EX OBLIVIONE (Patreon)

Coming soon, brought to you by a generous benefactor, a new Operation for Delta Green. In EX OBLIVIONE, Agents are hurled into the sprawling aftermath of a long-closed Delta Green operation in Arizona, and must uncover a threat which is no longer corporeal in nature, existing somewhere beyond control or understanding. There, it finds its revenge murder by bloody murder...

“Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles” 

― Tahereh Mafi

Introduction

The town is small. It huddles in low arroyos, yucca, and pits and plains of the Arizona desert. It's not near anything, anymore, but once it was next to the Naval Medical Annex at Fly Field. The people who worked in the annex lived in the town. The janitors and clerks and doctors all called the town their home, and for two decades, the town blossomed.

Now, that flower has faded. The annex is closed, the highway bypassed the town, but still, it has managed to hang on. 996 people call the town their home, now, working for the lone enterprise there: Marine Corps Publications. 

Outside, black flattop, sun devils and nothing waits for them, each and every day. But few ever leave. 

Something evil has stirred and holds them in check. It once lived in a tank at the Naval Medical Annex, but now, it haunts the area like the thin clouds which cover the sky each morning, turning the sun blood red. Sometimes, it is thick and choking. Other times, it's a skein so barely there it's easy to forget it exists at all. 

The evil settled in as the years went on. Fly Field became Yuma Army Airfield, then Yuma County Airport, then Vincent Air Force Base, then Yuma Air Force Station, and then, finally, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. The evil found the bones of every resident of the town and is sewn into the fabric of every child born there.  

It's there, and to the locals (although they don't know it) above all, it's familiar.  The evil remains. It's found a place in the minds of the town. It squats and watches and sometimes makes them do things. Horrible things. 

It punishes them. It punishes them for how it too was punished in those tanks at the annex. 

They have many crimes to atone for, out there in the dust.  

Overview

Mustang, Arizona is a small town in the southeastern portion of Arizona on the Gila River founded in 1930. It is 2 kilometers from Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and 1.2 kilometers from the now long-abandoned Naval Medical Annex which has been reclaimed by the desert. It once housed the workers and families employed at the annex, and many who live in the town are the children, or grandchildren of the people who worked there. From 1929 to 1947, this annex held a highly classified assembly of prisoners, most captured in an odd raid in the town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts in 1928.

In 1947, when the annex was closed, many believed that might be the end of Mustang, but the answer to solve that problem had arrived quietly during the war, along with so many other things. 

Since 1945 the principle industry of the town has been Marine Corps Publications Inc. This company handles periodicals, advertising and inserts for the United States Marine Corps, and nearly everyone in town is, now, one way or another, connected to the company. Some work at the Walmart two towns over, others at Arizona Western College; but few, if any, escape the pull of Mustang. It keeps locals close in a subtle way that no one really even notices.  

As the locals say, it's the prettiest little piece of nowhere in the state.

The Murders and the Message

On 2 JUN 2017, Private Homer Ryan, a 21-year old Marine stationed as a clerk at the Marine Corps Air Station, returned to the home of his future in-laws in the Arroyo De Fortuna estates in Yuma, Arizona. He had picked up take-out for his teenaged wife-to-be after his shift in the air controller's office and his car was seen on three traffic cameras as it headed for 771 56th Street, Yuma, Arizona. He had been living there for more than a year, helping to take care of his new, 5-month old daughter out of wedlock.

Yuma police believe Ryan entered the house at approximately 8:41 PM, was ambushed by multiple parties unknown, and was killed minutes later after a prolonged struggle. 

On 4 JUN 2017 two employees from DEPCOR Carpet Cleaning—who had been booked to clean the home the previous week—discovered the door to the home ajar. After knocking, the cleaners were momentarily startled when two coyotes fled the scene, running across the road which gives way into open desert. 

Inside the home, the workers discovered six bodies, three women, two men and an infant, ritualistically murdered. Several of the bodies had been gnawed on by the coyotes. The police were immediately alerted and for four days, the Yuma Criminal Investigations Bureau major crimes unit descended on the house, cataloging every detail of the crimes. In the end, although the CIB wouldn't say so, few real leads were found.

The victims, who all lived in the home, were identified as:

• Daniel W. Abril (45 yoa)—Father, owner of the home

• Sandra S. Abril (46 yoa)—Mother, married to Daniel Abril

• Cierra Abril (17 yoa)—Daughter, daughter of Daniel and Sandra Abril

• Beth Ryan (5 months)—Granddaughter of the Abrils, daughter of Homer Ryan and Cierra Abril 

• Grace W. Wright (66 yoa)—Mother of Sandra Abril

• Pvt. Homer L. Ryan (21 yoa)—Fiancé of Cierra Abril

All the victims were stabbed no less than sixty times each leaving the rooms of the house blanketed in blood. The lips, eyelids and ears of the victims had been removed, and strange, striated marks carved into their skin on their limbs post-mortem. More than one detective noted the "occult" nature of the markings, signs and names. 

On the wall of the living room, carved into the drywall were the words: 

HOME DAGON HOME HOME YHANTHLEI SEA TO THE SEA

Some religious members of the CIB have pointed out that Dagon is a fish-tailed deity noted in the bible as worshipped by the Philistines. Otherwise, the message revealed little. 

There were no credible witnesses, no clues and no leads to speak of. The crime hit the wire to police departments in the state. The local CIB is looking for a drifter who saw an opportunity and took it, though many in the group can't feature that. 

Of course, that is where Delta Green became involved.