Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Episode 4: Along the River | We're Alive: Frontier | Season 1

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Our survivors face a difficult choice, as the rail driver continues its journey to an abandoned town outside of Eureka. Based on the hit We’re Alive podcast, Ivan Van Norman leads a game of survival for a group of players on a mission through the infected undead-ridden midwest. Want to go deeper into the world of We’re Alive? Check out the complete We’re Alive saga here: www.werealive.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It took 10 years to push them back. But we did. What was once a prosperous river trade, the Mississippi is now the front line. The eastern states supply the river states. What's left to the UA live out their meager day self-policing. What is the West hiding? Nobody really knows for sure.

But we're alive. And this is the new frontier. Hello everyone. Welcome back to We're Alive Frontier. Last episode, we had an incident that came about as a result of, well, an unfortunate encounter with the infected. through the streets of Eureka, a wild pack of prairie dogs stumbled across the rail driver

that was barreling through the flatlands outside of the western part of St. Louis. And it has come to the attention of both Band-Aid and Stingray that though minimal exposure has been brought to Asher with infected blood, making him infected. So, we pick up our children. episode now with the rail driver continuing to move. Correct.

As our team meets inside of the rail car around Asher. All right, Ray, I need you to get the good med kit out. Got it. So go ahead and grab the supplies. Asher. I need you to keep calm, okay? I feel fine. Okay, so this leg is done.

We're gonna have to take your- It's either that or become infected. It hasn't spread all the way up. I don't think any got in me. I feel fine. Trust me. Listen, man. We're racing against the clock, okay?

Here's the kit. Thank you. I know that we've had our disagreements, but you're just gonna have to trust me on this one, okay? Fuck. You're gonna survive. We just need to take the leg. I can clodderize the wound.

It'll be fine. Okay, fine. Fuck. So Band-Did, you put Asher up on. you put Asher up on top of a gurney, and you start pulling out the advanced medical kit, which has pretty much everything you need for this kind of procedure.

Ray, can you set up the anesthesia? We're gonna have to do this. Do we get a tourniquet or something? Are we just gonna let this go? Yeah, I'm gonna set the tourniquet. Just hold on a second, okay? Go ahead and set up with the anesthesia. I'll start working on the tourniquet.

Hey, thanks for your medical advice, by the way. Good job. So I'll start doing that. I'll take the tourniquet around the leg. I want to walk over with one of the Molotovs, and I pull it out, and I give it to you and goes, this is gonna hurt, buddy. You're gonna need this, but you earned it.

Do you want some on it too? It's not gonna feel good and it's not gonna help, so. I already don't feel good. Great, this might help then. Great. We've applied a tourniquet and you would like to proceed with this. How would you like to apply the anesthesia? Jesus Christ.

We've got, okay. Go ahead and, um, start, so this is gonna make you feel weird and it's gonna put you under. Asher, is there anything you wanna say before you go under? Just don't fuck it up, please. I'll try my best.

Ray, I'm gonna need you to step aside and I'm gonna do it. Okay, mandate as you push anesthesia into Asher's system and as you continue to push the anesthesia into his system, you go clearly above the recommended dose that would need in order to put somebody under.

You feel a sluggish, dark, heavy feeling come about you. And you slowly start to feel your heart drain as you die. Asher, Vince Casso, friend of mine, good, good human being. I have so appreciate you taking the time to play this game with us. This survival horror sucks so much.

And I love everything about what you're doing with this. And I want to at least have you know that I'm giving this, our first Black Raven of the game to you for playing. And I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the table. I'm sorry. I'm going to leave the Raven there for you to hold your space, and then I'll bring it to you soon. His body lies still.

Rayth throw something on. Raith, tell Jenny we need to stop. All right, so Raith walks into the front carriage and goes, Jenny, Asher is gone. What? He's gone, he was infected. We had to give him peace, but we also have to burn his body now.

And so we need to stop. I put on the break. The squealing of the wheels pierces the silence that is living inside of the sleeper car at the moment as the rail driver comes to a slow and gradual stop. You find yourself sitting in a vast, open prairie land. You gotta get moving. Yeah, we gotta go.

All right, so we need. I took off all my crap over there and read, just took off everything that was covered in blood over there. Toss these in with it. Yeah. Everything, we need to get everything out. We need to get everything that he had or made contact with the blood with out. On it.

And then including the needle that we used for the anesthesia. Yep. And I'm cleaning my sword at this point. Uh-huh. Yeah. Jenny, we could use some help bringing stuff out. Yeah. Give me one of those Molotov cocktails.

So, describe to me how you would like to build this funeral pyre? Rhee, you're the expert. Yeah. I gather some of the wood that we were using for the, that's already prepped, that we were using for the rail driver, just to make a base, like a small base. And I lay out the, I lay them kind of overlapped in a way that's like a Viking, like a pyre, like a boat, basically like the shape of a boat. And then I pile his gear and stuff like that on top of it. All of his gear?

