S1:E24 – Hungry Like the Wolf

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Welcome to Theater of the Mind, episode 24. Our question this episode is from the ultimate rpg campfire card deck by James Damato, and it is what is a line your companions must never cross in order to maintain a relationship with you? Who is most likely to test this boundary?

Hi, my name is Amanda and I am playing Mel Kelly. For Mel, I think the line that her companions should not cross with her is to not follow through on something they've promised. She's seen a lot of that and an apocalyptic situation. I don't think she would put up with that from her companions. Nothing personal. I honestly think that James might be the one that would be most likely to cross that line.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Brandybain. And Elliot, he builds much like Emery on Emory. Ah, Mel on trust. So I think the line that you can't cross with Elliot is you can't lie to Elliot about something important. It's okay to put a white lie here and there. Maybe you're embarrassed by it, but if it's something important and you lie to Elliot, that would be very, very difficult for him to trust you after that. And honestly, after his talk with James, he told James that they were a clean slate and he sticks with that. So honestly, at the moment, the closest one that he would be most worried about would be Olnach.

Which I think is fair given the situation. Hi, I am Brunel. I am playing Olnack Vaga Johnson. And Olnack used to be pretty hardcore on the don't lie to me ever train, but he's had to loosen up on that because, you know, people are people and that's absurd.

I.

So. But in the vein of that same kind of idea, any, like, betrayal that feels personal or puts anybody else at risk or in danger would be the line that can't be crossed. And sorry, James, but it's you, buddy. I don't know why. No, I do. I do. You've stole things. You know, you lied about taking Elliot's shirt. You have kind of a track record here. And I know you said you'd never betray us and, like, stab us in the back or whatever, but I'm not 100% inclined to believe you. So I am watching you with now werewolf like style senses.

Play a rogue, suffer the content.

This is all jeep's. This has nothing to do with you.

Oh, yeah, I get that. I get that I'm playing my character?

No, it has 100% to do with you too, Jones.

Wow. I heard Jones too. Don't.

So I guess running along with the can't trust anybody massive trust issue train, I'm gonna go with that as well. The biggest line that you can't cross would be the backstabbing cause too many times in James past, he's been burned, literally and figuratively, for people that he thought that he could trust. And if that happens again, that he's just gonna walk away, he's like, nope, I'm done.

Who are you most worried about doing that?

All of you, at this point. I mean, so far, three people have mentioned b by name.

You don't know.

You didn't know this, though, did you?

Fair.

You're reading minds now. Your character.

As far as I'm aware, your character has not been part of this conversation, buddy.

Three d twenty s for insight checks. Uh, really, though, probably, Mel.

That's fair.

I think.

Like, I'm honestly surprised that hasn't come up yet. Yeah, gotta be honest.

I mean, your patron was kind of like the big, bad oogie boogie, apparently.

Oh, sorry.

Ooby boogie.

In my defense, I didn't read the terms and conditions, so I didn't know when I agreed to it.

In my defense, I didn't mean to.

Stand betrayal through ignorance.

Never contribute to malice. What, you can contribute to ignorance.

Exactly. I am as stupid as I look.

Mel, you shouldn't talk down to yourself like that.

Damn. You gotta bring yourself up. Don't sell yourself short.

That was meant. I'll have you know my character was average height when I built her. It's all you that have decided she's tiny.

To be fair, most of the characters you have played, like, the longest running character you played with us, was very short, considering he didn't start short.

That's funny.

He didn't even start out with a sheet. I'm Casey Weingarten. I'm playing Emery Lee. Um, Emery is an extremely independent person. Uh, so I think the line that if someone crossed that she wouldn't be able to really look at them the same would be if they questioned the way that she lives her life. Like, there's. There's, like, curiosity, and then there's, like, truly just, like, not agreeing and not understanding with how she's decided to lead her life through the world. And I think that probably the person who is closest to that line is Elliot. Not out of intent, but more out of just. They're on very different wavelengths, and he is a couple generations older than she is. And that causes a little bit of conflict, but not like it's not like, forefront in her mind in any interaction.

Awesome. There we go. That was one of the more diverse answers we've had in a while.

Yeah, it wasn't full on trust issues, was it?

Just. I'm gonna be single forever.

Also, I think I got so flustered, I didn't introduce myself.

Oh, yeah, you're Jones.

I said downs. I did. I just said it fast and weird.

I'm downs, by the way.

Hi, I'm downs. Nobody trusts me. Cause I'm a rogue.

And on that note, let's roll for recap. We'll go highest tells.

Eleven.

7612 20. I'm pretty sure it's.

Yeah, it's.

Jeremy.

It's your turn, buddy.

That's probably fair. Yeah, I haven't. I haven't introduced in a long time. Let's see. Last session. It's been a little while. We fought our way through the cathedral. We didn't wipe out the cathedral. Just the ones that were combatants.

Beat the crap out of a window.

We broke windows. We ran up and down stairs, which, Elliot, was not a good plan.

You fell out of window.

And we succeeded in taking down the two most powerful cultists, leaders in here, which also were the people we needed to cure Olnach. And then we didn't exactly take one of the nuns prisoner, but I can't remember her name at the moment.

I don't think she ever got introduced. Oh, she was threesa.

Threesa. My sister Theresa has decided that she is dedicated to bringing Jacob to Lord Ashrafael. And so her threat of killing him sort of ceased to exist at that point when we realized that, well, she's not gonna kill Jacob at this point, we don't care. And so we are preparing to survive the night while Olnach changes his first time into a werewolf. And I believe we have him locked in the cathedral's prison. Jail cell as well as we were able to. And then we have locked ourselves in our room for the night.

Yep. And then just this was kind of at the very end, Theresa left and was replaced by a different sister.

Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Right at the very end there. So there's a different nun who has not yet introduced herself to you. And just to help lay the land in everybody's mind for cause it's gonna probably maybe kind of matter. You guys are back on the nun half of the living quarters. As we remember, this place was a big square doughnut the nuns were on one half, the monks were on the other, and the cathedral jail cell was underneath on the monk's half. So there is pert near everybody between you guys and Ulnok.

Yeah, this way, Ulnok. If he breaks out, he'll run a monk over there.

God damn it.

Terrible.

And as I recall, the very last thing that happened was Olnach rolled a 16 constitution save. So that's what we're gonna pick up. Ohnach, you are in a decrepit jail cell in a very cliche, dungeon y looking basement. Cobblestone walls, the whole shebang. And you are in the most well maintained jail cell, which is to say that it still has all of the bars, and they are all still going from ceiling to floor.

Okay.

But they are not necessarily in great shape. You get the feeling that they've not used this jail in many a moment.

Okay.

So it's not pristine conditions by any means. And as I recall, you guys also barricaded the door that leads into this jail cell. So there is a couple layers of keep Olnach in the basement in place.

I think there was, like, a couple of sofas. There's a kitchen sink. We shoved everything in front of that door.

And Elliot's got the keys to the jail.

Yes. Elliot's got the keys on the opposite side of the everything. So the very last thing that was seen was a very cliche Halloween moon coming over. And unbeknownst to Ulnok, as soon as it crests the mountainous, you start to hurt.

Okay?

Every bone in your body aches terribly. You feel every muscle in your body tensing and flexing, and now they're cramping your teeth. If you've ever worn a braces, feel almost exactly like the day after you get your braces tightened. Your teeth are trying to be ripped through your gums currently, and they're ripping through your gums, and you start to spit your teeth out.

I've had this dream before. No, that sounds awful. Okay.

You feel your back starting to hunch against your will. Your abs are convulsing horribly, and you feel your bones starting to crack and pop and move and change shape. And right about the time this happens, you black the hell out of the movie. Okay. This is the worst thing you have ever felt by a mile.

Yeah.

And you black outdouse. You stand before a panel of high ranking naval officers. The panel consists of four officers, all of whom are clearly higher rank, and they're actual commissioned officers. And, you know, just from having been on the boat long enough, you've got an officer who oversees the aircraft technicians, you've got an officer who oversees pilots, and you've got the ship's highest ranking guy. Admirable. Whatever. Co, you have that guy on the panel. And then there's a fourth one that you haven't interacted with much. You've seen him, you're vaguely aware of him, but you don't interact with this man very often. The aircraft technician, officer, whatever rank, he would be the one who oversees the aircraft techs, he doesn't typically cover your shift. You don't report directly to him. You report to his co. Equal addresses you and says, at one Johnson, at 1300 hours, AC 717 was shot down during a joint training exercise. Data recovered post incident shows that the IFf malfunctioned. The purpose of this panel is to identify where system failure occurred, assess our current workflow for comms breakdowns, and find the party at fault. This hearing is being recorded and will be logged for evidence. Do you understand why you have been brought before us today?

Yes, sir.

Our logs show that you are the one who programmed the codes for this flight. Is that accurate?

That is correct, sir.

From whom did you receive those codes?

Sir, I had received those codes earlier in the day, roughly about 0700 for the beginning of flight operations. From the IT tech on the underground, under of the ship. To my knowledge, those codes at the time were all accurate and usable for the day.

Did you in any way manipulate, alter or adjust the codes you received?

No, sir, I did not.

Do you have the foreknowledge to know how to alter, manipulate, or adjust the codes in any way?

No, sir, I do not.

You installed the codes as prescribed?

I installed the codes as regular procedures. Yes, sir.

Olnack, you are in a cell. Back in the cell, you come back to you. Look at your hands. They are covered with fur. Fingers are narrow, long, disjointed, ending with wicked black claws. You see that your feet have pretty well torn through your shoes. You have. Where your arch of your foot would be is now a new ankle, effectively. And from the ball of your foot to your heel has grown about six inches longer than normal. You feel incredibly powerful. I need you to roll a D 20.

That's a four.

Need a dice, Jill?

I might.

Yeah.

Yep.

Here you go. Put the bad die in there.

You betrayed me. All right.

You outside of your own control, stand up and throw your shoulder into the metal bars trying to contain you. They don't give, but you can tell that they're not gonna last long, I need you to roll another D 20.

Different. Detoin.

Ah.

Shit.

Where'd it go?

You guys?

I'll just roll a different one.

That's a five.

Oh, my God.

That is considered an improvement.

Dude, you consistently roll lower than anyone.

I've ever met you, actually. I apologize. You have advantage on this particular roll.

Oh, thank God.

Oh, cool.

Now you get a six, maybe a seven, even.

All right, let's see how this goes. 17.

Yes, it's better.

I don't know if it works, but it's better.

As you throw yourself against these iron bars, you take in a deep breath and you smell more than you have ever smelt before. Almost able to see scent lines leading from your jail cell.

Okay.

You smell above and beyond anything else relatively nearby. The acrid stink of fear. Something deep inside of you gets very excited by that. I need you to make a constitution safe.

Roll high, for the love of you.

16.

As soon as that scent hits, you feel the change pick back up again. Your bones continue shifting. You start sprouting fur everywhere. Your nose starts to actually extend forward as your jaw reconfigure its shape. And again, the pain is unbearable. And you black out. I need you to tell us about the morning of the incident. How did. How did that day go leading up to what actually occurred?

Just for clarification, is this the officer talking again?

Yes. Uh, no, this is you walking.

Just me walking through. Okay.

We are living this through your eyes.

Got it. So the day usually starts off. We've had our maintenance meeting and everything else. AC 717 is one of the helicopters on the boat that we are going to be flying for the day. There's only two of them on the boat. It's not a very. We're not on an aircraft carrier. We're on a smaller boat. Like a destroyer. Yeah, we'll go with a destroyer. So if anybody wants to look that up to know what that is, that's what kind of boat we're on.

With all the guns.

Yeah, it's got a lot of guns. A big cannon on the front. The dooka. Dooka sticks. Yeah.

A super scary ultra machine gun.

Yeah. Oh, what is that called? The sea whiz. Yeah.

Sounds like it's just farting fire.

It just sounds like it's vibrating really fast.

Yeah.

