The Four Story Fall

October 27, 2023 (11:43pm)

The world is a tomb: dark, cold, and still. The agents have gathered in the parking lot of an office building. They’ve been here once before. As they meet each others’ eyes, a shard of glass shatters on the ground at their feet. Then the rest of the glass. Slam the table, if you feel comfortable doing so, because a body is next. A man. Their fellow agent. Mark.

A window is broken four stories up. When an agent moves to check for life signs, ask everyone for a sanity roll: helplessness. Stop them before they roll.

Let’s see how helpless they were.

Rules for Play:

Players have 15 real-time minutes in each scene. Tell them and provide a timer, where possible. After 15 minutes, the police arrive or Mark has a complete emotional breakdown, whichever makes most sense. The scene ends early if they deescalate Mark or kill him. If they kill him, the next scene plays out as written. He’s back.

Agent Mark:

A reliable colleague, till this. Volunteer firefighter and getaway driver. King of gallows humor. A few reasons to keep him alive, assigned randomly to each agent:

• He owes you money.
• He saved your life.
• He covered for you when you ignored protocol.
• He collected pieces of you when you broke.

September 10, 2023 (3:34pm)

Urgent Mission: Deescalate Agent Mark. Address provided below.

The Park:

Unseasonably warm weather coaxes joggers, dog-walkers, and parents of young children to the park. Agent Mark is there, weeping on a bench. He wears business casual and black fabric gloves. When the agents approach he will plead for them to help. If he gets close enough to touch them, they will find the gloves are wet with blood.

The Body:

A man’s body cools in a copse of trees nearby. Mark has covered him with leaves, just barely. The body’s been stabbed four times with a knife, also present. This man has been following Mark. Mark has killed him. The dead man appears to be an off-duty postal worked named Jeffery Richardson (45). He’s carrying a wallet, a phone, and a tote bag with a half-gallon of milk. Mrs. Richardson is calling the phone, wondering what’s taking him so long.

Mark needs help with the body. He’ll do anything for that help. It’s over, now. It’s finally over.

Objective:

Dispose of the body.

Obstacles:

• A dog is sniffing nearby, the owner behind it.
• Mark’s son, celebrating his 6 th birthday on the other side of the park.
• Mark, at the edge of hysteria.

Agents Might Discover:

• Jeffery Richardson does not exist outside of this situation.
• The phone, if unlocked, is blank except for Mrs. Richardson’s contact.
• Mrs. Richardson’s questions are too careful.

If Agents Complete the Objective:

Mark believes reinforcements are on their way at the end and he relaxes his body in the fall. (+5% to Mark’s Survive the Four Story Fall skill in the final stat block)

October 7, 2023 (6:12am)

Urgent Mission: Deescalate Agent Mark. Address provided below.

The Green Box:

They recognize that address right away. The Green Box was formerly kept in a shipping container, buried under metal and bureaucracy at the local train yard. Mark has leveraged connections to have it set on the back of a flatbed truck. The agents notice this as he passes them on the opposite side of the interstate, heading for the nearest cliff overlooking a deep body of water. He’s cruising at the speed limit and screaming inside.

The truck is slow but powerful and the contents of the Green Box are not fit for the side of the road. Agent Mark will answer his phone, explain what he has to do. They’ve followed him there, you see. Three of them. They know about the Green Box.

Objective:

Save the Green Box.

Obstacles:

• The highway patrol.
• Mark’s guns.
• Traffic cameras, dash cams, and live witnesses.

Agents Might Discover:

• Mark will need to stop for gas before reaching the cliff.
• Mark has welded the Green Box shut.

If Agents Complete the Objective:

Mark keeps a set of body armor from the Green Box. He’s wearing this armor when he falls. (+5% to Mark’s Survive the Four Story Fall skill in the final stat block)

October 18, 2023 (7:05pm)

Text Message from Mark: “I have proof. I need your help. Don’t call anyone yet.” (Mark is sharing his location).

The Proof:

The first time agents stand in the shadow of the office building, they do so on Mark’s invitation alone. He’s rented a few feet of carpet and desk at a co-working space on the fourth floor and told the owners he writes escape room narratives. He called dibs on a small conference room for this reunion but a doomed startup is running overtime inside. Two stragglers type in the co-working space while Mark and the agents stand outside the conference room, waiting for it to open.

Make small talk. Let this eat into their time for as long as it takes for them to sweat.

Then, the twenty-somethings file out and Mark hurries them in. He syncs his laptop with the projector. His hands are shaking. Finally, the proof:

1. A dozen blurry images of men positioned about the city. (The same man, Mark insists.)
2. Several dozen images of black sedans throughout the city. One is clearly a different model. (How’d that get in there?)
3. Four quick clips from his home’s motion sensor doorbell camera with nobody in frame. (See?)
4. An audio clip from a phone call that has been corrupted and won’t play. (This was working before…)
5. A shaky video of Mark’s dog, tied to a tree, yelping and straining against a leash before lunging at the camera. Mark’s arm appears and fires at the dog, killing it. (They did something to her, she would never attack me.)
6. A spliced image comparing the Richardson body to another from a previous mission. Shouldn’t be on his personal computer. (This goes back further than I thought.)

