The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S1 | E7 – Exquisite Corpses

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

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You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Good evening everyone, it's that time again. What time is it? It's time for chaos. I was thinking about this this afternoon. This might be the most varied cast in terms of our respective locations. When we started, it was seven guys all lived in Queens, seven guys, five guys, one of us, one of them counted for three. Who are those two other guys?

Five guys, we all lived in Queens, and now there's people from all over, but this show, I think, has the most people all over the place. So I'm in Westchester in Yorktown Heights, about 50 minutes from the city. Kate, you're in Brooklyn, right? Yep.

And Nora and Ross are in LA, but LA's broad. Where in LA? Burbank, Silver Lake. Now I'm in Bur broad. Where, where, where in LA? Burbank, Silverlake? Now I'm in Burbank. Yeah, but Silverlake. Silverlake, well, I think about that. I wasn't outside of your respective houses with binoculars last week.

What about you, Rob, you're in Boulder or Denver? I'm in Denver for some reason. Denver for some reason. I just ended up here. It just was one, we were in New Orleans for a while and then Denver happened Well, this leads me to my my question of the day here before we get into the nitty-gritty Masks of Nearlathotep or Niharlathotep as some people have attempted to correct me and Chaosium

If you could live anywhere and do what you're doing right now Would you stay where you are or would you be like, you know what?'re doing right now, would you stay where you are or would you be like, you know, I want to go someplace else? Rob, you chose Denver. Was it just like you picked cities out of a hat? Yeah, it was a dart board. I threw several darts at the same time. No, I mean, it's so boring, but it was just, you know, I'm an actor.

LA was the place to be. It had been for me for 17 years or so. And then after NCIS New Orleans wrapped up, then it was sort of like, well, there's a pandemic. What's important to my family and stuff like that and LA. I don't know if you guys know this. Real estate and rent in general in Los Angeles is insane. It's not that much better in Denver, turns out,

as I learned, but you know, with the whole auditioning being remote because of the pandemic and precautions around that, it just seemed like Denver, we already had friends here. This is so boring. I feel like I'm talking to my fucking, I feel like I'm explaining my parents when I made this decision. I thought this is exciting. I think people are interested. They really like I'm talking to my fucking, I feel like I'm explaining my parents when I made this decision.

I thought this is exciting. I think people are interested. They really want to get to know you guys. But do you think like now that you're there, because I hear nothing but great things about Denver are one of the founders of the network, Skidmark grew up in Denver, loves Denver. We're trying to get a show out there forever. Now that you're out there, you're like, you know what, I want to stay here. Are you thinking, you know what, I'm gonna go back to LA, maybe New York, maybe go back

home to Massachusetts? Or what do you think? You think you're there there, are you like, you know what, I want to stay here? Or are you thinking, you know what, I'm going to go back to LA, maybe New York, maybe go back home to Massachusetts? Or what do you think? You think you're there for the long haul? Definitely not Massachusetts because everyone I know there is gone. So that would make no sense. I do miss it. Yeah. But no, I mean, I feel like, you know, with the whole acting thing, there's always the

potential of having to move somewhere for a job. And so it just sort of made sense to find a home base area that we would, we would enjoy that would be good for all the family and not just me. And so we're digging it here so far. We've been here for almost exactly a year. We love it. Oh, wow. Yeah. Nor you grew up near where I live now, right? We found this out before show and then you moved to LA. Do you think you like it out there enough that you're like, if I want to stay here forever? Forever.

I mean, the weather kind of just you get spoiled by it. Yeah. I really like it out here. But I don't know. And also makes sense for my work, too. But I don't know. Yeah.

Who knows in the future? Who knows where the winds are going to take Nora? Especially with these prices out here for housing, geez. Yeah, it's certainly still a seller's market. The pandemic made it even worse. We wanna move again eventually because we got this house right before the pandemic.

We just got in and like two weeks later, the pandemic hit. We could probably sell the house now for way over what we bought it for, but then we never will buy a new house. So, but I would like to move, but I'm trying to decide, do I want to stay here in Westchester or maybe move like right to that edge of Connecticut? I don't know.

Kate, I feel like you are legally obligated to stay in Brooklyn because you look like someone from Brooklyn. Oh no. And I bet you smell like someone from Brooklyn. Oh no. And I bet you smell like someone from Brooklyn too, which is quite a lovely smell from what I hear. I mean, yeah, we've been here for like 13 years, spent a long time.

Wow. Yeah, I moved down here because I got accepted to Pratt for grad school and then I was like, I can't afford to pay these student loans if I'm an adjunct professor, so I dropped out and worked a bunch of jobs. And yeah. You, where'd you grow up? You grew up in New York, right?

Upstate New York, like Schenectady, Albany area. Schenectady, Albany. Do you think you're going to stay in Brooklyn, stay in the New York area? You got family around here? Or you're like, you know what? I'm out of here. Kansas. Yeah. I still have friends and family like upstate. I was thinking about almost convinced

Michael to move to Arizona, but heat, climate change, also politics. So like maybe I'll just stay in New York, although it's expensive. We're looking upstate, like in the Kingston area, that's where Michael's from. So, I'm never going back to Albany. It's awful. Yeah. They got a couple of good breweries. Kingston's very nice.

It's a little granola, but they got a cute downtown. Ross, you started, remind me again, Chicago or Midwest? I'm from the South. Like I grew up in- The South, totally wrong. Same thing. Abu Dhabi'm from the south. Like I grew up in the south. Totally wrong. Same thing. Abu Dhabi, right? That's where you grew up. I'm from the UAE. I know I am. Yeah, I grew up in like Virginia

and North Carolina mostly. So there is still a part of me that has that like nostalgic pull. And when I fantasize about where I might end up years from now if like job was no impediment. I went to college out in the mountains of North Carolina and that is one of the most beautiful places I've ever lived. So going back to like the Asheville area is really appealing to me.

But I love LA and I love Chicago. I lived there for 10 years. I would go back to Chicago. Yeah, I do like visiting Chicago. Chicago's great. But now Asheville, do I need to check out Asheville? Is that where it's at? But much like everywhere that we're describing, it's one of these places that you think that it's a beautiful place to live and

so do hundreds of other people. So the housing prices are. Yeah. Asheville I heard is on the come up. Yeah. Yeah. Asheville is beautiful. So maybe don't go to Asheville. Maybe move to beautiful Blowing Rock or Las Cruces or Boone or. Stop trying to keep Asheville all to yourself Ross. It's too late, the cat's out of the bag. Yeah, I'm trying to drive you there

so I can move to Abingdon, Virginia. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting to think, you know, you could just, you could just move at any moment and uproot your entire life. And the pandemic has made it where we don't really have to be where we are to do what we do.

So let us know if you make it. We're doing that right now. Look at what we're doing. We're doing it, we're living it. Playing games while people watch. One day I'll be in the same room with you someday. That would be nice. Not if I can help it.

That would be lovely. I finally get to like when you're in the same room with someone for the first time that you've been like speaking with over the internet and you finally see how tall everyone is. Sometimes you're wrong. I met Josephine McAdam who I play Blades in the Dark with also on this network.

I met her in person for the first time a few weeks ago and the size differential was top, tops. She's a little elf and I'm a very, very tall string bean. And I think both of us were like, whoa! As I like stooped over to say hello. Well, that's funny because we've been hanging out now, me, Ross, and Nora for over a year, year and a half at this point.

And we record these in advance, obviously. But we're coming to LA in a couple weeks. And I'm going to meet you guys in person for the first time. And I don't know what I should do. I need a new wardrobe. Should I do a juice cleanse? I feel like I need to prepare for this. Yeah, Troy, you better.

I better get the old shoes. I mean, it seems like the lesson is you have to put lifts in your shoes at the very least. Right, I guess my height is gonna be judged. Well, luckily I'm not. Yeah, man, unless you want me to hold your head at arm's length while you feebly try to punch me. How dare you?

You son of a gun, Astro's mine, I tell ya. Well, one of these days, it would be fun, you know, my sort of crazy brain, I imagine this show just as it grows, we start doing this show live at cons so that we have an excuse to meet up like twice a year and play in person in front of thousands. Yeah. We'll be at Gen Con. Yes.

Gen Con. Yeah. Rob, you're talking about maybe going to Gen Con. Yes. Gen Con, yeah. Rob, you were talking about baby going to Gen Con too. I was talking about it, and then unfortunately my family has a trip planned, but I might still try to sneak out for the Thursday and come see everybody. And also I'm gonna be in LA a week after you are Troy, which is horrible.

Gross. So I wanna hit up Ross and Nora for sure. Yeah, you absolutely should, yeah. Build the bottom of the pyramid. Yeah, Kate, you're out. That's fine. Good luck in Kingston. No the bottom of the pyramid. Yeah, Kate, you're out. That's fine. Good luck in Kingston.

No, but this is good. Now we got a year to plan for a year and a half to plan until the next Gen Con. You watch. It's going to be a Time for Chaos live. But right now, Time for Chaos is live. And we need to talk about last week, because a lot of shit went down, and you are in the thick of it.

And I'm just going to throw you right back in. Obviously you're on your way to the ruins. You're in the wilds outside of Puno near Lake Titicaca and the Andean Highlands trying to get to these alleged ruins following a man named Augustus Larkin who come to find out might be a pretty shady dude. Definite addict, definitely has a weird tattoo on his chest, and may or may not be involved with either a death cult or fat sucking vampires known to the area as Kari Siri. His accomplice, his buddy, Luisa Mendoza, you're pretty sure is Akari Siri, Akari Siri that attacked and killed a graduate student back at the University in Lima.

And then seriously didn't show up to join this expedition. So he's still out there somewhere. Meanwhile, you're just keeping an eye on Larkin. You come across these alpaca farmers that were just attacked by Kari-Siri. The night before one of your donkeys was attacked, presumably by a Kari-Siri. So they're around. Are they following you? Are they on your trail? Is it a Mendoza? What is going on? Well, you finally make it to the ruins. They exist and you see a

pyramid that's actually a lot smaller than you thought it would exist. And you see a pyramid that's actually a lot smaller than you thought it would be. And you see two people with these gorge stomachs matching the descriptions of the people that attacked the alpaca farmers, a man and a woman, climb the steps of this pyramid and one by one looked like they were vomiting into the top of the pyramid, into some crack at the top, and then coming back down, and then they walked out of sight down past a wall that you couldn't see over from your vantage point. At that point, you're like, we've had enough,

we're confronting Larkin, what is going on here? When you met Jackson Elias back at Bar Cordano, and he said, bye Larkin, bye Domendoza, he told you the first thing. I think Augustus Larkin is leading us into danger. And so rather than go into this ruin site, you decide to confront him. And you pushed him a little too far so that something else within him, something perhaps using his body as a puppet came out. His arms stretched out to the side, he became rigid,

all of his ailments seemed to disappear, and a voice that was not his voice emanated out, just speaking pans of ultimate destruction and how you will never survive and this world will never survive, and then a tear in reality formed and some sort of weird simian insect was trying to find its way out,

and all of you just, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, unloaded your gun, threw fire, machetes, killed Larkin, and that seemed to be the thing that stopped the tear in space-time from forming and this dimensional creature from coming out. Larkin then thanks you with his dying breath for ridding him of whatever it was

that was controlling him. And then he dies. And so now you're left examining these ruins. You see some heads, some elongated heads that after a couple of successful roles you realize also are from these Tiwanaku people, these strange tribe of people who no one really knows anything about, but it seems pretty clear that they built these ruins. And then years later someone else came.

