Session 3 — Mystery 2, Part 1

Session Info
Session # 3
Date Played 19th April 2026
In-Game Date —
Mystery Mystery 2

What Happened

Downtime — Two Days After the Howler Fight

In the two days since killing the howlers, Cuthbert, Ms March, and Doctor Webb collectively checked in with both the Durgins and the Cranfields. Both families report they are sleeping better. Doctor Webb examines Lilybelle and confirms he has cured her croup.

A tenuous détente has been reached between the two families. Cathy Cranfield brought the Durgins a homemade pie.

Cuthbert has been working the Richie problem. After consulting Doctor Webb and learning there is not a pill to stop a man from having children, he tried a more direct approach: he asked Richie whether he wants children. Richie was understandably put off by this line of questioning. Cuthbert has managed to both piss off the Durgins and disappoint the Order in one manoeuvre. He messages the Order: "Don't worry. Not over. Still working on it."

Cold Open

A hawk circles over a creek. It spies a red writhing snake. It swoops and tries to pull away with its catch. A second "snake" takes down the hawk. A white mucus consumes the hawk — oozing from the hawk's "prey".

Roll credits.

The Randy Saloon, Late Afternoon

Two days after the howler fight. The gang are at The Randy Saloon, discussing the case.

CUTHBERT: So we can all agree… They weren't wolves.
MS MARCH: They looked like wolves.

Ms March refuses to rule out that the howlers were wolves — she has not seen every type of wolf. In contrast, Cuthbert has never heard of Germany, which leads Doctor Webb to point out that just because Cuthbert does not know about something does not mean it doesn't exist.

MS MARCH: I haven't seen every wolf. Maybe some have weird knees.

The gang wonder: where did the howlers come from? Why did they attack the houses — what did they gain beside a pig? What sustains them? They didn't follow the howlers' tracks out of the homestead after the fight. They were too preoccupied extinguishing the fires that Doctor Webb had started.

Enter Bart Fletchley

The swinging doors clatter. A slim, unstable, elderly man with a straggly beard and a straw hat enters. He declares: "My family. They're back. They're here." Then he collapses.

Doctor Webb swoops in to examine him. Ms March orders him a shot of coffee.

Dan Randy is concerned there is a man lying in the middle of his floor just before the dinner rush. He wants this to be a family establishment — he clarifies this means an establishment suitable for families, not one owned by his family. Dan Randy does not have any family.

The gang get the man onto his feet and over to their table. He requests a stronger drink. Dan Randy brings over a bottle of whiskey. His eyes clear almost immediately. The alcohol appears to be improving his condition.

The gang cannot smell alcohol on his breath. He is disorientated, malnourished, confused.

The man's name, they learn once he's revived, is Bart Fletchley.

Bart reports that his family were dead but are now back — and appear to be trapped within his cornfield. He sees his wife and children standing in the field every day. They disappear when he goes near them. Doctor Webb asks whether the version of his wife and kids in the field seem tangible.

BART: You think I'm crazy, don't you?
DOCTOR WEBB: Not at all. I'm trying to determine whether they're a spirit or a zombie.

CUTHBERT: Are you related to Bart Coltron?
BART: I thought his name was Bort.
NAT: Can someone else pipe up "my son is also named Bort"?

CUTHBERT, on the gang's transport difficulties: "We have one bicycle, one horse, and eight feet."

Bart wants to gather a posse to investigate his field. He leaves to fetch his cart — which is, incidentally, the one his children died in.

Alfie Negotiates His Exit

Alfie has been halfheartedly playing piano so he can eavesdrop on the Bart conversation. He puts on a big show to persuade Dan Randy to let him leave early. Kids, mums, and dads all enjoy the show; Dan agrees — but with conditions. He will allow Alfie to leave, but wants him to spruce up his outfit. Maybe sew on some flair.

DAN RANDY: People love flair.

As the conversation wraps up:

ALFIE: Have you ever been in love?

ALFIE: We should get to know each other better as coworkers… (Remembers Dan Randy is his boss.) No, wait!

Dan attempts another hat-to-vest compromise on the way out.

On the Road — The Supernatural Question

While waiting for Bart's cart, Ms March asks the others how they so readily accept supernatural explanations. Doctor Webb reveals his entry point: one of his patients was a werewolf. As a man of logic and science, he found it easy to accept that a bite can transfer a virus — one that happens to render the patient vulnerable to silver and moonlight.

Ms March asks whether he was able to save this patient. He was not.

Alfie asks Doctor Webb about the "hippo oath."

Ms March asks whether Doctor Webb has had to make difficult moral choices. Doctor Webb states he would not withhold treatment from a bad man. His first priority — above all other considerations — is to save the patient. For example, he would not have let Dan Randy move Bart from the floor during the dinner service if he hadn't been confident Bart was capable of standing.

