Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Chapter Eight: An Ashen Wonderland | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

In Northeastern Australia, foreign objects continually collide with the Earth - sending the planet into a downward spiral.   This captivating series, based on a game of tragic horror, includes a cast of 40 players, one game master, and zero survivors. Warning: for mature audiences only.   Starring Ash Minnick, Rachel Kimsey, Aliza Pearl, Jason Charles Miller, and storyteller Ivan Van Norman.   Video versions are available at https://www.youtube.com/geekandsundry   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hi. Hello. I am. so sorry but I am also so happy that I have both old friends and new who have hung out because I don't think we've played at a table yet

Lisa have we? We haven't. I don't know we've been adjacently playing next to each other for years. Yeah. So that's probably a great way to introduce you. Hi, Lisa. I'm adjacent to Ivan. Adjacent. But now you get to play.

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to play. We get to do spooky horror time. Yay. Wee. And, of course, Rachel, hello. Hello. You keep coming back. Why?

I mean, it's fun to cry. It's cathartic? Yeah, I don't know. You sound like you're asking yourself that question just as much to me. I just keep stumbling back into it and thinking maybe this time it'll go better for me. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. This isn't the day for that?

It's okay. It was still good to have you. Hi-ha. Hi, Vince. We usually play board games. That's true. This is the first time with us playing an RPG together. Yeah.

Yeah. That is super fun. Yeah. Because usually, I mean, you're mostly D&D girl as well, too, right? No, actually. Oh, really? I'm far more into, like, other, like, story games. Okay.

You know, you know I love Pell grain press. Yeah. No, it's a good point. That's a good point. Yes. So that's great. So, and now we're, we're, we're, doing Stephen Dewey's little tromp down terror aisle, so to speak.

Yeah, yeah. Literally in aisle, I think we talked about how we're going to do, like, a high elevation in Australia today. That's kind of what we're thinking about it, in which Jason, your character, will have some kind of farmland outpost, right? Or he did. He did. Yeah, at some point.

I'd be a little too close to the ocean there. It's good to see you, buddy. Yeah, you do. table. Thanks. You're probably the person who I probably played the most with at a table, but yonned like maybe Xander at this point. Yeah. Like in between not only the Foreververse era.

Right. I mean, that went on for like 14 months. So I don't know. I think I got Zander beat. Yeah, that's the point. Yeah, Zander was in there a bunch, so, but not as much. So I like to continually say when people are like, wow, Foreververse, that was great. And I keep reminding myself that that was like Navy.

seal training camp for GMs. For sure. Yeah. And it still lives on people. And smart TVs everywhere. Exactly. Until it's not. So.

Well, thank you all for joining me. I think we chatted a little bit about the circumstance and the situation we're in, but we're definitely going to kind of get into character creation here. I've reminded everyone who is watching that they're, we're kind of had a discussion about everything that's happening. And since we're it so deep into the storyline at this point, and so many things have happened,

you have a lot more world knowledge than your predecessors who have suffered prior to you. As a joke, I would lovingly like to give you, many Bothans have died to give you this information. Even though they would never know, and you would never know, because the world is what it is. So thanks to them. Thanks to them.

Yeah. Thanks, boss. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Yeah, oh my gosh, if only you knew what happened the last episode. But I'm not telling you. We have our cards today, rather than doing the index cards, that usually would provide the virtues and vices onto it.

Instead, we're going to be using pictures of your faces today so that we can defile them at some point during the show. We will begin by taking your first one, it's gonna go to your right. So pick one of your lovely photos. Can you use our own? Yeah, use one of your own and I'll pass it over. So you just pass this now.

Pass it to your right. Yes, yeah, okay, there you go. Thank you. Upon this photo, I would love for you to write a virtue. Okay, right on the back. On the back, yes. Something that you aspire to be, or look up to in.

someone. It can be a phrase, right? It should be a single descriptive word. Yes. You don't have to do any long soliloquoise. At least I writes a paragraph. It's happened. There's a lot of things I want to be. And I'm very specific about them. What's one descriptive word? It can be something like virtuous or practical, resourceful, honest. I'll hold it right off the gate. Did I steal your word? Yes. Oh, and I take it, that's fine.

These are all examples. So, yeah? Great, let's pass it back to the left. So da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Can I read them? I'm so excited. Ash, would you tell me who wrote what on yours? Jason Charles Miller wrote disciplined.

Disciplined. Which is great. Okay, you're disciplined for sure. How about you, Rachel? What did you get? Ash told me that I am giving. Giving? Okay.

Resourceful or I already forgot it. Disciplined. Yes. And forgiving. Giving. Giving. Giving. Not for giving.

Discipline and giving. I need to. Wake up. Alisa, what did you get? Rachel wrote, resourceful. Resourceful. Yeah. Very practical to have.

Yeah. In a practical apocalypse. Jason. And Alisa wrote, Resilient. Resilient. Resilient. So, I like that. So ours?

Oh, giving and resourceful. This is the our side. This is our side. Can I like that? Yeah. The our side is our side. Next, I would like you to take another card and I would like you to pass it to the left.

On this, I would love for you to write a vice. Something that creates more problems than it solves. and trait that you maybe wear on your sleeve, but also comes back and bites you in the butt often. Rachel's like done. I know exactly what this is. Here, is everyone good? What's the word for the thing, you know, the thing where you,

that thing? You know that thing? It's like three syllables. It's got letters in it. It's got letters. It's the beginning and an end. And a middle? And a middle.

I'm sure there's a vowel at some point. Some. Probably an E. Statistically. Statistically speaking. There is me. Two E's. Hangman champion.

Back to the right. Back to the right. This is so exciting. You're going to wait this time. Okay. So excited. Jason, we're going to start with you. What did you put?

I got stubborn. Stubborn. Stubborn and what was the other one? Resilient. Stubborn and resilient. Those are traits That will go together Pretty well.

How about you, Elisa, what did you get? Jason wrote Worrysome. Ooh, resourceful and worrisome. That makes sense. Always worried about your resources. Yeah, exactly. Rachel.

Intense. Intense. That's a new one. I haven't heard that one before. You're totally camping. I love it. And Ash, yes. Ravenous.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Whoa, all right. That's also a new one. That's not bad, that's fine. You sure? You're sure.

You have to decide what you're hungering for. More disciplines, obviously. Great, so this is kind of, this is the, I mean, I know we all talked a little bit about what you could be and who you are, but now this is when we really start locking things down with these virtues and vices. This is the world that you live in.

Three weeks. have gone by, a little shy of three weeks, you know. But the problem is that you don't know, it could have been three months for all you know, because time does not work the way that it did when these monoliths rose out of the ground. Since then, the day and night cycles have been longer, so much longer.

And this- There is some day. There is some day, yes, but you, very similar to like if you were to go north of the equator or far south of the equator, you will have long spans of day, and then you'll have long spans of night. Particularly what you've been dealing with in your area on the lowest elevation continents in the entire world has been dealing with tidal surges, which have been rampant for the last two weeks,

but are slowly getting worse and worse and worse. and not to speak of the elephant in the room. When you look up at the night sky, I want to very vividly describe this for you because even thinking about this in my mind is unsettling, not to cede you or anything, but when you look up into the night sky, there is no stars. There's nothing.

You see no space. You do not see. the cold depth void of what we have used to by looking in the night sky. You simply see craters. You simply see a large gray rock that is standing up in the sky. It takes up the entire skyline. It is oppressively close as it looms into you. It's the point of where you can see as if you were looking through a microscope

all the way to the earth. And we've all been in like a high-powered telescope and looked into the moon really close, right? this is where you see when you look up in the night sky it takes up the entire horizon so and as a result of that you it is still night because the moon is blocking the sun but you are still getting the reflection from the sun the problem is it is it is almost um it is fluorescent in the amount of light that it sheds And it's one of those things where it is night, but it also feels like day, but it is night. And it's confusing because it's like a full moon where someone cranked it up to 11 as far as the light you're dealing with. So visibility, truthfully, not so much of a big deal.

But at the same time, it is still dark. There is no natural sunlight that you have experienced on a conscious level for days now. And there's the creatures. You've heard of them. You've maybe even seen shadows of them at some point. When the earthquake started, they started appearing out of the ground. And what's worse is they aren't so much hunting anymore. That's what they used to be.

They used to just pick off anything that was close and around. Now, when you see them walking around and they do attempt to just skitter about, They look like giant, like, truck-sized centipedes with long articulated kind of tentacles that kind of are coming out of its midsection. And they're hard to miss, but they used to just hunt and scatter and grab people when they can. Now they just seem to content to walk around and sing up into the moon. It's this grating, screeching, almost like nails on a chalkboard. and it is excellent at keeping you up all night in so many occurrences. So this is the world in which you live in.

This is the world that you have inherited, thanks to our nearest celestial body. With that said, I'm looking forward to taking another one of your pieces of paper and writing upon it a moment that you hope to accomplish in this story. So something that is absolutely achievable but does have

a chance of failing. So what I'm trying to say is no abstract ideas. This is our moment of hope? This is your moment of hope. You would like to find hope when you know, this I think in the book it literally describes I will find hope when

dot dot dot dot and it is a moment that you think is something you'd like to achieve in the storyline. And this can be an achievable specific action, right? Not like a. I would go so far as to say it should be. Okay, great, good, right. Yes, so.

Elisa, let's begin with you first. I wrote. One more thing. Let's, if you wouldn't mind, let's introduce your character in the same statement. Okay. My character is Monica Charles. Oh, Monica Charles.

Yes. No. She is. is a masseuse who has come to Australia to both visit friends and also go on a bit of a walkabout and just spend time in nature alone. Okay. And so a lot of nature. Lots of nature.

And I wrote for her hope, I kill one of the creatures. Oh, you want to kill one of them. Yep. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to get to that moment. You know, that's great. Cool. How about you, Jason? My name is Jack Lincoln.

Jack Lincoln. Nice. I'm a farmer. Originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania, and I had some family in Australia, and there was a family farm here. So after serving in the military for a few years, I decided to move to Australia and work with my family here. Okay. And what moment do you hope to achieve in this story? Jack. I will find hope when I can create a protected shelter and survive away from the creatures.

So you want a shelter? I would probably say just to make it, because that's kind of a two-part qualifier. Sure. At this point, make a shelter and survive away from the creatures. We should probably make it, I think a shelter is maybe more achievable. Okay. Right? Sure. Like a protected shelter or compound. Just feel good about a shelter, right? Yeah. It's something that you should feel like you have a chance of accomplishing in this story. I like that you said a shelter or a compound. The compound makes me feel like there's room for more. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not trying to be a lone wolf. I just want it. Maybe even a community of some sort. Right. A lean two will do. Yeah. We'll start there.

We'll just hold back. Crush size creatures. No problem. Great, Ash. Oh, yeah. Who are you playing today? Oh, yeah. I'm playing a.

Ren Sagewood. Ren. And she was a childhood star, now turned kind of like B-movie action star. Oh, man. How did you live this long? She's a method actress, is how. And so, as you know, she's disciplined. Yeah.

And so, yeah, all of her terrible, terrible post-apocalyptic films are finally paying off. Cool. There you go. In experience. Yeah. All this scream queen. stuff just working out. She's not a screen screen.

No, not a screen screen. Actions. Actions. Oh, that's different. It's different. They're different. Absolutely. Yes.

My apologies. Brent. What moment do you hope to create inside of the storyline? I wrote that I will find hope when I learn my brother is safe. Oh, okay. So you want to learn about your brother.

Okay. And Rachel. My name is Janée Christensen. I am a phlebotomist in a children's hospital, which means I do blood draws. And in the hospital, I work on the pediatric cancer ward. So I'm with sick children every day, but I'm a part of the process of making them better. But I have seen tragedy happen over and over and over again.

And I think that that's how I found the resilience as night started to get longer and longer. I'm also a part-time yoga teacher, and I was here in Australia, on a beach yoga training retreat. And it didn't end quite as I hoped. Right. And I don't really have the clothes that I ought to have because I came for a little sun and surf and stretchy time. Yeah.

It's cold and it is bitter. In what moment do you hope to create in this? My life's work has been working with him helping and healing children, so I'm gonna find hope when I hear a child laughing. Okay, all right. Woo! It would be very hopeful.

It would be a bright light. Yes. Yes. To hear a child's laugh one last time. Oh. Oh, no. Wow. I hear you.

Sweet. That took a turn. Yeah. That's what she wrote, basically. That's what I heard. I mean, somebody added one last time. She said a game. A game.

A game. Fair, it's fair. Yeah, you do remember what you're playing, right? Jenae, Ren, Jack, and Monica. Great, nice to meet you all. Now we get to do the Brinks. So the Brinks are the darkest shadow, the echelon of your pinnacle dark moment.

And it isn't your moment that you will be writing. Take one of your cards and pass pass it to your left. And this time we will be participating, Elisa and Rachel and myself, we will all get to have this together. So this is for you. What this means is that you two normally

will be writing brinks for each other and for the people who are next to you. But Rachel, and you will be writing for yours as well too. but Elisa, what you'll be doing is you'll be writing a brink for them. All right? Now, them in the context of this story can be everything from the moon to the monoliths, which have come out of the ground. I did mention the monoliths, right?

They came up. They came up from the ground. 100 stories. Yes. Little Empire State buildings all over the world. But you may write a brink for them in which you give to me, and it will become part. of the story. Likewise,

Rachel, I'm going to write you something that they have seen you do. They, they? They. That this is a brink in which they, the proverbial they know about you and you know

that they know. I just got really anxious. Just now? Yeah. Welcome. Okay. All right. Yes, here we are. So, and then here should be phrased.

So it should say, in your circumstances, for the people who are running for others, it's just, I have seen you. And it can be, it is a dark moment. And in the book, they give a couple of prime examples, things can be like, I have seen you lose it over this dead dog. You cried for hours. I nearly left you, you know. I've had ones where I have, I have seen you kill a local, you know. So, but does this become something that our character, like my character, would have.

Knows about them, yes. Okay. So this is something I know about Ren. It is a dark moment that you have seen, okay? And this is a dark moment that you have seen and your character knows about. So, yeah, it is a shared knowledge between your, except for you. Except someone's going to give you yours. Okay.

You don't know anything about anyone. Nope. You only know about them. Yes. So, that's a lot. Okay. Can I grab the marker? Oh, this is yours.

This one's mine. Thank you. Oh, then there's puppies. You mean like in the world? No, I got a picture. It's just like, it's kind of dark. It's not about you. It's about Jack.

It's okay. Not Jack. Jack and his puppies You Faster How could you I'm just saying you should apologize To you

What did I do to you? Oh no Oh no What did I do? Let's we'll find out in a second I've seen you give me candy Nice It was not any I liked

That's pretty mild I don't I don't like anything about that body language That does not bode well for me at all I need to pass this over Whoa I like it Cool

Yeah I'm into it Oh can we read them Yeah Yes but not out loud Okay They are for you And for who is next to you only

Wow I didn't think anyone saw that Jason I saw it You were there I'm gonna You know what I'm having to do now Yeah

I'm glad you picked up on that I've been watching. Excellent. So, I know, the bring story is the best. Right, yeah. It gets you in the mood. Now what we're going to do is we're gonna take your stack of cards and you will notice

that you have one left over. That's simply for your character name, your concept, a little cheat sheet for who you are, should you wish it. Otherwise, please rearrange your hope, your virtue, and your vice on a stack that you might want to activate as the game goes by. Is what that means, sorry, go ahead.

Yes. Is that if you burn a virtue and a vice in the game, you get to re-roll any ones that may have come out as a result of a die roll. So that's what the virtue and vice does. The brink must go at the bottom because it is the last thing that you resort to in the story.

You cannot burn your moment. Your moment cannot activate or achieve until it is the one on top. Which means that if you, you haven't burned a virtue or a vice yet and your moment is still several cards under, then that moment comes and it will pass by. So yes, yes.

