The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S1 | E5 – Lake Titicaca

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

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How dare you look at that cover. It's loaded with spoilers. Who am I yelling at? We're gonna have some fun tonight, but first we're gonna talk about something very, very important. What is one food you refuse to eat? I'm gonna start with you, Robert. Refuse to eat!

It's cliche to say it, but cilantro is the devil's herb. It doesn't contribute anything at all to any food that it's put upon. Do you have that genetic disposition that makes it taste like dish soap? I do, but I also feel like that's a crutch. Like, if you don't like something, that's your fucking genetic disposition.

Like, it's just your take on whatever it is. Like, oh yeah, I love, you know, I love Starship Troopers. I'm genetically disposed to love Starship Troopers. So, yeah, I guess you could say, yeah, it doesn't taste good to me. And I often, it just shows up in everything. I just gotta kind of deal with it. So if someone handed you fresh-made guacamole that was loaded with cilantro you would just push it to the side. Yeah I gotta try to do like a I do a dex check to see if I can successfully scoop around the tiny green bits of hell. I don't think anyone is judging you as harshly about this

more than Nora, who's just giving you the dirty, like, cilantro. She's her cousin, the way she's looking at you. How dare you? You're a big cilantro fan, Nora? As a child, I did not understand it, but that's also probably because I grew up in New York as a child, and I moved to LA, suddenly I'm like, oh, I get what understand it, but that's also probably because I grew up in New York as a child,

and I moved to LA, suddenly I'm like, oh, I get what this is, and I love it, put it in all of my Mexican food. Yes. I mean, I guess, culinarily speaking, I am still a child. So that makes sense. I think that tracks. Although I have some controversial feelings, it's okay. I'm not going to judge you harshly. I appreciate it. To put your face, tell that to your face. Yeah.

What's a food you refuse to eat, nor are you a picky eater? I would say I'm not the most picky, but I do have some things, and I do have a very controversial thing, especially living in LA. And I will say right now, for the record, for everybody listening, fuck kale.

Fuck all of kale. I don't want it in anything. Do not put it in anything. It is literally a Brillo pad that goes through your digestive system. That's the point. Fucking hate, no. Clean the pipes.

No, don't eat it. No, no, it tastes like garbage. The texture is garbage. And my insides hate me after eating it, no, it tastes like garbage. The texture is garbage. And my insides hate me after eating it. No, they're not. Have you ever had creamed kale? Why would I do that to myself, Troy? Why?

Just got to add a little milk and cheese in there. That's the cure-all for girls' food. No. It seems like, Kate, you agree with this kale hate. Well, yeah, because spinach is way better. So why even bother with kale when spinach is right there? And it's better. Well, because spinach, I feel like it shrinks down.

You're cooking with it, and you're like, this is all I, I mean, this is plenty of spinach. And then you cook it for three minutes, and it's gone. But you can have a whole bag. And does it do that weird thing to anybody else's teeth? Spinach? Get stuck in it? No.

That weird thing where it gets stuck? Like it feels like your enamel has been scraped completely off of your teeth when you eat it. Sounds like a genetic thing. I love spinach, but it does that to me, especially if it's raw. Really? I still love it. Okay, so besides kale, what's something else you just refuse to eat? I bet you seem like a picky eater, I bet.

I'm not like a picky eater. Like I'll try a lot of stuff. But like I need to, I have a lot of rules. Oh, here we go. I need to eat everything in like a certain order and maybe not touching. If it smells weird at any point, it's garbage. It can't have little holes in it. I will eat shellfish.

If the holes are too close together, it freaks me out. Shellfish is too squishy. Which holes? Are we talking Swiss cheese? Sometimes mushrooms have lines that are close together or like texture holes or like if something is foamy and there's like a foam on top of it or something and it's got holes. Foamy holes. Look at it.

All right. So it really just comes down to food with holes is your taboo. And it needs to be eaten in a certain order in its entirety before I move on to the next thing. That seems cool. I used to be that way. It's the curse of the Virgo. We're very sick. Ross, what about you?

Are you a, do you eat? I'm sitting here. You eat? I'm like, hey, bro. You even eat? You eat? Just go to your shakes all day? You eat, bro? Yeah, bro. You even eat? You eat just protein shakes all day? You eat, bro?

Yeah, bro. I eat. I'm sitting here. I'm listening to all of this, all of this cilantro hate, this kale prejudice, this some trypophobic eating of like no holes allowed. And I and I and to that I say I respect all of your opinions and tastes and I I'm racking my brain like I'm really I'll eat anything dog. Put it put on a plate. I'll go for it. I don't even care Wow. I'm twisted, bro

I'll eat anything Anything I don't care if it's got holes, cilantro, kale, serve it up. The more holes, the more cilantro, the better. Yeah. I'm fine with that. I'm like, I feel like where I get dicey is like moral ground food.

Like I'm very, like I'm not so much into like things like veal or stuff like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I, I remember finding out about veal and that was a sad day. So I finished my veal cheeks and then I said, never again. I feel like veal is on the downswing. I feel like it's real gauche at this point. Yeah.

It feels like no one's really serving it. I don't know, I see it a lot. I don't know. As a kid, weren't you eating veal like every week though? Nobody thought anything of it. All the time. It's like parents who have the internet, they didn't know what the hell they were famous.

Yeah, you're eating foie gras stuffed veal for breakfast lunches. All the time. It's our parents that have the internet. They didn't know what the hell their famous. Yeah, we're eating foie gras stuffed veal for breakfast lunches. Veal? Rich people? I don't understand. My mother was obsessed with Julia Child. So every meal was some sort of, like,

even though we'd be eating it in front of the TV during TGIF, it was still like a three course meal with a candle. My god. My mom would serve us us like little carrot sticks and we'd have to have a bowl of water next to it cause we would have to dip the carrot sticks in water and my brother would eat everything upside down. So we didn't have veal.

Let's talk about this carrot stick dipping. This was not a difficult thing to keep off the menu when it was never served. He was upside, like he was inverted? Your brother? Was the brother upside upside down with the carrots upside down. Why is he dipping his vegetables in water? Yeah, that's better. He would sit at the dining room table and he would put putting his t-shirt over his head like corn holio and he'd take his food and he'd flip it upside down like pizza, pop tarts, like anything and eat it like that. Sorry, Alex, to call you out like this,

but it's a good story. It's better than meats for hell. It's good. It's better than meat for hell, you're hanging off a trapeze and eating it, which is where I went. For me, I'm not picky. I thought it was like zip lining.

Yeah, I still don't understand the dipping in water, but I'm not picky. I just, the only thing I really don't like is spaghetti squash because I had it once and got violently ill. And so now I just refuse to eat it again, even though I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the spaghetti squash. I'm just like, I'll just have spaghetti.

I don't need fake spaghetti. I'll just have the real thing. You have all the things I don't think you're missing out on much. Like I like a spaghetti squash, if it's there, but it's not something I'm gonna go for. So I think of all the things you could have gotten sick off of, like, that could have been far worse. Yeah. I also love that it was actual spaghetti. I think it would have been really sad.

Yeah. And I love that in Kate's mind, I'm now like growing up, like eating like, like vealal veal suites and like, and foie gras under aspic with my little buster brown hat and playing on my harpsichord and I'm going to do nothing to disabuse her of that. Well, I mean, it's probably because my family like we ate our food like idiots with shirts on our head and upside down. So my mom's like, we're not feeding you veal. Here's macaroni and chicken nuggets and carrots with water on the side, you weirdos. A veal parmesan was just like a meatball sub growing up, but it really wasn't fancy. Veal cheeks! We didn't have that till later, but yeah, veal. Don't eat veal. What's the point?

Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, just eat chicken and beef and other animals that are no longer babies. We are going to have some fun tonight and we're starting the show with a combat, which is pretty wild. Combat makes me nervous in Call of Cthulhu because I really like these characters. We're just starting to get to know them. It's only been a couple of weeks. I'm rooting for you, but it's not really up to me before I forget though

let's let's kick off the show with the old luck roll let's see if if you're feeling lucky tonight remember you've got to fail this role and if you fail if you roll higher than your current luck score you will get a D10s worth back. Spend that luck. Oh, that's so rude. 81 baby. 81. Holy smoke. I beat it by two points.

Beautiful. Nice. Kate, I'm seeing a sour. I have a 51 luck. I rolled a 50. Oh, brutal. And one of the things you can't spend luck on is your luck roll. How close?

So close. Rob, how did you do? I did not make it by a lot. OK, so Nora and Ross, go ahead and add a D10 back to your luck. Seems as if they're the lucky ones this evening. Although if my character dies, I'm just going to say right now, every character that I have that comes back is going to be more obnoxious than the last. I'm so excited. Is that a threat?

Yes. It is a promise. Yes. Bring it on. We have a friend who every time the character died, he would just bring back his brother. And so he would be like the second and then the third and then the fourth and then the fifth. So by the end of their childhood, like he was up to his the 15th so and so the 15th. All right. Another thing I'm going to have you roll is when you come out of the tent and see these

I'm gonna have you roll is when you come out of the tent and see these monstrosities with huge mouths Rings of teeth like a lamprey eel the same Woman and child you saw when you were coming over to these islands on Lake Titicaca You got a sense that they were staring at you really nothing we can do about it We're heading to see this old wise woman they're now here along with what looks like a ton of cari-siri, possibly, killing everyone in the village. There's bodies everywhere, gaping holes on their chests. And now the four of you are confronted with these two. Was it a woman and a child? Yeah, yeah, sorry. So the visual representation of all that Kate hates

about food. Right, just kale, cilantro, stick it out. I would never eat one of these, let me tell you right now. Ton of water. Since I had a bowl of water to dip it in, then I would. Just gonna soften it up. It's crucial. Seeing this horror provokes a sanity roll.

Give me a good old fashioned sand roll. Okay. Here we go. Now, in Troy, just to refresh everyone's memory, Von Villiers is still currently undergoing the effects of altitude sickness, but that affects all physical roles, right? Right.

So that won't affect this sanity role? It won't affect the sanity role. It'll affect anything you want to do in say, combat, for example. Throwing a table at these things, swinging a machete, shooting a gun. You're heady from the change in altitude here in the Andean Highlands. How would everybody do? Any fails? So we're trying to roll under our current sanity, not the old thing. in Highlands. How would everybody do any fails? So we're trying to roll under our current sanity, not the full thing.

Yeah, under your current. Yeah, make sure you're looking at the current. I'm good. I passed. I was prepared for this. I've got bad news. Oh no. No.

