The following narrative replay is for the Japanese Call of Cthulhu Scenario, 神々は電⼦ドラッグの夢を⾒るか, or Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs, written by 秒針 of the INT の犠牲者卓 , or Victims of Int group. I ran it months ago with some folk on the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord Server, and still think about it from time to time. It was a fun one.
This was a comparatively long scenario, compared to others I’ve covered in these replays, and so it will be broken up in to three parts, or days. This will just cover the first day. If you’re a Keeper, by all means give this replay a read or listen. If you’re a player, or just don’t want to know everything about the scenario ahead of time, you can read or listen to the first, spoiler-lite section of my review of it here.
And now, on to Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs.
They had all received calls from their mutual friend, Masahi Hamamatsu, asking – urging, more so – them to take a few days off for an important get together. He had something to show them, something that would change their lives. Though knowing Hamamatsu as prone to exaggeration, they did as he said, more looking forward to meeting him, and each other, and getting a few days away from the everyday grind. Masahi could be eccentric, but he had always been there for them whenever times got hard, and without him the four of them likely wouldn’t have stayed friends after high school.
Coming off of work, the programmer Akira Kubo was the first to arrive at the venue Hamamatsu indicated for the meet-up, a little underground live bar headlining an electro-punk jazz band he’d never heard of. Definitely something Masahi would have chosen though, as an EDM producer he had an eclectic taste in music. Akira sidled up to the bar, people-watching to pass the time waiting for the others.
He could have come earlier, his schedule certainly allowed it, but the pianist Majima Yuto preferred to take his time. Nine to six jobs were for other people, normal people. Artists, like Majima and Masahi, worked in schedule with their muse. Of course, Majima happily accepted an excuse to shelve that muse for a few days. Spotting Akira at the bar, Majima slipped through the crowd to greet his friend.
Itsumi Makino always worried about taking days off. You could never be sure the request would go through, and even if it did you could always be called in. Nevertheless, Itsumi gladly stowed his uniform, locked up his revolver, and left the police station excited for a few days with the boys, ideally not having to worry about wrestling any drunks or filing missing item reports. Finding Majima and Akira at the bar brought a smile to his face, even if the noise grated a tad.
Bleary-eyed Daiki Sato stumbled into the venue last, still in his suit, smelling of sweat and cigarettes. At least he’d loosened his tie, letting his brain know that, finally, the work day was over. And unlike most days, he could finally relax for more than a few hours. A part of him felt a perverse guilt about not catching the train back home, preparing tomorrows lunch, and passing out to catch just enough sleep to wake in time to catch the train back into the city. No, tonight heralded two days of absolute freedom. Daiki stumbled past his friends, ignoring their salutations until he’d ordered, downed, and re-ordered a whisky.
Then Masahi Hamamatsu sauntered up to them, clapping shoulders. He told them how happy he was to see them, and how excited he was to spend time with them. They found tickets pressed into their hands. The Roppongi Hills Music Festa, it read, dated the day after tomorrow. Masahi said he was involved in the event’s planning, and knew there would be a performance he needed them to see. A performance that would change their lives. He didn’t answer any of the questions they bombarded him with. Laughing, he simply said they had to see it to believe.
The Hills Music Festa, HMF, rang some bells. It had been on the news, not just because it was the biggest tech-focused music concert in Japan, but because it had been on the receiving ends of protests and threatening demands for it to be cancelled. Tokyo politicians and police denounced the threats, vowing the event would go ahead with tightened security. When asked about the protests, Masahi half-laughed, half-scoffed. Cowards, he said simply.
At the best of times Masahi tended towards distraction, and so none of them questioned the earbud trailing into his sweater. Odd, certainly, to listen to music while at a live show, but Masahi was Masahi. They did note that even more than usual his eyes wandered, his sentences trailed off, he missed conversation cues. When pressed if he felt alright, he replied he was doing great, and just so glad they were with him.
Then he stabbed a pen into his neck.
Itsumi rushed forward to catch Masahi as he fell, wrestling with him to pull the pen out as Masahi seemed to be trying to jam it further in. As Masahi strength waned Itsumi removed the pen from the ragged wound, blood spilling out between his fingers. The others getting over their shock, called an ambulance.
Akira spotted Masahi’s phone, having tumbled from his pocket, lying in a growing pool of blood. Earbud still jacked in. No sound, though. The phone glitched out when he tried to open it, but with a bit of finesse he managed to at least power on the screen, and saw that Masahi had been listening to a song titled ‘Tristan.’ The phone was rapidly dying. Afraid the blood would corrupt its data storage, Akira quickly dismantled the phone. It did indeed appear damaged, but with a bit of work he thought he might be able to recover some of the harddrive.
Despite Itsumi’s best efforts, by the time the ambulance arrived, Masahi was dead. Seeing people die no longer shocked Itsumi, but a friend going cold under his hands still did.
