Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho
You can purchase this game here.
Read part one here.
Since our last post, Little Town’s creator Gustavo Coelho has updated the pdf with links. That has made navigating the book far easier and was a desperately needed quality-of-life upgrade.
Here’s the Spotify playlist I made for this playthrough as well.
Scene 1 – Time Limit 8
Location: Bank, Morning
Scene Event roll: Roll on the Investigation Progress table
Investigation Progress roll: You get in touch with a Friendly NPC that may know something about the Case. If you wish, roll “Interrogate.”
Lily Davis, 17, stands in line at the Volunteer State Consolidated Bank. It’s located in the town square, a relic of Bright Hills’ early days when the train rumbled through, dropping off and picking up people and tobacco. The square has dwindled, home to a few local shops that only get a little traffic beyond the momentarily curious. The bank is one of the few institutions frequented, but even then, that’s by people whose businesses opened accounts there decades prior. Most new places are banking with Bank of America, built on the other side of town.
It’s not much of a line that Lily is waiting in. In front of her is Donna Johnson, 22, a waitress at The Tip Top diner. She’s making a drop off of the cash from last night’s till. The money has already been deposited, but Donna carries on an aggressively flirtatious conversation with the teller. “You should stop sometime after work. Have a slice of pie,” she says, her words dripping with insinuations. The teller blushes red in the cheeks, grins stupidly, and tries to banter back, showcasing his lack of smoothness compared to the sultry Donna.
Lily checks her watch and sees she only has a little time before the bell rings at school. “Excuse me,” she says, pushing past Donna momentarily and setting the brown paper sack on the teller’s counter. The teller, her older brother Sam, 20, looks at the bag and then at his little sister. “You left this on the kitchen table, Sam. Mom told me to bring it to you.”
Lily acknowledges Donna with a half-smile. Then the teenage girl remembers that Liza worked at The Tip Top after school. Donna was there the last night Lily saw her friend up and moving around before the incidents of early the next morning and the coma.
Donna seems to feel this passing between them, stating, “Sorry about your friend. Hope she’s doing alright.”
(Interrogate – rolled 11, Strong Hit)
Lily asks if Donna remembers anything strange about Liza that night, if she saw anything as they were closing, or when Liza started walking home. Donna thinks momentarily and replies, “She seemed sadder than usual, very down. Normally we’d chat, not much but just some banter back and forth. Liza didn’t seem up for it that night.”
Brief pleasantries are exchanged and Lily heads off to school. Behind her, she can hear Sam trying to make his own laughable insinuations, followed by Donna asking when he plans on asking her out.
Scene 2 – Time Limit 7
Location: School, Morning
Scene Event roll: Draw a Danger card
Danger: You are approached by a stranger who “advises” you to stop the Investigation. Return this card to the pile and shuffle.
Lily arrives at school in the hand-me-down car she got from her brother. It’s raining now, not too heavy, but an annoyance regardless. She finds an umbrella under the passenger seat and checks her watch. Damn, five minutes past the bell. Rushing to get into the building, she notices the woman when she bumps into her.
The woman stands out mainly due to her clothing, a black dress straight out of the Watkins County History Museum in the square, something a grieving widow of a wealthy man might have worn. The woman holds an umbrella of her, frayed and aged. Her eyes are wide, and she stares holes straight through Lily, who stands there stunned.
“Sorry,” the teenage girl mumbles as she attempts to step past the woman and continue inside. The woman blocks her path. “Excuse me,” Lily says, the annoyance in her voice detectable.
“You must stop this,” the woman croaks out. Lily freezes and looks at her, unsure what to do in response. “There is nothing to be done for your friend. To pursue this path would mean the end for you both.”
Lily feels a heat move through her, anger boiling. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but how dare you say anything about Liza. Do you know something about what happened? What’s your name?!”
The woman stands silent; rain pattering against surfaces is the only sound in the parking lot. “Stay there,” Lily orders. “I’m going to talk to the office. Do you have a kid here or something?” Lily roughly pushes her way past and buzzes the office, hearing the click of the door, which she opens.
Scene 3 – Time Limit 8
Location: School, Morning
Scene Event roll: Roll on the Random event table
Random event: Neutral NPC introduced
Lily enters the front office where Veronica Reynolds, 38, is typing on the computer. She looks up and casts Lily a disappointed yet understanding look. “Lily, honey, you need to get to school on time. I can write you a hall pass this last time, but you need to stop this.”
