In-Game Date

1995-08-02

RL Date

2025-04-18

Agents

• Jess Drayton

• Prof. Lily Golightly

• Ray

• Scott Taylor

• Vi

Handler

Director Pringle

Related Casefiles

BLUE LILY

Briefing Notes

This report is classified GABLE WINDOW. If you do not have GABLE WINDOW clearance, do not read this document.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Entropic occlusion (ENTOCC) is a form of occult stealth technology utilised by both human and non-human hostiles. Through local manipulation of entropy, it is possible to render a target invisible to vislight and IR observers, in a similar fashion to non-occult cloaking using metamaterials. While most implementations of ENTOCC leave a noticeable distortion field, a sufficiently precise distortion of local conditions can result in, “perfect,” invisibility, providing an insurmountable tactical advantage in the occult battlespace.

A Tillinghast resonator or similar detector can move ENTOCC targets into the visible spectrum, but the range of such detectors is severely limited (<100 metres). Furthermore, integration of Tillinghast-type detectors with self-guided munitions has proved notoriously difficult (see YELLOW ARCHER). Tillinghast technology is hence unsuitable for large-scale battlefield deployment as may be required under certain near-future scenarios involving open conflict with ENTOCC hostiles.

Another counter for ENTOCC is an alchemical compound referred to as IG, derived from the powder of Ibn-Ghazi (Al-Hazred). When agitated, IG granules produce an entropic distortion that temporarily unravels ENTOCC within the power cloud. IG loses its potency within a short period; traditional deployment of IG was with a hand-pumped sprayer or aerosol. For IG to be tactically viable, a wider dispersal method is required.

BATTLESPACE DEPLOYMENT OF IG CLOUDS

Refinements to the IG formula produced a longer-lasting variant, IG7. GABLE WINDOW utilises a refitted CRV7 delivery system, replacing the warhead with a payload of three kilograms of IG7 wrapped around an airburst charge. GABLE WINDOW is designed to detonate at 250 metres above ground level, creating an effective IG7 cloud of up to 1.5 kilometres in radius. The IG7 remains airborne for up to five minutes before losing effectiveness, giving forces in the area the opportunity to target ENTOCC hostiles with conventional weapons including laser guided munitions. IG7 clouds do not significantly reduce visibility. Ground units within IG7 AOE are advised to take precautions against chemical weapons due to the toxic nature of the compound; see also standard warnings for operations within Tillinghast zones.

If GABLE WINDOW tests proceed as expected, then projections are to begin mass production of IG7 and deployment of CRV-7IG units by 2005.

Photographs

There is also a set of photos in the folder. They show a stretch of barren Scottish coastline beneath a hazy, silvery mist. There are several target objects (piles of oil drums or dummy tanks) highlighted – they are strangely distorted and weirdly coloured. The target objects are all equipped with Class Three Entropy Manipulation generators – they are invisible to the naked eye, but were revealed by the GABLE WINDOW airburst.

In the last photo, at the very edge of the silvery mist, there is something else. It has got the same discolouration and distortion as the target objects but it is definitely not a training dummy. The Tornado was turning away when the photo was taken so it is hard to make out details, but the thing definitely has tentacles. Lots of them. It is impossible to estimate the thing’s size, as it was half-in, half-out of the Ibn-Ghazi airburst, but it must be at least six feet long.

Report

Agents were contacted by telephone at approx. 0400 on 02-10-1995 and collected by high speed car (“blue light special”. Internal billing as appropriate). Transported to RAF Northolt and boarded a BAe 146 bound for Scotland. Agents were cleared for GABLE WINDOW and provided briefing notes. Inside the plane was a large, unsealed wooden crate containing the following items:

• Six sets of very large, wax-treated wet weather clothing, army green.

• A handheld GPS unit.

• A Tillinghast resonator.

• Torches and spare batteries.

• Four sachets of the powder of Ibn Ghazi.

• A field exorcism kit. Also included was a sealed bag which had tags to ensure it had not been previously opened. The bag was heavy, bulky and contained a box of some sort. It was stencil painted with: “WARNING: DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION”. An additional note was attached, reading, “Ray; This means you”.

Landing in Prestwick, near Glasgow, Prof. Golightly’s Blackberry rang and Director Pringle enquired as to the enjoyability of the journey prior to confirming that his major concern was the last photo and that the team was to, “Have a poke around, and let me know the instant you find anything significant”.

After meeting their contact in the arrivals section, the indescribably Scottish Rennie, the team embarked in a rattly Landrover. At a brief pit stop to pick up some artery hardening breakfast from a lay-by food van, Rennie informed them he thought the whole thing was a waste of time and span them many a merry tale of the lloigor, “Spirits of the air,” and other, “Timorous beasties”. The team determined that Rennie was full of it as they continued south-west towards the Kircudbright Training Ground near Dumfries.

