[Scenario Seed] The Ghost Girl.

[Catsmate]

An introductory teaser.


The Ghost Girl.
Part I - The Setup

It all started, as these things usually did, with the Monday Morning Meeting¹.

That morning it was chaired, as it almost always was, by Captain Sandford²; the whole 'meeting; thing was her concession to us not actually being a military unit as such³, and being as easy to herd as a clowder of particularly individualistic cats. She still seemed like she'd prefer to simply hand out orders and have them obeyed.
The captain was good at it though, I'll give her that. She succeeded in keeping things going in the desired direction despite the varying personalities in the team.

There were the usual administrative matters; training courses to be attended, online courses and certifications in various aspects of the bureaucracy to be completed.
“And they should take less than thirty seconds" a comment presumably addressed to me; obviously someone had indeed noticed my script to complete the Data Protection web course without actually paying it any attention⁴. Bugger.
Misuse of IT resources was mentioned; apparently using three petabytes of SAN space for storing a complete copy of The Archivist’s postings wasn’t considered "evidence gathering".
Better give Alex a hand offloading them somewhere. It'd be criminal if anything was lost again.

Then we got to the actually somewhat interesting matters. We’d been assigned a few 'cases' to investigate, now that UNIT HQ were convinced that we could be trusted outside the building without an escort. Mostly.

I tried to hold it in, I really did. But I couldn’t help it, it'd been a long night, and I'm not a morning person anyway⁵.
The yawn escaped.
Captain Sandford smiled and skewered me with her eyes. "And finally there’s the matter of the ‘Ghost Girl’ that’s apparently haunting the back-roads of Cambridgeshire to be looked into".
Oh bugger. Field work.
Damn.







1. Capitalisation Certainly Compulsory.

2. OIC of the Misfit Mob, for her sins. Not that she can recall doing anything that'd justify this job.

3. Descriptions of what exactly the members of IT7IT are vary greatly.

4. As if anyone would do such a thing.....

5. Except when approaching it from the night side.

[Catsmate]

After last night's introductory vignette here is the first part of the actual scenario.


Part II - The Mystery.

On a stretch of no-longer rural road near Cambridge sightings of a young woman in distress are becoming more frequent, and have recently been flagged by the Artificial not-quite Intelligence system at UNIT as worthy of investigation, albeit at low priority. Given the suggestions of a ghostly presence they’re not taken particularly seriously. So they end up on Captain Esme Sandford’s desk. She assigns the ‘investigation’ to whomever has annoyed her most recently, not expecting much out of it.

According to accounts provided, with varying degrees of reluctance, by several drivers a young woman is haunting a trio of rural roads about fifteen kilometres from the outskirts of Cambridge. Drivers stop to offer her a lift (at least that's what they say) and she gets in, clearly agitated and seeking assistance, but after a short period the girl disappears.

Without resorting to the dreaded field work certain details can be extracted from the various reports.

• Eleven encounters are known. There are almost certainly more, from people who were too shocked to report the matter.
• The events took place on a stretch of one of three roads, about twelve to twenty kilometres south west of Cambridge. All the roads are pretty rural, farmland with little housing².
  
• The ‘ghost’ was definitely female and dressed a little oddly. Many of those who gave her a lift thought she was a student.
• She appeared to be a white Causasian³, in her early twenties with long straight brown hair. Her clothes were somewhat old-fashioned; cream jacket and mini-skirt, knee-high boots, pale blue turtleneck. Her eye colour is indeterminate, witness accounts vary and many never noticed.
  
• Her manner is variously described as panicky, agitated, distressed, stressed and in a hurry. She wanted to get somewhere, or away from somewhere, in a hurry.
• She didn't talk much, just asked for a lift.
  
• The incidents took place in a well known radio 'blackspot'; cellular service is terrible, even emergency services have serious problems with TETRA sets.
• After a period of time, ranging from less than a minute to almost ten, she disappeared. One instant she was there, the next she wasn’t. No ‘fading away’, just gone. No residue was noticed.
• There is no video or photography available.
  

More details will need actual interviews with the witnesses,

---

The Red Herring.
In one case the reluctance to discuss because the contents of his boot might be of great interest to police investigating a series of sexual assaults, disappearances and at least two known murders. The only reason Kevin Stevens ever mentioned the incident to police was because he was so startled by the sudden disappearance of his latest prey that he drove off the road, was seen by another driver who called 999, and babbled while in shock about his passenger.

• Stevens, while an active serial rapist and occasional murderer, isn't UNIT's problem and could be a red herring. He might have developed an obsession with his disappeared almost-a-victim?
  

---

That's it for now. I'm splitting this seed up to better utilise my free time, such as it is atm.
Part III will cover the 'on-site' research, Part IV the actual cause, Part V the resolution options and Part VI some further options and complications, like using the idea sans the Misfit Mob.

Feedback, ideas and comments are welcome.










1. Who are often concerned that they’ll be thought odd or mad, or were breaking company regulations on unauthorised passengers.

2. A trifle unrealistic for today,. but there are pretty lonely spots fairly close to Cambridge.

3. IC1 ("White - North European") in police-speak.

[grinch]

Colour me intrigued.

Personally, I like to imagine that since the rise of such programmes as Most Haunted and Ghost Adventures which has more often than not brought down the science of ghost hunting in repute that the Misfit Mob often get given cases like this.