And it unloads a thousand rounds. And anything that gets hit by. It's gone, but, yeah, it's a destroyer. Maintenance meeting has happened in the aft of the ship in the squadron's location. Everything's went according to plan. We just went over flight Ops and what we're going to do, be doing today, we're supposed to be doing a joint exercise later in the afternoon with some forces I don't remember. Right. That wasn't particularly really important at the time. We are in hostile area. We are outside the waters of China. If violations occur, things can go horrifically awry.

So it's probably taiwanese or australian maybe.

Yeah, let's go with that. But something that's usually pretty routine in what we're supposed to do. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened at this point. So before we get to flight Ops and everything, it's about 07:00. As previously stated, I'm on the. I can't remember the term for when you're under. Under deck.

Hello?

Yeah, I think it's just. It might actually be under deck because there's the main deck and then we're underneath on the ship. There's only like two or three floors. Like I said, it's not an aircraft carrier. We're not really tall, so we're a couple. Couple floors under deck. I'm talking with the it guys. They run all the secret codes and everything. They help program everything. They are the ones who ensure that the codes are ready for the day. To my knowledge, when I get the codes, all the codes are ready for the day. They're all accurate. Everything's good according to it. One gentleman I was talking with, those are the codes that are supposed to be. Go back up, program them in. There's a long, like giant coax cable.

Sorry.

So there's like a long coax cable that we run from the edge of the wall. It would be called a bulkhead in navy terms, that runs that signal so it could talk with downstairs. It. We run it to the aircraft and we program those through this little box that's probably like six inches long and like two inches wide. It's only got a handful of buttons. As far as my memory serves. It's only got like four buttons. The codes are relatively simple. As long as I put the codes in as I was supposed to put the codes in, everything should be fine for the entirety of the day. They cycle every so often and that's automatic as the aircraft is flying, if I recall correctly. So everything goes fine. First aircraft goes off, 08:00. You know, it goes and does what it normally does. They basically just go fly around and, you know, patrol an area. It's mostly for training and exercises. It's not typically to actually patrol anything, but since we are in potentially hostile waters, we're in hazardous waters. They do keep a higher alert just in case something does seem to alarm them or whatever. Still communication with the boat until they're pretty far away and everything goes smooth for the 08:00 flight and the 10:00 flight. Come back from lunch because our lunch is usually around like eleven. Come back from lunch.

When you come back from lunch, before you find out anything has gone awry, you get back into the mechanics bay.

Yeah.

That's where you would have gone to.

Yeah.

Whatever you guys would call the mechanics.

Bay, it'd be, it'd be the same place that we had the maintenance meeting. It's just like. So you have what would typically be viewed as like, not a Harrier. That's a jet where they keep the aircraft. Hanger. Hanger. So it's like a small hangar. The helicopter folds everything in. And while it's inside, it's very cramped. There's not a lot to do.

Right.

But when it's out on flight ops, that whole area is open to the right. Typically as you're coming to the aft of the ship would be like a little room. It's not very big, but everybody can fit in it and we can have a meeting. We do meet up usually after lunch and have another quick briefing before we resume flight ops.

So your officer in charge, whoever you would be reporting directly to, probably a.

Lieutenant commander at this point.

The lieutenant commander wants to maximize the space temporarily. There's been some inefficiencies with how you guys have had your shop set up. Okay. And now that you got the birds out of the way, you can move equipment freely. More freely.

Yeah. Which tracks. That's accurate.

So he's gonna have you assist in relocating some of the heavier items. You're a big boy. So just to see how well you're able to assist. Let's go ahead. Have you make two strength checks. Actually, just roll the D 20 twice.

First one's not very successful. Seven.

Okay.

Second one's very successful. It's a 19.

Okay. So you are, you know, you're caught off guard by the weight of the thing to begin with, but you're able to double down and you're able to relocate it. You're able to clean up the shop effectively. And right around the end of cleaning up the shop, um, you said you heard the incident.

Yeah.

So you were outside?

I was on comms.

You're on comps?

Yeah. So it's basically how we record the podcast. I'd be sitting next to the. There's like a phone. We talk. Plane captains are outside guiding the aircraft. All the officers and the AWs are getting in there for actual flight ops and operations.

So they're getting to the. They're getting to the nitty gritty part where, you know, they're not just en route anymore. They've arrived. So you get over to the comms bay and you pick back up from there.

Okay. So while I'm on comms listening to the aircraft, they still have to be pretty close. But the fact of the matter is, I can still hear them. We hear that they are being pinged by foreigners. What would be the term? Not necessarily adversaries.

We're just.

We're near another air base. Right. Like, we're not far off the shore. So we.

We.

We've come into their occupied airspace.

Right.

Um, they get pings. They're aware of this training exercise, so our codes should be good. But they're getting pings by that aircraft, and it's sending off an alert. And so we're kind of near Hong Kong ish waters. So we're getting pinged by one of the coastal air bases on the border of China. Again, they knew about the training exercise, so they're aware that this is going down. But that's why we have iff. It's identification, friend or foe. So they're pinging the aircraft. There is a bit of a. Even though they speak English, it's not great English. So there's a little bit of a communications barrier. But I can hear our officer who's flying the plane. Let's go. Lieutenant Snyder. He's speaking with the air base and AC 717. We're running a joint training exercise. What seems to be the issue? They're talking back and forth.

Roll me d 20 with advantageous. Okay.

Is there any modifier. What are we rolling?

Yes. What did you roll?

Twelve.

Okay. That was with advantage. Okay, perfect. That's a. With a plus four.

Okay.

That is a perception. You're able to pick up on what's going on pretty quickly. You're dialed into happening.

Yeah. Okay.

Weirdly, you smell this room pretty thoroughly. You smell the sweat of your teammates as they're starting to get nervous. You smell the grease, you smell the oil.

Okay.

Like, you can almost taste it. Whether it's the adrenaline dumping into your system or what, you're not sure. Right. But you can tell the way this conversation is going is already in a negative direction pretty quickly. Yeah.

The alert is still going off. The ping is happening more frequently. There's a little bit more panic in Lieutenant Snyder's voice as he's the one who is directly in communications with that air base. And I can hear overcomes what they're saying. It's escalating pretty quickly. They're clearly not getting a proper identification, being that it's far away from the air base. You can't just take somebody's word for it. The code has the pass. Right. And that's why we're getting the alert. So it's cycling through cold codes because the first code didn't work. So we're trying another code. Unfortunately, that's not working either. This is typically a three strikes and you're out roll, and they're shooting you down. So there's a reason Lieutenant Snyder is freaking out a bit of, if this third code does not go, they're gonna get blasted and everybody's coming down, and we might be able to save them as far as keeping them alive if they don't die from the direct remains.

While this is occurring. Go to give me a wisdom save with your stats.

16.

Okay. You're piecing together what's happening very quickly. You're going, and because you understand what's going on, you're also thinking back through your portion of the codes. Right. You are incredibly confident you put those codes in the way they should. Right. Go ahead and continue.

So third code is sent. It is not verbally communicated that it is sentence. But the ping happens again. And I hear the third alert. Unfortunately, I know exactly which alert I'm getting, and I am. My stomach drops.

Right with that. Your stomach drops? Yeah. You come back too. You are now in a hallway, and we are gonna switch back to the party party members.

Uh oh. We don't know what's going on.

Uh oh.

So you guys are in a room. You're in. We'll just say for the ease of me not having to explain the same room again, you're in the same room you were in. They just brought you back to that room. So to refresh our memories, you've got a long, rectangular main room on parallel sides. There are two rooms for the sleeping quarters. There's also a small washroom, wash basin, and a toilet. You have the door on one end, and directly across from the door is a window that oversees the cathedral.

Remind me, just the window open?

Kind of. It's one of those, we called it an awning window or whatever.

Yeah, because it opens from the bottom just a little bit.

So it's one of those that kinda, like, angles out, but it's got two metal arms that prevent it from opening very far. Yeah, and even if you could open it all the way, it's not a particularly big window. Yeah, Jake, I think the description was Jacob could maybe squeeze through and that was about it.

I was wondering if maybe we had the window open so we could hear outside side better.

Absolutely, that's absolutely.

You guys are all still awake. You have the new nun who for all intents and purposes looks damn near identical to three set. There's not enough of her. This is.

I was gonna go with twice.

This is Florence, sister. Sir. Florence.

Sister Florence, you mean.

See, I kept thinking like 1253, sir. Monty Python.

Oh, did not follow that one. For all intents and purposes, she looks very much the same. She's a little bit darker complexion. She's got a little bit more of a longer, more angular nose, but that's all you have to see. The rest of it is a robe that looks identical to what Theresa was wearing. So Florence is sitting there with the boy she hasn't shown.

Oh, Jacobs. Jacobs with Elliot.

And she's wherever. Jacobs. Okay. She's under the same rules that Theresa was. She's not letting him not be.

Yeah, but she's not like by herself, him with fair, like none of us nearby, right?

No, absolutely. She doesn't have anywhere near the apprehension that Threesa showed. For most of it. You're almost getting the vibe that maybe they didn't do the greatest job briefing this lady. She is very. She's got more of like, I'm a. I'm a grade school teacher watching a child in a weird parent teacher situation. She's not letting the kid leave. She understands that part of her mission. But she's not as borderline aggressive with you guys as three siblings. That's been your interaction with her so far. Can I have a round of perception checks? Seven, passive.

Oh, twelve, passive 1217 with my negative.

One, two, passive, 1016.

All right, some of us are hyped.

Two of you.

Emery's too anxious to be like, perceiving anything.

Two of you, three of you. Elliot barely. Literally a twelve was the DC on this. Elliot barely makes it. The three of you hear the wolf howl. Shit. The two of you that rolled better than twelve think that you hear a muffled bang.

I feel like as soon as I hear the howl, Mel perks. If she had ears, they'd have perked up.

Shit.

Guys, I could be wrong and I really, really, really hope I'm wrong, but I think the dog just broke out the kennel.

That's like. Yeah.

Cause I'm pretty sure I heard a loud bang.

What are you guys doing?

Don't worry. Taking many terrified free actions.

Do we? I have no idea what to do about like, do we go? Cause we don't want him to go killing everybody I from that temptation.

But the whole point of us being barricaded in here is to keep as much from like we need to stay put.

Why was that exactly?

I'm, you know, I'm sure everybody else is. They've barricaded themselves in their room. There are many things, but they are not scared.

Didn't want us at risk either.

And we also told Olnach that we would protect Jacob.

Fair, I can say. For what it's worth, word has gotten around that there may be danger tonight. We ended all activities early. Everybody is in their own rooms.

You mistake me. I don't really care about their well being. I care about his. If he kills them all.

Well, I'm just saying it'll be hard for him to do that.

Yeah.

I don't know if he was able to break out that cell, which we thoroughly barricaded. I don't think that one of these doors, which I broke earlier. Well, that's really gonna do.

You broke.

With Olnach's help, he's still gotta get out of the room that the cell was in.

Sure.

And if. Yeah, that's my point exactly. If normal Olnock was able to bust through a door. Harry Oldock is absolutely gonna break through a door.

Oh.

I just want to say, out of character, Mel's lack of interesting vocabulary makes this really hard because if it were me, I'd be swearing in every language I know. But Mel only knows one.

That's Alistair Scheissler.

Elliot, while this is going on, he actually is going to go to the spot on the wall that we had seen the eyes the first night that we had seen. And he's going to inspect to see if they're being watched again. I don't imagine that we are. And then at that point he wants to try to figure out if we can like get into the other side as a possible escape route if need be.

Who's clever?

You do see a set of eyes, very obviously trying to make eye contact with you.

So Elliot's gonna walk up and look and said, you know what? It's pretty messed up that you're peeping on nuns quarters.

What is her?

They immediately back away as soon as you bring attention to them and they close the false, they replace the paintings.

You coward.

Oh, I should have hit him with color spray.

That would have been hilarious.

Anyway, I'm going to go to investigating as hard as Elliot is able to, trying to see if he could figure out some way to get either through the wall or if there's some kind of a trap door or something. He's looking for an escape route if he need. If they need one. And that's what he's going to spend his time. Whether it's possible or not, I don't know. But that's what he's going to be trying to do.

