Gareth Hendrix and the Bunker Bigfoot [Tricube Tales] [Solo RPG], Part 6: Pomp and Circumstances

[Pomp] [1]

Hoyst coffee, right next to the old Subway (A ghost of an old $5 Footlong sign still sometimes visible in the window on certain sunny days, baked into the glass thanks to summer heat) and the tax place turned into a quick loans. Around back of the big parking lot is the Bigly Pigly, Kametra's family's barbecue joint.

The look on Thomas Hoyst's face, smiling but that kind of smile you hold for cameras when you are hiding a deep and abiding need to lapse into depression or angry outbursts, paints a picture. There are ribbons and banners and tables of t-shirts and merch and there are people, but there are not that many people. [2]

Gareth knew it was coming. Had heard from Tommy that folks in Cresthill are definitely co-opting the event. A few big "MEET JACK FALL" parties going on this evening. The hotels over there filled with Bunker's one motel has new new guests. Worse, Hooter Williams, the man who snapped the pictures that started this mess, is actually going to be at the Cresthill Library later which is sure to have a bigger crowd that this. The "Bunker Bigfoot" has turned into the "Cresthill Creature" really fast, faster than Thomas and Tommy can catch up. 

Seeing Lina and Lana standing hand in hand to one side, Gareth realizes the two of them did some work, probably with Kametra running the numbers to protect her friend. 

A mid-2010s SUV pulls up into the parking lot. High end gone a bit to rugged. The half-sized crowd surges forward a bit, regaining some momentum. Jack Fall is here! Folks get cell phones out. A least a few people start picking up a book. Maybe a couple of them actually read it. 

The SUV comes to a stop and out steps the main himself. People cheer. Thomas Hoyst steps forward and the stone mask smile has become more genuine. If Fall notices the smaller number, he does not give in. He looks enthused to see a crowd. Not hamming it up or show boating. Just enjoying being in company.

Jack Fall is in travel clothes. Giving off the appearance of a distant cousin stopping off to visit. T-shirt and jeans. His hair almost gray. His skin well used to the outside sun. The attendees immediately fall into the vibe. Here is a star that is one of them. And, Gareth watching from the edge of the parking lot, feels that it is genuine. The man who spent all those years making a career of finding himself while traveling through small towns and the backwoods now considers places like Bunker to be his spiritual home. [3]

Allowing himself to get a bit caught up in the vibes, feeling a little bad for the people who blew off this meet and greet for the fancier ones later because Gareth doubts they will get this more honest glance, Gareth starts to feel like maybe it is going to be ok. This will be good for Bunker (and Cresthill). Jack Fall will not bring in a stack of paramilitary hunters to track down the Kai Yotes. Instead, there is opportunity, here.

Then.. Gareth feels it. He just does not know what IT is. He feels it almost like thin, red strings in the air. Something flowing through the aether. A spider web pressing down not only on this parking lot but spreading all over Bunker. Something is...searching. One of the not-there-but-also-there threads touches Gareth's arm and again he can almost see it, like a thread. He lets his mind brush against it, follow it, and it seems to be originating from the SUV that Jack Fall just exited from. 

Like some invisible hand, some invisible claw, reaching out to grab him by neck. 

Breath caught in his throat, Gareth is unsure of what emotion is he is feeling. His own heart beat like the footsteps of God on the ground. Something is coming and he cannot help but think that something is coming for him, specifically. He reaches into his own mind, pulls forth something he barely understands himself, some energy deep inside of him buried even deeper than his own wolf, and with his own invisible claw he gently plucks at the thread growing thicker and redder, more and more like a blood vein, and breaks its connection to him. [4]

All at once, the feeling subsides and the sounds rush back in. The loud laughter from Jack Fall's fans seems joyous. No one is sweating bout Gareth Hendrix in the corner. If they saw him they'd probably ask what size and color of a t-shirt he wanted. He already has two. Tommy and Thomas Hoyst both hooked him up. 

Gareth blinks his eyes multiple times and shakes his head, clearing his thoughts. Maybe he should join the crowd, maybe he...

