Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Chapter One: The Beginning of the End | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

In an evacuation center outside of Chicago, IL, a group of survivors wants to learn more about the strange Monoliths that now dot the landscape.    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 Krystina Ariella, David Blue, Josephine McAdam, Dan Casey, 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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I haven't ever played with any of you before. And we're, and you all think you've played with each other as well too, right? Did I play with you. Oh, do you, what, Siren? Yes. Sirens? Yes. Yes.

I just thought about that. It did. Well, I'm ready for a lighthearted romp. Exactly. We were far away from each other, so it doesn't count. That's totally fair. And now we are deep diving out of D&D and going into a lighthearted, dark and dangerous romp.

I get Dan Casey in one of my horror games. I'm excited and also kind of nervous. Oh, that's good. I'm glad that you're already there, so. It only goes down from here. Well, before we get into characters and we'll get into character creation, just for the people at home,

who may not know who you are, would you just mind introducing yourselves real quick? Just let us know who's playing, and then we can get into who you're going to be portraying, so to speak. So, David, we can start with you. Hi, I'm David Blue. Hello.

Hi, David. Happy to play with all of you for our first time for me. I was, I had you in my back pocket for a little while, but we get to actually bring you out into the front pocket now. Thank you for letting me escape, finally. You're welcome. sat down, I'm like, is it time? I can't even tell you how many discarded tinfoil keys

I've seen on the floor at this point. I'm glad you got it right, finally. Hello. Hi, Ivan. Hi, ready to play. Yeah, I like games. Yeah, and I like that you like to play games. I do.

Have you done a horror game like this before? No, I'm very excited about it. Okay, cool. I like to, you know, go from sunny, happy sunshine to being sad and sad. depressed in a post-apocalyptic-esque world. Well, that's every week. There's room for both, yeah, so.

Who knows? Oh, but who am I? I don't know. No, I'm just kidding. I'm Christine R. A.L., hi. Hi. Nice to see you. Nice to know you, Josephine. Hi, I'm Josephine. McAdam. I exist here. And you have this camera with you today.

I have this camera, which isn't part of Josephine. No. But you'll find out. I'm already seeing. No spoilers. I'm already seeing stuff happening here, so I'm ready and curious to see what it's going to play into. And as I said, Dan Casey.

Yes, as previously spoiled by Ivan. I'm Dan Casey. And I've never, I've played like horror RPGs like Call of Cthulhu before. I've played ones with a high body count, like cyberpunk. But I've never played 10 candles, and I get very scared when I play, when I like play a horror game or when I watch a horror movie. Oh, horror video games are the worst because you have to go through the door. In a movie, it just happens.

But in a horror game, you're like, I'm doing this to myself. Why? This is not fun. I can't play that. I get stuck. I tried and I was like, I stopped in a black. If you cannot see what's coming, I'm never going to go there. That's what flares are for a man, so you just pop it and you just get a little bit of red light as you go through it.

For me, Resident Evil ended the moment a dog jumped through a window. It was a very short game. It's like true. Imagine it in VR and you're playing it and it's like, it's on your face now. I did that once at E3 and a bunch of mannequins turned around and chased me. No, absolutely not.

Well, the good news is that I don't think there'll be any mannequins chasing you in this one. Thank goodness. Allegedly. Scratch that off my list of many fears. It's kind of karma for me because I've actually never played a horror, like, survival RPG really, especially on camera. But I did work at a year-round haunted house for a while.

Oh, no. So my job was to scare the hell out of a lot of people. So now it's coming around. I did that for about four years. Yeah? That's great. I love those places. I'm terrified of horror movies, but I happily, I like walk almost like a T stance when I go into places now and I'm just like, let's be bask, give me watch for out. Come my spooky children. Yeah, I don't consume any horror because I get very, very scared, but I love doling it out, but you know, we'll see what happens. Well, let's start doling it out, shall we? In 10 Candles, we start. We start, we start. We start. We start.

ostensibly enough by writing a virtue and a vice for our neighbors. So I would like everyone to first take one of your cards, which has your lovely photos on it, that will come into play later. And I would like to have you pass it to the right. For the people who are, and I'm going to move it over, there we go. Now on that, I would like you to write a lovely virtue. And a virtue is very simple. It's a descriptive word that can be, you know, that can be hopeful in elements like that, but it helps solve problems.

And in this circumstances, they can be used in order to generate a re-roll of your wines. Just that word? Just one virtue, please. Great. Now, I would like you to pass that back to your left, please. Oh, wow. We'll see about that. Excellent.

Oh. Now, I'd like you to take another one of your photos. Sorry, I just got to prove it. I made me very happy. I know nothing good will happen after this point, so I'm just latching on to it. Yeah, so let's have that be a great thing. Actually, I think at this point, because the virtues are public,

these do not to be syncret. What did we all get? David? I got candor. Candor. Excellent. Such candor. Much candor.

Much honest. What did you get? I got determined. determines. Charming. Excellent. All right. Selfless. Done.

It's like they know me. Now I would like you to take one of your cards and I'd like you to hand it back to your left. Thank you. It's already begun. You got it. That's a bit of fire! Oh, sorry.

The floor is lava. That's why you can't leave. And then for this one, this is when it gets, you all know it's coming. Write your vice. Write a vice. Four. One word again? One word. It creates problems, not solutions. This will also be burnt in the game, if you will,

in order to get your ones re-roll. Just to be clear, it's in the form of like I am. No, just the word. Okay. Just the word. It's so hard to give people bad things, isn't it, Joe? Soriasis. You heard it. Go bring it back to the right. Let's see what we all have here.

All right. What did you get, David? I am vengeful. A vengeful candor fool. And you, my dear? I am a determined fraud. Excellent. That is special.

I'm charming, but I have a temper. Oh, all right, yeah. Charming people often do have tempers. And you, Mr. Dan Casey? I have been preparing my whole life for this. Anxiety. I think Joe made some deliberate eye contact on that one, so that's perfect.

Great, so now we have virtues and vices, which we will hold on to. Normally now I would introduce the module, which I sent out to you all a while ago, but I will read it again, so you have context of where and how and what you're going to be doing. This is the situation in which you're all starting in. And to be fair, for everyone out there who is watching, they all got this beforehand. So, but now this is for everyone at home. Last week, the monoliths rose out from the ground. In every corner

of the world, one of these black 100-story spires is part of the horizon. Since then, people have been disappearing. The radio, as the TVs went out almost immediately, has been seen. saying that the monoliths are generating some sort of field. The one thing is for certain, the moon is large and bright tonight, which is good because otherwise the darkness is permeating every shadow of this darkened world. Now, let's move on to the moments that you would hope to create in this world of ten candles. This is a very specific type of thing that could also potentially fail. potentially fail. So it is something that your character might find some hope in achieving and doing.

This is something that you write solely for yourself. All right? Is it okay to write I hope to just so I can keep them something? Absolutely, please. I hope to get through this game. I don't know why I'm like tempted to hide. It's all right. It's no reason. Sheat off your paper. Your moment could potentially be on top as well too, so it is not ostensibly. it is not ostensibly a secret. And since technically we should be talking about concepts

a little bit before these moments, I would actually like to use this time in order to learn who your characters are and the hope that they wish to achieve in this game. Dan, let's start with you this time. So my name is Connor McGill, and I work for a giant social media company at a data center moderating a lot of the comments

and videos and just horror shows that, Normal people shouldn't see or just can't handle. And as such, I've become kind of a conspiracy theorist. I've started to buy into a lot of what I'm reading. You're really on the front line of all of the worse that comes out of the internet. I'm fighting on the front lines of the information wars and I am.

That's gonna be tough. A world with no internet. Yeah, that is like a world with no internet has really sent me into a spiral and I need to find the truth. So what's your hope, Connor? So my hope is, this is my moment. This is your moment.

My moment is I want to touch or go inside the monolith. Got it, okay. That seems appropriate. So I want to find the truth. Josephine, who are we playing today? I'm playing Jenny Summers. Jenny Summers. I am a photojournalist.

I like, namely going to disasters or epidemics and photographing. Like an AP photographer. Yes. I think that there is beauty and darkness, that there's always heroes that arise. And it's, I want to capture those moments. Do you work for the AP?

Are you like part of a large system of disaster journalists? I know many, but I'm independent at the moment. You know, I'm still getting started. Okay, great. If I'm honest here. What moment would? would Jenny like to create? Well, I hope to photograph the ones responsible

for the monoliths. All right, that makes absolute sense. All right, and who are we playing today? Hi, I am Lexi Beaumont. Lexi. And Lexi is a mysterious lady who was in the theater. And she has a secret behind her eyes.

And she hopes to find a familiar face. She wants to find a familiar face. In a world in which all familiarity has been stripped from her, she wants to find something to hold on to from her past. Yes, because until then, she's just gonna be vague. All right, duly noted. David, who are we playing today? Hi, I'm Everett Robbins.

I am from Manhattan, where I was just about to enter the police academy finally to start. Oh. I've always been interested in stuff like that, you know, crime and forensics and all that. And I was just about to start and my family made me come out here for a wedding. I don't know the city. I don't know anybody here. And the night before this happened, I got in a big fight with my family.

And so they were going somewhere and I'm like, go without me and I have not seen them since. And I hunkered down in a place I don't know and found myself here with a bunch of other people. I don't know. Right. Excellent. Everett, well. What moment do you hope to come across?

I hope to see out from the top of a monolith. You want to see out from the top of the top. So you'd like to see from the top of a model. To see out from the top of a monologue. Okay, excellent. Why? That sounds like we all have some very absolutely obtainable moments. That could also end miserably as well, too.

So with that, now let's flip it and let's write bricks. All right. Now, brinks are things that you will hand to players, and I actually get to participate in this as well with you. Oh. I'm going to write a brink that involves the scenario, specifically in Ten Candles, what they refer to as them, but it is, in my circumstance,

the area that is around you, and then you will all write a brink for each other. So first, just to give everyone their writing stock, Let's have you take one of your cards and pass it to your right. I'm going to keep yours. Cool. And then you are going to pass yours down, and I'm going to hand you one of mine. Okay?

Actually, you're going to hand this back to me. Okay. All right? So now a brink is literally a very descriptive moment that you have seen your neighbor do. I have seen you, dot, dot, dot. Something has happened, and there's something that you've noticed happened. And for our circumstances, Josephine, you're going to tell me something about them. I have seen them do something.

And it cannot be debilitating. It can only be something that either expands on the narrative as far as you see it or something that empowers them further. But that creative choice is up to you. So it can't be I've seen you light more candles. Can't wish for more wishes, damn it. And then I will do the same for you. Can it be like mildly ominous?

Yes, because they will be activating on it. But it does need to be a situation that you have seen that, not them in the sense of them, but you have seen your neighbor. It can be negative. Absolutely. Oh, not for. them. Them. Hmm. As in, they're not debilitating towards it, but like I've seen them do.

