The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S1 | E15 – Ill Met By Moonlight

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

With Vaughn accosted by the police, the others begin to infiltrate Ju-Ju House. Watch the video here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtu.be/sgIVeb0jvvk⁠ For a limited time, use code "TFC" to save 15% on Cthulhu products at ⁠⁠⁠chaosium.com⁠⁠⁠. Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Watch new episodes when they premiere every Friday at 8PM ET on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/theglasscannon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, starting July 11th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What the hell does that mean? Good everybody. Good everybody afternoons. That's my new greeting. That's my classic Friday night greeting. Good everybody. Perfect. Welcome.

Nailed it. It's time for chaos. It's time for chaos. You screwed up the whole opening. We know what we're caping at. Because this is how we do things here. It's raw! I, uh, two days ago, what day is it now?

I don't know. I went to a casino and I met up with about ten of my friends and we got a room to do our fantasy draft. And we drafted for about eight hours and between between the 10 of us, we drank 1,500 beers, give or take. And then we proceeded to hang out of the casino until they politely asked us to go to our rooms. And two days later, I am still hungover from this event. You know, when you get older, this doesn't go away, but I feel like the younger generation,

I read something today that says the younger generation drinks like 20% less than the previous generations. I wonder if that's true. Do you guys still tie one on from time to time or you might be t total is I don't know Let's talk about it Rob you you get you like really still get out of control Not no not as much as Used to that's for sure you know kids. I don't know if you guys notice kids fuck everything up. Yeah In great ways, I guess, whatever.

They're cool. So, yeah. So no, I mean, the problem is now is that if there is a night and it's like, it's coming, here we go. All right. Two things happen. Either a, I forgot how to drink. So I'm destroyed way too early. Cheap drunk. And yeah. Or B, I get so tired that I'm like, here we go, fuck it. And then I just stop and go to bed.

So, or leave wherever we are. You know what I mean? Like it's not, the days of the casual drinking slash Drunk use. Have really taken a, taken a tumble. The hit with age. Yeah, age, children, responsibility, whatever. All that stuff. Yeah, it's children, responsibility, whatever. All that stuff.

Yeah, it's hard when you're just hanging out with friends doing something far away from the children. To be like, dad, dad, dad, get another one, dad, dad, get another one, let's switch to margaritas now. I can't. There's no putting a Post-It note on the kid's door in the morning being like, leave me alone until 10. Those kids are up at 6.30.

It doesn't matter what the fuck I say, it's happening. Right, so it's like they're two tiny Grim Reapers. Every time I'm drinking, I like see them like at the corner of the bar, it's just like, this tiny little size difference between the eight and the two year old and they're both just like with a sigh and just staring at me. So I know.

Like the Shining twins. Like in Scrooge when Bill Murray like, and he goes to Christmas Future, like opens its bottom and those two puppets are like, ah! Those are my kids. That's the second time that scene has been referenced in the past two weeks.

Oh really? If not on this show, on another show. Kate, what about you? Are you pretty level-headed or do you go out and you get crazy? You still get crazy, Kate? I can't hang anymore. Like if I have a margarita and a glass of wine,

that's like two different things. My stomach's messed up. We talked about five maps on one of the past episodes. Like done, my tummy's all messed up. Also just like one drink or two, like gives me a headache. I just feel like crap. I can't hang. My thing is like three, gotta stop after that.

The last time I went crazy was my friend's going away party who moved from Brooklyn to Austin. And we did not intend to, but we ended up at one of our old haunts. No one intends to. And we saw someone that we knew and it was like shots, shots, shots. And I was like on the floor when I got home just like, Oh God, everyone hates me. And it was awful.

I had a great time. You feel fine now. I broke my bag. I don't know how. There's a back. I guess what I thought you were going to say. I'm like, Oh no. I was in traction.

But yeah. I don't know how. They're sitting back. I thought you were gonna say, I'm like, oh no. I was in traction. But yeah. And then the time before that was at the Glass Cannon Live on Halloween. Stayed out until like 12 o'clock in the effing morning. I don't do that anymore. That was a good time. I cannot do that.

That was a good time. Oh God, we gotta do that again. Nora, you seem like you just, you are completely in control all the time. Do you ever really let loose? I mean, here's the thing. I like the gathering. I like being out with friends and I mean, I enjoy alcoholic beverages.

What I fundamentally dislike- It's not a Nora. No, not where I am. I will adamantly deny. I don't like the feeling of being drunk. Yeah. So like, I don't like getting to that point. I like the hangs with friends,

I, you know, to a certain point in the late night slash early morning, but I don't like feeling drunk. So I like drinking, but the only difference between now and when I was younger is like now I can like, now I know what my limits are and I'm just like, ah, you know, I'm not like accidentally getting, you know, shit faced. Yeah, that's good. What about you, Ross? I don't know.

I feel like there might be a wild side to Ross we haven't seen yet. You're like one day a week. I black out. I'll never know. When I look back on my... Not that I was like the wildest child, but when I was in back on, not that I was like the wild, like the wildest child, but like, like when I was in like Chicago, like first starting out, like doing like comedy and stuff. When I look back on a night spent like performing in a bar drinking right afterwards,

going to enough to other places and then like getting on a bicycle to bike to another place and like coming to bed at like 4 a.m. or whatever and then getting up at like six to go to work and then rinse repeat. Like if I did that today, I would fully turn to dust. I could not. I forgot about the going to work on over thing. I forgot about biking home thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Nuts. My wife is a thousand times cooler than me. Just yesterday, just got a phone call from friends of hers in a band were like, hey, you want to be on the guest list tonight? We went to a show for the first time in a long time last night and got to hang for a bit. The next day, I was like, I know can do anymore.

It's like, it's just like, if I hang a little too hard, it's like that's, the next day is a wash. Yeah. So. That's the worst. Will it stop me? Absolutely not. No.

You'll never know what's in this mug. Thank you. I'm sure we'll all have moments of weakness. I need to remember this because in a couple of weeks, I'm going to a wedding in Taos and it's all the friend groups from college. No one's bringing their kids. So – Y'all are going to get drunk.

Yeah. I feel like everyone has already gotten in their individual slingshots and are pulling themselves back. And that weekend happens, it's like, yeah! This is what happened at the draft, because I would say probably half the guys have kids and are married and then the other half didn't. But all of a sudden I just look at her on the room

and I'm like, oh, everyone's, we're all doing this. It was just out of control. I think it's a sign of the culture in L.A. that whenever any a group of friends of mine have like one of those lost weekends coming up, it's never to have a bender. It's always to like go on some sort of psychedelic vision quest. Yeah, I'll be a Taos. That's probably someone's going to be vision questing. It's such a big part of New York culture, like I haven't lived the city for a long time, but especially I've bartended for 15 years.

The culture of New York is just you start drinking at happy hour and all of a sudden, oh my God, it's four in the morning. I got to get out of here. Don't Chicago bars do last call at like 5 a.m., some of them? Yeah, it's even later than New York, but I don't miss that. It is nice every once in a while, though, to let loose and then have that hangover and recover and be like, ah, the human body is pretty resilient. Time to go right back at it.

But not tonight. I have to keep my bearings for what is set to be one hell of an episode. I was trying to think what happened last episode, but I confuse it with all the other episodes that we've done. But I wanna hear it in your words, Kate. What happened last episode? I think that's just us going back around in circles,

like not even hearing out where the fuck this is going. My notes are what they are. It starts out with a list of movies. Hellraiser, Suspiria. I still have Ross's fall. The Descent. I'm not gonna watch these. Why did I take notes of this?

Like you might. You all watch my. You should watch all of those. All right. Something about the new moon. We go to see Poole, Feyreuse, and I, and he fucking hates us. Man, waste of time.

I don't know what that means. These are good notes. These are good notes. Oh, Poole. There's a guy named Poole. Lieutenant Poole. I thought it was like, what's the Poole? And then just like, you know, more of that.

I don't know. It was that people were getting kidnapped on the new moon. That's what it is. Right, right, right. And then Feyreuse and Scooby Doo, What's your name? Margo. Margo. Go to the tenant pool to kind of like do a little info swap. As usual, it doesn't go too, too well. But he tells you pretty much like you might be treading into an area that you shouldn't

be treading into. So maybe just not do this. And you're like, okay, we'll stop investigating. And then you left. And then you went over. Go look for husbands. Go look for husbands. Slapped you on the rear on the way out. And then you went over to Emerson Imports just to see how is this all connected.

And you snuck in, you were kind of timing as the boats were coming in, when everyone be distracted. So you snuck in, you were kind of timing as the boats were coming in, when everyone would be distracted. So you snuck in, went up to the office of the manager. And what did you discover in there? He had a picture of Elias on his desk. Or like, no, not his card. Yeah, his business card.

Yeah. That's right. A picture of the heart around it. And a license. A room number scribbled on the phone number. We also found out that their shipments to Juju House arrive at the first of the month or on the first few days. Right.

Right. Shipments to Juju House tend to come in around the beginning of the month. Obviously, it's the end of January now, so you know there may be something coming in in February. But the most compelling thing was that he had Jackson Elias' business card. So then Carter and Vaughn are staking out the juju house and you saw a guy go in, white guy, came out a little bit afterwards, shoved an envelope in his jacket. Yeah. That was pretty much it. You guys all reconvened. And he had a gun. We thought he had a gun in his jacket.

That's right. We were starting to assume that that is a Robeson dirty cop that we are, or a cop we're led to believe is dirty by several people. Yeah. Robeson or one of Robeson's men from the 14th Precinct walking out of there. He's got a gun Put money in his pocket Eventually you all convene there to be like, you know what? We just need to watch this overnight and see what we can see Oh wait, I forgot also didn't mark it was oh, yeah

We went in Vaughn and Carter went in posing as a man and his butler to look at expensive things. Stevie and his valet. Stevie and his valet. And while Vaughn is distracting Silas and Nequane, Carter sees that there is a back room where it looks like someone sleeps. There's some stuff back there, but there's also a hidden door underneath the rug. You also saw him right in a ledger that he put underneath the counter as well. So you get out of there, you all reconvene and decide,

let's spend the night. Hold on, hold on, the most important thing you're missing is I stole that motherfucker's key. You stole the key! Mm-hmm. Yes, that's right. I rolled no less than 42 times during that scene, and that's what happened.

