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1:25

Good day Critters! Travis

1:49

Willingham here, and I am excited to

1:51

welcome you to the podcast version of

1:53

our Critical Role show. If

1:55

you would like to watch the stream as it airs,

1:57

you can tune in on Thursdays at 7pm Pacific at

1:59

Twitch. youtube.tv slash

2:01

Critical Role or at

2:04

youtube.com/Critical Role. The

2:06

video on demand versions are immediately available

2:08

for our Twitch subscribers or on YouTube

2:10

the following Mondays at 12pm Pacific.

2:13

Podcast episodes are right here

2:15

on the Critical Role Podcast

2:17

Network on Thursdays one week

2:19

after the initial broadcast. Now

2:22

that we've got all that covered, let's get

2:24

this adventure going. Hello

2:28

everyone and welcome to tonight's episode of the Menagerie

2:31

where a bunch of us nerdy ass voice actors

2:33

sit around and play the Daggerheart open beta. So

2:40

today we're taking the Daggerheart version

2:42

1.4 for a spin with the

2:44

leveled up Menagerie characters. If you

2:47

guys hadn't had a chance to check it out yet, we had our level up

2:49

video that went earlier today as well

2:52

as an update stream with Spencer and myself that talked

2:54

about the update to the rules. Both are available now

2:56

on VOD, on YouTube, and Beacon,

2:58

our newly launched membership service. In

3:04

other Darrington Press news before we jump

3:06

in, we also released today

3:09

For the Queen. By award winning

3:12

game designer Alex Roberts, it

3:14

is an incredible collaborative storytelling card game where

3:17

you and your friends around the table each

3:19

answer questions to weave a narrative of love,

3:21

betrayal, doubt, and devotion towards the queen as

3:23

your characters accompany her on her journey. It's

3:25

like a creative writer's room. Every time I

3:27

play it, it sounds awesome. Find For the

3:30

Queen right now at Critical Role online shops

3:32

and other friendly local game stores. No

3:34

seriously, if Gav's narratively

3:37

game inspired friends, check

3:40

it out. I love it. Laura, you have a

3:42

quick announcement to make as well? Hi,

3:45

too. Also available in the

3:47

US Critical Role shop today, we just launched

3:50

pre-orders For signed art: print

3:52

of Bell Tells by Mateus Galera and

3:54

Greiner Dinesia. They're the same artist who

3:56

did Our Mighty Knight and Vox Machina,

3:59

our Prince. Pre orders for

4:01

this joining cel held more

4:03

freedom and I may thirty

4:05

first and hey guess what what

4:07

if he or a beacon

4:09

member to assess don't forget

4:11

you good at ten percent discount

4:14

on items in see our.

4:16

Saw. The offered that includes pre

4:18

order for this plants and well

4:20

as for the queen bee. Gees

4:25

also needs to know how would you know

4:28

I love me for the queen as lot

4:30

of moving out for beautiful green cards you

4:32

can choose to gonna flavor the journeys you

4:34

begin. It's the also have a special custom

4:37

or two of my midnight. Of

4:40

games wealth such forgotten or shops

4:42

and have some of these instances

4:45

are cartoons I'm done. With that

4:47

announcement north and as such I believe

4:49

it's time for us all jumped into.

4:52

The second episode of Them and I

4:54

said i'm Alive and Drum heard no

4:56

dollars a month ago When ago and

4:58

out a lot of. All

5:00

right when we're done summers during, that is, indeed. So.

5:06

We've already. Here

5:08

we return. To. The

5:10

Realm of lox by her. Where

5:12

we had left off the menagerie.

5:15

Is gathered proof heroes from

5:17

within the grim ward inspections

5:19

and our protagonist party at

5:21

this table at encounter Sleep

5:23

say protectors from a rapidly

5:25

corrupting forest Fame. Within. The

5:27

vast, varied and space known as the in

5:29

the Sky. Pressing towards

5:32

the core of location called

5:34

the velvet growth. Warnings.

5:37

From various business spirits of this

5:39

forest begin to warn you of

5:41

the spreading corruption from with in

5:43

as well as seen more signs

5:46

of other denizens of the for

5:48

screwing dark and fight. Approaching

5:50

this growth and witnessing signs

5:52

of a variation to the legendary

5:55

cursed on this seep. Seemingly

5:57

spreading from within, our

5:59

heroes you manage to

6:01

destroy the source of this corruption

6:04

in cleansed boko, the guardian of

6:06

the grove, and

6:08

also learning of a man who

6:10

wandered through not long before these events, who

6:13

is likely tied to the source

6:15

of this recent seep corruption

6:18

within the woods. A man

6:20

named Dyson Brosh, recognized

6:23

only by Bunny

6:25

here, as a con man and

6:27

a patron commonly of

6:30

her home venue known as the Lily Locket

6:32

Lounge in Lola Vale. So,

6:36

with this refreshed information, the

6:39

possible seed of mystery and coming danger

6:41

as to who this Dyson

6:44

figure is and what

6:47

he wants with spreading such terrible

6:50

sickness across the realm. MATT,

8:01

okay. We'll go

8:03

with that for now. But, nevertheless,

8:06

with this lead of information towards this

8:09

darkening source of

8:12

nature ravaging system,

8:15

Matt says, Dylan, then we adjusted everything to beat Dyson because

8:17

I think I misspoke last time. TALIESIN and

8:19

MATT, so yeah, it's no Dylan, it's Dyson. TALIESIN and

8:21

MATT, who the fuck are you? MATT, canonically, it's now

8:23

Dyson. TALIESIN, MATT, and TALIESIN, and TALIESIN, and MATT, and

8:25

TALIESIN, and MATT, and TALIESIN, and TALIESIN,

8:27

and MATT, and MATT, you now regret

8:30

it. LAURA and TALIESIN, and MATT, and TALIESIN,

8:32

and MATT, you now regret it. MATT,

8:36

and TALIESIN, and MATT, and TALIESIN, and MATT, you now

8:38

regret it. Nevertheless,

8:40

leaving the emerald sky and trekking across the

8:42

central continent of Lockspire

8:44

to head towards the

8:47

home abode of Bunnie. Heading

8:50

off towards Lullveil, Pango splinters

8:52

off towards his own seep

8:54

fallen subterranean home of Ubi in

8:57

search of possible information about the seep's

8:59

beginnings and see if there's a connection

9:01

here. Sadly, did you all adieu for

9:03

the time being? We'll reconvene with you.

9:06

You can hopefully put the information you've

9:08

gathered together and have a stronger idea of what dangers

9:10

beset this land. LAURA and MATT, and TALIESIN, and MATT,

9:12

and MATT, and TALIESIN, and MATT, and MATT,

9:14

and LAURA, and MATT, and MATT, now

9:20

you walk throughout the

9:22

Aethralul Mountains, pushing

9:26

through the mist-shrouded mountain passes that

9:28

wind between the daunting peaks of

9:31

the Aethral. Numerous waterfalls carved down

9:33

the sides of the range and

9:35

pool in small ponds and lakes

9:37

that dot throughout the craggy landscape.

9:40

The occasional moss-covered cabin or crumbled

9:42

wagon peaks from the mists beyond

9:44

the well-worn roadway that you follow.

9:47

As the sun begins to set, a wooden

9:49

sign comes into view, with pointed

9:52

markers labeled in different directions from

9:54

different distances. One is

9:56

the builder's bridge, another says, sermon terms. in

10:00

mind, oh

10:02

my God, I forgot about

10:04

furniture! We do! Whatever you play

10:07

here does. Have fun. But along

10:17

this sign, you also see Lullivale,

10:19

two miles. You

10:21

continue to hike along this road as the sky

10:23

darkens, small dots of

10:25

glowing red peeking through the

10:27

surrounding stone-like tiny sparse lamps.

10:31

You cross a creaky wooden bridge

10:33

that crosses one of these smaller

10:35

ravines to be revealed before you, a

10:38

breathtaking view

10:42

of a multi-leveled cliffside city

10:45

enveloped in dusky red glow from

10:48

hundreds of exposed red crystals and

10:51

veins of crystal that emerge from the eroded gorge

10:53

face and tangled

10:55

throughout the city streets. You

10:58

see tumbling waterfalls framing the city, plunging into

11:00

the ravine floor below, while hanging

11:02

colorful lanterns sway along

11:04

the street arches and banners. You can

11:07

hear the echo of mingling music filling

11:09

the air as you approach the outskirts of

11:11

the city, just as the final light

11:13

of day begins to fade. This

11:17

is Lullivale, the crimson city

11:19

of Sin. LAURA

11:22

and MARY-ANNE GRAB N MARY-ANNE

11:38

GRAB N MARY-ANNE

11:43

GRAB N MARY-ANNE

11:47

GRAB N MARY-ANNE

11:56

GRAB N I

12:00

am cold! Well, let's

12:03

never stop at the first place that you come

12:06

upon in Roaldveil. Oh, you just keep going? You

12:08

know, it's... yeah. You can go around. You can

12:10

go to the heat around. At least around. You

12:12

know, shop around, see what suits you. Hello there,

12:14

darling. Do you have any recommendations? Well,

12:17

depends on how much you're paying. Do

12:19

we have any money? Um,

12:21

I think we have a few handfuls of gold.

12:24

Do I recognize this woman? No,

12:26

no. Much

12:28

to your specific adage

12:30

that you place forward with your friend,

12:33

you don't bother too much with the

12:35

outskirts' businesses, as most of your

12:37

life is going to be more towards the core

12:39

of the city, where the true beating heart of

12:42

the vibrant city of Sin resides. You

12:44

just tell her, Holds off, lady! Backs

12:48

it off to the side, and you can see it

12:50

kicks a rock off the top. It...taps along. Ow! The

12:53

city is beginning to bustle already.

12:56

You can hear amongst various porches, there

12:59

are musicians out in front that are having

13:01

jam sessions. You can see street performers that

13:03

are beginning to gather their materials and head

13:05

towards the central core of the city. This

13:09

here, the base entry platform of

13:11

the city here, you can see there are

13:13

staircases that wind up to a secondary and

13:15

then a third level up along the cliff

13:17

face. It seems to wind up it as

13:19

it goes, everything giving this

13:21

warm, vibrant, crimson light throughout.

13:24

I've never seen such a beautiful

13:26

place in my life. Wow.

13:28

Yeah. This

13:31

has definitely got to be back. Absolutely.

13:33

I forgot what you sounded like.

13:35

I know. Oh, isn't it? You've

13:38

been quiet all day, so... Yeah. Well,

13:40

here, I'll give you a quick little

13:44

tour. Let's

13:46

start with the Lily Locket Lounge. You've got

13:48

to see it. Well, they

13:50

know about... Oh,

13:52

yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. He came

13:54

in all the time. Do you

13:56

remember that guy? He was such a little

13:58

chode. Oh, he sucks. M Sm Croft shouting,

14:01

huh? Okay. His name was

14:04

Dyson. He sucked. He

14:07

sucked. I

14:13

shoulda kept a blessed application. Done

14:16

there, done that. What

14:21

did you say, this is a

14:23

warm reception for you, or did you leave on good terms or

14:26

bad terms? Oh no, no, no, we're good. I'm

14:28

not gonna offend me for any of the jobs. Yeah,

14:31

no, you see, things just started getting

14:33

so weird with, you know, the, I

14:35

don't know, maybe it's seep

14:37

related, but I don't know. It could be. There

14:41

was certainly some mist related

14:43

issues. Yeah, I was getting all

14:45

misty. Yes. Maybe the seep would

14:48

be there's different ways everywhere that it is, you know,

14:50

because Pango was saying that the seep there was like

14:53

watery. And

14:56

the seep we saw was like gooey.

14:59

Maybe the seep here is like misty. Basically

15:01

what sort of happened, and you see, well

15:03

there's all these beautiful red crystals. And

15:06

you know, just sort of out of

15:08

nowhere, they started, um, started changing colors.

15:11

What? I know, and it totally

15:13

messes with the aesthetic. Yeah, it changes the vibe

15:15

for sure. What color did it change to? All

15:18

kinds of weird colors. Black and

15:21

brown and blue and... That's

15:26

Trey. Woff? Yeah, yeah,

15:28

it just wasn't, it clashed real

15:30

bad. Yeah, red is a really

15:32

nice tone. Yeah, it does. It's

15:35

very dominating. And the risk could be... Those

15:37

were quite dangerous, if I recall. It was not,

15:39

I mean, we

15:42

certainly had some scuffling issues over on

15:45

the seaside, if I recall. Yeah,

15:47

I rescued him. It's true. Oh

15:49

really? Uh huh. That's how

15:51

we met. Yeah. But he didn't from

15:53

what? Well, the mist

15:56

to the sea. The weird misty stuff. It's

15:59

very different. to fight a mist,

16:01

actually. It turns

16:03

out. LAURA and MARY TALIESIN

16:11

and MARY TALIESIN

16:40

and MARY

16:51

TALIESIN

16:53

and MARY TALIESIN

17:20

and MARY TALIESIN and MARY TALIESIN

17:23

and MARY TALIESIN and MARY TALIESIN and MARY

17:25

TALIESIN frozen inside. MATT

17:29

and MARY TALIESIN and MARY TALIESIN and MARY TALIESIN and

17:31

MARY TALIESIN and MARY MARY W TALIESIN

17:37

and MARY W and MARY W and MARY W and

17:39

MARY W and MARY W and chuckling

17:44

as they go from one establishment to the

17:46

next, it very much has a perpetual subtle

17:49

Mardi Gras vibe to

17:51

a lot of the central street here. And indeed,

17:53

there are many of the side carts and such

17:55

you can see. Over to the

17:57

right there is this kind of older

18:00

rotund orcish man who has a heavy leather apron

18:02

in front and a big table and has a

18:04

bunch of different fish, different sizes hanging from the

18:06

top, and is currently cleaning one and about to

18:08

throw it on this massive ramshod grill that he

18:10

made off to the side. Smells

18:12

delicious. Excuse me, grandfather. You

18:16

got any cooked fish, or is it all raw

18:18

here? Maybe about two minutes. I'll

18:20

have a little bit of cooked fish. You got any vegetables to

18:22

go alongside that? Leans

18:26

over and you can see the carton to the

18:28

right of them has this somewhat dreary-eyed-looking

18:32

older halfling woman who is in the middle of a conversation

18:34

with somebody but looks to be about passing

18:36

out and the orc guy reaches over and grabs the

18:38

cabbage, crushes it in his hand and goes, it's

18:41

cooked now. Throws it on the grill. Great,

18:44

yeah. It's not for me, it's for

18:46

these guys. There's two puppies poking

18:49

out. Well, it's

18:51

only a day later here or so, isn't it? No,

18:53

it's been a while. It's been a few days, travel. It's a

18:55

few days. I didn't choke them in the river the day

18:57

after. Anyway,

19:01

I'd like to keep them fed healthy

19:03

food, raw sometimes, but cooked when they've been good

19:06

boys and they have very good boys and shit

19:08

good. Happily

19:10

for just a couple of

19:12

quick coins, carves up the

19:14

cooked fish within the required

19:16

state for pups of their

19:19

age and size, mingles it

19:21

with some of the now-withered slightly charred

19:23

cabbage and puts it into a

19:25

makeshift, it looks almost

19:27

like a wicker bowl that can fall apart in a

19:29

minute and passes it over and goes, hey, I have

19:31

you for ya. There we go. You are two good

19:34

babies, so you get farmer's dog. Oh, no. That's

19:37

good stuff. So expensive. That cabbage

19:39

is very, it creates quite a

19:41

bit of gas. I should warn

19:43

you, it's a very gassy cabbage.