So you need to make sure that your stack is the way that you wish it to be. So the same time, if you put your moment on top, then you will not be able to burn a virtue and a vice until your moment is achieved. So stack away. Most people put their vice first? Most people would do whatever they thought was right, Jason.

But you're not most people. I love this. I love this game. All right. I love this game. Brink has to go last. My identity is just waiting for it. Just for you.

It bothers me that I'm staring at myself. Would you like? What would she do? What will she do? I'm staring at Ren. Would you like a little? To cover your face. It is definitely an intense stare.

It is looking at you. This order thing is tough. I know. Choices have to be made, and they need to be made now. Okay, okay. It's all right. Is that the theme song?

Huh? Is that the theme song for the show? Choices have to be made. It needs to be made now. Yeah, I know. Well, I own it because I just... Because you just sang it. Well, actually, no.

Copyright Ivan Van Norris. Yeah. Verbal trademark. They. They by Ivan Van Norris. All right. Yes. So, your story begins.

Let's get depressed. On the top of a, well, at least when the title surges were low, it was a mountain. And we discussed this is, this is not a steep incline. We're not talking about. the Appalachians or the Rockies or anything like that. You're looking at a more of an incline leading to a tall hill, except in this circumstance, the hills around 5,000 feet elevation,

which has been enough to rescind the tidal surges as much as it is. I would say, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you've probably been observing these waters coming in and waters coming out, same way that you would watch low and high tide. and you have probably at this point established somewhat of a pattern

and it's awful because when the water's in the water's in you know and it's just like watching water world it's just like lake laid out everywhere and the things that come in with the tide oh god

everything from boats that are half tilted and lifting in the water to bodies to broken pieces of civilization. It is not clean and pristine water. It is the decrepit dredges of what was once a great civilization now washed up everywhere with the tide. Are we seeing evidence of life from other continents already? Are we seeing things washing up from? That's interesting. So you would like to, for example, if there's an opportunity in which you're

looking out and wanted to see if, if like you saw something from Europe or from the Philippines or from Asia. Right, it was something from like Micronesia or something that's coming in. That sounds very interesting. Why don't you? Oh, no.

We're still world building and let's get a conflict. Oh, dear. At least there are lots of, I'm so sorry for all the ones that I'm gonna lose. I'm out of the way. Oh, that is a whole lot of only two ones for me. And a whole bunch of sixes though. Bunch of sixes.

for you. So this is the part in the game in which, first of all, I don't have a right to roll against you because it's the first rule of the day to try to assume narrative control from you. And with that amount of sixes, there's no way I would get done anyway. So why don't you tell me, Janay, what you have found observing these title searches? So as the surges have been coming in, first it was a local debris from the dive shops and the dive yachts. that were right here off the Great Barrier Reef. But as time has begun to pass, we're starting to see pieces of fishing boats from the Philippines and Micronesia, some pieces of trees from Papua New Guinea. But there are also intact boats

that are starting to come from all of these island nations. And so with those boats, there's the hope of resources and the very remote chance of people Yeah, there was even one time in which you saw an entire container ship come inland, and then the water receded quicker than it could come back in, and it just dropped right onto the middle of the Australian coastline. That was my question, is as the tide goes back out,

is there stuff left on the shore that we can then go down and scavenge? In fact, that's the only way you've been able to get any food at this point for the last five days. I would say. Well, and one of the blessings of this tide as it's been coming in is that this is such a rich part of the ocean and it's so full of life that turtles have been washing to shore and fish and lots of things that at the very least, there's food. And with some of these destroyed ships, there are, there's some water reclamation. So we can at least make sure that there's some clean water. So these trips have been subsiding you and water and food. as a result of the tidal switches have been enough that you've been extremely resourceful to make that happen the problem is is that

With the tide receding thus do the creatures come back out of the ground almost like out of hibernation They burrow out of the wet murky dirt and crop back up in order to sing their song back out to the giant Ever-present background and every single time you go down unless people return. The scavenging groups have been getting smaller and smaller, and you four are the only ones left. The last group to go down never returned.

And it has been, I would say, a day or two since they left. And the tide is coming back out again. So there was no way that they, even if they had not been eaten by the creatures, that they would have been able to deal with the title surge. So what do you want to do? We really need some food, obviously.

Someone's got to go down there. All of us or some of us. I certainly feel safer if we go together. At least there's the opportunity for someone to have lookout in case they arrive, and we can, scout and spot for better access to resources as we go. If somebody gets into trouble loses footing, we can be there to catch them, pull them out.

Let's go together and stay close. About how long does the tide last? Because you said one's coming in now, yeah? Well, it's receding now. Oh, it's okay. It was, it had come back up, but now it is receding. Yeah, and the, you know, normally high tide, low tide is in the,

You know, usually in, I might be reality checked on this. I apologize, but I think it's anywhere from an hour and a half-ish, 90 minutes or so, that it takes for high tide to come in before it goes back. But with the new circumstances of the world, you're looking at hours, hours for it to come in and out again. But then it is out for a long time. Yes. So it sounds like the thing that is most interesting is to get down, climb off of your mountain, so to speak, and go back and look at the flotsam and debris. And do we have some type of shelter that we come back to after these,

or that we're staying in? I would think at this point, I mean, it's been weeks, you know, and if you've been historically sitting up on this pier, this, this, this, top of this hill, you would have to have something. So what do you think? Well, I was thinking maybe we found a ranch home that we just took over that was abandoned. Okay. Then thus it is so.

Cool. Abandoned ranch home that has been scoured for everything, reinforced for everything you can and is basically four walls at this point in a roof. It's time we go get a little food. Go, all right. Scavaging is a good tactic now, but it's not going to love. last, we have to come up with something else. Everyone who goes out, they've stopped coming back, so we have to come up with something else.

Yeah. I mean, I think we can probably guess that they're not coming back because of those creatures. So let's just make sure before we go out, we have a plan or just really figure out some type of improvised weapons of some kind. At this point, improvised weapons, I think if you wanted to be armed, in 10 counts that explicitly states

that you have what is on you inside of the actual game to start with, but that doesn't mean that you can't attempt to find something in the game as well too. So if that's your goal and structure, Monica, then that's something that, that you can ostensibly roll for, if you'd like.

This is a conflict. If you're out looking for weapons, then I'd like you, I'd like the dice to tell me a story about how that goes. Okay. Please don't let it be a million ones. Please, please, please, please, or any.

Okay, okay. No sixes. No sixes. Okay. Two ones. This scene will end immediately, unless you wish. to burn a virtue and a vice.

I do want to burn my vice. Worrisome. Which is that I'm worrisome. I'm really worried about going out without some type of weapons. Because the last group took all the weapons with them. You know?

I left you with no weapons. Right. So we need some. If they didn't survive with weapons, we need to have something. So re-roll those two ones. Savvy. And that's just the ones. Just the ones.

Okay. as you apply this worry. Okay. Worth. Woo! So by all means, yes, it is your narrative control. Monica, tell me how you worryingly,

worryedly go out and find something, anything that you can use to defend yourself out in this barren wilderness that is now what was once, you know, scattered trees, you know, townships, roads, all of that,

but now is just marshlands. I'm going to say that the ranch home had some steel slats or maybe not, yeah, maybe steel like a thin sheet metal. And we were able to use those to

kind of fashion like shields for ourselves. So that we could at least have like some type of battering protection if we get stormed or, you know. So basically you made a bunch of reinforced shields that you just made simple arm straps for, just to have some kind of coverage between whatever is out there and you.

Yeah, because clearly the other weapons didn't work. So we might as well just try to protect ourselves a little bit more. For everyone, yeah. And this is, for everyone, okay, great. All right. You begin walking down the hillside with your corrugated sheet metal shields. As you hold on to them, the clanging of them is unfamiliar, and it resonates in a way that feels awkward and loud.

Like, it's just the way that it bends and moves as you, you know, put each heel into the dirt, and you can feel the soft mud just kind of, as the vacuum picks up as this, you know, dirt and muck is now just everywhere. And since the titles, the title searches have recently pulled out, it is leaving, you know, mud everywhere. And that's when you notice something in the sky, a large streak, almost something that seems to be like a beam of light. But it's not a, you know, streak of light like you would expect, almost. more like a shooting star, you know, but it's large and you can kind of see it slightly in the atmosphere and it's like a single red dot that's bright up against the side of the moon.

And the reason you can tell is because it is a bright red dot that seems to be highlighted beyond the moon. And you can watch and it's so easy to see because it's just getting bigger and bigger as you kind of see that something is burning up inside of the atmosphere. Are you guys seeing this? Yeah. Maybe it's a satellite that's coming down

because the orbits changed. Yeah. Maybe it's... Hole in the ozone layer? It's an asteroid that's going to change everything. And right now it just kind of is there as you kind of look at it and you continue walking

and you keep your eye on it as it is just, again, another awkward presence in this sky. And you're trying to keep your, you're keeping your eyes open for both the creatures, but then also just that as is kind of laid up in there. And the creatures are about, you can see them, some of them, especially in this full bright light of the moon, you can see one that it just seems there.

And they do this thing, this thing where they just kind of stand and they just kind of slightly sway as they kind of tilt their little heads back and you can see these appendages are just kind of moving about and that grating, screeching kind of song. And it's, they don't seem to be paying much attention to you like in days past. In days past, if you had seen them,

they would have come straight for you. You've heard that this has happened from parties that have come back, you know? But it's like they don't mind you walking around at this point. Like it doesn't matter. They just want to sing their song. They can't vote well. They're ignoring us because they don't look at us as a threat anymore.

Maybe they're sated. Maybe they were just hungry. It's our time to get food and then get out of here. Maybe they're not everywhere. We don't know how far inland they've gone. We don't know how far south they've gone. If we find enough food, we can get back to the rancho, and maybe we can head into someplace completely different where they aren't.

Is it time to find food? It's time. I would like to say, I would think it would be fairly certain that I would have some sort of a knife. If I have to roll for that, I'd like to. No, I mean, that's something that I say you would keep on you as part of what you have in your pockets. Okay. You know, it's not a 50-Cal. You can keep an knife.

It's okay. Roll for food. All right. And can we search for things other than food as well? Well, food and supplies. Food first. That is based on what we want to get into with how much we get into it, because the narration will tell us.

But if it's food and supplies, whoa. I say it all comes together in a way. Okay, it's a lot of sixes. That is four, but you only need one. Jack, would you mind taking over the story a little bit how you find supplies, food, something that makes sense in this fucked up world. So the container ship that we saw earlier, we didn't approach it before because the creatures were around. And now that the creatures are a little bit more docile towards us, we decided to explore

the container ship a little bit more thoroughly. And we actually find a large supply of MREs and which the military use for for long-term food and this could keep us surviving for quite a long time and maybe we can finally take that trip you're talking about. Makes sense. I would I would even go so far as to say at this point, that's container ship that you're talking about. It clearly has supplies into it because, um, um, I'm trying to think of what would be a great way for you to get in.

Although it could be a breach. I mean, the blessing and the curse of Australia is that basically everything has to be shipped to the continent. So everything that you need to survive comes on a container ship someplace. Yeah, there is a giant container ship that has a lot of stuff inside of it. So let's do this because this sounds fun, right? Let's have this point B where you see the container ship is untouched. It very clearly has come in. And in fact, you can still see it's a Panamax, you know, which means that it's,

basically the biggest a ship can get to still go through the Panama Canal. And you can look at it and can see that containers have fallen off for sure. Like it's not the stacked rig that you would expect, but you do see several containers that are still inside of it. And conveniently enough, there is a breach that is just big enough on ground level because, you know, Panama ships, they go deep before you get to anywhere close to the haul line. So you're talking like, I'm going to get reality checked here again, I'm sure as well. But, you know, at least 50, if not 60 feet deep.

Sure. You know. And so that you have to get into the ship. You have to at least get onto the ship. Ont to the ship. Yes. And whether you want to climb the 50 or 60 feet to go in, you'll probably have to go through some kind of breach on the bulkhead.

Does this ship still float when the tide comes in? Well, it did when it came in. Whether it does when the tide comes back in, it's going to be a whole different story. But here is the tide is out. And that could be our new home. Sail away. Yeah.

With the tide out, there is, there are debris from other structures and other boats and things that have piled up that we can pile up near it to get to that whole breach or even possibly to climb onto the deck. Do you want to start making something in order to climb back up, to climb up onto the ship, so to say? Well, I thought I overheard you saying

there was a breach near the shore. And I thought maybe I would just secure our exit with some debris that's nearby and go ahead and take advantage of that. Okay, all right. So you want to utilize the breach, but you're saying something about securing your exit? What does that mean?

There's, so that there's something else there besides just the earth that we're climbing up. I see. Just piling up, you know, what we can drag easily with our hands. So there's at least something else outside of that door in case the- Well, there's got to be rope, right? Just look for rope. There are probably buoy lines hanging down in some places. There's a whole bunch of maybe.

What's going on here. So let's, let's, there is a quick way to solve all of this, and that is to gain narrative control. One for me. One for you, a whole bunch of six for me. All right, hold on. No, not as many sixes as you. Okay.

So take it away. So we noticed this hull breach and there's a fishing ship that is also listing nearby. And on top of that, on the deck of that fishing vessel, there are crab pots that are easy to stack up like cubes. So we throw some of those crab pots down and grab rope off the deck of that fishing ship and climb into that hole in the breach, bringing the rope. There wasn't a flashlight on the deck, so there's no extra light for inside the hull.

But there are hard hooks to pull up the fishing lines. So I grab one of those and hand a... a trident hook off to Jack so that at least we can bang the hall to hear each other and potentially be able to grab things as we go, but it is gonna be dark inside. Yeah, you'll be dark, but at least you'll have some way to sluss it out, so to speak. So as you're doing this work, you're putting it together

and it takes a while. Like this is not a small 15 minute task. You're having to pull out the crates, stack them on. At this point, what you've been wearing is rags, made up of whatever you still have left over. Like wrapped feet, you tried to create as much surface area as possible, knowing that the mud has been treacherous every single time you go down. So you look like a bunch of shipwreck survivors working on this giant beast of a metal container ship out in the middle of the,

you know, middle of the Australian. Well, you're not in the full outback, but you're definitely in a valley dip laid out in the north. Eastern Territory. So, and at that point, that's when you see that the light, the bright red light, is growing brighter and it is getting bigger. And even just in the few minutes of you starting to work, you see a flash of light just come down and you watch it's something hundreds of miles away, to be fair,

100 miles away, but just something just lands right into the middle of it. and you watch as a dust cloud, almost like an atomic mushroom, just comes up far enough in the distance, and you count 1,000, 2, 1,000, 3, 1,000, 4, 1,000, as you wait for that inevitable shock wave to come. What do you want to do? We need to take cover. I want to take cover inside the kitchen. We should get inside. Yeah, take cover.

Take cover. Is this the first time we've seen something like the strike? It's huge. And did it come from? Is the red, you mean the red dot turned into that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, Ren. Three ones. Ren, you did not make enough. You can also burn something to. Did you want option to burn? Three. Yes.

Okay. Would you like what's on top? I, my vice is ravenous. Okay. Which I, I. How would you apply ravenous in this circumstance? I, very ravenously.

We need to get inside now, now, now, now. I'm just very, very, oh God. I'm very motivated to force everyone in. All right, roll those three. Oh, look at that. Well, they're not ones. Mitigated ones. Sometimes that's all that matters.

It's just to have them not be ones. Great. So tell me the story, how you're not. duck and cover before this. Well, I'll tell you just how bad it is once you get behind cover. All right. So we've sort of built up, not maybe quite where we wanted to with this pile of things, but enough that it's made a difference.

