S1:E21 – Let's Break Fast

Theater of the mind is a dark horror comedy podcast played with D and D five E. It has explicit themes and viewer discretion is advised. Content, themes or trigger warnings are in the podcast description.

Welcome to Theater of the mind. My name is Mike. I'm your dungeon master this evening, and this week's episode is going to start a little bit differently. With this being our 21st episode, I wanted to give a quick recap of the road so far. Also, this episode was initially part of episode 20, but we ended up running very long, so there's no group question this time. Anyway, our road so far April 1, 2023 five strangers end up in a bar together in Grand Junction, Colorado. While dining, they watch on the tv as a portal opens up in a Boston stadium and a dark man in a hooded outfit carrying a large scythe steps out. Very shortly after all power goes out, no technology seems to work at all. The five strangers quickly jump to action, forming an impromptu team trying to rescue folks from their vehicles and aid the local PD. As they're doing so. A train crashes just south of them. As the team goes about trying to help mitigate the disaster, Emery Lee realizes she has access to magic powers. Once they realize the wreck is non salvageable, they evacuate the area and eventually find themselves at Mel Kellys dorm. While there, Mel finds herself in a conversation with a mysterious dark figure. The figure offers her power in exchange for five favors. With little more thought, she agrees. The next day, the dark figure asks for the first save a young boy and deliver him to a white church. Mel and the team manage to save the boy, and though heavily battered, they manage to make it to Elliot's ranch. They use their time at the ranch to try to better grasp their powers, and while there, they meet a group of traveling elves. The elves let them know that the dark man with the scythe is a conqueror named Amoritar and that he has come to conquer this world. Shortly thereafter, James and Emery just barely manage to rob a liquor store, and on their way back to the ranch, they see a ghost raising some zombies. They rush to the ranch and the team has their first showdown with the undead. They emerge victorious with the heavily aged Emery, but through the elves generosity, they are able to restore her to her previous condition. The elves say that the undead are Amoratar's army, being rose from the dead, and the elves flee. The team decides it is up to them to try to stop Amoritar, and so they hit the road for Boston. Their first stop stop is in rifle, Colorado to acquire more bows, but they are briefly interrupted by the Richardson boys, a group of would be bandits that the team dispatches with little effort. Afterwards, the boyer they met tasks them with a fetch quest to gather supplies for their bows that takes them to the north country. While up there they meet a creepy young man named Griff that they feel confident is a werewolf. After a tense conversation he heads to town and has about a days head start on them. Once back in town they spend a day hunting for silver and arrowhead materials and are questioned aggressively by the local sheriff regarding the murder of the Richardson police. The line of question ultimately leads them to divulging their information on the undead to the sheriff and in an attempt to prove their case they help him rekill the Richardson boys who have risen from the dead and the lonely bork. Having gained the sheriffs trust, the crew goes to camp and hears the screams of a werewolf attack. They manage to put down the monster, but not before Olnack is bitten. After a fairly chaotic visit to the hospital where it is shown that the wound Olnak sustained is healing remarkably fast, they decide to push east, hoping to make progress to amoritar or to find a way to cure Olnok. Their search brings them to a fairy circle in the woods governed by an eladrin. She tasks the crew with bringing her a precious stone from a deep mine, and in exchange she offers to share as much information as she has regarding Olnack's affliction in the mine. They end up fighting a creature named a driter and Emery shows just how unstable her magic powers are. In spite of this chaos, the team is able to recover the stone and the Aladran shares her information. She tells them of a convent in the mountains containing holy peoples who may be able to help lift Olnaks curse. The team then heads off in search of that convent. Upon their arrival, they are immediately set on edge when they realize the room theyve been allowed to stay in is being watched from a painting and that theyve been locked in. We join them the morning after as Mel uses her powers to wake Olmok and James from their slumber.

And then I messaged them from the door and now she's gotten even for them. Scaring Jacob.

That's fantastic.

Okay, I'm definitely up.

I'm sure that was enough for Elliot to go.

Wow, even with how muffled these walls are. It's not that muffled.

He's gonna kind of giggle, I swear, very quietly under his breast. Say, good one, Mel.

Okay.

It turns out that Mel's answer to the question of who she wants to humiliate is ol mocking James.

Well, you know, in all fairness, when that question was asked, they had not been scaring the child.

That's true.

If you do that again.

I was just trying to be honest with the child.

There's such a thing as too much honesty.

I disagree, but that's not my problem, I swear.

Wake us up with our problem.

I guess I don't know how to. Whatever.

I'm going to throw your phone so far, it will never receive reception again.

Okay.

There's another knock on the door.

Punched myself in the right.

So at that knock, Elliot's gonna go up to the door and he's gonna attempt to open it. He's pretty sure it's locked, but he's still gonna attempt to open it. It opens it now opens the door. Kind of blinking. His hair's askew.

It's another nun. It's not Sister Aethereze. And this one has a stack of fresh garb. Sister aether mentioned that you had been traveling for some time. We have fresh, clean clothes, if you would like, just to try to make your stay as comfortable as possible. If you wish. We do have a laundry in our basement we can clean particularly. Wow. All of your clothes could use some washing, if you would like. We would be happy to. It would take. But the afternoon. We would have it back to you this evening, but whatever makes you the most comfortable.

And, Elliot, we'll take the linen. Thank you for your services. We'll grab these linen for now. We've got a couple. We've got some things we need to take care of that are quite urgent. But we'll get in touch with you later if we need services. Thank you.

If you would like us to wash them, if you would just stack them near the door. We don't want to intrude any more than necessary. If we see you're closed by the door, we'll assume you want them cleaned, and we will take care of that.

That'll be perfect. Thank you. And I'm actually going to take the stack of linens, and I'm going to set them on the floor so that the door cannot close.

Okay?

Yeah. And he's gonna do it. Knowing that's rather rude, but at the moment, he's pretty pissed off about the door being locked.

She won't. She'll just kind of stand nervously, kind of wringing her hands.

Thank you. You can. I'm sure you're quite busy. We'll take care of this.

This is. This is the female quarters. Uh, for everybody's decency and discretion. We don't. The women aren't supposed to see into men's living quarters.

Oh, goodness. That makes sense. And he'll take the top linen, and he'll, like, hang it up and go, okay. I didn't even think about that.

Thank you. Okay.

I'm sure you're quite busy. Have a wonderful morning. Maybe we'll see you for breakfast.

You will? Yes. Sister Aether will be here. Short.

Perfect.

She kind of backs up from the door a little bit.

Okay. You gotta kind of stretch and go.

Oh, it's, it's. We're good. You can, you can do the going.

Am I able to see, like, if I walk up to, like, like, to join this, am I able to see the outside of the external doorknob at all? Like, mechanism or anything for, like, a longer.

Yeah, just looks.

Does it look like something that I would be able to take?

That depends on how well you're rolling now, doesn't it?

Oh, it does.

It definitely does. Investigate how. How she's still there.

Yeah.

The doors prop. I'm gonna say I'm going to be.

Admiring the craftsmanship of the door.

You're gonna investigate a disadvantageous.

I was just like, like admiring the craftsmanship.

That's not suspicious.

That's a nice door.

It is a nice door. Yeah. The doors on the front has some excellent knockers. Anyway, investigating a disadvantage. Here we go. That is an eleven and a 13. So a total of 16.

You have a plus five to investigate.

Yes, I do. I'm pretty sure I have the highest intelligence in the group, which is probably a bad thing.

Yes.

Not entirely great, is it?

It's higher than mine.

What you get for that is there is very obviously a locking mechanism on the exterior part of the door. It does not line up to anything on the inside.

Okay. It doesn't look like an actual, like, click thing, more like stereotypical hole or like a latch.

There is a fairly durable latch, and you can tell that there's some sort of mechanics beyond involved in securing that latch.

Gotcha.

It doesn't look like a lock you've encountered.

Gotcha.

This isn't, this is not a stick of key and it unlocks kind of thing. This is something else. You are a thousand percent confident with what you see. See, nothing on the inside of your door lines up with this.

Okay.

I think when we go down to breakfast, we take everything with us. We don't leave anything behind in this room.

Yep.

Yep.

And shortly thereafter, you do hear footsteps leaving almost perfectly synchronized with their set coming up to the door, and then I.

Well, come on in. It's open.

It's Sister Aether. Yes, I do. I see that. I now understand why Sister Demetra was so frazzled. She's. We have taken a very strict vow of chastity. We don't even see into the men's living quarters. She's.

I can assure you, you're not missing anything.

Apologies. I fully agree with our recent traveling. The unfortunate odor that we have since procured on our travels. We figured we would help air out the room. Of course, we had the door open and the window open to attempt to facilitate fresh air.

It was a little mild.

