Transcriber: Jess (JortsMachoooo#6341)
Austin: Sangfielle is a series that draws on elements of dark fantasy, horror, and gothic fiction. As such, a list of content warnings will always be made available in the episode description.
[Intro music begins: Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt]
Austin [as Narrator]: What’s that phrase they use in the athletics report? “It all comes down to this?” Well, it ain’t quite the end—not yet. But it is hard not to feel the weight of it all piling up, don’t you think? The wax, it draws, wandering through the lower village of Blackwick. Them feisty so-called deputies up top, itching to pull newly-acquired triggers. A storm brewing just outside of town, the galvanic red not yet dispersed from the sky above. And what’s that, just beyond the southern horizon? Well, if it ain’t the Wrights of the Seventh Sun, building the tower of their very dreams. Whew! I mean, by the latter, sure the Blackwick group had themselves a little holiday on the river, but besides that, it’s been go-go-go ever since that egg sack—what would become Chine’s little fosterling—first went missing. First, a trip down Yellowfield where they met Alaway, the ambitious menace still plaguing Blackwick as we speak, and the rest who went down Bellmetal way caught the very first whiff of the Wrights of the SEventh Sun when they uncovered an act of betrayal I have yet to see outdone. And then on to Sapodilla, and well, you know the rest. So, for just a minute, while it’s still just you and me and these words between us, I’d like to take a moment to relax and, instead of ruminating on the heavy things and how we got here, I’d like to just float through the Heartland. So close your eyes and find yourself an image. It can be as dark or as light as you want, but it has to be from something beautiful, here in Sangfielle. Don’t see it in your head, feel it on your fingertips, across your wrists. Taste it on the bitter back of your tongue. Then let go or find another. The train wheel jumping the track for just a beat. A sun-soaked skull lifting out of the sea. A blackbird alight in twice the meaning. A circle drawn in salt and blood. A glass of laughter and smile twice as strong. Just remember, whatever happens today, whatever’s next for Blackwick, those feelings are Sangfielle too.
[Music ends]
Austin: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual-play podcast focused on critical world-building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I’m your host, Austin Walker. Joining me today, Andrew Lee Swan.
Dre: Hi, I was—took a bite of soup, sorry, [laughter] you can find me on Twitter (laughing) @swandre3000.
Janine: Thick soup.
[Austin continues laughing]
Art: Soup!
Austin: (Laughing) Sylvi Clare.
Ali (overlapping): Yeah, what kind of soup?
Austin: Okay, we’re doing “soup talk” now, everybody.
Keith (overlapping): Is it a hot soup or a cold soup?
Austin: Sylvi, take a fucking pause—
Ali (overlapping): I have a big soup interest.
Sylvi (overlapping): Yeah, no worries—
Austin (overlapping): —it’s time to talk about soup.
Sylvi (overlapping): —I’m trying—let’s go with soup chat for a bit.
Dre: Uh, it’s—it’s loaded potato soup.
Ali: Wow.
Austin (overlapping): Mmm...
Janine (overlapping): Yes, that is a bite, yeah—
Austin (overlapping): Oh, it’s a loaded—wait, loaded with what?
Janine (overlapping): —that’s definitely a biteable soup.
Dre: Well, it’s got, like, cheese and chives and—
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Ali (overlapping): Yeah.
Dre: —and bacon.
Austin: Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Art (overlapping): Great.
Austin: Wow, that was dismissive.
[Ali laughs]
Art: What, no! I meant it!
Keith: (sarcastically) “Yeah, no, great chives—
Austin (overlapping): You—oh, ok.
Keith (overlapping): “--yeah, we love that.”
Austin: That’s how I heard it!
Dre (overlapping): I’m gonna tell Jasmine that you hate her soup, Art.
[Ali snorts]
Art: Hey, fuck chives!
Sylvi: Get a load of chive boy over here.
Ali: Oh...
Keith: Chives are the bullshit scallion!
[Laughter]
Austin: Uh, alright, Sylvi!
Sylvi: Hi, I’m Sylvi. You can find my Twitter @sylvibullet and listen to my other show Emojidrome wherever you get your podcasts. I don’t have any soup to talk about. I have an energy drink here. That’s not the same thing.
Austin: What’s the energy drink? Well, no, no, no, no—
Janine (overlapping): That’s a good energy soup.
Sylvi (overlapping): Do you wanna guess?
Janine (overlapping): That’s caffeine soup.
Austin (overlapping): No, give me a—give me a flavor. We’re not gonna say brands, they’re not playing up.
Sylvi: This just says “Zero Ultra.” It’s like [Ali chuckles] citrus? The brand we’re not naming has shitty names.
Austin (overlapping): Okay.
Keith (overlapping): It’s actually—I think it’s a law. You can’t make a non-citrus energy drink. It has to be citrus.
Austin (overlapping): Right—[laugh] it has to—you could get a blueberry something-or-other, I think.
Sylvi: Oh, I’ve had the blueberry one. It’s bad!
Austin: Okay, yeah, there you go. Alright!
Sylvi (overlapping): It tastes like melted Otter Pops. That’s what they’re called in the States, right?
Dre: Ugh!
Sylvi: Yeah.
Janine: (Disapprovingly) Mmm...
Austin: Guess you know.
Keith (overlapping): Uh, the melted Otter Pop at the end of the Otter Pop is the best part, I don’t know why everyone’s groaning—
Sylvi (overlapping): No, but like not—
Ali (overlapping): But you—[laugh]
Sylvi: Like, too much. Just too much.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi (overlapping): It’s a proportion thing. Move on.
Ali (overlapping): Yeah, it’s about the proportions.
Austin (overlapping): It’s a proportion thing.
Sylvi (overlapping): We can go to the next person now.
Austin (overlapping): Janine!
Janine: Hi! I’m @bleatingheart on Twitter. I had ribs and hashbrowns—
Dre: Wow.
Janine: —and Caesar salad for dinner.
Keith: (Whispering) Wow.
Austin: Goddamn.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: A feast.
Keith (overlapping): Sounds pretty good.
Austin: Love it.
Janine: Mhm.
Austin: Jealous. [Pause] Jack de Quidt.
Jack: Hi, you can find me on Twitter @notquitereal and buy any of the music featured on the show at notquitereal.bandcamp.com. I’m drinking coffee! Um, that’s it!
Art: Which is sort of like a consommé, right?
Jack: It is sort of—[Janine sighs] it’s a bit like a consommé but this is exciting coffee, because it’s 11:18 in the evening here. [Janine laughs] And this is Jack’s—this is Jack’s Evening Coffee.
Austin: Oh, an Evening Coffee. I see. Art Martinez-Tebbel.
Art: Hi, you can find me on Twitter @atebbel. I’m also drinking coffee. And you check my podcast Scallion Zone—
Jack: [Laugh] Ooh.
Art: —wherever you find podcasts.
Sylvi: People are gonna look for that.
Art: I hope it’s not real, and I hope it’s not awful. [Ali laugh] I hope it’s not like, you know, a white supremacy podcast. Like, you know, like the—they love the bottom part of the scallion.
Janine (overlapping): It’s gonna be like a Hatsune Miku fan...fancast kinda thing.
Austin: Oh, right. Like a classic—
Art (overlapping): Oh that’s—that’s fun.
Austin: Yeah. Keith J. Carberry.
Keith: Hi, you can find me on Twitter @keithjcarberry. You can find the let’s-plays that I do at youtube.com/runbutton. And before the show, I had a bowl of my favorite cereal, plain cheerios. And now I’m having espresso.
Austin: And Ali Acampora.
Ali: Um. Hi, my name is Ali. You can find me over @ali_west on Twitter. You can find the show over @friends_table. And you can find the water that I’m drinking in a Sailor Moon mug that Janine got for me.
Sylvi (overlapping): Hell yeah.
Austin: Wow.
Dre: Aw.
[Janine laughs]
Austin: Cute. As a note, Janine, you did not say your Twitter handle. Do you wanna shout that one—
Janine (overlapping): Yeah I did.
Austin: Did you? I thought you jumped—
Janine (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: —right into soup talk. Or food talk.
Janine (overlapping): I said “Hi” in a weird way—
Austin: Okay.
[Ali laughs]
Janine: —and then I said my Twitter handle and then I said what I had for dinner.
Austin: I was so distracted by the ribs.
Jack (overlapping): Have we ever done a better intro than this?
Austin: Uh, I—so, just as a note, [Janine laughs] I am drinking a—
Janine: This is unusable.
Austin (overlapping): —blackberry with other natural flavors sparkling water, currently.
Ali: Ooh.
Keith (overlapping): Nice.
Jack (overlapping): Oh...
Art: Have we ever done a better intro than this, and it was definitely just a cut intro from another show put on top of this one? It’s—
[Austin and Jack laugh]
Austin: Oh...[Ali laughs] god.
Dre: Important update, I finished eating the soup, so I’m locked in. Let’s go.
Ali: Wow.
Art: Wow...
Ali: Glad to hear that.
Dre (overlapping): I’m ready.
Janine: [Laugh] Yeah—
Keith (overlapping): I could have a seltzer.
Art (overlapping): We run into the soup for the...[Austin laughs]
Ali: Hey, we should—we should plug the patreon, ‘cause we just started, sort of, an important thing over there?
Austin: What’s that? What did we—what? Huh? The patreon?
Art (overlapping): Is that the—[laugh]
Ali (overlapping): Well, so, Friends at the Table, we’re having fun in Sangfielle right now—
Austin: We are.
Jack: Oh, shit.
Ali: But it’s—it’s gonna come to a close at some point...and maybe—
[Multiple sighs]
Austin: Yeah!
Ali (overlapping): —if you’re, like, curious about, like, (laughing) the next season...
Austin: This is true. We have begun the Road to PALISADE. PALISADE is the follow-up season to PARTIZAN. PALISADE we’ll be starting later this year, and if you haven’t listened to PARTIZAN, now would be a good time to start digging through that backlog and going back to it [someone snorts in the background]. With PARTIZAN we—
Art (overlapping): It’s too late. It’s too late.
Austin: No it’s not! No it’s not.
Art: Okay.
Austin (overlapping): You should see what these people do. [Ali laughs] People who love podcasts? [More people join in laughing] Boom! Fucking, just, done!
Keith: Wait—
Austin (overlapping): I know people who listen to—
Keith (overlapping): Hold on—
Austin: —podcasts, like fifty episodes in three weeks.
Ali: Yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, that’s me. I’ll do that.
Janine (overlapping): I mean—
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: I was gonna say, it’s—Keith, it’s me—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —just not right now.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I used to be this person.
Janine: You do it in the shower—I was—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: I was so shocked to find out you put your phone inside of the shower—
Austin: That’s right
Dre (overlapping): What?
Janine: —to listen to your podcasts, ‘cause you—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, they’re waterproof now.
[Ali laughs]
Art (overlapping): You should get a bluetooth speaker.
Keith: Hey!
Austin: Yeah, I should. But it’s fine.
Keith: They’re waterproof now! They’re like—
Austin (overlapping): They’re waterproof now! That’s right!
Keith (overlapping): —IPX 60!
[Janine laughs]
Austin: Keith and me, chaos mode. Let’s go!
Keith (overlapping): Yeah! I put it right—I put it right under the thing where the water drips right on it!
[Everyone cracks up in the background]
Austin: Okay, I don't do that. Alright, let’s—
Dre: Wow.
[Raucous laughter continues]
Austin: I’m very cautious compared to this. Chaos mode ending.
Sylvi (overlapping): I put it under the faucet, and I dare God to fuck with me.
[Ali and Janine laugh]
Austin: I put it, like, in back furthest corner I can so it bounces off the corner—
Ali: Oh...
Austin: —echoing the sound.
Keith: If you let—if you put it in a bowl of water, [Sylvi and Art laugh hysterically] then the water itself—
Jack (overlapping): Oh my god.
Keith: —it’ll—it’ll cut a lot of the unpleasant—
Austin: I did—
Keith: (overlapping): —high frequencies that your phone speaker introduces.
Janine: Oh yeah, that’s a—
Austin (overlapping): I was explaining—
Janine (overlapping): —that’s an audiophile’s way to shower a phone. [Keith laughs] Is in a bowl of water. Uh-huh.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, exactly. I was explaining to Janine that you could put it in a cup or something to echo—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —and that would enhance the sound also. And Janine’s first response was, like, “It’ll just fill up with water and ruin your phone.” [Ali laughs] So I’m glad we just got there—
Janine (overlapping): No, no, no, no, you suggested—you said you don’t like doing that because the water goes in the cup—
Austin: Oh, I—yeah, it’s true.
Janine: —and I was just sitting there like—
Keith: Yeah.
Janine: —“All of it, all of this is weird (laughing) to me, this is—front to back seems like a bad thing.”
Keith (overlapping): Well, some—
Austin (overlapping): I should—I should just invest in a speaker for the shower. You’re not wrong. A shower speaker.
Janine: What if you put the cup upside so that the phone was upright in the cup and reverberated—
Jack (overlapping): You trap it in there...
Janine (overlapping): —but the water couldn’t go in the cup.
Ali (overlapping): Steam!
Austin (overlapping): You’re trap—no.
Jack: Ooh steam.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Steam. Steam. Steam. Yeah, I think I fear steam more than water.
[Ali laughs]
Keith: Uh, I don’t think you have to. I think it’s—
Janine (overlapping): Steam—yeah, on the outside of the cup, though.
Austin: But then the audio isn’t gonna get out.
Ali: No, ‘cause then it’ll billow...
Janine: It might, I don’t know.
Austin (overlapping): Mmm.
Ali (overlapping): ...into the cup. And then it’s—
Janine: No...
Ali: —within the cup, ‘cause there’s a container.
Janine: The moisture would make it—would make it—the surface tension would make a gentle seal around the lip of the cup. I’d be more worried about the acoustics, but like, none of us have experimented with this, so maybe it’s great, maybe it’s terrible. Who could say.
Keith (overlapping): The cup makes the—I will say this, acoustic-wise, the cup makes the music, if it’s music, sound terrible.
Austin: No, yeah, I don’t do—
Janine (overlapping): It’s not—it’s
Keith (overlapping): It definitely makes it louder.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith (overlapping): But it sounds really bad, it sounds—
Janine: I don’t know the effect that a cup would have on Cameron Kunzelman’s voice. That’s the experiment that has to be done.
Austin (overlapping): That’s the thing. Shoutout to Ranged Touch—the Ranged Touch Network. Some of my favorite podcasts.
Keith: It’s the—it’s the exact same effect where it’s really, sort of, nasally but also boomy, but it’s with voice with, like, just vocals it’s fine.
Austin: Like songs, yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Once it’s—yeah, once there’s, like, music in there, it really is distracting and obnoxious.
Austin: Okay, I will say, I have been in situations where I’ve been like “I wanna listen to something while I’m in the shower, but I don’t want to listen to a podcast because the people I’m with will think I’m weird, so I’ll put on music.” And I can’t actually hear a lot of the music, but I can hear enough of a rhythm line or a bass line to, like, “Oh, yeah, music is happening.”
Keith: Right.
Austin: But—and for some reason, my brain is like “That’s less weird than if I put a podcast on.”
Keith: [Laugh] Almost hearing music is less weird than hearing a podcast.
Austin: Uh, yeah. ‘Cause, like, I don’t want to have to have a conversation, sometimes. You know what I mean?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Like, “Oh, what were you listening to in the shower—” like, I don’t know, it’s just—[mumbling] it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s my own stupid brain thing.
Keith: You answer a lot of shower questions?
Austin: You know, [Ali laughs] more than you’d think.
Ali: (Laughing) You have to move.
Art: It never even occurred to ask what they were listening to in the shower.
Ali (overlapping): (Laughing) Officially. It’s officially—
Austin: Friendsatthetable.cash is the website you can go to [Art laughs] to listen to the first episode of The Road to PAR—oop, The Road to PALISADE. The Road to PARTIZAN was a thing we did last—or, previous to last season, in between the end of Spring in Hieron and the beginning of PARTIZAN—that, sort of, was connective tissue between Twilight Mirage and PARTIZAN, because those podcasts take place in the same broad universe but aren’t direct sequels to one another. And so it was a fun way to kind of flesh out the sci-fi universe that we play in—The Divine Cycle. This season, PALISADE—this coming season—will be a direct season to PARTIZAN. And so, it’s worth saying you should go listen to PARTIZAN if you haven’t yet. I think it’s a really great jumping-on point for that universe and for the stories that we’re telling there. And PALISADE is going to be a direct sequel to PARTIZAN with characters, in a way that—similar to something like Winter and Spring in Hieron were connected to Autumn in Hieron and Marielda and stuff like that. These “Road to” games will still serve a very similar function, though, of setting up the universe between the end of PARTIZAN and the beginning of PALISADE. There will be a short time jump between those two—those two campaigns. Or, those two seasons. And so, we’re kind of filling in the gaps, checking in on different parts of the galaxy. And we’re doing a really fun thing where—and, I guess, this is where I’ll explain—eh, you know what, I’m gonna save it. I’m gonna save the thing that I was gonna explain until it’s over.
Art (overlapping): Maybe for a shorter intro.
Austin: No, this is the right one. [Ali snorts] This is the right length for the intro, I think.
Keith: Can we make it longer?
Austin: Yeah, we could talk about other stuff—
Ali (overlapping): No!
Austin: —if you want to. No? [Art laughs] That was very intense, Ali.
Keith (overlapping): I could do this for three hours and then do the...then do the podcast.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, this is a warm up.
Ali (overlapping): I’m, fucking, in jail. I’m dying. I want to know what fucking happens in the show.
Keith: Oh, your—the character’s in jail.
Ali (overlapping): Can we start? [Laugh]
Austin: (Laughing) Yes.
Dre: Oh, shit, huh?
Art: Ali’s using her one phone call—
Ali (overlapping): Emotionally, too—
[Everyone laughs]
Keith: “Yeah, I’m recording from jail. I only have limited time on the internet.”
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Alright, well, let’s—on that note—go around the table, introduce your characters, and tell me what your various Fallouts and your Beats are. Dre, let’s start with you, since you were first in the list.
Dre: Yeah, sure...Chine has—I don’t think—no Fallout!
Keith: Wow.
Austin (overlapping): Mm!
Dre: So I’m doing great over here.
Austin: You had a little Stress. You got 5 Fortune Stress, right?
Dre: Ah—wh—you know.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dre: Uh, my active Beats are: Minor, “Receive a strange surgical implant or Heart's Blood transfusion.” Major, “Destroy a Haven, returning the land to the Heart.” [Austin chuckles] And Zenith, “Become one with the Course and bind you and your creature’s essence to it.”
