S1 Ep1: Unleash the Power

[00:00:31] Speaker A: Good evening, players. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Good evening. We'll start with introductions. [00:00:41] Speaker C: Hello. I'm Sticker, and I'll be playing coda. Massacoy. [00:00:47] Speaker D: Hello, I'm Damien, and I'll be playing Chris Strom. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Howdy, I'm Gary, and I'll be playing Oliver Bright. [00:00:57] Speaker E: Hello, I am Sion and I'll be playing Sarah Baxter. [00:01:02] Speaker F: Hello, I am Swifty and I'll be playing Teddy Abernashi. [00:01:07] Speaker A: And I'm bloodied porcelain. I will be your storyteller for the evening. The date is January 16, 2023. New Year's is firmly in your rear view mirror. Regardless of how you spent it or who you spent it with, tonight you all find yourself in the neighborhood of Middle East in Baltimore. Middle east is a fairly rundown, poor neighborhood. Most people who live here don't even break 20,000 a year on their income. Lead paint is a problem in numerous buildings and while not necessarily one of the neighborhoods that the police tremble to go into, is certainly one of the more dangerous places to be. However, it is also one of the cheapest places to live or to set up a business. It is for that reason that you are all here. Coda, would you tell us about the row house that you make home? [00:02:37] Speaker C: So I live in pretty much brick building, most of the doors kind of if you hit it hard enough, they'll stay closed. A couple of broken windows, but it's not too bad because we taped it up or whatever. There's maybe well, I heard that there's like five or six family people living here, but I've seen at least twelve. So I'm not really sure how many people live here. But I don't know, it's a quiet neighborhood. Well, it's good when it's or maybe I guess it's bad sign when it's quiet neighborhood. Lots of cats everywhere, but that's good because you catch and release them. But I don't know, it's pretty solid place. One of the nicer looking houses here. But I don't know, what would you call it? It's not like Hollywood or something, I guess. My room is pretty clean for the most part. I don't leave a mess. I mean there's roaches, but that's like the good things to see. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it's certainly not the worst place. [00:03:55] Speaker C: No. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Wow. Ramped and crowded as it is, it is still home. The place where you rest your head, if not the place where your heart currently resides. Also in the neighborhood. Tonight, while he doesn't live here normally, chris Strom is currently couchsurfing. Well, I should say he is borrowing the bedroom of a friend who is out of town. [00:04:29] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Finally has a chance to get some alone time. Maybe play a little bit. Though the neighbors have been cranky at times with how loud the music has gotten through their very thin walls. Chris, tell me about your current mindset on this, the eve of your birthday. [00:05:04] Speaker D: Well, you know, I got me a bottle of whiskey here, so what else is there? A pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey. I'm going to probably just drown the sorrows here until the morning. I can't think of anything else I want to do, really. I don't have a best friend here. I don't have a girl at the moment. So I guess it's just me, this bottle of Jack here and a pack of Marlborough and maybe a couple of horror movies and we'll try and get rid of this hangover. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Excellent. Oliver, you are in the neighborhood the way you are actually on most Mondays recently. You're here to visit with students of yours who live, who live around here who might need some extra tutoring in order to get through this year with actually earned good passing grades. Tell me about how you tell me about your, your students and the relationship that you have fostered with these kids and the families who, as far as you know, typically wouldn't allow someone who is effectively an outsider to come into their homes to help their children. [00:06:37] Speaker B: Yes, of course. These kids, great, wonderful kids, see so much in them that they can do with their lives and I just really want to see them do the best that they can. And as of right now we're at Marcus's House, a lot of us, a lot of the children there for me to help do some tutoring with the current units we're working on. Hamlets and they were reticent of me at first, naturally, but eventually I was able to show them, at least I hope I was, that things like picking apart literature and understanding English as a whole isn't some kind of useless skill even though everyone might not use it in their day to day lives once they graduate. But it's similar to the same way how a football player will lift weights before or to get stronger, so that when they're out on the game and they can do what they need to do, there's not going to be any play that requires them to lift a bunch of heavy objects. But it makes them stronger. It makes their muscles better. So doing these exercises, learning how to understand the English language is like that but for someone's mind it lets them grasp these more abstract ideals so that when they do end up in the real world and they find themselves in their jobs and occupations, they have that muscle expanded of their mind to handle these abstract ideas. And that's just something I wanted to show them and hope I was successful in. And so right now we are in, like I said, Marcus's House and I'm talking to them and I'm saying that it's true. Shakespeare is perhaps one of the most boring things you can possibly read, but that's because you're not supposed to read it. You're supposed to see it, you're supposed to watch it, you're supposed to perform it. And so that's why with parents permission, of course, that I'm even here in the first place, parents are in the building. I'm not just alone with all these kids. I have some nice floppy rulers with me here to service swords. Have some scripts out, handed them around the table and we are going to enact the first couple of scenes. Of hamlets just to get a real good idea of what's going on and be able to really break down the piece and get them to understand what it's all about. [00:09:04] Speaker A: I love that so much. Sarah, you're here because your latest case deals with a 14 year old boy who has been brought up on murder charges with the flimsiest of evidence and a timeline that just doesn't make sense. But nobody seems to care except you. Unfortunately, he does have school and because he is currently on probation, well out on quote unquote bail, you are here to visit him in the evening after school while he is relegated to the home and not allowed to go anywhere. Why don't you tell me about not just your relationship with Carter, but your relationship with his stressed out and chronically overworked and underpaid single mom? [00:10:09] Speaker E: With Carter, it's definitely been an uphill battle. The beginning, she just figured that he's so used to people being against him that he didn't think even his own lawyer could gather the strength to actually defend him in court. But she has been doing her best to help him and she and Carter's mother are probably fairly fast friends. Since Sarah is providing relief and defense in this situation, that just doesn't seem to make any sense at all. [00:10:59] Speaker A: All right, Teddy, last but certainly not least, you are just arriving in Middle East. You've only had to come here a few times. Typically, the people who live here can't afford your services. But with the recent shift to much more at home learning in the last few years, you have had people calling you because the local infrastructure just struggles to support their efforts. As you are driving through Middle East, you are driving past the past places that almost look like graveyards, but where buildings dead buildings are there's remnants and rubble of buildings that have been bulldozed in preparation for an expansion to the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, an effort that locals have been fighting tooth and nail against. Row homes have been taken down by the block to make room for this space. Gentrification is on the rise around that area and the rest of it has been kind of left to fall to the wayside. Most of the people here can't really afford to buy their own property, own their own homes. They're renting from landlords who live elsewhere who got the place on a steel and flipped it. As your van turns onto a local street, you manage to hit a pothole that you didn't quite see in the dark. Because the street lights, it seems like at least every three to four lights, is out and it's probably been out for months. If not years in some instances. In fact, you passed one spot, you're pretty sure there should have been a street lamp, and there just wasn't. It was gone. And you pull up onto this block in front of one of the few houses that looks like somebody is actively taking care of it. It looks like it's recently gotten something of a facelift. The bricks have been cleaned, the door has been freshly repainted. Even the knocker looks new, unusual. No graffiti, fresh plants planted out front, although they're struggling in the winter cold and the lights are on inside. Tell me about what you were doing before you headed out for work tonight. [00:14:15] Speaker F: Or I was heading out for work. [00:14:20] Speaker A: I assume that you were at home with your daughter. [00:14:22] Speaker F: Oh, yeah, definitely at home with my daughter. Probably watching a movie together, cooking some dinner together. Probably had, like, a nice carbonara. And then we would have put on a movie. Well, we would have put on her favorite movie at the moment, Encanto or Encanto, however it's pronounced. It's probably the 50th time they've watched it this year, even though it's 16 days into the year. But she likes it, so he puts up with it and he likes the music, so it's good knowing that he's going out late for work. He would have gotten he's a babysitter, his usual babysitter, to just come over, watch for a few hours. He would have paid in advance just so that way, because it's very late notice. And that given her a nice tip. And that tucked Dolores into bed and then just got into his van and started driving out. [00:15:33] Speaker A: I love it. All right, you all go about your evenings. Chris with his bottle and his movies. Sarah going over the court filings that she's made, most recently, Oliver, with watching a bunch of high schoolers who looked dubious at best when handed floppy rulers and told that they were swords, have really invested and gotten into playing out these scenes from Hamlet. It is obvious that some of them don't entirely understand what is going on, but they get the gist. A lot of it is taken on context clues, and at the very least, they seem thrilled to be waving around their ruler swords and shouting at each other. ODA is probably unwinding from an evening working at the local rescue. Hasn't been home super long. It's only been a couple of hours. She managed to find time to steal the shower in between other people popping in and out of the bathroom, and is trying to hammer away at her homework in the bedroom that she shares with two other people. It's late. Teddy has just wrapped up his job and you're all sort of settling. And it's a Monday night. Nobody's got any big plans. There's not a whole lot going on this year at this time of year, especially on a Monday night. And it's odd because as Sarah and Oliver and Teddy step out of the doors of the respective homes that they've been stopping into. And as Coda sits by her window and Chris gets up to stretch his legs and walks over to look outside, just to double check that his car is still outside and hasn't been jacked, all of you notice a strange rolling mist fog humbles its way through or down the streets. It's like it gets darker and colder outside, and quieter somehow, like the world draws a collective breath and holds it. I would like everybody to roll. What would I like you to roll? I would like everybody to roll perception and awareness, please, and tell me how many dice you get that are seven or above. [00:19:32] Speaker B: First roll. [00:19:36] Speaker C: Perception. Awareness. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Correct. [00:19:38] Speaker E: Three. [00:19:43] Speaker A: I see a three. I see a one. [00:19:47] Speaker B: Man very good at the four one. [00:19:53] Speaker A: All right. It okay. Those of you who got ones, what you notice is that despite the fact that it is darker than it should be outside, when you look up at the sky, though, you cannot see any clouds. You can see very clearly. A too bright, too big, too round moon above you're. Those of you who got what did we have? We had a three and a four. [00:20:52] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:20:55] Speaker A: Both of you here in the very far flung distance, a low, chilling owl. And, Teddy, your hand is just shy of the handle to your van door when you hear snarls and growls. They're distant, and they sound like they're echoing off of the buildings around you, but you can hear them, and it sounds like they're getting closer. So we are going to start at the person who is left most on my screen and work our way to the right to see how people are going to react, which means that Chris is first. [00:22:22] Speaker D: So I will probably go to the front door. I'm stripped to the waist. I've got a pair of leather trousers on, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I'll open the front door and I'll just kind of stand on the threshold and just look up and down the street and see what's what. [00:22:40] Speaker A: All right. Sarah. [00:22:45] Speaker E: She'S going to look around just the house that she's in. [00:22:49] Speaker A: And if everyone else you're outside now. [00:22:52] Speaker C: Outside. [00:22:52] Speaker E: Okay? [00:22:53] Speaker A: You were on your way to your car. I apologize. I thought I made that clear. Okay. [00:22:57] Speaker E: Yeah. Then on her way to her car, she's going to just hurry up and try to unlock the door while also making her concealed firearm more accessible from the waist of her belt. [00:23:12] Speaker A: Perfect. Oliver. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Upon leaving the house, assuming everyone, all the students left before me had some words of Marcus and his parents to allow me or to allow me to thank them for letting me do this, I'll head on outside, see what's going on here. And I'm just mesmerized by this too large, too bright moon. I can't make sense of it, but I'm trying my best to. So I'm just staring at it heady. [00:23:50] Speaker F: I mean, hearing the howls, getting closer. [00:23:54] Speaker A: It is worth noting, and I'm just going to throw this out there because I know that you are not American. That's not normal for this part of the US. [00:24:03] Speaker F: Oh, it isn't? Okay, cool. I know it's like a city, but it could be wolves. You never know. I don't know. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we got our wolves or wolves. City wolves. That happens. [00:24:15] Speaker F: Yeah. I mean, how else do you protect your cities? Australia's got kangaroos, you've got wolves. Now knowing wolves are not a normal occurrence in this city, I guess his immediate forward bit, maybe it's like a pack of wild dogs that have gotten loose. Yeah, probably not to be messed with. Just getting in his car or his van and just closing the door and locking it behind him just to make sure. And then probably just looking out in the mirrors if anything's coming up at him. [00:24:52] Speaker A: All right. Coda. [00:24:56] Speaker C: Coda. Since she was sitting looking through her window, she'll probably have a cigarette or a substance in her mouth. [00:25:06] Speaker A: While you're allowed to say that she smokes weed, it's okay, you're not actually doing it. [00:25:14] Speaker C: Okay, so she definitely has, like, a joint out hanging out her mouth. And she's looking like she was studying, but she took a quick smoke break and she rubs her eyes for a second and is going to take her phone out and be like, oh, my God, to take a picture of it and kind of also stick her head out and see if anyone else is sticking their head out to see this. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Hey, for those of you who have stuck your head out the window or gone to the door, actually all of you, none of you see another person just yet. In fact, considering what's going on, you feel like you should see people and hear people. Like this should be getting more attention than it is. You don't see cars that have kind of pulled over in hopes of trying to deal with the fog. You don't see people who are maybe driving a little bit slower than usual. It's not uncommon to not see people walking around on this street at night. In fact, most of the locals would probably say that only dumb white people would do that. But you find yourself looking out at a street that seems all but deserted. There aren't lights coming on in nearby buildings that weren't on before. Nobody's coming to the doors or the windows. Coda. In fact, you look across the street because you have a neighbor who is normally really. [00:27:09] Speaker C: Nosy. [00:27:11] Speaker A: Nosy? For lack of a better way of putting it. Yes. And you would normally look across normally you would look across the street and see your neighbor kind of like doing that thing where they part the blinds and just peer out through like a crack in the blinds, but you don't even see that much. And then all of you, regardless of what you rolled, hear another howl less distant than the one before it. For those of you who heard it before it's a little bit closer, echoes a little bit more off of the row houses around you. You glance up at that moon. Some of you have been staring at that moon for a bit and you blink and you swear that the moon looks like a crescent. And then you blink again and it's full. [00:28:26] Speaker C: Yeah, coda's. Definitely fully rubbing her eyes now. Like, what was I given? He's going to put out the joint and tuck it in a little container, like a pringles container. And could I do a roll? Something animal related to try to see if it was a dog? [00:28:52] Speaker A: Or would you like to leverage your knowledge of animals, maybe? Yes, intelligence. And I will give you either academics or animal ken. [00:29:03] Speaker C: I will use animal ken. [00:29:08] Speaker A: Okay. OOH. Well, you have no idea what's going on. Sounds like wolves. Could be. I mean, you heard about when The Wire was filming here. Could be some stupid movie movie crew or whatever is letting their stuff spill over onto the road. Wouldn't surprise you. Could be cool, though. [00:29:51] Speaker C: Yeah. She'll come outside. She's going to grab her bad and come outside. Also have her phone ready to maybe call the animal seltzer to be like, hey, there's like, some loose dogs here. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Who are you calling? I'm sorry. [00:30:07] Speaker C: She's going to have her phone ready to call the animal shelter, so she's going to have her bat and then head out to see if she could get a scope on the situation and. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Have her phone ready to ready to either call a team to come get the strays or to crack some skulls. That's a very coda approach. Okay, Chris. [00:30:34] Speaker D: Yep. [00:30:36] Speaker A: You are standing in the doorway of your friend's home. You don't see any other people. The moon looked weird. You could have sworn it was a crescent a second ago, but then you blinked and it was full again. Maybe you're drinking too much. [00:30:53] Speaker D: I'll take a couple of steps out into the street and just kind of, like, squint my eyes and then look up and about, take a few swigs of the whiskey. [00:31:04] Speaker A: You all of you hear a laugh growl. It's hard to tell. It sounds like a voice, but it doesn't sound entirely like a human voice. It's too guttural, too raspy, has too strange tones that human vocal cords shouldn't be able to make, which know if it is a person. That's pretty impressive, especially to someone like you, Chris. Like, half of your job is knowing how to growl, right. But this doesn't sound like a human growling and laughing at the same time. [00:32:01] Speaker D: I'll probably shout something down the street in Swedish, like something low and guttural to do with fenris wolf or something historical. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:15] Speaker D: Lyric from a song or something like that. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Trying to scare people. Got it. Okay, teddy, you are at your van, and you are reaching for the door. [00:32:38] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:32:41] Speaker A: And for whatever reason, it won't open the first time you try. You tug at it and tug at it, and you double check that it's unlocked and you've hit the button on the Fob. It should be unlocked, but eventually you hear the thunk and it unlocks and you're able to wrench the door open. Sarah, are you going immediately for your car? [00:33:11] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker A: You have one hand kind of tucked under your jacket just in case. You're very well aware. You're a single woman with a decent car in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Baltimore. You could get jumped. You could have your carjacked literally at any have you hit the Fob for your car door three, four times before it finally unlocks? You're standing directly on top of it. You're not sure if your battery died, although you think you remember replacing it just a few months ago. Maybe the FOB's dying. Don't know. Weird, though. Didn't want to start. You manage to yank your car door open and climb in. Oliver, are you still standing in the. [00:34:16] Speaker B: Middle of the no, no. I think after one, hearing the howl, and then two, watching the moon change. But there's no way that could have actually happened, surely. Kind of shaken out of my reverie and taking a nice brisk pace down the road back into the direction of my usual walk back to my apartment. I don't have any weapons on me because I'm sort of relying on local street cred of being the teacher who helps tutor the kids after hours, being sort of badge of protection of don't mess with this guy. So best I can do is pick up the pace a little bit. [00:35:00] Speaker C: Hey. [00:35:06] Speaker A: Those of you who have cars to get into manage to climb in. You feel like your heart is hammering in your chests. Little freaked out. I imagine Chris and Coda have something very similar going. Coda, being local and just being Coda, quite frankly, is probably a little less freaked out and a little bit more angry and on edge, tense. Chris has been drinking. People who are drinking tend to get, we'll say, a little more sure of themselves than they probably should be. And then all of you hear the thunder of something running many somethings too many feet to be human, too loud to be dogs. Oh, go ahead. [00:36:19] Speaker D: Now is probably a good time to get back inside. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Okay. Do me a favor, then enroll me. Let's go with a Dex and athletics. You're going to be down one die because you have been drinking. [00:36:47] Speaker D: Oh, my God. 1010. [00:36:49] Speaker A: Wow. Three tens. Jesus. [00:36:54] Speaker D: Six successes. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Then you are the most sprightly drunk anyone has ever seen. You turn and bolt for the door that you just walked out of. Thankfully, it is still standing open. On any normal night, that would not have been a good idea. But it's probably good for you that you left it open. No lock to fight with, no nothing. You get inside and you slam the door shut behind you. Oliver, you do not have a car. [00:37:24] Speaker B: Or you do have a car I'm really regretting not bringing with me tonight. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Okay. No car. Coda, what are you doing hearing all of this going on? [00:37:38] Speaker C: So when Coda heard the laughter, she definitely had a moment where she took out her bat or no, she held her bat in her hand and hit it against the ground and was kind of like, hey, now, come on, people are trying to sleep here. You don't need to be making noise in our neighborhood. Take it somewhere else. So she hit it in. Then once she starts to hear more feet and more running, she's going to kind of tense up and be like, no, this is not my fight tonight. And then she's going to start to turn around to head back into her apartment. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Make me a Dex and athletics, please. [00:38:20] Speaker C: That's goodness. [00:38:39] Speaker A: One oof. You turn to get inside. Shouldn't be hard. But nothing about tonight is normal. You don't know if it's the bitter cold that seems to have come with this fog as it rolled in, or if it's how disorienting it is to be surrounded by this mist that the light from the moon seems to bounce off of. You don't know if you're just feeling the effects of whatever it is that you just smoked so powerfully that your body doesn't want to work with you, but your foot hits the edge of the first step and you can't quite find purchase. And so as you go and put your full weight on it to start to go up, your foot slips and you trip and you land kind of like on your hands and on your knees on the steps just outside of the door. I need all of you to once again make me perception and awareness rolls. [00:40:05] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:40:10] Speaker A: Oliver is perpetually at a disadvantage. [00:40:12] Speaker B: I am half blind. No successes? None. [00:40:18] Speaker D: Yeah, none for me either. [00:40:21] Speaker C: I got one that was perception and awareness. [00:40:31] Speaker A: Sarah, darling, you need to do an R instead of a D. Sarah? Yeah. Wow. Successes, one success, zero successes. Zero successes. Two successes. Well, okay. Sarah, you're the only person who hears this. There is a growl from behind you. It's not super, super close, but it's not far either. It's certainly much closer than the last thing you heard. I got one over here. And it's a deep, growling, distinctly male voice. [00:41:37] Speaker E: She'll look over to where the sound is coming from, see what it is. [00:41:43] Speaker A: You can't see anything. All you see is this rolling, roiling mist. [00:41:50] Speaker E: Can she try turning on her car for lights? [00:41:54] Speaker A: You can certainly turn it on. Unfortunately, the flaw to mists and fog is that lights bounce off of them. They are opaque. It's like you can see a little bit more in front of you, but it also is just as bad for you. Trying to drive in not impossible. You just know that your visibility is not great. And adding light to trying to see something in this kind of situation is not super helpful. [00:42:33] Speaker E: Well, if whatever is growling comes any closer, she'll just watch and see if they get close enough to see them with the lights from the car. [00:42:43] Speaker A: So you're not going anywhere. You're going to stay in the car with lights on? [00:42:47] Speaker E: Yes. [00:42:50] Speaker A: Okay. All right. This time we are going to go into we're going to do a little some mini scenes with each of you because you are all in different places and all reacting very differently. We will start with let's start with Oliver. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:43:28] Speaker A: Oliver, you are hurrying down the street with copies of the source material. [00:43:36] Speaker B: I have my satchel with me, and my brisk walking pace has now turned into a light. Jog. [00:43:47] Speaker A: You hear? Found one. It's over here. Around the same time you hear a car start up. It's just ahead of you. The voice is coming from behind you, but the car is ahead of you. And as the lights flare on, you get to be in the middle of that beam of light that comes from the headlights. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Right. And the voice I heard behind me found one, does not sound like a pleasant voice, correct? [00:44:34] Speaker A: No. [00:44:35] Speaker B: Well, in that case, I am going to reach my Sashel, pull out a nice floppy rubber ruler at some level of protection, and run for the car. As far as I'm aware, is my only source of salvation right now. [00:44:50] Speaker A: Unless you can manage to get somebody to let you into one of the dark houses around you, which all weirdly seem to have turned their lights out. [00:44:58] Speaker B: Yes, I'll go for the one source of light I can see, which are these car headlights. [00:45:06] Speaker A: Sarah you are watching the dark around you, watching this mist, trying to figure out if you can drive with such lowered visibility, trying to see who's fucking with you. There's a small part of you that wonders if maybe this isn't somebody kind of purposefully, just taking advantage of the creepy surroundings. To mess with you wouldn't be unheard of. And then you see a man, the last type of person you expect to see in this sort of neighborhood, but someone familiar. Oliver as you get close to the car, you kind of squint your good eye to peer through the windshield at who may be inside and you recognize the face. [00:46:11] Speaker B: I'm going to walk up and politely knock on the window. [00:46:18] Speaker A: She'll try not to urgently. Yeah. [00:46:22] Speaker E: But definitely will slightly jump, like in the driver's seat. Just give him a strange look, slightly roll down her window. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Hi. Miss Baxter, right. I don't normally do this, but I don't. Think I'm very safe right now, so would you mind if I got in your car? I'll sit in the back seat if that makes you more comfortable. [00:46:46] Speaker E: It takes a second for her to kind of decide what to do, but then she unlocks the back and says, yeah, get in. I can't see anything around us. [00:46:57] Speaker B: Thank you. Neither can I, but I heard a voice, and it did not sound like a nice one, and I'm going to quickly get in and lock the door behind me. [00:47:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:06] Speaker E: And she'll relock the car doors after he's in. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Perfect. Hoda. [00:47:20] Speaker C: Yes. [00:47:21] Speaker A: You're pretty sure that the heel of your hand is bleeding from where you hit that step. What you hear is more snarling. You also hear a trying to think of how to describe this. You hear a high pitched hiss and a low feline growl from off somewhere in the mist. And then an abrupt snarl, a sound that is very familiar as a cat being hurt. [00:48:40] Speaker C: Being hurt. [00:48:41] Speaker A: And then it goes quiet. [00:48:49] Speaker C: Oh, dear. Okay. Coda's gonna quickly dust her hand. Yeah, she's gonna quickly, like, dust her hand off and then lick anything that like any blood that was on her hand and rub it off real quick. And I think when she hears the cat being hurt, she knows this is stupid, but she's going to grab her bat and try to get up and. [00:49:17] Speaker A: Run towards whatever it is. Okay, we'll come back to that. Coda's like, yolo. All right, Chris, you get inside, you slam the front door, only to hear the back door leading out into the very small, square backyard that you're pretty sure when you looked out last time was pretty overgrown inside of its fence. You hear it thud heavily, like a full body got thrown against at full force. [00:50:01] Speaker D: Am I the only person in the. [00:50:02] Speaker A: House at the moment, as far as you know? Shit. [00:50:08] Speaker D: Any bats, any weapons behind the front door that people would have used just in case? [00:50:12] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:50:13] Speaker A: Given the neighborhood, I'll say that there's almost definitely, like, an aluminum baseball bat behind the door. [00:50:18] Speaker D: Brilliant. Grab the bat going towards the back door. [00:50:21] Speaker A: Perfect. You hear that voice or another voice. I shouldn't say that voice because they're not all the same. They're various tones and whatever. I'm just not a voice actor. You hear a voice that sounds a little bit more feminine, but still definitely not normal. Not like any human you've ever met. Kind of growl. I can smell one inside. Damn windows are too small. And then you hear another full force thud against the door. [00:51:08] Speaker D: I kind of matter to myself, the fuck? And I'll shout out, get a fuck away from here, man, or you'll hurt. If you come inside. [00:51:20] Speaker C: Things go a. [00:51:21] Speaker A: Little quiet for just a moment, and then you hear this low, guttural, rasping chuckle. And then another one. And another one. [00:51:43] Speaker D: Multiple people. [00:51:45] Speaker A: And then one of the chuckles, gives way to a howl that is ear piercing and bone chilling. And then the window nearby shatters and the lights inside go out. You can't see exactly what it is. You had just enough time to glance something huge and furry. [00:52:22] Speaker D: Swing the bat blindly at whatever it is if I can. [00:52:26] Speaker A: Okay, give me you don't have melee, do you? [00:52:36] Speaker D: No, I don't. [00:52:38] Speaker A: Let's go with a got brawl. [00:52:41] Speaker D: That's the closest I've got. [00:52:46] Speaker A: Let's go. Strength and athletics. See if you can make contact. Normally we would be going into proper combat, but. [00:53:01] Speaker D: Oh, there we go. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Not bad. [00:53:03] Speaker D: That's five successes. [00:53:06] Speaker A: You connect in the dark. You don't know how because you can't see what the fuck is going on. And the body of whatever this thing is that just broke through this kitchen window next to you is big enough that it is blocking out any of the light that could come in from outside. [00:53:25] Speaker D: Got you. [00:53:26] Speaker A: But you connect. You connect and you hear like a half yelp. And then the bat feels like it is fighting against your hand. [00:53:48] Speaker D: Okay. [00:53:49] Speaker A: And like it is trying to pull itself away from you. [00:53:52] Speaker D: If I'm going to die, I'm going to die with my boots on. I'm in fight mode at the moment, so I'll do whatever is necessary. I think flight is out of the equation now. Well, saying that is the door behind me into the hallway and the front door open. [00:54:11] Speaker A: Well, the front door is closed, but there is nothing blocking you from getting to it. [00:54:17] Speaker D: Then I guess if there's multiple of these creatures, maybe I've stunned one of them enough for me to make a bit of a getaway. So I'm going to try and bolt for the front door. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Right, give me a Dex and athletics. You're definitely going to be able to I want to see how well this goes for you, though. [00:54:43] Speaker D: Two. [00:54:45] Speaker A: Okay. It could be better, could be worse. You turn on your feet. The whiskey bottle, it goes flying in the process of you kind of like doing a full body wheeling turn. The bat gets yanked out of your hand and you swear you hear metal crunching behind you as you go darting down the hallway back to the front door that you came into and you burst out onto the street. [00:55:20] Speaker D: That's terrifying. Okay. [00:55:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. We've got Oliver and Sarah in a car. We've got Teddy in his van. Coda is going into the mist. Good Lord. Hoda. [00:55:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:43] Speaker A: You hear these feet, whatever this is running, you hear heavy, heavy, heavy breathing. It is paced like a dog's would be paced, not panting. And you hear the growls and snarls and the gnashing, what sounds like the gnashing of teeth. And it is coming directly for you and it is coming very fast for me. [00:56:21] Speaker C: Okay. [00:56:22] Speaker A: Towards you, I should say. You don't know 100% if it's coming for you, but it's definitely coming in your direction. [00:56:29] Speaker C: Okay. Well, then I'm going to run towards my nosy neighbor's house across the street. Yeah. Because she's like, I can't handle this by myself. So maybe if we can get more things to throw, like pots and pans, because dexter, athletics, death, athletics. [00:57:11] Speaker A: Four. Not bad. You don't know if you're more clear minded or if the fight or flight instinct is making you a little bit faster on your feet, but you turn and run full fucking speed towards your neighbor's house. The windows are dark. You throw yourself against the front door. You're pounding. You're yelling, open the fuck up. Open the fuck up. And nobody is answering. The house is quiet and dark. Cool. And the running is getting closer. [00:57:53] Speaker C: All right, so then she is running towards can I look around to see if I see any of the lights? Like, is anyone looking out their house? The sound where I heard, like, the cat hurt or whatsoever is that direction. [00:58:13] Speaker A: That is the direction that the running sounds are coming from. [00:58:18] Speaker C: Okay. So she definitely doesn't want to go that way. [00:58:22] Speaker A: Looking around at the buildings, it is weird and eerie. You've lived on this street for at least a couple of years now. You've never seen this place this dark. You don't hear music coming from a neighbor's house. Even the windows in your own house, which really should be lit up because there are so many people living there. They've all gone dark, too. [00:58:52] Speaker C: That's concerning. Yeah. I think she's just going to try to get out the neighborhood because she's like, something's happening here. And I'm like, I don't are you. [00:59:04] Speaker A: Bolting down the street? Are you trying to take alleyways? What are you doing? [00:59:08] Speaker C: Taking alleyways? She's taking all the shortcuts. She's using her bat to push her up over stuff that she can't climb over. She's gunning it. [00:59:16] Speaker A: Okay. You turn and you bolt down the street. You can hear these feet pause, whatever in the distance behind you. You can hear the growling and the snarling. You can hear what sounds like talking. It's low and it's rumbling and guttural, and it's hard to make out exactly what they're saying because they're too far away. And honestly, the sound of your own beating heart hammering in your chest makes it hard to make anything else out. [01:00:01] Speaker C: Yes, she's gunning it. So I definitely hear people talking, though. [01:00:09] Speaker A: You can tell that someone is talking in the direction that all the growling and snarling is coming from. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Yeah, no, she's definitely getting out the neighborhood because she's like, maybe this is some gang stuff that's happening. I have class in the morning, so I'm just going to get out of here. [01:00:32] Speaker A: I ain't got time for this shit. I have class in the yeah, like. [01:00:36] Speaker C: I'm gonna maybe get to the Bodega or the bus stop, maybe just chill in my campus area and spend a night on a bench or something. [01:00:45] Speaker A: Okay, Teddy, you are in your van. There is water and liquid on the windshield from where the mist is hitting it and the heater inside of the van forces it to become condensation. You've got the lights on, but not on high or anything because of all of the fog and mist around you. You can hear even with all of your windows up and the engine rumbling, you can hear the sounds of running. You can hear the howling and the snarling. You can hear talking. I think there's one over here. Yeah, but he smelled two over that way. There's one who thinks they can get away on foot. You're hearing it. You can't tell where all of the voices are coming from. It's weird. It's like it's bouncing off of the buildings around you. You do know that the way that your van is currently facing is not you're 99% sure that if you go that way, you're going straight towards whatever's making all this noise. [01:02:25] Speaker F: Well, that's good because my plan was to do a Uturn and skedaddle the fuck away from here. This is a nightmare town. Never coming back here again. But he put his caution lights on first, just so that way there's a little bit of extra light. If anyone coming down the road, they can see him. Maybe a bit better. He doesn't want to get in an accident. [01:02:51] Speaker A: I love it. You roll the engine over, throw it into drive, slap on your caution lights, and make the fastest Uturn of your life. You're pretty sure you hear wheels squeal, but oh, well. And you are. You are not even 50 yards away from where you were originally parked when the whole van bounces like a toy as something very heavy lands on top of it. [01:03:54] Speaker F: On top of it. That's not good. [01:04:01] Speaker A: And you hear a voice growl out from above. You come out. Come out, little Godling. You could still drive. The van hasn't stopped running, but there is now something on top of it. And it is big enough that you can hear it talking to you through the windows, through the windshield, which now has a little crack running through the front of it. [01:04:46] Speaker F: He's in shepherd movies, so he's going at a speed. Just going to slam the brakes on, hope it goes flying off rolls. [01:05:02] Speaker A: I love it. Okay, make me this is a weird role. Make me a control and wits roll. Control cars, assuming that you have that or vehicles. [01:05:29] Speaker F: I don't have anything in control. [01:05:31] Speaker A: All right, so make me a wits roll. [01:05:38] Speaker F: Two successes. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Two successes because excellent. [01:05:41] Speaker F: That was almost perfect. [01:05:45] Speaker A: You slam on the brakes and you could tell that whatever is on top of your van was not expecting that because a large dark form, obviously a body of some sort, you're not entire like you can't make out details when it's moving as fast as it is because it basically gets catapulted forward into the mist. It's dark, it's furred goes falling, and tumbling into the mist in front of you and seems to disappear. And then something else hits the van because you're now stopped and slams into it from behind. And the whole van lurches forward and pitches a bit as your front left wheel catches in that goddamn pothole. [01:06:57] Speaker F: I knew that pothole was going to. [01:06:58] Speaker D: Come back up again. [01:07:00] Speaker A: Catches in the pothole and the whole van flips forward. You feel the back of it lifted up off the ground and it flips. And I need you to make me a let's do a stamina and fortitude roll. [01:07:34] Speaker F: I got something here. Two successes. [01:07:48] Speaker A: All right, not bad. Your shoulder gets wrenched pretty bad against the seatbelt, but the seatbelt holds as the van rolls onto its top, hood, ceiling, whatever. And then something large hits it again and it rolls onto its side. And it is by the grace of God that it comes to land on its wheels. But now the windows are cracked. The windshield is a spider web that looks like it wouldn't take more than a lick for it to fall apart. You can hear the engine is clunking, it's running. You're not sure for how much longer. That said, Chris, you dart out onto the street. You heard metal crunching behind you, and then you hear metal and glass crunching ahead of you as you are running down the street. But you also hear that running coming from behind you. So you've got the metal and glass breaking in one direction and growling and snarling and running coming from behind you. And you are bolting, I assume, down this road, away from all of the scary noises. [01:09:49] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [01:09:52] Speaker A: You round a corner hearing the growling and the snarling coming from behind you, but also coming from the sides. It's again, hard to tell specifically, and that's when you see it, you see the flickering and rapidly failing lights of a van that is somehow on its wheels, but looks like it wasn't on its wheels a few moments ago. You can see what look like large. You would say that they look like claw marks, but they're too big to belong to any animal. [01:10:41] Speaker D: Okay, can I see any people? [01:10:44] Speaker A: You can see someone. There is a human figure in the front driver seat, but the angle that you're coming up on, you can't see exactly who it is just yet. [01:10:56] Speaker D: I'm going to shout at him as I'm moving down the street, get the fuck out of your car. We got to go. We got to go. [01:11:08] Speaker A: Teddy. Someone is yelling at you to get the fuck out of the car. You got to go. [01:11:13] Speaker F: Sounds like a great idea. I'm getting the fuck out of the car. I'm going to grab my clipboard and I'm getting the fuck out of that car. And I'm running to wherever that voice just came from. [01:11:22] Speaker A: You're taking the clipboard with you? [01:11:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:11:26] Speaker F: It's got all the information of the job I just did okay. [01:11:28] Speaker A: I need it to tax. [01:11:30] Speaker F: The base squad needs it. [01:11:36] Speaker A: I love it. [01:11:37] Speaker F: I'm crazy enough to mess with whatever's. [01:11:39] Speaker A: Going on here, but the IRS so corporate America to think to take the tax information with you. Chris, as you are bolting forward shirtless. I don't know if you have shoes on, but you're shirtless and carrying a bat. You nearly run smack into Teddy, who you have seen before. You two know each other. Not that there's time to really talk. Teddy looks a little dazed, little bewildered. He is favoring his left shoulder. And you are, I assume, both running. [01:12:24] Speaker D: I'm not even stopping. I'm just carrying on down past the van. I shout at him as I go. We've got to go. [01:12:31] Speaker F: Absolutely, 100% follow behind. [01:12:33] Speaker A: Love it, love it, love it. Coda. Actually, no, not coda. Sarah and Oliver. You heard what sounded like a crash, like a car crash, metal and shattering glass. You hear distinctly human voices. One of them yelling at the other and the other one not so much yelling, but at least seems to be reacting. Oh, no. [01:13:07] Speaker E: There's more people in this? [01:13:09] Speaker B: Yes. This seems like a really bad situation. Can I offer a sword for protection? And I'm just going to hold out one of my rubber rulers. [01:13:18] Speaker E: She'll smile, but I'll just kind of. [01:13:22] Speaker A: Lift her shirt a bit and say it's okay. [01:13:23] Speaker E: I'm good for now. [01:13:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's much better. [01:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:28] Speaker E: She'll pull out of the parking spot and try to drive over to where she's hearing the people, because someone's probably hurt. [01:13:35] Speaker A: How quickly are you attempting to move? [01:13:38] Speaker E: She's trying to move slowly so she doesn't accidentally hit someone, like walking their wolf dog, which is illegal in Maryland, but whatever. But she's trying to move slowly, but then when she gets out of the spot and towards where she heard the sound, she'll speed up. [01:13:55] Speaker A: A okay. Hmm. Make me a Dex. And actually, Oliver, awareness and best. I know it's not your best role, but I want to see if you can give her extra dice. [01:14:21] Speaker B: No, I'm sitting in the far left seat. That's my bad eye. I can't see out the window right now. [01:14:26] Speaker A: Okay, Sarah, let's go with perception and control. Like the car, automobile, vehicle. [01:14:34] Speaker E: That sort of no control for me either. [01:14:38] Speaker A: So just perception. Yeah. No, awesome. That's great. You guys are rolling down the street, which seems weirdly empty, which, I mean, really is probably a blessing in disguise because you can't see shit. In fact, you so can't see something that as Coda comes bursting out of an alleyway, she nearly gets hit by the car. You don't notice as you are hurrying as fast as you feel safe going and you are so sure that you should be where the accident is and so confused as to why you don't see it that you're not thinking to check your rear view. When something very large and very heavy lands on the back end of the car and the whole car tilts the the whole front of the car tilts upwards like a teeter totter that someone has put all of their weight down on the opposite end. For a moment, you two are looking upward at the moon, and then the moon is out of your field of vision as you come crashing back down and the front of your car hits hard on the pavement. You are 90% sure that you hear one of the tires go. [01:16:26] Speaker B: That was not a pothole, I don't think. [01:16:28] Speaker A: And then you hear scrabbling. Something large and sharp is scrabbling against the metal of the top of your car. [01:16:48] Speaker B: Do you think we should get out and run? [01:16:53] Speaker E: Well, one of the tires just went out, so that's really our only chance. [01:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And as we get out, I would like to actually reach into my satchel, pull out one of the copies of Hamlin, and begin undoing the bindings on it. And as we get out, I want to just throw it up in the air where I hear all that scratching, let all the pages fly out and scatter, create at least an impromptu smokescreen so that we can try to run away. [01:17:20] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay, I want you both to roll decks and athletics. Oliver, I'm going to call this a one die stunt so you can apply an extra die to your role. [01:17:37] Speaker B: All right? Great. [01:17:46] Speaker A: That's five successes. [01:17:48] Speaker B: Oh, yes. [01:17:49] Speaker A: Seven. [01:17:49] Speaker B: Seven is a success. That's five. [01:17:51] Speaker A: Excellent. Sarah, you struggle a little bit with your seatbelt, and as it turns out, the tire that went was on your side of the car, so it's a little bit lower than the other side, and it's just generally a little bit more awkward to get out of. Oliver, on the other hand, despite the fact that he has a hard time seeing and is struggling with seems like he should be struggling with the physicality of it all. Does something magical with a fucking book. You're not even sure what the book is. You just see these sheets of paper go flying into the air behind him, and he bolts. And thankfully, those sheets of paper give you both just enough cover to start running. [01:18:47] Speaker B: I also don't want to abandon her. I want to make sure she's out of the car and ahead of me as we're running away. [01:18:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You're both pretty much neck and neck, I would say. If anyone is going to be struggling to keep up here, normally, once you actually start running, it's probably you. She's fine. It's an interesting getaway, but you manage. And that's about the time that you hear another set of footsteps that are distinctly human and a voice or I shouldn't say a voice, a breathing that is very distinctly human, who has come up behind you in that coda. You couldn't see what hit them because the mist was so deep. Again, it's so fucking dark out here. Like all you saw was an incredibly large, dark shape land on the back of their car. And you heard the growling and you heard the snarling and the clawing and it sounded way too big to be a dog. Way too big to be a dog. [01:20:05] Speaker C: Yeah. No, she is fully gunning it. [01:20:07] Speaker A: Then you saw two people get out of the car and they're running and you're also running. So you're all kind of headed in the same direction on the same road for the moment. [01:20:17] Speaker C: Oh, my fucking God. Do you see this? Do you know what's happening? Oh, my God. Keep going. We got to keep running. [01:20:25] Speaker B: And we hear this behind us. [01:20:28] Speaker A: Behind next to a young African American woman has fallen into struggling to breathe. [01:20:35] Speaker B: I'm going to turn. Caught a mascot, mr. B. We'll catch up in a bit. [01:20:45] Speaker C: Yeah? Something fed these dogs or wolves some bad hash, maybe, from MK on East Madison, but I don't know. We got to keep going. And she's just, like, running. [01:20:58] Speaker A: You guys continue on. Doesn't take long. It feels like it's ages. But the reality is it's probably only a few seconds before you turn a corner onto another street. In time to find Sarah and Teddy struggling out of their van. Well, out of no, sorry. In time to find Chris and Teddy after Teddy has struggled out of his van. I can talk. Words are hard. It's fine. And the three of you congregate, sort of. You're all still running, but there's a moment where all five of you are in the same place. A patch of moonlight manages to hit you as you meet each other in this mist. And then you all hear another. You hear an ear splitting howl from back the way that Coda and Oliver and Sarah just came. And then another off to the east and another off to the west. The two in the east and the west are distant, but they are obviously answering calls to the one near you. What would you all like to do? These are the first other human beings that you have all run into since all of this weirdness started. The buildings around you are still dark. [01:22:38] Speaker D: I'm not stopping. I'm just going to shout at these people. We got to go. Come on, quick. We got to go. [01:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah, coda has not stopped either. [01:22:47] Speaker B: I'm struggling to breathe, so I'm just going to follow the loud, commanding men and hope he knows what he's doing. [01:22:55] Speaker F: Damn. [01:22:57] Speaker C: I know. Bodega on the corner of one of the streets. Maybe we could get in and lock ourselves in or something. Or maybe catch the bus or something. [01:23:05] Speaker D: Let's go. You lead on. [01:23:09] Speaker A: I would like everybody to make me stamina and athletics roles or stamina and fortitude, whatever is higher. [01:23:27] Speaker B: That's better for me. [01:23:30] Speaker F: One success. [01:23:33] Speaker E: Also one success. [01:23:36] Speaker B: Two successes. [01:23:39] Speaker A: Two successes. All right, so we have two with two and everybody else got one. Wow. You all are