Roll an investigation.

That's not terrible. 14th.

You think you hear something. Something is intentionally being quiet on the other side.

So he's gonna whisper, who are you? Why do you keep watching? What do you want? I want it.

Go ahead and roll me another perception check.

The painting sprung a leak.

Eleven.

Okay. What do you wanna do?

I basically wanna do an insight check. Is like, why is this guy. I'm trying to figure out who. What the purpose of the person on the other side is. But that's a lot from a sh. And eyes.

I don't.

There was an infliction in the shush.

Yeah, I got nothing.

Yeah, I can't let you inside a shush. So the shush is honest. It is genuinely asking you to be quiet.

So can I. Seeing that Elliot's chewing out the wall, can I go up there and go up to the painting real close and be like, are you here to help us or here to help them?

Here's something important. Do you care if anyone else in the room sees that you're doing this?

I'm kind of trying to keep Florence from seeing this because I don't trust her. But I don't really care if the rest of the party does.

I need you to roll, like sleight of hand or stealth to see if you're able to not bring the nun's attention to this painting.

21.

Okay. You are able to not bring the men's attention to this painting. You come up and you make it look almost as though you are talking to Elliot in hushed undertones. And what do you say that like.

Are you trying to help us or help them?

Trying to help you. Oh, sh.

Is there an escape route from here?

Distract her.

And Elliot's gonna turn around and go over and engage Sister Florence in some meaningless prattles.

Perfect. Go ahead and roll me a lowish DC persuasion.

Tell me about your religion. I'm curious.

Oh, nice. 14.

Okay. Yeah. You're able to draw your attention. What conversation do you strike up? Just for curiosity's sake.

It's gonna be. So how long have you been here? And do you like Sister Theresa? Are you gonna be here till morning? It's just meaningless, polite chatter.

Just to button that up. What you pick, what you learn from her, is she also has spent almost her entire life in this church since she was but a wee child, and she is primarily their schoolteacher, because they do pick up kids. She is their teacher. She's not the biggest fan of Teresa. She absolutely had a level of fear, imposed respect for the hype matron, and isn't necessarily the saddest to see her reign end. But there is a high degree of uncertainty as to who the new hype matrix will be. So you learn that part of three says issue, so to speak, is that she is currently jockeying to try to be the new high matron. But overall, as far as any conversations with people in this place are, she's one of the more pleasant you've interacted with. Very open, very honest with her communication. You don't get any caginess. And you remember back to the breakfast you had with everybody. She is one of the nuns that was particularly kind of friendly. Yeah. With the boy in particular, one of the ones who was kind of sneaking him extra helpings, for what it's worth, she was one of the nicer ones. While he's doing that, Mel, you see just the slightest flutter of the eyes, and there is now a piece of parchment that can be seen just the corner of it, as if, you know, you got the painting with the holes. There's a little cover behind it where the painting's eyes are. Yeah, that just gently pulls back, goes back forward, and you can see a piece of paper.

I'll try. Grab the piece of paper.

You're able roll with advantage, sleight of hand herself.

20 dirty.

Perfect. You're able to pull it out. Nobody notices you pull it out. It's very obviously, it's a small piece of parts with a submarine on it.

Okay, I will. When I get it out, I'll. I will. I don't know how great of an actress Mel is, but rather theatrically, like, sit on the floor, like, in this.

Ugh.

This is just so frustrating thinking I. That she's being convincing so that I can be, like, kind of out of sight when I go to try to unroll her.

Okay, just because you're intentionally acting. Let's get a performance check.

Actually, no. 14.

Okay.

Charisma, caster. Your charisma's pretty good.

Yeah? Yeah.

The nun looks over at ya. But she's actually kind of enjoying the polite conversation with Elliot. She just kind of goes back to talking to him.

I'm not winning any oscars, but, you.

Know, it's a hell of a lot better than. What? Is that the room or whatever? Yeah. Yeah.

I did not hit Howard.

I did not.

Oh, hi, Mark. So you open it up out of Linus sight, and you see written on it is get the nun to fall asleep. And with that, we're going.

Her son is knock her unconscious exactly.

Where my head would. Just like Kong.

I walk up behind the Ned.

What's next?

Yeah, we're gonna flash back to olnach o nok. You are out in a hallway. Oh, you can see that you have ripped your way through just carnage. Okay, those checks you were making were strength checks in the real world, and you broke through the bars, and you blasted the door out of the way.

I didn't know I wanted to fail you guys. My bad.

The one time.

Gotta roll the bad dice.

All right, I need you to make. I need you to roll a d 20.

Maybe you should roll the bad dice.

Eight.

You throw yourself against the first door you see. It's the door that you smell the strongest fear coming out of, okay? You crack it, you do not break through. I need you to make a wisdom saving throw.

God damn it. All right, my weakest stats.

All right, I think you want to.

Roll high on this one.

Just.

Yes.

That was a plus one. It would have been better, but it's a negative 113.

You are back in the comms room.

Yeah, I think. Is that a four? Okay. Yeah, correct.

Got it. Okay, you are back in the comms room of the boat. Okay, you just had the sinking feeling in your stomach. As you realize what's about to happen. Pick up the story from there.

So I get a sinking feeling immediately after the third ping, because it is not the. This is a good ping. It's a bad sound. It's an alert. And with that, I also hear another alert. It's that something's being shot at.

The aircraft.

Lieutenant Snyder is losing his mind, understandably so. Like, this is AC 717. We're friendly aircraft. We have a joint training exercise, and you can hear everything else happening behind him. You can still hear the chime of the warning light. They've got missile. They immediately go into evasive maneuvers, trying to evade whatever's coming at them. So you hear taking evasive maneuvers, and they're banking. They're turning. I see chaff. Well, no, I wouldn't see anything. I would just hear this. Now I think about it. So I'm inside the boat. I don't see any of this, but they're. So they release chaffanhood. And that's to kind of. If it's a heat seeking missile, it's meant to disperse that heat. So it misses the aircraft. It'll go after the check.

That's the flares you see.

Right.

Okay. Unfortunately, since it's not a combat mission, they don't have a lot of countermeasures on this aircraft at the moment. We weren't expecting to be fired at.

Right. Right.

It's something you have on there just in case. So everybody knows how to load it and everything. But the chaff is not regularly loaded. One side is not both. So he's taken abase of maneuvers. The chaff goes off. I hear the alert and everything, the chaos inside the aircraft, and then I hear a very loud explosion in radio static.

I need you to roll the D 20.

I don't know if that's good or bad. 18. I guess we'll find out.

That's probably better. What happens now?

Um, with that, panic kind of starts to set into everybody because everybody heard the explosion. They're a few hundred yards away, but they're still close enough to be in comms, which means they're less than a mile away, as far as I can recall. That may or may not be accurate.

Sorry.

Navy guys that are listening to this. I haven't been an at for a very long time.

Anyway, things are just changed. If it's wrong.

Right, right. It's. The technology is better. It's not from the Vietnam era, but it was when I was in, so. And it's unfortunately that long ago, but.

All the way to Desert Shield.

Yeah. So everybody's in a panic. We hear the call for aircraft shot down through the boat, which means we're probably going to start banking towards it. Right. Like we're basically doing a man overboard. We're going to try to retrieve anybody that we can, if that's at all possible. So everybody. You don't always wear your life jacket when you're inside, even during flight ops, you know, but I'm inside and we just let the aircraft go, so I would still have my life jacket on and everything. So all of that. All gear is ready. We're about to bank towards that and we're just trying to respond to this. It's organized chaos because it's been drilled, but it's still chaotic.

Full speed towards the incident.

We're going to that we're going to try to get people out there and try to get pontoon boats, something to see if we can recover anything. And if it wasn't the aircraft that just got shot down, we would be sending sarswimmers, however they were in that aircraft. And we have the other one on the other hangar ready to go, but it's folded. It'll take a few minutes to get ready to get out. It would be a quicker response, as determined by higher ups, to send the boat their direction and try to make. Try to do that.

Are you guys prepping the other at to the other ac, get ready to go?

That would be the. That would be the proper response. So we would be as quickly as we can going into the other hangar, which is just across the hall. There's a little p way there, and then you cross that, and there's the other. Other hangar. There's two hangers on a destroyer, if I recall correctly.

I would assume even with a boat that big, when it's all of a sudden changing direction, exploring it.

Yeah.

Let's have you roll a 2016. All right. You are. You do a pretty good job. You only bounce off of a door frame as you're booking a shit over there. You don't eat it. Nothing comes at you.

It's not unusual for a navy guy to be walking on walls when we're banking or in high seas, you know, so.

And while you run to go back to the aircraft, you come back, too. Again. You are now you find yourself in a darken room. You are surrounded by the thick scent of fear, and you feel a rush of rage flowing through you, rage that even parallels or goes beyond the rage you normally feel in combat. This is true animalistic, bloodlust, primal.

Yeah.

You look around, and you see the body of a monk laying before you. His blood coats walls in thick black splotches, and you hear his pulse growing weaker. Your stomach gurgles in anticipation as you hunch over his body. You feel your hands reach forward, out of your control, but the hands you see are covered in matted fur and end in claws that are dripping with crimson blood. Your claws are easily able to shred his robes open, exposing his chest. You force your claws into his flesh right along where the rib cage would meet in the middle. I need you to roll a wisdom saving roll.

One of the ones that's rolling high. You keep rolling so well on the.

Ones that don't matter. Yeah. So that was a nine minus one. That's gonna be an eight.

No, the rest of the party.

Did we hear him busting through that door?

He's beyond the door.

Are you still actively looking? I will say that neither Mel nor Elliot are able to because they are actively engaging their brains in other activities.

I think the other two of us, because we're not doing other stuff, we've just been kind of still listening.

Let's go and roll with the advantage perception checks.

Yeah, I probably went to the window to see if I could, like, see same. Anything natural. 20.

Jesus. I can't roll for shit. Six. So passive. Ten again.

Total of 24.

James, you not only hear the doors get burst open, you hear the screaming as he tears into the monk.

Oh, fuck.

Guys, I don't think it's going too well.

What do we do?

They're talking to a wall.

What do we do?

Do you say that?

No. Well, probably, yeah.

Okay.

I feel like we.

But none looks at you when you say that. They're talking to a Walter.

We're over by the window, and she's in conversation with Elliot right now.

That sounded like you whispered it. Ish. Where are you?

I don't. I feel like. I feel like we need to intervene, but I don't know.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. It's probably a really stupid idea.

No?

Probably. It's a very stupid idea.

Yes. However, at that point, because I think Mel wasn't listening and was in the. In her little parchment thing, she's going to message probably James, because Elliot's in conversation, and we know that the conversation would oddly lurch if I messaged him. So I'm going to message James.

Point of order. Does she still have that ability?

I do right now.

Okay.

It works.

Okay.

It doesn't feel as. As it has, but it works.

Just check it, because I was like, oh, wait. You. Okay, got it.

You know, like that, like, sinking dread in the stomach.

You get the sinking dread. You get the scream on your end.

That's what James hears. He hears the scream. And then Mel goes, oh, fuck.

Not helpful.

No.

You could have just said that.

No, sorry, I got distracted. Okay, so I'll update James on what I just found and be like, I know that whatever's going on is probably really bad, but we need to try to get the nun to go to sleep. It'll help.

He's turning a monk into a pinata.

That's the monk's problem right now. We're in here and there's someone who claims that they'll help us or trying to help us in the wall.

Did you read the fine print this time?

Yes, I read the fine print. I read the whole parchment back, front, and sideways, and it says, get the nun to fall asleep. And frankly, that's not gonna hurt anyone. So what's the worst that can happen? Help me figure out how to get the nun to fall asleep.

Does it just need to be incapacitated, or does it actually need to be asleep?

Just says, fall asleep. Get the nun to fall asleep. That's all. It's written on the parchment.

Can it be any more vague?