After all, UNIT are a respected organisation and cannot be seen wasting UN funding on such activities as chasing spooks or more often than not examining specks of dust and jumping at every sudden noise!

As one member of the Mob may glibly remark “Derek Acorah has a lot to answer for...”

[Catsmate]

Mar 7, 2022 11:50:51 GMT grinch said:

Colour me intrigued.

Personally, I like to imagine that since the rise of such programmes as Most Haunted and Ghost Adventures which has more often than not brought down the science of ghost hunting in repute that the Misfit Mob often get given cases like this.

After all, UNIT are a respected organisation and cannot be seen wasting UN funding on such activities as chasing spooks or more often than not examining specks of dust and jumping at every sudden noise!

As one member of the Mob may glibly remark “Derek Acorah has a lot to answer for...”

Thanks, it was partially inspired by a comment you made about ghosts in the Whoniverse and of course the Hitchhiking Ghost trope.

I agree that the Misfit Mob would probably be the ones dumped tasked with ghost hunts. And that the Ghost Hunting TV and web shows might well complicate such investigations (see part VI)

[Catsmate]

An unexpected opportunity to collate and post my notes for part 3 due to a cancelled meeting.
Hopefully I can post the rest over the next day or two but meeting and event season has re-started¹.

Part III - The Investigation.
Over a couple of days of interviewing the Mobsters manage to accumulate the following statements.

• For gaming purposes the following information can be obtained via inter-personal skills and role-playing. Feel free to elaborate
  

Victor Holding: male, 56. Was driving home to his family near Cambridge at night (it was a cold and drizzly February) at around 9:30PM, saw the woman walking along the verge, stopped and offered her a lift. States she was agitated and he offered to phone the police. She seemed confused by his smartphone but disappeared after a couple of minutes, before he managed to make a call.
No previous convictions. Shaken by the experience and now avoids the area where it happened.


Joseph Barrett: male 42, commercial lorry driver. Reluctant witness as his employer prohibits passengers without prior approval. Says the woman reminded him of his daughter, though rather older (mid twenties) so he stopped at around 11:40PM on 22MAY to offer her a lift. States she was slightly dazed, "out of it" and he wondered if she was using drugs. Spoke to her, but her replies were monosyllabic and he was growing concerned about her safety when he disappeared while he was looking at her. Shaken and concerned, hasn't told his employers or family about the experience. He spoke to a friend in the police who logged the matter.
Unfortunately his dashcam didn't capture any useful footage.
Two minor traffic offenses and one acquittal on a charge of affray aged 18.


Paul McClure and Vijay Frye: married couple, 33 and 29. Were travelling home from a party at about 3:30AM on the night of 14SEP when the girl flagged them down "in an agitated state". Failed to make a call to the police so they offered her a lift. Described her as distant, seemingly preoccupied by something terrible. Vijay was holding her hand when she disappeared and was, to put it mildly, "freaked out". Paul is more calm about the matter but curious in an intellectual way, while his husband is worried by the "poor girl".
Have argued about going out again to look for her.
Vijay says that she was terrified about something that had happened and mentioned "the others".
Paul has no convictions but was "looked into" by the Serious Fraud Office a decade earlier (he's a banker). Vijay has a few minor drugs offenses in his past.


Mareesa Ramsey: female, 63. Best described as "formidable". A lecturer in Medieval History at Cambridge and a noted athlete in her younger days. Quite observant, and thoughtful about the matter (gives the impression that this wasn't her first odd encounter).
Waved down by the woman at 1:30AM on 09OCT, three years previous. Stopped with care (doesn't mention the blunt instrument handy) but soon convinced the woman was in trouble, thought at first about a car crash, assault or fire (no injuries, signs of smoke). Convinced the woman was a student ("I know the type") but her clothes were decades out of style. Also tried to phone for assistance and noted the 'ghost' was unfamiliar with cellphones.
Has returned the same way on several occasions but no further sightings.

• Dr. Ramsey may be encountered again, investigating on her own or with a colleague or student or two in tow. Fearless, inquisitive, well connected and formidable.
  

Minor brushes with the law many years earlier over preservation of buildings and archaeological sites including an aquittal for assaulting a security guard.


The Gibson family. Mya Gibson [41], her husband Jeremy [36] and their daughters Letha [14] and Emelia [11]. Live in Cambridge and were returning from holiday the previous summer (03 July) when they saw the girl. Jeremy was driving and slowed, Mya told him to stop (she works in social services and is sensitive to people in trouble). Mya questioned the young woman but didn't get much from her. Mya's professional opinion is that the 'ghost' had witnessed something terrible that involved some friends, possibly a fight, and was running away and to get help. She was scared and agitated but physically uninjured, except muddy from a fall. Mya is convinced that the girl wasn't under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
No previous convictions other than a few parking offenses.


Alberta Browne: female, 29. A marketing manager for a gifts company she was driving back from a corporate event "just before midnight" when she saw the ghost. No particular observations about then ghost, whom she picked up on 24 August.
There's a note in the police file that the incident was reported two days later and Ms. Browne may have been 'under the influence'. No previous convictions.


John Bolton [59] and his son Phillip [19]. Mr. Bolton lives in London while his son is an undergraduate. They were driving to Cambridge at the end of the summer vacation (19 July, around 10PM) when they saw the woman and spoke to her. She didn't get into their car, something seems to have spooked her and she ran off. They reported the matter to police by phone at 10:22PM.
No convictions though Phillip was cautioned for drug possession.


