MIKE: “Alright, let’s go over the facts of the case again.”
DARIUS: “I don’t want to jump to conclusions or anything, but it looks like this vic was a junkie.”
[MUSIC FADES IN]
CHRISTINE: Sometimes Jack helps me, no that’s bad. We don’t know exactly what Jack is.
THOM: Albion opened his magical third eye, took an immense amount of mental strain—
MIKE: “My name is Warden Beaumont, I’m with the White Council.”
DARIUS: “Hey, quick question buddy, if that’s cool with you.”
MIKE: “Oh yeah, of course.”
DARIUS: “What the fuck is your deal with me?”
MIKE: “You must be the friends that they were referring to, I presume.” Most of you recognize the werewolves that you met on a previous adventure a few months back, where you encountered some hags. You see running towards you a woman who has really nasty, hard looking purplish skin with some obvious warts and just claws.
THOM: “Hey, you mind putting a truce against the whole blood feud between us, because—“
MIKE: “Get in the goddamn car! I’ll explain later, just—“
DARIUS: “Okay.”
THOM: “Okay.”
CHRISTINE: “Alright.”
THOM: “Guys, let’s roll!”
[INTRO MUSIC]
MIKE: I guess the biggest question is that you have a hag in your car.
DARIUS: Oh yeah.
MIKE: Oh, and also, you definitely fired multiple rounds of weapons. There were definitely some weapon discharges, so you shouldn’t be there anymore.
THOM: Yeah, we have not stopped driving. We are going to the bar.
DARIUS: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
MIKE: Oh, the one in Monkton from the previous adventure?
THOM: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay.
THOM: We’re going to the bar that the wolves hang out at, because I told them in a panicked yell to meet us there.
MIKE: I am so glad that you remembered that.
THOM: Yeah. So, in the meantime we’re going to stop—it’s not blocks, we’re not in the city—we’re going to stop down the road, pull over and just turn around just look at the hag in the back of my seat and “Alright, now you need to play this shit fucking cool, okay? Because that is a crowded bar, and I do not want to have to explain why I have your crusty-looking ass walking in with me. I mean, they already think I’m weird as shit there, this is just going to be the horrible looking cherry on top of an already shit cake. So, do me a favor and put on your glamours.”
MIKE: She is staring at you from the back seat where she has politely buckled in. So, cut from that shot to the reverse shot of her politely sitting there in her human guise, just sort of staring coldly at you, and then—
THOM: “Alright, cool. Glad we’re apparently on the same page there.”
MIKE: Yeah, and she does not respond.
THOM: “Yeah.” I pull into the bar parking lot.
MIKE: She’s just sitting there quietly staring coldly forward into the middle distance. You find yourself back at a bar you’ve been to previously. This was where you initially went to meet up with the werewolves before you knew too much about them and suspected “Hey, they might be responsible for some things” that ultimately Alexis and her sisters were responsible for. So, you’ve got a little bit of history with this place.
THOM: I’d say we’ve been here often enough that we have this whole little corner of the bar that basically is air quotes “our corner,” that I’m here often enough hanging out with them that people are just kind of used to “Oh, that’s their table. You know, leave it to them.”
MIKE: Okay.
DARIUS: Can I get a plaque on that table?
MIKE: Yes, it’s a plaque—
GWEN: You just carved your name in the wood on the table.
MIKE: No, it’s a plaque that goes on the butt part of the seat.
DARIUS: Yes, it does.
MIKE: Yes, and it says “Dr. Coopermsith.”
DARIUS: God damn it.
MIKE: In fact, it’s molded specifically for the contours of your butt.
DARIUS: That’s what makes it great.
GWEN: A memory foam plaque.
MIKE: Yes, it’s a memory foam plaque.
DARIUS: Perfection.
THOM: Ah, we have fun.
MIKE: So, when you do pull up, you do see the motorcycles of the werewolves are there.
THOM: “Alright, they may not be exactly thrilled that you’re here, so play it cool and let us do most of the talking.”
MIKE: She finally says something. “I am not going in there before you do.”
DARIUS: “What?”
THOM: “I mean, that’s kind of the idea.”
MIKE: “No, I mean you go in there and explain the situation, and then I come in with you.”
THOM: “Alright, that’s cool. Which of us wants to go in and try to explain this?”
DARIUS: “You.”
THOM: “I mean, fair. Ro or Des, either of you want to come in here with me?”
GWEN: “Yeah, I’ll tag along.”
CHRISTINE: “I’ll stay and watch her as well.”
THOM: “Right, cool. Also, you’re welcome for the wendigo thing. I’m glad that we got out of that okay. Thanks for your assist on that.”
MIKE: “Yep.”
THOM: “Good talk.” Albion gets out of the car.
MIKE: Perfect. So, Albion and Ro go into the bar and you do find that there are the four werewolves in there. John is clearly trying to hold things together with the group, Wesley is noticeably sort of excitable and agitated, and Annie is definitely not pleased with the current situation. None of them are happy to see you, but when you actually get over to the table, Phoebe surprisingly enough just stops and sort of sits there frozen for a second, and it’s that sort of lack of motion that takes you aback and makes you stop, and she sniffs the air and sort of narrows her eyes at you. “You brought her?”
GWEN: “We’re kind of a package deal now.”
MIKE: “No, not you.”
THOM: “No, they don’t mean—“
GWEN: “I’m the only one here.”
THOM: “—they mean the lady in back of my car.”
GWEN: “Oh.”
MIKE: All three other wolves look up at you, sort of comprehending, and there’s a mix of emotions. Mostly confusion and anger in varying shades, and they just kind of are waiting for you to explain.
THOM: “I said we were meeting at the bar, and we are. Notice she’s not inside the bar, so you’re welcome, and—alright look, I didn’t really have a plan going into this after everything went to shit, I just kind of had to roll with it. So, yeah, no, I admit I have this person in back of my car, and I’m not thrilled—“
MIKE: “Yeah, I would sure say that you don’t have a plan.” John cuts you off. “You know she killed our friends.”
THOM: “Yeah, and right now, she owes me her life, and we have her in a position where we severely outnumber her, she’s tuckered out, and if we want to just deal with it, we deal with it.”
MIKE: “How convenient,” says Phoebe, “because I believe she owes us her life,” and she starts to snarl. There’s a sort of bestial quality to her face at the moment. Not physically transformationally, but it’s there.
THOM: “My point is, we can take her somewhere else with y’all. We have an advantage right now. We have her in a position where we have all the leverage in the world, and we can either say ‘Hey, we have a common enemy, so get the fuck over yourself and help us deal with it,’ or, I hesitate to do this option, but I mean it is on the table, we just cap her.”
MIKE: There’s a sort of supernatural silence almost to the moment as everyone there is just sort of weighing those options and staring sort of pointedly at you.
THOM: “My point is, she don’t have anything right now. We have all the cards.”
MIKE: Annie breathes heavily. “Is she going to come in, and are we going to talk to the bitch?”
THOM: “I mean, we can do that here or we can find somewhere more private.”
MIKE: “No, you know what, I think I’ll take lead on this. Let’s go out there and have a chat.”
THOM: “Alright.”
MIKE: You notice that John is taken aback for a moment, but is actually following her lead. Wesley nervously stands up to follow, and Phoebe sort of begrudgingly goes as well.
THOM: I’m going to hang back half a step.
MIKE: Alright.
THOM: “This is not—don’t worry.”
GWEN: “Doesn’t seem so. They’re not going to kill her, are they?”
THOM: “I mean, to be fair, she is a murderer and arguably a mass murderer at this point, and I mean we kind of had to kill her sister because she didn’t leave us much choice, and they had a troll doing their killings for them, so I mean, she does not have a moral high ground per se.”
GWEN: “Well definitely not, but if she has information or anything about all of this stuff, I mean, wouldn’t she be more useful alive than dead?”
THOM: “Yeah, and I would like to keep her that way. I’m just saying, anything that happens—“
GWEN: “We should probably get out there faster.”
THOM: “—anything that happens is not something that she did not earn.”
GWEN: “Valid.”
THOM: Alright, Albion’s going to keep up.
MIKE: I assume everyone else is going to exit the car when they see everyone else exiting the bar? There is a tension in the air, and it is thick. There is an obvious stare down between four clearly displeased people and one hag. Do you join your compatriots, Albion and Ro, or do you sort of hang at the back of the werewolf group where you were.
