/qu/ - Quests/Roll

>>7429

>Ted Dorner

Ted Dorner. It sounds so stupid, even looks stupid when printed on that dumb tag. You roll the word back and forth in your head a few times, until it doesn't even sound like a name, until it feels like it's just meaningless gibberish.

A brief flash of lights, and the "whoosh" of a vehicle cruising by lights up your radar gun's display: 31 MPH. 6 miles over the speed limit is hardly worth working yourself up over. Sighing, you take a second swig of the flask, before returning it to it's rightful pocket. You move your finger down to your holster mindlessly, playing gently with the curves of your Smith & Wesson .44 magnum revolver. It was hardly police issue, these sticky fingers managed to lift it from a local grow up after taking part in the raid. Illegal or otherwise, this gun would still do just fine for putting a bullet through your own head and finally getting it good and over with. No worries about surviving after that shot… Probably.

The sound of your radio kicking on drags you out of your stupor. "Officer 41-22 this is Dispatch, we have a report of a

suspicious person in your vicinity, potential 10-16, 10-20 Ralph and Sommerset please confirm."

Fumbling, you grab the at the radio attached to your chest to follow up. "Dispatch, Effi… Officer 41-22, 10-4 stand by."

Putting those other thoughts on the back-burner, you shift the vehicle into drive, pulling out of the dimly lit parking lot you were sitting in. Two blocks later, you find quickly find the run-down office building in question, just in time to see a lone figure duck into a doorway, quickly disappearing into the darkness. You cuss at the ruined prospect of going the rest of your night without having to deal with this shit.

"Dispatch, Officer 41-22, confirmed on 10-31, break and enter, probably just a vagrant."

"Officer 41-22 we have a backup squad car en route, just keep an eye on him."

"10-4."

But that's not really how you feel, not tonight, of all nights. Maybe it's the whiskey were nursing, or maybe it's that this dipshit decided to go and fuck up the rest of YOUR peaceful night. It only takes a couple seconds of working up your own anger to get you to open the cruiser door, step onto the cement, and start towards the building. Right now, it doesn't even matter that you're waiting on backup, that's just going to put one more barrier between you and kicking that asshole's face in.

You cross the threshold of the single-floor office with relative caution, instinctively grabbing at the .44 in your holster.

"Alems city police! Come out with your hands up!"

Nothing.

You hear a shuffling noise down the hall to your left, and a recently broken-in door to a room straight ahead.

>Take the left

>Investigate the room

>Other?

>>7431

>Take the left, keeping wary.

Nervously, you click on your flashlight to better illuminate the path before you. The foam-tiled ceiling has long since yellowed and collapsed, and despite your best effort, every step you take has the distinct, and almost completely unavoidable "crunch" of glass crushing underfoot. The windows have long ago been broken in by vandals, some replaced by plywood, others left to let the cold night air in. Shivering, you keep your eyes locked at the end of the hall, something besides the cold is giving you goosebumps.

You remove the .44 from it's holster as you reach closer to the end of the hall, the shuffling noise becoming more audible with each step. A door at the end of the hall has been half-haphazardly pushed shut, leaving it ever so slightly open. You hear someone talking to themselves inside. They sound quite agitated.

>Announce yourself again

>Listen carefully

>Enter the room gun drawn

>Other?

>>7447

>Task Difficulty: Easy

>12

>Moderate Success

You feel a cold sweat on your brow as the man advances forward, knife at the ready. The bravado the whiskey provided wearing off, the whole situation seemed… Well, off. Leveling your gun towards the vagrant, you decide to allow him a chance to surrender, one more time.

"Sir, drop the weapon and step back. I'm warning you!"

The sickly man, at these words, immediately broke into a headlong sprint directly at you, before you finally give into training instinct, and pull the trigger. Twice, center of mass. No nonsense, no fancy gunplay. The bullets kicked hard against your wrist - but you knew what they'd do to the poor bastard down-barrel.

Ribbons of crimson had splattered the concrete floor where one of the rounds had completely punched through the skinny bastard. He had immediately crumpled to the floor, rasping for air with what remained of his lungs, and soon even that final effort at life ceased.