19:45

Sleep tight, Sully. Oh, dear.

19:49

Following Bunny past the various buildings,

19:51

and there are small spires and beautiful

19:57

banners that are painted multitudes of colors. that

20:02

I thought were my brain. Massive

20:05

art pieces that are painted across

20:07

the outside of heavy, wide walls.

20:10

I got their

20:13

invention.

20:16

It is definitely a city of art

20:18

and expression in all of its forms.

20:22

Following Bunny's step, eventually you come upon

20:25

a massive dark

20:27

maroon-stained wood, multi-leveled

20:30

decadent theater that

20:32

you can see emblazoned on the

20:34

outside across numerous entryways in a

20:37

gilded cursive that drifts across in

20:39

a beautiful, if

20:41

rapid manner, the Lily Lockett

20:44

Lounge. ensive music or music.

20:46

TALIESIN and her friends

20:49

were half-abetified.

20:52

MATT clapping with the

21:08

fl have

21:11

been moseying about for the time being,

21:13

but the entryway as you step

21:16

through is this beautiful wide arch that

21:18

has these glowing magical lanterns that crackle

21:20

on the sides as you step into the main foyer

21:23

space. A high-doned ceiling that

21:25

has clouds painted across it

21:28

to feel like it's almost like a midday

21:30

bright sky above. From

21:32

there, you can see all manner of marquees

21:35

that set up all these different performers. You

21:37

can see this amazing, like, ribbit woman holding

21:39

this massive inflated bubble that's guarding her naughtie

21:41

bits. You can see this

21:44

incredibly muscure live

21:47

trapeze artist-like human elf

21:49

that is holding from this silk and

21:51

she's bent this adonis of a man.

21:54

You can see all these various performers within the

21:56

front entryway, and not too far off the left,

21:58

you can see a familiar, looking

22:01

bigger. MATT H HAN-Jung,

22:27

with two feathers. What the showgirls

22:29

use, and they're all feathered, perfectly

22:32

covering her, and

22:34

she looks like too much glow.

22:36

They went in and fucked with

22:39

the brightness. She is glowing. MATT

22:45

H Wrode,

22:54

chimpanzee, simian, steps

22:57

up with this black coat on the collar, white,

22:59

but it sticks out a little bit from the

23:01

sides. He has some time placed around. The

23:04

front of his fur seems to be cultivated

23:07

into this big, bushy mustache that

23:09

covers the top of the lip.

23:12

He steps forward with a white rope

23:14

and goes, oh, friends, who

23:16

likes to see some magic? I want

23:18

one! I want one! Now watch

23:20

this. Wait, do I know

23:22

this guy? You do not know, just forgive me.

23:25

What is going on? I

23:27

don't know. I must have hired him after we left. You

23:30

have a big fan of close-up magic, aren't you?

23:32

Not so much. Pull the

23:34

small blade from the pocket. Oh,

23:36

dangerous. What,

23:39

are you going to cut him? Yes. Oh, sorry.

23:42

Rope! Cool pieces of rope.

23:44

I'll move out of the morley range.

23:47

Tired him into a knot, like

23:49

you see before you, and pull. It's

23:51

a single piece of rope.

23:54

How'd you do that? Magic,

23:56

magic, magic. to

24:00

make a spellcast roll. If anything is hidden within the

24:02

close range, that roll with 16 against it is no

24:04

longer hidden. MATT

24:07

and TRAVIS and TALIESIN,

24:10

and Travis win the game. I'll go home

24:12

now. TRAVIS and TALIESIN, 17, 18, 19, with

24:14

hope. MATT,

24:18

and TALIESIN, 19 with hope. MATT, and take a

24:20

hope on that. Thank you,

24:22

thank you. And as he's holding out his

24:24

hat to take any sort of coin

24:27

there's a patronage. He leans forward and you see, falling

24:29

from the back of his hand, the two other pieces

24:31

of rope and

24:40

he's like, I'm having a meeting. Have

24:42

a good night. He just darts off,

24:45

kind of embarrassed. Cut

24:47

the rope if you already had

24:49

cut rope. Yeah. Well done. Very

24:51

impressive. He's

24:53

not on our payroll.

24:57

That was a bad first impression.

25:01

Someone that comes to the bar and tries

25:03

to do tricks inside. I don't take that

25:05

as a representation. I

25:09

don't think I understood that you're a celebrity here. Oh!

25:14

You're on the water on the marquee! No! Yes.

25:20

Funny

25:23

mind. You hear as you

25:25

spin and look, speaking of

25:27

bar, there is this majestic

25:29

multi-tiered, magically lit

25:32

bar shelf with this massive, beautiful dark mahogany polished bar

25:35

with a brass edge to it. You can see there's

25:37

two bartenders running for some of the patrons that are

25:39

starting to come up. There are people really well dressed

25:41

in this space. You can see it carries an air

25:43

of definitely

25:45

upper echelon aesthetic. One figure turns

25:47

from the bar. You see this

25:50

older elf woman with her gray hair pulled

25:52

up and victory curls at the top there.

25:54

She has this very

26:00

kind of a nicer

26:04

version of the stepmother

26:06

from Cinderella.

26:11

A high-neck dress you can see with

26:13

pointed shoulders that go out, but

26:15

she has this warm smile about her approaches. My

26:19

dear, I wasn't certain if you were

26:22

going to return. LAURA and MATT, ASHLEY,

26:24

and LAURA, and ASHLEY, and ASHLEY, and LAURA,

26:26

and LAURA, and LAURA, and MATT,

26:29

keepexelyoralism. But

26:56

please, welcome. As friends of Bunny,

26:58

you're friends of ours. Yes, these are. We

27:00

came up over the real nice name for

27:02

ourselves. We're the Menagerie. Ooh.

27:05

Is this your performance troupe now? You're looking

27:07

for a contract? Well,

27:09

you still, you didn't cancel

27:12

my contract, right? No, but I also don't

27:14

recall your contract allowing you to bring up

27:16

a performance in under it, so we'd have

27:18

to renegotiate. We'd love for more. You

27:20

have an infestation of magicians. I

27:23

know. I'm working on it. You've got to get

27:26

them out of here. And they're not very good.

27:28

No. You brought one fairly

27:30

talented magician once, and it just calls in all

27:33

the refresh. Nevertheless.

27:38

Welcome. If

27:40

you'd like to stay for the show, you might. What?

27:43

Are you going to perform, Bunny? Oh, no,

27:45

no, I'm so rusty. Bunny,

27:49

Bunny, Bunny, Bunny,

27:51

Bunny. No. audience

28:00

laughter LAURA

28:04

and SAMI McGARTH talk into her. ASHLEY

28:08

and M employing the platform, I'm sure

28:10

the set list is prolly. LAURA

28:13

and MATT and Angus talk, again.

28:17

ASHLEY Yes. MATT

28:20

Las MATT

28:29

and ASHLEY keep a form of

28:31

Mahana has returned from Toa. MATT

28:33

and ASHLEY Oh

28:36

my goodness. LAURA and ASHLEY

28:38

Okay, you guys got to see this. MATT

28:40

and ASHLEY It's incredible. LAURA and

28:42

ASHLEY What happened? Where's the reason why? MATT and ASHLEY

28:44

I believe she's in the whole room recovering. LAURA and

28:46

ASHLEY Sorry. Can I go see you? MATT and ASHLEY

28:49

Of course you are. LAURA and ASHLEY Can I bring them

28:54

backstage? MATT and ASHLEY Well, they're under

28:57

your employ. For the time being,

28:59

that means they're under your contract

29:05

and they're your responsibility. TALIESIN I'll rank over them.

29:07

Good to see you again, my ladies as well.

29:09

MATT and ASHLEY Thank you. LAURA and ASHLEY

29:12

Say the seat for us in the

29:14

front for my friend. For my compatriot.

29:17

MATT and ASHLEY Don't worry. I'll say to it. MATT

29:20

My family's never put much stock into entertainment, but

29:22

if you did want to perform, I'm sure we

29:24

could give a higher quality addition

29:27

to your performance than what these people are

29:29

used to. We could really kick things up

29:31

a notch. ASHLEY Would you

29:33

really do that? Normally I have a

29:35

whole lighting set up and I have

29:37

like glitter and confetti, but I haven't

29:39

had time. I could help out. MATT

29:42

How soon are we going to be back in

29:44

Lowell Vale? Am I saying that right? ASHLEY Yeah,

29:46

yeah, yeah. You better let it know. MATT So

29:48

as long as we're here, we want to get

29:50

to know you as best we can. ASHLEY Oh

29:52

my goodness. MATT Put your best

29:55

fur forward. ASHLEY Okay.

29:57

MATT Let's go check to see if the dressing room hasn't been raised.

30:00

the DX. Okay, I take

30:02

them back to me at the moment. MATT

30:04

and BRIAN. Okay, so the lounge

30:07

is gorgeous. Definitely, you get the sense this

30:09

is a world renowned, and as many of you have heard of

30:11

it in some sense, it's a world renowned performance

30:13

venue. burlesque

30:16

and dance and performance

30:18

arts, even some

30:20

thought-villian sketch acts,

30:22

though generally not as welcome here in the

30:24

city of Louisville. Apparently

30:26

now magician. MATT

30:31

andOutmar MATT,

30:46

and they'rerestling in LA. TALIESIN,

30:49

and TALIESIN, and TALIESIN, and LA. MATT,

30:56

and the attack troupe, a few folks that wander through.

30:58

MATT, and give you a bit of a stink off, or

31:01

at least a sideways glance, as you're eventually led to the

31:03

back rooms where all the performers who live on site

31:06

here, they have a number of

31:08

their side chambers that lead to the back room

31:10

area, the behind stage region. You head

31:12

to Le Mans chamber door, if

31:14

you'd like to knock. Yeah,

31:17

it takes my acrylics and just

31:20

ROLL 90s LAUGHING MATT,

31:24

Y She

31:46

has just

31:48

natural beauty that exudes from

31:51

her wearing this heavy, comfortable-looking

31:53

robe that's wrapped

31:55

around her and has a crutch under one arm

31:58

and goes, Ay, dawg, it's so good to see you. I

32:00

wasn't sure when you were coming back. Oh,

32:02

my goodness, you're so much like you in such a

32:04

cypress store, right? Oh, it's definitely a store. You got

32:06

the store, right? What is that? I

32:09

don't know. One of my shoes just

32:12

broke during one of the rehearsals. So now I

32:14

twisted my ankle. The dog, to say, is not too

32:16

bad. But not to the point I'm pointing me

32:18

down for the week. That's why you

32:21

should always wear sensible shoes. Thank

32:23

you for the unrequested advice. I appreciate that.

32:26

These friends of yours? Yeah,

32:28

yeah. But they're kind of

32:30

normal to the same. It might be mine.

32:36

Call me surprised. We call ourselves

32:38

the menagerie. The menagerie. The menagerie.

32:41

Oh, but there's more than three of you. It's

32:45

not like that kind of a... Oh, why? Oh,

32:47

misunderstood. Sorry. Well,

32:51

welcome to my doorway, I suppose. Nice to meet

32:54

you all. You're friends of Bunny. That means that

32:56

you're friends of ours, I guess, technically, by the

32:58

way that we run this place. Pleased

33:01

to meet you. Do you remember a man named

33:03

Dyson? He was a

33:05

con man. Yeah, what

33:07

about him? Did he like

33:10

dark gooey stuff? I

33:13

guess he's wanted to spread his seep around. Oh, boy.

33:17

I hope we found that, because it's not

33:19

going to work. How

33:22

did that work? It's just

33:24

a work. Careful.

33:27

Canceling, carefully. No. Pull

33:30

the plug. He has

33:32

been inserted. Let's go in. Don't

33:36

work. Don't work that hard, everybody. Close

33:41

the vehicle. Close the vehicle.

33:53

Well, I haven't personally seen it, but if

33:55

you've seen that happen, go ahead and let me know at the front. We'll

33:57

make sure he never comes back. That's not

33:59

allowed. Lamon, we're just gonna wander

34:01

in because remember how he used to

34:03

be so weird and aloof and creepy?

34:05

Used to be. Yeah, but

34:07

has he been around because apparently he went

34:10

up and he cursed the hill in the

34:12

hill? How

34:15

do I explain this, you guys? What did we see?

34:17

The guy that we saw that was cut in half.

34:19

That wasn't him. Oh yeah. No,

34:22

that was the um... That was Colin. That was Colin.

34:24

Right. He was Colin. He was Colin. But

34:27

he was the guy, um, the

34:29

magical hill man. He made

34:31

a little aloozion. Well,

34:36

if you're looking for him, if he's not in the

34:38

audience tonight, he's probably blowing his cash down at the

34:41

casino or something. That's what a lot of the low

34:43

life is going to be in this space. I

34:46

mean, I've seen him recently. Oh really? How recently? Like

34:48

two days ago he came in here, was creeping around

34:50

the ladies for a bit like he does at a

34:53

distance. Not enough to be able to like report him,

34:55

but enough to make us feel a little uncomfortable. Oh,

34:58

he was here while we were fighting. It's

35:00

both irritating and convenient. Yeah. Yeah.

