Episode 1: Green Country Calcination
Four young adult strangers are stuck in a closed "observation ward" after they all had bizarre incidents. A mysterious visitor is coming to make an assessment for unclear purposes. What happens if you become too interesting? And why does the staff make them take so many pills?
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Episode Transcript:
Get your snack and beverage of choice ready. It’s time to “Gather ‘Round the Trashfires” for a tabletop roleplaying story! I’m your host, Bek Andrew Evans.
Tabletop characters make decisions ranging from questionable to horrific in pursuit of their goals especially when a table values going for the interesting route in roleplay. It becomes trashfires all the way down.
My current and main running story for this podcast is the misadventures of the cohort from the Deviant: the Renegades chronicle I’ve been playing in since early 2021. And I play Geri.
For those of you unfamiliar with Deviant, it’s a TTRPG about people who were formerly human but were irreparably changed in traumatic ways to the point their very Souls broke and they became something Other. They seek vengeance on those who made them, those who hunt them, those who seek to exploit them for what they are and will never leave them be.
As such, this podcast will feature heavy themes and content throughout. There’s an overall content warning for language, violence, criminality, homelessness, substance use, human experimentation, cults and religious extremism, mentioned torture, kidnapping, implied incest and incest-related comments, and abusive relationships. On episodes where there is a new content warning or a particularly notable instance of one of these, I’ll call it out.
I hope y’all enjoy hearing about my cohort’s antics and stumbling headfirst into the mysteries of the world as much as I have.
[Music Intro: "_violence" by Avantist]
Episode 1: Green Country Calcination
The story starts on the first Wednesday in March, 2021. In this chronicle, the pandemic never happened – it was our escape from it, after all.
The chronicle started in the new observation ward of Hillcrest Hospital in Pryor, Oklahoma. It’s in what’s called the “Green Country” of Oklahoma, and about an hour away from Tulsa.
None of the cohort, or what would become the cohort anyway, have been in the observation ward for more than a few short weeks at this point. They’re among the newer arrivals. Some of the patients who’ve been around longer, though, they’ve been spreading rumors that today’s a special day, because a special Visitor would stop by.
The Visitor? A mysterious woman named Camille Mason, supposedly an “insurance agent," who’s been making even more frequent visits since a patient might have escaped. Maybe. That’s what the rumors guess, anyway, though they have no idea how.
The observation ward was much like a psych ward at first glance. It had a common area the patients could gather for meals and some vaguely supervised free-time. All of the patients were on some kind of pills, and all wore scrubs provided by the ward. There were therapy times with a psychiatrist.
Unlike a normal psych ward, it suffered frequent bizarre blackouts. And then there were the patients themselves…
Alexander Joseph “AJ” Werner-Holt – A talkative, friendly, even class-clown type in his early 20s. AJ seems to be able to make friends with just about everyone, from patients to ward staff. He has a large bandage over part of the back of his neck covering what’s apparently an unseemly infection of some kind. He’s got a mop of curly, honeyed-brown hair and a short goatee. He’s lightly tanned, like he’s seen sun sometimes.
Geraldine Wayfield – or Geri as she prefers, is almost sickly pale, 5-foot-nothing, slender, with an unnaturally bright red dyed curly mane of hair, strawberry blonde roots starting to show, and has an unsettlingly intense stare. She’s also in her early 20s. She’s the kind of person who would challenge God to a fight in a Waffle House parking lot. She can’t throw a punch but that wouldn’t stop her from trying anyway. Her scrubs are often mysteriously singed.
Robert Johnson – Robert is a reasonably attractive businessman type: tall, toned, strong jaw, and dark hair that’s nearly black. He was a manager onsite the HR department for a company in the Industrial Park before his accident. Otherwise he’s… weirdly average in a lot of ways. He’s a little above average in attractiveness, but he could be replaced physically by a cookie-cutter corpo type and hardly anyone would notice on first glance. His less-than-average traits and quirks take longer to pick up on. He seems probably older than Geri and AJ.
Madison McKenzie – A tall and slender athletic girl at 5’10, she’s just barely turned 18. She’s a senior in high school and was meant to graduate in a couple months. She has a cheerleader and ballerina’s physique, because she is one – good enough to have interviews lined up at Jacquard for college. She’s from a wealthy family and painfully naive, but very sweet… and haunted by what happened.