Terrible things. That's okay. Terrible things. Yes. Okay. Don't. Stop it, we're morbid. Sorry. I was just thinking, well, we were friends. Why are we? Oh. Oh. I told you I'm vague. Excellent. Excellent. Nope. No. Ooh.

The perfect cry. That's not even my face. Oops. Tell me if it's too vague in the negative. Are we allowed to look at these? What's that? Are we allowed to look at these? Absolutely.

You'll be making these as part of your stacks. It still applies in my mind. So. Yes. So these are absolutely for your eyes only, only to be exposed when the time is right. Finally. Let us talk about how we want to arrange our stocks.

You may put your virtue and your vice and your moment, however you wish, however you want to activate it first, your brink always goes on the bottom. So what happens when they are activated? You may choose to activate it in order to get a flat re-roll of all the dice that you wish, sixes and ones included. And does something happen though in our actions

or when we activate? They need to be described when you go On your brink, you must activate upon it in the story. Yes. Whatever it means and however it applies to you. Okay. And these two, and the vices and the virtues will actually get you rewoles of once. But I mean, they don't have to be in the story or they do. They need to be a part of the story when they go into it.

So if you're petty and you want to activate your petty, you need to do a petty action in order to get your re-roll. And then they go away forever. They go away forever? Your virtues and vices, once you use them. Your brink, as long as you succeed, you get to hold on to it. Great. All right, questions, comments, concerns? Nope, cool.

All right, let's play. Sorry. I have a question. What do I do with this final picture? The final picture. That is your, technically, your concept. So if you just want to write your name on it. Okay, cool.

So we don't have a brink. We do? We don't. You do have a brink. That's what that bottom one is. Yeah. Yeah, now it's all coming together, see? Yep.

But yeah, the final one is just to put your name as reference. I have my little cheat sheet here, but if you want to use it for your fellow mates as well, too, by all means, we're all friends here, but it's always good to write your friend's names down. Right now. If you forget them, are they friends? I don't know.

Depends on how good you are with names. Ooh, I'm a face is person. There you go. Now, while they're writing, I will just give you some simple, update on the mechanics. When a conflict comes up, you will roll dice equal to the number of candles that are currently on and available on the table. Any ones that are rolled will be discounted and removed from the pool until the scene ends. Sixes, at least one six, will count as a success.

But anytime you roll a conflict and do not generate a success, we darken a candle, the scene ends, and we start speaking truths about the story. Right? Don't worry about it. You all right? Don't worry about it, you'll all get there when we get into it. All right. So, where to begin? As I mentioned earlier, your story begins one week after the monoliths rose. And since then, chaos and disorder have been prevalent in every corner of the globe. There does not seem to be a single place in which one of these monoliths is not on the horizon. They emerge from the sea, no matter how deep the sea floor is. They arise from every mountain, and they permeate across every field. And in some places, like major cities, they have crested in broken, massive parts of infrastructure. As a result, people have

been doing the best they can to mobilize around it. Very shortly after the monoliths rose, people started disappearing, straight out from right beneath. them. So a lot of people don't know why. Communication, as we have learned over large social media networks, is tenuous at best. There are rumors, constant rumors, everything from space aliens to underground molemen to a worldwide government conspiracy. No one really knows what's happening. And the worst part is nobody can really talk about it unless they're using very old forms of communication such as radio or word of mouth and other archaic technology that is prone to disinformation. But a lot of people have been taking advantage of the situation. The major metropolitan areas have fallen.

There has been no report from government facilities at all. The automated response of the National Guard and other localized military forces have rallied together people and have put them into refugee camps of which you four are a part of now. And you've been there for the past six days or so. Yes. And which city are we outside of? Which major metropolitan area do you think we're outside of? Chicago. Chicago, okay, cool, great. Chicago, that was great. So in my mind then, you're probably south of the river leading into the bay. And it doesn't really matter where at this point.

All I can tell you is that there is a monolith fairly close by. And we will do this. You've been in this camp for six days. There are tens of thousands of people at this camp. Now, some have stayed, some being what they are. Some have attempted to leave. And at one point the military was stopping them, telling them, no, no, you can't let me stay here. This is for your protection.

This is for your safety. Do not leave the camp. But about two days ago, they stopped carrying. And people just started walking out, whether they clipped fences and snuck through or they just walked out the gate. Some soldiers even leaving with them. Now, some would say that this is rash, that six days is nothing, to you. sit and wait out a major disaster like this. Other people are not so interested in seeing

how the rest of this military arm plays out. What do you want to do? I want to get out of here. I want to go through that fence. I gotta get close to one of these things. I gotta touch. I have to get closer to it. I need to know.

Yeah, we need to see what's out there. Oh, all right. Well, this is a good conversation. It seems like at least two people want to at least leave this. Are you either of you more interested in staying or leaving at this point? There's not enough food to take care of all these people for a long period of time. And I waited too long to come here in the first place. And I saw some bad stuff out there.

I'm not just going to sit and wait to die. So if that means we go out and find somewhere better or find some other people, I'd rather do that than just wither. Fair enough. That would leave you, Lexi. How are you feeling about staying inside of this refugee camp at the moment? I know the food's going to run out, but at least if people needed to find us, we're in a central location. It's the best place for someone to find us if we stay here.

So you're hoping that people will come and eventually find you? Hopefully. Well, there is definitely possibilities of finding out you don't know about any immediate exits, so you really do have options. You can stay here until the food runs out, which rumors are is any day now at this point because there has been no resupply since then. You can try to find the exit on your own,

or you can try to maybe talk somebody, or you can just walk out the front gate. It's really up to you. I've seen people leaving without being stopped. You have. I wanted to leave here days ago. We've got to get out there. They're not going to do anything for us in here.

Have any of those people come back? Why would they? This place is the government wants us to stay here. They're trusting us to stay here. We're being left behind. We need answers and staying here. It just raises more questions. What are we doing?

I agree. Lexi, you seem a little outnumbered here. Where's your heart? I'm scared, but I don't want to be by myself. And if you guys go, you're the only, the closest thing I have to friends here. So whatever you decide I'll go with. Good, because who do you think is going to come and get us? They're not coming.

We're responsible for ourselves now. So Josephine, I'm sorry, Jenny, you had talked about walking right out. through the front gate. It's pretty cold. And it sounds like a perfect tide to start, our first conflict, and roll to see how it goes. Did you roll 10 dice for me? I will.

No whammy, no wammies, no wammies. And stop. Oh, thank God. Okay, and look at that, only one one that we have to get rid of for this rest of this scene. So we lose that for this scene, right? For this scene. They will refresh at the end of each scene.

Thank God. You know, in this circumstances, normally I would give narration rights, but I think I'm going to give you narration rights to tell me how you get out of this refugee camp. Or are there guards? Do they look? There is guards. So this place does have checkpoints, all right? Rarely used six different people coming in and out. But you can imagine it being a little bit like a switchback fence laid out for crowd control, right? And they're how large, chain link pop-up fences with barbed wire at the top of them. And there is at least two armed soldiers with someone who should be up at the watchtower. But today... Not there.

Do they seem like they're really paying attention? Here's the thing. There's no way that you will be able to go out without catching their notice because you will have to literally walk out through the front door. So as the four of you approach, you see as one of the guards haphazardly like, lifts his assault rifle, which was just, he was almost leaning on the muzzle at one point. But lifts to him and goes, stop, identification. Look, man, I'm a journalist.

I've got to get out there. This is my team. You're going to die out there. You know that, right? That's, that's, that's, we'll see what happens. But we have to take that chance. You kind of watch as he. turns his back towards the gate and puts his muzzle up and he pulls out a cigarette and lights it

and doesn't even acknowledge you. I'm going to turn around and snap a photo of him before I go. Cool. All right. So you catch a moment of this extremely disinterested security guard guarding this refugee camp. You go through the switchback doors. You walk out into a blackened night. Now, there was gas generators running a lot of the interior lights that were inside of this refugee camp.

And the, well, light pollution decays quickly. You know, as you're walking out, it's suddenly that halo of safety and light that you are now a part of falls away as you walk out into, well, streetways. a broken ruin of and once great civilization. And now you're out. Now where? I'm not actually from the city. This is my first time ever coming here.

Does anyone even have a direction? Oh, great. I hear the bean is pretty nice. It's like a big. It's like a big sculpture. You just follow the water. That's not the worst idea. We should have taken more supplies with us.

I think we need to, we don't know how long we're going to be out here. That monolith looks so far away. What supplies? We're running out of food in the place in the first place. We're going to knock the guard out and take his gun? Okay, I don't want to knock out any guards, but like we also need food and water. Maybe we should find somewhere to stock up, like, a convenience, or gas station before we.

I'm with you on that. Sounds good. So you want to look for some supplies. Just anything to bring with you. Austin, where are you? We don't know how long we're gonna be out there. Ship. Let's see how prevalent supplies are.

Yeah, several sixes, but two ones. Two ones are discarded. Connor, as you kind of take point on this little excursion, you are blindly walking through the dark. as you are moving through things. And every once in a while, the sound, because it is silent, I should probably specify this. Like, as soon as you start getting away from the humming

of the lights and the generators, it is eerily quiet. Even though, you know, there hasn't been reports of massive amounts of population being taken away or anything like that. Just the fact that it is nighttime and it is so quiet is offsetting. You're not in the major city of Chicago by, any stretch of the imagination but it is there's still enough houses that you begin to start casually going into open doors looking at houses find a few things and um you know well uh

you definitely find enough food that you can carry on you and a couple of backpacks that each one of you could load up with some various canned goods the unfortunate is that any fresh food at this point would have been gone days ago, with no refrigeration, no power in the system. But preserve snacks, cans, I mean, you're certainly not finding a Costco warehouse full of goods. Any knives or anything I can grab for... Would you like to look for weapons?

Yeah. Well, well, well, I think. No ones at least. No one. Yeah. We... Uh... I think we are ending this scene.

No sixes. So, let's talk about that. Everett. You are adamant that right now weapons need to be found. Like you've got food, you've got a backpack. You all seem to be carrying at least enough to tide you over physically, but you need to find these weapons. So as you're going through looting these people's private houses,

going to go into and go around and trying to find anything like a loaded shotgun, Like you said, even a combat knife, something that you can protect yourself around in. You get sloppy and at one point you are all rummaging through the interior of this house when you hear a loud from behind you and you hear a man's gruff voice. Don't you fucking move. Now, let's establish some truths about the rest of the world going forward. We're going to start with Everett. and you're going to tell me a truth about this world. Now, this conflict should tell you, you're in a conflict right now.

This conflict can be resolved with truths or it cannot be. It is up to you, right? But we need to tell nine things as we go across the board here. And a truth is ostentively you can say something as simple as, you know, this is how the world is. So it doesn't have to be about the situation you're in now or it can be. It's completely up to you. I can give you an example by starting first if you'd like.

