The Magnus Archives - RQ Network Feed Drop – VARÚÐ RPG – Two Nerds and a Reasonable Adult

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

We are featuring a feed drop from a brilliant show on the RQ Network: VARÚÐ RPG. Created by Blighthouse studios the team behind the actual play The Lucky Die and The Sprouting. Meet the players in the first episode of Varud’s first season titled VARÚÐ: Dead Ísland - a family of survivors attempt to find safety in a zombie apocalypse set on the south coast of Iceland. Dead Ísland is played using a modified version of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system that with features its own unique infection mechanic that heightens the tension as the players constantly fret over engaging their undead foes.VARÚÐ RPG is an anthology live play, actual play podcast - always horror, always set in an alternative version of Iceland featuring self-contained, horror-themed homebrew TTRPG stories using various roleplaying games.Right now is great time to get involved as the show is releasing a new episode every day this spooky season until November 18th.Introduction and outro by Karim Kronfli. Listen to VARÚÐ RPG on The Rusty Quill website, on Acast, or wherever you get your podcasts, or learn more about VARÚÐ RPG on its official website. CastBryce Smith - Neil Martin (who is also our audio wizard!)Jón "Nonni" Huginsson - Dagur Jóhannesson (Volly's Icelandic helper)Ólafur Vignisson - Eyþór Viðarsson (who is also our video wizard)Keeper/Herder of Chaos - Hem "Volonda" Brewster (also our lovely producer).Find the video version on ⁠Youtube!⁠ - https://www.youtube.com/@VARUDRPGThis is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Blighthouse Studio⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ production.Content warnings: Descriptions of, Violence, Gore, Malnourishment and Dehydration, Zombies and Apocalyptic Themes. For ad-free episodes, bonus content and more, join members.rustyquill.com or our Patreon.Pre-order FROM THE LIBRARY OF JURGEN LEITNER, a Magnus novel releasing October 27th: rustyquill.com/novel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi folks, Shahan here, and today I'm here to tell you about From the Library of Yergen Lightner, an upcoming The Magnus Archives novel, releasing this October 27th. From the Library of Yergan Lightner is the first in a multi-book deal between Rusty Quill and Random Houseworlds. The book explores an infamous organization from the Magnus Verse for the first time, the perilous private library of the enigmatic collector Yergan Lightner, where occult books are guarded and researched at a fatal cost. This novel, which is set before the events in the podcast, is written by the creator of the Magnus Archives, Jonathan Sims, and Nebula award-winning author Pramie Muhammad. In the winding, perilous halls of Yergen Lightner's library, you never know what you'll find.

A starving cookbook. A cloth-bound hardback that compels you to dig, dig, dig. These books aren't more than simply unnerving. They're deadly. But the library keeps their dangers in check, and there would be readers safe. Also Leitner claims. For two of his employees, the risks are worth it. But will Hugh Franklin and Sebastian Everett find a way out, or will the library consume them before it's too late? Step into a library where the lights are low and the pages bite.

You can pre-order your copy of From the Library of Yergen Lightner now at www. RustyQuil.com forward slash novel. Or go to the link in the description of this episode. Hi, everyone. It's Kareem, the voice of Simon Fairchard from the Magnus Archives. Today we are sharing the first episode of a brand new RQ network show called Varuth, produced by Blighthouse Studios, the team behind the awesome actual play podcasts, The Lucky Die and The Sprouting. The players in the first episode of Varuth's first season, titled Varuth Dead Eastland, are a family of survivors attempting to find safety in a zombie apocalypse set on the south coast of Iceland. Dead Eastland is played using a modified version of Coyosium's basic role-playing system that features its own unique infection mechanic that heightens the tension as the players constantly fret over engaging their undead foes. Varuth RPG is an anthology, live play, actual play podcast.

Always Horror, always set in an alternative version of Iceland. You can find the rest of the series by following the link in the description, or by searching for Varuth RPG, spelled V-A-R-U-D space RPG, wherever you find podcasts. Or by visiting RustyQuil.com slash Varuth, V-A-R-U-D. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to Varoth RPG. We're an anthology, actual play, always horror, always set in an alternative universe version of Iceland. This time around, the players are role-playing as a family of modern-day survivors

trying to make their way across Iceland on foot during a zombie apocalypse. We're using a heavily modified version of Chaosium's basic role-playing system plus a homebrew infection mechanic. Enjoy and welcome to Varuth Dead Eastland. In the town of Selphos, there are many bakeries. But not many bakeries are owned by an American. So, who are you? I am Bryce, an American.

Okay. Generic American? Yeah, the kind from America. So what does he look like? What does he do? He is an average height, six foot. He is built like someone who enjoys his bread. And is, you know, pretty well built. He's pretty strong. and he's about 30, mid-30s. Okay. On this day, which is June 17, you are currently preparing, you're essentially picking up the last of the baking that you have that you're about to take to the cabin with.

It's fairly late in the afternoon. The traffic and cell force has already built up, you know, you're pretty sure. Yep, the other side of that roundabout heading off to Feathergerda is, you're pretty sure. just going to be packed. This is not going to be a fun you should have left earlier, but, you know, baking takes time and you want it to be good. The guy that is going to take over your bakery for the weekend is... That would be Dimitri. He's a foreign national. He doesn't really try and let people know. He's in nationality these days. He is a... He is a... What could it be?

He's a bit under six feet in height. He has some tattoos, but he tries to cover them up. And he's like cloth shaved in all things. So it doesn't really stick out too much. Awesome. You are essentially, you know, you do this from time to time. You'll help out other bakeries because, you know, people need a break. and he is taking one over the weekend.

Also, in the bakery at this time of day, is a couple of customers. One of which is... That would be Johannes. He's an older gentleman. He's earned himself quite a big potty belly. It got a big old, like, oh, what's it called? Like, it goes back real far. He's got this...

The moja? The mollet? No, no, no. Like a bald spot that just goes all the way back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got that. It's started gray. He used to be an industry worker, carpenter or something like that. And now he's just enjoying his retirement. And yeah, he's sitting there. He's probably eating a bullah, a dough thingy with the Icelandic flag on it. In glazing. He's just enjoying it. Sitting opposite you is another American chap. He speaks fluent Icelandic, unlike communication. and his name is Tom. He is with you on this day just kind of like sharing like this

Tales of Old and Coffee he has, you know, that he's about to make his way of DeVic and he's just chatting away with you off in one corner. Standing at the register is a young woman. She has long dark hair and she's quite thin, quite small. She's about 22 years old and you can see that she is holding a phone in front of her or kind of sideways and she's intently looking at whatever video she's watching at the time. She has the Icelandic flags on her cheeks. She may not be Icelandic, she is British, but she is very fluent in Icelandic, and for her, she has a citizenship already.

She's very excited to be doing this aspect of her life, but right now she's just watching a video on her phone. And this is what we come across on this day. So what do you want to do? I come out of the back and I take my apron off and I brush all of the flower off of myself. Yeah. And it looked kind of like I'm in a hurry because I should have left a while ago. Oh, hi, you two. How are you doing? Oh, great. I'm actually headed after Vick.

Thanks for asking. Yeah, I'm catching up with some old friends. Yeah, looking forward to it. I haven't had a good... Schochen, uni, nailed it. He speaks fluently, I do not. Yeah, we're having to party down there a little bit later. So you're headed off to the cabin, right, with your family.

Yeah, you got it. It's good to see you. Yeah, you too. Thanks for stopping in. Anyway, I'm headed off. Shamsd. Oh, Chavis. Coffee bottle.

Yeah, da, da. Yeah, I'll get it. Oh, okay. Tom kind of like gives you a smile. Glily, Juni. Oh, oh, oh. Thank you. D.

Remember, as Tom is walking out, he's an older American chat with white hair. And he puts his arm around your shoulder and he says, remember, just engage. They want to be there for you. Yeah. I know. Everyone's been real great. No, we love you, man.

Not just because of Magnus. Yeah. You got it. I appreciate you. Always good to see you. Yeah. Anyway, you have a great weekend and we'll chat later. Go the hellghi.

Goh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hhhhh. You can see that from the thing, you can see that Abigail, who's sitting at the desk is like, yeah, yeah, go-the-hielgi and all that shit. She's just continuing to watch her phone. All right, Abigail, Dimitri, I'm going to head out, as you know. I'm running a bit late. Call if you need. It's been a long time since I've left the store unattended. Yeah, I'll call in check every now and make sure that there's nothing you need.

Don't worry about it, boss. We've got it. Me and Dimitri, I like that and she crosses her fingers. You both have my number, so. Yeah, yeah. Boss, I just have to show you. this before and she kind of like scoots around and she kind of throws her her phone in your hand. And you can see that it's a picture of the Earth. You can see there's a NASA signage around.

And you can see like off in the distance. Like you can see like they've little red rings on things. And it's clearly like you can see these big rocks that seem to be like coming towards the Earth. And she's like, this. Oh my God. It's so good. These are going to be here any moment. Can you, you sure you don't want to watch watch them? Like we don't get these kind of asteroids like very, very frequently. Go on boss, go on, you know you want to. It's so cool. It is.

I will ask you how it went when I get back. Okay. All right, I'll record it. Anyway, you have a great time and she throws her on. Sorry, I'm running late. Oh, crap, we need to get the cakes. We have to get the cakes from him. We forgot.

Don't forget. Go-Koo-Koo-Ku-K. I got coffee. She takes the coffee out of your hand, dumps it on your hand on his table. We go. Go, go, go. Locksince. Between the two of you, like, you have the cakes in hand, like, about to hand them over to your Bryce.

I need all of you to make a hard deck check, please. Oh, Grandpa. You're about to eat some dirt. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's a D-E-E-E-9. No. That's true.

No. Oh, can I have someone roll for Abigail, please? That would be you. Neil? Yeah. Oh, you're so right. What did she get? Pretty good.

You're sitting down, so obviously. Grandpa just held onto the table, probably like, steadied the coffee catch. There you go. I rolled in the 80s. No good. You did okay? Yes. Okay.

You feel the earth, like, slowly begin to shake. You can hear all of the crockery and all of the cups and all of the cups and all all of the plates and all of the knives and forks and spoons, everything is rattling. It is a very loud cacophony of things going on. It's everything around you shakes. The two of you who fail, let's do the non-fail first. How do you want to not fail this? How cool do you want Grandpa to be?