THOM: I’m going to stand between both groups, actually.
GWEN: I’m going to rejoin the group, but stand a little bit further away from the hag, probably on either side of either Sylvester or Desdemona.
MIKE: I actually really like this particular picture. On one side, you have four people who are sticking fairly close together, almost instinctually, as if for shared protection, and on the other side, you have four people who are standing somewhat apart from each other, as if nobody is terribly comfortable being too close together, and in the middle is Albion.
THOM: “Alright, let’s get to chatting, shall we?”
MIKE: “What, is there not going to be a coin toss?” quips Alexis. There’s a bit of a hard stare and she says “Sorry, I like the Patriots. What, I eat people, I can’t enjoy sports?”
DARIUS: “It’s okay to be wrong once in a while.”
THOM: “I mean, the two are not mutually exclusive.”
MIKE: She looks at you Sylvester and sort of recognizes your New York accent for a second and gives you a scowl, even deeper than before.
THOM: “Like the Giants are anything to write home about there, Sly.”
DARIUS: “Hey, at least I’m not a Jets fan.”
THOM: “Alright, granted.”
THOM: “Oh my god,” Annie pipes up. “This is 100% not what we are here for.”
DARIUS: “I was trying to kill the—“
MIKE: “Besides, I enjoy the Raiders.”
DARIUS: [laughter]
MIKE: “Oh come on! This year is going to be our year, shut the fuck up, Giants fan.”
DARIUS: “I didn’t know you guys were funny.”
THOM: “It’s fine, you keep doing you there, bud.”
DARIUS: “I didn’t know these guys were funny. Wow. Good shit, good shit.”
MIKE: “Anyway, can we get back to the main point?”
DARIUS: “Yeah, alright.”
THOM: “Yeah, so, we were investigating possible wendigo shit, and then suddenly, you show up being chased by wendigo shit. Elaborate.”
MIKE: “Yeah, real convenient timing there. Oh my god.”
THOM: “It’s almost like god himself hates me and puts inconveniently timed issues in my path.” That is not canon.
MIKE: How very meta of you.
DARIUS: Are we talking about the canon of your fucked up life?
THOM: Back to actual things that Albion is actually saying, actually.
MIKE: “Well, there is a lot to unpack from this, it seems. There is quite a bit especially you did not know either, before, you know, you murdered my sister.”
THOM: “I mean, she kind of attacked us.”
MIKE: “And you were legally trespassing, I assume?”
DARIUS: “Naturally.”
THOM: Albion just kind of shrugs.
MIKE: “Besides, you do not understand the delicate balance of things in the universe. If you take something away that is a stabilizing element, things destabilize. Seems pretty obvious, yes?”
THOM: “So, you’re saying that your killing people and feeding them to plants was stabilizing?”
MIKE: “Ah yes, that statement alone tells me you do not understand the bigger picture.”
THOM: “Yeah, like I said, elaborate.”
MIKE: “How much do you understand about wendigos?”
DARIUS: “Jack and shit.”
MIKE: “You didn’t even play that video game? That one where you could—doctor man, you didn’t even play that one where you could make different choices to save different people? Anyway, I can’t believe you.”
THOM: “Are you talking about Until Dawn? I mean, first you’re a football fan, now you’re an Until Dawn fan?”
MIKE: “Sometimes I enjoy irony.”
DARIUS: “Look, I just play Streets of Rage, alright?”
MIKE: “Okay, I don’t even know what that is, but we’re going to move on.”
DARIUS: “You know what? It’s not important, whatever.”
MIKE: “Yeah, it is not, you are correct.”
THOM: So, remind me what I learned about wendigos last time.
MIKE: You’ve got a pretty good handle on the idea of wendigos and what they entail, that they are always hungry, and that when they eat somebody, they grow in proportion to what they’ve eaten. So, that hunger is never satisfied.
THOM: Yeah, I explain that, I kind of explain the root in Native American, specifically Algonquin myths, stuff like that. I’m sure Albion messes some of that up, so.
MIKE: Algonquin is correct, as far as I understand.
THOM: I know that they’re essentially evil spirits as well, so.
MIKE: “Ah, very good, and you understand that it is impossible to placate?”
THOM: “So, you were feeding them?”
MIKE: “Would you prefer that they just run around and kill whatever?”
THOM: “I would prefer that they weren’t a threat because they were fucking put down.”
DARIUS: “Yeah, I’d prefer if they were dead. Dead is nice.”
MIKE: “Ah yes, it’s so easy to kill wendigos historically.”
THOM: Albion has to bite his tongue very hard right now, or he will go on a rant.
MIKE: Phoebe just stares at her and is like “I suppose if you’re not a coward, perhaps. I feel as though us working together, we should be able to handle those, shouldn’t we?” Wesley just sort of shrugs nervously and John is just sort of trying to assess the situation and keep a level head.
THOM: “If it was a full moon and we had a secure location, yeah, probably. But, I mean—“
MIKE: Annie sort of growls a little.
THOM: “I mean, I will not lie, when I saw the numbers we’re dealing with, that is a might intimidating. So, this might be trouble, but I think I’ve been around the block a few times. I know myself a good hunt or two. I think we might be able to, if we put together a good enough plan, handle this.”
MIKE: [laughter] “Yes, handle them. With a plan, very good. What is this plan?”
THOM: “That’s why I said we’re going to put together a plan, or are your ears full of shit?”
MIKE: “Oh, we had a plan, and then you ruined it.”
THOM: “Yeah, your plan. Ask your fucking sister how well your plan works out. As a matter of fact, ask your fucking sister how well our plans work out. You done? You done with your bullshit, ma’am?”
MIKE: She stares at you coldly. “We had it so that they at the very least were not really bothering anyone. We were keeping a sort of peace between things.”
THOM: “Yeah by killing people. That’s a great fucking plan.”
DARIUS: “Were you feeding them drug addicts?”
[MUSIC FADES IN]
MIKE: There’s a very tense pause.
DARIUS: “So, is that a yes, or no, or maybe?”
THOM: “So, as long as they don’t count, it’s fine.”
MIKE: “No.”
THOM: “As long as they’re nobodies, it’s fine.”
MIKE: “No.”
THOM: “You piece of shit.”
MIKE: “We didn’t do that. It just kind of happened, and then we had to deal with the fallout of it. The fact that you only recently started finding out about, oh, I don’t know, disappearing people, yeah, it was not our fault. We had to step things up a little bit. It was still much better than the alternative. Which, by the way, you’re about to find out about the alternative, so have fun with that. I don’t want to be around for that, and that actually brings me to the point. I would very much like to not be here.”
THOM: “About that. I would like, in say, three paragraphs or less, a very convincing reason why I should not let the four people behind me end you. I’d say they’ve earned it, because your whole ‘better plan’ killed someone they fucking cared about. Your ‘better plan’ took a lot of people that a lot of people fucking cared about. Your ‘better plan’ was to leave those goddamn things alive, hurting and killing people, because they didn’t matter. Fuck you! People like you are why I do this, because someone has to actually give a shit. So, three paragraphs or less. Reasons, now!”
MIKE: “You’ve gotten it out of your system now? Do you feel better?”
THOM: “You’re wasting words.”
MIKE: “So, you are part of organization, yes?”
THOM: “I never said that. I said I hunt and kill things.”
MIKE: “Oh no, I said that.”
THOM: “Huh. What does it matter if I am?”
MIKE: “You are not only organization interested in preserving balance with monsters, humans. There is a group, perhaps, that might find your methods objectionable, and might find mine objectionable as well, but would prefer I be relocated to somewhere in Greece where things would be different. Have you ever heard of the Owlman?”
THOM: Have I?
MIKE: Probably not, but roll a Lore.
THOM: I have not heard of the Owlman, no. That is a flat zero.
MIKE: “Ah. So, have you heard of all of the children being eaten around London?”
THOM: “I don’t operate that side of the pond.”
MIKE: “Ah, let me tell you. You haven’t, and you also haven’t heard of Owlman. These are both their doing. So, I would very much like to take their offer of sanctuary, and it will definitely mean I’m not hurting and killing people you care about, or, well much of anyone for that matter, which is real shame, but sister and I would like to go to Greece and just sort of get away from all of this.”
