S2 Ep2: You Worry Me

[00:00:30] Speaker A: I am Aubrey, and I play Isabel. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Hi, I am legacy, and I play Rosanna. [00:00:38] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Scott, and I play Arthur. [00:00:42] Speaker D: Hi, I'm Termite, and I play Piper. [00:00:46] Speaker E: Hello, there. I'm ellering, and I'm going to be. [00:00:49] Speaker F: Playing Peter, and I'm bloodied porcelain. I'll be your storyteller for the evening. In the world of darkness, the rules are clear. Monsters rule from their high places atop the ladder of survival. And humans struggle. Somewhere in the fray between monsters and beasts, there is an order to things, a natural way. The circle of life progresses. Beasts live to serve and feed humans, and humans live to serve and feed monsters. There is an inexorable pull towards the obvious, clearly expected outcome. Monsters survive. Humans die. The humans are doomed. This is a gravity that only mad men would stand in the face of. Only mad men would fight against the undeniable tide threatening to sweep them into the sea of the afterlife. Only mad men would believe that they can change the course of fate or reorder the stars. Only the mad Men would lay a friend to rest and still lift their weapons to stand against the horrors prowling the world of darkness. Tonight, let's tell a story about the madmen. Good evening, players. When last we met, Isabel and Piper arrived in Florida. There were some tensions as people wondered who could be trusted, who was on whose side. You set up Victoria's body so that Isabel could examine it and find. [00:02:32] Speaker B: More. [00:02:32] Speaker F: Information on how she died and what might have possibly killed her. Piper dug into traffic cameras and red light cameras, looking for any signs that someone may have fled the scene or just that there was someone or something out of place in Victoria's neighborhood and found three different cars driving with stolen tags. Rosanna and Arthur went shopping, and we got to see more of their increasingly facebook complicated relationship. And finally, Rosanna had another vision. Not the first one since the end of season one, but certainly the first one of this sort of magnitude and seeming weight in several months. Tonight we pick up with, I believe, the next day. Well, no, it's about halfway through Saturday. We still had Saturday evening to go. So I would like to know what you all want to do. What do you have planned? I believe we left off with Isabelle and Rosanna just getting out of the car as the vision hit Rosanna. [00:04:23] Speaker D: I mean, I imagine. First order of businesses, go check on Rosanna. [00:04:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to ask, what was the outward sign of Rosanna when that happened? [00:04:35] Speaker F: Most of the time when Rosanna has her vision, she just goes kind of quiet for a minute. And kind of stares blankly. Or her eyes close like she's thinking. It never lasts long. It's seconds at most. So for most people, it's probably not even noticeable unless they know what to look for. I would say out of the three of you, really, only Arthur has any idea what Rosanna looks like when she experiences a vision and he's inside. [00:05:03] Speaker E: Okay. [00:05:06] Speaker F: So I guess the question then becomes, Rosanna, are you going to tell anybody? What are you going to do with the vision of the starless sky and the taste of magic that seems to linger on your tongue as you come out of it? [00:05:32] Speaker B: Sorry, Isabella. Got a little distracted. [00:05:40] Speaker A: It happens. [00:05:43] Speaker F: Good. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, just dealing with some stuff right now. [00:05:54] Speaker A: That's fair. I guess. I'll get the rest of those groceries in. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Thanks. I'll get the dog out of the way. [00:06:09] Speaker A: I don't think he hates me. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, but you're coming in with a bag full of food. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that would do it. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And she's just going to kind of awkwardly smile and then stroll on into the van and instantly try to look for Arthur. [00:06:39] Speaker C: Well, Arthur's not far. The sound of a car approaching would immediately cause him to look out and see what was going on. So he would be near the door or window, looking out. [00:06:58] Speaker F: It. [00:06:58] Speaker B: She'll just walk in and just lean in and whisper, it happened again. [00:07:09] Speaker C: What would it tell you this time? [00:07:14] Speaker B: I'll tell you when we have a minute to be along. [00:07:17] Speaker C: Okay. [00:07:19] Speaker B: And then she'll start taking Gozer. She'll take Gozer and kind of bring him into the back so he doesn't tackle anybody who might be holding groceries. [00:07:31] Speaker F: Understood. [00:07:34] Speaker C: Arthur's also running through his head, whether it was a vision or a ghost that she saw. But he realizes that. She'll clarify later. [00:07:42] Speaker F: Gozer is, as usual, very well behaved. Victoria did an excellent job of training him. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Well, Piper, where do you want all this stuff? [00:07:58] Speaker D: Give it here. If I let one of you take and put it away, then I will never be able to find anything. [00:08:04] Speaker A: That's why I ask. I mean, the groceries over. [00:08:09] Speaker D: Arthur, I don't want to hear a word from you. [00:08:14] Speaker C: I was just going to say, there's really only finite space. There's only, like, four cabinets in this entire vehicle. That's all I was going to say, but it's fine. [00:08:28] Speaker D: It's about organization. [00:08:32] Speaker F: Last time you went shopping, you filled it with cup noodles. [00:08:39] Speaker C: I got most of the things on the list last time. I mean, I had help. Sure. [00:08:54] Speaker A: I'll surrender the groceries to Piper. I'm going to go sit at the table or something. As Piper decides where they are going. [00:09:05] Speaker D: To go, the correct response. Yeah. It takes her far longer than it should to actually decide where to put everything. What things are going to be closer to the front, further back, what she's going to use more often. It takes far longer than it seems like it should. [00:09:31] Speaker C: That's a lot of organization there. Is there anything for Gozer? We probably need to feed him. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Pretty sure we probably got. [00:09:45] Speaker F: We will say that you remembered to get dog food. [00:09:48] Speaker D: Yes, I made the list of food for us. [00:09:54] Speaker C: I mean, it didn't need to be a big bag. I guess we're going to hand him over. [00:09:58] Speaker F: Rosanna did literally just talk to Dietrich about the things that he would. Rosanna went to the store, is smart enough to have gone into the store and realized that maybe not everything that was needed was necessarily on the list. [00:10:12] Speaker C: Well, I'll take a treat or something back there because I have no idea if ghost is hungry or not, but I'm going to try. [00:10:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:26] Speaker F: Do you want to see how Gozer reacts? Is that what this is? [00:10:29] Speaker C: Sure, why not? Let's see how this goes. It'll probably go as badly as it did last time. [00:10:34] Speaker F: Okay. Let's go for composure and animal can, but I will give you one extra dice because you are bringing treats this time. [00:10:43] Speaker C: Because I have food. All right. Okay. [00:10:47] Speaker E: There we are. [00:10:55] Speaker C: Hunter. There we. [00:11:05] Speaker F: Go. Wow. Out of four dice, that's pretty good. Gozer is sitting at Rosanna's feet, but he sees the treat, which is this stuffed shin bone thing that she found at the store. And he goes like, he's going to go get it from you. And then he pauses and he looks at Rosanna like, do I have permission? And when she nods, he turns and moves over and sits very patiently and waits for you to give him the bone. [00:11:47] Speaker C: Well, this is an improvement from the last time, buddy. So here you go. Enjoy, friend. [00:11:56] Speaker F: It's a fairly large bone, so you're able to hold it out and for him to take it, like, in his jaws, which he does, and he sits with it at your feet and does that thing that dogs do where if something's really big, he kind of wedges it between its paws so that he can chew on it. But he doesn't leave. He stays at your feet. As he bends down to chew this thing. [00:12:29] Speaker C: Well, I'm going to risk a gentle tap on his head. Just a little pet, as this would be the first time we've touched each other and didn't involve, potentially, him trying to kill me. [00:12:44] Speaker F: He does not seem to complain. He accepts the pets. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Oh, look at that. You two are finally starting to get along, and all it took was a treat. [00:12:58] Speaker C: And several months apart. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Distance makes Harko fonder, I guess. [00:13:04] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:13:06] Speaker C: Guess he probably realized I wasn't going to go away. I obviously came back. [00:13:11] Speaker D: And we're going to beat them. [00:13:18] Speaker B: You. She is there, like, a door that she is able to kind of, like, close to give a bit of separation between the front of the RV and the back? [00:13:34] Speaker F: Not particularly, no. [00:13:37] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:38] Speaker F: You do have a whole ass building, though. [00:13:42] Speaker B: Fair. [00:13:45] Speaker F: Like, you guys could just go into the restaurant while Piper is putting stuff away. [00:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah, she'll kind of scoot around Gozer, who probably is not going to let Arthur get away without giving him another treat. And she'll kind of make the small, follow me, little twitch of the finger, and she's going to make her way out, working extra hard to not touch any of the food that might still be on the ground in bags. [00:14:28] Speaker F: Less be. [00:14:29] Speaker B: Piper, turn around and bite her finger. [00:14:34] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:14:34] Speaker C: Piper treats you like Gozer used to treat me. I get it. Well, of course Arthur will follow. I just don't know if Gozer follows or not. He's a good boy right now. [00:14:45] Speaker B: He's a good boy right now. He's always a good boy. But, you know. [00:14:53] Speaker C: So, yeah, I will go through. And, of course, Arthur being Arthur, I can't resist pointing out that maybe one thing should. And just sees the death glare from Piper. You're all good. [00:15:16] Speaker B: Once they kind of get, like, a reasonable distance either into the building or around it, she'll take out her little vape out of the inside of her shirt, take one long puff on it, blow it out. So I'm having the visions again. [00:15:42] Speaker C: The ones that started a few months ago. [00:15:50] Speaker B: This one was a bit more intense than some of the others, and I don't quite know what it means. [00:16:08] Speaker C: Well, what was it? Maybe we can try to interpret it together. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Well, the first thing that I saw was the starless sky. As little strobes of light were hitting it, it would begin to ripple like water, and you could almost taste something. It was mystical and sweet and. And whimsical, and I think it might have been magic. I don't quite know what exactly it was, but it felt strange, right? But then all of a sudden, that went. And then I saw, like, a giant roman cross, and a woman was screaming bloody murder right in my face. And then I woke up, and I can still. [00:17:27] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:17:28] Speaker B: I can still taste magic. [00:17:33] Speaker F: Rosanna, it's faded by now. You could taste it when you first came out of it, though. Could you also make just a raw intelligence roll for me? [00:17:43] Speaker B: Sure thingy. [00:18:05] Speaker F: Just to correct one of the things that you said, you only saw a single light shoot up into the sky. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:18:14] Speaker F: And it stuck there, and that's when the ripples started. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Okay. Then I retcon, and. [00:18:27] Speaker C: A roman cross. [00:18:32] Speaker B: Like the one from the Bible. [00:18:40] Speaker C: Like the crucifixion cross? [00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah, like Jesus carried the cross on his back for, what, seven days while getting tortured. That type of cross. [00:19:00] Speaker F: Just to be clear, when I say roman cross, we're talking about the one that always looks like it's got, like, the three leaf clovers coming off the. [00:19:08] Speaker C: Little bobs on the edge. That's what I was trying to clarify. So not was it. Was it hard, was it just a wood cross, or was it more stylistic and hanging anywhere? [00:19:25] Speaker F: It was gold. You don't know if it was, like, real gold, but it certainly looked like gold. Very metallic, and it was, like, standing. It wasn't hanging. [00:19:40] Speaker B: Well, it looked like it could have been made out of gold, and it was standing. It wasn't hanging off of anything. [00:19:57] Speaker F: It. [00:19:58] Speaker B: I don't know what that means. [00:20:02] Speaker C: Well, I'm wondering, was the woman who screamed in your face, was she. Was she on it, or was she just near it, or, like, not at all? She just appeared out of nowhere. [00:20:14] Speaker F: You didn't see her. She just sounded like she was right next to you as she was screaming. [00:20:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't see her. But it was