Antoine Maynard and Cordelia Tierney. Married, 31 and 39. Returning from visiting her parents on 03 January, stopped at about 11:20PM when the ghost flagged them down. Describe her as agitated. She disappeared in less than a minute.
Antoine is a little disturbed by his brush with the weird but Cordelia is fascinated and had, unknown to her husband, returned several times to the area. Once she saw the girl running across a field, but she disappeared before Cordelia could get to her.


Kevin Stevens, male, 28. Works in IT (doesn't elaborate). Notably reluctant to talk to the Mobsters. Startled by the sudden disappearance and lost control of his car, leading to a minor crash and the involvement of the police. Somewhat agitated when discussing the incident. Was checked for drugs and alcohol at the scene and the car was judged roadworthy so he left after describing the incident.

• As covered in Part I he has reasons to avoid official notice but could return to the area to look for the ghost, if only because it provides an excuse to be found there at odd times.
  

There are two further witnesses who haven't filed a report, despite meeting the ghost, but who may contact the Mobsters.
One of the more interesting accounts is provided, very much ‘off the record’ by a pair of Cambridgeshire Constabulary officers once word of the Mobster’s investigations gets around.
Constables Kasey Abbott and Meridel Hawkins never logged the incident (it happened in a known radio blackspot). They saw the ‘ghost’, stopped to investigate and spoke with her for several minutes before driving off with her in the car, Kasey driving and Meridel in the rear with the women. They judged her to have either been the victim of an assault, though she bore no visible injuries and her clothes weren’t damaged. Hawkins noticed that her boots were muddy, despite the dryness of the area in mid-summer and that she was surprised to see two female officers together. They say that the woman was anxious to get out of the area, and seek assistance from someone. Constable Hawkins remembers vividly how the girl (they didn’t get a name from her) simply disappeared after less than a minute of driving.

They've asked around and have been told, unofficially, that there have been other sighting. Both keep an eye on the area whenever they're on patrol there.


Missing persons.
Unfortunately for the mobsters students do tend to drop out quite a bit and so there are a fair number of vaguely plausible cases to be looked into. However, after a couple of days or phoning and checking databases, they'll find that no missing person reported to the police in the last forty years (i.e. since computerisation of records) matches their ghost very well.


Comments?








1. Though it seems that I'll never need to buy a mug, water bottle, pen, USB cable, power bank, high-vis vest or woolly hat again.

[grinch]

Hmm. Well, I’m clearly no Carnacki but considering the different times the Girl was encountered it does make me wonder whether this is more of a spatial anomaly than a temporal one. In the sense of maybe she’s bound to the road in some way. I also think it’s interesting how (although maybe I’m misreading it) even though she flags cars down and in some cases even accepts a lift (although from the looks of it not often) she never completes the journey. So to me it sounds like it’s not so much the destination she’s waiting for but rather someone specific in particular.

In any case, it’s just a shame Cindy Harker is across the pond. I’m sure Bela would be more than happy to lend a hand. 😉

[Catsmate]

Mar 8, 2022 21:37:12 GMT grinch said:

Hmm. Well, I’m clearly no Carnacki but considering the different times the Girl was encountered it does make me wonder whether this is more of a spatial anomaly than a temporal one. In the sense of maybe she’s bound to the road in some way. I also think it’s interesting how (although maybe I’m misreading it) even though she flags cars down and in some cases even accepts a lift (although from the looks of it not often) she never completes the journey. So to me it sounds like it’s not so much the destination she’s waiting for but rather someone specific in particular.

In any case, it’s just a shame Cindy Harker is across the pond. I’m sure Bela would be more than happy to lend a hand. 😉

Nice ideas. I'm in a meeting for the morning so I won't be posting the explanation until later but you're on the right track...

[Catsmate]

And here's the delayed fourth part.

Part IV - The Incident.
Like so many problems that have manifested in the current day the root of the 'Ghost Girl' mystery lie in the nineteen seventies.
It all started, as so many disasters in the Whoniverse do, with a bunch of university students….
That mixture of intelligence, overconfidence, unwillingness to take precautions and access to facilities can have interesting consequences.

The Newton Institution was an odd establishment. Set up, with significant UNIT, backing in 1969 to study unusual phenomena and devices, safely at arms-length from the universities (especially UCL with its Torchwood links) but connected sufficiently to them to have access to people and facilities. It was well-funded and discreet, a place where truly brilliant people could experiment with ideas that mainstream science hadn’t yet accepted.
Close to, but not in, Cambridge the Institute was constructed in 'red-brick' style¹ in the small town of Wootton², a few klilometres from the University.
It was a mainly research facility, though there were some students there completing doctoral or post-doctoral research projects of ‘interest’.

After that unfortunate business with the imposter imitating a visiting foreign academic in ’72, and the luckless death of the director, Charles Percival, there was a major shake-up of the establishment under the new director Dr. Humphrey Cook.
Cook was a political animal and an administrator more than an actual hands-on scientist and perhaps exercised less control over the small student body than he should. But then he had other priorities; as the third director within a year he needed to stabilise matters (including his own position) and rebuild trust within the establishment. Bringing in his own team³ to replace much of the administrative structure left the Institute littered with new faces, many of them not familiar with it's practices, personnel and procedures.
So supervision of the student body, such as it was, was often left to rather junior researchers, all busy with their own work; research, funding, publication and dealing with the bureaucracy.

