Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Chapter Nine: Lake of Fire | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

With the Yosemite super volcano destroying the last remnants of earth, the last few survivors go deep underground.   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 Becca Scott, Amy Dallen, B. Dave Walters, Jason Carl, 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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You don't, this isn't context for you. This is mostly for me. The reason this is important is because, so I love all of my children, all of my 32 people who have come before you at this point. But I'm actually really excited about this episode in general. One, because it is the penultimate episode right before the finale, but also because I have some of my favorite people with me. So, thank you. What an insult to everybody who's coming for. I don't even going to say anything, but now that you mention it.

No, I'm just really happy to be able to have this select group, which people I have played with for many, many years, people who I've very recently been enjoying with for many, many years, people who I've been playing with for many, many years, and one of my favorite DMs. Absor their DM power. Oh, I did. My spoo-y compadres.

we have a story to tell. Ten candles. I don't want to. This would be my first time actually dying on stream. Like, I've survived 100% of things, including you yourself threw it in me. Today I run out of track. I'm going to fix it.

I mean, I guess theoretically, I've been dead the entire time. And to be fair, you said yes. I knew what this was. I'm going to be the first survivor of ten candles. That is... I don't think, that's true. I think, just to remind you, you can't win 10 candles. This is also hard for me.

It's a challenge. All of us in a different way. I'm showing up for the sadness game. You're showing up for Can't Win. You're showing up for got to die. What will this break for you? Immortality. Just to feel mortal again.

It's been so long. I think the first thing we need to do is spread some virtues across the world. Can everyone take one of your cards and let's pass it to the right so your right to player? With a card. I'm sorry, so this is probably important. We're going to take a photo which will represent your note cards rather than proper note cards and we're going to take one of your photos and we're going to pass it to the right. Should it be my favorite? It can be whichever one you'd like to have your virtue written upon. You know what? I'm going blind. I don't. It's going to be what it is. Should be that one. We'll let fate decide.

Yes. Going to the right. Do I look at the picture or no? Yes, you can look at the picture. Thank you. Thank you for asking. And some examples of great virtues? Virtues are usually one-word descriptions. They can be things such as perseverance, nobility, tenacity. I already spelled it wrong. Literacy.

We all speak back. Yeah, they're just things that you would wish upon someone. You should play a teacher of some sort, honestly. I think that'd be very own brand. Funnily enough. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Then let's pass it back to the left to your owner.

And look at it or not? Yes. In fact, Jason Carl, why don't you start us off by reading yours first? Oh, this is clever. Inventive. Might be handy. You're very inventive. Inventive.

Excellent. And Amy? I have determination. Determination. Yeah. I'm determined. You're determined. There it is.

Yes, that's where it is. Determination did. Determined. The most determined. Loyalty. Loyalty. So determined, loyal. Inventive.

Inventive. And Becca, what did you get? Jog? Joy. Joy! I don't have the best handwriting. It is true. I thought it said jog, too.

That is clearly why. I thought S was my first. Is jog a virtue? Apparently. It is now that you're fast. I take it all back. You're really fast. Oh, well, yeah, that feels right.

Joy. Just enjoy. Joyful, okay. And fitting for this photo. Can we show the photo? It's your photo. I don't know. You consented.

Well, my bottle. looks really good. As something a very joyful person would say. My butt looks amazing. Let's grab another one of your cards. And now this one is going to go to the person to your left. I don't even know what it is. I imagine it's the opposite of a virtue,

so I will give the appropriate photo. These are the vices. I'd like you to write something that you would not wish upon someone, but that is. More importantly, it is something that creates more problems than it actually solves. Does it have to be a single word? I mean, I know it's short, but it's... Can you hyphenate? I would appreciate a descriptive word, yes.

So it can be something such as, you know, vicious or, you know, spiteful, or... I'm pretty sure it's my turn that I think I spell that wrong this time. It's all right. I do words good. I did what the photo told me to do. They do speak to us. It makes this from the past. Pictures are worth a thousand words, or in this case one word.

This isn't what we think about each other, right? Well, you're looking at the photos, but no, this is about who you would like to give to your character. So, or the character. B. Dave, why don't you start us off? What did you get? I don't even know what it is. Violent. Violence.

Violence. Violent. Loyal and violent. I mean, it me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm buying it. How about you, Amy?

What did you get? I am aggressive. Violent and aggressive. Uh-oh, dangerous common. Determined and aggressive. Determined and aggressive is how we made it this far. I can see how this is going to go already. Poorly.

How about you, Jason? What did you get? Selfish. Oh, and how. All right. And Becca. Not only am I jogful, I am also manipulative. Oh, joyful and manipulative.

All right. Some good combinations of virtues and vice. here. Let me tell you a little bit about the situation that you're in. Now, we did discuss it a little bit beforehand, which is why I'm going to sum it all up in this statement here. We've decided that you are situated underground somewhere in the, where was it? It was the Carlsbad. In the Southwest, right? In New Mexico, the Carlsbad Cavern area. Carlsbad Cavern area. So you're basically situated yourself into some natural underground caverns in the Carlsbad area.

Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, at some point, you felt, and there have been earthquakes, frequent, you know, small aftershocks and things that have happened. But there was recently what felt like a large shock wave that came across the entire Earth in a sub-atmosphere kind of attitude

rather than a, you know, two titanic plates cracking against each other, kind of an attitude. shortly after that you felt the big one come across now for many who may not be aware there in yellowstone is a super volcano that has been lying dormant for centuries for like 40,000 years yeah millennia yeah at this stage and it is all it needed it had somehow managed to survive not erupting at this point, but now you have generated several hundred atomic bombs worth of energy, which have split everything above the ground, and have now generated a sulfur cloud that is so thick and so

dense that the only reason you know about it is because there were people who were outside when it came down, and the people who were still above ground are not with you now. You were the last four situated inside of your cavern at the moment you've managed to live in this pocket of air that is below the settling but you have absolutely seen the remnants of what you can when it has when the sulfur dust has settled you can very visibly see it making its tiny ashen piles outside and as a result the world is dark shrouded in a cloud of sulfuric gas and a lot of the entrances that you were usually used to using to get to the surface have all been drastically disrupted, broken apart,

and now you don't know where the hell you are in this place. So with that, let's talk about what moments you would like to generate inside of this scenario. And a moment is simply something that can be achievable, but also has a chance of failure, something you hope to happen while the story is being told. So we're going to take another card that has our faces on it, and we will write that on the back of that one.

All right, I hear no more scratching. So it sounds like we're all done. In describing these moments, I would also, if you would do me the kindness. First of all, thank you all for playing, by the way. Uh-oh. I appreciate that. I've evaded you several times, so.

But I would love to meet whoever you or be playing today while also revealing your moments as well too so amy why don't we begin with you all right uh i'm billy morris uh my dj name is was gonna be uh either zinia or violet but i hadn't uh i guess all that's pretty far in the past at this point but there's a lot of stuff i never quite got to do. I used to work a lot of odd jobs and, like, donate plasma and stuff, so I could never...

I know it sounds really stupid, but I could never get piercings or have tattoos, because I was, you know, volunteering for medical experiments a lot for spare cash. And so, I mean, we're all screwed anyway, right?

I want to get a tattoo. Okay, awesome. professional lab rap hopeful DJ now wanting to just get that last bit of counterculture culture on your skin

yeah and how about you B Dave who you plan today my name is Boone Boon just Boone I am a survivalist I've been prepared

for some time for these events. And now I've made my way across a dark and desolate earth to find my way here amongst these people. And Boone, what moment do you hope to generate in this story today? I would like to witness repentance in the midst of the judgment that is being handed down on saint and sinner alike.

Great. You would like to see someone repent. I would. Becca? I'm Eliza Winter. I used to teach pre-K. I really loved it. I also just love music and concerts. It's kind of my thing.

I'm just a music fan. I'm not a musician or anything. I just love. Sometimes I travel. I would use to. And anyway, I just love that. That feeling when you're in just a throng of people, and you're all feeling the same thing

and experiencing something together that's touching a deep part of your soul. Not like in the mall, but in a crowd where everyone is one for a moment. You want to be part, I see where this is going, this is that moment where you're all experiencing something together and you're all in the same wavelength. Yeah, but just with a big group of people,

I don't even think that's possible. anymore. But I want to be surrounded by a crowd of people one last time. You want to be in a crowd? Okay. Mr. Carl. My name is Ethan. Ethan Daly. And for most of my adult life, I was a journalist, an investigative reporter most recently. So I told myself that I dedicated my life to the search for truth. And I spent a lot of time and difficult and sometimes dangerous situations looking for what I thought would be the truth, hoping that people would read about it and it would matter. And what I found in my search for truth is that it's a lot harder to find than anybody

thinks because everybody lies. Right? They lie reflexively. They lie when they don't have to lie just because the compulsion is so strong to conceal that inner honesty. So what I want is I want to see someone. be really honest. I want to see a moment of genuine

honesty. You want to see some real... Where this whole thing rips apart. Got it. All right. Well, Ethan, Eliza, Billy, and Boone with the E-crowd. We have to be crowd.

This is the final thing we have to touch upon before we dive into our story is... The Brinks. The Brinks are... Okay, you can put that there. That's fine.

I'm going to put that right back there. Okay. The Brinks are a dark moment. It is something that you have witnessed in someone else that has been the lowest point of which they can achieve. And the book is very clear on a couple of examples on this. There are such things as, I saw you kneel down and pray to them

No one thought they were looking But I saw you Or it can be something as simple as I watched you kill a local In the area And It can be something also as esoteric and simple as I've seen you muttering words that were not human

And these are all things that you will take one of your pictures now and we are going to hand it to the left so you're going to pass it to your person on your right yes no brinks go left we're going to pass it to the left now the good news is for these brinks I get to participate

this whole process oh good so I'm going to hand yours over boon I will take yours and I'm going to write something of which they have seen you. The proverbial them has witnessed something upon you which I will write to you. At the same time, Miss Eliza, you will write a truth about them, a brink of which you have gone into. This

is an opportunity to expand upon what has already been built in this. And when I say them, I do mean everything from the proverbial creatures we're talking about the them that has come up. But this can also result in the moon, the super volcano. These monoliths, these 100-story spires that have pursed out from the ground, they are all on the table for you in which to write as something that you have seen them do or react or say. what has Eliza witnessed in that regard. Is it written as I saw you or I saw them? Well, in your circumstance, it can literally be,

I have seen you, and in your circumstances, I have seen them, and in mine it is they have seen you. So mine's flip? Can you explain what I do that's different? You're going to write something that Eliza, has seen them commit. The creatures? The creatures, the moon, the monoliths, the earth,

whatever you feel like is going to add to the story that you, well, find interesting. So they witnessed me stalking lots of food and ammunition in this very cave. That was the easiest one so far. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. I do not. I do not.

All right. I mean to be too meta, but is something like that acceptable if you can read my writing? It's totally fine. Oh, okay. More jogging? Ineatively.

It is a virtue. Good cardio. Great. Let's pass it back. I mean, if you have trouble reading that, I'll translate it. Well, do we read these? You read them.

No one else should see them. They are for you, and to be fair, when they wrote them for you, your character has observed this person do this thing. Yeah, I bet that was easy for you. Thank you. Excellent. All right. We have our brinks, and we have our moments, and we have our virtues and our vices. The last thing to do is to now create a stack in which your virtues, your vices, and your moments can be in any order you wish.

But just know that whatever is on top is what you are able to activate first in the game. Your virtues and your vices will allow you to re-roll any ones that may come as a result of the dice. Your moments can only occur should your moment be on top. And your brinks, should you get to them, can be used to do an entire re-roll of all of the dice. However, should it fail, it will remove any hope dice that you may have earned, and it will snuff the candle immediately. However, if you succeed, you may use your brink time and time again.

I notice that we have one left. That is for your name. That is for your concept. That is your character cheat sheet, if you wish. I shuffled them and let fate decide. You said any order, right? Any order you wish. Virtues, vice, and moments.

That was a name, concept, and what else are you? Whatever you need to help you remind you who you are and what you are. All right. To begin. To begin. Yes. I apologize. What was written about us, does that also go in the stack?

Or is I just... The brink always goes on the bottom. Okay. The brink always must be on the bottom. Okay. It is the last desperate attempt. No, I mean the thing that was. written about us. Does that go in the stack?

Or is that just something we know? This is the brink of which I wrote for you. Oh, that's that. Okay. That's the brink. That goes on the bottom. All right. Sorry. Yes. It's all right. So you are all currently laid up inside of a small cave system. In the south-western part of the country, you recently heard several people come back. after a large explosion had gone off shortly after a smaller tremor had awoken. I would say it's been a few short hours since the super volcano erupted at this point and you're actually still nursing one of the men who came back from this explosion at some point. His throat was raw and red from inhaling the sulfuric gas.

And slowly these small welts started coming out. And only a few short minutes ago did he asphyxiate and finally succumb to his grievous wounds in this cave structure. And, well, that's all you know for now. What do you want to do? King, leave that corpse around here. You need to get rid of it. Like, what do you wear? I mean

Look at them Marks We don't know what's wrong with him And he's gonna fester And rot I don't want to be smelling That stink in the last Pocket of Good Air

God knows how far We should bury him somewhere We should give him a proper burial Somebody loved him Stone, darling Can't dig too deep right here Can we kind of Can we use the fallen rocks

To bury him? I said this about a million times already This sucks. It really sucks. Can we maybe take you as far as we can go and leave him? I don't know. I don't even know how far out of the cave mouth we can get now.

Probably not very, but yeah, let's drag him away. And then miss, we'll make a pile of can to remember him by... Okay. Her name's Eliza. Miss Eliza. That's what the kids called me. Will you assist me, sir? Yeah, let's go.

I do rummage through his pockets for anything of value first. He don't need it no more. Well, you didn't know him at one point. And like many of you, it was a bit of a lone heart. And I would probably say even one of the last of the festival goers that you were with, originally. So he had some cut off cargo shorts and a sleeveless shirt that was good for desert. Desert fun. I think he held me up when I crowd served.