Fletchley Farm

Bart drives the gang south in his cart to Fletchley Farm.

The corn looks funny.

Bart's wife was Beth Fletchley. His children were Raya (12) and Robert (10). They died three years ago on the family's journey to their new home. His wife subsequently died — of a broken heart, possibly — while helping him set up the farm.

His children, when standing in the corn, look lost. They never speak.

MS MARCH, looking for an alternate explanation: "You got a well-stocked liquor cabinet?"

Bart does not drink often, nor does he make his own alcohol.

Cuthbert is making a deliberate effort to sound sympathetic — he has been told he is overbearing. He watches Doctor Webb address Bart, and now wants tips on how to speak calmly.

DOCTOR WEBB to Bart: "We will do our best to bring them — and you — peace."

Bart drives off. The gang are standing outside the cornfield. It is dark.

Inside the Cornfield

Ms March sarcastically asks whether any of them know of corn-related monsters. Cuthbert only knows about Children of the Corn.

Open questions hang in the air: where are the graves for Beth, Raya, and Robert? Are the spirits guarding something?

The gang confirm that Bart is correct — some of the corn does look odd. Huge kernels the size of golf balls alongside weirdly small ones. Some stalks have grown up, stopped, then started growing in a different direction.

The gang enter the field. Alfie trips on a machete and keeps it.

CUTHBERT: Is that a type of potato?
DOCTOR WEBB: Mashed.
CUTHBERT: Ah! Mashed. I'm thinking of mashed.
BRENDAN: I hate that I got "machete" / "mashed".

Alfie is wildly waving his newfound machete. Cuthbert helps Ms March read the field.

NAT: Will I do a Read a Bad Situation roll or do I have hubris?

Ms March spots an iridescent quality in the moonlight around the corn ahead and to the East — particles and dust drifting in the air. She posits this could be fireflies. She realises that going North or East, towards the light, will provide answers.

NAT, reading the options for questions to ask Kate: "What's the best way to protect…" — can I replace 'victims' with 'idiots'?

The best way to protect the idiots is to cover their mouths so they do not come into contact with the particles. Ms March explains the reason to mask up: fireflies love going down your throat. The gang cover their mouths with bandanas.

Alfie and Cuthbert climb a bridge within the field. Doctor Webb and Ms March intend to follow — but a breeze picks up, shifts the dust around the corn, and the pair suddenly disappear, each transported to a different part of the field. They yell but their voices are muffled in the dust cloud.

Doctor Webb reflects on what just happened and speculates: there is a disorientating presence here. The cause may not be a monster or an individual but a phenomenon — something affecting the crops, making them wonky and deformed, spread through the air. Ms March finds her way back to the bridge. The gang reunites.

NAT: I would like to lasso Alfie.

Ms March restrains Alfie with a lasso, loops it around her belt.

ALFIE: Whyyy?

MS MARCH: Take your arms out, stop looking like a tied up hog.

Alfie fell to the ground during the lassoing. His wriggling shifted the mask — exposing him to the dust.

Alfie sees the form of his dead father.

Doctor Webb attempts to reassure the panicked youth that "whatever is coming for you, we can help." Ms March ties the others to her as well. She checks Alfie's mouth for a firefly and finds some of the iridescent matter inside.

ALFIE: I thought I saw someone.
MS MARCH: Who?
ALFIE: It doesn't matter.

Doctor Webb speculates that the dust has a hallucinogenic quality. When asked by Ms March why he thinks this, he replies: because Bart was convinced he saw the dead. Alfie confirms he saw someone deceased. Doctor Webb's working theory: this may explain Bart's visions — not his family literally returned, but the dust in his own field.

The dust is not moving of its own accord — just drifting in the wind. It is concentrated in a dome shape at two central points. The gang are by one and near the other.

Ms March investigates a corn husk. There are small red fibres on it — like red hair / corn silk. Something red is sporadically peppered across the corn, like a disease. Doctor Webb has not seen a medical condition that looks similar, but identifies it as looking natural — like an algae. He scrapes some of the diseased corn into a vial to investigate later. Ms March takes a second vial sample.

(Warned not to ingest it until they know more, Ms March implies she is not intending to use it on herself.)

The gang feel a sudden pressure in the air. Alfie is spooked — thousand yard stare. Ms March tells him not to worry as he has a machete.

The corn becomes more odd-looking and more diseased the further they go. Some cobs have popped like popcorn. The corn appears to grow and change as the gang pass by.

They hit a dead end: the ground is moist and covered in a red fibrous material growing up the plants. Spores flow out from this mass.

MS MARCH to Doctor Webb, on killing the spores: "You used to be a farmer. What's the opposite of what you do?"