No, just what's ever covered in whatever. The stuff of the blood on it. All right. And I pour some of the remaining moonshine from the bottle I gave him. And then we bring his body out now too? Mm-hmm. So, okay. So I'll need somebody's help of that.

Yeah, I think Jenny and I can take care of it. So we'll carefully bring out the body, avoiding blood from the infected and carry it out to the pyre and set it on top. Mm-hmm. All right. To those who served and to those who made the UA safe, you commit this body to the pyre, and so that others may not suffer,

you burn his body. And you see as the spoke fills the prairie lands with dark, acrid ash, as his body provides a gentle, illuminating glow and the final part of what this day has brought. At this stage, you're coming pretty close to the sun setting, and it is not too poetic to say that as the sun sets on this day, so does his life

as his body is burnt into the night air. I didn't hate him. Just wanted to make that clear. He was so young and he shouldn't be out here. He gave his life gloriously. He will live forever. It shouldn't have been so hard on him. I just wanted him to toughen up so he could make it, but he was...

He was a stubborn little bastard. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, right? We should get going. Where are we going? We're going to keep moving, right? Why? No, we can't go back. Where are we going to?

Let's get this thing started in case those motherfuckers that got him are hot on our tail and we can figure that out, can't we? Okay. You're right. There is the one concern of the back of the rail driver. Yeah, I want to take Jenny aside and say, I don't know much about fixing metal things. I can do it. I'll help you. Can you do it while we're moving?

Can you drive? I can try. I don't know, is that wise? I can watch it. If it's a straight shot, there won't be a lot of. The issue is that it's the back of the rail driver. You would have to be moving at a pretty walking pace just to be able to work on it and still move.

We can work on it right away to get it closed at the very least. Well, hold on. Is there some way we can rig it for now till we can do a better repair? I mean, moving is probably the biggest part Especially because we just set off a flare in the middle of the field. No kidding. We could board it up with some wood.

Let's do that. That doesn't take much time. In fact, most of it's just about putting the wood against the back of the rail driver and applying a few tough nails inside of it since it is tough in steel. Right? But at least the light and the smoke aren't coming inside of the rail driver. I'd actually like to take the radio. The radio?

The radio's in the rail driver. That he was using? That he was using. It wasn't as a handheld? No, it's a ham radio. Oh, ham radio. Yeah, that's the one he called back to Colonel Yaclione. Yeah, that's what I want.

I want to look through his pack and look for anything that tells us more about him or about where we're going about anything. So digging through Asher's personal effects, you find a lot of his gear, a lot of particular material, but no real papers or orders or anything. In fact, the only thing you remember him as he was, you remember him as a lot of his material, you find a lot of his gear, you find out of his material, but no real papers, he's actually holding onto that was one of his personal effects was his comb, which is now in the pyre with everything else. Now, there was the satellite phone that he was talking with Yackley with. Yep. So that is still around. I'm going to seek that out right away. Great. We never saw him writing. We never saw him. No. When he was discussing with Archtown, he essentially was up on his own discussing whatever needed be. So there's an interesting.

any official paperwork beyond the permits that you all need in order to cross the river. Okay, so I'm just going to go in there. Hey, Jenny, I'm going to talk to everybody else too, but I'm going to radio in and check in with this Colonel Yackley, just to kind of get a vote, your voting that we continue with the mission? Before you call, we must make decisions, important decisions. Sure, but I'm just checking in with Jenny first to get your opinions, because you won't be able to be at the meeting. You're driving. Eyes on the road. Yeah, let's keep going.

Yeah? Yeah. Okay, so we're going to go meet. Let us know if anything comes up. I will. So you three all meet inside of the sleeper car. Yeah. Then what is this mission?

What are we doing? Well, we're still going to Livingston, right? We're going to Kansas City. And I think the goal was to connect the Livingston community to Kansas City and the street. We're still going to find the Livingston community, right? community, right? I'm feeling like you have some personal attachment to this. Look, this kid just died because something happened.

You think I don't care about that? No. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're still going right. That's what we're trying to figure out. Well, I say yes. Okay.

So who is leader now? Are you leader, Ray? Are you? Jenny? I know this is going to sound crazy, but with our background, the three of us, us. It's probably best if Jenny's the one doing the leading. Yeah, I agree. We work great as a team, but we need someone, no pun intended, driving the train.

I can't go back to the way I was before. Whatever you decide, I'll stay with you too. All right, so I guess we're moving forward. The next thing is that we have to call in Yackley, because we need their supplies, we need their support, and we need to continue this charade of a mission. Are they supposed to provide us with more supplies or something along the way? I don't think that was a thing, was it? I heard them mention that they were able to get within 125 miles. Are we still within that by helicopter?

You can check in. There's a GPS on the satellite phone, but I don't think you'll be able to figure that out from just using the phone. For the map? If you want to use the map. Do you want to take some time to look at the map? Yeah. Also, if we can take the driver off the rails and hide it, I can research.

resupply us with food and we can filter more water but it takes time you need to be somewhere safe or at least secret and at this point we should probably discuss food and water a little bit for all of you in order to have a single day of food it costs one survival point so you're in three days at this stage of rations so that would be three survival points and not only do we have 56 things You have 156. 156 there and-

Except Asher's death. We need to resolve that with survival points. You got 50. So that's gonna take you down to 6, 106. Okay, we're still okay. And three a day, you said? One a day.