And you just run into the side of the hole. And luckily there's kind of enough light that we can see a door almost as we enter it. All right. So it's, yeah. And so we immediately open that up, go on the other side and shut it. Water just sloshes out as soon as you open the door. It's like the preferential, the pressure differential

just kind of forces out, just to, I wouldn't say like, well no, I would say kind of like a swimming pool amount of water, but like a hot tub sized amount of water just kind of comes out. And that's when you can still see on the horizon this kind of mushroom cloud come out and you can see as this waving, just slow wave of dust as it comes in. You slam the door behind you as you hear the boat just,

as you feel, it just tilt for a second, but it holds into it, but you hear all of your debris, the items that you scattered right outside. It just kind of crackle and shake and some, just kind of, you can't tell if it has all collapsed, but you can hear it as just something, just smacks the boat with such force and weight that it sends you all off kilter.

But the boat doesn't tip. What do you want to do? We should try to find a way up through the boat. We need supplies more now than ever, whether that was extraterrestrial or an asteroid or a piece of satellite debris. This is not gonna stop. Did we find, yeah, we found food.

We found some supplies. Well, yeah, you definitely know they're all in the ship. but now it's time to get them. A container ship just wouldn't have random food lying around. They would be in containers. So we've been looking for them, so now we need to just fill our packs.

And now it's time to get into it. Yeah. I think it's not, I think I want to explore this container ship. So we're inside the hull of the ship and we closed a door behind us. Yeah, we closed the door behind. It is darker now than it has been for the last three weeks.

We are inside. You're literally in blackness, which is lovely. And I will say that the one last bit about this terrestrial thing that came into the earth, just to make it very clear, is that it was not, it was definitely, it looked like an asteroid, like as far as like its size and it definitely impacted with enough force

that you could fuel the shockwave a couple of hundred miles away. So, go ahead. I did a film, which I played, this, this, I was a pirate, but we, he was on a container ship and they, in the lower docks, they have a lot of, like, along the walls for state kits and things like, that and sometimes you'll have like flares or those crackle and glow things yeah yeah we should like everyone's feel around yeah see if if maybe you can find something on the side or or maybe even if we find

like pipes we can follow them right right right yeah so you start moving your hands around you love into it and you're you know again pitch blackness this thing creaks and moans with every step that you make but eventually you do kind of find some pipeline and you're you're you know you're begin following it at least to a ladder that will take you up to a next deck at this point. And you said you're basically looking for flares and looking for, you know, anything else that you can use. Less flares and more like flashlights or those like, you know. I mean, if we find a flare, I'm definitely tucking that in my pocket. Well, nothing has happened yet. I'm just saying, I'm just going to light a flare inside the boat. Well, I think that's fine. So what we can, I think,

do is definitely find some of the emergency lighting, like the breaking fluorescent ones. And you kind of move around and you feel a box kind of open, and it's one of the very available med kits that exist on every single deck of this ship. And you grasp it and hold on to it. Your in-depth knowledge of playing this role has kind of grabbed it, and you just immediately feel that satisfying snap as you shake it as you watch as this bright green light now starts to bathe all four of you in this limited moveability space. I mean, the container ships are tight. I mean, it's a big ship, but there are small causeways until you get up onto the top deck.

Okay. We also, I bet this ship has a radio room. It might have a working radio. Yeah. I don't think that I want to go looking for the office deck where people may have been when we could look for resources first. I mean, there may be a radio, but where and how do we find it? We know how to find containers.

We need to get to the deck. They'll be there. All right. I'm just saying we also, like, getting food for today is great and all, but we need to start planning. Like, this has been going on for, I don't even know how long, and it's not going to stop. We have to be able to survive past a day. Well, if we get to the deck, we can find where the crew might have been to,

so we can kill two birds with one stone. Yeah. We can start searching the containers. And, you know, if you're squeamish about finding dead bodies or something, I can go there while you look through the containers. So radio would be important if there's anybody out there, if there's any shelter we need to get to, if there's military somewhere that are creating areas, save zones.

It would be worth it to try to communicate. I'm not saying it's unimportant. I'm just saying, do you know where it is in this ship? We know how to find one thing. We don't know how to find the other. Well, I mean, usually it's at the highest point, so we should be able to find it. So at this point, the big thing, it sounds like,

is just to get top side, just to get up onto the deck. And you begin slowly kind of climbing up the ladder. and you do see at several points that you're coming up the main deck and you're hearing the king, of you climbing up the stoops and you go to reach the door and mercifully, it opens as you pop open one

and you feel as more water kind of slushes down into you and you pop it open and you get up into the mid deck which is where you are and that's when you do start to see the bodies floating face down in the midst. of this area you've displaced some of the water but since the boat is listing there is an area you're all kind of walking on a slant so you have one hand on a

wall while you're basically walking in the corners of each one of the causeways and towards the end where the ship is you can see where several pieces of the hull have broken off and there is you can't get to them because of how far down they have fallen between the brakes in the deck, but there are definitely, there was a crew here, but not anymore. At least these ones aren't alive. There's a smell I know all too well of decaying flesh

and illness and sickness and it, it smells like that here. There is nothing here that is safe. We have to get off this deck as fast as possible. So you move up to the next rung to go up to the next mid-deck and you start to climb up and that's when you grab a hold of it again and you start wrenching it And you unlock it, you unlocks. But as you start to try to push it up and push and push, it's not moving.

It's not moving at all. It's so much resistance. There's got to be something blocking it on the other side. Yeah. We have to find another way. Can we get out and around? I mean, a lot of those have ladders on the outside. Greetings, adventurers.

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right roll better than me uh 1-1 2 6es all right let me see if I can assume narrative control two sixes uh I'm so sorry, Jack, the ties go to the GM. You succeed, let me make this abundantly clear. You do succeed, there is another way around. I just have the pleasure of narrating it versus you. So you jar this thing, attempting to move it up, and you step back down knowing that there has to just be another way around.

This can't be the only way to get up into it. And you find, as you find, you are going through this U-shaped deck that you kind of found to get to the other side of the ship, the side of which the ship is listing the most, you go down and you see that there is a waterline that's right laid up in front of you as it goes deeper into the deck. It is black. It is dark. There is no light. But you do know that just based off of the symmetry of this ship, that there has to be a matching ladder going up to the top side on the other side of the ship.

And there is, yeah, that is what I have. So who wants to dive into the depths? All that. All that. Great. Did you train in swimming in one of your roles? Trained in lots of things, Jack. Very versatile actress.

Run, if there's a body, just please try not touch it. It can bring all kinds of disease with it if he do. I'm not planning on touching bodies. I'm just asking you to be careful. Okay. Sometimes the bodies will touch you. All right. Okay. Ties go to the GM.

Wren, you kind of strip off whatever extraneous clothes that aren't necessary, at least in this regard. And you kind of get ready for what you know is going to be the shockingly cold water. That's a

going to be approaching you soon. I'm very disciplined. Disciplined. And you kind of put your, start getting your feet in there. I mean, I'll end of this. Are we going in slow or are we just diving straight in? Just diving. All right.

Well, I check the temperature first because if you dive in and it's too much of a difference and your body's not prepared, your heart can stop. You can shop. So I test it first and then. It's freezing cold, but not like polar ice caps cold. Okay. Okay.

But we're talking like a solid 51, 50 degrees cold, right? So you kind of winter cold. Winter cooled, yeah. So you dive in and you feel as your whole body just tingles as this kind of like bristling needles rise up your body as the cold shocks you and you start to push your hands as you kind of get deeper into the deck. And at that point that's when you start feeling

things colliding into you and you do see as a moment comes by as you kind of feel more than anything just grime and this weird film kind of come across your body and you can't tell if it was a fish or another body or something but it is just leaking up you as you feel like various resistance as you're pushing deeper into the water and you slowly grab into it and just about when your lungs are starting to scream you start to grab and pull yourself up. And that burning sensation, that feeling is you put your hands up into the air and feel, bong, bong, bong, the top of the causeway.

And you put your head up and you realize there's no air there. There's just nothing for the moment. So you start moving your hands side to side as much as you possibly can. And finally, for a moment, you just as you feel a little bit of air, as you grasp something in your lungs. You reach around in the dark. It's oppressing. Just nothing. There's nothing there.

I mean, as far as you're concerned, you can't even see the hand in front of your face and you're relying solely on touch as you kind of pat your hand around and look for something and you feel a latch. That's close. But it's in this awkward position where you're going to have to hold onto it. You have to go under the water in order to get both hands into it and wrung. One more for me. Come on, Wren.

It's fine, it's all special effects. It's not real. There's a set matter. Do all your own stunts, right? Obviously, we can't afford stunt people. There's a rescue diver anywhere, anywhere nearby. Okay, it just gets... I get more dice, but...

Oh, no, this one's still mine. I get one. So you wrench open the door, and you pull it as you feel. feel as the weight of whatever was on top of it just comes in and you feel as this door just flings you into the side of the head as the weight of pressing it down just kind of gets you and you can feel for a moment like this warm, hot, like feeling against the top of your of your skull as you kind of lift your hand around but you all on the other side just see as bubbles just

boom, we got to hear the sound. Yeah. And you hear not only the the weight of the door being released, but you do watch as like a, and then water just comes up again and kind of rocks back and forth. Ren. Ren. As you climb in and if you feel a desperate gasp of air

as like a water bottle that's been turned upside down, it's just as glugging out, and you grab a desperate gasp of air as you get in to the upper deck. Okay. And then I'm going to try to find where the other, where they are. Yeah. And see if I can clear it.

Oh, double back. Yeah. You double back on the U-shaped. This deck is a lot cleaner. It just seems to have just been washed out more than anything. The lower deck is where it looks like everybody was when it went down. But this deck seems a lot cleaner. And actually, you get over to the other side and notice that there's nothing obstructing it.

probably the reason that it wasn't opening is because there was so much water sitting on it at that point and even though you were an area where there was less air, you could not for the life of you push it up because there was just so much water pressure on top of it.

So? So I'm gonna open it. Yay. You open it. Hey guys. Ren. Do you still have that first aid kit? Yeah.

Okay, cool. I want to say I was holding her stuff while she dove. So I have your clothes and pull out their med kit. Fobotomist, do you want to help with this? I'm impressed. Did some Navy SEALs train you for some movie? That was amazing. I've just worked in really gross sets before, so I just kind of pretended that's what was going on.

I pull out an ice pack and gauze and clean up her wound, put some ice on it. I'm so sorry, there's no ice. Okay. Or no, there's not an ice pack in the first. cake it? The cracky ones? Oh, cracky ones. Yeah. Cracking shake? Yeah. Chemical. And I look at all that and I

look at the slick that is on her body and I know that that is the decay of human life that has been bleeding into the water and my first priority is to clean that wound to try and prevent any of that from getting into her system. Right. You sit down and you just start white. Just ruthlessly with every alcohol, white. I can. No amount of wincing or is going to stop me from getting that clean and clearing as much of that area as possible.

Ren, she is not kind about cleaning you. That is fine. I appreciate you cleaning this. Please just do not talk about what is on me right now. I don't want to hear about it. So it's tough. Jeney, it's tough in the pitch darkness that you are in at the moment, but you are doing everything you can using your tactile sense.

and the glow and your glow stick that's in there. But you're just... I just know what that smell is. That's not the smell of oil or something. No. Who knows how long those bodies have been in there. And every time you take off a bandage that's been on for, you know, a week or 10 days, that's what it smells like. Yeah.

It's rancid flesh. So you scrub her as much as you can knowing that she's been immersed in this for a while. Yeah. Especially nose mouth, ears, and the wound. Absolutely. All those places that that can get. You've been playing outbreak for so long. Duff is scary, man.

You clean her thoroughly. Yeah. And you... I mean, as thoroughly as I can with handy wipes, essentially. There's not much in here, but... So I stay really focused on the most important areas. The arms are going to have to take care of themselves. You do what you can, and you do pretty much use up whatever is left inside of the first aid kit at this point.

But the... This, like I described to Wren earlier, this main deck, This upper deck is a lot less devoid of the remnants of humans as the lower deck was. So you get up to the next part without a whole lot of extra issues. In fact, this one doesn't even have a lock into it. It's probably one of the reasons why there was so much water inside of it is because it just kind of came in and fell into the midline deck. So you get up to the main area back into the bathing iridescent moonlight that has been so oppressive.

And it was weird. Being even below, like with anything other than the moon, was awful and terrifying, but it was also more familiar. It was funny. It reminded me of this yoga retreat we took out in the Mojave Desert, where all we had were glow sticks in the middle of the night. And we just did vinyas by the moonlight with glistocks. And it's, I mean, it's funny what things can make you feel homesick in the dark. It made me think of when I actually would sleep, like actually sleep, you know, in darkness without, you know, fear.

That old thing. Remember blackout curtains and how they were great? Yeah. Well, you get to the top of the deck and you do something. see that the container ship for what it's worth, the top line, there's still a few left on there, and there is the ladder or the steps that lead up into the crew quarters.

So, and the bridge is up there too. The bridge, or the radio. Thank God you know that. So, okay. I can go to the bridge and look for the radio while you guys check out these. I'm gonna see if any of these containers can be opened. Right.

Yeah, look for resources. And you doing a radio? Is this on an exposed top deck or? It's an exposed top deck. Yeah. Okay, well, you shouldn't go alone. You go two and two? Yeah, I'll go with you.

Okay, I'll go with you. Okay, I'll go with you. Okay, great. So let's look in some container ships. Let's look in some container ships. Let's look in some containers on the container ship. Nice. Okay.

You're just killing it. All you kids is killing it. Good plus Australia, and it's desperate need for everything to be shipped here. So, no ones. I've got a mechanics question really quick. Yes, if I can. Oh, just, what are the,

why, how many dye is determined by you? So at the beginning of the session, we started with 10 dice, right? Every single time a one is rolled, I pull one out, I pull one out, and it goes to me. Got it. and this dice pool will exist until someone rolls a roll that has no sixes inside of it. So as long as sixes continue to be a result, you can keep using this die pool.

Oh, so it's not when we run out. It's no sixes. No sixes. Oh. At any point, we could lose all over. Which is why this. Which is why that roll. But then at the point, what will happen is that after that fails, we will darken a candle,

and then we will refresh with nine dice for the next scene. Oh, okay. Oh, look at that, four sexes. How? But you're such a beautiful storyteller. And so kind. So kind. As you kind as you kind of start moving over towards the containers,

you can see that a lot of them are, they've been bent and warped and kind of twisted because they're on the top deck. But there are a few that have at least been, cracked open enough to where presumably you could slip inside to do a similar deal where you can go unlock it from the inside. A lot of the containers do have just, you know, they're kind of just levers that you pull up and then you slide them out. Only a few of them have taken the extra precaution of actually locking the containers itself because the whole point of having a

shipping company is they're supposed to ensure the trip, right, unless literally pirates go and take it over. Look, we don't need the electronics. We just don't. need the food. Right. That is the problem is that a lot of these containers do have just bulk junk

inside of it. Toys, electronics, um, a lot of just goods that are being brought in at the same time. Eventually you do find

one that is, well at least it, uh, no, it wouldn't be refrigerated. And if it did, it wouldn't matter. At this point, you do find one that does have some dry goods inside of it.

You know, you find probably more rice than you will ever need in your entire life laid out in an entire container ship, like 20 pound bags stacked on pallets that fill up an entire container. So. Then we brought our forked. Right. As you are watching this, though, Janay, you as like Monica is searching through it. And do you say anything when this rice? Oh, jackpot. Okay.

All right, we got some rice. Look, millions of people all over the world have lived off of rice for thousands of years. Yeah, you don't need to tell me, boy, rice is good. I'm just so excited. I throw her a bag if she's close enough. Just 20-pound bag. Yeah, it just hits you straight in the body. I also do want to grab, was it in a different container?

