D&D is For Nerds - Cult & Worship #3 The Thing in the Corridor

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

While heading to a gnomish outreach mission our heroes encounter an entity they cannot describe, explain, or even know. Longing de LosAngeles learns some terrible information about what’s in the basement, Pom Penny Farthing has a chat with a thing, and Drifting Snowflake has some nice room temperature milk.Keep up to date with the Jarren's Outpost Board Game by heading to jarrensoutpost.com or checking out all the links here!Want ad-free and even more bonus content? Just check out Imagination Adventures+ on our website or on Apple Podcasts! Music by the ever wonderful Lepidora, you can check out her music here. And head to peddlerspress.store to peruse our D&D themed merch store and help support the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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At your side. You're listening to the Sands Pants Network. A very hurried and frantic letter has been sent to the Knights of Carcerate, begging for assistance in a place called Fairburn Point. This letter insists that there is a corruption affecting the highest members of society, an inky black evil worshipped at the fringes of where people dare to look. fringes of where people dare to look. Well then, it's settled. The three of you, plus Redora, Tanya, and

Gertrude, will investigate the coal warehouses while the rest of us will stay here. Collate any plans and information that comes our way. If you need anything, let me know, but until sundown, you have a supposed time to roam.

I reckon we should try to find Old Mate. Whatever he was. Yeah, I think so too. You can go back to the ship, see if he's touched base, or you can... Where was he last seen? You don't know. We're just meeting up with him at some point. Yeah. Did he have contact with anyone else? No.

He didn't have a contact because the contact's anonymous. Have we met him before? And we can't tell anyone. You can have interacted with him before if you want. If you know him from any previous dealings, you know him to be a very serious but effective operative. I'm going to make a very psycho statement here, Adam. As another informatore, I have never met Latham and he has never met me. I have never met another spy within the Knights' order. Okay. Because you've got silos. If I know who

the other spies are and something happens to me, I know who they are. But I know all the Knights. So immediately, the idea of silos. who the other spies are and something happens to me, I know who they are. But I know all the knights. So immediately the idea of silos. So here's the thing. That's why I don't trust you. The knights don't actually have a silo rule, but yearning thinks it's a good one. Even though the practicality of it falls apart immediately because I meet all of the knights,

and they are also just as likely to be turned. We also befriend all of the knights. Correct. And researchers and majors in training. Sure. It's not a good thing. I just think it's very funny that I'm the only spy that refuses to meet other spies.

And I've communicated with them, yes, through messages. All right, so we should head back to the boat because I think we should also probably give Iko Ito the heads up that we don't trust Laika. Well, we don't trust anybody. There are two people I trust weirdly. I trust the wizard, and that might bite me in the ass. Oh, you trust the wizard?

Yeah. Her reaction to the tentacles was interesting. I don't trust her, trust her, but I don't think she's in on the ritual. Okay. I trust Radora because I don't think she killed the Lord. I actually agree with that. Question for Yearning. Yes.

As a spy. Yes. Do you have any kind of listening device type thing that we could leave on the boat? No. That doesn't exist. Damn. There's magic that can do stuff like that. I'm not a wizard. I don't have any spells. You're a disappointment.

My whole thing is... Get a good boy, Kyle. Fuck. Quick siesta. You gain the benefit of a long rest during a short rest. Another quick siesta. A long rest takes eight hours. A short rest takes one. Shit.

Good shit. Yeah, I think we go back to the boat. Do we find some lodgings here first? You can if you want. So the question is asked. Yeah, you can stay at the castle if you want, or you could find lodgings in a tavern. I think being in the castle might be not a bad idea because you're right.

I think being close to the action. Well, you'll have to bunk. Yeah. Because there wasn't enough. I have to. Do we have to bunk? Because that's funny. I'll work that out for you.

And when you get back after your little sojourn, I'll have something ready for you. Once again, you might have to share a little bit. But, well, if any of you would be keen to share with me, who would that be? She says. And she looks just at you. She's saying this. I, like, slowly raise my hand, speechless.

All right, then, Pom. I look at drifting. Snowflake. Yes. And I don't wink, but I try to communicate a look to you, and you can determine whether you get this look or not. And that look is Pom is in so much trouble. I don't get it.

Fuck. That's all right. I don't know. You haven't got it, but I'm like, I've got to keep an eye on my boy, Pom. Hope you like candles, Pom, because I keep many of them in my room. I like to have a constant mood lighting, if you will. Oh, yeah. I like that just fine.

Yeah, that sounds great. Your dwarven boner is going to kill you. Also, just letting you know ahead of time so it doesn't shock you later, but I sleep nude. I am a tripod right now. I look over at you and think, I do too. Now I get the look.

