Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Chapter Two: The Photograph | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Floating in a private boat outside of the San Francisco Bay to escape "Them", our players run out of food and decide to explore the shoreline.   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 Alexander Ward, Erika Fermina, Jeremy Walker, Aryiel Hartman, 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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Welcome to my table. welcome to 10 Candles. I am very excited to be getting to play with this table, especially, one, because I have some old faces of which I've played games with before, although not played games with you, but, you know, no of their abilities and abilities

and have only heard and whispers and dreams of as far as their role-playing ability goes, except for that tiny time that we did when we did Suburity D-12, going together. Right. And then people who are love and appreciate but have never played ever. Just mind games. Just slowly mind games. And usually games about yelling things as loud as we possibly can. That little Kickstarter video. Oh yeah. That's right. So thank you so much. And I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. Thank you for torturing me.

Yeah. One more time. I know you keep coming back, Jeremy. So I know you do. this all the time, but you all have choice. I don't have a choice. I just compulsively do this. It's been a hard few weeks. I'm ready for the okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, well, I appreciate that. So before we get into what we're playing and who are playing, just for some folks who may not know who you are, let's just do a quick

who you are, and then we will hop into character creation real quick, okay? And by who we are, who we actually. Like, not to the person who will die, but the person who is my friend sitting at the same. Okay. Me. All right. There? Okay. My name is Alex Ward. I'm on Geek & Sendry rather regularly on LA by Night,

and I also am a professional actor and player of all things creepy. Player of All Things Creepy. Love it. Thank you. Yes. Hi, I'm Erica Fermina. You can find me on Girls' Guts Glory, and sometimes here. here sometimes here sometimes today here today here right now Jeremy hello again everyone hello Ivan hello sir I'm back again Jeremy Walker you may remember me from Sagas of Sundry Madness with this gentleman right here and yes I

decided to come back again and be with him have a little bit of fun and I'm very excited you can see me all over the web on TV, I'm an actor, and I'm loving role-playing games. And I think, you got bit by the bug, man. I got bit by the bug, I'm back. And today's the day that I did that. Ariel. I'm Ariel Hartman.

I'm an actress, singer, hostess, silly gilly, currently annoying everybody on their TV through commercials, and I'm also in Trump and Space at Second City through the rest of August. Very nice. And we did Rocky Hoare together in college. Yeah, we did. Bo-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-m...

Yeah, it was fun. Not like that today. Today's going to be fun, just in a different way. Not as much women's lingerie. No, not as much, unfortunately. Try me. I got secrets. I got secrets of you guys.

All right, well, let's get straight into how we want to play with you today. I've seen you. I almost said that to you earlier. I've seen you in women's lingerie, but I didn't know. How much you want to know. There's a lot. There's a lot. It's on the internet.

You can find it. Talk about your characters. The first thing we're going to do is we are going to write virtues and vices. We're going to be giving them to our neighbors. So to begin, I would like you to take one of your cards that has all of your delightful photos on it. And I would like you to pass one of them to your right.

Skipping me. Oh wait. Oh, right. Yes. Do I write anything on it yet? Oh, yeah. Stand by. So now that you have your neighbor's card,

I would like you to write a virtue on that. A virtue was full of virtue. Something that really gives an insight onto how they can help solve problems. One word. One word. Descriptive. One single word?

One word. Single word. What is a virtue? It was a virtue that maybe you would like or something that you wish upon somebody else in these circumstances. All right. The look at you're giving me right now.

Well, I wrote a virtue. It's a good one. Now let's all pass it back to the left. And let's hear what everybody got. Alex, let's start with you. Ingenuitive. Oh, great. Erica.

Practical practical Resourceful Organized organized Resourceful and organized Cool team building Team building Alright Okay,

Now let's take another one of your cards And let's pass it to the left please This one is a vice What is a trait that causes more problems than generates? than generates, causes more problems than solves. That's what I was looking for. What is something you would never wish upon anybody? But thus you have to now.

I feel like we're writing like a burn book like from Mean Girls. Yeah. Rough. Yeah. Good movie. You know how this game is like Mean Girls? Yeah, yeah. It's a set of feelings and emotions that are getting hurt.

It's bodily harm usually. And some psychological. and some psychological. Absolutely. That's part of the Venn diagram. Yeah. Ten candles and mean girls. We're gonna find more similarities

as we go on, I swear. It's slowly becoming closer and closer. So, all right, then let's pass it back to the right. Ariel, let's start with you. Cold. Oh, cold. All right. You, sir.

Dishonest. Ooh. All right. This is not the face of a dishonest, yes. Addicted. Addicted. Addicted. Mm-hmm.

That's the best. That's something you get, that's a gift. You get to decide, so. Impulsive. Impulsive. All right. That sounds like we're already fleshing things out. Now let's take a third card and let's briefly bring you up to speed.

Before we write anything, let's briefly bring you up to speed on the situation that you're in. About 10 days ago, monoliths rose out from the ground, all right? right? The world has been dark for five days. And as a result, you are now basically, wherever you look in the horizon, there is a monolith that's out there. And ever since these things have written, there has been some weird undertone that seems to just be in the air, in the body. It's just something that permeates permanently into your both physical and mental being. We'll talk a little bit about where you are and what you're doing, but the world is dark. The monoliths are there.

There are rumors that people are disappearing. In fact, it's hard to even call the rumors. Some of you have probably even seen it with your own eyes. And there is rumors, but there is rumors that there is something under the earth. So, with that said, let's generate a moment. that you all hope to accomplish as part of your story today. It can be something, it should be a very specific thing, but it should be something that also has a potential of failing.

That's the most important thing. All right? And this is for you, this is not for anyone else. This is something that you get to have for your character. It's part of your story. Now I will be upfront, because transparency is key in games like this. We've all had a chance to talk a little bit about where you might want to be. and what I've just told you about the modelist isn't news to you.

It's all stuff that we've been talking about. But how this story transpires is, of course, up to how everything happens. But you at least know that the events that have come into place are consistent with what you've heard rumor-wise. So let me see. Oh, yes, and we'll get to the gift in a short few. I'd like to take this opportunity because I really liked it in the last game I did, to be introduced to who you be playing as well as describe the moment that you hope to create in this game. So, Erica, would you start us off? Sure.

Yes. I'm playing Lexia Villa, social media influencer in life, pre-apocalypse, which was something that. that her parents never really agreed with. They wanted her to have a useful skill. So her moment is that she wants to prove her usefulness. Prove her usefulness, okay. Yes. Do you just, that is a little broad?

Too broad. I might want to say, is there any way that she could be useful in a direct way? It could be like in saving someone's life, or it could be in, you know, overcoming a great, consequence, something like that. Just to give us a little more, so we can very distinctly say, yes,

you've just made that moment, you know? Not opposed to it, I think actually being useful is awesome. Useful is great. I prefer when people are useful. Well, I'll let you think about it while I keep going. So Jeremy, would you tell us who you're playing today? Am I here?

I'm playing Livingston Moss, my first. My friends call me Lib. Lib. I'm from the South, originally from Jackson, Mississippi. And I'm a devout man of faith. I'm hard of hearing in my left ear. Okay. But I can hear.

Okay. I just can't hear as well. My moment is I hope to hear the voice of God directing me on how to get out of this situation. Oh, you would hope to hear. And how do you think you will find the voice of God, if I may be so bold. Well, if you've ever felt the voice of God's steering you in a direction,

it's more of a feeling than hearing. Yeah, yeah. So you're hoping that some point the Lord's guidance will bring you into a position. I'd like to see, again, coming back from Erica a little bit, if there's a specific situation in which you might be able to find the voice of God. Is that mean just being alone for a short while? Does that mean finding a message from God that you feel like is? Yeah, I would say it's maybe a sign or a light.

Got it. Okay. See, those are good. We can work with that. Perfect. Finding some kind of light that for you is a beacon of faith. Perfect. Beautiful. Awesome. Ariel. My character's name is Valerie Velikor. She is originally from San Diego, California. And when she was in high school, before she graduated,

she was driving a car with her best friend and got into a really bad accident. And she survived and her best friend didn't. And it's, you know, one of those things that just informs you the rest of your life, whether you're like it or not. So she does a lot of, like, self-help things for people, you know, retreats, things like that,

anything to try to make things better. You want to pass along a message of a lesson that you learned. And she's also deeply not religious. She really doesn't believe in any sort of religious beings or anything like that because of the accident. Because it was one of those of like, why not me? How could a God let this happen? For you, it has to be chance because otherwise, you know, what's the point? Right.

Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. And what's your moment? I hope to get to actually save someone's life for once. Great. So you want to save somebody's life? Excellent. Do we need to bring that?

That's what I did to expand mine. I saving a group member. That's okay. This is not, it is not, having similar moments is not something that is mutually exclusive. It does not mean that, you know, there is anything wrong with being able to have that, if anything, it is a tie. That would be both lovely and tragic because you'd both earn each other's hope tie and then immediately lose it. But that's fine. Yeah, I'm not mad about it. Cool. Do we need to talk about our...

Oh, yeah, did you want to lay out? I want to hear from Alex, and then you can lay out how you guys are doing stuff together. So, but Alex, yes. Okay, I am Cameron Wakeford. Cameron. And I grew up and lived in San Francisco. Okay, which we've established is where you guys are going to be. Yes. So when living in San Francisco, he was a delivery driver.

Okay. Delivered food and whatnot. And didn't, had no plan for his life. Okay. And was dad passed when he was young. And was kind of estranged from his mother. Okay. No real family.

Kind of lived without purpose. Living without purpose. And when this, when everything started to happen, kind of just live with what he could scavenge. Got it. My moment is to, as much as he doesn't want to, he can't stop thinking about seeing one of them up close. One of them.

He wants to see what one of them is. If they exist, he wants to see one. Okay. Dolly noted. Duly noted, great. So are we, you wanted to talk about it a little bit because it sounds like you guys had a tie, wanted to talk. Yes, we are here in San Francisco. We actually had a team building workshop that we were doing in Silicon Valley. That we were leading for one of the big

tech companies. You won't be co-workers. Yes, we are co-workers. Are you a part of this team building exercise or are you executing this team? We're leading it and we had two other members of us as well. Okay. We were from the same company. No longer with you. No longer with us. How did they go? We were thinking that the first one that we saw one of them taken by the them And the other one just kind of went crazy eventually after, like it was all, it was three of us staying together and then. Did they leave? Did they end their own life? I would like, away. Yes, I would say after about a week of us living on raw fish, you know, because we went to visit fishermen's wharf after one of our exercises.

Sightseeing the area. So this is fairly recent that you just lost a member of your crew then. Yes. Yeah, pretty recent. Yeah. Yeah. because they were at this point, got it day 10. All right, so you freshly had someone removed from your group.

Anything else to share with anybody else? I'm living on a boat. Right, we did talk about that you're all on her boat. You have it right now. And you brought this boat from up north. Yes, so I was living up in Portland. Okay. And as soon as the spires or the monoliths started showing up,

I decided to go to my dad's bunker in San Francisco. Got it. Where the bunker did not save him. Okay, yeah, we did talk about that a little bit. So you've actually seen someone get snatched. Right, okay. But that bunker probably did and has sustained you for as long as you've been able to be at this point.

Great, well then before we get into too much context of the story that you're in right now, that you're in right now, we need to write your brinks, and we need to discuss brinks. So if you would mind, take one more of your cards and do me a favor. Let's hand it to your right. And Lexi, I get to write you a brink about them.

Oh. They have seen you situation. And then I get to give you this one and you get to tell me something about them. About them? Yes. It cannot be a strength, something that makes them stronger. You cannot write a, I just said the wrong thing twice.

It cannot be a weakness. It cannot be something that, you know, makes them easier to kill or something that's difficult, but it can be something that expands on the lore, something that you've seen. The way that it's best described in the book is to say, I have seen them. Dot, dot, dot, dot.

All right, does that make sense? Cameron. Lim. Is this? I'm no waiter now. I can do that. I'm allowed. I run this game.

Can I just say that how the feel in this room is very, very tense, very. Really? I don't know why. Is it possibly our eminent death? Something. Group suicide? Yeah. Just be very cold.

We all just jump in the bay. And that's it. Yeah. What was in the water? Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Look at this. I love defacing everything. I should have just rub your face up.

All right, perfect. We can all take it. These are for us and us only, but obviously the person who wrote it knows that they have given this information to another. Is that something that you can work with? The way you said that. God. Great. So we do have the benefit of knowing that we are on Lexi's boat, which means that your equipment is, normally in the game, it states explicitly you have whatever. ever is in your pockets, kind of a situation. So we'll be limited in what we'll be able

to make available onto the boat. But as with anything, a role can offer quite a bit when it comes to narrative ability, you know? And let's begin, I'm writing my breakdown of my notes. Oh. Wait, it's the one that I wrote. I only got one. Yeah.

I'm trying to see what he was actually thinking prior to this. Did I scratch it off enough? Yeah, sweet. Great, so. Hi. Hi, Ivan. Your story begins with the four of you on Lexi's boat. You are sitting how far away from the San Francisco Bay from the War?

If you mentioned Fisherman's Wharf, earlier earlier, how far out into the water are you? I think we're probably still in the bay. somewhat, but not too close to the docks right now. So you're out on the water. Mm-hmm. Okay, cool. So you're out of the water, are you hooked up to a moor or anything,

or you just kind of... Anchored out there? Yeah. Okay, great. So you're anchored out on the bay. So you're sitting out in the middle of the water at the moment. A brief overview of the mechanics.

