Worlds Beyond Number - Interlude: Fortune Found

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

The forgotten town of Fortune's Fields lies in the shadow of a mesa. Desert winds stir across the Free Roads, carrying the low, mournful calls of jackals. The streets lie quiet, sun-bleached and cracked, littered with the remnants of shops and abandoned homes. Across the train tracks, half-buried in sand and shadow, a mine shaft waits, its mouth dark and inviting. Fortune is found only by those desperate enough to follow it into the unknown.We are:Brennan Lee MulliganErika IshiiAabria IyengarLou WilsonProduced by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse, original score by Nic Neves, and edited and designed by Jared Olson. Transcript of this episode coming soon! You can find transcripts of all our episodes here, for free, on our Patreon.

A powder blue sky that seeps into white and yellow edges with the burning glare of a sun whose rays fall on sand, stone, rock, and canyon. Butes and mesas populate an orange-yellow landscape as the lone cry of a buzzard. Feathers visibly missing from its wings circles lazily through air filled with more thermals than not. Effortless to stay aloft as the heat of the stone bakes upwards towards an unrelenting sky. In the shadow of a mesa, ringed at its far edges by stone beutes and fairy chimneys, tall tower. of yellow striped sedimentary stone, we see what remains of a town that once thrived. Dusty rails, a whisper of what was to become a factory, shops and houses, windmill, and the tracks of what we have learned is called a locomotive. Here in the free room,

roads, I would ask each of you to describe a part of this town. And I would love for each of you to describe a part of this town where things didn't quite turn out as the people. Just off the central thoroughfare, there's a sign that kind of once was held between two posts, but now hangs only from the left side. That reads, Elio, Wonderworld and is filled with crumbled towers and creatures made out of paper machet. You can tell that there used to be kind of little seamlets or areas for children to explore and play in. However, I think you could very much tell in part by how, you can very much tell in part by how how little is left

that a paper-mache playland was never meant to live in the desert and that whoever created it was someone who spent day after day remaking and reshaping elements of this kind of playground

because they would continuously melt and fall apart. In the shadow of the awning out on the wooden walkway out in front of Elia's Wonderworld is a mostly white

cap figure of paper mache. It originally was orange with black stripes, the form of a tiger, and out in front as one of the finest pieces to see, the sun bleached it of its color in the better part of a year and a half. Mouth or face of this tiger has melted off and is being kept structurally sound starting at the throat by a massive wasps nest

where brown and black striped desert wasps, these angry, longed-winged things, buzz matching the waves of heat emanating off the tin roof as these wasps move to and fro flying forth from a headless tiger. Down at the far end of the town where like a governor's mansion or like an important person to the town was building their estate. Behind the house

where there's a little bit of a grade to the landscape, it looks like it's the beginning of terror. to like make sort of like a terrace steps for gardening and adding like more plant life to this area. But halfway through the second step, there's a massive like rift in the ground where they hit something important and it split the earth and ruined the foundation of the like house and the area around it and the crack seems pointed directly at the heart of the town. The mayor's canyon as it's come to be. knows out from the abandoned terraces.

The governor's mansion is a wonder to behold. From town, the back of the mansion was never completed. But from the front, beautiful marble, stone steps, and a sort of smear of rust in the central archway at the front, because the official seal was pulled down a generation or two ago and melted down for scrap metal. This place has been abandoned for a long time, and down in the canyon, matching the buzz of the wasps, you can hear a occasional of a rattlesnake's tail. It is a hot enough portion of the day that even a cold-blooded reptile will seek the shade. The base of that canyon, it's hard to see, but there is water deep down there, something cool and deep.

This place was not built by fools. There was a hope once upon a time that this town would thrive. And it is impossible to tell if the canyon is the wound that killed it, or simply the incision of some divine bureaucratic surgeon who opened something up to see just how bad the rot was. On the outskirts of town are a collection of small, almost nondescript buildings with what would have been once white picket fences surrounding tiny plots in the back. This was supposed to be housing for the workers in the factory, specifically for the workers that had family. There were hopes once upon a time for this to be a thriving town that could become home to families. In each front yard is a tiny planter box.

The hope was that everybody would be able to grow some little home quarry. crops, maybe tomatoes or rhubarb for the table. Now those boxes are home to dust and trash and tiny desert mice. A dusty, tired-looking group of hunting dogs, wild, speckled with mrs. brown and deep black and patches of what looks like a dusty indigo, a kind of blue patches of fur speckled over them, long jackal-like snouts and shorter tails, almost like deer that seem to have a white underside for them to be able to be raised in communication. Lope dispiritedly through this tiny neighborhood, Harlow's Glades, they were called. Glades here was an aspiral.

name to give to these homes. The dogs sniff lazily, hoping for a brave or adventurous mouse to pop their head up. These dogs have been eating mice more than they would prefer. There hasn't been a prong-horned antelope around here in a while. The dogs breathe dejectedly and go to find a shadow somewhere to lay down in. Harlow's Glades lies in sight of the house. the rotting and ruined back of the governor's mansion, at the edge of Fortune's Fields,

the town where we find ourselves. Fortune's Fields was supposed to be a small city. At its height, it only ever got to a big town. Nowadays, Fortune's Field, living in a husk of what used to be inside a larger husk of what was hoped. A group of miners and dusty overalls and flat caps come trudging out with their carts from the mine. There hasn't been any silver found here in quite some time,

but there's some coal. Coal's good. You can sell coal. You just need to get enough that the train that comes to carry the coal doesn't have to burn more coal than the coal you find. Oh, my God. That's it. That made me the most sad I could be.

