Critical Role - CONTROL Resonant One-Shot

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

This one-shot is sponsored by Remedy Entertainment and their new game, CONTROL Resonant. Explore a warped Manhattan on the brink of paranatural annihilation. CONTROL Resonant is available September 24 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series Consoles. Visit https://yrstru.ly/CONTROLresonant to learn more.After 7 years of lockdown the employees of the FBC must now survive the paranatural forces running free in Manhattan. Game Master Zachery Renauldo guides players Sean Durrie, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham on this CONTROL Resonant inspired adventure.CASTZachery Renauldo - Game Master || https://www.instagram.com/zachthebold Sean Durrie - Guy Numbertwo || https://www.instagram.com/seandurrie Marisha Ray - Willamina “Willy” Ashcroft || https://www.instagram.com/marisha_ray Sam Riegel - Brice Biggler || https://www.instagram.com/ramsiegel Travis Willingham - Dr. Howard Sternling || https://www.instagram.com/willingblamCREDITSCharacter Art - Julie Dillon || https://www.instagram.com/juliedillonart Set Design & Fabrication - Noxweiler Berf || https://www.instagram.com/eatenbypotchky Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to a very special one-shot in collaboration with our friends at Remedy Entertainment and their game, Control Resonant. The game where you can explore a warped Manhattan on the brink of paranormal annihilation. The game comes out on September 24th on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles, and you can check out yours truly slash control resonant for more information. Now that said, while you may recognize the places and characters explore tonight, As inspired by elements from Control Resonant, we want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot are our own creations and interpretations and are not official content from the game,

just lovingly inspired by it. Thank you again to Remedy Entertainment for letting us play in the world of Control Resonant. Now, without further ado, let's meet some of our players. Can I start over here in this dashing suit? It's me, yours truly, Sam Riegel. Oh, wow. And to my left.

You look so nice. Yeah, I own this. I am Dr. Travis Willingham. It's nice to be with you all today. Hello, and I am Marisha Ray, inspired by Marisha Ray. Lovingly. Lovingly. And I am Sean Dury, and I'm just happy to be here.

I think there are a lot of people who are going into this thinking the power dynamic here doesn't make sense. What's going on? What's happening, right? Well, I'm very excited to be able to bring you all. into the world of control resonant, and if you have no more questions or concerns like HR, then we should get right into it. Shadows dance against the wall,

creating the images, stories, explanations that you are meant to see. Some are given the chance to turn around, to look at the light, to see the truth, Most cower turn back to the wall and accept the reality crafted for them. But who makes the shadows? The oldest house.

Thank you, thank you. And thank you guys for tuning in. Oh shit, we're in for. A large monolith sets among the skyscrapers of New York. thousands walking by it every day without even noticing its existence. This is the home to the Federal Bureau of Control, an organization dedicated to the things that humanity was never meant to see. In 2019, one of those things,

the hiss escaped containment, and the oldest house went into lockdown. A new director, Jesse Faden was able to contain the hiss. But the oldest house is still in lockdown. That was almost seven years ago. And now something much, much worse has arrived. Travis.

Travis, you, something worse. Slowly, come back to consciousness. Your head is thrumming. There's a piercing ringing in your ears. The cold tile on the floor is starting to numb your fingers as you begin to look to your left and right. You see a few other bodies.

From there, you look forward. You see a FBC Ranger holding onto their side, forcefully breathing. Would you please introduce your character? I'm Dr. Howard Sternling. I work in the research sector. Normally I take my rock and roll in my science real seriously, but sometimes those two things clash a little bit.

Yeah, I don't really remember how I got here, but I'm excited to help out any way I can. I thought when you'd get up, I'd have to put a bullet in you. But I have to admit, I'm pretty glad to see another face not tainted with that damn red hue in those chance. This man is wearing a typical FBC Ranger outfit. You see that their cowls kind of pulled down. Their goggles are to the side. You notice that they are bleeding as they hold their shirt heavily dampened by their crimson blood.

But you see it's not running down and piling up. He brings his eyes down as he looks at you. And you recognize this space as a safe room back in 2019 when the original hiss escaped from containment. This is something you would most likely have ran into before a device known as the HRA, an anti-relevant. resonance device that made it so people could walk around the oldest house without being infected by the hiss. Now, he wears a newer model, Mark 3 maybe, you would know. But the one that's wrapped around your chest is full of a bag of some kind of fluid or dust. It's classified, is what I will say, above your head.

But recently, some people in certain departments were handed these new. Mark I's AR injectors. It's got a little lights in a bag, and it leads up across your neck and pind your ear into a patch. Oh, you look like you're a little worse for the wear. You need any help? Yeah, I think that would be a understatement, for sure.

Um, sorry, I'm having a, I'm having a moment here. Um, who, uh, who did that to you? Well, it was kind of a blur. Uh, I was in containment. I was in the Panopticon. You would know the Panopticon to kind of be this containment unit

for all different kinds of altered items and objects of power. And by the time I woke up, I noticed you all here with me, about a little better where. Let's see. Marisha. You are, your head is against the wall

as you shock yourself awake, the constant alarm continuing to blaring, although dampened outside of the safe house door, as you look to see an injured FBC Ranger, as well as a scientist in front of you and two others who are still asleep. Oh, you were awake, too? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The one day, the one day I come into the office. Oh, and then all this shit happens. All right, you see a woman kind of in like a... Utility jumpsuit. She's got her belt just kind of filled with like a lot of bit of scientific doodads. Yeah. Little things, bits and bobbles.

Bandana kind of tied up around her hair. She is a researcher and a scientist, but you know, she's way more comfortable out in the field. Right. She doesn't do this pencil pusher bullshit. This is Willamina Ashcroft, but you all know me as Willie. Everyone calls me Willie. What are you, what's going on? How long have we been out?

I just woke up on the floor myself. Did she have the same sort of HRA device? Yeah, yeah, the same with, it's either a hair tie or even a rubber band. It looks maybe a little hastily made, and it's mark one as opposed to the other HRAs, which have, you know, developed over time. Instead of being this huge device like it was in 2019, now it's gotten smaller and smaller, but now the one that you wear are all a new kind of addition to this family that keeps away the hiss. Yeah, it just came too, and I've got to say, nice to see another

work your face. Our Ranger buddy over here is not the all the better for the wear. Coming to the office, your threshold. You spend time elsewhere. I've, I've buddies who do that. It's great, better than being in a cubicle. Who shot you? This looks recent. It's, I think it's something else, something from an explosion. He looks down, and you notice that although it is damp, the clothes are damp, it does look like some time has passed since this injury originally hit him. I wish I knew in the first place. Something happened in the Panopticon, and this is around the time, Sean,

that you would be waking up yourself again seeing the other faces. here in this room. No, not fridge duty. What? What? Where am I? Fridge duty? You see the Ranger lifts up a little bit.

I hate Fridge duty. He puts his head back against you're in containment. I've seen you every now and again. Connor. Connor, this is his name. Hey, Connor, I'm Guy. Guy number two.

It's a great name. Does anybody? I mean, coffee by chance. No. Hold on, let me check our supplies. And he looks over to this empty rack. That is gone cobwebs and different spiders. That is completely empty.

That was full during the 2019 outbreak, but it's definitely lost since then. Oh, man, I'm just not a morning. Is it morning? I haven't been outside so long. The Connor got shot. Oh, my God. Almost maybe.

It might have been to great. I'm not sure. I don't know the difference between being stabbed with a piece of flying. of, trust me, I'm a doctor. Can I check out your wound and push on it a little unnecessarily? Okay, yeah, of course. Oh, yeah, you have a lap coat on, I trust you. Go ahead and give me a knowledge role and add a plus to that and take away a hope.

That is 1516 with, oh, that's a crit. I'm an idiot. Oh, I'm so dumb. That is 17. Okay, whenever you crit, go ahead and give yourself a hope. Take away a stress. Yes. Yeah, you go up to, he moves his hands for you as you begin to like,

poking prod at this. He goes, good thing you're a doctor, otherwise I think this was unnecessary. As more and more blood begins to pull out, you see it's not a bullet wound. It's a graze. It's like a large graze, almost as this debris slid across the bottom of his stomach. Why are you making such a fuss for it? It's just a graze. Okay, well, because everyday sucks here, and this makes it a little bit worse. That's true.

Can you stitch me up? Do you have something? Oh, you know, fresh out a needle and thread. but maybe if you find like an iron, you know, I could just cauterize the thing. You're down for that, right? You rangers are tough. There's a stapler over there. Oh, stapler.

Yeah. Can I hand him the stapler? Swing line, this is really, this is the good stuff. Oh, yeah. Let's reincheck that idea right now, because it's not pulling up. Can someone kick this guy? There's another gentleman laying on the floor

who as the ranger slides over and kicks you a little bit, as Sam, your character awakens. I come to life. You see a man with wavy blonde hair, mustache, power suit. It's Dolce. He can't afford Dolce and Gabonna. It's just Dolce.

He's a junior vice president of vendor relations and HR. His name is Bryce Bigler. And he comes to, and he instinctively holds out a business card. Let's do lunch. Oh, sorry. What's happening? He grabs it.

He says, this is nice. What is that? Oh, that's my own personal font. Is this bone? That's nice. Yeah, I made that font, actually. Hi, what's going on? Oh, wow.

Yeah, I took one. Probably purple-hearted after this. I don't want to brag. He looks back up at the fluorescent lights that to continue to buzz. I got to be honest with you. Before you all woke up, a message played. My memory's fuzzy. I was kind of in and out of it,

but something's not right out in the Holdest house. And I don't mean typical not right. I mean, something really, really weird is going on. And unlike the events that happened years ago, I don't know if we can wait until someone comes here to get us. Oh, geez. You mean like we should. Well, you should call someone.

Yeah, we should run. Absolutely. She should run it up the chain of command. I'm sure there's somebody. I think he's actually trying to say that there's no one to call. He literally kind of just said that. There's always someone to call. Yeah, I think that's a misinterpretation.

I know a guy. I appreciate, but I am here to just tell you what I was saying, but I appreciate the interpretation. I called on my radio and there's no response from any sector. That can't be, I can't be though. We're just, we're just, we're just, We work here in the Titans Department. What about everybody else?

Nobody from the C-suite? No, and from... I don't typically have permission for the C-suite. I live in the Panopticon almost. Wow, wait. Does this mean that I'm suddenly a senior vice president? Are you... All right.

What day is it? You, sir. Hi. What day is it? Me, Connor? Yeah, thank you. Sir Connor, yeah. I've been knighted before.

I'm also British, but the accent went away. He stands up, he goes, I have no idea. Is it the hiss? It could be anything. When I went out, I was in the Panopticon. There was rumbling, oldest house movement, typical things. And then from there, I just saw an explosion, warped something that I saw the walls blow out into the middle of

and then it went white. I also haven't heard anyone. He kind of shuffles over and he presses this intercom. Essentially, this safe house store is just one large slab that is automatic that can open all at once. There is kind of think of like a pharmacy drawer

where people can walk around and put in supplies and then you open it up on the other side and grab them. There's an intercom button as well. See, he shuffles up and he starts tapping the button. Hello? Hello, hello, and then he goes to listen, and it's just pure static. Damn it.

Is there anybody, any other, like, bodies strewn about? Is it just us in the? It's just, yeah, just you guys in there. And so there's one door. And there's one door. Yeah, and this stapler. Listen, if we don't know what's out there, we should probably arm ourselves, or at least you guys should.

I'll be in the back leading. Sure. You lead from the back. Every great middle manager does. That sounds about right. Can we look around and see if there are any objects? Just in case danger is present on the other side of this door, which is the only way you enter out of this room?

Yes, yeah. You go ahead and give me an instinct roll as you try to look around this place. I can't use that experience. That's all right. I'll do 12 with hope. Oh, go ahead and give yourself a hope. With a 12, you do see that this room is relatively empty. After the years have gone by while in the oldest house,

there has been less and less supplies to go around, and the safe house was full of some pretty nice ones. You look around and you actually find a frying pan, like a cast iron skillet that could have been made with some makeshift fire or something like that. I've actually used this to reheat some mac and cheese. This thing is fucking awesome. Sorry, I don't typically know everybody's CV.

What are you a scientist of? What is your research? Research, research sector. I handle magnetism, energy and all sorts of... So you know what's going on here. I know parts of what's going on here. And by knowing, I mean, we've done research on it the past, you know, what, five, six, seven years? Figure it out.

Solve it. The explosion? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What caused it and make it go away? Yeah, yeah. I'll get right on that. Anyway, listen, maybe we can... I'll take a look at the intercom.

You guys take a look for other stuff that we can use and we'll get the door open so that the JVP over here doesn't get a little pissy in his pants. I have a pickleball game later today. What is pickleball? You have a pickleball today. In the oldest house, there's an executive fitness center. Yeah.

There's a there's a pickleball court. It's a new sport that just came out. You've been asking for a treadmill for months and you have a pickleball court? Yeah, it's a new sport that just came out. I'm sure it's going to be big in a few years. It sounds very cool. I've got my pickleball racket right here.

Oh, and that pickleball racket was in here before... I was on my way to play, so... Oh, I see. Well, my idea is that we get out of here. Yeah. Can I make my way over to the door and look for a control panel? Yeah, it's simply a button. It's a red button to close, a green button to open.

I feel like there might be a trouble out the other side of his door, though. You see that Connor kind of unslinks the carbine he's at around his back, and he pulls back on it. I'll take watch. It all opens at the same time. All right. I guess I'll look around and see if I can find something to use. Yeah, go ahead and give me an instinct roll for yourself. A 12 with hope Hey, look at you.

Right on, give yourself a hope. Yeah, I guess above the table, do you, do you want, do you have coffee right now? I would love some if I could find it. Okay. You start kind of like looking through the shelves up and down guy

as you eventually make it over to a new set of shelves that wasn't there just a second ago, it feels. This house is crazy. Yeah, shifts a lot. And on top of it is, wouldn't you believe it, a pot of coffee? Oh, thank the gods. Pull the coffee down, it just kind of feels really good. The pot itself feels good in my hand.

Like it might be the best pot I've ever held. Right, it is a classic coffee pot. It has some age on it. You know, it's patinaed a little bit with old coffee grounds and stuff at the bottom, but it is full of coffee. It looks good. Seems warm. Yeah.

I'm in luck. I'll hold on to this. There are like seven, you are in the middle of seven signs that say, if something is weird, don't touch it as you grab it and pull it off the shelf. Did you see that 30 seconds ago? You know what, but I was just waking up, and I just wasn't here yet. Maybe? As a threshold analysis.

Won't I have any idea on if this is an object of power or has been touched by the threshold? There is, it's origin, of course, not no one noticing it before in him saying it. It does seem a little bizarre, but he hasn't done anything with it. And even though you're a threshold analyst, you wouldn't know, I mean, there are hundreds of altered items and objects of power. You could assume, but I don't think from your knowledge you would know definitively until it did something bad. which doesn't mean that it's not inherently dangerous. Right, right. Cheers.

Boom. Yeah, the, you guys actually cheers. I kind of want to just, yeah. What happens? You guys, cheers? And nothing happens. Oh, good. All right, well, I'm actually already prepared.

I actually have my handy-dandy barcode scanner here. I was actually, the whole reason I was in the office today was to try and log a progress report on this and submit it to the Panopticon. So, but I guess it's mine now. Yeah, yeah. It still belongs to the corporation. Yeah, all right, Corpo.

Before we open this door, do you want to be, you know, just in case there's somebody that has to give clearance or something? I do have a security badge, but I don't think we're gonna need it to get through this door. I'm happy to take a look and just see what I can see. I'll go inspect the door and see if I can see anything's room. Yeah. You go up to this large slab of metal.

You kind of put your ear up to it. You don't hear anything. Otherwise, there's no cracks in between it either. It's just there's a multitude of things that could go wrong inside of the oldest house. So it is a sealed, locked safe room. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty standard door. The door begins to grate itself open. As, oh, all right, yeah, I guess we're doing whatever.

And then he kind of gestures you to go back as Connor puts up his rifle. The door slides open. It stops for a second, almost stuttering, and then continues on again. More fluorescent light begins to pool into the safe room. As you are met with a curved hallway with two ways to go. In the middle is a large set of bodies torn apart. Some of them shot, others ripped in half. Blood paints the walls.

Otherwise, it is black. The walls are painted black. There's a cool white tile on the ground. Whatever happened out here, some of them looked like they were making it to the safe room, but weren't as lucky. Are they just normal FPC workers? Are they elite special forces? There are a collection of different kind of agents. the majority that you would notice is that they are, in fact,

Panopticon containment sector workers. Guy, you actually realize, you knew where this hallway is. You see that to the right where this hallway kind of curves around leads to the Panopticon. To the left leads deeper into the oldest house. And from what you know is the elevator, the quickest way to go there is through the Panopticon. This isn't good. Do I, it seems like I recognize some of these people on the ground as well. This isn't good at all.

Are there any... Do you think? There any dead hiss within this pile? You would know that after a hiss, someone infected with the hiss dies, they turn into this weird ash with chromatic aberration, and then it dissolves into nothing. Um, not that I don't love my fucking death skillet, because, you know, it's got no moving parts.

always going to be there for you. It's going to work. Like, is there any chance to, like, check the bodies, especially some that might be of the protective or ranger variety and see if they have any weapons on them, like something that we might be able to loot? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and give me another instinct role as you kind of search through these guys. Okay. And plus, a 20 with fear. Oh, I will gain of fear. Oh, no. With a 20, yeah, you're able to kind of search around through a couple of these bodies, and one of them in particular seems to be more of, like a medic, a field medic for different people walking throughout the oldest house, and you're able to find a med kit on them

as well. Sick. Ignore the name. It says med kit. Got it. Meos. No, it's cool. Great. You search through the bodies. You also realize these characters on the ground are not wearing this new form.

of Resonator. They're wearing typically a Mark 3, a smaller one. It seems that you all have been quite lucky to get one of them in your own way. However, you may have received it. It seems that it is actually more rare than you thought. Is the blood or is their core around the bodies, I imagine? Oh, yes. Oh, they're like torn apart. Super, super dried or still slicky? You take a look around. It looks. like this blood has been drying for a couple days at least. Got it. Got it. Okay. All right. Is Connor still with us?