Was it the Con conquistadors? And what did they do and why were they built? You don't know. But rather than go through the front doors you're like, you know, let's just take a little peek over the wall here there's all these silt drifts that you could just kind of climb up and look over to see if you can see what happened to that man and woman and all you know is that they walked in the direction of a giant hole, a hole full of corpses. And as you're looking down at this hole of corpses, you hear a noise behind you, you turn, and you see the severed head of Larkin just floating there.

Says something like, well, something villainy, like I will see you again. And then his head bursts into a swarm of flies that dissipates into the air. I think that's worthy of a sanity check. So let's go ahead and give me a sanity check and then we'll do the weekly luck roll. I think a sanity check, if I saw a floating head

burst into flies, I'd feel a little off. Ross, I'm pulling for you, man. Ross I'm pulling for you man I'm really pulling for you. I got under my sanity. You did it! Fortune smiles on von Villiers. He's just spoken in his mind he's probably still processing that and then a fly hit the little fly pinata head is just not doing it for him. Yeah, he's got other fish to fry. Rob, it sounded like a fail. Yeah, it's my first sanity fail.

Okay, give it up for first sanity fail. I mean, not in real life. Kay, what about you? I'm still holding it together with a 14. She's gonna break at some point. KIT, keep it together. Nora? I just made it by two points.

Oh ho ho ho ho ho. Alright Rob, you're gonna take only one point of sanity damage. That could have been a lot worse. So you're a little shook by this. Alright, so all I'm doing is adjusting my current sanity down by one. Right, your full sanity stays one thing, but your current sanity, there should be a box for that. Once again, we're using Roll20, behind the scenes Roll20,

graciously hooked us up with all of the Cthulhu stuff and the character sheet for Roll20 for Cthulhu is phenomenal. Even though I think you guys have to calculate fifth and half values, other than that, it's great. So you take one sanity point of damage. How do you think that manifests to him when he sees this, whereas the others are able to keep it together? Well, with just one point, you know, there's been a lot so far that's gone down, obviously,

that he's sort of been like, I can handle this. I've seen a lot in the streets of the North Shore of Massachusetts. So I think for a split second he sees his full untarnished face floating in front of him for a moment. So even though it's like a horrifying floating, you know, floating, you know, larkin head, I think for a second it just turns into hit, it turns into Carter himself and he just gives himself like a little wink. Oh God. Yeah.

And then it's just gone. That would crack you. Yeah. Okay, great. Let's everybody do a luck roll to see if any of your recoveries, any luck points. That would crack you. Yeah. Okay, great. Let's everybody do a luck roll to see if anybody recovers any luck points. Spoiler alert, you're gonna wanna have

some luck on hand tonight. Another thing while you're rolling those, something to think about pushed rolls haven't really come up yet. But when you fail a roll, you can always try to roll it again. But there are contingencies. If you fail a roll and you say, I wanna push the roll, you get a roll, you can always try to roll it again. But there are contingencies. If you fail a roll and you say, I want to push the roll,

you get to roll again, but you have to tell me, what are you doing differently? And that's really just a flavor thing like what Rob did. You can't be like, well, I'm going to climb the stairs backwards instead of forwards. You know, it's got to be a little more flavorful. And the only real bad thing is if you then fail the pushed roll, something bad happens.

So it's a little high risk, high reward. Just something to think about. And I don't, I'm pretty sure, Michael, you can let me know in the side chat we have here on Skype, I think you can't push combat roles. There's a couple of roles you can't push. Yeah, I think I saw that. I would imagine you can't push sanity roles.

Yeah, I believe that. Combat and sanity, I think think are two, there might be three rolls you can't push just like there's certain things you can't use luck on. Like sanity rolls. Anybody improving their luck today? Again by two points I rolled 69 over 67. 69 over 67 okay so I get to roll a d10 d10 yeah Okay, how much is five points great Kate nothing Rob? Yeah, I got it. I mean it doesn't really matter how much over I rolled right like I got a 92 doesn't mean Jack I'll unfortunately okay, I Got eight eight beautiful and Ross any luck wait. I'm sorry remind me are we trying to roll over luck?

Yeah, this is the one that case I did it Okay, great, then you get a chance. I keep spacing on that okay. Yeah one d10. Yeah one d10 nice Guess who rolled a 10 There you go That's what all right ones on the come up, y'all. What's it doing now? Everything's coming up, Dilius. Yeah.

I was firing wildly in the air and no help to anybody last night. So maybe now it's my time to shine. I do want to say I'm not superstitious, but we're all wearing black tonight. We're ready for someone to die. I noticed. Why would you say that, Kate?

Because I'm not superstitious and I don't really believe it, but I'm pretty sure someone might die tonight and we're all ready for it. Are we? It's real life. Are we though? I didn't think I was ready for it. Anytime I've ever played any, most RPGs ever,

it's always fizzled before my characters ever died, or I just wasn't there and everyone were everyone was pissed so they killed me Which just seems fair but but so I've been terrified of this exact thing Kate and But then today I had a thought about what my next character could be if that were to ever happen And it made me feel so much more comforted It was like like if for some reason you believe in an afterlife, great for you, I'm really, that's great.

Yeah, I can see now, it's like, oh, that provides a little bit of comfort. Aw. That's gonna come back as a butterfly with a crossbow. You've come to terms. Nora, what are you doing? You're coming to terms with your character's death. So beautiful.

And maybe my own, we'll see. Yeah. This is why these games are so profound and beautiful Yeah, really make you look inward you've reached acceptance But right now they're still alive and then hopefully they'll live for another couple episodes guarantee in the meantime I'm gonna take you to the map because I've now revealed Everything that you can see now that you're perched up everything that you can see now that you're perched up on that little silt deposit that allows you to look down. So you see the pyramid again much smaller than you thought. You see that

slit across the top that those people were vomiting into. You don't see the people around anywhere. So did they go into this pit of bodies? You don't know. And then there are these broken walls, like down to the south where other ruins appear to be. There's a lot going on over there, but you tell me what you wanna do. Oh yeah, the charnel pit. Oh yeah, the charnel pit. I mean, we just saw floating head explode into flies.

Yes. It really makes you think. So Woody, what do you do next? Well, luckily we can take our minds off that by looking at this horrific abattoir in the ground. Right? Like, play or me wants to look into the pit, but I'm like, does Markle even wanna do this anymore?

That's right. What? But Carter made an argument last time to get out of there and got peer pressured into staying, partially because it would be more interesting. So. Yeah. We can look into the pit.

We can look into the pit, which does not, nothing can go right doing that. Or we can look into that crack where people have been vomiting into. Which is gonna rock. It could be a little more, less right. Vaughn will look into the pit. Less bad.

Can Vaughn spot hidden in the pit? Yeah, you're a little bit far away, but go ahead and roll spot Hidden. I'm going to say from this distance I'm going to need a hard success to really find any finer details, but let's see what you get. If you want to get closer, I'll give you a little more of a... Vaughn is of course rattled and disturbed. Sure. But um, he is, albeit briefly, he's seen, he's been around death and destruction and it's horrible, but he has seen it. There's an eerie familiarity to what he's looking at, perhaps. Oh, I'm sure. And I think he actually might have done it.

Let me see, hard success you say? Yeah. Um, 75 is my score and... Oh, that's awesome. I'm gonna spend one point of luck and I will have made a hard success. Wow, fantastic. All right, so if you'd walked right up to it

and looked up close, I would have said a regular success. I mean, you may be giving you, obviously, I mean, you're gonna get more if you get a hard or extreme. But from that distance to try and make out details, I was gonna set a baseline of hard and you nailed it. So you look in there and you see that it is full of human remains

and all of the bodies appear to be emaciated. Not surprising, you've seen this now a lot. From that vantage point, it appears that some have been here for a long time because they're just like skeletal with only strips of dried flesh here and there clinging to some of the bones. But near the top, the corpses appear to be fresher. They still have all their skin intact, albeit emaciated. Clothing that looks to be of a more recent time period, whereas the clothing on the skeletons is, it's

undeterminable from this distance. And you also, with a hard success, even from this distance, this vantage point of looking down, you can see the outline of a tunnel in the wall of the pit, like below some of the bodies. Leading underground. So just so I see it, is the tunnel almost like in the bottom like a well? Or is it recessed into the into the sides of the pit like a door? More like a door. Like you can see it's just bodies, bodies just bodies bodies bodies bodies bodies. You're assuming some sort of a bottom

But maybe not and a whole leading underground. And I mean do these bodies this may be more than my success would give me but they appear to have circular wounds? forgive me, but they appear to have circular wounds? The fresher ones on the top, yes, you do see that consistent with some of the other bodies you've seen. Again, flies buzzing like an abnormal amount and that smell of rot and decay that you

first smelled at Bar Cordano when you met Larkin here it's just overpowering there's just a an awful pervading sense of doom and darkness here and death well it's only too nauseous I gaze into that any longer than you have to, but my eyes don't deceive me. There's some sort of door in the wall of that wretched pit. Carter, you had cologne, right? Or something in your pockets? I was actually just about to offer everyone just a little dab right under the lower nose area here.

I've got lilac. I think lilac would probably do the best to counteract rotting meat. Whatever masks this is. Yes, please. So please everyone, just take a dab. Just a little dab will do you, don't overdo it. Very well, Mr. Tillinghouse, thank you so much for this nose game. Do that and like wrap a handkerchief around my face.

Mm-hmm. Carter's just like rubbing it into his mustache like, wow. Oh yeah, facial hair really takes to it nicely. Yeah, Nora, you notice when Feroze wraps a handkerchief around her face, it actually does help with the smell. Now, Carter's like, so let me just get this straight, guys. Okay, so we want, instead of leaving and potentially guaranteeing our lives continuing,

we wanna go into the Puke Temple. And what do we want to do? We want to take these gold bits and put them back. And that's the idea here. Yeah, makes perfect sense. There was a time, Mr. Tillinghouse, when I would have said that what you just said was so much madness, but that was before I saw what we all just saw. Okay. That was before space and time ripped apart in front of us.