The miners and their families, a water tower with a small hook for passing trains to refuel and fill up on water stands with an illegal stent

in the side of the water tower for townsfolk to come and steal the water because there's not enough to go around otherwise. We see a rotting governor's mansion and a sheriff's office with an open pain of shattered glass that some Samaritan has at least cleaned up from the ground, though the window has not been replaced because no one has cared to. This town still has maybe a thousand people here not a big, not, not nobody, not a hamlet, not just a stand of farms.

There's, there's a working mine here, factories defunct, there's a working tavern here, though the inn never gets any visitors. There's half of a dream flickering here in this space. And I'd love for each of you to describe for me if you could somebody with one last chance. There's a like 25, maybe 26 year old woman, the daughter of moonshiners. Good work for a place that is holding on with white knuckles at the very edge of oblivion. The alcohol used to be just sort of strong and poorly flavored,

but she's been ranging farther and farther out into the desert to find a sort of like scrub brush that grows beneath cacti, that she turns into a flavorant. And she's just so convinced that if she can get on one of these trains and leave this town and sell this very special alcohol. She can't even land. She doesn't know a name yet. She doesn't know what to call it.

She just calls it fortune. She knows if she can sell it somewhere. She can uplift her family and then maybe the whole town can be about this and there's a way back. She just needs to make enough and find the right person and get out of here for just long enough.

It could be big. It could change everything. As this woman is walking through the town, someone calls out her name. What name did they call out? Millie. Millie. Millie, how are you doing there, stranger? Oh, hi.

You look up and see hanging out in front of the general store with about three or four young men that are a rotating cast of kind of near-do-wells is Mr. Holley. Mr. Hollow is not the man who built the general store, but he is the man who bought the general store after the former owner of the general store suffered a very bad accident where both his legs were broken. Got it. Milly like raises her hands and just the glare off of how bright and how much the sun is bouncing off of the heart. earth. She can barely see it. She only kind of knows from his voice and the direction. So she doesn't even see the other people that are around, but just yells. Oh, Mr. Hollow.

Hi. Hi. Hi. It was a good. It was a good. And she shifts like she has this big like it's not canvas. It's like old plastic that she's shaped into like a big sack. And it's very large, but it's full of very like sparse, dry plant. So it probably only weighs like five or ten pounds.

but it might be like she could fit inside of this bag. It's a good, it's a good trip. I'm going to be able to, this should probably take maybe four days to, you know, reduce. How are you? Oh, I'm doing mighty fine now that you're back in town, but I'd be, I'd be remiss if I didn't say, came up a little light on that last batch, you know, the the fellows here in town, they like a stronger

drink. No, no, I know, I know, I know. I'm so, like I said before, I'm so sorry about that, but I think this one, it'll be, it's going to be so good. I just need a couple days and it will be so strong. Thank you, thank you so much for your patience. All of, all of you, all of your patience. Thank you. He smiles and nods. The smell of the scrub brush in that bag.

This is a varietal, a hearty desert anise seed. So this like intense, licorice kind of smell emerges from the bag behind you for a, this like liquor that you make out here, this moonshine that is completely clear when distilled. And if it touches ice in any way, it turns milky, white. You head off through the town and who else is here in Fortune's Fields today? Harry's a man who was educated abroad. He's seen a lot of the empire, the neighboring lands, and he decided to settle here. He settled here in order to try and grow his practice as a doctor. but one thing led to another he fell in love,

wife passed away, and he just always found a reason to stay here in the community. He knows everybody here, it's comfortable, even though it's deeply, physically uncomfortable in this part of the world. But try as he might, he just can't find a reason to, hop on to the train and move on to somewhere bigger where he could actually have a thriving medical practice. Harry's office is what was formerly a backroom of a saloon. At one point, he had a full building.

It was shiny, mahogany, clean counters. is something he always grumbles about now. But it was a much better maintained room at the saloon, and as the town shrank and shrank, it was important to be near where the action was, and that was always the saloon. Harry, you hear a commotion as there's a loud clang of mine carts hitting each other, and you can hear shouting from the mine entrance.

looking up the sort of main thoroughfare in the town, you see there's dust being kicked up as a group of men rushes shouting ahead of a larger, slower group of men who appear to be carrying someone in a stretcher. Whoa, hey, hey, hey, come on over. You see it running over, there's a man, you see he has a thick pair of overalls,

you see he has kind of a checkered shirt underneath that has a shawl coming up around his neck, a smaller kind of like skull cap clinging to his head. He comes up, wipes dust and dirt off of his eyes. And you see that he comes and says, Fahad, his leg, his leg. And you see a young man that you would recognize as Fahad. He has clearly suffered an accident.

And you can see that through thick wrapping of canvas, a dripping wet with blood leg. You can't see anything under the knee, but from the saturation of blood in the fabric, you can tell that this is about as bad as an injury can get in that part of the body. All right, bring him on in. Harry, looking at Fahad down there,

Fahad is a handsome, he's got deep hazel eyes and long black eyelashes in any other universe, he would have like the countenance and bearing of a prince. And you see there are like some popped blisters on his hand. He's got these dirty overalls on. And looking up, you can see he's missing a couple teeth that just comes from basically. He grew up here.