And also explain the whole how it can be resolved. I'm sorry. The resolve you, so, you know, for example, I can say about this gentleman. The first truth is, sorry, this is important, the world is dark. That is the first truth. The second truth is, this man is scared. Now you would start. I think it be anything small or big.

Small or big. World or person, kind of anything. We're expanding the narrative right now. Okay. Our government abandoned us. Can it be about the man? It can. Behind the man on the shelf, there's a picture of his family.

Great. I started to be example, so. It's starting to get cold out. Fine. Before the collapse, the government was passing some anti-gun legislation. Great. Back to you. It's a nice house. It's a nice house.

Guidance from the government to the people. There's no communication. There hasn't been any alerts. There hasn't been any broadcast or anything like that. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Cool. Great. And I'm going to say, finally, that the humming, which you weren't aware of before, is louder here. Sorry, hear this house or here this area? This area.

Your smirk makes me very uncomfortable. Right? Well, I don't think it was meant to be comforting, so. Well, let's pick it up from here. You are back to nine dice, if that's any comfort. Six. Oh, this is a new scene. This is a new scene.

So... Sorry. You hear the loud cocking of a shotgun and a man who, with confidence in his voice, has told you to not fucking move. What do you do? We didn't know anyone was here. We're sorry.

We're just trying to find safety. We will leave. You're not going to be safe here. Get out of my goddamn house. Okay. We will. Are you okay? Are you alone? So he's gonna want, it doesn't matter if I'm alone

or if I'm with five people, go down the stairs. He watches, he kind of walks into the room, and then gets out of the door jam and starts kind of circling around towards the back of you. He goes, where's your friends? I saw you come in with more people. No, we didn't. We literally just left the camp.

We were just trying to find somewhere safe to go. You can come with us if you want. No, no, no, no. No, I'm not going anywhere. Back down, I don't even know how you got in. Just... The door was open. It kind of looks inside of himself from my own.

No, it wasn't. It was not open. No one would leave this house without my permission. And you kind of won't just go downstairs right now. I'll walk out. You walk you and your friends out to the front. Just step down. Any kind of motions down onto the...

the main stairs where he comes out. And as he's walking the three of you, he starts shouting a name, Diana, Diana, answer me. Walks you out towards the front of the stoop continues to kind of like walk you through the door. And you're now out onto the main lawn and he just kind of stands there with his gun pointed at you

on the front lawn. Pointed at each of us. Well, probably at Everett at this moment, but you're all, I mean, and tell me if anything, if you would like to adjust the situation accordingly, because I'm assuming all three, all four of you were in the same room together. Sure, okay. Yeah. And now you're all out on the front porch together. So, yes. Sir, I know that this is probably really, like, this is just a bad situation all the way around, but, you know, Can I use your bathroom?

He puts his gun back up. There's the bushes over there. You can use the fucking bushes. And he watches he... Greetings, adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles. And that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees.

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you can see there's a little bit of fear in his voice now as he's starting to speak. It's just that we've lost the last bit of decency that we have, and I'd really like to not go into a bush, and you have a bathroom inside your house, and that'd be really just, I promise, I don't want any of your stuff. I just... He puts the gun down for a second and starts kind of walking up to you

and he starts looking at you. In fact, he starts physically patting you down to check to see if you have weapons or anything while he's holding the gun. He's holding it. Yeah, and then he goes, go. Just go inside. And he starts looking at the three of you and goes,

just fuck it, just get out of here. And he kind of like follows you and just stands in the doorway while you go start going... We're not leaving without it. We're not leaving without her, man. Is it upstairs or downstairs? It's downstairs to the left,

second door. Look, we're not, we're not here. Look, I know, I know we were here to take your guns, but we're like not here to take your guns, man. We didn't know you were here. I don't care. All right. Situations changed. I don't fucking care if you come or go right now. Just don't, just never mind. And he starts running with Diana, where are you? And he starts running up to the stairs, shouting this name, and just starts opening and slamming doors at this point as he's checking around, you go find the bathroom. The plumbing is still working. And you continue to do your business. Any three of you want to do anything else? Why this man is running through his own home at the moment? I want to examine the picture on the mantle. See if there's any indication

as to who Diana might be. So the moment when you're before, he caught you at this point. point when she had pointed out this truth about this man's family behind the back, you had noticed that there was very clearly a wife and there was a teenage daughter that was there. And it was just the three of them, this moment. So, yeah. I'm going to come with him to make she's okay. And since there's a fireplace and a mantle, I'm going to grab whatever is next to a fireplace, whether it's a poker or something. Okay. He's gonna check the picture and that's fine. The picture is part of the previous information.

Okay. I was in here. He just told you to leave and you went back in and started stealing a poker. I would call that a conflict. I'm gonna say I'm still outside. You're still outside. I wanna just be scoping.

And just for game mechanics-wise, I just wanna make sure. So if I roll and I don't get any sixes, that's when I would go. I want to use one of these things. So you actually burn a virtue to re-roll just your ones. Okay.

So if you have any ones that you want to get read up, That could result in a six. If you rolled a bunch of ones did not get a success, then you could use that to re-roll those ones to either turn them not into ones or hopefully get that six. But if you still get a six in a bunch of ones and you don't want those ones, you could burn it too.

Don't even look at me. I'm looking for a poker. You had to pee. Which of us is the looser here? Who calmed him down? Is a gun pointed at your head right now? Not yet. Give me a second. Okay. Okay.

Oh, look at that. No ones. and one six. So as you are hearing this man searching this house favorantly upstairs as much as he can, like you said, it's a nice house, so it's big. You get over to the mantle and you do find at least something. It is a hooked and it's a solid steel poker that you're talking about. It's not one of those that, you know, is assembled together kind of poorly. It's a, it's a designer set. So, and you find a booker. Lexi, as you and the, well, pretty much everyone who's still on the inside of this point, Connor, by the way, checking that picture did not warrant you having to necessarily be in that room.

Yes. This is just from finding it earlier. So do you want to check on the man before you leave or are you wanting to piece out or stick around? I want to ask him how he's doing and who Diana is. Great. Well, Lexi, as you finish your business. and walk upstairs. After washing my hands.

After washing your hands. And again, we talked about, roll the dice. So as you go upstairs, you do hear the distinct sounds of sobbing as all of the doors have been lifted, been thrown open, and you can actually see as some various small effects

have been thrown or shoved down. It was a cacophety of noise while you were all silently doing your business but it is only punctuated the swales of this man. Excuse me. Just go away. Just have what you want, just go.

I want to make sure you're okay. It's like I'm fucking okay. None of us are okay, but you're also, from what it appears, by yourself and we know that feeling. Who's Diana? It's my daughter. She's gone. She just left.

She didn't say anything. She just walked out the door. What you four just ceremoniously walked it on? Why would she go? I'm sorry. I wish I had something better than... I'm sorry. But I don't.

And it's not like any of us were prepared for this. When's the last time you saw her? Hour ago. You kind of see this moment of resolve as he steps up. And he just goes down to the bottom part of this basement. And he just starts, well, you just kind of watch as he gets up and starts running down the main steps and goes, house is yours, whatever you want. Just don't be here when I come back.

Thank you. He kind of walks down the steps and opens up this attic door and storms down into the cellar. the cellar you want to stick around does he try to surreptitiously take a photo of him is he well the best chance to take a photo of him would be when he's coming back up what appears to be full hikers backpack complete with another gun laid out on the side and you know a really good bug out bag all right and he straps it in front of him and he puts the, you see the shotgun that he had with him, is now laid along the side,

and he now just has a fully loaded, you know, 9mm pistol with him goes, and he just kind of all looks at you. Jesus Christ, Rambo over here. I'm gonna go find my daughter. I have a little bit of time. Just, I'm sorry I yelled at all of you. It's just when things like this happen,

we usually stay close. and we haven't heard anything from anybody in so long. But you know what? I don't even fucking care about the house anymore. I just need to go find her. You know, there's like a big camp back that way. And you said you're all from there, right? How's that working out for you?

Well, clearly not well, but what I'm saying is maybe your daughter heard about it. Maybe she wanted to, like, maybe she's putting her face in the government. I don't, but maybe she is. No. Kids are dumb sometimes, no offense. No, yeah, no, you're right. Where did you say it was? He's back that way.

Are you sure you want to leave? What if she comes back? Leave a note. He runs back and says he goes and writes a note. So, what was your name? Thomas. Thomas McKinley. And if she comes and you hear anyone looking for her,

tell her that I love her, and I'm going to go find her no matter what. good luck to all of you. Thank you, Thomas. And he just opens his front gate, swings it down, and walks out into the night towards the direction that you pointed. And it is quiet again.

Very quiet. I'm going to that basement. Let's go whatever we can. Okay. Cool. All right, you walk in through the front door and you start walking towards the basement. I like to have you roll one more time. What's in the base?

I walk into a spider web. God, Dan. Okay, well. It's a success. Yeah. You know what? Let's live dangerously. Right. So as you swing the door open, you automatically muscle memory try to flip on the light. Of course, nothing happens. So you start slowly walking down the side.

down the steps, getting closer, when suddenly you feel a bit of resistance against one of your ankle, like something's pressing up against it, and you stop it just enough to look down and see fishing line laid out in front of this staircase, and then you step over it, and you slowly walk down into this basement, which is... pretty well stocked, to be fair. Food stuff, water. It definitely looks like he took at least half of what he had down here, but the other half is carbon copies, as a lot of bug out people tend to do of whatever he had with him. The only thing I will be so remiss to tell you is that he took every single piece of firearm weaponry that he had. You may have found potential.

you know a hard-line machete that's about as much as you're gonna be able to get but I got a poker What's that? Are there any bags left any book bags or backpacks or anything? I'm calling out real quick Be careful on the stairs. There's some fishing line about halfway down do not trip it As you all come down avoiding the disclaimed pitfall You do see that there was a coat hook with distinctly a place where three bags were supposed to go, there is one. But we got some earlier as well, right?

You have all of your personal backpack that you have. Grab an extra, wouldn't hurt? Yeah, and start filling with canned food, whatever. Are there any lanterns, flashlights, anything that creates light? Yeah. And there is a single battery powered lantern that has a solar. Grab that.

Great. Is there a can opener? he would not be a very good survivalist if he didn't have a cano. That's what the machete's for. I'm taking that machete and I'm trying out some like dumbass anime sword moves. Sweet, awesome, love it.

You tried not to hit other people in the darkness. Of course. I'm trying to point it at a corner. No, it's the end of the world. Why would you not just take out a knife and use it around us? Be careful. I'm sorry, I've held a machete before. I can't believe we found this.

Yeah, I can't. I can't believe he let a trap on the staircase. I can. There's a shotgun to our face. Yeah, we broke into his house though. Like, I, look, I don't support the action, but I get it. I think he was just sad. Yeah, more importantly, why did Diana run away?