Probably. But more importantly, he's dead now. So why don't you rummage through his pockets for me and see if you can find anything of value. For all of them? All of them. Yes. All you need is a six. But any ones will become mine. Okay. Wow, no sixes. And one. And one, one.

There is an option to re-roll this if you'd like to use your virtues and vices. Otherwise, this scene is going to end immediately, and we will go to nine candles. Re-roll? What are the possible negative repercussions of re-rolling? Either we lose a candle now, but if I roll it goes poorly, what? You will still lose a candle. The difference is, is that if this becomes a six, scene will still continue and you will not go down to nine dice you will still continue a 10

dice moving forward so otherwise we end the scene we will speak nine truths and the scene and the story will continue first role I'm amazed it's going well so your one is on top you said violent is one's on top right yes so you would need to tell me how your violent nature applies to the situation so So are you being a little unceremonial with this body at this point? I mean, he can't feel it no more. So, yeah, I don't care. Get him by the arm and just yank on the shirt.

Get it off of him, man. Stop! I don't know what he's got hidden in here. Oh, come on. I mean, hey, his problems are over, all right? Is what you're going to do to all of us? Yeah, cool it. A little respect.

I would expect you to do the same for me. Well, you'd be wrong. One. No more helping, Boone. So you rummage through him and you find nothing of value. In fact, of anything, you have just defiled this corpse even more since he has recently died. Well, let's just say that when people die, they tend to lose all bodily functions. And they tend to evacuate their bowels.

and that is currently what you are shifting around right now is you're trying to maneuver and manipulate him out of his personal effects. Jesus. Jesus. It's disgusting. Jeez. Nine candles, nine dice, nine truths. So, Boone, just so you know how this works is you get to speak a truth about the world, about the story right now.

We don't have a whole lot to go off of at this point. But this is an opportunity for you to decide something that is in this world that is true. The first and always rule is that it is dark. The world is dark. But since you fail this conflict rule, you get the first truth. Does it have to be objectively true or just something that I myself believe? This is both. You can use this to skip ahead in time if you wish to resolve.

You can use this to create conflict. You can use this to tell the best story. that you think is possible in this circumstance with a single truth. This old boy didn't go out alone. There was three or four of them that made it. He even got back here. It's because he ran to save his own hide. So you're saying, and if I hear the truth correctly,

your truth is... He died a coward. He died a coward. So that is your truth. This man died a coward. He brought something back with him. He lies up. The world is dark.

He brought back a piece of one of them. Okay. It's still wriggling in his pocket. He brought back a piece of them, is what you were true. He did. He did, yes. Mm-hmm. Right.

Even, right, one, two, three, four. Bold is dark. This man died a coward. He brought back a piece of them. The piece of them is making noise. It's making itself apparent, right? Billy? The world is dark.

This man died a coward. He brought back a piece of them. It's making itself apparent. And one of the people he left behind is still out there in the caves. In the caves. Right. Boone. Seven.

The world is dark. This man died a coward. He brought us. something back, a piece of them that is making noise yet he left someone behind. They followed them back to these caves.

They did. They did. I've never done this before. I like this cascading. The world is dark. This man died a coward. He brought a piece of them back with them. It's making noise. He left

people behind. and he has brought them with them. There is a complex cave system underneath you, leading into the mountains. Eight, Eliza. The world is dark. This man died a coward. He brought something back with them.

It was a piece of them. That piece is now making noise. And there was some, Someone else? That he left behind. They have followed them back here. Oh, they followed them back here into this complex series of caves that lead to a mountain.

Mm-hmm. What is the memory? What is the truth? They know we're here, and they're taunting us. They haven't come in. They're just taunting you? Is that what you're saying? Mm-hmm. Great. They're taunting you. Which leaves you with the final one, Ethan.

The world is dark. This poor man died a coward. He brought back a piece of them. And that piece is making noise, making itself apparent. But he left someone out there behind. And that someone has brought them back with them. to this place, which is on top

of a complex cave system. They have not entered, but are taunting us. The cave system leads to a lake. Great. Cave system leads to a lake. Nine candles, nine truce have been spoken.

We pick this scene up. Sounds like pretty much right where we left off with Boone, violently shaking this man who has excavated his bowels at this point, but in the shaking, you actually hear a wet slap as something falls onto the ground. And you see a small, almost banana-sized piece, just like a giant slug almost that just kind of falls onto the ground. And you drop him and you drop the man as soon as you lay into it. And you

kind of watches this thing rather than move slow like a slug or just get up and it starts skittering right onto the body and starts climbing right up into it and lodges itself right into this man's mouth. Kill it Boone. Smash it with a rock. Smash it with a rock. Smash it with a rock. Ah. Oh. That nice. I'll think that one one. There's no way I can assume narrative control of her this point so Billy take it away. It's a lot of sixes. That is five, six, six. What is wrong with you? I scoop up one of the rocks in the corner and it was starting to go at his mouth, right?

It basically had pried its mouth open with these tiny tendrils that had lifted itself up and it took each one of his gums and started prying his mouth apart and was slipping down into his mouth. I want to get it like a horrifying golf swing like sideways across, splattered against the cave wall if I can. So you whack it and you kind of hit it side long,

not smashing this man's face in, but instead just trying to dislodge the creature out of it. And you do, you, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, putting distance is perfect as you kind of whack it across the side and you watches this thing, kind of slides out of his mouth, but you see it takes a huge part of his lip with him as it kind of comes out and rolls onto the cave floor wrong. And it's now kind of kind of like a rle-poly a centipede. It's attempting to curl itself back up.

Stomp on it, crush it. Yeah, so, Ethan, you just walk over and just stomp on it. You just stomp on it repeat, and you hear it squeals. It's loud for something so small. It's just, and you watch it, like, black eye cord just... Oh, God, die already. And it lays still, and actually you watch it curl up, like a little spider looks at legs after it's dead,

and it just sits there and mocks over onto its side. Are you okay, Elisa? What hell is it? Elijah? What is okay? I know a thing or two about the natural world. Does this bear any resemblance to anything I've ever seen? No.

Do you hear that? What? Which you hear, and as you're kind of not terribly close to the cave entrance, but you can definitely hear singing. singing, the sound like it's... Like music, like the radio, like an instrument? No. I mean, like the crying howl of thousands of voices

that are erupting into a shrieking chorus. Oh, good. Sounds. It sounds like many voices together. Can you echo. Making a joyful noise unto the Lord. I don't think that's what they're doing. Boone, what are you talking about?

There's nothing joyful in this world anymore. I think it's joyful. This is retribution. Judgment that we brought upon ourselves and we are here to witness. Okay. Excuse me? Okay. What's wrong with you? Everyone I ever have known is dead. Everyone I've loved, everyone I've taught, everyone, they're all dead. They were all going to die eventually anyway. Just the timeline has been shuffled. Not like this. Not without living a life. It doesn't really matter. Why? It's not helpful. Well, perhaps we can agree that maybe we shouldn't stay here before the course line arrives.

Well... You want to tear some more bodies up before we go? You got any other laying around? Awesome. Let's see where this cave goes. Do you like to go into the cave system deeper? So the challenge, but also the boon, sorry, of guy going deeper. is that the air is clear, it is cleaner,

it is not so abrasive as it is this close to the surface, but it is dark. It is, oh, so very dark. And your time up on the surface briefly was actually basks in beautiful illuminating light. It's hard to call it beautiful, when literally the moon takes up the entire horizon, which is what you last saw before.

The super volcano erupted. But it is dark. And the, well, do you have any kind of lighting instrumentation at this point, or are we stumbling through the cave system black as night? I have some glow sticks in my backpack. From the concert, from the festival. I would have had a light in my bugout bag if I've still got my bug out bag. I'm going to go with the festival glow sticks.

It seems so much more poetic. I've got the headbands. I've got the wristbands. And then just sticks. So there's a single head beam, which one person can wear. And then you have several chemical fluorescent sticks that can be broken that are one-time use. So who's going to go in front with the head beam? Oh, it's an actual head torch?

Yep. We're going to do a head torch. I got it. Just because I didn't know. Sometimes you have to find the bathroom. Yeah. Okay. I've only got four glow sticks.

That's fine. Maybe we should ration them. One at the time, maybe. You had a lot more, but it has also been a very long, fraught three weeks filled with death-defying adventures. Absolutely. Whoever wants to take up the rear should probably take one. I'll do it.

Okay. Here. So Billy's going in front. Ethan takes the rear. Just take a glow stick and break it. Like put it together. What color is it? It's about as bright as a half-dead firefly.

Blue? Blue seems like a color that Eliza might have had. Right. Very cheerful. Right. It has this blueberry neon blue. So it kind of carries you in the back. And it is, it almost with the illumination it's providing,

it actually almost has this rippling water effect as it hits upon the wet walls of the, this cave, which is becoming more truncated as you go deeper and deeper into the cave systems. Is it wrong that I think this would be a great spot for a rig? Absolutely, it would be. We can have a raid. I think they're already having one back out there. Can we still hear that keening, that the wailing, freakish noise?

The chorus is dwindling as you get deeper into the cave systems. But it also is starting to just have that odd echo. as if it just is sitting just ever so slightly in the back of your brain. Not quite in that presence of your senses picking it up, but it just seems to be there. It's hard to forget. Does this seem like an equivalent number of voices of our former companions or more people? I don't know, Boone, what do you think? I think it's more people.

Okay. And then if it sounds more than what you remember, And to be fair, the festival that you both saw as part of this, that was weeks ago. It's been almost, well, subjectively about three weeks. You don't actually know how much time has passed because the days and night cycles are so fraught and irregular now. But subjectively, it has been definitely more than a couple of weeks, for sure, almost a lifetime ago at this point. Many lifetimes. I just don't remember how it used to be. The little food that you have left is what you carry with you as you go into the cave system.

And it's mercifully open for a while. Can I tell you guys a secret? Sure. What do you want to talk? I'm so hungry. That when... Not much of a secret. I can hear your stomach growl.

That's not the secret part. Oh, okay. I don't want to tell it. You thought about eating that bug? Just for a second. Not the bug. Anyway, never mind. Yeah, we might, I don't know, maybe we find some...

I wouldn't. I would never. I'd sooner die. It might come to that. It just cross my mind. It might come to that. No. I wouldn't.

We find some bats down here, cook them up over a campfire. Oh, my God, a bat meat sounds delicious. Kind of leathery crust. But yeah, I'd eat it Yeah, beef turkey I was vegetarian, but I'd kill for beef turkey Oh, stop talking about food, please Okay

Let me ask y'all as we make our way through here You know Where are y'all from? Phoenix, we'll make it far Back east Ain't trees now Don't, well how do you know? We don't know what's out there I mean, for all we know, if we could get out of here and just keep on walking in one direction,

we might find anything. Civilization. Or we could choke to death. Or we could choke to death, yeah. But we don't know is the point. I mean, we don't know where this cave comes out. It might be the other side of the world. That's true.

It's got to be better than there. Wait, you're from the East Coast, but what were you doing in New Mexico? Hmm. I was writing a investigative. piece on doomsday preppers. People who were preparing for the end. And rightly so. You know, the fact that you're

right doesn't make it any better. So enjoy that. It's the only joy I got. You were working on this? No, not what happened. I mean, I was doing a piece on people who were preparing for

the apocalypse. People like me. The irony. I assume it was a very sarcastic article. Might have won me another prize. And yeah, you're right. The tone I had chosen was a little bit

contemptuous. What? Now what? Kind of here is a small flutter of bats. Just kind of finds its way through. A duck. All right. And they kind of come out. Duck behind Boone.

They go like eggs and meals on wings. And you kind of watch them as they kind of flutter by and they go out towards the entrance of which you came in at. Can you really cook those? If you want to grab one now is the time. Yeah. They're coming out.

Give it a shot. You sling a main stone. I mean, they's got meat on them. That means days can be. We didn't see any baths in there. They had to come from somewhere. If you want to go for it,

I mean, Billy, by all means. Do it, Billy. You can do it. In the mood to hit something anyway. I believe in you. Okay. Two, one. No sixes.

Wow. Do you want to re-roll? Don't think it's worth it? On the re-roll. Three, two. Even one rerun. No. Okay.

Wow. Okay. Please you just walk and you chuck it at where you hear the sound where you can be. You kind of hear it against the walls and you kind of hear as it splits and you hear as the bath continue to squeak. They kind of make their way from the cave. But you don't hear the telltale sound of anything falling to the ground. And you, after this moment of which you hear a clatter, you start to feel the ground to begin to shake.

Another tremor. Hold on. To shock. And thus are seen as. Eight candles. Should have made an athlete. Would have been the same dip pool anyway. That's true.

You burned up while you look on that first one. Save this one with zombie thing. So probably, maybe. Eight candles, eight truths. Billy, you speak the first truth, please. First, the world is dark. And I don't know if we need to do the round robin this time. Yeah, it was fun.

It was a fun experiment. The world is dark, and the headlamp definitely flew off while I was trying to catch that bet. No. Excellent. All right. Boone. The world is dark, and there is not enough oxygen in these caves for full people.

Right? Not long term, at least. The lake that this cave system connects to is underneath you, and the tremor will expose it. The world is dark, and I push Ethan to get out of the way as the ground starts to open up. All right. You shove Ethan out of the way. That is a truth. To use his body to propel myself further from the opening.

Ethan. So I'm shoved, I stumble, I fall, and my hand strikes something soft and yielding a body. Okay. Someone has been here before us. Great. Five. Six.

Can the lake have a faint bioluminescent glow? That is the truth. To put light back in the world. It is not a huge amount of light. Yeah. It is enough to give it... Toxicity. Yeah.

It's maybe glowing. No. To give it bioluminescence is perfectly fine. There's a little plankton. Yeah. So that is... That would put us back at six, which means that boon, you have number seven.

