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”]
Austin (as Gala): [nervous] It’s a quiet life, but recently the vicar has eschewed his duties as a leader, and I fear that strange things happen inside the factory. My mother has been gone for a week. I do not know where she is.
Dre (as Chine): Has the vicar started acting differently?
Austin (as Gala): His countenance is sharper, his sermons shorter.
Sylvia (as Virtue): This is more for my own peace of mind. How often do you see the vicar during the day?
Austin (as Gala): Often. He patrols the factory floor.
Sylvia (as Virtue): [relieved] Okay. Thank god.
Austin (as Gala): Don’t vampires hate the light? Why would a vampire run a candle shop? Or, a candle factory?
Sylvia (as Virtue): They hate the sun, sweetie. It’s a little different.
Austin (as Gala): I should correct. I said I've seen him in the day. I didn’t say I'd seen him in the sun.
Austin (as Bucho): We should find a train and leave this cursed place.
Dre (as Chine): What brought you over here?
Austin (as Bucho): I was on a normal train, and I could tell something here was wrong when we stopped to pick up the candles, so I came back and investigated. I sensed something wrong underground here. I saw the church...a facade on a facade. Something else there, deeper, behind the walls. And then those goats, Caprak. You think I look waxy, you should see them.
Ali (as Marn): I'm gonna ask you a question that’s kinda out there. They say anything about an egg?
Austin (as Bucho): An egg.
Dre (as Chine): Uh, egg sac.
Austin (as Bucho): It is not a thing I have seen. I've heard them talking about...what did they call it? A battery?
Dre (as Chine): Hmm.
Austin (as Bucho): Now, ahem.
Austin: And he pulls the tarp up over him a little bit, as if… [chuckles]
Dre: [chuckles] Sure. Gotta take a nap.
Austin: Like, hide under this. Yeah, take a nap.
Ali: I want to leave him some water and some fish jerky.
Austin: And gestures with his chin as if like, leave it up near his mouth, basically. [Ali laughs] Up near the plate armor, basically.
Ali: Mmhmm.
[music ends]
Austin: The top of the torso. Again, he has movement, but it costs him a lot of energy to do that at this point, and it seems like that energy only comes from the armor itself, so yeah.
Janine: I'm jealous of all of Marn’s useful items. [Ali laughs] All I have is like makeup and whistles and jewelry. [laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: That’s useful!
Ali: Yeah.
Janine: No one ever needs those things. [Austin laughs softly] I mean, I guess if he had more energy, I could play a jaunty tune for him to dance to, but…
Austin: Mmhmm. I mean, again, you do have—
Sylvia: Use makeup, make him a little less yellowy in his complexion. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Hmm.
Ali: Back to the factory?
Austin: Back to the factory.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: From this angle, you can tell that there is a loading dock, like I said before, up against where the railway is. There’s one person there now, kind of sitting at a kind of reception desk or...you know, like a dock worker...what am I looking for the word for? When you pull into a ship yard, when you pull into a dock, and you have to talk to someone and register whatever it is you’re...like a dock master type of thing?
Dre: Mmhmm.
Ali: Sure.
Sylvia: [laughs] Yeah, sure.
Austin: Fuck. Words are hard.
Janine: A dock master?
Austin: You know what the fuck I mean, right?
Ali: The master of the dock, duh.
Austin: Yeah, a dock master. [Janine laughs] Is that not a word?
Dre: Love that Seinfeld episode.
Austin: Yeah, dock master
Janine: A harbor master?
Austin: [reading] “A dock master is a person in charge of a dock used for freight, logistics, repair, maintenance, et cetera.”
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Yeah. It’s distinct from harbor master, which is sometimes—
Janine: Harbor’s like boat stuff specifically.
Austin: A higher rank than dock master, which is funny.
Janine: Okay, huh.
Austin: Anyway. Is sitting there, I think probably with some sort of paper and a pencil and looking down at that, waiting for whenever the next train arrives. You don’t know what he’s working on, but this is...yeah, I'd say middle aged, light skin Black dude, balding. You know, a little chubby. Lots of freckles. And seems to be less interested in what’s going on around him than whatever’s on that paper.
Janine: So, is our plan here to infiltrate and surprise or just surprise?
Ali: I’d ideally lay low until we get like an egg location?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: How are we gonna find out where the egg stuff is?
Dre: It’s underground.
Sylvia: Yeah, he did say that.
Ali: Oh, that’s right.
Janine: Yeah, but how do we get underground? Presumably inside the factory, right? Through maybe a locked door that we have a key for, or…
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Janine: But do we know where that is? Or, you know.
Ali: Right, the function of the sneaking would be to find that door, but we could also do the salesperson thing and then maybe...but then we’d have to sneak after that. [laughs] Instead of just being like, we’re on our own, we’re Solid Snake-ing it, we found the door. We would have to be like, oh, let’s interact with someone, and then lose that person presumably, and then go into the basement.
Janine: Just gonna discuss it.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Uh huh.
Sylvia: So my, I guess, worry about going in with the talking plan is if this guy is a vampire he may notice that I am also and get a little jumpy.
Dre: Mmm.
Janine: Hmm.
Austin: Hey, real quick. Wait, that was in character, or was that out of character?
Sylvia: That’s out of character, but it could be in character too.
Austin: Do people know you’re a vampire?
Sylvia: Uh...I mean, Es does, I think, at the very—
Austin: Yes, right.
Sylvia: Like, I feel like…
Austin: Yes, we know that, yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: Oh, yeah, I think that was accidentally the implication of that parasol thing, huh?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, uh huh.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Dre: I feel like it would be within Chine’s character to know, whether he’s been told or not? But I could also...I could see an argument for him not knowing as well.
Sylvia: [conflicted sound]
Austin: Yeah, yeah. Totally.
Sylvia: Yeah. I don't know if I—
Ali: [chuckles] Marn is just like, “Damn, Virtue’s hands are really dirty, weird.”
Sylvia: Yeah, damn. [all laugh] Use a sink, bitch.
Dre: Doesn’t like the sun? Well, it’s yellow, so…
Ali: Yeah, mmm, mm-hmm.
Dre: Smart lady.
Ali: Leaning into this.
Sylvia: Yeah, I don't know if like...I feel like she might not have sat everyone down and been like, “Hi, I'm a vampire.” [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Sylvia: But I feel like she’s not necessarily hiding it.
Austin: Totally.
Sylvia: She sleeps in a coffin in their fuckin’ base. [laughs]
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Good point.
Austin: Good point! Yeah, sure. Totally.
Sylvia: That is how the downtime session started for her.
Ali: [laughs] I think it’s telling that when the person was like [imitating frightened Gala] “I think that guy might be a vampire,” we weren’t all like [surprised] “A vampire?” but we also didn’t like slowly turn towards Virtue, so. [laughs]
Austin: Right, true, true.
Sylvia: Very respectful.
Ali: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Yeah, I think if anyone wants to have a big reaction to me saying that, go ahead, but otherwise…
Ali: Just like oh, okay. So that’s one vote for operation sneak. I'm just gonna roll this evade?
Austin: Wait, okay, wait, let’s be sure. Let’s be...okay. [Ali and Sylvia laugh]
Sylvia: Alright, that’s one [??? 0:8:28]
Ali: Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Austin: Is anyone helping? Is anyone...get your dice right.
Janine: I mean, I think a thing to bear in mind is that...and this is out of character. This is meta commentary. I don’t see any reason why Austin would only have us roll one evade for this.
Austin: Correct.
Janine: Whereas the other plan we would have to roll multiple.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: We’re still gonna have to roll multiple things.
Austin: That’s correct, yeah.
Sylvia: That’s fair.
Janine: So, either way that’s gonna happen. And I also—
Austin: At the point of day it is...just to give you, here are things your characters might suspect. There will be people working as soon as you go inside that door.
Janine: Yeah, it’s gonna…
Dre: Mmhmm.
Janine: There’s at least...there’s gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty people inside of there. [Ali laughs] Or, I guess...no, eighteen?
Austin: Somewhere. They’re around there.
Janine: Eighteen, at least.
Austin: Right.
Janine: Or, at most.
Austin: Who could say!
Janine: Well, it can’t...no, I guess there could be just ...
Austin: She said about twenty people, right? But…
Janine: But she’s outside and—
Austin: She was—
Janine: [??? 0:9:27] isn’t at home, and this person is outside.
Austin: For a while ago. She might be back inside by now.
Janine: Mmm.
Austin: You know, we had a twenty minute conversation.
Janine: She probably wouldn’t bust us.
Austin: Definitely not. But we had like a twenty minute conversation or a thirty minute conversation about Bucho—
Janine: Mmhmm.
Austin: But that was probably over an hour of time. Getting him down, dragging him through the fuckin’ flowers, you know.
Janine: Stalking the big eyes.
Austin: Talking, yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, stalking, stalking, yes. But yeah, so there are people in there. That’s just a thing you know. And, again, I'm not saying don’t do the evade plan. This is…my hands are off the car wheel, here.
Ali: Sure.
Austin: I think you have two plans that both work, and you should do the one you think is most fun or most effective.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Thinking about what skills you have, right?
Janine: It makes me nervous, because I don’t have evade and none of us have the domain.
Austin: Correct.
Ali: Sure.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: But if I succeed at this, you all get mastery in evade.
Austin: Which gives you plus one to it, yeah. That’s true.
Ali: Yeah. And I feel like at this point it’s either we wait until...maybe not until the sun is fully set, but it seems like end of day. But yeah, I don't know.
Austin: That’s possible, right? You could try to wait until the suns are going down and people have left and maybe there’s a graveyard shift or a late shift but it’s much smaller than...like, everyone goes out for dinner— or, not goes out for dinner, but goes home to eat, you know? Presumably.
Ali: Mmhmm.
Sylvia: They all go to the Applebees in town.
Austin: They all go to the Applebees, yeah.
Ali: [laughs] Yeah, mmhmm.
Austin: Sure.
Janine: Is that going to affect Bucho’s outcomes?
Sylvia: That’s…
Janine: If it takes a long time to...
Austin: [sighs] Things start to get riskier, yes. I'm not going to say no to that, because I think you’re right that that’s being honest with it, right?
Janine: I would rather just get off the boat, then, you know?
Ali: Yeah.
Dre: Mmhmm.
Austin: If things pop off, they pop off. Okay. It seems like you’re rolling, Marn, evade?
Ali: Evade mastery, plus one from Chine.
Austin: Plus one from Chine. Wait, what’s the mastery from?
Ali: From the move.
Austin: The move doesn’t give you mastery. The move—
Ali: Oh, okay. You gave it to me last time, so I was doing it again this time.
Austin: Oh, no, I— did I give you mastery...
Dre: Oh, that’s ‘cause you were in the short flowers.
Austin: Yeah, that was the short flowers. Yes, correct.
Ali: Oh, sure, sure, okay.
Dre: Maybe this is meta-gamey...well...you have the domain, don’t you, Marn?
Ali: No.
Austin: No one has the technology domain.
Dre: Okay. Should I roll evade then, because I get that mastery bonus from…
Austin: Ah.
Dre: ...you succeeding earlier?
Austin: No, you lost that mastery bonus, because Marn went on to mend, which means that she did a thing besides...
Dre: Gotcha.
Ali: I’ve acted, yeah.
Austin: She has to reactivate that. Also, I do want to remind everyone, you do still have the plus one mind protection from Marn from last time.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So make sure that you have that listed, if you don’t currently.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Okay. So, Marn, plus one from—
Ali: Another eight!
Austin: Another eight. Damn, killing it. Four, five, eight.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: So, yeah, you manage to walk right under then nose of Wayne, who is the guard—not the, I mean, sort of a guard—the train master, the train keeper out front, the dock master. And get right up to a rear door and are able to open that door and get a peek inside that gives you the main layout of what you see. I'm going to move you over to this map. So, here’s what you see from here. You are down here, this little rectangle. Alright, so, for people at home, there is basically a long north-south rectangle. At the very south end, there’s a dock, right, and that is where they are right now. And you’re peeking in this big double door. Or it’s not even a double door, I think it’s probably a door that rolls up, you know? It’s one of those rolly doors. And you’ve lifted it just enough for you to peek through it, and you get the vibe here. There are six very big long candle dipping stations, right? That’s what these little rectangles are in the middle. There are these two big cylinders. I actually imagine them to be...they’re circles on the map, but I think that they’re big round catalysts, or catalytic— you know, whatever. They’re basically devices that are working on the wax or doing something with the wax or tied into this machinery. There’s a stairwell all the way to the north side of the factory, that’s just a metal stairwell going to the second floor. You can’t see the second floor. There is a very high ceiling here, but there’s a ceiling. Actually, you know what? At least one of these two circles is the smokestack that you saw from the outside, and so that’s like the furnace, basically. And then, the final thing you see is basically as soon as you walk from the train side, to your right is a storage room, right there, basically. And the dude you walked past, Wayne, is kind of at a little stand also on that side of the platform that I'll just add right now. Boom, there, that’s where Wayne was. And you kind of just tiptoed past him, opened this thing, and are able to slide in. Here, inside, there are, I would say, three people per station here. So yes, there’s eighteen people here. Maybe a couple of them are missing. They’re in other places. And then I should add, at the very north end is the church that you went to before with the kind of central podium, the central...podium’s the wrong word. What is the name for it in a church?