I. Sorry. It's, like, three inches square. Like, there's not a lot of room. Tell Emery.

Okay. Apparently, Mel found a new person who's apparently going to be super helpful.

Okay, I love how you don't trust that. I don't blame you.

You're just saying that out loud in the room at regular volume.

Maybe quietly tell Emmer.

I'm hoping that, like, we're nuts at this point. That the nun is, like, just quietly.

Tell Emory, you dumb shit.

You can also message Emery.

Fine. I'll message Emery. James is clearly beside himself.

I'm, like, heading for the door at this point.

Yeah, he's panicking. So that. Seeing that James is panicking at this point, I'll have that same conversation with Emory, which has the same gross, disgusting scream, and I'll be like, ugh.

She does flinch.

So does Mel. Oh, God. That's not.

Because they're doing an interesting job at discretion. Can you roll another persuasion check to see if we can keep the nut in in this conversation.

Bam, bam, ba ba. Go pick up again.

If it's somehow weirdly better, you can go for performance, but no. What'd you roll?

Seven. Okay, when I see James go towards the door, I'm gonna say, james, do not go out there.

Were we trying to keep him from killing anybody?

We're trying to keep him from killing us first. If you go out there, it's gonna be worse. If I thought we could help, I would be right behind you.

So we're just gonna let him just have monk buffet?

If we go out there, we will have to kill him. Are you ready to kill him?

I wasn't planning on killing him. I was planning on, like, you know, hide and seek with deadly Ark.

If you're gonna. If you're killing. If you're gonna go out there prepared to poke pointy things into our friend Olnach, you realize that you're probably gonna have to kill him.

I wouldn't stab him. I'm not gonna get that close.

You should.

And if he bites you and we have to go through this shit again. There's only so many of you I can keep locked up. And I already felt on the other one.

I just don't like it when we leave somebody high and dry.

He's out there, he's winning.

Exactly.

His sanity's in danger.

Exactly.

That's always.

We don't want him going the way of Griff.

We don't. But we can't stop him right now.

Like, how is he supposed to keep the monster under control when he's.

What do you want to do?

I want you to buy all head Elliott with a persuasion.

I was going to distract him if he's after me. And I can avoid.

I'm rolling so terribly.

I can be. I. Elliot can be persuaded at this point.

Under ten.

This is terrible idea.

I never. Like I said, it's a stupid idea.

Above all, we're actually supposed to be protecting Jacob. So if you all go herring off, you're gonna leave me to protect him?

I never said that.

Everyone had to go with me.

That's not high enough.

I don't think it's high enough.

You're gonna take Jacob with.

Everything is much better.

I said you guys don't have to come with me.

Oh, hell yeah. No, we've got one. We've got to stick together on this. We have to.

I don't like it.

I don't for a moment like it either, but I don't think we have a better option. If we had a better option, I'd be right with you.

If we had a better option, we wouldn't be here.

I'm trying to come up with one right now, but no, let's have you.

Roll a persuasion back.

Try and charge.

I have three.

Fuck me. You both feel very firm about your stances.

I would like to join in this persuasion.

Go for it. On whose side are you on?

I am on Elliot's side to stay put. That was part of the plan. And plus, Elliot doesn't know this, but I think that I might have another plan. And I think that it could. If nothing else, it'll give us a way out if we need it.

Perfect.

So I'm just waiting.

Yeah, go ahead and roll.

I haven't. I haven't pulled above a ten yet tonight.

Do you have.

Doing great.

Fuck. Is it called proficiency?

Yes, I do.

Bad proficiency. You do have proficiency in it?

Yeah.

Nevermind.

Uh, twelve.

We're all just in a stalemate. None of us like anything that anyone else is saying.

The original plan.

Sorry, the messaging is making me nauseous.

The original play worth mentioning? I know you guys aren't exactly team none here. I get it. All right? If you go out there, you're either taking the boy towards the beast or you're leaving the boy in a room with me. You don't seem to trust me. I would not let the boy anywhere near a wolf.

No, I agree with the nun on this one.

I hate leaving Olnach out there, but I don't know what we could do.

I mean, quite frankly, and I mean this with no disrespect, it would make my night much easier if you just left the boy with me.

We have no interest in making your life easy.

That's kind of the vibe I'm picking up. I don't like anybody dying. The monks are my family. You guys are supposed to be our guests. That's not going great. I'd rather you nothing die here. Seems how you are. The first draft of our new missionary mission. For whatever the right word of that is. It's not missionary mission. But that's what it is. Now.

That's what we're going with.

Just for what it's worth, those are my two cent. Do with that what you will.

What if. What if Jacob's in a room, right? I'm assuming.

I'm assuming he's in the main room.

I'm guessing we're all together.

Yeah, I think you all are. Room in here.

I think he's sitting in the corner with Charlie, probably.

I never said that you guys had to go with me.

James, that's stupid and we all know it.

Exactly.

If you go outside, you're going to die.

Would you rather we just kill you first before you get yourself turned into a werewolf?

At some point, he's going to get to this room. The cell didn't stop him. That door down there didn't stop him.

But if he comes to this room, we know where he's going to come through. He's going to come right through that door. We can be prepared for that.

And then we kill him. Then.

I told him we would.

My hope is that I could just.

Did you see how fast that werewolf moved? You can't move that fast. He will catch you. You're good at hiding, but if he gets a whiff, you can't hide your scent. If I thought you had a chance, I'd help you. But there's no way it's going to work.

He'd hate the thought of hurting you, too.

Every monk that he kills, his sanity's ticking down.

Also, every monk that he kills is somebody that is trying to bring a moratar and overcome our world. I'm sorry, James. These people. Sorry, sister. Is the enemy. They've chosen to be the enemy. And I'm sorry. I wish they wouldn't have.

But killing the enemy at the expense of his free will, his sanity, honestly.

When he kills the enemy, normally, it's probably a little bit expensive.

Yeah, but he does it with a smile, case in point.

And a little song at the end that doesn't lick.

That's actually my point.

Go for the next one.

But, James, what do you think it'll do for his sanity if he kills us? It'll be worse.

He might still chan to. Wow. He might still stand to chan now.

With the way he's rolling that or.

That.

Or it might already be too late.

We don't know that. We don't know that. We cannot. We absolutely cannot control whatever's going on in Olog's giant mind. However, we have other things, and Mel looks pointedly at both James and Emery that we might be able to control. And maybe we should work on those right now. Maybe just a little. Maybe.

I'll be honest. I don't know how to work on those ones.

I got a thing. But the last time that I tried to ad lib a thing, it didn't work very well.

That won't put anybody to sleep.

Sleep.

Hey, Florence, just because we're all very keyed up tonight, as I'm sure you've noticed, an observant woman like yourself.

Do you have any sleepy time?

T actually, I was thinking, like, does anything in your order? Do you guys do any meditation or calming exercises or things like that?

Partake in prayer?

You know what? I think we should work on that. You? Prayer. I'll meditate, and these guys can keep watch. And maybe one of your gods or something will keep us all from dying tonight.

It's Raphael's will that you are alive in the fifth year.

Yeah, perfect. So he'll keep us from dying tonight. Do you ever start talking and you have those moments where you can't believe the words coming out of your mouth? Mel's having that moment right now.

That's most of my conversation.

I think most of the rest of.

The party's kind of staring at you like Mel's. Like, they're staring at Mel's. Like, I have to keep talking, even though these words are like, what the fuck am I gonna say next?

This would be a good time for me to start teaching the boy some of our prayer rituals.

He has had an extremely trying day, and I don't think this is the time.

Why don't you teach?

Very cultivated.

You know what? Why don't you teach me some of the rituals? Because I can teach both of you. Perfect. That'll work just fine.

So.

And Malcolm looks pointedly at Emory, and. James, I explained it to you in your head. Don't look at me like that.

That doesn't mean she likes this course of action fair. And if she's teaching, then she's not meditating.

Oh, before you guys start meditating, I think. I think Sister Florence needs to get to the back of the room.

There's also a bear. When she faces. Turns the other direction. Y'all could hit her in the head with something like. I'm not opposed to that.

All of the bedrooms are equipped with our prayer mats.

Perfect. Let's go into the bedroom.

She goes into one of the bedrooms, and under the mattress, it had looked kind of like a rugged. Which he thought was weird that it's under the bed instead of near the bed, but she pulls it out, and it's about the size of, like, a welcome mattress.

Honestly, pull the door close behind her.

Honestly, as soon as her back turns to me, I'm gonna try to, like, hit her with something and knock her unconscious.

Okay.

What, like the Hilton? Like, I don't know, their candlesticks are on the. Or something?

Yeah, there'd be.

Yeah, I'm gonna try to hit her in the head with a candlestick.

As soon as her back turns, go ahead and roll. An unarmed attack.

Suddenly we're playing clue.

Well, with the candlestick, it'd be an improvised weapon. It'd be a d four plus string.

Do that.

Okay, so that's 14, I guess. Do I get a pneumonia?

Your strength, probably.

It'll be your. It'll be a normal melee attack. So it'd be strength plus proficiency.

15 to hit.

Hits, actually. That would hit.

And it'd be a d four plus strength for your damage.

And you could designate two points of non lethal damage.

I'm gonna say.

The one person who would be really good at this is currently wolfing out on a monk.

Hey, Meltz needs to get better quick.

She doesn't see this coming.

Yeah.

And you are able to drop her. You hit her. Right? Right. Either right in the ear, right at the base of the skull where it meets the neck, whatever. And you just. She falls like a sack of freaking potatoes. Just down. She wasn't prepared for that.

Right.

There was Elliot. He's gonna. Holy crap.

Then once that happens, Belle walks out of the room holding a candlestick and then very calmly, closes the door behind her. Okay, now let's get to business.

Oh, listener. Hello there. I didn't realize you'd be out tonight. There be monsters afoot. One should use caution when wandering through strange lands. Stick with me a moment. Maybe we can keep each other safe. While I have your attention, let me extend an invitation to you. The Grand Junction Comic Con is coming up on September 20 and 21st, and you can meet most of the cast of this tale there. We will be hosting a panel on the 21st at 330 regarding tips and tricks to run and play games. The entry fee is a mere $5 or a masonry county public library card. We will be passing out some treats, as well as sharing advice weve collected over our years of playing tabletop role playing games. If you have enjoyed listening to this dark tale, follow us on social media. We post every day, and odds are, if you enjoy this content, our social media accounts will. Will be very much up your alley. If you want to help support this podcast, please follow us, review us, etcetera, on your podcasting app of choice. If you are a Spotify listener, leave a comment answering the question of the week. I think I hear the beast leaving for now, wed best part ways. Enjoy the rest of the episode. You are now standing over a shredded corpse. The lungs are visible, so I've ripped the chest open. You have. And there is a gaping hole near the box, presumably where the heart. You taste iron, and honestly, something not crazy, far from beef.

Okay.

Yeah.

Very, very, very rare.

Yeah.

Steak. It's got a. It's got a hearty chew to it, and it's not. It's not horribly unpleasant. Your beast is enjoying this quite a lot. I need you to make a wisdom saving.

Wisdom of all things, all right?

Because you can't think your way out of this.

That was a good one. We're gonna go 17.

You see the light catches just right behind you. You see a large window.

Okay.

You see that you are on the ground level. You smell more fear. You feel something inside you trying to draw you to the neighboring levels. You gain temperature, temporary control. What do you do?

Okay, so I see window, which, and.

This is importantly, leading away from the kiki pool, not into.

Deeper into the pots.

This is back in the hallway. A large stained glass. Right?

Okay. Since old NOC has temporarily, at the moment, regained control and knows that if he gives in to the beast, which means probably feeding and killing more things and ripping out more hearts. He needs to get the fuck out of there, right? Like, I don't know what's in the woods, but I know it's not a shitload of people who are locked in rooms that I can easily break into. I'm gonna take the window and I'm gonna head out.

Perfect. You leap through the window. You do take some damage. It doesn't tickle. And you take off running for the treeline. As you're getting close to the treeline, you can feel yourself starting to lose control again. You feel the beast starting to take back over. Just as that happens, you see doe see you and book shit into the.

