The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S3 | E6 – Bared Fang

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

After an intense brush with death, the new Mystery Squad prepares for a late night break-in. Watch the video here: ⁠⁠https://youtu.be/JdaG28SnG5I⁠ 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

D.C. high volume, Batman. The Dark Nights definitive DC comic stories adapted directly for audio for the very first time. Fear, I have to make them afraid. He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or have you shot? You mean blow up the building? From this moment on,

none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. It's Friday night, and it's time for chaos. We, wow, seduced. Very low-key open. More shocking.

Because we went out last night. There's something I don't get to do in the city that often anymore. It's usually like, all right. drive my hour home but I know we went out and not really tied one on I had to drive but just after a long day of recording

and eating a fucking cheeseburger at 9.30 p.m. Like a psychopath. I was just looking and Rob's like, I think I'm getting it a cheeseburger. I'll take a cheeseburger too. Yeah, I'll have a cheeseburger. She just sat in my stomach all night long.

It's a good time though. I mean, this has been so far one of my favorite weeks. In recent memory, I can't remember a better week than this. It's been so, I want to be sad when this first section, this first batch is over. Same. Yeah, agreed. I think it's going to have that theater kid thing, right?

Theater camp. When the play. Yeah. You're like, I don't want to go. What's the next time we can get together? We're going to be best friends forever. You know any high school cast parties Rob and I went to together? Yeah, wow.

It was. There was a malaise the following week when the show is finally done. And you're like, uh, my life. There's no meaning. Don't worry, guys. We can go to a coffee shop for a Denny's at 11 after our final show. And it's like, sing summer loving to the dismay of the staff. Maybe it'll be like last night where we are then presented with mystery shots.

Yes, yes. There were mystery shots. Sort of umami. Uh-huh. Yes. The proprietor of one of the two watering holes that we went to suddenly appeared with a tray full of strange orange fluid and we all

ask no questions no question whatsoever spoke to the dome this mystery beverage definitely rail tequila and eel sauce it was like it was out of nowhere and it was like hey shots on the house she had a flaming fire

the tray was on fire I was on flame it was on fire it was on fire tray was on fire she just appeared yeah and much like our characters we were totally reckless and we're like yeah sure we'll Exactly. No one crushed.

No one doesn't. I don't work here. It was very strange considering there wasn't like it didn't feel like a buyback situation. We hadn't been there for two hours by any drinks. We had gotten in, ordered around. And while we were sipping our first drink, she was like shots on the house. I couldn't tell if she was like, these guys are cool. Let's get them around to shots, you know.

Or if that was her job, she just walked around offering. She didn't work either way because then we immediately left. Yeah, we immediately bounced. I would not say that we formed a rapport with the staff there, nor could we be understood by each other. It was a very small bar with no dance floor, and yet a DJ playing music at roughly 75,000 decibels. Yeah, ears splitting.

The volume of a F-14 taking off of an aircraft carrier, except it was like a, I don't know, shaggy. Yeah. And the DJ also felt compelled to go, it's 10 o'clock we walked out of there I'm like The five people at the bar

just turn like Yeah we're just trying to talk to each other I did say after the mystery shot I came up to you and I was like I don't know if it was that mystery shot But now that music sounds like the perfect volume We walked out of there

And I'm like oh it's kind of wild here For a Thursday And somebody said Troy it's Tuesday I was like The hell is wild that place. I really thought in my brain it was Thursday. It's Tuesday. It's 10 o'clock. You know what? I feel like right now. I was excited about this coming in today. I was like, I feel like Gen Con

energy right now. Yeah. Yeah. I'm tired. I'm like burning the midnight oil on gaming. And now I'm just starting another game. And things get punchy. Things get fun. Yeah. We're always halfway through. Exactly. You're all live though. Five that's in. The quarter mark of this. season, unless we do 30, 40 episodes, who knows? I'll have a good time. Don't threaten me. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. And now we've got, you know, I don't want to tell them too much about what our plans are, but let's just say tomorrow night, we're going out again. And I told my wife, I'll see her in a couple days.

This is fun, though. I've shortened our banter down because there's just a lot of show to get to. So let's keep that going. Stick around. We will be right back. They are in the shit. Here, the most popular fiction podcast of all time, which the New York Times described as

what might occur if David Lynch was a producer at your local radio station. Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly update from a small desert town. Where the paranormal is real. Every conspiracy theory is true. We all have to get on with our lives anyway. Welcome to Night Vale is available wherever you get your podcasts. It's ticklish business anyway. 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 journalist Kristen Lopez, and my co-host, author Emily Edwards, we dive into the golden age of cinema with fun, heart, and serious, expertise. As published film historians and lifelong classic movie buffs, we bring insider insights, deep research, and lively debates with a variety of special guests, ranging from celebrities like Holly Madison, to TCM luminaries Dave Carger and Eddie Muller, and even family members of old

Hollywood legends. Subscribe now to ticklish business on your favorite podcast app, and let's talk about old Hollywood today. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Harrow. And yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, sad, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to Happy Say I Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, look at us for drowning and pee. I'd like to thank our sponsor for this season of time for Chaos Chaosium.

Hey, they're in the name of the show. All right. Never noticed that. Yeah. You never noticed that for Chaos. Just being kitschy. Make sure you check out Chaosium.com. Use code TFC2 because it's the second code we've used, even though it's season three.

TFC2 for 15% off all of your call of Cthulhu purchases. Anything you want to buy. Just load up that cart. Because when you do it, it lets them know you are a fan of this show. Yeah, that's how we get more time for chaos. Honestly. You want more? Do that.

Also check out our subscription service. Join the Nash, N-A-I-S-H.com. Use code G-C-N-E-C-H-30 for 30-day free trial. You can listen to this show ad-free. Because if you're not, there's going to be so many fucking ads on this show. Hope you like mobile games. An edible underwear It's loaded up

Cash for gold You want the good news or the bad news Because it's I think it's going to be collectively bad Or do you want me to pull my foot off the gas You tell me what you want In terms of the delivery of news In terms of how we start today's session

I don't rip the bandaid off Yeah go for it Banned that right off All right. This was a sidetrack scenario. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think that's pretty clear, which means there'll be a development phase.

Oh. So any skill that you have checked, go ahead and roll against super fun. Okay. As you can see, I'm starting with the good news. Oh, that's not the bad. Okay. Damn it. Okay.

So once again, in a development phase, if you've checked a skill, you're trying to roll over it, fail. Now you're trying to fail it. Yes. So any skill you're saying, succeeded on without pushing or using luck to succeed on should be checked, something that we probably didn't do 100% correct the first two seasons. But Michael is very good at being on top of these check marks. He has access to all of your sheets.

Roll against it. If you fail, you add a D something. 10. D10. Well, unfortunately, that's what I just rolled. I believe it's D10. Yes, one D10. My charm is not going.

So I get to. Oh! My charm is. is. Whoa, you're already quite charming. My 85 charm, I just rolled a 99. Holy shit. So, man, you could get your charm above 90 right now.

I could get my char, come on. Which means you would immediately gain 2D6 sanity. Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said that because now you're going to roll four. Come on, come on. A, oh, 93 charm. Wow. Wow. Immediately give yourself 2D6 sanity.

Wow. Wow. I really need that and there's no way. It's going to happen. Amazing. All right. Six points of Santa. Yes, you get a sanity boost for what is considered to be mastering a skill.

This guy just walks it off the street into this show. Sorry to get 206 boost. Oh, okay. Wow. Well, Von Villiers just took a bunch of shots into a strange cat beast. And his handgun skill is going up. Let's see by how much. Nice.

Come on. Get it. Three points. Hey. It's better than nine. You know how many times you miss it by one? I got to increase my library use and psychology, but not by much, like three and one. Okay, all right.

Hey, every little bit counts. An old Colicthulu. All right. Any luck over there, Carter Tillinghast? His fast talk actually went up by five points to a nice 10, which is great for a guy. That's great, man. I failed, obviously, my mechanical repair role that I rolled. that two on when I had a 10.

So I failed that, got four points in that. So mechanical repair now at 14. Oh. Now the bad news? No. No. Oh my God. My occult is at 70.

I rolled a 73. Oh, God. Holy shit. What is happening? You're just having a great time. I'm having a blast right now. That must be so good for you. Six points in a cult.

Well, this experience. This is amazing. The room, the mirrors, the burning cash. Right? The slippers. There's so many occult. information, so much of cold information coming in. Okay, you really want to give the bad news.

No, the bad. I just want to get it over with so we can enjoy our meal. Like in Annie Hall, he's like, go out on the day. He's like, can we just kiss now? If we get it over with, then we're not nervous about the kiss the whole time. We get it out of the way, then we can enjoy our meal and digest. For inadvertently helping this demon dispatch lung, you all lose 1D6 sanity points. One D6?

Yes. So hold up right now. I'm sorry. Hold up. I'm thinking about it, the whole drive. If one of us loses over five on this rule. This is more of like a, boom. I'm not going to have you have a bout of madness here if you go over five for this particular thing,

because this is more of like a degradation of sanity from this experience. You are shook. Troy, I don't have the sanity to spare. I'm praying for a one. Okay. Or maybe you're using some novelty dye that doesn't have sixes or fives on it. Now, just so I'm clear. again, because I've never, I don't know that I've played a character

of sanity has dipped to this level. Is there a point after which he's like wrecked? At zero. At zero. He becomes an NPC. Great. Well, which I've never had happen, even in one shot. That's right. Just die. The journey continues. Let's see. Come on.

No. Five. Oh, come on. Come on. Brutal. I rolled two. I rolled three. I lost four more. I am now, my sanity is now in the 80s. Oh, that must be nice. I was over here doing cartwheels. Like, it's a wonderful game.

What a fun game to play, right, Ross? What a beautiful day outside. Remember all that convalescing and self-help that Vaughn got in the tranquil days out in the English seaside and communing with his friends on the sea voyage over? Well, that's all gone. He's back in the 20s. Oh, come on. Well, this experience, this was brutal. Yes. And we can't go get like acupuncture or something.

Can we just unlock some chakras or something? I would say to pour through this and the investigators can't see if you find something, it could be investigated. I'm sure it's investigated as well. You can find anything that allows you to regain sanity, but it's usually long periods of rest. I mean, this is why, you know, Vaughn removed himself from last season. He's just realized that at a certain point, he was a liability. Michael, just tell us all the things we can say. But the handwriting, the handwriting is kind of on the wall here at a certain point. Right.

If Vaughn continue, we're going to lose him. Yeah. It's, look, he knew it was coming when he, when he sat sail on this, on this, on this, on this ship. He doesn't want to, he, he would, he would feel as though he's stepping away from a duty to which he has been called if he, if he allowed his friends to, to go on this journey without him. He is already torturing himself with his survivor's guilt from his experience in the war. He can't do it for this. I'm going to miss him. Man.

All right. Well, let's not mourn him yet. He's here. He's fine. You can do this. You can do this every once in a while. Everything's fine. We can't die.

We just got new artwork. I'll tell you this. As a handler, I have seen a lot. of incredibly low sanity PCs pass sand rolls that it's just staggering. You're like,

my God, like the odds of this are so low, but like hit it, hit it survive. It can happen. It can happen. It can happen. It will happen.

That's right. It's going to happen. I'm going to survive and recover fully. I think so. Maybe there'll be something. We'll have a rich and happy life. Have any skills nearing 90?