When I found the electronics, I do want to grab some just cord. to have this backup rope or something that we could use later. You pull up enough, it's... Just a few electronics cords. Right, and it's... You had the light of this bit, and you have the light of the glow sticks with you, but you just pull whatever at this point,

knowing it's useless, but, you know, it's only useful as like a... Turniquet or something. So you grab and mishmash some stuff, and Janais, as you kind of grab this bag of rice, you start to see that it's snowing. There is gray ash kind of coming down around you as you kind of look up and see at this point now there is a gray sky above you. The moon, which was part of the whole process here that you could see so vividly with such a clear sky and every little pocketmark is now hazy as you're kind of watching small snowflakes of ash.

that seemed to be dropping down upon you. Yeah. I got that bag of rice though. I'm gonna grab two bags of rice, throw one over each shoulder. Yeah, I'm like strapping them to my bags. Two bags. Jack and Wren.

We should check out the crew quarters. There may be clothes there we can have or... It could be some food there too. Yeah. It's memories or some sort of preserved food. Yeah. You may have medicine cabinets. Mm-hmm.

Might find something to help you sleep? Maybe, maybe so. I'd sleep better if I knew there was a place we could go, though. So maybe finding the radio is sort of my number one priority. But, um, okay. Let's search for both. Right. Right.

Um, radio? Is that what I'm hearing? I'm going for radio. See? how much and what happens such a scavenging trip. One-six, no-once. All right?

I think we're about to hear an Ivan story. Yeah, so many Ivan stories. If you get up into the main area, you do absolutely see that the bridge for what it is is intact. The windows were blown out ages ago and there's nothing in and everything is water-locked at this point.

It's just water, or at least the remnants of what was water is there. And this is actually when you can kind of see how dilapidated the building is, the building, the ship more. You can see that rust is starting to take over the ship. The sea salt is corroding the metal. And it's not ridiculous, but you can definitely see that it's been neglected for definitely a couple of weeks. at this point and at least a week.

So as you kind of are going around, you do see a radio is there, but you can see the battery has long. Like the radio is intact, but it is not powered by any stretch of the imagination. How big is it? It's something I could unhinge, and then take it with us at least.

Those are meant to be taken apart and replaced so you can absolutely unscrew it, and now you have radio. Yeah. With your hands like a backpack or... Oh yeah, or like a bag somewhere in the room. There's got to be. Yeah, sure.

Let's go for it. You find a cloth satchel and you just shove that thing in there. It's bulky and you kind of feel its little metal ends prong you because it's just kind of holding out into it. And that's when you start to see the ash coming down as well too from the outside.

So... So I feel it's from the... alleged asteroid that hit? Hard to tell. You know? I mean, you definitely know that like what was once a clear sky is now filled with ash and dust.

Right. You know. We are on the, so we're basically like in the, in the radio room or like in the bridge area? The bridge for a container ship, we're just gonna, for the purposes of the story, we're just gonna say they're in the same area. That the bridge is where the radio

would be, comms are. And if they aren't, they're literally just a single deck, like a single room away in that main area. I'm gonna look around for like a supply closet or something that might have like masks. Oh, face masks? Face masks. Yeah.

I should have looked for batteries in the container. We can always look now, hopefully. Yeah. Until we die choking about it. No sixes one. No sixes. So you start going through the closets as you're trying to find anything you possibly can. And you begin to kind of move around and looking into it.

And that's when you start to hear something is banging metal on metal inside of this supply area where you're currently in. Something is trying to get out of one of the lockers. So this is the part of the game. Good news. We go back to nine dice. Yay. Tiny blessings. Tiny blessings.

It's real good. Let me see. Oh, good enough. But we have to speak nine truths. Nine truths about the story. Something moving forward. Yeah. Nine dice.

So we have nine dice, nine truths. I need to be spoken about the story moving forward. Now, Wren, you've failed this conflict, which means you get the pleasure of starting with the first truth. Now, I remember, whatever you say is true, so moving forward, moving back, as long as it makes for the story well. So what, I mean, what sort of truth is this? Would you like an example? Yes.

Would you like me to go first to give you an example? Yes. So that will be one of the nine truths? That will be one of the nine truths, all right? First truth always The world is dark That will always stay true I'll give you an example of the first truth

In this next scene The boat is going to fall over That is a truth Now you would speak the next truth This vessel has lifeboats on it That is the truth So two, three The cloud of

The dash begins to thicken and looks from the skyline like it could become suffocating. Cool. Four. Wren finds gas masks for all of us. Excellent. Whatever's banging, trying to get in, we will be able to defeat it. Okay, it's a truth.

Okay. So you spoke the fifth one. Now six, we'll go back to your Wren. there's someone still alive on this ship. Oh, okay. Oh, my. And then you, Janay. As light starts to pierce the thickening cloud,

the creatures start to sing louder and louder. The creatures are singing louder. Okay. Eight. Just make it about kittens. The thing that is alive is a cat. You're welcome I did that to myself

You're the last one Okay The thing that is alive as a cat Okay And the singing, the creatures are singing Yes We all find weapons on this ship Nine truths

Nine candles Nine candles We're gonna open up this scene. Doesn't sound like anyone did any time jumps. So we're gonna open up the scene pretty much right where we left off with the banging of something that's coming from inside of this grate right now. And it's hard, all you hear is the banging at this point.

And you can- It's a great or it's a locker? It's a locker. Okay. Yeah, it's a locker at this point. So what do you want to do? I get my knife out, I ready myself. Hello? I look around for like a, like a, I'm assuming I found a weapon, so I have a, yeah, you didn't.

I have an axe in my hand. Oh, yeah. One of the safety axes from the wall. Do you want to open it or should I open it or I? I'll open it. Okay, all right, okay. So, Jack, you won up to it. You kind of pull up against to it and you keep your knife out and you.

Don't hit me with that. I know. Okay. All right. Get over on that side. All right, you're okay. Lift and pull. Yep.

And you kind of lift it and you feel a something just bangs it right open. It hits against your arm as the locker kind of comes over. And you hear, as you just watch, just like a small cat, just like darts from which way in every single direction possible. And kind of looks around and you can see there was a cat cradle that was inside of this thing. But then the whole front had just been ripped open over the course. of time and it just smells of piss and fecal matter and everything that is inside of this. Way to make it not cute. So, and you look out and you see this disheveled, well, what color is it?

It's a tabby cat. It's a tabby. It's a gray tabby. As it kind of looks around and it's disjointed because of the list that the ship is on. So it's kind of more climbing than it is crawling at this point. but it goes right under one of the consoles and just is back against the wall. So, yeah, what do you do? Whoa, I put the axe down, and I immediately kind of squat down in the ground

and kind of go towards it, and I'm just like, hey, hey, buddy. Oh, my gosh. Is there another canvas bag somewhere? Oh, you have his canvas bag that's got the radio inside of it. One of it's got a red one that does there another one? Sure. Yeah. Okay. So I grabbed another canvas bag and I just basically tried to get the cat, but very quiet, nicely. Get the cat in the bag.

Conflict. I can't think of a better conflict, right? You're wrangling a cat. I, you know, it's tired. It just needs to sleep. I just want to calm and get hungry. Probably eat. It's trapped in a locker. It's so hungry. No sixes. One in one. Okay. Well.

I have to burn this, yes. You have to, whatever it is, you have to burn it, yeah. Oh, man, okay. What is it? It's my hope. What's the hope? That I will learn my brother is safe. That is not something you can burn.

Oh, okay. Unfortunately. And it was the one on top, so you cannot burn a dice for this round. So by trying to catch a cat, I've just ended the round. You've ended the scene. Oh, my God. I guess I shouldn't roll anymore. Just, oh, God.

Eight dice, eight truths. As you are trying to grab this canvas bag and shove it back into a container of which it has just escaped from a container. You attempt to grab it by the scruff of the neck and push it in, but it takes both of its arms, and its little claws, and it just rakes it. across the side of your arms

and you can feel these little stings as it just pulls onto your skin. You get to speak the first truth, though. Eventually the cat calms down. All right, eventually the cat calmed. Janay. The cat's claws were filthy and her arms are covered in decay.

There's no question that she is going to be infected. Thanks, Shanae. even though it didn't transpire in the last scene as a result, I will benevolently extend my truth to say that the, the mud that is settling is slowly keeping the boat to a tilt. Like you haven't noticed it yet, but the angle is getting more and more dramatic as this container ship is sinking into the mud. I want to go practical but also

What makes the best story We have to move on from here If you'd like You can use truths to do things To expedite it For example if you wanted to say We get off the ship That is a truth if you'd like it to be

If you don't think that serves the story in the best way then you don't have to do that. But if you're trying to say we need to get off the ship, then you can tell me a truth. That makes that. That makes that possible. We, yeah, I guess we get off the ship. I want to make sure that's your choice, though.

I didn't want to feed that to you. No. We find another shelter. That's what I want to say. We find a new shelter. You find a new shelter. Yeah. Okay, great.

We find batteries at work with the radio. batteries that work with the radio. Okay, you're all being so good to each other. Let's see, it's one, two, three, four, five, six. Before we left, we did find clothes in the crew quarters. You found some clothes. Okay, six, seven. The sound of the creature singing has taken on a round quality.

It's not in unison. It's, we can hear an echoing and a passing of each other. they know what's coming. This asynchronous harmony that they're creating, as you've left the ship, you realize that they have formed a circle around you. A candles, eight truths, the story picks up with, Monica, you had spoken that you found a new shelter.

You got off of this ship with some clothes, with some food, Wren, as you've been making your way off the ship with this cat who as per your truth has calmed down and you're kind of holding it in this bag it's wrapped though real tight um you are descending and you can tell that your arms are getting really hot like it's starting to feel like you can definitely tell the scratches they have cut deep and you um well but at the same time you're just a very happy be to have the warmth of another body that's laid so close to you, something so innocent and so pure, something that was just scared as you kept it close to you. It's hard not to just

want to put your head on this thing and just feel it's soft fur pressing against you as you can feel the ash begin to thicken around you. It's gotten bad enough now to where you've all had to put on at least not rebreathers, but you put on the work masks that are just simple filters over your face. And you now seem to be walking. As you exit the boat, you can see that the container ship has taken on a very obtuse angle. And it is just sliding and thickening in and it has gone down easily 20 feet since when you first boarded this thing together

and this blanket of ash and it's now starting to cover everything around you. What is the shelter, Jack, that you spoke in your truth? No, it was you. Oh, sorry, Monica. What is the shelter you spoke about in your truth? We found

a new place that was further away from where the blast was. Further away. Yeah. And it's another house that has

miraculously unbroken windows. There are some supplies. There's still some medical supplies so we can feed that one Tylenol. I'm going to probably say that if it was on the bottom and I appreciate

you doing everything. Oh, not on the bottom. Oh. I was thinking back up Oh, not on the area that you were in? Right. Out of the valley. Okay. Well, that's fine. No, it's perfectly great. However you want to lay into it. So you kind of went up the other part of the hill, not in the area that you were, but you went back up the hill. It took a while. It was not a small walk. It's probably spent subjectively about half a day making this

so that by the time you get to this new shelter, which is, like you said, a house that has unbroken windows and is miraculously abandoned out in the middle of the outback. Um, you're deeper inland than where you were, uh, you get down and you're all exhausted, like just exhausted, um, to where you basically throw down your bags. You can find whatever you can do to curl up and just find some sleep. But it's so hard to find the sleep because the entire time that you, you've been walking these six hours or so. It's just the screeching.

The screeching is just there. And one of the things that I think is probably obvious, no matter where you look on the horizon, there is one of these monoliths. So unless you're literally walking in between two of them, you're always getting close to one of them. So as a result, you have gotten closer to a monolith that is in the area. and as you got closer to this spire,

the chittering and the singing has gotten more agitated and more, that's the best word for it, agitated. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. but in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark. every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass canon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter, some lighter music here? Are you a fan of true crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jumped started all of our love of true crime? I'm Ellen Marsh.

And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime can't be TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry, you'll think about true crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself, who gave these people mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday, you can listen to our True Crime Rundown, where we go over the top True Crime. headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. I try to find some sleep, but it is so hard. This cat is just just darting its eyes. It will not leave you at this point. It doesn't, it doesn't know where else to go at this

point, but it's not sleeping and its constant adjustments and movement also disturb you as you all trying to find sleep. Does the first aid kit have ear plugs? Many of them do. How important are those earplugs to you? They're not for me. It's fine, it's fine. 1-1-2-6s. You find some earplugs.

You open this thing up. It's the first thing you just cut it through and you grab them. And I'm assuming from what you said, You just take them and you just try to get anything in that little kitty cat's ears right now. Yeah. Yeah. But also, you know, for them too.

Right. At this point, you're not even looking at earplugs. You're looking at gauze balls that you have tightly packed and taped into your ears. Okay. Better than nothing. Thank you. Oh, thanks so much. I don't want to.

Put them on. I don't want to blinder myself from what's happening outside. I want to keep my senses heightened. Okay. I find a closet in one of the rooms, and I throw it on my 40 pounds of rice that I hauled back on my improvised shield. Alternating, carrying it over my shoulders or dragging them along on that corrugated tin. I throw those down in the corner and try to make some kind of a pillow, some kind of a cushion. Rice are good for cushions.

But I want to be able to hear. I want to be able to hear what they're saying in case it changes. Right. So this, you all find, you know, restlessly as you kind of sit into it. Janais, as you have this bags laid up and you kind of have your body towards the door, waiting, just listening as you try to find rest, at least if not sleep, you sit down and you kind of just stare at the door and the window outside. and you can, if you just continue to adjust your eyes

to the darkness and look out through the window, you can see them. They are in a circle, and it is one of those where they have found this movement in this way, and it is impossible, but they're perfectly in sync. They're just moving with such, it's almost like if you were watching a snake charmer as he's doing his movements,

and watching these cobras list side to side, but you can see, at least in the vision in front of you, several of them. It's just front. And that is the image that you hold on to for hours as the other three try to find sleep. And eventually one of them does break off and taking its upper segments up.

it lops itself back onto the ground and you can see as the tiny little chittering legs slowly start to sway as this giant kind of centipede creature soundlessly, just slowly starts to kind of approach the main house. And it takes you a second to even process that something different has happened. What do you want to do? The weapon that I found on the boat before we left

was a flare gun. A flare gun. And I actually was lucky enough to find four flares. Yeah, cool. Yeah. They were loaded into the gun, actually. Yeah, they were around the handle. So I load one flare right into the front as I watch it coming.

And looking through the only window vantage point that I have, I begin to back toward the door of the room to see whom I can find nearest me without creating a lot of noise. Who would you like that to be? I'm praying that Jack decided to sleep close by. Jack, you kind of feel as someone is just starting to kind of like grab your coat, grab your shirt, whatever it is.

What's happening? One of them is approaching. One of them is coming toward the house. The singing is changed and one of them is coming toward the house. Give me the gun. Use your own goddamn weapon. one's mine. Okay. All I've got is a knife. What weapon did you find on the boat? We all looked

for things. What did you find? You left without anything? I already had my knife. I'm definitely not giving you resources that I just found. Well, it's approaching. We're right here. I'm right next to you. I'll give you the gun back. I have training and firearms. Let me fire it at it. I'll hand it back to you. I'm not handing over again. All right. So Jack and Janais is you kind of are having this whispered argument in the middle. It's hard, whispered or not.

I mean, there's not a whole lot of sleep to be had while this omnipresent singing is going on. Ren and Monica, do you hear them? Is they're having this silent argument? Yeah. What's going on? One of the creatures is approaching. The others. Just look.

You can see them. They're dancing. I don't know what that is, but one of them is coming, and it's coming here now. I grab my spear gun, and I run to look. As you kind of go in,

you can see that it's still, just, it's not making, like, a be-line straight for the house. It's almost as if it just is kind of slowly making this progress as it kind of comes up into the area. And at this point, it's made it about up to the Frenchport level.

you know and it's kind of come about 10 maybe 20 feet from your front door at this point the lights so bright that you can see them and their radius around you but what's more interesting is is just how the ash just kind of gives it this very it's almost as if they're like figures on an open white lake of snow, and they're just gliding along it in a very steady but persistent pace. And there's more than one moving now? No.