I rolled an 86. Oh. Oh Jesus. Over 86. Oh, Jesus. Over 31. Oh, no. Whoa, you don't have a lot of sanity. I've been through a lot. All right, so that is a failure.

So you were going to give yourself a roll of D6. That is how much sanity damage you're going to take. Very well. Ooh, four sanity points. Okay, you're fine. Had you rolled five, then you roll an intelligence check to see if you fully understand what's happening. And that's a check you actually want to fail.

Because should you succeed on that check, the full brunt of these horrible reality hitting you Sends you into a spiral where something random and awful happens But instead you just go from 31 to now 27 sanity Should you lose six in one day? I think We have a chance to go insane as well. So a character that's already on the brink is just slipping further and further away. I believe when you woke up, Vaughn and Fae Ruse grabbed their guns and came to the tent, whereas Carter and Margo grabbed their shiny new machetes

machete up they bought at the Army Navy store in Lima and so assuming that you have your guns in hand you'll get a plus 50 to your initiative just for this first round one thing we did incorrectly in the first fight and where you know we're learning as we go, is that when your gun's drawn, it gives you just a bonus to that first round, because you're ready to attack. But next round, you go back to your normal deck score.

So, all that said, let's take a look at the old decks order here. Nym, nym, nym, nym, nym. Faeruz, you're gonna be up to a 105, which means you will go first, followed by Carter. No, Carter doesn't have it. Excuse me, followed by Vaan at a 90, and then Margo, and then the creatures. What do you guys want to do? Faeruz. Fae Rose. All right, so a couple of questions. How far away are the presumably what we saw earlier as that grandmother and child combo that we now know are Kari Siri?

Yeah, so the mother and this kid can be more than 10, 11 years old. They are about, I'd say, 10 feet away from you, the woman is coming closer to you and Margo, because I believe the two of you were sharing a hut, whereas the child, clearly transformed child, is coming towards Vaughn and Carter. All right, well, that's a lot closer than I thought that they were at. I will not spend this round trying to aim. I think I'm just going to fire at the older woman in this duo. And there's this so far as we know right now, it's just those two or are there more?

There are more all over the camp, but they are engaged in killing everyone. You see bodies everywhere. You actually see some bodies lying on the ground that have these mouths, like the creatures that are attacking you. If they are indeed Kari-Siri, you see that some of the villagers have fought back and at least incapacitated them. But if what the professor told you is true, when you went and visited him in the hospital, they're hard to kill. They gotta be decapitated, right? Dismembered, even decapitated, I think he said,

they'll still come after you. Dismembered or burned. Oh, I hear you. But right now, these two are the ones that are on you, whereas it's just pandemonium throughout the rest of the village. I got three rounds. I think I'm just gonna shoot one at this.

You know what? No, no, we're gonna go high stakes. I'm gonna do full three shots at this older, the older one of the- You're gonna unload the clip on this lady? All right, so. High stakes! When you go, when you've got a 22 automatic,

when you're gonna, if you're gonna fire off all three shots, two things need to happen. You're gonna take a penalty tie on each attack, which means the lower roll is the one that's gonna count. Okay. And then next round, if you wanna use your gun again at all in this combat, you have to spend a round to reload it.

But you couldn't like move away and go hide in the tent while you reload. You have those options, but your main action would have to be reload. Or you could just throw the gun to the ground and start, get over here, you son of a gun. Alright, so give me your first roll and take the lower of two rolls

But you're just rolling the tens twice when you have a penalty die with the tens. It's not a it's Okay, the double digit number not the single digit number. I Rolled a five is the lowest one. I rolled a ten and a five. Okay, so you need to take the worst one though Which is five the higher. Right? Oh. You know what I mean? Cause it's a penalty, you know what I mean? So lower is better.

You take the higher number, the worst number. Gotcha. Okay, so 10. You rolled a 5 and a 10? Yeah. All right, that is a hit. Roll damage. What is the damage for your handgun?

It is a 1d6, I believe. All right, let's see what you got Six yes six max Damage alright, so just boom it doesn't even dodge out of the way or try to duck for cover It just is advancing on you as its mouth looks like it's widening as it does So take your second shot. Again, take the worst roll, the worst of two rolls. I rolled a nine and a six.

You're rolling a D100, right? Not a D20? No, you told me to roll, I thought it was a D10. No, you're still rolling the D100. Oh. It's so funny, I're still rolling the D100. Oh. It's so funny, I can't explain the penalty die very well. I thought, okay, I am sorry. You're basically rolling two D100s

and taking the worst number, but you're not rolling the single digit one. Got you, got you, got you, okay. I'll do this again, I'll do this again. Yeah, well let's go. It's still alive. You gotta keep that six over again. All right, so I rolled a two and I rolled a 25. All right, is the 25 a success?

Is this against, this is against my brawl? This is against your firearms. Against my firearms, so against, let's see. Okay, I'm sorry, I was so confused in the beginning and I was like coming in hot alright Let's let's look for the firearms So my firearms is a where the heck is it oh should be at the top of

Roll under a 50 under 50 okay, so I said that's a success. That's a success So just keep I'll keep the six points of damage. Okay. But just to over-clarify again, as you have two more attacks here, you don't roll the single digit one twice. Do you know what I mean? So you wouldn't have got a two and a 25. You would have had just the second number.

So let's say I roll, like you just like the single number and you take two percentile dies and roll it and take the lower. So you either roll a 77 and a 37 or a 25 and a 55. Like that second number is always gonna be the same because you're not rolling that one twice. Do you know what I mean? Oh, okay, so the hundreds one

is the only one I'm rolling twice. Yes, I keep saying the tens, but it's the hundreds. The tens one is the same, it's just one tens. Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. All right, so for the only one I'm rolling twice. Yes, I keep saying the tens, but it's the hundreds. The tens one is the same, it's just one tens. Yes. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, all right. So for the second one, ooh. It's either a 91 or a 31,

so that's what you're talking about. It's a 91, yes. Now, now we get it. And sometimes you get a bonus die and you get to take the better one. In this case, that's just a straight up miss. But still took 60 points of damage and you got one more attack.

I got one more alright Okay 74 or 14 so no I did not succeed on that this is the The risk reward here of unloading the clip, but you still did do Significant damage to this thing and again. It just took a hit and like the Terminator. It just keeps Advancing on you and now do I have any movement yes yes you want to move right up to it and give it a big kiss no I want to hide behind something okay there's a body on the ground nearby you can just cool no maybe you'll think

you're the boss there's tables and debris everywhere. You could easily hide behind something. Yeah, there's like an upturned table. I'll go ahead and die. You feel pretty confident that it'll kill Margo now and you'll be fine. It's such a good hiding space. Oh, God. The very slow Margo.

Actually, no, Margo, you got an 80 dex. You got a pretty good dex. You're gonna pretty good decks, but Where Vaughn had a gun out Vaughn will go first Vaughn the child is the one that's advancing on you. No wonder your sanity slipping. Yes, so yeah Reeling from that shock and also reeling from the effects of the thin thin hair at this altitude Vaughn levels his And also reeling from the effects of the thin, thin air at this altitude. Vaughn levels his 32 caliber pistol at the eel-like face of this child. That's no child.

But because of the sickness, I'm in the same predicament. I've got to roll at a disadvantage, correct? Right, yeah. So you're gonna take one shot and you have the same disadvantage but that little any of you could have failed for that Altenewed sickness but the timing of this is really shitty. Oh this might get us into something okay no no I so with that I could have made it if my other roll hadn't been a 95. And what is your firearm skill? Well, I have many firearm skills because I have a handgun skill. I have a separate rifle skill.

And then there are other firearm skills in addition to those. But the handgun skill is actually quite low it's something it's only 20 so okay so had you rolled a 96 where your handgun skill is under 50 that would have been a fumble now which is just like the GM destroy your life or the keeper rather but instead right on the cusp with the 95 so you hear boom from boom, boom, boom from Faerûz and then boom, Fawn, and only one of these creatures has been hit with one single bullet.

Margo, you see Faerûz duck behind a table, a burning table. And Fawn runs back to the hut where they were sleeping. Okay. Shuts the flap. Carter just does like a double take as he runs by. He's like, wait, what? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Margo Sauer, Frowline Sauer. What do you do here with your machete? So I see Faeru's shoot at this mom three times and it doesn't really react and she's out now.

It hit her. You definitely see hit like this blood coming out, but it's not dead. Oh, I mean like Faeruz is out. Yeah, Faeruz is out. But the monster didn't seem to react. And do I think that they move pretty slowly? Cause I'm thinking like,

do I want a brace for when they come at me? Oh, that's interesting. You want to maybe wait until they get close to you and then swing at it. You could also just walk up to it and swing. It's hard to see. If you look around camp, they're moving at all different speeds.

So you have no reason to believe they're gonna come slow. And it was just hit with a bullet. So what are you thinking? Are you gonna take a swing at it? Is that your ultimate goal here? And it's just a matter of swinging now or waiting until it advances on you? So I'd have to walk up to it and swing,

and then that's my turn. Yeah. I'm gonna wait for it to come to me so that I can swing and run if needed. I like that, that's actually, that's really, really smart. All right, so you can wait, you hold your turn. I'm not 100% sure how holding works. I think you just go when you're ready.

And so we will move on to the creatures. So the first one does indeed move up to you and I wonder which action resolves first yours or its I would think its does so it is going to try and grab you. It's a maneuver. Okay. You're standing there with your machete and the woman, just blood pouring out of a bullet wound, comes up and it just tries to like grab you.

So this is a maneuver and we resolve a maneuver like fight back, but you're gonna roll your I guess you have an option you can roll dodge and if we both get the same success it won't grab you or you can try to fight back and if we both get the same success it will grab you however if you get a higher success you'll get to slice it with your machete and then it's your turn if you want to be able to slice it again. So high risk, high reward if you choose to fight back,

you might just want to dodge it. What does Margo do? Is dodge dexterity? Dodge is its own skill. Dodge is its own skill. That you probably have a pretty decent dodge. Yeah, I have a little bit better dodge than Brawl. Oh God. Oh, God.