Grandpa was sitting there. He grabbed the coffee that Dimitri finally had to put on his table. So he's pouring it. Everything starts jiggling. And he's like, nope, nope. And then he kind of puts everything down. down and that's how he stabilizes himself. He's not cool. He's old. He's 60-something.

He's keeping his shit together. Abigail with cakes in hands just kind of like seems to like adopt a pose of like I am going to just I'm going to ride this out and she's very stiff and just flexes like the places that needs to be. And yeah

she still has this box which has a cake in it completely still by the end of the earthquake. Dimitri, you fail. Oh yeah, like one leg in the air just all over the place. Like a cartoon character like, Sukkabliang! The apron that you got handed just goes fly. Just face first in the cake.

Yes, yes. Perfect, face first in the cake, laying down legs akimbo. It's not the most delicate sight and yeah, you are not having a good time on the floor. I'm assuming also therefore that Bryce failed. Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah, you fall to the floor kind of like almost. as you're about to reach out to grab one of the cakes

and you just kind of wobble and fall backwards into the frame of the door and kind of like slide down against it as you watch. The inside of your bakery begin to fall apart as you see things falling off of shelves, as you see cracks appearing in the walls, as you see the expensive equipment in the back, those that were not built into the wall begin to crash and fall. The power goes out.

Not that it's really noticeable. It is the middle of summer, basically, but you do notice that. the lights and everything in the kitchen turns off. This is what happens when the earthquake is over. What is that? Sudran skilte. Is everyone okay?

Yes. No. Cake just on your face. Abigail quickly puts the cake on a table that is still miraculously upright. She kind of goes over to make sure that you get off the floor. Yeah, Eurna is going to walk over and try to assist you. That was very impressive. This was probably the Sutherland's skalfti.

It is once every hundred years. There is a big earthquake on the south side of Iceland. It's supposed to not come for another 80 years, so this is very crazy. Cool. Not a volcano? Might be a volcano. Oh, good. Great.

This is already going to take forever. Okay. Dimitri, how about we go in the back and we get you washed off and we try and fix the kitchen? Johannes and in Icelandic is like, do you mind giving us a hand? Just getting some of these things up. I'm not like the strongest, but I have... Yo, yo, yo, yo. Yes, best.

Be careful. If anything is dangerous, just leave it. It'll be fine. No, boss. We'll fix this. We'll get this sorted out. Maybe you could make some calls to see if we can get some like replacement. This, that's on the others.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I need all of you to make a con roll. It's hard. So the last time I experienced the Sutherlandskalti. I was very young. Uh-huh. You know, that Southland skitt.

Oh my God. That old bad. Grandpa's going to live forever. Johanna, I'm going to have to make this motherfucker crowsy, aren't I? Yeah, I feel so. Yeah, well. Dimitri's coming along. He's got a two.

Oh my God 34 Okay Is that a hard success It was a con right Yes So very Yeah your con is very high

Right Is your con 80 Yeah it's 85 Then that's a hard success Okay then yes Okay Hard success you succeed You're honest

Extreme success Extreme success You barely would notice What's going on Dimitri Yeah that's an extreme Wow Because someone roll for Abigail, please?

We're so full of bread. The bread is like, made you so like that. Through bread, God. Abigail got a 13. Jesus Christ. Just as the moment that like, just the moment as Abigail kind of like turns and makes her way into the kitchen, everybody's back is to the window. It's this brilliant flash of light that illuminates everything inside here.

But none of you are blinded is like, oh, yeah, that's kind of uncomfortable. But yeah, that flash is not unnoticeable. That volcano? What was that? I was hoping you would answer that. Let me look outside the windows. I think it might be the asteroids. And she holds up the phone.

You can see all of them pinging off of like the atmosphere as they were like coming in to like hit the planet. Stop watching your TikTok. You're at work girl. Da, da, listen to him. Pass. I know you're excited, but something's going on. But that's what the flash is.

Maybe. It's not a volcano. What volcano have you ever heard? It's a big flash. It's just like lots of rumbling and like, you know, magma and lava and stuff. It's not any of this. And then you'll hear a smash against the window. And you see this four, five, six, seven.

No, there's eight, no, there's nine people beginning to like look at the window and smash against it with their bodies. You can see that their faces are distorted, like eyes gouged out. You can see that there was entire lower jaws missing. Some arms are clearly hanging loosely at their side by threads. You can see the clothes have been torn, and you can see there's just blood pouring all over them,

and they are banging against the window. With every bang, they are leaving streaks of blood behind. You see some of them, their faces and bodies being pushed up against the window itself as you can see that there are more and more people coming to the edge of this bakery, and you can see that there are many cars outside that have crashed or flipped or turned over and it is just chaos and fire outside.

Jesus Christ. Customers. I think we have a bit more popular boss, but maybe we should leave. Yeah, Yohan runs towards his tape where he left the big pot of coffee and his cup and he grabs the both and walks back. But then leave the coffee, old man.

I... He puts it down. I'm sorry. You had enough. I would pay. It's cool. Where are we going? What are you all going to do?

I grab them. Dmitri grabs the first metal pad sheet. Let's go. As you are kind of like debating what to do, kind of frozen in like, what do we do? You see that the crowd that has been drawn outside of your bakery begin to get wider and wider. And one of them pushes in on the door. and like a bunch of people making way to a sail, they just pour in through this door

and they begin to fall over each other as they begin to reach out and grab towards you guys. What do you want to do? Oh, oh, oh, oh, up, up. Hey, hear of them? Back door? Yeah, run. Go.

Yeah, I start shoving the old man towards the back door. Like, let's go. I'm going to tip over tables and stuff and put as many obstacles in between us as possible on my way. Yeah, you see, I mean, a lot of them are tipped already. The one that had the cake that was not tipped, gets knocked over as you make your way back. And you see that Abigail is kind of taking it after you

and just trying to put so much between those guys as possible. And she kind of, like, is a little bit behind you. She, like, pushes you behind the counter and you make your ways into the kitchen. And the three of you hear this kind of yelp and a scream as you realize that Abigail has kind of been caught a little bit. Apagel Come on, come on

I can stop her She yells Some obscenity in Icelandic at you Which means Leave an alpha Jesus fucking Christ Jesus Christ Yeah so she

She's not looking too well Are you guys going to keep running No, you're going to turn around And grab whatever he can And try to like start hating these people That are attacking Abigail Well yeah, that's definitely I got a metal patch

Yeah, to meet your school to have on that Leave her gone. Okay. Can I have you guys, you may make a choice between a dodge roll or a luck roll. Assume your luck is 30. Yeah, I'm going to give Grandpa a luck roll because I think that's much dots make sense for him. Okay, yeah, that's fine. Goodbye, Grandpa.

It was nice knowing you. I'm going to go for the dodge. Is Bryce going to do anything? I think he's stunned for a minute, but yeah, he will follow a moment later and try to help out. Okay. So again, the same for you. You can take a dodge or a luck. I think he thinks he's going crazy. Fair. After the things you've seen, that is very fair. You said dodge or luck? Yes, you may choose. It should be somewhere in your combat stats, I think. Is dodge. I do it. I roll it two. Oh, well, that's an extreme success. That's not just done it. You

fucking done it. How about Johannes? Grandpa failed by two. Oh, Grandpa. Well, it sucks to be Grandpa. Dimitri rolled four. Fuck me. Might have been ex-pets, nas.

All right. Grandpa, how do you go on a blaze of glory? I walk towards Abigail and I, like, grab her hand. She pulls on it and he just kind of stumbles. She lets go because he's not strong enough. So he goes over to the counter and grabs the car. coffee pot and smashes it on one of the people's head and just two come out of no like out of his

blind spot just overwhelm he's just on the ground yeah they just kind of like as you're like bam take that zombie you see like yeah these two things like comically if you're outside the window you just see two of them launch themselves over the counter and like topple grandpa to the grounds and you all hear like you know biting squelching noises as grandpa is like devoured under the weight of two zombies that seem to be now three and now four that seem to be clawing at this old man. Oh, poor Johannes. But the two of you who did unbelievably well,

you just grab her by her shoulders and yank her out of this melee of zombies that are coming in. And as you kind of back up, you see that Grandpa is now being sworn by those who originally had Abigail. Would you three want to do next? Grandpa, what do you... Let me see. I scream.

Is that a free action? There's a free action, yeah. Okay, cool. then I'm going to use my accent to die. Good choice, good choice. Oh, grandpa, I was looking forward to making his MPC shoot. We do. Yeah, so what are the other two of you want to do?

Quick, out the back. Yes, da. That's cool. Yeah, the... Abby, yeah. You push Abigail in front of you, and, like, the three of you make your way very, very quickly, kind of, like, having to, like, jump and climb over all of this fallen gear,

like all of these big machines that you have have like topple to the floor and it becomes like difficult to clamber over. Can I get you to make a decks roll for me please? Absolutely. So 13 on the die. You son of a bitch. I need you to die.

You understand this, right? No, no. Stop rolling well. Like I said, Dimitri experienced us. Okay. I can work with this. I can work with this. Yeah, the three of you managed to like clambe your way over.

all of the fallen stuff in the kitchen and yeah you managed to make it to the back door and you kind of like throw it open very, very quickly and you find yourself in like this kind of back area where you can see that, you know, one of your cars is parked. You can see that there is like, you know, debris out the back there and you can see that in the distance that there are people that seem to be running towards you.

It's very difficult right now to make sense as to whether they are human or otherwise that they are running towards you. What do you want to do? try and get in the car, I guess. Get everyone in the car. Okay. Hmm.

We have to do it, right? We have to do the very stereotypical going for my keys, but everything is shaky kind of a roll. Like, we need this, right? So, like, what do we think we'd be rolling here? Is it drive? Yes, let's go for drive. Yes. I was going to say pow.

It could be pal. What did you get? I rolled a five. God, dude. This is just like, I was born for this. Key out, no shake straight in the door, or even better. It's one of those that you just click in opens. That's how I know that I am going insane because, like, bad things aren't happening to me.

I'm doing great. But everything else is falling apart. Yeah, you managed to get the car open. Like, you dive in. Abigail dives in afterwards. And Dimitri, as you're about to dive in the back, you feel something grab your leg. And you are aware that there are these, um, being. these creatures covered in blood,

faces just kind of torn up, blood pouring from them, just kind of banging at the back of the car as you get it going, and one of them has your leg. What do you want to do? I want to kick it away. Cool.

Let's take a brawl. You wear steel-toe boots because you drop knife so often. Well, not today, no. What did you get? Well, you got a 42, and brawl is 30, so. Okay, well, 42 would still be a fail because you're NPCs right now.