On this very day we start the story, it’s midday, sunny and warm after a cold snap. No one’s too concerned about the lights being out on the ward (again) because it’s sunny enough through the windows while the patients are about to have lunch together, anyway.
Geri arrives at the common area in pink scrubs with small singe marks and sits at the couches instead of the lunch table area, presumably to be difficult.
Robert’s wearing a large blanket wrapped around him over his scrubs and is barefoot, unlike everyone else. He’s playing chess with an older gentleman patient.
AJ, meanwhile, is shuffling cards trying to get someone to play a game with him and loudly cracking jokes about the bad hospital food.
Madison’s the last to arrive, straight out of one of the exam rooms and quickly joins Geri to let her know the little ragtag group needs to talk at lunch. AJ spends his time teasing Geri for being broody and trying to goad her into interacting more.
The orderlies roll out the lunch carts and the patients line up for lunch. All the patients also get “vitamins” with lunch. The orderlies also eat the (bland but healthy) food with the patients, but don’t take the vitamins themselves.
One of the things Madison misses the most about being outside the ward is the fact that the coffee inside is distinctly awful and usually decaf.
Robert has a preference for drinking warm water with meals.
After getting exactly no one agreeing to play a game with him and chatting up the orderlies and nurses a while, AJ sits down right next to Geri, who is less than pleased with this arrangement, and tries to strike up friendly conversation by bribing her with a jello cup, pestering and coming on a little strong but friendly. Geri responds by asking if he’s capable of shutting up or if talking fills the void of parental love. As one does.
AJ is like a social duck, the insult just seems to roll off his back like water. He jokes some more about Geri always being like that and rates the insult 8/10.
AJ pretty much immediately decides that he’s going to be the plucky protagonist of a horse girl movie, befriending the wild stallion that bites and kicks everyone else. He’s this chronicle’s horse girl.
Madison is eager and kind of impatient to get the group to knock it off and get together to chat.
Once they gather, she tells them quietly that she earned cell phone privileges and contacted Cass, her best friend since childhood. But Cass said she’s not able to visit, and thinks something’s up, “seriously sus.” And Madison also says her parents aren’t returning her calls, or acting right around Cass. All the posts she and Cass have been making about Geri’s father and church – he’s the pastor of a local megachurch who’s abusive and tried to drown her, leading to her ending up in the hospital, this very ward – all the posts have been mass-reported, flagged and taken down almost as quick as the girl can put them up. Something about “violating community standards” and spreading conspiracies. Madi adds that Cass thinks Madi’s calls and posts are being watched.
Robert, meanwhile, sits there drinking plain hot water and makes an odd comment about being given his vitamins by twelve orderlies and sometimes not given clothes.
Madison asks if Robert’s dozen orderlies are for when he gets shocked or during ‘the water stuff’, later clarified to be forced underwater breathholding tests. The whole table gets very quiet for a moment because no one else got that exact “treatment” and is rightly horrified at the teenager offhandedly mentioning it. And also that they burn her, but it’s totally fine, she’s fine, because it doesn’t hurt. Really. She promises.
Robert mentions being hurt by the sun more than usual and that when water’s poured on him, it makes him want to die.
While they’re sympathetic to the terrifying things the others are sharing, neither AJ nor Geri offer up any similar stories, and it’s not immediately clear whether they’ve not experienced that sort of treatment in the ward, or just aren’t willing to talk about their own experiences.
While the horrific sharing is going on, Geri notices Dr. Gabriel Werner with his watch that never tells the correct time in the background grabbing coffee. She picks at her food and uses pieces of the bland taco contents to spell out ‘police report when?’ She’d been pestering staff this whole time she’d been there to be able to do something to make her father finally have to answer for his crimes, now that she actually had documented proof in her medical record, but hadn’t yet been allowed to make a formal report or talk to anyone outside the ward.
The conversation shifts back to Madison and Cassidy’ attempts to expose Geri’s father’s crimes.
When asked how she even got her cell phone back – no one else had more than maybe heavily supervised calls with a hospital phone, if that – Madison says that Dr. Werner gave her phone privileges for being so good at the tests.
AJ eventually claims that the only thing the ward staff makes him do is make him take very cold baths (in a speedo) while observed by several staff. He also claims the cold water makes him fall asleep sometimes, so the ward lets him keep extra blankets in his room. And that the thing on his neck might be an infection risk. Maybe.
