The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S3 | E5 – Feng Shui

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

The investigators continue following up on leads they acquired at the Shanghai Courier. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/tafwsTR1eMY For a limited time, use code "TFC2" 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Searchlight Pictures presents The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things Comes The Roses, starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman, Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Samburg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney. A hilarious new comedy filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses.

See The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Oh, hey, it's Friday night. And it's time for chaos. Chaos. Did that work? I don't know. We'll find out later.

We're back. Episode five. This is the only way to record shows. I don't want to do anything. more unless it's 50 episodes in a week. You're never more, in it? I realized it, middle of last session, when you were going on and on about the investigation, you were naming all the correct NPCs, naming all the exact locations.

Because we just played it like moments ago. Why lose sanity points in the game when you could lose them in real life? Yes, yes. Going down the spiral together. You have dabbled a little bit. I think you set it off air in some marathon gaming with our good friends at, the Order of the Amber Die. Yes. Yeah. I can't remember if I set it on Eric. Maybe if I didn't, I'll just reiterate here. Early on, we were talking about what this process is going to be like.

It's intimidating to do this much at once. You know, it's going to be, you know, a marathon in terms of your energy and keeping it up and all that kind of stuff and keeping it different every episode and fresh, et cetera. And I just wanted to let everybody know that like my only experience with Marathon Gaming, which seemed insane to me before I did it. After I finished, I was like, it's the only way to really play. It is exhausting. And sometimes you have to do extra work to get a coffee, get a Coke, get a caffeine, whatever. Do a little Coke, as Rob suggested. And, you know, just sort of get yourself up. Shut that on camera. To keep going. But ultimately, what happens is you're so in it. You remember all of the little details of the mystery. You remember all of the

little jokes, you know, even just the fun stuff. You remember all, and it keeps, you know, weaving itself throughout. And it's, to me, yeah, it's an amazing way to play. Is this the first time we're admitting to the audience that we're doing this in such a racemeyer? I intimated that it's, you know, in order to get this to happen with you folks coming up. Sure, yeah, everybody out every week. Yeah, once a week, we just flew you back and forth.

Yeah, but what's nice about this is, we're having a little, have a little cocktail, a little little red solo cocktail. You fill me up. Cheers. Bad decision. Link that plastic This is the way to do it Now it's a game

Now it's a game When you're kicking back Having some pops And you had some Chinese beer You're going thematic here With little Sing Tao Hell yes A little Chinese logger here

To kick us off She said to bad decisions But great dice rolls Yes Yes please Speaking of bad decisions Talk to me about last week's Tarot reading

Oh man you guys The cards have been spot on every single time And just to remind the audience, we drew the two of pentacles upside down or reversed as it should be said. I said upside down. Okay. How could I ever forget? I'll never know what you were talking about otherwise.

As everybody recalls. Now, this says, I'm going to read the right side up meaning and then followed by the reverse meaning. Yeah. It is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation, and connections, which is the subject of the design. But it is read also as news. and messages in writing. What? Are you kidding me?

Stop. Such as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Now reversed, it is enforced gaiety, aka your dinner date. Oh, enforced gaiety. Shut up. Simulated enjoyment. What? Oh, my God.

And also the semen bar after. Yes. Yeah, simulated enjoyment. And in literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange. hand-ready compasses that is we were in a newspaper now it's creepy we should burn norah clearly she's in touch with ancient and unnameable forces but i also just want to show like the artwork on this per the research that we did one of the last things that caught our eye and the very fruitful visit to the newspaper office this this little um harlequin-esque character is standing in front of a sea-sked where ship is being tossed by a rogue wave. Oh, my gosh. I didn't even cast that.

Shut up. Make it stop. Make it stop. So once again, the cards don't lie, and we got to roll. We got to pick again for this episode. The cars don't lie. Rob, have you picked a card yet? I don't think you've picked a card yet.

I don't think you have. It's my time. It's time. You've been hiding behind your computer for too long. I can get rid of this. This is just the... A joker. The universal.

Yeah, basically. The universal weight. Rules for stud poker. What the hell? Okay, Rob. That is wild. That is creepy wild. You tell me when to stop.

That is wild. That is the most specific one. Stop! Now, do you want me to take the top card? Okay. It is the four of pentacles. Oh. Okay.

Four articles in the newspaper. Hold on. Oh, yeah. We have four leads. And it was right side up or non-inverting. This one's right side up, not reversed. So four of pentacles. Right side up.

We shall see. How many pentacles in that deck? Decks tag with pentacles. There's so many pentacles in that deck. There's pentacles. There's swords. There's wands and there's huts. All very.

And then there's the major arcana, like the emperous, the emperor, the high of the. Am I stupid? Yes. Yes. What is a pentacle? So a pentacle. Every other word you said I knew. Oh, it's a coin.

It's a coin. Oh. With the, that. With the. Instagram on it. Yeah. Ah, the five-point star.

It's a demon-worshipping coin. Yes. It's the currency of demon worshippers. Yeah. You can spend those in hell. But we'll keep that in mind as we jump into this next episode. Yeah. Luck.

Pandtacles. We'll do some luck. I'd love to do some luck. I spent a lot last week. I'd love to do some now. Roll for a Bant. Oh, I failed it. There we go.

D-10. D-10. I just failed it. D-10, D-10. 10! Oh! Get out of here! Because look, you used luck

three times last episode? Yeah. You got almost all of it back. Hard, hard, hard. That's awesome. That's amazing. So hard. I suck seeded.

Nothing coming my way. All good, all good. I gained three, but I'll take it. I got six. Nice. That's great. I mean, you see two episodes ago, it's kind of like just planting seeds,

watering the garden, and then last step, things started to explode. This app, a lot of tie rolls. You might want to stick around after the break because things are going to get Harry. We'll be right back. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused.

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I've got a homicide in Springfield's Northwoods by Mile Marker 16. You are now entering Springfield. Where's the body? Off the side of the ditch down there. You know, surrounded. By all this crime scene tape. Hello, am I dead? My name is John. I'm the new forensic pathologist.

I can see you, and that's how we'll figure out how you were murdered. That means ghosts are real! Since then, I've noted multiple additional missing case files and even missing bodies. Let's say I believe you came across some record-keeping discrepancies and a string of deaths. You're not an investigator, Jonathan. Stop trying to be one. After everything I've discovered, I just need to know why. What happened in Springfield?

Going somewhere, Dr. Spacer. Listen to How I Died, a full cast, police, and medical procedural podcast with over 40 episodes already available. Then, tune in to Season 4 of How I Died, releasing now on all podcast apps. How Does Love Work exactly? What makes something funny? How does noise affect your health? These are just a sample of the fascinating topics we discuss on my podcast, Something You Should Know.

We bring you leading experts on topics important to you, things you can use in your life and that will fascinate you. We deliver three episodes a week and have over a thousand episodes available to listen. So get listening to Something You Should Know, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the all-Denem hour. That topic? Denim. I missed that memo, but I do have the Navy Blue on.

Navy blue, yep. Blue Gene boys are back again. Get us to the Siemens Club. You, we had a lot of reveals last episode, a lot of discoveries, but the The one that seemed to really prickle your loins was, uh, Dr. Walsh, maybe is not who he seems to be. No, what priggled my, motherfucker, or whatever you just said, loins. Thank you. That's better. More evocative. Uh, was that we, it happened. And then the recording ended. And we never said anything.

Never talked about, we were too fucking caught up in all the fish people. And then we walked to the liquor store. Two of them. And we went to two different liquor stores. And didn't say shit the entire time. And then five minutes before we started recording, he's like, oh, wait. Sit down and we're like, what, you motherfucker? Nice try, son of a bitch. Here we are.

So you're a spy. God damn. Yeah, I mean, that's a tricky thing. Your characters do not know, but the players do. And we, I remember, we rolled a thing. We rolled some sort of check on him. We did roll a sauce check. But what?

What I We do this every time We're like you know what we shouldn't do We shouldn't fucking talk to anybody And don't tell anybody shit And the first person we meet We're like guess what we Oh and also yeah

You just vomited everything Sucked him in Sit down and let me tell you everything My friend When you were talking to Anthony You were like I think they might have had Something to do with the thing And I'm flashing back to us being like

When we burn those bodies To the ground or whatever So you've known So casually being like How comfortable are you with Austin So now it's weird because I don't know what you're not telling Anthony. You're after a, yeah. It's...

You've embedded yourself in a cell of terrorists, basically. Yeah, it's a very tricky... Web you weave. ...to navigate right here as players, I think it's fun. Yeah. It's interesting. You know, we got to kind of find a way for characters to figure stuff out or not figure stuff out.

Yeah, plus that's the whole thing. The players know. We just have to implicate you in all our crimes now. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you couldn't walk back into the room. him and we couldn't suddenly be like, we do a psychology check on Joe after that conversation.

Right. Well, it was great, though, because he fumbled coming back in. That was cool. And it just led the narrative to be like, well, what's wrong with Dr. Balls? I love it. I love the Joe's character is like a early 20th century version of a John La Caree character. This is, this is feeling to me a lot like the honorable school boy. My La Care heads know where I'm coming from.

And, uh, get up. But like, yeah, Lecari fans stand up, baby. we're my La Corre fans These people I'm here But in that way Like you're you're on the trail Of your own little investigation

But of course you're with people That are inevitably going to compromise you And just like a La Caree character Your own shades of gray Are gonna constantly be in question Hold on I'm not going to And just like a La Care character right Not built

It's not Jason Bourne Right It's not James Bond Like this is this person Whatever they are whoever they are, it just seems very unimposing, seems like just any other person on the street, and that's what makes them good at what they do in a way, you know? You're clumsy, unassuming academic. He was originally based on the Indiana Jones guys, what you told me. What was my first initial

concept. And he's kind of good, Marcus Brody, right? Marcus Brody. Yeah, I was going to say Brody when you first stumbled your way up again. That was like what first gave me the idea was like, who would just be like a nice, and then the idea of, well, it was actually reading up on Shanghai, it gave me the idea of spying. Yeah. And being a spy placed in. Because I'm like, what is he doing in Shanghai? Yes, there's a Christian university there.

But like, how do we make it interesting? How do we make him want to go with this new crew into very dangerous territory? Oh, he's a spy. And then Troy was like, they burned down this warehouse and killed people. And maybe they, somebody saw them or they were seen and now the intelligence service is trying to track them. I got a feeling some fuck shit was going to happen when I walked past you guys after lunch and I hear like, Troy and George said, secret, secret. And I'm like, I don't trust any of that.