Who's got the look? Who's got the look? You head back to the gallant rider. Ikohika is there waiting for you. Did you make contact? Janitore? Yes. We have lots to report on.

We fill her in on basically everything. She listens to it, and then you maybe go below decks in the ship. There's captain's quarters there, and in the captain's quarters, there's a desk where all of you can sit around. She pours each of you tea and then pours herself some tea, and she just quietly sips, thinking about what you've told her. Hmm. Well, it is concerning. It's very upsetting that there doesn't seem to be really anyone you can trust.

Not completely, at least. Well, I think that Gertrude seems quite fine. She is wearing that dress I do not trust. She's too much wanting to get you alone in a room by yourself. Well, I mean, she's just a woman. You can't blame her. If I was going to seduce and kill someone, that is exactly what I would do. Too many candles.

Fire is dangerous. But she sleeps naked. Did you hear that? I mean, come on, brother. You do not get out a lot, eh? No, not me. Not a lot, no. We will change this.

Okay, okay. Once we finish here, I will take you to many places. Sounds lovely, that door. Wink. Your eye, you keep licking at it. When I wink, it's just... My cousin had an infection in his eye. They had to take the thing out.

You should get that looked into. I would have an eye patch. This would be sincerely impressive. You should get two eye patches. I would look significantly cooler. I would trust you. Anyway, on an unrelated... Well, not unrelated, sorry. On a related note, a very worrying thing is that Umo Latham has not contacted me yet.

I've worked with him previously. I've worked with him previously and I've never known him to be late. How late is he? That he's late at all is notable. Where was he staying? I can give you the address. It's a halfway house of sorts. I'm given to understanding that gnomes have an outreach program.

The race gnomes, not the god gnomes. Right, right. They have an outreach program in one of the less well-to-do sections of the city. That's where he was staying, or the last time I heard from him, that's where he was staying. If you can investigate that, I'd appreciate it. I'll, once again, stay on the ship, and then, well, I'm kind of expecting Silverymoon to appear at any moment, if I'm being honest. I've never worked with him in the past, but I know he's a bit, well, he's a bit of a type A.

He is incredibly sexless. Not what I meant, she says. I mean, he's not wrong, though. I'm just letting you know in case. No. Well, that's all right. I try not to. She looks at you, Tom, and she says,

I try not to mix business and pleasure. I drink my tea obliviously. This is lovely. There's pear in this. Yes, she says. Oh, I like that. Yes. How much time do we have until we're meant to be at the warehouse?

Well, you've got to go back to the castle first so that you can gather together. Yeah. You could very quickly try to get to this gnomish outreach. I absolutely think we should. Yeah, yeah. I'm prepared to go disguise mode. So are you suggesting- Do you need to? Well, no, because I could-

It's good to practice it. Well, no, but also I don't want people knowing that we've gone to look for our contact who we're not supposed to talk to them about. I mean, we're going to be there anyway, aren't we? We can cause a distraction, maybe. If we need to, I don't know. Maybe we go together, and then I go in as like a see what the vibe is and come back and report. I could fight somebody.

And then if we needed fighting, you're there with a big sword. Yeah, we can get in a fight. I mean, they're gnomes. They're generally pretty lovely. Are they small? We'll find out. Yes. They're the ones that say, I love you all the time. Oh can get in a fight. I mean, they're gnomes. They're generally pretty lovely. Are they small? We'll find out. Yes. They're the ones that say I love you all the time.

Oh, they're really nice. Isn't that the gnomish way of saying goodbye? I love you? Yeah. Well, it means I love you, but it's how they say goodbye. Yeah. I mean, if you want me to fight them, I'll fight them. Yeah.

Okay. I think we have to try to investigate the halfway house. How many do you reckon to be there? Hundreds, probably. It's a halfway house. Well, the gnomes run it, but I don't think it's just four gnomes. It's like Neo versus Agent Smith in the second movie. You just got your arm behind your back. Yeah, I could take a shitload off of that.

You're like Matrix is going to sit over this whole campaign. I think we try for the end. We'll go to the halfway house and then we'll meet back at the castle. And you'll be in disguise, but we'll go in as knights. Maybe we'll do the questioning. You're there to sort of... Yes. Yes.

So we're on the way there when we're like halfway there. I... Alright, boys. I will see you back at the castle too. I'll meet you back at this location.