The world is dark. And this body is wearing military fatigues. Ah, great. Um, I'll take that. 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. I'll take it. And that means I've been outside a lot more, walking around, occasionally galloping after a toddler

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A-kand-a-cannels, eight truths. We move this scene forward immediately, Lisa, you just shove Ethan out of the way. Hey! Oh, the lamp, I'm sorry! And the lamp kind of clatters, and you actually watch it bounce, and the light comes down as a crack just,

just collapse on the cross. God, damn it. Watch as the earth splits across, and you hear as it tumbles, down and you watch for a brief moment as you hear a splash just as you look down and see the spiraling light of the headlamp just kind of cascade and swirl down on now this broken causeway that is about the size of a panhole sorry maybe we should go get it we or maybe the person that was wearing you as much sense as anything else.

I don't know if I can even fit through there. Even as you fall down and you feel this unyielding cushioning thing on top of you, and you kind of see in the low amount of blue light that you hold onto it, you can see camel fatigues onto it. And you feel a hand to lift itself up and it grabs your shoulder. As it pulls you, it alter it,

and you can see this cold white eyes as something is gurgling inside of it. And you can feel him, grasping his hands around your throat. You hear Ethan cry out and begin to choke. Do I still have my knife? At this point, you mean, you had a few things with you. I would allow a knife as something that can fit in your pockets, so yes.

I assume I'm long since out of bullets, but I feel like I would have this from my cold dead hands here. Right, yeah. I don't want to desecrate no soldier, but I got a stab. this old boy to save him. Stab him! Stop him! Oh, yeah. Oh, it hit. That wasn't its original rule.

That's true. It was not its original state, but that's fine. It wasn't, but I will take it anyway. If it turned to a six, I'd have kept it, so it's fate is fate. Fate is fate. So, three sixes. Yes, and I think at this point it's the first role of the scene, so I cannot take narration rights even if I wanted to, please. Boone, tell me what happens.

As this thing reaches up and grabs my associate, I plunge my knife into his chest just under the ribs, and I feel that hidden organ I am not familiar with. Well, actually, more importantly, what you feel is you put in there, that organ that you are not familiar with is wiggling inside of its body. Give it a satisfying twist.

And you hear a loud screech kind of emanating from inside of his chest cavity, and you hear it, it's like, sound again as you kind of feel this thing wiggle inside of it. It's almost like something's trying to get away from your blade. And as you pull it out, you see the black, red of oxidized blood, and then a small amount of black eye core as you pull it out. And this man, whoever it had holding on to you slackens his grip.

As he pulled the thing down. You okay? I'm so sorry. I just, when it opened, I just, I got... It's all right. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. What? What? Who was that? How did it do that? I mean, it tried to climb down the other old boy's throat. I guess that's what happens. It's insane.

I can't leave him saying this, but I'm so glad you have that terrifying knife. Terrifying time. Oh, this sucks. Yeah. Where? I'm happier here, Boone. As crazy as that is. I clean the knife on the guy. We're the light gall.

We got this blue thing. Yeah, I dropped it down the thing. Oh, I'm going to shine the light down there. You can actually still see a tiny glisten of the light, but it seems to have dropped all the way down. But, oh, boy, is the water clear? Water? I'm so thirsty.

We could maybe refill our canteens. Oh, and I think I'm out of purification tablets, ma'am. I don't know if that's wise. How far down? We're going to die if we don't get water. Is there a way to... Are there like rocks? So like I mentioned, it's a manhole.

Yeah. It's kind of there. So there seems to be a small air pocket that's right above it. But you basically, it cracked open a hole enough to where you could kind of slip in to it if you wanted to. But how far in between us in the water? I would say, oh, from you in the water? Oh, mere feet. Like, you could, you could very easily like dip your body down and get water easily.

So is the light in the water? in the water about 10 feet down. Eliza kind of shamed me about it, so I'm going to start trying to wriggle towards that hole. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Wait a second. What are you doing?

I dropped it in the water. It's right there. Well, hang on. Let's make sure we can get you back out. Yeah. Maybe, I don't know. I'm going to take, we don't have any rope, but I'll take my shirt off

and somebody give me a shirt and we'll, I start taking the soldiers fatigues and start nodding that together. Yeah. I saw this thing. Gosh, I practice this. This is what I taught my kids in arts and crafts. Utah to improvise rope making and hellish situations. We were sewing. I used to sew on my own clothes.

It's the Montessori. It was. He's got a lot of skills. The word warning, ma'am, I don't know how familiar you are with water, but past 10 feet. It all looks the same. That could be 10 feet of 50. Oh. Yeah, if you can't grab it at the end. If you can swim, it's okay, right?

If you can't grab it at the end of the line, don't... Yeah. It's not going down. To get it back. Is anything, like nothing else is moving in the water, right? In the time that you've taken to have this conversation while looking at it, there is a small, seems to be a glow coming down from there. I'll hide the glow stick.

It's still glow. There's a tiny little, almost, if I may be so bold. You ever like seen those eclectic house shows in which they've had cave swimming pools in there? And how they have some of the floodlights that tend to just light up the pool so it gives that iridescent glow. It's really pretty. It is. It's an amazing place for a ride. And it's more importantly, it's so familiar.

It's almost offsetting because it does look like something that you would see in an underground pool. I just want to jump in. Smell. Do we smell anything at all? I mean, chlorine, sulfur, salt. Anything. Mildew, old, chemical-wise, beyond the wet smell of the cave you're in, and you can definitely

tell at this point. Where you are, it's hard to tell. There is a hint of sulfur, but it doesn't seem to be coming from the pool. It seems more be the ambient air that is with you at this stage. You said just a few feet down.

I mean, like, if I laid on my stomach and just like, if you laid your stomach down, as you put your arm in, it would, it would only take about this far. You could probably get your entire upper arm into the pool, just lying down. I just want to touch it, make sure it's not sulfuric or anything like that. I mean, just let me... Put your hand in.

I'm like, I can't believe I'm doing this. It's about 50 degrees. It's super cold. But you pull it up with no ill effect. There's no burning beyond the tingling of your flesh from just going straight into cold water. That water is very cold, and we will not be able to warm you up. after. See? Ah.

Yeah, if you can't grab it on the first go, you've got to come back up. To watch the shot. Okay. I mean, we could all cuddle to warm you back up. Is that weird? I mean, you don't have any blankets. Give me the rope. Dead tired.

You know, I'll be the anchor at the end of you. You'll help me. Billy. I see a die role in your future. Will you spot her and make sure that something? Keep her in sight. See anything? Swimming, maybe.

Yeah. Sure. Good luck. I'll keep a lookout. We're gonna hold on until you miss. Honestly, I'm not a miss, I'm not a ma'am, it is the 21st century. Sir? Not that be either. I, it's fine. Two ones for me, but then we roll. Is this for you. I succeed, though, right? Re-roll, re-roll on one. You do have an option for a re-roll for those. Get it back. Keep it. We need it. Three, two. I re-roll.

Okay. What is it? My aggression. Would you mind telling me how aggression plays into this circumstance for those two ones? I'm, my eagerness to prove myself, this should be like a bad thing that happens? No, I'm just wanting to know how you apply aggressive, your vice into this circumstance, whether it's just one of those, screw it I'm going in like this is part of your character

this is the in many ways burning this is one of the most beautiful poetic things I've seen in the rule book is that this is this is a part of you that dies now because you're using it to burn for this so what part of you that is aggressive

dies in this moment I want to say I'm I am so fired up by what we've just scene by the zombie guy coming back to life, whatever was going on there, that I throw myself through the hole. And the good news is that I'm actually able to push some of the extra rocks out of the way and widen that gap as I go through. But somehow the shock of the cold water as I splashed down into it feels like it just knocked something out of me. Yeah. It was so shocking.

just the pins and needles that happened when you hit cold water like that. It's almost like a part of you. It just sucked the passion out of you. And now we roll those ones. Let's see if you can keep them now. Right. Nicely done. So, Billy, you definitely dive down and blissfully.

Yeah, you can definitely take it. Blissfully, you, it's not so deep that you can't grab the light. I would like to tell you one thing that I think you would see while down there. Otherwise, it is all yours as you dive into this pool and start swimming in. Like you said, you can feel kind of these small rocks that you've unlodged around. You kind of drip down into you. And as you're swimming for this light, you actually see another source of light that is shining into the water from off to your right. and as you keep swimming down,

you realize that it is direct light. It is direct light. Like there is a bioluminescence that you were talking about, but something is shining a light directly into this pool. As you grab it and make your way back up to the surface. I got it.

Oh, my gosh. You're amazing, Billy. Oh, thanks. Get her back up and get her warmth. There's something down there. Something down. What do you mean? Another, a what?

There's a light down there. A light. Yeah, you got it back. No, like a real one. A real light? What are you talking about? There's no electricity. I saw what I saw.

No generator has gas after three weeks, even if there was something down there. I mean, this soldier, look how clean it is. He ain't traveled far. Yeah, and he had to come from somewhere, and so did the bats. Okay, where'd you see it? Off to the right down there. Are you cold here? I brought my arms around Billy.

Yeah, she's, I mean, her skin's cold, but to be fair, the air is not, it is warm down here, you being underground. There's got to be another way in them. Do we swim for it or walk for it? Maybe less zombies through the water. You sure? No. Well. You think that the caves lead there?

Maybe. We don't know that. We don't know that. We're not going to last more in a few minutes in that water. It's really cold. All right, let's keep walking. And this is, let's get a move on. The swan dive is the last resort.

But the water looks so nice. How far away was the edge of the water, if I could tell? Based on when you were down there, I mean, in pitch blackness, a light is a light, and it carries quite far. So who knows? So it's hard to tell whether it was 50 feet or 500 feet. You just know that it was off to the right. So we'd have to swim with only a foot of, room to grab a breath.

It's not safe. Not unless we have to. Yeah, not unless we have to. You're going to be okay? How do you feel? Jump up and down, we could do jumping jacks. Sure. So you grab the light and Elizo

doing jumping jacks anyway. One, two, two, one, two. Have heartedly. Come on, do it with her. Don't make her. feel dumb? Let's just keep moving briskly and maybe that'll help. We can get our steady state cardio that way, ma'am.

You hold the lamp and it's disjointed. At this point, the cavern that you're falling into, it may have been a more open, almost like a magma tube at some point, but really now you're seeing parts in which clearly like parts of the cave system have fallen in on each other. And there are several times in which you actually get to a, like a small cave-in, and you're having to move blocks out of the way at this point.

I mean, Billy, it's cold and it's muggy in here, but it, I mean, you're soaking wet, and you're freezing, and you are shivering at this point to the point of where your body is doing everything it can to try to fight off the cold. I mean, if you don't mind, I can... What? Do you have magic hand powers? Rub on you a little bit. Oh, yeah, thanks.

Yeah, that's all. I'm sorry. Oh, me too. I see a group hug happening. All right, fine, come on in here. Who knows how much time we got. And at that point is when you're in this group hug is when the light, it starts to falter.

It sticks on, but it starts to look like that maybe some water got inside of it finally. Let's keep going. Yeah. Do I have extra batteries in my backpack? While we're, I got the blue glow there. Blue Glover. Hold on to it. We don't need to see nothing right now. Smurf color.

Right. Yeah, maybe we save the light. Turn it off. Yeah, maybe turn it out. I open it up and put the pieces in my backpack so that it can dry into pieces. So you continue to move through the darkness at this point, and you continue to walk through, and it seems a while, because you keep coming down, and it's getting warmer. It's getting warmer, and at some point.

You just feel the end. You just walk straight into rock in front of the world. Doesn't how caves are supposed to work? There's got to be a way. Even if it's too small to crawl through, there's got to be. The water has to go somewhere. So you're going to have to probably crack a new one at this point because that one's probably run out at this point.

Has it been hours? Is it one of those they last for hours? They last about six hours. Okay, great. I mean, they get them. Dimmer and dimmer. I rescind that and we'll take your blue glow stick, but it has dimmed enough that you have to hold it right up to the rocks.

Is it really rock? It is rock. It looks like a more major cave-in has hit this point. And as you kind of continue to move across, you can see that there might be a way to crawl through, but it would be one of those you'd have to press your body up against the far end of the rock wall and then squeeze around. Squeeze around through.

I am not built for Spalunkin. What? I'm big. I'm like fairly five foot. Really. Maybe I try and squeeze through to do a little reconnaissance. One quick question before you go through there. You never told us where you were from.

Oh. Well, I was living in Albuquerque, but originally, Minnesota. Take the glow stick. There's not much left. Thanks. We hold my backpack. Yeah. Boone, you seem really interested in where people are living at this point.

You've had three weeks with these points. Or maybe not. Maybe it's only been a few days. I know this old boy, but... You know him. But these two ladies are maybe fresh in your group at this point. What's going through your mind right now? What is why such the interest now in the people that you are with?

I don't think they're going to make it out of here. And I'd like to be able to do. tell their mamas or whoever comes looking who they were. That's really sweet. Ethan's wearing my backpack in the shape of a unicorn. Great. It's a unicorn backpack. Yeah.

It looks good on you. Looks great on me. Got a single horn. I got a horn. Maybe she'll let you leave it. All right. Try it, Lisa. Let's see if you can.

Okay, I'm shimmying sideways down this narrow part of the cavern, and I'm going to see what's beyond it and report back. Slow is my. And smooth is fast. Don't go out of your shot. One-six, no-ones. No-ones.

Let's see. The fact, it's like, what do you mean? You can't win it, tank it. Does he. Okay. Ties go to the GM. So you succeed. You succeed.

Let me make that clear. But I will take narrative rights in this. Got it. That's what it means. What do you see? Can we get through? The stick doesn't have much light left. You basically shimmy through as much as you can.

And if you were any taller or any wider in the hips, you would not be able to make this through. But because you're going through the side, you basically are lifting your body up to aspire and you can actually feel the stone pressing upon your chest. This doesn't feel good. As you kind of hold into it. And there's this moment which you're trying so hard.

to control your breathing because you know that if you take a deep breath in, the rock's just going to puncture straight into your flesh and grind your skin against the stone. So you breathe with shallow, controlled movements as you pull yourself out from the stone, only hearing a small amount of cloth ripping as you pull yourself out to the other end and you find yourself in the other cave system. And holy hell if you don't see a door. A door? A steel door.

I went over and pound on it. All right. You hear metal pounding. What the hell is that? There's a door. What's that? There's a steel door. What? Door? There is some, someone's built something under here. Soldier.