You have 10 dice to work with because we have 10 candles. When you roll, one, six is all. needed to succeed. Any ones that come up, I now own in which if I have to do any conflict roles with you. Conflict between you and I only counts for whoever has a narrative results of a success or failure. So we don't play it too much in the last game, but I'm going to try to be a little better about it for this one. In the meantime, let me tell you your circumstances. You are, well, it's been 10 days. You've been eating whatever preserved or canned goods you've been

able to hold onto and whatever fish you've been able to catch. So much chowder. So much chowder. And the good news is that some archaic technology, such as a propane heater or even a wood fire, should you ever try to try a wood fire on the boat, they will definitely result in cooked food, you know. Ironically, the radio that you have had on the boat,

I will tell you one fact, this is important. Lexi, when you, when you got the boat after the modelist had arrived, the boat would not start at all. You had to go basically fish out a fresh battery and hook it up to the boat in order for it to start. Okay. So the boat does have power, which has been odd because you've ostensibly been the one tiny blink of light in an otherwise visceral and bleak darkness. And even those crappy fluorescent lights from those tiny little dashed lights has been some comfort and safety. But you've also been using it so much that, you know, gas was out a while ago. and you only turn it on intermittently.

In fact, really, you're trying to make sure to save the boat as much as you can so that you can go in the harbor and out. So you are on fumes at this point for the boat. And, well, fish aren't arriving anymore. We're on fumes as well. You're all on fumes. The boat's on fumes, and you are on fumes. What would you like to do?

Well, I don't foresee us surviving much longer with zero food. So I would like to think that the first order of business would be to do anything we can to find some food. Yeah. So you want to head to the bank? Head into dock, yeah. And go search for food. Yeah. And I'm going to put some trust in the camera in here.

He's the local. He's also a food delivery man. So maybe he's got some sort of access to something that we don't know. I mean, I know my way around the city. I don't have any place offhand that has anything. But you can search for food. Yeah, you can absolutely go and attempt

to look for food out on the bay. Now the question is, is this all together or is this kind of being delegated at this point? Hmm. Well. I feel like as a group we could be more powerful. That's one of the things we talk about in our team building works. Yeah, in trust, trusting people.

Trust in each other. I feel like delegating it would be the smarter choice so that nobody else can steal the boat. I mean, at this point there's not much to steal. As long as you're okay with it. It's your boat. Yeah. It's not going to get us that far. Yeah.

get away with it so staying here. Look for food. Cameron, use that old noodle of yours to see what's around Fisherman's Wharf at this point to find what is necessary. So we got two ones that will become mine, but one six is all you needed. So many fives.

In order to make that work. So you guys, and ladies start walking inland as much. And you've definitely at this point rated about as much of what you can get right off of the docks. So at this point, you spend a good hour just getting inland enough to try to find areas that are, hope to be more fruitful. Instead, what you find is the ruins of a completely looted and torn. city. You've been on the boat for a week now, and you have been kept awake by the screaming

of people out on land. It has been part of your nightmares that you've been holding on to, but to see the devastation of the close, to see the paveways, the driveways, the buildings around, some of them are clearly leaning up against other buildings in the, you know, high-rise parts of San Francisco. And what is spectacular to you is just how broken up the ground is. It just looks like there was just a massive earthquake and it just literally ripped all of the dirt up and has led spires of concrete and dust and dirt everywhere. So as you're going inland, you are, you are basically climbing craggy hills, you know, and, you know, and, you're going inland. You are, you are, you are basically climbing craggy hills, you know, it a few times you have to stop yourself just to not fall down what has become like, you know, a small pitfall.

As two pieces of earth have essentially split away from each other. But as a result, going inland, you managed to find a little bit of food. What do you, what do you find, Cameron? Find a few cans of beans. find some of those bagged tuna. Oh, yeah. Really gross. Just some sardine tins as well, too. Yeah, like some mustard. Yeah, great.

Just enough to at least have a few meals off of, you know, and whether you choose to sit and indulge in that pleasure now or whether you wish to hold on to an enraption for later it's up to you. Later is better in the open here. So do you want to keep going inland or would you like to go back to your boat? Well, we know we can sit and relax on the boat

for a little bit at least. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So it takes you about another half an hour or so since you know, you know where the boat is and you've got your landmarks in place and you walk back to the boat. And as you get close to the pier, something seems odd to you.

You look down and you notice that the tide has receded. But more importantly, you've noticed the tide is receded to a point where the boat, your boat, is laying on the floor of the harbor coming in. out. The darkness doesn't really give you much of a breath. You can't see currently where the water line is at, but you can definitely smell the fresh seaweed and the smell of like a, you know, a tide pool, right? And it's just as encompassing your senses as both the sea salt and the smell of kelp and, you know, barnacles. It's just assaulting your senses.

What do we do? Well, what do we do? Okay, so we have some food with us, we can, if it's okay with you, you know, the boat is turned over essentially. It's flopped. It's okay. Yeah, it's not only on its ridge, but it's tipped over.

Okay. Is it, can we make it line down the pier and get to the boat if you wanted to? Can we do that and get inside and maybe just to keep us, maybe so we're... I mean, that seems to be. That seems dangerous. That seems dangerous.

If the tide comes back in, we're inside of them. Yeah. I mean, sure, sure, sure. It's not overturned. It's just... No, it's not. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm originally from Mississippi.

You know, I don't know, I don't have a lot of experience on the oceans. Well, it's up to you. If you would like to climb down to the boat, I will consider that fairly dangerous. It's not life-threatening, minding circumstances, but it is something that I would like to see. roll from. Otherwise, if you're fine, just leaving the boat where it is, then you can go along your merry way. Where are we going to, where can we, where can we stay? You can just sit on the pier and eat something. I mean, I don't, I don't like being in the open. I don't like just sitting out here.

But I'd rather be on the pier than sitting on the street. Or inside the boat. We could try to climb with these fire escapes nearby just so we're off the ground. I like that better. and get on top of one of the buildings. At least we can see what's happening. Or inside or something, something off the ground. So you guys would like to try to, you know, enter into one of the buildings that's on the wharf

so that you can get a higher purchase and see what is around you. Great enough. So I think in that circumstances it was your idea. So let's see a reasonable role. I hope. Then we will see a reasonable rule. Two sixes.

Two six is only one. Which I will take. Actually, I think in this circumstance is, I'm going to voluntarily, normally we would not give away narrative control, but I think I'm very curious as to hearing how you get a hold of a high purchase, so I'm willing to relinquish it over to you. Tell me how you get somewhere that has a higher advantage point. Well, along the piers, there is the station, the taller building.

Right. It's a, I forget if it has a bell tower on it. Yes, it's the, the pier thing that has the, yeah, the little spire in the middle and does this kind of thing, yeah. So, I can't remember what it's called. I walk along those buildings until I can find a fire escape. Okay. And I work my way up to the top. So maybe Cameron or Liv like gives you a boost up so that you can grab the fire escape and shunk it down

because they're for reason, usually without sight of normal reach. But you grab this and the wrenching of metal on metal in this kind of quiet atmosphere that you mostly live in is just as it just slaps down. But you slowly take the rungs one by one as you climb up. the fire escape and lead to the roof. I wanna, is it possible to pull it back up after we go? Absolutely. I do that. Yes. So you pull the fire escape up with you.

And you, it's awkward using these kind of muscles after so long, but you let it, you let it naturally latch to where it is, there you are. And you, and you sit and you look upon a, a darkened bay and the light of the moon is so bright that as you're up there you can actually see a lot of the bay laid out in front of you and it's so bright that it's almost as if someone has put a dim soft light over everything and you can actually see as far as to what your eye can perceive with what relative dark vision you have the

water has receded for it. Yeah, I don't, yeah, no, I'm glad we didn't go down there. And there's no life down there. I don't see any trace of light. It's difficult to tell, especially with the dark light, but you do see some figure, some, you know, what could be life strut around, whether it's, you know, small flashes of movement. It's incredibly hard to tell. And there is actually distinctly, I will say this, there is actually distinctly something. quite large in the water that seems to be very far out. In the bay or in the water? In the bay?

In the dried out bay? In the dried out bay. And you can definitely see a large object in the dried out bay, you know, fairly far into where, into the coastline, what was the coastline? Is it moving? It is moving, ever so lightly.

So, yeah. Any guesses as to what that is? I mean, maybe it's like, it might be a whale or something. Yeah, something that's a whale. Yeah, something beached. Yeah. I mean, is it alive? Do you think it's?

It's moving. But it could be just with the, maybe. Maybe. I can't tell, I can't see anything. No, it's not like we can do anything to help it. I don't think we can push the boat out that far. No. I don't know.

Okay. So. So let's eat something and then figure out the next month. Yeah. So you enjoy your bagged tuna and sardines. Kind of brings me back to home when I was growing up. Oh yeah. We used to, yeah, we used to eat sardines like this all the time.

It's kids. When you grow up, you don't have much, you know, you gotta deal with it. Okay. Almost like right now. Yeah. Dealing with them right now. And Cameron, did you, when you left the boat, did you bring that photograph with you?

Yeah, I always had it with me. Did you look at it now and maybe describe it for me? Yeah, so I take out like a folded, well-worn piece of paper that has printed on it, this image of what is being said is one of these things. In fact, the image is a photocopy of some kind of developed film,

not unlike the photos that we have here for all of you, but it is clearly a copied over version of this photo, and this photo is just of a man who is standing in like a T-pose, and he seems to be orating, or at least he's talking, and there is columns of dirt being flung up around him what appears to be these weird, wiry forms. And people are speculating, you know, because it has been passed around

that this is the best photo of them that is out there at the moment, even though most of the photo is taken up by this man. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's, it's a very bizarre thing to have. And I just, I just, I can't.

You had to trade quite a bit for it as well too. Yeah. Yeah. I needed to know what, I want to know what these things are. What do you think you gained from that photo looking at it? I gained an extreme dislike for being on solid ground. Cool. Because if they're underground, I don't want to be on the ground.

Got it. All right. Duly noted. Or at least not moving, not staying in one place on solid ground. Sure. So, anything else you would like to touch upon or go into before Mila said done and you tell me what your next steps are? Do, does that photo look familiar? Not for you.

I mean, does it look like what snatched? Oh, you know, that's tough to tell because when it happened for you, you weren't in the room. When it happened, you heard the screams and it was suddenly a hole in the concrete bunker. And it, you know, it looked like it doesn't even really make like a hole like it came through. There was just a pile of rubble inside and he was gone. The true thought, I mean, your imagination can do wondrous things when it comes to inferring what it is. So it also depends on how much camera has been sharing this information with you as well too.

So. Yeah. Where did the photo come from? Who was, who was, what were you get it? It's, I, when all this started happening, I heard about it. People, the rumors, people talking about what was going on. And I heard rumors that someone had taken a photograph

and that they had someone had tried to spread the word. Someone had tried they had photocopied it onto a bunch of little leaflets and passed them around but there weren't that many. Maybe they got

taken before they could distribute a lot of them. He has one of the few ones. And I had to I gave up something really important to get one of these because I needed, I wanted to know I wanted to see what it was so that I could,

so it can be, it can make sense. So it could be real to you. Yeah, because otherwise it's just people disappearing. There's no, there needs to be, there's no cause. It's just an effect without a cause. What did you give up? I gave up something, my mom gave me when I was a kid. It was, it was one of those, uh,

those plastic discs things that have the little metal ball in it was like the puzzle games and I've just had it forever and but the guy that I got this from was I don't think he was it it had it affected him he didn't want money or anything like he wanted something that meant something to me I think it was more important that I give up something to get this to him, than it was actually giving him something he needed. Rough. So I did that. Like you traded a part of you to get a part of them.

Yeah. Did you always carry that around with you, or was that new? The puzzle thing from your mind. No, I always carried that with me. Yeah. Do you mind if I look at the picture? Yeah, don't drop it.

Don't, yeah. You can. just don't lose it. It's not too hard to see by the light of the moon. It is clearly a photocopy of a photo, but it is distinct that there is something in those columns of dirt that are being flown up. And it does not look like anything you've ever seen.

And part of your imagination, nation wants to put that together and wonder if this is what it looked like moments before he was taken. I'm going to hand it back to you. Thanks. So, I'll put it back in my pocket. No boat. Eating food. You've scavenged. Well, we don't have a place anymore. It doesn't look like we have access to our semi-consistent food source anymore. So we don't have much of anything anymore? No, we don't.

Completely out of options. Well, there are options. You could go inland if you want. You could follow the coast just to see what's going on with this inland tide. You could go into the water or what was once the water to investigate things further. It just depends on how you want to spend your time. Well, I'm a little concerned about going inland and you seem to have a little bit more knowledge about them than I do. Yeah.

That's the extent of my knowledge of them. I have a photo. A blurry, blurry photo. It seems like being on the water was safe for a while, so maybe just staying on the coastline is a good idea. Yeah, so I'm concerned about going inland. If we're low to the ground and we're walking through the city and stuff like that, and we're walking through the city and stuff like that, and and these things are sure we I don't know what's sparking them to come yeah I don't no I don't want to go inland I don't but I also don't want to just be walking on the

ground yeah I'd rather if we can find a way to be up higher maybe there's a maybe we can find our way into an apartment or something something that we could maybe break into or something to get, have a place. Is there a lighthouse we could find? Or a bridge we could get to maybe. I mean, is the Golden Gate still there? Yes, the Golden Gate is. I mean, last time you saw it, it is a dark world.

You cannot see where you are, but you being familiar with the area, know where the Golden Gate Bridge would be. There's the Golden Gate and there's the Bay Bridge. Do you want to head to one of those landmarks? Golden Gate doesn't necessarily do anything directly at the other end. There's just tunnels and hills, in a few places,

a few houses. And I feel like tunnels will put us in a really vulnerable. Bay Bridge leads right over to Oakland, which then puts us in another metropolitan area. Tall buildings. Tall buildings. At least being on the bridge, or at least we're above water, we're not.

