A.Journal

Checks

31 checks

Formidable

He did, in fact. A tell.

Formidable

The young watcher averts his eyes but his posture betrays his attention. He knows there's something up with the mysterious party of foreigners, and he's trying to work out what.

Formidable

The marks along these 'seats' are anchor points -- four per seat. You know what that implies.

Formidable

Subliminal messages? Backmasked indoctrinations beamed directly into the youth subconscious? Low-frequency infrasonic hypnosis?

Formidable

So he knows its value... shame.

Formidable

A two-way mirror.

Formidable

They will -- creeping in on padded feet, striking with a shiv to the spine.

Formidable

This is the ceremony you've been directed to perform. Its offices are lonely and obscure -- it is a ceremony of strangeness, heartlessness, and emptiness.

Formidable

In retrospect, the whole thing smells like a massive set-up. Already the unseen enemy had you all in their grasp.

Formidable

Veiled insinuation? Has he made you?

Formidable

Seems like it's attached to his skull; this asset could be wired up.

Formidable

If you don't get back on track, there's a chance you'll both end up in an EMTERR work camp.

Formidable

In retrospect, her diligence gave you a false sense of her abilities.

Formidable

In theory, it exists -- but many assume it to be an empty office behind a locked door. The Operant Bureau also does not dictate age restrictions for potential assets.

Formidable

A vortex of schemes swirls beneath the silence. Don't you hear it?

Formidable

Yours, too. More and more alike.

Formidable

Formidable

A body in a ditch. A back alley arrest. A name scraped off a plaque and folded into bureaucracy. You'd assumed a lot, but not this sad half-death.

Formidable

Trepanation is hardly the most extreme thing an operant has done in pursuit of becoming a supranaturally-inclined spy. Nor is it, for that matter, the only one involving bodily mutilation.

Formidable

As unfavourable as the scenario is, there is a comfort to seeing it lucidly played out before you.

Formidable

He's attempting Functional Invisibility again. Or 'Psychogenic Translucency', as M.I.H.O. calls it.

Formidable

The day hasn't even begun, and already his hands are dripping with the blood of your sometime-asset.

Formidable

... Because they should've spread out to cover off potential threats.

Formidable

Mass conditioning. It never fails.

Formidable

Right. The young watcher.

Formidable

Of course, the Operant Bureau's psychomancers share the same interest. They just call it 'Conditioning'.

Formidable

Dubious cryptonym. Likely self-assigned.

Formidable

Formidable

Brilliantly played, operant. When you get back, there'll be champagne and a line of women's athletic socks commissioned in your honour.

Formidable

You let him go. You let him go. You let. Him go.

Formidable

The quarry is dead. You have already completed your assignment.