We are more than happy to facilitate the cleaning of your clothing as well. You in particular. Uh, looking at old NOC, are you.

Still in, like, super bloody clothes? Yeah, maybe.

I don't think I changed. That's actually highly probable.

I. Despite your comfort with it, I mean, no offense, your clothes could use a washing. We would be happy to facilitate that. We'll have it back to you tonight at the absolute latest. We have an on. We have a laundry within our facilities.

Can I do an inside check to see whether or not we've actually got our clothes back?

Sure, yeah.

Because I'm paranoid now, can we do.

An insight check to see if we'll be in any condition to wear them?

I think that's being clairvoyant, and I don't think that works. Anyway, 17.

She fully believes that your laundry will be clean, satisfactory, and return to you in time.

She's not wrong.

They could use.

With the wash. Everything could use a wash.

I'm getting kind of funky. The blood is coagulated, so that's cool.

You're starting to smell like dog.

Yep.

That's not your fault.

No, it's not.

Well, a hundred percent, it's not entirely your fault.

But anyway, like, you are also. I mean, it is. Um, again, I don't mean to be forward. I don't. Particularly. If you want to be wearing gross clothing. Okay. Within the lord's house, would you terribly mind wearing fresh linens before we go? Try to eat. Many of us have not encountered what you appear to have gone through. We're going to be in the high patron and Matron's presence. You're about to ask a favor of them.

That's not to offend.

Again, I do not intend to be so cruel. You don't? I I. For 01:00 a.m. in charge of the laundry, I will not be upset if I do not have to wash your clothes. Fair. Speaking from experience, you will get much further when with them asking a favor. If you make an effort to appear presentable.

Just because we're changing into the linens.

Doesn'T mean we have to give them our clothes, frankly. I mean, our clothes could use a washing.

Oh, don't disappear.

There's a huge part of me that's.

Like, well, it's our clothes. Better.

Yeah.

Well, give us a minute, then.

And then this is a sign that I have done a good job. You very paranoid.

Yes.

Extremely perilous.

You had us watched from a painting in our room while we were hearing screams from outside.

Oh, I was. I was. I felt weird before that.

Oh, yeah, I did too. Yes, but that's. That was the exacerbating factors.

Is there any chance that any of us have a clean set of our own clothes in the bottom of our bags?

Our bags are with us.

I forgot my personal stuff with me. I guess I would normally have. I don't know, I guess I was assuming that all the stuff regular horses would have been, like, the camping gear and the food and that kind of stuff. In my mind, my personal stuff came with me, but maybe not.

I'm gonna say you probably don't have.

It's been a month, so we probably don't have any cleaner.

Anything clean, period.

I mean, there's some stuff that is significantly less grotesque, but it's also been sitting down that just went through a werewolf and subsequent. Well, a zombie and then werewolf and then dreader battle.

Yeah.

Not all of your clothing is zacharious.

Our clothing, in general, has acknowledged.

Gnarly, bro. Yeah.

I mean, I was gonna say.

Like, we don't have to necessarily give them our clothes. We could shove our clothes back in our. If we have even just one pack of. And stuff all our stuff into one pack.

We could change into the linens without giving them that.

Exactly.

You folks have really been through it.

Yes. Apologies. We're not generally this timid.

How about paranoid? I will ensure that no one will come into your room in your absence. We will not gather your clothes. We do not want your clothes.

We don't even want to wash.

I don't want to. Literally, they're yours. Just for the sake of breakfast. If you wouldn't mind changing to something less offensive. Many of these girls have lived in this convent their entire life. Your visage. Your visage. I believe Olnack was the name.

Yes.

Quite, quite unique.

Well, give us change right here.

Secure the. Close the door. There are girls on their way to food. I do not want them to accidentally break their vows.

I was assuming we would go change in our own rooms, but. Okay.

I was assuming you would close your doors as well. But this one appears propped open for reasons like, and I vaguely. Shirt curtain.

Sure. Okay.

Elliot will go ahead and grab some linen off. He'll change it with the linen and use whatever wash basin has been provided.

I will wait for you out here. Just let me know when you are ready, and we will go do a.

Quick PTA wash and call it.

So he'll be a loud.

Yeah, I mean, she's waiting for us to go to breakfast. She's gonna open it for us again.

Yeah, pretty much.

So quick wash up, change into.

I'm still going to inspect clothes.

Linen robe thing.

They're close.

Okay.

You're safe. This is not the trap.

Are we talking like, that? She just gave us the robes? Or is she expecting to put on the wimple and just.

You've got, like, think they're. They're decorating things for clothes, but they're. They're just plain white hempen linen clothing. Very, very simple. You're all wearing basically the same thing. You've got a mid length sleeve, long ish, you know, kind of a medieval peasant, and. Yeah, yeah, very.

Okay, that's fine. I just was trying to get an ice.

Surprisingly comfortable slippers. Style shoes. Slip on style shoes.

I feel like I'm going to breakfast in a nightgown.

Kind of. This feels like a pajama set. Pajama set.

Hey, but, hey, look at this.

Emory.

They fit.

It's not super important, but I'm wondering what the color is. I forgot.

If you said it's natural, it's like a beige ish, whitish.

Got it.

Probably not died at all.

Understood.

It fits. Cause they're basically potato sacks. They fit everyone.

No, they're not. I have to roll up the sleeves. This is stupid.

It's nobody's fault that you're tiny.

But once you're done changing, I feel like.

You just got glared at me.

Probably.

That's clear.

Yeah. We'll go back to the door, and Emery will try to open.

Open it.

It does open this time.

Okay, cool.

And Sister Aether is waiting for you. Oh, good. I. Again, I hope no. I hope no insult was given. I did not intend one. You've clearly had a hard travel, but let's go get you some food.

Sure.

And she leads you down the hallway, back down. Back down the path. You guys came up, down the stairs to the first floor. However, this time, instead of going back towards the main entrance, you go 90 degrees off of that, kind of going closer to the mountain, in essence.

Sister Aether, would you mind if we detoured to see the horses really quick? I just. We've gotten very attached to them in our travels, and I just want to make sure they're doing all right in the stables.

That is a bit of a. They're outside the walls.

Oh, are they?

Yeah. We keep our stable on the outside. The inside is for the. For the cathedral. We don't want. We don't have night watch on our animals. We don't want them leaving their droppings in front of the cathedral entrance. We work very hard to keep our courtyard and cathedral clean.

Yes, understandable. I just figured. I didn't see any entrance for animals along the side, so.

No, yeah, it is. On the exterior. I can. It'll have to be brief. I was planning on a tour after breakfast, though, but I can show you where they're at.

After breakfast is probably fine.

She continues leading. And it does almost exactly halfway down this. Those of you who looked out the window last night, almost exactly halfway down the hallway, logically, you come into a fairly grand door, opens up into a fairly large, obviously, dining area, large ballroom sized room with a very large round table at which you see quite a few nuns, probably 30 nuns or so, seated at this table. There are five chairs at one end left for you folk. There is an empty chair about halfway, you assume, for Sister Aether. And at the opposing side of the circle is seated a man and a woman. These two are distinct in that they are still dressed like the woman's, dressed just like the nuns, except her garb is red, very, very dark, crimson y red. And the man's robes are the same color. And they are seated in a slightly grander chair. I wouldn't call it a throne, but it's a nicer part of your chair. And they are directly opposed across from the chairs. Sister Aether shows you to your seats, and once you are seated, she just kind of says, please enjoy, and she goes around to the chair, roughly 90 degrees off the circle. It's nothing. Perfect. Her seat is just over there. And shortly thereafter, you see a group of monks dressed all in black, come in carrying food trays. They very politely, briskly set food down in front of each nun and yourselves. And then they excuse themselves back out of them. You do see that no one has reached for their forks or plates or anything yet. And the high patron, the male, stands at the far end, and he looks about the circle and said, praise to our Lord's generosity that we are able to wake safe and in full possession of our faculties. We thank our Lord's kindness for allowing us to act in service to our church for another day and for the opportunity to purify ourselves of the transgressions we are all guilty of. May this food nourish our bodies, giving us the strength needed to purify our souls. Ah. And he will sit and everybody begins eating.

Question. Did the monks serve individual plates to individual people or was they just put food on the table and then everybody dishes themselves?

It was individual plates to individual people. Mostly because I didn't do a great job describing the table. It's wide enough for you to dine at but there's no center to it. It's hollowed out in the center. There wouldn't be anywhere for platters of food to rest. So you were each given your own plate of food.

Okay. Also side note that they did is Jacob come down with us? Did they put him in a rope too? Like is he trailing around in an oversized rope?

And yeah he's wearing similar garb.

Okay.

That's right. I can't see him so I forget he exists. I can see you guys.

Yeah.

I need to get a creepy Jacob mannequin.