You're correct. If you wanna get somewhere high, maybe we could go to Coyt Tower. Yeah. We didn't get to see that. Hey. But it's high. Sure, that's one way to do it, I guess. Yeah, right?

So it sounds like you were interested in finding a monument that could keep you, a monument and or building that keeps you off of the level floor. And, you know, it's still not so far inland that you have to travel large distances. Right. Ben, I say at this point, do you want to go with the Bay Bridge or do you want to go with, because the Bay Bridge will probably be a little farther away from where you are currently from. you are currently from Fisherman's Wharf, you could find a building probably presumably closer

to the water, or you can go for the Bay Bridge. I mean, it's a, Golden Gate seems like a good idea to me. There's a lot of, yeah, there's more high rises closer to the water that direction than there is towards the Bay Bridge. Right, so off to the Golden Gate. So you begin walking, and you continue to walk.

And you continue to walk. and the broken ground in front of you, every crunch of the torn-up concrete below your feet just echoes off of your senses as you continue to make footfalls going into the city. Occasionally, you'll hear a stray gunshot. Just a single, it seems to be somewhere off in the distance.

It's so far away, it's hard to tell really which direction coming from and minus that it is eerily quiet as you continue to walk through the city at some point you get to an area where clearly one of the large high-rise buildings has toppled and has cut literally a huge portion of downtown San Francisco in half basically laying it's, you know, now that it's horizontal, five or six stories in front of you and seems to be laid out, you know, 20 or 30 stories on either side, it's directly in front of your path. So you would either have to go around or through. Well. If we go through, we can probably see if there's anything in there we can collect.

That's true. And we can maybe even, I don't know how we can even do it, but get to higher ground even in the new building. Because it's not going to topple again. I mean, true, it may be unstable inside. Structurally, it's not supposed to be sitting like this. Yeah, and also the fall could have damaged supporting walls and things like that that could fall through into, but.

It would be faster than growing. It would be faster. So the first thing to conquer on a toppled building is the mountains of glass that has shattered from a high high-rise building falling like this and laid out in front of it. Who is going to go first? To smash the glass? To walk through the glass?

To go through the glass. And I mean, there will be no shortage of broken windows. But who is venturing into the building first? I can, I can do it. I can go in. Six and one one for me. How many are you in then? Three, six.

I will take four. Let's see if I get any sixes. I do not. Cameron, would you like to take narrative control and tell me how you find your way into this building? Okay, so I go up to the building and it's everything's, there's like kind of a hill of looks like rubble and broken stone

and things like that's kind of leading up to an area where there is a big, looks like, what was once like a sliding glass door to an apartment that's partially busted. Right. So I'm gonna go over and try and put my foot on it to try and gently push the glass in. So you feel this push and-

Just adding a little bit more pressure at a time. You just hear something give, and you watch as it just slap down and this was reinforced plexi on this laying left or not like a window pane and you kind of watch it and it more than it shatters as it kind of falls and then actually at this point would tumble down it would tumble down about five or six feet to the nearest wall where it is and you peek your head inside and can see it's almost like a scene from inception you You know, just this living space that has been turned on its side.

And everything that wasn't nailed down or bolted down is basically lying on one side of the wall. And so is there any like sharp edges or anything that's still in this frame? No, you move the entire door frame. Great, great. Okay. I'm going to, I look down at everybody and I go, I'm going to check it out really quick. I'll signal you guys to come back up. Just, uh,

don't be, hide maybe, I don't know, I don't, don't stand out on the other than, what do you want us to say if we see anything? How do you want us to let you know? No,

just come up. It's all stay together, actually. I, I wouldn't, don't want him to go by himself. Yeah, let's go. This was stupid. We all up the rubble in and,

you know, Cameron, with having this, you know, trying to be a leader, but having also a tough time trying to make a decision kind of moment. You all rally to kind of bring yourself up

and you all look down the five or six foot drop for all of the accoutrements are now laying as well too. And you can see the door frame, which is cross from you about 10, 15 feet and down about another five or six feet. So we have a way in. It just has a more than dangerous ball pit at the bottom of the drop.

Mm-hmm. Are we supposed to just slide down? I think we could, some of us could lower some of us down. We'd like to be lowered down first. Probably. I can go. You probably. Yeah. Great.

You know what's coming. Oh, no. Oh, no. All right. So there's one, one, and zero successes. Which means, unless you'd like to attempt to re-roll this one with one of your virtues and vices, this scene is over.

Three, two, you'd have to do the top one. Oh, I have to do the top one? Yeah. I didn't know this was in an order. Yeah. Oh, you can put it in whatever order you want. Oh. So we'll have that opportunity now as this scene ends.

So we have some truths to speak about the scene coming up. Good news is you're back up to nine dice, but we need to speak of some truths that are now part of this world. The first one is the world is dark. The second one will be spoken by Lexi, who unfortunately failed the conflict role in this circumstances.

So, do you mind tell you? me a truth of this story. And it can be immediate. It can be flash forwardy. It can, it is just a truth of this story. It is a truth of this world. It can be about the circumstances or it can be about the moment as well too. Okay.

Would you like to give me an example to kind of help to start the thing off? Greetings, adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles and that means it's a brief period where it's only, 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees I'll take it and that means I've been outside a lot more walking around occasionally galloping after a toddler hopped up on juice boxes traveling a bit you know the vibe and after doing some spring cleaning my wardrobe I got to say it looking a little bit sad I want clothes that can keep up with me and my son but updating my wardrobe every spring sounds pretty expensive

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It's perfect for walking my dog on like a chilly night. But what I'm out and about, I've really been loving the ribbed Johnny Collar polo. It makes me look like I should be taking a high-powered meeting by the pool at the White Lotus, but hopefully with less murder involved. I don't know. It's insanely comfortable. I highly recommend it. So shop now at fabletics.com

slash critical role to get 70 to 80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP. Take a quick style quiz and be sure to select critical role when prompted to unlock your 70 to 80% off. This is a limited time offer, so don't wait. Again, that's fabletics.com slash critical role for 70 to 80% off everything as a new VIP. And now, on to the show. Greetings, Adventures. Lately, I've been getting a bit more intentional about what I wear from day. today because instead of just falling out of whatever laundry baskets nearby, I've been leaning

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slash critical roll for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash critical role. Maybe, uh, the building is stable. The building is stable. That is a truth. Okay. Cameron. The building that we're entering into is darker than the outside. That is the truth. Three. Is it all about the building? It does not have to be. Circumstances or the situation.

Both can apply in this situation. There are starting to be loud noises coming from far away, indiscernible ones. Good. Five. We don't know how to get to the other side. Excellent. I five.

Fee, he stole mine. Yeah, you did. Sorry. The ball pit below you is filled with sharp objects. Six. I know. Am I allowed to add to your? By all means.

There's a couch on top of the sharp objects. Cool. All right. Yes. Seven. I didn't go first on purpose. Cool. That's a good truth.

I feel really guilty. Okay. That is a truth. Absolutely. I miss my kids. Yeah, I think that's a given, but we'll take it. We'll keep it also establishes you have kids. Great.

So now we will start this scene with nine. I'm going to wrestle narrative control from you. And I will say that, Cameron, as you were lowering Lexi down, it was less a deliberate slip or anything important, as more it was just being completely unfamiliar with being on your side. So while you were attempting to bring her down, put her feet against the wall, her sudden weight actually toppled you forward.

And I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do to you right now. Your legs kind of split and you fell onto the grind, like in the in between, as you held on to yourself, as you kind of toppled over and you're able to catch and support yourself. But Lexi toppled. And after doing, you know, kind of not like a quarter twist, flip basically landed on the back of her neck and the top of her back on the couch. And you kind of feel the wind being knocked out of you as you impact onto this thing as hard as you can.

And you do feel your legs kind of roll off onto it. And, you know, it's kind of settling in the debris somewhere. But you are terrified because right now you can't take a breath. You're just gasping for air at this point. Lexi, are you all right? Are you okay? Maybe. You?

Yeah. Can you take your shirt off and I can take my jacket off and we can tie him together? We can get her out. I mean, we... If we both pull her up. But we're going through here, aren't we?

That was the whole point. We can't... I mean, we can't just... She's about five or six feet down. It's not that far. It's not that far. Yeah. That's enough so that it hurt like a son.

son of a bitch when you fell on it. But it wasn't. Far enough? Yeah, far enough. But we're not leaving her. No, we're not leaving her, but do we... I mean, she's down there already. What if we just continue and go in? I don't see what choice we have.

Lexi, do you see anything down there that we don't see? Just to be clear, it knocks the wind out of you, but that's one of the reasons it was so hard to take a breath, is that your body is basically just lost all of its capacity to take a breath for a second. So after a few terrifying moments while they're talking about whether it'll leave you or not, you basically are able to re-rotate your body

so that you can kind of like feel this shaky breath come back inside of you. Are you alive? Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, okay. Okay, okay. Okay, let's not try to.

Let's not do something like that again, guys. Look around and see. It is pitch black in this building. The light that you are getting is from the whole that Cameron made as a result of this plexi door. And the moonlight that you're getting is almost like a shaft of light that's actually beaming through this otherwise entirely black interior.

You can't even see an inch in front of your face right now. I can't see anything. Okay, this isn't going to work. We can't go through here. There may be stuff we can use in there, but if we can't see anything, I mean, we don't have any lights. That wasn't one of your truths.

No. And I don't think I can even reach the cabinets to look for things. You could. If it's what you want to do. Down here, I might as well look for supplies. There might be matches or a lot. lighter or anything.

Okay, how about this? If you can go and look for stuff, you two, or one of us goes down and waits right at the base of where we dropped her. So she can have somebody to find her way back to. And then the two of us up here can pull them back up. I'll go to her. Great.

It's a five or six foot drop. You could try, I think I can climb. We have a team building thing where we hold on to people by our forearms. You saw how that well. But no, at this point, since they attempt to lower down at five or six feet, you could definitely grasp a hold of the side and then drop down that five or six feet without too much problem. But you will be on the debris field. So I'm okay with that.

I'm still going to want a conflict roll just to kind of just, you're being on incredibly unstable surface. But you are starting back with nine dice again. That was pretty athletic growing up. Yeah. I'm most worried about you lowering yourself down. More worried about the stuff you're walking on. God, be with me. No one's several sixes.

Okay. All right. It doesn't prove anything. Much more graceful than my entry. You deftly kind of Spider-Man style, just lift yourself up to the other side and you lower yourself onto the Fun time ball pit.

Lexi coming for you. And the first thing you hear is actually cracking of glass as your weight is now put upon presumably something. But then you also manage to find the plexiglass door that was kicked in by Cameron. And that actually gives you enough level footing in order to kind of find where Lexi is in the dark. And Lexi, yeah, is a time to start.

start sorting through the rubble a little bit. What are you looking for? I'm looking for cans of food, if there's any, that may have fallen out of cabinets. Right. I'm looking for weapons, first aid, anything that.

You are reaching blind in the dark. I would like to see what happens. Maybe some pills. Ooh. Nothing to do with the car. Better living through chemistry. Right, two ones. There's also a six in there.

Mm. Yep. So I don't have enough to roll these yet. So why don't you take over for a second and tell me what happens here? Well, I'm gingerly touching rubble. I find something that's not super sharp that I can use to push stuff away.

push stuff away while also lightly tapping so not to get stabbed by any of this broken glass and I can find some like canned fruit like those peaches um we'll define some like half empty hypoprofen bottle um maybe what else people keep keeping their kitchens. A knife. Oh, just like a, just a regular, that you used to prepare. Yeah, regular kitchen knife. I think that sounds like quite enough. I was going to keep going to you to stop me. And I find a flashlight. Well, I will say, especially since I know I'm, I'm excited about the prospect of you going through this building, and then you've had several opportunities to earn a flashlight at this If you would like to earn a flashlight.

Oh, I'd love to earn a flashlight. Would you please learn a flashlight? I will at least give you one of those chunky, like wide beam ones that use the giant D batteries that are inside of it. And what you actually find, and this is very important, so I'm going to mention it for those who are paying attention, is that the tab, it's brand new.

So it had battery. installed into it and you had to pull the tab for it too. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So we know we have it for a while. Mm-hmm. And we can always put the tab back in. Mm-hmm.

Fantastic. Put that in my pocket. Okay. Flashlight tab in my pocket. Okay. Flashlight tab in your pocket. So now you, and please, I would like to paint this picture for you. Sure. As you can hear kind of Lexi rummaging around, you suddenly see like a, like a huge beam of light just kind of like, of light just kind of like washed over you.

As you kind of like in the pitch black are now like being hit by this wide beam of light. I've got good news. Yeah, we see that. Wonderful. Sorry I didn't know where you were. I didn't mean to blind you. No, it's great, it's great.

Do you see any other batteries though down there? No. Okay. I'm looking away from the building up at the top. I'm watching behind where we came. Where you came from. Yeah. Okay. That sound that Valerie

described. You're aware of it now. It's just more like you feel it than you hear it. Especially since it's so quiet. So what's next everybody? I guess we're going to get out of this room. Let's get out of this building. Well okay. The only way really way we know out is the way we came in. But we have light now. Yeah. That's true. Which means we can go through. Yeah, and the door is like right there.

