Sangfielle 24: The Perpetual Oratorio of Davia Pledge Pt. 2

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Transcriber:‌ ‌robotchangeling‌

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.

Austin: Eventually, you kind of bounce from place to place, and you do wind up at just a big library. There isn't a sense of magic coming from it, necessarily, but it's a big library. It's in the Hibiscus District. It's called the Rotundan. And as the sun finishes setting, you realize like, oh, at night this thing takes on a slightly different character. And you can like, [sniffs] is that…? Is that magic I smell? And you're able to go in. The doors are still open. And instantly, you're like, “Ah, yeah, we're in the right place.” Virtue, during all of this happening, you know, the camera sees that you were being followed.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Keith: Ooh.

Austin: You don't see that. Y'all don't notice it, but you are being followed.

[Music begins: Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt]

Austin (as Lenore): Welcome to the Night Library. How can I help you? I've not seen you around before.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Lenore! That was your name!

Austin (as Lenore): [strained] Lady Mondegreen. It is a pleasure to see you after so long.

Sylvia (as Virtue): It's been such a long time. I'm honestly surprised to see you in such great shape, Lenore.

Austin (as Lenore): Ah, it has been a good season for me, though not for everyone, as I'm sure you know.

Austin: Davia was a kind of top of the line composer whose style synthesized a lot of different musical inspirations, which at the time was considered like some of the best art that Sapodilla ever produced. And Zizilliana was the heiress of the house Esterházy who had been so important for decades, was one of the grand houses of Sapodilla before the panic happened and before it became kind of a home to a bunch of different cultures or before power was redistributed and there was kind of this people's overthrow, and was, in fact, the Esterházy house supported that kind of populist overthrow, deposing of the then-Duke of Sapodilla and replacing him with a city council and all of that stuff. And there were rumors that the Esterházy house always had connections to strange powers and magic and stuff like that, but nothing ever came of it. And then there was this big fire during this grand, you know, kind of magnum opus performance. Hundreds of people died, including Zizilliana. Davia herself, who had been conducting the orchestra, managed to flee to safety. The Glim Macula, which formed right around the same time, blames it on some sort of demonic attack.

Austin: And you notice that it's like...it's really...it's getting increasingly chilly here. And maybe you even heard this get turned down when you came back up the stairs, but Lenore is listening to music up here. One of those Pledge canisters that Duvall walked past is playing up here, and it's playing something, for lack of a better word, sort of festive. Five people came in the front door and like, lowered a gate that's like above the doors and locked it.

Keith: Do I recognize them? Are they...

Austin: They are Glim Macula agents. And they are putting pressure on Lenore at the reception desk right now. You cannot hear what is being said.

[music ends]

Austin: But they're here to fight, like very, very much so. They're here to try to hurt you or find you.

Art (as Duvall): We should be very careful. They seem dangerous.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Well, hopefully we're more dangerous, I suppose. It does seem like the only way out of here is up, unfortunately.

Art (as Duvall): Mmm.

Austin: The thing that happens here is like, you see them move in a way that you didn't know they could. They've been toughs up until now, right? And with a one, the light diminishes throughout the entire place. The moonlight still comes in, ‘cause all you've done is knock out the torches that are throughout the place. It doesn't cast like a...it says that it gets rid of lights, right? It gets rid of like…

Sylvia: Yeah, aside from...I think it says specifically…

Austin: Extinguishes— it says extinguishes all light sources, so I think that's fine. Maybe even it shadows off the moon, but it does not extinguish the mage lights, glow worms, et cetera.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Austin: Those get muted, and so the blue light, on the kind of shoulder pack of the tech one, Felix, is like a softer blue. So it doesn't hurt you when it sees you, but it does see you, and the second it sees you coming up one of the stairs, Felix goes:

Austin (as Felix): There!

Austin: And one of the three kind of helmeted figures lets loose a...at first you think it's a pine cone, but then you see it's kind of a ball of almost like twined up wicker. And as it hits the ground near you, it unfurls, and when it unfurls, whatever is in it— maybe it unfurls, and there is just a little blue flame for a second, and then it does the explosion. The light explodes out, and you are like hit by this sort of...it's sort of...I've written it down as a null field, or I guess it's actually in some ways it's a Hollow field, named for Felix Hollowfield. Give me your fallout checks, your fallout tests, because I know what this is gonna do if it hits you.

Sylvia: Wow.

Austin: Very nice.

Sylvia: I got really close to getting fallout again.

Austin: You did. Alright, Duvall, take minor fallout. You can no longer use the occult domain for the— whatever that one is. Wherever the one is that gets rid of that.

Art: And that clears just my echo or all of this?

Austin: It's only a minor fallout, so it's only your echo.

Art: Well, that was almost all of it, if we’re being honest, so.

Austin: It is ongoing. You do not have access to— actually, because it's only minor, it's only gonna be to the end of this scene. You do not have access to the occult domain for the rest of this scene, Duvall.

Art: Alright. So, someone try to curse this area real quick.

Austin: Uh huh. [laughs softly]  

Keith: I was wrong about how dangerous the library was gonna be.

Austin: Uh huh! [Sylvia laughs]

[recap ends]

Austin: Hey, Lyke, they just fucking popped off and are throwing bombs at your friends. What are you doing?

Keith: Could I get a quick rundown of the layout?

Austin: You are...yeah, I mean, you're on a top— imagine you go into a library, and it's a ten story tall tower where the middle is empty and it's just along the circular, you know, walls of the place, right?

Keith: Hmm.

Austin: Except instead of going up, it goes down. And so...and, you know, there are stairwells connecting the floors, kind of like one to the other, if that makes sense. Not through the middle of the hole in the building, like alongside the floors, if that makes more sense. It's hard to draw. I don't know how to even really begin to draw this, but I guess I'll do…

Keith: I guess what I'm interested in is like, what the shape is of like me, this group of five, the exit, and Duvall and Virtue.

Austin: Well, Duvall and Virtue are many floors below you still.

Keith: Oh, I thought they were like coming up in the sneak, and that's how they got bombed.

Austin: Yeah, and they got a one.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: Right.

Austin: And so they got bombed instead, right? So.

Keith: Oh, okay. I thought they came up and got bombed. Got it. Okay.

Austin: No, not with a one. So yeah, I would say that you are like...you know, reception is up front. It's that square I just drew, that rectangle I just drew. You're at some reading desks which are on the top floor, you know, over here somewhere, right? And then the entry is the southern, is like down south here, like boop, that's a door in that's been gated shut. And then, you know, there are stairwells kind of running like this a little bit. Do you know what I mean?

Keith: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Austin: Like, on the interior...if you think about this is a donut and like a bunch of stacked donuts, then on where the donut hole is, is where those the stairwells are connecting floor to floor.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: And so you're in that collection. You're in the collection over here on the right. They were here but then saw them going, caught them coming up these stairs and through— I’d say maybe they made it up a floor or two, you know? And then they got hit with this disorienting grenade. Light is still absent, so.

Keith: Right.

Austin: Outside of the...I'm gonna say even the moonlight. I think that that even dimmed the moonlight. At least for this moment.

Sylvia: Hell yeah.

Keith: I'll say that my instinct is to try and not do anything, including being noticed.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: It seems like they're distracted and that maybe that wouldn't be so hard to do. But also, like, well, I could try to make it down to them. That would definitely draw attention to me, and probably wouldn't help them at all either. I can escape on my own. That would be bad to do.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: So I might…

Austin: Just gonna lay low?

Keith: Yeah, I might just…

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: I might just, you know.

Austin: You have not drawn their attention yet, so I'm not gonna...there's no roll on that yet.

Keith: Yeah. The other option that I have is...if I trusted Lenore enough, which at this point, I think Lyke does. Unless I saw them talking to Lenore.

Austin: You saw them talking to Lenore, but Lenore does not seem...your read on that situation was not...Lenore didn't like say, [loudly] “Yeah, the fourth floor,” do you know what I mean?

Keith: Right.

Austin: I think maybe even...here's what I'll even give you, is: the posture that they've kept with Lenore at this point is not a...is not one where they trust Lenore.

Keith: Right. They don't like or trust Lenore.

Austin: Yeah. One of these...one of the kind of three main guards here, or main Macula members, has a gun pointed at Lenore—let's just go all the way to there—and is like:

Stay still.

[Timestamp: 0:10:08]

Keith: Okay. Currently. Okay, so…

Austin: Yeah, yeah, currently. Lenore is like, hands up.

Keith: Right.

Austin: Because Lenore has a lot to lose here.

Keith: Yeah. Then if that's the case, what I was gonna do is be like, hey, Lenore, is there like a lower exit somewhere?

Austin: Right, right, right.

Keith: I could hop down, and we can get out without having to come up. But it seems like he is busy, and so I will—

Austin: He is busy, yeah.

Keith: I will let it lie here.

Austin: Okay. I think, you know, in fact, three of these people move past you. One of them—  okay, so there's five people, right? Five of these agents. One is the leader. She is staying up top with one of the...the one with the gun. Or, most of them have guns, but the one who's pointing a gun at Lenore. The three other people, Felix the tech one and then two of the other regular Macula soldiers, are going to literally run right past you, Lyke, going down the stairs, towards...to kind of confront Virtue and Duvall. You also cannot help but feel it's gotten colder here somehow.

Keith: Alright, let's discern that. What's going on there?

Austin: [singing] Last Christmas. [hums melody] Give me a discern—

Art: The movie is based on the song. They credit the song.

Austin: They credit the song? Discern.

Keith: The songwriters have writing credits on the movie?

Art: Yeah, the song— well, it's a based on. It’s a based on.

Keith: Based on.

Austin: Mmm, I see.

Art: Every time, I'm gonna tell you a little more about the movie.

Austin: I appreciate this. Discern occult. Discern occult, for sure. I don't think your magnifying glass helps here either, unfortunately.

Keith:  No, no, that's fine. Ten.

Austin: There's a ten. You make it...you like, you sniff it out right away. And i think you—

Keith: Do I sniff it?

Austin: I think you smell it, yeah. It starts to smell like...I don't know what our festive, like, winter holiday here is in Sangfielle, [laughs softly] but you can smell that seeping in. There is something about listening to this music canister that is...you don’t know if it's changing the place in here or if it's moving you to a different place. You the listener should recall that when Duvall walked past those people dancing in the previous session, it was like they weren't even...it's like they were in their own little world. And here we are entering our own little world. You notice before anybody else does that flurries are starting to drift down from the skylight. And when you look up at the skylight, you see that the windows have been broken away from it. They're jagged and open, and a storm is overhead. Gray skies have come in, and snow is falling. You start to see...and in fact, I'm gonna actually say, with this ten, I'm gonna apply this ten in a fun way. Virtue, don't you still have Hex Eye?

Sylvia: Uh, I think we got rid of that.

Austin: I thought you kept Hex Eye.

Sylvia: Oh, no, wait. Yeah, no, I have Hex Eye, but…

Austin: It went down to Hex Eye.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: Which is: you can...once per session, you see something useful. Ask the GM what it is. I'm not gonna count this as the once per session, but I'm gonna give you the sort of...you start to see— just as a reminder, all of this is happening, and Virtue is constantly seeing into other realms and dimensions.

Sylvia: Right.

Austin: Her vision swims as she starts to perceive worlds other than her own layered on top of one another.

Sylvia: That's why it took so long to recognize Lenore.

Austin: It really did, exactly. Important to note that any action you take that requires accurate judging of distances like jumping, shooting, running down a corridor becomes risky. So, be careful. [laughs softly] God. [Sylvia sighs] Both of you now...but Lyke, I think you're in a better place, because you can you can filter that this is just one thing that's happening. This musical canister is moving you into some sort of winter wonderland, some sort of apocalypse library that's been broken apart and is now being covered with snow. And no one else quite notices it yet. And so you're...I’m gonna basically say that you're not yet in a place where you're gonna, like, slip and fall down the stairs or you're— you know what I mean? Like, you have your...you recognize that this transformation is happening, and so you're not at risk from it at this point. And if you have some sort of magical power to draw on, I don't know that you do or if that's even a thing, but like that power is in the air coming from this strange music canister. So, Lyke, again, I don't know if you have any weird shit here, but that's what’s happening.

Keith: I don’t think I do, unfortunately.

Austin: Yeah, that's fine. It's a weird thing that's happening.

Keith: It is a weird thing. I wish I had something. That would be cool.

Austin: And it's disorienting, because you don't know...is it real? What's happening? [laughs softly]

Keith: Right. Yeah. Is it...am I acting? What is...is it my turn? I don't—

Austin: If you want to do something off of that, you can do that. Whoever wants to go can go. Yeah.

Keith: Has...since since last talking about this—

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: They have started moving down the stairs.

Austin: Correct.

Keith: Do they still have someone on Lenore?

Austin: Two people stayed up with Lenore.

