Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Chapter Five: Towards the Light | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

A group that has been held up in an abandoned missile silo has managed to avoid the worst of what the world has to offer.   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 Whitney Moore, David Neff, Jasmine Bhullar, Matthew Pitner, 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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widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. Welcome everybody to a new table of ten candles. We are halfway through the series. You don't know that, because you are currently all here for the first time. That's really just context for me. Hi.

Hello. To both new faces and old. I am so happy that you all have friendly faces. How about this? No, I would never, never, ever defy to call you old. It's too late now. Experienced, aged. It's not making it worse.

Withered. Distinguished. That's the word. Distinguished. Yeah, David, have we played at probably like charity events and things before? Yeah, but I like playtests, but never like a horror RPG. No. Hi.

Hello. Hello. Welcome. Whitney knows what's up. Yes, it's true. Yeah. I think about that Halloween episode a lot. Yeah, yeah.

We did a spooky one. I actually, I forgot about that. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, it's fun. Good way to spend Halloween. Yeah, sometimes you just have to survive. So, for Halloween. There is, Jasmine, there is, there is, we were talking about this even before in,

but it has been a long minute. Yeah. I obviously know you've been doing so much cool RPG stuff online. Oh, thank you. But I haven't actually sat and we've reversed the roles because you were GMing for me. Yeah. And I mean, what's really crazy is we actually talked about 10 Candles when we did our GM roundtable. Oh, your memory is amazing.

I know. It's like a steel trap. Yeah. Okay. And one of the things we discussed is like the 10 Candles game that we were. would run. What did you say? I know, right?

Remind me. I know, I remember what you said too. Oh my gosh. I'm insane with this. You stole the idea for the show for the first. No, no, no. You said your ideal setting would be War of the Worlds. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, that was like a story you wanted to tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And mine was like, Dark Souls and I was like a dying world. Yeah, and I remember we talked about it in our like how game mechanics influence started telling. Humble plug. Humble plug. Yeah. Because we were on roundtable together.

No, it's right. And now we're playing this game. Which I've never played. I just knew the premise of it. What a way the world comes together in such an interesting and loving way. It's like we put that energy out there and then like. We manifested it. I put it.

We put it, we wrote the proverbial paper and slipped it into our pocket and kept it for a couple years to marinate. For a couple years, yeah. Yeah, to marry. Cool. I waited until now to drop that tip bit because I wanted to go. Catch you up. Well, congratulations, you have done so. Now I'm going to be thinking about it until now.

Okay, I forgot. And Matt, it's, I mean, so my context around this is that your show Bearded Men used to be right next to Foreververse when Foreververse was a thing that was happening. Yeah. Right? So I got to watch a little bit of your show leading up before we went on and sometimes after we were done. I always watched it, but I never really knew who you were. But now I know who you are. Yeah, I'm Matt Bittner.

Thank you, Matt, for joining us. Yeah, I'm happy to be on the show. And, yeah. Let's start virtues and vices. That's the first thing we go in here. So I would like you to take one of your cards that has your lovely photo on it. Again, just a reminder for everybody, since we cannot have live fire on this set, fire marshals are a thing.

We are not burning your papers as true ten candles fashions. Instead, I'm just ripping your face apart when these are timing to go. So I would like you to take one of your photos and I would like you to pass it to your right. Skipping me. Did everybody get there? Great.

And on that, I would like you to write a virtue. On the back? On the back, please. On the back of the card, I would like you to write a virtue, something that you look up to in someone. What is a characteristic or a trait that you aspire to have or look up to in somebody else? Yeah, that mix of words is correct.

That's such a nice noise. Satisfying, right? Yeah. And now we're going to pass it back to our left. Should we look at it or? Yes, please look at it. Matt, would you start us off? What did you get?

Compassion. Compassion. Probably compassionate. Yes, compassion, yes. It's all good. How about you? Kind. Kind.

Compassionate and kind. What a nice side of the table. Excellent. David? I got guardian. Guardian, that's a powerful virtue. Oh, you gonna die. The good news is it's not a surprise.

And Whitney, what did you get? Honesty. Honesty. Okay, great. compassionate, kind, guardian and honesty. Oh, okay, okay, okay, good. Cool. Let's take another one of your cards.

And let's pass it to the, he went right, so now left. Now on this one, look at that. That's long hair. Yeah. On this one, I would like you to write a vice. Something that creates more problems than it solves.

A trait, that you would not wish upon anybody, except for you now are. So we're gonna take our vices and give them back to their owners, which should be to your right. And Whitney, we'll start with you on this time around. Cruel.

Cruel. Okay, excellent. So you have, remind me what your virtue is again? Honesty. Honest and cruel. Woof. Okay, down. Hello, high school.

Super down. Yeah. How about you, David? Jealous. Jealous. Guardian and jealous. Ooh, these combos. Just like a pile of toxic masculinity here.

I'm just going to leave that right thing. How about you? Cowardous. Cowardous. Okay. Kind and cowardly. Oh, man. All right.

You have a Wizard of Oz situation going on here. All right. And then, Matt. I am rage-filled. Okay. Raging. Rage in. Compassionate and rage-filled.

Yeah, man. Yeah, compassionate. You all, it's like you knew what the virtues were and you made the perfect compliment vices to each one of them. You're all smart. Now, let's talk about the situation you're in the module or in this circumstance, this particular session.

Now, I've emailed it all to you beforehand, but for everyone who is watching at home, who has been keeping up with the show. Two weeks ago, these giant black monoliths rose out of the ground and these spires stand a hundred feet tall so you're basically looking at a empire state building no matter where you look at in the horizon and since then two weeks have gone by and awful things have been happening earthquakes tsunamis these creatures that you've heard rumors about seem to have been displaced and now people have been

disappearing. First, it was people disappearing, honestly. And then you've heard rumors that there are now creatures that, as speculation and rumor would have considered, are anything from giant demons with angels all the way to, you know, tiny little creatures that they bite you and then you die kind of effect. So it's hard to pinpoint. And especially since in your circumstance, we're going to talk about where you've been for two weeks that would have either given you, you know, cause for greater rumor or have had more firsthand personal experience. But first we're going to plan your moments. Knowing the context of the scenario that you're in,

and based on what we kind of talked about before the show a little bit, we've decided. The one thing that we had decided is we're interested exploring about your characters being underground. We would like to create a moment for your characters that they might fulfill as part of this story. So on your next card, and this is for you only, I'd like for you to write a moment that you hope your character could complete in the story.

Now, it's something that has to fail or has a chance of failing. And if you complete it in the game, if the moment is fulfilled, you will get a hope dice, which will be as a much stronger dice for conflicts going down the road. So you don't want to make it kind of an easy moment that can complete, but I will also tell you just for all of you who are interested in trying to complete this moment, it cannot be completed until it is the topmost card on your pile as well, too, because we are going to stack this deck in any way you want. So think about a moment that you think your character could complete in this story.

Question, given the setting, will we be interacting with outside characters? That is just as much on you as it is me. Because as we tell the truths going through the story, you will be able to speak truths and potentially bring other people into the story. But most certainly you will have, at the very least, your fellow survivors in this circumstance. So if you would like your moment to be around other people, you could build it around the group that you're playing with or people that you could bring into the narrative as well. Great. How specific should we be? Should I, could I write something like a moment of heroism?

It could be something like a moment of peace, you know, like finding a moment of peace, but then it should be qualified by something specific. Like if you want to find, so in the book, this is a great example. In the book, they say, I find a moment of peace through quiet prayer, you know, in a church or something like that. And at least gives a destination or a circumstance in which to build the story. around because if you just say I find a moment of peace, I could apply under lots of different circumstances and context.

So I'm not saying you have to be super specific, but enough that it will help generate something in the story. If that makes sense. So cool. Great. Thank you. So, not that moments have been created, I would love to meet whoever you're going to be playing today as well as the moment of which they're hoping to create in the story.

So, David, why don't we start with you? Okay. I'm Tyler Johnson. Tyler. Okay, Taylor Johnson. And Tyler is a software developer and the most regular guy. The most regular guy. He's a guy who has spent his whole life making the safest possible choice.

Okay. Wanting a lot for himself, but never being able to accomplish it because he won't risk. He's a low risk kind of individual. He makes the safe choice. Okay. Okay. And what moment do you hope to create in this story? I want to, and I picked a moment for myself that will be hard considering the circumstances.

I want to save a companion from despair. From despair? Okay. Great. Jasmine, why don't you begin? Okay. My character goes by Star. She is a social media influencer who focuses on things like astrology, the movements of the moon and things like that.

and she spent her life sort of hawking this, like, faux spirituality on the internet, but it came from a place of like, not from an authentic place, if that makes sense. I see. Nothing about her is real. I see. So they were using their influence in order to basically propagate what she did not believe in at all, but wanted to use four people who are in the space. Yes, she wanted to commoditize it and sell.

Comonitize it. Okay, good. All right. So I can imagine a hotline already at this point. All right, but the hotline is really just a one-on-one cam session or something. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

That's interesting. And then what moment do you hope to generate as star? So the moment that I hope to generate is that she influences someone, and in doing so, finds a piece of her own bravery by influencing somebody when they're scared or frightened and giving them a peace of mind. So almost using that influence for good. So she wants to take, I apologize if I'm dripping us down to its most extreme core.

They want to finally drop the fraud facade and actually do something decent for someone using the knowledge that they have accumulated, or at least the heart of the knowledge that they've accumulated. And yeah, and say, like you said, do something, create some bravery in them. Yes. Okay. All right, great.

I love the redeeming factor. Great. Matt, please. I'll be playing the part of Michael Stevens. Okay. And he's like a handyman construction guy. Okay. You know.

He's a blue collar worker. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing that he wants to accomplish By the end is he's looking for his ex-girlfriend Okay And he's seeking forgiveness Okay

For just really just being a kind of a shitty guy And not appreciating what he had When he had it Okay Do you know what that Do you have a name for that ex-girlfriend right now? Hannah Green Hannah

Okay awesome Thank you And Last but not least Whitney Emily Rose Emily Rose And I am a student

Was a student at the high school down the street And things have been incredibly easy for me Coming from a lot of privilege and also Star Student My goal is to find Mr. Anderson Eric who was the last person I was Interacting with

Okay Is there anything in particular you want to accomplish with Mr. Anderson or do you just want to know if they're alive or dead? Should I put it all out there now? Nope, that's up to you. You just want to find them at this point and save it for the story? Yeah. We'll do that.

So, right. Great. Well, thank you so much for those introductions. Last, we leave the Brinks. Now, the Brinks are a very interesting thing that happens in Ten Candles where we basically have a secret. And it ties a little bit of our characters together, but it also is something I'll be participating in with you two

as part of this. So a brink is basically something that someone is capable of the only one other person knows about. And this is something terrible or something that your character has seen another character come to the brink of or come to the point of. and it's usually not very great. It could be something as simple.

I've seen you lose it on a couple of occasions. Like in the book, they have a specific example of, I once saw you lose it over this dead dog. You were crying for hours. I nearly left you. You know, something like that. Or I've seen you worship them when you don't think I'm looking. I noticed you say a silent prayer to them.

Something like that. So the brinks will always go. on the bottom of our deck and they can be activated several times if there is a success. They can be used for a full re-roll. But they'll always be the kind of the last thing you resort to it. That's why it's called a brink. So it is the last resort, kind of a situation. So we're going to take our brinks and we're going to take one of our cards and we're going to go to the right. It will be participating in this circumstance, though. So if you wouldn't mind giving me one of yours. And then I'll be

giving you this. Now, this is important because Star, I'm going to be writing a brink against you by them. The world has seen you do something, and it knows, and it is going to maybe use it against you, or at least you're going to be aware that it knows, all right?

And David, you need to write me something about them. something your character has seen them occur. And it is an opportunity to expand on the narrative based off the information you know. It could end up being rumor, but this is something that you've seen them do, right? And based off the knowledge that you know in this world, having this two weeks potentially in confinement, it can be either about the, you know, proverbial them, it could be about the monolith. It could be about the world as you know it right now. Okay.

Right? I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. This is the point. I don't like that face. I like the contemplation to decide, is this horrible enough? Okay, maybe this is horrible enough. I feel like mine are like, I don't know if mine's too generic.

Sounds good to me. Let's all pass them back. Wait, if this is to start on fire over there. Don't worry. It's magic. Yeah. Movie magic. Are we allowed to read these?

Yes, please read them. Into it. Into it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay, good. That's ominous. It's writing my notes down.

Perfect. Love this game because just when I think I have everything figured out, I don't. That's what makes it so satisfying. Finally, we're going to take our last stage. here and arrange our stacks accordingly, which means that your virtues and vices and your moments can be placed in any order you wish on the stacks in front of you.

This is important because you can only activate the topmost card first. When using virtues and vices, you may re-roll any ones that will come up in the game because ones, once they're rolled, are discounted from the pool until the scene ends because of a failure. The Brinks will allow you a full re-roll of everything.

Sixes and ones included. Now, a reminder for everyone who wants to know the mechanics of the game, when a conflict comes up, you will be rolling a dice pool equal to the number of candles that are currently at the table. You're only looking for sixes and one six is all that is necessary in order to succeed. Any ones will be given to me to be held on to. to roll against you for narrative control. And anytime I, you have multiple successes,

I will be taking any dice that have pulled out from the previous roles and roll against you. This is solely just for narrative control. If you succeed and I have narrative control, you still succeed the conflict goes through. I will just be narrating it rather than you. That's it. This is the core of the game.

So questions, comments, concerns. Before we begin. Writing all these on our pictures and then there's one left, right? The one would be your character concept, your name, who you are. Just a little reference for who you're bringing to the table. So the one thing that we do need to settle upon is, where are you in the beginning of this story?

We've established its underground, and that can lead a lot of different options. We could have an abandoned silo. We could have found a cave system that you have all managed to hide out in, have managed to take enough supplies with you to last these two weeks or however many days you have been hiding in said tunnels. I have established already that earthquakes have been wrenching this world apart quite a bit, which can both create cave systems and destroy cave systems under the circumstances of our story.

But I feel very comfortable giving you that agency to be able to make that very. beginning choice because I feel like we can go anywhere with both a populated, maybe no longer populated silo versus a cave system. What are you all feeling? So for my character seeking safety all the time, I feel like seeking a structure that he believes would be sound is probably more like him than seeking a cave that was turned open by the, by the earthquakes. Okay. You know, I don't know how you guys feel about. Yeah. I feel, we talked about how there's the potential of these silos in the Midwest.

And that being, that seems plausible for something for me as well. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I like the sound of that. Cool. All right. I feel like wherever I am is probably somewhere that somebody who really likes me took me. So I feel like that would probably be like, I've heard rumors of this.

We should go there. I see. I would probably follow. Yes, I see. And just to be abundantly clear, you know, even though I know that at least two of you are looking to find people in the story, this story will begin with you for, with very little baggage to carry on your own as far as characters and things, items into it. Because otherwise, it could get messy. Right. But, yes, let's start in a silo.

Let us basically, for the purposes of the story, say that you have found shelter in an abandoned missile silo in which at some point was being used to hide intercontinental ballistic missiles that have been decommissioned and which has been purchased by a private buyer. This is all, I was diving deep into my disaster prep stuff for all of the stupid horror games. and survival games that I've played over the years, I did and found that these are legit things, like private buyers buying up these silos to then, for the strict purposes of turning them into fallout bunkers, shelters, things like that. They're very well hidden.

And I'd like to think that all of you at some point either knew someone or found your way to this shelter. And over the course of the two weeks, You may maybe have started with a big group, but that group has slowly dwindled over the days in which now you and the very few select other people who have mostly kept to themselves, because this place is so huge,

you four are in a sector of this abandoned fallout shelter, and you know that there are several other groups that are in this shelter with you, but they're not anywhere within like shouting distance. You would have to go walk down several levels, then go back into another area. And this is just the default that people do when they find a safe place

and immediately want privacy or immediately want to section themselves off. So this is what I offer to you at the beginning of our story. The four of you are sitting inside of your common room, which has your sectioned off part. of supplies as well as the, well, the meager amount of amenities that you've had available to you.