Let's do that. Yeah, all right. Great. So you managed to get to the door without a whole lot of perfuffle. Everyone kind of comes down, especially with the light. It's so much easier. You know, lives there to lower you down, Valerie and you, Cameron, a lot easier to bring you down. And as you kind of get to the door, you kind of, you know, you have the knob in front of you, and you kind of, you kind of, you know, you have the knob in front of you.

and you kind of twist the knob and you can feel the way to the door kind of take itself as it falls to the outside, as it kind of just on its hinges, in fact the weight of the movement is so strong that you actually see a moment where one of the hinges just kind of just knocks it off, like someone hit it with, you know,

like just a mule kick, and you kind of hear as it, wham, just right across the back of the building. And since you are, ostensibly only at, you know, the end apartment on one of these tall bedlings, you can look down, because you're in the hallway for this whole area at the moment, and you can look down, and it's only about five or six feet before you see

just rubble, just rubble laid out in front of you. But you can point the beam up, and you can see all the way out of the hallway with various little pricks of, you know, things that are obstructing, pushing itself in the way, but you're looking about five or six stories straight up. Okay.

This is really unsettling. Yeah. I am, how do we do this? How do we, um. Well, luckily it's much shorter down. Yeah, until we go up higher. Across. There is also a cross.

Across. Yes. Yeah, I'll cross. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and is that door closed? It is not closed. Okay. It is closed.

That's what I meant to say. It is closed, okay. How wide is the building? So if we're going out, we're making our way across. It was difficult to tell because you obviously were looking at one side of the building into it. But from where you are, if I imagine it being a large apartment building, of a situation.

And if it is, I mean, it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be thin or skinny, it's probably gonna be more like a square or oblong the way it is. So this building in front of you, this apartment in front of you, would not lead to the other side of the building. We still have to go through several.

Okay, is the door, like recessed into an alcove, or is it flush with the wall? It is recessed into an alcove. Okay. And the distance between our door and the edge of that alcove. Is, I would say a hallway length is about four feet. Okay, all right.

Okay, so maybe we get across into that other apartment and see what its situation is like. Maybe some of the walls have come down in there, maybe there's a way through. Mm-hmm. If not, figure that out, we get there. Yeah. I mean, we're all gonna go up.

We can see what's in there. If there's anything else we can get. Can't go up, going down. It's so through. Yeah. Who wants to make a tiny jump? About four feet. Oh, I'm not going first this time.

I'm happy to do it. I just, you know, you guys all saw my skills. So, yeah? Yeah. You ready to go? I can do this, guys. I've got the flashlight. Thank you.

Lighting your way. Hang on. Okay. A little tightness. Oh yeah, okay. But I'm good, I'm good. Damn. And again he is. No.

No one. Doesn't mean he's real. No one's. This is upset. Yeah, two six is no ones. Let me see if I can seize narrative control of this. But nope. Lib, why don't you tell me exactly how this happened?

Well, it's four feet. Jump to an alcove. Into the alcove. So what I do is Lexi, I have Lexi flash all the area so I can see, kind of get an idea of my bearings here where we are and what the jump's gonna look like and where my landing's gonna look like. Of course I take a nice stretch.

And then I rev myself up here, right? Take a long jump over the four feet, land into the alcove, and plant my arms against the, Cool. Wall there. So you basically have either side of the alcove that's attached onto you, and you can see the door handle right above you.

Right above me. And so what I do is I keep my hand planted on and twist the doorknob. And actually because when you twisted it, it will slide down, and you'd hold onto it. And basically you're now kind of sandwiched in between the door jam and the door. And Lexi, you can basically shoot right through it.

Yeah. and look into the next room. Now, when this door opens, because it is right above you, you have a moment in which you basically feel huge amounts of pressure placed down upon you, and you can also see the tumbling of items just as they just like cascade out from that room on there,

and it occasionally will make an impact and it will press you up against the wall a little more. But after everything kind of settles, I see you shoot yourself right through and you poke around and you can actually see pretty far down. I mean, the other wall is there and where the balcony was there is a wall,

but that wall is shot to shit as far as structural capacity goes. What do you guys see? I can't. There's a wall. We might be able to break through it, but I don't know what that would do for the stuff above us.

Are you all right? Can you get out of there? You lift the door a little bit, and it actually feels like some of the weight that's on you. I mean, it's pinning you. Like you're pushing it up, but something is creating a bit of a fulcrum, and now it's almost like it's pinned you in that situation a little bit.

Like you can lift on it, but something is, jamming you a little bit. Like a leg got caught in between the jam. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm not real sure how I'm going to get out of the situation, but I think if I can, is there a way I can break

the door off the jam and maybe create some sort of like, if it falls the other way, they can cross? Okay, so, if I'm hearing you correctly, you basically want to try to shove this door off of its hinge because it's in front of you. You've got the floor kind of to your right a little bit.

You can see the linoleum that's kind of laid out to the side of you. And then much, much farther is the ceiling. And you've got this door who has flopped onto its hinge in front of you kind of like waist up. And you want to try to rip it right off so that it can fall down, right? Yeah. I mean, the idea I would like to think would be to get it to a where I can create a way that they can get across. To the other door.

Oh, I see. Oh man, that's gonna be a feet of strength to literally pop it off its hinge, rotate it, and then make a plank out of it, so to speak. I don't know how else to get them over. Yeah, unless they all wanna jump. So it's one diRole or three, however you're feeling about it. How, what's the length of the jump again?

Four feet. Four feet? Yeah. It's not that long. It's not that far. No. And in fact, at this point, If you don't let me say, we could be in a situation where if you held the door up to a certain point, they would gain an extra two feet.

They get a sense of a long step over. And I would just be supported. You'd have to, like, full-blown support the weight of these people, you know, as they're walking across. Well, maybe the first person that comes, can, I don't know, can they get in a position to help me? They'd have to go underneath where you are, and if they're trying to go over to get into the building. It'd be like the equivalent of you're the stone, right? And they'd have to go under the water to be another stone, or they'd have to, or they can leapfrog from the point to the other. So it's completely up to you.

Also, you can be in a position where all of you can basically mean, we've got the light, you've opened the door. That is a conflict. But I, for the purposes of this story, I would not punish you if you wanted to basically, hold these up and then have people long step because it's probably just going to be for just a second while they make their next step I think I can handle it Yeah, okay. The door is gonna support most of the weight I was gonna support most of the way and I you know you are you were the hit you were the you know the brace Mm-hmm so to speak yeah, yeah, let's play that out so I can do this so Lib is

puts us back up against the law What do you want to say to them? Okay, guys, this is the plan. I think what I can do is I can bring the door up, just enough for you guys can jump, and you don't have to make the full jump. You can just kind of bounce one step and then into the apartment.

Okay. All right. You guys, can you handle that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay, we'll find out. Yeah. So you brace the door up. Yeah.

And then you kind of feel as each one, Lexi, Cameron, Valerie, each one kind of has their weight on the door for just a second before they ostensibly leap into the next. And this one is, again, circumstances in which, like, the floor is the way that it is. Both of you, well, at least two of you, can be able to just immediately go to either side of the door and be on either of the side. side facing the ceiling and the side facing the floor it's mostly about what's going to happen with the last person through because they don't really have a place to go unless they're really rolling on top of what of one of you so and yes yes is that how it works yes because you'd be you'd be coming in and theoretically you'd have to stand up against a wall depending on where that wall is

you're right right inside the door so that we're laying on like a ledge sort of Yes. Yes. Okay. So there's no way they could catch and do a kind of a catch and hold type thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just, I mean, again, the physics of this is all really funky and even I'm trying to wrap my head around in a big way. So let's just say that all three of you do get into the sideways building in front of you

to the point of where one of the walls is close enough to where the door jam is that you could all ostensibly walk along this wall that would lead to the wall that is across from you. There is junk and shit everywhere, but let's leave it there, shall we? Okay, great. So you're all now in this disheveled apartment. Not unlike the room that you left, it was a kitchen living room set up that you went into. And even though you didn't explore the other rooms, that's kind of what you're seeing here. everything turned on its side.

You can see above you, you can actually see the, you know, 55 inch flat panel that's still bolted to the wall, just hanging right above you like a chandelier, midway down. So what would you like to do? You said the wall was inside the apartment was, like, broken down, or is it the- So the wall-

The one across- That Lexi was looking through. It looks crack and dishevelled. And upon further investigation, depending on how much time you want to spend inside of this building, you go and Valerie is Lexi's shining the light. You kind of look over there and you can see that the wall's broken and you could crawl through. I mean, there's enough holes that you could do it. To the next apartment? To the next apartment.

Okay. But it's going to be a tight squeeze. What kind of a whole, how big of it, how big is it exactly? We're talking, um, spulunking size. Okay. Yeah. And there is drywall and, you know, asbestos, not asbestos, sorry. Insulation.

Insulation. Probably asbestos. That's probably more, more than anything, how you can get through it is you basically have seen enough broken support like just the frameway in between it that you could probably and you know if you wanted to you could probably try to reach your hand through so you can get through the other side through the insulation onto the other. Can I can I try to break it open more with some debris that I find? Oh yeah yeah that sounds a little dangerous though so I can't you roll for it. Okay. I'm God doesn't feel. See? Ah okay. Okay.

I'll take those three ones, but you did succeed. Absolutely. Unless you would like to use a virtue to try to roll, that's up to you, or whatever is on the top of your staff. Is that what I should do? It's up to you. You can say it for later if you want to. What do you guys think I should do?

Three dice is a lot, but... It's really up to you. But you didn't succeed. And if I burn one, then I just re-roll those. You just re-roll the three. reason you never get that back I never get the success back or you never get you never get that that virtue or and or advice back oh gotcha one-time use gotcha gotcha gotcha um three two and what's the significant if she does burn this she has to find

whatever the context of the story is what which one was on top cold would you like to be cold in this situation in order to apply it to the story oh is that what it is that what it is? Oh yeah. Cold. I think I just, in order to succeed. You get narration rights over this. You get to tell me how you break this wall to make it a little easier to squeeze through. I gotcha. But I also want you to tell me how you're cold about it. Well, the thing that is, is that live here, it was his idea to, he found like a broken chair leg that was really sturdy and had the idea to do it. But I had already said it before and nobody. heard me and so I wanted to do it I wanted to do it because he gets the credit for

everything and so I grab it from him and we have like a tug of war for a minute and finally I shouted his face I shouted his face I shout that I never should have slept with him right then you start whacking that thing as hard as you possibly can and you just tear that wall apart I can't believe you just said that well there's no time like the present right I am I regret it I regretted it the last three days. So you've made a reasonable size hole. You can re-roll these now if there are anything other than a wand

and they don't go away. She was just kidding, guys. I'm sure. I didn't hear anything. Okay. And this passageway that you make from tearing into this wall is now big enough to where you won't have to compromise any kind of conflict by squeezing through.

Right. Right. So. You can be mad at me or you can climb through the goddamn wall. I'm gonna go through the wall. Do you want help? Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. Get me through.

Yeah, let's go. You guys can go first. Yeah. So Lexi, you start to brush away as much insulation and drywall as you can. And you kind of have to use your elbow to nudge it through to punch through the rest of the drywall, but you make a hole from the hole that Valerie had created,

and you find yourself, again, in complete blackness as you are. Flashlight. Yeah. And not an unlike similar situation. In fact, this apartment, which again, this building has the same layout for every single one of these. It feels just like another high-rise San Francisco

scummy apartment. All right. I'm gonna follow after her through the hole. There's one thing though, Lexi, that's unique about this apartment. What is it? It's a studio. It's a studio, okay? It's a big studio.

Yeah. And it has a loft ceiling. Mm-hmm. All right. All right. So you get in, but really what that means for you is that to your left, which is where the ceiling would be, coming through, goes down quite a bit, you know?

And then actually to your point, the pile of stuff that has accumulated in front along the side is big enough that you kind of have to start climbing over things in order to get back to where the door is on the other side. All of you push through. And that's when you start to hear cracking. Everybody.

Get that off the ground. Stand on something, climb on something. What's around right now? Is there? Just careful guys, just there's a pile of things. And right now the cracking that you hear underneath you is more like the drywall underneath your feet as you kind of are feeling that, and you watch it,

and it's like spider whips, and it's just like, as you put one foot down and kind of feel it start to buckle underneath you just a little bit. And you notice that all of the things that are in front of you, the fact that you're in this part of the building, all of the things in front of you are putting a lot of weight on this wall right now.

Across the way, looking to the other side of the apartment, what is there, is there, is there, be the front door over there. It would be the front door, because again, the floor is to your right. So it would be in front of your, you. Over there. And it could be, yes. And it could be a little down, like it could be a little to your left and then cut across into it or it could be, yeah. Now from, from, okay, I know that, I know the ground isn't that far below us because of where the thing was, I book it across the floor. Okay. I shoot across the room to try and get you to go. Shoot across the room. All right. Let's dive straight for the door. Oh, wow. B sixes. Jeez. Nice work. Let me see if I can rest.

narrative control, which I doubt it. One sixth, so absolutely no circumstances. Please, Cameron, tell me. Okay, so I'm standing at the top of the pile of debris right after we came out of the wall, and I start seeing the spider webbing floor go, and I don't think I just, I need to get out to the other side, I need to get out.

This was a bad idea of being in here. Yeah. And so I just, as fast as I can, I sprint down the hill, and I shoot, and I'm kind of like leapfrogging between the pieces. You have to make a little bit of a leap. I would think you actually have to make a little bit of a leap just to get up to where it is

and you grab the door handle that's right above you as you make this leap and you feel it as the weight just, well no, you just hold onto it because all the doors open out. So you're just holding onto it right now as you're dangling from the door knob. And Lexi, you watch him as like a shadow in the night. Just like leaps up and then you hear a, as his body just impacts against the wall on the other.

side. I got the door. Can you open it? Is it opening it? I want to, like, can I put my feet on the wall and like twist the door handle? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm gonna do that. Hopefully there's nothing on the other side of the door.