Keith: Two with Lenore, okay.

Austin: Yes. The leader who has the big sword and then one of the randos who has a gun. I'll just...I'll give you their names so I can stop saying randos. Janis—J-A-N-I-S—has stayed up with Lenore. Aztel and Nelzo have gone down the stairs. [laughs softly] Along with Felix.

Sylvia: Damn, they sent Nelzo? We’re fucked.

Austin: They sent Nelzo.

Art: One of them lost the name lottery.

Austin: [laughs] Yeah. I come from a long line of Nelzos. What?

Art: My grandfather, Nelzo.

Austin: Nelzo. [laughs softly]

Sylvia: Oh my god. So, I realized that I have something that might be useful just going forward.

Austin: Yes, sure.

Sylvia: Until we’ve dealt with this, which is my minor skill Deathless, lets me roll endure plus religion to ignore the effects of ongoing minor blood or echo fallout.

Austin: Very useful.

Sylvia: Until the end of a situation.

Austin: Very, very useful.

Sylvia: And I think that would be really good for Hex Eye right now.

Austin: Do you want to do that now? Do you want to kind of like show Virtue kind of gathering herself?

Sylvia: Yeah, I think that would be…I think that makes sense, especially...

Austin: Alright, give me endure religion.

Sylvia: Fuckin’ let's hope it goes well. Is this…

Austin: Yeah. I'm gonna say this is not risky.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: This is just you're taking a moment to gather your thoughts. Ayy!

Sylvia: [impressed] Damn.

Austin: Nine, nine, nine. Wow.

Sylvia: I love that game.

Austin: The Nonary Game.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: Alright, yeah. So, yeah, for the rest of the scene…

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Austin: Rest of the situation, you can ignore the effects of ongoing minor blood or echo fallout, which Hex Eye is a minor fallout in this way.

Sylvia: Okay, awesome.

Austin: Nice. You said you have something in chat here, Lyke?

Keith: Yeah, okay. So, I am seeing. I am perceiving?

Austin: Yes.

Keith: Physically and...eyes.

Austin: And sensationally, like your senses—

Keith: Right, I’m…

Austin: It's chilly. You reach out and touch one of the little—

Keith: I can smell.

Austin: You can smell the snow.

Keith: Yeah. I—

Austin: And in like a minute, it's gonna be coating the ground. Do you know what I mean?

Keith: Right. And...so the way that you were describing it made it seem like there's an overlap between these, like...if you thought that you were walking down regular stairs, but the stairs were covered in snow from another dimension that you couldn't see, you might still slip on the snow.

Austin: Well, the thing that's happening is that dimension is fading into this dimension. As the song moves through the halls and echoes and plays at this louder volume...

Keith: Right.

Austin: It is transforming the space or transporting you—you're not sure which—into this other world of post-apocalyptic snow-wrecked Sapodilla in which—

Keith: Well, I'll tell you what I want to do.

Austin: Yes, you tell me.

Keith: I want to light the stairs that they're going down on fire—

Austin: [overlapping] Yes, of course you do.

Keith: —that they can't see because it's in another dimension.

Austin: And a lot of this will just be timing, right? Because it's going to…

Keith: They're going to eventually see it.

Austin: Well, they're going to see it as it turns into water and it gets slippery and they fall, right?

Keith: Right.

Austin: This is what you want to happen?

Keith: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin: You want them to— yeah. Uh huh. Yes. This is like literally you have a moment—

Keith: Or to burn them up.

Austin: ...Sure.

Keith: If it burned them.

Austin: The fire...it is lit, like, you can't reach into that. I don't think it's you reaching into the other dimension.

Keith: Okay. Okay.

Austin: It's really...it really is you anticipating that this dimensional overlap is happening.

Keith: It’s about to happen— okay, sure.

Austin: It’s happening as you do this, so you'll be in this position to take advantage of it before anyone else knows what the fuck is going on.

Keith: Okay. Yes, then yeah.

Austin: You know what i mean?

Keith: This is what I want to do. I'm going to use Fire of the Red King.

Austin: Yes.

Keith: It causes my unarmed attack to be ranged, and I can conjure flames.

Austin: Yes. So, I'm gonna basically let you do two D4 rolls if this hits. One is from the fire, and one is from the fall. So, go ahead and give me your...what is the spell? What is the roll for doing this?

Keith: It is...I believe it's D6? Is that right?

Austin: No, no, no. I'm saying—

Keith: Oh, okay. Got it.

Austin: Well, I’m saying what do you...first you have to roll to do it,, right?

Keith: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin: Which is what? Which is kill and...

Keith: Which is...evade? ‘Cause I'm kind of being a little bit coy about it?

Austin: You're being a little...yeah, I'd say...I'll give you that this is about keeping yourself...keeping yourself from being seen, right?

Keith: Right.

Austin: Then yeah, go ahead and give me evade occult.

Keith: Evade occult.

Austin: ‘Cause you’re trying to do is up here, with these other two up here who could totally see you.

Keith: Right.

Austin: So be careful.

Keith: Yeah. And I...yeah.

Austin: Hey, that's a seven, but it's a success at a cost. Take stress. I’m gonna roll their...the one who's up here.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Alright, take two fortune stress as they look for— as they sense, the people up here sense what's happening.

Keith: Just give me the— I just got fallout. [shocked] No, what?!

Austin: No, you didn't.

Keith: That—

[Timestamp: 0:20:00]

Austin: No, you didn’t. You rolled…

Keith: [muffled shouting] I rolled another twelve!

Austin: Keith has eleven stress, and rolled a twelve. This is absurd. [Keith laughs]

Art: I have to be in another group next time. [Austin laugh] I'm done with this. I'm not having fun anymore. [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: I just...I have been so...I look forward to me and Art rolling fallout every time, just because of that that luck obsession that Duvall has, still every single time.

Austin: It’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable.

Keith: It's so funny. It's so funny that this happens basically all after us having that luck conversation.

Austin: It’s so fucking funny.

Keith: It’s so funny.

Art: This isn’t learning. I'm not learning anything, though. It's like…

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: It’s like a torture.

Art: It’s like if you only played basketball with Michael Jordan. It’s like…

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: Well, you're not learning anything—

Art: Oh, that guy's really good. Ah, well, that doesn't do anything.

Austin: No.

Keith: It's like a version of fallout that actually is affecting Art the player.

Austin: A hundred percent. Alright. Give me your unarmed damage, which is D4, because you don't have the thing that boosts it to a D6, and then give me another D4, which will be the damage you do to them as a whole as they fall down the fucking stairs.

Keith: Okay. Three and then two.

Austin: So it’s three and then two. It's important I have both of those numbers, ‘cause they have protection. So, the fire gets through.

Keith: Makes sense that the fire does a little more.

Austin: Fire does a little more. So, okay, stairs. Here we go. Alright. All of them trip and fall, but it seems like the falling is just more of a distraction for them than doing any real damage. The fire climbs their uniforms, and they are singed a little bit from this. Virtue, you said something in chat.

Sylvia: Yeah. So, I noticed...I didn't read this earlier.

Austin: Yes.

Sylvia: I thought it was just for blood and mind fallout.

Austin: Mmm.

Sylvia: But my Death Follows Close skill also activates on fortune fallout.

Austin: It does.

Sylvia: Which is…

Austin: Major, yeah, you're right.

Sylvia: On major blood, mind, or fortune fallout, your death manifests to protect you and inflicts D8 stress on whatever caused the fallout.

Austin: An important thing. Yes.

Sylvia: Yeah. So, should we just roll that now?

Austin: Yeah, go ahead and tell me what this looks like. Who are you using it on? Are you using on the group that has now fallen on their asses in front of you?

Sylvia: Yeah, I think that makes the most sense.

Austin: Or are you using it on their leader upstairs, or...okay.

Sylvia: ‘Cause they're like also coming towards us, right?

Austin: Oh yeah. Big time.

Sylvia: Yeah. That's a five.

Austin: Hey, that ain't bad. That ain’t bad. What's this look like?

Sylvia: I think...so, in conjunction with another skill I took recently—

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Sylvia: Where my spirit—my death is what it's called in the playbook—has been manifesting as more poltergeist activity.

Austin: Right.

Sylvia: And I… [laughs softly] I don't want to just be like “It pushes them further down the stairs,” [Austin laughs softly] but like, I do think that it like...there is either like, books start getting thrown at them or some shit out of nowhere, or like…

Austin: We’re in like Ghostbusters poltergeists, like…

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: Yeah.

Sylvia: Extremely like classic poltergeist shenanigans that also happened to hurt these witch cops.

Austin: Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. As the stuff comes in, I think that you see the sciencey one, Felix, begin to try to like crawl back up the stairs away from the other two who are coming for you. You've really got him on his last legs here, ,right? The books are hitting him in the head. His wicker little half helmet falls off and falls down the ten floors to the, you know, below. The other ones manage to kind of like push themselves forward through this. They're hurt, but they believe that if they can get to you, they are going to hurt you badly. In fact, like a shot comes your way from one of them. You manage to, like, duck away. And you know that, you know, Darling is trying to keep them from you.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: But they are still marching forward nonetheless.

Sylvia: I am able to fire back, but if someone else has something they want to do, just do something, so.

Art: Yeah, I gotta...I gotta get my shit in here.

Sylvia: Yeah, exactly.

Austin: Please, please.

Art: I'm gonna Release the Swarm.

Austin: Okay.

Art: Dangerous with this guy with some sort of bug killing light.

Austin: Yeah, uh huh, very much.

Art: What I assume it is. They sent him out with the bug light.

Austin: But he's the one who's fleeing at this point, so I hope he doesn't...if he doesn't turn— if he turns around, that could be bad, but yeah.

Art: Well, he could just start shining it over his shoulder or something. I don't know.

Austin: This is true. This is true.

Art: Sicko over here. [Sylvia laughs] What do I roll for that?

Austin: Probably kill. What are you trying to do with it?

Art: I'm really trying to like, just kind of like create some static. I know that—

Austin: Create some space?

Art:  The first time I used this, it killed a whole room full of people.

Austin: Yeah.

Art: But I, the player, know this isn't a very good weapon. [laughs softly]

Austin: Right. Right. This is kill D4 spread ranged, right?

Art: Yeah.

Austin: So, this is...well, it’s not delve, discern, or mend. How the fuck did you roll so well that time?

Art: I'm very talented.

Austin: And you can’t use occult. This is gonna be a much worse roll, I am sorry to tell you. Because this is...domain is haven or occult, and then the thing that you're trying to do with it is not delving, discerning or mending.

Art: I rolled a six, and when I roll a six, it counts as a ten.

Austin: Right, sure.

Art: And then because it was a ten, it bumped up the damage to six. And then I rolled a six, and the six became a ten. That’s what happened.

Austin: Right. That's what happened. Yeah. You got lucky. You got lucky.

Art: And because I rolled a six, I got to roll an additional D6.

Austin: Right, and then that did okay, right? Yeah.

Art: Yeah, I like hit all of my weird number things.

Austin: Okay.

Art: It's never happened again.

Austin: Yeah.

Art: I think basing an entire character concept on “I’ll just roll sixes all the time…”

Austin: [laughs softly] Alright. Well, give me a...right now you're at one die.

Art: I don't have anything here, is the thing.

Austin: Yeah.

Art: And if I take stress, I'm gonna take fallout.

Austin: Maybe. You're only at two.

Art: Because that’s how it goes.

Austin: You're only at two. You don’t know.

Art: I do know.

Keith: Yeah, I mean, I just...I succeeded on eleven, so anything's possible.

Art: Hey, I'm gonna roll a D12, and we're gonna see how low that number is.

Austin: Wait, why are you rolling a D12?

Sylvia: You're gonna waste it?

Austin: Why are you rolling a D12?

Art: I’m just gonna...this is just…this is just for...

Austin: You’re just…

Art: Four!

Austin: Yeah, but that’s D12. You're not rolling D12. You're rolling a D10.

Art: No, but if that's my fallout test.

Keith: Oh, this is like a fallout sample test.

Austin: That’s safe.

Art: That's a fallout example. That's only two more stress, Austin.

Austin: Oh my god.

Keith: Well, think of it this way. You wasted your four, and so now maybe you'll get a nine.

Art: Probability doesn't work like that.

Austin: It doesn’t work the way you're doing it! [laughs]

Keith: But it also doesn't work this way. [laughs]

Sylvia: Okay, so not only does Art's character have a thing with luck now—

Austin: Yeah.

Sylvia: Art himself is developing it.

Keith: Yeah, that’s what I'm talking about!

Austin: Yes, fascination: luck. It's happening. It's happening. [Keith laughs]

Art: Yeah.

Austin: This is what they call bleed in the LARP scene.

Keith: Yeah.

Art: Mmm.

Austin: Character bleed.

Keith: Yeah. Art has luck obsession bleed.

Austin: Uh huh.