You got to get through that. We've got to move rocks or something. I actually, how far back was the soldier's body? I mean, about an hour's walk. Can we shift any of these rocks without? it coming down on us? I don't know. Can you? I'm going to take off the backpack and hand it to Billy.

Looks better on you anyway. I don't know, man. It's in a little. I'll start it wherever I think I can shift some rocks most easily without it coming down. Maybe at the top. One. No sixes.

No sixes. I will re-roll. What are you? Selfish. Selfish. You're burning selfish on this. Tell me how does selfish apply in this situation? My first impulse is to just hurl myself through the little hole I've made and leave the rest of them behind.

But I don't, right? I stick it out and I let the rock fall on me. Great, I'll take it. Then roll that one and let's see how bad that rock is. So Ethan, you begin getting up to the top. and you start pulling those rocks down, and you dislodge a larger one, and you kind of feel as you pull it off,

it comes out a lot easier than you supposed it would be, and you fall back with the rock as you tumble down onto this small, like, concave, and more importantly, you see a smaller one. You tumble down, and you are pelted, you are ingrained, and you hear, Something snap as you lay on the pile of bros. Ah, it hurts.

Can I ask an out of game thing, the things that we said we saw, you know, the brinks. Oh, the brinks. Oh, no, sorry, the things we say we saw. I don't want to say the wrong parlance. Are those things that it's only up for them to bring into the game, or can we bring into the fact that I saw you do black? You know them.

You know that as a truth, if you feel is important to bring a brink up, that is what it's for but at this stage I will tell you that there are seven candles and seven truths that do need to be spoken Ethan since you unfortunately failed the conflict role

we do get to begin with you first I hear the world is dark that's what I hear that is a truth I hear these things this is true it's true the world is dark what else is true

the stone I pulled out and it's now crushing some part of me has writing on it. Copy that. Billy. Found a key card on that guard when you were taking his fatigues earlier? It's a truth. The writing on the key card and on the stone are the same, and they are not English.

Right? The break was a minor bone fracture in your foot. There's a key slide. that is a key card next to the steel door. There's a keycard reader next to the door. That's the word. Yeah, key card reader. There's a key card reader next to the steel door.

Six. I know how to splinterbone. And Billy, you get the last one. What did you already establish about the other rocks falling down? He said that there was writing on the stone. And I said it's not English. Yeah. It matches the key card.

I'm curious. Like, did it come away from the impenitable wall? Is the wall worse or better? The caven? Yeah. The caven, well, this is your truth. Why don't you tell me? Shit, I should have said there was more buttons.

My plan was to make it better, but... Better was never an option. Yeah, it's worse. The structural integrity is worse. Great. Seven candles, seven truths. We pick up right where we left off. Ethan, you're laying in a bed of rock right now.

Try and get it off of them. What happened on that side? Oh, Kvan. Hey, can I see her at all? I know she slid through, but I'm like if we look down. So in one of those situations, pulling the top off, there might be a situation where if you, after you clear it off, if you climb up the cave in, you might be able to see her over the other side.

Do they have any light? Do I have any reasonable expectation of being able to get this key to her, to throw it to her or anything. I mean, hand it to her. I mean, I got long arms. I don't, without it being, like, clearly a terrible idea to try and hand the key. No.

Is this a conflict is what I'm trying to ask myself right now? Is this a reasonable conflict that's worth rolling? Is there a chance that, as always a chance, that danger could not have been out. You're welcome for making a structural integrity worse. Thank you. Thanks a lot. past the key card.

I'm like, hey, see if this opens the door. Maybe you can get us some help over there. Can I reach through? Where'd you get that? Off that old boy back there. He wasn't using it. Well, I mean, it's no sixes, but no ones. I don't know.

Revo, vivo, vivo, vivo. I don't know what happens. No one is to rerow. No one's to reval. Just nothing there. Oh, that's how that works. The structural integrity has failed. And as you reach forward, you actually disjoint one of the small rocks that was holding up one of the larger rocks.

And you feel as it doesn't crumble down upon you, but you are now pinned with your arm directly onto the rocks. Okay. Okay. Can I see his hand? Yes. Oh, my God. Boone. Thank you.

Jump up really hot. Grab it. All right. Can you get out of there? I do not know. Well, there's time because there's now six candles and six truths that need to be exposed in this. So, Boone, the world is dark. Your hand has been caught in this tumbling of rocks as you put your hand through.

All it took was one of them just to slightly move before it went and then pinned your up. shoulder. We're not talking arm or like in there at this moment and your shoulder is being crushed now and it's not pressing to the point of where it's breaking bones but it is stuck and you have one arm available to you right now. What is your truth? I'm claustrophobic. Ah, yay. The sulfur is making its way down. the cavern. I was just going to say that. I'm glad we're on the same page.

The floor beneath my side in front of the door. Mm-hmm. I test my foot on an area I haven't stepped on yet, and a little corner of it starts to crumble away. So your side is unstable. The floor, yeah, the ground beneath me. Okay. One, two, three, four.

Somewhere on the other side of the door is the sound of a very, loud splash. On the other side of the door. Mm-hmm. Got it. The metal door. There's another door?

No, your metal door. Your door. Did you haven't opened yet? Five. Your hand may be stuck, but it's not your good hand. It seemed easier for reaching, but you've still got your good hand for your long hand, not your good hand. And you do get the last truth, food. She will absolutely open that door.

All right. We picked this back up. Amelia where it is Boone. You can feel the weight of it on your arm. And there's that part where your body is starting to twist and move, because you cannot move your arm. And in your mind, something is pressing down upon you. You are terrified.

I don't know, man. Give him the ass and in the uniform backpack. That's a great idea. Just you gotta get me out here. I can't stay in here like this. Open that door, get help, move these rocks. I do not care. Just put it on his tongue.

Let's get me out of here. Boone. It's a calm down. You want to be mentally somewhere else? What? Yes. Okay. Oh, man.

All right. She lifts you and grabs you a small piece of rice paper. Are you throwing it in? I will say, I do not know what this is or what its providence is. It must be a little. The painkiller that I know she has. Okay, so you just put it in. I take the painkiller.

Yeah, okay. You drop it and put it in. I'll try and get help. Maybe there's help. Can I move now? Do you think? Yeah, no, I think at this point you've adjusted. I mean, it hurts to put weight on your foot.

Well, we're not running any marathons. Right. Can I make my way over to the rock pile? What did you do? I tried to get the key across. As far as I could tell, I succeeded at a cost. All right. Do you want to dislodge him?

Well, we got it. We can't leave him here. We've got to try to move him. All right, Billy, you help me? Yeah. And let's gently, gently try to move these rocks off and one at a time. Now, I'm kind of balanced up here to keep weight off my foot,

so hopefully this doesn't go. Just like focus on happy thoughts, man. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. What are you scared of right now? What is about the claustrophobia that is getting you? What is this bearing thought that's coming upon you? that is making your brain, which has, by the way, prepared for all of this for your entire life.

Why is this triggering you right now? I've made it so close to the end. I cannot die here. I cannot die like this. I cannot die just in a pile of rocks feet from the door. Right. Go ahead. Two ones, one six.

Do you want an option to burn? You did succeed. You bet. Well, let's see. Do it. Do it. I get the ones. We'll take this.

Inventive. Why don't you tell me how inventive you are in this process? That unicorn backpack has straps. We're going to use those, and we're going to loop them around the big rock and get some leverage and slide it off him gently and easily. Industrial unicorn backpack. Saved by the unicorn, you feel the way to come on. I'm so glad you brought that.

What are you doing to Corny? Cooney's saving the day. It's good. Yes, the corny. And even just the weight of it coming off is like an endorphin rush, which makes the stuff kick in quicker at this point. And at this stage, you're starting to feel good.

Like you are feeling very, very, well, you're in a much better mood about things, you know. Don't hurt as much as I thought. Thank you. Yeah. You're going to be good. I think I'm going to like you a lot better when I see you next. I hope I see him again.

And at this point, I'll even go so far as to say that the hole that you moved out created at this point is enough where you can all kind of crawl through. Careful of the ground. It's sort of that corner is not very stable. When I'm undislogged, I go forward rather than back. All right. So you go forward instead. Thank you, thank you.

And you roll a little bit off of the cave. Oh, sorry. You kind of roll off of the cave in a little. little bit and settle in close to where Liza is at the base of it and she points out. You're a weirdo, but you're okay. I take that as a compliment. Hey, uh, I kind of loop my good arm under Ethan's ribs. I'm like, I got two feet, you got two hands.

Hey, thanks. You okay? You okay? No. Oh, my gosh, you're like a... I don't know. I have something busted, but keep going. Yeah?

Yeah? I don't know what was in that medicine you gave me. I cannot feel the thing. You're welcome. What's that writing? Is everywhere. Can't you all see it? That's the same as on the rock we pulled out.

Is it a language that doesn't look like human? So being that it is not English. I'm interested in your suggestion. It is hieroglyphic. Okay. Into it. As the rock kind of dislodges, you do see that there is writing on the wall that's laid out right before. It is, I mean, you're a learned man, right?

It is, like, it's difficult to tell, but it's pre-Egyptian. Hyroglyphics. Something from antiquity? It's an antiquity language, for sure. could be, oh, who knows, what's before Egyptian? Babylonian, Sumerian, older? I feel like this is you guys. It is biblical.

Yeah, for all we know. Are you all right? You've been over here a while. I mean, are you guys feeling a little short of breath? That smell is getting stronger. It's definitely starting to smell like rotten eggs a little bit. We should try the door, right? Yeah.

Hmm. Came all this way. You might as well try it. Is there just one opening? One reader. Okay. I scan the keys. It goes green.

The door's opening. The door's opening. You hear a loud, but the door doesn't open. I jam the handle as hard as I can. You move the handle? Mm-hmm. Right. You feel as soon as you hold into it, as soon as you put weight into it,

it just dumps right open. It just literally falls. right open. That you can't be good. Open up. It stays on its hinge, but the metal door is heavy so you don't fall face first

into it, but you find yourself on a small metal catwalk. The grating right below you. What the heck is this? This is help. There could be help in there. This could be military. Let's get inside and close the door behind us.

Good call. Yeah. So you all pile through the door and you wind yourself on the metal catwalk. as the door slides behind you and you hear the metallic of something locking behind you. I run ahead about 10 feet or spaced out weight-wise on this part of the catwalk. So you kind of move forward. As you kind of start going through you realize there's the natural cave system that is to the left of you but that cave system slowly kind of breaks away into a large open pool area unlike the water it's close to.

That is beautiful. And it's sparkling boon. The lights are dancing. and you can actually see these floodlights are shooting into the water, and in the water you see something it is. Now, how long have you been underground? Like, were you any of you around when the monoliths rose through the ground? No, I've been here a couple of days, I think we found it. I would say the first monolith destroyed my stockpile, so I witnessed it and fled. So in the middle of the pool, going through the water and up into the ceiling is one of the monoliths.

You're seeing one of the bases of the monolith that's emerged in this crystalline pool of water, and the floodlights are just hitting onto it right now. How wide is it? At this point, it is very wide. Like we're talking, you're in a large cave system and this pool is large, but really you're only seeing a portion of it. A large amount of it is just still hidden in the rock. And you are impressed by just how clean this thing has cut through.

And it's the fact that there's no rubble laid out around it. It is almost if someone took a hot needle and pushed it right through and found its way up into the surface. it is insane how cleanly it has pierced the earth's crust. Anybody here? Shh. What if there's one of those things? Anybody here?

Anybody here? Anybody here? Hey, somebody replied. That's just the brain's starting to process sound differently. It's going to be wonky for a long. No, I heard you. It's just like you, but I'll dance like that. You're right, bud.

What kind of medicine did you do now? What kind of place? It works. What? Maybe take it for your foot, man. I don't feel anything. How's your foot? What happened?

I don't know. I fell backwards when I yanked the rock out. I think I broke something, but I got it wrapped a little bit. I can't put a lot of weight on it, but I'd rather not mess up my head. And you do have a little, the catwalk does have a little bit of railing so I can pull myself in a long. Look at this thing. I mean, ancient hieroglyphics, none of this is random. No.

This was all. intended. Do you think the monolith messed up whatever underground building was here? This bunker? Maybe. The lights are pointing at the monolith, so I think that might be why... All feels pretty intentional. That's why this is here. Do you want an aspirin?

I don't have many left, but that looks like it hurts. Yeah, it's aspirin. What? Is that just aspirin? Yeah. Tablet. Sure. I'll pop it.

Can't hurt. No. It does, though, as you kind of continue to move forward a little bit. You get, again, like I said, past this natural causeway, and you do off to the left where the big natural cave system is, and the monolith, which has, again, cut through the pool up into the ceiling of the cave system. It continues to seem to go up. And the pools of light are flooding into it. And you can see that wherever this thing was laid out, the floodlights that are shining into the water, the monolith is very close to it. It's one of the reasons why the pool of light wasn't so bright is because it was still hitting the monolith straight on.

And you can see a couple of small, it seem like, you know, small containers, almost like tiny containers. tiny, well, have units, you know, like some kind of underground structures that are laid out along with the underground lake front. This is what you saw. This is the light. Do you think they have food? I hope they got food. Is there a way to get down there? Is there a ladder or stairs or anything?

If you continue to walk along the causeway, you do eventually see that there is a descending spiral staircase. Okay. take you down. The thought of food takes me very quickly down the stairs. Oh, but then I turn back to see if you need... I can make it. I can hop. Okay. I'll go last in case I'm too heavy for any of this stuff. Right. Does your arm hurt you? Spotted you. Thank you, no, whatever you gave me before is doing my knees. Okay. Yeah, good, good. So Boone, as you kind of sit back and wait, you are, you know, waiting for everyone to go down and you take a moment to look at this giant thing. That is, frankly, the

cause of everyone's problems. It is a symbol of everything that has happened in these last couple of weeks. Can I run up to it and kick it? Yeah, I mean, once you eventually get down there, if you finally get down, you are on the lakefront and you do see

the, you could probably walk right up to it and it is crisp and black. and it is just cut stone and it's smooth and polished. I mean, it's risen through the ground you would expect it to be cracked and scraped from all of the surrounding rock,

but it is pristine. So matter did I slap it as hard as I can, but I don't want to break my knuckles? Slap it as hard as you can. And for a brief moment, you felt like you saw something like a flash of light, almost like there was a doorway right there.