[Timestamp: 0:15:08]
Janine: Pulpit?
Austin: Pulpit, thank you. That big central pulpit. And the door to that is closed also, so yeah, people are just doing their work here. But you’re able to quickly sneak in and maybe find some crates or something to hide behind as a unit at this point. You know, let’s add a little...let me just draw a shape and say that yeah, there’s a few crates over here. Maybe these are crates of candles that are going to be shipped out on the next shipment, and you’re able to hide behind those and kind of peer in and get a sense of what you’re looking at here. So yeah, you’re all in there now. You do see Gala here working at one of these stands, one of these candle dipping machines. And just, you know, for the sake of clarity, let me just add people here, just to...you know.
Dre: How well lit is it in here?
Austin: You know, there are, what do you call them...windows high up on this level, but below a roof, right? Or below a second floor, in a sense. So the sunlight is coming in through them as we speak, and that is the primary amount of light that’s coming in here. They are very high up and are very tall and there’s a lot of them, so a lot of natural light is in here as we speak.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: And yeah, there are people kind of everywhere, as you can see.
Dre: Do people wear a uniform or anything?
Austin: It’s lots of people wearing kind of what you would think of, I guess, as kind of work clothes.
Dre: Mmhmm.
Austin: Pants, a shirt, and then an apron, basically, to keep those clothes as clean as possible as they work with the wax. Some people are moving wax between— I'm gonna say this far one is the smokestack. Actually, I'm gonna say this near one is the smokestack, the thing that’s next to these boxes. Or, that’s where the smokestack is rising up from presumably a basement furnace. And the far one is some sort of open pit vat thing that has some amount of this wax material boiling in it. So you have someone who is going between there and running it in and out of these machines, et cetera.
Dre: Okay. But it’s not like a “this is the official uniform of working here.”
Austin: No, but none of you are wearing anything close to it, so.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: It’s like normal clothes, and I don’t think that speaks to...Marn probably looks the closest. They’re all human, is the thing. And this is worth noting. Everyone here except for the three Caprak who are not in this room are human.
Ali: We’re not going that far.
Austin: Making a green dot for the party. Yeah. [Ali laughs] Alright, so yeah, is the plan to basically just sneak over there, use the key, and get into that room?
Dre: [sighs] Yeah, I guess so.
Austin: Alright. I do think this is going to need to be...I think this is four rolls. [Ali laughs nervously] This is you’re walking across, in the daytime, a big room filled with people working, to go across the room and into a storage room where you’ll be passing right by a person, you know? Ali, your mastery does give everybody that plus one die here.
Ali: Sure, but it’s only one.
Janine: This is maybe a controversial and defeatist approach, but I'm going to say that we should assume we’re gonna fail this at some stage and have a backup plan.
Ali: Uh huh, yeah.
Janine: ‘Cause there’s no chance of all of us succeeding this. I mean, there's a chance—
Austin: There’s a chance!
Janine: But it’s not a good chance.
Sylvia: So, I...there is a thing we could try here, but I don't know if it would work. I could bring us into the Residuum to cross this room so no one will see us, ‘cause we’re in another dimension, and then when we get through that door we can pop out of it, but we’re not gonna be able to see what’s where we pop out. Does that make sense?
Janine: That’s fascinating. [laughs]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Dre: Yeah, that sounds like it rules, honestly! [laughs]
Sylvia: Okay.
Janine: That’s way better than just walking.
Austin: Uh huh! Alright, what’s that do?
Ali: We can walk through doors like that. [laughs]
Sylvia: I also have mastery on my next religion roll, so.
Austin: Yeah, true. So, tell me what this roll is.
Sylvia: So, this is—
Austin: Or read me this move again. We’ve heard it before, but go ahead and read it again.
Sylvia: Yeah, so Enter the Residuum is a roll delve plus religion. In the base skill it’s a ritual that takes like ten minutes, and what it does is it brings me and anyone with me into the Residuum which is our sort of in between death realm—
Austin: Mmhmm.
Sylvia: Where everything goes after it dies before it goes to its afterlife. And I also have a move called Sudden Death that lets me do it instantly. That does make it risky, though, when I'm with other people. So…
Austin: I will tell you, trying to cast this for ten minutes in the position you’re in would also be risky, so in this case—
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm gonna do it instantaneously.
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: I just thought I'd mention that.
Austin: Yeah, totally.
Sylvia: So, delve.
Austin: Delve plus religion.
Sylvia: And I have a mastery from the…
Austin: Right!
Sylvia: From the hymnal.
Austin: Yeah, totally. Or, the fascination, right?
Sylvia: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Or is that just when you’re learning about religion? What’s the hymnal?
Sylvia: I just have a note here, “get mastery on next religion roll.”
Austin: On next religion roll, I see. Yep, okay, go for it.
Sylvia: That might have been from the downtime.
Austin: Yeah, I think that’s right.
Sylvia: [sighs] Okay. Wish me luck. [Janine laughs softly]
Ali: Good luck.
Austin: Ten!
Sylvia: That’s a ten!
Austin: That’s a critical success.
Ali: Hell yeah.
Janine: Nice.
Austin: Alright.
Janine: That’s two tens, actually!
Austin: That’s two tens!
Sylvia: Wow!
Austin: Three, ten, six, ten. An incredible roll.
Sylvia: Oh, I forgot to mark risky, so.
Austin: Oh, wow! Yeah, you did.
Sylvia: Good thing I got two tens. [Austin, Janine, and Ali laugh]
Austin: Oh my god. Yes, on a risky roll I would have taken that top ten. It is a risky roll. I take that top ten away, and then you say “Nah, there’s still another ten, homie. I still get to succeed all the way.” [Janine laughs] Critical success.
Ali: [??? 0:21:23]
Austin: Now that we’re in this thing, I want you to give me your— you know what, I'm not. I'm just gonna keep this in...I was thinking of making this into a delve, but I think actually just letting it roll the way it is makes more sense. I'll just treat this crit as an information gathering thing basically, or a...first of all, you tell me what this looks like, actually. Let’s start there, and then we’ll wrap around to what getting a ten gives you.
Sylvia: Yeah, so I was trying to think of what would be going on within the Residuum around this place. I think that it is—sorry, Chine—it is like garishly yellow here. [Austin laughs] Because they’re surrounded by all the canola plants.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: When those die, this is where the color goes, and stuff like that. They’re making the yellow candles. And I think it’s just like a sea of different yellow tones and stuff all around us. There’s probably some…like an afterimage of things that used to be in the factory before, like older equipment, things like that.
Austin: Yeah. Well, in fact, here’s a thing I'm gonna tell you, is, you know...
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Bucho noted that there had been a change in the material being used.
Sylvia: Mmm.
Austin: It’s still yellow, but specifically, there’s this very nice faded yellow that’s here that was from the canola flowers originally. And that color is now being...there’s this additional more garish yellow that has these kind of flecks of gray and brown in it that look like the ambergris that was being used to fuel Bucho. So there has been this change. I'll also say that there are, in the Residuum... [sighs] Man. As you cross this factory, there are people in the Residuum looking at you. Not the people who are in the factory, not the current people in the factory, but just like...I'd say there’s probably a half dozen people who are standing in the factory, which again is now...it’s almost like you’re walking in a factory that’s been overrun with flowers, right? I kind of love that image that’s like overgrown in the Residuum. But then standing in the flowers in the Residuum are a half dozen people looking at you as you walk through over to the supply room. They don't reach out and stop you. They don’t act in any way.
Sylvia: Is there anything similar to the way that Bucho looked at us or the waxiness that he had? Or is that gone here?
Austin: [thoughtful sound] The waxiness is there.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: That waxiness is here, but I don’t...the sickliness is not. Also, I will say that at first, you think, oh god, that’s Galena’s— that’s Gala’s mother. Galena is the name of Gala’s mother. That’s why I keep making that mistake. Because there is a woman here who looks just like Gala. But then you’re like, no, actually that’s...maybe that is her mother, I guess you don’t know that for sure. But you do get the sense that this looks like it’s a family of people, in terms of skin tone, in terms of the way their hair looks, stuff like that. And none of them say anything, none of them do anything, you walk over, you use the key to open the supply door, you slip inside. You come out of the Residuum through...is it like a portal? Is it just like a snap and everyone’s back? What’s the…
Sylvia: So, the way I described it the first time I went in was hands came up out of the ground to wrap around Virtue.
Austin: Right.
Sylvia: And I think it’s similar, where just these massive hands shoot out of the ground for a second in the real world.
Austin: Love it.
Sylvia: And when it pulls back down, we’re standing there.
Austin: Right.
Sylvia: And that is not a roll. Leaving it is not a roll. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Right, you just get to leave it, right?
Sylvia: To be very clear. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, yeah. When you...before you leave it, here’s another thing from that ten, including that group of people that manifested so you could see them. You see...it’s almost like it’s burning a hole. You see something burning a hole through the ceiling in the main factory. And then it basically burns away a big round circle, a big round hole, and then falling from it is an upside down candle. A very large one, to be clear, not just a little candle. A big candle. What if a candle was turned— what if there was a monument that was a candle, right?
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Or a statue of a candle. And at the other end, the other half of the candle, halfway up, it begins to change shape and begins to look like a spade, like a shovel, reminding you of Subsolum, the deity that the church is for at the front of this building. And so there’s that image, this kind of candle blend with the spade. And then you snap back, and you’re in the supply room. And, you know, there’s like— Marn, you immediately recognize half the things in here, because they’re for making sure the machines continue to work right. Lots of oils and grease and nuts and bolts and machine work stuff. There is, you know, some extra aprons hanging up here. There are gloves, there are...you know, it’s a bunch of stuff that you would find in a situation like this. And on the ground is a large metal door. You know, like a— not quite a grate, it’s not see-through or anything, but it’s like, you know, that sort of metal structure that you could— or, a metal door that you could grab and open. It’s kind of flimsy, but it’s like...you know the ones that cover up underground things in New York, where if you’re walking down the street in New York—
Ali: Mmm, mmhmm.
Austin: You’ll just see a door covering a basement entrance thing? One of those, which I know is...I know, Ali, you’re the only other person here who lives in New York. [Ali laughs] But that. So yeah, that is clearly a way down here. What do y'all do?
Ali: Sure. And it doesn’t seem like the key that we have works for that?
Austin: Oh, it’s open. You could just open it.
Ali: Oh, oh, oh.
Austin: The key was for the door.
Ali: Sure. And we, right.
Austin: So yeah, I'm just asking. Do you open it? Do you begin downward?
Ali: I'd love to.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Yeah. I'm.. [laughs] This is not worth saying, but I'm upset that I'm not playing someone who’s like a thief, because a game about resources in a room full of resources is…
Austin: I mean, you could start taking shit.
Ali: [laughs] I don’t want— it’s mean to do. [Sylvia laughs loudly]
Austin: Okay.
Dre: [ambivalently] Ehhh.
Austin: You head down this thing. Ignore how— actually, wait, did all of it— what showed up on your screen? I can’t tell. Okay, the biggest part of this didn’t show up. So, I'm gonna leave the frame of this room actually not clear at this point. [Ali laughs] Because you can't tell. It’s dark. You open this grate and make your way down this little ramp and into this big dark room. It’s unlit at this moment, but there is some background light. You can sense this kind of a low sound of machines running, which again is a rare sound in this world. Machines don’t run, because that sort of technology just doesn't exist in a lot of places. Factories of the industrialized sort are uncommon. You have manufactories where people operate machines, but factories like this are pretty rare. In front of you, you do see these long conveyor belts that are moving objects from somewhere, something that they’re connected to. Maybe it’s tubing, maybe it’s big pipes that are running across the ground. I mean, we’re deep in the technology domain, and in fact we are in—and this is important for you, Chine—we are now in a tier three place. But there is, on this near conveyor belt going up to this kind of furnace that becomes the big pit of wax, there are both the flowers and the ambergris that you believe is coming from those animals, other animals like the one that you saw in the cave. You can't see what’s on the other side of the room where there’s that other conveyor belt that seems to be going into a furnace that is heating the whole place or powering the whole place or whatever. And then in the middle, there is a sort of—I mean, in the light of those two furnaces, basically—you can see a shape that you think is an altar. An altar made of stone. It has that style of construction, that sort of very detailed work along the edges. There’s, you know, some sort of metalwork inlaid on it. And as far as you can tell from here, you can’t tell if there’s anything on that altar. But you’re down here now. And again, it’s very dark. You can start looking around. You can start trying to light the place up. Up to you how you want to do that.
[Timestamp: 0:31:33]
Dre: I mean, I can see.
Austin: Right!
Dre: I feel like I'm that asshole at the DnD table—
Austin: No, no, no, no, no!