One a day. From the rail driver, I will take. additional just three yeah there will be a capacity but you're nowhere close that I need the roll for capacity yet all right let me coordinate with the GPS and the map and see if we're still within the 125 mile all right so the challenge of triangulating and using old school navigation tactics good news is is that you've got a fairly good map and the satellite phone can can give you a GPS coordinate after checking the manual

for a brief time. So it's getting late. It's definitely the sun has set. And you're probably estimating it's a little before 10 o'clock before you finally figure it out by the light of the kerosene lamp as it's swinging with the occasional movement. And even though the rail driver's moving at a steady pace, you triangulate that you're about best barely outside.

of the reach, like about a hundred and three, actually about like 10 miles, like we're talking 10 or 15 miles. Okay. You know, 150 miles out from St. Louis, which puts you about year-ish. Okay. Okay. All right, so we're too far out for air support.

It's not worth going back whatsoever because even then we'd be on the fringes of communication. I like your idea on, stopping and maybe taking the rail driver off the rails for a bit maybe resupplying by what we can find you'll have to ask Jenny how long it takes to change from one mode to the other yeah can you go do that so I'll go get her and I come in and like Jenny we've we're talking about what we want to do next and we've made some decisions but we need you to help us with the others you you

You turn away for two seconds. God damn. You start to look outside and actually, Ray, for the first time you see, there's actually a crackle of lightning as it comes across the side of the now darkened skyline. As you can hear the rolling thunder, kind of rumble the rail driver at this stage.

And you can start to smell the moisture and the ozone in the air. As you can feel something is coming. Do we want to move faster and try to outrun this storm? Before I was interrupted by Thor's Fury, we were going to ask you to be our leader. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg,

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What are we looking at? How fast can we get out of here? We'll keep it at 35, get through this storm, and then we'll worry about restocking on food. Here's an important question. Are you turning on the lights? There's lightning going on, right? There's.

Can we lower the amount of light? No, there is. On or off. No dimmer switch on the train, sorry. On it is. I suppose we could take shifts. Yeah. I'm gonna drive this thing for a bit.

Yeah? Yes, please, sleep. All right. Okay. I'll stay up to you for now. And then, you know, I'll take a later shift or something. What? To a later sleeping shift, I mean.

Right. Yeah. So as you continue to drive through, you make great time, Jenny. As far as covering distance goes, several hours pass. And the company of wraith is only punctuated by the occasional rolling thunder and lightning that you hear across the plains as you watch as shadows and silhouettes of old buildings and trees

and other various parts of the skyline just break apart the moonlight every once in a while. As you drive for until around 3 o'clock in the morning, this or so, it's the first time that you see something in front of the rail driver. And the lights, which give you good, because it takes some time to stop the train, so it needs to see pretty far. But in the punctuating night, you can see in front of you as a large semi-semit. truck that just seems to have placed completely obstructing the rail line and as the light bounces off of the side of this large vehicle you can start to see that it's illuminating parts of a small town but completely ruined and burnt out you can kind of see jagged edges of wall and rubble and there's even the

of some overturned cars and just piles of machinery just laid out. And the semi is very much obstructing the rail line at this point. Oh, you stop. Stop. I'm pulling the brake. I'm just, I'm just, I'm asleep, but my brain is saying stop.

I also shut off, I shut off the light. So as you turn off the light. And I stop as fast as I can. Great, so you break it and you are all, you two at least are awoken, suddenly from the kind of jolting that a sudden braking would bring about in the train. And at that moment, you can start to hear the of the rain start to pitter-patter right down on top of the rail driver. And at this point, it seems like the thick droplets are just the beginning of what the storm is going to bring.

Oh, also, I should probably tell you that I'm spending quite a bit of risk from 21, which is what I had, down to 16. by risk to bring the storm upon you. I mean, rush up, why do we stop? We both rush down, what happened? There's a semi-truck blocking the tracks, and I just have a really bad feeling about all of this. So as you pull the rail driver up to what appears to be a large semi-truck,

you can basically see it. It's on the side closest to me next to this four-story large building. That seems to have had, and you can tell this, right before you turned off the front lights of the rail driver, but there's large blades glistening in the top of this building in which it appears like a helicopter has just barreled right into it. And it's so precariously poised with its tail broken

that it seems to be dangling over a large part of the street that is really the area in front of you. Now this isn't uncommon for a lot of, of destroyed cities. In fact, this stuff appears to be so old that this stuff has likely been around since the war, even. And you can see as moss is dangling off of parts of the helicopter as, well, really,

seems to be pretty locked. So. Where exactly, can you show us where exactly that truck is crossing and where we are trying to get? So, the rail. runs from this way to this way. All across this length of the board. Okay.