Connor is. He takes a step forward and looks at the destruction. All right. I'm unsure of what has done this. Hiss usually use weapons, explosives. They don't tear bodies like this. This is something different. Guy. Yeah. What do you think is the best course of action? Running about seven hours through the oldest house to try to find someone, or do you think that we go and do you think we try to find Langston and talk to him? Well, as the superior executive here, I feel like I should be answering that question. It is insane. You've stuck with the bureaucracy stuff. It's been my department. We've been... If we don't maintain the chain of command, then what do we have? It's just chaos. Besides, I have the nice system. It is a nice suit.

It is incredibly nice. I don't know how you keep it so well after all these years. It has a... All right. After the power. Oh my gosh. Can we get a napkin? I was like, I was like some...

This thing, I can't believe that. I literally feel like Walter White in the fly episode. I was like, this is insane. Can we remove the corpse from the battle field? Yeah, truly. Oh, God. Ooh. It is an all...

Yeah, it should not have that much... viscosity, though. Oh, my gosh. Well fed. Awesome. Got it. All good. Sorry about that. Connor, we'll look at you, Bryce. Our head of our department, Frederick Langston,

he leads the containment sector. If we talk to him, I'm sure he'll have a better idea of what's going on. I appreciate your go-getam attitude, but I do think in this situation, We should head into the Panopticon and see what happened in there. Fine, go ahead. I'm just going to write down. That's fine. Insubordination.

All right. I feel like I care about this job. Like I care about I'm supposed to be fired. You dig your own grave, guys. Let's go. I mean, you could send me home, but we can't leave this house. That's very true. Unless you do kind of the multiversal stuff, it's terrifying. It's great. Get to see the sun.

Get to see the moon. You've seen the sun? Get to see different dimensions. Oh, yeah. Wow. That's crazy. That's fascinating. That's good.

Yeah, maybe we don't need vitamin D pills. We all just need to go into the threshold. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That fresh, vacuumous air, you know? Yeah. Read too hard, your lungs will explode. It's great. I'm all right.

All right, where are we going, then? Pan out to cock. I'll take point. I'll take point. You guys start to walk through the hallway, and it doesn't seem... Are you sure you want to take point? If I'm first to die, I don't think I should be in the back.

If I fall at any time, at least you'll have a moment to run away. That's so noble. That's really, is that part of ever your Ranger Creed? No. Oh. The Ranger Creed has died a long time ago. Got it. Yeah, I'll be stewing on it, though, if I remember it at some point.

And it will come up. I guarantee you. As you guys continue to head down the hallway, you see that. I'm not stapler. Yeah, I grew the stapler. As you continue down to head through the hallway, the bodies continue to pile up. Around the safe room, they seem to legitimately pile up into the corners. Here you'll see a body that's been shot, another one that seems to have crawled from the leading the hallway to the Panopticon.

And eventually, you see a guy the familiar lights of the Panopticon. You take a couple of steps forward, and already you can make out that this entire containment. sector has been ravaged. On to the metal grating of the different levels that there are around this area, you see almost this cone, this large open maw inside of the oldest house. It looks like a gulag or a jail, large spotlights on different parts of the walls that kind of spark to life and die away, others holding onto different containment cells. and on each one of these containment cells,

they've been ruptured, destroyed, and opened. There are a different set of bridges that connect both sides of each level. Right now you're on level four, and then it goes three, two, and one. There are two levels above you as well. In order to get to Langston, you know that you would have to go four levels down,

cross the bridge that, you take a peek over, is in rough shambles and floats on its own. And on the other side would lead to a hallway that leads to both the elevator and also Langston's office. This couldn't be worse, everyone. And now for the bad news, if it's like this on every level, we're talking about a eminent threat. Yeah, where are the objects of power? Gone. I mean, they're not here.

You see a couple of weird items kind of float through the air, watch, a backpack, some other things. And you see, Connor puts his hands on the rail and puts his head down. This is immeasurably worse. Do you know how many people gave their lives and firebreak to get these damn things back? What a joke. Connor looks up at you all. He looks at the speaker that is next to your head.

Langston! Langston, are you there? There's a moment. A beat. And then it ch-it it chimes up. This is Simon Areech, head of security and operations

with a security announcement. The lockdown is falling. All non-combat personnel find your nearest safe room. Do not rely on your HRA to protect you from the hiss. I repeat, the lockdown is falling.

Combat ready personnel report to section leaders immediately for further instructions. Converge on the lobby. We cannot let the hiss escape. This is our only priority. Director Faden, please make contact immediately. Jesse, if you're hearing this,

we could use some goddamn help. And it cuts off. Swear jar. Connor looks up and he goes, that's what I heard earlier, before you all woke up. It's pre-recorded, like on a loop? I believe so. It sounded just the same.

I only heard it once. How long has it been gone? I'm unsure. Did you pull us into the room, into the containment room? I woke up and the room was empty. I was in and out of it, and every time another body and another body showed up,

I thought it was the hiss, or some other item that entered, that spawned sleeping people. I wish I could say I did, but but unfortunately not. Okay, so the lobby is down, but the bridge is out and up is also bad. I say we take the elevator down.

If it's stable enough, we can jump across the bridge, get to Langston, and figure out what's going on through the department heads. I need to, I'll need to head to the lobby. Sounds like we all need to head to the lobby, no? Langston is my team lead, so I think that's exactly where I need to go is down and across. And it sounds like the heavy action is down in the lobby, which you are suited for us, not so much. Also, are the elevators reliable?

Usually in this situation, stairs. You would actually know the elevators here, it's an understatement if they're reliable. The elevators here are very weird. Sometimes the buttons show up. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes you see some floors and you blink and they're gone. So asking Connor that, he'll kind of look away and go, honestly, I have no idea.

Yeah, yeah. But Langston will have a better idea. If we can just make it across from the bottom, hopefully nothing comes around and affects us, and we can get out of here. I was part of some of the teams that were bringing back some of these objects of power. The Flamingo.

Oh. Guy, the pink flamingo! What's that? What's the flamingo? It's a real bad man. If you see a pink yard flamingo, you run, okay? Stay away. But not in the straight line. Yeah.

Zigzag serpentine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying. It's just a flamingo, you know? Not just a flamingo. It's never just a flamingo. Do you see sweet people know anything? Do you know what you do this company does for a living?

Do you know? I'm in charge of vendor relations, so I'm trying to get good deal on stuff that we use here. We use aviation technology. We use batteries. We use all sorts of paper goods. I negotiate those.

So I can get you a deal on paper. Okay. Who have you been negotiating with for the past seven years? Well, I didn't want to bring it up, but I've had a pretty cush job for the past few years because not a lot of interfacing with the outside world. So I've been cruising pretty nicely. You wear it well.

I would have never. thought that in a million years. It's been, I haven't really had anything to do for quite some time. And my assistant is pretty nice to look at. That's, um... Oh, okay. Yeah, Conardtry... Let's go so this guy can die first.

I think we should go. We should go. You're stay in the back. All right. Let's go. Connor begins to walk around and sure enough, every single cell differently has been destroyed in some way, but each one of them does no longer hold. some kind of item. You continue around until finally you make it to an elevator that moves

throughout the different parts of the Panopticon, and you would sadly know there's no fire escape, so you have to take the elevator, and it does not look good. He steps onto, Connor steps onto the metal grating and turns around and looks at you all, unless you have a rope. I think this is the best way forward. I have a tie. You should hang yourself with it. Let's go. Take it easy. It's not how we talk in the Ivy Leaf. Oh, you would, you would do an Ivy League school? I went to Yale State. I'm sorry.

Yale State. Yale State? Yeah. What you go for? What I go for? Business. Okay, just general business? Yeah, just business. Okay. Yeah, Yale State. Who's your dad?

My dad is Mort. Mort. Mort Biggler? Yeah. Senior. Yeah, he was a big donor to Yale State. I see, okay. Well, he starts, like, pressing the button really fast. Is it short for Mortimer Biggler? It is. It is. I think the old man would be pretty proud of me today. I mean... Proud of you?

Yeah. Yeah. For doing... I mean, look at me. You're shining. I like your attitude, though. I got to admit, you know, there's been a couple of things you said, but I do like your attitude. Thank you. It makes me feel a little bit better. You're going places, kid. He stands a little taller. He's like a 45-year-old man. He starts, he goes, thanks.

He's clearly oily. He presses the button. As the elevator shakes to life, you begin to descend. You go through AI containment and then something that says redacted on the sides as you go down another. Archives, and then eventually firebreak, as the elevator stops once again, you take a step out in front of you. Is this large bridge connecting one side of firebreak sector to the other while still in the Panopticon? Connor takes a couple of steps forward.

And now that you have a closer visual of this bridge, you notice that it is cracked and it is precariously kind of hanging, floating by itself. But the amount of times that you've seen the architecture change and weird floating anomalies all around inside of the oldest house in general, you feel okay about it. Connor kind of takes a step forward and pokes it with his leg and it doesn't move up or down except for the kind of,

wobbling it was doing before, and he just kind of takes a leap and he stands on it. He turns around to you, he goes, I feel good. He slinks his gun back around, and he turns around and continues to walk across the bridge. All right. I'll follow him. As you guys continue to jump from point to point on the bridge, eventually you make out the hallway, or where the hallway should be. You get to the end of the bridge and different smooth, like poured cement pillars of brutalist architecture are pointing out from the sides and the bottom where the entrance to this hallway should be. You see they layer and stack themselves in such a way that there is a hole in the middle where they don't meet, but it's much, much too small for anyone to fit through.

Connor walks up and he slams against the concrete. Damn it! Of all times for the oldest house to... He kind of sits down. Side hurts. Give me the stapler. Oh yeah. Hold on. Everybody have a lighter?

Oh, yeah. Take it. Just kind of sterilize it with the flame, toss it back. Ha! Here you go. Yeah, thanks. And Connor will be getting up the courage to staple himself back together.

As you, especially guy, you would know, there is not another way, except a very probably dangerous way out of the Panopticon, other than going straight through this layered concrete. Well, let me try something, everyone. This sometimes works. I go up to it, and I put my hand against it

and say, open sesame. You feel almost this three, drumming energy inside of your chest. You close your eyes, you think they're rolling back in your head. The words escape your lips, you open them, and nothing happened. Oh. Come on, let's not get down here, guys. I'm going to use my morale manipulator.

Okay. And just to tell everyone, hey, when life gives you lemons, am I right? Listen, we need to read the room. We'll finish the sentence. We need to make some synergy between us. We need to circle back on this. and we need to plow ahead and make our numbers, all right? I don't think he knows about half the sentence.

And that's my pep talk, and we all get one hope. Oh, great. You hear, Conner, go. Do we get a half a hope because it was only half an idea? It says presents, but I think it's just a trait. No, that's just telling what your spellcast trait is. So you do not have to roll for it. Great.

You hear it right after the end of speech. You hear, as Connor staples, one staple into his side. Light this back up. Light this back up, quick. Yeah, and he hands back, he goes, damn it, I can't do it. I can't do it. Yeah, I'd be too,

oh, God. Yeah. He should have a staple, all in one. So, and we're trying to get to Frederick Longston's office, basically? Yeah, you would know it is essentially, the hallway is,

you can't even get to the hallway. You're still in the panopticon. There's a little opening, no bigger than, I don't know, the size of, of, like, a stick of butter that you can look through. But you would know if you had access to this hallway, to the immediate right would be Langston's office, and then the elevator would be straight ahead.

Can I use my ability path forward when I'm traveling to a place I've previously visited or carrying an object that has been there? I can identify the shortest, most direct path to your destination. Yeah. And what does it look like when you kind of kind of activate this. Or you're just like thinking through

like the times you've had to jump between sectors because you would come out of a threshold, right? For sure. Like is there something in terms of like walking the boundaries beyond the threshold that I could like sneak through there? Yeah. You begin to think of this threshold,

any kind of like skip any way that you could get through. You know you'd probably have to open a door or like some kind of vent and hope that some weird collision has happened. And as you turn around to kind of look, you're hit with a lamp switch, like a light switch.

And you look up and continuing almost forever all the way up. Pull-string ones. Is a pole-string light switch that goes into the darkness above. And at the bottom, it's not like an oval handle. It's like a crystal ball. Like the one that,

you'd see at your grandma's house on a decorative lamp, right? Clearly made out of glass. And it's just there. And you don't remember it being there a second ago, and you take a step back and down on the floor, you see a, like an A post sign, almost like a wet floor sign. And it is pure white, has the FBC logo on it, and it says one thing, the law of three applies in like aerial font.

The law of three applies. Okay. I turn the lights, I pull on the light string, three times. Hey, look at that. Click, click, click, click. You press onto the light string. You all see blue for a second as you press it again. Oh.

As you look around to the orange, Connor holding the last staple. One more time. You switch straight. Everything's gone around you. You are holding this light switch. You are all now in a different place entirely. Everyone, remain calm.

Oh, God, the staple. Remain calm. You see. Not the copy, that's gone. You are no longer in the Panopticon. You're in a school. You see a section of lockers in this hallway, a few doors leading to some classrooms.

And you hear it's a radio. You hear a radio off in the distance from something on a janitor cart next to another door that leads to another room. There is intense golden hour sunlight coming through the main front doors. And you are otherwise the string gone in your hands no longer in the Panopticon. Anybody else getting elementary or middle school vibes? From where it's...

I was really popular. You were living your golden days right now. That's great. You drove a chamsammed in here. Oh my God. Trans-ish. That a transmission. You said there's a janitor card?

There is. I'm going to go over and just sort of look at it, see if I can see the source of this music. Yeah, you go and walk over and there's this small, like, silver radio that's playing. You see the janitor car has some trash in it and some garbage, and you see that there's a janitorial door behind. And then to the left, you can kind of make out what clearly looks like at the principal's office.

Before I re-inspect any of those other things, I'm just going to see if I can turn the dials on the radio a little bit to see if we can get some news from the outside world. Yeah, you start turning the dials, and you find a new station, and this song is playing. And the same song's playing. At least it's a good song. It's a good song.

A little bum-up. All right, nothing from the outside world. We've got janitor's office, principal's office? Yes. The principal's office door is open. The janitor's door is closed. Any of the lockers open or unlocked? You go up to one of the lockers and you mess with it.

There's a dial at the top. You mess with it for a little bit and it doesn't give. There are a couple of classrooms as well, but their doors are closed. I go over to the janitor's door and start banging on it and say, Atty, are you here? Are you down? You all start floating. Yeah.

You start knocking on the door and there's no response. This seems like Ati's card. He's the janitor on my floor. I think every floor. He's odd guy speaks in riddles. You said, Auti? Auti.

He's a nice guy. Well, if you think he's in danger, let's try to get in there. I'm going to go up and use my security badge to try to get in and I will use my ability pick and pull. I have an advantage on action rolls to pick non-magical locks.

I try the old credit card swipe. Yeah, with my security badge. So you start messing with it, but however, this is a perinatural lock. So you can try, but it doesn't even seem that when you go to put the slider in it, you're not even hitting really like a...

Try anyway. All right, great. Perfect. I'm going to roll. What am I rolling? Do I roll? Yeah, I think it's a... Vanessa. Fennesse.

Even better. All right, let's see. With advantage, right? Yeah, yeah. 15 with fear. I'll go ahead and get a fear. Yeah, you start messing with this lock. You originally try to scan it for some reason,

but then he starts to pick at it a little bit more, and there's no give. Well. Sorry, Ozzy's dead. Oh, gosh. Is there anything in the course that we might be able to use, like any cleaning can, chemicals or any sorts of like brooms or mops or anything like that?

Yeah, I would say that you find a mop. Okay, yeah. I was hoping for some like, you know, bleach or something that could be a little combustible or corrosive. Yeah, you hear Connor says, guys, guys can look at this. And you will all head over to one of the classrooms. And you see that on the side, you're kind of looking through the window. The door is locked, but you look into the window and you see a set of the desks that are pointing away from the chalkboard.

But the chalkboard says, today's lesson, fun! Exclamation mark. There are a set of windows on the other side, but the light coming in is a bit too intense to see kind of what's out there, and then all the way on the back is a bookshelf. Is the door to the classroom locked? It is locked. All on, these lab coats are pretty durable, and I'll throw an elbow through the little pane of glass of the door.

Yeah, what looks like to be normal glass does not get. at all. Oh my god. It's like a worst. I hope my fingers are fucking dumb. Do you need the stapler? He's got a stapler. I'm going to try this one too.

Let's do... Oh, you're going to pick this one as well? Oh, good. Go ahead. Let's try again. Oh, my God. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

That is a... My persiditis. 12 with also fear. Oh, 12 with also fear. Great. I will gain a fear. Oh, God. Picking at this lock and you know, 12's a fine number.

You go to unlock it and it doesn't give. But as you look up and then you see your beautiful profile in the reflection of the glass, you do see the principal's office behind you that seems to have... It's wide open. Okay, it's still wide open. Okay. And we're, you know, because I was just talking about how like the best part about this job is that you get to see the sun sometimes.

Oh. Does this, is this feel like the sun? This is the first time anyone. here, unless you went through some dimension which had the sun, which I don't know exists, classified information for sure. But otherwise, for everyone here, this is the first time you felt warm sunlight coming through, what would be the breezeway area, because the classrooms are too far apart and they're locked in seven years. This is pretty cool. Maybe Willamene, since this is just casual fare for you, you could check out the principal's office and we'll just enjoy this for a

Did you fuck up your elbow that bad? It's really hard. Okay, take a deep breath. I rush over to a sliver of sunlight and just put my face in it. Like a dog rubbing. Like a dog? Yeah.

Yeah. You're so pale. You're so pale. You're so pale. You're still. Your skin starts to sizzle. Oh, hot. You're feeling really good about the situation now.