Just the one. Just the one. And this is what you see. Monica, as you peer up with your loaded spear gun, as you look through, looking at Janay, who's just a whole, holding this flare gun. And Jack and Ren, what about you?

Can I get in the house? I mean, how big is the closet? It's a closet. I mean, I was in a closet in the bedroom, so I backed into the room to find Jack. I mean, we shouldn't go out there. We should find somewhere in the house to hide, right? They know we're in here, so.

Yeah, hiding will just slow them down maybe, but if they want to grab us, they'll grab us. So what are you suggesting? I think we hunker down, we watch the entryways, and if they try to get him, we shoot him. Maybe we should get in the bathroom. Does the bathroom have windows in the bedroom?

Is that where you all wanna go and hold up inside of? Pull up with our weapons, maybe some supplies, water, food, who knows how long could be. So you all kind of make your way into the kitchen, or the, I'm sorry, the bathroom, and it's next to the master bedroom, and you kind of are looking through this house. There's, it's, it looks like someone left.

It was, you know, an out, back home, it's like a ranchero style or a ranch style home that was out in the middle of nowhere on this mountaintop. But there are definitely remnants of the people who used to live here. Like you can see a picture frame hanging on the wall of what seems like a very large family, like 10, 12 kids all laid out

with several aunts and uncles all claiming one of these 10, you know, and it's just, it seems like this home was huge, and it probably fit a large family inside of it at one point. As a result, there's lots of different rooms, but it's a very simple house, and no matter what, there definitely would still be some water damage, even at this stage, just to get into it. But it's surprising. Like when you look above the water line, the water damage line, just how normal it is. As you walk into the master bedroom, the sheets and the bedding is still made.

The bed is still looks great. It's damp to the touch. And there's this giant wooden headboard that's lacquered. And it seems to have this painted fish that's moving through space on it. And it's just, it looks like it looks like it, was carved out of the 70s, it's just a trip. And you stay in that room and you wait. Waterline,

there's a waterline on the walls. From the tsunamis? You've never been in this home before. Crap. Crap. It's not safe. We can't stay here long either. I mean, I guess we kind of knew that, but, yeah.

All right, I guess one problem at a time. Do we hear the, um, the creature getting any closer? So that's what's interesting, because when you get into your space, you absolutely, I put this, you absolutely, the creature comes in, but you know how you've been seeing

every single terrifying movie in which the creature bangs open the door and it's like creaching and it's like hissing and it's looking through everything, this one opens the door. with the door knob and slowly creaks it open. You can hear the door is hinging as it opens slightly. You said they were the size of a truck.

How does it get inside? This was a smaller one. I've put the cat in the bathtub, by the way. The bigger ones can get huge. But this is one where, and remember, they're like a centipede. Right. You know, they're long. Long, but not necessarily wide.

like wide. So it doesn't even need to do anything other than, now granted, yes, it is a tight fit. But it just, you can hear actually as, you know,

when you take vinyl or rubber together and you rub it together and it makes that squeaking sound, that's what it sounds like as you hear each one of it, like a, like a pop, this foo, as you can literally almost feel the foundation shake as each,

segment pops itself into the space. And it just kind of with purpose, but very, very slowly makes itself into the house. And you can hear each little foot as it finds its way into it. And it's still popping through the main door when you can eventually hear it coming around the corner in the first bend as it's making its way into the room of which you are all in. It's making its way into the room. It's making its way towards it. It's long enough that it's coming in the front door and it's entering the master bedroom at the same time. No, wait, it's coming towards the bedroom.

It's not in the bedroom yet. It's coming towards the bedroom. You will tell me if you want to do anything before it enters the bedroom. So we can hear this feet. We can hear the skittering. We can hear it coming in closer. The only thing that I know. about these things so far

is that they fear the light and the only weapon that I have is the brightest light I know. Right. So I'm not staying in the bathroom. Okay. Tell me exactly then. And I come into the master bedroom and

whatever direction the door swings I'm behind. Oh, behind the door? The direction of the door so that if this thing comes in the door, I'll be able to fire it. toward the ceiling directly in front of it to light this room up as bright as well. Got it. Great.

Well, that is, this is the idea that you have in your head as you lay yourself back to the door because you know the door swings in. Right. All right, you know the door swings in and you're just waiting, hoping beyond hope that it will pass the door by

as you kind of continue to hear it as you all three are laid up inside of the bathroom. And you do, you hear that knob just, and you feel it just opens just so slightly. And you watch is on the top of the door frame, one of its appendages, its long tentacle kind of comes down over the top of the door frame. And it just starts doing that thing for it,

like starts tapping around like an antenna, just feeling around in the room looking for anything as it slides the door slowly open. Fire your flare gun. Oh, four ones, no sixes. You wanna, can you burn something? I'm gonna burn my virtue. Okay.

Giving, can you tell me how you're applying giving into the circumstances? I realize in this moment, we've never been this close to these things before, and we have never had one this size enter our space and all I know is that if someone has to sacrifice themselves for this group, it's going to be. And I fire that flare toward the sky, or toward the ceiling in this room, hoping that it will maybe hit the ceiling and light and bounce down and maybe it will flee, but if it doesn't,

I'm there. All right. You're there. Roll those four. No sixes. You know, at least it wasn't for a cat. You take this flora gun and you hope and you can feel the sweat coming down your face as this thing is continuing to poke around and you pull the trigger and you hear nothing. Seven dice.

Seven truths. Jenae, you were the one to fail this conflict role. You do have the opportunity to speak the first truth in this situation. The flared gun did not go off, whether it was. was waterlogged or malfunctioning, whatever it is. What is your truth? I am able to load a second flare. Right.

Okay. The ash is thick enough that you have to have a breather on. I'm perched in... I imagine this ranch house has some type of rafters. that I can perch in with my speargun. You want to be above it? So instead maybe do you want your truth to be, I have climbed up to the rafters

looking down upon the master bedroom? Yes. All right. Jack. Janae will not die. That is actually the one time that you cannot speak a truth. You cannot speak a truth about people not dying

because death is always a possibility. inside of this game. It's the one one that I have to unfortunately veto. Okay. Do I get another one? Yes, yes. You can speak a new truth. I'm hidden behind the creature.

Do you want to say that you've come around the creature from the area? I'm in the corner. If the creature's coming in, I'm in the corner. You climbed out of the window, into another one and are behind the creature. Okay. So that's a truth. Rem.

It's so tense. I'm going to say that from where I am from the vantage point, the tentacle that is feeling around, is right in front of the bathroom door. Within. So you're saying that you want your truth to be that the tentacle has found its way to the bathroom door. Within axe length's reach.

That's perfectly fine. That's a truth. Okay, Jeanne. It can see me. Mm-hmm. It's going to take you. It's not... Wait, let me rephrase that.

I like to think of these truths as kind of like Jeannie's wishes. You have to be specific because they can definitely be misconstrued. It wants to take you away. Great. Seven candles, seven truths. We begin right where we left off with this thing. And it's been probing. and looking around inside of this bedroom.

You can see the ashes starting to pile higher outside from the one window in the bedroom. And you can start to hear an occasional tink. Tink, tink. As if it's like the beginning of a small hail storm outside. What do you want to do? I've loaded that second flare on a fire. Fire again.

All right. Yeah. Yeah, that's an opportunity to shoot the second player. All right, all sixes, no ones. That went much better. I have one dice in which, whoop, never mind, that one can stay down there. No way.

Take over narrative control, Janay. I see it, see me. Yes. And it is looking right at me. And as the tentacles start to move and reach toward me, this second flare that I've loaded, both arms straight out, I fire directly into its face. And the flare strikes that carapace in the face.

And it brightens and it fills the whole, it's so bright. I can't look at it. But as I look away and turn my face from that chemical fire, I realize that its face has started to retreat and there's a screech and a skitter as it pulls back. And just those tentacles are still left in the bottom. and you hear that, as it's trying to pull itself back away from the way. And actually it's thrown its head up at this point. You can actually hear as the roof above it starting to crack

as it lifts its head up just in those segmented eyes. This is the first time that you have seen it in its eyes. No one has been this close to it. And I want to tell you something. And I'm going to actually write it down for you because it is so important. Not looking. Not looking. Not looking.

So, creatures, huh? That's crazy creatures. So how big is this one? This one is, like I said, truck size is about the max length that they get. But this one, we're talking about this wide at the very least, door jam size. It has to move to go through it, but door jam size for sure. But it's having to force itself through.

And now that this I, like this flare has just erupted inside of its face it rears its head back and you can hear its shriek it's so close it's so piercing it's not the song it's just as it just lifts its head up and you hear it crack into the top of the building and you can feel as kind of the whole foundation shakes for a moment as it you can hear it as it just trying to pull itself out but it's cracking the door jam it's not being subtle now there's nothing small about it as it's this blinding thing inside of its face and its tentacles are now waggling everywhere So it's trying to get away out of this area immediately. So if there is an opportunity for you to take a tentacle now

and now is the time to do it. I'm going to axe it. Axe. Cutting remarks. All right. Take it. Tell me what happens. Yep.

So as she has blasted this flare gun in its face, as you say, I see it is a perfect opportunity to catch it off guard and I just come out and whack at the nearest largest tentacle I can see. Yeah. And just lob it off. Yeah, it just kind of flops and it falls down to the ground. It's wiggling as you see as this black eye core.

It just kind of like starts spraying. And you watch as it kind of like decorates the walls. As you see this whole thing, it just shrinks out, just, it just pulls out. And you watch it all kind of comes out in one fluid motion. As you hear, it's still whack, whack, whack, whacking the walls as it's attempting to pull itself out. Jack, you can see it's coming out right by you, you know.

I would like to jump on it and with both hands with my, that's not a knife, this is a knife. Yeah. Just cut into it. Cut into it. Just try to get as much into it as you possibly can. I like that. Yeah.

Like that. All six is no ones. God bless Australian knives. Yeah. So I get a chance. There's multiple six. is no way I can take it. Jack, take it away. So I'm able to sort of straddle it and jump on it,

almost like riding a horse or a dragon or something, and I just pull the knife down on its back as far as I can go. Okay, and you dig this knife in and you pull it straight towards you. You're kind of watching and being aware that you are pulling the knife towards you, but you are cracking this thing just, and you watch as it. each one of its carapaces just kind of snaps open, like as if you would, just cracking open a lobster, right? And you kind of pull this thing open,

and you see faces inside. As you open it forward, you actually watch as this writhing mass of human faces are just inside of it. They're screaming, they're pitching, they are the ones that are singing, they're the ones that are opening their mouth and calling out the entire time. and they seem to be in such pain.

They seem to be writhing in such awful pain. As you pull this thing open and you look into what can only be described as like a layer of hell as you're peering into this thing. And it is a chorus that just comes up inside as you as you pull this thing on. And the shock of it just makes you fall off onto the back of this thing.

As you can hear, It just continued just to move around and pop out as it just lifts itself right out of the building and just basically crumbles the infrastructure around it. And what do you do? It's in there. It's pulled itself out. You can still hear it. You can still see it in your eyes.

All right. And it's burned in there forever. But I don't know if anyone else saw it, Jack. I think maybe you were the only one who saw it. Where is it now? It's still pulling itself out. And as it kind of crumbles out into the ash, you kind of see as it is kind of flopping,

and it retreats back into this giant circle of its larger compatriots as it is now just around. But you slowly hear as it rejoins the circle, it's pulling back. to the point of where even they fall off into the darkness. And you are left in terrifying, piercing silence. I get down from my perch, check on everyone. Is everyone all right?

Anyone wounded? Who is that noise? Well, there's no easy way to say this. When I cut into its back, I saw human faces on the inside. Jack, it looked at me with human eyes. That's the source of the screaming. It's people or souls screaming out of it. So when people have gone out to scavenge and not come back,

they didn't. Oh, my God. They didn't die. I think they've become a part of these things. Can we make a promise? If that thing gets one of us, I don't want to become part of it. That's not how I want to go.

Same. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Okay. We can't stay here. They know that we're here. They've breached it. They can open the goddamn doors.

We fought one off, but yeah. They're going to send more. We've never seen. We've got to send more. We have to burn them down. We need to burn. We have to go to. They hate light.

I don't know. We need to just burn everything. Fuck. Eucalyptus burns. Yeah? These groves, they could burn. Okay. These groves could burn.

We could set this forest on fire. We could track them. I don't know if the undergrowth is too wet, but maybe, maybe if we got to the edge of the forest, we could set the forest on fire. Maybe it would create a break. If we could get to a place where there was no monoliths. If we couldn't see one. You can hear as the tinking, tinkling. starting to be heavier now.

I'm doing this because of the effect of it. I like the tapping. But it starts to feel almost like, again, like these hailstorms. It's just like you can hear the sheet metal that is making up a part of this roof. It's just clang, clang, clang, clang, a little bit as you are having a discussion about where to go and how to do and what to do in this whole space. and definitely the infrastructure of this building has taken a hit for sure. I'm gonna look around for matches and lighters

and anything that'll burn. Is it even safe to go outside? What kind of hail is that? If we look out, do we actually see hail? Or are we- Go out and look out into it as you see the things that are rocking are rocks. It's raining rocks.

How big, yeah. About an inch. Anywhere from marble to about three quarters of an inch. That's gonna hurt. I've seen hailstones that size dent a car. Yeah. We have our shields though.

We have our shields. Can I like stick a shield out the window just to see yeah, if it hits one? It's, it hits it. It, I mean it, it's like, I won't say it's like someone took a ball peen hammer and hit your shield with it, but it hits with enough force that you feel it.

It's not light. It's, but you, I mean, it holds up. Okay. You don't see like a large visible dent coming into it. It definitely feels like it's more of a, you can't tell if it's going at terminal velocity or not these hailstones. I don't think we can leave while the rocks are falling,

but we can light the trees on fire. We can create enough fire in front of us that they won't want to approach the doors, at least for now, maybe just until the rocks stop falling. Okay, yeah. Maybe just some type of ring of fire. around the house. Right. So you're going to go and first find the consumptables.

Yeah. Matches. Any type of, yeah. Lighting fluid. Yeah. Sounds good to me. I think this is a Monica thing this time around. Okay.

Yeah. Get it. I hope I have a beautiful role like you all just did. Okay. One and one. Okay. Okay. Okay.

is all you, Monica. So you start digging around. What do you find? It's a tale of fire. All right. The tale of fire. Wren and I are looking around the house for combustibles. We find, like, a stash.

We find a whole, like, indestructible case under the sink that is actually... The case itself is metal, so it's, like, made for this to last in times like this. It has matches. It has lighter fluid. It has, like, all the things. Right. And, yeah, we're going to need some dry wood, which we could take from the house.

Since there's the creature kind of smashed up some of the roof, we could take some of that material to burn. It's good kiddling. Yeah. Around at this point, as you're helping Monica dig around and look around, you're starting to feel incredibly lightheaded. In fact, you're starting to start. starting to feel a little just rough around the edges.

It's, there's this pounding headache that's starting to kind of slowly creep into your conscience, not full blown there, but it's there. And you do feel a little nauseous. Okay, I recognize this feeling and I go to search for a medicine cabinet. Mm-hmm. I need to get some aspirin, I need to,

my arms and alcohol, basically. Well, you've used up pretty much the first kit for whatever it's worth, but you do manage to find some aspirin, you find some clean gauze, you just pop a bunch of aspirin to kind of lay into it, and you take, you know, at this point, three weeks the water would not be running unless it's well water, no power when being able to bring the pump up. So, I mean, you do what you can with the clean gauze to kind of get into it. and you put whatever is left of the alcohol on there as much as you possibly can as well.

