Sangfielle 23: The Perpetual Oratorio of Davia Pledge Pt. 1
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.
[Music begins: Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt]
Austin (as narrator): Beyond the second wall of Sapodilla—pre-panic in style, it's castleline stones placed one on another with hurried touch—there is a living contradiction. Here it is, the Hibiscus District, old Sapodilla, a place built in ways sturdy enough to survive a break in continuity itself. Sequestered manor houses in a town most famous for its open gates, private beaches in a...well, look, you get it. And that's not the contradiction we're concerned with today, anyway. In this hour, we are interested in the District all on its own. Now, real Hibiscus reveals itself to the sunlight, divulging to the open air its wide luminous petals and a touch of extra color at the center. And at night, it folds in on itself, tired or anxious maybe—and if you are a botanist, do not write in to correct us. We are not a scientific publication, but a paper of metaphors. And to get back to mine, the point is that our little Hibiscus is the opposite. By day, it is demure and stuffy, a bunch of well dressed types, saying their prayers loud as competition is, parading through the streets all parasol and poodles and pretty pap and patter. Through posture and performance, they say it: this is what Sapodilla’s supposed to look like. But they all have their secrets, kept from each other and from the Macula too. Runny noses hidden behind fans. Minds leaping to words they claim not to know. Prayers to the other other gods, the sort that really listen. Someone even says the real name of the very first thing. Now, these are crimes under their meter, not ours. We are not a particularly judgmental publication—check our records, hell, check our bylines—but boy if we do not detest a hypocrite. What you call sublime by the moon, do not call sin under the suns. Because there is no salve that can undraw a blade, no perfume that can hide the smell of burning hair. Oh Hibiscus, understand: you cannot square a circle drawn in blood, but you can admit that sometimes a red circle is just what you need.
[music ends]
Austin: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical world building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I'm your host, Austin Walker. Joining me today, Sylvi Clare.
Sylvia: Hey, I'm Sylvia. You can find me on Twitter at @sylvibullet and listen to my other show Emojidrome wherever you get your podcasts.
Austin: Art Martinez-Tebbel.
Art: Hey, you can find me on Twitter at @atebbel.
Austin: And Keith Carberry.
Keith: Hi, you can find me on Twitter at @KeithJCarberry, and you can find the let's plays that I do at youtube.com/runbutton.
Austin: You can support everything we do here at friendsatthetable.cash. We are today continuing our game of Heart: The City Beneath by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor. Our goals are to ask questions instead of planning; to evoke an atmosphere of wonder, horror, and humanity; to build and to break tension; to pay attention to what everyone at the table wants, both long- and short-term; and to play to find out what happens. Can we go over beats? Duvall.
Art: Yeah, my current beats are...load load load. [Austin laughs] “Find a renowned piece of equipment.” That's what we're...that's the thrust of this whole set.
Austin: Uh huh.
Art: I've abandoned my friend for this.
Austin: You sure did do that.
Art: Yeah, it occurred to me after we finished recording last, and I was like, well, I can't switch—
Austin: You could.
Art: So I might as well just not saying anything.
Austin: We just don't know what to fucking...it's just hard, ‘cause like, this is a scheduling thing in some ways, right?
Keith: Right.
Austin: Where like, even if you all decided we want to switch, what we would have to do is come up with a way to like gesture at that, because some people are just fully not available for like the next 10 days to record, so. It’s tough.
Art: We'll figure it out. It'll be fine.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: It'll be fine.
Art: We'll cover—
Keith: During the meeting to decide who goes where, Duvall says, Well, we can't have seven people on the same mission. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: That’s dangerous.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: We can’t put all our eggs in one basket.
Art: Uh huh. That's dangerous. That's not what anyone wants, I think.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: We're all agreed. And my minor beat is: “Destroy evidence or rhetoric that proves your task to be impossible.” The task in question is trying to determine the nature of free will.
Austin: Ah, yes.
Art: In an enlightened calling. I gotta say, I'm really leaning no right now. It's really been a no…
Keith: No free will?
Art: ...push. Yeah.
Austin: Interesting.
Art: Between the—
Keith: You did just kill someone, yeah.
Art: Between the murder I didn’t want to commit, and the, uh…
Austin: Uh huh.
Art: The general luck focus.
Austin: Mmm.
Keith: Mmm.
Art: It’s looking bad for free will. Sorry, free will fans.
Sylvia: Wait, you guys commit murders that you don't want to? [Austin laughs]
Art: Mmm.
Austin: Only the ones you want to commit. Let's go, Virtue. Virtue, what are your beats?
Sylvia: Yeah, so, my beats are both minor beats.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: The first is “Dissect something or interrogate someone that can shed light on your task.”
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: And the other is “Allude to the events that led you to seek forbidden knowledge to achieve an impossible task.”
Austin: Okay. And then, Lyke.
Keith: My beats...I have the minor beat “Kick someone off a tall structure, they really deserved it." [muffled laughter]
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: And the major beat “Slay a beast that's at least five times your size.”
Austin: Okay.
Art: Now, I know I've heard that “kick someone off a building, they deserve it” beat.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Probably four or five times now.
Austin: A bunch now, yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Does the beat suggest that the person has to deserve it?
Keith: Yes.
Austin: They have to deserve it.
Art: Or does the beat imbue someone with deserving by Virtue of being kicked off the building?
Keith: If I kicked someone off a tall structure, and we thought that they didn't really deserve it, it wouldn't count.
Austin: It would not count.
Keith: It would just be a regular murder.
Austin: Yeah, if Lyke kicked an orphan, a nice orphan, [Keith laughs] off a tall structure, we would not be like “And there's your XP.”
Keith: If those interviews took place at the top of a cliff...
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I could have been a violent robot and checked that off.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Art: Mmm.
Keith: But they didn't.
Austin: They didn't, unfortunately. Okay.
Art: Kinda tips your hand to Austin in that situation though.
Austin: Little bit, yeah, uh huh. If you're like, “Can we do this interview on top of a tall structure?” [Austin and Keith laugh] When we last left off, things were weird. Y'all were in different places, right? Because some of you were in the gel goddess place.
Keith: Right. Gummy world.
Austin: Gummy world. Gummy worm. You were with, uh...hmm. What was the name? Something -onia, wasn't it? Fuck, I've already forgotten the name of that…'cause we didn’t—
Sylvia: I only remember her like cool glass clothes.
Austin: Yeah, me too.
Sylvia: Right? That was her?
Austin: Well, it was solid water, which some people think means ice, but some people—
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: [overlapping] It was solid water, which doesn’t mean ice, it means gummy.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. That, of course, was Eunomia, goddess of rainstorms. And the others of you were kind of baldfacing cops. You were like, “Nah, nah, everything's fine. I don't know, Bucho who?” At this point, I think—
Keith: Yeah, no, I'm cooking this stew.
Austin: Yeah, exactly. [laughs softly] At this point—
Sylvia: If I ever met anyone named Bucho, I'm assuming they'd be very small.
Austin: [laughs] At this point, I think it's been a day. It's the next day. Maybe it's a couple of days after. I'm not ,because we haven't recorded the other side, and maybe the other side will make it very clear that this whole town burns down within 24 hours or something, and so… [Sylvia laughs] But just, if you're listening, the timelines add up. Don't worry about it. And so I think it's been...it's kind of what I gestured at the end of last recording, which is like, hey, things have gotten a little tighter, right? Streets are not as bustling. There are more...the Macula have deputized maybe more members of the regular town guard into the Macula. They have...there are lots of banging on doors and asking innocent people...kind of just busting into innocent people's business and putting noses where they don't fuckin’ belong, and harassing people and frisking people and detaining people and arresting people who haven't done shit. Which is all like normal stuff for the Macula anyway, but it's especially happening now. Increased measures, basically, because of the death of the two interrogators and the capture of Chime who was threatening a third. And so I think that's kind of the vibe in town at this point, which means that your movements here have to be a little careful. Last I remember, y'all we're gonna go to a big library. That was the long term— or, the short term plan, to kind of leapfrog you towards your bigger goals, which I guess, just to set them out again: Duvall, you want this painting, the Zahir. Sylvi, Virtue wants to regain vampire status, right?
Sylvia: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Austin: All of her old powers. And then Lyke, your current big thing is about figuring out some stuff with Aterika’Kaal, figuring out...you know, we can kind of get into as we get into it, but you wanted to go read a book about, like, gods and how they grow and what they do and et cetera.
Keith: Right. The nun was vague—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: —but did tell me the library in Sapodilla was somewhere where—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: —I would be able to find information on like, what to do about that little god that I secretly have with me.