It's tense. So I'm trying to think of what she would do. She's waiting because she doesn't want to... She wants to kill it, and she knows she's supposed to kill it, so I think I'm just going to try to fight it, and we're going to see if she dies right now. All right. So then you're going to roll with your knife and it's

gonna be an opposed roll against my attempt to grab you and we will compare successes. See what happens. So sweaty. Okay, here we go. Oh no. Oh no, she's walking away. Would get, Trey? I had a regular success by one point. I got a 95 over 30. You mean you didn't have 100 dodge? All right, so Jeepers King. All right, so this thing Comes up to you and just Grabs and as it grabs you you see it's just like pulling you towards it

And its mouth is going right for your mouth, and you think of the professor, and you think holy shit Is it gonna do to me? What it did to the professor? And now it's your turn. So I'm gonna tell you what your options are here. You are grabbed. If you wanna try to escape the grab, I believe it's a strength check.

That's sweet. No, you don't have to do that. It's a strength opposed roll, the strength of the creature and your strength. So same thing, better success wins. Higher success wins. Same success, if they both roll the same success, who's ever stronger wins for an opposed strength check.

What is your strength? 35. Yeah, and you feel like this thing is really, really strong. Yeah. So maybe trying to escape isn't the right move here. But that means you and your friends need to kill it before it comes back around to its turn. What do you wanna do?

Half the friends who ran away. Yes. Who created some distance. Maneuvers. I can escape. I'm trying to look at this tree you sent us and it doesn't list maneuvers. Yeah because a maneuver is like you tell me what you want to do and we resolve it based on your imagination. So I feel like I can't escape but can I just like I have my machete still in my hand,

can I just try to like, jab it? Yeah, absolutely. I think, I hate to do this to you, but I'm gonna say because it's grabbing you to try and swing at it, you're gonna take a penalty die. Because it's a really tough swing, you're trying to use the force die because it's a really tough, a tough swing. You're trying to, you're trying to use the force of your body to come up,

but it's got to, it's, it's, it's a clause on you. So you're going to take a penalty time. I don't think that you hate that. I think they're having a great time. I'm rooting for you guys. It's, it's early on the show, but

it's not going to, it's not going to attempt to dodge because it's, it's trying to, it's not going to attempt to dodge because it's, it's trying to, it's trying to suck your face. So two of the hundreds, one 10. And you just need a success and you will hit. Whoa. Awesome. I did it. I got a 10 and a 20 on the hundreds and then a nine. So I definitely got under my 30 for a bra.

Oh, you got just under your 30, a 29 under 30. All right, that's a successful hit. What is the damage for the machete? It's a, I don't wanna say it wrong, it's a 1d8 plus my DB, which I don't have, because my build is zero. Yes, you have no DB, but it's 1d8? Yeah, I got a machete.

All right, and you've already had, it's already taken six points of damage. Go ahead and roll that D8. Oh God. A solid two. Maybe I had a little trouble there. Okay, yep, you were trying to get that up under the chin and you just like scrape into its chest

and its chest opens up and Tessin starts leaking out. All right, it's now been hit twice, but it still has you in its grasp. The other one goes to attack Carter and it's the same thing. It's going to try and grab you, Carter, the child. Now, its build is one less than yours. I'm assuming you have a build of one? Yeah. Alright this one will say only has a build of zero and so it's going to take a penalty die to try and grab you. But what do you want to do? Do you want to dodge or fight back or something else? Well what I would love to do is, well not I don't think he's loving it, but is help out

Margo so is there a way to sort of like Like yeah, I guess if I dodge it is there like a penalty that comes after that? I can't remember. No dodge like you just need to match successes And you're able to successfully dodge And then you could spend your round going over there and trying to get that thing off So dodge is probably the safest bet for you to go and let's do that. It mark go after Margo Okay

So I'm gonna roll with a penalty die and you're gonna roll your dodge and we'll compare successes Oh, I should have checked what my dodge was before this because it's real low. Carter's not the most dextrous. Okay I failed. Okay so you just need a successful dodge and you'll get out of the way. I did not I did not roll under a 20 is what I needed to roll. What is what you dodge. But we both failed. So it goes to grab you and in terms of the narrative, you sidestep it. You don't quite dodge, but you get out of the way.

Yeah, Carter's like, get out, oh, gross, ew, ew, ew. And now it's your turn. Okay, so is there, I know we're sort of like outside in this village, are there any like lit torches anywhere? Yeah, absolutely. Stuck in the ground? Yeah, there's like one of those tiki torches. Okay, yeah. So I'd love to, like just from Home Depot with the little tiny case. Yeah, stick up the tags on it.

So yeah, Carter wants to, you know, he sees a torch along the way to Margo, so he starts running grabs it and wants to hit the Swing this torch and he would love to he would love to like spear it into the gaping maw of this thing All right, so you're gonna aim right for the face all right, so that is going to be a brawl action and It sees the fire, and I'm gonna say that's enough for it to try and fight back. Okay. So the good news is it's gonna release Margo as it does so to try and fight back. The bad news is if I roll a higher success it's

gonna punch you in the face. Let's do it. So yeah, go ahead and roll your brawl. Oh, mother fucker. I needed to roll under a 70 and I got a 78. Well, I failed as well, so null result, which is still not great for you guys because you need to get rid of these things. I'm just saying, is this an instance where he could use luck?

How close were you? Hello! Just 8 points, right? 8 points, yeah, spend that luck! So I need to get it to just under or I can match it? You can match it. You match it or go under. Okay, so spend those 8 points of luck and that is a success.

Oh, thank you, Ross. Great call. I'm going to say give me a D8 worth of damage because it's a it's a flame and you're sticking it right in the mouth Mm-hmm. Let me just go ahead and sort through these things, but I didn't wrap ahead of time You want to say releases Margo and it just tries to claw at you and it misses Okay, I did for your side four points of damage all right. So it's taken 12 points of damage and it's still up. Oh my God. The order's like, get off of my newish friend.

We now go to round two and Vaughn and Feroze will no longer get their bonuses that they had for having a readied firearm. And also, Feyrouz's clip has been emptied. But Margot, you are the most dexterous one here, so you go first. Carter just saved your life. Did it, did it like walk far away from me?

Do I have to like approach it again? Or is it still kind of in reach? It's within reach for you to swing. Does it look like it's about to go down maybe? It does it looks pretty rough. Now obviously killing it is a whole different matter but you see incapacitated creatures like this on the ground so you figure just get it on the ground get that one on the ground then we can deal with the dismemberment and burning.

Going for it I'm gonna go for a swipe with my machete. Okay and it's gonna fight back. I should let you know that's like the default mode for creatures is like fight back. They very rarely dodge. So it's gonna try and fight back by clawing your face. How'd you do? I failed. I got a 53 over 30 brawl. 53 over 30 brawl. Okay. And I failed as well.

So... Oh man. Okay. No result. And that's a lot I'd like to spend to try and turn that into a success. Yeah. Unfortunately, I believe it is... Yes, it is now the creatures turn.

I'm gonna move away from it a bit as much as I can. Create some distance, you're gonna go over where Faeruz is or go over in the direction of Carter. Yeah, she seems safe. I'm gonna go over there and be like, what did you do, where did you go? Where did you go? You left me out there and then I see she's fixing or reloading her gun so maybe I can chill out.

I had to reload the choice at the table was on fire, so I'm gonna stick with that, and it's gonna protect us. Oh, does it make sense? Stay near the fire, yes. It's very warm hiding behind this burning table. Carter, abandoned yet again, does a triple tick this time of just like,

what is, why? All right, as both the creatures turn, one has sustained heavy damage, one has not sustained really any damage. So the one that was holding Margo will go in the direction of where Margo and Faeruz are. And it's gonna attempt to grab one of you, and I will determine it randomly.

One to 50, Margo. 51 to 100, Feroz. 42, it's got a crush on you, Margo. It is going to attempt to grab. What do you wanna do, fight back? Didn't go so well last time. Or just try and dodge. Definitely dodge, I feel like, is in character

for the moment. Yeah, so it's all happening at the same time. You're running away and it's chasing you. Will it just get out of your grasp, roll your dodge? I will roll my grab. I got double zero and a six, and I never remember what double zero means. That is, if it's with a six that means you rolled a six.

Oh I dodge, right? I super succeed. You absolutely super succeed and I rolled a 100 which is a fumble. And so what I'm going to say is as it goes to grab you and you slip out of the way it falls into the burning table that Feyruz was hiding behind and it starts, ah, ah, and you see its mouth wide open and it starts kind of, what's this word, what is the word for this? Flailing? Flailing?

Flailing? It starts flailing in the fire. Dancing in a really cool way. It's really getting into it. But yeah, no, it looks like it has been incapacitated from that fumble, a 100. I thought it was like, did I roll a one? Nope, three zeros.

The other one goes to try and grab Carter. Carter, do you want to dodge or fight back? I'm gonna fight back this time. Okay. Bold move. Gonna punch it. Let's find out. I mean my my brawl is much better than my dodge so. Okay. I got a 34 under 70. So that's a hard success. Right? Yeah, just under

hard success. And I also also rolled a hard success. Which means where you chose to fight back, it succeeds and grabs you. So it grabs you and again it's just mouth coming for what's left of your mouth. Guys, this kid's on me man. So now it is going to be... Feroz's turn. Feroz, you see the one that was coming after you and Margot looks like it's down for the count, but now Carter has been grabbed by this child. Is that child like super strong? Am I being like lifted up by this thing or is it crawling up me? It's unusually strong where it grabs you.

And I forgot, because of the maneuver actually, I have to roll twice because of the build difference. And I failed. And you rolled a hard success so you are not grabbed. So you just see this child encroaching. We need to play this like a hundred times before I can get these rules down, but we'll get it. What are you doing, Frey Ruse?

Okay, if he's not, if the child is not immediately on Carter, then I'm going to spend this time to reload. Okay. He'll live forever. I'm cool, guys, don't worry about it. Clip, clip, clip. Okay, and you want to- Although, like, okay, how far is this kid off of you?

Like, is it just like immediately approaching? It's off right next to- It's trying to grab me. Yeah. Okay, all right. In this case, am I able to grab one of the legs of this table and have it still be on fire and try to stake this kid? Yep, because that's cool.

I want that's what I would like to do. All right, so you're gonna the tables as we've established is on fire. So that leg comes off like a chicken leg at Thanksgiving and then you rush over to it and just try and smack it with it? Yeah I want to try to like stab him with it. Okay great it is going to try and fight back and and just rake you so you roll your brawl I'll roll my brawl as well. Okay.

I have a regular success. I'll roll my brawl as well. Okay. I have a regular success. I too have a regular success. You are the initiator, so you succeed. At one point. Give me a D8 worth of damage. Okay. Cause of the fire. Four points.

