHARM)(BRAWN)

PRESTON – your Mom has been talking about the strange behaviour of many of the members of City Council lately. Mayor Fowler has been maneuvering (clumsily) to replace her. Almost like he doesn’t know how to run a political campaign.

Preston, you know where you can get the keys to St. Hintonbert Place (your Mom’s purse)

What’s the plan for getting in and out of your house unnotices

BREAKING IN

·        Someone has already broken in. The glass doors at the front of the building are smashed.

·        The building is eerily quiet. The building houses City Hall, municipal offices, museum space and a three story the public library. The side of the building has a great glass window that has a waterfall running down the side. The architecture is pretty avant garde, and the build undulates and flows in brown brick to match the Sturgeoneau River for such a small town, but everyone is very proud of the building. You all know it well, as you have visited it a number of times.

·        Lights are flickering on and off inside the building. You can see a fire alarm has been ripped out of the wall.

·        The glass doors to the library are torn open. Twisted metal hangs on bent hinges and your shoes crunch on the broken glass beneath your feet.

·        There’s fur and blood on the glass… and it smells like a swamp inside.

·        A cold knot of fear fills your stomach (GRIT rolls 5)

LIBRARY

·        How do you conduct your search. There are a lot of you…

·        All of the Choose-Your-Own Adventure books are missing…

·        FINDING THE BOOKS

o   Carl Sagan (Brains 4)

o   Steel Fenris (Brains 10)

CORPSE HOUNDS

·        One of the players/groups of players hears panting, sniffing… then after a moments silence, a low deep growl. (GRIT) A shadow moves… CHASE (FLIGHT)

·        There’s a howl in the top floor of the library

Chased by an emaciated wolf-like creature. It’s patchy fur matted with darkened blood. Grey bones are visible through rents in its skin. Its teeth are pulled back in a snarl as its flesh sloughs off.

            HOW DO YOU GET AWAY?

It’s Halloween. The sky above you is a gray cliff face, looming ominously. The waters beneath you are dark and remorseless. The spray from the bat is cold and sends a shiver down your spine.

You are crossing Skeleton Lake towards Spooky Island where you plan to explore the old, abandoned house that has haunted all of your childhoods in search of your lost friend. Oh, and hopefully avoid the powerful necromancer from another dimension who may or may not be torturing him horribly for information about how to take over the world or something. Oh, and he’s probably waiting to turn you all into zombies or something. The fact that you’re carrying a decrepit E.T. to that hopes it can find the choose-your-own adventure book it needs to defeat him inside his evil lair does not fill you with confidence about your life choices.

As you approach the island you something scrapes the bottom of the aluminum boat. A stick? You’re nowhere near the shallows yet. The sound increases before the boat snags suddenly sending you all flying forward (BRAWN).

The engine sputters and strains, as the boat stops.

            WHAT DO YOU DO?

ZOMBIE ATTACK

A swollen, water-logged hand reaches up from the aft of the boat next to the engine (EVERYONE: GRIT)

More hands all around the boat.

• WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE KID THAT WENT MISSING LAST YEAR?

• WHAT TOOK HIM TO SPOOKY ISLAND?

• WHAT DID EVERYONE SAY HAPPENED?

•  WHAT DO THE KIDS KNOW THAT REALLY HAPPENED?

Your eyes adjust to the gloom as you approach the shore. The water is thick with grass. The muddy lakebed looks as though you would sink into the silt forever if you stepped out too soon.

The last dim twilight shines through the skeletal trees of Autumn that seem to shift and move as you travel along the shoreline. It takes a moment for you to realize that the shambling movement is not an optical illusion, but that there are indeed figures shambling all around the shore.

You are close enough now to hear them shuffling through the leaves, and the low moan emanating from their slackened jaws… (GRIT)

Creatures respond to the approach of the boat…

• Ernest – your hands ache. You feel like you should be holding something.

This abandoned structure stands against a backdrop of gray and desolate landscape. Peaking out through a break in the clouds, the moon casts sinister shadows through the dead, gnarled trees and thorny bushes that surround the building. Branches reach out like bony fingers towards the sky.

The house itself is a decrepit, three-story English manor. Its once-grand facade now marred by time and decay. The paint has long since peeled away. Weathered wood and separating masonry exposed to the elements crack and separate, but somehow still stand. Broken windows gape like hollow eye sockets, allowing the frigid winds to whisper through its empty chambers. Tattered curtains sway in the breeze, casting ghostly shadows on the crumbling walls.

The front porch sags with the weight of neglect. The steps are worn and splintered, and the railing is twisted and broken.

• Who’s first? Walking up the steps, foot goes through the boards.

The door, heavy and ornate, creaks on rusty hinges when pushed open, revealing a dim and haunting interior. The building itself seems to breathe,

Inside, the air is thick with decay and abandonment. Dust motes dance in the faint light that filters through the windows. Cobwebs drape from the ceiling like sinister veils, and the floorboards groan underfoot as if burdened by the secrets they hold. The walls bear faded, peeling wallpaper.