He was one of the people that started in the minds as a kid without parents. And so just went a couple of years without anyone telling him to chew on this certain cactus gum that keeps your teeth from rotting. And by the time anyone that wasn't his direct family explained that to him, he'd already lost a bunch of his teeth. You walk in, what did you do as he lands in front of you? As he lands in front of me, I clear everybody out with a dismissive gesture of my hand. I pull out a knife from my boot, and I start to cut off the canvas pants. It is starting to pool with blood.

you see that the tibia in his leg, the main leg bone, has had a brutal pulverizing break. So it's not a clean break. There's probably a couple, two or three inches. The mine carts are slightly angled out, and you think that his leg got caught in between two of them clanging together and fully crushed and separated. So there is a ruined couple inches of multiple fractured bone,

and you can see the tibia darting out, trying to break through the skin under the knee. At the dance hall, were you, lad? All right. Harry takes the knife and quickly and expertly cuts the canvas from the pant leg, pulls a bucket of the precious water that is available here in the back. room. It's already warm. He was already working on cleaning. It starts dunking strips of bandages in there, ready to set the leg. Go ahead and give me a medicine check, and I'm going to give you your stat block right now.

Let's go. Hey! This five on the dark? Pretend. He's not going to keep this leg. Dusty white-collared shirt. pressed, pleaded, striped pants. Overalls with the metal elements shined just this morning and polished shoes. Standing at 4.7, his Oki Page. Affectually referred to around town as the railway stooge, but personally holds his title as second deputy close to his heart.

Oki, for the most part, is a pretty friendly chap, is not, but's job is to kind of maintain the rail station. Make sure that they don't take too much water and make sure that there are no delays in the schedule. The railway station

a long concrete block. Benches, This was made at a time of investment when the name Fortune's Fields felt appropriate, felt a little bit aspirational, but like it was going to happen. Silver was coming out of that mine in droves. And you can even see some silver embossments here and there on your desk. There is a covered awning that covers most of the exterior concrete block of the rail station, a long, long stretch.

You could have an 11 car train come through here. It's been four car trains for the entire time. You've been stationed here, but you could take 11 train cars here. There's a small interior area with a countertop that has no food or service at it, but there is a samovar. Do you think that Oki would make coffee

in the large public coffee maker for himself there? Very much so. So there's always fresh coffee at the rail station. The best part of his day and the most involved. Yeah, you know, being the second deputy station agent and the person running the concessions stand is not where you saw yourself ending up. No, but Oki holds in his heart that maybe somewhere some stations in need of a new second

agent or even a first agent. You look. and see a calendar. Today is a big day. There was a holiday, which means there was a three-day delay. So it has been 17 days since the last time a train came through. And there should be a train coming through today.

That'll have food and stuff for repairs. It'll be the mining company. The Gundering Mining and Geological. speculation company. The Gundring? Gundring. G-U-N-D-R-I-N-G. So that train will be coming along. The rail, you don't work for the mining company. You work for the rail line, but the mining company, they do. They send stuff here every two weeks, except when there's a holiday,

and then you have to wait 17 days. Looking at your desk in front of you, you see there's some paperwork, there's some missives that have come through, and hopefully there will be some news about a possible transfer. Or even a promotion, given that you're the second station agent and they still, they've told you that they were not going to offer a promotion

to first agent that you would be replaced. That the old first agent who passed away would be replaced. But that was about a month and a half ago and they have not replaced the first agent yet. Oki pours himself just a bit of the coffee, takes a sip. Oh, now that's just right.

All right. And walks over to the mail and starts, oh, maybe today, maybe today, maybe today, maybe today. Yeah, you see there's the little mailbox. There's a, and of course the mail is a small, probably like 14 foot tower with a little crane arm. And the trains, sometimes if they don't have anything to drop off, they'll just set the mail bag up and the hook just snags it off the train

as it blasts through Fortune's Fields on its way to somewhere better. Oki's worst days. Oki, you begin to hear a commotion from the town. And I think walking past the general store, you see Millie out on the street walking past. Millie, let me ask,

what kind of animal are you riding in from your adventures in the desert and where would you be headed to? Millie's got, oh gosh, I wish it was a horse. I don't even think she's riding it. I think she's got a little, like, it's like a mule. So it's big enough that Millie could ride it, but she's so afraid it will die if she adds any stress.

It's so old. She doesn't know. Like, the vet. He died forever ago. And as much as she likes Harry, he won't help her with sort of any animal husbandry questions. So she doesn't know how old the mule is, if it's a boy or a girl, or what its name was. So she just calls it Bud and is hoping to just be as neutral as possible. So she's sort of trying to coach Bud into continuing to walk.

Bud the Mule gradually starts to swerve towards the small, muddy, wet patch underneath the stent of the water tower right outside of Oki's office to go and lick the mud for some spare water. Okay, okay, bud, we don't have time for this. We have to go. What is the sound? Please, please, there's water at home. Please. Okay, you see Bud the Mule turn and lower his graying nostrils.

He's got some cataracts. There's a little bit of white in his eyes as he begins to nozzle at the muddy patch under the water tower. Oh, is this undignified? I think Oki will open the window from his office that looks out. Hi now, Millie. Hi. Hey, Oki. How you doing?

I'm good. Trains do today. Oh, you were excited. I am. You get some of that. Do you have a little extra coffee? Oh, would you like something? I made it.

But it doesn't seem like anybody's coming by to buy any. Oh, you're so sweet. Oki's gone. Oh, bye. Reapheres. Here you go. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

You see there's also, I don't know if you take it, there is a lovely little canister in a little ceramic container of cinnamon sugar, which is how people take their coffee out here. And there's also a dusty cardboard box of milk flakes. Oh, I'm sorry, did you want milk flakes in that? I'm so good. Thank you. Oh, all right. You're so sweet. Well, you know, it's real nice for all y'all to have me.

