Session 7: The Ghost of Big Moose Lake, pt. 1
Before this session, Jim's player had asked for a bunch of stuff, which I let him spend his monthly income to pay for. A lot of the stuff had arrived by being dropped from orbit, landing in Big Moose Lake, up in the Adirondacks.
The session started at the newly acquired ranch house, one month later. Meatshield, Chelsea, and Mag were working out in the bunker, with Dimitri hanging out in the ranch house's kitchen with Doc and Doc's wife. Jim arrived at the ranch looking for Doc, who (because his player was AFK) was in the shower at the time. Jim basically wanted to hire Doc for assistance in retrieving the care package from the lake, and the rest of the team decided to basically tag along.
After close to five hours of driving (hitting construction outside Albany), the team pulled into Inlet, NY, about fifteen minutes or so from their destination. Seeing a place to eat - the Coffee Cup (sadly no longer there IRL, after my grandmother sold the place) - the team stopped to get some lunch. I indulged my memory, describing the place as I remembered it from my childhood, complete with the green Rust-O-Leum shamrocks spray-pained into the sidewalk in front of it. As the party entered, there were two older men at the counter as the waitress yelled into the kitchen, "Shirley, I think that's your son-in-law out there! He's asking for scrapple!" She then turned back to one of the men, a trucker, and asked, "What's scrapple?" (Remember, this is '87, and scrapple wasn't yet that well known outside of Pennsylvania Dutch areas.) The trucker failed his Compulsive Wiseass (9) self-control roll and gave a smart-assed answer including "sawdust" and "floor sweepings" as ingredients, before giving a proper answer. Shirley (the owner/cook - and my grandmother (RIP)) called out the door that she didn't have any, especially as a lot of the party was asking the waitress for it.
At this point, the seaplane service pilot also sitting at the counter, Jim Payne, remarked that when flying over Big Moose Lake earlier his plane's instruments went all crazy and that - during the day - he'd seen the local ghost walking on the surface of the lake. This of course piqued the team's curiosities, and they asked about the nature of the ghost. Payne then described the events surrounding
the local ghost story, before paying his bill and heading out. The trucker soon followed suit.
Soon after, the party arrived at the lake, where an unnatural fog had rolled in mid-day. Because of the fog, the boat rental place refused to rent them a motorboat, saying that when the fog is unnaturally thick people have gone missing. As they discussed this, the fog retreated, with a woman in a white hooded cloak being seen on the lake before fading from sight.
With the fog cleared out (for the time being), half the party rented a boat and went out onto the lake, while Dimitri and Doc observed from the dock at the boat launch. Jim reconfigured his omnitool into a breathing apparatus for Meatshield, and once over the care package's transponder the two dove overboard.
While Meat and Jim were in the drink, the fog rolled back in, the "ghost" appeared and fired a warning shot at the party, telling them to "Stay away!" in unearthly tones. Chel teleported to intercept the ghost, but she went right through her, fading in and out of vision as she did so. The ghost ran to the island in the middle of the lake; Chelsea followed her to the island as the others returned to shore with the care package.
And then Chel was zapped unconscious....
-----
This arc is kind of a filler arc, not tied directly to either of the two main plots. Basically, I looked at it as equal parts team-building and Scooby Doo mystery.