S1:E36 – Night Poetry

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Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents Retribution, episode 36. I think I'm Mike. I'm your dungeon master for this session. And our question this week from the ultimate RPG campfire card deck by James D'Amato is what would you want to do if you were to share a perfect day with your companions? Who would be the most excited about your plans?

My name is Amanda and I am playing Mel Kelly. Mel didn't know any of her companions before everything went sideways, so her imagining of a perfect day with them is still sort of everything being sideways, but not in a trying to kill you way. So we could all get together and we can run the horses a little bit and have a little picnic, maybe buy a lake, go throw rocks and do some splashy and then stretch and maybe go for a nice nature hike. And then when we get back, we can do some yoga and tell stories around the campfire.

Did you say buy a lake? Like purchase a lake me or two? Oh, I heard buy a lake.

I said buy a lake. B y. That's a word.

Gotcha. Okay. Ask is because it's Mel and it was very confusing.

I would like to purchase your lake Piercer.

Yeah, my apologies.

Alongside a lake where we can skip rocks and go paddle around with the fishies.

Okay, thank you very much.

I think Jacob would be super excited about this plan. I think he and Mel would have a grand old time being the average age of 12 together.

Yes.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Brandybane. And Elliot Brandybane, Absolutely. Ideal day would be a day that his companions are in camp, leaving him the hell alone and not getting into trouble while he was off somewhere else. A little fishing pole, maybe a hammock in his horse where he went and fished until noon, and then he'd go ahead and crack a cold beer, take a nap in the hammock until the evening feed, and then at the end of the day, he would come back and tell his companions how miserable he was and go to bed. And he thinks that he would be the most excited of all of them for that kind of a day.

The day without Elliot in camp could be kind of relaxing.

The problem with that plan is expecting us to stay out of trouble.

Well, now Elliot's day is happening the same as Mel's day. So while he's trying to fish in the background, he hears.

So he's skipping, splash, splash.

No, don't splash me there.

You know, guys, I'm starting to think Elliot doesn't like us.

He came back, right? That's part of his perfect days coming back.

Came back.

I came back for supper for you to cook something.

Yay.

Full disclosure, Ulnock would enjoy both of those days.

He's hungry is what I'm hearing.

Um.

I am Brunel.

I know. Shut up, dick.

All right?

I am Brunel. I am playing Ulnock Baga Johnson. And Ulnock really misses his kid, which is no surprise since he hasn't had any contact with her over the last five years. However, there is a child in our midst, and he believes a perfect day would be kind of acting like a father figure to said kid and enjoying some time with Jacob. Just chilling. Because we're kind of just in the middle of nowhere. There's not a whole lot to do. If it could be a perfect, like. Like a perfect day, like a real perfect day with no limitations. We would do an amusement park. We would do all the rides. I would stuff him full of sugary treats and get him all hyper and stuff and make sure he was dead tired by the end of the day. But we would have so, so, so, so, so much fun. And then I would drink profusely because then I would be sad because he's not my kid. But that's not important.

It's not important.

It's a perfect day and I had a great time. And now I must drown my sorrows.

Boy, that took a left turn real quick, didn't it?

Yeah, I couldn't leave the happy question. Happy.

Calm down.

It's not all knock style, but yeah, that would up until the profuse amounts of alcohol. It would be a perfect day and wonderful. And I think Jacob would be the most excited. Although Ulnock might be a very close second. So.

Hello, I'm Downs and I'm playing James O'Brien. And James's vision of a perfect day would be after all this immortar. Oog. Bomiwug, whatever the fuck his name is.

Ashwagandha.

Thank you. Once all this nonsense is done, opening up his own restaurant and inviting everybody as VIPs and serving them several courses of gourmet food. And I think. I can't tell if Elliot or Ulnock would be the happiest. I think Ulnock would be the happiest. And no trauma.

Yeah.

VIP feast, bro. Olnok is down. Also Every plan so far has been a giant thumbs up from Ulnock.

I'm Casey Winegard and I play Emery Lee. And I think that Emery's perfect day with this group looks a lot like the time that we spent at Elliott's ranch. Like, it was comfortable. We had tasks to do. We were learning things, doing things. It was not just sitting around doing nothing. And if we didn't have the driving force of trying to save the world to leave, I don't know that she would have wanted to fair. I don't know which of you would like that.

The most perfect day would be covering his sixth round.

Elliot.

Elliot would. That would be Elliot's day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Elliot would love that day.

I want to go back to the ranch.

It was comfortable. There was not a lot of stress there except for the world ending and.

The amount of Crisco on.

So to go back after the world was done ending, you know, I think.

That'S why Elliot would like mine the most because like the food is salted to taste and not overdone or fat.

To taste, not to death.

Yeah. Everything's not dripping in lard.

Amoritar's perfect day with his companions, he actually gets to live on a regular basis. It's being on the front lines as they siege a new city. The getting the trebuchets and the ballistas set up is particularly exciting. The buzz and the energy of his soldiers with the pre battle jitters, it's just, it's a very, very, very high energy, fun vibe.

Boy toys.

Aw.

The smell of bloodlust in the morning.

His favorite one was when they sieged a city that was going through a plague. He allowed them to send some of their plague victims out, claiming they were going to get treatment, let them die. And then he launched them back in with the catapults to help spread the plague Load the grave.

Fire the grave.

By the way, a tactic used by our own Roman empire. Let's go ahead and roll for recap.

I can't argue and I can't say anything clever because it's all true.

I will go old school high gets to take it.

NAT1, NAT20.

Can I just let him take that?

I think I can't beat a nat 20.

I got a 4.

I got a 12.

15.

All right, what happened last session? Back in November, Forever and a day ago.

Well, I happen to have re listened to it.

Hey.

Somebody used the resources I put out.

Yes.

Hey. Hey.

Unfortunately, the short term was we traveled to, I believe Fort Morgan, met Emory Lee's parents Ate a very, very overdone.

It was so well done. It was a congratulations and a handshake.

Okay.

The words you're looking for. Shoe lover.

And then we were going to a church meeting that they have every night in hopes that the pastor can possibly cure our beleaguered Olnok of his lycanthropy.

We also sent Benny home.

We did what?

We sent Benny home.

Oh, was that on that episode? Anyway, yeah, we saved Benny from.

Oh, the kid.

Yeah, Benny, the kid at the DIA airport, got him home safely and asked that his mom not tell anybody. We were. Were there.

As you watched the cult come to help them go to the convent in the mountains.

We did not watch the cult come. We ran away.

We ran away.

Yeah. We did not stay and wait.

I don't say that to put any kind of judgment on it. You made probably the right call.

We saw them and went like, oh.

My God, there's people feeding. Starving people. Kill them. That's evil.

Feeding people.

There's no way we'll look like the bad guys in this situation.

And that's why they're also.

Why did you do that? Because they were bad people. Well, what are we gonna eat? I don't know. Good luck.

I don't know. The food's still there. Serve yourself.

Them. I don't know. What do you choose?

That's what the zombies are horrible and oh so effective way of getting.

So, yes, you guys had just entered the church. You've taken your seats somewhere middleish. Not the front, not the back. Somewhere in the middle where Emery's family likes to park their butt. And Pastor Eric takes his place at the pulpit. He leads the congregants in a nice opening prayer that, while brief, does seem quite heartfelt. He then reads a quick passage from the book of Ephesians 6, colon 11, whatever that means. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Closes the book, kind of rests his hands on the pulpit. This is a tired man, very mentally and physically weary. With a sigh, he says, well, folks, I gotta admit it to you. I never thought we'd need to take this verse quite so literal, but here we are. I'm not sure why the good Lord has decided to test us in. In such a violent fashion, but as they say, the Lord gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. With that in mind, Erica, would you mind updating our community here on the local happenings? With that, a very firm looking woman, just very stern, stiff, steps up to the pulpit. Her face is completely devoid of any of the markings brought on by years of laughter. Um, she's okay. Despite the conditions of the world around, she looks very well put together. Still. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun. Her floor length skirt shows no signs of wear or tear. Her light beige cardigan is completely devoid of any dirt. She stands out from the crowd in that she looks like she is refusing to adapt to the new normal. She updates the congregants on some of the happenings in town. Says please keep the Barnes family in your prayers. Their boy Andrew still hasn't returned home from his little league trip to Denver. The Foster family is happy to announce the safe delivery of their new baby girl. Annabelle Foster arrived safely into the world late last night weighing in at a healthy 7lbs 4oz. Brett Walker wanted to announce that he has his grinding wheel fixed up and working so any of us who need our weapons sharpened can head over to his house. He said he's happy to help arm the congregation, but a donation to his beer cooler wouldn't be dismissed. The holding pen seems to still be standing strong, but it's our group's turn to perform the maintenance on the outer wall, so we are looking for volunteers. There will be a sign up sheet in the multi purpose room. And finally the Turners thank you all for your prayers. After Pastor Eric's healing, we are happy to share that Gregory's leg is back to full strength strength. She turns to Pastor Eric and kind of nods her head as if to say she's finished and walks back to her seat. Pastor Eric stands and a pianist off to the side leads the congregates through a hymn. Even for those of you who aren't particularly into hymnals, this is the first music you have heard since the event.

Auditory, yes?

Yep.

I hear music in my head all day long.

That's how music works. You don't tend to hear it visually.

We have heard Almak sing a couple of times.

Decomposition.

It somehow lacks the same feeling.

Yeah, it's not. It's not the same.

Yeah. No. Very different lines. Our God is an awesome golf. No. Nope. Holy. Holy. That's all I know of that song.

Oh Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.

It's not Southern Baptist.

Yeah.

But this one wasn't. I don't think. That doesn't help me.

It didn't help me either.

Generic Lutheran is my understanding. Pastor Eric, after the song, takes his place back in the pulpit and looks over the congregation and his eyes rest on your group. Hell smiles, he says. Well, friends, it seems that every time I need a boost, the good Lord sends me a reminder that things are going to be okay. I want to take a moment and share in what I assume to be a special moment for three dear members of our family. It appears that Mr. And Mrs. Lee have cause for celebration with the return of their oldest daughter, Emory. Emory, I cannot express how glad we are to have you back in our community and how blessed we all feel to know that you managed to make the dangerous journey over the Rockies. Welcome home. And with that, I think this is a good stopping point for the session for the churching.

The congregation.

Sermon might be the word sermon.

Thank you.

This is the session.

I looked up every other word that I would need through this section, except for what the fucking thing's called. With that said, I believe the Nielsens were able to provide some coffee and pastries in the multipurpose room. Of course. Please make sure to sign up for the perimeter securement for those who could stay. We also have a little bit of war gaming to get to. With that, the congregates stand and start doing the awkward polite mingling that frequents all church functions. And also with you, though, now there is extra attention being shown to the Lee family. A lot of people coming up and patting Emery on the back, shaking hands and generally shuffling towards the multipurpose room.

Haley, is fur gaming a normal part of church?

No, I was gonna ask Emerie's mom and dad about what's up with the war gaming.

I don't wanna play war. I live war. It sucks.

It never changes.

Emery's busy greeting people she knows tangentially.

So, yeah. So I'm gonna lean over to. The player has forgotten their names.

Sharon. And I wrote them down.

I wrote them down. France and Sharon.

Tennis.

Tennis.

And her sister is Sadie.

Sadie.

All right, says Kenneth. What's the deal with the war gaming?

Well, Pastor Eric feels that it's wrong to discuss the armed conflicts in the sanctuary.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So we take it to the multipurpose room, and that's where we touch base on who's doing patrols where. Any new ways to put the undead down? We've discovered.

Oh, goodness.

Things of that flavor.

All right, well, I'm going to get over there. I need to talk to the pastor.

I'm sure he'd be interested in talking to all y'all. You have some experience that those of us who've stayed city locked don't.

Sure, I'll knock. James, come with me. Yep, yep, Mel, if you want to we're gonna go talk killing. So if you don't want to, I'm.