Woods, as I'm sure it will.

Wood. You are goddamn scary.

Yeah, they don't take well to things charging at top speed at them either.

Because here's the thing. So all nox is six 5250 pound. Man, most werewolf things that I've ever seen make that son of a bitch bigger. This is a giant fucking werewolf.

Huge.

Yeah. You take off, you feel the beast take back over, just as you can see. See the scent line of the. Of the deer. And you give full pursuit of that animal. The rest of you just saw Mel knock the fucking nun out.

See, I would have done that, but.

Most of my stuff isn't blunt. I would have killed her.

Well, that's why I used a candlestick. Okay, so Mel will update Elliot as to what's going on. And I couldn't come up with a good way to actually make her fall asleep, so here we are.

In the meantime, Emery's gonna take like, a chair or bench or something and wedge it in the door so it.

Doesn'T open her side. Yeah, we'll say they open into the master room. So you can do that.

Actually, right before she says, did you at least place her in the. So she's not gonna choke on her?

Yeah, yeah, I rolled her over. I did. Full, like, you know, college drunk night. Make.

You knocked her out, then you kicked her.

No, you roll them over on their side so if they woke up, wake up puking, they don't die.

Yes, that's the. Yeah, the rescue. The rescue position.

Yeah. I don't know.

Anyway, all right. I just want to make sure. Yeah, I know these guys are the enemy, but I don't feel like killing unarmed nuns.

That's why I just knocked her unconscious. I wasn't trying to get so.

Okay. Hey. And he knocks on the wall. Okay, she's asleep. Now what you hear.

You jump to that 35.

Sorry, I didn't want to explain it again, no, that's fine.

You hear from inside the painting a click, and then the painting does swing open. And James actually would have the best chance of recognizing this. This has a very vault door look to it, so it opens up, and you can see as it swings out the. The edge that would have been into the quote unquote door frame has got three metal circles that you assume are rods that would have penetrated into the wall, making this door impossible to open without some incredible.

Yeah, it's like a werewolf.

And inside of this, you see a small room, very, very scantly decorated. There's like a table and a couple chairs, some candle light. And you see a fair bit away on the other side the room standing as obviously trying to display non threatening behavior as is possible. You see a monk, he has his hood off. He's the first individual seen with their hood off. The man is bald, and every ounce of skin that would have been covered by his hood is just coated in scars.

Dang. Oh, my God.

He looks almost like something along the lines of a horrific burn victim, but there's also raised scars as if he's suffered cuts.

This guy went through that cleansing ritual a lot.

That's what I was thinking.

Thinking again.

He is very. I don't want to say defensive posture, because that indicates he thinks you're going to attack. He's really more just like, submissive posture. Yeah, submissive posturing. Kind of what you would do with a dog. You're not super certain about trying to show that you can trust, you know, not necessarily like, hey, sniff my hand. But, you know, he's got his hands forward, clearly showing that he's unarmed. He's actually allowed his robes sleeves to write up a bit. So you can see there's literally nothing up his sleeve. And the same thing there. His arms are just covered with scar tissue. And he wasn't quite what I had in mind. But we don't do subtle.

Well, I'm sorry we couldn't come up with a better option.

I realized that when you yelled at the painting.

Hi, I'm Elliot Brandybain. Who the hell are you?

He says, my name's brother Isaac. You see him physically wince when he says that? He's like, no, damn it. My name is Jeff.

We breaking the programming.

Hi, Jeff.

And he is obviously in horrible pain as he gets through that.

Speaking of pain, did we hear that windowpane break?

No.

I'm gonna say no. Okay. I would say that Mel knocking a nun out that none of you saw.

We were no longer paying.

You were no longer paying attention.

Does there look like there's enough room? Is this room large enough for us all to get in here?

Yeah. Yeah.

Elliot's gonna go out and say, guys, grab all your stuff and grab everybody and get in here.

All right?

Okay. Is there a way out? Except for the way in?

And I look at Jeff.

Yeah.

Okay. He says, yes, let's. Let's put.

You can actually. You can even see the door.

Okay. Okay, guys, there's another door in here. Get the room kind of put back together, and let's get in here.

And then you're Jeff, is it?

He says his name's Jeff.

I know. Once we get everything, I just want to have a chat.

That's good. Let's get our stuff in.

I'll put down the candy stick.

A little bit of a timeline here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We can walk and talk. It's good for you.

Yep. Emery's running around the room grabbing stuff and chucking it in bags. She doesn't care whose stuff is going into what.

I feel like we probably didn't really unpack much.

Yeah.

We lean off. Yeah, I wasn't planning on staying long.

Yeah. Don't forget all this bag. He might still need that.

Yeah.

God, what the hell does he have in this thing?

A warhammer and two axes.

Heavy as fuck.

So we grab all our stuff out of the room, clear the room, sort of set it mildly to rights, and go, Jeff, are we good? Should we just shut the door?

Yes.

All right.

As soon as you guys are out.

The DM just punched himself.

As soon as you guys are into the room, he pulls the painting closed, and you see him kind of just tap randomly on the back, and you hear a click. He gives the. Gives the painting a little bit of a shove, and it doesn't even twitch. He says, uh, for right now, I. I do not want what's happened to me to happen to that boy. I can get you out of here.

Okay.

I'm gonna make a quick insight check.

Before I feel like I would do the same thing.

Yeah. Like, seven.

Have you had. Is like. Is this from having to undergoing the cleansing ritual repeatedly, or is this just normal? Just normal for what this group does?

You believe him? Importantly, 17 believes him.

Mel believes him because she's gullible.

19, you believe him slightly more like.

I'm not even gonna roll.

Yeah, is. Oh, yeah, my. You can. Yes, this is. I've been through the cleansing, the ordeal of wiffle torment.

See, I knew it was a bad idea.

Okay, Jeff, I've been through it. 1212 times.

Oh, my God.

Well, thank God it didn't take, huh?

Okay, Jeff, what do we need to.

Do at this point? We're gonna move forward through this more, like, skill challenge, where it's going to be five successes to get you out. Four fails is going to get you caught, as we've discussed in the past. But as a refresher, you guys kind of tell me the skills that you're going to use, and we'll set the DC kind of accordingly. He's gonna be a 14. Unless you tell me something real dumb or something kind of genius that'll adjust the DC accordingly. Importantly, he takes the lead, and he is able to open up the door back into the hallway. And you are able. You're starting off with an empty hallway. Everybody has locked themselves in their rooms because there's a monster quite literally loose in the building. To everybody's knowledge, you don't know that he's gone.

And Elliot wants to make a stealth check.

Perfect. Just for the sake of being able to keep track of things. Let's roll an initiative order. Elliot can go first. Cause you're probably gonna roll the highest anyway. Nobody can touch yours.

No, no. Elliot got a 28.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm just gonna rate. Jesus.

He rolled pretty good. He can roll higher.

Mel.

Six.

And on the opposite end of the.

Spectrum, Mel's juggling Jacob. Jacob's backpack. Her backpack. Like it's a thing.

Mel's a Sherpa. Right now.

He's trying to.

That's weird. Jacob rolled a suit.

You guys are struggling together.

Yes. Now put your arm through the other. The other hole.

Memory.

Twelve.

Not on the number, but on where to put. Yeah.

Space.

On that note, Elliot rolled a stealth check to sneak out into the hallway without drawing suspicion. How did you do?

He did a 21.

All right. You successfully sneak out into the hallway. That is one success. James, you guys are out in the hallway quietly moving.

What kind of floor is this? Is it like, hardwood floor?

Is it, like, it's done?

Okay, nevermind. I was gonna check for squeaky floorboards, but, uh, can I still do an investigation? Check for, like.

Obstacles.

Obstacles to, like, make sure there's, like. Like no one's peeking out or anything.

Sure.

Yeah. 17.

You are able to successfully see that about four doors down, there's one door that isn't shut all the way. And so you signal to the rest of the team, show them the door, and you guys are able to slip past without drawing attention. Cool. That is two successes. Emery.

I was thinking maybe like, a sleight of hand to make sure we keep all our stuff and remove any trace on our way out. We're not leaving any sign that we went through here.

Okay. Okay.

Oh, 18.

All right.

Is that like an analog pass without a trace spell?

Kind of, yeah. I'm, like, at the back of the group, just making sure, like, everyone's not, like, no one's dropping anything. If there's dust on the floor, it's getting scuffed. So we can't tell, like, which direction we're going. Stuff like that.

Perfect. As you're moving, you see that in. I think it was James picked up Olnack's pack and struggling with the weight. You see that the two actions are getting ready to clink into each other. You're able to get up there and help him shift the weight before it.

Maybe even, like, take one of them off and slip into my own pack. Gotcha. Share the weight a little bit, just.

In case it matters.

Which one do you grab a?

The silvered one.

Perfect. You have his fireman's axe.

I don't think I'm good at wielding it, but.

But you're good at carrying it, Mel.

You guys are doing pretty well. No pressure.

Um, I'm really bad at all of the skills we need right now. Any chance I could run as a deception check to try to move in a deceiving way so that if somebody did see us, they might just think.

That we were branding the kitchen?

Yeah. Or, like, I don't know, maybe I grabbed one of the robes and threw it on over my clothes to look like maybe it was a couple of amongst people escorting.

Okay.

To try to make it look less like, hey, we're running out on here.

You can.

Don't mind us. We're off to the market.

Yeah, pretty much. Oh, that's a 21.

Yep. All right, you're up to four. Elliot can't use the same skill twice.

So looking at brother Isaac, I see how very bad a shape he is.

He introduced himself as brother Isaac and then had a stroke. Okay.

And I. Elliot notices that he might not have been all that long ago, that he went through the last session, and he would like to make a medicine check to attempt to make Jeff feel a little bit better.

Sure. Go ahead and roll that. 15 just passes. Yeah. You're able to find. You're able to find some fairly fresh wounds and you're able to. You guys get around a corner out of obvious living quarters. You're not doing this right in front of somebody's room. Sure. You guys have got first aid kits, so you're able to advantage.

Like, he's limping a little bit. I'm able to kind of tie a brace around. Yeah, kind of help him not limp so much.

There you go. Perfect. I don't remember how many successes that was.

Five.

That was fine. No, I had total five. Okay.

Five successes.

You guys just straight across the board, just nobody failed. It's got five successes.

Yay.

Go team.

Mildly less exciting than I thought it would be.

We finally didn't roll.

You guys decided to roll well, for once this session.

So you guys are able to get out of the living quarters. You get down the stairwell. The nice thing is this is all stone, so there isn't any opportunity for a creaky stair. There's no. The worst thing that could happen is you trip and it's just gonna really hurt when you hit. It's very hard. But you guys are able to very carefully, and with Jeff's guidance, able to find your way out to the main front door of the compound. And he is able to start opening the door. Thankfully, as we've stated several times throughout this podcast, they take immaculate care of everything. So despite the size and the weight of this door, it's fairly quiet. It creaks a little. I mean, we're dealing with a big oak and iron bound door. It creaks a little, but it's pretty darn quiet. You guys are safely out the front of of the compound. You guys are successfully outside the front of the compound with Jeff.

All right, now what? Jeff?

Are you going with us or are you staying?

Should you stay? Should you come?

This is not the time, James.

I think I. Yellow.

Can you survive that again?

Can I do an insight check and see if that's my brother talking or if that's Jeff talking?

They don't have anyone that can do the cleansing ritual right now.

That's true. It could get better here.

Nine.

You're not sure?

I mean, your funeral.

Jeff, if you want to go with us, you can go with us if you decide to stay. We never saw you.

I appreciate that. I don't know if I will survive if I leave here.

Can I please remind you real quick that there is a raging werewolf inside that building?

I'm not saying I'm gonna survive inside of sight either. They're about to. They're about to anoint a new high patron and a high matron. I helped you. I am almost certainly going to be their first, the first recipient of the ordeal for them.