THOM: I look over my shoulder at the werewolves. “Y’all convinced?”
MIKE: “I don’t know if this is—I mean, I would like her to go away. I still feel very much like killing you.” “That is understandable.” “But it seems too easy is the thing. It seems way too easy for you.” She just shrugs.
THOM: “How about you?” I look at my friends. “Y’all convinced?”
CHRISTINE: Can I do some sort of a roll to feel out if the hag is lying or not?
MIKE: That would be an Empathy roll, and we’re going to set the challenge at three.
CHRISTINE: That is a one.
THOM: You want an Aspect tag?
MIKE: Oof. Well, you do have—oh yes, I forgot to mention at the top of things, there was another refresh, so you do all have a refresh of Fate Points.
CHRISTINE: I also have a couple stresses on my Mental, can I take those off as well?
MIKE: Oh yeah, that scene ended. Yeah, anyone’s stress from the last scene is gone.
CHRISTINE: I mean, can I tag Grammy Came To The Tea Party as a medium psychic being able to tell if she’s telling the truth or not?
THOM: I would argue it does make you better at reading people.
MIKE: Okay.
THOM: Even if you’re not using your powers to do so.
MIKE: Okay, I’m going to give you a counteroffer. Instead of spending a Fate Point, how about earning a Fate point?
THOM: Oh shit.
MIKE: So, Desdemona.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
MIKE: I’m going to offer you a Fate Point right now to tag your trouble and have Mr. Jack show up in your head—
CHRISTINE: Alright.
MIKE: -- and offer to help you out, and it’s definitely going to deepen your debt. You don’t know how, and he’s going to propose methods that are perhaps objectionable, but it’s pretty much the only way that you’re going to really get what you want.
CHRISTINE: Okay, let’s do it.
MIKE: Okay. With that, I’m going to put the stipulation on there that you’re probably going to go along with the suggestions at this point, because you are exhausted from a day. You’ve had a day.
CHRISTINE: I still have not slept all year.
MIKE: Yes, that is actually correct, and by the time that this goes out, it’ll be like a month into the year, so that will sound really, really bad.
CHRISTINE: It’s only been like a day and a half, but yeah, not slept all year.
MIKE: Yeah. So, alright. Take your Fate Point.
CHRISTINE: Okay.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
MIKE: And for Desdemona, the world seems to get darker, and the color and sound seem to drain away from the world, and you’re very much alone with your thoughts, and your thoughts no longer sound like you. “Desdemona, you’re so tired. You can’t even handle simple things such as invading the mind of another right now, can you?”
CHRISTINE: “Wait, invade?”
MIKE: “You can’t even get a read on her.”
CHRISTINE: “I really can’t. My fire is—I’m burning low.”
MIKE: “All you have to do is let me in, and I can get in there and let you know anything you need to know.”
CHRISTINE: “Just to know if there’s actually some truth in that she can and is willing to stop. Stop hurting, just to get something so that this can conclude where it—I mean, everyone is compromised and nobody is dead.”
MIKE: “I guess that’s a reason, I guess. Fine, as long as it means you’ll let me in.” And there is a moment where your senses feel very, very different. You are able to sort of read the emotion of Alexis. She is terrified. The only thing that she wants right now is to get away from all of this. She knows that one way or another, she will die. Either at the hands of the monsters that she could no longer keep at bay, or at the hands of the monsters that she could no longer keep at bay, but you also understand that she’s telling the truth. It really does seem that wherever she’s going, she’ll be away from other people. To the outside world, you notice Alexis stiffen up and something seems peculiar about just this split second where she just sort of freezes in place and then blinks away whatever that sensation was, and Des, you feel Mr. Jack leave you, and then you feel Mr. Jack return. “She’s telling the truth, girl,” and all of your senses return to normal. Color and sound return to the world. You now see the group of you sort of standing in the dim light outside of the bar and most of you are either staring at Alexis or Desdemona, because in the middle of this intense conversation, both of them seem to have just frozen for a partial second and then returned to normal with maybe a little bit of confusion blinking out of their eyes.
CHRISTINE: Desdemona kind of grounds herself, she blinks a few times, and she’s actually going to walk over to Alexis and place her hands on her shoulders and just look to Albion and go “She would stop. She’s telling the truth, Albion. Please.”
THOM: Albion just clenches his fist until it shakes. “If I see you again, it’s not a conversation. Understand that.”
MIKE: “It’s a very good thing you won’t see me again then.” “Wait, are we serious? Are we just going to let her leave? Is that really what we’re doing, Desdemona?”
CHRISTINE: “Please, I beseech you, she should go. It’s for the best. She’s telling the truth.”
MIKE: “Who uses the word ‘beseech’ anymore?”
GWEN: Actually, I had a question, because I wasn’t in the original diner fight scene or whatever. So, when you guys originally were dealing with the hags and the cannibalism and the dead drug addicts, was there any evidence of who the people that were being killed were? Like IDs, a list of names, anything like that?
THOM: Nothing that we looked for or found, really.
MIKE: The thing that got some of you on board was Marcus was investigating a series of disappearances.
THOM: Yeah, the mysterious Marcus who hasn’t shown up on our show.
MIKE: Yes, but he is somebody who was working with you to fight against the hags. So, yeah, he had a list of people that disappeared that had been given to him by the Paranet, the sort of organization that is sort of low level magic talent looking out for each other in a dangerous world, because they started to see their own getting targeted a little bit. The last person to disappear was a changeling who was friends with the group of werewolves. It seemed as though they had started targeting people whom were closer to the werewolves to throw you off of their scent and make you suspect the werewolves in the first place.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: So, that’s kind of what brought the rest of the group into that. So, before then, you don’t really know anything, and it wasn’t really significant enough that anyone was investigating it, so it was a few months back that things started to noticeably pick up.
GWEN: Alright, thank you.
MIKE: And also the assumption that they were deliberately feeding them drug addicts is not currently supported by evidence, but you don’t know for sure.
GWEN: Okay, cool.
MIKE: And Alexis has claimed that that was not their intent, and that that was an accident.
THOM: Sure. Yeah, no it’s plausible, I’m not saying she’s wrong, I’m just being a smartass.
MIKE: Yeah, I’m just trying to imagine a world in which you have a monster that no matter how much you feed it, it is never satisfied, and then you throw drug addiction into that, and it’s like “Well this is just a convenient metaphor, also double the problem.”
DARIUS: Yeah, you think it would slow them down at least.
MIKE: Returning to the scene, Desdemona is basically saying that we should let this happen, and Alexis is promising that you will never see her again.
THOM: “So, here’s the thing. My friends seem convinced. My other friends, well they don’t seem convinced, do they. So, I think it’s them you got to talk to at this point, not me. So, you got something you want to say to them? Well, you got a few words left, I think, so make them count.”
MIKE: She just sort of stares at the wolves who are standing there, tense on the other side of you. “If I apologize, you won’t even believe me. What is there for me to say?”
THOM: I’ve been talking a lot, so.
MIKE: Yeah, and we have a couple more PCs whose opinions haven’t really been weighed in so much.
GWEN: I don’t know that Ro has any idea what’s going on, and given that she hasn’t had this experience with Alexis that everyone else has, she’s definitely just trying to figure out what’s happening.
MIKE: Okay. Do you want to make a roll to sort of try to get a handle on the situation a little better?
GWEN: Sure.
MIKE: Because there are definitely things you can try to sort of get your bearings or sort of figure out what to do next.
GWEN: Yeah, I think I’m going to do a roll, but also, I definitely—as the conversation is continuing, I feel like Desdemona because I know and have experienced that she has these otherworldly things going on, I’m going to lean more towards letting Alexis go, because something happened with the two of them, and it makes sense that Des would know what’s up.
MIKE: Okay. What would you like to roll?
GWEN: Can I roll Deceit on Alexis to see if she’s being honest?
THOM: That’s more of an Empathy than a Deceit, I think.
MIKE: Wait, you have Takes One To Know One. You have that stunt that lets you roll deceit instead of Empathy to try to suss out if someone’s lying, right?
THOM: Oh, dang.
GWEN: Correct.
MIKE: Aw yeah. Okay, well that I think is the perfect time to use such a thing.
GWEN: Perfect, give me one second.