That'll help the albion after our conversation about creepy dogs.

There we go. Check out the curse doll.

I have some porcelain dolls when I was a kid.

This ambience.

Elliot is going to cast detect poisoning which will tell him if there's any poison or disease within 30ft of it for ten minutes.

Um. Is that the food's fine. There's nothing with the food. It seems like maybe some of the nuns are sick but you know and you hear the accompanying normal sniffles. There's nothing to be alarmed of though. So the food is fine.

I feel like I see Elliot like doing something over his food and message him. Don't. Just don't scream.

What are you doing checking these for? Oh yeah. Cause it's message. So in my head I say I'm checking it for poison. It's not poisoned. A couple of the nuns are sick but I don't think.

Yeah, that one smell like smoke. Scoots herself a little further away from the sick nut.

But I think the food's fine to eat and I'll take it and I'll begin eating. Maybe specifically looking at like the rest of my compatriots like in the eye waiting for it.

And at that point already halfway through his bowl. Well I hope that was fine.

And the food's good. It's simple. You know, it's eggs. There's some, like a ham steak and some sort of sausage and potatoes. It's reasonably well seasoned, but it's not exciting. Salt, pepper, that kind of stuff. There's a healthy kind of sauteed vegetables.

Being the resident cook, do I recognize the type of meat that we are currently?

You're confident it's a ham steak?

Okay.

And maybe a pork sausage, maybe a beef sausage. Yeah, it's. That's probably the most heavily flavored thing here. A lot of sage, a lot of. A lot of louder herbs in it.

But normal for sausage.

Yeah, but it's breakfast sausage. The eggs appear to be chicken. The potatoes appear to be grass.

Oh, not dragon eggs.

Aw, damn.

That would have been.

I just had a terrible one. Big ass egg.

We have egg.

I just had a thought cross my mind, so I wanted to double check.

What kind of meat I, as a player, saw that thought cross as it crossed your mind. And I'm like, no, just no.

The, the potatoes are kind of the sliced kind of country potatoes. They're not hash browns or diced or anything reasonably well cooked. It's. It's a very simple salt and pepper, excluding the sausage. It's good. It's nourishing, it's filling. There's enough food that you are comfortably full. And as you're eating, you see the nuns, you know, they're not so stiff that they're robotic or anything. You see them kind of to each other. A lot of looks in your direction. Even with you guys wearing the clothes that were given just stand out.

Everyone's standing on the same 30 people. They know exactly.

So there's a lot of the occasional giggling and a sharp elbow, a lot of stern looks from the high matron, very obviously trying to make sure her girls behave.

Emery is fighting. The herbs glare poisonously at everyone.

I feel like Jacob, with his natural charisma, is getting a lot of the nuns to be like, hi. You make little kid noises.

Yes, absolutely. The nun next to him is kind of sneaking a little bit onto his plate for him.

How do you do that?

They're just, they seem really nice.

Oh, innocence of youth.

I grew up in churches. This isn't too. They're wearing kind of interesting clothes.

I feel like I've used the closest.

To normal I've been since all this happened.

I'm sorry, Jacob.

It's okay. I feel good. I slept last night. Comfy bed, weird clothes, kinda itchy.

After the speedy days without a shower. I think everything's gonna be a little itchy. Fair, when even the eight year old starting to smell funny, you know, you need a bathe.

So, you guys, you have a good meal. Shortly after everybody's obviously done eating, the red monk rings a little bell. And then, presumably, the same monks come back out, grab your plates, take them away. And the high patron stands back up again and says, sisters, it is about time for the morning service. I will join you shortly in the cathedral after I speak with our new guests, but I will be in shortly to go through today's proceedings. And with that, the nuns and the red nun stand and make their way out of the room. Once they're gone, the. The red monk works his way around the table towards you. So, sister Aether tells me that you have a rather unique situation that you're seeking help with.

Yes, yes. Our rather large compatriot here has inflicted. Unfortunate.

So I heard. Lycanthropy is what has made its way to me.

Yep.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.

After sister aether found me last night and told me of this, I admit I had to. I had to go into our libraries and see if there were any writings on this. I'm not particularly well versed in the, um, uh, wolffish nature. Um, we tend to deal more with, uh, spiritual cleansings here. Um, but, uh, it would appear that, strangely, in some of our older books, there is some talk of lycanthropy being dealt with by our ancestors, our predecessors, I think, is a better word.

Well, that's promising to hear.

Yes, we. And thankfully. Actually, it would appear as though the usual ordeal we go through to purify our constituents would help resolve this issue, as well. It would appear from our readings that the removal of curses is a removal of curses. It's fairly across the board.

What is that methodology?

Like, take a silver bullet and call me a.

We greatly prefer it if the people we administer aid to are alive the next day.

I, too, would prefer that.

I'm thinking like a silver bullet, magic pill kind of thing.

Oh, no, no. We. We have some herbal medicines to help with fevers, things of that nature. But the removal of curses is not. A curse and an illness are two very different animals. Sorry. No pun intended. Oh, we don't. We don't get much humor around these parts. We can tell, but, no, we. We have a. We have a purification that we can put you through that would alleviate the burden that you are carrying.

And what is that purification?

It's a fairly standard religious ritual that we undertake here.

I'm asking about the specifics.

Pretend we are not familiar with a standard religious ritual.

We take the afflicted and the high matron and I perform a fairly lengthy blessing ritual over the individual. It does not feel particularly good at the time. The purification of the soul is a. It's unfortunately, an unpleasant process. But we've. We have performed exorcisms. This is a different. It's nowhere near as lengthy. I guess I should put some parameters on length here. I'm talking. It takes a little longer than a minute, but it's not a multi week ordeal like an exorcism can stretch out to be. If we were to hypothetically start, you know, later this morning, I do have a service I must give. I have two services. One for the nuns, one for the monks. If I were to start after our morning service, I would have it almost certainly finished before dinner. I am not going to lie. It is not pleasant.

What do you think? I'll knock.

But we have never had anybody sustain any permanent negative. Nobody's ever passed from this. That seems to.

I was already grabbing the D 20.

Like, go for it.

1614.

Just whether he's telling the.

He is absolutely underplaying how unpleasant this will be, but he's fairly confident no one has died.

What do you think?

We got to get rid of the curse or I could hurt you guys. That will haunt me forever.

So, except for the processes.

Yeah, I've been through pain before.

So.

We would feel more comfortable if we could spectate the process.

That. That is not something I can allow. You don't. You would be of no help. If anything, you'd be a distraction. This is a process that does take great concentration.

I'm trying to put words together in my head. Sorry, I'm just staring at you.

I held the poker as long as possible. Not very long.

No. Same.

Can I just say, the way that you've been, like, your demeanor when you're playing this character with a freaking smile, you are terrifying as hell.

That is good.

Well, I am afraid that I am firm, that we need to be at least as close as possible.

We can have. I mean, we're not going to ban you from the grounds. You're, of course welcome to stay here. Um. God, the way.

You will not leave our friend to go through an unpleasant ritual alone.

I cannot have you in the same room as him. You. We do perform the ritual in the cathedral. That is our holy, holiest building. That's what it's for that's where we receive the Lord's. Lord's words. He says it better.

Wasn't he?

Says what he meant by supervise. Could we see the room in which you intend on doing this procedure prior to the procedure?

Absolutely. A procedure is a strong word. There's no operation. There's no. This is. This is.

You're not gonna chop that off?

Think of it like scrubbing out your tattoo parlor before you get it done.

Be most upset if this ended with a warrior such as yourself dying. That is counter to. Why would we try to purify your soul just to have you pass?

What kind of psychological damage does this do?

Because, unfortunately, that's what our friend is.

I mean, the same psychological damage that any pain causes. The purification of your soul does not come without any cost. It does. It is not a pleasant process, but you will come out the other end, preferably better, ideally. Without the risk of slaughtering my congregation tomorrow night.

Yeah, that would. That's all I'm asking for. That's what I want. I don't want to hurt anybody.

The blacksmith spotted mouth souls getting really twitchy every time he talks about purifying her soul. What?

Well, I think.

I think mine.

It would be good to see the room, and if we can wait in.

A space nearby, we can find some. We don't exactly have a waiting room. This is.

Well, I know. I understand that, but we're not going to allow our friend to go through something like this alone.

Yes.

We will get you reasonably nearby. You will not. If you are insistent upon this, you will not enjoy what you hear.

I would not enjoy waiting somewhere else, unable to hear either.

And if you are going to be nearby, you cannot enter the room while we are doing the process. That would put your friend at risk. This is a very precise ritual that must be performed. If it is interrupted, the outcome could be quite negative to your friend's health. We are very good at what we do. We do it no different than if you would like to use the word procedure. This would be no different than bursting into an operation room while a surgeon is at work. The outcome would not be great.