Gonna go talk killing.

Emery might need some backup.

Mel's gonna hang out with Emery from.

Her all support, and I'm just gonna kind of go. Emery, we'll be right back.

Good luck. You got this.

Blink twice if you need me to enact plan B.

She very carefully does not blink twice.

Her eyes start watering.

I stare.

Yeah.

She stops blinking entirely.

Another blink.

Just pained social smiles. Uh huh. Yeah. Grand Junction's been crazy. Yeah.

So they lead you go off the side up a small half flight of stairs. You've got a pretty good sized multipurpose room. It's got one of those carpet basketball courts that a lot of churches have. Why they chose carpet for basketball, I will never ever understand. It doesn't work because you only play.

With the stupid, like dodgeballs.

There you go.

Fair.

You're not playing with an extra fast.

Still hurts when you fall.

Yes. Oh, the rug burn a lot.

Not that falling on the hardwood basketball floor feels much better, but it doesn't give you the serious rug burn.

Right.

At least your short slide on a court. They've got the white folding plastic tables set out kind of along the walls, kind couple of the black metal and maroon padded chairs seated sporadically. And Pastor Eric is off by the cookie table getting cookie and coffee and has a fairly steady stream of congregants coming up and saying, oh, that was such a nice sermon. And he's like, yeah, it was a brief one today, but I appreciate your support.

Elliot's gonna just get in the line of the congregants and kind of get ready to take his turn.

He sees you three step up and he starts expediting the polite handshakes. And I think our new friends here might have some information that's valuable to us. So I'm gonna talk to them, if y'all don't mind, for a moment. And everybody's, oh, of course, Father. Out of the way and let him come up.

And so Elliot will introduce. He says, hi. Very nice sermon. I'm Elliot Brandy Bain and this is my friend Olak Johnson and James O'Brien.

Pleasure to meet you three. You were here with young Miss Emory?

Emily. Yeah, yeah. She's a friend of ours. We helped. She helped us get over here. We're just passing through. You were talking about dealing with some of the undead. And we would like to offer your community any kind of information that we've gleaned since we left Junction.

Absolutely.

And I can see that You've got a very fuel full plate on your hands. And apparently you've done a very, very good job with your community. Compared to some of them that we've passed through, you guys are doing quite, quite well. And that's. Congratulations on your hard work and your ability to organize. It's the only way we're gonna get through this.

That's heartening to hear. I appreciate that. It's been a terrifying couple months, but.

Yep.

Feels like years.

It is. And I'm sure it's gonna be a few more months at least. We're kind of hoping to. We might have an idea on maybe how to help this. But one thing. Me and my group, we have a problem that you may possibly be able to help us with.

Okay.

And Elliot's gonna look around to kind of see how many people are around.

There's a fair smattering.

I know you've got a lot going on. Is there any way that we can kind of speak alone about this? There's some kind of sensitive matters that we need to discuss, but it's kind of private in nature.

Sure, yeah. Yeah. Let me do one more quick lap around.

No problem. You take care of your stuff. When it's convenient, let us know and we'll be here.

Off down that hallway there is my office.

Okay.

I'll meet you there. 10 minutes? Sure.

Sounds good. We'll be there.

So this coffee and cookies, they're for everybody?

Good. Please, please help yourselves. Any friend of Emory is a friend of this church.

I'm also gonna pop out and kind of indicate to the other two that we're gonna go talk with the Pastor Emery immediately.

Excuse me. My friend's calling. I've got it.

Somebody. Excuse me.

It was great to see you again. Great to see you. I gotta.

Oh, Father. Father, Eric needs me.

Sorry, I gotta go.

Mel extricates herself from a really dull conversation with a little old lady about tea.

So when he gets.

Don't let that tea steep too long, missy. It'll get better on you.

I won't. Thank you.

It will too.

Ms. Palm.

Paul.

It was palm. Yeah. Thank you.

Yep. Such a sweet young lady.

We're going to meet up with the pastor here in about 10 minutes or so in his office. I'm hoping that he might be able to help us with all knock and your problem. That's what I want to talk to him about. It's not impossible.

I'm going to grab as many cookies as I can fit in my hands and go hide in his office until he does. Come there.

I scuff shot him in my coveralls again.

Elliot will properly, because to him, it's the way he takes one cookie and one cup of coffee and that's it.

Mel takes enough coffee to fill each hand I would have taken if she's fairly dexterous. That's two of those little styrofoam cups per hand.

There you go.

And Emery's got a stack of cookies in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. As we just dip into the hallways.

James is going to debate whether or not he uses mage hand to carry an additional cup of coffee. He decides that it's possible. Probably best not to get.

Not to do witchcraft.

Just maybe.

Yeah, that might go south.

He's a witch. Burn him.

Right.

We go to talk. We go to talk to the pastor about Olduck's problem, and we come out with them with James tied to a sting.

Hey, guys, I can explain.

So the werewolf thing's fine, but he can't be a witch. All right, that makes sense.

You out for 10 minutes.

The Werewolf thing is a mistake. The witchcraft is.

The witchcraft is a choice.

Not if you fail to read the terms and conditions.

Right.

I didn't know.

Or if you happen to be born doing magic.

Right? Yeah, no kidding. Every do not do your witchcraft is not a mistake. Yeah, every do not do any of magic either.

I forgot that there's no real logical reason to describe magic. Wow. James has magic.

Yeah, you did. You did at Elliot's ranch. Perfect. So, yeah, his office is, you know, picture any church office. Okay. Desk, relatively comfortable, but worn. Chairs, mismatched bookshelves, bookcases. And about almost exactly 10 minutes later, to the best of your internal clock allows, Pastor Eric makes his way back, and he sits himself down into his clearly very comfortable, very well worn leather chair. All right, folks, so you have something of. Oh, he closes the door behind him as he comes in. Of course. And this office is big enough, y'all fit, but it's not big enough that you're all like, comfy.

Yeah, I would imagine they probably would do a decent amount of family counseling, so I'm sure there's enough places for people.

It's got like a very well worn couch along one wall, which fits.

Ulnock.

Ulnock.

Move your legs. The rest of us want to sit too.

And as soon as he kind of gets comfortable, Elliot's gonna say pastor, one of them. I have to compliment you on your resilience, on being able to do a sermon every night. Most pastors, if they've got to do, you know, a Sunday and a Wednesday. It's a lot of work. So again, I commend you on getting through a really rough time. I, I quite frankly quite impressed.

I appreciate that Ephesians has got a lot to work from. If this does last much longer than five months though, I'm definitely going to be recycling material pretty quickly. But I appreciate those kind words.

Yeah. Get you some help to take over a little bit. So before we start, I want to share directly with you what we have learned about the undead.

Awesome.

And so Elliot will do that. He'll pass on what we have discovered.

And you see he's got, he's got a Carhartt jacket kind of draped over the back of his chair. He opens up the breast pocket of it and pulls out one of those like detective steno pads and he is just writing everything you're saying down.

Yeah. I'm sure you guys have already discovered a lot of this, but in case you haven't, the more we can share this information, the, the better off we will be.

Absolutely. No, our, our current most effective has just been essentially a corral. It's not exactly what we consider the most humane, but for the sake of the congregates, it's definitely cut down on the, the slaughter.

Yeah.

Now that said, I would be mighty careful on the northwest side of town. It's just kind of scary. Over there we've got a couple pens. As you heard, it's our turn. We've partnered with all of the local community groups and other churches. Everybody takes a rotating schedule to donate time to keeping the pens secure. Unfortunately, a lot of these undead are appearing to be pretty frickin clever. So half of it is making it taller every time too.

Sure.

We are about to finish the second floor of wall to describe that in the most unclear way possible. The wall will be a two story building tall.

Yeah, Big damn wall.

Got it. Here you go.

Heighten the fence. Well, again, I wanted to share what information we had because I believe this helps everybody.

Absolutely. Now that bit about the beheading not necessarily working is good to know.

Yeah. It's unfortunate, but.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really sad that George A. Romero was not being honest in his depictions of the undead, but.

Well, I'm sure that wasn't a documentary. Yeah, I don't think it's just something they made up.

It just saying that sometimes they get scarier after you've been.

Yeah, very true.

Yeah. That mortuary scene y'all described there is some truly horrific stuff and let's not.

Even bring up ghosts. Just.

Yeah, we have it. We're finding that to an extent. Salt in your windows and doorways at night seems to work okay. We're experimenting with mixing salt into our paint to see if maybe that does something. But that's a little new still. We haven't gotten very far.

The logic is sound at the very least. Yeah.

We're finding that either the kosher or that pink fancy salt seems to cut pretty good.

You're getting more southern pasture right there.

I know.

Passing moment.

It's inevitable.

End up sounding like boomhound here in a minute.

You're not from around here, are you, Pastor?

Nope.

Anyway, we've. You've seen and the kind of things are. So we've got a problem that we need to take care of. And I trust that it's not going to take a lot of explanation because I don't have a lot to give you. Our friend and he indicates Ulnock was. Unfortunately we were attacked by a. Not making it up. Werewolf. He has caught it.

You caught the werewolf?

Caught the werewolf. Caught the disease.

Whatever thing that makes you turn into it.

Actually. Yes. So we did find out from people that it is in fact curse.

Curse. Okay.

And we were hoping that being a man of the cloth, you may have some ability about how to remove the curse.

We heard in the updates during the sermon about your healing ability. And we think based on what we've learned about magic and things generally, that removing a curse like that is a similar kind of ability to.

I absolutely follow your logic. I have. The good Lord has blessed me with the ability to heal wounds. That much I could say for certain. The young man that was mentioned, Gregory, broke his leg and I was able to lay my hands upon his leg and watch as the wound and bone reset themselves before our eyes. We don't have a lot of cursed folk floating around for me to have experimented upon. That's a bad choice of words, frankly, to have practiced upon. And historically, the Catholics really dabble with the whole curse stuff through their exorcism stuff.

Do we have any of those?

The Catholic Church is right next to the graveyard.

Yeah. So I wouldn't recommend you go there. They're dealing with their own stuff. The Lord has given them an extra helping of problems. Yeah. Challenges. That said, I'm not confident that I can't. I would like. We've got time. My understanding is, is we're pretty near the new moon, so we got a little bit of time. I'm just. Am I safe assuming all the stuff about werewolves is true so far. Full moon makes you howl and furry. Yeah.

So far.

So far we're good. Yeah. Lines up so far that we found.

I think theoretically he could call on it willingly. But we have not tested that.

And don't test it here.

We're not a good place.

Discouraged is testing that.

I would kindly ask you to not.

That's fair. Because every time I wolf out to say I have to keep my bearings because if I lose control, I can become the beast permanently.

Then that would be a bad thing, I would imagine.

Yes.

I would lose control. I would just be a threat to everybody. There's a reason I don't do it fair.

So if you wouldn't mind, I would like to take a couple days and pray on this here. As of recent, God's been talking back. Been kind of nice as a pastor to actually get some direct answers here as of late.

Be cautious. And B, there are now entities in the world that. That are trying to pass themselves off as false gods.

Did he give you a name?

Did he give me a name like.

The God, maybe what his name is, you know, among friends.

I said, hey, God. And he said, hey, you know what?

You're a pastor. You've read the book as well as I have. The tests are in there?

Yep.

Follow them.

And if he asks you to say a comment on track, Politely declined.

Yeah.

Oh, no, that's the work of the devil there.

For the most part. Yeah. No, there's. There's things moving around in the world that didn't used to be. And they are very powerful and they can easily lead Belle takes the cookies people astray. So you need to be more cautious than maybe you would have in the past. So definitely be discerning on who you're listening to. That being said, unfortunately, we cannot stay for a very long time because we think we might be able to help the whole event happening. And we're going to try. However, we know this is going to take a little bit of time. We don't have really anything of much value, but we can help around the community for a few days. So if you need like guarding a work party to work on the work on the walls or perimeter watches, maybe. Well, we. I mean, that's up to you. I'm not gonna volunteer any of you to do something that you're not comfortable. That's what I've got that I can.