Who's to say that they won't follow us around for the rest of our lives? They're clearly out in the mountains and out in the forests. I say we stand as good a chance out there as we do in here. And if we can make some sort of bloody difference in here, then... Yeah, all right. I say we're all about to do it. And Mr. Tilling asked, you mentioned that you were interested in riches and gold. There should be plenty of that in spades below.

Well, I keep being reminded that the only gold that we have from this place, we have to put back. So taking any from this, it doesn't sound like the smartest idea in the world, but you know what? I got a soft spot for you guys. You seem like good people for the most part. And also I'm afraid to go back by myself. Think of all the drinks people will be buying you, man.

For the rest of your life. That's a great point. Also, Jack, Jackson, Mr. Elias, sir, let's not forget, this is, I mean, this is great novel material here that we're working on. Just paint, just, you know, the brave Carter Tillinghast leads his group of quivering cowards down into the temple.

Steady on there, Tillinghast. Yeah, I'm just pushing it up. It's fine. You are on to something, Mr. Tillinghast. Once again, I don't think it'll be fiction, but I do feel inspired. Although I share your fears. Perhaps we should go in or climb over here and take a look at the grounds before we make any rash decisions. Yes. Yes, I don't want to go into the body pit.

Maybe the puke pit. Maybe. Yes, well, when you put it like that, maybe the puke pit, maybe. Yes, well, when you put it like that for outline sour, neither seems particularly appealing. I will take corpses over puke. Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe going in body world there is the sneakier move because that seems to be the,

the puke pit is, that's an entryway, right? People are putting puke in there the bodies feel like this is a trash. This is like the trash This is the dumpster, but why is going to expect us to go through the dumpster? Why is there a door in the trash can? It's really weird ventilation standard stuff probably They were the rats what not standard stuff, probably. Safety regulations, whatnot. Makes sense.

It was said that, and this is maybe Vaughn groping for it, the gold, the spells worked in gold. They were in tunnels in the nettle codex of Gaspar, weren't they? Isn't there supposed to be a warren of tunnels around here? Yeah, is this one in Gaspar Figueroa's note? Yeah. Alright, let's take a look at that again and see. Now that you're here, maybe there's some more information that you can glean.

Right. There's a pyramid surrounded by a maze-like structure of underground tunnels. Walls of the tunnels are inlaid with intricate gold carvings. The men pried out a large section of the gold, exhausting themselves in the attempt. These were the Conquistadors, and then when they did this, a sickness befell them, and the morning they looked gone and deathlike. And then Figaro's companions went after him.

One of which was a man named Luis de Mendoza, tried to devour him like a leech. Figaro shot his friends and ran away, taking as much gold as he could. Classic Mendoza. So if the Tiwanaku- Mendoza! Mendoza? If the Tiwanaku people built this, and it had any connection to Inayara's tale

of the trickster god Akeko trapping some evil thing down here, did the Conquistadors come and, while trying to raid it, let some of that evil out? Yes. You must... ...and remember from your book, Mr. Hughes, that some of these cults will make sort of protective sigils, circles to provide protection for them when all the demonic forces they're supposedly summoning.

But if something was to breach such a circle, then whatever you summon might find ingress to attack you. Perhaps this is just that sort of sigil. Well, if you'd asked me that before, Mr. Villiers, I would have said these glyphs were just meaningless hieroglyphs that they would put there, that they weren't tied to any magics, because those type of things don't exist. Yes. But seeing what I've seen since the University, I'm more apt to believe your fears and concerns. Everything I've said today has certifies me to be a bedlamite, but that was before I heard him in my mind. Now, Feyruz, you spent a lot of countless wasted hours book learning. Wasted?

Well, did I? Oh, that part was out loud. I'm so sorry. That's a default for me. Do you recognize the layout of this? Do most of these places have body pits? Or would you have any knowledge of standard, you know, civic engineering going on here. That is an excellent question.

Troy, would I be able to roll for such knowledge? Absolutely, yeah. What do you think is your most relevant skill? Maybe archeology, maybe something else you prefer? Either cryptology, archeology, or anthropology. Yeah, I like archeology, but you could talk me into cryptology because it's more aligned with your character

if that's a better role for you. It is a much better role for me if I can roll that. Yeah, let's put it to work. I rolled a 54 under 70, which is not a hard success, but it's a success. It is a success. So, yeah, in terms of the churnel pit, that isn't something that is consistent with anything you've read. This seems to be a newer addition or a bastardization of the original intent of this place. What you do recognize is that a pyramid of this size most likely means that this part,

these steps were built as a marker in a way of the real important part of the pyramid which would be completely underground. Of course. Yes, the thing that I thought was very peculiar when we first arrived was that it seemed a lot smaller, wouldn't you say? Yes. And so I was thinking about it

and thinking back to my studies. And there have been instances in history where everything entombed in this in the pyramid. What you see above ground is only a tip of the iceberg, let's say. The rest of it is underneath. is underneath. All signs point to underground tunnels, especially given what was in that letter. Yes. I for one don't want to go clamoring down this pit of vomitus or this pit of corpses. There could be another way. If it is truly a labyrinthine necropolis down there, then perhaps there are other entry points throughout the temple complex. Take it from somebody who may or may not have allowed himself into houses when I was much

younger, mind you, that I probably wasn't supposed to be in, mostly because I didn't own it or live there. You always, you don't want to go through the front door, okay? You always want to find an entry point where people are not going to be looking for you. For me, if I lived here, if this was my pad, I don't expect anyone to go through the body pile. Very true. That is a good point. And if it's any comfort to anyone, I will just say that we know

that these corpses are dead. We do not know if whatever's inside the vomit pit could be alive. Mm-hmm, could be living vomit. Well, just proceed with caution. Let's... Let's go in the front door. Very well. Anyway, the front door or the body pit? That feels like... Well, the front door is the the slabs where you saw those elongated sheds. Gotcha, okay, so we can't climb over this. You can absolutely scoot over here because of all the sand if you want.

Jackson must have misunderstood you. He thought you wanted to go in the front door. Shall we go in the... So it sounds like the group is leaning towards clambering down into this charnel pit and going in the door. It's what the fans would want. Well also you can... What Jackson is saying is like we can walk around the grounds a little bit and then decide if you want to go into the charnel pit. Yeah it's good to get away to land. Again from if you want to go into the charnel pit. Yeah, it's good to get a lay of the land.

Again, from experience, you want to case the, did I say case? You want to check out the joint before you go any further into it. So do you want to go through this front door, the doors that lead from all the way to the end of the path, or do you want to just scamper over the wall here? They both look, you're right near where they are

Really is just a flavor choice. I Say scamper because it's a good word. Yes I think you should have use of all your pawns here on rule 20 but Yeah, so you see the grounds here. I'll give you a little more information But yeah, so you see the grounds here. I'll give you a little more information. You've got the stepped pyramid and each step is like five feet high. So if you did want to climb up or anything, you'd have to like pull yourself up each step.

There are these crumbling inner walls to the south, many of which have collapsed over time. No real indication of what they used to be because all that's left are just a few broken stones that you know is a wall, but you can't tell what the structures look like. Now, some of the walls are decorated with archways. So you think maybe they led into, they were small outbuildings.

But really the thing that jumps out at you is on these archways are smaller versions of those elongated heads that you saw on the main entrance. And they're set on the archways and on the walls at regular intervals. And the wind that is sort of blowing through the valley blows through their open mouths. And it has this like unnerving whistling sound

that you hear and you heard it as you were approaching this like, whoo, you just look at these heads and it's almost like they're whistling at you. The ground all within the walls here is uneven. Those same piles of silt that lets you just hop over the wall have created dunes throughout. Everybody give me either a spot hidden or an archaeology, whatever's I don't want Spot Hidden from me. I got an extreme success with Spot Hidden. Extreme.

Extreme. Extreme. Got a regular success. I got a regular success as well. Hey guys, guess what? Carter doesn't see shit. Oh. I'm shocked.

All right, so let's start with the extreme success. You're all going to see it, but the extreme success is going to give Vaughn a moment here. Basically, you're walking around and you see there are these like stone slabs covering something throughout the grounds. I can highlight them here on World 20. You see these stone slabs? Some of them are right around the perimeter of the pyramid and then one of them is kind of like right close to you where you are walking in.

So I imagine if you're walking around the grounds kind of exploring at a certain point, Carter isn't looking and almost falls into an open one to the north, but with your extreme success Vaughn, you grab Carter before he falls into this open pit and you see that it's just like a vertical shaft leading straight into the ground. Steady there, old boy.

Man, sorry, it's the no-death perception with the one eye. Thank you. Yes, I could see how that would provide trouble walking and playing squash. We should be very careful not to wander off and stick together, yes? Yes, yes, yes, quite so. Perhaps this, if there is something underground, something like this, it seems to me, would be providing ventilation. Carter takes a little, is there like a pebble around? Carter could just toss it into one of these holes, just listen. He tossed it into the open hole and it's the same shape as all these ones that are covered by stone slabs. You think, okay, these must all be some sort of weird chimneys or something. You drop it in and seconds later you hear, tink, tink, tink, tink.

A couple seconds. That's probably don't want to go down there on our own. But it's not too deep if we're able to hear it. I heard a tink, tink for sure. I don't want to go down there on our own. But it's not too deep if we are built here. I heard a tink-tink for sure. There is some security in a tink-tink. Some comforting. Is that I get that everything here is permeated in the in the presence and smell of decay.

But is it maybe less profound? What's, does it feel like it's intensely wafting up from these shafts? Yeah, if you smell down there. Roll a sniff. Roll a sniff. Yeah, I'm rolling a sniff check. Extreme success on the sniff check.

Yeah, right now you're smelling mostly lilacs, but obviously the charnel pit has a scent to it, the scent of death. The pyramid itself, there's just five steps leading up to the top there. Strong smell of death that is permeating the air, but if you smell in there, I mean, you smell decay. It's hard to say if it's worse or better

because you imagine the ventilation down there isn't as good. So it's just rotten all around you. And yeah, that's the biggest problem is without knowing what the ventilation situation is down there, it's probably pretty bad. Enough so that it could be like, someone like Faerûz has already put their handkerchief

over their mouth, that might be a smart idea going forward. Yeah, and I'm thinking that Vaan will maybe imitate that smart move. Let's do it. Yeah. Put some perfume on it. Let's all imitate. Put a handkerchief and Jackson does the same. I think that Margaux hears the whistling statues and probably walks towards one of those

just to like look more at it, like try to understand like what does this mean? Why? It's just staring at you. It's this like small, almost Easter Island like head but a miniature version with an open mouth and just no eyes and it's just staring at you. Is there like anything about,

because you said there were like more around and the wind seems to be blowing through them to make the noise. So if the wind blows harder, do they make more noise if it blows a certain direction? I don't know. Is there like anything here that I can know more about? Is it another specific key? Are they pitched differently? Is it a harmonic chord?