35:03

Yeah. Go

35:07

ahead. Were

35:12

they working? What

35:16

was that? Can I get that

35:18

again, Sarah? Break yourself? That's

35:22

embarrassing. I didn't mean to hide

35:24

to the microwave. I

35:29

mean, I always wondered if he was

35:31

a fisherman or something. He always wore this like, it's

35:35

like a heavy sort of fisherman's coat. Like

35:37

big, big cuffs on the arms, a bit

35:39

tattered at the bottom, collar kind of folded.

35:42

A bit, uh, I don't

35:44

know, a bit more feet in the looks at times. I don't know. Yeah.

35:47

Fisherman's coat. More feet in

35:49

the... Anything else you can tell us

35:51

about him? I mean, I guess he would be... Oh,

35:54

what's left of it? Oh, here we go.

35:56

Here we go. Like a little salt and pepper. I don't

35:58

know if he colors it. I'm gonna try to make

36:01

a presentation. Be perfectly honest, I kinda keep

36:03

a distance anyway. Yes, now. He's

36:07

a leer-er. He likes to stare.

36:09

It's a little unsettling, you know?

36:12

Very important. Yeah. Well,

36:16

hey, um, can I borrow

36:18

one of your costumes? I'm taking

36:20

your spot tonight. For real?

36:24

Well, at least I'm glad it's you and not anyone else. I know. Wouldn't

36:27

trust it, anyone else. I'd get to

36:29

fit with that bitch candy. Ah. But

36:32

candy, yeah. She's

36:34

a little misunderstood. She's young. She'll get there in

36:36

time. Candy's okay. She's

36:39

here. Do

36:41

you hear who's performing tonight, mainstay?

36:44

Yes. Oh

36:46

my goodness. Why, you don't look pleased.

36:49

Why would I be pleased? What's

36:52

wrong with LaFauna? Something's

36:54

wrong with her. She just kind of... ...overshadowed

36:56

the rest of us. You

36:59

know? She's been doing this for a while, and...

37:02

...a lot of other girls have come up and proven themselves, and

37:04

they all just... ...can't seem to get out from

37:06

under the space she occupies. Even when

37:08

she's gone for over a year, everyone keeps coming

37:10

and asking when she's coming back. Yeah, I know. Before

37:14

or after she came back. No,

37:16

it was just two nights ago. Do

37:18

you... She got into

37:21

here again? I was in the car.

37:24

Did you touch her again? A

37:26

crocket. Wow. I

37:30

don't particularly... You didn't

37:32

even inspire her, did you? Do you

37:34

have a shoe? I have

37:36

it, yeah. Can I get a look at it? Sure.

37:40

You're adorable, by the way. Thanks.

37:44

My blue cheeks just go pink. They

37:48

aren't at least saving her performance for the end

37:50

of the night. She has to go on after

37:53

her, I assume. Big fan, by the way, but yes. Sweet.

37:58

No, she'll be going on right around... So

38:00

there's a number of hours before she has to

38:02

take the stage. Performances don't begin for a few

38:04

more hours anyway, so you've got time to relax,

38:06

enjoy yourself some drinks. Except for you, you should

38:09

be sober on stage. Um... Oh,

38:11

you know, just a little something to loosen up the gears.

38:14

The fun? Yeah. And

38:16

be honest, she kind of showed up,

38:18

um... She's always been a bit snooty, but like...

38:22

Special kind of. I've seen the

38:24

world, and I'm better than you kind

38:26

of, and she returned with an

38:29

accent. I

38:31

hated when people didn't talk.

38:34

Um... Just the worst. Has

38:36

anyone called her or never? No! Has

38:39

everyone just pretended like it's always been there? She

38:41

shows up and she's like, hello everyone, I'm the

38:43

farmer, and I'm like, bitch,

38:45

I know, we've seen you before, be glad to learn.

38:48

She's a trash, she's like the rest of us. But

38:50

she doesn't speak normal, I used to. No!

38:54

Of course not! This

38:56

is Lovaal's natural accent.

39:00

I'm really confused. So

39:03

many different kinds. It's

39:05

nearly a cultural hub this side of Lox Bayard,

39:07

like folks from all over come over. Court Town.

39:10

Well, let me see your chin. Absolutely. She

39:13

takes off. Oh, the one that's infested. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

39:15

the one that's broken. She doesn't take that. Yeah, sure

39:18

enough, like, it is a tall heel, but it looks

39:20

snapped at the base where it is. Because

39:22

this is the one in question.

39:25

Wow. That's definitely been tampered with. It's

39:28

definitely, I was thinking the same thing. You think so?

39:30

What are you going to do with this shoe? Well,

39:33

I was going to get it prepared, maybe. Oh, you're going to

39:35

keep it. I

39:39

was just thinking, I

39:42

could add it to my staff

39:44

piece to make it a little

39:47

taller. Make

39:49

a presence roll for me. Oh, my God. Add

39:53

the broken shoe to your court or staff. Yes,

39:58

I don't know. What

40:00

am I wrong? What did you say? Present? Okay. Okay,

40:07

so that is 23

40:09

with seer. Okay.

40:17

She takes the shoe. I'm so sorry. That was wrong.

40:20

With hope. Oh, with hope? Yes. Okay.

40:23

She takes the shoe, looks it over. I'd

40:25

be perfectly honest. It's kind of run its course with

40:27

me. I'll just

40:29

go and ask one of our patrons to maybe get

40:32

me a new set. This is for you. Just

40:34

because you're cute. Thank you

40:36

so much. I'm

40:38

just going to wrap the ankle strap

40:41

around the bottom of the cigarillo. Some

40:46

real unique friends you make in these days, buddy. I

40:48

like it. Some real good people. Yeah, that's

40:50

really good. Is it what color is the

40:52

shoe? Is it like yellow? The

40:54

shoe is like a dark amber color

40:56

with black bottoms to it, and

40:59

it looks like this beautiful buckle with a pearl at the end.

41:02

What an

41:04

incredible thing.

41:06

Thank you so much. Can I take

41:08

a look at it a little closer and see if

41:11

it looks like it could have been tampered with?

41:13

It was a miniature. It was a miniature. I'll

41:15

keep it in the day. Yes,

41:17

you may. Make a knowledge roll for me, if you don't mind.

41:19

I'm going to need something later. Exactly.

41:24

It's a straight roll. Probably not.

41:26

Nine with hope. Nine with

41:28

hope? Well, you get a hope out of it. It

41:33

looks like it definitely snapped. It

41:36

looks like it broke. Looks

41:38

like it's probably why she hurt her ankle. It's

41:44

been a long day. We're

41:46

going to figure it out. Well, you

41:49

know, who's to say? Maybe she was jealous

41:51

of the up and calmer limited cello. It's

41:55

possible. Yeah. Well,

41:57

you know, I guess we'll just

41:59

have to see how you... one upper later

42:01

tonight. I mean I can

42:03

never follow in your footsteps. I'm just trying to

42:05

keep up. You could now but it'd

42:08

be at a weird pace. I'm

42:11

gonna make some tea and relax. It's a pleasure to

42:13

meet you all. Really nice meeting you. Good time. You

42:17

told me that already. I know. It's very sweet. Still true.

42:20

Thank you. I'll be

42:22

back in a bit to raid your wardrobe. Of course,

42:24

of course. Relax amongst yourselves. A few hours to go

42:26

before we get started. I'll be seeing the audience.

42:28

So, uh, bye. Don't you

42:30

still have a dressing room here? Well, yeah,

42:33

but I had packed so much stuff up when I was

42:36

hitting the rope. That's exciting.

42:38

It's good to know that Dyson's here. Yeah. We've

42:42

got a minute. Well, I don't know. I know you have

42:44

to get ready at some point, but if we have a

42:46

minute, there is a casino. I've never seen

42:48

that. Yeah. We can, we can

42:50

clap over. Do you know what time

42:52

your curtain call is? Well, she said

42:55

she was, Mofana's

42:57

at midnight, so I imagine I should, as long

42:59

as I'm back by 11. Okay. Have

43:02

I noticed any other fun girls in

43:04

the area, or do they seem? You haven't

43:09

seen any within this establishment. You've

43:11

seen a handful walking the streets

43:13

to some other places. They're present

43:15

in the city. In fact, like

43:18

the cultural melting pot of Lowell

43:20

Vale is extensive. There

43:22

are people from all

43:24

over, Lockspire here, including a number

43:27

of very unsavory looking types. But

43:30

yeah, it's a wider room. What time is

43:33

it? It's just post-sunsets. Maybe it's like, at

43:36

this time of year, like 7.30. So the show starts at 10-ish, so

43:39

you have a little bit of

43:41

time if you want. It's not exactly a hot trail being

43:44

it was two days ago, but we should check

43:46

out the casino and just see if we can get eyes

43:48

on a balding fisherman

43:51

coat wearing Dyson. What

43:54

if? All

43:56

right. I'm going to just

43:58

squawk down. on the ground. Wait,

44:01

maybe we should go outside for this. Oh,

44:03

that's very normal, yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna go outside. As

44:05

soon as we get outside, I'm gonna do it. Yeah? I'm

44:08

gonna find dirt. Yeah. Even better?

44:11

I'm gonna squat down, and

44:14

I'm gonna put my fingers down on the ground, and

44:16

I'm just gonna like hum. Hmm,

44:20

I'm looking for a creepy guy

44:24

with some pepper

44:26

balding head and a big coat

44:28

and he stares. And

44:30

I'm gonna, I'm

44:33

gonna do an instinct roll to try to speak

44:35

with any other fun girl in the area that

44:37

might have eyes on him. Is that true? Yeah.

44:41

Okay. Oh, that works. Yeah, that'll network.

44:43

So yeah, go ahead and make an instinct roll for me,

44:45

and I'll let you know what you can manage to do.

44:48

I'm a fun girl today. Just

44:50

down. Instinct. Instinct

44:54

instinct. That's a 13, 14, 15 with

44:59

hope. 15 with hope, so you take the hope on

45:01

that. As

45:04

you dig your fingers into the

45:06

surrounding dirt, and you

45:08

extend your consciousness amongst the microscopic

45:11

weave of plant and fungal

45:13

matter that permeates the

45:17

earth covered shelves of this

45:19

rocky, broken gorge, you

45:21

feel yourself rapidly spreading out, and you tickle

45:24

the feet of various other fungal that are

45:26

amongst other business, but even a quick passing

45:28

through in this imaginary space, none of them

45:31

seem to have eyes on where you are. You

45:35

know what, I'm going to go ahead and make a roll here. Natural

45:38

20, okay. So

45:41

yeah, you find

45:43

one fungal that is working, it

45:46

seems like they're working security for a location

45:48

here. You all of a sudden come into their

45:50

consciousness briefly, moment like a ghosted visual perspective of

45:52

the surrounding, and you can see there's a card

45:54

table to the right, and as

45:57

they glance around, acknowledging where you are,

45:59

share. this image in your mind

46:01

into theirs, they give a glance over and

46:04

point in one direction. You see the

46:06

faint back, mostly balding head of a

46:09

man in a strange-looking heavy

46:11

coat with a ruffled collar on top

46:13

that looks loosely like what was described.

46:15

LAURA and MATT, LAURA, and MATT,

46:18

and MATT, and LAURA, and MATT, and MATT, and

46:20

MATT, and MATT, and MATT, there is a bouncer at a

46:22

card table. Anytime. MATT,

46:25

and MATT, and MATT, and MATT, oh! TALIESIN and MATT, as long to

46:27

sac. LAURA and MATT, MATT, and MATT, and LAURA, as long to sac.

46:29

LAURA and MATT, as long to sac. LAURA, and MATT, as

46:31

long as we're back here by 11. MATT, as long as we're back here by 11. LAURA,

46:33

as long as we're back here by 11. LAURA, as long as we're back here by 11.

46:36

LAURA, as long as we're back here by 11. LAURA, as long

46:38

as we're back here by 11. MATT, as long as we're back

46:40

here by 11. LAURA, as long as we're back here by 11.

46:42

Welcome to Fjord, you win. MATT,

46:44

as long as we're back here by 11. All right. Is the casino

46:46

far from where the lilylarket lounge is? Oh, it's

46:48

going to be like a six to seven-minute

46:51

walk. Like a brick

46:53

walk. Or the little, call it

46:55

the lilyl. The lilyl. The

46:57

lilyl for the lilylarket lounge? That's not a

46:59

joke. The lilyl. The

47:02

lilyl. The lilyl. The

47:04

lilyl. The

47:06

lilyl. The lilyl.

47:08

All right. Following

47:11

your guidance and heading

47:14

through the boisterous

47:16

nightlife of the center of L'olevale,

47:20

passing by other mid-street jugglers

47:22

and performers, you make

47:25

eye contact with some of the other fungal that

47:27

you had brushed by as they go. One

47:31

of them reaches over and grabs some rotting

47:33

plant on a window sill and crushes it

47:35

and absorbs it. Whoa,

47:38

whoa. That's a power push.

47:42

Never brought eye contact. That

47:46

is continuous. You think it

47:48

has eyes. But

47:51

you lead them a little ways down the main central

47:53

street and then off to the right, not

47:55

too far from the bank of

47:57

Borneo, which you pass by this large, kind

47:59

of, stone column

48:02

structure that has in the front the Bank of

48:05

Borneo. You can see there are folks mingling

48:08

on the outside as well as the entryway, individuals

48:10

coming in and coming out, and you get the

48:12

sense for a town that probably has a lot

48:14

of really expensive entertainment, and

48:16

apparently a casino where there is the

48:18

gambling. The bank probably does pretty well

48:20

here. Across from the

48:24

Bank of Borneo, you can see

48:26

this roaring structure.

48:28

It's this wide arena. It is circular

48:31

in shape, but

48:34

it is built almost like walls with a roof on

48:36

top that is open, other than

48:38

a cloth dome set across

48:41

it that flows through the air itself. As

48:44

the wind progresses through, you can see parts

48:46

of the

48:48

material flap and

48:51

flag the air. From underneath it, it lights them, so

48:53

it looks almost like a golden

48:56

sea that is slowly flowing with the wind. LAURA

48:58

and MARY KIMBERLYE They could paint fish on it

49:00

and it would look like an ocean.

49:02

As we walk into

49:06

the streets, I'm catching flies. MATT and

49:09

MARY KIMBERLYE There are many. Most of

49:11

them are mosquitoes, but if you get

49:13

four of them, it's like one fly.