Yeah. Yeah. We will debrief. We're not supposed to mention this guy's name though, are we? You're not supposed to mention him at all. The council don't know

about him. Fuck, I forgot about that. And we've never met him so we don't even know what he looks like. We need to be cloak and dagger about this. You could go in and not ask for him, but just ask for anything suspicious you're investigating. People would recognise the Knights of Castery, yeah?

Yeah, people know who you are. We could just go and be like, you guys are asking about any disturbances you hear investigating some strange goings on in the town. Has anyone heard anything? And I go in there pretending I need a room. Yeah, okay, cool. So, you go in there pretending I need a room. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Great. All right. Go. Okay. So you go in stealth mode. I'm going this guy's mode. Not a one. I tip my hat for 19.

You did good. Yeah. I pull my shawl up. And before you very, it's like, it's pretty good. I will say. You're so good. I'm halfway through Ascent. I just shrink my body down a little bit and all of a sudden I'm just like, I've got to keep walking or I will go to sleep.

Is there any camera on you? Because you really enacted that properly. I'm just like- Do we know what you look like in that disguised form? So here's the thing. I'm just me, but I pull my cape up so it's a shawl so you can't see my face. My hat goes down so I just look like a-

But are you so good that Pom and I are just like, whoa, where did you go? That depends on you two. I think on a 19 roll, yeah. I think that's exactly what's happening. Yeah, I think so. All right, so yeah, I'm like talking to your mom. Well, Jorn, it's funny you say that because one time I was –

I'm walking to the town. Where did Jorn – oh, he must be – I tip my hat back up. Oh, there he is. Baba Yaga. And then hat goes down and off I scurry. That was amazing, wasn't it? It's more impressive than I'd like to tell you.

You're Keanu and this is Dracula, baby. You're having a go and that's all that matters. All right, we should head to this halfway house. Are you getting there before us? Are you going to come in after once we've slept? I think we're already just outside the door. All right, yeah. So we head into this halfway house.

On the way to the halfway house. I've not even completely gone away from them. I'm almost like a block. I've got eyes on these two. On the way to the halfway house, all three of you see it, but Pom, you're the only one who really properly registers it. You stop in the middle of the street. Everyone turns to you as you realize you're screaming. really properly registers it. Okay. You stop in the middle of the street.

Everyone turns to you as you realize you're screaming. Oh. You realize you're screaming, catch yourself. Tears are streaming down your face. You're red. Fuck. Red, red, red in the face. You feel like you need to vomit. Doubling over, you do end up vomiting.

Your teeth feel awful, like you want to rip them out of your skull. Freaking hell, dude. You don't remember what you saw. Oh, shit. We saw something. All three of you saw it, but Pom, you're the only one who properly registered it. All three of you remember that you saw something and you can't remember what.

You just remember I saw something. What was it? Bloody teeth. Holy. What was that? Meanwhile, I'm like a block where it's been like. Did I see him scream? Yeah.

You saw the thing as well. You know that you saw the same thing. Did you catch you? What was it? I can that you saw the same thing. Did you catch? I can't remember what I bloody saw. Are you dying? Maybe. Should I kill you? Preferably no. I don't know what to do.

Am I still in pain? Am I still just writhing in pain? It's subsiding. Okay, it's starting to subside. All right. Holy. Just hold me. Just give me a hug.

I sit him down. There's like a seat next to the building there. Even though I'm in immense amounts of pain, I can't help but notice just how soft his pelt is against my skin. I'm like, oh, okay. I see why it's so protective of him. This thing is unreal. Yeah, I'm uncomfortable now because he held me for three seconds

and I've got to just get away from him. All right. I think I'm going now because he held me for three seconds and I've got to just get away from him. Alright, I think I'm going to be alright. Bloody hell. Did you see that? Do you know what that was? I don't know what I saw. Me neither. They must have some sort of forgetting element. Bloody hell.

I guess we just have to keep going to this halfway house. You keep walking behind you, unbeknownst to you, it's in the middle of the street. It's tall enough to see over buildings. In the middle of the street, people just continue about their day, walking around it, ignoring it, because to acknowledge it would destroy them. Mentally, they would be gone.

Oh, shit. Okay, so can we tell that people are moving around this thing or not? Yeah, but you don't think about it. Oh, we all, right, because we're calling it a disaster. In fact, the three of you at one point walk around it. Do we feel like we're missing something? Yes.

Can we stop and be like, what the fuck? Yeah, do we know it's location-based? Like, is there any part of the thing we need to remember? You keep tracking and looking behind you, but every time you do it, you find yourself facing forwards again. But we know that we're doing something wrong. I'm going to peel away from my disguise back to YouTube. Okay.

