Mayday Plays - Tales from the Loop, Ep. 2 - "MORF"

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

The swamp kids venture into the woods to find out who/what broke Dalton's arm and discover more than they expected! We've got merch! https://ko-fi.com/maydayrp (t-shirts and stickers) Thanks for checking out our channel! We offer a bunch of art, music, and behind-the-screen access including Vegas By Night 1-on-1 sessions on our Patreon; https://www.patreon.com/maydayrp including access to our discord server! We started as a podcast! Listen to us @: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mayday-plays/id1537347277 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXoqpSpMssSP9Vka3Z?si=73ec867215744a01 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mayday-roleplay Here are some of our other socials; Twitter: https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/ Website: https://maydayroleplay.com/ Thanks for your support! Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/maydayroleplay

Well, howdy gang. A very radical morning to you and welcome to Mayday's Bite-sized Pint-sized Tales from the Loop campaign. My name is Lev and I will be your babysitter for this game. All of this is going to be a pre-recorded stream for everyone's mental and scheduling well-being. But those of us who are available will be in chat. I make no promises for any of these folks, but everyone who has a spoon and has the time

will jump in. So thanks for joining us. If you're wondering how to get more Mayday in your life, you can catch our streams here every other Saturday for our main show. You can also follow us on all major platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, if anyone still uses it. I've updated... I've updated our Facebook.

I tried to update our Facebook again, but, you know, it's Facebook. I don't like touching it. As well as Spotify and SoundCloud for podcast-friendly recordings of all of our major shows and streams. And finally, you can donate to us on Patreon. I enjoy our Patreon Discord. The Discord is where we've had like a really nice chance to build a happy little family. They're not super happy with us at this moment at the time of recording, not us in particular, mostly Caleb, for all the trauma that he just put us through on Vampires.

For a little peek behind the curtain, we are recording this 45 minutes after the Vampire Vegas by Night finale aired. So we're doing this, we're doing this on some hot emotions gang, doing it live recorded. If you want to join in the yelling, the food crimes or the torture, consider joining our Patreon and also in advance, in addition to that, you get access to exclusive Patreon content and exclusive behind-the-scenes information. We would like to give a shout out to our hand-to-hand level Patreon contributors. It's because of their involvement with our content that we are beginning to think of

all the big picture ideas that we have for Mayday. There's some big stuff that we're really excited to get like working on. So thank you in particular to Ankh, OJPAN, BimbleWart, CameronS, EricA, JonathanM, Ren, WDF, and AlexJohnson. Thank you for your support. As with all of our other patrons, we appreciate you so much. Finally, we would like to give a shout out to our last member, Vince, who is still on Mayday hiatus.

I think he'll be returning to us very soon. Vince, we love you. We'll see you so soon. Before we get started today on the actual game and not all of my notes and announcements, I just wanted to say that Tales from the Loop is set in the 80s, but this community is pretty isolated and a little bit different than you would expect. That and trigger warnings for this episode are much the same as last episode, including mentions of hunting, people going missing, reptiles and amphibians of varying types,

including snakes, and distant or negligent adult figures. So take care of yourselves, do what you need to do, step away if you need to. That's the most important thing. All right, that is enough of my yammering. Let's introduce our players, their characters, and jump into the game. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.

Uh, let's jump back in with Allison. Hello, all. I'm Allison. My pronouns are she, her. I'm playing HB or Hamburger Boy or Henry Biggs. And his pronouns are he, him. He's a jock. Big, big jock.

Big jock, boy. Uh, Lex. Hi, everyone. I'm Lex, also known as Titanomica RPG online. I use they, them pronouns. I'm playing Che Young Kim, a computer geek who, uh, last session, I said, you know, to use they, them, and I thought about it. And she is also fine for Che Young, but amazing.

Yeah. Uh, next up, Carrie. Hello. I am Carrie Smith. I am playing Peyton. We both use she, her pronouns, and she is a troublemaker that she is, um, Zakiya, you're up next. Hey, I am Zach, the drag everywhere it matters.

I'm playing Khadija Mitchell. We both use she, they pronouns. And finally, Eli. Hi. Oh, Jesus. Hi. Hi. I am Eli.

I am, it goes to Eli everywhere. I go by any and all pronouns. I am playing Rada, um, which goes by they, she pronouns, um, and I am, I am a weirdo. Incredible. Um, brilliant. So last session, we'll kind of build this recap out together. Um, last session, we met all of our kids at Wakewinds Secondary School. The Wakewind wins, as we established, um, and we saw, uh, well with Che Young, we heard

from class president, um, Lucy Sonius, about, uh, a fellow classmate, Dalton Concord, and how he may have been attacked by a monster in the woods that snapped his arm like a twig. Uh, then we jumped over to Khadija, not Miller, Khadija Mitchell, who was, uh, leading a rather chaotic time in the hall with some races with the, with other children, um, and a run-in with the unfortunate, uh, theater professor of the school. Next, we found our way to Peyton, who was in class with Dalton Concord, and, uh, he started a little bit of trouble, but Peyton certainly finished it and was sent to the

principal's office very close to the end of the day. Outside, Rada, while feeding Rugsby, had, uh, a little bit of a run-in with the drum line there, uh, the enemy gang, as they may be known, um, Frank Alara, uh, spent, spent a little time in the teacher parking lot, uh, cracked the door to one of the teacher's cars, and did something that you're not entirely sure what he did. Um, he then threatened you with a lie that he couldn't come up with on the spot. And what about his business? And finally, we met Henry, taking a makeup exam in history class, doing his gosh darn

best, and maybe missing the point of a couple of questions. Um, the bell rang. We met Khadija's, uh, uh, not uncle, I'm sorry, grandfather, Zellmer, uh, and he sent her on a mission from her mom to do a little bit of foraging before the day was done and before the freeze came, and then the group went to, uh, Henry's mother's restaurant, Greta's Grubb. Uh, there Greta had closed the restaurant to give her son time to enjoy, uh, a little bit of a break before the week of, uh, preparation for winter came, uh, and she sent Henry and

his friends out with the instruction to have fun. Now the group's idea of fun became, uh, Big mistake, huge. You know, mom's, mom's trying to, mom's trying to support her kid, trying to make sure he thinks of the world as more than just the diner, but he really loves that diner. Um, the kid's idea of fun is trying to find Dalton Concord's shitty little friends and find out how his arm was broken. Uh, and they sure as hell told you there was a little bit of a tiff between Henry and Dalton

who are teammates on the wake when wins football team. Um, there's a little bit of tension there now that wasn't there before. And finally we made our way to Khadija's house where her mother Makita, uh, set you all up with some supplies to go and chase whatever monster lurks in the woods. Uh, do we forget anything that anyone had, uh, some pretty significant feelings about? Uh, there was almost a shotgun involved. There was a BB gun. Yes.

Yeah. He does have a gun now in her hiking bag. Yeah. Um, all right, gang. So as, um, your name, oh, it's Eli's name where we're recording is Agent Hyde right now when I almost called them Hyde as Radda, uh, Deej and Cheyong leave the Mitchell household and Henry and Peyton, um, start their way towards the Mitchell household away from Elfman's goods.

Um, I think, I think it's pretty easy for you guys to find each other walking through town. Town is not big. Basically one way to get to Deej's house from the grocery store and one way to, one way vice versa. Uh, just in general. Yeah. Yeah.

There is, there's, it's not hard to find each other on the streets of the town. Um, and as you come together, where, what's, what's the next move? Where are y'all? Where are you all heading? Where are we going into the woods? Yeah, we should, we should make sure that we get the foraging done to, or like first probably we should do the foraging and then be like, well, maybe the monster's here too, because like there's food there.

So do that and then like try to figure out where, you know, we could maybe try and relate where it happened to Dolan because we'll want to go back to the scene of the, not a crime because honestly he, he deserved it, but, you know, of the incident. What exactly did Dolan tell you guys? Ah, yes, um, I think, well, okay, so does HB remember what, uh, what the thing looks like? I remember like the big, no, I just remember a big red thing in the center. Yeah.

It was like a VCR, you know, like when the VCR is recording, and I was like, that's weird. He just stares blankly at you. Something big. I don't know. The red thing really caught me off guard and I don't really remember anything else. Yeah. Like a monster, a VCR monster. Oh, oh, Cheyong, it's an, it's an arc.