I may be moving on today. We shall see. But it's, I've enjoyed my time here. We've enjoyed having you. Oh, that shucks. And while you're doing that, Millie's going to reach into like a little vest pocket and pull out a small flask and just pours a bunch of alcohol into it. Takes one more sip and then hands you back the cup of better coffee.

Are you going to finish it? Oh, I'm good for now. Now, but thank you. If you want to fix that off. I would hate to see it go to wave. Yeah, thank you. Oh, you know. I'm sorry.

It sounds, it's like someone painted licorice on a bullet and shot you in the mouth. Yeah, right? I know. The Bolloman like it stronger, so I've been making it stronger. You see Millie that across the train, the other side of the train tracks, They never even finished the bridge over there. Coming up from Harlow's Glades, you see that one of the hunting dogs

sniffs the wind and raises and looks in the direction of Bud the Mule. Okay, hold on, hold that thought. I immediately lock eyes with the dog and pull out just a big, it's an old, like, rifle, but she's never, it's rusted through, there's never been a bullet. It's just a big, club to her.

Incredible. And she, like, just tease up like she's going to swing away. Like, try it. Fucking try it. You see this is an old, you've got like an old Ruvian rifle,

which it has the hammer on the back of it, but there's just a place where you insert a small runic disc that takes a small, basically fire elemental and releases it

when you shadow the disc. So this sort of like little magical, like, oh, it's something that's supposed to shoot and it's got the barrel is really thick, so it's like a narrow opening and a wider metal bullets, heavy rifle on your back.

Looking out towards that field, as you sort of brandish it, you see that the hunting dog looks at the mule and looks at you. You see these dogs are so overheated that many of them ruled out killing this old also they're supposed to go after antelope. A mule is like slightly at the upper range. Like you see this dog is going, if I scare him. enough that he has a heart attack, can I eat him then?

And then sees you brandish a thing and just slumps his head sort of disappointedly in between his paws to cover his nose from the intense, as, by the way, as the shadow has moved and it gets closer to high noon, an entire pack of these hunting dogs

is just hugging a two-foot shadow at the edge of a house. See, they're just like basically glued to the side of a house out there. from up and away outside of Dr. Harry's office, you hear Millie, Millie, it's bad. We need alcohol. Got it, got it. Um, I got, um, okay, takes off. Oh, I'll have a good day.

Good luck with leaving forever. I'm gonna go brush my teeth. Millie, rushing into Harry's doctor's office, you see a shattered leg, that is just gushing blood onto the table. Harry, go ahead and give me a medicine check. You're adding plus five to this. Just to tourniqu at the wound, DC10. 16, plus five for 21.

So the bleeding has been staunched, but you can see that the wound on the leg, bone shattered, blood everywhere. And you can see that, you can see that it looks like it took some time. He was probably deep in the minds when this happened. You think this

has been bad for a little while. But you rush in because Harry, this thing has to come off. Is he still conscious? He is still conscious. Oh, okay. Millie's going to reach behind her and just grab whatever bit of like the roots and shrubs

that she can like reach without having to take the whole pack off because now she's in a small room and quite bulky and snaps them off and she immediately throws it into her mouth, starts chewing it. The thing is, like, to make this, she has to boil it for a really long time because there's like sort of like a latex fluid that's around it. So she's like chewing it, like just spitting gobs of like milky white like late latex that would be like poisonous and it's kind of burning her mouth. It spits it out and then takes this like wad of like the red root and jams it into

Fahad's mouth. You jammed to Fahad's mouth. He's going to make a little constitution check here. You see that he begins to get like loopy and out of it. But you see he's still kind of conscious. As you lean over to put that in his mouth,

he looks up at you. Fahad goes, saw him down in the mine. What did you see? He said, he says you have to double back to find the silver. And he kind of goes out of it again. Yeah. Wash your hands.

Watch your hands. Wash my. Covered in dust. You see there's an old sort of almost like spherical, like wide-built miners says, don't wash your hands. That's how you get to clap. Jared, shut the fuck up. Why are you in here?

I'm telling you, Jared, that is not the case. Get out. Get out. Out, out. Everyone out except for Millie. That's how I. My God, not anything else. Yeah, probably.

That man is a slut. And I'm just sort of wiping Fahad's head as he's like drifting out. And then pulling another flask out. Millie doesn't have a problem. This is research. And it's just grain alcohol that I immediately put in your hand, Harry. Harry, you're holding grain alcohol. You're looking down at the leg and there is a saw next to you.

All right. Okay, here we go. Wait, sorry, I'm sorry. Here, what are we... Where are we going? Where are we going? Well, I'm sorry, Millie, but the leg needs to come off. You can either be here for it and help me hold him down,

or you can go out into the saloon. Okay, I don't need to go into this. He's not going to be able to work anymore in the minds if his legs is off. Well, if the leg doesn't come off, he might not make it at all. Harry, you look down and can see... amidst the mess, as you use water to, like, clean and look off at the leg, you can already see the beginnings of what is going to be like a necrotizing infection in the leg. Like, the leg's going to die.

I also know that we don't know exactly when the train is coming. There's no way to get him on it into a neighboring town with better equipment soon enough. Give me a medicine check. See if he has enough time. A one. No. You think there's enough time. Is there anything you can do?

Like, maybe if, because he's not going to be able to work. And if he can't work, he's not going to be able to do anything. He doesn't have any family here. Right, it's about, it's almost noon. I think we can get him over to the station. Try to put him on the next train. Oh, he says the train's coming today. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Come on, Lab. We'll get you back to the dance hall yet. You guys get Fahad up. A group of men comes with you. as the men get out you hear a sharp clap

of a little bit of magic and you see that Mr. Hollow looks out from the center and says Fellows, fellows, fellows, oh, oh, oh, oh. Where's everybody out in the middle of the day running around? You're going to fall down, pass out of heat.