Okay, four points. Faerûz to the rescue, Carter. This thing was within inches of grabbing you with its strong child hands. Yeah. But instead, Faerûz just sticks that and it's like, Ah, ah! It's got the flaming table leg sticking out of its chest, but it is still alive. And now,

it is, it's either Carter or Vaughn's turn. You both have the same decks. So you guys can just decide who goes first. It's up to you. I mean, you're in the tent, right? Do you even know what's going on? Well, I don't know precisely what's going on, so I'll take it. I think from inside the tent you see the sweat-streaked face of Vaughn Villiers still kind of shaking in rather insane shock. And I pull a bundle out of the pack and whip it open and out rolls a

British Imperial 303 Enfield rifle And I take that up and want to re-enter the fray but I imagine that was that's probably the turn Taking that rifle out and exiting the tent you now come out looking like a hero with a rifle Carter this thing has a flaming table leg impaled in its chest. Faeruz is right there next to you. You're there as well what do you want to do? I'm gonna try to hit it with this machete in my hand. That's smart that's just smart. You know that's that's just smart roleplay. Yeah it's going to it doesn't like that so it's going to try and fight back and I cannot roll a success to save my life today. Neither can I. I rolled a 96. What is your

brawl? 70. Okay so you're fine that's not a fumble you said over 70 okay great so just just a big ol miss and I failed as well, so luckily you don't get attacked. Worst result is that the kid is still up. Goes to the next round. It's going to be Margo and then the kid. Margo, you see Feyrouz heroically impale it with a flaming table leg, but they're in bad shape with this kid is about to act. You see it going to reach for one of them. What do you do? I do my sour battle cry

and try to muster my courage after almost being eaten and almost being grabbed. And this is the third time I'm about to swing this machete ever run up to it and try to swipe at it. Okay. Okay, what does your battle cry sound like? It's like, get back, get back you kiddo, oh goodness. It's more like a battle shout.

It's eloquent. Frustration. Give it hell, Mago. All right, here we go with that. I'm just looking at something here. Yeah, so just a little side note. Once someone is dodged or fought back and around, all further attacks against them are made with a bonus die

unless that creature has multiple attacks. So we're in a new round here. If I choose to fight back, I think one of you guys might have supposed to have a bonus die, but in this case, I'm gonna give the bonus die to you, Marco, because this, I just tried to fight back, you get a bonus die where it only had one attack.

So in this case, you roll the hundreds twice and take the better. Because I just rolled once and I failed, so let's roll that other 10. and take the better. Cause I just rolled once and I failed. So let's roll that other 10. Oh, I got a 16 under 30 with that roll. Oh, almost a hard success.

I failed. So that is enough for you to do one D8 worth of damage. It's already taken four damage. Here we go. Need that big eight. Five. Five, okay. All right, so nine total.

You come up and slice at this thing. And now it's its turn. It has Margo as a target, Feroz as a target, and Carter as a target. Gonna roll another D100. Gonna leave out a hundred. One through 33, Margo.

34 through 66. Feroz. And then anything above there except 100, Carter. Margo, it's you again with a 22. Oh, Jesus. Really, it just can't help itself. What do you wanna do here? Do you wanna try and fight back? Or do you wanna just try and dodge it again?

I think because the mom was so beastly strong, this child isn't probably as strong, but I'm going to be safe and fight back because I didn't, I think, that one time and it didn't do me well. Okay. All right. You have the same build, so I won't take a penalty. So just roll your brawl and I will roll my maneuver. Or no, no, I wanted to dodge, not fight back. Okay. So just roll your brawl and I will roll my maneuver.

Or no, no, I wanted to dodge, not fight back. Okay, then you roll dodge and I'll roll my maneuver. Oh boy. I failed, I got a 60 over 47. And it got a hard success. So once again, it grabs you. It is now up to your friends to kill it before it comes back around to its turn. And it is Faeruz's turn.

Faeruz, you see it grab Margo, your new friend. Help, this child is so strong. I'm reading some producer notes here that I actually don't have to reload just yet. There's six. Oh, there's six rounds. Six rounds in there. OK. I thought there's only three.

All right. Thank you, Michael. Michael backstage. A ton of help on this venture so far. Michael, thank you. I should have this chat open. My God. OK.

So you're good. You're still fully loaded here. You used last round to stake it with the table leg. But now you've got three bullets left. All right.

I am going to. So is the other one's down, right? Yeah, the other one's down. It's it's it's been it's emulated in the. I'm going to unleash three more into this thing.

All right. Now here's what I'll tell you. Where you're firing into melee because it's grabbing Kate. Well, actually, you're firing into melee because it's grabbing Kate. Well, actually you're already taking a penalty die for each shot. Normally you would take another penalty. Do I wait?

Am I risking shooting one of my friends? If you fumble, I could certainly rule that as you shoot Marco. I wanna do something crazy though. And it's not trying to shoot one of my friends. This is what I wanted to do before I saw that snow Carter No, I wanted to okay You know how we got lamp oil as like a bet because we knew we had to fire

We these things would be killed with fire. I wanted to do something crazy like run in grab the lamp oil Like chug some and do that that carnival like spit it out into the kid because he's already on fire with the steak. That is pretty cool. Try to light the kid on fire. I like it. Alright, so you run in there, grab the lamp oil, come running back out as you're chugging it, and go to spray him. Yes. I don't know what role that is. Clearly it's your lamp oil blow skill. It's your spray skill. It's Thursday.

I took so many extra points in that. Yeah, at the end of the day, when in doubt, just make it be brawl. Okay. All right, we can do that. Give me a credit rating roll. Oh, that's bad. Yeah, no, I'm going to say that this, you're getting pretty close.

Would this be like a dex? Would this be? Yeah, you know what, go ahead and give me a dex roll. Okay. And I am not going to fight back because I'm gonna say you're doing this from a distance. Okay. Give me a dex roll.

All right, here we go. I gotta get under a 55. Yeah, don't fumble. I don't like this face that you're making. Yeah. I don't like it. You know that fire's awfully close to Marco. It's a good 95.

Oh no. What's that mean? What does it mean? A good 95, I don't think that's a fumble. I think 96 to 100 if your score is less than 50. What is your deck score? 55. Oh, you're fine.

You're fine. Oh, okay. You guys have rolled a lot of 95s to this. You've done a lot of 90s. I was like, wow, this is gonna be the coolest thing ever. Just kidding. I did not roll well at all. You just drank it by accident.

Yeah. Just like, da da da da da da. Da da da da da da. If your skill is less than 50, it's 96 to 100 is a fumble. Whereas over 50, it's just a 100. Had you fumbled, I was gonna have the fire lick onto Margo and have her start burning alive.

But you didn't. How many luck points is that? Do I burn? Well, that's the thing is you can, when did you can burn away a fumble? Probably not, that would be too easy. Because you said it wasn't a fumble. No, I know, but I'm saying like,

if you say you roll a 97, couldn't you just lose luck to make it not a fumble? That must be a case where you're not allowed to do it. Because I could burn 40 luck points and make it that a success, which I'm willing to do because it sounds really cool. You wanna burn 40 luck points to make that a success? It's up to you? No,

I don't. No, that 40 is too much. I can't. I'm looking at me and Carter and Vaughn still have to go, I think, right? Or at least one. Okay. I believe in you guys. All right, Vaughn. Uh-oh. You've come out of the tent, you have your 303. What are we doing here? One shot? Now are you, are you saying that because this critter, this creature critter is currently engaged in melee, that that would already put me at a, at a penalty. So this plus altitude puts me at a double penalty.

I don't know if there's double penalties. Uh, Michael, you can let us know in the chat if you know off the top of your head. I, right now my ruling is it's just one penalty. Uh, I don't think you take double penalties. Although there's a part of my brain that thinks I did read that. That would just get wild. Yeah. Roll three D, uh, roll a hundred three times and take the worst. That seems ridiculous.

So I'll just do take the penalty, but you already had that because of the altitude sickness. All right. Yeah. I burst out. I see what's happening. I drop to a knee. Level, level, very much in quotes.

My rifle at this child who's a, you like maw, is snaking its way towards Frau Leinsauer. Here we go. Like back to the doomsday book you crawled out of. And, oh my gosh, I rolled the two tens, or hundreds I should say, and I rolled a 50 both times. Which puts me at a success because my firearm skill with rifles is 65. Boom! Alright, what is the damage for your 303? 2d6 plus 4. This could be a kill shot.

Let's just see. 2d6 plus 4, it's already taken 9 points of damage. That is 10 points of damage. Whoa! points of damage. That is ten points of damage. Whoa. This thing's going down. Describe to me what happens when that bullet hits it. Okay, yes. Back to the doomsday book you crawled out of.

And suddenly, like the pounding pain in Vaughn's head, all the chaos around assumes a weird sort of clarity because this is now eerily familiar. It's the din of battle suddenly. The echoes of screams and the smell of burning oil coming from the direction of Faerûs and just like the direction of Feruz, and just like, squeezes the trigger, and you just see this child's eel-like face crumple under this bullet that tears through it, sending a gout of ooze onto the ground. Hits the ground, the flaming table leg

still impaled at its chest. How do you want to finish this thing off? It's down, but you've been told. Burn it. Dismember the limbs! Burn the bodies! These fairies are just waving. I feel like just out of fear that Margo

would definitely do fault to like just trying to chop off the limbs. So you just start chopping off the limbs, just chopping off the arm and decapitating this child! It's a monster! And just cutting off all its limbs and scattering them everywhere. And you look over at the woman and she's just a burnt husk, like Aunt Beru and now you wonder in this mess where is Jackson and where is Nyara?

What do you do? Do we know where their tent was? Was it next to us? You know where Nyara's tent is? It's about 10 tents down, 10 huts down. I feel like heading that direction. Yes. Yeah.

Yep. All right. You rush over past more bodies. You see like, it looks like if the villagers that are still alive are driving off the rest of them or have killed them. So maybe you're telling them like, chop them, chop them apart, burn them and they're looking and they understand because they're they speak the universal language of we got to remember it. Yeah, just remember. So they start burning the bodies, everything you get to the tent. And you see Nyara laying on the ground with a body sort of draped on top of her, of a dark skinned man. And then you see Jackson Elias standing above the body with a smoking revolver in his hand. with a smoking revolver in his hand. And he's just like, shaking.

And then Nyara with what little strength she has left, like pushes the corpse off of her. And you see the dark skinned man is a Kari Siri as well. And Jackson came at the last minute and saved her. Do you burn it? Do you just remember? Well, Carter starts going to town with the machine. Smart, smart shooting old sport. Just chopping time. Flying lamp oil.