Understood.

But we are not going to kidnap your friend under cover of darken. Subject him to tortures.

Not in broad daylight.

Would I. I am not confident that any of the nuns in here could take your friend if they so chose.

You're at all wrong.

He's a big, big guy. And we are. We are here for the purification of our followers. We are not here for the slaughter of anyone.

I understand that.

Innocence or not, we will.

We look out for each other, that's all.

He's a very good friend of ours.

So, Sister Aether mentioned that you would like to go see your horses. Of course. We will make that happen. She'll show you. Give you a tour of our humble facilities. As I mentioned, I must go perform the morning services. One for the nuns, one for the monks.

Are those services performed in the cathedral as well?

Yes. Yes, that is our church facility.

Are visitors allowed to attend?

You must go through the purification before you can sit in on the morning services. Much like our close friends in Catholicism have things before you can partake of the communion we have processed before you can sit amongst the nuns and monks. They have been purified, and we like to try to distance them from the sins of the outside world as much as possible. They have been forgiven their transgressions. We would hate for them to backtrack. Sure. I assure you, it is but a normal.

Ceremony.

Sure.

Let's go pick out the horses, make sure they're behaving themselves.

Yeah. Sister Aether, if you would give our friends. Show them our gardens as well. I think. I think they would enjoy seeing our expensive gardens. You know, you are forgiven for the services this morning. We will just have an extra for you tomorrow. And I think our new guests would quite enjoy seeing our facilities. While I admit it's not great, I am quite prideful of our humble abode, as it were. I will have an extra session myself this evening. You are not incorrect. It's hard to not take pride in this facility. We have worked quite hard to get it to where it is.

How long has it been here? How long has it been here? In the mountains of Colorado?

The mountains of Colorado? It has been here for some time.

I bet it was pretty.

I was looking for a number.

I bet it was pretty tricky getting all that stone.

He's been here for three sometimes.

Three? What?

I imagine that was quite a process.

Well, we should let you get to your service.

Yes.

Sister Aether has been well versed. We are. We are expecting to have guests here in the near future, and she has asked to not be in the laundry anymore. She is soon to be our tour guide. So you are kind of her guinea pigs for this?

You keep saying that.

Yes. Yes.

Because lab rat sounds bad.

Guinea pig has the same connotation.

I feel like we're between the two. Please stick with guinea pig.

You are dry fire. Is that perhaps a better phrasing? You're our first. Run our test.

Lap alpha test, maybe.

Sure. Yes. This has not yet entered beta stages. This is our alpha stages, so it may be a little rough, as most alpha stages are. And as cliche and modern as it sounds. If you have any feedback, we have a survey. Sister Aether will gladly.

You're gonna email me about it?

She is very determined to do the Lord's work proudly and thoroughly. And this is appears to be perhaps her calling. But we would hate to waste her time if it is not sure. With that, he bows and leaves before you have a chance to ask anything else. Sister aethers drieds up and. Please follow me. And so she takes you out the opposing door. Not the one you came in from, but the opposing door. And she does kind of turn to you guys a little. She's got a little color in her cheek. She appears not the most comfortable in here. The dining halls separate the men's and women's quarters. So we are now in the monk living quarters. So we will not dally here very long. This is only the second time I've been on this side of the building.

And how long have you lived here?

My whole life.

Really?

Yes.

You were born here?

Well, I know not my mother. I was left to the church.

I see.

But yes, my whole life I have been in service. Well, that's not true. I was a child for a while with you having a young one of your own. You understand, perhaps, that service is a weird word to use for kids. We're not exactly productive. But I have spent my life learning the Lord's message and doing my best to be a dutiful practitioner. But for the sake of this tour here, the men's and women's quarters are mirrors of each other. The men do not have nicer or lesser quarters than we do. They have an identical dining hall on the opposite end of the facility. They are fed the same food, to my understanding, though, due to their size, they are fed slightly larger portions. They also do the more strenuous physical labor. Felling trees for our firewood, hunting the animals for our consumption. So they get a slightly larger portion, of course. But this is the shortest path to get you out the stables.

Freedom.

And obviously she's talking, as this is happening, when she says that she. You get to a small side door that takes you outside of which there is a very nice cobblestone path that kind of leads up in an arc up into the mountain. A little more where you can see. Go with this word again. Cloister of small buildings up the hill. A little ways, maybe as the crow flies, maybe 50 yards, but it's also probably a good 30, 40ft higher. So you take the path up and around and you do find the first is the stables. And you do see your horses. They have been unpacked. I'm sure there's a better horse word for that, but I don't know. Unpacked of their gear. Unloaded if you were. Their trunks are empty. They appear reasonably happy. They have a good pile of hay in front of them. Fresh, clean trough of water. They are in individual stalls, but they appear to have even been brushed recently. And you see that further back, there is a separate stable that's currently empty. A little nicer. This one is. It's not poorly maintained, but it's cobbled stone. It's wood, timber. The one further up appears just more polished. Nicer quality. Overall, the stalls appear a little bigger, a little more spacious. But so, of course, she says you have to.

That's the one for the. The Lord's horses?

Yes, that is the Lord's stable up there.

Does he visit often?

I have not had an opportunity to commune with the Lord.

So while she's taking us out to the horses, Mel's gonna have a little chat in her head or try to.

The nun's head?

No, no, no. In her own head.

Oh.

I'm thinking to myself, well, actually, I'm kind of hoping that maybe I can get even. Just hopefully not a conversation from my patron, because he's scary, but just like a little, like, direction there. Kind of like, is this. Is this gonna be okay? Like, you know, especially when he kept talking about purifying souls. I'm gonna be like, is my Internet at church gonna be a problem?

I think last time you tried communing with your patron, I had your role at day 20.

Sure, maybe it's been a bit, but.

I think I just had your Wall.

Street D 2011.

You get a slight, very, very faint hint of perhaps reassurance.

Okay.

The feeling that passes is not negative. It is nothing. Screaming, get the hell out.

Okay, that's promising, right?

For an eleven, that's what you'll get.

Thank you.

Shortly after the stables, you see a pretty good sized livestock pen. And you see a couple fat pigs just rolling around in the mud, happier and happier than hogs. You see a good sized coup of chickens and with a couple of roosters, you see there's a decent, relatively decent sized, flat ish spot where they have some cattle with a decent sized cattle barn. You can tell Elliot in particular, sees all the trappings of a milking station. In there. Fairly old school, you know, there's a comfortable stool in each pen. Decent sized buckets kind of set up something to kind of restrain if needed. Okay, that sounds like a good word.

Does it look like there was any, like, modern tech that was in place but then kind of got removed at some point later? Self working.

Nothing appears retrofitted. Quite literally in this case. Nothing is retrofitted.

It all looks like purpose built. Like this is what it was originally for from the beginning of.

Yes. And as you're looking, you don't even see any power lines coming to this area.

Give it to you. Outlets are open.

No.

Sister, the rest of our stuff never made it up to our rooms. Do you know if it's still down here at the stables or where it ended up?

I believe while we were eating, it was being taken up to your room. We could stop by there. We'll have time if you would like to make sure.

We want to make sure that our packs are in order for when we head out.

No, absolutely. That is understandable. How nervous you were about your laundry. I will make sure we get you to your, to your items appreciated. And so she takes you around the. So you came in on one side. You dined 90 degrees off of that. The stables are 90 degrees off that. The remaining 90 degree area of this square, she takes you around over there, staying outside, and you see a fairly expansive garden area, a healthy mixture of food crops. There's a good bit of corn being grown. Well, you assume a cornfield. It's pretty early. You do definitely see some of the spring veg.

They've probably got asparagus coming up right about now.

See some asparagus.

Absolutely.

I'm not going to pretend to out farmer the farmer here. You see the things that should be growing now in the slightly higher country. You see those growing and there's, there's a, there's nobody actively working the ground right now. You assume they're probably either in or preparing for service. But you do see old school plow. There's no animal currently hitched to it, but it is the old animal drawn plow with a hearty old steel blade on it. You see a lot of that. No stone tools. They're all steel tools. It's not that outdated. But again, it's all hand tools out here. And with that, Sister Aether is talking about how the monks and the nuns coordinate the labor. Through here, the monks plow the land and do the heavy lifting. Any boulders that they unearth as they're plowing the land get removed by the. And that the nuns primarily take care of the sowing. And she takes you back inside. Back in the main entrance, where you can see the paintings, you can see the banners. The part that would probably strike Elliot the strongest is there's no obvious christian iconography anywhere. You're not seeing crucifixes, you're not seeing Mary or Joseph or any. Any cliche catholic christian iconography.

Kind of why I was hoping to go into the cathedral.

Yeah, same.

We'll have to just ask our.