Aren't you fellow supposed to be working? I got it, I got it, I got it. Mr. Hollow, I'm so sorry. There was an accident down in the mine and we have to get Fahad on the train or maybe his leg will be off so we just we're that's what we're doing if that's okay with it's we're just going to go do that and he goes well I have a contract with the gungering mining company so I it's my business to make sure that things are going according to how they want things here in town to run you see he walks over uh looks down

at Fahad who again sleepily kind of looks up and says grandpa saw him down in the mine. He told me where the silver is. Shh, shit. And you see Mr. Hollow looks down, raises an eyebrow, goes, all right. Well, we don't need all of you to do this. Millie, pick three other

men. We'll help you get down to the rail station. We'll get far down there and make sure he's taken care of. Oh, God. Um, okay. Sure. Um, and point at three random, three random people. I'm not even looking like. there's that sense of fear when around Mr. Hollow that you don't want to turn your back on him

or like not not be looking at him. So she just sort of taps three different textures of shirt without turning her face from Mr. Hollow and sends the rest back. But you know, he's, I just gave, he's got some of the shrub root in his mouth. So he's babbling nonsense

because of just for the board. Give me a little deception, check. 14. 14, okay. You see, Mr. Hall looks you and says, all right. Oh, I'm sorry, he's feeling unwell. He looks down at the leg and says,

ooh, that's not good. You guys are going to make your way to the rail station. Oki, you see that a group of people are coming towards your rail station, including one young man on a stretcher who's being moved towards you, past as possible.

Oki's going to come out out of the train station now, not just through the window. How now? What's this? Mr. Hollow's up and says, got a young man, we're trying to move on down to Greaves or somewhere they got a better doctor's clinic. All right.

I'd like to use my skills in railway bureaucracy. Does it make sense that there would be space on the train that's coming to date given it has been 17 days 17 days Give me a railway bureaucracy check

The difficulty Is five And I had a plus two Uh 20 I know what I know And I don't know much else Okay

You don't think there are passenger cars On the train coming today They could throw them in the Engine somewhere or something like that Like, you know, there's a, like, where could he go? Yeah, you don't think there's necessarily going to be a passenger space. Just one second. Oki's going to run back in.

I want to go through the inventory and see if there's something I could, like, if Fahad can fit on, like, if I can use railway bureaucracy, my only skill to create a world in which we, in which Fahad is considered part of the inventory that they're picking up. Like if we literally put him on top of a bed of coal, is there space for? Go ahead and give me a railway bureaucracy check. Let's go! The most essential skill in the West. Five. On a five, I think that what you could do, the best you can do is give him a letter of passage with your station agent seal. Got it.

I'm going to pull out one of a, a. out of a well-kept folder, pull out one of my station agent, stationery, and write a quick note about this man needing passage to the next, to Greaves. Gotcha. And then run back out. All right. I don't know if there's going to be, I don't know if there'll be space, because the train, you see, it's going to be packed, but we'll give him this letter, and we'll do our best.

Much appreciated Mr. Page. Yeah, of course. Thank you, Oki. You see Mr. Hollow looks over at you, Harry, and says, this is a hard thing to see. You think the boy's going to lose the leg? No way of knowing. It all depends on when they can get him to grieves.

Well, be a shame for him to lose that leg, that's for certain. True, a real damage to your ass at there, huh? Oh. You think so little of me, doctor? I don't think much of you at all. He smiles at this doctor with a fucking death wish. I think he's going to make a little insight check. He rolls a Nat 20.

He eyeballs you. He's assuming that you are drunk to be this mouthy to him. I am fully focused on Vod. I'm still trying to staunch the flow of blood. I'm wrapping the wound. I'm changing out bandages, like really, truly in crisis mode. This is definitely not the first time that I have spoken back to him this way, but probably the least cordial that I've ever been.

Mr. Hollow nods, and you see he says, Fahad, can you hear me? You see, young man looks up and goes, uh-huh, you see he goes, you said you saw your grandfather in the mind? You don't have any family, son. And you see that he goes, I had a dream about him, though. He had a silver beard.

You see Mr. Holland nods, old gray beard, huh? And you see for Hod's Shakespeare and says, no, silver, silver like, like it was made of silver. The beard was long. And he had a back cap, long pointed ears. His knuckles were open.

dragon on the ground. He looked like a kind old man. And you see that Hollow looks out at one of his young men. Give me a perception check. Anyone who wants to? 30-20. 13. Four. Millie, you look over the guy he looks at. This young guy's name is Jack. And you see that he's got, he's sort of a new guy that's shown up in Hollow's crew. Jack, for a lot of the guys that are routy and dangerous and otherwise kind of like, you know, very impetuous. Jack's always been a very quiet guy. You see he's got vest, sort of string tie on, but you've always noticed him because he has like a, I don't know if you'd call it, just a funny thing of birth that his ears are a little bit folded in. So he has that kind of like a little bit of a point.

They're not long. They're the same size as a normal ear, but they just fold a little bit like they're pointed. And he has some like those side incisors are a little bit baby teeth. So he's got kind of two buck teeth and the teeth on other side are a little bit smaller. and some more pronounced canines. He has like a little bit sharper or longer. So he has kind of a little bit of a fucked up smile in a cute way, sort of. Hollow looks at him as Fahad tells this story,

and you see the kid nods at Mr. Hollow and heads out of the rail station. Harry, I'm going to need a medicine check from you. 15 plus 5 for a dirty 20. Let's go! Okay. We are going to make. make Constitution saves based on these medicine checks.

