Be careful the secrets it contains aren’t yours…

If you’re reading this, I’m already dead; so consider this my vengeance from beyond the grave. I’m not the type to just roll over and play dead, so here’s everything I know about the people/person/thing called Stolze & Tynes, so that maybe someone can do to them/him/it what happened to me.

It all began almost 6 months ago. I was holed up in this flea-bitten motel six-hours outside of New Orleans, licking my wounds after taking down this mail-order blood cult. All of a sudden the motel’s manager hands me a letter with my name and the motel’s address typed on it. The letter arrived by US Mail and was postmarked 3 days ago in Seattle. The weird part is that 3 days ago I had never even heard of this two-bit town let along the roach-bait motel.

But inside was the really weird part. In contained a one page, double sided newsletter entitled “Teh UNknown Armies” containing…, well, the oddest collections of stories. In addition to providing Big Foot’s social security number and an article on the mystic powers of the word “The” (as if we haven’t all heard that one before), it contained a meticulously detailed account of an encounter between Dermott Arcane and Alex Able, and how Arcane used this to mess up Able’s chance at ascension. It also contained the addresses of both the Freak’s lair and one of Randy Douglas’ weapon caches. Rounding it all off was a half page rant on the mystic significance of Barbasol shaving cream.

At first I thought it was all bunk, but just to be sure I looked into it. The Freak’s lair had been abandoned, but it looked like I just missed him. I had better luck with Douglas’ cache and I cleaned it out of everything I could carry. I haven’t been able to confirm everything about Able/Arcane but I haven’t exactly been able to disprove anything either, if you know what I mean. And I changed to Gillette just to be sure.

So I started investigating this newsletter. The first thing I found out was that I’m not the only one to receive one. I’ve turned up 58 Dukes and cabals from all over North America that have had one of these show up unexpectedly. Four of these guys have received two issues and one other has received four. Other that the fact that all were in the underground, they had little in common. Some were powerful dukes and others were mostly clueless posers, there were 9 mages and at least 14 avatars. They’ve come postmarked from Seattle, New York, Denver, Vancouver and Miami.

The newsletter’s byline was Stolze & Tynes, but I doubt that they’re anybody’s real names. Even the fact that there are two names may be a red herring. I do, however, have several theories. First, Stolze (or Tynes) could be a demon that is inhabiting Tynes (or Stolze) and using his information gained from the other side for the stories. Second theory is that the whole thing is a tool of the Sleepers to try to get us to turn on one another and do their work for them. But the scariest theory is one that Jimmy the Toad came up with, that it’s just the product of a whacked out kook that is making it all up, but that somehow either most of his guesses are bang-on right or that somehow reality is reforming itself to make them right.

I’ve so far identified 17 different issues, all apparently hand typed on an old mechanical typewriter, and all covering equally diverse topics. The spelling, grammar and typos are atrocious, but I’m beginning to suspect that they’re deliberate and that extra meaning is encoded somehow.

But it was this last 17th issue that really got me scared. I barely survived an ambush by this gunman I didn’t recognize. When I searched his body to try to find out who would want to try to kill me (well, this time) when I found the folded 17th issue in his pocket. Between the stories of Robin of Locksley’s current activities in Burma and one on the weirdo channeling the “Guy With Pencils Stuck In His Eyes” was a story on me. It had my name, my address, the addresses of my three safe houses, as well as detailed descriptions on how to make me break taboo. It described my fear of spiders and all my credit card numbers. It even detailed the three artifacts I carry including information about them that even I didn’t know.

I must be on to them to piss them off enough to provide motive and means for the string of two-bits players that have been dogging my heals for the last three weeks. If I can make it that far, I’m going to cut a deal with the Bad Man, for if anyone can find Stolze & Tynes, it’s him. But in case I don’t make it, I’ve left instructions for this to get posted where it can see by others. If you’re reading this, well… Be sure I didn’t go down without a fight.