Offer before we get to current. You think you can fix this?

We hope.

We hope.

Before we get to fixing things, I feel like we Also need to offer a word of caution about strange people coming in claiming to solve all of your food, potential problems and all of that. They look like they're good people, but they're not.

The devil frequently wears sheep's clothing.

Yes. Yes. If you see any sheep, just say no.

And Elliot will give a description of the cultists and what they're wearing.

The flail.

Yeah. This is the group that's trying to help communities. I think the word is proselytized, but I'm not positive that's the correct word. They're trying to basically get followers into their church. They're a bad place.

They look really good and they're feeding.

A lot of people. I don't know where they're getting the food. They're very organized.

They're also getting people up to their church. They're moving people from their homes.

So like into the mountains that we found so far. They're sending a lot of them back.

Into the mountains and as far as we can tell, they truly believe they're doing the right thing, which makes them very dangerous.

They're more like an hulk.

That is all very good. You say their symbol is a flail?

Yes.

There might be other cults with other symbols too that we haven't run into, but we have reason to believe that they have a trifecta of.

What was it? Flail scale.

And they have somewhat of their own holy trinity.

Inspiration to James. Yeah. Sickle.

Sickle, yeah.

Like very similar.

Not really, no.

I have one center.

This is really big. It's a very large two handed farming implement. A sickle is a very small one handed farming.

They got the big one as the logo.

Size.

Okay.

That's the size sickle is the communist one.

Got it.

Right.

Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Right next to the hammer.

Yeah.

Similar use for farming, but very different.

Different. Yeah. Lawn mower versus garden cheese chopper.

Yeah, close enough.

I follow the logic. I get it. I know where I messed up. I got it.

That's. That's good to know. We have seen, we've seen some interesting folk for sure. So we will keep our eye out for them. Good thing is, thankfully we're in a community that's set up pretty well. We got farmers, got ranchers, we got the South Platte that runs right through town. We are, we're set up about as well as a community can be.

There's a. I mean there's a chance that because of that they will come you right away, but when they do, they might not be at their nicest.

We Last saw them near Brighton. So they are moving.

Yeah. They're close then. Okay.

I mean, that's a fair trek on.

Foot, but where was there a church.

You found.

In the mountains past Rifle, Wouldn't it?

In the mountains between.

Somewhere between Rifle and Kremling.

Yeah. I think that's how. Southwest of Kremling.

Jesus. Out in the middle of nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. All right. Well, I appreciate all that information. That's fantastic. So I don't know if this will be helpful for you folks. I'm an avid baseball fan.

Okay.

For sure.

A fair bit of what I saw looks like maybe Boston.

That's what we thought.

So you were watching the Red Sox game.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you saw the same.

It was on in the background. I was on TikTok.

I was playing Angry Birds. We.

I. I thought you were cooking.

I was watching you playing angry.

Let's be honest.

There was only one person in the shop that had ordered food.

Oh, that's right. Because I brought kale chips.

Yeah. You brought your own food chips.

You brought your own food to a restaurant?

Kale chips? Not those for.

I don't.

They probably still have them in the Safeway.

I hope they do.

If they had any to. To begin with.

I want to go tactically acquire some kale ships.

Oh, actually Emory is. Was. I'm guessing there might be a sporting goods store in town. My arrows are getting a little bit low.

Definitely. Right.

There is a like one of like. Play it again.

Really? That's it?

Uhhuh.

Okay.

There is a Walmart that has sporting goods section.

Okay.

Walmart actually might have.

Probably could find better selection there than.

Okay.

It's probably like one of the nicest. Walmart still in tech sports equipment.

Not necessarily the car trips. They actually do carry them often. So.

So you folks would actually probably be well suited to talk to Kenneth. The city has taken over most of the mercantile here in town to help make sure it's rationed and distributed out.

If we were helping with defense of your work parties, we be able to draw a little bit from the stores.

Yeah. And he actually pulls out some church letterhead, writes out he needs the sharp pointies.

Thank you. Okay.

Doctor's orders.

Thank you very much.

The sharp pointies. I like it.

And so. All right. So you guys are going to plan on going to Boston, try to fix things Ultimately, at the old current rate of travel, probably about don't say two years.

I hadn't thought about that, honestly.

All right.

We're just doing our best.

No, absolutely. And you Know everybody doing their best is all we can hope for. That just helps me formulate this ain't getting fixed next week.

No, no, not by ass anyway.

Unless there's another travel somebody else working on this.

How bad would you be if you got to New York and shit came back.

Care as long as it's fixed?

Well, I do actually. I have something you could help us with and I want to make it perfectly clear. I'm. I'm going to commune with the Lord and see what I could do about helping you with your situation that is not at all contingent about your reply to this request.

Okay, that's fair.

A werewolf in town is something I would like to take care of.

Hopefully in a peaceful way. That would be fine.

Ideally. Yep. We need all the upright folk we can have. Especially if it's going to be a hot minute until this is all fixed.

Yeah, I'd like to do an insight check just to make sure. Take care of meant in a good way.

You can roll an insight check especially.

Tied to a statement about the Lord.

I will smite thee.

You are confident he meant that in the most innocent way possible.

Mel would be.

He is fully intending heal not keel. So, speaking of folks traveling through town sharing some wildly fascinating stories as yours has been. Had a feller come down from the north about a week ago with a pretty fascinating story of his own.

Okay.

He apparently feller had been traveling for quite some time trying to avoid as much many populated areas as possible. But this story was worth passing along. So he cut down south to us to spread this story. About a half day's walk. So not sure if I'm assuming y'all didn't walk here from junction, so you might be able to get there a bit quicker. About a half day's walk north of here is a gravel pit. Got a fair few of them in town. But there's a good source of gravel up north of town. A lot of the construction companies get it for their landscaping needs. It's also got some good aggregate for the concrete mix. Because of that they move large quantities. They had some big earth movers, excavators, bulldozers, dump trucks, the big dang near mines, stuff monsters. That man came down and I guess he didn't really so much have a story as he had a question he asked us and he'd been asking everybody in town. He didn't come to me and ask how this happened. That'd be weird. He was asking through town and I got in touch with him. He wanted to know how we Got our earth movers moving again. Now this is a question that I would love an answer to because I'm thinking if you're able to get one of them gigantic diesel engines operating, you're probably gonna be able to help our community out a fair bit. Yeah, Generators. Etc. Etc. Etc. There are a lot of things here in town that would love for combustion engines to function again. Quite frankly, I do a little bit of tinkering. I'm a old school car guy. Had a nice Chevy square body. I was getting back up into good shape. It doesn't make sense to me that combustion engines don't work anymore. If this guy was able to make that happen, I would love to know how. That said, I have had a very hard time cutting a full day out away from the congregation to get up north. And you saw my congregants out there. They're solid at keeping town safe in numbers. This isn't a group of folks I'd like to throw against the wilderness. If you guys wouldn't mind heading up north. I'm gonna say it's a half day's walk. See what you can find out about this and report back. Either bring the feller who got em working again with ya or just tell us how he pulled this off. That would do our community an immense amount of good.

So the guy that came through said he saw the heavy equipment operating.

He did.

Did he say whether he saw people operating the equipment?

He didn't get close enough. The concept of the equipment working had him spooked.

Fair. That's fair. Okay, so he saw the equipment moving. That's all he can for sure.

And these are the big UN's so he could see them all the way you could see him for a couple, four or five miles feels like.

I assume this gentleman isn't still in town.

No, he. He parted. He kept after everybody in town went. What? What? What are you talking about?

Okay.

All right. Well. And I gotta say I do believe I've been dealing with the public my whole life. I've went through theology school. One of my specialties while I was in school was psychology or psychiatry. I kind of made that one word. Psychology.

Psychiatrist said both at the same time. That was impressive.

I wasn't going to call you out.

On a continuity check, I guess. Is north of here, the same direction where Elliot had a sense of something when he was sensing things everybody was sensing while we were.

Oh, that's true. I did do that. I got. I got a white and yellow feeling from sort of in the direction Of Fort Morgan.

Yeah. No, it would not be the same direction.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And this is far enough away. It would have been out of your range anyway. Yeah.

Okay.

He said this place is north of town. I'm assuming just.

Yeah, you could just take. It's straight up that road.

Okay.

The Fort Morgan gravel pit, something like that.

Yep, that's what it's called now.

That's the name.

I intentionally did not write the name down because I don't want to accidentally give anybody any free advertising. That one place up there with the dirt, they also have sand.

It's probably hard to miss from the road.

Yes. Especially if there's earth movers moving around. It'll stand out. Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, so if the group agrees, I think we should go check it out.

I'm down to go.

I'm in.

All of us.

All of us.

All of us. Ever split up? Everybody?

Yes.

Again.

Perfect. Obviously it's pert near nighttime. This is not urgent. I want two nights of prayer to see if I can find an answer on your situation at minimum. Anyway, this isn't a high. I mean, it's high stakes. If it was working, this could significantly improve our world. But we've got things in place. This is not an emergency.

Okay. Thank you.

But if you guys could handle that, literally all I need to know. How. If he can tell you. If not, I mean, the feller would be the most useful. But how he's doing it, if it's actually happening, that'd be a huge, huge asset to our community. And in fact, if we could figure that out, we might be able to get you to Boston a heck of a lot quicker.

Hey, wait. Wait a minute. Wait one second. We've got rocks that talk. The rocky talkies.

We have Rocky.

Oh, yeah.

Let's leave one of them with the pastor.

I think we should leave one of them with Jacob so that when we leave him with Jeff, he can yell at us if he needs it.

We're planning on leaving Jacob in town.

Did you day away travel? Is that what Jacob wants to do?

Jacob's not here.

Jacob's not in the room. He stayed with Sharon and Kenneth.

Okay.

He's probably eating so many cookies by now.

We have. Great.

He's having a great time.

We actually have coffee, but.

No, talk about that later.

Yeah. But we will do our very utmost best to get the information back to you.

I appreciate that. And like I say, successful or not, I can't promise I can fix this, but I will do what I can. I have a I would never have thought I could reset bones.

Yeah, so I've acquired, since the event, some of that similar healing ability as well.

We've all gained abilities that we never saw coming, so.

So I can catch things in midair.

She can. You can shoot it.

It's amazing.

Like an arrow or a.

Just stab myself with my pencil.

I am not now. Perfect. I. I appreciate you folks, and I'll expect to hear from you here in a couple days.

Okay, we'll. We'll do that. Thank you.

I had to hurry and catch the imaginary cookie before it fell.

All right, we're back.

Okay, Church, we're headed north.

Yeah, we're going north.

Oregon to go check.

I don't know where north is.

We agreed to go look at our random earth movers in the morning.

In the morning.

So you guys meet back up with the le. Make your way back across town to the Lee household. Once you get there, Jeff is still awake. He's comfortable down in the basement. Sharon goes about busying herself, trying to do everything she can pulling out all the spare linens that they have in the linen closet.

It's definitely a guest bedroom and a pullout couch.

At least she pulls out the camping air mattress as well and is trying to figure out how she's gonna pull that off now that the air pump's said.

Dad goes to the garage, and.

You hear Kenneth cussing from the shed, trying to find the.

I thought we didn't use those words in this house.

I'm not in the house.

Only when he's being criticized.

Sharon, you don't have to worry about me.

Me?

I'll go ahead and stay outside tonight with the horses.

Oh, nonsense. We've got a roof, and we can make you comfortable in here as long.

As it's not raining. I actually prefer the sky overhead, and we do have the horses here, so.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I won't be far, and if it acts like it's gonna rain, I'll come inside, but I'm fine. I appreciate it.

You can feel free to set yourself up on the trampoline like the kiddos did. Might provides some comfort.

Oh, God.

Oh, I might do that.

Worst back pain in the morning ever.

Sleeping in a U all night.

From experience, it gets cold air flow underneath.