If your dad was like that, would you stick around? Today? Yeah. Have you seen outside? Yeah. Did she run away or did she disappear like everyone else? everyone else. Well, we got what we needed, unless we want to hunker down here. No, no, he is coming back.

I do not want to be here, especially if there's a family reunion. So there's anything else, can we search the house for anything else, or are we good? Are we good to go now, guys? I wanna look for any coats or extra layers. At this point, what you have on your back is, like you said, it is getting cold.

And if you'd like extra layers, I would be, happy to qualify that under a conflict role. I'm also gonna take the family photo. Okay, I'll let you take the family photo. On the back, you did get a success, but I get three one. Couldn't just be chilly. Did you want to burn one of your virtues and vices

to get to re-roll these? What do you have on top? I've got temper on top. It's up to you, all right? So you find several coats that are laid up with more traps laid out inside of the closets as well too. You find a couple of very expensive night like fleece kind of jackets that will definitely help take the edge off of the cold as you're going to be walking through. Why did we have to rob Kevin McAllister? How does this man get changed every day? Just constantly trebuechets.

everywhere in his house? He probably set this all off when everything started to go arrive, but you also have to give him credit because he is super prepared. Get too prepared. That's my thing. Like, what was... It's fine. He's gone. We have what we need. There are people that do this. They just

survival prep. So, does anyone here know this city at all? We don't. I know that. Do either of you know this city? No. Well, hold on. Is my... Is my smartphone? Does it have any battery left? Nothing. In fact, since it happened, it literally, like, when the modelist came, there was a short amount of time in which everything flickered, and then it sticked on, and it went off, and then it came back on for a second, and then it immediately darkened,

and you haven't been able to even get a charge on it to that point, even with something like plug it into a gas-powered battery charger. I'm just wondering if a guy who's as prepared as this, tired of rolling for search, So before I do, I'm asking them. Yeah. The guy like this should have like a map or something, unless he took the only copy with him, something that can tell us where we're going.

Don't you think? Do you know how to read a map? I mean, I can look at it. This guy had traps on coats. I would assume he's probably got some sort of bug out map, wouldn't you? It's either that or we just follow the water and hope. I might know a little bit about this town, maybe.

Well, I mean, you do know when you were driving in the landmarks when you were being taken by the National Guard into this relief camp. You do know that you were about southwest of Chicago. And where's the monolith from our position? You can, I mean, it literally is punctuated in the moonlight. Like, it is like cutting the moon straight in the center. Does it feel like it's in the middle of Chicago? is it feel like it's on the outskirts of the city? Because I'm trying to orient my brain.

Yes, absolutely. I will tell you in the times of which you've been able to get a clear view of your skyline, you have one towards the city, which is north-east of you. There is another one south-east of you, and then one almost directly west from where you are. Three.

I am gonna walk outside and close my eyes and try to focus on the hub. coming. Cool, cool, cool. Says it no on the maps. Huh? Oh no, I mean, you guys, I'm just like, I just gotta clear, just probably a map in here, I just gotta clear my head. I'm like, this place freaks me out.

I gotta get outside for a second, I'm sorry. I'm gonna follow. Yeah. Oh, got a six, no one. Yeah, got a six, no one. Oh, that's gonna pew. Connor, you sit, and you describe to me kind of, of your process and trying, are you just listening, just trying to stand as still as possible?

I, it kind of, like, I'm trying to stand as still as possible because I feel like I felt this from a moment it happened and it's gotten louder and louder inside my head. And today's the first time I felt like maybe other people can hear, because I haven't talked about it with anyone. That seems appropriate. And I'm just trying to focus on where it feels the loudest, because I I feel like that's the direction that at least I am meant to go in. And so I'm closing my eyes and just trying to slow my breathing, just taking deliberate, like, breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth and trying to just clear my head and focus on bringing the humming,

like thinking of it like radiostatic, like trying to see if I can clear the transmission. So I'll tell you that the humming is less of a sound, more like a feeling, as if someone is like you're in the smallest earthquake possible or it's just this tiny little shift of movement but it's rapid and it's quick almost like the earth is just vibrating very quickly right and you can feel it more in your feet and in your legs than you can in your chest and in your head so focusing on that it's just it's it is absolutely stronger here like you are aware of it but you are able to absolutely isolate this very small and minute feeling and yeah I mean you could continue to test it by seeing if it's stronger here versus in another direction in another area but you do have a baseline okay yeah I'm sure it's just stress or something.

Just a bit of a little headache. It's been, I don't have guns pointed out me that often, so I just, I need some answers. I need to know what, I need to know why this is happening. And I think the only way we're gonna know is if we go to one of these things. So I don't really, I mean, sure we can get a map, but like, I think we can also just look up

and walk towards one of them because this whole place feels wrong. Yeah, I'm for it. Let's. I come out of the house and hear them, I'm like, which one? Let's go. Well, we got choices. Take a pick, we can roll some dice,

figuratively speaking. That's a turn of speech. I know, I feel like we should go to one, I feel like we should go to one that feels like it's in the city, like in the thick of it. Which one is that damned hum coming from? I feel like I'm in the Bermuda triangle right now. Wait, close your eyes and point your finger out. And I'm just going to spin them.

I fall over. He falls over with his finger out. Then I'm pointing at that. I'm sorry, you said there was one to the west, there was one. One directly to the west, one to the south. Southwest, or I'm sorry, southeast and then the northeast. I'm pointing at the northeast. That's the one straight toward Chicago.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Do you all hear that, honey? How can you know it? Yeah. Do you? Yeah, it's, I just thought it was like my ears.

Mm-mm. No, it's like there's a machine or something. That's why, look, I don't know this city, I don't know where we are, I don't know where we're going. All I know is that's new. I want, yeah, answers sound great, but I want to know what's here so I know how to get away from it.

And I feel like we could run and hope or we can head right into the fire and figure our way out. So you've all decided to walk towards the city. So you're heading towards the monolith that is currently north-west of you. North East, Northeast. So, you begin walking, and you walk, and you continue to walk.

You stop when you're hungry. You enjoy a small meal with canned goods and maybe a granola bar. And you keep walking. And you're surprised. Actually, at some point that the sun hasn't come up yet. because it is still dark and you're not too sure why. In fact, the stars are so bright tonight. It just seems to be overwhelmed by the glistening reflection of the mood

that is currently sitting right behind you. Oh, I'm sorry, if you're heading towards the city, it would be in front of you because you can see the monolith just piercing the effigy of the moon as it is laid out. in front of you. So you walk by the one guiding light you have, the iridescent sphere that is the closest celestial body to you. Then you start to get close to the city limits. And that's when you hear gunshots punctuating into the night. The sound of machinery as someone is driving a car

operating a bulldozer it's hard to tell from this distance but the gunshots are indisputable how close does it sound so the problem with hearing gunshots in the distance is that it seems to just be coming from either this side this side or this side

so it is and you know even though the area around Chicago is not you know hillian mountainous for a lot of things to bounce off of. It is definitely coming from the city. And it's not so hard to tell lights at this point, but since you are ground level with the major city, all you see is the darkened shapes of buildings with an occasional skyrise,

and the only way that you can tell the monolith is still there is because it stands taller than anything else. in the city limits. I mean, it's like Statue of Liberty size. I'm sorry, scratch that. It's like Empire State Building full size, 100 stories, kind of a situation, so. Built by pigment.

What's that? Nothing. So yeah, so you're outside of the city limits. How would you like to approach this potentially dangerous situation? Let's stick to the... Shadows? I mean, everything's shadow, right?

I don't know. Well, let's try and stay away from, if the moon lights reflecting off of anything, let's try and like, avoid, like, stick to the shadows as much as possible. You want to keep it to the shadows of the buildings. Yeah. I'm gonna keep my hand on my machete at the ready.

My poker is up already. So as you were walking through, you keep to the shadows of the buildings that are there and you are actually amazed by how much light the moon is casting as you're walking through the streets. It's like, I mean, it is, it is a, it's not a full moon, but it is bright like a full moon would be. And as you're going through in various parts, you, you are making progress. And that is when you actually see the telltale splash of headlights. And you hear of tire screeching

as someone just appears to be inadvertently without any distinction just burning as much rubber as they It's pressing up against the wall. Yeah, crouched down, trying to be covered here. So as you crouch down, you can clearly see a, a, I best describe this, well, a modified Jeep, basically an open-topped canopy jeep in which the can. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like

bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon

podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Canon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Oh, please, not that music. That music

gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter? Some lighter music here. Are you a fan of true crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries? The show that jumped started all of our love of true crime. I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto.

And we host I Think Not, a True Crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime can't be TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry, you'll think about true crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself, who gave these people, mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday, you can listen to our true crime rundown where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. Being ripped off and you can see several people who are sitting along the guardrail and

they are just laughing and hooping and hollering. And occasionally you can see as they'll, you see a small beam of light kind of come out as someone's chucking. multaught off cocktails just flippantly down the street, just making small fires as you're walking into the main downtown parts of Chicago. And you can hear screams. You can distinctly hear the sound of screaming as people seem to be nearby. But what you thought originally was tire squealing has now been added to the shrieking of what sounds like people not far from where you are. You need to get out of here. Should we, do we try and help those people? Or do we just keep moving?

What do we have to go against Molotov cocktails and wheels? He's got a poker, he could poke a hole in the wheels. I've got a machete. We're not going to be able to do anything against them. Well, they're driving down that way. You want to go the opposite direction where they drove down?

Where they're driving away from or towards the... So imagine if you're sitting, like, say, against a building and you're watching as, you know, this Jeep is, for the record, off-roading, off of the... some cars as well too, but it's going down the main street of which you're kind of down a cut alley towards it. So let's say from your perspective, it's going from left to right, which in cardinal directions, if you were going north east would mean that they're heading east and they have come from the west. So let's wait until they, yeah, go by. And then try to dash by. Yeah.

Great, dash by. Me. It's only four dice, guys. No ones, no successes. That means we must dim a candle and our scene ends. Happen to me too, you're okay. So, Jenny, let's start. First, the world is dark. That much we all know.

Tell me some more truths. What is the first truth of this story going for? Those men were drunk. Sounds about right. Connor. The screaming that we heard is getting louder. Take a second to absorb that. Okay.

There have been rumors of cannibalism. There are small societies of people that are forming groups. There are groups that are out to loot and to harm people to take their belongings from them. There are several different groups in this area. One of those Molotov cocktails definitely hit a group of people. Okay.

I know at least about one of these groups because they were a local militia that posted about their plans on the social media network that I worked for in the event of a extinction level event. Got it. I don't know much, but I at least know like the name.

Cool. Great. Last one. Right before all the electricity went off, there was a bright flash. Creativity. Come to scenic Chicago full of roving bands of cannibals. All tough cocktails.