I put my hands on you. Don't hurt yourself. What are you doing? There's something here. Come put your hands on it. I put my hands on it. The song we heard? Yeah.

I start singing the song we heard. Yeah. Well, it was more of a sound for sure. I attempt to duplicate it. Yeah. As you sing into it, you lay out these harmonious imitations of the sounds

that you've heard and you place your hands upon it and you feel nothing it's cold and it's inert it just is there that moment before. Where's the flash? I felt something it was before the flash you hit it was before you saw

it but it was kind of as you were bringing your hands down you saw the light and then as soon as you hit it it just blacked out so wait I saw something something happened I don't boom hush hush

at this stage with you singing, Boone, you quiet your voice, but because you've quieted your voice, you can start to hear the chicken. I leave my back up again, the monolith. You look up in the floodlights that are barely a part of this. You can see that outside of the perimeter of the floodlights, the ceiling is moving. What the? So many moving kiteness bodies that are laid up on. The top of the ceiling.

Okay, fast. Let's go. Let's go. Arms around each other. I do start moving him, and I pointed them on the lift. Y'all know what that is? No, I... Yeah.

His teeth. It's what's... It's the Earth's teeth. The Earth's... You said there were halb units? Doesn't matter. It looked like containers, like someone put a container ship. You could live in them, like their temporary dwellings?

Let's get down there. Let's check for food quickly before we get out of here. Before we become food. Food and the Earth doesn't have... I have teeth. I know it feels like it does right now, but... What do you call it there? Teeth can break. Eliza, take the dice and let's see if the key card works for these units.

Oh, okay. Because it has a magnetic lock, just like the other ones do. I try the key card on the nearest. I was thinking the wrong numbers. Let's burn this. What's this? Manipulative. You have two words.

ones in the role, how do you want to manipulate or be manipulative in this scenario? This is the end of Lisa being manipulative in the rest of the world. She's using it for a purpose, and what is that purpose right now? I'm trying to do something myself instead of making someone else do it. And I know that they could fall on me, I'm bringing attention, I'm making noise, but I give up my need to twist other people into taking action. and just do it yourself. Do it myself.

You lean into it. Six. Six, no one. In fact, I told you I could win this game. I would actually say at this point that while I apologize for my wording of saying that this is the death of manipulation, but this is truly, I mean, you're laying into a vice in order to make this happen. So you want this food very badly and you're bringing this key card together. You've already got two wounded people with you. There's something going on in your mind.

Something has been driving you since the beginning of this, since you even started at this moment with your friends at this festival. What's going on in your mind right now is you hoping to get into this heavy? What are you hoping to find? An answer. Answer. I want to find a home. I want to find someplace where whoever I'm with,

we can just lock ourselves away and just live, at our days. Right. I just want to find the music in life again. And there is literally a place with power, and there's nothing more hopeful but seeing some power for a very long time. So the key card goes green.

Yes. And you hear the magnetic lock. Shut the door behind us. Yeah. And look up towards the ceiling. So you look up and you can continue to see that there are these, I mean, when I say the door behind us,

the ceiling is moving. I mean, there are hundreds of them. It's the same ceiling? It's the same ceiling as the ceiling outside. Yes. On the cave ceiling. We looked up before we went in the unit, you mean? Yes, I'm sorry, were you talking about the ceiling?

I wanted to make sure the Hib unit was not crawling. Ah, no, it is only about a foot taller than you all walking, maybe even just inches for you or you have to hunch over you see harsh, direct fluorescent light and what is otherwise a fairly sterile, if not, it just smells of aluminum and disinfectant. It just smells like a lab.

I start going through stuff. That's the best smell I've ever smelled. I look for... Any sort of communication equipment, Pam radio, anything. Right. Let's give it a thorough search. Let's do...

for supplies. You want the ham radio and you want the goo. So why don't you owe for the goo? For the what? For that stuff. Sorry. We've had plenty of goo. We're good on goo.

Yeah. It's my colloquial. Whatever. Let's see what you find. We all wear good. Let's see if there's some loot. There's something in here. Two sixes, but a one.

Two ones. For me. You got anything to burn. Yeah. And there is an option and a re-roll. That's two dice. Yeah. All right.

Got to be the top one. Oh, I don't know. Okay. It has to be the top one. Is that your moment? Yeah, how does it work? It doesn't work. You have to fulfill your moment before you can burn the metal.

I can't re-roll unless I can do this. Right. You have to take whatever is on the top first. I'm so sorry. Nope. Should have remembered that. Hey, do they have needles? do they have needles?

Well, you have an opportunity to do the narration at this point. The dice will still be mine. I just need to see if I can take narrative control, which I cannot. What happens when we run out of dice? You cannot. They'll either be sixes or ones, that's it. No, what I mean is every time we get a one, you take dice. What happens if we have no more dice? It's actually impossible because even if you're down to one dice,

because I've taken everything else, that will either be a six, or it will be something other than a six. If it's anything other than a six, scene ends. Got it. So if you're down to one dice, it is literally all or nothing. Got it.

No pressure. Yeah. You said it was a lab, right? It is a lab. What kind of lab? It's a research lab. It's a geology lab. It seems like it has maybe a hint of

architectural study or archaeological study in it as well, too. It's a lot of samples. that have been laid out and put into various containers. So there's a working computer even. A working computer? Yeah. You're saying the thing is on, it has juice?

Yeah. I'm saying it has juice. I haven't seen lights in so long. Well, heck, let's just stay here. What's the computer doing? Is it, if I hit the enter key, what happens? It kind of watches it. Slowly boots out of sleep.

And a block and credential comes right out. What do we find? Yeah. What else do you find supply-wise? We find, uh, we find, like, a lot of miscellaneous containers. Uh, we do find a small cache of, like, snacks. Snacks. Some, needles.

Some water. Needles. Uh, and we do, we find some samples of various minerals, uh, and some, some needles from. some surgical tools, geology tools, for cleaning materials and things like that. At that point, you hear a, what are you doing here? What the fuck? What do you mean what the fuck? Turn around and you see a man who just seems to just be in a disheveled coat with a white shirt that has just been soiled and long kind of slacks.

and he just is wrecked. You see he has kind of a grizzled kind of beard into him. He's stumbling in the door and he goes, Who the hell are you? How did you get down here? By the grace of God, friend. Who are you? Well, the case.

What are you doing here? This is my goddamn lab. It's what it is or was. Hey, what are you doing? Did you end the world? Did you? He turns around, doesn't answer your question, and you watch as he turns around. He just grabs a bottle and sits down.

And how much of that do you have? Can we have some? An earbud looks at you. He goes, take what you want. He puts an earbud in. And you watch as he takes a remote. And he watches a door slides in front of you. I go pound on the door.

Pop-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-pppb-pb-ppbb-pb- Open up! What is wrong with you? We haven't seen people in so long! Good! Let's keep it that way! Stop it! How do you have power? Tell us what this place is! What did you do? Oh, God, so many questions. You don't care. It doesn't matter. Hey, interview him.

You know what to do here. Because I draw the knife and I'm like, you know what I think. Yeah, I know what you think. Put that away, then. Put that away from. I mean, don't hurry. Talk to us. No.

Please. We got nothing else to do. We'll tell you what we saw. Aren't you lonely? What we found, don't you want to know? The door is... I'd like to hear what you have to say. We're not here to judge you.

It's too late for that. What's the point? Yeah, I know. I got the same feeling, but... We don't... point in keeping your secrets. If we don't share the story, no one will ever know.

And it was all for nothing. He kind of sits up. You can clear that he looks hung over as hell, you know, but he kind of walks over to a cabinet and grabs glasses and kind of takes it and sits on the bed

and puts the four glasses on the floor. What was his ear? Yeah, well, does he still be your buddy? He's still got one earbud in. It seems to be some media player that he's got tucked in his lab coat. Do you have music? I haven't heard music in so long.

Can I just, can I hear from you this? God, you all look like hell. You all look like fresh hell. I wouldn't go pointing any fingers about you. I'm so sorry. Look, just take it easy, take it slow, and pour us a drink, and it kind of takes the media player out.

kind of puts in, just don't break it. It's probably the last one on earth. You only have classical music in here. That's all I listen to. Can I take the earbud out of the air? I had a vinyl collection that would have melted your face in my holdout spot. He pours a bunch of liquor laid out and kind of like goes and sits down on the glass and goes

Do you know what that is? What's you pointing out? How the hell would we know what that is? Maybe a little coma. What's he pointing out? He's pointing outside to presumably where the model is. Oh, the big black thing? No, but they're all over the earth.

I think. Yeah? That makes sense. We didn't get a lot of news before it all went. Black, dark. But none of us do. No one has.

has any idea. You don't know what it is? No clue. No fucking clue. We've been studying it for years. You must have some information. We know that it's made of a material that we don't know.

We've tried to chip it. We've tried to pull it apart, take samples from it. I don't know if you've noticed, but it accepts every bit of light possible. Nothing can go in it. It doesn't reflect any light back at all. We can't break it off, no matter how hard we try. And one day, it's just all the way up. Do you know how deep we are right now?

Not really. Deep. Deep enough, but it doesn't show up on any seismic charts. It didn't show up on anything. We've been monitoring these things for as long as we've been mining in the, earth. They don't show up on radar. They don't show up on a spectrograph. No one knows what the fuck these things are. And he kind of like takes a table and just flips

it up and goes. And now everyone is gone. Everyone is dead. Not quite everyone. What's your name, friend? I mean, poured it. Just fucking drink it, all right? Cheers. Who we cheers into?

What's your name? There's Mozart. Just call me Mozart. Thank you for that. It's a terrible DJ name. It kind of takes a little sip of it and then puts it down. It goes, are those things still out there? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I hate to tell you, but there's no food in here. What? It's very little water left. What are you been living on? This stuff? basically. On the last of the food.

I ate it yesterday and one last grand feast. Anybody else here but you? No. I'm the only one stupid enough to have stayed, cowardly enough to watch all my associates and friends go out and be taken by those things, all in a desperate attempt to get out. Hey, no.

That was the smart thing to do. you had to do what you could to survive. No, Dage, there's nothing left. You don't understand the world is done for. It is... Everywhere? Everywhere. How do you know?

Have you been outside? Well, yeah, but, I mean, what if we went to, I don't know? Strang? Yeah, or Shanghai or the North Pole. The goddamn international space station. I don't know. I don't know what's going on out there, but everything that we,

read in here indicates that this is the end. This is it. Why the hell didn't you tell anyone? For the reasons that the government doesn't tell a lot of people about end of world prophecies and end of cycles and end of civilization because as soon as you tell everybody, it all becomes chaos and anarchy. Nothing had happened. We didn't know when these things were going to come up.

They just one day rose. So more secrets, more deception. What do you know about the writing? It looks very old. Yeah, it looks biblical. It's pre-biblical. I don't know what the hell it is. I mean, for all we know, it's not even of this world.

It's just here. I mean, we literally have no idea why these are planted, but how could there be so many in the earth? Who could even plant something like this in here? Certainly wasn't us. It's got to be extraterrestrial, right? There ought to be so much more than us in the universe. Or simply divine.

Maybe. Look, I... You said they've been here before we even started digging, right? From back to who knows how long, right? Well, it was prophesied that this day would come upon all of us and it is here. All right. Here's the deal. I'm going to lay down.

And from... everything that I know about this place and the fact that you're all here. I wish you could, I wish you were here six hours ago. Just six hours ago, maybe something could have come of it. What happened? What happened? It doesn't matter. It really matters.

It does the most important thing possible. It kind of looks towards the, side of the bed and that's where you can see several pill bottles are laid out completely empty at this point each top kind of popped off at this stage Mozart what you do you got to make him throw up I stick my finger down his throat no no I don't no never no no you got to stick your finger down your throat puts his hand it was hours ago you just got to make yourself vomit it was hours it's no point

it's just no point I just why does it always have to be the fog at the edge of the limit it's so close if I had known anyone was still alive it would have been fine it could have gone we could try we can make an escape we could just

go for it Mozart you got any way to talk into the outside world and hear radio that computer anything what's the computer password the radio died days ago. I was some guy singing on a broadcast, and that was it. This is a one channel out in order to make sure there's no leak of information. It can only listen.

It can't go out. It's the only reason I knew all this shit was happening up there. As far as the password goes, fine. You can go into it. It's just an intranet. So the local network, it doesn't go outside. What's the password? He writes down the password for you.

How many more of these have you? units are there? I don't know. They might have food. I don't know. I only know about this one. They keep a closed network on to it. We all had code black access

to this stuff. This is all the shit that you know that's covered up in government budgets. All I know is about this one. They make sure that if we get information out that no one else can figure out what else is out there. Is there anything down here that

help you first aid kid medicine something he kind of motions over turner goes we used it up days ago I lean in and I put my hand on him my good hand and I say I'm not gonna try and disturb your rest friend

you deserve to die with some dignity but those of us who ain't done fighting which way would you recommend we go yeah no it's a good point I made my choice Hold on

I got some stuff And they dump out my little bag Just keep it It's for you I know what to do I know what to do now Here's what we know They're afraid of the light

They feed off of sorrow and despair The monolith calls To those Select I've heard stories of people Finding the monolith And getting close to it And something happens

But it's fickle. Something happened to me. I'm sorry. I don't know what it was. You saw something. Why, is she in danger? Flash. She's not in danger, but neither is she have anything else.

I don't know. Sometimes, well, one of my associates, one day after it left up, decided to go to it, and she walked right towards it, and she was there. and then she wasn't. And that's like she passed through her door. Maybe she went into it.

Maybe she was taken by whoever put them there. I don't know. Maybe she was chosen or something. I mean, Boone's crazy, but who knows? None of us saw it ever. I don't know where she went. I don't know how she got there. She was just there and then she was gone.

