Current Games
A summary of events in each session of the game.
The characters know each other through Sebastian’s bookshop. It has turned into a place to hang out and is in a shopping arcane where there is a small but very sociable café.
They have talked about their various interested and Gerald has told them about the Winthorpe Institute for Dream Research, which is looking for volunteers to do sleepovers.
After a lot of talk, they decide to go there for a weekend and see how it goes.
Gerald agrees to give everyone a lift to the Winthorpe Institute, which is in North Cambridge. He owns a big 4x4 Mercedes G Class that can carry them all.
During the journey, they are delayed by road closures and end up in some rural roads in Cambridgeshire.
While they are driving along such a road, they see ahead a car driving erratically. It swerves into their lane and despite Gerald’s efforts to avoid it, crashes into them, scraping down the side of the car and causing the 4x4 to drop into a ditch.
The erratic car hits another car that is behind them, before coming to a halt further down the road. The other car that was hit goes past their car then pulls up.
Amy has been injured, suffering a significant blow to the head. Sebastian is in pain but nothing serious, everyone else is fine.
Damien gives Amy first aid while Sebastian gets out of the car. Gerald tries to move the car out of the ditch, but the angle is too bad and his efforts only result in the car getting more stuck.
John and Sebastian try to call 999, but John has no signal and Sebastian’s call does not connect. Instead he hears a strange rhythmic hissing noise.
Sebastian goes to the car in front of them and speaks to a woman in her 30s who is shocked and annoyed by the antics of the crazy driver.
Damien goes to check the crazy driver’s car. When he gets there, he sees the car is in a terrible state, smashed and one of the wheels buckled. However, the driver is not in the cabin.
He is disturbed to hear that the radio is playing white noise, but with an odd rhythmic pattern.
Damien hears a guttural growling noise and a wild-eyed, injured man raises up from behind the car, wielding a broken bender. He is wearing some sort of uniform. The man swings wildly at Damien, who is able to dodge the blows, though he is surprised by the man’s apparent strength.
A car approaches and the crazed man tries to stand in front of it. The car slows down, horn blaring and then swerves around him. The car pulls up and the driver shouts profanities at the crazed man.
The crazed man then runs for the car and jumps on the back of it. The car pulls away and the crazy man is thrown off, still clutching the broken back window wiper.
John meanwhile notices that there is something tall with lights on it, not that far away in a field. Possibly a radio mast?
As suddenly as he became aggressive, the crazed man calms down, humming a random rhythmic tune to himself and standing in the road. Damien gives him a wide birth and looks out for other cars.
A car comes from the other direction. The crazed man is still standing in the road and the driver slows down, blowing his horn and flashing his lights. Damien shouts a warning to turn off the lights, but the crazed man growls and leaps onto the car bonnet, punching the window screen.
Damien now steps in and grapples the crazed man. He is wild and strong but not unnaturally strong and Damien is able to pull him off the car. He gets Gerald and Sebastian to help subdue and tie his hands, using kit from Damien’s bag.
Damien speaks to the driver of the car that has stopped. He is furious and annoyed about the cracked window screen. Damien persuades him to drive away from this area until he can get a signal, then call the emergency services.
The crazed man has gone passive again, panting from exhaustion and humming to himself in an odd rhythmic tune that Sebastian recognises from his phone and Damien recalls from the car radio.
Meanwhile, John has been trying to get his phone to work and he suddenly notices there is a message from the dark website. It is some sort of big long jumble of characters, but there is an odd oscillating pattern to it.
He looks up and sees that the light in the field nearby is from a Radio Telescope dish that has moved slightly and is more visible.
Checking the uniform the crazed man is wearing, Damien sees that is says “Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory - Security”. When John mentions the Radio Telescope, Damien says that is where the man comes from.
Damien then sees some sort of weird, auric colours coming from the sky, hitting the Radio Telescope and spreading out over a wide area.
Sebastian mentions that he saw a side road ahead, which is probably the entrance to the Observatory.
The crazed security guard suddenly starts struggling and realises he is stuck. He starts shouting profanities and using racist slurs. Damien uses a sleep lock on him and puts him in the recovery position in Gerald’s car’s boot.
Gerald notices the man has a security badge and a pass. He tries the radio, but nothing is transmitting. There is some static interference.
Damien tells Jo to stay and write on the car “Phone Police.” Gerald says use lipstick. They leave her with the keys to Gerald’s car but tell her to come to them if there are problems.
They set off towards the entrance to the Observatory, but John does not want to go with them. He is reluctant to cross the road and wants his hand held, which Sebastian does.
They get to the security gates. The box for the security guard is empty. Gerald uses the radio and someone answers telling him to stop messing about.