I also love that Carter's like, let me show you how to lie to somebody. And you've been doing it all the time. You guys, I can't wait to, like, rehear just those first couple episodes. Because you, because Vaughn talks about like, I've sized this guy up and he seems. He's on the up and up. On the up and not, exactly. And then you're talking about like, oh, do you know how to handle a gun, you know? And he's acting like he doesn't.

Like, I've invested in pistols and stuff. All right, all right. You did your job. You got them wrapped around your finger. It's great. And soon we'll show you some truths. You got the upper hand, pal? Well, I mean, I think the investigation was broke wide open last week, but you really have opened up so many different lanes here.

And it starts off with this. A sad little date with Ling, the, uh, the, uh, jing, excuse me, Ling was the pair. Ling was the birth of tight. Yes, well, poor sorrowful Jing. Poor Jing, who's, uh, what she does for fun is sits in a room alone. Yeah. Eating. That's it. Eating cakes. Eating cakes. And sits in a room alone.

Her mother hobby is sitting alone in a room staring at an empty burn cake. A couple days ago while taking money from her. customer, their hands brushed against each other. The highlight of her year. It's the only time she's been touched since she came out of the birth or overbearing mother. Eating donuts for dinner. If that was a fancy place, the Vaughn gets out of this damn thing alive and I maybe I'll try to try to, who knows. Make right.

Jing has made an impression on his, on his sense of morality, let's say. Yeah, it was, it was an interesting conversation. But at the end of the day, it seems like she understood this was going nowhere. and saw an opportunity here that she took. You gave her some money, and she told you there's a man, a European man that comes around every once in a while, gives her coded messages. She doesn't understand.

She bakes it into the rice paper that goes on to these sweet cakes that she gives this regular customer that comes in every day. That man has not come in to give her these messages in a while. You then, our new friend, Dr. Walsh, have a meeting with Ho Feng. at Ho-Fang Import-Export. You set up the appointment. He takes calls on a Saturday. This guy is a gentleman of business.

He's a wheeler and a dealer. You get a walk through this warehouse. You see, there's a lot going on here. 30 workers. Doesn't need to be a lot of security. There is this weird door in the back of the room that's completely blocked by a chair. You're going up the stairs. There's this loose floorboard that seems to, seem strange to you.

You go up and around, and you are taken to meet the Honorable Ho-Fang. And he's an interesting guy, very charmed. charming, very delightful, offers you these aromatic, fancy, expensive cigarettes, some tea, and kind of just talks circles around you. It doesn't really tell you anything, doesn't really kind of prevaricates back and forth with you, but he's like, yeah, we can do business, perhaps. What was that word? Prevaricate? I don't know that word. I don't know. I looked right at Ross. Yeah. No, yeah, prevaricate. Yeah. Speaker act in an invasive way. That's out. That's a great word. Well, when you crush at me, I'm like, wait, is that not the right word? No, I've just never heard

that prevaricate speaking in an evasive way yeah great word prevaricating yeah so I use it perfectly yeah that's did you glossary that shit or you just knew that word out from your life I know confu I know prevarical use this words um I'm getting a lot of sleep the vocabulary is a lot better I loved it I felt like um I felt a little bit like uh oh this is Japanese not Chinese but I felt a little bit like, what is, is it called Rising Sun the Crichton novel? Or, yeah, Rising Sun, the Crichton novel about Japanese business and stuff. The one they made with the movie with Wesley Snipes and John Connery? I think they made, yeah, they made the movie with Wesley Snipes and John Connery, I believe. Sure, that was extremely culturally sensitive. But I mean, but in that

book, there's a great deal of like how they do business, uh, the Americans of the Japanese where there's this art to how you say nothing, but are always super gregarious and super open and super friendly, but like you're not giving ever too much. You're always trying to keep the upper hand. Anyway, that's what it felt like. It's like two big personalities. Yeah. Huffing back and forth.

Neither really saying much of anything. One lying, the other one saying nothing. It was interesting. Yeah. And to have you be the one that's taking this meeting when they've been hearing about O-Fang import, export now for going on two months, it was just an interesting way it all worked out. Yeah.

You guys meet back up and you go to the Shanghai Courier, a friend. of yours, a contact. Anthony Chang, the editor-in-chief. A handler of sorts. Some other business. He's like, yeah, go crazy in there. Handler of sorts. You look through these files. You can't really find anything. You're stumbling back and forth. And so you come right out and ask him, like, has there been any cult activity? And he says, I mean, there's a lot of dirty stuff going on in Shanghai right now. A lot of political unrest. A lot of people have gangs and militias. In terms of cults, I heard about it. Order of the bloated woman, but like nobody takes it seriously. And then you say, okay, okay, all right. What about any, like, really horrible crimes?

Like, really, we're talking nasty stuff. And he's like, well, it's funny you should mention that there have been a series of gruesome deaths where people's arms were severed. And that's been happening like two a month, but they're like poor, not very important people here. And so the police haven't tied the murders together or really even over-investigated it. And then he said, well, there were also this series of break-ins that had been happening where people are just getting like mauled to death in their homes. But again, the police aren't connecting anything. They're not, they don't think it's that important and they haven't taken the time

to see any sort of connection there. Odd that you would mention that, maybe he says. And so you start looking through his files and four articles jump out at you, one of which leads you to the Siemens Club, this sort of naval club for mostly foreign naval officers that is now being temporarily shut down as a piece of it has seemingly collapsed into the river. You go look at it and you roll a two on a mechanical engineering role to be like, there's no way. The article said there was seepage that caused this. There's no way seepage caused this. It must have been something else. Some drunks evidently said

that there were sea people that came out of the sea and tore it down. Well, you go to a bar across the street. It has now become the de facto home of all these naval drugs. And you see some of your British friends that you start talking with. And they're like, oh, yes, you should talk about that guy over there. There was an American staying in the room that collapsed. I think his name was John Smith. And then you go talk to a local drunk, Wang Yong, a shirtless alcoholic who says he, among other things, went out to urinate that night and saw fish people come out of the the water and tear that building down and you go then talk to this other man who worked at the Siemens Club that says, yeah, the papers didn't report about this, but there was an

American man named John Smith that was in that room. He either got out of there or he's at the bottom of the sea and you show him a picture of Jack Brady and he's like, yeah, that's the guy. That's John Smith. John Smith. Amazing. Boom. Amazing.

I forgot to do something last week that I'd like to ask for at this moment. Feel free to say no. After hearing the old man's, after hearing Mr. Wang's description of the fish people, is that a place where I could do an occultism role about people that may worship fish people or cults associated with fish people from literally just written history about people that are into that kind of thing? So his is where it gets interesting. Really, if this is fish people, yes, you could do an occult role and you might find a little something, but it's going to be more connected to legend. This is where two things.

You can do Cthulhu mythos to see if this is like a mythos creature or any tone that you've done a complete reading of, you can roll against that tome. So you could roll against Africa's dark sex against the mythos rating of that. home. It's a very low chance, but you can use it to research specific items. And because you completed that, I can tell you right now that Africa's dark sects has, I believe, an 18 mythos rating. So it's an 18% chance. Well, it's higher than my five mythos. Of reading about fish people? I'm going to roll my mythos, which is, you know, pretty high, but still pretty low. I'm going to roll that occultism. I don't think it'll tell me. any actual information about the creatures themselves,

but I would be interested in any historical accounts or cults that follow these. Yeah. I rolled in 93. Oh, that would be no. Looking through this book. And I'm pretty sure we cannot push these. Yeah.

Yeah. Ross, what did you do? I rolled in 90 over six. So, yeah. And Carter's going to do a natural world roll. Hmm. Have I heard of fish on legs? Okay.

Apart from the old evolution. The old evolution, as they call it. Could I do an occult roll? Yeah, you could do an occult roll as well. Did you roll a cult roll? Yeah, I failed with an 82. Oh, that was close to a Fumbalaya. You know, I rolled a 75 over 62, so I will spend luck.

Wow. On an occult roll, all right. Wow, 13 luck. You will. So this. There are. into it. Fishy.

It would be, in terms of stuff you've read, a cult related, right? Because this really is meant for if this exists, if there are fish people, this really is in the realm of Cthulhu Mythos. But using a cult, a cult would talk about it, but it would talk about it more

as like mythical stories. Yes. Whereas Cthulamithos is like, this shit's real and here's what it is. Here's their stack block. Here's how to kill them. You have heard, or what I heard, but read at some point about these legends of amphibian-like cultures that sometimes are insular societies, but some have also integrated with humans, either by force or by choice to, you know, create these hybrid. type creatures that are part human, part fish. And are these multiple cultures?

It is something that has been known world round. There have been sort of like rumors of sightings off the coast of Massachusetts. But, you know, a lot of people are just like, all right, crazy. All right, Rummy. Keep talking about your fish people. Now, remember in England, when we were towards the end of the season, we were in that, like, We went into that one place, and all the people had, like, their eyes were starting to, like... Yeah, they were all a G-Ied people.

They went to this bar, and, like, everybody's sitting there. It's just like... Yeah. So terrifying. Yeah. I'd like to point everybody's attention to the movie Dagon by Stuart Gordon, one of the best Cthulhu Lovecraftian film adapters. It's an amazing movie, and it's all fish people. Yeah. Shadow of Insmouth.

Insmouth. Yeah, it's like, almost like Texas chainsaw massacre, but with fish people. They just show up. Spanish? No, they shot it in Italy or something like that, or Spain, but it's, you know, I think semi-American producers. Yes, well, I've not heard of anything like that. Still, I've seen enough to wear it. It does give one pause.

Yes. I should mention, while looking through Africa's dark sex, you also see a thank you to our sponsor, Chaosium. What the hell? Plug it. Stuck to the back of the book is a... A cipher? A code. Oh.

Of some sort. It almost looks like it's for 15% off. Some Eldritch. All Call of Cthulhu items. That can't be known. What does it say? You have to make it up on the spot. 15% off.

That's... 15% advantage on all purchases. Yes. That's unreal. That's supernatural. That's Eldridge. That's Cyclopee. To even look at the letters and one number would drive one insane,

but it appears to be a code TFC2. If you enter it at kiosium.com, you too can get a 15% advantage. The savings are maddening. Don't enter TFC3. You'll die. And when you open the book again, it's not there. Oh, my God. Inscribe such strange cryptograms.