He'll figure that out pretty quick.

Too early in the season.

Yeah, we did that a couple times. Yeah. Freaking cold.

It was really nice in July.

Yeah, if it was a hot. If it was a hot night, it'd probably be nice.

Shortly after Sharon's content. That you're as comfortable as she can make you. She and Ken say their goodnights and head off to their bed. Theirs is upstairs. So you've got a floor between you. Sort of two, but I meant the first floor between you. Sadie stays up with you guys for a while. You know, she's excited to have her sister back in town. She's kind of talking your ear off a little bit. And then once she's fully comfortable and decided that the folks is probably asleep, she turns to Emery and says something. Where is it?

Oh, for gossip.

So I don't know about you guys, but it's kind of boring and really, really, really dark down here. Do you want to go do something?

What?

There's. There's this guy who's doing a poetry reading tonight at the Jazzy Coffee.

I don't.

I think you guys will like him. He's really cool.

Dark anymore. I've been doing It Happens after dark. Sorry. Scary happens after Dark.

That was mildly quieter, I guess.

I've been doing it for like two weeks. I haven't seen. The pens are working.

Is he. Is he a new guy? Like, is he in town? Who's this guy?

He's. He's new to me.

Describe him. Emery, do you know Scott?

Did he go to school?

I assume we are, but I'm gonna bow out of this conversation.

I mean, I think so. His name's Blake Balake.

Yeah.

And he's just. He's such a good poet. Uh huh.

I'm sure he is.

He is. And he's good at the words. And the Jazzy Coffee's been doing poetry readings because there's nothing else.

Yeah.

We can't go to the movies anymore and the bowling alley doesn't work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So nothing else. Yeah. I'm too big for the swings to be fun.

You're never too old for the swings to be fun.

What did Elliot get back there?

His inner child was screaming, hey.

No one is sharing their weed anymore.

So the swings aren't fun anymore?

They have some of that. The Jazzy Caf.

I mean, that's not that big.

Should we be stoned during the apocalypse? I don't know if that's.

I think that's a good idea.

I've never been stoned on a swing set. And that sounds like a horrible idea.

Yeah.

Terrible.

How am I gonna get off? I can't stop.

Everything about that sounds like a bad thing.

The ground won't stop moving.

You have that problem when you're not moving. Like. Oh God.

Actually, that's totally Valid and fair. Yeah, that doesn't sound terrible. I'm going.

If you're going, then I'll go with you.

God damn it.

May as well. You don't have to come.

We don't split up the party anymore.

If you wake up Ken, I can't go.

Remember what happened the last time we did, and like, we'll just go see.

I don't know. This is the only thing in town.

Have you tried killing.

Take one of the Rocky Talkies, and if something goes wrong, it'll literally take you two minutes to get there.

Didn't we figure out that those only work once a day? Didn't Jeff tell us that these only work once a day?

We haven't used them today, have we?

Yeah, but what? We might need them tomorrow.

It's a new day.

It's a new dawn.

It's a new life.

Why is Mel the one trying to talk sense in Denny's show?

Has Mal spent a lot of time sneaking out of the house?

Yes, but she didn't read the server permission.

Fine, fuck it. Let's go. We'll meet this lame dude and hopefully he doesn't try to kill us or turn us undead. Or maybe he's a vampire.

Wait a minute.

I had a thought.

Just want to share that with y'all. What if said poor poetry is not actually poetry, but some sort of spellbinding spell?

Hey, there's so many.

There's a lot of bad that can happen, guy.

I mean, isn't that kind of what poetry has always been?

Well, see, yeah, there's a difference.

Oh, yes. No, because it won't force you to do things that you didn't want to do before.

This is between poetry and actual spelling stuff whose spells actually work.

Listen, guys, if my sister is going to sneak out of the house.

House.

And go four blocks, five blocks to the Jazzy Cafe, like, I'm not gonna let her go alone.

I'm not saying she shouldn't go.

I am alone.

Right, because we don't want her to go by herself.

So she's gonna go anyway.

Probably should.

This is totally gonna turn into an undead grandpa.

You're not wrong.

What did we just spend one Grandpa.

Wasn'T in this town in a bed.

Not your girl.

Sleep the entire night without having to go out and kill something.

Oh, yeah, we were close.

At this time, we're.

I'm hoping we're not going to have to kill anything at the Jazzy Cafe.

Well, if we have to kill Blake, I would like to do the honors.

Wait, do they still. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Do they still have coffee?

They still at coffee church.

Okay, I'm in fresh ground. I'm in fresh roasted.

All right.

By standards are not high. Okay.

They were fortunate enough to have a gas pastry oven.

Oh, my God. They're pastries.

I'm down.

Let's do it.

Fresh scones.

China, you are speaking my language.

Okay, so we've decided we're going. But who's gonna draw the short straw and tell Elliot that we're going?

Nose goes.

Elliot's gonna find out when we leave the house.

Yeah, we probably will. Walk right past it.

Yeah.

Elliot.

Yeah? We're sneaking out the back. The front door still creaks.

Elliot will know.

Of course it does.

Dad won't fix it.

Yeah, we got to go out the.

Back, and then you have to skip the third plank on the back deck. Oh, I hate to tell you creeps.

We'Re going to get caught. I'm going to forget.

No, no, no, no.

I'll do my best.

No, here's what we say. Here's what we say when we get caught. Our response is it was to protect Sadie, who was going, whether we wanted to or not.

Is this the excuse to Elliot or to the parents?

Yes, same thing. This makes us the good guys.

Yes, the both.

And not because we want to do something fun and slightly normal for once.

I'm not convinced it's going to turn out to be slightly normal, but, God, I hope. I hope I could just see a.

Shitty poetry night at a terrible cafe.

Oh, yeah, it sounds like a great night.

Aren't all poetry nights shitty?

Like, what if all of a sudden you went to a good poetry reading?

Never, because I never went to any of them.

Exactly.

I was busy doing a. I've seen.

Them on the Internet.

Never.

I've not.

People who write their own poetry is not my.

I tried. I thought it was a trivia night.

Does it contradict?

You go to a lot of trivia.

Technically, poetry.

Right?

I. Somehow somebody told me once that was how people socialized, and I believed them. I think they were lying to me.

That's how you met us. So technically, you're not wrong.

You know, that's fair. I can't argue against that one. So.

We'Re going.

I'm really bad at trivia. I know.

Go tell Elliot. You got it.

All right.

You can see him better than I can.

We're going. We're going.

No, you can't.

No, I can't, actually.

Oh, no, I can't.

Nobody you want me to Do. He's in the dark.

Yeah, you're probably going to tank the hit. Better when he chucks something.

We're all going out the back.

Should I fly into a rage before I encounter Elliot, Mr. Diesel?

Elliot, we're leaving.

We're going to go listen to poetry.

Damn it. So Shady's Sadie's not shady. Sadie is doing high force way up the stairs. On our way out, I grab my jacket.

I'm following her.

I follow them too.

I put on my smells of. Yep.

Are you still wearing that badass hat? No, I had him.

No, you're wearing the hat now. Cuz it was rubbing my ears weird.

He's still wearing the chaps. Last I heard though. So he's got a red gilded cape and woolly chaps.

You're wearing the chaps after breaking down for the night. You wore those to church.

I probably took the I probably wore nice clothes to church.

Mel. Nice. As far as chaps on, Mel takes her silver dagger with her.

Okay, I'm going kid it out.

Yeah.

I'm bringing magic hammer.

And Mel's wasn't going to go full.

Kid because if there's any time that that freaking corral of undead is going to break loose, it's the night that we decide to fuck around.

All right.

I was told there was coffee.

I agree. That's all she cared.

She's like, I got a dagger I love.

There was coffee around here too. They might.

And I only sort of have misgivings because. Because life.

Listen, I understand. But it might be fun.

So stealth. Stealth the house?

Yeah. Let's get a group stealth.

Yeah, bro.

Don't get home. Roll for her.

All right.

Sunk.

Can I have experience? Because I've snuck out of the.

That's not good.

Advantage about the creaky floorboards.

So how did everybody roll?

11.

Hang on. Let me get back to you on that. God. I rolled the same thing twice and it was a three.

Okay, four.

Oh, so I'm slightly better than Emory. I rolled a five with my modifier.

Jesus Christ.

I told you we're going to get caught.

I tried to tell her I got a 24.

So we forget James and the rest of us all managed to hit that plank.

She said every one of you, including Sadie.

You're the one who told us about it.

Sadie steps on it first and I go, sadie. And then I step every.

And then you step on it and go.

I told you I was going to.

Forget where it was.

It's okay. Dad snores like a.

He does? Yes.

Now he's got the apnea.

His CPAT machine no longer.

You are now firmly outside the house.

All right, so. Blood.

You should just tell Elliot, because we know he's going to find out anyway.

He's gonna find out, and he's gonna be a lot more pissed if we don't come out.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've got. Okay. I know the story. I'm gonna tell.

You're saying this 20ft from his head?

Yes.

Okay. No way. He hears very well. All right.

Are you asleep?

I was until four people stepped on a squeaky goddamn board and then whispered at each other. What the fucking hell are you up to?

Sadie is being a teenager, and we're gonna go keep her safe. We'll be back in. How late is this thing going?

Until it's over.

We'll be back before morning.

It's a poetry night at the cafe four blocks down the road.

There's gonna be coffee in the Tesco's.

Coffee? You like coffee, I said.

Dumbest thing I ever heard in my life.

Yeah, but the teenager was going. Anyway. We're doing the right thing.

So if the teenager jumps off a goddamn cliff, y'all are gonna just follow her off?

No.

Well, I would attempt to save her, which is why we're doing this.

Yeah. Yeah.

Wow.

For Christ's sake, go have fun. Leave me alone.

You need a nap with the horses.

Yes.

All right. All right.

Sit down, Charlie.

He sits. Fair enough.

I mean, we vowed to not split the party again, but we're leaving a little behind.

Yep. Yep.

Okay. He's got. He's got the. He's got the Rocky talkie.

Jacob. Jacob's asleep in the basement. Just so you know.

So if you hear that board squeaking and it's him following us and you.

Yes.

Yeah. Because he doesn't even know where it is. I bet he misses it, though, when he comes out.

Well, I think that. I think that was a James Stealth.

Jacob.

Jacob Stealth Checked.

Man, that fried your brain. That was fun to watch.

I glanced down at my own name plate.

So, wait, wait. We can do. Would it be a perception to see if we see Jacob?

Sure. It's not good, but. Okay. Here we go. Yep.

That's what I thought it would be.

10.

9.

Pass him. 16.

11.

Actually, I rolled a 7.

11. Is that the high?

I don't add anything to it.

It's an 11.

I had to subtract.

I got a dice of 16.

None of you have any reason to believe that Jacob is.

Okay?

Should be fine.

Anyway. He's asleep in the face.

We'll be back in probably a couple hours at most.

All right, you guys are able to make your way over to the Jazzy Coffee. It's a quiet, fairly honestly peaceful night. You can kind of. Kind of just barely hear a fairly steady sound of groaning. Moaning. Angry sounds coming from the northwest, I think is what I said.

Is that the direction we're heading?

No.

Okay.

We're headed straight west pretty much.

Yep.

So the coffee shop you picked is the one I used to work at.

Is it really?

It wasn't the same cafe it is.

Now when I worked.

That's funny, but that's the exact building I used to work at.

There's so many coffee shops. I'm like, there's no way I'm. There's a weird amount of coffee in that town.

There is listening to.

There wasn't when I worked there.

Yeah, we were like one of two.

Listening to the moaning and groaning of the zombies. Jim's gonna say you guys miss the ambient noises of like crickets chirping.

You do hear that as well.

Okay. But not the mourning and grounding of the undead.

It's a little more unsettling these days. Shut up.

I mean, there is a fairly non rhythmic thumping coming from over there as well.

It's been, you know, we've had it better than the people at town havocs. We haven't heard this every night. Most nights we've had it.