like, that intensity where you think that it's, like, right next to you, but she was just out of plain sat. [00:20:39] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think that. I don't know what that means, but the roman cross, it could be on something or pointing towards something or a symbol of something. Right? It has meaning by itself, and. I don't know. I think I'll have to think about this to see what your visions are telling you. I wish we knew where they were coming from. It would help narrow down the symbolism, because it's a symbol to me. It means something to me, but it's a symbol, and so it can mean something entirely different to you. And so knowing where these visions come from might help understand what it's supposed to mean. But. [00:21:41] Speaker B: I want that taste back. [00:21:45] Speaker C: The taste of magic or whatever it was. [00:21:52] Speaker B: Like I said, it felt right. Like, for a minute, it belonged to me. And then, you know, when you. When you dream and that dream feels so real and you think that it's something that you finally have and then reality sets in and you wake up and you realize that you don't have it. That's kind of how it felt, but. [00:22:38] Speaker C: So you think it might be a temptation toward magic? [00:22:42] Speaker B: I don't know. There's a lot to unpack and I don't think that it's quite that simple. Of I'm being tempted by magic or I'm being tempted by sorcery or what have you be. Maybe it's a symbol for something that worries me. [00:23:27] Speaker C: Yeah, it worries me, too. I mean, I don't. I don't know what your vision meant. And without further investigation, I don't know that I'll have an answer soon. But if there was this taste of magic, we discovered that you had a line of magic and witchcraft in your family, right? So I wonder if this is a calling from your. From your blood or something. [00:24:18] Speaker B: I don't know. When I first discovered it, I thought that it was just witchcraft. But as I have begun to enlighten myself and open up the possibility that things that might seem naked to the human eye are right flat in front of. Front of us, we're just ignorant to it until it really hits us in the face. Now I'm wondering maybe that magic is actual something. Well, I don't know. But I knew that if I kept that to myself, it would keep me up at night. And I already don't get enough sleep as it is. [00:25:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I'm glad that you told me. And I think I'm going to do what I can to find out if we can. This is a riddle we're supposed to solve. Or if it's just supposed to point us in a location, or if it's just random misfirings of your synapses or whatever. But I'm going to keep an eye on you, just like I always do. [00:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah. If I start floating in the air and going backwards, just pull me down, I guess. [00:25:50] Speaker C: I mean, if you start floating in the air and your head spins around and you start vomiting pea soup. [00:25:59] Speaker D: Strangely. [00:26:00] Speaker C: I might know exactly what to do. I may or may not have some training in that particular field. [00:26:07] Speaker B: Maybe a little bit. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Yeah, just a little bit. [00:26:12] Speaker B: Just a little bit. It's all right. If I start vomiting pea soup and my head starts going one hundred and eighty s and three hundred and sixty s, I'm sure it's probably not even the weirdest thing we would have dealt with. [00:26:38] Speaker C: It would be pretty close. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but definitely not like the most. [00:26:45] Speaker C: No, you're right. Getting drunk was the most weirdest thing. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Was it when we danced to mamma mia, you got drunk? I only got a little tipsy that day. [00:27:01] Speaker C: Okay, well, this is new information. You're telling me that I was more drunk than you? That's not good to hear. I'm supposed to be the sober one that gets you home safely as a perfect gentleman. [00:27:16] Speaker B: To be fair, I'm pretty sure you were trying to match. Oh, what's his name? Jesse. [00:27:24] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, that guy. [00:27:31] Speaker B: It was cute, but we'll look into it. [00:27:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it. Yeah, I'll see what I can figure out. I've got some ideas. But again, a symbol could mean a thousand different things to different people. So it's. It's almost too hard to know what a symbol means without some context. [00:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah, if it happens again and you're not there for it, all I'll say is, thank God it happened after we parked the car. [00:28:25] Speaker C: But, yeah. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Don'T Oracle and drive kids, I guess. Oh, come on. You're allowed to laugh. [00:28:41] Speaker F: All right. Piper and Isabelle, were you guys talking about anything as you were unloading groceries? Or more like when Piper was unloading and putting away groceries and Isabelle was just handing things to her. [00:28:55] Speaker A: I mean, I handed everything, and then I moved away. I did not want to be within. [00:29:02] Speaker D: Striking range of anything within arm's reach. [00:29:06] Speaker A: I retreated back to the table. I have my journal, and I have a small tablet computer, essentially like a Microsoft surface or whatever. And I am just working on my notes and sort of with the tablet computer, sketching out specific things, like specific wounds that were on Victoria for any notes or anything. Especially if my contact needs any more information. I can send all of that over because I will have digitized it. [00:29:37] Speaker F: Gotcha. Piper, any conversations you want to have? [00:29:44] Speaker D: Not really, no. [00:29:48] Speaker F: Okay. Isabel's being creepy and Piper's being standoffish. Got it. [00:29:55] Speaker D: Gonna refrain from chastising her for digitizing everything. [00:30:04] Speaker F: Um, Rosanna and Arthur, what do you guys do as you wrap up the. [00:30:11] Speaker C: Mean. Eventually, we'll wander back into the rv. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Very quiet. [00:30:17] Speaker F: It is very quiet. The sounds are Piper putting things together. So occasionally you hear cabinets opening and shutting, and Gozer go into town on a bone. And that's kind of it. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Wow. Don't party too hard. [00:30:37] Speaker D: Sorry, I was distracted. [00:30:42] Speaker C: By Frito lays. I'm not sure what could have distracted. [00:30:49] Speaker F: Arthur as you really pay attention to what has happened to the kitchen. Piper has. Every single cabinet has been opened and emptied, like, completely. There is nothing left in any of these cabinets. And she is going through and methodically putting everything back together in a manner that makes you think that she might be a little ocd. You may not necessarily understand what her organizational pattern is, but there obviously is one, because things are in very neat rows. They're coordinated in a way that she seems to understand. [00:31:32] Speaker C: Colors in alphabetical order. Good to know. [00:31:38] Speaker F: I mean, it's food, so I don't know that. I don't know that that's the way that she's doing it. But, yeah, she has completely dismantled the kitchen and is in the process of putting things back together. And you notice that at the little table where Isabelle is working. So, like, isabelle has set up on one side of it, and on the other side, Piper is stacking just all of the junk food that you have stored for the past two months and that, like, bought but never used. So there's, like, cup noodles, there's, like, bags of cheap just. It's all stacked on the opposite side of the. [00:32:18] Speaker D: Seriously, how? How did you people survive? [00:32:24] Speaker C: Happily, Arthur says that he takes a bag of Doritos and sits down next to Izzy to start munching on them. [00:32:32] Speaker A: I will steal some of the chips. [00:32:35] Speaker B: To be fair, I wasn't allowed to touch anything in the kitchen. We had Victoria for that, and she's one know, made the list and sent us out to go buy all this crap. And everything that is remotely healthy was in our little fridge right there. And that was because we had two people. Two people. Two of us who knew what a vegetable was. [00:33:06] Speaker C: I mean, I know what a vegetable is. I grew some in the compound, but I just don't successfully. Yeah, it's part of life in the compound. Church of the rising star really promotes that kind of thing. But it's basic foods and hearty, robust foods. Potatoes, cabbage, things like that. [00:33:32] Speaker D: So, in other words, none of the things that you've been eating for the past several months. [00:33:38] Speaker C: I mean, I don't have a patch of ground to grow a potato in, do I? [00:33:45] Speaker F: You also have no idea what happened to the potatoes after you dug them up. [00:33:50] Speaker D: You understand the concept of a grocery store, right? [00:33:54] Speaker C: Sure. It's where you buy groceries, but again, what is a Bach choy? [00:34:04] Speaker B: To be fair, that's not something that you