His hands shaking, he's just like, I heard the screams and I ran in here first. When I saw something come rushing in. I didn't even think, I just fired. They're real. I can't believe that they're real. You make a peculiar sort of beast in these mountains, I'll tell you that much. As Viliers is lighting two cigarettes and handing one to him, settle his nerves. Yeah, the rich nerve tonic of the Virginia leaf will set you right. This isn't exactly what the book said, though. This isn't exactly what the books said, though.

Books said that these came over from the colonists. Right. Right, they said they were all white men. That's what the legends say, and then the professor said this. I've been getting the eyeballs since we arrived here. Turns out that some of these Karasiri have become rather local. They literally are local. The two, the mom and the child,

they were as we saw them on the boat. I didn't think anything of it, but then they were the monsters. There was a child in one of these things? Yeah, yes. Oh yes. There was a child in one of these things? Yeah, yes. Oh yes, we killed a child. Whatever was wearing that child. And you can still find whatever's left of it, maybe.

So we're talking about some kind of like an infection. Is that right? Yes. Yes, Tillinghouse, that's the only logical explanation. It's said up in these mountains, in these jungles, that all sorts of things will swim up you or crawl inside you and do terrible things to a person. But how does it infect you and then it leaves no trace? Must be that kissy worm thing from before. And you safely ruse, just like vomit at the realization that this worm that almost crawled into her mouth

could have been the same. Could have been the same. The look on Jackson's face is one, is like his whole worldview is crashing down in front of him right now. Like he has always disavowed this. And even coming in here today, he didn't see a creature like this attack Trinidad.

Didn't see a creature attack the professor. He saw the aftermath, but now he's seen it with his own eyes. And now he's trying to like, he's weighing this idea that the larvae they implant into them could turn them into this. Then what do they do? Then what are they doing? Are they are they they try to increase their numbers? It's it's just simple biology, old man.

Every everything is attempting to increase. Everything is attempting to increase. It's like a colony of wasps, or ants. Carter goes over to the tent flap and peeks out just to see what's going on outside in terms of the chaos dying down? Is it? It seems like the chaos is dying down. They've taken your lead and have begun dismembering and burning the bodies. But there are half a dozen or so that you can see just from looking at the flap dead villagers as well. Carter turns to Jackson's like, you need to ask them if anyone has been kissed or mouth to mouth by anybody that just attacked this village right now.

Okay. Jackson's kind of like in a stupor and he shakes out of his like yes, yeah I'll have I'll tell someone and then they'll they'll translate and and he walks out and Nyara just kind of like pushes herself up She's like it's a sickness It is a sickness that is spreading And it is spreading from this pyramid you seek The activity like this has been growing as of late. We hear it more and more that these

Karisiri are appearing and now they are no longer white devils. They are our people as well. You, you and your destination, you are in great danger. As this is all going on, and there are bodies all over the place Could I do like a spot hidden to see if there's something about these Infected or about these Kari Siri that maybe we haven't Seen or picked up on yet Yeah for sure There we go See what that is. There we go.

Ooh, 71 under 75. It's made it. Pretty good spot hid. You know, the most interesting characteristic is there's only like two of them are white men and the rest are exclusively all other walks of life, locals that have been converted but what's left of the bodies that are you know some of them may just remember burnt there's

nothing on there that like really jumps out at you although one of the the the white men the clothing looks like it's from a different time period It's old frayed puffy shirt puffy shirt shirt ruffles He was born a long time ago helmets with the big dorsal fin I have a bizarre fawn has a bizarre thought of, does one of us in our possession currently have that chunk of gold from the museum? Jackson, didn't Jackson have it? Yeah, he has it.

Yeah, he has it. He comes back in. I told him and then so far no one says they've been kissed. Jackson, listen up, old boy. That scrap of gold that we retrieved from the museum. Who happened to have that on you by any chance? Yeah, I have it with me in my bag. I didn't leave it near Larkin. Rather foolish, Thal. Can't quite get rid of. Just help me soothe my mind, man to man. Might I see it?

Sure, sure. And he goes to his hut, he comes back, and he has it wrapped in like a pillowcase. He just hands it over to you. I would like to unwrap it and almost like using it as a wand or a probe, reach over and touch one of these Karasiri bodies with it and see if there's any reaction. You lay this chunk of gold on one of the remains and you see it start to sear its flesh. Oooh. And it starts to sizzle and you get that smell of burning skin and hair. And I think, I think he's almost he's almost trying to talk himself out of it as it's happening.

It's like, you see, this is a biological infection. Otherwise, that's why nothing will happen when I... Yes? Fae'er's just vomits more. Ugh! One of the larva pops up. Oh God. Where'd that come from? What did I eat?

So while this is- That's impossible. While this is happening and Vaughn is in disbelief maybe, it seems like, like Margo's thinking, and it seems like there's two potentially different illness, like we've seen two things. We've seen circle chest stuff and we've seen

And there's plenty of that around camp too. You see worm stuff. So, yeah. So I was going to ask like we're dismembering this man. Does he have a circle chest? All of the bodies, the victims, we should say, like around camp, that you can see have a gaping hole on their chest.

You don't see anybody, if Jackson comes back or the people he was talking to come back and they're like, and no one says they were, they were kissed. I just, yeah, I feel like this is too different. What we saw at the museum with the kiss and the maggots, it's different than what happened to the woman and what happened to these people. I don't know what the maggot is. Well, Vaughn, you were talking about wasps and hives. There's always a queen, right? I mean, maybe there's a different species of one of these things that can actually

lay eggs, create others. Perhaps it's two different. Maybe that's just how they multiply. One is breeding, one is feeding. Even the white corpses, the two proofy, poofy, poofy guys don't have... they also have... they're like everybody else in terms of... Well, they were just killed by the villagers. Right, okay. Yeah, but all the villagers that are laying there

have gaping holes in their chest and looks like that something was sucked out of their body. Oh, okay, I see. Like all emaciated like Trinidad was. So yeah, there's two different things going on here. Very important point that Margo's making. There's this sucking out and then there's the implanting. Yeah there's drones and there's a queen. And

the one that grabbed Carter and the one that grabbed Margo a hundred times, it looked like they were going in for your mouth, not for your chest. Did they look emaciated and sucked out of and like had the gaping chest when they were walking around? It's like after they were hit down. In fact, they looked like kind of fat. They love that fat. Their stomach was like distended. They mentioned that, yes.

It's as though they want to spread and multiply, but they also need to sustain themselves. Into some, they will put their egg, their children, their larvae into others. They will simply take what they need to sustain. I think I so it may be these former villagers were trying to impregnate us as they were going for his mouth. But what we saw at the museum with the emaciated lady, maybe before they are ready to reproduce, they feed. They get fed off the victims. Yeah. Come on.

Maybe what killed the lady fed first and then impregnated the man at the museum. I think we got, I think I got the gist. Yeah, that's him. then impregnated the man at the museum. All right, I think we got, I think I got the gist. Yeah, that's him. Ugh. Interesting, they like to have a little dinner first. I can reward it if you want, are you sure? I just feel like we're retreading the same material.

Okay. What do we do? What do we do? And we've got to compose ourselves when we get back there in front of Laken. I mean, we hope he doesn't even know that we left. But everybody has casual. Yeah, I can't let on.

Jesus. We can't let on about this. And if what you think about de Mendoza is true, where is he really? is true? Where is he really? So the white men different than the villagers. So I'm just not sure how to approach Demon Doza and possibly like the guy who's leading us. They might be different.

With Demon Doza, the only, by the way, I could not have just said Demon Doza, more dumb American. Demon Doza? Demon Doza. That has to be element of surprise. We can't let on that we know anything about that guy. The only way we're gonna stand a chance

against a guy who's like hundreds of years old is- But do you know what this means? We need to understand them. These two things that at any point, we could be completely surrounded. Completely surrounded. What if they turn? Is that how it works?

We don't know. And what if they have to get one of us alone? Why, we'd come strolling back with one of those things inside of us and none of us would be the wiser. Perhaps it's already happened to one of us, hmm? See, uh... I've already vomited everything that was inside of me. Hold on, Buster Brown.

Let's talk about that for a quick second. You bailed on me and ran back into a tent and you're the war hero. So you're telling... Maybe you're the war hero. So you're telling, maybe you're the one that smelt it. You know what I mean? Or dealt it. Whatever the phrase is, you start pointing fingers. You were the one who took off first.

Me and Marga were with each other the entire time. I only ran to get something in which I'm more proficient. Mr. Tillinghast, I never said anything about being a hero. Well, you've got the fancy accent. You could have fooled me, man. If we can't trust each other, we lose. We have numbers on our guides. So. Yes, quite right.

And I've lifted this and I wasn't burned. Okay, so let's all touch this thing. Let's all touch it. As long as we've got this, we've got a way of telling who's who and what's what. Yes. All right, I'll go first. Yeah. Carter, just for dramatic tension,

we go one at a time. Carter. And I'm like, oh man, oh, I said one, two, three, go. So Faberous has touched it. Jackson touches it. Yeah. Obviously he's been handling it. Carter goes for it, grabs it.

I'm assuming nothing happens. Burns alive. So I could tell maybe. Yeah, one by one you all touch it and Jackson's like, all right, listen, we're getting paranoid here. This is a lot and no one knows more than I do that this is a lot. I was expecting something dark,

but this is beyond what I could have possibly expected. We have to keep our heads. We have to keep our heads or we will lose them. Quite right. I don't know what the best course of action is here, but we have a long journey that begins tomorrow and we cannot be weak. So let's try and make the most out of the rest of this night get up In a few hours and head back to the mainland so that we can meet up with Larkin and it's like none of this ever happened And he just he's apologizing I are he's like I hope I didn't bring this here with me And she's like no no no no

He just feels terrible because all these people are dead now. And this was her fear to begin with. This is why she ran off to these islands in Lake Titicaca because she thought that even by talking to Elias about the curry series, that they were watching her. And Jackson just wrote it off as she was being paranoid. And now it's true.

And so Jackson just feels horrible horribly guilty but you now know from Nyara where she believes this pyramid to be so if for any reason you and Larkin parted ways or you were just one to leave him or whatever you've got you've got what you think are pretty good directions on how to get there. So you want to call it a night? As best we can, probably, yeah. Then let's take a quick word from our sponsor. Craving an escape?

