Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Solo Liminal Horror Part Three

You can purchase Liminal Horror here
You can purchase Jeansen’s Machines here
You can download the Liminal Horror Solo Starter here

Read the previous chapter here

Scene #6 – (Confrontation 5/8)

• Modified: Cristian is in the local jail as the police process him trying to convince them he’s innocent – Add some trouble or bad news.
• The GM asks you to: Explain what’s currently happening – activities around.
• Oracle: Eliminate Prison
• Doom Clock #2 – The Promethean Fire (4/6)

Cristian sits in a cell at the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department. Officer Fletcher discovered a body hidden in the back room of the crawlspace. During his interrogation, Cristian learned that it was an adult male, so it was not the missing child, and that it had been in the crawlspace for about a week. He told them he had an alibi, to call his secretary, and she would confirm that he had been to work every day for the last week until today. It’s around one in the morning, and he sits in his cell, hoping they get ahold of her ASAP. But he’s wracked by the thought of how a dead man ended up in the crawlspace under his late grandparents’ mountain cabin. And where is cousin Albert?

The rain is pouring down harder outside. Cristian lays on the hard bench, thinking of how the same weather tore a hole in the cabin’s roof like it was made of paper. This doesn’t feel like normal rain to him; it’s more like something angry and raging outside. The door to the lock-up opens, and Officer Yates, the young man who had accompanied Fletcher, steps in. He tells Cristian they haven’t been able to raise his secretary, so he’ll probably need to sit tight until morning. The therapist can’t stand this. He’s never been in jail before. He’s never been confined like this. 

Yates leaves, promising to bring back some grub. Thirty minutes pass and no food has been delivered. Cristian swears he can hear noise outside the lock-up, voices raised. Then the door opens again. No Officer Yates, though. It is the old woman from the cabin earlier today. She has blood on her mouth and hands. Her expression is still blank, she walks towards Cristian’s cell. The keys jangle in her left hand.

(Control check 11 vs. 9 – Success)

Cristian feels his pulse quicken. He presses his back against the far wall of the cell. But he doesn’t freak out. There’s something familiar about this old woman, something he hadn’t noticed before. He knows her, but he cannot remember her.

NPC First Impression: Approach and greet you, normally, friendly, openly

“Cristian,” she says slowly. “You left the cabin. We have to get you back, young man. Let me help you.”

She pushes the keys into the lock, and the cell door opens. Cristian knows that if he leaves now, this will make him look guilty of even worse things. But who would believe him if he explained what had actually happened? They’d say he was still guilty and crazy on top of it. Strangely, the woman doesn’t look like she wants to hurt him despite the fresh blood he assumes came from the two officers out front. 

“I can’t go with you if I don’t know your name,” Cristian replies, hoping to buy some time and also see if he can place his frightening savior.

She looks at him with a half smile. “Julia. My name is Julia.”

Was she a friend of his grandparents? He remembers the recording he found in Grandpa’s office and wonders if she is related to what he heard.

“Now it is time to come with me,” Julia says with more demand. Cristian feels threatened and follows her. He has to walk past her nasty work, the Fletcher and Yates torn apart and barely recognizable smears.

(Control check 11 vs. 1 – Success)

It disturbs Cristian how calm he feels, walking past the viscera and mess of the human body. He steps in something that squishes, looking down to see a hand disconnected from its arm. His pulse barely quickens. He reasons that this has to be a bad dream, the only thing that makes sense.

---

Scene #7 – (Confrontation 6/8)

• Modified: Cristian and Julia go to the cabin to wait for the Promethean Fire – Add some reward or good news
• The GM asks you to: Indicate with what or who could characters interact
• Oracle: Distinctive Diplomacy
• Doom Clock #2 – The Promethean Fire (5/6)

Cristian sat in the passenger seat as Julia drove the stolen police car. His limbs felt like concrete weights. His mind was serene, unphased by the surreality of his circumstances. In fact, he felt a sense of slight euphoria. Julia steered the car expertly back into the mountains until the headlights cast their glow on the front of the old cabin. Cristian was finally able to get a good look at where the roof had caved in from the torrential rain. Julia exited the car; he followed.