2D6 would be. It would be so nice, wouldn't it? But I keep rolling really low on these. development faces. Yeah. It's not happening.

The only skill that I have that's, I have a skill that's 90 and it's credit rating. It's credit rating. And I don't think you can, is that a skill you can improve in a development phase? That'd be so fucking nitpicky. We haven't talked about this before. If you like, it is, you have reached financial perfection. That would increase my sanity a lot. I mean, certainly.

You're under zero financial stress. Yeah. Oh, actually, yeah. I'm just pointing this out. Technically, on these sheets and this virtual. table top. Every skill has a little hash mark next to whether you can tick if you really smash your success.

The exception of which is Kotula mythos and credit rating. There's nothing to check. Shit. Oh, interesting. Michael! Did you get 2D6 sanity back? What did you get? I got six. And then I lost two of that from this encounter. Net positive. Yeah.

And across all of my check skills, which was like half a dozen, I got increases in every one of the except spot hidden. Joe, I failed. Wait, was it a 1D6 sanity loss or a 2D6? He gained 2D6 for mastering a skill. My charm went over 90.

Got you, gotcha. So both. Hope you die. Both Vaughn. I mean, he definitely can. He definitely. I hope you die. Jesus, Kirchovich.

Both Vaughn and Carter just got smacked with major sanity loss. I'm not going to call this. indefinite insanity with this extra D6, even though I believe both of you have gone past a fifth of your remaining in one pop in one day. Because you remember, you can go indefinitely insane if you lose more of a fifth of your sanity in one day, which both of you have from where we started the day, right?

Right. Yeah, so I haven't yet. You haven't. I lost nine, but I had started the day at 64, I think. Okay, so you're not, you didn't lose a fifth. No, it was even higher. It was like, because I just lost another four. So, yeah, I lost three.

Well, now I've lost 13 with the, I'm not doing math. Okay. Vaughn definitely did. Yeah. But I'm, I'm assuing that for now just because it's not, it wasn't an, it works a little differently, right? This is more of a development loss. However, any further loss of sanity at this point that happens in the real world here,

uh, it would be enough to push you over. So that may change. how you handle things here. Or you're saying in the rest of the day. The rest of this day, yes. Yeah. Yeah, you may be like, we need to go sit. I need a nap.

Yeah. So just think about that. It's not gaming the system. It's really your characters, as much as you want them to be heroes and push on, they're suffering. Yeah. Remind me, Troy, what time of day it is right now. I believe it was early afternoon. Early afternoon.

Went to church. She had some soup dumplings. You went to church, could grab some dim sum. So far, a casual Sunday morning and early afternoon. And then we almost got rent asunder by a transdimensional cat man. And who didn't have beef with us. Didn't have beef with us. No, we just kind of witnessed it in its horrible attack on this mysterious astrologer.

Yes. Who we know nothing about. Right. But his corpse is in his house. And a demon cat just transformed back into a regular cat. and walked away. How do we know that he, that lung wasn't a bad guy?

I mean, I guess the story just told us because we lost sanity. Yeah. Should we go to the map? Yes, please. You're standing on the, is it blood spattered now?

Yeah, I should have done that. Do we want to do luck rolls first before? Oh, and the taro. As is tradition. We got to cover what happened last week with the tariff. Yeah. All right.

And we got to do the full recap. Look. You know, I'm always reticent to throw a map up because people are like, Oh, God. Here we go. There's a comment. Yeah, we're talking about that. I mean, it's very rare.

you throw an apartment, a map up for an apartment. That's when we knew. You got to be fucking kidding me. I rolled an 18 under 27. I can't for the life of God. Rob. Gain any freaking luck. I just failed slash succeeded yet again on my luck roll and then

rolled a 10 on luck. Incredibly. We knew Cala Cthulahoo will be the game for you. Fried go with four to four. It's an absolute beast. He's going to get gutted. Not even got himself. Stop them.

Yeah. My luck increased just a little bit. I got eight. I know as I need it. Yeah. All right. Okay. So four of pentacles mean.

So four of pentacles. Yes. That was last week. This was last week's card that we drew. And it's kind of this guy. He's got his foot on each little pentacle. Like, I'm holding this down. I'm holding this down.

I'm hoarding this one. Demon coins. One's on top of his head for some reason. And guys, once again, it says, So the four pentacles in tarot typically represents security control and a strong desire for financial stability, often with a focus on material possessions and wealth. However, it can indicate a need for pause, introspection, and a willingness to focus on personal energy. It encourages finding a balance between material security and other important aspects of life, such as personal fulfillment and spiritual growth. What the fuck did we do?

Church? We went to church. Introspection. Burning money. Burning money and Paus. And spiritual growth. Trying to get our fortunes read, spiritual growth.

And yeah, there is a fear of loss. And then he literally burned money. So. Very interesting. So let's figure out. Let's do the new one. Let's do the new one. All right.

I'm scared. Back in you go with the rest of them. Let's see. God, it's creepy, man. It is, it's really creepy. And I was saying earlier to Joe that, like, the reason why I, because I've done this before in other games, and it's always been so spot on. And I've started asking other people to tell me to stop shuffling and tell me top, like, cut or top card because, so that nobody thinks that I'm picking the card. So who wants to pick it this time?

I did it last time, so. I'll do it. Stop. Top or cut? Cut. Nice. I was hoping to take cut. I was hoping for a cut today.

Yeah. We need it. Oh, shit, but it's upside down. So this one I'm a little familiar with, but it's reversed. So it's a two of swords. Okay. Two of swords. Reverse.

So it is a, it is a, so maybe a ambiguous person. sitting on a chair, they're blindfolded. They've got two swords crossed with each other. The moon is out, sitting in front of the sea, but it is, it is reversed. It is upside down. So we will see. We shall see.

I'm going to throw up. That means. I'm going to throw up. Throw up. Yes. Up, brother. Throw up. All right.

So what do you want to do here? We're still in. You go back into the house. And shut the door? Well, yeah. Fawn is, as we've already said, shaken. And of course, the obsessive curiosity is piqued. But also knows that there's a dead body in there

and probably wouldn't be the best if anyone came through to see us rifling the possessions of a, of a murdered man. But I am very curious. Yeah, did we make it all the way outside? You were like out, basically on the, out onto the street, and the cat came bounding out. I saw the Siamese cats. So, yeah, if you want to go in and shut the door, you can,

or if you want to just hightail it out of here and call it an afternoon, again. Yeah, I think as the cat runs away, Dr. Walsh is like, I have no quarrel with you. Yeah, exactly. He's definitely freaked out. But he'll turn and just say, this could explain it. The moorlings, the murders in their home, no explanation. It could be this thing, whatever that was, hunting them for what they did. I think we have to go back in. I think we have I think we have to find out what he could have done this Mr. Lung

what he could have done to draw it to draw its ire I mean perhaps we could save others It's all there now I well understand their curiosity but I don't know if that's the wisest course But I admit that I'm

If that thing's quarrel wasn't with us then why was it quarrel with that unfortunate astrologer? I'd say unfortunate, but damn it, he was trying to kill us in that blasted mirror maze. Bonn, I know you're upset. Lower your voice. We don't want to draw any of unnecessary attention. Yes, why don't I, um, if you're so desperate to give the place the once over, I can sort of, um, stay outside, make sure no, and, uh, comes by to interrupt your study. A quick work of it, though.

I'll go with you. Dum, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Mr. Long? Oh, shit. Look at the door. Mr. Long? Wait, we're inside right now? Yeah.

Shh, quiet. I'll go. Get back behind the curtain. Behind the curtain. And, uh, I'll walk up to the door. Okay. And open it. Click.

Hello. There's an old woman, uh, old Chinese woman there. Uh, uh, hello. Hello? Hello, I'm sorry. Mr. Lung is indisposed at the moment. He's in the middle of a reading. Oh, I'm his upstairs neighbor. I heard a loud sound wanted to make sure everything was okay. Oh, yes, I believe it was just part of the show. I'm sorry, ritual. Ritual. Oh, I brought him some peaches from my garden. Oh, but I shall see that he has it.

Please. Thank you, ma'am. What is your name? Bill. Bill? A lovely name. William. Sorry. You work with Mr. Lung? No, I'm a customer. Okay. We'll tell him to let me know if he enjoyed the peaches.

Oh, I certainly will. Good day. All right. He comes back in, he says, We're going to have to kill an old Chinese one. Upstairs neighbor's a bloody nosy parker. But I have peaches. Why did you open the door in the first place? She heard a noise.

She could have gone and called the police. You could have sent them here. I don't know. I acted quickly. Perhaps it was the wrong decision. Are the peaches ripe? Are they, how do they look? Oh, my God.

Actually, they look quite delicious. I'm just going to have one of these. And you know what? I'm just going to, um, I'm going to go out with Vaughn, I think. I think he needs, like, he's clearly trying to cover his own sanity ding. It's like, I think he just needs buddy out. I'll go, I'll sit with you, okay? Is that okay?

Yes, you two give the place once over. We'll make sure that Mrs. Watsoname doesn't try to make any other produce deliveries. Yeah, Jesus. Okay. Quickly now. Yes. All right. Put our armor and out and just kind of like walk out.

I'll head in. We'll stay in. Yeah, we'll stay in. Sit on the front stoop. We'll step outside and just kind of sit on the stoop watching the street. Give me one of those revitalizing cigarettes. Yes, yes, they are. They are, they all, man.

Got to cut back. Two Europeans standing outside smoking cigarettes. out of a murder scene and what are the two of you then do? Hey, Rousse, I fear that we may not have as much time as we thought. We're looking for any evidence of what he might have done to draw this creature, whatever it is. Okay, you go do that. I'm going to go look at these scrolls real quick.

Yes, by own means. And I'll start looking around, yeah, can I roll a spot hidden? Yeah, do spot hidden. Just looking for anything that could give me a clue. There are several rooms in this house too. Oh, yeah, there's lots of doors. Oh, yeah. So you can.

You do like spot hidden per room. room? No, no, no. Just a general spot hidden, but I'm assuming you're opening up all these rooms. Yeah, I'm opening up all the doors. See what the hell is going on in here. Yeah, there's a bathroom. There's a bathroom.

There's all these little side rooms. But a general spot hidden for. From both? General spot hidden. Well, you are doing, you probably want to do an occult role on the scrolls. Yes. Yes. Did that happen before when we first got there?

We did. Look at them and saw the tiger scrolls. It's all these, what would you call them, atropoic? You said they were hanging. Not a word. I would refuse. They were hanging like fly paper, and towards the middle of the room, they were a little bit thicker. But I don't know if you did an occult role.

Oh, wait, you did. The tigers are powerful protectors, particularly against spirits. Powerful, end quotes. So. And seem to do shit. Give me a general cult role and all these other things that you're seeing. But what was your spot hidden? I succeeded 31 under 45.

Apotropae. 31 under 45. Can I push this occult roll? Yeah, so you're looking at these things and you're just kind of cycling through what you've learned and applying them. So what would you do definitely? Studying my heart rate maybe.

Okay. Like focusing a little. Eat a peach. Eat a peach. Eat a peach. I rolled a 15 under 62. So do I want to make it a hard? Yeah, let's make it a, no, let's make it an extreme.