Geri still doesn’t mention anything that’s actually been done to her, or tested about her, but says that she’s not allowed to keep anything flammable, including books or papers, besides the scrubs, and all the furniture in her room is metal and bolted down.
The nascent cohort’s sharing session is interrupted by overhearing a nurse worriedly mention that ‘she’s here early.’ The whole ward starts to get tense in preparation for this mystery person’s arrival, but they don’t change the schedule for any of the patients, so the cohort is still on their lunch free time observing the quick cleanup and internally-panicking staff.
Robert gets concerned that the staff are afraid because he notes that they’re usually pretty calm even when they’re performing tests on the patients, but when the others mention who’s supposed to be visiting, he shares that she used to visit where he worked a lot.
They discuss that the woman, Camille Mason, is supposed to be from insurance and get on the topic of paying for their stay in the ward. Robert wants to make sure that he’s not overcharged since he didn’t want to come in the first place. Madison isn’t that worried because her family’s wealthy anyway. AJ’s somewhat concerned about the cost, even though a relative works on the ward. Geri tells them to tie the ward up in the bureaucracy of demanding a thoroughly itemized bill and contesting every possibly sketchy charge once they get out. Madi’s amazed by this sage wisdom.
An older woman patient who uses a walker named Patty shows up to lunch very late, after things had already been cleaned up. Despite her apparent age, she stands out in a crowd – she wears bedazzled sunglasses (indoors, even), fake pearls, and bunny slippers. The oddest thing about her is that the whole cohort knows she claims that she’s only 24, about the same age as Geri and AJ at that point, which is just laughable with how impossible it is… right?
Patty talks with the others about the visitor, how it’s a very bad thing to be too noticed by her, because those patients disappear and are never seen again – and not in the ‘they get discharged home’ way. The girls start to get really worried since Camille will have access to their files. The guys seem way less concerned about that part and the group starts to question the pills they’re all given, since they’re all fed a healthy (though bland) diet and shouldn’t need extra vitamins, especially not three times a day. Patty calls them “Depressants” and implies they’re to keep patients there longer to study. The group doesn’t quite get what that means, Madi even thinks it means depression (the mental health condition) but they start plotting how to secretly stop taking them.
Robert starts the discussion in the most suave and diplomatic way possible – asking Madison for advice on making oneself puke by implying she must have experience with that sort of thing. This is a key character trait for Robert that’s going to keep cropping up. As is Geri’s knee-jerk response of smacking Robert in the back of the head for the comment.
They don’t get very far in plotting, in fact, they’re still bickering with Robert over his comment when an alarm goes off. Patty tells the group that The Visitor’s here.
Shortly after, the thick security door to the rest of the hospital opens and in steps Dr. Werner carrying a crate of file folders and looking like he’s trying desperately hard to maintain his cool but ultimately might explode on someone, quite possibly the woman who comes with him – a statuesque black woman with a shaved head, high heels, smart pantsuit, and silver jelwery draped on her. She moves with confidence, dangerously calm composure – and a couple of armed guards, likely National Guard based on the uniforms.
When the quartet step out of earshot into one of the offices, the group plus Patty go back to talking. AJ is worried about Dr. Werner, and Geri notes that he’s not just upset, but nervous.
Robert declares he’s the one Camille must be most interested in, since he destroyed his office before he came to the ward.
The group starts agreeing to only pretend to take the pills from then on, and Patty encourages them, saying it’s how she senses everything again. Everyone agrees to the plan… except for AJ.
He’s reluctant to stop taking them and says that the pills are probably meds they actually need.
Geri notes, quietly, after watching Dr. Werner and Camille from a distance that he ‘doesn’t seem alive,’ though no one questions that.
After Madison thinks about it some more, she gets fearful of skipping a dose, that she’ll accidentally hurt people. Again. And AJ’s excuse is he doesn’t want to die (from his “neck infection”). Geri tells him that he won’t die missing one dose, but AJ doesn’t believe her because why would she know for sure. She has no right to be speaking with that level of confidence.
While the group bickers (yet again), Patty’s eyes go cloudy white and she relays to the group that Camille is happy, very happy and Dr. Werner is mad but he knows he can’t stop her.