No, no, that would be a success if your NBC is right now. Anyway, I'll figure this down. Don't you worry. You may end up getting an MPC shoot. You kick at the zombie that has a hold of your leg, and it goes like flying backwards. You manage to pull your leg in just enough, kind of like diving forward, like grabbing the door close behind you

as you managed to make your way off in the car. It's as soon as you turn onto the main road, you realize this may be impossible. The cars here were jammed up already. You can see that some of them have flipped. You can see that the road itself is broken and cracked, not a few meters from you, creating a very deep crevass

that will be very dangerous to try and drive across. You see that there are people running around everywhere, screaming, fleeing from zombies, trying to find their way out. Do you see people trapped in their cars? As you can see, these horde of zombies just kind of smashing on the window. And before you know it,

there is a small group of them smashing around your car, making it very difficult to move even further forward, if you even could. What now, boss? I don't know. This is happening, right? Duh, this is... Dabby?

You can see she's just scrolling on her phone. She's like, It seems to be happening everywhere. People are, like, putting pictures up. The NASA feeders, like, changed to, like, this report. And, yeah, this seems to be happening everywhere. At me. Call police.

Oh, okay. Okay. She panically, like, dials 1-1-2. It takes a minute because she has to get out of the fucking app. She's into, like, well, just go ahead faster. And she kind of, like, she puts her phone up, and you just hear, like, the engaged tone. Like, there's no one that's answering 1-1-2. I feel like I'm dreaming.

You're not dreaming. Okay. You're not. You're not. I mean, we're stuck in this. Do you have anything in the car? Do you have anything we could use to, like, push them away? You can make her a lot girl, yeah.

That's what it's for. We have cake. No, we don't. We left the cake back in the bakery. We don't have anything. I thought you were going to be packed to go to your family thing. You've got nothing? I have, like, clothes.

Like a bag of clothes. It's a small bag of clothes. And then, you see that tell-tale spider cracking on your window, Bryce. Like, how many are here of like these zombies? It's quite a lot clustered. You're probably talking like 10 plus at this point. You're just kind of banging on the side of the car that Bryce's.

If they were to move away, could the cars still drive forward? Not really. Like the cars on the main road are kind of like packed, you know, as is jam in fucking Selifos at this time of day. And there's, like, cracks in the road, and there's lots of vehicles that have been overturned. Like, you could maybe put, like, your front wheels on the main road, but you aren't getting any further than that. All right. Dimitri then looks to Abby and Bryce.

On signal, you go. And then, and then Dimitri just opens the door and bolts. The signal of door opening. Which makes it even worse, like, more zombies. Are you intending to be just running or are you distracting? I'm trying to distractors. Like, yell on zombie, yell on. Zoboni.

You still have to yell at them in English because tourists. Oh, yes. Okay. Sue chowd, su chowd. You make you aware you're running down this street in the direction opposite to where the bridge is because I need you to be, legitimately be able to make it to the cabin. You are making so much noise that the ones that are deliberately around the car,

they just kind of almost as one turn and growl and run after you. They are fast. They aren't like, holy shit, this is rage virus fast. They are fast. Like, you are running at full pelt and they are going after you. And that's the last we're going to see of you. Abigail grabs your arm, Bryce, and. hauled you out of the car and set you off running in the other direction.

Where are we going? What do we do? I don't know. Maybe we just try and get out of Selfos. Was Anna going to be at the place that I'm going to, or is she in town? The last you knew, she was in Reykjavik. Okay. But you know she is supposed to be going to the cabin. Okay. Just making sure I didn't.

leave her behind. Yeah. Let's just run. Okay, okay. My parents are in Rikiki Fika right now, so maybe, at least that's what they said. So maybe we could just get there. I know it's a run. And at that moment, you see a couple of zombies who are kind of like around a car that

has flipped. You see them beginning to crawl out from the wreckage and kind of get themselves up on their feet and begin to like limp after you. we got some coming we gotta go okay okay um and she runs she is a little bit faster than you um and she does outpace you like she is very scared like you she's even stopped holding her phone um she kind of begins to run and sprint off into the distance you make it to the bridge and it is as packed as you would expect it to be it is a very difficult push to get a across the bridge. Many cars are kind of like blocking the way and you kind of end up having to

clamber over a lot of these cars that have stopped, but a lot of people seem to be in their cars, either trying to get out or trying to eat their way out. You must make it to the other side. It is a hard run and you are breathing very, very deeply as you kind of get to an area where you can get away from the road as you clamber to the right and make yourself across like this very hilly-ish-looking section where you can just take a moment to breathe. And Abby, breathing next to you very, very hard as if she's just waited for you. She turns to you and she says, Okay.

Okay, zombies. Zombies. We've got to get across that bridge. I am, I think, I think I'll, you should go. I'm going to try and distract them. What are you, what are you going to do? that didn't seem to work out very well for Dimitri Well we'd

And it's not really like I have a lot of choice And she lifts her arm And you can see that Now that she's lifted it You could see that she's been bitten just below her armpit Surely this Doesn't work like that right I don't know

But um Look um if you if you make it out Please just tell my parents Just tell them it was quick. Okay, just tell them it's quick and tell them not to come back for me, okay? Just go. I mean, one of us from the bakery has to make it, okay? That's just the right thing to do.

And you can see that she's like beginning to steal herself. She takes a lot of deep breaths. Okay, okay. You just run and she steps out and she emits the loudest ear-splitting scream. that you have ever heard. And you see and hear all of these creatures and beings turn and begin to rush at her. And she takes off in a direction opposite to where the bridge is. She kind of heads out more towards the sea,

further actually away from where Demetra is almost in the opposite direction. And you see a lot of them turn and chase after her. How you run? You run. And you run. And you run. In a fishing town called Thorosa, there are many houses. It's not a big village, but it's a fishing village. And one would assume that

most people living here are probably fishermen or related to the industry of fishing. However, there is one house in which there is a young man sitting at a computer desk. He's roughly 22 years old, and this is his parents' house. So who are you, Aether? I'm Oliwig, or Olover Wiggnesson. I am a 22-year-old streamer. A bit on the hefty side, a bit on the shorter side. But, you know, I'm doing the thing I want to do. Mom and Dad, like, they're not telling me not to do it. I'm allowed to live in the basement.

I've got, like, fiber, so it's fine, it's fine. Yeah, I'm probably just sitting in sweatpants, wearing some weird graphic tea. I bought at some... Probably order them online, probably from one of my streamer friends. Is it one of your streamer friends' graphic teas? Yes, almost 100%. I'm wearing one of my streamer friends' graphics. Are you currently streaming at this point?

Yes, I would imagine that I am sitting in front of my computer and I am streaming. According to my notes, a game called Venture Rift Online. We got beta or alpha codes and I am allowed to stream it and monetize it and all the good stuff. So I invited a couple of my friends. Yes. So this little MMO, you are streaming this with three of your friends from various parts of the world. It is an MMO and you are currently about to start a... escort quest you are escorting the scribe from one place to another place called whisperbrook

your friends hanging out with you online are who neil i'm playing someone with a really stupid name um neal is is the name okay um and yeah uh neil's username is landcat on venture rift online All the good names were taken in this alpha. All the good names were taken. I took what I could. It was randomized. Okay. Okay.

It was a randomized name. I'll let the creator of that game know. We'll let him know that's the situation. Tell him it was a dumb name. I had some good ones. Are you also streaming at this time? No. Okay.

You're just hanging out with the rest of them. Yeah. All right. Okay, cool. And the other person who is streaming with, Darga. Oh, that would be. none other than Gika Gamer 1337, who is not very well known, but is otherwise just George from a small town in the middle of nowhere. Are you also streaming at this point?

Yes, though with very few in the chat. How few is few? Do you have three? Well, I have below double digits, but we won't go further than that. The other person who is currently on this streaming rampage with you guys is a young woman whose online handle is All Thing Ice. Her real name is Tinner, and she is actually Oliver's cousin. Yes, that's right. Oh, nailed it. This has been very difficult keeping cousins and nephews and nieces and aunts and uncle stream. She's a ranker. That's fine.

She's a lovely young woman. She's currently studying journalism. But she is actually currently playing from a hotel room in Headler. So not too far from you, but not super. Headler's a good distance away from follow-ups. It's like two hours by car. Yeah. Maybe closer to three.

Yeah, yeah. Let's not talk about walking that, shall we? Yeah. So currently the four of you are playing this. She is also streaming at the same time. Her numbers are, I'll tell you what, Holy. How about you roll a D-100? And we'll see whether you have more watches than she does.

You're a bastard. I settled my dice as a low number. I got 34 viewers. Okay. Yeah, you have more viewers than she does. Like a significant amount more. Yeah, I think that's fine. So yeah, let's put ourselves in the game.

You have your various characters. You don't have at the moment specific classes. They're working on those right now. You're not sure if the Z-axis is working as intended. But you are following this character named The Scribe. You're taking him through some woods right now. And he is coming out with dialogue, but it isn't always making sense. And there's clearly like brackets where like insert code lines here.

So it's been. A trip, but you're getting this guy through across to Whisperbrook at the moment. I cannot wait to be done with this tutorial. Like, this can't be, this, I'm very excited to get a class. This looks really fun, yeah. Does anyone have any idea on what kind of class they're going to have? Well, I'm going rogue. I'm going rogue all the way.

You are always the rogue. Well, that's the best thing ever. It's not. You need to branch out and try life a little bit more. Well, excuse me for knowing what I like. Well, fine, fine. Well, ice, what are you going to be? Hmm, I think I am probably going to be the paladin,

but I'm going to play a paladin in the evil sense of the paladin. I want to see if this game is actually capable of letting you play evil characters. I don't think there's paladins. Well, we'll see. I want to play paladin like. Like, I've seen nothing like kind of holy religious stuff and that kind of is needed for a paladin. It feels more Middle Earth less Game of Thrones. No, wait.

That was a terrible... That's an awful. Awful thing. More Middle Earthless... We need a Warhammer. I need a Warhammer. Warcraft. World Warcraft.

They're paladence and priests. It feels more Middle Earth than... Actually, how much while did you play? Do you even have a game of score? I mean, what are you even doing here? What do you mean gamer score? Guys, he doesn't have a gamer score. I play video games for a little.

No. No. Okay. Okay. I will not be harassed in my own domazal. Bitch. I'm going to tell your mother, you said that. You never...