Damien presses the alarm button in the cabin and the voice on the radio asks Stan what he is playing at. Gerald tells him again that Stan attacked them. Interference then garbles the radio.
A man from the Observatory turns up, Gary Wilson. He seems a little distracted and has a head ache. They have to tell him several times that Stan has crashed into their car and needs a telephone.
Damien notices a strange resonance with the security fencing, like it’s vibrating in sympathy with something.
Gary takes them back to the main building. It takes him a few tries to get the door open. He takes them into the main office area, which has lots of computer banks and other technical equipment.
There is a young woman, an older big woman and a black man operating equipment. Damien tells them about the car accident and wants access to a phone. The large woman, Dr Diane Mancini, is a bombastic American woman and she tells Damien “Honey” to calm down, be polite and knock on the Director’s door, as he has a land line.
Damien barges in and tells the Director Gerald Neal there has been an accident and demands use of the phone. When Director Gerald Neal seems a little confused and wants it all explained again, Damien grabs the phone and starts to dial 999. The Director suddenly reacts angrily, smashing the phone and attacking Damien.
Damien initially backs away and the fight spills out into the main room. Dr Carl Guest, the Deputy Director, turns up wanting to know what is going on.
A number of people then start shouting, demanding to know what the hell is going on. There is a bit of chaos, made worse when the computer technician Dr Harlan Bennett pulls out the headphones he has on from the socket and a loud jarring buzzing electronic noise fills the room.
Damien clutches his head with pain, while Gerald feels like life suddenly becomes futile. Other people are affected in slightly different ways, but most of the staff appear to have gone stir crazy.
Gerald has enough sense to turn on the fire alarm, which slightly disrupts the noise from the speakers.
Sebastian and Amy are able to keep their heads. Sebastian takes the headphones off the computer technician and plugs them back in, while Amy turns the speakers sound off.
Things slowly begin to calm down. Damien again demands a phone. Dr Guest tells him most of them were removed to save money when they moved to Broadband, but there is one in maintenance, where Gary Wilson must be as he has left the room. Damien heads there.
Meanwhile, Dr Harlan Bennett, who has been staring into space, suddenly sexually assaults Amy, who is near to him. Amy, trained to deal with personal attack, responds by using her pepper spray in his face and he retreats, crying.
Diane Mancini then starts arguing with Sebastian and Amy, while John quietly begins to play with one of the computer consoles. They learn that the scientists are listening to some sort of signals from space.
When Damien and Dr Guest reach maintenance, Gary is there nursing a headache. He could use some water and Damien goes to the staff room to get him some.
John works out that the computer is controlling the radio telescopes, which are being focused on a specific point in the sky. He tries to change their focus, but needs a password and sets about hacking the system.
Damien returns with the water for Gary and Dr Guest uses the phone to call the Police and Ambulance. Damien has him use some code words that hint at a terrorist incident.
Suddenly in the control room, Harlan Bennett, who stopped crying a few minutes ago, returns to the sound console and takes out the headphones and turns the volume up to maximum. The staff suddenly turn crazy and start to attack the intruders.
Dr Guest’s phone call is disrupted by sudden strong interference, but he has said enough to get the authorities to come to the Observatory.
Damian realises something is amiss in the control room and moves to disable the UPS and then cut the power to the building. Dr Guest tries to stop him to save their research, but Damien is army trained and Dr Guest is not.
Then Gary Wilson suddenly leaps violently and attacks Damien, who deflects his attack to one side, but Gary’s arm catches the now exposed power socket and there is a scream and a loud bang. All the lights go out in the building.
In the control room, Gerald has been pinned to the wall by Director Neal when the lights and computers go off. The Director starts to pound Gerald’s head against the wall.
Amy manages to subdue Harlan Bennett, while Diane Mancini charges at Sebastian but can’t see him, hits the wall with her head and is knocked unconscious.
John has a slightly chaotic fight with the younger girl Jenny Hooper, but when the light goes out she starts attacking a chair.
Damien and Dr Guest return to the control room using their phones for light and Damien is able to rescue Gerald from more serious damage, but his head is bleeding.
Things slowly calm down and the crazed staff pass out. Director Neal vomits first.
Dr Guest explains that they had found an object in the solar system in orbit just beyond Mars that seems to be giving off strange signals, radio, ultraviolet and radiation. They had been keeping its existence secret until they had finished their investigations. They were planning a dramatic reveal to the world in about a week’s time. It is the discovery of the decade.
Damien suggests the object is a trap, put there to cause people to go crazy. Dr Guest is incredulous – the object is over 10 miles wide and spectroscopic analysis has shown it consists mostly of iron, with some carbon and silicone.
Their incomplete analysis suggested the object is in some sort of elliptical orbit of the sun like a comet. It is currently on an approach towards the sun (perihelion) and will cross the orbit of Earth over the next 12 months. It won’t hit Earth though.