Dre: Who’s like, [annoyingly] “I have night vision!” [Ali laughs]
Austin: Please keep reminding me. Yeah, absolutely. Then yeah, you determine pretty quickly that...hold on, one second, I'm gonna redo something, given your particular eye skills.
Dre: [laughs] My particular set of eye skills.
Austin: Your particular set of eye skills, yeah, exactly. So, you can see the distance of this room, which basically is wider than the rooms above you? But is about the same. Again, it kind of maps up with what’s above you. And with your night vision, you can actually see that in the far corner, the back left corner here, one of the three Caprak is basically staring back at you. I'm gonna just draw an X where he is.
Dre: Oh, okay.
Ali: [nervously] Oh.
Dre: I wave. [Ali laughs]
Austin: He begins to march towards you.
Dre (as Chine): Right, okay. We have a friend.
Ali (as Marn): Huh?
Dre (as Chine): We have a friend. You probably can't see him. He’s not close enough yet. But it’s, uh…
Dre: Can I tell which one of them it is? I'm assuming there’s some sort of…
Austin: Big mouth.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: This is big mouth.
Dre: Yeah, so I—
Austin: Big, long, just like...that mouth is lower than it should be.
Dre: Mmhmm.
Dre (as Chine): I think it’s the one they called Mouth.
Austin: And is carrying a big metal shovel.
Ali (as Marn): That’s a foe.
Austin: Not a friend. [Ali and Dre laugh] And then, really quick, there are two other things worth saying here. There is a big door to the south of this room. That’s where that red line is. And then there is another door at the very north end of this place which I have not drawn on yet, but trust me, it’s there. There we go. Boom. What do you do? Has not made any noises, has not...you know, again. Who could say what the...who could say what’s about to happen?
Dre: [laughs] I can guess.
Ali: These long rectangles, how tall are they?
Austin: They’re conveyor belts that come up to waist height on a human.
Ali: Sure. So I can do a little Jurassic Park scene in the kitchen with the velociraptor situation? [laughs]
Austin: Oh, yeah. Yeah, you want to try to sneak by?
Ali: [laughs] I would like to. I don’t know that everybody else…
Austin: At this point, I'm gonna continue to honor your evade, which is that he has heard the door open and is coming over to investigate and maybe saw motion as Chine waved, but you could...you are not immediately in combat or anything like that at this point. Because you did not fail a roll, I can’t pull that trigger, you know?
Ali: Mmhmm.
Janine: I feel like I'm leaning on this way too much, but also the wording is so generous that it’s impossible not to.
Austin: Yeah, no, please!
Janine: What’s the aura read on this fella? [Ali chuckles]
Austin: It’s exactly the same as the other one’s was. Exactly. Dutiful. Like, committed. No sense of...there’s no sense of additional emotional character here.
Dre: Hmm.
Janine: Okay. Do we want to try and get past this person or do we want to just handle this person?
Dre: I think...yeah, I think if we want to get past, we still have that chance.
Janine: That’s true. And we still have the mastery, like Austin said.
Dre: Mmhmm.
Janine: Eh, maybe we should give it a shot.
Austin: Also, here we would go back to a single person rolling with help, because we’re not in the same scenario of eighteen people.
Ali: Mmhmm.
Janine: Yeah, right.
Austin: It is… [sighs] It would be risky for anyone but Chine to roll, because it’s dark.
Dre: Yeah. I do have an idea. What if we...not like full split the party split up, but the three of you all go one way. I'm gonna open and then close the door behind me. Not leaving, but just kind of opening and closing it, maybe—
Austin: The door upwards or the door to the south?
Dre: The door that we came through.
Austin: The grate above you, yeah.
Dre: Basically like, oh yeah, somebody opened the door, realized they’re not supposed to be here, and quickly closed it behind them and left.
Austin: Mmm. That’s fun. Yeah.
Dre: And then I'll slink off in another direction.
Austin: I think that that is two rolls.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: Or rather, I think that that is someone...if you’re not leading the group in sneaking, someone else has to lead that group in sneaking.
Sylvia: I have sneak, so…
Austin: Okay. It will be a risky roll, again, just to reiterate, unless you have—
Sylvia: Yeah, I don't have the domain here though, so…
Austin: Okay.
Dre: Still technology, right?
Austin: Still technology. Like, extremely technology.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Yeah. I should say, Chine specifically. This place feels off to you, as someone in tune with the Course. The things that are happening here are upsetting. You can’t even see or sense them fully, but there is teetering at the edge of your consciousness, you can feel that the wilderness of the Course, the strangeness of the Course, the unpredictability of the Course is being forced into right angles, is being restructured into something more logical and sensible for particular people. The complexity is being denied.
Sylvia: I have a question about the sneaking roll.
Austin: Yes.
Sylvia: Would it make it less risky if I mentioned that my body can become shadowy and indistinct when I sneak? [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Yeah.
Sylvia: That’s from the new advancement I took.
Dre: [intrigued] Oh.
Austin: Absolutely.
Sylvia: Okay. Well, that’s good to know. That makes it a little less stressful.
Austin: Yeah, totally.
Sylvia: Should I just read that skill so we know what’s on the table?
Austin: Yes, please. It’s called Shadow, right?
Sylvia: Yeah, it’s called Shadow. [reading] “Your body, unmoored from the lands of the living, can become shadowy and indistinct. Gain the sneak skill. By blowing out a lit candle and focusing, you can extinguish all light sources nearby. Sources that cannot be easily extinguished are temporarily muted instead.” Which isn’t relevant here, we’re already in the dark, but…
Austin: Well, it is, because there’s these two furnaces that still have light, and so those would dip even further, basically.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Which is why the whole thing becomes less risky for everybody, you know, for the kind of group roll.
Sylvia: Sick.
Austin: Even though everyone’s not rolling independently. So then, yeah, it sounds like there is…actually, you know what that sounds like to me? Sylvi, it sounds like you make the roll, and then Chine is helping on that roll by doing the distraction over here.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: I think that makes the most sense to me, and so we should just commit to that. You get plus one from the help.
Sylvia: Alright. Alright, I got a—
Austin: Plus mastery.
Sylvia: Plus mastery? I don’t think I get mastery on this.
Austin: Yeah, from—
Ali: Yeah, you got it from me.
Austin: From Ali.
Sylvia: Okay. Oh, hell yeah! So, brings me up to four.
Austin: And then standard. Yeah, totally, four dice.
Sylvia: Seven.
Austin: Seven. Success at a cost.
Ali: Hmm.
Austin: As you begin to— so, again, you’re splitting up. Half of you are going which direction? You’re going to the northern door or the southern door or…?
Sylvia: I think we would head to the north
Ali: Yea, there’s this one...
Sylvia: Because Chine’s trying to pull him down here, right?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Totally, totally, that makes sense to me. You’re able to get up to that door, but you’re gonna take— and down here it’s a lot. You’re going to take… [sighs] I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Sylvia: It’s fine. It’s all good.
Austin: This is a tier three place.
Sylvia: It’s part of the game.
Austin: I'm gonna roll this d8.
Sylvia: Call me Bethesda, ‘cause I love Fallout. [Ali laughs] Alright.
Austin: That’s going to be six echo stress.
Sylvia: That’s gonna be five echo stress, actually.
Austin: Okay, cool. As you lead this group and slip into this shadow, parts of you don’t come back immediately.
Sylvia: God, that’s so sick.
Austin: So it’s like parts of you are lost in the shadow still. And that’s not a fallout yet. We’ll see if you get fallout in a second.
Dre: I was about to say, that sounds sick. That’s not a punishment. [laughs]
Sylvia: What dice do you roll for a fallout test, real quick?
Austin: There’s just a button. Once you pop it in, you just hit the button that says “Fallout Test” underneath “Clear Stress.”
Sylvia: Just wondering if it’s a d12—
Austin: It’s a d12.
Sylvia: ‘Cause I have twelve.
Austin: Ah. Ah! I see! So you were guaranteed major fallout, or almost guaranteed it.
Sylvia: Yeah. [Ali sighs]
Austin: And yes, you rolled an eight. Eight, you rolled an eight there.
Sylvia: I need like a crit to survive, right?
Austin: I think that that’s correct, yes. Alright, well, that was echo, right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Hmm. Good.
Ali: Echo’s hard to cure.
Austin: Yeah. I remember this, don’t you? [Ali laughs] Oh my god.
Sylvia: Hey, at least I get to do a thing when I take major fallout.
Austin: This is true. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Oh, no, sorry. It’s only blood, mind, or fortune. Never mind.
Austin: Mmm, I'm sorry. Ah, here we go. Oh my god, this is brutal.
Sylvia: [laughs] Great!
Austin: Alright, that’s too much. One second. Wait, are these— okay. I was looking at criticals, and I was like, [laughs] there’s no way that’s a major! That’s the worst! That’s basically death! And it was, so that’s not right. Okay, here we go. Oh, this is fun. You’re going to take the echo Eyes. [reading] “Your eyes become wide black orbs.” Chine, you’re not the only one with black eyes at this point. “Or perhaps you find more eyes blossoming on your body, growing in your sternum like a nest of spiders.” I don’t think it’s that one.
Sylvia: [disappointed sigh] Sure.
Austin: Because we already have someone who does eye shit in that way.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: I don’t wanna double dip. “You can see perfectly well in the dark, but lights dazzle and hurt you. The GM can call for an endure check when you enter a well-lit area, and you take stress on failure or partial success.”
Sylvia: That…
Austin: I will drop this in the chat. In some ways, this feels like your vampire powers coming back, Virtue.
Sylvia: Yeah, a little. Can I make a suggestion for a place where eyes could pop up?
Austin: Sure.
Sylvia: I've mentioned Virtue having been stitched together, and I was thinking if those popped up along the stitching on her arms and her neck and shit, it would be kind of cool and gross.
Austin: That is cool and gross. I do want to be careful, because I know that, Janine, I know your witch super form is all eye-based.
Sylvia: Oh, true.
Austin: So, I don’t want to double dip there unless Janine is cool with that particular…
Janine: It’s very different. I mean, I think the thing that would be double dipping is if it like popped open and revealed that you were all one big eye inside under the stitches.
Austin: Sure.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: That would be the thing where it’s like okay, well now you’re biting my style.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: I think I'll just go—
Janine: But if it’s just, there are eyeballs on the scar lines, that’s…
Austin: Yeah, you can have eyeballs on the scar lines.
Janine: That’s normal.
Austin: Yeah, great.
Sylvia: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Janine: Well, that’s not normal, but…
Austin: Yeah, eyeballs on the scar lines. What a great album that was.
Sylvia: Yeah. [chuckles] I love shoegaze.
Austin: [laughs] So yeah, that happens. You do get to clear all of your stress at this point, because you took a major fallout, so that’s great.
Sylvia: Alright, so I'm fuckin’ set for the next session.
Austin: A hundred percent.
Dre: As long as it’s not sunny.
Sylvia: I also do like the black eyes thing behind the red sunglasses too, though.
Austin: Yes. Let’s do both, love it.
Sylvia: I'm gonna say both.
Austin: Yeah. And then, yeah, you manage to slip into this next room. And then Chine comes in, you know, moments later. I kind of like the idea of Chine coming in almost after everyone else has made sense of what they’re looking at. This, again, is a dark room, and it is a near carbon copy of the church from above, except all of the sense of absence of referencing stuff that isn’t there— like there’s no books there, remember that? And there’s no icons to Subsolum and all of that stuff. All of that feels inverted here. This is clearly some sort of key temple, not just a little temple. This is very clearly a temple that has—had—a great deal of effort and work and love put into it that has then been overridden by the kind of overreach of the technological. All around you here are large torches and candelabras and all sorts of candlesticks, singular candlesticks from the ground going upwards. And all of them are dark at this moment. None of them are lit. But you do, even now, and I guess especially now Virtue you can see in the dark, and when Chine comes in, Chine can see in the dark. All of them have something strange at the top, which is that instead of having a wick, they all have a sort of ball of glass on the top that we would recognize as lightbulbs. And coiled around each of them are cables and wires, pipes. All of that same sort of stuff that, Chine, you were taking note of in the under factory here is all over this place. And, in fact, these large tubes and chains all lead to, not just around the candles that are set up all around this place, but to a central altar. And on that altar is a pulsating egg sac.
[0:45:44]
Dre: Aha!
Ali: Mmm.
Austin: And it seems to have some of these tubes stuck into it directly. And with each beat it makes, you can feel energy being pulled from it.
Dre: Hmm. Can I climb up to or is one of these candelabras accessible enough that I could get one of those glass bulbs?
Austin: You can, in fact, give me a discern to see how to detach it if you can detach it.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: This is discern technology.
Dre: Can I pitch you an alternate thing?
Austin: Yes.
Dre: Can I roll endure and technology, because once I figure out that I can't pick it up, I just take a bite of it?
Austin: You can totally...are you using your move? Is that what you’re doing?
Dre: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Austin: Can you read that move for me?
Dre: [reading] “When you eat a resource, you gain any domains associated with that resource until the end of the situation.”
Austin: Absolutely.