Oh, an arc? Yeah. The thing that you told me, it's, it makes that noise. Oh, that's what it is. You told me about it. You think the monster is part of an alternate reality game? Yeah. Is that?

No. And Dolan broke his arm as part of this, like, I mean, I guess he's like kind of shitty, so he would like do something like that. No, I'm losing it. No, it's, it's cause, it's cause of that. Oh, cause, um, okay. I'm going to, Cheyong's going to take a second and be like, okay, what is HB trying to say to me right now?

It's not his fault that I don't understand him. In the background, he's, he's just like, just trying to like make different iterations of this noise. And then a good time, a good 10 seconds later, they go, that's the sound the monster makes. Okay. Got it. That's it. It's back.

Yep. That's it. Cool. Okay. I like finding monsters as much as the next person, but we, we got to make sure that we get the goods cause it gets cold here and I don't like when we, when any of us goes hungry. So we just, it's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen. Nobody goes hungry in the community. And my mom is scarier than this thing. I don't know what it is, but that's just a fact. I agree. I fully agree. Thanks. Thanks guys.

Okay. She's just going to pick her way towards where she knows the herbs that her grandfather told her are. Yeah. You guys head off into the, into the forest, actually toward the swamp. Grandpa Zellmer knows that you guys usually hang out at the swamp and so he gave you kind of specific swamp related plants because he knew you were going to end up there eventually. He figured kill two birds with one stone.

You guys cut through an empty field at the back of the school and start kind of climbing up not too, not too steep and inclined to the plateau where the, where the swamp is. The path is pretty familiar. It's starting to get worn at this point because the five of you go there pretty regularly. As you push through the low hanging coniferous branches and the deep green ferns, a kind of calm takes over the, the forest. It's not the quiet of a predator is near and you need to be aware because you, you've all grown up in this area and you know, you know that there's a difference between calm

and quiet in the woods. The birds still sing the last vestiges of insects bug around. There have not been a ton of them, especially lately. It's gotten cold. It hasn't frozen quite yet, but there, there are only a few kind of little gnats buzzing around your face. And as you get closer to the swamp and your kind of area that you like to hang out, the ferns grow thicker, the ground grows wetter and the, the place is yours.

There's really, this is your place. You guys have like two places in town and this is one of them. Okay. All right. So what's on that list? Dish has the list memorized. I don't. So she's okay.

Cool. There was definitely watercress on there, I think. Butter chestnuts, cat tails, cranberries, ostrich fern and snake eggs if you could find them, but it's not likely. All right. I'm definitely looking for snake eggs specifically. Good. I'm glad.

I'm going to look for the actual herbs. We just spread out, try not to go into the actual, I feel like we're by water, that makes sense. We're by water, right? There's like a little, the, the amount of your swamp kind of varies depending on how much rain has come of late, but it's, it's a little marshy, but it's not a full, full like lake. It's very, it's very pond-like and there are little frog croaks here and there.

They're getting a little lethargic because it's getting cold. Um, everyone, everyone that's looking for plants, go ahead and roll me an investigate. And if you're doing something else, let me know and I can, I can have you roll something else. Does this count for my snake eggs too? Yes. Also for snake eggs. Sorry.

Everyone who's trying to forage, I suppose is the better question. Is there any advantage type component in this game? Like can we assist other characters? Yes, you can. You can, if you say you're helping someone, you give them one die to their pool. Okay. I, um, HB can help anyone, like just be an extra I, I think it would mostly consist of him picking things up and being like, is this it?

Okay. Sweet. Are you my dad? Thank you. Right. I only got one success. Okay. I got one success.

Okay. I did not get any. I got one as well. So Peyton got one and Rada got one and Chiang, did you get one? Yep. Did someone roll an extra HB die? I did. Okay.

Great. Okay. Um, Deej, you're doing your best to find some plants in here. Um, it's a little or a lot hindered by Henry kind of stomping along behind you and just picking up like twigs and a piece of moss and a little bit of algae and what looks like a leaf that's been fallen from the tree for a while and maybe like part of a lizard leg and asking every time if it is what you're looking for and you, he is your friend and you really want to support him, but it is distracted.

Yeah. Nope. It doesn't look like there's much and then she turns around and sees that her friends have found things and her face just kind of like, she like brightens up and melts a little bit. Oh, never mind. Peyton, you find, you find two snake eggs. They are, they look like snake eggs that either just didn't fully develop and didn't hatch

or they look like snake eggs that just weren't fertilized. Um, so they are covered a little bit in like detritus and there's a slug on one of them. Um, but you can grab those no problem. Um, Cheyong, you find a handful of cranberries on one bush and then as you kind of push past, there's another one a little deeper in the forest. Um, you'll be out of water. Sorry. You know, scoop them out of the water because cranberries, they don't say they do that like

bog thing. Yeah. There's another bush that's a little bit further away that hasn't like dropped its berries yet. Um, that you can definitely go over to, uh, Radda, you find a couple of water chest nuts that, uh, that rugs be is sniffing around and looks like he's trying to, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You had some cheese earlier. This is for the community. Ha. He kind of like croaks and nuzzled up like up your arm and under your shoulder. Um, you're all kind of, uh, you're, you're spread out a little bit as you search for different kinds of berries and goods. Um, one of you or all of you, I guess, everyone go ahead and roll me comprehend. I have three sixes.

Wow. Okay. I have one, two success, amazing successes, uh, one success, okay, and two, you all are looking around. Deige, you're, um, I'm going to say that you take a condition, um, and you're a little bit, let me find a little bit upset. Um, this is, this is your shit. Like you are the woods kid prepper.

You know what the fuck's going on and you haven't found anything and it's getting a little frustrating. Uh, so go ahead and mark on your sheet that you are upset the next time you roll, uh, you will have a minus one to your dice pool. Um, the rest of you, whew, Peyton. You're kind of following along behind, uh, behind Cheyong as they're going a little deeper into the woods. Cheyong, you find not only, uh, cranberries, but also an ostrich fern right next to it

and some cat tails that are already partially, uh, dug up out of the ground. Like you are, you are, you are an inside kid and you are doing outside kid shit right now. It is wild. Uh, Henry, Henry, you are, Henry, you're also able to help as you see the cat tails. You recognize those for fucking sure. Like you know those are cat tails. So you're, you're able to go and help start pulling things out. Um, but Peyton, as you're kind of following along behind the other two, you and Rata are

pretty close to each other. And you look down at the ground and you notice a track that wasn't there the last time you were here, which isn't surprising, but what is surprising is that it is a track that you do not recognize. It is like it's not a people track probably not. It is three pronged about, about the size of two of your hands put together is one track. It's got one kind of not blade quite, but that's the best word you have for it. Blade pointing forward and two pointing off to the side and it's, it is deep.

Whatever made this is heavy. I think Rata is going to grab out their book and like sketch an image of the footprint. Absolutely. I'm like, what would make this? I've never seen this before. It's like it looks like a chicken's foot, but huge. It's a dinosaur. Yeah.

I kind of draw everyone else's attention over to it. Have you guys ever seen this before? What is this? Can I see if I know what dinosaur this is? Uh, yeah, Cheyong, you can go ahead and either do, you can either do comprehend or investigate. It's your choice. Could I join in that because I have such a high investigate? Yeah, go for it for sure.

How can you do investigate? I'm like reviewing the sketch. One success. One success from Cheyong. Two successes for Rata. Two successes from Rata. Okay, Cheyong, as you are crouched by this track and trying to ascertain what kind of animal it might be.