Madison and Geri both admit that even with the pills, strange things happen around them they can’t explain, and Madison is worried about being interesting because she gets extra visits from Dr. Werner for trauma therapy, in addition to the tests, but it’s more visits than the others seem to be getting.
Patty tries to explain (in her own, cryptic way) a bit more about what she knows about what the group’s become, but gets cut off before saying much of value by Camille (and Camille’s body guards) returning from the office. Camille has an armful of patient files.
AJ pretty instantly hates and distrusts Camille, glaring at her when she walks past without Dr. Werner. Though he was most reluctant to stop taking the pills, he asks to see Madison’s. He dumps out both their little cups in front of him on the table and he’s very troubled – despite having very different reasons for coming to the hospital, the two’s pills are the same.
Madison and Robert notice AJ’s troubled expression but he plays it off with a joke about the food served at lunch.
While that conversation’s going on, Geri has a moment of exploring the world through extremely ill-advised Variation usage. Despite having been on the ward’s drugs otherwise, she hasn’t taken her lunchtime dose yet, and has a notably strong Will. She decides to snoop in Camille’s brain for information on which files she nabbed, and more information on Camille herself.
Camille actually lets the audacious young Cephalist have the first bit of information, but blocks the rest of her attempt. She instead lets Geri know ‘I knew one of you could do that.’ Camille stops in her walk to the exit to give a sly smile to the group, the kind of smile that lets a certain cephalist know she fucked up real good this time.
When Camille leaves, Geri panics and explains the situation and that she maybe, kind of, SORT OF – you know, tried to read Camille’s mind. As one does.
The others are shocked by this revelation that their new acquaintance can apparently do things out of a comic book… but they mostly believe, even if the situation starts to freak them (mostly AJ) out more.
Madison says again that the pills don’t neutralize everything, and Robert says that they keep him from being able to get bigger... And not in the sex way. AJ claims it’s all crazy talk and everyone else is just letting the place get to them, because he definitely doesn’t have any superpowers.
As the group is still reeling some from the sharing bits and pieces about each others’ powers for the first time, Dr. Werner shows up again. Something is deeply wrong. He’s very pale and forces a smile for the group.
Dr. Werner offers only a small bit of greeting before formally informing the group that the four have been selected by Camille, a representative of the Long Man Society, to move to a “better-equipped” location. When several of the cohort express not wanting to go somewhere else, Dr. Werner makes it clear it wasn’t up to him and he’d rather they stayed. AJ is in shock.
The cohort plead with him to not let them leave, Madison even starts nearly tearing up about how he’d promised her that they were safe under his care.
Dr. Werner explains that they’re still safe under his care for the next seven days before they’re picked up… which means they will most definitely have to stay out of Room 164 under all circumstances, as usual, because Ms. Mason would very much hate to find out they’d been there before she arrived to pick them up.
He really laid it on thick, the reverse psychology and metaphorical wink was not subtle.
The cohort, well, three of them anyway, tell Dr. Werner that they definitely, pinky-swear, wouldn’t go into that room. Wink.
AJ, on the other hand, slammed his lunch tray and stormed off.
[Music Outro: "Time Will Fail Us" by Troigo]
Thanks for listening, This has been Gather ‘Round The Trashfires with Bek Andrew Evans.
AJ is played by Roen,
Geri is played by me,
Madison is played by Syn,
Robert is played by Pandito,
And our Storyteller is Casey Grant.
Please subscribe to this podcast for future updates and leave a review or comment, I’d love to hear what you think. You can follow me on a few different social platforms with the username "bekandrew." If you'd like to support me, subscribe to my Patreon at Patreon.com/BekAndrewTTRPG and purchase my art prints and tabletop products, including my Deviant: the Renegades community content novella related to this chronicle via my linktree in the description.
The intro theme is "_violence by Avantist" from the Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0.
The end theme is "Time Will Fail Us" by Troigo from the Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0.
If you like the songs, I encourage you to check out more of their work. I've linked their Bandcamps in the description.
Until next time.
Follow my Patreon at Patreon.com/BekAndrewTTRPG Check out my other work at linktr.ee/bekandrew Check out the Intro and Outro artists' Bandcamps! https://theavantist.bandcamp.com/music https://troigo.bandcamp.com/ Remember to subscribe and see y'all next week!
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