You, because so few people are now a part of this, all have your own rooms and you have your own area. There's, you know, because of that, I wanna ask everybody a question real quick. You've been able to bring something sentimental that is part of your decor, something that, it was part of your pre-collapse kind of life that you've brought with you. I'd like to know what that is, if anything, at this point.

Jasmine, or star? I think it would probably be like a totem that ties me to the more, like, to who I am. Okay. And less of my persona. Are we talking like a fetish, like a small kind of item that you might have in a bag or just keep in your pocket? Okay, great. So stone fetish, maybe wood, something like that. Okay, great.

How about you, Tyler? I have this stupid hat that Jenny, my wife, who disappeared, always used to wear, and I hated it. It was stupid. It made her look terrible. It was embarrassing sometimes, and that's what I brought with me. You brought it with you? Do you wear it or do you just keep it close? I actually keep it. I don't show it to anybody.

It's among my things, but it's not. I'm afraid even sometimes to take it out and look at it. I just haven't. Okay. Julie noted. Emily? I have my backpack, but the only thing that I really care about and it is a poem that I wrote that got a really good grade on it and a really special note.

So I just keep that close to my heart. Okay. So you have your notebook and your backpack, but that's all a cover to keep this poem in place. Yeah. And Michael? It's my dad's knife. It's just a knife that he would keep in his gene pocket.

And it was mostly used for just like, you know, peeling apples or cutting pieces of string. It was just like, yeah, a practical tool that he would carry with him. Right. His initials are on it and have it with me. Okay. So you have a small practical knife. Great. Well, you were all sitting in this common room over a,

a small metal table that's been bolted to the floor and you're enjoying lukewarm, um, reconstituted powdered food at this point. No, haven't even bothered really to warm it up. No one's really interested in starting a fire in the place like this. And the electricity has never really been anything that's been a part of this. you basically use whatever electricity you can to keep the lights on at this point. But through the dim lighting

and the lighting has gone dimmer over the past couple of days what was once a fluorescent just bathing of constant light that's been bearing upon you now. Now has the meager kind of, it's not the creepy horror film flickering type of attitude. But, you know,

it's about, what you would expect out of a book light at this stage and this is what you're able to kind of slowly eat your watered-down protein snacks. I acknowledge, knowing that we didn't make this effort, I apologize to everyone. I know that I said that I would that I would heat it up for this meal and I'm sorry I didn't. Yeah, yeah. I know, I just... It's not much worse than school lunch, so...

It's been nice if it was warm. Yeah. Is there really a big difference between warm goop and cold goop? Yeah, there is. Warm goop reminds me that maybe we still have hope. Cold goop says, well, might as well just give up. I'll gather myself at next time. Our next meal, I promise.

This is a... It actually reminds you at this point that you're... are running low at this point, and you probably should go back to where the major, where everyone, actually, how do I put this? Aha, yeah, here we go. That's what I needed to think about, the quartermaster.

Yes. To go and make sure that you're getting your rations out the way that it is. They don't mind that you keep days' worth of supplies inside of there, but they don't let you have everything down there. Right. So, you know, is that something you'd like to put about yourself? Yeah, that's, yeah, I'm, I'll take that on. Okay.

To go get our rations. If anybody's welcome to come with me, but that's, I'll take that on. I'll come with you. You always go by yourself. So this is a unique situation, start normally. You let them go by yourself, but today you want to join him? Yes. Great.

Okay. Michael, Emily, would you like to wait here with your cold goop? Yeah. Okay. All right. So Tyler, Star, you descend down the staircase, the ominous staircase. It is basically a winding spiral staircase that is along with the edge of, you know, this giant cylinder that did once hold a giant missile. But now it's just an excuse to walk the, you know, distance here.

distance, somebody thinking about 60 to 80 foot diameter that you have to go in order to keep pace. And, you know, the dim lights extend to this area as well, too. And most of the sound that you have for company is the clang, clang, clang of your footfalls as it hits upon the grate as you continue to kind of wind down. there has been significant tremors in the last couple of weeks. I'm sorry, in the last couple of weeks, the last couple of days that were, well, they were startling, but because this system was built so well and it was reinforced to, you know, it was reinforced to hold a rocket coming out, you know, you're talking about feet of concrete on either end. really the major repercussion that you have seen as a result of the quakes is that the concrete has definitely split and cracked in lots of different areas making this place look about a century older than it should.

And there has been some underground groundwater watered leakage in areas, especially in the upper levels. there are some just areas closer to the surface that are completely off limits because they are filled with water and they've been, you know, locked with an airlock and z-taped or marked do not enter flooded kind of an area. So as we descend, I make sure I'm checking in with Saur a whole bunch. I don't necessarily say anything, but I make sure to touch her and push her toward the wall as opposed to toward the railing. You know, knowing the tremors may come again, stick close to the wall. Which seems a bit unnecessary considering the railing is at least up to chest, if not shoulder level at this point, because who would want to put a low railing with a hundreds of feet descent on either side. So as you continue to walk down, you finally get down to the level that you need.

and you kind of go to the airlocked door that you know holds the quartermaster in his supplies and you're surprised to see it is cracked ever so slightly open. I think you should wait here for a second. Is something wrong? No, I mean, it's probably just somebody in there, but we don't know everybody who's here. I think the best thing would be for me to just have a peek.

But I just feel like it's maybe better if somebody is in there, they don't know you're here. Okay. Okay. I'm going to go to the door, and first I'm just going to see if I can peek through the crack. You kind of peek through the crack, and it's infuriating how dim these lights are

because just even a few days ago, the lights were bright enough that you could have gotten a better, well, better depth of the lights. vision than you could have now but you do feel like you can distinctly see shadows that seem to be playing against light through the cracks as you're kind of peeking through the bulkhead looking down the hallway how much how many more days of rations do we have back in our area uh worth a day okay like it's one of those where if you know if if if this was pre-collapse and I was looking at my

pantry and looking through there, I'd be like, yeah, it's time to go grocery shopping. Yeah, yeah. And should something be happening to the stuff in there, we've only got a days of ration, so we have to figure out what's happening. Right, right. Okay, I'm going to once again look at Star and just very pointedly... I don't want to be here alone. And then I'm going to sneak into the room, as much as I can sneak.

Yeah, well, you have to open the door more just to get through it. And as you basically pull on the door, you hear the... awful grinding of that metal-on-metal as doors do in this kind of place with this much humidity in the air. And it's as you pull it for a second. And you hear someone go, oh, shit. And you, this moment of sneaking has just kind of coming.

And you hear someone clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, walk over. And you recognize him as the quartermaster Johnson. It comes, goes, shit, Tyler. What are you doing sneaking around here, man? I said the door was open. You left the door open. Yeah, that was hitting the pisser, man. I was worried someone had come in here.

I was worried someone who was rifling through our food stores. I was worried that maybe you had been injured. I appreciate that, man. But no, no, it's just needed to use the bathroom, dude. It's okay. Maybe there's a sign or something that you could put up next time. Sure, yeah. You can't always have a high star.

Hi. So what you need? We're down to a day's worth of food, so coming for a few days like normal. Okay. So he kind of like opens and creaks it open. And, you know, at this point when you're talking, he kind of takes you and through. And even though the lights are ostensibly dimmed, you can still see his counter with the rolling shutters that can come down in case of an emergency kind of situation. And he pulls out his jamble of keys and kind of opens up the lock and comes around back to his station.

He goes, all right, so a few days of supplies. That's fine. Here, just a, he puts a piece of paper in front of you and puts a pencil down in. It just goes just sign in as usual. Okay. I do sign in. I write in the things that we have left as we usually do, or as I usually do, and cross off the things I took last time that we've already used. Okay.

And then I'm going to use this as sort of a guide to replenish for us. Right. So he kind of checks your list and you watch as he pulls out a cloth bag and starts filling it with, you know, supplies for the next couple days. And one of the things that you do notice is in this login sheet, Star, is you're kind of watching Tyler kind of go over it, is you're noticing how very few entries there are compared to usual, as what it is.

Like, you know, in a day of checkout, you're seeing, you know, like maybe a quarter of it is filled on this page, which catches you is not, you know, Not weird, but it is, it's not, it reminds you of just how few people there are left in this place. The stores that he's taking from to fill his bag, how do they look to me from the last time I was here? I mean, are they greatly depleted? Are they, are we better? Oh, the stores that are in there? It definitely, you're hitting it. You're, uh, there is, there is still, like, if it was just the four of you, like, you could live years off this shit. Okay, good.

easily. But because you know that there are more people in this place, you know that it's a quite a diminishing return. And there is that thought that strikes you as does happen when you are dealing with resources every single day. That this can't last forever. Yeah. And that's what I've been on the lookout for is balancing the relative safety of here and the food with if things get scarce, do we have to move on? Minus the shitty lighting. So far, things are, I mean, this is,

you don't, I mean, have you been out? Have any of you been out? Actually, this is a great opportunity for Tyler. Yeah. To have that discussion. And he goes, Hey, man. So, uh, have you been outside?

Not since I got here. I don't feel like it's worth it. You know, I managed to get here. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, no. Safe is safe and all about. but uh i don't know man i wonder sometimes you know i look at this stuff every day and it it haunts me at a look at it and i know that eventually it will be gone and um you know what's the point man

like we're just sitting here eating our food in silence and uh less less people sure less people come every day like i know that we all decided to come and be here together but i don't know maybe we should all move into a bigger area together. Well, I mean, we do have these food stores coming in here. You could, you know, we knew about polluting outside. We know what it's like on the surface. We know just from our small encounters here before we were able to create this system, what people are potentially capable of doing.

We don't know. Those are rumors. This is an opportunity for us to buy ourselves time to stay healthy and strong in the face of, you know, in the face of these things. And perhaps things will get better. Perhaps someone will find us. Perhaps we will think of something. But in the meantime, keeping ourselves strong and healthy,

that's the most important thing, this moment right now. No, I get that. It was just so little information about what's up there. We're just going to be there. And have you seen Montague at all lately? I haven't seen him come in in days. I mean, I know we all don't see each other for days, but you recognize Montague is kind of the de facto leader,

if you could call it that? Like the guy who owned this place disappeared ages ago on a supply run. And Montague was ostensibly like, you know, he wasn't really looking for a leadership role. He just kind of like when people, he's just been here the longest So when people asked questions, he kind of knew answers.

So weak leadership is probably what the best that I could call it. But, yeah, have you seen him at all in the last couple of days? I mean, do we even visit each other nowadays? I feel like we all kind of keep to ourselves. I doubt he went outside or up there. Not after what happened to the bill. This is also what happens. I mean, Montague is a great guy.

This is also what happens when you choose someone for experience instead of someone who wants to lead. No, that makes sense. That's true. If there were somebody in that position who had the thoughtfulness and project planning capabilities to bring us all together. Yeah, that would be. No one's doing anything to make this place better. All we're doing is we're just eating food, shitting, and living our lives and whatever that means in the result. Well, I'm sorry.

I have strong opinions right now, and I don't really get a lot of visitors nowadays. But, you know, just... We haven't torn each other to pieces. I mean, look at how we've come together. That has to mean something. No, I agree, Star, it does. God, I can only imagine what's going on up there.

We take care of each other. That has to mean something, even if it's just eating warmer, cold goop in the dark. Mm-hmm, it does. But you do agree that if someone would take a stronger leadership hand, maybe we could come to more than just as you say, eating and shit. We could do, yeah, that would be, I mean, Tyler, you seem like you're a practical guy. I mean, I wouldn't mind if someone like you decided to take an opportunity to try to get something done here.

And I know when you become a leader of a group of scared people, you can paint a target for yourself. but I would appreciate that effort. I thank you for that. I know that when we were choosing, the new leadership, not everybody felt the same way, but I appreciate knowing that you do. Thank you. Well, thanks for stopping by.

You should come visit us sometimes. Yeah? Okay. I think you're always welcome to. Great. Well, maybe tonight when I lock up, I'll come and swing by. Can come at your cold group with us.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be better. and frankly the guys that are in my area, I'm getting a little sick of them. I hear you humming sometimes. You have a great singing voice. Thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah, he's just even the little bit of interaction

that you guys have given him have definitely shown that people are good have given the opportunity to be good. And at least in this circumstances, no one has abused this system, which is incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, Michael and Emily, you're back up to here at this point,

and I know that you're kind of quietly sitting and eating while Star and Tyler have gone on their errand. But what's going through your minds right now? I know, Michael, you were sitting at kind of a low, just knowing that these amenities that you are used to, is this a slow decline for you? Spirling decline, maybe? Yeah, every day is worse than the last.

last day in some way he finds flaws yeah i feel like i'm sitting there just playing with my food i strike a conversation just out of pure boredom about you yeah you remember what it tastes like what anything oh just like food yeah oh yeah i mean i don't think that this is the end of food i think that i think it's going to be fine honestly i'm supposed to go to harvard so Did you go to college? Or did you go to a trade school? My mom said that people like you go to trade schools. I didn't go to a trade school.

My, uh, I worked with my dad. Taught me how to do small woodwork, construction. Did you go to school at all? No. Wow. That's crazy. Do you really think you're going to Harvard still? I mean, it's only been like a couple weeks.

I don't see why not. Like somebody's going to come in, you know, like somebody's going to come get us, probably. We're in a good space. We've got food. Like I don't see why everybody's so stressed out all the time. Like there's very clearly an end in sight to this and like I think it's going to be fine. You know, maybe they didn't teach this in like construction worker school or whatever. but I think that holding on to hope is something that is drastically it improves your life

and it can change the outcome. You can talk to Star about that because she knows all about it. At that point, you actually feel as a small tremor and aftershock of one of these earthquakes just kind of comes in and this rumbling, this do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-and at this point normally you hear just as the lanterns kind of rattle a little bit and any of the loose kind of tie-down items just kind of clink together. And, you know, there is that moment where you wonder if this could go any bigger or if it could be crazy and it does escalate to a point and it slowly starts to subside, but not before you hear a loud, as something seems to just snap inside of the room around you and you look up and see one of the small air ducts that has been piping in air until you, you watch as it kind of like falls down and you can feel pressurized air hot, humid. pressurized air is now just filling inside of your space as you just kind of are washed over like a swamp cooler that has been put on a hive but with no ice in it.

You got to fix that. Grab that, grab that end. Okay, okay. So you guys are going to push up and try to see if you can navigate it. Yeah, try to put it back together. What are you going to secure it with? There's like a piece of like fabric wire. I'm going to try to like tie it back to.

together. Okay. Do me a favor. Fix it up for me. There we go. Awesome. Three ones. Okay.

I'm going to need those ones. Oof. Sorry, guys. But by all means, take narrative control over this situation and tell me how you resolve it. So I have her grab the end and she's having some trouble with it. So I kind of push her out of the way and I started to like tie it up myself and I'm shouting at her to grab me something. else to secure it with. What?

And then, yeah, and then I just keep tying it up and I get it enough and I go grab it myself and I tie it up. Well, it's good that you're a construction guy. Yeah. For your guys' sake, it seems like that's pretty true. Yeah. That's kind of the point in which Star and Tyler return with the bags of food at this point. You can kind of hear them shouting at each other as you're coming back up.

through the main area. I'm gonna run up the last bit of stairs. You know, we just felt the earthquake, making sure everything's okay. And I burst in the room with it. Is everybody okay? Is everything okay? Yeah. A thing broke, but he did it.

He handled it. What broke? The air duct burst. It's hot air coming in the room. It's fine now. I'm gonna go check it out as though I know what... What you're doing? What I'm doing?

Masking that I don't. Just gonna see. I see, it looks like you secured it pretty well. If you had to guess, how long do you think this fix will last? I mean, if you had to guess. A week, maybe.

And was it bad? What was coming out of it when it came down? I don't know, Tyler, why don't you tell me? Well, it looks like it looks like it's a return duck maybe, so moisture coming out, is that right? I mean... Yeah, we're worried about moisture.