It looks to, the lines of it are too straight to be an animal. Whatever this is, it's probably not biological. Um, Rata, as you look between the track and your drawing, as you're trying to take down more details, you start to notice little, little, little things that weren't obvious before. In the tip of each of the three blades, for want of a better word, there's a small hole where the dirt hasn't been compressed or suppressed as much. And what looks like at the center, there's also a small pile of dirt, which looks like

it was between the blades, and then there were three pieces down. You're not entirely sure, but it doesn't look like all the pieces are connected, even though they're part of the same thing, if that makes sense. It looks damn close to mechanical, if you guys had to guess. This actually doesn't look organic when you start really looking at it, because like, I'll start flipping through other pages and stuff like that, and it's like, you see, right? That's altogether web, that's more like a dinosaur foot, but then I immediately flip back to the other page, like a couple of pages, but like that, do you see, there's spaces

there? This seems robotic, maybe. Have we seen a lot of machines in this area before, or is this weird to see here? There are a handful of robots around town. There's not really any cyborg folk, that's more in like the bigger loop areas, but around your town, there's Splatter, who is the lunch robot, but they're usually just kind of on like a wheel kind of situation. At Elfman's Goods, they have a stock robot that kind of restocks the shelves, but again,

it's on like a wheel, like it's almost like a cart kind of a thing. You haven't seen something that looked like it was bipedal around town, maybe ever. And as you are all, since you all rolled so fucking high earlier, as you're looking, there's another imprint probably four to five feet away, same shape, same structure, same little circles on all the parts, but if it's a stride, it's a big stride. I think there's this moment where you just see our faces all follow over to the other one, where we see how big of a stride that actually is, and we're like, oh, cool. I think Khadijah speaks up feeling some kind of way, and it's like, yeah, it's probably

probably not even organic. It's probably mechanical. Yeah. I think you're right. That's what I said. Yeah, that's just what it looks like. Should we follow it, though? Well, we have to make sure we got everything on the list, but then yes, also, maybe it's

like an, like, what if it's a farm machine that got possessed by ghost and now it's on a rampage and, but it's like, maybe, maybe, oh my God, what if Dalton killed someone in a bullying accident, and then now it's possessing the farming equipment and it's back for revenge? Wow. That was so much. How quickly, how does that happen really quickly? Like the possessing part, like that's, wow, this just happened, like he just broke his arm.

This is one theory, because like he could have, he could have bullied someone like years ago and then they died and then, you know, maybe it takes six to eight business weeks to like possess an auger or a tractor or something. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like that's giving Dalton way too much credit to kill someone. This is too cool. This is too cool of a story to be associated with him.

Exactly. I rescind my theory on those grounds alone. I'm glad because a giant robot that's also a, like, sixth grader seems like it'd be a lot. I mean, he's really tall. So is this thing? Oh yeah, are there any, like, branches broken overhead? A great question and as you look up, there are, there are not, there aren't a ton of them

just because things have been really wet and green lately. But as you look, there are pretty big chunks about seven feet up in the trees that have been either bent or broken back. Slender man. I mean, shouldn't we try to at least find out what it is so that we tell the community? Because obviously this is not something that we have back home. That's tall. Yeah, for sure.

Look at that. That's like, that's the responsible thing to do. Yeah. If it's like six or seven feet, that's, yeah, that's a danger to the community. So we, it's our responsibility as, you know, we're coming of age and becoming adults that we got to go check out this thing for the good of the community, right? That, that makes a lot of sense to me. If we're going to hunt this thing, then we got to just follow it for a really long time

first. Because that's what we do. We just need to look at it. Take down a giant robot right now. I feel like that's not on the table. We'll get, I'll be okay with the shotgun for next time when we have to go get, when we have to like take it out. Wait, what, just shotgun?

When I'm, when, like, when I'm going to ride a DJ's mom's car. Yeah, my mom is a shotgun. We almost had the same thing. You can't call it that far ahead of time, Cheyong. You have to do it when you're running to the car or it doesn't count. You have to be able to see the car. That's the rules. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So if we're going to follow this thing, we probably should maybe be quiet while, while we're doing it. I'm just throwing it out right now. So if we have anything else that we want to talk about, maybe we finished getting some, getting some stuff, but seriously, not to give Dalton credit, but if, if this thing snapped his arm, I don't really want to know what it can do to us.

So we need to be careful. Okay. Don't step on any twigs. I need verbal, verbal yes, we're all going to be careful. Yeah. Sure. Super, duper careful. Maybe we won't attack, maybe we won't do anything because we're in a group because like, you

know, there's, there's always strengths and packs. That's true. That's if it sees us and we're, that's, we're don't want it to see us. We'll just be, we'll just be sleuthing. It'll be fine. So to be very quiet and careful. And if that doesn't work, we all have to be equally fast. We have to pretend this is as dangerous as like three or four Cougars at Red Star.

Yeah. Level four. You know what? I don't know. We just take this in stride. No questions. Well, each said, I'm not allowed to say this anymore, but things adults say to me. You could say it's just, it's, it's fine.

You could say it. Okay. So it's the 80s. I have to have a catchphrase. That's true. That's true. So we're all in agreement. If one of us says run, we run.

Right. And, you know, maybe the problem with Dalton was he didn't have bait. I have a lot of burgers in my backpack. So if we need those for us or for the, the creature, just, you know, let me know. We are not baiting it at all. We are getting information and leaving. Then I should probably eat these hamburgers now and he sits down on the stump and unzips his backpack.

I'll help you. And then it takes a greasy wad of just smashed up meat that had been sliding around at the bottom of his backpack and just hands it out to the crew. Yeah. You know, you, you get the, the, uh, whatever, 10 hamburger meal at McDonald's and it's the last one at the bottom of the bag and it's already cold and the bread's hard, but you, it's the last one. So you just got it.

You get someone's gotta eat it. Oh, there's no bread. It's just the meat. I just grabbed it right off the grill. That's right. I forgot. True sliders. Just the, just the puck.

All meat. Uh, as you guys are sitting down for snack time, I would like to know who is going to lead this journey to follow the footprints. Um, do we get to know what we need to roll first or? Is it, yeah, if it's lead, I think I got it. But if it's not, I do not. Lead is not a crazy jump to make. Okay.

If it's lead, I want to do it. I think either, even if she's not good at it, I think Adige is going to try to, she's been trying to preserve her pride for a second now and it's just like, I know the way and just picks a direction. Cool. Uh, go ahead and roll me lead. You are at minus one to your pool because you are upset and trying to prove yourself pretty good.

One success. Beautiful. Um, let me do something super quick. I need to find it. So with lead, there's a little bit of an extra something that you can get. Um, when you leave the other kids. If you, um, if you succeed by a higher margin, you can give out extra dice to the other kids to use on the next check, which there will be a next check.

Um, so if you want to, you're welcome to either push to try and get more successes or you can use a luck point to try and get more successes, which is to say that you will take all of the dice that weren't sixes and roll them again. I'm not saying you have to do that. I'm not even saying you need to do that. I'm just saying that this is the first opportunity we've had to touch on lead. So if that is something you want to try, it's an option. I think I want to, um, what's the consequences for pushing again?

Uh, for pushing, you have to push yourself, uh, either mentally or physically. Um, sorry, let me, I'm trying, I'm reading this again. Uh, so you would, you would pick a condition, uh, to take if you fail to get any more successes. Okay. You already have one condition, um, and then you would pick a different one. Okay, great. Did you get any other successes? No.

Okay. Um, let me see where the conditions. You can either be scared, exhausted or injured. Which would you, which do you think, how, how is Khadijah pushing herself to lead and how does she get hurt? I think this is scared because, um, something, last time she was confidently leading someone through the forest, something bad happened. So she is doing that again, but it's kind of terrified.

For sure. That anxiety kind of wells up, claws up your chest into your throat and you don't want what happened to your cousin to happen to your friends, but you also know these woods better than anyone and you will lead the way through despite your fear. Um, given your one success from earlier, you now have two dice to meet out to the rest of the party, um, for the next role. Um, and I heard that you guys were thinking about going sneakily. You can either go sneakily or you can go quickly.

Which do you, which is your choice as a group? I don't know. Sneak. Sneak. Yeah, I'd rather sneak. Uh, then everyone go ahead and give me sneak checks. Um, Deej, you can decide who gets, you can, you can give both dice to one person. You can give one to two different people.

It's your choice. Does anyone know they have a bad sneak? I'm only rolling two dice. Okay. I will give one to Cheyenne. Thank you. I said, like I said, I'm alone. Okay.

No one else wants it. I think I'll give it to, uh, I'll give it to Rada. That's so bad. Okay. You get one extra die to roll. Oh, thank God. Because I had a pull of five and I rolled zero. Give me, give me life.

Thank you. Good. It's like a two from Peyton. Khadija. One. It's the one. HB. Zero from a pull of five.

Can I push? Yeah. How does one pull out a sneak? I'm going to sneak harder. Um, maybe, maybe like a mental, like you can do this. Like a pep talk. Ah, like coach used to do. You can do this.

HB. I re-roll all. Uh, you, yes, you re-roll all. Um, Cheyenne, you're also welcome to do that or use a luck point. Your choice. What happens if I fail? Uh, if you use a luck point, nothing happens. What happens if I fail the role?