Vitamin D is really working on. I'll go check out the principal's office. You walk into the principal's office? You see this beautiful mahogany desk in the middle. You see that there is a collection of books that have kind of stacked up on the desk, a collection of papers, that seem to say gibberish nonsense school words, but none of them really make a coherent story or

sentence. You look to the wall to see another set of bookshelves and an intercom microphone in the middle that is accompanied by a small white sign that has the same font and colors as the one that says the law of three applies that says begin school. On the right is a calendar that shows a school year, and then there are four different sections of the day, period one, two, three, and four.

And what day, what does it say what day is? There are four lights illuminated next to it. Sorry, not illuminated next to it yet. Okay, it's cool. Okay, I go over. to the desk and I sit down. Press the button. Hello everybody, it's Vice Principal Willie here.

School is in session, all right? Everybody get to class on time. I don't want any tardy kids coming into my office, all right? Don't do drugs. You let go open the button. And I start school. And yeah, you'll hear like a, as one of the lights turns on and a door opens up in the hallway.

Out where we are? Yeah. So right now, you're kind of past the breezeway. There are two classrooms behind you. There are two classrooms in front of you. If you are looking at the breezeway, two are on the left, two are on the right. The one that is farthest from you on the left has opened. Let's check that out.

Will I meet a door opens? You did something. I did? Hurry. Awesome. Yeah, you see that Connor is still sitting down in the hallway. You guys are doing so good. You walk into this classroom to find a set of desks that look towards the front that says today's lesson is fun.

Today's subject is fun. Whatever I said earlier, you see the set of windows where the light is coming in and you see a bookshelf. And the desks are facing towards a chalkboard or back towards? They're facing the chalkboard. Okay. Yeah, well, I'll head in and inspect the bookshelf for any sorts of... Yeah, you look around. There's a bunch of different names.

You see A Tale of Two Cities. You see other books kids read these days. And there's nothing out of the ordinary. Just a couple of desks. And you go around and turns to see the desks and everything seems to be fun. Is there anything written on the chalkboard? Just today's subject. Fun, exclamation mark.

I'm going to go over to the windows and see if any of them happened to open. It is so bright, but you can manage to touch some of the latches, and they don't even, they don't budge. All right. Well, then I guess we've got to look at these desks. Yeah. The desks are old-time desks. They don't open up. There's just a place where you can put your book bag under them, like a wire book bag holder. It doesn't seem to be anything there. Been a minute, though, I'll sit in one of the desks and just feel hot.

It takes you back. Yeah. Let's see if I can lay down for it. Yeah. I'm a little too big. Is there a teacher's desk too, or is it just? Yeah, yeah. It's got a nice apple on it, a couple of pencils. I'll go over to the teacher's desk, see if I can open any drawers.

Yeah. Feel around on the bottom for anything. Go ahead and give me an instinct roll. Instinct roll. Great. And I'm going to use my experience. I'll mark a stress. I'm using my experience.

I went to Yale. State. State. State. I've spent a lot of time in classrooms, so I'm familiar with lots of desks and stuff. I got, that is horrifically bad. Five with fear.

Oh, no. Five with hope. With hope. With your experience points? Great, yes. Awesome. With your experience? Wow. Give yourself a hope.

Can't get worse. Oh, but otherwise, this seems like a normal classroom. God, damn. Can I go over to the chalkboard. Is there like a small piece of chalk down in the little tray at the bottom of it? I'll grab it and I'll write my favorite science joke, which is why can't you trust an Adam?

Because they make up everything. Nice, gosh God. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's fun. Yeah, that's fun. That's quite a humor.

Yeah. Did anything happen? Nothing happened. You hear a little ding over the intercom. Period two is about to begin. Oh, right to go to another classroom. I'm gonna poke my head on and see if any other doors opened down. Nope, not yet.

Okay. Period two is about to begin. Yes. Although there was a button in the principal's office, right? Is there a button in this room anywhere? Do we see anything that looks like a? Nope. Okay. Or in a classroom? All right, just think.

What do you do in a school? What do you do in high school? You make out with pretty girls. You have sex under the bleachers. You get named prom, a homecoming king. Sex-on-12. You, like, what do you, what else do, what people do in...

You go to class, you do your... Get an education. You get shoved in lockers and... Yeah, they get swirling under sleepers. You shove people in lockers, that's right, yeah. You throw pencils on the ceiling. I'm going to throw some pencils on the ceiling. Yeah, yeah.

You start thinking about all of that stuff, and the door closes. While we're still in the room? Yep. Oh, shit. Okay, okay. Do I notice anything that feels out of place Deliberately anything? No. We're just, we're locked in. I jiggie the handle.

It's locked. Oh, great. Moments go by and you hear an announcement. Period three is about to begin. You wait a little bit longer, you hear another door open somewhere off in the distance. Period four is about to begin. The door across from you opens up.

You wait for a little bit. Period one is about to begin and the door opens. Oh. It's cycling. It's cycling. Okay. How do we, let's go find out where period two is about to begin.

Period two is about to begin. Get out of the hallway! Get on the hallway! Okay, okay, you're in the hallway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As you do, period two has begun, and a door opens. Um... Yeah, you run on over, and this is the room with the desks

that are pointed away from the front door. Or from the chalkboard side. Two desks, right? It's actually, it's four rows of desks. Okay, but they're all facing the wrong way. So the first one, first period, fun is about to begin. Yep. It's towards the chalkboard.

Two is away from... It says today's subject, fun, exclamation mark. The only thing different is the seats. The seats are backwards, too. Okay, backwards desks. Still an apple on the desk? Yep, everything else seems to be in order. I'd like to go grab the apple.

You grab the apple? Nothing. Not of the ordinary. Stay out of the road, I guess we've got to stay out for period three. For period three, yeah. We'll wait 40 minutes till next period, I guess. And it just cycles again until the door opens. Okay, we'll rush to wherever period three.

You go over to period three, and you see that everything looks pretty ordinary, but there's nothing on the chalkboard. What? No, okay. No, I'll go over and grab the chalk and write today's subject, fun! Exclamation point. Great. Makeable matchies, maybe. Okay. Okay. Which way are the desks facing? There's, it's a chalkboard. It's a chalkboard, okay.

Period four. The door opens, and you look around and nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, except there's a book missing in the back. Missing. Yeah. Is it a tale of two cities? It's not a tale of cities. Only one you listed? No, it is not. Twilight's okay? Yeah, right?

Yeah. It is, at Kwinsela, there's a book on the floor. Oh, we should put it back. Let's put it back. You go and you, I guess, who picks up the book? I will, I will, I will, I will do a hyper-focused study as part of my class features. Whenever I can act or roll or understand information, you can choose the role of the D20. I will go to pick up.

Well, Dr. Sternling, as you go walk over, you recognize the author of this, Look, this is your boss's book, Dr. Darling. He's a scientist. It's weird because you look at him and you wouldn't think he's jacked, but maybe under that he's really, really ripped. But it says Dr. Darling, and the title is My Interpretation of Many Worlds.

Oh, actually, this is my superior book. He wrote this. His interpretation of many worlds. It's a fascinating read that I haven't finished yet. I'll go to pick it up and just kind of thumb through the pages? Yeah, and it just, it talks about all these weird things, uh, uh, uh, paranormal, uh, occurrences. It talks about, uh, theories of different dimensions, um, but nothing that would be, you know, unclassified, uh, or would be classified, uh, or would be

classified that would be written in this book. Now, look at the very first page, back page, any sort of personalization that's been made on this one just, just, the slot on the bookshelf where it goes. I'll just, uh, I'll just go and put it back. Is the normal message on the chalkboard? Yep. Because they subjectified and put it back on the bookshelf. The next period comes by, and there is nothing different with this room until you open up to period two, and that's where the desks are facing the wrong way. Oh, yeah. You flip these desks.

You flip the desks around, and you're up, boom, the school day is now over. Oh, that's nice. That's usually the best part of the day. Running in the hallway is anything different? Yeah, the janitor's room is open. Oh, sweet. Okay. You're going. Yeah, let's see.

You go and you walk over, and it is a normal utility room. There are sets of different chemicals and mops, brooms. And you see, a key is sitting on a stool in the middle of the room. Well, that seems important. Yeah. And I walk over. Just careful. Oh.

Careful. Are we sure it's all right? I don't know. I just figured it was the only thing in here that seems interesting. Does the keys? seem cool. It has a little mark. It does seem cool. It does a backflip.

It's wearing sunglasses. You see that it does have a tag on it and it says a breezeway door. Oh, that's very convenient. I also put things that I tend to forget in obvious places so that I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there, are any of the chemicals

like bleach or hydrochloric acid or like acetone or anything that is, you know, incendiary or combustible? Yeah, it's bleach. It's bleach. I'll take it. Right, you now have a container of bleach with you. All right, I guess it's all right. Let me do a test real quick.

Okay. I pull out my own keys and I jingle them. I'll get the key to see. You do the perfect containment sector test. Tested many times, you jingle the keys over. Oh, wow. Nothing seems to happen. Yeah.

I think it's a regular key, everyone. Absolutely. Your best guy. All right. I grabbed the key. You grab the key? You're good? Connor walks over, he goes,

I'm actually feeling a lot better. Oh, that's great. Yeah, the Staples really didn't. Good, good, good, good. I have this health kit, but I figure I say it's cool of one of us. Oh, no, it's cool. The Staples definitely work. That is how that should.

That's a cool key. I think it's, it unlocks the breezeway. Let's try the breezeway. You guys walk over to the breezeway, and you put it into the keyhole, and you give it a little jiggle, and the doors open into this area that leads to another set of doors that lead outside,

but it's so bright you can't see. And there's also a light switch there. And on the bottom, it says the law of three applies. Oh, you do your switchy-switchy is the thing. I guess so. I mean, we're kinda stuck here, right? All right. Click, click.

You snap at once? Click, click. Click, click. And you end up back in a new space. You are no longer holding this string, and all of you are in the same space inside of an elevator. The doors slowly begin to open. As you look at where the panel should be for the buttons,

there's nothing. There's no ground floor, there's no other sectors at all. But the doors do open, and you are met for the first time in quite some time with the bottom floor of the oldest house. You take a step out and you look and no longer are you in this, weird prison brutalist architecture that is you would find inside of the panopticon. Instead, it's like this weirdly mid-century modern 60s, 70s area that you would know as you would be familiar with this, not Willie. It is Bryce. Went to Duke or Yale State. You would look around

and this looks familiar to the executive sector. It's not because the executive sector is way up, like way higher, but this familiar aesthetic is more akin to like the office than anywhere else. It's classy down here. Yeah. Okay. In front of you is a large open office area. It is in total disarray. There are chairs and desks moved over.

There's a few bodies that are spayed out across blood going across them as well. You notice that in the hallway to your right and to your left, but since this is like an open concept area, the hallways just lead around to the back of this office where you would surmises where the lobby would be. Oh, boy. This is where everybody was supposed to rally, right? Is this the lobby? It is not the lobby.

It is like the closest room to the lobby. You've just taken the elevator down. The elevator doors begin to close, and they slide shut with almost like this practiced bravado as you look out into the rest of this room. I mean, and it's just a mess everywhere. There's papers all over the place? Yeah, it's a mess.

There's papers. There's like those old analog, like recorders and tapes around that kind of have a tapestry of buttons that light up every now and again. But everything is pretty messed up. Any sounds like eerily quiet or any off the music or nothing? Okay. All right, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Sort of fan out and look around? Well, I mean, this is your...

This is your domain. I'm not used to this. Yeah, but I mean, there's stuff that can kill you down here. Not someone in a JVP role, right? It looks like there's a junior vice president. That's a Dolce suit. I mean, this is really your chance for promotion. That's a very fair point.

All right, follow my lead. I'm going to forge in and just sort of confidently walk around the perimeter trying to get to the other side of the chamber. You continue to walk different murals and portraits of different containment heads throughout the year's director. You see one where it is Jesse Fading the current. I'm not just walking. I'm power walking. Oh, like heel to toe.

Yeah, that's nice. Everyone's trying to keep up with you. Click, click, clock. There's a man who's been shot that's kind of laying over. The blood is over. Jesse's portrait as it goes by each different director, Zachariah Trench, and then into Northmore. And then onto Theodore Ash, Sr. until finally, you smell something you haven't in a while.

It's fresh air. Oh my God. Is there a direction it's coming from? Yeah, there's only kind of one where it kind of circles around, but it is heading straight towards where you would know the foyer, like the lobby to be. We might be able to get out of here. Would you be like out, out, out, out outside the building out?

Yes. Let's go. You begin to take a few steps forward and there, for the first time in seven years, you see, see this granite flooring that holds the large Federal Bureau of Control logo. You're on the second floor of this lobby area, and you see that there are two sets of stairs going down leading to a like an administration desk that is also covered in bodies. And at the end is the entrance to the oldest house, a concrete barrier over its doors,

and it's broken and hazy sunlight is pouring into the room. I've never. I haven't either. That can't be good. I mean, imagine how beautiful it is out there and how between 2019 and 26 nothing bad happened out there. Well, let's go see. What do we wait for?

Let's go. Nothing can hurt us now. You make a bad dash for you. Yeah, you all start running towards, this broken section of the wall. And then you see that Connor starts to lead the charge as he takes a couple of steps forward. It's been so long since I've been able to see sunlight

and he takes a step into the light itself and then he stops. And then you hear that familiar noise once again. Oh, it's random. As the chanting of the hiss, bodies floating outside, begin to fill the ears of Connor as he begins to slump a bit down. Oh, Connor, no. Everyone plug your ears. Don't listen.

You see, he begins to speak irrationally. A copy of a copy. And his body twists and morphs back as you see red pulses begin to surge through his body. You see his eyes erratically begin to change. change as he pulls his rifle out and aims it at you. And that is where we're going to go to Brightness. Don't trust the outdoors. Don't trust the sun.

Connor, why? And we're back. You guys see Connor as, I didn't see that yet. You guys see as Connor now faces you, he takes his rifle and he's going to aim right at you. I am going to spend a fear to take the spotlight right away as he's just going to take a barrage of bullets. and shoot it out across at you all.

But Connor, we're so cool. I stapled your belly button. That is going to be a 20 to hit all of you as he misses, but hits the ground as the bits and pieces of the rock hit you all there as well. Oh, geez. This is a shrapnel. This is like a shrapnel hit, right?

They all definitely hits. That is a, going to be five damage to everybody. So it is below your threshold. It is one. If it is above your first threshold, it is two. I will take an arm, I will mark an armor slot to reduce it to zero. I will do the same.

My power suit is so powerful that the shrapnel just deflects right off it. It's possibly because it's a knockoff suit. It's just because it's polyester. It covers. Wait a lot of it. Connor does come back to consciousness to say that. You lie to me.

Why is it dipped in wax? At the same time that you recoil from the scent of shrapnel flying at you, you see that another body has actually been floating above you this entire time as landing right in front in the center of this arena is a large, almost full body Kevlar juggernaut that has been ripped through the side. It has covered it in bullet wounds. It seems to have some kind of trauma to its head as the, the helmet is cracked and its eyes stare at you all.

The spotlight goes to you. Oh, is it a bad guy? It looks pretty bad. What do you mean? I trust everybody. Oh, geez. It works for me. I'm going to grab my trust fucking skillet.

Yeah. I'm going to rip out of my bag of devices. I'm going to go riot bat where I'm going to make a spellcast against a target within melee role. Is he close? Yeah, I would take it within everyone for the, The rules of Daggerheart, they are close enough to you that you can hit with melee if you run up to them.

I'm gonna do a run and skillet jump on this bitch. I'm the big boy. It's a Waffle House, baby. Okay, I'm gonna, that's 11, 9, 10, 11, 11 with fear. I will gain a fear. 11 does hit. As you jump up, you see this thing pounds its fist together and it's ready to grab you as you jump towards it.

That's incredible. Because it's, I have a face your fear trait. When I succeed with fear on attack roll, I deal an extra 1 D10 magic damage. Oh, nice. D10 plus two, which is a 10 plus two for 12, but I'll roll another one. Another 10-22.

Holy! Holy! Holy! Yeah. As you run up, you guys see the hazy yellow light reflects off this black cast iron, don't know how it works, but you smack right into its skull, but you see it, it reclquite.

from the strength of this doctor, this scientist, hitting it on its head and it shakes it off. That is going to be its severe threshold. It is going to take some damage from that. Take that deflion. You were able to throw it off, but you rolled with fear, and I guess, well, let's see here, that is going to be a guy.

You also feel this like almost pulsing energy next to you as you take a step back, papers and different debris and rocks begin to swirl around almost like a tornado until they all condense for a moment and expand into a red orb that starts to zip around the different arena. It seems to be that this is some form of concentrated hiss. As it appears, I'm going to spend a fear after I spawn it, and you see as it begins to roll around

this kind of vibration you feel emanating from it, almost aligns with that of all of these soldiers now infected with the hiss. And you see where you hit it across the head with the frying pan begins to seal a little bit as it begins to move around the room. I'll move the spotlight to you. How does Connor look? It's clear that he's like, you know. You would know from your interactions with the hiss.

There's no coming back. Maybe a massage and like some Lavender tea would bring it back. Maybe a little tickle. Yeah, you can. Try all that, it wouldn't work. But you would even know if direct or fate in here. Like there's no. So just above table, the three threats on the board are big monster.

Big guy. Connor with a gun. And now a orb. Yeah. Okay. Connor's still an active threat. Correct. Oh, yeah.

When the orb starts to appear and take shape next to me, I let out a very manly, frightened scream. Yeah. And I throw my coffee from the coffee pot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You go and as almost instinctually. Right, right.

You see as it like teleports around you almost right before it goes away, you're able to throw your coffee pot. Go ahead and give me an attack roll for your coffee pot. And I will roll for your alter item effect. That's right. That would be a nine with, that'll be with hope. Oh, awesome.

Go ahead and give yourself a hope. But with a nine, you throw your coffee pot at this. Do you throw the full coffee pot out of it? No, I splash. Oh, you splash it. Like the most non-aggressive, aggressive thing I could do would just spill my coffee on it. The lid opens up. It almost says it's this entity,

this coffee itself, comes to life and attempts to throw itself over this orb. It just moves out of the way as it misses. It comes back to you, and it slams into your hands, and because of the power in which it comes back, the coffee pot flies out 15 feet behind you. And before you can go get it, it is my highlight. This big boy is going to look right at you, doctor.