Because the escalation of bad shit has changed. Right before you return to the other two you hear and it breathes behind you. I whip around with the... But you don't remember what's there.

No, I wouldn't. You look behind you and then you find yourself facing in front of you again. The three of you reunite. Does he reappear out of nowhere? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I guess I then just keep going. Does it happen again?

It's kind of constantly happening, but your mind is just not letting you think or dwell on it. It's protecting you. Your mind is trying to protect you. Oh, no. Is this a condition affecting me? What? Whatever's happening to me.

is trying to protect you. Oh, no. Is this a condition affecting me? What? Whatever's happening to me. I, you can, if you want, spend that card to end this condition briefly. It'll probably restart, though. And you'll forget again. Yeah, but I want to get a look.

And maybe I'll- You'll get a look, but you'll forget. Maybe, we'll see. What if he scribbles it down? He's a good doodler. That's what I'm going to try. Get your doodle out. Get your doodle out.

Adam, I'd like to spend my home remedy And I'd remove the one condition affecting me Which is whatever the fuck this is You take 6 points of damage Holy shit dude What kind? Self inflicted You end the condition on yourself

And you for a brief moment You see it Nothing is stopping you from not seeing it And then you are tearing your own eyes out. Oh, Jesus. Don't you say yes? Like you always wanted to hide, Fred. Do I get any of them out or do I scratch my own eye?

I'm going to say you don't have enough time to until it starts happening again and you're forgetting what you're looking at. Do I know that I've hurt myself because I saw something bad, though? Yeah, you know you were staring at it, and that's why you were tearing your damn eyes out just now. Both of you watch as Yearning turns around, forces himself to look back the way you were coming, and then starts screaming. Without you being able to do anything, it's happening too quickly. Yearning reaches up for his own eyes

and starts trying to gouge them out of his head. I know four languages. So I know common, deep speech, draconic, and infernal. And I'm just saying, I'm cycling through all four while I'm clawing my own eyes out. And I'm just saying, please no. In all four languages. I don't know what languages you speak. But you hear me say, please no, and then you hear a bunch of other languages.

The entire crowd, the people are just walking through the street going about their day. The entire crowd stops for a moment when they can hear screaming, but then they ignore the screaming, keep going, and the screaming stops pretty quickly. The screaming was not you yearning. It was someone who it picked them up, ate them, and is now it's turned and leaving. Whoa. We didn't see any of this. You see a family now minus their father continues walking,

ignoring what they just realized. I come back to you guys and my face is fucked. And you look like shit. Yeah, I've got vomit all over me You look terrible I feel terrible The blazes just happened I think I tried to take out my own eyes

It looks like you've got scratches all around him How's his vision? It's a bit blurry Can I get a bandage and just wrap around I've got to protect his eyes Wrap him up He's blind No no I need to be able to see

No no you need to rest. You need to rest. I can still do this. I have five hit points left. So many. Okay. I'm going to go. I'm still in disguise.

I'm just. It's gone now. It's gone? The feeling's gone. No, the thing. The entity. The thing is gone. It fed.

It's leaving. Shit. Okay. So it's not even location based. I think. I think this town's worse than we thought. I think this town is way worse than we thought. I think you should be very, very careful about your sleeping tonight.

I mean, I don't know if I'm really in the mood anymore. That's right. Too many candles. We need a drink, I think. No, no, no. We have to get to the halfway house. Maybe these gnomes have a drink for us oh I would love a drink we will continue with the plan

that's disgusting alright let's let's go so we keep going but yeah we're both I imagine severely rattled at the very least

yeah I think you more than yeah I was briefly very excited I thought you had a fire I nearly made a friend you reach the halfway house. It's a very hodgepodge looking building. The building is quite tall and leaning forwards like it's bowed against the wind, though there is no wind.

It is still snowing, though, and you can see there is a sheath of snow building up on the top, which looks like it's at any point threatening to fall off and then wet someone. There is an atrium, an entry area where you can walk in and you can see from the doorway, there is no door, it's just a doorway, you can see inside there is a warm fire, a couple of people who look like they've fallen on hard times, and then some other people who look like they might be part of the outreach program, walking around from, gnomes walking around from person to person, distributing hot cocoa and warm blankets.

All right, so we head in. I see one of the gnomes say, hello there. Look, I've just had a bit of a time. Could I get my hands on one of those cocos? Of course, of course, he says. He holds out the platter to you. I love you. Oh, well, look, if you're giving me Coco, I

love you too. He offers it to you too? Hello. Goat milk. Room temperature. Um, alright, I think I can wrangle that up for you. Thank you. Uh, what are two nights of carcery doing here? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Hold up. Goat milk. Room temperature. All right, I'll go fetch that for you now. Here, have a blanket. Curl up by the fire. I love you. What's the blanket made out of?