What's Breaking Bad? Come on. Okay, fine. Look, can I get you to make a spot check for me? And the other streamer also please make a spot check for me. Whatever. Okay. We're spot.

Well, I definitely... So, essentially for you, you just need better than 50. Yeah, though, no, that, no. No, no, no. You're too busy involved in figuring out if you can be a rogue to actually notice your chat. I mean, there's like not a lot of them, so checking them is often feels like a waste of time. Just like a bunch of hellos and then nothing. Yeah, it's just nightfall repeatedly.

Join our Discord. Join our Discord. The Discord is just the four of us. Oh, yes. I failed as well You failed Okay You noticed that your phone

Like flashes As if you've got a message That's the only thing That you really notice going on right now All right All right I think we just have to Take the character

Like through this woods What was it called Whisperwood Violet Woods Whisperbrook Whisper brooks Yes We have to get to the other side

And then We will turn in the quest and hopefully they will open the next area and we can actually get like skills and professions and classes and stuff. Cosmetics. Yeah. Oh, yeah. New hats.

Yeah, new hats. Oh, I love cosmetics. I love... Oh, did you see the tricorn that they announced? That's going to be awesome. What's a tricorn? Tricorn hat, you know, like pirates in that. Oh, pirate hat.

Yeah, yeah. Pirate hats are cool. Yarr! Yarr! Do you think they're going to do that sterileotypical thing where they end up having like one of those Viking hats but they have fucking horns on them. They're cool. They are not cool. They're cool.

We didn't have those. It was cool when they did it in Skyrim, which is the best representation of Viking culture ever. I need all of you to make a Dex check. It'll be so cool. It'll be purchasable DLC. This dex check is hard. Well, I'm not passing and I wrote a 90. I feel like I passed.

I got an eight. Holy shit. I'll count that as a hard pass. Yeah. Do non-streamers make the check? Yes, you do too. Basically, you're going to have to get better than like 30. Okay.

I didn't know if I was dodging views or... Oh, no, I didn't do good. Oh, God, we're going to cancel together. As the four of you are... Could I get one of you all for authoring ice, please? Sure. 81. She's fucked too.

I'm getting to be sound of the way. I think all these eyes are stacked against us. As the four of you are playing, all four of you feel this absolute sudden shift in the earth beneath you. You can hear the sounds of plates and cups clinking against each other and crashing and falling to the floor. Each of you just feel this unending shake that gets more and more violence the longer that it goes on for so much,

so that all of you fall out of your chairs. For those of you who are streaming, when eventually you decide to get up, there's lots of ha ha haas in the chat along with, oh my God, what the fuck is going on? Your chat has never been more filled with comments, Giga. It's probably the most you've had for a while. Did I fall out of the chair?

All of you did, yes. But none of you have taken any real damage. It's just more embarrassment and the fact that there are so many things in your house that have now fallen and broken. Various things around your streaming deck. Your cameras are no longer straight, for example. You'll definitely have to fix those if you're going to continue.

Yeah, it's been, it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. Holy shit. There was a earthquake in Iceland. What do you mean? There was here as well, man. What do you mean? Where are you?

Are you in Iceland? I'm a dog. You're not getting me to docks. Your chat says, docks, docks. Shut up. What about you, Neil? I mean, Lancat. Don't talk to me.

God damn it. I'll reiterate it from the wall. I don't care. No, like, are you in Iceland, giga gamer? Well, no. But you felt that earthquake? I felt an earthquake. Are you in Europe?

Why do you want to notice? I'm trying to figure out where the fucking earthquake was. I don't fucking know. Are you a geologist? I've seen a fucking map. Can all of you also make con rolls, please? Jesus. Oh, God.

This is also hard. Yeah, no. I got a 50 and fail. She got a 23. Damn. I got an 18. For those two of you who failed, you see the brightest flash of light that momentarily makes you blind.

You can't see anything from a lot. moment. For the one of you who succeeded, your curtains are really well drawn. You almost have blackout curtains and you're just aware that your room got like a slight flash of light. You were like, oh, that's weird. But you, otherwise you're fine. I beg you, Neil, add sound effects of like empty cans rolling around. I'm just like, holy shit, what the fuck was that? Yeah, like you two are so disorganized that, you know, the cans of boomer juice go flying absolutely everyone.

Oh, God. I can't see shit. Oh, fuck me. Am I blind? I'm blind. Are you in Iceland? No. How did that happen to you too?

I don't know. What time is owned are you? You have to tell me. You never have to tell me. I don't want to have a day it is now, man. Are you streaming outside? No, I just have the blinds open for the fucking natural light. What's the YouTube video about it?

It's better. for you than people... Natural light. It's night time, you idiot. It's very much daytime. It's... It's Satan de Uni. What the fuck are you on about? You know what...

She has not spoken anything. Tina? There's no response. Okay, I'm gonna... Can I see? No. But Gigga gamer, you feel a... You feel a hand on your...

your shoulder and it's very, very tightly gripping your shoulder. It's almost like the fingers are digging into your flesh. Dad, I'm gaming. Oh my God, mute yourself if you're going to argue with your topic. Oh, God. Ow! Ow! Your visions are both slowly coming back.

And you feel a second his other hand reach out and grab your other shoulder. And he's pulling. you out of your chair, Giga. Oh, uh, help, help! Oh my God, I spilled monster all over my desk. Fuck! You hear this kind of,

not that it's being picked up well on the microphone, if you listen really carefully and you play without music and Whisperbrook, you hear this low growling noise coming as Giga, you're aware that as you are coming to and you're able to see everything clearly, you see your father's face

one side torn off and hanged limply at his throat as he bites into your shoulder. Okay, I scream. Should I? Thank you. You've already picked without screaming. Yeah, I know. That's why.

I want to know. No, approval. Not not given. Oh my God. Giga, are you okay? What is happening? Are you literally fighting your dad? Like, am I hearing him?

I hear him screaming. Did he still a drink? I think it'll be super fun if you still have your headphones on. So, like, the cable is, like, kind of tagging you to the thing. Okay, my dad's killing me. What? No, like, he, just chill. He's...

Okay, is he actually hurting you? Oh, he's robbing! As you are kind of, like, look, you can see, like, this, like, red, um, liquid just pouring from his mouth. As he kind of spits forward and, like, this... chunk of what once was your neck goes flying past you and he lunges forward again as he's kind of like on top of you and pinning you down. I'm gonna flip over to his dream when I hear like wet sloshing sounds after the screaming. Oh god, I gained a fifth viewer. Going viral.

You're like in your hazy death. Look, you see the number goes for four to five and you go, B, B, B. You see, um, as you're looking at his. at his stream. Obviously, you're mostly seeing the game, but you see the corner where he's, like, camera for his faces. And you can see that he isn't there, and what you see is a chair, like, kind of like parts of it just poking above where the desk is.

But what you can really mostly see is that the green screen usually chops out everything at the back, but you're just seeing these lines of red blood and viscera across his green screen instead. Jesus. I think his dad is actually killing him. Landcat, do you see this? Hold on, I'm looking outside.

You go to the window and you open your almost black outcomes, peek outside. You can see that now you've also taken your headphones off. You hear the sounds of car alarms going off and you notice that some cars have crashed sort of just outside of your house. You see that there are people running down the street. pursued by other people who are kind of covered in red, but it's really difficult to see because they ran really fast. Can I get you to roll a luck roll for me, please? What did you get?

I'm mad that I'm wasting these. I got a seven. Okay. They don't notice you as you look at the window. Are y'all still there? I'm calling the fucking police. I don't know where he lives. He refused to tell me.

Just as you start picking up the phone, you notice that Tinner is calling. Oh, fuck. One second. Tinner's calling me. Hello? Hey, is everything okay? We had a very big earthquake here.

Yeah, I'll tell you. I'm sorry, I'm being an asshole. The conceit being that we are speaking in Icelandic. Yes. But I don't understand Icelandic. So fuck you. What a power move. Yeah, like, no, I think I think Gigergamer got killed by his dad.

No. I think he stabbed him. Okay, his dad is a better game. No, I think I genuinely think he stabbed him. Like, go look at this stream. There's like blood all over the fucking walls. I can't. Like, I've got internet connection enough for this, but my computer's fucked up.

And like, people are running around Hitler in the hotel, just making the fucking weirdest noises. But I'm just going to give up on the stream today. I'm going to pack up. I'm going to head off to the cabin. I need you to say something. I need you to say something like, hey, people are losing their mind outside my window. She has something along those lines so I can warn my cousin.

Well, you're on the phone. You're not even, you took your headphones off. How am I going to get your attention? Oh, goodbye. Tonight was nice to knowing you. Okay, just be careful. You never knew where Gigger Gamer lived, right? I did, but I'm not telling you.

He doesn't want. want me to talk to him. Tina. I'm a journalist. Of course I know where he lives up. Look, it doesn't matter. I'll see you at the cabin. I'm just glad that you're okay.

I think he's genuinely bleeding out, Tena. I'm not fucking kidding. No, he's not. You're full of shit. I will talk to you later, okay. No, Tina. Bye. Jesus fucking Christ.

She killed him. She fucking killed him. Okay. One, one, two. Um, you get Lloyd busy. Okay, headphones back on, back on the stream and I go to my chat. It's just like, is, like, what the fuck is going on, basically?

You are seeing in the chat all sorts of shits. This is probably the busiest your chat has ever been. Everything from, holy shit, did you see that flash of light? Oh my God, I think the world just experienced a seismic event. The world is coming. The end is nigh. And they were just like, yeah, whisperer bugs were so bad. it broke the world.

You're seeing these kind of like goofy bullshit in your chat as well. Yeah, you're seeing a lot of like, holy shit this happened to me too. I can't believe that Gigger is dead. Justice for Giger. Press X to rest in Piss. Respect in chat, F, like, you know, what you'd expect to see. More famous in death than he was in life. Did you figure anything out?

It looks like there's a car crash outside here. Maybe a train. People are running. What? No. I don't know. Seems... Did you experience the earthquake, too? Yeah, but it might have been a crash.

I don't... No, no, no. There was an earthquake in Iceland, and a chuck-out gigas... Yeah, there was a bright flash. I think it was like an explosion or something. Yes, yes. Probably from the crash. F-in-Taf, F-in-Cat. I know, I know. Like, no, I... There is a loud banging at your doorline, can.

Oh, hold on. What? What are you doing? Hold on. Your front door, not too far from your streaming setup. Sorry, you're playing set up. You're a streamer right now. You open the door and three people caked in blood from their mouth down to their waist.