MIKE: I’m going to say that like Desdemona, your target is three. You rolled a zero on your dice and a four for your Deceit, so okay.
GWEN: Correct.
MIKE: You got it. You hit your skill. Yeah, you clearly don’t get the picture that Desdemona gets, but you have kind of the understanding of how these sorts of negotiations might go from your background with your father and this is basically if somebody said “You’re going to move to Las Vegas.” “For what?” “For your health.” Except for the entire conversation is reversed “I’m going to Las Vegas.” “For what?” “For my health.”
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: And it’s basically her—you can tell that she feels like this is not the deal that she wants to take, but it is definitely the option for her, and it’s the only thing that really works and makes her happy and could get her out of everyone else’s situation. You think she’s telling the truth. Darius, is Sylvester doing anything in this particular moment?
DARIUS: Not really. He trusts Des, so he’s going to go with that.
MIKE: Okay. So, you three are trusting that this is—that Alexis is telling the truth and that this might be the best option.
THOM: Yeah, Albion just wants her gone.
DARIUS: And if we run into her again, we just fucking kill her.
THOM: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: I did think of one other thing I could tell the werewolves, if you like.
MIKE: Go for it.
CHRISTINE: Okay, so she’s going to kind of look them all as close in the eye as she can and say “Look, there’s no possible situation where this will turn out where everyone is completely satisfied here. That’s what compromise is. But she’s telling the truth. Just think of the power that you could have if you just show a little mercy.”
MIKE: Okay, this is you definitely trying to persuade them, so I’m going to have you make a roll for that.
CHRISTINE: I’m so good at that.
MIKE: Yeah, I feel like you could do either Presence or Rapport for this one.
CHRISTINE: I don’t have Presence, but I do have Rapport.
MIKE: Okay.
CHRISTINE: If I roll too low, I might tag an Aspect.
MIKE: I’m going to say that this is—
CHRISTINE: Or I could roll a four.
MIKE: Yeah, I’m going to set this challenge to four. Did you just say you rolled a four?
CHRISTINE: I did.
MIKE: I was still deciding what the challenge was. Okay, cool. Well, you manage to, with your impassioned plea, soften their resolve for murder.
CHRISTINE: Yay!
MIKE: They’re clearly not happy with the situation, but it looks like they might be conferring with each other, just sort of making eye contact and sharing those sort of silent words and expressions. They turn back, and John sort of steps forward away from the group and sort of crosses that invisible threshold line that Albion had made between the two groups by standing in the middle, and walks up to Alexis, who is taller than him even when he draws himself up to his full height and just says “Don’t think that we have forgotten about what you did, but if we ever, ever see you again—“ “Yes, yes, I understand what will happen.” “Get the fuck out of here.” “Well, if we are all agreed with this, I think I shall take my leave.”
THOM: “Agreed is a strong word, but yeah, get the fuck out.”
MIKE: “Oh yes, one more thing. I do not think that me running through the woods at this particular hour would be the best for anyone, and I think we can all agree that letting wendigos eat me would be bad. You understand how wendigos work, so you can understand the catastrophic fallout of letting a wendigo eat me, yes?”
THOM: “So, call yourself a fucking Uber.”
MIKE: “Can I get a ride?”
DARIUS: [laughter]
GWEN: [laughter]
[MUSIC; EPISODE BREAK]
MIKE: Hey everybody, it’s Michael, your game master and game genie. I’m going to make your Nintendo games do cool funny things. Wait, Game Genie? Was that for Nintendo? I think it was a SEGA thing. Anyway, I’m going to cheat at video games for you! Thank you for putting up with a slightly delayed release, there was just some heavier editing and soundtrack work that we had to do this week and thank you so much for listening to this, our fourth episode of the podcast. This one is a bit darker in the first half for sure, but things get a little lighter in the second half, so hey, I hope you like laughing at Spoonerisms, that’s going to happen. Thank you so much to the Pocket Podcast Network for being wonderful hosts. There are so many great shows on the network like Home Viewing, and my new favorite, The Ghoul Tank. Lachlan has such a fantastic voice for radio, it’s beautiful, and the cryptids they make up are just buck wild and I love them, so go check out the other shows on the network at pocketpodcastnetwork.com. We are also available for pocket notes now, so if you have a message you want us to read on the air, go to pocketpodcastnetwork/notes, is that right? Is it /notes, or is it /pocketnotes? I’m going to find that out right now. It’s /pocketnotes. Pocketpodcastnetwork.com/pocketnotes, I’m sure glad that I looked that up beforehand. Thank you so much to people who have been listening and tweeting about the show, especially my friend Kat Pyburn who you can follow on Twitter @senator_cat, that’s C-A-T. You can tweet about the show with the GMMCast hashtag and help spread the word, because word of mouth is powerful stuff, and it’s also all we got. One quick programming note is that we’re going to be switching to a biweekly release schedule following this episode, because editing is hard, or more accurately it’s time consuming, and I need a social life, so it’s been a lot of fun getting all this stuff done and we should have the podcast in a place where it’s kind of bingeable with a good backlog of episodes all ready to go, but after this one it’s going to slow down the release schedule so it’s a little more sane, because I love doing this, but I would hate for it to be a chore, and I don’t want the quality to suffer. With that said, back to the episode.
[MUSIC; AD FOR THE GHOUL TANK]
LACHLAN: Hey, I’m Lachlan.
AJAY: And I’m Ajay.
LACHLAN: We’re just two dudes who love ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and monsters so much that we’ve decided to create our own.
AJAY: Well how about you give me an example?
LACHLAN: How do you feel about an electric boy who can only move on subway tracks, or a sparkly light up manatee who lives in the deep ocean, or maybe a hairy office snack thief who uses his extra-long arms to steal lunches?
AJAY: You know what? That sounds pretty good to me.
LACHLAN: Well, you can hear about all these things and more on The Ghoul Tank.
AJAY: Find us every other Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you can download podcasts. Join us in our journey to create the next big cryptid.
[END OF BREAK]
MIKE: Okay, so yes, I think everyone should definitely get some rest, and we should move to the morning of January the second.
THOM: Albion wakes up extra early, goes to the gym, and beats the absolute piss out of a heavy bag.
MIKE: That’s fair.
THOM: Just out of pure anger and frustration from yesterday.
MIKE: You know what? Valid. What are people’s plans for this new day? For the first time in all of the year, you aren’t woken up to something supernatural happening.
THOM: Yeah, Albion is just working his frustrations out in a gym right now.
MIKE: Alright.
DARIUS: Do I have to teach today?
MIKE: I feel like you might actually have to teach today.
DARIUS: Son of a bitch.
THOM: Isn’t it still winter break?
GWEN: It’s a Thursday.
MIKE: Oh wait a minute, yeah, if it’s winter break—
DARIUS: Oh yeah, then fuck it, I ain’t teaching winter classes.
MIKE: Let me just double check. Yeah, you know what? I’m definitely going to say that since New Year’s is a Wednesday and today is a Thursday, you’re still going to be on winter break for sure.
DARIUS: Yeah!
MIKE: Okay, so Sylvester, you did have something I think to follow up on from yesterday.
DARIUS: Right.
MIKE: So, if you want, we can run a scene of you trying to figure that out as well. Ro, did you have any plans for the day?
GWEN: I think I want to head over to Desdemona’s but I’m going to send a text to both Albion and Sylvester while I’m kind of on the way just to see what they’re doing today.
MIKE: Okay. Des, did you have any plans for the morning?
CHRISTINE: Basically, just I think that she’s actually going to take the time to stress clean the house a little bit while pondering how she can make her wards stronger, while waiting for any clientele that might show up for a reading.
MIKE: Okay.
CHRISTINE: I have a business.
MIKE: Fair. So, the only real active scene at the moment would be Sylvester’s.
THOM: I’m also going to have Albion call to see if he can get backup sent to town, but that’s going to be its own thing.
MIKE: Okay, yeah. So, Sylvester, since you have found some drug paraphernalia and you have reason to—you don’t know exactly what it connects to yet, but you know people you might be able to talk to, and you have medical school colleagues as one of your Stunts.
DARIUS: Yeah. So, probably going to use that to figure out what the hell is in this little takeout sandwich baggy that I put all of the drugs in.
MIKE: Yeah, the question is how are you going to approach this? Are you going to bring samples of drug paraphernalia to someone?