It's pretty threadbare. It's not great quality, but it's what they have. That wasn't his concern. That wasn't, yeah, you're right. It's made out of cotton. A cotton cat? I'm a cat man. It's made out of one of the cats from Cats.

I'm the cat man. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. I'm the cat man The two of you curl up by the fire And Hi baby The gnome comes back I'm terribly sorry Can I offer you regular milk at room temperature Oh

Thank you That's accommodating He gives you're right. That's accommodating. Okay, okay. He gives you a mug of just regular cow's milk. It's good. At room temperature. Fuck. They're good people.

I could love these bloody noobs. Anyway, what were you here for? What are we here for? I'm just in the milk. Right. You're in the sauce. Oh, let me in the milk. No, don't mention that name.

I never would. Oh, we're just going around to all the hostels and halfway houses and taverns and the like. And, well, we're just trying to find out if anything bit odd really has happened around here. If there's anyone who's maybe stood out or who, you know, might have gone missing perhaps. Anything like that, really. You have any visitors who were not little people? Well, now that you mention it, there has been recently an influx of people who were, well, unwell, to say the least. People keep talking about missing family members that never existed. People sometimes talking about a monster stalking the town.

Right. Not that any exists. Well, okay, then. Seems like some sort of figment. Seems to be that it comes to people, from what I can understand, it seems to be that it comes to people in their dreams. Very interesting. In their dreams.

I'm writing as much of this down as I can. All of the examples that I can think of, people saying that they're missing family members or saying that they were attacked by a monster or some such, well, people seem to have just woken up before they start claiming things. Have you encountered anyone, not with family, just a loner? We do get people on their own coming through, yeah.

We get all sorts here. And have any of them gone missing lately? Um, I can't think of anyone who's gone missing lately. He seems earnest. Okay. Seems. All right. Seems.

What are you doing while we're chatting with this gnome? I'm skulking around. Something that yearning. Are you inside? Yeah, I've come inside now in my little ramshackle-y thing. Yearning, you spot a lot of inefficiencies in here. It looks like they're not working to their full potential. You can see that there are a ton of extra mugs and blankets,

way more than what they need. Hi, it's Fido. Start the semester with a new phone and a plan full of data without breaking your budget. We have everything you need for an A-plus year. Come check out our special back-to-school offers. They'll leave you with more cash in your pocket for the stuff you love. Select plans even include data overage protection,

so you can go all out without going over. Don't wait. Our back-to-school offers are only available for a limited time. Go to Fido.ca or a Fido store near you and save all semester long. Fido, at your side i sort of like look around how many people look like they're in here and where the rooms can i see where like the the boarding rooms are like where the actual yeah that they'd be all upstairs and they have one rooms above and below stairs so you can see that

they have capacity for maybe 100 people in total, sharing rooms, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're in this room, though, currently they're only like 20. And there's sort of people in the halfway house here. Yeah. Wonderful. I head on over to them.

I'm going to go full incognito mode activated. Fuck yeah. I'm the master of disguise. Yeah, I kind of like shamble over to them. You can see, true to the gnome's words, a few of the people here seem to be unwell, basically. They're huddled up. Feverish?

Not feverish. No, no, no, no. Kind of like they're having. Shell shocked? Yeah, shell shocked. Do any of them look at what I did to my eyes? Or are they too far gone? You can see a bunch of them have the same damage.

Shit. A bunch of people here are missing eyes or tongues. Oh, okay. Bloody hell. It looks like a lot of self-mutilation going on. Are these gnomes, sorry? No, there's a whole mix. The people running this place are gnomes

but the actual people staying here are a mix. Talk to the buns without eyes first. Don't tell me what to do. They're more trustworthy. To you, let me know if you see a goat out the back as well. I will, let you know if they're lying. I want to know. I kind of like interpolate myself into them

and does anyone notice me? Any of them? The ones that you're most interested in probably don't react to you at all. Because they can't see because they've got no eyes. Wow. They also, like I said, seem shell-shocked. Is there anyone there who doesn't but is kind of aware of them? Yeah, there's maybe one guy huddled up near the fire. You can see his eyes are red raw, but they haven't been torn out or anything.

My compadre, I feel like we have suffered from the same affliction. He turns around to look at you. You can see it? I heard it breathing. I tried to look at it, and I could not. I can't even remember if I saw it. He starts rocking backwards and forwards. You get a very immediate, this man is very unwell.