And none of us have seen it since then. So I don't know what your plan is, how you want to go. but if you want to get out, there is an express elevator that will take you to the surface. Surface is a no-go. Poisonous now. Suffer.

Not sure why. Volcano. Moon, real big. Oh, it's real bad up there, yeah. That's awful. I take another drink. This thing

coming up And at the end of the day, Mother Earth wins. Man. I'm so sorry. We should have told everybody. We should have said something. But then what would we have gained by just the mass? There's nothing that wouldn't have helped.

It's cool. Be sorry. I'm here to tell you. They wouldn't have done shit. I spent my whole life trying to convince people to prepare, and nobody gave a good goddamn, buddy. And what did it help? I'm still alive.

I'm sorry. I thought being here alone for so long, but I would want to see people again. But now that you're here, I just want to be alone. And I'm so tired. Can you talk to you in? Sure.

Sure. Yeah. I just... This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with the cramudgeonly Marcellus,

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I don't care. I have your seat. music. Make you a promise. When I'm not here anymore, you can take whatever you want, but just leave me the last little piece with it that I can have. I mean, I don't deserve it, but just that's not what music's for. Here. It kind of puts both of the earbuds back in, and kind of grows back on his cot which is just she too dirty

just looks like he's been spending most of his time on this thing anyway and you can kind of see his eyes are starting to flutter as he kind of lays back and he puts it onto his chest leans back and I'm so sorry it's I hope you find redemption

whatever that means And just know that some things are better than death. Some fates are worse than death. But we are all going to die. So you choose how you want to live. Leans his head back and drifts off into a sleep which he will never wake up from. That we should all be so fortunate. So you know anything about needles?

Yeah. Oh, all you need is some pen ink. and just, I mean, even my safety pin would work. I've done it on myself. What are you talking about? You have so many amazing kindergarten skills. Yes, okay. Oh, yeah, you've never done a DIY tat?

No. I've never been to prison. Oh, I saw people doing them at the festival. They had a booth, actually. You want a tattoo? Can I find a pen that I could break open? I've been in a lot of dumb places. Like, there's not secret facilities, but, like, stupid doctors offices,

and they won't take you if you've recently gotten a, a tattoo or a piercing and like I'm tired of waiting what am I waiting for no judgment here get all the tattoos you want but I think you'll play as my donation day well yeah okay I break open a bunch of pens and put them into find some sort of little cup or something yeah yeah heat reddish yeah all you need to do is dip a needle in the ink and then just stab step step step step step step little tiny ones it barely bleeds what do you want what do you want like unicorn or heart

or I mean I could only do like a unicorn horn no thanks like a geometric shape if we live it'll be hilarious all right this will take a while and it's kind of doesn't hurt that bad right while you're doing that I'm going to try

to figure out the laptop So, Ethan, yeah, he's this point. You have the login and Boone. You're watching as Billy and Lisa are doing this DUI tattoo. Point and stick, baby. Yeah, go ahead. I'm actually looking at the monolith. He said, I choose this.

Yeah. You've done this before? Yeah. I don't go. But I'm looking at it. Yeah. Well, in your... You're certified teacher.

In your induced state, you stare at this thing. And you can still see as the cloud of... Well, that's kind of a cloud. It's movement, but still laid up above. And you kind of sit, just cross-legged on the steps of this fab. They haven't come down into you. You were bathed in light, but there is darkness laid out in front of you. And the monolith is just absorbing every piece of light that is in there.

And you kind of reflect upon this giant structure laid out before you. And you find yourself asking it a question. What question do you want to ask it? Are you the way? In this hazed state, you can actually see that when you look into this monolith, you're looking into the void of space, like it is accepting no light. And when you look into it, you swear to God you can see the stars. And there are these little pricks of light as you just gaze infinitely into this thing.

I want to ask you something, Boone. Are you a good person? Yes. Why are you a good person? I really did try to shepherd as many people as I could safely through to the end. That was the point of the preparation. It wasn't for me to live. It was to bring along as many as I could safely.

I like to think of myself as relatively selfless. That boon is a good person. Yes, I think he probably is. I think that the dividing line between good and evil is hazy at best on a clear day

but I certainly believe that he thinks he's on the right side of it and that's good enough for me if you tap into the password into this computer you get up to a shit

an operating system yeah and it's laden with the messiest desktop you've ever seen in your life and you poke around and you go through things

and you find files you do see there's a lot of data and it's years of this stuff years of this stuff how long would they add this and at a glance

you can tell everything that he meant spectrometer readings light readings material readings all of these things They're coming up and it's all inconclusive. Plenty of truth here, but none of it useful. Clearly.

So he was being, he was honest about it. Yeah, he was. It was. That is a hope dice. Is your moment on top? That is for you. It succeeds on a five or a six. Things moving forward.

And you find for one brief goddamn moment, someone wasn't actually. lying to you. To be fair, he had just taken about two bottles of sleeping pills before laying the truth out to you, but the deathbed confession is often

the most sincere. Great. When can I use this? Anytime. Any time. From now until you pass your brink and fail it. Great, only you're willing to know. It works once, right? Oh, well, it only, I mean, it works

until it doesn't work. Ah, so you do get to keep rolling it until it is no longer. Nothing. Got it. Boone. There's a lot to digest here. You've spoken and you've asked this thing, are you the way? And many ways you are talking to it?

And you do hear something talking to you back. It doesn't speak. language that you understand, but it does seem to have this resonant chant as you stay into it. You don't understand what it is saying, but you do understand its meaning. You are, you are on the cusp of being able to move over, but there's just one last thing to do. before you can be accepted. Billy, Eliza, not a bad monolith. Not a bad monolith indeed.

I've been to a lot of festivals. It's just kind of a thing that happens. It's just a simple shape. It's like a trapezoid, but, no, sorry, it's like a pyramid, but it's tall, and it's connected into it. And she did a pretty good 3D shape onto it. Beautiful.

Yeah. Thanks. My pleasure. Anything to make us feel human again? I mean, fuck it, right? Fuck it. If I go over and I hit the button, I just need your moment.

The moment that's on top, that you've fulfilled, and that's now your dice. I go over to the elevator. He said it went to the surface, but are there any other stop? up or down? Yes.

There are. Like, we all, uh, we can't stay here. Wait. I want to try and do what his coworker did. I mean, what if there's a place we can go? What if, I don't know, something from another planet would put these here, and if you just, just ask it, you'll let you in. Take us with you?

Let's hold hands. I mean, he said it spoke to the last person. Have you heard it speaking to you? Look, I saw a flash of a door. Right before I hit it, you saw me slap it, right? I also saw no door up here. Yeah, I needed a dime. No, but it's the idea of a door.

I mean, we don't know how these things work. Nobody else saw it. I mean, maybe it really... Come over here with me for a second. Okay, come over here. And I go over towards the window. And I just motion up towards the ceiling. Oh, yeah

Like, I would hate to see those things Turn Somebody as delightful as you Into some sort of fucking meat puppets So maybe hold it together for a little while longer The model isn't going nowhere There's a light shining Until it ain't

Is the elevator in here with us Or is it outside somewhere You will have to go into the darkness To get to the elevator They're going out there anyway, right? We're keeping this guy company forever. Sorry about that. Flashlights or things like that and now.

Sources alike, they were Spelunkers, so I would like to re-roll. With loyalty. With loyalty. You have one in which to do so. Because I cannot let these people stumble blindly to their death. No meaningless sacrifices will be made today. As you begin rifling rifling through the area looking for everything you possibly can, trying to find a flashlight to take you through.

You suddenly hear, and what you took previously advantage for was just the light humming of a generator somewhere, and the lights flicker, the floodlights, and then go dark. We may not have much time left, y'all, so if there's anything you're going to say, make peace with your maker and say it now. Five dice, five truths. This is the point in the story which dire consequences can come into place. But that being said,

Boone, you do have the first truth. Always, the world is dark. This was inevitable. And it's a truth. This was inevitable. Now that the lights are off, they are coming. There's a window.

right? One window? It was a window in the app. They start to tap at it with their teeth. They've already made it up to you. Oh, that was quick. The first few just dropped and then swarmed up to the door.

Got it. They just dropped. Ethan. Oh, wait. Yes, you're the last truth. No. Or not. Right, yeah. Right. Lone's Dark. He's singing that song. Her singing the song. Billy.

But the door Becca saw is real. Five truths. Five candles. This begins with the sound of carapaces, just dropping. As you watch, like caterpillars falling from a leaf, they just fall down onto the ground, and they bounce a little bit. But some of them just curl up and curl back out as some of them. The smaller ones, though, hit first as they drop down, and you start hearing them,

and you hear the sound, the singing, the screeching. I go where Motz is unconscious. Does his music thing have a flashlight mode? Yes. I'm sorry, buddy. Yank. Yank. All right.

You pull it out and pick the headphones. Billy are a genius. Yeah. I'm getting as close behind Billy as it possibly can. I think we need to use these. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're in the unicorn. In the backpack.

Corny. You pull all, you light the last three, just, all just cracking, shaking it into it, as you can hear as the clicking of their tiny, tiny feet. I want to reassemble the headlamp, and maybe it's got a little bit more juice, and maybe it dried out when it was separated. Right.

You turn it on. Wait, hold on just a sec. I put it on myself. It doesn't turn on for the first few times that you click it. is you keep hitting it, and you click, and click, and click, and then finally you click it out once it. You get a small beam of light. It's dim, but it is something more to light in front of you than it is a direct light of beam. Check the elevator. Does it have an emergency charge?

So, let's find out, shall we? But you're going to have to get out of the hab and go out with them in order to get to the elevator. Are there any makeshift weapons we can grab on our way? I don't know, anything that, like a pole or something like that. Like a leg of a metal table. A knife. It's a caught. Leg off is caught.

Anything. If you want weapons, it is a conflict and you will have to get them. Not worth it. Let's just go. Oh, look. Billy tries to. You get an additional and a five or a six succeed. A hope dice.

That monolith at two. One, no six. Anything left to re-roll? Just that. one one is that your brink no it's up to you this is not how we go out determination you've just got this thing and you can roll that one everyone else thinks it's stupid you get it because we've talked about it before but I'm clutching the music device in one hand and that is my whole life. That is the thing that would take you with, that you would take with you to the edge of

oblivion, which I get for Mozart. That is everything that we are going to get back to. So as you pop in headphones and lay into this, you start digging, grasping, looking for anything you can to possibly turn this into a weapon. And that, That is the moment, you still keep your hope dice. This is the moment in which suddenly the hab is just ripped apart as something. A tentacle just flops right and it grasps you from underneath your arm and it yanks you down onto the bed as it pulls you in. And you can see this lampre-like face opening up with teeth just serrated across as it pulls you up onto the bed

and you barely get your feet onto the side of the wall before it attempts to rich. your body straight into its mouth. Am I able to attack the tentacle with my knife? This attempt to free her? There is truths to speak, and this is the time to do that. Four truths, four candles. Billy, you can begin. You've failed this conflict now, but what is the truth you wish to speak?

This thing has you. It's so close. It's holding on to you, and you have music players. You have this phone in your hand with its flashlight on. whatever version of an eye it has is somewhere near that mouth. That's a truth. It's my truth. The lower level of this facility has not fallen yet.

The lower level has not fallen yet. Okay. That's fine. I'm going to write my truth to you and give it to you. No, no. The time for secrets is done. I will tell you. As you shine the light into this thing's face, it has human eyes.

Do you recognize them? Next truth. The world is dark. But when the cot was knocked over that she was dragged across, there was a pistol under the pillow. It is a truth. It has spoken. I'm so sorry. We cannot make it to you on this one.

But we begin this scene with you, as you've been frantically looking around and you put your feet up, the pillow that Mozart was laying on, his body just flung off of the cot, and you see the pillow coming down with it, you see a small pistol laid out right there. What do you want to do? You can hear the metal, the screeching, the terror, and her screams as her feet are laid up against the door. Go for the gun. You're going for the gun? Going for the gun.

Ethan, you grab it. You just lay onto it, but there are swathing tentacles everywhere. Shoot this thing if you want to free your friend. It's pulling on you. You can feel the tendons slowly being let pulled up as your muscle is just straining against the effort of not being pulled into this thing. One's.

No. It's your brink. That's a lot of rewold. You can use it to reroute. I'll absolutely do it. How many can I re-roll? You have to re-roll everything, including the hope dice. But tell me what is that brink.

What is there? You need to activate it. I read your notebook. Why did you write? I knew and told no one. The others can't find out. So it is time for this brink to come out. What do you want to say to Billy as you pull this gun out and just level it again?

this creature. I shall. I'm so sorry. I knew it was here. One for me, but one success. Excuse me. Does that count as me having witness repentance? Do you consider his repentance? He said he was sorry. It's the first game I've had in which three moments have been fulfilled. That's my brink, but it's also my last picture. You get to keep it. It's succeeded, so you get to keep it and continue to activate it.

But if it fails, I'm going to darken. Take that hope dice away and darken a candle immediately. All right? So you scream. I'm sorry, I knew it was here as you fired the gun. You just watch as just the clip, just pull trigger, trigger, trigger. It's a semi-automatic pistol, and you hear it screech as it's... And you kind of watch as black eye cord sprays out everywhere.

You feel it drip upon you as it lays out. you feel also the tentacle just release onto it as its head just pulls back and you watch as its mouth opens for a minute and it sings this song of just screaming. It is more a song of pain and complete misery than it is any kind of choir of angels. And it pulls out but then you drop to the floor just to the odd. I just stature side. With her head up. I just scoop her up with my good arm. I don't baby or anything.

Like, we got to go. Get the stuff. Is there anything left? I'm not shoot it all. No, you didn't shoot at all. You unloaded about half the clip. I'm like, get that. Get her bag.

I grabbed the headphones as well. It's a bunch of weird miscellaneous looks almost like medical supplies. Just pick it up. And do you go off the front door where they all are, or do you climb through that bridge? The opening that we're right next to. So sorry. What are you talking about?

We can't talk about it right now. Okay. I mean, if not now, when? That's not, it had looked human. It had people eyes. And they were all different colors, but they were all looking at you. I knew this place was down here, but I didn't know what they were looking for. It just sucks up people.