49:18

This, indeed, you can see the large

49:20

sign up front, the Bax and Bones

49:23

Casino. It

49:25

has this very kind of... The

49:30

letters are painted in gold against black, so they're very

49:32

bold, but the font that it's

49:34

put in is very stark and intense. Like,

49:36

you're here! While it has

49:38

this beautiful outer

49:42

aspect of it, once you step in

49:44

the door, it is business. There's noise,

49:46

there's music, there are performers on separate

49:48

stages that mingle in the middle into

49:51

some weird jazz-like mixture. There are a

49:53

number of card tables, dice tables. It

49:55

is a bustling space. You

49:57

also see there are suited figures.

50:00

wearing what you

50:02

recognize to the fungal that you had contacted

50:04

in this space, some sort of a guardian

50:07

suit for those that keep

50:09

eyes across the interior. There's

50:11

a lot of them. There are,

50:13

even at the first glance around, you

50:16

see ten individuals of different, various ancestries

50:18

that are walking around, arms crossed, keeping

50:20

the peace and holding an

50:22

ominous presence amongst the rest of the revelry.

50:27

Do we have some time?

50:29

We've got the h-baby. What games

50:31

are there to play? MATT,

50:34

offscreen, and offscreen, have you described to

50:36

me, if you can, the

50:38

extensive experience that you believe Zarlow

50:40

has had with gambling? Oh, I've

50:42

had none, but I've heard about it. I'm

50:45

here to lose money, so I

50:47

don't understand cards, that's too much, but I do

50:49

like dice a lot, so I'm going to gravitate

50:52

towards any table that has dice on it and

50:54

just try to fake that I know what

50:56

I'm doing and see how fast I can lose my

50:59

money. Beautiful. As you come to

51:01

the first table you see with the dice, there's

51:03

four figures there. There's an older-looking,

51:07

an elderly ribbit

51:11

that is hunched over the edge,

51:13

the retroverse skin's graying a bit

51:15

with a big thick spaticles who

51:18

currently has a big old mitt filled with dice

51:20

and looks over. Hi there,

51:23

sweet one! Are you coming to join

51:25

us at the table? Greetings, fellow gamblers.

51:27

It is the night for the GX.

51:30

I sit down on my monkey ass. You

51:32

sit down. The GX.

51:36

Oh, gee. You plop down and the

51:39

other figures at the table all look at

51:41

each other and smile and turn back to you. Of

51:44

course, please, happy to have someone who's

51:46

themed experience at the table. She

51:50

throws her lot of dice. You see six

51:52

dice scatter across the table. Everyone looks in

51:54

to the count. She goes, no,

51:57

that was quite bad at you, theme. She shuffles some of

51:59

her coins away. interest the folks take from the pot. It

52:03

is interesting, everyone was playing for fun. It

52:05

isn't like it's high stakes, necessarily, but they're

52:08

definitely going to test you. Go ahead and

52:10

roll six d6s for me, if you don't mind.

52:12

LIAM And Hearn's Back, oh yeah,

52:14

he's got a phrasedspirator, sorry, too much context going on. I

52:24

pulled out the second dog, and I picked, all

52:26

right, I have some gold. Hold on to them

52:28

for me, will

52:33

you, darling? Okay. So I put half a handful of

52:35

gold. MATT

52:37

and TALIESIN half a handful, yeah.

52:39

MATT and TALIESIN Do I

52:41

need dice, right? TALIESIN and MATT and TALIESIN 66.

52:43

I'll take those, because I'm ready. Four

52:46

right there. MATT

52:48

and TALIESIN and MATT and TALIESIN

53:11

Triple twos. All right, so you add those

53:13

twos together. That's six. TALIESIN That's six. Now

53:15

go ahead and roll those three dice once

53:17

more. MATT and TALIESIN Let's go! MATT

53:22

and TALIESIN That brings it to 12. Go ahead

53:24

and roll those two threes again. TALIESIN Well, I

53:26

have to get doubles again? MATT

53:28

and TALIESIN That's fucking impossible! TALIESIN It's

53:31

five and four. MATT and TALIESIN Okay, so 12 is your

53:33

number. The

53:36

elder rabbit from the table rolls.

53:38

That is one, two, three,

53:41

and three and three. That's

53:44

going to be nine. That's going to be

53:46

five again. LAURA and TALIESIN You're going to

53:48

lose your handful! MATT and TALIESIN It's just

53:50

half a handful. MATT and TALIESIN

53:52

That is nine plus eight. That

53:55

is going to be 17. Roll

53:57

these two again. MATT

54:00

and SAM. You

54:04

lose your half of your hand, Paul. LIAM and TALIESIN

54:06

and MATT and LAURA. TALIESIN and MATT

54:08

and MATT and TALIESIN and TALIESIN and MARISHA.

55:10

MATT and TALIESIN and MATT

55:13

plus TALIESIN and SAM. MARISHA and TALIESIN and

55:15

SAM. MATT and SAM.

55:21

TALIESIN and TALIESIN and LAURA. MARISHA and TALIESIN. TALIESIN

55:24

and TALIESIN. LAURA,

55:34

and TALIESIN, and TALIESIN and LAURA.

55:37

TRAVIS and TALIESIN and MATT and

55:39

LAURA. MATT and LAURA. TALIESIN

55:45

and TALIESIN and TRAVIS, and TALIESIN and MARISHA. MATT

55:48

and LAURA. TALIESIN and TALIESIN

55:50

follow along TALIESIN on all parts.

55:53

MATT and LAURA. TALIESIN and LIAMFIRE

55:55

follow along TALIESIN. MATT and TRAVIS.

55:58

Taliesin and TALIESIN and TRAVIS. That.

56:00

Is minutes of the cigarette on the table.

56:03

He. Okay,

56:06

so. Nine against

56:08

only reason And are you know

56:10

what you mean as far as

56:12

really keen? New

56:15

for. Hims was

56:17

a new things I have a

56:19

force for. He would nine nine

56:21

flyers for plus twelve to Twenty

56:23

Nine Ninety Five Six So far

56:26

far away. Murder double distance. Let's

56:28

go beta. be an awful. Awful.

56:30

Both thousand eight. Or

56:35

twenty fi sleeve. I was. A new

56:37

was a throws you understand. Three,

56:41

three handful of. For

56:44

hims wasn't old nut woman and the rest of us him

56:46

go. Gonna

56:48

get it for three to mock. Well

56:51

as long as I had spent a

56:53

fine time paying you stranger some see

56:55

around, sniff, same, bring some be funny

56:57

or up and see get seven wonders.on

56:59

a half. My

57:02

son is go on and on the

57:04

since its. Downsides

57:08

on. Gambling.

57:13

Off com disable. Just started looking

57:16

around the casino find me. A

57:18

fisherman code or of time and temperature? Well,

57:20

I'm I'm trying to cover a playground for

57:23

where your back is on Sunday. so you're

57:25

making an instinct role. and are you do.

57:27

You're trying to help. I'm I'm trying to

57:29

help years ago, hadn't or spend a hope

57:31

and you can roadie six to add to

57:33

his phone lines. Are

57:40

some nine, ten, eleven, twelve,

57:42

or thirteen with. Fear

57:44

for team with their twinkie More team with

57:46

fear I will my gym move on with

57:48

it is here. Are

57:51

some glancing around is it takes him

57:54

and your searing your friends. Last.

57:56

and cheer and can make a scene

57:58

their first few into this casino.

58:01

Aside from setting up your nerves a little

58:03

bit, it takes

58:05

a moment for you to find your concentration. The two of

58:07

you put your heads together and glance around the table. You

58:09

can see there is one card game on the

58:12

far-off end of the space where

58:14

it looks like there are five

58:16

figures in tense gambling,

58:18

speechless card checking and putting

58:21

money across the table. One

58:23

of them you see is

58:25

this small, deflated-looking

58:27

man in his late

58:30

50s, maybe? It's hard to

58:32

tell his age. Thinning hair,

58:35

sunken jowls, and he has this big navy

58:37

coat that looks a bit tattered at the edges.

58:39

You see him holding his cards in his hand,

58:41

his eyes peeking off the other ones. He's trying to put

58:44

on a poker face, but he's awful at it. Fold. LIAM.

58:53

I think we found our rotten fish. MATT.

58:56

Does it look like him? MATT.

58:58

It looks pretty close to, indeed,

59:01

you do recognize this as

59:03

Dyson Villain. MATT and LAURA. MATT.

59:08

The Louisville Dyson. MATT.

59:11

What do we do? What do we do? What do you

59:13

do in this situation? Do we go

59:15

all over there? Do we arrest him? Do

59:18

you know him? MATT. You know him? MATT. You're not entirely

59:20

sure. MATT. In the name of the Grim Wardens, does he

59:22

know you? MATT. Yeah, he would

59:24

know me. You know, maybe I

59:27

could get his attention, make him think I'm flirting with

59:29

him a little bit, and then we could hit him

59:31

with the hard truth. MATT. Do we want to get him off on his

59:33

horse? MATT. Maybe we have to

59:35

take a pee break? So it's the bar?

59:38

LAURA. Is there a hallway or something that I can slink behind?

59:43

MATT. From where he's sitting, no,

59:45

his back's to the wall. He seems to be

59:47

the kind of person that would gamble with this

59:49

back to the wall. Sorry, Laura. You do see

59:51

there are a few alcoves off to the

59:57

side. There are a couple of water

59:59

closets. set to each end of the room,

1:00:02

as well as some elements

1:00:04

of the outer walls that have alcoves with

1:00:09

benches to sit in, and you can see people

1:00:11

having some drinks and folks are having conversations, and

1:00:13

folks like they're deep in business conversation in the

1:00:15

shadows off to the side. There is

1:00:17

a lot of color and

1:00:19

joviality to the space here, but there's also just

1:00:21

into the bit of the shadows that sense of

1:00:23

a lot of seedy business

1:00:26

being conducted on the outskirts.

1:00:28

So there are places to

1:00:30

dip off to if you wanted. Why don't you

1:00:33

all sink over there in front of the loo and I'll bring them

1:00:35

over. But

1:00:37

we'll sprint out. All right. Though

1:00:39

we all look like such a concentrated group. Yes,

1:00:41

sure. You look them people in the store, this

1:00:43

is WC. Winston Churchill?

1:00:46

I was stationed at the dice table.

1:00:52

Just hang out

1:00:54

over there. Is

1:00:57

there an area that I could hide in? No, just

1:01:00

a corner behind a pillar

1:01:04

or something. There

1:01:07

are some central pillars. The

1:01:09

place is well lit, especially in the places of

1:01:11

gambling out in the open. So most of

1:01:14

the spaces that are shaded would be more on the outer

1:01:16

edges of this main casino, unless you're looking for

1:01:19

a larger figure to duck behind, or

1:01:21

under a table if you want to somehow try for that. What

1:01:25

about in the areas that Bunny

1:01:27

would be bringing him? Okay.

1:01:30

You can see there are four main

1:01:32

alcoves that have the bench seats and

1:01:35

some small side tables. People have cocktails

1:01:37

off to the side. They are all

1:01:39

currently occupied. You can see at the

1:01:41

edges of each one, there are two stationed similar

1:01:44

suited bouncers, essentially, that

1:01:46

could keep an eye not too far off,

1:01:48

looking for any sort of dangerous

1:01:52

activity, any sort of violence, or any sort

1:01:54

of cheating in this area of the casino.

1:01:56

So they're all fairly busy at

1:01:58

the moment. security. Big lasses

1:02:01

and fellas or? MATT,

1:02:03

you see one squat-looking fungal who, as

1:02:05

they sit there, they don't look particularly

1:02:09

dangerous at first glance. They're thick, barrel-like with

1:02:11

a cap that comes at an angle. What you

1:02:13

do notice is there are multiple eyes all

1:02:15

across the cap, and you see them twitching and

1:02:17

moving around and looking in the vicinity. They

1:02:21

have their specialty. You do

1:02:23

see, whereas the

1:02:25

earlier there was a

1:02:28

chimpanzee-coated sim in, you can see

1:02:30

there's one massive, gorilla-looking figure.

1:02:32

Silver back with this massive long

1:02:34

hair that puffs out the collar, jackets are a

1:02:36

little bit too tight. They're

1:02:38

like the bouncer of Roger

1:02:40

Abbott. They're sitting there in

1:02:42

the corner, just like, oh,

1:02:44

that tech lump is yoked.

1:02:47

There is a spectrum of

1:02:49

power figures around here. There are 30 or more

1:02:55

of these bouncers scattered throughout this area,

1:02:57

some wandering on the outskirts, outside of

1:02:59

the building and back in. This is

1:03:01

a very well-protected space. LIAM, that's huge.

1:03:03

There's 30 bouncers moving. MATT, oh

1:03:05

yeah. There's probably close to 140 people in

1:03:08

here. There are upper, higher areas, balconies

1:03:13

where people are currently eating or dining or conversing

1:03:15

with these as well. You can climb a ladder

1:03:17

if you want to and try and get to

1:03:19

those, but those also look very busy as well.

1:03:22

Do we want to try and get him outside,

1:03:24

perhaps? Yeah,

1:03:26

you know, if anything goes wrong, there's a

1:03:28

fight inside, then all those bouncers are going

1:03:30

to come piling on top

1:03:32

of us. I wonder if we could

1:03:34

lower him outside somehow to get away from the action here.

1:03:37

Oh, I can lure him outside,

1:03:39

no problem. But if

1:03:41

you guys want to wait outside, wherever we want to wait.

1:03:45

Makes sense to me. If

1:03:47

you wanted a private conversation, if he doesn't

1:03:49

want to head all the way outside, you

1:03:51

could just get him alone in the water

1:03:53

closet. I could make sure that

1:03:55

no one bothers you. watching

1:04:00

everything that goes down here, and I think you

1:04:03

bringing such a clearly despicable

1:04:08

person into a water closet is for some

1:04:10

the fairest person, but this one way or

1:04:12

another, be it violence or

1:04:14

otherwise. I mean, look at

1:04:16

him. I want to rob him right now. He's just

1:04:18

awful. Take out the

1:04:21

damn employee. By

1:04:24

the way, are you recognizant here? Because your

1:04:26

face is at the other place. So people

1:04:28

in town know you, right? Are people clocking

1:04:30

bunny in the... Is that a

1:04:32

lot of battery? Glancing around, most folks

1:04:34

are very focused in either the tables

1:04:36

that they're currently running or

1:04:38

they're focused on conversation. If you take them in to look, every now and

1:04:40

then you do see a face go like... There's

1:04:44

a recognition, but they can't quite place it. Nobody is

1:04:47

quite clocked or is that coming up with fan energy

1:04:49

yet? The ones out a little bit of money enjoying

1:04:51

their bottomless well drinks. I've

1:04:54

got to remember, you know, I've been on the road

1:04:56

for some time too. It's been a while. People don't

1:04:58

remember my beautiful face. We'll

1:05:01

make a move. We'll cover you. All

1:05:04

right. Water closet? Yeah. All

1:05:06

right. Give it a room. Okay.