Did you remember the code? Did you write it down? That's how fast these savings will go. Please do this every episode. Just tuck it away. This is how you do it. I love the in-world curse. This is how they used to do commercial.

I feel like in the 50s and 60s on television, they would like hide shit in the show. This is the way to do it. The rips open the code and holds in her hand and it finishes into it. Yeah, we just see. We see Jing baking rice paper into a cake.

What could it mean? It adds it up. It took us 45 episodes to figure out. I know. It's amazing. Chew-in opens it up. I have to get online right now. Peace is out So much saving

All right These savings Are you going to say right Oh nothing No we were talking about The fish people And just Fish people and just

All right So are we picking up In that exact moment Of the Of seeing a Jack Brady's Picture at the bar Or do we feel like That's the end of that scene

And we cut to something I feel like I've I feel like we're done with that scene I'm cool if we kind of like Transport ourselves to Pass forward Honking out that night Or waking up the next day

I had a couple of them puns, but we'll save... Oh, sure, sure, sure. All right, so the next day would be Sunday, April 5th, according to my calendar here. Sunday, April 5th. Sunday April TFC 2. Yeah, I'm nowhere to be found next to you in the morning because, of course, I'm going to Mass. Right.

He also said, I'll meet you guys back at Dr. Marines. Oh, I mean, maybe we talk about it on the way home. I'd love to go. Oh, well, of course. Of course. Perhaps you can guide me to... We could use the campus chapel. They do services every Sunday morning, 915.

Wonderful. There's the Roman Rite service. Yes, yes, of course. Carter, what are you going to sleep in? We want to go somewhere. I want to mind a nice brunch. Get some bagels. Yeah, or dimsum.

I heard that's good. Oh, yeah. You know? Let's do that. Okay. I worship at a different altar. The altar. Before we leave, yeah, before we leave, that morning, kind of like,

Getting ready, Carter is, you know, waking up and I think Marion will just be like, you sure you don't want to join? Well, I think while you're seeing Carter wake up, the first time you're seeing the mask off. Oh, yeah. He's always fallen asleep before you, right? Like you've always stayed up late. So maybe Carter's back, so he's like on his side, and he starts to wake up, and then you're asking him that question, and he turns, he's like, what?

And he just kind of like looks away for a second. not meaning to, catching himself and then looks back. Oh, Vaughn and I are going to go to the service. I'm sorry, hold on. No, no, no, please. No, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. I'm sorry. He puts it on.

What's going on? May I ask what happened? Yeah, this is a pretty standard story of a man getting kicked in the face by a horse of the woman who he's trying to con out of her life's fortunes. So... That's not a common story at all, Carter. Does that not happen? Oh, okay. Yeah, no, it was a thing.

It happened. You were kicked by a horse in the face. In the face, yeah. Some might call it, uh, karma, I guess. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I have to live with this now. Well, it's, um, I said it about Vaughn, I'll say it about you. You're lucky to have survived. There's a very violent injury.

You know what's funny is that all this time I never had. actually thought about it that way. Yes. Huh. Very glad you made it through that. Yeah. Whoa. All right.

That's a little heavier than I was expecting to get... No, I'm not going to fucking church with you, though. Fuck that. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see you after. Yeah. We're going to go get some food.

Excellent. Enjoy your morning. And as where you guys are all talking, you find that Fayreuse has been writing at a table Yes, I'll be right there Let's go And as soon as

When you guys take off She says Katah, I've been writing Margot a letter Is there anything that you'd like to add? Nope All right And so Margot You also don't know where we're sending it

So We don't know where she is You just left You could send it back Desmond Desmond was going to maybe try to I'll send it to Desmond to send to if he finds out

where Margo is. But essentially what the letter says is where we are approximately. So there's no like, I mean, obviously there's like an address there, but she asks Margo specifically she gives the name

Marion Wesley Walsh. Please inquire if he is a member of the order urgent. Oh yeah. And maybe she'll send it as a I don't know how that works. You would have to send it to Desmond, right? But I'd have to send it to Desmond. You could certainly send it through Mickey.

You know, you've got a connection with Mickey and get it to Desmond. But yeah, that would be something you would be paranoid about everyone you come in contact. Everybody. So she does send that to Margo. If I can send it via telegraph to Desmond, I will do that. But if I don't know how this works back then. Yeah, let's just assume that we can do it, make life easier. cut to interior of a campus chapel

where we just pan across mostly Chinese faces until we see Vaughn and Dr. Walsh sitting next to each other and we hear the voice of a preacher speaking in English wearing

you know, priest robes might be Latin cross for this pre-Vatican 2 shit. The fact that I even know that is good in Latin. He says this in Latin. He says no,

but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too. You cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons.

We don't trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he? He continues on. We shall humble ourselves in the eyes of the Lord. And Marion turns to look at Vaughn as he's talking to himself. Yes. Strangely, it is by evil.

with a palpable knowledge of evil that I have been drawn into your bosom Acromo's Dolorescentamanca Whose tears wash Wash your son Whose sorrows Seek to make us sacred Keep the knowledge of evil ever in my mind

That I might turn away from the darkness and keep my eye ever more towards the light that the light may be kindled within the souls of my friends that the light of your overwhelming kindness may break through the cloud of unknowing and kindle a sacred fire to illuminate the darkness and the hearts of Margo Sauer

Ferrucabran Carter Tillinghurst Marion Walsh And Desmond Mahoney, who in his fallen state has turned away from you, even those who turn away from your Lord, I know you empty the cup of your grace upon them. For they struggle against evil. And this in itself is a kind of prayer.

I ask this humbly, through your intercessing saint, Santa Monica In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit As we walk from the church Walking back home Silent for maybe a bit And then Walsh breaks the silence

Turning to Vaughn And What I I I don't know if I said it before properly. You see, when I meet men who served in France, in the front lines, I tend to feel a deep well of kilt that I wasn't there.

Though my service was elsewhere, I felt as if the horrors face there were unimaginable. and I just wish, I wish, to thank you for what you sacrificed. Don't thank me, oh boy. Rest assured that yes, I feel the weight of that guilt. The guilt is not for anything that I did there. I did my duty as meagely as my powers could. So did we all. I do not feel guilt for what I did there.

If anything, I feel guilt because I returned. Well, certainly I cannot tell you how to feel. But I assure you that we would not have a kingdom to protect a home to return to a place for our families to live relative peace without your sacrifice Yes

The evil one moves in the heart of The Kaiser Slaughter's in Belgium In all our hearts In this fallen world Healy has laid claim to all of us It is only through Through the power of grace

and mercy, that we can hope to experience some measure of forgiveness? Even in speaking these things, I am out of my depth. We are all doomed to be out of our death when speaking of such holy matters. But as far, yes, I did feel comfort being welcomed back into the bosom of Albion. You never met Margot Sauer. but I've thought many times had the accident of Providence made Margot Sound. Ah, a light?

Ah, see, you're... Well, most aromatic. Right, part is very generous. Yes. I'm getting the hang of it. We must prove faithful stewards of his bounty, and the tobacco leaf is one of his finest creations. Yes.

But I often think that if, by some trick of Providence, Margot Sauer, had been born Marcus Sauer and I would have shot him in 1915 Oh yes I It is It is the tricks of some evil providence that made us all go mad

Made us all turn murderer To me the boys On the fronts of both have those lines had no quarrel with each other. No. No. It has only been since I saw the madness of evil run amok, senseless, brutal,

wretched, foolish, stupid, ghastly. But it has only been since then that I have looked into the face of evil. I meant what I have. what I pray it is through the knowledge of evil real evil

that I have become aware of the presence of the divine the black and bleak darkness that I have seen makes the light that shines in the bosoms of the merciful shine all the brighter as it is set out in relief

against such darkness upon are you Sure, you don't want to pursue a new act in your life as a preacher. You are so inspiring. I am too great a sinner for that vocation. Ah, yes, make no mistake, though. They all are. Every last one of them.

One, I'm going to ask you something, something that may sound a bit strange. But I don't know how to phrase it. What you've faced, the evils that all of you, have come up against, seem so otherworldly. And I will be honest. I struggled to believe you. But I am doing my best. I'm trying, for it is not only you.

It is not just one account. There are many. But we cannot forget the very real consequences, the very real threats that exist in our very physical world, our very natural one. So when I ask this, I don't want you to misunderstand it, or... Well, all I can say is I'm looking out for your best benefit. These guards that were killed in your fire, This was an accident, yes? They were not intended to be murdered.

You must know, sir, that I was not present. It was convalescing during my compatrious little fiery escapade. My friends are not murderous, sir. That is what I believe, truly. Do you know you are not there, I'm sure. Sure, it is hard to speak on it. Could I talk to Carter or Féruz about such a thing? Could they perhaps prove that these guards were in fact cultists?

Is it provable? Scarcely no. This is the curious way that these occult powers seem to work. They need not have any in their thrall. They seem to seduce. Most powerfully, those who are already rich in influence, coin, title, potency. God, starting to sound rather like that Irish chap,

but they've already been seduced by Mammon. I don't know if these guards are cultists, per se. but they are in the employ of them. Of that, I'm certain. And there's no telling how high the corruption goes. No. Who you can trust. No, so I take comfort in meeting someone so worthy of trust as yourself.

Someone I know is, just by virtue of being a brother in Christ, is a virtuous and truthful soul. God damn it, Rob. I'm doing great Yeah I think that's that that's hard I'm doing great

I'm just gonna I'm gonna roll a quick perception That is wordless Where he's trying to not react In any kind of or show any kind of guilt Great all psychology to oppose it Perception is not a Or is it based on my You could do an opposed role

If it feels like the parties are Or if you just want to see how you have self-control to the point of rising to my regular perception. Yeah, there's no actual perception, Jack, I don't think. Yeah, so what are you trying to do here? You're trying to hide. You're trying to break. I feel this swell of feeling like, I almost want to tell him.

Yeah. What's your psychology skill? Very low. 14. Okay. Roll a guilt check. Yeah, I mean, it would be a regular success, and you can hold back. Yeah, that may be why I was so quick to trust you.

I'm, I see people the way I, I want to see them maybe a little. Yeah. The skill is so low that, like, he's, he's trusting. Okay. If you were to fail this, you might blurt it out. I do not think there is any duplicity in you, sir. Okay.

It is a failure. But it is close enough that it might be worth spending luck on. I'm just trying to decide. It's the kind of thing I want to do right here. God. This is hard. This is hard. Are you going to lie to Ross, bro?