Lily is quite disoriented after the encounter outside. “Sorry, I know,” she responds automatically. “There is a woman in the parking lot. She blocked me and was saying something about me and Liza. I dunno. She was just very threatening.”
Veronica’s face changes to one of intense concern. “Out in the parking lot?” The school receptionist gets up from her rolling chair and lifts the Venetian blinds, scanning the rain-soaked parking lot. “I’m not seeing anyone, Lily. What did she look like?”
Lily tries to describe the clothing, the umbrella, and the woman’s intense face but finds the details are blurred in her memory. Veronica clearly sees this as some stress related to the Liza situation. “There, there, honey. You’re just feeling all broken up about everything lately. It’s going to get easier in time.”
Scene 4 – Time Limit 9
Location: Afternoon, Liza’s House
Scene Event roll: Roll on the Investigation progress table
Investigation progress table roll: You get in touch with an Unfriendly NPC that may know something about the Case. If you wish, roll “Interrogate.”
Liza is unsettled all day but never sees a sign of that strange woman again. After school, she doesn’t want to head home. All she’ll do there is sit in her bedroom, stewing over Liza and her guilt about hooking up with Alex behind her friend’s back. She thinks she should check in on Liza’s parents; she hasn’t seen them since her friend was hurt. Her mom had made a casserole because that is what you do, apparently, and Lily volunteers to drop it off at the Robertson home.
A knock on the door is followed by the door opening and Mr. Robertson (Richard) standing there immediately looking distracted. “Oh, hi, Lily. Did you need something?” Not the friendliest of greetings.
Richard is a psychiatrist who converted an apartment around the back of the house into his home office. He’ll meet with patients here. His wife, Teresa, is a bookkeeper at Talbot Oil. Altogether they have a lovely home and live in a neighborhood that isn’t overflowing with wealth but is a good upper-middle-class area of town. Richard keeps glancing inside while he makes small talk with Lily.
(Interrogate – 6, Miss)
Lily presses Richard for an update about her friend. He shuts her down, stating he’s got a patient waiting on him. He takes the casserole, gives a half-hearted thanks, and closes the door. Lily feels irritated to have been treated so inconsequentially. She stands on the front porch momentarily and then decides to head home. Her hopes about not drowning in guilt seem dashed.
As she drives away, Lily spots a red Taurus parked around her back. Not strange for Richard’s line of work, but Lily feels like she’s seen that car before, yet can’t pinpoint where.
Scene 5 – Time Limit 10
Location: Night, Lily’s House
Scene Event roll: Draw a danger card
Investigation progress table roll: You are approached by a stranger who “advises” you to stop the Investigation. Return this card to the pile and shuffle.
(What are the odds? I decided this would make for a good dream sequence)
The rain has stopped, and the sky has cleared enough that the full moon brightens up the front lawns in the neighborhood. Lily is ready for bed. Typically on a Friday night, she would be out with friends, but since Liza’s accident, everyone has been more sedate, a little worried, hunkering down at home. Lily shuts off the light and drifts off into sleep.
(Action/Theme rolls: Deny Decadence)
Images flash in Lily’s mind. The woods in the Twin Rivers State Park. Is a plate on the counter of the Tip Top Diner stained with cherry, or is it blood? Headlights on a dark road. A cabin in the woods with a light on in the window.
A man’s voice, gravely & aged, speaking methodically, with intent: “Have you ever had a dream that felt so real, you couldn’t tell if it was a dream or reality?. Once, I dreamt I was a fish swimming through a sea in the sky, and when I woke up, I still felt the water in my lungs. Reality is a slippery fish, my friend.”
The sound of a record skipping on the same groove. We hear it, then we see it. The camera slowly zooms in closer on the spinning vinyl as it sits on the turntable of an old-time Victrola.
Cut to Lily and Alex in the backseat of his car, pawing at each other. The car is parked in the woods. Headlights on and pointing out into the thick, black night. Clothes are coming off, and their sounds become distorted, more animal-like, with eerie grunts and howls. The couple is distracted. Lily’s mind/the camera pivots away from them and pushes into the front seat; through the windshield, emerging ever slightly from that sea of the dark, comes the woman who spoke to Lily outside of the high school.
The woman is dressed the same; rain is pouring now, no umbrella to protect her. Her hair is matted down from the rain-like tentacles on her forehead. The woman’s mouth is open as if screaming, but no sound comes. Then a sound of rushing water, faint at first, growing in intensity, louder until it becomes deafening.
Lily wakes up with a start. The rain is pouring down again outside her window.
Scene 6 – Time Limit 9
Location: Morning, Talbot’s Department Store
Scene Event roll: Random event table – Draw a Single Event card
Single event card: Someone approaches you with a printed copy of a coded message in which you can only identify your name.
Lily works on the weekends and every Tuesday & Thursday after school at Talbot’s Department Store. The same Talbot family owns the company her mother works for. They have been in Watkins County since before the tobacco days. Lily works in the Misses Department, helping young ladies her age pick from the somewhat limited selection offered in the store. Lily is daydreaming at the counter, with no customers in sight. Her manager, Doug Wilson, 35, approaches with a sheet of paper in hand.
“I don’t know what you young people are into these days,” he starts with his distinctive lilting drawl. “But could we keep it out of my break room, please?” He pushes the sheets of paper across the counter to Lily.
The paper is crinkled, implying it had been balled up at some point. A series of marks and symbols are in a precise square centered on the paper. They don’t stand out as meaning anything to Lily, but what does is her name scrawled across the bottom in rough handwriting. Maybe the pen used was drying out, but her name was clearly written on this with force.
“I don’t know what this is, Mr. Wilson,” she responds, and he interrupts immediately. “I don’t want to hear it, Lily. I don’t know what sort of love note or whatever this is, but I don’t want it in this store. Talbot’s is a good god-fearing family business. That means it is not the place for this sort of…(searching for the word) foolery.”
(Interrogate – 5, Miss)
Lily wants to pry Doug for more information, but he just reiterates that he found it on the table in the breakroom, which everyone is supposed to clean up after using it. Any of Lily’s attempts to get more context are met with his irritating “zero tolerance” attitude, and the exchange ends with Doug closing the door to his office. Lily looks over the sheet again, straining her brain for anything that might make sense but coming up with nothing.
Scene 7 – Time Limit 10
Location: Evening, Alex’s House
Scene Event roll: Draw a Danger card
Danger: Your Doppelgänger showed up! Roll “Face Doppelgänger”
Lily breaks and drives over to Alex’s house after work. Alex’s mom is Veronica, the school receptionist. Lily wants to talk about her dream, which she thinks has to do with her guilt over sneaking behind Liza’s back. Veronica is on her way out when Lily arrives, and she hugs the girl, unaware of what her son and this girl are up to. Just friends consoling each other as they wait for Liza’s condition to approve, she supposes.
Lily tries to describe her dream to Alex
(Remembering a Dream – 10 – You remember a word – “Follow”)
She explains that she felt like something in her dream was telling her to follow them into the woods but that she would wander in circles. Lily can’t explain why or how this makes sense, but she feels it in her bones. Alex appears uncomfortable with Lily there and keeps shifting the conversation back to Liza. He starts making proclamations that if he ever finds out who made Liza run out into the road, he’s going to fuck them up. Lily is annoyed and tries to change the subject, sharing how odd Mr. Robertson acted when she stopped by Liza’s house yesterday. It is as if Alex cannot even hear her.
Realizing Alex doesn’t really want to talk with her, but at her, Lily says she has other things to do back home and leaves. Alex goes to kiss her but pulls himself back and only gives a terse “Bye” instead. Lily leaves his house and fights back the tears she feels welling up; her emotions about everything lately and the accompanying confusion have become too much. After wiping her eyes, Lily spots something across the street in the park that stuns her. She is looking at herself, dressed in the same clothes but not looking distraught. This other Lily is looking at the real one and simply smiling. She gestures to come across and then turns around, moving out of eyesight. Without much thought, Lily pursues. Running through the park leaves her more confused than when she started. Suddenly, Lily finds she’s standing before the Twin Rivers State Park entrance, which connects to this city park.
(Face Doppelganger – 6 – Miss)
A weight hits Lily from behind; she falls and is knocked unconscious. Darkness, The feel of grass against her back. Movement. Darkness again. The forest canopy breaks in spots letting thin beams of sun through. Darkness. Lifted, stairs in the grass, going up. Darkness.
Scene 8 – Time Limit 11
Location: Another Place
Lily stands in a room surrounded by blue curtains. The floor is cherry wood. A single door leads into a hallway with the same curtains and floor. A standing lamp glows in one corner. The room this leads to has nothing in it. However, Lily can see shadows moving on the other side of the curtain, shifting and stopping and shaking, with no noises. Another door, another corridor, another door. Eventually, Lily finds herself in a room without doors, her entry gone when she turns around. She is lost here in this strange place. However, our story is not over…
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