Dre: “There is no limit to what you can eat, but tough or noxious materials might require an endure plus cursed check to avoid causing yourself harm.”
Austin: Give me an endure plus cursed check. Actually, give me…
Dre: I think endure plus technology makes sense, here.
Austin: It does. Roll endure plus technology, yeah. I don't think anyone can help you on this, I'm sorry.
Dre: Doesn’t matter!
Austin: [excited] Yo!
Dre: I'm a hungy boy! [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: That’s a ten! That’s a crit on this! So, take the technology domain for the remainder of the scenario, or the remainder of the situation. [thoughtful noise] You are...there are flashes of things that you see and feel in this moment that are overwhelming, let’s say. I'm gonna give you...I'm gonna give you three questions that you can ask me as the kind of whole of this place opens itself up to you and runs through you. You can ask me these things out of character, you know what I mean? And I will provide a way for you to have seen them here.
Dre: Right.
Austin: And they can be about this place. They can be about the world writ large if they could possibly be answered. You are connected to the strange heart at this point, or, this strange egg. It’s not a heart. I promise it’s not actually a heart.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: It is an egg. Something is growing. So, yeah. Ask me some questions.
Dre: Oh, boy. Um…
Austin: P.S., Chine just ate a lightbulb, everybody. It’s going great over here.
Dre: Yeah, no, it’s fine.
Austin: Crunch.
Dre: Listen, juggalos do it all the time in backyard wrestling, so.
Ali: Mmm.
Sylvia: He ate part of a god last time we hung out.
Austin: That’s true. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: It’s like, kind of hard to...you kind of have to go really, really out there to surprise me, now.
Dre: Boy. I'm struggling to think of any questions that are just bigger than what’s going on here.
Austin: You got three of them, so, you know, you don’t need to necessarily swing big on that first one.
Dre: Yeah. And there’s not like a list of questions I need to ask from, right?
Austin: No, I'm just making this up as we go.
Dre: Okay. Oh, cool.
Austin: You got a crit on—
Dre: Uh huh.
Austin: You got a crit as you bit into a tier three technology altar [Dre laughs] that is a corruption of an ancient original temple to a god, so. That is connected to an altar that has a different strange egg sac on it, a powerful cursed egg sac on it, so.
Dre: Okay. Hey, what’s in the egg sac?
Austin: Good question. This...you don’t get a clear image. Here’s what you get. And this actually ties back to something that we’ve touched before to some degree. The image you see is...or, it’s a rapid montage of images of the history of this egg sac. It is a…and it’s going backwards in time, right? So, the first thing that you see is the vicar, High Vicar Alaway, taking it from the three Caprak and putting it on this altar. I think you actually are able to straight up hear him say, as he takes it in his hand, “Who understands…” No, I think what he actually says is:
Austin (as Alaway): You’ve done well. With this, we will unlock the night.
Austin: And he places it down on the altar, and then all of these lights around him light up. He is a vampire, and you kind of get the sense of this pretty quickly. He is a vampire who understands that if you can create electric light...I mean, one, he seems to have created electric light, which is an accomplishment. Or maybe somebody else did it under his watch and he’s taking advantage of it, who could say? But, two, he realized that if you can create electric light, the quality of life for a vampire changes a great deal. And you, in fact, see him working by the egg sac, by the light provided by it, late into the night in a way that, you know, there are things you can do with light that are useful, and the light provided by these lights is much sharper and stronger than what would be available by candlelight. So that’s one. Then, we get the image of them carrying it over the hills. We get the image of it being stolen by the tollkeepers. We get the image of it in the nest. We get the image of it being pulled out of the abbey below. And then it sits there under the protection of the mutilated corpse, or body, of the Mother-Beast. And then we see it start to shrink, and eventually it shrinks down to the size of a grape seed. And then it’s almost like a renaissance painting. The Mother-Beast, who, again, at this point in your image of this thing, is this hulking beast that’s up on four of its legs, and its other four limbs are up like they’re arms, so it’s almost like a centipede up on its back legs or something. And it’s reaching up from the mountains, and a hand appears in your frame of vision, or a pair of hands from different people. And they are holding this grape seed in their fingers, and the Mother-Beast is lifting up a pup, like a younger beast of the same type that’s kind of mewling. And one of the humanoid hands reaches down and scoops that child beast up, and the other deposits the grape seed in the Mother-Beast’s hands. And that is as far back as you can see the life of this egg sac.
Dre: So…
Austin: There was some sort of an exchange.
Dre: Yeah, the seed was exchanged for seemingly the spawn of the Mother-Beast.
Austin: Of the Mother-Beast, yeah.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: What the circumstances of that were, you do not know.
Dre: Um…can I hatch this?
Austin: [thoughtful sigh] You get the sense...okay, you see, again, two different—
Dre: Or grow it, I guess? It’s…
Austin: Yeah, you see two competing visions, right?
Dre: Mmhmm.
Austin: We’ve talked before about the ways in which the Heartland’s truth can force you to see things layered on top of each other that can be very disorienting. And in this way, you see two different visions of futures. One is one in which, with time and care, this egg continues to grow and change and develop until it becomes something strange, many-armed, many-legged, and yet deeply beautiful to you. Not like the Mother-Beast, humanoid in nature but not necessarily humanoid to the degree that...I think you, specifically, Chine, have a relationship with bodies that is, “there are no amount of limbs this thing could have or not have that would not render it beautiful to my eye,” right? There are no amount of wings it might have or not. And we are in the realm of, you know, biblical angels, in terms of what this could become one day. We also have another vision laid on top of it, and it is the vision of the pastor. The vicar, rather, the high vicar. You see Sangfielle, you see Blackwick with lights in the streets, like the bulbs on top of the candlesticks here, except they are, you know, attached to these kind of black posts. You see the near metropolis of Sapodilla with beautiful lights up and down the river or the coastal walkways, the boardwalks and the tiered vistas looking out onto the sea. You see lights running through the streets and alleys of Concentus, the ringed city. You see people working inside of, you know, hospitals or clinics with all sorts of devices seemingly powered from nothing? You know, devices that bounce and move and grind and make all sorts of noises, and people are sawing things in the woods using machines that seem to automate themselves or animate themselves. This very factory soon has people not needing to operate stuff with their hands at all. You’re seeing a vision of industrialization powered by this egg sac, lit. You’re seeing a world in which roads get built between different settlements. This is the world the vicar is working towards. Also, the vicar would continue to be a vampire. [Austin and Sylvia laugh] There’s an element here that I think you’ve not hit on yet, but a thing worth saying is the vicar doesn’t seem to age, but also...you know, I can’t give you this with the questions you’ve asked quite yet.
Dre: No, that’s fair.
Austin: There’s an element to this whole story that hasn’t come together quite yet, so we’ll see if we get there.
Dre: Maybe not with my last question. [Austin laughs] How can I get it...can I unplug it safely?
Austin: You will need...Austin will just tell you you will need a mend roll. You’ll have to be very careful.
Dre: Oh.
Austin: You can now give mastery on a mend roll to somebody else by helping.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: Because you’ve seen the ways in which it was plugged in, basically.
Dre: Gotcha.
Austin: And it will need to be...you’re going to need to do surgery on a grape.
Sylvia: [exasperated] God.
Austin: You’re going to need to suture it shut a little bit here.
Ali: Sounds like I can help. [laughs]
Austin: Uh huh!
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: And also, as you do it, here’s the other thing. As you do it, there will be a very limited amount of time before people realize what’s going on.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: Because this place is not, in fact, powered by the furnace to the southwest of that room. It’s powered now, at this point, by this egg sac. So the power will go out, effectively, as you do this.
Ali: [??? 57:44]
Austin: Chine sort of stutters for a moment, and then, eyes open, recovers.
Dre: Did I have to climb up to get to this thing?
Austin: No, you just grabbed a candlestick, like a floor stick, you know?
Dre: Okay. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre (as Chine): [sighs] Marn, I need your help.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah. You alright after that glass?
Dre (as Chine): No, I'm great. [Ali laughs]
Ali (as Marn): You need some Tums? [Austin laughs]
Dre: No, I think after Chine says they’re great, they actually stop and take a very deep, calm breath, and says, like:
Dre (as Chine): I'm great. We have to get this out of here.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, okay. I got it. I'm here.
Dre (as Chine): Okay. [Ali laughs] I can tell you what they did to hook it up, and maybe that will help undo this.
Dre: I think Chine grits his teeth as he says “this.”
Ali (as Marn): Sure. Yeah, I'm ready to roll. I got my things all set up.
Ali: This is mend plus mastery because of the assist from Chine, which is plus one.
Austin: Which is plus one. No one else has...I would allow two people to help here, because Chine is helping with that vision, but if someone else has a relevant domain, which is not just technology here, I would say it’s also cursed, because the egg sac itself is cursed, so.
Sylvia: I could help with cursed.
Austin: I don't know if Es—
Janine: Wait, can I—
Sylvia: Ope, go ahead.
Janine: Can I confirm then, are you saying that this domain is cursed?
Austin: No.
Janine: Oh. It’s just the roll would be cursed.
Austin: You’re in a technological domain, but for this roll I would allow cursed, because what you’re doing is interacting with this cursed object.
Janine: Okay. I have cursed, so I can help.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Sure, okay.
Austin: What does it look like to unplug this thing and begin to ensure that it doesn’t fall apart? Is this very careful...
[1:00:03]
Ali: I think so, yeah, I think it’s unfurling my big rollup thing of different materials—
Austin: Mmhmm. Yeah.
Ali: [laughs] And you know, using tweezers or whatever to sort of figure out the weight or pull on it a certain way, and then Chine will be like, “Wait, wait wait!” [laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: “Do it a little more to the left,” or whatever, and then, yeah.
Austin: Yeah. And then, Es, I'm gonna say that your aura vision that we’ve come back to a few times is also actually deeply helpful here, because despite not being...this thing seems to be some sort of god egg, right? And, one, I will say the aura of this thing is just incredible possibility. It’s just this nonstop flipping through emotions. But you can sense when it moves the wrong way that it’s being put at risk, you know? And it’s not just physical risk. And this is the thing about having this heritrix sense. This thing exists on that plane of existence as well, and so you can almost sense a different sort of pain that it’s in as this process continues. So, take those dice and give me that roll, Marn.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Do you have light to work by?
Ali: Oh.
Austin: I think it’s risky...I would say…oh. Y'all have lanterns and stuff set up. I'm gonna let you roll on...ooh, I think it might have to be risky. Doing surgery to a god egg [Ali laughs] is going to be risky.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvia: Would it help having two people that can see in the dark?
Austin: No. Not unless they were rolling mend, no.
Sylvia: Okay. Well, I tried.
Ali: So, here’s the thing. I rolled before you said that, but I did get two nines.
Austin: Alright, well there you go.
Ali: So if you take away one of the nines, I still get a nine. [laughs]
Austin: Take away one nine, you still get a nine. That’s a success. So, yeah, you’re able to disconnect this thing. You’re able to swaddle it in some cloth or whatever, slip it into a bag safely. It’s very large, so it’s a bag that someone who’s bigger than Marn will have to carry.
Ali: Mmm.
Dre: Oh, I'll take it. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Don't eat it.
Dre: No! I'm not a...geez.
Austin: And yeah, you have this...and as you’re doing this process, you can feel this whole place begin to shudder, and you can hear the sound of braying somewhere. You can hear people above like:
Austin (as factory worker): [shouting distantly] Yeah, go check it out!
Austin: You know, et cetera. And you can sense footsteps coming down the stairs, not to your floor, but to the work floor, basically, from the floor above that. You can sense every step the vicar makes towards you. Virtue, this is a fucking vampire, a hundred percent.
Sylvia: Yep.
Sylvia (as Virtue): Is this where I give us all a crash course on how to kill a vampire? [Ali laughs]
Austin: I mean, listen, I'm not saying y'all have to fight here. Y'all could just try to bounce.
Janine (as Es): I would love to know, out of curiosity. [Austin and Ali laugh]
Sylvia (as Virtue): Okay. You need to put a stake through the heart, cut off their head, and burn the body to keep them from being able to come back. Sunlight can help, 'cause they’ll burn up in that, but it’s not like…it takes a little longer than all those things. And you gotta follow all the steps.
Dre (as Chine): Mmm.
Sylvia: She nods very…
Dre (as Chine): In order? [Austin laughs]
Sylvia (as Virtue): Uh...you know what? I haven’t tried them out of order.
Dre (as Chine): Mmm. Can you smash instead of cut the head?
Sylvia (as Virtue): Uh, might be harder to burn afterwards, but I can give it a shot.
Dre (as Chine): Mmm, fair. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: And I'm guessing y'all open this door and begin to make your way back?
Sylvia: I mean, yeah, I guess.
Ali: Would love to, yeah.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: Is this a Residuum situation? Not to put Virtue on the spot, but. [laughs]
Sylvia: I mean, we could do that again to get out of here. I'm a little…
Ali: You’re a little stressed right now. [laughs]
Sylvia: No, I'm not stressed anymore, actually.