They discuss its dangerous resonance and Dr Guest points out that one of the team wondered if they had found the fabled Nemesis Star – the Harbinger of Doom.
They all agree that the research will have to stop for the time being as the emissions from the object are dangerous. They wonder how safe Earth will be as the thing moves closer to the inner solar system.
Damien is worried about others finding this signal and suggests that Dr Guest tell someone in authority in the Home Office about their discovery, as they are part of SETI.
Dr Guest points out he has his scientific reputation to protect and is sceptical about the efficiency of the government bureaucracy. Also Director Neal knows who to contact, and he is currently unconscious.
They resolve to wait until the emergency services arrive.
Damien calls 999 now that he has a mobile signal. He is told Police and Ambulance are already on the way.
Amy looks after Gerald, who has a wounded head. She gets him water and relaxes him.
Damien has a running argument with Dr Diane Mancini when she awakens, both of them shouting at each other.
At a quieter moment Jenny Hooper tells them she had started to detect hydro-carbon chains in the composition of the object and it appears to be oscillating in a way that reminds her of a heartbeat.
The Police and Ambulance turn up. They are initially aggressive and cautious until they realise it is all safe and the paramedics come in. Armed Police were holding back but sent away when it is clear there is no terrorist threat.
Gerald is taken to Cambridge Hospital for observation of his head wounds.
The Police take everyone else away to a Police Station in Cambridge to take statements. They are primarily concerned about the security guard they tied up in a boot and the maintenance man who was killed by the UPS.
They spend the night being interviewed and questioned about the incident.
In the morning, Gerald is released from hospital. He heads for the Police Station and gives his statement.
He then arranges a hire car, calls the Winthorpe Institute and tells them they are going have been delayed by a car crash and will be there later today.
Gerald tells his wife what happened and then picks up a hire car to drive them to the Institute.
Having been delayed by events at the Radio Telescope, the Investigators continue onto their appointment at the Winthorpe Institute.
They arrive at the Winthorpe Institute, a splendid old building. There is a lake in front of the building and also an old tower with a more modern out building at the side, serviced by a traffic island.
They are greeted by Eileen Cody and a couple of other staff members. As they are being introduced, an older man Lawrence Winthorpe passes by and welcomes them. His family has owned this land for a number of years now.
They are taken inside and talked through the disclaimer forms, which they have to read and sign. They are given identity passes which will open doors for them.
Eileen is concerned about the obvious head injures of Gerald and Amy and calls over Dr Weemes, who briefly checks them over.
Eileen tells them they do not need to do anything during the day, but in the evening they have machines that will monitor their sleep in their rooms. Damien volunteers to be put into the Dream Web, the rest are shown how to use their machines.
Damien is disappointed there is no bar. They are allowed to leave the building and there is a Sainsbury’s in the local village, Minor Stanford, for such things. The Institute could not get an alcohol license.
It is about 11am and they are told that lunch will start from midday, so they may as well settle in for an hour, then come down to lunch.
They are shown to their rooms. Damien and Sebastian share a room, as do John and Gerald. Amy has her own room.
They come down for lunch and see all the various Institute staff there. The Project Director, Torrence Dandridge, has an American accent, but they are not introduced.
They do meet Graham Mains, a computer technician and Mariana Ivanovna, the resident psychiatrist, originally from Russia. Dr Ivanovna schedules psychiatric assessments for each of them that afternoon.
They learn that the Institute has capacity for 20 volunteers, but only 15 places are filled at the moment (the 5 party members plus 10 others). The numbers vary, unpredictably sometimes, but during holiday times there are usually more.
There is one man who is very handsome and dresses garishly, with a suited minder of some kind. They assume he is some minor celebrity.
Gerald has his psychiatric assessment with Dr Ivanovna and the session goes fairly well. Gerald determines that she knows her stuff.
Then Sebastian has his psychiatric assessment and that overruns the hour, as he has a fascinating background and Dr Ivanovna asks him a lot of questions.
Damien is next, but he clashes with Dr Ivanovna, her probing questions and slightly aloof manor rubbing him up the wrong way. He is evasive and less than fully co-operative.
The final session is with John, who takes an instant dislike to Dr Ivanovna and starts winding her up with small lies. When she probes these lies, he tells bigger lies to cover them and eventually the session descends into farce. She is aware he is not telling the truth and ends the session early, clearly irritated.
Dr Ivanovna apologies to Amy, her session will now have to wait until tomorrow.
Damien has been studying the auras of his companions. He notices they are more vibrant than normal and they are strangely ‘vibrating’ still, possibly with a similar resonance that the signal from space had.
He also notices that Amy appears to have an auric shadow, like a second aura.