Then he sees. Her. Stepping out of Jack Fall's SUV. Walking over to Jack and putting her hand on his shoulder. Jack wrapping his arms around her waist. The crowd loving the domestic scene. Her face a huge smile full of teeth. Her hair gone grayer. Her skin more lined from the sun and the smoking.

Her body still tall and thin like her son's.

Lucy Hendrix. Gareth's mother. The woman who married the Big Bad Wolf. She is in Bunker. A witch who carried a hunter's crossbow, blood magic and silver hand in hand. Who's genetics made Gareth into a different sort of wolf. Who might have been right there at the cause of whatever the Troubles were.

And based on what Gareth just experienced, she is looking for him. 

Glancing forward he sees Lina step up and start shaking Jack and Lucy's hand. Was that a squint in Lucy's eyes. Can she sense she has found the werewolves? Or is Gareth just being paranoid. He finds himself wanting to shout "RUN" towards her but also know that Lina can honestly take care of herself. 

Which makes Gareth think about the other werewolves that could also be here. 

Panicking now, more than even when his mom's spell almost trapped him, Gareth is searching the crowd (while trying to stay hidden from Lucy's eyes, for all the good that will do) for the other half of this terrible shitty puzzle. Right as Gareth is starting to relax because neither Barlow nor Ms. Macy are not here, he hears tires squeal and looking back to the road sees Roland Deiter's old pickup truck heading back towards the trailer park, a couple of the other Kai Yotes squeezed into the cab. [5]

In just a few minutes, Barlow Hendrix will know. And that is a very bad thing, indeed.

[and Circumstance] [6]

Not sure what to do, Gareth fled the area and went to his part time job at the Cook Motel, a small road side stop over about an eighth of a mile off the interstate. Some of the rooms are perma-closed and the workload is pretty light but Gareth pitches in and tries to repair the broken stuff. Offers to help with some marketing though some of the deep cracks and decades of stale cigarette smoke might make it a hard smell. 

"Vintage," Cindy, the owner's daughter, has joked a few times. 

While working on cleaning out some clogged pipes (the sort of folk who stop here tending to be the sort that use a lot of hairspray on their way to river fishing holidays), Gareth hears Cindy call his name and quickly wipes his hands. He goes to the door and stops because right there, standing beside a clear excited Cindy, is Jack Fall. And behind Jack Fall... 

Gareth wonders if he can turn around, shift into wolf form, and punch through the back wall of the bathroom. Instead, he works extremely hard to control himself. No wolf claws. No teeth. No red eyes. Please, universe, no red eyes. [7]

Walks forward, and smiles. The two men shake hands and now Jack Fall is asking Gareth for a favor. See, Lana had sent on the pictures that Gareth took and well, it had a big impact. Jack says he loved the photos. He considers Gareth to be an up and coming talent. Just needs to find an angle. Wants to know if Gareth will work with his film crew... there was some plans to do another piece but one his photographers had their equipment stolen and the show was trying to work out a new angle... oh, no, sorry, not taking photos... he wants to feature Gareth on his show because of... well, something else. At this, Jack waves Lucy over. 

Gareth looks straight at his mom's eyes, one of the first people in his life to match him for height, and has no idea how he is to play this. And just like that a tear rolls down Lucy's cheek and suddenly she is crying. This confuses Gareth enough that his own near tears are checked. 

Jack, stepping forward, fills in the tearful silence. "This is Lucretia Castillo, my fiancé. When Lana sent those photos in, Luc was right there with me. She usually is, nowadays. Haha, anyhow, she saw your photos and then saw your name. And...well, we were already coming here but I think...I mean..."