One of those brilliant students was Chloe-Ann Wilder. A brilliant, arrogant, young woman who’d graduated with First-class honours from Oxford, completed a physics doctorate at Cambridge in two years⁴. She was the self-appointed leader of a group of mostly female students at the institute, the centre around which they orbited.
Until she disappeared, presumed dead, in a tragic house fire in 1974 along with five others. It’s presumed that a house party led to the fire and drugs or alcohol were involved.

• A seemingly plausible explanation in 1974 where students were involved.
• There’s relatively little coverage in the press of the incident; the dead were not students at Cambridge and the incident was reflexively covered-up by the Newton Institute.
  

Before her death Wilder was obsessed with time; measuring it, modifying it and even travelling in it.
Officially her research was into the caesium fountain atomic clock, seeking ever greater accuracy in measuring time, with the eventual goal of less than a second’s inaccuracy over the expected age of the universe⁵. Unofficially she was studying things that altered timeflow.

Having a clock as accurate at the HP5061⁶ meant that she could detect effects that changed the flow of time⁷. In addition to the usual relativistic effects she discovered during her doctoral research that certain pieces of quartz could, if subjected to electro-magnetic fields, alter the flow of time. She called it the Wilder Effect⁸ and told no-one.

• She could have been a brilliant, world-changing, scientist. Or another entry in The Women That Science Forgot.

After receiving her doctorate she was head-hunted (in gentile way) for the Newton Institute. There she received funding, equipment and a degree of freedom to pursue her research under the nominal supervision of Doctor Ruth Ingram. She also gained access to a box of records from an incident two years earlier involving a visiting academic, one Professor Carl Thascalos.
While continuing her main research field, and making strides that would be generally classified for decades to come, but also pursued her own project.
This might have led no-where, or possibly to his development of a time machine except for two things; her chance meeting with Emelia Burke and the temporary return of Stuart Hyde to the Institute.

Burke wasn't a physicist, she was the daughter of a wealthy family who'd dabbled in archaeology at Cambridge and was in a relationship with one of Wilder's circle. Will investigating the story of the Wash Treasure⁹ she'd recovered an odd chunk of crystal that glowed at irregular intervals. After establishing that it wasn't noticeably radioactive, Burke took it to her lover to investigate. That's when Wilder noticed the effects of the chronon crystal on her instruments, far stronger than anything she'd seen before.
Investigations (i.e. x-ray crystallography) showed that the crystal had an unusually regular structure, seemingly artificial. Burke was fascinated, joining Wilder's circle, despite her 'unscientific' interest in the occult. She purchased a farm house some distance from the institute where the group began unofficial experiments.

At first Wilder dismissed Hyde as beneath her notice; an adequate scientist but just an adjunct to Ingram and her superior mind. His clumsy attempt to seduce her didn't help. But then she learned about his involvement in the Thascalos affair (Hyde was drunk and boasting). One night she and a couple of others drugged and kidnapped him, interrogating him with the aid of other pharmaceuticals, before dumping his unconscious body in a ditch near his favourite pub. He woke with a monumental hang-over and dismissed the incident.

Wilder was astonished and fascinated (as were the others). Time travel was possible, there were alien travellers on Earth¹⁰, strange and immensely powerful creatures existed. Burke interpreted Hyde's account of the Chronovore within her occult beliefs and was intrigued.
Both connected the crustal in Hyde's story to the one found in East Anglia. Were there more of them to be found? Where had they come from?

That summer Burke persuaded her mother to fund a dig around King's Lynn, in search of more crystals. Wilder developed a detector using the one powerful crystal they had to find others; it reacted to her collection of odd pieces of quartz, hopefully it could detect more of its ilk.
The scheme succeeded; despite ongoing disputes between Wilder and Burke, and their respective followers, about whether to pursue a scientific or occult examination of the weirdness, they found five more such crystals¹¹.

Not knowing much about the nature of the Chronon Crystals they had accumulated they continued experiments. Burke calculated a theoretical model for using them to create a passage through time and one night during the Michaelmas break of 1975 they activated the time-gate they'd cobbled together from the crystals and rather a lot of 'borrowed' Institute equipment.

It went disastrously wrong. Instead of creating a portal to elsewhen, the event moved a chunk of the barn into a pocket dimension, and released enough energy to ignite the remainder, and anything nearby. By the time the Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service arrived, not even the shell of the structures remained intact.
Chloe-Ann Wilder, Emelia Burke, Ariella Prince, Marion Hughes, Catriona Melton and Radhika Clarke were presumed dead.

But one of them, Marion Hughes, perhaps less confident of success or quicker on the uptake, wasn't killed. Instead she ran away, not quickly enough or far enough to escape, but enough to survive in a way. She was (and is) stuck in a time-loop of sorts, trying to flee the disaster over-and-over-again, seeking help. But her memory is damaged by the repetitive loops, and the chronon field limits the area she can survive in, before snapping back to that night.
She knows something terrible happened, her friends are in danger and she much find help. But not the details...


Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
I've got meetings today and an event tomorrow so part five will have to wait a couple of days.