He was leaning over and the key was dangling, and you just did the ol' Indiana Jones, except you didn't replace it with anything. Just air. Took the key, and that's why, this is very important, because when you all decide to go back to watch it overnight, you see a bit of a situation. It looks like a guy comes up matching the description of the guy that Hilton Adams followed,

a big muscular bald black guy, comes in, he's angry, irate, and then he leaves and you think, it must be related to the stolen key. So Vaughn says, you guys stay here. I'm going to trail stolen key. So Vaughn says, you guys stay here, I'm gonna trail this guy. So Vaughn trails this guy all the way to the east side, like right around Spanish Harlem.

The guy stops outside of an apartment building and goes in. Vaughn is trying to like watch to see like do any of the windows light up? Can you find out which apartment this guy is going into? And pushes a roll, a tactic we keep forgetting to use, which is so clutch, fails on the push. And all of a sudden he hears a voice of a couple of 14th precinct cops come up,

giving them the business. While meanwhile, Carter, Feruze, and Margo, to Kunk break into Juju House when they see Silas leave. You rolled a locksmith check. We did. And you opened the door. Oh, I thought it ended on Vaughn getting caught by getting nabbed by the.

It did, but moments before that, you saw Silas leave and you went over and locksmithed the door. Here we go. Opened it. Oh God. I wanna pick back up with Vaughn. You're surrounded by, I think I said four police officers.

But you said there were children. I feel like that's a for child police officers They're trench coat easily beaten easily kicked out early early Halloween costumed children around 139th Street and the Lennox have at one in the morning no, it's it's for cops and they're They come up to you and they kind of surround you almost like a horseshoe then you feel like you're closed in and They come up to you and they kinda surround you, almost like a horseshoe. Oh great. You feel like you're closed in.

And they're just like, uh, what are you doing up here this time of night? A lot of bad things go down in Harlem. When the sun goes down, a guy like you shouldn't be up here. Oh, I... Heh. I scarcely know what that means, gentlemen. But I suppose you've caught me out, Fair Cop. I am from out of town. I don't suppose you could direct me to, I believe it's 82nd Street?

I'm trying to get to the British Consulate, don't you know? Guys, look at each other. 82nd Street. You're a long way from 82nd Street. In fact, I don't know if you're going to make it to 82nd Street tonight. It's dark. This, uh, consulate you're looking for is probably closed. What are you doing up here? Did you really get lost? Or are you, uh, looking for trouble? I assure you, I assure you, sir, trouble's not my line. Um, if anything, I was looking for, um, whatever good times are to be had up here in Harlem. As you can see, it seems as though I haven't found them. Unless it's a crime to be walking abroad in your illustrious city after dark, then I suppose I'll go back where I'm staying. As you say that, you look and you see the guy you were trailing come out of the building and go

across the street and start to walk away from the building. Hmm. Okay. So it's just dipping in there. Dipping in and dipping out. Okay. And the police... Do I recognize any of these guys as the guy who we clocked taking the payout from the Juju house? Roll a Star Count. Mm. Roll a spot in.

Okay. I think I made that. Okay. I made it. 55 under 75. 55 under 75, and we forgot to do the luck roll. We'll do that as well in a second. You look and like you're...

Maybe you're trying not to make too much eye contact because it's very creepy. The shadows of like the streetlights are making them all look like monsters the way they're standing there. But one of those guys looks exactly like the guy you saw walk in. Now he's dressed in NYPD outfit. They say to you, uh, no, no, it's not, uh, not a crime to be standing here. Thing is, some people who spend too much time in Harlem, they just find themselves in trouble,

if you know't come here anymore. You and maybe anybody you hang out with. Yes, I can, uh, take your meaning, sir. Was this helpful advice all you gentlemen cared to give me? Or am I being detained? No, no. We're just making sure you're safe. That's part of our job.

To protect the people of this town. To serve the city of New York. You uh, have a good night. Hope we don't have to run into each other again. Yes, of course, um, you carry on the, uh, illustrious and good service you do up here. Good night, you gentlemen. Nay. Thank you ever so much for your concern. Good night to you gentlemen. And they... Thank you ever so much for your concern. They close on you a little bit more and one of the guys got his hand on his gun, just

kind of posturing a little bit. And then they turn and as they move away you look back towards the apartment building where that man left. And you see someone standing there, staring at you. And it's your friend whose picture you carry in the locket. What? Now we haven't talked about this friend too, too much. We don't need to, but can you give me a physical description of this gentleman? He's a tall and young gentleman with tousled, dark hair. And he was a friend of mine that I knew before the war and that I went to war with. And I knew him to be a sensitive soul. And I witnessed something terrible happen

to him over there. British? Yes. He's standing there and there's no one else on the street. Right as the police leave your view, he's standing there and he just turns and opens the door to the apartment building and walks in. Um... Vaughn is extremely shaken.

I think we said that this is the kind of thing that he's maybe seen... this friend whose name is... whose name is Oberon Doyle. He's seen him... He's seen him from the window of his home back in England just for a second. The kind of thing where you'd look, see him in the lawn, double take and gone. And of course he can't resist. He will walk up to the apartment building if the police have left him free to move around. Look up the street.

Police are gone. He cross over to the other side. And you go up to the apartment building. Go ahead. Um, and I would go through the same door, I suppose, that I saw him enter. You push open that door and there's a small foyer with another door that you would assume is locked. Several mailboxes and several buzzers with names next to them.

I look at the buzzers and names, is there anything that I recognize from our various research? that I recognize from our various research. You see, in apartment 3F, the last name is a little bit smudged, but it looks like it says Madari M apostrophe D-A-R-I. It's the fellow that I thought I just saw enter and exit. I will go up to the third floor, I suppose. Go to open the door and the inside door is locked. Is this the door in the foyer or a door?

Yeah, the door in the foyer. So the door that got you into the room with the buzzers and the mailboxes, that was open, but the interior door is locked. Okay. Oh, it seems like a terrible idea to buzz up, but. What have I just seen? Can't help myself.

Yeah, I buzzed the door. I just saw the guy leave. I buzzed the Midari residence. Stare at the intercom. No response. Is there any other way of entry that I can see here? It's just this one lock door. Seems to be the one lock door, you know, you could try to pick the lock. I don't know if that's really in your skill set. Or you could just strength your way in and see if you could bust it. Not really my pick lockpicking. Not really my foretail boy. Yeah, what other or any other solution you may have. There's a whole building there too.

Yeah. Is there a fire escape? There may be. You go around looking around the alley and you do see a fire escape leading up to the back of the building. Now, if he's 3F and the other apartments were B, you imagine that the B is the back of the building and 3F is on the front. But at least maybe have a way in. Yeah, because normally those would feed out onto a common hallway. Yeah, okay, I'll try to scale the fire escape in the back.

Give me a basic climb roll. Great. Let's do the luck roll, let's do the luck roll. Let's all roll for luck before you do this. Just in case you need the luck. He might need the luck. We know you love fire escapes. I know.

He's climbing and not jumping out a window over it. But yeah, let's do the luck roll for the sesh. Cause I spent a lot last. Oh yeah, I went. I finally failed. I get luck today. You failed ya! Oops.

All right. I succeeded in failing. Amazing. Rob, did you luck up? I did by six points, which puts me at 21 because I spent a thousand points to steal that key. Ross, what about you? No, no more luck for me.

Our good friend Jared Logan, Michael, behind the scenes pointed out to me that he has a house, a house house rule that he does. I hate it. I bet you do. That is you can only spend ten luck on a roll. That's right. And I was like, oh, very interesting.

Found that baby out during Gen Con. I hate this so much. Yeah, it's interesting. I was like, oh, okay, I'm not changing rules midseason But I wouldn't want to take a look at that one. What'd you get for that climb roll of on? Let's here we go um Rolled a 57 which is Well over my climb skill. Okay. Do you want to push it here?

I mean, it's kind of, it's, you don't feel like a lot of bad things could happen. You're just trying to get a footing here. Right. Hard to, hard to get up. Um, or maybe find a new tactic. Yeah. Okay. If I can't, what this tells me is that the fire escape probably has one of those descending

ladders that is just super far out of my reach. Yeah. so like... Okay. I'm gonna do something that may be on the surface as ridiculous, but I need to bear in mind what I have just seen. I've been turning over this person in my head for a long, long time. I've been contemplating ever since what we shared in Peru, the idea that the dead can come back to life, that there is a resurrection. And obviously, those are the resurrection of the world to come in his little Catholic

theology, but he's delved into mysticism and thinks that there may be some way, and he's saying he's seeing evidence of it so this is like a mania for you at this point like a mania yeah some kind yeah that that we so I think I might go back in and try to strengthen my way through that shut door okay so you're like it's too high I mean yeah you just see you impotently jumping. It's just like, and then just like, damn, by the bloody severed head of John the Baptist fucking, and then like running down, back down the alley

and into the front door and just like holding the knob and then puts his shoulder into it and tries to get it open. All right, great, give me a strength roll. Okay. It's an old Harlem door And that's not fighting back. I made it hard 2175 okay, I wasn't gonna tell you this but if you had made just a regular success I was gonna say I was gonna do significant damage to the door

But I'll say that you hit it just in a good spot that like it's a shitty old door You're able to just pop it open Looks like some of the metal has been bent Maybe the person the own who owns the building might notice this the people who live there But you're in and ahead of you lies the stairs going up OBE Um, hmm, OBE OBE start walking towards the stairs and we fade out of there and we come back to Margo and Carter and Vaughn

Carter locksmith extraordinaire clunk opens the door There's stuff that goes on here at night. You've seen meetings, you've seen doorman, but perhaps something to do with the stolen key. You didn't see anybody go in. Everyone has left, but for how long you don't know,

what do you do? It's dark inside. Feel like our three heads pop up in a line. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Nya, nya, nya. All right. Yeah, do we hear anything? We saw Silas leave. I guess just like,

a listen. Let me listen, Ro. Uh, where is that? And critically fail it. Oh, geez. Ooh, 25 over 23. So I'm gonna spend two to get a success. Okay, listen. I think you were the one listening before

when you snuck up after the doorman went in and at that point you heard, was it singing? Was it yelling? Was it wailing? You're not 100% sure. Now you hone in. And you hear nothing. Horns in the background from the street.