Inside the cabin, Cristian is shocked to find cousin Albert sitting in the water-logged living room. Rain pours through the hole, and the hardwood floor already holds a couple of inches of water. Albert looks soaked but forces a pained smile. Cristian can’t believe it. Where has he been this whole time?

Cristian asks him. “Where were you, Albert?”

Oracle question: Does Julia allow Albert to answer? Answer: Weak Yes

“I…I was with my…my mother,” Albert manages to get out. He makes quick, worried glances in Julia’s direction.

Cristian looks at Julia, too. “How was he with his mother? She died?”

Oracle question: Does Julia answer this question? Answer: Yes

“I was able to give him that gift because of your work, Cristian.” Julia smiles very subtly. “You brought him back to his mother. Just like your grandfather did when he was a child.”

Cristian feels his stomach sour as he looks at Julia, picking up on details he hadn’t noticed before. Her skin is loose, barely attached to her skeleton. Her eyes bulge slightly, trying to remove themselves from her skull. Fingers are just a bit too long. He realizes he’s not looking at something human but something posing as a human.

(Control check 11 vs. 12 – Failure. -1 HP – 1/9 HP)

She steps forward, her smile growing wider, impossibly wider. “We must complete your grandfather’s work, Cristian.”

---

Scene #7 – (Confrontation 7/8)

• Random proposal: Endure a difficult complication – Intel is partially wrong or lies
• The GM asks you to: Remind what exactly brought the character here
• Doom Clock #2 – The Promethean Fire (6/6) – Arrival

The hatch in the floor is opened by Julia. She looks at Cristian. He doesn’t feel he has much choice and descends into the crawlspace. This was where the police found the dead body. Is Julia behind that corpse being in their grandparents’ cabin? 

As he walks down the wooden ladder, Cristian notices a glow from one corner. Julia follows him down, Albert behind her. The sun-face sculpture that hung on the pillar is glowing now. Cristian can’t determine where the light is coming from. He can feel the temperature rise despite the cold rainy night outside. A brief glimpse at Julia and Cristian notices her skin sagging even worse. He and Albert have to get out of whatever this is.

“Your grandfather helped me wear my first skin in so long,” Julia gurgles. “I think it’s beautiful that one of his precious boys will be my next skin.” She smiles in a gentle, loving way – at total odds with her words. Cristian isn’t letting this…thing wear his or Albert’s skin.

Cristian grabs Albert by his hoodie and attempts to rush back up the stairs away from Julia.

(Dexterity check 11 vs. 10 – Success)

Cristian gets Albert back up into the cabin, slamming the door in the floor shut with Julia in the crawlspace. 

Albert’s reaction: He seems to act with motivation, high energy and engagement

Outside impression: He appears to be doing something important or relevant to others

Albert helps Cristian slide a chair from the living room to cover the door, putting as much as they can to weigh it down. His cousin’s eyes are filled with panic.

Oracle question: Does Julia try to open the door in the floor? Answer: Yes

The door slams against the bottom of the chair, and Julia screams inhumanly before suddenly becoming completely quiet. Cristian and Albert catch their breaths. Cristian asks, “What is she? Where were you?”

Oracle: Hinder Hunger

Albert explains that hearing the sounds sent him back to the accident that killed his mother. Then he blacked out. When he woke up, Albert found himself in a cave. In the shadows, something crept around, crawling on all fours and watching him. Eventually, it revealed itself, a living effigy made of sticks bound together with barbed wire. The same wire wrapped around one hand like sharp metal fingertips that reached out and caressed Albert’s cheek. The effigy could speak in many voices: his mother, their grandfather, and even Cristian. There were other voices Albert didn’t recognize.