Your bus. That's the semi is essentially. Your semi is basically sitting right along the rails here. So part of it is coming along this side of the building. Okay. But the actual trailer part itself is taking up most of the rail. Okay. There is some, just from what you can tell here,

there is some signs. that maybe there was survivors here at one point, because you can see some old barricaded windows as well as some barbed wire that is essentially making up a part of not necessarily that building, but all of the cars clearly look like they've been looted or tipped over or taken apart at some point for scrap. And a lot of the things that isn't on this diorama

is essentially a lot of the scrap metal that you see is clearly the result of scavengers taking apart. whatever metal I can get. So yes. So here we are. It's about 3 a.m. still dark out? Dark as night. And, raining.

And pouring rain. Here, Jenny, I'll give these back to you. I gotta get me one of those. Can we, is the crows nest still a viable thing, even though it's pouring? Yeah, the good news is that it's designed well enough that water's not leaking in from the... from your pillbox, but it is still just that,

a kind of a pier hole this moment. Right, right, right. Still not a bad idea to throw a tarp up there super, super fast, but I think we're probably need to focus on what's up ahead. So you've stopped, the rail driver. And the lights are off. Probably about 50 feet or so before you actually got to the bus.

So where we're near like that corner, basically, right? A little closer than that, I'd say. You're probably at where the edge of the building is. Oh, okay. That's farthest from me. Okay. Which means that you're sitting right where that road crossing would be.

Okay. We need to look and listen before we make any choices. Agreed. This rain sucks. Yeah. Well, let's see one of us at least, you go up top and see if we can get any kind of better. Ew.

You. Watches, sparse parts of lightning come out. I can go and take a look up there. So I'll take my back, yeah. What's your spot shot? Hmm? Spotlesson's 53. That's probably better than mine.

Yes, it is. So I'm sensing the shadows of a plan here a little bit. Uh-huh. Yes. So would you like to put the plan up on the board for me? Could we do a spot first to get a general? I think the spot would be, unless that's just something you wanna do

before laying the plan out and no one else wants to do anything else? I think we're awaiting to see, because we don't really know what's. We don't really have any information. By all means. Okay.

Are you going outside or you're appearing to the pill box? No. Do the mailbox? Great. We should grab a tarp from one of the survival kits. I'm going to grab the flashbang grenade and the emergency radio from Asher's kit. What's the tarp for? Tart for the back.

It's already covered. It's already covered. He said it's not waterproof. Well, at this point, I'm kind of taking that as a cue that you are going to cover the back. Oh. Oh, okay. So I'm assuming it's not applied yet. You're just pulling the tar.

out. Okay. That still needs to be part of any plans since you've just talked about it. Sure, sure, sure. Maybe we can make that happen. So you would like to just look and listen before any plans formulating. Correct. Go for it. Oh, by the way, I'm so sorry. Take two difficulty dice because of the darkness and the rain, please. Fair. It's flooding. Exploding. Five, nine. Oh, no. It's 14. Heavy rain. Again. Oh, no.

It's okay. Someone else can go. 21. 21 on top of... 21 on top of 38. That's what? So 59. So I got a 59. My score is 53.

So it's just flat. Zero degrees of failure. Right. So at this point, your eyes are adjusted to the inside of the rail driver, and you're peering out with binoculars into literally the black of night. And you don't even have the benefit for the time of what you're looking to get a lightning flash to be able to show you any all you can basically see is darkness and what little starlight can come through the clouds that's basically showing you shapes it's dark

hey guys it's raining and dark let you know Raythe can you get another look you're better I think you got your spot listen better than the rest of the listen the last time he's my binoculars he got his makeup on it and I don't want that to just so that we're clear um put your panties in a bunch let him do it we'll put your big girl one's on later. Okay. I mean I have a 41 normally but I do have a training value for reconnaissance gear. Awesome. So if you wanted to do that I you would probably have to get a better vantage point it's not in the rail driver at this stage because whatever band-aid whatever had not seen at this point in order for you to basically

get to do it again you'd have to reposition does that hatch let me get up on the on the outside of the rail driver let you get on top of the rail driver yes. Okay I can do that. All right so I actually can I make a listen first before I open the hatch. Just rain. Just rain. Okay. Not to be confused with fingers.

Yeah. Yeah. Not fingers of the one dude is waiting for me right after I open this. I don't know. I've seen someone on the top, I think. Maybe. Yeah. Right there.

Okay. All right. So I'm going to delicately lift up the hatch and poke around. Do I have his binoculars, right? Those give me a multiplier. Yeah. It's a plus one degree of success on... Okay.

Spotless and checked, which I didn't do. That's fine. All right, so I'm going to put my hood up because I don't want to get too rained on out there. Okay. All right. And then I gently, quietly open the hatch. So as you gently quietly open the hatch and peer yourself out with the binoculars, you kind of stand up on the rails as you're looking forward.

And now that the hatch is open, it's raining a lot more than what you've even heard of outside. it's just you're getting slapped down, and within a few seconds, your hood is completely soaked. Okay. You look through a bit, and you can clearly see not too far in front of you as a large recycling vehicle. Okay.