Austin: Yes. So, a thing about this is unfortunately she did not say which library, and it turns out it's a big city, and so there's a few. And we can get to kind of narrowing in which one it is in a second, but I do want to...before we dive dive in, was there any other busy work anyone wanted to do before we get in— not busy work but, you know, wound licking or purchasing things or anything like that.
[Timestamp: 0:10:04]
Sylvia: So I have a limp that I'd like to address.
Austin: Oh, right, you're limping. Right.
Sylvia: I specifically— yeah, the fallout specifically is called Limping. It's a minor blood fallout.
Keith: I might be able to mend you. I don't—no offense—I don't want to blow my one per session can heal. Oh, it's fallout.
Austin: It's fallout. It’s not just stress.
Sylvia: It’s fallout, yeah.
Keith: Fallout, okay.
Austin: So it would need (??? 0:10:24)
Sylvia: This happens every time, [laughing] whenever I'm listening to a session with Lye on it, it’s like, “Can I heal that? Oh, no, it’s a fallout.”
Keith: I guess it really depends on how dangerous we think the library is gonna be. I don’t know.
Austin: Uh huh. Great sentences at Friends at the Table. Yeah.
Sylvia: Ah. So, my issue with getting this healed right now is the fact that I only have two resources right now.
Austin: Ooh.
Sylvia: And one’s a D4, and one’s a D10.
Austin: Ooh. What's the D10?
Sylvia: The hymnal of the Mother-Beast.
Austin: Right, which like breaking that up is not really in the…
Sylvia: Like, I don't think there's like an old and a new testament I could split it into.
Austin: I don't really think that's how it rolls, yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah, unfortunately.
Keith: I can cut you a deal on this.
Sylvia: [laughs] Yeah?
Keith: So, because I have to roll now, it means that I'm susceptible to stress, but I am allowed to destroy a resource with the occult domain.
Austin: Ah, that’s fun.
Keith: So if your D4 is occult domain, I can destroy that to protect myself against stress, and then I can heal your…
Sylvia: It is unfortunately religion.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: It is unfortunately religion, yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Oh, but I do—
Austin: Do you have the thing that lets you use religion instead or something?
Keith: Religion domain. Gain the religion domain. Oh, when you use Sacrifice ability above, you may also consume resources with the religion domain.
Austin: Boom, look at that!
Sylvia: Okay, cool.
Keith: I was pretty sure. I was pretty sure. So, it's up to you. If you want to go try and find a healer, that's totally fine.
Sylvia: This sounds way better and keeps me from losing a D10 resource, so I—
Austin: So, you're giving Lyke your abbey notes, then?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: What is it?
Austin: They’re notes about…
Sylvia: I think specifically about the...when we went to the Mother-Beast thing, I think these are the notes from the first downtime after I researched the book?
Austin: The book, yeah.
Sylvia: I could be wrong, about that, but that’s—
Austin: It's interesting, right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Because like, your long term goal is still to gain more information about this, but it's like, alright, I've done the note taking.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Maybe I don't need these in this way anymore, or whatever. Here.
Sylvia: There's definitely an element of like, this is now less...like, I've gotten what I need out of this.
Austin: Right. That's like, you showed your work. This is the—
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You have the solution. I mean, you don't have the— the real answer is you didn't get a solution from that stuff, so maybe it's not as valuable to you at this point.
Sylvia: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Anyway, yeah, you can use that.
Sylvia: Okay, so I should just delete that off my sheet, then?
Austin: You delete it off the sheet, because Lyke is gonna—
Sylvia: Eat it.
Austin: What do you do with this stuff? Are you eating it? Are you burning it? Are you...
Keith: So, the thing...the text of the move says that your hands are covered in spider web ink, and you have the capacity to stitch, fix, and bind with a thought. And then it takes seconds instead of hours of careful work. Maybe...I think what I'm going to do is the spider web ink, in this instance, is going to come from the ink of the notes.
Austin: Yeah. I love it. You like pull it off, basically?
Sylvia: Ooh.
Keith: I'm going to pull off the letters and so now it is just blank paper.
Austin: Oh, that's so good. That's very good. So then, go ahead and give me your D4 to get your protection, Lyke.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Which is good.
Keith: Four!
Austin: Look at that, four protection.
Keith: Yeah, love that. Love to be that.
Austin: This should be easy, easy, easy. And then yeah, give me a mend, a mend haven.
Keith: Okay. Mend, which I have haven now which is great.
Austin: Fantastic, nice work.
Keith: Yep.
Austin: And that is eight. Take no stress. Boom.
Keith: Boom.
Austin: So yeah, the ink comes off the page and then goes around your leg or whatever.
Keith: Sutures it up, little letters suturing up.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Yeah. Oh, I really like that.
Austin: Yeah, that's very good. Okay, now I get rid of that.
Austin: And then boom, you find yourself without your limp anymore, Virtue. Ready to go.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Thank you.
Austin: Ready to leave. Are you still in Bucho's place? Or have you gone to some other third place or some other…?
Sylvia: I mean, I'm trying to think of like, do we have...I don't think we have a meeting place for this. I guess...
Austin: No. No one’s...yeah, totally.
Keith: Yeah, it feels like we have not been here very long.
Austin: It's been a couple days, but that's it, yeah.
Keith: Okay, that's fair.
Sylvia: Also, these are the two guys that I have not spoken to really at all?
Austin: Right, and now you're with them for the first time, huh?
Keith: Yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah.
Art: I thought we decided that we did...that we knew each other before.
Sylvia: Yeah, I don't trust you is how we know each other from before. [Keith laughs]
Austin: Good.
Art: Mmm, I forgot about that part.
Keith: What, is it because of the bugs?
Sylvia: Yeah, it's I think he's hiding something from me, and then there’s the bugs.
Austin: Right, right, right.
Keith: Hiding a bunch of bugs.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Right. Although—
Art: I would say I'm very upfront about all the bugs.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, that's I was gonna say is that over time…
Art: If I’m hiding something, it’s something else.
Keith: Yeah, over time the bugs have been very obvious.
Sylvia: I guess it’s like, the magic behind the bugs.
Keith: Sure, yeah.
Austin: Right. Sure.
Sylvia: I’ve gotta look at the sheet we had before we started the season.
Austin: Yeah. I think that's right, though. I mean, at the time it was the bugs, but at this point, I feel like it's been...you just haven't spent time together, and that's fine too. That's also a good reason not to trust the bug person.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: So how do you go about this? Again, one of the things you kind of find out is, oh, there's kind of a bunch of libraries go to, to try to find information. Is this a montage of y'all like sneaking— not sneaking, but, you know, surreptitiously moving through the city as un-confrontationally as you can to get to...to find this thing? Is it bouncing from library to library? Is it asking around? What is your attempt here to locate the library that would have the sort of weird shit you're all looking for?
Keith: I have a sort of a thought about it.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: We could ask one of the Glim Macula about the libraries in town, and whichever one they're least enthusiastic about, whichever one it seems like they hate the most… [Austin chuckles] Because it has like the weirdest most magical stuff?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Uh huh.
Art: I do have a knack for discern spooky books.
Austin: Oh, you do have a knack for that, don’t you? Is is that from like a...isn’t that a fallout you decided to keep or something?
Art: No, I think it's from my book of fables.
Austin: Oh. Wait, what's your...oh, right. That's right. You literally have a...when you said that, you meant that quite literally.
Keith: Discern Spooky Book.
Art: Spooky books.
Austin: Discern Spooky Book, yeah, mm-hmm.
Art: Books. I wrote books plural.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's correct. I think that's correct.
Art: I might be able to help us find some spooky books.
Austin: Yeah, I feel like that's...I think I feel like that is...if you wanted to do like a discern haven role here, that would be a way of asking around, you know, to find this. Honestly? So, if you do… [chuckles] Keith, I think you're...I think talking to the Glim Macula about this would be risky, but things are already risky out there, because of the current state of the world, current state of the city.
Keith: Mmm. Yeah.
Austin: So I think it would actually be dangerous to go talk to one of the super cops about where...even if you're...I think you could do it, and rolling successfully would mean managing to walk that...walk through that needle, that needle eye hole safely, but it's a rough one.
Keith: That’s fair.
Austin: It’s rough for reasons that are not entirely clear, even.
Keith: Well, I am with two of the murderers.
Austin: That does not help. You're both of the murderers, [Sylvia laughs] and one of them is a wax figure, and the other one is a vampire ghost.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Or sorry, vampire zombie. Zombie, I'm sorry. But yes.
Sylvia: With a ghost. There's a ghost involved.