The wind whistles mournfully through the building, creating eerie, ghostly moans. Shadows move of their own accord, and the atmosphere is heavy with a sense of lingering dread.

 BETRAYAL AT HOUSE ON THE HILL

-        Each of you will take it in turn to move through the house, revealing a new room for your group.

-        Time is of the essence. Do you move as a single large group, or do you separate into scouting parties?

-        Each explored tile will bring you closer to the secrets of Armstrong Manor… closer to rescuing your Dungeon Master… Closer to confronting Auberon.

-    Reveal a tile. Resolve the room.

AUBERON VS THATOOU: ROUND 1

-        Auberon is surrounded by Undead

-        Tahtoou is immediately struck down (bolt of black necromantic energy)

-        Zombies move in on kids

-        AUBERON: “Who are you? Why did you come here to die?”

MONOLOGUING

“It lied to you, you know? [gesturing to THATOOU] To children. It used you. And yet… people consider ME the monster.”

“You don’t actually know. None of you are real. You are creations. Golems. Meat puppets. You’re nothing. Not to them. Not to me.

“Interface Nodes like this bioprint children like you to study their primitive imagination. Monitor them, link them to prominent inhabitants of the Spheres and extract probabilities. You are a divination engine. Allowing them to control what is happening in the REAL WORLD. On the Spheres.

“It’s brilliant really. I trap cyclopses. The Inbetween Men create and populate artificial worlds like this. I have some ideas how to use these arcane mechanisms for extending my rule across Sentarspace. To liberate it from these celestial horrors.”

“They’ve kept us all trapped in a cage—in a zoo for—their own amusement.” // “No more, I say!”

THATOOU RISES

“Auberon!” A voice rings out through your minds. Thatoou rises from the floor, glowing. Auberon turns and looks and is hit with a rippling wave of telekinetic energy from Thatoou, “That radiation that you call magic? I call it Base Code, and I was born of it. Thank you for reconnecting me to the Interface.”

“Find your Dungeon Master… if I am defeated… you must take him through the Portal… gives you each access to Base Code…”

The boys each get access to the CHARACTER ABILITY they identified earlier…

E.g. Ernest: a crossbow appears in your hands. “The way is clear, Woog. I found a way back for us through the Mother Pillar.”

FINDING CHRIS

Chris is on a laboratory table. There’s a smell of ozone in the air. The top of his head has been removed. It looks like whoever has been working on him raided a hardware store rather than a surgery. Jumper cables and electrical wires run from his opened skull to a zombie bolted, seated to a table. Its mouth is babbling away, a recording device runs. It is speaking about all of the things that Chris has ever known. Right now, it’s talking about different breeds of horses and various DMG tables.

Chris turns to look at you. His head bristles with electrical nodes. He is uncharacteristically “Oh, hey guys. What are you doing here? Do you smell burnt toast?”

Guys, guys, guys… hey… “We are made of one another’s stories. Nothing else.”

AUBERON VS THATOOU: ROUND 2

Auberon has far more access to the Base Code than Thatoou realizes…

Massive battle between Auberon and Thatoou…

-        Thatoou summons his Gate Portal: “Flying Saucer”

-        Manor House is destroyed.

-        Thatoou protects the boys from the blast (globe of invulnerability – Ryan recognizes it)

What do the boys do during this battle?

-        Reality begins to melt around the boys as the Interface Node is damaged by Tahtoou vs Auberon

-        Auberon seizes control of the Gate Portal

-        Thatoou is alarmed

-        The boys have visions of their characters

Thatoou banishes 

-        The boys have to go through

-        They can ask the DM for a single boon…(write it it down on a card)

Thatoou final words

-        Interface Manifestations are our effort to harness fleshy imagination.

-        We harnessed energy on a scale you couldn’t imagine, in doing so, we lost the ability to communicate with lesser creatures – so we Bioprint these bodies… we employed Gardeners…

-        The Spheres are in crisis – what was meant to steward life beyond the Indistinction has become a danger to itself.

-        Keeping Secrets about your world from its inhabitants has only heightened the danger.

-        Auberon and Inbetween Man (THATOOU) have actually been her for “fourteen years” (it’s actually been a few days for him – still badly injured and severely traumatized)

o   The gaming world you all created together was the most popular setting for over 100 years. And all of your genetic codes were digitized under the Chinese Governate People’s Protection of Personal Data Act of 2034.

o   The kids and the town were manifested by the Inbetween Man to hide from Auberon while he healed

o   Auberon has been “trapped” in the town’s timeline… slowly figuring it out… he is patient

-        Thatoou:

-        It’s called Skeleton Lake (Big Lake) and Spooky Island (Bate Island) because Auberon moved into the Manor House on the Island soon after he arrived

-        The lake enlarged when the dam was built; flooded the valley including a number of graveyards that were never moved.

-        Auberon’s been creating undead from the corpse he found there; found he couldn’t use these, so he

-        Meanwhile, Auberon has built a cult amongst the town authorities (school board, police, City Hall)