Okay. Yeah. Well, it's bad. Moisture. We don't want moisture. It's going to be fine for a week, Tyler. I mean, if you want to get up there and give me your professional opinion. I'm not saying I can fix it better. I would never say that. You're obviously the best person to fix this. I guess I'm more thinking about is this is going to be, is this particular area going to be the right thing for us to stay at in the long term? I mean, I'm going to be our protection, our food, keeping it good. You know, this is something I've been meaning to bring up in the long term. I don't think we should stay here. I don't. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm I think I'm in agreement with you. We just learned that nobody's seen Montague for a while. And his quarters, because they should be, because we chose them as a leader,

his people's area is very nice. It's possible, we don't want this, but it's possible that they're gone. It may be worth checking that out. Maybe we can move into a slightly nicer place here, so slightly safer place. Upgrade. Yeah. I mean, it might be worth a shot. And we do have, the great news is that we've got a solid week because of the good work that

you did to figure it out, but this part of it's falling apart, maybe there is a better part, maybe there's a better place. And I mean, worst case scenario, we find out what happened to Montague. Yeah, I mean, it's really all upside. Yeah. I mean, for all we know, we haven't been outside. It could be just, like, totally fine and we'll just wing out out here. I don't know about that.

I don't think going top side is the good idea. Sir, don't you think, though, okay, settle. We are having a debate, right? Mike? We're having a debate. And I think that keeping hope alive and keeping manifesting in your dreams that everything is going to be okay will make it where as if you have a negative outlook that it's not going to be okay, then that's the reality that you're going to live in. I think it's important. I think that's what's important is what you bring to the group in that respect.

You know, we can each, we can be practical, we can be hopeful. Right. We can be helpful to balance it a little bit. Yeah. You know? Like I think you could be right. but there's still tremors, and we should just be careful. And I think a big part of keeping sort of that positivity alive is appreciating what we have.

And right now, I don't think we should risk what we have on something that we don't. I don't think we should go to the surface, certainly, if that's what you're pushing at. Yeah, I think that's too risky. I think that you're absolutely right. I mean, the universe gave us this, like, safe space with good people, and we can't. Yeah, we should all just. stay here and be positive. Well, let's secure something for us, a more secure place, and then we can decide if we want

to venture beyond that, but knowing that we've got a fallback position that is strong. And maybe it turns out maybe some Montague's people are still there. Maybe we can become stronger in that respect. So if I'm, what if I'm hearing you, if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like minus Mike, who has definitely been having opinions about how things have been going for the last couple of days, that you just want to go at least find out what's going on with Montague, whether he's there or not there, and what his space looks like.

And then if we do find him there, we can talk about what leadership tactics might be a better fit for us so that we can push forward and not just sit here, yes? Yeah, fine. Yeah. All right, well, you begin the arduous task of going down to the bottom of the silo. Now, since this place is huge, It is definitely large.

It takes a good 15 minutes to 25 minutes just to walk down all the way to the bottom. And as you continue your descend, whether it's just from the lack of physical exertion you've had in the last couple of weeks or just anything else, it just starts, or just the fact that you're getting lower and with, even though everyone says that underground

is, you know, everyone assumes it's nice and cold underground, that is not the case. It is usually one of the reasons they have to pipe air in because it is so definitely hot. And as you're getting lower, you can feel that heat, kind of getting you on top of the exertion

of just walking down the 25 minutes of steps that you get to before you get to the bottom of the silo. I check in with everyone a lot as things start to get, you know, we're okay, we need to rest, we need to rest. It's a little bit further.

It's okay. But if you need to rest, we can stop. It's all right. We should be, we should, it's potentially dangerous. We should be at our best when we reach the bottom, yes. Okay. So you get down to the bottom, and then you see the bulkhead, like so many other bulkheads are there. And in this circumstance, there is a two-way bulkhead, so you have a wheel on your side as well as the other side. Is it two doors then, or is it just a wheel on both sides?

A wheel on both sides. Okay. Yeah. So you can go up to the bulkhead and you... And first I would knock. Is this right into Montague's... Yeah, this is into Montague's section. Section.

So I think we would expect someone to knock before they enter ours, so I think it would be only right to... So you knock, you kind of bang on the bulkhead with as much effort as you can, and you hear the clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, and it hurts your knuckles quite a bit. And you wait. and nobody comes to the door

is it worth do you feel like it's worth going in here and walked all this way what are we hoping to find well I mean it may be that that they're here and need help it may be that they're gone and we get a more secure environment either way

you know is this your professional opinion as our leader I we agreed not to have a specific leader but I think that it's seems like that's what you're acting like I think I've been very I don't think that at all. I mean, if you have a voice here, Mike, we need you.

And your opinion matters. Yeah, you did fix the AC, which was super cool. Would you rather we go back? No. Greetings, adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles, and that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees.

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So Mike, you come up and you grab the bulkhead and you give it the rigid twist and you can feel, because it's a manual lock, you can actually see the kind of the bars that keep it pressurized and keep it ascent just go in as you do this full bulkhead turn and you swing it open. And the first thing that assaults your senses. as you open the door is this, the fresh kind of humidity, not unfamiliar with what you had to deal with upstairs,

but also this rich copper smell that just seems to just in and date. It's almost like, it's just this iron, kind of metallic smell that just kind of hits you as if you were to open any kind of pressurized building. And it's not full-blown nauseating, but it is, but it is, it is, It is overwhelming.

I tasted it on my mouth. What does that smell? I was gonna ask the same thing. Has anybody smelled this before? I guess nobody's maybe been in or out in a long time? Well, this is definitely, we're not wrong, right? This is definitely, it has to be. I mean, it has to be.

I feel like I visited with him before. And this is where we told him, I mean, when we agreed for him to be leader, this is where we said he could be, that the base. I mean, I feel at this point, We have to check it out. We have to continue to check it out, yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to the smell stop us. And Mike, you definitely, going into the first part of the bulkhead, you do recognize, you know, the familiar dress of what you know to be his quarters and the few times you've gone down there. Occasionally, like a mayor's office, people will go and kind of visit in, but you mostly go and go to common rooms when you meet up, even though the idea of a community meeting hasn't really happened. under his leadership, despite us talking about that it should absolutely. Absolutely. And you kind of walk through.

And again, through the dimming light in this area, you do definitely see that there are what appears to be dark stains at the end of the hallway. And it seems to be kind of wrapped along the floor, and you can see that there are some dark stains on the wall as well, too, as you kind of look straight down this pathway leading to a T section in which you can see these dark stains and some various elements in the wall.

It's about 20 feet away, 30 feet away, so it's not easy to tell with the dim light that you're in what it is. I'm going to try to scoot a little bit closer and see if Mike wants to come as well to check it out. At this point, I'm not saying anything. In fact, I tell everybody to be quiet. and see if you want to. I'll just look at Tyler and I'll reach down

and I'll pull up my dad's pocket knife. Right. So as you get closer to the T section, the smell starts to normalize a little bit as you come into this wet, thick human area. It feels like you're in the swamps of Mississippi more than you are really in the basement of a giant silo at this point.

And as you get closer, it is undoubtedly blood. You can see it all across the front. floor all along the seatings. You can actually see as there are small pools of it, and they seem to be leading both towards the left and the right. It's not a perfect path, as you would expect, in this kind of terrifying situation. If I crouch by just the kind of the first bit of blood I see before, I try to look around the corner and everything, and it crouch by it and see, is it dry?

Is it still wet? It is, it is dry. Okay. but it is fresh. It hasn't oxidized into that black kind of icore that you expect pools of blood to be went out for long periods of time. Are we all seeing this? I mean, if you're joining him down the hallway,

you can certainly see the stains from the bulkhead, but seeing these two get closer, they're the ones who are confirming what it is at this stage. What happened? I don't know There's a lot of blood We haven't peaked around the corners yet Blood? What do you mean blood?

Just keep it to keep it down Keep it together We don't know who's blood or why We shouldn't leave And go back where Yeah Well maybe someone needs help Something happened here

There could be someone still I mean this is a lot of blood But there were six people down here It could be We might find someone It's not our job No no they're right We should go back

We should go back but I want to go I want to go check it out Yeah Nobody feels like we live here now given this But let's make sure there's nobody who needs help We need help You can't leave us here and go down there

It's okay, come with us It's okay, come with No, something happened here Star I'm gonna go with I think that this is For what purpose? Star please, well let's see if we can help someone Yeah I took CPR

I can totally help There's blood all over the floor It could maybe be useful I just want to help So I'm gonna go Down. I don't want to go. Come with us.

And stay here by yourself, Star. I don't want to stay here by myself either. Then come with. Please, Star. Please come with us. We'll keep you safe. If something bad is around the corner, we'll protect you and let you get out, okay?

These people were kept safe. Well, these people had Montague with them. You didn't have us. Okay, fine, fine. So Star reluctantly just keeps behind as you three continue to kind of look around. Now, you do know that this T section does,

is like a, okay, gotcha. It's kind of like a switchback. So it comes around within like four rooms and then rooms and storage along the side. So one will eventually lead to where the other is. And as you kind of continue to move around the pathway, let's say to the left and you start going around the switch, you do notice that there are pockets of which

there are no blood, and then there are pockets at which there are clearly drag marks. Every single one of the rooms that make up the island about the switchback that I'm talking about, all the doors have been opened. You can see people's stuff. There are definitely signs in some rooms of a struggle, but there is really the thing that is most pointant to you is the lack of people. There's just no people in here right now. One of the first rooms that I see open, Do I see anything heavy or sizable that I could put in my hand? All right.

Two sixes. Two ones as well. Let me roll. You get narrative control. What do you find? So I pushed that door open and it's the same as kind of our area. Caught a few scattered things,

some empty food packets and stuff. There's not much here. Nothing big, like the candlestick or the pipe that I was hoping for. But there's a little chunk of rock, like almost like a kid's pet rock with a face drawn on it? I even go so far as to say,

oh, you can do a pet rock with kids face on it, but also a piece of concrete that may have come off of the wall. So I, both both in this space. But the pet rock is just the right size to keep in a fist. So it's not like the concrete I would be lugging around. It seems like that's not something that I'm gonna be able to control in a moment.

But the rock, a piece of granite. I can have this pet rock painted green with little eyes on it in my fist. So should something happen. You hold on to that as you kind of, slowly continue to cautiously peek through doors and investigate. And with this dim light, you go into their common area, again, an exact mirror of what your common area is. You go into this common area and you see just a blood bath, a full, there just is blood everywhere covering the common room.

And, you know, you can't tell if there's discarded pieces of meat, but there is definitely clothes that are around in the room. that rich smell is still there as clearly this is the source. The humidity in the air is just activating the blood smell so rich and thick. And you see someone leaning over the table with their back to you at the moment as you kind of come around and you just see someone with one hand up on the back of their neck. And they just seem to be leaning down over the common room table. in this room. Hey, hey. He kind of watches the head, looks up.

And from what you remember, you can tell from just the hairstyle that it's Montague, he is there, and you kind of see as he looks his head up, and he looks back a little bit. He looks behind and you can see that he has blood all over his mouth. And in his turning, he has holding his hand

and you see he's just clutching. a piece of meat in his fist as he just kind of gets up very suddenly, very quickly, moves and just stands there and looks at the four of you. Shit. Pushing back into the hallway a little bit,

trying to get myself and maybe beside Mike, but in front of other people, just filling the hallway as much as I can. Montague, what the hell? The four of you... The four of you... Yeah, we hold each other.

...are just bundled in this hallway at the moment. You can just kind of see as Montague is staring at you. and you can see that the other hand, the one that's not holding this pile of meat in the moment, is gone. It's just been torn off,

and you can see small splinters of bone as blood. You can now hear the dripping of the blood as he just kind of looks at you with this arm just missing from his stump of an appendage. Back to the bulkhead. I have my knife out and like, slowly backing away. I kind of take a step back to

and push everybody back. Is this, is he, like, I don't think he's coming after us, I think he's got what he wants. Is he tracking us like he's going to follow us? I run.

And I probably take Emily by the hand, and I'm like full sprint. So Star and Emily, as you both two and sprint, the sudden movement, like a scared animal, just seems to activate you. There's no backing away.

At the, like, seeing this, it's done. Go, go. Yeah. And this movement seems to activate him like some just startled animal, and he just starts just sprinting straight towards the four of you as you were just laid out right there in front. And he seems focused on the movement. Okay.

So you guys are running? I'm like dragging her behind me almost. Just like a full sprint. I chucked my pet rock as soon as he moved. I chuck my pet rock. Throw that pet rock. And you're chucking it, so you want to hit him, right? Yeah, just trying to, you know, yeah,

He's coming right out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. Two ones and no sixes. Yeah. Is this option to virtue or vice? What I got here. Yeah, I've got my guardian on top. So I'm going to re-roll those.

So you're going to take your guardian. This definitely feels like a guardian movement at this moment. So roll them. No six. I am not, I am a guardian, but unfortunately not athletic. Like, not that rock. So you chuck, and startled, chock this pet rock. And it's more of a, as you're turning, you kind of move.

So the green tiny piece of granite that has this smiley face, just painted onto it, just kind of falls off to the other side of it, as you hear it unceremoniously crack against the side of the metal. And you can actually see there's a large hole in the wall as well too, that it kind of clangs against as everyone is now running. And Montague leaps straight towards you, Tyler. Okay. Let's establish some truths.

Okay. This scene, for what it's worth, is over. Good news, you have nine dice again. Let's talk about what is happening. The first truth, the world is dark. Always. But, Tyler, since you failed this role, You have the benefit of being able to establish the first truth.

I'm stronger than I look. Going clockwise, so that would mean you, Emily, the next truth. About myself? Oh, well, actually, I just described counterclockwise. No. It usually goes clockwise, so unfortunately it is me next. The second truth, there is something else besides Montague in this room. Star.

I won't leave them behind. I will not close the bulkhead behind me. I think I will not leave them behind. It's an excellent truth. I think that translates into not closing the bulkhead is perfect. I was sure if I should clear that. Yeah, no, it's fine. Michael. Despite my attitude towards these people,

I deeply care about them. You care about everyone here. Yeah. Emily. I have hidden skills that I don't know about yet. You have hidden skills? Five. Okay.

Tyler, back to you with the six. All right. I hate Montague. I hate Montague. You hate Montague. Yeah, that's fair. Not just him now, but in general. They feel no pain.

Last one, Star. I wish me. My fear didn't paralyze me. You wish you ran sooner? Yeah. And with that said, since we haven't used any truths to move forward in the situation, which to be fair, that's okay. It's all about the story.

Just know that in the future you can use truths to resolve conflicts immediately or create whole new conflicts, if you wish. But we're going to pick this scene right up where we left off with you all running. And at this point, Tyler, like I had said, Montague had leapt with one bone-struck hand. And at this point, you can actually see that the bone appears to be broken. And there is sharp splinters of white gore. That just seems to be laden as you see the blood continue to spurt out.

And he leaps on top of you, and he has one hand around your top of your neck. and he seems to actually be taking his bone spur and is trying to impale you with his own bone spur at this moment. What do you all want to do? I'd like to grab Montyu by the back of the neck and try to take my knife and stab it into his head. Into his head?

Yeah. Okay. Two ones, but a six. I have no dice in which to assume narrative control at this moment, so by all means, take it. Once I see the rock go by and he is leapt upon, like I said, I just take it, stab it in the back of his head and I just keep stabbing it because I can see that he's like not necessarily stopping. He just keeps trying to stab Tyler's character. And it's insane.

Like just as he's just kind of like Tyler is holding this man at bay and just grabbing it and you can see his head just kind of like shoot forward each time as you take the knife and you're jutting it to the back of his head. And I hope you don't mind if I tell you, the human skull is an incredibly well-designed piece of architecture. And even taking something as penetrating as a knife, it just, you feel it just impacting against the skull. And it's almost like you're just trying to chisel away a piece of rock with the knife at first. And you hit it and you hit it and you hit it again. but your resolve to just save him at this point is stronger than the actual feelings you're getting of stabbing this man in the head

and you finally find a soft plate enough where the bone is thin and you feel its sink into its skull as you kind of watch him go limp and even with it in its head you can see he is fighting but with not as much resolve anymore as it kind of just

slops and falls onto top. Tyler and kind of lays there. As soon as it happens, as soon as I can, I'm going to scoot up from underneath him. Yeah. And I want to just scoot back to that doorway because we started running the doorway where I found the concrete thing before and I grabbed a piece of concrete, drag it over and smash his head. You smash it.