In short, Mark has nothing. He realizes this, sees it through the eyes of the others, around item #4. But he needs them to believe.

Objective:

Convince Agent Mark you believe him.

Obstacle:

Just Mark this time.

Agents Might Discover:

• Mark’s wife left him. Took the kid.
• He’s lost his job.
• He sleeps in his car for an hour at a time, constantly changing locations.

If the Agents Complete the Objective:

Mark has knowledge the agents need. He knows they’ll listen. He covers his head with his arms during the fall, determined to survive. (+5% to Mark’s Survive the Four Story Fall skill in the final stat block)

October 27, 2023 (11:44pm)

Urgent Mission: Deescalate Agent Mark. (Address provided below).

nearly simultaneously as:

Text Message from Mark: “help” (Mark is sharing his location).

The Four Story Fall:

It’s said that the likelihood of surviving a fall from four stories hovers around 50%.

Slam the table again if you did it the first time. We’re back to that moment. An agent checks for vitals and the handler rolls for Mark’s survival, as indicated in his stat block. Whatever the result, agents may volunteer to roll helplessness based on their interpretation of the situation up to this point (1/1d4). This is an individual choice and there is no reward for either answer.

If Mark survives, he’s in critical condition but hangs on to consciousness long enough to convey the following:

• The information they need is on his laptop on the fourth floor.
• One of them is still out there.

The Massacre:

The co-working space reeks of blood and gunfire. Several bodies drain blood on the floor. They look like civilians, like other people just using this venue. They’ve been shot. A dog is growling somewhere in the offices. It yelps and then: a gunshot. That’s the clip of Mark executing his dog. That’s where his laptop is.

Objective:

Understand what’s missing.

The Faces:

The laptop is cycling through Mark’s slideshow. The same evidence repeats, but there’s more now: pictures of Mark with his family, pictures of the city, frames from surveillance. Mark has circled a different person in each picture. There are eight pictures like this.

Agents Might Discover:

• Six of the pictures capture the likenesses of the six bodies strewn about the building. A seventh captures Jeffery Richardson a week before the incident at the park, staring over Mark’s shoulder at a café.
• Some of these dead people are familiar. The dog walker in the park, the gas station attendant in the chase. A handful of NPCs that seemed unimportant at the time.
• One young man is not among the dead. Mark’s indicated a likely alias in the slide notes.

If the Agents Complete the Objective:

• Do they find the missing man? Follow him?
  • • He seems normal.
      • • How long do they follow?
          • • How long do they follow?
              • • How long do they follow?
                  • • How long do they follow?

Appendix:

Agent Mark (Sept. 10)
STR 13 CON 11 DEX 13 INT 12 POW 12 CHA 11
HP 12 WP 9 SAN 32
Skills:
Athletics 80%, Firearms 50%, Melee Weapons 60%, Hold it Together Under Pressure 40%
Attacks:
Medium Pistol 50% (1d10 damage), Knife (if returned) 60% (1d6+1 damage)

Agent Mark (Oct. 7)
STR 13 CON 11 DEX 13 INT 12 POW 12 CHA 11
HP 12 WP 7 SAN 14
Skills:
Athletics 80%, Drive 55%, Firearms 50%, Melee Weapons 60%, Hold it Together Under Pressure 30%, See Through Their Patronizing Bullshit 40%
Armor:
Kevlar Vest (3)
Attacks:
Medium Pistol 50% (1d10 damage)
Shotgun 50% (2d8 damage)

Agent Mark (Oct. 18)
STR 13 CON 11 DEX 13 INT 12 POW 12 CHA 11
HP 12 WP 4 SAN 9
Skills:
Athletics 80%, Drive 55%, Firearms 50%, Melee Weapons 60%, Hold it Together Under Pressure 25%, See Through Their Patronizing Bullshit 40%, Convince Myself They Believe Anyway 30%
Attacks:
Medium Pistol 50% (1d10 damage)

Agent Mark (Oct. 27)
STR 13 CON 11 DEX 13 INT 12 POW 12 CHA 11
HP 0/1 WP 3 SAN 4
Skills:
Survive the Four Story Fall 50% (+5% for each completed objective)

Credits

The Four Story Fall was written by Dylan Bach for the 2023 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JUNYmbwcJhylBeC0WhLUaB0TJzdkTBa-AfabglvGxDE/edit?usp%3Dsharing&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1704177025619487&usg=AOvVaw2qN4AEhPT-uO_cVD0AM6LG