Reach out with strong arms and grab you and pull you into their mass. Insert appropriate dying noises. Yes. You hear me dying. Wea. Ooh, nah. Om, nom, no. Do I actually feel like open mic?

You're going to absolutely hear him, yeah. Like, his is, like, completely open mic. You're hearing, like, now you are hearing the sounds of, like, sirens and, um, sorry, you're hearing the sounds of, uh, car alarms going off. And, yeah, you're hearing the sounds of, like, flesh being torn asunder, um, cloth ripping. You hear the sounds of, like, things being knocked over. And very close to the mic, you just hear this rattling,

breath as it gets knocked to the floor and he's disconnected. I take my headphones off. You're hearing car alarms outside your house. Mama! Mama! Your mother went ahead of you and is already making her way to the cabin. Her car, you know, is filled with a lot of the supplies, a lot of like the party and the surprises that she had planned.

for certain people. You know that she basically already got a head start because she was very excited to go see Helgi. So she's not here. Papa! Papa!

Your father is at sea. Your father is at sea along with one of your other cousins. He'll know. Cleaner. Get up from my computer. I walk very slowly to my dresser.

I start grabbing like, warm clothes. It's just like, not even warm clothes. Definitely not like thinking too much. He's just like grabbing clothes, thinking like, where do I have money? Where's my money? Oh God. What the fuck is happening? And yeah, I imagine he like fills like a backpack with like clothes. Yep. And then he's going to walk upstairs and look out the window. You hear three very loud bangs at your front door, very rhythmic like bang, bang, bang. I'm going to peek out the window, which is next to the door in a different room. It's like the kitchen window can kind of see the foyer door. Yeah. You look out the window and

just kind of peek down and you can see that there are a couple of cars that have been crashed and flipped. You see a couple of people that are running around, getting into what cars they can, grabbing whatever they can and throwing it into the back of the cars if they can. And you spot that the car that is currently parked very awkwardly in the drive at Sunfront of house is one of your aunt's cars, your aunt Solay, who you know was essentially waiting here to wait for your father and her son to come back on the boat. She was going to take them to the cabin trip when they landed a little bit later. But who's at the door? It's Solay. Okay, I'm going to run to the door and I'm going to win it.

She is breathing hard. She looks panicked as hell. You can see that she has a cut on the top of her head. You can see it's bleeding down. And she looks a little kind of wild-eyed and panicked. And she sees you and she just paws you into a hug. Solie, are you okay? What the fuck is going on? I'm okay.

We need to go. I think people are eating people. What, like zombies? Yeah. Is there a lot of fent in Iceland? No, look, there was a big flash and an earthquake and everyone just went fucking mad. Come on, we need to go. I remembered you were here, so I backtracked for you.

Thank you. I'm going to take us to the cabin. I'm just going to have to hope that cleaner is okay. Yeah, yeah, let's go, let's go. I actually have a bag of clothes. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Okay, okay. She kind of grabs you and, you know, you get yourself in the car very quickly and she starts the engine.

And you can see that she's kind of looking a little bit woozy. Could you make a... spot roll for me, please? No. Oh boy. Do you want me to drive? I can see that you're bleeding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, that would be good. You guys are like, you know, a little bit outside of Thorough Stub. So, yeah, you find a nice place to pull over. You notice there are definitely a lot of cars just on the road, just traveling very, very fast. Yeah, you guys can switch over and you notice that she's like sitting in the car, she just begins to slump a little more and a little more you can see that she's like beginning to sweat a lot the more you drive

and she kind of a little bit feverish dozing in and out. Soley? Yeah. Solet? Don't go to sleep. It's bad to sleep when you have a concussion. Have you thrown up? No, no. I really feel very sick though.

Yes, okay. Let me pull over. You might genuinely have a... What happened to your head? Why are you bleeding from the head? Oh, I was outside and something fell off a building and clocked me in the head. And you can see that she kind of lifts her arm. And as she does, you notice that there is a very dark red bite mark on the back of her arm. Oh, holy shit.

Have you been bitten? No. Under your arm, dude? She kind of lifts her arm. She twists it in an awkward way and then she sees it. Uh, we're going to ignore that. You know, um... I think Nune is going to be at the cabin so maybe he can have a look.

He's been doing his whole like nurse thing, right? Doctor, he's becoming a doctor. He had to be a nurse first, right? No. What? Why was dad saying that? Your dad, my brother, is a fool. He's a fisherman.

He's not a doctor. Okay, well, okay. Well, like, I'll get us to Nona, like, right now, right now. Just get to the cabin. Like, if this has been everywhere, um, hopefully. Hopefully it's just Thorisand, but if it's, if it's elsewhere, then... No, this is everywhere. My friend in, I think America, I'm pretty sure his dad attacked him.

And my other friend in... I think he's also in America. Where are all my friends in Americans? What? None of your friends. Tina. Tina. She plays with you, right? Is she okay? You know, Tina is her daughter.

Tina was fine, but she wouldn't listen to me. You need to call her. She wouldn't listen to me. Okay, yeah, yeah. And ask her where Gigamamer lives. I don't think that's the most important thing right now. Oh, my friend is currently bleeding to the death after his stab them. That's not important to you?

You can see she just takes a moment to steal herself. Let's out a deep sigh. And she says, I will ask. Yeah. Thank you. She picks up the phone and there is a very quick conversation. and she says, yeah, yeah, he, she broke up very quickly, but she's fine, she's on the way to the cabin. She has everything.

She said there was a close call with some, what's the word? She just blinks a few times as she looks forward. Car crash? No, the things, they, you know, they have. appendages and they talk humans? People?

People. Yeah, that's the word people. I just completely blanked on the word there. You know, I think I'm going to close my eyes just for a minute. We can keep talking. No, before you do that, I'm going to pull over, I'm going to take a look at that cut on your head,

dude. Okay, sounds good. And she just sits in the car. I'm going to take a look at a cut in her head. It's quite deep. You're pretty sure you can see bone at the bottom of this. So lay. Do you have a first-aid kid in the car? No, it's in...

What? You know, the big car. You're the daughter of a fisherman. There should be a first-aid kid in your car. There's one in my... It's big car with wheels. Your Jeep? No. I get pipes out of it.

And Spanus. Your work ground? Yeah. Where's your work around? Incredifique. She's just kind of like beginning to sway from side to side and you see her eyes close. I'm going to put you in the back scene and let you lie down, okay? She doesn't respond.

You can see the sweat is very... Her face is extremely shiny. Any part of her exposed skin is just slug. and you can if you reach out to touch you can feel that she is cold lean your seat back I'm going to pull the little thing

at the side and just let the seat fall back yeah it falls back dramatically or it does like a bum thing and she kind of just bounces with it but she doesn't respond otherwise and then close the door yeah yeah that's good do that

and then I'm going to stand outside and just look at her for a good minute. Yeah, just as you're kind of like standing there and just, you see her eyes open and they are paler than you're expecting them to see. You see her head slowly shift from side to side. You see her shoulders and body begin to lift themselves and fight against the mechanism holding her down.

I'm assuming you left the seatbelt on. Yeah, I'm assuming she put it on himself. You see her head turn and lock eyes with you. And her entire body lurches forward and bangs at the window as you see her fist beginning to pound against the glass. Solay, this isn't funny. Just stop it. I don't know how you organise this.

It's very funny, but stop it, please. She keeps banging against the window, her teeth bared, kind of scraping against the window. I don't think this is funny. And when you stop this bullshit, you can come pick me up. I'm walking. This isn't cool. I'm going.

I'm going. I'm just going to start walking. And with that, Olai keeps walking. In Reykavik, there is a hospital, Lance Bidler. In the pathology department, essentially the dungeon is not the word. Mored. It would sound really bad, right? In the basement of the Path Lab, there is the more.

This morgue. There is a little refrigeration units currently with six people who have passed away, one of which has already had an autopsy, one waiting for an autopsy, and the other is waiting to be moved to a funeral home. Attached to this little morgue area with all of its shiny metal tables and washing equipment, bowls, various cutting implements, weighing implements, and machinery. Attached to this is a small office. This small office has everything you would expect, cabinets, paperwork, desks, and three people. There's not much to do today. It is a red day. So there's not a whole lot. Anything that could be done today can be done tomorrow. It's not a big deal. But three people are catching up on paperwork. Two technicians in charge of reordering things, cleaning, making sure the paperwork is done correctly and ordering, and also any sewing up or additional needs, also any additional needs that is for the autopsy, like closing up and weighing things.

The actual mortician, a guy named Petter, is not here right now. It's Red Day. He doesn't have to work, so he's not going to. Good for him. In this place, there are two technicians and a medical a medical student, a medical student who is probably in the last year of his training to become a doctor and has ended up in this cushy little shift on a red day, which means a crap tongue more pay, and a fairly comfortable job, if not a little bit dark. So, who are you? I am young, huyanron, also called nonny. He is a, uh, he is a, uh, Average height individual, rather skinny looking with some brown ear-length hair that's a mess, rather uneven and uncombed, hazel-colored eyes that look too tired and stressed. And he has on him a tattoo at the back of his neck that is in the shape of a line but rather poorly done.

So it's closer to a blob. And you would also at this point all be wearing scrubs, just a requirement. Also working in this little office are two technicians. Let's start with Athel. All right. I'm going to be Hannes. Hannes is short. He's about 1.5 meters.

And he is very rotund. But shockingly somehow, he still manages to do the job of a janitor. He huffs and he puffs, but he does his goddamn job. He waddles hardcore. He's clearly like way too obese, but he does his best to do his job. He is wearing scrubs probably four or five times XL. Okay. Okay.

Choice. And finally, Neil. I'm Ralph from Canada. Okay, Ralph from Canada. You know, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that additional people have been called in to assist with the workload of Petter. He is the only mortician in Iceland, and despite the fact there are very, very few autopsies in Iceland, he does need help on occasion. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that Ralph from Canada would be here as a technician, assisting in the work. Unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Good choice, Neil. up on the wall there is a TV and it is currently set to a live stream of an archaeological dig in the UK. This archaeological dig is actually at the very centre of Stonehenge and they have dug quite deep.

They found a lot of interesting things and scans and somehow this has become more interesting. It has peaked the interest of the internet more than the asteroids that will be coming to hit the planet very, very soon. So it's almost everywhere. Everybody knows about this stick. Everybody knows that this is a thing. And currently in the big screen that you have in your office, it is there. It's quiet, it's low, but it is there. Also, having stopped by just to chat and figure out how things are going as part of her workload, Your Aunt Anna is also here. She is a research nurse who works in virology viruses. She has been collecting samples of those who have essentially allowed their bodies to be used for science. And she's just taking samples and she has been doing this for most of the day.