Big, giant kind of too long garbage truck that seems to, for all intents of purposes, be closed. This is from what you can tell. There seems to be a completely leveled gas station. and that's to your left, but ironically, the sign is still up displaying the pre-war prices of what gas were before all of this happened. 318 for, 319 for regular?

It's not bad. You can also see a lot of the jagged, burnt-out buildings that I described previously. Now, whether they were burnt out or they just simply caved in after ages and ages of misuse and decrepit infrastructure, it's hard to tell. But most of them seem to be.

to be brick and our old wood. All right. I want to lift up the binoculars and do a scan, like a pan, starting on this side. Right. And then slowly moving across and then trying to get to stop where the semi is in front of us. Right. And I'm very specifically looking for any sort of movement. Right.

Or anything that looks, especially once I get to, when I'm looking at any vehicles or the building itself, Anything that looks like sort of like biological. Right. You're looking for the signs of anything that could be living or infected. So what I can tell you as far as what you can smell goes, is that the rain is doing a lot dull at anything that you might be able to pick up in the wind.

But even that, the infects are very pungent. And you probably would have smelled something if you were on top of a hive at the very least. Really, you just smell. old building, vegetation, and rain at this stage. It's very quiet and very dark. Yeah, and I'm not seeing any movement anywhere. Where did I see that? You watched it as something small, very small. This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over 1 billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive.

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Do I think I've seen as much as I can see? See as much you can see. You could probably make out that police car that's over at the far end. And I didn't see any movement or anything around the semi itself. No. Is the door to the semi-cab open? No. Okay.

Do we have enough eyes on this building to describe anything about it? Beyond the fact that it's a four-story building with all of its windows punched out and the helicopter that's clearly crashed into the corner of it. I mean, I have yet to make an actual spotless and check as well. It's okay. So that's fine? Okay. Any information? I mean, beyond what you've got in here, you're not looking through the way that it was and you have the binoculars. Yeah. The amount of information you could gleam from a check. Yeah, because it's dark and rainy. Okay.

So, yeah, I come back down and, you know, I'm just dripping at this point, and I give the binoculars back to Ben. I go, I saw maybe a small animal, nothing infected. It's not to say they're not out there, but... Not that I could see. It's very dark, very wet. I don't think there's any better cover than what we have right now. Being in the rail driver? Yes, but we can't get moving again until we get rid of that semi. I still worry about this building.

Yeah, yeah, no, understood. Do we really want to try to spend the whole night camp here? There's not much of the night left. Regardless, I would really like to reinforce the back of that as best as we can. Right now we just did some kind of jury rig something, but we got to get whatever we can up there, at least to slow something down. And if any more of those prairie dogs are out,

any this far, and that's all we've got, we're done. Are we making a plan now? Yeah, we're making a plan now. All right, who's writing the plan on the board? I haven't done it yet. Go get it, man. Let's the plan. What's the plan?

The plan is we're gonna quietly try and patch up the back while you keep watch. Okay. Okay, so Ray, Patching? Yeah, I'll help you patch. Okay. Actually, do you and Band-Aid want a patch, and I will keep watch from above with my handy, long gun?

I mean, if it's something that takes, like, physical strength and stuff, I can help a lot with that. Can we also be collecting some rainwater? Good call. Tarp is good for that, too. Yeah. We could just put a couple jugs outside. I mean, we'll basically have, like, the thing open.

I can take care of that. But we should keep talking and stuff to a minimum and very, very low voices. So you're Crow's Nest? I'm Crow's Nest. You two are on reinforcements and he's on water collection. Okay, okay, and then Jenny you're... Patching up the back.

Patching and Rayth too. Rayth and Jenny are patching rays looking through the crow's nest. And then I'm collecting rainwater. Great. I don't know how to spell my name. Can I try to use my stealth skill to basically help her to do this as quietly as possible?

To be fair, this is not a... complicated job, although patching it is essentially you're tying it down, which one is you're not welding it, you're not trying to make anything permanent, right? Just as long as we're doing it. I mean, we're not just putting the tarp on, right? We're doing... No, no, no, no, no, we're doing something to reinforce it, not just the tariff. Yeah, I see.

Then yes, you could use stealth checks in order to help cover her, but again, stealth's mostly going to be for you, not for her. Yeah. You know, you can mitigate some failures just as with anything. Okay. That's about as much as I'm willing to give at this stage. Okay. From the crows nest, can I see, can I shoot, like, the part that's open?

Yes. If I'm in the crow's nest. You can't see down where they are. I can't see down where there. No. Okay. Then that's not going to be able to be able. Okay.

Then it's time to do some construction engineering. Try to patch this thing back up. Okay. You're stealthing around. Maybe what you can also do, too, Raith, with your stealth, is that you can scout out a little bit of the perimeter quietly so that you can see things

come quicker. I mean, I'm not going more than 10 feet from the vehicle. That's okay. Still, it's 10 feet of visibility that you gain. Yeah. Okay. Band-Aids rainwater, no check required. You're collecting.