I believe you can't spend luck on a pushed roll. Oh. Shit, that's right. Okay, never mind. But it's still a hard success. Okay, still a hard success. Okay. Let's resolve this first, actually, because this is more in line with what you were looking at.

So the drapes covered in stars and constellations, actually you needed a hard, it says right here, hard occult role for Westerners. Those familiar with Chinese astrology recognize the constellations. those representing the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. And they are central to whatever his divination techniques were. Everything else on the room. Remember there was that sword hanging over the chair that was like coins? Yes. Yeah.

So it didn't look lethal. Yeah. This coin sword like the amulets you saw when you came in, like these tiger scroll, like the feng shui screens, they all sort of meld together as wards to protect against. demons. So every step of the way, as Mr. Lung is watching you, he was watching you in awe of you passing all of these wars, passing all of these tests. And he just couldn't understand why this was happening. The burning of the banknotes, you look at like some, like it's all ash, but maybe there's a little bit of some left over. And they are known as hell banknotes. This is like a real custom banknotes of denominations. made out against the bank of hell. They're still sold in stores catering to Chinese customers and burning these hellnotes is, again,

you're trying to ward off these spirits, ward off these spirits. We don't know why he thought we were evil. No, but now you're spot hidden. You're trying to figure out, like, what was going on here? And you see... What drew this demon to him? The two things that really jump out at you, one, like all of these charts and like lines and circling today's date on the calendar.

Some days were like crossed out, some of the encircling today's date, lines pointing towards it like he, this was an important day for him. He can't quite figure out why, but he was very concerned about today. So you showed up on his doorstep and, of course, the cat snuck through and the cat was the real demon he was trying to avoid. Whether he knew a demon was after him or not, it's unclear. but you see kind of like the ravings of a madman in his notes. He just felt like this was an important day. But you also find some sort of like notes about illicit dealings that he was doing. You find some really uncomfortable pornography throughout his work.

And it seems like he had this like really seedy life outside of his astrology. So putting two and two together, it seems like he was involved in some dark, dirty stuff, maybe pissed off the wrong person and they sent a demon after them and thinking of what you saw in the newspapers you're like well there must be someone out there that is bringing bad people to justice and using their

ability to summon cats what are you looking at over there nothing nothing that's just anti very disturbing pornography as opposed to the pleasant pornography that I typically consume

no the the is there the mallings that we heard about in the news not are those separate from the severed arms those are two different it sounds like it the the severed armed killings are different different from the mallings that's their trademark yeah different profile yeah so the mauling of bodies was like framed as like break-ins right yeah robberies robberies and um is this something we know from our cursory glance or something I could look into, do they

seem to have this same connection of being you know, attached to the underworld in some way or involved in crime or gambling, organized crime, whatever? Give me an intelligence role. Ooh, that's going to be a fail

despite his good intelligence. What about you, favorites? You can give an intelligence role. He's sharing with you the information. Oh, perfect. That he's gathered here. I rolled a three, under 80. Wow. Extreme success.

Yeah. Intelligence. So extreme intelligence. You would think that, remember, you're looking through Anthony Chang's back papers for any signs of, as Vaughn asked him, like any really dark, horrible murders. And you did come upon these string of murders that have happened that seem like robberies where people are being mauled. You get the sense there's just some sort of, like, vigilante out there. that is going after his or her enemies in this way. And it may not be related at all to what you're up to.

It's just like dark shit going on in this very tumultuous time here in Shanghai. Spiritual vigilante. He starts sharing with you some of the things you're seeing like money being moved around in strange ways. Like this guy seemed like not a great guy. It would make sense why the demon cat. Didn't want any quarrel with us, like it said. Again, this is my problem with the game, by the way, is that we are penalized for not saving a terrible man.

Anyway, that's just Kirkland. Why are we penalized? Do you think? Because we lost sanity. Yeah, you lost a lot of sanity. Some of us lost sanity. Well, it was a cat demon. I mean, no, no, it's fine to lose sanity in the presence of the cat demon,

who I think we should try to become friends with. But that's why did we lose sanity? the other D6? Because it was a development phase thing. Right, right. Because there's certain benchmarks. Inevertingly allowing this demon to Yeah. Gotcha. Do you think? Could we recover some sanity

from finding out what a piece of shit this guy is? Like after the fact? You want to go to the authorities and, you know, turn this guy in and then you get involved with all that and they come here and be like We would be able to... Oh. You found a... Oh, it was a cat that tore of a part. Sure, sure. I'd rather not do that. Yeah.

No, no, I'm saying for their, our sanity, can we recover some for finding out that this guy is like, it's good that he's dead? Yeah, go to therapy. You can say, no, I'm just pitching that. Well, also, it's like, wouldn't that be helpful in our mind? I don't want to make it seem like this is illegal pornography, okay? It's just like. We're really getting on the weeds on the, nature. Very specific.

But I want to, what I want to be clear about is like, It seems like this guy was involved with dirty dealings, and he pissed off the wrong person. Right. But he didn't necessarily deserve to die apart. An unsavory character, but not like a, not someone that would be found, like, for the death penalty in a court of law necessarily. Yeah, so it's just like it just shows you like, oh, okay, this guy didn't seem like he was on the up and up. Probably didn't deserve to die. Now, yes, I mean, that just, it makes the game a little more complicated.

Like, yeah, you would have been saving a not great guy, but he didn't necessarily. do anything super illegal that deserved his horrible death. Right, yeah, yeah. So, she might be friends with him. Just about a shady. Mm-hmm. Do you think, Dr. Walsh, that whoever this vigilante is that has sent to this cat, do you think it could have been the neighbor that we just saw?

Think about it. This is peaches? Immediately, immediately, after this happens. She just so happens to come down and say, oh, shit, what was in those peaches? She, like, spits out, like, the peter, whatever. She shoves a finger down her thing. The speech I've had all week. I feel way more sane now.

Yes. Do you think that it might be her? It possibly could be. It's very concerning, though, your idea that these are connected by a sole vigilante that is hunting people down that have upset them. Someone wielding this power, even if it's unrelated to Jackson Elias, is very concerning. at least me. But I am heartened by the fact that they seem to be targeting people that have upset them in this world that we are not a part of.

So I'm not as concerned that a cat demon is suddenly going to show up in my house, tear us apart while we are sleeping. You're right. We should just leave and just forget all of this happen. Yeah, Carter sticks his head back. I was like, let's chop chop. We must go. And we'll walk out.

do you think Troy is uh is any of these scrolls or anything worth taken um what do you think they're not i don't think they're particularly valuable to be sold and they you don't get the sense that they could be used clearly didn't work no that is true it did not work super it did not work uh right then and i think as we're walking away um you kind of debrief us on what yeah we'll we'll explain as we're walking down the street and then dr walsh will will be like should i be concerned I mean, they are going to find that body And they are going to ask his neighbor And she will describe me

Though I gave a false name But I don't know how far that'll go Well, thank goodness for that I don't know Now you understand what it was like at that warehouse That we've all been through That Carter, by the way, has blood all the way up One side of his body

From Mr. Lung exploding Is it on like a jacket? Can I just like take the jacket off? Let's get back to my house as quickly as Jimmy got out a little look at you I speak to you that much But certainly certainly One imagines that the police Will be involved

This will probably end up in the pages Of the little rag run by your friend It's gonna take off As Vaughan is saying this He's taking off his blazer Is like white blazer that he's wearing And throw it over Give it to

A little baggy, Carter Just to Yeah because you had the bloody arm Right just to kind of hide your blood I draw I'm under this. Let's get back to my house as quickly as possible. Oh, and hey, Miriam,

welcome to the mystery squad. Oh, so this is the mystery squad. Oh, it was your first Eldridge encounter. We should bake you a cake. Now, can we find... You take this remarkably well, Phyrus. Of course.

I have an 88th. It's far for the course. And we don't think it's worth it to track down this person and employ them to help us with a cat. don't think that that's necessarily a terrible idea for the cat demon i know i scarcely know where we'd begin we'll be careful remember what we heard at church this morning von yes wait why

did you hear church this morning it is one thing to become aware and learn how to protect yourself against such things it is quite another to share the cup of a demon yes these these forces can be conjured uh michabron but they uh they cannot be controlled we don't necessarily want to a lie with them Carter is all I think one makes such compacts as that very very very rarely and with great discretion one

one never does are you alright von yes as well as one can be I haven't seen him a bounder tall asunder in front of you having seen that that wretched feline

creature as well as one can be I saw nothing but hearing it alone will haunt my dreams I feel and that cat its voice could hear it in my head though I guess I will take some comfort

thinking it is not targeting us and perhaps has nothing to do with Elias that is really Fing. Do you have a lot on a plate right now? Just can't take another. All right, we're going back to your place. Just to lay low for a while and a cold face cloth on my face.

Take a nap. Yeah, and I think your original plan was to like Sunday, great night to break in. Yeah. Now maybe let's. But it's still afternoon. Yeah, it's true. We could take a little napsies. Take a little resty.

Yeah. Let me know. Are you will go back to Marion's house. You don't have to roleplay all this. Just tell me what you'd like to do at Sunday, April 5th. Yeah. There was nothing else on that calendar circled or anything like that. Did you guys notice day-wise?

It was just a day. The day is crossed out like he was trying to determine what was an important day and this was the day. So he was waiting to be attacked. If that was told to us, I'd be like, I would have said that astrology and all that is so much hokom. But it seems as though he had divined perhaps the day at which some sort of attack. a malevolent spirit would be coming to him and assuming it was us

we allowed the little creature ingress into his apartments the strange thing is that he had all of these wards these scrolls everything set up to protect himself and he seemed so

distraught that we were able to walk right through and if a does that mean that there's, does that mean that there's something wrong with us? I've scarcely no.

Just to be clear, the cat trailed us through all of that stuff, was unimpeded by any of those. Yeah, or was powerful enough to get past those wards. I mean, if that's been said to us, I'm like, I don't know that there's anything wrong with us. If you have anything

that tells me that the apotropaeic magics that he was attempting to work in is these warding sigils. that he had put up were ineffective to all and sundry. Didn't keep us out and certainly didn't keep that

blasted cat creature out. That's true. We should start putting those words at the bottom of the screen every time he's With a definition. I can't find the thing about people being, the break-ins and people being torn apart, that's not one of these four

articles we got. No, this was just other stuff you had read that it caught. your eye. It wasn't a specific article. But out of those four articles that you pulled, there are two you have not looked into. The fires on Chinle Road and what was the other one?

The incident on lanterns street. Where the bat, the kid, they were killed by a giant bat, Mr. Chin C. Chu and Miss Reparita Wong. Here we have the whole beastie area of Hieronymus Bosch is leaping off of its damn panel and then strutting

around Shanghai. We've got a cat man. We've got a bloody batman. We've got fishmen doing all sorts of things. My God. Easy, Vaugh. We have. Easy fun. It's fucking... Look, look, Bob.

I love saying the name Hieronymus Bosch as much as the next man. Lovely, lovely. We must. We must get some rest. We must lay low for a moment. We were going to go to the warehouse this evening, but I feel nervous going out.