DARIUS: Probably someone I trust I guess? I don’t know if I have any other contacts besides the mortician lady.
MIKE: Okay, well by nature you have other colleagues that you work with.
DARIUS: okay.
MIKE: So, since the way that this usually works—this is a research that you’re doing. You’re trying to gather information.
DARIUS: Right.
MIKE: You gain plus one to your Contacts roll and you arrive at your findings one step faster than usual on the time table.
DARIUS: Okay.
MIKE: So, I’m going to figure out how much time on the time table that would take you to do. I’m going to say that the normal amount of time that this would take would be I’d say a few hours to talk to the right people to get the right answers, but with your skill and focus in the skill, that’s going to bump it down by one to an hour, and you’re going to get a plus one on your Contacts roll. So, the difficulty on this I was going to set at a three, so make a Contacts roll with a plus one. Hey, that’s another plus one on your roll. Sick. So, your Contacts base is what?
DARIUS: I think it’s a two.
MIKE: Actually, it looks like you don’t actually have a native Contacts roll or score. That’s surprising, I thought you did.
DARIUS: Wow. All I have is Resources, I thought that’s what that would lead into.
MIKE: Oh no, Resources is like money and buying things.
DARIUS: Ah.
MIKE: Okay, which, having a Resources score as you did is reasonable because of what you do. So, yeah, if you want to just drop a Fate Point on something then you can definitely get the answers you need.
DARIUS: Okay. So, would I just drop it on Medical School Colleagues, or drop it on Resources like “Hey man, here’s fifty bucks.”
MIKE: [laughter] You’d have to drop it on one of your concepts to justify.
DARIUS: Okay.
MIKE: So, given that you’re trying to convince your colleagues to find out about drugs and stuff, I’d even say Aim Low, Go High, makes sense.
DARIUS: Yeah, that works.
MIKE: Because you’re trying to find something about some low brow shit with some highly educated folks.
DARIUS: I swear to god, it’s not for a party this time.
MIKE: If you can justify another one of your Aspects to tag for a Fate Point, you would get a better success, and with extra shifts of success comes extra specificity and just additional benefits. One shift better is a notable success, where you have solid and reliable clear success, but it’s not inspired, but it works. If you take three shifts of success, that’s a significant success, and it’s very reliable information and you may get a little bit of extra for it.
DARIUS: Yeah, I’m not sure what I could tag exactly.
MIKE: Butt-Kicking Butt Doctor is pretty general enough to cover that you are talking to your doctoring colleagues.
DARIUS: That’s true.
MIKE: So, yeah, that’s two Fate Points. How many do you have left?
DARIUS: Four.
MIKE: Dang, dude. Alright, so your total roll with your one and your one and your two and your two comes to a six, so that beats the challenge of three by three, so that is a significant success, and you are very, very sure that this is meth paraphernalia. So, you now have the added complication of wendigoes with meth in them. Meth wendigos.
DARIUS: Super. I’m just sending a mass text to everyone else that says “Mendigos are on weth.”
MIKE: [laughter] It says “The mendigos are on weth?”
DARIUS: Yeah, and then I’m like “Wait, I mean the wendigos are on meth. Son of a bitch. Shit. Shit shit shit shit.” I like to think there’s ten text in a row that’s just “shit.”
THOM: Shit, shit, meth, shit, shit.
MIKE: Oh my god.
DARIUS: Yeah, my thumbs got dyslexic.
THOM: And I don’t mean the member of the Wu Tang Clan. Shit.
CHRISTINE: So, my autocorrect when I tried texting that, it came up to “The Wednesday are in meth.”
MIKE: And now the FBI is very confused.
THOM: This Christine Savage, I told you we were on to something with her.
DARIUS: Agent Johnson wants to know your location.
MIKE: Was that a Die Hard reference?
DARIUS: Which one?
MIKE: Die Hard one, because both the FBI agents are named Johnson. No relation.
DARIUS: It was not, but sure, why not.
MIKE: Okay. Cool cool cool.
THOM: Anyway, so yeah, Albion is upset.
MIKE: Yeah, so an hour after you—how early did Sylvester wake up this morning?
DARIUS: Well, he didn’t drink, so I guess 10 AM.
MIKE: You know what? Fair. So, given that you’d have to get to the campus and start doing things, I’m going to say that a little before noon, everyone has gotten a text that says “The Mendigos are on Weth. Shit. The Wendigos are on Meth.”
THOM: Shit.
MIKE: Shit.
DARIUS: And then eight more shits.
MIKE: Yes.
CHRISTINE: Shitty shitty bang bang.
MIKE: Well hey, I feel like—hey, eight shits? You should see a proctologist about that. Hey!
THOM: Fuck you, Mike.
MIKE: I thought that was funny, ah well. Not every joke is a winner.
DARIUS: You try your best, but you don’t succeed.
MIKE: Don’t you Coldplay me.
THOM: Albion is making that phone call.
MIKE: Okay. You do not get an answer, so if you’re going to leave a message, you can leave a message.
THOM: “Alright.
[PHONE RECORDING BEEP]
Hey there, Alistair, it’s Albion. Shit has hit the metaphorical fan. We’ve got weth mendigos. Fuck, shit, fuck, damn it! Sorry, I mean we got meth wendigos. Yeah, so situation is bad. We got a whole fucking pack of the damn things, and if there are any other hunters in the area, that would be mighty fine. Yeah, just call me or shoot me a text. Alright, happy trails.”
[PHONE RECORDING BEEP]
MIKE: Love you, bye.
THOM: Love you, dad. Wait, that’s not canon.
DARIUS: Son, that was hella gay, but I’m okay with that.
MIKE: Well, I mean, that would make sense.
THOM: Albion’s not straight, so.
MIKE: Yeah, and neither is Albion’s player.
THOM: I am not straight. So, Albion gets out of his car, walks up to Desdemona’s house, opens the door, steps inside, walks into her kitchen, and say “Hey Des, what are we going to do about these weth heads?”
CHRISTINE: “Weth heads?”
THOM: “You got the text, right?”
CHRISTINE: “I got the first one. I haven’t had a chance to check the—ah, okay there it is, okay. Yeah, it’s meth. Oh, that’s not good.”
THOM: “Yeah, weth head mendigos. That’s a bad name right there.”
CHRISTINE: “That’s some fun Spoonerizing right there, yep. I don’t even know what we do with the clear and clean and narrow wendigos, much less meth head ones.”
THOM: “Well, I mean clearly they got to just quit cold turkey. Nah, we got to kill them.”
CHRISTINE: “I was going to say, we’re going to go with your way of handling things, I imagine?”
THOM: “I mean, probably. That seems like the best solution for dealing with wendigos. I’m going to call these things mendigos a lot from now on, and it’s going to piss me off. Oh god, I can already hear it happening.” So, anyway, these wendigos. I’m putting actual effort into saying it, Des, I’m not okay with this.”
CHRISTINE: “Oh yeah, wendigos. So, how do you go about killing a wendigo, much less many on meth?”
THOM: “You hit them real, real hard, and they stay dead, eventually.”
CHRISTINE: “Hit them with what?”
THOM: “A gun, a car, a sword, a car with swords duct taped to the front. I don’t know, get creative.”
CHRISTINE: “Okay, so this isn’t like a cold iron thing or anything like that.”
THOM: “No, they don’t have weaknesses, they’re just pains in the ass to keep down.”
DARIUS: Oh, can I send another mass text?
MIKE: Go for it.
DARIUS: It basically says “I think I have an idea, but we’re going to need a meth house.”
THOM: Albion texts back “Elaborate.”
DARIUS: Okay, so let me just call at this point, because texting this whole thing out is going to be a bitch. “Okay, so crazy thought, what are the three things you need to make meth?”
THOM: “I don’t make meth, so fucked if I know.”
DARIUS: “Alright, anyway, it’s muriatic acid, caustic soda, and hydrochloric acid, I believe. Or hydrogen chloride, one of the others, but I believe you use those three together to make it. I played a lot of Payday back in the day and the rats mission basically has you making—anyway, the point is, if you make it in the wrong order, shit fucking explodes. So, since they’re addicted to meth, we lure them to a meth house, and once they’re all inside, we blow the fucker up.”
GWEN: “Are the wendigos going to make the meth themselves?”