Okay. I shan the light at the door, just in case anything happens. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Do I want this? Do I want this? You just did a roll. I want another one.

Oh, man. Oh my god. One, one, no successes. No successes. Oh no. Okay, so. Oh, okay, I know what happens. Unfortunately, the scene ends,

and we now have to speak some more truths about what made Cameron jump. So we're back to eight dice, and we have eight truths to speak. Cameron, we're gonna start with you. First, the world is dark. This building is dark. Second, Cameron.

I'm terrified of that noise. Got it. And I'm trying to get away. That sounds like a fair truth. Valerie. Cameron only cares about himself. That sounds like a truth. Lib.

If he opens that door, something's gonna fall in. We don't know what's gonna happen next. Something's going to fall. If he opens that door, something is going to fall. You are not safe from them. What is causing the floor to crack? And finally, Cameron, you get the six. So we have seven, sorry.

Um, eight. Eight. Um, yeah. Yeah. No. I'm hoping that they take them first. The noises that we heard before are getting much louder and much closer. They're surrounding the building.

You guys were not nice to yourself at all this. We hate ourselves. We hate ourselves. All right. You are all still alive. We're all still alive for now. Got the flashlight. I got the whatever that stick that I was.

Cameron, cleaning up. You have this door and you put your feet and you twist the knob. And as soon as that latch clicks down, enough of your weight is on it, you fall forward immediately. In fact, you tumble over the door jam, over the door hinge, and you barely hang on as you were flipped along the other side. other side and are hanging with your hands behind you above, and your back has impacted. You can pull this wash of pain to come across your lower back and your legs.

And as you're looking above, you can see the darkness above you as the stories or just the hallway is just long and ominous. And you look below you and realize that by leaping up to get to this position, you are now, 10 feet or so before the end of said hallway, which is now a pile of rubble, and you can see that rubble starting to move.

What would you like to do? Well, at least he got the door open. At least he's open. I'm gonna pick up a rock up. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring

at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare. with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy Sad Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy Sad Confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to Happy Say It Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or something next to me, and I'm going to toss it in the middle of the room. I just want to see.

Oh, in the middle of the room? Just the room that you're in? Yeah, you're just on the floor. You throw this item onto the ground to where the wall is that everything is laid out upon at the moment. And you chuck this item into that area, and you see as the impact from it just starts a hole, just as a small one.

as a small pile of rubble that was laid around. It just starts tumbling into it as if it's just falling directly into whatever part of the infrastructure is left from here to the bottom of the building. The bottom of the building. Oh my god. I just wanted to see if anything would come up from the floor.

Well, there is now a reasonable hole in the wall. Well, now we know we're not to step. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Camerner, are you keeping your cool up there or are you screaming or what's going on? I'm staring and the ground is moving, correct? I'm just staring at, I go, yeah.

Is it moving? It could be moving. I don't really wanna be out here anymore. I wanna try and get back through the door. Okay, we'll get to there first. But I do, I'm starting to make kind of like whimpering noises on the other side. Can we see him?

No. He flipped through on the other side. For all you know, it's fault. Depends on how loud he's whimpering. Yes. Can I scream, call up for him? Yeah, absolutely. Cameron.

Cameron? Cameron. Yeah, yeah. Are you okay? Maybe, yeah. Is anything broken? Not, I know, not me. No. I don't know if.

Do you see any way? Okay, calm. Just keep it together, dude. Brad's Cameron. What do you see? What's across the hall for me? What is directly across the hall? It is that you're in another hallway.

Okay. And there is yet another door, similar to the same hallway. It's the same as the other hallway. It's another door. I think the, I don't know. I think the ground's moving. You think, or it is?

I don't know. It's very dark. It's very dark in here. I don't have the light I wasn't thinking. I'll try to get over there. Well, we all need to try to get over there. Yeah. This was a bad idea.

Hmm. Let's think, let's think. I'm gonna try to replicate his leap frog pattern. Right. While also trying to avoid the hole in the middle of the... Well, you threw it to the side, but since the door's already opened, and the door was about another foot and a half to where the knob was before he shoved it down

and flipped over, tumbled over. You can basically run up and kind of like, with a small leap, get the door jam, you know, like on the side of it, and then you can pick yourself up. Okay. I'll do that. And I'm gonna shine the light down. Down.

Okay, great. Please make a conflict roll. Should I re-roll this, where should I add it? You're keeping it fell off. That is no successes, no ones. No one's. All right. Oh no.

I forget that's what that means. This ends the scene. We have seven candles left. Lexi. As you are shining down to look upon this rubble, we'll find out to ease Cameron's and everybody else's mental state of where you are at the moment. You are looking down, and you can see maybe the rubble was moving

when you first shined it, but just as quickly, it stops, almost as if like nothing had actually happened as you shine your light down onto there. It's at that moment you hear all. a loud clang right above you. And you look up just for a moment before you see a fire extinguisher just rack you right onto the front of your head

and you tumble down into the rubble below. Oh. We are now going to speak seven truths about what's going on moving forward. Lexi, let's start with you. I can help you if you'd like. I'm scared. I can go first.

Yeah. You've broken a bone. All right. Which bone? Okay, of course. Okay, of course. I did. I did not break a limb.

Great. Three. I am losing my grip. She has a nasty cut on her head that's bleeding pretty bad. I'm regretting making the decision to take this trip. I already spoke mine. So what means we can have you be six?

The ground is not currently moving. And seven. I want to try and help her. All right. Well, then let's pick this up from seven. You now have seven dice to work with. What would you like to do? Are you all right?

Are you okay? Are you down? I'm, I mean, I'm hurting pretty bad. Okay, and you said from where I am, how vaguely, how far is it down? About eight, nine feet. Same from us? From where he is.

From where he is. She fell through the door. Okay. Over me. In fact, that's why it's eight or nine feet because you probably have about a foot and a half to two feet on the other side from the door jam. So we still have to get through.

Yeah. Okay. We have no choice. We have to get the other side. We've got somebody who's just got smacked by a fire extinguisher. And with you too, where the door jam is, you won't be able to see over it, but you could get up to the point

where you could easily reach up and reach the door jam. Okay. All right. That's what we're gonna do, because he, he's just starting to lose it, and when he needs help. You can hear it. Yeah. He needs help.

She obviously needs help. Right. I think at this point, we're the best choice to do this. You tell me. Are you the best choice? I'm the best choice. Okay.

All right, Lib. So are you going to push yourself up to go and hop down the other way? Either, could I use? I'll give you a boost. So she'll give you a boost up. And you will easily look over to see where Cameron is currently laid down.

And the only reason you can see Lexi is because the flashlight, which, ah, I didn't say it's not working, so it's working. The flashlight is spraying its pattern, and you can see the dust. That's kind of settled up from her impact. Is there any area down there, but I can see within the light that has like a larger slab of rough?

Enough, yeah. I can, okay. When this building hit, it basically broke the wall and is now laying on the floor of there. So it's not even like you see concrete bits or whatever. You're mostly looking at broken wall in dirt. Okay, I'm looking down and I'm just, I'm holding on this doorknob, like the,

and I just, I'm trying to spot, an area that I could foreseeably make a decent landing. Yeah. And putting my feet on the wall and letting go and I try and push off to land in that spot and like roll as I hit. Absolutely. So I think this is enough that you could drop it because it's a big enough space that you're not going to land on her especially if you keep close to the wall. You just kind of land and it's an eight or ten foot drop. So your knees buckle, you know. I try and roll with it and not well.

It's, not well. It hurts, your knees are killing you. That was painful. In fact, they kind of impacted against the ground a little bit. You didn't land on her. And you got the pleasure of watching this all kind of happen just as you peered over the side

in order to see Cameron basically fall in from darkness and then tumble onto the floor, kind of spilling with it coming up. I'm gonna go over to her art. Are you all right? Are you all right? I can you grab the bottle of ibuprofen from my pocket? Yeah, yeah, okay. And I go searching through her pockets and I grab the bottle.

Right? You dish out as much as she wants. Okay. So. Pours and pills and we're in. I'm just chew them. Just chew them? Just chew them.

Just chew them. Just chew them. Valerie. Something sound you were talking about. about the one getting louder, it's permeating your senses at the moment and it is feeling a lot like there's moisture in the air at this point and you not being on the other side of this at the moment it's starting to sound like a like a like an orchestra when they have a rising crescendo you can hear this thing getting

louder. You have no direct way to, obviously. You are boxed in inside of this apartment complex at the moment. But I want you to know that even though they can't hear it as loudly as you can now, you can absolutely hear it. So I'm hearing it more so than everybody. 100%. And it's not that like that bodily humming that, you know, has happened ever since the monoliths have come up. It feels feels more like, just like static. Yeah. Like permeating my head. Yep, absolutely.

What is going along in your mind right now? I can't, I can't think, I can't think, I can't think about anything. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Okay, Val. Okay, okay, okay, she's, so you hear a Val behind you.

Yeah. And you see Cameron and Lexi, and at least looks like Cameron is over. Lexi now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I would like to go back and she's obviously, you know, we're all losing it.

I think I've found myself in a corner in the room and I'm just hiding there and I'm not even, I'm, I'm in the process of giving up right now. Cool. I don't want to let that happen. I feel like we have strength in numbers. All right. We need to, we need to get her help. You know, we need to get out of this building. as fast as possible.

Right? She and I obviously have a history. Oh my God, why do you don't have to keep bringing that up. You brought it up. Oh my God. Well, are you talking to me or are you talking to her right now? Listen, it sounds like you're talking to the darkness. Val, I don't, listen, we're all here.

We did, you and I did some things. The only reason why I decided to take this trip to be in this, I wanted to get closer to. get closer to you don't don't don't don't don't please that's the this is the last thing we need to be talking about right now i don't want to hear this i don't want to hear this i don't i didn't i didn't want this to listen i'm missing my family but i can't sit here and watch you die and know that i could have done something about it that i could have actually maybe helped and

there's no point there's absolutely no point there's nothing left for me out there there's just more death it's just running from death is that what the rest of our lives are gonna be now then we'll then we'll at least we have each other

I don't know what else to say your feet are starting to get wet we have to go we have to do you don't hear that I hear I hear everything we all hear We have to go. We have to get out of here. You have to let me help you out of here. Please. Valerie, you can start to feel water at the pool of your ankles now.

What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? You can definitely feel the wetness. I would like to pick her up. Okay. Valerie, do you consent to being picked up right now? I don't, but he's still going to do it, but I'm going to kick and scream the whole time. Okay. Well, then the sound of kicking and screaming on the other side. side of the wall. Are you, are you, did you break anything?

Are you, can you move? Um, yeah, I can sit up. Okay, sit her up, okay. You two can start to also hear more than see the trickling of water as. That's really not good. Something, groundwater, something is now, seems to be seeping into the rubble

that you are currently in. Okay, okay, we need to get out of here. There, something's going on on the other side. What do we get out of this pit? Are you two, are you, are you, are you too all right? Yeah, we, we, it's getting wet over here, we're trying to get out of here. Same. Yeah.

I, well, we have to go. We have to go. Okay, fine, fine, fine, put everything behind you. Fine, fine, fine, fine. So I grab, grab her and we're, you know, getting to the lip. Give me to the lip. Is there anything at the bottom of the shaft that I can prop up is almost like a slide?

Mm-hmm. Oh, that would be fantastic. At this point, enough has fallen at this point. You could probably do that, yeah. I want to make some sort of slide that they could get down from that ledge easier. Okay. Is there anything, you guys have anything over there

that can help us? You basically put up a huge piece of drywall. There's a, if you can get over that lip, you should have a way down. I've propped something up. You could slide down. You still have the flashlight? Yep.

Yeah, we still have it. Perfect. Still on. Okay. You ready? Yes. So you both kind of tumble over. Valerie is at this point just running with the motions existentially at this circumstances.

So she doesn't react much when she just impacts and slides down meeting with everybody else here at the bottom of an overturned building. I turn in and like catch her as she comes off the thing. And the water is getting louder. It's starting to fill this small area of which you found at the bottom of the hallway. Okay, we're all down here same way. We're all down there together. Okay. We need to go higher.

We need to get out. We can't, we can't. How do we? Do that. Oh, yeah. The other door you said was across the way. It's across the way. And if we put this, if I move the dry wall piece

over to the other side, would it create kind of a ramp somewhat up to that doorway? It would give you about another four to five feet, potentially of scalable surface, which would only give you about minus, so about six feet or so. Not great, but it's something. That's the only other, that's the only,

That's the only other closest ledge than the way we came through, correct? You can answer in a shit position. You're at the bottom of this building. You know, there is a world in which, you know, I won't lead you too much, but that is definitely the most obvious way at the moment,

besides obviously where you came from. Right. Okay, okay. So you see, you see, You seem to be exceedingly athletic. Can you- Shut up? Can you do the same thing you did before? Open that door.

You get up there? I can do it. I have no choice. He's got a boost and he's got no choice, he says. So let's go. I've got no other idea. Unless somebody has another idea. God with me.

Oh my God. I mean, at this point, anything helps. Sure, what I'm. One success and one one. Let's see if I get narrative control. No, this is all you, Lib. I will take this. Tell me how it resolves.

Okay, so, like you said, we had the drywall. I take that, swing it up to where it connects with, there's the framing. The alco. Yeah, the alcohol up there. one by one, or I'm going to hold it here, I help everyone get up to the top, or climb up the drywall to the top, to the alcove. The alcove was really only big enough for one person. If your intent was to kind of climb up there to open the door.

