Northern Front - Gameplay

Maialen arrives to the scene, breaking through the treeline into the clearing - just in time to watch Dallas get consumed by the frog. She stops running, taking a split second to evaluate the rest of the situation. Dallas inside the frog; Stefania, covered in acid; Dennis, badly hurt. She cracks her neck, and yells at the monster.

"Hey, you!" She starts slowly walking towards it, the frog's eyes spotting her. "Yes, that's right! I don't know if you understand me, but I'm only going to say this once." As she walks, she loosens up her clothing - discards her jacket on the floor, slackens her tie, rolls up her sleeves. "I don't know why you're here, or what brought you here, but this is your last chance to leave." She stretches her arms above her head a little, limbering up. "This town is under my protection. These people are."

"And if you don't leave? If you keep trying to do what you're doing?" Ten feet away from the frog, she stops, and holds her arm out to the side. She makes a loose fist in the air, almost as if she's holding something. And then, she is. The fumes in the air, from the swamp and the forest, are sucked into the gap she's formed - and then, something expands from within, growing outwards. A long, smoky chain, covered in spikes, with a small handle for her to hold onto.

"Then, you might just end up... croaking." There is no humour in her smile, as she cracks the whip once in the air, staring down the frog.

[The Big Entrance - 7+2=9, Frog watches and listens to Maialen until she finishes talking]

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Dennis gets back up and starts to run away toward the edge of the forest. Well, run is a poor choice of word. In his state it’s more of a limping hobble. Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! I gotta get the hell outta here. Fuck the chance of getting seen, I am not spending any more time deep in these woods.

As Dennis hobbles away, his hulking form staggering from sustained injuries, he comes upon the rest of the group that had to drive from the base, running hurriedly through the woods to catch up with Dallas. Crawford catches sight of him, her eyes widening in concern. "Holy shit, Dennis, what -" she catches herself and shakes her head, realizing she should be taking control of the situation. "Shit, fuck, alright... Dennis is very injured, there's a giant frog which I'm pretty sure just swallowed Dallas... Everyone who can fight, get the frog to spit up Dallas!"

Stopping her own advance to tend to Dennis, Crawford mutters some assurance as her hands begin to glow softly. "Now listen, this isn't my strong suit, so this is more of a band-aid for proper treatment later. You should hang back the rest of the fight. Now, hold still..."

As the glowing light fades, Dennis feels the worst of the bleeding stop. He's still in bad shape, but it hurts a lot less to just move now.

[Dennis is now STABLE.]

Meanwhile, the frog has locked eyes with Maialen upon her showy entrance. It doesn't actually understand her words, but it's still paying attention - because its eyes appear to follow the smoky whip that Maialen materialized before her. The frog itself doesn't understand why, but just for a moment, Maialen swears she could see something subconsciously unease the amphibious beast.

She got the attention she wanted. What now?

What now is Anna, taking advantage of the distraction, circles around to the side of the frog and draws her pistol. Taking aim she pops two rounds directly into its side. "Let go of my cousin you damned frog!"

The frog turns its attention to Anna, but Maggie is ready, pulling a sunflower seed out of a small bag at her hip and crushing it. "Belenos, patron of Aquelia, I invoke your light!" The crushed and crumbled pieces of the seed vanish into dust as they fall, and a brilliant flash appears in front of the frog's eyes, dazzling it and distracting it from the cop's attack.

The gargantuan frog lets out a wretched gurgle as Anna's bullets pierce its side after it had been distracted by Maialen. It prepares to retaliate in pained fury before being blinded by Maggie's magical flashbang.

Staggering from the repeated shots, blows, and stuns, the frog releases a guttural, pained bellow. It lurches forward blindly in desperation, evidently looking to take revenge upon its aggressors. In its frenzy, it almost seems like it will succeed in swallowing another...

Until its legs give out. The giant frog collapses, and it gives one final, defeated croak as its light-scarred eyes roll back, its tongue limply hanging out of its mouth.

Some internal gurgling can be heard, and the contents of its stomach are forcibly ejected, Dallas unceremoniously emerging from the fallen frog's mouth.

Crawford arrives just in time to witness the collapse of the frog. She puts a palm to her forehead and stares momentarily, mouth agape. "Holy shit..."

There's an eerily quiet beat in the forest that starkly contrasts the chaos of the battle.