Art: Well, I should roll something. Okay. What happens when I don't have any skills or domains? [laughs]

Austin: So, you always start with one die. I don't think this is risky, which means I'm not gonna take that one die away from you. It was risky when the guy with the bug zapper—it’s really a magic zapper—flashlight was coming for you. But in this case, it's not risky anymore. It’s two V. two. Those odds aren't too bad. So it's one die. You can get help from Virtue if you want, if Virtue can help.

Sylvia: Yeah, I'm still pretty solid on stress, so I should be able to help.

Austin: Yeah. So then you get to dice, you roll two dice. Well, that's a one and a five. Take stress. Thanks for rolling.

Art: Fine. Fine! Fine.

Sylvia: At least you rolled better than a four.

Austin: Here is Duvall. Let me make sure I’m doing this right. Yeah, okay. [laughter]

Art: I fucking…

Austin: That’s blood. Take eight blood stress. [laughter continues]

Keith: You just took seven!

Austin: Oh, and then…

Art: And then I rolled a five. And then I rolled a five! [Sylvia laughs]

Austin: You take minor fallout.

Art: I rolled a five, Austin! I rolled a five.

Austin: And then this is different. This is debilitate— okay, so. Take five, Virtue, blood here.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: As these two Macula fight you. Oh, buddy. I'm sorry that this happened the way it did.

Art: Oh my god.

Sylvia: Oh, I should roll fallout too, right?

Austin: Yeah, you should also roll fallout. But also, you're going to get—

Sylvia: Well, I gotta stop laughing.

Austin: Oh my god!

Art: Oh!

Sylvia: [laughs softly] That's the second time this session I've rolled the exact number to get major fallout.

Austin: To get major fallout. Also, that's debilitating, which is once per situation, the next attack made against you is made with mastery, which doesn't actually make sense ‘cause I don't roll dice against you. But basically, I think it actually means that you're gonna have one less. It basically means the next thing you do is risky. Here's what happens.

Sylvia: [sighs] Great.

Austin: Jeez. You're like, release the swarm! And as soon as they see the bugs, they go

Felix.

Austin: And Felix turns around and tosses some sort of powder in the flame to make it brighten up really quick. And it just, whoosh, like all of your bugs. Not all of your bugs, that would be really bad. Many of your bugs flying at them just completely dissolve into ash. And then they take that moment and your shock as this is happening to shoot you with a hand cannon in the chest.

Art: Great.

Austin: Which is where you get eight stress, eight blood stress from.

Art: Uh huh.

Austin: Don't worry that you're gonna...that's gonna—

Art: I’ve already taken it off. It’s not even there anymore.

Austin: It's not even there anymore, right? Yeah, absolutely. Good news is you don't have internal organs anymore, right? So that means…

Art: It's not really clear.

Austin: Hmm. Right. Interesting.

Keith: No, what he means is no, there's no organs.

Austin: I see. Yes.

Art: I would say the organ question is an open one.

Keith: Like the organs

Sylvia: That’s always a good time. Honestly, same here actually, so.

Austin: What I want to know is: could you be bleeding or is that off the table at this point?

[Timestamp: 0:30:00]

Art: Mmm, it depends how much you want it, I think. I mean, it takes—

Austin: Oh, you know what it is? You're melting. The shot stays in your wax body, and it stays hot. The shot that they use on you, like the actual bullets that they use on you, retain their heat and begin to melt you away. So instead of writing Bleeding, write Melting. At the end of each situation where you have this fallout, mark D4 stress to blood. This thing is wedged in you deep and like, to touch it is to hurt yourself more. So until you can pull it out, you know, via someone healing you, you're going to continue to...this is gonna melt through your chest.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: Bad. Not a good place to be.

Art: Can I just reform my body?

Austin: I mean, you can...mmm, no, ‘cause it'll still be in there. You have to get it out first. They’ve shot you with magic heat bullets, Art. Come on. Can Superman—

Art: Well, if there's no body, what are they in?

Austin: The body. They’re in the body. You’re just— you have a wax body, right?

Art: Well, but I can have...I can have the swarm chew up and reform the body.

Austin: [overlapping] Oh, I see what you're saying. Chew up your— right. Then yeah, I think if you have enough...if you have the hours it takes to do that or whatever, then yes, that would be a way for you to heal this.

Art: So it's D4 blood stress.

Austin: At the end of— yeah. This situation, it's gonna hit you, because...

Keith: Okay.

Art: At the end of every situation.

Austin: Yes. Now wait, because I still have a major fallout for Virtue.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm!

Keith: Fuck.

Austin: Uh huh. Sorry.

Keith: This is so bad.

Austin: It’s not good. Huh. [Sylvia laughs] You're Downed. Virtue? You're Downed.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: “You can't move under your own power, and you're barely clinging onto consciousness. You can be moved around by others, but without medical attention, you're not going anywhere. Can be upgraded to dying.” This person throws basically a grappling hook/bolo. There's basically like a bolo. You know what a bolo is? You know when I say bolo?

Sylvia: Yeah, like the things that tie around a...

Keith: It’s that awesome tie. [Austin laughs]

Sylvia: It’s like got two weights and you like throw it and it ties around.

Austin: And you throw it and wraps around. Yeah. So it's like that, but it also—

Sylvia: Legs in media typically.

Austin: Yeah, exactly. But it still also has like a grappling hook hook, or it has a grappling hook rope back. And so this person bolos you and basically ties you, but the metal of the hook slams into your head and knocks you unconscious.

Sylvia: Damn!

Austin: And ties you up. So you're also debilitated, which again you’ll minus— basically risky on your next roll. But you're Downed. You're just...you're woozy. And here's the reason I'm doing this, is because...and maybe this is the real fallout. I mean, it's Downed, but Darling says:

Austin (as Darling): Just let me take control. I'm still awake.

Sylvia: [intrigued] Oooh.

Austin: And we'll cut away. Lyke, what's up? What do you got?

Keith: There's four left up?

Austin: They’re all left up.

Keith: Oh, I thought one got downed.

Austin: The one with the tech was fleeing but had not been downed.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: Which is to say he's close to being downed and would have left if not for that bad one, or the five that Duvall rolled. Unfortunate.

Keith: Okay. I'm just...just a totally off topic thought. What if I used Rust and Iron on Tombo? That would be really funny.

Austin: Very funny, yeah. [Sylvia laughs] Cyber Tombo.

Keith: Good fish, headache, dangerous, unreliable. [Austin and Keith laugh] D4. Okay. I...so, the annoying thing that I need to do—and I cannot believe that I missed my chance to do this, literally didn't occur to me—is that I need to kick one of these people off of the railing so that they fall down and die.

Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.

Keith: They all deserve it. Not a question.

Austin: Not a question. Not a question!

Keith: And I have Legendary. I can refresh a D6 when I gain a minor advance.

Austin: Right. Right. Very useful.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Alright. So, do you just want to go push someone off a ledge?

Keith: Yeah. Closest, I mean, if—

Austin: That's a kill. That's a kill haven or occult. If you're pushing someone off a ledge down ten stories, that's a kill.

Keith: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna kill someone. If it's gotta be the tech person whose about to—

Austin: Sorry, I meant that that's the roll. I meant that that’s the...

Keith: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Keith: No, I know. I mean, if I have to take the risky roll of killing someone when I don't have the kill thing.

Austin: Yeah. Right.

Keith: Then, fine.

Austin: Yeah. I would say that that is the roll that is the easiest roll, is to kill him. You could go at the one holding a gun on Lenore, but that's a lot harder based on positioning, not as lined up.

Keith: Right, they’re not next to the railing.

Austin: They’re not next to the railing in that way. And the...you could let the scientist go and try to grab one of the ones past him, the other…

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Either Nelzo or Aztel, but that would mean letting the scientist go, right?

Keith: Yeah. This is a fun sort of rules lawyer-y question, I guess, but because Fire of the Red King turns my unarmed attacks into ranged attacks, can I kick someone with Fire of the Red King from a distance?

Austin: I think if you...you could...mmm, I mean, what does it say? It says you conjure flames on the clothing and bodies.

Keith: Right.

Austin: I don't think that has a kinetic force.

Keith: Got it.

Austin: In the same way. Not enough to push someone off the thing. Not enough to kick.

Keith: Right.

Austin: I think you gotta go do the thing, like the…

Keith: Yeah, I'll go do the thing.

Austin: You know what I mean? You know.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Kick someone off a tall structure.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: They really deserved it.

Keith: I'm gonna go do it. They deserve it.

Austin: This, you know, yeah. This monarchist, you know, shithead scientist dude definitely does.

Keith: Right. Yeah.

Austin: So yeah, give me kill and haven or occult, which I know you don't have. So it's just the one plus the one from…

Keith: And…

Austin: So you have haven and occult but you don't have to kill.

Keith: Yeah. Is there something I can do to increase the efficacy of this?

Austin: I mean, it's gonna it's gonna kill this guy if you hit.

Keith: Oh, sorry, I just mean I don't want to fail the roll and take stress.

Austin: Oh. No. Uh...

Keith: ‘Cause if I take stress one more time, then I get fallout no matter what.

Austin: Then you definitely will be getting fallout, yes.

Keith: Right.

Austin: Uh, I'm looking. I don't see anything.

Keith: Yeah, ‘cause it's not a spell—

Austin: It’s not.

Keith: —which is sort of why I wanted to get Fire of the Red King in there.

Austin: Yeah, I see what you're trying to do, but I just think you gotta kick him to kick him.

Keith: I just gotta kick him to kick him, yeah, so…

Austin: Or if you had— yeah. I think you gotta kick him. It's kick, you know?

Keith: Yeah. Kill, ult or...what? Yeah. Whatever. I have it.

Austin: Doesn't matter. It’s the same thing. Yep, mm-hmm. That is success at a cost. Take stress.

Keith: Yep.

Austin: So, let's see here. Give me...or I guess you don't have a roll damage, because this is going to kill Hollowfield. What's it look like as I decide what this count of stress looks like?

Keith: Oh, but does Legendary kick in immediately?

Austin: You will get to do that— it won't block you from…

Keith: Okay, so I'm gonna take the fallout.

Austin: You're gonna take the fallout.

Keith: Clear my...potentially—

Austin: Yes, clear all of your stress.

Keith: Right, and—

Austin: Well, potentially, right?

Keith: Right, yeah.

Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You are going to take D...what is this? D8. Here it is. You're gonna take six echo stress.

Keith: I'm gonna reroll that, please.

Austin: Okay. You do that, what, once a...?

Keith: I guess it doesn't matter, right? No, yeah, forget it. I'm not gonna do that. ‘Cause it doesn't matter

Austin: ‘Cause it’s gonna be more than twelve no matter what.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: You're right. Save that. So, go ahead and give me your fallout test with...whatever.

Keith: Minor fallout.

Austin: Yeah, there it is, minor fallout. This is also Degenerating, and this is gonna be a thing I'll talk about, you'll learn about. Once you get out of the situation, I can explain what Degenerating does here. Ba ba ba. Minor fallout echo.

Keith: Whoof.

Austin: You see, everybody got a little something, you know? [Sylvia laughs] Not even Lyke managed to avoid everything here.

Keith: It did take me getting 17 total stress.

Art: Oh.

Sylvia: Jesus.

Austin: Okay, so you kick him over the edge, and as he falls, the...oh my god, I can't believe this is gonna happen. The blue light flashes in your face before he tumbles to his death. And as it does, you feel this like blast of null energy move through you, as if it's like...as if it's killing the most magical parts of you. You know what I— it's just like ugh, like it's gray and bleh, bad. The real worry here—and this is not even fallout, this is just how Degenerating the tag works—is that magical things on you? I mean, this is not how the tag works, but this is how I'm interpreting it here, Degenerating, is that if you take damage, at the end of the situation, you'll have to roll endure plus domain and mark stress. That stress is going to not be for you, but for the most magical thing on you, which is Aterika’Kaal. Having been blasted and like hit by what is effectively this blast of anti-magic radiation, you can feel, like your gut goes like, oh shit, I hope Aterika’Kaal is okay. And so at the end of the session— situation, not session. At the end of the situation, you'll have to roll to see if Aterika’Kaal took damage from this, basically. I'm not gonna— I thought about Tombo, Virtue, but I’m not threatening Tombo. Tombo warded just in time.

Keith: It would be a big surprise to find out that Tombo is the most magical thing on me.

Austin: Uh huh, yes.

Sylvia: I thought that was how we were gonna find out.

Austin: I thought about it. [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: That’d be great.

Austin: I did think about it. The second thing that happens is...we haven't done this much, but did you know that you can combine two minor fallouts into a major fallout?

Keith: No.

Art: I did not know that.

Keith: I did not know that.

Sylvia: Oh.