God, that would have driven me insane. So I would have charged in there with a sword by now.

Stop talking. I just. I don't know. Everything that we seem to trust backfires.

Maybe we should stop trusting.

Yeah, exactly as you say that.

You pull up in front of the Jazzy Coffee.

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem.

Sadie just goes straight on in. Yeah, follow her in. The barista's working. It's kind of. Hi, Sadie. It's in between. It's in between readings right now. It's the coffee run for everybody. What you guys see is for those of you who've seen it, which might only be one of us, MTV Unplugged Nirvana's performance.

Oh, I used to have that cd.

The stage in here looks a lot like how they decorated that stage. Shit. Ton of candles. Trying to make this place as light as they can. Which honestly, for a poetry reading, pretty darn good ambiance. And you can tell that they have just been adding candles, letting them just melt to the stage. So the edge of the stage is pretty well waxed, thoroughly drippy. Melty. Kind of cool, though. It's got like the. Like the three or four at a time spread around the stage. It's a small stage for Brunel. It's the stage we played at at that dive bar that's big enough for half a drum set.

Okay, done.

It's done. It was. It was the Dead Kaczynskis that we did.

Yeah, I heard of that show. I wasn't that one.

Oh, you weren't at the Dead Kaczynskis?

I wasn't in your Princess yet.

Well, that's a reference for one person.

That's the reference for one person who isn't here.

It's honestly anybody who's gone to Kopeka for a show. It's that kind of environment that they routinely hold punk bands in for reasons.

Even know where they had a stage.

You don't.

I blaked.

They have an over there.

Yes, the very formal over there.

Yeah.

If you have a full drum set, the rest of the band is not on the stage.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a stool set, just cliche wooden bar stool, nothing fancy to it, with a little music stand next to it for the guys who need to put their books or whatever on. Sadie goes up and the barista's already handing her a cup of coffee. That's what she likes. And Sadie motions back, trying to, you know, being cool teenager, like, they're with me. They're cool. So you guys go up, you're all able to get a cup of joe. They do have a decent smattering of scones and the like. They've only got like two bagels.

Oh, I am absolutely taking one of the bagels.

They only have like one more bagel.

That bagel in once.

And you see that they've got. They've got. Instead of a tip jar, they've got a. They've got a favor jar written on there. You know, donations don't have to. And there's plenty of seating. Sadie finds her favorite table, which is, unsurprisingly, right smack up front center. And shortly after you guys get seated, barista goes around. They did have also oil lanterns hung, so that way during regular business hours, this place could be properly lit. And they go. And they turn the knob thingy to make the flames less. To set the mood diffuser or something. Maybe it's called. I don't know. They make the oil less hot so it doesn't bright the place in the same way.

Turned out quick.

Yeah.

And with that, they've also got one of the old school, like mirror setup. They get a little extra light kind of on the stage.

Oh, I see.

And shortly thereafter, out walks fairly tall, fairly lean, dressed entirely in black, of course. It's a black button down shirt, black jeans, black shoes, black socks, white skin. Particularly in contrast to the entirely black attire. He's got artsy side shave, floppy emo hair.

The epitome of it's not a phase.

Mom flicks his hair back as he takes a seat.

What color is his hair?

Black.

Of course it is.

Are we.

Is he wearing corpse paint at this point?

He's not wearing. Less death metal, more 90s jazz poetry.

With a slash of My Chemical Romance. Yeah, okay.

Instead of the beret, he's got a trendy haircut.

Okay, right, the beatnik.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. He's the emo version of the poetry girl from an extremely goofy movie.

Oh yeah, yeah.

To pull a specific reference.

Very specific reference. But I know exactly what you're talking about.

You make more than one of those too.

Yeah, the second one's actually okay.

The second one's solid. Yeah, it's pretty good. Not as good as the first one.

They go to college together.

Emery is hardcore judging her sister's crush.

Mel is also hardcore judging Emery's sister's crush.

Ulnock is holding back laughter as best as humanly possible.

Look, this night it would be. So.

We'Re front and center to this.

I think Mel's probably more into the muscular gym type, so. Yeah, she's looking at her like. Really?

Yeah, yeah. This is super duper. Not Mel's type. Yeah, no, I think Emery has absolutely encountered these guys because they are very your world adjacent.

Yeah, I think I probably hung out with them for a bit until I realized how deeply uncool they are.

So Emery, have you met this dude?

Does he look familiar to me at all?

No.

Okay.

He's younger enough.

Yeah, I wouldn't have really known him.

This child needs to go outside. Vitamin D is good for you, bro.

Needs to eat a sandwich.

Foreign.

Hey there, listener. I'm just going to jump in briefly. I just want to take a quick second and re promote our Patreon. If you want to hear ad free unabridged and early release episodes, we have those. If you want more quality content that only Patreon subscribers can gain access to, we have that. In fact, it's my understanding that the side quest crew got to take on an age old foe of adventurers everywhere in this last episode, the Fearsome Door. In all seriousness, for five bucks a month you can gain access to over seven hours of additional content. And that's just what we've released so far. That said, we here understand that everything in the world seems to be getting a bit more spendy. So if you are looking for a less financial way to show your love, please follow, like subscribe, comment, download, review, or whatever your podcast app of choice allows. We appreciate you all. Now let's get back to Fort Morgan. They do have off to the side a very, very small trap kit and a guy with an upright bass. And they lay into just cliche jazz poetry.

I love. The coffee's pretty damn good, but that's gonna keep me.

I did not.

I. Oh my God, that'll be golden. Okay.

So what poem does he start reading?

Shadows on the ground snapping in the background. If I drink any more of this coffee, it's going to keep me awake for this.

Soul burning flame, passion, fire.

Just like random words, yet words that.

Add emotion to the sentence spoken like William Chetner, always with some beautiful fun.

Fact about this coffee shop is they were also featured on HGTV's Hometown Makeover and no one liked the makeover.

I've heard that happens.

They did that in Fort Morgan and they apparently up a good few businesses.

Stop.

That was great for like three months.

I'm kind of glad Ellie didn't come to this, because he would have been complaining the entire walk here. Walked into the building, saw all of the setup, and then turned around about face and then walked back.

Well, Elliot's gone.

I'd rather be killing abominable grandpa. This is bullshit. He shouldn't have even gotten up.

Well, that's why he didn't.

At least there's coffee. I like coffee.

Gives a proper toss to his hair. Gets it out of his eyes. Jazz keeps playing quietly. They see that he's getting ready, so they quiet down a little more. Roses will rain when I meet the train of eternal existence. Barf. Jesus will find me in a boxcar singing a sad song slow and sweet. The suffering hillside has been steep. But I've patiently overcome every unexpected disappointment. There's Nothing I regret. St. Gabriel will dig my jab. Uriah Hamilton. Sadie is absolutely just enraptured.

We are all, like, doing this.

Oh, we're enraptured already. Vastly different reasons. Can I. Can I do an arcana check to see if any of that was magical in any way, shape or form?

Absolutely.

Emory is.

That was worse than a soup.

So bad.

I got a 17 for that arcana.

Sadie thinks it was okay.

Sure. Magic.

Are you guys not seeing this.

Oh, my God.

To dream in jazz is to become jazz. Close your eyes and listen. Go to where jazz becomes life. When your eyes reopen, you'll become jazz. Your words will sing the blues. Patricia Kerrigan.

Go outside and run a mile.

At the end of each one, everybody.

A little snack clap. Oh, God. Are you sure you don't need to say anything about protecting conscientiousness here. You sure we don't need.

Belle actually does. Like at the end of that, when that's what she. During the snap climb, go right on a mile.

You actually say that?

Yes.

Oh, my God.

She may have been a little bit of a bully. And those were totally her targets.

The fountain gushed a flood of incantations from his ebony wand pointed skyward Lost in this world to excite your soul. Michael Keshigan.

I like the names at the end. It's very funny. He'll lean over to Sadie and say, so how long does he read poems for?

Until he runs out.

Until he runs out.

So after we finish our drinks, we can go, right?

No, I was.

James was like halfway down the freshly hot coffee.

Yeah. Roll constitution for pure spite to get.

The out of here.

That's a natural 20.

Got a throat made of mithal.

I don't want to be here anymore.

You hear somebody sit down behind the piano? Got over there. Some jazzy riffin'piano keys begin the tease. Stand up bass is plucked to please Alto sax exhales a high but then that trumpet starts to cry. More a trick.

Actual jazz concert better than this.

Hi, Sadie. Thanks for coming again. I see you brought some friends. I'm glad that we are able to share this experience together.

I hope you go a little faster. Let's speed this up a little.

Some of us would like to sleep tonight.

Do I? A stealth check so that I'm not noticing.

Too late.

You're wearing a cape.

Yeah, a red and gold cape.

Coffee shelf with an open layout.

James wants to disappear into the dark, into the night for where he belongs.

Yeah, that.

That was. Drink that hot coffee again.

Honestly, though, I would rather listen into that.

He goes to my warm, warm bed.

Probably about a solid. Honestly, an hour of this.

Oh, my God.

Oh, God.

We all talk like that for the next 20 minutes.

I think there's definitely a point where Sadie elbows Emory sharply because I am dozing off.

There's a couple of moments where fallen.

Asleep on the table next to.

There's a couple of moments where he lets the jazz trio play for a while in between poems. And they're okay. They're every coffee house jazz band that's ever existed. Very inoffensive background noise. Very much sounds like three people playing instruments at the same time. Not necessarily playing things related to each other.

Mel's snoring softly. Her nose is still a little correct from that break.

Hey, hey, unlock. I need an yes or no.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

I want to do it, whatever it is.

If you're going to do a shenanigans, go for it. Otherwise we're going to fest for it.

Oh, I'm doing a shenanigans.

Oh, that's happening.

The master of mischief is going to cast minor illusion and make ghostly whispers tell people to get out.

It is you guys. The baristas, the jazz trio and Blake. Who are you doing it to?

Oh, it's so.

There's no other. You guys are the crowd.

Oh, God, I'm so glad we came.

Guys, you didn't have to.

I told you we don't split the party.

So the sound just emanates throughout the entire room of just ghostly voices saying, get out.

Okay.

Mel wakes up and goes into a fighting.

It lasts for about a minute.

Jesus.

I knew this was a terrible idea.

You see everybody who is in there? So the. The trio keeps playing, but they're definitely looking around. Blake pulls out his pocket knife. Ready? Everybody's got. The baristas are grabbing their stuff, ready just in case they see something. Everybody here is ready to go. Just waiting to see if the voices become something more.

I picked the creepiest voice I can think of. So it sounds like Elliot.

Get out of here.

Yeah, pretty much. Just get out.

Martha will get you.

Our Elliot hasn't told us about Martha.

You can sex wife's name as Martha.

Do we?

Yeah, I guess, if you're wanting to. If you're intentionally trying to scare people out.

Yep.

Rolling intimidation. Yes. Or a performance would work as well. See how scary this turns out to be.

That is a 19.

That was effective.

So, yeah. The trio stops playing just kind of mid riff. All right, Blake, you good tonight? I guess I don't really feel like this properly.

Ghostly voices. That makes sense.

Sated my soul tonight.

But your poems are mid at best.

We'll see if the crowd's a little more receptive tomorrow.

I think I like this place.

That you see the baristas, they're like, all right, guess. Guess the building's done. It's time to not be in it anymore. Apparently.

Sn one of them pastries. Real quick before we go. Just one more pastries.

Real Quick.

Yeah, please. Yeah, they'll be still in the morning.

Thank you.

I'm going.

Take what. What kind of things are people leaving in the favor jar?

You see like they've got like a post.

Oh, okay.

So. So people are like actual favors.

Yeah.

Like I'll do.

It's literally just an IOU jar.

I'll whitewash your fence or whatever.

I was thinking if I could like leave something, but I don't have any.

There's. Yeah, there's some tokens in there. Like there. You could see like an okay piece of jewelry in there. You know, it's kind of random. People trying to be like, yeah, fuck it. That's worth some coffee.

Yeah, yeah.

There's even some change. Like people are still leaving paper currency, you know.

Is that a habit?

Yeah, exactly.

I have nothing really that I could leave.

That's why I'm curious to see.

Oh yeah. A favor to fix something broken.

Oh yeah, that's true. That's true.

And I'm over here and I'm going. I'm like, I don't know. I feel like with some better that poetry was torture enough.

I feel like we paid our payment.

I earned the pastry like I earned the coffee. I earned the coffee.

I'll leave a. I'll fix something for you. Must be redeemed in next three days.

If you guys swing back on by, I'm sure we'll have something that could use some repairing other than coffee.

Shell has a flash of inspiration and then grabs the post it note and writes down on this one free tied in a knot class and is very proud of herself.

Okay, I. I write ghost extermination.

Hold on. Free decapitation.

T. I was going on that trend. Like I will kill one zombie for you. At minimum, I will kill one for.

You and one for me.

Do you see Sadie's already. She slipped outside while you guys were leaving your favors. She's talking with Blake.

Of course she is.

Okay. I mean I'm not going to wait. I'm going outside to perfect. So let's end up writing mine.

So Blake is being every thinks he's cooler than he is kid.

You get an impression of like how old is he?

Like roll per insight perception.

I just kind of want to like clean some like info about depending on.

What gas station he's leaving.

That 20.

Nice.

Nailed it.

23.

Damn.

I have decent insight.

He's 19 years, three months.

Like is he in the right age ballpark and does he look like he.

Looks normal guy for like he's in the right age ballpark. There's definitely. You know, you see some people and their eyes are just wiser than they should be. Okay, his eyes are wiser than they should be. He looks every bit. 17, 18, 16. Somewhere in that ballpark, his eyes have got a sharpness to him that contrasts with his. I don't give a fuck. Emo flair.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Very. You can tell that this is a guy that when he's looking for something, he sees everything. He's very sharp and perceptive. Borderline hunter kind of energy, almost. Yeah, this guy has the alerts.

So I'm going to, like, not really caring for. I'm going to interrupt conversation, like. All right, Sadie, we're all ready to go.

Oh, you guys aren't calling it a night already, are you?

Yep, Yep.

I know a place we could go chill for a while.

We traveled a pretty long way today.

Actually, so even more reason to come chill. I've got some fresh grass.

If you would like exercise. I also highly recommend getting some sun because, like, you need vitamin D bad. I could give you a full nutrition plan if you'd like.

I'm all right. I take supplements, so I've got that covered, y'all. If you really want, I could show you some great vegan recipes, though.

Oh, I'm not vegan. Vegan, I. I like not starving to death. It's the apocalypse.

I mean, you're not wrong, but acting.

Like I'm the one short of energy, but you're ready to crawl off to bed.

I've had a lot of coffee.

We've fought so many more things in your.

Makes less sense guaranteed than your clarification intends. It should make you're ready to go to bed. But you just drank a bunch of coffee.

As someone who can drink, like, two matches and fall asleep in two minutes.

I think it's best we call it a night.

Come on, Emery.

Adult things that we.

Emery, I know you used to do this when you were my age. I'm just trying to have some fun.

Sneak off with guys that I didn't know that well.

I know Blake really well. I've been hanging out with him every night.

The conditions of a child going out was to listen to poems and drink coffee and eat food. We've done that. Then we go home.

And honestly, you really shouldn't get high. It's super bad for your brain. Like, you won't grow. Right. And frankly, the idea of being high in the apocalypse sounds like a terrible idea.

Yeah, apparently it stunts your.

I mean, if anything, get Drunk, like something horrible happens. So we highly would recommend you avoid that too.

If anything, taking a little bit of edge off the constant anxiety cycle that is the apocalypse is keeping me younger.

I don't know, Zombies.

Anxiety keeps you alive is not the.

Best time to get high. I would say.

If you have no brain, the zombies won't go for it.

If these squares want to wander off to bed, they can. You can come back to my place.

Mom and dad.

Oh.

The sibling card.

I'm going with him. And you let me come out here so they'll be just as mad at you as they are at me.

Yeah, but I'm leaving in three days, so I don't have to deal with that forever.

Mom doesn't think that's true, so she'll be upset.

She's already gonna be upset.

She's gonna be mad enough when she hears that your mom marching off to go talk to a man about diesel engines tomorrow because you just got to town and you're already itching to get out of the house.

I am?

Yeah. So she's gonna be just as mad at you, and she'll forget that she's upset with me.

No, we're not.

You know I'm right.

I know you're right, But I will drag you back to the house if I have to.

How?

Like, look at it this way. Like, we're only gonna be here for three days, and I'm.

Which is why I want you guys to come hang out with me without the parents around.

Really?

Missed your sister.

Yeah, that's why I want you guys to come hang out with me without the parents around.

And I get that, but maybe we could do that during, like, broad daylight. And this is totally a persuasion. Maybe we could do that during, like, broad daylight when we can have, like, normal conversations with people we actually know.

And I know Blake. You can roll a perception.

Persuasion.

That's what I meant.

The other P. I'm proficient in one of them. I am not proficient in the other one.

You mentioned it.

A nine.

Yeah. Nah, now she's standing her ground.

I've never had any siblings at home. Like, this is hard. She's not good at persuading siblings.

Is she acting like Sadie? Acting like she has from the previous times we've met her earlier today. She's chimed around.

We've never met Sadie before. I guess the question would be if she's acting how every remembers her.

She's being a little sister. So. Yeah, Changed.

Gotcha.

Poking all buttons.

Going to say, yeah, you guys have nothing to Go off of. She is really quiet at church.

Yeah, we haven't really spoken to Shady at all.

Fair.

Good kid in the family. Good kid.

I was going to say this doesn't.

Seem like this is a little out of character, the sneaking out and stuff. Some of this.

That would be more my bag than hers.

She is 17, so you're not sure if that's part of it. Maybe, but. Yeah, but this is definitely way more rebellious than your sister ever was. Yeah.

And Emery's looking at her suddenly concerned. Like, if we do even drag her back to the house, she's gonna sneak back out after we go to bed.

Hey, Emore. Can I talk to you for a sec?

Yeah.

What's up, James?

I'm gonna pull Emery aside for a sec. I have an idea.

An idea?

Yeah. But I have to ask you specifically because.

Ghost Whispers.

Yeah, that was cool, wasn't it?

Anyway, you got me for a moment. Until the mid.

Comments.

I know. I noticed the mid. Anyway, I'm sorry. So I have a. A spell thing that could potentially help persuade Sadie to come back with us. But she's gonna get real pissed when it wears off. Cause I don't like that guy.

I think she's gonna leave the house again, even if we get her back home.

That's right.

This. This.

I'm pretty sure whatever I'm gonna do is only gonna last, like, an hour.

So I'd rather deal.

Okay. We could just kill him.

That's not an option in regular society.

This is, though.

And I definitely could.

So no. All right.

I like that plan. That's plan B.

Well, they're having this conversation. Bell's gonna try to take a different angle. Like, she's trying to figure out if he's.

He's really light.

He's as wimpy as he looks.

Wimpy.

Okay, so she'll, like, pretend to trip over something and then do the whole, like, oh, sorry. And then fall and, like, try to size up to see if he has.

From Princess Bride.

He moves just incredibly quick and catches you quite firmly. And it's able to. It's gentle. You know, he's not like, clotheslining you up, right? By any. But he's there, catches you and helps you back on your feet. And while that happens, you look at him for a second. I need you to make a wisdom statement.

Do we know.

I know exactly where this is going. Son of a bitch. All right.

Do we over here have.

No. You do.

I do. Hold on. So that means she rolled a NAT one minus one. That's Fantastic.

No.

So Mel fails miserably.

Oh my God.

Has a crush on this guy now you.

Yeah. This is gonna surprise you. But you effectively have. We're gonna call it. We're gonna basically call it the Charmed Condition.

Mel has stars and hearts in her eyes.

Yeah.

Mel was very impressed by the speed in which he moved because, you know.

Now he's suddenly definitely seems more the muscly guy than you thought he was.

Ah shit. Do we notice these the super speed in our conversation?

We are busy arguing.

Olak can make a perception.

I'll try. It's not gonna go well. Perception is dog shit. But here we go.

No, you're gonna do great.

Well, that's not terrible.

14 you see him catch her and set her back up.

But I don't notice that it was like superhuman athletic. You didn't pull the Spider Man Mary Jane thing.

No, no, no.

He didn't do the.

He actually did that.

Yeah. Toby Maguire actually did that. Nuts. No, no. You don't notice that at all.

I feel like Mel is now turning on Film Hole. Like oh. And being all starry and flirty, which.

Is probably pissing C off.

So anyway, I can attempt to use the spell on.

It's not going to work because it's.

Going to wear off.

And then what's she going to do?

Well, lock. We lock her in a room. Or we could do what you were saying you were threatening to do. We could do what you were threatening to do and get her home and then wake your parents and say like hey, we caught s trying to run up.

It is better if we. We can avoid that. She's not wrong in that. That would be very annoying.

So you wanna make us leaving. Chill with us. Right?

Yeah.

Hey, what I do do we hear that?

Probably.

Are you guys about ready to go here? I think we're about to. I got a spot that's pretty chill.

Could all relax.

Son of a bitch stole my idea.

Fine, fine, fine. We'll go Mother God.

You're going to like the place. And it's not too awful far from here. I mean it's. We are in Fort Morgan, so nothing's too far from here. But this is particularly not too far from here. He takes you. You guys follow?

Yeah, begrudgingly.

He takes you to.

Ulnock is still a werewolf. And Mal becomes a vampire.

That's my thoughts.

Man. In the weird twilight hours of this episode.

Huh?

Sparkles.

In the sunlight. We can't confirm that.

I would love to get him in the sunlight. The man needs vitamin D. He leads.

You guys up to Fort Morgan. Has a library museum combo right across the street from which is one of the only three story buildings in town. The Beepo? No, it's the Masonic Lodge.

It's also where they do bingo.

That makes sense. That makes sense.

Rented out as an event space.

And you see Blake walk up to the front. He kind of looks over his shoulder both ways, makes sure nobody's looking, and reaches onto what looks like a knocker, lifts it up, and there's a key that he pulls out and is able to unlock the door. Stashes the key back within the knocker. Looking at it, you wouldn't see where the compartment was necessarily. It's like part of the. The solid metal plate that the striker would strike, but he's able to unlock. And it's dead in here. I mean, we're talking. It's like solid midnight now.

Didn't take this for the kind of place you would hang out.

Yeah, we're not quite there yet. Hey, beautiful.

With the rocky tucky.

You have the rock?

I'm gonna use it if I could. Right before we walk in.

I believe it's just an action to use it, right? Yeah.

So right before I walk in, after everyone walks in, I'm gonna call Elliot on the rocky talkie.

You do it in the building?

No, before I go inside.

Okay.

During the whole process with the key.

Yeah, go ahead and do that. And then roll a perception while you're at it.

Yo, Elliot, just a heads up, we're planning on going with a unique poet of sorts. We could totally use some assistance.

It's gonna be a fun night.

He's got grass, apparently, and you love grass. So if you could get your ass over here pronto. We're over at a museum library.

Because it's sending.

I don't know that the sending spells got a very strict limit on how much you could send. 25 words, like unique individual. Yeah, we're going upstairs with unique individual.

I think it was 25 words, right?

Yeah, that's about. That's about where in the sentence he would have been. Where he cut off. What's your perception?

16.

You think you hear you in the distance. In the distance.

That close?

No.

Nope.

What?

Cause Elliot might be there and you're here. It's very dark.

The jackass wearing the black clothes and the white face knew it.

That totally works because I can't see him.

Yeah, yeah. Batman your ass again. Yeah. Jesus.

Do you look around all confused? And then we head into the building. Emery, looks like Supremely entertained.