Cool. So I'll just roll how much you get. Very high. Six. Six rainwaters. Well, no what that just is gonna mean. Is it that just, I'm basically giving you survival points. Cool.

In which to use. Take them. Six survival points. Six survival points. Use. Well done. Twice as much as we have. Yeah.

No, that's 106. Oh, okay, okay. We're better off than you think. Yeah, we're good. Still not great, but. So that's 106 on top of what the rail driver has, right? Correct. Correct.

Okay. All right, let's see those construction engineering checks. And then for Wraith, let's see him snolping around. Oh, good girl. 16, and yeah, I'm fine. I've got at least two degrees, maybe three, yeah. This is an easy patch job for you. Not an issue at all.

Rayth is, how did you do there? I have three successes on my stilf. So I need one more from over there. And then... So, Rayth, is you are kind of not going far, but just keeping an eye out in the darkness so where you can keep Jenny in sight and then anything else that could be in front of you in sight,

you are looking around and it's incredibly quiet. And out of the corner of your eye, you actually watches something that literally scuttles right by you. It just moves quickly, and you turn around to see something crawling up into the back of the dumpster. Crawling into the back of the dumpster. To the back of the recycling vehicle, the garbage truck. Did I get an idea of size?

Uh, like a big dog, huge. But it wasn't on the forest. It was definitely tall and moving, but it just ran right. right by you. Okay. It's one of those things where you're looking forward like this, and then you just, out of the corner of you just watch something, and then the next minute as you basically turn around,

you see something crawling on top of the garbage truck. That's to your right and up a little bit. All right, so I whisper back to her, because she's the closest to me, and I move back and goes, and I say, they're definitely out there. There's at least one on the truck. You've seen if one of them sees us. It will call others.

Where's Band-Aid and Ray? How much longer do you need on this? I'm basically finished What do you think we should do? I don't want it right down there. Yes, we just saw something What you is it one of them? I can't be sure, but I suspect it is it's not a name I got so much rainwater you guys infected by the garbage truck we don't it's no and if it saw us it would have called by now right? Oh knows But, I mean, the other times we've run into them, when there's been one, it calls others. But not all infected are the same.

Jenny, how reinforced is that wall? It's not going to hold up if we get swarmed. But even if we do get swarmed, better to fight them with only one opening than to be out in the open. Should we hold our position until morning, until light? We probably got, what, one, two more hours, tops? Yeah, it can't be much. Yeah, there's no way I want to fight these things in the dark.

Let's keep our pistols trained on the... 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. Opening and just try to keep an eye out. So you all go back into the rail driver after patching up the exterior and kind of wait looking at the garbage truck until dawn.

Looking at the opening. Opening of the garbage truck. And I will maintain the crow's nest for another view. Okay. So if you're all waiting with guns, several hours go by. It's now early morning dawn. As you can see, the rain is not let up.

In fact, at some point, getting close to the part of dawn, you actually start to notice as water begins to creep through the bottom part of the patched up area of the sleeper car. You had one job. There's only so much a tarp can do. Imagine if we've not done this, how wet it would be.

I wanna go check out that truck. The semi? Or the garbage truck? Yeah, the semi truck. Okay. Let's see if we can move it. Yeah, I wanna see if I can get it off the tracks. You guys are going together?

Can I see, can anyone see, do we have a good vantage point to shoot at the semi from the crow's nest? Yes, because the pillbox has basically four slits to shoot out of, so you can see in front of you, behind you to the left and to the right of you. Want to trade guns again and I'll keep an eye on? Yeah, cover me.

Take mine. Well, you're not going by yourself, so I'll come with you too. Well, it was my gun. Apparently I'm blind, but other than that, I'm fine. Great. Maybe better if I go with her? We can both go.

Up to you. You're the medic. I want you to stay. All right. I'm not gonna disagree with that. Stay here. So, Rayth and Jenny, let's put your minis on the table. Okay.

And get you basically in front. Before I leave, I look at Ray and I go, You're gonna cover me, right? Did pretty good back in the canyon. Cover us, I mean. So let me put you just on the corner, the very, very far corner that's facing me at the moment. I have you right here.

Let's have her face out in all her glory. Yeah. Okay. D-da-da-da-da-da. Not that. Right. Yes. So, Ruth and Jenny, as you get up into this,

the first thing that you notice is actually that every single one of the semis tires have been slashed. and it's basically sitting on its axle at the moment. As you see, it's being weighed in. And now that the dawn light is slowly starting to kind of illuminate the area around you, you can actually see that you are, for all intents of purposes,

and a little bit of a divot. The gravel that is meant to kind of keep a lot of the rails from flooding has been washed away in this area because there's mud and vegetation. And you're actually starting to keep a lot of the rails from flooding. to see that the rails are being flooded quite a bit, and then the water is being lifted up.