At this, Lucy steps forward and wraps Gareth in a long armed hug with Gareth too stunned to return the gesture. "Gareth," says Lucy, "I am your mom and I am so sorry I gave you up for adoption." [9]

-- Mechanical Notes --

1. Determining the scene type, we get a double Ace for "Major Shift" with the two sub-shifts being 2 + 3 so "negative for Gareth" and a twist: So...ok, get this. Then I roll on the complex question table from Tricube Solo to get an idea of what kind of "thing" might be negative for Gareth. I get 4, 6 --> Love / Desire and 4, 4 --> related directly to him. For the twist, I get 5, 6 and first thought was "blood hound". Hooo boy... here we go. On top of all that I got a Queen of Clubs, so a effort (2) scene related to skills/activities/doing something with an 8 of spades so...easy crafty challenge. EASY. Fun times. 
2. How many people are here? 6 of clubs. Less than half the potential. 
3. "Does Jack Fall really consider these people to be his true fans?" Queen of Hearts. Quite a bit of yes, and... he essentially considers the outdoors lifestyle and the smaller stories to have saved him. 
4. A double miss followed by a double hit to solve the scene task. Gareth nearly gets caught but then pushes back.
5. "Is Barlow at the event?" Joker [2, negative for Gareth] --> 6 of spades. No, but.. other members of the trailer park are and they are the sort to go straight back to Barlow with the news.
6. Scene type, King of Clubs (one about activity, again...this time with three effort). Oh, and good. Ten of Hearts. A HARD crafty challenge.
7. Four fives rolled in a row. Two karma spent (out of three) to make that four sixes. An exceptional success. First karma spent in the game but it stopped Gareth from losing completely control of this scene. 
8. "Does Jack Fall actually like Gareth's photographs?" Ace (man...with a 6, new Event = "a theft") --> Jack of Spades. Bad for Gareth's breaking free on his own. 9 of diamonds so yeppers, though.
9. "Does Lucy/Lucretia admit to being Gareth's mom?" 8 of hearts --> Yes, and... well, here the "and" is a bit weird for me so I went that she leans into it, wants to make a deal about it...but since 8 is the lowest end of the yes response she kind of encapsulates. Probably a lie. Maybe a lie. Who knows in this game?

-- Doug's Notes --

If you don't have a mild panic attack figuring out what is happening, are you really using enough oracles? Ha! 

When I first introduced "Ms. Lucy", Gareth's mom, it was in an odd flashback where the clues were that she was something bad for the pack and a witch. I tossed in a dream sequence about her death but left myself a bit of wiggle room. The phrase I used at the time was "I am not sure if Gareth's dream was a mystical vision or more a metaphor, but I think it is true enough that the point still stands. " Still, I figured I'd treat it as she was dead and the mystery was whether or not Barlow himself killed her (with signs always pointing towards "yes").

Once I got that Major Shift that directly impacted Gareth and also flavored some plot threads, I realized that I had roughly three people that it might have applied to...not including Barlow who didn't feel right. It could be Lina (and I have grown to think of them less as enemy-lovers and more as siblings where Lina's teasing fights are actually trying to get Gareth to break free even though Gareth did not understand that) or Stacy (which felt boring) or... his mom. It is rare that such a big shift in the story feels so right but it's also the most fun you can have while solo playing: just letting the mad idiot god of oracles pick and pluck things that make you go hmm. 

I had planned a version of the "And Circumstance" scene all the way back when I worked out a much more detailed plot about Jack Fall. Last episode, at the party where Lana suddenly shows up and is an in clenched it a bit. However, once we get to the actual scene I get a card that says "bad for Gareth's plot" and I realized that my intended path forward with Gareth (perhaps unrecognized by Lucy despite her searching, Gareth did, after all, evade her seeking spell) had another shift coming up. 

Jack Fall does not want Gareth to take photos, shoot film, stuff that will get Gareth an escape. No, he now wants to feature Gareth meeting his long lost mom. Until we know whether or not Lucy is a good person (signs point to "it's complicated"), this is just another trap laid down.

I think this means we are closer to a conclusion than I realized. My original idea of having a few sessions dedicated to filming to buy some time for story to develop is pretty much kaput. Barlow is about to rage. We are going to find out the rough background for the trouble. And the show down with the pack is likely just a couple of sessions away. 

Buckle up.