You forgot to pack one? Well, yeah, plenty. So we are back to eight, and I'm going to open this scene up by saying, as Jenny, as you are running across the street, keeping the low as much as you can, with your three comrades behind you. You are keeping your head low, and you are ducking,

and you are moving. You are keeping the low profile, but because you're having to make small, short, concise steps, You trip over something and you hear as you clatter and fall down onto the ground and you gasp out in pain as you kind of skim your legs across the disrupted concrete that is part of this. And you hear a as you hear basically tire stop and you feel more than hear a spotlight just turn towards all of you. And it stops for a moment as it kind of is starting to look around. You are all prone, basically laying down against the ground right now. What do you want to do?

It's a spotlight on us. There is a search light that apparently is attempting to feel things out. I'm going to start crawling, trying it. Slowly. Go, go. Yeah, go. Yeah, stay down. Go.

Yeah. Area. Okay. So like an alleyway somewhere in the back. Yeah. where to... Well, you're coming, if I heard you correctly, you're basically crossing after they had gone

so that you can continue going straight. The alleyway that you were, or the side street that you were probably all going for is still closer to you than where you came from. I am reaching into my bag, pulling out a can, yelling fire in the hole and throwing it towards the... Oh, excellent.

We got to fucking run. I said yell, and I was like, Oh, okay. And that is... Oh, no! One and zero successes. So with no sixes, am I able to... You could burn one of the virtues and vices

to re-roll that one-one to see if you can get a six instead. Okay. Is that something you want to do? I feel like I should save until we have more ones, but... Three, two, one. Go ahead. My creamed corn.

So you take this can and you lift yourself up as you throw this thing out after you get screaming, fire in the hole, and you toss this thing up. And you watch as you hear a man yell, oh shit. It's Jim. Shit, that's a can. Oh, fuck. Get on over there. And you hear as this, as people are getting off the truck.

now and they are walking towards you. We are dimming the candle. This takes us straight into seven. I'm going to take a dice way now at this point. And Connor, we're gonna start with you as one of the truths first. The world is dark. Now what is happening?

What is a truth? There is a fire escape in the alley behind us. fire escape in the alley behind you. Oh, God. It's actually been a while since anyone's seen any kids. One of the gentlemen on this truck is actually a kind and compassionate man who doesn't like hurting people and tries to talk the others out of doing so. Why don't we think about that?

I know. My brains aren't even going on a public route at all. My thinkers are working. I forgot about. That's fine. No, it's true. You can speak that truth. They all have Chicago deep dish style pizzas.

There is another group that you didn't see. That's right next to you. Day night? There are no clouds. No clients. Like a strange and discomforting spotlight, the moon gets brighter. Yep.

So that's one, two, three, four, five, six. The other, he was one. I started one. One, two, three, four, five, seven. Seven, last one. The other group looks like they're coming to help us. Okay. Keyword is,

Keyword is looks like, yeah. Looks like. Great. So we are about. Back up with seven at this stage. Wow. It's because my brain goes straight to negative anytime. It's like, contribute. I'm like, we're all on fire.

Like I never think. One second though. Fire in the hole. Mm-hmm. That was your bright idea? I thought you were just gonna distract them with noise. And then you said the fire in the whole part. They're throwing Molotov cocktails.

I thought I would distract them by pretending it's a grenade. If it would have worked, brilliant. Yeah. It didn't though. And whose fault is that? So I'm thinking this is how this scene begins. We had a brief moment in which we're all coming across and suddenly as these men now seem to know exactly where you are,

you can feel a hand actually grab you, Connor, on the back of your shoulder and lift you straight up as you're picked up and you feel someone grabbing your arm and pulling you up from the back of your arm as he turns around and he now has a gun to his head and you see two other people behind you go don't move don't move or this guy gets it this is before we'd have before jeep guys got anywhere close to you oh hey hey just be just be cool man oh we're gonna be cool all right we're gonna be real cool you you get your friends up, we're gonna have ourselves a little deal. Just leave them, just leave them out of this, okay? Just leave them out of this, I'm just trying to find,

I'm just trying to find my family. That's all, man. Tanner, Kirk, get those other three. And you see as other men are starting to walk towards where you three are right now, attempting to at least get you in a similar compromise position as Connor is at the moment. And the guy who's holding you right now yells and goes,

Hey, Jim, Jim, stop right where you are. Let's make a deal. And you see Jim stop, he kind of holds up. He has a spotlight on him. And at this point, you kind of watches. The spotlight had come on you as soon as he had come up. But you kind of watches now the spotlight comes up and you see a whole lot more guys behind you

that's kind of holding you in place, severely outnumbering the group that's in the Jeep right now, because it's only about three guys in the Jeep in the Jeep at this moment. Hey, hey, everyone, just be cool, just be cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, be cool. Hey, we hear ya. Are you guys with the South Side Raiders?

Okay, South Side Raiders. Giving that one. That one. Two successes, one. Yeah, I'm gonna get, gonna burn that. You kind of see as this guy who's holding you a gunpoint, you can feel the cold metal of the muzzle. pressed right up against your temple at the moment.

And that pressure is taken off. Just a little goes, hey. You heard of us? Heard of you, man. I like, I'm obsessed with you guys. Like, not in a weird way. And he reaches his gun out and he fires, one, two, three, four, five and everyone.

And you can hear multiple machine guns go off as basically you see muzzle flash happen and the guys that are in the Jeep just fall all of them four of them as they all spill off the side and you can start to hear the dripping of liquid as clearly this thing has been shot and now gasoline is starting to eke out of and goes cool cool so uh kind of pushes your you know shoulder and spins you around but he's got the gun down but not like pointed at and he goes what did you hear about us huh I know what you guys stand for.

I've read a lot about you. I worked for, you know, you guys got, I worked for a big website, you guys got flagged a lot, and, you know, it was, honestly, man, that was fucking bullshit. Because you guys, they're like, they're censoring you. And that was, I tried to do as much as I could, but I'm just to cog in the machine.

I'm trying to work from the inside. What happened to free speech, right? Right, died when the lights went out, man. Or did it come back? No. Free speech reawoken when the whole fucking world went dark, right? That's goddamn right, man. All right.

Well, you're cool. Let's talk about you three. During that fire exchange, is there any way that I could have tried to dive and scramble behind something? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You not only dived and scrambled when this whole thing went down, and no one's either. And that moment that I had when I talked about the, what, you three, he only motions to you two. Like, you're cool, yeah.

So what's your two deal? Where with him? Oh yeah, free speech, all that. Huh. Man, trying to keep you down. Sad. He kind of like turns around, doesn't acknowledge, doesn't like say anything,

but you kind of walk as he kind of walks by another group. and you see him exchange some words with him, and the two kind of come around. They don't roughly escort you with them, but they kind of make it clear that they want you to come with them. And you all kind of walk together towards this group of probably 100 people at this point, and he kind of turns around in a very celebratory manner

and goes, where are my manners? I'm so sorry. My name is Josiah Yaffigan. And these here are my Southeast Raiders. And you three are my guests for now. Thank you, Josiah. I appreciate it. We were in some serious shit back there. Who were those guys?

Them? Northside Raiders? Who cares? Who cares? They're dead. Let's call them. Yeah, you know what? I mean, South Southeast, no, not the South East Raiders, let's see,

so if there are the Southwest Raiders, let's call these guys the inner city devils. Yeah, they're just a bunch of devils trying around causing chaos. They decided to come around our outskirts of the territory and fuck up part of our part of Chicago. It's not cool, but hey, you know what? They're dead now.

We got you three. I consider it not only a plus, but a plus plus plus. Hey, plus three. Plus three. So where are you coming from? What's your story? Where'd you get lost? Man, we were in the government camp.

Oh. Hucks wouldn't let us leave? Yeah. Just trying to keep us down. You got stuck in one of those refugee camps, huh? Oh my God, more like a prison, dude. Are you serious? Like, you can't trust those guys.

Yeah, huh? That's why I knew where we were. Okay. I remembered. Yeah. You guys are protectors of the streets. You guys, I knew you would be here. I knew you would still be around.

We are trying to find our way through here. We're looking for our family, we're looking for safety. We're just trying to get out there. That all sounds real convenient there. What was your name? You said. I'm Connor, good. It sounds real, real honor, man.

Real honor, Connor. Convenient. It's good one, man. Yeah, yeah, cool, cool. Oh, hey, you guys hungry? Yes. Yeah, I threw my last thing of corn, but. All right, let's go get you folks something to eat.

Yeah, they're walking, and you are definitely nothing darkness that you can, and the other pursuers are 100% not looking at you anymore, you could probably keep stalking them. On the way, I just want to snap some photos of the bodies. Great. It's pretty dark, you have to bump up that ISO pretty high, so, yes, you take some pictures of the bodies and you kind of are walking into this, well, I don't really how to put it in any other way, this Raider camp. All of the light in the area is lit by torches.

You can see that a large abundance of kerosene and lamp oil is basically used to keep this place emanating at all times. And he walks you into, you know, basically cars that have been piled on top of each other that services gates. And they're not really, not really easy to get in entrances, so you all kind of have to crawl over some cars, basically to get into this escape from New York-style

burning cross-section. That is an interchange. And the one thing that sticks out to you more than anything is that the floors seem to be covered with steel whenever there's an opportunity to do so. Like it's lined with sheet metal or car doors, You walking on this is basically walking on irregular ground as anything that could be touching concrete.

It has to have some metal basically right underneath it. And Yoziah basically walks you and go points over towards, you know, a lean tube that has a burning dumpster fire. Go and get yourself some grub. Welcome yourself inside of our abode. The sun hasn't come up in a few days, but if it does, don't leave. Otherwise, as long as you don't fuck around, you do whatever. You can fuck around as much as you want.

But as long as you don't hurt my boys, my boys won't hurt you. We never dream of it, man. Thank you so much. Great. Good luck. Just don't get eaten out there. Josiah kind of walks off with the rest of his crew, and you can see he's talking to a couple of his gentlemen.

and that seems to really be it, which is a thing now. You have been given free reign of this Raider camp, and what do you wanna do? As soon as they leave, I throw up. Okay. Well, it doesn't cost you a dice roll to throw up. Thank you.

If I can see in with that camera, I wanna catch that. I don't think so. I think the car is at this point, blocking the view. I know, torchlight. While he's puking, I asked them, did you guys see the covering the ground? What are they afraid it's gonna come out of the ground?

What is that all about? What? He said don't get eaten. Yeah, it's like don't let the bed bugs bite. No. No. No. I mean, the ground is covered in steel and like I'm getting some serious tremor-like vibes.

We've been talking about cannibalism for a while, too. You mean don't get eaten by his men? Is that something we need to work? What are we about to eat? No, look, I read a lot about these guys. I read, like, everything they posted, and, like, they don't eat each other. Like, I'm sure, like, you know, like, libertarians, they're all, like, a doggy-dog world out there. Governments taking my stuff, and they are.