You actually, as you left the rail driver, you splosh down into knee-deep water as you came down. So you're saying if we move the semi-truck, we're still screwed. I'm saying that the semi-truck is not helping the fact that it's made a tiny little dam in the area that you're in, and it is, in addition, to blocking your path, it is also flooding your part of the rail quite a bit.

So we're gonna get it moving fast. And it's gonna be really difficult to get it moving, yeah. Because it's all of its tires have been slashed. It's just on the wheels, but not on, okay. It's on the wheels. We could still. We could still roll it. We could still, yeah.

Yeah, you could roll it essentially this way if you can generate enough force in order to move it. You know? for that, like maybe that thing. Was it conveyed to us where he saw that creature? Yeah, I told us he went in there, right? You told us it went in there, right? I'm gonna keep my sights trained on just in front of them, between them and that recycling truck.

You see something very interesting, Ray, on top of that recycling truck. It's a rat. It's just hanging out on top of his truck. You watch as it has a little piece of a little piece of. of something that's chewing on. It's really like an eyeball or something. It's weird, yeah, it's, it's, it's either, there's something cute here.

No, because you saw a full creature. Guys, we got signs of life. It's just me in here. Bandit, we got signs of life out there. Good life or a bad life? Well, it depends on how much you like rats. Eh. I like them a lot better than the infected.

That's true. All life is unpredictable. I wanna know what's in there. Am I able, I wanna shout down to them. Well, I mean, are we gonna come back? and convey this information. Yeah, come back. What you checked out.

Yeah, yeah. Wait, see we have unresolved success. I do have some success from what, when I was. The patch job. Oh, yeah, well, the two would have finished the patch job in a very good way. The three would have made sure that nothing was seen. Okay.

Those were still when it was night. Right, yeah. And the darkness was there. But the good news is that none of that is around. Although, to be fair, there is still that that Band-Aid found, but he's the only one who really has knowledge of that at the moment. Okay.

Guys, there's something in that truck. I don't know if it's garbage. I don't know if it's dead bodies. I don't know if it's whatever creature you saw in there, but it's very interesting to room. Because you did get some degrees of success, and degrees of success should always be rewarded. You did see a large kind of drinking thermos,

like a large container. Okay. That was braced up against part of the wall. That definitely looks like it's scavengeable. if you'd like to take the time effort and energy to find out what's in it. But you'd have to go and put search. It was inside of the semi-truck.

Okay. Which part of it? The cab. If you want to bring the container back with you, then you can just keep it in the rail driver until you're ready. I don't know if that's super important to me right now. That's fine. I think I want to just come back to the real truck. She's like, I'm bringing it with me.

Yeah, you... No, it's fine. If you're not interested, then there's no reason. So, great. What if it's full of like acid or something? What? What did you find out about the semi? All right, it's fairly recent, and all the tires are slashed,

and it's basically creating a dam, and so the water, I mean, the tracks are flooding. This could be crazy pants, but what the heck so is the rest of this world? What if whoever drove that thing to where it is, is inside that trash truck? Or the building. With the windows shot out like that?

Maybe. Yeah, or the trailer of the semi. That too. I just feel like you've seen a few, we've seen a rat and whatever the little creature was that you said, climb into the back of that thing, right? Yeah. So what if they're foraging whatever's in there?

Whoever put this truck over these tracks wanted it to block the tracks. Clearly. That can't be good. No. Are you thinking like it's a trap? intended to stop us, make us get out. But nobody knows that these rails are in use. Like, nobody knows that a rail driver would come in front?

Why else would they block it? Unless someone knows it then. Unless someone knows about this mission that we don't know about. That's true. But I think that they could be unrelated. It could have been parked there and later the tires slashed. Regardless, I think that the water might actually be helping us out in this situation if we want to move it.

Because the axles and the wheels will still move, regardless of whether they're inflated or not, it's just gonna be more difficult. Let's do this. All right, I'm gonna try and move it and... You're gonna move it by trying to open the cab up. I am gonna open the cab up. Let's check and see if it's trapped first.

So one might have left booby traps of some sort on the semi. Yes. All right. I'll stick around and keep my eyes on you all. I want you to cover us. So Jenny, as you... I'm going with her.

I'm going back with her. So the medias can stay where they're at. Great. As you get back towards the cab, You can see that the keys aren't there. It doesn't seem to be booby-trapped at all. But it's actually an interesting thing. As you're looking around, you can see several wires

are laid out with rattling cans attached to them. Noise traps, very subtle. Essentially, you can see a couple of fine lines. One, that's actually right above you. So even though you opened it up and went there, you can see where one used to be there, but it was trimmed and disarmed already. And at that point, you look around and see that there are several other

of these rattling can traps that are just kind of scattered at various places across this area. Guys, I feel like this is someone like us. Yeah, there's someone here. There's someone here. Yeah, no, but I feel like this is someone like us who wants to know if anyone dangerous is here. is here. The question is, are they dangerous?

Well, let's find out. Cool. Well, let's let's... So the car, as you go down to pull the hot wire, you can see that all the wires have been cut already. Of the noise trap. No. Of the actual.