Warily, you lowered the weapon and stepped forward, giving the new corpse a quick courtesy kick of the leg, just in case. Nothing, not that you'd expected any different. You turned around, the feeling of unease slowly fading, and brought one hand to the radio, when it happened.

Crick.

The noise was almost imperceptible, given another second you may have drowned it out with your own voice. Whirling around, you were met with the sight of the man pushing himself back up. Then the second noise came.

CRACK.

The left arm snapped backwards at the elbow, palm extending down behind the body, shoving itself underneath the corpse and pushing against the floor. Thrice more the sound of joints twisting suddenly followed, with each limb joining the first in a disgustingly accurate facsimile of a human spider.

The… Thing spun around on all fours, it's head lolling in a ragdoll fashion, dead eyes blankly gazing in your direction. It let out a gurgle, scuttled up the wall with a surprisingly agile series of jerking motions, before using the wall as a springboard to jump directly at you.

>You are facing 1 "???"

>Ted has 6.2 litres of blood remaining

>He is uninjured

>He is terrified

>Take any action, roll 1d20

Rolled 19 (1d20)

>>7452

>Son I'ma nope the fuck outta there and call for backup like I haven't already

>>7457

>>7458

>Task Difficulty: Moderate

>19

>Great Successs

Rolling to the side with an unprecedented amount of agility for a cop still sobering up, you barely manage to dodge the flying abomination.

Wasting no time, the moment it passes overhead you sprint for the exit, the abomination rebounding from it's landing, before following closely behind.

It didn't take long for you to burst out the entrance of the small office, running headlong into a pair of officers; your backup, presumably. Stuttering, you struggle to speak over your own breathlessness and confusion, managing to get out a "I shot him…" and "fucking monster," in between gasps for air.

The reinforcing officers looked at each-other dubiously, peeking around you into the darkened offices, one bringing his flashlight to bear before stepping inside, the other looking you over.

"Ted, have you been drinking tonight?"

Shit.

—

>(7 Years Later)

Nothing. All this time, and you still found yourself thinking about that incident. They'd found -nothing- at the crime scene besides the hole where one of your bullets had punched through that creepy asshole and hit the wall on the other side, and some blood stains. They, of course, smelled the whiskey on your breath, and, of course, they gave you a breathalyzer.

.04 BAC. That's it. You weren't drunk off your gourd, obviously, but combined with your admittedly crazy-sounding pleas for help to your fellow officers, it was more than enough for them to drop you from the force. I mean, what else did you think was going to happen?

Cracking one eye open, you reach over to the nightstand directly in front of you, shoving the mess of loose papers and Chinese paper containers out of the way to grab your flask, to take an early morning pick-me-up. Sighing, you sit up in your stained and crumpled sheets, looking about your run-down bedroom/office. It's a mess, most places little cleaner than the nightstand next to your bed, with just one window next to the bed that leads out to the alley behind the building you're in. Third floor, fire escape. Brick wall just beyond. It's about all you could afford.

You'd taken up the P.I. business after being dropped off the force, thanks to your years of service they were at least somewhat gracious about giving you the boot. Hell, many of your friends on the force knew what you were going through with your ex-wife, many just figured you'd finally snapped on that job, and almost killed some poor homeless guy.

The P.I. work was slow, barely paying the bills most of the time, let alone for your booze. Thankfully you'd had a little cache of cash to keep you sustained for a while, but even that was dwindling as you drank yourself stupid, in an effort to forget that night. Or so you told yourself.

Really, though, you never did let that night go. You knew you weren't just imagining things. Hell, you'd been following anything you would even remotely consider a lead on that case for most of the past seven years, though those were few, far-between, and mostly nonsense. It didn't help that every time you went out at night, you swore you saw… things watching you from dark alleys and rooftops. Things that would be gone when you focus on them.

Pushing yourself out of bed, you bring yourself, groggily, to your desk, looking over the files spread out on top of the paperwork. Someone had called the other night, out of the blue, and (with no explanation) asked you to find one "Laina Dully," before tomorrow night, or else the trail would go cold, Hanging up with no explanation as to who they were, or how they knew what they were talking about, you couldn't help but feel something was waiting at the end of this tip. You just didn't know what.