Ms March burns some of the mass. It turns to ash. Doctor Webb is concerned about burning the corn — wind and smoke might disperse the spores further.

SEAN: I do some therapeutic hacking.

Alfie hacks the mound. It is a five foot square of moist red dirt with an earthy smell; the corn is covered in fibres.

Alfie fails and takes 1 Harm. When cutting a pathway to the main mound, he is convinced he has hacked into his father — and drops the machete in shock. He tries to run but clotheslines himself as the lasso goes taut. Ms March sprints after him, pulling Doctor Webb and Cuthbert to the ground.

Ms March trains her gun on the mound. Alfie wants the others to go on without him.

ALFIE: He's dead! He's dead. He's supposed to be dead.

Cuthbert intends to use magic on the mound. Alfie, desperate: "Maybe you'll see your father." Cuthbert has Alfie wipe his tears on a cloth.

CUTHBERT: I'm going to use that to attack your dad.

The question arises: how do you test whether tears are salty without tasting them?

CUTHBERT: I don't want to taste your tears.
ALFIE: I don't want to taste your handkerchief.

Cuthbert decides to assume the tears are salty. No one has to taste anything.

Cuthbert's magic is successful. The mass shrinks into a sinkhole — crumbles, decays into itself, dissipates into gooey sludge. The section collapses. The iridescence begins to fade into the breeze.

Cuthbert cannot identify what phenomenon this is.

MS MARCH: Cuthbert, you've got the real opposite of a green thumb.
KATE: And on that, we'll end our session…

The Mystery

Threat

What is it? A phenomenon — possibly an organism — spreading through the air via spores and iridescent particles. It deforms corn (giant kernels, misdirected growth, some cobs popped like popcorn), produces red fibrous material that grows up plants. Doctor Webb suspects the particles are hallucinogenic — Alfie's mask slipped and he saw his dead father; Doctor Webb's theory is that Bart's visions and decline may be caused by long-term exposure to the dust in his own field, but this is unconfirmed. A creature in the cold open disguised as a red snake and consumed a hawk with white mucus — connection to the cornfield unconfirmed.

How was it stopped? Partially. Cuthbert used magic on one mound — it collapsed into a sinkhole of gooey sludge and the iridescence began to fade. A second concentration point remains. Mystery ongoing.

Clues Found

Outcome

Unresolved. One mound collapsed by Cuthbert's magic; iridescence beginning to fade. A second concentration point remains. Investigation continues next session.

Key NPCs This Session

Name Role What Happened
Bart Fletchley Homesteader, widower Burst into the Randy Saloon in distress; collapsed; told the gang his dead family appear in his cornfield; drove them south to investigate; left them outside in the dark
Dan Randy Saloon owner Concerned about a man on his floor at dinner rush; clarified he does not have a family; continued hat/vest negotiations with Alfie

Loose Threads

Moves & Highlights

XP & Advances

Notes

Memorable quotes:

CUTHBERT: So we can all agree… They weren't wolves.
MS MARCH: They looked like wolves.

MS MARCH: I haven't seen every wolf. Maybe some have weird knees.

DOCTOR WEBB, to Bart: Not at all. I'm trying to determine whether they're a spirit or a zombie.

CUTHBERT: We have one bicycle, one horse, and eight feet.

CUTHBERT: Are you related to Bart Coltron?
BART: I thought his name was Bort.
NAT: Can someone else pipe up "my son is also named Bort"?

DAN RANDY: People love flair.

ALFIE: Have you ever been in love?
ALFIE: We should get to know each other better as coworkers… No, wait!

DOCTOR WEBB to Bart: We will do our best to bring them — and you — peace.

CUTHBERT: Is that a type of potato?
DOCTOR WEBB: Mashed.
CUTHBERT: Ah! Mashed. I'm thinking of mashed.
BRENDAN: I hate that I got "machete" / "mashed".

NAT: Will I do a Read a Bad Situation roll or do I have hubris?

MS MARCH, explaining why they need masks: Fireflies love going down your throat.

ALFIE: Whyyy?
MS MARCH: Take your arms out, stop looking like a tied up hog.

ALFIE: I thought I saw someone.
MS MARCH: Who?
ALFIE: It doesn't matter.

MS MARCH, to Doctor Webb re killing the spores: You used to be a farmer. What's the opposite of what you do?

SEAN: I do some therapeutic hacking.

ALFIE: He's dead! He's dead. He's supposed to be dead.

CUTHBERT: I'm going to use that to attack your dad.

CUTHBERT: I don't want to taste your tears.
ALFIE: I don't want to taste your handkerchief.

MS MARCH: Cuthbert, you've got the real opposite of a green thumb.
KATE: And on that, we'll end our session…

Other notes:

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