He is going to attempt to. I don't think anyone from where you guys had entered because you had ran up to him, that you would be close enough for him to hit anyone else. It's going to be a five as he attempts to grab him. What does it look like as he tries to bear hug you when you just get out of the way. Yeah, he reaches for me

and some of the Pam cooking spray that's on the surface of the skillet. I just slide it along my thigh and do a little baseball slide. Right underneath out of his grasp. As you move out of the way, he slips on the Pam, and you see he slams his knee into the ground

as it chips away at the ground as he turns around to you. I'm actually going to spend another fear as... Forty. Connor here is going to attempt to shoot you with his gun in some capacity. Oh, no.

So this is going to be over to, no one else has really done anything. So I think they see this research sector as the biggest threats. I mean, clearly. That is going to be a five to hit as he attempts to shoot you. Wow.

Sam is doing double duty. He pulls back loading the rifle and takes a couple shots. You are able to continue sliding as different bullets. Got to fill up the wall behind you. I use my lab coat like a bullfighter. Yeah.

Create an... The coolest is life ever. Hard to gauge. I'm about like for fear. I'm going to spend one more to hopefully get my fear back. This thing releases an incredibly loud chance. This juggernaut stands up and he slams his fist together

and he goes, and says a bunch of stuff that is incoherent to you. I need everybody. Go ahead and give me a presence reaction rule. Remember with reactions? Yes, it's going to be everyone within far range. With a reaction roll, you roll your 2D12s.

You're going to add your presence, and hope and fear does not matter for reaction rolls. Crit over here. Crit over here. Double fours. Double one. That is so awesome. Well, since it's a reaction roll, both of you are going to mark a stress. Nice.

A stress. Yeah, you're going to mark a stress. Yes, sadly. Marisha? Wiley? Clifton. Couldn't be. Wouldn't be worse.

I'm looking to see, make sure I have anything. Not really. Three with fear? I rolled a three with fear. Okay, all right. Luckily, it doesn't matter. Would not be worse. Yeah, truly. You are going to lose a hope. I will gain a fear.

And then over here, Guy, what did you roll? A 14. 14. Okay, great. That is going to pass. Go ahead and mark a sure. stress, though, as you have to shake off the chanting noise. As it looks back at you all, I will pass the spotlight to you.

First of all, I'm going to, gosh, what's the biggest threat? The juggernaut, right? Or the guy with the gun? And remember, the thing is, it looks like it's healing it. Yeah, it looks like it doesn't... The juggernaut, like, has regeneration, so I don't know if we need to go for the little orbie orb first. That's healing it. Okay. I'll go for the orbie orb. First, I will... I will yell at it.

Oh, yeah. Most of my abilities are yelling. Moral manipulator, I will use my judgment ability. And I will tell the orb, you're nothing. You're not going to make it in this company. Rise above whatever level you're at right now, which is hard to discern.

You're not going to get above that. You should just quit and go find another line of work. And that makes him vulnerable. Vulnerable. So those who don't know, when a creature is vulnerable, It means that you have advantage against the attacks. You'll add a D6 to the roll to see if you head. So now I will attack it with my pickleball racket.

Perfect. Okay. It doesn't have a face, but you feel like it's turned its attention towards you for sure. Here goes. That's a six and a 12 plus one. That's a lot. That's 19 with hope. Oh, give yourself a hope.

19 absolutely hits. Go ahead and roll damage. As you slice your, did you take it out of its sheath, the pickleball? Oh, that's very fair. Yes, I do this a couple of times to warm up the old arm. It's been a while. And then, sure, I'll unzip, get rid of the sheath, and then come down hard. Yeah, it slides down against the ground as you see a huge swing from the executive sector.

That's right. That's four points of physical damage. Huge swing from the executive sector. You know what? I make it... It's a backhand. That's my better shot. Yeah, my best hand.

My instructor always says backhand freaking really good. You fake it out going forward and hit it with its back end. As you do, you take a large chunk out through the middle. You feel your hand recoil from the force, and you see that it goes against the wall as well as another crack begins to settle against the wall. But it starts to, like, erratically move more around you as if it's taken a good chunk of damage.

Yeah, that was a lob. Get ready. I'm going to spike it next. Go for it. I will spend a fear to take the spotlight from you guys over to me. No. Let's go ahead. And after that attack, Connor's going to lazily swing over his rifle and take a shot over at you, Bryce. Oh no. You gotta, I want to take a shot at the king. I need a new D20. I need the new D20. That's a net one.

You see as it turns towards you that you are able to, this hiss orb is able to move in such a pattern. It messes up Conner's line of vision. and he just shoots against the wall. I will spend another fear because I need to do something. Are you sure your dice don't want you to spend on me for? I know. Oh, I know. It's any dice.

Honestly, it doesn't matter if the dice changes or not. I need to do something. I guess, yeah, the juggernaut soldier, the closest thing still, it would be Dr. Sterling. Come back, Dr. Howard Sterling. Dude, it is you guys versus me.

That's going to be a 21-to-head. Oh, yes. It puts you into a huge bear hug. You're going to be restrained while that happens. And you know what? How many do I got here? I pass the spotlight to you guys. I'm just being restrained.

Okay. Yeah, he's throwing you around, you know? I mean, you guys are going at it. Now, above table, are all three of them in melee range? I would say not within each other, but within you. Like, within melee range of you. So if you want to choose one of them, you can run up and do that. I'd actually like to open my employee handbook and use my hand torch.

Oh, okay. I can make a spellcastle up to three adversaries within melee range. Let's go. Oh, okay, yeah, I would say that, yeah, at this point from my description, you know what, I don't think any are within melee range of each other, but you can make it on one of the attacks. Okay. You can make it on one of the enemies, but not on all three.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. then I would be, I will attack the one holding you. Okay, great. That would be a 13 with fear. Okay, great. I'll gain of fear. 13 does in fact hit.

Can you read again what the fire does if it's all enemies or just, or people in an area? It says, I can make up to three adversaries within melee. Adversaries, great, perfect. All right and roll damage. Do it. We're friends right. We're friends right. You get the big juggernaut is gripping you?

Yeah, so it's 2D6 and the first one was a six. I do like a good. And four. Six more, so 10? Yes. 10 damage. Dang. Nice.

I have to mark a stress as flames erupt from my hand, which is also holding my pen that I'm clicking. Oh my God. Your pen is doing that? Are you all? Holy, moly. Guy number two. Guy number two. Number two.

It's number two. It's a family name. Dr. Sterling, you see that this pen is being clicked and fire is starting to be activated. You push off in such a way where you cover yourself from the juggernaut as a gush of fire wraps around you. You feel the heat. As now the thin parts of the cavil that has already been broken off, they begin to singe around as well, showing this sinewy flesh beginning to burn and melt as the smell fills the room.

You rolled with fear? I did. It will move back over to me. As you see this orb begin to move around again and it is going to start to seal up some of that injury that you just gave it

as the burns start to glaze over. Where am I at? I'll do something. I will spend another fear and this juggernaut is going to attempt to suplex you. Or DDT, whatever.

It's going to go backwards. Let's see. Going backwards. Yeah. Damn. All right, so I guess I'm just gonna, ooh, yikes. All right, well, start writing your eulogy. I don't know what else to tell you.

Does a 13 hit? Yes, it does. Okay. Doctor howl. You are going to mark, I'm gonna mark a stress to make you mark two stress. As he squeezes you down, you think you hear a little click on the bottom of your ribs.

As it then uses all of its force to slam you backwards. That is gonna be, Oh, 12 damage. 12 physical damage as you are thrown back onto the granite. Yeah, I'll make it down to a major, which is still two hip points. It stands back up and it slams its fist and then against its chest. And I move the spotlight back to you guys. Oh, fuck this orb! So I pull out my...

I pull out my barcode scanner, my supermarket barcode scanner, give it a few wax on my hip to charge it up, make sure it's working. working. Yeah, just gonna try and like, just gonna, yeah, red lasers on red orb, maybe it works. I'm gonna be like, do you have any coupons? Bleep, bleep, bleep, and see if I can get it. Oh, wow. I don't know, man.

Do you have any coupons? Super serious a discount on your face. Yeah. Yeah. Should have brought today's paper. Yeah. Oh my God. Alright, I'm gonna make a damage,

but it's all damage roll. I mean, it's just, okay, go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's buy one, get one, fruit. That is going to be, this is with knowledge. Okay, that's gonna be a 16 with hope. Yay! Go ahead and give yourself a hope. 16 does hit, go ahead and roll for damage when you can.

I am gonna go ahead and do ruthless seeker. When I make a damage roll, I can mark a stress to gain a plus one bonus to buy proficiency. So I'm going to be rolling 2D6 here. Okay. Damn. Additionally, when you deal severe damage to an adversary, they must mark a stress. Well, let's see what happens first.

Okay, first one. Ooh, that's six. Come on. Oh, two six. Oh! Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. That's going to be 13 damage. Willie, what does it look like as you shoot through this his orb as it dissipates?

Does it dissipate? As it dissipates? I feel like everything is, it's like red lasers, right? So it feels a little bit like playing like Virtual Boy, you know? Yeah. So it's like, it kind of hurts my eyes a little bit. I have to squint real hard in that, it's like duck hunt baby.

As soon as that laser gun meets that orb, it explodes in the pixels. Yeah, yeah, great. As the laser shoots through it, you see that it explodes out, leaving more debris and cracking the ground, as well. You rolled with Hope. Hope? I'll leave it.

Price. I'm gonna get on the aisle of death. Yes. I'm gonna run up, well, you're still grappled. I'm gonna run up and grab that guy's gun. Connor's still alive, right? Yeah, yeah, you're gonna try to. Okay, I'm gonna run up and use pick and pull,

which apparently I can use to grab items as well. Oh, okay. It gives me an advantage on a strength rule to try to pull it. on his hand. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I rolled a five. A five? A four. A four. Another four. So that is a 13 plus strength,

which is zero. 13 with fear. I will gain a fear. A 13 does it. Do you plan on just ripping the rifle off? I'm trying to just get it out of his hands. Yeah. So that he can't threaten us with it. Yeah. And then maybe I'll turn it back on him. Yeah, you're able to take a moment as it looks over at this orb,

as it dissipates, you run over, you unclip the sash that had going around, and you're able to grab the barrel as you nudge him away, throwing the gun, or you're keeping the gun. I'm keeping the gun. As you keep the gun, yeah, you probably don't want to do that. You disassemble it, the whole thing. You can't say that. But yeah, so the gun is now in your hands. Hey, that's great. You can, so it uses, I don't even know how I would say this. What is your main or finesse stat? Negative one.

Okay, you're bad with the guys, it seems. But yeah, you'll use finesse with it. Which way is the? Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Great, you rolled with fear. I'm going to spotlight over onto the big boy as he slams his hands once again, and he starts chanting. Everyone go ahead and give me a

presence reaction roll. Presence reaction roll. Come on, come on out. Come on, wow. That's incredible. It's a crit, madam. 16 over here. 16, go ahead and mark a stress.

24. Go ahead, mark a stress. Well, I'm not getting anything from it. Nine. Nine, okay. That is take away a hope, and I will gain a fear. And I got a crit 11. Hey, that's great. That's awesome. I'm so glad.

I'm so glad. That's really nice. Sadly, still have to mark a stress. But thank you, Marisha. I appreciate helping me out over here. Oh, my gosh. I clear hope and mark a stress is what I do. Dang it.

Yeah, I guess this guy... You just give up a hope. You see, as you point the barrel at Connor, Connor starts rolling up his sleeves. Oh, no. And he's ready to go with you. He's going to try to punch you. Oh, awesome.

Does an eight hit? It does not I don't know how to describe this How do you dodge his punch? So it's leg day Oh okay right of course Why would it be? So I just go down into a

Squat I just do a nice squat Good form, good technique And it's not just one squat He's swinging You know and you just see these incredibly fast squats The spotlight moves on to you all

Am I still being restrained by the big berserrecared? I don't think so He got up screams, yeah Amazing I'm going to have a moment of real courage, and I'm going to use my classified weakness, and I'm going to spend three hope to temporarily expose a target within close range, giving them a negative two penalty to their difficulty. Oh, shoot. And this is Big boy, right?

This is a big boy. I'm going to turn around, and even though he's in that crazy armor, I'm going to reach up, and I'm going to head button. Which is probably going to hurt me more than hurts him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you run up just to, like, discombobulate him? Okay, cool. Yeah. I said you guys were normal people in the Federal Bureau of Control,

but apparently are also incredibly well-trained in martial arts and squatting. So this doctor from the Research Center, may I add, runs up, grabs this juggernaut and slams his head, your head into his. Absolutely. As he stumbles backward, and you see that you hit the same gash from the skillet earlier. So it begins to open up once again as blood pours down its face. Beautiful. Did you roll for that ability?

No, I did not. Okay, so the spotlight is still on you all. Guys, guys, this is all fine. Everything is fine. Everyone relax as I use my keeping things cool to all of my allies gain a hope. Awesome, awesome, very good. Can you give me a fear?

Is there an ability you have to give me a fear? We'll talk about it later. I feel like my ruling will do that. Yeah, truly. Sam just so double-checked. Did you make the Connor or the big guy vulnerable? I made the orb vulnerable. Oh, right, okay.

That makes sense why I did not mark it out. I was dead. I blew it. Marcia Ray. Okay. He's playing Fistakuffs with Connor, so I'm just gonna go for the big guy. Yet again.

Let's see what happens. Here we go. Are you using your scanner? I think I'm gonna use my. Do you want to make it a double attack? Do you want to tag team this mofo? Let's tag team. Yeah. Yeah, I'll spend three of my hope,

because I'm all full on hope. You're all full on hope? I'm full on hope. Well, then yeah, let's do it. I'm gonna spend three hope to make this a tag team. Okay, absolutely. What do you want to do? I just have a pickleball paddle.

You have a pickleball paddle. That's it. Okay, and you were squaring up against Connor. Oh, wait, I have a gun. And you have a gun. You're doing squats with a gun. Yes. Are you front squatting or is the gun behind you?

Oh, lovely, yes. like, uh, yeah. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah. I was, I'll go for the big boy. Go for the big boy and I'll turn around and try to fire on him as well. Okay. So what I'll do is, um, with my, my barcode scanner, I kind of try and give just a little bit of like that red laser. Yeah. Like a line that you see. Right. To give him a target. Oh, great. Yeah, but not fully pulling it. Not fully pulling it. Not fully pulling it. Not yet. And then, and then once he goes, I'll try and blast at the same time. Great. Great.

Insane. Tag team. Tag team. Ready and go, shoot. Okay. Oh, wow. Oh man, this is really good. So that was a 23 on the dice.

Okay. But you said minus one finesse. Correct, yeah, if you're using the carbine, yeah. So 22. Oh, okay. With fear. I'm 17 with fear. Okay, so I'll get that fear.

Either way, but that absolutely hits. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. As you line up this carbine to take a shot at the sugar knot, the laser sight. Something about the laser scanner. I don't know how to use guns, but it all of a sudden. Yeah, yeah, tracks and go and roll. You got that in pointing that way, right?

Roll damage for both of you. I don't know what my damage is. Oh, oh, yes, sorry. It is going to be a D12. Cool. And then minus one because of your modifier. I'm once again going to, oh, to do Ruthless Seeker again.

I'm gonna mark another stress, especially since a tag team to do 26 damage here. Great. Okay, so one for, Cact, five, plus two, that's seven, so eight total damage for me. All right.

And only two damage for this guy. So eight total and then two, so ten. I'm not a very good shot. He's right in front of. I just started holding my ears. Oh, I'm so loud! As the bullet literally leaves, you see the muzzle flare of the bullet leaving the chamber.

At the same time this laser goes off that you're holding the scanner, and they meet in the middle as it stabs right into the middle of the sugar knot. And he slides backwards. As you look, there's a big brand on his chest that says, for sale. Oh! With your altered item and what I roll, the next attack on him has advantage because he's on sale. Oh my God, there we go. I love it.

He is looking messed up. As that happens, I guess Connor's going to, he's going to try to get his gun back. Sure, for example. We're going to go ahead and roll. I got to move this thing. It's going to be 18 to try to grab this gun out of the way. Is this a contested something? I did my difficulty, but I am totally fine with you contesting it

because I think that's funny. What do I roll? Strength. Go ahead and roll 2D12. Let's do strength as well. Okay, I got a 15. And I rolled, yeah. Okay, so he's able to rip the gun out. I'm just going to spend a fear,

and he's going to attempt to shoot you with it. That will be 10. That hits, evasion is 10. Yes. Something's right. I'm pretty sure I use the last bullet. Oh! Okay, that's gonna be, oh, I rolled so high.

Oh, no. Oh, that is that 15 damage, as I rolled the highest I possibly could have. Yeah, it's severe, which I will take down to a major with my Dolce suit. The entire time this is happening, his face is totally stoic, pulls the trigger. Okay, I can do some stuff.

This big boy is going to, he's gonna run over to Willie, an attempt to grapple you. Watch out, he's got a firm grip. 13. Yes, this is, okay, this is a melee attack, I'm assuming.

Correct, yeah, that hits. Okay, great. I don't know what that means, but okay. Yeah, 13 grabs around you. He is going to mark another stress to give you two stress as he bear hugs you again. And you know what?

I'm going to spend another feeling. just so you guys are aware. I have two of them in there now after spending this and is going to attempt to suplex you. I saw this before. Oh, this is my head. 11? Is that what I just said before? I don't know, 11.

11 is my ovation. Oh, okay. So, yeah, you guys see literally jumping, almost back flipping himself, slams you into the ground, and you are going to take, holy shum. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Okay, that's not as bad. 11 damage. Okay. That's bad. That is bad. Oh, you're restrained. I should have said this earlier. You take 11 direct damage so you cannot use armor to... I can't use armor, so I take two hip points.

Okay, I will move the spotlight back to you all. Oh, boy. Rural. Yeah, I will, I'll run up now being free and seeing someone else get suplexed for once. I'll spin the skillet and say, come on, baby. Look to magic again? I'll run up and make a riot bat attack against the big boy. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, right on.