Someone just stabbed me! But that's way in the distance. That's New York sounds. Right. Nothing on the inside. Just another day in the distance. That's New York sounds. Right. Nothing on the inside. Just another day in New York. Try to stab over here. Cocaine, get your cocaine. I think it's safe.

We can go in. All right. I'm looking around for a light, a lamp. No, we shouldn't. I mean, we shouldn't turn anything on. What if he starts coming back? He's gonna know immediately someone's in his place. I like pat my pockets down for matches

as we're all smokers in this time, this day and age. All right. You have approximately seven seconds to look real quick. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Do you go in? Really, I want you to be explicit about what you're doing here. Are you shutting the door behind you?

Are you leaving the door open? Are you opening the curtain? You turn on the lights. I feel like one of us should keep a look out outside the door just to see if somebody's coming. Well, he's got that little curtain that he'd like to peek out of. I feel like we shut the door,

someone peek out the curtain, be the lookout. Carter would like to go behind the front counter and grab that ledger. Okay, it's crazy dark in here, and you start spreading out throughout the room, and it's this real ominous feeling, especially with just this one match like. Ah!

Ah! Sneezes of New York. This is like. Like the third time I've sneezed since we started this business. On camera. You feel like you're being stared at by all these masks and animal carvings and statuettes,

like all the tribal artifacts in the room just feel much more ominous now in the dark with the flickering light from Faerûz's matches every couple seconds. So you're just, you're seeing that light flicker off these grotesque African tribal mask faces, or like a fucking giraffe that looks all fucked up. And you go over and you're looking for what? The ledger, you said? The ledger that Vaughn and I saw him do his little bookkeeping in.

You go behind the counter there with the little curtain sheet separating the main room here from the back room and sure enough you see the ledger right there who's got a anyone have a knapsack kind of I mean I'll carry it. You know we both have bags. both do. We both have bags. All right ladies, sorry, I didn't wanna be, you know, wanna assume anything. What am I, your pack mule? That's the trouble with always carrying a handbag

is everybody else wants you to carry their shit. I try to, you know I got the zoot suit. I try to tell them, give me pockets that could carry at least a ledger. This is why women like pockets. Yeah. Did you say that there was a trap door here? Oh yeah. Let's check out this trap door that I found.

Maybe we can get photographic evidence of something. Right, but who's gonna, someone should still stay on lookout. All right, we can take turns being on the lookout and then snooping. I'm sure we're all curious. Keep a lookout while you open the door? Yeah, all right. Let's start there.

Okay. I'm going to open this fucking trapdoor. All right, so you slide the rug to the side, just as you did earlier when you and Vaughn were posing as tourists. And you see it's this door, and it's got this loop handle on it that you could use to raise it. So you grab it and... And...

It's heavy. But you're able to move it to the side. And it's got a little key. Yeah, kind of like lays back on its hinges and you see a staircase barely wide enough for one person leading down into complete darkness. This seems normal. Can I roll a luck roll to see if I have a flashlight

in my bag of mysteries? Hell yeah. I roll to see if I have a flashlight in my bag of mysteries? Hell yeah. I feel like one of us have a flashlight. In your mystery bag? Yeah. I don't have it on my character sheet and I didn't say I had it, so. This has come up before.

Yeah, I want you to have that flashlight because I feel like you knew you were going adventuring, you would have it, but let's just roll a luck roll because it's fun to roll dice. It's so fun. I will be specific and say that- Hit it! If you fail that, I was going to say,

Carter has the flashlight. Ah! I do want to make an important point of clarification. Each match that gets used out, I'm keeping in my other hand, because I don't want like a trail of matchsticks that are going. I thought you were going to say, I'm notating every match that I use, in my other hand because I don't want like a trail of matchsticks. I thought you were going to say I'm notating every match that I use because I only brought nine matches.

I never do that. I give myself disadvantage. Like arrows in D&D? I hate that rule. I have unlimited arrows! You missed. There's a 50% chance the arrow is still viable. You'll be up 20 crossbow bolts. Going to my match inventory. Some people get off on that. All right, so who's the lookout?

You do have a flashlight, Margo. You can make some hand puppets on the wall if you want. I feel like I wanna wait till I get to the staircase to turn it on. I don't want to wave it around and if someone walks by they see the flashlight in the window. Yeah, it's dark in here and it's dark in the back room as well. Wouldn't Carter be able to keep a look out as he's looking through the ledger from that vantage point? Oh yeah, where you guys are you can kind of... I was thinking of we take the ledger, like from that vantage point. Oh yeah, where you guys are, you can kind of.

I was thinking of, we take the ledger. Oh. Like, that's evidence. We want to show something to the pool. We got something, we got hard evidence. Well, we could take photos of it. That way we're not like, sus, like he's got a bunch, like his key's missing and then his ledger's missing.

I was not gonna know. So how about, how about... He's gonna know. Listen, how about, Carter, you keep watching and look for an important page that I can take a picture of. I can't take a picture of the whole book. I only have so many exposures. And Ferruz and I will go downstairs. Sure, yeah. I also do feel that if we presented a full ledger, that's more credible than we took a picture

of a piece of paper we could have completely fabricated. You know what I mean? It's the 1920s, it's totally cool. You're right, I've got this forensic mind. At least look through it. Yeah, I'll walk through it. And by the time you find something, then we can decide if we steal it or not.

Sure, you girls do it. Maybe you can just tear the paper out. Yeah. We'll do a quick daguerreotype of it and then. Head back. You guys, you guys scope it out. I'll keep a lookout with my one eye. All right, so we switch places and

point the flashlight down, turn it on. Point the flashlight down, turn it on. And I mean, you saw this guy, he was an old guy, but he was tall, and you saw the other people coming in, and you think, how the hell did they fit down the staircase? It is quite narrow, but you look down, and it appears to descend about 20 feet or so, end in a corridor.

And if you like try to move the flashlight, the light up the corridor, you can't see what's beyond a couple of feet. Okay. You know what we should do? It'll be fun. What? Why don't we go to the map and look at this?

Oh God. Oh no. There's a map. Why don't we just go to the old map? Oh god. Oh god. Because this will really give you a sense There's a map y'all shit's about to get real. There's a map y'all You know unlike what we did at There's a map y'all, shit's about to get real. There's a map y'all. You know, unlike what we did in Peru with the grid, I just took the grid off here. It's really just to indicate and also show you what places look like. This book is loaded with maps and I think it's fun to use them.

Sometimes it's not, but here it is. So now you get a real sense. I was looking at this map during the scene with Carter and Vaughn, so I could very clearly picture where you guys were, but now, like over here to the southwest is where I imagined Vaughn and Silas going back and forth. No, no, that one. But this is not too far off of how I pictured it. Very. Yeah.

That means I must have done an amazing job describing it. I paint it with words. You see, yeah, if that rug wasn't there, there'd be a little staircase leading down. And in fact, if you direct your attention just to the right of this, you will see that staircase. Okay.

All right. So then, like, the other thing that's attached to this, that's the alleyway out there. Yeah. So you came in from the alleyway. That door that is to the north of the door is where the abandoned pawn shop was. Okay. Okay. Okay. But yeah, that where it narrows to the west, that leads out to 130, west 137th street.

All right. Well, here goes nothing. Troy, real quick, describe to me this door to the shop. Is there a little jinglingling? Is there a little bell that allows the shop owner to know new customers come in? No, there isn't. We didn't establish a ding-a-ling before. I roll for luck to find out if this is a ding-a-ling.

No, that's- Yeah, no ding-a-ling. Okay, that's cool. Are you leaving it cracked still so you can look out there? Or you're like doing going? I'm looking at I'm looking through that curtain that Silas was peeking through Okay, so the doors shut and you're shot. We don't want to give any sort of Indication as he's walking up whenever that should be that anyone is in there Also before they go down. I'd like to just do a check I don't know if this is a luck thing or not of similar to what we did in the pawn shop

Where I just want to find is there anything that I could use as a weapon Maybe he's got one of the things that he sells is like a ornamental Weapon of some kind or just something that I can arm myself with should I need do a spot hidden to get the jump? Oh Nope to get the jump-luts. Oh, God. Nope. Yeah, and you also remember when you were here with Vaan before, I think you were looking like, are there any weapons and all of the,

anything they had was blunted and ornamental. So, yeah, there's nothing really here that you feel like you could do any damage with, at least in this main part here. Okay. All right. Have fun, guys. Sounds pretty cool as a map.

I'm sure it's not extensive down there at all. Margaret and Faeruz, do you descend? Yeah, I feel like descending slowly when I see new things that my flashlight reaches, like just being very careful. Eyes so open. All right, so you start walking down. Margo and Feroz, I love when we have different combinations of teams.

We haven't seen the Margo Feroz special, well actually we saw it last week, but before that had been a while. So you go down, again it feels about 20 feet down, before it ends in a maybe 10 foot long corridor, and you can control your pawns. Again it's just are. And at the end of that corridor is a stout iron door. Okay. Is it locked? It does appear to be locked. Wait. Is this the key that Vaughn has? Not Vaughn, that Carter has?

Maybe. You could try it. I mean, I think I used it to open the trap door. But you guys take it and- Maybe it opens both. I'm gonna like quickly run back upstairs. Did you leave me down here alone? I think maybe the key that Carter has, maybe this one opens it.

Nothing's gonna happen to you. That door's locked. Nothing comes out of it. Okay. You can't go in, maybe this one opens it. Nothing's gonna happen to you, that door's locked. Nothing comes out of it. You can't go in, we tried to go in. And then running up the stairs. Ben just comes up and Carter's like, great, can we go? You find everything you need to find? No, no, no, no.