I feel... In fact, Here's my key Return to the house And I will meet you there Where are you going to make a brief stop I'm just going to go into town Buy something very quickly

And then I'll be back Are you quite certain You want to be alone right now Yes Oh you're welcome to come But I just need to be about it quickly Oh no I'm You're buying pornography

You could just say so No no I filled up at his place I didn't notice it in first But when you put your jacket on Tillinghouse There's a curious bulge in your What the I'm my fuck? Oh, Mike. Oh, my God.

It's like the first choice of words that Troy made to just summarize it. Uncomfortable. Just like the most horrible thoughts in my mind immediately. I was like, it's so good that this freak is dead. He's like, maybe I overstayed a little bit of pornography. Easy, easy, easy. It's very tasteful. It was regular over-the-counter pornography.

If you want to be alone, go about your business. I won't stop you. I'd rather could do with a little kickback, I'd as I say. I'm going with Vaughn. I'm going. I need to sit.

I could use a nice cup of tea. Yes. And some whiskey. Now, keep in mind, just throwing this back out there, especially for you who haven't played as much,

if you get to the point of indefinite insanity, which is losing a fifth in one day, you, anytime you fail a sanity role, you have about it. madness. Yeah.

So it just, it really starts stringing them together. This happens to Vaughn all the time. So, yeah, this is not to be all meta about it.

I don't like playing that way, but like, in practical terms, if, if Vaughn experiences damn near anything else today. Yeah.

It's, uh, it's going to be, it's going to be a slip in side down to hell. Cut to Desmond starting the ship voyage over. Ah, ha. You know what?

I think I do need to be there. I need to join the Communists in Shanghai. But so, but, I mean, what you've described is so shocking. And this is the first, like, truly, really gnarly supernatural thing that is popped off for them here. That I think perhaps he would really want to kind of lay low for a day and get his nerves together before doing anything, doing the B&E for which the mystery squad is so well known. Yeah, and I also, I'm not going to hold you over the colds if you're like, we're going to take eight, ten hours to just nap, relax. That's enough to reset it in my mind. We don't have to get super pedantic about, you got to wait until Monday, April 6th to do this.

Because nothing makes Carter feel better than breaking into something. We're not on a next full moon schedule. Right, okay. So, yeah. Troy, could I, and we don't have to roleplay this, but just for the story's sake, just say that Faye Ruse had gone to make a quick stop. at the university library to pick up books on the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties, and the Sung? Sure.

Just to have them. Yeah, you could have done that on your way to the dumpling house. I'd prefer a roleplay with the librarian. Oh, hello. I was specifically avoided it. Not the Tang Dynasty, not familiar. Always fucking Mrs. Doubtfire. Every time.

Hello, welcome to the library. I'm so glad you showed up. I had lost the will to live. This is my last day. I was about to check out of life. I'm two hours from retirement, you know. Tang Dynasty, I don't know. Figure it out.

You said that it was her first day and that she was thinking of quitting at lunch. And now she's retired. Two hours from retirement. Great. Historical research. I love it. I'm looking at how to recover from indefinite insanity. And yeah, it's private care or institutionalization.

nice wait indefinite so if you lose a fifth of your sanity in one day you can never come back from that no you can't but it's usually like between but then it means that anytime you lose anything you get triggered you could lose one point of sanity but for the rest of the like until you have months off yeah like vaughn hit it yeah i thought it was just you needed a day even like a couple weeks off you know what i mean and like listen we we've been moving up against a clock like london was you knew the full moon was happening you only had so much time you could say we're going to take two weeks and get our heads right and you go into private care and you get one deep three sanity back if you succeed on a roll you know like there's ways to do it you would remove indefinite insanity though right of course the next day you could lose a fifth again it's just really hard i don't think we're there yet but i think uh take just just keep that in mind i this is just to confirm to the listener or viewer that this is not like according to the rules i can if another 24 hour period is elapsed then i am not subject to this It's, like, I truly think this is what he would want to do. And if you're, uh, dipping off to the library to have your little scene with Miss Doubtfire, I, uh, I think, um, if, if you return, you walk, like, use, or you kind of knock on the door and the door is opened by a, a young man. And, uh, and I sort of, like, come out of the room in a towel. And the, uh, it's like, oh, yes, I was just, and I maybe give him some money as he, departs and I'm looking kind of relaxed.

Was I in time? Didn't mean to interrupt? Was that? Chinese medicine? Just a bit of, um, just a massage. Walking on my back and all that. Walking on my back. I don't know why you're looking at me like that.

What sort of research have we run up to? What have you found down at the Yes, all St. John's Library? Feeling quite relaxed now, are we? Very much so. Really? Really, did wonders. did you I'm not even going to say

all right I'm not going to take this any further likely story well I haven't looked through any of these I absolutely have nothing gained but I did find I did find these books

that were mentioned in this Fire on Chinling Road article I find this quite peculiar this mention of floating clouds of fire, seeing as we've encountered this fog in London. Yes. Who were the victims of the blaze?

Victims were three monks, but this wasn't at a monastery. It was at a pavilion fire at the Garden of the Purple Clouds of Autumn, so we should probably at some point. And were these the chaps who were historians of the various dynasties? Yeah, they said that they were all scholars of the literature of these times. So, but I don't know why they had... Curious. I mean, based upon what we know now, it could be, for one,

whoever these devils that we've trailed halfway across the world who've... This global conspiracy that were just beginning to unravel, perhaps they were standing in the way of it in the manner of those doughty Harlem hellfighters that we met in New York. Or perhaps we're attempting to stand in the way of the construction of whatever the blasted machine is that they're about. On the other hand, they could be about some dark business.

And perhaps this fire cloud is the work of our rather peculiar spiritual vigilante. Well, it was according to an eyewitness. If an eyewitness saw, I mean, it's not every day that somebody says, yes, I saw a floating cloud of fire that followed them. So this Mr. Liu Chen Dai of brilliant poppy lane. I wonder if he would add anything else to say. Yes. In addition to that, and it says it's a European man, or it says not man, but it says European was seen leaving the vicinity of the conflagration.

We have a possible involvement with Jack Brady. Yes, we know there are many Europeans about, but one can't help, but see patterns everywhere. Perhaps it is Brady. Should focus on staying relaxed. Yes. Oh, I feel quite loose. Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

Shit. Certainly, I encourage you to fall into the able, estimable hands of that young chap that I employed. Truly a miracle worker. What was his name? What was his name? What was his name? What was the name of his business? Maybe I should call them. His name was Gize.

Yes, yes, Gize. I simply, I saw a placard for a masseuse on the walk home and thought I'd pay a call. I don't know why you're looking at me like that. Carter comes out. It's just like, shut up. please just trying to get some sleep who gives a shit what Vaughn did I didn't hear anything

nothing at all I would say I was just yanking his chain but that's already been excuse me excuse me it must have nothing untoward for God's sake this young man was

truly a miracle worker and really knew his way around some pressure points Indeed, I am definitely feeling that we are at the con level of insane. Well, anyway, so we're going to say that we, like, this afternoon will count as a rest. Yeah, sure. I mean, you get massages, you're napping. Yeah, so we could feasibly break into the thing. There's the plan to still go out tonight.

Right. We open up that staircase and we find some Eldridge knick-knack. We will not necessarily go, okay. Yes, well, you should probably hydrate. Oh, yeah. I've lost a lot of fluids already. Indeed, I feel rather flushed. Rather flushed.

I've been de-jammed. You guys are freaks. This all happened off of you. This is all your fault. Yeah. Or your fault. But yes, he rings out, like, it takes a long draft of some cool, cool water, lays a little cold compress over his eyes

and lays back into the cot that Marion is set up for them. Can I ask a pure fact question based on the article that they were looking at? The Fire on Chinling Road, the...

I brought it up here on Fondry. The Siemens Club damaged articles. What are the dates? I don't need the exact dates. Was the fire on Chingling Road before the collapse? Within a week of each other.

Oh, wow. Which one? was first, because if Brady fell off into the thing and did actually die, but then we see a European on here after. Seaman's Club was first. Ah, interesting. Good question. Could be.

The Seaman came first. Okay. I'm having a good time. Love it. Middle school humor. They should just rename that. Anytime when someone says, you got to know. You're not, you're never just say sailor.

Yeah, just say sailor. 85% of people won't then go to semen. I'd say that Marion arrives back at the place. Again, I'm skipping some roleplay. You let me know if you'd rather not. Sure. Marion returns to the house and looks quite different as he has gotten himself fitted for a toupee.

It is like rather odd and a little bit bushy, but makes him. look different. Hmm. He comes in the house. What do you think? Um, well, do I look different?

Yes. I think usually what you want is for the hair to be a different, the same color as the hair on your head. She said it was the same color. Maybe 30 years ago, man. I don't know. That's like looking into a mirror on the wall. Blast.

Yeah. She swore. Well, no matter. All it needs to do is make me not look bald if that's the description. this woman gives. Okay. And, um... What's your, what's your disguise by, by, just, just curious, your disguise skill?

My disguise, I believe, is a 35. Oh, that's really good. Yeah. Okay, that's not bad. Maybe shave that bushy mustache. It is a, uh, it is a spy skill. Maybe it just needs a trim. Uh, would you work in it for me, Fierreuse?

Listen, uh, make it look better. Sure? Any chance? I, this is a, no, uh, no, no, no refunds. policy, I guess. Just give me a pair of scissors. Just don't be mad. And according to Carter, it couldn't look any worse.

Don't be mad. Rob Kierovich loves great Tupé humor, so I want this to continue. It does sort of look like a mop right now on your head. So I should do my best. Thank you, Fierrez, thank you. And he'll sit down and

do your best. Tupay does give you one point of armor. What's my cosmetology? Anyway, it's just to address the fact that if she gives a description of a bald man, he'd like to avoid. He's also going to have to remove it when he's like on campus

or if he talks to the dean again or something. What are you doing with that on your head? I'm storing away some good fumble ideas for you now. Yeah. My rug. Today, the chupé glue is just like melting. Just one little trickle. Yeah.

How did you get shoe polish dripping down your face? Change. So what do you want to do? Just rest and cut tonight. Do you want to do it, explore these on any? You've got a bunch of different leads here. You've got these two articles and you're thinking about the warehouse.

Is there anything you want to do or you want to just tell me we're waiting all nighttime and we're going to the warehouse? Seems like the big bad one is the warehouse tonight. Yeah. If we want to do under cover of darkness. Yes. Yeah. Do we want to just like stroll down the, down to the garden of the purple clouds of autumn? Or have a chat with some.

monks about these? Yeah, I will... About the fire? I kind of like the idea of just resting until we go to the warehouse. That seems like what we do. We talk to the monks and then suddenly a monk turns into a fire cloud. Yeah, I've already dealt with a demon cat.

You are so paranoid, Carter. I am not in a great place right now. Yeah, I have... Vaughn pops his head out of the room, sees you in your wig, and takes 10 points of San Angelo! No, no, kill it. Hello, Vaugh. He's just got a little dangler kind of in his...

suspenders and singlet, like, leans out of the door, takes you in, and just like, hmm, it kind of goes back, yeah. All right. All right. So let's fast forward to the warehouse. Yeah. Everybody go with that? Sure.

Okay. Nighttime, you, uh, you roll over to Hofang import export, which, uh, I would imagine you go past Mr. Lung's house on the way there. There's only two blocks west, I think, of the, uh, warehouse. Their police activity there? No. No, it's just. closed door, and you know, as you walk by, what's on the other side of that door.