The sister. The high patrons told us that we would be allowed to inspect the room that. The purification curse removal ceremony.

Absolutely. It is in the cathedral and we want to allow the services to finish before we go in. But we will grant you access. You're the first outsiders to get access to our cathedral. I'm genuinely. I am hoping that the patron keeps his services short. I am eager to show you our crown jewel, if you will. But I do know that the high patron himself very much wants to show you. That's kind of, for want of a better word, that is his domain. He leads the services. The high matron is in charge of making sure that we all perform our services throughout the lord's house, up to par. He handles the more religious practices, the prayer sessions, the sermons. That is his domain. Of course, obviously, the high matron fills in if he should fall ill or things of that nature, but that is primarily his task. Just as if the high patron asks us to do a chore, we do the chore, even though that is the matron's purview.

Sure.

But that does conclude our exterior tour. We can go up to your room real quick, make sure that your belongings are to your liking and there's not much else to see. We do have some water. We have a fairly intricate water system. I don't. It's. That's monks. That's the monk's turf. I don't understand exactly how it works, but the third floor isn't really a living quarters. It's where we have some water tanks to help with. Pressure, is my understanding. You're, of course, welcome to see it, but it's more of a maintenance area, for want of a better word. The living quarters that you are staying in very closely reflect our own, with the small exception of ours only have one room, whereas yours have four. Yours are guest quarters, but so I'm afraid there's not much left to show. These are fairly humble quarters. Our library is in the cathedral itself, in the back, so I can't show you that yet until the services are complete. But we have a little bit of time. You can go, I can get you back up to your room.

I think we would appreciate that. Have a moment to regroup.

Yes, absolutely. So she leads you up to the room and your stuff's there. It's very very tidally organized. But it doesn't look as though any of your, if you look your packs haven't been gone through.

Yeah.

There's no, you guys didn't specifically set anything. But you know, your backpack, you know how you packed it? It doesn't look like anything's been gone through, particularly because of your hesitancy. Your filthy clothes are still there.

I was hoping that they did the rest of our laundry without asking.

Sister Aether hasn't left. He is still there. Is everything more or less to your comfort?

And you say when we open the back.

Do you mind if we have a minute?

Absolutely. I will just be right outside. I can't go anywhere until I can take you to the procedural. So I'll just be right outside the door if you should need me.

Well thank you.

Open. Close. Closed.

I think closed. Yes. And I. Did you guys tell us about the painting? I don't.

Okay. In the morning we told you everything everybody else to say.

I am sufficiently freaked out for sure. But I think, I think I look at the painting and make sure there's no one there.

There's no one at the painting. Okay.

Do you think too late to get him to do our laundry? I mean can it really hurt?

Yeah, it's probably too late. We kind of made a thing, we.

Kind of made a big deal out of it. We'll find somewhere to wash it later. I think we should have a conversation about what we're doing here and whether or not this is the right course of action and yeah, just talk and.

Like hey Jacob, why don't you go over to your room and count your books, captain underpants and make sure that they're all there and they didn't get lost somewhere.

Run inventory on your pack.

Yes, run full inventory on your pack. Repack.

Okay. Guess I can do that.

You know like you've stayed in a hotel, you don't want to leave, right?

I guess I just usually go and leave and does the things well.

No, you're getting older.

You gotta look out for your responsibility.

Yep, he goes insufficiently a swirled away from this conversation.

Okay. I do not for 1 second want to leave. I'll knock in there by him goddamn self.

Absolutely not. I don't trust that at all.

I've been thinking about ways that we can counteract that.

So I had a little beg my patron for the modicum of attention, which is not the word that Mel would have used. I didn't get much, but I got a reassuring vibe, so it probably won't kill us.

Okay, so the dark entity. We're here.

The dark entities. Oh. Oh. At least you're right, James.

That is super reassuring.

Okay.

I mean, they can't. They kept talking about purifying your soul. It made me a little twitchy. If the dark entities feels good about it, then I feel better.

I also think that maybe it has your welfare and Jacob's in mind and not necessarily the rest of us.

But if something happened to any of the rest of you, Jacob and I would be really, really upset. And that's not good for our well being. Right.

Also, the sisterly. When I did the mage hand backhand, I back in the nugget, she knew that I did it. It was invisible, and she knew that I did it. Yeah, and she didn't react to it, which means they absolutely know about. Which means that if we try any kind of magic y things to circumvent or attempt to be there with him, there's a good chance they're gonna know him.

Yeah, and my friends, patron and bright red rose is giving this creepy KKk vibes. But that's not the point.

I didn't go that far.

I also am not where I was going at all.

I'm worried a little bit that this purification ritual is going to be more than just moving, more than just removing a curse.

I'm afraid they're, like, trying to, like, brain magically brainwashed? Brainwashed him into.

Yeah, because didn't you say that? You screaming?

Yes, and they said that you can't attend service without going through purification.

That's concerning. The other one is you had seen the monks physically escorting a nun at night. And if they're supposed to be as chaste as they claim to be, that they can't even be together in the same building.

They were helping her. Maybe she was one of the sick ones.

Yeah, well, then the other sisters would have been helping her. There's no way in the world that the monks would have been helping her.

Maybe they were just burly sisters. I don't know. Really.

Sister Quiddle.

Olga.

Sister Olga. I don't know.

So at the moment, all I've got is maybe when we view the room, we can come up with some way to get in if we need to. I don't like being split up that way.

Also, they don't trust us either if they're watching us do that thing.

Well, to be fair, we haven't exactly proven ourselves trustworthy. We're at least skeptical.

But that was already installed.

Yeah, and I'm not okay with them locking us in. That pisses me off. Yeah.

I was looking at the mechanism. There's possibilities of we do wind up spending another night if we get out and about during the night.

I mean, if Bush comes to shove, we could probably make it out.

That's slightly louder.

We're supposed to be doing this here in a couple hours, my understanding.

Right, yeah.

We're not planning on staying for that night?

Oh, hell no. I don't want to stay another night.

I absolutely don't.

But Ike says I can't get grips to. I mean, it does make sense. Well, the whole removing a curse should not be nearly as traumatic as they seem to think it.

Well, there, it sounds like they're just doing the purification that they do to remove, like, their sins and transgressions. Like, it's. They said like, it's not.

What are they gonna do, beat him with a whip?

You know, there's some religions, some sects of Christianity even that they do that.

Kind of shit to themselves, not to.

Other people or each other. Like, that's not.

But, yeah, I just don't like for things that we can do. The only thing I've got when you're talking about magic, I can hunter spark him before he goes in, and if something happens, I can track him.

Okay.

And you can message with Ulnok and make sure he's still in his brain while they're doing it.

This way we'll know whether or not his brain is still in there.

And you're sure you're cool with going through a process like this? Like, we'll find another way if we have to.

As far as we know, there is no other way. The face sent us here specifically so I could be helped by these people.

Do we really trust her, though?

This is.

I know there's a reason to not.

I mean, Elliot.

Elliot proposed us into the spider den or whatever.

That's what's got me confused. I don't trust them at all. But I don't know why she would have sent us up here for that.

And I don't. I don't think, like, she did say too, like, you can fight it and it'll just be the full moon that you're not in control of yourself. And we can find a way to make sure you're not gonna put people in danger.

Exactly. Haul around it, steel.

We don't really know exactly what it is that holds the werewolf back or can trap the werewolf during the time so I don't hurt any of you. And especially the kid. I will never forgive myself if I heard that kid.

We could definitely bury him up with a snack.

That would definitely work.

It would slow him down. God, that'd be a lot of work.

It would be.

Would be a lot of work. We'd have to dig the hole. We'd have to put them in it. We'd have to hurry him.

And we know silver is on the bright side.

He's the only option.

It not technically, no.

Really? All not. This is. You're really kind of your decision if you want to try this or not.

They might try to religiously brainwash you while they're purifying your soul.

Before I was in the navy. So.

That'S a contract.

Brainwash.

That's not.

So. I'm susceptible.

It's not the first time I can.

Fall back on, but we can come up.

But I would argue with you if this is decision, I just want you to know that we are willing to make other options work.

But we can come up with a code word or something like that.

Pineapples.

Pineapples. Okay, pineapples.

Different coat. We've been over this.

Wait, what's the matter with pineapples?

Well, explain it to you later. Elliot.

Farfrag. Newton.

Sure.

Farfraegnewton.

I was gonna go with decapitation. I like that one.

Dusseldorf.

Dusseldorf.

Now, we can't be throwing two. We gotta pick one.

One code word.

One code word.

I don't want to do decapitation because what if they're like, yeah, that's weird. That is. That could be like a red flag to them.

He just.

Maybe they think I'm not. Like, I'm succumbing to the curse, and then they fucking cut my head off.