And right now she is sat at a computer, like crushed her laptop against like another PC sitting very close to you just kind of like tapping away because it just really isn't a whole. whole lot of room here. It's not meant to have a lot of people working down here, but she still needs to do her work. And she's been kind of basically wrapping up her pay work for the rest of the day. This is where the four of you are at this point in time. So, Noneh, what would you like us to do next? Well, I look around. Are there cadavers on the table? So in the refrigeration unit, there are six cadavers. One of them has been. been autopsied and is waiting to go to the funeral home. That report is almost finished,

but you aren't allowed to finalise it because you're a student. This has to be reviewed by Petter. You're basically done, give or take. And then there are six, there are five other cadavers. One of them is waiting for an autopsy and you know the routine for autopsies to do them in the morning because there's a lot of paper that follows up afterwards. There's honestly not a whole lot to do. You know that the morgue is. is actually waiting for two more bodies to be brought down from the rest of the hospital, but they're allowing the patient's families to, like, say they're very quick, lies, goodbyes to them.

So there isn't masses to do. Maybe you could get them to start working on some death certificates, but without cause of death or without, like, signing it off, there's not a whole lot to do. You can just take it chill if you want. It is a red day. I mean, guys, I'm going to be honest, it's just not a lot. I mean, if you really want to do some paperwork, you can do some people. paperwork, but I mean.

No, if we don't have to work, I would love to just sit around. You're from Canada. Yeah. What's it like? I really like Canada. It's very polite. Really? I heard that it's all like suri, like yeah?

I guess they have that reputation, but I, it's not like you're unpolite here. It's just. Icelanders are really polite. We're one of the best. I think you have to stop fucking with him. No, Iceland is... They are very, very rude.

No, Icelanders are really good. We're very best. Honest, be honest. No. On Reddit, they talk about, like, Iceland and Canada are, like, on the top of the list of most polite countries. Oh, of course you're on Reddit.

Oh. So, like, Do you actually drink milk from bags? Or is that like a weird internet thing? I don't know if they do or not. You want a real answer, but I'm American. I don't know. Maybe they do.

You could fuck with him. Let me just pause the podcast so I can Google it. You know, these are one of the things that I did not do research for. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm playing this character like this. I don't think. I don't drink milk. You brought it off here.

I don't drink milk, eh. How about that? How about that? I don't drink milk. They remind me of ghosts. I'm scared of ghosts. All right. I think that I am done with this.

I, unlike the rest of you, get to go home. Boo. Congratulations. Yes. We still get paid, right? Yeah. But, yeah. Aren't you getting paid?

Yeah, yeah. Bye. It is very nice to have met you all. I will probably catch up with you again, Hannes. And, yeah, very nice to meet you, Ralph. Nice to meet you, too. Do you want a lift? I'm going to need a lift.

Right. I was thinking, I know that you have the card that you share with your roommates, Disa. Disa, yes, yes. And the other one. Good me? Yeah. You share a car with them, don't you?

Anyway, that's the side. Share. Share, is it really the right word? They, like, trap me around a bunch. You need to learn to drive a car. I don't need. Look, we live, like, literally 12 minutes away by foot. Like, it's not that big a deal.

If you only want to work in Reykjavik for the rest of your life, that is, you have to grow up. Come on. You have to learn to drive a car. Your phone needs to have slightly less animistic. on it. I like what I like. Okay.

How are patients... Have you been watching Freeran? I'm really into Freeran right now. Oh, no, please. Hannes, really? Look, I'm just going to say this. It doesn't really work for you, Hannes, because you are working with the dead, right?

But you're intending to work with the living, aren't you? Well, yeah, but I mean, since when don't they're living like anime? Well, the thing is, people need to be able to trust you. and for that you need to be a professional. Somebody who turns up with their phone covered in stickers, it doesn't really get off the right vibe of being trusted. You kind of need to, you know, take this a little bit more seriously.

Yeah, but the way that I see it, the ones who are going to have the most trouble getting, like, being open, are going to be the weeps. I feel like being one of them really gets them. Also, I really don't want to change its phone cover. What is it? It's one piece, man. Listen, listen, if you really want to get into it,

first 50 episodes, all I'm saying, you just got to get through that and it's golden. I mean, like, we've got nothing to do today. Yeah, I don't know. You are my, you are my brother's son. I love you very dearly. I'm just concerned that you're not setting yourself up for success. Look, I just think that I'm looking for a different kind of success here.

And I'm sure, I'm not quite like the old ones here. I don't know, but like, no offense. It's just like... Sound taken. I just, I see that life year can be pretty awesome, even without a car. Okay, okay. So you need a lift, yeah? Yes, please.

Okay. I will come pick you up a little bit later. Do you need me to pick up anything else? There's not a lot open. I got a double bag in my locker. Okay. I will come pick you up in about two hours. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Again, nice to meet the rest of you. Bye-bye. Shams. Be safe. Shows. All right, I have a subscription to Crunchyroll,

and I'm pretty sure I can download and stream it to the screen. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We can not, what's something else in this stone hands bullshit. Oh, my God. This is such a. boring stuff anyway. They're just locked to rocks. I'm going to drown myself

in milk and give you guys some work to do. Ralph, you're going to love this. Come on, come on. You're not too cool for anime, Ralph. You're Canadian. You're supposed to be polite. So as you guys are goofing off about drowning yourself in milk to give you guys something to actually do for the last two hours of your shift, as you're looking up and getting your crunchy roll streamed up to the screen, which you know you're not meant to do, but

hey it's a red day right nobody wants to be here um as you look up and you begin to like get everything sorted out you guys notice that the live stream has cut to a very close up look of what they have just uncovered and it is this large sarcophagus looking structure it is stone and has lots of things carved into it and you notice that as they have crowbars in there and they begin to cry. I need all of you to make a dexterity save, sorry, a dexterity roll, a hard one. No, no. Fail that. Yeah. E. T. How are you done?

Oh, my God. How did you do? I rolled a two. We're so dead when we get to a real character. Oh, God. Well, I'm at my own. Would you fail? You failed? Yeah. Aw, and you two succeeded? Yes.

inside this little work area, the ground begins to shake and it becomes more and more intense. You hear the glassware and the labware begin to rattle and shake and fall to the ground and smash. The screens and all of the books that are on your desk begin to rattle and some of them begin to fall to the floor and smash. The cabinets that are against the walls that are filled with various scrubs and with various textbooks and gauze and cloth and metal implements, one of them falls to the ground directly on top of Nani's leg. As the other two of you, yeah, you're still sitting in your chair,

but it was really bad. And just as the shakes begin to stop, the lights go out. And your room is only lit by a faint green light coming from the exit sign. and One Piece playing on my phone It's still playing on your phone Just in the background Did I did it Did it

Did it 100% I said I had my phone on And I was getting Crunchyroll The One Piece ready My phone is playing The One Piece theme or whatever It's still playing Oh

Oh Oh Oh A backup generator That's like a thing right I spit out the gas that's in my mouth. Yes.

The cabinet is still on him. It's always like, he's kind of trapped guys. Maybe Canadians are to play Wednesday. Let me help you up. I told you we aren't nice. What is happening? Let me show you guys the way with this light. Will you turn off the old piece, man?

I'll turn down the audio. Okay, the audio is down. The audio is down. Okay, let me, let me, I'll give you the light. Okay, you go ahead and lift it. I can't lift that. Put away the crunchy roll. We have to make sure he doesn't have a crunchy.

Can you walk? Oh, God, no, is it? It doesn't feel broken. But it is just like, it is quite painful. You know you're going to need to get this thing off you, like, really quickly. I help getting the thing off. Okay. Between the two of you who didn't fall over, yeah, you managed to like pick up this cabin.

Essentially just kind of roll it off of him. Yeah, you're now untrapped, but the light have not returned. What's happening? The Russians attacked? Is that how this is? I don't know. I feel like I read something about Iceland being like a strategic location. Somebody read it was talking about it.

Oh my God. Is this the first? Holy shit. Holy shit. You hear the sound of running outside of the room. Is that them? Jesus Christ, okay. How does this place not have automatic backup generators?

They do. I don't know. I'm not an engineer. What are they? Electricians? You're the technician, guys. Oh, do we know about backup power or anything like that? It should be on by now.

It should come in within three seconds. Okay, so something's clearly wrong because according to the manual, it's supposed to come on within three seconds. So we're going to have a bunch of Roddy, stinky dead people soon. That is like totally not wholesome Chungus 100. I'm going to kill you.

I realize I have kept the wrong character. You were the first to die. I'm just going to look back to the cabinet. At least I was safe there. Okay, let's go for the... Yeah, yeah. We got to check out like, are people okay? You hear the sound of more running and screaming just outside the door and then it just kind of, you know, kind of the Doppler effect where it just, uh-huh.

Essentially what just happened outside the room. Okay, I opened the door. As you open the door, the corridor is dark. All you can see are two. small green lights at either end of the corridor, the way into the basement and the other exit out of this basement. You also see that along this corridor, there are two other doors, one that lead into kind of like the scrub-in-scrub-out room, kind of like where you put your staff and get yourself ready for the day. And you can see, yeah, there's a tiny little green light coming in from there. And you also see that there is a little, again, a tiny bit of green light coming from the actual autopsy room itself where also the um refrigeration unit is you see as you pop your head

into the corridor you see that the door at the far end of the corridor just kind of like like falls closed as of someone I just want to read okay I'm gonna go put on my good shoes so I'm gonna go through it to a scrub room it's like do we hear screaming or anything of the store um roll a listen check form me. No, no. That's a 86, so that's a fail. Oh, I'm sorry, I turned up the audio on my phone again. Let me turn it down again. Yeah, you don't really hear anything else, just almost eerie quietness from the corridor. I'm just going to start checking out like rooms. Like, are there people in those rooms? Important question. Which room are you checking first?