There's a gate and it's locked. I want to see if that key that you have is like a dual opening key. Yeah, here. Did you find anything? Me? No, I'm just looking at, whoa, in the ledger? I don't know yet. Troy hasn't told me. I just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, and I just grab it. And just to clarify, like he didn't have to use the key on the trapdoor. The key hasn't been used at all yet.

That trapdoor just opened on its hinges. Okay, I think we found the key then, hopefully, maybe. You come back down and you still cracking matches out left and right? Well, no, she has a- Oh, the flashlight. Margot has a flashlight. All right, you were so focused- I only just to light a cigarette.

You were so focused on the way down, making sure that like, you were alone. There's nobody else down there. You didn't know what you were seeing. Now when you go down there and you start coming back down, Feroz, you realize as Margo's light has filled the corridor down there and the stairway

that the walls, ceiling, and floor are all stone and cut into the stone slabs are like arcane tribal symbols covering the area. Faerûz immediately obsessed with this. Is this anything that Faerruz maybe has seen before? Give me an anthropology roll. Okay. As I have to pull up character sheet.

I imagine we're like scared to be down there and as soon as you see all of these like symbols, you just completely relax. Yeah, my limit. My happy place. I do not succeed. Care to push? If I push remind me of what that does. If you fail there might be consequences. You gotta have a high. I have a very low

anthropology I'm not going to risk that. Okay. If it was cryptology, that'd be one thing, but like... It's very ominous and it's very unsettling because even though upstairs has accoutrements and bric-a-brac and knick-knacks, this is like carved into the walls and the symbols are very aggressive. Is there any one symbol that like is very repetitious or that stands out amongst others? That's what I was thinking.

The only thing that you have, I mean there's so many of them, maybe you notice like enough times to be like, oh maybe there's a motif here. Maybe some sort of repetition is what looks like a mouth with too many teeth. Like what maybe the like on the chest that we saw. It's not circular. It's not lamprey like it is just a like a you don't know if it's a smile or a grimace. It's just this like crooked mouth with way too many teeth. It doesn't look human. Okay.

Well, Therese will definitely make a mental note of that as we head to, as I have the key up to the gate. You see a single kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling of this corridor, unlit. And you stick the key into the door and you turn. We go back up to Vaughn. Obi? Vaughn is- Hero Boy? Hero Boy?

Hero Boy? Up the stairs, up the stairs. The third floor. You look, classic New York apartment, like you can look up that little space between railings to see. Was that a hand that just disappeared out of sight? A couple floors up? I- I- I go up the stairs as fast as my smokers lungs will allow 20 minutes later in the third floor it's a small apartment building

there's a 1f and a 1b 2f and a 2b and a 3F and a 3B. Looks like there's maybe one more floor before a roof access exit. If you look up there quickly, you don't see anybody. But you're standing in front of Madari's apartment? I put my hands to the door and press my ear to the door see if I can hear anything. Listen give me a listen roll. He's that good for me.

I'm going to spend some five points of luck. Okay. To succeed. To succeed. You listen, you press your ear up to the door, and you hear nothing. A lot of sound. Ooby? Oberon. I try to turn the handle. Locked.

Um. Locked. Oberon, old man, is that you? And I'm just gonna push on the door, see if there's any sort of give. No. Pfft. Um, no. Um, I'm getting a little more, like, I can't be deterred. One door, one door went down in front of me. Um, and maybe, I don't know if it's double jeopardy, but like, to put that list into the rest of this apartment floor, like.

Oh yeah, you can carry that over. Yeah, um um is there are people like it's really late right it's like one in the morning it's late it's yes now at this point is probably closer to two and so yeah if anyone's here they're sleeping but maybe it's a party apartment okay but but silent silent so far Okay, but silent? Silent so far. Okay, I'm going in.

I'm gonna try to break it down. I'm gonna try to get in there. Okay. Like the door below. I don't like this face you're making, Troy. I don't like this stance that you're doing. And a couple more points of luck go away, and that's now a success, but a regular one. Boom! You hit it and the edge of the door where the lock is, the wood splinters. Snap, snap, snap.

And the door opens into the apartment. And the door opens into the apartment. Whoopee. And I walk in. What sort of place am I looking at? You walk in. It is a small, uh, like studio-sized apartment. And you see a, uh, uh, like a kitchen that's part of the room, a very, very small, sad kitchen, a single bathroom to your right. The whole room is dark. It looks like there isn't a bed, but a sleeping mat on the floor.

And you see a few clothes that are like in a pile next to the bed. No dresser, no radio, no anything. There's just like a little pile of clothes. And then there's what looks like, I don't know, like wooden carvings or something. There's this like brick-a-brack all about, but it's dark in here and you're only getting that light of the moonlight in through the windows. Okay. I'd like to stoop down and get a better look at that, but really what I'm looking for is a person. Like, I want to move around this whole apartment and see if I see anybody.

You zip into the bathroom, look, open the shower curtain, nobody in there, you go, there's obviously no bed to look under, there's a single closet, you open up the closet, you don't see anybody in the closet. It appears to be empty. In that case, yeah, I stoop down in front of those eerie carvings and match. You see like... Or no, not match, lighter. Lighter.

Yeah. It's Zippo time. Zippo, yeah. Army-ish Zippo time. Zippo, yeah. Army-ish in Zippo. You see several masks that look similar to the stuff you saw in Juju House. It really jumps out at you as being wildly different. You also see some shields, like tribal shields made out of misshapen

wood and then wooden carvings of like various scenes. Give me a spot hidden. Okay. Oh, god. Failed. I'm gonna push it. Oh, yes, yes. I could spend a ton of luck, but why? Maybe you can, you can't spend luck on a push, but yeah, so let's see what happens.

Here we go. Success. Success. Nice. And that's a... Yeah, that's a success. Okay. Looking around, looks like the same shit that you saw in Juju House for the most part. The carvings look a little interesting, but as you continue to stare at them, nothing

really crazy jumps out at you. most part. The carvings look a little interesting, but as you continue to stare at them, nothing really crazy jumps out at you. But then you see like a wooden box that is near the foot of the bed and carved onto the wooden box is like, the best way I can describe it to you is a monster. And you know, maybe before Peru, this wouldn't have struck you, but you've seen monsters now. And so it's this like three-legged monster with a massive tentacle in place of a face.

Small wooden cigar box-like size. A tongue. And yeah, I'll zip on one hand, see if I can lift that box. Maybe take a little peek inside. Zip on one hand, you open up this box and there are three strange vials inside and they're strange because the liquid within seems to like dance off the light of your lighter.

Interesting. Okay. Just moving even as you hold the box steady. off the light of your lighter. Interesting. Okay. It's just moving, even as you hold the box steady. I shut it. And if he is not in here, and Madari is not in here, then I maybe at this point, leave, shut the door and make my way towards the back to exit out the fire escape. That I...

Shut the box. With the box. I'm taking it with me. Shut the box. Taking the box with you. You start to walk towards the door, and you hear a voice from behind you. What have you got there, old boy? And my blood turns to ice. And... I slowly turn around.

Heart is slamming in my chest. Turn around. My heart's hammering right now. And this is pretend. And... You see standing before you... Your friend, Oberon. Can't be. How? Can't be.

What have they done to you, man? And I walk up to him, and I put my hand on his face. And we leave that scene. And we take a quick break for our sponsors. Ow! Ow! Oh! You're drunk with power. I'm drunk with power. I'm hungover with power!

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watching through the curtain there. Roll a spot hidden on the ledger. Okay, before I do that, Troy, I wanted to say this for the last 10 minutes. Can I lock the door from the inside? Yes, you can. I want to do that. Okay. Crossing all the T's, dotting for the last 10 minutes. Can I lock the door from the inside? Yes, you can. I wanna do that. Okay.

Crossing all the T's, dotting all the I's here. You picked that lock, you didn't smash it open, so you're easily. Right, right. So I just wanna make sure, for anybody to come back, you know, delay their discoveries here. Spot hidden? Mm-hmm.

Hey, all right, 12 under 25. Oh, hell yeah. Nice. Hard success. Yes. Okay, so you're looking through the ledger and it seems to contain pretty mundane stuff at first glance. Records of Juju House's income and their expenses. You see even the purchase that Vaughn made earlier today.

But as you keep looking and digging through, you see that there is a weekly expense in the form of a payment that goes out every single week, usually on the same day to WR14. Okay. What's, we don't know Robson's first name, right? I don't know if you do. Okay.

I don't have my notes because I couldn't be bothered. So, I'll take that. Uh, and uh, and 14th could be 14th Precinct. We're onto something here. Love it. Yeah, that's information you could easily figure out later,

but you do know WR14, you see. I also, real quick, before you cut away to something more interesting. And, oh Carter and his ledger. Can I, I probably should have told the girls that we should have planned this before they went down, but I would like to close the door and put the rug over it. Don't tell us, just do it. Well, you guys, yeah, I mean, maybe I'll whisper, if you can hear me, I'm shutting the thing. You close the door, the trap door is just like, it just is, you're opening the door there with that key key you hear

And then I was like, it's me, it's me, it's Carter, I'm just recovering all the bases, dotting T's, crossing eyes Close the trap door and put the rug over it and as you do you're brushing up against that Curtain leading to Silas's back room or bedroom. I mean, I guess I should peek in there just in case we didn't really look in there. Especially since you just mentioned it to me out loud. Your voice. You can look in there later because now we cut to

the ladies. You open- I feel like as the door slowly opening, Margo is like getting really nervous The ladies, you open. I feel like as the door slowly opening, Margo is like getting really nervous, hearing that thing close and she's like, there's no such thing as monsters, there's no such, okay. Like as the door is opening, just like so much dread. You open the door and the door is like oak reinforced

with iron strips and as it opens there's light in the room beyond that Bades the door and you see there are even more symbols carved into the door itself that are Completely unidentifiable. They're just Crazy, they almost are like too disorienting to look at. But it's easy to look away because beyond the door is a chamber. About 15-foot high ceilings 15 foot high ceilings and all surfaces in the room are of dressed stone and covered in symbols. Symbols unlike the symbols you saw in the hallway leading down. Symbols unlike the ones you just saw in the door.

you just saw in the door. Craziness. There are torches in wall niches, evenly spaced in a rectangle around the room, providing light. Let me show you what this looks like on the map. Because there are two other things of note in here. On the far end of the room is a curtain, very similar to the curtain upstairs that Carter is about to take a peek into.