You don't have to yell at olmach. As long as I can get with.

That's true.

If we go psychically.

Yeah.

So we don't like pineapples with. We can't do pineapples.

We can do pineapples, but whatever.

Pine cones.

Pine cones.

Cones.

There you go.

Okay.

Pine cones. All right.

About that time, you do hear the chiming of bells. Like cathedral bells. From the cathedral right outside your window. So it's fucking loud.

Fucking.

It was just the choice of chiming versus ringing up the bells. It's mildly confused.

Big church bells make loud sound.

Oh yes. What you decide, we'll go with.

Yep.

Those are.

We will support you no matter what.

I gotta be honest, guys. As far as I know, there is no other way that we are aware. We'll rid the curse. It is a risk I am willing to take.

If they end up brainwashing you, we'll still break you out of here.

Yep.

We may have to kill you to do it. Do it.

That's fine, chips.

We're not gonna kill him.

Reassuring buddy.

We will knock him out if we have to.

We will. That we will do it.

It's gonna be a hell of a lot harder, but we'll do harder to.

Knock out the werewolf. We do remember the fight with Griff. He was tough as shit.

Yeah. Oh, hopefully if they.

Hopefully I don't bite any of you and spread the curse, then we have a new problem.

Then we shouldn't have to knock you out.

So side note, assuming that we convinced them to let us be within like, you know, a side room or in the entry hall or whatever when they're doing this, what do we do with Jacob? Like, I can't have him down there listening to him scream, but you want.

To leave him up here.

Okay, Mel's not familiar with this. Does anybody have a silent spell?

Mel.

Damn I silent.

They might have beeswax around. We could have him plug his ears and read a book.

I'm gonna assume we're gonna be on the outside of the cathedral.

That's my guess too.

He can be over again.

We can have him over against on the other side. Visually see him.

That's all I got.

Yeah.

I don't at all trust me. No, but I'm with you too. I don't want him over there either.

Hello.

Yeah, there.

The services have ended.

Excellent.

The high patron will be waiting for you.

Excellent. We'll to come for an inspection and I'm gonna grab my stuff and put my regular clothes back on.

Okay.

The cleanest pair you've got.

Of course we're in a shirt.

Gotta wear your nice jeans.

Good flannel.

The holy jeans bother, you know, you're going into to the cathedral with you having clearly some degree of catholic background.

Well, not catholic, but.

Is that gonna be a tweak to Elliot at all going in and. Oh no sub clean clothing.

No.

Okay, so I just. There's some branches. Take that quite litigiously.

There probably are some. Elliot is like, no, this is who I am.

Okay. You're more the you farm before you go to church, type less the.

Oh, no. If I have the. If Elliot has the opportunity, he's absolutely gonna clean up and go. But at the same time, this is who Elliot is. And whatever his external form may appear to be, it's what's inside that's important, not the external. It's not important. So if he has the opportunity to do it, basically to show respect, but at the same time, it's not like, well, I'm dirty, I can't go in. It's. I'm sorry that I'm dirty. I did not have an opportunity to clean up.

Gotcha.

You might consider putting the linen over top of your other clothes. They might have rules about letting us in.

Question for the DM. They haven't said anything about.

No, let's. I'll just make my clothes and all my gear with me, but I'll keep the linens on that I'm wearing. That does make sense. And then I can just set it down outside.

Yeah, I think. There we go. We take our packs with us and we'll put them out on a far wall, and we'll set Jacob the very important job of keeping track of the packs.

So if they. So when they. If they cleaning our rooms, our stuff's not in their way to.

If they ask us what we'll tell them.

Yeah. It's like, oh, we wanted to move it so you guys didn't have to work around. Tough. I'm good. So I'm carrying all my stuff, wearing high linens.

Yep.

I definitely put back on that leather under my lips.

Being mildly uncomfortable, but, yeah, that's doable.

Yep.

Leather on, bare skin.

I'll probably also outfit and then the linens on top of it, I guess.

Alrighty.

Alrighty. And then we head down towards the cathedral.

Hey there, listener. I'm just gonna cut in here for a quick news update. I'm very excited to announce that theater of the mind has been invited to the Grand Junction Comic Con on September 20 21st. We will be hosting a panel on tips and tricks to run and play games, where you will be able to find the majority of the cast. We will be mingling around the convention floor, and we will be hosting our panel on Saturday. Please come and join us as we discuss some of the tricks and tools we use to help make our tables as fun to play it as possible. In the meantime, please like and subscribe to us on your preferred podcasting app. And if possible, please leave us a review. We love hearing from our fans and greatly appreciate your continued support. If you like what you hear, follow us on social media. We are in the middle of making a push on our socials and if you want first access to any upcoming news, that is where best to find us. Anywho, lets get you back to the action. She leads you right back down the same path you've taken a couple times now, except instead of going up the front door, you go. There's another door directly across the hall from that, that leads directly to the front door of the cathedral. And this is an impressive structure. The doors are probably a solid. The main doors are 20ft tall. Wood slats with iron bracers arced to a point. Again, the building itself is a four story tall cathedral. Very cliche gothic cathedral. There are almost too many ornaments on the exterior of it. It is gorgeous, objectively beautiful. As you approach, a couple of fairly burly monks open the doors and inside you see it's not unlike a fairly normal cathedral. There's two rows or two aisles of pews with a red carpeted walkway down the center. At the far end there is a pulpit at which the high patron is standing. As soon as you enter, he spreads his hands, says, welcome to our cathedral, friends. And as you kind of take in what's around you, you are fully confident this is not a christian church. The main image that you see is behind the high patron is a fairly large banner with a large scythe emblazoned on it. And as if forming like a triangle, there's the large scythe in kind of the prominence and then equal down below is the visual of a flail or a cat of nine tails. And directly across, or directly parallel to that is a set of scales, like the old school cliche r, symbol for justice kind of scales.

I scythe. Are you talking about grim Reaper scythe or a gardening scythe?

They're the same thing, buddy.

Well, I meant like, like the stereotypical, like, like, like straight on scythe or an actual, like, curved scythe.

That.

That's a sickle.

It's a sickle. It's not the communist symbol, if that's what you're asking. It's not the little guy.

The symbology that we're seeing, does it remind us of. Basically. Does it remind us of a moratar? When I heard scythe, the first thing I thought, yeah. Is this a church of a moratar?

That's why I was like, scythe? Scythe?

I don't know.

That's true. We don't know that.

I feel like that's religion.

Yeah.

Or knowledge, history. Because we saw it because we saw him on the tv.

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know why I argued. They're both the same.

19.

Hey.

Nice.

All right.

All knock was really watching that tv.

Seven.

Good.

15.

Because I apparently was not paying any attention.

I rolled a nat 20.

Sweet.

He is rather invested.

All right, what'd you get?

Six.

And you got a. So the four of you.

I got seven. I got nothing.

Yeah. This is very obviously not christian iconography. This is a church that it has a connection to, a moritar. However, as you look around, despite the banner behind the high patron having the sickle be the most prominent. Dang it. The scythe. The scythe being the most prominent feature of the banner, the vast majority of the iconography through here is actually relating more to the catanine towns or the flail.

Okay.

Short handle with several braided flogs coming off, ending with some sort of bump. It's woven onto a cloth, so you can't tell what the bump is, but it's a. It's a flogging tool.

Yeah.

That is what you're seeing. The most of the stained glass shows a very striking bearing. The cat o nine tails in one hand. And you see a lot of depictions of. The best way to describe it is pain. As you enter, there are monks flanking both sides of the doors. You do see that the door is. It wasn't uncommon in medieval Europe for the cathedral to be the last sanctuary, the last place that you fled to to survive a siege. And this is built like those were. There is a very large wooden bar off to the side that could bar these doors closed from the inside.

Are there any windows in stained glass?

Lots.

Lots of stained glass. No, just looking out windows.

Are they all, like, opaque? Like colored, like the light comes through, obviously. But can you see through it at all?

Yes, but it's got that wavy distortion from old glass. Okay, so you can see outside, but it distorts the image pretty terribly. Yeah, but it does make the interior just stunning. And sister aether leads you up to the high patron, who says, great news, friends. It appears as though it is indeed the Lord's will that your companion is to be cured of his affliction. Lord Ashraphael himself has requested that we make sure to purify your companion of his transgressions and ensure his return to proper fighting form. This is a gift that is not given to many an outsider. It's rare that anybody makes Lord Ashraf's radar, let alone receive his direct blessing for purification. What.

What do you mean, specifically fighting for.

We need to know that he is stable and he is not going to risk attacking any of his compatriots.

Fair. Is he in his fighting form right now?

More or less. I mean, I would not put him in a barracks alongside anyone else right now. He's apt to change the. We can't have. We don't want somebody who could be as much a danger to his friends as he is his enemies. What is. Why you.