1. I.e. not part of the old, established, group of ancient universities.

2. Presumably a fictional Wootton, as neither of the real towns fit the location.

3. Not to say sycophants....

4. She was less-than popular at Oxford, Even as an undergraduate her mix of brilliance, arrogance and an utter unwillingness to accept condescension or tolerate fools (especially male ones) made her few friends.

5. Still unachieved as of 2022, but we;re getting close.

6. A relatively common atomic clock of the 1970s, the replacement of the 5060 which was truly groundbreaking, the first such clock that could be fitted into a standard equipment rack and was available at a reasonable price. Both were accurate to around one part in one hundred billion.

7. As an aside, this is a problem today with clocks accurate to less than one part in one quadrillion. Moving the damn things around is sufficient to alter their time flow, due to relativistic effects, to a detectable level.

8. Naturally.

9. The baggage train of King John lost at The Wash near Sutton Bridge in East Anglia in October 1216, possibly including the Crown Jewels of England. More.

10. Well they'd known about the aliens, rumours were common at the Institute.

11. Plus a few valuable bits of jewelry and various historical artefacts. Hardly worth mentioning.

[grinch]

Ah, a time loop! Must admit I wouldn’t have guessed it. Acts as a slight variation on that old idea of the Stone Tape perhaps where this moment in time has been recorded to be played back over and over again. With poor Marion caught in the middle. Actually, depending on the technology and methods used by the Misfit Mob I suppose there’s nothing to say they might actually find themselves trapped in the loop as well. Or even extend it perhaps to cover more than just that stretch of road. Of course, that’s just a worse case scenario.

[Catsmate]

Mar 10, 2022 12:05:51 GMT grinch said:

Ah, a time loop! Must admit I wouldn’t have guessed it. Acts as a slight variation on that old idea of the Stone Tape perhaps where this moment in time has been recorded to be played back over and over again. With poor Marion caught in the middle. Actually, depending on the technology and methods used by the Misfit Mob I suppose there’s nothing to say they might actually find themselves trapped in the loop as well. Or even extend it perhaps to cover more than just that stretch of road. Of course, that’s just a worse case scenario.

Oh yes, there a re plenty of ways they can screw it up. Even assuming no-one else gets involved.....

[Catsmate]

And here's the slightly delayed fifth part

Part V - The Solution.
By now the investigators (to use the CoC term¹) have a number of facts. Loosely these are:

1. The ghost does exist, in some form, and seems to repetitively perform the same actions.
   
2. She's only encountered at night, no earlier than 9:30PM, no later than about 3:30AM. A six hour window.
   
3. She’s corporeal and able to interact with people. So it’s not a psychic echo of some form.
4. There’s a definite suggestion that she’s from some time ago; the clothes and lack of knowledge of current technologies and mores (phones, female police).
5. She seems to limited to ‘haunting’ a specific area; mapping the various sightings and interactions shows a roughly two kilometre area.
   
6. She does not correspond to any known missing persons report. However this doesn't prove a lot.
7. The haunting is recent. Extensive trawling of historical records (websites, books, paranormal fora, local historians) will show that the earliest sighting is only about thirty years ago (i.e. nearly nineties). It might be possible to track down witnesses from the 1990-2010 period, but this will need time.
8. There are few recorded sightings from the earlier period. Why have sightings suddenly increased? Is this an actual increase, or merely a statistical artefact from changing habits and traffic patterns.
   

Further investigation, on-site, is needed. Not necessarily what certain of the Mobsters, especially of the ‘lab rat’ school, really want, but better mud than risking Captain Sandford getting sarcastic....

---

Location.
For game purposes I’m putting Wootton, and these events, in the area south-west of Cambridge, bounded by Royston, Bassingbourn, Meldreth, Foulmere and Barley. I’ve decided to replace the actual village of Melbourn with Wootton.

---

The area of the hauntings is surprisingly rural for a location within commuting distance from Cambridge. There are a few villages and a few small-ish companies (mostly in the technology field). The nearest major road is the A10, but this is beyond the haunted area.

Assuming the investigators have brought suitable equipment they can detect a number of oddities.

1. Purely electromagnetic energies are normal. There's a lot of background emissions, across the radio-frequency spectrum, including some unusual levels from the Newton Institute, but nothing really startling. There are a number of radio blackspots, preventing cellular and TETRA reception, but nothing particularly unusual.
   
2. A gravimetic survey, assuming they have the equipment, doesn't show any oddities. There are plenty of small variations due to rock and soil levels but nothing suggesting anyone's tampering with gravity.s
   1. Except perhaps an occasional 'flare' from Wootton suggesting the Institute is working on something....
      
3. The most effective way to establish the existence, and map, the area effected is to measure local chronal energy. UNIT probably has a few devices capable of this and, in extremis, synchronised atomic clocks can show that in some places times flows slightly abnormally.
   

The Newton Institute.
By now the investigators have probably decided that the Institute is somehow involved. The players may now of the events of The Time Monster but their characters probably don't know the details, though there may be rumours within UNIT².
Give that it's used by UNIT to analyse recovered alien technology, and develop new technologies³, the Institute is a secure environment where even a UNIT pass is of limited value. Especially for a bunch of ghosthunters....
However, though Captain Sandford, pressure can be brought to bear and access gained.

Unless some of the investigators have serious academic credentials they will be given a rather terse welcome from the researchers and limited information on the projects ("Compartmentalised security, you know"). No-one admits working on anything involving time travel.

• By default this is true, such experiments are performed elsewhere.