He's very, very. It's okay. It's okay, friend. Relax. No one is here. You're safe. You're fine. You managed to calm him down.

It looked like he was about to tip over the edge into something. Okay, come back. Look at me. Look into, look at my forehead, not my ass. You can talk to me. You gotta leave. The halfway house or This town Fairborn Point

Something evil stalks these streets I take my piece of paper out Have you seen Ah it's an orange peel Have you seen Tentacales He shakes his head Has anybody gone missing from this halfway house recently?

He starts laughing manically to himself. Okay, it's fine. People go missing. Oh, yes. From this place a lot. It's in the basement. One of them is in the basement. There is more than one.

They're everywhere. You would have passed one on the streets here. That's what did this. I don't remember it. Why don't I remember it? It sings a song. It sings a song and we forget. It sings a song and we forget. It sings a song and we forget. Peace. For us with the gnome, can we ask to sort of look at the rooms? I'm thinking of like if we can potentially find Latham's belongings,

we might find a clue as to what he's learned or what. Yeah. Do they have a list of people who stay there? No, sorry. We don't keep a list of anything. Just people who need to be here are here. I mean, if you're looking for a specific person, tell me their name and I can maybe tell you where they are. I know most of the people

coming through here. It's not that it's a specific person per se. Am I to be given that you're looking for perhaps a wizard, sorcerer, witch or something of unpleasant means? Look, I can't give any more information but let's say possibly i'm just trying to get inside i could probably if you if you're up for it i could give you a little tour of the place oh everyone's down here now so all of the rooms will be empty that will be perfect The two of you also spot... No, sorry.

Not you, Pom. Drifting snowflake. You look around. This place could easily hold 100 people. You could tell going in. And you can see that there's a downstairs in addition to an upstairs. There's only 20 people in this room, though.

Maybe 20-ish people. So to say that everyone is here must mean that there's a lot of empty rooms, which is very strange for a halfway house. Okay. They're feeding it. All right. Yeah, that's it. That would be grand.

We'd love to get a tour. All right. Well, most people, well, not to give too much of the game away, I suppose, but we find that the downstairs rooms tend to be more frequented by gnomes, dwarves, and halflings. So would you like to start with the downstairs rooms or the upstairs rooms? Do we know what Latham is? I guess you don't. I reckon go up. It sounds like a human name.

Yeah, yeah. can go up. It sounds like a human name. It's a human sounding name, but it wouldn't be the first time that you've encountered a dwarf with a human name. Let's go up, and then on the way up, I assume we're going upstairs. I let Pom know what I'd noticed about the limited numbers of people. Something's not right. You get one floor up, and then the gnome leading you turns around and says, oh, I didn't catch your names, unless that's a secret you're not allowed to share or anything. Anyway, glibbly-bo-bibbly-sho-shibbly.

Oh, shit. All the gnomes have names like this, and it is psycho. Every gnome. Oh, well, lovely to meet you, gibblyli, or Wibbly Foshibbly. Look, we might have to keep our names on the down low right now. That's all right. Well, anyway, this first floor here, there's no one staying here. We don't have enough people, I guess.

He looks confused for a second, and then he keeps going. No, they're not feeding him. They don't know. Maybe should we ask him then then if you've caught on? Do we be like, oh, is that normal for you? Do you normally only have this many people around? No, usually we're pretty packed. But, yeah, we've not had not many rooms full of late.

You walk past. The gnome blanks this, but you look into those three unoccupied rooms and you see there are people's stuff in there oh okay oh uh ghibli ghibli for shibli uh these rooms here could we have stick our noses in there for yeah sure if you want he turns around and it looks like he's just acknowledging this for the first time like Like he's only just realized oh, some people forgot their things. Okay, great. Silly them. Yeah. We investigate these things. You wander into the rooms. So all three rooms are bunk houses, so there's space for multiple people to live

here. Like a hostel, essentially. And you can see that there isn't a lot of privacy here the conditions are as good as the gnomes can make them but they're still quite bleak yeah you find personal effects for one one of the rooms contained a family a family of six and you go through their personal effects finding nothing of interest the next room contained just a bunch of workers who had fallen on hard times, and their room contains nothing of interest. The third room was split between some workers and a family.

You see stuck up on one of the walls is a child from the family, the child's drawing of their family. You can see them, their brother, their mother, and then their father, who is you can see above, mom, dad is written above them. But for the dad, it is

human legs, massive tendrils for everything above. Holy shit. Drifting snowflake. What do you think of that, brother? How does a kid remember this? I hate this so much. Yeah, I'm not loving it. Antanticales, I told you.