That is a total ass. That is a five with hope. Oh, well, give yourself a hope. You go and run up. You try to swing on this guy, but... Wait, I will use reassurance. Yes, once per rest. Oh, wait, did I do this already?

No, I don't think so. I can't remember. After an ally attempts in action, You can re-roll. Yes. Re-roll. I have to say words of encouragement, though. You've got C-Suite material written on your face, buddy.

You're going far. Oh, God, that's terrible. I think you could be an executive. Executive. This is better nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, with hope. 13 just does it. Oh, and it's minus two because you're a difficulty,

so yeah, that absolutely does it. Go ahead and give yourself a hope. That'll be a D10 plus another D-10. Yeah, guy, you look over and you see this really cool move that's about to miss, you blink and it's almost happening again as a skillet slams into this big boy. How much damage?

For a lucky 13 number of damage. That's great. Dr. Sterling, what does it look like as you smash this juggernaut into bits, dude? Oh, amazing. Coming over the top seeing Willie be suplexed, the skillet comes and it spins in my hand and I use the edge to just slice right into the top of the helmet,

which partitions it open, and I noticed occipital nerve. And I force, and get the skillet into it. Yeah. Sure, the brain stem is kaput. Yeah, you slam into this thing. It goes limp for a second. It tries to reach up at you, and you

begin sawing away at its skull. And then you see, it falls totally limp. And then slowly, even before you take out your skillet of death, dude, the juggernaut starts to turn to have like this ash, almost soot-like substance as it floats away, warping. Oh, oh.

Oh, go to breath. Hill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Willie, are you free? Really, get up. I'm cut. I'm cut.

You cooked it. I'm gonna spend a fear. Thanks to do something. Encouragement. I'll see you up in that athletic lounge soon. I'm gonna work on my pickleball games. You want to be partners? We should get an apartment together.

What do you think? I have made a part of a ball. A gun shot is her. Someone shoots a gun. I guess that'll be, um, yes. Yeah, I mean, you've just been such a problem. Dr. Sterling kind of is going to take a shot. 19 to hit.

The problem is just a thing to solve. It hits. Oh, my gosh. That's going to be 13 damage to you. Oh, baby. I'm going to burn that to get. Oh, my gosh, you guys. I'm getting some hit points here.

That's a major, so now I have one hit point slot left. One? Oh, boy. I have a. I got this first eight hit, though, and just need a couple of minutes. For no reason at all, I will pass the spotlight to you guys. For no reason at all. Where's the shock coming from?

It's from his hands. It's called. He's crossed the gun. He just a cool tactical reload, though. It's really quick. Turns out he went to Harvard State, so it's real. Yeah, you'll notice that as you hit him more, a shirt, I don't know, there's alma mater showing.

Well, I have three hope. So I'm gonna do a tag team with Guy. Numberta. Amazing. It's Portuguese. Portuguese? Where's your family's last name from? It's Finnish, actually. It's Finnish.

Um, okay, I want to try and blast Connor back. I would like to try and use forceful push here. Oh, great, yeah. On a success, I will deal knockback damage to him. Yep. On a success for hope I get to add an extra D-section of the damage roll. But first and foremost, Let's see if we hit this guy. Come on. Ooh, almost a crit, but it's not. 13 with hope. 10 with hope.

Okay, we'll take the 13 with hope. Okay, 13 does it. Okay, okay. Go ahead and rule damage first before I do my narration because it could change. I'm adding on how much damage you do. Okay, on a success,

on a success, I deal damage, on a success with Hope, which I did, I get to add to. Okay, so I'm gonna do 2D6 here. Blibibh, bha, three, four, so that is gonna be seven, nine damage. And what weapons are you guys using? My scanner again. Are you using the coffee pot?

Oh, the coffee pot is behind me right now. It is right now. I guess you don't have it. But I do have my hand torch in my employee handbook. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, so that'll be a 2D6. Say four and a four. Four. Eight. As, uh, uh, how do you guys do this?

Oh, yeah. So your hand, it's like, it's like a tort, but it's like, I'm reading the book and clicking my pen as I read the rules. I look at Guy and I go, should we cross the streams? Oh boy. Hang on. Yes, yes, we should. Okay, okay, okay. I take my scanner and I just cross it, cross the stream, switches and torch.

Yeah, as, as. magnify this. Literally as this fire turns a raging blue, you see Connor make an eye contact with you one last time as he's doused in flame and by the time the flame goes away, the ash is spreading

away. However, Willie, your gun was really powerful this time and you couldn't have full control of it which means that, let's see. You cross the stream. You recoil a little bit, you cross the stream.

It actually recoils so hard. It knocks your shoulder back as you take three damage from the gun blasting away. Okay. That's rotator cap for sure. This is a rotator guy. I'll just, can I soak up with armor? Yeah, you can. If you want to, yeah, I'm fine with that. Okay, but in this instance, it just looks, I knock it out as the socket a little bit and you see Willie just kind of yank

on her shoulder to make it back into place. Yeah. It's hardcore. That was badass. Thanks. When you're out in the field and you see the things that I've seen. You see a little bit of a spark between?

Wow, that was so cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. Just got to crack my neck. Yeah. You are now standing.

and in the empty lobby of the bottom of the oldest house. And in front of you all is the exit. Open sunlight. You may even hear birds. No. Wait, before we do anything, aren't you super, super hurt? I'm fired. Are you guys hurt as well? But sunlight.

I'm a little hurt. I've got two, I've taken two hip ones. I'm gonna do my ability. My ability, supportive words. I'm gonna take out some business cards and we're just gonna do some networking. Let's stay in touch when this is all over, okay? You guys, put this in your Rolodex.

I know a guy, I can get you in wherever you need, get your reservations, whatever you need. You all can wipe away one hit point. Oh, that's amazing. I'll take that. Wow. Sweet. And while the networking is happening, I will, is anybody as close to being kaput as I am?

Like, do you have, okay. I don't think so. I'll use the med kit on myself just to give a little patch, a little patch up. What is it clear? I think it's, uh, yeah. Come on now. Three years. That's massive.

There is some math in this thing. Thank you. We can do anything, you guys. Let's start a business. This is amazing. That's amazing. It's all prescribed. All from the pharmacy.

Despite your eagerness, you are able to take a second to kind of recuperate after the quick fight that you had with some infected hiss agents. As you all approach the end of the oldest house, you start to, your eyes begin to adjust to be hazy yellow sunlight. And you take a step outside.

Do you take a step outside? Do you recollect for a second go, wow, we love this last seven years? Like, touch the sunlight coming in. Yeah, yeah. Maybe like a little, I have some pocketlet, roll it up and like throw it through the threshold see what happens.

What's the first thing you guys are gonna do out there? Get a beer. Oh, beer sounds good. Yeah. I could go for a hot dog wheelband. Yeah. That was the last movie he saw. Like leave a hunt.

I need to break up with my girlfriend. Wow. You got a girlfriend with the assistant thing. I'm not here. Connor phases away. He's a ghost now. My conscience is talking. Does anything happen to the pocket lint as it crushes the threat?

No, you see it fall. Like, it kind of catches in the wind a little bit. It seems safe enough. Who wants to go first? I will. Oh. I'm an executive. It's time I live up to my name.

to my name, to my rank, to my privilege. I'm gonna step out into the unknown. Bryce, you take a couple of steps out, feeling the sunlight once again. Your eyes adjust, and you quickly realize the light, the sunlight, it's not coming from above you. It's coming straight forward. From inside?

From inside as you emanate it. And then you see him ascend. Sam, thank you for playing. Out, blocks and blocks away. You see this yellow sun emit. You see almost as if the brevity of the failed containment hit you all at once. In front of you is as if Manhattan had cut itself

and half eight different times, rotated, inverted its axis, and warped beyond any rule of physics, of humanity, of understanding. Large structures peek out from both the sides, as well as a new floor above you. You look up and you see spires, almost pointing at you from skyscrapers up ahead. You see that the ground itself has roads that look as if they have been placed. on top of each other. You see parking structures, apartments. You see skyscrapers all warp around, almost like the barrel of a gun that continue.

You see that in certain points, cross sections of streets, there's large trenches in the ground where the geometry turns brutalist, much like that inside of the oldest house. You see bodies floating, twisted, contorted, not of agents, but of civilians. You hear once again the chant of the hiss as the bodies continue to say it as they float. Here, all known logic of Manhattan has been warped beyond any recognition.

You'll see parts of Grand Central Station cut in half, a train moving in and out of perfectly placed subway tunnels, almost like a serpent. You see parts of Times Square set in front of you. You try to get a recognition of, oh, this is this street and this block, but it doesn't make any sense. It's scattered, it's warped and morphed beyond any recognition. I hope my work Liveloft is okay.

As the rest of your step behind, Bryce, the reality of the situation sets in as lockdown. has failed, and Paranatural Manhattan is now going through what could be considered the largest altered world event that has ever been seen in humanity

in one of the most populated cities in all of America. You take a quick look around, and despite the bodies floating, there's little, I don't want to say, destruction, but compared to what you saw inside, it seems that whenever containment failed, it hit quick, it fast. And the bodies that you do see that are injured and hurt are those of FBC agents that are wearing some kind of resonator. You peer around and you see half a tennis

court mixed with a basketball court that is creating some kind of alleyway. that has a city bus kind of just suspended above as three more FBC agents come out in the street and they lock eyes with you all as they begin rushing over towards you. Agents! Agents! You see a man with a bandana dressed in FBC Ranger clothing,

but it is clearly at some point has spent some time to change it to better fits the 70s, years spent in the oldest house. There are two others joining them. One of them wearing a typical FBC agent attire, much more akin to the executive sector. And then you see one more in their FBC Ranger garment as they make their way to you. They kind of lock eyes for a moment. And you hear D'Andre Michael, FBC Ranger second class. What are your orders? We. We. We were trying to meet up with Professor Langdon inside,

or Langston, excuse me, Langston inside, and we never met him. The three of them kind of look at each other, and you hear the girls speak up. Oh, fascinating, she kind of takes out a little notepad. Are you just now coming out of the oldest house? Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's significant. That is significant.

All right, relax, relax. You see the next one speak up. And this one is, it is, although wearing a Ranger uniform, you can see there are patches of, like, security from it earlier. Holly, enough. How did you manage to get out? You said you were attempting to get into contact with Frederick Langston. Are you saying you came from containment sector? Yes, I work in containment sector. And we were just in there.

And as we came down to the basement lobby, there was a whole. hole in the front door. They look at each other. Well, whatever you think is happening inside of the oldest house kind of points around the situation isn't much better out here. All executive heads, sector heads have been in disarray. We've originally had orders from Emily Pope, but from there, we've lost contact. The city continues to shift. They take a second to think, we have been given new orders by an FBC ranger,

by the name of Agent Estevez. She's in the Atlantis Cafe. We can take you there. Sure. You seem to be surprised that we had just now exited them. The building. How long has it been for you since this incident started? You see, Holly speaks up.

Containment failed three days ago. Oh, no. It has certainly not been that long for us, I don't think. Some have trickled out of the oldest house every now and again, but typically their story is that they fought tooth and nail on the way. It seems that you all have looked in better shape, uh, uh, a season. the bleeding scientist, for the most part. We should clean that up. But we've been dealing with this situation for only a few days.

Maybe there's, we've been split apart. Agents, the people we have to be able to help us, we're spread thin. To be honest, we are. or hunting down any altered item, object of power that we can. On top of that, everything that was going wrong in the oldest house is now once again happening here. The hiss, the mold, whatever nightmare you can conjure.

You see that DeAndre speaks up again. If you would allow us, we'll take you to the Atlantis Cafe. Maybe you'll get more answers there. Please. Sounds good. Of note, before I went through the threshold exiting, I ran back and grabbed the coffee pot because I felt a pull to it. And as he mentioned, objects of power,

I kind of glance at it and look at him and don't say anything. Yeah, yeah. Let me say, hold on. You see that he does notice a quick glance as you, like, lower it down and kind of turns a blind eye to it. And you'll notice that a patch on his side does say, FBC Fire Break, and it's like kind of mismatched with a bunch of different lettering. And you, for a second, knowing the rumors around Fire Break, it's probably not the first time he's used an altered item as a weapon before.

Well, it's only a couple blocks away. It's nice to see new faces. And I'm sorry that your exit out of containment wasn't as nice as you hoped it could have been. Well, no time like the present. You start walking through the streets of Manhattan. Actually, what is time? Is it present? Oh, you see that Holly perks up and goes, oh, this is a fascinating subject. So, and she starts like just the whole time you guys are walking there, she's trying to explain to you a bunch of different theories that she has.

Yeah. As you were all walking through Paranatural Manhattan, the overall oppressive feeling that you have while in this space is a little disorienting. And while you are outside of the oldest house, every time you roll with hope, I get a fear. Whoa. And when we roll with fear, you get a fear?

And I get a fear. Yeah, but you will still get the hope. I will just get a fear at the same time. And it's also not considered a failure if you roll with hope and you succeed. So it just means whenever you get rolled hope, I'll get a little fear. Okay.

Thank God. you continue to go by, you see new warped different versions of not only the buildings, but you see almost like these elongated culminations of different bodies infected by the hiss as they sway like trees reaching out to you, and then they go back to mindlessly floating about. You go by and you see a block and you notice that right past the buildings, you see that the entire ground has been warped with what looks very, very strong. Similarly to oldest house transformations, if you remember the brutalist monoliths that cut you off from leaving the Panopticon, that has been warping the ground of this street, this block that you walk by and you just see floating bodies as a red light emits from the bottom. Eventually, you continue on until you make it to the bottom of a skyscraper.

The sky above you is still covered with buildings and this kind of almost non-usey. Euclidean look to the sides of these buildings that are also flipped on its axis, seem to wobble a little bit in the air. Eventually, you see on the side of this glass is the Atlantis Cafe. More FBC agents have kind of created some form of base here of operations. Some sandbags are being put up on the outside railing that you would see before, you know, where you would drink coffee on the outside. You see people are taking notes, people are in hazmat suits, as they continue to look at a mirror that seems to be an infinity mirror, and they have this gaff tape on the ground that almost seems to point very intentionally at the middle of this item, whatever it may be. And the door to the Atlanta's cafe is open where you can see a woman in a rain jacket with the FBC insignia on the shoulders is looking over some stuff with a few other agents that are moving pieces of paper. Do we recognize it?

That must be her. Yes. Yes. Yes. You see D'Andre speaks up. We have to go find a bathtub that is turning people inside out. So we have to get back to that. But best of luck agents. and hope to see you soon.

Thanks for the assist. And thank you so, you see Holly speaks up, thank you so much for listening to that. I really got a lot from it. No, it's very insightful. Very insightful. Thank you. See, I said that, and she hits this, like, security guard guy. All right, best of luck, and they walk away,

and you see that. This woman inside of the Atlantis Cafes moving around these pieces of paper. You should go say hi, I guess. Yes, this is your moment to shine. Oh, me. Oh, hello there. You see she looks up, and you notice as you walk in

that the pieces of paper that are being moved around are different pieces of like a fold-out map of Manhattan that have been ripped up multiple times. You see, there's three different tables all at different levels that they continue to move something around depending on different pieces of information on a paper, a gentleman in the back is reading off to her. There's a section of like sonar equipment

that continue to beep. You see almost a battlefield of lights, different shapes, colors, even symbols, continue to light up as the sonar equipment continues to spin. It says, hello. Yes, are you Mrs. Estevez? Or maybe it's Miss? It's Miss Kieran Estevez. I am a field agent. And who are you? Here's my card. Bruce, Bryce Diggler.

You see, she does not grab it, but I assume you just like, do you leave it out? I just sort of drop it on that too. Right. Bigelor, Jr. Vice President, vendor relations and HR. Oh, vendor relations. Very nice. I'm sure you've been very busy the last seven years. Well, you know, I keep busy. I like to keep it tight. She moves the card out of the way of the map. And who are you all? Guy Numbartu from containment.

Is that Portuguese? It's finished, actually. Oh, okay. Great. and kind of goes down the line as you all introduce yourselves. So, have you out of orders? No, no orders for us.

We did just manage to leave the oldest building. You just left the oldest house. Yeah, yes, the oldest house. Yeah, just... I see. You've been kind of out of it for the past. Years, it turns out.

I will admit that I don't have All the information in the world, I recently showed up to Manhattan. Do you need someone to show you around? I don't. I don't. Thank you. I don't think so. In the blink of an eye, things have gotten worse than I thought.

We have been scrambling to try to get agents to places where we can after the initial evacuation. It seems that we are now dealing with more elements than I have people. And Gen Estevez, what amount of containment do you have so far? If I could tell you that this is almost like a zoo, right? We haven't even picked up the fish that flew out of the aquarium. Oh, that's a bad analogy. Thank you. I just made it up right.

Because fish can't walk. No, no, no. But you got it, though. It's a clear situation. It's a bad situation. Yeah. One of them can fly. There are flying fish.

Yeah, there's flying fish. They kind of, they were skipped. Did you think I was talking about flying fish, though? No. Because if you did, if that's what you thought, then maybe that's why I didn't assume that. You would assume it's a bad analogy. Is there any way that we can help with

how things are going? I mean, obviously the sooner we can return things to normal, the better it'll be. Because of lack of communication, I've been sending people out to recon the area with the shifting that's been going on around the city. It's been hard to keep track of where things are. More and more I send out agents the less they come back. But something new popped up. She'll go and she'll point out one of the equipment. And you'll notice that one of them has a large white splotch that continues to go around.

This has just shown up moments ago. I sent out a couple of Rangers just a bit, and we have not heard from them since. Listen, I don't want to say that where they headed was a death sentence. I'm sure they interacted with something on the way that stopped them. But I need to figure out what it is. I assume it's some kind of events that is shifting construction or buildings. However, if it's not, this is going to be something that, well, you'll find out. Figure out what it is, come back and we can get a better hold of what's going on in the city. And this is just a scouting mission. You don't need us to do anything. Just get eyes on it?