At some point, the stench is going to alert someone. Mrs. Peach is going to come down, call the cops, or maybe Mrs. Peaches was behind it. But you head to Ho-Fang Import Export. You, Dr. Walsh, and your Comprador Wu have gone inside, and you went back for a meeting with Ho-Fang himself. His secretary, Sun Chua, took you all the way. through the warehouse up. You saw lots of different doors and rooms.

You also knew from your first stakeout of the place during the day that it's on the river, that there are boats that can go even underneath it. So there's possibly lots of different ways to approach this. Is there anyone inside? You don't know. Is it possible to have, with these contingencies and the planning, to be arriving by boat? well I mean answer the question

you want to get a boat I think that's a whole other thing like we would have had to start earlier or whatever but we could backtrack and see I mean do that not all of you needed to rest the entire day if you tell me we wanted to try and secure a boat rent a rowboat we could talk about that

if not if that seems like let's just talk about it I sort of what we want to do here's what I imagine yeah you've done the most reconnaissance exactly I imagine if we get there and unlike some of the unlike the militia warehouse that we saw, we get there and there are not armed guards outside the doors and it's dark, just like Carter pick the lock and walk in.

That's sort of the vibe that I get because we just walked in twice. I never saw any guards. Saw a few heavies, but they were deep in the warehouse. They weren't like standing out front. It seems like, but if it's guarded, we might have to come back another night with a boat. I don't disagree. I like it. Let's sneak up to the door we've been through.

Also, I think we'll take it as a. comes but my initial gut instinct was to have Marion at this point be the lookout stay outside keep an eye out for anything and tell you what he saw inside and where that step was etc yeah great okay so we approach oh fang's warehouse I'll be back right after this break break time from the creators of the leviathan chronicles comes a new audio adventure Join Treasure Hunters Captain Jeffrey Tully and Oberlin St. Clair as they build their dream research ship the Invenios and assemble a daring crew. But soon, their adventures plunge them into a globe-spanning conspiracy with hidden ties to Leviathan and visitors from beyond this world.

The Invenios Expeditions, the newest series from Leviathan Audio Productions, available now wherever you listen to podcasts. 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. Hi, we're Meg Bashmaner. and Joseph Fink of Welcome to Nightvail. And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the Golden Age of Television. To do that, we're watching the IMDB viewer-rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows. The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost, the episode of The Episode of The X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat. And also, the really good episodes, too. What can we learn from the best and worst of great television? Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women? The Best Worst, available wherever you get your podcasts. You're standing across the street from Hofeng, import, export. I'm not going to have your old stealth. I'm assuming you're being stealthy, and there's enough, you know, at night here, the warehouses are mostly shut down on Sunday.

It's quiet enough that you don't really stand out yet. What is your plan here? Do you want to wait and watch for a little bit? Do you want to test doors? Do you want to take a dip in the wang poo? Initial look. Nobody's outside. Initial look.

You don't see anyone standing outside of the front doors. Remember, there are, from your initial case of the joint, five sets of double doors. There's two in the front. You walked in one's, you know, let's just go to the map. You also, what's the lighting situation? Or they're like bright lights outside the doors, or is it pretty dark? It's the door and window situation. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So you walked through, you and Wu, and then you, when you came back, walked through a set of doors to the east, northeast. There's also a set of doors to the northwest, I guess you could say. And then as the building wraps around, you would know there's another set of doors along the eastern wall and then two large sets of doors in the back. near the dock area Okay Yeah if if um

And you want to keep lookout Altilling has picks the lock Yeah That's my idea That's why I Sounds good to me Two doors in the front Two doors in the back

That was what it was I'll point out the door I'll point out the door We walked through twice Like Start there Carter Try picking that

We don't want to just go to the back door We just want to go right in the front Go with your instincts I'm just letting you know That's the door we went through There were no gods They're on and now but if you want to look for a door in the back

or pick this one, by all means. The street semi-busy or like, is it a... No, it's, it's, what time do you think you got here on Sunday? Two in the morning was I was... Yeah, yeah, there's nobody on the street, which might be good or bad. Just to give you another lay in the land here, the windows of the building are seven feet off the ground. And yeah, that's what you say.

All right, is there any, is there any, like, crates or anything that I could use to maybe peek up through a window? were these the windows These were not the windows that were grayed out And that was the militia No that was the militia Bullet were all boarded up

But about standing on somebody's shoulders Or I could do that Give me a luck roll Okay 17 under 46 Nice Sure enough There are some crates near

One of the windows You could climb up to Yeah let me get a Clamer up All right so Carter crosses the street We'll say climbs up and are you going towards like right front of the building

I'll ping on the map here like we're talking right schma just want to get a sense of where you are yeah big rectangular building yeah for my audio listeners all right so you climb upon a crate let's get you over there

and you peer inside obviously some of this map has already been revealed it carries over from what yeah and I'm looking More to see security guards. Very interesting. People in there, lights on in the office, that kind of a thing. So you look in there.

It's very, very dark. There does appear to be some light in like the, like, deep, deep far corner over where you saw that table. Yeah, right in front of the door. Yeah. It was strange. They had a table set up right in front of a door. Yeah. There's sense.

Watching for a little bit, you do see light from flashlights that seem to be, uh, you seem to be, uh, going up and down the rows of crates and goods. It looks like two people walking around with flashlights. Okay. that's all the light you see. Something in that deep back corner and two people. Oh, okay. So a separate light besides two flashlight. Yeah. And if you watch long enough, those flashlights kind of criss-cross, walk around, and then they stop. Patrolling gods. Yeah, we've done this in the past, so that's the only reason to bring it up. But is there a pattern? How long do you wait?

I give it 15 minutes. 15 minutes. Once those lights stop, they don't start again within 15 minutes. So, yeah, you get the sense, some sort of patrol. Maybe it's on a schedule. Maybe it isn't. They walk around. They go back to what they were doing.

There's no reason to believe they're not going to walk around again. Okay. And then last question. Oh, sorry. Oh, no. Please. Continue. I was going to say on the, this window, this place was full of crates we knew. Are there crates stacked on the other side of the window? Like, is this a window I could potentially open up and get in that way instead of going through a front door? The window is covered with iron grills. So you would need someone of Dr. Walsh's strength.

A celluline torch. To rip. Dr. Walsh's inhuman strength. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but you do think, sure. Yeah, I mean, it's not impossible for you to, like, get really lucky ripping one of these things off, although you don't have the adrenaline push that Dr. Walsh did in the demon cabinet of Dr. Lung. What I was going to say is the demon cabinet of Dr. Lung.

Oh, this is a 1920s film serial. Yeah, exactly. It just came out of two nights ago. I'll suggest that if you kind of bring back that information to us, I might offer to scramble up on those boxes and watch through the window while you go about your lock picking. Oh, uh-huh. But warn you if the patrol begins again.

It's around the corner, right? No, it's right there. He said it was in the front of the building. He said it was in the front of the building. Yeah, this crates right where the harder is. And the only door was that one with the padlock. Otherwise, it was under the docks. There was two doors in the back.

Yeah. Two doors in the back, one door on the side. But with all those back rooms and stuff, it feels like that's a, we're less, we know, We have less lay of the land back there. Right. So, like, we could open up a back door and to, who knows what. Yeah. Okay.

Then, yeah, I want to try to pick this fucking lock. And I'll get up on the box. And who's coming? You're going to hang out outside? Once I'm inside. I'll come in with you. Okay. Here, I've revealed more of the map to you because I think it's fair that you've done a full 360 of the building at this point.

I got to shoot somebody. Just to give you an idea. How about just not to, again, like, maybe. caution being perhaps a little bit on Vaughn's mind if Walsh and I stay outside while you go in

if I keep this position by the window I might be able to keep an eye on you and the patrol and have some sort of signal like pounding on it bang on the front door if I see them getting close to Yeah

we know if we hear knocking if we hear knocking that shit is to cause a distraction we need to get the fuck out Yeah okay great So only two of us will actually be in this building If you're comfortable with that, I'm... Yes. Long could be convinced.

Sure. I mean, we could have... I mean, if he's on lookout, that could be his job, and you could come in with us. That's true. Now, Dr. Walsh, you had mentioned something on the stairs, was it? Yes, there was a loose step. It didn't seem like a structural flaw. Seemed almost intentional.

I can't describe it. Just a bit of intuition. Okay. It was just one or two steps up in the... We'll tell them where it is in the back. corner of the place heading up towards Mr. Ho's office. Perfect, because I need to get to the office anyway, so I'll be sure to check on me.

And he also described to you in great detail where all those documents were bursting out from, those like, yeah, file cabinets and stuff. All right. Yeah, do you want to, do you want a third? We would love it. We just have to deal with. Excellent idea of all not stand up here. Right. I think I can get up there. Yeah. Very well.

The toupee. The two pays like, get in a prize. Okay, let me first... We'll have a quick, you know, bang signal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, this is great, because we took a lot of time planning, and then I won't open this lock. Great.

What happened at Henson Manufacturing. Okay. All right, so you, Carter, Fajruz, and Vaughn are going to try and break in while Marion is the lookout standing on a crate. Yeah, and then once, if, assuming we get in... Don't like that gleam in your right. I know. I don't like the way you said any of that.

Yeah. I'm literally just repeating what you guys So he's looking, yeah, but we didn't say it like this He's, you know, looking sort of down the street Yeah, yeah, yeah. And looking for the patrolling night watchman inside And they start with their flashlights. Okay.

Yeah, and... About this, I'm sorry. Multiple bangs is going to be like imminent danger outside. Flashlights starting to move will just be like one knock. Okay. So the danger inside is one knock. One knock. Great.

And then they might look around for that and I could just hide for a moment or something. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Cool. Because then they'll be like, oh, maybe somebody just threw a rock. Maybe a bird hit it or, yeah. And then. Sounds like the kind of warning that might give us a bonus die on a stealth role, maybe. Yeah. Well, we also have to worry about, we have to worry about stealth.

You should always be campaigning for bonus dies. Yeah. Yeah. We don't get enough bonus We should also be worrying about stealth and group stealth, because you've probably have the lowest, right? That's why I'm staying outside. My stealth is 24. Yeah. So there might have to be some pre-scouting. Like, we're going to take a, we're going to it a little bit at a time. Great. Let's... We still don't even know if you can pick the lock.

Let's pick the damn lock. I can pick the lock. I thought there was a padlock. Is there a padlock? Oh, sorry. I missed that. Carter always remembers a good padlock. All right, so you walk up the same doors

that Dr. Walsh and his Comforador Wu walked in two. Just walked right in off the street. Hold on. I'm on Desmond's character sheet. I've gotten ahead of myself. Talk to Miss San Juanua. I know this isn't D&D,

but maybe you should check it for like a Flame strike trap before you... Oh, I check for traps. I have dark vision. You don't see any... My head. It's not a crazy thing to suggest, though. Carter, we did that.

Yeah, we did this before. I looked for, like, I think you took time to, like, Google security measure. Like, is there a security alarm? Would there be wires? Like, I do want to give a quick look to see if there's any, like, wiring connected. See if something pours a bucket. something over your head. More like an arm bell or whatever.

But yes, if there's hot oil above me, too, it's good to know. A pillow rips in half and a bunch of feathers. Their chief of security is Kevin McAllister. Give me a spotted. I'll put the three of you near the door. I got a nine. Oh, oh, 34. That's amazing.