And it is a lot more effective than the knife when it comes to decimating something like a skull. And you just feel it's almost like a cantaloupe just splitting as you watch as matter, just kind of lays everywhere. And then I say thank you. What was that? What just happened? We're okay, we're okay. We can't stay here.

This place is no better than the place we came. Emily, Emily, we have to do. What happened? I don't know, but this is. He ate those people. Yes, we don't have to talk about this. Shh, we don't have to talk about this. Do you hear something?

And you do hear just, the sound of this air duct, this system around you, and it does feel like the metal is squeaching and squelching yet again. And you feel as this aftershock, another after shock, this earthquake kind of comes across and you hear as the metal of the air system again just seems to be, and more than it bursting,

because last time you saw it burst, but you actually watch as the air duct distends. Like you just kind of see the metal just below balloon out, like, have you ever had packaged food that has gone past this expiration, but it's been in a film and you've watched a balloon up? Just these air ducts have just, just like lift it up and it happens very suddenly.

As you can now hear the hissing of air that is slowly escaping the air ducts above you. Get everybody out of here. Just push and pull and we can't be here now. Yeah, crying or not, we push everyone to the door. Grabbing and pushing in. This whole thing is it's going to like explode or something. The same thing happened in our room.

It's happening downstairs. This whole thing, it's like, it's going to like explode or something. And everybody's going crazy. Everybody's crazy right now. So you have to not be crazy. I just want somebody's head to get exploded. I'm sorry. I am not coping.

Well, I have never seen anything. None of us have. We just have to keep our calm around us. But that doesn't happen to us. Because this just happened, it doesn't have to happen again. Just, I don't expect you to be okay with this or to be calm. I just need you to move your feet right now. We're gonna go up the ladder here.

We gotta pass the quartermaster chambers. We'll grab some things that we need and we're not gonna stop until we're out, okay? I don't wanna be here anymore. Neither do we, neither do we. We're just gonna put one foot in front of the other. We're gonna grab food on the way up and we're gonna leave. We should have listened to Mike in the first. place. It seems pretty clear now.

And we're going to resolve that, okay? We're going to change that. We're going to make up for that mistake that we made and we're going to get out of it. So you guys start double-timing it up the stairs. You just run into it. And the awful thing about stairs is that it is a lot easier to go down than up. You are exhausted and you are winded and you move, but you move just with the haunting images of what Montague was and is and happened. still lingering in your brain as you continue to just climb up these stairs

with as much gusto in energy as you possibly can. Even then, you still have to take a few short, winded breaks, but by the time you get up to Johnson's level of the silo, you can see the door is still open. I'm just gonna throw it open and go in. We can't be precious about this, I don't think. Yeah.

I'll bang on the bulk of it. slam on the bulk and you open it. And the first thing that you hear, even before you start to bang as you go and you can hear other banging, you can hear metal on metal, and there's a slight screeching that seems to also just be in the space as well too.

Just a, kind of a sound as you run into where the quartermaster's areas are. The thing that you see is you've noticed Johnson seems to be wrestling with something and it's long, and it seems to be this like, almost like a, like a multi-legged snake, like a centipede.

And he seems to just be holding it as it's just them are just being slammed back and forth across different parts of the bulkhead as it's throwing itself down. And you're watching as Johnson just seems to be, you know, just holding onto something that seems to just be around his neck or his mouth or something

and he's just holding onto it. We've got more rations upstairs out, out. Out. Out, pushing people back out the door. Go back out. We have stuff on our level. I say like, we have to help him. No, we don't.

He's our friend. Yeah, he was. He's dead, he's dead. We've gotta go. So you continue to run up to your side and you get to your bulkhead area. You get to your level and you grab what supplies you can. You toss it all inside of the bags.

You grab your backpacks. Where do you go? What do you do? Up and out. Obviously, the thing there, we got to get out. You were right. We can't just leave him. We have to.

We tried. We tried. We need to keep each other safe. The most important thing is there's the four of us. We keep each other safe. We get out. Others will be doing the same for their people. Okay.

Okay. You run. You run up the stairs and you continue. You climb higher than you've ever climbed before. And the humidity does lessen a little bit as you get up. not as thick, but you can still feel it as the moisture is filling your lungs as you are now coughing just from the exertion of getting up this thing as much as you can, and you do get to the main ladder, the rising platform, which has not worked since the day that you've gotten here, the loading ladder

that comes up, but you do the loading lift, I mean, but then you do take the service ladder that is attached to the platform and you begin the 20-foot clums. I'm going to stay in the back. Who's going first? I'll go first and I'll kind of have like tie something that people can hang on to if they need. It will be tied together. Oh, okay. So you're using some leftover cloth

or whatever you can in order to? Yeah, some rope or whatever we can to kind of, yeah, keep ourselves tied down. Mike, as you continue to climb up these stairs, I would like you to hold on for dear life as I'm sure you guessed it after shocks are coming. All right, I start my ascent. up.

Three ones, no sixes. Is this option to burn virtue and vice? Yeah. I'll burn a vice. I'll use my rage. Use your rage. How would you like to invoke your rage in this circumstance? Well, as I'm trying to pull up, I feel like, you know, Mike is a guy that starts construction.

He's used to working, you know. And he feels like he's pulling weight and these things are happening. And he's just getting frustrated with the fact that even went down there and that he's not listened to. And he knows what to do. At least that's what he feels like, right? So this is happening and he's just powering through to get to the surface. He's feeling muscle strain and he's just hearing it his body is pushing him. He's pushing his body to a limit.

He's more dragging these three people up than anyone's really inclined. at this point, and it is offsetting the balance. It is, at this point, it's almost like having a dog that is pulling its leash too hard just out of sheer tenacity, and it's almost knocking its owners over at this point. Go. Roll those three ones. One six.

Right. So, yes. Do you get all those back? I get, well, they're all yours still, but I'll leave them over here for now. Okay. Let me roll to see if I. I get narrative control.

Yes, I do. Two sixes. This does succeed though. Michael, as you basically pull like a dog against its leash and you feel the strain and the weight of these people below you, you power with each wrong, you hear the loud, clang, clang, clang, as you are just taking your strong workboots

and pushing people up. At this point, either Star or Emily has probably been lifted up so heavy that they are dangling now and slightly spinning from the wire more than they are, grasping a hold, still obviously trying to get attached into it, but just the fact that Michael is at the bottom and they're been pulling them up,

just someone is off of their rungs at this moment, but you make it to the top and you grasp a hold of the bulk head and you, and you pull the, pull the bulk head down and you feel rocks start to fall upon you. You just start to feel earth and dirt, just first, just small pieces of sediment

and dirt onto you, but then eventually larger, more strenuous boulders as it trickles down and you can now, this trickle down effect, you can feel dirt is getting into your eyes and you have to, you instinctually trying to cover your eyes, and occasionally a large rock will come down and throw down on you. Star, hold on. 1-1-0-6s.

You do have an option to burn for the 1-1, or we can end this scene right now. I don't think there's any point. It'd be a Hail Mary. Rocks collide with you as you feel this open hatch now descending what pressure it was holding on to, press it down upon you, and we end our scene. Eight dice.

candles. Let's establish some truths. First, the world is dark. But, star, you have the failed role so you get to begin with the first truth. Tyler catches me when I fall. Michael. We're to do things differently now. We're out. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yep. We're to do things differently now. Okay. That works. It seems more like a... I want to be in charge. Is that true? You, how about this? Here's a truth. You take charge. Great. That's fair.

Emily. I know I will be taken care of because I'm the youngest. That's the youngest you will be taken care of. Tyler. I know I was right in the first place. You knew you were right in the first place. It was...

Choosing Michael's going outside was wrong. I was right in the first place. Great. You cannot get to the surface this way. Mm-hmm. Six. I'll put an end to it if anyone starts to lose it because I won't let what happened to Montague happen to us.

Michael? The air is thinning. And seven. Or I'm sorry. Eight, Emily. We're going to be betrayed. So, we pick up our scene exactly where we left off with dirt and small rocks pouring down upon Michael, Emily Star-Tiler,

as you are holding on with deer might, Star, you have been dragged up this through sheer determination at this point, and you feel as large rocks are now just hitting upon you, and it dazes you as one of them clips the side of your head, and you could feel a small trickle of warmth come down the side of your face as you fall for a moment. and both, Michael, since, you know, per the truths that have been spoken, we are going to say that Star and Tyler were tied together. And as you kind of slip from the wrong and lose your weight, Tyler, you feel all of your muscles just yank and you hold on barely. In fact, most of the, I would probably say what likely happened is that you lost enough of your footing that you're holding on sheerly by your upper core strength

and you actually hit your chin on a rung for a second. but you can feel her as both of you are now just dangling from your two strong arms. Now, the truths from the first scene still hold. All apply. I'm stronger than I look. Yes. Okay.

So I'm going to loop my elbow around the rung, and I'm going to reach down for her hand. All right. And try to pull her up and put her on a rung. And put her on a rung. You are stronger than you look. You are pulling her up with all. of your might. Don't worry, it's only a 15 foot drop at this point. Two ones and a six. I have no

dice in which to assume narrative control, so please tell me how it happens. All right, so I am able to grab her with the one hand, I'm looped around, and I'm gonna pull her up and tell her to grab my belt, and then I'm gonna reach down and grab the back of her shirt, and I'll pull her up a little bit and tell her to put her arm around my shoulders, and then I'm gonna get her close to the rung that I'm on, and then I'll grab the run again. Uh-huh. And now you're both secured and you're tied into this in a very big way.

Michael, you're still feeling most of the loose impacted dirt has come in the initial spill. And I will be so generous as to you didn't let go of the hatch as the stuff just started coming down onto it. So really, you're looking at only about a 30 or 40 degree angle in which stuff is coming down upon you right now. But what do you want to do? It's filled. we can't get out this way.

You even the, a little bit you've been looking at it, you don't even see a shaft of light that could insinuate that there is anything other than potentially miles of sediment, not miles, but feet of sediment and dirt above you. This way is barred. Got to go back down.

Can you close the door? I don't need to. It's sealed by dirt. Well, if it all falls down in here, it's going to make things worse, right? We can't have this conversation, right now we need to go back. Yeah.

So Michael, you leave it, and it does look very well impacted. You still occasionally see some settlement as a little bit will trickle out into it. And if I'm being honest at this point, enough of it has pushed back in that you probably wouldn't even have enough clearance to be able to create any kind of seal anyway as you all descend the ladder and sit upon the loading platform

that is right at the entrance so close. and yet so far away. Are there, I want to pocket a couple of the rocks that fell through. Again, some fist-sized stones just. I see no reason to create a conflict out of that. Okay. What now? I don't want to go back in there.

He's still in there, and we don't know if it might just, like, explode. Like, what do we do? I don't know. How do we get out of here? I don't want to go back. We have to go back in. We have to get out of here, because the air is thinning.

And we're not going to last much longer down here. Is there another way out? There's got to be. I mean, it can't just be one hatch, right? I don't know anything about missile silos, unfortunately. Like what? My best bet would be to follow the air ducts. They should laid out.

There should be some emergency air hatch or something. Yeah, yeah. That sounds right. We should do that. So at this point, you would like to find the nearest hatch in which to begin exploring. Well, there was one obviously in our quarters because you patched it up, yeah?

Yeah, we could follow some... From there, we could see where else where it leads. Rather than ducking into places we don't know, that seems the safest start. I don't think we should go too far back to where that... What was that thing? Yeah.

Are there more hatches near us? Are there more... There's levels between us and our old quarters? Several levels. I mean, this is a collaborative effort. Yeah, yeah. So I don't see any reason why there couldn't be. This is a huge place.

And while your location is very much an option, there are other quarters in which people have either lived in in the past or are currently living in. And I feel like since we decided that the bottom was the safest, that's where our leader was. It would mean the top levels were probably less, they were less densely populated. Upper levels, as I described earlier, the upper levels are definitely the ones in which have been flooded and locked and sealed with groundwater.

Right. So going just below, wherever we can be just below the water levels, I guess, right? The closest level that would have air ducts. There was a hole in the wall. There was a hole in the wall, but that was way down in the bottom level. I don't know of any other way out. Going down seems counterintuitive. If you want to stay up here, Star, then just stay up here.

We're not going to leave anyone behind. Sar's not staying up here. We'll bring her with us. Back down her. He's dead. It's the one place that we know there isn't a creature or there wasn't when we left because we feel that. We don't even know that was a creature.

It was really dark. It could have been anything. It was Montague and he was eating himself. Like, solidly creature. Unless, Star, you have a better idea? Where would you take us? In your professional opinion, where would you take us? Don't be mean to her.

I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just trying to get us out of here. Wishes and hopes are not going to keep us alive. Practical knowledge, falling away out. A hole in the wall? That maybe seems like a way out. Do you want to try to go back up this way? Don't you think it's a bit strange to go through a hole that's deeper down when we're trying to get to the surface? You don't think that's like just a little bit weird?

Was it an access hatch? Was it a hole in a wall? Let's do this. That man was mad. He probably could have buried that himself. Let's try air ducts first. The first place we get to, we can see we have an exposed air duct. We know that they're here, just right inside the hatch, just like in our chambers, everyone's going to be the same.

We'll get below the flooded levels. We'll look at the air duct. If we can get that open and get inside, we'll try that first. Okay. No. I want to go back down. How long are you going to survive in the air duct? Well, if we can find a way out through the, the air duct's got to bring air in from somewhere, right?

I mean, you are the more mechanically inclined of us, but... And this is my opinion. I think we should go back down and try to go through that hole. That's crazy. We don't know what else is down there. We don't know it could have been a gas leak that drove him crazy. I'm going. If you guys want to follow, then fine.

This is your ego talking. So Michael begins walking down these steps, leaving the three of you ostensibly. I mean, this is a situation in which Tyler, if you wanted to force him, you could. But it sounds like he has firmly made up his mind. about what he feels like is the best option at this point. I imagine that is exactly what's happening with the three of you. We have to stick together. Yeah, protecting these two is most important.

Tyler, let's just look at the air ducts when we see in here first. Can we please just see if it's possible for us to fit inside? Fine. Okay. So you're going to go down to your... The first level below the water, where we know it's not blocked off just to see... First level below the water. Yeah.

Okay, so ironically, your level is the first level below the water, and you're looking at least two levels that have been ostensibly cleared, not cleared. There is one that has not been touched that no one has been making because no one has to have wanted to be this close to the surface, so there is one across the way from where you are, and then there is your level, so you can do yours or you can do one that, hasn't been used. Ours is safest. We've already been in there.

We just gathered you're from there. We know it's safe. Let's just check out ours. See if we can get into the ductwork. Just see if we can get in. Right. And you go into the area in which you all are. And you've seen Michael's patch job as we is with the aerductin.

It's an odd amount of familiarity. Just, I mean, maybe an hour, an hour and a half has passed at the very most. But your whole area just seems so distant. alien at this point, even if it hasn't been, it's not home, you've made it home for two weeks, and it's weird to kind of see it's so normal now. This patch job, Michael, it doesn't take long for you to basically take it apart and you pull it the way it was when it had fallen from the aftershock. I'll get to grab my backpack. You want to grab your backpack. You'll retreat. Right. Your stuff. Your personal FX, yes. As you kind of pull this.

just vent down. You feel the hot gust of air yet again. It's not as, the pressure is not as intense as it was when it actually burst, but you do feel the warm, swampy air, just kind of pool at your feet, and you do feel it as you come into it. There is a direct area in which the air is coming from,

and then there is the feeding that is currently taking air too. We need to go where the air is coming from. where the air is coming from. Great. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I pull Emily aside while they're doing this and I say, Are you telling me to be stronger? You saw what I saw. I'm scared too. They're going to leave me. And I reach into my pocket and pull out the, I said I had like a totem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I open the pouch and it's an arrowhead.