Passing a sign informing them that they were entering MoD property, they weren’t welcome, and they may encounter high speed ordnance that would have a brief and exciting encounter with unexpected visitors, Rennie turned down a dirt lane that soon became a track. The beauty of the Solway Firth somewhat offset the dreich weather as Rennie squelched the 4x4 to a stop near to the field depicted in the briefing photos. “Here we are,” muttered Rennie, with a dour look, “Naewhere”.

The team told Rennie, in no uncertain terms, that he was to remain in the vehicle while they conducted their investigation and set off to determine where the photograph of the tentacled horror had been taken. After more trigonometry than needs detailing, the team arrive on high ground with a good view of where the final photograph captured the tentacled horror. Binoclar inspection reveals churned up ground and tracks that demand closer inspection. Onwards! Agent Taylor’s tracking skills came to the fore: Whatever made these tracks was a single entity, but leaving hoofprints, paw prints, dragging like a snake or monopodial creature and, in some areas, the tracks petered out, not like a weight being lifted, but almost like the creature just… not being there. Weird.

At this stage, the Tillinghast resonator was deployed and the tracks were shown to be covered in a shifting purple/orange iridescence making following the tracks a lot easier. The tracks led over a low, stone wall which had been dissolved by what might have been an extremely strong acid down to two thirds of its original waist height. On the road beyond the wall was an old, use-worn, blue family car, complete with stick figure family of mum, dad, daughter and dog in the rear window. The monstrous trail passed nearby the car, but did not interact with it as it crossed another low stone wall to a sheep field.

Scouting the field by binoculars, they could see a pile of four sheep corpses, and all the remaining sheep huddling in a far corner of the field, clearly distressed. Closer investigation revealed the sheep corpses were sagging sacks of wool, skin and bone, entirely lacking in filling, however there did not appear to be any wounds upon the unfortunate creatures. Agent Vi, for reasons known only to herself, pondered bringing a sheep along with them. Meanwhile, Agent Drayton’s tracking skills determined that the monstrous tracks from this point on were heavier, more often like sheep hooves, and less inclined to just disappear. Somehow, more real.

The monster’s tracks led in to a small wood, parallel to faint track, which appeared to have been followed by the human occupants of the car. Agent Vi determined that there was also a ward in this area that would drive unwanted persons away, but that the team were not subject to its effects. Using dowsing rods assembled from a nearby hazel tree, it was determined that the source of this ward’s effects also lay within or beyond the woods.

As they neared the woods, the more perceptive of the team became aware of singing in a high register, possibly pipes? The teams’ protectors, Agent Taylor and Agent Winstone engaged stealth mode to reconnoitre the source of the sound which had resolved in to the sound of young girl’s voice singing what sounded like nursery rhymes. The two scouts saw a small, blonde girl, about six years of age, singing as she squished through the soggy loam of the woods, looking for, “Yog-Snuffles”. As she headed further in to the woods, Ray maintained the tail, while Scott Taylor, headed back to the team.

While Agent Taylor briefed the team on the, “creepy little girl,” situation, Ray lost sight of her in the woods for a time. Suddenly, Rennie appeared, screaming his Scottish lungs out and floating about three feet off the ground. With a hideous slurping, Rennie’s screams came to an abrupt halt as his innards were rapidly extracted and the remaining sack of bones was carelessly discarded in the mud. Ray hid behind a tree as the little girl wandered off with her, “invisible friend”.

Meanwhile, the team had heard the bloodcurdling scream and came upon the scene of Rennie’s demise. Once assured the, “timorous beastie,” had vacated the area they, true to their adventuring form, rummaged through Rennie’s pockets and retrieved his wallet, warrant card and Landie keys. His rabbit’s foot keyring was roundly mocked. Prof. Golightly noted a small, scalpel-like incision on the back of Rennie’s neck where his fluids and soft tissues had been extracted. The Tillinghast resonator goggles showed the whole area as, “touched by things of an extra-planar nature,” but the path left by the creature was clear.

Nothing terrible ever happens in abandoned bunkers

The team came upon the girl sat on a tree stump outside the opening to what appeared to be a WWII-era subterranean bunker. The open steel door was emblazoned with an Invisible College ward designed to drive off undesirables, which is what Vi had sensed earlier. Despite the whole area, and even the girl, being covered in the taint of elsewhere, she appeared to be pretty much a, “normal,” human girl of approximately six years old. She seemed quite happy to talk to the team and they gleaned the following information:

• Yog-Snuffles was her best friend and had been since eating her dog.

• He had been living in the shed at the bottom of the garden until becoming too big to fit.

• She couldn’t remember a time Yog-Snuffles wasn’t living in the shed.

• Her name was Emma Hume and she and her family lived in a nearby town/village.

• Yog-Snuffles was probably off looking for something to eat. He was always hungry. (Queue argument about bringing sheep)

• Her parents were in the bunker getting in touch with Yog-Snuffles’ daddy.

• Yog-Snuffles’ was going to come and stay with them and wipe the stain of humanity from the face of the earth.