Austin: You can do that. You could choose to do it if you ever wanted to. If you're ever like, I really want a major instead of these two minors, you can—

Keith: Oh, so you're—

Austin: You can pitch me that, for instance.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: And I can pitch it to you. It doesn't have to go this way.

Keith: Okay, well.

Austin: And I can say, for instance, let me...here’s a new minor one, and instead of giving you a new minor one, let's just instantly combine it with one you haven't gotten rid of yet.

Keith: Better Ravening Call?

Austin: Which is the Higher Ravening Call.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: We're in this weird post-apocalyptic snow covered Sapodilla, and you hear the sound of a bellowing beast. Can you remind me how that started? Was that in a dream that you had once, right?

[Timestamp: 0:40:03]

Keith: Yes, in the worldbuilding episode, there was a...there was like a question about like, what scares you or something?

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: And I had a dream about a beast that could see me, could see the dreaming Lye Lychen seeing it.

Austin: Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh.

Keith: And that became the ravening beast when I got the minor fallout. Or, sorry, the Ravening Call when I got that fallout.

Austin: Yeah. And now, emerging from a patch of shadows, the ravening beast that has been hiding in your mind appears. It will attempt to maul others, but its primary motivation is to consume you utterly. Fighting off the beast does not remove this fallout, but it has no further effect unless you upgrade this fallout to The Ravening. This thing is scary, and it howls from the bottom level of this tower. You kick this person off, and they don't land, Lyke. You see them fall, and they're illuminated by their own little blue light thing coming up off their vest, their little blue light candle, and it illuminates them as they fall. And then something just grabs them out of the fucking air, and it’s like, [imitates beast catching and chomping] And it is the ravaging beast, its long, slender jaw, you know, opening and shutting on the body of Felix Hollowfield. Its eyes glowing with that same blue now and looking up and making eye contact with you. Its slobbering tongue coming out of its mouth as it then turns to the stairs and begins to run up towards you. Uh oh!

Keith: Okay, we gotta bounce. [Austin laughs] I’m using Sanctum of the Stone Chorus.

Sylvia: Who wants to pick me up? I’m Downed.

Austin: Darling would. Darling'll pick you up.

Sylvia: [hesitant] Yeah…

Austin: You just gotta let Darling in a little deeper, just a little bit closer to you.

Sylvia: [conflicted deep breath]

Austin: What's wrong?

Sylvia: Uhhh…

Austin: You'll be fine. Darling will get you through this situation.

Sylvia: I’m honestly very tempted to do it.

Austin: Uh huh.

Sylvia: Just because it's like, well, yeah, we can deal with the rest of these fuckers now too.

Austin: Uh huh. Maybe, I mean…

Sylvia: Maybe.

Austin: Your body still can only go so far, but.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Keith: Does combining my two minor fallouts—

Austin: Oh, it gets rid of—

Keith: Does that get rid of Degenerating?

Austin: No, it does not, ‘cause that's not a fallout. That's just a weapon thing. The weapon just does that.

Keith: Got it.

Austin: On any hit, not even just on fallout hits.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: Can I—

Sylvia: So we're all suffering from that then, yeah? Or...

Austin: Uh, sorry, you got hit with it, but it didn't do the…

Sylvia: Okay. Wanted to make sure.

Austin: That was...no, you got hit by the bomb, which does not do that. Only the like big flashlight thing does.

Sylvia: Okay..

Austin: The thing that killed the bugs, basically. Whatever. It's destroyed now, so that's good. So yeah, you're gonna Stone Chorus and get everybody out of here before…

Keith: Yeah, this is the escape hatch.

Austin: Okay. Which is...what does that roll?

Keith: Oh. Oh!

Austin: Oh. Yes? Hi?

Keith: I'm take— can I— I can take a move, right?

Austin: Yes, you can take a move. Correct.

Keith: Okay. I know exactly what move I’m gonna take.

Austin: Also, also, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What are you doing with your D6 refresh? Because that did not clear...

Keith: Oh, I’m rolling that. Yeah.

Austin: Yes. You're gonna get rid of the probably fortune, right? Or I guess roll that D6. As a reminder, this is everyone who has the adventure thi—

Keith: One.

Austin: Oh my god. Brutal. [Keith snorts] Legendary. You strive to live up to the stories they'll tell of your exploits. [laughs] When you gain a minor advance, refresh D6.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: When you gain a major advance, refresh D8.

Keith: So yes, I went from eight to seven fortune stress.

Austin: Yeah, great. Anyway, what do you do for Stone Chorus?

Keith: It's just like…

Austin: Sorry, I meant what's the roll? It's discern religion, right?

Keith: Yes. Yeah.

Austin: Okay.

Keith: It's discern religion. And I'm gonna use…

Austin: Are you doing the thing?

Keith:  I'm gonna use sacrifice.

Austin: Oh, okay. Okay. What are you sacrificing?

Keith: It's gotta be...it has to be religion or occult.

Austin: Occult. Yeah.

Keith: I thought I had another religion thing.

Austin: I think the only thing you have is the knife. I think it's all you have left. Yeah. Unfortunately.

Keith: I really like the knife.

Austin: I know you like the knife. It's a good knife, like, literally it is Good, which is good for—

Keith: Uh, fuck it. Yeah, I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna roll.

Austin: Alright. Roll it straight.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Discern religion.

Keith: Discern religion. Discern...religion...roll. Ten.

Austin: Hey!

Keith: Oh, two tens.

Austin: Double tens. Damn! God damn.

Keith: By the way, I haven't...I have yet to use Sacrifice on a roll where it actually has helped me.

Austin: Where you get— yeah, uh huh.

Keith: Yes, I've only ever succeeded when destroying one of my items.

Austin: It’s part of the ritual, you know?

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: It works that way. Alright, where are you going? I guess— are we rolling?

Keith: Yeah, we're—

Austin: Or are you doing the thing I thought you were gonna do?

Keith: Oh, actually, no. I think that you actually think I'm gonna take a different one than I'm taking.

Austin: Oh, okay. What are you taking?

Keith: Circumstances have changed.

Austin: I see. Okay. I thought that Keith was gonna take a—

Keith: Yes.

Austin: —move that would lock this thing where you step into a god's realm for an hour, that Keith was going do that, make it permanent and make it like his own space, basically.

Keith: Right. Which is what we talked about going into this episode, which would make sense.

Austin: Yes, we did mention this.

Keith: But I'm actually gonna take the one that lets us heal different kinds of stress.

Austin: Ah!

Keith: [laughs] Because I just think we need that. And I was probably gonna take all of the Stone Chorus things eventually anyway, so.

Austin: Yeah, it's kind of your go to, so. Yeah, that makes sense.

Keith: Yeah, we just need...yeah, I've used it so much, and it's been so useful.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: Found it. Okay, so, yeah. So, I am taking Sanctum of the Stone Chorus, Benevolent. Instead of removing D6 stress from echo, you or your allies may remove D6 stress from supplies or fortune instead.

Austin: Which I know you have a bunch of fortune stress.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: I feel like someone might have echo also, right?

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Maybe I'm wrong about that. I think people got echo fallout but maybe don't have echo stress at this point. But, anyway.

Keith: Okay, well—

Sylvia: Thanks to all the fallout I've taken, I have no stress right now.

Austin: Oh, that's good.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: Art, what are you at for stress?

Art: I’ve only got two stress.

Austin: It’s fortune, though.

Keith: Oh. Well, maybe I won't take this, then.

Austin: Mmm.

Keith: Maybe I won’t take this right now. Maybe if it's just me and it's just fortune…

Austin: And where are you at, Lyke? Where's your...oh, you have seven fortune. That’s not great.

Keith: I have a ton of fortune, so it would be really useful for me.

Austin: Yeah, it would be.

Keith: No, let's take...I will take Benevolent. Let's do it.

Austin: You’ll take Benevolent for now, okay. So, you successfully did this.

Keith: Yes, let’s do the weird roll.

Austin: Give me the weird roll. What was it, ten? Roll D10. One D10, let's find out this god. Hey, that's a nine. Okay. Generate deities, boom. Okay. Oh, this is so good.

Keith: God of a burned library.

Austin: No, this apathetic god of doctors [Keith and Sylvia laugh] takes the form of a mature adult. They are very short and have an over-muscled build. [Keith and Art chuckle] They have bone white hair worn in a style that resembles a rocky outcropping. Their slitted eyes are alabaster. Their body is covered in fur. They are usually portrayed as wearing a strange suit of armor, which incorporates abstract designs, and a ring. They carry a satchel of medicinal herbs.

Keith: This is a favorite, I think.

Austin: Who is the apathetic god of—

Art: Is it weed?

Austin: It might be. [chuckles]  What is the name of this apathetic of doctors?

Keith: Um, Becker.

Austin: With bone white hair. What is it, Ecker?

Keith: Becker. That's just that old sitcom.

Austin: Isn’t that just the Ted Danson sitcom?

Keith: That’s the Ted Danson sitcom where he's an apathetic doctor.

Austin: Oh, is he a doctor in that?

Keith: Yeah, he plays an apathetic doctor in that, yeah.

Austin: Nah. I don’t think—

Keith: He is not overly muscled or is short, though. So, doesn’t really work.

Austin: Are you sure?

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: What about covered in fur?

Keith: Uh, no.

Art: We have some sort of Ted Danson Danny DeVito hybrid going on.

Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.

Keith: Ted Danny.

Austin: Has Danny DeVito ever played a doctor?

Keith: Danny DeDanson.

Austin: [laughs softly] No.

Art: Is he the doctor in that movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger is pregnant?

Austin: Twins?

Keith: No. Twins is where someone was pregnant with them.

Art: No, Twins is when they’re twins.

Austin: Junior.

Art: Yeah, Junior.

Sylvia: Yeah, Junior is the mpreg film.

Austin: Is he the doctor in that?

Art: He might not even be in that, if we’re—

Austin: He is. He is.

Art: Yeah. What do you know?

Austin: Yeah, he's a doctor. Dr. Larry Arbogast. [Keith laughs]

Art: Wow! Did they do this for us?

Austin: They did this for us! Arbogast.

Keith: [still laughing] Arbogast.

Austin: Well.

Sylvia: Oh my god.

Austin: Becker Arbogast, here!

Keith: Becker Arbogast.

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: I'm glad we got something out of that.

Austin: Yeah. Uh, incredible. [laughs softly]  Let me paste this into the chat so that we remember. There we go. Arbogast. Incredible, thank you. Named for, apparently, Arbogast...I was like, what is that? There apparently was a Roman army officer named Arbogast. So, yeah, fantastic.

Art: So the writer of Junior was a big...

Austin: Yeah, uh huh.

Sylvia: Eh, makes sense to me.

Austin: Mm-hmm. His germanic name is also otherwise attested, da da da, composed of the elements arbija-, which is inheritance, and gastiz, which is guest. Inherited guest. Great. What's this space look like, Lye? Where did you take people to?

Keith: This is like...it is not, but has the sort of color palette and decor of like an old school office, like a study.

[Timestamp: 0:50:06]

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: Like, there's mahogany.

Austin: Oh, sure.

Keith: Like, crown molding.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: And maybe a wet bar.

Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.

Keith: Or like a bar cart.

Austin: Yeah, there’s a little bar cart. Yeah, sure. Are there other people here or is this just...is there a line to see...are there doctors here?

Keith: No, there's a sign that says no lines.

Austin: [laughs softly] What’s that about?

Art: Wait. Does that mean—

Sylvia: What?

Keith: Don't line up in front of me.

Austin: Okay.

Keith: Don't...you're not allowed...you can't. Yeah, you just find your own spot. Don't crowd. No crowding.

Austin: No crowding. No lines, no crowding.

Keith: Yeah. The rules are just...they’re just generally grumpy.

Austin: Is Arbogast here? Is there an...or is this...it’s a temple of...what's the move say? [laughs softly]

Keith: It says that the priests are who facilitate—

Austin: Right. The healing or whatever, right?

Keith: Or who facilitate my connection with the temples.

Austin: Right. Mm-hmm.

Keith: But we have had gods there before, right?

Austin: We’ve used this move in a lot of different ways. I think just Aterika’Kaal.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: And that was a special situation. So I think this is probably a temple of Arbogast.

Keith: I rolled two tens. Can we get Arbogast in here?

Austin: Okay. Arbogast is here. [Keith laughs]

Austin (as Arbogast): I'll be right with you guys, okay? What do you need? What's up? There's no lines, but there's an order to the way I have to do this, you understand?

Keith (as Lyke): Ticket? Do you do ticketing?

Austin (as Arbogast): No tickets. Look at the sign.

Keith (as Lyke): [softly] No lines, no tickets.

Austin: You look up at the sign, and now it says—

Keith: [laughs] No tickets.

Austin: “No lines, no crowds, no tickets.” And it also says, “Leave me alone.” [laughter]

Keith: Yeah, it doesn't—

Art: I love the passive aggressive sign of Becker Arbogast.