That was what I was really looking for. I wasn't interested in preppers or doomsdays or... You know about this place? I knew it was down here. You didn't even tell us we were looking for it? Didn't seem to matter anymore. That's why you suggested hiding out in goddamn caves when monsters were coming out of the earth. Yeah.

Well, we made it this far, right? Let's go. Guys, honestly so much, yet you couldn't tell the truth to any of us. You all climb out through this broken metal, and it scrapes, and it hurts, because the metal is ripped, and it's just disjointed, but you get through it. Some of you tumble more than really step out as you land upon the rock on the other side. And you can excellently hear,

just the sound of whatever is in the front is now. In fact, you can still see the one that you had shot, just it's backing up to the top of where the possum or the kind of just coming into a corner where it is, but you run and you make all effort to get to the elevator as quick as you possibly can. And you- I'm trying to be pissed at you, but I'd be dead.

You know, Did you mean? Yeah, I mean, I was elevator. I'm like, but did you mean that you're sorry? Are you really sorry? Of course I'm sorry. Wouldn't you be? That's good enough for me.

And you run towards it and you hit the button and you hear it. Down? Down, go down. Okay, you hit it. And you hear as the whirling. The thing that begins to descend. I hit his finger. All I knew was that there was.

a secret research place. I didn't know what they were looking for. I didn't even connect it until we got down here. Shit, man, you couldn't have assumed they were studying some ancient, goddamn hieroglyphic monolith. Hurry, everybody backs together. We can shine our lights outward. So you all turn and put that light out in this tall,

just a little bit of glow coming in. But you see there are so many of them. Dozens that have just dropped, and it seems like a writhing mass. Have you ever seen? a, I don't know, a... They are singing. Eliza, you do.

I've got something else above it. That's okay, because this is already happening. And as you shining this light forward, you see this writhing mass of bodies that is continuing to move forward in these length. I pick up the Mozart and I put it in my ears. And you feel, as for a moment, the tentacles latch out of it.

they slap onto your hands and they grab a hold of you. Do you resist? No. You feel the pull you up as you kind of come into it. Just do one. They're taking it. Just do it. Just one.

I want to. One and a six. Does that wait? That wasn't enough dice. There was three dice. Yeah, but we're 14. One dice was already lost. Eliza, you feel as these tentacles.

latch onto you, you put them, and it's this weird moment you kind of allow yourself to be pulled up into these creatures, and you can actually feel them kind of just taking you, and in a weird way, they are passing you along. They seem to be moving you across, and in the music, you can hear the voices speaking to you. There's not just the classical music that you're laid into anymore, something is speaking to you and it's saying it's asking one one question one solitary inquiry yes everything in me is just pulsating and rising this is this is a feeling of being alive that i've just felt almost dead for so long almost dead for so long what memories are coming to you now In this time of which you are sitting on a mass of creatures rising below you as these hands that are these languid tentacles prop you in the air.

You seem almost to be a suspended creature amongst blackness. I'm just weightless. I just, it just feels nothing. Just weightlessness, just free. Just peacefulness and joy. I see the kids that I used to teach. I see their faces. Did you love these kids?

But some little part inside me that it knows that I need to fight to live just has a moment of realization that this is crazy. I need to survive. Yes. Or no. No. No, no, no, no. And I start yanking my hands back.

All right. As you begin yanking and kicking and kicking and you start pulling this thing apart. I will give you your hope dice because that was being. basically as bad as good as getting in a crowd as can ever possibly be. But you start riding and kicking and pulling into it as you watch as the three of you continue to see Eliza pull up into the air. And now at a moment she was blissfully kind of accepting it. But now she's riding and kicking and moving and screaming. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell girl?

Uh, what do you want to do? Is she physically out of our reach? I mean, you would have to get. She's out in the mirror. I run towards them and put my hand up to get you. Several in there, but yes. I reach back towards you with my other arm that I'm trying to yank free.

We still have the rope that we made that we drew her out with. Just try and cast the rope out to her so that we don't all have to go out. Made it with the fatigues? Yeah, the fatigue knotted up rope. You can go that. Reach out for her.

There's a weird, this is the worst, but there's a weird familiar synonymous. area. We've been to so many concerts and you get into so much trouble. So there's this weird, it's almost reflex to be like, what are you doing? One more for me.

Unless you can re-roll it. Is there anything left? Just the brink. Rerol it. We need it. I mean, you have to re-roll everything. Oh, no, don't re-roll it. Keep the success. Yeah.

The voice, this same singing, this choir coming to you, this open invite and you hear this question again you hear it it it's the same one the liza doesn't know it but you hear it does it sound do the voices sound like the singing or does this sound like something different it's different it's so different it's as if something and soothing is asking you the inquiry the the singing is just the screams it's just the wailing, keening, screeches of something. And because you're in the mass of this creature,

it is just Dante's inferno of wailing and screeching. But this is a dark, soothing voice that seems to punctually out there as you reach her hand out, and you can touch, you can feel Eliza's warm flesh against her cold touch. And it is saying, yes. I squeeze your hand as hard as I possibly can.

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Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugged their go-to source for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplugged, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. Eliza is unwrapped in this process. You grab and you pull her with all of your might as you wrench her straight out from underneath this crowd. And it seems to let go as it drops Eliza to the ground.

But you, it picks you. up and it almost as if exchanges you and it pulls you up into its things as if you switch a place as you come into it and you feel the body start to pull and pull you in and you are disappearing you are going deep into the crowd of these creatures you jokes do you want to do and she's still on the other end of the rope do you see her do she has the rope she does have the rope and she's holding on the rope and she's holding on to it. She's being pulled away. We try to floor it back. All three of us. Where exactly? So we're, did we make it into the elevator? The elevator is coming down and at this point between all of this

exchange, it has made its way down and you can hear the eerie scraping of the metal as the whole door slides open. Who are you? But Billy is out there. We have the other end of the rope? Yeah. I'm like, get on the elevator. Yeah, we're back in

the elevator. Grab the dice. and pull her into. My intention is for us to escape, I understand. Six. Six. I really feel this thing pass into you. You hear it say and answers your question.

That's the moment in which the rope tugs a hold of you, and you hear and feel the resistance of the tentacles just pulling against you as it clicks and pops, and you feel something, one of the mouths, just grasp a hold of your foot, as almost as just like something snapped in them, and they reached up, and they grasped the hold of your foot, and you feel the tearing of flesh as this teeth are wrung up against your leg,

and you put you pull, and you pull, and you feel as she kind of comes across, and all of the creatures just descend upon all of you just at once, but you pull onto it, and you slam the gate in front of you, as you hold it up, and Billy is laid in. Blood is running down, down your legs. Let's use the rope as a tourniquet.

Turniquette. And you watches this thing that starts to go. Hold on. It spoke to me. I know me too. And the creatures are laying into there and you can see they're climbing on top

and they are not letting go at this point. In fact, the tentacles are still coming in every once in a while. Use your knife. I'm like, uh, if it gets one of us, you'd be ready with that thing. Yeah, okay, fine. I'm very much like head down, kind of like near her.

And only if one can really, sit on top of it. Stop her bleeding. Yeah, she's doing a tourniquet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think there's some gauze in the bag. He trained in first aid. Teaching. Really childhood education. So... Part of a degree. You have skills. You, uh, continue to descend in darkness. It spoke to me. It said, I'm you, and it asked me a question. What was a question? Yes or no. What did you answer? It asked me that too. Well, I said, yes.

Yes, of course I want to know more. What did you say? I said no. I mean, I almost gave in, but I knew it was survival or just giving up. Oh. Oh. At this point, one of the tentacles is starting to feel bold enough, and Eliza it reaches for you again.

It tries to grasp a hold of your neck this time and pulls itself as it blanks you back against the grate and starts to choke you with all of its effort. I'll empty the gun into it. Okay. Empty the gun into it. That's your hope dice. That's your hope dies. Let go, let go, let go, let go.

Two sixes. Wow. You got to talk to them. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. I mean, I'm rolling it for narrative control, but by all means, go ahead. Elaborate for me. Well, I empty the clip into it.

Okay. Leggo, the goal, the go, go, the go. You tell there's no more. You just go until the slide just pulls back and you do. You hear it. You make her out of the way. Does the tentacle break off and I can use it to whip it the other one? No, it just comes off.

It just like lets up your neck, but not before you come back and you feel just the bruising on your neck at this point as it literally. An icker everywhere. It is just black and just everywhere. Sorry. And you hear nothing for the moment as you continue to descend down. Are you okay? Thank you so much. I want to inspect the tentacle.

See, like, what manner of skin has it got? Is it human flesh? Is it slimy? Is it crocodilian? Well, he unloaded the gun into it. The tentacle was not. It wasn't like he shot it and shot with a bullet, took the tentacle down. It just went away with the process.

There wouldn't be anything to inspect, unfortunately. Oh, my God. It's hard to breathe. No more bullets. I now have a ridiculously short club. It's better than nothing. I guess. I might find a spare clip for the dude.

Can you see? Well, it looks bad, but can you breathe. Man, those things can squeeze. I actually want to inspect Billy's wounds. I'm specifically looking for anything, like if there was teeth broken off, signs of venom, any sort of infection, because we've proven they can do something to people,

so that's right. Where did you say you come from? I am trained in the arts of survival. I don't tell her, that's what I'm doing. I'm just, I'm just right. Well, you look at her leg. I'm gonna notice if you're inspecting my foot. You can, you can see that she's been inflated.

Most of the skin is off at this point. You're not gonna want to look at that. And it's bleeding, but the adrenaline is indiced. It's just pumping through you right now, but there is not much left on your lower calf right now. I'm gonna take one of the pancakes. Is that a special pain pick killer? That's the regular kind of.

We just wanted to calm you down. How are you doing? More than aspirin. Don't worry about me. Your arms half off, your foot's fucking gone. Take whatever you got in here. Yeah. It takes.

But seriously, where are you from? I'm from Arkansas. I came out here to the desert because land was cheap and there was no one to bother us. And I'd been stockpiling things for this exact thing. And like I said, when Nip monolith this, fucking monolith came up to the ground and destroyed our stockpile on day fucking one of the apocalypse. I got out with what I had in my bag and him and tow, and when he came to the caves, and now I know why,

and here we are. Who was we? I mean, me and mine, I had my family, my wife, my children, some of my cousins, some just friends or like-minded individuals. We were all of them. The same place, all of yours. Ken folk are now. Nowhere. I just sure as shit,

hope that's not them out there with them human eyes. Maybe having that thing rip up through our land was the best thing that ever could have happened to our homestead. Nah, I don't think there's any good news.

I think we're all completely screwed. And with that, you feel it as it impacts onto the bottom level. I do help her up. Thanks. I help you limp because

I still got a broken foot. I'm still got a broken foot. Actually, I'm going to hop along. Should help our limb. I can't fight it. You kind of feel at this point actually what you thought was the bottom was actually the fact that

the elevator stopped because it ran out of whatever reserve power was still running through it on the grading. And as you attempt to open it, you actually look at the grounds, at least another 15, at least as far as you can see, maybe 20 feet below you. And that's where the next door out, the next level is? Well, it's where presumably the bottom where this thing was going,

but it came up short. I do I, do I, is there, I mean, I'm presumably on all sides. There's no way for me to drop anything. Like if I wanted to drop my glow stick to let it go to the rest of the way, could I do that? Yeah, you could do that. I'll drop my glow stick.

Nice, you put your glow stick and you watch it fall five, ten, fifteen, twenty feet as it impacts. And you kind of see it fall on a concrete platform. But the platform not covered in tentatively bodies. No screeching, no running. No. And you see it's kind of falling on rock towards the side more than just flat concrete.

As far as the glow is concerned. I gotta tell you we gotta get out of here. And right now I think the most qualified climber is you in this rope ain't 20 feet long okay okay is there a hatch at the top of the elevator car okay and this it's all it's all just a metal crate it's like mesh open so can I get a boost step on his knee or something yeah and I pull myself up I work out Is there like some sort of turn crank? Maybe I can, like, manually use it like a pulley.

Well, you look, there is ropes that are pulled up into it, but they just seem to be descending. It's not a manual line. There is four beams that hold the shaft at that point, but there's no ladder that takes it up or down at this stage. So I can shimmy down a beam. or you give me your knife and I come. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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

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not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world. Fighting for every quill they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you.

Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents the Chaotic's case files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. When the Chaotics are on the... ever open up your podcast app, scroll forever, and still not know what to listen to. And there are millions of podcasts, and most of them, they just don't grab you. That's why I created something you should know.

Every episode is built around surprising, useful, and fascinating ideas. We're consistently ranked in Apple's top 200 with thousands of five-star reviews. But more importantly, people come back because they learn something interesting every time. If you're tired of searching and you just want something good to listen to, try one episode of Something You Should Know right here on the platform you're listening on right now. Cut this rope and we fall 20 feet. Good odds. What's it going to be?

Hand the knife, you know. Flip it around. I'm like, embrace yourselves as best you can. It's probably best to lay on the floor, I guess. Yeah, I think you should lay down. Yeah, hang on tight. up there. You guys are going to go up and then slam back down and it's not going to feel good. It's made of great, right? Can I hold myself on the ceiling so that I'm hanging?

I'm actually going to hold on to one of the beams as I cut with one hand, so I'm not actually on the car. So it'll fall and then I'll presumably climb down if it works out. Five or six, five or six, I got two successes. I told you we were going to be the first people who survived ticket. I'll take my hope, please. There can be no negative repercussions to any of this. You can cutting, watch as you kind of get into it, and you finally, at some point, snap, and you watch as it,

Hold on, lifts up. Give him a little warning. At first, it just kind of, boom, onto one side, and then you hear, and then you fall, you fall, and you all, you like, you said, You feel weightless for a moment as you hold onto it, and you two laying on the ground just lift up ever so slightly before. Fum! You all impact onto the ground.

I'm still hanging onto the beam. And you're holding onto the beam with everything you possibly... So I start a, you know, just like... Small shimmy. I'm hugging it. I'm little shimmies down. It hurts. Everything is bruised. You just fell straight into it.