Look at that face I was like No Shit I'm going to go with the dice And not alter them And have them tell the story here Because I truly don't know what to do

From a story standpoint I'm not going to say anything Okay But you see him visibly Sort of, you know, react to that with a, like he almost wants to say something and then holds back and just, you know, puts out of cigarette

and, like, we've kept them waiting too long, perhaps. Perhaps we should get going. Yes, I suppose we should. Might add, Mr. Walsh, that one of the things I find most comforting about the Roman rights is that, if one feels burdened in one's soul,

I find confession to be a balm. Oh, God, you're good. he's good he's good he's good ha ha ha ha

he stops for a moment says one I my fellow countryman I feel like I I must tell you something and it is hard I

want you to take it in the spirit in which it is meant and that is the spirit of loyalty the spirit of of doing whatever we can to avoid another war, another situation such as we faced in 1914. Yes.

15, whatever the fuck it was. Um. Dr. Walsh! It's Dr. Cartwright, the dean. Oh, shit. What are you doing here on a Sunday? And I'm just quizzically like, Dr. Cardwright.

Loaded. Dr. Codwright. What? You have got to take a break! No, please, I did. I'm getting my spirit refilled here at our chapel. Please, meet a friend of mine, a fellow academic in search of our, yes, the mysteries of theology. This is von Villiers, a friend of mine I met in London. What was it again? Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Cartwright. I'm the dean here.

Cartwright. Now, there's a good handshake. Oh, you like that. I've lately gotten used to. It doesn't matter. Yes, I'm a guitar player. Notorously strong handshakes. I know a jammo, and I see. My God, your right wrist is incredibly stout. He is.

Working out every day. Yes, I met one. I said in London. I meant on the boat from London. We met on our way here. Ah, schedule workaholic. You're supposed to be on sabbatical. Please, please.

The pot. He can't take a break. I tell him, you know, he's always busy. He's doing a million. different things. Importers, exporters, everything. Dean, all the way in Shanghai, were you, were you at Heaton? Oh, no, no, no, no.

I'm busy right now. Anyways, good to see you. Why don't you go? Take a break. Take them to the beach. Is there a beach here? You should go. Yes, yes. You're right. We'll be on our way. Pleasure to see you, Dr. God, right? Yes. Perhaps we'll talk next week. I'll be around, but enjoy yourself.

And Mr. Villiers? Villiers, yes. Pleasure to meet you. Enjoy our lovely campus. There's more than just a church here. Oh, yes. We're enjoying the comfortable accommodations of your esteemed professor here. Oh, good. All right.

Well, have a great day. And he leaves. Good day. And, yeah, I think that he takes that as a sign and a break to just be like, forget it. We'll speak later. And we head back. You head back. Meet up with the others.

Son of a bitch. And as you peel out and walk away. That was amazing. This quiz just to find, like, watching you a little bit more closely. You guys meet back up. It's Sunday. Not everything's going to be open, but some things will be. You've got a ton of leads here.

I don't know where you want to go. You want to keep doing newspaper clippings. You want to... Break into the whole thing. You want to do at night. What do you want to do during the day? I feel like, I mean, there is also something that... We can go get our fate's read to us.

This is sort of my top thing. I would love. I also think that it might be a good Sunday thing. Yes. Because they're probably servicing folks that have the day off, right? And then second, I think, should this not result in immediate spiritual death? Yeah. We, maybe tonight we try to break into the warehouse.

Sunday night seems like a great time. Yeah. Break in. Perfect. Also, you can also split up. I was going to say, there's danger in that, you know, I don't, I think we should all go to this. I'll say that much. 100%.

As far as the warehouse goes, I am really interested, I think, in, in not doing that personally and letting Carter do it. Oh, no, I totally will. I think that's a Carter and Ferris. Yeah, because I feel like he's, that is not his vibe, Marion's vibe. He could fuck it all up. You know what I mean? Between the libraries, the locksmith and like the, just Ferris's firearms, I think we got a good.

And my nunchucks. Second story. Let us not forget. So yes, perhaps we'll keep a lookout. Although just like turning over in Vaughn's kind of, it's not paranoid, it's realistic, mind. Just the, it's a dock, it's a pier. Of course, there's boats coming. People would come in from the water.

But the idea, just this idea of fish people is now in his head. And the idea of an easy ingress, a back ingress from the water. is there was built for it. Yeah. Not for merchant trade, but for something sub-aquatic. Don't forget, Carter is your back-door mat. Yes. God damn it.

Well, the back-door mat. God, you're known back-to-a-man. But yes, we come and interrupt your dumpling feast. Yeah. I fucking burnt my entire tongue on the soup dumpling. Dude, it was. Oh, my God. 20 dumplings deep.

Do you think? I don't know. Do we have time for a little, for a little aside? Yes, yes. Well, that's a good. Mozying back. Yeah. What do you do? Do you drink the? I think you got to bite at first and then it's... And then you sip the... And then you sip the suit. And then you... I have burned my tongue several times. It's so delicious, though. I can't stop burning my tongue.

Oh, my God. I can't stop eating them. Can I ask you why you didn't want to ask, why you didn't want to write Margo? Are you still sour that Margot? I'd left you. Or choice of words. Just a note. Even her last name. I don't have anything to say to her right now.

I don't, I'm still, I don't know. That's fair. I, to be honest, finding out all this from this last letter she sent, it seems that there's a lot more that she knows about the order than I do. And it's all made me feel rather suspicious about feeling this paranoia. Well, I mean, you, and I'm sorry that I've made it a lot about me lately. No, no. But I feel like we haven't really, like, talked about this.

No, I, yeah. And I feel like we didn't really talk about, like, you guys never really, you guys had this thing about the order. And sometimes you seem to know what each other were talking about. sometimes he didn't know what each other were talking about. I don't know if you ever told us what this thing even is. Well, I was very honest with you about what I did tell you. It seemed to be a society in search with a thirst for knowledge, which obviously pulled at my heartstrings.

I was immediately drawn to it. My father was involved in it, still is involved in it. I, you know me, I want to know everything. Sure, sure. And sometimes to my detriment and to the detriment of others, but I came in as an initiate and I thought that somehow if I was in a space where seeking knowledge was rewarded that I could maybe find out. more about my mother and maybe find out more about myself and why I'm here and just to be honest

Carter I've been struggling before before all of this with finding meaning in my life I knew I didn't want the the role of a mother and caregiver while that's that's fine for others I don't mean any disrespect, but I knew it wasn't for me. And I knew that all I wanted was to find answers. Not just for my life, but for the meaning of everything. Why are we here? Why are these things now that exist that we know of? Why is it here? And when I found out about this order, I thought that finally there's a space where I won't be judged for wanting this. me and finding others who would support me in this. I was never good at making friends.

I was never one to date and find love and all the things that you're supposed to do as a young woman. I just wanted answers. And I'm finally here, and I'm finally in the space, and I initially was suspicious when I found out about Margo, but then immediately I felt such a relief and camaraderies, finally somebody who must understand me. And now, I know that, I know, I want to, from the bottom of my heart, I want to trust and believe

everything that Margot has said and everything that she has done, because she's a part of us. And now she sends this letter that says that you and Vaughn, you know, you still have hope, but there's no hope for, what does, what does that mean? But there's no hope for me left. I don't know. What does she know? Why hasn't she shared it with me? I don't know. I mean, I got to admit that it's obviously, this whole situation is thrown what I've.

Who I thought this person was, kind of topsy-turvy. You know, I think we've all been our own way. We keep wanting these things that we can't have. I've never asked you, Cardiff, what is it that you want? What is it that you need from the... Why are you... I know that for me, that my drive for seeking knowledge and everything leads me to where we are.

But what is it that you want? I think that when we first got together in Peru, I wanted money. I wanted whatever treasure we could find, whatever was promised to us by Larkin and his bullshit. And after that, I don't know, I looked at the world completely differently. And at that point, I think it wasn't immediate, but after that, I think what I wanted was to become a good person. For the first time. And I realized that the more time I spent around you guys, the more I thought that that was maybe possible. We're up against all this crazy shit.

and if we can make some small dent in whatever these people are trying to do then maybe I'll get what I want maybe the faiths have brought us together to do some good in this point we'll see ah fuck god it happens every time

cheerio that's the voice of Tillinghouse right there hello old boy oh what's on God Jesus Christ I thought I would get cool cooler, but it's gotten hotter. You see, Walsh, if you ever lose Teelinghast and a crowd, just wait for the gales of profanity.

I'm hot in my mouth. So hot! You let us right to you, like the North Star. Yes. Oh. But he kind of like, right as you guys are walking up, he like gives Féhruz like a little a little nod.

What's up? How did you guys do? Are you guys saved or what? Did you eat that shitty bread? Did you? Well, one never knows, old boy. never knows. Yes. Good for the spirit, good for the soul. Carter, you should try it some time. You should try some dumplings. Yes. Well, since we've, oh, geez, may I? I am famished.

Yes, don't mind if I do. It seems as though we've... Experally eat a soup dumpling. Like, you know exactly how to like dismantle it. Van tries to use chopsticks and just like, one goes across the room. We'll home scream. Well, it seems we've both been sort of a But you're ascending to the sublime in our own way. Since we have been in the sublime, perhaps it's time to delve into the ridiculous and go to visit an astrologer. Well, that's good? No, I had it. Our friends at Sirenscape.

Oh, they got it. Yeah, they got it. They got it. Sorry, what were you saying? Only that I suppose it's time to go and see this star reader. I mean, that's what we're after. Could you not have a more ironic plan? after taking in the holy priest's sermon today.

Indeed. Then to head out immediately to old Mr. Lungs. Yes, so-called sorcerer, supreme. Yes, exactly, and see an astrologer. There's nothing more ridiculous than a guy turning water into wine and multiplying fish into a million fish. But you're right, this is kooky, what we're about to go check out. Yes.

How fortuitous? Just like, no laugh. Just like stares for a moment. What perfect timing and how fortuitous that we are to seek us fortune teller before the rest of our endeavors in seeking out these other leads. Yes. Yes, because after all, Ferruz, worry not that evil rivals seem to possess secret knowledge. That you lack.

The answer is in the stars. Though I'm telling you, I laugh and I joke, but there does. seem to be something drawing me to this Mr. Lung. I don't know. Sponsoring the courier and using so much word and language that comes throughout Elias's books. I don't know. I feel like we give it a shot. I have to tell you, Dr. Walsh, we have been in the presence of a medium before.