He will be making this with advantage. He only has a plus one, and he needs to get a 12 or higher. That is a 10 and a 9. The way we're going to do this is Fahad is still alive, but as the infection begins to set in, his body starts to heat, and he starts to get a fever. He is going to, while alive, fail his first death-saving throat.

Damn it. He is still conscious, but that happens in that first hour. Hollow takes off with his men as well as you're working with Fahad here. Millie and Oki, is there anything else you guys are doing during this time? So there's just a man dying in the railway station?

There's a man dying in the railway station. There's a fresh pot of coffee, and Millie is here with Bud the mule outside as hollow and the rest leave. Oki is pacing back and forth because this isn't supposed to happen at the railway station. And as the second deputy, he knows it's his job to keep the railway station clean and tidy. However, he also understands he's going to walk up to Millie. Millie, is there a train coming by today and a lot of supplies? It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

if there's blood every you know I'm just trying to trying to meet everyone here halfway okay yeah come on lad you gotta fight this man's dying and you're worried about there

being blood in the station will that reflect poorly on you yes it will I mean it is the it's the first it's the first agent's job but when there is no first agent present it is the second agent's job

second deputy agent's job to keep the station in ship shape. Millie, I need a bucket for the vomit. One second. One second. One second. One second. One second. Okay, you know that everyone in town calls you a dude, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, they're not wrong. I just, I care deeply about my job, but I also care deeply about this town. If I promise to come back and clean up all the blood,

can you just kind of let it ride right now while our friends, And Fahad is dying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the coffee. Of course, do you need any more? No, um, no. I'll put it on a fresh pot. Okay. Let's go make coffee.

Jesus. Hey, never mind, we don't need it anymore. I, uh, I'm gonna, I pull out of, uh, I have many, uh, belts and pouches on a bandolier across my chest. Um, and I pull out a little bit of willow bark that I have to, uh, give it to him. go ahead and give me another medicine check. 11. 11. Okay.

He will make this next constitution save a flat. I can't look. 15. That's a success. Okay, whatever you're doing is working, but I can't help. I'm going to go. I need to figure out what he was, maybe he saw something. He was raving.

That thing you gave him It's, you know, Mency, pink, oliphance And it's, it's nothing. I need you here. Please, just keep him talking to you. No. You talk to him.

Keep him alive. Get him to griefs. And I'm going to take off. And I'm running towards the mines. As you run towards the mines, we're going to roll another check here. I'm going to need a medicine check from Doc Harry. Just give you a minute.

God. Eleven. Eleven. Now they're rolling in front of the board. Oh, God. That's a two. That's two death save failures.

One success. Are he's supposed to look like that? Ah! He is, he's on his, you can tell that he is close. He is very close. How long until the train is scheduled to arrive? The train is scheduled to arrive this afternoon.

It's about 12.15 right now. Train's supposed to be here at 120. Oki is looking at his watch up at Fahad, up at his watch, at the schedule, at Fahad, at his watch, and it just don't add. You look, I'll say this too. I'm going to need another medicine check. Gotta be D.C. 15.

This is not, this is no longer about Fahad's livelihood, but this has got to be at least a D.C. 15. from the dock for something unrelated, or related but different. 15. 15. The infection is visibly spreading through the leg. The train should be here any second, but this is your last chance to amputate the leg

before it doesn't matter anymore, before the infection spreads enough that it won't matter. All right. Mr. Page? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm going to need you at it. assist me right now. I'm sorry.

In what capacity? I need you to hold this young man down. All right. You are... I'm going to operate right here. All right. Where do I need to put my hands? Just hold him, hold his shoulders here. Okay. And, uh, gonna do it.

We're gonna operate? We're gonna operate right now. I'm sorry, what are we doing? Just hold him down. This is going to be, once again, a DC-15 medicine check. Anything below? Low a 10, disastrous. 10 to 14 means he's still got to make a save, but there's a better shot.

15 and higher means you save him. He don't got no family. Here we go. Ain't other to do it, but to do it. So I'm just rolling flat. Rolling flat. 15 on the die. That's a 15 on the die plus five for a dirty 20.

In the middle of your railway station, a doctor begins to saw into a man's leg. No! The saw connects with the wooden like the wooden bench of the rail station. Fahad, keep him quiet. Fahad passes out. Hockey passes out.

I'm working in silence. There is only the sound of the of the hacksaw going. Doc, you take the leg off. Alcohol applied, clean bandage wrapped up as best you can. And the, fucking, the leg comes off. Doctor, go ahead. You go ahead and give me a Constitution saving throw.

12? You collapse, tired, just, like, breathing heavily. You see in the door with Oki is out on the ground. Fahad is unconscious. at the door of the rail station you hear and a hunting dog pokes its little snout

into the railway station sniffing after Fahad's leg I nudged on over to him someone's going to get a chance to eat good in this town tonight this this

completely sober doctor gives a leg to a wild dog. That has to be against some oath, right? Some oath. There's no centaurs in this world. Once it's off your body, it belongs to nature. To the streets. Millie, where are you?

So Millie is very deferential to like the Hollow men. And Mr. Hollow, she hates him and doesn't trust him one little bit. He is part of the rot in this town. And whatever he is interested in, she is immediately interested in. So she is running towards the mines because the ramblings of an injured minor shouldn't have been that interesting to him. So I'm just trying to sneak up and figure out what they're doing. You rush up. Go ahead and give me a stealth check.