This looks, the lock itself doesn't look like anything special. You should be able to pick this in your sleep. You'd be a pretty shitty cat burglar if you couldn't pick this simple lock. Okay. Don't say cat burglar But the spot hidden got me no like There's no alarm There's nothing I gotta worry about

You don't see anything Um BDBD All right let's like Smith this shit Carter gets down Reaches into his spot Rest pocket pulls out his trusty

Little zip Still no flashlights Yep Still no flashlights Shut up I can I can I can now All right

This is when I have to focus the most Like right now Shit What did I have, locksmith? Oh, 48, under 48. Oh, I'm 48. Wow, you just made it. Check that shit.

Oh, my God. Wow. All right. So you, Jimmy, a little hairpin in there. Maybe Margo's hairpin. It's Faye Ruses. Yeah. But maybe it's Margo's.

But maybe it's Margo's. Well, actually, on that note, it's my hairpin. Oh, I'm sorry. But on that note, it's my hairpin. Before he does anything else, Carter's like, Mary's, you don't have, like, an extra stocking, do you? I have the ones I'm wearing. Okay, no, it's not going to be the same.

Do you need? No, no, it was a whole thing. Because I wore one briefly. It's fine. I couldn't breathe. It's probably for the best. For what purpose? Just being nostalgic.

Shut up. Fine. Shut up. Okay, I open up the lock. Ching-ting. Ching, chain. Comes down. Looks like you can walk right in.

All right. No flashlights. No flash lights. Stop smiling at us. Stop. Don't. Open the door as quietly as possible. Vaughn will have his gun drawn as he slips.

The gun out. Yes, absolutely guns drawn. Adding 50 to your initiative if we got into combat. Carter's nun chucks are draped around his neck. Chest hair out. So amazing. It's in a yellow. The tracksuit.

What the hell? Yeah, one black racing stripe down the side. All right. Go ahead and tell me what you want to do here, and this is how we're going to resolve stealth roles. You know what I mean? If you succeed on a stealth, I still think you guys would have to be stealthy

and you would get bonus dyes depending on... Here's how I'll rule it. You roll a successful stealth, you'll get a bonus die. You wrote a really hard success on your stealth. I'll give you two bonus die. You roll an extreme success. I will give you three bonus die on your stealth rolls. Okay.

So everyone's going to make individual... We're not doing the group role. We're doing... If you want to move as a group, the worst stealth would be the role. Right, right. What I'm picturing is finding the quietest path. Yeah.

Yes. That's what's going to give them the bonus. My instinct is to stay along the edge of the warehouse. Yeah. And just remind me to, there's like stacks of crates and stuff like that. I just want to know of my verticality. Easy to hide yourself. You know what I mean?

Like there's a lot of different ways in. And it wasn't until you got way deep towards the back. that you could even see over to where, you know, it seems like these people are congregating. All right. So, yeah, I'm going to start. Again, Carter's making that sound with his mouth. Nice.

As he walks along. Mossier way. Crazy. Cool. Oh, man. Okay, so down the edge of the warehouse here, oh, is there a map? going on. Oh, yeah, there's a map.

Okay. Um, so stealth roll it for my, yes, my sort of scout ahead. Here we go. 34 under 64. Um, that's a hard success. No, no, it's just, it would need to be to, spend the luck. I'm gonna spend two for, yeah, I'm gonna spend two luck for hard. All right. So we get two bonus dice. Two bonus dice. Wow. All right. On your, uh, thing. So now do we each do that then? Are they going in yet? Is that your plan? All right.

Do you want to go? How should we proceed? Yeah, I think it's just a flat, let's just agree to that this is like a system here of, I will move forward to as far as Troy says I move. Yeah. Give them the thumbs up. Then they. Yeah. And I'm not looking to go second by second here. I'm going to get you into the building.

Okay. And you're going to, you know, start navigating this maze. Um, and you don't see anyone. You hear in the back some rumbles. Okay. Okay.

I'm sorry, what? Maybe some snoring. Was that a... Oh, I was like a... Oh, okay. It was like a slurping. Man. Each of you give me a stealth check

with two bonus dies. I told it, Mike. This is not with you. Roll your tens, three. times and take the best one. This is a hard roll to make either way. Here we go. And you have luck. Yeah. And you can push. And you could push. So many chances. Pushing to go wrong. First roll. 91. And you need to get what? 24. Or that too. Or in the vicinity where luck could get you there. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. So you got it. Would you say 91?

It's going to be a something one, a something one. Second rule, 81. Oh, my God. Working your way. Hey, you're moving in the right direction. That's right. It's progress. It's progress, folks.

There's a lot of luck. Yep. Third roll. 21. Oh! In my brain. In my brain, I was like, it's going to be 21. Get out of here.

Holy shit. Hell, yes. Oh, God. Only, only because of the cat-like reflexes. of the smooth and slippery Carter Tilling has. He's foxing in his ways. I just follow it. Farrouz.

Faye Ruse, I did not do the anticipation. I rolled them all at once. And I got a four. Nice. Okay. So I mean, quiet as three. This is so awesome. Quiet as three blind mice.

You begin weaving your way. through this strange maze, the smell of fish and other exotic scents wafting through the air. I mean, you really can't see more than a couple feet in front of you. There's no light in here other than this little dim glow coming from the back southern corner of the room. You keep moving. Everybody give me a listen roll as I push you along the corridor here. I love colloqu of the maps because it's just to sort of indicate what's going on

It's not practical I got a regular success on the listen I what the fuck can I do to push this roll Hmm I mean if one of us hear something we might not all need Because I'm I'm well wait hold on I would have to roll Oh my god no I think I fumbled it

Because I rolled a 99 And my listen is a 65 No no you're above 55 I think, right? How's it work? Your listen to 55? 65. As long as it's about 50, only 100 is a tumble.

Okay. So can I still push for this listen? We got one. Oh, we're still together. Okay, good, good, good. Okay, I thought we had. Unless you're fishing for that extreme or so. I thought we had sashayed away from each other.

No, you guys have come. As you guys have followed me along. Got it, got it, got it. He sees you guys, and he's so proud. He kind of looks at you and he's like, but from like 30 feet away. Yeah. so you succeeded yes um you hear a couple different voices

chatting with each other uh in a language you don't understand it's chinese um and you do hear like snoring okay interesting and these and the and the the light not the flashlight lights but the light the other light is where we have to go to get to this staircase and no luckily uh as dr wals told you you can you stay on the northern part of the building, you get to a hallway in the back and their way to the south. If you wanted to go straight towards these sounds, you could.

You see now, as you reach this intersection, there's a little glowing light coming over the crates there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it looks amazing. A little glowing light. People hanging out there. You are welcome to go down there, or you can head for this back hallway that leads to the staircase.

The staircase in the office. Yeah, that's what we're here for. We're not here for a... All right, so... We're here for a long time. All right, so the three of you continue. you're heading this way. Dr. Walsh, as you're outside.

No. You don't. Feel a... Fog. Something wet in your head. Plob. It got through the tube. Touches his head and looks at his hands.

Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. It starts drizzling rain. Oh. And all of you inside... Fascinating. What is this strange moisture?

All of you inside start to hear this. like the pitter-patter of rain on the tin roof of this building more grumbles from the back as you duck into this little hallway. He's got his hat on

so he's protected from it a little bit. His new rug is getting wet. All right. All right. Al yester, it's fine. As you dip into this hallway, there are two doors to the north and two doors to the south and then the hallway

opens up at the end, and you know there is a staircase there that Marion told you the step number, whatever, seems to be a loose floorboard. All right, so do we want to look at these rooms? Let's do the rooms first. Let's at least take a peek. Okay. You start opening the doors to these rooms, and they look like offices. Okay. Nothing really jumps out at you.

just sort of basic offices. I guess we should also probably have like if there's a way to have a general lookout for anything that's from Limehouse Gavigan. Yeah, yeah. Or the Randolph shipping company. Yeah, any of the connections that we would know.

You want to dip into these offices and start looking at stuff? Yeah, do a little spot hidden? Yeah. We could split up into the rooms. Great. Give me three spot hiddens. All right. 63 under 85 I got a hard success I believe a 33 under 78

I didn't get you do you guys have like little flashlights you're like I think it makes sense that if we were coming here knowing that we were using cover of darkness we might have a little normally we we yeah we opt for the hippo flash line you know you're looking very quickly here nothing jumps out at you um you know there's a lot of stuff here but this doesn't

seem like anything of interest. And you remember Dr. Walsh said that up in Ho Fang's office, there's busting filing cabinets and okay. Ledgers and whatnot. Yeah, let's move to that staircase with its famously loose step. Yeah. Oh, loose step staircase. Okay.

So you reach the back hallway. And sure enough, there's the staircase. Tell me what you do is you're a pretty close. this loose step? I want to approach each step very carefully, both for like creaking noises and for trying to find that step. Okay. I'm going to say where he told you to look out for it,

you can be very careful in your approach and find it with ease. Now here's the thing is, do we want to fuck with the step first? Or do we want to get to the office? Check that stuff on the way back. down. Vaughn's curiosity is like, if it's loose,

I wonder who we might see down there. Yes, by all means, lift it at least and see what it conceals. I want to do another, it may just be a creaky step. Sure.

I would like, before I even touch this thing, I would like to do a spot hidden again for check for traps, check for any kind of again, it would be, I would imagine it would be like an alarm trigger or something.

Mm-hmm. A big mouse trap snaps into your fingers. Um, oh, that's a 91. I'm going to go ahead and back off of that. I'm not pushing that. Don't see any fire traps. Flame bolt traps. Um, yeah, I want to give it a little corner.

You go up the stairs and, yeah, it looks like it has a little give to it. Okay. Lift that shit up. Let's lift it. Right. So you, uh, lift. the plank up. Give me a group luck roll.

Oh, no. Is that lowest luck? Mine's probably the lowest. Okay, mine's 44. Mine's 27. Ooh. Luck? Yeah, so group luck is just Nora.

All right. Come on. But I rolled a 27 exactly. Oh, my God. Pull this plank up. Whoa. It makes no noise whatsoever. And you look.

And it seems like that portion of the stairs right below is some sort of store room. And you navigate in your mind like, oh, this must lead to that room where the table and chairs are right out. Oh, no. Drop into that right from above. Like slide into it. Or slide into it. You know, yeah. You could still kind of on the same level as that room.

Yeah, because it basically, you started going up the stairs. as you turned up. Before you got to the next floor, it turned up in such a way that hangs over this lower. All right. Okay. Well, that's interesting.

Stay together. Drop one in to go up. What do you want to do? Fuck, all right. Carter does want to remind you guys. He's not speaking up their person. I'm like, look, whatever's down there. It's my experience that sometimes they keep some shit around in these places.

That even if you look at something, it gets a little wacky. Go get him for Roos. All that being said, get in their favorites. Ferruz, like, clicks for gun. I take your hand. And like a flying bat goes down. Like swing you down.

I mean. So I'll send Feruze down. The two you go up. Oh, sure. We're doing, yeah, sure. Should we split, or are we just keep, yeah, we should keep an eye on her. Yeah, let's do that.

Keep an eye. Because somebody's got to lift me up out of here. Yeah. Okay, I'll go down. All right. Yeah. Does she have a way out of her? out through the step if she goes down or is it?

Yeah, like you could do a pull-up and out, obviously, if you could lend a hand. She's strong? Yeah. But, you know, if you want to drop her in, the rest of you go up, you can. You tell me what you want to do. Or one of you stays, one of you goes.

You know, you know time, you don't know how much time you have. Yeah. Maybe you have all night. But the longer you stay, the longer chance you have. Um, right. I'm possibly getting cut. Drop you. All right.

Let's go. I'm ready. Do you feel confident in going down there by yourself? while we... Why don't we leave one of us here? You or me stay here to keep an eye out. You're the safe cracker. I'll stay here between the two of you.

If anything... Just in case you hear anything going on, you could alert both of us. Okay, I'll keep one upstairs. I'll be your lookout. And I'll keep one ear open even as deep as we are, and as rainy as it's become, perhaps we'll still be able to hear the knocks of Dr. Walsh. So I'll stay there in the stairwell with my ears open

while the two of them peel out. Okay, so you go up, you stay in the stairwell, Vairus drops in, cut to interior of this little storeroom as we see Veroos slide in like Cather's Zeta Jones. You get into this room and you see there is a door leading back into the main floor of the warehouse looks like it's locked. Obviously, you see like a deadbolt lock.

There's a hatch on the floor that could be slid open. That goes down to the water. And there are a bunch of strange artifacts. We cut back to Carter, who... Finds his way into reception. You see the reception area, going back to what Dr. Walsh told you,

you can move from reception to Hovang's office, presumably, or do you want to... There's no lights on. There's no sound of anybody. No, it sounds very quiet. You can give me a listen roll to be extra short. Yeah, I would like to do that. No, nothing. Okay.

Sounds good You dip past reception Go into this hallway You walk into Hofang's office It looks exactly the way it looked God it smelled awful I mean those fucking cigarettes When I described it to Joe

What do you want to look for There are bookcases full of ledgers There are bulging cabinets There are rolled up Looks like map Wasn't there a safe in here? And there is a floor safe. But you'd have to be an expert lock picked.

You would have to almost have already, in the past season, picked one of the hardest locks known a man. You picked one of the hardest locks known a man? Yeah, on like a whim. It's just like, we like cause a distraction, and I immediately went and I like opened up this insane thing. I'm going to head straight for that safe. Carter's going to Carter.

Okay. Lay of the land here. Talk to me, baby. How intense does this safe look? You've seen worse. Okay. Okay, it was a 93 over 48. I'm gonna push that.

Okay. Oh, boy. 36. Yes. Under 48. I was spares. I was spinning. I was spinning.

It was all. I cheated because I was so nervous. I didn't say what he did differently. Yeah. Because narratively, you want to do that in this game. He uses a different tool. I'm such a pushed-to-roll keepover. A pushed-roll push-over.

A keeper who's a push-wow, that's just up to say. Okay. All right, you pop it open. Money. Lots of money. 200 Mexican silver dollars, 105 pound sterling notes two negotiable

drafts for a total of 15,000 Japanese yen and 20 US dollar 20 US $20 gold pieces money is just fucking money in here of all different denominations okay is there these currencies these bank notes

I'm thinking back to Assoji Taro and I know he's not he hasn't put us on this necessarily. He didn't say anything about Ho-Fang, right? It's all about trying to find Jack Brady and the militia and stuff. Never mentioned how fine. You're robbing a reputable business right now if you've taken any of this money. It's a fortune.

I'm just wondering if there's anything. You're a thief? I'm just saying if... I guess my point is the idea of like looking for any... With him in the back of my mind, looking for anything for like leverage, either with him, for him or against him. Do you know what I mean? Like, if this guy's got some deal with the Japanese, you're saying like the government or something like that? Like, that could be frowned upon by the... I don't know. There could be like, I don't know this is a man that does business all over the world.

Right. You have no reason to believe. This could just be legitimate money. Yeah. Man, that's a lot of dough. Yeah. No one's here. I mean, I can just use it for the good fight.

Car takes one single bill just to know he did it. Amazing. Like a lucky cigarette. Yeah. Just like, I cannot. Okay. But nothing else besides just cash and. In the safe, that's all there.

you start looking at what the rolled up papers or the filing cabinets filing cabinets I see you go to the filing cabinets and are they locked you start

no they're open you start looking through and I kind of want to be library use makes the most sense here but that's not I mean I can give it a world yeah you're more of a spot

hidden guy I'd say give me one of each okay and I'll reveal based on your successes or failures? I mean, my libraries, I accidentally did it once, and I was able to bump it up slightly. Yeah. I'll try a library first. It's 22.

Ooh. 45. Okay. No spent any. Not for a library use. And then the other one was a spot hidden. Which is actually not much better. I failed that too.

Okay. I mean, there's just a lot of paperwork in here and trying to suss out, like, what might be important or not It's going to be tricky. You see like railway atlases, gazetteers, shipping guides, tariff law, compendiums, account books, tons of ledgers, clipping books, bound papers. All this is mostly in Chinese. There is a map that seems to jump out at you of gray. You see Grey Dragon, Grey Dragon Island, and you remember like, oh, didn't that boat wash up on the Grey Dragon Shoals?

Yeah, yeah. That ship. The rogue wave. That kind of jumps out at you. that he's going to map with that. But yeah, you're just like stymied by the amount of information. You need someone slightly more intelligent.

Now I have an Aideon intelligence, sir. It's just my library. I just don't know how to read. Yeah. You could swap. Yeah, we can figure it. We'll figure it up. You know there's a lot here and you realize like,

this is not my area of residence. This is the only other thing to look at is the rolled up things? No, that's kind of what. Yeah, we're looking at all that. Got it, got it. Cut back to Feroos. Ferreuse, you slide into this special storeroom.

First thing that jumps out at you is this, like, a vessel. It's a bronze gui. And the handles of the vessel look like winged creatures, but not like, you know, birds. They're very otherworldly in nature. And Amelia sent back to, like, being at the Waldorf Astoria, something flying through,

you're sent back to Miser House with those things that flew out of the sky, and they're reminiscent of either one of those. You see on a table bones, but they're enormous, enormous bones. Bones that you can't even, you wouldn't even be able to know. Maybe elephant?

That's the only thing you can think of, They don't look like elephant bones. Not that you know, they don't look like they match a mammal. They're just these huge, huge bones. But what really jumps out at you is this collection of statues. There's a lot in here. that are of they're like all lined up in a row of an enormous female humanoid and she's just like grossly large like a bloated woman and she's wearing this like rice

rice hat and underneath the hat are like tentacles you saw one of these coming out We saw this at the, fuck, where in Margo and I broke into the... Underneath Gavicle. The Penu Foundation. Yeah, the Penu Foundation. It was a little statue that I was like, nope.

And I like, I hammered it back into the crate and just left it. So maybe it got shipped? They look like, they look like they're carved out of like a lard or some sort of animal fat. And just setting eyes upon them provokes a sanity role. That's what happened to me.

That's fine. A power of art. The power of art. Now, is this the same statue that Margo and Carter saw? Is it just a different? It was me. It was Margo and Carter and you opened it and you saw something looked like this and you looked away. I'm sure he told you about it.

So, yeah, you remember that conversation. Looked like, but not the exact. Well, he didn't look. He like quickly shut the crate because he didn't want to see. We don't know this, but you had mentioned, you had narrated that there was. was one last crate that had gone on to the ivory wind before it sailed away. I'm curious. I rolled a 26 under 88. Boom, boom, boom. Nerves of steel. This pulse of collection of statues does not stir you. Is it sitting on a crate or is it just sitting on a plate? No, there's like a shelf that

has like four of these statues, all a little bit different variations on the same theme. It all carved out of Lauren, you can smell it. There's lots of disturbing statues like this throughout the room. There's a chest. And then there are a number of crates. Bring your flashlight over to the crates. They're all labeled

A.P. Aubrey, Penhue. Oh, shit. Good one. And nothing else, just that on the top? Crates, chest, and disturbing statues. like to open up one of these crates.

Okay. Sees the chest, sees the statues, sees the AP crates. You pop, open the crate. First one you see. And inside

are a bunch of weird-looking mechanical parts. And you're taken right back to Henson Manufacturing. It's the same kind of weird otherworldly machinery things that you've never seen before

inside of these crates pop open another one more strange mechanical parts what's in the let's check the chest you pop open the chest and there are

these voluminous black and yellow robes several sets of black and yellow there were like oversized robes like

but they snuggies bloated woman cultist robes any particular design on them or just black and yellow as you try to look for a design we cut back to Dr. Walsh.

Drenched. Wiping the window. My wig's going to frizz. Trying to see inside. As you're looking inside. Maybe you're getting bored. You're definitely getting wet. You're soaked.

And you see the flashlights come up again. But he saw them go into those hallways. Walking. He's going to not knock until he sees one go like start toward that hallway. If they do the path they did that Carter described. before, he's not going to panic. Okay. That's the way he holds. All right. So they begin

their walk. Maybe they roll some spot hidden. Oh my. What a shame for you guys. Come back to Carter. You come down and tell Vaughn. I mean, the only thing... Head makes heads or tails of this? I told you. This is a bunch of fucking nonsense.

You force it down, oh boy. Favreu's still down there. Okay, one second. Hold on. And then I just want to check real quick. I know you didn't mention it. So I Maybe it's just nothing, but I want to look in his desk. Hmm, inside of his desk. His desk is actually just, it's like a table that's been repurposed as a desk. Yeah, there's no, like, drawers. Do you want me to take a look at it?

Oh, yeah. How's your library use, bro? My library, well, I did all right at university. That's rather hard skill to really put a number to. Bring that egg head up here and I'll come down. Just keep an eye on that, on that little gap in the stairs. Okay, go out. I mean, time is wasting.

I'll try to make quick work of it, old man. Okay. And I will stealthily as I can retrace Carter Steves back to the office. And if I may begin to look at the papers that he could not... Yeah, so we've swapped. We've swapped the old switcheroo. We do a awkward fist bump as we pass each other on the stairs. A wrist pump.

A wrist pump. And give me a library use roll. Oh. Hmm. that was a journey I'm going to spend 10 points of luck to make it a regular success

Yes Okay you start looking and your impetus is to look for a connection to the Penn You Foundation let's see if there's any records of the Penn You Foundation

and so you're looking trying to find make heads or tales of how he organizes his files and you find a file, it seems like Ho Fang has both shipped and received items from the Penhue Foundation in London. In that same file,

so it seems like this is all in the same sort of vein, he has shipped and received items from someone named Omar al-Shakti in Cairo, and someone named Aja Singh in

Mombasa, can you? Yes, we know, yes. It seems like they're mostly art objects, but some books are referred to as well. I'm going to take this paper. If there's... Yeah, you can take, like, there's addresses. I'm going to take this, yes.

And sure enough, just as Ferruz said, look out for Australia's stuff. There are notations concerning shipments of mining equipment to Mortimer Whitecroft of concedury, Western Australia, via the Randolph shipping company

in Darwin, which you saw labels in the Gavis against basement just like it's yeah the as looking over uh norah's incredibly detailed notes um yes all of these names the invoice numbers folks and the invoice numbers yeah these names just like tumbling into place like like the like just the teeth of a lock kind of changing coming together in his mind like my god it's all connected the global conspiracy they are legion but we are on their trail and uh i tuck it into my breast pocket and hastily retrace my steps.

I'm like, Carter, Godter, what? Maybe time to, uh, 20-3 sked-do, old man. Huh? Let's get, and I will kind of go past you and peep down into the step. Peep down into the step. We go back to Dr. Walsh, Dr. Walsh, they're making their rounds, and they're kind of like these two guards with their flashlights. They're like circling throughout this maze.

They go around one way. they start weaving around the other way and the second guard on his turn comes over to the door checks one door along the side and goes to check the front door and you notice he's like pausing there wait wait wait wait wait the door that they went in door that they went in the front door yeah yeah but like the broken but i'm next to that door you're you're standing on a crate in the middle of the north part of the building looking in so you're away far enough away from that door that you see him going to the door and it's clear he recognizes that a lock is down. But I mean, if I, but you said he went and checked the other door first. Could I do something

in the moment that I see him check the other door first? Absolutely. So let me show you, go back to the map here. You see where you are, right? You're in the middle north of the building. Man, yeah. I was so far zoomed out. Yes. Okay. So they're, they're circling around these going up and down the rows, and you didn't see them check the back doors, although you imagine they did, but there's the side door along the eastern side of the building. So you see him check that door from where you're standing, okay? And then he's going to go check the door that they've unlocked. Okay. So you want to do something between the other. Yes. So once I've seen, you assume he starts to check a door, he's like snaps into action thinking, oh no,

oh, dear God, he's going to check this door. And he tries to hold. And he tries to hustle down off the crates to run toward that door. Run toward that door. Yeah, in the mush. Now, my understanding of what happened, you could tell me if this is completely wrong, is there was a padlock with a chain locking these two doors together.

Yep. And he undid the lock and pulled out the chain and then stepped through, right? Yeah. Okay. So what I would like to do is like as quickly as possible, just sort of like edge that door closed and then put the padlock on the chain, but not lock it.

Just hook it. Trapped like rats. Right. And just hook it but not latch it. Just like go back up against the door. Okay. Great, great, great, great. I love this.

I want to roll. By the way, I've been thinking about this for like the last time. I know, we should have thought to just do that. It was like, I kind of wanted to do it anyway, but yeah, I like this. It's too because we've done this stuff before and we've been like, and we leave the lock, half locked so that it doesn't look like. This sounds. Because this is happening quickly I kind of feel like it's a dexterity role

But you can talk me You can bargain with me if you think it's something else And you can still push Which would be fun Or use luck I think Dex sounds good Also maybe if you don't hook it You could still at least like

Hold it. Believe me I thought that too But I was like if he just Pulls it up and I'm just standing there In the rain Hello This isn't a flower house Okay

I'm gonna do the Dex roll Okay I am so nervous. You're like, on top of this crate in the rain, slip. There's lots of chances to slip. There's lots of reasons. This wouldn't work. Flashback to you, hitting the mud in front of the flower girl house.

Exactly, exactly. Every time. Yeah. Slip on your own, too. Now we're going to see if the clumsiness was an act. He really is just a dof. Yes. Vaughn's hand comes down through the staircase.

Like, shabram! Shabram! And meanwhile? And meanwhile, ah! 46 under 50. Let's go, Dr. Warren. You badass. The guy where, our camera views, we're seeing the guy go to grab the door just as you lock that on.

And he stands up against the wall like, and from outside the door is shaking. And he moves off. Nicely done. That's amazing. Attention. All right. So we go back to Féhruz. You're down there in this room of a very crazy looking statues.

You've found these voluminous robes, bones. What do you do? Well, I was just about to open the chest. You looked at the chest. You were looking for inscriptions on the robes, I think you said. Oh, that's right. That's right. You said that there was, like, another door?

There's a hatch on the floor. I opened that fucking hatch. Open the hatch? Okay. You, let me just see. It's like... Fish family. Flash monster.

Yeah. It's an iron hatch. You, like, unhook a little... locking mechanism from the inside, you pull it up and just water below. Oh, shit. It's the, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I forgot about.

It's like, it's honestly, it's a pretty large hatch. It's like, it opens this way, like two doors. They're about three by seven. And you pull up one of them and you look down. It's just rushing water of the wang poo. Now, I had joked about this in the beginning of the season, how, well, it was like, well, shit, Margo had the camera. Would we have invested in a.

camera for this group when we got here. Sounds like a classic luck roll. Oh. Shit. Okay. I love this. Do we have this thing that would come

handy in this moment? Please, please, please, please have the camera. Can't push or use luck on a lot. 21! Oh my God! Ridiculous! So lucky! Yes, I take pictures of fucking everything.

As a matter of fact, you have Margot's camera. She left it next to Carter. Aw. Aw. She's abandoned her. One night of passionate love. Without Carter, what's the point? I like to imagine that if we get these developed,

it's like all these horrific images and the first one is just a sleeping, Tilly. Never gonna photograph again. All right, so you just start like, I don't know how it works back then. Huge explosions of light bulbs breaking. What's going on? Like the AP, the statues, the robes, all of it.

And then, uh, and then, uh, hey, give me a lift. Okay, I've reached, they, my hand is still craning down. And I think if, if I'm looking down, I notice the atmosphere change and hear the lapping of the water and like, yeah, I'm going, this weather. It's right over the river. Um, it must be where they get like the, like, crazy shipments, assuming she's found a bunch of crazy shipments. Yes. Um, and I'll hoist her up back through the stairs. Pull, Verusa. close the latch, right? I mean, you close the hatch, right? Yes, yeah, of course.

Close the hatch, relock it. You pull her up. Are we replacing the step? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gently, quietly replace the step. Somebody should fix that. And then you want to, what? Just retrace our steps back out to Walsh. Follow me. You walk towards the hallway and you see, like, light flashing back and forth.

Easy, yeah, up against the wall. Easy, easy, easy. Let's let him back. wait watch that light eventually it stops you make your way back to the hallway stealth back to the door yeah and then just climb back down off the crates again comes back off the crates again and gently goes over to the shit slips it out slips the chain out quietly um uh is do we still hear the snoring yeah yeah you're you walk up to the edge of the hallway after the lights go and you hear some snoring

and some chattering. So it seems like these night guards, you don't know how many there are. You know there are at least two, but some of them are sleeping and some of them are awake. Okay. Did you reset the safe?

I would imagine Carter is. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, the money back. Okay, you want a stealth? Yeah. On the way back? Same things. Okay.

I succeeded. But it's a 57 under 64. So we just get one bonus tie this time. Be one bony. Boney. You don't have to call it. I'm okay. Thanks.

The question is, do I push? Can you are allowed to push even if you've technically succeeded for a re-roll? No. You could just spend luck to make it a higher issue. I've got 44 luck. Don't forget. The more you spend it, the better chance you have a failing. Sure, sure.

Yeah, you say that, however, I've had the worst luck at re-ending it. So I would need a, fuck, what's half a 64? 32. Oh, it's on the sheet, actually. Duh. So I would need a 24 luck. Is that what it is? Did you say you roll a 57?

57. 25 luck. It was right near. Maybe one bonus die is all you need if they biff it. I would have the old two left feet over there. Uh-oh. Yeah, but even with the extra bonus, like it could still fail.

He could still fail, of course. And they can push their roles. Yeah. A lot of fun stuff can happen here. You'd give them the bonus die. I always say don't spend the luck. Don't spend it. Are you sure?

You're just saying that to make me feel better? We're on our way out. If things go, it's often, run, run, run. Okay. Run, run, run. I don't feel, yeah, instead of being like, he's kind of like, he's kind of like, that, that, that's just a regular.

Just a sad, a sad. It's out of rhythm. I sock Margo's camera. Oh. That's off. Yeah. All right. So,

regular, yeah, so I'm stealth. Okay, so you get about halfway out. You feel like the coast is clear. You tell them to come. Just read, he's steps. Go. Go.

One bony. Die. Bonus. Die. 21. Yes, 21. Under 60. So it's a hard success.

Hard success. I see if Ferruus make it. So, sort of standing there in the hallway, you got this, fine, got this. Come on, buddy. Couldn't be simpler. Don't know what's already. 97? Oh, my God.

Wait a minute. That would be a fumble. But we take the better of the two. Better of the two. 77, still a failure. a failure. But I can push? Yes, what do you do? So you, like, start sidling along

and you, like, I'll say that Féruz very quickly slides up and you lose her in the light. Just make sure you don't stand on them. Do I want to push at this moment? I just want to take the... Could I act? Well, this is still no results. But I mean,

it's possible to aid his push roll? Is that a thing? No. But if If this goes, it's up, as he said, I'll let you take action. I mean, the thing is, if you put, like, I still have to roll again through these terrible odds. I know, and if you push, it's even worse than it right now, where it is right now. Right. It's the greatest mechanic at all of gaming.

It's already bad. Right. Has a chance to be good. Or a chance to be much worse. Way worse. Really bad, yeah. Yes. Okay.

I think what we're, I think what we're describing right now. I think what we're describing right now is, This is like, this is parsing of logic, right? Do I take the, do I just take this consequence? Or do I risk everything for a chance of success and an even worse outcome? Logic. Logic. Vaughan has 28 sanity.

He's going to push. Okay. Angels guide my steps. St. Christopher, watch over the traveler, and he was lost. He rolled the exact same thing. 77. That's a fail. A failed push on stealth. All right, so here's what happens. I'm nervous. I'm nervous.

I'm not. Faye Ruse, 21, slide up there with ease and get up to Carter. and in that moment you just you lose them in the light and you trip over a crate and it topples a portion of like a really highly stacked thing that knocks everything over making a loud noise and not allowing you to continue forward you're like blocked off just me yeah the only way you can go now is back in the direction of where those guards are i what i do okay and you can dr walsh feel free to jump in if you want you see this It's just like, whoop, bam! And what's that? What is that noise? What happens at this moment? Light starts flashing around.

Is I trust that they're out. I turn on my heel and I retrace our steps fully. I charge back, past the offices, up the stairs, tear open the plank, jump through. You just see lights going everywhere. Lights. Someone that way! At this point, they can be outside, right? Yeah.

guys made it out. And I'll, and I'll, seeing Vaughn turn, I'm going to say, it went back in, close it all. I'm wrenching up the hatch on the floor. There's something wrong with the floorboard here. And I am like, no, that I'm like, pitch my nose and splash. Splash.

And we'll see you next week. Oh, my God, that's amazing. This is insane. Oh, my God. The cold waters of the wang poo. you said go for a swim in the wang poo i didn't know he was really going to do it oh my god that was awesome oh my god it's time to make your membership official start your 30 day free trial today and become an official member of the nash at join the nash.com with the promo code gcn30. That's join the na-ish.com

and use code gcn30 to gain access to exclusive podcasts, add free episodes, and content you can't find anywhere else. Once again, it's join the nash.com 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 nash today. Here, the most popular fiction podcast of all time, which the New York Times described as what might occur if David Lynch was a producer at your local radio station. Welcome to Night Vale.

is a twice-monthly update from a small desert town, where the paranormal is real. Every conspiracy theory is true. We all have to get on with our lives anyway. Welcome to Night Vale is available wherever you get your podcasts. 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 a Flower Moon, Zodiac, Eight Men Out, and many more. I'm Chris Wimmer. Join me as we crisscross 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.