And do not discount the knowledge that they have. We've seen it with our own eyes. Yes. but a medium is one thing darling uh the the exposure to the the presence of the dead who never truly die but a stargazer i mean one should never be so close-minded uh yes knowledge sorry keep going i'm sorry us least of all i suppose the knowledge that we that we have within us was once unknown to us everything and so we cannot discount this this man to write too right I'll do my best

keep an open mind Bon are you going to be okay in this situation the the medium that we saw last time might have spoken to us in a voice that wasn't her own

and then burst in the front yes but that was the last time that you sorry did you say burst into flame we'll get to you in a second Christ there's so many fucking questions with you not everything is about you yeah Jesus

Christ He just eats a dumpling Yeah Eat your perfect dumplings It was That was the last

thing that Kind of tipped you Potter does make a good point Will you be all right I'm not saying this to judge you I'm asking legitimately Are you okay to come with What do you want me to

Do you like me to wait outside No No not at all If you want to Surely I can Surely I can Sit at the table of some dime store charlatan who's sort of what you said about the last person.

Ferreuse takes Vaughn's hand and kind of squeezes it a little and gives him gives him like a knowing look and says, I know you'll be all right. Yes. And if you need to take some time, that's fine, but I'll leave that entirely up to you. We would just, it's out of love for you and and your predicament. Thank you. Uh, thank you. Thank you, dear. I, um, yes, it's not a... Forgive me, of course, I'm quite all right.

Let's, uh... This could all be bunk. I'm just saying, keep an open mind. Could be, could be. Um, well, let's see how, just how right the stars are. First, I suppose I'll just try to... Get, go, go there, damn it! Ah!

You're a fork in this bloody place! We just close in on this little article. Stars are right, and we cross-fade out of there to a three-story building, and we'll be back right after this break. It's ticklish business anywhere you look at it. Come on. We'll stick together. Love movies? Love classic movies? So do we. Tickbush Business is the podcast where classic film is discussed in modern times. Hosted by me, film here with is Kristen Lopez, and my co-house. author Emily Edwards, we dive into the golden age of cinema with fun, heart, and serious

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Hi. Good to see again. Look at us, huh? Yeah. It's only a face I've seen for many hours ago. Continue to see. Cheers. Yeah, astrology vibe.

Yeah, come on. Good buddy, Rob. Yep. Good buddy Ross. Good buddy, no right here. We're almost the quarter mark. Five of Cups. Here comes.

Unless this is a 30-up season. Who knows? Well, we are holding four of cups right now. Mm-hmm. Four of Cups. It's four pentacles. I'm the king of swords. Four pentacles, king of swords.

But we're not talking about that stuff now. We're talking about like Libras and Aquarius and icees and whatnot. Yeah, I know it's time to go get a reading. Very interesting. I find out if there's any money in my future. You approach a small three-story building on the north bank of the yet again the Wang Pu River. and this is also on Kaoyang Street. In fact, it's two blocks east of Ho Fang's warehouse,

which you are kind of pseudo-planning to break into later tonight. Tonight, yeah. I got another eye on that building. Couldn't be more convenient. The address on the little flyer says floor one, and as you approach, you realize, oh, okay, there must be like three apartments in this building, and Mr. Lung's apartment is on the first floor,

and two other people are above, does he own the building? You don't know, but looking at it, you're like, okay, there's two entrances, one entrance gets to other apartments in the building, and then there's the main entrance. Can I do a brief aside? Just a quick question, completely out of character and not apropos the campaign at all. This is something that really, really bothers me about apartment buildings. Ground floor and floor one being the second floor.

Oh, that makes no sense. It drives me insane, and I've had to deal with it in games. Like, if I've run games where apartment. buildings are ground floor first floor and that's the second floor and it's confusing to the players and it's also confusing in real life like why just if you want to call ground floor fine but then it's the second floor the worst is hotels when it's like one g l and and one of them has the star is in garage and i can i tell you uh when i living in korea the the fourth floor is they always skip over four and it goes straight to five because four and the when they use

the Chinese characters is very similar or similar or the same to the character for death. Yeah. And so they never, there's never a fourth floor. Ah, interesting. Always skips right. We don't say there's no 13th. 13th. Yeah.

In a lot of places. I, only because I did this, I challenge you to do the math and figure out your character, figure out Carter's birth year. And then what your Chinese zodiac sign is. Oh. Oh, that's fun. What? I can tell you that, uh, von Villiers born in 1898. was born in the year of the goat.

The year of the goat. Greatest of all time. Very interesting. It's 1925 now. Well, I also need to know my birthday. Which I don't know. I'm going to make it my own birthday, but just the different year. How do you randomly roll on your birthday?

Here we go. 1925 was the year of the ox. What age are you and then subtract it from? I'm going to do a 12-sided, a 20-sided, and a 10-sided. There we go. That's easy enough. his birthday is February 11th. Oh, right, because you need the...

Oh, what year? That's what I got to do the math. Wait, what did you just do, Joe? I did a 12-sided, a 20-sided, and a 10-sided. All right. Of course, you could never be born then on the 31st. Sure. So if you wanted to roll, like, a 1D2, an addition or something.

Okay. Fun fact. I know what my... So there's, like, a Chinese zodiac of, like, what you're... what year you were born in, but there's also a five element. And I did mine once, and I am a yang metal white tiger. And the difference between a yin, because there's yin and yang, yin metal is like something of beauty, like, like, jewelry.

So yin metal is something like jewelry, something pretty. But yong metal is like a sword, something forged with like hardship, but then something becomes very strong. So, yeah, my personal one is a young metal white tiger. Nice. That's a badass. What year was Vaughn born? 1893.

And so that would make, uh, that would make Marion 11 years older. So he's born in 1882. 1882. February 11th, 1882. Carver was born the day after Christmas, 1882. Oh, we're the same age? 1882. You're the horse.

You're the years of the horse. You're the horse. We're the horse? We love a horse. Oh, this doesn't... You were kicked in the face by a horse. No, wait. This is saying someone born on December 26, 1882

would be under the Chinese zodiac sign of the dog. Oh, different New Year's. Oh, different New Year's. That's why, yeah. Oh, Carter's a dog. Dog, you're such a dog. You're such a dog. We want dog.

Wait, so am I the horse then, definitely? I suppose, perhaps. So, Ferruz, if I'm taking my own month and day, but the different year, she would be born an year of the rooster. Nice. Just the year of the cock. I think I'm,

Ross is the, that's how we would. Thank you. I'm sorry. You know what? You're always gross. All the time. You never keep it classy.

This is only because like the, you know, the highly Americanized Chinese restaurant that I went to as a small kid where like the Chinese zodiac was on their paper menus. Oh yeah. Same in the Northeast.

It's the only way you knew anyway. Where we're like, yeah, that's how it was rendered on those menus was the year of the cock. You're the cock. Oh, thank. Long live cock. A likely story.

The door of this first floor apartment. Oh, right. It's painted red. Good luck. And as you approach from the smell, it appears to have been freshly painted. There are also two wooden plaques, each approximately eight inches long by one inch wide, one on either side of the door at around head height. And they are covered in symbols.

that appear to be Chinese script. What do you do? Ding dong. Yeah, I walk right in. I imagine there's like a bell. Sorry, let me just quick before we go. On this site, are you reading about the horse? I'm not getting the dog situation.

I mean. All right, so this says, I've consulted Google AI and there's nothing more reliable. This says you are year of the horse. I rolled, said my birthday was February 11th. This says the year of the horse started February 18th. Get this. That would make me the end of the year before, the year of the snake.

Nice. That's this year. It's currently the year of the snake. Is it really currently the year of the snake? Get out of here. Amazing. The snake, the horse. Am I a horse or am I a dog?

According to this, you're a horse because then it goes to goat in February 8th, 18803. That's a Rob Kirkovich's. Your goat? I think I'm... Stubborn, peace-loving, kind, popular. that's me tootie Red door, two plaques Hold on, Troy, no, no, I'm just looking

at the kind of study. We do this for 24 minutes. So, what do you want to do? Just walk in if possible. Open the door? It says no appointments necessary on the little flyer, right? You go to open the door, the door is locked. Knock, knock on the door.

And no one answers. Let me give me a listen rule. Hmm. It just struck me that the flyer talks... You think they'd want to do business. It just struck me also that the flyer mentions, like, opposing dark forces in your life? Like, if this is someone set against dark forces, has something happened to them as well? Oh, very interesting.

I failed. I failed. I succeeded. Oh, I'm going to spend luck, and I succeed, spending five luck, regular success. You might not have to if I succeed. Oh. I'm going to save that luck, or do you want to be a part of this game? I'd like to participate in the gameplay

Okay So I'm going to spend the luck Let's go to the map Oh Okay The fact that this is a map Instantly makes me nervous I don't like these little icons

Looks like Rob was right We are all going to die I got a broken arm I don't know what those are but I like them No I don't like mine I also like using maps As much as humanly possible All right so

Did you end up using that luck or no I did I'd like to participate Okay fortune favorite the bolt. Both of you upon your successful listen role suggests to you that someone

is inside of the apartment. Cool. You hear shuffling. Maybe they're just maybe they didn't hear you knock. Do they sound like fish? Fish footprints? No. It's shambling. Wait, wait. We just get the sense.

Oh, wait. Yes? Do you hear that? Well, it doesn't sound like anyone's there, old man. Someone is in there, they're avoiding us. Can I, with that, said... Wait, wait, wait, wait, we're avoiding us. We just know someone's behind the door. Maybe they just didn't hear us.

Yeah, so say, hello! Knock a little harder. You knock again, and as you knock again, you knock the door open. The door opens, and you are greeted by a small, middle-aged Chinese man, dressed in an embroidered purple silk robe with a matching round cap and he looks at you Oh, so sorry

He has like a surprise look on his face May I help you Your notice It didn't mean to intrude and I just hold up the sign Are you Mr. Lung, the astrologer? Yes, yes You are here for a reading Yes! Oh yeah!

forgive us for the late hour old man it's just that the flyer you posted said no appointment necessary it's the middle of the afternoon on a sunday yes are you not drinking it's not late von oh it's not that late yeah no it's like you guys went to church pretty midday you ate some dumplings it's probably like one thirty two i was referring to the my current hour no no sorry it's a late hour for ross slip the veil a bit no um yes in the middle of the afternoon it's not too late for i have a little a little bit of it and no sir i've not been drinking um i have reading uh well uh yes please come in and he uh steps in and uh he says right this way and you can enter his house okay i'm sorry

just because again paranoies turned up more than than for a normal person perhaps just the vibe of the person who's answered the door does his flustered nature appear to be like the fluster of someone who is just like, ah, one of these. Not expecting customers on a Sunday or like, you've interrupted me during my horrible sacrifice. My jam session. If you know what I mean. Have you know.