DARIUS: “No, I mean one of us is going to have to do it. Probably me because I’m the only one who knows how to do chemistry. Shit.”
THOM: “Alright there Bryan Cranston, slow the fuck down.”
DARIUS: “The point is, I don’t have to actually make the meth. I just have to create the smell of it, you know?”
THOM: “So, you’ve got to make meth wrong?”
DARIUS: “I’m not going to make meth wrong, I’m going to start to make meth and once the fuckers kind of come in to get lured, I get the fuck out, and y’all can blow it the fuck up. I mean, unless you’ve got a better idea?”
THOM: “I wish I did, but I do not.”
DARIUS: “Okay. Do you have dynamite or some shit?
CHRISTINE: “No.”
DARIUS: “It was a question for Albion, I know you don’t have dynamite, Desdemona.”
THOM: “I might have some in my trunk.”
MIKE: Can we just be clear that your current plan is massive property damage.
GWEN: Yes.
DARIUS: Yeah! Well, I mean it’s a meth house in the middle of nowhere. I figured it’s cool.
MIKE: Oh, okay. You’re suggesting doing this somewhere outside of the city lines, okay.
DARIUS: Yeah.
GWEN: So, not granny’s house.
THOM: Are you suggesting that the great town of Burlington, Vermont has a meth problem, Michael?
DARIUS: Gasp in surprise.
MIKE: Yes.
THOM: There goes our sponsorships, guys.
CHRISTINE: Was the farmhouse abandoned?
DARIUS: I mean, it is now, isn’t it?
MIKE: Oh, you mean the one that the wolves live in?
CHRISTINE: Oh, nope, nevermind. Sorry, I thought the ones the hags were near.
MIKE: Oh no, the hags had a shed.
DARIUS: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: How about that shed?
DARIUS: She still using that shed?
CHRISTINE: She said she’s leaving town.
MIKE: Yeah, she’s skipping town and going to Greece with her sister, apparently.
DARIUS: Okay, well it’s our shed now, let’s blow it up.
CHRISTINE: Okay.
DARIUS: Fuck it.
MIKE: Oh my god, I can’t believe this is all my fault.
GWEN: Making meth, guys.
DARIUS: This is what you get for, I don’t know, having your doctor be a guy who played Payday for 1000 hours on Steam.
MIKE: Oh, I’m not complaining about the fact that you apparently understand how to make meth. You are the doctor in the group, you’re playing the doctor, the smart guy who actually maybe will be able to have made this plan, I—nevermind.
CHRISTINE: As the agency starts texting Seth. “Seth, help. They’re going to blow up meth.”
GWEN: Weth, they’re making Seth.
DARIUS: [laughter] Ro, we have to cook.
THOM: [laughter] Oh my god.
MIKE: This has gone so far off the rails! This started with just tense negotiation between a murderer and a bunch of people that were like “Those were my friends,” and it’s like now we’re here. How did this happen?
THOM: We’re Breaking Bad, Mike.
CHRISTINE: Are you suggesting you wanted us to just go up and just start shooting a bunch of wendigos like a bunch of idiots?
MIKE: I’m not suggesting anything of the sort.
CHRISTINE: We are renamed the Suicide Squad.
THOM: So, let’s skip to the part where we’re making meth.
MIKE: Oh my god. So, what you’re telling me is your current plan is to make some meth? Alright.
THOM: Albion is going to call John and tell him about this plan. “Hey John, so we might have a plan.”
MIKE: Oh, I’m not going to play this conversation out. I’m just going to let this be a thing that has happened and you have relayed this information.
THOM: I would at least like to know how he reacted when we said the wendigos are on meth.
MIKE: He’s not happy about this at all. Yeah, everybody is rather concerned and apparently they’re going to be locking things down even tighter than they normally would in their farm.
THOM: Should we tell the Warden? Sorry, “Should we get the Warden in on this?”
DARIUS: “I guess, if you want to hear a lot of whining and complaining, sure.”
THOM: “If I wanted that, I’d talk to you.”
DARIUS: “Right?”
THOM: “And I already do that.”
DARIUS: “You probably should tell him though. God forbid after we blow the fucker up he just kind of whines more.”
THOM: “Hey Ro, you talked to him. What’s your take?”
GWEN: “On just how he’ll react to this?”
THOM: “Essentially yeah.”
GWEN: “Well, I don’t think anyone is going to react positively to the group of us making meth, but if it’s a plan and no one else has one, they really can’t—“
THOM: “It’s not illegal until we use it or sell it. That’s a lie.”
DARIUS: “That is a fucking lie.”
MIKE: Yeah, we cannot put that out into the world.
DARIUS: “Yeah, okay, but also we’re not cooking meth. I’m cooking meth. God forbid I blow all four of us up, alright?”
GWEN: I mean, if we just keep it vague, we’ll be fine.
DARIUS: “Look this may surprise you, I’ve never done this shit before, so god forbid I kill all four of us. So, if I accidentally blow myself up, there’s still three of you left, alright?”
GWEN: “Good point.”
THOM: “Well, I’m not going to let you die, so.”
DARIUS: “That’s nice, I appreciate that.”
THOM: “You’re kind of my friend, man. That seems like a bad call to let your friend die making meth.”
DARIUS: “Aw.”
MIKE: And then they kissed.
GWEN: New ship.
CHRISTINE: The first one.
DARIUS: Finally fucking happened.
MIKE: Four episodes in.
THOM: Alright, so, we should probably talk to the Warden, so who wants to do that?
DARIUS: So, while you do that, Sylvester is going to be looking up how to do this shit on his phone, because of course where else would you find out how to do this?
THOM: Go to wikiHow. wikiHow to make meth.
CHRISTINE: Making weth for dummies.
GWEN: Please don’t google how to make meth, you’ll be on all kinds of lists.
DARIUS: Too late.
MIKE: I was about to go on the internet to check if in fact there was a wikiHow article about how to make meth, and then I realized this was a bad plan.
DARIUS: Well, I already did that, but I’m looking at—
CHRISTINE: You live in New York.
GWEN: You’re already on all kinds of lists, it’s fine.
DARIUS: Pretty much, but also my source isn’t wikiHow, it’s Sunrise House American Addiction Center, so there.
MIKE: Oh, okay. So that’s legit.
DARIUS: Yeah, yeah.
MIKE: So, I guess they won’t have to raid your place.
DARIUS: Yeah, I guess not.
THOM: If they tried to raid their place, they’d have to get past his mom. Good fucking luck with that.
DARIUS: Also, there’s like five flights of stairs.
MIKE: Yeah. Yeah, we found out about that.
DARIUS: Yeah you did.
THOM: Yeah, the narcs are just on the third floor, huffing and puffing, and you're just like “You guys need to take a break?” “No, we’re fine! Citizen, we’re fine.” We’re off the rails again.
DARIUS: Yes we are.
MIKE: Yeah, badly.
THOM: So, who’s going to talk to the Warden with me?
CHRISTINE: I’ll do it. I just need to be reminded what his name is and I need to know how much detail we are going into in telling him this plan.”
DARIUS: John Jim.
MIKE: Yeah, Warden John Jim.
CHRISTINE: I doubt his name is John Jim.
GWEN: I don’t remember him having a name last time, so.
CHRISTINE: He had a last name that was French.
MIKE: Yes, it was John Jim.
THOM: Jean?
GWEN: Jean Jim?
DARIUS: Jean Jim.
THOM: Jean Valjean.
MIKE: Yeah, it’s like John Jones, the Martian Manhunter. Yeah, no, his name is Warden Beaumont.
CHRISTINE: See, that sounds better than that.
DARIUS: That does sound better.
CHRISTINE: Not even Jean Valjean. Warden Beaumont.
MIKE: So, congrats on remembering that he definitely had a French last name.
CHRISTINE: Well, us Frenchies need to stick together.
MIKE: Yeah you do, Tardif.
CHRISTINE: How much detail am I giving this Warden?
MIKE: Oh man, that is completely up to you. Do we want to have a scene?
CHRISTINE: Desdemona is asking Albion. “How much detail am I giving this Warden? Are we going into the meth part of the story or not? Like ‘hey, we found wendigoes, we have a plan, we’re going to take care of it.’”
THOM: “I mean, if he wants to come along, I feel like we are obliged to mention the meth.”