Actually, I think I got a couple more of this. Yeah. Jackass with the black clothes and the white face. Don't walk the door behind you.

I'm going to use mage hand as a doorstop roll.

A stealth. I'm assuming you want that to be obscured.

Oh, yeah. The mage hand is currently invisible.

Perfect.

It'll probably actually, if it's like a latching kind of thing, I'll just use mage hand to like keep the latch open.

Yeah.

Oh, right.

Can do that.

That is 23.

23.

Yeah. 23.

That's what you're rolled. Busted. Perfect.

That sounded more like Wario. Never mind. He's in the walls.

It is funny catching like noises and comments in the back.

Blake looks over at you. If you have a friend that would like to join us, he's welcome.

Yeah, yeah.

You don't have to try to sneak him in. He can just come in.

Look at James.

You rolled a 26. Perception, mother.

God damn.

So do you live here or where do you live in town? I bet it's someplace not that far away because thankfully, like, everything's not that far away. And Mel just continues on babbling and not actually giving him enough time to answer any of the questions she asks.

I've got a place not too far from here, but no. He starts leading you guys upstairs and looks back at James again. Just. Just tell your friend to come on in as soon as he gets here. Yep.

It's gonna take him a while. He's like five blocks that way.

Okay.

All right.

That was totally believable. And leads you guys up to the roof. He's leads you up on the roof. He's got a pretty decent weird little chill pad up on the roof. He's got set up here a couple of comfortable looking lounge chair type things. He's got a little like cabinet bar type setup he's got set up there, a couple of tables for like snacks and whatnot. Definitely got a bong or two. And he's just like. Yeah. Make yourselves at home. The view from up here is about as good as it gets in Fort Morgan. You can see all the way to the other end of town.

I could have done that whole mile.

But the stars are super pretty.

It's kind of a fun place to watch the zombie pen too. Every now and again you can see him trying to scale it as far as entertaining things here in town. That's about as good as it gets.

We should try killing them. It's a.

There's kind of like a lot of Them in there, man. There's a lot of them. That's not a great idea. We might have pulled it off before the town decided to corral them all, but now that you've got that many concentrated things in one small space, it'd be kind of like walking into a blender man. Blender comma, man, Not a blender man.

Oh, you're so clever.

That laugh. You immediately get a look from James like, huh?

What?

You got a pretty strong one from Emorett.

I've heard a sadistic laugh from Mel. I've heard, like, a nervous chuckle, but never that.

Yeah, that would be a new one.

Yeah. For you guys. Emery's in a. Nope. Mel's in a very similar situation.

You need the name Tank.

I can't see any of them.

Yeah.

Not gonna help him.

Oh, yeah, there's.

I can just.

Yeah, you haven't seen Mel.

Mel's just. What's that guy from? Tim. Yeah. Wilson. From fucking Tool Time? Home Improvement is the actual name of the show.

What?

Not Home Improvement.

Well, I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

All I could see is this of you.

Okay. I thought you were talking about the way Bel was acting.

I'm like, nothing at all. I should.

He's doing really badly.

No, sorry.

I mean, Jim's would be equally confused, but not that.

So Elliot pulled a 14 trying to stealth in the front door.

Okay. Yeah. He knows we're here.

Well, he knows I was following.

Yeah. She's.

Yeah. Now I'm just. That was for. With the unlocked door. That was his coming in the front door and basically trying to sneak up the steps.

Gotcha. After he sees everybody's lounge and he walks back over to the door just like, you're good. You could come up here, man.

The view's really pretty.

No, I think your friends are all expecting you up here, sir.

I drink good coffee, leaves the door.

Open, and he walks back and sits down in a relatively comfortable chair. Sadie's seated not too far from him.

So Elliot will come up the stairs and step out, and he kind of looks at everybody, glares at most of you, and then goes.

Step.

Stands right next to Mel.

My defense, this wasn't my fault.

It is looking slightly like sparkly.

I'm disappointed you weren't able to make the poetry reading. Sounds like the rest of your crew here was excited for this.

It was lovely.

I'm glad you were able to make it.

Boy, it was really great until you started talking.

That's fair.

I stayed awake the whole time. Hi.

How you Certainly tried. And I appreciate that.

Wonder what happens if you charm a charmed person.

How long have you town?

I moved to Fort Morgan about. I'd say probably like nine, 10 weeks ago.

That's it?

Yeah. I wasn't planning on moving to Fort Morgan, but then my car broke down when everybody's. Everything broke down. So I'm here. Figured I'd make the most of it. Your sister's been very kind in showing me around town.

I'm sure she has.

It's nice to know that there are some friendly faces.

Was Sadie as starry eyed as Mel.

Galiest in the morning? You should come with us. We're gonna go for a run.

Oh, I'm all right.

I love running. You should try. Everyone should love running. Why do you get such nice muscles?

What?

I find that it comes.

And he disappeared.

I find that it comes fairly natural actually. Anyway, like I said, there's. I know there's not a lot to do. Help yourselves to beverage. Got a fairly well stocked bar back there. If aerosols are more your thing, you've got some of that as well you could partake in.

Oh, what now?

The inhalants. We got some of the white, some of the green. I don't now Mary Jane. Little snow.

I will take some of these potato chips.

We have those as well. We do have potato chips as well.

Well of course you got to have munchies obviously.

Of course Sadie is verboten from all.

Of the abandoned, but cuz she's underage.

Yeah, she's only 17.

And how old are you?

I'm old enough.

How long have you been 17?

I believe that that is not an answer. I'm old enough that I was able to procure all this.

Yeah. How are you?

So you should not be hanging out with a 17 year old.

Not alone. That's why I really wanted you guys to come with.

But you're going to let her come with you? By her herself. Anyway, you've been hanging out with her.

Clearly we have other friends that if we need to pick up, we can do that.

Uhhuh.

I'm sure it's fine. He seems like such a nice guy.

I have no ill intent here.

Yes.

Not with Sadie.

Not with Sadie.

I'm not too fond of those creatures in the pen.

Well, nobody likes those. They smell funny.

Among other issues.

So you were traveling through Fort Morgan when your car died? Where are you coming from?

Where did you go?

Morgan. I came to Fort Morgan.

Uh huh. You were coming.

I'm answering his easier question first.

He was Making a reference.

Most recently I'm coming from Chicago. Dry town, huh? They didn't. Yeah, yeah, but when cars worked, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Have you ever been? The beach is really pretty in the evening.

I believe that I was hoping to make it to the Bay area, but that sounds like a brutal walk.

You should get a horse. We have horses. I bet we could splend a horse.

Yeah. No, we can't.

We're using all of ours.

Horses in use.

Horses and I don't tend to get.

Along too well anyway. Oh, they didn't get along with me either. But if you feed them enough carrots, they'll like you.

There you go. Well, like I said, I was hoping to get to the Bay area. I've heard their poetry scene. It's pretty good. Alive.

Elliot, while he's listening to this, is going to drop into his primeval awareness.

Okay.

It's an action.

Okay.

And I'm looking for Aberration, Celestials, Dragons, Elementals, Fiends and Unda. Undead. Specifically this guy.

Yeah.

Which one?

Undead.

Please share with the class.

Cause the class and then obviously about three blocks away, shit lights up. Especially cause I think technically this counts as your favorite drain being grasslands. So three blocks away, shit lights the hell up.

Oh yeah, this is.

And the white yellow. What is the list again? Sorry.

Fae, fiends, Aberrations. Yeah, Celestials, Elementals.

Celestials, Dragons.

Dragons.

The white yellow that you were detecting is coming not too far from here either.

Okay.

I'm not. I don't remember where we're at in my mental map of Fort Morgan because it's not great. So I can't tell you the direction, but it's not great. You've been near where it's coming from.

Okay, we're about four. Three or four blocks from the church.

Yeah. So east of the church. It's coming first from the west. Roughly. You've said both ways.

We are east.

Gotcha. It's to the west.

It's to the west.

Gotcha.

I was. I was just concerned about this guy.

He absolutely pings his undead for his undead.

Okay, so.

The player had a.

So who else would you have picked up if you. If we didn't come with you and Sadie? Like, who else do you know in town?

I would have talked to the baristas. We've hung out several times. There's John at the bowling alley.

Why is he still at bowling alley?

They have the pinball machines. People keep playing those. Something. The beer stock hasn't gone completely dry. Yet.

Party space.

Yeah, sometimes that jazz troupe heads over there and plays something that resembles rock and people kind of jam to that at the bowling alley.

Boy, that would have been nice.

It's real fun. On the lanes.

While he's talking, Elliot's gonna.

Elliot's still well oiled.

Elliot's gonna move away from Mel over to Olnock and he's going to whisper as quietly as he can while I'm.

Asking pointed questions to this guy.

I don't know what that.

Do you have your. The whisper is. Oh nock. Do you have your hammer ready?

Always think of this Hammond. I think at this point Mel is like. If you can picture what a teenager trying to flirt with somebody looks like.

You'Re totally twirling your head.

Oh absolutely.

Mel has her ponytail in one hand, is twirling it and is looking up at him all starry eyed. She has like one hand on his arm and giggles at everything he says. Like it is. It's bad.

Every time Emily asks a question, she listens to the answer. And then Mel giggles and she just stares really hard at Mel. What the hell?

What is this wrong with her?

I don't.

And whenever Mel talks, her hair bobs in that really cute way I'm getting.

I don't know what I've done to upset you folks, but you're hanging out.

With my 17 year old sister. Oh come on, he's you.

That alone, even in like normal society is warning us.

That's creepy.

I'm 18.

So you're old enough to get alcohol and weed but you're 18?

I have figured out how to procure. Did you never drink in high school?

How long have you been 18?

That is a very strange. How long have you been your age?

Oh, I didn't know I liked younger men.

I don't know what's creepier, murder happy Mel or this happy Mel.

I've clearly upset you folks. I'm sorry is not my intention.

Insight check.

Yeah, go for it. You can insight that he doesn't want us mad.

He's 16.

You believe him? He doesn't want you mad. He did not intend to upset you.

I feel like I should put it. That was only 22.

This is not like crashing.

I know, but it's like within straight up 18 is still weird.

I don't agree with you.

Oh yeah, Charmed Mel.

On the other hand, legal and acceptable are two different situations. Yes, absolutely.

I had to. I had to think my way through this. But I did come to the answer. Elliot's gonna come back Over. And who's. What's our layout in the room? Where is he?

He's got himself the main one away from the door. He's on the far edge of the roof. Okay, so he's basically got all behind him.

Yep.

Sadie's kind of chilling nearby. And just for clarification's sake, she's fawning over him. He's not.

Not really.

Yeah, he's not, like, got his arm draped over her or anything.

Yeah.

If anything, his attention is much more fixated towards Mel currently. I would assume Mel's nearish. Yeah.

Okay.

And then you're near. Ish. Your sister.

I would assume I'm, like, sitting across from him, like.

So you're in the dad grilling the boyfriend's seat, so to speak. Yeah.

Okay, perfect analogy.

I'm gonna step next to Emery and look him in the eye and say, I'm giving you five seconds to release these two, or I will destroy you.

Free to leave of their own accord. I'm not forcing anybody to do anything.

That's all I needed to know. Elliot is gonna draw his sun sword.

Oh, yeah.

And he is going to ignite it.

Kaboom.

Whoa. What the.

All of this escalated quickly.

He is gone. Yeah. You see a black mist where he was.

What the.

Fade away.

What in the.

Off. Over the.

Okay, I'm going draw my sword at that point. My magic sword. It's like, where do you.

Okay. I didn't think it was necessary.

Scared him off. He seems like an okay.

Dude.

What is wrong with you?

Am I the only one who saw him burn to ash? Why do I act like he's still here?

I don't know.

He could still be here. I don't know. We've dealt with ghosts who faced through.

That was an undead. I don't know what it was specifically, but that was an undead.

Wait, like, he faded to ash or he disappeared. He disappeared.