Bringing up the events of 1972, and "Professor Carl Thascalos" makes the reception even less friendly; most of the researchers have no idea about the incident and while bureaucratic memory is longer, it's still a sensitive matter.

• It's possible that some of the researchers may assist the investigatorsd, either through curiousity or being assigned by UNIT.
  

Chronal energy.
With the right equipment, such as chronon crystals hooked to a sensitive EM detector, it'll be possible to properly measure temporal oddities. With a couple of days, or far faster if someone rigs drone mounted detectors, the team can map the local chronosphere.
This shows that there is a definite source of temporal energy in the area of the ghost sightings, appearing as a series of contour lines of increasing temporal energy and peaking at a spot near the ruins of an old farm. Depending on when the mapping is done, and if detectors are left in place, surges and eddies in the chronosphere are detectable.

• As the investigators probe they may be visited with weird phenomena related to Artron surges. These could be:
  

1. Radios picking up transmissions from the 1970s. Perhaps a news broadcast with 'current' events?
   
2. Minor electrical discharges as chronal energy 'grounds' itself as electromagnetic effects
3. Batteries draining unexpectedly.
   
4. Temporal echoes. Seeing another investigator from a short period into the past of future.
   
5. Odd animal behaviour. Some of the land is used for gazing sheep⁴ and they may 'freeze' in place for a short period.
   

The Farm.
Once the investigators find the far is right in the centre of the effect they're probably going to starting climbing all over it.
There's not a lot remaining there: the farmhouse, barn and other structures have been weathering for fifty years and the initial fire was intense and burned for some time before an attempt was made to extinguish it.

• There might be a septuagenarian fire-fighter, now long retired, who has a story to tell about that particular call-out.
  

Firstly this is the epicentre of the temporal energy field, so odd effects are more likely, more frequent and more severe. Especially when the time-loop is coming back 'into phase' with the normal universe.

Secondly it gives a focus to the investigation. Research into the farm leads to the fire, the presumed death of the six students and rapidly yields two interesting names for study: Chloe-Ann Wilder and Emelia Burke (whose family owned the farm, and technically still do).
The other students are also easily find-able but Wilder and Burke have more information available than Price, Hughes, Melton and Clarke. Searching at Cambridge and the Institute will also produce pictures of the six. The Newton Institute still has security pass copies of photos of all except Burke, though their quality is poor. Poking around their universities, or families if a suitable story is produces, yield better quality images.

This work will show that Wilder was considered brilliant⁵, but arrogant and possibly unstable. Her work on super-cooled lattice clocks was ground-breaking but wasn't pursued after her death.
Burke's remaining family don't remember much about her, unless there's an elderly parent around as an added complication or source. She was interested in history, archaeology and the occult.

The research will eventually produce detect photos of the six; witnesses to the 'ghost girl' easily identify Marion Hughes as the person they encountered, looking as she was fifty years previously....

At this point the investigators should have the basic set of events (see part four) figured out: student meddling with time screw thins up. The recurrence of the ghost or echo of Hughes suggests that the students may be alive, in some way. Plus there's the temporal phenomena in the field that needs to be addressed.

• This may be made urgent if, reminded by the investigators' questions, the Burke family decide to sell the land for housing, giving urgency to the need to eliminate the oddity.
  

One thing that the investigators don't know is why the hauntings have started

Talking with a suitable expert (Time Lord⁶ or experienced time traveller⁷) suggests that the phenomena is a form of time-loop, a rather rare variant known as a 'standing time-loop', which is effectively a pocket universe created by pushing a chunk of reality out of phase. Due to the mass-energy involved they're unstable and can coalesce with the normal universe with disastrous consequences⁸.

Something needs to be done. That'll be covered in part six, Resolution. Coming soon to this forum....


Complications.
A Misfit Mob investigation wouldn't be complete without random complications. I've mentioned the oddites related to time but here are a few more.

1. Occult researchers.
Dedicated acadamics, skeptical debunkers, ghost hunters, local historians or cranks. They could be nosing around and become very interested in what the investigators are up to.

2. TV programme.
An outgrowth of the previous option but with a production team from a ghost hunting television show. With more cameras and recorders than any sensible covert group will be happy around.

3. Folklorist
An academic or local historian has heard of the 'Ghost Girl' and is now collecting it, for a book, pamphlet or website. Could be useful, clueless victim or just an annoyance.

4. The Displaced.
To provide a little nudge perhaps the temporal energy surges allow something to enter the present day? Could be a harmless peasant (from August 1348?⁹ perhaps?). Or from the future, a parallel Earth (URIC¹⁰) or something from outside time Tindlosians or Reaper?

5. Kevin Stevens.
As mentioned previously he could be hunting new victims in the area. Or perhaps he's already 'caught' Marion Hughes and killed her. Several times.....


Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?






1. And this scenario does have a bit of a CoC flavour to me.

2. "And there was the sarge, in his birthday suit".

3. Including transmat technology and what will become the Z-bomb.

4. But not much, sheep grazed near the epicentre are strangely prone to epileptic type seizures.

5. A tutor or lecturer, now in their eighties or nineties perhaps?

6. I'd avoid bringing a Time Lord into the scenario, except perhaps as an advisor, tom leave the PCs in control.

7. Gandalf, or another experienced member of the Hourglass Club (if the Mobsters are on good terms) might be useful.

8. E = m.c². Converting one tonne of matter to energy is the equivalent of approximately 21.6 gigatonnes. Goodbye Western Europe....