Keith: You know the kind of guy...you know the kind of guy who always acts like they're so busy?

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: Even if they're not. Sometimes they are.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith:  But like he's like this, like there's one hundred people in here, even when there's four.

Austin: Arbogast is here to make sure everyone is okay and that you leave them the fuck alone.

Keith: Get in, get healed, get out.

Austin: That's right. Y'all should probably take a br— oh! With two tens, I was gonna ask you, maybe I’m just gonna give this to you, which is like, Lenore leans forward and is like:

Austin (as Lenore): No lines? Well, how are we supposed to decide who goes first?

Austin: And Lenore managed to sneak in with you, escaping the Macula along with you.

Keith (as Lyke): Lenore?

Austin: Mm-hmm. Oh, did you say that in character? Was that in character?

Keith: Yeah, that’s in character. Yeah.

Austin: Ah.

Keith: I thought your “mm-hmm” was in character, but I guess not.

Austin: Yeah, it is now too.

Austin (as Lenore): Mm-hmm.

Keith: Mm-hmm.

Keith (as Lyke): Okay. That’s fine.

Austin (as Lenore): They’ve known what sort of books we had for a long time, which makes me think maybe they're here for something other— they came for something other than the books.

Keith (as Lyke): It's been a rough week, though.

Austin (as Lenore): Hey, why is Virtue asleep?

Keith (as Lyke): Virtue is dying.

Sylvia: Not yet! No, Downed can be upgraded to Dying. Hold on.

Austin: [chuckles] I think Lenore like—

Art: That’s a weird thing to say when you have limited strength.

Sylvia: [laughs] Especially when you're unconscious.

Keith (as Lyke): She can't move under her own power.

Austin: Lenore says:

Austin (as Lenore): Can you look away for a moment?

Keith (as Lyke): No?

Austin (as Lenore): I'm no Arbogast, but I can do a thing or two.

Keith: I guess if Virtue is conscious enough.

Sylvia: Thumbs up.

Keith: A thumbs up. Okay.

Austin: Okay.

Keith: I cover my eyes.

Austin: Lenore Ieans or like kneels down next to you and says:

Austin (as Lenore): Open wide.

Austin: And takes a small dagger and cuts his hand and lets some blood fall into your mouth.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Thank you so much.

Austin: You are...how does Downed work? What's the actual way it’s written?

Sylvia: You can’t move under your own power, and you're barely clinging on to consciousness.

Austin: Uh huh.

Sylvia: You can be moved around by others, but without medical attention, you're not going anywhere. Can be upgraded to dying.

Austin: Okay, so you're still...you still need real medical attention, but you're stabilized, let's say here.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: Arbogast can help with this. Maybe what this is is like a D— oh, it's not a refresh because you don't have stress, right? You don't have any stress at this point—

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: —because you're being Downed. But, you know, consider it a little gift.

Sylvia: Thank you.

Austin: To keep— you know, what it does is it pushes Darling a little further away. It sates Darling's appetite in a weird way.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: Also, we got to do a scene where a vampire fed another vampire, which is good, I think.

Sylvia: Yeah, that is actually why I was saying thank you.

Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sylvia: But everything else is good, too.

Austin: So, what are you paying to heal? Who needs healing here? It's just...just Lyke?

Art: Now, I have flaming bullets.

Austin: Oh, you have those flaming bullets. Yeah, uh huh, right. Fallout you have.

Art: I guess they’re not on fire.

Austin: You're not on fire. And how long does it take you to rebuild yourself? Six hours.

Art: Eight hours. Six hours normal, or by taking D8 blood stress, I can do it in one hour.

Austin: Well—

Art: But taking D8 blood stress to get rid of a one D4 blood stress feels like you're sort of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Austin: Right, sorry, you have to...you need to roll that D4 blood stress, also.

Art: Oh, sure.

Austin: That's a situation. You're here now. We've gotten out of the fight. So, give me a D4. Hey, take two blood stress. Give me a…

Art: Oh my god.

Austin: [chuckles] Give me a fallout test.

Art: Oh my god.

Austin: It's fine. You're in doctor's care now, or you will be. Arbogast’ll be right…

Art: Hey.

Austin: Look, there's a twelve. Look at you. Nice work.

Austin (as Arbogast): Don't bleed everywhere. Thank you.

Austin: And then Lye, I need you…

Art (as Duvall): It's actually very contained. [Austin laughs] It's mostly internal bleeding.

Austin: Lye, I need you to do the the roll that I said before, which is that...where is it? Degenerating. Give me a D4 stress here. And that's gonna go onto... Hey, three.

Keith: Three.

Austin: Okay, so—

Keith: Uh, I'm gonna hit that reroll.

Austin: On that? Okay. Go ahead.

Keith: Oh, wait, this doesn't go to me.

Austin: No, this goes to Aterika’Kaal.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: Who you don't know how to heal at this point, necessarily.

Keith: No, I don’t.

Austin: You haven't done that work yet. So, here's the thing. Aterika’Kaal has twelve HP, which is that's how— or, ten, sorry. They’re a D10, right? So that means I'm gonna write next to it here. It's taken three. It's at seven of ten stress, so.

Keith: And how do I not—

Austin: Or it’s at seven of ten resistance.

Keith: How do I stop Degenerating?

Austin: That's it. It only happens that one time.

Keith: Okay. Got it.

Austin: It's not an always thing. It’s just don't get hit by that again, you know?

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: So, you're here to heal up. This, you know, it's supposed to only give you echo, but I really think this doctor could probably do blood fallout, echo, like…

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: You happened to roll an apathetic doctor, right?

Keith: Right.

Austin: So, I think we gotta—

Keith:  Luck of the dice.

Austin: Yeah, luck of the dice. That's fiction, baby. As a reminder, we're using the Seventh Sanctum deity generator, so.

Keith: And it's been good.

Austin: Which is very fun. Yeah, it's fun. There are some in here that I'm like...okay, really?

Keith: Okay.

Austin: But a lot of them are very good, so.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Who wants to heal up before we wrap up? I'm guessing y'all are gonna want to do some healing, right?

Keith: I gotta heal up, yeah.

Sylvia: Hi.

Austin: Alright. You know the fucking rules.

Sylvia: He can have this fucking book. I don't care anymore. [laughs softly]

Austin: Uh huh. Uh, we were using— sorry, I was using they/them for Arbogast, but then we started— but then we decided it was—

Sylvia: Oh.

Austin: Danny DeVito and…

Keith: Ted Danson.

Sylvia: Ted Danson.

Austin: Ted Danson. Do we want to move to he/him, because we now have this image? Do we want to stay with they/them, or are they he/they? They could be he/they.

Keith: Yeah, sure.

Sylvia: We could do a he/they.

Austin: Let’s do a he/they.

Sylvia: Shoutout to the he/theys.

Austin: Shoutouts to the he/theys. Absolutely. So yeah, what do you— [laughs] what are you paying Arbogast, Becker Arbogast, with?

Art: I got a bag of coins.

Sylvia: May I interest you in this hymnal of the Mother-Beast?

Austin: Absolutely. Put it on the fucking shelf.

Keith: Since I've been looking— and I genuinely, and apologies if we've already gone through this, I just don't remember.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: But just because I've been reading these...are you sure that we're paying for this here? It's not just a roll?

Austin: Yes. What?

Keith: Well, it's just...it just says when you meditate here, remove D6 stress from echo.

Austin: You know what? Meditate, I would say from Echo, you can do it for free. Yeah, you can meditate for free. You're right. So, echo fallout, you can meditate D6.

Keith: And supplies or fortune, ‘cause I took Bountiful.

Austin: Or supplies or fortune, correct.

Keith: Cool.

Austin: You're right. Yes.

Keith: Alright.

Austin: Good catch.

Sylvia: But I'm still gonna need to do this for fallout, right?

Austin: For blood fallout? Yes. For major blood fallout, yes.

Sylvia: Okay, cool.

Austin: But I'll let you...hmm, it’s D6 stress from Echo. I think you might still have to pay for if you want to get rid of Hex Eye. Mmm…

Sylvia: That's fine. I actually kind of want to hold onto that for now.

Austin: Okay. Sounds good.

Sylvia: I actually should also ask, did...are those books that we got gonna be in our inventory? [laughs softly]

Austin: Yes. All those—

Sylvia: Cool.

Austin: I mean, you definitely left with them, right?

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: So let's add those to your inventory. For now, just write that it's a D8—

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: —book about the stuff that you care about. We’ll come up with a cool name afterwards.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Austin: Duvall, likewise. You know, Duvall write The Hibiscus Historia as a piece of equipment. D8, you know.

Art: As equipment or a resource?

Austin: A resource, sorry, a resource haven.

Keith: What was my book?

Austin: And then yours was called...I posted it in chat a little while ago. Sa’Ferna-ta-Fera.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: I'll post it again, so that you can just copy and paste it. And that is D10. That is a D10 occult religion. It's honestly...you know? I'm gonna give you— this is actually a really cool book. It's any domain.

[Timestamp: 1:00:12]

Keith: Ooh.

Austin: Because it's just a rolling conversation with one of the most knowledgeable people ever. It's any domain except— no, it's everything. It's everything. There's a little something about everything here in that thing. So. So, yeah. There you go.

Keith: Nice.

Austin: So everybody has those books.

Art: Oh, a bookkeeping bit.

Austin: Yes.

Art: Take the edge off I meant to get rid of when I reformed my entire body.

Austin: That should be gone, right? Until you reach a landmark. Yeah, that's gone. That's gone. That's gone.

Art: And then I’m—

Austin: ;And you can also get rid of Hollowfield null occult. That can be gone too.

Art: And I'm paying coin's to get rid of my—

Austin: Your blood fallout, your minor blood.

Art: Melting?

Austin: Yeah, your melting, yes. Yes.

Art: Alright.

Austin: That's a...the D6 gets rid of it.

Art: D6 bag of coins.

Austin: Boom. Done. Got it.

Austin (as Arbogast): Yeah, I take money. It's money.

Austin: Wow! That's why they call it money! We got our—  

Art: Everyone needs money.

Austin: Everybody needs money.

Art: That’s why they call it money. A line said by Danny DeVito.

Austin: By Danny DeVito, exactly! Virtue…

Art: Let's just stay here. Let’s… [Keith laughs]

Austin: You can— well, unfortunately you could only be here for an hour, is the way that Sanctum of the Stone Chorus works, right?

Keith: Yeah. And then the domain—

Austin: After an hour or so, the path will seal shut.

Keith: The gate closes.

Austin: You could just stay here.

Keith: We could literally stay here.

Austin: Maybe you just live here now. Yeah. The end.

Keith: But we would be stuck here, wherever here is.

Austin: Yeah, have we figured out where that is? I don't know where on the map the temple of—

Keith: That would be such a wild left turn for the show to take, is like...

Austin: Ah, that’d be so funny.

Keith: Yes, three of the seven of you chose to not go back through the gate.

Austin: That's an incredible end of season thing, but not a good...like, you could make that choice, and I guess we’d play it out. I'm not gonna say no. If y'all are like, you know what? We're the selfish trio. [Keith laughs] And I know we have a party back home, but we're here now. Fuck the painting.

Art: And they're doing something very dangerous, but we met a very cool god of doctors. [Austin laughs]

Keith: Yeah.

Art: It’s safe here.

Austin: My mother always told me to meet a doctor.

Keith: There's something very weird but very charming about this apathetic doctor.

Austin: God damn. Virtue.

Art: I bet he hates Nabisco.

Austin: [laughs] Thank god for that. Did you...okay, wait, wait, wait. Virtue.

Sylvia: Oh, wait, don’t delete that, right?

Austin: I'm sorry. You...it just goes down.

Sylvia: Downgrade it to minor, right?

Austin: It goes down to a minor.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: So instead of being Downed you are only...huh. What do you think here?

Sylvia: Am I gonna end this session with Limping again?

Austin: Limping again? It might be limping again.

Art: Ha!

Sylvia: The other leg.

Austin: I think...no, I think that it is...Virtue, I think that you're gonna get Ringing Head: your head swims, and 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.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: ‘Cause then maybe you don't even need to spend any resources to clear it, if you just want to suffer through it, you know?

Sylvia: Yeah. Well, that seems like something I’d do.

Austin: Uh huh. You could also spend resources to get rid of it, but it's up to you.

Sylvia: Eh, I'm good.

Austin: I don't know that you have resources.

Sylvia: I have one resource left.

Austin: You could also always use any of your equipment, if that's a thing you want to do, but.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Austin: Just good to know.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: Alright.

Sylvia: Yeah, okay, that's good.

Austin: Anybody else need anything from this place?

Keith: Oh, I'm gonna do my—

Austin: You want your normal D2...

Keith: I did not do my fortune roll.

Austin: Uh huh. What's your fortune roll?

Keith: I remove fortune stress. Meditation.