Yeah, okay. Then that would probably be the first thing to do. Okay, in that case, then that's what I'll do is I get boost Cameron up there first. first and then bring the door down bring the door down so that way we have the drywall and the doors on top of the drywall right so that can kind of that holds it in place yes yeah to a certain degree yes and if you came out from underneath it the the door would have a much more vertical climb than the dry wall would so it would kind of be like this a little bit but yeah you could theoretically come up from the door okay and then so next boost bell Cameron helps pull on the other end. Right. Her. Lexi's pretty hurt.

I can walk. I mean, if we boost up and the two of them can help assist her. By the way, if you'd like, and this is fair, if you want just a broken rib. Yeah, that's what I was hoping for. It seems to be at least. Yeah, that was the... The least worst. Yeah.

Climbing would be... Earbone. She broke my nose. It hurts. It hurts like a son of a bitch, Lexi. Yeah, it does. It is ridiculous to the point of where you actually, without realizing it, you do, like, as you, that first movement, as you try to use your upper body strength to pull yourself up, you do scream, you know?

And it, it resonates inside of this building as you kind of hear it come back onto you. I'm gonna pull, I'm gonna help try and assist you. I'm gonna help try and assist her up. You're pulling everybody up. Yeah, and I'm gonna try, because we're, same thing as before we're on the sides of the door kind of thing. We're laying on those ledges.

Yep. I'm gonna try and roll her up so that I have her, because I know she can't pull herself up. Right. So you're kinda kind of roll up with her, lay her down. All right. And I'm last one through. Yeah.

So Cameron, you kind of lift Lexia up and kind of roll her over into this, you know, weirdly awkward position. You're right? You're okay? I mean, do we have any more of those painkillers? Yeah, I don't wanna knock you out, but. Yeah, I'm trying to save some for the rest of us, yeah.

Um, you gotta- Is there a bathroom? Is there something? Is there anything that we can look in? I don't know, we'd have to go further into the apartment. I am, it's probably you probably broke something or did something. I don't know. Um, hold on. I'm gonna, I take my sleeve and try and, and clean the cut that's on her head a little bit

and try and see how bad it actually is. Actually at this point, at this point, if it's been bleeding for as long as it has, you're probably starting to get a little lightheaded as well too. So, okay, and it's pretty, it's a dash. So when you clean it, like it, you notice that once you like rub it back, that it is still bleeding.

Okay, I'm gonna try and like, if there's an exposed nail or something, I'm gonna try and like take a little bit of the end of my sweatshirt just like get a strip and then make like a headband for her. Well, you give her a little tiny patchwork bandage onto it and it does alleviate. It puts some pressure on it to help with the bleeding,

but now the headache is even worse, Lexie, than what it was beforehand. We're gonna need to get you somewhere that stable. We can't, you, this. You probably broke something and you've got a big cut. Sorry I'm not really good with the whole yeah I mean I put the need it's a thank you Okay, yeah, let's someone take this freaking flashlight and look

I got it, okay, we have to get out of this building We do um okay so at this point I have the flashlight But I'm looking around the room, around the room to see if there's anything. Obviously, we can help her. I would like to, if it's a rib, can't we like, you know, brace it a little? Hard to tell.

She hasn't been very vocal about where it hurts yet. But, you know, that's, there's two ways to go about this now. So your intent would either be to go and look around for something to help treat her or your intent would be to go and find the next route out, so to speak. So I do need you to pick. Okay, the next round out. Sorry, we got to get out of here. I'll stay with her.

If you check the room and find a way for us to go, then we can move her. Can I check into the bathroom? Yeah, if you want while they're going through it. For checking in the bathroom? If you're looking for supplies, yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. There it goes.

No ones either. No one's, no sixes, which means that this. Sorry, Lexi. Speak some truths. Now that we are down to five dice, the, yeah, we'll save the setup for after the truths are spoken. Valerie, we'll start with you. Truth's about them.

Everything. About everything. I don't want to live anymore. Great. Two. Lexi has addicted to pain killers. Yeah.

I think we're saying the obvious here right now with some of those two slides. I'll just make mine even better to make up for you two. Valerie, while you were looking in the bathroom, a wall burst open and now there's water flooding into the room that you're in. And it's pouring through. Well, that made up for it.

Everything hurts. Everything. Everything hurts. Everything hurts. I have her kind of on top of me. So that if something comes through the previous room, I can dump her towards it. I'm going to just try to stay in this room and get a little bit of So we're going to pick up this story now with six candles, and you are still alive.

That is a truth. And as I mentioned, Valerie, your room is flooding in with water, and if I be so bold to paint this picture, I feel like based of what you've said, you were casually looking for something to help Lexi put together. And that was a very automatic and rhythm of it. rhythmical moment. But as you see this start to burst through and water start to pouring in, you kind of just sit there and look at the water and just

watch as it's pouring in. And the water is so cold. This water, the numbing sensation that it gives you is a direct reflection of just what you're feeling on the inside right now. The choices, the methods, the place in which you're in, there is darkness in your heart, and it is filling as quickly as this room is. You three, as you survey the rest of this room, you do find that there is sliding glass window,

similar to the last part of the building. And as you shine that flashlight through, you do notice that water seems to be everywhere. It hasn't quite risen to where the level of the sliding glass door is. But it actually seems to be lower than what it is. But there is water outside. That much I can tell you. So we're still at the door,

so we haven't seen this yet. You're just in the apartment with the flashlight. Okay. I've got her. Lib, do you see anything? Do you see a way out anywhere? All I see is the sliding glass. And it's not hard to tell either because the moonlight,

just like on the other side of the building, is casting a perfectly cut shaft of light into the room right now. Okay. I think I see sliding windows that we can open you know, it's getting really wet and the moonlight's coming through

so I don't really I think if you guys can get in or might get a little bit wet but I think we can What is it raining? I don't know what this is. I don't know what this water's coming from. You don't know what it is?

I don't know what it's coming from. Okay, okay, okay. Can we move you? Let's go down the hallway. Okay. I start helping her walk down. So I know that when you originally kicked this door in, are you going to try to similar momentum

or are you going to try to slide it down? Oh. From where this... Is this something that is sliding the door that we could unlock and just open, like normal, like slide it open? Or do we have to... Or if it's... Oh, no, I mean, it's...

It's broken. It's cracked enough that... Yes. It does seem like it is locked and when you clip the latch to kind of like let it slide down, it off centers and it goes and it kind of like sticks onto itself with now kind of an obscure angle. Right, and the angle is not being enough for us to squeeze through. Not on this side. Okay. Yeah, I kicked it out.

I kicked it in the last time, so we'd have to pull it down or push it up. And the water in the room is starting to lift up objects off of the water. Why is this? Where's this? Where's it? Where's Val? I don't know. Val's in the bathroom.

I think at this point I'm already like up to my chest with water and it's freezing and it's salty. Yeah. Valerie, Valerie, are, oh by the way, props. Um, are you okay? Are you, are you all right? It doesn't matter, just go. What do you mean?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just go. Just get out of here. We can't leave you here. It doesn't matter. We're all gonna die, whether or not it's in here, out there. Would you go get her, please? I'm gonna try and get this door open. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Okay. So you're gonna try to kick this door open. So it's, it's to my, it's above me? No, it's above you and to the front. Into the front, okay, so it's higher. Okay. And now it's a skew. Right.

Like this. And I take, is there anything in the room that I could stick into that askeen just to try and pry it open? Let me know. You tell me, if you get this right, you can do whatever you want. There's two ones and no sixes. Can I burn somebody to roll those ones? What do you have on top?

Roll the ones. Two sixes from those ones. Ooh. Oh, thank God. That's amazing. Cameron, please tell me how you impulsively get that. door open. There used to be curtains over the sliding glass door, and they have fallen down since

the building went, and I grabbed the curtain rod that was there, and I just jam it in, and I use all my weight to just wrench it down and pry open the door. You feel as you basically are wrenching this thing, you feel the metal bend and bend because it's a curtain rod, right? And you just kind of feel it, and you're like, oh, God, please, please let this work. Otherwise, we're stuck here forever, and right before you're about to lose all of your momentum from the entire weight of it, you just hear his thing go, as it slides down and slams down at the bottom of its full arc.

And the give that this door does kind of makes it so that it kind of comes back up and hits you in the face. And you kind of feel it as it's standing on the eye. But, you know, you pride this thing open. And you look out, Cameron, and after you clear it from your eye, you look around. And the first thing you see when you look out is the moon. and you see it. And I want you to hold your hand up, like from elbow to finger.

When you look in the sky, that's how big the moon is as you're looking into the night sky. And the door's open. Okay, okay. To-da, the door's open. Let's get you out there. Do you need anything?

I mean, you're bleeding. Am I... You got cut, yeah. I mean, it's not her kind of level gash. We'll deal with that when we're out of here. I need to get you up top. Are you guys coming? Lib?

Yes. So I go into the bathroom. Wait. Valerie. Did you shut the door? Did I shut the door to the bathroom? No, I did not, actually. Okay.

So a lot of the water is billowing out right now, and it's actually over my head. It's over your head, but it's building out. stay in actually but it's but I'm holding onto a towel rack just trying to keep myself there are you taking are you trying to drown yourself yes yes great lib you have one chance for this you have one chance to try to get her out and this is it no matter what it is you can see water is billowing over the side you get this and we'll let you pull her out despite her own attempt to hold on to this rack as much as

She can. You do not and she dies. Okay. You should have to make it interesting. Mm-hmm. I didn't pray to God before this. That was the problem. One failure, no success. One failure, what do you have on top? Dishonest.

Can you find a way to play that into the story to re-roll this one, one? Three, two. Yes. All right. You already chose. Maybe you should pray this time. I thought you were the one that didn't believe.

I'm underwater right now. This dishonest thing. I am going to take over this scenario a little quick. Lib, you are watching this water just pour out from this bathroom, and you're crying out for Valerie's name. as you try to push up and get yourself over this lip. But the water, it's just like a cascade. It's just hitting you in the face,

and it's so much resistance. It's your attempting to reach around, to pull her, and you do feel her hand. You feel her arm. It is icy cold, but it is there, and you grab it, and you pull on it, and you pull on it, and you realize that she's not letting go,

and you pull on it, and you feel the towel rack giveaway just a little bit, and you yank on it. And then suddenly you feel her hand just drift off as she lets go of it, and this cloud of bubbles just erupts out from the top of the overflowing water as you see her body just slowly start to lift up to the surface.

to the surface and not only that but her it just kind of slowly bumps along the side of the main area and the hole that had created when she had bursted out just flushes in water and new as you and her body are just swept out just swept out into the main room where both Cameron and Lexi have already made their escape up into the other area. Valerie, you felt this man who you resented and is a catalyst for this choice that you've made. And you've had of pure defiance, I would assume, just held on with all of your mind. What was going through your head while this was happening? If the first thing's got better, he couldn't be together. And I've loved him forever, and he's my husband's best friend.

And it's not okay, and it'll never be okay. And these are the thoughts that come with you as you accept the salt water into your lungs, and you feel blackness descend upon you as slowly you drift into the night. Ariel, thank you so much for playing. I really appreciate you being here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave my table. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. See you on the other side. Yeah. We darken another candle. You're now left with five and only three. You need to speak five truths about what is going. to happen next. And Lib, since it was your failed conflict that led to the darkening of the candle, I would like you to begin.

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 jump started all of our love of true crime? I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Jim Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries.

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On the podcast app you're listening to right now. This was, I knew I could save her. I knew you could save her, but deep down, I didn't. I somehow think it was the right thing for it to happen this way. I don't know why. The boats from the harbor are starting to be washed inland. The one of the lights on my boat I kept on at all times. Starting to hear what I perceive to be whispering.

I'm seeing the sign. The sign? The sign. The god sign. The god sign. You're gonna see it this round. We're back into the story. Five dice, three players remaining.

Cameron and Lexi, you are out of this building now, at least so far as that you can tell. As a slowly climbing water level is now approaching you on this side of the building. While Lib, after this moment had passed and this rush of water that cascaded into the bathroom through this path of least resistance leading into the area. You and Valerie's body are washed into the next room and you can feel her corpse bumping against you as you look

towards the moonlight in front of you. I take her body and I give her one last kiss on her forehead and tell her that I love her, and that maybe in the next life, we'll be together. And then I, as the water rushes, it's rushing through the... It's rushing. It's creating a tiny little horrible. Can I send it out of the, like? It's not so far that it's going out.

Oh, that's not. She will be in this room for a few minutes still. Oh, okay. I know what you were trying to do. Yeah, unfortunately. It can't happen. It can't happen. It would have been so dramatic.

Yeah. The poetic ending that you wanted for her is not going to occur. She will be in this room. Unleased until the water starts flowing out through the patio room. Okay. Patio.

In that case, I do is what I was doing. Give her the kiss on the forehead. Tell her that I love her and maybe in the next life. and I make my way. And you meet up with both Cameron and Lexi who were sitting at the top of the ledge, presumably standing on the support beams that are part of the patio at this stage.

Well, I reached out to help him up out of the sliding class door. Where's Valerie? No, just... Oh, did she... What happened? She drowned. Um...

All right, get up, get out, get out, get out. Okay, she drowned. Was an accident? Was it something that caused it? Are we, is there? I think she was, I don't think she wanted to live anymore. And I couldn't get to her fast enough. Right, all right, okay.

We need to keep going, because when you said it was wet outside, that was an understatement. because this looks like the ocean here. Oh, fuck. If you would take the light to shine it across what you can see around you, you can distinctly see on the building to your right, which is the farthest away from the shortest distance

from where things are. You look down that side, you can see where this building It's acting like a large break right now as you can see water pouring in on your other side and whatever it is, it's filling it around. And the water level that is in front of you is reduced as a result of just the sheer size of this building right now.

Okay, okay, okay. Are we still trying to get to the bridge? I don't know what we're trying to do. I am. At this point is just to get, yeah. Can anywhere? Okay, so we can get down. We get into the water.