8. When bubonic plague was rife.

9. United Races Intelligence Command.

[Catsmate]

Part VI - Resolution.
OK, now that the investigators/Mobsters have figured out the problem all they have to do is fix it. Preferably without destroying Western Europe and causing an extinction level event¹.

To do this they'll need to either detect or predict when the time-loop is active, or rather in phase with our space-time locus.

• Optionally a GM can have a degree of mercy on the PCs by allowing them to predict several hours before a time-loop is imminent, due to surges in emissions of chronons and time-warmed neutrinos.
  
• A less merciful GM will have them camping out in a field monitoring emissions round-the-clock until they detect something. This latter option does have significant possibilities for interference with curious locals, children, people looking for privacy, somewhat drunk and curious students et cetera². How well this works probably depends on your players.
  

In parallel to detecting when the time-loop is active, the Mobsters will need to figure out what to do with it.
Really, messing about with the fundamental structure of reality is a job for professionals; a Time Lord, a time traveller with a good grounding in temporal theory and electronics, or at least someone with the basic skills³. Hopefully the investigators either have the skills, or can find someone to help⁴.

So the Mobsters monitor the scene. Does this require tents/camper vans? What’s the budget like? Does this attract attention? What about the people who encountered Ghost Marion? A couple of them are meddlesome.

There are a couple of ways to end the time-loop.
1. The easiest is, given the nature of the standing loop, to simply cut it off permanently for 'normal' space-time and let it float away (like a soap bubble) into the Vortex until the temporal pressure crushes it (and everything inside) into oblivion.
Perhaps not the heroic option but the pragmatic one. Major Magambo would approve.
To achieve this the Mobsters will need some equipment as the next option; a power source (time to requisition a portable nuclear generator), some chronon fields emitters (made from chronon crystals and various circuits) and a detection array in order to match the chronon frequencies. In theory this will generate a feedback signal that'll disrupt the temporal effect keeping the loop stuck to a field in Cambridgeshire.

• A possibility is for a 'dry run' with the investigators attempting to talk to Ghost Marion and learn from her what happened. If they're careful they have a few minutes to question her before the thin film of temporal energy that keeps her stable pops. Even measuring the level and frequency of chronons she emits might be helpful.
  

2. Alternately, the investigators may decide to actually enter the time-loop, preferring to disrupt the temporal field from inside and (optionally) try to rescue the six women stuck in there.
This is a tad more tricky, and much more heroic. UNIT command will prefer the less risky option and will veto this unless given a good reason (true or not).
Certainly someone like Gandalf, if brought in as a consultant, would probably try for this⁵.

The team will need to create a arched entrance, a simple tubular steel structure, which carries the cables, chronon crystals and field generator elements that can, when configured precisely, 'snap onto' the time-loop when it's close enough⁵.
One the frequency has been tracked it's relatively simple to 'lock onto' the time-loop but still rather tricky to actually get the gateway to intersect safely.

• While this is happening there should be a range of suitable side-effects; radio blackout over much of the area (the investigators are on their own), odd flows of time (flowers blooming and withering), radio and television signals from 1975⁷ et cetera.
  

Eventually, after much dice rolling and SP expenditure, the arch is active and stable. Probably.

• While Stargate has made the stereotype appearance of such portals the 'shimmering water effect' I prefer to stick with the simple discontinuity in space-time feel; the portal looks like an archway with an amazingly clear window into another time and place. Through it the world is a different day; bright and sunny (if cold) versus dark and wet, for example.
  

Depending on who's actually responsible for the portal they may wax rapturously about their achievement.

Now someone needs to go through and fix things. Hopefully this was decided in advance and the team is adequately prepared and equipped. Go through the door in single file, while the rest wait and hope for success. And keep the equipment safe and running, shoo away passing teenagers and otherwise ride herd.


Assuming a small team has gone through the portal they find themselves cut off from communication. Radio signals don't pass through, cables likewise if they planned on establishing a relay. If they want to call home they'll need to leave someone by the portal waiting.
It's late afternoon on a cold, clear day. The sun is setting which indicates it's about half-past-three. The team enters the area about six hundred metres from the farm house and barn, with a few trees for cover. A visual examination shows no-one about, but there are three cars, a motorbike and a moped.

• The team may, or may not, know when they are. They know the date of the wire and probably assume (correctly be default) they 'locked on' to that day. However they've arrived several hours before the disaster.
  

If the team have other sensors they can determine that there are probably six people in the farmhouse (thermal signatures) and may hear he odd sound from there. Otherwise it's very quiet, few birds and little traffic.

From now on I will assume that the team moves gradually, and stealthily, towards the farm house and doesn't decide to⁸:

1. Wander off to find a phonebox to call someone.
   
2. Decide to head to the road and flag down a passing car.
3. Start firing tear gas grenades into the house or shooting at it.
4. Decide to probe the perimeter of the time-loop effect.
   

It should take only a few minutes to walk over the fields to the house. Even maintaining cover a half-hour should suffice. However the team are up against rather a lot of temporal inertia and the flow of time within the bubble and time flows quickly; almost five hours have elapsed when they get close to the farm house and the evening is completely dark. In the meantime, shouting at the people they occasionally see moving between house, vehicles and barn, has no effect. Even shooting seems to be ignored.