He turned into black smoke.

Oh, great.

He hit him with the sword.

So I'm crazy. All right, fair enough.

I don't know what the fuck's going on either.

Olba. For what it's worth, you see the black smoke moving with the wind off across town?

I don't know, but I think it.

Was a fighting vampire.

You know, I made that joke, like, forever ago about other things. Exactly. I really wish I was wrong.

And because it's black smoke, you can track him for, like, a quarter block. He's just part of the dark sky.

Are Mel and Sadie still charmed?

Yes.

Okay, so I could do the things That I was planning on.

Really?

Probably not dead.

Maybe it would work and break the thing. Or we can just. Y'all are gonna hate me for this. And Mel's gonna hate me for this too. I'm gonna walk up to Mel and I'm going to lightly slap her across the face and say snap.

Snap out of it. Mel reactively just slaps you back.

Yes.

Like she doesn't even make a sound or anything. Like you slap her, her head turns, she slaps you back.

Okay, so Mel is still in there somewhere.

What was my face?

What the hell was that for?

That's going to sting.

You slapped me. I slapped you? It seemed fair.

You were fawning over the twig.

He's not as twiggy as he looks under that button.

No, no, Mel, this is the exact opposite shit from what you were saying earlier tonight.

Is it? That seems like a while ago.

No, that was less than an hour ago.

You're supposedly 18. Loverboy just turned into mist and went that way.

Well, we got to talking and I got to know him better. And aside from being a terrible poet.

I mean you did most of the talking. If we're being honest, I don't think you got to know him at all.

Bro is a super thieves.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a great listener.

Okay, are we going to follow the vampire and deal with him or are.

We going a what now?

A vampire. It was a damned vampire.

He turned into mist and flew away. Mel, what do you think he is?

I'll be honest, I'm having a hard time processing the last five seconds of that interaction, but I'm pretty sure he's not a vampire. Yeah, I've been hanging out with him for like two weeks and I'm not bitten. I've never seen him biting.

Medicine check. Never seen him medicine.

Have you seen him in the daylight?

Well, no, because I'm stuck at the house and flew away like I said. Having a hard time processing that part. But I don't remember hearing Dracula doing that either. He turns into bats.

I'm pretty sure Dracula turns into have missed at some point.

I'm pretty sure he turns into bats. No, I've only seen the movies where he goes like.

Maybe we live in a weird universe where vampires are actually good. I mean, ulnock's not necessarily evil because he's a werewolf. So maybe he's a werewolf to be a vampire.

We're working on that. We're trying to fix that.

All right, so you're mad that I'm hanging out with a pale guy. But you brought a werewolf to our house.

He got attacked by a werewolf on accident. And we are dealing with.

And the full moon is nowhere near right now.

Yes. She's looking at the sky.

Hanging out with somebody who's buying alcohol.

And weed is exactly what you did in high school.

Yeah, but I was with other normal kids.

If he is a vampire, that totally makes sense for why his poems suck.

Oh, God.

Sorry, not the time.

God damn it.

Okay, that took me a minute, but that's.

Sorry. Bad jokes when I'm anxious.

I'm just.

Have you asked this guy into your house?

Well, no. My dad will kill him.

Never do that.

Never.

Yes.

Let's get out of here and let's go home to your home.

Not to my home.

If we could get to my home, that would be better, but we can't, so let's go back to your house.

This is going to break my. My culinary code. But we should probably salt the house.

Yes.

Where do you got this?

It's in the pack.

Well, you could do what. Oh, our house?

Yeah, our house.

Oh, no, that's fine.

Okay.

Okay.

That makes more sense. All right.

Okay.

We'll do it back home.

All right.

You know, I know I was getting pretty down on the whole stranger thing, but maybe they're all.

This one is.

Let's not forget that if I lose control of a werewolf, I do just basically become a wild animal.

That's we haven't forgotten about.

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought him to the house.

The whole point. Maybe there's good vampires. They don't exist. It's not a thing.

We don't know that.

We don't even know that you.

Your point's invalid. You've been charmed.

I've been what?

You were charmed.

I know.

I'm charming.

Charm.

Charmed. You.

Okay, just for the. I'm just gonna test it. I'm gonna cast charm person on Mel and see what that.

See what happens?

I mean, king wrestle control of this. I don't know how that works. There's my wrench for the day.

Dm.

Let's see how this one goes.

What is your spell? Save DC.

She's saved against it.

Yeah.

14. 14.

Yeah, because those are two things that could stack without.

Yeah, you could be charmed by two different people simultaneously. Simultaneously.

Okay, so I cast charm. Prison.

Wisdom against it.

Wisdom safe.

Hold on. What are the components? Oh, it's just for automatic.

Don't worry about it.

16. Mel is not gullible. At all.

She's not turned by you.

I actually know him.

The fuck? Okay. She falls for the twig.

You can tell he tried.

I blink a couple times. What are you doing?

I'm trying to break you out of the nonsense that the twig did to you.

I don't know what you're talking about. But the vampire.

That's what I'm talking about.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

This is why it didn't work. You're not charming.

Oh, damn, you're. You already slapped me once. Now you're hurting me emotionally.

You slapped me first.

Yeah, to again help you.

Did no one ever tell you not to hit women? Okay, you slapped me, I slapped you, we're even.

No, Ellie is right. We're going back to the house.

Don't make me punch you again.

So you guys are. I mean, Sadie's totally not stoked. She just pretty much goes to bed. Yeah, well, now she goes home. She's like. Well, he's. You guys. Yeah. I hope killed my friend, I think. People don't turn into smoke.

People don't. You're right.

People don't do that.

Vampires turn into bats. Werewolves turn into murder. Monsters and people when they turn into black smoke are dead.

They turn into werewolves are facts for the zombies.

Which come back as.

That's because we don't typically light fire lightsabers at people.

Also, if burns, they're not necessarily dead either.

I'm.

I forgot. Never mind. There's two. I was going to say can he turn into mist in the sun, but. Because that sun sword counts as sunlight. But it's a little way too late.

For to go running at some sunrise. And he didn't want to. You know, honestly, nobody wants to go running outside except for you. Well.

Okay, I like running sunrise. I have such a hard time sleeping tonight.

Can I booby trap the doors? Or at least specifically Emory sisters Mercedes door.

The answer to your question is yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Elliot, are you still sleeping outside?

Hell no.

I'm not sleeping outside with a goddamn vampire.

That's the answer I wanted.

Sadie goes straight to her room.

Yeah, I still think you guys are overreacting.

Could I like, string up like one of the pans on her door handle so that like, when she opens it, the pan clangs against the door frame?

You can roll a sleight of hand to try.

Oh, by the way, when we get in, I'm waking up Sharon and Kenneth. Now this is.

I'm pretty sure with all of our pants.

Oh, yeah. No, this is Totally happening.

And Ken comes down the stairs like.

All the way home.

What are you doing?

Okay, we have a problem. First off, your youngest daughter, Sadie. Yeah. Her new boyfriend is a vampire, so you need to work on that. Number two, we're going to shut the house down tonight so that a vampire can't get in. No one's allowed to invite anybody in the house tonight. Yeah, and if you have any salt, we need it.

Yeah, we'll use your salt if you wouldn't mind. It's not like you use it, right?

You have garlic.

It's in the kitchen.

Okay.

I don't know.

By the way, I got a 26 for that door.

You very well make noisy thingies on door. I won't let anybody into the house tonight. Okay, we'll talk about the rest of that when it can make sense.

Okay. And Elliot's gonna go paint the salt.

It's a lot of words to wake up to.

Yeah, especially 1:00 in the morning. Yes, I know. So it's going to go away to salt with all the windows and the doorways and. Mel, you're staying next to me tonight.

But you snore.

I don't care.

Fine.

And you are not allowed to invite anybody in the house.

I wouldn't invite anybody to somebody else's house. That is so rude.

Her.

Perfect.

Okay, what if you see the tall, dark and Twiggy don't give her.

Then I'll go outside.

No, you will not.

Oh, that's good. Shit.

We'll try this again.

Okay.

And now he's gonna lay down with the sun swords laying next to it with his hand on it.

All right.

Oh, can I? Since my illusion is a cantrip.

Yeah, he's still asleep.

Since a minor illusion is a cantrip and I can make it sound like anybody's voice, can I make it sound like tall, dark and Twiggy's voice telling Mel not to leave the house. And see if that would trick her into not leaving the house.

That's a lot of tomfoolery.

Absolutely. Make that sound occur.

Okay, so. So you hear his voice like, Mel, don't leave the.

You can go ahead and first roll insight, I guess. Ted, Ted, you are exactly on the fence system. Whether that was real or not, I don't know.

We didn't quite have the accent in the right place.

Are we a bit more palm?

I wasn't actually listening to his palm and I didn't get his cadence right.

Oh, I slept his whole thing.

Are we worrying about watches or are we just Sleeping through the night.

I'm definitely going to do a watch. And my eyes are going to be glued on Mel. Not in a creepy way.

I'm doing watch. No, you're not.

I want to go for a morning run. I keep talking about it and it sounds wonderful.

You can go for a morning run after everyone's awake.

In fact.

Can I be with you?

Oh, thank God. I was going to volunteer. He got there first.

I instant regret.

Okay, James, I'll wake you up right at sunrise.

Oh, God.

Can't wait.

I'll take. I'll take.

I just don't want to see a compatriot get turned into a Capri Sun.

I'll take a watch because I. Emery's.

Not happy right now.

How many watches do we need?

Well, I'm going to go through the rest of the night. They're two hours, four hours long. It's one. So, like two and a half. I guess.

I'll take the last one.

Okay.

I'm gonna get some sleep. So I'll take first watch then, if that's okay, since.

Yeah.

Oh, this is gonna be so.

My big mouth.

All right, who's.

So I. I'm taking one Mellox, taking the other.

Okay. Cool. Roll perception.

Can I. Can I give inspiration to other people?

No.

No.

Okay. Figured I'd check about NASA.

Your father's snoring is way the hell worse than yours.

I was, like, rattling the house.

I mean, that with the resonance of Elliot's snoring is probably shaking the whole damn house.

It doesn't help. Your house actually had a laundry chute built into it.

Yeah, of course.

So it's coming straight down the metal piping into the. Into the basement.

They're probably. The breathing's probably offset, too. So. Emory's father a snore you.

So between that and how much she's fuming right now, she is just, like, unable to focus. Unable to play.

Drink a whole pot of coffee.

Other than that, your watch goes uneventfully. Mel does not move from her sleeping position.

I just go nudge. Alma. Yeah, buddy.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

So that's how you're supposed to wake up. Got it.

Emory looks so grumpy, but she just goes.

You don't have to throw a shoe at my neck.

All right. All right.

Go ahead and roll a protective.

Yep. That was.

Jesus. That's the new one.

That was 13. I was hoping it would roll more, and it didn't. It just.

Same.

I don't recommend using the ice train.

We'll wake up next episode.

Okay, plot twist.

Does everyone wake up? We don't know. We don't.

Theater of the mind is Amanda Arston as Melanie Kelly, Jeremy Arfston as Elliot Brandy Bain.

Me.

Michael Brunel as Ulnock Vargar Johnson. I forgot my name for a second. And that. Sad kids. Yeah, you'll understand someday. Mike downs as James O'Brien and Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee. We release episodes every two weeks and our next episode will release on March. If you like what we're doing, you can follow us on our socials, which can be found in the podcast description via our link tree. Also in the podcast description, you can find our promo code to Pinecast for 40% off your first four months. It's a pretty hell of a deal. Gotta admit, 40%, it's almost half. Don't know if you know fractions or percentages, but there you go. And you can also get a free seven day trial to Epidemic Sounds. And they do a lot of our sounds and music for our podcast and we are under the Creative Commons license. Um, so. And our music was sourced from Epidemic Sounds. And our songs used in order are.

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Dude, you did it.

Okay, that's the thing. I was like. It was after the other thing, so, okay.