What if I just let it fail? We'll have to see. Sure. Why not? Okay. On re-roll, I got one six. Great. Um, but I feel really like my brain hurts after all of that, thinking through

coaches, uh, pep talks. Your brain is definitely a little bit tired from remembering all of the pep talks that coach gave you. Um, and you all fall into line behind Deej. Um, Cheyenne, as you're walking through the forest, you're kind of somewhere in the middle of the pack, I would assume. Um, unless you have reason you want to be not in the middle of the pack. I don't know.

I have Samus with me, so I would, I was imagining I was bringing up the rear. Great. Uh, you guys are at the back of the pack. Samus is doing her thing, kind of trouncing through, uh, different parts of the foliage and, um, generally kind of making noise. And because she's making noise, you are also making noise. You are talking to her. You're, uh, reminding her what plants she can eat and which she can't.

Uh, the rest of the group is being pretty stealthy, but you guys are not. Um, and as you move forward... Would, okay, here's, you can make this choice, Cheyenne. You can either take a condition or there can be something that affects the party that happens. I want to go and do the more interesting thing. So you want, you want the thing that affects the whole party? Yeah. Okay.

That's totally fair. Uh, you guys tramp through the woods for a while. Uh, Henry, Peyton, Radda, Deej, you're all... You're pretty impressed with how sneaky you're being, actually. It's like you are one with the forest floor. Your footsteps make not a sound. The only sound is Cheyenne talking to Samus. And that's pretty normal for you guys.

So you kind of zone into it as a comforting sound. What you don't zone into, though, is the fact that the forest is now quiet. It is no longer calm. As you follow these footprints, the birds stop singing. There are no more bugs to be seen. The little creatures that rattle in the bushes have grown still. And it's 20, 30 minutes later, the year in the middle of the woods. And the footsteps stop.

The footprints you've been following have stopped. And it's quiet. Cheyenne bumps into the back of whoever's in front of them. And that is the first time that you realize it is quiet. So the footprints stop. Footprints stop. Do they look like they pushed in any harder as if something was taking off? Or does it look like there was stuff nearby for it to possibly climb?

As you look around, they look like there were kind of like scrape marks on different trees. And a few of them have pretty low-hanging branches. And as you look, you see several of the thinner low-hanging branches have completely just broken off until some of the thicker branches a little bit higher up are stable and there. And you can see some kind of scraping on the tops of the branches. Yeah. I was going to say, I just put my finger up to my lips to tell everybody to be quiet, please. Is there a tree that I could climb to get a closer or a better look at what's around us?

I mean, the tree that has all the scrapes on it's right there. I don't want to touch that tree. Can we shine a flashlight out there? That's a bad tree. Yeah, you can shine a flashlight up there. Yeah, I want to get the jump on something if there's something there. Flashlight. Yeah.

You click your flashlight and you shine it up into the tree. There are broken branches everywhere up in the tall trees. They are... How the branches get thinner at the top, they are broken off in several places. And as you go from this tree to the tree next to it, to the tree next to it, whatever was on the ground is now traveling through the trees. Everyone, roll me a... Let's see, let's see, let's see.

We're going to go comprehend again, I think. Okay, gotcha. That's two successes for Ranna. Okay. It's none. Zero. This is scary. How do I re-roll something?

You can either push or you can use a luck point. Luck points come back at the end of every session, but... No, that's it, that's it. And you don't have the danger of taking a condition specifically if you fail. I'll use a luck on this since I failed for everyone last time. I'll burn a resource to make sure we know what's going on. Go ahead and roll again. All dice, all of you dice.

All right. Oh yeah, that's two successes. Great. Peyton and Deej, you guys are kind of off to the side and you're looking and you can see where all the broken branches are, but they all just kind of look like broken branches. There's no real point of like direction for it. Henry, you can tell sort of the direction that it's going

and you can tell that it looks like it climbs higher and then comes back to the thicker middle branches like it figured out that it was too heavy to be on the higher branches and started kind of swinging through the lower ones. Cheyong and Radda, you guys at the same time, fully see the path. It is going uphill toward what you know is a clearing. Okay, point that way.

Yeah, we'll both point us to the hill and just like start. Let's put Radda in my shirt. I don't know, Rugsby in my shirt. If Samus can't behave, I'll just like walk away so that everyone can like sneak more effectively. Y'all go ahead and roll sneak again. I would like to before we like move on, find a thick enough branch to pick up.

That's easy to do. Especially with the ones that have been broken off from the higher up. You've got one that's probably like twice the thickness of your arm. Cool. I'm surprised Payton doesn't just already have a baseball bat with her. Right. Oh yeah, that's a two and a one, I think. Yeah.

I will take the narrative consequences of splitting off from the group if it helps them sneak better. Okay, let me hear what everyone else got and then I'll tell you what happened. I'm sorry, we'll just roll. I want sneak. Oh, sneak. Sorry, I spaced out.

Zero successes. Okay. Payton, since you rolled three, I'm going to say you can pick two of your party members to help sneak better. But one of them is going to have a very tough time. Oh, so we had three people fail? Oh no.

I literally rolled a one and a two. I was never going to sneak. I was never going to make it. Take me. Okay, but you mentioned that you would be okay with Cheyong standing back with Samus? Cheyong and Samus can go a different direction, yeah. Yeah, so if you pick Dija and Radda, then that works with mine.

Okay, yeah, I think that is what I will do then. Okay, great. The four of you start heading up the hill. Cheyong, you realize that Samus is very curious about whatever is uphill, but she is not at all interested in going quietly. She's kind of almost like a dog wriggling and like trying to jump, and she's making these dinosaur little chirps. Yeah, no, it's probably bad, but we have to know.

We have to figure it out. I'm whispering to her, but I'm just so I can be picked up on the recording. I just feel like it's okay, girl. We don't know. It's got to be scary up there. So we'll stay here, but we got to be quiet if we stay down here, and we'll make you go up there. Let's go find a bush to hide in or something,

or just be really good. We both have to behave, because this is serious time. We'll go with the group right now, and then we'll come back to you two for just a moment. The four of you climb even higher through the woods. It's probably pushing five, five-thirty now. It's not getting dark yet, but the day is coming to an end for sure. You all climb.

Everyone, you rolled me a sneak already. Just roll me a general body check. Yeah. One success. HB is strong in this, and yet rolled no successes, so I will have him push, grit his teeth, and do it again. Nope, he just sucks.

Two not happening. Two ferrata. One for Peyton. One for Deej. The three of you are keeping pretty good pace up the hill. It's getting steep. There is not a path that you're used to. Henry, you're having a little bit of a harder time

than the others. You are built for strength. You are not necessarily built for endurance. You're lagging behind just a little bit. I'm going to say you take the condition of being exhausted. All of the burgers sit heavy in his gut, and he's getting a little bit of indigestion. He's falling back to the back of the packs,

so it's not to crop dust, everyone. And as you guys climb, you can just see the edge of the meadow peeking out. The grass is brown by now. It's probably waist to chest height, depending on the time of year, and it's a little lower right now because things are dying off. Do you guys just walk straight into the meadow?

Do you find somewhere to hide? What's going through your heads right now as you look up at the meadow? Anybody tries to walk into the meadow, I immediately momarm and do not allow it. No, I think if there's a way to take just a quick look at what's going on in the meadow, it's a big empty field,

but if there's a perception check that I can make. Yeah, roll me Comprehend again. Comprehend is kind of my catch-all for a lot of things, or actually, you know what, for this one, do investigate. I'm going to say do investigate for this one. One success. One success. You get a peek into the meadow before Peyton full mom arms you,

and your keen hunter's eyes catch just the back end of a doe, standing stock still, not from its posture, you're not sure if it's scared, or if it's just standing still. But it is the back end of a doe, and you catch like a hint of something glinting, and then Peyton mom arms you and kind of pulls you back, and you guys are hidden in the trees.