To hot wire? There's no hot wiring happening. Yeah. Someone already took a knife, clearly, and then just cut all the wires, as if they already thought ahead. So this truck is not going to be driving off the tracks. Okay. Would you like to spend a competence point to get a little bit of extra knowledge

about what's going on on the rail driver that could help you? Part of your engineering. Because I think we get new competence points for everyone. That's right, yes. Okay. Then yeah, I would like to spend a competence point. So one of the things that you remembered requisitioning,

and it's in my list here, is a bunch of steel cable that you put on because there was potentially going to be a situation like this where you're going to have to tow or move something across this line. And you know that the rail driver has enough steam in it that it could potentially act as a small tugboat, so to speak, in order to either push something out of the way or pull it out of the way, depending on what you would like to do.

Let's pull it. I wonder if we pulled it. I don't know. I'm worried about driving it into that flood of water. It's definitely, the rain's still going. It's not, it's, it's, torrented as it was earlier so you can see through the morning light, but it's definitely enough to where the water is continuing to rise. Yeah, let's get that thing out of the way one way or the other.

Okay, cool, I'm gonna start hooking up cables. Okay, so what's everyone else doing? I can provide cover from closer if that's safer while their backs are turned. I'm staying probably maybe about 15 feet from her while she does the cables, and I'm just constantly like looking around for any sort of movement or any that sort of stuff. You know what? I'm gonna open my box. I have this box that I haven't opened.

What's in the box? You're not under any particular time constraint, so yeah, you can open the box. Inside, what do you see? I see key lockpick saw bolt cutters. Oh, that's how if you open it. Oh, this is the actual box? That's the container.

That's just to hide everything that's in. Loose batteries, scavenge, scavenge, scavenge, which are all worth survival points. Now they're worth for bartering, though. For bartering. Razor blades, more scavenge. And a journal. A journal.

February 21st, 2026. I've reached my limit. No one at the company realizes the difference we could make out here. Columbia is cushioned and safe, but there's a whole world still on fire. Nathan closed the sale expanding infrastructure in St. Louis. It would net half a million credits, but also means bulldozing homes for our factory. Is that who we are? Who we want to be?

April 12th, 2026. It's the West. That's where the future is. We've got word that Chicago's transit bridge has gone out. This cuts off a vital resource line to the frontier. I pitched developing a new line running out toward Kansas City, but no one went for it until Nathan, of all people, convinced them. We can build a life for everyone, if we can make it safe.

June 18, 26. The end of our first day on the front. Took some licks, but that's how it goes out here. I'm not sure what to make of the crew. They're a colorful bunch. Jenny's a team player. I appreciate that. Ray keeps things on the level.

God knows what Raith is all about. But my biggest concern is Band-Aid. He's got a sarcastic veneer, and I can tell he's hiding something. But in a pinch, he's really come through. Honestly, I like them. But can I trust them with the real reason for the mission? Not yet. Maybe soon.

I guess we'll see. That seems to be it. Can I have the code, that? Yes. But it looks like he really had a heart. I had more than that. He had vision. So, uh, Jenny, are we pulling this thing?

Yeah. So after heating the boiler back up, which I'm sure has been pretty constant, I'm assuming you haven't turned it off since late last night, right? It's been burning a little bit of fuel. But as you start to ramp this thing up, you can start to hear the groans of the cables. as they begin to pull. And you can hear the metal just kind of pressing against

as you can actually start to see a small piece of mud just sliding. Yes. I went back up, by the way. Great, back up. As you see this thing slide. You can basically watch as it starts to come towards you and then tip.

Poof, poof. And you can hear as the, grinding, crunching kind of just slams against the bottom of it as it starts to pivot along the site. And you watch is that movement slightly jostles the building as it begins to precariously kind of move and poise around. Very shortly after that, a few beats you actually hear as a door just, Pooom, kicks down as a large man

with wild hair and a beard and a plaid jacket on, comes out into the middle of the street. What the fuck is that? Hi, I'm Whitney. And I'm Katie. And we're the hosts of True Crime Campfire. We set out to make a true crime podcast we'd want to listen to. We get right to the story.

We don't do a lot of extra talk in, and when we do, it's usually to roast the short hairs off of some loser, murderer, or scammer. You'll laugh, but only at the people who deserve it. Like, which serial killer would you most like to shove into a locker? B.T.K. in his awful poetry. Dude got caught because he didn't understand what a lot. floppy disk was. We look for the stranger than fiction stories, like the case of Patty James, a killer catfish before the internet was even a thing. Or Howard Walmsley, a sentient wad of damp

laundry who convinced his town he'd won the lottery, fleeced local businesses out of thousands, and then became a romance scammer. We've covered tons of cases you've never heard of, cults, scammers, killers. So come find your next great binge. Listen to True Crime Campfire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. new episodes every Friday. Now, before you go hunting for something else to listen to, let me make it easy. I'm Mike Carruthers, host of a podcast called Something You Should Know, and I speak with experts about fascinating things that affect your life, from human behavior, relationships,

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