Well, if you get cornered by it, I'm sure that you'll have to take matters into your own hands. But I would like people to be alive. I need to know what's going on in the city before I make any more action. We also would like to be alive. Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. Being that this is sort of like a little base of operations, don't suppose you'd happen to have any handy pistols or, They are bullet-prevests. Cops, like lead-line cops, to protect the important bits.

We're spread pretty thin, but I have a few things. She'll go and turn around and give you, do you still have the Medkin sheet? You can grab another one. And then I'm going to give you all, or I guess at least one of you. I'm going to give you an energy drink, and I'm also going to give you. I guess it would be, one on earth would I say about this. It's like a little stuffed animal to make you feel better.

So you can use... We asked for guns and she gave us a Gatorade and a teddy bear? It was very spread thin. But the teddy bear does make you feel better. I don't know if that's because of paranormal forces or the fact that it gives you something to hold on to. You decide which is which. You're very helpful.

Thank you. I try to be. I know things are, resources are tight. Okay. I guess they're very tight. All right. How stress are people feeling? Pretty stress. Are we all pretty stress?

I can de-stress someone with a healing massage that will clear a stress. I wouldn't be mad about that. All right, Willie, take a seat. Little T.M. James is up. I'll spend two hope to clear stress from Willie over there. Okay. Did I, was I able to grab the gun before?

Yeah, do you still want to have the carbine? Sure, yeah, no problem. I'm not very good with it, but. Well, we have this ritual impulse, which feels like the teddy bear, theoretically. Yes. Clears one defore stress. Oh, there go.

Confiscated motive. Kind of sounds like an energy drink, which you can absorb to immediately gain a hope. So one, Mark, But we don't have to do it right now. One gets rid of stress, one as a hope? It gives you a hope. Okay.

Yeah. Guy. Yes. Are you a particularly finessey type of a guy? Oh, well, I, I've, no. I've been described with two left feet at times, I guess if you're talking about my finesse. I did ballet as a kid and it was terrible. I was just wondering if this gun would be better served with you or if you'd like to keep wielding that hot cup of coffee.

Well, I mean, not, I didn't go through gun training when I was doing, containment. That's what they call a gun training. Yeah, I'm very on top of that. I'm kind of a pacifist, actually. If I could avoid the gun. All right, I'll keep the gun. Keep the gun.

You know what? She handed some bullets for the gun. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. It's actually very important that second part. I started trying to put them in like muzzle. No, no. Like a bolt action?

Yeah, yeah, like, that's so funny. Must get it. Is there anything else I can help you with agents? I mean, do you have any info at all about the white splotch? I don't. It's something that just appeared moments ago. With the readings that are happening, I'm fingers crossed hoping it's just some anomaly with my equipment, but I don't. Things have been pretty difficult to keep track of here.

Well, you'll give us directions, because it seems like the whole Upper West Side is now part of Midtown and Chelsea is all up in Greenwich. There is one good thing that is stuck around, although moved pretty far from where you would imagine, a couple blocks behind the Empire State Building is where you'll find this anomaly. Okay.

You would see from, you would remember from coming in, although the layers were kind of disorienting you, that there are some large buildings that were sticking out, and you know from where you're at. In the Atlanta's Cafe, it's only a few blocks south of where you're at. All right. You hear a groan off in the distance,

and she looks up. Great. Restart the maps, restart the maps. The city continues to move. You see the two other gentlemen walk out and start looking and recording What has moved outside? Well, we better just hope a taxi comes by.

Taxi! You see, like, a floating taxi? Slowly is, like, going across the street. That worked. Taxi. Yeah, it goes up. I guess we can walk. We'll leave you to it.

Said it was two blocks. Come on. So far. The revenue blocks. Dr. Sterling, what is your HP at? I have, well, I now have four, no, five, slots remaining now. Great. Okay. Best of luck. You guys

head out into the street and you'll notice that the upper level that was pointing down at you is no longer there. The parts to the sides are also gone and shifted somewhere around Manhattan. Do we kind of see when we look at the horizon? Can we see anything resembling the Empire State Building? Yeah, you would turn around and you would see that the Empire State Building is just a few blocks away. You see under it that there's almost two layered horizons. One is a straight line across, and then you see the skyscrapers peek out from behind that, which would mean there is some weird strip of buildings or something that is creating a solid straight line across.

Okay. As we're walking, I will use armor plate, where I will spend a hope to give a target I can touch me, a plus one bonus to their armor score until the next round. and I'll see like a little car license plate lying on the sidewalk and I'll like shove it up under my little bit. Yeah. Just kind of add it out a little bit. Right on. As you're looking, can you go ahead and roll me a D6? Yes. Five. Five. Okay. You do notice a few other floating objects. One of them being a red backpack that kind of floats around.

Oh, oh. Yeah, grab that. Is it within reach? It is within reach. Yep. And there you have. Go get it. Oh, you want you to get it?

Oh, okay, oh, fine. You like try to grab that moves a little bit, but then you're able to. Get your hands on it, yeah. And you look at it's a normal backpack. Zip. Okay, you look in, it's like dark. Stick your damn hand in there.

Spend it to it. Yeah, yeah. It goes away. It's like there's almost this, like it is absorbing light in some way inside of it. Not absorbing light. That sounds very dangerous. It sounds like you can't see in it. I don't want to do it.

Yeah, yeah. Reach in there. But. Yeah, yeah, totally. You got another arm. That sounds like a terrible idea. I'll do it if you won't. Guy, do it.

Yeah, boss. How about, are you going to do it? I guess so. Yeah, come on. I mean, are you sure? I'm sure that I would like you to do that. This is coming from up top. Roll a D-100.

So if you have them, it'd be 2D-10s. God, what you do? Thank you. That'd be a 59. You pull out a... A... You are going to pull...

How do I even describe this? As the... The mouth of the bag almost seems to stretch. You pull out an electric space heater that is on, and it is burning your hands. Yeah. Yeah, you'll take two damage as you grab out the stage of time, and you have like an electric space heater that is a boiling hot. Wow.

Maybe we can use that for something. All right. Sorry, Guy. Do we? Duh. Willie, what were you thinking? We shouldn't be discouraged by this. Give me the backpack.

No, this is good. This is good. I'll stick my hands to the box. What am I done, dude? I roll a T-100. I'll do this. Okay. 33.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, what did you do? I know. You see, once again, the mouth of the bag opens as you pull out a full vacuum cleaner. Yes! It's a Dyson! It's so expensive.

It's pristine. It's so nice. Okay, okay. My turn. My turn. Okay, all right. Why not? Go ahead and roll a D100.

Okay. Full rest of the one shot. You just wait. Ooh, okay, 60. Oh, 60? You can just a deck of many things. It's a jansport of many things. That one is going to be, you pull out a lunchbox.

Ooh. Yeah. What kind of lunchbox? Does it say Alan Wake on the side? Yeah, it does. Yeah, sure. You're like, wow, that's cool. What's in the lunchbox?

You open up, it is a PV&J, it is an apple, and a juice box. Oh, my God, you guys. That's kind of jackpot. I take the PB&J and I break it into four little triangles. Okay, yeah. Yeah. That is very, jazz. Wow, you see the pack dips itself up, and then you go, wow, maybe it'll open later.

Unless one more, unless one more. Oh, I know that's going. Okay, all right. As you guys eat your PV and J as you continue to head forward. I dragged the vacuum greener by me. So loud. You guys continue to head on through the streets of Manhattan.

You see that although everything has shifted since the last time you have moved through, nothing has really collided. It's not as almost two planes of existence rammed into each other. It's like something was grabbed and placed just on top of a layer in another dimension and walls hit doors

that when you look through one of the buildings, you can see the interior, despite the building being straight up, the interior wall on the other side is as if you're looking down inside the building. There's no roof to rooms, no ceilings to rooms. It is totally incoherent to look through. Eventually, well, why don't we do this? Willie, you smell something. Pretty good.

Some burnt toast. That would smell schizier. Yeah, yeah. What's it smell like? Oh, yes. Before, I was thinking what could I possibly do with this space heater that's scalding? I open up my employee handbook

and I get out the local drone. Oh, yes. It has a grappling hook, and I have it grab the space heater and bring it with us. And you're dragging it out. You're dragging a vacuum. dragging a space either. All right, you're eating a Peebee and Jay.

Guy, when you use your, what's your weaponing in coffee? It is, well, yes. What stat do you use to roll? I use instinct. Okay. I'm gonna just quickly say, hey, when this is all done, let's schedule a power lunch, just you and me. And I'm gonna use my corporate speakability,

spending three hope to give you a permanent plus two to whatever that step is. Oh, for the rest of the session. That goes on. It's a big deal. You said it as instinct. Yeah, so on my instinct. But then you add.

So whenever you roll, yeah, to attack, you get to add plus two. Power lunch is usually like sizzler or better. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Now, company card. I'll expense it.

Yeah. What's it smell like? I was gonna ask you. What smells good of you, Willie? What smells good to me? Yeah. Well, Willie said she just wanted a beer. So I think it smells like, it doesn't smell like beer,

but it smells like a pub, like fried food. A little bit of that dry alcohol smell, you know, the dirty floors. It smells like a good, dirty pub. Yeah, yeah. Billy does like that smell. Oh, yeah. Your neuron starts to connect after all that time

as you smell. And it doesn't compel you, but the scent does get stronger, the closer and closer you get to the Empire State building. And now that you've walked closer, this wall of buildings seems to be a repeating brick apartment building that seems to be intertwined with another building inside of it

that makes it so all of the different windows reveal to walls. So almost as if they're layered in such a way that there is not another building inside. Like if you open a door or if you look through a window, all you see is more brick. Okay. And this is the building that's emanating this smell?

It is a line across. It is not, but there is something, if you follow along those buildings to the right, that's down an alley is where you smell it. It sounds weird saying I like that, but it is down Alley South. He chuckled as he said that. Contact please. Contact please. Contact please. It's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just fine. Just fell in a alley. I know. I guess I'll peek down this alley. I'll start head down this alley. But I have walked between worlds as a class feature that when I'm rolling to notice our understanding a paranormal phenomenon with my environment,

I can mark a stress to roll a D20 as my my hope. Okay, great. So are you trying to like figure out what it is or just in case you need to like as I get closer and then I'm going to get a little bit closer down this alley and then I might do that. Since you're so paranoid about what this smell is, go ahead and give me a knowledge roll. Okay. I'm going to use this D20 for my hope die. Knowledge rule. Oh, I was going to, I can't do that. I don't have any hope right now. Okay. Let's just Just see what happens. Okay, I rolled a 19 on my hope and a two on my fear.

Let's go. So that's gonna be plus knowledge, that's gonna be 23 with hope. 23 with hope, I will gain a fear, you will gain a hope. With 23, you're starting to figure out what this smell is. You are being enticed to come this way because it is the smell of the mold. Of the mold?

No. You would know the mold. to be the other big problem that was going on throughout the oldest house. Uh-huh. I just turn, I kind of start to take a few steps back and I turned to everybody and I go, mold. Mold. We got mold. We got mold. As you turn to say that we have mold,

you start hearing padded footsteps in the distance, multiple of them. Roof, l'h, as you turn again to see coming out of later down the alleyway as the asphalt gets thinner and thinner, revealing cobblestone than dirt and then revealing a pipe opening into the sewers as collections of bursting mold bubbles leads to a ramp up top side. As you see a dog reach the top, as it shakes, as spores begin to fill the air.

And as it barks, you see seven tongues fly out. And then back in as we enter into battle. Cool, these things, I'm going to right off the bat, just spend a fear so they run over within a fighting range, but you guys will start with... Is one creature with seven heads? No, it is going to be three different dogs. Oh, okay.

Remember, we've got items for anyone who needs it. Yep. Do you know what they are? Three dogs. 21 tongs. One clears, one deforest stress, and then the other, you absorb it to immediately gain a hope. Okay. Go ahead and give me your tokens,

just so I can give you guys a better idea. In the lobby, it was fine. We were in a lobby, but now we're in an alleyway. Let's see. All right, so they're gonna be a bit like this, and you guys are gonna be a straighter line. Hopefully, oh. Willie, which one is yours?

I'm the like, light green one. Like around, this guy? No, other one, that's me. So we're gonna be up ahead. The rest of you guys will be back. Do you think that you're relatively close to each other? Okay, great, sure.

The spotlight moves to you. Let's. What's out, guys, the mold is terrible. That's not really good idea. Can we take and like, take some scarves or whatever? You can wrap it over her heads? 100%. Yeah.

Yeah, Willie Wiltz actually take her bandana out of her hair and turn it into like a makeshift. Yeah, as they continue to move forward towards you, you can see that the spores begin to spread out a round as they charge for you. I mean, I'm going to take a shot. All right. You're going to shoot a dog.

Let's just see what happens. Attack. That's a 19 minus 1, 18 with hope. Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, great. Go ahead and roll your damage. Absolutely. You said it was just a D12, right?

Yes, but it's going to be minus 1 because of your... 12! Oh, 11 damage. Holy schmoli. Nice. Yeah, okay, so you take a shot at one of these dogs that's running towards you. You see its head splits open, revealing another set of teeth as spores go away.

and you were just able to aim up and take a shot right into this guy. I'm the top dog here. It's round. You rolled with Hope, correct? Yes. It's a doggy, dog, okay. The spotlight is still on you guys. I'll be emboldened by seeing our junior vice president's bold actions,

and I'll run up here to the right, and I will pull out a dog's most feared enemy, a vacuum clean. Oh, no. Oh, no. around my head and use riot bat to crash into one of the dogs. Awesome. I don't know what I expected. That is, that is 9, 10. 11, 11 with fear. 11 with fear, I will gain a fear. 11 just misses.

Just miss you. Slam this vacuum down on it and it's able to move out of its way as it's going to go and take a bite over at you. Can you have experience? No. No. No. I don't know. There's a forehand experience. There's a forehead? It misses.

Okay. All right, great. I am going to spend that few you just gave me. Bryce, which one did you shoot at? Was it the middle? I would have gone middle. Middle? Okay, it is going to run up to you. Are you purple? I'm purple.

Yeah, I think it's going to run past. Yeah, as the alleyway kind of opens up into the main road. It was her. She'll bite you. Oh my gosh. Does a 10 hit? A 10 is my evasion.

Okay. Oh, that's cool. All right. Okay, cool. So it is going to deal five damage to you as it bites right into your leg. That's my final

armor slot. Oh, no. Be taken away. And then I will pass the spot. to you guys. To you guys. Back to us.

Do you have any plans? I'm feeling a little more brave now that we've been doing this for a while. Come on. I feel that the coffee pot start to heat up in my hands. So I just think, well, just give it a hurl and I throw the... Yeah. I step to my left and hurl the coffee at one of the dogs near me. I am the green piece.

Oh, you're this guy? Okay, cool. So do you want to go after this guy or run this? Exactly. So you'll take it a little bit, step in. Yeah, you throw this coffee out as it expands, as it boils in the air. Go ahead and give me an attack roll? That would be a 10 with hope.

Okay, go ahead and give yourself plus two. Actually, 12. 12 with hope. That does head. So go ahead. I'm going to actually roll real quick since it did hit. Okay. Okay.

Great. Go ahead and roll damage. It would be a nine. Nine damage? Oh my gosh. You see as the coffee begins to expand. and outwards, you see it begins to vibrate and it violently explodes out as it hits the other dog as well.

Oh, nice. Taking, you said nine damage? I did. Oh, gosh. All right, great. That's so good for you. I'm feeling you. Java Joe's, bitch. Cool, and you rolled with hope?

I did. Okay, of course you did. I'm gonna use the fear. This one, Jim. This blue is, that's gonna be, you, right? Dr. Sternling? Dr. Harrison? Stirling. This other dog is going to run over here, and because there's another dog next to it,

another sickly dog. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and roll damage or roll to hits. It's going to be an 18 to hit. 18 hits. Okay, and then it's going to mark a stress. And it is going to deal. You see that for a second.

They almost fuse together as their jaw slammed down onto your leg. That's going to be... A lot of roll. Yeah. Yeah, that was a lot of rough. Oh, my gosh. Is this real? Is this really...

Wow. As they lock onto your leg... You wrote this game. I made the sandwich, dude. 19 damage. What? They are going to... latch on to you, and you are vulnerable.

As you try to kick this dog off. I'm gonna burn an armor to knock it down to major damage, which is still two hit points. Oh my God, and I'm vulnerable? And you are vulnerable. Holy graham. Okay, bypass the spotlight to you guys. All right, seeing Dr. Sterling,

being absolutely accosted. I'm going to, I'm gonna rush up and I'm gonna kind of like, I'm gonna use my scanner, but I'm gonna kind of like do just a full on like MMA kick. Oh sick. Right to the stomach too as I go to fire.

Okay, cool. Trying to do forceful push to push him off of this. Okay, great. Can I, may I use my actual experience that I made before I wanted to be a foil descent? male-dominated industry to add plus two to this attack? Yes, absolutely, you can be. That's so good.

Okay. Wait, hang on. Okay, 21. 21 with hope. Okay, 21 with hope. Yeah, absolutely. I will gain a fear. And this is to the one that is closest to

Well, I guess they're both biting down on them. Yeah, it's the one that's going after Sterling. Okay, all right. So I'll say this one from the right. Add with hope, or essentially I rolled with hope, I get to do 2D6 for this one. Oh, one. Okay, six.

Seven damage. I rolled a six on my chart. You do double damage. As you go and press the trigger, you see that the lights from the scanner, all of a sudden doubles as the stream is. twice its size and heads towards this dog. Dr. Sterling, you see? Oh my God, oh, my.

Is Willie as a huge stream of energy is coming your way. How do you kill this dog? Don't we kill it? Oh, my God. Who's got some of chunks? I'm just like running on instinct right now. So at first I just do that big kick to kick it off. And I, God damn, I'm still using my barcode scanner.

What do I do? I think as I pull out my barcode scanner, I accidentally bleep, bleep the barcode on my Alan Wake lunchbox that's on my hip. And it's two for one, baby. That's it. Yeah, yeah. You see this huge laser coming at you

and you're able to swing the dog on your life and by the time it comes back it is gone. It is no good to rate. That is so funny. You rolled hope? The power of the Easter egg. Yeah, true, true. Have you rolled with hope?