They are taking our stuff, but, like. Anything in their post, talk about why they just covered the ground? I don't know, because this is after the whole internet got knocked out by, Remember that big flash? Back then, did they ever talk about weird things on the ground or is this a new thing that we need to know about. They talked about being prepared and strengthened numbers and protecting the streets and keeping Chicago safe

because the people in charge can't do it. They kept us safe. They got those guys who were chasing us. Did they? Where's Jenny? That part. Yeah, I think you just all now notice that Jenny is not with you. Just outside, I did not want to cross over those, so I'm just sort of waiting out there,

photographing what I can from the outside, but just your setup. There are watchmen out there, but unlike the group with the Jeep who had this crazy spotlight that they were shooting down onto it, everything's kind of illuminated by the aura of fire. Okay, yeah, I'm just staying outside and just photographing from the,

and then just hoping, I see them again, I guess. Except we have free reign, we need to find Jenny. We can, what if we, we've got Every rain is just of the camp, are we allowed to leave? Because maybe we can... He said we could leave. He said, just don't get eaten. But here's the thing, Connor.

We just left one camp for another. We haven't really changed much. A little bit more freaked out, they seem more well provided. But at the same time, we are here to, we were looking for something. I'm not here just to stay here and wait to find out why things are covered and who these people are. So we need to find Jenny. We need to maybe get what we can, because it seems like we have a little bit of leeway here, and then get out of here. Part of me, something about the way he said that made me feel like we aren't exactly welcome to just leave.

Do you want me to, I mean, I don't know that well, obviously. He seemed pretty friendly, so I could maybe ask if we can go find our missing friend. He might be amenable to that. He looks out for his people. I'll do respect, Captain Fire in the Hole. I don't think that you should be negotiating with him for us, but I also don't trust him. I just don't. Until you said that you knew who they were,

things would have ended very, very differently. I'd rather not play with that. So if we're gonna do something, I say we do it quietly or really well planned. Okay, let's... So do we try and get some weapons? Do we try and just sneak out? I don't think robbing these guys is the way to go.

I think we should go with the most diplomatic method of going to ask him if we can go look for Jenny. And that... Do we want to let him know that there is another person? because they don't know that right now. We can say that we got separated. Like, because he, when he saw us, we were being chased by, by the ICD.

So. But think about this. We are in their place after telling them that we're safe and now we're gonna go back to him and say, oh, by the way, there's a fourth person that we waited to tell you about. I don't think it's gonna end well. I don't know, I feel like we would look,

they had guns on us, like they had numbers on us. I think it's understandable that we'd be scared to tell them about more people or got caught up in the moment. But at this point, you've all been kind of standing in the entrance of the refugee cap a little bit, looking like you're kind of arguing with yourself at the moment.

So there is also a moment in which you kind of realize that you're sticking out a little bit by just kind of hanging out at the front gates, so to speak, when you know, Yozai clearly offered you some cafeteria food. Let's get some food. and talk about our next course of action. Okay, since we just ate a minute ago,

I say you guys go do that, I'm going to look around a little. Okay. I want to go find Jenny. I think we all do, I just don't know that right now is when we should. I do too, by the other way, let's talk about that. I just emptied my stomach, so I need to put something in there just to fortify the defenses.

Like I said, there's a diplomatic way to figure out, who should go and look for her. And I think that we should rock, paper, scissors. Well, it's also not very diplomatic to refuse a meal that our host is offering us. Well, that's fine. So if you want to basically go, and at this point, it sounds like you all have different things

that you want to do inside of this camp. And though you are all lewd to want to go away from each other, it sounds like you all have different things you'd like to investigate. So at this point, if you're basically asking for leave in which to go talk to someone about your missing friend and Everett, you want to scope out the place a little bit and Connor if you want to at least participate in the... I want this like Mad Max John Belaya. I think we can all agree that you

all disagree on what to do right now, so we can just approach it one by one. So let's begin with Mad Max Jumbolyle. So you get in line and as you begin looking in line, you can clearly see that this chow that you were hoping to get to, as you get closer and closer in line, that you can clearly see that this isn't free chow, that they are clearly paying for said food as they get closer and closer to the line.

So, yeah. Are you about to pay to eat people meat? Is that what's about to happen here? I'm gonna stay in line. Okay, and as you get to the front, you see that you're the next up, and you see this, I mean, we're talking classic trope, big guy with an apron, ladle over a cauldron,

and he's pouring just wooden bowls of food and wooden metal, it's various amounts. You can kind of see as the bowls lay it in front, and you guy comes on and goes, Trade? What? How much? What do you got? I'm going to reach into my pack and pull out a compass.

You put a compass down. Goes, good enough, and he just slides the food over to you. Hey, what is this? It's a cafeteria. Yes, I understand. I'm asking the chef yourself, what's on today's menu? Well, it's Mad Max Jumbalaya. Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's got about 15 different canned meats inside of it, plus some tomato juice and a little bit of parsley, just to kick it up a notch. Oh, that sounds honestly delectable. Hold on a second. You watch as he puts the ladle down, and he turns to this guy who seems to be tied up on a chair right behind him, and he goes,

and he just socks him right in the face. He goes, now what was your question? question again. It's just gonna be if that was parsley I detected. Thought I smelled a little bit of that and frankly, sounds delicious. No further questions. Parsley doesn't have a taste, it's just for color. Next.

All right, so you get out of line and walk out as you're holding your steaming mug of what has been proclaimed. My murder chili. Murder chili. And we walk over and now talking to Everett, who is, you said, scoping it out. Yeah, I mean, just trying to look like anybody who has arrived anywhere for the first time.

I'm just curious what's around here. I just start making my way around the inside. You look around and you can see that you are in a crossroads and some of the storefronts have clearly been taken over to serve as one thing or another. You can see where a lot of the, you know, domiciles.

that are above are currently occupied because you can see light inside of them, but you also see a lot of residential lean-toes that seem to be propped up kind of along the side of the street as kind of like, you know, a shanty town, so to speak. So everything's being used, and it's unsettling as you kind of hear the popping of the metal as you continue to step on both sheet metals and various corridors. And, you know, you can see that they've done as much of a job as they can, but not every. every square inch of this floor has been covered. There's still lots of areas where there is bare, concrete, laid out. And it's pretty dramatic when you have to step down in order to step back up again onto whatever misused,

appropriated metal that you've got. You see a lot of what you would expect in a post-collapse anarch society such as this. There are people drinking, there are people fucking, There are people eating, and you can see that everyone is in various states of either fornication or debauchery at this stage. And there are a few that are walking around. Everyone seems to be carrying a gun at this moment. And yeah, that's about what you got, sir. I go up to one of the people who aren't fornication.

came the one who isn't, and just kind of point to one of the areas that the ground isn't covered. I'm like, oh, it looks like they missed the spot. See, it's like a kind of a haggard older woman who's kind of sitting eating her Mad Max Chili. She goes, yeah, well, we'll get it tomorrow or next week. Fuck it. I don't know. I doubt they'll come up through there right now. We haven't seen them in a few dates. Yeah, where did they come up last? Yeah, right in the middle, the center of town. Right in the middle, wow, what'd you guys do? Shot them with the guns.

Wow, and then did you just like burn them, bury them? No, we didn't kill it. We just shot it. Took Carl and Sebastian. Fuck. How many shots did it take? I don't, I don't, do I look like I know how to count bullets, kid? That's fair.

That's fair. Thank you so much. Sure, yeah. and kind of watches you as you continue to kind of eat and go through. And you continue to come through. Now Lexi, how are you attempting to approach Josiah at this point?

Are you just asking for the man in charge? Are you just gonna be looking for him amongst the crowd? I would like to meander pass all the loveless copulation. And fine, go straight. I don't even know it's loveless at this point. It's true. Maybe they're all just... Because I'm very judgy.

Sure. I want to, yeah, I want to go straight to, I'm assuming there's some thing that denotes that this is the higher up area. Hmm. Why do you gotta be like that, man? Okay, I don't see any successes. I do see one.

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You want to burn your determination to re-roll that one-one to see if you can get a success out of it. Yes. Tell me how you're going to use determination in this scenario. I'm going to determinately walk straight through this correct. to Josiah. So you see what you thought was probably Josiah's, or at least the upper echelance pad. And the best way to probably tell that

is because it is the nicest of what is inside of here. And you walk right up the stairs, you don't check with the guards, you know, go with anyone, you act like you own this place as you walk up the steps and you knock on his door. Roll that one. Cool. One.

It is the loneliest number. Right, well, two of them now, so. Thank you for being determined, even if it unfortunately didn't work out in this scenario. And we end our scene. It's okay. It's determined. I said no hope.

I need to stop slamming those candles down. So we're gonna reset back to six dice. Let's talk about some truths of your situation. You get to start since you led to this outcome failing. Do we have to call it a failure? It is considered a failure. Okay, so the truth is this is Josiah's quarters. Great.

Thank you. Wow. Josiah is happy to see you. They definitely are eating people. There's a rumbling from that uncovered patch of ground. Intimidate me, you're good at this. I thought I saw Jenny through a window. In the distance.

Oh, in the distance. Josiah is easily seduced. Great. Then let us. What do I have to roll for? That's a truth. It is a truth. So we're gonna start. He let us in after I said, I've heard of you guys.

That's true. It's like, hey, eat my chili. Eat my people chili, it doesn't matter. So we're gonna start the scene with Lexi. You opened the door into Josiah's penthouse as you kind of, well actually, you wouldn't be able to open the door. He would be so bold.

to keep his door readily open, you knock. And you kind of hear as a bunch of locks and a chain slide as you hear a door open. And you see a pretty standard looking bodyguard type dude, shaved head, a little bit of fuzz coming up on the top, big, and he's wearing a black leather jacket. What do you want? Sorry, I'm new here. Can I speak to Josiah, please?

Ma'am, the boss only makes appointments, and he starts to shut the door, but then you hear Josiah in the back, yell and goes, Hey, this is that Lexi girl? Let her in. Come, let her in. He kind of looks back. He opens the door and kind of motions you inside.

As you walk into the space, and you see as Josiah sitting Dennis Hopper style in, you know, land of the dead, mixing a drink at what seems to be a makeshift bar. It's, you know, it's post-collapse. There is stuff everywhere, but it's probably the most like the regular world that you've seen up until at this point.

And Josiah kind of leers at you and goes, what can I do for you, Lexi? I just wanted to talk to you for a little bit first and just say thank you for allowing us to stay. We were just in dire strait. No, we can tell, let's sit and talk for a bit. You want to drink? Sure.