1:05:11

I'm going to... ...fashay

1:05:16

over to him. And

1:05:19

I'm going to kind of just like... Is

1:05:22

he focused? I'm just going to do a little like... Oh,

1:05:29

hi there. I just didn't see... Is

1:05:31

that Miss Bunny? Oh, hello, big C.

1:05:33

It's been so long. Miss

1:05:36

Bunny? How are you doing,

1:05:38

Miss Bunny? I'll bring you back to Lothair. Well,

1:05:42

I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... wait

1:05:44

a minute. You know, I've

1:05:46

been thinking about you so much. There's

1:05:49

people on the table that have... in the process of finishing their

1:05:51

hand of cards... ...all kind of like... They're

1:05:53

going to laugh a little bit. Well,

1:05:57

maybe. Yeah, of course.

1:06:00

Why? Here, what have I

1:06:02

done? You know,

1:06:05

it's a road to keep a lady waiting. Why

1:06:07

didn't you meet me in the water closet? And

1:06:09

I'm going to cast enrapture on him. Okay.

1:06:12

Go ahead and make a spellcast roll. That

1:06:15

was good. Pull

1:06:18

any tunes. Can

1:06:22

I spend a hope to

1:06:25

use an experience? Yeah. Which

1:06:28

is weaponizing the male gaze. I

1:06:30

mean, that is specifically this

1:06:32

type of circumstance. This is the moment. I

1:06:36

don't really have a surprise. G'day.

1:06:43

Okay, I'm glad I used that lemon,

1:06:45

12, 13, 18 with hope. 18

1:06:51

with hope? Okay. You take a hope. And

1:06:54

he... So you walk over towards the water

1:06:56

closet. And it's just

1:06:58

like my magic. Remember

1:07:01

Oma Thurman is Poison Ivy and

1:07:03

Batman and Robin, and she had

1:07:05

that compact? Yeah, and she was

1:07:07

like, it's like that.

1:07:10

You see a little pink dust

1:07:12

trail behind me. He's like, half-hauled.

1:07:16

He puts the cards down, skips

1:07:18

up and full-on, like, Pepe Luv

1:07:21

you. This is being dragged

1:07:23

across. Are the

1:07:25

Bouncers seeing any of this? I

1:07:28

mean, this isn't... Rare,

1:07:30

this isn't bad. It also

1:07:32

isn't covert. You

1:07:34

know, there's like a bouncer nearby, kind of watch as they go by.

1:07:37

You head over to the water closet. Yeah,

1:07:40

I'm just like, I'm a few steps ahead of him.

1:07:42

You know, just kind of like keep peering over

1:07:44

my shoulders. It's like, you

1:07:46

know, it's a little game of cat and mouse. You're

1:07:50

going to follow along. Are

1:07:53

his feet like two inches on the ground? Pretty

1:07:56

much. He goes, he's

1:07:58

like kind of trying to... He

1:08:00

looks confused and enraptured and is

1:08:04

just... Right

1:08:06

now he's overtaken with the magic that you've wrestled

1:08:10

into his mind and his attentiveness. What are

1:08:12

you doing? Slip into the water closet. Okay,

1:08:14

you open the door. They're jogging back! She's,

1:08:17

you open the door. Wait, what? Ah!

1:08:20

You see this, you see this, that's

1:08:23

right, this grunty looking panther-like

1:08:26

katari who's in there, like,

1:08:28

covers his lab, and he's like, ah, chocolate

1:08:30

pie! Oh! He slammed the door

1:08:32

and turned around, and he's right there in front of you.

1:08:35

What do you mean? It was too open. What

1:08:38

are you doing? Sorry, I missed over here,

1:08:40

and I'm gonna go to the other one. Okay,

1:08:43

open up. Ah, the chocolate pie! Ah!

1:08:48

She was over there! You

1:08:50

checked. Yeah. I'm sorry. Uh,

1:08:53

um, maybe you can just wait. Yeah,

1:08:56

um. Okay, what? Uh,

1:08:59

guess I'm just gonna have to be patient. I

1:09:02

know about patience. What,

1:09:04

what, what? Hi.

1:09:08

Hi, I'm just... How'd you been

1:09:10

just a second? Come on! Ah,

1:09:13

you know, as you said, I've been

1:09:15

a little curious, you know, I've

1:09:17

been on that a long time. I'm not a

1:09:20

little curious. I'm not a little curious. I'm

1:09:22

not a little curious. As you said, I've been

1:09:24

a little curious, you know, I've

1:09:26

been on the road here lately, and I hear

1:09:28

you may have been on the road too. I want to hear

1:09:30

all about your adventure. What does

1:09:32

a rapture do specifically for Halloween? It keeps his

1:09:35

focus, his attention on me, narrowing

1:09:37

his field of view. You got it.

1:09:39

Yeah. Hey, I

1:09:42

don't know what you're talking about. I've been here the whole

1:09:44

time. Oh, that

1:09:46

can't be true. I'm sorry

1:09:48

to say. You know, you

1:09:50

just look like such a traveled, worldly

1:09:53

gentleman. I've

1:09:57

been here the whole time. I haven't been anywhere. You see, like,

1:09:59

kind of his... getting a little nervous. He's still

1:10:01

focused on you, but he's... Mm?

1:10:04

Oh, you're so silly. He's

1:10:07

so... I'm so chin-scrittled.

1:10:12

We're out of paper! Can you give me some

1:10:14

pay? Open the door. Make

1:10:22

a presence roll for me. I'm going to

1:10:24

go do some napkins. Yeah, thank you. I'm

1:10:27

still going to be off to go in there right

1:10:29

after one. Yeah. Oh,

1:10:32

man. A

1:10:35

presence roll? Okay,

1:10:37

plus three. Okay,

1:10:39

so 14 with fear. 14

1:10:43

with fear. Okay. I

1:10:46

am...get down! And the door opens up, and

1:10:49

you see this male

1:10:51

goblin comes up pulling his pants up, and he looks over,

1:10:53

he goes like... Here you go.

1:10:55

Sorry! Stuffs

1:10:58

it in the back, and then... Chamber.

1:11:02

They're cloth napkins. I just take my

1:11:04

hoof and I kick the door open and grab him

1:11:06

and yank him into the bathroom. Okay.

1:11:09

Pulled in the door closes. I look over at

1:11:11

Kexen to see, make sure he's...sorry, got my back.

1:11:13

I do a very sly walk over once the

1:11:16

door's closed, and I'll cast a runic lock on

1:11:18

the door. Fuck yeah. Okay.

1:11:22

Do you have to make a spell count scroll for that? I don't. Anybody

1:11:24

that I want can open the door, anyone that

1:11:26

I don't has to... I'll

1:11:29

be broken with magic if they spend an hour of time to

1:11:31

study. Got it. Want to go in there

1:11:33

a little bit? Yeah, we

1:11:35

should go in there. We should go in

1:11:37

there, we should go in there, we should play some more dice.

1:11:40

Which one? Oh, we should play some

1:11:42

more dice. Should we gamble? It

1:11:45

looked like she had a well in hand. I say we go back and

1:11:47

tell you the thing. You can all go in, but... Make

1:11:49

your choices. Okay, I have

1:11:51

a question. Yes. Are

1:11:54

they perfectly sealed, or is there a little crack on

1:11:56

the door? You said

1:11:58

you closed it behind and you locked it magically. I say

1:12:00

the door itself is closed pretty solid. There

1:12:03

is a small gap in the door. Can

1:12:05

we get down on the ground and look

1:12:07

underneath? You can? You can go in. Oh,

1:12:12

that's true. Anyone I choose can go in. Oh,

1:12:15

okay. It's a lock spot. I'm

1:12:17

gonna just stand by the door, put

1:12:20

an ear to it, not that I have an ear,

1:12:22

but I can hear. But I'm going

1:12:25

to hear if there's trouble. Try and take

1:12:28

it in. Do you want any

1:12:30

company? I imagine all

1:12:33

that Sweet Pea hears on the other side is

1:12:36

me taking Dyson, slamming

1:12:38

him up against the door. I'm

1:12:40

gonna take out my whip and wrap it

1:12:42

around him so that he's pinned. Okay. Okay.

1:12:46

More, more, more. Going

1:12:49

well for him. Oh, what's the

1:12:51

matter? I thought you were into that Kiki shit. Yeah,

1:12:54

he did. Kiki. Kiki.

1:12:57

Kiki. How

1:12:59

do you know he's in the room? He was gonna

1:13:01

do it. Now,

1:13:05

I think we should play a little game of Truth or

1:13:08

Dare. Okay. Were

1:13:11

you up in the Emerald Sky? His

1:13:19

expression drops immediately. I

1:13:21

have to go. No, you don't. I have

1:13:23

to go. He says, I'm sorry. I like your back.

1:13:25

I'm not letting go of him. Hypnotic

1:13:27

shimmer. Hypnotic shimmer.

1:13:29

Yeah. Okay. Is

1:13:31

that a spell cast roll for you? Yes, it is. All righty.

1:13:36

Let's go. Okay,

1:13:40

okay, okay, okay, okay. 15

1:13:45

with hope. 15 with hope, all right. So you go ahead

1:13:47

and take a hope. His

1:13:50

eyes glaze over and he just go, why? And

1:13:52

he's stunned, so he can't move. Indeed. Any sort

1:13:54

of resistance has fallen. Right, correct. And he's kind

1:13:56

of like just

1:13:59

staring at you. now open mine. True.

1:14:04

Poor dare. You're

1:14:07

not gonna like the dare, so you might as well tell

1:14:09

me the truth. Are

1:14:13

you trying to intimidate him then? Probably.

1:14:19

Go ahead and make a presence roll for me, please. You

1:14:21

can do it. Come on, come on,

1:14:24

come on, come on. Okay. Okay.

1:14:28

Ooh, dash. Okay. 19,

1:14:31

22 with fear, but barely. Gotcha.

1:14:38

Okay, cool. Sorry. This

1:14:42

shimmer begins to wear off a little bit as you get in the space

1:14:44

about it. The stun fades, but

1:14:46

he's not fighting your grasp

1:14:49

now that you've pushed your presence upon him. Just

1:14:52

tell me what you were doing

1:14:55

in Emerald Sky. It's not that hard. I was

1:14:57

hired to the positive package. That's all it was. Hired to the positive

1:14:59

package. I got a lot of dead, and I got a lot of dead. I

1:15:03

had both of them all the time, and I just had

1:15:05

to pay off. I was just paid to

1:15:07

carry the sexual and bury it in the Emerald Sky. There's

1:15:11

enough money to clear the dead and then

1:15:13

some. I don't even know what it was.

1:15:18

I don't even know what it was. The

1:15:22

rest of you noticed that two of

1:15:24

the bouncers are looking towards the

1:15:26

door in the direction of where you're holding it, and

1:15:29

the two of them are like... Which bouncers? One

1:15:31

of them is the large gorilla-looking figure. You

1:15:34

can see them glancing off and making

1:15:36

eyes over to one of the ones

1:15:39

across the way who makes eyes. You

1:15:41

can see they glance over to this

1:15:43

really well-dressed, even partially armored-looking muscular ribbit

1:15:46

that looks

1:15:48

over, gives a hand sign. I'm

1:15:53

going to knock on the door. Bunny!

1:15:57

I'm working here. People

1:16:00

are coming over here to distract them. Who,

1:16:03

uh, who hired you? Yeah.

1:16:08

Don't kill me, Fauz. No,

1:16:10

sweetie. I promise if

1:16:12

you behave, you won't even remember this. You'll

1:16:15

have plausible deniabilities. Who

1:16:20

won? It

1:16:23

was...it was Croatona. Croatona,

1:16:26

they didn't make so much money over time. I didn't

1:16:28

know how to get out of it. Wait,

1:16:31

the Mafia family? Yeah.

1:16:33

Oh, my goodness. They said I'd do this. They wiped the

1:16:35

debt clean and paid me a little more on top of

1:16:37

that. I don't know. I was just trying to

1:16:39

get by. Please don't tell anyone

1:16:42

that. What's specifically from the Croatona family? Come

1:16:47

on. I'll give you a little kiss

1:16:49

if you're a good boy. I'm

1:16:51

so conflicted. Come

1:16:55

on. You would never lie to a

1:16:57

lady. Do you give him a little kiss? Yeah. On

1:17:01

like the nose or... Yeah, that's cute.

1:17:03

That's just demeaning enough. Just a

1:17:05

little... He was like, Mortimer.

1:17:09

What? What? Mortimer. Mortimer?

1:17:12

Mortimer. Mortimer. Mortimer.

1:17:14

Honey, it's time to let the fisherman

1:17:16

off the hook. Mortimer,

1:17:19

homo. Did he

1:17:21

tell you anything else? I saw

1:17:23

him, you know. I saw him,

1:17:26

he saw him, why didn't he say, plausible

1:17:28

reliability? He

1:17:30

said, oh, posity. I

1:17:33

knew him in the trunk. Ah! And

1:17:37

this is for all the other ladies at the lily lock. Maybe

1:17:39

don't hang around, you make them nervous. Understood.

1:17:46

All right. I'm

1:17:48

going to cast Recant on him.