21. Ooh, baby. Sneaking up in. to the sort of the top of the mine. Mine is busy right now, but you can walk up at some people, some of the guys have gotten back to work, but there are a couple different areas. The place that Fahad was injured, you enter, get like I assume a little lantern and begin to head down the line there. And with that stealth check, you continue on down and you begin to hear of something tapping on the walls. Give me an arcana check. Arcana or a religion.

There's some little nursery rhyme. There's some little thing in the back of your mind that was like one, two, three, banging on the knee, four, five, six, gather up the sticks, seven, eight, nine, heading down the mine, tap, tap, tap, tapers gold shine. There's something in the tapping, and you hear a voice going, and you see a little shine from down a little mine area that perhaps worryingly to you does not seem supported by wooden beams. Then I'm going to walk forward toward it. Turn down the lantern just a little bit.

I'd like my eyes to try to like acclimate. Oh, I'll do something grosser. I think in like dealing with Fahad, Millie's got blood on her hands. So I'm going to wipe blood onto the front of the lantern to turn the light red. So my eyes can acclimate to the dark a little more easily. And keep walking down. And in the cadence of like this random person's like, this random person's like,

muttering, uh, whenever it's the little, the little break for the tap, I think I'm going to like feel across the wall. And if I can find a place that's not like soft earth, that might be like a little harder rock, I'll tap three times to like join in a little bit. Tap, tap, tap, tap. The sound stops and you hear. Can I hear where it's coming from? Further down this unsupported opening. Yeah. She's just going to keep walking forward. One, two, three. Four, five, six.

And the mine opens up, picking up the sticks. And you see a figure looking at you that looks like a kind old grandpa until you realize that the distance away from you that he is is farther than you think and that his head is massive. He is probably, if he stood up to full height, he'd be like 10 feet tall. His head is disproportionately large for his larger than human body.

The shortest part of him are his legs that are probably about three or four feet long, but hunched down. And you can see his feet are long, and he's standing on the balls of his feet, so he has almost like a digitigrade ankle. But the feet don't look like animal feet. that they have like long, dirty, crusty toenails. He's got a dirty old pair of overalls, a filthy undershirt, but his skin looks clean, although wrinkly,

just clothes are filthy. His beard is long, shining silver. And you see that he's got these long ears. His nose is like this perfectly, like, sort of spherical, but it's got the flared. So it's like a spherical front and then spherical nostrils, so that sort of pop out, like, little supporting character sort of buds on either side. Pure, busted capillary nose, like full red to the kind of duller, like, sort of dusty beige of his skin.

Silver eyebrows, yellow irises to his eyes. His head is about the size of, like, I don't know, like a state fair winning pumpkin. Just huge, huge head. Got these long ears, little bit. bandana tied around. And you see he's got a lantern hanging from a belt, a pickaxe, and you see in front of him his lantern shining on a vein of silver that you couldn't span your arms across going in either direction, wider than a human body. Hello, dear. What can I call you?

My name's Millie. Can I offer you a treat? I'll have the last sip or the last bite, but I won't take more of this. than that. Millie reaches to that first flask that made Okie do a spit take earlier. And as she, like, she's just holding it out and is a little afraid to walk forward with it, but offers it out. She remembers that, like, when she was younger before her grandparents died, whenever they would make, like, a big batch of anything out of, like, the big stills behind their house.

they would pour it out for three seconds for whoever else would pass by and I never knew why I thought it was just like something bad was in the batch and something just sort of clicks into alignment and she's terrified this is a scary man but is gonna kind of take a deep breath and thinks of her family and offers up her flask you see he raises it to you and takes a sip and he says how And hands it back. He smiles and says, Well, Millie, you can call me Tipith.

Tipathy? Mm-hmm. It's very nice to meet you. Tiffany, is that yours? Oh, this? Mm-hmm. Oh, well, it's the mines. There are plenty to go around.

Well, I'll get rich here. Look at this, the vein of silver. You want to get rich, don't you? I... I guess... I guess. I just don't want to... I don't want to be hard up.

I don't think that's quite the same thing. Oh. You're saying you don't want... You don't want all of it? Oh, no. I'd be happy to give it to you. How much of it do you want? I'm sorry. I don't want to be rude.

But for... for what? Why are you... why are you being nice? You offer me the last sip of your flask. One kindness deserves another. Thank you. You could be the richest woman in town with this painter, so. Oh. Oh, I don't... I wouldn't know what to do with it.

I'm okay. Did you see a young man in here earlier? He has, like, really pretty eyes and, like, long lashes and long hair. Young man. Young man. Yeah. His leg got hit by some carts. Oh, yes, the young fellow with the hazel eyes.

Yeah, that's Fahd. Give me an insight to check here, too. Nine. I asked the young fellow what he wanted, if he wanted all of the silver, and he said, yes, but I asked him what he'd be willing to pay for it, or what he'd give to have all of it. And he said anything.

It's a tough thing for him to part with his fortune like that. His true fortune, you understand, not his wealth, but his luck. As he says that Fahad paid with his luck, you see that there is a, what looks like, a small pouch in, like sort of hidden in one of the pockets of tippa these overalls. And it shines a little bit as he mentions Fahad's luck. So he's already paid for it then, yeah? Well, I'd think so, yes, absolutely.

But you see, he sort of smiles here a little bit and goes, You've already paid for a kindness as well, and I owe you one, and I won't be left in anyone's debt. Sir, I don't, I'm not trying to do a weird deal and work you out of something that you negotiated, but is there any chance I could get it? get his luck back? You'd rather have a poor man's luck

than all the silver in this mine? For the last sip, he tosses the pouch to you. And as he does, you see that the light in his lantern goes out and you hear the snarl of a jackal nearby. He goes, run! And gets his hand and shoves you out of the mine. And you see eyes gleaming in the dark as from a predator.