The creature told Albert that their grandfather had woken it up long ago. He was so sad his daughter died, and he began speaking to things beyond the realm of the living and waking. Grandfather called this thing out of the mist of the woods surrounding his beloved cabin. It came to him, and upon hearing his story, it found his daughter’s body buried in the family plot, dug her up, and tried to wear her skin. She’d been dead for too long, and the skin turned to crumbling papers and fell away. But the creature didn’t.

Instead, it stayed and would whisper into grandfather’s ear while he slept. It told him of the Promethean Fire, the essence that came into being when humanity defied their gods. One of the humans made this effigy and spoke life into him through his grief. The creature felt its form filled with sustenance. But it could not hold the skin of a human for long. The Fire would come and burn the skin away. The creature kept searching for a skin that fit forever. Albert says the beast told him one of his grandfather’s heirs would likely fit as the patriarch’s grief brought it here.

Cristian sits in stunned silence. This is madness, yet everything that has happened since his therapy session has been beyond any logic he could understand.

(Control check 11 vs. 18 – Failure. 0/9 HP, Control reduced to 5.) 

(Control save 5 vs. 11 – Failure. Fallout: Entropic Forces: Chaos flows through you like a conduit. Once per session, you can reroll any Save or Damage dice.)

Cristian can feel new ideas forming in his mind, and his sanity is fracturing as a result. He and Albert must banish this thing, or their family will be cursed by it forever.

---

Scene #8 – (Confrontation 8/8)

• Modified proposal: Cristian and Albert search for something in their grandfather’s office – Bring someone quite convenient. 
• The GM asks you to: Mention the weather or atmospheric conditions.
• Oracle: Delicate Food

Cristian remembers the book he saw in his vision after blacking out, with a veiled face on the cover. Maybe it was in their grandfather’s office, something overlooked by him and Albert for years because they weren’t looking in the first place. He explains what he saw to Albert, who still looks shell-shocked from what he’s been through. The rain keeps pouring down so that the floor is covered in about two inches of water and growing. The pair slosh their way down the hall to the office and start searching over the bookshelf. They are both so caught up in searching for the book, the sound muffled by the thunder, they don’t notice that a bruised and bloodied Office Fletcher has stumbled into the cabin and drawn her weapon on the two.

She interrupts their search. “Put your hands in the air. You are under arrest,” she manages to say, followed by spitting up a glob of blood. 

Cristian turns around, hands up. 

Albert’s Response: Promise to act against it, if the idea moves forward

Somehow, Albert manages to talk back. His face looks angry, and he spits, “We’re not the threat here, lady. There’s a thing under this house…it wears human skin. We want to kill it. That’ll solve half the problems in this fucking county, I’m guessing!”

Oracle question: Does Officer Fletcher fire her weapon? Answer: Yes

Cristian lunges for his cousin, wanting to knock him to the floor out of the bullet’s path.

(Dexterity check 11 vs. 2 – Success)

Albert falls on his side, splashing up a tremendous amount of water. Some of it gets in Fletcher’s face. She stumbles backward from the office into the hallway, knocking the chair over. The door in the floor swings up, and a long branch-like hand with barbed wire fingernails reaches up and grabs Fletcher by the leg, dragging her screaming into that dark, ominous mouth of the crawlspace. 

Cristian returns his attention to the bookshelf. They don’t have much time. He has to find this book.

(Control check 5 vs. 16 – Failure – Reroll w/Entropic Forces – 3 – Success)

Everything begins to blur together momentarily, and Cristian almost loses it. He stops and breathes before returning to the bookshelf and calmly scanning. Then his eyes catch it – the spine of the book has a smaller image of the veiled androgynous face. He yanks it off the shelf.

Oracle question: Does Albert get the chair back over the door in the floor in time? Answer: Strong yes.

Albert slams the chair back over the door, piling as many books and other objects as possible to weigh it down. Even over the claps of thunder, the two cousins can hear rending and tearing, knowing the next time they see the creature, it will wear Fletcher’s skin. Cristian opens the book, using a flashlight to read it, and quickly scans for guidance to stop the monster.

Read the conclusion here