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phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. So you're going to call it a night. And what a night it's been. You're woken up from a sound sleep to the sounds of screaming. I imagine we just see a slow motion of like bodies being thrown onto the fires. And is it the body of the scarry seary? Is it the bodies of loved ones that are just, it's a let's just burn them because there's

nothing left of them. Just people weeping into each other's arms. Just destruction of this poor little village. I don't even know how much sleep you get as you head back to your huts and just lie there staring at the ceiling replaying this, replaying this lamprey-like mouth coming for you to do god knows what. And eventually Elias comes in a few hours later and it's like, we should go. Let's gather your things. We'll head back.

So we have some time to get situated at the hotel before we have to meet Lachan. Goes into both of your huts and gives a long hug to Nyara and he's crying. He feels horrible. He feels completely guilty for this. And she's trying to calm him down. He seems more determined than ever to now go to this pyramid, not just for his novel, but to help the situation. And so you get ferried back to the mainland.

If anyone's staring at you now, it's just the same stairs that you were getting as you were coming in to Puno. But eventually you make it back to the main area, get to the hotel, and you've got a couple hours before you got to meet Larkin to freshen up. Maybe you can finally catch a couple hours of sleep or a shower. Eventually you come downstairs and Larkin is there and he has several pack animals. There's some donkeys and a couple horses and they're all loaded to the brim with blankets and pickaxes and tents and ropes and everything necessary for the journey. Then he smiles and he's like, we are we are ready we should be ready

shortly to head off is there any last thing anyone needs to do before we go? Because once we head out into the wilderness, that's it. We are not returning until we find this pyramid and when we do return, all of our lives will be changed. Some might say they already have been. Yes, that's a wise, wise, wise thing to say, Mr. Tillinghast. Food would be good. Food, yes, well I have plenty of rations, but why use those when we have an option here?

We don't have time to sit down and eat, but I'm sure we can get something from a vendor, and so he'll offer to purchase food for everyone. So let's eat it as we head off. I've got a lot of walking to do today, but I'd like to get a good chunk of travel time done before nightfall. And he explains to you that he believes it's going to take you three days now just going into the bush to get to the pyramid and every time he mentions the pyramid it's always in hushed tones because he's paranoid that someone is gonna

like steal his knowledge of this hidden archaeological find It's gonna take three days. It's about 70 miles, he thinks, south, southeast of here. Let's go back to that map of the route. You can see it in your little sidebar there. You're in Puno and where he is marked is the ruins. That's 70 miles south, southeast of Puno right running almost parallel to Lake

Titicaca and so you buy your food he pays for it and you set off Jackson Elias who he thinks is Jesse Hughes, Augustus Larkin, and the four of you. And you travel for a few hours and the landscape very quickly changes to the civilized downtown of Puno, which was nothing compared to downtown Lima, but still people bustling about to just like no one. There's grassy plains, hills, valleys, mountain passes, and the wildlife gets wilder and wilder the deeper you go. You're not but three hours outside of the city before you see like condors in the sky. You think you see spectacle bears once in a while, which is a certain rare kind of bear that you find in the

Andean Highlands. Not as I originally thought, a bear wearing spectacles like a like a wise old bear. spectacles like a like a wise old bear. Or myopic here for some reason. You may ask me three questions. Time to time you see like a jaguar, fucking jaguar darting through the bushes. So it's kind of terrifying, but also awe inspiring. At one point you take a break to just water the animals and give water to the animals and Margo you look down and inches from your foot is a 30 foot anaconda just like sliding

past you into the brush. Cool cool cool. I bet it's probably not as strong as the child from last night. And that's probably what she's thinking. She's like, how strong is this compared to these monsters? And I feel like we see these animals and maybe at least Margo's like scared. But then she's like, oh no, it's fine. It's just a terrifying animal.

It's not a Chiari series. Yeah. You've seen worse now. Yeah. Nothing's facing. Nothing's facing. Carter's just like down, Jaguar, back, looks down at his empanada, doesn't need him.

Larkin's mood kind of shifts throughout the day. He goes from being very jovial to being agitated at times, not like snippy with you, but just kind of, you might ask him something and he just gives you a short answer. You can't tell if it's fatigue from the journey or knowing what you know now, if he's going through withdrawal, but he's just a little jumpy. He sees these animals and is it just like, you know, he gets nervous by it. But you know, you have weapons, he has weapons to protect himself. There's no guards with you. It's just the six of you. Even though it's late summer, as the sun begins

to set, it gets really cold. And Jackson and Augustus both tell you that temperatures drop below freezing at night. One of the benefits of going with Larkin and not just leaving him back in Lima is that he has prepared for this. So he has extra warm clothing, blankets, everything you need to stay warm because it gets really really cold and as dark approaches it starts getting too cold to keep going and so Larkin says this is a as good a place as any to build camp. We will set out at first light. There's plenty of

food just obviously we need this to last us all the way to the pyramid and then back. So please just ration as needed. I am just spent. I am surprised how tired I am. So I'm going straight to bed so that I can be fresh for tomorrow's journey. Thank you. Get excited. This is going to be just life-changing wealth. No provisions at all, Sport. You? No, no. I ate along the way. I'm fine. I actually feel a bit a bit ill So I'm just going to just going to lie down, but thank you. Thank you for thinking of me Don't don't take my portion. I may want I may want extra tomorrow, but for now

I'm going to call it a night. You should be all set There's plenty of warm blankets and just keep your keep your tents closed tight obviously animals and whatnot oh I didn't I didn't know how to bring this up but do you think we should set a watch or do we just keep a fire going no no let's no let's do a watch well I say let's do both old man man. Yes. All right. Can you handle this, or do you need me to take a portion of the evening? I'm not, I don't want to be above that, even though this is my expedition.

But if this is something you'd be willing to take care of, I'd be fine with that as well. You know what, you're foot in the bill. You take a load off, you do what you need to do, we'll handle it, the five of us will handle it. Yeah, we're fine, we got plenty of rest the night before. So spry, right? Why does it rain?

Well, that's very kind. Couldn't be more rested, old boy. You're so drained and shagged from the journey so far, I wouldn't dare deprive you of an evening's sleep. I appreciate that, that's very, very kind of you. I don't want to appear to be on a different classes here. We're all on the same expedition and what we find there will be split right down the line. I really want this to be that there's enough to go around for everyone. So great, very smart, wise of you to set the watch.

I will be in my tent and I will see you before the sun rises. Good night. Nighty night. Good night. It goes back to his tent. Good night. Don't let the big bugs bite. Yes, the big bugs.

They're big around here. It goes back to his tent. And Jackson is just kind of looking at you out of the side of his eye but seems like he didn't know that you went off for the night or if he did he doesn't care. He's just a weird character and now that you're not quite sure where he stands in all of this it just makes every interaction with him heavy. So maybe you feel relieved that he's just gonna go fuck off for the night.

So you build a fire and you start setting up your tents and everything before it gets too dark. And what's the plan here? How would you like to split up the watch? No question. Is Demonendoza with us? No, no. Remember DiMendoza? He said, oh, he's actually got some family matters to deal with. He might meet up with you later. He was hoping he would see you by Puno. Larkin was hoping that he would see DiMendoza by Puno, but now if you asked about him, he would say, unfortunately, it seems as if he is waylaid back in Lima

or too late and he does not have the location as I do. So his loss, frankly. Yes. Forgive us, Monty. I think we should pair off Firearm to Machete. Ooh, very wise. Who wants the first shift? And what are the pairings?

Who wants to be my partner? Says Margo. You have the machete, I'll head off with Margo. Fantastic. Okay. Oh, I get to get all noodle legs Vaughn over here? Yeah. I like how Faberous and I are like,

yeah, let's hang out, and you two hate each other. Or like are just snarky. Talk about boys, possibly fight some monsters. Yeah. I just, I think Carter got carried away with this image of what he thought Vaughn was, and Vaughn skedaddled on him pretty quickly. And so now Carter just has his doubts.

That's all. So these two. I can talk it out. This odd, the odd couple and the Bobse twins. When, who wants the first shift, which would be like until 2 a.m. And then who wants the second shift would be 2 to 6 a.m. I don't mind second shift, light sleeper.

Yeah, that's right. I'll take first ship then. All right. Hey, before we go to bed, guys, I'm not one to really think about this kind of a thing, but obviously we had a very long donkey ride, and it was very silent. Do you think, just throwing it out there,

is it our fault what happened to that village? No. Like, would that have happened if we hadn't shown up? Probably. Okay, that's why I was landing on it. They still have to feed, they still have to procreate. That woman said that she felt as though they were watching her already before we arrived.

But I can't help but notice that among the locals, it seems as though we were the ones singled out for the kiss. Yeah, and at the museum, we were there. We're supposed to be there. This is pretty heavy right before beds. Look, far be it from me to take responsibility for any of my actions. I like where a Fave Rouse has fallen on this.

We could stop talking now. I think that's great. I think that's a great move. Good night. Carter just goes into the tent. Tying up our food into little bags on the tree limbs and making a fire. Jackson didn't like any of that because he did feel guilty for this. And then thinking that you're being singled out, that now maybe you're being watched,

that really sits on Jackson and you see it in his face and so he sits out there with Margot and Feruze or maybe goes into his tent and he comes out and he's like I'm having trouble sleeping and maybe I'll keep watch with you if you don't if you don't mind the company. No not at all. I just can't help but think what Carter was talking about that maybe it is not your fault certainly but my fault for dragging you there in the first place. But now I'm thinking that maybe Vaughn is onto something as well. We haven't heard about any other attacks. We were at the museum.

Or is it me? Does Larkin know? Does Larkin know who I am? And what I'm after? I'm endangering the mission. I couldn't say that far, but... If these things have been around as long as they have, then they would have continued doing this regardless of whether we were here or not.

I agree. I don't think we are that special. I think maybe we are kicking up the dust. Maybe. are kicking up the dust, maybe. But as far as keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, it couldn't hurt. That's true. It's always best to be on your guard in this situation. Well, that makes me feel a little better.

I've always dove into my work and tried to give it my all, because I enjoy it and I enjoy living on the edge. But when I do that, I'm endangering myself. I know the risks. I don't want to do that and endanger good people like you. So thank you for not blaming me, but. I don't know.

I do feel... Don't you think it's difficult to come this far and not go all the way and see what this is all about? Learn? Oh, I'm in it. Learn this all is. I'm in it for the long haul. I just don't wanna, I don't wanna bring harm to anyone.

Don't blame you for that helps at all. Don't blame you for it. That helps them all. You know, the riches... that excites me. Sure, I've never had a lot of money, but it's everything else that I really, really want to know about. If this cult does exist, what is its connection to these abominations? This type of information would be earth shattering if it got out there. I don't think we are supposed to know any of this, but I'm not interested in knowing any of this, but I already looked into the face of what all of this is and I can't go back now, but I do not relate to wanting to know. I just keep thinking to myself.