No, I think it's mainly what you can all of you discern is where this is like in a valley this whole area because you had to climb up and then come back down. It's super windy so the wind is just whipping through and it's if this whistling is just an added unnerving extra. But with everything else that's gone on and the floating head that you saw but moments ago, it's just another thing that makes this all unsettling. And then you think about these Tiwanaku people who there's nothing written about them. They left no written records. Like, what did this mean? What are they trying? They left these heads. What are these? Who are these heads? What are they protecting?

Yeah, she goes, maybe at one point, this was a fun sound for them. But now it's just weird. Oh, they love this sound so much. Like, oh, fun whistling. Let's make our town cute. Yeah, it's fascinating architecture isn't it i mean it could have been ceremonial it could have been pure intimidation protective protective uh yes yeah we should probably get in that body pit is that is that truly your your preferred method of entry, Mr. Dillinghouse? All I know is that we saw two real weird-looking bloated folk go up to the top of this thing and barf inside of it. Now, I would rather go in a place that they're not going, as far as we can tell. I don't know if anyone's really, you know, pumped to get into a body pit, I get it. I've been there.

And who's to say they're not coming back? Exactly. Come on, let's fight on top of us. There's gonna be a conveyor belt of fukers happening here. Look at all these bodies. They're doing something out here. At least we know that what's down there is definitely dead. Yeah. Yes. Very well. So be it.

Just don't have a Great War flashback on us or anything. Don't worry. Don't worry at all, Miss Dillinghass. Sanity-wise, you seem to be in great shape. I've seen everything that you see, Miss Dillinghass. I assure you, I'm a completely sound mind. All right. And just real quick, just one double check. This is obviously a formality. Are you going to try to kill any of us again?

Who you talking to me or the oh no not not the not the meta world of the keeper but the the Character who did try to kill one of us. Well, hey, but I started to Make like I was gonna. That's right. During his mental slip. Yeah. Um, and I think I show you just a just a slip. We all saw that thing. heard that voice. I am. I'm completely steady now. Mr. Tilly passed. Okay.

I assure you. Right, okay. And the same question obviously to Troy. I know that's a no. He's gonna keep us alive as long as possible. So let's do this. Right, I'm rooting for you guys. Get in the body pit.

Now here's the good news. Because of this pit so full of bodies, you think that it'd actually be pretty easy to climb down because you have to just use the corpses as like a improvised ladder to get to this hole. I don't know why I find that so funny. Because it's hilarious. There's not many times you can say that combination of words.

Requesting getting the body pit as merch. The positive spin is the best. The good news about this pile of dent people. The guy's looking on the bright side. Okay. There is a silver lining to the body pit. Who wants to go in first? I think maybe if Tillinghast is really, are you okay?

He's like, and I'll prove to you, just if you don't want me watching you back, Mr. Tillinghast is really, are you okay? He's like, and I'll prove to you, just if you don't want me watching your back, Mr. Tillinghast, I'm perfectly willing to go down first. I assure you all, I'm quite, quite sound. I mean, you can trust me. And I'll sling my rifle on my back and begin to crawl into the kit. And we still have the torches that we made upon,

like when we thought we were going through the front. Yes, we'll definitely have some of that oil and Yep. Improvise the torch. It is dark down there, so you're gonna want a torch, but right now you're gonna want your two hands. Luckily the light from above, which is fading with every passing moment, is providing

you enough light to at least see where that hole is. So you think if you're able to maneuver wade through these bodies and get down there, then you would, if you can find footing, light up a torch. So Vaughn climbs in and starts, you know, just moving past all these corpses. Some that, as I mentioned, are quite fresh, but fresh as in the last few weeks maybe. Some maybe months ago, and then you start seeing skeletons that could be centuries old, who knows? And who goes in after Vaan? Faerûs definitely is eager to get in there, but as she's climbing down,

that very much desecrating corpse, and she's like, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, as she's stepping over each body on the way in. I'm sorry. Yeah, Margo gets in, curses in German her whole way down. I don't know any German. I should know this. I think Scheisse just from the internet.

A schnitzel. Somebody sent in a German curse word list for Kate. And then it's just Jackson and Carter standing up there and Jackson's like Would you like to do the honor mr. Tilling has yeah, I'll go I think it's better that I not be in the very back For my own personal reasons so Yeah, so so Carter starts making his way down do any of these bodies are they still like clothes like other pants? Oh, yeah pants? Yeah I mean the ones towards the top some of them still have clothes sticking to their emaciated frames.

Carter can't help himself every once in a while gives a little pat on some dead pockets to see if there's any wallets. Try to pick a pocket? Yeah any credit cards that don't exist yet? You know anything like that. As you go down you do see that there's like, it looks like it must have been a woman. It's so hard to tell because the face, it's just stripped of flesh at this point,

has a diamond ring on her finger. Oh yeah, Carter does a little, a little how you do there, takes it. Yep. Maybe the whole finger. The whole finger comes with it. But then the ring's easy to take off. As you're all wading through this, each of you have this moment where you're just climbing and not knowing what's around you. And at a certain point, all of you just kind of turn and come face to face with just a corpse in a face of just absolute terror,

but missing most of its skin. This whole experience of wading through corpses in that moment provokes another sanity roll. Yeah, of course. Feel like you're pushing it. My D100, I dropped it. I rolled pushing it. Uh. My d100, I dropped it. Oh, I rolled a 12. Yeah, 18. Hell yeah.

18. All right, so did anybody fail? Yeah, oh yeah. Okay. If you passed, you take one sanity loss. If you fail, you take one d4. Oh my. Oh, you take four cards. I mean, a bunch of bodies versus a floating head. That's cool.

You're already shook. That's what it is. This happened to Ross, because Ross was on edge and then just kept getting pushed, and then he turned the gun on you folks. Now you saw this head, and it looked like you. It was enough to crack you and then maybe that's what happens again you're climbing through and you look and there's a face that looks just like you but instead of it looking perfect it's all stripped of its flesh and it gives you that same little wink and now you're lose at four sanity points. Okay. Yep. Just a little pee comes out. And you're up top so everyone feels that. Yeah, and I'm wearing khakis, so it's obvious. I think with Fae Rue's, when she sees that face

and that open mouth, she hears that weird whistle as though it's coming out of their mouth. Yes. And then just kind of snaps out of it. snaps out of it. Yeah, Kate, talk to me one sanity point loss. What happens? I think Margo came here for some inspiration for art. And she sees these faces. And it's starting to look like, like the coarse like wood carvings of like the abstract expressionists and just like a little too much.

And maybe she's maybe starting to not like abstract, maybe she just wants to paint some pretty flowers or something when she, if she makes it out of here. Yeah. It's all haystacks from here on out. Nothing but hay. Maybe just want to paint by numbers, I don't know. Yeah.

Vaughn. Excuse me, Thomas Kinkade after all this. Ha ha ha. Vaughn, you succeeded, but that still shook you. Where you at, what's your mental space like? He was attempting to draw strength from, like I said, the eerie familiarity of the presence of death that he experienced at the front. And as much as it's like, I've seen it, oh boy, I bet you said it is. I think it's probably one of those things

where something happens that probably happened to him in a foxhole where he reaches out to a to like a he's groping to keep his balance and truck glaze his hand on a on a head to steady himself and his hand just goes through. Yeah. It's just like and just the nauseous tactility of it like puts him right back in the on in waist deep in mud and hearing explosions. Yeah. This is a great idea. You guys all get down there

and I have moved you on the map. If you look to the right, you will find the five of you in a little pit. As you reached that hole and climbed into it, the five of you in a little pit as you Reached that hole and climbed into it. It started sloping downward deeper and deeper underground And you now find yourself below

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let's call it from map purposes to the west, is a tunnel that is only about four feet high that goes for about oh 10 20 feet or so and then turns to the north and so it looks like the only way to get through there to move forward the only way that you see is through that tunnel and the easiest way to move would be on all fours. Okay. Who wants to go first? I mean if I was first in the marching order, if I can, using the oil and materials that

we scrounged, light up a torch. Yeah, light up a torch. And begin to scoot down. And of course, at this point, I wanna see if there's any hieroglyphic gold or anything on the walls or any markings. Of course. Who is, just tell me the marching order

while I look something up real quick. Who is, just tell me the marching order while I look something up real quick. So who's gonna crawl in after Vaughn? I will, if we're keeping the same. Yeah, let's just keep the same. You wanna keep the same order? Yeah. Okay, so you look up and you do see that there is this sort of gold filament along the walls

that matches exactly what you have in your possession that Jackson took from the university. And it is unbroken though, and it just continues forward into the darkness to the extent of the light of your torch. And the walls underneath the gold filament are made of those same stone slabs that you saw above that were covering the holes leading presumably down to these tunnels as well.

Indicate that to the group. Just keep our eyes peeled for any chunk that could be missing. Mm-hmm. Right. You start crawling and then feel free to move yourselves on the map if you want. If you can't control your characters, let me know. I can figure it out. But assuming you begin just crawling through, you find that the ground is a little uneven.

There's a lot of rock and debris. So everybody give me a dex roll just to make sure that you're able to move without cutting your hands. Oh, I just realized that the tunnel was off to the side there. I was like, where is it? Where are we? Yeah, it's a new map to the right,

if you haven't noticed. I slid it over there, but there's only a tiny bit of it revealed. I'm waiting to move. I'm doing decks. My place in line. Oh, him. Yeah, so decks roll to see if you are able to

push along without cutting your hands. Woo, 36 under 55. Boom. 35 under 80. I got an extreme success. I'm really rolling hot. Oh, heal a wound. I got an extreme success. I'm really rolling high. Oh, heal a wound. I failed.

You failed. All right, you take two points of hit point damage. You cut your hand open on like a, it almost feels like glass down there. And you start, you were like, ah, you can feel that warm blood pooling in the palm of your right hand.. There's something wet down here. Oh No, that's me. I've cut myself

You guys are the smell is overpowering but luckily with the The handkerchief and the lilac under the nose you don't have to Roll a con check to see if you become nauseated. So you can thank Feyrouz for that. So you continue going up the tunnel and you see about 50 feet up a shaft

that moves at an angle and then goes up. And you think like, okay, wait a minute, where we were, where the churnal pit was, outside was another one of those stone blocks. So that must be one of the chimneys that leads up. There's no light coming down because that chimney had a cover on it. The one that Carter almost fell into is to the north. So as long as there's light, hopefully some of that light will spill in, even though you have a torch.

And in fact, if you look further up ahead, you do see a little shaft of light. And so it all makes sense. But nothing else is really jumping out to you. So do you guys continue forward? Yeah, Carter's sort of mumbling out loud like why would they make hallways so tiny? Like is everyone super short or what is this? What is the point of this shaft? Yeah it does seem strange like was it made this way or did something happen to make it so uncomfortable?