Antanticales. So has Ghibli come in with us? He's standing at the doorway. Ghibli, Bobibli, Foshibli. Yeah. Just curious. You wouldn't happen to know who drew this here picture here? He wanders over, looks at it, and he says,

there's maybe a name, Susan, in the bottom corner. Susan. He seems to be in very deep thought. Pom, you spot as a bit of blood starts leaking out of one of his nostrils. Fucking hell. Um, I don't remember, Susan. Oh, Ghibli, it's all right there. Look, if you can't remember, you can't remember.

He walks out into the hallway and you hear him retching into a bin. Okay. Um, I say to Drifting Snowflake, because I can't reach, I'm too short. I think we better take that one with us. The picture? The poster, yeah. Grab it. Do you reckon we can milk some information out of this little guy?

I think if we do, we might kill him. I'm okay with that. Sean, he gave you warm cow's milk. Yes, he's been lovely. It wasn't what I asked for, though, was it? Fucking brutal. You can do it. You do whatever you want.

I'll let you. What do you want to do? Well, what's your vibe on this? Do you think this family did? Potentially, yeah. This kid seems to have seen it and remembered it. I don't think they're well, but I'm now thinking that our- We've got to find that kid.

If Susan's alive- Are there any children out here with me? Yeah. You mean in the common area? Yeah. Yeah, there's a few kids here. Maybe we just take the picture back down and ask if anyone drew this. Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.

Yeah, let's just do that. Can we do that? Do we want to look at any other rooms, though? Well, we still haven't found any of Latham's things. He's absolutely dead. So we've- I'm just making a guess here. There's still the bottom rooms.

The basement. Well, yeah. So that's all the top rooms, though, isn't it? If you go down there, you can't fight it because you can't see it or remember it exists. There's two more floors. Oh, let's keep going up. You take that. We'll roll that up.

We'll roll that poster up. Do you want the gnome to come with you, Bibley? I think no. I think we'll have better luck without him. Yeah. All right. You head up to the next floor. You can see more fully occupied rooms.

And, well, actually, you're not sure because there are some people still here. So you're not sure if these are occupied rooms or quotation marks occupied rooms. So, yeah, you can't tell anymore. Okay. But going through these next few rooms, you see nothing of interest again. One of the rooms when you go in, you forget what was in the room, you're walking out of the room, and there was nothing interesting in that room. So you keep going.

I see the suspicious, but okay. But if we don't know, we don't know. There's nothing we can do. You walk into the room. In your memory. Sean, do not summon a storm. No, no,'s nothing we can do. You walk into the room. In your memory. Sean, do not summon a storm. No, no, no. In your memory, you walk into the room and then you're walking out of the room.

That's it. That's all that happens. And am I aware that that's strange or I'm just going, oh, nothing of interest. If you think about it really hard, you might be aware, but it's much easier if you don't think about it. Okay. I think I don't think about it. I don't think we think about it. Yeah, no.

All right. That's the second it. Okay. I think I don't think about it. I don't think we think about it. Yeah, no. All right. That's the second floor? Yep. And we don't find anything of interest other than the thing we don't realize is of interest. Sure, yeah. All right. Third floor. Let's hit it.

Third floor, there's something in the corner of the hallway. You start searching the rooms while the thing in the corner looks at you. Let's get out of here. Let's get out of here. You boys, I'm having fun in the common room. I just remembered that this is not fun. Why are we here? Why have we done this?

The middle room is the first time you realize something's wrong. You can see in the center of the room there is a pair of shoes and then there is black eye core all around the room. It looks like someone exploded. Oh, fuck. What size are the shoes. It looks like someone exploded. Oh, fuck. What size are the shoes?

They're like adult sized, maybe size 10, I think. Can we inspect the shoes for any kind of- Oh, I meant just to wear. I would have searched them for clue. Let's do the clue thing first. They're probably a bit messy. Are you okay with that? I can wash them.

You're a maniac. I've got a tongue. As you move through the room, some of them are black. Sorry, sorry. We cannot just brush past that. Sean said, I can wash them, and then just to himself went, I've got a tongue. I'm a cat.

He's going to lick blood goo. Let Pom investigate first. It's like police evidence. After a while, it's like we don't need this anymore. Someone can have it. Yeah, I don't know if eating the goo, though, is a great idea. Maybe there'll be another way to clean it. Anyway, let's investigate. Is there anything in it that we can detect?

As you move through the room, the black eye core shifts and wobbles a little bit. Like it's reacting to your presence. And we see it and are aware of it. Yeah, this is, yes. Very aware of it. All right, my hand is on my sword.

