The Tunnelers Campaign Session 3

Played Tuesday, May 28^th, 2025.



June 4^th, 2003, 9:00 am. Ash and Jel, accompanying npc Jill, have arrived in 0202. They begin to scope out the hex and, using Jill’s binoculars, the castle in the hex adjacent. Jills goal here today is to determine where it is most feasible to dig under the castle’s security fence — given that this location has an additional layer of fence containing an orchard, and the orchard is heavy in traffic, it is easy enough to write off. Trading the binoculars back and forth, Jel and Jill see that the orchard workers are using backpack-mounted pumps to spray some sort of liquid on the trees (they don’t know what it is, but it is a mundane pesticide — unhealthy to breathe in). Looking at the grounds of the castle itself, Jel spots the enigmatic figure of Adam Eddings in 16^th century woodsman garb, longbow in hand, walking near the front of the castle. Ash is interested in the lake, especially the large rock with greenery growing on it in 0303, and proposes to follow a lakeside trail to begin circling the castle. The others agree.

10:00 am. The party is walking along the shoreline in 0303, looking at the fence line of the castle, which is a perfectly normal activity for visitors to the town. Ash looks at the lake and sees that the large rock she saw is coated in mosses. This part of the lake is choked with weeds and logs, and mosquitoes dance and menace the hikers. The castle fence is 15 feet tall and topped with barbed wire. A security guard is seen walking the interior, and the players note the all-black tactical gear, handgun, and police baton in contrast to the historical garb they saw before. A barred owl sits on the fence, carefully avoiding the barbed wire. It spies on the party, an agent of a teen thoughtform-worker – given the repeated rolling of birds as agents of a teen thoughtform-worker, I am considering who this bird wielder is and what their interest in the party can be.

11:00 am. The party has hiked at a steady pace and is now in 0204. The shoreline is a poor place to dig and nothing new is apparent at the castle, but Jel notices the Warmly Dressed Man in his canoe watching the castle, out of place in his winter garb on such a warm summer day and pointedly fixated on the castle. The warmly dressed man notices the glint of binoculars, but his professional composure is unshakable and he simply sips his coffee.

12:00 noon. The party is in 0104. There is tree cover near to the fence line here, but the ground is swampy, which would provide a challenge in excavation.

1:00 pm. The party is in 0103. Ravens croak ominously and constantly. The trail on this side is less maintained than near the lake, but as the day heats up the shade of the trees provides a welcome respite. The tree cover and easy to dig soil make this an attractive option for Jill’s plan, and the group starts to scope out the surrounding woods. It isn’t long before they find the destroyed campsite, tent shredded and thrown in a pile, firewood flung around, bullet holes in trees. Ash extracts an unlabeled glass bottle full of clear liquid (a snakebite antidote, not yet identified as such, rolled from the Lowlife trinket table) from the tent’s remains and Jill keeps it. Ash scopes out the woods as best as possible with the binoculars as the party anxiously moves on, and she catches a brief glimpse of a shovel planted in the earth, and then a cloaked arm reaching out to grab it and pull it out of sight. This is an Undertaker who wishes to besiege Dundarave castle. I rolled a neutral reaction for her initially, but if the party lingered too long there was a very real chance of her looking for an opportunity to kill and raise an isolated party member. Ash is increasingly convinced this is the “Yeti” she saw last session.

2:00 pm. The party makes it back to the road in 0102 and sees the west end of the orchard. There are less workers here, but trailcams hang from some of the apple trees.

3:00 pm. The party returns to their starting point of 0202, with an hour until their ride arrives. They gather in the woods on the other side of the road from the orchard, and share snacks. Jel films the orchard with her camcorder, hoping to pore over the footage later. Partway through she is interrupted by a voice behind her, asking “now where did you get one of those?” A CIA Occultist (from a random encounter roll) has decided to give her a scare in the hopes of turning her into an asset later. She films the encounter as this man, looking like a clean shaven troop dressed and posed for an advertisement in a high end hiking gear catalog, makes bizarre statements about bird calls before asking if the party knows about any Anti-American Activities going on in these woods. When asked if he thinks there is reason to suspect that, he solemnly says “Kid, there’s Anti-American Activities going on everywhere in the entire world.” Is he a park ranger, the party inquires? “Of a sort, in the biggest park of them all — the USA.” He implies that the party is being surveilled and that he will return again, and steps behind a bush, vanishing completely and uncannily for such a huge guy. The party is shaken by this encounter, but Jel is glad to have caught it on camera.

Rolling a CIA Occultist prompted me make the decision to treat the CIA underlings who aren’t stationed in specific hexes as in some way (and insufficiently) emulating their superiors. This man is trying to emulate the disguise of the Outdoorswoman in 0507, but it does not come naturally to him.

By 4:00 pm, Dennis Toole returns to pick the party up, blasting Eminem from his terrible truck speakers.