It wasn't much, it's just a deer. We're going to cut back to Cheyong. Cheyong, as you have pulled Samus into this forest, or into this, I'm sorry, into this bush, and she is lost sight of the rest of your friends, she is getting harder to manage, she is wriggly and trying to follow the group, because you guys stay with the group,

you guys are always with the group. If it's not all of you, it's one of you. And she's getting a little anxious and a little antsy. I want you to make a force roll for me to see if you can hold her back. Nope, it's a four and a five. You have your arms tight around Samus, but she's an ancient creature, she's very strong,

and she wriggles her way out of your grip and goes bounding off up the hill, not necessarily in the same direction as your friends, but in the same, not the same path, but the same direction. And she is going up, making her little chirps. They don't sound scared or upset, they just sound almost like a wait for me kind of a noise. And she is gone.

I will be running after her. I'm fine with, like I'm going to run after her, I'm fine with it not being the exact direction that they're going. That's, as long as that's like, if I could, I'm doing the angle, I'm doing the math in my head of like what angle I saw them go. Like if I run long enough, then it'll be, it won't be an issue. So I'm hoping that she just keeps running for a while.

So I'm just going to try to keep up from a distance, you know the thing when you see a stray dog and you're like, all right, I probably don't have the endurance to keep up with you long term. But if I kind of like jog a little bit, try to gain some ground and then walk a little fast and then take a break, you know, do the whole pursuit predator thing. The endurance hunter lizard brain in you.

Remember how to do this from ancient times and you follow her up the hill. It's steep. You're pretty small, but you're, you can kind of see where your friends went and you can see where Samus went and she's not leaving you in the dust. She's following your friends,

but she's turning back to look like you're coming, right? You're coming. Yeah, you're coming. Let's go. Let's go. And she's kind of trying to push, push you further. Go ahead and make me just a general move, roll, body roll, move, body. I do have, I do have one in move. Yeah. I'll be honest.

I dropped into a big pile of other D sixes and I don't know what happened. You're good. You're rolling. I will again. I wish a lot of sixes, but I feel bad because I legit can't remember which ones I threw. You're fine. Okay. It's still one six, so we're good.

Great. You, you're impressed with yourself. You've been, you've been actually like making some ground today as an outdoor kid for once. And you follow her with ease almost. But as she gets close to the, the lip where the, where you know the meadow is, she stops looking back at you and starts full charging

like she's caught the scent of something new. All right. I guess, I mean, I can't stop her. So I'm just going to just run. The other four of you as you're sitting contemplating what to do, you hear some very familiar squeaks coming through the meadow. And you may not see Samus, but you sure as hell hear her as she squeaks her way into the,

into the meadow and surprises the dough as it bounds away. Um, but Samus doesn't give chase. Whatever Samus caught the scent of and saw is still there. And she's still squeaking and kind of wrestling around. You can see the grass moving where she is. You're having a hard time seeing what she's after though. You may have, does it sound like she's in pain or is it more of just like a,

like I'm, I'm having a great time. Roll me up with eyes. All right. Do you know geckos can vocalize? They have like little vocal chords. That's so cute. No. Okay geckos are so named because they, they say, you know,

say toke, toke, toke. That's so cute. That's what, that is definitely. Does Africa make noises? She can. She had like one of the first days I had her, I was like trying to figure out how to hold her and she was like, not happy one time.

She was like, like they chirp and scream. There was a video on YouTube of like a baby gecko screaming and it has like 15 million views geckos. It's interesting. Like geckos are, if you want to like do the phylogeny geckos split off earlier than snakes did from like other lizards.

So like if you want to include geckos and lizards, you also have to include snakes and lizards. So snakes are a type of lizard. They just have different qualities. I'd like to imagine HB is like remembering Che Yong at one point saying all of this and it's like, I don't know. I don't know what that sound means though, because he did not roll any sixes.

Yeah. It just sounds like it's mostly. Okay. Okay. In your head. There's no information. I don't remember that sound. Yeah.

If it's an on want to pee it, he's got it. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing a great job remembering the gecko sound for sure. Che Yong, you're coming up on your friends. You can kind of see them off to your left a little ways. Samus is still squeaking and shrieking and you can hear this other noise.

It's kind of a... Can I, because like, I know that her senses are probably better than mine. Could I do like a calculate to see if I can tell where she's looking? Absolutely. Like what's the direction she's going? For sure.

Go ahead and roll me a calculate. My maximum, my maximum. Maximum dice. So I rolled one six on the ground and then another six that was on top of a four because there was so many dice. It landed and I was like, oh cool. What's under there?

That's fine. With your two successes, you know exactly where she is. She is at the center, like almost dead center of the meadow in fact, right where the last kind of beam of sun is hitting and you can see the grass moving and as you're looking at that spot,

you can see something else in there. The last rays of sun that are coming through this canopy are kind of bouncing off something. It's, it's kind of, it's metallic for sure. I guess I'll nail it a little. And you can continue to hear the I'm going to slowly approach behind Samus and make sure that we're sort of side by side

and I'm not going to look over my friends in case and I don't want to blow their cover even more. So I just like crashed into this meadow and if there's any danger that's just looking at me, I don't care about that. So yeah, I want to go look at this. I'm going to go, I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to go to my dog dinosaur.

You walk up to your pterosaur and it doesn't take much of you getting into the meadow to see the great hulking metal thing that is crouched next to Samus. And it is the source of the, but as you get closer, it doesn't sound as menacing. It almost sounds like laughter, kind of.

And as you approach the metal thing, whatever it is, stands up from where it was in the field and now the four, the five of you all can see very clearly long legs, long arms, three pronged hands. You can't really see the feet, but there's a pretty good assumption that the feet look similar. One bulbous central piece shining bright silver

or it would have been maybe a year ago, but now it's been scratched and muddied and dulled by exposure and wind and rain and snow and dirt. And on top of the one big round is another smaller round that kind of wobbles around on top, not dissimilar to BB-8, not that I'm realizing as I'm describing it. Unfortunately, I didn't want to.

The Iron Giant and BB-8 had a baby? The Iron Age. Yes, actually very much. That is absolutely the image I'm trying to portray. I was getting Iron Giant vibes until you said BB-8 and I was like, I guess it's both. It's a little bit of both. There are two glowing white circles on the smaller part

that is on top and in the center of the white, or the white silver on its chest, there is one big glowing red light that stands up six, seven, seven and a half feet tall and stares down at you with blank eyes. Is that an evil red light or just like a red light? Hi. Hello.

Hi, you can talk. Hello. Can you talk? This is going to be one of those things where you use all the little pieces of what I say to you and then you learn how to talk. No. Oh.

I know how to talk. And as it speaks, there kind of comes this little, these two little doors open and there's a little speaker right in between the doors and you can see a little green light flicker with every syllable as it speaks. Ooh. Hello.

Are you... Do you have a name? Name. No name. No name. No name. And it kind of like gestures it itself with its little three prongs.

All right, no name. Hi. Hello. I'll be honest. I don't know what I thought would happen. I don't know what to do next. Okay. Are you having fun?

Yes. I like this dinosaur. What is its name? Her name is Samus. She's my best friend in the whole wide world. Also, she can fly. Watch this. Samus, fly.

Take off. A little excited little circles in the sky. The eye lights on this creature grow tiny and then blast into huge and go... It's definitely laughing. You're certain at this point. It's laughing as it watches the dinosaur circle in the sky. At this point, while it's sort of like

enraptured in the fly, I'm going to look over my shoulder toward my friends and just kind of like shrug my shoulders and just be like, you know, as if to say, y'all can come over if you want. I don't know if you want to. This still seems kind of like a dangerous thing.

HB is doing the... Good? Kind of like a thumbs up, but like wavering. Like... Okay, it seems okay. Cheyong's giving us the thumbs up. Yeah. He did break somebody's arms,

so just be careful, but I do want to talk to him. I'm going to get up and head over there. Yeah, Peyton was definitely like freaking out as Cheyong was stepping up there. Like, okay, all right. Gripping the branch and like ready to go. Like, okay, okay. And then they get up there and everything's calm

and then they just turn around and give us thumbs up. What the fuck? Okay. HB upon seeing the thumbs up. Right on. Just strides confidently through the meadow. Incredible. Even Cheyong's like, that's not what I meant at all, but okay. I meant I'm okay.

Henry confidently leads the way into the meadow and slowly this creature turns toward you and sees another person. Hello. Hey. Hello. Hello.

Hello. More friends. More friends. I'm Dij. Dij. I'm Dij. I'm Radda. They said their name is no name,

but I don't know if that was saying no name as in they don't have a name or that's their name. No name. And the little arms kind of raise almost like a shrug. Well, everybody should have a name, so maybe we should give you a name. Name. I would like a name.