Now what?

"I guess this is going to be another file for the 'unsolved cases' folder," Anna says, holstering her pistol before looking over at Crawford. "I don't suppose you have any people who might help with some of the paperwork? It's going to be another long night otherwise."

"Might be in the 'unsolved cases' for official police records, but I reckon there's a good deal of figuring out we're gonna need to do. I've seen some big frogs in my time, but them fellers don't get that big naturally," Fairbanks comments.

Crawford clenches her jaw as she surveys the post-battle scene. "Fairbanks is right. They sure don't get this big on their own... Fuck." She crouches down to help Dallas up from their gastric deposition.

"Y'all know if anyone else saw these things? I know there was the jogger, and we'll have to figure out what to do with Cathy." She sighs as she takes another look at the corpse of the giant frog. "We shouldn't stay here much longer though. We need to reconvene at the base and make a game plan. Everyone good to roll?"

"Y'all can go on ahead, I'll just be a minute here," Fairbanks says, setting down his tackle box, and removing a pair of thick rubber gloves, a hunting knife, and a ramshackle collection of hardware that appears to be made of a blackberry phone, a glowing crystal, an antenna, and a collection of wires and batteries, all haphazardly duct taped together. "Well, now, here might be something," Fairbanks notes, as the scanner hums and beeps away. "This big feller's readings are all way off, especially in the magical... whatchamacallit? Spectrum, that's it. Bet that's what got it past the detection system." Setting aside the scanner, he grimly approaches the belly of the corpse, making a practiced incision. Kneeling, he thrusts an arm inside, wriggling it around, before coming back out with a bone. "This'd be our poor old friend Eric, I'd bet," Fairbanks says, with a tsk of sympathy. "It's from a human, at the very least."

Anna shudders. "That's disgusting, and no little bit horrible," She says. "At least it's dead now."

Fairbanks nods, wiping his gloves on the nearby grass before he stands, putting his things away. "I reckon that's just about all I can tell from it with a quick check, so I'm ready to head back," he remarks.

After more than a few moments of slowly decompressing after the fight, Dallas lets out a mighty "hoo-whee. That was a hell of a frog, weren't it?" they say, wiping some of the acid off themselves. "Hell of a fight, too. I'll need to recalibrate Colin if them varmints are that big all the time. Let's git this all wrapped up, boys."

Crawford nods. "I'll have a disposal team out here ASAP. We need to book it back so we can go over everything." She and Frelja pile everyone into the cars they took to get here, and before long the group is assembled once more in the hideout below the town of Barndock.

A holographic image of the recently-vanquishes frogs projects from the central console instead of the Barndock map. Crawford scowls and hurriedly types on a keyboard, adding something to the projection - Fairbanks' readings of the skewed magic. She looks to Frelja, who is standing by her, and gestures as if to ask "ever seen shit like this before?", to which Frelja responds with a simple shake of their head. Crawford pinches the bridge of her nose and turns back to the group.

"Alright. I'll be honest, I have no idea what the fuck these things are or where the fuck they came from. The fact the frogs' magic is out of whack means something, we just don't know what yet. It does confirm, however, that we need more people on the ground here in case more shit like this pops up."

She points at Maialen, Anna, Fairbanks, and Dallas. "You four. I think you'll be best as a response team. Someone with supernatural weaponry, someone as public correspondence, someone with a lot of experience, and someone, well... with a helluva lot of guns. The rest of you can help here with things like security and witness handling... Also the less a wendigo is out and about, the better, no offense." A pang of sadness is evident in Crawford's voice as she mulls over the options. "The jogger should be a pretty simple short-frame memory wipe, but Cathy... How are we gonna deal with a missing husband? Fuck..."

She bites her finger before realizing where she is, shaking her head and refocusing. "Okay. Okay okay okay." She looks at the previously-appointed four with a serious expression. "Can we count on you to help with this new threat? I know it's a lot to ask, especially so suddenly. But you'll be helping a lot of people, and hopefully prevent what happened to Eric and his family from happening to more folks here. If you want out, I can't stop you, but... You're by far the best we could ask for."

What will it be?

"Shucks, I've been in a long while," Fairbanks says with a shrug. "It's gonna take more than a little cockamamie magic and a big ol' frog to scare me off. 'Specially if it means making sure we don't have any more missing husbands around these parts."