I say, I got lost when I went hiking once. I was scared. I was in the woods. I was only a kid and I didn't know what was gonna happen and I found this arrowhead. And it told me that I have to have direct. And I like press it into her hand and I'm like, and I put away my tears.

Yeah. And I rejoin the men and I'm. You're clean, you're composed. Yes. I am composed and I'm clutching this arrowhead. It's your moment on top. My moment? Is your moments, is the card that has your moment.

Is it currently on the moment? on top of your death. No. I don't care, give it to me. Okay. That was amazing. All right. This one.

That was wonderful. You get a hope die. Okay. Yes. So you've inspired, you've fulfilled your moment. I find peace in my own bravery by giving someone else hope.

Mm-hmm. Yep. You rejoined with Emily as you kind of sit there and they are looking at this air duct. And it's large, it has to service a big area like this, but it is not comfortable. I mean, you're going to be 100% crawling

with arms forward, not arms to the side, to make this work. So, I mean, for those who are maybe smaller than Tyler, they may have a little more wiggle room, but you're gonna be army crawling the entire way. I think it's best if I go. last again. If I get stuck, you guys can go on. And we will.

I know. So what's the marching order, folk? It's okay. Don't worry about it now. When we get into these air ducts, there's not going to be any going back. If something comes up behind us, we have to go forward.

There's no stopping. There's no waiting. I don't know what that thing was in that room. But it looks small enough to fit inside one of these things. and it's either becoming at me or a Tyler. Ula's will be in the middle. So if I'm hearing you correctly, then Mike, you're going forward.

Yeah. All right. I still feel like it's important to establish who is second and third in this equation. So who would like to be second and who would like to be third? I'll go second. Great. All right. So, Mike, you begin the awkward 45-degree angle,

climb to get into the point where you feel the air duct. And you do hear the straining of metal as the bolts that are currently attaching this thing to the ceiling at the moment just strain against your weight. But blessedly, you move ahead enough in order to relieve the pressure so that everyone can get up. It is the most unhappy, Tyler, when you get up in there, you know? And as you kind of climb in, you hear it strain.

and you actually hear a large metal, bong, as the metal below you is pressed. I'm going to pause. Yes. And let Starr get a little ways further ahead of me. Okay. I want to keep her in sight so I could maybe scoot to her if I need to, but if something breaks and falls, I don't want to take her with me.

There is so much happening in your head right now, Tyler. You are used to a man who is taking the safe route. You are very used to not pushing the envelope, if not necessary. Now you are crawling through it like some action hero trying to drop down upon spies. What's going on in your head right now? I think I played it safe my whole life. And I did all the things that I was supposed to. I saved the money I was supposed to for my retirement.

And I took a job I didn't like, but that paid better. I bought the house I didn't want, but that I could afford to save more money. And I did all of the right things, and none of it mattered in the end. None of it mattered in the end. It's impossible for me to not feel in this moment that all of those decisions that I made that were safe, but that weren't what I want was a waste. So you're taking one step away from what was a wasted life. Yeah. And if I can help here and if I can make a strong choice that,

maybe isn't safe, but that helps people. Maybe some of that will have been worth it. Okay. All right. And this is what's going through your mind is you make the conscious decision to slow down as the three begin a slow and arduous trek through this air duct. Now, there is an interesting thing about being in enclosed spaces.

It is not so bad when you have to go in and then you get to go out. brief moments of deep enclosure are sufferable, if not slightly uncomfortable. Being an enclosed space is a long time when you have no idea what's going on around you, and you have no idea what's going to happen around you next, is agonizing. And you can tell from the time that you've been walking that you have been crawling for a while. and probably enough to where you have at least gone over what was the original chasm, and you feel like you are now surrounded by bedrock,

wherever you are. And that is the moment in which you make your first twist, your incline as you come to the air duct and see that it is indeed pointing up. So make your first, if you see this first, It is not giving you the benefit of light. It is not giving you that hope. But it does go up.

Okay. Just go straight up. All right. There's no handlebars. There's nothing to hang on to. It's just going to be us getting ourselves out of here. We can do this. It's small.

I'm just yelling from the back. It's small. It's tight. We can do this. I'm in the bottom two. I can help push. All right. I can do this.

So Mike. this, since you are the Pathfinder on this air duct adventure, how do you wish to make the ascend? Do you want to press your body up against it? Do you want to use two hands? How do you want to apply the appropriate amount of pressure to make the climb? Yeah, I press my hands up against.

And then you do your back. Yep. And you caterpillar up. Yep. All right. Caterpillar away. I think as I do too, I'll give Emily my lighter, just so there's light.

Thank you. You. You're somewhere in that tunnel. One, six, and two ones. I'll take those. It's all yours. Mike, would you give me a description of how you get past the vertical nature of this to find a more stable ground?

As I'm going up, I'm just pressing myself up against, and it's kind of humid in here, so it's sticky and wet, and I start to kind of slip. Yeah. And as I'm getting up, I'm kind of just starting to slip down, and as I move my shoulder up, I can find that there is, it goes a little bit to the side. There's a place for us to kind of, a cubby.

I don't know if it goes any further back, but there's a place to get up, and I can manage to hold myself up. That's great. Okay, so you basically find a break inside of the twist, which you're right. It could go. It actually kind of feels like it's going back the way you came.

And you can feel like the, I'll actually go so far as to say it's a cubby. And with the limited dark vision you have, you can't actually see that the cubby is adjacent, or it's like adjacent to as well too. So now in many ways you're at like a vertical, horizontal cross section that you in theory could go back the way you came up, which is where you're going. and then there's a small cubby that's going farther away from whence you came.

Does that make sense or should I do a visual? No, I agree with that. It seems like those would maybe lead to the flooded areas or other? Back to the way we came probably. Yeah, who knows, wherever that might be. But, yes. So I guess at this point this is an intersection which you could make a choice or you could continue to climb.

It's about going up, but then he thinks that he should, he shouts down and said that there's a cubby and he'll help. the next person up. Yeah, okay. To help get to that point. Okay, so back the way it came, we're deeper in. From once the way,

the way you came. Can we continue to go up? You can, absolutely, yes. Could I get those guys up to where we're at? You can, you, there's not enough space for you to be adjacent to, like unless you're literally like next to each other,

like you could potentially put your feet on both of the cubbies to stand yourself up. I see what you're saying. You could put both of your feet up on the cubbies, down to grab people and put them up so that at least whoever is the next one in line, which is Emily, to put their hands on where the cubby is.

I'll do that. Okay, great. Emily, I was going to have to have you roll to get into there, but it sounds like Michael has at least placed you to where it is. You do feel this intersection of where you are. And you'll pull you up by your backpack or something. Yeah. I've got the light in one hand and the arrowhead.

in the other. Firmly clenched in the other. And you're using your elbows to kind of to kind of get to the catarbone crawl. And once I find footing, I hold the light down so that they can see. Oh, I see. So you're there too.

Okay. And at this point, you probably felt like you've done at least a 20 foot vertical climb at this point. And you do kind of see the light and you kind of see this little, you do see this tiny hint of fire. and it's waving a little bit. In fact, the first thing you notice

is how when in this intersection you can see the flame just, I mean, it should be out. If it wasn't such a good lighter, it would have gone out, you know, at this point. And you do kind of see them all bundling up at the top here. So forward up.

Yeah. Great. Then we'll spare it. you, Michael, for another one of these, and you continue to climb up. You continue to climb up, and you make this caterpillar walk as you continue to come up this incline, and you do feel another 90-degree turn. This time, it is a forced 90-degree turn. You only have one way, and it is enough to get you up to it so that you can now do the crawl. And at this point, as you make this 90 degree turn, you can feel hot air just hitting you constantly, and it's almost

like you're crawling in a wind at the moment, as you can feel this musky hot air just kind of wash over you, and it comes in spurts. Like, it's not a consistent flow as if you would expect a fan to be pushing into it. It just seems to be coming in this, you know, and then it will stop, and then you'll just feel it again as it kind of just comes down upon you, and you begin to crawl. Tyler, you make it up, you come across the line, and as you position yourself into that next level to come across, that's when you feel the shaking again. You feel the quaking aftershock and it begins to rumble. And at this point, being in the position you are, it feels it's just more like a moment of nausea comes upon you more than anything. You just don't really

know where you are, but Tyler, you hear and you just sense as metal starts creaking around you, and you kind of feel as something just presses upon the back of your leg, as something just digs into it, and you don't feel any blood, but you do kind of feel this moment in which something just juts straight into the back of your leg, pinning your leg down into the middle of the vent. Okay. I want to... I'm not going to say anything. You're not going to say anything.

I want to reach back. If I can slide my hand back here, and can I feel the vent pressing on my leg? The vent is absolutely pressing on your leg. All right, I bring my arm back up. I'm still not going to say anything. Okay. And I'm just going to see if I can...

Elbows on both sides. And if I can gently... I'm not trying to yank yet. I'm trying to gently pull just to see... Look at you being the good. spolunker that you are. Just to see if I can pull. Okay.

So you feel the after shock of this a little bit and it is still shaking as this moment kind of occurs but it does settle quickly. It stops. You start to pull your one one. No sixes. Still at eight candles here. Yeah.

I'm gonna let that go. A quiet man suffers an event as you pull upon this leg and realize it is not just as simple as tugging on it to become free. Seven dice. Seven candles. Seven truths.

Tyler, first the world is dark. You get to speak the first truth. I believe we'll escape. Tyler believes we'll escape. Tyler believes you'll escape. Do you want more than just belief? Tyler knows we'll escape. Okay.

There is a break in the, air duct very soon. Star knows Mike is falling into darkness. Or, Mike. Mike is, he's distracted. Distracted. He's thinking about his ex-girlfriend, Hannah. He's lost in thought. So you're distracted? Distracted. Emily. Once we're out, it gets so much worse. Once you're out of the duct.

Tyler. Seven. Last one. One, two, three, four. One, two, three. three. Sorry, you're at five. This is six, actually. Oh, thank you. I had the first one. You did it the first one. Yes, six. There are other people using the ducts. You will get your leg out of this,

but it will cost you. Back up, seven candles, seven truths, seven stories. Tyler, you're currently with your leg jammed, and you can feel as slow. whatever jarred this piece of air duct into the back of your leg you can feel that it is warmth that you're feeling as going through the duct you can feel a mounting pressure slowly kind of come across you as the metal seems to be bending slightly not at a great speed but you putting your hand there you can feel cold

as it slowly seems to be ballooning out towards you. I'm going to, I'm going to shout ahead, move, and I'm going to use my other foot if I can to try to push hard as I can to get my foot out. So banging against it, some things there, alerting that I'm there, and I'm going to try to yank my other foot at the same time. Okay, you're going to yank and pull it while yelling,

and you do all three here from behind you shortly after this aftershock has subsidence. You hear Tyler yell, move as much as you. you can. One six. Two ones. I get narrative control. You do, because I have no dice in which to take. Yes, so please, by all means.

So I jam my other foot up into the ceiling just enough to pull, and I'm also wearing like slip-on shoes that I was able to pull. It pulls the shoe off. Yeah. Big scrape on my ankle. Yeah. I twist in the ligaments. I don't, taking the truth here, I don't know that a bone is broken.

I don't think. I hope it's not broken. Right. But it's. Oh, I have a cost for you. Don't worry you get your foot out fair so I lose the shoe yes it comes free yes you lose your shoe the foot comes free You feel the scrape you do feel the trickle of some broken skin Yeah as there is some blood but as you push that foot and you kick and you basically are kicking with everything you got because you feel it move a little bit

You kick and every time you kick and every time you kick that foot becomes a little bit more free and finally as you push your foot through you feel it go through the air duct and you feel a punch right through that metal as a little bit of liquid slowly starts to trickle into the air duct with you and you pull your foot free as now you can hear the rushing, the filling, the pooling of water as now it seems to be filling this air duct with you. And I yell, it's flooding, we punch through the flooding, move, move, move, move, move.

Now we're crawling, I'm yelling at Emily to keep up, keep up, keep up. And you crawl and you move and all of you and you, Tyler, can start to feel as the water moving at a very gravity and motivated pace. You can feel as if like, it's a good comparison. Have you ever been caught unaware and you kind of notice when a high tide comes in and you just kind of watch

as just water just kind of just occurs? It is going much faster than all of you. Tyler, you feel the water kind of brisk across your knees, then across your chest, and then across your chin as it's flowing forward. Star, Emily, Michael. Michael, by the time a few precious seconds have passed, you can already tell that the water is behind you

and you keep crawling with all of your efforts and that's why you don't see when the air duct ends abruptly and you fall. along to you yep I get these two you assume narrative control the conflict

ends but it doesn't end badly so I have an idea of what happened but I feel incredibly compelled

to hear what you think happened well I'm crawling as fast as I can and I said I'm not turning back I'm to keep repeating that in my head this mantra I'm just going going going

as fast as I can and when I go out and it ends yeah I fall out. Yeah. And I fall forward and I, wherever I land, I land on my back and the air gets knocked out of my chest. In fact, I'll even, I'll do you one even better.

You fall, but it's more like you belly flop directly into a pool of water and you don't fall far, one, maybe two feet before really you just more kind of slide into what appears to be a pool of water at this stage right in front of you. and you occasionally feel a hard thing bump you on an occasion, but you seem to just be sitting in this flooded part that's just pure darkness. And you do, Emily, especially since your second, you do hear the loud sploosh as Michael seems to be falling forward and you with the lighter.

Michael, you can actually see as the small cadence of light kind of comes forward and you see Emily pop her head forward. And I call back, there's an opening. Be careful, so you don't fall. I fall in, lighter up. Lighter up, so you kind of level yourself into the water because you keep your lighter up, all right?

All of you, unless you tell me otherwise, presume that you can swim. How deep is it? You cannot touch the bottom right now, okay. You, unless you search through it a little bit, You do occasionally feel a small purchase in which to put your foot onto something, but there you do not feel for.

When I reach the opening before I go in, I'm gonna try to reach up and see is there, is it still ceiling above? Yeah, they're still seething above you. Okay, okay. Yeah, go in. Okay, you all slip into the water. You bob, and you feel this weird moment of peace

as if you're just like in a, oh, and the water is cold, I forgot to mention. It is freezing cold. not enough to shock the air out of your lungs, like if you were ice dipping or something like that, but we're talking Pacific Northwest Ocean cold. So it is brisk and you start to normalize to it a little bit as the prickles on your skin kind of come up

and then immediately recede as you feel yourself kind of bobbing. And it's oddly peaceful with this one just source of light kind of illuminating the dark water that's all around you. And Emily, now that you're in, you can actually see that the things that were bumping you, Michael, is coming in, are small pieces of chair, you know, furniture. Does it look familiar? It looks very familiar, a lot like your common area. Like your common area.

That is just right there next to you. And it's the air above you is actually extremely warm. And you can see that there is trickling water that, that's coming down from the ceiling in not fast, but very consistent rhythmic drops as it seems to just be coming from the top of the ceiling. But now you can also see the tiny waterfall that is now coming out of the air duct

and pooling into the water that you're in. This is a common room we could get down and open the door to get out of here under the water. Yeah, we don't have much time. If this thing fills with water. Yeah. Okay.

So someone's going to dive down. Who is our best swimmer? I am. Swim team captain. Awesome. Do you take your backpack? No, I handed C with your lighter C that you can keep it dry for now.

No sixes, no ones. Nothing. Can I? Yes. I don't, can I maybe like give her a reassuring look like when I earlier said to her that they don't, We don't have any skills.

Right. And give her. You cannot give a hope type. I'm so sorry. As much as I would love something like that. It does not apply for you. Okay. That's fine.

That's fine. So we are going to end the scene. Okay. Because if there was at least one one, I would say go into it. But here we go. Six candles. Six truths. First, the world is dark.

Emily. What do you want to start us off? with. Star is going to be the one to get us out. Tyler. There are five people in the water. One of them is also

in the water. Four. One of us will have to make a difficult decision. This Janeberry will fill with water within the hour. One more, Emily.