Or is there like Purell anywhere? That's basically what alcohol is. Alcohol is ostensibly just jellified. It's just ethyl alcohol. It's just ethyl alcohol. And you do what you can. But Monica, yes, you did find all this stuff. So I guess what is this, yeah,

is the plan still to make this ring of fire around it? Yeah, I think we did. We dig a little ditch around the house? I think we should set the eucalyptus trees on fire. I think that the most natural kindling we have are the paper trees outside and they might be the only things big enough to actually scare them off.

That's what I think. Let's just stop the fire from getting to the house. Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. If we don't like contain it somewhere, then we could lose control of it really easily. Well, one thing I will say is that with what is going on outside right now, right now, wherever you do or whatever you do,

someone's gonna have to be holding something above you. Right, okay. How are the creatures handling the rocks? You haven't seen them, they backed off out of the eye line at this point back into the dark. I think as long as these rocks are falling, we're safe. They didn't pull back because of the rocks, they pulled back because of Jack's attack.

Are you sure? That's what it seemed like to me. They were falling before. Unless it's a coincidence, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if we want to light the trees on fire, we'll need one lighter and one shielder at the very least. Maybe I put a shield on each arm and then sort of hold it above me and the lighter. Yeah. So at this point, Monica, are you taking it? You're the ones with the combustible equipment right now. You can make a choice to either go spend more time to dig this trench as you're talking about or go light the trees per. For Janae's idea. I mean, digging a fireproof

trench would take hours or days. Yeah. I just, I don't I don't see the benefit of lighting the fire when they're not even here. Yeah, okay. Well, then let's just keep that as our... We can be prepared. We'll just prep for it. We won't do it until they start to come back. Which could be, this could be the time to...

We could have both plans. Be ready to light a fire on tree, on fire. If they approach... the house still, then we can have this trench and light that. We'll see how much time we have. I don't think that there's a whole lot of benefit in trying to protect this structure. I think we need to get out of here as soon as we're going to stop falling. It's not about protecting the structure. It's about protecting us inside it until we can retreat or whatever's next. But if you're saying light a tree and then run in the opposite direction, we could do that. I don't think we can run during these rocks. Then we're back to the beginning.

So we just wade out the rocks. Yeah, we waded out. Yeah. Okay. So you wait. I am going to just start to, I probably won't get around the whole house, but who knows. Make like a circle of lighter fluid, which will evaporate. Or, yeah.

Before we get a chance to light it. It needs like a bed of something, right? whether it's the ground or the kindling or whatever it is. So I don't know. Yeah, I just want to start maybe like a 10-foot drain. Okay. So. Not too deep.

If I hear you correctly, Monica, are you going outside? Yeah. Great. Who wants to be my cover? I'll be your shield, man. Go. Outside. This is just to go outside?

It's just to go outside with the hailing rocks that are going. Oh, dear. Okay. Yes. All right, corrugated seal. Okay. Two sixes? Two sixes.

So as you begin to climb outside, you go and you do find a little bit of just down to eucalyptus. It is water locked. It is wet. And one of the things you notice as you're going out is you can hear the sounds of eating. You can hear. Oh my god, okay.

Can you hear the signs of what? Eating, though. And as you get closer, you pull this branch and Jack, you hear it too. You're close. It's something is, I mean, you can't see it, but it is there around you somewhere. So, but the point is, do you investigate

or do you just head straight back? I wanna light something on fire to scare it. Do you wanna light this branch on fire? Well, you've got your spear gun. I have my spear gun. Let's see what it is. You wanna investigate it? Yeah.

So you... Pull out my spear, I'm gonna have it already. Just light this thing as you begin to pull it out and you put some of the combustible equipment onto it and you kind of watches it. It just kind of slowly catches flame. And it is a paper tree, so you're right in that way. It's good kind of kind of watches.

It slowly stums up. And the aura of flame kind of extends the light around you. And you can see one of the creatures is laid over one presumed. presumably the smaller one that you were talking, on the one that you cut open, and it is pulling it and lifting it up, and it's almost like a snake, eating another snake,

is just kind of wrenching it inside of itself as you kind of hear the segmented, as it's pulling the other one. And as the light kind of comes by, you can see it's doing this action as it's laid up, and it kind of like looks towards you, and it just, vomits it all back out into a single moment and it just starts...

I hold the fire out. Yeah, it... It comes back. It's cum-crombes room, but you watch as one of its tails slowly starting to come around the other side. Spear that thing. Yeah, I aim at the tail. You want to aim at the tail that's coming around? In the face, in the head?

I'd say, yeah. Shoot in the face. Shoot in the face. Pull into it. Did you light the spear gun? on fire? Is that what's on fire? I think I have a branch. She's just holding a flaming branch with the spear gun. With the spear gun, yeah. And fire it, by all means. No, no six is three ones. Can I? Yeah, can I burn, this is my virtue. It's resourceful. I mean, it's a virtue. You can rerroll these ones,

but you have to tell me how you're being resourceful in the context of this challenge. Well, since I do have a lit branch and a spear gun, maybe I am putting them together somehow. And you did, were the one who found this material as well, too. The combustibles? Yeah, you were the one who found it as well, too. The reason you can do this right now is because you found it. Flaming spear to the face. Flaming spear to the face.

Let's see. No. Or not. No once. Okay. So. So that's it. Okay.

Yes. That is the end of this scene. As you hold this gun out and you fire the spear, you watch as it unceremoniously, just whizzes right by it as it kind of jinx its head to the side and it starts to creep towards you despite the flaming fire in its face. Six candles, six truths.

The spear gun unceremoniously fired its spear right by its face. As you can see as the flames are starting to maybe keep the face away, but it is a long, very agile body, and it's only keeping the head away at the moment. But you do get the first truth, Monica. I light a tree on fire.

So you light the tree on fire. Great. Jack, what is your truth? I stab it. Oh, you stab it. Okay. All right. Ren. The rocks have stopped falling. The rocks have stopped falling. Jene.

From inside the house, I can hear the sound of some of them starting to come closer as they start to sing again. The songs are starting back up again. There is a monolith very close to hear. Last truth. Oh. I like this, both of these, the dead one and the live one. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership. I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because.

This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John, and Robert Irvine. And now I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to you. From modern leadership tips

to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugged their go-to source for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just,

one episode away. This is Mick Unplugged, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing, and suddenly you want to know more. Well, that's the idea behind my podcast, something you should know. Every episode starts with a question you've probably never thought to ask, like why people do or don't like you? Why certain habits stick? Or what everyday advice is actually wrong? I'm Mikeer Rothers and I talk with scientists, authors, and experts, and I keep it practical, surprising, and fun to listen to. If you've got a curious brain, come try one episode of something you should know on the podcast app you're listening to right now. On fire. So you would like to extend your truth

to now saying you're lighting two trees on fire? Oh no, I'm sorry. The creatures. You light the creature on fire. Yeah, both of them. Well, I only described the one at this point. Oh, it was eating. One was eating. Oh, I see. The other one that vomited out. The dead one. So you light them both on fire.

Yeah, I want to see what happens. Right. So that's it. Six Candle, six truce. We pick this scenario off. Jack, it seems like you, while holding onto this thing, you had stabbed it. And at this point, you know, kept it distracted enough for Monica to basically take the leftover gasoline, whatever gasoline you had, and used every last drop of it in order to pull it on on that one and pull it out on the other one and get these trees on fire. And you just, you became overnight arsonous as you just started lighting everything you can.

Jack, you came away with singe hair on this because of Monica's just feverent desire to just get everything on here fire. But yes, you did. them both. And Ren and Janay, you watched as this just gas explosion almost of just fire, just foam! And now the burning, as you're watching these languid creatures just kind of slop around and just and you kind of watch as they scurry off, not the one that the smaller. In fact, you just continue to hear the screams, the singing and the screams. Coming from inside. Coming from inside. as this thing is slowly burnt,

and you watch as it turns to ash and it curls with its insectoid body as it lifts itself up like a spider does when it dies, and he watches its legs kind of turn into a bit of a ball, and it blackens. But the screams eventually stop. No, the screams continue. From the blackened body.

You hear the sound as it just continues to permeate, and is everywhere. It is less coming from the body. It's not like you put your ear up to it and you can hear it, but the singing as Jenae spoke and her truth has come back up now that the rocks have stopped falling, and you can hear it everywhere again. Now that you know what it is, it's impossible to ignore.

What do you want to do? The rocks have stopped. We've got to get out of here. We got to get more inland. We got to get away from a monolith if we can. So we don't see any. Is there anything still on fire? It depends on how long you've waited for the fire to go out.

If you just left immediately, then things would absolutely still be on fire. I'm not waiting. If the rocks have stopped and there's fire, I want to go. You back up and go. Oh, yeah, I would just, because I would have tried to have spread it more. I see. The spread, oh, the fire. I want to burn the forest.

Let's light the house on fire. Yeah. Spread the fire. Yeah, there is a tree. Ren, please. That was set on fire too. Yeah, there is a tree. Okay.

Two for me. One for you. Two for you. No, one for you. So is that a... Oh, that's a success. Oh, okay. Yeah.

By all means. You just need one six to make it work. Okay. Yeah. Do you need a rule? It's the first role of it, so I only... I only roll the ones that I inherited. Thank you.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, please, by all means, elaborate on this firefighting. I see this explosion happening. Right. You had taken all of the lighter fluid and everything out with you, but there's still, like,

kindling and, like, those little starter bricks. Matches. And I just grab a bunch and run out to you. And as this one is turning to ash and the other's running away, I just start to light as many, trees and fire as possible and take sort of a burning stick and walk back to the house so that when we're ready to go we can light that up too right so as you all leave the building you kind of chuck it against the wall and watch as it slowly starts to climb up the side of the wall and

start to pick up it doesn't go up immediately in the house was there any canned food when we were looking for things we said there were some provisions well she had spoken that there was some But certainly I'm taking one of those canvas bags, throwing at least one 20-pound bag of rice in it and throwing... I think at this point, if you take whatever you have, it's whatever you're going to be holding onto your back with what you have. You're still lugging this radio around. And the battery use... I would have liked to have grabbed a can of tuna. Can of tuna.

A canvas bag with Oliver. Okay. Oliver. Is that his name? Oliver. It's my cat. All right. So you grab something for a can for Oliver and you just start.

start getting out, you light this thing up, and you begin walking away from the fire as much as you can into the wilderness. The dark lit wilderness, the dark moonlit wilderness. Sorry. I have to say this does not feel as cool as when I usually walk away from flaming buildings. There's no cameras rolling right now, for one.

No. And Oliver is from inside of the bag. And it doesn't like being contained very much. So every once in a while, it will attempt to try to pull itself out of its little canvas bag. I'll put up those little can a bit. Give them some food. Here's where I get to be cruel. Oh, God.

It is not a pop can. It requires a can opener. Knife. Knife. Knife. But I swear to God, if you stop to open a can of tunic, I'm not stopping. I'm going.

I'm going. I'm just putting that out there. We've been not stop action. I haven't even had a chance to turn the radio on yet. Yeah. I'm just putting that out there. It's a value. I'm going to keep going.

Can walk and pop. Yeah. So you continue to walk and the ash is still coming down, but you walk for a while. It's tiring and you don't hear any of the creatures. At some point you walked far enough away where the singing wasn't omnipresent. in your entire 360-degree senses. It has gotten quieter, but it never really ends.

And you don't know if you just can't get it out of your head because there's no other sound except for the crunching of sticks and the slopping of mud as you continue to walk across the wilderness or if it's just because it's that light everywhere right now. But you walk

and it's only when you're starting to really get exhausted after several hours of walking that you think that it's time that you may be safe enough for now to sit down and take a break. It's still ash, snowing. Yeah. We see any monoliths? So as you've gotten closer, the moon would have illuminated. And at this point, it's just, yeah, I'm honestly still trying to imagine just how much light you would get from the moon being that close. And how much it would be like day but not day.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think it's easy to see the monolith. Yeah, it's very easy. They're giant. So for hours we've been walking and we're still walking in the direction of one? Yeah. they're 100 stories high, you know, and they're large bases.

And it's one of those things where you had to, well, actually, at this point it's 100 stories. I would say for an hour. You're not making a whole lot of progress. Remember, there's a lot of slobbing and going through mud. But just to be clear, our intention was to go away from the direction of any visible monolith. Okay, so then what would happen then at that point is you'd have to walk in between two monoliths. Right.

And then what would happen is once two have passed you, there would be another one right in front of you on the horizon. Great. But you could at least get between, yeah, to that center point where you're far than a far enough. Far enough from all. We either far from the mall or close to them all. Yeah.

Yeah. We have to stop. We don't have a goal. We don't have a direction. Have we tried the radio yet? No. Let's try the radio. Let's take a break.

Let's feed your cat. and try the radio. So you sit on, I don't know, an outcropping of rock that might be in this area, you know, you've long since left the burning eucalyptus behind you, and you just kind of sit there. You can still feel the ash. At this point, the rebreathers that you've been wearing

to kind of protect yourself from inhaling the ash, they're all gray at this point, and you've been walking in it, and so you all look like ghosts covered in ash at this stage. And there's just enough of the outcropping that you can kind of at least get the radio and you take your hands

and you just move piles of ash out of the way into it, then find this tiny little lean-to in an otherwise completely exposed and open skyline. And these, you know, Ash at this point is thigh deep in some areas. Wow.

Wow. And this would normally be, this is the desert we're in? You would technically, if the world was right the way it was, you would be in red desert. So we've moved through the eucalyptus forest, through the rainforest, and out toward the red desert where the termites are. But it's not red. It's gray. It's gray. And you can see, I mean, at this point, there probably would even

be a termite mound or two that you would pass potentially, but you're not looking for those. You're looking for anything that could provide at least a moderate amount of shelter. There's less ash built out around trees. And like I said, there'll occasionally be an outcropping of rock that you can maybe get in there. But you are an exposed land. And it's so thick at this point that you don't even dare take the masks off at this point. But you put the radio down. kind of sidle it into place and um you kind of it takes you basically had to what you managed to get

is essentially a small car battery like like a motorcycle battery because you wouldn't be able to do this or any kind of cell batteries or anything like that so you kind of have this small motorcycle battery and you kind of lay it out and you take your wires that you had earlier and actually connect hit from positive and negative and you turn it on and you start searching begin searching

as you turn this radio on you search through static static everywhere the radio turns on but you flip through nothing as just audio snow

pierces every single channel as you go through the dial phase and you feel this static kind of just overwhelm you and you hope just for one moment something anything can come up as you seek through it and you check FM FM 2 AM radio ham you go through the entire circuit of whatever this little radio can find

and you hear nothing and you kind of feel the hope drain out of you as this trickles of ash continue to fall upon your hat in your head and it's hard not to think of it as a little bit of a winter wonderland but you you hear nothing

five candles five truths first the world is dark the world is always dark but jack you do get the first truth we find a structure another structure yeah okay there's a

a U.S. military base in the Red Desert both Jack and I have spent time there for different reasons and one of us recognizes that we think we're actually

pretty close to it that's a lot of truths let's break it down to one oh okay okay give me one Jack recognizes that we're near a military base great

the first statement was just a statement of fact as a preface. It's perfectly fine to have the truth be that, you know, and even giving it to Jack being like, you recognize there's a military base close by. Jeanne. The deeper the ash gets, the harder it is to move forward and the slower we move. It's starting to be like powdered snow where it's harder to move through than wet snow because it keeps falling in on itself.

the rocks are starting back up again the rocks are not sorry just kidding um is this the last one is the last one what's good for the story we find

we find a dead creature in the ash a dead them okay yeah five candles five truths this is the time in which I tell you that things can start happening.

Once we're at a certain stage in ten candles, dire consequences start coming into place. And when dire consequences come into place, lives become jeopardized. You can always heroic sacrifice should you feel the need to, which basically means that you snuff out the candle for your own life to save somebody else. But we're at that point now in the story.