Austin: Alright. Uh, Ali, let’s—[laugh] tell me what’s up with Marn.
[Sylvi laughs]
Ali: Yeah. I...current Fallouts—
Austin: Mhm.
Ali: “In Trouble: You upset (laughing) an important figure in a nearby Haven. That important figure is in the room with me, and I am downed. You can’t move under your own power, you’re barely clinging to consciousness.”
Austin: Mhm.
Ali: I have “Crisis” here—
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: —and I just wrote “Something bad is happening! People, relax!”
Austin: Yeah, big one.
Ali (overlapping): Uh, which is bad. And then (laughing) I have a Follower, which is a stick lizard—
Austin: Mmm...
Ali: “Someone or something believes that you’re important—”
Keith: Oh...
Ali: “--a weird-looking but essentially harmless creature or person follows you at a distance. They won’t approach you, but they’ll be keen to sift through the rubbish or attempt to hurt anyone who looks like they might get in your way.”
Keith: This is the precursor—
Ali: Lizard—[laugh]
Keith: —to, like, the cult, right? That, like, ends up killing you? Is that what that one is?
[Ali laughs in the background]
Austin: It could be. It could break that way. I don’t know. No promises.
Ali: I went outside to get some fresh air—
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: —and I found a—
Austin: You got a little bud.
Ali (overlapping): —a stick with the—with the indentation for an orb—
Keith: Yeah.
[Sylvi laughs]
Ali: —[indiscernible] orbs. And there was this lizard here, and we’re gonna see how this lizard—[laugh]
Keith: When I was listening to the last arc, I remember hearing about the stick lizard, but I didn’t remember that it was part of a Fallout, so I just thought it was a friend. I mean I guess—
[Timestamp 00:15:04]
Austin: Yeah.
[Ali laughs]
Keith: —I guess maybe right now, it kind of is a friend. I don’t know.
Austin: It kind of is. We’ll see how it goes.
Ali: We’re gonna find out.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: What are your Beats?
Ali: My Beats are currently: “Release your shocking findings in a journal published in Sangfielle,” and “Kill someone who is trying to stop you from claiming knowledge.”
Austin: Mm. Okay! Sylvi.
Sylvi: Alright, so, my current Beats are “Claim a d10 resource needed by your target,” and “Travel to a dangerous place to find something of particular interest to your target.” I think it’s worth saying that we changed one of my Beats, ‘cause we kind of—
Austin: Yes.
Sylvi: —missed the opportunity for it and...
Austin: I—you’re playing that—you’re playing a new—you’re playing a calling from—
Sylvi: Mhm.
Austin: —Ichor-bound, and—
Sylvi: Ah, Ichor-drowned, yeah.
Austin: —or, yeah, Ichor-drowned. Right. Ichor-drowned. Which really assumes you will be—it doesn’t assume this. I think in a smaller party game, I could ensure that your target would be around more, but we have a big fucking land territory, and the moment really passed on that one, so...
Sylvi (overlapping): Yeah, I also came in halfway through with this. Like, I imagine—
Austin: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi (overlapping): —in a game when you’re taking this from the beginning, your—
Austin: Yes.
Sylvi: —your quarry is more built into the, um...world’s, like, structure.
Austin (overlapping): The—yes, totally.
Sylvi: I also have one Fallout right now. It’s also Minor. Right—the reason I mention that is ‘cause I only took one Minor advance, and so people don’t think I took two. I’m not power-gaming here.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: Um, my Minor Fallout is “Fascination with the one-horned devil: You become obsessed with a strange topic, usually whatever caused the Fallout. You must try and learn more about it, first-hand if possible. Whenever you attempt to learn more about your weird fascination, roll with Mastery. If you have the opportunity to learn about it and you refuse, mark d4 Stress to Mind. Ongoing.
Austin: Alright. Janine!
[Pause]
Janine: Yeah! I...am playing Es, who currently has no Fallout. Um, and also who completed their Beats—their two Beats last time. So now we have two brand new ones. We have the Major Beat “Save a Haven from destruction or doom.” And the slightly duplicate-y Minor Beat “Defend a Haven from attack.” So, [laugh] you know.
Austin: Well, that one’s easier. You don’t have to—
Janine: (Laughing) Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin (overlapping): —you just have to defend it in order to take that one—
Janine (overlapping): Exactly.
Austin: —saving it’s much harder, right? So.
Janine (overlapping): Mhm.
Austin: And—and, you know, saving it comes into direct conflict with Chine’s “Destroy a Haven,” so...
Ali: Hmm.
Janine: Damn. Fisticuffs.
Austin (overlapping): ...that’s fun. Mhm. Um...and no Fallout, you said, right? But you do have some Stress. You have...
Janine: I have, uh...[sigh] two Fortune and three Echo Stress right now.
Austin: Alright. Uh, Jack!
Jack: I’m playing Pickman. The good news is that I don’t have any Stress.
Austin: Hm.
Jack: The bad news is that, uh, I have the Fallout “Exiled.” I’ve been banned from Bell Metal Station.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: I’m being hunted by Alekest, who is now just—
Austin: Ah.
Jack: —hanging (laughing) around with me.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: I’m “Vulnerable: You feel small, shaken, and scared. [Austin laughs] This is not what you prepared for. You cannot use Mind Protection.” I’m “Limping: [Janine laughs] Foes target you. You get places last. Speed and stealth are risky.”
Keith: This is bad.
Jack: I have the Fallout “No way out: You lead the party into a dead-end, a trap, [Ali laughs] or an ambush. Remove this Fallout once you get alive.” And then I had—and I’m absolutely—I’m emerging from—
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: —like somebody bursting from up from a lake—“You are possessed by a ghost and your body becomes a grim marionette. The ghost has full control over your actions until the end of the situation.” [Austin groans] But I have no...Stress.
Sylvi: (Sarcastic) Oh, that’s good!
[Austin laughs]
Keith: (Sarcastic) Oh, good news, yeah.
Sylvi: Hey! Silver lining.
Austin: Oh....yeah. [Ali laughs] You know. Take the dubs when you can get ‘em, you know what I’m saying?
Ali (overlapping): Yeah...
Austin: So.
Jack: Uh...also, here—so, I have five Blood Protection and one of that comes from the stuff that Marn did before we began this horrible fucking mission.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Does that continue? Is that still going?
Austin: I don’t think so.
Jack: Aw, come on.
Austin (overlapping): Marn, tell me what it says.
Ali (overlapping): That’s just one of mine. I literally just removed (laughing) mine.
Austin (overlapping) What’s it say, Marn? [Stutters]
Ali: Actually...
Austin: Mmm...yeah!
Ali (overlapping): “Pick two benefits from the list below. All the other characters gain this benefit until they enter a Landmark.”
Austin: I think you’re good until you go to a new place, right?
Jack: Yes! Okay.
Ali: Yeah, it’s a little bit of wiggle room, ‘cause I think that this is like...you’re supposed to do this and then go on a Delve—
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali (overlapping): —and then the Delve happens and whatever. You know?
Austin: It doesn’t say...it doesn’t say...”Until you—at the beginning of a Delve.” Which, some moves do say that, right? So...
Ali: Mmm...
Austin: I feel like you have that wiggle...
Ali: Okay.
Jack: I have two Beats.
Austin: Mhm?
Jack: I have a Minor Beat, which is “Plant this fucking parasite worm in my gun in a Haven.” [Someone laughs] And I have a Major Beat, which is “Show the truth of the Structure’s majesty to an outsider.”
Austin: Mmm...mhm. Of course. Alright! Art?
Art: Hey. Hi. Um...it’s your boy, Duvall.
[Sylvi bursts out laughing]
Dre: Oh, word?
Art: I have—[Ali laughs] I have the Beats “Succeed at a task that someone else has recently failed to achieve”--
Austin: Mm.
Art: —and “Take Major Mind Fallout.” And careful might be thinking right now, “What is the matter with you, Art? [Austin sighs] Don’t you have five Fallouts right now? And I do.”
Austin: What are they?
Art: They are “Fascination: Luck.”
Austin: Mm.
Art: Which I’m not even gonna go into anymore.
Austin: Yeah, I get it.
Keith: Yeah.
Art: I have, uh—
Austin (overlapping): If you don’t give up by now, what do we—what do we gotta say, you know?
[Keith and Ali laugh]
Art: Uh-huh. [Keith and Ali continue laughing] I have “Take Five,” which is a geographic Fallout located very far from here.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: I have “Ringing Head: Your head swims, you taste blood in your mouth, the next action you take is Dangerous, the one after that is Risky, and then you remove this Fallout as your head clears.” I think I did the Dangerous on the way out...
Austin: I think you did too—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: —but you still have Risky.
Keith: So that one barely counts, too. So you’re basically—that’s—you’re basically at zero Fallout, still.
Art: Uh, “Bleeding: At the end of any situation where you have this Fallout, [Keith laughs] mark d4 Stress to Blood.”
Austin: Yikes!
Art: And then “Winded”: “When you attack with melee weapons, decrease Stress inflicted by one dice size.” And know what you’re saying: “Well five Fallouts, you must not have very much Stress.” No, I have seven Stress.
[Several people laugh]
Austin: It’s all going great. Uh...what were your Beats? Did you say them and I missed them?
Art: I did, it was “Succeed at a task that someone else has recently—”
Austin: Right.
Art (overlapping): “--failed to achieve and take Major Mind Fallout.”
Austin: Major Mind Fallout. Finally, Lye Lychen. What’s up?
Keith: Uh, hi! My Beats are “To save a Haven from destruction or doom,” and “To take Major Blood Fallout.”
Ali (overlapping): Ooh.
Keith: Uh, right now I only have one Fallout and it’s “The Ravening Call,” which is barely a Fallout. And then I also—
Austin (overlapping): Uh, so—
Sylvi (overlapping): Damn!
Keith: —I have—[Sylvi laughs] well, it’s—well, you know. Name one thing “The Ravening Call” has ever done to anyone.
Sylvi: Yeah, true.
[Keith laughs]
Dre: Mhm. Mhm.
Austin: Ah.
Keith: And then—and I’ve had it since the first session—
Jack (overlapping): Didn’t it explode that gandy dancer?
Keith: What’s that?
Jack: Didn’t it explore that gandy dancer from inside?
Austin: Uh, the King, the Gandy King. Please, Jack.
Jack (overlapping): Oh, the King of the Gandy Dancers. Didn’t it explode the King?
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith (overlapping): That—that was “The Ravening Beast.” That’s the next one. So that—
Jack: Oh...
Austin: Oh...I see. I see.
Sylvi (overlapping): So there’s nothing to worry about.
Keith: Yeah, so this one is fine. And then I happen to have my plus one to False War, still. It’s not—it’s in the Fallout section, but that’s not Fallout. Um...
Austin: That’s a bonus.
Keith: And, uh, was there anything else? I’m low on Stress. I got four Mind Stress, but in a way that’s—that’s sort of good. There’s a [Jack and Austin chuckle quietly] major silver lining there, for me.
Austin: (Amused) Okay. Yeah, you, like, get something from that, right? That’s like a—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, I can roll spells with Mastery when I have four or more Mind Fallout—uh, Stress.
Austin: Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. Alright! Well, I guess I’ll set up the situation. As far as I remember it, here’s where we left off. In the Blackwick Group’s headquarters, Duvall and Es are resting and recovering, having driven the Magistrates away the night prior. But all around them, dozens, if not hundreds, of waxen thralls stumble around in unsettling patrol through the dirt streets and alleys of Lower Blackwick. Upper Blackwick, meanwhile, has become the home to the power-hungry deputies...who are now totally unleashed, [chuckles] who seek to reorder the town in the absence of both the Magistrates who have been driven away, and the Council which sort of has lost itself, right? The Council was largely, as far as we saw it, Dayward YVE, Ekashi Wolff, who is dead, and Sister...uh Stanislaka—and Stanislaka, we know, is helping to attend to people in Lower Blackwick, but is...you know, not...has not—has not necessarily shown her face up in Upper Blackwick because of how, maybe, they would kill her. Fair enough.
Jack: Hm.
Austin: We have not met him yet, but Upper Blackwick has elected a sheriff. The head of the deputies has come into power up there [Sylvi laughs], and I think that that rumor has already begun to spread around in Lower Blackwick for the people who...who do have some contact with the people up top. Uh, and then—
Keith (overlapping): I thought you were introducing a character named “Upper Blackwick” for a second.
Austin: Upper Blackwick, yeah.
Keith (overlapping): The, you know, the—
[Ali laughs]
Sylvi: One of the founders.
Austin (overlapping): It’s not beyond us, you know.
Keith (overlapping): —one of the grandsons of the Blackwick...
Austin: Yeah...yeah, family.
Keith (overlapping): ...fortune.
Austin: Uh, in the northern skies above you all, red light lingers from the lightning bolt that was summoned by the Magistrates to break into the Hymn. The bolt itself has now faded. And in the southern air, behind Hazard, Chine, and Lyke, and the trio of Toll Collectors-turned Knights of Virtue who travel with them, a dust storm gathers in strength. This is where we come back in. [Sigh] At this moment. The three of you have entered into town. You’ve no idea where. Marn—I’m gonna say you’ve just come right into the Blackwick Group’s headquarters, so you have no idea where Pickman, Marn, or Bucho are. But here in...in Blackwick HQ—Blackwick Group HQ, Es and Duvall are resting, I guess Alekest is with you too. I believe Alekest stayed with that—with that duo, right? Um...so, yeah. It’s the three of you, plus the Toll Collectors, really at the very edge of town. But again, truly, the streets are filled with waxen zombies [laugh] wandering around. I think Ali was the one who compared it to a Resident Evil game. And even this morning, they’re just kind of, like, you know, milling about. Uh, as you kind of come into the group’s headquarters. By now, Es and Duvall, have you woken up? I want to say Alekest has already put coffee on.
[Pause]
Art: I don’t know. [Janine sighs] How do you sleep when you’re...you have a [sigh] ringing head, bleeding, winded...
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Art: Is that a lot of sleep or is it now a lot—does your ringing head keep you awake?
Janine: Yeah, I also imagined it...
Austin (overlapping): Probably. Probably doesn’t it help.
Janine: ...less asleep and more as, like, laying down with eyes closed, except not Es, ‘cause she was a whole eye at the time.
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Janine: “Staring at the ceiling” kind of mood? [Laugh]
Austin: Yeah, sure, so then hours later, then...Chine, Lyke, and Hazard come in, along with the Toll Collectors, who—I think all three of you have met at some point. Or, maybe Alekest hasn’t met, but Es and Duvall certainly have.
Sylvi: Oh, did we mention that I have a horn now?
Austin: Oh, we didn’t mention that you have a horn now.
Sylvi (overlapping): I have a horn now. I have a metal horn, yeah.
Austin: One horn, huh? Weird.
Janine: (Uncertain) Oh...
Sylvi: Yeah. It’s just...[Ali laughs] I just noticed that on my sheet. I was like “Oh right, that’s new from last time too!”
Dre: (Interested) Hm...
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is.
Janine [as Es]: That’s very striking.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Really nice place you guys brought me too...uh...
Sylvi: Referring to the wax zombies outside.
[Janine sighs]
Janine [as Es]: (Muffled) Used to be nicer...
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): I’m second-guessing my decision to be mad that the boat left.
[Austin laughs]
[Keith sighs in character]
Dre [as Chine]: You know, it’s about time this place got an upgrade. It was getting—it was getting kind of boring.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: (Surprised) Oh, wow! [Laugh]
Dre [as Chine]: It was getting pretty predictable.
[Janine sighs in character]
Austin [as Agdeline]: Where should we put the supplies?
Austin: Agdeline says. Agdeline is here. Es, you remember Agdeline from when you pulled her consciousness out of her head—[several people laugh in the background] uh, the—you know.
Janine (overlapping): Oh right, those Toll Collectors. [Laugh]
Austin (overlapping): Those three, yeah. Those Toll Collectors. [Janine continues laughing] Agdeline, Larch, and uh...the third one, who’s name I always forget. Uh...buh-buh-buh-buh-buh—
Jack: Essel?
Austin: Ettel. Ettel. Ettel.
Jack: Ettel.
Dre: Mm...
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, Ettel the Drakkan. Yeah. They’ve come with, like, a big—like a wagon of stuff. Of like, building supplies, medical supplies, like, you know, jerky and other preserved rations. Um...all sorts of...other kind of minor—minor stuff. A gift from their liege. Um...their liege—we learned, though I think, Es and Duvall certainly have not learned, but maybe quickly recognize that they are dressed better than they were before. I think I described them as being dressed like Musketeers last time. They—with—they have these half-capes on, featuring a simple butterfly, sort of in the style of something like a fleur-de-lis. And that is, of course, Queen Virtue’s symbol, as the Toll Collectors have gone into service under Virtue, the Vampire Queen of Sapodilla.
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: She sounds nice.
Art (overlapping): Great job creator.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Mhm. [Laugh] Yeah—
Sylvi: She’s helping people...
Austin: Uh, [laugh] she created more jobs than she actually knows—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, it’s—
Austin: —because the other big revelation for the Toll Collectors—Keith, do you want to explain this?
Keith: Right, so, the question I was going to ask was that, um...
Dre: How many—[laugh]
Keith (overlapping): ...that Es maybe remembers, but do any of these people remember, because there are—
Austin: Right.
Keith: —how many—are there, like twelve sets?
Austin (overlapping): There are only—there’s only—
Keith: Not here.
Austin: Right, there’s a year of sets. Yeah, there’s a year of sets of Toll Collectors out there now—
Keith: Right—
Austin: —everybody!
Keith: The mountain has been—
Austin: Every month—[chuckles]
Keith: —the mine has been spitting them out every month, all three of them, with the same [Jack laughs] memories of their past, but they’re now whole new people.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: And that’s why they’ve been showing up in different people, because there’s whole different groups of them, and they are all knights for Virtue. Although, you’re telling me now that Virtue doesn’t know that?
Austin: No, I think Virtue maybe didn’t know it at first. And then it was, like, “Oh shit, there’s a bunch more of them, alright fine.” You know how Virtue rolls with things. So.
[Sylvi laughs]
Keith: Hey, I mean it’s just—you’re just multiplying your knights.
Austin: Yeah. You’re multiplying how much you gotta pay them. You’re multiplying how many—how many fancy knight quarters you’ve set up and—
Ali: Mmm...
Keith: That’s fair.
Austin: You know.
Keith: And you’re not multiplying the skill level very much, because they’re not—
Austin: (Laughing) No, it’s the same ones.
Sylvi (overlapping): Right, but you just get them to make it, like—
Austin: That’s true. That’s true.
Sylvi (overlapping): “Oh, build your own...(laughing) mess quarters...”