It's just wrapping up. What else am I supposed to get in a jam session? I was just masturbating on Zoom. What the hell are you talking about? I'm not. I'm already enough I can jam again late in the evening. You get it enough time. You can keep getting it.

He was making a little strawberry jam. Oh, no. Well, that's something you should go to a doctor. You should see a doctor. So it looks like Dr. Walsh... How many semen clubs? Pumped his way right in. The rest of you are just doing a psychology.

Carter, next to you, there's like a little Siamese cat that was, like, scratching at the door as you went up, and as the door opens, it, like, scuttles in. He's like, go! Cat, cats! Goes into the apartment? Yes, the Siamese cat. He says, you're a lot.

cat, he tries to grab it. Is that not your cat? That's just, the cat distribution system, choosing you. Yes. I'm sorry, please, please come in, come in. What'd you roll for psychology? Oh, are we all rolling? I'm not going to roll it.

I'm just trusting this guy walking in his establishment. I don't think I got that. Fair's is always kind of suspicious. No dice. Nope. Okay. I think I don't necessarily trust this guy yet, but that's only because of Vaughn's natural skepticism to astrology as an art form general. Oh, yeah, and Carter definitely doesn't trust.

I mean, the coincidences of, like, the mask being mentioned in the thing, like, he's starting to connect dots. Peer behind the mask. Uh-huh. The masks. And also the many masks we've encountered that have had horrible properties. Yes. Yes, Terry will be talking about the cat, old man. I'm shocked you didn't see it coming.

It's all right. Please come, come in, come in. That was good. He asked you to come in, and you can move. You should be able to move your ponds into the thing. I don't see him at all. I didn't put them on there. Okay, great.

But put your people in there if you can. And in this little entrance hall here, there are charms and amulets depicting little animals hanging, like right inside the door. They look like they're made of bronze or peach wood. uh maybe he sees you looking at one of them uh dr walsh and he says ah yes you've taken an interest in my amulets please you can touch them oh yes they're rather beautiful where are they from um he starts touching them he's like um i've i've collected them over time they they had significance to me all over the world or around china um China, mostly China. Yes, you are all welcome to touch them.

This is the one that kind of looks like the one that you got in Peru. Yes, does it? Is there a plump little... What did you get in Peru again? I got a plump little golden effigy from the pyramid. Oh, yeah, this is... In my head, it's like the Willendorf Venus or something. Yeah, Carter doesn't necessarily have to be right about this.

Is any one of them like silver with like an emerald? No. Give me an occult roll. You have a cult. If there's any sort of a cult significance. I'll definitely roll a cult. Because we were told of some artifacts that we're missing from and the physical descriptions. These just look like little cheap, cheerful artifacts.

Nothing like yours, I think, had a little dark undertone. These little animals. I rolled a 16 under 62. That is a hard success. Hard success. I can't spend to make it an extreme. Save it. I don't think you need it.

You just get the sense that this is, like, superstitious little charms meant to ward off evil spirits, having it at the entrance of doorway. Gotcha. I succeeded as well. Yeah. So same vibe. Same vibe. Okay. Anyway, hi, Carter Tillinghast.

I'm a horse dog, I found out. And I want to introduce you to our group here. We're looking for a reading, if possible. Yes, yes. Please, right this way. And he leads you, like, past these screen. into the main room. And as he walks ahead, you know, the screens and the furniture are positioned in ways that are seem very strange to you, but also very purposeful.

Like, it's almost like you've got to walk through a little maze to get to the next part of his house. So you navigate these turns as he escorts to, yes, please come, come, come, right this way. Rolling over that occult roll, I'll tell you that this, especially for, I'll give it to, you where you rolled the hard success. This seems to be, you know, feng shui. Feng shui also meant to ward off spirits, you know, because spirits can't walk in... These are screens then, sort of that were?

Yeah, yeah. It was like a water fixture by the door. Yeah, and you can see it here on the map. If you're walking through, I'll move Fai Ruz a little bit. There are these screens that are kind of provide... It blocks off the rest of the room, so you've got to kind of walk your way around, and he leads you into another main room. Gardner's just like, man.

It's a very thoughtful layout. Yeah, this all looks highly flammable. Yes. And he's just watching you come in. Please, please, come in. And he leads you further in. Sorry, I apologize if I'm flustered. I wasn't expecting visitors, let alone so many, right this way.

And in the next room, there are these, like, scrolls dangling on strips from the ceiling, like flypaper. And they're increasing in numbers the further you get towards. the center of this large room. And then there's also a brazier towards the rear of the room near a door where he's going to brazier, like a little, not a fireplace, but like a fire pit in the middle of the room. And it's towards the back, top corner of the room, and he goes over there, he lights the brazier, and he grabs a pair of slippers and throws them in. And the second the slippers get in there, they burn really quickly and the stench fills the room.

And it's... Sorry, what was that? Really overpowering. You ask that, but everybody gave me a con roll because the smoke starts to fill the room. Trust the process, as they say. I rolled a 55 under 80. Okay.

I rolled a hard success on car. Hard success? I got a hard success as well. Okay. Straight con. What's a con there, chief? Not going to happen. Oh, success.

Regular success. Okay. So you just kind of like, whoa! What is that? Yes, I'm sorry, you clearly must be new to our customs. How foolish of me is just part of the... Slippers? Every time? Process, yes.

Can I roll a cult to know what that is? Yeah, you could roll a new occult. You could roll on these scrolls. There's a lot going on in here. 58 under 70 to see what burning slippers is. Yeah, burning slippers. I'll roll on the scrolls. No.

I will roll on them for I'll roll a cult I'll spend one point of luck to make it a regular success Okay On the Scrolls or the scrolls Let's say Let's say this is calling

In the lessons that Walsh has given me Maybe some books on the boat ride over Okay and did you succeed on the roll I did All right so you've read of customs of like Burning slippers to protect infants from spirits that might try to take them from their parents upon birth.

Oh, interesting. You haven't really heard of it used that much to protect adults. It seems to be something. Usually you're burning like baby slippers as part of a, you know, custom to keep my baby safe. The tiger scrolls, they have, now that you see them, they have like little images of tigers on them. Again, the tigers are thought as powerful protectors,

particularly against ancient spirits and so every step of the way there are these wards that are protecting this obviously very superstitious astrologer and the stench in the room is getting overpowering. He's like, I'm sorry, let's go into my new office

and we can get away from this stench and he opens up a door in the rear back of the room here this way and he walks towards the back and there's like a short little staircase up to a door and he opens the door, he says,

please, come in, come in this room here. It's my new office. And so you can walk up that little short flight of stairs and enter this back room. Protecting infants. And you look in, as you walk in, and it's a very odd-looking room. There's no windows,

and the walls have all been covered in black drapes. The back of the door, in fact, that closes inward has been covered. in black drapes as well and they've all been embroidered with stars in constellations. It's a little cheesy kind of like a beach strip tarot reading situation

and in the center of this new office there's a table and two chairs and hanging over one of the chairs is a sword whose blade and hilt look to be made from

threaded Chinese coin so it's not like dangerous it's like maybe another few warding this chair and he says who would like to go first you sit in this chair and the others gather around and he goes to the other

chair on the other side of the table Doc you're used to this No no no I couldn't have possibly He's got all these charts and books He's going over please someone sit and the others gather All right all right I don't for a tilling ass There's a great man please show us how it's done

You don't feel exceptionally flammable right now or anything, right? You feel pretty cool to the touch. Yeah, no, I'm fine. Please, I'm sorry. I'm trying to get my head squared away. What is your name? Gather around, gather around. Carter Tillingham.

Of the Massachusetts. What year were you born? I just found out it's 1882. 1882. What day? December 26th, sir. And he's consulting on his charts. Yes. And what month?

December, 26. He's watching you. What year? And he's scribbling everything into like a grid with a bunch of squares. 1882. 1882. Do you remember what time? What time of day? I was fairly a lot. I was watching it. No, I don't know. My relationship with my parents, we don't have to get into it right now. I don't know at the time. Yes. Very good. And he's looking up at you anxiously. And at a certain point, he stands up and he reaches into his sleeves and he pulls out like fistfuls of cash. drops it on the table in front of you and then reaches into a pocket and, like, produces a flame

and lights the money on fire. Oh, my. And, uh, and he watches you. And then he goes to run for the door. What? What? So now we're in initiative. What are how?

Something very, very strange here. Obviously, he's been getting increasingly anxious. He lights stuff on fire here. Money on fire. Bad business practices. That's good money. Yeah. Lights money on fire. and makes a run for the door.

Now, I will tell you, Fetruz, you have the same decks as he does, and it's the highest decks in the round. What is your combat skill? This man's... How old is this guy? He's, like, mid-40s. Oh, okay. So, like, hand...

Like, brawl? Yeah, brawl, or... Yeah, I would say brawl. Brall? 50. 50. All right. So you're going to go first, and here's what I'll tell you you can do. If you want to try and stop him,

it's going to be an opposed dex roll. Okay. If you want to run out, if you want to do other things, you can. But to try and just stop him from running out, it's a straight up opposed dex roll versus his decks. Okay. I'm going to do that, and we're trying to tackle him. Okay. Give me a dex roll. Oh, ho.

Here we go. Please don't fail me. Please don't fail me. Fuck. 96. Oh, what do you? Your dex is over 50. Yeah, 55. Okay.

Extreme success. Hmm. So he runs towards the door. Excuse me. Where are you going? He pulls a cord that's hanging by the door, pulls it. All of the sheets fall to the ground, and all of the walls are covered in mirrors, including the door that he shuts behind him,

locking you in here, all covered with mirrors. I load my gun. Yeah, the gun is out. Guns out. Mirrors everywhere on every walls, all different sizes, all different shapes, all covering all of the walls. We are going to stay in initiative order here,

and I'm going to try and see a future for this campaign, as you tell me for what? You do. Féruz has gone, staying in initiative order. It would be Dr. Walshister. You're in a room of mirrors, and you feel just, like, really disoriented. Like, you look into the mirrors and, like, everything's... What's going on?