I think something along the lines of like other staff I would imagine so like any kind of like break room or locker room or something like so the kind of the locker room is kind of the scrub and scrub out room where you put your stuff so that would be the locker room a lot of the path unit like change here too it's not just the morgue guys so maybe that will be a place you may be the first place to look if you're looking for people

as you enter that room it is lit by a pale green glow from the exit sign. You can hear the sounds of... You can hear the sounds of phones ringing in lockers, as you would probably assume people are just checking in on each other. Yeah, you don't see anyone else in here. I mean, the only other place to check is the bathroom. I'm going to check our Iceland on Reddit

and see if this blackout is like being reported. You go to check R. Iceland. Take a mother of all luck checks. Ah, 80. Your phone seems to be stuck on one piece. Oh, no. It's the only thing it seems to be working. It's spoiling.

Stop it. Which is this character? I'm missing everything. Who's this? Oh, that's Mugiwara Luffy. Okay, okay, okay. Oh, fuck. I'm going to miss it.

That's stupid. If you don't put it away, I'm going to make it into more than one piece. Yeah, I get that I don't What is he doing? He's making a pun I'll break it Can I get all of you to make listen checks please

So how did we do Fail from Mjohn Oh good Fail from Honest I fail Ooh Okay You stop it with Andrew

I am so dead Yeah, I turn off the audio on my phone And I have the flashlight on And I'm yeah, looking for my shoes Yeah, you can find your shoes fine Alright, pop them on Yeah, you guys can get like your day clothes on If you really want to just switch out your shoes

Whatever your choices, you're very much able to do that You leave the room There's nothing in there There's no one hiding in the bathroom Yeah, you kind of spot out the corner of your eye that the green light in the morgue is kind of blinking, but that's kind of it really. There's not like fire alarm going off or anything like that, right? None whatsoever.

And yeah, you realize it's kind of like you're looking through and you've seen it blinking, like, aren't there any alarms going off? Why, there's not a single one? All the emergency lights stop. Your phone stops. Oh no, no, it's not going to remember where I was. You guys are in pitch darkness. Okay, let me try to turn my flashlight on.

Ralph? Do you help? Of course. You got a flashlight. I've got a phone that's not playing, you know, one piece, so I can... Thank you. Try. Yeah, I try to pull up my phone and if not use the flashlight itself, like, at least use the screen as a light.

Yeah. Frozen or whatever. is going on. No, you're able to turn your flash on. You're fine. Your phone was at low battery because fuck you. Crunch roll really heats up your battery, man.

They're not great, but they're the best, like, translations. They've got a really good bunch of subtitles. No, not subsatles. So your flashlight on your phone. So the flashlight on your phone, it doesn't illuminate a whole lot.

But where are you three headed? We've got to get somewhere where there's windows, man. Like out of this, like the lobby or something? I think we should go for the generator. If we can get it turned on, we'll be heroes. We don't even know what's going on. The generator's broken.

Why? Well, we're not going to figure out what's going on in the dark. You hear a loud banging noise coming from the morgue. Did you? Did you guys? Did somebody? We wrapped. I closed all the doors.

I made everything. Like, before I sat down, down to what's one piece. I made sure I did all my work. Nobody else came in, right? There's nobody else that... I don't know. Maybe it's a prank. What? The prank. We know it's supposed to be in there.

There is another loud bang coming from the morgue, followed by a second and a third. Yeah, they were probably just trying to scare us. I'll go tell him. Stop. Oh, yeah, right. Where are you got the light? He goes with the light. Well, I got a sticker over the light part of it.

Maybe we'll just let them stay in there for a while. Are you going to go open the door of the walk? No, I'll let them stay in there for a while. Okay, great. The door bursts open and use the three cadavers falling into the corridor. These are definitely people that you know were in the morgue. Like you can see the darkness of the hair. you can see like the shape of the face.

You can see that one of them has definitely got like a cut along the side of their face, one that's waiting to be autopsied. And you hear them growling one after another as they pull themselves up and look at the only source of light. And then they launch towards you guys. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, run, run, run, run. Yeah. I'm going to throw my phone, the only light.

Go, go, go, go. Go, who myth? And I'm throwing my phone as well. We don't even have emergency lighting, don't know. The green lights flicker back on and this cinematically hell-scape of things beginning to flash. They launch themselves on top of the phones that you throw to the floor and you guys decide to, I'm assuming, make a run for it?

Or are you going to stand here? I am waddling so fucking hard towards the emergency accent right now. As the lights begin to flash and come back on properly, as the overhead lights, doing that kind of whirring noises if the light's about to come back on. The entire corridor is illuminated in light. And as the three of you run towards the exits more into the hospital itself, the three zombies are on your tail.

The three zombies are on your tail and two of them reach forward and grab hold of Hannes and grab you by the back of your neck by your arms. They do, do, don't, yop, yop, yop, yop! I'm trying to like kick them off, struggle them off. They are, they have a very strong grip. You guys are a little bit ahead of him, as he mentioned, he was waddling. Do you guys want to turn back and help him? I'm going to turn around and pull.

Okay. Because I'm Canadian and I'm nice. Oh. Yeah, I'm just going to be, I've just got to be frozen and terror stare at this whole league. Woo! A 54. Okay, excellent, terrible. So as you kind of like turn back and just kind of run back towards and you grab one of the zombies as if to like take them off of Hannes,

Hannes, you feel this bite into one of your shoulders. You feel the third one raking its fingers down your back as it finally sinks its face into like the middle of your spine. Insert death noise here. Sweet. As two of them pull Hannes down to the ground, the third that you have managed to grab hold of, Ralph, kind of lets go of Hannes and just kind of begins to reach out and claw at you. What do you want to do?

Run, dodge, get out. Okay, let's make a hard dodge, because you are kind of semi-grabbing, semi-grapbling this thing. which also now has its like mangy hands clamped around your arm. 40. Okay, this is not terrible. You make a run for it. This thing is still holding onto you

and you managed to just twist your arm in such a way that you managed to get it out of its grip, but it is right on your heels as you begin to run towards the exit. Are you still standing still in terror or are you now moving? running. Okay. The pair of you crash your way into one of the main corridors of the hotel, into one of the main corridors of the hospital and you see that there are people running in all directions. You see that there are blood drag lines everywhere you look. You can see that many of the lights here no longer work. They are flickering, but at least you have, you know, windows. So you can kind of

see what's going on. You can see that some of these beams have fallen. and cracked into the corridor itself, making it incredibly difficult to get out of one end. And you can see that there are people trapped underneath it, screaming and begging for help. But it just seems to be drawing those people who are running dead, covered in blood towards those people screaming. The zombie is right on your tail.

What do you want to do? Bolt for it? Oh, is there a gurney around that I can, like, put in place to, like... Um, yeah, let's say that there is, a gurney that is nearby. You go and grab the gurney with the hope that you can put it across the door of where you just were,

and the wheels are locked in place. You definitely have to kick them up and that will cost you some time. Oh, in that case, I abandoned. This was a plan in the moment, and then as soon as I met with resistance, all right, abandoned. Ralph is right next to you

as you were like, I'm abandoning in this plan. The zombie is right behind the pair of you, and it reaches out of its trying to grab like anything they can get hold of are like both of you to make dodge checks for me please I'd say 21 so a success 44 okay not too bad

not great for an embassy not a winning score as it reaches out to try and claw at both of you and then you're able to like dodge your way out like kind of like oh yeah this gurney I'm just gonna move it just gonna kick it and it just kind of like skids a little bit just kind of giving you that little extra like between you and it

as you run forward. But unfortunately, Ralph, you feel this thing just scrape its fingers down your back across the back of your leg as it kind of like falls forward and just grips its fingers around one of your legs as you're trying to flee. I'm going to start fighting it.

Yeah, I'm assuming, are you still running or are you going to turn back and help your... I'm running. Coward. Damn straight. As you turn to like start, like, start, kicking this thing off you and start fighting the thing that has grabbed your leg. More of the zombies that kind of begin piling into this corridor from a side,

kind of see you and see this fight happening and smell fresh meat as the wounds on your back begin to ooze little blood, and before you know it, you are surrounded by zombies who are reaching for you, faces torn asunder, arms missing. You can see that a lot of them have their guts hanging out, as this kind of blood begins to drip everywhere and you are very quickly torn asunder, insert death noises.

How polite. What's the one that's used all the time? What's that called? The Willholmscreen? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Insert Willowmscreen. But with an A at the end, just to make a Canadian. Aye.

A. Sorry, I'm about to die right now. You begin running along this corridor. You know it's a little bit before you actually reach the outside of the building. You make it to a staircase, which takes you up just like half a floor. It's not what's the best built hospital. You've got up half a floor and you can see that ahead of you there is this swarm of humanity. Some of them are running towards you, screaming and crying and begging for help.

you can see that there is a horde of blood-covered former humans running right behind them. You see one of the people who are running just get taken down by the mob and kind of like a ball they engulfed them. And you see that there is two other people running in your direction, just like waving their arms, trying to get you to run in the other direction. The other direction they're like indicating, is like, is it clear? Yeah, kind of like as you look behind you, look back down the steps and look at the other corridor that kind of leads out. It's a much longer route, but it's clear enough. I mean... All right, then I'll go for it.

Quick skiers, turn around, run down the stairs again. You find yourself running along this corridor. You hear the sounds of screaming and begging for help. You pass people who seem to be trapped under gurneys that have fallen on top of them and they're just unable to push it off. You see that there are a lot of patients who seem to be, like, like frozen in terror, completely unknowing of what to do, holding onto their various drips,

just not understanding. You pass an older man who's holding a drip stand who seems to be pushing against a zombie and smashing it in the head, just like, this person knows what's up. This old guy is not going to let this thing run. And as you run past him,

you hear him running behind you. You can hear this kind of like drip stand just like smashing every other step as he's right behind you. Ahead of you, you see, the fire exit door. Okay, I just go bolting towards it, like slamming into it to open it up as soon as possible and get out there.

This is one of those god-awful, but kind of good exit doors that close very, very quickly behind you, like one push you're out and you close it behind you. You're very aware that as you run out that the door is closed behind you, but this old guy has not, hasn't made it through. Are you going to stop and help or are you going to keep on running? keep on running just my heartbeat in my ears just breathing fiercely just get a soul motivation right now just to be like just keep going not dead yeah yes um you find yourself on the little street just out of um outside of the hospital and you can see that there are obviously cracks in the road you can actually look around and see that some of the buildings you expect to be here you can see some of the larger ones have fallen and toppled like that must have been some of fucking earthquake. It was pretty intense and you can see that there is like debris everywhere. It's a little difficult to breathe with all of this like concrete dust in the air. You can see

that there are people running along the street. Most of them seem to be alive. You even see one car like cruising towards you in your direction driving kind of like very erratically. Can you make a spot or a luck for me? I'll do a spot. Yep, sounds good. No, that's a fail. Okay. that boats well

what you don't see is no I'm going to go no as you start running are you do you mentally have an idea on where you're running initially it was just get out of there

the next thought is hope okay as you make what should be a 12 minute walk you make a good run towards where you live as you get

to towards the apartment block. As you turn into that road, you realise that there is a massive, like, crack across the road, which would be difficult to get around, if at all, you'd have to find another way. But thankfully, maybe not. You hear the sound of a small car.

One that you definitely recognise that clank, that kind of clicking, cracking sound that should have been fixed a while ago. As you hear that sound of that car just behind you, As you turn and look, you see this beaten up old black car come to a screeching hole right next to you and the door flings open. There is a young man at the seat who has long, dark hair. He is wearing a black coat and he has shades on. His face has like the kind of the Icelandic flags on.

He was out partying all day. He didn't have to work. He didn't need to worry too much about the money. This is your friend, Njol. Njol. Okay. Hey, you're okay. Yeah, yeah, get in, get in. Like, shit's crazy. I'm going to go find Disa and Gung-Me. I think I know where they're partying. Like, we're going to get them. I'm going to get a fuck out of here.

Okay, okay, okay. Jump in. Cool. You jump in and the pair of you scream down this road to almost immediately be met on the main road with cars that have jammed, come to a complete stop and all crashed. What did we do? Um, I fucking know, man. What the fuck happened? I don't know. I was watching that like dig thing that's happening and they cracked it open and then all this weird shit happened. And then like people started eating each other and I got the fuck out of it. I mean, I was by my car basically anyway. So, but like, fuck.

People are eating each other. Who else? Do you know of anybody? I don't know. my phone stopped working a little bit ago and then like I couldn't get through to like you know one one two and man I'm fucking surprised you're alive like I thought you were gonna for sure oh yeah you you're me both bad uh oh at that I decided to like check my phone does it work um yeah like you see that there are like some bars on it okay my phone works uh I want to try I try first 112 nah nothing All right. At that, my second phone call is just going to be either my parents or like other family members or something like that.

Yeah. So you have a sister and you have a mother and a father. You know that your mom and your dad are both making, they're on their like wedding anniversary trip. So they just basically should be driving towards the cabin. But you know they're a little bit far out. You know they're supposed to be arriving quite late tonight. your sister is quite far out east and you know she probably won't be arriving until tomorrow morning but she is making a long track she was on the other side of Iceland delivering a training session for some librarians okay okay am I getting through to them or is it yeah you just choose one pick one okay okay I start with my sister okay I need to find out where she is because I need to make sure I get the name, roughly right? Una. No, no, not that.

Oh, okay. Something else then. Yeah, the roughware. Yeah, I probably should make sure. Yeah, I think I have the map. Oh, the map I promised to print out better. Yeah, that's fine. Our printer's shit.

Oh, okay. This is my map. This is like really bad. What the fuck. Yep, it's pretty bad. All right. definitely need some help here. It's Kikibairr...

Kierkjöbair Kluster. That place. Kierkjubljkir Kluster. Yeah. Kikyibai Kluster. Yeah. Nailed it. Okay.

She picks up the phone and she's like, oh my God, say God, you're okay. Same with you. What's happening on your end? Everyone seems to have crashed. I can't get out of town right now. I, he's a fucking mess. Well, the same here. What do we do?

Have you called anybody else? Have you heard from anybody else? Yeah, yeah. I called Mom, Dad. They're fine. They're just going to hold up where they are right now. Like there's apparently a bus filled with like school kids and they're just going to help them out.

So they may not, they'll not be around for a couple of days maybe. But they're just going to try and make sure they're apparently like the bus driver went mad and started like, I guess eating people is what they said. but that can't be right. I don't know, man. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We got to tell them to get the hell out of there.

There are people leading each other here. Okay. No, I think you're sounding very dramatic right now. I was there. There are people. I literally look. There are people leading to each. Okay, okay, fine, fine.

I'll call them back and I'll tell them to just get out of there with however many kids they can fit in the car. They've got the big Jeep, so that should be fine. Oh, God. Okay. I'll call them back and, yeah, I guess we'll just head to Salfos. I'll probably catch up with them in an hour or two because that's where I think the hospital is, so that's probably the best bed from here.

What do we do? What the hell do we do? I don't know. I mean, I can't get out right now. I'm probably going to have to walk from here. Oh, no fucking clue. I don't know, man. Are you going to be able to get out of you think okay?

I look at Niels. Can I get out of? I don't know, mate. We might have to walk. Run? I mean, maybe we could just go back to the flat. I mean, that's a big crevasse, but we could just go back and hold up there, man.

I mean, that is a decent place to hold up. Yeah, I mean, it's high up. I mean, we're seeing sure that. That would have been the right place to stay right. It's fine. Yeah, tell it it'll be fine. It should handle the earthquake well. Yeah, yeah, it should be fine.

I mean, we're still there, so. Shit. Okay, so, Una, I'm going to be holed up with someone here at my home. I don't know how, like, I don't know what else is to say or do here. Okay, so, so, okay, deep breath. What would they tell us to do? The smart thing would be to go to a place where you can hold. up and be safe. So once you're in there, just make sure that you are, everything is locked,

that everything is secure and that you don't leave unless you have to. Just just, let's just wait for better guidance. Fuck me, it's a red day. No one's going to be in the fucking office to do anything. I feel like there's a bigger problem than that at the moment. No, I don't mean like the library office. I mean like, oh my God. Okay, look, just go to your flat and we will do our best to try and come out your way, maybe. I mean, if people really are, I don't know. Oh, my God, I don't know what I fuck did. Look, you go do what you do, and I'll check on on my mom and dad, and I'll get them to leave.

Wait, wait. Hold on. Like, I'm not crazy, right? We have the, we have the cabin trip coming up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't you some people go early? Yeah, I think Threther. Nailed it.

I think Threitha and Helgi are there already. They're setting up some surprises. So I think they should already be there. I know Helgi took a bunch of food with them. Okay, okay. Well, that's something. We got to check in on them as well later on. Fuck me.

This is so wild. This is just, I don't know, man. I don't know. Look, I'll call you back when I've checked in with Mom and Dad and I'll let you know how I'm doing when I've figured out how to get out of this place. Just for my sake, please don't like go help some strangers here. I know that sounds mean, but I'm telling you there's people eating each other.

Okay, if I take that to be true, I have my rifle. I'll go get it and I'll start walking. Okay, thank you. Do I make you feel better? Yeah. Okay, all right. I'm sure I've got plenty of stuff in there. All right, I'll talk to you, Sue.

Be safe, okay? Say to you. All right. Bye. Bye. And with that, you hang up the phone. Now it looks at you and he says, we should probably go back to the flat then, right?

Yeah. All right, hold on, and he puts the car in reverse. Just cruises it top speed along. It's not very far though. I hate the fact that you're faster in reverse than you are in forwards, man. Told you stunt driving. That's the way to be, man. Tell you, I'm going to have.

make it big in stunt driving as he pulls it to a stop, handbrake turns, almost right up to the edge of the crack. It doesn't take long for the pair of you to find a different way around, and there are some narrow misses, but you do ultimately end up at the edge of, you do ultimately end up in front of your building. You hear, as you approach, you see that the door is open.

You see that there is. is in the reason the door is being held open is because you can see a body lying there. You see an arm and a head. You see the head has been caved in. You see there's blood amongst the blonde hair. Is that? Oh, my God.

You go over and you check the body. It is not your friend, Disa. Oh, oh. This is going to sound really bad, but I'm so glad that you, that you are not the one that I was sorry you're dead like say to the corpse

but I'm really glad that it's you and not the one that I was thinking about oh so right mate okay all right all right let's just move out the way so we can like secure the building

yeah God okay come on help me yeah the pair of you grab the body it doesn't take very long and you manage to let yourself back in the building as soon as the door closes behind you You hear the sounds of moans, yells. You hear the sounds of doors banging, the sounds of feet running. They're just above you.

Then you hear the sounds of feet, many, many feet against the steps, against the staircase leading down to the floor you're on. I open once more the door that was... The weekend just as soon as possible closer behind me. You close the door behind you. Just at that moment, as you kind of are closing the door, you hear the sound of the elevator open, the kind of dinging sound of it having arrived.

And the roar of zombies and creatures that tumble out of it is almost definitely, even outside. And you see, you know, turn around. kind of like trying to get the door open because you've kind of probably closed it on him I guess and yeah he kind of like is beginning to bang on the other side just trying to get it open but what do you want to do?

I'm just there like moathing the words I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm just letting the door stay closed he lifts his hands and he starts like banging and you can hear him like screaming None, no, no, no.

Come on, man, you're my friend. Come on, they're going to fucking eat me. And just at that moment, you see one of them lunge forward and grab his arm. You see another, grab another. And the last you see of him is his hand reaching forward as he is screaming your name, as he is absorbed into the mass of zombies. Varust dead Eastland is available now with daily episodes releasing until the story end. Join our family of survivors trekking across the week.

into Icelandic landscapes wherever you're going to get your podcasts. You can search Varus RPG, V-A-R-U-D-R-P-G, in either your podcaster of choice if you want audio, or you can search that on YouTube and watch the video episodes daily. See you on the road. Then I'm going to use my accent to die. Now is a great time to get involved, as the show is releasing a new episode every day this spooky season until November 18.

So if you enjoyed this episode, you can find the rest of Varuth by following the link in the description, by searching for Varuth RPG, V-A-R-U-D, space RPG, wherever you find podcasts, or by visiting RustyQuil.com slash Varuth, V-A-R-U-D. Have fun. Thanks for listening. Hi, Alex here, founder and CEO of Rusty Quill Limited. In case you haven't heard, there is now a Magnus Archives novel. The Library of Yergen Lightner is set in the world of the Magnus Archives

and written by Nebula Award-winning author, Premi Muhammad, with our very own Jonathan Sims. The story follows Hugh, a university dropout, desperate to find somewhere to belong and his new job at an esoteric library. The books he must investigate for the enigmatic Juergen Leitner are not normal, because the library is not a vault, sealed and silent, but a hive, alive, buzzing and ready to sting. The Library of Jürgen Leitner releases October 27th, 2026,

but you can pre-order it right now in the US and UK from your local bookshop or by using the link in the episode description. If you live outside of the UK or US, you may be able to make an international order for this first publication, but it depends on individual retailers shipping policies.