Otherwise, we're just gonna get like, I mean, with the way the building's. The way the building is, the floor that was from you on the other side of the building is now, if not, at least waste water, waist deep, slowly climbing higher and higher with each passing second. Okay. And we are, are we on the buildings laying down?

We're on the other side now, not the top. No, we're on the other side. Yes. Okay, all right. If you wanted to get up the top, you'd have to climb about five stories up. That's not gonna happen. Is there any, do you see anything floating, floating around?

Is there any down there? Or? Maybe like a. Who is the flashlight? You have. I haven't, I haven't seen a good Lexi No, I haven't had a good role. Okay, maybe I should pray.

Lexi's not very religious, but she's going to give it a try. Oh, one success, one failure for me. I would like, oh wait, wait, wait, I need dice. See if I get narrative control or if you get narrative control. I will take narrative control with my two successes over your one. Lexi, as you were looking out into the... slowly climbing water line that is in front of you. You stare off and you're feeling something right now.

What is it? Naja. Nasha. As you are watching as occasionally just debris, cars, trees, just frothing mud, just slush out into the thoroughfare that's in front of you right now is the water level. and slowly climbs.

And then you see something, a pinprick of light in the distance. This small candle of flame that is in front of you. And you can see it's moving as it comes down the right side of the buildings, slush, and it spins in front of you. front of you and you see what?

Grab Cameron and I'm gonna point. I'm not hallucinating, right? Is that the light? Is that the light from the boat? Do I see? You see what she sees, what I have described. I mean, either that or we're both hallucinating. Do I, can I flash the, I still have to flash the light?

I flash the light. It is some distance away. 60 to 80 feet, I would say, at least in front of you. But that's still enough of a spill off from your beam that you can cast and you see the familiar sail of your boat with the name. What's the name of the boat? The Terminator.

As you see the SS Terminator laid out on the side of the boat. And is your hope on the top? top at this point is it the next one available yeah my moment your moment yes I would say at this point you have fulfilled your moment so the first one so far mm-hmm so this light that Lexi so graciously handed you by being a part of this boat I think this is God directing you on how to get out of this which means when Whenever you roll the five remaining dice that are now a part of this,

you also get a hope die, which succeeds on a five or a six. Okay. And that is now part of your dice should you go into conflicts, and this is over. Moment's gone. Great. Is there anything else you like to contribute to the moment?

Yeah, so, We see the light, we see the Terminator. I believe that this is God shining down upon us, saying that if we can get to this boat, we'll be safe from it all. And I believe that we can, because I've seen what has happened and what has transpired, that I've also seen as light.

And every time I've prayed, we've made it through something. So this time, that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to get us, The Meek shall inherit the earth. Yeah. What are you two say? So you're both found us. Yeah.

Okay. All right. What are you going to do? From our vantage point, the only real way to get there is to swim. I would say so. And how far below us is the water? Since the last time I started talking to you?

Yeah. I'd say about 10 feet now. Okay. And it's... It's touching your ankles now. In the place that you are, it is rising quickly. And it's now deep, very deep. It's deep enough, yeah.

I think we jump and swim for the boat. Can you swim? I help. I'll try. I'll do my best. Okay. All right. I mean, what if we, you know, help her along as best we can?

Is there a, is there any debris in the water? We could create like a raft or something. Okay. You'd have to go and swim for it if you wanted to bring debris back. Okay. Debris? Or are we swimming straight for the boat? Because it is going.

Can you float? Sure. I... Okay, we're going for it. We're jumping. So you all three jump into the water. It is icy cold. It is brisk, to the point of any of you have the pleasure

of doing polar diving or ice diving or anything like that. When the water is this cold, momentarily, all of your muscles seize up for a moment while it's trying to acclimate to the heart. the harsh thing around it, you guarantee, I mean this is freezing, if not close to freezing water. And you begin to swim and you shiver, but you swim. Lexi, it hurts so bad your broken rib.

This is probably every movement, every arm coming above of your head to try to get a little bit of water. It is just agonizing. And I need your roll to make it to that boat. I'm gonna try to figure this out. Figure this out. Um. Here you are.

I should tell you, and this is truth. This could be lethal, unless one of the boys pull you out of this. I'm. It will be a major. source of the next scene should this not work. Going to. You're gonna spend your addicted?

Mm-hmm. Roll that one for me, that single one to see if it turns into another one. Looks like it's just you and me, Cam. I'm trying to get the pills out of my pocket. And that's what you try to do instead of swimming and you get, and you fall behind as, Both Lib and Cameron do their best to swim forward.

It takes a few moments for them to realize that you're not anywhere close to them. And the pain is so incredibly intense that you are treading water at this point. And it's the best you can do with your legs as you stay in place. Do I? We're gonna establish in truth now.

before we get to the next scene. Okay. Lexi, you get to begin. Four truths. Lexi's got strong legs. She's got strong legs. I kept the painkillers. Lexi, because she was doing so much of this motion

and her rib was broken, it punctured her skin. Oh. I mean, she's gonna die anyway. I didn't think it was gonna happen, like right now. I was home to a little bit of all. Pretty incredible. Do you want to do the next game? Do you do the next one for me?

Okay. The current is quickening. So that's four truths. We start our next scene with four. And Cameron and Lib, you both notice after a few very precious seconds of continuing to swim that Lexi is nowhere near you. You can see the boat in front of you. It is just a few precious feet away. What do you want to do? Where is she? Where is she? You see her? I don't know. I thought she was... At this point, the roaring that...

that you had briskly heard is becoming so loud. It's now overpowering inside of your senses. It's just to have this exchange, it's as if you had to just raise your voice to yell at each other, just to get over the immense sound that is right there. And we can't see her, correct? Well, you can't see her in front of you.

Okay. If you look behind, you can see a, a bobbing, floating figure in the darkness bathed by the moonlight. And she's far away. You, I'm gonna make it so clear. You could go get her or you can go to the boat. You could still make the boat with her, but if you don't want to roll, you need to choose.

So you're saying we can make it to the boat without her? Or we can make it to the, or we can, if we roll, we can maybe go get it. her and go to the boat. You can go back and get her and you're going to have to roll to get back to the boat. As I said before, I saw the sign, I saw the light, I see what just happened with somebody I loved. I can't allow another person to die. So you're going to go to her. So, flip, you swim with all of your might as you start to turn around and double back towards, where Lexi is, Cameron, you have this moment where you look and you just start swimming straight for the boat as fast as you possibly can.

And Lib, you reach Lexi and you grasp a hold of her waist of which she screams from the pain, but you keep her above water as you. I'm just one arm going. I'm gonna keep you. I'm gonna kick, I'm kicking. Yeah, thank you so much. That helps at all.

It does. Try and bring the boat back too, guys. Hope dice and the regular, and no one. You grasp her and you both swim with every ounce of strength you can as you get to the boat, which Cameron has politely descended the ladder. to help you climb up into where you are. And Lexi, this is when you start to notice

that you are bleeding, not just from your head, but from your chest as well too. There is a distinct blood spot against your lower tank top right now. Guys. Can you, what is, oh, oh. I'm just gonna pull my jacket back. Do you lift the shirt up? Or do you just see the, you'll lift the shirt up?

You lift it up ever so lightly. I just want to see what's going. Oh, okay. So, let's see, you lift the tank top gingerly up as you pull the coat back and you just see this tiny splinter of white as it's pierced right through your skin. I'm gonna hurl. If you lose whatever,

whatever moderate amount of lunch you had at the beginning of this whole situation. Tune and sardines. Oh, my deeds. And you just can feel it. And the worst part is that you don't even see the whole rib. It's just a little tiny shard of it poking through. And the bleeding is not extensive for what it's worth,

but that also very distinctly shows the swollen area around it as well too. Cameron, do you happen to have any of those painkillers for her? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, here, here. Just.

So you crunch the entire bottle. I see how that goes later. Wait, oh. That's not what I thought you were going to do. Well, I did, but. You can feel as the tide, and it is distinctly a tide, as you are now lifted up onto the boat and you can hear that roaring, that just incessant roaring that is close to you,

but you are on the boat, what do you want to do? So the boat's up right now. Bote's up? Somehow miraculously, it lifted without any issue to come to where you are now. We all know what that was, everybody. We all know. Here's your hope. Sure, absolutely.

Absolutely, it was whatever. How else would you have been here? What would you like to do? Okay. Or are we resting on the boat right now? I'd like to find something on this boat to tie her, to, you know, hopefully he, you know, at least tie that bone back so it's not like exposed.

So the wound's not exposed. So we go around and look around the boat for. Yeah, I mean, I would presume that you would have a first aid kit inside of the boat. Absolutely. It's probably not for intensive breakage like this, but you can absolutely treat her. At least have like the wraps and stuff like that.

Sure, yeah. You can wrap her waist for whatever it's worth. Okay, so we do that. See if there's anything on the boat, any sort of supplies, like any food or anything. The same supplies it was when you left it, which is nothing. Which is a whole lot of nothing.

Can you check my pack? Yeah. See if there's anything else in there? So I find her pack. You go through it. She has some of the canned peaches that she had talked about. Perfect. Some of the, you know, small amount of food she was able to pull out when she was inside of the building itself.

Is that what we're doing now? Yeah. So we pop that open. And you share some peaches? between all of you. At least between the two of us. I'm not anything. I'm not looking over at the, where the water's coming from.

Yeah. Can I see the bay where we started? No. You can't see anything. All right. You see blackness. In fact, you're looking often to the horizon and a fair amount of the stars seem to be gone as well too. What do you see up there, man? Nothing. Literally. Um, I can't see the bay.

I can't see you that far. I don't, I don't. It's got to be clouds. It's got to be clouds. It's got to be clouds. I don't, we're missing stars. What? Yeah.

What is exactly right? It's not just like overcast? I don't know. I don't know. You sure? I mean, it's foggy in the bay. Like, is it either? I don't know.

The bay came here. What, it could very well be that stars are. just going out? I mean, nothing makes sense. I mean, I mean, why would the water go away? And then immediately, then come back over and spill over everything and then come and fill up a building. We were inside of, I don't. Okay, okay, everybody calm down. Okay. If the bay moved was what you're saying, then theoretically so did other parts of, like, the area. So maybe if we can take, if the boat's got enough juice to get us maybe to the other side of the bay where Oakland is.

Uh-huh. Can we get over there to at least, I mean, that's another area, maybe we can find shelter. If the water rose up, the only way I could think that the water would come in here is if something from the bottom of the bay rose up, which displaced all the water, which pushed all over us. Now, if that happened, it would have gone onto Oakland as well.

It wouldn't have just come to one time, unless something did this, can we take? Pushed all the water over, which doesn't make zero sense. Does her boat have enough juice to get us, we can at least go to the Gold Gate Bridge? You have fumes.

You can still run it and we have a sail. Okay, can we get to the Golden Gate Bridge? So you're gonna turn on that boat and start just motoring it. I'll motor it. Sure. I'm driving. Drive away, my friend.

You guys ready for this? Nope. Okay. I don't even know what I'm ready for. Just take another pill over there, sunshine. I have a beautiful. Oh, wait. You're, by the way, starting to feel a bit groggy.

You can't tell if it's from the, all the tens of thousands of milligrams of ibuprofen that you just crunch. Or if it's from the blood loss. Flood loss. But you are getting woozy. I know you wanted painkillers. Probably should throw up a little bit. Oh, yes. Again.

Yeah, because you've now taken a lot of painkillers on nothing in your stomach and that is bad? I had some peaches. You start motoring this thing. And before you start to motor, you actually do distinctly feel the boat start to rise for a bit, like a steady incline. And as you start to boat,

you probably assess it to you just getting that kind of momentum that goes the tiller, you know, when the boat's front goes up because the screw is just kicking up a lot of water. But you do feel for a moment like as if the water was lifting behind you, almost like it was giving you a gentle push towards your direction. And you go with surprising speed and alacrity

as you attempt to motor through fallen buildings and cars and stuff that you would expect to see and like an eminent flood rise. You know, as you're watching trees. And sometimes you have to make big, big, wide turns in order to get around some of the large debris that is ostensibly filling up San Francisco right now as you are motoring towards, at least the direction

that you know to be the Bay Bridge. And you start to see the glistening cables of the bridge by the moonlight as you look towards the bridge in front of you. Okay guys, I can see the bridge. I think we can get, as long as we can get to the base of it and we get up top, we can be above all the water. The bridge is up on a hill.

You have to come down from where the bridge is, which means we have to dock the boat and travel across land in order to get there, unless we climb up a very long ladder from one of the struts that are coming out of the water. But I don't know if the water is there anymore, if it's just here or... So, stretch. or ground?

You're from here. You know it better than me. I mean, the landscape has changed since I was last year. We're both about, I mean, to get a good eye on what's going on, you can take the boat to either the struts or the... Right. ...lands as well. What do you think we should do, Cam?

The land is going to be easier for us to walk onto the bridge. Okay. Struts probably, the... The bridge has a lot of fencing and a lot of... and a lot of safeguards for people who would jump off. Okay. So getting on from underneath the bridge from not the land is going to be difficult

because there's not supposed to be a way to get down from there. Sure. Okay. Dock in the boat? Dock in the boat? Great. Great. Whatever. Let's dock the boat. So you motor it up to the land

and you kind of are amazed at just watching slowly the water climb, almost in front of you, you can just watch it. Like by the time you actually hit land and you start getting out of the boat, you're already the water's up a few more feet as you've gotten there. And you throw everybody out, you get out onto the land,

and you can, even with an injury like what you have, you can start hobbling at least up the land quick enough. But oh my God, are you moving again, Lexi. Come on, Lexie. Lexie's probably going to hurt all again. Oh, you throw up. Yep. It's going to double over.

