The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S2 | E17 – Smoke on the Water

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Down at the Limehouse Docks, Carter attempts a daring break in. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/bXm5fH-Vodc For a limited time, use code "TFC" to save 15% on Cthulhu products at ⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠chaosium.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Watch new episodes when they premiere every Friday at 8PM ET on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/theglasscannon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, starting July 11th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I moved my office downstairs a year and a half ago, right before I had my 12th child. It feels like 12th. So I had to give up my good office and it's fine I've made it work even though the the water heater is about six feet away and just ruins every single recording But anyways, they're one problem down here is occasionally right around this time of year. We get these things called Cricket spiders if you're moving the cricket spider? We've talked about this in a prior episode. Did I talk about this in a prior episode? They're like a cross between a spider and a giraffe. They're fucking disgusting.

I just ran into one. It's the first of the year. They pulled out a knife on me and I stepped on them. They're horrible. You could take your shoe and just go, ba, ba, ba, ba. Got it. Then you come back and he's gone. He's like, they live forever.

I don't like that. I had to pick him up. Got into a fist fight with him. Anyways, we're gonna have so much fun tonight. Big shout out as always to our sponsors, Chaosium. What are you doing? You haven't bought this book yet? You freeloaders watching this show every week? I appreciate you guys watching.

Buy the Keep a Rule book or buy the Investigator Handbook. I just threw it on the ground. You wanna play this game? It's the best role playing game in the business. Unrelated. I just threw it on the ground. You want to play this game. It's the best role-playing game in the business. Unrelated, I had hernia surgery last year and a friend of the show, a fellow founder, Matthew Capricasa, sent me some comic books and I read it. I read the first book and then he sent me some more, which I probably won't read anytime

soon because I'm just reading nonfiction at the moment. However, if you're into comics, I highly recommend Fatale. You guys familiar with this? This is fantastic. I mean, it's time. I have yet to read that. I'm a fan of that combo, the writer-artist combo. I just haven't read Fatale yet.

Yeah, Brubaker Phillips. I've only read one other thing from them. It was called The Fate Out. It was this like hard-boiled 19, I don't know, it was like sort of McCarthy era Hollywood thing. That wasn't Lovecraftian, but this is Lovecraftian. It goes back and forth between the Great Depression, the 50s, 70s Hollywood, and the 90s. It's awesome.

It's got a little bit of everything and it's super Lovecraftian. What's so cool about it is it combines classic Call of Cthulhu with modern Call of Cthulhu. If you want a good read, I don't know how many of these there are. I want to say like seven or eight. There's a bunch, yeah. Anyways, very tall. Moving on. After last week's episode, after recording at least, I texted the group and I was like,

we need to do season three in person. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. How great that would be. We have to move mountains to do it, as it is. Just one season of this. It's very expensive even to do it remotely. Just a lot of moving pieces to bring everybody out to New York.

Even if we shot it like over two separate weeks, Monday through Friday, multiple episodes a day, doing it in studio would be amazing. If that's something you want to see people watching the show right now, let us know. Tell us in chat. Send us a message. Show us how much you want it. Maybe I'll start a Kickstarter and we'll make it happen. That would be so awesome.

Anyways, it would just That would be so awesome. Anyways, it would just be great to do that. I've just talked for three minutes. I want to hear how Nora's doing. Nora, how are you? I am doing swell, Troy. I know I'm late on watching this last season, but I caught up on the last season of Dairy Girls finally.

And it just reminded me of talking to Desmond in this game. Just the possibilities. I was like, oh, that's fun. That's okay. That's cool. And it's now like that dialogue has been stuck in my head for the past couple of days. And then, yeah, I also could not stop thinking about possibly filming in person. And on top of that, I don't know if you'd like the audiences know this, but we recently,

and I don't know why it took us this long, but we just recently started a group chat, like a group text chat, and I am really sad that this didn't start earlier because it's been highly entertaining. Why did it only start right then? I don't remember. You remember how it started? I was at a brewery, I believe this is how it started,

and I sent you all a picture of a piss trough that was at the brewery. Oh, yeah. And now we've got a group of a piss trough that was at the... Oh, yeah. And now we've got a group text that we call the Mystery Squad. The rest is history. Bonding over trough Europe. Since then there's been sitcom, old 80s sitcom videos sent around. There's been what the president of Ireland looks like.

The Predator one. Oh, the gift game is out of control. Speaking of bonding, Rob and Ross, you guys saw each other in the flesh less than 48 hours ago or something? 72 hours? Yeah, that's right. Well, I was in Denver for quite a while and Rob and I met up for a sweet little bro down in downtown Denver. Mm-hmm.

Nice. Now, you guys go straight to handshake or handshake into hug, or you just go straight to hug? I go straight to hug. OK. Ross is a one-armed hugger, I've learned, in his time here. And at first, I was like, maybe that's. Well, he's 17 feet tall.

He's probably used to it. He's a tall man. You have to get out some rope and some crampons to get to him. But once you get there, it's a good hug. He makes the most of that one arm when he comes in. He's a long one. It's a big wingspan, y'all. I can wrap you up tight. He really doesn't need both because he could just get one around. But yeah, I went and saw with my wife, we went and saw Improvise Shakespeare Company. And everyone needs to know this and chat.

I've already talked about this pre-show, but if you enjoy a tiny Ross Bryant face on your computer screen or in your ear holes in your car, wait till you see him live below your dome. It's good stuff. So keep an eye out for whatever there in your town, go to it. Where can they see you, Ross? Is this still going? Well, gosh, I don't know precisely when this is going to air, but in two weeks.

I think so. Well, you may have just missed me in Des Moines, Iowa, where the improvised Shakespeare Company will be the first week of May. Check us out three weeks ago. See you a week ago. After that, I think we're back in LA for a while, although I think there's some wheels turning that hopefully we'll get back to the East Coast soon and maybe even to the, we'll take a bite of that beautiful big apple sometime later this year. Well that would be fun. When we should come out for Jafrakayas.

I missed you last time. Get it all done. Yeah, I know. Once you're out here, we'll use that as an excuse to get Nora out here. Kate, I know you're a big hugger. How are you doing these days? I don't like hugs. I need everyone to know that.

You do verbalize it right away. I think our videographer hugged you recently and then you left and he turned to me and he said, she said she's not a hugger. Like during the hug? I know. We were in Toronto, I think, at the bar afterwards and you were leaving.

Well, because a lot of the times when you meet up with someone, maybe for the first time, they'll just be like, oh, I'm a hugger. And I'll just be like, I'm not. Hey, I think it's important to know what you want and set clear boundaries. And that's great. I'd rather ask people. Yeah.

Well, you know, back in the day, it used to be like, go hug your uncle Steve. Give him a hug. Go hug. Can't do that anymore. Can't do that anymore. So you just don't like physical touch from strangers. Mostly I don't like when anyone touches me and I'm not aware or like just in general, I don't know.

Also like, yeah, growing up, it's always like, oh, say your pleases and thank yous and like give someone such a hug. But now, I don't know, maybe it's from my years of therapy with my therapist, but I kind of just realized, I'm like, I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want. Yeah. I'm not gonna hug.

Have a cookie for breakfast. I can set these boundaries. Say no to hugs. I'm gonna give you a hug. Yeah. So I imagine your nightmare is someone coming up from behind and putting their hands over your glasses. Guess who?

Guess who? I would probably like. That's making my skin cringe, just thinking about it. I'd probably choke them, like honestly. Yeah, I'd go straight to elbow, even if it was my mom. You're gonna do the flips. That's the same.

Or the gross like shoulder massage from behind. Oh my God. When I get my nails done and they'll be like, do you want a shoulder massage? And I'm always like, no, no thank you. I don't like massages. I'll hug, but I don't like massages. I feel like I do nothing.

I like a massage from someone I paid money for. No, I don't like, no. A stranger. I'm out. They don't do massages. I'll hug, but I don't like massages. I feel like I do nothing. I like a massage from someone I paid money for. No, I don't like. No. A stranger. I'm out. They don't do anything for me. I just sit there the whole time. Really? Yeah. I'm just uncomfortable. It's like the massages make me more tense, similar to how when people are like, just meditate. I'm like, this makes me more angry. This isn't making me chill.

Really? Wow. Growing up, and even till now, the thing that I absolutely despise and they will find out right away is never tickle me because you will get physically assaulted. Who's tickling adults nowadays? We are adults. Who's trying to tickle us nowadays? You tell them I'm an adult. You never had a significant other go and try to tickle you?

Yeah. Bad idea. No, my tickle knows better. Whatever. No, that does not fly with me. Or even friends, and they're just like, me, me. And now I'm like, you do not know the danger you are putting yourself in, because I cannot control these hands if that happens. My wife made it very clear early on.

I was like, tickle, tickle. And she was like, stop it. And I was like, tickle, tickle. And she took my phone and threw it across the room. That's great. And I was like, what the fuck?ico. She took my phone and threw it across the room. I was like, what the fuck? Oh my God. She just cracked the fuck up. She's like, I told you. Did I not tell you? I guess you told me. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever do that thing when you're being tickled and it's ticklish, but you stiff up

her lip. You stiff up her lip so they'll't know it's tick. So they'll stop. But even though it's that you're dying inside, because that's my move. I'll be like, I'm going to take this one man and I don't get tickled. I'm so ticklish. I can't like, it's now. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, this is why you all, Troy, you freak. This is why you want us all in the same room. You're tickled. Here comes old Tickle Fingers of Alley, get ready for some massage Roy.

The Thule is pretty bad, but have you heard of the Tickle Line? Double the amount of money raised if you're going to tickle me. Roll a sanity check against Masaji McTickle and Roy. Remind me after this episode to tell you a story about an unwanted back massage that I can't tell on air. It's not even a gross story. It's just rude if I tell it on air. Anyways, let's play some.

With that dangling loose thread, waving in the breeze, let's go. Before I get to the recap, because I always forget it until we roll our first check of the game, let's get it out of the way. Let's roll that luck roll. Not saying you're going to need it, but let's just find out. Several times throughout the season I said to myself, I'm just going to email them before the show and say, do your luck roll. But it's kind of become a thing now, this like, interrupting the show luck roll.

Ooh. It's fun to see us disappointed in real time. Yeah. You don't want to see it on their face. And then for you, you're like, yeah, I passed. Oh, shit. No, I forgot. I needed to fail it.

Just watching it all. So weakening of disappointment, I failed today. But I passed many episodes in a row. No, failed is good, though. No, you're supposed to fail. No, no. I mean, I failed. You succeeded, which means you failed. No, you're supposed to fail. No, no. I mean, like I failed.

You succeeded, which means you failed. Yeah. I hit under. This is all part of the fumbling around with the words. Did anybody gain luck? I did. I gained four points of luck, I think. Hey, there you go.