[Austin laughs]
Austin: Anywhere, they’re all here.
Keith (overlapping): But these are not the most skilled adventurers in the world.
Austin: No, but they’re not the least skilled.
Keith: That’s fair.
Austin (overlapping): You know it takes certain…
[Timestamp 00:30:00]
Ali (overlapping): Yeah...
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You know, they’re alright.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And they’re here with supplies and stuff! So...
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: And they’re asking you where to (laughing) put them.
Art [as Duvall]: There’s a store room in the back.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Alright.
Austin: And Larch and Ettel get to...get to, uh...unloading it and Agdeline goes over and just takes a cup of coffee. To supervise. To drink while supervising, yeah.
Keith: Mm. [Pause] Um.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Hey, your friends look real bad. [Laugh]
Keith [as Lyke]: Yeah, does—who—does—can we—do you need help?
Art [as Duvall]: I could probably use some medical attention. I don’t remember how I’m bleeding. Does anyone?
[Keith laughs, then Janine laughs]
Keith: Is that in character?
Austin: [Laugh] That’s in character, yeah.
[Several people laugh in the background]
Art: Yeah.
Janine [as Es]: Well, your heart is pumping...some kind of fluid, presumably?
Dre [as Chine]: Mhm...
Art [as Duvall]: I’m not sure about that.
Dre [as Chine]: I can check the fluid for you.
Keith [as Lyke]: [Stuttering] Did you just mean—
Art [as Duvall]: I don’t know how that helps.
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): —where are you bleeding from? Or did you mean—
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): That’s what I meant, yes.
Keith [as Lyke]: Right, not “In what manner does one such as me bleed?”
Art [as Duvall]: Right, it’s interesting, but it’s not...
Dre (overlapping): “No one makes me bleed my own blood.” [Laugh]
Austin: Uh, it was—uh, one of the Magistrates shot you, I want to say.
Keith: Okay.
Art: Mm, so it’s like a torso—
Austin (overlapping): Uh, with a shotgun...
Art: —it’s a torso bleeding?
Austin: Yeah, yeah it’s a torso bleeding.
Art: Alright.
Keith: [Sigh] So, I can help in several ways. I can get us Echo, Supplies, and Fortune Stress reduced. And I can...um...for whoever’s got the worst Blood Fallout, I can roll a spell for that. And, uh...I can—if there’s some less intense stuff, I can fix that Blood Stress too.
Art: I think “Bleeding” is the worst Blood Stress—
Keith: Yeah, okay—
Art (overlapping): —of my three Blood Stresses.
Keith: So I would like to—
Art: Or, Blood Fallouts.
Keith: —I would like to—I would like to use my Mark of the Weaver—
Austin: Let’s do it.
Keith: —on Duvall.
Austin: Yeah. Go for it. What is that roll? That’s Occult Mend, right?
Keith: Yeah, that is Occult Mend, and with Mastery because it’s a spell, and I have—
Austin: Oh, it’s a spell!It works!
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, so take another die!
Keith: Um, I’m also gonna, um...let’s see. Am I? What do I have? I’m gonna—I’m going to use this licorice pebble, I think. I have this d6 licorice pebble.
Austin (overlapping): [Laugh] Yeah, sure. Give me that d6 to keep your Protection.
Keith (overlapping): And then I’m gonna roll a d6, yeah.
Austin: It’s a good idea. You don’t want things—you don’t want things to go bad right away, you know?
Keith (overlapping): Right. So that’s three Protection.
Austin: Three Protection. Yup.
Keith: Ten!
Austin: Hey, that’s a critical success. Look at you. Go ahead, uh, Duvall. Get rid of “Bleeding.” Uh...and, [sigh] I’m trying to think, would it have—what’s that increased—what would an increased outgoing Stress look like here? You don’t have any other Blood Fallout do you?
Keith (overlapping): Uh, instead of reducing it from Minor—from Major to Minor, maybe it reduces it...
Austin: It’s a Minor already, unfortunately.
Keith (overlapping): Oh, it’s a Minor already, okay.
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Keith: Do you have Blood Stress?
Austin (overlapping): You know, on a crit—no, I checked.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: On a crit, go ahead and clear one more of these, Art.
Art: Alright.
Austin: You have three Blood—I’ll give you that on a crit.
Keith: Nice.
Austin: That’s fun.
Art: Alright, I’ll take “Winded,” ‘cause again, “Ringing Head,” like we said, basically already done.
Austin: Will clear itself, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we get this sequence. Lye is attending to Duvall. Um...Chine, Hazard, Es? What are y’all up to?
Dre: Uh, hm...
Sylvi: [Laugh] Good question.
Dre: That is a good question, yeah.
Austin: I think Agdeline at some point says—
Austin [as Agdeline]: Alright, so...does someone want to [sigh] clue us in on what happened here?
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Yeah that would act—that would be very helpful.
Dre [as Chine]: Well, hold on. There were a lot of people outside, I’ll go ask one.
Janine [as Es]: [Sigh] No, no, no.
Dre [as Chine]: No?
Janine [as Es]: [Soft laugh] That’s—no. They’re—they’re wax people.
[Keith laughs]
Keith [as Lyke]: Yeah, did you not get that?
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): A heap of wax.
Dre [as Chine] (overlapping): I—I really didn’t think, of all the people in our party, that you’d be the one judging people by what kind of person they are. Or what they’re made of. That’s just surprising to me.
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): The wax people will...will...I mean, I suppose I don’t know for a fact that they’ll hurt you—
Keith [as Lyke]: Yeah.
Janine [as Es]: —but they certainly have it in them to hurt them if someone decides they would like to hurt you.
Keith [as Lyke]: Chine, they were shambling. Didn’t you see them shambling?
Dre [as Chine]: That doesn’t mean anything!
Keith [as Lyke]: It was menacing. It was a menacing shamble.
Jack: Chine was in Yellowfield, right?
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: Yeah. Chine knows about Alaway, certainly. But there are—Chine’s also Chine. Chine knows there’s all sorts of folks.
Janine: [Sigh] So...there’s—I think there’s—it’s fair to say there’s a degree of this that’s, like, still a bit of a question mark for Es...
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: ...where, I think , she can explain, like—
Janine [as Es]: We were going after these fucking assholes. These Magistrates who were, like, taking over, and...did a pretty good job, like, getting them all in one place, and it was kinda gonna go down, and then...a bunch of wax shit (laughing) started happening, and we had to blow up the train station...[Austin chuckles] with dynamite, and other things, and...um...
Keith [as Lyke]: Where is everyone?
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): and...[sigh] Well, so—and then also—[laugh] then also, there was a bit of a standoff, and Pickman...kinda...got bold in a way that was quite bad. Um, a little bit unlike them, to be honest. And then...[sigh] and then...Marn and Pickman disappeared.
Austin: I think it’s specifically—
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): They were supposed to be back here, but—
Austin: Y’all knew that Marn got hurt real bad, and Pickman was like “I’ll go get help,” right. Or, “I’ll go take care of—”
Janine (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah.
Austin (overlapping): Is that right?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Hm. Well that’s troubling to hear.
Dre [as Chine]: Wait, so you just—you just left?
[Pause]
Janine [as Es]: Well, no, we were gonna meet back here. The roads were full of wax zombies, and we had just done something that angered the consciousness that was inside of the train station covering it with wax. And it seemed like a thing where...we kinda just needed to find our own way back.
[Pause]
Keith [as Lyke]: But it’s been a while?
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): And we did, and then they never showed up.
Art [as Duvall]: It’s been overnight.
Austin [as Alekest]: I don’t like it. [Sigh]
Jack: Nope!
Austin (overlapping): Says Alekest.
Keith [as Lyke]: No...
Austin: Let’s cut to a dark room...uh...Marn, Pickman, and Bucho is there as well, along with—you can hear the sounds of other people. Under your feet, you can feel that you are standing on...wax. Um, it’s a...I mean, the sound of people’s utterances—sometimes you can hear whispers, or people sobbing—are echoing around the room in such a way that you can sense that it’s a kind of large room. You are not restrained in any physical way. But it is a big dark room. You can’t really see for shit. It is completely dark in here. Marn, you are still down. Right?
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: Bucho, I think says to Pickman, like—and shakes you, Pickman. Um...
Austin [as Bucho]: Are you yourself again?
Jack [as Pickman]: Yes, I think so. I think so.
Austin [as Bucho]: [Sigh] [Incoherent mumbling] Where are we? Can you see?
Jack [as Pickman]: Mm, no.
Austin (overlapping): It’s—it’s very dark here.
Jack: The light from the little furnace on the center of my armor is just, like, weak. Like, it’s the sort of light that just illuminates a hand in front of it or something.
Austin: I think as the light comes on—or, like, as the light, you know, comes to, you can see that Bucho is holding Marn, like, in his arms. Like, kind of down on a knee to, like, keep her from resting on the wax directly. Marn looks bad, Pickman.
Jack [as Pickman]: Is she dead?
Austin [as Bucho]: No. No. Uh, not yet. [Sigh]
Jack [as Pickman]: Did I hurt her?
Austin [as Bucho]: Hmm, I’m not sure.
Jack [as Pickman]: (Sighing) Okay. Um...are you much of a doctor?
Austin [as Bucho]: [Dry laugh] I can assist...
Jack [as Pickman]: Yeah. Uh-huh. Same. Shape Knights.
Austin [as Bucho]: [Chuckle] Shape Knights.
Austin: Do you have—
Jack (overlapping): I’m gonna—
Austin: —Mend? No, you don’t have Mend.
Jack (overlapping): No. No, of course I don’t have Mend. I have the opposite of Mend.
Austin: [Chuckle] Do you have Haven?
Jack: Uh, no.
Austin: (Laughing) Okay.
Jack: Again, I have Compel, Delve—
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: —Discern, Kill, Cursed, Desolate, [Austin laugh] and Technology.
Austin: Mm, it’s not Occult either, ‘cause you are in a Haven Occult place currently. Or, [sucks air through teeth] hmm, I might give you Religion. I’d say this could be a Religion place.
Jack (overlapping): Don’t have that either.
Keith: I feel like—
Austin (overlapping): Aw, then I would say this is a Religious Occult place here.
Keith: Pickman and Lyke might be the two most opposite spec’d characters of their—I think the only things I don’t have is everything that Pickman has.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack (overlapping): It’s great! [Keith laughs] We haven’t worked together since Bell Metal.
Keith: No. [Laugh]
Jack: Mhm. Um, okay. Let me just—uh, ‘cause I can consume a resource to...um...basically give myself Domains.
Austin: A Domain, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: But, it needs to be a d8 Technology Cursed or Occult resource. Let’s see, (laughing) I don’t have—uh...
Austin: You—I don’t—yeah...
Jack: Oh, I have my strange playing cards with Mabriella on. Yeah, I can do that. It’s (reading) “A d8 resource or higher. Gain access to a Skill or Domain for the rest of the session.”
Austin: There you go. Get that Occult—
Jack: So I think, like—
Austin: Toss those in.
Jack: —there’s a way of this working, right? Which is Pickman just, like, rummaging in her pack and trying to boost the light from the front of her armor.
Austin: Yeah...
Jack: Which is just a—it’s just a furnace. It’s not like a LED or anything. And the easiest way she can do that is just by, like, tossing in and burning these playing cards. With, like, Mabriella and Co. on. Because it’s like—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah.
Jack: —how’s that important right now. Marn might be dead.
Austin: Marn might be dead.
Jack: So I’m going to get rid of this...equipment. Which is—
Austin (overlapping): And then...
Jack: —strict playing cards.
Austin: ...this is gonna be...
Jack: And I’m going to—
Austin: I mean this is—yeah, this is rough because...I’m...trying to figure out how to—because we’ve talked about this—this is one of those things where I’m—I have to apply rules according to the way I’ve applied them before, right? Uh...[pause] We’ve never—I guess I’ve let Keith roll to downgrade a Major to a Minor. Keith, is that true? A Fallout?
Keith: Um, with—with what?
Austin: With Blood Stress. Have I let you roll to Mend a Major down to a Minor.
Keith: I think only with using...
Austin: Yeah...
Keith: ...my Move. My specific “You can Mend anything” Move.
Austin: Yeah. And I—you’re using a Move here, Pickman, but I don’t know that it’s enough to justify—there might—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —you might need to call on something greater here, or—
Keith (overlapping): The language of Mark of the Weaver is very broad, is the...
Austin: Yeah, that’s the thing, is like—the thing that I let you do with Mark of the Weaver—so, I’m just gonna say: rules as written, you can reduce Stress to Heal, but I don’t think you can—the think you can do is move d4 Stress, which you can increase if you have suitable equipment. The only way, as written, to remove Fallout is to change the situation in a serious way, or to get to a Haunt that has real stuff there. I’m weighing that against “I would like Ali to be in this episode.” [Laugh]
[Ali laughs]
Jack: Yes. I’m—‘cause, like—
Austin: But I want you to have to fucking reach for it, because this is the rules as written, and it’s—we’ve already—we have some wiggle room for Lye, who has magic spiderweb hands that explicitly let him, like—
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: —magically Mend thing. So I want Pickman to reach further than “I burned some playing cards.” And I don’t know what that looks like yet, but...
Jack: Well, the burning playing cards is a start.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack (overlapping): What if I give you my weapon?
Austin: Hmm...how do you do that? What’s that look like?
Jack: Well, Pickman’s gun has a parasite in it.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: And my...[Ali laughs] I have a Minor Beat which is basically like “Plant the—plant the sapling.”
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: And I wonder whether—‘cause, like, the idea of planting a gun in wax is, like—
Austin: Yeah, I love it.
Jack (overlapping): --if this isn’t the season for it—
Austin: I know what it—
Jack: —what is?
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Yup!
Jack: And I think that Pickman’s idea here is to...let me see if I can get this right. I am trying to create safety under the boughs of a tree made of the Shape.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: Or some kind of—I’m trying to make this space more Shape-like to give us some leverage in helping Marn.
Austin (overlapping): Uh-huh. Yeah.
Jack (overlapping): And in doing so, I’m gonna remove both of my guns.
Austin: “Both of” meaning to say—as a reminder, you currently have this Barbed Espignol which you’ve had since the beginning in the game. Like, infected by this strange Red Zephyr parasite...
Jack: It’s called an Iron Worm. It’s a parasite that lives in trains.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Yes. And that was a—the Iron Worm was explicitly a Move you took, right?
Jack: Mhm, ‘cause it’s now also—
Austin (overlapping): A Major Move.
Jack: It has also infected Pickman.
Austin: Right. Right. Uh, and so, now you’re gonna—you’re gonna put that weapon into the fucking—into the wax. I guess—yeah. Let’s say that that’s going to give you Mend here. So give me your Mend Occult roll. Uh, take Mastery because Bucho will be helping. Or, I guess what I should say is—hmm.
Jack: Oh, I took Haven instead of Occult.
Austin (overlapping): That’s not how this should work.
Jack: If that’s okay.
Austin: I don’t—
Jack: No? I mean, I—
Austin: Oh yeah, ‘cause it’s a Haven. It’s a Haven—it’s a Haven—no, it was an Occult resource.
Jack: Uh, no, I can choose what I want. I don’t have to burn the—
Austin (overlapping): Oh...I see. I see. I see.
Jack (overlapping): I have to burn Technology, Cursed, or Occult and I can choose a Skill or Domain.
Austin (overlapping): And you can choose which thing you want. Uh, you should still take Occult or Religion, because that is what these places truly are. We are removed from...Haven is in a different part of where you are—
Jack: Yes.
Austin: —that I don’t know that you’ll be seeing much of until—
Jack: Okay.
Austin: I mean, you could take Haven if you want, but I really think where you are is Occult slash Religion.
Jack: Yeah, no I’m taking Occult here because—
Austin: Okay.
Jack: —it seems bad. Um—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: And I’m temporarily using Mend as the result of this kind of sacrifice that I’m making?
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Or, what were you gonna say? You were gonna say it doesn’t quite work like that.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, you—oh, I was just gonna say—no, that works. The thing I was wondering about was whether or not Bucho—traditionally, again, Bonds—characters can take Stress for you as a Bond, but we’ve never seen them give Help. But I’m gonna let you have Help here. Bucho’s core to the crew, go ahead and take Mastery on this roll. It would be good if Marn wasn’t dying.
[Timestamp 00:45:12]
Jack: I would like it if Marn wasn’t dying. I’m just making sure...
Austin (overlapping): I guess Marn isn’t dying. Marn is only downed, but still.
Ali: Can be upgraded to “Dying.”
Austin: Yeah, “Can be.” Absolutely it can be.
[Ali and Dre laugh]
Jack: Rolling with Mastery because of Bucho...this is Mend Occult.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: Pickman just digging in the wax with her hands.
Austin: And—so this is Bucho being like—there’s a nine, take no Stress. Six, three, three, nine. Bucho is very confused by what you’re doing, by the way.
Jack: Bucho is much more of a—Bucho isn’t quite...there is a spectrum of types of Shape Knight—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —between Pickman and Calen. And Bucho is not quite either of them, right?
Austin: I wouldn’t say Calen is on the other end of Shape Knight, either. I’d say Calen is also off on the side somewhere. I think Calen—
Jack: Yes, probably right.
Austin (overlapping): —is probably somewhere closer to Pickman than to Alekest, who is The Shape Knight, right?
Jack: Yes. Uh, Alekest is to—
Austin: Storied...
Jack (overlapping): —Shape Knights what, like, Katonya is to...
Austin (overlapping): ...traditionalist...right, to Cleavers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack (overlapping): Yup.
Austin: I’m very much playing with, like “Here’s an archetypical...”
Keith: Does Bucho recognize—
Austin: “...character.”
Keith (overlapping): —this train worm?
Austin: Uh, it’s dark...
Keith (overlapping): Or does he not even see the train worm because it’s in the dark?
Austin: I think—I think it’s—yeah, I think he can’t quite piece together what’s happening until, Jack, tell me what this tree looks like. That grows out of the wax.
Jack: I think by the time Pickman, like, holds the gun over the sort of, like, scabbled hole that she’s dug—
Austin: Yeah.
Jack (overlapping): —in the thing, the gun just, like, twitches and leaps out of her hand [Austin snorts and sighs] and like, embeds itself in the wax. And then...
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: ...you know how [chuckle]--you know how they cut wax with cheese—no. [Pause]
Austin: Mm?
Dre: Mhm?
Jack: You know how they cut—
Austin: (Laughing) Mhm.
Jack: —cheese with wire? [Laugh]
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh-huh, yes.
[Keith laughs]
Jack: I think that this, unlike a lot of the imagery from the, like, Hellraiser movies with the way that metal is used in those movies.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah.