I think I have a name once. What happened to it? I lost it. Fair. What do you like? What do you do? Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm. I do not know what I like. I wonder. I wonder. Pick a cool noun. That's what a lot of people do. What about plays? Pink.

Noun. Noun. Noun. First. Sock. Or stick. Or... What about like weeds?

Like weeds when they think. As the spring storming is happening, Henry's eyes light up and you can just see he's upon hearing the definition, thinking like, a study buddy. A study buddy. Study buddy?

They know so much. I'm HP, by the way. And this is our other friend. He says gesturing to Peyton. I think we haven't introduced ourselves yet. Yeah, Peyton's kind of like, straggling behind a little bit. And it's just like waving like,

what is happening right now? Come on over Peyton. This is a no name? They know a lot of stuff. Hello. Hi. Hello. Hi.

I like your hat. Thank you. Thank you. I like your light. Light. That's my light. That's where my, comes from.

This is just like talking to HP. It's breath. So that's where the life comes from. Okay. The robot speaks HP. This robot is great. You're great. Great.

You're great. Do you play football? Well, I can explain that. That's the one thing I know. HP can count to four real good. Yes. HP turns to the rest of the group and just does that like,

hands up just like, you've seen this? Awesome. I have to do study buddy. Is that, I mean, if you like, as beast. Yeah.

Yeah. And we'll, and in front of adults, we'll say study buddy. So that they'll be like, oh yeah, that's, that's an ally and a cool game. Stud buddy. Like that name.

Study buddy. Study. Study. Buh. SP. As you look at this creature, robot, whatever it may be,

it looked like there may have been some paint that was on it that's chipped off. There's a small patch on its back that looks a little bit recessed. Like there may be something, like something carved or a sticker back there.

Excuse me. And you have seen a lot of weird shit from the shed. You know that not all towns have magnetrene engines.

You know not all towns have dinosaurs. You know not all towns have weird small explosions or mini earthquakes. You know no towns have robots

that talk. This is very weird and very new and very strange. Just by looking at just by looking at it, can I tell

if it looks like it's been like basically I'm trying to find out if it looks like Dalton was messing with it to then get his arm broken. Like was Dalton picking on this thing or

can I not tell? Go ahead and roll me a an investigate. Okay. One success. Yeah. You can kind of see that there there's like a

like a chunk of their armor or their like carapace form that's a little bit dented that looks like some dumbass tried to punch it. You can you can make an inference that

likely some dumbasses Dalton as you look at the hands that are fucking massive. The three prongs you look and as you're watching

they're kind of like closing and opening and closing and opening on hinges. Not in a menacing way just kind of as like a almost just like unconsciously

they're closing and opening. And they look they they are mechanical and they are big. So you can you can make from that inference what you will or infer from that

what you will but the the robot is kind of just standing amongst you all completely calm besides being you know seven and a half at all.

It's looking out at the forest kind of almost like it's searching for the deer and where it went and then it'll come back up to Samus and watch her

fly. It seems almost harmless. I mean what do we do I mean look at him we can't just walk this thing back into town

but also it is going to freeze out here maybe we hide him somewhere what about our hideout can we fit him in there your mom's restaurant

yeah you know the storage room maybe you know she's gonna be so busy with all the orders and everything coming up

she might not go back there she's probably gonna be in the kitchen a lot could work this thing is this is like a reverse from if you think about it because it's gonna freeze

out here and so we need to put him somewhere warm I think but it's like is it a morph? where is it from? HB sometimes you are so fucking smart

alright dude yeah it's a morph maybe he's morph morph morph morph the stud bud

and it's little head kind of yeah studdy buddy is the code name yeah yeah like that sweet do you know where you came from morph?

came from came from came from and it's head starts kind of tracking tracking tracking tracking

and then it freezes and locks on to a distance everyone make me a calculate roll ooh one success okay zero

zero zero zero tell me how I rolled eight dice and none of them were a success all of you are kind of trying to look through where this robot

is looking and and some of you think that it's toward the school some of you think that it's toward I don't know maybe whitefish you're not entirely sure

Radda you are a thousand percent certain that it is looking in the direction of the shed morph is? morph is looking in the direction of the shed hey morph what are you looking at came from

came from you came from that you came from that shed shed do we do we know who might own that shed

oh no I mean the shed oh the shed yes was someone keeping you there don't hurt don't don't hurt yourself sometimes it hurts to try to remember things but you're not alone anymore

morph is not alone that's right you're part of the team now morph morph is part of the team teams swamp kids swamp kids swamp kids you're a swamp kid now

morph is a swamp kid beach is a swamp kid hey young is a swamp kid and slowly goes on to say all of your names and that you are all swamp kids yeah we already had one more than those

drumline kids now we have two more drumline they play the drums yeah yeah well I like drums but I like being a swamp kid more

that's our motto I think I like drums but I like being a swamp kid more yeah we could maybe shorten that to swamps over drums swamps over drums swamps over drums yes

sod sod sod sod oh man we just use one of the tarps that you have one of your many tarps and we could drape it over

morph and then walk that thing down bring it to the football game so they can cheer cause that was really good morph that was really good yeah is that what we were all thinking?

no I think it would interrupt the football game which you don't want to happen right I mean that could be like a totally like a future thing but like first we got to get him to be like in the village but if he came from the shed that means

somebody's been keeping him like there for like a minute so like we can't just bring him in there and then you know whoever kept him in the shed finds him right so we got to hide him somewhere

for at least now if he wanted to go back he would have gone back right morph I don't think morph has to go back yeah yeah right you would have gone back if you wanted to you're not

you're staying out here yes yes hey morph how many people have you seen besides us? people I have seen one

two three four five six hey three is right thanks people

okay well we know who three of those people are and I just kind of look at HB so the other three must be whoever made you or brought you out here did you

yeah did you escape? escape yes followed a bird escape I mean these three people they might come back for them

at some point I think I mean I don't think like hiding him as like a mascot is a bad idea but maybe we'll just get him somewhere safe first we'll put him at the

at the diner how small can you make yourself morph? use finish that sentence and before it has died in the air morph's legs and arms suck back into the bulbous little ball that it was

and he floods onto the ground with enough to scare birds out of trees it is a as he hits the ground wow

this is just like Sam says morph ball power this is so much cooler than snake eggs yeah those were slugs by the way like slug that's a colloquial term for eggs that went bad usually when snakes

like they go into brumation for the winter and then they breed afterwards so those are like really old I mean maybe they're still usable for other stuff but they are gross really old they are very old they're from last year they're from last breeding season

oh good that means they're weapons I like this this is like next level from this is sort of the ranged from smaller from HB leans in to morph conspiratorily and just says they talk about this stuff a lot

so you'll learn a lot about swamp stuff you just have to listen and try and remember I will remember everything this is the best day of my life ah ah ah I'm glad I think

Khadija's gonna start booking back towards where they came it's getting, is it getting dark? it is, the night is coming very quickly now the sun has disappeared over the edge of the mountain and you are in its shadow morph is letting off a little bit of light between their eyes and their chest

but it's more of like a radiating glow rather than a piercing beam okay we should, we should get back if it's too late I know my mom's gonna worry let's do it sure

alright, you all start making your way back down the mountainside going down is much easier from I'm sorry, morph does kind of get their legs out but they don't get them out the whole way they're a little bit shorter so they can be kind of closer to your size

their arms it seems like something in their arms has malfunctioned and the arms are either out or in there is no in between so the arms are out and just dragging behind them as they walk closer to kids' size

with you down the mountain every time there is a bird call morph will say will make, will try to make the same sound of Robin grow and is naming all the bird sounds

as you go down the mountain HB is taking notes on a crumpled napkin with every definition yeah they were made to find each other it's easy enough to get back down into town it's dark at this point people have started to go home

nothing really stays open terribly late in town but there are still a few people out milling everyone make me a comprehend or no an investigate I'm sorry, investigate, check no

one success nope three for three Deige what you got zero okay Deige you are deeply

fascinated by the like the catalog like memory of this creature as you start to roll past the school and into town Che Young and Henry

as you come into town there are a couple of folks milling around their people that you're used to seeing in town Brian's granddad is locking up at Elfman's Goods he doesn't seem that like bothered by seeing an extra kid with you

he just kind of assumes there's someone with a light and he raises his hand even though like his grandson's kind of a dick to you guys he still raises his hand and turns and walks down the street towards where you know he lives it's mostly people going inside honestly except Radda and Peyton

the two of you notice there is a black station wagon basically parked not anywhere in particular it's kind of close to the multi-purpose building

but you know nothing's going on there tonight the schedules posted for everyone to see there's nothing going on there tonight and as you kind of peer through the windows you can see a couple of those dudes that have been milling around town and you know work for the shed they've got their sunglasses on

even at night because they wear their sunglasses at night as part of the song of course they're sitting a little uncomfortably so you assume they have body armor on and they don't seem like they're on the lookout for anything

but they're definitely there they haven't seemed to have spotted you guys yet their their eye line is pretty expansive fucking co-ops what should we do what should we do about that

I don't know should somebody cause a distraction do we want to could be wanting the same is anybody really good with adults no I mean I have an idea but

it'll be something oh man okay I'm just gonna do it and I need you all to just kind of go with it alright got you you got it

this is a really bad idea Khadija's gonna take out she's gonna take out the BB gun she's just gonna hold it up get a little farther away from the friends hit a sort of just to make it seem like she's coming in from the woods

a sort of crescendo of a feral scream and take off past the guard these people with the gun in the air fucking incredible I don't even think she's loaded it I think the ammunition's still in the bag

but they don't know that just the image of this too you just gotta trust us and we're like yeah then you take a couple steps back and then take off screaming screaming screaming as soon as they turn to look I know what there might be a role involved as soon as they turn to look I'm rolling off with Morph

I know just go great I'm gonna need either who you can do lead or you can do charm or move

okay you can do move if you're trying to get past them fast and just be like a blur of confusion you can pick between lead or charm if you're trying to actively get their attention to stay on you

I wanna do charm great go for it one success one success you take off screaming out of the woods BB gun in hand and these two you see them

jerk in the car to the point that it rocks on its like shocks and as you run past they tumble out of their car after you hey kid, kid slow fuck down are you okay what's going on

and they're starting to run after you they think something's wrong they're concerned one of them glances back at where you came from but it's like not really seeing anything except for a group of kids and even then they're not really paying attention to the group of kids

they're both sprinting full pelt after you Peyton Henry Chaeyoung, Radda what are you and Morph doing where are you going, where are you taking them I'm rolling down

to Greta's Grub Greta's Grub the front is dark but the you can see like the back kitchen window is still bright and you can kind of see Greta's silhouette

moving in the window there's the back kitchen which is a way you can get in to your storeroom with your clubhouse or there is the front door

you can get in there both ways the storeroom is kind of off to the side by the bathrooms which way you want to go probably the storeroom entrance I would think to

not walk right in like all the way through the kitchen and then into the storeroom that way or you can go through the front through all of the tables and stuff and get into the storeroom that way oh yeah probably through the kitchen unless I can see my mom in there

she's in there in like a pencil through a bun she's pottering around maybe I'll go talk to my mom and you guys can go with Morph and yeah I'll distract her but not the same way because that would really scare my mom

great so Henry's going in first HB you you can roll me a charm roll or you can roll me

um a move roll move you can roll just to try and physically block her view of anything that might be happening charm you can kind of try to grab her attention I'm going to go with move

it is a stronger stat and I like the idea of him just making random small talk while trying to block football style the rest of his friends amazing so that would be five that's eight that is four successes

four successes damn beautiful so you go in through the back kitchen door you leave it propped a little bit for the rest of your friends you all can see that Morph is while a circle

not a big circle most of its size comes from its arms and its legs its arms are still dragging it's still kind of tottering around a little bit shorter but Henry goes in first and as you go in Henry your mom who's been kind of like

scrubbing the flat top grill turns around she goes oh honey I didn't think you'd be back so soon are you okay yeah just I had fun so I'm done with that now so I'm back

you're done with it's the sun's barely down what are you doing why'd you leave the door open it's cold you're gonna draft through and she starts to try to like walk past you I line block her like I do in football just like a really quick move

I need that for fresh air I'm really hot I ate too many hamburgers I got the meat sweats oh sweetheart I've told you so many times we really need to get some more vegetables in your diet here and she turns around and starts like going

to the fridge the big like industrial fridge where there's like bell peppers and carrots and shit and she starts chopping one up and like talking about nutritional value and like different plates completely I'm raptured in this deep desire to take care of her son

as the three of you and Morph I'm not even gonna, for success is no one is even gonna roll to sneak Morph in there Morph's little arms drag along the ground and Greta kind of looks up and turns and she's like is that the damn heater again

I told them it doesn't matter it doesn't matter that's something we can deal with tomorrow okay right now I'm having time with my son and like she looks over at you so adoringly she just cherishes you

and she's like okay honey here's some green bell peppers and some yellow bell peppers and she's like got a whole veggie plate basically set up for you in a matter of moments the other three of you lead Morph through the

darkened dining area and toward your storeroom is there anything that you guys want to do on this or are you just pure sneak yeah no all sneak nothing but the sneak yeah just great getting Morph in there

great you guys I'm not even gonna make you roll because Allison rolled fucking out of this world you all make it into the storeroom do you guys want to describe your little hideout that you've made in here yeah yeah everyone can chime in on the hideout

even if you're not technically in this scene at this moment but everyone can chime in to describe what our hideout looks like I think it's like a storeroom so it's probably got like boxes in the corner like we've pushed all these boxes and old tables and chairs everywhere

but maybe we've fashioned some of it into like a fort situation if one wants to be like in a fort but yeah it's just like a dusty place with tarps and stuff lots of shelves and stuff piled and like like how many sacks

can like fit into one shelf and like they're all just spilling out all over the place gotta have like Christmas lights and shit like just like you know like a stop sign like you know just like random shit we've picked up it's just to add to the decorum to lighten up the place

the restaurant shit is like actually organized so you could easily have access but like in front of the things you're supposed to have easy access to or like action figures that make it now impossible to reach without dragging something down on the floor there's probably a lot of those

signs that you put in front of your restaurant to advertise like a special for the day like a little trifold sign and we could have I don't know maybe cut them up collage style or like made them into other signs so they say things that are funny or you know kind of messing with those

do we maybe have some of Rada's drawings up too yeah I got like them like slapped there's like clear tape on top of them there's definitely at least a fridge in there right and we put like magnets put it up on the fridge yeah

probably have a boombox in there somewhere too over the years Greta has kind of stopped using this room as much because you guys have kind of taken it over the far corner is yours specifically that is what she started with

and was like okay you can have this corner you guys over the years and over the friendship times have kind of crept your little grubby child fingers into every corner of this storeroom and she

anytime anything changes there are action figures which when you cut up some of the billboards she just kind of shakes her head and sighs but lets it happen it's really it's a very safe place that you guys have been able to kind of create as your own

um there are some Christmas lights kind of strung around inside your little fort so that when you plug them in you have light um and you you get morph in there

kind of settle they're not really fully settled their eyes are they've gone big again and they're looking in every corner and they zero in on the action figures and both the arms and the legs suck into the little ball

and they roll toward it and stop this close action figures action figures who who is your favorite who do you love hey man

no me no I think at that point Peyton's immediately like looking and was like where the fuck and is trying to find the exact one that is her favorite but it's not where she usually puts it and she's now in a state of still trying to be quiet but also kind of freaking out like where did it go

Peyton you are upset yeah I'm upset I can't oh no here it is and I find I find it like it knocked over on the floor it's just a little like spider-man figure thug dirt man thug dirt man

that's whatever thug dirt can huh trying to contain excitement yes sets it back on the shelf it says lovely it says your home

home yeah it's our home together home together and the little the little doors of the speaker open a little bit wider um we're gonna cut over to Deej

uh you are running through town down the high street um with these two adults following you um I'm gonna ask what are you where are you trying to do

where are you are you trying to outrun them are you trying to hide from them are you what's what's going through Deej's head right now as soon as I know that swamp kids are clear I'm gonna try to shake them and go back to

the diner um so whatever kind of scrambling especially if that means like jumping into straight up like hedges for a second that is completely I think that's what she's looking for either make a move or a body check

for me move or body I'm sorry move and body are the same thing just a move check gotcha gotcha shot out of the back of my head for a second it's fine

that's nothing nothing nothing um I get one luck point I didn't use it okay you you you get all your luck points back at the beginning of sessions so

if you have a luck point you can use it do I re-roll all my dice everything that wasn't a six let's go that's three fives no there's still nothing it's okay you're ducking into like spaces between

buildings and you're crouching behind bushes but these dudes are fast and they are observant and whatever they try to shake them they kind of they're like oh oh they're slowing down

kiddo hey fuck it hold on god damn it what the fuck is wrong with you just wait uh and they're they're they are still in hot pursuit and they are gaining I think once it's clear that she's not going to shake them she gets a little bit more

time and just turns around and just stands with her eyes wide stops running just full stop turn full stop turn amazing they have to put on

like the afterburner brakes to stop before hitting you they're like whoa holy shit are what the fuck what are you doing what's wrong with you are you good what's up uh