And he goes and he just starts mixing a drink together right now. And he puts it together and kind of sits down with you and hands you a cocktail. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Nah, it's the most that we can do. I mean, every day here is short and fucking stupid. So what can we do other than just enjoy our time

while we're here? You're just so handsome and kind and understanding and generous. He just grabs the back of your neck and starts kissing you immediately. It's such a great kisser. He's cutting straight to the business. Here's the thing Yeah, yeah, yeah

I have a friend A very, very beautiful friend And she Was with us But somehow I don't know how you misplace a person But I do it all the time, sweetie Yes, darling

Would you mind terribly If I find her if she were to stay with us. You say your friends out there, and he's rubbing your back. He's taking every advantage of your politeness. A little to the right. And sweetie, she's out there.

She's dead. The fact that we found you three, that's a fucking miracle is what it is. You know? I don't think your friend's gonna come back. So let's just make the best of it. Huh? You know what they say?

I mean, but if she were to have survived, would you be fine with her staying here? Yeah, if she comes, and if you can point her and see that you friend, then great, we'll let her in. And he's trying to ease you back onto the bed now at this point. So I lean in. Yeah. And I kiss him on the cheek.

And I say, well, you know what they say, darling. Always leave him wanting more. He kind of looks, and he goes, I don't know if that situation applies right now. And that is the moment in which you hear the rum-tum tumbling of a tiny earth shake as it starts kind of coming up underneath. And he, at the moment, and hand up your shirt ready to go,

he pulls it out, fuck! Oh, god-day, you stay right there. And of all the goddamn timing, and he yells, runs, flips open a window and goes, get around it, everybody, it's Showtime. Oh, look at the time. All right, well, he attempt to go for the door and the bodyguard blocks you.

Oh, boy. Oh, please no. Yeah. Oh. Two ones. Oh, no. No successes. Two ones.

Two ones. Same. Same there's two ones. So you're saying there's chance. Depends how much you like that kiss, I guess. Fraud. Are you going to apply fraud into this situation? Hopefully very well.

Roll them. Roll it. Roll it. Thanks a lot. Let's see how it goes. Man, I'm really bad at this. So glad I'm worth this. I love you.

You are my family now. Tell me at least at this point how you're applying fraud into this situation. I'm going to lean over the side of the bed and I'm going to make myself throw up and say I am really not feeling very well. Okay, so you're gonna try to fake sickness. You learn from the best.

Shave it down your throat. Yep. Finger bing. Okay, I know, I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. First of all, the scene at and we move along. And at this point, our story continues with five truths. Like, see, we find you back in the position

of having to tell the first truth yet again. My fraud works very well. He is grossed out by my vomiting. He believes you. Oh, he's grossed up by your vomiting. Is that your truth? He doesn't care. He is, to be more specific, more specific, he is going to rape you.

Whether I should just leave. I saw Lexi go up to see Josiah. Yes. Advert. Through one of the storefronts, I see a door that leads sort of on the other side of the, it's like an emergency exit. Like a through way.

That's the other side of where the camp meant. You do see a door, yeah. you see a door that leads to the other side of the encampment. Great. Well, those are our five truths. We have now five dice in which to work with. Let's talk about what happens. So as the rumbling of the ground

underneath this makeshift Raiders camp is continuing to move forward, and it is going insane. the amount of movement that is here. It's like a tremor, like an earthquake. You can see as the ground is starting to split, and it hasn't been fully done yet, but you're watching as the ground is basically punctuating out,

and everybody has their guns down. You saw Lexi go up the stairs, and you saw both a throughway out. You're wondering if you should leave right now. Connor, I'm sorry, not just Connor. What do you all want to do? I want to do. I want to book it upstairs to,

because I'm feeling this rumbling, I wanna book it upstairs and get Lexi so we can regroup and get out of here. Great, right. Am I seeing, is it rumbling in the same? In the same area that you are. Is the ground cracking going back this far? Is it, where there at?

The ground cracking is everywhere. And so, I mean, we're talking about a crossway, So there's a significant radius. I wouldn't say the concrete is cracking to where you are, but you can feel the tremors. Okay. Yes. So Connor, you find very little resistance

as you run up, basically up in there because everyone's focusing right there now upon, and to the point of where you see the door is locked, and you can hear Lexi on the other side. Lexi. This man has slammed the window down, still cursing, and is turning, and is making a B-line straight for you.

I'm going to very Bugs Bunny-style-esque start darting around the room, kind of like... Getting away? Yeah. All right. Are you making any noise while you're doing so? Um, hey, I'd really like to get to know you first. Let's have a conversation.

All right. So you can hear this, at least along the other side of the door. Everett? Well, since I saw what I thought was Jenny kind of through the windows, and everybody's focused on what I'm imagining is something, a spice worm coming up. I'm going to make my way towards the door

to see if there's a way I can let her in and or give myself the option to get the hell out. So you go up to the door, but surprise, it's chained and locked in the inside because they wouldn't just leave an open door leading into the Raiders camp without having something. It's not dead bolted, but it is at least chained at this point.

Connor, how is it looking over here? I am going to draw my machete behind my back, and then knock on the door loudly and say, it's the devil's, they're here, you gotta get out here. All right. With the trembling, have the lookouts that were there And like near the entrance, are they? They've all looking straight to center.

No one's looking outside right now. Okay. One success, three. I am going to, would I have to re-roll all of these or just the ones? Just the ones. I'm gonna try and re-roll the ones by using. By using.

Sorry, sorry, by using selfless. This seems like an incredibly selfless act. So tell me. I would much rather know the truth about what the fuck is happening down there. Right, I know if you're doing something very, very against what it could be right now. No one's.

I'm going to hand you narration rights for the success. And you can tell me exactly what happens when this man opens the door. Who's opening the door? The bodyguard. The bodyguard. I'm gonna, like, he, so the bodyguard opens the door,

undoes all the locks one by one. It takes only a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity is passing. the voices inside the room kind of go silent for a second once they see that someone is actually at the door. And I put on my best face, my best lying face and insist that you gotta get down there. It's not just the, like, I don't know what's going on,

the devils are at the gates, they're here, they come for us, they said they're taking revenge, you gotta get down there, they want blood, Josiah. Right, so you're just, as you're opening it up, you're just screaming into the door as he's opening it up with it. Yeah. So Lexi, Josiah,

Everyone stops to look at Connor, and they say, and Connor looks at you, and he looks at Lexi, and goes, I fucking knew it. And he pulls the gun from one of the sides of the tables, he all are fuck from the devils to start a whole shit. And he starts and points his gun straight at you. I stabbed the bodyguard with the machete. Okay, okay.

Sorry. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Three ones, no successes. Am I able to- Yes. Okay, I'm using anxiety. Pretty appropriate.

Roll the ones. There's a reason I don't have bladed weapons usually. You say now. Oh, shit. Well, bye. I appreciate you so much. I just don't. So. It's on.

Sout of a bitch. Oh, I know. It's on. The candle doesn't like that either. Oh, it's on. Connor. Yeah? You take this machete and you jam it straight into this bodyguard, and you watch as you basically punch through whatever his leather jacket was,

and you push it right through as you look towards Lexi, and you take a bullet straight into your head as you watch matter just scattered. matter just scatter alongside of it and the last black thoughts as you see this machete run through this man and darkness overwhelms you. What do you think? I think that the humming is finally stopping. The humming is stopped.

Thank you so much for playing at my table. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm going to have to ask you to leave. All right. This was a very deadly outcome. But you did create an opening for Lexi. As Lexi, you just watched Connor get shot in the head

as he has run this bodyguard right through with his machete. Blood is dripping down the front of him. And there's a moment, one single small moment, Lexi, before we start our next scene to decide what you're going to do. We need to establish some truths now that this is has ended. Connor, unfortunately, in the deadly circumstances, was the one who rolled the failure, so I'm going to take this moment to start with the first truth. First, the world is dark. Second, you are not far from where the monolith stands. You are very close, in fact. Jenny.

I'm going to wait 10 minutes, 10 more minutes. The guard for this door is. distracted by the rumble. There's a gun handle sticking out from underneath the pillow. Let us begin. Jenny, see you creep closer to see just what is going on. To come in here, you watch as men who are attempting to scramble for any bit of high ground they can possibly get as they move. You suddenly see as dirt is shuffed up out of nowhere,

and you hear screaming as men. are being pulled down out of nowhere. As just bodies are falling down and you can hear the cracking of bone and watching as blood sprays forward and dirt mixing with it as people are just disappearing from this cross section that's laid out right in front of you. You shagely hold your hand up in attempt to take photos

and you can feel something. The ground underneath you beginning to buckle as particles of dirt start to split apart. Everett, you are in the gates or in this building, and you know the guards distracted. I'm going to do. Real fast, does he have anything resembling a key or anything like that for these chains or anything?

Can I see anything like that? What do you say? I could also say, and we could have established this during one of your truths, but there could always be a pair of bolt cutters around. There could be or there is. There could be, but I'm telling you, the guard is distracted.

You want to do something about that? Yeah, I'll knock him out. With my poker. This is, to be incredibly clear, a dangerous circumstance, okay? Be more clear. As a dire circumstance, similar to what happened with Dan, if this fails, you could die.

We're at that point in the game now, And you're in a situation now in which deadly conflicts can live. Can I revise then what I want to do? Yes. I'm going to yell to the guard. Yeah. Quick man, open the door, let's get out of here. Roll it.

Is that less dire? That is not dire. Okay, thank you. That is less dire. Hey guy, let's get out of here. No ones. No one. Improvement.

We're burning through candles quick. Ever, it is you. Yell out. yell out to this man and say, Quick man, need to leave, trying to convince him that this is time to go. You basically hear him as he look towards and kind of gives you a sneer

as he kind of walks over to you and grabs you by the collar and turns you around and pushes you back out towards where the main cross section is. He kind of goes and goes, No man, Josiah's got this. but I haven't seen one yet,

and he kind of punts you into the main area street. I'm hoping maybe I can see one today, and he leaves you right there, gun trained on you. We're at three. Nice. We're at three candles, and we haven't even gotten to Lexi. But there are truths that need to be established.

First, the world is dark. And I do want to hear what you have to say about this. As far as the truth goes. Everybody has sort of stepped back from the center and is lining like they're watching Thunderdome style. The giant circle and you are in the center of it. Lexi is expertly trained in Krav Maga. Great.

Actually I will make that my truth. I said it originally, but I will just say my truth is you are in the center of this space. With three dice left, it's very important with all of you kind of split together right now. that we visit each person. And right now the two people we haven't been talking to is Lexi and Jenny since, unfortunately, Connor passed.

So I'm going to leave this open now between the either of you of who we would like to resolve at this stage. You have a situation, and you have a situation. I heard you motion, but I need to have someone say, I'll go first. I'll go first. All right.

Lexi, if I'm reading between the lines here, you want to do something to Josiah now that he has shot Connor in front of you. Yes. Please tell me what you'd like to do. So he shot Connor in the head. The guard is down. Bleeding.

Where is he as opposed to me at the moment? You were at the side of the bed. He is at the front of the bed. He had been chasing you around. as you mentioned, so you could theoretically be anywhere in the room right now. But Josiah had to have enough of a clean shot from the door that I would say, to your benefit, he is facing away from you right now. So I would like to grab the gun from under the pillow.