Looks like it's curtain- curtain-ing off another section of the room. And then to the west And to the west, there is this thick stone block about eight feet wide that looks like it's covering a recess in the floor below it. And this block is connected to a large winch. Let me show you what this looks like on the map. A what? A what? A large winch. Let me show you what this looks like on the map. A large what? Large winch. Like a winch, like a pulley system, like a crank. A winch. Okay.

There is the map. It's connected. Okay. Okay, well, I feel like we should just peek if there's something behind that curtain and also maybe try to move this thing if there's something behind it. What this thing is. Yes, let's go to the curtain first. This hole is freaking me out.

It really is. It's really big. Do you notice these markings on the wall? They look different. Do you recognize this at all? It's different. Do I recognize what I recognize? Anything?

Or see a pattern in anything? You know, here's a role we haven't done too much, but this is a role you should get used to as we get deeper into the game. It's gonna be almost impossible to hit, but it's worth trying a Cthulhu Mythos roll. Oh no. One of the more fun skills in the game because the higher it goes, the lower your sanity goes.

If you have a zero, what happens? Yeah, what is that? If you have a zero, then you can't roll it. Unless you spend, can you spend, like, if you've got, I rolled a 10 and you spent 10 luck. Yeah, no, you have to, once you have been exposed to the mythos is when you start gaining knowledge and that. So you're saying I'm fucked right now is what you're saying.

You're fucked in the, but you should be. Think of it in terms of like, all the studying you've done, knowledge and that. So you're saying I'm fucked right now is what you're saying. You're fucked in the same, but you should be. Think of it in terms of like all the studying you've done. You have never encountered anything like this. Even when you were in Peru, you never saw symbols like this. Okay. This is like other worldly shit.

So I rolled a 13. You're, I can't. Can I use luck? I don't think you can because you have a zero in the skill. Yeah. Yeah. If you had a one, you would succeed on a one. Like we have no knowledge to even like.

Yeah. Your brain hasn't been. You have. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, yeah, exactly, exactly. No occult roll, no, okay. You can roll on a cult roll. Give me an occult roll, for sure. Okay.

That is a 40 under 45. Okay. Good, I'd like to be able to give you something. You look at this, maybe look back to the door, back into the hallway, and you think that like, okay there's been a progression here from like tribal stuff to weird to holy shit. When you go back to thinking of what you saw in the hallway, it made you start thinking more about some of the things you saw upstairs.

And you think there may be some fetishes up there that are traditional components of ritual magic from various African cultures. So as you take in sort of this whole scene from the time you've spent in the store to coming down, the one thing that you tie to the occult is you did see a couple things that harken back to some of your studies where you're like, hmm, those seem to be fetishes tied to magic used in African tribal rituals. But the symbols in here have nothing to do with that. Strange.

It's breaking my brain. Don't know what any of this means. Okay. Um, I take a picture of the room that these symbols have to do with. So, okay. Is curtain time? Curtain time. Okay, so here we go. Let's walk over and carefully peek. You walk over Margo and you,

we see your hand push open the curtain and we realize that it's now Carter's hand pushing open the curtain upstairs and looking into the back room of Juju house and you see a bed not a mat on the floor, but a bed and a door in the back that's open that leads to a bathroom. In fact, I'll even show you what this looks like on the map. Was there a mat on the floor the last time we were here? No, it was just information you don't have, but that's what Vaughn saw when going into Madari's apartment. Because I know I peeped back here before and I thought that's...

So you push open the curtain and you step back there obviously you're still looking to make sure nobody's coming. Just keeping the one eye. Your one good eye on the back. And you rolled a, was that a hard success on your last spot hidden or a regular success? It was a hard on the ledger spot hidden.

All right, so I'm gonna roll it over. You start looking through his lodgings at the back of the shop just to see if anything jumps out at you. And tell me where you look. Where do you go first? lodgings at the back of the shop just to see if anything jumps out at you and Tell me where you look where you go first Personal items I guess bureau or any kind of you know desk whatever wherever he would keep things Okay, you open the desk matter and like the little

Bedside table. There's a little drawer Nothing like used tissues Couple pencils close that Keep looking around the room hard success on the spot hidden you go to look under the bed and you see Two things one Is like this. It looks like something fairly large wrapped in a leopard skin. You pull that out.

Oh, I mean, how can I not? Leopard skin, please. Pull that out and you unwrap it. Huh. And your eyes light up. As earlier you were looking for a weapon and now you have one. It is a decorative knife

that you feel like you've seen before. Huh. Something is so familiar about this knife seen before. Something is so familiar about this knife because it's so unique looking. this circular headband perhaps? But it doesn't have red hanging from it. It has something else hanging from it. It looks very similar. You're having flashbacks to the guys that you saw jumping out of Jackson and Elias' apartment,

but it's not like a piece of red felt You pull it out And you realize that hanging from the middle of this headband is what looks like a mummified human tongue Give me a sanity roll Mummified tongue. Carter's been, okay fine. It's like you pull it out and you pull it out by the tongue and you realize you've got the tongue in your hand.

My sanity, okay, so I want to roll. Let's remind me, I gotta roll under this. Can you spend luck on us, Santa? Ha ha ha! Can't. What if I was one point above it? Oh, that's brutal. What if I rolled a 56 and needed a 55?

Oh, that's so gross. Well, here's the good news. It's only one point of sanity loss. Okay. Because you have seen worse. I've seen more than just a ton. But you are not immune to the fact. I'm not pumped about it. Yeah, I'm just still like.

It's in your hand, it's touching your skin. Oh, God, it touched me. Whose tongue was this? What are they, herpes? So you take out this herpetic tongue. My poops. Yeah. And you take one point of sanity damage.

How does that manifest? I think what we just said, if it's one point point it's just sort of like oh god oh and then like I like try to like I drop it but then I just drop it in my other hand so I'm like it's I'm on the sand now and then I'm just trying to pick it up I keep dropping it and just fumbling it like an idiot fumbling it fumbling it fumbling it. Strange knife. Is it the knife? Can I do some? Is this similar to what they were wielding in the hotel room?

It was it is. It's exactly what they were wielding in the hotel room is a very specific stylized knife knife the same exact knives that were used to eviscerate Jackson Elias this Mask or whatever this is also very similar, but where there's just had little red flannel strips This one has an actual human tongue We go back downstairs. And Margot pushes aside the curtain.

And inside of the room is a situation. No! There is an alcove about six feet all around perfect square curtain from the main chamber and There are innumerable items

mostly wrapped in Leopard's hide similar to what Cartridges found up to upstairs looks like they're placed against the back of the wall well out of the way you see a an ornate robe and like long like Wolverine claws Hanging on a peg on the rear wall enter the dragon type claws. Yeah. You'd like that. And situated directly above them is this modern looking chronometer just hung on the wall. However, standing against the sides of the room are four figures. No.

Two of them look like they are possibly African American men. One looks like a white man and the other one looks like maybe an African American woman. It's hard to tell. And the reason it's hard to tell is their stomachs are completely ripped open and they have their, like their large intestine is hanging out of their stomach onto the floor. But they're standing there.

And when you push back the curtain, floor, but they're standing there. And when you push back the curtain, they look at you. No, why? And we are in a combat. We are in a two on four call of Cthulhu Combat. We're locked in this basement. I scream. Blood curdling echo voice carrying scream.

A scream. Oh, God. Carter, I'm gonna say you hear that scream. You hear a scream beyond that door. Uh-huh. Give me a listen roll to see how quickly you hear it. Okay. That should do it.

33 under 63. You hear it immediately, this scream coming from downstairs. Let's fucking go. No. Okay. Now, let the jury, let's go back and roll the tape. I don't believe anyone ever said they had their gun out. So this is just straight up rock and roll. Margo, you still have the fastest,

fastest fast twitch muscles here, the highest decks. You act first. There are four enemies and their stomachs are wide open and you see they all have that same symbol carved on their forehead. It was carved on Jackson Elias' forehead. It just... Ahhhhhhh! Coming after you. forehead that was carved on Jackson Elias' forehead. It just... Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uh or are they slow zombie moving? They are, they were slow to notice you,

but it's just, they all lurch towards you. Okay, I don't like that. I don't like that, dear. I think I wanna do two moving things if I can. I wanna move as far as I can Towards the door that we came in because that's the only protection we have Mm-hmm and also take out my gun. I Might be pushing it a little bit. I didn't specify which gun I had and I don't really like understand gun Rules were all for reality And you're an American.

And I bought a really cool gun during our, when we were not together. As a housewarming gift to yourself? Yeah. And I'm wondering if I could maybe have that one. I celebrate a little differently. It's a sawed off shotgun. So that's where the complication comes in.

That would be something, I don't know if you would just rock it around with your shot off shotgun in Harlem. Do you know how big a shot off shotgun is? No, I mean I watched Stranger Things, but. Yeah, I mean it's yay big. It'd be weird to like take that on the sixth train. Yeah, what did our messenger bed?

Would it be a luck roll? No problem. You want to do a luck roll? What is it, but like, is it too much? Maybe she's got an ash from Evil Dead back strap there. Chainsaw hand. I mean. Maybe my bag is really big.

When did you buy this start off shotgun? I bought it during our downtime when we were not together and I was learning how to shoot and we had money. So I thought it'd be cool to have a start off shotgun. A whole montage of, you know, combat training. I missed it. You bought it in Germany and then brought it over on the boat

and now you have it in Harlem. Yeah. This is America, right? You can break to bare arms. Yeah, it's a smash cut to... This is America. America, right? You can break to bare arms. Yeah, she's smash cut to... This is America, it's her right as a German to have firearms. Smash Margo Sauer in her art studio.

Vsh, vsh, vsh. Let me answer this. Is it gonna make you happy to have that sawed off shotgun? It would make me very happy. Well, then I'm not doing my job. Oh, damn it, I walked right ahead for face-to-face with that one. No, I'm just gonna say, I want you to be happy. I want you doing my job. Oh, damn it, I walked right ahead for face-pressing that one.