• Someone with Vortex or Feel the Turn of the Universe will instinctively understand this. They need to get closer
• If they do have someone on relay at the portal, when the team approaches the house they'll be warned that there are surges in temporal energy. Their presence is disruptive, they need to be careful as there is a risk of being stranded inside.
  

---

The Farm.
The farm that Burke bought with her family money for their experiments was no longer used, most of the land was sold off in the early '70s. There's a fairly large, two storey, stone farmhouse, three equipment/vehicle sheds made from wood, sheet iron and concrete blocks, and a large barn. The latter is the site of the temporal experiments.

Inside the barn it looks like a cross between a occult ceremony and a physics laboratory. Folding trestle tables have been set up, with crystals and wires, coils of them twisted together and linked to a wooden framework that supports a pentagonal framework. There's an audible hum from a diesel generator in a boxed-off section of the barn, providing electric power and charging a piece of borrowed technology.
This may be a major flaw in the design, insufficient or insufficiently ‘clean’ power

---

Stopping the loop.
The six women in the barn are unaware of the time looping, with the exception of Marion Hughes⁹; to them it's 1975 and they're attempting a glorious scientific experiment that will make their careers and cock a snook at the male-dominated establishment.
When the investigating team crashes into the barn (time flowing normally near the epicentre of the effect, the 'eye of the storm') they're going to be upset. Most know of UNIT and might be persuaded to abandon the experiment (Hughes especially rapidly believes the team's story, she's getting premonitions by now) but Wilder and Burke are unwilling to stop at the cusp of, as they see it, success.

• Do the team try force? Did the Misfit Mob bring some muscle?

While the team is talking, and listening to the students arguing, fate takes a hand. Either Wilder or Burke decide to ignore the risks and trigger their machine. Cue spark filled corona discharges and the air seeming to become as dense as water, with Mobsters fighting through it. Probably at least one of the students is struck by a temporal energy burst and aged to death, in the manner of
Fyodor Kerensky.

• Though a more merciful GM might go in the opposite direction and recreate Baby Benson. Hopefully someone grabs her.
  

Presumably by now, over a fraction of a second really, someone has disrupted the temporal experiment. Pulling the crystals out of alignment (preferably with a stick¹⁰ or rifle to avoid having one's hand aged a decade or three. However the time-loop has sufficient temporal energy to be self-sustaining for a while.
Now the Mobsters have a choice; history says all six women died on that night in 1975. Dare they change history?

Well of course they do, this is Doctor Who.

Hopefully they grab/drag/urge and otherwise persuade the survivors¹¹ out of they barn and towards the portal, now a welcoming oasis of light in the dark winter night. One that is six hundred metres away, across very dark, muddy, uneven fields.


Endings and the missing.
Exactly what happens is up to the GM to determine for their players. It's possible that history has been altered, some of the 'dead' students survived but didn't pass through the portal and are now in their seventies. Possible one of them turns up as the Mobsters dismantle their equipment.

• Or slightly earlier if you fancy a paradox. Perhaps to provide some vitally needed information or assistance.
• Then again, for more of the predestination paradox,
  a later version of Hughes/Wilder/Burke may be encountered by the
  Mobsters as they prepare for action. One who survived and exited the
  time loop.

Perhaps some of the students are taken through the portal and end up in 2022 (or whenever the 'present day' is in your game). UNIT can help them make new lives (and keep a wary eye on them), re-integrating into society.

• Or institutionalisation due to having the brains burned out by the effect.

Marion Hughes might make a good recruit for the Misfit Mob¹².

But what of Burke and, especially, Wilder? Are they likely to keep out of trouble, in 1975 or 2022? Are they dead? Or are they driven insane by what happened, their brains damaged by the chronal flux, stuck mentally in a loop until some therapy reboot their minds¹³.
Of course that's the lead-in to her return, still determined to prove their theories right, regardless of the cost.


Comments? Suggestions? Ideas for alternations, variations, expansions and sequels?






1. Though, as Doctor Horne points out in his usual 'bright side of life' way, at least there won't be paperwork.

2. "You know what people are. The minute they see anyone having a peaceful feed they gather in from the four points of the compass and sit down beside one, and the place is like the Corner House in the rush hour".

3. In game terms these would be the Vortex, Feel the Turn of the Universe and Technically Adept traits.

4. Time for some heartfelt apologies to Gandalf about their last interaction.

5. Though he's pragmatic enough to prepare plan A as well.

6. Aim for the tone of voice in whomever is explaining this, that that they're attempting to explain social media to a mildly retarded bonoboes.

7. You can play this for as much background as you want. The BBC listings are online, some of the content can be accessed through iPlayer and radio programmes are also available. For example, using my previous dating of 'Michaelmas Term 1975' one finds that at 20:30 on FRI05DEC1975 the first episode of season 2 of The Good Life was broadcast. ("Tom finds marketing his garden produce more difficult than he thought it would be.")

8. No plan survives contact with the players.

9. Who has the Feel the Turn of the Universe and Psychic traits and is just getting worried.

10. Any player who makes a crack about a ten foot pole should be awarded three story points.

11. Staff Sergeant O'Neill: "There's a reason for the bayonet, even today".

12. Within the team, ‘Misfits’ is mildly complimentary, ‘Mobsters’ not so much.

13. I'm thinking specifically of the end of The Craft.