I gained nine. Nor you were due. I need disability. I gained two. Two. Two for Robbie Kay. Let's talk about last week. We started last week with a flashback to Hanson Manufacturing where we finally see the results

of that fumble come to light. That wasn't clear. That's what this is because when you fumbled a couple episodes ago, I think it was Kate that fumbled. you just felt uneasy. You heard a little noise behind you in that like abandoned building overlooking Henson manufacturing. Well, we see that someone was watching you, this small dirty child, saw you staking out Henson manufacturing, presumably saw you burn it down as well.

We then see Frank Marshall the next day losing his mind, talking to the bubbies and the fire department, dealing with this scene, dealing with the carnage that you left behind there. And we see this same little urchin across the street, just watching. But you're back in London now. Henson Manufacturing is behind you,

Darby is behind you, Derbyshire and. Henson manufacturing is behind you. Derby is behind you. Derbyshire and Lesseriedale are behind you. You're back in London. You've taken some contraptions and blueprints from Henson, stowed them away in Desmond's flat where you're staying now that Vaughan's American Express is no longer at your disposal. So you wake up a little bit fresh-faced and you decide to visit the Hall of Records where you try to get some info on those two license plates that you found. The one outside Empire Spices that was either watching you or watching Spices, who knows? That car belongs to the Penhew Foundation.

The other one that was maybe spying on you when you were in Lesser Edale, way the hell out of London. Someone tracking you there perhaps? That car was a rental car. Beirut also finds out the residence of her mother's perhaps erstwhile lover, Captain Emil Lydell, who was stationed in Cairo in the late 1800s during the Anglo-Egyptian War. She finds out an address somewhere here in London. This is just a little piece of her past. She's still trying to figure out more about her mother who passed away when she was very young and her father refuses to talk about it. So then you split up to do some tales.

Desmond and Ferouse go to watch Zara Shafik's movements, I believe, and Margo and Carter watch Edward Gavigan. Or did I flip that around? Nope, you had it right. That's right, okay. But we didn't know that if it was indeed Zara Shafik or not. This is true.

You see Gavigan come out, get into a car, boop-a-boo. You see a woman with a scarf get into a car. You think it's Zara Shafik, you're not a hundred percent sure. You haven't seen anybody else come in or out that looks like this woman. So you decide to follow. Both of you follow Gavigan and this woman to the British Empire exhibition. This is a real thing that happened over a year in England. It was this huge, huge art installation that took place across multiple buildings, industrial-sized buildings, tents, the whole nine yards, celebrating all that is great about England.

You follow them in, and they finally converge at this exhibit dedicated to the great women of history and you see them chatting. Gavigan and this woman, possibly Zara Shafik, you see these two suspicious people come to gather. Desmond, having not been seen by either of them as far as you know, sneaks in and overhears them talking. talking about that journalist in New York. They're talking about Jackson Elias. Talks about a break you, about a break you, a break in at the Pennu Foundation, also known as a break you.

Talks about how they went to the Pyramid Club. Oh yeah, they also came by the spice shop. The woman asks Gavigan, is this something that you need me to take care of? And Gavigan says, no, I'll deal with it. Nothing must interrupt the shipment. They leave. Desmond then watches in horror as a massive snake emerges from behind the model posing as Cleopatra and rears its head back, smashes the glass Desmond ducks to avoid the glass shattering, looks up.

Nothing happened. It was all in Desmond's mind as Desmond starting to crack. Or as Desmond marked. Not unlike all of you who've been marked ever since Peru. That night you head to Limehouse, the seedy section to the east of London to stake out Chowdhury's warehouse. You get there, you see these immigrant sailors, these tough-looking customers standing outside. You know them to be Laskers. L-A-S-C-A-R-S, Laskars or Laskers.

Anyways, no one you really want to mess with in a scary area of town. You see a boat come in and you follow the captain to a local bar. Desmond tries to chat up this drunk Norwegian named Lars Torvac but he fumbles and spills his drink on the man can't really get a sense of like where he's coming where he's going but you guys do see that the boat is the ivory wind you know that Henson manufacturing had something Gavigan sent something EG a letter., a letter signed by E.G. sent something to Henson Manufacturing, or something was sent from Henson to the Pennu Foundation, whatever. It ends up at the Chattery's warehouse and that stuff is being put on the Ivory Wind.

This is what you think. You don't know what's going on inside this warehouse, so Carter sneaks up, cat burglar that he is, climbs up on some crates to look into the warehouse. You see three men up in like an office on a catwalk, talking and then you see this warehouse full of crates. But yet again, we end an episode with Carter fumbling and the rest of you across the street watches.

One of the Laskers turns and starts to walk toward the noise That's where we pick up today's CSH now tell me what you want to do Oh, yeah Well part of me wants to see... I wanted to kind of check in with Desmond and Margo and Faeruz, but let's just see, before we see what they do, give me a listen roll. Carter to see if you hear this guy coming around the corner or if you're so focused on what you're doing you don't even hear him approaching. Okay, regular success on the listen.

Okay, so you're up there, you made a noise, and you hear a little bit of a commotion and you can sense someone is coming towards you down this dark alley. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Let's just stay with you then. Okay. Alright, so I'm at the top of a bunch of crates. Yeah, I'd say in my mind's eye there were like three crates stacked.

Two, and then one, and you kind of climbed up to the second one to get a look in the window. Okay. I'd love to hide. Can I like squeeze between the crate and the building or something? Ooh. Ooh, that sounds like a stealth check. Yeah, you absolutely can.

Absolutely can, it's always fun to roll dice. Rule of cat burgling, number one, don't get caught. It's true. I feel like we see the commotion and we see that Carter is responding to it. And if he doesn't hide well, I wanna try to help by like, I don't know, throwing a rock at a different crate to make it sound like it was coming from somewhere else.

Yeah, I would imagine you guys can see this all going down. Yeah, I'm always distraction. You see Carter respond and attempts to slide between these two crates. All right, so give me, well, this is interesting. Go ahead and give me your stealth roll. And your success is based on this guy's spot hidden, basically what level of success you need

is based on his spot hidden, and you wouldn't know. Okay, so I'm just gonna tell you what I got. based on his spot in and you wouldn't know. Okay, so I'm just gonna tell you what I got. Guys, you know what I love from the 90s? Everything that was extreme. Oh, an extreme! I rolled a six under 61. Spot back, motherfucker!

Shit. So you hear a noise, you respond immediately. You're able to shift these crates in such a way that you find like a little opening where you slip down, you lower yourself in, and you see, you now hear these footsteps approaching. It's louder and louder. Scrape, scrape, scrape.

I just like turn vertically and they go Two of them and as the three of you are watching you just see Carter disappear, you know, there's not a lot of light here I don't imagine their street lamps 1920s. I don't know not the moon Assume that you could see this slips down this guy comes This guy said won't you see over there? down this guy comes this guy said what'd you see over there I thought I had a noise and he's you can like maybe between the little cracks in the crate you see him like sniffing around looking it's foggy must have been something from the dog walks back to the front of the building. Seems Mr. Telenhasta is a very skilled backdoor man.

Hahahaha! Able to get in any place. Just slips right in. His reputation proceeds. Don't even see him. Just want to be there to respond. Hahahaha! So yeah, it's a tight squeeze back there.

Well, I suppose we can help him. He's gonna break an order. I wonder if... Yeah, part of me is like, should we try to sneak in as well or provide more distraction to give him free movement? It's kind of like, what do you guys think you talked about beforehand? Carter, you said, I want to get a closer look. You looked in, you saw a number of suspicious looking crates. Not even, they're crates.

You want to know what the hell's in there. But there are three other people in there as well. If all of you snuck up, you know, Carter would at least at this point know like too many people is, the more people you have sneaking in there, the easier it's going to be to be caught. Right. I feel like that was part of the conversation going into this. Too many people is the more people you have sneaking in there. They're easier. It's gonna be to be caught Feel like that was part of the conversation going in right this maybe we can if we if we notice that What is it the Laskers out there and a being security? Might might be worth it to engage them in conversation to see if they

And maybe have that attention swayed away from the dooms that Mr. Tillen asked. Should we like pretend to be drunkards walking by and just being annoying? I thought that would work. Yes, I suppose we don't have time to come up with a full and richly developed backstory for the... Secretary wives. Or we can light something nearby on fire and they can go see what all the ruckus is and then we can just sneak in. See we default to light something on fire or just wing it and be annoying. But you have a better idea? What do you? Perhaps in this case, lighting a fire in a crowded dock would be a plan B.

Yes, I suppose that would probably be wise. But, uh, give Tillinghouse the time he needs to peep around and see what they've got inside that warehouse there. What? Um, now, I didn't prove to be very persuasive or amenable to the person, Mr. uh, this Norsker over here. Perhaps these gentlemen would enjoy a conversation with you two. Oh. Oh. Hmm.

Um, well, you see- I don't wish to be untoward, ladies, but given the, uh, these are perhaps gentlemen who've been at sea for very long time, you might- We've done this before. You might prove more persuasive than- Oh, we've done this plenty of times, we just haven't been successful. And this place is a lot scarier, the scariest place we've... It is. I was thinking, I don't know, yeah, there is that immediate red flag for me, and I'm sure Margo as well. I had an idea and feel free to shoot this down, but if you did Desmond want to go and engage in some sort of conversation

and for some reason it seems like it's not going well, Margo and I can, on the other side, have a very loud drunkenly argument with each other and cause a distraction and at least a way for you to exit without them really paying attention to you. Very well. I like this two pronged approach and I'm sorry if there's anything tasteless in the implications of my bringing you over there talk to him. Happy to oblige. Yes, if things go sideways, then make a little ruckus. We need like a physical...

But if we maybe, give us like a hand signal, something that we know that something's nodding, just in case we can't hear you. So one of these. So what are you gonna do, show us? One of these. You're going to... So as not to draw even more attention to myself, perhaps I'll just raise my collar.

If the collar goes up, things have gone south. Got it. Perfect. Up means down. Just cut to Carter very quickly, just stuck between the two boxes, just like, fuck, god damn it. Just completely wedged in there. We need to just buy more time for the agile and able-bodied mr. Tom Alright so walk me through the plan again

I'm gonna try to go and engage the the Alaska security guys in conversation. Okay, just in order to Occupy their attention thus giving more free rein to Tillinghast as he sneaks in to find the, what's in the box, what's in the box. And ladies? If it goes bad. Yeah, if it goes bad, if it looks like those two are about to give Desmond a hard time,

we start getting into a drunken argument with each other, very loud distraction. Okay, I like this. Wheels within wheels, perfect plan. All right, so our camera cuts to sort of the eye view of these two Lascars looking as Desmond approaches in the night. Flattening his collar.

Nice and flat, no mixed messages here. Yeah, you roll up and they just kind of look at you like, he's not walking over here, is he? Well, that's a good start. And I will walk up to them and like, excuse me, couldn't help but notice that your ship just came into port. Sounds to me at times like this, you got semen coming off, semen coming on. Wondering if you lot need another able-bodied, if you need more semen. Damn it.

I mean. I like women and semen don't mix. Sorry, semen. I'll be eight years old and still laughing at that. I'm a grown man. I'm a teen to the semen. If you need an able-bodied semen, I'm happy to oblige if you need a

carbon boy, swabby, boiler man. I've done it all. Remember, if you remember me saying, one of the guys looked maybe Middle Eastern, and the other guy was Asian, but the Asian guy was Asian but The Asian guy actually has a British accent But he says something to the other guy in another language and pointing at you

And they laugh under their breath and the guy turns to you the Asian guys like It's not our That's that's not about it. We're not looking for any help. Why don't you just keep moving along there? You're a long way from home. Apology, it's just trying to... A fella down in his luck trying to find a... ...find a job, you know, it's... ...it's rather hard. Perhaps you've been away at sea so long long you don't understand what it is to have

five, six mouths to feed, looking for work. Being told to hit the bricks Irish, everywhere you go. Saw your faces and thought that you might be, this might be the open door after so many have been slammed in my face. But I understand if you're full up, maybe there's no place for me here. I'm going to roll a luck roll to see if any of these guys have kids because if they did, then this might lead to a role on your part to try and persuade great all right that is a successful luck roll so

you notice that maybe the Middle Eastern guy there's even was working yeah you're working semen maybe you struck a struck a chord with the other guy you know maybe they can't help you at all but you struck a chord enough the other guy. Maybe they can't help you at all, but you struck a chord enough so that allow a fast talk or possibly even acting. It's true, you are acting. I don't know why, it's just, it's the gift that keeps on giving to a journalist. Okay, I'm gonna roll and we'll see how well I do.

Yeah, if they believe you. I got a 17 under 50, that is a hard success. So yeah, as soon as I noticed the little softening in the features of this fellow when I mentioned my mouths to feed. You know, Harteis, you're a boy one day. Young love seems so fresh and new. And the next thing you know, you got a baby on the way and a union card and all those things that seem so important just turn to sand in your fingers. And then you're, oh yeah the dreams die that day responsibility via man

you're not living just for yourself anymore you're living for you're living for so many others you understand what it's like to make sacrifices and when you're just the sort of seaman I am I'm willing to do anything so that my babes will grow up big and strong. Oh, Margaret, she's so sick. I need all the help she can get. Fact that this is working even in the slightest is kind of amazing, but it's also perfect because these sailors, like their whole thing was they would hop on ships and come over to places like England and take every job possible Just in the hopes that they would have enough money to find a ship that would then eventually carry them home

So they would have to do horrible things and if so if you pick this one guy that's got a family Him above anyone will understand this enough to at least not stab you in the throat So maybe he brushes his friend and he says, like, don't be so rough. I understand your plight. I have six children back home. I'm sorry we do not control the hiring, but times are tough, yes. Times are hard. Well, friend, if you do know who is responsible, I mean, is the Bowson's mate anywhere about? Is there a time that I could perhaps see if there's any work, no matter how base, that I could do? I mean, there's no level to which I wouldn't debase myself, just to... just to help...

Wee Patrick, little Emily, Desmond Jr., Kyle, Pee Wee. I thought you said you had four children, you just named nine. Oh yes, but Pee Wee is the nickname of Desmond Jr. I'm sorry. The guy says that we don't... We are not associated with the boat.

We do not... We do not speak for them. You're welcome to go talk yourself, but... Are you employees of Mr. Chowdhury, then? That's right. You know Mr. Chowdhury? Well, I've seen his... I've seen the name... That's right. You know Mr. Chattery? Well, I've seen his... seen the name, heard it around as I walked around, uh, by mouse.

Decent fellow, is he? Would he, uh, would he be amenable to someone trying to get a job at the harbor? And the other guy steps in and says, you should step along. However, this conversation has gone on long enough that it's given Carter an opening. So we'll cut from there to Carter. Carter, I don't know if you have a signal or anything, but you see, if you're watching, you see Desmond go across the street.

You think that now is as good a time as any to make your move Remember you saw there's a back to the building as well with doors there And then there are the windows that you were trying to uh-huh look into so you've got a couple different options here Are you planning on trying to break in I? wasn't until Both you and Ross said I was going to Yeah, yeah, I mean like we can't all try to break and we could but that's a lot of people I don't have the best stuff. Yeah, and I don't know what we if I just rejoined everybody

I don't really know what we do next anyway, and I don't want to have that conversation. So I'll keep going for fortune favors the bold that conversation so I'll keep going forward fortune favors the bold yeah I mean I I think that you can hear Desmond's voice over there talking to the guy so I know those guys are preoccupied but I do know there's three guys up in an upstairs office right mm-hmm three guys in an upstairs office if you remember it's like a very tall warehouse and there's crates all along the floor and then a catwalk, stairs leading up to the catwalk and there's an office up there and you see three-

Okay. So if I know those guys are still up there, I have a pretty good idea that those guys are, that's pretty far away from any sort of back door, I'm guessing, because they're full level up. So this does seem like a good opportunity to try to get a sneaky peek at a crate. Sneaky peek at a crate, okay. So you slide to the back door and give me a locksmith roll. Okay, here we go.

Yet again. Season two. Locksmith boogaloo. Season two locksmith boogaloo. Just across the dock you hear, off little Declan Dermot Guys Now what What's this the three zeros yeah, that's a 100

Yeah. That's a 100. That is a double. Ooh. Oh dear. I think your locksmith is over 50. It's in fact the only way you can fumble that roll is a 100. Well here's the thing, my locksmith's a 48,

so it didn't matter. Okay, so 96 to roll. I mean. Oh my god. The double fumble. To be kidding me. All right. But those dice don't actually in a fire. Can you push a fumble to be kidding me All right, but those dice Can you push a fumble? Nope, no, you can't here's the results of the fumble. I'm gonna give it sort of a

I'm gonna give it a bit of a twist here Margo and fae ruse you're supposed to be watching Desmond for signals And at this moment a couple of drunken sailors come up and start harassing you It's not something we necessarily need to roleplay, but it's enough to distract you if Desmond should run into trouble And they're very handsy and it's very, it's like you've gotta kinda be like, ha ha ha. It's a very uncomfortable situation. And now Desmond, if you were to look back,

maybe you don't even see them there. And that the Asian dude was like, I think you should leave right now. And from my vantage point, do I even see, I no longer see maybe Carter if he went around the building. Yeah, Carter's out of sight. And then maybe these guys, oh, wine! Wine!

Wine. Wine on sexy times! I feel like if Desmond maybe, if Desmond's getting the push off, the brush off, and Annie's hearing this, and doesn't see Carter, then I think the assumption is that, like, my work is done here, and I will be like, fair enough, fair enough, maybe I'll come back during regular business hours and see if Mr. Chattery needs someone to do anything. Sweeping up, I'll do anything sweeping up. I'll I'll do anything sir

um Oh poor peewee and I'll Drift back into the fog and march towards the the sound of these louts You drift back in the fog and you hear those guys kind of like arguing with each other the sense being that like why you've done This guy why giving him a chair we can't we're not in charge here we're gonna leave and they're Why are you leaving? They're arguing with each other. You start coming back and what do you do when you arrive back there? The guys are... they're not like crazy physical, but like it's a little... You can tell like, oh jeez, shouldn't have left.

Um, come on now, my sir. Meshabron, my sire. We were just leaving, weren't we? Yes, yes. This... oh god, oh god. I did not know how to, I was about to do something not fun for me. Thank you for arriving, I hope that that, can you go?

And she's like, the guy's like kind of breathing on her neck. Can you please stop? This is the least sexy thing I've ever experienced. And the guy, like one of the two guys, like stops talking to you and gets right up in your face, Desmond. He's like, hey, who are you? And then we cut back to Carter as things are intensifying over there. Carter's just like, why do I even do this? Why do I even fucking try to pick a lock anymore?

I don't know what happened. If I lost my touch, man, I'm fucking lost. I'm all partied out. Snap your lockpick on that thing. Fuck there. However, it opens, the door opens. Was it just never locked? Did I just fumble and open the door opens. Was it just never locked? Did I just fumble and open the door?

No, no, no. You snap it again, it opens. I want you to fail forward here, basically. There's no sense in like, roll another locksmith check. You have no backup now. There's another locked door three feet away. Okay, that's fine.

So, you get the door Makes more noise than you would have liked You look up there and really the only light in here is coming from the office and they're like yelling other Kind of laughing. Maybe they're drinking up there You turn behind you and the ivory wind is right there. You hear Hooten and Holleran coming from below deck, the sailors playing dice, drinking, and you're caught in the middle of this. Several crates laying about. What do you do?

Big warehouse. Big warehouse, several crates. Different crate sizes, any crate. Maybe I'll do a piddly spot hidden or something to determine what seems like the most interesting crate. Yeah, just give me a general spot hidden and see what we see. OK. Last ride of these dice. Nope.

Failed that. Not a fumble, thank god, for once. It's just crates. Yeah, I'll just go to the closest one. Yeah, so you're taking your time here. The real failure of the spot hidden is now you've got to spend more time here than you want and you're looking around. You come up to the first crate and it's labeled Cairo Museum, Egypt.

Like it's being shipped to the Cairo Museum in Egypt. Okay. It's like just a quick glance, like a dozen or so crates, maybe 15 crates in all. And then the rest of the boxes in this room are opened and you know you quick peer in they're empty but it looks like there's about 15 crates that are going out. Okay. Do any of them say what were the ones that we knew they were going to things that we found so far were going to Sydney and going to Shanghai?

Yeah, well you found those shipping labels for the Randolph Shipping Company in Darwin, Australia. Right. But the letter, didn't we see something that was like, the stuff that we found at Henson was saying that they were being shipped, like the whole reason we're in Limehouse at this Chowdery place is because we knew Chowdery was shipping things specifically to Sydney and Shanghai, right? Right.

And now we see that there's this one, yeah, now there's one labeled for Cairo as well. One label for Cairo as well. Give me another spot hidden though, while you're examining this particular crate. Oh, I got a 10. I got a 10 under 28, so hard. All right, so you're sneaking up there.

They're getting louder up there and they're right above you, but you're skulking in the shadows. And you've got your hands across this crate. You see this label. You look close, little light streaming in from the office. It looks like the label just on its end is like curled up ever so slightly. And there's another label underneath it.

So I'll roll for peeling. You do a peel roll, stream success. Slowly peel off this label that says Cairo Museum Egypt. You do a peel roll, stream success. Slowly peel off this label that says Cairo Museum Egypt. Underneath it says, Ho-Fang Import-Export, Kaoyang Street, Shanghai, China. Says that in English and then there's a bunch of Chinese characters under that as well. Okay. If you go to the next crate and see like, same thing.

All these crates have this like false label on top of the real label. Why are they, how would that work? I should try to open a crate. Okay. I should take a look in a crate. They are all sealed shut. Do you want to look for a crowbar and give it a little strike check? Yeah.

Yep. Paparooni? Yep. All right. Give me a luck roll to see how quickly you find a crowbar, okay 45 over 39. All right, so you're like fumbling about Walking ever closer to where this office is you finally find a crowbar. You've been in here for now like 15 minutes. Flashback to the scene outside of the bar and the guy's like getting in your face and

he's like pumping his chest against yours like he's waiting for you to throw a fist while the other guy's like, oh you pay a mess with the wrong guy, you mess with the wrong guy, I'm telling you. This guy killed a guy. I'm dirty now. Listen up, comrade. I know you only are expressing the meager drama courage that you can get since you've been oppressed your whole life. You don't even know who the real enemy is. You're quarreling with me. You're quarreling with a man who's got you working day in,

day out, sucking some meager pleasure out of Saturday night and opiates on Sunday morning. Turn around and fuck off. These are our women. And he tries to like punch you. Yeah, fuck that. I fight back. Just drunkenly go to punch you. Yeah, fuck that. I fight back. Just drunkenly go to punch you, Nora.

And the other guy, I would like to knee him in the balls as hard as I can. Knee him in the balls as hard as you can. Okay, all right. These are our women. It's suddenly in a tavern. These are our women. Fuck.

These are our women. No, I ain't no. You go steal your own. Alright, so let's resolve this. You're gonna fight back against this dude. I'm not even going into initiative because this is just like a, you know, we all know what's going on here. He goes to punch you, you go to fight back.

Meanwhile Nora goes to knee this guy in the crotch. He isn't looking when you do that. So first, give me your fight back, Desmond. So just your brawl. Success. 80, so I fail. So what is it, one D3 plus your damage bonus? Mm-hmm, there we go.

Okay, that's a three, plus, yeah, so four. Four total? All right, so boom, this guy goes down, like Joe Louis just had a, it's the deck, and he's like, ugh, ugh. Meanwhile, Nora, give me a brawl roll. Brawl, give me a knee roll. Hard success. Oh, hell yeah.

Hard success against a soft target. Boom, you hit this guy. Give me a D3 plus your damage bonus. Mine says for, oh, that's for, okay, so D4 plus a damage bonus. D3. Oh, okay. What's my damage bonus?

My damage bonus is one D4. Oh, great. D3 plus a D4. So three plus. Bonus is 1d4. Okay D4 so 3 plus You murder a guy three in the growing? Six points just do the hot shots part two balls come out of his mouth Alright, so boom and the guys like And he just hits the ground he he's like, he immediately vomits, and the other guy's like,

why'd you hit me, why'd you hit me in the face? And people are starting to come out of the bar to watch this, we cut back to Carter. Carter, you're looking for a crowbar, you find one. I think I'd pick up a crowbar, then he just sorta like tilts his head, like what the fuck is that sound? Like, what's going on?

Just sound like a child screaming. All right, give me a strength roll to pop one of these crits. Okay. It's just a straight strength. Yep. It's against your strength times five. Fuck, Jesus.

I rolled an 80 over 70, but I'll spend 10 points. Good. Good. All right. So you spend 10 and you're like, look, pop it open. Gently like move the top of the crate to the side. There's like straw and shit. Okay. You look inside and you see two things. First thing you see is what looks like you're digging around in the straw. A figure about six inches of all carved in dark wood like a rosewood and it looks to be a figure dressed in the garb of a highwayman.

But as you examine it further, you realize that it's not a man dressed in human garb, but it's the face of the man looks like an unsettling cross between a man and a goat. And then just under that that you notice something else. Looks like a little glass box. And you peel it to the side and it looks like the flayed skin of two human feet. Give me a sanity roll. I hate feet.

Feel like a wooden carving and then like flayed skin. Wooden carving of a foot man. Who wants foot skin? I got a 33 under 63. All right, so you don't lose any sanity. You're just like taken aback by the combination of these two things. But this little glass box at see-through,

it looks like, it honestly looks like flayed skin, like right from ankle all the way to toe and perfectly carved all the way around. And both feet are impaled onto a brass ring, like some nightmarish giant-sized key ring. Okay. What the hell? Carter's velches a little.

And then I want to close the... close it up. Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick- We have the address Yeah, but I think we had was that an address we got from Gavigan's basement man cave What address the whole fang? the Shanghai thing I Can't remember if you've heard Ho-Fang or not we had Yes to to to to to to to to I think we had. Yes. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d You looked in the desk, right? Do you guys have Ho-Fang anywhere?

My notebook is on the other side. Hold. I don't have that specific. Okay. Did you find like a ledger with handwritten entries describing transactions and shipments around the world? Yes. I think we did. I'm a professional. I keep all my shit far away. Yeah.

Ho-Fang rings a bell. Yeah, I don't remember the exact address. Do an open Apple F on your handwritten notebook. Yeah. That's not organized in any way whatsoever. It's just like, oh, here's a, just, I don's just, I don't know what that is. That's in there. Ah, Ronald Sandinich! I do remember when we were looking in his office, I think I looked in the desk drawer.

Um, Penn Hughes stakeout. Yeah. We go into Gavkin's office. Another bookcase. Got a statue with a rice hat. Got a ivory wind, yada yada. Mr. Randolph shipping. Oh God, I need to consolidate my notes. Yeah.

I thought we had it somewhere, but whatever. If it's not top of mind, then maybe we need to, yeah. Yeah, I'm stalling purposefully to like look through the notes because the issue with this is there's so much shit. One of the drawers is locked, telegram inside recent. Oh, it was like the dig site going well. Yeah.

That's what I found in the drawer. Right, I don't see anything in our England paperwork that references Ho-Fang. Though that name does sorta ring a bell, but uh. We've heard Shanghai and like China before, but I don't think that's specific, yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right, well we got it now. Ho-Fang. You've definitely heard reference to Shanghai before. All right. heard reference to Shanghai before. All right. So, okay. I don't know guys, out of character or whatever, out of game, like, I don't know if I should hang around in here anymore. What were we trying to find out? We're trying to like just get like a smoking gun piece of evidence that connects us all, right? And we just keep finding more fringe. And get more specific about what these shipments are that they're so eager to protect.

And now that we know that there's like, or now that Elise Carter knows that there's human remains being shipped under false labels, I mean, it might be time to get... I mean, we're not having this conversation now, but that's a... Sure. That's pretty well. And I think if anything, we know, oh, it's not going to what the. It's not going to Cairo. Yeah, we know. I found the note Carter Pride open a tall wooden crate. It said Ho-Fang import export.

Same address. 15 Kaoyang Street, Shanghai, China. Written in both English and with Chinese characters as well and it said attention honorable Ho Fang and that's when you started to what was in that crate looked like some sort of statue and you didn't dig any deeper because you were like something something's creepy in here. Right. And would those remind me with those crates on their way out or do we had the sense that they had just come in Like was he was Gavin shipping those out. It's unclear. The only crate you saw go out was a

crate from That the ferris and sons trunk truck picked up, right? And Did you see that or was it just fey ruse doing a loop of the building I can't remember I mean we're all together I think when that we saw yeah all right okay cool all right so I think barring up rolling 15 more sanity checks for every crate I try to open I don't I think Carter kind of spider sense goes off. He might have

pushed his luck a little bit being in here for as long as he's been in here. He wants to get the fuck out. He starts to slide back out and all these crates look the same, but as you're sliding back out, you notice that one of the crates specifically says on it, PENHU Foundation. Now, I don't remember if you saw what was coming out even if you did I don't even know if you'd know that like oh this might be the same crate But whereas all the other ones are nondescript as you're walking out you see that one says Penny foundation. Oh Okay, I'll open it

Okay, give me another strength check one more crate one more I'm not spending a lot on this if I fail. Just so everybody knows. Boo. You say that now. No, if you fail, you should push. I failed. And I'm getting down on my luck.

Push? But you could fail the push. Strength check, you say? Strength check, yeah. It's a 70. I'll push it. OK, so what do you do? yeah. It's a 70, I'll push it. Okay, so. So what do you do?

You have to really lean into it. Lean into it, put your back into it. Crushing your leverage. Brace my core. Oh, my hands are greasy. Better wipe those off. Little bit of this. I think,

that's so lame. I just. Well, instead of using your arms, maybe you get up on something and try to step it down. Use leverage to jump. Yeah. A little more risky, but you pop it open. Let's see.

Give me a push-roll. 66 under 70. So you succeed. I know what we're doing when we take a pee break and it's to fucking burn these dice to get my kids dice. That's right. Steal your kids dice. Yes.

You pop open the one that specifically labeled from the Penhew Foundation or Penhew Foundation, however it is, you just know there's something in it that makes it clear that it came from the Penny foundation. Pop it open and there are small little crates inside that are all sitting within things that you could hand pry open, right? But there's like maybe a dozen or so smaller crates all sitting in within like straw and the 1920s equivalent of bubble wrap, you know, like everything is very carefully laid in and like over packed with stuff to keep it safe.

You start to pop open, you know, a couple of these crates and you see like oddly crafted valves, struts, these like strange boards covered in wires, like glass tubes, the kind that you'd see like maybe in a radio. All of these things very carefully placed within boxes and kept separate. And as you're prying through these, the door opens to the office upstairs. We'll see you right after this break. See you later, Dice.

Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Rogers Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday, anywhere along the Go network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online Go pass ahead of the show at Gotransit.com slash tickets. I've got a homicide in Springfield's North Woods by mile marker 16. You are now entering Springfield. Where's the body?

Off the side of the ditch down there. You know, surrounded by all this crime scene tape. Hello? Am I dead? My name is John. I'm the new forensic pathologist. I can see you. And that's how we'll figure out how you were murdered.

That means ghosts are real! Since then, I've noted multiple additional missing case files and even missing bodies. Let's say I believe you came across some record-keeping discrepancies and a string of deaths. You're not an investigator, Jonathan. Stop trying to be one. After everything I've discovered, I just need to know. Why? What happened in Springfield? Going somewhere, Dr. Spacer? Listen to How I Died, a full cast, police, and medical procedural podcast with over 40

episodes already available. Then tune into season 4 of How I Died, releasing now on all podcast apps. I'm Eric Malinsky and my podcast Imaginary Worlds sounds like what if NPR went to Comic-Con and decided that's all they wanted to cover. I've interviewed Scott Snyder who writes Batman comics. I talked with Mike Marino who did the makeup design for the Batman film and the Penguin TV series. I also interviewed Michael Wilkinson, who designed the batsuit and other costumes for the Zack Snyder DC films. You can listen to Imaginary Worlds wherever you get your podcasts.

All right. So we are back. We will cut from this moment of someone coming out on the catwalk back to the scene outside the pub. There's now a bit of a commotion. The guy that you popped, Desmond, is like on the ground and reeling. He's like, he hit me, he hit me, I didn't do nothing,

he just saw me right in the face and he kicked my friend too. And the other guy's on the ground just like, oh. He's like unable to move. Faerû's got all of it with her knee and so he's just like, wind knocked out and a bunch of unsavory characters are coming out. What do you do?

She go. What's going on? She go. Stay down, you're rummy. Yeah, if we can kind of like, shall we 23 Skadoo? Right. I don't want to leave Carter, but I don't want to be beat up by Zipfel Town. Well, can we like hide behind hide behind somewhere in that general vicinity

of where we could still hide but see harder, maybe? Yeah, we can just kind of slip away but still kind of keep the docking view. Oh, for sure. Sculpting, yes. Yeah, it's very foggy out, so that's the only thing. It's like the further you get away from his location, everything gets a little bit hazier and hazier.

But as this crowd of people is starting to come on and investigate the scene, you guys are just stepping out of there but trying to find a place to look as you get further and further away the warehouse gets a little cloudier and cloudier cloudier as you walk through the pea suit we cut back to the warehouse Carter you see two guys that look similar to the guys standing out front and you realize like I think you were over there when like when the ship first came in there were two more of those guys that came out they went back in but then there's a guy in like a smart

looking suit you know middle-aged to young he's got big bushy mustache and he's he starts talking to the guys like all alright I want to get out of here go and check with those sailors see if you can get those these crates here on the ship tonight you know call me if there are any problems don't have any fucking problems you hear me that Laut Torvach is probably at the pub getting pissed if you don't see him tell his crew I'll be by in the morning to double check everything. There's evidently one more crate coming, but there was some problem in Derby. Not sure. Waiting for word for when I can tell them to shove off.

Get it fucking done. Call me if there's an issue." And that guy starts coming down the stairs. Give me a stealth check. And give yourself a bonus die because they're not expecting anyone to be in the warehouse here Okay I also Troy just you know I want to grab whatever the thing was that whatever item was in my skin feet the skin Yeah, can I go back for the skin feet?

You want to grab like one of these tubes or something? Yeah, just something shoving my pocket Okay, more to just fuck up their whole Scene yeah to examine it later. Okay, stealth with advantage. All right, nine-year-old's dice. Hold on. Nine-year-old has a D100. Okay, my stealth is a 61. I've rolled a 61, So we're just gonna go ahead and know that that's there. Mm-hmm. And a 21. So... Okay, so even better, which is a hard success.

So he's coming down the stairs and he goes out the back door, the door you came in, and when he gets to the door he's like What the fuck's wrong with the door here? Hey, do you see there was something wrong with the back door? Looks like somebody was trying to get in here And the guys are like well, we just we were just out there Tell the guys out front to do a lap Let me know if you've seen anybody strange around here And so the other two guys rush out and he just stands there looking at the door. What do you do? If anything.

Smoke pellet. Okay, so that's the only way. There's the front door, right? There's the front uh, okay. So that's the only way there's the front door, right? It's the front door. Yep. The other guys are going around to check, see if they've seen anyone strange around the building. Okay.

So if I can get to the front door and walk out that as they've left, or if you need me to go and like look through the front door first, make sure they've gone, cause I've heard what the strategy is here Right. All right So this guy with the bushy mustache goes to the back the other two guys go out the front Presumably to come around to the front you make your way towards the front and you hear them talking Irish guy Alright

What do you stand here? Do a security check. Make sure there's nothing. And so, and you're looking through the crack in the door. There's a deadbolt that you could open and just walk right out. But there's one guy there and the other three have scattered. And you guys, looking through the haze, you see this. It's like weird.

There's some sort of commotion. You know, play the scene though. Like you don't know that Carter's right there ready to run, but there's one guy and the rest are like scattering. It seems like something has gone wrong. Seems like... You reckon it made Mr. Telenast? But if he was made, don't you think he would have like yelled for us? Is he a screamer then

Well if we don't hear him yelping and maybe they're not onto him yet We can't see him turn up his collar Nobody can see it speaking aside can't see But if we try to store something so this guy Walks away because he seems to be the only one left That was your original pro rocks or something down that path. They think that he'd ran that way. Yeah Sounds like Okay, yeah.

A platter to draw his attention or a splash in the something. Yeah, something to head him off in a different direction. Alright, so do you all emerge closer to the building to try and throw something? And what are we throwing?

Who's throwing it? Who's good at throwing? Who has the best throw? Throw, an off-neglected skill. Mine is not great. I'm not good at sports. I'm not good at sports. I've got a 20, probably.

So do I. I think that's the base. I think that's, yes, We didn't pump our throw skill. No. I haven't pulled my weight yet today. I could try to throw it and just distract him away from the Zor. Who's got a lot of luck.

Because you can always push the throw and then we start having some fun. Margo's got to have great hand-eye coordination for all the art. I guess so, but my throw is 20. Think about this before you throw. What does a failed throw look like? Right.

Let's see what happens. All right, so throw, you got some luck, you got some pushin'. What do you feel like doing? Margo? What do you grab it? You look, you see like beer bottles. Yeah, just like something that would shatter

like from far away. So like an empty beer bottle, I wanna chuck it down like some alleyway or something nearby. So it draws him away. Just throw the guy with his balls caved in. All right. You see, you see a good enough spot that you could, you know, you think it would draw enough attention to try and like at least create a I mean, you don't know that Carter's on the other side, but your intention is to draw him away as well,

giving Carter every opportunity. So let's see how this results. I see them on alert and spreading out, so I wanna get him away. Yeah, okay. That's a fail. How bad? 75.

Whoa. Over 20. So it's out of my luck range. That's a fail how bad 75 So it's out of my luck range Okay, do the old gentleman's push the old. How do you do sir? So I'm just trying to think of how she would push throwing a empty beer bottle Like I mentioned this one was so wildly off. It just went into the woods. We could say that, um, I'm not good at this. That fae Ruz takes off this like, or like a neckerchief, right?

So she makes kind of like a sling, finds like a rock, like, and hands it to you to like kind of, But you're thinking Molotov cocktail. This is better. This would, this will reach the alleyway. Okay. Okay. Let's, let's try this.

Oh, I got the skull. So that's a five. Hey, all right. That's a five? So skull five? Wow, all right, so. So zero on the tens. Or on the double tens.

Right. So the 10, 20, 30. Yeah. Amazing. If you fail, I was gonna have the bottle hit the guy. Yeah. Fuck. Just a shattered bottle in his eye. Amazing if you fail I was gonna have the bottle hit the guy All right, so you succeed on the toss the guy like jumps at the sound and

You see him reach in and pull out a knife and start walking towards the sound of that bottle now What do you guys do and this can all happen at the same time. Whoever wants to speak up, Carter, you hear that sound away in the distance and you see the guy grab at something in his pants and start to walk away from the door. Yeah, that's my cue. I'm taking full advantage.

All right, are you stealthing or are you just booking it? I'll try stealthing it if that was wrong. All right, I you steal thing or you just booking it? I'll try steal thing and if that okay was wrong Good. All right. I imagine you guys are like kind of approaching a little bit or you tell me Yeah, we're throwing things we gotta be make sure everything's okay as I was walking away We're slowly like approaching as he's slowly leaving maybe okay. Maybe we see the doorknob turn Okay, I will have my I see him pull out that guy pull out a knife I'm like well. He doesn't have a fire on so I like I just have it fire on ready Just in case just in case okay, let's start some shit in live house

All right, give me a stealth there Rob All right, give me a stealth there Rob You fucking come on man Disowning my child. It's a 60 man. I'm just this is gonna be a hole just a luck. You need a dice jail Remember when you spend the luck you're more liable to get it back Right, right, right, right. Okay. I'll spend six points of luck to make a regular success I think too bad. Nothing. That's that's good alright, so you hop open the door slide out Gently close the door behind you just leaving it open at this point. Do I have to roll for that? No Just just for story's sake yeah, let's close it. Let's say you know you always want to

Just for story's sake. Yeah, let's close it. Let's, you know, you always want to... You see that guy? You know, I never close those crates. I closed one of them, I didn't close the other one. Yeah, that dude's about 15 feet away. You've got this little, like, radio tube slipped into your jacket, and you guys see the door open, and Carter comes out,

and he's skulking along, and you look over to where everybody was, and you just see, like like a big crowd of people. But I imagine your friends, what do you guys do? Do you like motion to him? Do you yell to him? I think I run up to the, I run out the main entrance of Shoudry's warehouse or whatever, dock thing. And then I like look and I just see all these people,

because there's still like a bunch of people who are like, oh, that's fucking yeah, that's fucking guys go right now other people are fighting. It's a whole thing Yeah, I'm just sort of like watching them be like what the fuck And I don't see Margo. You don't see fair use you don't see Desmond But then you look over and they're like near an alleyway The hell you guys doing over there? Like skulk over. Whew.

Man, that was a tense situation, guys. Anyway, I snuck in the back door. I snuck in the door that's in the that's behind the building. And I got in there, and uh, there's crates, there's lots of crates. Um, and there was, it, there's lots of crates. And there was, here's the thing, there's all the, I would tell them everything,

there's the shipping labels, but you peel those back, and it actually says they're going to Shanghai. So I don't know why the ruse there, what was the original, the original? Cairo. It's a Cairo museum. So just so they're, the Pehhew Foundation is making shipments to Egypt, which is in its bailiwick. And rather, it's sending God knows what off to halfway around the world to this whole Fang character.

Yeah, yeah. And then I opened up one, there was one that was labeled just the Penhew Foundation. Open that up. All these tiny little Russian nesting doll, other crates inside of it. Open those up and it's all these tiny little Russian nesting doll other crates inside of it, opened those up and it's all these parts. It's all like, it's like the same types of shit we saw at Henson Manufacture. It's like this thing, what the fuck is this thing? Woo! Just like, sort of whipping this vacuum tube thing around like, anyway, I took that just to mess up whatever

they're doing. And then there's this dude with a pretty impressive mustache. I might crib that later. He, although I don't know how I would put it on the mask, I guess I would have to like get a fake mustache. Focus, focus. Sorry. So he was talking about how he sounded like a salty dog. He wants that all the stuff loaded up tonight. He's come back in the morning to double check.

So that means this boat is out of here tomorrow morning. And I assume you tell us- He said there's one crate left to come, but it's got delayed because of something up in Derby. And you know what that something was? Us fucking burning that place down. That's right. And I assume you tell us all about the feet on a ring?

No, I keep that to myself. Oh yeah, I forgot. There's a feet on a ring. What? There's feet skin on a ring. I know, it's so gross. Yeah, so saw that. Saw a little statue of a guy.

But his face was like a goat thing. It was very heavy metal. So yeah, there's creepy shit. Felt my sanity waver briefly, but we're good. You can't help but think about these statues because now when you were in the Penhew Foundation and you went to that secret room, that tall crate that was going to Ho-Fang had this statue of like, you lost sanity when you saw it, so you actually saw more than I originally said. Like you saw, it looked like maybe a woman's body

with like tentacles coming out of its head and like it's really, really fat. And you saw it and it shook you to the core. Why are these things being- I felt cold or something, I think. Yeah, you felt ice cold. Why are these things being shipped halfway across the world

along with all these tubes and strange components? It all adds up and yet it doesn't make any sense. What do you guys wanna do now? Get out of Limehouse. Yep. Okay, yes, of course. Out of Limehouse. Yes.

I think we got all we can get here. Yeah. Okay. You know the Ivory Wind is there. You know that the shipments are being loaded after they scan the building and find that nobody's here. But now maybe Desmond's been made. Irish guy was asking questions. Maybe they saw you. Maybe they didn't. But there is a delay because of what happened in Darby.

Assuming you guys took a cab here. Take a cab back to Desmond's. A four-seater bicycle. Yeah, one's a pretty cab, as far as. Yeah, back to the flat. Alright, so you... The more we know, the less I understand. Exactly. What the hell is happening here? here these collectors bizarre antiquities

strange mechanical components that you barely know how they fit together in human flesh now see that part surprisingly I was sort of expecting after the bloody tongue thing, but that's honestly the least surprising thing What could this contraption what could it be doesn't look like any Look like anything I've ever seen before Another we know that Shafik and Garth again are in cahoots and they're having these meetings there in the exhibition. And now that's the connection that whoever these people are that are disappearing, the Peña Foundation knows about. I mean I can't, there's no limits to the depravity of these

to the depravity of these bizarre elites and their ivory tower of privilege? Who knows what these people are being, what is being done to them? These people that are getting trafficked away from the Blue Pyramid Club, could that be their skin? I don't know, that's what I was... we hadn't trailed in yet. What about this though, what if Gavigan is pulling one over on Shafik? What if he's claiming that these things are going to Cairo, but then he's sending him to Shanghai? Like maybe does she know that? Why like that's what's confusing me the most is why are there these double labels? I, yeah, my assumption is that it's, it's, I mean, it may be that he's pulling a double cross on Shafik, but it may be that it's to elude or to create a cover story for the Penhew Foundation.

Oh, because they have a direct, you're right, you're right. They have a direct link to Cairo, right? That's their whole like thing. It's not weird to ship artifacts there. Yeah. I'm just wondering why we're shipping pieces of something that we don't know what it's builds, all these parts, as well as it almost feels like these artifacts

are also pieces because they seem so random, but they're important and they're being shipped to the same place. I don't know. Troy, this. Why, if they're happy? Why is it not being assembled here? Unless there's something there that we don't... Do we know is the...

And I apologize if this is already said. The mechanical pieces are also... We're also going to Shanghai? Like this mechanism, whatever this thing is that's being built, was in a crate labeled for that? You can tell we're in the same place? Yeah, all the stuff that was in Chowdhury's warehouse had the false label to Cairo going, but really going to Shanghai.

The stuff you found at Hanson Manufacturing was still in the safe. Like it was still being fabricated for the most part. But all of it just like nonsense. Even if any of you have like the slightest mechanical background, like your dad fixed cars and you watched him, like it's just very, very strange stuff. That sense that of the old and the new, you kind of get that with these things that you saw there Carter, but they seem like more – I don't know, like something you'd see in a science fiction movie.

These tubes and glass things. And so you're just kind of putting this together, you know, chatting aloud about what you've discovered so far, trying to think about what to do next and you're heading back towards Desmond's flat and the cab driver slows down a little bit. He's like, I'm so sorry, the fog coming off the Thames is cloyingly thick this evening. It's not safe for me to drive any further. I don't want to wreck the car with you in it or run over any pedestrians. I'm sorry, you're only about a couple blocks away, but look, you can't even see up ahead,

and you look through the car, and like, you can't see five feet in front of you. It's like, it's just, it's dangerous for me to keep driving. I'm really sorry this happens every once in a while, but it's really sick tonight. You don't have to pay me the full fare. Pull over and be safe on the road then. I think I can manage from here.

Right, you have a good night. What if we always just default to whatever character Ross is to pay for everything regardless of their credit rating? I know. Yes, you got this. Thank you so much. Just getting out of the car. Oh God.

I'll Venmo you. Yeah, all right, so he's saying, sorry, sorry, be safe, be safe. And he like pulls up a little ways and turns the car around and goes back the way he came and just kind of leaves you in the night. It's dark, it's quiet, and it's so eerie. I haven't spent any time in London,

but I know the pea soup is still a thing there. And it's so thick. Where Desmond's apartment is based on where you picked you are pretty close to that bend in the Thames. So even being closer to the river at night, that fog rolling in off the river, you can't even see the buildings. Are there people walking around? I guess what time of night is it? I think you, I think you went to the warehouse pretty late

and then you stayed there a while. I guess you went there kind of earlier in the evening. We went there late afternoon. Well, we got to the Limehouse late afternoon. Now I don't know. Yeah, I would say it's nighttime now and you hear some footsteps. You don't really see any people.

It's like being in a steam room. Like you just hope no one walks in front of you naked. I hope you don't have to get back to your apartments from here, I don't know where I am. Even though it's hard to make out, you just keep, stay close together and walk on it. Never, barely seen fog this thick. But, let's just, um, just, um, rock our brains. How does it all connect? How do we move the next piece on the board? How does it all come together? I don't know.

And Desmond will sort of lead you down the thoroughfares towards his apartment. But also with the knowledge that, like, you've been followed by cars is like keeping his eyes peeled for lurkers in the shadows and the rumble of engines. We won't be followed by cars tonight. There's some comfort in that, Massar. There is some comfort in that. With human flesh being trafficked overseas, far be it for me to involve the long arm of the so-called law, but perhaps if you've been in conference with a fella from Scotland Yard, this might be the sort of thing you'd wish to know. Oh, yes. That's not a bad idea. Maybe we let him know tomorrow before the shipments go out. You do have a powerful possible ally in Barrington. We pick our way towards the flat.

Pick your way towards the flat. You're walking through this fog and you can see the flat. Pick your way towards the flat. You're walking through this fog and you can see the sidewalk. You know, you spent some time staking out Trattery's warehouse, so even though you got an early start to the night, still now it's like, this will be the earliest you've ever gone to bed in the entire campaign. But you can go there and chat and talk about what you've learned. Beautiful-minded up a little bit to really look at the big picture. As you're plotting along here, along the sidewalk, you hear the sound of a car.

You look towards the street. You hear it pass. And you keep walking. You're jumping at shadows. Nooo. I would jump in at Shadows. Another car. That's not a fucking car. Someone walking. Nooo.

Another car. Someone walking in the distance. So eerie. Everybody give me either a listen or a spot hidden. Depending on what is your more powerful skill. I'm gonna do a spot hidden. Extreme success, Earl the Six. Damn! I just got a regular.

I got a hard. I failed. We got a hard, a regular, for Margo? Regular, yeah. And extreme for Faeruz.

Faeruz, you hear these sounds of pedestrians, that you can't see cars whizzing by, being more unsafe than your cab driver. But then, above all that noise, you hear this sound sort of come close to your ear hole. That's like, it feels like the wind, like, oh. But then you feel this wind, like almost grab your ear and like crawl around your face

and start to go up your nostrils and simultaneously all of you feel this like unseen force start to like enter all of your open orifices Here's what's about to happen Oh no The fog There's something in the fog There's something in the fog Here's what's about to happen. Oh no. The fog.

There's something in the fog. There's something in the fog. My orifices. The back door also? All of them. This, this. This is a back door fog. Good thing I didn't wear those pajamas

with the back door to Limehouse. All right, so here's what's gonna happen. You're all about to be attacked by something. Feyruz with the extreme success is the only one that will have a chance to dodge or fight back from whatever is happening in this surprise round. You need an extreme success based on a number of different factors in order to have the opportunity to dodge or fight back. So let's resolve you first, Ferruz, as this thick, like, tendril of fog tries to enter

your nostril. Do you want to try and pull away from it or try to, like, punch it? I don't know what I'm punching. I mean, I have a higher brawl, but I don't, like, what am I? Yeah, it's like punching the wind. What if the wind feels like a hand? Punching the wind. Maybe it would sexualize.

Yeah, I would, yeah, I would. Oh, yeah, it's punching the wind. I'm going to punch it. Punch the wind. I'm going to punch the wind. Punch it in the face. All it, punch it in the face. All right, give me a bra roll. Take that, you'll win.

Success. Success. 33 under 41. All right, so you go to fight back. It succeeds as well, and since it was the attacker, it's the one that wins. And so, one nostril gets completely blocked up by this. My sinuses.

And then as you're like being pulled this way, you feel something else creeping up the other side of your face and it plugs up another nostril. And then Margo. Oh man, rocks. Margo, you feel the same thing,

but this thing goes into your mouth. It's like in your mouth. And then Carter. Oh my God, Carter, you feel the same thing in your mouth. And then Desmond, same thing in- Why does everyone get so quiet? For you it's your left nostril. And then again Desmond in your right nostril.

I rolled six times and all six were hits. So here's what happened. I'm dub-de-sing. I have a very good chance of hitting. Alright so Margo's mouth, Carter's mouth, both of Desmond's nostrils, and both of Feyruz's nostrils. All of you take one point of damage as you have begun suffocating. Oh no. Lord, whoa. And now we enter real initiative.

This fog or whatever is happening around you, this like unseen enemy that seems to be all around you is entering your orifices, trying to block them up and suffocate. You all take one point of damage and now we're in normal initiative here. Oh boy. Desmond, what is your dexterity? How do you fight the wind?

My dexterity is... 60. 60, okay. My dexterity is 60. 60, okay. Margo, what do you do? I take out my shotgun and I shoot the fog. Just kidding. So, yeah, I want to...

Keep in mind you can try and escape. You can try to pull away from it. You can try to do whatever from it. You can try to Escape from whatever's Suffocating my mouth right now. Maybe she can still breathe out of her nose a little bit but yeah, just like stifling like a muffled like like scream and trying to Get away from it or pull it out if she can Yeah. All right. So it's going to be a strength check.

Ooh. For trying to pull it out? Yeah. All right. Is there any other option, like trying to get away from it? If you do that thing where you hold one nostril down. Oh, it's not rocket? It's not rocket. She's not the strongest.

Yeah. I mean, this thing is, it's using its strength to enter you. What you can try and do is some sort of combat maneuver that may help your strength check next round. But this thing is trying to suffocate you so as long as it has its grip on you, it could get worse and worse. So yeah, those are kind of your options. You just straight up try strength or, I just need one second here. Let him go. I'm right on session.

All right, yeah, so go ahead and give me, you have, how many things are blocked? Just one? Oh, your mouth? Just my mouth. How many holes are full? How many things are blocked? All Alright, give me a roll. Strength roll.

Yeah, if I fail this one, maybe I'll try to prepare. Oh, no. Nope. That's a ten. That's a ten? That's a hard, because I have 35 strength. Alright, so you just like... And you can breathe all of a sudden. Do you, now you still have like a,

what would be equivalent of a move action here. What do you wanna do here? You no longer have this thing in your mouth. You pulled away from it. Do I see, it's not thick enough to where I can still see everyone next to me, right? And they're struggling. Yeah, they're very faint within this.

This like, the fog has already been super thick. Now it's like enveloping you, but it's super has already been super thick. Now it's, like, enveloping you. But it's super dark. You can really can't see too, too much. Maybe I grab the person next to me, perhaps Carter, and, like, try to pull it out from his mouth, too, because- Right, you know what that'll do is, like, that would give him a bonus die on his strength check because you're basically aiding him to try and like pull him away

uh okay great um so you uh jump on uh Carter and start to try and pull Carter Desmond it's your turn Desmond you have two of these things inside of you and so it's harder to pull against it. Um yeah but I got to, I must. I feel as though I'm being suddenly suffocated. What the hell is going on? So yeah that's a strength check. Yeah it's going to be an opposed strength roll. All right that's a that's a regular success. And that is enough. And you should know that was a very hard chance of getting out of that.

So you just pull away from this fog and you now have like a move action as well. You see Margo has grabbed Carter and you see Feyreuse is gasping for air in this hazy, hazy thick fog. Okay, well I'm seeing the noble selflessness of Saur in this moment. I'll resist my urge to just run away and grab, wheel around and try to grab Feyruz and assist her to pull away from whatever this thing is. You're so close to home you could just leave her, man. You could just leave her. You didn't really know us that well yet.

Start a new adventure. It's every man for himself. It's every man for himself, no. United we are stronger. Solidarity forever. Yeah, there you go. There he is. All right, so you grab Feyruz

and try and pull her against the nothingness. It is now Feyruz's turn. Feyruz, same situation as Desmond, like two things are pulling at you. It's almost like stretching your nostrils apart as it gets deeper and deeper into your skull. It's like finger of fog. I was gonna try something crazy,

but now with Desmond here, I'm gonna try to yank this thing out of my nostrils. All right, give yourself a bonus die here Okay, what what am I rolling you're rolling strength Oh sweet strength times five, you know, yes She's very strong Roll the bonus. Yeah, just in case So it it just says six. It was the same. Yeah. So it's still the same thing. 68 under 75.

You rolled. But what was the second roll? Oh, wait. The bonus. OK, wait. I rolled a six and then a 60. So on roll 20, if you're looking at this. Yeah, roll 20, it doesn't want to do the bonus roll.

It would be like if the bonus type was also a 60. Oh, I see how it did. That's what I was wondering. Does that count as another six? OK, a 60. Oh, I see how it did. That's what I was wondering, like, does that count as another 60? Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so you rolled 268, so you rolled a regular success. Okay, this is very important. What is your strength?

75. Your strength is 75? Yeah, that's why that guy is not making any more babies. Yeah. Okay, so I rolled a success as well. So then the tiebreaker is your strength total. And your total is stronger than the two trend rolls. So you're able to break through.

Yeah. Sweet. Amazing. You've taken one point of damage, but you're free for the moment. And now it's Carter. Carter, Margo has just grabbed you from behind and is pulling you against this thing that has entered your mouth

This unseen force is blocking up your windpipe and you've started to suffocate Strength check or do you think it's something else? Nope. Let's check. All right. Give yourself a bonus time. All right Need that that's God Need that. That's... Oh god. The fumble situation is what? It's... If I have a strength, my strength is 70. I rolled a 98. Okay. No, if it's over 50, only 100 is a fumble. But you want to take the better roll anyways. And in a bonus, the fumble, I don't think it happens. Same thing! Same fucking thing! You rolled two nines? better roll anyways and when in a bonus you're the fumble I don't think it same thing same rule to nine thing oh yeah god damn it all right so Margo is pulling but Margo as as evidenced is not strong enough to help it's just like pulling you Carter's mask Carter you take two points of damage.

You are, you are being suffocated to death by this thing. It is- I have four hit points, Gus. Oh, God. Oh, boy. All right. It is a new round. It is this unseen forces turn.

Comes after Margo. Fails. Comes after Feyruz. Extreme success. One tendril. Comes after Desmond. Fail. Back to Margo.

Fail. I rolled six successes the first time and I don't fudge dice. Fail, success, fail, fail. Back to Desmond. Regular success, Desmond gets plugged with one and then See if we can get... Faeruz you got one in you. One Tandril. One in everyone, is that what you want?

Let's not be gross everybody. We're all adults here. Sneaky Tandril entering a hole. This one's coming at Faeruz again. rendering all this was coming at fair is again fail okay that was that wasn't too bad although Carter is close to suffocating to death yeah there's that so one is in Desmond one is in fair use and none are in Margo one is in Carter I'm gonna throw up it is Margo's turn. So I feel like she saw Feyreuse and Desmond recover, but then kind of get half pulled back. Like it wasn't as bad as the first attack, but they're still being held up. But she knows that Carter's down. Does she know where Desmond's

apartment is from here? I want to try to run out of the fog. Whether it be into a store nearby or like a bar nearby, like if we're on a road like that, or if we're right in front of his apartment just running into the lobby. Carter, you see Margo try to pull. Doesn't work. She fucking takes off.

No, no, no, with Carter. But that's all Carter knows. Oh, you're pulling Carter with you? Yeah, like I'm trying to drag him out. Oh, interesting. Because I know that he's down. Okay, so you're pulling... And I can't pull the fog out from him. Yeah, so you're pulling Carter, and you're...

It's like a tug of war with an invisible monster. You're pulling Carter. You could go. You could leave this fog or leave and get a better view of the scene, perhaps. But trying to pull Carter you're pulling against his strength you can't see. It's the same either way. Yeah. So she realizes that she's like I'm going to try my hardest again to pull

and when you're free you must run. So she's gonna try to help him again. Okay. The difference here is like you can use your action this time to you to try and like strength check against it. You know what I mean? And then he'll get another chance as well before you used your action to pull it out. So what did you roll for a strength check? Um, it was a 55 over 35. but I'm considering spending 20 points of luck to make it a regular success. Okay.

So... Save the luck. I rolled an extreme success. All right. Thanks for letting me know. On the opposed roll. Very nice. So again, you go in like...

Nothing. Now, your options are linger there and give Carter the bonus again or try and gain some perspective on the situation and pull back. Bonus for sure. Okay. I still try with all my life. She's like, ooh.

You're trying to pull, do the work for him. It's not happening. So you lean into it to help him on his turn. It goes to Desmond's turn. Desmond, you see,mond you see you know everything is like hazy and in slow motion this is all happening simultaneously you can see like the lights going out in Carter's eyes as the moon like shines upon him every once in a while but you have your own problem what do you do?

Gotta arrange myself free. Got to. Save yourself. That's a, I'm going to spend eight points of luck to make that a hard success. A hard success beats my regular success. Nice. You pull yourself free. Do you go to help Faeruz? Do you go to add to Carter's help? Or do you catch a cab back to Limehouse and hang out with Lars Torvac? You seem like a pretty cool guy.

Why don't you get to know him? I feel like I made a bad first impression and I'd really love to take another swing at it. I think that we have a future for all of us. I really think this is where this campaign ends. With Desmond and Lars. So, sorry guys, bye. No, no, absolutely not. You say the last thing I saw was the lights going out in Carter's eyes. Right.

I think then maybe with that in mind, and seeing what an insane beefcake Favreau's Gibran is at the docks, just smashing that dude, I might... She could handle herself and go to assist Margot with saving Tillinghast. Okay, so you jump on Tillinghast with Margot, both trying to pull Carter away from this thing. It is Feyruz's turn. Feyruz, you're in the same boat. I want to try something crazy.

I'm gonna take that scarf that I had been wearing, I wanna light it on fire and kind of swat around me to see if it does anything to this since we're in a fog. Maybe the fire and light will. When in doubt, light it on fire. Yes. That's a faster scrub on fire. Yes. That's a nasty scry. Okay.

And hopefully the perfume that I wear will have enough alcohol in the threads to light this motherfucker up. All right, this is how I'm gonna, a couple things I've gotta retroactively resolve. One, Faeruz and Desmond take another point of damage from being initially suffocated. Gotcha.

You start, there's another thing I'm gonna resolve in a second, you start to wave this, you like pull out a lighter, light your handkerchief on fire, this is effectively your move action is the way I think of it, and you start waving it. What you notice is the fog seems to recoil from the light coming off the fire. It doesn't seem to be affected by the fire itself. In fact, the fire passes straight through the fog and you don't hear the fog scream

or anything like that, but you notice as the handkerchief is coming up towards it, it like bends to avoid the light coming off of the fire. However, it still stays locked into your mouth. So that's my move. So you kept that as my movement. Yeah, so you still have an action. An action. So I wanna hold the fire as close to my face

without burning myself and then try to pull out the- Give yourself a bonus die on this opposed strength roll. Okay. Extreme success. Oh! I don't think I could yet. Yeah, extreme success. 12.

And I had a hard success, so you're lucky you rolled that extreme You pull this out You can breathe and you can also speak to your friends. What do you tell them? You can swat it away with the fire I guess it's I just like try to like do this in front of my face as I want to walk towards Whoever needs help to like try to yank out stuff. Right, so you start walking and as you do so the light is making this this part of

the fog seem to recede as you walk towards Carter. Carter you have Margo, I could just picture this so vividly you've got Margo on one side, Desmond on the other and they're trying to pull you away from something that is like locked in your mouth. I feel like I feel at this point, like my feet have left the ground. Yeah, and now Faeruz is sort of fanning some fire in your face. Fanning the side. You get two bonus dies on this against my opposed roll.

Please God Almighty. Come on, stronger together. Well, that's an eight under 70. Dang, let's see if we can crit. I will now roll again for some reason. Yeah, no. Well, that's an eight under seventy Rolls extreme again for some reason yeah, no I Believe that's extreme. Yes. That's a dream. All right. I had a regular success. You had an extreme success you pull yourself Just all this like like drool and gagging starts happening

In this moment in this moment you are all Unhooked from this thing and the full brunt of this starts to weigh on you everyone give me a sanity roll If we go with this nonsense success success Fucking extreme success. It's a hard. I rolled a 563. And a hard for Margo Desmond? I got a hard success on this. Four successes!

Amazing. Amazing. Okay. All right. It's the top of the next round and this thing has the highest decks. So while you're all free for the moment, it goes again. Well, sorry, your honor. So I did my action was to do this.

Do I get a maneuver of some kind or is it all that? Yes, I'm sorry, yes you do. I don't know what I would do other than be like, we all got flashlights, let's go! Flashlights, fire, anything! Yeah, so, uh... A lighter? Flashbulb? You all have flashlights and lighters

because you had flashlights when you were in the cave of the Blue John Cavern in Lesariedale. Yeah, do you want us to roll luck to see if we decided to bring those with us? Or just have them? You can just have them. That's something. At this point, I think you always have your gun, you always have your flashlight. It's incredibly punitive for me. Yeah, I'm going to blight it under my face You could just have them. That's something at this point. I think you always have your gun. You always have your flashlight Incredibly punitive for me. I'm gonna blight it under my face and tell a spooky story to the fog

It's like a fighter being like oh shit. I didn't bring my bastard sword into this Investigator has very few tools at their disposal one is a flashlight evergreen evergreen items Yeah, so I want to light the flashlight all right, you put the flashlight on this thing and It starts to Pull back. However as the light hits it you see that this isn't just fog it is like a a living cloud of like sparkling gray. And these tendrils of fog that are climbing into your body are actually tentacles.

And you see an outline of this. In fact, all of you now see the outline of this. So while you pass the sanity check against being attacked by nothing, you now all see some sort of horror. Everyone give me another sanity check against being attacked by nothing, you now all see some sort of horror. Everyone give me another sanity check. We see beasts. Oh yeah.

Regular success. Extreme success. That is amazing, you guys. That is so clutch right now. That is so clutch. A regular success, a regular success. I got a heart, baby. Okay, so as opposed to taking 1d10 Sanity, you will all take one point of Sanity.

And I'm just gonna lift the veil. From being attacked, if you would fail that Sanity, it's 1d8. So you had a possibility of having 1d8 plus 1d10 Sanity loss, and you all passed both checks. But you all take one point of sanity here. All right you see that whatever Tillinghast has done whatever Feyreuse has done to like realize that it is you know allergic to light or whatever is working it's starting to pull away however it's its turn again. Now one thing I forgot to mention I should have done this last round when I attacked Desmond and Feyreuse in the surprise round only Feyruz got a chance to fight back or dodge. You all have the chance to fight back or dodge now as it comes towards you. So

Margo it's coming towards you. Do you want to fight back or dodge? Dodge! Dodge give me that doge. Give me that doge! Nope that's a fail. Okay. You get plugged. Well, I might want to spend luck. I don't want to be stuck here. I want to run out. So that's going to be 18 luck to get down to 52.

So I'm going to do that. 18 luck to make a regular success. Spend 18 luck on your dodge to regular success. And it wasn't fight back. It was dodge and that's the beauty of dodge. You pull away, it doesn't plug you up. This one comes at you, Faeruz. I know your fight back is better.

Do you wanna use that, or do you just wanna try and dodge from this thing? Yeah, I'm punching. You're punching, okay. Punch away. Oh, I fumbled. No! Oh no. Although I do have the fire around me.

Like, does that give me any sort of... This is true. As written in the book, if you fumble on this attack, you hit one of your allies because you can't see what's going on. So let's see who you hit. One, two, Margo, three, four, Carter, five, six. Desmond, oh my god, you could...

Oh no, I didn't die. Not Carter right out. You punched Desmond in the face. Who's five? Desmond. I think Troy rolled it. I rolled it and I rolled a five too. Oh, you rolled it, okay.

So it was meant to be. You punched Desmond square in the face. And you're pretty strong. How many points of damage is that? From punching? It was a one D3 and then a one D4 for your damage. Yeah, it's a D3 plus a d4. Yeah She's strong your favorite is about to kill me

You are lucky. I only rolled two points of damage Okay, boom good thing that guy didn't you knock that guy out and he didn't actually take a couple hit points off you at The dog seven points yikes. Okay. Boom you get clocked That was the second attack and It's tendril is in you favorous you take one point of damage and Then third tendril goes for Desmond. Are you dodging or fighting back? for Desmond are you dodging or fighting back? um well let me figure out one thing my total max hit points is 13 and that

punch just dropped me to 7. No 11 that was only two points of damage. Okay great from from from 13 after having been choked a few times. Oh you were 13 you lost two hit points you were 11 then you just lost another two from Faerus's punch. No, I was down to nine from over the course of getting choked. Oh, stabbed? Stabbed, et cetera. Okay, from before, yeah.

So you came into this fight with nine? Yes. Alright, and you've taken four, so you're down to five hit points. Fuck. Wait, you know. Have taken two? No, no, no. No, I didn't come, I came into the fight with like 10 or so or because I've taken.

You took an extra one. I took an extra one. Yeah. From OK, great. It's staying in your mouth. Oh, Michael's in the chat. Yeah, I'm seven. Seven out of 13, seven out of 13. OK.

So remember, Major Wound is like more than half in one pop. Yeah, you know. So, yeah, a major wound is like more than half in one pop. Yeah. I know. Um, so yeah, honestly, it seems like these tendrils can't give you a major wound, but Faerûs could've. Uh, luckily she only broke ten. Absolutely, could've like really wrecked me. Alright, so seven out of thirteen you're at.

What the hell is up with me? Oh, sorry! Fucking hell! Um... Do you want to try and dodge this thing? Uh, yes Yes, fight back Dodger is there a world where I fight back with my flashlight by trying to keep it at bay. Oh Yeah, that'd be a combat maneuver. So you're just gonna kind of like ghostbusters it. Yeah, I'm gonna try to ghostbusters it

Or that be dexterity? Interesting question here. That would be... Do a brawl. Do a brawl because it's really the speed with which you can pull this out and put it forward. It's really a combat maneuver, but we're going to go with brawl. Okay. Oh, sweet. I rolled an 18 under 55. That's a hard success go with brawl. Okay. Oh sweet. I rolled an 18 under 55

That's a hard success for the for the brawl for the fight back. And I rolled a 98 Over my score so I fail So three three tendrils only one has stuck Faehruz next one is coming at Carter who's already hurt Carter. What do you want to do? My dodge is so low It's like a 31 Think I got a fight back. So pissed at this thing. Hey It's just like you have to get a step above the yeah

All right, no, I hate these foggy tendrils You've got that flashlight already on it. Yeah, actually Give yourself a bonus die where you've got that flashlight. It's receding So give yourself a bonus die to this attack. Okay, trying to play I'm trying to keep like four different stories in mind here, but you've got the flashlight you're holding it back Give yourself the bonus die. Okay, so that's our regular success to start with 53 under 77 success to start with. 53 under 77. 23 under 77. So that's hard. Okay. And that was a dodge? That was a fight back. That was fight back. Okay. Great. I had a regular success, so the hard success beats

it. You don't get plugged up. I got two more tentacles. This one's coming at Margo. Margo. Got two more for you I get up so basically because you've already dodged this round. I get a bonus time here Let's see and I can't dodge again. You can't however. I roll I failed both roles Okay, and then the last one is either coming at fair use who's already plugged up or Desmond one two three Feyruz four five six Desmond That's a five Desmond. All right, so this one comes at you Desmond same thing. I got a bonus die And I rolled an extreme success. So you get plugged up So Feyruz and Desmond are gonna take another point of damage this round I don't know if you already took it Feyruz

Yeah, now you guys have a chance to act and it seems like you've figured something out. So Desmond you're now down to six out of 13 and Feyruz I'm not sure where you were you at. I'm at eight. You're at eight. Okay so everybody's really beat up by this unseen monster but Feyruz lit a scarf it seemed to recede from the light coming off the fire and then Desmond now and Carter are flashing flashlights at it and it's starting to pull back. It is Margo's turn. As part of my move action, I get my flashlight out too to help.

I think Carter's free, so I try, even though I don't know if he'll listen, to be like, get out of here, like run, I'll help the rest of them and we'll find somewhere to go. You're not gonna leave. Fruitless. And I think she sees Desmond is like struggling the most, so she goes to try to pull it out of his mouth or nose, wherever it is. Okay using the flashlight as well. To help, yeah.

Okay, go ahead and give me a strength roll with a bonus. Right, here we go. First roll is a fail. Second roll is a regular success. And I failed, so you're able to pull Desmond free. We're also flashing this flashlight on it Desmond It's your turn. Feyruz is the only one plugged up, but you see this thing like really pushing back So what so every time more flashlights come on it?

Yeah, when the third flashlight hit it did it like go back even further or yes? Yeah, like now the only thing it's almost like the entire Monstrosity is being pulled back and there's this one wispy tendril that is connected to Faerûz and you can see it now in the light. This like being of nothingness and one long tendril receding from the back still plugged into Faerûz. And it's Desmond's turn. You're pushing it back. Yeah, we're all, all our beams are kind of like hurting various tentacles away. So we need to get Feyruz's flashlight for sure. We need to save her life too.

But that's awesome. I guess if one hand is trained, is voice holding the flashlight, keeping a tendril at bay, the other hand will assist with her pulling free from the one wispy tentacle that has her... So it's almost like you grab her maybe around the waist while you're holding the flashlight and you're just pulling her away. Going backwards. Alright go ahead and give me a strength roll with a bonus die against my strength roll.

Okay, first one was a fail. Let's see how the bonus helps me. Oh, that's a regular success. I got a hard success. It still holds on. However, Faeruz now has the chance to get multiple bonus die on her turn. It is your turn, Faeruz. He's still pulling you, so you have that added thing, but you also don't have your flashlight up yet. What do you do? I don't. Um, so I'm going to, I'm going to, if, if as my movement, if I could take out my flash, cause I'm sure that scarf is burning down, uh, take out the flashlight and with the other hand, just kind of yank that tendril out of me. All right. Give yourself two bonus die.

Cause you've got Desmond helping you, and the flashlight. Whoa, I think that's a, that means it would be a five, right? That would be a five. That's a five. I rolled a five. Under 75? Under 75. I had a hard success,

and your extreme success Beats it you pull it away, and this is what happens you pull it away your flashlight goes up And it's like I said Ghostbusters. That's really what happens that you guys cross the streams and this thing just like And the fog in the entire area dissipates. And you're... Exactly, actually, yeah. Oh, busting does not make me feel good. I'm joking. All of a sudden the entire street can be seen almost.

I mean, there's still a fog in the area. It's London in the 1920s. But whatever this was, this extraterrestrial something was commanding the thickness in the area. You see it scream and just explode into like nothingness. Like it left this plane of existence. Right then. Run?

Run! Run! Run! What direction are we going? Um, and this way! And I'll run towards the apartment and just imagine like, up some stairs, slamming door click click click click click You shut the door. You take a breather. You turn on the light to your apartment. And the entire apartment has been ransacked.

Your shelves have all been turned over. All of your drawers have been emptied. Your bed has been stripped and flipped upside down. It doesn't take long for you to realize that everything you took from Hanson Manufacturing is gone. And we'll see you next week. Shit! Blasters. I have no words.

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Where's the body? Off the side of the ditch down there. You know, surrounded by all this crime scene tape. Hello, am I dead? My name is John. I'm the new forensic pathologist. I can see you, and that's how we'll figure out how you were murdered. That means ghosts are real! Since then I've noted multiple additional missing case files and even missing bodies.

Let's say I believe you came across some record-keeping discrepancies and a string of deaths. You're not an investigator, Jonathan. Stop trying to be one. After everything I've discovered, I just need, police, and medical procedural podcast with over 40 episodes already available. Then tune in to season 4 of How I Died, releasing now on all podcast apps. The Warning Woods has haunting horror stories that are sure to linger with you long after listening. I'm Miles Tridle, writer and narrator of The Warning Woods.

Each week I write an original scary story and share it with you on The Warning Woods. I've written two novels and nearly 200 short stories spanning the horror genre. If you're into scary stories, you need to check out The Warning Woods. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for The Warning Woods and click play at your own risk.