Someone in the group has something they haven't used yet. They haven't used yet. Okay. Great. Six candles. So, Emily, I'm actually going to say in this circumstance that the conflict isn't necessarily that you failed to get down to get to the bulkhead, just that when you swim down, and it is not a difficult, you're going five or six feet, the bottom of basically a pool, and you do feel it once you get closer after things colliding into your face in the dark water, but you do get to the bulkhead after a, you do get to the bulkhead after a, short and brisk swim. And because the water level is high enough,

it's not as if you even had to dive until you got to where you knew the bulkhead would be since all common rooms are ostensibly the same. The difference is that no matter how hard you pull and no matter how hard you twist, the water pressure is just too much to open the door. So you swim back. I'm not strong enough.

There's a lot of water in this room. You can't, could be that none of us are strong enough. So I've been holding on to the lip of this thing because I have pockets full of rocks. Yeah. Doodly noted, yes. If I, if everybody takes one or two of these rocks, we could all drop down and try to pull the bulkhead together. Okay.

I hand out my rocks. Right, so you hand out rocks to everybody and you swim with, with the little amount of one arm moving over. And as you're going through and as you're moving through this water, you can feel the water rising around you. Like it is just the slow filling of a pool. Someone put a garden hose in there and it's just coming in.

At the point you also hear splashing, just small splashing, just small splashing, just, It's like hitting the water. You get down to where the bulkhead is, and you all feel as you sink down to where you are, and you get down to the bulkhead, and all of you grab, and you pull onto this with all of your might, and you pull, and you pull, and no matter what,

you just can't, the water pressure, it's not even about the strengths that you have. It's just the fact that I'll actually even do you one better. You do all of your strength. You do. You unlock, you unlock the bulkhead. But even with all of you putting and you trying to pull on the door to get it open, get it open, just a smidgen.

It's just pressing. You have tons and tons of water that's filling in this room, just pressing against this bulkhead. Is there more vent? to climb through. If you will go back and potentially investigate. So you swim back into the common area in which you first went into this,

you see actually something in the water. It just is wiggling as it's just kind of moving around inside of the water, and it looks like something is struggling with what you thought was maybe a table before, but now you've looked at it and is very clearly a day. dead body that is floating in the water and something is just moving with such ferocity.

It's just struggling with it in such a way that it's hard to tell what is going on with your limited dark vision. We need to get out of the water. Yeah. Is there anything that we can climb up on? Like I said, there's a small purchase that you can get onto. It's probably close to actually where you're bolted down comment table. was, it's high enough that in theory you could put your feet down regular, and with that, you can kind of, who still has a lighter?

I haven't. One, one, one, no sixes, holy crap. Okay. You are swimming, you're looking all off the wall anywhere you can, just hoping that you'll catch a glimpse, and then out of nowhere you feel it, you feel that warm, breath of hot air, just, hit you in the face, and you see it in your lighter just as much as you feel it in your face as you continue to scan and look around and you notice the small slits of an air vent

as kind of around you. But at that same moment, you feel something, grab your hair at the back of your neck and you pull around and you can see something, just the end of a small long languid creature with tiny, tiny little legs, and it seems to just be forcing itself down this bloated core,

and it just slips down straight into it like it's just scooping a giant snake-like noodle just pulls right into it and you watch it, vomits water just in front of you as it comes into it and it grabs the back of your neck and it grabs your throat and begins to pull. Blender scene. Five candles, five truths.

The world is dark. He keeps the lighter up so there's light, even though this is happening. Michael keeps the light on despite what's happening. Okay, all right. I hear you. I'm willing. 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. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, sad, 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, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more.

Listen to HappySac and Fused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While this is happening, we find the vent. So you find the vent. You go to the vent while he's struggling. Yes. Okay. So maybe a better truth, if you don't mind me suggesting, is you don't have. help him. Instead, you find the vent. Something like that. It's all just words. Tyler.

I can't save everyone. Michael, this thing is going to try to drown you. Star thinks that this is the personification of the darkness that was growing inside Michael's heart. We see something in her change. Okay. So, five candles, five truths have been spoken. We pick our scene up immediately. We pick our scene up immediately where we left off. Michael, you've spoken how you were going to keep this thing above water, come hell or high water, this solitary piece of light that you're holding onto at this stage.

And that truth is what invokes you into the moment as you feel this hand grasping your hair, the back of your neck, just sink you into the water and the only thing that now exists that is you above this water line is a hand with this lighter above you. And you're at the vent? And I see the vent. And you, with very little difficulty, can just take it off and rip it open and you can feel the hot air. I do that.

Got it. I grab Star. Star, you've been grabbed. unawares. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, for all you know, I'm asking, yeah. I'll say her name as I grab her. Sorry, and I grab her. And then I shove her toward the vent too.

Okay. Add a character for a second here. Tyler is stronger than he looks. Yeah, yeah. So I guess that's what I'm asking. You could resist this by all. If you have something else, there's two ways to handle this. If you do not want to be white-nighted towards the,

towards a vent, all right? You can obviously tell him no and resist and do what you can and make that a scene in which you go, you basically tell him to stop being an arrogant douche about protecting me, all right? That would be lovely. Or two, I'm perfectly willing to have you turn this into a conflict and you can make a conflict role for it.

100%. So that is my recommendation. without giving you any kind of purpose either way. Those are just suggestions. I don't think I would have a conversation with him right now because there's too much going on. Too much going on. But I know that his leg was pinned.

Yeah. So even though we're mostly submerged, I kick at his injured ankle. Awesome. Okay. In an attempt to get, to maybe shock him. Yeah. And I push out towards. towards Mike.

Towards that solitary hand. It's out of the water. I think until this becomes a conflict, we can literally just say, Tyler, you suddenly feel as Star's foot just lays out against your injured leg. She clearly knows, because she went straight forward and shoves out towards Mike.

All right. Tyler grabs at her again. Okay, yes, make a fucking conflict out of it. Let's go, let's do it. All right. Character motivations against character motivations. Whoa, that is mine. Said otherwise, I'd have no resolve, by all means.

Take this away. I reached the hand. Yeah, so you kick him away first of all. Yes, and I grab it. And I try to lock my feet since he was standing on the table under the lip of the table. So that I'm not trying to pull him up, but I'm just trying to brace myself, if that makes sense.

Like, maybe with my legs under the table and just, like, holding on to this hand that I'm assuming is slipping under the water, or is he, I guess I don't have a... No, that's fair. And it's a good assessment. I mean, at this point, there is someone definitely pulling... He's underwater down. And so, yeah.

And his hand is up, no matter what. But at this point, if you're trying to brace the hand for all of its worth, that is absolutely what you're able to do. And really, I resolve this conflict by seeing this as you get away from Tyler despite all of his insistences. And then whatever you do when you get to Mike's hand is up to you. And if it's literally keep that hand above water at all costs, then by all means. I'm just like reaching for him and trying to pull him out of the water. Pull him out of the water.

Yeah, with like just everything that's in me. Okay, yeah, okay. Mike, Michael, Star has come to you. You can feel her underneath, but you can also feel this creature on the back of your neck. Stars there, and she is pulling you up with all of your effort, with all her effort into it as this thing is right behind you. You had the gumption, of course, to take a big breath of air before you came in, but your lungs are aching. Yeah, I'm starting to drown. I can feel someone's hand on this.

Yes. I try to push my hand, like with the flame. against this person's hand to give them the light. Because if we can't see this thing, then it will kill us. That least is what I'm thinking in the water as I'm trying to live. Yeah.

So I would try to give this light to this hand. Yeah. And I mean, I do not in any other with this. This is between you two at the moment, please. If there's something involving this creature that is trying to drown you at the moment, then by all means confer to me, but this is your scene.

I take the lighter and I press the rock I took from Tyler back into your hand. like almost like taking it for me shakingly and pressing the rock in instead. Yep and I take- Because I can't see what you're struggling against. I take the rock and I take it under the water. Uh-huh. And you spash it in the face for all it's worth.

Trying to push it against this thing, push it in its mouth. I don't know what I'm doing, none, they're just pushing it against it. Flop, plop, plop. One, it is all yours. By all means, take it away. I take the rock and I'm trying to hit it against it. it in the water, but it's not doing, like, I'm under water. I don't have much leverage.

Right. So I come up out of the water and you can see this thing. It's like wrapped around my neck. I can barely breathe and I'm sort of hitting myself with it and until to try to get it just unravel itself from my neck. Yeah, yeah. And I rip it off and I, I guess, I, I hold it above the water so it can't go back under. Like I'm holding it upside down.

If I can, I'm struggling with it above my head. Oh, the thing? Yeah, how big is it? Oh, okay. I'm so sorry if this wasn't abundantly clear. Let me try this again. The creature, as we watch this serpentine thing, there is a man holding you under the water.

They watched as this thing slipped into it, into this man, and now this man is grabbing a hold of you with its dead bloated cataract eyes, holding you under water. Right. Okay, I'm pulling this guy off of my throat. Yeah.

Of your throat. Which is, again, this is just a prying thing. Just getting it off and you do. You, you, you know, you are hitting this thing in the head at first, but now you're just taking both of your free hands and you've pried this thing just off of your neck as you continue to see. It's off of your neck, but it's grabbing a hold of you and it sinks its teeth right into your side. It just takes a bite out of you. And you can feel that pinching that then becomes sharp, direct pain as you feel that only the mild thickness of your clothes is prevent in any kind of tear. But you have been clamped down upon.

Yes, so Star, or I'm sorry, Emily, you reach it to the vent and you pull this thing open. Tyler, you're watching Star and Michael struggle with whatever the hell this thing is. is. Emily, do I see you crawl in the vent? Are you... I'm waiting at the vent, and I call out, leave him. I'm going to grab star again. Well, you do see Tyler coming for you

as kind of Michael is still screeching in pain, having pride this thing off, and now ostensibly not at least drowning anymore. But, you know... And I say, this is our moment. Let's go. I say back, you just want to be the hero, and you don't care. who dies along the way?

I care who dies, but we don't all have to. Let's go. Star, we have a chance. Come on. I don't let go of him. Yes. All right. Like, at this point, I'm like, because I'm on, like, I'm floating above this table.

Yeah. I would say, like, I'm tugging at him, trying to get him to, like, since he's relinquished his script, trying to get him just to leave, to go. Right, right, right, right. Okay. But this thing is, like, on him. Yeah.

So it's like, but I'm just pulling. Between, Michael, between you and Star, you pull yourself and grab, basically swimming really honestly to where Tyler is but past him and you are able to kick this thing when now it's off, but you do feel as you are ripped away from this thing,

you do feel a tearing of your own flesh. Yeah. As you now just are, you can just hear, you can just feel it more than anything else as this just ripping, just this aching pain as you all push off and you can start to see blood in the water.

And the little bit of light star that you, or Emily, that you have as you're holding flicking up, you can see that other things are starting to, like, through the cracks, and you didn't even notice it up until those point, but the cracks in the ceiling, through little divvets that are in the metal parts of the ceiling, you can start to see other of these wriggling worm things with the multi-leveled arms,

and you can actually see they have kind of circular mouths with tiny little teeth inside of them, but they're small. They're just like about, you know, small boa kind of size. They just kind of slop into the water, and it's like something's just pouring them into the water. And you all make it into the vent. You all sclamber up into the vent.

I mean, Emily, you're first, but who afterwards? I'm still trying to get Star into the vent. Well, they're all there. Oh, we're all there. Yeah. Whether you are pulling under the vent, Star is holding on to Michael, and she needs very little motivation at this point to take everyone to the vent. I'll hang out and...

You hang out? Yeah, and as they go in, I want to see how badly Michael's hurt. As much as I can in the darkness, as he crawls past me in the vent, really try to feel out how badly he's hurt. As you lift him up, you can very clearly see blood on the side of his body. And you are hyper aware of the fact that Star also knows about your foot or potentially, it could have been a lucky kick. Sure. Aware of your foot as well, too. Yeah.

As you Emily, Star, Michael, Tyler, make it into the vent. The snake things in the water, are they big enough to go through the vent? Like, do we hold on to the vent cover? Can we pull it back somewhere? So they're absolutely small enough to fit into the vent cover. Well, not the vent cover. They're definitely small enough to fit in the vent, but there's no way after Emily ripping that thing off.

Putting it back on is a fool's errand. Okay. As we get in the vent, I'd like to take that backpack and I'd like to shove it into her chest and go, forgot this. It's hard to, I mean, you kind of like almost, to control the vent, you kind of almost have to shove it along her back as now you feel the pressure of this backpack lean down upon you to pull it back. I mean, there is not a lot of room to navigate in this thing. Mike, you declared yourself the leader, so I think that you should do the brave thing and tell us all what you're feeling after being bitten by one of those, because we don't know the effects. You could easily do something like, like what's his name, going crazy?

He could have been bitten. We don't know, and I think that that's on you. Everybody, let's get moving. We can talk about this as we move. What are you implying here? That you're going to go crazy because you were bitten by a monster and turn on us? You're already unstable.

You already turned on us. I didn't turn on us. You said that you would leave any of us behind. You said that. I was just doing what you told me to. I was sucking it up and being an adult. Let's keep moving. I'm just saying.

the back. Wow, you are. You are Emily, Tyler, Michael Starr, you are third at this point through the breakthrough, and you do awkwardly climb for a long time. I mean, for a while, Michael, you occasionally feel lightheaded, but you do continue to go through it, Star, you being in the very end. It more than once you can absolutely tell that you are crawling through Michael's blood right now as you're kind of moving through and you being at the very end even lifting your arm up and seeing kind of still warm lifeblood of him flowing through it you all continue to move and you do climb you continue to go through as much as you can as we're kind of moving knowing Michael's behind me I'm going to just try

to reassuringly grab Emily's leg just to let her know it's okay you're there, I get it, I understand. It's okay. As we're climbing through, it also like two stars behind me? Yes. I'd like to ask her, why didn't

why don't you just go? Because they're still good in you and I wanted to save it. I think we're all good people and I need to believe that we're all good people. Everyone back there was

just scared. We were all just scared. You're one of the first people in my life that I have not successfully pushed away. Thank you. Thank you. We're in this together. We're not leaving anyone behind. As you continue to crawl forward, and you can start to feel that the air that you're in is getting hotter.

as you continue to move forward through this event the heat is starting to get oppressive it's not just about the humidity anymore it's the sheer thick heat blaring down upon you almost like if you it's almost like if you've opened a door

to the oven and you're just putting your face right into it it's despite that you keep moving you press the it with all the determination with stars voice in your ear you know that you're in the front and you know that you cannot stop and that determination is what guides you through as you start to feel the heat underneath you as the metal now appears to be not just warm but scalding hot You start to feel it as she goes through too, and it stops you almost for a moment as if you're putting your hand on a hot piece of tin roof or, you know, the dashboard of a very hot car. Does it sound like there's air below us when we're moving, or is it solid on the other side of the vent?

It feels like there's air below you. Okay. It feels like it's not solid by any stretch. In fact, that's an excellent point. there is a stance at some point when it starts to get hot when you feel a difference between the, excuse me, the difference between when you're moving along bedrock. Yeah.

And then when you're moving along, open, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, air. Yeah. Yeah. I know that the vent is thin enough that I broke through once before my foot. Yeah. I want to stop. Yeah.

I'm just going to put one foot back to stop Michael. Yeah. And I'm gonna take that rock that I have in my pocket or something. And I just, I want to reach out between me and Emily and just really carefully as carefully as I can. Bang a little bit. I don't want to bang right on the bottom, so open it all up, but like kind of on the side here, bang on that a little bit. See if I can punch through. Oh.