No, I'm just gonna say, I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy. This should be fun. If you wanna have that sawed-off shotgun, you have that sawed-off shotgun. You just had it strapped to your leg and have been limping this whole time. We didn't know why you were limping.

We've all been too polite to mention it. It's like, oh, something terrible must have happened. She's got rick in this. Oh, Ferdinand's out. I hear the malnourishment is terrible over there in the Kaiser's realm. Maybe I'm a pushover, but if that's going to bring you joy tonight, you

deserve to have a sawed-off shotgun. It was my birthday yesterday, so this is a thank you so much. Happy birthday. Mine's coming up in a couple days. As a fellow Virgo, I would only allow a fellow Virgo to have a sawed-off shotgun. Oh, thank you. So as I pull it out I'm trying to run away and I'm like they're rules. Let's go gets behind me and she tries to What do you do the shotgun you do the clickies you set it up the clickies? The foldy you gotta be on foldy the loady then the refoldy. Where you got the break.

Yeah. Yeah. I started doing- What's the thing where they're like, pshh, pshh, pshh. That's the pump action. Oh, okay. Got it. You get the pump action.

That's what I do. But this is the one like- I don't think you can saw off a pump action, because it's a- I don't know, man. It's a cool fucking gun in terms of like, fighting, you know, like the- it's a walking dead type gun. Yeah. Like a pump, but sawed off and like- You can tell we're all- It goes wild. That's why it's a walking dead type gun. Yeah, I can pull the shot off it like it goes wild That's why it's good to have what are the weapon properties of this because this might have properties that like we've never dealt with I feel

Like it's a spray isn't it a spray blessed. Yeah, it's so weird so it didn't have like any Kind of thing last time I went to an Shotgun which was weird. I think it would do more damage or something or have a different range and it really doesn't. It's 46-1D6. Well there you go. 46 is pretty sweet. It's the same as the other shotgun though.

Okay. Range is five slash 10, one or two attacks, two ammo. Yeah. Okay. All right, so you can go, you can't go fully auto on this, but you can take two shots in a round and you just take them at a penalty?

I guess so. This is my first rodeo with guns in this. I don't think this is an automatic. I think it has two, and then you have to use an action to reload. So you can be loaded with two. I would assume you preloaded before you came down here. So after you take two shots,

you have to spend a round to put those back in. That's what I think that is. All right. All right, so you rush to the door. Again, you can move your pawns if you like. And I believe you didn't clarify that you were closing that door,

so I'm gonna say that door was open. You run to the door, you could even run to the hallway, or you could stand at the door and have the shotgun out, whatever you wanna do. I wanna like try to cover Feyruz as she runs by if I need to, and shut the door. Well, it is Feyruz's turn. I will, if, you know, Margot is doing her thing,

I will, you know, crouch behind or find an advantageous spot while I get my firearm out. Okay, do you want to go to these boxes on the wall to the southeast? Yeah, I think if you take partial cover, I'll take that if we got that. Yeah, yeah. I'll take a penalty die if my guys use their guns on you

My tested guns, you know, but just getting back there creating a barrier between you and these enemies is smart So you go back there and with your action you pull out your gun. It's ready to go Carter yeah you here I didn't want to really scream, my kids are sleeping. It's like, oh, that was, that's nothing, that's New York. That's right. The sounds of the city, the city that never sleeps. New York City.

I love the taxi. Heroin, get your heroin. Yeah, Carter's like, huh, and shoves the tongue thing in his pocket. Just flap flops out. Has the curvy knife thing. You know, Carter, I think Carter like starts to run and then for a second, like looks at the front door

and in spite of everything that they've been through and all of this like advancement he thinks he've been through and all this like, advancement he thinks he's been making. He definitely like, there's a moment where he's like, I'm gonna fucking open this door and I'm gonna run and not stop until it's daytime. But then, you know, it sort of stops. Everything kind of recycles through his head, everything they've been through, all the shit he's been talking. He's like, I can't say that I'm going to do this. Pre-Bar Cordano Carter is gone.

Gone, gone. And he definitely shows up for a second. He's sort of like, now you could just go, yeah. Just to draw this out longer, Carter looks in the mirror. He sees his old self being like, get the fuck out. He's like, fuck you, I'm a new man. And so he turns around and throws open the hatch. He's like, I'm coming!

And just runs as much as you allow me to run. All right. I will say in that total round, you're able to get all the way out to the doorway, the edge of the hall there, and you see Margo. And beyond Margo, you see the same room that I described. This like barely furnished chamber with this huge stone covering a recess in the floor,

and in the back of the room, there's an open curtain, and you see four dead people emerging. Yeah. Those dead people now emerge. Oh. And, uh. Are those guys okay? Jesus. They got a FODMAP issue.

The first one comes up towards Margo. The second one fans out towards Feroz. The third one also fans out towards Fae'ruus but because of the boxes is stymied and will not be able to attack Fae'ruus this round. Whereas the other one also pursues Margo. Two attacks on Margo, one attack on Fae'ruus. Oh my god, it's been so long. It's been so long. I was looking for the combat rules when we were setting up and I was like,

I can't find them, probably not today. Here's the basics. We have several questions, we want to ask them several questions. Monsters, obviously monsters act a little bit differently than investigators. Your options are to fight back or to dodge, okay? And the difference is when you fight back,

Ty goes to the attacker. When you dodge, Ty goes to the... If you Ty, you actually get to dodge. So it's a little more risk on fighting back. But you can't fight back with a gun, though. You can only fight back with your hands. Well, I trained my dodge, so I think I'm gonna be doing that a lot.

Nothing wrong with dodging. Another thing to think about is, once you dodge or fight back in a round, I know it's true, fight back. Michael, let me know if it's true for dodge as well. The second time you dodge, and this will only apply to you, Kate, if I hit you twice, you take a penalty on your dodge.

So like, it kind of... Like burn it. You burn it. If you already fought back and you wanna fight back again, then it's a penalty. If you then get attacked a third time, then you get another penalty die. So it's like diminishing returns

because you're getting tired trying to fend off these horrible, horrible, poor people. And fight back, you're rolling brawl, or you're rolling strength, or what are you rolling to? You're generally rolling brawl. The beauty of the Call of Cthulhu is you kinda like, tell me what you wanna do. Just don't try to game the system,

just try to like, stay realistic to what you're doing. But you could say if you wanna take your gun and just like, shpah, and like do that as part of fight back, that's totally fine. You can also do a maneuver if they, you know, don't over complicate it for yourself. Right now you're just trying to survive. Attackers only get one bonus time maximum after you've

fought back dodged one time. That'll make sense in a second. Okay, let's get to attacking you. I mean, this is so sad. This is a woman again, you're not 100% sure. She looks like she may have been African American, and then a white man, definitely white man, but their skin is all discolored.

Their stomachs are wide open. They're dragging. Some of their entrails are still in the other room, and they're pulling them along the floor with them as they just reach out and just, boom, try to hit you. Some of their entrails are still in the other room and they're pulling them along the floor with them as they just reach out and just, boom, try to hit you. I'm gonna resolve these attacks against you first. Okay, got my sweet and sexy dice out here.

I thought you were gonna say sweet and sour. I got my sweet and sour dice. Here we go. What are you trying to do? Are you dodging or fighting back? I am dodging. Or just taking it. All right, give me a dodge roll.

Okay. 49 under 52. That's a regular success? Yes. I too rolled a regular success. So because you dodged, you actually dodged the blow. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes.

Had you chose to fight back, that would have hit you. So it goes to like rip at your skin and you just boom, definitely dodge out of the way. The other one goes to do the same exact thing. Now what do you do? So I'm gonna dodge again and now you get a bonus die, right? Is that what it is?

I get a bonus die? Rather than me take a penalty die? Is that what Michael was saying, Michael? Is that true? Michael? Attackers only get one bonus die maximum after you fought back, dodged one time. Okay, so I get the bonus die,

you don't take a penalty. I'm sorry, it's been a while since we've done a combat. Call in, all right, I will take the bonus die then. Let me get my doubles. Oh man, this is gonna be awesome. All right, here we go. Dodge away, Kate, on your birthday. What'd you get?

I got a 10 under 52. Ooh, real Virgo hours. I think that's extreme, isn't it? That's an extreme success. I rolled a 100, which would have been a fumble. I had a, don't choke, don't choke! But because I had the bonus die, I take the better, and the other die was a seven date. So that would have been, who knows what would have happened.

But instead you come off Scott free. Holy shit. I don't like how you teased us with that. Yeah. I rolled a one hundred. You're really playing with our emotions. Such a tease. Loving it.

Such a tease. This other one, you see this, now that he's close to you and the flickering torchlight is hitting his face, Faeruz, it looks like an elderly African American man, but now you don't see that. You see strength in the way that he just reaches out and tries to like grab at your face.

What do you do dodge or fight back? Listen, my brawl is higher than my dodge. So that's what I'm gonna go with. Okay, so you're fighting back. What are you doing? What kind of gun you got? I got a, let me see. I've got a 22. It says, can I shoot back though? You can't shoot back. I can't. I didn't know if you had a gun.

You were just like, boom! I mean, I've got a gun in one hand. I got a fist in another. Let's go fisticuffs. All right, so you're gonna fight back. Get away from me! All right, give me your roll. I don't get a bonus here.

I rolled a four. That is not, I don't think it's this extreme because I have a 34 in brawl. No, well. No, it is. It is an extreme, yeah. Okay. Well, I failed, so it doesn't matter for me

because you are going to now hit me with your fist. What is the fist damage? I feel like it's 1d4. I will tell you. Or it might be 1d2. Plus your DB? I believe, okay, I have the stats for a knife. The knife is 1d4 plus two plus DB.

I think, oh no, I take that back. I don't have just hand to hand in my I think you do your damage bonus as well plus damage bonus, right? Yeah, but I would say with your fist Let's do 1d2 Okay, well how's draw me? What is that you flip a coin? What the fuck is a D2? Strong? I think it's a D4 and you do odds or evens. Oh, gotcha. I mean, that's one way. Yeah.