Amy herself is finding that her strange feeling of being watched, which had disappeared, appears to have now come back strongly and at one point, in her room, she is convinced someone else is in the room with her, even though it is empty.
John sets about trying to hack the Institute’s computer systems. It turns out not to be that easy as it is mostly a closed, private system that hosts its website in the Cloud, but he continues to try to get in.
That evening Damien is taken away to be plugged into the Dream Web. The staff are a little on edge, which Damien is able to discover is because they are trialling some new software for the first time that night.
The others fix up their dream monitors in their rooms and try to sleep. Gerald wakes up in the night with a strong feeling that someone has walked into the room. The door to the room is open but the room is empty.
However, he can hear breathing that is not John’s. Then something invisible appears to run its fingers down his face. He jumps and has the feeling the presence leaves the room.
He goes out into the hall and for a moment thinks he see the shadow of a person. When the motion detecting lights come on, however, the corridor is empty.
He steps outside for some fresh air to recover from the experience.
Meanwhile, Amy is also having a feeling she is not alone. She is not sleeping well, waking every hour. She awakes at one point, having dreamt that someone was in her room watching her, and it turned out to be someone completely different to the previous person who was there.
Meanwhile, Damien has a fairly normal night’s sleep, although he struggles a little to sleep due to the scrutiny. However, when he does sleep, he finds himself in an arena, roman-style and his past dreams are shown to the crowd for their pleasure before their host, a beautiful girl, takes them away. They crowd is not what it seems though and appears to be some entity.
Damien awakens and a nurse asks him if he is OK, his vitals were peaking a little. He has a drink and lies back down. While he is trying to get back to sleep, he realises that the wire configuration of the Dream Web makes no electrical sense – but is in some sort of pattern.
In the morning, John wakes up early and finished his hacking. He has not been able to get into the main Datamaster computer, it is too well locked down. However, there appears to be a sub-system bolted onto the Datamaster that is not so well protected and he is able to break into it.
He finds that the system is set up to receive certain information in file format from the Datamaster computer and pass it on elsewhere, to a third party server. This system is called “Wolf”. John hacks it such that it will now also email that information to him.
That morning they meet up for breakfast. Damien is feeling a little drained and feels odd. He also found out that a number of the other patients in the Dream Web also had peaking vitals during their sleep, within an hour or so of his experience.
During breakfast, Eileen Cody tells them Mr Torrence Dandridge would like to give a presentation to them, one that was scheduled for Friday evening but they did not arrive.
They agree and at 10am they go to a conference room, where Dandridge and his assistant, Burton Fielding, the inventor of the Dream Web, give a presentation on the process. They explain they are trying to build a dream visualiser, something that can turn dreams into actual video images. The technology is not complete, but they are close and show them early images that are constructed from signals they are monitoring in their volunteers.
It becomes clear there is some conflict between Dandridge and Fielding, with Fielding scoffing at Dandridge’s technical knowledge and it is clear that Fielding is the expert. They also find out Fielding built and programmed the Datamaster computer.
At the end of the presentation, amongst the audience is Lawrence Winthorpe, who invites the party to come to his lodgings for lunch. They all agree.
Damien works out he has been drained somehow and his Aura visions is not working. He goes to lie down.
Amy has her psychiatric assessment and gets on well with Dr Ivanovna.
John contacts someone on his dark web chat site called Sarah. She is 17 and she does scary dream stuff. She feeds dreams to the “Thing”. He contacts Amanda, his sister, who tells him there is something wrong, something bad at the place he is at. It’s not physical yet but it’s strong and getting stronger.
Gerald asks about the CCTV for the lobby, but the Receptionist tells him he will have to ask the computer technician to come see him. Gerald says don’t worry about it and instead goes to see John and asks him to help.
John starts to hack the internal security system but Gerald encourages him to come to lunch with them.
At 12 they go to where they were told to wait, a section of the house with a door marked “No admittance to staff or guests.” There is a pretty younger, professional woman there who lets them him and takes them through a more elegantly decorated section of the house to a large study and dining room, where Lawrence Winthorpe is awaiting for them with a buffet lunch, wine and whisky.
He welcomes them and tells them that he has owned this land for a long time. He no longer sees much of his family, but is happy to use his money to help out scientific research.
Amy recognises the Indalo symbol on Winthorpe’s desk and asks him about it. She has a small pendant with that symbol. It belonged to a patient who died, her name was Ellen. Ellen felt it was important that she pass the symbol on to her. The others are surprised to hear this.
Winthorpe immediately takes an interest and tells them he used to know some people, a brotherhood if you like, who used that symbol, but he lost touch with them about 20 years ago.
Now, later in his life, he is trying to get back in contact with them.