Jack: Um, like metal struts and spars begin to appear in the wax walls around us. And then it’s almost like a canopy, sort of, begins to—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —it’s very dark. But metal is reflective.
Austin: Well, I actually think that it’s drawing something from this wax, and there’s a sort of line of...dull orange light. Like the—like the light coming from your furnace begins to emit. Almost like as if there’s a single line of fiber—you know, like a cable...light emit from around the trunk of this new Shape tree. And the tree moves. We talk a lot about the Shape taking power in movement. Specifically when you draw the Shape itself and, like, make something move on it. This tree is—has—not moving parts, but like, it’s swaying in a breeze that isn’t in this room, you know? It’s like a canopy. It, like, covers the room, right?
Jack: Yes.
Austin: Or nearly, at least.
Jack: It’s like what if a canopy was inside a room. It’s like pushing up against the ceiling.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah. Uh, from one of the branches of this tree, a fruit forms. And falls into your hand. [Pause] And it’s with this that you can heal Marn. Um, something in this, intuitively as you touch it—you know, like “Oh, I just have to guide this into Marn’s mouth.”
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: I don’t—I don’t know what type of gross fucking fruit the Iron Worm has grown for you. Maybe it’s like a piece of wax fruit. [Laugh] That’s too much. It’s too much.
Jack: Oh, I have—
Austin (overlapping): You should not feed Marn wax fruit.
Jack: It’s an apple. It’s just a—it’s just a—
Austin: It’s just a regular apple?
Jack (overlapping): You know when you have a—well, this is like the Shape’s whole trick, right? Is that, like—
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: —remember sometimes the Shape appears as, like, a regular tree until you look close—
Austin: Mmm.
Jack: And this is just an apple, except the apple pips are like—
Austin: Wait, can we—can we make it an orange, so that we have the rhyming of the actually-still-nearby white flower beast’s oranges from the beginning of the season?
Jack: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Could it have felt those oranges—do you know what I mean? In the nearby...vicinity?
Jack: Uh, I think Pickman makes meaningful eye contact with Bucho and is just like—
Jack [as Pickman]: Medicine.
Jack: And starts (laughing) peeling the orange and giving it to Marn.
Austin: What is the—what is the little touch that you were gonna suggest for the apples, though?
Jack: Oh, I was gonna suggest that it would have metal apple pips. But I think it’s creepier with an orange if the pith is metal—
Austin: Yeah.
Jack (overlapping): And you have to kind of just, like, peel it off like—almost like silver foil or something?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and flick it away. Um, yeah, Marn, go ahead and reduce that “Downed” to “Spitting teeth.” [Ali snorts] (Reading) “Any action that requires you to speak or look respectable is Risky.”
Ali: Damn.
Austin: You don’t—you don’t look good. It looks bad for you right. But you—
Art: It’s a real teeth-spitting situation.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Ali (overlapping): People are like “Oh, this person is so rude! Look at their open wounds from their gunshot.” [Austin laughs] Like, come on! [Keith laughs]
Austin: (Laughing) Oh, the wounds...
Jack: Give ‘em a break!
Austin: The wounds...[Keith continues laughing] the wounds close and in the light of the tree, you can now see there are probably fifteen, sixteen people in here. All ages. Regular folks who live in Blackwick who have been seemingly kidnapped and herded into this wax pit. And dripping through the canopy, bit by bit, is more wax.
Jack: Oh, horrid. This is a real—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —fucking...this is bad. [Chuckle]
Austin: Ain’t good! Ain’t good.
Art: I’m against it.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: I’m neutral!
Jack (overlapping): Are you alive, Marn?
[Ali snorts]
Keith: I’m taking the middle ground on this one.
Dre: Okay, okay, okay.
Art: Right, I think it’s just—
Austin: Yeah, we’ll see how it develops.
Art (overlapping): —it’s important to pick a—
Keith: Yeah.
Art: —pick a spot.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Back to the other group. How’s it going over at Blackwick HQ?
Keith: Um, are things a little better with not bleeding? Is that—have we—I don’t know how much of a dent that put into the laundry list of ailments.
Art: Oh, I’m basically fine.
Keith: Okay.
Art: I’m—it’s a lot of Fortune Fallout, but I’m...that’s gonna be fine.
Keith (overlapping): Oh, I can help with that too, actually.
Art: Oh yeah?
Keith: Yeah.
[Sylvi laughs]
Austin: Ooh—[laughs] hohoo! Haha! Sorry, I just remembered (laughing) how you can help with that.
Sylvi: Oh!
Austin: Also, you’re just helping with Duvall, huh?
Keith: I’m not a fuck—
Austin (overlapping): Y’all had beef last time we saw you.
Keith: (overlapping): —I’m not an asshole!
Austin: Okay! Yeah, I’m just-
Keith (overlapping): I mean, you know, this is our group, right? Like, you know.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, yeah, go ahead and help Duvall with the Fortune Fallout.
Keith: Okay.
Art: I don’t think this is in the top five...
Austin (overlapping): I’m excited to see how this goes.
Keith (overlapping): It is Fortune, yeah.
[Dre laughs in the background]
Art: ...beefs I’ve had with people.
Keith: Um...this season? That’s so many. Or ever?
Art: Ever.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Ever.
Keith: That’s fair.
Art: Beefs in the show—
Keith: Yeah.
Art: —not like in my real life.
Keith (overlapping): I think—
Austin (overlapping): Not real life beefs.
Art (overlapping): Probably not even in the top hundred beefs I’ve ever had in my life.
[Austin laughs]
Keith: I almost—[laugh] I almost thought—I almost mentioned, brought it up—when I was Healing the Fallout, but I think, you know, Lyke is like not about to not...heal people...
Austin: Right.
Keith: ...over a beef that is separate from this. Like, you know. If, uh...if Virtue was here, hitting people [laugh] and making them bleed, maybe I’d be like—like “Mm, [mumbling]” you know, “Made your own bed here, pal.”
[Sylvi laughs]
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: Um, but I—but instead, I open up my Sanctum of the Stone Chorus entryway.
Art: Oh my god.
Austin: Is the...
Jack (overlapping): Oh, nuts.
Austin: ...is that a roll? [Ali snorts] Is that a roll?
Keith: Um, I can’t—I think sometimes you’ve had me roll for this, and other times—yeah, this is a roll.
Austin: Yeah, it’s Discern Religion.
Keith (overlapping): This is a roll.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: (overlapping): Yeah. It’s been a while since it hasn’t been a roll.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: But yeah, it’s a roll. Discern Religion. Again, Mastery. Uh, Discern...
Austin: Yeah, you just have that—you have that for sure?
Keith: ...religion...
Austin: Definitely a spell.
Keith: Hm...another crit!
Austin: That’s a—another crit!Go ahead and open that door. Uh, hey, what’s the door look like? Lye?
Keith: Um, it’s...um...like one notch—one or two notches scarier than, like, a...um, a really well ivy-ed, you know, brownstone.
Austin: Yeah. Hey Duvall, you know this door. You saw this door in Roseroot Hall.
Art: Yeah I did. Yeah. Mhm.
Art [as Duvall]: Is this...
Keith [as Lyke]: Yeah, yeah! Yeah.
Art [as Duvall]: I hadn’t decided what the end of that question was, so your question is really surprising. [Laugh]
[Austin laughs]
Keith [as Lyke]: Oh, okay. Well you—yeah, ask it.
[Sylvi laughs, Janine groans]
Art [as Duvall]: I guess I had three—there are three candidates, and I’m just gonna assume that one has been answered. Is this—is this safe?
Keith [as Lyke]: Yeah. Yeah.
[Pause]
Art [as Duvall]: Is this still a secret?
Keith [as Lyke]: No, no. Well, I mean, it hasn’t—I haven’t spread it around. But, it’s also—no, not a secret.
Art [as Duvall]: (Uncertain) Okay. Okay. Okay. Great.
Janine: It makes me nervous that—
Austin (overlapping): As a reminder—oh, go ahead, sorry.
Janine: I was gonna say, it makes me nervous that Lye is talk—is talking as if an excitable Maltese dog was given a voice. [Several people laugh] It doesn’t help.
Art: It doesn’t hurt.
(Not actual roleplay dialogue, but playing as characters)
Keith (overlapping): “I’m excited, I—I did my project that I—well, you know, I’m still working on it. I’m still tinkering.”
Jack (overlapping): “Yeah, yeah! No, it’s fine. Yeah, yeah.”
Keith: “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.”
Jack: “There’s greenies in there, it’s fine.”
Keith: “Yeah.” [Laugh]
[Austin and Dre laugh]
Austin: [Groan] Alright. Um...who goes in here to get some Stress Healed? This is d8 Stress Heal form Echo, Fortune, or Supplies.
Dre: I mean I guess I’ll go in there.
Janine (overlapping): Oh, god.
Dre: ‘Cause I do have Fortune Stress.
Sylvi: I have no Stress right now.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah.
Janine (overlapping): (Responding to Dre) Me too...
Austin: Uh-huh.
Janine (overlapping): I should, but I hate it.
Dre: Okay, here’s the thing—
Austin (overlapping): Mhm.
Dre: —I’m actually torn on this decision, because I—I’m wanting and torn between the mechanic decision and the Chine decision. The Chine decision is—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah.
Dre: —once Chine processes that Marn is probably in a bad place somewhere, Chine does not give a shit about Healing Fortune Fallout.
Austin: Right. [Ali laughs] It’s time to go.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: So then maybe you should voice that and see if you are talked down from that impulse.
Dre (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: Also, by the way, the Creature, It, is licking up some of, um, Duvall’s waxen blood—
Dre (overlapping): That’s fine.
Austin: —bug blood? Okay, that’s fine?
Dre (overlapping): No that’s cool.
Austin (overlapping): Okay. Cool cool cool cool cool. [Janine groans] Good.
Dre: Somebody could slip on that! Um...
Austin: Yeah, true.
Dre [as Chine]: Okay. Es, Duvall, where did you last see Marn?
Janine [as Es]: [Sigh] Just outside of the train station, I guess? After it exploded.
Dre [as Chine]: Okay, um—
Art [as Duvall]: Yeah, it’s hard to talk about relative distance when something’s exploding.
Dre [as Chine]: Sure. That’s where I’m gonna go.
Janine [as Es]: I was—I was also a little bit amped up, so it’s all a little bit...[Ali snorts] it’s a complicated memory. [Chuckle]
Art [as Duvall]: Please wait.
Keith [as Lyke]: Yeah, we should, you know, make sure we’re prepared to go before we go. It’ll be quick.
Art [as Duvall]: It’s really dangerous there.
Dre [as Chine]: Uh, so was when I was in prison, and Marn came and got me. As did Pickman.
Art [as Duvall]: But they—
Janine [as Es]: Yeah, you...
Art [as Duvall]: Go ahead.
Janine [as Es]: I was gonna say, you know what we did before that is everyone got right (laughing) first.
Dre [as Chine]: I’m fine!
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): ‘Cause we were going into a scary prison.
Art [as Duvall]: We’ll go—we’ll all go right away. I promise. It’s safer to go together.
Dre [as Chine]: Okay, fine. [Sigh] I’ll be waiting out here.
Austin [as Alekest]: So you’re a Cleaver!
Austin: Says Alekest. Immediately just opening up small talk with you as they all go in this door.
[Art laughs in the background]
Art: Great.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Dre (overlapping): Is the door—does the door, like, close behind you all or something?
Keith: Uh, it does, yeah.
Dre: Okay, cool. As soon as it closes, I’m leaving.
[Austin sighs]
Sylvi [as Hazard]: What? What—hey!
Austin: I know Alekest—I think, yeah—
Sylvi (overlapping): I’m still there too!
[Ali laughs]
Austin: —Hazard’s here, yeah.
[Janine exhales a laugh]
Austin [as Alekest]: Come on, hey, hey.
[Pause]
[Ali snorts]
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Please hold one. You are one of the three people I know here now.
[Dre sighs]
[Janine groans]
Dre [as Chine]: Yes, and two of the people that I would really, really like to introduce you to might be dead somewhere.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Okay, then I can help! But, like, slow down!
Austin [as Alekest]: We can—
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Let me go with.
Austin [as Alekest]: Five or six of us going is going to be a lot safer than...just you.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: I got a cool gun now and everything. I can help.
Keith: Are the Clone Troopers still there?
[Sylvi laughs]
Austin: (Laughing) Yeah, but they’re just hanging out at this point.
[Sylvi sighs]
Ali: Are you saying Alekest is a Plo Koon? Is that what—[laugh]
Austin: Alekest does have kind of a Plo Koon vibe, actually.
[Keith laughs]
Ali: I know, I was just wondering—
Austin (overlapping): You’re not wrong.
Ali: —yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. [Laugh]
Austin: I think that his armor has, like, that style of embellishment that Plo Koon’s cool face mask thing has. Anyway. Uh...
Jack: I was—I was—real quick, I was—
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: —big—I was the leader of the Alekest-hating fan club. I got to say—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —on air, coming around on that guy. [Chuckle]
Austin: Yeah!
[Dre hums in agreement]
Ali: He’s—yeah! A stand-up guy.
Austin: That’s what I’m saying.
Keith: Hey, anyone that’s sort-of-a-Plo-Koon is alright with me.
[Ali and Austin laugh]
Jack: “Alekest: sort of a Plo Koon!”
[Austin laughs]
Austin [as Alekest]: So you gonna stay?
Dre [as Chine]: No, this was a very good argument that you all have made, and is probably right. [Austin sighs] But I’m leaving.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Okay, I’m coming.
Austin [as Alekest] (overlapping): Alright, well then I’m—I’m gonna come with you.
Ali: Aw...
Art: Oh my god. All I wanna do is spend time on screen with Chine, and it’s—
[several people burst into laughter]
Austin: Oh...let’s do this Healing as Chine, Alekest, and Hazard leave—
Sylvi: We—should we leave a note?
Austin: The Toll Collectors stay behind.
Sylvi: Before we leave?
Keith: If you leave a note—
Austin: Yes, leave a note.
Keith (overlapping): —we’re literally gonna be out before you’re done writing it. Like it’s so—it’s not—I mean, maybe a few minutes.
Sylvi (overlapping): Well then—
Austin: Eh, it takes time! It takes time.
Keith (overlapping): Okay. Okay.
Austin: You can’t just Heal fucking—
Jack (overlapping): I cannot believe this fucking crew—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, we have to meditate a little bit.
Jack: —is about to learn why not to leave a note.
Austin: Uh-huh. [Laugh]
[Keith laughs]
Austin: Um...you leave the note. Inside this place—what’s your—what’s the Fallout Heal? It’s d8?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Or the Stress Heal? Make it a d10. Make it a d10 ‘cause you got a crit on that—
Keith (overlapping): Nice.
Austin: —on that roll, so...boost step by 1.
Art (overlapping): Oh my god, I rolled so badly on this, is the thing.
Austin: I’m—very funny—what are you—what are you rolling for?
Art: I need 7 Fortune.
Austin: Okay! Could come right here!
Art: I know! But it won’t. I’m gonna get, like, a 2. Oh, wait how many 1’s am I on in a row? Is that streak—
Austin (overlapping): Oh...
Art: —still going, right?
Austin: That streak is still going, isn’t it. Might have to come all the way back up.
Keith: Out of ten, though—
Austin (overlapping): I think so.
Keith: —ten is such a big number.
Austin: You know, you’d be surprised. Just give me the roll. I believe in you.
Art: Got the same number of 1’s—okay, it’s a 6.
Austin: 6!
Keith (overlapping): Oh that's almost perfect.
Janine (overlapping): There you go!
Austin: (Laughing) The streak is broken.
Art (overlapping): It’s over.
Austin: The streak is over.
Keith (overlapping): Wow...
Austin: [Laugh] I’m making that face. [Sylvi laughs] Aw, Es, only 2.
Janine: I got 2, which is exactly what I needed. I only have 2 Fortune Stress, so...
Austin (overlapping): Oh! Nice.
Keith: (overlapping): Nice one.
Austin: Alright. Cool, cool, cool.
Keith: Uh, and then I would also like to have a d8 resource.
Austin: Oh, right. You just get one of these, huh?
Keith (overlapping): Yes, please. [Chuckle]
[Timestamp 01:00:00]
Austin: Um...let me—let me—here—[mumbles]
Keith (overlapping): I’m looking around, picking up branches. “What’s going on over here?”
Austin: No no no no no, don’t worry about it—
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: Don’t worry about it. It was a d8?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin (overlapping): Right? Give me a—give me a d—roll a d10 for me.
Keith: Um, 4.
Austin: Alright, so it is a Haven Domain resource. Um...and it’s—what tier—what level of resource is it—did you say it was? D6? D8?
Keith (overlapping): D8. I’m pretty sure, I’ll double check. But I’m—I think it’s d8. Yeah, “D8 value or lower.”
Austin: D8 value or lower. I’ll give you the d8. Uh, I think that it is a...it’s someone’s really nice...calligraphy set. Or like, writing set. It’s their pens, and...their paper...it’s like it fell out of a backpack or something.
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: Mhm. Why is that in there? I don’t know.
Keith: I’m—I’m...can’t worry about that right now. I’ll worry about this later, but—
Austin: Yeah yeah yeah, that’s a later—that’s a later—
Keith (overlapping): —for now I’m taking the calligraphy—
Austin (overlapping): —future Lyke...
Keith (overlapping): —it’s a future thing...
Austin: Yeah. Mhm. [Exhales a laugh]. Um...
Keith: You do—you gotta—you finish a project and you work out the kinks, but sometimes you gotta save the town first.
Austin: Yeah. Uh...
Keith (overlapping): People shouldn’t be so curious!
[Austin and Ali snort]
Austin: ...says Lye Lychen.
Keith: [Laugh] Maybe people who can’t handle themselves shouldn’t be so curious.
Austin: Hey Es, as someone who...also was part of this Aterika’Kaal stuff, how do you feel about all this?
Janine: I was just gonna type—I was just typing—[laugh]
Austin: Yeah, no, we should say it into the microphone.
Janine: I’m still gonna—aw, it didn’t show up! Fuck, I did the, like, carrot side-eye anime face.
[Ali, Austin, and Keith laugh]
Janine: Just like, “We don’t have time to get into this, but this is all...this is all some...” I mean, [sigh] you know, I—I, at the beginning of this season, established that heritrixes in general, including Es, don’t have a lot of recognition of, like, taboo knowledge and stuff like that. Because to them, it’s all—there’s a degree of, like, everything is kind of accessible, even the stuff that’s locked away.