Austin: Zero stress, yeah.
Ali: Oh.
Sylvia: I'm actually super calm, just covered in eyes. [Janine laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: Having a normal one.
Sylvia: Yeah, we could try that.
Austin: Yeah. I love it.
Sylvia: So, delve plus religion.
Austin: Mmhmm.
Sylvia: Is this standard or— oh, no, this is risky, because I'm bringing people.
Austin: This is risky, 'cause you’re bringing people. Or, no, 'cause you’re doing it instantly, right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: That’s why. So is that three dice, right?
Sylvia: Uh, yeah, with risky, so I think that’s...
Austin: So it’s gonna end up being two when we pull the top one off. Alright, let’s see.
Sylvia: Right, yeah. That’s a five.
Austin: That’s a five. That’s a hard fail. Take stress.
Ali: [whispering] I'm sorry, Virtue. [laughs]
Sylvia: I have zero stress. I'm all good. It’s fine.
Austin: It’s fine. It’s fine, see? Yeah.
Sylvia: [sarcastic] What could go wrong?
Austin: What could go wrong? You go into the Residuum. Actually, wait, you don’t, because you hard failed.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You didn’t succeed with a cost. The move doesn’t trigger, huh? What is the...as that hand begins to sprout below you, the magical hand that’s gonna pull you in…
Sylvia: Mmhmm.
Austin: The hand itself gets shot through with the cables and wires of this dark altar, this corrupted altar to—and this should be clear at this point—to Slumbous. [Ali gasps in surprise] And the hand calcifies around you. Give me a...I guess I will make the roll here to blood damage. Take five blood, Virtue.
Sylvia: Okay. And let me…
Austin: As this thing begins to try to squeeze the life out of you.
Sylvia: I’m going to do—
Austin: Hey, Virtue, yeah, you figured that out, huh?
Sylvia: Yeah, just now. Subsolum is an anagram for Slumbous.
Austin: [simultaneously] Subsolum is an anagram for Slumbous. Yeah, it’s true.
Sylvia: Fallout test, right?
Austin: Fallout test, please, yeah.
Sylvia: Fuck.
Austin: Take minor fallout. That’s gonna be blood fallout.
Sylvia: I'm having a great time!
Ali: Mmm.
Austin: Yep, it’s all going great here! [laughs] It’s only minor, right? Hoo.
Sylvia: For now. Fuck.
Austin: I'm gonna say that you are...whoof, this is all rough stuff.
Sylvia: I think both sessions I've taken a minor and a major fallout now.
Austin: It’s been wild. It’s truly been wild. I think that you are...do you have blood protection right now?
Sylvia: I have zero blood protection right now.
Austin: That doesn’t work for you, then.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Alright. [laughs] You are going to take Limping. [reading] “You are slowed. If someone or something attacks your party, they attack you first. If there’s any questions over who arrives last, it’s you.”
Sylvia: Oh, man.
Austin: “All checks involving rapid or stealthy movement become risky.”
Sylvia: This is reverse reflexes from Beam Saber. [Ali laughs]
Austin: [laughs] It is! It literally is!
Sylvia: And that’s blood—
Austin: Blood minor, yes.
Sylvia: Okay, cool.
Austin: Wait a second. I just remembered something. Didn’t you have a thing that was supposed to happen when you got major fallout? Oh, no. It’s only when you get—
Sylvia: Major fallout for blood, mind, and fortune.
Austin: Gotcha.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: But not minor fallout?
Sylvia: Not minor and not for echo or supplies.
Austin: Gotcha. Yeah, cool. Sure. So, that happens, and the time it takes you— this thing basically squeezes, this calcified hand squeezes until it breaks on your body, and that’s why the damage is rough to you.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: As that happens, again, you can feel the footsteps of the vicar getting closer and closer. There is no Residuum...I mean, you can try to roll the Residuum thing again, but you can feel the…
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: The technological throughline here is a little too...is invasive to the Residuum itself.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Let’s color this even better. You’ve got some fucked up eyes, right?
Sylvia: Yeah. I do got some fucked up eyes.
Austin: So, in this moment, this main set of doors opens up, the door to the south. And you can see those same people that you saw above looking at you from the Residuum. It’s like your vision managed to get into the Residuum, but the rest of you is stuck here.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: And maybe you’re only seeing the Residuum from your arm eyes, from your body scar eyes.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Not from your main set of eyes.
Sylvia: Not from my face eyes.
Austin: Not from your face eyes, correct. So it’s like all, you know, slanted angles. What are those called? Why am I blanking on that?
Sylvia: Like dutch angles?
Austin: Like dutch angles, yes.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Dutch angle shots of those same people from above in work clothes. Actually, again, I can give you a little bit more. One of them, or a couple of them, might also be dressed like the vicar is, right? In black with a white collar or whatever. But there are others who have foreman’s clothes on. There are others who have the clothes of the village elder, like robes on, et cetera. These are clearly the people who have previously led this village in other incarnations, which maybe throws a wrench into the “vampire lives long” situation idea a little bit.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: But they’re all there for you. None of them are moving. They’re just staring at you. This is just a creepy thing.
Sylvia: I think Virtue might mutter “there are spirits watching us” or something, but not really elaborate on what’s going on to everyone else. Which is always a fun thing when you already know a vampire’s on the way. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Alright, so, backup plan.
Sylvia: I cannot believe I rolled a four when I had five stress. [Ali laughs]
Austin: It’s incredible.
Sylvia: I don’t clear anything after a minor fallout, right?
Austin: You clear the blood stress.
Sylvia: Oh, okay!
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: I'm back to zero stress!
Austin: Love it!
Sylvia: [laughing] 'Cause I took all the stress on that roll. God!
Austin: Uh huh. Es, it sounded like you might have had something?
Janine: So, can we recap where we are right now?
Austin: Yeah, you’re in…
Janine: Are we still down?
Austin: Sorry, I should move this little green dot that I said was you before. Y'all are here in the basement corrupted church to Slumbous, ancient temple to Slumbous, that has seemingly been converted into this terrible technological altar. You don’t know...I guess, no, the doors are open. No one else is down here except for the spirits that Virtue just said that she saw.
Janine: So then is the issue basically that we’re going to go upstairs and there’s a vampire upstairs now? And also—
Austin: That seems to be the issue. Yeah.
Dre: Mmm.
Janine: Okay. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: Alright. I have a thought then. I haven’t done a single roll, I think in this entire…
Austin: That might be true.
Dre: Oh, wow.
Janine: In both sessions?
Austin: So you should be easy to go, ready to go.
Janine: I think it’s time for me to swing real hard.
Austin: Yeah, fair.
Janine: And just kind of do some shit.
Austin: Uh huh!
Janine: How would folks feel if I were to cause a large commotion and then maybe wait like five-ish seconds until the commotion directs people in a certain direction perhaps or encourages other people to just fuckin’ run, [Austin laughs softly] and then y'all can sneak out back on that train platform and recede into the flowers or something?
Dre: That sounds good.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Janine: ‘Cause I'll do that.
Austin: Alright.
Janine: [laughs] So, I would like to assume my true form.
Austin: Ah.
Janine: And fly up there and just fuckin’ get in that guy’s face.
Austin: Tell me what this looks like. Read True Form for the rest of the crew, here.
Janine: So, yeah. My true form is slightly modified, but the original description for True Form is, “Your skin skitters with barely contained force. The heart’s blood within you is waiting to remake you as a flickering, hungry zoetrope horror. Whenever you want to or when you suffer major fallout,” which is gonna be real bad.
Austin: Uh huh. [laughs]
Janine: At some point, I'm gonna suffer major fallout and just become this thing, and I won’t be able to control it. “You enter your true form. Describe it. When in your true form, you roll with mastery on hunt and kill checks, but all other checks become risky.” Which is fine, because I would love to kill.
Austin: Mmhmm.
Janine: “At the end of the current situation, you revert to humanoid form.” So, Es’s true form, I have described before, is if your body...if your eyes, instead of being eyeballs, were openings that revealed what the center of your body was, which was like two irises and two pupils but the rest of your interior was made up of whites and capillaries and stuff like that.
Austin: Love to have an eye body.
Janine: It’s like that but then with eyelashes all around the outer edge, kind of like a paramecium but also kind of like jellyfish tentacles that flutter around. And her movement is like an underwater dancer, where you can kind of walk on the bottom but also you can leap up and do flips. There’s slowness and then it’s also...like, you can go very slow, but then you can also go very fast and hostile.
Austin: So we’ve got, just as clarifying, we got undead vampire, we got mirror-covered transforming beast person, we got walking eyeball horror, and we got little guy.
Dre: Yep! [Sylvia, Ali, and Janine laugh]
Austin: That’s the crew? Okay, okay.
Sylvia: Everybody’s got a funny little...
Dre: Who would win? Three horrific creatures or one lil boy. [Austin and Dre laugh]
Sylvia: Every crew has one. [Ali laughs]
Austin: That’s true. It’s fun to be the normie, you know? [Janine laughs]
Ali: Mm, mm-hmm.
Austin: Alright, so, you’re flying up. You’re hovering, quickly moving across this under factory, going back up the gate into the main factory hall—
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: And taking a shot at this motherfucker as soon as possible?
Janine: My approach is very much like when someone accidentally walks too close to an angry bird nest.
Austin: Right.
Janine: And the bird just kind of…
Austin: Goes for it?
Dre: Mmhmm.
Janine: Yeah, just goes at it. The goal here is you, motherfucker. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, sure.
Janine: That kind of, mmhmm.
Austin: Great. Yeah, okay, you fly up there. I think as you do, there are still a bunch of people working there, and they all cower and run backwards to the...run towards basically the church, right? The regular Subsolum church, not the evil Slumbous church. Leaving just the vicar here, and I think probably two of the three goats are also here. You don’t know where the third one is. The third one’s upstairs. I'll move all these people back here is what I'm gonna do. And then, yeah, you’re rolling kill, right? You’re just going for it.
[Timestamp: 1:15:30]
Janine: Yeah, I'm rolling kill with mastery.
Austin: Give me that roll. That’s kill technology, but you get mastery so that’s another die. So that’s what, three dice? One plus one plus one, should be three dice.
Janine: Fingers crossed!
Austin: Uh huh. Hey, there’s a nine.
Janine: It’s a nine.
Austin: Look at that. Alright, do your damage, which is...I don't think you have a...are you using your kill? Are you using your bladed hand fan? How does that...does that work in your transformed form?
Janine: I don’t remember how we did this before.
Austin: Me either. It doesn’t just become part of you?
Janine: I mean, there’s no reason I couldn’t use the fan.
Austin: This is true, yeah.
Janine: But also, is there…
Austin: Does it just flutter around you in some way? Is it held in your eyelash tentacles?
Janine: I thought I'd just be holding it.
Austin: Or you still have hands.
Janine: I've still got hands. I'm still person-shaped.
Austin: Right, right, I forgot.
Janine: Just weird icky person.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: Icky person-shaped.
Austin: Then, yeah, go ahead and use it. That’s d6. Hit the button next to the bladed hand fan thing to do that damage.
Janine: Yeah. Three. [laughs]
Austin: That is three. No, that’s not bad. I mean, on a d6, three is, you know, what are you gonna get? That’s gonna be what you do. [Janine chuckles] So yeah, you slash into High Vicar Regan Alaway, and he takes a step back, and he’s like:
Austin (as Alaway): Oh, an uncivilized beast in my place of power! We’ll see.
Austin: And as you cut through him, I mean, this is the moment to reveal it outright. No blood comes out. It’s like you’ve cut into a candle.
Janine: I can do that too.
Austin: He is also made of wax, right? He is also completely, you know, composed of the stuff that he was pouring into Bucho and turning Bucho into.
Janine: [softly] Gross.
Austin: Go ahead, what were you going to say?
Janine: I said “gross.”
Austin: Yeah, it’s gross.
Janine: I just said, “gross.” [laughs]
Austin: You said “gross,” that’s fair. That’s fair, that’s fair. Everybody else, are you using this opportunity to just get the fuck out? What’s happening?
Ali: Seems like the play.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: I don’t want to leave Es hanging, but…
Sylvia: I feel like it would be...
Janine: If someone’s got a gun, you can shoot from the door or something. [Austin laughs] But also I mostly want to make sure that egg gets out of here.
Ali: Yeah, let’s secure the egg, and then if we have to go back for Es, we can. [Ali and Janine laugh]
Dre: [sighs] I am really torn here as to whether…
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: I think Chine is really upset by what this vicar did to this egg.
Austin: Mmhmm.
Dre: It is the closest thing to blasphemy that I think Chine would see, or experience, I guess. So, I think—
Janine: You could always hang back. The other two can scoot out, and…
Sylvia: Yeah.
Dre: I think Chine goes to join the fight.
Austin: Chine joins the fight? Yeah, okay.
Dre: Mmhmm.
Austin: Chine joins Smash? Okay.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvia: Wow, we got Chine and Pickman? Wow. [Austin and Janine laugh]
Dre: Yeah, Chine is here.
Austin: All right.