Amy asks what the brotherhood was called. He tells them it was SAVE, which stood for something in Latin but he forgets what. They were paranormal investigators and they came to look at a problem in the Lake. There are some old ruins from druidic times at the bottom of the Lake and something was happening, but they dealt with it.
Sebastian notices that Winthorpe has some occult books on his shelves and tells him about his shop, the Third Eye. At one point they talk about Alistair Crowley, one of whose books is on the shelf.
John tries to send a message asking to speak to Ellen, but while he is in Winthorpe’s wing, he gets no messages on his dark web site, though he has internet signal. Once outside messages start to come back. He wonders if it is dead zone. Ellen does not respond though.
Sebastian also notices some magical protection symbols have been woven into the decoration for Winthorpe’s wing of the house.
Back in the Institute side of the house, they head down to the common area to discuss what is going on.
John gets an email with 5 encrypted files. He sets about unencrypting them.
Gerald asks John for help looking at the CCTV cameras. John needs access to a computer on the network, so he and Gerald go off to distract the girl on reception while John installs a Trojan program to help him hack in.
Then they go to their room and check the CCTV, which shows no one was in hall last night but the door to their room opened of its own accord. They later notice the doors to the other’s rooms had rattled first and early footage suggests that the rooms that are occupied regularly get some sort of rattling visitation, while the rest of the rooms are left alone.
John also sets his pass to have access to every room in the building.
Sebastian decides to do some tarot readings with Damien and Amy. He does a few small readings first, getting a few stories, one of betrayal and someone turning to the Devil. Another is an innocent girl trapped and something is arriving.
The overall reading is one of hidden corruption of the present and a future in turmoil, while hidden enemies work against them, with lots of friends. They have some allies too, an old king and a girl who is both ally and enemy. The future is uncertain and they will reap what they sow.
A computer technician, Graham Mains, then comes to see Amy and tells her he has seen some unusual readings in her dream results and he would like to discuss them further. She goes away with him.
Meanwhile, John’s computer has finished hacking the encrypted files that the “Wolf” server sent him. They are the party’s private data plus their dream patterns. Amy’s file has “Accumulator? Possible candidate” as a foot note, while Damien’s says “She says powerful dreams, has a lot of potential and something hidden.”
He tells Gerald, who asks where the data is being sent. John checks and is able to work out the destination is on a government network, possible MOD according to hacker friends. He posts up asking if anyone knows how to hack this network. Most the replies say it can’t be hacked and don’t do it - they will send Special Branch on you.
They go down to tell the others. Gerald asks about the something hidden note for Damien and Damien reveals he has no memory of this childhood and also that he can sometimes see strange colours, auras, in others. However, after his experience with the Dream Web, that appears to have temporarily been drained.
John gets a message suddenly on his phone, from Ellen – Amy is in danger! Then she goes.
John tells them and he heads to his room to check the CCTV to find out where she may have gone. Meanwhile, Damien suggests they try the Dream Web building.
John discovers from the CCTV that is exactly where the technician took Amy.
At the Dream Web building, they are unable to get in with their passes. John tries to give Damien unlimited access, but it does not work in the Dream Web building.
Instead they knock loud and vigorously on the door, trying to attract someone’s attention. After a few minutes, Amy suddenly comes bursting out, saying she needs to get away from “him.”
Behind her, computer technician Graham Mains is looking confused and asking what is going on, he was just trying to discuss her readings.
Damien checks out his aura, and sees that it is open and powerful – he has been doing something with it. He also has a second spirit aura, that of a wolf, which matches the House Stark T-shirt he is wearing.
Amy tells them that the Technician started asking her questions about strange voices in her head and did she ever feel someone else was in her head. Then he seemed to try to hypnotise her, but a voice in her head (Ellen) told her that she was in danger.
She tried to leave, but he blocked her path and told her to sit down in a commanding voice. She did so, but then someone started banging on outer doors and the technician panicked and the mood was broken. She was able to run past him and escape.
Damien confronts Mains and asks him what he is doing. Mains fumbles some sort of explanation that he was asking further questions, but Damien suggests he was up to something dodgy and Mains denies it poorly. He then says the interview is over and closes the door to the Dream Web building.
They discuss what happened and begin to head back to the Lodge. Gerald talks about hypnotism and how odd it is that a computer technician was doing such a thing.
Damien suggests that the issue with the Lake is probably a red herring. Sebastian suggests that a power source like that does attract such things to it though.
Gerald contacts his boss and asks him if he knows anything about connections between the Institute and the MOD. Andy says he has not found anything yet, should he escalate it up the management structure? Gerald suggests he should.
It’s about 3:30pm now. They discuss what is going on and what to do about it.
John keeps trying to hack the Datamaster and after a number of tries the system locks out external access for 15 minutes and the changes are an administrator has been alerted that there is a possible hacker trying to attack the system.