Austin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do that. Do that.

Keith: Another one!

Austin: Another one. Another one. Another one.

Keith: Wow.

Austin: If anyone has— I mean, Duvall, you can meditate here to get rid of that fortune stress. So you can also roll a D6.

Art: [weary] Alright.

Austin: [chuckles] There's no downside, Art.

Art: We'll see.

Austin: There you go. Get rid of that fortune stress. Talk to me about your meditation. What's your meditation practice like? What's Duvall meditating.

Art: I think it's probably pretty stressful.

Austin: [laughs] I mean, it's—

Art:  Oh, wait the— oh, the blood stress stays, though, right?

Austin: The blood stress stays. Blood stress stays, yeah.

Art: I mean, the cool thing to do...I think the cool visual I want to shout out is like a very slight levitation off the floor.

Austin: Ooh, sure.

Art: As like, the harmonious nature of the bugs kinda like…

Austin: Lifts you?

Art: Plus the—

Austin: What if your new body is not made of heavy bones and stuff?

Art: Yeah. It's probably a lot lighter if we’re being completely honest, in a way that I don't want to think about—

Austin: Yeah, sure.

Art: —long term or any time we invoke physics at all.

Austin: Yeah.

Art: But it is probably lighter.

Austin: Yeah. Anything—

Art: And I think it's very like...it's very buzzy.

Austin: Yeah.

Art: And all like...I think that's like the secret to trying to, like, eliminate thought, is to just sort of like...what if you literally couldn't hear your own thoughts because of a…

Austin: Of a swarm in you.

Art: ‘Cause of a swarm within you.

Austin: Yeah. Mmm. The swarm within. Lenore—

Art: It’s probably actually not very relaxing at all, but, you know.

Austin: [chuckles] Yeah.

Art: It’s fiction.

Austin: During this maybe the final 20 minutes spent in this space, Lenore is like:

Austin (as Lenore): So, are you going to tell me what's actually happening with the three of you?

Keith: I look to Virtue.

Sylvia: I'm still waking up! [laughs softly]

Sylvia (as Virtue): I mean, it feels self-explanatory from my perspective, which is that the Glim Macula is after us.

Austin (as Lenore): Did the three of you kill those guards?

Keith (as Lyke): Oh, I definitely didn't kill anybody.

Austin (as Lenore): I mean, didn’t you just—

Keith (as Lyke): Until today. Until just today.

Austin (as Lenore): Ah. [Austin laughs]

Sylvia (as Virtue): Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was me.

Austin (as Lenore): I see. Well. There are worse people to kill. [chuckles] Maybe not in Sapodilla, though. And you're here in town for what reason exactly? There are other—

Art (as Duvall): Trying to acquire a painting.

Austin (as Lenore): Ooh, art collectors.

Keith (as Lyke): I was really just looking for this book.

Austin (as Lenore): Oh, we’ll need that back in a week, you understand, of course. Libraries.

Keith (as Lyke): Uh, yeah.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Honestly, I just sort of ended up here out of chance, but might as well make the most of it, right?

Keith: Oh, can I tell Lenore that using my tunnel costs one D10 resource?

Austin: What do you say? This sounds like a compel to me.

Keith: Damn. I mean, I'm fine with just saying I'll return and then stealing it.

Austin: Oh, I see. You're set— Yeah, yeah.

Keith: Right.

Austin: I think that that's what you should do. Yes, yes. I thought you were looking for, on top of the book, some additional payment.

Keith: No, no, no, no, no, no.

Austin: Yeah, uh huh.

.

Keith: Just I get this book, ‘cause you saved your ass in my tunnel.

Austin: Right.

Austin (as Lenore): Well, I hope the rest of your stay is good. I hope you get your painting, and I hope that the Macula are gone when we go back through that door.

Keith (as Lyke): Do you got any tips on more books like this?

Austin (as Lenore): [chuckles] Any tips on more books like that.

Keith (as Lyke): Yeah. I mean, you're a librarian.

Austin (as Lenore): I am. I mean, how much time do you have? When we go back, I can show you around. We have quite the collection.

Keith (as Lyke): I mean, while I'm here, I should learn as much as I can. I should get as much help as I can.

Austin (as Lenore): Hmm. I'm here every night. At least this month, and then I rotate out, and...the Union, you know. So I'll see you tomorrow night?

Art: [laughing] Your union library contract is you work for a whole month? And then you get a—

Austin: Yeah, The Telluricist Union. So, the actual story with him is that he is not quite Keen yet. He has one final thing he has to get done. And so he's basically like, not...you know how how Marn is— Marn is keen, which means that she can go do whatever the fuck she wants. That is not true for our friend Lenore here, unfortunately. So that...very much sort of gets deployed as a resource from place to place. And his term here in Sapodilla is coming up.

Keith (as Lyke): Probably a good time to get out.

Austin (as Lenore): Absolutely.

Keith: Well, I guess probably should check to see that the coast is clear.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: While we have a little bit of time.

Austin: Yeah, can you, like, peek your head out basically?

Keith: Yeah. Yeah.

Austin: They're still here, but they're not together. They're not like...they're doing the...you know in Arkham, the Arkham series of games, when Batman— they see you and then like, but you get away. You go up to a gargoyle that happens to be inside of Gotham City PD's headquarters for some reason. [laughs] And you hide up there, and you bounce between them, and then the thugs like go [baffled] “Where did he go?” That's happened here. And so...

Keith: Right. You get into an actual combat fight and then run away—

Austin: Right, right.

Keith: And they go, like, “Ah, must have been nothing.”

Austin: “Yeah, it must have been nothing. Lost him.” They're doing that here, and in fact, I think there are probably more. They’ve probably gotten backup at this point. Trying to hunt you down...or maybe not hunting them down, hunting them down when they get in its way, is the Ravening Beast, which is on the loose now, just out there in the world.

Keith: I totally forgot about the beast.

Austin: But you could try to sneak out. I think that there's a way. I think— basically what I'm gonna need from y'all as a group is a roll to sneak past them out the front door and get back into the streets.

Sylvia: Well, sneaking went so good for me last time.

Austin: It did. It did.

Keith: Oh, fuck!

Austin: Yeah?

Sylvia: What?

Keith: I've got...I wrote it in the chat and then forgot, so I guess we could just double back real quick if we have time.

Austin: Yeah, what's up? What’s up?

[Timestamp: 1:10:00]

Keith: I said “I think I'm gonna buy some treatment,” and then we…

Austin: Oh, but we moved on.

Keith: But we were doing a scene and I sort of forgot about it.

Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.

Keith: And what I was— in my head, what I meant was I should remove some of this fortune fallout. But now, obviously what I should try to remove is the Ravening Beast.

Austin: Is the Ravening Beast.

Keith: I mean, fortune stress.

Austin: Right.

Keith: But what I should really try to do is move the Ravening Beast fallout.

Austin: Yeah. Yeah. What do you got here? You can reduce it. You can reduce it down back to the Ravening Call for a D8 resource.

Keith: Right. I have my coach gun.

Austin: You’re gonna hand over a gun to this— yeah, I guess you have this gun.

Keith (as Lyke): I’m getting out of this life, this gun… [Sylvia laughs]

Austin: Oh my god.

Austin (as Arbogast): Yeah. Give me...gimme. Alright. Here's what I'm gonna do.

Austin: Takes the coach gun from you, slides it into, like under...this place is like mahogany and stuff. There's like a drawer, a big mahogany like, you know, dresser.

Keith: Can I...

Austin: Uh huh?

Keith: I want to bring in something from my real life, if I can.

Austin: Please. Always.

Keith: Which is that in my grandparents’’ house, which is full— it is mahogany in a way that I think is illegal to build now.

Austin: [laughs] Okay.

Keith: ‘Cause this is the house from the 1800s.

Austin: Mmm.

Keith: And you were just allowed to build your entire downstairs out of nothing but mahogany.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: And it also has, like, home invasion tunnels in it, again from like the 1800s, so there was like—

Austin: Excuse me?

Keith: There’s like a fake fireplace, and there's like secret panels in the walls. And so if you— in their library, if you bang on one of the— it just looks like a panel, it pops out, and there's like a big hidden compartment. And if I was an apathetic doctor who would take any sort of payment, that's where I would keep my guns.

Austin: Sure. Well, drops it in there—

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: And then hands you like a little like potpourri pouch. And says:

Austin (as Arbogast): Just carry this with you. It'll work until it won't work anymore. Okay?

Keith (as Lyke): Okay. How will I know when it won't work anymore?

Austin (as Arbogast): The Ravening Beast from the depths of your mind will return in physical form, hunting you, ignoring any obstacle you put up in its endless and committed search for your death or consumption.

Keith (as Lyke): Okay. Thanks, doc.

Austin (as Arbogast): Sound good? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Austin: Go ahead and reduce that back down to the Ravening Call.

Sylvia: Fantastic bedside manner.

Austin (as Arbogast): I was trained by the best. [Sylvia laughs]

Austin: Alright. So, who's gonna make this roll, this sneak out roll?

Keith: Not me.

Sylvia: I'll do it.

Art: Also not me.

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: Are you...do you have sneak? Was that the thing earlier, is that you don't have sneak, right?

Sylvia: Oh, no, I have sneak.

Keith: Oh, you do have sneak.

Austin: You have sneak. You have sneak, yeah.

Keith: Oh, okay. I misunderstood.

Sylvia: I don't have the domains here.

Austin: This is the problem. No one has both sneek and the domains, right?

Keith: Right. I have the domain.

Austin: So y'all can help.

Keith: How about evade? What about evade haven?

Austin: I think evade is different.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: I think it's...here's...evade is they see you but you get out.

Keith: Right.

Austin: And you run out into the street, and they know that you are not in here anymore, which could produce future trouble. Sneak is you get out without being detected.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: And they stay here wasting time looking for you. So, rolls. Let's do it. Let's get out of here and wrap this up.

Keith: Oh, did we decide on evade or...?

Austin: Oh.

Sylvia: Yeah, I would be fine with doing that, if you're cool with that, but.

Austin: It seemed as if we would do...oh, yeah. I guess we didn't decide on evade or if someone was gonna sneak instead.

Keith: Right.

Sylvia: Oh, also, anything I roll would be dangerous, is something I just remembered. [chuckles]

Keith: [laughs] Right, yeah.

Austin: Oh, yeah. Good call. Good call. Wise. Yeah.

Sylvia: So, maybe we shouldn’t do that.

Keith: Great point. I’ll roll evade.

Austin: Yeah. Uh huh. Nailed it. Evade. Evade plus…

Art: Yeah, I'll…

Austin: Plus one.

Art: Plus a help.

Austin: Plus a help. Let’s get out of here.

Sylvia: Completely forgot about thatl [laughs softly]

Austin: Incredible. Incredible.

Keith: Seven.

Austin: Ayy, there's seven. Take stress.

Keith: Great.

Austin: Both of you. Keith.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Art. Two fortune, four fortune. Both of these are fortune ‘cause you're trying to hide.

Keith: I was so close.

Austin: Give me those tests.

Keith: Do you remember when I was like, “Hey, should I take this fortune stress move?”

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: And we talked, and you were like, “Yeah, it's weird because like, you just haven't made a lot of rolls that would take on fortune stress, so it doesn't seem that useful.”

Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Keith: And then I think every stress that I've taken since has been fortunate stress, except maybe once.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: But, you know, two fortune protection still would not have left me with…

Austin: No, no. Eh.

Keith: A safe character.

Austin: Give me your your test here. Minor fallout for Lye Lychen, again. Fortune fallout. Well, in some ways we kind of already know the general shape of this, right?

Keith: [grudging] I’ll put Beast back on the thing.

Austin: No, no, no, no, no. That’s… [Keith and Austin laugh] I mean, if you want to— listen, if you want that, I'll let you do it.

Keith: Maybe at another...maybe I'll choose that at a later date.

Austin: At a future junction, right?

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Yeah. I don't think that that's a...you don’t have to jump headfirst into that. [laughs] That's rough. Here's the fortune fallout that's gonna happen. It's kind of big. It's only— it's minor, but it's kind of big.

Keith: Good. I was hoping you wouldn't underplay it.

Austin: You make it out. All of you make it out. Lenore uses his keys to quickly unlock the front gate, sliding it up, making just enough noise to get people's attention. That's the fallout, or that's the fortune stress.

Keith: Too easy. [claps]

Austin: But then you slip past and into the night. It’s immediately a warm night outside, even though inside the Christmas music has continued to play. Actually, you know what, at this point, they probably destroyed that thing that was making the music. They identified that that was a source of magical power and destroyed it, so by the time you come back in an hour later, there is no more festive holiday cheer or post-apocalyptic snow wasteland. And you come back out into the regular Sapodilla, and you find your way to a little alleyway that's like safe to recover your breath and be like phew, okay, we lost them. And what do you have Aterika’Kaal inside of, again?