Police questioned the group for a time, but besides having Itsumi fill out extra paperwork, with the promise of much more come his next workday, they released the group from the station. A collegue of Itsumi, Detective Gakuto, followed them out though, and between puffs of a cigarette told them that Hamamatsu’s death seemed familiar. Four other individuals directly related to the HMF had died recently. The police conducted an investigation, indeed technically were still investigating, but all the deaths were clearly suicide. Busy with other matters, least of which preparing security for the HMF itself, the police chalked up the suicides to work pressure.
The case essentially shelved, Detective Gakuto had been moved onto other matters, but something still rubbed him the wrong way. If Itsumi, and the others, felt the same way, maybe they could poke around on their own time. He handed over a note with the names of the four deceased; Kanakura Saya of Chala Inc., Baden Thalman of Penture Co., Ltd., Professor Akasawa Sakurako of Yugoshi University, and Chikura Takumi of Messiaen Record Co., Ltd.
Itsumi pressed about the threats against HMF, and Gakuto seemed a bit cagey, mumbling about confidentiality, but let on that there was an ongoing investigation into a group called the Church of Serialism thought to be responsible. He warned the group off for now, and that even though the Serialists seemed like peaceful-enough New Religion loonies, they should leave the Church to the police, just in case they did turn out to be dangerous.
Left to there own devices, the group quickly decided they would find out why their friend killed himself. The companies on the detective’s list would all be shut at this time of night, but they thought of a possible lead before waiting for tomorrow. They went to Masahi’s condo. A trusting friend, he’d told his friends the key code to his door.
Sparsely furnished and relatively neat, with the exception of Masahi’s work area. Akira quickly spied Masahi’s laptop. Password locked, but Akira knew he could fix that. As he worked, the others rifled through Masahi’s mess. Mostly work related, compositions and abstract notes. Among the chaff they found a calendar marking a date a month past. A meeting. With all the suicide victims. They also found a black business card, marked with the name, Church of Serialism. And a USB with the tag ‘Tristan’ taped to it.
Akira cracked the password. A cursory check found Masahi’s email history unexpectedly sparse, as if he had deleted swathes of emails. One remaining stood out. Addressed from Akasawa Sakurako – the dead professor from Yukoshi University, and addressed to Masahi and the other victims. It contained a password for a USB drive, and a reminder that Tristan was confidential up until its debut at HMF.
Remembering that the last played track on Masahi’s phone had been called Tristan, Akira plugged in and unlocked the USB drive. As expected, it contained a single file. One, very large, audio file, titled Tristan.
The speakers on Masahi’s laptop didn’t work. Akira suspected they’d been intentionally disabled. An audio-engineer’s headphones lay snarled on the desk, though, and after a second of everyone looking at each other, Majima slipped them on and nodded to Akira.
He pressed play.
Chaos. Beauty. Madness and absolute clarity. Swirling rhythms cascading into infinite patterns. Grief, joy, curiosity, panic, calm. So calm.
They watched Majima. He stood, hunched over the desk. Eyes looking ahead, one hand on the headphones.
All normal. His other hand stabbed a pen through his eye.
Itsumi jerked forward, grabbing Majima’s arm as he tried to dig the pen further into his eye socket. Akira tumbled back over his chair, but Daiki had the presence of mind to help Itsumi, and together they managed to wrestle away the gore-streaked pen. They held down Majima, arms still jerking as if trying to get at his own flesh, and yelled for Akira to get a towel to staunch the bleeding.
Within seconds, though, Majima calmed, looking around for a brief moment with cleared eyes. He reached up to touch blood pouring down his cheek. Then the screaming began.
Two hours later, Akira, Itsumi, and Daiki smoked outside a hospital. Majima was stable, and would be held at least overnight. The doctors of course wanted him under observation for weeks, but in his few moments of consciousness and clarity, Majima demanded he be released as early as possible. They’d meet him in the morning outside the hospital, and decide were to go.
And so they returned to their homes. Akira spent the night fretting over Masahi’s phone, trying to salvage anything from the storage unit. Itsumi went over the names of the victims before turning in for the night, doing some brief searches of the companies to get a head start tomorrow. Daiki kicked off his shoes, marched through his one-room apartment, and without changing or bathing, collapsed on his futon and promptly passed out. And Majima dreamed through drug-induced sleep of a song he could barely perceive, but knew he’d never be rid of.
This was Day One of three. I hope you’ll come back for Day Two.
If you’d like to see how it turns out for your group, you can purchase the Japonism scenario pack from booth.pm, but it is currently only available in Japanese.
Before you go, though, maybe take a look at some more scenario replays?
Seeds of Terror: The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, Endless Light, One Less Grave.
Chasioum: Amidst the Ancient Trees