"I don't mind one bit. I'll hafta call the folks at the Continental Cowpoke Agency about it, but I'm sure they'll want in on th' ground level anywho," Dallas agrees.

"Well dang, I got into this job..." Anna pauses for a second. "Well, not this job, but the police force, you know what I mean I'm sure. I got into this to protect citizens, and it seems nothing preys on helpless citizens like this stuff. So yeah, you can count me in," She finishes, crossing her arms and nodding.

Releasing a breath, Crawford is visibly relieved. If nobody accepted the offer, well... she didn't want to think about that. But that's not important now. She looks to Frelja, who gives her an encouraging nod and smile.

"Great. I think I speak for all of us here when I say thank you, and that you'll be doing not just Barndock, but the world a great service."

She sits back in an office chair and fidgets with a pen. "I'll be sure to keep you all updated  on important matters and anything we learn about these new monsters. Until something pops up, feel free to keep living as you were. You'll be given state-of-the-art, discreet communicators to notify when you'll be needed. I uh..." She stops fiddling with the pen.

"I guess that's it for now. Oh, and, good work out there, what with all the curveballs. It helps me assure that you're the right folks for the job."

For a moment, she gazes off into nowhere. "Hopefully next time we can get there BEFORE the monster attacks innocents, but..." She trails off, wistful.

The short-statured woman stands up, ready to dismiss everyone and return to her research, when she remembers something.

"Oh, yeah, before you go -" A glint appears in Crawford's eye. "I think we need a name for this on-call task force, so...

...How does 'Northern Front' sound?"

[Case 1: Completed]

[Creature: Frog Matriarch]
[Status: Slain]

Players now have free time to RP as they wish and get to know the town and residents of Barndock as they see fit.

When players are ready to continue with the story they may notify me and we can continue with the main story.

(No pressure to go anywhere or do anything if they do not have anything they wish to do - I am perfectly fine with just continuing if that's what we all want!)

After the group receives their communicators and parts ways, Fairbanks heads back into town, taking a leisurely stroll towards the library. "'cuse me," he says, with a smile, approaching the information desk. "I was wondering if I could trouble you for some help finding a book or two."

"Of course!" comes the reply from the librarian, a young woman named Denise. "What in particular were you looking for?"

"Something or other along the lines of local legends and folklore," Fairbanks answers. "The more obscure, the better. Think you could help me find something along those lines?"

Denise adjusts her glasses and taps away at the library desk computer. "Let's see... Our section's small, but hopefully it still has what you need. We got cryptid catalogues, Alaskan Native folklore, scary stories to tell in the dark... sound like what you need?"

"That all sounds perfect," Fairbanks says with a nod. "Now where might I be finding those sections?"

Denise happily designates the section of the library, a small but book-dense corner with volumes of all shapes and sizes. Fairbanks has no problems finding the books he seeks.

To the untrained reader, there would just be a disjointed mishmash of monster tales and cryptid sightings.

Fairbanks, however, is an expert. He is familiar with a fair few of these monsters - probably even hunted some of them himself. Many of them are benign monsters, simply looking to live life, sentient or not. Some, though, are actively dangerous or malicious, seeking to harm other beings, and those are the monsters that require hunting.

Compared to other areas with monster sightings, Barndock does seem to have a relatively extensive record despite the small population - there is probably something around here that causes a higher appearance rate, but there is not much in any book beyond the actual sighting of the monsters.

Another thing Fairbanks recognizes is the phenomena of the monsters - any "special" or unusual abilities they have to explain the bizarre sightings. Recalling Crawford's words of monsters having a higher natural affinity for magic, that is most likely the explanation for any weird occurrences related to these sightings.

Something else clicks: The readings from the frogs before. All these monsters are evidently in some sort of control of their latent magical abilities. There was no way the frogs could have had any control, their magic readings were far too abnormal. These abnormal readings are something previously unseen.

It seems there may be a new kind of monster afoot.

Fairbanks blinks his eyes, moments after coming to his latest conclusion, realizing that they've become a bit tired from his hours of reading. He glances outside, realizing it's become close to sundown by now, and stands up, a bit stiffly. "Looks like I got a bit caught up in the reading I was doing," he says, passing by the librarian with a sheepish chuckle. "Hope I didn't get in your way for closing up or nothing."