1:17:52

This has been a hope. You're unloading on

1:17:54

it. I am. The

1:17:58

target. Okay, make

1:18:00

okay. We can't use an action

1:18:03

to spin hope and make a target roll and

1:18:06

Make a target roll a reaction roll

1:18:08

of 15. You got it. Okay, so

1:18:10

what is I will remove? Okay, Oh

1:18:13

make a target roll a reaction. Correct. No fail

1:18:15

alone and attend. Okay He

1:18:19

forgets the last minute of this conversation

1:18:21

Oh Oh

1:18:29

Damn week to find out again. Oh You've

1:18:32

been just down in your drink. You

1:18:34

shouldn't you shouldn't drink so much Do

1:18:38

you even remember our lovely time

1:18:40

together? What? Yeah,

1:18:42

they shove them out of the bathroom and

1:18:45

I come out I kind of like mess up my hair

1:18:47

a little bit At this point

1:18:49

you can see like three of the bouncers have been approaching the

1:18:52

rest of you along with

1:18:54

the massive gorilla Taking

1:19:07

a poop that one

1:19:10

that one So

1:19:18

much You

1:19:22

push past and he looks by the door

1:19:24

flies open and you

1:19:26

watch as Dyson is shoved out At

1:19:30

which point the gorilla kind of claps his shoulder and

1:19:32

kind of pulls him in Looks

1:19:35

at you. Oh my you were

1:19:37

supposed to catch me in this moment of

1:19:39

shame Excuse

1:19:49

me this restroom is out

1:19:51

of cloth Firing

1:19:56

the number. Well,

1:19:58

no, you should really have your establishment

1:20:01

stocked up. I think

1:20:03

that's why it's taking everybody so long. MATT,

1:20:06

at which point you

1:20:08

see this small, fairy

1:20:11

woman, so that her up with

1:20:13

a handful of cloths and wrapped

1:20:15

papers. She

1:20:19

says something inside and close to the door behind you can

1:20:21

hear stalking up the interior. I

1:20:24

don't know where I'm going to necessarily jump. BRIAN and MATT, LAURA, and

1:20:26

MARISHA, and MATT, and MARISHA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and MARISHA, and MARISHA,

1:20:28

and LAURA, and MARISHA, and MARISHA, and MARISHA, and LAURA,

1:20:30

and MARISHA, and LAURA, and MATT, all of them coming

1:20:32

from the Inner Anyway.

1:20:49

LAURA, MATT, and MARISHA, MATT, and MARISHA,

1:20:51

and LAURA, and MATT, and MARISHA, and TRAVIS, andutering,

1:20:53

and LAURA, and Da produced a

1:20:55

full series of characters that the

1:20:57

audience can play with

1:21:08

and planned their MY tray of guns

1:21:10

on the tile. MATT,

1:21:13

say- TALIESIN and MATT,

1:21:15

and MATT, and MATT, who are given someone to give him

1:21:17

some silence to say! MATT,

1:21:22

and TALIESIN,reasonally forehead and laid back out.

1:21:24

All right, once we get out of

1:21:26

earshot, I pull

1:21:29

everybody aside. Oh my goodness,

1:21:31

you guys, this is so exhilarating! All

1:21:35

right, so yeah, I think I got

1:21:37

all the information I put out of

1:21:39

him. Apparently, he's working for the Croatones.

1:21:43

MATT, as TALIESIN, and MATT, and

1:21:45

TALIESIN, and MATT, who are the

1:21:47

Croatones? So

1:21:53

the Croatones? They're like

1:21:55

this mafia family here in Louisville.

1:21:57

They actually run the casino. What?

1:22:00

They run with me on the casino.

1:22:03

Oh, so they know that's why they were so

1:22:05

interested in him. I think so. They know

1:22:07

that he gave the secrets away. Yeah, but

1:22:09

it's okay. I wiped his memory. So even

1:22:11

if the antifurcates him, he's not gonna know.

1:22:14

He's not gonna say shit. Being a

1:22:16

lore-born, I have advantage on any rules that make

1:22:18

me deal with the history, culture, and politics of

1:22:21

a prominent person or place. Do I know about

1:22:23

the Croatonas? You

1:22:25

know a little bit about Croatonas. You probably

1:22:27

haven't traveled too much. You know

1:22:30

the various factional politics of the city. There's

1:22:32

the Camarilla, which is the ruling female alliance of

1:22:36

business owners, the Ester

1:22:39

Mining Company, the Matron of the Lounge that you met

1:22:41

earlier, the mayor of the city. They

1:22:43

all control the entirety of Lowell

1:22:46

Vale politically. What

1:22:49

you do know is the Croatona

1:22:51

family is said to

1:22:53

be a business family, came up

1:22:55

in some of the settler guilds, and

1:22:57

ended up moving into the city

1:23:00

about three,

1:23:02

four years ago. It's been

1:23:04

slowly expanding its influence. But

1:23:08

most folks think that they're probably, they've

1:23:11

got their fingers in a lot of unsavory businesses

1:23:13

out beyond the city, and definitely

1:23:15

trying to build up their base of operations within

1:23:17

Lowell Vale. He

1:23:20

said someone named Mortimer

1:23:24

paid him because he was women

1:23:26

in debt. So they paid

1:23:29

him off. Said they'd have raised his

1:23:31

debt if he went to Inwood Sky and planted

1:23:33

a package. Oh,

1:23:36

that was the little baggie that was buried.

1:23:38

Yeah. That's all he knew.

1:23:40

He didn't know anything else. So I'm

1:23:42

afraid we're going to begin involves with the

1:23:44

mafia. I really failed. Go

1:23:47

ahead and make an instinct roll for me if

1:23:49

you don't mind. Mortimer. 14

1:23:56

with fear. 14 with fear. You

1:24:00

glance over your shoulder and the first thing you

1:24:02

see is a group of

1:24:04

about four to five figures that

1:24:07

are starting to head in your

1:24:09

direction from the casino, looking like

1:24:11

they're well-dressed in a similar familiar

1:24:13

coat. The immediate sight

1:24:15

of the shocksuit you take is stress. But

1:24:20

you see five immediately, one

1:24:22

of them being the wide burly

1:24:24

type. He's

1:24:28

got a problem.

1:24:30

They've pegged us. What

1:24:34

do we do? We just tell him the truth.

1:24:38

Very limited truth. But he's been

1:24:40

um, he's

1:24:43

been creeping around the living market and they just had

1:24:45

to threaten them, tell them they never come by again. How

1:24:48

many of them are there? Once you

1:24:50

see five, and then

1:24:52

you see the other four

1:24:54

that were hiding behind the

1:24:57

larger gorilla figure.

1:24:59

It looks to be a total of nine of them are

1:25:01

all moving and you can see them starting to spread around.

1:25:03

Some of them are starting to vanish out of sight around

1:25:05

the other side of the building that you're up against. The

1:25:08

side alley. Are we in sight street or are

1:25:10

we in the main thoroughfare? They said you got out of earshot.

1:25:13

The main road is off the way. You guys are in a small little

1:25:16

side neighborhood. There's like some alleys and

1:25:19

stuff. They're

1:25:23

interested in talking. Side

1:25:26

street might do us some favors in case it gets nasty.

1:25:30

With nine of them? I mean we can certainly

1:25:32

try. Huh,

1:25:34

what? Fighting them? No, talking, talking

1:25:36

to them. That's

1:25:41

maybe. How far

1:25:43

off are they, Matt? They're about two blocks off.

1:25:45

They're not sprinting towards you. They're

1:25:48

walking within tenth and you can see them starting to fan out and

1:25:50

a few are starting to disappear around one of the far side of

1:25:52

the building where you are. There's

1:25:56

a member our way around. work

1:26:00

in the neighborhood. The

1:26:03

place we can turn shop and turn shop again. Does

1:26:05

it look like they're trying to flank us, Matt? Looks

1:26:08

like some of them might be trying to, yeah. Should

1:26:10

we? You know you're waiting on the city. Let's move.

1:26:12

All right. I'll try and see if I can duck

1:26:15

down some side streets. So see if we

1:26:17

can lose all of them. Okay. So for

1:26:19

this, I'm going to go ahead and ask

1:26:21

for a leader to be chosen to do

1:26:23

a group action rule to try

1:26:25

and avoid being seen. Okay. I'm going

1:26:27

to do it

1:26:29

still. Wait. Let me see. Um, yeah.

1:26:34

I can try to make us be

1:26:36

better at stealthy stuff. But

1:26:40

it can be anybody really that's doing it. That's

1:26:43

right. Why don't you do it? Well,

1:26:45

I can do it. If I roll a

1:26:47

spear, I'll help you. Here, I'll tell you where to go.

1:26:49

We need to try and find all the shady spots. Okay.

1:26:53

I'll try to be sneaky. Can I use my hiding

1:26:55

advantage? You're just sneaky little mushroom.

1:26:57

Should be lying to you. So you can make yourself the leader. If

1:27:00

I want to nominate you as the leader of the team,

1:27:12

I'll find you. Okay. So

1:27:16

I'm going to do it. I'm going to

1:27:18

do it. Okay. So

1:27:22

I'm going to do it. Okay.

1:27:26

Okay. Okay.

1:27:30

Okay. Okay.

1:27:34

Okay. Okay.

1:27:38

Okay. Okay.

1:27:42

Okay. Okay.

1:27:46

Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:27:52

Okay. All

1:27:54

right. So that's two minus

1:27:56

one penalties and three plus one, or bonuses. So you go ahead

1:27:58

and make the final finesse roll here. if you have advantage

1:28:00

because of your ability there.

1:28:04

Why did I think I did? But I don't know if

1:28:06

I did before that. If

1:28:11

you tend to move through dangerous areas, I mean, if you roll with fear, you

1:28:13

can always mark a stress to change it to a hope. Okay,

1:28:16

so I'll just do that. Okay. So

1:28:18

I roll with a plus. What did you say?

1:28:20

Plus one. Plus one, plus my finesse.

1:28:22

Correct. Oh,

1:28:34

that's really good. Okay. That's 28, 29,

1:28:36

30, 31, 32. No,

1:28:43

I did that wrong. 18,

1:28:45

19, 20, 21,

1:28:47

22. Okay. Still good.

1:28:50

22 with hope. With hope. Okay, so go ahead and

1:28:52

take a hope. Utilizing

1:28:55

your knowledge of the city and your

1:28:58

being a sneaky little guy, begin

1:29:01

to find the parts of the city where

1:29:03

most of the streetlight of the glowing crystals

1:29:05

are sparse. And utilizing that, as

1:29:07

well as some of the trees that have been

1:29:09

grown here on the various city ledges, you begin

1:29:11

to dart into side alleys and behind buildings and

1:29:13

through some uncomfortable bushes to get to the other

1:29:15

side of a small park that's been built on

1:29:17

the part of it. Begin to see the figures

1:29:19

spread out, some of them are keeping pace, and

1:29:21

then some of them begin to splinter off. You

1:29:23

then see like three following, and then all of

1:29:25

a sudden there's just one following. Then

1:29:28

eventually there's an unfollowing. And

1:29:31

you feel fairly confident that you've lost them.

1:29:37

Incredible. Hope

1:29:39

they didn't recognize you at the very least.

1:29:42

There's still no way we're heading eventually.

1:29:45

Well, you know, it just means it's going

1:29:47

to be a full house later on. Where

1:29:49

the fuck are we? Who the fuck

1:29:51

are we? If we move around, we can get back to

1:29:53

the Lily Lockett. Okay.

1:29:58

You win a whole lot of money. off-path

1:30:00

to even get away from this. In the neighborhood,

1:30:02

right now you're not entirely certain you've been here

1:30:04

before. It's a little like

1:30:07

the run-down outskirts of the bottom

1:30:10

plate of the three elements

1:30:12

of L'olevale. It takes you

1:30:14

a good 15 minutes

1:30:16

or so to eventually get to the main street. With that,

1:30:18

you can guide yourself to the direct roll to the Lily

1:30:20

Locket Lounge. What

1:30:23

time is it? It's about an hour

1:30:26

and a half, two hours, till showtime. Till

1:30:29

my showtime? So

1:30:32

yours would be about three hours. It starts at the

1:30:34

end. So you have a little bit before you even

1:30:36

need to be called backstage. Sheesh,

1:30:39

what are we going to do? She

1:30:42

was, I don't know, should we learn about

1:30:44

Mortimer? Yeah.

1:30:50

Croatona, Mortimer. He's part of

1:30:53

the mafia. You're most of

1:30:55

the Croatona. Maybe something's

1:30:57

heard of him. Well,

1:31:01

yeah, the Mortimer. But

1:31:04

I know a Mortimer. You've

1:31:06

heard of the Croatona family. Go

1:31:09

ahead and make a knowledge

1:31:11

check for me. Well, I

1:31:13

had Croatona. You wrote

1:31:15

it down as Croatona, right? Croatona.

1:31:20

Okay. What

1:31:24

am I doing? I'm rolling one. I could

1:31:27

see if you can recall information about it. 14

1:31:31

with fear. Oh,

1:31:34

I could have used my experience points. Gosh

1:31:36

darn it. You do have that. 14

1:31:38

with fear. Do

1:31:42

better. Okay. You

1:31:48

feel the night air grow slightly more ominous as

1:31:50

you sit here on the outskirts of the lounge

1:31:54

itself trying to recall anything about

1:31:56

this. You know

1:31:58

the family. you know

1:32:00

its business spreads in some

1:32:03

spaces, but you're not entirely

1:32:05

well-versed in the inner workings

1:32:07

of the city's underground

1:32:12

merchant town. There probably

1:32:14

are people of the lounge, people

1:32:17

you trust that might know more. But

1:32:20

definitely, you get the

1:32:22

sense you just

1:32:24

barely escape the rushing

1:32:26

with some possible violence. Yeah,

1:32:31

gee, I don't know. I mean, we can

1:32:33

try and keep investigating until the showtime, but

1:32:35

we might get into

1:32:37

just a little bit of fisticuffs. I've

1:32:42

got the cuffs. Ha. Ready.

1:32:49

But we've got time, and if the crow

1:32:52

and tona are at

1:32:54

the casino, maybe they have an

1:32:56

office, or somewhere

1:32:59

where they're meeting, something we could listen in

1:33:01

on or try and sneak into? Oh yeah,

1:33:03

that's a good idea. Well,

1:33:05

hold on a second. I want to have a

1:33:07

little conversation with the Divine, so

1:33:10

give me a moment. I'm going to sit on the floor, curl

1:33:12

my tail around my bum, hold me to

1:33:14

dogs in my lash, and I'm going

1:33:22

to use one of my prayer dice to off

1:33:24

my hope, which is a little low, to tree

1:33:27

so that I can spend three hope

1:33:29

and use divination. Once per

1:33:31

long rest, I can spend three hope to

1:33:33

reach out to the forces beyond and ask

1:33:36

one question about an event, a person, a

1:33:38

place, or situation in the near future.