I rolled with hope? I'm going to spend a beer. Damn it. This dog is going to make an attack against you, Bryce. Take this dog off the map. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. Seven.

That doesn't hit. Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. The spotlight moves to you. This dog, you see as it's transforming, goes to bite you, but it looks into your eyes and it sees someone who maybe that they could intermingle with, maybe get a promotion at some point.

So it misses out of the way last moment as a spotlight moves to you guys. That's kissing. Anyone doing anything or I'll, you know what, I'll try to negotiate with the, dog. Oh, yeah? You're gonna reason with it? I don't feel confident using this gun anymore, so I'm gonna say, I'm gonna use my experience, let me make you an offer. Okay. And I'm gonna say to the dog, hey, hey, fetch.

And I'm gonna throw the gun. You go throw the gun? Yeah, it's like a stick. As far as I can. Wait, go! You know, go. Okay. Go chase it.

And what kind of role you're trying to persuade it? You're trying to persuade it, correct? Yes. Go ahead and give it a presence roll. You got to do it with this with disadvantage, right? Disadvantage! You're throwing a gun at a chickly dog. I'm using my experience.

You can have your experience. That's great. Just roll a D6 with it and subtract that number. All right. I got. Oh my gosh. That is 13. Minus 1.12.

Plus 2 is 14. What's your goal? You wanted to be distracted for a little bit. What's your goal? I wanted to be distracted. Okay, all right. I will say it sees the gun go away. Dude, how am I even?

Yeah, the gun flies away as it skitters across the ground. And it looks. I'll call off running after it. And this dog for a brief second will think that it is something that you want, and it'll start chasing that for a brief moment. It's a race between the dog and me. This other dog, I'm going to spend it fear. This other dog is going to just try to

bite deeper into your leg. It will mark a stress. Dr. Howard Sternling, sorry. Bababooey. It's a mark a stress to do. It's going to deal a meek, 20 damage deal. Whoa. Are you alive?

I'm alive. Barely, I'm going to use my last R-R-to-knocket from severe. down to major. That's two more hit points. I got one left. Ah, spotlight moves to you. We got a healing this guy. Wait, don't you have a healing thing? You do. You do. Use it now. Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like I'm really using all of these. Just all. Okay. Don't worry. One d four hit points. Four! That's amazing. Great. Oh my God.

That's massive. Okay, cool. Ew, ew, ew. You, ooh, ooh. Great. Somebody go while I. Come down off. This dog is still on your leg, yeah. Yeah, fuck.

So I get this dog off. It's still our role. It is. I'll take a swing. I'll take a swing with the skillet, knowing that the vacuum cleaner dropped me. Did me wrong. Yeah, okay.

10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14 with hope. Nice. All right. Fear. Go ahead. Roll that damage. You attacked it right? I did.

Yeah. 10. That is seven, nine, nine points of physical damage. And this is the first one. Oh, how do you kill this dog? Oh, man. With it chewing on my leg, I just, I analyze where the jaw joint is. And I'm like, one, two, three, whack.

And I just catch it right in there, and it divides the upper and lower jaw for me. As it flies against the grounds, you'll see it like moves up a bit and then also dissipates away. I call the tongues out of the head, now I have a cat of seven-tailed tongue. Oh, very good. Bryce, behind you, you hear Oh, right, rah-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-hra. Don't worry?

The dog's taking care of it. As there is one sickly dog playing with a gun at the moment. You can also just leave it. It's pretty distracted because the other one is. I will go go try to whack it from my mind. Roll to attack. I mean, if you just let it play with it for a second. You can roll with advantage as well since it's distracted.

Okay. A lot. 21. There is no amount of damage that you could do. How do you kill this thing? I, remembering my training, my pickleball training, I just, I do a nice dessert. Yeah, as you hit this ball right into it,

you know, for some, reason it does get hit back a couple of feet, and then it just dissipates away, as all of the dogs have been dispersed of at the moment. I'll pick up the gun. There you go. You hear a shift almost again, like the oldest house, where all of a sudden, like a grating noise continues. And you see the inner house that is set on its side, beyond this brick wall begins to shift and move, revealing a new path forward past this wall of continuous buildings. Oh.

I think I should mention that when I called that dog a bitch, I don't need to add to the swear jar because I was referring to the female dog. I was not in the cell. It was a technical jar. Yeah, like I was definitely don't have to put in the swear jar. Yeah. So just so you know.

I think you're in the clear. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Oh. I knew there you look better. These drugs are. I have no other way of healing you.

No, I'm good. I think I'm doing just about as well as anybody else. I could knock off a hit point or a stress for anybody that needs it with my first, first aid ability that I have used. You should do your own hit point. But what about you? I'm okay. You're doing good. You all right.

You're all right. You're all right. Oh, jeep, I'm all. Okay. I'm stressed more than anything. Oh, that's stressed out right now. Yeah. We're all pretty distressed.

As you go to check out the door leading into this new building, you take a quick look through the windows and you see that weirdly both of these buildings that seem to be intertwined with one another are repeating, almost like it's copy and pasted in a huge row. You open the door and you see that the building that was in front of you stands straight up, but the one that is intertwined inside of it is set on its side. So as you walk into this main building, you are facing a bathtub, a kitchen.

You're facing a couple of separate bedrooms that are all almost as if you're the ceiling to that room itself. Oh, crazy. Top down. Luckily, the walls are broken up by doors set inside. The outermost house where its geometry still exists. So as you continue to head through, seeing a sink and a bathtub in front of you, it is broken off by a door that is standing straight up.

And you'll continue to walk through that building, opening a section of doors as you walk through essentially what would be the same room seven or eight times until finally you make it out to the other side. And now the Empire State Building is much closer, only a few blocks away. Go ahead and Guy, you roll me a D-6. Come on, Guy. Come on, Guy. Come on, Guy. Let's go, Guy. Four. Four. That is.

As you open up the last door leading out into this street, you see that there is these layline lamps, evidence that there were agents at one point pointing to and researching an object on the ground, and there's a wristwatch on the ground. Come over and examine the wristwatch. I'd like to use an experience called Redact the Redacted, when I'm able to see something that wasn't maybe initially apparent.

Yeah, yeah. So go ahead and give me a knowledge check, or you can do instinct if you're trying to look for something, but since you have been in the the Canadian Sector for a little bit. You can kind of recall and think about what you were doing. But it is up to you whether whatever you want to use and then just add plus two to that role.

Okay. So I think I'll do a knowledge check. Okay. An eight? At eight. You have seen this item before. It is with hope or fear. That is with fear. Damn, and that's with your bonuses too?

That is, yeah, it rolled a two four. True. Yeah. you take a look at this watch and you try to recall it, but you know, it's not actually the only watch, and you've seen other clocks and other things. And you remember reading through some files,

but you can't make heads or tales of which watch did what during that time. Yeah, because there was a watch floating around when we were in the containment center earlier, right? Yeah, and it's a different watch from that. It is a different watch. Okay. I think I'm going to touch. the watch. Yeah. Do you

poke it? Do you pick it up? I pick it up. Okay. Yeah. It's a watch. Okay. It's got a dial on the side. It has the day, the hour, has the time. But it continues to spin. Is there a button on the side? There is a

button on the side. Just because I know in my experience in containment, I click the button three times. Oh. You press it and you guys see Guy disappears. and all of a sudden you hear a voice, some movement behind you as you turn around, and you see, Guy, how old are you?

Guy is about 30-ish. Yeah, you turn around. Guy looks 40. Oh, wow. Guy where you're standing is exactly where you're standing is exactly where you were 10 seconds ago. Wait, but there's a second guy or he's just older? Guy disappeared. You heard movement behind you turn around. It's Guy. He's 10 years older, and he's exactly where you're standing.

10 seconds ago. Guy, you okay? Yeah, I mean, just like, a little stiff. Why am I behind you? Why are you so old? Yeah, you've got some gray coming in. Well, I mean, I'm pretty stressed right now, but it seems like the wrong time to bring it up.

Did a bunch of time just passed for you or anything? No. You did? You changed locations? No, I didn't blink an eye. Like, all of a sudden you're behind them. No, no. What?

I think the watch teleported you or moved you through time and space, but not in a congruent way. Do you have an urge to buy like a really fancy car? I'm really interested. Do you feel like you want a sheet on a wife? Do you feel like you have a crisis? What a research World War II a lot.

Yeah. I don't know why. You watch Ken Byrne films, yeah. Great, you have got yourself The Watch. The Watch. You can use The Watch at any time as a reaction,

but you may age. 10 years. I don't want to say, you will age 10 years. So you can basically, it's an undue button. It's an undo button and you can move your physical state to where you were 10 seconds ago. But just think about this. If you use it two more times, you're so close to retirement benefits? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty.

Yeah, maybe. And you can pass it around and do whatever, but just know that at a certain point you will be significantly nerfed if you get to a certain age. Does anybody else want to see it? I mean. Is it a Rolex? It doesn't have a brand. I'm not interesting. Time is. Yeah.

You guys continue forward. Now walking almost to the side of the Empire State Building. You go and you look up and it is unaltered, untouched. It looks great. Well, job's done. Go in. Thanks you guys. Yeah.

She's a scout. Yeah. As you guys make your way close to the Empire State Building doors. I'm not standing up for any particular reason. You hear a voice call out to you. Agents, agents, one unfamiliar. As you turn around, you see that there is

one wearing security armor mixed and mixed and matched. And then you also see another just a person in a button down wearing an FBC logo on them. Say, agents, have you been spending time in the area? We have. We just came from a meeting with Estevez. We've sent on a scouting. Oh, have you seen, by any chance, a magic eight ball? We've misplaced it, and it's pretty important. A magic eight ball? The toy? Yes. It would most likely be floating somewhere. Would I have any recollection in my department of a magic ape ball?

In the threshold, I would say no, probably not. Yeah, as you begin to think about it, you don't even really realize it at first. You kind of just jump. You all kind of jump at the same time, as if something just kind of scared you for a moment. as the blood of these two agents fall and shock your face, you see almost in slow motion as dust and debris begins to slowly move as you realize what is happening as a magic abel hits into their side, beginning to warp around them as they're split in half.

And then as you finally get back to your realize what's going on. you see it's a magic eight ball you see that the ground the cement underneath begins to crack and and pull off as you feel all of a sudden the floor is not the floor and where the Empire State Building is as you begin to fall as we literally change our perspective everyone go ahead and give me an agility reaction role as you try to brace or gather yourself as you fall onto the building. Have you just tilted? Because of this magic eight ball? I would like to spend a hope to use my wall walking. Yeah, absolutely. I would say that you would have time to.

Yeah, as I'm falling. It's like heelies. You can pick your, you fly. Yeah, right? Cool. I get a 24. Holy smold. 23 plus one.

Okay. Yeah, you're able to, you fall down fine. Doctor? 14. Okay, that's great. 11. Okay, yeah. So you're going to fall onto the building side,

taking four damage. Okay, I will soak that hit point. And then Guy. Yes. So I fling myself down to a wall, and now I start running down the building the same direction they're falling. Yeah, okay, great.

You're able to catch yourself and run towards it, and you see that the glass and the Empire State Building and the brick begins to cave in as it begins to shoot itself up, the Empire State Building. Oh, my God. A countdown where we begin, The eight ball does? The eight ball does.

And gravity is like around it? Yes. Oh my God. As it's creating almost a trench as it continues to move up, cracking glass in the side of the building as a countdown begins as you tried to catch this eight ball and make gravity right again. Every time that you explain to me how you are able to try to catch up to the magic eight ball, if you succeed, it will go down by one number.

If you succeed with hope, it'll go down by two. If you critically succeed, it'll go down by three. By the time that you get to the top of the Empire State Building, you will either be dead or you will have caught the ape ball. So I move the spotlight onto you. I tell my drone to drop that space heater. Yeah, the space heater slams into the glass. Flanking down up, whatever direction.

Great. And send the drone after the ape ball. What is your spell casting trait? It'll say... I am not sure. Oh, wait. Agility, actually. Okay, great.

Go ahead and give me an agility check. Okay. Using that drone to kind of go after it, as you command it to follow after this little guy, this eight ball. That would be a, oh, critical. 12. 14 Chris. Wow.

Wow. Signs. What? Describe to me how you make significant as you guys are running through the side of the Empire State Building, how are you able to manipulate your drone, your little guy, to catch up to this magic eight ball? So the drone itself, you'd see kind of like the toy drones

with the little propellers. Yes. And it goes shooting out, but it has a grasping claw, kind of like you'd see on a toy. Yeah. On those toy machines. And as it gets near, kind of point at it with my clicking my pet, pointing at it, and it shoots off the claw to grasp at the eight ball.

Yeah, you see as this little arm goes together, you just grab it a little bit and it sends it into a little bit of wobble as you have, it stops itself to kind of correct. You're able to catch up just a little bit more. Our countdown goes down to three since you critically succeeded. But then the spotlight will move to me as you did hit the magic eight ball. And it did shake, which means roll me at D20. Oh boy, oh boy.

Whoa, what? One. one? You for a second, and it's a little far away, but you can read out, very doubtful. You all feel yourself condensed under the weight as the magic gate ball slams into the side of the glass and it cracks, and the magic gate ball breaks through. As now you feel yourself, oh, wait, under my floor is now my ceiling. As you are being pulled through the Empire State Building, you had it and give me strength reaction as you try to brace. or break the glass to keep up with this eight ball as it breaks the other surrounding walls.

How would me walking on the wall be affected by this? Oh, okay, yeah. I'll give you advantage on it since you might be able to have a really cool sequence where you're running along while everyone else is flying down.

Yeah, go ahead and just roll with a D6 and add it to it. So... 16 over here. Okay, great. 15? Okay. 22.

Okay, awesome. Maybe I should up my D. D.C. is 17. 17. Okay, yeah. All of you are able to, last minute, as you feel your bones cracking under the pressure, you're able to smash through the glass.

As the eight ball moves alongside, flipping the gravity of the Empire State Building on its head, the walls begin to crack and shatter as you are falling, moving out of debris and covering yourself until finally you break out to the other side. And for a moment, you fly out of the other side of the Empire State Building and then slam back into the wall. And you do have vertigo.

The spotlight does move to you. Where is the ape all in relationship to us? It is about, it's pretty far. It's a little farther. But is it inside the Empire Stateball? It is broken through to the other side and is now starting to move back upwards. We're still trying to chase it, right?

Yes. Okay. Uh, I only know offices. We're just flying through an office, so I'm going to grab a rolling chair, an office chair, and I'm going to try to just slide on it and launch myself. Down on the side of the Empire State Building.

All right, go ahead and give me, you can either try to grab the chair so it would be finesse, or you can say that you use your agility to kind of like jump out as it happening. I do a lot of, I spend a lot of times just spinning around in my chair. I know these things. That is an eight plus, oh my God, that's a 12. Oh my God. Plus one, that's 21.

That's fear. Okay, well, I will gain a fear. You are able to, as you guys are falling, you look over for a second as you jump across and grab this chair. You see while you guys were going through the building, that guy is running along the walls using spikes on his shoes until you break out to the other side.

You are amazing. Start running with this chair and you feel gravity almost tilt downwards as you use the acceleration to move it forward. You succeeded, but with fear, so this will go down to a two, which moves it back to me. The magic eight ball turns back to you. It begins to shake radically. That one. Oh, roll me a D20. A D20. That's a 12. A 12.

It says, yes. Great. I always get what I want. Fantastic. Okay. As you guys are running, trying to catch up to this magic eight ball that is still splitting the Empire State Building in half, you might feel a tremor.

You might not, as you don't turn around to see it, a bus from the street is coming, and it's going to smash into the side. So everyone give me a knowledge check to see if you can analyze the situation and realize the bus is on its way. I'm going to use my hyper-focused study. Oh, that's a thing.

I'm going to roll my hope with a D20 instead of a 12. Nice. Knowledge. You know what? I'm going to use... I went to Yale! And I'm also going to use my experience. Just a nine.

Okay, a nine? Oh, but... Because when you use a roll that used one of your experiences, is you can mark her stress to re-roll. I'm re-rolled. Oh, nice. Okay, cool. That's a crit.

Reaction, so hopefully. Out of stress. Okay. And a 20 for me. Pull up on stress. And a 20, awesome. Yeah. What of egregiously high number

did you roll on our shot? It's bad. It's bad. Really? I'm sorry. I can do so many things. Eight. Okay, great.

19. 19. All right, Marisha. Everyone else kind of sees through the reflection of the glass that this bus is coming in. Last second, you are our, our, our,

figuring out, it's a little too late for me. As the bus smashes in, you're able to catch yourself, but shards of glass hit into the back to you as you take seven damage. Oh, fuck. I'm going to use my last armor point. Oh, too. But, fun.

Game on. I'm going to use my last armor point to take no damage. Okay. All right, I move the spotlight onto you guys. I'm going to take my skillet, and I'm going to draw deep on my old eight years old Frisbee golf days. Oh, yeah.

And seeing the eight ball in the distance. I'm going to project the art, calculate, destructory in my sister. And I'm going to try and attack the ape ball from distance. Okay, great, yeah, yeah, yeah. This will be the pistol ability, which has to beat its difficulty.

Common. That is a crit. Double six. What the hell? Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. I'm rooting for you. You never played a game of dagger home. And what are you throw?

You said you're throwing something at it? The skillet. Frisbee golfing of a skillet. You take a second, right, to look forward and you see this match gateball, even though it's zigzagging across, you grab this skillet and you toss it out so much, so hard the glass underneath you shatters a little bit. As you see this pan begin to spin around and you see the hazy yellow sun and you see it the other side as it arches over at the bus blowing out of the, of the, uh, you see the, uh, you see it.