And maybe it's just my mind, the way it works. I always think there's more, but I feel like this is just the beginning of something. That there's so much more going on here but maybe not maybe I'm just caught up in my own fantasy anyways seems whatever this thing is it's part of a much bigger puzzle than any of us could ever imagine. No matter how it connects, I can't come this far and not know.

Yes, I feel the same way. Well, hopefully tomorrow will go just as smooth. I'm gonna turn in as well. Try and get some rest when your shift's up. Take turns watching each other. I'll see you in the morning. Thank you for this talk. I feel a lot better. I'm glad we had this talk.

He smiles, he puts his hands on your shoulders. He's just this kindly man and he goes into his tent and eventually 2 a.m. comes along and you go in there and shake Vaughn and Carter. Carter, it's your turn! I go to Carter and just tap the metal part of his mask. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Honey, I can't put any more ointment on you. You're gonna be fine. Ugh. No, no, no. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

So you dink my face the same way my wonderful wife does it. All good, ready for tag out? Yes, I have no strength to argue with anything you've just said right now. I'm going, I really, really need some sleep. All right, you've earned it, I have no strength to argue with anything you've just said right now. I'm going, I really, really need some sleep. All right, you've heard it, I think. I don't know what you've been doing. Well, so far we're all alive.

You dink my face the same way my wife does. That's just not going to be very good at it. There's a rhythm to your dinking. No, that's not, no I don't. I don't wish to understand at all. I really wish to get some sleep. Shave and a haircut. I'll go into...

You're gonna wake up Vaughn? Yeah, I'll go into Vaughn's tent and be like, I have to pee. Please, I have to go pee. Can you keep watch while I go pee? Yes, I suppose if the time has come, there's more than enough time for that and anything else you wish to do, of course.

What I wanna do is when I go pee, taking a torch with me to do that, but I wanna pass by Larkin's tent and see if I hear or see any snoop? Snoop? A little bit? Snoop, yeah. Okay.

All right. So you, your shift is up, but you're going to try and sneak in a pee and Fae Rue's goes, takes her turn to lie down and Carter and Vaughn are coming out. And so you just go by the tent and you see the animals nearby. They're kind of like just outside of camp. And give me a spot hidden. Okay. Here we go.

Oh, that's so sad. I got a 92. That's bad. Hey, you go up to his tent and you hear snoring. Sitting here looking at my luck and I'm like, do I want to spend 40 luck? 40 luck on a whim. I wanna spend 40 luck. No. 40 luck on a whim. Yeah, you hear snoring, and nothing really jumps out at you. Do you just pee on his tent flap?

Yeah. Mark your territory. Mark my territory, exactly. Margo was here. Linger out in that area for a little longer, maybe space out for a second, digesting. However, everything that's happened the last 24 hours, a little too long, and then, oh, snap out of it. Go back to the tent, go back to bed.

Okay. As you're there, just taking in the night, just a very eerie feeling, being out in the middle of nowhere. You look into the woods and you just get the feeling that you're not alone. So you shake that off, you're tired, maybe it's just your imagination. Playing tricks on you, you don't see anything. The animals are just chewing. They're cud. And you go to sleep. And then we see Carter and Vaughn stoking the fire. Carter pulls out sort of like a little notebook. He's like, yeah.

He heard to me after what with Feyruz's dinking that I have yet to correspond with my comely wife, who I'm going to do... Well, I'll do that right now. You don't mind. I sometimes have to talk out loud when I'm writing. Let me just start this here. He takes out a pen and he's like, How I miss you. I count the ways in which I do.

And then he just freezes. There's nothing. Nothing is coming to him. Man, Vaan, you know, I just never really thought about this until we faced life-threatening worm faces, but... I might not be a great person. Heh. I think crises make us take hard looks at ourselves, old man. Yeah, I've done a lot of shit.

I think you'll find that true grace and goodness and heroism are quite rare, and often come from the most unexpected places. Well, like, this whole thing that we're on now, you know, before I was in it for the money, try to break out of my current situation. Now we're hearing things like we have to stop a temple from releasing all these creatures and it's kind of too late to go back. And I'm feeling this weird feeling inside me. It's like maybe the money doesn't matter so much as the saving the world thing It's weird, I don't know if I like it

Well If altruism was easy, I suppose wouldn't be noble hmm Sounds even better with the accents. Oh. Doesn't sound half bad, your accent either. You have an accent to me. Isn't it? Aren't accents weird?

So strange. I don't have an accent. I don't know what you're talking about. But I guess I sort of... Well, you must have seen it, right? In WW1? All your... Wait, that must have seen it, right? In the... in WW1? All your, uh... Wait, that implies that it's going to happen again.

I don't want to give anything away, but, uh, you know how we had those dreams, you know, they were all kind of crazy? I saw this guy with a tiny mustache. I don't know, I'm sure it's gonna be fine. I- I- I- Currently, in this year, I have no bad associations with that type of mustache. Right, exactly. I'm sure that's a mustache that'll last for decades. But you must have, I mean, you know, you were in the war, you probably you were a hero every other day. There's a fine line between what you think of as that sort of heroism and what is merely duty. What happens on any given day out there? I wouldn't call heroism so much as I just call murder.

So maybe what we've got now is duty. Perhaps. That's easier to stomach. Just make a little, make things a little better when you can. Hmm? Yeah, all right. Sounds good. Yeah, do you let me... You're experiencing writer's block.

Myrtle, was it? Take a temptation. Oh yeah, do you have some words I can maybe throw her away? Just know that none of them will be coming from my heart. Just Myrtle. Myrtle. As I sit beside a fire here in the lower hemispheres of our great world.

Great world. I yearn only for the incandescent heat of your presence. In can, in can what? In can the blazing, the blazing, the conflagration of your of your beauty. Let's go with blazing. I know how to spell that one. Yeah, Got it. Hmm. I'm drawn to you as a moth through flame. Would that I could flit about your fire once again.

And until the moment that we are joined together again. Yeah. I remain your loyal, loving, etc. Just the fire thing's funny because really she's just, just a dusty fireplace. Just not even lit. The blue is wide open. Moths coming in. Hmm. But I wrote it down.

I wrote it all down. This is good stuff. I see. This was an entendre I didn't quite intend. Yeah, no, I got it. British are very funny. And you Americans are as well.

And with that, I think maybe Vaughn will kind of maybe do some of the rounds. I can't ever since we left Puno, I can't shake the feeling we're being watched. And I'll just give a little whistle and just goes off like a, just whistling some Gilbert and Sullivan tune

as he was walking around. And can I roll Spot Hidden? Yeah, absolutely. And I roll a 42 under 75. Okay, 42 under 75. to under 75. Okay, 42 under 75. I know the kings of England and I quote the fights of Stortford. So you're

three little mates from school come from the ladies seminary. You have this long conversation with Carter, and it seems like maybe for the first time, you guys are on the same page. You needed this time. It's this situation has put you together. So two very different people. It's good to have that tilling house.

Seeing eye to eye, you walk around camp, just again, having this sixth sense that someone's watching you but now you're not in society anymore. It's one thing to have those eyes looking at the white devils. Another thing to be in the middle of nowhere and still have that feeling. How much is it your imagination? But with your successful spot hidden, something jumps out at you. You're like, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, one. One of the donkeys is missing.

Uh-oh. And you remember you guys tied them to a tree, and you go over there and you count them again, and you're almost positive that one of the donkeys is missing. Maybe one of the ropes got loose, but you notice that one of them is gone. Was there a donkey per member of the expedition? Yeah, altogether there's, well there's six, excuse me, there's five pack animals altogether. So just one less than the total number of the expedition.

It's not like you're riding them, they're just carrying goods. But now you only see four. Unless you're crazy, was there four? Now you're starting to like contradict yourself okay um I think I might go back to the campfire and um telling us old man hmm we did come with we did come with about five of those asses didn't we oh yeah sorry head with the world yeah there was five of them. Yeah, what's up? I thought so.

I'm afraid something came into camp and gave us the slip, because we're down an ass. It's just every time you say it, it's just, I just need a second to reset. Okay, so one of them is gone is what you're saying. Just so? Well, it's a donkey, man. I mean, what are we supposed to do? What do you think, that a vampire came and killed a donkey?

It seems like... wouldn't they come from one of us? Even... I was thinking that perhaps it was one of those Jaguars we saw earlier, but now uh, oh Right. I mean well it could be that you know, obviously and I think Vaughn will take maybe a An improvised torch from the fire and walk back down the trail and just like Coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo co Just like a car is like don't wait. Where you going? Don't leave me alone. Okay, kitty kitty All right, so the two of you start walking. Yeah, I started like kind of coming up behind just mm-hmm Give me a book. You give me a listen role as you start walking back in the direction of the animals Well, I love listening Of course, I don't love enough to beat the roll.

I rolled a 28 over 20, so I'm gonna spend that luck. Spend that luck. All right, so you turn that 28 into a 20 for success and Carter fail? Yeah, Biden like nine points if he's lucking out. All right, you start walking with your torch and you're whistling and you're moving and you get just past the area where the animals were and you hear like a fsh, fsh, fsh, and the brush about 10 yards into the woods. Okay. Um, 10 yards into the woods? Yeah. Okay, uh, I

May I hand off the torch to Carter and Present arms get the rifle ready. Wait, why are you doing that? You you hear something? Yes. I don't hear it, okay. Just there, old boy. Shh. Maybe we should go get everybody. Light map, light map. And seeing if I can,

seeing if with the combination of the torchlight and now gazing at where the source of the sound came from, if I can get a bead on whatever it is. Okay, so yeah, so Carter's kind of holding it up high for you. And you've got the rifle, and the two of you just walk into the woods in the direction of that sound. And there's no path here,

so you're just kind of walking, not knowing what's underneath your feet. Carter has his machete, by the way. This guy's machete. Torch in one hand, machete in the other. Go two yards, four yards, seven yards. Get about 10 or 11 yards in, and you see something on the ground like,

expanding and contracting. And it just, you've never seen anything like this. It's so odd looking. It's like wrinkled and just, and you go closer to it and it's the donkey. But the donkey looks like it has been sucked dry and sure enough there is a huge hole on its side and the donkey is just giving its last gasps of breath as blood pours out of the hole and it just looks like it's been, like it was a balloon that

got deflated. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Let's just, we should, this is, I think now is the time to go back and tell everybody that this is going on, right? We're not going any further than this. This is a dead donkey. And the donkey's still suffering? Yeah.