Nothing happens, though. All right. Can I make my way to the shoes? Yeah, you can make your way to the shoes. All right. They're covered in that crap. Oh, so I can't. There's definitely no name written on the shoes.

Oh, there's no blood. You would have to. Under the tooth it says Andy. Andy, yeah. You could try. I'm just letting you know that would entail touching the eye corners. Oh, no. Boys, boys, boys, boys, boys.

No, I don't have gloves. But if someone had fur. The thing from in the corner out in the hallway calls out and says, don't touch it. Shit. All right. All right. Too late. It's in my mouth. No, no, don't touch it. Shit. All right. Too late.

It's in my mouth. Let's get out of there. Well, I think we've got to talk to this guy that just said, don't touch it. Because we didn't. Adam didn't say guy. I just want to be very, very clear. I didn't say what the thing was. He said, there's a thing out there.

Just be careful is all I'm saying, boys. Pop out. Hello. Who's that over there speaking? It gives you its name. What's its name? We don't remember. It gives you its name. What weapons have you got?

I've got a... It's not actually that you don't remember. It's that you know its name. You can remember its name. You can say its name. But we at this table cannot say its name. You can remember its name. You can say its name. But we at this table cannot say its name. Okay. So what are we thinking in this moment?

What the fuck are you? What? None of us can. None of us can. No. Can our characters? Yeah, your characters are saying the name. Why can't we say it out here?

Are you going to kill us in real life? real kills fuck it all right what would yeah you can talk to it it responds so it responds like you don't get the idea it's not hostile towards you okay you don't get that impression all right then i just went like what what you know about these shoes and whatever happened in this room because clearly something ain't right in there. It explains to you that the person was all filled with God and then it exploded. Although you think the word God is wrong. You think that's your misinterpretation of what it's saying. You think it's saying something else and you, the closest you have is God.

All right. I reckon that's Lytle. That's what I want to try to find out. So this person who got all filled up with God and the atrocity happened, do you know anything more about him? Can you tell us maybe what he looked like or sort of what he was doing here in this house?

The thing doesn't know. The thing doesn't know who this person was. It just knew that it was that he was filled with this thing yearning you watch as pom and drifting come back down the staircase drifting pom both of you hang on let him cook okay drifting and, both of you step out into that common area on the bottom floor. You see Yearning is, oh, well, actually, let me quickly roll for that, I guess. Wait, wait, disguise too. I'm very good.

You, all right. Well, I get a bad boy card, but Pom, you do spot your good friend, Yone. Okay. Oh, does that rock look familiar? The players become lost. Oh, no. We don't need it. Don't get us lost in the halfway house.

We're already fucking lost. Both of you, Pom and Drifting, as you're stepping out into the common area, you have this feeling of like a sensation that time has passed. Okay. And lost time, basically. You have a feeling of like a sensation that time has passed and lost time basically. You have a sensation of lost time. You remember the last thing that happened to the two of you but looking out the window, you

can see that it's a bit later than you would have expected it to be. Okay, oh, my stomach is telling me I should have eaten by now. That doesn't seem quite right. Where have you been? Oh, yearning. There you are, mate. I have learned some distressing news. You have been gone for a long time.

Have we? What did you do? Did you do all the floors? Well, it's kind of hard. I don't know. We definitely did two floors. And look, there was nothing good up there, I'll say that much. So what was up there? Hard to say. Son of a bitch, they are doing it again.

I have learned that there is something terrible happening here. The people here are in a bad way. Yeah. It is in the basement. Oh, I don't want to go. Did you find any trace of Latham? Well, it was a bit hard because we couldn't look anyone in the eyes, see. So, like, we might have even talked to him.

I wouldn't know. But, no, we looked at some bags and such and no real sign of him. As you're talking. This is so upsetting. Yeah, you spot. Yerning, you spot at some point Pom gestures with his arms during conversation. And you spot, written on his arm, Gerald is not here.

I grab your wrist. What is this? Oh, I don't know what that is. Is that Pom's handwriting? That is Pom's handwriting. Oh, shit. Okay. I look like I've written myself a wee little note there.

Mr. Schnauble, give me your arm. Are you letting him judge you? I'm rattled by what's happened. Is there anything wrong with drifting's arms? Since I'm not going to roll because you have

made a point of this, drifting is missing a finger. Fuck yeah, now. Jesus. Quattro? Is it,

is it, ring finger? Is it Is it What finger Ring finger Is it a fresh wound Does it look healed It's a fresh wound It's currently bleeding Okay shit

Do I feel it Now that it's been Well Sorry Yearning You're the only one Who knows about this Right now Thank you. Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet.

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