So as Jack, you fiddle with this radio for as long as you can, eventually, well, someone turns it off. I mean, I'm not going to say who, whether it's you, Jack, or at some point, it's just not enough. You just have to turn it off. And you hear and feel nothing, not even the cicadas chirping, which is so prevalent always in the landscape like this. just not even insects. It's just quiet. Just, at this point, Jack,

remember that even with the ashen cover ground, you realize you're far enough inland. At this point, you might actually remember that there is a military base of which you've gone to a couple of meet and greets in a different time, at a long different space. Yeah.

What would you like to do? I think I know where we are actually, and there's a military base that's, I think, possible for us to get to. You know, obviously the rocks are coming down again. Oh, yeah, by the way. So we're better. Yeah.

But I think I can get us there if you guys trust me. All right. Okay. All right. I put my canvas bag on my back as some kind of a protection from my back and holding that shield over my head against the rocks. This structure that we're at looks like it might have just been a beekeeper structure or someplace to get out of the sun while collecting things here,

but it's not going to stand up to the rocks for a long. No, no. You begin to move through and you actually, you begin to walk. I mean, Jack, you start leading them towards a direction, you know, at some point, knowing using the landmarks that you have in your mind as best as you can. And you start just hunching down and moving forward. And at first the rocks are light and tapping.

But then eventually you start hearing some larger ones just kind of come down and you actually watch as a boulder. Oh. A legit boulder just like crumbles. And like what you watch is it kind of makes its own puff as it just goes, and you walk this little piece comes up. Basketball or like, okay.

Pretty close, pretty close. Like cool, cool, cool. Small volleyball. Great. A smally ball. A smally ball. And you are just now hoping. Just one of them doesn't,

but it becomes a cascade like a rain. And it just starts to trickle down upon you. Jack, lead them, lead them somewhere, anywhere. That's not out in the open. Nice. D6 is no ones. Very nice. You take narrative.

control okay um yeah we uh we get to the point to where even like throughout all the ash um we see often the distance um the base yeah you see the fence first more than anything just the and it's hard ironically you can still see the unoff you know for authorized access only right we see the side You know, we sort of find our way to where the road leading up to it is. It's interesting because as you look at it, you would expect, like, some kind of, you know, refugee symbology, like check-in's a check-in point, something. Mm-hmm. None of that is there. In fact, as you look into the base, you can actually see, as you're cresting over into it, you don't actually see the base itself yet.

you just know that the gate is there and it is intact. So, and the rain of rocks continues to barrage upon you. What do you want to do? Let's make our way to the gate. Make a run for it. Yeah, we'll run for the gate and you run up to it and you go against the chain link fence and you can feel you look up atop and you can see even with the ash over it. And at this point, it's piled up a lot more around it than it would be on the other area.

but you can see there's barbed wire laid out on the top of it. Well, let's take refuge in the gatehouse that will be on the outside so that then we can sort of formulate our plan from there. Rocks are getting bigger, but at least we can hide in the gatehouse. As you like double back along the gate, or you can get to where the gatehouse is, you suddenly see as just a giant boulder just goes, so it just lands right in front of you,

and you kind of feel as just a shower of dirt just like just lifts up in front of you as you're sprayed all across your face with just dust coming down and you look at it and you look at it and you can see it's gray. It's a large gray rock with tiny pieces, a little crater onto it.

Small other impacts. The fucking moon is falling out of the sky. It's the moon. It's the moon. And then you step over it as you take a little bit of a, like you jump off of it as you continue to watch with now larger rocks. Just,

K'KKKoo! And it's just just impending, it's almost like an asteroid feels, just raining down upon you, and you roll across out into where the gatehouse is, and you can see it's just ashen covered, just laid across, and you slide that door open as much as you can, and you cram yourself in.

It's a gatehouse, the four of you fitting it, it is miraculous enough as it is. You kind of cram in there, and you hear, it's just the small, the small pounding of rocks is to continue to lay out on top of it. I have to get underground. Does this base have

Like underground I mean I wasn't stationed here I was out of the military when I moved here But um It must right yeah there's got to be I've been here but Another rock just slams right in Monica see if you can avoid the depre

As it's slamming into you I do me oh Okay Well Success 1-1 go for it Oh. Monica, as you basically feel this thing, just run into it. It is another one of the, not the big basketball one that came down,

but it was definitely a softball-sized boulder, and it just slams through the window, and you feel as it just hits you in the back of the shoulder, as you just kind of throw your body forward and you scream out in pain. It cascades down across the view, and it just seemed to have glanced off of you, like it didn't take its full weight. It just kind of like hit you on the way down

and you kind of feel your shoulder and it doesn't feel torn or broken or anything, but it's bleeding a little bit as you kind of put your hand on into it. And yeah, it's that, I mean, it didn't go through the window. It went through the wall to come. We have to get inside.

There's got to be a manual override for the gate. Yeah, are there keys here or something or any kind of, yeah, there's got to be a button that'll open the gate. There is a button for the gate and you press it, you'll press it. hold into it and nothing. There's no electricity. We just got to go. We got to climb shoulders.

We got to use our shields to get over the razor wire, use the canvas bags, whatever we've got. No, there should be a manual override for the gate for when the power goes out. We shouldn't have to climb over the razor wire. We're at the gate. We should be able to like find that manual. Yeah, unlock it and then pull it. Or push. I find it.

Rob, and you start looking around, digging everywhere. It is yours. Take over for me. In a very determined fashion, no, discipline, in a very disciplined fashion, I look for the manual override. There's actually a lever inside the gatehouse that says manual override and has little instructions, you know, with the picture of the gate and the little like eye pushing, you know, like, don't do this sort of thing. And I'm like, okay. And then I, you know, point out to how we need to do it and sort of quickly communicate to everybody. We need to do this thing and push it open.

and we all go. So you slide it out as you hit that lever, you watch as everyone comes out and you start grabbing the gate with all of your might, and you start just pulling on it and wrenching it. One, two, three pulls

just enough so that your bodies can all just slide through. And as you start to hear and feel and it's just, just these craters are just starting to be made around you as this is like someone just like a frost giant

was hurtling boulders at you as you're running for the, the gate of the keep. And you make it through and you start just keeping your head down and the sheet metal is doing a lot in order to take most of the brunts of the hit. So, and that's when you start to notice as you get closer, the ground in front of you is cracked. And you can see as you moving forward that the split earth is laid out in front and ash is falling into it. At first, it's piled up enough to where you don't see it, but you slowly see as the ash becomes less and less deep as a fissure starts to be in front of you

as you're running straight towards the base. Can we tell how wide the fissure is? Is it wide enough that we could lay a shield across it and cross it? Oh, well, right now it's in front of you going towards you, but if you're not at a point where you would need to cross it yet. So we can just go on one side or the other. You just pick one side or the other. Which says it's literally directly between us and the base.

I continue to move along nearby the fissure because the ash has been falling in and it's not as deep and it's faster to move through. Keeping the shield on the fall off side as I move through the ash. Who's still holding shields at this point? I think we all are. Oh, you all have shields. You're not shielding each other, right? You're just holding. You're kind of shielding ourselves.

Like running, yeah. Okay. So as you begin to kind of run forward, you, you know, pick the left side of the fissure or, I mean, let me know otherwise. It really doesn't matter at this point. It's all ash, you know. So you kind of head to the left and you start running forward as much as you can.

And you do see that, like, it definitely looked like the ground had cracked at one point, and you can see as you're looking to the side now, you can actually see the hail of rocks. And they aren't coming at an angle like you would expect. They're actually just coming straight down. It literally looks like a direct. downpour is coming straight in on these things and Jack I need you to avoid. All right.

One is coming for you. One one, one six. So Jack, as you kind of hold on to it and you're talking with everyone like pick the left side, move forward as you kind of come arras and you're looking at this downpouring of rocks as you're moving forward towards the base and you can see as this fissure is growing deeper and you can actually watch as the rock or the earth is kind of split and this chasm is growing wider and wider. And this is distracting for the moment

in which you actually feel a hard rock just like right against it and you feel the impact on your arm as kind of it wants to bend for a moment. And that's actually not so much the problem. The problem is that it hit your shield arm so much that it actually exposed you for a second and you got one of the smaller ones just cut right into your head for a second. And it like, you kind of feel this impact, but you didn't stop you enough. It stuns you, but you just keep moving forward, and you can feel a small bit of warmth trickling down your face as you continue to run towards the base.

And you finally get into the point where you can see it in the horizon, and you get closer and realize that half of the base has actually been cracked in the middle. And the other part of it has just fallen into this chasm that you've walked into. And you can see that about a third of it is still standing up, but it is precariously poised on the edge of this giant chasm that is split into this part of the land. So let's go towards the building that's the farthest away from the chasm. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And you run up and you get up to the door and it is locked. Why would it not be? Right. You have an axe. There's got to be a window. We can start working our way through. Right. Even a reinforced window.

What type of handle is it? It's one of those, aha, I see what you're getting. It is one of those electronic security lock ones. So in a no power situation, it would just dead lock, dead bolt. Okay. All right.

Well, maybe you would know that, maybe not. So the point is there's no handle. Right. Okay. Let's find another way in, I guess. Yeah, let's axe our way in. Now, is this the, just to be... I say ax to window, that's what I say. Right.

Yeah, this is the half of the building that's not sinking into the chasm. Well, think about it like this. The base, there's several... Many buildings. There's a lot of buildings. But we're still talking about this one building that we were running towards. Yeah, this one building is cracked so that all of this is off in the chasm, but there are other buildings around, even like a motor park.

pool, you know? Yeah. So the issue is do you want to go to one of the other buildings that's not on the side for the chasm is, or do you want to go to the largest building, which is currently being cut in half by the chasm? I don't really want to go into the building that's going to fall into the chasm. Great. Okay.

So you go to the nearest one that you can find, and you start looking for a window to come in. They have reinforced, like, metal to prevent this kind of attitude going into it. But, Wren? Okay. If you're axing I'll hold your kitty Yeah and I'm shielding her All of you

I didn't get it Okay Don't burn your finger Careful it's fine Ren as you take this axe And you just start wailing it against The glass breaks immediately And as it does

And you start hitting it against the metal grading As much as you possibly can And you just start wailing on it And wailing on it and wailing on it And there's something going through your mind right now. There's something that's overtaking your emotions while you're hitting this thing. What is it? It's about the person that gave their life to save me and how it was for nothing.

You just want to prove that wrong. You want to live for something so that their life was not in vain. And you think about this. And it is the only thing that takes your mind is you can continue to hit it over and over. and over again to the point of where the three of them are watching you, and it's clear you're not making it through the metal. Its sparks are lighting every single time as you hit the metal on the axis bending at this point, but you don't stop.

You just keep going into it. You feel your muscles begin to fatigue, and your face is starting to get hot as you're pushing all of this exertion into it. That's when you slip just for a small moment, and you feel as a piece of the glass that you had shattered cut and it goes right across the top of your arm. Not this way. Not here.

I want to make that clear. But it just cuts you right down the front and you just groan as you drop the axe right in front of you and you start to feel hot blood gushing down your arm. It looks like a giant catch. Four candles. Four truths. Run.

I'm so sorry I have to give it to you again, but you do get the first truth in this circumstance. We find an open hangar nearby. An open hanger. Great. Janae. A hissing scream starts to come out of the chasm. The cat jumps out of the bag. We, someone is alive in this building besides us. In the hangar?

Yeah. or in the building you were trying to break into. The hangar. Four candles, four truths. We'll pick up this scene with all of you running with your shields above your head, belining it straight for this airline hangar. And as you start to get close to it, you can start to hear this hissing, this giant screeching coming from the chasm. It is loud.

It does sound like one of them, but it sounds like the biggest one of them you've ever heard in your life. And you make it for, you make it to this airline hanger. And at that point, as soon as that first, that first, just huge shriek comes into the place, that's when Oliver just too much just takes it and just leaps right out of the bag. head straight for the direction that you guys are not running towards at this point. What do you do? See, cover inside the hangar, the cat can take care of himself. Keep running, yeah.

Janay, Monica, you run towards the hangar, you see it as it comes by. Ren, are you going to stop to save this thing? I'm going to the hangar. You can feel the blood running down your arm, and you just keep moving. As much as you can, Jack. I run towards the hangar, and I jokingly say, he's got eight more lives.

He's better off without us. He probably, it's gonna find somewhere safer than we are. As you make it into the hangar, you can see that there is still an airplane inside of the hangar, but not much else. And you can see that from the wings, curtains have been drawn down from the wings to make a sheet, so to speak.

And there is clearly the signs of someone who has been here already. As you come across this four-propeller long bomber, And as you make it into this line, you can still hear the screaming. It's so loud. And the earth begins to slowly kind of tremble and quake. It's just rumbling at this moment, but something is coming from it.

I sort of assess the situation to see if this person's here, if these make to, or makeshift dwelling that someone made, like is there some, hello? Hello? Hello? You call out and you don't hear anything at first. You make your way up closer and you kind of put your... You pull back the curtain.

You pull back this curtain and you can see that there is a man who is a man who is sitting on several cushions in kind of a cross-legged position and he has disheveled hair and he seems to just have a leather jacket on but no shirt cut off pants and what appears to just be ripped up shoes and you can see candy wrappers are just laid out all around him at the moment and he just seems to just be sitting over something and now that you're inside you can see that the inside of the linen has just a It's just everywhere, just scrawled, just picturesque versions of the monoliths that are there.

And he constantly, like, there's just words like sinners, find the light, redemption in the monolith, glory to those to the light, let him embrace you. These just, these words are all laid out, he pays no attention to you, as you can see, he's just continuing to write. to write underneath the shelter of this giant weapon of war. I'm going to pull off one of my sleeves and wrap it around my arm. Yeah. And make a bandit. Yeah.

And try to stop the bleeding. While staring at this guy. You're pulling this thing off. And it's taking a lot. That run took a lot out of you. And there's a moment in which you actually are in an area that's not shock-filled. with ash because of the overhang that's in there. And you actually do take this moment

to actually pull it off of your face and just start taking deep, laboring breaths as you just, you need to sit down. It's bad, it hurts. And you stem the blood, but... We still have the first aid kit, do we not? We used all those alcohol wipes ages ago. And that was like the second mid kid from the house.

Monica. Yeah. Something going on. This, something's from this chasm. You've seen things at this point with them. It's incredible. What are you thinking right now? Like, where is your mind at as you just are hearing something come from this chasm?

You saw what they were doing to each other outside. Where are you right now in your head? Yeah, I've seen them not just go after us, humans, but go after each other and just do disgusting terrible, scary things. Why do you think? Why? I don't know. Some kind of fervor or desperation for food, for flesh, for souls, I guess, now that we know what's inside of them. So it seems like they're in a clamoring. They're just fervently clamoring for something. You've realized that you've seen something collect with collectors,

these reapers of souls who have now started to take every bit. Why do you think, why do you think it's just you left, you four? why beyond just core survival do you think that you're still here?

I want to know, I really do want to know why you think you're still here. Lucky, lucky but doomed. So, Ren and Jack, you've watched as you pull this man, pull these sheets forward. I know Jack, you actually explicitly said you were the first one to pull back in there.

This man isn't paying any attention to you. You can see he. he's writing something over his hand. What do you want? What is, what's, what do you want to do? Well, if he's ignoring us, I'm going to ignore him. And I get everybody inside. All right.

Well, you are all in the hangar. And you kind of watch as Jack pulls this curtain back, saying, don't worry about it. You know, we're all inside. But, um, Janay, you've seen Ren, she's sitting at this point. You can hear something outside screeching. There's this giant bomber laid out in front of you. The immediate threat seems to be gone

because you're not in a rock of rain right now, rain of rock. But what's the next step? You've been so good at having some kind of plan moving forward. All I can think is if that sound is coming out of the chasm and those things used to come out of the ground. Yeah. Where have they been going back to? And this is the biggest space we've seen.