Bang. Boom. You hear that shot echo throughout the woods. Like I said, sometimes altruism is hard or it wouldn't be noble. And I walks back to the camp. So I check on the others and I will go and check at the other tents. Yeah, I would say that shot is louder.

I was probably waking people up and. Yeah, so Margo and Faerus wake up, Jackson wakes up, even Larkin opens up and says, what is going on out here? Is everybody, are we under attack? So it would seem well, man. Something made rather grisly work of one of our asses.

What happened? Did I, I thought, I thought you were, we were, we were taking watches. I'm not, I'm not blaming anyone, but did, did a predator get at one of our pack animals? That means we'll be short. Just so, I don't know what sort of, what sort of beasts are lurking around in these,

in this undergrowth. We've seen jaguars and, and bloody great snakes and God knows what else. Is it gone? Is it taken? It's gone, all right. It's dead. And Carter's kind of making meaningful eye contact with everybody that's in on it.

And it was a very familiar looking wound on it. He's like, oh, familiar. A strange, strange sort of wound. Well, there are all sorts of beasts out here. I'm more concerned now about what we're going to have to leave behind. This is five was just the right amount with four. We're going to have to shed some equipment and I'm afraid it may be our blankets and warm clothing.

We may have to suffer through some cold nights. I don't want to make any decisions right now. I will sleep on this Let us let's bring the animals in closer so that we just really make sure that they are not Which is which is leaving a full food source out for the for the animals in the area I'm sorry again. I'm not I'm not upset with you. It's just it's frustrating now. I have to Well, we're gonna have to leave some things behind. Anyways, yes, if you wouldn't mind just bringing them closer. And please, let's all try and keep our heads about us. We could be the next snack for these things.

Yeah. You hear the very faintest click of Faeruz's gun in the midst of this conversation, as she's looking around. All right. Well, hopefully we will be rested even with this wake. Please, no more, no more gunshots. Although I'm sure you did what you had to do to scare off that animal. Oftentimes just waving your arms will be enough. We don't want to attract in mind over any more unwanted attention.

Good night. He goes into his new to see him Hendrix play. Because he's doing heroin. Just turns on Hendrix in his makeshift tent. Just tears on Hendrix in his makeshift tent. Just Nirvana. Just a rolling underground blast. I'm as free as a bird. Bleep, beep, beep. Elias just sidles over to you and what was it?

Nude. Just making the circle chest wound signal. He looks at Margo and Feruze like he was feeling good about that last conversation. And now... You're saying it eats animals too? It's alright. That makes sense. It's a big food source. Is this deliberate? Are they trying to separate us from our equipment? What else are they gonna be asking us to leave behind?

Alright, alright, alright. It's... It's alright. We are, we are blessed that it didn't come for us. Remember, we must keep our heads. I'm just glad all of you are alright. Let's get some rest. You go to sleep. The next day comes. You gather things up and Larkin says he's decided he's going to leave the blankets that he brought, all the extra warm clothing that would save, that was more than enough that would have gone on one of these donkeys.

But he assures you that as long as we build a large enough fire and people stay up all night to stoke it and we build the tents as close as possible, you know, a safe distance, it'll be a cold night. But you know, you're not going to die. The reality is you might suffer because of it. I mean, can we not just take it? Can I not just wear my jacket around my waist in that cool way where you tie it and you just got a little, you know what I mean? Like at least at least get a hat sticking out of the pocket. Yeah, if anyone has any survival

mountain skill or even a good survival skill, there'll be a chance at nightfall to put it to use. Just like Survivorman would do, which was a great show. But he just, you can tell this is not up for debate. He's made the decision. That's what he's leaving behind. He needs the excavation tools. He needs the weaponry and everything else.

So time to go. So, time to go. Day two is a little more hectic than day one because you're going further away from where people travel. There are there's not really clear paths anymore. But it's not like you're just walking and having to slash your way through. It's just a little slower going than it was the day before. The terrain is also getting a lot more

mountainous like you're going deeper into the mountains. The elevation is changing. I should have had you roll it yesterday. But I want to see if we can get rid of your altitude sickness. Whereas the others were able to adjust more easily. Um. I have a feeble constitution.

Um. So give me a con check. All right. Here we go. Oh my gosh. Okay. I crushed it. I rolled an eight under 45.

That's an extreme success. Beautiful. You know what, maybe Larkin is like, he sees that you're struggling and he says, I got this from Nyara and it's a Cocoa Leaf. He's like, it it's a coco leaf. He's like just-

It's some of his heroin. Yes, okay. Thistle, Thistle put that altitude sickness right to bed. He says it's some coco leaf. He's like, chew on this. It will help adjust because it's only going to get higher from here. We want to keep you on the ground.

Very well. Anything to get this bloody headache away. And so now I'm feeling great. You're feeling great, which is perfect should you run into any other trouble. Probably won't happen. We'll probably just finish the campaign. No, I think this is probably the last step.

Type five, as they call it in the biz. This is the Call of Cthulhu campaign on very nice hike. Right. A lovely hike. We're going on a bear hunt. You travel through the mountains. There's some times where you're almost like the incline is getting steep enough where you're almost putting your hands on the ground, but it's not that bad because just as it starts to get like you have to like climb, climb,

it levels out again. But it's a lot more work and you all wish you got a little more sleep the night before. Obviously the gunshot interrupted what little sleep you were going to get and the night before was treacherous and you see it's weighing on Larkin as well. So it's a bad mood day overall as well and it's so hot during the day and then so cold at night you all just feel terrible at a certain point you're going along and everybody give me a listen, bro. Hmm. What is my seven? What is this?

Stop. Whoa. Oh, I got a 19 under 50. Ooh, hard success. I got a seven under 20. Oh my gracious in the heart. Nice, I got a seven under 20. Oh my gracious in the heart. Nice, I got a regular old success, which seems like a certified bummer right about now.

It's really, that's a lower class of success. I got a 15 under 60. Oh, is that extreme? Hello. Yeah, that's an extreme success. Wow. I think that's exactly extreme, right? From last night. The extreme. The extreme is exactly extreme, right? From last night.

The extreme. Extreme is a fifth, right? So it's higher than that. It's a fifth, it's not a fourth. Yeah, okay. So it's just three odds and a regular. So I would say in game turns, everyone snaps their head

and then Vaughn's head snaps a second later. It goes the other way then. Right. It goes the other way then. Yeah, you look the other way. Right. You hear sounds of gunfire. Like, BOP BOP! Coming from over a hill in the distance. You're all sure.

It's all the ones that got hard success. Maybe Vaughn is like, where did that come from? But all of you like, it's coming from the direction of this hill. What do you do? Let's check it out. Yeah, like, cautiously approach. Yeah. Look over the hill. Okay, so you you start heading in the direction of this hill, and now you actually have to climb it. So it's not like pickaxe and everything but like you're on your hands and knees as the elevation gets higher. You get to the top and you look over the brow and you see in the distance maybe like half a mile away on the other side of this hill two figures. hill, two figures. It looks like there's a guy and he's like taking off his clothes and like tearing them and then there's another person on the ground that looks smaller than

him and he's like, it looks like he's doing something to the person on the ground. What do you do? Half a mile away. Does anyone have any binoculars? I do not. And I regret that I don't. Let's do a group luck roll to see if it was included in Larkin's Supplies so for a group roll whoever has the worst luck rolls it. Oh, no

Mine's 51 mine 67. Oh, no, I'm 1664. I Got 54. I also have 51 so Is 51 the lowest? Yeah. We're tied for last. When we did luck rolls earlier I put that in my sanity instead of my luck. You're cheating! You're out of the game!

But I think Ross is still the lowest. So Ross give me that. 51 is not bad. If you roll 51 or under I'm going to say you find a pair of binoculars. Kate and I both have it, so but... Okay. We'll roll to see who rolls.

No, I would say you guys can pick. It doesn't matter. Do you not want to roll? I'm fine rolling. Do you want to... Do you feel lucky or...? I don't... I feel like nothing today. I'm doing good sometimes and doing really bad other times. Alright, let's... Let's... Let's go. Let's see. You're lucky, let's let's let's go lucky Ross Okay, here we go, baby

Trying to get under under 51. Mm-hmm No So Margo says in bed binoculars and you start searching through You know what that was one of the things he left behind when we couldn't fit it on the second one. Can you fumble trying to find something? It's so bad that you can't. Get a paper cut. Yeah.

Ah, son of a bitch, that's gonna infect. Rattlesnakes. Yeah, so that would've been great. I would've totally given it to you, very smart. I mean, that's the beauty of this game. Hey, do we have a this? Let's see. So yeah, you'd have to move in closer.

Now you're a gunshot. We saw, we see somebody tearing off clothes and there's somebody on the ground, maybe he's shot in by accident. He's trying to make some sort of. Could be a tourniquet situation. Sounds like first aid. Maybe.

Maybe. Do we see anything else concerning? You look and no other figures except for these two. I mean, it's just very, it's like a Western. You see this so far in the distance, they're just dots, but you definitely see two people. I'll try to stealth my way down there. Okay. Yeah.

You wanna go ahead and use a stealth roll? Yeah. Because either they're the ones following us, in which case we need to address the situation, or they're here, unrelated, and they've seen something, or maybe not. Either way, we'll probably go see what this is. This is really bad. Uh, I had a. I had a 40 stealth and I rolled a 91.

Jafers, you guys in your 90s today. So you fail on the stealth roll and I'll say that how that will result is like the the opportunity to to surprise them or get the jump on them or is not is no longer available to you. So maybe you look down and you look at the ground,

you're like, there's no way we're gonna be able to sneak. So you guys wanna just head. But we can proceed faster. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, let's just go. All right, so you just keep going, you keep going, and as you get close enough where they see, where you can see them,

but they haven't really turned their attention to you, it looks like there's a guy and he he he's like ripping his shirt apart to apply it to a young man who's lying on the ground. It looks like there's blood all over the man's hands. And maybe, yeah, he's like trying to bandage this young man up but as you get close the guy's like panicking and since you didn't stealth he like hears you coming and he just quickly grabs a rifle and like points it on you and then he sees Vaughn and Carter and just and says something in Spanish and Jackson comes up and he's like he says stand back

Kari Siri and you see the young man laying on the ground looks very similar to the man holding the rifle. He has a gaping hole on his chest that is leaking blood. And we'll see you next week. Oh my god. I wish I knew how to say that in Spanish. What is Spanish? Muerte.

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