Austin: With a ghost. There is a ghost involved, yeah.
Keith: The ghost is part of the deal.
Austin: You're the most normal person in this trio, Lyke.
Keith: Right, yeah.
Austin: According to the Macula, so.
Keith: Right.
Austin: You're the square.
Keith: Yeah, I'm the square. So, it is...yeah, it is a bad like group to go with. [Austin and Sylvia laugh]
Austin: But yes, Duvall, I would let you use that knack to give you a bonus die there, if you wanted to, which only evens out to someone who has discern and haven, but you know. It's flavorful.
Keith: Which I also have. [chuckles]
Austin: Yeah, exactly. I mean, how y'all want to do is up to you.
Keith: I had forgotten that Virtue’s been here before.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: So I don't know if she's got like…
Austin: Yeah, Virtue, if you have someone who you'd like to raise here.
Sylvia: Yeah, I feel like there's probably just some sort... idea was someone who's sort of connected to like, kind of underground occultish stuff.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Just because of like...I'm trying to picture like Virtue and Es in Sapodilla beforehand—
Austin: Right.
Sylvia: And I know Virtue, at the very least, would be trying to find like weird shit that would be useful to her or like work-related stuff.
Austin: Yeah. So, the thing for me here is the role then would become “Who do you know?” and that would be like, compel occult or something, sort of like in…
Sylvia: Ooh.
Austin: Yes?
Sylvia: I got neither of those.
Austin: Ah, I see. Compel haven would also work, 'cause it is always a—
Sylvia: Mmm.
Austin: No? No haven?
Sylvia: I can't learn haven.
Austin: Oh, you can't learn haven!
Sylvia: I'm pretty sure straight up that's the one domain Deadwalkers can't get, yeah.
Austin: [overlapping] Deadwalkers can’t...that’s fantastic. Love to be in a city. Uh, well, that makes it harder. The reason I say the compel there is ‘cause it's like, oh, what friend did you know?
Sylvia: Sure.
Austin: Do you know what I mean? Sort of like...there was that move in Forged in the Dark games. There's often a skill that you could roll for that effect, you know?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Or like, in Burning Wheel, it's rolling up a contact. I forget what that's actually called. Art, do you remember?
Sylvia: I think it’s called, like, making a contact in Forged in the Dark too.
Austin: Yeah. It’s something like that, yeah. So. I think that would be basically what you're doing here, but you don't have either, so that would be a one die risk.
Sylvia: [sighs] Yeah, I don't have many friends, is the thing.
Keith: What if I just rolled discern occult to try to feel out someone with spooky vibes? [muffled laughter]
[Timestamp: 0:20:02]
Austin: I mean, at that point, you're also just...you could just find the library that way. That’s fine.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair, yeah.
Sylvia: I mean, you can like smell magic too, can’t you?
Austin: Mmm.
Keith: I can literally smell magic without a roll.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: This is true. This is true. Alright, well, you know what? I'll give that a...that's a mastery on that roll.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Again, if this was a normal day, this probably wouldn't be a roll at all. It would just be it takes you some time.
Keith: Right, but…
Austin: But when you're going around looking for the spooky—
Keith: We killed the FBI.
Austin: Right, exactly, yes. [laughs softly] So then yeah, that would be...what we say? Discern and then haven or occult.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And then mastery. Take mastery on that.
Keith: Mastery.
Austin: And then if someone wants to help, they can help.
Sylvia: I can help.
Austin: I think Duvall or Virtue, either one of you could help, yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: I have discern, and I can help as like payback for healing my leg.
Austin: Sure. Sounds good.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: Also, it makes sense that they're like, in the same space right now.
Austin: Yes. Then this is...and make sure you mark risky. This is risky.
Keith: This is a lot of dice. I'm excited about this one.
Austin: Yeah, it should be fine. It should be fine. We'll see how it goes. See how dice work.
Sylvia: It always goes well when we say that.
Art: [sympathetic] Oooh! [Keith laughs]
Austin: Well, that's a fucking five isn't it? That's a hard failure.
Sylvia: That's a six, a four, a five, a four, and a three.
Austin: And I take the six, ‘cause it's risky.
Keith: Ooh. Oh, oh, do I have something for this? Once per situation, when you mark stress due to physical harm or detection—
Austin: Mmm! Okay, yeah.
Keith: —you may make the GM reroll the stress dice. Keep the second result, even if it's higher.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: So it hasn't kicked in yet.
Austin: You’re about to— right. As detection comes in here and you're about to get dice rolled at you, that is when…
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, okay. Unfortunately, that is not...you're not gonna be able to do that for Virtue who helped out here, right? So, let’s see.
Sylvia: Right, I helped, shit. [laughs softly]
Austin: You did help. You did.
Keith: Should have gone with Detect Spooky Book.
Austin: This is Lyke. Lyke, do you want me to reroll the three?
Keith: No.
Austin: Alright, take three fortune stress.
Sylvia: [dismayed] Are you kidding me?
Austin: Virtue, take eight fortune stress.
Sylvia: Okay. Let me click this fallout test real quick.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you both have to give me one of those.
Sylvia: Take major fallout.
Art: Ooh!
Austin: Take major fallout. [Sylvia laughs] Lye Lychen.
Keith: No fallout.
Austin: No fallout.
Sylvia: Oh my god!
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: I am a little bit still the no fallout king. Actually, no, Dre.
Austin: Dre, Dre is. Dre is, is what we've learned.
Keith: I've had some really, really risky rolls that have broken good, though.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Keith: I mean, a twelve on a nine is… [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: A twelve on a nine is pretty remarkable. And then the eight on an eight.
Keith: Eight on an eight.
Sylvia: I can’t believe it!
Austin: We'll get...you know what, I'm gonna set on this. [Sylvia laughs] I know what it is. I mean, I know...I’m gonna double check it here. Uh...yeah, okay.
Sylvia: At least I get to clear my fortune stress straight away. [laughs]
Austin: Don’t worry about what it is quite yet.
Keith: Oh, I don’t get to clear this, right?
Austin: No you have to keep all that stress.
Keith: Right. I was like, I rolled so I clear it. No, that's wrong.
Austin: No, you keep all of that stress. You had a total of nine stress that was six in fortune and three in mind, Lyke.
Sylvia: I bet you wish you took major fallout now! [Austin laughs] Get rid of all that stress!
Keith: I rolled five dice and didn't get higher than a six.
Austin: Yeah, you...here's what I'll say. Here's my tease of this major fallout that'll kick into place at some point in the next, whatever, 20 minutes. Virtue, it is...y'all end up bouncing back and forth. The spelling magic thing doesn't fully work, because eventually you line yourself...you move into the Hibiscus District, and it turns out, like I kind of gestured at before, there's a bunch of fucking hypocrites out here who are out here talking about, “Oh, yes, the Glim Macula supports us,” but meanwhile, you know they have weird shrines in their backyards, in their basements, in their side rooms. And so like, you're kind of led on a weird circuit in the Hibiscus District, where you're like, “Aha, it has to be this!” and it's not. And eventually, you kind of bounce from place to place, and you do wind up at just a big library that you don't actually...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 rotunda. Or sorry, 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 by the sunlight hours, this place did not have the magical touch that you needed, but here it is.
Keith: Ahh.
Austin: 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.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: This building is...this library is a rotunda. It's a tall domed— or, it's not a tall. It's a...I mean, it's sizable, but it's not like a ten story tall thing. It's actually kind of like two, maybe three stories tall at most, but it's a kind of round squat building with a dome, and the dome is made of glass. So there is, you know, there's kind of skylights up there. And as you go in you, you realize...as soon as you go in, it's like chillier inside than outside. And in front of you, before you get too deep in, is a reception— ah, I think maybe it's like a long or like a big open entryway with like, you know, marble floors. And then there's a desk, and then behind that you see curved along the outside of the building, like along— not the outside of the building, the interior walls, but along those walls are stacks and stacks of books and shelves and stuff. But you realize that the actual structure is not tall, but it's deep, it goes down. And so it's sort of like a multi-layered...it's sort of like a tower going downward. And each floor of the tower, there's big empty space in the middle, as it's a kind of a circular, you know, floor shape. But there are stairs that connect the levels, and each level has a different specialty. And, you know, it's a big library that is mostly underground here. And at the desk is a sort of young-looking human with light brown hair. He has just like light brown like K-pop fluffy hair, you know what I mean? Tortoiseshell glasses, and a sort of, I think maybe the only other...slight frame, and then also a badge— not a badge, I don't know that Ali would call it a badge, but the symbol of the Telluricist Union is on a pair of suspenders that he's wearing. He has on like brown pants with suspenders and a white dress shirt, no tie or anything, but the suspenders are there.