Is that what you're doing? Yeah. So Lexi, as you, again, trying to make as much movement as you can going up the hill, you just collapse in pain as you fall straight to the ground, lay out, and just, it's just, it is better to just lay here now than do anything other than move with what you're dealing with, even the numbness and the swimming head. Hell, at this point, it's not even about the pain, it's just the fact that you have so much dizziness and vertigo that it's hard to keep your eyes straight at this point. So we need three truths in which to establish. And Lexi, I'd like you to start.

The ground is moving slightly. The ground is moving. Cameron. The there are shapes in the water. There are shapes in the water. That whirring sound that we heard earlier when we were in the building is coming very close. It's a deafening, I can tell you at this point.

The humming is actually louder as well too, because you can see one of the obelisks in the remaining starlight not far from where you are. Three dice, Lexi, I know the pain that you must be going through right now as you are here. This is just as much about what you want as anything else. I need you to tell me right now, are you wanting to go forward,

or do you lay down here and accept the fate that you are in? It will determine how these two do their next actions. I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna move forward. So you fight through the pain as you continue to just gasp, and even the gasping is painful, but you, climb and you move and both of you are comforted to see that Lexi is still behind you even if she is moving at a slower pace than you are and you see lib as you climb up to the

Golden Gate Bridge you see a graveyard of cars laid out in front of you just all lanes filled as if people were attempting to do everything they could to cross this bridge and that various parts you can actually see where the cabling has failed and cars are half-tipped onto the structure of the bridge precariously poised and there's a rumbling underneath you and this rumbling both makes the bridge sway as it is prone to do when an earthquake but it is also making these cars begin to move and slide not unlike the ocean that's laid down before you as a few cars tip over the edge and you can hear the loud as they impact the water what would you like to do I'm at a loss here guys I

I thought getting to the highest ground we could possibly get to, would be something that would maybe help us out of the situation. It doesn't make sense. If the water is coming up this high, it should be going around flowing down because the ocean is there. And I don't... The water shouldn't be able.

to come onto the bridge. So if we can stay up here, the water shouldn't be able to get up here. But if the bridge is broken, then we can't go anywhere. Do you want to go deeper into the bridge? I gotta see what we can do. So as you continue to walk slowly, and now that you're not climbing vertically,

it is, the pain is not so bad, but you do start to feel like you're losing consciousness. as you eventually get close to one of the climbing struts. That's right where you are. And Lexi, you collapse. Just you can't move anymore. And it's not because you don't want to, because you are physically unable to.

Both Cameron and Lib, you kind of hear her as she crumbles onto one of the cars. Shit, shit, shh, why did you take those bills? It hurt. It hurt. It still hurts. I can't. Can you keep moving? Are you? I'm trying. Do any of these cars, I mean, are they just jam-packed into each other? Are they- Yeah, they're packed. They're packed tightly, like certain things. I'm gonna try and, um, look, can you carry her? I'm not gonna get far away.

First, can I smash through any of these windows, look for anything in the car, smash the car windows out? What are you looking for? Anything to help? What would help for right now? To ease her pain? You can spend time to go through these cars, absolutely. If you'd rather have that, then climb up the Golden Gate at this moment, which is fine. Okay, no, no.

That's all right. You're welcome to it. You have your hope dice. It's either that or is she going to... Is she gonna? I don't know. You think I have control of this story? Yeah, okay.

Maybe you could just, maybe if I just lean on you. I'll carry her. Okay. So you give her an arm as you continue to just move through. Lexi, you're putting all of your weight on him at this point. And eventually you do pass out. as the blood loss is now so intent, and the medication is absolutely through your system.

And you feel her going from a small amount of weight to a significant amount of weight. She just drops like a sleeping cat into your arms. But you do make it to the base of one of the same spires of the Golden Gate Bridge. Have we gotten to a part where the bridge has collapsed yet? The bridge is not collapsed. Or the cars are tilting?

They are. But they're still a way all the way through. The cars are still there. They're a swing and tilting. And at this point, you can start to actually feel the rumbling of the ground as it was getting closer. And the vibrations are now so that the cars are now starting to slowly push you

as they are shifting from side to side is what appears to be. An earthquake is shaking this bridge. Of course. For what it's worth. Okay. Good. Okay.

Okay. We have, if we can't stand here, because these cars are gonna push us off the bridge. Right. We can either climb one at the spire because there's a ladder that goes up. For when they paint the bridge. Or we can head back to the mainland and try and wait,

but that's all freeway and it's not gonna be stable. Either way with an earthquake like this, if this continues. Now there's the bridge probably, so where'd we go? Just give me a second to think here. So if we get up this staircase, We're just on one of the pillars of the bridge, and that's just sitting there. But it's pretty strong, it's pretty sturdy.

The bridge is meant to withstand earthquakes, but nothing is indestructible. Or we go back to pass the tollboots to how you drive into, or one used to drive into the city, and we hang out there. So double back, essentially. and try and wait out the earthquake before we cross the bridge. God is up. If you want to be closer to him,

who has given you hope. He has given me hope. I would like to think that this bridge is going to support us. It supports, I mean, you know, San Francisco's had many earthquakes. Golden Gate Bridge is very strong. Are you carrying Lexi up over your shoulder?

She's out? Yeah. All right? As he starts going up. The ladder. The ladder. I'll watch him. I don't agree.

I don't agree that up is the right answer. I think that up means that he falls into the thing when this goes down. So I don't say anything. I just start walking and doubling back. Right. And heading back towards there's a toll booth area there. Then there's a building there attached to the toll booth area,

but it's on the mainland. and if the earthquake is going to continue and the bridge is going to go before the mainland does. Roll to not have him notice you. Okay, I will burn. Whatever's on top? What is on top? Ingenuitive.

You continue to climb up, blib. Lexi, you drift into this place of unconsciousness, the pain and what it was doing. to you. You start to feel that pain drift away from you slowly as your body becomes cold. And you feel this sense of something. What is it? Something very, what Lexi interprets as spiritual. She is having almost like a religious experience with having the pain leave. And climbing higher and higher.

She opens her eyes and then she can see how big the moon is. But she's not exactly sure why she's rising. Right. And as your body lifts up one rung at a time, you open your eyes briefly for a moment to see this giant, giant beautiful moon laid in front of you, and it's so crystal clear the craters and the various pock marks that are on it,

and it is, it is as if you could reach out and just touch it, and you could live there, and there would be no pain, and everything wrong would now drift into sleeplessness, And that feeling of being able to touch the moon as you raise your hand out is the last thing that you experience

before you die, right there on his shoulder from blood loss for playing. Thank you. I appreciate it. That was, I'm so sorry. Thank you. I have to ask you to leave my table though. Lib and Cameron. Lib and Cameron, there was no failure here, but there was neglect.

It took you this long to even offer her a shoulder in which to lean on to get up to here, and she spent most of it climbing up herself. She succumbed to her wounds. And as you climb up, Lib, you climb up this spire and you go into it. You just think about everything that's happened at this point. And it doesn't ever occur to you to look back, to look down towards where Cameron would be, should be. And you don't notice anything about Lexi and the fact that she has slipped off from unconsciousness. But you make it to the top.

You do. You get all the way up there. And it's so high. and the moon is so bright and it looks magnificent. The sea that's laid out around you. As you can see, most of San Francisco is under the water now. Cameron, you've been hopping from car to car. You've been moving, slipping through.

You make it to the toll booth. What do you want to do? I'm gonna... Is the water still rising up the hill? It is. I'm gonna go see if there's the station attached to the toll booths. I'm gonna go inside and just see if there's anything I can find in there that is useful,

that is worth anything, that is something that's gonna help me out of this situation. One, one. And no successes and useful. You do find something else. Let's speak two truths, two last truths before the story ends. Cameron, let's start with you. There's something in here with me.

I recognize that Lexi's moved on. You sit in this toll booth, you just are wrenching doors open and pulling anything apart. You're tearing this booth apart just for anything, anything at this moment that might take you from this. It's a familiar movement. It's safe. This is okay. this is just about you. You need to be able to make it through.

This is what you've always done. You've survived. This was supposed to be your purpose. This was supposed to be your meaning. And you lament the fact that you've gotten this far. And yet they never came. It never occurred. What, you're going to die here because the water is rising.

You had hoped at least at some point that the dignity of them would at least take you. And it's this awful feeling that descends upon you when you feel the ground. Shake down from underneath you and that terrible fear, that awful, terrible fear that you've been holding on through, that you've been avoiding that you've run from

from your entire life. And you attempt to throw yourself against the toll booth in order to get out and you bang against the door, but somehow you've managed to close it in the meantime and you keep throwing your body against it. You need to get out. You need to get out. And you get out.

And you get out. Somehow you get out. And you wrench the door open as you can feel the ground beneath. You start to split as you start to scramble in front and you pick your legs back up as you continue to run and you feel something, a wish, A whip, a lash, just come out in like a snap of a whip. It just cracks and it slacks you across your ankles

and you feel barbs sinking into your ankle as you look behind you and you see them. And you look at it. It is this crystalline disk of teeth as these 12 black dots lift themselves out of the ground from moment and you can wait to get away one single dice and you feel as this tentacle pulls itself up and you can see it's long it's long is it what is it an insect worm of some sort is it some kind of ancient prehistoric creature and these moments are drifting

into you as both the terror and the curiosity overcome you and the warm embrace of these muscles slipping and pulling you and engulfing you, blackness overtakes you. And there's this one terrible feeling of these small muscle movements like a snake just pulling you in. It didn't even crunch down upon you.

the stars go? The stars have gone out. Thank you, sir, so much. Thank you. You had lasted a little longer. You could have had your hope dice with it, but, you know, nobody gets their hopes. Not everyone gets their hopes, leaving us with one candle left. Lib, as you mentioned in the truth, and there is only one truth to speak of. And that is the world is dark. It's the only one I can speak to you about. Lay lip next to you. You lay flexi next to you. As you climb over this crested horizon,

kind of sweetly lean her, almost like if she was a doll, you prop her up as you both sit and see as for the first time in so many days the crest of the sun as it seems to be peering

over the horizon and something's going through your mind right now what is it? It's time that I it's time that I beat my maker this goes through your head of the perfect

rays of the sun that start to crest into and spill over the now submerged San Francisco Bay area. It illuminates what has been hidden for so long. A wall of water, a wave so many miles high. It is taller than the monoliths, even. This giant skyline of water that is in front of you. And you can see that it has already hit the bay. And it is moving. And it is a perfect cleansing wave that you know will be here soon enough.

And this moment of the light sun coming across with the water as you and Lexi and her tiny fallen full. is nestled against you. And in another world, in another place, in another dimension, this could have just been you and your kid sitting and watching the sun rise together. Jeremy, thank you so much for playing. Thank you. I'm going to have to ask you to leave my table.

And that just leaves us one final thing to do, and that is to play the final messages of our dearly departed character. departed characters. This is Valerie Velikor. I have no idea what to do or what's going to happen. I thought I was brave, but I'm not. Just everything happened so quickly. You know, it just became dark, so fast. The light, we keep searching for it, but it's just, it doesn't stay. It just goes away so fast. It's so fleeting. Seems so hopeless. Everything just seems so hopeless. Everything just seems so hopeless. I don't know what to do anymore.

I'm trying so hard, but I don't know what to do. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. If you can hear this, if you're listening to this, please know that I'm so sorry. And I didn't mean to ruin another family's life. That wasn't my. I wasn't trying.

I'm so sorry. I really, I don't deserve to be here any longer. I don't. Hey, Dad. It's, uh, been days since the spires appeared. I don't know what to do, or if you'll... I mean, I know you'll never hear this, but the water is low. All the fish are gone.

I know you would say it's time to move on, but I don't know where to go. Your advice has gotten me. this far so I guess it's not the time to stop taking it. I really should have listened to you sooner. I'm sorry it took the actual end of times for me too. Maybe it could have actually saved you. I just feel so useless. Why was I the one to survive? Why me? Maybe I'm supposed to use your advice to save someone else? I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'm definitely I'm just going to try and make you proud. So it's time for me to leave the boat.

I don't know if you're going to hear this. I don't know if you're still here. But I know we haven't talked in a long time. But I thought I should say something. I'm still here in San Francisco. And we're going to... go out and search for food. Um, we don't have any anymore on the boat. I don't know why today's different, but I wanted to record this today. It feels different. I didn't feel like I,

knew what I wanted to do when, how things used to be. I just kind of waited for life to happen to me. realize I was wasting it, but when everything happened when the monoliths came, I found what, I found a purpose. I found survival became my purpose. And that made sense. It made sense to keep going, to keep living. And then I met everybody, everybody else on this boat and got more complicated but I always knew I could go back to just surviving anyway I am I don't know really what I'm trying to say you probably won't hear this but um I'm sorry I never called you mom I miss you bye I guess not really sure if this thing works you even hear it if it does

My name is Livingston Moss. My family and my friends call me live they used to. The day they came, everything changed. Not the change my grandparents back in Mississippi used to say, boy, change gonna do you good. Nothing about them is good. I had a life. I had a family.

I had a house, a career. What is it even? matter what I'm saying to you, whoever you are. You're all dead just like me. So congratulations to them. The sun is darkened. The moon doesn't give the same light. The game is over.

You've won. All I know is the vultures have gathered. The last trumpet has played its final sound. Our world, your world, is forever changed. I can't lose my faith. I can't. God be with me. World of Sonic the Hedgehog

has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, Fighting for every quill they can fight.

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

It's ticklish business anyway You look at it. Come on, we'll stick together. Love movies? Love classic movies? So do we. Ticklish 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.