Oh, yeah. That's not good. That's fine. Everything's fine. Yes, you do. Absolutely. You, um, in this conflict, uh, you carve. this open with very little danger to the structural integrity of the vent. It's to the point

where you've actually taken a sharp piece of the vent and you are almost like a saw. You're just taking that. And I'm just trying to get a little piece of it so I can figure out where the heck we are. As you peel it back, as you press into it, you are actually surprised when red light just emanates from it and you pull it back ever and you feel a, you feel a, hot gust of air just like just almost sizzling like a just for a hot second

and is it like a flickering fire of the red light or is it intense and constant intense and constant so this is like a furnace or a boiler or something I tell everybody I think we're above the furnace I think we're above the heater we should

do you want to peel it back enough to get a better look I won't make you roll for it I'm going to ask the group assuming my leadership position again. I think we're above the furnace. I can peel this back to see more, but I want to make sure that we are okay that everyone is an agreement before we do this.

Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Okay, then I'm going to peel a little bit. Peel it back enough just to get your pupil through. And as you put your eye as much of your face to like through it too, it burns. It burns so hot.

In fact, you cry out in pain as you feel this intense heat just blast against your eyeball as it was fine and then it wasn't as you put it right up into it and it hurts. But in that brief moment

before your eye just started getting into it and you have to close it and opening it and it hurts. Have you ever had an eye surgery done? I've not. You have not? Okay. Have you ever had

an eye injury like someone's poked you in the eye. It is that kind of constant screaming intense pain as almost like you got a sunburn on your eyeball as you look into it. But for that brief moment, you saw roiling hot rock below you moving. Not a furnace at all. Lava, magma.

Let's move, move. Tyler, you can't open this eye anymore. It hurts, at least for the moment. Like, even the stinging pain of just trying to keep your eye open at this point is so much. You just keep it shut occasionally, just holding it for its brief moment. As you all continue to move through this now. How hot is the air coming out of there? Like, it's pretty...

Like, um... Like hot enough to heat something? Oh, sure. It's hot enough to heat something. It's heating the air. Yeah. It's heating the air that you're in right now. I don't mean to be crude, but I will say that he has a first-degree burn on his eyeball right now.

So, yes. I nudge Mike, and I just sort of suggest to him, like, if you can heat up your pocket knife, maybe you can cauterize your wound. You're bleeding a lot. Yeah. You know, it's a really good idea. I don't know how you're still moving. I need to get out of here.

I need. You've got to stop bleeding first, so. It's, you should, uh, you should try to, just, just, uh, you know. I take my knife out and I set it on the sheet metal. Yeah. Actually, because of the order that you're in, you're right behind me. You're right behind Michael. and you technically would have found the spot that he opened up in front of you.

So you could take the time if you wanted to wait and heat up the knife. Star would be right behind you, you know. Yeah, I heat up the knife and actually maybe even as I'm going by, it's just that hot. Yeah, it's just that hot. Just to burn it closed. Yeah. It's call it.

It's both on the left side. We can make that work for your favor. It does take time, though. And four, it is enough time that both Emily and Tyler have made significant distance ahead of you as you both are kind of waiting. I feel Michael's not behind me. Yeah. I don't tell Emily. Right.

So it takes a few minutes, and I have to ask you to see how effective the cotterization is. 1-1 and 1-6. 5 for an I. 5, and I have 1 from this. It's a push. Push goes to the GM. It successfully happens. You close the wound so that it doesn't bleed openly anymore.

It hurts so bad. And it's not before, it is actually not necessarily from the, from you just wading over the heat vent. It's definitely from the knife that you had to heat up and then press against it. no matter how tough Michael you may be and how much you've grown through the pain to move through it you are definitely going to cry out when hot metal is pressed up against an open wound it's just going to happen yeah I pictured lots of screaming yeah lots of screaming yeah and it's uh you hear it

behind you I call back and I say what's what's going on you hear nothing because you're so far ahead the small distance your voice can carry nothing comes back in fact the screams aren't distant, almost as if you're hearing it down in echo chamber. Where are they? They stayed back there. I'm not sure why. I don't know what's happening, but we can't turn around here. There's no turning around. We have to go forward. It's okay. Michael is, Michael is strong, Star is strong. We have to go forward. But they screamed. They did, but there's no, look, we can't turn around in here.

Star? There's no, they would want us to be going forward. They would want us to be taking care of ourselves. I've got you. I'm right here. Still holding the arrowhead. Yeah. We gotta keep going. Do you keep going, Emily?

Yeah. And they don't hear me call out. No. They don't, mostly because Michael's screams are so loud. At this point. You gotta rise it, you lay into it. Moving is agony, but the agony is different than the lightheadedness of knowing the blood loss

you've been suffering at this stage. Yeah. Yeah. Is there any places where Star could get ahead of me? Any outcoves or now? We're just going, all right. Straight forward. Straight forward.

I mean, at this point, if we created a conflict that allowed for narrative control, you could create an alcove if need be. But as far as I view it now, why? There would be no alcove. There would be no bend. It would just keep going. At least now you know the source of the hot heat, the hot, hot air that has been filling this place. So you continue to move.

And you continue to move until you, Emily, come to another 90 degree bend that takes you up. This is it. I've got you here. You're not going to fall. I wedge myself in. I find purchase. and waste myself over the edge. Yeah, you climb, basically have to climb through, and then you can stand up, and you hear the metal,

just buckle underneath you again. And it's not as hot anymore because the insulation of your shoes is better than the insulation of your arms. I ask you if the metal is cooler up there. It's a little bit cooler. Cool, good, good. and you...

I'm gonna call back down the passageway. It's cooler up here, but I'm not yelling as lot as I could. You do hear distantly sounds, though words at this distance. I mean, it's bouncing so much. It's probably hard to tell what it is, but you do hear Tyler's voice far up the ladder.

Emily. Oh! 16-1-1. I get two. Take over. How do you climb all the way up to a break inside of the vertical climb, like we discussed earlier? I have been holding onto my backpack and sliding along upwards. Okay.

And until I find something, I'm just going to keep doing that. You climb up and then at some point you do feel a break like it is a T-section, not unlike what you experienced beforehand. you definitely climb another 20 feet before this break occurs. So you have a similar choice of what I gave Michael on an intersection earlier. You can continue to go up or you can make a dash either way. I think this is a good time for me to wait for the rest of the group to catch up. Okay, great. Tyler, are you waiting for Michael and start a catch up or are you beginning to climb on your own?

What are you doing? Well, I found this place that I can comfortably take a break, and if they've heard us, then we can wait here for them. It wasn't too far. One of them probably just got burned. Do you saw the lighter? Who has the lighter? Yeah, Michael still does.

Gotcha. So I can't see how far above us this continues to go. But it is cooler up here than it was. It is cooler for sure. All right. But we can't wait here forever. Five minutes? Okay.

Okay. So I'm going to position myself to where I'm, holding on in. Let's see. It's five minutes enough to definitely catch up. You know what? No, it's not. Five minutes is not enough for them to catch up.

Is it long enough for them to be within earshot and for us to be within earshot so we can communicate? At five minutes, do you yell out? Yes. I think so. I think it's definitely enough for you both to hear it. So you do hear Star yell out at some point. I call back.

Great. So you do hear, I mean, I mean, I'm. don't have to mediate between this. I say if there's purchase up here, we're going upwards, it's cooler up here, we are waiting for you. We're coming, we just had to stop for a bit. Mike is really hurt, but we're coming.

I yell back, if you can help him get up here, we can help you. So Mike, Star, you do continue to calm up in a similar way. You continue to make your climb your assent in a way that you did before, and you push your way up at the moment. At some point,

at some point, you all kind of clump up together where you are in this cross intersection and you have come together at this stage. So now it's time for a choice, Emily, do you continue to move forward or do you take a different intersection? I think we should go up. When we deviated from that, it turned out poorly.

So up. Agreed. Up. Yeah. You continue to climb up. Now we're in a place where the junction where we could redo the order if we wanted to, yeah,

because we can slide into those. You do have an alco. Absolutely. You could add, this is a time in which, based on where you are, two people could leave and reorder themselves.

So what I'm trying to get out is that star couldn't be in front of Emily. Yeah. You know? Because you're at the first and you're at the bottom. So really it's just you three that can change orientation.

But, or Tyler, you could get in front of Emily. if you wanted to. Mm-hmm. I think you've been doing a fantastic job leading us. You're badly injured. I'm not perfectly well, yeah. You've been doing a great job leading us.

This was kind of my point. Perhaps it's time for now for me to take the rear in case. Yeah. I'll go up behind her. Behind her. Yeah. So it's now Emily Starr Tyler, or Emily Starr Michael than Tyler.

Yeah. Just grab any squeeze Starr's hand. Okay, great. You're doing a good job. And when I pass Tyler, like, in the alco, like, I do give him a look. As much as you can in the middle of the dark. Yeah, but, yes. But, like, it pierces the darkness.

There's a pause. Yeah, cool. I can't hold your gaze. Didn't think so. As Star passes by me, I want to, I want to give her my knife. Star, okay. So Star, you now have this knife.

Yeah, I'm sorry, any other reorientation discussions? I think that's it. Emily. Continue to ascend, and, oh boy, is it a climb. But it does seem cooler as you continue to climb. and you feel the comforting cold of the metal as you continue to slide up, you know, six, eight inches at a time as you continue to climb.

At that point, you hear something high above you clang. Bang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang. And they seems to get closer, the sound of it. Da dang dang dang, dang. It seems to be getting closer. Da dang, dang, dang. and suddenly with such force that it shocks you, you feel something just slap right on the top of your face

as it hits you and all of you just crest for just a moment as you all slide down. Star, you're the last in line, right? Tyler, you're the last in line. Okay, jamming my elbows now. Jamming your elbows, but you feel as something is now on you, Emily, that just smacks you in the face. and Tyler with the last purchase in the bottom

just feels the weight come out from underneath him 1-6 and 1-1-1. So you hold on with all of your might. And my conflicting emotions. So you jam both elbows in at the moment and you feel and you slide. Yeah. And you slide feet.

I'm going to try to jam my feet in there too even though I've hurt the one. Yeah. Oh, God, does it hurt? Just feeling this little bit of just a broken flesh and bone, just kind of like pressing up against it, but you know what is below you.

Yeah. And you do not want to hit that as hard as you can. Emily, you can hear tiny, tiny infantile screeching as you feel this languid thing, just like flopping you like a fish out of water as it's slapping and its tiny little claws are just raking across your flesh as you feel tiny pinpricks

as something is attempting to wrap itself around your head, your neck. I yell, what's going on? What's happening? I have both of my hands free because I'm using my back to scoot upwards and I immediately try to shake it off and get everything away from me. Oh my. I mean, it was worth a shot. Emily, you wrestle with this thing with everything you can and you're trying to pull it off, but as you are attempting to grab it as any reasonable person should to grab it, you're actually feeling as these little tiny needles are just pressing into your palms and you can feel small pinpricks of blood starting to fall down your hand as this thing startled just as much as you are

is continuing to press and move around you as it streaks and yours fill this metal hell that you have created for yourself four candles four truths dark with you we're close Two. To a way out. Do you mind if I, as an example, extrapolate that further? You're close to the surface. That's fine. You're close to the surface.

I'm not going to be able to walk anymore. I can still pull, but I can't walk. Why is this group so hard? I'm going to contradict you, Tyler. I really don't. I go back to excruciating to walk. No, excruciating to walk is fine. When I'm trying to avoid is contradicting one of your roles,

you successfully manage to hold yourself. Gotcha. And I'm fine with that. And I don't want to contradict that. Okay. What I do want to do. Emily, if you shake this thing off, whoever is below you,

it's going to try to force itself into their mouth. And if you hold on to it, it will force itself down your throat. I'm not going to freeze this time. Right. Let me actually make sure that that is not so, I want it to be just as ominous, but not just as anything else. This thing is going to go down someone's throat. That's where we are.

And you're not gonna freeze this time. Right. Four candles, four truths. We are still all in the alcove together. Nothing has moved forward. Emily, you're struggling with this creature, who as I have described in the truth, now that it has recovered from its shock,

knowing where it is, you can feel the tiny tendrils as it's attempting to like a boa constrictor find purchase against your neck right now. What do you want to do? Is a knife? I press it into her hand. And I grab it and I, how big? Bigger than my neck.

It's like this. Yeah. You try to. Left hand goes into it. Right hand attempts to throw it off me. Yeah, she's next to it. Okay. And star is next to you.

So yeah. Yeah. Stab it. Everything you can. Throw it off of you. 1611. You, I'm sorry. You have narrative control.

Yeah, I wedge the knife into its body. Yeah. And I use that as an opportunity to grab it and throw it down. Right. So you hear it squeal. It's just as you take its moment of brief pain as it now tumbles down onto star and you feel these tiny little claws rake down upon you as you feel it kind of curl itself back up. like a centipede wood as it just kind of lifts up and it's doing everything it can to hold on to your arm

as you have it one arm across just like your back against the wall. Similar situation. I yell again, what is happening? There's something in the vent. There's one of them in the vent. Right. Can I hand the knife down?

I have both arms out. Can I reach up? I can see, like I could see myself handing one up but with it struggling on me. I mean, if I grabbed it, I think I would fall. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly worth a roll for sure to see if you get into it. Otherwise, if you just want to deal with this

without the knife, by all means, because now that it's rolled across you, you can see as it's making a B line straight for your shoulder, and you've seen what it's done. Okay, I'll try to take it from her, or take the knife from her. Yeah, you wanna try to take the knife rather than just, just rip it off.

It just determines how the conflict deserves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we are at a point with the candles. Yeah. I'm gonna take the knife. Take the knife. Yeah, it's like comfort. It is.

It's better to try to stab something than it is to rip it off. Can I use this? Yeah, it is what it's for you. That succeeds on a five and a six. Ah, yes. Six. and I do not get to take a hope dice away.

Yes. So you catch the knife and I get one dice to roll. Tell me what happens. This thing comes skittering down onto my arm. She drops the knife down and I slip a couple of inches as I grab it. And then because I told myself this time I wasn't going to freeze,

I stab at this thing half-hazardly, slipping a couple of inches every time. Oh, yes, okay. So you see this thing on your arm as it's wrapping towards you and you're slipping a little bit, but you take this thing and like you said, you didn't freeze, so you just start stabbing. And into your arm.

And you can feel it, you can feel it hitting, but you can also feel. It's hard to tell if it's from the little tiny clips of pain that are onto this thing or if it's into it, but you just hit this thing and it's squealing, as it kind of rears up. But at one point when you've been lifting it up, you watch as it just slips, not dead,

but it just kind of loses purchase as it clumsily slaps down onto Michael. And you feel this body just kind of like collapse in front of you and it lands upon your lap and it looks dazed and awful. And you can see that you have blood just dripping all down your arm and your hand is starting to shake as you feel kind of the weakness.

The adrenaline's wearing on. the adrenaline. Well, no, it's kicking in. Right. But literally the, the pain is still there. And Michael, well, there's an order to things. Yep. This thing is dazed and fucked up and nasty and doesn't look good, but it is still alive by all accounts. What's the plan? Is it, it's in my lap? It's in your lap. I mean, I guess I would like to throw it down, like try to throw it down the shaft. Yeah. No, Do I see this thing fall into his lap now? Because I'm below him, I'm at the bottom. I mean, again, so it's dark.

It's dark. At this point you see what is above him, but man, this is one of those circumstances in which the GM could just take a little bit of chance to see if chance factors into this at the moment, but it's all about the best story. So I think this is the best story, Michael. You just like a, like if you were trying

to catch a rock with a skirt, you just open your legs. You just open your legs and you feel this thing just like skitter, but it falls down and it hits Tyler right in the face. And it lands right on top of you and you can kind of feel as its tiny little legs are trying to scurry as it's lifting itself up, but it is on you and it is screaming. And in fact, you can feel a couple of its tiny little needles are starting to wrap around the side of your mouth. Okay.

Well, first I'm going to try to grab it and throw it away. Yeah. I can't, I can't, I can't not try to live. Yes, you can't not try to live. You always have to have hope no matter what it's in. Option.

Yeah. Three. Yes, I'm going to try to spend, I have a save a companion from despair. This is your moment. This is my moment. You cannot spend your moment for a moment. I can't.