Sylvia: Just to be clear for people listening, the Telluricist are Marn’s...the group that Marn is part of, right?
Austin: That is correct.
Sylvia: Cool.
Austin: Yes, yes, yes. So, this receptionist clearly also has some sort of affiliation with the Telluricist Union, which yeah, is a group of...a group of people who have a varied collection of skills but very practical— well, it's a mix of practical and theoretical skills. There’s kind of four branches. There is one that is very practical that is about like surgery and fixing things on the spot. There is a more like institutional repair shop one. There's an inventor kind of crew. And then there is the sort of most theoretical research and development, like theoretical medicine and stuff. And if you kind of master all of those different wings of the Telluricist Union, you become Keen, which is what Marn is. This person does not have the mark of the Keen on them, but they do have this sort of...Ali just sent this to me, and I think she had sent it before, but it's this like, T...it's like, imagine a tall rectangle, and then the very top of the rectangle is kind of a thick top of the T, the letter T, and then that same kind of shape kind of comes down the middle. It’s like a T inside of a little container almost, and then on the left and the right of it, coming out of the bottom of the T, are some leaves on like a vine growing up or like a sprout. We'll post this in the description, you know. What else? So yeah, that’s...there he is, kind of looking at a book, leaning back in the chair. Virtue, again I want to say there is something familiar about this boy. You don't know...you can't quite place him.
Sylvia: Okay.
Keith: He's famous for healing fortune stress for free. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: For free, yes. Loves to do it. But he's reading a book, does not hear y'all come in, despite your bad fortune. Uh, maybe hears you come in. [Keith laughs] Maybe the bad fortune stress, besides the offscreen thing—
Sylvia: Wow.
Austin: —is also just like stumbling inside loudly.
Sylvia: Dang, I got a bonus fallout? This is rough.
Austin: [laughs] Yeah. And I think he like, you know, moves his glasses up to like get a better look of you as you walk up closer. And then yeah, and it's...I don't know, it's not necessarily clear if he recognizes you or if he's just overwhelmed by three weirdos coming into the Night Library.
Sylvia: [laughs] Is there any chance I could like see if I recognize him from the last time I was here? I don't know if that would be a discern check or something.
Austin: Give me a roll. This is a...it's interesting what this will be.
Sylvia: Okay. I love when it’s interesting.
Austin: This will be...discern cursed?
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Because I know where you know him from, and it's not from the last trip you were here.
Sylvia: That's even better.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: I got a nine. I don't know if that was standard or not, though.
Austin: That's standard, yeah.
Sylvia: Okay, cool.
Austin: There's nothing particularly risky about this. Again, as a reminder, you have that major fallout that's hanging over your head, just to...
[Timestamp: 0:30:00]
Sylvia: Yeah, I have it just marked as three question marks on my page right now. [laughs]
Austin: This little nerd used to be a Thrall to Lord Asator Crosley, who was one of your many vampiric rivals hundreds of years ago. He was just like one of the little brats. You know what I mean? Who like hang around court, you know?
Sylvia: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Had longer hair then and like, did not look...like, could not pull off the suspenders look without being shoved into a locker. Here he looks kind of hot, but like only just barely, you know?
Sylvia: Uh huh.
Austin: His name is Lenore Voivode.
Keith: Damning with faint praise. You look just barely hot in those suspenders.
Austin: Just barely hot, yeah. And he is— yeah?
Sylvia: Could you also put the name for the vampire he used to a thrall for?
Austin: Oh, yes. Yes, Lord Asator Crosley.
Sylvia: Okay. Very good.
Austin: I've written here “one of Virtue’s many rival vampire lords.”
Sylvia: Perfect.
Keith: What is that name? Vwah-vode?
Austin: Yeah, or voi-vo-day or voi-vode. Yeah, Voi-vode. Which I believe, if I understood— if I know it right, if I'm remembering my reference point here, is a central and eastern European term for like, a type of military leader, like a warlord basically. He does not look like a warlord to you. He looks like a little nerd.
Sylvia: [sighs] Great. You love running into people from—
Austin: But you knew him hundreds of years ago, to be clear.
Sylvia: Yeah. So he's clearly been doing well for himself if he’s still around.
Austin: Yeah, he was not a vampire then. He was like a human who was enthralled to…
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You know, so.
Sylvia: Is he...and he still appears that like he's a human?
Austin: I don't know. You tell me. What's a human look like?
Sylvia: Mmm. This is very...this is the...exactly, yeah.
Austin: This is the thing.
Sylvia: You know what, you got me.
Austin (as Lenore): [soft, airy voice; starting out uncertain] Um, hello? Welcome to the Night Library. How can I help you? I've not seen you around before.
Sylvia: I think I'm just staring right now. [chuckles]
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Like, is that…? You know the like, moment where you think you recognize someone—
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: But you're not like 100% sure about it?
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: That's going on right now.
Austin: Fair enough.
Art: And then they call someone the Night Librarian, and you're like, I don't know anyone who's this big a nerd. [Austin laughs]
Austin (as Lenore): [slowly] I guess I can't help you, then? Or...you can peruse as you will. The stairs are over there.
Sylvia: I'm trying to think of what to say right now. If anyone else has something to say to this guy, please don't just yield the floor to me. [laughs softly]
Art: I mean, this motherfucker just tried to tell me where stairs were. [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Also, I'm assuming we don't want to like come out and say what we're looking for either.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: Just as a crew. I don't know.
Keith: I wonder if there's some way to like figure out something that's safe to ask about that would maybe be near the…
Austin: Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Keith: What we're actually looking for. I mean, we're looking for different things.
Austin: You’re all looking for three different things, so.
Keith: We’re looking for three different things, we just all had a lot of business at the library.
Austin: Yes. Don’t look at me.
Keith: I'm just gonna use my...I’m gonna use my magnifying glass, so whatever. I don't need this guy.
Sylvia: [sighs] Okay.
Keith: Did he ask us a question that I missed?
Austin: Yes.
Sylvia: He asked if he can help us.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Art (as Duvall): Art history, please.
Keith: Mmm.
Austin (as Lenore): Fourth floor down. North side.
Keith: That’s your autobiography.
Art (as Duvall): Four floors below this.
Austin (as Lenore): That's right.
Art (as Duvall): Great.
Austin (as Lenore): This is the ground floor.
Art (as Duvall): [Art laughs softly] Yeah, I just came in. I know that this is the ground floor.
Austin (as Lenore): You asked me what floor it was.
Art (as Duvall): Mmm.
Austin (as Lenore): You're all artists, then? Or researchers?
Keith (as Lyke): Researchers.
Austin: Eyes not making contact with Virtue, by the way, like willing to look at the group, but not making eye contact with Virtue.
Austin (as Lenore): Researchers, yeah. A lot of the people who visit the Night Library are researchers.
Keith: Maybe something on the Boundless Conclave is what I could be looking for. I could start there and sort of move left.
Austin (as Lenore): Religion is third floor, eastern wall.
Keith (as Lyke): Lower third or upper third?
Austin (as Lenore): There’s only down. Up is the skylight.
Sylvia: I think, at this point, Virtue just like snaps her fingers and is like:
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: Big smile. Big, fake, I'm-scared smile.
Sylvia: [laughs softly] Also a big smile right back, but much less scared.
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia (as Virtue): You must tell me, how is Lord Crosley doing these days? Assuming, you know...
Austin (as Lenore): Oh, he…
Sylvia (as Virtue): The worst hasn't happened.
Austin (as Lenore): It has. Soon after we last saw each other, actually.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Ah. Well.
Austin (as Lenore): There was some badness, you know?
Sylvia (as Virtue): I suppose not everyone's blessed with the luck that I am, hmm.
Austin (as Lenore): We thought you had been—
Sylvia (as Virtue): [interrupting] But you, you made it out fine, clearly.
Austin (as Lenore): Oh, you could say that...you could say that Crosley took good care of me.
Austin: There's something being insinuated here that vampires might know—
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: —but that other...this might...talking about being the heir to a vampire is the same thing as talking about killing a vampire.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: So I think he's telling you “Oh yeah, I killed him.”
Sylvia: I think she just does like a gasp, but one of those like, [gasps] like kind of excited like:
Sylvia (as Virtue): [gasps] I didn't know you had it in you!
Austin (as Lenore): Oh, well, once—
Sylvia (as Virtue): [hushed] Well, between you and me, he was always a bit of an asshole, so no harm done.