You will help you if you want. Don't know your circumstances, Jeff, but if you want to, you can. Can come with us, and we're getting out of here.

I will. Where? Where are you going?

Uh, we're not gonna tell you, but it'll be a way.

Settlement or nature?

Eventually settlement. But in the meantime, nature.

Until we get to a settlement, for sure.

If you don't, I will try. Cool. I will try to come with you.

Okay. We've got horses. We're gonna go get them. Okay.

At the moment, we have a free one.

That's true. At the moment, we have a horse without a rope.

What was that one's name again?

Yeah. Perk.

Yeah.

I appreciate you being willing to help you.

You helped us.

Fair trade.

We should move.

Yes, we should. So we want to get up to the stables, get the horses, get them saddled, and get down the road. Cause my understanding as the player, there was one road in here and one road out. I don't.

If the road you took came straight up, snacked through the door. Right. Was there, you would have seen when you were doing your tour, another, the same road, presumably come straight out the other side of this, almost as if this building interrupted there.

The road. I think we would prefer to go east.

And we'll say the way you did not come from, it goes up the mountainous, but you would have to cross this mountain to continue east.

Kind of a pass.

Okay. We know what's back that way. I think we should continue.

I agree.

So what are we planning on doing about Ulnag?

Ulnok will find us if he becomes human again.

We're gonna watch out for him tonight. And Elliot's gonna get silver, specifically his silver arrows. And he's gonna have his silver arrows at hand.

Perfect.

Which was amazing with that new quiver. When he reached for it, the arrows he pulled out, each one of them were silver. He didn't have. He didn't fumble a bit.

Yep.

At which side of the compound is, like, the gardens and stuff? Like the east or the.

So we had to the. You are currently on the downslope to get to the main entrance. Gardens were on the right side of the compound. South, I suppose.

Yeah.

The right to your right would be. If you're looking at the compound, gardens to your right. Horses and whatnots were on the exact opposite.

Okay.

And there wasn't much on.

So we want. We want to head around towards the north.

Yeah.

To get to the horses to the east.

You're on the west.

We're on the west.

You said exact opposite side. Of the building is where the horses are.

Okay, sorry.

South is gardens.

I thought you meant on the opposite side of the gardens.

Oh, sorry. No, opposite side of you.

Okay, that makes sense. I would still vote going north side just because that would put us in shadows and we can move a little more stealthily.

Well, it's nighttime now.

Yes, yes, but it's full moon.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Everybody should be on the north side.

But, yeah, I'm with you.

So I think when they're like. While we're discussing methods, one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take my broom, and I'm going to pull Jacob aside and explain. Like. Okay, you've probably read about this. This is an actual magic broomstick. Do not play with it right now. But if anything happens to any of us, get on the broomstick, say the magic word, and I tell him, up, up, up. Okay, look, I didn't. I didn't know what I was getting into.

Wow.

I say that a lot. Anyway, if anything happens to any of us, whether it's because of something that happens here in the castle or maybe a monster or anything at all, take this and fly away from you. We'll explain more in the morning, but for right now, just keep a hold of that, and that's last resort at a minimum.

Fly up in the air.

Yes.

Remember, up. Okay.

Yeah.

And if you want. And if you're on it and you get up and you want to come down, just say down.

Okay.

It's very straightforward. It's easier than learning stick. Jacob, you're so little guy.

Beat me to it.

Okay, so you guys are gonna move stealthily or just haul ass? What's your goal? Get the hell out of here or hide?

I'm thinking everybody's hiding inside from Olmok. I say we just.

Yeah, yeah.

He's got enough snake going through the shadows.

But quickly, we're sneakily hauling ass.

Then you guys are able to. You make it towards the livestock. You do see, once you come to the other side, right as you're about to clear the corner, you do now. You're leaving the shadows. This area is not in shadow. You see that? One of the pigs is incredibly dead. Guys.

You guys go get the horses saddled. I want to check this out. I would like to look for tracks.

Okay, go for it.

The rest of us will hustle the stable and start throwing saddles on horses.

I believe this would qualify as your favorite. Drinks. You're now out in the woods.

14.

Okay, because you've seen it and you've seen it recently. This is the same print that he saw, right? It's, it's bigger.

Yeah. And I wanna, I specifically wanna know which direction it goes.

It goes straight east. It hauled ass through the pig.

Is it following the rope?

No, it does. It looks like it took the most direct line to the woods. So it's running in vaguely the same direction as the road. Okay. But you can see just through the clearing of the trees. The road starts to bank north as it gets to a steep point. Again, he looks like he went straight for the tree line.

Got it. Okay.

And actually with you investigating, you see the window that he very clearly went through.

So after everybody gets horses saddled, we'll introduce Jeff. Would you like us to keep calling you Jeff, brother Jeff? What would you prefer, brother Jeff? Jeff. Okay, Jeff, you ride this horse. This is Bert. Bert, this is Jeff. I don't talk to horses. All knock does. He's a good horse. And then I'm gonna go to everybody else. Kind of whispered.

That was a confusing reaction.

Yeah, just pat the horse and keep going.

Ah. Then I'm going to get everybody together. I'm gonna say guys all not got out.

Either that or there's another werewolf.

Yeah, no, we're just gonna.

What's wrong with you?

That's worst case scenario, James.

I'm just saying our track record.

Oh shit. Okay, we gotta go, but we gotta keep our eyes peeled.

Are we still hauling east?

Which way do we go?

Back? We just gotta come back by here again?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't want to go east either, but I don't want to go back.

Maybe if we move quick enough we can get ahead of him.

Maybe. And he might. I don't know why he went off into the woods. I've got no idea. But where he's out here.

Do you think he spotted something?

I wasn't there to.

In fact, I wasn't there to visit with him. I don't know what he did, but we gotta get out of here.

Let's just move.

Let's just. So if anybody's got anything silver, get it at hand.

Yeah.

Is anyone good at an axe?

I. Can I lift it? I don't know.

I'll give Ironman.

It's not, you know what, it's, it can't do any worse than me being basically unarmed right now because my magic makes me queasy.

So you're strong?

Yeah. Okay, cool.

I don't have a weapon for deficiencies to hold this axe.

So someone else take it. Oh, I will. I'll take the fireman's axe. Why not? What's the worst that can happen?

Is that the same fireman's axe that you used to attempt to break through a window once upon a time?

No, that was. I tried to use the cheap little key ring. Punchy knuckle.

Oh, I meant like through the. Like the door. Oh, is a sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer.

Yeah.

Okay.

The sledgehammer was more than I did.

So we're discussing this while we're getting on the road. Luckily, horses could see pretty good in a former night. They could see quite well.

You guys settled the horses, no problem. You weren't. You were again, not being particularly quiet. So now you are on the horse. What do you. What do you. How do you move? What do you.

I'm following Elliot still.

Quietly or quickly?

Quickly. We've got to make. So we want.

We're just going to make time.

We're gonna. We're gonna head out because full moon horse looks and see pretty good in the dark. We're on a road. We're gonna push for speed. We're gonna move at by D and D rules.

Perfect.

I feel like Elliott and James would probably be upfront because we can also see pretty decent.

James, you need to be maybe one in the back.

I need to be in the back.

You need to be in the back.

We need eyes in the back. I do not have goods.

I can't see shit.

Stay in the back.

Garbage.

Perception same.

I'm gonna hear you coming up.

I am not good. Perception. I'm carrying an axe, which I'm not good with. I have Jacob holding a broom on my lap. Like, this is awkward.

Yep.

We got Jeff in the middle. I don't know if he's okay on a horse or not.

He's familiar. He's very clearly.

I'll put Jeff, Jeff directly behind me, and I'll lead the horse like Jeff. I don't know if you're good at riding a horse. Just hang on and we got to go.

Bert will follow.

Yeah, Burt's gonna follow. I'll have the reins. I'll be leading. I'll be leading Burt.

Perfect. Once we clear into the treeline, once you're very clearly off of the grounds, Mel, I need you to make a Christmas Eve goshenhe.

Good. Stat.

21.

Okay. Old knock. You are tearing through the woods.

Yep. And apparently I ran directly through a pig and just fucking ripped it to shit. I didn't know I did that.

This a train through it.

So you tell me. What are you doing, werewolf out here?

Chase the female deer. Female deer. Yeah.

I'm so glad we're all on the same page.

So what does Polnack ze wolf do? You feel yourself. The immediate rage is starting to calm right now that you're not surrounded by the scent of fear, the intoxicating scent of fear. You feel the rage inside of you. Start. It's still there. It's a. It's more of a simmering pot now instead of a volcano.

Okay, so it's calmer, but it's still present. Do I still have my faculties? Am I still sure. Kind of ulnok.

You're. You're kind of Ulnok. You definitely. You feel the bestial for one of less weird descriptions, the bestial urges coursing through you a bit, but you are kind of back in the driver's seat.

Okay, so I'm not full on hungry wolf. Right, right. But I'm still a hungry wolf.

Yes.

Just not.

You're a hungry, like, a raging, holy.

Shit, I need to eat something. I'm not a hangry wolf. Does that make sense?

Not a hangry one.

You're not you when you're hungry.

And the snickers ain't gonna cut it right now. Um, so I'm pursuing the deer. Right. Like I saw it. I'm hungry.

Perfect.

Go ahead and, uh, be going after the deer.

Give me a, uh. We'll use your stats. Give me a survival. I think your wisdom is the same. Wisdom?

Yeah, it's a wisdom. Safe, for sure.

The wisdom, yes. And with a potential for proficiency. I don't know if you have a proficiency kind of.

Survival.

Survival. Sorry. Less.

Oh, I think he might have.

I do. So I kind of. It's a wash.

There you go.

Because I got a negative one and a plus one, so it's just whatever.

No, you have a plus two proficiency for proficiency.

Yeah. So you should have a plus one.

You should have a plus one.

I have a plus one. Okay, so total doesn't take my thing.

In order to calculate.

It's what? That you have a plus two for proficiency.

Yeah.

That's a nine.

All right. Now that you're back in the driver's seat, you're having a hard time getting used to the wildly enhanced sense.

It's kind of overwhelming.

Everything is dialed up. You don't have darkvision normally. Right now you do. Everything is brighter and almost. Almost glaring with how intense it is. Plus, you're hearing so much more.

Okay.

So much further than you normally can. You can hear the squirrels in the trees breathing. You can hear down at the edge of your sound. You hear the leather of a strap being cinched. You heard all the way up to the tip top of the mountain. You can hear hooves all over the place. And in the cacophony of sound, you lose track of the one you're chasing. Add to that every plant nearby. This is early spring in the mountains. So there's a lot of flowers, there is a lot of pollen. There is a lot of scent everywhere. So you lose what you're hunting for in this just almost overwhelming barrage of information.

Can you imagine how loud a werewolf sneeze would be?

Cause all the pollen, dude.

Yeah. While you're almost in your. Your conscious mind trying to protect itself from just the barrage.

Right.

Sensory overload, yes. You recede back into yourself, and you pick up from where you left off on the story. You were literally sprinting towards the helicopter that was still folded up, waiting to be deployed, right?

That's right. We were getting the second aircraft ready for launch so we can perform a search and rescue mission if necessary. Boat is turning towards.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, um, we're trying to get the bird out of the hangar. Um, so it's unlike a track which chains down, kind of pulls itself back.

Right.

But it's also chained and chocked. I don't know if anybody. Those terms are normal for people, but. Got to pull the chocks and chains. So it's actually chained down because it's a small boat, it moves a lot. So I'm helping getting the chocks and chains pulled. We got to get those undone before we get bird out and then re chock and chain it once it gets out. Even. Even though this is an emergency thing, we need to make sure it's secure before we get people in it to take off. Does that all make sense? Whole crew is doing that. Get the bird out and ready to go in. Pretty typical response time before launch. If you're in a significant hurry, it's probably about five, seven minutes. You can usually. We can usually have a bird up.

That's not bad.

Yeah.

So there's a chance, theoretically, at least in our heads, that we might be able to get somebody out of the water. Um, bird goes out. Um, we get her up and turned.