No. Spend your moment for a re-roll. All right. So the things I'll be able to. on me. Yes, in fact, our scene ends. But let me tell you how this conflict resolves. Tyler, as you feel this thing fall upon you onto your face at the bottom of the line, you put yourself here, you know you did, you know you went to the bottom of this and you feel this creature, just kind of skitter. And no one's told you, well, I guess a few seconds ago, Emily told

you that something's in here with it or a star did. And you feel this thing coming across you and it attempts to just force itself into your mouth. And it's such a guttural, it's such a primal reaction to just pull away from it and hold onto it that you don't even realize for a moment that you've let your feet slip and you feel as everything below you just starts to fall and you hear and you more importantly can feel this above you

as you grab this thing and it's attempting to push itself into it as much. as you can and you punch right through the bottom of the air duct and you feel warm, hot, burning heat around you. And as you look up and it's this moment where this darkness above you and you feel this thing grasping a hold of you and you look down and you feel that impact, that slam

as both of your feet hit against the air duct and gives away and you begin to fall and you can see your in your end up. in a open cavern and looking above you into the darkness, something is going on in your mind. What is it? I just, I can't help but think that at least this time, I tried. And those are the last comforting thoughts that you feel as there is pain,

but it is oh, so brief as your body just disheartedly. disintegrates into this molten slab of rock below you with an unceremonious as your body comes down. David, thank you so much for playing. Thanks, Ivan. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, man. Thanks guys, I believe in you.

You got this. You got this. Yes. Thus are C-Ns. Three candles, three truths. Normally, Tyler would be able to speak the first truth. But since he is no longer with us, I will take the first truth. Star, your arm will not hold out much longer.

It is already failing you. You can't get up this fire. Your arm is failing. Star? I'm not taking Mike with me. Michael. Michael won't let Star fall. Three candles.

Three. Truths have been spoken. We pick up immediately where we left off. Michael, you were third in line. And you heard the screeching of this thing as it slapped upon Tyler's face. And then you heard the loud distension of metal as you heard his body tumble, tumble and fall,

and then a loud crash as your air vent that you are all in shakes for just a moment. As all of you hold on for all of you, Hold on for all of your might, and some of you do slip down ever so slightly, as now this warm devil's red light now seems to be beaming up from the bottom of this air vent. What do you do? Was that Tyler? Tyler's dead. Is everyone okay?

I'm slipping. You're not going to fall. We have to just keep going. We can't stay here. And you're in back, right? Yes. Can I give you my backpack to push upwards in case in case starts to fall, to start to slip?

Is there room for that? Yeah, you could hand down your backpack. Hand down my backpack. So you hand down the backpack, Michael, you grab this sentimental item and there's something on this backpack, Emily. I mean, it holds precious things inside of it, but there's also something on it that Michael might notice.

What is it? Oh, it's several buttons, pins in it. One of them you recognize as a Girl Scout. But it's several sharp. Some of them have started to not pin backs wear off. Yeah. So you see this bag that has what you would expect

a high school girl to have, even a Girl Scouts on it, and you take this and you use it as a little bit of a cushion as you continue to prop, star up, and you continue to just lift her with as much effort and star, you're contributing to it, but every single hand movement just aches and pain. And sometimes you can definitely feel your strength, giving away as you are more sticking your lower back out and pressing with your arms as much as you

are doing a comfortable movement. It is not a comfortable ascend anymore. It is awful. But you continue to climb. And you climb and Michael, your side is pushing through it. The pain is intense. You're now using her weight and you're dealing with your... own pressure. In fact, you can start to feel that whatever wound you've cauterized, the skin is splitting. And I need you to hold on for all you can. You're not going to let her fall. Yeah, but there's only so much a body can do. Two sixes. Get me to the top. Get me to the top. as I as I'm starting to slip in my body

and I'm this fatigue of this I again just sort of remember Hannah and remember my will to want to get out of here and apologize to her and as this is happening I'm thinking about

Star and how she didn't lead me and how I am not going to let the first person in my life who I felt that I haven't been able to push away, leave me. She didn't leave me back there and she's not, I'm not going to let her down. So I just push, I just push as much as I can. Even as I'm slipping and there's blood on my hands, I just keep thinking about that if I can

just get to the surface, that it might be some redemption for the person that I've been pushing people away. And each time that I put my hand on there is one apology that I am putting out to the universe to try to reconcile. this. That sounds, it sounds very much like you're making some redemption for what you hoped was a tough life.

And that emotion carries you through. As Emily, you start to see and feel cold air, start to brisk down upon you, and you see the glistening white light of something penetrating into the vent right in front of you. And there seems to be just enough space. As you get closer and closer, you can go to where this air vent is.

And there is a small ledge, almost like a sewer grate, that has a lip laid out into it. And you first push through this filter, this just mesh and it's cold to the touch. And you can see through a single piercing stream of light, the moonlight. As you come across and you lift this vent up, this mesh that's supposed to catch leaves and other debris

that's not supposed to get down in there and it's covered in rocks and dirt and foliage, but you shove it to the side. as you collapse onto this small, eight, ten inch ledge, just enough for you to roll onto. We did it. We're here.

Michael and Star, Star, you are at this point with bloody hands and you can feel it down the front. You look as the moonlight starts to get close to you. You can actually see that your entire front is just bathed in your own blood as it's running down. And even the little bit, you can see that Michael's face and his legs and his neck is just covered in your blood. As you just move up and you take your one good arm

and you roll, roll onto this small breach right there, this tiny, tiny little ledge that you hold onto. and uh and michael you um you start to slip you start to feel it you start to feel the weight and you grasp a hold of it but you do not have the strength to pull yourself up the little bit of help that star that you gave star to get her over is the last ounce of strength that you have as four bloody fingers grasp a hold of the ledge and you don't have the strength to make that last effort on your own.

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 Tarant. 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. 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 Mike Carruthers, and I talk with scientists, authors, 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. Are we noticing that he's slipping? He hasn't pulled himself up, but he hasn't said anything either. He just seems to be there. Just standing with four fingers on this ledge. What do you want to do? Since I've rolled over, can I like roll over and reach down? To grasp him.

Yeah, you can. You can, but he's a lot heavier than you. I know. Do I roll this with it? Always roll the hope with it. Six, no ones. Tell me how you pull him up. He has no strength on his own, so this is all you.

Mm-hmm. I don't think it's feasible to say I pull him up. I think it would be feasible to say I hold him because I'm laying down reaching over the edge. I like that. That seems to me more reasonable. You have this purchase,

and if you don't mind, this is the picture that I paint is you are kind of laying, and it's exhausting. This journey has been exhausting, and you've pushed through it. And Star, the only amount of effort you're able to even give at this point is enough to just take your hand, your head's still lying on the cool concrete that's there. And you find his hand and you just grasp it as his weight drops. And now you have this chain that you're holding onto. Apparently, neither of you have done this with anything.

other than a silent knowing that you're both there and connected to each other. Emily, you hear the sound of slipping and then an adjustment of weight, and it's not hard to see what's happening in the edge of the moonlight. I grab him to star. Grab a hold of star.

Yeah, I'm up, so. And as star continues to hold, you can see that her body is slipping from just the sheer weight that's going on to this. And you get to her as quick as you can't, you crawl with every reasonable amount of strength you have and you just attach yourself to her.

And you hold on. You're all so tired. Muscle fatigue is now just catching up. No sexes. I feel at this point that Michael looked into star's eyes, and he just stares into her eyes. And he smiles at her and he said, you have similar eyes?

Thank you. And he lets go. In 10 candles, this is what is referred to as a heroic sacrifice, taking a dire consequence and taking it upon yourself. This turns the failed conflict to you. A candle is still darkened.

It is not hers, with everything you can, but his weight is just not enough to hold onto your own. And as he says, thank you, you just feel as that last slip, that last bit of skin touch, that wet, warm body falls. As you see him hit one side of the darkness, hit one side of the air duct, and hit another, And then he's gone. The blackness envelops him.

As Amalie catches your weight, catches your weight and pulls you back to the side, both of you leaning on this thin lip with the moonlight coming down upon you. Michael, you descend into darkness. You've done something for Star and Emily here with this heroic sacrifice. What would you like to give them?

what would you like them to know before you fall out of their lives and off this table? That it was their bravery that got us out. And with that, I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Well done, man. We'll see you soon, okay. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the table.

It's a pleasure. And they said that we don't have anything to contribute. We're here. There are two candles, but only two truths can be spoken. Always the world is dark. Have to speak the first truth. There's only enough room for one of you to get out.

Have the blessing and the curse of being the last truth. The decision isn't stars to make because we have a new leader now. Just lying there in the cold darkness as the silence are around. around you is just so sweet. Occasionally you can hear the sounds of something, chittering, movement, but nothing ever gets close.

Nothing knows you are here, and you sit and stay here for a while. It's been hours since your last meal, and that familiar gnaw of hunger, which you've been able to, to stem off for weeks now is starting to clench into your stomach. And there's this moment in which you wish you were just back eating cold slop back in your common room.

Both of you have been staring at this exit. And it's nothing more than a glorified chimney stack. and it's positioned in such a way that someone would have to prop them up just to get to the chimney stack to lift themselves up because this wide open chamber you're in which the vent goes into is tall enough

that only one person could crawl through with the help of another. You should go. I've lost a lot of blood. You can't be alone. I can't. What if what's out there is worse than what's in here? I can't be alone.

I can't do this. You're a fighter. There's got to be a way. There's got to be some. Still in my hand is the arrowhead. And I take it and I put it in your hands. And I say thank you so much for showing me who I can be. I won't let you down.

Remember to always keep that direction. I don't want you to die. I don't want you to die. I thought I'd be brave. I don't want to die, but I want you to live, but I don't want to die. If there's a way that I find like some rope or something. I won't be able to climb up.

Don't say that. You're making the decision to die because you're saying that you can't do it, but if there's a way, if I get up there and like, maybe there's help. Lift her up, Star. Yeah, yeah. With your hope dice, too,

sixes one one. Yotsie. Yep. Take it away. Please show, paint this picture for me, getting her out. Yeah, I sort of like, because she's kind of small. She's very small, she's just a girl. Yeah.

So I kind of give her like a hug. And then while I'm hugging her, I put one, my good hand underneath her foot and just like boost her up onto my shoulder. And then just lean, like slump against. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Try to push her up. At this point, you have both of your legs straddling akimbo against the grate.

Yes. Which is right there. And the lip is just enough for you to cut their edge on either side. Yeah. And you boost her up as high as you can. Emily, she gets you high enough that it's not hard just to get it. You're at your waist. And you, I mean, it's what, another two or three feet before the smokestack ends.

Just the audacity of just how close you are at this point with how far up you climbed. and just as assailing you as you grab your arms and you pull yourself up into the cool night breeze that's waiting for you and you're all almost to the ground and it's soft grass and dirt. You seem to be somewhere on a field. Just you can hear cicadas chirping in the background

and the moon you can see the moon its giant face leering down at you it's being punctuated by a monolith that just stands right in the center of it

its shadow almost cutting it perfectly in half and it's no you know in your heart that there is no way the moon should ever be this big. And in the two weeks since you've seen the surface, it has encompassed the skyline above you as you lay upon the cool grass looking up in the night sky.

Ledge you can make. Emily, what do you do? What do you do? I'm going to be so brave for you. I just kind of sit quietly holding my arrow at. The story is not done. There are two candles remaining. There's a chance.

There's always still hope. Even with two candles, even with one dice, there is hope. What do you want to do? I want to find a way to pull her up. From where you are, from where you are? Yeah. Reaching back into the stack. You loom, put yourself forward and lean in such a way that your hips are preventing you from falling all the way through.

And you could put both of your hands down and reasonably she could jump for it and grab your hand to convince her to do it. I need you. Look, we're so close. We are so, so close. Look, I have you. I'm not injured. I can get you. You could fall in, too. No, I'm pinned. I can't.

I'm not going back in. Trust me. I can get you. Or I can use my sweatshirt or my shirt and make it longer. And you can help. You can help you pull yourself up. You can do it. You're just scared of being alone.

I need you. I need you here. What am I going to do? I'm fucking 15 years old. Knowing full well, This is probably not going to end well. I just look up at her, stand up on the slip, and I look up at her.

I'm just like, it's not worth it. You gotta go. Leave you. We're so close into the hole. Stairs up at you as she looks into this moonstrucken eyes. And she brings her legs together. and her dark, piercing gaze is the last thing you see

as it engulfed into darkness, the ducks below falling. Thank you so much for playing. This is wonderful. I haven't had a sacrifice that hasn't involved a die roll. I don't know if this ends a scene or if we continue on.

How are you feeling? Wrecked. Watched as your friend disappear into nothing. We can, Emily, we can end this scene now and we will describe the last scene and I will tell you how it ends. Or we can carry on your story of hope and we can move until you fail a conflict. This is just as much your story as mine. I choose hope. Let's go.

You watch his star descents with the arrowhead that you carried with you all the way up these hundreds of feet. You are so tired. Those few hours of rest have prevented you from exhaustion, but you feel every muscle

every ligament, every bone in your body. And walking is, I can say that you are completely uninjured though. And as you get a beat on the area around you, you can see that you are somewhere above, close to the farm that acts as the facade for this underground silo retreat that you've been calling home for so many weeks. What do you want to do?

Scream, help. Dream for help, and you scream. And your call pierces the night air as you hope someone will answer. One candle. One truth. The world is dark.

Emily, lift your head up into the sky and cry for help for all that your lungs can handle. You scream, and it's almost like you're screaming at the moon, this awful thing that is getting so close to you. And you can't help wonder if the monolith. and the moon are somehow related to each other because only when one came did the other start its slow descent into the skyline. And as you scream yourself hoarse, your call is answered. You can hear the sound of chittering motion and serpentine forms. and circle around you. Much for playing.

Thank you. With that, we have one final thing left to do, and that is listen to the messages of our dearly departed characters. Thank you so much for watching. Hannah, if you're listening to this, I first, I just want to say I'm sorry,

and that I'm different now, I'm, and I'm really sorry for the things I said, and I did, and I'm, I'm working on it. And I, I want the chance to say I'm sorry to you. Sorry for what I did. I hope that you can forgive me. I left you a supply bag in the backyard. It's hidden in our favorite spot. I'll always love you.

Always. the monoliths came, I was at work. I raced home to find Jenny, but when I got there, she was gone. My first thought was, you know, thank goodness, she's safe, she got out, but that's ridiculous, of course, there was there was no place to go. She's not safe. She's just gone. It would be hard her if I had loved her. This is hard enough. Hi, my name is Emily Rose.

I am 15. I'm a student and I don't know why we're recording these things. I guess I'm supposed to say, tell my family I love them, but I'm sure they've already moved on. In any case, all I really want to know is if Mr. Anderson liked the mixidi I gave him. I wonder if I'll get to talk to him about it when I'm going to me. this all blows over. Hey everyone, it's your girl star coming at you live from the apocalypse. Who am I kidding? The Wi-Fi has been out for days. No one knows when or if it will be back. I can't help but feel this is all some kind of karmic justice. I've spent years selling people

lies about astrology, the stars, talking about lunar cycles. I don't even understand. And now it's like the moon is falling on us. Maybe this is some kind of signal that it's not too late to make amends. I don't know. I can use this as a wake-up call to help someone. I mean, it's not like I ever actually hurt anyone though. This can't be divine retribution and even if it was there are way worse people than me who probably brought it about. Good night no one in particular. This is your favorite gal stars signing off and saying reach for the sky and don't forget to like and subscribe before you die. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not so dark, not so stormy hard-boy. 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 them across the world, fighting for every clue 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 Chaotics Case Files.

Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. The Chaotics are on the case. It's ticklish business anyway. You look at it. Come on, we'll stick together. Love movies. Love classic movies. So do we.

Tick Bush Business is the podcast for Class. film is discussed in modern times. Hosted by me, film journalist Kristen Lopez, and my co-host author Emily Edwards, we dive into the golden age of cinema with fun, heart, and serious expertise. As published film historians and lifelong classic movie buffs, we bring insider insights, deep research, and lively debates with a variety of special guests, ranging from celebrities like Holly Madison to TCM luminaries Dave Carger and Eddie Muller and even family members of old Hollywood legends. Subscribe now to ticklish business on your favorite

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