And it is, yeah, dust. The weight has just, the little air has just been kicked out of it. at this point but you settle for the moment and it worked yeah it worked how are you up there I'm good how are you guys down there we're awesome thanks day's getting better by the moment careful what can I say I've got joy you uh you think you look around and the little light that the the stick at this point has to offer is just Not giving you much. It's just a little bit, but it is hot down here.

It is warm. Oh, it must be really deep. Very deep. And it is almost suffocatingly warm. But you... Do I need the key card to get some... Out? I haven't seen...

I haven't found a door yet, right? Maybe we can close a door. And, well, it's a whole shaft coming down at this point. I will say, I'm just so impressed. I know. I'm just so amazed on how many of these two dice rolls were making it this day. Even the six, even that hope dice didn't matter,

it was a five and a six. Uh-oh, did you hear a voice? Eliza, as you kind of descend down, you can see or seems to be a round band. What you've come is into kind of a small, open area where the shaft is, but there are several kind of cast. that peek off in different directions.

And one of them seems to have a red glow that seems to be radiating from it. It's light. We should go that way. And you kind of climb down. It was so good I'm not going to make you see if you fall and slap your face onto the ground. As tempting as that is, you kind of come back and put your feet onto it and you hop down. And, yeah, you see your friends all mangled on the bottom of the great. They help them up.

Thanks. Thank you. Nicely done. I'm very small, so it's very hard. I'm hoping to get them standing. It takes everything to take the mangled grate and basically pull it open at this point, and it doesn't really give much, just enough for you to all squeeze through ever so barely. You see anything on your claim?

Did I see anything on my climb? Just the red glowing light coming from one of the cave entrances. I see a way that looks in. Interesting. Start limping that way. I'm this far. Start hobbling in that direction. Yeah.

This is the world's worst three-legged race. I picked to help Billy because the flayed calf is pretty pretest. It's grotesque. Thank you. Although when I checked,

I saw no signs of teeth, poison anything other than just ripped up meat. Ripped up meat. But now it's got gauze on it? As you begin to come around the corner, you are living through, and there's the radiating light and you've got your glow sticks, but you're mostly keeping your head down as you kind of move forward with every last amount of strength you possibly can. And that's when you hear the moaning. It's just the deep, resonant moaning.

And as you step forward and you continue to look, You see that the red light is the small river of magma that's pushing through this causeway into it, into the actual mountainside. It's just like a small bed of lava that seems to be rolling through. And there is, it's illuminating something above it. You can see a writhing mass of moving flesh, bodies that are there. Heads lulling, arms reaching out and amalgamation of bodies all pressed together, moaning and reaching out and crying in dismay as they reach out towards you. Ethan, this is when on your foot you feel a hand, grab your ankle, and squeeze the bone underneath.

I stab at it to free him. And you look down and you see the floor. Bodies all over the floor. Human body? Yes. People. People. Oh. I'm gonna use my last, I'm gonna use my brink.

Okay. Your brink. What is your brink? They've seen your faith and know it to be a lie. Only sacrificing a sinner will bring redemption. And I know what she has done. He repented. She did not. Did you write that, Amy?

That's what he wrote. Although, so dramatically, when I see things pulling at him, I intentionally push her towards them as I'm pulling on him. Your hope dice is gone. Yes. This is gone. Oh, yeah, we're losing hope. Billy.

Basically. Towards. And Ethan, you feel this hand grasping on your leg as it's pulling. you down and attempting to move into it and it's odd. I mean, you were stepping on stone. This is impossible. This was rock. This was a solid earth. I know it was. Yes, it was.

This can't be happening. Yeah, it's not. This is no point. It must be the fumes or something is affecting your mind, but it is holding on to you with every step and it is pulling you and it is squeezing your bones as it drags both of you

and Boone, Billy, you just, you fall forward and the hands just lift themselves up and they grasp a hold of you and they caress you and they move your hands across your shoulders and across your desiccated leg and they rub upon your flayed flesh and you scream. It's so painful and they seem to languish

in your scream as they pull you forward and it drags you and pulls you towards the lava. No. And Billy, you look towards your friends as you gaze out to them. And Ethan, you kind of see because Billy is laid on the floor and you have your hands around your ankle at the moment. You kind of see Billy just being pulled in.

And, Billy, there's something like you just saw this boon. This man threw you down. Why? No. Billy? As I'm pulling Ethan. Don't do it. No.

I'm all like you sought forgiveness. Let me go. You hold onto it, Billy. You feel the warm embrace of the hot magma. Clasp a hold of your leg as your leg is disseminated and it disintegrates into nothing. Plains start to erupt from the side of your body as you are engulfed into this liquid stream. As all of the bodies around you begin to howl and wail as their arms and, laid up and they embrace you as they pull you into the earth.

Sorry, I had to do it. He made me do it. She has perished in the lake of fire. Why did you do that? What did you do? What did you do? This place is hell. This is hell. This is a place for sinners. It is not a place for you who are redeemed. Let's run. Let's run. We have to run. You run. There's three truths to speak before this ends. Before we get into this next place, there are three candles, three truths that need to be spoken. Normally, Billy would have the first truth, but

in this circumstances, I will have to take it since she is no longer here. The first truth is the world is dark. The second truth is, boon is overcome by zealous feather, and knows what he has to do.

Eliza, you're next. You hit the second truth. The world is dark, and the cavern is starting to crumble a little bit, the one around the lava, with all the people and all the lava flowing,

starting to crumble behind us. The last one. The world is dark. The cavern is coming down around us. There is another light. There is another light. We pick up this right as Boone is yelling. This is hell, this is redemption.

You are the saved, and he, she was the sinner as he runs towards Both of you, do I know roughly where the monolith must be? I knew where it was. I knew where the elevator was, so roughly where it must be, I go towards the monolith. I understand now. I understand why it is here. I understand what we must do.

Brother and sister, I understand. You saw it. You saw it. That was the lake of fire. I know what we have to do. I know what we have to do. And I go towards the point. And you run towards it.

He's running towards it. The bonnet. Yeah. I mean, the road lead direction. I don't know how close it. Where it could be. But Eliza, Ethan.

I was already taken off, and I didn't look back when I saw him push my friend, and I saw her go in, and there was no saving her. I just sprinted. And I am. Any direction? Away from him? Uninjured. Fast runner.

Away from him. And I think also down the monolith, if that's where the light is, I went towards the light. The other light. Okay. It would be the same. direction that Boone is going if it was the light where the monolith is. I also want to see the monolith again there. I had things I wanted to just... My legs are uninjured and I am trying to bring him along with me.

So I'm not trying to leave him. I left him. I'll let him help me along. Okay. I'm not happy about it, but he is. Let's see where the light is and it's easier to go with him than it is to resist right now. So let's see where the light is and see where this goes. per your truth there is another light

and Eliza you sprint for it ahead of Ethan ahead of Boone he seems so focused and minded at the moment he's crazy and you run towards it and you do see in the midst of the cavern a black sheer face

that is laid out in front of you and right in front of it two protectors and it stands in front and they don't immediately go for you but they stare and they turn their head with their multi-segmented human eyes as they look towards you. And you can tell you.

I don't move. I just wait. I want to see if other commotion heading down the tunnel distracts them. And the commotion comes as Boone and Ethan. Yeah, the entire time I'm like, oh, it is written what my enemy's meant for ill. God has turned to my good. You didn't know why you brought us down.

down here, but he was all part of the plan. Don't you see, Ethan, to be delivered for deliverance? As soon as they turn their many eyes to him, I started to just like backwards. Okay. When I lay eyes on the monolith, I'm like, ha ha, ha,

I have done what was asked to have things revealed to me. I have done as was requested. I believe I lost it. You did lose that. Don't we get three? And we have three. Three. You got these two with them. You speak to it and you say I have done.

Why? Because we had lost. New scene. Three dice. Three candles. Yes. I mean, I, basically as I get close as I see her, I do sort of let go of you when I'm in here. Oh, good.

Yeah, I don't. Because I'm like, you will all bear witness to the revelation. That apparently is not coming. So you. Why that? You scream. This is the revelation. I have done what it needs to be redeemed,

and you hear a voice. Pierce into your mind as you come closer and you see the creatures who have turned their eyes away from you, but now turn towards you, and they look at you and they gaze upon you, and they say, and you have done as requested. And again, this whole time you hear this English speaking towards you,

but in the background it is this skis-skis-k-k-h-ha-ha-ha. Do we hear anything, or is it speaking only to him and only he can hear. And he is slowing forward and moving towards these creatures. I draw my weapon and I drop it because I will not need it anymore. I pick it up.

And you come forward and you hear it as the voice and you feel as the arms lip around you and grab up. You didn't. And they lift you up. It was meant to be this entire time. righteousness is not

sacrifice of others. Your choice has been found. And you feel. as both of them grab a hold of you, and one of them clasps upon your head and slowly starts to pull you in to its ma as each muscle goes forward. You are consumed in front of both that lies in deep. You watch as food is basically lifted up, and one seems to be forcing its maw into the other as your body is just collapsed. side and to ask you to leave my table. You want to go to him? Yeah, okay.

Come here. I normally would have the first, but I will instead speak. The cave that you discussed starting to collapse behind you. A boulder has crumbled and is now blocking your only exit. There is one way forward. The boulder that fell blocking the exit is also pinning the tail of one of the two creatures. Excellent. Oh, that's two.

Two dice. Eliza, as you mentioned, one of the rocks, the rock that is blocking your pathway, has ostensibly fallen upon this creature. And you hear as its carapace cracks as you watch its black eye core split. but it doesn't seem to care. It doesn't scream in pain like when you shine the light on it or when anything else it's more, just like a defeated cry of a dying creature, something that has starved itself for years

and is now finally deciding that it's okay to let go as it lays upon the grasping ground, not dead but not moving. Ethan. He said there was one path forward. Which direction is that? Toward the monolith? There is a world in which if you want to try to get back out through the boulder,

it could be another spalunking adventure. Let's go. I have to try something first. I want to try and get to the door. I want to see if the monolith is its own way out. I grab Ethan and I pull him towards it and I go to slam it and then I stop my hand right before and I think about envisioning what's inside of the monolith.

As you begin to speak to it, you open your mind up, and you begin to picture what's inside of it, and you hold onto him, and you hear something in your mind, and it says simply, roll and be judged. Tell me what you wish to tell it back. What you say?

Let us out of here. Let us go to safety. I know you can. Why have you brought this judgment upon us? We are pure of heart. Your hand press into the monolith. In fact, you feel your whole arm lay up into the whole shoulder. And you feel as your arm stuck.

And you attempt to pull on it, but it's like solid stone. And you can't move. There's nothing. Everything is laid out. In fact, you feel this pull slowly start to crack and then you hear your bones begin to break as your body is mashed and slowly pieces of yourself. Out?

You can pull on her. You can, you pull on her with all of your might. You attempt to wrench her out, but the forces are so strong and each minuscule millimeter by millimeter pulls it in until your chest begins to collapse. And you feel your weight crushed as you fall limp. Ethan, you watch as her body, now her heart and her body crushed,

and you can hear the cracking of each bone as her body is slowly pulled into the monolith. And finally, and you stand there, don't seem to have any emotion, but they just seem to be staring. It's pity. and watch you and the bloodied broken pile of blood that is now on the floor. I almost made it. I almost was the first one to work. Leave me here. One truth. This is the final scene, Ethan. You were miles under the ground. You tried to do something good for the world, and instead you watched as a

everyone in front of you was consumed and killed and crushed in front of you these things are not going after you but nor do you see any indication that the monolith is doing

anything but just it was all for nothing I couldn't have stopped this even if I had known the truth trying to find the answer didn't get us anywhere truth is not in of its but it did get you here.

Maybe it's the looking that's the important part. Not the actual finding of the truth. Maybe it's how we conduct ourselves on the search rather than what we do at the end of it. These are the thoughts that stay with you. As you find your final hours buried deep under the earth with the company of monsters.

Thank you, I mean. Of our story. Thank you, friend. Thank you. I'm going to have to ask you to leave. In the Company of Monsters, it's a good episode title, I think. There's only one last thing left to do. And that is to listen to the messages of our departed characters.

Hey, hey, hey, this is Inia. DJ Violet. My name is Billy Morrig. This has been a weird time, you know? After everything that happens at the concert, we just went on the run. We're doing good, though. I made it. Eliza made it.

Man, talking to Mike's just like the only thing I'm supposed to be good at. Yeah, I guess we just all wish me had more time, right? some things we all wanted to do. But the moon looks crazy. How about that, huh? I think if we could just find some more people. You just... Some good people. I don't know.

You miss my equipment. Whoever's listening to this pretend it sounded really cool. If you can hear this, then I'm probably dead. When I was alive, my name was Ethan Daly, and I spent my life as a journalist searching for truth. I won prizes for it, awards. I patted myself on the back for my ingenuity in matching fidelity to fact. And now I know that it didn't matter.

that there is no truth, or even if there is, it can't save us. Just, boon. I've been preparing my whole life to be here to witness this glorious conclusion of humanity, this divine retribution that we have all brought on our own heads, saint and sinner alike. I want you to know though that I was right. My daddy and his daddy were right. And when the end came, I was prepared. And I survived. And I will continue to survive until there is no more.

But old brother, sister, who hears this? I call upon you to repent. Because if you have survived to this point, it is on your head. to help Shepard in a new and better world, free from vanity and greed and pollution and hatred, go out to greet the end with a smile. When it started, there were 400 people all around me. We were all dancing and enjoying ourselves and each other and substances.

Many of those people were my friends. They're all dead now. There's so many beautiful souls with so much light and energy to share, and I watched them all sucked underground before my eyes. I used to teach pre-K. I freaking loved those kids so much, and I can't imagine a single one of those sweet little babes made it through the first night. Four years old. I keep seeing their sweet faces. I wanted to inspire them, inspire their young minds to be full of light and laughter and life.

I wanted to shape future leaders and future givers and healers and believers and things greater than themselves. I just wanted to dance, be surrounded by strangers, feed off their energy. and I don't know if I'll ever see more than a few people ever again. Everyone is dead. All hope is lost.