You strong, but a knife is one D4. Are you saying your fists are as strong as a knife? Cause that's a bold claim. If you hit like this, Nora, I got a 75 strength. Her hands are lethal weapons. Spear hand. She might have nails.

And 65 strength. But a knife is one D4? No, a knife is, my knife is 1d4 plus, hold on, I'm sorry, it's 1d4 plus two plus your damage bonus for a knife. That's fine, I'll say 1d4 plus your damage bonus, no plus two. Okay. I don't care how sharp your fist is.

I didn't get all the proper dice out because I didn't think we were going to go into combat. Now I got a, here we go, here we go. It's party time, it's time to gasp. It is a four plus a damage bonus. Yup. What's damage bonus? What is damage bonus?

What's my damage bonus? A damage bonus is another D4, one D4. So four plus four is eight. Holy shit. Oh yeah. All right, here's what happens. It goes to like slash at you and you just punch it like right in its shoulder bone here, like right where the bone meets the rib cage.

And his arm just goes flying off. Ugh. But he looks unfazed. Just like, mm-hmm, coming back at you. Just like rotisserie chicken, just fall off the bone type of thing?

Just like you just pop, you hit it, and it just went, flam, flying off, and there's just, just like muscle and sinew starts to spill out. He's just like, mm-w starts to spill out. He's just like, Grrr, unfazed by this. Margo!

I don't know what else. And now. That was awesome! Wasn't? We cut back to Vaan. As his hand on Oberon's face, you can feel Oberon's warm cheek on your fingers. And he gently places his hand on top of yours. hand on top of yours. How have you been, old boy? You look...unwell.

And how does he look? Does he look like he's aged at all, or does he look like he did the last time I saw him? Looks like a million bucks. It's the best that lasts. I guess the last several years have taken it out on me, old chump. You look as though you haven't aged a day." And I draw close to him and I'm like embracing him. And I mean, you know, kissing his cheek. And you feel it, you feel warmth when your lips hit his skin.

How did they do that? How did they do it? How? How? He just puts his finger on your lips and you feel it. He says, shh. You're unwell, Vaughn. Now listen. Where I am is not a place that you want to be. But I fear you're careening head first to join me. What do you mean by that? Where you are? You're here. You're here.

Well, I am and... I'm not. And he... places his hand, his hand goes from your lip down to the, uh... You have a locket, right? I have, I have a letter. A letter, always key. Alright, so it just goes down from your lip to your chest and he has his hand on your chest. It's like...

In a way I'll always be with you, but... you must be very careful with what you're doing, or we'll never see each other again. I don't understand. We have to get you out of here. God's name are you doing in a place like this? Did they... did these... I'm only beginning to knit together the strands of this mystery, but I... Are these cultists we're on the trail of that killed my friend? Are they... Did they somehow pull you back?

Back as you once were? Do you know how many times I've prayed for this moment? He just looks at you and looks... Come with me, come with me! He looks so sad as you continue to plead to him. I've prayed a thousand times to have you back. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

And uh... It should have been me. He just reaches out and pulls you close for an embrace. And brings you in. And you both close your eyes. And then you feel that warmth of his skin disappear and nothing but icy, icy coldness in your hands. And we go back to the basement of Juju House.

And there is four, there are four of these horrible creatures. They luckily have not done any damage. Feroz was able to punch one of their arms off, but it looks completely unfazed. Margo, there are two of them on you. What do you do with your sawed-off shotgun? I shoot at...

It looks like the... I mean, they're both on me. It looks like the one in the green shirt here is closer to me, but I mean it's a sawed off shotgun, it could probably hit both of them. I shoot at them. Okay, okay. Immediately I see Michael jumps in the chat here, our little Skype chat to let me know.

In point blank range you get a bonus die. Thank you Michael. Hell yeah. Good reminder. Now I wonder, do you get the spray? Does it say anything there you get a bonus die. Thank you, Michael. Hell yeah. Reminder. Now I wonder, do you get the spray? Does it say anything there you get a spray? I feel like you get a spray. Hell yeah, I mean, let's just, come on. I think you get a spray.

I'm just curious if it said anything. But yeah, if you're at point blank range with a sawed off shotgun is going to hit everyone in front of you. Listen, I don't know. We'll look it up. I'm gonna say you get the spray. So you get a bonus die to hit them.

And their natural reaction is to try and fight back. But we're using a weapon I can't fight back. So I'm at your mercy. Fire away. Here we go. Shot one. Ooh, it's a double zero. I got a one. Okay, but's a double zero. I got a, I got a one.

Okay, but now here's the thing. You only get one shot. Remember, because even though it holds two, you can't put it on automatic. However, you get the bonus die, so you roll your double digit number twice and take the better. I got a 40 and double zeros and a one.

40, double zeros and one. So you got a natural one double zeros and a one Zeroes in one so you got a natural one that is a critical fuck. Yes. Fuck. Yes, so This is amazing Couple things are gonna happen this technically not only is it a critical as an extreme success on an extreme success With a penetrating weapon you're going to do max damage, plus I think you get max DB, and another die roll. So you get the max damage of your weapon.

Hell yes. Plus the weapon damage. No, I guess you wouldn't get your DB, right? You don't get your damage bonus on that. I don't have DB. So. All right, so great. So you get max, you get your max weapon damage, and then you get to roll damage bonus on that. I don't have DB. So. All right, so great. So you get max, you get your max weapon damage

and then you get to roll weapon damage on that. And they're both going to take it. So let me just give them a four D six. Oh my God. Do I seriously not have four? That's cool. All right, this is awesome. Here we go.

I can't believe that. A one. A one! Seven. 14 for the 4d6. And then what else? Then you get to, would you just roll to 14? I will 14 on 4d6.

Okay. And then plus 24. It's max damage plus a roll on a extreme success. Okay, and then plus 24. It's max damage plus a roll on an extreme success. So you rolled 38 points of damage. Wow. But you also got a critical. So I mean, I'm just, I got flop sweat here.

Here's what happens. Here's what happens. This is amazing. You hit them. And one of them, his like torso, a huge chunk of his torso just like flies against the back of the room, flies past the room where the curtain were and just splatters all on the back of that room that was full of shit and

Like his body just leans over To what's left of his body But he still seems to be standing and like moving towards you not unlike what fey ruse Experienced when she punched off that guy's fucking arm the other one just His head explodes you hit him, that buckshot or whatever, hits him right in the head and just, baa, Swiss cheese. And he goes down and is not getting back up. Fae Ruse is just like suddenly noticing

like an attraction to Margot. I wasn't gonna say, but I didn't know if he'd be too much, but I was like, that's hot when you punch off an arm. Punching off arms is doing it. but I didn't know if you're big too much, but I was like, that's hot when you punch off an arm. Just punching a zombie. This is their like Mr. and Mrs. Smith moment except not like they're not fighting each other yet. Harder's just looking back and forth between them, like noticing, like, wait, what's going on?

I'm like, stay focused. After that, do I also get like a movement? You do get a movement. I don't want to leave fey-roos in this room. I saw that you can make them go down if you obliterate their heads. Are we doing the movie anymore? We're standing back to back?

I'm thinking there's a chance. So I'm not going to leave the room and I'm going to go maybe like here or no. Instead of using my move to move, So maybe like here or no, instead of using my move to move, I think I wanna use my, oh no, nevermind, I can't reload. I already have one shot still left. I'm gonna move like here,

like a little closer to Faerûs, but like not up in anyone's business, because I'm imagining they're gonna to come up to me anyway. You slide to the east side and just like maybe 10 feet above Faeruz. Yeah. And just be like, obliterate their heads or the torches on the wall,

remember the burning of the other ones. Yeah, burning work with the curry series. That was many years ago. This seems like the other body parts are getting hit are almost not affecting them. But that guy's head that became Swiss cheese, that incapacitated them. It is now Faeruz's turn.

All right. Well, there is this one left in front of me. Mm hmm. Another one is around the boxes. By going around the boxes, you allowed it to slow him down a little bit, but now you've kind of painted yourself into a corner.

You think they can both get to you this round unless one peels off and goes from her. You just don't know what they're gonna do. You know what I'm gonna do is I don't wanna take the chance. If there's one right in front of me, I gotta make sure that that person's taken out. So I am going to, I got three shots that I can take. Full auto?

Yeah. Okay. What do you wanna do? Tell me what you wanna do. They're closing in on me, so I'm gonna go like right between the eyes. All right, so are you aiming for the head specifically? Yeah.

All right, so here's the thing, to aim for a specific part of the body, you take a penalty die. Ah, come on Troy, okay. Yeah, I mean, to be truthful, straight out of the book. We gotta do this right, let's do it. But you also, if you wanna go full auto, also take a penalty die.

So those stack. So if you wanna go full auto, you'll take two penalty dies for each shot. I'll do the full auto, but just unleash. I won't go like straight for a head. Let's just see how the dice rolls. See what happens, okay. All right, so.

Just one single penalty okay. All right, so. Just one single penalty die. All right, so for remind me, because we haven't been in combat in so long, I roll, which one do I reroll, the 10s die? Yeah, so you reroll the double die. Oh, you know what? Michael just brought us back in. Because of point blank, you would not take a penalty die.

They cancel each other out. Thank you. So now you could, because of point blank, you would not take a penalty die. They cancel each other out. Thank you. So now you could, if you wanted to, do what you originally planned to do, take the penalty die and aim for the head. It only one penalty instead of two. But again, I never explained this well, but the die with two numbers on it,

you roll that one twice, but keep the singe. All right. All right, so the first one was a 19, the second one was a 49, but they are both under 67. Okay, it's just coming after you, so roll damage. Okay. Okay, so for the first one. Oh, it's a D6.

They look men in black. All right, that's five for the first one. Okay, five for the first attack. Great, second shot. I gotta roll this again, do the tens, the whole thing, the whole spiel over again. Penalty die roll. All right.

That is a 34 under 67. That's I was just like that's not. It's just one point under a hard success. That's OK. Where it's not either dodging or fighting back. It's good. But extreme success is max damage. Five for that.

OK. And here's the third one. I rolled a 22 and then a 12, so it's a 22 under 67. Take the better one. Oh no, yeah, excuse me, the worst one. 22 under 67 is a hard success, okay. Damage.