And you are suddenly back out in the mine. You do not see the opening that you walk down to find this spirit, but you are holding a small leather pouch in your hand with something shining within it. Screaming running through the mine. Anyone that sees me, get out of my way, get out of my way,

and I am booking it for the train station. You book it for the train station as fast as you can. You're holding this pouch. At this exact moment in the timeline, This is when you begin to saw into Fahad's leg. As the leg comes off and one of the hunting dogs, you see a dog taking off with Fahad's leg. You run to Fahad who's unconscious.

You see Harry's there. You have this small pouch in your hand. I'm sipping a steeping a steaming fresh cup of coffee. Just with two passed out people here. What happened? Is he okay? He's going to make it. Yeah. It's gonna make it.

Thanks for your help less. Sorry to be a bit. Run forward. Push you out of the way. And open up the pouch. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

As you open it, light shoots out of the thing. The rail station fills with light. Oki, you wake up just to see this light going everywhere. As the light is shooting in all direct... You see that Fahad's luck returns to him. But I would like for... Everyone else here to roll a pure luck check in front of the board. 11 or high or 10 or lower.

Oh my God. All right. Go off Harry. 20 on the day. On a Nat 20, Harry, you look and see these things running off in all directions. The hell is going on. As it does, the biggest source of light goes straight to Fahad, but you see that as the pouch opens other sort of these little moats of shimmering gold light, the fortune. of fortunes field going everywhere.

On a Nat 20, you see that an incredible piece of fairy magic is happening. On Nat 20, you can grab some for yourself or you can determine something else on a Nat 20 that you want to happen

with all this luck shooting everywhere. Well, now, I'm an old man. I've been around here, and as I say, there's just something that's always kept me here. You know, at first it was meeting foo, and then it was.

was, you know, living our life together, and then taking care of all the folks that always needed something from my old Harry. And then it was food passing away, and she's buried here. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I don't really, I think I've had a lot of this, a lot of good in my life, I think, more good than bad. And I think some of the young folks here could use a little bit of whatever this shiny magics is. So I think maybe I'll take a little bit of that, if any of it will fit into what I can distribute through my back saloon room. But I'll leave the rest of it for the young folks who can use it more. On a Nat 20, you grabbed the biggest piece of it, and having been released, instead of darting frantically hither. you see that it tumbles like a tumble weed out through the doors of the station

towards the governor's canyon Millie what did you roll? 14 14 mili you grab some as well boom um and oki you got to roll baby let's go okay 10 you said 11 I said 11 Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, sees the two of you and just starts swinging his hands. Across his body. Sorry, I forgot to mention what skill we were using. This is a railway bureaucracy.

And the train pulls into the station. You see workers coming off to start unloading through from the train. Okay, you're standing there looking. Fahad wakes up, and you see that figures begin to sort of walk into the town. As they do, you see that the first figure walks in coming from the railway. And it goes up and says, Oki Page. Second Deputy Page, at your service. I'm sorry for all the mess.

First, Deputy. I got terrible news. What? As your first action is stationed Deputy, you're going to have to give notice to the town. Oh The The empire is a launching an assault

This is a Conscription notice Lead every Young man in town That can report for conscription To report right away Oh Hey

I'm reading it It's not It's not To be a You see that you have Papers that are promoting you And as your first action You're communicating to the town

Oh okay It's not me I have to go tell every young man in town They're going to join the military. That's correct. Okay. You see that as Fahad gets his luck back,

this conscription notice comes through, and you see that looking up Fahad's like, something being like, am I going to have to go to war? And you look down, and you see the stationation looks down and points at him and points to the dog carrying his leg out and goes,

lucky, and walks away. Oh. Millie, with that luck check, you see that there are other figures coming off and unloading the train in this moment. You see walking through the town with that luck check, Jack approaching. And you see him approaching, and you see his eyes flicker with a reflectiveness that you saw down there in the dark. You don't think Jack is human. you think that you heard a jackal snarling down there in the dark and you see he's got a sack in one hand that is twitching and moving

as he walks towards the general store. How lucky do I feel right now? You feel incredibly lucky. Then I want to eat in these little dogs. They've been trying to get budged for a while. But they like smaller prey. And I just want to give like a little side whistle, which I can't do. I'll like just that little,

to get the dog carrying Fahad's leg. Lucky. You see the dog turns at the name Lucky, snarls, cocks its head to one side, and charges at Jack. And you see right as he crosses the shadow of the bell tower of the old governor's mansion, he crosses some line where he's out of the sun for a moment,

turns, drops the bag, goes, and turns into a jackal and sprints out of town chased by this hunting dog you see that the bag kicks one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, bursts and the sack is empty as Fahad looks out, grabs your hand, and goes, I don't have to go to war.

I know where all the silver is. Yeah. I know where all the silver is. We have to find a way to, you see, as a spring erupts, water rains as it begins to flow. That bag opens and a dust devil kicks up from the bag. The empty sack where Tipathy was kept.

And you see that last boat of light sent down there by the doctor as golden luck fills the town and water flows under iridescent sunshine casting a rainbow light over the village. Tipathy has kept his promise. You watch the jackal flee into the desert. Your new dog Lucky comes back as Fahad goes, Yeah.

It's called Tapper. It's called Tapper. Tapper. He says, all right, Tapper. He says, you got it. And Oki, you look out, and as you see, the stationation looks out and says, The hell happened here. It's been a strange day.

me.