Looking down at the paperwork, you considered the options before you.

>Go directly to "Deep Blue."

>Try to contact old friends at the force for info

>Take time to gather supplies

>Other?

[Inventory]

1 Glock 17 Pistol (30 rounds)

(Unfortunately, your .44 magnum has been seized by police for evidence, and also because that shit was illegal lol?!)

Flask of whiskey (mostly full)

>>7466

>Try to contact old friends at the force for info

You paused thoughtfully, brushing some old garbage off the edge of your desk you knew had the phone on it. One moderately messy floor later, you were picking up the receiver to your old piece of shit home line (courtesy of the landlord). Fingers tracing the familiar pattern, it wasn't seconds before the line was ringing.

"Alems City police department, how may I direct your call?"

"Connect me with officer Calhoun." You begin, before thoughtfully adding "Please."

Another moment later, and the grizzled tone of a bored street-patrolman turned desk-jockey answered. You could see him in your mind's eye, his ever-increasingly rotund figure a casualty of the switch in duties. Hell, you could practically see him wipe the beads of sweat off his pallid forehead, black greasy hair just barely hidden under his cap.

"This is officer Calhoun."

"Calhoun, it's Dorner. I got a tip-"

"Didn't I tell you I'm done pulling favors for you on this case? You fucked up. Let it go."

Frowning at your long time friend's exasperation, you try your best not to lose your temper. You could see, after all, that the case seemed pretty clear-cut from his side.

"Listen, Calhoun, I know that. But you know me well enough to know I'm not giving up on this." An annoyed grunt of acknowledgement encouraged you to continue. "I got an anonymous tip, someone called my office and specifically left me a name. 'Laina Dully.' Said I had to find her tonight, and that she'd be at one of those slum-bars. 'Deep Blue,' specifically. Do you have a file on either?"

Another annoyed grunt, some shuffling, and mumbling about "bullshit anonymous tips…" and "shit I do for friends…" and Calhoun was back to the phone proper.

"Yeah - 'Deep Blue' has become a real popular joint for the 'Devils'. Small-time drug pushing gang. Says here we raided the joint a couple of times, busted a few heads and brought in a couple of small fish. Nothing conclusive enough to bring in any head-honchos or nothin'. As far as Ms. Dully… Hm."

You heard the curiosity in the final syllable. "What is it?"

A pause.

"Well, your anonymous tip may have been on to something after all - seems Dully was the name that was given for the initial suspicious person report for your case." An audible thumping clued you in to your friend, drumming his fingers on his desk nervously. "Look, if you go there, just be careful, alright? I ain't been out on the beat for a while, but I can still smell when somethin's fishy, and this smells like the docks to me. Don't go pissin' off any gang-bangers, alright?"

Nodding, you follow up with a verbal acknowledgement, and a brief goodbye.

"Oh, and, before you go…" Calhoun sounded almost hesitant, but pushed on regardless. "I figure I shouldn't be telling you this, but it may help you out if you have an actual lead. Maybe, maybe not, but I figure it couldn't hurt since the case is closed and all…"

"Spit it out, Calhoun." You manage, slightly annoyed at his puttering about the subject.

"Well… Where you said the body of that guy had dropped, we found something. A little trinket we figured the guy had on him. Brought it in in case there was something we could use to help identify the bastard, but it was a dead end. If you want, swing by, and I'll see to it that our overloaded inventory of old shit labeled 'evidence' get's one item lighter."

Thanking your old-time friend, you hang up, reconsidering your options. You know now that the tip at least SEEMS to be legitimate, if still highly suspicious. You now have a potential second lead with the trinket at the station, and you could always tear up your old apartment looking for your shit that wasn't regular-issue on the force. You're also pretty sure you left at least one wad of cash lying around in this trash heap, leftover drinking money.

>Go directly to "Deep Blue."

>Swing by the station for that trinket

>Take time to gather up supplies

>Other?

>>7467

>If we can take a multiple I'd like to take a brief rummage round the place, see what we turn up then head on out to the station for that trinket and hope like hell we ain't stuck in some Lovecraftian horror dimension where it'll send us slowly insane.