Empire State Building as it curves, only for it to come around and hits the magic eight ball so hard that it slams into the ground as you guys are now at the top of the Empire State Building. And you see, we're at the top. This little, this little magic eight ball is now completely dormant. Oh. You don't see that on your golf course every day, do you? I am going, this might be. Signs point to yes. This might be a terrible idea, but it's a terrible idea, but it's a,

take the backpack and I'm gonna open it up and scoop up the and put it in the back. I knew there was gonna be one point where I'm like, they're gonna do something I've, no. I'm rolling D-100. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. What did I do? I put it in a boy. You put the chaotic orb in a liminal space.

Yes, I did. 20, flat 20. It's flat 20. Okay. Oh my gosh. Okay, let me think about how things work. I guess. The state puffed marshmallow. Yeah. You for a second

feel the bag shake violently. Your arms literally go like that and then it zips up on its own. And you don't know what's going to have next. But it's zipped up for right now. Do we do it? I'm sure it's fine.

You do it? It's fine. It jerks a little bit. We save New York. Maybe we should get rid of the bag. Should we ask you a question? Oh, that's interesting. The magic eight ball.

The magic eight ball. The magic eight ball. Well, that wouldn't mean unzipping it. Isn't it moving on its own right now? It jerks a little bit. Maybe it can answer us. It's fine. It's fine.

Through the bag. Yeah. I'd take a couple steps back from Willie. Willie. Can you take us back to that sweet Miss Estevez? Roll in D20. That's a 20. It is certain.

You don't see it, but it is certain. You all feel yourself slowly, very lightly, because of course you roll the 21, why don't you? As you slowly descend down the Empire State Building and you feel yourself correct. Yeah, yeah. And you land right there. However, the Empire State Building wasn't the anomaly.

It was behind the Empire State Building. Oh, crap. What's behind the Empire? The Madison Square Gardens. What's behind the Empire State Building? Buildings. Just buildings? Macy's?

Are you holding the bag when you say that? Yeah. Roll a D20. Oh, I'm rid of the thing. Natural 20. 12. So close. Let's see.

12 is a yes, I think. That's right. Yeah, it is yes, yeah. Yes. So either yes or signs point to yes. Nothing happens. It jerks a little bit. We'll deal with the later. Oh boy.

Wait. Can you take us to the other side of the Empire State building? Roll a T-2. Roll a T-2. That is, at 12 again. Great. Yeah. You guys see Willie holding onto the bag shoots into the building.

As you go through, go ahead and give me a strength check as you try to hold on to us. If you try to let go of it, go and give me an agility check. You let me know what you want to do. No, I'm going to hold on. Yeah, sure you're right. Hold on. Strength check. Hold that tiger. Ooh, it's not good, it's not good.

It was almost a crit, though, but it's not. Okay, yeah, it's just seven. Seven. Great. As you go flying through, oh, yeah, with hope or fear. Okay. Actually, I guess that would have been a reactional, so you wouldn't grab anything for that.

You're holding out of this thing. Hold on. You feel chunks in the blink of an eye. You feel glass, and then you feel drywall, You think an office chair went by? Is it just blasting through the buildings? It's blasting through each wall until eventually it stops and you kind of skid across the pavement.

You're gonna take an incredible amount of this. 10 damage. That's honestly not bad. That's not bad, but you just went through a building. I take two hit points. But the ball went through first. It's off in the blow. And I've got one hit four.

You see three heads looking to see all the way on the other side as Guy. You're okay? We'll follow through the holes. Yvite, don't worry about me. Just like looney-tunes levels of like people-shaped hole. Yeah. That's mad funny. Put it back in the building.

The bag had continued on a little bit more to where the pavement ends. You kind of get back in control of the situation and you look up. And you see the roads, you're almost at a cross section. The roads peel downwards. You see some of the buildings are now all kind of creating this cone on the way up. And where you see the asphalt end is led to a huge hole in the ground. This hole leads to a never-ending void.

It goes on probably for miles. In the middle of it, however, are different stacks, almost completely covered. with different pieces of... I can't think of the word right now. What's the stuff that they have on... What? Re-borrower. No, what's the stuff that they build things on?

You have to stand on it and they build the thing up on it. Oh, scaffolding. Scaffling! It's full of scaffolding, dude. I was doing my monologues last night and I go, I won't forget the name, scaffolding. As you see different layers and colors of scaffolding and different forms of wear across all of them. And it fills a large portion of this void,

but there are still, you know, with the different layers that there are, there are some precarious breakages in between. And you see a large blue light. Low, sometimes it moves a little bit higher, a little bit lower. So the scaffolding is kind of clumped together and going down this. It surrounds the entire, the entirety of this huge hole. So it's, you're at a four-way kind of stop. Okay.

The ground is gone. It moves in. It goes from asphalt into, and you can see like cut off pipes, you can see subway tunnels, you can see different abandoned tunnels. But in the middle of it is a collection of scaffolding that fills that empty void. And there's a blue light in the middle of it, just... That begins to... Trampfing around.

Okay. And you'd also know that this is most likely where that circle, that spot on the map would be. Okay. We're just supposed to look at this for her? Stop it or what? Yeah, I mean, she did say she wanted to know. to come back alive. Have you all kind of walked through the Empire State? You're looking back. Went through her cartoon holes. Yes.

You're taking a moment, yeah, to kind of just look over the slight. That just doesn't have to, and it begins to rain. That's unexpected. That is unexpected. First rain in eight years. Haven't felt that in a while. Yeah. What is this?

How's the rain reacting? Is it, does it feel like it's being sucked in You see that it starts to puddle down and go into, but it doesn't seem like it's being into it. It's just a normal rain. It's just raining. It's falling down. Yeah, it's falling down into the hole.

You see that it starts to make the scaffolding a bit more, shines a bit more. Let's get closer. Let's see what we can see. Let's examine. You take a peek over and you see that the light is absorbed at the bottom, it continues on. And that's when, I guess, Dr. Sterling,

You look to your right at beat up Willie. That's a new nickname for you. And you see that there's blue light on her left shoulder and her back. As you turn to see the source of it. Oh, no. This large, blue, paranormal light begins to form.

As Guy and Bryce, you see it is left, the pit. Behind you, you, it's soft at first, as one side of a face blows through the side of the Empire State Building as it begins to cave in. It looks

with nothing but disdain, almost a stoic face as another part of it slams in as it begins to shake like a porcelain doll instead of like a gorgon with snakes, it's street signs that begin to

in layers begin to rotate. You You see it looks out past you all as a vortex of energy on the bottom begins to isolate as you all feel yourself begin to lift up. The Empire State Building now splits outwards as you see the street lift with you as well as you are sent blasting out onto the scaffolding and we're gonna begin combat.

Ah! All right, I'm gonna take this guy away. You have all been separated. Yeah, it is. I'm in a bad way. I wish this was just a recon mission. Do we have a self number per estimate? My mobile phone, I left it at the office.

As this thing continues to pulse and to show this light and can you do levitate, it instantly in a second falls to the ground and starts to head towards the middle of this scaffolding, breaking different pieces off. Dr. Sterling and Guy, you guys land on different parts of scaffolding. One of them is holding a boat, almost weightlessly.

The other, another piece of a building. There's a train cart that runs across the top. It seems whatever the scaffolding is, it is holding up all the weight of these items. I guess since you guys have the spotlight to start, what are you going to do? I think we're done. You just go back here.

You go back, right? Yeah, I think we're good. What should we be trying to? We could run. It's an enormous monster creature. It's an enormous head, almost think of, yeah, like a porcelain doll with cracks going all around it. And there's also one other thing that is very notable about this

is that it is not an altered item. This is not an object of power. This is not anything like you've ever seen. or heard about before. No files, no containment, nothing in the threshold. Whatever this thing is, it seems to be sentient, and it seems to be smart about its movement. And it's massive.

It's huge. Okay. I mean, I'm gonna hit it with a pickleball paddle. Yeah. That's good scientific method. Yeah. This thing will blow through until you're blue, right? I'm purple.

Oh, you're right over there. Okay. It instantly falls through here. A bunch of scaffolding breaks apart and falls into the void below. It comes to me? Yes. Because it saw me being aggressive? Otherwise, you would be so far from it to hit the paddle. I could throw the paddle. You want to throw the paddle?

I'll throw the paddle. You will throw the battle across a full block. That's fine. Do it. I say do it. You won't have the paddle afterwards. Unless it lands on scaffolding. I saw a gun. There's that too. You took it from the sick dog. And all I have is my stapler.

It's a bleach. I don't know what else to do. I can jump across the scaffold thing that's hanging over the void of doom. Right. Yeah. It is entirely up to you guys. I'm going to spend a fear. I'll make the decision for you. You arch back to throw this pickleball rackets, and it is going to use an ability to move instantly, breaking through all of this scaffolding.

It is going to make an attack on you as two different street signs. I instantly show up to its side, and it's going to attempt to slice you with these two street signs. Not a problem. I've been New York very well. That is going to be a 10 to hit. That hits.

Sick. I'm going to mark a stress. All right. I am going to go ahead. Oh, that is rough. That's gonna be 14 damage as your hit to the side. Go ahead and give me an agility or finesse reaction rule. Whatever is better for you

as you land on another scaffolding. Okay. Agility is seven. You see as Bryce has been hit over to the side and because of the rainwater slides across a middle section of the scaffolding as he grabs last, second precariously over the pit.

Before you're able to make another action, Bryce, you are going to have to get yourself back up onto the scaffolding. The spotlight is still on me. Oh, shit. What's the size of this giant porcelain mask-looking thing with the rotating signs behind it? Say it again. What's the size of the mask?

It's massive. This thing is probably the size of two buses put together. This is just a recon. Should we like run into all? somebody where this is? I think we should run. Or maybe get it to chase us or something. I am going to have this thing.

Let's see. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guy, while you see Bryce grabs onto this piece of the scaffolding and almost falls down, before you're even able to react, you hear the sound of breaking scaffolding as to say, flies over

to you as well. And it stops last minute. You will notice that as it hits the scaffolding right next to you, a piece of the building when the scaffolding caves in falls on top of it and it smacks down and then it glitches a little bit back up as the scaffolding once again catches the building

the spotlight moves to you. I grab a bit of the scaffolding and look in my employee manual and cast my hand torch and click an attempt to maybe break some of the scaffolding to make some of the building fall. Oh, okay, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead and give me an attack roll against the scaffolding.

An 11? 11 does do it. You sear through, almost like you're using a torch. You sear through a piece of the scaffolding. It'll fall onto the head of whatever this creature is as it bounces backwards. But it seems that another piece of scaffolding across from you would have to be cut off before it falls entirely on it. Did you roll with hope or fear?

Fear. Okay, I will gain a fear. Spotlight comes back on me. Oh, boy. Jeez. I'm going to... Yeah, I have to spend a fear to do that. So I'm going to spend a fear. All of a sudden, Dr. Sterling, as you are trying to figure out

what is happening in this situation, you hear more scaffolding breaking behind you, and you're able to crawl out of the way just last second as a piece of sidewalk shoots towards this head. The massive head then lines three different rows of side. as it shoots it all out at the same exact time. Get out of here. You got to run. All right, I need everyone to make me an agility reaction rule.

Just throwing the sidewalk at us. Yeah. Okay. Ooh, ooh. Damn. 10 over here. 10? 10 fails. 24. That does pass.

19? 19. 15. 15. All right. I guess the only one to hit, to take. anything is Bryce as you take 12 points of damage. As a piece of sidewalk flings forward and hits you across the chest. As my death move.

Oh! As it had seen is, yes. I will, I think I'm allowed to make one move upon death. Are we trying to just get the scaffolding down? Yeah, maybe so we can run. I'll draw my weapon, my gun, and try to the opposite side of the scaffolding and try to weaken it at least.

Are you going, like are you going to attempt to a crit on this so that you don't. Is this a place for? I think so, yeah, right? This is, yes, yes. Yeah, go and roll damage. Damage. And that will be 12, right?

Yeah, so it'll be 12 plus the damage that you roll right now on top of that. 12 plus another six, 18 points of damage on the scaffolding. In this last moment, what does it look as you take a shot to the scaffold. So before I take the shot, I'm bleeding out, and I turn to Guy, and I say, Guy,

I know your last name is number two, but you'll always be number one to me. And I'll take out this USB drive in my pocket. Before we went in in 2019, I had just a small $5,000 dollar Bitcoin investment. I'm gonna give it to you. Use it to be better than me, to get better suits and better watches, and make a nice donation to Yale State. I'm sure $5,000 of Bitcoin isn't worth that much now, but just take it anyway.

I'll get the Gabana with the Dolce. Make me proud. The muzzle flashes as the bullet could be pass. by guys you grab the USB drive and look forward a piece of sidewalk and then you just see pink mist and this from Phil in the sign yes yeah pink miss um there's the shirt there's the shirt the Dolce logo your shoes are smoking yeah uh uh uh uh this bullet hits into the side of the railing as it falls

again on top of this head as it's it it's it It again is almost pushing against the building now. That would bring it to your guys' spotlight. I started hauling ass. You guys are in such a position that you, to get even to the top of the scaffolding, because you have all kind of got sent sideways down, you would need to make an agility roll to get to the top

and then most like an agility roll to get back onto the street. Oh my God. Is the scaffolding collapsing right now? Parts of the scaffolding are collapsing. Okay. Do it? All right, we're doing it. We're doing it, Peter. Yeah, good. Good.

It is not a reactional, so whoever wants to go first. 15 with hope. Okay, so I will gain a fear. You are able to manage to grab up the side of the wet scaffolding. And finally, you have a good vantage point to see literally any direction you need to head to get off of the scaffolding in the first place. 20 with hope. 20 with hope. I will gain a fear.

you are also able to climb up to the top of the scaffolding. I will spend a fear to take the spotlight from you all as, Guy, you're still by that piece of scaffolding that is broken, right? I believe so, yes. I am going to have, I'm going to spend a stress. And it is going to instantly fly across a bunch of scaffolding and go up to you, Dr. Sternling, as it is going to take two street lamps

and it's going to attempt to slam them down onto your head. Oh, boy. That is going to be a 14. Definitely hits. Okay. Cool. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Object at rest will remain at rest and object and most remain.

That is going to be three. 12 damage. Yep. Okay. How many hit points did you mark? I marked three, because that is my severe damage threshold. Whoa, doggie. Who doctor? Who?

Go ahead and give me an agility reaction. Okay. 12. You are flung forward across another piece of scaffolding as you grab onto the side and your next movement, you're gonna have to get yourself back up. Okay. I'm going to spend another fear and mark another stress as it goes right over to you, Willie.

Oh, Billy. You doing the most speed by here. It is going to do the same attack on you as well. All right. That is going to be 20 to hit. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. No. That is going to be. Why don't you have something that you can do? Not for 20.

That's gonna be 13 damage. For my death move. You're rolling so well. All right. You could do the thing where you roll out of it. Isn't that a thing in Tiger Heart? You can get a 50-50. No.

I first thing, that's, no. That's not how Willie rolls. First, I toss the teddy bear. And the energy drink to Guy. You guys have such an arm on you. I got to say. Yeah, yeah. Please, whatever you do,

don't go into the C-suite, despite what Bryce's final wishes were. It was my final wish. He was a douche, and you're better than that. And I'm going to open up the backpack. I'm gonna take out the magic eight ball once again. What did you do? And I'm gonna try and lob this eight ball directly

into this guy's, this bar porcelain-based mask entity beings face. Roll a D20. Okay. Oh my God, do it. Answer. 11. Answer unclear. Uh-huh.

Signs point to yes. Yes! As the magic eight ball and you're throwing it straight at the entity, you throw the magic eight ball, you see that, uh, you see that, uh, you see guy holding all this shit that's been thrown to him. And you see that the head is looking right at guy. And you hear, think, as the ball falls onto the scaffolding, and then it begins to rise as it begins to crackle and shake. And as it turns to face it, a bus blows through the environment. Slamming right into its back, sending it straight forward into the broken scaffolding

with the building above as it like begins to twitch and falter it looks at you and makes eye contact as another bus slams into the side. I move the spotlight to you guy directly. Oh man. Well it's time from a trusty hot call. See the last thing that I throw up with all the things that I've thrown is my Alan Wake Lodgeby. Oh very cool. Yeah the content's open and it just go everywhere. Yeah cut back five seconds ago when you were smashed the light pole and turn on a mess. And now we're back to the present. Go ahead. What are you attacking?

Are you attacking the final shaking part of the scaffolding? I think of the scaffolding to bring it down. Okay. 13. How do you break the scaffolding in front of you as this thing gets closer and closer the face looking you straight in the eyes? I toss out the coffee and the coffee kind of comes out in two hands and grabs the scaffold.

and just starts shaking it until it pops loose one of the... Snaps. You see that the top of a skyscraper falls onto the head. It's looking at you. It's vibrating with such intensity that you think it's either anger or it's about to explode. Until finally you see that

shards of rock come up to shoot in your face and then the scaffolding breaks away as you look down over the edge as the light, blue light disappears into the void below. Keep this Bitcoin. Yeah, because you're It's really funny.

You technically can't get to open in time. Go ahead and give me one last finesse roll as you try to hold on. Hold on. I have a drum. 2019, 19, 19, with fear. Okay, I will gain of fear. You're able to pull yourself up.

Eventually, through the hard rain, you're able to look at each other. And then you take steps by steps, and you're able to meet on the other side as you look down into the pit and back at each other. Nerds for the world. That was incredible. Our friends are dead. Oh, one of our friends is dead.

I look down, I see the Dolce tag. Yeah. Throw it in a home. Let's get out of here. You two start walking away through the rainy streets of Paranatural Manhattan with more information to give to Agent Estevez. But as we look down back to the void, we see, off in the distance, ever so faintly, a blue light crackles.

And that's where we're going to end our second. Thank you again to Remedy Entertainment for letting us play in the world of control resonance. A reminder that while you may have recognized the places and characters explored tonight as inspired by elements from the game, we want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot were our own creations and are not official content. from the game. Check out yours truly slash Control Resonant for more info on Control Resonant and grab your copy on PC, PS5, and Xbox

Series consoles when this game releases on September 24th, good night. Yes. You can play as this guy. This guy. And then you'll go. Yeah, you will. Yeah, you will. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Sean. Faden shows up, and he's like,

I'm going to kick his ass, dude.