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: So it’s kind of all just the same thing. But I think, here, she can at least recognize there’, like, a really strong material risk, kinda playing-with-fire vibe...
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: ...that is concerning, but also, we don’t have the time to get into it right now. IT’s just—we just have to—
Austin: Does the trust stuff hit at all? The idea that you were there when y’all stopped Aterika’kaal and meanwhile Lyke...
Janine: I mean...[laugh] so I think this is outside of the taboo thing, like...Es also knew Lyke from before, from a situation where they were both doing jobs—
Austin (overlapping): Mmm...[chuckle]
Janine: —and...he stole something.
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: And then they did a job to make up for it, and then she stole something.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: Mhm.
Janine: So there’s a degree to which it’s like, “Yeah, of course this is—of course—”
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Janine: “--of course this is happening.”
Austin: Yeah. Okay.
Janine: “This isn’t good, but also...but also it’s—”
Austin (overlapping): You would feel better if it was just a really nice globe that Lyke stole and kept. And instead it’s a baby god.
Janine: Yeah, also—yeah. And also would feel worse if, like, Duvall was the one who was fostering Aterika’kaal.
Austin (overlapping): Mm...mhm.
Art: Rude.
Janine: That the—
Austin (overlapping): Double standard, I gotcha. Alright, Chine, Hazard, along with Alekest, you’re heading back up towards the train station. It’s early day. The sun is—the suns are up. [Laugh] The dust is in the air. Some of the wind from that storm to the south is already getting here and is starting to just, kind of, make it one of those bad, dry, dusty days out. Ugh. Um, and yeah, there are just waxen thralls littering the roads. Who’s taking the lead on trying to get to this train station?
[Dre sighs]
Sylvi: I mean, it sounded like—fictionally, it sounded like Chine (laughing) was kind of doing that.
Austin: Oh yeah, you’re right. Chine, you’re taking the lead. Undoubtedly. What’s it look like? What is your technique for getting from point A to point B. The Creature’s wagging its tail. It’s on a little adventure, it’s happy.
Dre: Yeah, I mean, I—is anything in the way?
Austin: Yeah, these waxen thralls.
Dre: Oh, okay, so if we try to move through them—
Austin (overlapping): Filled. Streets filled.
Dre: Okay.
Sylvi: I mean, just in terms of, like—
Austin (overlapping): I mean, not filled—not, like, shoulder to shoulder. I should give you, like, a real quick—and I’ll come back to you in a second, Sylvi.
Sylvi (overlapping): Yeah, no problem.
Austin: You know. Um...it’s the zombie movie thing of there are...they are scattered throughout the streets. You know, it looks like there maybe only are a couple in any given little, you know, bit of square footage. But could there be more almost instantly? Probably.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: We know this as genre fans. I don’t know if Chine knows this because this is a particular style of creature that is literally new. And it’s not the way that Alaway worked previously.
Sylvi: So, I just want to say, like, mechanically speaking, if we’re trying to figure out, like, what we want to do here, I do have Sneak—
Austin: Mhm.
Sylvi: —and Haven, which, like—actually, I have Occult too, so I have (laughing) all the Domains here.
Austin: Mhm.
Sylvi: Um...so I can help with that.
Austin (overlapping): Up here, still Haven—
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: —with the Occult—with a little Occult splash, you know?
Sylvi (overlapping): Okay, yeah. So, um...if we want to do, like, a group Sneak, I can lead that because I also don’t have that much Stress right now. Um, is that how that works? I might be mixing that up with Blades in the Dark now that I think about it.
Austin: Mm, I think that that might be right? [Dre chuckles] It’s been a long time since we’ve done, like, a group check in this game in that way. But I think we tend to just do the thing where it’s, like, one person does a thing and the other person helps—
Sylvi: yeah.
Austin: —you know?
Sylvi: Um...yeah so, Chine, if you’ve got any way you’re inclined here. Like we said, you do kind of have the, um...the first glance at the situation...
Dre: Yeah, [sigh] so I guess the reason that I was confused was that it seemed like we didn’t have any trouble coming into town. But I guess we had not come in a—
Austin: Look at the map.
Dre: Okay—
Austin: Right?
Dre: —yeah yeah yeah. Okay.
Austin: You’re at the very edge of town. The Blackwick Group’s thing is not—you got a lot of distance to go between the edge of town and—and the train station.
Dre (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: Um, and there’s other smaller...you know...folks, you know, smaller, you know, houses and hovels and stuff further south than where this map is. But this is the town center and this where the thralls have kind of gathered for sure.
Dre (overlapping): Mhm.
Sylvi: Are we still...
Austin: Also, one of your—just so you know, uh, Chine, one of these green spaces is your childhood farm. You’re like right here.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: Just for the—
Sylvi: Oh, we’re—we’re here—
Austin (overlapping): —a little flavor. Yeah, you’re here at the Blackwick Group. Here’s Blackwick Group HQ, right?
Sylvi (overlapping): Okay, we haven’t even moved yet. Okay.
Austin: I mean, you’re gonna have to roll to move anywhere here today.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Dre: Um....um—are these houses, like, tall enough that we could just go across the rooftops?
Austin: (Interested) Mm! Uh, you couldn’t cross—you couldn’t cross the streets that way, but you could—once you get to a side of a street, you could climb up and that might help. I like that technique.
Dre (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: That’s a fun technique.
Sylvi: Hell yeah. Um, I’m—
Austin: Uh, what are you suggesting using there?
Dre: Um...Evade?
Austin: Yeah...I’ll say Evade, um...as a—the way we’ve played that, right, is like Evade is “We’re moving quicker than they can keep up.”
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: But it’s not “They’re not gonna see us.” So, totally an acceptable strategy, but...you know. That’s what you’ll be doing.
Dre: Yeah. That sounds good.
Austin: At that feels, like a Chine-like maneuver to me—
Dre (overlapping): Yeah.
Sylvi (overlapping): Yeah.
Dre: Mhm.
Austin: —so...uh, and you’re helping here, Hazard?
Sylvi (overlapping): I am helping, yeah, I—that is one of the—
Austin: Alright.
Sylvi (overlapping): —main reasons I came, (laughing) is so I could help with rolls.
Austin: Yes. [Sylvi laughs] This is wise. Alright, this is a Risky maneuver.
Dre: Okay. Uh, what Domain are we in?
Austin: Uh, Haven or Occult. Do you have anything you can eat to give you Haven or Occult?
Dre: Oh, I have the Ravening Beast Needles.
Austin: Oh! Yeah, those are good to eat.
Sylvi: Yummy!
Dre (overlapping): Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Austin: Mhm.
Dre: Yummy, yummy.
Ali: Didn’t you side-eye your dog over that? [Laugh]
Austin: Huh? What was that? [Ali snorts] Oh.
Ali: Last episode Chine was like “Don’t eat that!” And now...
Dre: I’m a grow-up, I know what I’m doing.
Sylvi: It’s people food!
Austin (overlapping): But, Chine—[laugh]
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Chine did seem fine—[hiccup] excuse me—getting Healed with that blood, or having it’s—the Beast be healed—somebody got Healed with the—oh, no, it was Lyke who got Healed with that blood. I forgot. That’s who it was. [Ali laughs] Lyke, the—fucking Aterika’kaal just shoved the fucking Ravening Beast blood back into you, so—[laugh]
Keith: Yeah, I remember that.
Ali: Oh...
[Sylvi laughs]
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: Yeah...
Sylvi: Mhm.
Ali: Mhm.
Keith: It worked, though. Right?
Austin: Yeah! Sure. Mhm.
Keith (overlapping): It worked and I don’t even have Ravening Beast anymore.
Ali: (Interested) Hm...
Keith: I have Ravening Call—
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: —so.
Austin: Which is different—it’s never hurt anybody—so—
Keith (overlapping): It’s different, it doesn’t hurt anybody unless you count in your dreams.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: Right. Right right right. Alright, time for this roll. What do you got, Chine? What are you rolling?
Dre: Um...quick question.
Austin: Yeah?
Dre: Oh boy. Dammit, are we gonna have to, like, hand-wave all this stuff? ‘Cause I’m realizing looking at Red Feast, one—
Austin: Mhm.
Dre: —um, would Ravening Beast Needles count as tough or noxious materials?
[Pause]
Austin: Yeah...
Dre (overlapping): Okay. Um, consuming a resource also requires my attention and leaves me exposed.
Austin: You could’ve eaten that before you left the room.
Dre (overlapping): Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Austin: That’s not, yeah yeah yeah. I’m not gonna make you sneak to eat in this case.
Dre (overlapping): Yeah. But does that also give it—
Austin: Yeah.
Dre (overlapping): —enough time that people would be leaving out of the portal, I guess is my thought.
Austin: No.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: No, the—going to that Portal to Heal, Healing takes about an hour. You have about an hour in there. It should take you about 40 minutes to, like, do the thing that Heals you. So that it’s not—otherwise, what we’re—we’re really kind of making it not material or real. Which, at that point, it’s just a healing spell, and that’s not what’s fun to me as a storyteller.
Dre: Alright. So I will do my Endure and Cursed check to avoid causing myself harm.
Austin (overlapping): Yes, and you have those.
Dre: Yep.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: I do. Uh...I assume that’s a Standard.
Austin: Yeah, that’s a Standard. Hey, that’s an 8, no Stress, love it! Yum yum yum. Eat those needles.
[Sylvi laughs]
Art: That’s what they say!
Austin (overlapping): They’re like—
[Sylvi continues laughing]
Art: “Yum yum, yum, eat those needles.”
Dre: Mhm...
Austin: [Laugh] They’re like pine needles, you know? Blackened pine needles, it’s fine.
Dre: Okay, so—
Austin: A little—little—make a little soup.
Dre: I’ll take the Occult Domain.
Austin: Mhm.
Art: We started on such a wholesome soup note, and [Austin laughs] now we’re here.
Dre: Risky and then plus 1 from...
Austin: Yup.
Dre: Okay.
Sylvi: (Distressed) Oh! No!
Austin: Oh, that’s a 5 isn’t it? 7, 5, 4.
Dre (overlapping): Uh-huh.
Austin: Wait, [mumbling] wait wait wait wait wait. Wait wait wait. Is that roll right? That roll—I think you have one more die, don’t you? Because you have Occult now.
Dre: Yeah, I do.
Austin: Right?
Dre: (Confused) Why is—mmm...
Austin: Oh no, that’s right. Evade, plus Occult—no, yeah, you’re missing one. You’re missing one.
Sylvi (overlapping): You’re missing the extra die from me.
Dre (overlapping): Oh no I rolled Sneak—I hit Sneak by accident.
Austin: You hit Sneak. Alright, just give me one more die. And hope it’s a—higher than one of these.
[Sylvi bursts out laughing]
Dre: Nope.
Austin (overlapping): It’s not.
Dre: Let’s go, baby...
Austin: That’s a—it’s a—
Sylvi (overlapping): Great!
Austin: —another 5, isn’t it? Mhm!
Dre: Mhm. Mhm
Sylvi: I think if it was higher than a 7, we would’ve gotten the 7. Is 7 Partial or a Fail?
Austin: 7’s a Partial.
Sylvi: Oh, okay.
Austin: 6 is a Partial, isn’t it?
Sylvi: Oh, I don’t know, I thought—
Keith (overlapping): No, 6 is Fail.
Austin (overlapping): I think 6, 7...no, 6—
Art (overlapping): No one knows how this game works.
[Keith laughs]
Sylvi: It’s true.
Art: The game—the—Roll20 does it for us. [Laugh]
Austin: I’m pretty sure...[laugh]
Art: 6 is “Success at a Cost.” I don’t know about the [indiscernible] one, ya know...
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, 6-7 is...
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: ...yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: Well—
Austin (overlapping): Alright—
Sylvi (overlapping): —it’s fine.
Austin: —um, well, Chine?
Keith (overlapping): Although is—is there anything better than a “Wait, you have one more die to roll” that’s just also a total failure. That’s such a fun...
[Ali snorts]
Austin: Mm, yeah...
Keith: I mean now it’s terrible. Sorry, Dre.
[Several people burst out laughing]
Austin: Chine, take 2 Fortune Stress.
Dre: What’s the Tier here?
Austin: Oh, good question. What is the Tier in...here and—I think it’s probably a 2 at this point. Up here? Given all this? So I think you’re good.
Dre (overlapping): Yup.
Austin: Uh...uh...however, [Sylvi laughs] Hazard—
Sylvi: Oh, I take 1!
Austin: Oh, take 1. There you go.
Sylvi: That’s fine.
Austin: Yeah. Give me your, uh—
Sylvi (overlapping): I still need to roll, right?
Austin: You do still need to roll.
Sylvi: I rolled an 11, I’m fine.
Austin: No Fallout. Nice roll.
Sylvi: [Mumbling]--there was a second where I misread that and thought I rolled a 1 and was...[Austin sighs] [groans at the unpleasant thought].
Austin: That would’ve been bad. That would’ve been bad. Um, Chine your Echo Stress should also only be 2. Your Echo protection. Uh, it does not stack with additional protection.
Dre (overlapping): Well, no, because I have a +1 and a +2.
Austin: Oh, I see! You have “In the Blood” and you have “Vessel.” Yes, that does—yeah, that overrides “Heartsblood” then. Um...okay! Uh...the—you make—you make it over these rooftops. You make it through the streets. You do gain the attention of some of these thralls, which as you run past then, you’re increasingly unsure of what their deal is. Sometimes they turn and, like, begin to move towards you pretty rapidly and you just outpace them as a group. Other times, you run right past them and they don’t seem to move. But soon enough, after, you know, a ten-minute room. Maybe—probably longer than that. I guess you’re running pretty quick. But jumping from rooftop to rooftop seems hard. You do make it to the ruins of the train station. Uh, there’s a bunch of fuckin’ blood out here, the—[chuckle] the building has been destroyed. There is—there is—it looks like there was a bunch of exploded wax, and then it kind of dragged itself away, maybe? Or something came and got it, is probably more likely. Or, like, collected it overnight? Um...so that’s gross. There’s just, like, still bits of it places. And the building is just utterly destroyed. So...um...what are the three of you looking for?
Sylvi: Uh...
Dre: Hm...
Sylvi: [Laughs] I mean we’re looking for Marn and Pickman specifically.
Dre: Yeah...
Sylvi: But I don’t know, like, what we’re looking for...
Dre: I—I’ve been around—
Sylvi (overlapping): ...signs-wise.
Dre: —Marn and/or Pickman when they have been, like, hurt before, right?
Austin: Oh yeah!
Dre: Okay.
Austin: Sure.
Dre: Um...
Austin: Uh, almost certainly, right? Let me think.
Dre: I definitely have been around Pickman taking, like, physical hard damage.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah...
Ali: Yeah, we—we all went to...the Hymn of the Mother Beast together...
Sylvi: Yes.
Austin: Yes...
Ali: And both Marn and Pickman got, like—
Jack: Oh, yeah, messed up by...
Ali: Like cut-wounded. So, yeah.
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: Mhm.
Austin: Mhm.
Dre: Um—
Austin: There you go.
Dre: —can I be a—a bloodhound?
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah! Are you smelling? What’s this look like?
Dre: Probably smelling. I don’t think I’ve ever had—
Austin: Mmm...[laugh]
Dre (overlapping): —the chance to—to taste somebody’s blood, so...
Austin: No...I don’t—well, I don’t—well...I don’t think so.
Dre: Not Marn or Pickman’s.
Austin: No. Exactly. Certainly not.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Um...
Dre: Dang, if only Virtue was still here...
Austin (overlapping): ...yeah, you...[Pause. Sylvi laughs, Ali sighs] You absolutely are able to, uh...to give me a roll. This sounds like a Hunt roll.
Dre (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: “Track down someone or something that’s trying to get away from you.” In this case, you know, I don’t think Marn is trying to get away from you—or Pickman—but, like, you know. I think Hunt works there. Um, and—and try to...sniff it out.
Dre: Uh, is this Standard or Risky?
[Timestamp 01:15:00]
Austin: [Pause] Um, are you just trying to...I think it’s gonna stay Risky, ‘cause you’re presumably following the—the trail, right? And that means you have to move back—back through, you know, populated territory, in a sense. You know? [Pause while Dre rolls.] Oh my god...
Dre (overlapping): Hell yeah!
Austin: Is this the right number again? Also, wait, wait, wait—were you gonna Help—could you Help here, Hazard?
Sylvi: I do—I have Occult, so I could Help if you wanna do the...[laugh] the “One more die left” special.
[Dre laughs]
Austin: One more time.
Sylvi: And also—this is still Risky.
Austin: This is still Risky, yeah.
Sylvi (overlapping): Just wanted to make sure.
Austin: It is marked as such, yeah.
Sylvi: (Muffled) Okay.
Dre: Okay. Alright.
Austin: Well, there you go.
Dre: We saved it.
Austin: There’s the 8. You’re safe. You got two 8’s—8, 8, 3, 5. That second 8 from Hazard.
Keith (overlapping): That’s luck.
Austin: So you do get a Success—a Full Success. You begin to follow this back, and I think you probably keep to the rooftops again. I think Alekest is like—
Austin [as Alekest]: We just came from this way. What—[laugh] you couldn’t pick up the trail a little earlier?
Dre [as Chine]: Uh, you’re welcome to leave or do something else.
[Austin sighs as Alekest]
Austin: And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the smell leads you towards the Triadic Pyre’s big church on the western side of town. Um...they’re definitely in there somewhere. But as you get closer, it’s like the smell gets harder and harder to follow because the Triadic Pyre is burning—is burning not just their regular fuel. They’re burning other things, also. The smell is...is very confused here. Um...[groans] there is a smell mixed in here that you recognize besides the yellow—the Yellowfield candle smell and the wax smell. There’s something else here, but without a roll, not gonna give you exactly what it is. ‘Cause it’s a very small thing. Uh, this won’t be a Risky roll, but if you wanted to do, like, a Discern, Chine, you could.
Dre: Um...
Austin: I don’t know if you have Discern.
Dre: I don’t, and also, I don’t—I still think—I don’t think Chine cares.
Austin (overlapping): You don’t care.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: I—
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: —can I try—I guess I wouldn’t smell.
Austin: You don’t know what it is.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: You have—the thing that—the specific thing—you can’t place it.
Sylvi: Yeah, that’s fine.
Austin: Um, it’s a very specific place that Chine happened to be at at one point. Um, let’s go back down to the other Blackwick Group while—or, the rest of the Blackwick Group in Blackwick Group HQ come back out the door, presumably, to find only the Knights of Virtue there. [Laugh] Chine, Alekest, and Hazard have left. They left a note behind. [Sylvi laughs] Before you can even get to the note, though, Agdeline is like —
Austin [as Agdeline]: Oh yeah, they left.