Austin (as Lenore): I worked with him until he put me in the will, and then, you know, there was so much fright outside the manner—you know, with how things were going, the panic—he didn't pay close attention to what was happening inside. Such a shame.
Austin: Seeing now that he's kind of won a little bit of respect, he kind of calms down.
Sylvia: Yeah. It's a real like, ah, I didn't think you…
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia (as Virtue): I really didn't think you had the guts at all.
Austin (as Lenore): Can I ask what you and your friends are really here for?
Sylvia (as Virtue): [still cheery] Absolutely not.
Austin (as Lenore): Very well. Well, enjoy the time.
Sylvia: He's still a thrall to Virtue, like…
Austin: Right, right, right.
Sylvia: She's like, no, you're not like on my level.
Austin: You’re still an underclassman, basically.
Sylvia: Yeah exactly.
Austin: You’re still a...yeah.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Well, it was a wonderful catching up, and I'll be sure to watch my back around you.
Sylvia: And she does like a little giggle and point at him. [laughs softly]
Austin: Uh huh. Smiles showing the fangs, you know?
Sylvia (as Virtue): Wow, they grow up so fast.
Austin: Uh huh. Alright, you have this library in front of you.
Sylvia: [laughs softly] Okay, cool.
Art: That was weird. That was a weird conversation to be not a part of.
Sylvia: I know. I love it.
Austin: Uh huh. Once it’s like, oh Virtue’s here with...like, they seem to know and seem to be cool with it, so. Lots of weirdos come to the Night Library. You’re among them.
Sylvia: Also, it is like—
Austin: There aren’t many people here, but there are a few. You hear like...there's a lot of like looking down, you know, one of the aisles of books and like seeing a figure looking at a book, and then they make a face at you when they notice you looking at them, and then you're like, alright, I gotta keep going. And then, you know, you go to another aisle, and someone scoots away into the shadows, and you never see them again. You're pretty sure you see someone who has like tendrils. You know, it's one of those.
Sylvia: Hell yeah.
Keith: Rule of the Night Library is do not notice anyone here.
Austin: Please, yeah. Do not perceive.
Sylvia: My kind of place.
Austin: Sylvia, were you gonna say something else? What were you gonna say?
Sylvia: Oh, I was just gonna say like Lenore being here is also a sign to Virtue that there's like shit that might be under this, like, not…
Austin: Yes.
Sylvia: Stuff the Glim Macula would not want being here, here, you know?
Austin: Yes, totally.
Sylvia: That's why she's so happy. [laughs softly]
Austin: Yeah, fair enough. Alright. Start looking for shit, huh? What is...where do we want to start? I guess let's start with art history. What are you looking for, Duvall? More on this book, huh? Or, this painting.
Art: Yeah, all we—
Austin: Or more on—
Art: We found it. It was...
Austin: Yeah.
Art: It’s the society.
Austin: Yes.
Art: Pledge.
Austin: Yes.
Art: Pledge House.
Austin: Zizilliana Esterházy had it. Zizilliana Esterházy was killed at a fire at Pledge House during a huge concert, was very close to Davia Pledge. It seems likely that that painting is still at Pledge House. “Very close to,” potentially a euphemism for lovers, right? Not ever said directly, but Duvall’s been around the fuckin’ block, you know? “They're just good friends.”
Art: Yeah, I've read books before.
Austin: Yeah, exactly. So...but you don't know anything about the Pledge House fire. You don't know where Pledge House is. You don't know what’s up with Davia Pledge or Davia Pledge. You don't know if there's anything else about the book— or, about the painting, et cetera. So, if you wanted to look around for more info on that stuff, you could do that for sure. And that would definitely be Discern Weird Books, haven. Not risky. In many ways, the risk is already on its way.
Sylvia: I love it.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Art: Sure. And the thing gives me mastery?
Austin: Mastery.
Art: That’s what I click here?
Austin: Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Your knack. Ayy, there's a ten. Ask me some questions, Art. You manage to find some like local histories, do you know what I mean? You ever go to a neighborhood where there's a bookstore, and there's a whole like section of the bookstore dedicated to local history or like the local...you know, you have your best seller section, and across from that is like, these are the people who sell books— or rather, who write books from Kew Gardens or whatever, you know?
[Timestamp: 0:40:12]
Art: Yeah, I have almost exclusively lived in cities and neighborhoods completely up their own asses about themselves, so.
Austin: Yeah, exactly. So this is one of them.
Art: I'm very familiar with this.
Austin: So this is like, you know, Hibiscus history, you know?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: What do you...so yeah, feel free to ask me some questions about this situation, and I'll tell you what you find through a collection of books, basically.
Art: I'm sort of looking for like a gossipy history book, you know?
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Art: The like...unauthorized biography of the Pledge House fire, you know?
Austin: Right, yes, yes. So, you find one. It's written by whoever wrote the society column, right? Over the last…
Art: Mm-hmm.
Austin: It’s like decades of history that they've covered, decades of kind of that style of history, and they've written a book about, you know, the fall of Pledge House, right? The fall of the House of Pledge. [chuckles] And the long story short is that the two of them, Zizilliana Esterházy and Davia Pledge, were important figures in the city for about 15 years, about 40 years ago, somewhere in the afternoon. You know, between 30 and 50 years ago is when they were at their height. Around 30, 40 years ago, it's when the fire happened. Let's say 35 years ago. And the...Davia was a kind of, you know, 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 because of how how much it reflected the kind of character, the melange of the city. And Esterházy, Zizilliana was the heiress of the house Esterházy who had been so important for decades, honestly kind of predated the panic, 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 the kind of opening of the gates. 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. They were kind of classic, you know, the aristocracy can get stronger when the monarch gets overthrown, in some ways, right? 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. And it took...you know, the Pledge House has, you know, is a big Manor but also has a concert hall attached to it, or did, and you know, a big garden attached to it and a lot of space here in the Hibiscus District. And the concert caught fire in the middle of the performance. Hundreds of people died, including Zizilliana. Davia herself, who had been conducting the orchestra, managed to flee to safety, but the majority of people died. The Glim Macula, which formed right around the same time, blames it on some sort of demonic attack. You know, at the time, I think a lot of the rhetoric was about how like they hate what we are. The world out there hates what we are here. We are the center of culture in the heartland. And the demons that stalk, you know, the wastelands would do anything to break us, and we can't do that, and blah blah blah. And so they kind of grew in power then. That was kind of the Macula’s first growth of power. Not anywhere near as strong as they are now, but it's when they became kind of a codified part of life for people here. For the last few generations, people have known what the Glim Macula are, they just haven't been...it’s sort of like how, you know, the NSA has existed for decades, but then like the Snowden stuff happened, and people like, oh the NSA, they really fucking do shit, huh?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: That was sort of the situation, right? The Macula existed, but everyone kind of just ignored that that was a thing. Or not ignored, but if you weren't a target of theirs, you didn't think about them that much until recently. So that's the kind of gist of it. And you know, it's a gossipy write-up, right? So it's a lot of...it's a lot of filtering through names that you don't give a fuck about or referencing other local history stuff that does not matter to you. Uh, you got a ten, which is a crit, so give me give me another question, if you have one.
Art: Mmm…
Austin: If you want to save it, we can come back around, if you want to think on it.
Art: Yeah, give me a...give me a round.
Austin: Yep, okay. Lyke.
Keith: Hello.
Austin: Hi. Looking for a book, huh?
Keith: Sure am.
Austin: Go ahead. Give me some—
Keith: Don't even know what...don't really even know what kind of book.
Austin: Well yeah, what are you looking for? Are you looking for something about gods, about…
Keith: I'm looking for something about...let's see, the like keywords, like if I was typing keywords into a search—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: I would start with—
Austin: You know there's a librarian upstairs who could help with that. No? Okay.
Keith: Yeah, not quite yet.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: I'm not quite there yet. Obviously starting out Aterika’Kaal, good first one.
Austin: Nada, yeah.
Keith: Yeah. I'm searching for...
Austin: Or just, more importantly, that's just not how libraries work. But yeah, just tell me what you're looking for more generally, I guess.
Keith: Oh, just like, you know, reading backs of books, like no titles, but…
Austin: Right, right, right.
Keith: So, looking for that. Looking for things on pocket dimensions.
Austin: Right, okay.
Keith: Looking for things on…
Austin: Like the godly realms and the…
Keith: Right, you're right, realms.
Austin: Sure.
Keith: Looking for things on…
Austin: If you're at the card catalogue, this is the…
Keith: Like, the strength of divine powers.
Austin: Okay. Sure.
Keith: Like gods that have like, not just died, but have like, weakened and vanished.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Sure.