Before you ship it. Just because I'm curious. Yeah. Knowing what just happened to the last bird that you sent.

That's true.

Do you do anything differently to make sure this one doesn't just meet the same fate? And if so, what.

Well, this would be a problem, come to think of it, because now I'd be worried about the codes, right? So I would have to go get new codes, okay. Because that's the only thing that makes sense to me. Unless it was a legitimate malfunction in the aircraft itself. I need to go make sure that those codes are good. Those codes failed. So we got to figure something out. I sprint back below deck. That's the term, below deck. And get to the. It's office down there and like, look, aircraft just got shot down.

Sure.

You heard, you know, battle cryo battle stations, over. You know, we're responding to this. He re gets my codes pretty quick. You know, it's not a very lightly response. He doesn't really tell me if he found any. He got new codes or any secure or anything like that. He's like, I assure you these are good. I run back up, I get it, get a keyed in and program just to make sure they're new codes and we're good to go. That, unfortunately, is not a process that can be streamlined and speed.

Right.

So that's going to make us, our response time a little worse. But it is a necessary step in this particular endeavor because usually they'd already be pre programmed, they'd be ready to go on both air. So we're. I get the cable out and I get that done. That is usually takes about another ten to 15 minutes. So we'll say the bird is up in the air in about 25.

Right.

But I key them in the same way. No unusual pings, no weird stuff. Our aircraft is very close to the boat because we think we're close to where the crash site would be. We see debris, we see nobody. Don't know what happened. After a pretty lengthy search, I'm freaking the fuck out because I feel personally responsible. Whether I am or am not is irrelevant to me at this point. And I kind of just fall into myself. Right. Like, I feel responsible. It's kind of like the best thing I can kind of describe it as is, like when you're just overwhelmed with something and you're just kind of. Everything kind of fades, feels like you're under. Like everything sounds like you're underwater, almost like everything's muffled. I can hear a weird ringing, which was probably just my military great tinnitus, but it doesn't matter. That's all I'm really hearing, and I'm freaking out.

I believe that's called a panic attack.

Yeah, that's probably what it's called, but I've never had one to that particular extent myself. So I'm trying to describe it. And it's kind of like in same private Ryan after a dude gets blasted with a grenade, right? Like just you're like you're in yourself. You're kind of disoriented. Everything sounds weird and you're hearing this ringing, except for it's not from a concussive blast of a grenade, you know, but they search a pretty significant area, but afraid to get closer, you know, because we just got somebody shot down. So we don't want to get too close to post and let until we figure this out. I'm gonna say whether this is protocol or not, I'm gonna say 2 hours, right? Search for 2 hours in the vicinity of where we think the aircraft went down. That's a pretty long response time, right? Because we think we know where they went down. Whereas like, if it's a man or board drill, you don't know when guy fell out. We just know that it got reported. Somebody noticed, somebody missing. Whatever they look for, as long as they feel is necessary. It's rare that they find a motherfucker, but, you know, we don't find any bodies. We don't really. We find debris of the aircraft. The assumption is that they're underwater. The life jackets and support stuff that they wear don't immediately inflate. So if you've been blasted out of the sky at least as this, to my knowledge, I wasn't a pilot. I don't know for sure, but there's no bonds. There's a crew of four. Done. So pilot, co pilot.

Aw.

And a spotter. Right, like, so crew of four is gone. That aircraft is just blowing the pits, man.

When you arrive, I mean, the debris field is pretty wide. Helicopter crashes pretty rough. A lot of shit moving at very high speeds in very different directions. Probably a small, I would assume a small patch is on fire. Jet fuel floats and. Yeah, very flammable, actually.

Not as flammable. Not as flammable as you might think. But from a missile strike, with the temperature that hits, I almost guarantee there would be some sweet fire. Something would be lit.

It's a pretty rough sight, but with that, you kind of fade back to the panel briefing penalty. You just finished telling this and telling them this information in the manner that would make sense. Naval, right.

Much more formal.

The thing that my very civilian ass try to quickly recreate. And so at the time we. What rank had you reached when you were. When the event happened?

81.

Sorry. He says the world. Oh, what rank would olnock qualify as right now?

E eight.

E eight, which is the word is senior chief. Senior chief. And as I remember, you were saying you were trying hard to become a chief.

Yes, I wanted to make master chief. That's the e nine. I didn't make it before retirement, and I'm kind of burned out there. A lot of things went south after this incident in my head, not necessarily for navy, but for me, you know.

So one thing that makes this pill possibly harder to swallow for you in a roundabout way down the road when it comes time. Cause you said in order to reach the rank of chief, you go before a panel of pre existing chiefs.

Yes. And then it continues from that point on. You go to the board. It's not just your chest.

You obviously, you did well on your evals, you did well in your testing, so you made it to the right. This incident is actually one of the ones that's brought up in deciding whether you are earning the ring. And your actions in making sure that the secondary aircraft would not be shot down is what is one of the final sighting points that actually earns you the ranks. Instead of letting it be two birds going down in the panicked response, having the werewolf to identify accurately what the fail was and take the steps to prevent it so we didn't lose two.

Birds.

Is actually a deciding factor for you in reaching the rake, which I can imagine would have a bit of a bittersweet. You blame yourself for the incident, and it's benefiting your career at the same time.

And it would have been a particularly odd situation as an at. One typically would not go out on the boat as the lead avionics technician. He would usually be like the lead petty officer. So I'd be like, chief is like your manager on shift, right?

Right.

Then your first class petty officer that isn't specifically a lead would be very typically like your assistant.

Right?

Like the assistant manager underneath that. That would be what I would normally go out as under that particular set of orders. However, we were short on qualified ATS to be out as a lead. And I had a very young junior, which is why I was programming the codes and not him.

Gotcha.

I was teaching him, and we were walking through that process. So it took a little longer to get that first set of codes in. And the first thing my junior learns about putting these codes in is if you put them in wrong, somebody fucking dies. It's a pretty hard thing. I feel pretty shitty about the whole thing.

Fair, a vital lesson, but taught in.

A very brutal, rough, hard knocks way. Yeah.

Yeah. And down the road, the it tech involved, he receives some pretty heavy. What's the word? Consequences.

Yeah. Disciplinary actionary.

Disciplinary actions. Yeah. Some very heavy handed. He is relieved of his position immediately. He's immediately relieved. Once they are able to determine that you did indeed, they. Obviously there would be, I would assume, some degree of fail safe to identify that you put in the code you were given.

There'd be a lengthy process. They didn't expect as much as they could. We would have attempted to have recovered the IFF module from the aircraft debris, whether it was functional or not. That would be something I believe they would try to do fair.

And I would assume the birds have a black box just like civilian aircraft.

I think so. I don't know if it's called a black box, but yeah, there's some.

Something that serves that purpose. And so they take their time with this. This is a serious incident, especially with it being so close to China. Yeah, they take their time and they're very thorough, but they do end up. You don't. You don't necessarily know what happens to the it officer. Right. He's gone. You don't. You personally never see him again. And you know that the guy that replaces him, he's a little slower. To get information up the chain, you assume it's I ain't make the mistake that dude did.

Fail safe.

Yeah.

And you do know that there are some minor, probably don't actually solve the problem kind of change put in place that make your job honestly more difficult.

That is the military way. Yeah.

But with that, we're going to flash back to the party. Mel, you rolled a 21 on your charisma saving throw. You don't feel great. You don't feel horrible. As soon as you cross into the treeline, you feel a change. Jeff is doing fucking terrible.

Hmm.

You cross the treeline and Jeff immediately doubles over in pain.

Hmm.

You're pretty sure you see someone something a little ways down the trail.

Okay.

You see them very. You can't see their face really. They're more of a shadow. But, you know, they lock eyes with you. They shake their head in a very disappointed fashion. Have they disappeared? What are you guys doing?

Hauling ass.

Hauling ass and checking behind us.

I think I might try to catch up with Jeff to try to figure out if there's anything we can do to help him.

So Jeff is behind me. I'm in the front. I can see and I know the horses. So we break off at a trot, a quick trot right out the gate. Once I feel the horses are warmed up a minute or two, we kick it up to a full run, and it's a full gallop down the road in the nighttime, which is terrifying if you've never done it under the best of circumstances.

Oh, yeah.

Mel might think her concussion's, like, flaring up.

Elliot trusts the horses, and Elliot can see, and he knows that we're gonna be okay doing this. So we're just busting full bore and doing this. He can't see behind him. He doesn't know what's going on with Jeff. So he's gonna hit a full run as long as he feels it's safe with the horses.

Okay.

And he's gonna push the horse. But the horses have been exercising a lot. They've had couple days of rest. Being in the stable. They're well fed. Elliot knows them good. He's gonna push them as far as he dares, knowing that these horses are good, they're traveled. And then he's gonna go, okay, this is enough. Now I'm gonna have to break down, get him, you know, get there, get him to breathe. And because he knows he. He. The horses will go, but they won't. It can be bad.

Right? So for someone who doesn't do horses rough, rough estimate, it doesn't have to be any kind of precise. Is that an hour? Is that 30 minutes?

You're probably looking at about 2025 minutes Max that you can get before. You've got to give them a chance to breathe.

Okay.

Which is you don't have to come to a stop. You can just bring them back down to a walk.

We'll say that's ample time to crest. You make it over, and you're started down.

Cool.

When it's. When you make the decision to pump the brakes a little bit.

And so when. So when I start slowing down, all the other horses are kind of. Kind of catch up. Everybody else will slow down. And at that kind of a run, you can't really. It's hard to talk. It is. It sounds weird, but you've got enough. Between the hoofbeat noise and the wind in your ears, you can't really talk.

Oh, yeah. Horses are loud.

Yeah.

Especially this. This is a hard pack.

Yeah, it's a lot. So I'll go as far as I can like this call 1520 minutes, and then we'll kick back to a fast walk, and then Elliot's gonna reassess. Okay. How's everybody doing?

God, my ass is killing me.

And at that point, Mel's like, Elliot, you've gotta stop. Jeff's gonna go down. And of course, Mel doesn't feel girl great at this point either, but okay.

You look back, Jeff's holding on. Yeah, but that's the best descriptor. For what? He's not riding this horse. He's clean, hanging on.

Yeah, he's bundled up, bunched over, hands around. I know the image. So I'm going to drop back. It's not going to work because I'm out of spell slots. I'm going to attempt again to cast cure wounds. I've got nothing. My spell slots are gone. And I'm like, jeff, how you doing, Buddha?

You slow down and he's able to look up. He's got blood coming out of his nose. His eyes are pretty bloodshot. He's looking pretty rough. It looks like some of the what had been scars, more of like the cut style, are starting to open.

Mel looks at him and says, did you have power too?

Yeah.

Oh, we have a couple of the healing potions we stole.

I think so too. Does Mel change any, like, just, like, is there any change there or just a general?

What do you mean?

Like, does she get any worse or is it just general?

It's just a general malaise. Very tired. You feel like, honestly, it wouldn't feel too different from. You've had the flu for like a week. This is the first day you're back. You're just that body fatigue, as if, as if you had like. As if you had a nine volt that had just got disconnected. Your power source feels. Yeah, out of bounds.

This is more that, guys. This is more than. He escaped. He was like me.

Did you not read the fine print either?

Oh, for fuck's sake, James.

There is no choice.

Emma, you said we think we have one of those.

We do. Hang on, I've got them in my pack here, and she'll dig around.

We'll give him one of the cure rooms portions.

Hand over a standard.

I think this is magical. Some elves helped us with this. Try drinking this.

You're very kind. These. Are you sure? These are hard to come by.

We haven't needed them so far.

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. You've helped us, Jeff.

He drinks it. Try to think. I don't think you guys have seen the healing potion. Actually, he drinks it and you see immediately some of the scar because again, he's still wearing the full robe, so you can really only see at this point. His head. His arms are pretty. Well, it's brisk here in the high country. And, like, it's Cinco de Mayo, it's pretty chilly, so he's not letting it ride up his arms or nothing, but his head's exposed. Keeping a hood on while you're hauling ass on a horse would be damn near impossible. And immediately, you start to see some of his scars stitch back together. The blood stops coming out of his nose. He looks a bit better off. Definitely not cured.