tired and some of you have recently been in car accidents, it's not terribly surprising that you're not in the best of shape. However, as you swear the mist is getting thicker behind you as the light seems to be going out around you, as the sound seems to be getting more and more ever present. Chris, are you wearing shoes or are you barefoot? [01:24:21] Speaker D: No, I've got some, like, big eleven hole DMs on. [01:24:24] Speaker A: Okay. As your boots are slamming against this pavement and you are kind of ruining that these were your choice of footwear. You didn't know you were going to be in a foot chase. It's understandable, as you are ruining this particular choice in clothing. You swear you feel hot, moist breath on your back. [01:25:02] Speaker D: Am I at the back of the group of five people or you all. [01:25:06] Speaker A: Are kind of in, like, a slightly staggered line. There isn't really an actual lineup, but I wasn't finished. Give me a SEC. [01:25:17] Speaker D: I'm sorry. [01:25:17] Speaker A: It's okay. And you hear what sounds like teeth clacking together as if something is trying to bite at you. And for a moment, you wonder if something got, like, the end of your hair. And then you feel it. It is white hot, and it is in the core of your stomach. It is in the it feels like the core of who you are has suddenly been set on fire. This isn't physical, but it is physical. It's molten and it spreads. It starts in the core of who you are, and it begins to spread outward through your torso, from your stomach into your chest, along your sides, your hips, down your legs, through your shoulders to your arms, and it burns. Every inch of you burns. And it's white hot and painful, but you don't stop running. If anything, you think you might be moving faster. You can't scream. You can't talk. You can barely see. Everything around you is like it's hazy. You don't know if it's from tears because of the pain, or if it's that damned mist that's making everything so hard to see. It's like, have you ever run so far and so hard that you get those stitches in your side and your lungs burn? It's like that, but it's your entire fucking body. Every molecule, every hair. You can feel your hair and it hurts, but somehow you look slightly to the side and you could swear that the buildings are moving by you faster than they were before. ODA. You grit your teeth, and you are pumping your legs and your arms as hard as you can. You are pushing your body further and harder than you have ever pushed it before. And there is a moment where the veterinary student in you is amused because the sound of your own breath escaping between your gritted teeth almost sounds like a cat's hiss. And then it's like you can't it's like you can't see. Your head feels like it's splitting open. It's like someone has taken a red hot poker and shoved it into the base of your skull and into your brain. And that burning sensation is passing from your head down through your jaw and your face, your neck, your shoulders, your arms, your torso. Your heart feels like it's clenching in your chest and hammering even faster. Somehow your legs are burning. They feel like they're on fire, but not heavier somehow. But you don't stop. You can't stop. It's like you're on autopilot. [01:29:22] Speaker E: Maybe. [01:29:24] Speaker A: If anything, it almost feels like despite how much it hurts, it's getting easier to move. Oliver you have never done so much physical activity in your fucking life. [01:29:47] Speaker B: It's on the chess team. [01:29:52] Speaker A: You don't even know why you're still holding on to the goddamn satchel full of books, but you are. It's like it's a lifeline. Like you can't let go of it. Like it's too precious. Maybe it's something in your subconscious that tells you that if you lose these, the school district is never going to give you the money to replace them. Because the copies that you have are you're pretty sure. From like the 60s? [01:30:22] Speaker B: Yeah, most likely. [01:30:27] Speaker A: And the tips of your fingers on the hand that is holding the strap of your satchel, you swear it feels like someone has cut them open with a hot knife. And that heat and that pain is moving with every beat of your heart and every breath from your lungs. It is moving from those cuts on the tips of your the cuts, you are sure, on the tips of your fingers, down the lengths of your fingers into your palm. Your whole hand locks around that satchel. No matter what happens. They're literally going to have to pry this from your cold, dead fingers, because you don't think you could let go if you wanted to. Your arms flex, your shoulders tense as that white, hot, searing pain courses through every single part of you, starting at your hands, moving up your arms, your shoulders, your chest, up into your head, down your body, into your legs, your feet. The loafers that you are wearing that you definitely should have replaced months ago because they are thread bare on the bottom. But you don't know if you care that much about the physical pain. It's getting easier to do the physical work. It hurts. It hurts like hell. And you want to yell and you want to scream, but you can't make the noise come because your whole body is overtaken by this burning, white, hot, searing agony. All you know is that you have to keep moving. And you can't let go of the bag. It's too important. Don't let go of the bag. Sarah you have been sprinting alongside these people, most of whom you've met at some point or another. It's kind of a delayed thought in the back of your overly analytical head where you're like, I think I've met, like. Everybody here. And then, oh God, I think something just brushed. I think something just brushed me. Like you felt something that was too big to be a dog, but had all of the hallmarks of a dog's, like snout, just huge brush against your shoulders from behind and you let out. You don't know if it's a cry of desperation or anger or anguish, because the pain that has started in your feet is so intense. It's like nothing you've ever felt before. You've heard women describe childbirth and you think this might be worse. It is starting from the soles of your feet, and it is coursing up and into your ankles, into your calves, knees, thighs, hips. It coils and pools in your stomach like molten lava before it begins to fill you. And it is like a rising waterline, a rapidly rising waterline of molten pain that comes up and it engulfs your heart. And your heart pumps, and it pumps that pain through your extremities, through your arms, up through your neck. You can feel it overtaking your mind. Your vision goes white, but you don't stop running. You can't stop. You can't afford to stop. If you stop, you just know. Everything is lost. You don't know how you know, but you know. And then you realize that you think your legs might be getting faster or maybe your mind is getting slower. It's hard to tell. All you know is desperation and anger and fear all at once. Teddy, you are holding your clipboard and you are thinking about your daughter. Tell me about how are you thinking of her in these moments where you're not sure if you're going to survive. Because there is a voice in the back of your head that is warning you that you might not. [01:36:01] Speaker F: Probably thinking about her. Just the things he might miss out on. God, how's the American schooling system work? Her first day in high school, I guess because she's eleven, so I think she's eleven. [01:36:22] Speaker A: She's in elementary, early to late elementary, early middle school. [01:36:27] Speaker F: Okay. There we go. Like first day of college and all that. [01:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah. You're going to digs? [01:36:37] Speaker F: Yeah. [01:36:42] Speaker A: Are you thinking at all about your wife? [01:36:44] Speaker F: Yeah, anytime he'd think of his daughter, he'd definitely think of her. She's the spitting image of her. Doesn't look anything like him. Of course she's adopted, but yeah, anytime he'd think about her, he would definitely think about his wife. Probably a few thoughts about after her passing, but mostly just like the good times before, like going to Disneyland and all that. The first time they met. Still has the bird mark from the coffee, but yeah. [01:37:38] Speaker A: Love it. You are focused on the thoughts of your family because your family is what keeps you going. Knowing that if you're gone, your daughter doesn't have anybody because she's already lost her mom. You throw everything you can into running. You throw everything you are into survival. You feel your heart for a moment, you think you might be having a heart attack. The pain is intense, and it is right in the center of your chest. It is hot. It's like your blood is boiling. But the boiling, the source of all of that heat is your heart itself. And you can feel every time your heart pumps and your lungs inflate, it is pushing more and more and more of that molten blood through your veins, arteries, capillaries until every part of you, from your nails to the hair on top of your head to your eyes, feel like they're on fire. You know that you're crying. You know you can feel the tears hot on your cheeks. Cold, really. They feel cool compared to the blood in your veins. Running somehow feels easier. You wonder if this is some sort of mind over matter moment where you're not thinking about the individual parts of your body anymore. You're thinking of your whole body as one big organ, one big thing that has a singular purpose, which is to survive. Fuck. Everything else doesn't matter that the lungs have to have to breathe. It doesn't matter that your heart has to pump. It doesn't matter that your legs have to run. What matters is your whole body is one working mechanism, and its only purpose is to survive. And you let out and everybody around you hears this, a kind of choked gasp as you open your eyes wide and realize that you are moving faster. You know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you and everyone around you is moving faster than humanly possible. You've seen images of, like, Usain Bolt run. You've seen videos. You know that you're running faster than that. You are running faster than some cars would dare to go down these pothole laden roads. And you glance to one side and then the other, and you can see Coda's eyes are glowing. You can see it looks like Chris's entire body is just barely pulsing with something. You can feel this wild, frenetic, desperate driving energy coming off of all four of your companions. And for a moment, you think, we might just survive this. I don't know how, but we might just survive in the middle of all of this pain. And then you get yanked backwards. It's like a huge hand has grabbed the back of your jacket and yanked you backwards while everybody else is going forward. And you watch. You watch as your friends bolt forward and you go backwards. And the last thought that goes through your mind before the world goes dark is they might just survive this. You are all in varying states of aware. You're very aware of your body. You're very aware of your desperate need to survive. Varying states of awareness. Beyond that, unfortunately, you are just aware enough to hear a grunt and a gasp from beside you and Oliver, you turn. Your good eye is on the side, on the correct side just in time to look over and see Teddy, as he seems to very abruptly stop moving or move backwards, maybe. And as you turn your head, while you're still running forward, you turn your head in time to see Teddy getting yanked like a rag doll back through the mist behind you. [01:44:01] Speaker B: I have to think for just a millisecond, but I'm going to turn around and go back for him. [01:44:13] Speaker A: Everybody else sees, to some degree, roughly the same thing. Teddy gets yanked backwards into the mist. [01:44:25] Speaker D: I'm going back as well. [01:44:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:44:27] Speaker D: No one left behind. [01:44:29] Speaker A: Yes. Everybody comes skidding to a halt. You are all breathing heavily, but not nearly as winded as you should be. Your bodies burn, but the pain is starting to recede. And what is left behind is for those of you who have experienced a true adrenaline rush like that, but sweeter and more potent. It's like if you lived your entire life with the effects of an adrenaline rush just under the surface, you're just able to stay mellow, but you still get all of that oomph that it gives you. Going forward, you four will have an extra three dice to all rolls. Okay. As you turn, you hear an abrupt and pained scream come from the mist. Teddy, it's hard to tell what's happening. You got yanked backwards off of your feet. You have been shaken like a rag doll. And what makes you scream out is the feeling of complete and utter agony that comes from having what feels like oversized teeth, teeth bigger than like a grown man's hand are sinking into your torso. They're not squeezing so much that they're crushing you. They're definitely piercing flesh. You can feel hot wetness on you. You're not sure if it's blood or saliva. And you're shaken again and then sort of let go, and you tumble out onto the street and come just into the line of view of the other four as they turn to run back towards you. You all see Teddy laying in the middle of the road, covered in blood, alive but visibly gasping for air. And there is something large and dark like a shadow coming out of the mist on the opposite side of him. And you can hear that low rumbling, half growl, half chuckle that you heard before. [01:48:09] Speaker B: Without a second thought. I want to try to run up to Tedy, get him up on his feet, maybe drape one of his arms around my shoulder, and just try to get him out of there. [01:48:20] Speaker A: Give me a decks and athletics to see if you can even get to him in time. This is an opposed role. You're rolling against the bad guys, who I will roll for on my end. [01:48:35] Speaker B: If we can clearly see two successes. [01:48:39] Speaker F: Would I be able to help by trying to move away? [01:48:45] Speaker A: I will let you roll, Teddy. You are going to actually be at negative two dice decks and athletics. [01:48:52] Speaker B: I throw a floppy ruler at the shape through the mist to get some kind of bonus. [01:48:57] Speaker A: I don't think it's going to give you a bonus. I'm sorry. [01:48:59] Speaker B: Okay. I still do it. Anyway, I have plenty more. [01:49:04] Speaker F: Two successes. [01:49:05] Speaker A: Two successes from each of you. Sarah, you were trying to say something. [01:49:10] Speaker E: Well, if we can see, like, the big mass through the fog, sarah is going to draw her firearm and aim it at that in case it tries to lunge at the two trying to escape. [01:49:24] Speaker A: Well, it's definitely going to try to. So why don't you go ahead and roll your firearms? Roll that we calculated during your session. Zero. [01:49:33] Speaker E: Okay. [01:49:34] Speaker C: I'm also fully preparing to smack down with a bat. [01:49:44] Speaker A: Chris. [01:49:47] Speaker D: I'm going to run in and try and help up our fallen comrade as well. Make it easier. Grab them on the other side. [01:49:56] Speaker A: Make a Dex in athletics, please, with the bonus. Die. Yes. Coda, your baseball bat. Holy cow. That's a lot of dice. [01:50:11] Speaker B: Oh, my wow. [01:50:15] Speaker A: How many successes, Damien? [01:50:17] Speaker D: Eight. [01:50:18] Speaker A: Jesus, Koda. It should have made like, a club. Die, pool under your yes, yes. [01:50:28] Speaker C: Looking between the light and heavy, but. [01:50:30] Speaker A: Yes, light and heavy is brawling. We're looking for your melee. [01:50:44] Speaker E: Five successes and six for me. [01:50:52] Speaker A: Okay. Holy cow, guys. All right, I'm going to need Coda and Sarah to roll your damage. Do not get extra diced. You do get extra dice to damage. I'm sorry. You both hit, is what I'm saying. So now roll your damage and you get your extra three dice. [01:51:25] Speaker C: Damage is what again? It would be that top column. That's the weapon that says three plus three B. [01:51:36] Speaker A: Yes. [01:51:37] Speaker C: Okay. [01:51:41] Speaker A: Not bad, Sarah. [01:51:44] Speaker E: And that's lethal. [01:51:48] Speaker A: Yes. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. [01:51:54] Speaker C: How do I roll damage again? [01:51:58] Speaker A: Did you not write down your calculations? [01:52:01] Speaker C: I did. At the bottom, I have the strength plus deck divided by two, plus skill, so on and so forth. Do I roll that again? [01:52:11] Speaker A: No, you would roll your goodness. This is why we did this ahead of time. I'm so sorry, guys. You're going to roll your strength and melee plus your plus I guess it would be technically plus six. Three from the bat and then three from okay. It's not with all of the extra stuff added on. [01:52:39] Speaker C: Okay, got you. [01:52:41] Speaker A: I think that's what we'll call it for now. I'll go through and look again. [01:52:51] Speaker C: Okay. [01:52:53] Speaker A: They have decent soak anyway. All right, so that's three. [01:53:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:53:07] Speaker A: Okay, here's what happens. You guys have, basically a split second to try and pull this off and get away because you can hear and see other similarly large and imposing shadows coming up out of the mist behind the one that got Teddy. Oliver and Chris run over and haul Teddy, who is bleeding and struggling to breathe, to his feet, and he is gasping and you can hear that his breathing doesn't sound right. Oliver, you are a very intelligent man. And while you've never necessarily heard this before, you have read about what it sounds like when someone's lung has been meanwhile, Sarah pulls a gun out from under her jacket. This quiet, unassuming, scholarly looking woman pulls a gun out from underneath of her jacket and fires off a single shot at the same time that Coda lets out a battle cry and hauls off with her bat. You hear Coda's bat make purchase with whatever it is that's in that mist. Coda, you are close enough that you see a deep amber eye staring back at you. Impossibly, too big. You study animals. You study animals. There are no wolves in the world this big. And you could swear that as your bat connects with it that it winks at you. And then Sarah's bullet impacts it on the opposite side of its face. It's too big, too intelligent, furry face. And you hear a yelp from the biggest, the largest animal you've ever seen of this type anyway. It's like a small elephant size, really big and it kind of rears back a little bit. And Sarah and Coda, because you are still facing it, you can see that one of its eyes is very visibly damaged where Sarah's bullet impacted with the eye. And then you watch as its lips and jaw move and it speaks. You're going to need a bigger gun. And then it bolts forward. I need Oliver and Chris and Teddy with your let me ask this. I rolled for this thing. It's going to get to Teddy again. Genuinely, you guys couldn't move fast enough to stop it from getting to him. There is a chance that it will also get you if you continue to hold on. You can continue to hold on and try to have a tug of war or try to turn and hit this thing or you can let go and try to get away before it and its friends come after you. What would you like to do? [01:58:00] Speaker D: I'm not leaving Teddy, so I'm going to attack the creature. [01:58:08] Speaker A: Are you going to let go of Teddy to try and attack it? Yeah. [01:58:12] Speaker D: I don't want to rip him in half. [01:58:14] Speaker A: Okay. Yes. Okay. [01:58:16] Speaker B: Oliver, seeing Chris go to do that, does it look like it might be possible that if Chris lets go to attack that he might be able to stop this thing from getting to Teddy before it gets here? [01:58:37] Speaker A: I don't know that he you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know whether or not he could stop it. You just know that he is moving to attack it one way or the other. [01:58:51] Speaker B: Either way, then I going to keep a hold on Teddy and keep trying to get him as far away as possible. [01:58:58] Speaker A: Okay. So I'm going to need a strength and either athletics or fortitude from you and I'm going to need a melee check from Chris. [01:59:17] Speaker D: Can I use Brawl instead? [01:59:20] Speaker A: Going to thumb you're not using the bat. [01:59:23] Speaker D: Well, I let go of the bat. [01:59:24] Speaker A: Remember, back in the yes, I apologize. Yes, you could absolutely use Brawl. [01:59:30] Speaker B: That's five successes from me. [01:59:32] Speaker A: Pretty good. Wow. [01:59:43] Speaker D: One success. [01:59:44] Speaker A: I mean, you had eight successes earlier. You were due for a poor role. Okay, how many did you get, Oliver? [01:59:54] Speaker B: Five. [01:59:55] Speaker A: Okay. You lock your arm around Teddy. You can hear the pained wheeze that comes from him, as you are unfortunately forced to put an arm directly over where he's been bitten. [02:00:19] Speaker B: As we're moving along, could I also just kind of try to be talking to him to at least distract him? Just so I've been reading this very nice book recently. It's Ivana Gitz. I was gifted it for Christmas by my parents. And, well, it's leatherbound, which I really enjoy. Gilded pages. And I believe it's Slaughterhouse Five, which. [02:00:38] Speaker A: Weirdly, I've never had the about books. While you feel like you're bleeding out. [02:00:47] Speaker F: I don't think he feels like he's bleeding out. I think he is bleeding out. [02:00:51] Speaker A: Well, I mean, possibly. Could also be drowning in his own blood. It's hard to tell. [02:00:58] Speaker F: I'm going to give him my clipboard and just say my phone's in that keep it, just in case, please. [02:01:08] Speaker B: We're going to get you out here, get you to a hospital. Don't worry. My mother's a doctor, actually. She talks about it on occasion. Punctual lungs actually are pretty survivable. Two thirds of people I think. [02:01:25] Speaker C: Two. [02:01:25] Speaker F: Thirds of people are attacked by that. [02:01:27] Speaker A: That's fucking wild. Okay, so here's what happens. Chris, you made your role. You got one. Oliver, you find strength you never knew you had. You're sort of bodying Teddy because Teddy's legs are very quickly getting more and more difficult for him to move on his own as he is losing blood rapidly. Chris, you turn and your fist impacts with what you realize. Blatantly is the biggest fuck off wolf you've ever seen. It looks like something out of a movie. It's that big. It's the size of a car. It is ineffectual like I'm not even going to have you roll down. Eventually you hit it, but it doesn't do anything. It barely seems to register that you're there at first. It is dead set on Teddy and Oliver, who is trying to pull him away. And you could hear Oliver babbling about books, of all things. And then all of you, Teddy included, hear another howl. Except this one isn't in the distance, it's steps away. It's just beyond the edge of the mist. And you can hear snarls and growls and you can hear them moving like they are trying to spread out to either side of you. Sarah, Oliver, Coda, I want each of you to make me an intellect. And either academics or animal can roll whatever is higher. Eddie, you could too, as well. I apologize. [02:03:50] Speaker F: That's fun. What would I be rolling? Sorry? [02:03:52] Speaker A: Academics or animal? Ken and intellect. [02:03:57] Speaker F: Okay, would this be with that plus three from whatever. [02:04:09] Speaker A: I'll give you plus three on this one. Roll anything physical, you're going to be at negatives. [02:04:15] Speaker F: That's fair. [02:04:15] Speaker A: I forgot the plus three. You can roll another three dice. [02:04:22] Speaker B: That's six from me. [02:04:25] Speaker E: Five from me. [02:04:31] Speaker C: Three for me. [02:04:32] Speaker A: How many? Three. I go four, five, six. Coda. You're angry and kind of focused on trying to keep a different one that came up behind you once you realized you spun to try and keep it in your sights. So you're not super focused on what the others are doing. This is the closest one to you. This is the new thread. Who got the four, five, and six? Okay, here's what you realize. The four and the five, whoever got those, you are being surrounded. This is pack tactics. They're wolves, and there are more of them than there are of you. Whoever got the six, I think that was Sarah. [02:05:41] Speaker B: No, that was me. [02:05:43] Speaker A: Oliver, I apologize by your very quick mental math. The way that this is going, you've got seconds at best to get away if you're going to, and you're probably not going to be able to do it with dead weight, especially if their intention is for all of them to turn and attack all of you. Does that make sense? If they're all as dangerous as the one that you've already had to face? Everybody's dead. Chris, I didn't have you roll because you don't have the right skill set. However, your awareness is taken up by second wolf who has come up. It is slightly smaller than the one that you attempted to punch. Thinner, a little bit more svelte, graceful. And the eyes that it levels on you while still gold, still very typical of wolf's eyes, seem somehow even more intelligent than the one that you saw as the first wolf was going after Teddy. It advances, but is a little less forceful than the first one. It's more it's like a calculating predator rather than a purely working on instinct. It looks like it's thinking, and you can hear it taking deep, deep breaths now that it's closer to you. Still looks like it's trying to pen you in. The others will notice that it still looks like it's trying to pen you in, but it is taking very deep breaths and is taking very pointedly, very pointed interest in you specifically. [02:08:18] Speaker D: Do I think I have any chance of getting away from this thing whatsoever? [02:08:22] Speaker A: If you run, if you were able to run the way you think, you're pretty sure you were running before you stopped. [02:08:28] Speaker D: Yeah, maybe, but then I would end up leaving all of my friends. [02:08:39] Speaker A: Unless they run with you. They were keeping up with you. [02:08:42] Speaker D: But Teddy can't run, right? [02:08:44] Speaker A: Except Teddy. [02:08:45] Speaker D: Well, I don't want to leave him unless there's any way that maybe I can try and summon all of my reserves of strength and pick him up and try and run with him. I don't know. I don't want to leave him behind. He'll get ripped to shreds. [02:09:09] Speaker A: Here's what I want from you. I'm going to give you the opportunity to create a stunt, a three die stunt, so an extra three dice on top of the three that you've already got. [02:09:20] Speaker D: Okay? [02:09:21] Speaker A: If you can give me that pointedly, emotionally impactful movie moment where your character steals himself and gets that resolve together that you are going to save this person, even if it means you go down with him trying. [02:09:46] Speaker D: So I'm kind of looking around wildly, and then I look at this creature in front of me, and my gaze kind of fixes down into steely vision as I look at this thing. And with an absolute kind of like, cry, I'm going to grab Teddy, and then I'm going to my left arm immediately and with my right foot, I'm going to kick this creature in the chest. Not to do damage, but as like a jump off point to give me the extra motion and impetus to spring away with Teddy and continue running. [02:10:23] Speaker A: All right, I will give you your three dice. From that 100%, I'm going to give everybody else an opportunity. You all see Chris immediately kick into this decisive. These things seem almost too like people to be beasts, but for a moment, Chris seems too like a beast to be a person. It's just all feral guttural fury and determination. He hauls Teddy out of Oliver's arms, over his shoulder and just takes off. Go ahead and roll your dice for me, Chris, while everybody else tells me what they're going to do. [02:11:14] Speaker B: So I was trying to put pressure on Teddy's wound to staunch the bleeding as much as possible. So I'm covered in his blood, right? [02:11:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [02:11:24] Speaker B: I'm going to reach into my satchel and just begin smearing his blood over the covers, as many copies of Hamlets as I can, and just start tossing it out in random different directions to hopefully infuse the scent if I can. [02:11:42] Speaker A: Interesting. You know, that's interesting enough that I will let that be an extra dye stun Sarah. [02:11:56] Speaker E: When she sees this raw demonstration of strength, she's going to start running too. But just as long as there's no one behind her, she's going to provide covering shots so everyone else gets the chance to react. [02:12:14] Speaker A: Okay. Hoda. [02:12:21] Speaker C: Yep. Same thing. Once she hears and sees that everyone is running, sarah is shooting but backing up, she's going to do the same thing, turn and start running too, but make sure Sarah is not left behind. So it's kind of like I'll keep the rear end with you kind of situation. [02:12:45] Speaker B: Quick question. Does my one dice apply to whatever I'm going to be rolling next, or does it get added on to. [02:12:53] Speaker A: Going to I will say that it'll add to everybody gets an additional die. [02:13:02] Speaker D: Yes. [02:13:02] Speaker A: Even Chris. [02:13:04] Speaker B: I got you, buddy. [02:13:12] Speaker D: I got seven. [02:13:14] Speaker A: Seven's. Really fucking good. Okay. Sarah, I would like Dex and athletics with your additional you should have an additional four dice between the three that you got and the one that Oliver gave you. Oliver, I would like the same, actually. Oliver, I will allow you to make this an intelligence and athletics role. [02:13:40] Speaker B: Wonderful. [02:13:44] Speaker A: Two. Good Lord. Okay. Coda, strength and athletics. Okay. [02:13:53] Speaker B: Three. [02:13:57] Speaker A: Amy's on a fucking roll. Jesus. Well, thankfully, it is the person who is leading the pack and the person who is kind of bringing up the rear who rolled the best, which works out well for those of you who are in the middle. Sarah, you fire off shots, but there's too many. They're big. They barely seem to feel it. It's like they're shrugging it off. Coda very quickly realizes that doing damage isn't what you need to go for. And what Coda ends up doing is, as she is running, she occasionally will kind of pivot into a pirouette. And as she does so, she brings that bat around and she'll catch one of them directly across the tip of the nose, which seems to be just enough to make it pull its head back. And it stumbles just a bit, loses a step. It's not much, but it gives you an ever growing lead as you go. Chris is carrying Teddy like it's nobody's business. Chris, you've always been strong. You're a big guy. You work out, you lift. You've never done anything like this. And you all realize as you are hauling ass through the streets of Baltimore out of this seeming ghost town of a neighborhood that you've been stranded in with these wolves, and you're headed towards what you hope are more. Populated areas. Chris is the first one to do the physically impossible thing before you all realize that you are able to do very similar. Chris runs toward an intersection where two of the major roadways that cuts through Baltimore's various neighborhoods is. There are cars on this road, not many because it's late and it's a weekday. But as you are running ahead, chris spots a semi. Chris, you don't know what inspires you to do it. You don't know why you would ever consider that it works, but there is just this steely determination in your gut, and you bolt towards the semi that is driving down the road. You know, it can't see you. You know it's too dark, and you're in all black. Whoever is driving is not going to see you. This is either going to go really well or really poorly. And you run and run and run. And at the last minute, you plant your right foot and you launch all of your weight off of it. And before you realize that you have jumped as high and as far as you have, you land on top of the semi and you look back in time for the others to be doing the same. Everybody just follows suit without thinking about it. Oliver lands and then kind of immediately starts to scramble and kind of has to just drop himself onto his belly to keep from falling off because athletics is not his strong suit. But everybody makes the jump. [02:18:20] Speaker C: Holy shit. [02:18:25] Speaker B: That happened. [02:18:26] Speaker A: Teddy? [02:18:28] Speaker F: Yeah. Did we get away? [02:18:31] Speaker B: I think so. His lungs punctured. We need to get him to a hospital. Or do we know where we are in the city right now? [02:18:40] Speaker A: You are somewhere outside of the Middle East, John. Everybody could make me an intelligence and awareness role. [02:19:00] Speaker B: That's two or three for me. [02:19:02] Speaker E: Three for me as well. [02:19:05] Speaker D: One for me. [02:19:10] Speaker A: Holy shit. Coda. [02:19:12] Speaker F: I got six. [02:19:12] Speaker A: Jesus Christ. [02:19:13] Speaker C: Seven again. [02:19:18] Speaker A: Oh, I forgot. [02:19:19] Speaker E: Three dice. [02:19:21] Speaker F: You forgot? Okay. I thought that was koda, but you forgot. [02:19:29] Speaker E: Five for me. [02:19:30] Speaker D: Are we still adding three dice to this? [02:19:32] Speaker A: Yes. Okay, you are all I'm sorry. Who got over three? [02:19:53] Speaker B: I got three. Exactly. [02:19:55] Speaker A: I got five, six. [02:20:01] Speaker C: Seven. [02:20:06] Speaker A: Okay, you all. This is me going. It's been a long time since I've been to this part of Baltimore, so I'm having to look at a map. I apologize. You all are on North Broadway, headed north, which is leading you further up into the city. Unfortunately, it is taking you away from the nearest hospital, which is Johns Hopkins. [02:20:44] Speaker B: Would I know if the way that we're going will take us closer to my parents house? [02:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. [02:20:55] Speaker B: If we can get to the home. My parents my mother is a surgeon. She specializes in spines. But she might still be able to help Teddy if we can get him there. [02:21:07] Speaker C: Sure. But maybe we should stop leaping over cars before, I mean, get arrested or something. I don't know what's going on, but maybe we should stop leaping over cars and whatever. [02:21:25] Speaker B: My mind is currently putting that on the bookshelf for later, because right now there is a man dying. And I think this is true. [02:21:31] Speaker C: This is true. [02:21:31] Speaker A: This is true. Heady stamina and fortitude. Remember that you were at negatives because this is a physical role. [02:21:45] Speaker F: It's minus two, I think you said before. [02:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah, cool. Oh, he wants oh, sweetheart. Yikes. Unfortunately, Teddy, as they are desperately trying to come up with a plan, you can feel your heart laboring and you are gasping and you become very distinctly aware, because you know exactly where you are, that even if they got you to a hospital this second, it would be hard for someone to save you. You have maybe a minute, enough time to say whatever you need to say, leave messages for people, whatever it is that you are going to do. [02:22:53] Speaker F: Yeah. The clipboard to Oliver. I would tell Oliver the password to the phone is 121-9845. I need you to leave a message, just a text message to Dolores. It's got a heart next to her name. Just tell her I love her and that's it. And tell the babysitter she can drink any alcohol she. [02:23:34] Speaker A: Wants. [02:23:37] Speaker B: Hey, we're going to get you to my mother. She's going to make you fine. You're going to be okay. [02:23:47] Speaker F: I'm going to be okay. [02:23:49] Speaker A: Wherever I'm going, I'm going to be fine, right? [02:23:52] Speaker B: You're going to be fine. I'll send the message like I said. [02:24:01] Speaker F: 1219-8451-2119-8451-2198-4598-45. Yeah. [02:24:14] Speaker B: Okay. I'm going to take the phone shaggily. Try to not get blood on the screen and do what he tells me, send the messages, do what he wants. [02:24:27] Speaker E: Sarah's gonna offer Teddy her hand and sit