1:33:40

So I'm

1:33:42

going to do that. I'm going to say, I'm

1:33:44

going to reach out to Andra beyond

1:33:47

the veil and say, who is

1:33:49

this Mortimer Fekker? As

1:33:54

you close your eyes and release this question,

1:33:56

you feel the warm winds of the core

1:33:59

of the Emerald sky and blow through you.

1:34:02

You feel and sense

1:34:04

yourself sitting at the base

1:34:06

of these 100-foot-tall trees

1:34:10

that represent the core

1:34:12

of her essence there in the middle of this world,

1:34:15

and you feel that breath that

1:34:17

she exhales through the land flow

1:34:19

through your clothes in

1:34:22

this space. You're given a vision,

1:34:25

a vision of a tense-looking,

1:34:28

corpulent, toad-like figure,

1:34:31

a ribbit larger than any you've

1:34:34

encountered in your time, hunched over

1:34:36

a somewhat splintered wooden

1:34:38

chair in sub-terranean space

1:34:40

in the

1:34:45

process of barking orders to two figures

1:34:48

wearing similar coats as to the ones

1:34:50

that followed you. As they

1:34:52

get up and leave, you see it reach over

1:34:54

and grab this thick cigar and take a giant

1:34:56

hit from it and blow smoke out, before

1:34:58

putting it out into the back of

1:35:01

another servant. You can see his face down

1:35:03

on their knees and they're going to shout

1:35:06

out a couple more orders and chucks it across the room, grabs

1:35:09

another cigar, and lights it

1:35:11

on a nearby brazier. MATT

1:35:13

and TALIESIN, and he was

1:35:15

in a cave system underground, a basement. LIAM,

1:35:27

and then just to ask. MATT,

1:35:30

IVAN, and TALIESIN, and

1:35:32

BRIAN, IVAN, IVAN, IVAN, IVAN.

1:35:40

MATT, IVAN, IVAN, IVAN. MATT,

1:35:42

IVAN, IVAN, IVAN, IVAN. like

1:36:00

there's generally uniform where you can see who to go to if

1:36:02

you have a problem at the casino or

1:36:04

the folks that are keeping a watch in the area. They

1:36:07

come out of it, let the group

1:36:09

know, oh yeah. I

1:36:12

just got a vision from the lady beyond. This

1:36:16

martyr is a great big ribbit bastard. If

1:36:19

I have to guess, he's maybe under

1:36:21

the casino? Because he seemed

1:36:23

to be in a basement. Under. Well,

1:36:27

you know, all of

1:36:29

the Crystal City Ascendant's all

1:36:31

built into this cliff

1:36:33

face. So, you know, there's actually a lot of

1:36:35

layers to the city. Was

1:36:38

the casino when we saw it, is it against

1:36:41

any of that cliff face or is it on its own?

1:36:44

When you approached it, you could see there is

1:36:46

part of the cliff face, kind of almost like

1:36:48

this pillar. It's built near it but not against

1:36:51

it. Well, it

1:36:53

could be anywhere but if we're going back into the casino, I'd

1:36:56

keep an eye out for her. I

1:36:58

don't know. Keep your eye

1:37:00

on the security, see if anybody

1:37:02

goes down anywhere. I

1:37:05

imagine they're going to be looking for us

1:37:07

regardless. Unless there's sewers in the city. Are

1:37:11

there sewers in the city? One would hope. Yeah,

1:37:16

I imagine, right? There

1:37:19

are sewers built throughout the subterranean rock

1:37:21

and there's a drain, like

1:37:24

a central drain that leads past the ravine

1:37:26

and at the very base of this gorge,

1:37:28

there is a ravine where it just

1:37:30

goes into and people forget about it. Sure,

1:37:33

that won't be a problem a few hundred years down the

1:37:35

road. Well,

1:37:40

yeah, you know, I'm following you guys. Do

1:37:43

we want to go back into the casino? Do we want to

1:37:45

try and case the joint? We

1:37:49

just left. Yeah, it feels like we need to try again.

1:37:53

We're over. We'll look for an

1:37:55

outside back entrance or something.

1:37:57

When we were inside the casino with the open.

1:38:00

tarp and everything, were there? Like second or

1:38:02

third floor? Mm-hmm. Links.

1:38:08

Sweet people, links. Mm-hmm. It

1:38:11

is so sweet. Were there

1:38:13

any offices or higher-tiered areas that looked

1:38:15

like they might be VIP or ownership

1:38:17

or anything? You saw a few upper

1:38:19

balcony-sitting areas that

1:38:22

were ladder stair climbed up at the top.

1:38:25

They were kept within the exterior wall. It

1:38:27

was still an open air space. Nothing

1:38:29

that matches a subterranean description. Okay,

1:38:32

cool. We

1:38:34

should try and get underneath Thumb City. All

1:38:37

right. Yeah. We

1:38:40

can go to that sewer drain or whatever. Yeah.

1:38:43

Yeah. There are openings to it.

1:38:45

There's just the central drain that comes out from the

1:38:47

bottom. It is a massive drain. People

1:38:50

don't go over there for a reason. Yeah. But

1:38:54

yeah, you know there are a number of entrances

1:38:56

here. There are some large drains when it rains

1:38:58

heavy to where parts of the city,

1:39:01

the streets, are all guided to make sure that it doesn't

1:39:03

flood heavily and it rains on there. There's one that could

1:39:05

fit pretty much all of you. Yeah,

1:39:07

let's do that one. Let's do it.

1:39:10

Okay. I mean, they're the smallest coming.

1:39:13

I'm gonna have to take a shower before the show. Oh,

1:39:16

yeah. Yeah, for sure. No.

1:39:18

Let's have a different kind of show. I can clean this

1:39:20

up with some simple stuff. Oh,

1:39:23

yeah. Okay. Okay. Wet

1:39:25

wipes. Yes, all right. Water

1:39:27

wipes. Water wipes. All

1:39:30

right, so waiting for the right time and no one's really paying

1:39:32

attention or guarding for each

1:39:34

other. One by one, you begin to

1:39:36

dive into this kind of a street

1:39:38

side open grate water spill

1:39:40

off into the subterranean sewage system. Splish,

1:39:43

splish, splish, you all kind of land into it.

1:39:46

Your first worry is that this is sewage.

1:39:50

It looks like it's part of

1:39:52

a river runoff. It doesn't have a

1:39:54

pleasant smell in there, but it looks like this part of

1:39:57

the drainage isn't directly. in

1:40:02

the worst that the city has on its tunnels. It worked,

1:40:04

kinda. Mostly. This

1:40:08

feels very derivative. Stop it. What

1:40:12

am I supposed to do? Are

1:40:19

there any ooze down here? I hope not. I

1:40:23

don't want to know the secret of the

1:40:26

ooze. I've had enough of that already. Gosh!

1:40:31

Is it super dark in here? It's

1:40:36

near pitch black. I'll use a press

1:40:38

digitization to create a little light coming

1:40:40

off of my leg. It

1:40:43

sort of illuminates the

1:40:46

space around here. Not a lot, but like

1:40:48

a low torchlight, it just gives you some

1:40:50

atmosphere. You can see the walls themselves

1:40:52

are half cylindrical in shape around the

1:40:55

edges, and most of the water gathers still on. There

1:40:57

is that wet central river that's

1:40:59

rushing by you. You

1:41:02

get a sense that as you approach, there

1:41:04

is a recent rain. It's been about

1:41:06

a day without water, but there's still enough of the gorge

1:41:08

and above mountains runoff that's

1:41:10

filling these spaces and keeping the water flowing

1:41:12

through. Are we ankle deep

1:41:14

in that water, or are we lucky enough to have walkways

1:41:16

on the side? There are walkways on the side, but when

1:41:19

you all came through, many of you landed in that water.

1:41:21

Oh, a river runs through it. How

1:41:24

deep is it? In the core? It's

1:41:28

probably about a foot.

1:41:30

I'm not terribly deep. Okay, okay, okay.

1:41:32

So it's up to your chest. Maybe

1:41:39

the sneaky folks move back towards where the casino

1:41:41

was and see if we can

1:41:43

find something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All

1:41:45

right, so what's the plan? You're trying

1:41:47

to maneuver the subterranean sewers in the

1:41:49

direction of the casino? It's a crackerjack

1:41:52

plan, let me tell you. Yeah. All

1:41:54

righty. Where do we go? I

1:41:56

don't know. I didn't spend a lot of time

1:41:59

in the sewers. Are we good with

1:42:01

directions? Who's good with directions? That

1:42:04

would be, uh, Instinct

1:42:07

Island. Hi. I

1:42:09

mean, that navigation would be instinct. So,

1:42:13

it would be a higher DC for

1:42:15

anyone who's familiar with the town, but

1:42:18

a higher instinct would also help, so it's up to you

1:42:20

guys who want to try and guide this path. And

1:42:25

we all know generally the

1:42:27

vicinity. It's a little direction, but even

1:42:29

the entryway to here is a number

1:42:31

of, uh, blocks away. And

1:42:33

I don't think sneaky is necessarily what we need right

1:42:35

now. I don't think so. Yeah, you're pretty good instinct.

1:42:38

I'm good. You go good instinct- I do.

1:42:40

I have a really great direction sense. Should

1:42:42

I give it a go? Yeah. Yeah,

1:42:45

I'll be. Come on. Okay.

1:42:48

Alright. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like when we had to leave town,

1:42:50

you know? We had to spend time in a tourist that one

1:42:52

time. Yeah, but we knew exactly what to do. Exactly. No

1:42:54

problem. Yeah, we knew exactly what to

1:42:56

do. Yeah, we knew exactly. No problem. Yeah, we'll

1:42:58

go towards the stake. Yep, good

1:43:01

to go. We got, uh, uh,

1:43:03

15 with,

1:43:06

uh, uh, hope, and 18 total. 18

1:43:13

with hope? 18 total with hope. Go

1:43:15

ahead and take a hope. Following

1:43:18

the flow of water and where it conjoins for that

1:43:20

in the path, remembering where you walked from and trying

1:43:23

to gauge the directions

1:43:26

of the various roads on the above street, you

1:43:29

begin to lead the rest of the crew

1:43:31

along, having to keep away from the water.

1:43:33

There are meeting flows of water, and some

1:43:36

of them, especially the converging cross-section of the

1:43:38

heavier stream in the direction that you're thinking

1:43:41

is the right way to go, does not

1:43:43

smell as good as the one that you just arrived from. I

1:43:45

was just, like, ducking in the water and just putting my eyes

1:43:47

out. Ew! The

1:43:49

rest of us are just walking on the sides. Yeah. We

1:43:52

don't actually have to be in the water at all. Still staying in. Yeah,

1:43:56

for the bags. Wow. They're

1:43:58

committing. They're committing. bit. You can't

1:44:01

argue with the beta. ASHLEY and LAURA. Oh

1:44:03

boy. ASHLEY and TALIESIN. Oh boy.

1:44:09

MATT and TALIESIN. Oh boy. TALIESIN.

1:44:11

In the face. ASHLEY and LAURA. It's too much

1:44:13

to move. ASHLEY and TALIESIN. I've never saw anything

1:44:16

before. LAURA and ASHLEY. Probably. LAURA and

1:44:18

ASHLEY. Probably. ASHLEY. That's why I know where to go.

1:44:20

There's all those shits coming from there. MATT and TALIESIN.

1:44:22

Yeah. MATT and

1:44:24

TALIESIN. Feeling confident that you're heading in the right direction.

1:44:26

ASHLEY and LAURA. You

1:44:29

do notice, first

1:44:31

worry is going to be a barricade, but you do see to be

1:44:34

an iron grate that blocks

1:44:36

off. The tunnel funnels

1:44:38

in for a second, and there is an iron grate about

1:44:41

eight foot by eight foot that blocks the path, the rest of

1:44:43

the water, and so it's flowing through. The

1:44:46

bars are about three inches across from each

1:44:49

other on each side, so it's a bit

1:44:51

tight for any of you to fit through,

1:44:53

unfortunately. TALIESIN and MATT and ASHLEY. The part of this

1:44:55

is bingo. LAURA and ASHLEY. I'm

1:44:58

saying this is where you're supposed to

1:45:00

go. TALIESIN and MATT and ASHLEY. I'm just

1:45:02

going to stick it on the other side of that. MATT

1:45:06

and ASHLEY. I will take

1:45:08

a look with my lit

1:45:11

up pincers. Does

1:45:13

there seem to be a mechanism on

1:45:15

the other side of this grate, or does it look like

1:45:18

it just continues on past here, but this is a barrier?

1:45:21

If you want, you can make a knowledge roll to

1:45:25

take a look at the full design of its

1:45:27

construction and get a vibe on it. TRAVIS

1:45:30

and TALIESIN. 17 with hope. MATT and TALIESIN.

1:45:32

17 with hope. Take hope. MATT and

1:45:34

TALIESIN. Glancing at it, it is pretty

1:45:36

solidly in place. This is designed to

1:45:38

be more or less

1:45:41

a half-slows barrier for heavy rains to ensure

1:45:44

that I can keep it at bay to

1:45:46

a certain point and catch any sort of other

1:45:48

people or anything

1:45:52

that falls, instead of

1:45:54

being carried out into the eventual exit,

1:45:57

it'll stop them at this point. Unfortunately, you're on

1:45:59

the wrong side. side of the flow. I can

1:46:01

get some of this over there. I can get myself

1:46:03

over there. You can? I can too. Okay,

1:46:06

well I can take the rest of us. You can take the rest? You can

1:46:08

take three other people with you? If I spend three hope. Sweet.

1:46:10

Let's do it. Flex it out. All right.

1:46:14

How do you sense for it? Well, I don't know. I've

1:46:16

never done it. I'm gonna try it though. I

1:46:18

think his shoe on the bottom of my staff is

1:46:20

really... Take inspiration from where you can get it. Yeah.

1:46:25

So... Is this a lesson? No, no, no,

1:46:27

no. It's gonna be quiet. It's gonna

1:46:29

be quiet. Incidentally, can I hear anything down here with

1:46:31

us over the sound of the trickle of poo water?

1:46:40

Sure, make an instinct for it. Let's see if

1:46:42

you can take any surrounding sixes. That

1:46:45

is a sixteen. This is

1:46:47

a... What is this? Instinct?

1:46:50

Instinct, yeah. Eighteen with fear. Eighteen with

1:46:52

fear. Going

1:46:55

over it, you can hear distant

1:46:59

scratching sounds up ahead.

1:47:03

Way past the screen. You can hear the

1:47:05

occasional, like a slight screech or

1:47:08

scratching noise, like a heavy movement, and you can

1:47:11

almost hear a chittering noise. And

1:47:16

just the... Speak for yourself. Wow. Wow.

1:47:20

Oh no! Oh no!

1:47:23

You're all humbling out

1:47:25

of here. As

1:47:35

you're listening to this, it gets louder and there's

1:47:38

multiple of them. Like squeaking

1:47:40

screeches, and the rushing of water

1:47:42

gets louder. Is it coming toward on that

1:47:44

side or this side? Up ahead. Right

1:47:47

as you point up there, you can see there's

1:47:49

a backflow, like a small wave of fresh water

1:47:52

rushing path. It looks to be a

1:47:55

few dozen rats carried at the front of it that have

1:47:57

just been swept up by it. Like...

1:48:00

as it rushes towards you. I'm

1:48:02

going to use my grapple

1:48:04

to grab onto the grate

1:48:06

and then try and steady

1:48:08

myself and grab anybody else we can to

1:48:10

the rope. Okay, go

1:48:12

ahead and make a strength check for me. What are the rest

1:48:14

of you doing? I'm going to climb up to the top of the

1:48:16

grate and just hang because I'm a monkey. Which you can do. So

1:48:19

you get what you hope to be just above the water

1:48:21

level. Strength, okay. I'm going to climb up to

1:48:23

the top of the grate too and just hold on. I

1:48:27

don't, so this is not a shot to use

1:48:29

the grappler. It's just holding onto the grappler. Are

1:48:32

you holding on with your hand or you're holding on?

1:48:34

Well, the grappler, I can pull things back to this

1:48:36

so I assume it's attached at some level or I

1:48:39

don't know. Sure, if you wanted to be that way,

1:48:41

yeah. But you're at the grate. So holding onto

1:48:43

it would be the same as throwing your

1:48:45

grappler four inches and holding onto it. So

1:48:47

it's right there. All right, going

1:48:49

to go for it. Okay. And I

1:48:51

keep holding me. Okay, do you want to help

1:48:53

with the hope or let him roll? Oh

1:48:57

yeah, you're so strong, Sir Dante,

1:48:59

I give you a hope. I

1:49:02

can see the cover of the romance. Thank you for the hope. Well,

1:49:04

you spend a hope and then roll a d6 to add to

1:49:06

his roll. Oh,

1:49:11

I do it or he does it. Traditionally you roll the

1:49:13

d6. I do it traditionally. Traditionally. You're

1:49:15

helping. Doesn't matter who ever rolls, but it's

1:49:17

more fun if you roll a d6. One.

1:49:19

One. All right, 18 with

1:49:21

fear. It's

1:49:24

my bloody aesthetic. Okay. The

1:49:28

blast hits and you hold onto it. The

1:49:31

impact, the rats, you feel them coming through. Some

1:49:34

of them hit the grate and probably don't make it

1:49:37

an impact. Another one's brushed past you as you clutch

1:49:39

on, holding bunny at your side. What

1:49:42

were the rest of you doing? We kicked my wings

1:49:44

out. Okay, there is enough height where you

1:49:46

can get above it. The rest of you climbing to the very,

1:49:48

very top of the grate. The water does

1:49:50

hit you halfway at the bottom. Do

1:49:53

still make strength rolls for me to

1:49:55

see if you can hold onto it for the rest that hits. No, you guys

1:49:57

managed to be a high enough above it. for

1:50:02

all your climbing climb stuff? This

1:50:04

is gripping as hard as you can. I would say

1:50:06

you probably want your tail and your hands on this

1:50:08

to try and hold on to it. So

1:50:12

sorry, which throw is it? It's

1:50:14

tranked. That

1:50:18

is 12 for me with home. 12

1:50:21

with home, so you take home. 20

1:50:23

with fear. 20 with fear. 20

1:50:25

with fear. I have a

1:50:27

gameplay question for you, Matthew. So as we fail

1:50:29

at roughing people off in toilets

1:50:32

and climbing through sewers and we get fear,

1:50:35

you can murder us without fear later. I

1:50:37

can choose when that happens to either gain

1:50:39

a fear or deal with stress

1:50:41

or change circumstances in the story to

1:50:43

complicate. You being noticed by the

1:50:45

bouncers was a consequence

1:50:47

of a fear away from a player. So some

1:50:49

things will succeed. Some things will

1:50:51

succeed with fear and it'll just add a

1:50:53

complication to it. Some of the things I

1:50:56

just keep in the back of my head for later. Fear

1:50:58

that I punted you at the beginning of the game as

1:51:00

I fuck up in the casino could lead to something strangling

1:51:02

me later in the night. That's a good card. Just

1:51:04

like in real life. Mm-hmm. All

1:51:07

right. Strangling me in real life. Keep above, you're

1:51:09

holding on tight, just pressing on as it

1:51:11

goes. You,

1:51:14

Poppy, as it hits your

1:51:16

nightmare, as a wave of water far

1:51:19

larger than you pulls you free

1:51:21

of the grate and you find it

1:51:24

plunging into the water and

1:51:26

being rushed away. Can I use, I'm

1:51:28

gonna try something crazy. Can

1:51:31

I, seeing the Oppy move in this

1:51:34

huge column of water, can I cast

1:51:36

Time Lock on this column of water,

1:51:39

which is targeting a non-living object within far-arranged objects,

1:51:41

stops in time and space exactly. The water wouldn't

1:51:43

be an object, unfortunately, it's an element, but if

1:51:45

you have an object that you wanna try and

1:51:47

throw in lock, you can try and do that.

1:51:49

Oh, that's interesting. A piece of poo. Oppy's

1:51:54

staff. Well, what do you

1:51:56

have? Well, Oppy's staff is also an

1:51:58

object. I'll do it

1:52:00

on Oppy Staff, yeah, that's great. Okay, so go ahead and roll

1:52:02

for spell cast. This

1:52:05

is cool. So go ahead and

1:52:07

roll for spell cast. Oh, me, yeah, that's what it says, right? Or

1:52:11

does it just happen? If a creature tries to move it,

1:52:13

make a spell cast roll against them to maintain the spell,

1:52:16

now it just happens. Okay, so just happens. But it's equal

1:52:18

to the minute's number of my level, so. Got it, so

1:52:20

you just go ahead and concentrate on Oppy Staff, Oppy Staff

1:52:22

holds and you clutch onto it. I'm gonna roll for the

1:52:24

force of the water to see if it moves the staff.

1:52:27

I can breathe underwater, I can't swim. So it's against your spell cast roll, right?

1:52:31

That is so many points. Nine, 13, 16. Oh

1:52:35

no, I mean, I'm sorry, but. Okay.

1:52:38

So Oppy, as you're floating away, your staff all of

1:52:40

a sudden locks and plays and you just wrap your

1:52:42

arms around the water, rushing by as you clutch, you

1:52:45

feel almost like it's just not

1:52:48

shifting, like it's all of a sudden a

1:52:50

single point in space that cannot be shifted.

1:52:52

The water eventually, this burst of water calms

1:52:54

down and you get the sense like a

1:52:56

separate sluice somewhere in the sewer was

1:52:59

set to drain probably another basin or

1:53:01

some other water source and that's

1:53:03

why there's a sudden burst that came through, but

1:53:06

eventually it comes to calm and rests now into

1:53:08

a gentle trickle as you are now hanging

1:53:10

from the air from your locked and placed staff. Why,

1:53:16

why, why do we do? Thank

1:53:21

you. Thank you. Oh. Thank

1:53:24

you so much. You guys have

1:53:26

so much poo on you. We

1:53:31

should get to the other side of the crate before another one comes.

1:53:33

Excuse me outside, let's go. All right. Rock it,

1:53:35

Oppy. I'm gonna take, I'm gonna spend, spend

1:53:39

an additional hope each to

1:53:41

bring them with me. So I'm gonna spend three hope, because

1:53:44

you guys are going on your own. Okay,

1:53:46

spend three hope and

1:53:48

I'm gonna cast Blink Out. Okay.

1:53:51

Make spell cast roll on a success, spend a

1:53:53

hope, which I have an extra. Yeah,

1:53:56

you have. And, oh, I gotta add another one,

1:53:58

because I have. Okay,

1:54:05

so.

1:54:09

Shit. Okay, so that's all

1:54:11

right. 15 with fear. MATT,

1:54:15

MATT, and TALIESIN, Okay. So

1:54:18

the spell does complete, I believe, right?

1:54:20

Based on the spellcast's difficult orbit. So

1:54:24

you grab the rest of this troop

1:54:26

here, and clutching your now freshly freed

1:54:28

staff, you describe to me how

1:54:30

the staff alights and how the magic grabs you

1:54:32

and your allies to project them through. MARISHA,

1:54:35

Yes. So when I get it to work, for some reason,

1:54:37

I have to puff up at the top of

1:54:39

it, and it

1:54:43

starts to flame

1:54:46

up at the bottom, and now

1:54:48

the shoe that's on the bottom

1:54:50

of it is starting to sparkle as

1:54:53

well, because it's glittery, and it starts

1:54:55

to, you know, a little bit of

1:54:57

the smoke is billowing out. MATT,

1:55:00

Okay. MARISHA, From the

1:55:02

toe. Out of the toe. I don't even

1:55:04

know what this is, and that'll work. MATT, How do you puff it up?

1:55:06

Do you have to take it by the other end

1:55:08

and blow into it, or do you just go, put it in

1:55:10

the air? MARISHA, I just grab

1:55:12

it and get on my tippies, and

1:55:16

just like that. And it starts to go. I

1:55:19

don't know, I don't know

1:55:21

why this is what it is. Yeah. And

1:55:24

there we go. Because

1:55:26

I don't know what this is

1:55:30

like a rellow. MATT, As you

1:55:32

ignite and the spell completes, it

1:55:35

glows and you watch as the swirl of arcane

1:55:37

energy dissipates out from the

1:55:39

staff. From the new shoe you've attached to it,

1:55:42

and wraps around your friends, and you all

1:55:46

are scattered to glitter, and you watch as

1:55:48

they rocket through the individual

1:55:50

holes of this grate, like

1:55:52

there are just bits of dust in the

1:55:54

wind before reforming across

1:55:56

the way, of which

1:55:58

you, right into the wall, a

1:56:00

very deep part of this cross-section

1:56:02

part of the sewer, deep

1:56:05

under neat. You begin

1:56:08

to panic inside. I'll say,

1:56:13

no, just you. You rest of you catch up on the side,

1:56:15

but you plunge into it. Go

1:56:20

ahead and shuffle

1:56:24

the cards in your loadout for me, if

1:56:27

you don't mind. Okay, okay, okay,

1:56:30

okay, okay. Okay,

1:56:34

take one. Oh,

1:56:38

my gosh, we're

1:56:40

a really good

1:56:42

one. Are you going to get it

1:56:44

back, ever? Don't

1:56:46

cram. Okay,

1:56:52

so this, so unleash chaos

1:56:54

goes into your vault. You

1:56:56

can recall it for a

1:56:58

stress cost. Momentarily,

1:57:00

the panic of this causes you to forget

1:57:02

one of your incantations. You're like, what

1:57:06

was that spell? I forgot stuff.

1:57:09

Eventually. Close,

1:57:13

baby. You do manage to pull

1:57:15

yourself out of the water and

1:57:17

catch yourself. Sorry,

1:57:21

I haven't done that before. That was hard. Thank

1:57:25

you so much. We'll

1:57:27

jump across as well. Arcane

1:57:30

Door. Don't you have one to do as

1:57:32

well? Yeah. You do already? No.

1:57:35

I'm looking for some shadows. Oh,

1:57:37

okay. Are there shadows? You okay?

1:57:39

Yeah, I'm good. Especially if he jumps

1:57:41

across. You're nothing but shadow around you. Oh, it's

1:57:44

really creepy. 16.

1:57:46

I just needed a spell cast roll of 13

1:57:48

for Arcane Door, and I just... Oh, yeah. You

1:57:50

appear next to your friends across the way. What

1:57:53

color does your flashy

1:57:55

arrival present? Purple

1:57:57

and blues with a finish of pink. Cool.

1:58:05

Set back into shadow, spend the

1:58:07

stress, and then I'm just going

1:58:09

to appear behind Sir

1:58:11

Dante. Well

1:58:16

done. Are you just humming as

1:58:18

you come out of the shadows like a

1:58:20

creepy fart? Kex'un, if you would,

1:58:22

well, we'll wait till we're done. Absolutely.

1:58:35

Thank you. Do

1:58:37

I do another check to see where we're

1:58:39

going? Yeah. You still have a strong idea

1:58:42

of where you're going. I know where actually. I

1:58:44

got this. Following

1:58:46

your direction since previously, keeping this in mind

1:58:48

along with the help of discussing

1:58:51

this bunny, you follow the winding

1:58:53

maze of sewers. At this point now, the water

1:58:55

level far more reduced since

1:58:57

whatever gate existed before had been alleviated

1:58:59

to the pressure from behind.

1:59:03

You come upon where you pretty sure

1:59:05

is near the base

1:59:07

of the casino, but where

1:59:10

that tunnel

1:59:12

would go, it is bricked up. Oh

1:59:16

no. Shoot! I think this is

1:59:18

it though. How do I get you

1:59:20

in the brick? Yeah, it smells of jen and sadness. Oh

1:59:24

wow. Here's

1:59:27

jen. You'll miss them, baby. I'll

1:59:29

just look at the wall and again I'll use reveal to

1:59:32

see if anything that is hidden on this wall.

1:59:35

Okay. Go ahead and

1:59:38

roll for that. With

1:59:48

hope. With

1:59:50

hope. As you're all

1:59:52

looking at this wall, you concentrate and let the

1:59:54

strands of magic fall from your fingertips and begin

1:59:57

to touch across and dance across the tops of

1:59:59

these walls. bricks. As they

2:00:01

do, you see a section of brick

2:00:03

that begins to give faint silver, gossamer

2:00:05

sheen to it.

2:00:07

A pretty wide sort of brick. It's about

2:00:09

maybe six, seven foot

2:00:11

on each side and about seven to eight

2:00:14

feet tall. TALIESIN and MATT and TALIESIN

2:00:16

are at the same height as their forearms. TRAVIS,

2:00:22

you're our sewer X-、ers? MATT

2:00:24