Yeah. And fire. This is a dire situation. One one, and no sixes. Do I still have an opportunity to burn? Do you have... For the one. Is that your hope?

Yes. Unfortunately, we cannot burn anything that isn't on the top of your pile. If you haven't had a chance to fulfill the moment yet, we cannot go to the brink. I'm so sorry. But because of the situation you're in, I will give you a choice.

And the choice is, I can explain to you your grizzly, or you can. Which would you prefer? I'm gonna, I go to grab for the gun and I think that I have the time, but he hears the click of the hammer. And it says, I should have known.

And before I can get a shot fired off, he has already fired the gun at me and shot me in the throat. Yes, you can feel the blood. spilling out through your throat. You can feel your mouth fill with the warm blood. And you realize that you will fall here in this world, not even knowing what it was that was coming out of the ground.

And to die in this man's presence is insulting to your life. Is there anything you'd like to say before you succumb to the darkness, my table? I really appreciate it. I'm so sorry. It's cute to leave. Okay. Two truths left to speak

and since Christina has fallen. I will speak the first truth. First we, the world is dark. The second, the first truth we must establish is this group is not. is not going to survive this attack. Jenny. The guards on the outside, cut and run.

We live now with two candles and two dice. Jenny, the ground is rumbling underneath you. You can know that something is coming. What do you want to do? I see the guards go. I'm gonna try and go to whatever entrance this was to just see if there's a way for me to open them. The entrance being the entrance that he's dealing with right now.

Yeah. Or the entrance that's inside of where you are. Because at this point, you're this circle that was this cross section of space since you had been outside of it for so long. You're now at the edge kind of looking over the cars. You can see Everett in the center. In the center. Yes, illuminated by all of the torchlight that's around.

And presumably the exit that he was investigating, it's not really something that you would have seen from your advantage to bear. The most important information that I can tell you right now is that Everett is in the center of this circle and you can feel something underneath you. I put out my camera and watch. Everett, you find yourself in an audience,

your description of a Thunderdome. is not far from what this actually is. Everyone is waiting at the moment. You can feel the metal around you bending and folding. You can tell there are guns on you everywhere. What do you want to do? I yell out to everybody. This is what Josiah wants.

He brought this on all of us. They are here because of him. Don't let this happen. You're trying to tell them to let you go, or to blame it all on Josiah. To let them step away from the center of doom. Specifically looking at the old woman who I was talking about this place too, like, hmm.

Yeah, you, listen, listen, let's see. Somehow simultaneously doing this towards whatever camera might be pointing at. A six and a five. Hold your head up high and you speak with confidence with confidence and determination. Josiah is the cause of all of this, and you would be amazed

how much confidence you can inspire in people when there is dirt flying all around you, and you can speak with such open arms and such defiance as it seems like whatever is around you which should have taken you. which should have taken you a while ago. Instead, seems to be more creating a spectacle around you

as you are yelling out to everyone. And you can see people looking at each other, looking and staring at you and being like, is this real? Is this something that is happening? Is he immune? As dirt continues to spray around you and you watch as lithe, giant tentacles lift up out of the ground

and seem to be spiraling around. around you and you seem to be a vessel in this moment and everyone is just a gape staring at you. Jenny, you're just looking photo after photo. Clicking away. At this point. But you do, as you feel the shutter, click around you,

and the vibration of the shutter continues to click around you. You feel this movement around your feet. and you watch and you more feel your foot sink into the ground just up to your knee, at least at this point. And there is pain, oh God, is there pain? As you try to pull your foot up, what I want to do. Oh, I'm gonna try and wrench yourself free and run. Five and a six.

As you wrench your leg free, you pull it up, you see, as your entire pant leg and a good portion of the skin that was on your leg as well as your shoes and any kind of leggings you may have had has been ripped up and you can feel the hot dripping of blood coming down your arm as you scream and lift yourself out on top and you hear Jenny scream from the side.

Everyone starting to look at you. That's Dahl looking towards her as she has been attempted to pull up but has lifted her leg up in time. Which way do you go? Did you go towards, or did you go away? Away. And you hear her run.

Yes, you say goodbye. Everett. Everett, you are a goddamn vessel of whatever is in front of you right now. You want to keep this moment up, or do you want to get out of here? Oh, I'm gonna get out of you. And while I do, I'm just gonna also turn on my back.

battery-powered lantern that I have as well. Turn it on. Turn it on. Right. Just in the hopes that light matters. And run straight towards her or away from her. Oh. Let me think here.

Character Me or me, me, me is like, no, no, you can bye. No, I'm going to, I mean, there's no clear sign to her. There's no clear way to her. She just hear her screaming out from the of darkness and if I may be so bold her scream is now becoming a cacophony as you can see more people are just being pulled out underneath the ground as much as they possibly can you can see small mole hills starting to rise up and you've been standing still but even just the swaying and the the anxious movement around you you see as people definitely on the floors are just being

pulled down and their agony is harmonized now with Jenny's. I'm going to, I mean, I'm gonna run back towards the door where the chain was and the bolt cutters laying nearby and try to get the hell out of here. Pugh. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Cander. How do you apply candor into this situation?

Well, now that they have them all on my side and they know that I speak the truth and have proven everything to them, I yell out as I'm running for this exit, the only way to survive this is the sacrifice Josiah. As you walk towards the exit, all right, roll it. You begin walking straight towards and you preaching this gospel in every way that you can, and you're talking and you're saying,

Josiah, you have to sacrifice him. You must see him for what he is. And as you're walking towards him, your voice is cut out. As in mid-sentence, as you feel something pull you down into the ground, and you feel as the weight of the rock and the stone just keeps you right up into your rib cage, and you cough from the blood. And you feel this weight come upon you as you look down

and you see teeth long rows of serrated, just circle long. like teeth, circles of teeth, most like if you were coming into a lamprey's mouth, and enough of the rock and rubble has come beside you. You can see for a brief moment before you are sucked down in completely. You see something,

less see and more feel this resonating humming, this feeling like being close to the mind. and then nothing, darkness, blackness, and it doesn't even hurt, really. In fact, minus the puncture that has pulled you inside, you actually feel a warm sense of being encapsulated more than being eaten alive. And there's a comforting thought that comes by your head as you slip into darkness. What is it? I'll see my family soon.

family soon. David, thank you so much. I really appreciate it being at my table. Thank you. I didn't have to say it, but he did. He had to leave on dice. This is the final candle. This cannot play out any other way than what it is now. But Jenny, you running from this thing while everyone else is being consumed around you, it is going to happen. may not know what ever it felt when he gets into it. But for you, this is the most painful thing you've ever been through in your life trying to walk on it, the shelled broken leg

as you pull through. You stumble and you walk and you basically purse yourself out. You get away from this shaken zone where things are continuing to clasp and come around you. And somehow, in some, in some way you managed to get away enough from whatever epicenter that this turmoil was around

in order to not be dragged down again. And it is dark and it is quiet. The screams stopped society about 15 minutes ago and you just find yourself slowly becoming lightheaded from loss of blood as you sit in this disheveled ruined city of Chicago. What's, what are you thinking about? Where are you right now?

Take off camera, set it aside. I think I couldn't have done anything. But maybe others, others will get to see. And you look, in your mind's eye, you can see what you saw through that viewfinder. And you can see that moment in which Everett was sitting there with tentacles and dirt flying all around him. And you think about the series of photos that you've been taken.

And there is a moment of peace as you slowly start slipping into unconsciousness of just how much you've captured and how that knowledge, the knowledge of humanity, the things that we observe and pass from generation to generation, is sitting right there on top of a backpack, on top of a trunk of an old car. And it's an oddly symbolic photo that you leave of this body lying right there, splayed out, not eaten, not consumed,

not killed, not raped. but just lying there with this camera right next to it. And with that, we end our story. Thank you so much for playing. I really appreciate it. Thank you. So sorry that you did wonderfully. That is the end of our story.

I originally came to this relief center to document what was happening and got stuck here, but now I guess we're out of food and they're making us leave. I'll be hitting the road with a few companions I met here. Honestly, I don't know how long will last, but I'm going to do what I know how to do. Leave a record in film so those who come after can gleam some information and maybe figure out what happened here.

Forever finding light in the darkness. Jenny Summers. Hey, guys. Mom, Dad. If you're finding this, I'm sorry. If somebody else finds this, hi. I'm Everett, Robbins. I am not supposed to be here.

I live in New York, and I am here for a wedding. And I was with my family, and we got into a flight. and I refused to go with them and then this happened. I don't know where I am and I don't know anybody in this town and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. So if you're finding this, we left. We were trying to find you. Please, please wait.

Mom, dad, if, if, if, If for some reason you find this and I'm not with you, I am so sorry. I'm sorry. I just, I'm just sorry. Hey, it's me. It's Lexi. If you're hearing this, I'm trying. I'm trying to make it home, and I don't even know if home exists anymore, but there's no more food in the camp's being evacuated.

I've made some friends and we're going to try to go somewhere, anywhere. If you hear this, I didn't mean to leave you behind. And if I don't make it, I'm so sorry. It's getting darker and darker out there. Just like they said it would. No more crisis actors. No more false flags. No more anything.

Those obelisks can nobody else hear them? I hear the sound of a million snarling voices and gnashing teeth, just grating in my head almost constantly. I have to get closer. I have to get inside. But those government cucks won't let me out. I'm not going to die here. I'm caged in here like a fucking rat, and I'm not going to die here.

I'm going to find a way out. I'm going to find what the CIA is hiding in their goddamn black sight. Find out what that monolith wants me to do. Even if it kills me. You know what, hopefully it will. I don't know how much more of this fucking noise I can take. Look, we all know. No, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one Happy,

Sad, Confused. I'm Josh Harrowitzin. Yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy, Say, Confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino. For over 10 years and over 700 episodes, Happy, Sad, Confused has broken movie and TV news every single week. That's because I ask all the questions I want to know, and more importantly,

you want to know. Casting what ifs, backstage stories, acting pet peeves, and much more. So whether you're into superheroes, prestige TV, or just the coolest actors and directors alive, you're going to learn something in every episode. Listen to Happy Say I Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's ticklish business anyway. You look at it. Come on, we'll stick together. movies? Well, classic movies? So do we. Tick Bush Business is the podcast where classic film is discussed in modern times. Hosted by me, film journalist Kristen Lopez, and my co-host, author Emily Edwards, we dive into the golden age of cinema with fun, heart, and serious expertise.

As published film historians and lifelong classic movie buffs, we bring insider insights, deep research, and lively debates with a variety of special guests, ranging from celebrities like Holly Madison to TCM luminaries Dave Carger and Eddie Muller, and even family members of Old Hollywood Legends. Subscribe now to ticklish business on your favorite podcast app, and let's talk about Old Hollywood today.