Well, yes, that's true. Will he be free to leave afterwards? Free to leave the building, the church?

You are. You're not confined to the cathedral now, the convent.

So I check on that. Was that deliberately vague?

Yes, that was deliberately vague.

Question for the DM, answer for the player. Anything besides general reassurance with the 16?

Your patron doesn't seem too terribly concerned.

Well, that makes one of us.

So I'm gonna lean over, and as quietly as I can, I'm gonna go. Dude, they not gonna watch you leave.

And as he's saying that, I'm gonna point at the banner, kind of provide cover so you can't necessarily hear him. Like, there's three symbols up there. Are those symbolic of the three lords?

Yes. Lord Amoratar, Lord Ashrafael, and Lord Arpetrix.

So you're primarily a follower of ash Raphael?

Ashrafael. Yes.

Ashrafel.

Lord ash Raphael. Ash ashraphael.

Oh, okay. That makes more sense. I'm like, yeah, that did Ashley Raphael. Yeah, yeah, like, that did not speak any volumes.

And I'm guessing he has a lot to do with pain. Purification and penitence.

And purification through pain.

Exactly. Purification through pain. Yes. We discussed this at breakfast.

Yeah.

We can purify you of your transgressions, and it is a fairly unpleasant process.

What about the other lords? Quite curious.

I always thought wind sprints was purification. Okay, but that's just me.

Everyone has their own way of performing self penitence. Well, Lord Amoratar, the great conqueror. Lord of retribution. Lord Ashraphael. Purification through pain. And Lord Arpetrix, bringer of balance and residue. Restoration of power where it wants.

Wait, okay, so do they all work together?

Well, Lord Amoritar is the high lord. Of course, he's highest amongst them. But Lord Ashrafael and Lord Arpetrix are in his service. They are the new gods, bringers of modern salvation, saving us from the world in which we were leaving themselves. They have come to bring their gift to your land. They are here to help restore order and balance, as it should be. You seem upset, but you should be rejoicing. It is not everywhere that gets amoratar's blessing.

We're just new to this whole thing, that's all. It's all very unfamiliar territory.

That is understandable. This is fairly new for us as well. We have not been on a mission in quite some time. It's our first time in a new land, and you are our guinea pigs.

So Mel has a thought, and she's gonna message, almost.

Roll constitutional wisdom or something, to see if you flinch and react to the scream. She doesn't do this to you very.

Often, except for in the mornings, to wake us up totally unfazed.

Uh, in logic. Follow me here for a second. These gods would want you in your normal, full fighting form, so that when amoritar kills us, he has a stronger, better soldier. So assuming he doesn't succeed in killing us anytime, this might actually work. I mean, it's flawed logic.

I was tough.

I'm not there.

Can I respond in kind?

Yes, you can.

Mel. I see what you're saying. I worry that they will use me before I have a chance to fight back.

That's a fair concern. I mean, the thought crossed my mind, too.

I have a pretty strong will.

Do you think we can probably still back out? Probably. Maybe.

My friends.

It'S so hard.

The best part of the blessings I can give you is that Lord Ashrafael himself is wanting to meet.

Bullshit.

What if my guy, he intends to be here in but a couple days, actually.

A couple days?

Yes.

You mean the full moon?

Oh, I guess so. That's a coincidence.

Is that the DM saying that's a coincidence?

Or is that the. Don't read into that part in four days. And it is his wish that we have you properly purified before his arrival.

Well, we weren't planning on staying that long.

We were sort of expecting to go shortly thereafter.

Well, where is it that you must be in such a hurry to go?

We have a lot of things we.

Need to do if we're gonna go through the purification process with you. We would like to help follow through with the rest of our mission.

Well, we have a very important mission. Several of them, in fact. And it's really just what would possibly.

Be more important than the lord's wishes?

I have it on another lord's authority that it's very important that we get Jacob back to his family. And so we are.

Jacob's family is not alive.

Not his parents, just family.

I know.

Well, we didn't. So, excuse me.

Great authority from Lord Ashrafael that unfortunately, Jacob's family is.

Well, we still need to get him to a safer place than I am.

Assuming you left him outside with the bags.

I hope so.

Absolutely.

Poor kid's fucking porn.

He has been. He's been assigned luggage super supervisor for the afternoon. Well, we did not know that. We were simply told that we were able to find a safe place.

If not, your mission is to take.

Him to a church, not this.

How the fuck do you know that language? With all due respect, I would prefer.

No profanity within the Lord's house, my dear.

I would prefer I didn't have cause for it.

I have it on great authority that your mission is to take young Jacob to a church. As far as I can tell, mission accomplished.

It's not the right color, right?

It's not white.

I was told explicitly of a very specific color, size, shape and everything else. And I'm sorry, this just doesn't match up. And by the way, how do you know that?

I have my sources, my dear. I receive message directly from the Lords.

Guys, help me out here, please.

It is the Lord's will that you be purified of your transgressions.

I hardly think accidentally getting bitten by a werewolf counts as a transgression.

That part, no. But the gleeful murder, perhaps.

We all have our flaws. Some of us choose to live with them.

And it is the Lord's will that you be purified of your transgressions to be forgiven.

It is my understanding that Imautar and his like would be happy to have me be a gleeful murderer.

Amoritar needs to know that those within his land can be predicted. A beast like the lycanthrope is a danger to everything.

That I absolutely understand.

As I understand, I understand it, you are aware of several fairly gruesome murders that happened in the last town because of that beast.

This is correct.

I would genuinely hate for that to happen on your behalf.

As would I.

I assure you, no true harm will befall you. The process is unpleasant. I will not lie. It is not fun. I have been through it myself about 50 times.

Why so many?

Because I am still living. I retransgress. I must be purified routinely.

And if he goes through with the process, we can take him when we go.

We would prefer you wait for Lord Ashrafils arrival. It is on his wishes that you be purified.

We would prefer not to wait.

To be frank, meeting the Lord is a great blessing. I have only met him once in person.

I've met some.

I'm good for you to have only been in our church for about 16 hours and he already wants to meet you. That is no small.

And I know I am nothing worthy.

Lord Ash. Rafael knows better than us.

You would rather get back on the road?

How about we discuss after the purification? He is a danger to you as much as he is to us currently.

I have faith in our ability to handle him.

If I'm not mistaken, you handled the last one. Largely because he was a damage suck.

We'll figure it out.

She got bitten.

How about this? I have faith in our ability to figure it out. We are good at that.

You are the cursed. What say you? Are you going to disappoint me as much as your compatriots?

Oh, it's not you I'm worried about. Disappointing, friend. Your opinion of me makes no difference. What I worry about is being controlled.

You won't be controlled. You'll be purified.

You keep saying that as if it means something. What does that mean?

You will be purified of your transgressions. You will no longer be cursed. At minimum.

Could that be maximum too?

Depends on how many transgressions weigh upon his soul. I know of your recent exploits. I do not know of your past. I know you are a military man. The military men from my world have many a transgression to be repentant of. I think it's the word.

Repentant.

Repentant of. Can you tell? I'm not a church guy. Showing it all in the scenes?

Old knock. If you decide to do this, we will not leave you here.

Nor would we ask you to. In fact, pause for a moment. Let me show you the room he will be in.

Okay.

I did agree to that before. That was a request of yours. A fairly suspicious but understandable request. I suppose you are to our ways. And you can even wait in here. It is just on the other side of this door. We will be performing ritual. You can even bring the boy. And he does not need to sit in the courtyard alone.

Could we get some beeswax for his ears?

We were told there would be screaming.

There will be a fair deal of that. That is fair.

And this poor kid. Seen enough?

If you would like, he could stay in the courtyard. I just. I was simply offering. He doesn't have to be alone.

Well, that's why.

Is that Charlie?

Sure Charlie's there.

Where else would charlie.

I forgot about it.

All right, well, let's see this room.

So he takes you back behind the pulpit. It's where? In the church. I did it briefly attend. They had the baptismal font. There's a door basically, behind the pulpit. Unlike that church, there is very much not a baptismal font. Back here, there is a fairly. Relatively sturdy, but somewhat comfortable looking wooden chair. There are bookcases along the walls. There's a plush carpet. There are more pictures of Lord Ashrafael along the wall. There are no silver trays with cutting cutlery or torture tools or car batteries hooked up to jumper cables or anything.

Does the door lock the inside?

Yeah, that's right.

None of that's functioning.

You don't see a locking mechanism on the door? No.

Okay.

This is where it will happen. It will be the high matron and I in here. My job, specifically within this or the ordeal, is to make sure that you survive the process. That is my sole responsibility. I keep you alive and well. The high matron does the other half of the ceremony. She performs the purification. We will not lay hands upon you unless something goes wrong enough that I have to lay hands to keep you alive.