So obviously the walls have the gold inlay on them, but the tunnels themselves are like, are they carved in a way where there's like, you know, we're talking right angles here or is it just like a cave? Is it like a natural kind of tunnel? No, it looks like it was man-made. But it also looks like something happened that makes everything a little uneven, all this debris on the floor. So maybe it's the passage of time or maybe there was some cataclysmic event that changed

this because, yeah, maybe the Tiwanakus were only four feet tall and this was perfect for them. You wouldn't rule that out. And there were certain points as you're walking through that you actually could stand up for a second, take a breath, stretch your legs, and then you gotta get back on all fours and keep moving. And sure enough, as you continue to the north,

a couple things happen. One, you reach a wall and you see a shaft of light coming down. And so now you know where you are on the larger map. You're right underneath where that open space was that Carter almost fell into. So the pyramid, the greater part of the pyramid must be to your left, to the west.

However, when you reach that wall at the end, the path splits in two and goes to the east and to the west. What do you do? We know that if... This was where you almost fell. And there's two directions here. That must mean that if we go in that direction, to our left, that will lead us

to the vomit pit somewhere. To the right. What was to the right? Not too sure. Yeah, it could be a dead end. I mean, it might be good. Might be good to go right. Not too sure. Yeah, could be a dead end. I mean, it might be good. Might be good to go right and clear that and then. You want to go right first just to make sure we're not?

Yes. If we're... If the Conquistadors were the ones who pried that gold bit off the wall, then perhaps they didn't make it very far into the, into the tunnels. It could very well be that it came from one of the outer limits I'm sure that's the case. That should just get us out of here and lickety-split. Well, we can't rule anything out, right? Yes, let's go right. Let's go right and then and then double back Yes, all right. So Vaughn you're in the lead you go right in and all of you are watching just

All right, so Vaughn, you're in the lead. You go right in, and all of you are watching. Just none of that gold has broken. It's all unbroken all the way. And man, if you could ever pry all of that off, you would be rich beyond your wildest dreams, but now you know the risks. Take a right, and you go maybe 15 feet or so, and the tunnel opens up into a small stone-lined chamber about 20 feet by 20

feet and the ceiling is a little higher so that you could stand up. You see ahead of you with your torch filthy reed mats lying on the floor and the rest of the room is piled high with a miscellaneous collection of coins Jewelry you see watches in the light ancient artifacts That look like they're from all different time periods and you're out in the hallway just looking in But you also see two people. A man and a woman. It was the same people from the outside.

Not a man and a woman. A man and a woman. It's all connected here. Like motionless as corpses lying on the reed man. It's like motionless as corpses lying on the reed mats. And you're in the tunnel ahead of everybody by yourself. Oh my god. I'll reveal it on the map. Oh god.

Is that where? Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. Over there. Maybe there. And as soon as I see them, I maybe turn back to Beerus with the, like, signal that the two we saw are in the are in this room. And I do the same thing that Nora did. Only silently. And there's a very comical pantomime in the dark. It's a mime in the dark.

I mean, are they asleep? What's, are their eyes closed? What do you see? Should we kill them? Yes. I just sort of lift my pistol up and just shrug. Got some of that oil, and then if there's any more of that oil, Yes, yes, yes.

See, like, they're sleeping. I say, let's give them more time to rest than they're already experiencing. It's the humane thing to do, light somebody on fire while they're asleep. I think that's the best way to go about this. Those dusty, those mats are old. Do they look dry or are they kind of damp?

They look very dry. Ha ha. Yes. Light them up. Are they, wait, hold on, I should ask this. Are they like, distended? Are they, are they strange looking? Are these just two campers? Obviously you haven't been close up to these people before,

but you have every reason to believe they were the two people you saw with huge bellies walking ahead of you down below in the valley floor where it made no sense to travel. And they're the two people that then vomited into the top of the pyramid and then moved down out of sight. They must have gone into the corpse pit as well and then came in here to sleep. Their stomach's completely flat now. Okay, yeah, let's, we should light them up.

So talk to me about who does what here. I think it just automatically happens. I don't see what the- Look, okay, what if, we need to get them onto the mats? They're on the mats, they're lying. They're on the mats, they're sleeping on the mats. They look like corpses the way they're laying there,

but splash them and then light them. Maybe we don't need oil if it's that dry, because that's a second step. I don't take chances though. Yeah. We also run the risk of, you know, usually, I would imagine when you light somebody on fire, it's not a quiet way to go. It's going to be a little noisy in here.

Well then if there's always our edged weapons... Those aren't quiet either, unless we sneak up and try to cut their heads off or something. Which doesn't do anything to them, right? We've learned that you can't, decapitating them does nothing. But that could be a first step and then immediately light them on fire. Yes. This is more of a bow fan than more of an either way. Guys are stone cold killers.

Or what about this? We've seen things, man. Only because this could be super metal. What if we doused our blades in oil, light them on fire, and they're fucking. Yes. I vote that. Now that we've come down the corpse pit,

can we totally decapitate-ify them with flaming machetes? It's becoming more flawed forward. We burned it. I really think we've settled on the decision here. It's flaming machetes. Sweet. All right, so who's Kate and, excuse me, Margo and Carter have the blades? So Ross, excuse me, I'm doing characters,

Vaughn and Faeruz, like helping them get them lit. And then you guys just, with flaming machetes, one, two, three, and you just come down on their necks. And their heads get pulled from their body. But you see their eyes open up and their bodies are like flailing

and the heads are like screaming, ah, ah, ah, and their mouths go from like normal looking human mouths to these awful looking leech mouths with the teeth all around the ring. And they're screaming wildly, screaming, ah, ah. It's horrifying. But eventually they burn to a crisp.

Yes. And they're gone. Nice. No sanity roll. I was gonna have you roll a sanity roll, but you've actually seen this recently. You know what I mean? You're a little bit desensitized to a burnt alive,

decapitated curry series. But luckily, whatever process they went through this ritual of vomiting into the crack and then coming down here to rest, they left themselves vulnerable to four murderous investigators with flaming machetes. Any metal band that wants to use the title decapitated with flaming blades in the necropit? Trademarked by now.

Don't do it. I hope of the thousands upon thousands of people that have played this game, no one else has used the flaming machete in this game. We use flaming machetes. Now that we're in the room, is there anything else of note in there? There's all this treasure.

A spot hidden. A treasure. With a love of all that. You don't even need to spot hit and there's so of note in there? There's all this treasure. Yeah, a treasure. A treasure. With a love of all that. You don't even need to spot hidden, there's so much shit in here. I mean, there is riches beyond beyond all comprehension here. It's really just a matter of what you could actually take out if you wanted to.

And Jackson is wide-eyed looking at everything. He's like this, look at this. This could make us, I mean, this could make us rich beyond our wildest dreams, but we can't, we can't take, we can't take all of it. We could certainly take some. We are here to put things back.

What if it makes another rip in the sky? Taking anything from here, it's not safe. Sure, sure, but hear me out. What if it's the opposite? And we take things and it only makes life better for us if we live. Has it been better since they took this gold slab? No, but this is part of the walls. You know what I mean?

That's a separate, look at this, this is a cup. What's over here? We got a couple of goblets, you know? Carter wants to grab whatever's the least jingly and put them in his pockets. Okay, but I'm gonna periodically be staring at your chest and if I see one weird whole thing happen, machete, flaming machete.

Flaming machete. Yeah, flaming machete, I'll own it. It's just a pile, right? It doesn't look like it's on a, it's not like Indiana Jones where it's like on a special pedestal and it's- You can just wave things out. You take the one that's under a perfectly lit pedestal.

I'll just take this one. Yeah, this one seems nice. Look at the spotlight gem. There is a lot of stuff here and the artifacts range from contemporary to very old, like pre-Incan. This is plunder. All these people that they've been giving a suck to,

they've been filling their little treasure house with all their loot. And if this place has been here for centuries, then no wonder we have Inca gold rubbing shoulders with ancient Tiwanaku chalices. How did all of this treasure get here together if it's not all from the same time period? Is someone else hoarding it? treasure gets here together if it's not all from the same time period? Is someone else hoarding it? Perhaps this has been here throughout this time while these leech people have been hunting. Adding to the hoard, yes. And that's why I don't feel bad taking some of it. I'm not going to take all of it, but these families that lost their loved ones, the bodies of those people in the pit,

we don't know who they are. We could perhaps do some good with this. We owe it to them to take their shit. I will plunder, but only something modern. Why don't you plunder for, but Jackson is like, I agree with Mr. Tillinghast, and he grabs as much as he can carry and folds, fills his pockets. He's like, I do not think we should touch the gold lining on the wall, but there's no reason not to take a little bit here. Yeah. Vaughn wants to take something that's purely aesthetic, like take a little bit here. Yeah.

Vaughn wants to take something that's like purely aesthetic, like a little statue or something, something beautiful. There is a little statuette that catches your eye that looks like a rotund human with the head of a monkey. Yes. a rotund human with the head of a monkey. Yes. I think, oh, go ahead, sorry. Oh no, go ahead. I was gonna say, I think that maybe Margo

thought she was holier than thou. Like, oh, I can't believe you guys are doing this. And then as you're doing that, looks around, maybe sees a couple of things like, oh, but that's a so pretty, oh my goodness. And she maybe sees a couple of things like oh but that's a so pretty oh my goodness and she maybe takes a couple of things you see a fae ruse very prim and proper just straightens yourself up smooths her hair takes a look around and goes right fuck it so in game terms if you did plunder,

all of you take stuff that could be sold for up to 2000 American dollars. Oh, that's a lot of clams. In 1921, that is a lot of clams. You think there's probably over $200,000 worth of stuff here, but it's just impossible for you to take more than what you took. So this may

may give you some extra means if and when you've returned to your homes. Is it like is the game like real life where you can spend money to gain sanity? I'm currently writing Plunder worth $2,000. $2,000 worth of Plunder. Oh, Precier. Jackson takes some as well. I love these wonderful little monkey men. Yes, I'll have that one.

You might just want to keep it and not take the $2,000, put it on your desk as a nice memory of your time in Peru. Yeah, all the good memories. Right, Vaughn is a fellow of Mien's, so I think it is more like a, hmm, something for the collection. Jackson is standing. Go nice on the coffee table. Hmm, yes.

Jackson's standing at the edge of the chamber, looking back down the tunnel, and he looks back at all of you and it's like Well, it appears the only way to go is that way Well, so Well to our deaths, let's make it quick I will be happy knowing that I have died $2,000, Richard. Yeah, let's make sure we get out of here

so we can spend this. Do our debts. All the more reason to return safely. You start heading in that direction, I'm assuming the same party order, and luckily the ceiling seems to be a little bit higher in this, so you start out on all fours again, crawling back into the tunnel,

but then it starts to lift up a ways. And you continue along about, I don't know, 15 feet or so, and you see a turn. So it basically continues going to the west, but then it also turns to the south. And your torches show you that about 50 feet or so to the south, the wall ends and then it turns again again also heading west And then West just continues on hmm, um

Can I roll luck to see if I have a big chunk of chalk in my inventory? Yeah, sure. I don't know if that Okay, I rolled under my luck. I rolled a 28, which is under like 60, I believe. You reach into your breast pocket and you pull out a piece of chalk. And I mark a big arrow at this crossroads on the wall to show which direction we came from. Who would disturb my chamber?

Oh no! Just kidding. Oh no! Just kidding. Me? Little arrow in the wall. I immediately turn to dust. It's, ah, ah!

Ah! Which way would you like to head? Do you want to continue forward the path you're on or take this turn? Is there like a navigate we can do? Cause like we're trying to go to where under the pyramid is. Right. Unfortunately, if we're trying to like just find the spot

where the gold is missing, it could be anywhere along the walls. I would say we work our way from out to in. I would say we keep going along the edge here. Okay. Do any of you have points in Navigate? I think Navigate is a skill, isn't it? I have 25. I don't know if there are points in Navigate. But I do have a compass.

Ah. That's good. All right, would you say Margo 25? Anybody else have Navigate? I don't think mine's higher than that. Mine's lower. Yeah, I got a 10 to Navigate. Just the hell of it, give me a roll there, Kate.

Navigate. 21 under 25. You guys, yeah. Nice. Amazing, all right, so that is enough. This is why she's an artist, spatial awareness. Mm-hmm. And rotate.

Oh yeah, that's true. All right, this is enough for you to know that you are right at this crossroads, directly above you is where the pyramid would be. So you think that perhaps the tunnels, if they follow the shape of the pyramid, this is the outline of the northeast edge of the pyramid here. So it will continue for a while along this way and then it'll probably take the shape of the the southwest portion so if you slide over and look at the pyramid on the other side of the map you think that you're

under it right now. All right I tell everyone my theory and I hope everyone trusts me as an expert of knowing navigation even though I'm an artist. Navigation and archeology expert. Just like the pyramid outline could be that. So I bet this way goes away for a long time, but if we turn it'll go in a zigzag pattern. Not sure which way would be best, but maybe we should split up because it'll meet back. I don't think we should split up. I was with you for a while there, Sour, and then... I was even willing to believe that artists know where they're going.

I'm sure you'd love to be all by yourself as an artist, you have a rugged individual striking out on your journey to tame the sublime with your paintbrush and all that. But I prefer if we all stayed as one unit. I feel like Margo, like even though she's rolling well with all these sanity rolls, she's just been like so tense, like, oh my God, I'm about to die at any moment for so long that she's like Fuck it. Let's just find this metal this gold piece that's missing and we can do it faster if we split up and Yeah, we could also die faster. Yeah, maybe that too and then I'd have the sweet relief of death after seeing all that

She's getting into dark German mode. I'm a play Call of the Zulu by Chaosium. Dark German mode. When your characters crave the sweet release of it. Some chances are that if we run into anybody else like we just did back there, we'd have a higher chance of getting out alive if we're together. Just so. But your theory does provide some hope that if we are to follow either of these paths, it is the outline of the pyramid, then we should circle around and arrive back at this point. Let's do it. Let's keep going along.

Right. Straight. Yes. Very well. Onward. All right, you keep pushing ahead. And you go for another 20 feet or so. And Vaughn, you're up front. You see the first thing that looks different in these tunnels than you've seen so far, besides the dirt and the debris. You see a pile of rags You see a pile of rags about 30 feet away from you as you're walking along here. Now, sailing gets a little low, but you haven't had to get back on all fours.

You're kind of moving along and you see a pile of rags. God's blood! There's a pile of rags over there! Dry or wet? There's a question. It's just a pile of rags? No, a human being would stack rags like this. You haven't seen anything else lying around, so it does jump out at you. Everything else has just been debris, maybe the glass that Carter cut himself on, but this is the first time you're like well that's okay I'll I want to inspect them should I roll a like a spot hidden or

it's not hidden you can move closer it's up to you I'll roll a I'll extend my torch into the darkness and roll that sweet sweet spot hidden. Okay. Oh, and wait. No, I just cleared it. 72 on a 75. Okay. So you push the torch ahead into the barely-luminated tunnel ahead of you, and you see that it isn't

a pile of rags. In fact it looks like a body that's wrapped in decayed wool and cotton and with your successful spot-hidden check you see something like white and glistening just dart past the eye socket of the body. Something worm-like. Just... I wish to be ready with that fire again. Some sort of mummy. Me and Vaughn might want to just light this thing up. Yeah. So Vaughn will continue to extend the torch toward those desiccated wrappings and light it on fire.

You start to move towards it with your torch and right as you get up to it to douse it, the corpse starts to stand up and animate. Everybody give me a sanity roll. Oh Jesus. Oh God. No. If you don't want to fail this one. There's so many. No. Mm-hmm everybody give me a sanity roll You don't want to fail this one

We had a couple episodes wasn't a lot of sanity checks now you're in it I Rolled an 84 and I have an 84 Wait, you have an 84 sanity and you rolled an 84? And I rolled an 84. That's a really nice hit. What does that mean? Did I? God! You made it if you hit it or under. Okay.

Meets it beats it. That almost got me. That almost got me. It would be great if I had an 84. Unfortunately, I just have a 27. And I rolled a 32. Oh, come on! I didn't know it was so low.

You can't spend luck on sanity, huh? No. Oh, gross. Kate, I'm hanging by a thread. Oh my god, why are you a fraud? Because I have something to prove, that's why. Oh god. Rob, I saw a look of disgust.

Yeah, that's not the look I make when I'm happy. I failed. Well, the good news is, I'm just gonna check the book again because this seems brutal. This is why, by the way, that I hate apples to apples, the game. Because I feel like in my mind, there's a very set, like life works in a very particular way. and a floating head that evaporates into flies

For some reason it seems more tends to be in your standard mummy Your standard mummy, it's zero points if you passed 1d8 if you fail. Oh my god I think came to life Ross I'm gonna give you yours first Came to life Ross I'm gonna give you yours first Four points of sanity damage, okay, all right five number five or more You have to roll an intelligence check to see if you fully understand

That was four of this that was four Total five and one swoop is what you don't want Yeah six for Carter, yep, I saw it on your fucking face. Also, Troy, if I lose one fifth of my sanity over the course of a day, I go indefinitely insane according to the rules. My 27 sanity points, that means my fifth value is five, and I have, with that four now lost, five sanity on this day. A couple of things are going to happen. First, wow, okay, Rob, I need an intelligence check, and this is a role that you want to

fail. If you fail this role, you don't fully understand what's happening. You don't fully understand why this pile of rags just came to life and is lurching towards Vaughn's torch if you pass it you are smart enough to understand the true horror and you will go Temporarily insane. Okay, so I want to roll out of madness. I should write right so I want to roll higher than my intelligence Yeah, you want to fail this. The good thing like an 80 All right, so so hold on hold on sorry, let me back up let me let me I Took I just took five sanity

Or six six. Yeah, you took six damage, but if you take five and one swoop This is when you have to okay, so let me just reduce that from the total sanity right now. Now I'm rolling to see the intelligence situation. And I rolled an 88! Get out of here! Nice! Carter doesn't know what the fuck is going on. Okay, all right, so you're not temporarily insane.

However, Vaughn, I mean, we knew this was going to happen, has gone indefinitely insane. However, Vaughn, I mean, we knew this was gonna happen has gone indefinitely insane. Let's, let's get into this. I have to I mean, I should have looked this up beforehand. I have to look up the rules for indefinitely insane. But I think you basically until you rest, you become, I think you're just like out. Wait, until I become insane until finding a place of safety and resting. There should be a place of safety

in this creepy underground cult necropolis, right? Go to the pit full of dead bodies. The way I think this is gonna play out until I dig deeper into the rules here is that you go to light this thing with a torch and you're just, it's finally the last straw as you see this thing come to life and you see something swirling around

in the skull that now faces you and you just go fetal, at least for this combat. Okay, okay. Great, is there a- This could be like Wicked Empire just go fetal, at least for this combat. Okay. Great. Is there a- This could be like Wicked Empire, where we see Ross has three characters rolled up. I am the Dianist Flair in this network.

I also think it's hilarious how matter of fact, Michael was in our chat. It was just so cold. Ross has lost a fifth of his current sanity in a day He should have deaf indefinite Thanks. Thanks Michael. No sugar coating. Yeah Yeah, this is all right Well, the good thing is like you're not taken out of the game that's zero sanity

But you're at least taken out of this combat which could be worse Is this thing might start attacking you and you're just, you're quivering. I am the first thing, I'm in the front of the pack. So, fetal you say? Okay, so yeah, you see the torch move towards this pile of rags and then it lurch up and fall like real back and then the torch just

falls on the ground as you see him just kind of like huddle underlit by the flames against the wall and just muttering, like, This is impossible. This is impossible. You can't be. You can't steal the life. I saw you die. It's horrible. You can't possibly be living. It doesn't work like that. It's not a cycle. Once it's dead, you're dead forever. It's all wrong, it's all wrong. You know it's all wrong. And so that's happening. Are you all right?

Everything's all right. Of course I'm all right. Don't you see? Because if you die, you just come back. It's not, there's no consequence. It's no consequence at all. And is this thing still, is it rising up and moving towards everyone?

Yeah, it's lurching towards you. Now, obviously your pawns take up the whole width of this hallway on the map, but it is a 10 foot wide hallway. So the good news is you can move past Vaan to try and attack this thing. And you are in combat rounds. And Margo, you have the highest decks what do you do

as this thing is like lurching towards soundless it doesn't make that sound that's my flavor sound. Hey guys. Oh hey what's up? Sorry about your friend. I did have my firearm drawn from before just. Torch in one hand firearm in the other. Yeah. Okay. drawn from before just Torch in one hand firearm in the other. Yeah

Alright, then in that case you will go first Margot. You have a chance to think I'm gonna kind of shield put myself in between this thing and Vaughn like a hero and gonna fire at it. It should be pretty close and gonna fire at it. It should be pretty close. Was this, did this count as point blank? Point blank range, yes. We talked about this, one of the rules things

that Michael sent along today. Point blank range, if you're close enough, which you are, you get a bonus die. So you roll twice on the hundreds die, I kept saying the tens in earlier episodes, and take the better. Okay. Which would be the lower.

So, with handgun. So glad I got, all right, there we go. That first one was not so good. I am going to, I rolled 52 over 50, but I'm gonna spend some luck points to make that shot. Okay, and you failed the other one as well. Yeah, I did. Yeah, okay. 52 over 50, so you spend two points to make that shot

It doesn't attempt to dodge. It doesn't die for cover It is just coming at you like most of these enemies that you've fought so far. So go ahead and roll your damage. Okay. That's four points. Four points of damage. Now can I empty all three? You have to declare that beforehand and you take a penalty die for each shot. I didn't declare it, so let's not. The only reason is because you already took the shot,

but like if on your next round you wanted to empty it, you have two bullets left in the chamber, you can roll twice and take the worst result. You take a penalty die. But you also with point blank get a bonus die, so they would just cancel each other out, and you would just make two rolls. Make sense?

Yeah. Penalty die for unloading your cartridge, bonus die, cause point blank range, those would cancel each other out. So Margo, you see Feyrouz step up in front of Vaan and fire a shot and just one of the limbs of this mummy basically just flies back and it keeps moving forward. What do you do Margo?

flies back and it keeps moving forward. What do you do, Marco? Well, I was going to pick up the torch that was dropped and try to light it on fire, but if Farouz is shooting at it and trying to shoot point blank, I don't wanna get into this tight, seemingly tight area now. Remember, it's 10 feet wide.

Don't think too much about the map. Okay. If you wanna squeeze by, it's just, uh. I would like to do that. But also, still allow Beerus to be point blank if she still is, so that she can continue the next. Yeah, she's not gonna, you can't move her, so all you would do is like slide in beside her.

Yeah, okay. And I've got a torch too, so you could like use that to light yours. Okay, so I wanna, well, I wanna, well, I guess if we all have torches in our hand, I'll just use mine. And there's one on the ground too, one I dropped. Yeah, I was gonna pick up yours, but yeah, I'll pick up yours.

You could pick up Vons if you want and swing up. I think I want to have one hand with the machete. So I'm just going to continue with mine and try to light it and see if that helps. Because fire seems to be killing everything really well. All right. Give me a brawl roll as you try to. You slide in there, grab Vons torch and just kind of flail at this thing

There is my brawl again fighting. Okay. Okay, come on 53 over 30 Do I want to spend like 20 23 23 luck right now Do you think, cause like there could be a baddie and then I might need 52 luck for something. It's true. Listen to your heart. I hope no one dies. I'm not going to take the luck for this one.

It's too much for like all of the way we still have to go. Yeah. I respect your choice. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, look how much black there is around this map right now. You don't want to spend all that. And look at how much black we're wearing. I know. Exactly.

Yeah, you're the one that said it. You know what I'm saying, guys? Prophecising. Did I make the choice to kill someone by not spending luck? We'll see. Only time, we'll tell. Oh, God.

Carter, you are up. This thing is very slow moving, so you get the chance to act. Hard to be wondering if I should try to get that gold piece and hold it on it or something. Jax is standing right there behind you yeah, yeah, I'll try it so so car was like Jackson. Give me that gold thing All right, be careful. Mr. Tilley has hit him. I always am Hands it to you

I like run onto it and try to hit it with the gold. Are you trying to hit it to do damage or are you just trying to place it on it? Ideally I'm hitting it, I'm forcefully touching it. Okay. Give me a draw. It was singeing skin, right, from before? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So let's see.

Carter's like, I don't understand what you are, but I don't like you. That is the most Lovecraftian statement. I rolled a 17 under 70. 17 under 70 is at least a hard if not an extreme success. It is not extreme, just hard. Alright, so you hit this thing. You hit it like square in its left arm where its left arm meets its chest. And it does not scream out in pain

Obviously, it hasn't made any sounds you don't notice that it did anything extra But give me a d6 worth of damage Three three, okay, then do I add anything for my whatever your damage bonus damage? your DB they think is a Do I add anything for my whatever? Your damage bonus. Damage bonus. Your DB. I think is a one. Might be higher. Plus DB. Where is that sweet, sweet DB?

Should be in combat now. Oh, damage bonus is 1d4. I keep forgetting to add that. I don't know if you add that for bullets. I think it's just for brawling, right? Got you, that makes sense. It's not like you push the bullet at them. It's a 1d4 and I rolled a two, so it's five total.

Five total, okay. All right, so you come up and you lay into it with this thing. It doesn't seem to have the effect that you wanted. You do do damage to it, but not unlike the bullet from Feyrouz. It doesn't seem to be phased by these attacks and now it goes. And it is going to reach out for one of the three of you. I'm gonna roll a d6 to determine. 1, 2, Margo, 3, 4, Faeruz, 5, 6, Carter. Faeruz.

Faeruz. You shot it and it just reaches out to try and grab you. Now what is your build? Do you have a build of 1 or a build of 0? I have a build of 1, I believe. I believe so too. I think Kate Margo's is the only one with a build of 0. Yes, I do have a build of one. I believe I believe so too I think Kate Margo's is the only one with a build of zero. This has a build of zero So in order to grab you it's actually gonna take a penalty die where you have a build of one I almost wish I rolled Margo wouldn't have to do this But it's gonna try it like reaches out with its arms and tries to grab you

God arms and tries to grab you. God! That would have been a 20 and an, wait a minute. No, I rolled a two, which would have been a critical, and an 80. Wow. Wait, is that right? Did I roll the wrong fucking dice? Don't you have to take the,

don't you have to take the smaller one? Oh, you know what, I rolled the wrong, I rolled the wrong die dice? Don't you have to take the, don't you have to take the smaller one? You know what, I rolled the wrong, uh, I rolled the wrong die. Uh, alright, so it's either, but either way, I would have failed with an 82, so, uh, let's see, just for shits and giggles, what the other roll would have been. Yeah, so basically a 22 and an 82, I failed. So it goes to grab you, Faeruz, and it misses. Back to the top of the next round,

poor Vaan still shaking and muttering to himself, Faeruz, it is right next to you, and you have your gun out. And what is, is Jackson just chilling? Jackson's in the back, he gave you the gold piece, and then he's fumbling, he's fumbling around for his gun. Okay. All right, so it's back up to me now?

Yeah, back up to you. Okay, I'm gonna shoot him point blank again. Okay, do you wanna unload your cartridge? Yes. Okay, so now you just roll, it's just two regular rolls, no bonuses or penalties. Okay, so for the first one, whoo, 36 under 55. Regular rolls, no bonuses or penalties. OK. So for the first one. Woo.

36 under 55. OK. And then the second one. That. Oh no. That is a 90. A 90. Over 55.

So one of them makes it. One of them makes it. All right. So give me that damage. And that is four again. Four them makes it. All right, so give me that damage. And that is four again, four points of damage. All right, so the point blank range, you hit its arm and the arm again just flies back.

Doesn't seem to be damaging it. Two shots now to its arm. Doesn't seem to be damaging. Carter goes up, hits its other arm where it meets the chest. It doesn't seem faz be dandering. Carter goes up, hits its other arm where it meets the chest. It doesn't seem fazed by it, it is just moving forward. We need fire! We need fire! Margo.

What do you do, Margo? Okay, I'm just so sorry, I just slipped, and I'm gonna try to do the fire again, because we haven't tried that yet. Okay. So brawl. Oh, come on, come on, please. No, definitely not, 95. Marga's just waving this torch around, just wildly can't get close enough to it.

My depth perception is like off or something, like I think I'm close enough and I'm not. It's dark in there. All right, now. I gotta say that when those gunshots went off, you just hear this wail come from Vaughn like a child. Just like, no, it's like you're already, it's like you're already dead, don't you?

Oh, he's dead, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, he's come back. We can always come back. Jackson is going to step up and he's gonna take a shot. About damn time. Jackson's got his gun, he was fumbling for it the first round, he is going to take a shot at this creature, a five under whatever his score is here.

I mean, I rolled a five, so that is a hit. And that is going to be six points of damage. Perfect. This is what happens. So he fires at the same arm that Feyruz fires at. And the arm detaches from its body and goes flying down the hallway. And it still seems unaffected. And Jackson says, to say it's immune to the damage to its body. We've got to find where it's sensitive and attack it.

Is there a part of it that's blinking every once in a while? That we can see? Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. It's Carter's turn. All right, Carter's gonna try to use his machete and cut its head off. Going straight for the head, okay.

Give me a brawl. Yes. That seems to be the best move. I rolled a nine under seventy. Whoa. Okay, that is an extreme success. Doesn't matter, didn't try to dodge or fight back. So you hit it.

Give me your damage. Oh, bear with me, sorry guys. The Machete is a 1, a 1d8 plus my damage bonus. Plus 1d4. So, let's go into that. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God, nine.

Nine points of damage? Yeah. All right, so you slash at its neck, right where it meets the head, and you hit it, and you notice that this thing has finally, it has finally taken damage damage I should say. It looks like it's finally reacting to the damage. So whatever you did to its head is enough to have hurt it.

But now we move into a new round and it's Feyru's turn. Okay. I don't want to waste time a turn reloading. So can I drop the gun and either take out my knife or take out the lamp oil? Yeah, either one. Reloading would take a whole round. So if you want to try and attack this round, you can drop the gun and just pull out a new weapon and swing it.

All right. We need to get some fire going though. Can I take the lamp oil? Yeah. You want to take this turn just to douse it? All right, we need to get some fire going though. Can I take the lamp oil? Yeah. Yeah, you wanna take this turn just to douse it? Will that take a full turn? Yeah.

Let's, no, let's go with a knife. Okay. Yeah. So I have a meat, it just says medium knife. So let me roll for. Medium knife is probably not 1d8 damage. I think the machete is. It's 1d4 plus two plus your damage bonus. Great.

Let me pull up brawl. All right, so Carter attacked the head. This did damage to it. It's vulnerable in its head. I'm not liking my brawl stats. I did not make it. Drop the gun, pull out the knife, and just, boom, it dodges back

as it's still reeling from Carter's hit. It is Margo's turn. Still flailing. Wait, did the creature go? I think I skipped the creature. I think the creature didn't go. I did skip the creature, didn't I? Yeah, I did skip it. I assumed it was staggered by my amazing strategy.

I got so excited when Jackson went, so it should have went Jackson, Carter, and the creature, and then Faeruz. So it will now go, same thing, one, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, Margo, three, four, here we go. This one's on Margo. Sorry, Margo.

No, you're not. Now Jackson is also nearby, really. That is true, Jackson is there. I didn Margo. Now Jackson is also nearby. That is true, Jackson is there. I didn't direct. Your honor. Well, I've already wared. All right, so this is going to be a straight up brawl. No penalty, no bonus die. Here we go.

Crack die. Failed. So it misses as well, trying to reach out for Margo. Just, and you see Margo, there's something just crawling around inside of its head. And now it's your turn to act, Margo. Uh oh. Well, I think now, I mean, it's the same role for me,

whether I try to light it on fire or use my machete, but it comes at me and I see that like marble Maggot marble in there rolling around in its head Old maggot marble. I want to try to stab it in the eyes Okay. All right. Go right right at its eye sockets. Yeah Okay, let's see brah I suck it. Yeah Okay, let's see brah

47 over 30 I'm spending luck to get it down to 30 so that's 17 luck 17 luck gone give me the damage 1d8 I Never know okay, this one's an eight Okay eight nice eight points of damage eight well alright, so you Okay, this one's an eight. Okay. Eight. Nice. Eight points of damage? Eight. All right, so you stab inside of its eye socket

and the mummy collapses to the floor. However, give me a luck roll. Okay, but I got a minus 17 first, right? Yeah. Yes, you do. All right, this is fine. Oh man, I didn't even think about the implications of this. You know what? Oh shit.

I don't like you right now. Um. Look at your total, Valley. 42 over 35. Oh, so if you hadn't have spent it, then you would have succeeded. So here's what happened. It means in much total sense.

It doesn't matter, don't you see, it doesn't matter. Even if you die, then you'll just come back. You'll be dead, just like me. Vaan's still muttering on the floor. You strike with such precision into the eye socket that you shatter the skull. But because of the fails with luck roll, you shatter the skull and you see,

one of these Karasiri larvae come out and start crawling towards you. It's action, it crawls onto your face. And not unlike Feruze in the thing, it's just like making its way towards your mouth It like flies with lightning speed up your body, and it's like trying to get in. I don't like it It's Jackson's turn and Jackson is like He's not trained in combat he's a writer, and he's just like I

Can't do it. I don't know what to do. What should we do? And he looks to you, Carter. Get a lamp like last time. Get a lamp. Whack in the face. Run the witch. They're one weakness.

The gold bar. Carter sees it going towards her mouth and then he yells at Margo. He's like, give me that. And he grabs the torch from her hand and he goes to hit her in the face with it. He's like, this is gonna hurt! Just try to singe the larva.

No, he's not trying to burn it, I'm just trying to use it as a bludgeoning tool. Right, okay. The burning will just be a fun side effect. Yeah. Now in our first combat, I had given you guys a penalty die to try and attack this, but that's not actually accurate.

It's really only get a penalty die for maneuvers when the size difference is so great. Right, when I tried to grab it, I remember that was a penalty die. Yeah, that's when you get a penalty die. So for this, just a regular roll, see if you can. I learned my lesson, which is why I'm gonna hit Margo in the face with a penalty. Yeah, that's when you get a penalty die. So for this, just a regular roll. See if you can. I learned my lesson,

which is why I'm gonna hit Margo in the face with a torch. If I'm a fumble. And everybody in this crew will be wearing masks soon. I unfortunately, oh, I rolled an 80. I'm gonna spend 10 luck to get it to a 70. Thank you. That is a success.

All right, give me a D6. Yes. That's a success. All right, give me a d6. Yes. That's a six. It had five hit points. You singe it and it crumples up and burns and just falls off of Margo's face. I'm sorry that had to happen. I had to be awesome.

She's just like, ha, like hasn't moved since it jumped on her. Had a flaming torch thrown at her face, but everything's fine. And it's just like, okay, all right. Are you all right? Thank you so much.

Oh, yes. We're all asking if she's fine. Well, Vaughn is. I'm so wondering. Are you gonna be okay? Everything's okay. I don't know, I think I'll be fine, but I don't know, I'm not fine. Well, Vaughn is. I'm so wondering. Are you gonna be okay? Everything's okay. I don't know, I think I'll be fine, but I don't know, I'm not sure.

Everything's fine. Everything's wonderful, don't you see? Carter's like, Vaughn. Thanks, man, thanks for the help. That was real, real helpful. No. Jackson's like, no, no, something's wrong with him. Something's wrong.

I point my machete at him because I saw him turn last time when he almost shot Nora, and I feel like this looks similar even though I know game wise it's not similar. And Vaughn grabs your blade and like pushes it into his own throat. It's all right. It's all right. Don't you see? I'll just come back. That doesn't save him. Very much just slaps him super hard. Get over yourself, man! Does that kind of arrest you? slaps him super hard. Get over yourself, man! And like hands him a glass of whiskey.

Is that a full rest? Jackson is like, stop, stop, stop, stop! And he just, he comes over and he like, he holds Vaughn, he like gingerly grabs you and embraces you and just like pulls you in tight. And he's like it's okay It's okay Everything's okay

He looks back at the rest of you, and he's like we so fine. He needs he needs rest He's not right. He's been slipping ever since we Every step we've taken ever since we left He's so nurturing, and I just slapped him. We should. And you can see me looking at you, like with this really wounded, like, why did you, why?

It's okay, it's okay. It seems to work all, I don't know. He looks up, he says, Margo, take one point of damage from the larva being on your face. Really? Really? Yes, I forgot to do that in the larva being on your face. Really? Yes. I forgot to do that in the throws of all of this.

Shit, it's okay. It's okay. Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away. One point of hit point damage. We should, I don't know if we should press forward with him in this state. What do you think? Should we go back to that room with the filthy reed mats? Should we go outside? I guess the mats are there for a reason. That's the parlor of this place.

At least we know that there's only one entrance from there, so we wouldn't be attacked by different, should something happen, I'm not saying it will, Freud. We'll be nice and buried in the treasure room, no way out. But you're right, we'll see them coming. I guess this guy's dead weight until we can get him in his shit together. Yeah, so what I'm reading about indefinite insanity, and I might be reading the wrong thing here, but I'm going to go with it because it's more fun for wear a hat. Basically you just have this thing that has now affected you that has become like a semi permanent part of your psyche. So it really couldn't happen to a better person because now you're just going to have to roleplay this underlying insanity that is going to last for possibly months and we can decide together what there is some nature of the of the right now as I've

just been like yeah this it's meaningless yeah I mean something about seeing this this dead creature rise up. Now, you didn't know at the time when you lost your senses that it was being animated by the larva within it. So you just saw it as the dead rising. And so yeah, there is something like the, what you were playing, I think is perfect, the meaninglessness. What is death if you can just rise up again?

There is no death. Is there... Jax is still holding it. Is there any... This is a long shot. Is there a way I could try to persuade Vaughn that things are not so bad? I'm not saying to erase whatever, obviously the game is the game, but just in terms of, you know... Here, have some treasure.

Sure. Getting him on his feet, you know what I mean? Here's some cash. Yeah, I know, Jackson's holding him and you come over and you're like, can I talk to... Let me. Jackson, give me a sec. All right, Vaughn, do you remember Carter? Hey, beautiful boy. Hey, my sweet man.

Of course, Miss. Of course, stealing haste. Yeah. Of course, I remember you. Great, good. I can remember you. Yeah. Who could forget?

Yeah, you're doing great. Carter turns to everyone else and winks at him, but he doesn't realize he winked on the other side of his mask. So it just looks like he just turned to everybody and hard stared them for a second and then turned back. Vaughn, Villiers, listen. Things got real back there, okay? But you've seen some intense stuff in your life, and guess what? You're still here. You're still with us. You're gonna be fine. Okay? Now I'm gonna roll these dice now real quick. I'm gonna roll Persuade.

I don't know, does that work? Does that work against the player? See if it's enough to get him going again. Just get, you know, figure it out. I rolled a 44 under 65. All right, so something in his words touched you, Fawn, as you're coming out of this. While you fell into this stupor during the combat and wasn't able to take part, something in his words meant something to you.

And have we gone back to that little alcove? Yeah, for sure. While you're regrouping, maybe Jackson took you over there so you could all talk it out instead of standing in this dark hallway together. Yes, thank you, Tillinghouse. Thank you. Of course. Yeah. I don't... I'm sorry. I'm so ashamed making... I'm having a bit of... just a bit of shock.

Yeah, it's definitely embarrassing for you, but I'm glad that you made me look cool in front of the other three. So I appreciate that. You're still look cool in front of the other three. So I appreciate that. You're still a stand up guy. Oh, it's quite cool. Yes, it's? Zangfroid second to none. Marvelous, stillinghast, marvelous. Yeah, you've never looked better. Yeah, glad to be served.

I'll get you everywhere. All right. Yeah, pull up a goblet here and rest your head. Yes, I will. pull up a goblet here and rest your head. I pull out that little chubby statue with the ape and I'm like, I suppose whoever that is could also come. He's fine, guys, he seems pretty good. I think that while this is happening,

she's putting two and two, whatever, together with the whole, that thing was dead, but the maggot was animating it. And it's like these maggots crawl into people and ravage their insides maybe, but control them, they're puppets. And she's thinking back to the woman and the young girl that they saw

at the town they were at that later, like turned at some point. And it's like, maybe they're always infected with a maggot and then the maggot decide to just make them become the other thing. So that said, there is a pile of dead bodies that we had to walk through to crawl into all of this. And I think we should light it on fire

before we go to bed. Before any, before the worm finds them? Yeah. Yes, that is a good idea. But if Mr. Villius is in his right mind, perhaps we press on the perimeter of this pyramid if it follows what the outline of the building is upstairs. We've almost covered all of it. Surely we'll find what we're looking for and then we'll burn the bodies and rest and be done with this place. Oh, okay. Yes, if we're not resting now, then let's keep going but It I would strongly suggest we burn everything if we decide to rest. Yes. Yes, that is wise

Miss our Vaughn are you all right to still lead the pack? Well, thanks to kind words of Mr. Tillinghast here, everyone's admirable courage under pressure, and your very quite nurturing attitude, Mr. Hughes. I confess it. I am rather abashed at how I've acted. And I assure you, I am feeling much more steady. I can't break again. Hearing you call him by his alias, he taps you on the shoulder and looks to Feyruz and says, maybe Feyruz could stand up front and you protect her from behind. Would that be all right, Feyruz? I think you're a crack shot. Maybe give Mr. Villius a break. Yeah, I think maybe, and to spare Vaan's feeling, maybe we all take turns at some point leading on.

That's a great idea. Great idea. We'll talk about it when we get there. Capital. Yes, all of you have shown yourselves. And then just behind Vaughn's back, just she will, you see Feyru's make hand gestures towards Margo to keep an eye on Vaughn, seeing as his behavior has been very questionable.

She gives you a very curt nod. Got you. Well then let's press on. And so you continue moving down that corridor, past the now deceased mummy. You see another shaft leading upwards. I'll ping it on the map where you see it. Again, another one of these chimneys, but it's closed, so there's no light coming down.

And then the corridor shifts to south and continues south for a while, about halfway down. Yet again, another one of these chutes. And they all match up exactly with the pyramid if you slide over and look at the other map. Then, Faerûs, you turn now back to the east. And as you get to that corner and your torchlight fills the tunnel ahead, you see a pool of some sort. Oh, no. Oh no. It looks like there is a crack in the wall above the pool, about two inches wide, and

it's running through a recess from the floor of the tunnel up to a piece of the wall where the gold is missing. And the hole is filled with a pool of rancid looking white substance. Yeah, did that look like a vomit crack? That's the puke hole. It looks like where they vomited was into the middle of the pyramid. This looks like a crack in the wall that is leaking some sort of substance into a

pool that has formed in the tunnel, blocking passage further. But above the tunnel is a broken piece of the gold inlay that you assume can only be reached by entering this pool. And we'll see you next week. Oh no. No! You have to enter the pool of vomit. Enter the white moving pool.

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