A call was made to Director Pringle to inform him that, yes, there was definitely something rotten in the state of Denmark and he gave them clearance for BLUE LILY REDSHIFT and permission to open the sealed bag. Inside, the team found the PROJECT BLUE LILY document and a laser designator, as might be used to target artillery or missile strikes.

There was a sudden tremor in the earth beneath the feet of the team, culminating in a sudden, violent earthquake that caused a tree to fall and nearly flatten, Agent Drayton. It was only with the quick reflexes of Agent Winstone that a reduction in dimensions was avoided.

At this point, the team felt a terrible sense of dread that something was watching them. The Tillinghast resonator goggles revealed that Yog-Snuffles was squatting obscenely on top of the bunker, just… watching. Agent Taylor got some mind-blasting insight in to the nature of non-terrestrial organisms before the goggles, in an attempt at self-preservation, shorted out.

Prof. Golightly used some ninja skills to approach Yog-Snuffles unobserved, before covering the thing in powder of Ibn-Ghazi. The revelation of the horror’s true nature wreaked havoc upon the poor minds in the area and chaos ensued as people ran around, getting attacked by suckered pseudopods, battering the rubbery tentacles with tree branches or trying to blow capsicum powder in to eyes that have stared in to dimensions mankind was not meant to know (No, this doesn’t work). After some further shenanigans with stabby objects, the team found themselves inside the bunker, with a sturdy, steel door between them and toothed atrocity.

After short break to gird their loins and recoup some sanity, the team descended in to the depths of the bunker, passing by abandoned office space and research laboratories. The complex had all wiring and cabling stripped out. Unnatural fungus grew throughout and, in some places, the concrete was discoloured with a weird, purple tint and seemed to be crumbling like soft cake.

Bullet holes in the laboratory space drew some note, but the team were motivated to urgency by the rise and fall of chanting in human voices that grew steadily louder as the progressed and a brightening, red glow from up ahead. Passing by closed, heavy steel doors on either side of the corridor, their goal appeared to be similar door at the end of the corridor that hung ajar. It was from behind this door that the glow and voices came and the door itself seemed to have been pummeled and melted in places, great rents allowing the dancing nimbus to illuminate some way in to the corridor.

“Soon! Soon! The walls grow thin! I shall push from this side and the child from the other and the walls will break! I hunger! Be swift with the sacrifice!” an inhuman voice boomed from beyond the door.

Ray was the bold one who pressed their eye to a crack in the door to see what lay beyond: A summoning chamber, stripped of equipment and machinery, but obviously still of some use to… something. Writhing in the air above a chalk summoning circle, a bleeding gash in reality, provided a window into dimensions best left unexplored. A pair of human adults, male and female, presumably the Humes stared mindlessly in to the abyss, their mouths repeating a droning chant. Whether possessed, hypnotised or enchanted, it was clear they were no longer at home to Mr. Free Will.

“The door must be made from your side, minions! Widen the breach!” Beams of pink (?) light shot from the breach in to the eye sockets of the unfortunate Humes. The breach began to widen…

In rapid succession, Prof. Golightly and Vi determined that this summoning circle was acting as a focus of occult energies that were widening the rift and that destroying the circle should close the portal. It was with this confidence, that Agent Drayton began a run up to the door and the team hauled the door open at the last possible instance to allow Jess Drayton to slide across the summoning chamber’s floor.

“Intruders! Invisibles! I know you of old! You shall suffer greatly when the Earth is cleared and we of the Aklo Saboath rule where we once ruled! Our hand is at your throat, though you see it not! Well, more of a tentacle really, than a hand! Graagh!” Everything seemed to happen at once. Yog-Snuffles resumed its attempts to smash its way into the bunker. Thunder boomed overhead and the air crackled as reality crumbled.

Agent Drayton’s slide broke through the lines of the chalk circle and the glowing portal snapped shut, the Humes’ bodies dropping like marionettes with their strings cut. The team had shut of their torches for their assault and, with the portal closed, everything was now in pitch darkness. The pounding of Yog-Snuffles also ceased abruptly, leaving an eerie quiet. As torches came on, and vision was restored, the Humes were found to have had their throats cut. I’m not saying it was Ray, but it was Ray.

Once outside, the team didn’t rest on their laurels, wanting to track down Yog-Snuffles before it got up to more mischief. While the creature itself was invisible, its angry passage through the woods was not and led directly towards a hillside free of trees. The team moved closer, to see an all too familiar crimson glow at the crest of the hill, where Emma was transfixed by pink light streaming from beyond.

Prof. Golightly called it in. Informing Director Pringle that they had a fire mission for the nearby Dundrennan Firing Range, Scott Taylor carefully aimed the laser designator at the ground at the crest of the hill, carefully trying not to alert either child that they were being targeted. Within minutes, the hilltop disappeared in a storm of high explosive artillery shells, turning the convex crown in to a concave caldera. When the smoke cleared, the team approached to confirm there was no trace of unearthly flesh remaining, merely the ruined remains of a previously buried megalithic structure, now turned to gravel…