Keith: Or like, you know, if some religion had like, well this used to be a religion, but they just like aren't anymore?
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Books on those people.
Austin: Yeah. Give me then a discern occult roll.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Or religion, up to you.
Keith: Alright, and what is...how does my magnifying glass work?
Austin: What is it? It’s good or something?
Keith: It's excellent.
Austin: So that would mean that if you were doing this and it was dangerous, it would still be standard for you.
Keith: Okay. Got it.
Austin: If this was a Delve and you had to do damage to...you know, if you had to cause stress, you would be doing stress damage according to…
Keith: Okay.
Austin: What that thing does. But it just—
Keith: But it's not risky, it's standard, so it doesn't matter.
Austin: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Keith: Okay. So, and it's discern...
Austin: And either haven or occult.
Keith: Okay. Nine.
Austin: Hey, there's a nine. No stress. Yeah, you find...it takes you some looking, and eventually you come across a thing that does not even have a title page.
Keith: Hmm.
Austin: And you're a Junk Mage, which means you know this is the good shit, right?
Keith: Right.
Austin: You find it filed away in a collection of...god, I don't know where this...Sapodilla— hmm. The Night Library would have...the Night Library puts it in a strange place for you, which is a...it's filed as a thesis paper from an Unschola Republica scholar, from a mage. That's not true, though. It's not what it is. It might have been...it might have been trans— not even transcribed. This is a handwritten copy—or maybe it's a typed copy—of a have a transcript of a conversation. On the front, on the interior title page, it says...where's the name of this? I wrote this down. Here it is. Sa’Ferna-ta-Fera. S-A apostrophe F-E-R-N-A hyphen T-A hyphen F-E-R-A. Sa’Ferna-ta-Fera. And underneath in text, it says “Talking with Ferna the Cunning.” And what you see in front of you is a...or, what you're looking at is a transcript of a conversation with someone. I guess the thing that's tough here is there's a story about this book that you need to talk to somebody about to understand what it is.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: So, maybe your intuition is I should ask the librarian—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: What the fuck I'm looking at here before I dig too deep into it. But you flip through it, and maybe actually you do catch a glimpse of the word Aterika’Kaal. It’s the only time you've ever seen it written down since since the Roseroot Hall stuff.
Keith: Yeah. Well, since writing it in my equipment ledger.
Austin: Right, since you wrote it, right, yeah. [laughs] Your personal list of the things that you have on you. Big Junk Mage vibes. So yeah, maybe...do you go ask Lenore at that point before you dig too deep in to get a little context for what you're looking at?
Keith: Yeah, if that is the feeling I'm getting, then I totally would be like…
Austin: I think it is, ‘cause there's a story here that is not in the...it is explicitly not in the book because of what the book is.
Keith: And it's like, eh, it's your book, dude. Like, you know.
Austin: Right, exactly.
Keith: I can't get in trouble for reading the book in your library.
[Timestamp: 0:50:00]
Austin: Right. So I think...so I think, you know, there's a sigh.
Austin (as Lenore): Ah, I haven't seen that volume in quite some time. Are you a Carpana scholar or something else?
Keith (as Lyke): Just interested in different kinds of things.
Austin (as Lenore): Mmm, I see. [chuckles] I’d forgotten we even had that volume. That book was written by some bastard of the Dominion, name lost to time, who was so frustrated with his place in the family line that he decided to devote himself, as so many of them do, to the heritage that had been dismissed by his father. This was centuries ago now, you know? And so he trekked out here into the spooky Heartland, and he met with Ferna the Cunning, who was at the time one of the last living Carpana sages. This was before the Telluricist Union
Austin: I think he kind of like, has a...moves in a way that the light bounces off of the Telluricist Union badge on the suspenders, to be like, and I am a descendant of this heritage, in a way. I've inherited this knowledge.
Keith: Right, yeah. This is, in a little bit of a way, personal.
Austin: Right, exactly. And he says:
Austin (as Lenore): He came here to the heartland, found a Carpana sage—again, Ferna the Cunning—and sat with them for weeks and weeks and transcribed the conversations they had and wanted to turn it into...you’re from Unschola, right?
Keith (as Lyke): Mmm.
Austin (as Lenore): Then you know, the sort of final thoughts, the dissertation, the sort of big picture project, and bring it back to the Dominion to show the knowledge that was here. Now, when Ferna found this out, found out that after all of that conversation, this bastard boy was going to turn the knowledge into something else, turn a conversation into a hammer by a better name, they scolded him, and they said, “On a cold night, what is more valuable: a whole blanket or one that's been unwoven? Are we not now living through a cold night?” I think embarrassed, the bastard tried to submit the thesis as a raw transcript with some additional notes. That's what you're carrying with you now. It was, of course, rejected by the First Canton as unfinished drivel from a savage. And, embarrassed, I think the bastard discarded it. Decades later, a number of renegade Unschola students would find it and distribute it amongst themselves as a petty act of rebellion, but I don't know that they knew what they had here. This is a real conversation with someone who knew this place in a way that very few do. I hope you find what you're looking for. There's some reading tables over there.
Austin: And directs you to a well lit part of the first floor where the moonlight is coming in. And you notice that it's like...it's really...it's getting increasingly chilly here. And I think also, now that you’re back up here and no one's talking, you can hear that—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. I would place it as sort of—we would hear it, and it would sound like he's listening to Christmas music.
Keith: Mmm.
Austin: There aren’t...I don't know that there are lyrics that you can hear, but as you step away, he turns it back up and starts reading his book again. So. And as you dig into the book, what you find is a long, flowing, kind of unorganized conversation with Ferna. Sa’Ferna, which means Ferna the Cunning, or you know, Ferna the Sage, Ferna the Wise, that type of title. And in it is like just, it just goes all over the place, and so finding your way through it is interesting, because you're looking for trends in conversation. Every now and then, the transcript will just take a wild turn, like one second they're talking about, you know, forests and the animals within them, and then they'll be reminded of a particular trip through a forest when they were a kid, and so then that becomes a conversation instead about, you know, a special holiday, and so like there are wild turns. But you kind of feel out, over the next hour or so, the direction that the book goes and the kind of direction of this transcript, and you find a section that is about kind of the exact thing that you're looking for, this this question of how do you...I mean, specifically, it is about maintaining a healthy relationship with divine and supernatural things. The stuff on Aterika’Kaal is like nothing. Unfortunately, that particular section doesn't give you like, “Aterika’Kaal was a good god, and da da da da da da. It really likes cotton candy, and if you feed it cotton candy, it will listen to you.” Like, that does not happen, unfortunately. It's kind of a throwaway, like, here are some of the the deities I knew from walking this great land and who I've interacted with, you know? But there is no like cheat code to Aterika’Kaal here. What there is is a statement about how the thing to know about gods is that they are like pine trees, or like...what is it called when an animal can't die? It's like a non…
Keith: Oh, like a lobster?
Austin: Like a lobster. It's like it doesn't have senescence or something like that? Yeah, senescence is biological aging, right? And so there are— yeah, like lobsters can grow forever. There's a number of other animals that can do that. If they have...if they have the right environment and the right food and fuel and et cetera, if their metabolism can keep up with their growth, they can grow and age forever. And so that’s—
Keith: Is this sort of like that big mushroom? Do you know about the big mushroom?
Austin: I don't know about the big mushroom, but I believe you.
Keith: It's one of the different ways that you could answer the like, largest living thing.
Austin: Ah.
Keith: Like there's that big Aspen tree—
Austin: Right, right.
Keith: Where it’s like this whole forest is just one Aspen tree, but like there's just one mushroom fruit that takes up like, I don't know what it is, like hundreds of square miles somewhere.
Austin: Wow, yeah. Oh, this one.
Keith: Where just like, it can just get bigger and bigger.
Austin: Yeah. Right. And so that is the thing, is: that's how gods work. They will grow for as big of a container as you build for them, and the world is the biggest container there is. And so, if you are going to...you know, I think this is kind of an offhanded thing, because I think Ferna does not believe that the bastard scholar is ever going to deal with gods and so it's kind of jokey. But it's very much the like, “If you ever find yourself dealing with a god, make sure you put it in a little box first,” right?
Keith: Done. Done!
Austin: Oh, I mean, but I meant a more...not metaphorical, a more… [Keith laughs] I mean a magical box first, right?
Keith: Right, not just a literal box. [laughs]
Austin: Right, like, in some ways, think about how it was contained, both in its own little realm where it couldn't...it was like caught in time and in its own little realm. And then also it was contained in the shrine that was boxed in, where there were no doors and it was magically sealed, right?
Keith: Right.
Austin: And so it's like, you've put it in a place where if it continues to grow, it will hit the walls, instead of consistently hitting soil. So that's the lesson you learn, is like, this thing could grow again, and if you're going to start doing fucking experiments with it, or if you're going to try to revive it, or whatever the fuck you're trying to do, Lyke, do it in a place where—
Keith: Put it— right.
Austin: —if it breaks bad, it's in a safe place to do it, you know?
Keith: Right. Deal.
Austin: So. I mean, in some ways, maybe it calls to mind for you your Stone Choir move where you can visit the gods and the realms.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And it's like, if you could put it into one of those that was empty, or if you could start one for it or something, then that would be a way to safely walk down this path without risking all of Sangfielle, right? So, there you go. Before we get to Virtue, uh, do you have your second question, Duvall?
Art: Yeah. I mean, I think so. Let me just talk a little bit.
Austin: Yeah, go for it.
Art: Which is like, someone stole this painting, right?
Austin: [makes “I don't know” sound]
Art: Probably?
Austin: Why do you think that?
Art: Because when someone says something fell, it usually means that it was looted.
Austin: Oh, no, no, no. Pledge House still exists. Pledge House didn't—
Art: Mmm.
Austin: Davia Pledge lives in Pledge House. Sorry. Maybe I didn't finish...I gestured at this stuff last time and should have re-upped on it. Davia Pledge is now like the hermit of Pledge House, right? Never comes out into public, stopped going to public events, started releasing these new musical canisters this year. People think that she is a madwoman, think that the fire, quote unquote, “broke” her and all of the deeply fucked up ableist ways that people talk about people who've suffered trauma, right? Like, it's all that's happening with her. And she lives alone on this manor. Maybe she has, you know, a couple of servants. This book doesn't talk about this, but I gestured at this before, and you overheard people talking about this last session, that every year she supposedly has private concerts for a handful of very rich and powerful people.
Art: Mmm, mm-hmm.
[Timestamp: 1:00:00]
Austin: And to get invited to one of those is rare. This year, right now, she has been advertising a new opus, or word is that she's finished a new opus and wants people to come listen to it in the coming days. It was three nights away yesterday, so two nights from now she is holding a big concert. And so last you heard, the painting is somewhere in Pledge House. So in fact, if you wanted to go steal it, two nights from now might be the time, because you know that Davia Pledge will be busy conducting an opus, a grand concert, for the first time.
Art: Yeah, that’s definitely the time.
Austin: Or maybe you want to listen to some good music, who could say?
Art: I can do both.
Austin: Yeah. You could also just go knock on the door. Who could say— like, you know, how you want to do this, you can do it.
Art: Sure.
Austin: Anyway, if you have another question, I would love to hear it.
Art: Um…
Austin: I know that changes things.
Art: Maybe like, is...a description of the grounds?
Austin: Yeah, I’m gonna give you...I can give you...let's say that this is you finding a map of the grounds as it stood before the fire.
Art: Alright, that's good.
Austin: Let's say that that's— and that’ll give you some sort of mastery on any sort of incursion, any sort of attempted break-in.
Art: Yeah, then I think I'm good, and I'm excited to find out who's been following Virtue. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Great. Well, Virtue, what are you getting up to?
Sylvia: So, I was thinking of looking for books relating to both like hauntings and possession, sort of tied into the stuff that happened—
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: —with the Yellowfield arc but then also the stuff going on with her ghost. I feel like there's crossover there.
Austin: Sure. Yeah, go ahead and give me a discern occult or...I think it's occult, what you're talking about. Ghost shit, right?
Sylvia: Okay. So I just got the one for that, but whatever.
Austin: Yeah, but that's two dice total though, right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause it’s that one plus…
Sylvia: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, wait, wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait! Don't you have a…
Sylvia: I have…
Austin: No, I guess you don't.
Sylvia: No. ‘Cause I don't think this would count.
Austin: This is not minor religions, no.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: No, no. No.
Sylvia: Okay, yeah. That's a nine!
Austin: That's a nine. That's a success. You're gonna find a book. What's the book that you find? It's about...I think actually Darling finds the book.
Sylvia: Oh, perfect.
Austin: And you can like feel Darling reach out from you to pull the book off the shelf. And as that happens, you hear the sound of gates closing four floors above you at the front of the of the library. And then you hear the Christmas music, or the festive music, the holiday music, getting louder as if to drown out a conversation that's happening? But maybe also...I mean, you read it how you want to read it. Maybe it's to signal people that something is happening. You don't know.
Sylvia: Maybe they just really like “Last Christmas.”
Austin: They really love “Last Christmas.” “Last Christmas” is playing. I was very much thinking of like 1950s Christmas music, but actually—
Keith: Yeah, that’s…
Austin: “Last Christmas” like banging right now through these halls is actually great.
Art: You ever get a chance to see the movie with the same name, uh, don't. [Austin and Keith laugh]
Austin: I’ll keep it in mind.
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Austin: I'll keep that in mind. What do you do? So this is before— you don't get— sorry, this is the fallout Reputation. I guess it's not exactly Reputation, but this is the equivalent of you're getting fucking jumped. I guess maybe this is No Way Out, “You lead the party into a dead end, a trap, or an ambush.”
Sylvia: [sarcastic] Oh, yay.
Austin: “Remove this fallout once you get out alive.” That's actually what it is.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: So you don’t have to write anything down, ‘cause it's just you got jumped.
Sylvia: It’s an immediate one, yeah.
Austin: It’s an immediate one. Here you are. You've pocketed this book. We’ll come up with a name for it later.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: I guess I should...well, it's a library, so don't steal these books. Wink.
Sylvia: Oh yeah, for sure. I care so much about rules.
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: As established in all previous episodes.
Austin: Yes.
Sylvia: I guess my question is, are they...we're all on the same floor right now or different floors?
Austin: I don't think so. It sounds like you're on different floor—
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Well, Duvall was at art history.
Keith: I was on floor three, Art was on floor five, and I don't remember—
Austin: Did you— oh, here’s a question. Did you stay at the reading table that Lenore pointed you to?
Keith: Oh, yes. I did, yeah. I was in there reading.
Austin: So that’s...you're on the first floor, so you can in fact see immediately. I’m gonna say maybe you're in like the nice shadows as this happens, so you can kind of lean back a little bit and see what's happening. Five people came in the front door and locked— 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.
Keith: That’s what I thought, yeah.
Austin: It is clearly this...so, there are five of them. The one who is like walking around and in the front and like very clearly in the lead of the situation is kind of a wide, like broad chest, very tall woman, who I know her name is Emma Sirchild. You don't know that. She's a devil. She has big white upturned holes. She is wearing the same thing that they're all wearing, but with a white sash, a white and blue sash across her chest. And she has like a big fuck off sword basically on her back that sort of catches the moonlight a little weird. It kind of shines a special way under the moonlight here. She is the one who's like leading this talk with Lenore at the front desk. With them is...there's three of them who all are wearing basically the same thing, which is this kind of...like, I'm just gonna cut through the bullshit. I think that they're dressed sort of like the witch hunters from The Witcher 3, which is one of my favorite images of witch hunters in anything, and I'll post this here. Do a search for “witch hunter Witcher 3,” you'll see these fucking guys.
Keith: Hmm.
Austin: They are like long, you know, like leather armor over regular medieval kind of clothes. Lots of little pouches. You know, they all have like little...you know, side pockets with vials of glowing liquid. These are sort of like— also, if you go watch like Witch Hunter Robin, and they all have these like glowy vials of anti-magic liquid. That's a good touchstone here, except instead of the kind of dark colors for these folks, we’re...it is dark, but then also all of them have a symbol, a tabard, a belt, a sash, a cape, a half cape with this white with blue trim on it to mark that they’re the Glim Macula. And then also, three of them...the main woman, her face is just out, right? She just has her head out. You just see her. She has close cut dark hair. She has tan skin. She's built like a shit brickhouse. She's like ready to fucking rip someone's head off. The three kind of main mooks with her are the kind of witch hunter gear, but also they have on wicker basket helmets, these kind of just, you know...just a basket on their heads, basically. Like, I guess I kind of would draw on something like the wandering komusō, Japanese mendicant monks who had on like that exact kind of look. I don't think they're as rounded necessarily, or as big. I think they're probably a little bit tighter and more helmet-like than this, but not that dissimilar from this, to be honest. And then there's one who has something like that sort of helmet, that wicker or that kind of basket helmet, but it shows his mouth, and he's like an older...just from seeing like nose down, you can tell he's like mid 50s, maybe early 60s. You know, has stubble and a little crooked grin. And he also, on top of all the rest of this stuff, he has on like a vest of this wicker, and the vest, on top of having a sort of like weird wooden armor plate situation, he has a little like torch with the candle with the blue flame kind of raised up on like a stick coming off of his left shoulder. And that has like a mirror situation, so that it's projecting back the light as if it's like a weird blue spotlight. And that is kind of...it's almost like an analog flashlight, you know what I mean? And that is being projected, you know, wherever he looks. And so this crew of five—so again, it's Emma who is the leader, the one with the weird flashlight is Felix, Felix Hollowfield, and then it's these three regular Macula troops who all have like guns. One of them has like a weird hook weapon. They all have like weird pouches and flasks. They’re like here to fucking fight. And they are putting pressure on Lenore at the reception desk right now. You cannot hear what is being said. But they're here to fight, like very, very much so. They're here to try to hurt you or find you.
Sylvia: If I...so I'm gonna assume that I'm like...if I was going down to like the fourth floor, I would have seen that Lye was on earlier floor—
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: —but wouldn't have seen Duvall?
Austin: I think you and Duvall...earlier in this conversation, I said you were on the fourth floor, and I know that Duvall had been on the fourth floor before.
Sylvia: Yeah, I figured.
Austin: So let’s say the two of you are both on the fourth floor together.
Sylvia: Okay, cool, ‘cause I was gonna say like—
Austin: B4, basement four, yeah.
Sylvia: Grab— like, find Duvall first and then figure out a way to get back to Lyke.
Austin: Yeah, you too can just, boom, that you found each other, you know? You got it.
Sylvia: Okay, perfect.
Art: Mm-hmm.
[Timestamp: 1:10:00]
Sylvia: Yeah, I hate this situation. I know Lenore is a sneaky little shit.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. Well, you're not sure what Lenore is saying right now, you know?
Sylvia: No, I know, for sure.
Austin: Maybe that's part of why you hate it. It's not clear, right?
Sylvia: That's why I'm like, oh, I'm sure he has something to do with this.
Austin: Yep.
Sylvia: He was just bragging to me about how he killed his master, like, come on.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: I thought he seemed nice.
Sylvia: Yeah, well, you don't know him.
Austin: You're not together. You two can’t talk.
Sylvia: I know. [laughs]
Keith: No, no, that's out of character.
Austin: [laughs] I know.
Keith: Seemed plenty nice to me.
Sylvia: Yeah, I have a couple ideas of stuff I could do here. For example, I can turn out all the lights. I have a power for that, or at least—
Austin: What is that? What's that mean? Also, wait, you don't know what's happening up there yet.
Sylvia: I don't know what's happening up there, no.
Austin: Yeah, yes, yes.
Sylvia: I just know that there was a big clangy gate and that that’s usually a bad sign.
Austin: Big clangy gate, yeah, so I think that's fair. In terms of not trusting Lenore in this situation, that makes a lot of sense, actually.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: So yeah, sure.
Sylvia: ‘Cause I don't want us to just go straight up.
Austin: Can we get you...you should talk to Duvall about this. The two of you should—
Sylvia: I'm trying to.
Austin: Oh, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Sylvia: [laughs softly] No, it’s okay.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Yeah, we shouldn't just run up there. Like, we don't know what's been going on here. The security in this town is...I mean, you went through the same process I did.
Art (as Duvall): Yep.
Sylvia (as Virtue): So, I… [Austin laughs]
Keith: Only one of you remembers it.
Sylvia: Eh, it's fine.
Art (as Duvall): Definitely happened, and I definitely know about it.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Yeah, no. Okay. I don't know why you're being...yeah, we both did it. I get it.
Art (as Duvall): Yep. [Austin and Keith laugh]
Sylvia (as Virtue): Are you always like this?
Art (as Duvall): I don't know what you're talking about. [Keith laughs] Alright. [sighs]
Keith: Virtue’s gonna be sticking with the other group from now on. [laughter]
Sylvia (as Virtue): How do you want to find Lye?
Sylvia: Or I guess Lyke is the nickname that he goes by for most people, but I don't know if Virtue would call him.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Art (as Duvall): Hold on. Let me, uh...let me see.
Art: And Duvall closes his eyes and starts to look through the eyes of the various bugs.
Austin: Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Art: Seeing if any of them can see...
Austin: Yeah, everything I said before, you can see it.
Sylvia: Okay.
Art: Oh.
Austin: The flashlight set up, the kind of blue light of Felix Hollowfield, sweeps across just the empty air in the room and catches one of your bugs, and it falls to the ground dead. It doesn't hurt you. You still have plenty of bugs. But uh oh, that thing is bad. That light is not good.
Art: Yeah. Uh huh.
Art (as Duvall): Okay. Lye is upstairs. And there's four. There's four of them.
Austin: There’s five of them.
Art (as Duvall): There's five of them.
Art: I only remember four of them.
Austin: Three randos, like three soldiers, and then...three soldiers, a leader, and a tech guy is kind of the vibe.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Okay.
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.
Sylvia (as Virtue): I mean, we could keep going down, assume Lyke is already dead, and see if there's a way out to the bottom, but it does seem a little like a bit of a gamble there.
Art (as Duvall): I'm not much of a digger.
Keith: I'm gonna take this time to wave at one of the bugs that I see. [Sylvia and Austin laugh]
Art: With my eyes open, I can't see it. [Austin laughs]
Sylvia (as Virtue): So yeah, I'm okay with trying to get up there and regroup and possibly take care of these, but I'd rather go in with a plan.
Art (as Duvall): Mmm.
Sylvia (as Virtue): I can take care of the lights.
Sylvia: I can read that skill out of character if we need me to as well.
Art: Nah, take care of the lights good enough for me. [Austin laughs softly]
Sylvia: Yeah, okay.
Art: Yeah, I'm willing to let you take the lead on this. I don't...
Sylvia: Okay. I can do...so, I have an idea for like getting up a couple floors, or at least getting up closer there without being seen. This is out of character, now, I'm talking, by the way.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: I, you know, just want to be clear. Because I can sneak and because the skill that gives me that—
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Shadow has the like, “blowing out a lit candle and focusing, you can extinguish all light sources nearby.”
Austin: Yeah, let's do it.
Sylvia: Yeah, I figured that would be worth a shot.
Austin: I think the two of you should sneak, sneak occult or sneak haven.
Art: I think I should help with a sneak roll.
Austin: Yeah, you can help. Well, you don't have sneak, but you do have occult, so you can help.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvia: Okay, that's good, 'cause I don't have occult or haven, so.
Austin: Okay. Yep. So, sneak, plus one from Duvall. This is risky.
Sylvia: I knew it. Okay,
Austin: You know what? You're blowing out the lights. I'm gonna say— mmm. In some ways, that is also...that does not...oh boy. How's it work?
Art: That would make me think someone was trying to sneak around. [laughs softly]
Austin: Yeah. It almost...you know, I think maybe let's keep it risky, partly because this is a result of that fallout, you know what I mean?
Sylvia: Yeah, for sure.
Austin: And they are explicitly meant to hunt thing that that do magic to fuck ‘em up, but.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: So let's stay on risky, and say it's, yeah. You go ahead and do that roll.
Sylvia: Makes sense. My form is becoming shadow and indistinct. I think that falls under the category of weird magic shit.
Austin: Yes. Also it's worth saying that sources that cannot be— [Sylvia starts laughing] Ooh! Oh no, I'm so sorry. You didn't hit risky.
Sylvia: I didn't hit risky, but I rolled a— oh, those are two ones? Oh, those are two ones!
Austin: They’re two ones. In fact, you rolled the worst possible roll you could do on three.
Sylvia: I thought that was an eleven! I was so happy for a second!
Austin: You only roll a D10! I know. I know. I'm sorry. You rolled a ten and then a one one, and I take the ten, so you rolled a one?
Sylvia: So how much stress am I getting?
Austin: The...well, et's find out. [Sylvia laughs] The good news is that...what is the good news? Um...
Sylvia: This skill has never worked out for me.
Austin: I know.
Sylvia: This skill led to me getting the eyes last time.
Austin: [sighs] This is gonna be rough. Hey, it's only three. Take three...god, how does this hit you? Take three echo.
Sylvia: Okay, so I take two, 'cause I have one protection.
Austin: Yeah. And then— oh my god. Duvall, take seven. Unless you want me to— unless you have something that lets me reroll this.
Art: Um...no.
Sylvia: This is almost exactly what happened with me and Keith earlier, except instead of rolling an eight you rolled a seven.
Austin: Uh huh. So, seven echo. 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]
[music plays: Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt]