The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S2 | E7 – Spice It Up!

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Margot and Carter make a disturbing discovery within the Penhew Foundation while Fairuz and Vaughn are given a chilling warning. Watch the video here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtu.be/KNzjrgyjo_s⁠⁠ 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

We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight. Rockies, vacation here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet! Fast free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation.

Nice. On behalf of Air Canada, nice travels. Wifi available to Airplane members on Equip Flight, sponsored by Bell Condition Supply, CRCanada.com. Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about Wigovie. Wigovie? Yeah, Wigovie.

What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor. About Wigovie? Yeah, ask for it by name. Okay, so why did you bring me to this circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers.

You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wakovi by name. Visit wakovi.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network. The premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. It's Friday night and it's time for Chaos. You know, I think I mentioned this before and I know you hear it in the chat if you're

watching this premiere on YouTube, you probably see it in the chat or you see the ads or listen to the ads of the podcast. But I want to shout out our sponsor for this whole season, the publisher of Kala Kathulu Chaosium. They've been such an amazing help and support system for us. Big shout especially to Brian Holland over there who's just like become a celebrity in the nation as much as anyone. And they've got a lot of exciting stuff going on.

Make sure you head over to Chaosium.com and use code TFC for 10% off your order. It's like a no brainer to buy these books. They are my favorite books of any role playing books I have. I can't get enough of them. So check it out and use that code. And they've got a ton of new stuff coming out this year that I can't even tell you about due to NDAs. But you should still use that code now

because you don't wanna wait until later. Anyways, speaking of books, I, you know, it's February now, I guess. We're recording this still in January, but I think you're watching this in February. By now, some New Year's resolutions have probably started to wane off. The gym's a little emptier than it was a few weeks ago. And one of the things that I wanted to do this year was read more, which it's just impossible between work and three children. It's like it's talking about work.

It's fucking work to try and read something. But so far I've been I don't know at the time of you watching this, it may not be true, but I've been like doing a book and a half a week, which is just like, you really got to like be reading every free second. But I'm curious what, are you guys big readers? I know Ross, you're into a lot of Esoterica. You always mention some book that you're reading on Swedish surgery procedures from the 1910s.

If only. Sound off in the chat if you know the title of that one. Are you guys, is everybody a big reader? And if so, what are you reading right now? People like to get to know the people behind the amazing characters. Nora, are you an avid reader? I was, and it was actually like my New Year's resolution

was to get back into reading more. And so I'm currently reading. Oh, look at this. It's nearby. So you know it's real. How So Leaves is nearby. If you're a Cthulhu fan, pick it up because like right from the get go, I'm just starting it out so I'm not far into it, but it's already like super weird in the best way.

And I feel like if you're into weird shit and cosmic horrors and like mysteries, this is right up your alley as well if you're like watching this. It's easily the most recommended book in the history of the network. And I've never read it, but like everyone else has. Yeah, everybody's always recommended it. I feel like every time Joe opens his fucking mouth,

he says House of Leaves. Yeah, Joe was the first one that told me about it years ago, like pre-network, and then everyone else like Sydney is, oh, I've read it, I've read it, I read it. It's supposed to be really good. And also correct me if I'm wrong, it's like visually interesting as well. Like there's a lot of, I don't know how deep

you've gone into it, but some pages, like the colors change or like one word is always in a certain color. Yeah, they're, they're, they do some really interesting things visually. Also, if you've read Infinite Jest and you know all about like a book within a book just in the footnotes, this is kind of like a similar vibe to that. It reminded me of that. Yeah, it's been sitting on my bookshelf forever because it was gifted to me and everybody raves about it. And this was like, this is the year where I get back into reading and, you know, make

more time for it. So yeah. So far, so good. Rob, you a big, big reader? No, come on. I mean, fellow parents. Yeah, there's that. There's Baldur's Gate.

I read a lot in that. A lot of letters, a lot of journals I found. So most of your reading is the one page of every Baldur's Gate book. Part of it is it takes me forever to read. I don't know why. I'm just a slow reader anyway. I will say I got more into it last year than I had been in a long time. And part of that was just because I'm reading like, I got super into the Discworld books,

which I had never read. Discworld, who was that? That's Terry Pratchett. He writes, I mean, it's all like basically like, honestly, it's like GCN in a nutshell. It's just like fantasy comedy. Oh, okay. I mean, I've heard of Terry Pratchett. He did Good Omens with Neil Gaiman, which everyone loves.

But then he has just this fantasy setting called Discworld. There's just the inept wizard that I really relate to who is a protagonist in a bunch of the books. But they all, it's not protagonist in a bunch of the books. But they all like, it's not the same characters in all the books. It's like, you can basically just pick up one and pretty much be guaranteed that you don't have to have read any other ones.

That's cool. And there's like 40 something. They're great. They're also super quick reads and they're hilarious. Just nice, dry British wit. You have a good British wit. Yeah, I've heard of Terry Pratchett, but now maybe I have to check one of these out. I like that you can just read any of them and not have to good British wit. Yeah, I've heard of Terry Pratchett. But now maybe I have to check one of these out.

I like that you can just read any of them and not have to read the series. Yeah. Yeah, I read one that was called Guards, Guards. That was amazing because it's basically about the City Watch. So it's like a cop. It's like a fantasy cop procedural book. But they are all mostly inept. And everyone they're coming across is inept.

It's just like, but then there's like a dragon or there's a, so it's just like that perfect blend of comedy and fantasy, which is all I want to inject into my life. That's cool. Kate, I know you're not a big movie watcher, but what about books? Do you crack open a book from time to time? No. Next question. Fuck books, no, not fuck, it's not like movies.

I just, reading makes me sleepy. It's like hard for my brain to read. It's like the voice in there just doesn't shut up. And a lot of the times I'll be reading and I'll be like, I have not been reading this entire time. And then I get frustrated and it's hard for me to pay attention to like what's going on. And I just like, I'll like go through spurts while I like read a bunch for like a couple of months.

And then I just forget about it because a new video game comes out. Yeah. Yeah. So you moved on from reading. Have you tried books on tape? So I did. One of my good friends, when the pandemic started, she started a book club. So I was like, I'm going to try my best. And I could not read any of those books because I'm not even picking those books. Reading things I'm interested in is one thing. Reading things that

someone else picked and I'm like, what is this? Listening to audiobooks, I discovered that. That's the word I was looking for, not books on tape. I don't imagine you're pulling out your yellow sports Walkman to listen to it. One of the books I could not read for the life of me, it was Anne Platchett, The Something House. It's narrated by Tom Hanks. Sounds riveting. I was like, I could listen to it all day long. of me, it was Anne Platchett, the something house. It's narrated by Tom Hanks. Sounds riveting. And I was like, I could listen to it all day long.

I could not read it. What if you're like, it's this House of Leaves book, it's fucking awful. It's like sleepy, it's meandering, it's like a cozy slow burn book. And I'm like, I don't like that. I need action all the time. I've always been very anti-audiobook, but in my pursuit of trying to take in as much

information as possible, I'm sprinkling an audio one all the time with what I'm physically reading just to maximize reading. But as someone who's got borderline obsessive compulsive disorder, I have to make sure I listen to every single word Yeah, constantly like going back for when my want mine wanders while I'm driving and I'm like It's taking a lot longer to finish the the audiobook Ross I saved you for the end because I imagine you have a whole room in your home pulls out like a big parchment One of the dead seas my manuscripts and tom. I'm currently reading one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. My manuscripts and tomes. It's driving me quite mad. Honestly, y'all, this game has produced a – I love the idea of a book as a portal into another world and that you can string them together.

One leads you to another that leads you to another. I feel like people get into this game because of a love of reading of H.P. Lovecraft's work. As creepy as that world is, there's a fascination to it and an urge to dwell in it. I was looking at other works of weird fiction lately and I got really into these two British authors, Robert Aikman and Arthur Malkin. Arthur Malkin wrote before H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a big fan of Malkin's and his probably most famous book is called The Great God Pan, which is a very Lovecraftian creepy tale. He's got another great one called The White People, which is one of my favorite spooky stories.

Sounds like a book Lovecraft would enjoy. Yeah, yeah. It seems like a book you'd love. He's like, flew off the shelf into HP Lovecraft. He's like, nothing's scary about this. Awesome. I don't know what this was about, but I love that, Doug. Yeah. What's he writing about? Great. One of the HP Lovecraft's horrors are like,

oh, horrible intergalactic tentacle monsters, also Italians. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. He's a, he's not a well man. Yeah, what the white people is, I don't want to spoil anything about it kind of.

It's very eerie and interesting. He's got another great one I enjoy called A Fragment of Life. Robert Aikman is more mid-century, but also creepy, uncanny. They start almost like New Yorker short stories and then they take crazy left turns into nightmare logic. So that's what I've been digging. But also just, I don't know, the von Villiers of it all. I was like, I want to read a piece of Catholic mysticism. I picked up a book called The Revelations of Divine Love, which I think I mentioned in one of the episodes, which is this book by a medieval anchorite British nun. It's one of the first books in English written by a woman.

As a young woman, she experienced a divine hallucination, mystical vision, and then had it either wrote it down or had it transcribed by an interlocutor. It describes this beautiful and harrowing manifestation of God that she experienced which presents this comforting vision of divine love. It's actually a quite beautiful read. Wow. I'm looking at – it's got a whole Wikipedia page and it's pretty extensive. This is like – this is an old book. This was written in between the 14th and 15th centuries. Yeah. We're like Chaucer times. It's like it's being written. Yeah. Julian of Norwich is the author. Another British Catholic woman, Muriel Spark. I read a random book of hers called

Loitering with Intent that said post whatever, I'm yammering. Man, I'm just glad I didn't bring up that I was reading comic books lately. But damn dog, I also like audio books and the best audio books for me to listen to are big old history tones. Something like an imposing thing was like, oh my God, this will put me straight to sleep, Kate style. If you just have that running in the earbuds. That's why I recently finished Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, which I cannot recommend highly

enough. Holy smoke is the Nixon era crazy. All the turmoil and stuff for the past five years, everything old is new again. It all has happened before. I didn't realize, I was just ignorant. You know about Watergate, but Nixon was also doing all kinds of insane stuff. When George Wallace got shot, he was sending the same guys who orchestrated Watergate to try to go to the assassin's house and plant left-wing reading material in his apartment to try to make it look as though he was a far-left radical. He tried to mount a campaign by sending crumpled $1 bills to Jesse Jackson in 1971 so that he was convinced that

there was a grassroots campaign to support him to try to run Jesse Jackson as a Democratic spoiler in the Democratic primary. These are two of a billion things that he was focused on. Also just the ineptitude that was surrounding the entire situation. Oh yeah, it's a gong show. And so many of the guys who ran it were all these former college Republican students, which is why all those Nixon-era dirty tricks feel like frat pranks. Cause like it's all the stuff that they've been doing.

Cause they are. Yeah. So that was, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk for 45 minutes. Sorry. Well, I mean, look at the depth of character that you display with Vaughn. Obviously, all this work is adding to that. I imagine where you're touring with the improvised Shakespeare company, are you constantly reading Shakespeare on the slide? Yeah. Yeah. I was reading Twelfth Night lately. I'm trying to knock them all out. I haven't read

them all. I tried to do that. Through the big deep cuts, King John and King Henry VIII. People don't tend to read those. Pretty dry. They've got their enjoyable parts. Yeah, I was just up with the Shakespeare Company. We were on tour up in Pennsylvania and driving through the little – the countryside of leafless trees and gambrel-roofed barns. It was Lovecraft country, baby. That's great. Well, make sure if you guys haven't seen Ross perform, check him out when he comes to a town near you. In the meantime, you're watching this show and things are about to get crazy. I want to talk about last week and then we're going to pick up with a sarcophagus that just

opened and a staircase. Man, there's so much going on. I imagine that your notes are impeccable, but just in case they aren't, I'll do kind of a brief of what happened last week. What if we use other people to take notes? People who have read The Adventure. Like I don't read, but I write a lot.

Like I know that you guys are taking notes, so I feel like that's my notes. I got it all up in here. A good 40% is my notes. It's tough. I mean there's just a lot going on. Luckily there's a lot of handouts and some are relevant and some just aren't and that's purposeful.

We've established I don't like reading, so why would I want to read my notes? This group is operating under high school group project rules where it's like, yeah, we took notes, by which I mean Kate took notes. And then Ross reads them. As long as you guys meet in person once a week for drinks to go over your collective notes. Well, obviously that's happening.

You finally met with Inspector Barrington at Scotland Yard. This was one of the connections that you had to Jackson Elias. You knew that Jackson had spoken with him and then you see Inspector Barrington's name mentioned again on an article that Jackson was researching when he got into town about something to do with these Egyptian murders, these string of murders across London of Egyptian nationals. That seems to be the one underlying thing tying them all together.

So you meet with him to talk about, you know, what he was talking with Jackson about, and also like, what's the deal with these Egyptian murders? And you learn a little bit about him. He's not being completely forthcoming. There's some information he doesn't feel comfortable sharing as it is an ongoing investigation. He also is pretty clear like, listen, I don't know what you're after, but seeing what happened

with your friend who clearly got in a little too deep, leave this to the professionals. If there's information you have, I'm happy to hear it. I'm in fact kind of desperate to hear it because the investigation isn't going that well, but don't go being a cowboy out here. We frown upon that. You share with him about the cult of the bloody tongue and he is like, well, that's interesting because Jackson believed that these murders had to do with something called the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh.

You guys mentioned the Penhew Foundation and you mentioned that you had met with Edward Gavigan and you get the sense that Gavigan didn't have a very high opinion of Jackson Elias even though you didn't get that same sense when you met him although there was maybe a little racist undertone in his speech. Vaughn attempted to charm the inspector and fumbled and that's when he really started to button up. And then Barrington told you about the Blue Pyramid Club and someone named Zara Shafik from Empire Spices and he felt that when he spoke to her that maybe there was something

that she was hiding. So he had her tailed for a little bit but it didn't really lead to anything. Anyways, you go on from there. You're trying to find some information about this truck that you saw outside the Penhew Foundation called Ferris and Sons which you haven't been able to get a hold of anyone yet so you're still trying to figure out what's going on there if there's any sort of connection to anything. Meanwhile, you split up. Margo and Carter go to try and break into the Pentahue Foundation

at night while Vaughn and Feyreuse go check out this Blue Pyramid Club. So Vaughn and Feyreuse, you go to the Blue Pyramid Club and it's a members only club. You pay for membership. You go in there and it's strange. You know, it's very Egyptian. There's music, there's a coffee room, there's hookahs, there's drinks and everything. You start talking with someone and maybe you're being a little bit too loud about the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh.

It sounds like a dancer may have overheard you asking questions, slips you a note under your drink, meet me under an arch at, after the club closes I have something to tell you. And so you go and speak with this woman and she tells you that like the brotherhood is real and they killed my boyfriend, Badru, and they're very dangerous and they're led by someone named Zara Shafik, which is the name that the inspector gave and and She she she wants revenge and she knows that there there's a truck that comes once a month and Takes a bunch of people from the blooper pyramid club. She thinks outside of London

She tried trailing them once but lost them in the fog So info dump. Meanwhile Margo and Carter break into the Penny Foundation, hop over, pick the lock on the back fence where you saw those guys loading stuff in, go in the back door, break into that red door that was jumping out at you and you can't open it because there's boxes stacked up in front of it

which doesn't make any sense. How would you even be able to get in and out of the room if there were boxes blocking the door? So you go into Gavigan's office and you find a secret bookcase that leads to this secret room. There's all sorts of stuff in here, but the thing that really jumps out at you is this sarcophagus sitting on the floor.

You try to open the lid. It doesn't open, but then you notice that the eyes of the sarcophagus look like they can be depressed. So you depress them and this like mechanical engine whirs up and the lid moves to the side and there's a staircase going down below ground. Let's do a luck improvement roll. The weekly luck improvement roll. Just remember if you fail your luck roll, add one D10 to your luck.

And then meanwhile, I'm just going to go over a little rules note. We had a little snafu with the rules last week. On a normal failure, you can either push a roll or spend luck. You can't do both. When you fumble, you can't push the roll. The impact of the fumble takes place immediately And it can't be negated through pushing the role and you can also not spend luck to prevent a fumble so fumbles a fumble That's one thing we I think we snagged last week any any luck bumps I Got my bumped up eight points nice

Seven The luck get luckier I got 8 points. Nice. I got 7 points. Woo! The luck get luckier. I'm going to take you right back to the Penny foundation. Carter and Margo you have bumbled your way into this secret room and there is a sarcophagus with a secret staircase. What is going on and what do you do? Margo is trying to go down it.

She's like hiking up her like, I don't know. She's probably wearing a trench coat, just shifting, getting ready, about to like step over into it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Uh, no. What are you doing? There's only two of us.

I'm going down the stairs. I just... The secret stairs. Yeah, the secret stairs that are possibly run by a dangerous cult. I get it. But let's think about the last time we went down a set of stairs that was possibly run by a dangerous cult. We almost died, and there was four of us. So I feel like we got some good intel here. I say we go back, round up the troops, we can come back. I'm down, I'll go down those stairs, you know. I'm not some, uh, I'm a brave

man. I'm a man. But I feel like I'm also a smart man. And I feel like a smart person, man or woman, would go down with their friends, would go down with their squad. Do you know what I mean? Instead of going down and maybe dying. She like kind of turns away, but like under her breath, but like, so you can hear goes, it's like Gunter's here.

Well, I'm sorry, what's here. What? What? Hmm? What'd you say? Oh, I expected this type of thing from Gunter, but not from you, Carter. Gunter tried to take me away from all of this. I'm not- He thinks it's too much, it's too dangerous.

I'm not saying- He doesn't care about the order. Oh, listen- You are parts of this with me. And you are still backing down. I am, first of all, Gunter, we are in agreement. That dude fucking sucks. Okay, I'm glad to hear you say it. But I'm not saying we don't go down there.

I'm saying we go down there in there. I'm saying we go down there in strength. You know, we go down there with our peeps by our side. How is it strength if we don't know what's down there? Well, uh... What do we have to show for going back to the group? Oh, we found a secret room, we found a secret stairs, we didn't go down it. Sounds pretty impressive, honestly.

Fuck, this Gunter thing. I guess no man can fulfill their spots in my life. That's not what's being, all right, listen, you wanna do a little recon? We can recon. Just a little bit. Just a little recon. Let me just check.

I just keep personal notes about my own abilities. Just looking at... Looking at my... Just looking at my stealth. Yeah, I feel like, okay. Okay, but can we have some sort of, can we set up some kind of ground rules? Do you know what I mean?

Like, if we see people, we leave. You know what I mean? Can we like not interact with anybody? Can we just, this is a recon mission, right? I'm down to come back. I'm no Gunter. But I also like living and I like you living I like you alive So can we do that? Can we have a kind of meet in the middle here? I

Just want to take a just a little peek and see but Might be down here. Generally. I'm all for peeky peeks. And then I guess there's other things we want to look for while we're here. It's not all about the secrets. Staircase.

Is it like pitch black if I look down there? Pitch black. You don't see anything. We've established that you guys have flashlights. If you want to take a look in there with a flashlight no Did we establish that we also have a shotgun? Oh, of course. I think you are armed Yes, and did I bring my cool knife? I think you have a cool knife I got a sweet ass knife, which I've inched my initials into. And it's also a comb.

The handle is a comb. Let's do a listen roll. Let's give a listen. Let's give a little listen, if you don't mind. OK. I have a regular listen success. Fail. OK.

Margo, you don't hear anything in Cardi. It's a good start. Really strained to listen in silence. You don't hear anything. Which is good because you also don't hear anybody checking the office. I'm assuming you... We shut the thing. I think we said that, yeah.

Okay. Just in case somebody were to do their rounds in there All right, let's Okay, can I can I turn on the flashlights and just take a take a look Okay, yeah take it. Yeah, okay, so she takes a flashlight out and shines it shine down there and you can see the the floor of I'm so pissed cuz this would fucking work in real life too. By the way on me just in my life Shines it down the stairs. Shines down there. And you can see the floor of the- I'm so pissed, because this would fucking work

in real life too, by the way, on me, just in my life. But keep going. You can see the floor of the room below. Looks like you see the edge of a desk, perhaps, with some papers strewn across it. And then there are, looks like crates and boxes, as well as maybe some other furniture. And there is a smell of like candles long since burned out in the air. I really just think that there's another, you know, angry pit full of bodies down here. Yeah, it kind of makes me feel bad for all the big fight I put up. I mean, I guess it's like a spot hidden kind of situation. Like, let's look for something that's kind of sticking out.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, like maybe I climbed to the top of the stairs. All right. So there's a, you know, it's a ladder. So you kind of like put your foot on the ladder. You kind of climb into it, hold the flashlight down. Give me a spot hidden.

Spot hidden. It's 49 under 69 regular success. You see several crates about and they all look like open and empty except for two which are still sealed. And it also looks like there's some artwork down there as well as some statues decorating the room Does it look like storage does it look like a room that's decorated that someone's hanging out in the ladder Ladder means the second. Yes. It means the ladder that girl It means the ladder that you're on. The ladder that you're on.

Crashes and falls to the ground. What was the question? The ladder. Okay. Yeah, it looks like a place that someone is spending time. But you don't know what they're doing. But it's just, we can see four walls, I mean that's it.

Yeah, well like, you know, from your vantage point at the top there it's hard to tell, but it seems like it's just one room, one small room Okay Do these crates is there any way to? ascertain I know it creates a crate But is there any way to ascertain if these crates are similar to like the crate we saw get on the on the truck

Is there any like markings that look the same or like anything like that? Yes, and a roll or such as with the flashlight to try it's it's hard to tell from this far away. It looks the same. It's like the same kind of grid. Okay. They might have a standard pen you've great. Right. Okay. Is it also dusty coming down here too? Or is this more like of an active path? Yeah, not dusty. It's a space that is used. And the fact that you can smell candles still is like used recently.

Oh. All right, so. Okay. Great. Done? I guess so. I guess it will just be hard to sneak back in here again with four people.

That's true. I mean, the fact that there's just a room makes me less worried about the four people situation. But I guess we go down there and just do some light rummaging. Can I step down the ladder enough to see the whole room? Yeah, you step down and you, your head like goes below the bottom of the sarcophagus, which is basically the ceiling of this room and you flash the flashlight about and yeah,

there's three chairs, there's the crates, there's boxes, there's also some shelves and books everywhere, some stacked, some on the shelf, there's other stuff on the shelf as well. And then there's artwork both leaning on the floor and hanging in the room. So like to give a sense of decor, not just for storage. You flash the light around when you're holding onto the ladder, you see a light switch down there, and you also notice there are no doors or windows whatsoever. It appears this is the only way to access this room.

Okay. Now, I know what you're thinking. You want to look at this artwork. But I just want to remind you the last time you looked at some artwork, I'm just keeping... If we go down there, I'm just keeping... Sometimes I get taken to a place, but I always come back. I'm always fine. Yeah, when you were tearing out your clothes and you thought that wings were sprouting out of your back. I'm fine now.

Pretty... Okay, you wanna go down there and look more? Well, what else did we wanna look at in here? Cause I don't wanna, cause... What else did we wanna look at in this building? I mean, this whole building was, this whole... I feel like this whole thing was just a like, look for what's something is something shady going on?

And we've definitely gotten there. We wanted to come in this room and maybe try to get into the other rooms that were locked with like the other artifacts. You wanted to look into his safe. We wanted to look into the safe and we wanted to check that red door. And the red door seems suspicious,

so we're sort of in that world right now. I bet you- There were research rooms upstairs that you were interested in, but you know, you also be like, you know there's a guard walking around and you're not sure what, if anything, is really interesting in there. It's like you really want to see what's in the safe. You didn't spend much time really looking at Gavin's office before you discovered this, and now you've found this secret room. So yeah, I guess it was just to kind of fact find and you stumbled upon something strange.

I think we've got some, yeah, we've got some great intel here. I can hear Feyruz's voice in my brain right now. She would love to be down here. Looking at those goddamn books. So I feel like let's just give a peek at these books. See what they say. And then I think we should skedaddle. We've got, we know that they're up to something. We know Penhew Foundation. Here's the other thing I want to bring up, Magoo, is that remember this whole like Aubrey Penhew funded expedition that went down, where they all supposedly died. Remember, people are talking about seeing at least one of them in Shanghai.

Like, what if they didn't die and they came back and they brought all this stuff and now they're spreading their culty bullshit throughout England, right? Like, we gotta be... we just gotta be super careful. Okay, that's all I'm saying. I guess so. We were a bit rash in New York. Maybe I'll take a quick picture down here before we leave. And then maybe we'll investigate Gavigan's office just a little bit more before we leave to see if There's anything else. Yeah, I think I should I think I should look at these books not look open them I just let's see what they say. I want to see down in down in the hole down and down in the hole Oh, you're gonna go all the way down is a hole Yeah, I feel you think Gunter would do that probably not no Gunter would not do that Yeah, I'm gonna go he does not have a space in my life.

Exactly. I'm gonna go down and I'm gonna do the brave thing and I'm gonna look at the sides of some books. Okay. Pardon me. Oh, excuse me. We shuffle by each other on the ladder, all weird. All right, so you do a weird ladder shuffle

and you descend into the hole. Do you want me to stay up here? You can do what you want. ladder shuffle and you descend into the hole. Do you want me to stay up here? You can do what you want. Okay. I feel, I wish I could point out, I think it's important that a woman does whatever she wants to do. I don't know what Gunter is on that either.

Look at these books. She rolls her eyes and stays on the ladder for now. Margo de Saz on the ladder and you descend. I want to check back in with Vaughn and Fae Ruez. You've just kind of been, it's late at night now. You've got to head back to the hotel. I mean, I think you would assume that Margo and Carter are going to be back by now. So I just want to see what this conversation is like for the walk or cab ride back to the

Waldorf. As you were just left, this woman just left you and like she was afraid they're watching. They're probably watching us right now. And she runs off into the darkness. It rhymes altogether too much. This Zara Shethik, Shades of Silas Naquane, what? Pardon? Shades of Silas Naquane, the fellow who ran the juju house, the demi-priest of whatever the bizarre rites were going on underneath there. Do you know what the thought that occurred to me? And maybe I am just looking for threads here.

I could be absolutely wrong, but I can't help but think. We found out that there were these other mysterious murders in the countryside, yes? Yes. With the little... alluding to even preposterous things like lycanthropy or whatnot. Yes. People being told toafik and how she is transporting people from this club on a monthly basis, I wonder if we could see if any of those dates match up. Yes. Too right, Ms. Shablon. She mentioned it was once monthly, the third Tuesday of every month, that the shipment of people went out, she claimed, outside environs of London. If the murders going on in the countryside correlate to that general timeframe, it might be that the two are connected. Although

she did say she lost them in the fog, so there's a chance that they never left the city at all, but fault. So there's a chance that they never left the city at all, but rather gave their pursuer the slip and burrowed into whatever horrid warren they are doing their rights and practices in. They seem to favor subterranean grottos, caves, things accessed by steep, unwieldy ladders. Things accessed by steep, unwieldy ladders. Quite so. So yes, we should look into those dates, and perhaps, if you're feeling up to it, perhaps we do a little stakeout the next time they're set to venture out. Yes, at the club or at the...

Well, what if we followed them? Yes. It's rather early in the month, is it not? Wouldn't it be a couple of weeks until the second, the third Tuesday came up? Am I right about that? Yeah, that would be probably like two weeks away, we'll say. Yeah, because we were, it was February 5th. Right.

If our investigation, if our investigation bears no fruit by that time, then I think tailing that truck that leaves the club is certainly in the offing. In the meantime, I'm curious if that truck isn't the same vehicle that we saw parked outside the Penhew Foundation. One can't let one's imagination run too wildly, but it seems too great a coincidence to really let go of. Right. We don't want to force a situation where we're trying to forcefully connect things, and that way we would be

pigeonholing ourselves into one situation where it would force us to not see the obvious around us. I can't help but think that those are connected and we should absolutely go investigate her... Yes, should we go to that spice house that she runs? Yes. In business hours, of course. Yes, although if Y'lecha is right, exposing ourselves to her, it may be that her and her agents, if she is indeed some sort of black priestess of the pharaoh, they're already watching us aware of our movements. It's safe to say that that's a possibility. As you say that aloud, you look around while you're watching and you're just

enveloped by the fog where you can barely see the lights of the windows where people are still up, and the fog seems to move ever closer ominously, as you say that. I feel terrible that we've been out and about and going to clubs and enjoying drinks and all, while Margo and Carter must be bored out of their minds. Yes, decamped in front of a dusty archaeological edifice peering through windows.

He'll rule not having even brought them anything to eat. Yes, indeed. No doubt they were already back in the hotel. I swear, if line of course, they didn't go in the damn place. That would be absurd, whatever. And then of course we cut back to Carter. Inside the room.

In the HBO version of the show we then immediately cut to Carter. Falling down the last step of the ladder. Does a light switch down there? Yeah. I operate more comfortably in the dark with my own little flashlight here, just because I don't know why. You never know. You never know. Light switches could be rigged to blow.

Oh. OK. Booby trap this whole room with a light switch. So yeah, I'd like to kind of obviously do make sure now that I'm on in the room proper It's not like a eldritch beast waiting for me look around You are alone you appear to be alone in this long room There's like a little sitting area and and a desk like almost like a little study area little man cave down here

Yeah, man cave you also see a chest an ornate chest that you couldn't see from above off to the side. As well as the bookcase, the artwork, and like I said there's crates and boxes that have all been opened and emptied except two where the litter is still on. And now that you're down there, yeah it looks pretty similar to what was put on that Ferris and Sons truck. Okay. All right, so, shit. Okay, so, I'm not looking at that artwork. I want that clear.

I want that on the record. I'm not looking at that thing. But this ornate chest, obviously, it tickles something within Carter. Just gonna go check that out. Okay. It looks to be made of carved sandalwood and it's inlaid with depictions in silver of kind of unwholesome looking creatures. They're kind of like a half ape, half lizard. And the arms on the creatures are unnaturally extended and they kind of extend and reach out towards each other.

Wait a minute. Half ape, half lizard? Like something that could come through a rift in time and space above somebody's head named Larkin or no yeah Larkin it does look very similar now do I need to do like a knowledge or something to remember that you could do a Cthulhu mythos I don't I imagine your mythos score isn't very high oh that's probably nothing but yes that's I mean it mean, it's just you, Rob,

and you, Carter. It's the thing we saw, yeah. That's the immediate impression you get, is this thing. But this is sort of a decorative, they're sort of artistically displayed on this chest with their arms reaching out towards each other right at the place where you would open the chest. But oh my God, that's exactly what it looks like.

Hey. What? Marco. What? I don't know if you remember, because it's such an everyday occurrence, but do you remember when we faced Larkin and we pushed him and we poked him

and we prodded him until that hole in space opened and they're all over this fucking box. What? I feel like you're around the corner now because we couldn't see the box from the stairs. So I'm just hearing you say that this image. They're on this box. I thought you were looking for books.

I know, but then I saw this ornate box. Take a picture of it. Okay, all right, okay. Should I open it? Should I open the box? Now it's like we've switched. Does it look trapped? Does it look... Does it look safe to open? It has hinges, right? Is it some crazy puzzle box?

Yeah, it's just like a chest that can just be opened up and there's no lock on it. Oh dear. Okay, I'm going to open this box. You open the chest and inside are two elegant silver daggers. They're sort of like inlaid in the box the box has a Felt depression where the two daggers are laying crossed Crossing each other at the blade. That's the only thing this box is meant to hold I Do like fancy knives

Shit okay, um there's two fancy knives in here. I don't think I want to, like, touch them necessarily. Do we just take this or do we leave it? Well, do we want to... it's not to be known that anyone came down here. Yeah, it's a good point, even though these probably would fetch me a pretty penny on the black market. You're teaching old dog new tricks. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, we just we know these are here. That's shady as shit. I'm gonna close this box. Close the box. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's look at these books

and let's get the fuck out of here and laying all over it and drawers. You see the artwork leaning against the wall. You see like a little box with like food and water in it sitting right next to the desk. Like a few days supply of food and water, and just other shit laying on the desk. Anything catching my eye on the paperwork, like crazy schematics to a gateway to hell or whatever? You scan the flashlight over the desk.

There's a receipt that sort of jumps out at you. There's various receipts for goods and services, but there's one like you flash on. Here, I'll show you on roll, roll 20 actually. Oh boy. Ooh. Okay. Cast iron walk in safe, custom built.

It's a receipt from Ernest Whitfield & Co. Birmingham, custom cast iron safety deposit boxes and safes. Their motto, our diligence is your security. It's an order number, a year, 1922, which is three years ago. And on March 13th of that year, a cast iron walk-in custom built safe was purchased for what looks like 108 pounds. It was delivered and fitted by Henson Manufacturing in Derby for 24 pounds, for a total of 132 pounds. And then a little note, paid with thanks. That's nice. They thanked him when they paid him. Wow, so walk in safe.

Okay. And then you see another receipt that jumps out at you because you see the Ferris and Sons logo on it. It's a receipt from Ferris and Sons of London for the sixth month hire of a truck. from Ferris and Sons of London for the six month hire of a truck. Six month, okay. Just a truck rental. Okay. I guess, unless we've determined it's already kind of happened in here, some sort of look around to see if this room is the location of the hidden walk-in safe. I can't imagine this room itself is the walk-in safe, right? That would be more than however much.

Yeah, that doesn't seem like the room is that. It's not like he paid like for a bunker. Yeah, so you scan around the room and you don't see anything that sort of matches that description. Okay. Although you don't know what's in those two crates. Right. I should know it's not in the chest. I imagine your curiosity has kept you at this desk a little while longer.

So I'll tell you, you also see a letter from someone named Punit Chowdhury, Mr. Punit Chowdhury of Ropemaker Fields in Limehouse. And the letter is relating to the warehousing and shipment of sundry antiquities to Shanghai aboard a ship called the Ivory Wind. Somewhere, someone's writing this down. Somewhere, someone's writing this down. I'm typing away. Chowdhury of Ropemaker Fields, yeah. So yeah, you've got this receipt of goods and

services from Henson Manufacturing and Derby, a receipt from Ferris & Sons for the rental of the truck, and then a letter from Mr. Puneet Chowdhury of Ropemaker Fields and Lion and line bus that's in London Relating to the warehousing and shipment of sundry antiquities to Shanghai aboard a ship called the ivory wind There was a picture we had of like a port that looked like it could potentially be Didn't we see like a boat? I? Believe it was Jackson Elias' apartment.

You saw a photograph of a boat and the background, you couldn't see what the name of the boat was, but the background did give you the impression of somewhere in the Orient. Right, okay. By this time, Margo's like like if you looked at the books yet, and she comes all the way down the stairs and is looking at the art Just ping that your time down here

Okay, great. Yeah, sorry. It's, there's a lot of interesting clues on this desk. How about this? I'm gonna pry open, I'm gonna try to look in one of these crates. You check out those books. Okay. We'll speed things along here. All right, tall crate or small crate?

Oh, tall crate. Okay. Now, is there a way, this is like your standard, like wooden, like it's nailed in kind of thing. Looks like you could pry off the lid pretty easily. I would love to do it in such a way, and tell me if you need a roll for this, to do it so I could put it back,

so it doesn't look like somebody pried it open prematurely. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm not gonna have you do a roll here. Just have you carefully pry open the lid. Margot, you're looking at the artwork or the bookcase? I said I was gonna look at the books, but I start looking at the art.

So you get distracted, typical artist, by the artwork. As Carter is sort of carefully opening this tall crate you look over the artwork and you know after meeting Mr. Gavigan you seem to be a man of means having artwork displayed around statues that doesn't seem very out of place. However, these particular pieces are very unsettling. Similar to the way Miles Shipley's art was unsettling. You see

a dark winged thing that seems to be both leprous and scaly. There's a winged, hulking beast with a dragon-like tail and a jaw that is like fang-ringed, almost like a lamprey's mouth. Does that look familiar to me? It does look familiar, but then you think, like, did I see the mouth of that thing that flew at me? I don't even remember, because it all happened so fast.

This room is like a regular cavalcade of memories. Just... Yeah, you wish that, like, you know, Faerûz was here to, like, sort of do a archeological role, as it were, in the meta of the game. A game a role to determine like how old these things are but some of these look very old like you would you just wouldn't know this I don't think but another painting is like you see a group of prowling beings they look like humans but their eyes are way too big for their face.

Their eyes take up about 75% of their face and their faces are all disfigured and they're just sort of prowling. Then another one that has these red-orange colored bursts of light that are gathering around a tall dark humanoid that itself seems to be composed of fire. It's just a lot of very strange imagery. Give me a sanity roll. Okay, here we go. One's just an Iron Maiden cover, album cover. Yeah, one's just...

Eddie. I think this is pretty hard. 34 under 95. E. 34 under, yeah, it's gonna, you've seen worse at this point. Power for the course. Oh, I can't wait to bring Faerus down here. She's going to love this.

Come on, Carter, hurry. I'm trying. So, you know, you're able to withstand any sanity loss while looking at this grotesque And sometimes horrific artwork And then meanwhile you hear a pop as Carter pulls off. That was my shoulder fuck lid of the tall crate And you see stenciled

Along the outside of the the or the inside of the lid rather, is writing in Chinese characters and then also written in English. It says, Ho-Fang, import-export, 15 Khao Yang Street, Shanghai, China. And then in smaller letters right on the front of the crate it says Attention! Honorable Ho-Fang. So perhaps the owner of this Ho-Fang import-export. You look inside and there's a bunch of straw and what looks like a corroded brass statue inside Okay of anything in particular

You'd have to pull it out to see uh-huh to see what's going on Carter closes the lit Neatly puts it back on something was in there No Tintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintintint It looks like some sort of bulbous thing, but the top of it is like an Asian rice hat. And it seems like under the hat is like a mass of something bulbous coming from the face of this figure. It's like a statue of some sort of figure. Okay.

Bulbous hat person. Okay. Okay. There's something in here. It's a bulbous person with a hat. Bulbous. Yeah. And I'm gonna open this other crate. Oh, I'm gonna carefully put this other thing back. As you, you know, kind of brush it back and start to close that crate you feel very very cold. And there's no windows or doors here just like cold air rushes against you. Okay. I mean it is England it's a little drafty. You go over to the second crate and stenciled on it. This is the smaller one. It says Randolph Shipping Company, Port Darwin,

Northern Territory, Dominion of Australia. All these threads are coming together. And along with that stencil is a curious symbol that looks like a combination of a almost like a stylized deer's head or some sort of creature with wings. You can't tell if it's antlers or wings the way in which this depiction is artistically done. In smaller letters are the words personal to Mr. Randolph.

You open up that crate similarly, like being very careful, and laying on more straw is like a 16 inch 16 inch high representation of a fat Dragon like figure whose evil looking head is like fringed by tentacles And it shocks you enough to provoke a sanity It's just like it's like looking at you. Yeah. Ah! Are you okay? I'll tell you in a second.

Fuck. Nope. Uh, no I failed. All right, give me a one D two sanity loss, so roll a D six. You lose one on one two, two two on three four three on five six Wait, no, that's no I fucked up. You've rolled a d4. Yeah, that's okay. Great. Whoo One one. Okay, so it just seems like this fat winged

Tentacle mouth thing is staring at you. There's a real creepy winged tentacle mouth thing is staring at you. There's a real creepy tentacle face. I'm not into these crates, I'll be honest, right now. Okay, well. I'm shook. Let's go. Let's go, I think it's time to go. I got a little draft going, I think I wore my ankle socks. All right, and then I start closing the lid for this one. You start closing the lid.

Margo, you did come down here to look at the books and there's like there's a lot a lot going on down here But if you are worried about time You're just kind of doing a quick glance at like what is this gentleman reading these days and there's There there are these people the bookcases themselves are beautiful walnut bookcases The bookcases themselves are beautiful. Walnut bookcases. There are, all the shelves are glass protected. And there's books and notes and scrolls behind them. So there's some jars as well.

And you see volumes in German, French, Latin, Spanish, and then a couple in English as well. There's just a lot going on there. And I'm assuming you're just kind of like and then get the fuck out yeah I think at this point we need we need our other yeah other two right and if the intention is to like make it look undisturbed down here I'm assuming you don't want to take anything so right climb the ladder and you get back upstairs.

Depress the eyes on the sarcophagus again and luckily it works. Close sarcophagus. You come back into that little tiny space that was like the secret room before the secret room and then you are just outside of Gaffigan's office. You slide back into there. What else do you wanna do here before you turn in for the night?

Anything just a quick scan of Gaffigan's office we didn't do that I Feel bad because this is like 20 minutes of us just like I look for this yeah, I look for this too Yeah, I thought about that. You know that's why I checked in with them But at the same time it's like this is an information dump that is for everybody. Yeah, I thought about that. You know that's why I checked in with them, but at the same time It's like this is an information dump that is for everybody. Yeah But Yeah, you have an opportunity here, so you might as well use it You're you're just looking around his office just to make sure and yeah, how about before we fuck? Yeah, and it's up to you Troy like if think I should make another Do another listen roll listen for any rounds going on before we take the time to just quickly look in the yeah

I'll say that you guys have an active listening right now And you would know someone isn't gonna surprise you because they don't it you would think don't expect anyone to be in here All right, so Looking around his office. Give me a spot. Let's give me a spot in see if you if anything really else jumps out at you Okay, ooh This might be extreme 12 under 69 Darling, I don't know why I rolled an extreme Sorry, so

extreme success You do Okay So, extreme success. You do... Okay. There's a photograph on his desk that kind of jumps out at you. It's like in a silver frame. It's this beautiful three-story country mansion. And you see that it does...

There's like tiny letters in the bottom right that say Miser House. M-I-S-R. Perhaps his family home, family estate. And the only other thing with Extreme Success that really jumps out at you is that one of... If you're just checking his desk, one of the drawers to the desk is locked. Well, if you don't mind, I might... If you're just checking his desk, one of the drawers to the desk is locked. Well, if you don't mind, I might see if I... You got a locked... You got something locked? Yes, just this little drawer is locked.

I just... I wish you said you signed that receipt for the big safe. I'm just wondering where that could be. But yeah, there's a drawer here. It's locked. Let me try and get into this drawer. If you don't mind. Excuse me. I got a two under 48. Wow.

Carter just walked into this building. His locksmithing has been insane. Your skills, this is your perfect job here. I'm in Empower now after all the fucking showing Gunter up You open it up wondering what the hell could be and what do you keep in a locked drawer and There is a single Telegram sitting in the drawer and it's a recent telegram. Let's go back to the VTT and I'll show you. Give it, give a read there, Carter. All right, there's a telegram in here. I'm gonna

look at it. Worldwide Telegraph Service. Okay, November 6th, 1924. Did Giza dig well? Stop. All is planned. Stop. Work apace at my-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s This was dated June 11th, 1924, paid in full in Cairo, Egypt. Oh, right. Yeah, this is a third date. Okay. Yeah, that's important.

Okay. Wait, sorry, I'm confused. So it's dated 6-11-24, but then it says November 6, 1924 in the actual... So it was sent. Oh yeah, right. Oh, it's because they do the dates backwards there. They do the day and then the month and then the year. Oh, it's 11-6.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, great. Dude, I would've stared at that for everyone. Nice work, Kate. Yeah. Oh, I don't know, you got me, that's Cthulhu for you. Nope, just a dummy. They waited several months before they sent it Okay Clive

And that's all that really jumps out at you. You're already broken to the safe. Wait, didn't we just see this Clive name? This is why I should take notes. I think it was, well Wasn't it? Because there are other, the Penhew Foundation is involved in other Archaeological digs and I I think this is one of those. Okay. You know they have their hands in several of the digs. They fund those digs. Is there something about this one that makes it need to be behind a locked drawer?

You don't know. Nothing really jumps out at you but certainly something to file away. You said, Troy, that right now it's 25, right? We're in 1925. 1925. February 1925. And the the Carlisle expedition has happened by this point. Just trying to line it up. Whatever we can go through them. Yeah. What does that received by. There's also this received at JJ slash LD or something. The handouts for these phenomenal.

So thorough. So I wish we were playing in person because like the box set gives you the physical handouts. It's awesome. Great. So that's what you see in there. Assuming that you feel like it's time to get the hell out of here. Pushed our luck. Give me a give me a stealth role if this car I'm assuming Carter is going to go

ahead rather than like let's stealth together. Yeah. And run the risk of having Margo make a noise. All right, I'll give a quick peek. Hold on Right failed it Okay You're interested in pushing or yes Okay, what do you do differently reminder? I'm assuming the first time was just like a quiet peek or a listen Yeah, I well, let's see. Am I trying this I'm trying to first time was just like a quiet peek or a listen.

Yeah, well, let's see, I'm trying to stealth out of the room, right? You guys just want to get to that hallway, get back out because you left the lock kind of open so it looked closed. Yeah, Carter has a tiny vanity mirror that he checks. Oh God, excuse me. I bite throat, fail to check. You know, he's got his little perfumes and stuff

and he always has like a tiny little mirror that he only looks at one side of his face with. So I want to like stick it out the door and use that as like a way to peek. I like how he uses this to make sure his mask is all set. Alright so you peek it. What about there, give me another stealth roll. Uh, okay.

You can't push a... Shit! You can't push a push! You can't spend luck on a push. No, I failed it by six. I failed it by six points. Failed it by six. Alright so what I'm going to say is you put the mirror out there and it slips from your hand.

Ah fuck! Hits the floor and shatters. That's my best mirror! I'm going to be right back after this quick break. Oh, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. No! Try! Ugh!

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Here's what I'm going to say. You drop this mirror trying to get a better look. It hits the floor. It shatters. It's a tiny little van. It shatters. It's a tiny little van, it shatters. At that sound, you, I imagine you instinctually like look and you see a flashlight coming from like the front of the building. You guys are basically in the back and your door that you need to get out of is closer to you than this flashlight that's coming around the corner.

Whether it's reacting to the sound or not, you're not sure, but you do get the sense that that figure is coming around. If you make a break for the door right now, you feel like you can make it out before that figure comes. What do you do? We run towards the figure. We run towards the figure What do you put it like that?

Shit Margo we gotta go now. Oh, okay. All right, so Just open the door would love to kick the mirror dust Just to like scatter it so it's not necessarily like obviously in front of the door we went into it you know what I mean yeah yeah okay that's that's smart so you just you address that thing by just kind of like kicking it around so just kicking around yeah just yeah destroy evidence as much as possible and you bolt yeah and we just see the two of you go to the end of the hallway go out that back door that you came in and Presumably into the night and we stay there and we just see the security guard come around and

Stop in front of the door to mr. Kennery's little waiting area and Sort of pauses, looks around, and we fade out of that scene. We come back to the hotel and it's Ferruz and Vaughn. I imagine you've been there for an hour and a half, two hours before Carter and Margot show up. I would also think that you'd wait up for them because you weren't expecting them to be this late. For sure. So in they stumble at, I don't know, three in the morning. What are we like giggling from like the high of getting out?

Like approach. I was going to say you guys have ventured together long enough that there has to be this point, Vaughn and Favreau's, where you wonder if they will come back. Then that relief when the door opens and you see them. God telling, it has to give me a holy terror. I thought for a second you'd be here when we arrived. Well, what time is it? How long were we gone?

I don't know, but we're out of gin. We've been worried sick. Oh no. Give me a three o'clock in the morning. We spent on our gin. Nearly half of them. Well, you won't believe what we found when we went in there.

Oh my God. Yes, we went in. Tell me. We went into the red door room. What'd you think we were gonna do, just sit there and stare at this building for hours? I don't know, a plethora of things could have happened. Yeah, rather trenches on the definition

of what I thought stakeout entailed, but. We're the mystery squad, we're not the fucking Watching Squad! It was just so easy for Kratchit to pick every single lock, we had to. I'm glad you noticed, Margo, that's true. I did do a lot of lock picking, guys, and for the most part, I aced it. Steady going, Tailing Ass? Well, what did you find?

Because we too have gathered together some disparate threads from our conversations. Oh great, fantastic. Yeah, lots of receipts. Oh, so many receipts. No, no, you're skipping ahead. Who very found the receipts was in a secret room tied to... Oh my gosh, his name again? Gaffigan? Gaffigan. Gaffigan. I always want to say Gaffigan. I know, me too. Gavigan's room has a secret room behind a bookcase.

Why would you have a secret room? It's not good. It has a sarcophagus in it, and inside the sarcophagus is another secret room. Yeah, I want to back up. I want to emphasize it again. A sarcophagus is in a hidden room in Gavigan's office that when you push the eyes into it, it opens up and reveals another secret room downstairs, which I wanted to go down immediately.

And Margo was like, well, maybe we don't go. And I was like, let's do it. Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Typical Sang Freud from your tilling house to go down into the breach. There's so much cool stuff down there for you to look at. I didn't know what it was. It looked so old. Oh, you would have lost your mind.

What was it? There was very, very old art. There were books everywhere, just books and scrolls, and it was beautiful and it was overwhelming. I couldn't piece anything out. We were getting a little nervous, but there were crates, statues. I popped open some crates, two different statues. A chest.

One, oh, the chest had two fancy knives in it. And on the side of this chest, guys, you remember Larkin? Do you remember, I don't know if you recall this small thing. Larkin. Maitley remember him, yes. Yeah, lizard ape came out and told us he'd see us again. Of the sky? Yeah.

He's all over that box. So you're telling me that there's a secret room within a secret room within a secret room that has artifacts. Uh-huh. The transfer of artifacts as well. Yeah, going to Shanghai, going to Australia. Uh-huh. These are the points on the map.

Yeah. Yes. So you think those people are still alive and shipping artifacts back? I mean, I don't know if it's people from the Carlisle expedition, but they're definitely like the places that we've seen as potential investigative leads across the globe? It's what Mr. Elias was implying that this... The Cult of the Bloody Town, the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh, these are all multicultural organizations interlinked by strands of commerce and shipping, moving items associated with their dark arts back and forth around the globe. To what end, we know not, but um, the the Penhew Foundation then is is uh, absolutely riven through with with corruption at the highest order. Oh, yeah, they're awful. Also a rental receipt for six months for a truck.

I don't know what that's about. Like I don't know if it's the Farrison Sons truck or what some other random truck. I don't know what they'd be doing with a truck. It was a receipt from Ferris and Sons. Oh, it was from Ferris and Sons, right. Okay. You know that that truck that's coming and going, they have it on retainer for six months. Yes, they've rented an auto.

Hired a lorry in your speech. Yes, thank you, dealing ass. Yeah, I wanna make sure you didn't check following along. Yes, good show, good show. Good show. We've got some information and possibly that these all have to be tied together. I'm curious now as to the truck in our information that we received is the same as. Well, you guys found a truck too?

This is all implicated. When we went back to the club, or we went to the club, I should say, and nobody seemed to be really comfortable with us being there, but we did manage to get some information from one of the employees there outside who's waiting for us. Do you recall how we were given information about a Miss Zara Shafik? Oh, yeah. Who has that spice shop? Yes, we're thinking this might be another little Juju house as a part. It seems according to this dancer at the club, this Yalasha Assam,

According to this dancer at the club, this Yalasha Assam, apparently Miss Shafik is in cahoots with higher-ups at the club and trafficking groups of Egyptian expatriates, taking them by truck to a mysterious location she knows not where, after which they disappear. Now, she claims that they're being driven outside of London, but she cannot confirm it. She lost them the fogs before she could actually probe into what their destination was. And this happens on the third Tuesday of every month. Here again, we have something not unlike what was happening

at the Juju house, regular timetables, lunar calendars, synchronizing with occult and ancient rites wherein people are being disappeared, perhaps sacrificed or changed. And now you say that there is another subterranean altar or alchemist's lair where they're doing some sort of research or looking into ancient artifacts associated with their damned practices. It was more like a rec room than- It seemed more like a office, a very fancy office that someone spends lots of time in and decorates.

It did not seem like the bottom of Zijuju house where there was sacrifices happening and an altar. Not a ceremonial space. Artifacts, nonetheless. Oh, artifacts, two different statues, one of which gave me the willies. I'm not going to lie. I'd wager it gave me like one point of sanity damage. What a peculiar turn of phrase.

I have to say, we've all experienced some what I might have liberally done, the power of art in the past several days. uh, liberally dove the power of art in the past several days. Um, just a way to quantify our different attributes in a way that I'd never looked at inwardly before. But now I just, I could see it all. I could see the numbers behind it. You know what I mean? You sounds crazy.

Sounds like a madman, Tilly Nats. Why don't you describe your particular characteristics and numerical value. The subterranean room, it looks, It looks like it's frequented often it's not it wasn't dusty like the The first secret room was so when we go back We should somehow make sure that no one else is going to be in there. Oh go back. We must This gaffigan knows far more than he's telling Absolutely. Yeah, he sucks. Now what I presented to Vaughan was perhaps these other mysterious murders that were outside

of London. I wonder if the timeline lines up with these third Tuesdays of every month. Regardless of whether they are or not, I'm not sure if there's a connection. What we should do is I would love to do a stakeout at this spice emporium, Empire Spices, I believe it was, or whichever Miss Shafik's store is named. I'd love to do a stake out there. And perhaps on this third Tuesday, perhaps we trail our truck that we found. Maybe it's the same one. Yes. I think the only thing that gives me pause about that is I can't help recall how in New York, every moment of tardiness and the laggedry on our part only put Millie in more danger.

The more time we waste, the more of these innocent people will be absorbed into the orbit of this be absorbed into the orbit of this cursed brotherhood. But as a last recourse, certainly. I looked at a calendar of 1925 just for accuracy here and the third Tuesday is actually a week from Tuesday. So I believe right now it's early Saturday morning, like you're going Friday into Saturday, I believe. So because February 3rd, about a week and four days away is the third Tuesday of the month, maybe 10 days.

And the name of that spice shop was Empire Spices. And you also have been trying to contact Ferris and Sons, is another thing. You might want to try them again in the morning. Yeah, Ferris and Sons was going to be what I was going to bring up, especially now since we've got, I mean, we obviously saw the truck pull up, so we knew they had business with them, but just having them on like a six month retainer, there might be some way we can kind of get in there and find out where those trucks are going. Right.

If it is truly a rental situation, then it is employees of the Penhew Foundation or members of this sect themselves. This dark, dark sect that are actually driving it hither and yon. I'm sorry, my mind is groping at the edge of a precipice and it feels as though the truth is just about to coalesce and yet it slips through my fingers each time I try to reach out and take hold of it. An international brotherhood devoted to the worship of these ancient and diamonic creatures lauded over by this pharaoh in black, trading artifacts, moving them place to place, assembling them, using them in dark rites, ticking clock. And then the additional feature of we've already seen how certain of these creatures can take human form.

I think it's not to put too much paranoia into our blood, but... Artemis begins to wonder if this Gavigan character is quite himself. This Miss Shafik likewise. Well, with that lady, in retrospect, it was obvious she was a lizard lady. That house is disgusting. Well, hindsight's always 20-20 when you're talking lizard people. Perhaps you're a bohemian. Perhaps you've got a keener sense of this sort of thing than I do, Miss Sour. But to what purpose is all of this?

Yes, for what reason? Maybe you said the spice shop lady is like the leader of something? Maybe when we go, we can go tomorrow. At least for the club is what we gathered. She does seem to be transporting people monthly outside of London that belong to this club. Would we know Troy at this time period, if like thinking of the Ferris and Sons, would there be like a log of, even if the truck is hired, like do you have to,

do you have to like keep track of where it's going? You know what I mean? Finding a destination, I guess, would be the... Yeah. It's possible if they rented the truck, they just said, all right, let us know. Bring it back when you're done in six months. It's also possible that they have to account for its comings and goings, that they're using the Ferris & Sons staff.

We didn't know. Yeah. The guys that Ferruz was talking to, there was no way to tell if that was Pentahue employees or Ferris and Sons employees. Yeah, I mean, they didn't seem to look like any of the people that were working at the foundation. They weren't, I mean, that's what really made them jump out at you as you were standing there, this group of like suspicious looking people pulled around back. They looked out of place there.

Right. So they might not even be, yeah, they might not be Ferris employees either. They could just be the murderers that have rented the truck. Hired hands. Yeah. Well, we could see, we could break into the truck company and see if there's any paperwork. the truck company and see if there's any paperwork. For at least where it's like, yeah, if it's been rented where it's, the address it's been rented to. Well, I guess that's on the receipt we have, right? Or that we saw.

Like where the truck's being parked when it's not in use, stuff like that. Yeah, Vaughn, I don't know, man. It sounds like... Plus it's like, they're from all these different countries, and it's like, is that country influencing the type of thing that we're dealing with, right? Like, why are there suddenly lizard people now when there weren't lizard people in New York? Yeah, so this is the drawing together of disparate sects that are all now working as one? Maybe there were lizard people, and we just hadn't discovered them. That's true. Perhaps. Although, with our keen minds, what could possibly have slipped

through the fingers of the mystery squad? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, it's near, damn near three in the morning. Well, it's near, damn near three in the morning. I suppose I should turn in before we go and do these various tail jobs on the place of business of Ferris and Sons, Shafik. And perhaps we drop by Mr. Mahoney again to get a sense of the timeframe

of the Outer County murders. I would love to hear that brogue again. Oh, yes, the capital. And quite accurate dialect of Mr. Mahoney. Not since Tom Cruise in Far and Away has there been a more convincing... Yeah, I mean the other thing too is that these... I know it's like a stretch, but you know, I just double checked these articles. There's no dates on them for the sort of...

It almost had me and the the other sort of often the countryside horrors that are happening to assume that the truck went to either of these places you know if we want to start branching out into those locations and see if the threads connect yeah maybe tomorrow we can try to set up one of those we can try to set up one of those. A visit. Certainly. Right.

I love it. It's always important to do what you're doing. It's like, okay, we've got a lot of information. What is going on? How can we make sense of what we know? And then also like, how does this connect to everything we've learned. And that was wonderful in ways that you will certainly appreciate someday in the next 10 years. So we want to go to Shafik to see if we can get a sense of what's going on. I'll definitely

remember this conversation that happened at 1.49 pm my time on a Monday. See what Shafik's up to, see if Ferris and Sons can give us a log of the comings and goings of the boxes to see if the Penhew Foundation and where the shipments exactly are going. And see if there's any evidence that the people being taken out of the club or the ones being found killed. And before we go to bed, I will dip off to the telephone. And I think this is possible. being found killed. And before we go to bed, I will dip off to the telephone. And if it's, I think this is possible, if Fonks is like, operator, I believe it's rather late in the evening in back in America, but I was wondering if you might connect me to a Mr. Professor Gibran,

Arkham, Massachusetts. Oh no, Here we go. I forgot. All right, hold on. 3 AM in London time. I think it's like 10 PM in the Boston. Yeah, 10 PM. All right, so it's 10 PM on Sunday night in Boston.

Oh, god. I wasn't ready. Find it. Yep, find the voice. Hello? Yes, old man, I'm sorry. I hope I'm not calling too terribly late. Is everyone alright? Why are you calling at this time? Yes, of course, Professor. Um, I... I, um... Huh. Just rather happy circumstances that, uh, cause me to, uh, ring you this evening, and

I'm terribly sorry if I've, uh, given you to rouse from your slumber. Um, I-I won't belabor the point, uh, sir. I have come, uh, by means of the telephone, to, uh, do the honorable and gentlemanly thing and ask for your blessing sir. I have been a professional associate of your estimable daughter for quite some time now and in short she has bewitched me and i are am asking sir for your blessing to ask for her hand in holy matrimony i understand the uh speed may be considered awkward and the the haste and of course the great gulf of distance that separates us but um it is a happy occasion that brings my voice to your ear tonight and I hope that I can count on you for um your

blessing sir in short I'm in love with your daughter and I wish to marry her with your permission. What is your name? Right, that's important. Right, yes. You don't know a thing about me. I've called you up, given you that entire thing. Haven't really mentioned. I am Vilias, sir, Mr. Vaughn Vilias, late of Eaglesgrange, UK. Citizen of the British Empire, veteran of the Great War, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

I received honorable discharge after being wounded at Y'ye pray? And have spent the remainder of my life between Eaglesgrange and traveling the world on missions of intellectual import, not unlike your daughter, though I am nowhere near as decorated an academic as yourself or her. I have been an admirer of her intellect, a devotee of her kindness, and an admirer of her great personal and spiritual beauty. And I hope that I can be as honorable a hub's husband to her and son to you as you both deserve How long have you known my daughter That's a great question now Over a year

No, it's been yeah, I was even longer than that from Peru. Peru was 1923, I think, so yeah, two years, you know. Three years, we first met in Peru. This bit of a fellowship has blossomed in time to what I hope can be something deeper. Why is it that I have never heard of you? I can only say that your daughter's great intelligence and charms are perhaps matched only by her discretion. Uh, charms are perhaps matched only by her discretion. But, uh, I have been a constant companion of your daughter's, either in person or via letter and telegram over these past years.

I am, uh, I'm currently with her in London. She's in London. Oh, fuck. Yes, sir. We are by no means living in sin, but um, And nor will we until the day that our vows are Set in stone by the appropriate ecclesiastical authorities. Is she safe? Yes Yes, Professor Gibran. As safe as one may be in these dark times.

I understand how bizarre this request must seem. My feelings toward your daughter are entirely honorable, I assure you. And I promise you, sir, that I shall expend my last breath to keep her and our other companions safe. I see. This is highly unusual, Mr. Villiers. I admit it. Call my home in the middle of the night and ask for that which is most precious to me. Right, yes of course. Yet I feel as though I owed you the honor sir, not having it become a scandalous surprise to you.

Where are you and London? We're staying at the Waldorfer story in a suite of adjoining rooms. Good. You hear like a voice, maybe a female voice in the background? And then he just like muffles the receiver. We will get back to you, Mr. Villiers. Certainly. By telegram or letter, care of the Waldorf, or...

Here is the number. Certainly, I don't expect an answer right away. Any hang-up? I've... Well, that went as well as can be expected. This is amazing. Wow. Okay. This is... This is awesome. You sneak back and you go to sleep.

This is Slave to Duty. Guys get up the next morning. Saturday morning. Lots of new information. You've broken into the Penhew Foundation and found out that Gavigan, you know, all told has some secrets. Now, they may not be nefarious in nature, but you did point out that there is a lot of connections to all these places that Jackson visited, that Jackson was interested in. Shanghai, Australia, you know.

It's a little weird enough connections that it's worth putting a pin in, wondering what's going on with Gavigan, the Penhew Foundation, maybe that was Sir Aubrey's secret room, maybe Gavigan doesn't even know about that. You have to take all these things into consideration before you show up guns placing. Meanwhile, there's this dancer at the Blue Pyramid Club that tells you people are being

taken. Are they being taken to be killed? Where are they being taken outside of the city? Does this have any relation to what went on in Derbyshire and that this spice dealer that was a possible lead for Barrington who he dismissed may be the one behind all of this. How reliable are your sources? How reliable is your information? You're not sure, but it seems like you want to check out Ferris and Sons, at least call

to see if you can get a hold of them if not stop by or then last resort break in and read their records as usual mystery squad style. Sounds like you want to pay a visit to Empire Spices or at least stake them out. What else? And plan to, oh sorry. I was gonna say plan a visit probably to one of these, the articles, murders. Cause it's further away, so we'd probably not just show up.

Okay. See if those dates might match up at all. After, you know, I'd say 9 a.m. once you feel comfortable to make a phone call do you want to give Ferris and sons a ring if you do I'll just kind of push you into doing that you get an answer hello Ferris and sons this is is Glenn speaking. How may I help you? We're all just hovering over the phone around your face I feel like Faerus hasn't talked in a while

Steady on lady Yes, I was just curious. Oh, a lady! If one was to acquire your services, what sort of rates do you have? Is it a... Do you rent out your trucks to... what are the terms that you do to rent out your services? All right, well we have a number of different options. You can rent by the day, by the hour, and not many people do that for us, but we have had it. People are making small moves. Or there are long-term rentals available as well. What were you into?

What kind of project do you need a truck for? Well, you see, I am shipping some of my belongings as I am moving into the country and so I would require some time to transport these things back and forth, you see. Oh, may I ask where you're coming from? From Germany. Germany? I thought I detected an accent? Well, welcome to jolly old England! I'm working on assimilating how is my accent. I'd say, I'd never know.

I'd think that you were American, but German. I guess I don't know enough Germans. I do travel a lot. But my question to you is, would I necessarily need to have my own drivers? Would you be providing those? Or what is your policy? No, we just rent the trucks.

We don't have drivers available. So when you rent a truck, you get the entire truck. Now, with this, Germany would be from the train station. You must have a lot of things being shipped over that you need one of our trucks. You know, we mainly deal with commercial, but you know, if you can pay our rates, we can do whatever.

You would just need someone that would know how to handle a truck of this size. Right. Well, and then I just kind of like put my hand over the receiver. Is there anything, what is the system? If they don't provide drivers, then that tells me they don't keep a log

of where things are picked up and dropped off. Oh, do they take that? He puts his hand over the receiver. I think we're going to sell a truck to someone. We can finally pay for our kids' medication. She sounds like a rich German woman. And how do you calculate your rates? Do you put a log of travel?

How is it that you keep track of these things? You mark down the mileage upon taking the truck and then we check the mileage on return. At that point it's your truck. I always enjoy seeing a Ferris & Sons truck out there and I do catch them from time to time in my travels. I see a Ferris & Sons truck out there, and I do catch them from time to time in my travels. I see a Ferris & Sons truck, my father started the business,

and I took it over. I'm Glenn Ferris you're actually speaking to. Glenn Ferris, pleasure. Yes. And as I'm like, can we go and see the trucks? Where are they? May I, I'm not quite sure.

Yes. To be honest, your services came highly recommended, but I would just like to... Is it possible for me to stop by just to see your trucks and if this would be something suitable for my needs? Or would that be...? Absolutely. Yeah, we're open now until 5. I'll be here till 5. You can come on by and see if the truck will suit your needs. Absolutely.

Lovely. Do I need an appointment or shall I just stop by? Just come on by. I'm here all day. Just ask for Glenn. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Glenn. We should be stopping by sometime today.

It's Glen, by the way. What should I say? I thought you said Gwen. Oh, Glen, sure. Glen. Yes, Glen. It was lovely to meet you, Glen. Did you? I'm sorry, are you saying Glen? I just, it's Glenn with an N.

Yes, that's what I said. Glenn isn't a name. First I thought you called me Gwen, now you're calling me Glenn. Anyhow, I can't wait to see you. I'll look for a German woman and I'll know it's you. Right. My name is Margo and I look forward to meeting you. Alright, Miss Margo. Good day. Click.

Nailed it. That was so fun. I love starting the morning with fun jokes. There's a knock on the hotel room door. Oh. How now? Yeah. Walk over and set the chain and open it up like, yes hello?

And there's like a bellhop and he has a small box in his hands and he says, Delivery! Ah yes, I'll open the door, accept the box. Yes, thank you very much. Tip him. Have a good day! And he leaves. And, uh, you have this small box about, uh, about the size of a loaf of bread.

Is, um, there anything on it that says where it's from, or? Or Lizard Apes on the side? Nondescript, it just has your name, Ville, your last name and your room number. Huh, okay, I hopped the top. It's your business cards. Yeah! Yeah! Woo!

It's perfect. Oh, here we are. And they're like, and they're very Art Deco, and it just says, yeah, Mystery Squad, Est, 1923, right? 1923. Oh, yeah, that's what we're doing. Per request, the first name is Tillinghast, and then subsequently every other name is

in order of alphabet. Let's see, good work work here, Vaughn. Uh, man, someone should do some fan art. Sounds like a law firm. Like, what is the mystery squad? Well, that's the point you asked. That's, that's marketing 101. You get it. They look at it and they want to know more.

And more importantly, they'll come to me to ask. Great work, Double V. Very little other information. Very little. I mean, it seems to me that we'll be... Not to be too ambitious, but I dare say the Mystery Squad, if we continue this journey, may not keep regular accommodations. So we can perhaps customize these as we move around London and perhaps the world. I'm gonna get laniered.

We should have put world divides somewhere. Oh shit. Oh, you know. Missed opportunity. Anyway. You put worldwide, it's instant credibility. You're like, oh fuck, you're all over the world. Oh. You know. Ugh. Missed opportunity. Anyway. You put worldwide, it's instant credibility. You're like, oh fuck, you're all over the world.

Yes. Prestige worldwide. Yeah. Yes. Mr. Worldwide. Global. We'll have to verbally remind them each time. Yeah, we're all over the world.

We're everywhere. It's worldwide. Right on our, in our contact. Vaughn! I was just trying to fall asleep last night. I felt like I heard you jibber jabbering on the phone. What were you doing? Was I loud?

Just, you know. Who are you reaching at that hour? Oh, I know, terribly, terribly late, but my set of an answering service, you know? So take a message while we're out. Nothing of any import. Oh, alright. Fine.

I don't actually care. So who held you wrong? Yeah, everyone just, that sounds very reasonable. Alright, yeah, I actually didn't give a shit, I just, you know, just making conversation. So we do know that they do not hire out their own drivers. So we can assume that these drivers are either from the Penhew Foundation themselves, which seems a little unlikely, or perhaps associated with the Pyramid Club. Yes, it seems to me that the Pyramid Club and the Penhew Foundation form a sort of axis

where these two organizations are affront. Speaking only theoretically of course for this this brotherhood. By the way we also don't necessarily have to wait until the third Tuesday or whatever if we just want to stake out Penhew again until that until another Ferris Brothers truck shows up could be another option and then just follow that. It's true. That is an option. Um, we could stake out the spice shop.

Which I'd be interested in doing. I'm curious as well about this spice shop. Yelisha Assam, the poor, downright raving dancer who we met the other evening was rather hysterical about what she saw as the evil of the proprietress of that spice shop. Right. Yeah, we don't want anyone else to die. Should we split up again?

I've got a picture of her now in the sidebar, if you can see, Yelisha Esam. Oh yeah. Should we split up again, or should we go to the spice shop together, and then go to the van place together? I don't see a need to split up, really. Yeah, also, I mean, are we going to I know that man's Glem seems so cool

Look no, he's denying Glem's awesome When then if we it feels like I don't I don't know what else will get out of there It feels like I don't know what else we'll get out of there. To me, it seems like a dead end. I'm hoping that if more than one person goes, we can distract him and someone can go into the office. I know, but it sounds like they're not even keeping track of, they're just getting mileage and that's it. So I don't know, it'd be tough to be like, oh shit.

Well, especially since they probably haven't returned the truck yet. We don't even know how many miles they're going. It would be interesting. The only question I wish I would have asked is if the only thing I'd like to know is since it seems we wouldn't know the precise locations that their rental trucks went,

we could know if the Penhew Foundation rents a truck like that at a rate of once a month. Well, the thing we got- Do you think that that- Didn't the thing we get say it was like a six month total rental or whatever? They just got it for a big chuck.

Yes, so then in that case, yes, then we have, I suppose, the information that Ferris would be able to give us. Yeah. Sorry, what were you going to say, Favres? Those murders that occurred outside of London. In addition to finding the time of the month that that occurred, it would be interesting to know if that was, was that within six months? Or was that prior?

Yes. The Derbyshire murders? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there was a date on any of the articles. No. This one would be is it reward offered? There's police baffled. And almost had me I think was one of them. But then then scoop reward offered is is speaking of an unidentified for it was this is my memory now, that referenced in particular the Egyptian murders. And mentions Barrington, yeah.

That's who we were talking about. That was all in London, the Egyptian murders. The Egyptian murders. And we're not altogether certain that who we spoke to last night is altogether correct, that they are being taken outside of the city. It may very well be that they never leave it. That is very astute of you. Perhaps it could, perhaps Berington- This woman didn't know,

she didn't say anything, she saw anything on the, distinguishing on the truck, right, so we don't even know. No. Perhaps more than Mahoney, perhaps Berington would be a better call for that. If he would disclose to us what he knows in his investigation of the Egyptian murders, if they occur at a... discoveries of the bodies are made at regular intervals, then we would be able to connect

what's occurring at the Blue Pyramid to them. I feel like, oh, sorry. Well, I feel like based on our last interaction with him, we would need to show up with some evidence because he did not seem very charmed by us. Well, one of us in particular. Yeah, someone tripped over their own tongue. Yes, I think I knocked his inkwell onto his blotter. But you are correct, Margo, in that we did make some or offer some sort of bargain. It seemed like he would be more helpful to us if we did bring something useful.

And also not to be the resonant criminal, but just because we met a cop in the States that we ended up trusting doesn't necessarily mean this one we can trust. I don't know. Let's not get lulled into a false sense of trust in cops. You know what I mean? Yes, we've learned all too well. Well, whether they are connected or not, there's still something nefarious happening with them. Yes.

With this truck service, with this club, with people being whisked away, some of them not being seen. Let's see about this spice house. To me, that is the most intriguing and the most connected to the interview that Miss Gibran and I conducted last evening. Maybe we will find things out there and want to go to the van place after. Now, stake out is one thing to look at it from a safe remove. But Misha Braun and I are now perhaps known to the denizens of the Blue Pyramid. You, Ms. Sauron, and you, Ms. Tillinghast, are not. Perhaps you could actually go in and speak to the

proprietor is to get a better sense of what's What goes on? Yeah, I think between the two of us Just befuddle this woman with our wit Invalid in there you guys watch from the outside. I just keep keep track Sure. Yes. You guys were in that same area last night. And so the way Soho is, even though it's a little seedy,

there are plenty of outdoor cafes and restaurants. You could park yourselves at one nearby and just kind of watch. Yeah, get a copy of the Scoop and hold it up. Just want to peek over once in a while. I always imagine Scoop like an exclamation point. Oh yeah. Scoop. Scoop. Just to give you some context that may not be provided in the handouts, those murders

in Lesser Edale, I call them the Derbyshire murders, that's the area that happened three months ago. Okay. So when, uh, Jackson was reading that article, it was still fresh, uh, because he read it in December. So it was like, I think it happened probably in November. Um, and then the Egyptian murders is this ongoing thing. Um, and remember that inspector Barrington's predecessor, uh, while investigating those murders disappeared. And I don't see it here because I can't remember if it was actually something we saw the receipt for the truck for the six month rental. Was there a date on that?

No. No, actually there were just kind of thinking back that was fairly recent. kind of thinking back that was fairly recent. So it's on an extended rental. I'd say that it's probably a month and a half into its six-month rental. Okay. Got it. And if you disclose to us everything that you saw, then we're also... This means that the Pinnacle Foundation also has installed somewhere unknown to us, very large safe. It's a walk-in safe somewhere. Yes. Yeah, something by Henson Manufacturing in Derby.

But which if we could reach out to them, they may be able to tell us something more about where it is on the process. That is great. Just pretend to be Gaffigan and not remember. I'm sorry, could you just remind me with that giant walkie? You guys did such a good job. I lost it. All right, so off to stake out Empire Spices.

Yes, maybe if Margot and Carter, if you are to go inside, perhaps Vaughn and I will look around the back, check around the outside. Wow, so that is happening. Lovely. Let's head on over there after breakfast, which we won't roleplay, which we drink. You guys maybe take a cab in the direction, get out someplace nearby and sure enough you

do see a cafe that's like, eh, diagonally across the street. You'd love it to be a little bit closer, but you can, you have a view of the front door. There's just traffic going back and forth and it's on the other side of the street, a couple storefronts down and you see a two-story building at 76 Wardour Street in Soho. There's a big sign for Empire Spices. It looks like there's a store on the first floor and maybe an apartment on the second But you get the sense that the whole building is Empire Spices. So just keep revealing places we can break into Feeling back the layers

What do you what do you do there Margo and Carter you just roll on in Well, what is your game plan? What are you gonna tell the world? Well, here's the deal. We're a married couple who are looking to start cooking more. So we wanna like- I don't have a ring. She's not going to believe that I'm married. Shit.

Vaughn, you don't have that ring on you. You can't just pretend that we're married. Vaughn, you don't have a ring on you. Why do we have to be married? Vaughn is like fumbling in his pocket, just kind of absentmindedly. No, what? Do you have a ring? All right, I don't know what you're...

I don't know anything. I just assume whatever. What would you need? Your restauranteurs. Our restauranteurs. Got it. Yes. And we are looking to branch out our menu with more exotic flavors.

I think that's good enough. Let's go! Carter's grass. Perfect cover story. Margot's hand, it starts to walk again. All right, you walk in and right as you open the door, both of your noses are treated to a myriad of pleasant smells.

It's very, very pungent, but it's not like, it's not bad. It's actually very, very nice, even though, like, there's a lot going on. You see there are a few customers in there perusing the shelves, like holding spices up and sniffing them. All along the walls are shelves with jars of spices and then underneath are like drawers that you can pull out for probably like dried spices and everything is labeled alphabetically for the most part. It looks like there's a system and you see this beautiful, tan skinned, slender woman with long dark hair and enchanting green eyes speaking to one of the customers.

She's wearing this long skin tight black dress. Carter and Margot, she's one of the most beautiful women you've ever seen in your life and as you come in, she just – she smiles to you and gives you kind of like the I'll be with you in one second. And the two of you walk in and pretend to be perusing. And then I think this will go well with our dessert menu. She finishes up with a customer. She comes over and she says, greetings. May I help you find something?

Hi, yes. Oh, sorry. Oh no, go ahead. We are restaurateurs who are visiting from the United States. We're about to open up a new restaurant called Spice It Up. And we were thinking about just branching out from the normal American fare of grilled cheeses.

In fact, my wife partner here, we're restaurateurs who are thinking about getting married, but then abandoned that idea because we realized it was gonna get in the way of the business. Got you. Huh? Hi, we're just browsing. We're getting inspiration for a new menu.

I guess, is there, can you start us off somewhere? There's so many spices in here. Like, where would you recommend a newbie to start? I am honored that you would come to my store while on holiday. Yes, you say it's called Spice It Up. Is there a central... With an exclamation point. With an exclamation point. Is there a central type of food that you serve? Is it all spices?

I'm just curious where to, where I can point you. Well, I think that's kind of up for debate currently, you know, originally I just wanted to make it all Rubens but That was quickly shot down. He's Like looking at Margo But so no way I honestly we're sort of We're riding the wave of flavor here We're just trying to figure out what we see could inspire something new and you know We could also name a menu

item after you have should you put us in the right direction that's very kind but I aim to please if it is Rubens you are interested in we do have some exotic caraway seed that's probably not something you could find in America the type of seed that I have it would make a very interesting Sauerkraut which I believe from your homeland. I'm detecting a German accent. Yes. Yes. I love sauerkraut We all do oh yes, I it's not something I I do enjoy fermented foods But it is not a common part of my diet. Anyhow... Oh, so many probiotics you should get on board. Yes, I hear it is very good

for you. But please come over here and you're welcome and she shows you these these tiny little spoons. She's like you can sample but please take small amounts and you just put the spoon in and then pour it onto your finger to keep the spoons clean for the next customer and then you can taste the spices and if there's anything else I can help you with I'm at your service. Thank you so much this is very helpful we'll be exploring. Welcome and welcome to London. She goes back and walks over towards the counter and there's like a curtain and she pushes the curtain aside and goes into a back room.

So like as we're fake perusing, just kind of like looking around the store, does anything stand out is it really just spices out here it looks like a lot of spices like overwhelming and so if you want to make it clear that you guys know what you're you're doing it'll be pretty clear that you're a lost if you're not constantly trying things but yeah it appears to just be spices. The only thing that really stands out is there's this like... I don't know if he's a teenager or just, uh... like, early 20s.

Early 20s, mid-20s lanky kid and scruffy overalls, um, who looks to be possibly Egyptian, uh, as well. Um, same, uh, same tone as the, uh, who looks to be possibly Egyptian as well. Same tone as the proprietor, and he's just kind of bopping around, moving boxes, and doing stuff. But they look to be the only two employees. And there are other people there, maybe chefs chefs probably not American and German business people looking for rare spices

But yeah, just looks like a spice shop But there is a back room obviously and you do see at one point when she comes back out stairs leading up to Which from the outside look like an apartment, but nothing jumping out at you guys Okay, okay but nothing jumping out at you guys okay okay the back room is the same room that she's gone into yeah okay shit oh man you really should have thought this out more well there's I mean it's not not everywhere is going to be the juju house I mean it's just spices and then there's a back room and that's obviously where we want to be and we can't be there right now

Okay, so what we know right now or what we think we know about this woman is that she is human trafficking people Potentially straight to a location where they die. So how do we? Get information about this Let's see here. By breaking into her apartment. I think it's a great idea. How do we, hmm. I'm gonna try to distract her.

I don't think there's any way one of us can distract this woman long enough. Let's purchase the spice, and then we'll be very close to the curtain. You see the hours are from nine to five. So if you did want to break in, you would come back under the cover of night. But yeah, just standing there you think it would be pretty tricky to get back there. However, if you want to get a closer look on the sly, you could peruse the shelves nearby

there. And at a certain point, that young man is carrying some boxes back there. And so the curtain moves again and you see, it looks like a long hallway that stretches all the way to the back. The staircase, like I mentioned, leading up. And then there's like four doors that are all closed. So like three other rooms, four other rooms off of that hallway.

So it's a pretty big place and the spice shop only takes up a very small portion of it. And so each of those doors are different like apartments or it's just like an apartment that has a subsidiary? No, there are other rooms. They could be storage, it could be an office. They're closed so it's hard to tell but it's a pretty big, pretty big space with the apartment above as well. And it's pretty clear

that those stairs lead up to directly to there. So the whole building is- Oh, got it. Got it. Okay. So I'm sorry. So these doors are on the ground floor that we saw. Okay. Yeah. Looking past there, it's a hallway with three doors and a staircase leading up. Got it. Four doors, excuse me. You could purchase some spices and maybe try to chat her up, like, oh, it's such a, you have a lot of storage back there

because the store is so small and stuff. And also, do you rent a truck to move people? You've purchased such an interesting selection here. Ah, yes. We grabbed a little bit of everything. I was thinking just mix it all up. Yes, it's very curious. If I'm ever in, where is your restaurant?

Well, we're looking to franchise it across various shopping malls across the United States. I see is a home a main location Topeka, Kansas If I ever find myself in Topeka, I'll be sure to don't bend over backwards to get over there I'll tell you that check it out. All right And she's like anything else I can get you No, just these spices. Yeah. She's just like taking each thing and putting them in nice little bags for you.

You must have such a... Or you can put them all in one. No, you don't want to mix them. They must be separated. Well, I don't mean any offense here, but we're on the cutting edge of American cuisine. I will leave that to you then to mix as you see fit. You were saying, madam? Oh, I was just saying, the shop is so nice and you must have so much stock in the back there

of spices because the shop is so small but the building seems so large and you must supply so much around here. It's great business. I've done very well for myself since coming over from Egypt. How long have you been in the country? I've been here for a few years now. And I started out with just a small cart for my spices at open-air markets and whatnot.

And my connections to back home have made it a lot easier for things to be sent to me. And so I was able to provide certain spices that are a little more difficult to find. So restaurateurs, not just those of my culture, will come to me. And I very quickly expanded, as you can see. What part of Egypt, out of curiosity? As you can see. What part of Egypt, out of curiosity?

She mentioned the city that you never heard of. She said like Cairo. Then it'd be like, no, Cairo. Just outside of Cairo is where I spent most of my life. They got pyramids there in Egypt. Yes. Yes, they do may I say that you're just as striking as the broken face of the Sphinx It's very kind of you say I think

Well I was gonna I was gonna wait a patra and It's gonna work my way to a charm roll It's pretty as the broken mangled face of this All right, here are your fucking spices Any other the rude things you'd like to say I've been more than kind Yes, sir, but please stop any time time you find yourselves in the area and tell your friends, tell your American and German friends if they're ever in London and looking for the chance to spice it up.

Ha ha, spread the word. Come to my store. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a wonderful day On shore. Yeah, I guess we leave doesn't seem like there's much out in like the spice storefront Shocked there wasn't just a dead body in here. Just like relics on the wall If there was you'd never smell it from all the spices. Yeah.

We roll up to the cafe. Oh, wait. Did you guys go to the back? Were you guys staking out? Meanwhile, we would have head out, so we wanted to kind of have a little look-see around back. It's possible to move into an alley area or whatever around this place.

Yeah, so you guys kind of do a little scouting while they're in there and the buildings are pretty close to each other. There's like a gate with an alleyway separating the Empire Spice building from the neighboring building. And you can see all the way at the end of the alleyway is another door that looks like it leads out onto a backyard of the Spice place. But on the other side of the building, it abuts to another building, like on the next block. And then there's nothing to the left. It's a corner right on the corner of the street so you've got the adjoining building small little alley behind a gate looks like a yard back there but then another building behind that

doing your so your income so do you think if there were to be any shipments that this store sees do you think they just receive items from the front or do you think Do you think they just receive items from the front or do you think... Does this look like that alley? Is it a thing that a car could drive through? No, it's just for people to get down, to get to the back door. It's sort of slip through to the garden, I suppose. Assuming this is the place where nefarious things happen, the spice shop is rather a good front to send and receive all manner of things.

It just struck me, Miss Shebron, that when we went to the abode of Mr. Shipley, I don't know if you were, but I was... The entire time we were there, even though it was dingy and rather shabby, there, even though it was it was dingy and rather shabby. Worst of all, was that a herpetological aroma? Right. I could have never said what a snake smelled like, but when I smelled, I knew. Strikes me that if one could not control that aroma, a house of spices would be the perfect place to work. To cover up the smell, you're saying? Yes. It would be brilliant,

if that was the case. Again, one cantlethera, imagination run away with them. Do you want to hop the fence? Yeah, sure. Okay, I cut my hands and hoist you over the gate. All right, so I'll just have you guys achieve that with ease without rolling. You hoist Vaughn over the gate. Or I guess I put Feroz up first and then I climb over myself. And then you climb.

All right, so give me a climb, roll Vaughn. Oh. I'm going to say you can with ease put Feroz over, but now you've got to climb yourself. Are we coming around the corner and seeing like this is all happening concurrent? I feel like we're at the coffee shop waiting for them or something. Oh my God. You guys come out and,

well, let's see what the result of roles here is and then we'll do the narrative. I got a regular success. Nice. Okay. 15 under 20, not my best skill. Wow. 15 under 20. Make sure to mark that.

Oh yeah. All right, Margo and Carter, give me a spot hidden. Ooh, woo. Ooh, that, it's 2369. Is it extreme? I think that's, it's definitely hard. Yeah. But I think extreme is one fifth.

So that it would be hard. What'd you get, Carter? Failed. Failed. All right, so Margo, I'm gonna say that yeah, yeah What'd you get Carter failed it failed? All right, so Margo I'm gonna say that like you come out and You turn to the left and you see Vaughn see like a figure climbing over the fence It's not very far from like the door to the this building It's like oh, I don't know 20 feet away and you look and you see Vaughn hopping like, oh, I don't know, 20 feet away, and you look, and you see Vaughn hopping the fence.

The corner of your eye. This is not what you guys planned, but there they go. Well, I guess we deserve it, because we went into the sarcophagus. They're getting ahead of themselves, and jumping over the fence. What's happening?

I didn't see anything, what? It looks like they went into the yard, the backyard of the- What the fuck? In the daytime? Keep them occupied. Do you want to just wait? I don't think all four of us should.

No, no, I don't think, what the hell are they doing? They're having fun. Let's go have some coffee. They were having drinks when V went, now we can have some coffee while they explore. All right, you wanna get a latte? Yeah. I mean, you guys could literally walk by,

cast a glance through the gate and see Vaughn and Faeruz. You guys just, they kind of wave at you. How about we just block? Just to be like, Faeruz doesn't have the intention of breaking in. I just, she just wanted to run in, see what the situation was, take a closer look, and come back out quickly. Have a look at the back garden. That's what we wanted to do also.

Okay, all right, all right. So yeah, let's just keep an eye on this. Carter and Margaret, you guys get a drink and you're walking by and you see them. I don't know if you give them eyes or what, but you're just like, all right, business as usual. You go again to get the drink and now you're watching. Your lookout was goofing off. You guys go down to the end and you see another gate that opens up on a yard. Now

from the yard, you see the back of the the building there is one door leading into the building and then two windows on either side of that door looking into one of these other rooms that you saw you when you guys were inside and looked in the hallway and so just kind of putting this together as a team you realize there were four doors, one of them led outside, three of them led to other rooms. So two of these windows look in on two of those rooms. On those rooms that people didn't look into. Okay. Yes.

And I was also going to say then there's another door in the yard leading to like a small outbuilding. Okay, great. Okay. So we've got to get over another gate to get into the backyard, is that right? That gate that you're standing in front of, you can just open the door and walk right into the backyard. We'll quietly open that and crouch, kind of pressed against the back of the building. Just slowly roll across the lawn. Oh, and then kind of like clutch the sill

and pop a eye up. See if we can peep into the window. Yeah. All right, give me, let's give me two stealth rolls. Okay. Oh dear, such a low score for you, boy. Okay, that's a failure. Okay.

What did I... Oh! I failed too, but I'm going to spend some luck. Okay. I'm going to spend eight... 12 points of luck. Mine is too far of a leap to spend luck, so I think my only option is to push. All right.

So how did you initially approach and then what are you doing differently? All right. I love like, this is bad because my, my, myself is 24. Chances of succeeding here are so bad. I rolled an 83 over 24, but in order to make this not a fail, pushing is my, what I, what I can do. Okay. Push away. Here we go. So I think I've, I've, I, like I said, I crouched, I've, I've kind of

lifted myself up out of the crouch to peek over and look into the window. And I think at this moment I maybe lose my balance and it's the kind of like, I'm pressed so close to the wall that I'm almost gonna like, my legs are gonna slide out from under me. And it's the kind of thing where like, I'm throwing an arm out to catch myself, but if I throw it out wrong,

I'm gonna like punch the window out or like crack something. And sorry, real quick, can we see any of this shenanigans? Absolutely not, we're tucked away behind the building now. They're so deep behind the building. Oh, because you got behind, okay, I didn't know if it was straight down the alley. Okay. Yeah. But don't worry, you're gonna hear it soon.

Right. Here we go. Okay. Damn it. Yep, 45 under hover 24. All right, Margo and Carter, give me a spot in. Oh, geez. It all starts so innocently. It all starts so innocently it all starts so innocently. We're also like sitting at the cafe like watching who's going in and out

55 under 69 failed a half to go. Oh, well could have gone after hours, okay? This is what happens and it all kind of happens simultaneously as we're going back and forth between This is what happens and it all kind of happens simultaneously as we're going back and forth between Feruze and Vaughn behind the building and Margo and Carter just wondering when are they coming back? You try to catch yourself Vaughn and as you do you step backwards and you slam your foot on a coal chute There's like a coal chute that at first you didn't even see in the yard and it's right in front of that window

and you hit it and it makes like a loud clang because it's hollow underneath. It's like you drop coal straight into below the building and it makes this loud clang and faeroos. As you're peering, as you're slyly peering into the window, the door opens to the room that you're peering into and a figure like hears that noise and starts coming towards the window. Meanwhile, Carter and Margot, as you're standing there watching to see like, why aren't they

back? Why aren't they back? Why aren't they back? What are they doing? You notice a car like six car lengths up with two people in it watching. Watching you? Are they watching Empire Spices? Are they watching Are they watching Empire Spices? Are they watching for what Faeruz and Vaan are doing? You don't know.

And maybe you'll know next week. I can't be sure. Yeah. Oh no. How could you stay unsure? There can only be one mystery squad. We must sing them out. Oh my god. That was a lot of fun.

That was fun. I thought I was going down that coal like, whoo! Oh man. Oh you were a fumble away. You just looked like Dick Van Dyke. You were a fumble away going down that coal chute. Oh boy. Thank you everybody, we'll see you next week!

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