We walked right into the den. We walked right into the foundation of where they are. This man survived it. He's still here. So I know Jack closed the curtains, but I want to know. I want to know what he knows. I want to see what he sees. And I have to understand what he's seen.

So tell me what you want to do. Tell me what you want to ask him. So I part the canvas and I see the writings and the drawings of the monoliths. And as I start to take them in, words come pouring out of my mouth, Unbidden. I've heard their song. But you know what it is. What do they sing? Tell me what they say. You've heard their song. Their song realize do you? Do you know where you are? Do you know why they're here? You do. Yeah, I do. I do. I do. I hope I do. If I'm not, then we are all just.

damned, damned for eternity, damned forever. He turns to you and he looks to you. And he has this glass eyes as if he's been alone a very long time, but maybe not that long. But in his mind, it goes to you. And he just says, welcome home. Don't you see? We're home.

This is it. This is the last step. He points out towards the chasm or where the chasm should be. Those are the ones who don't deserve to make it to the next stage. They're unworthy. They didn't make it. They instead were collected. But did they tell you to go to the monolith?

Did they sing to you? Did they tell you to go to it? Tell me now, please tell me, did they tell you to go to the monoliths? I've heard their son. He grabs you by the shoulder and pulls you. Do you need to go to the model? It's yes or no. You've heard their song, but just tell me, look at me in the eyes.

I feel the pullet. I don't owe you anything. Just go, go to it, go to it. It's your only chance. It's your only way of redemption. It's the only way you will pass along into the next world. I looked at it. I looked at it.

I saw it's light, and I spurned it. I turned away, and the door closed on me. And I have been trying to get back and I can. And I can't and I'm just waiting for them, but they will take me. I, don't you see? This? It's purgatory. You have a chance.

You haven't seen the light yet, but it will be there for you. Go to the monolith and find the next stage. And he kind of just grabs you and shoves you out of the curtain. Just go, let us all die here and find another world of hell. At least you have a chance. just goes back into and then starts scrambling you three or listening to this exchange, this rambling going on around here. And he just begins sobbing inside of his little stage,

this little area that he's made for himself right here, and he just begins crying. I walked at the door at the hangar, and I look to see if there's anything rising from the horizon that I haven't. seen yet. From the crater. You see this, it is first accompanied by this whoosh of air that plumes out.

And it just spirals everywhere. And you watch for a moment the ashes cleared and you can see a cracked, broken moon and this funnel of dust. It's with that that you start to see that floating pieces of rock are inside of its low gravity atmosphere, but it's slowly coming down and these red, red iron hot lights are just pulsing through, and it's pulling itself up and out.

At first, it just takes its appendages to pull it up, but it just lifts, itself up and like a giant worm, like an antline rising out from its den. It just continues to lift. And the monoliths are large. I've explained that hundred feet tall, you know, these bases at 100, 100, 100, you know, long ones that go straight up. But this dwarfs, even some of the monoliths you've seen up close. And there is one so next to it. It's laid up on the fissure. Just laying

into it. In fact, the chasms as this thing has split across, you can see that the monoliths actually go even deeper down into the earth. They've split up through, but they just keep going deeper. And Monica,

something grabs your leg. Guessing it's not a cat. No. No sixes. Because you look into this image, this crazy, magnificent creature rising out of the ground, and you can see this rock coming into place. You didn't even notice that one of them was right behind you the entire time.

And you feel just that first, almost like a soft friend, just touching your ankle to wait. you up at first, but then it just wraps its appendage around your arm, around your leg, and at the same time pulls you up into your arms and you feel yourself lifted up off of the ground. And you don't even see as it kind of turns to you and it looks at you.

And these three are still staring at this magnificent enterprise as you were slowly and with great purpose shoved deep into its mall. Ah, I'm screaming as I go down. You three hear a loud scream as all of you turn around and see Monica already up to her chest engulfed.

And just like the segmented pops of when it was going, through the doorframe, she says one last thing before engulfed into the maw of the creature. Shoot me in the head. I don't want to die like this. I will. Ren, Janay, Jack. I don't think any of you have a gun.

No. I don't think any of you have a means in which to... She had a spear gun. That was the only projectile we had. In the creature probably not. You, this one last wish. comes in I don't, yeah, well at this point.

Could I make it to stab her or out of her misery? Get through it. We had a pact. This is all I'm trying to respect is that if there is a chance if you want to throw your knife

and you want to let it go into it, then I want to hear this played out. She screams. Kill me. Shoot me in the head. Do anything. Jack.

I mean, without even thinking, I pull my knife out and I throw it right at her. Just spin, Monica, you hope it's so important. It's so important that I'm willing to break the rules of the game to do one last die roll to see if your dying wish is taken. Okay. One six, which is it spirals towards you, and you feel the knife, and you're literally feeling.

feeling the muscles pulling you down into this thing as its serrated teeth are just grating across your skin and as you have those last pleading eyes towards jack it just don't let me die like this you watch as the knife comes right up it arcs forward and in its final down where it just goes right into your neck and you feel the blood kind of well up from your mouth as you slowly feel the life ebb away from you as one last pulls you in. Lisa, thank you for playing. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for gilling me.

I'm so, I'm going to have to ask you to leave my table. This is very terrifying. Hi. Hi, good look. Three candles, three candles, three truths. Alisa, Monica. would normally be the first one to speak the truth, but since she is no longer here with us,

I will instead speak for her. The collector has no desire to take the rest of you. I think I can fly that plane. Where I've kind of landed, where I've sat, I find a gun behind me in a kit. You find a gun. Three candles, three truths. This thing has emerged from the ground,

this grand beast, and the rocks are now starting to be so large that they're punching through the holes of the air hanger at this point. At first it was just large concaving dense, but now you can feel as they're moving so fast, they're actually piercing through the metal. What do you wanna do? I run into the plane.

Right. I say, come with me. You want to fly a plane through an asteroid field? I'm not giving up. You shouldn't. You shouldn't, but I'm not getting in that plane with you. This gun out from where you are. You can feel the heat of the fever is taking you at this point.

Jack, you know she's lying there. She's bleeding. the sleeve that she's taken at this point is covered in blood and she looks awful. What do you want to do? I rush over to her. We're not going to make it.

What if he's right and we're already dead and this is hell? Well then the regular rules don't apply. But there's no way out, right? What did you do? Jack to deserve to be here? I know what I did. I don't think any of us did anything to deserve to be here.

I hope you can... I hope you make it. I hope you fly out of here. You've heard this rambling of a crazy man. I think you've heard the rambling from another crazy man. It seems like you have a decision to make right now. One course or the other. All we've done is try to flee.

It's time to face what's here. I want to find a path to that monolith. I need to know. If this is the end of the world, I need to know what's causing it, and how am I a part of it? Mm-hmm. It's time to go for me.

You take your shield, you hold it above you, and you stand resolutely out in a hailstorm of the moon coming down upon you. And you can see it's doing very little to deter the creature. Yeah. That is in there.

And in fact, as it uses the monolith almost as a leading post, as it puts itself onto it, it sings its resonant, loud, piercing song straight into the cosmos. In that song, in that song, I start to pick out voices. Yeah. And I realize the sound of terror and that animal sound is what has been grading at our nerves so much. And I realize that I can start to hear the individual voices of the souls inside of it. And one voice starts to stand out to me. It's small and it's high.

And it sounds like a child giggling. like it knows that what it's done is wrong like when you've opened all of your mother's cupboards and poured everything on the floor and you're going to have to live with the consequences but

nothing felt like that at the time and that sound draws me forward this is a hope dice that comes from the moment being fulfilled to have that one damned voice speak out in a symphony of pain. I want you to roll it.

It's a five or a six for success as you walk forward and you hold this sheet above you. You walk with purpose, knowing that any time something could hit you and take you, take you down. But you don't care as you move forward. knowing that there is a chance to know why and the why is in front of you and you take voice and you start breaking it apart and as you look towards the monolith you

can see that light you can see that yellow light it's right against the ground floor it's right there and you begin to run and you run for it with all of your might and you get closer and as you get closer you start to pull apart the sounds that you're speaking of and you hear that laughter of that child in your heart you in your mind you hear that they know they've done something wrong but they don't care they've lived it and at that moment when that thought comes into your head it slams and you skid to a stop as you look towards this black onyx thing in front of you. And you take the sheet metal,

and you just let it drop to your hand, to the side of you, and you are crushed by the weight of the moon underneath you, never truly knowing what was on the other side, and being so close, and finding that one moment of hope that ended up being your damnation.

Rachel, thank you. I'm so much of the point to ask you to leave my name to go. We'll see. Good luck. Two candles. Two truths. I'm sorry.

Janay would normally speak the first truth but I will instead. The airplane starts. There's enough runway. in normal circumstances to take off to get airborne. Jack and Wren, you watched as Jenae ran out to this monolith, and she could only get about 20 or 30 feet before both the ash and the rocks just took her from your view.

And Ren, you're laying here weak, losing blood with a hot fever. And Jack, you get this plane started. What do you want to do? I pick up his, I pick up Rand. Wait, wait, I want to talk to him. Oh, before we can't just leave him here,

I want to talk to him. Let me... What do you want to say to him? So I, I take blood from my arm and I put it on his forehead, creating a circle like the moon, and I pull out the gun, and I put it next to his head,

and I say, you will not die alone, but you will die in vain, and then I shoot him. All right, you pull the trigger, and you watch as all of the eggs that matter just comes right out, just red sprays along into the back as his head flings back,

and you hear his body just thunk to the ground, You didn't even give him a word to speak. He just fell across in this pool of blood that begins to form on the bottom just drips into his charcoal drawings of all of the monolith papers around him. Okay. Jack, you pick her up. Pick her up.

And then take her in the plane. Right? Put her in the seat next to me. Shudududud-dhut-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. One-sixth. One-one. You're the one. Jack, tell me how you get this thing airborne.

I was in the Army for four years, and I spent some time as an airborne parachute paratrooper. And just from watching the pilots, I rudimentary. Oh, man. Just the most simple way. Yeah. Pull the stick back and it goes up. All right.

You get it. Somehow in this crazy situation, just get the plane up in the air. Get in the air. And you can hear the rocks are just just hitting it the entire time. I know. It's clanking through.

And in my mind, I know that it's the most impossible thing to do, but at the same time I don't want to give up fighting. And even if this is the end, I can't just stop. Ham found your shelter, and that's for sure. You literally came into it. You found your one last little bit of hope as you pulled this thing up into the air. Ren, you slowly begin to drift into unconsciousness

as this last amazing moment. And you, I'm sure you're thinking of something at this point. There's something going on in your fevered dreamlike state that made you want to pull the trigger on that. Is it because of your brother? Or is it because of some... Do you believe him? Do you think this is purgatory?

I just wanted him to stop. I didn't want that thing to take him. And if we left him, it would. So you gave him that deliverance at least. Jack, you're flying this plane. I will tell you that as you're flying it, Wren, though strapped in, essentially bleeds into unconsciousness

and slowly falls asleep, probably too asleep she will not wake up from. And you have this plane in the air now, so what do you want to do with it? what options do I see? The rocks are now sort of floating in zero G. High up in the atmosphere, and the rocks are absolutely coming down.

I would say you have two options. You could either fly it out of the rock storm and hope that you can clear whatever gravitational pull is pulling the rock pieces to Earth and fly away from it, Or you could crash it into the thing, the giant collector. That's up to you. Both are hope in their own way.

The loss of everyone not wanting to give up. I'm gonna at least take this thing with me. You're gonna crash into it? Yeah. One dice. As you slowly start to trickle into unconsciousness, you see as Jack, as Jack strapped into his pilot seat, you in the co-pilot seat, you can watch as he is slowly

beginning to turn the plane to a trajectory straight towards this giant VEM that has cursed out from the chasm. Jack, there's a whole lot going in your mind. You've been preaching this gospel of not giving up and not fighting. What do you want to accommodate? with this act. Hope to at least take that one out, whether it's saving the people that we don't know yet, or just delaying the inevitable. These are the things you think about

as you move this thing with all due speed, just gunning the throttle all the way. You can hear the engines turn up even more as you push towards it and just pull straight up just to try to get as close to the mouth as you can. And that's when a piece of wrong a piece of rock.

Not even that big. Just size of a softball, not even like the one that crushed Jenaix. It just goes right through the windshield and it goes right into your eyeball and it cracks your head into the bottom of the seat and you slump down to the floor and the plane tilts, crashes down into the ground.

Run. You can watch, you've watched this entire thing happen but as far as you know, it is a dream. how does your dream end? We're on the ground, still held in my seatbelts, but kind of lurched over, and I still have the gun in my hand, and I see them coming for us. And I look over at Jack, Jack, Jack, are you? Jack.

And then with my last ounce of strength, I put the gun in my way. them out. And thus does our story end. And thus does the story of Jack and Wren and Monica and Jene end. Thank you

both so much for playing. Actually very rarely do I have two people die in the last scene. I have this last moment in which I imagine there's two things that could have happened.

everything that Wren described could have been what she hoped happened or it could have actually happened the fever is too much really to tell either way but the plane did crash and the last things that you would hear as this plane is screaming down into the ground is just this giant

wailing creature with this broken moon laid up in front and it just is singing its song and from its mouth thousands of echoing screams chorus together I'm gonna have to ask you to leave my table oh actually it's time to go anyway so we're good you're not good but we're good thank you Um Actually I am going to ask you to leave the table Because we have to hear the last remnants of your stories

So there's only one last thing left to do And that is listen to the messages Of our dearly departed characters This is Jack Lincoln Originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania Now I'm somewhere in Australia If you're hearing this I hope you're not

a better place than me. I don't know who or what is here, but we brought this on ourselves. Too consumed with greed and consumption to

pay attention to what was happening. I don't think these things came from anywhere, but from inside ourselves. I hope that if we learn anything from this, it's to be better to each other, so that maybe this never happens again.

If you're hearing this, this is Jeanne Christensen from California, USA. And I just want to say, if you're hearing this, you're alive. And that's amazing. And I want you to know that whatever you did to get here and stay here, it's okay. You're okay. I think this is running out. Please, you are our hope. God, I hope I'm here with you, but whatever you did, it's okay.

You're okay. You can make it. I don't know if anyone will find this. I don't know if this sort of stuff matters anymore, but... Hi, this is Ren Sagewood. Well, I guess that's what everyone calls me anyway. I... Nobody knows.

Anyway, um... So I'm in Australia. Uh... And I don't know if I'll ever be able to leave Australia, but I'm hoping. When it's all first started, I just kept thinking my whole life has been kind of wasted on really useless stuff. Like, who cares about movies, you know? But I don't know. I also, now I feel like my whole life has been training for this.

like all that dumb stuff I've been learning for those useless movies is the only reason I'm still here and it's kind of like maybe I'll get through this you know I feel like I have to get through this too many people have sacrificed themselves to make sure I'm still here and that can't be for nothing so I'm going to get through this I would know what to say. In case anyone actually gets to listen to this. My name is Monica Charles. I was on a trip by myself,

visiting friends in Australia, and everything went to hell, quite literally. I had a good life. I hope my family's okay. Or I hope that they died quickly so they wouldn't have to see all this. if you're, if you're listening, just, I don't know if it's worth surviving. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because. This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives, and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon, John, and Robert Irvine. And now I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to

you. From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugged their go-to source for growth and greatness,

because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take their... across the world fighting for every quill they can fight.

It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotic's Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcast. When the chaotics are on the cake.

Look, we all know there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Harrowitzin. Yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, say, and confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino for over 10 years and over 700.

episodes. Happy, Sad, Confused, has broken movie and TV news every single week. That's because I ask all the questions I want to know, and more importantly, you want to know. Casting what-ifs, backstage stories, acting pet peeves, and much more. So whether you're into superheroes, prestige TV, or just the coolest actors and directors alive, you're going to learn something in every episode. Listen to Happy Say I Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.