W-Cell - "Sweetness" Incident Night Report - Sun, Jul 22, 2018

• W‑Cell agents identified: Alexandro Damiani (ex‑Marine), Blair Naugle (program manager, U.S. State Department), Darnell Plowman (ER surgeon from Baltimore), Gavin Mastropietro (electronics engineer at a defense company). They were activated at a Holiday Inn in Tampa for a real‑estate seminar cover and briefed by Agent Barrett in the Pine Room.
• Trigger: a strange symbol carved into the front door of a suburban Tampa home. Description: oblong circular shape with parallel marks. Barrett/A‑Cell consider it significant and want to identify the maker and prevent further propagation of the symbol.
• Target home occupants: The Bernier family — Timothy Bernier (electronics engineer; career path: California → Chicago → Tampa ~6 years ago), Evelyn (wife), children Chad (teen) and Catherine (10; deaf; communicates via sign; Tim translates).
• Prior police response was cursory. The family reported front‑door camera glitches: segments of video missing while the symbol appeared in discrete steps; no clear recording of the perpetrator.
• Interviews (from prior session): Chad heard late‑night movement in the house on multiple occasions. Catherine described a shadowy figure she called “Sweetness”; she was not afraid, considered it a friend, and communicated by sign. Catherine gendered the figure male; Sweetness does not speak.
• Tim’s ex‑wife Sarah Garrison (Chicago) background: marriage ended over abuse (physical and psychological via strange religious practices). Post‑divorce, Sarah declined: fired from a convenience store job ~two months prior; emaciated; landlord attempting to serve eviction; unresponsive to contacts.

Adding Pearl as a friendly / subject‑matter resource:

• Pearl (played by Mark) introduced: a ghost hunter, Gen Z virtual office worker, active with the Spirit Box Society (friends/bond) and on a Discord server “The Night Crew” (paranormal/electronics; they share custom sensors and designs). Pearl is well‑studied in the occult (Occult 50%), plus electronics and coding skills; no exposure to the Unnatural prior to this.
• Gavin messages Pearl an image of the door symbol and asks for help identifying it and for equipment recommendations.

Occult research on the door symbol (Pearl’s roll):

• Pearl rolls Occult 50 (result 69; success with no bonus info per Handler).
• Finding: the symbol is a mark used to represent “Kore,” a deity of a Greek mystery cult; Kore is another name for Persephone, central to the Eleusinian Mysteries, secretive initiatory rites promising personal transformation and a more favorable afterlife.

Equipment procurement and budget risk:

• Gavin and Blair go shopping for high‑end video surveillance equipment (cameras, lighting, motion/IR sensors, etc.). Target spend discussed: $9–10k.
• Accounting context from Handler: standard expenses ($500) are easy; major expenses (like $10k) will likely be scrutinized; extreme ($40k+) risks prosecution.
• Gavin (Accounting 80%) attempts to justify/expense; fails (89). Result: equipment purchased, but card likely flagged/paused; expect accounting attention later.

Weapons and supplies:

• Alexandro acquires spray paint (incidental).
• Firearms: team drove from home, so personal weapons OK. Alexandro authorized for modified AR‑15 (counts as **light rifle; automatic fire grants lethality).
• Team establishes that tasers and other gear were considered earlier; focus remains on AV/sensor equipment.

Family evacuation and control of the scene:

• Team revisits Berniers; convinces them there may be an intruder sneaking into the house at night and that they should leave for the weekend. Family agrees and drives to Disney World (Chad unhappy; Catherine excited). Keys and contact numbers exchanged. Tim plans to return Monday afternoon (taking Monday off).

Pearl’s arrival and team setup:

• Pearl drives up from Miami (~4 hours) and arrives around 10:00 PM, with vehicle loaded with equipment bins.
• The team (led by Gavin and Pearl) deploys cameras and sensors throughout the house with emphasis on Catherine’s bedroom and front entry. Pearl’s practical ghost‑hunting setup experience is noted; the Handler tags her with Special Training: Ghost Hunting to reflect skills covering sensors and triggered camera setups.
• House search for hidden intruder (“frogging”): multiple Search rolls attempted by the team; all fail. No signs of a human intruder found (no basement in the Florida home).
• Video review of the original door footage: confirms that multiple cameras (Ring doorbell + side security cam) lost frames during the carving event; symbol appears progressively across a series of glitchy frames; no subject visible; apparent fluid drawing path (not disjoint segments). The porch is tidy; no nearby plants to show disturbance.

Staging/monitoring posture:

• Team establishes a van‑based monitoring station outside (laptops monitoring split camera feeds over the home’s Wi‑Fi). The plan: monitor, then enter if needed.

Event window — around midnight (witching hour):

• After midnight (Handler places it a little after 12:00 AM), a motion sensor triggers when Catherine’s bedroom door moves.
• All cameras in Catherine’s room glitch (frames dropping), echoing the prior front‑door artifacting. The team wakes/alerts Gavin and decides to enter the house to observe directly.

Initial contact on the stairs:

• Stack order: Alexandro leads with rifle; Darnell follows (handgun); others behind; Blair takes a high‑power flashlight.
• At the top of the stairs, Alexandro makes SAN: fails and loses 2 (1d4=2) upon seeing a pitch‑black, vaguely humanoid figure with glowing eyes, about 8 feet away in the hallway near Catherine’s open door.
• Alertness by Alexandro: fails; the shadow figure vanishes.
• Alexandro immediately spray‑paints the area (bright yellow) where it stood (walls/ceiling), but hits nothing.

Room condition and deduction in Catherine’s bedroom:

• Team enters Catherine’s room: covers pulled back, closet door open, dresser drawers open.
• Darnell makes INT×5 and critically succeeds; he concludes the entity was actively searching for Catherine, noting that a 10‑year‑old could fit in the large dresser drawers.

Second approach — entity returns from below:

• Handler calls for Alertness (everyone except Alexandro). Gavin succeeds and observes a shadow moving at speed up the stairs. SAN for Gavin: success (loses 1). He calls out “Coming up the stairs!”
• Blair turns the flashlight on the approach; description: the figure is a void that absorbs light, visible by its eyes and outline.

Engagement in the doorway — grapple on Blair:

• Luck check to determine who is closest at the doorway: Darnell ends up nearest.
• Darnell fires at the entity (Firearms roll 83): miss; the entity rushes past/through, and Darnell dodges aside without needing a formal Dodge roll.
• Initiative by DEX; the entity targets Blair.
• Blair elects to fight back unarmed; opposed roll: both succeed, but the entity wins the opposed check; it lifts Blair off the floor by the waist.
• Darnell attempts to pistol‑whip the entity (Unarmed; 86): fails; his hand passes through the shadow. SAN for Darnell on the intangibility: fails; he projects 3 onto a Bond (noted with Reverend Cyrus Boone), reducing SAN loss to 1 consistent with the projection result.
• Alexandro attempts to wrench Blair free (STR×5 59 under 70): success; through technique and leverage, he twists Blair out of its grip; both fall to the floor together.

Pearl’s reactive measure and the entity’s withdrawal:

• Pearl raises a cross (religious medal) toward the entity.
• Handler calls for Alertness: those who fail perceive it as vanishing; those who succeed (Blair and Pearl) see it condense into a dark mote and whip across the upstairs hall into the washroom, disappearing into the bathroom mirror.

Immediate regroup and material countermeasures:

• Blair orders a regroup and sprints downstairs/outside; others follow.
• At the front door, Alexandro attacks the carved symbol with a combat knife, gouging and prying wood to disrupt its geometry. He breaks the knife in the process. Result: the symbol’s shape becomes mostly unrecognizable, though traces remain.
• Blair shuts off the flashlight outside at Darnell’s insistence to avoid drawing neighbors’ attention in the front yard at ~12:30 AM.
• The team watches for several minutes; no further activity observed.

Forensic review of the upstairs “retreat” into the mirror:

• Gavin and Pearl review the recordings around the event. They capture a glitchy frame where a dark orb appears to enter the bathroom mirror above the sink.
• SAN checks on this evidence: Gavin succeeds (loses 1); Pearl fails and loses 4 SAN.

Mirror destruction and broadening the hypothesis to reflective surfaces:

• Blair runs upstairs and smashes the washroom mirror with the maglite, then continues smashing until the largest shards are reduced.
• Gavin scans other cameras/mirrors for emergence; he does not see the entity exit any other mirror on recorded feeds at that time.

Reconstruction for ingress point — chrome sink:

• On further video review, the Handler clarifies the ingress point before the bedroom glitch: it wasn’t the bathroom; it was the kitchen. The likely surface: the highly reflective chrome/stainless kitchen sink.
• Conclusion in play: any reflective surface (e.g., mirrors, polished metal) could serve as a pathway for the entity. The team discusses spray‑painting or otherwise matting reflective surfaces as a precaution (not executed at this time).

Contacting Chicago PD for a welfare check on Sarah Garrison (next morning):

• Early morning, W‑Cell calls Chicago PD requesting a welfare check at Sarah Garrison’s address.
• Police callback after ~9:00 AM: Ms. Garrison answered the door; she appeared well; no immediate issue reported.

Operational decisions for next steps:

• Hold the Tampa site and monitor one more night to see if activity returns now that:

  • The front‑door symbol has been significantly defaced, and
  • The bathroom mirror is destroyed and the team is aware of other reflective vectors.

• Front door replacement plan: remove the original door entirely and install a contractor‑grade temporary door (acknowledging imperfect fit/weather stripping), then destroy the original (chop/burn) so the symbol cannot persist in any form.

• Potential Chicago action debated:

  • One view: mission focus is Tampa; if the entity doesn’t return, Tampa objective may be complete.
  • Counterview: Handler’s mission includes preventing propagation; thus neutralizing the source (potentially Sarah or an object/rite) may be necessary.

• Provisional split (for subsequent session): Blair Naugle and Alexandro Damiani to fly to Chicago to locate/interdict the source (non‑specific action to be determined), while Gavin, Darnell, and Pearl remain in Tampa to monitor the Bernier house through another night with the updated countermeasures.

Status at session end:

• Entity “Sweetness” observed twice inside the house (hallway near Catherine’s room; later surging up the stairs).
• Direct physical resistance is ineffective (intangible to strikes) though the entity can physically lift/grapple.
• Religious symbol (cross) presentation by Pearl coincides with the entity’s rapid withdrawal into a reflective surface.
• Front‑door Kore symbol now mutilated; plan in place to remove/destroy the door entirely.
• Primary reflective portal (bathroom mirror) destroyed; kitchen sink identified as a prior ingress; team aware that other reflective surfaces remain potential vectors.
• No further in‑house activity observed after mirror destruction and symbol defacement during the remainder of the night covered by the session.
• Next actions queued: monitoring another night in Tampa; possible Chicago deployment by Blair and Alexandro.