Two points for that one. All right, so you hit on all three, and with that final hit, pop, the head just explodes, this poor elderly man. I'm just like wiping it away from my face. It's terrible, all over the place, and he just crumbles to the floor

in a pile of his own entrails. And I just give a little wink to Margo. Winks right back. Carter. You are able to act this round. You are in the hallway there, but you see Carnage. You see sawed off shotguns. You hear sounds from around the door that you can't see. You assume it's Faerûs, but you don't know.

You don't know. Okay. So here's what I want to do. Tell me what is feasible. So Carter comes around the corner. So I haven't seen the zombies or anything yet until this moment. Right. Okay.

Yeah, maybe you can look beyond, like right when you came down, if you looked beyond Margo, you saw, it's like a couple of, what is going on here? And there's one left, two left. Okay, so there's this giant hole, right? It's covered with a huge, eight foot wide diameter stone block.

It looks like a hole in the map, but that's a huge block with a crank that looks like it might lift it. Right, right, oh, I see the crank lifts the thing. Okay, got it. There goes my attempt to pull their entrails into the hole. And pull them into the thing. Okay, got it. There goes my attempt to pull their entrails into the hole and pull them into the hole. Okay, then I'm just gonna run up behind the closest one that I see

and just try to whack its neck with this thing, this blade. With the knife. Oh, the knife that you just found. All right, so you're going after the head. Yeah. I'm sure you're... Is this knife like the size of a machete say? You know what? No.

It's actually smaller but I have the stats for that particular knife. Obviously it uses your brawling or melee or whatever the hell it is but I'll give you what the damage is. However, I would assume Margo yelled out to you that you know to attack her. I heard her say the thing about the head. Yeah. So you will take a penalty die. So give it a roll, see what happens.

All right. It's not even looking at you. So, okay, so, and this is just the brawl thing, right? Yep. Stabby stabby. Okay, how do I, sorry. Shit. Oh, there do I, sorry. Shit. Oh, there it is.

Okay. I'm terrified. All right. So this is a penalty, because since it's a knife, so instead of trying to like hack it, it's head off. If it's more of like a shorter knife,

I'm trying to like stab it in the head. Stab it right in the brain yeah. The damage on this is 1d8 it's very very sharp and it's kind of got like the handle part of the hilt is also a blade so it's like a double blade action. Okay so just before I roll the second time I I wanna know, I just rolled a five. Oh man. Did you just impale? No, no, I have to do the penalty, right? Oh.

So I just wanted people to know the stakes, right? Cause you're aiming, you have to do the penalty. You have to do the Troy right? Yeah, aiming for the head. However, my second roll was a 55 under 77. Okay, so regular success. Yeah. Okay, it's going to try and fight back

because you're using a melee weapon and not a gun. Now, even though, your honor, even though I came from behind. In the fiction of this, yes. Okay. Damn it, don't run, don't run. For the cold colds here You're the only one I can fight back with yeah, maybe I'll and I fail so I had a failure you had a regular success You had 1d8 damage I don't know if you get your DB I

Think I do I mean I Always forget if you get your damage bonus on a melee whippone I'm I have a machete and medium knife on my like Inventory and it says DB. Yeah, you do get DB on your melee attacks It makes sense like your damage bonus is based on your physical build. You're like really getting in there with the stab Okay, so I only did six Okay, but it's six straight to the dome. Yeah great

You slide up behind this guy and just Stick it in and as you pull it out like you see the back of his head that only has wisps of hair left on it just split like a watermelon and you see a You know a dead brain inside. Check this out. Veins, cords, I don't know what it looks like in there, but it's bad, but the way it splits is just like, just like carving into a fresh fruit on a tree.

And now it is the enemy's turn. We'll start with the one that you just tried to attack. It turns on you. As it turns, you see parts of brain matter fall to the floor. It turns the card, it's like, I'm so sorry, sir. I tripped. Tries to get you, do you dodge or do you? No, I fight back, fuck this guy.

Fight back. Yeah. Fuck this guy, okay. Great, let's see what happens. Oh no. Oh God. I rolled a one. Stop it. I rolled a zero and a one.

Ah! I rolled a one. Holy shit. Hell yes. All right, so another critical and another extreme. You don't even need to roll damage. You just described to me this action scene of you killing this guy in the head. Okay, so he like swings at me with his arm

and Carter just like, Carter is picking up on these vibes that the two ladies are sharing with each other. He's like, I gotta impress somebody here, what the fuck? So Ham comes, he like blocks it with one hand and then just takes the knife and goes straight up into the chin and up into the head. Yeah, and your critical bonus is, since technically you were fighting back

and needing to aim for the head, I'm not going to make you roll the penalty die. That crit is enough to finish it. And is he decomposed enough where his whole head comes off? Yeah, like you stick it and like it pulls it up and you see the flesh start to separate from the neck and the head. You just let it collapse to the floor. Carter, chilling ass! I got a cut. Tiger, I got a cut.

Chilling ass! All right, this one, the one remaining creature comes loping around. I'm going to roll a percentile die here to see who it attacks. Below 50 is Margo, above 50 is Feyruz. Come at me. And I rolled an 80.

Frick. So, brrr, brrr, it comes, it allows itself to be flanked by Feyruz and Margo, and it goes after Feyruz, Feyruz, you're fight back, you're all fight back. Yeah, I'm gonna fight back. Okay, it comes at you. Here we go. I'm due for a good roll. Did I get it?

I don't know. That was, that's a yes for you. You rolled something low. What did you roll? Let's see. Oh! I swear to God I rolled a one. I swear, I swear I'm not moving anything.

I can't, I can't. I rolled a one. The best game ever. We need to dice camera. This is insane. May I be struck by lightning if I'm lying. All right, so, so I had a regular success. Pretty excited about that.

Because I thought a regular success would cancel out and I would hit you. Instead you roll a critical and it's the same exact thing as Rob. Rather than make you roll the penalty die that is a hit against the head, roll your damage. Ooh. Yo. We are having fun right now.

We really are. That is going to be, excuse me, maximum damage plus your damage bonus plus an extra die, I think, for a melee weapon. Wait, are you using a knife? No, you're using your fist. No, I'm using my fist. All right, max damage.

Just two D4s. What is your normal fist damage? I said it's one D4. One D4, so that's a four. So four damage. Plus your damage bonus, so that's a roll. And then I think you get... Oh, Michael says technically you can't impale

with fighting back. Well, you rolled a critical, so I'm just gonna say you can't. All right, I'll take the four points. Four, and then what's your DB? Oh, it's a D4. Give me a DB roll. That's another four. All right, so eight points of damage, so you just obliterate all my fun really Don't care so much about these creatures. It's my enjoyment of the game. I mean absolutely our side Troy

In love with you. She saw you do that I'm in love with you. She saw you do that That is it for my guys and then we come back to Margo this guy is on the ropes here Margo It's standing right next to you. What do you do? I Move up to it point blank and try to finish it off shoot it Shoot it point blank range with a sawed-off shotgun Shoot it. Shoot it! Point blank range with a sawed off shotgun.

Sawed off shotgun. All right, so you angle yourself in a way so none of the shrapnel will hit Faeruz unless you roll a fumble. What are you trying to do? Listen, you relax. Oh, sick. 21 under whatever.

We definitely did it, right? Wait, what is it? Guns? Where's guns? Oh yeah, rifle shotgun is 25 and I got a 21 under 25. That's a hit. Did you all penalty die? No, cause it cancels out

because of the fucking point blank range. Yeah. So how many points of damage? Where is it 46 okay? That's right, and I only have three dice okay, so Six 14 again 14 points of damage described to me this obliteration of this poor, poor man's head. This poor zombie that was this poor zombie's head.

She takes the sawed off shotgun, just like points it point Blake at him. Let's it out. She goes, no, lets it out, she goes, no, not her, shoots. And it hits the head, their head just spaghettifies. Just spaghettifies on the back wall. Gentlemen, we have spaghettification. And the final zombie or whatever the hell this poor soul was or is. Its body crumples to the ground. Just the back wall is covered.

There are entrails and brain matter and shit all over the place. You've left a situation down here. There is an alcove that seems to be full of stuff covered in leopard skin things, but also claws and robes hanging, all sorts of stuff. And then this eight foot wide stone covering, a recess in the floor that can be perhaps cranked up. But when will-

Maybe we can hide the bodies in it? When will Silas Naquani return? And what of Makanga Madari? And what of these normal nights that they have here? Is this where they gather? What is going on down here? We finish this episode by cutting back to Makanga Madari's apartment

where Vaan is just embracing air. You open your eyes and there's no one there. No. No. And Bowen just sinks to his knees in this apartment. Just in shock. Just falls to his knees in this strange barren apartment. And if he can collect himself, just like looking everywhere, still with the feeling of like his face

and his cheek and gropes around for that box and um... It's like everybody keeps telling me telling us to turn away. Even you, old boy. Afraid. Far too far gone to stop now. Got to see you again. However, that might be arranged. And casting his eye once more over this room, he'll just crack open the door and see if there's anyone in the hallway. Looks in the hallway. Don't see anybody. Little flickering lamp. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and goes to do what he was planning to do before, which is to get out of here by way of the same fire escape that he tried to scale earlier. And so I imagine we just see the inside of the

apartment and we see Vaughn slip out and the door close behind you. The door would now splintered wood. You've got this tiny little cigar box with this tentacle faced monster on it under your arm. And then we pan across to the window overlooking 139th Street or wherever the hell we are. And we see you scampering across the street with this box almost as if you're being watched. And we'll see you next week. Jesus Christ. That was the wildest ride yet. I agree.

I agree. I agree. I have to change my pants. Yo. From sweat. We all old ones. I can't believe it. No one's gonna believe this. No one's gonna ever understand.

I've never. And I kill any cheese. I've never had that happen. They don't need to believe it. It's time to make your membership official. Start your 30-day free trial today and become an official member of the Naish at JoinTheNaish.com with the promo code GCN30. That's JoinTheNaish.com and use code GCN30 to gain access to exclusive podcasts,

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