Janine: Also, I didn’t reveal this, but Es’s true form is actually Lucario. [Sylvia laughs]
Dre: Ohh.
Austin: Ohh, that makes sense. Now this makes sense to me.
Janine: Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Ahh. [laughs]
Austin: So yeah, the vicar sees the rest of you kind of come up, and as you do, he says:
Austin (as Alaway): Get them!
Austin: And those two remaining Caprak try to flank around him and head towards, I guess, Marn and Virtue as they go outside. I guess you’re kind of in the way there. I guess both Es and Chine would have the opportunity to intercept them. I need to put people down on this map, just so that we can see where people are really quick. [Dre laughs]
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: I'm gonna say this green…
Janine: They got a lot of distance to close.
Austin: Well, where are you? You went to fight this dude, right? So…
Janine: No, I mean they have a lot of distance to close between Marn and Virtue.
Austin: Right, right, that’s true. And there’s plenty of...
Janine: ‘Cause that door is right there, so.
Austin: Yeah, true, totally. They can be outside instantly. So, yeah, we got the two Caprak. We got Mouth and...what’s the third one? Ears. We got Mouth and Ears up here trying to close in on you. I'm guessing— I’m gonna say green is Janine, is Es up in the vicar’s face. The vicar’s gonna be the circle that’s in this room, and then everybody else is probably down this way. What color circles do y'all want to be? Very important question, I know.
Dre: Hmm. Hold on. I gotta look up a color wheel. [Sylvia and Ali laugh]
Austin: Okay. I'm just making—
Sylvia: Chine is definitely not yellow.
Dre: Yeah, no, on all these color wheels, purple is the opposite of yellow, so.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Alright, well, there you are. So, tell me where you want to be.
Dre: Going back to the TikTok, once more.
Austin: Uh huh. [laughs] And then I'm just gonna draw one shape for Marn and…
Ali: [laughing] I tried to make [??? 1:20:49]
Sylvia: Yeah! That’s perfect.
Austin: Wait, what’d you say?
Ali: This little square at the bottom, that’s me, but it’s a square and it’s not a circle. [laughs]
Austin: Oh that’s great. That’s you. I like that. That works. So then, purple up here. Boom, boom. Okay. so, Chine, are you just going to try to intercept these Caprak as they close in? Are you skipping them and going for the vicar?
Dre: Uhh...yeah, I think I'm going for the vicar.
Austin: Okay. Charging in, poleaxe out, presumably?
Dre: Mmhmm, yeah.
Austin: Alright. Give me your kill roll. That’s what it sounds like to me. What are you rolling here? You’re rolling kill plus...you have technology now, so that’s good.
Dre: Yep, I do.
Austin: But you don’t have mastery on this or anything like that, right?
Dre: No.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: Would it count as helping if I'm distracting the vicar?
Austin: I think because you just did a roll—
Janine: Okay.
Austin: I want to say that that was your attack, you know what I mean?
Janine: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Though I will say...you know what? Here’s what I'm gonna say. I will say yes, because the sort of trade that you’ve made is that the Caprak are going to close in on Marn and Virtue in exchange for you to be able to double team this vicar, so I'm gonna say yes, there is a helping die here. But I am gonna say, and this is the thing, now that you’ve engaged him, this becomes risky, because you’re fighting a vampire lord, you know?
Dre: Sure. Okay, so, kill, technology, plus one, risky.
Austin: You got it. Ooh, there we go, seven. Two sevens, so you lose—
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Actually, a nine and two sevens.
Dre: Yep.
Austin: So you lose that nine, which would have been a full success, and then you get that seven. Take...I'm gonna roll it for you. Boom, roll d8. This is blood. Take six, but you have three protection, right? So, only take three blood.
Dre: Yeah. And actually, I'm going to...what’s the move that I have? My move In the Blood lets me allocate stress to echo.
Austin: Instead of…?
Dre: Instead of, yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: I can only do it once, but I'm going to go ahead and do it, ‘cause that’s a big number.
Austin: Yes, okay.
Janine: I have a question, where…
Austin: Yep.
Janine: Oh, wait, nevermind. Nevermind, I was confused about...I was thinking of exsanguinate.
Austin: Okay. you also are taking three blood stress.
Janine: Yeah, I'm taking four.
Austin: Or taking— wait, why four?
Janine: Because I have two blood protection?
Austin: Oh, you have two— sorry, yes, yes, yes.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Correct. Boom. So then both of you need to roll fallout for me.
Janine: This might go bad.
Austin: No fallout for Chine. You rolled an eight.
Janine: Nice.
Austin: No fallout for Es!
Janine: Nice, nice, nice.
Austin: Both of you doing okay.
Dre: Hmm.
Austin: You both have six total stress right now, and Chine rolled an eight, and Es rolled a seven. So, just over the threshold. And now you should do your damage, Chine.
Dre: Yep.
Austin: You got that big poleaxe, right?
Dre: Yeah, and actually I get to roll it twice, ‘cause it’s brutal.
Austin: Because, it’s brutal, yeah. A two, hopefully you’re gonna do better on the next—
Dre: Ooh!
Austin: Ah!
Janine: Wow!
Austin: Ooh, that’s an eight! That’s what you love to see! That’s why you got that brutal tag on it. Yeah, this hits, let me tell you. [laughs] Alright. So, you bring that poleaxe down on this motherfucker, and it splits down through his body, that again is made of wax. It’s like you’ve...and it gets stuck there. There’s no blood. There’s no viscera. There’s nothing except this waxy body. It’s almost like the T-1000 in some ways, right? Where it’s just like, yeah, you’ve cut through material. And I think he pulls back, and as he does, he kind of extends out his hands backwards and claws begin to grow, not unlike the way that Virtue has sharp claws. And he says:
Austin (as Alaway): You don’t get it. You cannot kill me here.
Austin: And is now engaged in melee with you. We don’t have to go beat by beat. He doesn’t get a roll. That’s not what this system is, you know?
Dre: Right.
Austin: But y'all are basically exchanging blows. You’re not taking damage, ‘cause you haven’t— or, you are taking damage, you are getting cut up here. That’s what that stress is, right? As he begins to claw at you with his claws back. And he’s doing it without having rebuilt— his body is still separated, at this point. It’s still been cleaved in two, but he’s acting as if it isn’t. Virtue and Marn, you’ve made your way outside, presumably? You’ve just kind of gotten out there?
Sylvia: Yeah, if nothing’s stopping us, right? [Ali laughs]
Austin: I mean, they’re just behind you, right? So they are jumping. They’re like jumping and running and scrambling over the hardware inside, and as you run out, Wayne turns and looks at you, and is like:
Austin (as Wayne): Well, what the hell is going on inside? [all laugh]
Dre: That’s a good Wayne voice.
Austin: Yeah. And hearing that, Bucho stands up from the… [Ali gasps]
Janine: Oh no, buddy, no, no, no.
Austin: Thinking, “Okay, it’s time to go! We’re getting—” and there is no train in sight. I mean, roll a die. Someone roll a die. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: What number?
Austin: D10.
Janine: That was not the arrangement, mister. That’s all.
Sylvia: That’s a three.
Austin: Ooh, yeah. None here yet.
Janine: Mmm.
Austin: There are ways to get trains places.
Ali: Still have the chalk.
Austin: Still got that chalk!
Sylvia: I still got that chalk! [Ali laughs]
Austin: You wanna try to summon a train?
Sylvia: I wanna try and summon a train with this cool chalk!
Austin: That’s safe.
Sylvia: What? Yeah, of course.
Janine: It’s sick. It’s cool.
Austin: It is cool.
Sylvia: Everybody loves trains.
Austin: Everybody loves trains!
Janine: Nothing’s safe. None of this has been safe. [Austin laughs]
Ali: We’re gonna have a Shape Knight, so it’s gonna be kosher.
Austin: That’s true. Uh huh, yeah. Give me a…
Janine: The last safe thing we did was drink tea with an old lady. [Austin laughs]
Ali: Uh huh.
Sylvia: That’s, yeah.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: That was fun though, right?
Dre: Mm-hmm!
Janine: Yes.
Austin: Alright. Give me a...this is occult, because of the thing you’re doing here. [Ali laughs] God, what is it? What’s the main roll on it? Are you compelling it?
Sylvia: Uh, I sure hope not. [Ali laughs]
Austin: I mean, you ain’t...I think you might be.
Sylvia: I mean, if it’s a compel or something else, I'm handing this chalk over to Marn and saying, “good luck.”
Austin: God.
Ali: I mean, you have to hold the egg. I can draw the Shape.
Austin: Wait, Marn, do you know how to compel?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Okay, then, yeah. Oh, right, yeah, you’re a people person.
Ali: Yeah.
Sylvia: I don’t have that domain either. I'd be rolling one die.
Austin: Right. You’d be rolling one die, and that’s very dangerous. Then, yeah, Marn. [Ali laughs] Give me a compel occult. This is risky as shit. It’s not actually Risky, I'm just saying it’s risky.
Ali: Are you sure?
Austin: [rethinking] Uh… [Ali laughs] Maybe it is Risky.
Ali: [laughing, regretful] Why did I ask if you were sure?
Austin: I mean, you’d have no dice, basically.
Ali: [sighs] Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Right?
Sylvia: Yeah. Maybe...mmm. [laughs]
Austin: How does that work? I forget how it works when you literally have no dice. It’s probably roll two and take lowest, right?
Sylvia: Uhh…
Austin: I think doing this is…
Ali: But I'm doing it with the thing.
Austin: You are doing it with the Shape-touched chalk. You’re not doing it without Shape-touched chalk. You’re not just doing it. I'll give you— yes. That will—
Janine: Also there’s a Shape Knight right there. That’s gotta count for something, kinda.
Austin: Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah, sure. Yeah, okay. Consume that resource. Give me a compel technology. [Ali laughs] You don’t have technology, that’s okay. So, that’s two dice you’re rolling.
Ali: Is this a plus one because I have the resource, or no?
Austin: No, it’s a not risky because you have the resource, so it’s better than a plus one.
Ali: Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Sylvia: I don’t have any way to help or I would.
Austin: Of course.
Ali: I'm gonna roll it, but I do have the thing that says that I can instead state that my result is a six.
Austin: Wait, do you have that thing?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Do you just want to do that instead?
Ali: Well, I wanted to see if the roll’s better, but I guess the wording is— [laughs]
Austin: It’s before you roll dice.
Janine: Yeah, that’s not…
Ali: Before you roll the dice, okay, yeah. [laughs]
Austin: You succeed but take the stress, so you can do that.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Austin: Do you just want to do that?
Ali: Yeah, I'd rather just succeed, yeah.
Austin: Okay. Okay.
Ali: It’s an unlikely [??? 1:28:58]
Austin: You were back outside, right? So you were away from the terrible dark place. So you’re gonna take two echo stress as you use this chalk to summon a...oh, sorry, no, that’s wrong. No, that’s right. That’s right. That’s...mmm. Mmm? Let’s say fortune. I think it’s deeply—
Ali: Oh, I was gonna trigger the thing to put it into fortune anyway, so we’re all good. [laughs]
Austin: Oh, there you go. Yes.
Ali: And that’s a two, you said?
Austin: Once per situation you can move it into fortune instead, basically, right?
Ali: Yeah, uh huh.
Austin: Yeah, okay. So it’s two, yeah. Take two.
Ali: And then fallout?
Austin: And fallout.
Ali: Take a minor fallout.
Austin: Oh my god. Take a minor fallout, a minor fortune fallout, here as… [laughs] God. It all happens so fast, doesn’t it?
Ali: Well, it’s an escape. That’s how that works.
Austin: It is an escape. That is how it works, right? [Ali laughs] Let’s give you...we’ll see how this goes. I’m giving you…I'm going to give you the In Trouble fallout, [Dre laughs] which is, “You upset an important figure in this or a nearby haven.” And this will become clearer, probably, as the rest of this plays out, is what I would say.
[1:30:20]
Janine: Are you making Slumbous mad at Ali?
Austin: No. No.
Janine: [laughs] Okay. [Ali laughs]
Austin: I'm making...uh.
Janine: That would be mean. That would be rough.
Austin: I'm making Subsolum mad at Ali.
Janine: [laughs] Uh huh.
Austin: I'm making this vampire lord mad at Ali. But not just mad at Ali, mad at Blackwick. I think literally the thing that happens is like...do you keep a card? Do you have any cards? Whats a thing that would identify y'all as being from Blackwick? Is there the equivalent of a book of matches or a coffee card, you know? [laughs] Like a stamp card for something?
Ali: Don’t make me lose my stamp card. I’m up to five drinks. I was gonna get a free one the next time. [Austin and Ali laugh]
Austin: I think it’s an automat ticket. It’s the Blackwick automat that you drop. It’s not an actual thing you’re losing, but it just falls out of your pack.
Ali: [laughs] Sure.