Art: So, like, now we just make all the same rolls they did?
[Keith laughs, Sylvi joins in]
Sylvi: That’s in character.
[Austin laughs]
Keith: Seems like it.
Art: Great.
Keith [as Lyke]: Hey, do you three wanna come?
Austin: Yall—[pause]
Austin [as Agdeline]: No.
[Jack groans]
Keith [as Lyke]: You don’t owe us a little bit for helping...all of you?
Austin [as Agdeline]: We—we brought you all back up here!
Keith [as Lyke]: We would’ve—we were coming this way anyway.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): We’d be here anyway.
Austin [as Agdeline]: And we gave you a ride!
Keith [as Lyke]: You were coming this way anyway.
[Austin sighs]
Austin: Ettel’s like—
Austin [as Ettel]: Well maybe we should help—help ‘em out.
Austin: And Larch is like—
Austin [as Larch]: Come on, Agdeline.
Austin: And Agdeline is like—
Austin [as Agdeline]: [Sigh] Fine...but you owe us.
Keith [as Lyke]: Wouldn’t it—
Austin [as Agdeline]: We’ll do it, but you owe us.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): Talk to Virtue about who owes who.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Yeah.
Art [as Duvall]: No, no, I—[mumbling] I said—I’m not agreeing with you.
Austin [as Agdeline]: I—you should. Agree with me.
Art [as Duvall]: You didn’t respond to what I said. [Laugh]
Austin [as Agdeline]: You should agree with me.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): I said something, you said “Yes,” but a—an antagonistic “Yes.”
Austin [as Agdeline]: Mhm.
Keith [as Lyke]: What did you ask? Duvall?
Art [as Duvall]: I said “Ask Virtue who owes who.”
Keith [as Lyke]: Oh, yeah, good point.
Austin [as Agdeline] (overlapping): And I—[laugh]
Keith [as Lyke]: Ask Virtue who owes who.
Austin: It doesn’t work coming from you, (laughing) Lyke.
Keith: Well, but it’s Duvall.
Austin [as Agdeline]: We’ll help you, but you’ll owe us one. It’s as simple as that.
Keith [as Lyke]: No, you owe us one now. This is the one you owe us.
Austin [as Agdeline]: No. We gave—we paid you back the one we owed you by riding up here with you.
Art [as Duvall]: You didn’t pay—I—you owe me!
[Sylvi laughs]
Keith [as Lyke]: You also do owe Duvall.
Austin [as Agdeline] (overlapping): I don’t owe you. I don’t owe Duvall! We don’t owe Duvall.
Keith [as Lyke]: Duvall’s the queen-maker of Sapodilla!
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): Virtue owes me.
[Ali laughs]
Austin [as Agdeline]: I’m not Virtue. I can’t—I can’t authorize a payment of favor on behalf of Virtue! Of our queen, our liege.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): Fine, I don’t want—I don’t want—I don’t want this. Go. Leave. Do whatever you’re doing.
Janine [as Es]: Uh—
Art [as Duvall]: Go finish your—finish your trip.
Janine [as Es]: Wha—[sigh]
Keith [as Lyke]: Okay, I’ll owe you but Duvall won’t.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): We’re off to a—
Austin [as Agdeline]: As long as one of you owes us. You’re asking us to put our lives on the line, and we do that professionally for the people of Sapodilla. And we’ve done that by coming here with supplies for the town. And we’ve done our duty, and we are supposed to get back to Sapodilla. As much as my two comrades here want to throw their lives on the fire out a sense of chivalry—
Keith [as Lyke]: Okay.
Austin [as Agdeline]: —and nobility, it’s my job as their commander to prevent them from doing that.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): See, we could be gone by that. We wouldn’t even be listening to this.
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): Okay, I’m setting up the terms. Either you accept our help dealing with the...Cult of the Seventh Sun as the one that you owe us, or...you can go. [Pause] That’s the one that we’re willing to owe you, is helping with them.
Janine [as Es]: We haven’t even talked about what we would owe! I—like...
Austin [as Agdeline]: A favor!
Janine [as Es]: I can’t just, like, give you stuff?
Austin [as Agdeline]: No! [Janine groans] We’re out of that business now.
Janine [as Es]: Yeah...
Austin [as Agdeline]: You might—you might remember that we—
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): Didn’t go well for you.
Austin [as Agdeline]: No...we didn’t have nice capes.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): Everyone has stuff. That’s why we call it “stuff.”
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): Hey, how about the—how about that time that I saved your life? Maybe this is the time that you can repay me for that.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Oh, that was a different one.
Keith [as Lyke]: And you don’t—you don’t have each other’s back like that?
Austin [as Agdeline]: I can’t repay someone else’s—you’re not even listening anymore.
Art: I don’t think this is how memory works.
Janine (overlapping): Es is so confused.
Keith: No there’s multiple bodies.
Janine (overlapping): Es is wildly confused.
Art: But if you have the memories, you have the same debt.
Keith: No, they only have the same memories from before—
Austin (overlapping): No, no, no, no, no—
Keith: —they got spit out, and then they’re divergent.
Austin (overlapping): Mmm...yes.
Janine: So they—they do have...the same...
Keith: Childhoods.
Austin: No, no, no. From a year ago. Yeah, childhood, birthdays, and whatnot. But since you—
Janine: Okay...
Austin (overlapping): —since we’ve come out, different ones.
Keith (overlapping): Right. They’re, like, [Sylvi laughs] shadow clowns.
Janine: Es has been confused about, like, why Agdeline’s not, like, treating her weird.
Austin: Yeah, that’s why.
Keith: Yeah.
Janine: (Sighing) Okay.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Fine, we’ll owe—you’ll owe us—[sigh] for the other thing, but not this.
Keith [as Lyke]: Okay.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Alright. And just you. That’s fine.
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): I’m not even sure we needed them.
Austin [as Agdeline]: Bodies are bodies.
Janine [as Es] (overlapping): Help is help. [Laugh]
Art: [Laugh] If they die doing this, we don’t owe anyone anything.
Ali: Hm...
Austin: Uh, so th—
Janine (overlapping): Well there you go, then you win. [Laugh] Then you’ve cheated the system.
Austin: Where do y’all head?
Keith: Well, they went...just through the streets, right?
Austin (overlapping): To the train station.
Keith: But just—but—
Austin: They went all on the rooftops, is how they went.
Keith: Right, through the rooftops. So do we know—I mean it’s—Duvall and Es are here, so they know that it’s the train station. So I guess—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: —that we’re going to the same place. Um...they’re doubling back, so are we just gonna meet them in the middle?
Art (overlapping): And we just did this trip.
Austin: I think you might just meet them—there’s a chance you’ll see them on a rooftop looking at the Triadic Pyre.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Right?
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: But you’re still gonna have to make a roll to get up there, right? Up to—up to—from where you are, up to where the Triadic Pyre is safely.
Keith (overlapping): Okay, and that’s—that’s—
[Austin mumbles something indiscernible]
Art: Sure, I remember this as being a good Delve group. I remember this being—
Keith: Yeah, can Delve.
Art: —a good...
Keith: I can Delve with the best of them.
Art (overlapping): I can also Delve...
Janine: Is this a Delve?
Austin (overlapping): I will say, this is—this is literally not a Delve—[Art laughs]
Janine: Okay.
Austin (overlapping): More importantly, the sort of skills that Delving is—
Art: Is it figuratively a Delve? [Laugh]
Austin: No. [Keith and Art laugh] I don’t think so.
Art: You’re—
Austin: It’s a “Move through the streets without being seen or caught—”
Keith: Mm.
Austin: “--or forced into a violent situation.”
Keith: Yeah, I can—I can do that.
Austin: This is not, like, cliff-climbing, you know?
Keith (overlapping): I have Sneak! I have my Sneak [Sylvi laughs] and it’s always not Dangerous, remember?
Austin: I don’t.
Keith (overlapping): I have—I got that move “Mark of the Shadow.”
Austin: Hm...
Keith: (Reading) “You can conceal your activities from rivals and superstitious fools—”
Austin (overlapping): That’s really useful.
Keith: “--with a mark etched on your skin. When you speak the right words, you become hard to notice. Gain the Sneak skill. Hiding from someone or something is always a Standard action for you, never Risky or Dangerous.”
Austin: Alright, give me a—give me the roll. Who’s Helping? Is anyone Helping?
Art: What are the Domains on this again?
Austin: I guess both of you should probably—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Janine (overlapping): I—
Austin: Uh...this is—
Janine (overlapping): I have Sneak, I can just Help.
Austin (overlapping): Haven Occult—
Keith: Yeah—
Austin: —at this point.
Keith: And—
Janine: I have Sneak and Occult.
Art (overlapping): I have Occult.
Austin: Alright.
Keith (overlapping): And we’re—we’re—this is a Spell, I believe. This is a mark—magic mark on my skin.
Austin: Mmm, I don’t think that’s a Spell.
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: I don’t—that’s not a—you’re not casting a Spell to move through town.
Keith: Um...
Ali: Yeah, but any old—
Austin: I get that you are—
Ali: —any old Joe could put a mark on their skin and not...
Keith: It’s a magic mark! It’s a Spell mark.
Ali: ...be invisible.
Austin: It’s not a Spell. You’re not casting a Spell.
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Ali: [Mumbling].
Austin: Keith.
Keith: Look, I gotta get the re—the dice where I can get ‘em.
Austin: Yeah, I get it. [Ali laughs] I get it.
Keith: [Sigh] Okay. Does anyone else—this is—so this is Haven—Sneak Haven or Sneak Occult.
Austin: Or Sneak Occult.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I have both.
Austin (overlapping): I think both people are Helping.
Keith: And both people are Helping. Is that two dice? You get one each?
Austin: One each.
Keith: Okay. That’s a 9.
Austin: And that’s a 9. Alright. So...the—
Art: Oh, I don’t, like, confer Risky, right? Because of the thing?
Austin: I thought about it, but look, it doesn’t matter. I thought about making that happen because...a combination of that and “Does Lyke’s thing extend over the whole party? Or does it just protect him?” But he rolled a 9 and an 8, so—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —you’re fine, anyway. Even if I was gonna be That Person about it. Um, you manage to get through town safely, sneaking between hordes of these zombies and getting to this, kind of, big crossroad across from the Triadic Pyre and you see Chine leap from one rooftop to another one, [chuckles] and start sniffing the air.
Keith [as Lyke]: Oop, there they are.
Art: They had an—they had an hour head start on us.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Can I wave?
Art: That’s—[laugh]
Keith: I—
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: The buildings are really spread out, so—[laugh]
Keith: Dre, I can’t remember. Did you actually need to Heal and you ignored that? Or did—
Dre: Yup.
Austin: Oh yeah, Dre has like 5 Fortune Stress.
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Jack: Mm. Sometimes you gotta play the character.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: Yes! Exactly.
Keith: And, hey, heading out, uh—heading out when everyone’s like “Please, no, don’t go yet” is exactly how Chine (laughing) gets all that Fortune Stress.
[Sylvi laughs]
Dre: Mhm.
Keith: Um...
Art: You didn’t even get there faster than us.
Keith (overlapping): No...
Austin: Well, y’all didn’t go do the Investigation, so...
Keith (overlapping): Right, but I’m definitely—
Austin: It’s faster.
Keith: —I’m definitely gonna treat this a little bit like...[Ali laughs] that doesn’t matter.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: And—
Ali: It’s not Chine’s fault we were across the street.
[Keith laughs]
Austin: [Laugh] it’s true.
Janine: Also, there’s been some...information gathering, kind of.
Austin: That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Janine (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: It’s not like that trip was not worth it.
Keith: No, totally.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: We did something! Come on! [Ali laughs]
Austin (overlapping): Mhm. [Ali continues laughing] In any case, the group, uh, [Janine sighs] reconvenes...
Art [as Duvall] (overlapping): No one’s mad at you, Hazard.
Sylvi: Good.
[Ali and Austin laugh]
Austin: The group reconvenes, looking out at the Triadic Pyre building.
Keith [as Lyke]: (Sarcastically) Nice note.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: (Genuinely) Thank you! [Austin sighs, Art laughs] He was serious about that, right?
Keith [as Lyke]: No.
Art [as Duvall]: No, but no one’s mad at you, Hazard.
Austin [as Alekest] (overlapping): Almost certainly not.
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): Yeah.
Sylvi [as Hazard]: Thanks.
[Austin laughs]
Janine: I’m surprised there wasn’t a little, like, “If you’d—if you’d come in and Healed, you could have written it with the calligraphy set and it would’ve been nicer...”
[Keith and Ali laugh]
Keith [as Lyke]: So what’s the—what did you learn? What—what intel have you gathered?
Dre [as Chine]: [Sigh] Their scent leads here.
Keith [as Lyke]: Okay. Anything else?
Art [as Duvall]: Mmm...
Dre [as Chine]: Did you know they were here?
Keith [as Lyke]: No, I’m just asking. Anything else?
Dre [as Chine]: No.
Keith [as Lyke]: Okay.
Dre [as Chine]: We were about to go inside.
Austin: Uh, it is—that building is surrounded by these zombies.
Dre: Mmm [in the tone of “I don’t know”], like I said, we’re about to go inside.
Janine: [Sarcastically] Yeah, just talk to them, it’ll be fine.
Keith: Um, let’s—I wanna know...
Art: You know what’s probably good...at getting rid of a bunch of wax zombies?
Ali: Mmm...
Janine: Fire?
Keith (overlapping): Buggies?
Sylvi (overlapping): Is it bugs?
Art: A swarm of bugs! [Laugh]
Austin: I—like, it’s truly a lot. Uh, we’re talking about—
Art: It says “Spread.”
Austin: Oh, yeah, fair, [Ali laughs] okay. I’ll read “Spread.” I’ll—
Keith (overlapping): Oh, this is that—this is that one thing that Duvall did in that first session—
Austin: Yes.
Keith (overlapping): —that was awesome.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Yeah, it has a hundred percent massive group kill rate. [Keith wheezes laughing]
Austin (overlapping): That’s not true, you tried it again recently and it didn’t go as well.
Keith (overlapping): (Laughing) That’s a fifty percent...
Jack (overlapping): Didn’t it not do...
Art (overlapping): Hundred percent—
Jack: ...shit. It didn’t do anything the second time you (laughing) tried it.
[Austin laughs]
Art: No one knows what either of you are talking about. [Laugh]
Austin: (Disbelieving) Mmm...
Art: It’s a hundred percent—
Jack: Also, I wanna—
Austin: Mhm...
Jack: —when you say, like, there are a lot of these wax things—
Austin: Dozens.
Jack: We’re talking about, like...in the way that in, like, the Resident Evil remakes and things, there are buildings just completely, completely swimming in zombies? Or is it fewer than that?
Austin: At this point—no, it’s fewer than that. But the road we’ve—I’ve been describing the roads as having a few here and there where they’re not shoulder-to-shoulder. The ones around the Triadic Pyre building are shoulder-to-shoulder.
Keith: Like, they’ve been—
Jack (overlapping): Great.
Keith: —they’re guards.
[Pause]
Austin: Mm, or left there—yes—
Keith (overlapping): Right. Left there as guards...
Austin (overlapping): —yeah, whether intentional or not, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jack: (Sighing) Oh, yikes...
[Pause]
Janine: There’s a kind of moth that eats wax. Just putting that out there.
Austin: Sure. I’m not saying a roll won’t do something here, but this is a—
Jack (overlapping): Oh, I’m safe inside the wax room. You know.
[Sylvi laughs, Ali hums in agreement]
Austin: You’re—yeah, you’re—no, yeah, you’re safe. [Janine laughs] You’re good. You’re warm under the canopy...
Art (overlapping): Safe is...
Jack: Well now we’ve got orange. [Laugh]
Austin: But there is not a single roll [Art laughs] you can—well, the—you’re not gonna do any amount of damage that opens up a door for...uh, let’s count really quick. Es, Chine, Lyke, Duvall, Alekest, Agdeline, Hazard, Larch, and Ettel to all safely move in at once. I mean, I guess there’s an amount of damage, but it’s—
Art (overlapping): Yeah, what about that time I did a million damage?
Austin: If you did a million damage again, I would let that be the thing. [Ali laughs] But it would also be starting a [Janine sighs] big fucking fight.
Ali: Lock arms and run forward.
Art (overlapping): I think it’s ending a big fight.
[Sylvi laughs]
Keith: And the reality—
Janine: (Uncertain) Mmm...
Keith (overlapping): —also is that it was—it was, like, 36 damage, right?
Austin: It was 36 or 33 damage [Ali laughs in the background], yeah. Yeah.
Janine: Also, isn’t it, like—
Austin (overlapping): Which is a lot.
Janine: —gonna take forever?
Sylvi: We can try and—
Janine (overlapping): Probably.
Sylvi: —pull some of them away from the door. Was what I was thinking. Start a distraction somewhere? But, um...that would also probably lead to us splitting up a bit again, and I don’t know how much people wanna do that.
Keith: These three are—these three can be the distraction.
Austin [as Agdeline]: [Scoffs] No. We’re here to help you. We’re not here to throw our lives away.
Keith [as Lyke] (overlapping): That would be such a good help! Such a big—
Sylvi [as Hazard]: That would be really helpful.
Janine: Can we—can we get, like, a more detailed description of, like, this building and the—in terms of what we have access to?
Austin: Yeah, I think we’ve described it as being a very imposing church. It has a large front door that is shut, like a—“large” as in 12 feet tall. Kind of a big iron door that has been shut here. Presumably there maybe are some other ways in around the building. As you can see on the very silly map, there is a big flame coming out of the top front of it.
[Timestamp 01:30:14]
Keith: Pyre spire.
Austin: A pyre spire, yeah, uh-huh. Um, and that’s kind of the vibe? I don’t—you know, I don’t think it’s a particularly—maybe there are, high up, some, like, glass—stained glass windows with the three members of the Triadic Pyre kind of, you know, in stained glass there. Also, just from up here, just to again give you the vibe of the city in morning. To the far north, up near the Open Hand Trade Hall, you can see miners milling about, some of them with...uh, binoculars or with...what are they called? No telescopes, but...spyglasses, looking down into town. A lot of them have muskets, some of them have other types of guns. Those are the kind of deputies—or, self-appointed—I guess magistrate-appointed deputies who have taken over the top part of town. You can see that there are, to the south, from this higher vantage point, you can see into a broken window into the Boundless Conclave. And in the Boundless Conclave you can see that that is where Stanislaka and Kerr Kern are set up to try to take care of the people who have managed to get inside of the Boundless Conclave. Getting past some of the thralls at some point. Remember the thralls really only popped off last night. And then have spread overnight. So a lot of people you can see from this higher vantage point into the Boundless Conclave, that’s a place where people have, like, taken refuge. And you can tell that there are people spread throughout the town, still inside of their homes, peeking out their windows worried as hell about what is happening.
Keith: Do you think—
Austin: So that’s the kind of vibe. Automat, town council, abandoned currently. [Dry laugh]
Keith: Do you think maybe we can get the militia to start...shooting at and drawing away...the group? Do they even work like that?
Austin: I don’t know. You haven’t met them.
Keith: Sorry, I mean, do the wax things even work like that. Like if something's, like, throwing rocks or shooting at—are they gonna start—
Austin: We haven’t—we have not seen anyone test any of that stuff on screen.
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Dre (overlapping): Oh...
Austin: So you—that’s—right? We haven’t seen anybody fuck with anything—
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: —like that yet. I don’t think.
Keith: Well, Lyke is gonna—
Jack (overlapping): We didn’t really fight these guys—
Austin (overlapping): Uh...
Keith (overlapping): —put that forward as a possibility. We can use the militia to try and draw them away by shooting at them with muskets and stuff.
[Pause]
Dre: ...that works. And if they say no—
Keith (overlapping): ‘Cause I don’t think that we wanna get bogged down in a big fight.
Dre: No. If they say no, we can just, like, steal explosives from the mine.
Keith: Right. Or borrow explosives from—
Sylvi (overlapping): Where’s all that dynamite when we need it?
Art (overlapping): We’ve really started doing a lot of explosives as a group.
[Ali laughs, Janine chuckles]
Sylvi: They’re fun!
Art (overlapping): Yeah, we went from “Never doing explosives” to “It feels like we’re reaching for explosives right away now.” [Laugh]
Sylvi: (laughing) You calling us a one-trick pony?
Art (overlapping): I’m not—I’m not saying no. I’m just saying we should—if we do a post-mortem on this, we should really talk about it. [Laugh]
Janine: I think it was just ‘cause we had so many explosives—
Ali (overlapping): Yeah...
Janine: —for a little while there—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah...yeah...
Janine: —that it was, like, one of those things where, like, when you buy too much pasta, [several people laugh] and then you’re making a lot of pasta for a little while.
Sylvi: Yeah!
Austin: Sure. Uh, let’s cut back to the other group while y’all chew on this.
Janine (overlapping): Mhm.
Austin: Hey Marn, how you feeling, buddy?
Ali: Probably not ideal.
Austin: Not great. No. Um...what are y’all up to? Uh, Bucho is very happy that you are okay, Marn.
Jack: Yeah, I mean I have to assume that, like, the first chunk of time is...
Jack [as Pickman]: How is Marn? Can you walk?
Ali: I—yeah, apparently the only thing that’s still wrong with me is that I...um...I can’t speak or look respectable. Because I’m, like, still wounded? I’m probably like—it—like, weak in the way that, like...you know, sort of, like, shoulders...tucked in and, like...like can’t speak at full volume—
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: —you know what I mean?
Austin: Mhm...
Jack: Uh-huh.
Ali: I’m—
Art: It’s gonna be a lot of tea.
Ali: I’m probably—I mean, honestly, Marn might be chewing on some of this fish jerky that she’s been holding—
Austin: Oh, hell yeah.
Ali (overlapping): —(laughing) since the first episode.
Jack (overlapping): Oh!
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Now is the time...
Ali: Share that with my friends here. But that—like...there’s people here.
Austin: Yeah. Over a dozen. There’s like fifteen plus. Most of them are huddled in corners, trying to—or, like, up against the wall. Many of them are, like, really focused on making sure their feet don’t get stuck in the wax. They’re like every few...minutes lifting their feet up to try to replace themselves without the wax on top of them. But the room is slowly filling up with wax.
Keith: What’s the temp on the wax?
Austin: Warm, but not hot.
Keith: That might be really nice in a less dire situation.
Austin (overlapping): As it falls, it’s hot—[Ali laughs] Uh-huh. Yeah. You know. And I think that there are—I think that when the tree blossomed, people were, like, startled at first, but then have settled back down. They think it’s just something that happens in this room. This terrible room that they’ve found themselves in. Um, there is a door here. A big iron door that is, you know, closed, obviously. That...that...you know, is on one of the...longer walls. You know, it’s a rectangular room. So one of the longer walls has, in the middle of it, a...a door. An iron—big iron door. Quite like the one in the front of the Triadic Pyre—the church.
Jack: What is wax dripping through? Like a grate? On the ceiling?
Austin: Yeah, I think it’s grates on the ceiling. Yeah, or it’s almost—it might not even be a grate. It might just be a—like an open hole of stonework.
Jack: Can we climb up to it from the tree?
Austin: You can give it a shot. Yeah. I think between you and Bucho, you can, you know, help the other one get up there a little bit. At the very top, you can see fire licking—licking the air. It’s very high up. But you can kind of gather that you are in that central...between the iron work door and then, now, this big fire. You’re looking up through this kind of—the pyre spire, as Keith called it moments ago. [Ali laughs] But you’re—you’re very clearly pretty far underground. A couple of floors underground at least.
Jack: I’m—I’m gonna climb back down the tree with all the grace that Pickman muster, and feed that infor—
Austin: BOOM!
[Keith laughs]
Jack: (Laughing) Wax everywhere.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Feed that information back to Marn.
[Pause]
Austin: Hm.
Jack [as Pickman]: What do we do?
Ali [as Marn]: [Disbelieving laugh]
[Austin groans in sympathy]
Jack [as Pickman]: I can try and force the door.
Ali [as Marn]: Yeah. We gotta get out of here.
Jack [as Pickman]: Are you feeling okay? I fed you an orange?
[Quiet laughter]
Jack: Points at the tree.
Ali [as Marn]: Oh.
Jack [as Pickman]: My gun. It grew this tree.
Austin [as Bucho]: Can we not talk about the gun? I don’t wanna think about it.
[Ali laughs quietly]
Jack [as Pickman]: I want to make sure Marn has not been taken by the Shape in some form. Man, have you been taken by the Shape?
Austin [as Bucho]: The Sha—[groan].
Ali [as Marn]: My head hurts a little.
Jack [as Pickman]: Okay. [Pause] Well, I’m gonna try to—
Ali [as Marn] (overlapping): I’ll let you know. I’ll—I’ll—
Jack [as Pickman] (overlapping): Thank you. [Ali laughs] I appreciate it.
Jack: The door’s locked, right? No opening this.
Austin: You can—you can make a roll to try to open it.
Jack: Can I try and Kill it?
[Keith laughs]
Austin: [Laugh] I don’t think it’s alive. Uh...
Jack: Oh, yes, right, yeah, right. Yes. Kill is specifically for living—for living things.
Keith: We’re all always forgetting this.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah...we’ve talked about this. [Ali laughs] We’re always forgetting about doors not being alive. You could Endure and just, like, fucking “Grrraaah!”
Ali: Mmm...
Jack: Could I Delve through it in that way?
Austin (overlapping): You don’t have Endure. [Jack laughs] Um, Delve is—[Art bursts out laughing] Delve is about—you know, Delve is what you would use to pick a lock, or to force a—a door open in a dungeon or something.
Ali: Mm...
Austin: I think Delve—you could Delve. Delve makes sense here. You’re in a ltieral dungeon currently.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: [Laugh] Uh, go ahead and give me this roll.
Jack: Uh, this is Delve...and...
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: ...Occult. Uh, let me just—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —I wanna make absolutely sure that my “Limping” here—uh, no. “Speed and Stealth are Risky—”
Austin: No...this is not Speed and Stealth—
Jack (overlapping): —this is not Speed or Stealth.
Austin (overlapping): —yeah, this is not Speed.
Jack: Um...Marn, do you wanna Help, or do you just wanna hang out here and gather your strength? This isn’t Pickman asking, this is me.
[Austin chuckles]
Ali: [Sigh] Okay, so like—[laugh] I’m currently at zero...Stress, because I, you know, got shot.
Jack: Oh! Right, yes!
Ali: Um, so I—
Austin: Mhm.
Ali: —(laughing) have a little wiggle room here. Um, and I—I don’t know, would Pickman, like, hold Marn...over their head to, like, [laugh] help pick open the slot—
[Keith laughs in the background]
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, are you like trying to like—
Ali (overlapping): —or like, what is this?
Austin: —or like, are you trying to, like, take the hinges off the door or something?
Jack: Yeah, or, I mean—
Ali (overlapping): Yeah...
Jack: —we could just see if we could put Marn through that tiny little hole on the ceiling and see if (laughing) there’s another way out there. [Ali laughs] Pickman’s not fitting through there. [Jack laughs]
Austin: There is—there—if there is, it is floors up.
Jack: (Laughing) Okay, I see.
Austin: And so Marn would have to do some sort of sick climbing through the...
Ali: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s on...
Austin (overlapping): ...the chimney. If you wanna climb a chimney Marn, you let me know.
Ali: I mean, I understand that, like...mechanically I am fine to do that. But I don’t think that like—
Austin: Yes.
Jack: No...
Ali (overlapping): Fictionally, Marn right now is like—
Jack (overlapping): No...
Austin (overlapping): No. No.
Ali: —“Let’s split the team up and I’m gonna go through the roof!” [Laugh] You know?
Austin: Mhm. Mhm.
Jack: Yeah, you’re right. I think—yeah, then...if you want to—if you want to have Marn resting while Pickman and Bucho try and take this door down, that’s fine. But if you also—
Ali: Okay cool.
Jack: —wanted to dismantle screws or something.
Ali: I’m fine to do the assist if it’s not like a—like a “Marn is then on the other side of the door and then...alone.”
Jack (overlapping): No, no, no.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Okay. [Ali laughs] So then I’m going to do Delve Occult Standard. Plus one?
Austin: Plus one. Plus one.
Jack: That’s an 8!
Austin: Hey, that’s an 8. Uh, with enough effort and technique, the door comes off to reveal...a hastily bricked up wall.
Jack: They fucking Cask of Amontillado’d us!
Austin (overlapping): You’ve been bricked—you’ve been bricked into this room.
Keith (overlapping): Damn...
Ali: Wow...
Jack: Now this is—
Art: Thanks, Jack.
Jack (overlapping): —where the explosives would be good.
[Ali and Austin laugh]
Austin: Um, hey, it’s—it’s a step. You’ve made a step.
Jack: Yeah, I think Pickman just—
Austin: Uh, up-top group—
Jack (overlapping): —oh, sorry—
Austin: Oh, go ahead. No, no, no, you go ahead.
Jack: I think Pickman just, like, turns around and sinks to the ground with her back to the—to the wall. [Chuckle] Of just like “Oh, god. Great, we got the door open, and—” [Ali and Austin sigh in sympathy in the background] just splash into the wax on the bottom of the floor.
Austin: Mhm. Uh, outside. Do you have any feelings about this plan?
Dre: [Sigh] How close is this big tree?
Austin: Which big tree?
Janine: (Laughing) I was also thinking...
Austin (overlapping): Oh, yeah! [Ali laughs] This—this big tree...
Janine (overlapping): ...of doing some shit with that tree and I was like, “This is a—I don’t know...”
Keith: I’m—
Austin: It’s Dangerous, but—
Janine (overlapping): I’m gonna say this and no one else is gonna be into it.
Dre (overlapping): Is it like—
Austin: You know, I think people—people maybe forget that this is the town of six big fucking trees that have huge fruit that grow up on them, and that’s what the town eat for a year. [Laugh]
Keith (overlapping): You wanna crush these—these—these wax guys with a big tree?
Dre: No, I wanna climb the tree and then, like, jump off a branch—
Janine: Uh-huh.
Dre: —onto the Triadic Pyre building.
Austin (overlapping): Whoa.
Keith (overlapping): Whew!
Janine (overlapping): Oh that’s—
Austin: I—that’s Dangerous.
Janine: That’s—yeah...
Dre: Well, that’s why I was asking how close it was.
Austin: Dangerous close. I’ll let you roll it, but it’s Dangerous.
Dre: Okay, when you say “dangerous close,” is that because it—[Art laughs] like, it’s so far that I’ll, like, break my legs trying to jump? Or...
Janine: Wh—I...
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. It’s far enough that a miss would hurt you [Janine chuckles uneasily], maybe to death.
Janine: (Laughing) Slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down. [Continues to laugh uneasily]
Dre: Yeah, so no, I’m not gonna do that.
Janine: Could—okay—
Dre: Yeah.
Janine: —so these are huge trees. What if instead of climbing up the tree and then jumping out the tree [Austin snorts], like a rowdy child...[several people laugh] what—
Dre: Thank you.
Jack: —what if we, like—what if we, like, cut a limb off and then use the limb to kind of, like, climb up onto the roof and...get down into something that way, maybe? Or like—
Austin: I genuinely think that’s doable, but you’re going to have a little bit of trouble quietly setting up a route up top with the broken branch without gaining some...uh...some thrall...attention. Maybe—
Janine (overlapping): Should I just fly everyone up there. Like, that’s—that’s—
Austin: Mmm...
Janine: —that’s like the boring answer, is: I can fly—we’ve established I can also carry a person.
Austin (overlapping): You can fly. You can carry stuff. Yeah, totally.
Janine: Um, but that’s kind of boring to just, like, one by one—[laugh]
Austin: Yeah, well I—
Janine: —(laughing) put people onto the roof.
Austin (overlapping): —what I would say is, I think, to do that with whatever—seven other people. I’ve already forgotten the count. [Art laughs] Because of the extra people in your party. ‘Cause non-player characters with you right now is four. [Laugh] Um, so...
Keith: Who’s the fourth one?
Austin (overlapping): ...five—sev—Alekest.
Keith (overlapping): Right. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Uh, so yeah, Es, Duvall, Hazard—
Keith: I thought Alekest went—
Austin: —Chine...
Keith: —oh no, nevermind. Sorry, I’m—yeah.
Austin: No. No, you’re thinking of Bucho. So yeah, there’s eight people. I think doing that successfully seven times in a row is Dangerous. Eventually-
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: —you will be seen by one of these thralls that seems to have a little bit more going on. And they will close in on the group that’s still on the roof, or start throwing things at you, or something else. Right?
Janine: Yeah, also it’s like—
Austin (overlapping): But it’s doable.
Janine: —it seems like a physical endurance thing as well. Of like “that’s gonna be very tiring.”
Keith (overlapping): Yeah...
Dre: I have—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, yeah.
Janine: Like flying is—can’t be a zero effort thing.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Dre (overlapping): I have a question. Uh—
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: —the pyre that’s on top of the Triadic Pyre building. Is it like—
Austin: Yes.
Dre: —in a pit or a bowl or any kind of, like—
Austin: From where you are you can’t tell, but it—it is not—it seems to just be burning—
Dre (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: —Chine. It seems like it’s—I mean, we know this, actually, because we just saw up into it from the bottom. It’s a free-floating fire.
Dre (overlapping): Gotcha. Okay.
Keith: Um, do we currently have...a more...like, an easier thing than checking with the militia to see if we can get them to start plinking at the wax people to clear a path?
Dre: Um, the only other idea I have—and this would probably be way too hard and take too long—is a twist on Janine’s idea, but instead of cutting a branch, we cut a tree and it falls on top of the fire and lights on fire...
Janine: I feel like the concern there is that it’s gonna burn the whole building down.
Dre: True.
Austin: Chine has the Beat...(laughing) “Destroy a Haven—”
Dre: Uh-huh.
Austin: “--and return the land to the Heart.”
[Timestamp 01:45:00]
Janine (overlapping): Uh-huh...
Austin: Just as a worldview reminder.
Jack (overlapping): I feel like one of the tree—the trees you’re talking about are, like, one of the six great trees of Blackwick—
Dre: Yeah.
Jack: —right? Yeah.
Dre: So they all—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Uh-huh.
Dre: —take, like, a day or two to cut down, I imagine.
[Austin laughs]
Jack: And also, might be tied to—
Austin (overlapping): (Laughing) And also...
Jack: —the, like, spiritual well-being of this place. Didn’t another tree grow—
Austin: (Laughing) Yes.
Jack: —in response to, like, the Mother-Beast or something at one point?
Keith (overlapping): Oh, so we have an extra tree.
Austin: Yeah, also—yeah—
Sylvi: Oh okay! So it’s fine!
[Dre laughs in the background]
Austin (overlapping): —use the life of the Mother-beast—uh-huh.
Sylvi: Sur—we got a surplus here.
Janine (overlapping): Okay, what if...what if I rip off a couple branches and then put them a little bit in front of the door? So that the wax people will melt if they get too close—
Austin: Mmm...[laugh]
Janine: —but we’ll just get light burns.
Austin: (Laughing) You, like—
Janine: By crossing over it to get inside.
Art (overlapping): Did you say “light burns” or “like, comma, burns.”
[Austin laughs]
Janine: It’s—take—take your pick.
[Austin groans]
Art: I want you to pick. [Laugh]
[Austin laughs]
Janine: The dice will pick!
Keith: I don’t want light burns—
Janine (overlapping): The dice will pick, Art.
Keith: —so it doesn’t matter!
Austin: [Dry laugh] It sounds like Lyke really wants to go talk to the fucking—the self-appointed militia up there. It sounds like everybody else wants to melt some people...
Janine (overlapping): I just don’t know if that’s gonna do anything.
Sylvi: I—[sigh]
Austin: Yeah, Hazard?
Sylvi: I’m ready for some action. I’m ready to prove that I’m here. And that’s a character thing, though. [Laugh]
Austin (overlapping): Let’s go. Yeah.
Sylvi: Like—
Austin: Uh-huh.
Sylvi: [Exaggerated sigh] You know. I wanna do—I can shoot some wax people! But that doesn’t seem to be the plan.
Janine: There’s so many of them, though.
Austin (overlapping): Oh, so if you—if you’re gonna do it—if you’re gonna be the one who, like, runs out and tries to get them to chase you, Agdeline and crew will help you with that.
Sylvi: Well I mean—
Austin: They just won’t do it—they’re just not gonna be deployed as a decoy without a core member.
Sylvi (overlapping): Oh, yeah. I’d be, I guess, fine to do that with that if we are—
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: —cool with a decoy plan. Um...I...yeah. I don’t know.
Austin: I just realized we didn’t do “The Frog’s Due.” We have to do “The Frog’s Due.”
Sylvi: Oh, we do. We do. Okay.
Austin: Oh—I guess that wasn’t a Delve. I said that wasn’t a Delve, right?
Sylvi: We did it when we finished the—
Austin (overlapping): Eh, we should still do it.
Sylvi: —we finished a Delve last session, and I think we did it then.
Austin (overlapping): Right. We should still do it. You went on a big Journey—
Sylvi (overlapping): Sure!
Austin: —from half the map away, so give me your d10. [Exhales a laugh]
[Pause]
Sylvi: That’s an 8.
Austin: Hey!
Sylvi: “Increase the die value—”
Austin (overlapping): “Increase the die value of—”
Sylvi: “--of every resource on your sheet by one, and shift all Domains by one.”
Austin: So that means your “Black Candles, d8” become—
Sylvi: And they were a d6 then they became d8.
Austin (overlapping): —they were Religion, now they are some sort of d10, uh...Technology resource.
Sylvi: They’re d8 Technology. They were d6 and I—
Austin: Oh they were d6 a second ago. You already fixed them.
Sylvi (overlapping): —I put them before you saw...
Austin: Gotcha.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So what are they now? What’s the Technology thing that you have in your backpack instead?
Sylvi (overlapping): Oh...what would candles become—I guess it’d have to—
Austin: I guess we’ve had lightbulb before. We’ve had...um...is it some sort of, like—it’s not a resource—or, it’s not an Equipment, so it’s not a flashlight [Janine exhales a laugh] or something.
Sylvi: Little LED strips.
Austin: Little LED strips. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Janine: [Laugh] I just thought of something funny.
Austin (overlapping): Oh, it’s that same one—it’s the same thing that we saw down in the...um...on the canopy...that Pickman planted. Your candles have turned into that same style of, like, LED strips. That same style of just, like, fiber-light.
Keith: You can—
Austin: Uh, so yeah. Just say, like, “string lights.” [Laugh]
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: “Glowing—” you know, “strange glowing light” or something. You know. “Tube.”
Keith: We can turn this place into an influencer’s bedroom.
Austin: [Laugh] Yes.
Sylvi: [Laugh[ I’m not—I’m ignoring that statement real quick. [Austin chuckles] As someone with a bunch of LEDs set up (laughing) in their room right now.
[Keith laughs]
Austin: Uh-huh...
[Dre laughs]
Dre: What’s it like to be a famous influencer, Sylvi?
Sylvi: Shut the fuck up. I—I’m out of that one.
Keith: Plug your Twitch by the way.
[Austin laughs]
Sylvi: [Laugh] Um...yeah, if we are down for, like—it seemed like we were moving slightly away from the “distraction and then burn things” plan. But, if we do need to—if we want to work me and the Knights sort of distracting from the crowd of wax zombies into, like, one of our plans to get in there, I’m well on board to lead that action.
Keith: That sounds good to me.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: Alright.
Sylvi: Um...where should I—I’m try—I feel like—
Austin: Yeah, where do you wanna lead them to?
Sylvi: So we’re trying to get into the Triadic Pyre building, right?
Austin: That’s right. Yeah, I’m imaging y’all are, like, here or here—you know, you’re at one of the buildings nearby, or on top—
Sylvi (overlapping): I would probably want to bring them up here, so I’m not bringing them towards the Blackwick building.
Austin: Like the Conclave and the building?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Sure.
Sylvi: That way it’s easier if, like, we don’t know what condition Marn and Pickman are in.
Austin: Yeah, that makes sense.
Sylvi (overlapping): To get them out of there.
Keith: The wax figures, they’re not like...secretly the townspeople covered in wax, controlling their bodies?
Austin: They’re explicitly that.
Keith (overlapping): Okay, they are?
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: But are they gone there?
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We—yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Should we get one of these and cut it—cut off the wax and make sure that they’re not, like, alive in there?
Austin: No one has done anything with any of these people except by be—except be scared. And it wasn’t clear if it was “These people have been replaced.” Which, I guess, actually I did think I said that some of them were originally, where people who fled were replaced with wax duplicates. Since then, it is not clear—I mean, [sigh] we know that Marn, Pickmna, and Alekest are in a big wax tomb, slowly being covered by wax.
Keith: Unrelated. [Laugh]
Austin: Mm, is it? So...
Keith: Let’s—I—is it too much to—to do that real quick? And try and sort of...peel off this wax off a person and see if they’re like “Oh my god, thanks. I’m normal under here.”
Austin: Yeah, wanna go get a zombie? [Pause] You raise this to the group, Lyke?
Janine (overlapping): I mean, if—
Keith: Yeah. Before we go—
Austin (overlapping): Raise this to the group. Let’s go—let’s talk through it.
Keith: —and maybe kill 20 or 30 of these things. Or 5, or whatever...
Janine: We could pull. You know, you need to—you need like a range attack, do a pull—
Austin: Uh-huh. [Chuckle]
Janine (overlapping): —get a couple of ‘em, break ‘em off—
Keith (overlapping): Oh, okay.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine (overlapping): —deal with them down the street. Classic MMO strategy.
Austin: Mhm. Yeah, there’s, like—let’s say there’s a group milling about in this field to the east. Southeast. That you can get to pretty easily from these rooftops. Um, uh–that you could–you could maybe try to handle by itself. Or let’s say the one that’s up here, instead of going closer to the Conclave. Let’s say underneath the eastern middle tree…there is a–there is a group of five of them…that you could try to finesse in some way. What do you–what do you do?
Keith: Um…are we gonna do that pole move? That works for me. I mean, I don’t mind that. Is that–
Sylvi: “The pole” being what I was planning on doing?
Austin: No, I think–
Sylvi (overlapping): Or…
Austin: –now we’re talking about pulling one away from a group.
Sylvi (overlapping): One away, talking to them–okay.
Austin: And seeing if you could–
Janine (overlapping): Yeah, if someone was, like, a straggler…
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Janine: …who’s kind of, like, on the fringe, you can kinda—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, who’s doing–what’s it look like? Tell me what it looks like.
Keith: It’s gotta look really (laughing) goofy. It has to–there’s no way that [Dre chuckles in the background] this doesn’t look like someone being really weird.
Austin (overlapping): Are you shooting a gun? Are you throwing a rock? What are you doing to do this maneuver?
Sylvi: (Laughing) Do we have a net?
[Art laughs]
Austin: You take some Supplies Stress to have a net, I mean…[chuckle]
Janine: I have a grappling hook.
Keith: Oh!
Art: That’s a net, kind of.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, that’s, like–
Austin: It’s kind of a net.
Keith (overlapping): –an aggressive net. Yeah.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Dre: (Laughing) An aggressive net.
Janine: Uh-huh.
Keith: It’ll hook right into the wax, I bet.
Austin: Yeah, okay, I guess you’re gonna try to drag this–are you–are you, like, trying to get it to separate from the group before you throw the grappling hook? Are you trying to–
Keith: Yeah–
Austin: –or are you just gonna go for it?
Keith (overlapping): I can make a–yeah, I can make a roll to do that if we needed to do that.
Austin: I think that the “Move it away” is a Compel roll, probably. I think you can do all this in a single roll.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: I just wanna know what it looks like. This is what I’m trying to figure out.
Keith (overlapping): Mmm…I can’t Compel, but I can Evade.
Janine (overlapping): Grappling hook feels like a Plan B.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: I–I–I have…it’s gotta be either Evade or Hunt. ‘Cause we’re Evading the rest of the group, but we’re also Hunting one thing.
Austin: It can also–it can also be Compel.
Keith (overlapping): Could also be Compel.
Austin: Like I think Compel is–I think throwing rocks or whatever to drag someone’s attention away…or being like “Ha ha ha! I’m over here!” [Sylvi laughs] could also be Compel.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: But I wanna just know what it looks like so I can know what could go wrong. [Laugh]
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Sylvi: I mean, we could do a smaller version of the “Hey I’m over–” my “Hey I’m over here!” plan where I’m throwing–
Austin (overlapping): Mhm.
Sylvi: (Laughing) –rocks at this person and then you guys jump them. And grab them. Like–
Keith (overlapping): Okay. Is that a–that’s a Compel?
Art (overlapping): That’s gonna be dangerous. Or I don’t know, like, mechanically Dangerous, but literally dangerous.
Sylvi: I’m good at–
Austin: It is.
Sylvi: –those Moves though, so.
Austin: That’s true. That’s true.
Sylvi: Um…
Austin: Alright, let’s do the “Hey, I’m over here!” plan. You should get Help–like, I think anybody…I think it sounds like…Lye is Helping on this?
Keith: Yeah, I can Help on that.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: What’s that–what’s your Help look like on the–Hazard is going “Hey, I’m over here. Hoo hoo hoo, look at me.”
Sylvi: [Laugh] Doing a little dance, throwing a lot of rocks. You know.
Dre (overlapping): He he he ha ha ha hoo hoo hoo.
Austin: Right right right.
Art (overlapping): Yeah, see, it’s the Andrew Dice Clay plan.
[Keith and Austin laugh]
Austin: And then, Lyke, what is your “Haha! Gotcha!” look like?
Keith: Um...oh! Um, maybe I could sneak up to the back-est one. Using Sneak.
Austin: Yeah. Mhm.
Keith: And so, just like, whichever one is, like, furthest but looking? At, like, the—whoever’s being distracted by Hazard—then, I think it’s like, a—like a...like a...sort of like a bear hug from behind. Like a scuttle backwards.
Austin: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: Alright, can we—I think we can—yeah, we can roll this into one roll, that way we don’t have to do—
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: —a big setup and a big follow-up thing.
Sylvi (overlapping):
Austin: So, Hazard, give me your Compel—
Sylvi: Plus—
Austin: —Haven, or Occult. Plus 1 from Lyke.
ay/ (overlapping): Plus 1—okay. Um, so I have—
Austin: This is Risky.
Sylvi: Okay! I have both of those, so that hopefully will help. I’m thinking I inputted this all properly, so let’s—
Austin: Uh…yeah, this looks right.
Keith: 9, great.
Austin (overlapping): Look at that 9.
Sylvi (overlapping): I got a 9.
Austin (overlapping): It was a 10, but the 9—the 9 does come through here. Lyke, you bear hug this lingering one. Uh, give me a roll of uh, 1d—one, two, three, four, five. Give me a roll of 5 really quick. I guess it’s what I said—it was 5 people in the group.
Keith (overlapping): Okay, 1d5.
Austin (overlapping): I just wanna see—see which one you got. [Keith mumbles to himself] Yeah.
Keith: There’s no quick button for 5—2!
Austin: Alright, yeah, okay. Um…you, uh—yeah, you grab it and pull it away, and uh…and you drag it back to wherever your little outcrop is as a group. Hazard, you’re able to duck and dodge and get away from them.
Sylvi: I’m quick, I’m speedy. Yeah.
Austin: You’re quick and speedy. You run them around in a bit of a race. It’s—you know, four of them stay on you, one of them goes away. Or one of them gets picked up by Lyke. And you’re able to circle back around and get back with the group safely. Alright, so you’ve bear-hugged this waxen thrall and dragged it back to the group. Hey everybody, Lyke’s got a thrall. That is, um, at this point—
Keith: I’m holding a thrall, I don’t have a—
Austin (overlapping): —trying to—
Keith: —I don’t—right.
Austin: Yeah, you’re right. Yes. Yes.
Sylvi (overlapping): Wow, great Full Nelson.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh. It is struggling to try to get away from you, and also to hurt you. But it’s not necessarily clear that it’s able to do that—
Keith: Cool—
Austin: —at this point.
Keith: Uh, I’m gonna try to get in there.
Austin: What’s that mean?
Keith: I’m gonna take a spoon and start digging wax away from the face.
[Janine groans in disgust]
Jack: Oh, no…
Dre: Yeah, I’m just glad that Chine—
Janine (overlapping): Keith…
Dre: —isn’t the grossest person on this show today.
Austin (overlapping): From the face?
Janine (overlapping): Yuck…
Keith: What do you mean—wha—
Austin: You’re gonna need Help to do this because this—this—this—this being is going to continue to resist you.
Keith (overlapping): Okay, but—but I want to—
Sylvi: Pass me a spoon.
Keith (overlapping): —I just needed to—I just need to work through—the face is the obvious first thing to do, right? Like, I’m not gonna [Sylvi wheezes a laugh] start with its legs. That doesn’t make any sense. Its face is where the human’s head is!
[Sylvi bursts out laughing in the background]
Art: There’s no—I find no flaws in this logic.
Keith (overlapping): Thank you.
Austin: (Unamused) Okay.
Jack: We’re—we’re really in some House of Wax territory here—
Keith (overlapping): Literally! [Laugh]
Janine: —and I note the fact that Keith has not seen either House of Wax movie.
Keith: No.
Austin: Wax House, baby. Um, yeah, I guess give me a—this is a Discern. You’re trying to figure something out about—
Keith (overlapping): Yes.
Austin: —about these.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah. Mhm.
Austin: Right? So Discern, Occult—this is not Haven, this is Occult. [Sigh] Uh, ‘cause you’re really—you’re working on this—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —person, specifically. And it sounded like—
Keith (overlapping): Oh, actually, here’s a—
Austin (overlapping): —Hazard was Helping.
Keith: —here’s a question, I don’t know. This is—this a debate, a little bit—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Huh?
Keith: —I’m asking if I can use a Move in a way that isn’t actually what the Move is. But—
Austin: Mhm?
Keith: —if I can use a sort of low-temp Fire of the Red King to help me get this wax melted and off. Would that help—would that give me Mastery?
Austin: Yeah, I’ll give you Mastery to—
Keith: Cool.
Austin: —yeah, sure. Uh-huh. You don’t have to roll to do that, you just have that as a weapon, right?
Keith (overlapping): Right, it’s unhanded. So it’s just, like, my hands do it.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Keith: Okay, and was I getting Help at that—I don’t—
Sylvi: I think I was Helping.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah!
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: yeah, ‘cause again, it’s gonna take two people. Someone’s gonna have to hold this person down—this thrall down—success at a cost, take Stress.
Keith: Oof, that’s my worst roll and I had 5 dice.
Austin: Keith, take 5 Echo, and…uh…Hazard. You take only—you take only 1 Blood.
Sylvi: Oh, one Blood?
Austin: Uh, as you’re trying to—you’re the one trying to hold it down, right? Not trying to melt the wax, presumably.
Sylvi (overlapping): Yeah, I have 1 Blood protection though, so…
Austin: Alright, well then you’re good as it’s trying to swing at you and stuff.
Sylvi: Do I still Fallout test for that?
Keith: Oh, I’m—
Austin: No, because you don’t actually take it.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: I missed—yeah, I missed—
Austin (overlapping): Keith, you should do a Fallout test for—
Keith: —uh, I pressed “Roll” instead of “Fallout Test.”
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotchu.
Keith: Major Fallout!
[Sylvi exclaims in surprise]
Austin: Unbelievable.
Sylvi: Oof.
Keith: Oh no.
Austin: Um, that ain’t good.
Keith (overlapping): I know what Major Echo Fallout means.
Art (overlapping): Alright, if Keith’s rolling badly, I should start making a lot of rolls. That’s how it’s been working. [Keith laughs] So, I’ll take over—
Austin (overlapping): Is that how that works? That’s how…um, god Major Echo, huh?
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
[Ali snorts]
Sylvi: [Mumbling] I fucking hate—
Austin: What was that laugh, Ali?
Sylvi (overlapping): —hate this stupid game. [Despondent laugh]
Austin: Oh, brother. I didn’t expect to have to—okay.
Keith: Yeah, no one expected it.
Ali: There are other…[laugh]
Keith: No there aren’t.
[Ali continues laughing]
Austin: I’ve now lost Keith—here we go. Alright. Oh my fucking god. Um, I think—[sigh] So, you begin to melt this wax away—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —and, uh…[sharp inhale and exhale] you get the impression that it’s gonna be a little harder to answer the question that you’re trying to ask. What’s the question—you’re really trying to get at, is “Are there people under there?”
Keith (overlapping): Right, and by accomplishing what we’re trying to accomplish, are we going to be killing people?
Austin: Are there people in zombies?
Keith: I don’t know. Sometimes! Well—
Austin (overlapping): Yes, the answer is yes. The answer is, in a zombie, there is a person—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: —there is a human body involved.
Keith (overlapping): Sure.
Austin: You determined pretty quickly—
Art (overlapping): But are they in the zombie?
Keith: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin (overlapping): Right. But you determine pretty quickly, human bodies are part—at least partially used here. The head you’re burning away is a human head.
Keith (overlapping): Right.
Austin: Under there. As the wax begins to melt away.
Keith: Because—I’m not burning away the head. I’m burning…
Austin: Ah, you failed this roll, my friend.
Keith (overlapping): Oops.
[Timestamp 01:59:57]
Austin: Uh, how hard does it—how hard do I wanna go on this? Um…I’m—I’m just gonna say out loud, I’m making a strong decisions to not simply have the Ravening Beast show up. I feel like you deserve to have a little bit of a break from the Ravening Beast given—[Keith sighs] but also, stop getting Echo Fallout!
Keith: Stop giving me Echo Stress!
Art: Yeah, Keith!
Keith: This easily could’ve been Blood Stress for me too.
Austin: No, you’re doing a weird magic spell to it. Alright, um…the…the wax gets on you and in you. As you—it, like, splashed up into you and some of it—bleh. Bleh. Mleh. Some of it gets in your mouth. [Keith makes a spitting sound] And begins to run through your body. Uh, you get “Reconfigured Physiology.” (Reading) “Your organs and bones don’t make sense anymore. You can no longer remove Stress from Blood or remove Blood Fallout at Haunts, or through the use of Medical Kits. This shows itself in some outward fashion—unusual growths bulging under your skin, words appearing as bruises, black blood, and so on.” In this case, you begin, very quickly, to take on wax-like skin. And your own bones slowly begin getting coated. It was only a single drop, but that drop continues to spread.
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: It kind of continues to, like, spread outward. You’ve killed this person, also. You’ve killed this zombie—this thrall.
Keith (overlapping): And so we don’t—haven’t answered my questions, which is…
Austin: [Laugh] You do not—with a failure, you do not have an answer to your question.
Art: “Words appearing as bruises” is a…
Austin: It’s a fun one, right?
Keith (overlapping): What does that mean? Like I tried—
Art (overlapping): Hell of a sentence.
Keith: —to say words and instead I am bruised?
Austin: No, I think it’s, like, on your skin, other words begin to appear—
Keith (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: —on your body.
Keith: And in—any—
Austin: Um, and in this case, I think—you know, I think Alaway’s the sort that taunts. And I think on your skin, coming through your pores, is wax that just—it’s—as if it’s just—someone has put hot wax on your skin in the shape of the words “You’re already too late.”
[Outro music begins: Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt]
Austin: Except it’s coming out—it’s pushed out of your skin like hair follicles.
Keith: Like one of those play-doh heads.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mhm. You’re already too late.