Keith: I think it's...I think we described it almost like a snow globe, like it's like a glass.

Austin: Mmm. Yeah, it broke. It's on the ground. It broke. You put down your pack for a second, and it just bumbled its way up to the top, and it fell out, and it broke. And Aterika’Kaal falls out onto the ground and begins to kind of creep away in front of everybody. Everybody, Lyke— sorry, Duvall—

Keith: Oops.

Austin: You see Aterika’Kaal in front of you in the moonlight. Virtue, you see a weird plant monster, a little weird plant monster begin to crawl around in this alleyway.

Keith (as Lyke): [bluffing] Uh, Tombo, get back in… [laughter]

Art (as Duvall): Ah!

Keith (as Lyke): That's Tombo! I gotta just put Tombo back in my bag.

Sylvia: Virtue is like:

Sylvia (as Virtue): [confused but uninterested] Okay. Nice to meet you, Tombo.

Art: Oh my god.

Sylvia: She hasn’t met Tombo yet.

Art: Oh my god!

Keith (as Lyke): Yeah, no, Tombo’s fine. Don't worry, Duvall.

Art (as Duvall): [displeased] Fine.

Sylvia (as Virtue): So, what, he has like a plant pet or something? I don't get it.

Art (as Duvall): Uh...no. No.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Oh.

Art (as Duvall): It's really bad. It's really bad, but we don't really have time right now.

Austin (as Lenore): Well, what is it? Hi, Tombo.

Art (as Duvall): It’s not who that is.

Keith (as Lyke): [high pitched, ventriloquist style] Hi. [muffled laughter]

Sylvia (as Virtue): Oh, it speaks!

Austin (as Lenore): That was not...that wasn’t...I think that was your mage friend.

Keith (as Lyke): [continuing] No. I’m Tombo.

Sylvia: [laughs] Is Lyke just making these noises with his mouth?

Austin: [laughs] Lyke is just very obviously... [imitating Keith] mmm, covering his mouth and making… [Keith laughs] Yeah, uh huh. Yeah, that is...you manage to collect it back again, but Duvall knows now. Duvall knows. Knows that you're keeping the… [laughs] the last living part of a god the two of you supposedly banished weeks ago.

Keith: Mm-hmm.

Art: Mm-hmm.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: No, it's fine.

Austin: And you escape into the night. And again, maybe the last thing that we see here before we wrap up is just you see another one of these...as you move back away from the Hibiscus District and into the slightly safer Sunflower District— eh, it’s safer in different ways. Safer in this case because it's further away from the Macula at this particular moment.

Keith: Or at least their attention.

Austin: Another one of these— right, exactly, their attention. You see another one of these signs advertising the Grand Opus of Davia Pledge. And presumably that is...that'll be two nights from now, so you have a night to prep a heist or get invited or whatever else. And, you know, and then you’ll have to do it and get that painting and get the fuck out of here, or get whatever else you want from the ruins of of Pledge House. Where are you now? Let's say that it is any amount of time between one hour and, you know, the next morning. Where do y'all want to be here? What is the next step for you?

Sylvia: Are we still—

Austin: It's like— yeah, go ahead.

Sylvia: We’re looking for this painting, right?

Austin: Yes. I think at this point—

Sylvia: Do we have a location?

Austin: You assume it's still with...it's still at Pledge House.

Sylvia: Okay.

Art: And that thing is the next night, right?

Austin: The big...yes. It's not tonight. It's the next night. And let's say that it has not even gotten to tonight yet. So it's, you know, maybe predawn hours now or...it's whenever you need it to be. But like, you have two nights left, basically. And yes, that big concert is two nights from now.

[Timestamp: 1:20:02]

Art: Well, that’s the obvious time.

Austin: Totally. But also, if you want to do something else before then, I don't want...I don't want you to feel like you have to sit on your hands until then. Do you know what I mean? There's other stuff you can do ahead of walking into something blind, you know?

Art: [sighs] Yeah, but every time the dice are rolled, bad things happen.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Art: So, I don't even think that, like, doing recon is valuable or important. [laughs softly]

Austin: I would disagree with this is what I will say. [laughs softly] If you want me to make that mechanically true, I could just tell you not doing recon will make things harder the next day.

Art: Mmm.

Austin: ‘Cause you'll be walking into a place that you don't know what it is or where it is. I mean, you know where it is on a map, but you don't know anything about it.

Art: Mmm.

Keith: My quick clarifying question is...

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: So, we were at the library investigating three separate things.

Austin: Yes.

Keith: The concert is related to Duvall’s luck quest.

Austin: Mostly Duvall. Well, it's related to Duvall’s renowned equipment beat—

Keith: Oh, right, that too.

Austin: But also Duvall’s “what is a person?” beat.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: ‘Cause as a reminder, this painting supposedly can reshape you through the study of it into either...so, it's a painting of a person sitting for a portrait, and then in the distance a figure is walking past. And as you apprehend the portrait, you come to a conclusion about both the person sitting for the portrait and also the person walking by. You gain a sort of like sense of who those people are. And over time, you kind of become the person, the essence of one of those two people, as you as you sit with the painting or as the painting hangs, you know, in your room or whatever your relationship is with it. You need to do more than just look at it once, do you know what I mean?

Keith: Mmm.

Austin: It has to be your painting in a real way.

Keith: Right.

Austin: And in that way, it's very important for Duvall. But there's also more here, right? Which is like… [sighs] I mean, part of this can come out through further investigation of the various books you have. Not yours so much, Lyke, ‘cause yours is so very specific about a different part of—

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Uh, you know, I guess it's around the same time. It's possible that you would happen into the word Esterházy in your book as well, which is interesting. Because, you know, this is one of those things where it’s like, Art, you asked me questions about, you know, what's up with these people? What was their relation to the painting? What happened with the fire? et cetera. But there is, of course, more to the various stories of these people than what you could read before the Glim Macula kicked down the door at the library. [chuckles] And so maybe one way to kind of hook more people into this book, or hook Lyke and Virtue in here, is that the painting is probably not the only strange object of value in the Esterházy Pledge vault, if you're thinking about this as a heist. The Esterházys have been in Sapodilla for generations and generations and generations, or had been until Zizi’s death. They were a very prominent family who...and maybe this is what you get, Lyke, from the Carpana sage transcript.

Keith: Mm-hmm.

Austin: Is like, you know, we just get the shot of you being like, “Did you say Esterházy? ‘Cause I just saw that name.” The Esterházy family was a sort of aristocratic-leaning family. I would say...I would say that it's like, if you think about when Sapodilla was formed, this is still kind of on the edge of of medieval, like very early modern. They were like a slowly established merchant house, right, family who sided with the more populist revolution inside of Sapodilla to open the gates for everybody when the panic happened and since then have continued to stay in prominence until the death of Zizilliana during the fire. And the kind of thing that the Carpana says is that...you know, I think if you look at that, if I think about what that sage would say, it is that there is...it is not a mistake or it is not a...it is a curiosity that someone of such means decided to support this uprising that opened the gates to so many different types of people. And you get from, you know, Ferna the sage, the idea that maybe there's something going on with House Esterházy that is not simply they were a bunch of rich humans, you know? Whether they had a magical connection or something else going on, I don't know that it's clear in a non dice roll style thing, like you'd have to roll some dice to get more here. But there's nothing magic happening in that house, which, you know, fuckin’, she owned a weird magic painting, right? And was staying with someone who the city now considers the mad composer. You can smell adventure when you, you know, when you start to hear all of these details put together. And I think that's probably true for you, too, Virtue, right? These are people who...in fact, Virtue, you were around, right?

Sylvia: Yeah, probably.

Austin: You were around pre-Panic.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: Give me just a D10, loose, there's no consequence. I'm just…

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: Just see how much you know. So you see if you’ve encountered...

Sylvia: I know six much.

Austin: You know six out of ten, yeah.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: Classic six much.

Sylvia: Yep.

Austin: The Esterházy family spent generations as like a middle tier nothing kind of...again, a kind of a merchant family, a slowly establishing merchant house. And then something changed. Their fortunes changed suddenly, about the time that you died. Which again, you died before the Panic. You died before things really went to the kind of supernatural shit of Sangfielle.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Austin: But somewhere around then, it was as if a lucky wind blew in, but it’s as if they started making choices that were smarter and more strategic and elegant about how to rise in status. And it seems as if they continued to make those choices, generation after generation.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: So. So, yeah.

Keith: Sorry, I missed that last bit. They do what generation after generation?

Austin: Just continued to make really good choices.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: They continued to feel like they were experts, even though they were kind of novices. It's as if, you know, maybe they found some sort— this is not what happened, but it's like, imagine if they found, like, the Back to the Future Almanac.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: It’s like, well, they're just making all the right bets. [Keith laughs] That's not what happened. [Art laughs] This is not a time travel story. But.

Keith: Right. Got it.

Sylvia: Yet.

Austin: Mm-hmm. [Sylvia laughs]

Art: Excited to announce our new crossover with Back to the Future.

Austin: Ah. [chuckles] With Back to the Future. Yes. So, the three of you, even even those of you who aren't here for a painting, know there is some interesting stuff going on there. Whether you have an enlightenment or an adventure calling there, you can meet that by figuring out what's going on at this house.

Sylvia: So, wait, we're still looking for a little more...god damnit, Keith.

Keith: It took a minute to get there.

Austin: Yeah, you got there though. I appreciate it.

Sylvia: Back to the Fiellture.

Austin: Fielle. Fiellture.

Sylvia: I don’t like how that word sounds.

Austin: Me either.

Keith: No, I don't like it either. That's the best that the...you can't mash that up any better.

Austin: Yeah, Keith has tried to mash up Sangfielle’s like -fielle and future.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: Fielle-ture.

Keith: Back to the Fiellture.

Austin: Hate it.

Sylvia: Uh, mmm… [laughs]

Art: Mmm. Mmm. Mmm!

Austin: No. Not good. Definitely not good. Definitely not good. [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: I don't know...I don't know what you two are picking up on that I am not picking up on, but I'm telling you that I'm not picking up on it.

Sylvia: [laughs] It’s fine.

Austin: Don’t worry about it.

Art: What a great time to not google something. [Sylvia laughs]

Austin: What are we doing here?

[responding simultaneously]

Sylvia: We need more info, was what I was going to ask.

Art: We’re not googling things, I’m telling you that!

Keith: I’m living in ignorance, is what I'm doing.

Austin: [laughs] Living in purity, Keith Carberry. [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: [laughs] So— sorry, Art, did you have something?

Art: Nope!

Keith: Okay.

Art: I just have...

Austin: Sylvi was saying something completely normal, and then…

Sylvia: [laughs] I really was, this is the thing. Ugh. Everyone please remember that I was being normal before all this happened. [Austin laughs] I was...we need more...we're still looking for a bit more info, right? Like, that was kind of the gist there?

Austin: I guess. Like, it’s—

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: You know where this house is. You know where the stuff is.

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Austin: What you want to do between now and then is up to you, you know?

Sylvia: Okay, well, I guess then this is more of a question for like the other player characters. Do we want to…‘cause there's this event happening, I'm presuming we want this done before then, right? So are we looking to break in or are we looking to like use the timing of the event to our advantage and like try and do it closer to that? Like, I think there's probably—

Keith: That’s what I was thinking.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: That's what I...I was thinking this was a classic, you know, heist where you steal something from an event—

Sylvia: Mm-hmm.

Keith: —because you got invited to the event? Or at least you pretended to be invited.

Sylvia: Yeah, no, that's definitely a good idea. Before we do commit to that, though, I would like to ask how many of us have compel.

Keith: Zero.

[Timestamp: 1:30:00]

Sylvia: I'm pretty sure, yeah. So that might go badly. [Sylvia and Austin laugh]

Keith: Yeah, maybe we can't do that. Maybe that's not possible.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: Good question.

Sylvia: I mean like, I feel like Virtue could blend in, but she is a very toxic person. [laughs]

Austin: At least one of— right. Yes. Yes.

Keith: I feel like that's the sort of question that we don't ask enough here on Friends at the Table.

Austin: [laughs] Uh huh. [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: “Before we do this…”

Art: I think it’s sort of breaking the house style, if I'm being completely honest. [Austin laughs]

Keith: Oh, I guarantee that we will still get in a lot of trouble, even if we do something where at least one of us has one of the necessary skills.

Sylvia: I'm trying to minimize the a lot of trouble, you know?

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: Yeah, we've been in so much trouble recently. Speaking of… [Sylvia laughs] I have eight fortune stress for a total of eleven stress.

Austin: Yeah.

Art: Well, what are you kidding? You're just gonna roll twelve.

Sylvia: I don't have any stress right now on account of all the major fallouts I've taken. [Keith and Austin laugh] Yeah, that's true, actually. You're just gonna roll a twelve again. Don't even worry about it.