Austin: Which means that whoever is in charge of this place when this is over is going to know that y'all were the ones who busted through, or where y'all came from originally. Meanwhile, these two Caprak are here. You do hear a train horn, and in the distance, as if on call, coming over the horizon, there is a train. But there are also these two big goat wax creatures here. And, in fact, there are not two, there is one. As they come through this doorway, they push near each other in such a way that their waxy bodies begin to merge into one giant goat wax body, and they are lumbering out towards y'all now, and now it’s a matter of hanging on for dear life until this train gets here. Chine and Es?
Janine: Is that sliding door still open?
Austin: Yeah, it’s wide open.
Janine: Do I have line of sight?
Austin: You would have to turn around to look at it, away from the vicar. Or maneuver yourself in a fight so that your back is the other way, you know? But sure, what are you hoping for?
Janine: I actually don’t know if I need line of sight. I'm just saying, the rules for Exsanguinate are a bit loose.
Austin: Oh, are you trying to Exsanguinate the goat? And not the vicar?
Janine: I was considering it. I was considering if that would be a helpful thing to do. I would love to see what happens when I exsanguinate two halves of a vampire lord also, though.
Austin: Sure. Yeah.
Janine: I was mostly just thinking I don't want Virtue getting goat murdered.
Sylvia: [touched] Thank you.
Austin: Aw, yeah, nice.
Dre: We might get wax vampire murdered, though. That’s also not great.
Ali: Mmm.
Austin: That is also not great.
Janine: Yeah, that’s true. Maybe that Shape Knight will do something cool, who knows.
Sylvia: I also have a sword. I know the kill skill.
Janine: Yeah, okay. Alright. I mean—
Austin: We’re just worried about you right now, Virtue.
Sylvia: I appreciate it.
Janine: Shout if things get too real out there. [Sylvia laughs] Then...yeah, I'm going to try and, quote, “pluck a target’s— pluck the vampire lord’s material consciousness out of his mouth and nose, choking him on his own viscera.”
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Janine: This might be a weird one, considering his state right now, but.
Austin: You have no idea. You have no idea how weird this one is about to be.
Janine: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Austin: So, uh huh. Give me that kill roll.
Janine: Yep.
Austin: I don't think you get help on...he’s still distracted, so yeah. But, again, Chine, do you also want to open yourself up to the stress on this roll? Is that fine? Are you good to help?
Dre: Yeah, sure, yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: All in.
Janine: Kill, technology, mastery, plus one?
Austin: You got it.
Janine: Alright. Oh, but it’s risky, though.
Austin: It is risky, correct.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: That’s a success.
Janine: Seven, I'll take a seven.
Austin: Again, rolled a nine, but I get to take that away and you get a seven instead. Go ahead and do your damage, and then we’ll talk about the damage that gets done to you. How does that work, again? What’s the actual text of exsanguinate?
Janine: It’s a d6 ranged.
Austin: Gotcha.
Janine: I can just roll my fan again.
Austin: Yeah, just go ahead and roll that.
Janine: ‘Cause it’s also d6.
Austin: But it’s fictionally distinct in a way that’s interesting.
Janine: But there’s just a button here that says— you know, it’s just easier.
Austin: Yeah, I gotcha.
Janine: It’s a five.
Austin: Okay, you don’t have the thing that gives it piercing, right?
Janine: Mmm…
Austin: There’s a minor advance on it that gives it piercing?
Janine: No, no, I don’t have that, no, no.
Austin: Okay, cool. And as a reminder, you can mark stress accrued as a result of this to echo if you’d like to.
Janine: To echo, yes.
Austin: And it would have come into blood instead, so take six to either blood or I guess echo in this moment.
Janine: Um...hmm, that’s a tough call.
Austin: Uh huh. You do some shit with echo, right? That is the thing.
Janine: Yeah, it’s just it’s a thing of like, I'm definitely going to take fallout on this.
Austin: Maybe. If you don’t, you can immediately trigger Crucible to try to heal that, right? So I would maybe do echo so that you can trigger Crucible.
Janine: Yeah, that’s my thought, 'cause it’s a d6 for Crucible, so I would just get it, basically, right?
Austin: Well, it’s…I would say move it there, roll the fallout. If you don’t get a fallout, then you’d be able to use Crucible to clear it from echo.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: You know what I mean? Or clear some of it from echo.
Janine: Major fallout! That’s my first one.
Austin: Ah, fuck, okay.
Sylvia: Welcome to the club.
Austin: Yeah, welcome to the fallout club. You show some mark of the Heart, the Heartland, the truth of the Heartland—in this case, I'm also gonna say, your true form—in your physical form. Twisting fragile antlers of bone, fingernails that curve in fractal sharp patterns, bioluminescent veins, additional joints in your limbs, and so on. Your frail, mortal form is not designed to be used as such a canvas. When you mark stress to blood, roll two dice and pick the higher. So you have some sort of tell that’s going to carry from this true form back to you until you get this echo thing mended, basically. I'm going to paste all this so you can see it.
Sylvia: Really big eyelashes. [Janine laughs]
Austin: Huge eyelashes. You tell me what it is. Though maybe you won’t even know what it is until you switch back from this true form, right?
Janine: Yeah, I don't know that we know what it is yet, 'cause she’s still…
Austin: Yeah, we’ll get it when you switch back, yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: But you did do a lot of damage here, and you did it in a very particular way. You pulled this consciousness from him. And the thing that happens here is interesting. You...remind me again, and make sure I get this right. It’s like liquid glass— it’s like glass that’s being currently shaped, right? That’s what the consciousness looks like, here?
Janine: Yeah, it’s like molten glass thats not molten enough to flow. It can hold its form, but it can be pulled, twisted, manipulated, and it retains some of that. And when it ends, there’s like a luminosity to it, the way that molten glass sort of glows but it glows from within and eventually can be severed and falls and is hard and gross.
Austin: Okay. You’ve pulled it from his face. What normally happens at this point? Let’s say you use this on someone and you’ve defeated them with it. Does the stuff just fall to the ground? Does it dissipate? Does it…
Janine: Like kill defeated or subdued defeated?
Austin: Either. Both. You tell me if there’s a difference and what that reaction looks like.
Janine: When we saw it happen to Agdeline, it was a situation where she was sort of stupefied, I guess, or stunned, and then when I released it, it fell away and she had to sit and recover.
Austin: Right, right.
Janine: And the other people thought that...you know, it was a state that was recognizable enough that they thought that she was…
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Something was grievously wrong and, you know.
Austin: Totally. In a situation where you killed someone, does it just fall to the ground? Does it shatter? Does it…
Janine: I think in a situation where someone is killed by it and it’s not a thing where Es is consciously stopping—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: I think they would fall to the ground and the molten stuff would be still attached to them.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: Because they would never retrieve that glowing part that’s been extracted.
Austin: I see. So then a third thing happens here, which is he falls to the ground, still split from the poleaxe. In fact, as he falls down, he gets caught in the light from one of the suns coming through the windows, and it ignites and begins to melt away, but the consciousness goo seems to evaporate. Having gone quiet, the main doors from the church open up, and Gala comes in, looking around and taking everything in, and she says:
Austin (as Gala): I told you, you can’t kill me. They’re all me when I want them to be. That’s the trick. Your vampire friend back there, she wants to extend the life of her body. Give up on the body, and it becomes much easier.
Austin: And, again, reveals these claws. The whole town are wax people that are shells that he moves into. They are conscious for the time that they need to live lives. Her mother is probably just another in the same model as her. And I say “he” there, but I actually do believe that Alaway is genderqueer in terms of just like [clapping] yes, finally, we got a genderqueer evil vampire lord! [Sylvia laughs] Happy pride everybody! But at this point has extremely long vision in the types of experiences that Alaway’s lived at this point. And yeah, she is now facing you down again. Again, I could go into the mechanisms of this here, and I will say there’s an element of the story we didn’t get to, which is that Alaway did not want to give up the body, the vicar’s body, because there is an element of...the self is shaped by the body over time, in terms of like, I get better access to certain parts of the way this person thinks about X, Y, or Z, and Alaway, Vicar Alaway, was extremely good about weird magic cult shit, which is what led to a lot of the corrupted Slumbous stuff. But we’ll see what Gala Alaway decides. Also, all the people in this town are pulled from the same set of letters. They’re all named things that are in the name Regan Alaway. That’s Wayne.
Dre: Mmm.
Austin: That’s Gala, that’s Galena, that’s all that shit. All the names here. So.
Sylvia: Fucker loves wordplay.
Austin: I love wordplay. [Ali laughs] Yeah, that motherfucker is like, they all have to have some touch of me. You know, they all have to be ready to become me at a moment’s notice.
Dre: No C though, so Bucho is…
Austin: Bucho is safe, yes. Bucho is safe. Also I think Rana might be in there, but Rana I swear— [rethinking] uh. There’s a world in which I kinda like the idea that Rana is a wax person who got away and is far enough away that she’s out of reach from the vampire’s touch, you know? I kinda like that idea.
Sylvia: Yeah, I like that.
Austin: So. That’s the idea I had before we started.
Janine: Go farther.
Austin: Yeah, well. Well, maybe she can’t. Maybe there’s a limit to how far you can go and still remain an agent, you know, a person. Maybe you just become wax eventually. Anyway, good reason for her not liking yellow, also, huh?
Dre: Mm-hmm!
Austin: We’re at a point of closure on this, I think. I think we need basically a roll outside to fend off the big goat or kill the big goat and then get on that train when it gets here. And the people inside have to make that run or I guess decide to try to kill all these people or permanently destroy the consciousness of the vampire Alaway?
Dre: I mean, that sounds good. I have no idea how we would do it. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah, I don't know how you...if I got more time on the glass situation, we could, but you know…
Austin: I know. That’s the thing, maybe there is a world in which you...oh, really quick, this is also why In Trouble, “you upset an important figure in this or a nearby haven,” if Alaway lives through this, Alaway is going to become a more permanent villain for you, is going to come looking at some point or send more people to come looking. In that way, maybe you’ll have another opportunity that’s not right now to stop her, you know?
Janine: What are the big round things again?
Austin: Up north?
Janine: On either end of the factory.
Austin: Oh. They are both...this one’s a big pit of hot wax, and then this is a smokestack tied to the furnace below. So this one’s closed. This is open. If you wanted to try to push Alaway into that big pit of wax, that would be a good way to, at this point, temporarily—
Janine: I wish this was a superhero game where we could freeze it, like push ‘em in the wax and then freeze the wax.
Austin: And then, boom. Yeah.
Janine: Like super chill it, and then it’s like, you’re stuck in the wax now.
Austin: Uh huh. Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s the type of thing I would...if you managed to get Alaway in that wax, I think that would be enough for me to be like, you have the opportunity to get out of here safely.
Janine: Or would that like...if your body is made of wax—
Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.
Janine: And you go into a thing that’s meant to melt wax, do you just become that vat of wax?
[1:45:00]
Austin: Maybe! Maybe! Do you get remade as a giant vampire lord? [Janine laughs] Who could say?
Janine: Huh.
Sylvia: Thinking about it.
Austin: I think we need to make some rolls and wrap up.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause I think we’re right here, you know?
Dre: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Let’s jump outside. Goat situation. Also, again, just to pull back some of the cover on GM prep type stuff. The goats are experiments. Alaway had always only ever made humans that were variations on the same basic, you know, very basic bodily shape, largely out of just familiarity with the human body, and tried to make some Caprak bodies, and it didn’t go especially well, and so we get these ones. And instead made them thralls in the traditional vampire sense, basically automatons. And there’s other stuff happening. There’s a whole floor of this place that’s just here that we’re not gonna see, and that’s fine. [Ali laughs] That’s good, in fact.
Janine: That’s probably where the hippos are, right?
Austin: No, they’re actually— one second. [laughing] They’re downstairs. Downstairs there was a whole other huge hippo whale place. [Ali laughs softly]
Janine: Oh.
Austin: But upstairs is like Alaway’s bedroom and a cafeteria. You know, normal shit.
Janine: Is someone gonna take care of those hippo whales?
Austin: There’s all these people here still.
Janine: Okay. [Ali laughs]
Austin: I mean, it’s—
Sylvia: Or one person here, depending on how you look at it. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yes, depending.
Janine: Uhh.
Austin: I mean, this is the thing, Alaway does not have their consciousnesses all the time, right?
Sylvia: No, no, yeah, for sure.
Austin: But, yeah. Anyway.
Sylvia: I am down to just try and kill these goats.
Austin: Kill this goat situation?
Sylvia: I have a ranged method of fighting with the Grim Reaper skill, so I can try that out.
Austin: Ooh, wait, what’s that? Tell me what that’s about.
Sylvia: [reading] “Your death’s attentions now function as the following weapon: d8, ranged, and one shot.”
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: I used it before when we were fighting Ezek, I believe was his name, the magistrate?
Austin: Right, yes. Yes. Alright, well, that sounds like a thing you wanna use.
Sylvia: Yeah. So, kill. I don’t have a domain for this place still.
Austin: Is Marn helping? Marn, are you helping somehow?
Ali: I would love to try to.
Austin: You don’t have kill, but you do have...mmm. Give me something else. Give me something else that you can use to try and help this situation.
Ali: Discern?