Damien suggests Amy should not go into the Dream Web tonight and she agrees, she is freaked out. John says he’s going into the machine anyway, he “feels ill”.
Amy suggests they go into the local issue, Minor Stanford, and visit Sainsburys, then Sebastian suggests they go into the pub for food. Damien agrees, but wants to go back to the institute for dinner so he can look at all the staff.
John stocks up on energy drinks as he does not want to sleep tonight. He also gets something to make him ill so he does not have to go into the Dream Web. Damien reminds him he is only a volunteer and can say no.
They have dinner at the pub and chat to some locals, but Winthorpe is not a popular with the locals. The barman tells them the strangers from the Institute are not popular but the pub doesn’t mind it is extra business.
They return to the Institute and Damien uses his aura vision, but doesn’t seem much of interest. However, the computer technician is not there.
Gerald notices Damien’s eyes, which are reflecting like a cat’s in light and it gets the impression that a window has opened on another world.
Damien suggests they start keeping a diary of events at the Institute. Gerald suggest they many want Amy to stay here and they all agree not to let that happen.
Damien goes to sleep for a few hours as he wants to stay up that night.
It is agreed that Amy will stay with John and Damien. Gerald puts his phone on audio so the others can hear what is happening there.
John gets Sebastian to help him recover the memory stick from the receptionist computer, but the heist goes wrong and the receptionist asks him not to remove things from the computer. When he says it’s his, a security guard, Tom Stanley, comes up behind him and tells him to return the item.
When he refuses, the security guard calls a computer technician to tell him what has been going on.
John and Sebastian return to their room and the security guard stands outside. John sets about deleting the security footage of him planting the memory stick in the reception computer.
Gerald has Sebastian do him a Tarot reading and gets that a trainee magician who works for a higher power is conspiring against him and something is coming, there is a warning.
Around 10pm, three staff turn up to take them to the Dream Web. John says he is ill with malaria and Amy complains about Graham Mains. Eileen Cody is concerned about the allegations and takes a note of them to raise them with the management. Damien accompanies her.
Eileen promises to take the matter up with Torrence Dandridge. Amy will not now take part in the Dream Web, so only Gerald and Sebastian go over in their pyjamas and dressing gown.
Gerald tries to plant the memory stick into one of the computer terminal, but instead of working, an alert goes off and the staff tell him not to interfere with the machines, they are locked out. He also mentions there have been a number of security alerts today, they are concerned that someone it trying to steal their secrets.
John notices that the CCTV network has gone down and then his back entry access has been removed. He tries the dark web.
Ellen says: They. Coming. Collectors. Arachne.
Sarah says: Busy.
John asks Amanda what is Arachne. Amanda tells him it is getting darker. There is a web, but it is not a spider. Something else. Tells him not to go to sleep.
Around 1am suddenly all the lights go out in the institute, the power has been cut. They try to contact Gerald and Sebastian but they are not answering as they are asleep.
They hear voices outside in the corridor, the other guests have noticed. They equip themselves with lights from mobile phones and torches. John takes his laptop then has to pack everything in a bag neatly.
Damien throws the bag out of the window and John goes crazy. Together with Amy, they leave the building.
Outside, they suddenly realise that there are five people standing in a semi-circle around them, dressed in robes and wearing masks. Damien notices that they all have powerful active auras with a secondary animal spirit aura. One of them he recognises has a wolf aura – the computer technician, although his is the weakest.
The figures are humming together in resonance which is slightly disarming. Some of them are armed. One is likely a woman with a raven-like spirit aura. Another, with a bear aura, is wearing a skeletal animal mask.
Suddenly each of them launches their spirit auras as the three investigators. They have a brief feeling of anxiety but it passes.
The bear figure steps forward and tells them: “Hand over the girl, or you will all die.”
Monday, 17 April 2017 Damien tells Amy and John to go back into the Institute and they back into the building. The masked strangers move aside for something that appears to move between them to the institute. Damien closes the glass doors and they suddenly start to frost over and a vague web-like pattern forms on them. The temperature drops. John takes a CO2 fire extinguisher as a weapon, while the frosting, web-like pattern begins to spread around the windows and doors. Damien tries to use his lighter to burn some of the web and it gives off a strange smell which affects him. He begins to see colours swirling around, then he realises they are concentrating in the ceiling of the Reception area. They retreat into the kitchen and arm themselves. They see the exit door and windows are also covered in the web-like effect. They see the shadow of someone pass across the window and block the exit door with a chair. Damien tries to smash the window with a large sauce pan, but the web effect holds the cracked glass together. The Thing John tries to use his dark web browser and contacts Sarah, who says the Thing is coming for them. They made her do it. It can’t be stopped – she knows no way to stop it. Amy tries to focus on contacting Ellen and is aware that Ellen knows something about this. She realises that they need to ward off the power of whatever is happening. She realises that salt, garlic and other natural substances can help against this and starts collecting salt from the kitchen. Damien uses his aura vision to try to see what is happening and sees a monstrous form is taking shape in the Reception area, a Thing hanging from the ceiling with horrible eyes. It chills him to the bone and he takes a moment, before warning the others. They try using salt on the web, but it has little effect. However, where the salt falls new web does not grow. They quickly start using the salt to form a barrier to prevent the spread of the web further into the kitchen. They discuss various schemes to use the gas supply to create an explosion, but they struggle for the right resources to make it happen with the power off in the building. Damien goes out in search of a cellar and finds the other fire exit door. While passing through reception, he sees that the Thing hanging is growing stronger and the web is spreading fast. Dead Zone They realise they don’t have much time before the whole building is overrun and consider where they can go. Suddenly, they remember that the wing where Winthorpe lives is a “Dead Zone” and hurry up the stairs, where they see through an open door that the upstairs windows have webbed over as well. They enter Winthorpe’s wing as the power is off and see there is no web on his windows. Below them standing some distance apart are two of the masked strangers. Damien wakes Winthorpe up and the old man is initially confused and grumpy. He questions them while he dresses. Eventually he is shown the Thing, which is now manifesting on the first floor and slowly moving down the hallway towards Winthorpe’s wing. John reacts terrified to this turn of events and hides under Winthorpe’s bed. The Search for SAVE Winthorpe has incense in a bag at the bottom of the wardrobe and they go around lighting one at each window and door, reinforcing the protection against supernatural attack. Winthorpe tells them this is the sort of thing that SAVE used to investigate and he welcomed the Institute to his home but insisted they use his name, hoping it would attract the attention of SAVE. Instead it appears to have attracted some sort of cult of animal shamans - Arachne. Fighting Back Opening his bag, which has his supernatural investigation equipment, Winthorpe reveals he has a revolver. He steps up to the window and tries to shoot the cultist nearest to them, who has a dog mask. He is not a great shot but the dog cultist raises a sword and directs some sort of magical attack back at Winthorpe. Damien’s reacts instinctively, ducking and taking out Winthorpe’s legs so he gets down too. The old man is not very agile through and falls painfully, winding himself. He gets Amy to bring him a chair and hands the gun to Damien, who shots the dog cultist and he falls over. Then he goes to the back window and fires as the bird cultist, who cries in a female voice when she is hit. The bird cultist waves a wand and suddenly a large raven flies to the window and tries to attack Damien, but he is able to shoot it down. When Damien looks again, she has gone. He goes back to the front window, to find the bear cultist, who they believe is the leader, dragging away the badly wounded dog cultist. Damien fires several shots and wounds the bear cultist, but he retreats out of site into the darkness without collapsing from his wounds, taking the dog cultist with him. There is then a lull period, in which everything is quiet. Waking from the Dream Web In the Dream Web building, Sebastian and Gerald have been dreaming about being trapped in a large building with a monster manifesting in it, similar to events in the Institute. Gerald also encountered a young woman who was watching him from behind a waterfall. They have both now woken up around the same time. Gerald checks his phone for the time and sees several missed calls from John, so he calls him back. John tells him there is a monster taking over the Institute and he is clearly scared and pathetic. Gerald has him put Damien on the phone and tells him about the web engulfing the Institute and the monster manifesting in it. Damien tells Gerald not to trust anyone, to get up and get out of there fast. Gerald takes off the Dream Web monitor equipment while Sebastian talks to the Orderly, who asks him to note down the details of his dreams. Gerald tells Sebastian what is going on and they resolved to leave the Dream Web building. Once outside, the Institute is in darkness, but there is no sign of anyone or of any webbing over the Institute building. Watcher Winthorpe, recovering from his painful fall, tells them he was a Watcher for SAVE because of the power lying sleeping in the lake. Damien suggests it was not a good idea to invite dream researchers to a place where something powerful is sleeping. Winthorpe says he acted foolishly, but was only trying to make contact with SAVE. He asks them more about who they are and who they work for. Damien tells them they don’t they are just a group of friends. Winthorpe says they have acted well and remind him of the people he knew from SAVE. All Clear Damien hears voices outside the door and realises that the other patients have woken up and are confused about the power outage. He checks and the webbing and the monster have all gone. One couple go down stairs to reception, but there is no one on duty. Instead, they meet Gerald and Sebastian, who are just entering the building. Damien turns the power back on in the building and they return to Winthorpe’s wing to discuss what to do. The animal cultists must clearly be retreating now and Gerald suggests they pursue them before they have time to escape or recover, but the others are not so sure. They resolve to wait until first light. While talking about their experiences, Gerald speaks of the girl behind the waterfall. Winthorpe pipes up that there is a waterfall only a quarter of a mile away, part of a stream that flows into the lake. John wonders if that girl is the Sarah he has been talking to on the dark web. Winthorpe returns to bed, leaving his revolver with Damien. DataMaster Computer They resolve to go to the computer tower and Damien steals Winthorpe’s pass, which gets them in there. Once inside, John is in his element and is quickly able to access the DataMaster, which is an elegantly designed series of servers hosting software that is monitoring and storing a lot of sensory information and “Dream Visualiser” is trying to turn that into a video image. He views back the images from Sebastian’s dreams and around 1am starts to see the image of the Thing slowly forming in amongst the swirling patterns. They are concerned about this thing proliferating and consider how to destroy the DataMaster, but realise that the original code is still available and they will only slow things down. It will be dawn soon and at some point the Institute staff will arrive for the morning shift. They resolve to head to the waterfall now and see what they find.
Damien prepares some Molotov cocktails from a petrol can in the gardening shed. John recovers his bag, goes back to his room and packs things up. His compulsion leads him to waste a lot of time doing this and he does not answer his phone, so they leave without him. Gerald insists on taking his 4x4 to the waterfall. John decides to stay at the institute for a while and turn on the CCTV system, scanning for anything unusual. The rest of them approach the waterfall and get a bad feeling about going any further. Sebastian bumps into a strange stickman totem hanging from a tree, which unnerves him. They approach the waterfall, Damien in the lead. He sees there is a figure blocking the cave mouth behind the waterfall, a man suspended. Closer examination shows the man is Graham Mains, the computer technician. He has had wooden spikes stuck into his arms and legs and he is bleeding, though not that much, and appears pale and withered. A female vice suddenly calls from within the cave – “Do not touch him!” Damien asks who she is? “Sarah.” Why can’t I touch him? “The Thing is taking him and once it does it will come for me.” As Damien gets near to him, Mains opens his eyes. There is darkness behind them with twinkling lights coming out of them. Damien is freaked out and ends up shooting Mains in the head a few times. He holes that appear show blackness behind them. Mains collapses on the floor. Damien steps over him and into the cave. There is a short tunnel he goes down, while re-loading his gun and the others following. At the end of the tunnel is a wooden doorway, which has been added artificially. On the front of the door is a large symbol, a combination of spider web, maze, a pattern Damien recognises from the wiring of the Dream Web, and a horned skull face. The image projects a feeling not to enter the cave. Damien and the others force themselves to walk past it into the cave. Inside the cave, the walls are covered in multiple painted images, mainly pagan imagery including stickman style cave painting. On the back wall though, is a large painting of the Thing Hanging in the Void, which manifest in the Institute. In front of the main mural is an altar-like stone tied on top of which is a younger girl. She says hello to Damien and tells him he is the man with the hole in his mind and in his soul. Gerald – the Fool, the one they are all using. Amy – she is in danger. She is like Sarah and they will be coming for her. Sebastian – the Magician. Damien asks where the masked figures are. She says they have gone. They punished their follower, the computer technician, for failing them. For revealing their presence. They are horrible and powerful. She keeps arching her back and Damien sees that a shard of black stone is stuck in her back. Sebastian cuts her bonds and they take her off the altar. Sarah tells them she has seen all their dreams. She was forced to feed the dreams of all the patients to the Thing – if she didn’t it would consume her. Amy steps forward and removes the shard from Sarah’s back without touching it, wrapping it up and putting it away. Sarah says it is too late, the Thing is consuming her. Her eyes turn black and her mouth does too. Her voice suddenly becomes guttural and in-human. From her mouth and eyes, twinkling lights begin to emerge and form a cloud over her. The mural of the Thing suddenly comes to life and begins to project over the altar. Gerald is shocked and throwns a Molotov cocktail, setting fire to the wall. However, the Thing does not seem to be affected by the flames and they realise it is not coming for them. It is feeding on the white twinkling lights that are coming from Sarah and she is withering away. Another funnel of white lights is coming from the body of Graham Mains. As they watch, both bodies effectively disintegrate into the twinkling lights and disappear. Once the Thing has fed, it fads away. The fire has now ruined the mural of the Thing and burns out. They resolve to destroy the rest of the cave with fire, after taking photographs of the images. They retreat from the cave and begin to discuss what they are going to do next. At the institute, John has been communicating with Sarah on the Dark Web and is aware of what she has been saying and has happened to her. He then communicates with Amanda, asking what has happened to Sarah. She says that she has been absorbed. Amanda also says Arachne are out there. They are powerful and there are other spirits of people who have been killed by them. John asks what they can do and Amanda says she does not know, they are powerful and scary.