It's up to you all. Knock.

May I speak with my comrades for a moment?

Sure. I have no reason to rush this. And he takes you back out into the main cathedral room, closes the door to the chair room. That I'm sure has a cool name in their religion that you don't know yet. Right.

The purification chamber.

That sounds scary.

It does. It does.

Like, none of what we're talking about sounds peachy keen.

We just walked straight into the enemy's fucking den.

I know.

Is he leaving us alone in the cathedral?

Oh, no, he's still standing right there.

Listen, we were talking in front of. In front of sister Aether before.

Make sure sister Aether has also left. She got you here. She left immediately.

So it's just us?

Yeah. Well, you're alone. It's a fairly large cathedral, right? There were two monks by the main door, and the high patron moves far enough away that it's reasonable. As private as you're gonna get.

Okay. I'm gonna. Oh, it's gonna speak very quietly.

Yeah.

We're gonna have a whisper. I agree.

This is my boat. We kill these two high priests right now, and then we try to get the hell out of here before the other monks can gang up on us and know that we've landed a blow to a moratar. And then we figure out what to do about your lycanthropy later.

The Lord was apparently planning.

Yeah, but we're not ready. We're not ready to take those guys, but we can probably take these two. That's my vote now. Whatever you decide to do, I'll go with it, but I don't think that anything good can possibly come of this.

I have a tendency to 100% agree.

With you, but not this time.

I think it might be trading one.

Curse for another where we don't want to fucking be. We're going to fight this fucking thing, guy, whatever the hell it is.

We should maybe not, you know, we should maybe speak vaguely while we're standing in the chamber where they receive the message of the Lord.

Yet he knows a lot of shit he has no business knowing.

Oops.

How would he find that out, though? Like, it makes no sense. Unless this Ashrafael thing has been watching us, they have no reason to know who any of us are, let alone me. Sure, I killed three dudes in a.

Fucking field, but mostly saying, like, future plans. If they're hearing from this guy, he might be listening in. That's all.

I think it already knows about her.

Yeah, how about that? And that is not like no one.

Should know about that except for us.

Unless my guy's involved with these guys.

What it sounds, unless you're a guy.

Is one of the guys.

Yeah, I'm not loving that either. Okay? But I don't really have a choice as far as I can tell at the moment. But Kia's is a bigger problem. So let's focus on all.

But if I don't deflect.

Yes. Let's focus on Walmart.

If we don't rid me of this curse, I will change the full moon.

Right? And like Emory confidently said, we can probably take care of it.

We can figure it out.

She confidently said, we can probably.

Maybe take care of, no, I I think we can figure it out.

We've got a bunch of rope. We'll tie your ass up, cuz that'll work.

We don't know that it won't.

The fae did say, as long as I don't give in to the beast, I will maintain myself when I'm not turned.

Right.

Which means for one day out of the month, we have to find a way to subdue me in some way until we find another way to cure this.

I hate to throw a wrench in that thought process, though, but the fae are also the ones who sent us here.

This is very true.

I would just like to put that out.

And the fucking spider den. We went in there to get a rock. I don't know what that does.

By the way, if I remember correctly, the face simply said there was someone here that had might be able to that had the capability, abilities to remove.

Oh, those are the mystical people who are super vague and shit.

Yeah. Just not just enough rope to hang ourselves.

Yep.

And that doesn't mean that we won't find other people who have this capability or.

That's true.

Right?

Who knows?

One of us might stumble across some who do stuff that got curious.

If you can hold out and we can figure it out for now, we can find a solution later.

Promise me you will keep Jacob far away from me.

Yes, promised.

We will do that.

What's the plan to get out of here? I don't know why I changed accents.

Your New Yorker's showing.

Forget about it.

James goes mobster with his stress.

Apparently.

We also have no idea how strong the high priestess and priest are.

Or the yoked monster.

What if we just walk away?

We might be better off.

I don't leave. It's gonna work.

We're also gonna get lost over there. We can still hear with us.

That's why I insisted on the tour. I wanted to make sure we knew how to get out.

I mean, at this point, there's really no reason why we can't just say thanks, but no thanks.

Yeah, because these guys. These are the enemy.

They might. They might try to stop Olmach from. From leaving. Just because their God says that.

Their God wills it. I don't know. I don't. But an appropriate answer.

That doesn't mean we have to start the fight.

Well, that doesn't mean we can finish it, either.

Let those who feel purified cast the first stone. I guess.

What? Transplant?

I was gonna say, what keeps you.

Self defense. That shouldn't be held against me.

That was self defense. Singing.

I'm doing this because I'm threatened.

I didn't know that about myself until it happened.

I'm sorry. I'm enjoying this.

Stop making me happy.

Anyway, yeah, being a psychopath is hard.

We can feel bad about it later.

We went to bed afterwards.

I didn't even flinch.

Bro, I slept like a baby that night.

We killed those people, and we're worried about coffee.

Yeah, but. Yeah. Self defense.

I felt bad about it.

So did Emery.

I felt guilty about it the whole time. We were asking people for trading.

It's war.

Everything's fair. We can do what we need to.

Yeah, but I think. I think we should just get out of here.

They have these things called war crimes that prove that not all things are.

Fair, but in order to.

War crimes only existed because of the Geneva Convention. As far as I know, that doesn't exist.

Also, war crimes only.

Exactly.

It only applies to.

That's also true.

Is he not any whatever. That's not the point.

We're not here to have a semantic arch.

I am no longer active navy. The navy doesn't exist.

They're nothing gonna fucking draft you into combat.

There is no water. You are a bad navy.

But anyway, in all seriousness, we should probably get the hell out of here.

Yes.

I changed exits New York.

James.

Learning things about you every day.

That's nice. A new unlocked character trait that has to continue.

Oh, don't worry.

It will.

Whether I want it to or not.

Okay, well, let's go get our stuff and let's just go.

Yeah, and if they try to stop, we'll just break out into song again.

Yeah, that's what happens.

Friends. Have we made a decision?

Jesus. Sorry.

Why are you back? No one called for you.

You are in my house.

This is fair. But you said you'd give us some privacy and you're breaking said privacy.

And now I am ready for your answer.

Thanks.

What's your name?

I am the high patron.

I said your name, not your title.

They have the whole time we've been here.

Fair enough. Well, I strap in, kids, cuz this.

Is about to get ugly.

I'm gonna tell you to go fuck yourself.

With that. The burly monks by the door bar it.

Yeah.

And we're gonna go ahead and roll for initial.

I'm pretty sure they would have.

I've gotta be in character.

I love it.

That was in character.

I love it. I approve.

Emery approves of the motherfucker.

I am rolling dog shit for initial.

Emery is not necessarily down with churches.

I would just like to point out.

That they would probably close the door.

21.

That's not bad, Elliot.

25.

Okay, not as good as that.

Hold on.

I'm really good at starting fights, but I do not take the first swing. I rolled a six.

Fuck, bro. You are terrible at initiative. Yep. James?

30. 20.

And Emery don't change mine.

I also rolled a six.

The two most. Ready? All right. That's funny.

Oh, my God.

I was down for the cure until I was like, oh, this is where fuckface lives.

Um, I don't know why.

Theatre of the mind is Jeremy Arfston as Elliot Brandybain. Amanda Arfston as Mel Kelly. That's me. Michael Burnell as Olnack Varger Johnson. Michael Downes as James O'Brien. Casey Weingarten as Emery Lee. And Mike Schoch as your dungeon master. We release new episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will release on August 8. If you want to follow us on our social media like super important and our website can be found on our link tree, which can be found in the podcast description. Also in the podcast description you can find a link to Pinecast as well as our referral code to get you 40% off your first four months of a paid membership, as well as our referral link to epidemic sound, which gets you a one week trial period to their excellent platform. The music this week was sourced from epidemic sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Commons license. The songs used in order are unsettling.

By Philip Ayers probable cause by Xperia under the Dome by Philip Ayres no redemption by Christopher Moe de Levson Tyranny by Dreamcave Disturbing Call by Xperia Firebreak by Edward Carl Hanson we are the ones by Max Anson, peracosmic lifeform by Eteon Roussel and Blood Money by Hampus Nacellius. We also used 115 bpm, 125 bpm, 101 bpm, 65 bpm, and cinematic 54 bpm from the Sound effects library.

The theater of the mind theme, intermission and outro were written by Mike Schock. Extremely talented. Theater of the Mind is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidences are used in a fictitious manner. Incidences? Is that a word? Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. We're talking about you, shamrock sheep.

It's not.

But I can honestly tell you that anytime we talk about it, it's like, oh yeah, let's go to the Shamrock sheep and get a beer. It will never be.

Even if a new business you want to close, it's still going to be called the Shamrock.