CHRISTINE: “Ah, we’re inviting him into our little group, cool. Okay.”
THOM: “I did not say that, I said if he invites himself.”
CHRISTINE: “Okay, alright. I think I can roll with this punch.” Alright, let’s make a phone call, using the house phone. It’s very old.
THOM: Alright.
MIKE: Okay. I can tell you how that’s going to basically play out. He’s going to want to meet at Neutral Ground to talk about things.
DARIUS: Is that the name of the bar?
CHRISTINE: Sandwiches!
MIKE: No, it’s the Four Corners of the Earth. Four Corners of the Earth, the sandwich shop.
DARIUS: Ah.
MIKE: Yeah.
DARIUS: So, Neutral Ground is a different restaurant.
MIKE: ‘Neutral Ground’ should be the name of a coffee shop.
DARIUS: It really should be.
THOM: ‘Neutral Ground’ is the gastropub.
MIKE: Oh god, Kat’s playing Dream Daddy, and the coffee shop in that place you can choose what to drink, and that includes the options of Godspeed You! Black Coffee, Chai Antwoord, and Green Teagan and Sara.
THOM: Oh my god.
GWEN: That game is so weird, and it’s so great.
THOM: We should move on.
MIKE: Yeah.
THOM: Albion could use some lunch.
CHRISTINE: Sandwich time!
MIKE: Alright.
CHRISTINE: To the Neutral Ground. “Can I get a ride, Albion?”
THOM: “I mean, you’re not a hag, so yeah.”
CHRISTINE: “Aw, thank you.”
THOM: “I have a strict no hag policy after last night. She didn’t even tip. I bet the bitch won’t give me five stars.”
CHRISTINE: “Think of it this way: if we ever do see her again, she owes us her life.”
THOM: “And also $5.93 for the ride.”
MIKE: So, yes, our new scene.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
We are in the Four Corners of the Earth and you are enjoying some, again, amazing and delicious sandwiches. Ladislav is behind the counter again, and just sort of addresses you all and “Oh, second time in two days. I guess the sandwiches are very good.”
THOM: “I mean, yeah. They’re kind of amazing, man. That’s why we’re here, because you’re like a Wizard or something.”
MIKE: “No, just the Great Spirit inspires me what to make, and I make a sandwich.”
GWEN: “I would recommend you guys get a punch card while you’re there.”
THOM: “Oh, I definitely have one.”
DARIUS: “There’s one in my wallet, I keep forgetting to take it out.”
MIKE: “Lucky you, I’m only closed Mondays and Tuesdays.”
THOM: “That’s fair. That’s odd days to be closed.”
MIKE: “No, that’s personal reasons.”
DARIUS: “Alright, fair.”
THOM: “Alright, it ain’t polite to pry.”
MIKE: There’s a patron at the bar who says “Yeah, Tuesday nights is when he has fight club, right?” He laughs and just says “No fight club, I only fight demons that night.”
THOM: Albion is not sure he’s joking. Albion eats his sandwich.
MIKE: Warden Beaumont does show up.
THOM: “Howdy there, friend.”
MIKE: “Yeah, hi. Great to see you again. What are we here for? What did you guys find out?”
THOM: “Have a seat.”
MIKE: “Okay, Chris Hansen.”
DARIUS: “You’ll love this part.”
THOM: “Get yourself a sandwich, park yourself a seat, maybe get one of them nice bottled black cherry Cokes. You know, those pops they have here.”
DARIUS: “Is that the Boylans?”
THOM: “Yeah, the Boylans, I love that pop.”
DARIUS: “Yeah, those are good.”
MIKE: I love that you just called it pop, thank you for staying true to character.
THOM: I mean, what else do you call it?
MIKE: I love how Thom, the player, is asking me in Albion’s voice what you call it.
THOM: You call it soda? Pop’s one syllable, it’s easier. I don’t understand you people.
DARIUS: Mysterious voice.
THOM: Anyway, so Albion opens his bottle of pop—
MIKE: I’m sorry, but I understand there are parts of the country where they call all soda Coke, or cola.
DARIUS: Yes.
MIKE: Cool. Just making sure that I’ve alienated another segment of our audience.
DARIUS: What, the Bible Belt?
MIKE: I guess.
THOM: That’s our target audience right there.
DARIUS: Oh, absolutely.
MIKE: Yeah, absolutely. That’s it. The show about meth wendigos is going to really—anyway.
THOM: When are they going to talk about coal?
MIKE: No, that’s the Rust Belt.
CHRISTINE: Season two.
THOM: So, Albion’s like “So, we found out what the problem is.”
MIKE: “Okay.”
DARIUS: “Do you want to say it, or do we all say it together, like a big Scooby-Doo reveal?”
THOM: “You know what, I was going to just say it, but I’m feeling the Scooby-Doo reveal.”
DARIUS: “Awesome.”
CHRISTINE: “I think the doctor should give the diagnosis.”
DARIUS: “Oh, should I? Oh, this’ll be good. Okay, give me a second. Oh my god, the men—the wendigos are on meth! I probably should have said that a bit quieter, but whatever, don’t pay attention to me screaming out loud, ah!”
MIKE: The patron at the bar just gives you a weird look and, “Man, it’s Thursday. It’s not even 4:20 yet. You do you.”
DARIUS: “Thanks, pal.”
MIKE: “Yeah, no problem.”
GWEN: “They aren’t the only ones on meth, am I right?”
DARIUS: “You have a seriously wendigo problem.”
MIKE: “Oh, well.”
THOM: “Yeah, we have a wendigo problem, and it is also apparently a drug abuse problem.”
CHRISTINE: “On the bright side, there’s a bit of a rudimentary plan in motion.”
DARIUS: “Yeah.”
THOM: “Yeah, you ever watch Breaking Bad?”
MIKE: “I hate where this conversation is currently heading.”
DARIUS: [laughter]
THOM: “Sylvester, I was going to say you tell him, but you did that evil laugh, so I believe that is your contribution. Ro, tell him the plan.”
MIKE: “Yeah man, hopefully the sandwich helps you sober up, dude.” He gives you the little hang loose hand.
THOM: “Hey man, buy yourself a pop, on me.”
MIKE: “Yeah, no I don’t drink soda, man. It’s all empty calories.”
DARIUS: “He’s got a point.”
THOM: “That’s fair, man. You ever want a free pop when I’m here, you let me know.”
MIKE: “Alright, cool cool cool.
THOM: “Man, I love pop.”
DARIUS: “So, yeah Ro, tell them our amazing plan plan that we have for dealing with the methdigos.”
THOM: “The mendigos.”
DARIUS: “Oh, we’re calling them mendigos?”
GWEN: “The mendigos. Warden buddy, my oldest and my closest friend, let me enlighten you.”
MIKE: “Oh, I already hate this more.”
GWEN: “No, no, no. Let me enlighten you on the world of cooking. It’s a very fun skill to have. It’s when our resident doctor/to-be chemist makes a little recipe in a little shed kind of far out, and then you ignore the part where we’re cooking meth and we kill all the wendigos and we win.”
MIKE: There is stunned silence as his jaw hangs open and his eyes flit between your faces just trying to wrap his head around the information he is taking in in the moment.
THOM: Albion sips his Boylans.
DARIUS: “So hey, quick question, you wouldn’t happen to have an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, would you?”
MIKE: “Okay, look. I don’t know who told you that the wonderful wizarding world was like Looney Toons, but no.”
DARIUS: “What about exploding runes? Is that a thing?”
THOM: “In D&D yeah.”
DARIUS: “Oh, shit.”
MIKE: “Yeah, that’s a D&D spell.”
DARIUS: “Fuck.”
MIKE: “Okay.”
DARIUS: “How about a fireball?”
MIKE: “Also a D&D spell, but technically a thing that can be done.”
DARIUS: “God damn it.”
THOM: Albion is going to spend a Fate Point and tag my Aspect I’ve Got a Trunk Full of Bullshit. “I kind of have a few incendiaries in there.”
DARIUS: “Do you have an Ove glove and a baseball that I can light on fire?”
MIKE: “Jesus actual Christ, I cannot believe that this is the way my day is going.”
THOM: “I mean, we can probably buy an Ove glove at a store at that point.”
DARIUS: “That is true.”