I don't know if it's right for you to use those machines while we're playing tag playing who are you playing tag with my friends I thought you all guys were all playing but you know it's a little hard to run when you have

a machine and I don't think that's fair what a car are you talking about our car mm-hmm what the fuck um wrong if you tag me I don't think it counts

roll me a charm you still have a BB gun in your hand yeah yeah do nope wait nope you can push if you want to

yeah I think it's fair that she's exhausted yeah come on babes one success great uh you they look at the BB gun in your hand they look at you they look at each other

and behind them and then they look at you again and they go it's the last day of fucking school isn't it it's break baby oh my god these fucking kids man and the other one goes hey watch your fucking mouth

uh you know kid just go home we're not here to play with you we have fucking jobs to do do you understand that do you understand what's over there and they start launching into this very grown up diatribe

about their job and how important what they do is and how they can't spend all their time chasing after snotlows little kids mm-hmm and it gets to the point that they're just kind of talking to talk sound like they're doing something important you could probably walk away

I'm just gonna sort of side step out of frame while they're doing that and head towards the diner yeah they uh they watch you a little bit and they go don't pull any shit like that with us again I mean just let me know if you're playing or not

we won't play now I know huh they kind of watch you until you go into Gretta's grub and they walk back to their car slowly okay

I think she crawls into the hideout as she normally does and you see her like holster be become guys that was buck wild how we doing buck wild

I think they're settling in really nicely huh good I think I have a little CRT TV in the corner and we're like trying to pick out like a VHS or something to watch

and I'm like I'm gonna bring my Nintendo like next time because like you have everybody has to try Metroid it's like the best game ever and we're all gonna play it and we're all gonna love it and also you can help me because I keep getting stuck

I keep getting lost actually it's a big map you can just go anywhere it's really cool go anywhere like outside I guess it's on the alien planet their eyes kind of dim for a second and they look around at all of you can I go outside

I mean I don't make is somebody gonna make the rule so somebody make rules for for Morph or is Morph just like another part of the game I guess you can't really do whatever you want because it might put you in danger right so yeah if you

if you ran away you probably can't just go anywhere yet you need to disguise disguise disguise but until we find one you should probably stay here you're not keeping me here right

you're not keeping me here you can leave whenever you want but we want you to know that if you leave and people see you then we don't know what might happen to you so we're not forcing you to stay but we're just trying to figure out a way to make sure that you don't get taken back

there because an adult will see you and send you back to the shed we're just trying to keep you safe plus we can visit you easier if you're here and you don't have to be alone in the woods by yourself I don't want to be alone

I want to be here with you yeah actually now that it's break we can be here just about all the time yeah maybe oh maybe we should ask HB to ask his mom if we can sleep over tonight at that HB knocks on the door with the secret knock

to let you all know it's him and sneaks into the like sidles in through this cracked open door and has a bunch of leftover peppers that he couldn't manage to eat and some hamburgers

that are assembled properly on buns and joins the rest of the group and looks at morph and says I don't know what you eat but I just you know here's some options vegetable meat don't put that in your body it's gonna rot please don't they've already like

slinky slinky like a one long arm over and pincered very surprisingly delicately one piece of pepper and are just regarding it do you have a trash system

I don't know like what's the plumbing situation before you can get an answer out of them the arm sucks back into their body and rockets the piece of pepper into

the space where their little speaker barn door mouth is and the barn doors close and open on the piece of pepper until it's just pulp and juice and it's starting to drip down the little

circular bits and into the rest of it and it goes I can't taste anything this is amazing you can eat my vegetables I can't eat anything we just I'm not gonna clean that up

no but I can and I take the rest of the peppers HP you probably need like the minerals and stuff in vegetables if you want the protein to have the maximum absorption and distribution through your body for football season so you know you probably want for nutrition

sake want to eat some veggies oh okay he looks crestfallen just the news at the fact that he has to listen to his mom on this one fat point is just too much for him like you know how veggies make you big and strong

that's a thing it's not just meat and working out and listening to coach and trying really hard if coach ate a single vegetable in his life he might be a better coach because his brain needs vegetables to like function

maybe that's been my problem the whole time maybe you were really smart but you didn't have enough veggies that might be it all right morphe no more of those I'm gonna need those they're good for you they're good for you

morphe knows I'm turning over a new leaf spinach leaf lettuce leaf maple leaf by the way my mom didn't believe me that I was done having fun so

if we do want to do a sleepover I think she'd be okay with it all right there's more fun allotted and then yeah and then morphe doesn't have to be by himself tonight we could also we could like take shifts too of like hanging out like

depends on like what kind of work everyone has to do maybe like make a little schedule and I'll like get a little spreadsheet a little like all right we can all like sign up for time and just like make sure we rotate and like I don't know I got a dig hole I probably dig holes like in the late morning

when it's like a little warmer and it's not too hard I don't know what everybody else has to do but we can figure it out later yeah that's fine Khadija reaches into the hikers bags and pulls out the sleeping sleeping bags that she asked for three of them

it is perfect she like unzips them and unfolds them so it's just like a huge like plot of sleeping bags for them see I knew we were gonna need it yes always be prepared

this is great I'll just make sure my mom doesn't come back here he pokes his head out the door and yells down the hall mom my friend's over here we're having a sleepover and our secret hideout we don't need anything and we're doing fun things so don't come in

okay sweet pea it's gonna be real fun mom I guess come tell me if you need anything I'm gonna leave here probably an hour are you staying here yeah yeah sleep over here

we're all good though no problems okay well don't open the door anyone you don't know okay I could do that okay I'll leave some food up for you I love you

I love you too mom I ate a pepper and I think I'm turning over a new leaf that's great sweet pea that makes me happy to hear good good I'm glad you're happy mom okay bye he slams the door turns around we're good she doesn't suspect a thing

and Morph's already in here so I don't need to open the door for Morph we're set awesome the five of you now six curl up in your little hideaway

with your spider-man and your vcrs and your unzipped sleeping bags and your peppers and you have maybe the weirdest sleepover you've ever had in your lives

and that is where we're going to end our session for today thank you my wonderful players for a lovely sweet little session thank you to our friends who have watched

gonna make sure that all of our wonderful guests have a chance to always say where they are, what they're doing, all of that good stuff so we'll start again with Allison oh boy I'm excited for reverse order one day hi

I'm Allison I go by insight checked on the internet you can find me on twitch, twitter and youtube I run actual plays a ttrpg actual plays and narrative video games on my stream we do a lot of fun zany stuff so if you like

fun zany stuff and a pinch of chaos give me a follow would appreciate it we've played one of my games on first Fridays yeah first Fridays is a guest GM takes over the channel and runs a different system we raise money for charity

and Lex ran Hexfall Carrie ran Deadlands and you know there might be some forthcoming invitations to the rest of the folks in this group so come check it out incredible

Lex you're up Lex also known as TitanomicaRPG on twitter I'm an indie game designer a creator of Caltrip Core which you can use to make your own game just like this except it's all de-forced you can find everything at TitanRPG.com

most of it's free or pay what you want so go ahead and check that out you could be a game designer before you go to sleep tonight yeah Carrie what you got hello I am Carrie Smith from Crossroads Games we constantly have new

actual play content way too much of it probably at youtube.com slash at Crossroads Games and we literally have something new constantly so you just have to come see Zach and Eli anything from y'all?

look out just look at Evil Hat productions just look at them I don't know when but keep looking at them and you'll see me I love a cryptic drop

to take us out thank you everyone for joining us thank you everyone for playing it has been an absolute dream as always I love playing with you folks I love this game I love this system I love these characters it's absolutely joyful

everyone take care of yourselves have a lovely rest of your day goodbye