Where did he go? And he goes toward the door that he ran through immediately and is trying to, like, open it or find an opening to it. Okay. But he sees himself, I would assume, in the door. And then the reflection back of himself a million times, also the reflection of Vaughn and Carter and, you know, in every direction he looks. Is there a handle? So you go to the door. Yeah, there's a door.

It's locked. You can try to force it open or try to lock pick it. He doesn't know how to lock pick it. And he's like, let us out, man. This is not a funny joke. And he starts slamming against the door. So, yeah, he tries to, like, break through. Okay.

Use that heft. Give me a strength roll. Strength roll. Here we go. That is an extreme success with a seven. Are you shitting me? He's not the strongest of guys, but I just rolled a... Seven!

Yeah. An extreme strength roll is the only way that you can force that. Oh, look at it. You can say it, Robert. Remember that right there. How do you like your little mirror trap now, LaValley? So you... Oh, shit.

I was taunt him. No, boy. Extreme strength rule. You can force the door open. And you see Mr. Lung on the other side. And he's looking at you wide-eyed like you're a god. And he's like, no, no. What are you doing?

What is this all about? That's his turn. Carter, what do you do? Carter is going to spring up. First of all, double checks, is all the money burned? The money is just and by the way, you can do other checks that aren't

combat or movement related to try and figure out what might be going on here. But when you start doing actual actions that are either combat or movement related, those, you only get one of each. Yeah, if all the money's burnt, then fuck it. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, God, that's good money. And Carter, like, gets up and brushes

past Marion to get up on the guy and maybe, like, grab him. All right, so you run to the guy and try and grab him. All right, go ahead and give me a strength roll to try and overpower him. And he doesn't even fight back. He's just like, actually, no. Great, so I don't roll anything. We take that back.

Oh. No, his reaction is to immediately fight back. Okay. With fire in his eyes. Oh, that's different. What I was expecting. I got a 59. I got a regular success.

all right and he failed so your intention was to grab him you grab him hey what the fuck is going on here jack vaughn my gun is out now mm-hmm it just according to our map i was kind of like almost right next to the door he ran through i think i was just so shocked and surprised by all this i was kind of almost like fumbling at my waistband trying to draw it out as he made his way out as walsh made his incredible uh just like through his entire I mean, he's a big guy. Yeah, he just crashing through the door. And then Tillingast has him in his clutch.

And I will swing around the doorframe, pistol out. It's like, that's right, you bounder. What in the devil's name are you up to? And you draw a gun on him. That's right. Okay. So you leave the room, draw a gun on him. Mm-hmm.

Okay. You, Dr. Walsh and you, Faye Ruse, are still in the room. A couple of things are going to happen. Fuck. First, both of you give me a pow-roll. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Let's put us where we are on the map, because I moved myself out of the room, but that's because I felt like I busted through the door. But I'm standing at the door. Carter's through. Fawns through. Okay. And you guys are kind of on the stairwell, I think, right there. But, uh...

Oh, right. We're at the top of the stairs, I guess. Yeah, you're at the top of the stairs, and he's right there with... I'll go over here. And if you go, Oof. All right. I'm not going to mess with this.

I'm going to spend 10 points of luck for a regular success. For a regular success. I failed. I rolled a 79 over 60, and I will not be spending luck at luck. Even a regular success is not. Damn it!

Why didn't you give me the old save it, good buddy? Because I'm looking out for you. Because he's not your buddy. Trul. You both lose five points of power. Oh! Permanently? Yes.

It's something in this room is draining you, but maybe this is a better room to be in because Vaughn and Carter, you've got the gun drawn on this guy. Carter, you've got this guy held and you just hear this sound, this like laughter behind you. And you turn and you look

in that little Siamese cat just starts like and turns into this fucking cat demon that is like seven feet tall what says let him go do I have the ability like because they've done something can I do something it's coming back around to you in the initiative order

for the second round here so it says let him go it then comes up the cat says let him go cat says like let him go and it comes up and it slashes at Mr. Lung. At the lung? Yep. Misses, does it again. Misses, does it again, and hits.

And it hits Mr. Lung for three points of damage. He's just like, these claws go against three claw attacks on Mr. Lung. And now it's Mr. Lung's turn, and he's just like, ah, ah! Both of you give me a sanity roll as you see this cat demon. Here we go. Oh, fucking shit. I thought we could just play pretend for the whole time where I ended. We don't have you in New York.

Oh, God. All right. Sanity. We thought this was going to be the easy one. Let's just go have fun and get our fortunes red. I succeeded on my sanity roll. Success. You can't spend luck.

No. Okay. I just barely failed. You lose 1D3. You lose 1D10, sanity. Oh, my. Mike, if you lose more than five and a pop, you mean like nine?

Oh! Give me an intelligence role. I lost... Rip. We'll get to it. No, no, let's hear it. Make me feel a little better. Um, I, I, I, I lost three points of safety.

Oh, my God. My God. Vaughn cannot lose anyone. Your sanity. Give me an intelligence role that you want to fail. Otherwise, it's an 80. No, that's good. You're very smart.

I am. Don't let the misspelling of cults fool you. No, I failed. I mean, I succeeded. It's a 6,200. Oh, you comprehend. Out of madness. Here, you comprehend the full reality of the other worlds crashing down upon you.

I think you release Mr. Lung and you just go to the floor fetal in like catatom. A tonic. Cat atonic. Oh, my God. Uh, yeah. Oh! And then the strike drops to the ground. Oh!

To the gas! To the gas! My God, man! Uh, and I'm very close to this enormous cat beast. Um, what is, how does the deck order play out now? Well, so now it's Mr. Lung's turn. Mr. Lung, like, grabs a butcher knife and turns and, like, goes to slam it into the D-Mexam.

and he extreme success buries the butcher knife inside this cat demon and it just goes and the cat demon doesn't even flinch on an extreme

it's now Fayruz's turn oh my god I imagine it that it's got like fat wings but it's like one of those fortune cats that's like with the arm that's like me you just hear like you hear all of this going out there you know what you're walking into

but it's a dangerous room to stay it Do you avert your eyes, just run, stumbling through screens? I want to try something crazy, and I don't know if it's going to work. Yes. Ferreuse with her gun, her gun has been drawn. Ferreuse is going to drop to the ground and fire three shots at three mirrors. Okay. To see if that fucking does anything, because I don't trust that he just, like, was like,

who-hoo, mirrors, and I'm out of here. It's a small room, okay? You're shooting basically a point-blank range against several things. So instead of taking a penalty die on each of these, you would get a bonus die. They're going to cancel them out. So it's three firearm shots. You're just shooting at these mirrors.

Feruze has a 77 in firearm. Let's go. Okay. She rolls in 80 on the first one. I'm going to spend three luck to make it. One success. We can do that. I thought you couldn't spend luck in combat.

You're right. No, you can spend luck. You can't push combat rolls. Okay. You can't spend luck on damage rolls. Yeah, okay. So, I'm going to. I'm going to.

I'm going to spend some luck to make that first one a success. Okay, one success. The one just makes it 75 under 77. Two successes. And the third one fails. Third one fails. Roll 2D6 to see how many mirrors you smash. 2D6.

11. Wow, huge. Okay, so amazing. she just mirrors start smashing to the floor but there's still a lot of mirrors up looks like there could be a few dozen mirrors but you've taken a lot of them out

maybe Yeah what's it does anything change about our situation? Does it do anything? Not really. It's still real bad. God damn it. Yeah, I mean you feel like you're on the road to solving this puzzle

but there are multiple enemies, multiple problems. Dr. Walsh. he was just going to run out of the room, of course, but then he sees Fai Ruse doing this and knows to trust her judgment. Tear the scrolls! Is there, uh, can I use an, can I use an, like, an action for thought here?

Like, or does that take a whole turn to just sort of do like an occult role? No, no, I said you can roll these. We've never really done this before, but where, well, there's idea roles, which is a straight up intelligence role to, like, get a hint, essentially about what's going on here. But you want to do an occult role and have that not be your action, and that's fine. Yeah, I just want to see, like, do I know anything, like, should I throw this cash off the table or start breaking mirrors, basically, is kind of what I'm looking at. Also scrolls on the wall. Or is there a way to reverse the-

Scrolls are on the other side and the other room? He's tired. Things aren't doing shit. Just so unclear. He pulled a rope and things. And the drapes all fell to the floor to reveal the mirrors. The drapes were covering the mirrors. How many mirrors?

Uh, it looks like 40 mirrors. 40? And you broke an 11. I love it. All right. So maybe break some more marriage. I'm thinking like an occult role to, yes, there's the, there's the cash, there's the mirrors, but it's like, what, what? Think about it.

Cat comes in, comes in with us. With us. Is, uh, he immediately is like, ah, he burns, he burns slippers to protect infant protection. Maybe this is, uh, maybe this, this cat is known. Cat demon could kill an infant, right? Yeah. And then he runs up here. He brings up a bunch of mirrors and burns cash.

What? Mirrors, reflections. We see ourselves. We see each other. Money's unimportant. I have no idea. So I'm going to roll a cult and see if this all can connect to the cat demon or some way to dismiss it. And I'm going to spend three luck to make it an extreme success.

Okay. To try and understand. I rolled a 17. I'm going to roll three luck to get it to 14. What could possibly be happening? Which is an extreme success. Okay. you walk in

oh you open you knock on the door nobody answers you listen someone's in there you knock again it knocks the door right open and he's surprised to see you and uh he asked you to come in he has these warding amulets touch these amulets watching you he's like that's the fucking cat but he's more focused on you

lets the cat go in he's annoyed but he's focused on you touch the ambulance he's watching you touch the ambulance okay walk this way you have to walk through this feng shui maze and he's watching you the whole time. He thinks weird demons, maybe? Wide-eyed. There's tiger scrolls. He's watching you do that.

He burns the slippers. Nothing happens. So, hey, come back here. Come back here. Traps you in a room. And then he gets attacked by this cat that then turns into a demon. So you think he was afraid

of being attacked by a demon and thought you were the demons. Oh, we were the demons. But he fucked himself because he left himself alone with the true demon. Okay. But this trap is strange. strong enough to harm you as it has

Faye Ruse and Dr. Walsh to get the cat into the room or get the fuck out of here. Yeah, yeah. That's close run. Well, when Faj Ruse is shooting the mirrors, do I think it's probably better to, with an extreme success, do I think it's probably better to get the fuck out of here

than to try to draw the cat into this room? You know that Fai Ruse is going to be stuck in here for another six seconds. You should get out of here or try and help Feroos, Fet Ruse, but, but if we blow all the mirrors up, then there's nothing to stop the cat. Well, he's intimate.

I mean, that's my question. Will we get anything by getting the cat in here? Probably not, is what I think. We probably have to run. That's my gut on the occult roll. I think we run and we try to take the guy with us if we can't. Yeah, but he's in a fetal position, which I don't really know yet, but just talking that out. All right.

Okay. Okay. Action. Take action. I think Ferreuse shoots these things out. He's going to say, Ferris, it's not going to work. it's not going to do anything. Whatever he's summoned,

it's not going to stop it. We have to go. Now! You're going to grab and pull her out of the room? He's going to reach a hand to her and try to pull her. He's not going to leave without her. Okay. I'm going to say you can pull her out of the road.

Yeah, I won't resist. So he grabs her, pulls her, pushes her, like, from the back, gently down the steps to, like, go ahead of him. And then he's like, just run. Don't look at it. Okay. And then I think they might see that Carter is on the floor. And I've, of course, seen that because it happened right next to me.

Yeah. All right, so that's his turn. Okay, okay. I'm not going to have your role against this cat demon just yet. But understand, if you look at this thing in any way, you're going to have, you're going to be subject to this same sanity role. I think you understand that something's going on here. And he's just looking at Carter right now.

And you just, you're just hearing these otherworldly voices. Keep your eyes down. Eyes down. And it is Carter's turn. So Carter, you've lost time here. I want you to stay active in the combat, but you're just like, it was just a dream. a horrible nightmare. You just woke up in your bed.

That was a dream. That didn't happen. We didn't go there. And then you realize, oh God, I'm back! And you're on the ground. And you see this, like, seven-foot-tall demon that has feline features. And Mr. Long is just like gushing blood. A butcher knife sticking out of the demon. What do you do? Um, I think this is Carter's, like, first bout of man, is that what it was, is that what's officially called?

The first time it's ever happened to you? It happened once in Peru, very briefly. When I, like, stood and stared at the wall or something. I was like, I think the lingering effects of this is that you, you are having trouble distinguishing between, is this a dream, is this a nightmare or is this reality? Yeah. It's got to, it can't be real. It can't be real.

And therefore, I think since he's gone, he's had the bout. I think, you know, a saner Carter would be like, it's fight time, whatever, but I think it's a full-on, like, self-preservation, flight situation. Maybe there's a, like, grab, try to grab the guy to bring him with us kind of a thing. He's still seeing somebody, like, the sort of, quote-unquote, New Carter, see somebody gushing blood. And I would like to think that even in his most, like, panicked moment, he's not necessarily the bravest against the monster, but he at least is thinking about this other person. So maybe he tries to, like, grab, we're at the top of these stairs.

So maybe he tries to grab this guy. and, like, just start running down the stairs. All right, so you drag this guy towards the middle of the room in the direction of the Feng Shui. It's slowing you down a little bit. So just like Dr. Wall's dragging Ferruz out, you're dragging this guy down. Also, hopefully, I mean, there were these things

that were, like, protector scrolls and stuff, right? So I don't know if that's going to help, but get him back into that area. That's right. If I see Tillingass sort of snap out of his, or just kind of lost in his dream reverie and dragging this man down, then I will snap back into soldier mode

and cover their retreat. Are you two behind us? Have you both moved past us? No, we just got out of the room, top of the stairs with you. Yeah. Ferreuse in front of me, Fierroos, if you want to move out

to the stairs just outside. Excellent. Then I will say, down the bloody stairs to both of you! And just raise my gun and begin to empty it into this thing as I try to walk back. backwards down the stairs in the rear of the retreat.

So you just start walking back. Just walking backwards just... That's the covering his ears. Mary's coming to just, back, bye, bye, but... So loud, so loud for the neighborhood. The neighbor's upstairs. Bang, bang, bang, give me those shots. I'm going to say, are you point blank?

I don't know how I feel as though I am. I said then just straight rolls. No bonus die, no penalty die. How many shots can I get off at this point? Three shots. Three. All right. Yeah, so normally if you're shooting three shots,

each shot has a penalty die, you get a bonus die for being point-blank range, so they cancel each other out. Each of those is a straight roll. Straight-roll, yeah. Handgun, not a good skill for me. Here we go. Fail.

Miss. Success. Actually, a, um, an extreme success. An extreme success that is, that will do impale damage. And a regular success. Wow. I rolled, I rolled a 14 and a three. Wow.

Okay. Rather than calculate the damage, I'll tell you, not unlike the butcher knife, that first one hits and goes right into him. The second one hits, and it doesn't seem to affect this creature at all. Do I have to take another sanity penalty for still... No, thankfully, he's maxed out in your second. It's like, don't worry, it's coming. Down the bloody steps, damn you. No, you got steel pentacles right now.

Steel pentacles. Steel pentacles. It's its turn at the top of round three here. I made a slight mistake that Michael correct me on. It has two attacks in this form that do a lot more damage. So I will roll against Mr. Lung. And let's see what we get. 007, that is a extreme success and another regular success.

So just for shits and giggles, I'll walk you through the real damage. Oh, my God. Just rolling Legos back there? Let's go out. Just loose Legos? Too many. And ends up being over 40 points of damage. This thing comes up and just like puts its claws into Mr. Long and just

balls. Rips it apart. Yeah. Rips him apart. Inside somebody's home. A beast. Inside somebody's home. Yes.

And it is. And what's taken, money. It's been burned. Oh, because they said it was like, robberies. Robberies. It said it was always robberies. What is going on?

Maybe they were just saying breaking in. I can't remember. But yeah, that's fucked though. Okay. It would be lungs turn, but his lungs were on the floor. Now I know why he's named that. There you go. Foreshadowing.

Ferreuse. You're on the floor. You hear this melee, but you know, you know, if you look, you're going to be subject to wacky town. Was I at the top of the stairs? At the top of the stairs. Just keep your eyes down. Run!

Run! Run! In my peripheral, were there the scrolls on the On the, along the side of the staircase? I think they're downstate. No, the scrolls are like to the north, middle of the large room. So not where I am. Yeah.

So is there anything I could just take on the way down? A broken mirror? No, I want something up. Okay, never mind. I'm just going to get out of there. Okay. So do you like haul ass? Yes.

Okay, so you, by the way, we're holding Mr. Lung. You look back and you're just holding a severed arm. Yep. Yeah. Jurassic Park. Oh! Dr. Walsh. Dr. Walsh is just following Fairoos.

Like I said, kind of like, hand was on her back, and then she started outpaced him, and now he's trying to catch up to her. He heard the shots, bang, bang, bang, and deafens him. But he just threw all the melee.

He hears Vaughn, just like, run, run! And he's just like keeping his eyes down, his extreme occult role, telling him, like, don't look, don't look, don't look. And he just keeps his eyes on the floor. He's kind of looking at the back of Fairoo's heels

as she's running. Yeah, and I'm just following her. screaming for for Vaughan and Carter to GTFO yeah okay uh Carter yes what do you do as you're sitting there holding the severed arm not going to have your own more sanity you're already mad at this moment thanks um so at this point I've gotten to where do you think uh I'd say you are right in front of the the screens leading back to the entrance hall may I make an offer please Scott just just this is just color that like that you looked found at this arm

lifeless in your hand and in Carter's mind, not knowing the difference between dream and reality, you just see it. Fist bump, buddy. Wrist bump and grabs it.

We're all friends. Frucks it and chucks it. Friends. French. A fist of French. Got your back. Oh. Um, fuck

Where Where are they This cat thing has ripped this man apart That I was holding on to So I'm imagining I'm closest to the cat monster Yeah, you can feel this like Presence and they're all running Now, uh, Dr. Walsh is still at the top of the stairs

I think I skipped you actually No, I ran out I'm right behind fear So they're all running out And now that the cat is Uh, uh, uh, eviscerated this man Um Has a butcher knife sticking out of it

And two cold bullets Does it seem to be like, my job is done? Or does it seem like it's now... It did say, uh... Let him go. Let him go, yeah. And then, but only wanted to kill him so that may change. Yeah, but now you've attacked him, so that may change.

I didn't do shit to him. Not you, but your buddy did. I just met this guy! I don't know him! Um, well, I guess if they're, like, it's not like I can turn around and help, like, I think he's just, I just continue to run. Just run. Yeah. Uh, I think he's too fucking frazzled.

Vaughn. Yes, sir. It's your turn. Run. Run. All right, so all of you, run. With your backs to this sound, you just hear this like, Oh, my own sound.

And a little Siamese cat makes its way past you to the door. My gun shaking in my hand, following it out the door. And the cat just turns and says, I have no quarrel with you. and pounds off out of the street and we'll see you next week. Oh my God!

What the fuck? Your first salvage horn! You had a cat talk. We better start next... I quit! You better start next session by Roelix Party! What a spot!

Join us. Oh my God. Come play with us, Dennis. Got away with us, Danny. Forever. And ever, and ever. It's time to make your membership official. Start your 30-day free trial today and become an official member of the Nache at join

the nash.com with the promo code G-CN-30. That's join the N-A-I-S-H.com and use code G-CN-30 to gain access to exclusive podcasts, add-free episodes, and content you can't find anywhere else. Once again, it's Join the Nache. and use code GCN30 at signup to get your first 30 days for free. Tell your friends, come join yourself and see what everybody's talking about when you join the nation today. I've got a homicide in Springfield's Northwoods by Mile Marker 16.

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

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

Then, tune in to Season 4 of How I Died, releasing now on all podcast apps. American history is full of infamous tales that continue to captivate audiences, decades, or even hundreds of years after they happened. On the infamous America podcast, you'll hear the true stories of the Salem Witch Trials and the escape attempts from Alcatraz, of bank robbers like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, of killers like Lizzie Borden and Charles Starkweather, of mysteries like the Black Dahlia and D.B. Cooper, and of events that inspired movies like Goodfellas, killers of the flower moon, Zodiac, Eight Men Out, and many more.

I'm Chris Wimmer. Join me as we crisscrossed the country from the Miami Drug Wars and Dixie Mafia in the South, to mobsters in Chicago and New York, to arsonists, kidnappers, and killers in California, to unsolved mysteries in the heartland and in remote corners of Alaska. Every episode features narrative writing and cinematic music, and there are hundreds of episodes available to binge. Find Infamous America, wherever you get your podcasts.