next to him. [02:24:35] Speaker F: Teddy will take your hand. [02:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:24:39] Speaker D: Buddy, you got this. We can get you through. Come on. [02:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah, let's go. Coda's, like, praying to any and every god she possibly can. She's like, I'll stop smoking. I'll stop drinking. I'll do everything under the sun. Please save him while we're. [02:24:59] Speaker B: Um and I make a role to for the logical part of my mind, tell if it's basically over for him. [02:25:09] Speaker A: You can make me an intelligence and medicine roll. [02:25:20] Speaker B: Medicine is Mezzan its own skill, or. [02:25:22] Speaker A: Is it part of it is its own skill? [02:25:23] Speaker B: Yes, up there it is. I see it. It's going to be 80. That's seven, as in seven successes. [02:25:40] Speaker A: Holy shit. Yeah. You can tell that he's on his way out. Maybe if you had been going in the right direction, maybe if you hadn't been running in the opposite direction of the hospital in the first place before you even got to the truck. [02:26:01] Speaker B: Maybe we're just sitting on the top of this semi truck right as it's driving. [02:26:07] Speaker A: It is still driving. Yeah. You are going in the opposite direction of the nearest hospital, and the others are halfway across the city. [02:26:19] Speaker B: At this point. Everyone else is basically crowd around Teddy, so he's going to see plenty of friendly faces when he goes. And I'm going to take a moment to kind of step away, probably behind everyone where they don't see me, just drop down and just put my face in my hands and just feel completely and utterly useless. [02:26:55] Speaker A: As you all are there with Teddy. And Teddy is laying on top of this truck as it is going along the road. Everybody hears a very out of place sound. You hear the sound of it's almost like the creaking of trees in wind. Or maybe like a floorboard, an old floorboard that creaks when you step on it. And among the diesel and the asphalt and the coppery tang of blood, for just a moment, you can swear that you can smell fresh grass. Teddy. As Teddy's eyes begin to close teddy, your eyes flutter, and the world is going gray around the edges and darkness is closing in, and you're cold for all the burning and the pain that came earlier. Now you feel cold and numb, and your eyes start to flutter. And as they do, you could swear you're not on top of the truck anymore. You're somewhere else. You're standing on what looks like the top of a high rolling hill. No, not a hill. You turn your head and you look and you realize that it's a cliff. And the sky lightens around you like dawn is breaking. And it's painted in glorious dawn colors. Pinks and purples and oranges and robin's egg blue. And you can feel grass and clover under your bare feet. There's no pain. And there's a woman standing in front of you. She is fair skinned with long, riotous red curls. [02:29:56] Speaker C: Her. [02:29:59] Speaker A: Cheekbones are dotted with freckles, and she has kind and yet flinty and determined green eyes. And she gives you smile that looks regretful pained. I'm so sorry. This isn't what I wanted for you. [02:30:52] Speaker F: Yeah, he would just look around, take in the environment he's in now. Where am I? What happened to the truck and the people on it? [02:31:15] Speaker C: Still there. [02:31:16] Speaker A: Your body too. [02:31:23] Speaker F: Dead? [02:31:24] Speaker A: I'm afraid so. Normally you would have gone elsewhere, but you're special, and I pulled in a favor. [02:31:40] Speaker F: With my luck, then. [02:31:45] Speaker A: Well, I mean, if you'd rather go straight to the underworld, I suppose that can be arranged. But I thought this might be a better place to wake up. [02:32:01] Speaker F: Suppose I just want to be with my wife now. [02:32:10] Speaker A: He winces a little bit at that and kind of rubs at the back of her neck. I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do. When all of this is settled, I'd have to figure out where she went. [02:32:35] Speaker F: What do you mean? Where? Isn't it just one place? [02:32:40] Speaker A: No. [02:32:41] Speaker F: Heaven? Hell? [02:32:43] Speaker A: No. There's a great many places. Great many places both beautiful and terrible. But I'm afraid your story is both at an end and a whole new beginning. Back on the truck. Chris, Sarah, Coda, you all watch the life go out of Teddy. [02:33:40] Speaker D: I would like to do something, if I may. [02:33:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. [02:33:43] Speaker D: I'd look around and say, has anyone got a knife? [02:33:50] Speaker B: I have a rubber ruler. [02:33:53] Speaker C: I might have something. Yeah. And I would say, I have a knife. [02:34:00] Speaker D: Can I borrow it? [02:34:03] Speaker C: She'll pass it over. [02:34:05] Speaker D: I'm going to make an incision on the palm of my right hand. Make an incision on the palm of Teddy's right hand. And I'm going to grasp the two together and I'm going to say, hell, great goddess, daughter of Loki, guardian of the spirits of the dead, our friend Teddy has come to you now. As Teddy kneels before you, hell know how much he was loved in this life and how many he loved in return before he crossed over. He was an honorable soul, a soaring spirit, a brave warrior. Hell watch over him as he crosses the bridge from this life to the next and welcome him with honor and glories that he may live on forever in our hearts and memories. I'm just going to bow my head. I'm using, like, my blood on his blood. Just kind of clutch my hand tightly to his. [02:34:53] Speaker C: Amen. [02:34:59] Speaker A: I will give you two extra dice for any role one time for the remainder of the session for that. That was very good, Sarah. You've been very quiet. [02:35:28] Speaker E: She's just been holding Teddy's hand, kind of waiting for it to go cold. She doesn't want to let go before it's too soon. [02:35:37] Speaker A: It was already a little too cold when you were holding it because he'd lost so much blood. But it's obvious when the life leaves him. You see that final exhale, even though you can't hear it over the sound of the truck. [02:35:59] Speaker E: She'll look up to the others and just say, he's gone. [02:36:15] Speaker C: So what now? Do we go to a police station, or what do we do with a body? Like, what what was hunting us? How do we prove that we didn't just off this guy? What was chasing us? She's just going to start getting her joint out and getting ready to smoke it, but her hands, like, shaking while she's trying to wipe the joint. What do we do now? [02:36:53] Speaker E: Well, I think first things first, we all need to get somewhere safe. We can find the answers to the questions that you're rightly asking. [02:37:05] Speaker B: I think my apartment's nearby. We could go there to regroup. [02:37:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:37:32] Speaker E: Sarah will look over at Chris. Are you able to carry him down? I don't want to just leave him here. [02:37:48] Speaker A: Chris. [02:37:58] Speaker E: Are you able to carry him down? I don't want to just leave him here. [02:38:02] Speaker D: Yeah, that's fine. [02:38:11] Speaker B: Even get down. We're on a moving truck. [02:38:14] Speaker E: We'll just wait until the next stop. [02:38:16] Speaker B: Sword through the air to land on while we were being chased by some sort of pack of demon wolves. And there's mist and boy, I don't know what's happening. [02:38:36] Speaker C: And now we have a dead body on our hands. [02:38:42] Speaker A: The best option would be to leave. [02:38:44] Speaker E: Him at a hospital to be declared dead and have his emergency contacts told immediately, but I don't know if we have that option currently. [02:38:56] Speaker B: We could take him to a hospital. His wounds will probably line up with some kind of animal bites. They won't pin it on us because what reason? We don't have any sort of motive or means to do this to him in my tribe. And there's no way anything would stick, probably. [02:39:31] Speaker C: Goodness. [02:39:38] Speaker E: Sarah will just put a hand on Oliver's shoulder, say it's gonna be all right. Eventually, but it's gonna be all right. [02:39:48] Speaker B: It should have been me. It should have gotten me instead. He had a wife, kid. I don't have anything. Nothing would change if I was gone. Now that he's gone, a child's life has changed forever. It will never be the same for her if I was gone. [02:40:11] Speaker A: Mr. [02:40:11] Speaker E: Bright, now's not the time for this. [02:40:16] Speaker A: I need you to focus. [02:40:18] Speaker B: If anything, I think it's the perfect time. Where? Truck's not stopping anytime soon. Doesn't look like. [02:40:30] Speaker A: It. [02:40:33] Speaker E: Again, we need to focus. I'm not saying that we don't have a right to grieve, but just not right now. [02:40:48] Speaker C: Question. Are any of us still glowing? [02:40:54] Speaker A: The glow has subsided. [02:40:56] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. Let's just get to your apartment and figure this out. Is your car at your apartment? Because then at least we could take his body at our own speed. [02:41:16] Speaker B: It's at the apartment complex. We might want to take his body first before going or taking his corpse to a place where I live. If we do that, then they may have some means to pin things on us because why are we dragging a corpse around if we should have just taken to the hospital first? [02:41:42] Speaker E: Sarah's gonna crawl over to the end of the truck and see if she can knock on the top hatch of the driver's area. [02:41:56] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. You make your way over and you lean down while laying on top of the back of it and kind of bang with your fist on the top of the oh, I don't even know what it's called. The front of the truck. Thank you. I was like, words are hard. And you don't really see anything happen for a minute, but then it swerves just a tiny bit and you see, like, a head pop out of the driver's side window and look upward. And he's like, what the fuck? And then yeah, as soon as possible, which is still a few blocks because this is one of the major throughways, but as soon as he's able to, he pulls over into the parking lot of a closed business and gets out of his truck. And it's like, what the hell are you people doing on top of my truck? How did you even get up there? How long have you been up there? I've been driving for 4 hours. [02:43:04] Speaker B: We were attacked a bit back, and to get away, we had to jump off a bridge and hope for the best. And all things lucked out as you were driving by, and we landed and our friend is dead. [02:43:21] Speaker A: Wait, what? Sorry. [02:43:24] Speaker C: He's had bad hash. We got into a situation and we've been up here. Do you mind just dropping us off at the nearest hospital? Maybe? [02:43:37] Speaker A: Um you have a dead body. What? [02:43:46] Speaker D: I'll pull out some money, like $100 and go, dude, here's $100. [02:43:59] Speaker A: He'll take it. He looks very confused. You're covered in blood. [02:44:09] Speaker B: Like I said, we were attacked. [02:44:13] Speaker A: And you need a hospital? [02:44:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Fast, please. [02:44:16] Speaker B: Preferably. [02:44:19] Speaker A: Okay. Are you going to get down? [02:44:25] Speaker B: That would be a good idea. [02:44:34] Speaker A: He sort of, like, stares at you like, well. [02:44:40] Speaker C: Coda will get down. Do you mind if I smoke in here? [02:44:45] Speaker A: Yes. [02:44:46] Speaker C: You do mind or like, you don't? [02:44:48] Speaker A: Yes, I mind. [02:44:51] Speaker C: Okay. She'll put it out again on the side of the car and then get into the car. [02:45:04] Speaker D: I'll ask for some help from the other two to get Teddy down. [02:45:10] Speaker A: Between the three of you, you can lower him down. The driver looks very spooked by the presence of a dead body, but lets you all up into the cab and then gets in and heads for the nearest hospital. [02:45:33] Speaker B: While we're doing that, can I do something? I'd like to reach into my satchel once again, pull out a pen, yet another copy of Hamlet, and probably starting to run low at this point, and just kind of rip off the back cover and just write on it for Mrs. Abernathy and then attach it to Teddy's clipboard that has all of his information on his most recent assignments and jobs and things like that, and kind of just tuck it into Teddy's arm. But I'm still going to hold onto his phone for now. [02:46:20] Speaker A: He drives you to the nearest hospital, which actually involves turning around and going back the way that you came, but he doesn't cut through the neighborhood that you guys were in because it's not safe. He's like, we go through there. I'll get jacked not knowing that's where you guys came from. But he takes you to Johns Hopkins, which is the major hospital in the area, drops you off very explicitly asked to be left out of it, and then, like, leaves. As soon as you guys are out of the truck, he drives away. He wants nothing to do with whatever the fuck is going on with you people. How are you guys going to handle this? He'll drop you off wherever. If you guys want to go straight up to the Er entrance, you can, but that's going to draw a lot of attention. He can drop you off in one of the outer parking lots. He can drop you off across the street. Depends on you. [02:47:34] Speaker E: Sarah says the Er. [02:47:38] Speaker B: People are going to notice a corpse either way. I think the Er is fine. [02:47:44] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:47:45] Speaker A: Okay. So are you guys walking him in? Are you leaving him outside? What are you doing? Yeah, carry him in. Okay. [02:47:56] Speaker C: Yeah. Coda is going to walk a little bit at a distance, the back of the group. [02:48:05] Speaker D: I'll carry him in. [02:48:07] Speaker A: Perfect. [02:48:08] Speaker B: In case when they call the police and we are pinned as suspects. I know a good lawyer. I'm just going to point at Sasha or Sarah. [02:48:23] Speaker E: Sarah rolls her eyes. Thought you're talking about your father. [02:48:29] Speaker B: No, he's a DA. He'd probably make an exception for me, but I would rather have someone whose specialty is defense. [02:48:45] Speaker A: Well, you all carry Teddy in. There is a flurry of activity as people nurses rush over. They get him onto a gurney. They wheel him away. You know that he's dead. You know that there's probably nothing that they can do for him, but they have to try, and only a doctor can call it. So they wheel him off to one of the Ors, and security at the hospital kind of corners you guys and, you know, starts getting information. You're 99.9% certain that a call to the cops has already happened. Are you guys going to try to leave or are you going to stay here? [02:49:57] Speaker E: Other than not letting anyone talk to any security or make any statements to them, sarah's just going to follow the lead of the others. [02:50:09] Speaker D: I'm going to follow the lead of. [02:50:10] Speaker A: Sarah because she yeah, that's what Coda. [02:50:13] Speaker C: Was going to do. She's listening to whatever Sarah tells counsel. [02:50:17] Speaker B: What do you think we should do? [02:50:20] Speaker E: We should stay. If we flee from the police, then it won't look good for us and, well, we've done nothing wrong. It was just a dog attack gone wrong, she says, looking at all of them with, like, the you guys know what I'm saying, right? [02:50:35] Speaker B: Eyes reach into my coat pocket and just shakily pull out my wallet and just hand Sarah a single dollar. You officially represent me now. [02:50:46] Speaker A: Okay. [02:50:49] Speaker B: While we wait, can I also just kind of go into a semi secluded corner, unlock Teddy's phone, consider transferring or not transferring, but putting his wife's number into my own phone and then calling her decide it's probably not the best to do that before giving a statement to the police, or maybe even after. And then change my mind and go back to the group. [02:51:18] Speaker A: I have to ask Swifty a question. [02:51:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:51:24] Speaker A: Do you have pictures for your contacts? Do you have photos assigned to the contact cards? [02:51:33] Speaker F: Yes, Teddy would, but only for four people, like his mom, dad, and then his daughter. And that's basically kind of it. [02:51:45] Speaker A: Okay. [02:51:46] Speaker F: Oliver probably still got his wife's number on there, though. [02:51:51] Speaker A: Oliver is as you open up the phone, you get the wife's number and picture, but it's not the number that he had you text. You realize now that you actually have a chance to look at it, that the number that he had you text was his daughter's. [02:52:18] Speaker B: I'm just going to kind of put my hand up onto the wall for support, just from with my free hand. Just put it in my face or put my face in it and take a moment to breathe before going over to the others. Now we wait. [02:52:44] Speaker A: You all are left alone in a conference room. The door is shut and you all get looked over by like a nurse comes by just to make sure that nobody needs any stitches or anything like that. The worst wounds are on the rest of you are Coda's hand from when she fell in Chris's palm, neither of which needs stitches. And then they very quickly leave you alone. You all have time. I will tell you that, given that Sarah works in the legal system, baltimore doesn't have great response times when people are still alive and need help. So you've got a hot minute before they show up for you. So you all are basically locked into a conference room. You can tell that the security guard is outside, but the door is shut and the blinds on the windows have been closed. [02:54:13] Speaker B: You should probably iron out the exact story, because I don't know if exactly what happened will be all that believable. [02:54:23] Speaker E: What did we all see? [02:54:27] Speaker B: I saw a large, too bright moon that seemed to change. And I heard a howl and I think a laugh. Then I started running, and I found you. And that's when stuff happened to our car or your car. And then we were all running, and there was the wolves. They got Teddy. And I don't know if it was just me. I wouldn't even know what I was saying. [02:55:17] Speaker E: Well, I saw all of that, too. But the part that bothered me the most was that all of the houses I saw, their windows were dark on a Monday afternoon. [02:55:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:55:27] Speaker A: Evening. It's nighttime. [02:55:30] Speaker E: Evenings. [02:55:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Even my nosy neighbor didn't hear or see anything from her. [02:55:38] Speaker B: All that. [02:55:43] Speaker C: I mean, we hit it really mean. Sarah also shot it, but it didn't seem affected. No. It even winked at us and said, what was it? We're going to need a bigger gun. I thought I was bugging, but if more than one person saw it and a wolf spoke to us, winked at us and said we needed a bigger gun. I work with animals, and I've never seen an animal do that before. Just saying. [02:56:25] Speaker E: I know wolves are big, but I. [02:56:26] Speaker A: Don'T think they were that big. Yeah. [02:56:29] Speaker C: No, they're not. [02:56:30] Speaker B: Or talk. [02:56:32] Speaker C: No. [02:56:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:56:38] Speaker B: So what's the story we're going with? We were all already in Middle East for our own various reasons. I think we can stick with that. And we left our respective buildings, happened to come across each other. By happenstance, some of us know each other. We were chatting, and a rabbit dog came in. Just stray, stray, stray rabbit dog attacked Teddy, and he was too quick. We didn't have enough time to do anything. Once it sank in pretty deep, we managed to pry it off and it ran away, but it was too late at that point. We got him here as quick as we could, but he was already bleeding pretty bad. [02:57:33] Speaker D: He died on the way. [02:57:35] Speaker B: Died on the way? [02:57:37] Speaker A: Yes. [02:57:43] Speaker E: All right, let's practice a few more times for the police. And she'll kind of help coach everyone through. Just, like, answering all the questions and not giving up too much information and all of the kind of basics of, well, not being arrested for being crazy at this point. [02:58:15] Speaker C: Why was it hunting us? It could smell us. Like, what makes us so. [02:58:31] Speaker D: One of them tried to break in through the kitchen door of the house I was in, and it called me a godling. There's a godling in here. There's a godling in here, he said it said. [02:58:45] Speaker E: What does it mean by that? [02:58:47] Speaker D: No idea. [02:58:53] Speaker B: Like, it's I don't even know, the Ilihad or something. [02:59:02] Speaker C: The what? [02:59:03] Speaker B: The Ilihad. It's? It's a Greek epic. It's lost stories, and you probably know about it from the Trojan War, things like that. Achilles, Hector, Paris, all that. [02:59:20] Speaker E: I've looked over it once or twice. [02:59:23] Speaker C: I spark notes, everything I know, I've readress it. [02:59:28] Speaker D: This is kind of closer to the Volsung. This is not Eliad. This is like Volsungs is wearing the bear skin. You know, there was a wolf, he was the size of a truck. You saw it? Yeah, saw a few of them. [02:59:53] Speaker B: It's like it crushed the car we were in and sent it straight point upwards like we were like a plane about to take off or something. What does that. [03:00:12] Speaker A: I hate to be. [03:00:13] Speaker E: Cliche, but the only thing that comes to my mind is a werewolf. [03:00:17] Speaker C: That's what I was going to say, but we can't even rule it out. Look at what we just went through and okay. Besides just talking about the things that was attacking us I'm sorry. Show of hands, who was able to run and jump on a car this morning? Because if I could, I would be taking that way to get to my classes and to get to work. I wouldn't. Waiting for the bus or walking in the cold or something like that. [03:00:47] Speaker B: If you asked me to run a mile this morning, I probably would have died of cardiac arrest before I got to the halfway point. There's no way I'm jumping up onto a moving car. [03:00:57] Speaker E: I've never tried, but I doubt I could this morning. In fact, I did. Is surprising, say the least. [03:01:06] Speaker C: Yeah, some OD stuff happening. But why us? [03:01:21] Speaker B: Why us? [03:01:22] Speaker D: Wrong place, wrong time. [03:01:25] Speaker B: Was it though? It seemed like it was fairly targeted. Based on what you said that those things were looking for you specifically. Assuming you were this godling, was there anyone else in the house that could have fit that description? [03:01:37] Speaker D: No, I was in the house on my own then. [03:01:43] Speaker B: It beats me. [03:01:54] Speaker C: Trying to think if there's anything that we all have. Are you all from Baltimore too or you just no. Well, I mean I know. Wait. [03:02:03] Speaker D: No, I'm from Sweden. [03:02:05] Speaker C: Oh, Sweden. What are you doing out here in butt crack Baltimore? [03:02:11] Speaker D: My dad works for Ikea. What can I say? [03:02:14] Speaker C: Gotcha. [03:02:16] Speaker B: I have their desk in my apartment. [03:02:20] Speaker D: I'm sorry. [03:02:23] Speaker B: Don't be. It was cheap, right? [03:02:27] Speaker D: Just like my dad. [03:02:31] Speaker C: Can'T even talk about parents. I don't have any. [03:02:36] Speaker D: Oh, shit. [03:02:37] Speaker A: Really? [03:02:37] Speaker D: I'm sorry. [03:02:38] Speaker A: No, it's fine. [03:02:39] Speaker C: It's fine. [03:02:40] Speaker B: It's for the good for the ms. masqua, you don't have any parents. I remember when you were taking my this came a bit you were in the system, right? [03:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I used it in my college essay. [03:02:56] Speaker B: You said your dad is cheap, right? I don't think I caught your name ever, Mr. Godling. [03:03:09] Speaker D: Oh, me, sorry. Chris. Chris Strom. [03:03:13] Speaker B: Chris, pleasure. I'll get back. [03:03:19] Speaker D: Yeah. [03:03:22] Speaker C: Again. Butt crack Baltimore. What are you doing here? [03:03:26] Speaker D: Sorry, recording an. [03:03:35] Speaker B: Ms. Beckser, what can you tell me about your parents? [03:03:39] Speaker E: I don't know much about mine either. I was adopted when seven. [03:03:45] Speaker B: I was adopted when I was six. Mr. Strom, is your father, your biological father? [03:03:56] Speaker D: It's just Chris. Just call me Chris. It's fine. Yeah, as far as I'm aware. [03:03:59] Speaker B: All right, Mr. Chris. What about your mother? Do you know anything about your mother? [03:04:04] Speaker D: Yeah, she's my mom. As far as I'm concerned, they didn't tell me that I was adopted. As far as I'm aware, I'm harming the child. [03:04:16] Speaker C: So you're trying to say we're all related or something? [03:04:19] Speaker B: Like we're all no, no. What he said sort of puts a wrench in my theory. Originally, I thought maybe had something to do with our parentage being a bit cloudy, but if Mr. Chris knows both of his parents, that complicates the matter. [03:04:40] Speaker D: It's just Chris. Dude, just call me Chris, not Mr. Chris. It's fine. [03:04:44] Speaker B: You can keep telling me to. It's not going to happen. I'm sorry. [03:04:47] Speaker D: Okay. [03:04:47] Speaker B: I'm in shock right now. [03:04:48] Speaker C: Yeah, he's stubborn like that. I remember. I mean, well, you're not my teacher anymore, so does it matter? [03:04:57] Speaker E: Well, three out of four of us being system pointed. Quite the coincidence. [03:05:03] Speaker A: No matter the case. [03:05:08] Speaker C: We don't know about the guy that got ganked. [03:05:19] Speaker B: No, we don't know anything about Teddy. [03:05:23] Speaker D: Yeah, I met the guy before. He's an it tech, right? [03:05:27] Speaker B: Yes, he did work at the school I work at on occasion. [03:05:32] Speaker D: Yeah, he was doing stuff at the studio I was at and for the. [03:05:36] Speaker E: Municipal offices. [03:05:40] Speaker C: I guess. I saw him at the animal shelter, too, when our screens went down. [03:05:46] Speaker D: Oh, wait, so he's the only person that connects all of us together? [03:05:52] Speaker B: That's a connection. We all knew Teddy then. Still doesn't make sense. Why hunt us? Clearly, they wanted Teddy. They got Teddy, but why us? Are they going for everyone else that he knows as well? Is his daughter in danger? Is his wife in danger? [03:06:16] Speaker D: I think we're in the wrong place at the wrong time. I really do. We were all on the same street just when this shit went down. I don't think it's connected. I don't know. [03:06:24] Speaker B: And do those things attack anyone else in their homes? The homes that were suddenly pitch black? [03:06:34] Speaker D: Well, maybe that's why they went for the houses that weren't pitch black. I'm sped boy in here, I ain't got a clue. [03:06:44] Speaker B: Did we miss a memo? Was this the last plague of Egypt? We didn't put lamb blood on our doors, so the spirit of death came and came for us. [03:06:54] Speaker E: That was only for the first born. [03:06:59] Speaker C: Maybe that movie before. [03:07:05] Speaker B: It'S also A okay, never mind. [03:07:09] Speaker D: Didn't they make it into a book. [03:07:12] Speaker B: Something like that? Sure. Think they also made entire religion out of it, but, you know, we need to I think we need to get back to Teddy's place, make sure his family's all right. [03:07:32] Speaker C: After we get questioned, there's no way she's gonna look, Sarah, now, there's no way you can speed this up, right? Aren't you in the system? I mean, I guess you too, Mr. B. Aren't y'all in the system or something? Like government stuff? [03:07:53] Speaker B: Father who's a DA. I could call him, but that would require more explaining. [03:08:04] Speaker E: I might be able to get some friendlier faces over here sooner, but it's a long shot, especially after dark. [03:08:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know. I have class in the morning, and I can't have this on my record. I don't know. And we have to figure out about this Teddy's guy's family and maybe not get hunted and sniffed down by giant wolves again. And I don't like just sitting here in a room. This isn't safe. What if those things come back? They could smell us. So now we'll just be sitting in a room? What if they take out other people? Like, how do we know they haven't? Now she's going to start pacing around the room. [03:08:50] Speaker B: We need to move quick. Teddy's family could have already been in danger. Every second we wait here is the second they might be dead. [03:09:04] Speaker E: Sarah will try texting one of her common contacts at a police. [03:09:12] Speaker A: Okay, who? Be more specific. What kind of contact are you trying to call? [03:09:22] Speaker E: One of the guys that she would usually interview to get more information about cases that she's defending people for. [03:09:34] Speaker A: I'm assuming he's, like, a detective? [03:09:36] Speaker E: Yeah, something along those lines. [03:09:40] Speaker A: What's his name? [03:09:44] Speaker E: Derek Johnson. [03:09:46] Speaker A: Okay, you pull out your phone and you dial up detective Johnson. It's a little late, so you can hear when the phone gets answered. Like that noise that gets made when somebody's finger is passing over the phone, or like it's rubbing up against their face or something. And he sounds a little groggy. Johnson, what's up? [03:10:17] Speaker E: I'm in a little bit of a pinch right now with some others waiting to give a statement for the police. Been quite a bit. Been no response from anyone. Wondering if you would be able to get someone down to the hospital to talk to us. [03:10:35] Speaker A: Well, why? Hold on. Sorry, I was asleep. Why do you need someone to come talk to you? [03:10:51] Speaker E: We're at the hospital, and security has locked us in a conference room together. I assume the police have been called. [03:11:00] Speaker A: You're leaving a lot out. I feel like I'm getting a very tiny portion of the situation. [03:11:09] Speaker E: Somebody died in my presence, and I was one of the people who brought him to the hospital for emergency care. [03:11:18] Speaker A: Okay, well, if he's already dead, that's probably why they're not rushing. He's already dead. You're not trying to leave, but I'll make some calls and see if I can speed things along. [03:11:32] Speaker E: Thank you, detective. That would be much appreciated. [03:11:35] Speaker A: Yes. And he'll hang up. It takes another 20 minutes at least for there to finally be people showing up to question the lot of you. They do not keep you at the hospital. You are bundled up and put into the. Back of squad cars and literally taken downtown where you are kind of unceremoniously deposited into separate rooms for questioning. The cops seemed less than enthused about the fact that you guys were allowed to stay in a room together at the hospital. Like, what kind of moron thought that that was a good idea? Um you are all questioned separately. Would Sarah have made some calls to make sure that there were people there with them, or would you have given very clear instructions on what they should and should not be saying to the police? [03:12:59] Speaker E: Yeah, during our time together in the hospital, she would have coached them through basic interrogation techniques and how to counter them and just only answer the most literal things that you can. That kind of stuff. [03:13:17] Speaker A: Okay, so they are going to be answering questions, though. This isn't a repleting the fifth kind of situation. [03:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I believe we rehearsed the story and everything. [03:13:26] Speaker A: Okay. I'm just making sure it's obvious that they don't super believe you. You get a lot of kind of derisive responses. Kind of just a yeah. Okay, because it sounds unbelievable that a dog attack would have been like that or that you guys would have managed to jump on top to jump onto a moving vehicle. [03:13:59] Speaker B: I don't think we're including that part. [03:14:01] Speaker A: Oh, you didn't? [03:14:02] Speaker E: No, just that he got attacked by a wild dog and died on the way to the hospital. [03:14:06] Speaker A: Okay, my apologies. I had cat drama while you guys were working out your story. You all give them your story. They sound a little they don't sound super like they believe you, but they also kind of don't have enough to hold you. As of right now, you are all given very clear instructions not to leave the city. I am sure that at some know, they get all of your information, names, addresses, phone numbers, the whole nine. You're told not to leave the city. I'm absolutely certain that Sarah would have made it very clear to all of you following all of this, you're going to want to attain your own defense, just in case. Secure your own defense. Probably not a great idea for Sarah to be the one doing it. Even lawyers don't try not to defend themselves in court because it never goes well. But eventually you guys are let go. It is very nearly midnight by the time you guys are released. Sorry. It is just after midnight by the time you guys are released. In fact, it's about two minutes after midnight when Chris gets to walk out into the parking lot of the police precinct. [03:16:00] Speaker D: Still stripped to the waist. [03:16:02] Speaker A: Still stripped to the waist. And he realizes that it's his birthday. [03:16:09] Speaker B: Oh, shit. [03:16:14] Speaker D: Can I sit down on the curb? So don't go to smoke. [03:16:23] Speaker E: Sarah will pull out a completely fresh pack of Camel Crushes, spend, like, the next two minutes packing the cigarettes, and then open it and hand him one. [03:16:35] Speaker D: Thank you. Well, this is not the most auspicious start to a birthday I had hoped. [03:16:45] Speaker A: No. Happy birthday. [03:16:47] Speaker D: Thanks. [03:16:48] Speaker C: Happy birthday. [03:16:52] Speaker D: Yay. [03:16:53] Speaker B: May you have many more. [03:16:55] Speaker D: Not like this. [03:16:57] Speaker B: I hope not. [03:16:58] Speaker D: Yeah. What a crazy fucking year it's been. [03:17:06] Speaker C: It's just starting in two weeks. [03:17:11] Speaker D: Yeah. [03:17:16] Speaker A: As you guys are sitting outside, kind of recovering, taking a moment to kind of breathe after the craziness that has unfolded this evening, a relatively nondescript sedan pulls up and a woman who looks like she might be in her 20s, ethnic background is dubious. Could be a very tan white woman. Could be a very fair skinned Middle Eastern woman. It's really hard to tell. Climbs out of the car, or, well, sort of climbs out of the car, rolls down her window, slides out of the window so that she is kind of perched in the window itself, folds her arms on top of the car so that she can look over the top of the car at you guys. Well, are you getting in? [03:18:31] Speaker D: No. Who the fuck are you? [03:18:35] Speaker B: The f bomb. But his words exactly. Besides that. [03:18:40] Speaker A: I'm the person who was told to come find you and make sure that you got somewhere safe before they find you again. Do you know what happened? Listen, I was given very minimal information, basically told where to find you and to get you somewhere safe. [03:19:01] Speaker D: Told by who and where? [03:19:05] Speaker C: You're safe. [03:19:07] Speaker A: A safe house? It's worded. They won't be able to smell you. [03:19:13] Speaker B: Is Teddy's family there? [03:19:16] Speaker A: Who's Teddy? He didn't listen, I was told to pick up a Chris, Sarah, and Oliver and Akoda. I'm assuming that since you four are covered in blood and sitting outside of the police station, that you're the ones I'm supposed to pick up. We should really get going because my car, unlike the safe house, is not warded. [03:19:46] Speaker B: We need to go and get Teddy's family then. If we're not safe, they're not safe. [03:19:52] Speaker A: Look, I don't know who Teddy is, but if they didn't tell me about them, they're probably fine. [03:19:57] Speaker B: He was in front of us. He was our friend, and he was killed in front of us. [03:20:03] Speaker E: Come on. She knows our names. There's got to be some answers here. [03:20:10] Speaker D: A whole lot of fucking questions, too. [03:20:13] Speaker A: I'm sure that you've got questions. I don't have a ton of answers, but I can give you what I have. But if we don't go, they're going to come after us next. And I'm stronger than you, but I'm not that strong. And no offense, I don't know you guys. I will leave you for hmm. [03:20:31] Speaker C: I feel the same way. [03:20:35] Speaker E: Sarah will stand and crush her cigarette under her foot, and she'll try to get into the van. [03:20:42] Speaker A: It's a sedan, but you were able to get in. Three of you in the back, one of you in the front. [03:20:47] Speaker D: I'll get in the front. [03:20:50] Speaker B: Before I get in, I want to look down at Teddy's phone. Did his daughter ever send a message back? [03:20:58] Speaker A: No, but it was late when you sent it. [03:21:04] Speaker B: Is there like a sewer grate nearby? [03:21:10] Speaker A: Not in the immediate vicinity. He does have a new text, but it's not from his daughter. [03:21:16] Speaker B: Who's it from? [03:21:18] Speaker A: Someone named Anne. Not the wife either. And there's no picture, it's just everything okay? Thought you were going to be back by ten. I put her to bed. Just a couple of text messages from what seems like a worried babysitter. [03:21:42] Speaker B: I'm not going to respond and just tuck the extra phone into my jacket pocket and then get into the vehicle. [03:21:52] Speaker A: Okay. [03:21:56] Speaker C: All right. She'll get in. [03:22:01] Speaker A: She pulls out onto the street. Up closer. She looks like a very darkly tanned, olive skin young woman. Her hair is a bubblegum pink, bob, very straight cut, looks professionally done. And she looks a little tense, a little worried, but she's glancing at her mirror. She doesn't seem worried about you guys. So went straight to the mortal authorities. Wild. [03:23:05] Speaker B: What are we supposed to do if a dead body the right actually mortal? [03:23:12] Speaker A: Yeah, hospitals, police. The course of action I would have. [03:23:18] Speaker E: Taken was there another that was immediately obvious. [03:23:24] Speaker D: Sorry, space police were busy. [03:23:27] Speaker C: Also still question mark. Mortal question mark. [03:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't typically go to the mortals with who is. [03:23:39] Speaker C: I'm sorry ma'am, first my grandma taught me better. What's your name? Before I question you, what's your name? You. [03:23:52] Speaker A: Can call me Net. [03:23:54] Speaker C: Okay. Hi. Net Coda. We don't know what you're talking about, so if you can maybe just explain before you start going oh, you know, yada yada yada, maybe you can start with hey, ABCs of what the fuck is going on. Oh wow, yeah, thanks. [03:24:15] Speaker B: Use the word. [03:24:16] Speaker A: Didn't tell me you were new. [03:24:22] Speaker D: We were new. [03:24:24] Speaker B: New to getting attacked by wolves. [03:24:29] Speaker A: They were wolves that winked and spoke to us. Yes, well nobody survived getting up close and personal, so that's news to me. [03:24:41] Speaker B: That looks like a wolf and bites. [03:24:42] Speaker D: Like a wolf and speaks like a wolf. [03:24:46] Speaker A: Again, as far as I know, nobody has faced off with them and lived. Y'all are the first. Probably because there was a group of you kind of. [03:24:56] Speaker B: I'm terribly sorry for this distraction. I think I'm still in shock. But quick question Mr. Chris, was the house you were in made of straw or sticks and that's how it got in? [03:25:05] Speaker D: I think it was probably sticks. [03:25:07] Speaker B: If it was brick. There was no way. [03:25:12] Speaker C: I know that story. [03:25:15] Speaker B: I'd hope so. [03:25:20] Speaker A: Ah, okay, listen, having the talk with you guys is way above my pay grade, so I'm going to get you guys somewhere safe where the wolves can't find you again, and then somebody else will come and talk to you and we'll walk you through some things. [03:25:52] Speaker D: Sounds good. [03:25:56] Speaker A: Your sound went all weird. Sure, sorry. [03:26:03] Speaker B: Why not? I have a class to teach tomorrow where everyone's supposed to be taking a quiz on Act One of Hamlet, but. [03:26:10] Speaker A: Sure you won't be going to that class tomorrow. [03:26:13] Speaker B: Great. Wonderful. [03:26:15] Speaker A: If I were you guys, I would call your respective works and tell them that you're going to be out for a while. [03:26:24] Speaker C: How long of a while? [03:26:26] Speaker A: I have no idea. I can tell you that the safe house really is only meant to be an option for a day, maybe 248 hours at the most. But hopefully that'll be enough time for people to show up and tell you what you need to know and send you to your next location. [03:26:53] Speaker B: A question. Do these windows roll down? [03:26:56] Speaker C: Yes. [03:26:57] Speaker B: I'm going to roll down the window and throw up out the throw out. [03:27:03] Speaker C: Smoking here? [03:27:05] Speaker A: No, go ahead. Can't hurt me. Actually, I should probably warn you, if that's not tobacco, there's a chance it's not going to have the effect that you want. [03:27:26] Speaker C: What? [03:27:29] Speaker A: Assuming that what you're about to light up is a little bit stronger than your typical cigarette, it might not affect you. I just don't want you to be expecting something that you're not going to get, that's all. I don't know. You may not be one of those kind of depends. [03:27:52] Speaker C: Interesting. [03:27:53] Speaker D: Okay, might not be one of those what? [03:27:57] Speaker A: One of the people who is affected by substances or not affected by substances. I apologize. [03:28:05] Speaker C: I'm going to try just like maybe two or three times and then we'll see. [03:28:10] Speaker A: Go for it, honey. [03:28:11] Speaker C: Thank you. [03:28:15] Speaker D: When do we get our fucking costume? [03:28:21] Speaker A: Assuming that costumes are on the list of things that you may or may not receive whenever you get your talk, it's probably when that'll happen or they'll send you somewhere else to go pick it up. [03:28:36] Speaker D: I'm just going to shake my head. [03:28:38] Speaker A: Although it's rarely costume, it's usually something singular, like a, I don't know, breastplate. [03:28:46] Speaker D: Or hat strap on. [03:28:50] Speaker A: Never heard of somebody getting one of. [03:28:52] Speaker C: Those, but it'd be pretty nice. [03:28:56] Speaker A: You're telling me. [03:28:59] Speaker C: So, Net, just wondering whatever is happening here, can we, I don't know, like, wolverine just heal because one of us got bit and punctured along? I don't want him, I don't know, rising back to life in the middle of a morgue and then you guys. [03:29:21] Speaker A: No, coming back from the dead is not a thing that we can do. [03:29:28] Speaker C: Interesting. All right, noted. [03:29:35] Speaker B: I've probably finished throwing up by now, so I'm going to tuck my head back in, roll the window up. I think that was overdue since literally a snipe began. [03:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, seems like it. Sorry they didn't warn me that you wouldn't have any clue what was going on. They might have picked somebody. I would have definitely suggested that they pick somebody with a little bit more finesse than me. I'm not trying to be bitchy, but this whole. [03:30:08] Speaker B: Who exactly is they. [03:30:15] Speaker A: Not sure that I am qualified to answer that. I don't know who your specific they are. It's a better way of putting it. Well, then who are the unspecific? They. [03:30:28] Speaker C: Who'S yours? [03:30:33] Speaker A: Are you what we are? Yeah, I am. [03:30:37] Speaker B: You used the word scion earlier. Is that what you mean? [03:30:42] Speaker A: That's one of the terms, yeah. [03:30:45] Speaker B: I don't know what that means. I know what the word means, but I don't know what it means in this context. [03:30:51] Speaker A: Find out. Look again, above my pay grade. Not I can't I am not comfortable answering all of these questions. Because it'll only give you more question answering these questions. Because if I answer these questions, it'll give you more questions and they're questions that I genuinely don't have the answer to. [03:31:15] Speaker D: Not wrong. Okay. How long have we got until we get there? [03:31:20] Speaker A: A couple more minutes. We're almost there, I promise. [03:31:23] Speaker D: No, you're good. [03:31:28] Speaker A: I'm sorry about your friend. For what it's worth, very unlikely that your friend's family are at risk. Very unlikely. [03:31:40] Speaker B: You're sure about that? [03:31:43] Speaker A: Well, are they blood related to him? Out of character? Those of you who knew Teddy reasonably well know that Teddy didn't have a daughter before he got married. As in he gained plus one daughters. When he got married, he had a. [03:32:10] Speaker B: Wife and a daughter, but I think the daughter was adopted. [03:32:14] Speaker A: Then they're probably fine. They're not blood related. And even if they were blood related, it's really unlikely that it passes that far down the tree. [03:32:24] Speaker C: So this does have to do with blood then? Because those things could sniff us out and called Chris the godling. [03:32:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of the other terms. We're not hugely fond of it, but the enemy uses that term a lot. [03:32:42] Speaker B: If we break down the pieces of that word into its respective parts, you get God, which means divine being, and Ling, which normally means derived of that thing to a smaller stature, like Lord. Ling being like a child of a lord from ancient times. So putting that together, we have Godling, which means what? I can only imagine child of a god. Is that what's going on here? [03:33:12] Speaker A: Listen, again, I'm not qualified because this is going to lead to questions of who is my parent and I don't know. [03:33:22] Speaker C: Wait. [03:33:27] Speaker A: Really shouldn't have picked me. I hate this job. Look, I'm just here to drive and get you to point B because I'm the best driver in my band. [03:33:41] Speaker C: Okay, I have one question and then I think I'm going to just lay my head down and keep smoking. You said parents. Is this like a so I'll just wait till it gets explained to us? [03:34:03] Speaker A: That's probably for the best, because as it is, I'm probably going to get chewed out for you guys knowing as much as you know. But they should have warned me. They should have warned me, at which point I'd have brought somebody who was better at talking to people and I would have just been the one to drive the fucking car. Noted me so big owes me so big. She's, like, very clearly annoyed and stressed out and frustrated. And she reaches over and she pulls out of a little what are they called? Little additional holders that people mount to their dashboards to hold extra drinks and whatever, reaches over and grabs what looks to be a gold. Plated and very finely carved and detailed vape, which she puts to her lips and takes long pulls of as she's driving. But it never stops watching her mirrors. [03:35:18] Speaker B: Two of you're going to smoke? I'm going to roll down the window again. [03:35:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. You will notice as she lets out the vapor from her vape hit it. Smells like apple and honey. Does not smell like smoke at all. [03:35:36] Speaker C: Oh, she's got the flavored juices. That's what coda says. [03:35:43] Speaker B: I know. I work at a public school. I smell it all the time. [03:35:51] Speaker A: Eventually, however, you guys pull up outside of a very plain, nondescript suburban house on the outskirts of Baltimore. It is one of those houses that has, like, the garage that's kind of built into the bottom level of the house, so the house kind of extends up and over top of it. She doesn't hit a button or anything, but the garage door opens. She pulls into a very into, like, a small one car garage, and the garage door closes behind you. Okay, here we are. Feel free to use the facilities. There's extra clothes. I can't promise that they'll fit super great, but there are extra clothes and places to sleep. [03:36:44] Speaker D: When are we going to speak to someone? [03:36:46] Speaker A: Listen, again, they're above my pay grade. They'll show up when they feel ready, but typically they do it pretty quickly. [03:36:55] Speaker D: Okay. [03:36:55] Speaker A: So I would expect somebody in the next day, maybe two at a stretch, which is why it's 24 to 48 hours usually on places like this. And then we'll have to move you. [03:37:06] Speaker D: I got one question you could probably answer, and we had to give the police where our home locations, and we ain't going to be there. [03:37:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll take care of that. [03:37:15] Speaker D: Okay. [03:37:16] Speaker A: We have people for that. He's going to be super thrilled that that's on his to do list, but it'll be a great way to get back at him for sending me to be the one to talk to the newbies. No offense. [03:37:34] Speaker D: None taken. [03:37:35] Speaker C: I don't think I can take any right now. [03:37:40] Speaker A: All right, I'll show you guys inside. I'm going to stay with you tonight in case the shit hits the fan so we can get away. If anything goes wrong, you need to get to the car. I'm driving. If I, for whatever reason, am dead, there are extra keys in the glove compartment. Yeah, cool. [03:38:09] Speaker D: Understood. [03:38:10] Speaker E: Noted. [03:38:11] Speaker B: What if they take the extra keys? [03:38:15] Speaker A: They won't be able to. She'll just sort of pat the dashboard of the car. Okay, baby, you'll make sure of that. [03:38:30] Speaker B: I'm past the point of questioning things. [03:38:33] Speaker A: Great. Let's go outside, get you guys some showers and some food and some sleep. And I know you just threw up, but you do need to eat because you are in shock. Come on, let's go. And she will show you guys inside. The house is not as plain as you would expect it to be. It is extensively decorated, but it looks like somebody with multiple personality disorder has decorated it. And every personality is from a different part of the world. You see imagery from all over the place. China, Japan, various parts of the Middle East. Greece, ireland. Chris sees imagery that would have fit right in in his family home. [03:39:35] Speaker D: Perfect. I'll gravitate towards that one. I think. [03:39:40] Speaker A: Everybody is able to get food and take showers and get rooms. You are told in no uncertain terms should you leave, unless you know that it is a moment where you are absolutely supposed to leave, at which point it will be very, very clear. Doesn't really expand on that. She'll just say, look, you'll know, it your gut if you're supposed to go, and they'll make sure that you're safe when you do. Now, it was nice meeting all of you. If you need anything, I'll be in that room over there and I'm going to bed. [03:40:26] Speaker C: Good night. [03:40:29] Speaker A: And she will kind of wander off down the hall and let herself into her room and leaves you all to your own devices. I'll give you about five minutes to kind of have a minute to RP and then we're going to wrap it up. [03:40:42] Speaker B: I need to email my boss. I'm just going to plug my phone, type what I currently think is a cognizant email saying that emergency came up and I probably won't be in class for a while. And if they can't get a sub in time for tomorrow, just have Miss Sanders cover for me, as my kids are just taking a quiz that day and she won't have to do anything too big. And that's about all I can think to write. So I'll send that out and then probably try to keep myself from having a breakdown for as long as possible until hopefully I fall asleep first. [03:41:23] Speaker D: I'm going to go to the fridge first of all, see if there's any alcohol in there. [03:41:31] Speaker A: There is a great number of different types of alcohol. Pretty much, if you can imagine it, they've probably got it either in the fridge or in the little bar off to the side. [03:41:43] Speaker D: I see a bar. Brilliant. I'll go and get some whiskey from the bar after I've been drinking whiskey all evening. It would be stupid of me to stop mixing alcohol now. [03:41:50] Speaker A: That's probably a good thought. Anything else? [03:41:56] Speaker D: I'm just going to sit down in the lounge, basically, and drink whiskey and then probably just go and find a bed and in that Norse room and full face first on it. [03:42:06] Speaker A: All right. Sarah and coda. [03:42:09] Speaker E: Sarah will probably look around at all of the different decorations and just say to huh? So that's who they are. And she'll follow Oliver's example and write an email to her boss as well saying that she won't be able to come to work and then nothing else and just send it. [03:42:30] Speaker A: All right, you all coda anything? [03:42:34] Speaker C: Roughly the same thing. Coda. [03:42:37] Speaker A: Emailing her teachers, I have a thing. Don't know when I'm going to be back. [03:42:44] Speaker C: Emailing all of her professors, sending a text message that's a little bit not incredibly detailed, but more like less, hey, I'm not going to be here, but more like, hey, something really bad came up, and I got to the people at the shelter that she's been working at and be like, yeah, I'm okay whatsoever. And then she's going to text her therapist and be like, hey, at some point we're going to need to talk, but I'm going to miss an appointment or two. I'm okay, though. Don't worry. And then she's going to probably sit in a chair near the door with her bed and eventually doze off. [03:43:23] Speaker A: Okay, well, with that in mind, we're going to call this the end of the first episode of Scion Apotheosis. I hope that you guys enjoyed yourselves. I hope everybody at home enjoyed listening to the beginning of our story.