MIKE: “Okay. You said a shed?”
DARIUS: “Yeah, so here’s the thing, you know those hags that were kind of a problem, and then we kind of helped fix the problem? So, cool shit, they’re not here anymore, so free shed, and since it was a hag shed anyway so who gives a shit, basically we’ll fucking cook the meth inside the shed, lure all the meth wendigoes inside, and just kind of blow it up.”
MIKE: “Okay. It’s in the middle of nowhere?”
DARIUS: “Yeah.”
MIKE: “Okay. I am not going to get involved, because I am hearing a lot of talk about committing some very fascinating crimes and I—you know, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s plausible deniability.”
DARIUS: “There you go.”
MIKE: “I’m not going to get involved in this in the slightest, and I’m not going to tell you that you should do any of these things, in fact, I am going to tell you you shouldn’t do these things.”
DARIUS: “That’s using your noodle.”
GWEN: “Yeah, sure. We won’t do these things. Wink wink.”
DARIUS: “Yeah, why would we do these things?”
MIKE: “Please don’t say wink out loud.”
GWEN: “Wink wink.”
DARIUS: “Wink wink.”
MIKE: “I might hate you.”
DARIUS: “Might? I already do.”
MIKE: “Alright, glad that we know where we stand.”
THOM: “Sylvester, that was a little unnecessarily mean to our friend, the Warden.”
DARIUS: “Hugs and kisses, you wonderful bastard.”
MIKE: “Alright, well you know what—“
DARIUS: “Mwah.”
MIKE: “You know, I did not sign up for any of this.”
THOM: “No, you signed up for a war, which you fought in.”
DARIUS: “Oh my god. Wait wait, did he just say he didn’t sign up for this?”
THOM: “He did.”
DARIUS: “Oh, that’s like a perfect cop cliché, holy crap. Are you going to say that you’re two days from retirement next?”
DARIUS: “I’m 28.”
GWEN: “Days from retirement?”
DARIUS: I high five Ro.
THOM: “Can we not? I’m trying to have a moment. Look, I know this is not what you had in mind when you became a Warden. I’m pretty sure when you became a Warden, what you had in mind was not being the next meal for a fucking Red Court. So, you fought that war, that war’s done, now you’re in the middle of Burlington, Vermont just trying to keep the peace, and I get that we are kind of agitating that peace. I want you in the loop because I need to know that if shit goes wrong, you’re going to be here, you’re going to know what’s happening, and you’re going to know what might be coming. I need to know that there is someone who gives a shit who will be here if we fuck up.”
DARIUS: “What he said.”
THOM: “And I need to know also that that person is willing to have our back. Look, Warden, I know that we’re assholes, Desdemona excluded.”
CHRISTINE: “Thank you.”
THOM: “But we’re on the same side here, and I know that we’re talking about some fairly illegal shit.”
DARIUS: “Pretty full on illegal.”
THOM: “Pretty federal crime shit, so if you don’t want to get involved, absolutely I understand, but this is in fact what you technically signed up for, whether or not you realized it, so.”
MIKE: He does that thing where they kind of bristle and tense up, because they very much want to tell you that you are wrong, but he doesn’t say anything, despite taking some offense.
THOM: “This is part of it, man. If we don’t do this, these things are going to kill a lot of people. I need to know that you’re going to be here to help make sure that doesn’t happen, even if it’s not out there with us, I want you on our side, man, please.”
MIKE: “If what you’re asking is for me to clean up the messes of folks who probably should not have gotten involved in whatever they’re getting involved in and make sure that the world at large doesn’t have to find out about such things, then yeah, I guess that is what I signed up for, isn’t it? Okay. So, just definitely don’t tell me when you’re going to do any of the things that you’re planning to do, because I would rather not have any sort of known time and dates where I would have to immediately clean up a mess afterward.”
GWEN: “It’s next Wednesday.”
THOM: “It’s probably sooner. Yeah, we will definitely not keep you in that loop.”
DARIUS: “What loop?”
MIKE: “Because the less I know, the better.”
THOM: “I’m glad we’re not talking about this.
MIKE: “Yeah, I’m so glad that we’re not talking about it either. In fact, I’m so glad that we’re not talking about it, that I’m going to stuff this sandwich in my face now, thank you Ladislav, this looks amazing.” And he just proceeds to start at an almost unnatural rate. His mouth is basically never empty of food.
THOM: “Listen Beaumont, if this shakes out alright, I owe you a drink.”
MIKE: “Yep, they’ve got drinks on tap here. They’re really, really good. Thank you, yep. If you don’t mind though, I have Thai chicken here.” He just continues to mow down and just plow through his food so he doesn’t have to talk.
THOM: “So, we should get to work on some supplies and stuff.”
DARIUS: “Yep.”
MIKE: “Couldn’t even make it one minute without talking about it in front of me. So trusting. I’m so glad I trust you.”
DARIUS: “We should just leave him to his sandwich.”
CHRISTINE: “So, the weather we’ve been having. Kind of cold.”
THOM: “Yeah, a little wendi.”
MIKE: He shoots daggers out of his eyes.
THOM: Come on man, that was a pun, that’s classy.
DARIUS: I can’t believe Albion’s fucking dead.
MIKE: Albion?
THOM: Yeah?
MIKE: I actually need you to make a roll right now.
GWEN: Oh no.
THOM: Okay.
MIKE: And since it’s a reaction time roll, I’m going to go with Alertness, and I’m going to go with a target four.
THOM: Okay, that is a plus one and my Alertness is a three, so that’s a four.
MIKE: You manage to barely break eye contact with him before you accidentally fall into a soulgaze.
THOM: You know what, I’m going to let it happen, but I’m going to do it where I know he’s doing it.
MIKE: So, what you’re saying is you’re going to try to lock eyes with him instead?
THOM: Yeah.
MIKE: Because in that moment, he realizes what he’s doing and tries to look away. So, if you are going to try to attempt to make eye contact with him—Okay, I think this is going to be a conflict roll. Let’s go with Conviction for you versus Discipline for him.
THOM: That is a neutral, and that is four Conviction.
MIKE: Okay, he manages to not make eye contact with you with that. He happened to roll greater than four.
CHRISTINE: Didn’t someone in our party already do a soulgaze with Beaumont?
DARIUS: Me.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, that’s what I thought.
THOM: Yeah, but I wanted to do a soulgaze too.
DARIUS: I waxed his ass.
MIKE: Sylvester, you get a ping on your—do you have a phone that is capable of—what kind of phone does Sylvester have?
DARIUS: I guess just your typical smartphone that’s not an iPhone. So, your typical Android.
MIKE: Okay. So, I would assume that you would have university email set up to be received on your phone also, yes?
DARIUS: Yes.
MIKE: Okay. Within moments of Albion receiving that text, you get an email message from the dean of the psychology department, and in short it explains that in the last 24 hours, they’ve noticed one of their students acting somewhat erratically, one Cagney Moriarty, and they understood that you had a bit of a relationship with them, and they wondered if you could come in.
DARIUS: Yeah, alright. I guess I’ll email them back to see what time is good. Like right away, or in an hour, or what?
MIKE: Yeah, you get another message that says to visit them during office hours, three?
DARIUS: Sounds good.
MIKE: Albion, you get a text message from Cagney Moriarty,
[MUSIC FADES IN]
and it says “Emergency sesh? 2 day, 3 PM?”
[OUTRO MUSIC]
THOM: Albion walks into Ro’s apartment and is like—house, it’s a house.
MIKE: It’s also not Ro’s.
GWEN: Desdemona’s house. Ro has an apartment, Desdemona has a house.
DARIUS: Desdemona is the only one who has a house.
MIKE: Yeah.
THOM: Let me clap!
MIKE: No, we’re keeping that.
GWEN: I want to clap.
MIKE: This has descended into chaos.
THOM: Albion walks into Desdemona’s that she lives in, that does not belong to Ro, and says “Hey there Ro--” Fuck!
CHRISTINE: Desdemona walks to the door and opens it, and there’s Albion, and he says.
MIKE: Oh god.
THOM: “Hey there, Sly.” Sorry, let’s try this one more time, final take.
[MUSIC] Pocket Podcast Network. Quality programming, right to your pocket.
Transcribed by Nicholas Johnson (https://draconick.com/)
Twitter: @DraconickGaming