I feel like James probably wouldn't have seen that because he's probably paying more attention to the rear. That's double checking, checking surroundings.

So with that. Seeing that a sight, is that. That helped? That help you out, Jeff?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, we. We got to keep moving. Yes, we got to keep moving till daylight.

They will not stop looking through the boy.

Yeah, I'm not worried about them at the moment. I'm more worried about the huge ass freaking werewolf that's out here right now.

Fair.

We'll worry about them after day. So he's gonna. He's gonna tell James. James, you can see in the dark like I can. Yeah, we're just following the road. We don't need to push this hard. Keep a decent pace. I'm gonna go to the back. I like to believe that if we're anywhere, we're ahead, and I want to stay in the back and watch our back trail.

Okay.

Once your horse and you can feel them, they're heaving right now, and they probably got a pretty decent sweat. Once that sweat starts to dry up, don't let the horses get cold. We're going to stay at a walk. Once their breathing gets back down, we'll get back to a trot. Well, then we'll go to our normal travel trot, lope walk, trot, rope walk. Keep it that one. We're going to travel all the way to daylight. We can't. We can't stop. So it's gonna be a long night. It's gonna be a long night. I wanna fall. I wanna watch our back trail. Keep your boat ready up here, up front.

Okay.

And just keep following the road.

Just keep following the road.

All right.

And so then he's gonna go around. He's gonna get to the back. He's gonna check on everybody, check on the horses as we go.

Mel, are you doing okay?

I feel like at the what? Listen to Elliot talk about riding all night. Mel actually goes little green, but no one can tell because it's dark. Like, the thought of being jostled on a horse all night long at that level of fatigue is like, oh, God.

I actually think to make this mechanically something. I think you have a level of exhaustion.

I bet I do.

Do you need. I can take Jacob if that makes it easier for you.

I think you better rough. I might fall off the before the night is over.

All right, let's get him moved over if that way I can cast mage armor on a second if I need to, but.

Yeah, good plan.

I'll be in the back. I'm gonna be pretty free in case we need to make a running.

Bullshit.

Yeah, and I'll tell everybody if we run into trouble, we get attacked. You guys just keep. Keep going. I'm probably the only one in this group that can shoot off a horse backwards. Yeah, I'm probably the only one in this group that can ride a horse backwards and shoot at the same time.

I can't even.

Do not. Absolutely not in the middle of the frickin night war.

Obviously not right now.

We can work on that later.

Not trial by werewolf.

Yeah, you know what I had?

You can shoot us some fence posts when we get out of here. In the daylight.

Yeah. Misspent youth. Misspent youth. Anyway, let's keep rolling. I'll be in the back if we run into something, you guys just keep moving. I'll keep them slowed down here in the back.

Awesome. We'll switch back to old knock, make a. You have a plus four to perception with advantage. Roll a d 20.

Roll badly. Roll badly.

Ah. What was that one?

Those were both actually from, but, uh, my, that's gonna be a 23.

You should have rolled one from the jail.

So you hear a lot of movement. It's a fair clip away from you. Yeah, but it's moving in the same general direction as you.

God damn it. Okay. Yep, I'm picking up where this is going.

So you again, you're not. You're no longer actively rage. I would almost consider this more of angry curious. I mean, you're out. You're. You're a little angry.

That's just that it's kind of default setting anyway.

Yeah. Not unfamiliar, but you start moving in that general direction.

Okay.

Horses travel at 60 foot.

Just so we're clear on that.

Perfect. Elliot, you are searching behind you.

Yes.

Let's have perception, survival.

I'm gonna be pretty limited. I've only got six. Cause that's all I can see.

You're in your favorite terrain.

Straight roll.

Sure.

Still not bad. 17.

Perfect. You are fully confident you see game trails that you're. That are criss crossing this road. You are fully confident there is nothing within your immediate vicinity. But you are with that. We'll let that 1717 ride for a while. And you're just following the road.

I'm just following the road.

Perfect. So we're just gonna for a little while. You guys are riding. It's honestly, it's really pretty out here. Here it's cold. There's still some snow up here. You're high enough now. There's some snow. And honestly, the full moon glinting off that snow. It's a near. There's just enough clouds to make the moon look scoopsy.

Yeah. I mean, everybody's probably got dim light to 20ft.

Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Full moon on snow. You can see pretty good.

It's stunning out here. The snow is sparkling and glistening.

You know, this would be really pretty if we weren't trying to hide from a rage monster that, God turn into a werewolf.

If we weren't running for our lives, this would be gorgeous.

Did anybody see an aspen? I want to lick it.

We don't have the time and a place. Time to place.

I mean, yes, there are aspens. Maybe this high up there wouldn't be. You'll drop down into aspen.

If you're feeling queasy. Licking trees is probably not the best course of action.

I can't think of a better one right now.

Not throwing up and we'll say you guys are.

How about we don't talk about it? That only makes it worse.

There you go.

You guys are able to follow this trail for a good couple hours, zigzagging your way down the mountain. You know, this is a mountain. This is no hill. So there's some very steep areas. You have to zag north for a good bit because you come across a series of cliffs that would totes kill you. There's a couple of areas where you got to go pretty slow because the roads got mostly washed out. You can see a couple of scars from the last couple years worth of fires. So there's a couple. You open up and do a couple of blackened fields. Not the right word. There's some grass blackened flatbeds where the fire. Yeah, fire cleared everything. But you do you hear occasionally the braying of wolf? It seems to be kind of keeping in your general direction. It doesn't never sound like it's really gaining on you, but you don't. You don't seem to be losing. Sometimes it's a little further away, sometimes it's a little closer.

Seems like we're keeping pace.

As long as the horses can keep up, we'll be okay.

Mel doesn't get to feeling any better throughout this ride. Definitely. You feel that. You feel almost a deep bone fatigue, genuine exhaustion. Like, the closest you've maybe come to this was pulling an all nighter to study the night after a bench. When you realize you went out partying on a Saturday and Sunday, you have a paper due kind of fatigue.

Fucking fun.

I've done that. Like, I made that mistake twice. That was really dumb.

Yeah. Don't recommend that.

Your brain feels tired. Your body feels tired. You're able to stay on the horse. You're not at any danger of falling off, but you are definitely almost the walking dick.

I think because Emery's behind both Mel and Jeff, she's kind of keeping an eye eye on them.

I'm sorry. You always have to babysit Emery.

I, the player, fall into this role. Emery just happened to be here. We've got two watchful eyes out there. I can't see in the dark. I can see.

So you're just staring the two in the middle just like.

And make sure you don't fall off your horses.

Yep, yep.

Please tell the front runner if there's a man overboard.

Yeah, I will. Absolutely.

Hello.

Sorry, that was.

You guys all hear that?

What was that?

The bad guy is rebooted.

That would be if you had a nice patron. The message to us.

Yeah.

Instead of the scream.

That's if you got Bill Gates as your.

That's a different kind of creepy God of Microsoft. No, I don't want to do an update. I don't want to do an update. I need to cast a spell.

Oh, my God.

That'd be funny. Yeah.

All of your level ups is just system updates. System reboot, iOS updates.

Basically rebooting now. No, not now. I need you now.

Fine. What do you mean?

I didn't see the last is your default.

Was a warlock. Of course you would.

Yes, I would.

So if Internet explains, it would be ask.

It would be like asking if you want to set like an actual spell as your default, which would be useless because it's always asking about edge. And I don't want to use edge. I use edge to download prompts.

Edge? Yeah. Everyone uses edge once to download something else.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Edit.

Terrible.

Oh, my God.

Sorry. Just a quick momentum. Great. I am sending you something to your phone.

It'd be like if it was like, do you want to sell the light?

Can't trip as your right default spell. No.

And absolutely not.

Never.

Bulldog. Okay, I want you to make another perception check. Elliot, you rolled a 17.

Yes.

Everyone else you roll. What was it? A 17. Perception. Okay, everyone else roll a quick perception check. Those of you without dark vision, you got a roll at disadvantage because you're.

Yeah, I just did. That's. Give me a four.

Cool. That tracks.

Yeah, that totally tracks.

14. Okay, 17 tracks.

16.

Perfect. That was rolling with advantage and your robo stats.

Oh, I didn't roll well.

Advantage and that's a plus four to your perception as the wolf. Well, then it's not.

That's a 21.

What happens with a 16? That'd be 20.

I was using my stats, which is a minus. Yeah, yeah. Oh, so instead of subtracting, you gotta put it back.

It's still gonna be a 21. Cause that other one was a six.

I apologize. That's a three. I don't even think my past doing great, guys.

At this point, try not to murder me here.

In a minute, you're looking at the back of your horse's neck. And that's about it.

The three men at the table. Well, the two men at the table, currently not the most. Boyd, you hear something fairly large and move out in front of you.

Oh, no.

James, what is that?

Bullnok is either a really pissed off Buffalo, or I think he found us.

You smell, for the first time in a bit, some fear.

Theater of the Mind is Jeremy Arfston as Elliot Randy Bain, Amanda Arfston as Melanie Kelly Me, Mike Purnell as Olnack Vaga Johnson, Michael Downs as James O'Brien, Casey Weingarten as Emery Lee Lee, and Mike Schoch as your dungeon master. We release new episodes every two weeks.

So our next episode will release on September 29.

If you want to follow us, our social media and website can be found on our link tree, which can be found in our podcast description. Also on the podcast description, you can find a link to Pinecast, as well as our referral code to get you 40% off of your first four months of a paid membership, as well as our referral link to epidemic sounds, which can get you a one week trial period. To experience their excellent platform, I added words. Whatever. Here we go. The music this week was sourced from epidemic sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Commons license. The songs today used in order in.

Obscurity lies the Gate by Christopher Moe de Levson United we stand by Bright Arm Orchestra creeping by Pharrell Wooten to court by Anthony Earls final examination by J. Varton Homestead by Robert Ruth isolation by Pharrell Wooten personality interface by Joseph are you scared yet? By Pharrell Wooten, sphinx by David Celeste. Did you try your best? By Alex Slane, pet sematary by Mike Franklin, dark nature by Polar Nights, abandoned village by Lennon Hutton, no rest for the weary by Anthony Earls, and shunt by prosody. We also used gravel, rubber sole, walking steady loop zero one, and countryside crickets. Wind Night Zero one from the sound effects library.

The theater of the mind theme intermission and outro were written by Mike Schock. Theater of the mind is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. So save the emails, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental, for the most part, all the time. Please don't sue us.

Flowers.

Yeah.

Butterfly is weirdly consistent.

Emery's got, like, Disney princess energy.

I know. Well, the funniest thing, too, is I would love to see the one where Emery turns into a potted plant. Yeah, because the potted plant, apparently, is mine.

Well, it's also because it's the funniest one that we knew about, so we just made it a running joke.

But how funny would it be at this point if Emery turns into a potted plant and we're just looking at her and we're like, yeah, okay, I guess this is the thing. Now pick her up and let's go.

How long do you think this one will take to wear off?

Like, a minute, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That would suck.

While you're carrying her, I feel like combat would end and be like, well, I. Okay, come on.

Where's Emery?

Do you remember that plant being involved? That would be kind of scary.

God, I don't even want to think about that.

Poor Emery.

It would probably be like a wild shape thing where if I, as a person, ran out of hit points, I.

Jumped that to myself normal human self. Or what happened if you conjured a unicorn? How freaked out would all of us be?

Holy shit.

Oh, you know what?

Unicorns are real, too.

You know what? Of course those are things. See? It's not all bad. Evil magic.

What about that clockwork thing that you summoned? And then was the.

Oh, yeah, the little monodrome. Poor thing.

It would have been really funny if we had ended up in the monodrome dimension.

I know. That poor little guy. He didn't even last a round.