Austin: What’s that look like? Give me…you can meet me halfway and tell me a...
Ali: Is it like I handle the legs while…
Austin: That would be kill, I think [Ali laughs] Anything that would be actually interacting.
Ali: Well, not attack, but more of a tripping, distracting sort of situation.
Austin: That’s an attack. Uh, maybe evade, then? If you’re running through the legs or something?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: But discerning is looking, you know?
Ali: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, I'd say evade. Maybe you’re like— oh! No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, they’re not going to attack you. They can't attack you first, because of—
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm limping.
Austin: Limping, yeah, uh huh. [laughs] So, they are going to ignore you. Is there anything else that I can think of? Or that you can think of, that would let you roll, or that would let you add here? Because you just don't have kill, you don't have endure. Do you have a weapon that you could throw with hunt?
Ali: I have a knife.
Austin: You have a knife.
Ali: I don't know that that’s throwable.
Austin: I mean, anything’s throwable, but…
Ali: Sure, sure, sure, but…
Austin: But I don't think that that’s a hunt. I think you’re right, that that’s…
Ali: That’s a handheld weapon, in my eyes.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: But I'm super willing to do the thing of the cat walking in front of you when you’re going to the refrigerator, right? Like that’s…
Austin: Yeah, I guess that’s evade. [Ali laughs] So, yeah, take plus one, here.
Ali: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Virtue.
Sylvia: [sighs] Standard?
Austin: This is not risky. Standard, yeah, correct.
Sylvia: That is a success!
Austin: Oh my god.
Sylvia: So, I do d8 damage.
Austin: You do.
Sylvia: That’s a seven. So I think, just to describe the actual projectile thing, here.
Austin: Please.
Sylvia: We sort of talked about it being like...I've sort of described it as a stake type thing.
Austin: Mmhmm.
Sylvia: Not the meat, the vampire killing tool.
Austin: Yes. [laughs]
Sylvia: And I feel like with a seven I could probably have said it got them in the head. They’re wax, so they could grow it back, but...
Austin: They are wax. Well, in fact, I don’t think that it...I think it just wedges in there. Like, I don’t think it…
Sylvia: Well, it’s like ghost…
Austin: Oh.
Sylvia: There’s no physical thing there, so the damage from it would be visible, but like…
Austin: Yes. I think there’s just a hole.
Sylvia: There’d be a big dent or something, yeah.
Austin: There’s just a big...I think it’s all the way through.
Sylvia: Okay. Perfect.
Austin: It’s all the way through. Huge hole. And they drop to a knee for a second— or it, you know, drops to a knee for a second, and picks up a big metal hammer, like a huge metal sledgehammer basically, and then swings and misses you, because without eyes at this point it’s not able to see you. This monstrous goat chimera thing. And it’s still alive, but you’ve definitely made it less of a threat, at this point. You’re able to keep your distance, because that’s your goal, is to keep your distance.
Sylvia: Okay, yeah.
Austin: And it’s started to reform its head, but it’s slow going. Inside, Chine and Es? Is it go time, or is it push someone into a vat time?
Dre: Mmm.
Janine: I'm not sure what our other options...our two options at the moment, the two clear options—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Seem to be try and trap the wax vampire in the vat.
Dre: [overlapping] Alaway in the— yeah.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: Or kill every wax villager in town and leave those hippos to starve. [laughs]
Austin: Or flee, right? You could also just, like, let’s get the fuck out of here right now.
Janine: Or flee. Or just be like, well I guess this is a situation we are gonna leave as-is.
Austin: Mmhmm. I mean, you’re not leaving it as-is. You took the egg back, which is huge.
Janine: Yeah. What’s to stop them from taking it back back?
Austin: I mean, that’s on y'all to figure out, right?
Dre: Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna keep it. [Janine and Austin laugh]
Austin: They’ll have to kill Chine to deal with it at that point.
Dre: Right, and so I'd like that to be later instead of now, but. I guess I just don't know what...if he could..if this person can transfer their consciousness, I don't know what making them stuck in one wax vat does, if they can just…
Austin: What I will say is it seems like they transfered their consciousness when you killed them, not at will.
Dre: Oh, okay. Okay.
Austin: Right? It’s not bouncing around between people, is dying and moving into a different shell.
Dre: Okay. Okay. Well, then I am much more on board freeze the vampire lord in a wax prison of their own design.
Austin: [laughs] Uh huh.
Janine: This is one of those things where it’s like...even if I'm kind of struggling with the logic because that’s in my nature to want to explain everything and have it all make sense, there is a storytelling element to this, right? Which is like, that’s cool though.
Austin: Yes.
Janine: It’s cool if we do that.
Austin: Thematically, a lot of what’s happening here, right, is here is a person...Slumbous says “Blow out your candles at night and rest,” and this person says, “Fuck a candle, I want a lightbulb so I never have to sleep. Fuck dying, I want to stay alive forever.” And so there is something, I think, very thematically appropriate of being pushed into something that will solidify a body for...maybe not forever, but this sort of like, alright, yeah, you want to be around forever?
Janine: Have they switched the heater to electrical? Like, is that vat cooling now because the power’s out?
Austin: That’s exactly right. You pulled the egg sac off, and so the power…
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: That’s exactly it. There you go. Until they reheat it, it will be...it is cooling as we speak, yes. Now is the moment. There you go. There’s your extremely logical rational explanation for why… [Dre laughs]
Janine: That’s my bullshit I was digging for, right.
Austin: Yes, perfect. So yeah, what’s that roll? Is that a kill? Is that an endure?
Dre: Hmm.
Austin: It’s probably a kill or an endure. Or an evade, you do the [laughs] make her charge at you, dodge out of the way, boss fight kill. [Dre and Janine laugh]
Dre: I do really like that.
Austin: It can be a compel for that reason too, a sort of taunt. Y'all have a bunch of moves. You just tell me what you want to roll and how it’s popping off. What’s going on here?
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: And who’s doing it. I guess you both have, what, six stress each, right?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Or, no, 'cause Es cleared hers.
Janine: Yeah, I cleared. And I also have kill, compel, and endure.
Austin: Mm.
Janine: Although my preference right now is kill, 'cause I still get mastery on those kill moves while I'm in this form.
Austin: True.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, sounds like you want to do it. Kill plus help plus...you don’t have the domain, but you have mastery. It’s four dice. Risky.
Janine: Yep. Should we say what this is? Why it’s kill? I mean…
Austin: Oh, I think because you’re aiming to kill this person, right?
Janine: Well, trap. Harm grieviously.
Austin: Direct violence.
Dre: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah, that’s a good way to phrase it is it’s direct violence.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Okay. Okay!
Austin: You got an eight!
Janine: Uh huh.
Austin: That is success. Take no stress. You also got a nine. I take that from you, obviously.
Janine: Mmhmm. I'll settle.
Austin: Then yeah, you...I mean, y'all can elaborate here, but it sounds like you maneuver/fight and then push into the big vat of cooling wax but not yet cool wax. Does that sound right? Any parting words? Any, you know, taunts?
Janine: I'm almost mad that they didn’t manage to cut me, ‘cause I wanted to be like, “I don’t bleed either.”
Austin: Ah, sure, right.
Dre: Mmm.
Janine: But it didn’t come up, so it doesn’t make sense. It’s a tragedy, really.
Austin: I mean, they could have cut you. You took that blood stress and just moved it into echo.
Janine: I mean, yeah, I took...but also, it doesn't matter.
Austin: It’s fine.
Janine: It’s very silly.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: It’s just flavor. It’s nothing. [Austin laughs softly] I guess the thing that happens, right, is that we, between Chine being huge and having a very frightening weapon—
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: And Es being strange and agile in a very scary way, it’s probably, you know, we probably manage to bully...again, kind of like birds, right? Like birds who are…
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Picking at someone who gets too close to the nest. It’s probably easy to just kind of bully and herd…
Austin: Yeah, into the wax vat.
Janine: You know, up a ramp and into the vat.
Austin: Yeah. And I think, you know, she’s reaching up to try to pull herself out and shouting, like:
Austin (as Gala Alaway): The world of light will come. You can't stop this.
Austin: And they continue to try to pull themselves out, but it’s too late.
Austin (as Gala Alaway): I will find you.
Austin: And then gone. For now. They kind of, you know, sink below, melding with the wax. At this point, I think with the headless large goat person swinging a big hammer around, just like trying to make distance, eventually you get the image of, I want to say, Bucho with the tarp, [Dre laughs] and is using it like a matador cape, swinging it, which doesn’t really work because there’s no head on this goat yet. [Ali laughs] But let me just have this image. Bucho’s cool. Bucho does that as the goat face rejoins— or, you know what? Maybe two heads come back, and we get a dope double-headed Caprak giant, sees the motion of the tarp and begins to charge at Bucho just as that train arrives, [Janine laughs] obliterating the giant into huge, you know, globs of wax. The train comes to a halt, and y'all are able to get on board. I think this is largely a non— it’s like a freight train with a number of rail cars filled with stuff. I think Wayne looks at all of y'all and is like:
Austin (as Wayne): I think we’re gonna skip this shipment, uh…
Austin: And just kind of cowers at everything that’s happened. And you’re able to board this train, which coincidentally is heading towards Sapodilla.
Janine: Should we warn them not to reheat that vat or something?
Austin: Up to you.
Janine: I guess we don’t know if they would want to, is a part of this.
Austin: Right. We don’t have a clue if there’s, how many...we’ve only really interacted with Gala who was young and idealistic, and you haven’t found...
Janine: And had just lost her mom.
Austin: Her mom is around, is a thing I'll say. [laughs slightly]
Janine: No, I know, but she just lost her, and that might have hurt her sympathies in a way where everyone else is otherwise sympathetic.
Austin: [overlapping] Yes, yeah. Totally. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it’s hard to say, right? Yeah. Is this a they want to resurrect Dracula situation? Do they know what the situation is? How many of them know what the situation is? Et cetera. I will say it’s a mix of people here, right? Gala was young enough that maybe had not realized all of the truth of the situation that she was living in. Anyway. The train is here. Y'all are able to board safely. Bucho gets on with just enough strength to kind of go into rest mode again, lets you know that there is some sort of Shape Knight garage or something, maybe? Workshop in Sapodilla where he will be able to get repaired and will also send word back to Rana about being saved by y'all via messenger or something. And other than that, I think y'all are out. I don’t think— unless you have any final things here.
[Timestamp: 2:00:40]
Dre: Nope. I think Chine’s just cradling the egg.
Janine: I feel like we should tell them the wax is poisoned or something.
Austin: [laughs] I mean, that’s the thing, is that this is the biggest candle factory in Sangfielle. Are they gonna stop making candles?
Janine: Yeah, they gotta like scrap that batch or something. That’s why I’m thinking, like—
Austin: I see what you’re saying.
Janine: What if we tell them it’s poison and they have to—
Austin: Get rid of it.
Janine: Bury that big puck of wax and start fresh with some fresh unpoisoned wax.
Austin: Mmm. That’s fun. That’s fun. I'm gonna...here’s what I'm gonna do.
Janine: Also, we’re leaving. We can just casually be like, “Yeah, we poisoned your wax.” [Ali and Austin laugh]
Dre: Yeah, I guess we can’t really burn the factory down, ‘cause that would, you know, also melt the wax. [laughs]
Austin: It would also melt the wax, yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, okay, you tell them that. We’ll see how that goes long-term. [Janine laughs] I mean, we know how it goes long-term. It’s just a matter of how soon it’s going to hit you.
Dre: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah, that’s fair.
Austin: Because of how Marn has the In Trouble fallout. I will, you know, so.
Janine: That’s true. There is kind of no point in litigating it at that point.
Dre: Yeah, it’s fine.
Austin: Yeah, exactly.
Dre: All in its due course.
Janine: Yeah. The thing I should say is I'm not gonna leave the factory and stand on the platform in true form mode.
Austin: Sure.
Janine: I don't wanna subject Wayne to that. He’s just trying to do his job.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: Which means I need to define what this blood fallout looks like.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: And I think I have, which is...and I'm gonna say this, and I want to clarify immediately that I'm not biting Chine’s thing at all. [Austin laughs] I wrote in brackets, in little quote marks, “glass skin.”
Austin: Mmm.
Janine: It is not like shattered mirrors. I mean glass skin kind of in the Korean skincare way, where it’s like your skin looks a little too dewy, almost?
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: But it’s like that to an extreme. It’s like when you watch a TikTok of someone’s skincare routine, and they just cover their face in five different kinds of oil and then a layer of vaseline.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: And they’re doing it just for effect, but they look wet.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: They look kind of glossy and strange.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Like the wetness or glossiness of an eye, basically. That part has been retained and is sort of, you know, a luminous weird layer on Es’s skin right now.
Austin: Great. [someone snorts] That’s all I'm saying, exactly. And yeah, you ride off eastward, I guess into one of the sunsets, [laughs] as night falls over Yellowfield, and you head to Sapodilla, where, presumably, the other side of this crew is getting up to some fucking action.
[Music plays: “Sangfielle”]