Keith: (??? 1:30:53)

Austin: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If Lyke gets one stress more, that's an automatic fallout.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: So—

Austin: ‘Cause even rolling a twelve will give you a fallout.

Sylvia: Right, yeah.

Keith: My two options here are either to try and heal that fortune fallout or to try and force fortune stress to just clear it for free and get a fallout. So those are my—

Austin: I see what you're saying. You’re saying—

Keith: Those are my two options.

Austin: Right. Uh huh.

Sylvia: You are at like a number where it's more likely to get like a major, though, aren't you? Isn’t that kind of how it works?

Austin: It opens up the possibility.

Keith: Yeah.

Art: It doesn't get more likely, but yeah.

Sylvia: Okay.

Austin: Or, it does get more likely, because if you roll…

Art: Yeah, I guess.

Austin: Yeah, 'cause if you roll a…

Sylvia: It's a certain level below, right?

Austin: It's basically if you roll up...if you roll under your total stress but above six, that's a major fallout. So at twelve or higher, you have six possible—

Art: Six numbers.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: 50 percent chance of hitting...yeah.

Keith: Right.

Austin: The more the more difficult question here is whether or not you know a place to go actually clear fortune stress right now.

Keith: Right. I actually...I do know a place—

Austin: Oh, of course you do.

Keith: I just don't want to do it.

Austin: It's your thing, isn't it?

Keith: It's my place, yeah.

Austin: Right.

Keith: I can go there now, because I got Benevolent last game, which lets me clear for free D6 supplies or fortune instead of echo.

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Keith: Sylvi in the chat asked if I only have fortune stress, because she has a mind item.

Sylvia: A mend mind item, yeah.

Keith: A mend mind? Oh, a mend mind item. Yeah.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: So, I do have three mind stress, but here's the thing. I’ve got this great thing that lets me roll with mastery when I have above four mind.

Sylvia: Okay. [Austin laughs]

Keith: When at four or above mind stress. It’s just never—

Sylvia: So you want to keep in mind stress, just not the fortune stress.

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: I want to keep the mind.

Sylvia: Okay.

It’s just never come up.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: I've never been able to get that fourth stress. [laughs] So, if I can remove the fortune one, I want to do that. But I am running out of, like, items.

Austin: This is not true. This is of course...this is of course...

Keith: I’m running out of items that I want to get rid of.

Austin: I'm just gonna post the items that Lyke has access to.

Sylvia: Yeah. I want to know the number in comparison to the number of resources I have. [laughs]

Austin: This is what Keith means by running out.

Keith: Okay. Alright. Here's what I'm going to do. [Art laughs]

Austin: Ten things.

Sylvia: Oh my god.

Art: It was so much more than I thought it would be!

Austin: Uh huh.

Keith: But a lot of the stuff I— I'm gonna get rid of my Aterika’Kaal ritual knife? I don't fucking think so. [Sylvia laughs softly]

Austin: Alright. Well, then, don't fucking try to—

Keith: I’m gonna try sell this dynamite. [Sylva laughs] I'm gonna try and unload this dynamite.

Art: This dynamite that you left outside of the city?

Keith: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna try to arms sale this dynamite.

Austin: Let me tell you. Let me tell you, this is a compel. You have got to find a buyer.

Sylvia: [laughs] I love our show.

Austin: I like, truly— yeah, uh huh. [Sylvia laughs] Again…

Keith: Are we sure none of us have compel?

Sylvia: I'm absolutely certain.

Austin: Yeah, none of you have compel.

Sylvia: It bit me in the ass last thing I was part of.

Art: I don't know how I would miss having compel.

Austin: Yeah. It would have come up, right?

Art: I just mean I'm looking at the box. It's not checked. It's a hard mistake to make.

Austin: The important thing is that like, the places I can think of for you to go get fortune healing is like the...remember the...we went to the…

Sylvia: Tarot reader?

Austin: No, that was echo.

Sylvia: Yeah, I thought so.

Austin: Ba ba ba ba ba ba. Why am I blanking on the name of our own religion? The Boundless Conclave place back during your kind of big group downtime thing.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: They're not gonna take dynamite from you.

Keith: No.

Austin: That's what fortune fallout healing is here.

Keith: Okay.

Austin: And so—

Keith: Alright, I—  

Austin: I'm not saying— you could go find a middle man to take the dynamite and get something else to...

Keith: Right.

Austin: You know what I mean?

Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin: Or you could roll with it and just not roll bad. It'll be fine. [Keith sighs]

Keith (as Lyke): Hey, do either of you two need to buy some dynamite? [Art laughs] It's big. It's a lot of it. [Austin chuckles]

Sylvia: She just squints at him.

Sylvia (as Virtue): What?

Keith (as Lyke): It's...I think it would be beneficial to keep it in the group, but I need funds. I need liquid funds and not so much dynamite.

Austin: This is unbelievable

Art (as Duvall): I'm sort of using all the stuff I have.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Yeah.

Keith (as Lyke): That’s how I feel, except for the dynamite.

Art (as Duvall): But you have like twice as many things as I do, so I feel like you could figure this out, you know?

Keith: Quick shot of Lyke in the overstuffed coat. [laughs]

Austin: Yeah, the extremely…

Sylvia: Yeah.

Austin: And huge backpack and…

Keith: The filigree revolver, like, kind of sliding out of a pocket that it doesn't quite fit into.

Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm!

Sylvia (as Virtue): I have like a book and a knife. I don't think I'm gonna be able to trade anything.

Keith (as Lyke): What’s the book?

Art (as Duvall): I have two books.

Sylvia (as Virtue): No, this is a book I need.

Keith (as Lyke): Oh. What's your book?

Sylvia (as Virtue): Mine? It’s about hauntings. It’s...don’t worry about it.

Keith (as Lyke): No, no, no. Sorry, sorry. Duvall’s book. If you need your book, I'm not gonna try to steal your book.

Sylvia (as Virtue): Thank you.

Keith (as Lyke): I mean, trade your book.

Art (as Duvall): I have the book about the thing we're about to do.

Keith (as Lyke): God, I also sort of feel that way.

Art (as Duvall): But this is like literally the book I just got about the thing we're doing.

Keith (as Lyke): Yeah. Fine. Okay.

Art (as Duvall): And then I have a book of fables that helps me doing rolls on stuff.

Keith (as Lyke): Okay.

Sylvia (as Virtue): What's a roll?

Keith (as Lyke): Rolls? [Sylvia and Keith laugh]

Austin: Like to eat.

Art (as Duvall): You know.

Keith (as Lyke): Like sandwiches?

Austin: Yeah.

Art (as Duvall): Yeah, it's a sandwich book. It's a book of fables slash sandwiches.

Keith (as Lyke): Okay. Hey, I was trying to...I was trying to be...I was trying to be...I was to trying to think ahead.

Keith: I gotta just use my Sanctum of the Stone Chorus here to heal this. I don't know that there's a way around it. We don't even know where to heal the fortune stuff. I'll— fuck it. I'll just do the compel roll to try to get someone to buy this dynamite. I don't care. Let's just do it.

Austin: Alright. Compel haven. This is gonna...oh my god. Wh— this is…

Art: We're just gonna get caught by the cops!

Austin: You’re just gonna get caught by the cops! You have to move it in past the fucking gates? [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: Cops ain’t shit. We dealt with the cops.

Austin: I already named the session or this arc after a thing. You can't all die before you get to the oratorio.

Art: Well, I’m not going to this sale. I don't know...

Sylvia: Yeah, wait. [laughter]

Austin: No, I'm not saying...I'm just saying. [Sylvia laughs] I’m just saying we have to get to the, quote unquote, “Perpetual Oratorio of Davia Pledge” at some point. We can’t—

Keith: I thought we have two days.

Austin: If you die— okay, you know what? If you die, you die. You know what, fuck it. If he dies, he dies.

Sylvia: Yeah. [laughs]

Austin: Compel haven.

Keith: Look, and then I’ll just—  okay.

Austin: It’s compel haven risky! You’re moving—

Art: It took seven seasons, but we've gotten to the Ivan Drago part for Austin.

Austin: Right! Thank you. You're moving...you're moving dynamite. You're moving weap— you.

Keith: [changing his mind reluctantly] I forgot about the risky. I forgot about the risky.

Austin: You're moving a big crate of weapons into a city or telling someone inside of the city, “Meet me outside where my weapons are.”

Art: Definitely do that.

Austin: Less than twelve hours after fighting the cops—

Keith: No.

Austin: And killing the head cop inventor. I'm just saying it's a risky maneuver for the goal being to reduce your— when you could just go give the church a gun or a knife or whatever.

Keith: [sighs] Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Austin: Lyke.

Keith: I'll go. I mean, really what I should do is I should go...I should pray or I should use...I should use Stone Chorus.

Austin: You don't even need use Stone Chorus. You know where to go. Because Stone— you can only use Stone Chorus once per session, right? Or no, Stone Chorus is—

Keith: Right, but I can get that D6 for free.

Austin: I see, right.

Keith: And I'm sure other people have stress.

Austin: Right, right, right.

Keith: To heal. Anybody have echo, supplies, or fortune stress that they would like to heal?

Austin: I actually don’t think anyone does.

Art: Oh, I guess I have fortune stress.

Austin: Does Duvall have—

Sylvia: I don’t have any right now.

Austin: Duvall does have fortune, yeah. You're right. You have four fortune. That's not bad.

Keith: Okay, so this would be a twofer.

Austin: Yeah.

Keith: So I feel okay about that. So, I can use that D6 for free, and so can Duvall, and then I can also offload some of these weapons.

Austin: Alright. Let’s do it.

Keith: For a— okay.

Austin: So give me— well, this is still a roll, right? Discern religion?

Keith: I'm just not— yeah, discern relition.

Austin: Okay. You have those.

Keith: I just can't start another fucking thing with a bunch of stress and then…

Austin: I getcha. Uh huh.

Art: Everyone else is humming Fall Out Boy’s “This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race,” right? [Sylvia chuckles]

Austin: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Art: We've decided that's the song for this section of this?

Austin: Yes.

Keith: Just for fun...just for fun, if I could get a help on this— uh, there's no help on this roll, whatever. Ope, three. Great.

Austin: Oh my god.

Art: What a...

Sylvia: I could have helped on that.

Art: You could have. You waited for for less than a second on the help.

[Timestamp: 1:40:02]

Keith: Well, I decided like, what help could you be, really?

Sylvia: I have no stress right now. I could have helped. [chuckles]

Austin: Unbelievable.

Keith: But I just don't know what...I mean, we could have figured something out, but I was just like...what, was Lyke gonna be like, “Can you help me with my spell?”

Sylvia: [laughs] I do...I know magic good!

Art: We had such a long conversation about helping you sell a box of dynamite. [laughs]

Keith: Right, but it just makes more sense that you would help with that.

Austin: Take echo stress, and then roll— [Sylvia laughs]

Keith: Not fortune?

Austin: No.

Keith: [softly] Fuck.

Austin: You're doing weird magic shit.

Keith: I rolled a one.

Austin: Take minor fallout. Let's see what I want to give you here. I know what I'm gonna give you already, I think. Unfortunately, I think it's not fortune. I think it is…

Sylvia: Honestly? Coin flip between major and minor fallout and getting a minor’s probably the best outcome here.

Austin: Uh huh. So—

Art: Yeah, this MFer rolled a one. [laughter] Twelve all the time, and then when it’s like, roll well…

Keith: It’s as far away from a major fallout as I could have rolled.

Austin: Where are you doing this?

Keith: I think this is in the room.

Austin: Just with everybody else. You're— well, what room? Because you didn't go back to Bucho’s place. Y'all just find some place to like...you find like a flophouse to chill in? Like, what did you...

Keith: Oh, yeah, I guess that's fine. I kind of just imagined us back at Big Bucho’s, because that place is clear.

Austin: Where the cops are watching?

Keith: Well...

Sylvia: Yeah, I don’t wanna go do that.

Austin: It’s not clear!

Keith: I don't know. [Austin laughs] I guess...oh, they know about us now.

Austin: Yes.

Sylvia: Yeah.

Keith: Okay, so that's...yeah. So that— yeah.

Austin: They specifically can place Virtue at Bucho’s, literally, so.

Sylvia: Oops.

Austin: Wherever you are, whatever this...maybe Lenore put you up. Remember Lenore? He put you up.

Sylvia: Yeah, that could work.

Keith: Yeah.

Austin: Kind of a cramped little hotel room, but it's enough space to like lay down— not lay down, but like lie low for the next few hours until things are a little safer. Uh, Lyke’s gone.

Keith: What—

Austin: Lyke’s gone.

Art: Hmm?

Austin: Lyke disappeared. Lyke is gone. Lyke was saying some words, and then Lyke was gone. The door to the other place did not open up.

Art: Well, that's where I would have checked.

[Music plays: Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt]