Ch. 4 - Vice over Virtue

Transcription of a Field Operation Brief to the Overseer Council of Site-27

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the Overseer Council, I am happy to report that the expedition into Item #27-1593, aka The Tower of An'Thane, was successful. The investigators managed to find this God of theirs and return with a portion of its power. They also returned with other artifacts. Ceremonial daggers, which don't seem to do much; a few dirty robes covered in light blue feathers of an unknown species of corvid; a few oversized bird helmets; and some other junk. The main take away appears to be the green orb brought back by Mr. Estrada. Preliminary testing is underway but it seems as though we are still running into the same problems as we were before we acquired the artifact. We're still running into issues with causality. Still running into massive amounts of Hawking radiation. So far, 4 X-class test subjects have expired due to testing, with another 2 expected to expire in less than 6 months. Anyways, that's neither here nor there. As agreed upon, we will now give them the option of receiving amnestics and being released into the general population or we will begin their training as investigators for The Contingency. I do hope they choose the latter, since we're still a little short-handed from the last attack on our site. The Purifiers did quite a number on us…
  Now, down to business. We have a new case brewing in a small Kwakiutl village not far from here. The name of the village - and excuse my pronunciation - is Gwa'sala Nakwaxda'xw. There seems to be a rogue poltergeist wreaking havoc over there and spooking the natives. We have already intercepted as much of the media coverage as we could from the affected area and, thankfully, the public on TikTok seem to be doubtful of the authenticity of this poltergeist. Hopefully, it will be a pretty routine mission and they can capture it. Perfect for some rookie investigators. Naturally, this doesn't fall in the purview of "Parallel Realities" so we have given the mission to the Paranormal Investigations Division - Dr. Charlie Pierce to oversee operations. We have also gotten a request from Iona Clark, a thaumaturge of ours, to assist them in this investigation. It seems she's taken a liking to the group and Lord knows they might need the extra help if anything goes south.
  Mission Objectives for the investigators are as follows: • Zero media coverage • Keep casualties and injuries within reason • Safely capture the anomaly • Exfiltrate the area of operations with minimal impact on the native population
  Should these goals be met, our new investigators will be given their choice of Department to work for their next assignment, as well as reassignment to another Site, should they desire it. Personal leave will also be permitted to preserve their sanity and well-being.
  Ladies and gentlemen of the Overseer Council, that concludes my report for this evening. I will now open for any questions or concerns."
  Brief given on February 2023 - Site-27