commonly find in this area. [00:34:12] Speaker D: No, the Bach choy. I understand everything else. Again, how did you survive? How did you survive on your own without Rosanna and everybody else? [00:34:32] Speaker C: Well, I ate a lot of meals at various bars and really just dive places, places that were off the grid. Sometimes I was kind of laying low. [00:34:51] Speaker D: Got you. [00:34:54] Speaker B: Okay, well, maybe this is a good chance for us to start fresh, maybe lay off of the instant ramen for a little bit. And she's going to try to reach for the bag of chips in Arthur's hand. [00:35:18] Speaker C: He'll let her take it. He was only trying to enjoy a few chips. [00:35:23] Speaker B: And then she'll put one in her mouth and roll the bag up. [00:35:27] Speaker C: Despite the fact that he doesn't eat super great, he also doesn't eat a lot. He's not like an overeater in any way. Yeah. [00:35:39] Speaker D: Especially if we're going to be out in the field. I don't eat that shit all the time. [00:35:47] Speaker B: It might actually be better if we get a bit more protein. [00:35:52] Speaker D: Yes. [00:35:56] Speaker B: Not that I know the first. I mean, I know how to cook for myself, but I also am not super flamboyant in the kitchen either. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah, kind of. My diet was very similar to Arthur's for a bit, but I was working like 16 hours a day between the funeral home and the Emmy's office. [00:36:29] Speaker B: I think we've all been through the ramen phase of our lives. [00:36:34] Speaker D: Yeah, I went to college. [00:36:37] Speaker A: Like six months ago. [00:36:42] Speaker C: Okay, six months ago. [00:36:45] Speaker A: Six months ago I was still in the ramen phase. [00:36:49] Speaker C: I was going to say, how old am I? [00:36:53] Speaker D: I mean, I was in college about four years ago. [00:36:57] Speaker A: I was in college about six years ago. [00:37:01] Speaker B: Just graduated, mind you. Whole different program about a year and a half ago. [00:37:12] Speaker D: Nothing wrong with that. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I am technically Dr. Labelle. [00:37:20] Speaker D: Congratulations. [00:37:22] Speaker B: Don't use my degree for anything, but. [00:37:29] Speaker D: That sounds pretty standard. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a librarian. Before this. God, sometimes I miss it. [00:37:41] Speaker C: I bet it was quieter. [00:37:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:52] Speaker D: Weirdly enough, my life didn't change much. [00:37:58] Speaker C: I mean, that I believe. [00:38:03] Speaker D: Okay, but I'm not okay. What the fuck do we do? [00:38:12] Speaker A: That's a great question. I was going to ask what our plan next was. [00:38:16] Speaker B: Well, it's a Saturday night. We just got groceries. We're living in a beat up rv next to an abandoned restaurant with a dead body in the fridge. [00:38:35] Speaker C: And we're waiting for a suitably shady ex boyfriend of our late friend. [00:38:43] Speaker F: Mmhmm. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Partying, I guess, off the table. [00:38:52] Speaker B: I mean, there's a couple of, like, dive bars down the road if that's what you're looking for, but nothing super special. [00:39:02] Speaker D: We're in Florida. They kind of specialize in nothing super special. [00:39:15] Speaker A: I sent some samples from Victoria off to a contact of mine this morning. So hopefully in a couple of days, because she's got the really fancy machine, she'll be able to tell us something. [00:39:30] Speaker C: Then we'll have something to do but I do appreciate both of you coming. And I hope that we can figure out what happened and deal with it. And I understand if it becomes too dangerous, if you decide that it's too dangerous and you need to head back or whatever. But I appreciate both of you coming out to help with this. We. I can't. There's been some things that have happened to us and we've now lost yet another friend, and we have one that's missing. And as hunters dealing with the supernatural, we can't do it alone. No. [00:40:34] Speaker D: It'S just not fucking possible. [00:40:36] Speaker C: No. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Unless he got a death wish. [00:40:43] Speaker C: The greater. [00:40:46] Speaker A: Thing. I mean, none of us are known to have incredibly long lifespans. [00:40:53] Speaker C: No, we're outnumbered. I don't know how many for every one of us, but it's a lot. It's a lot. [00:41:08] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:41:10] Speaker C: And it takes more than one of us to take one of them down. So. [00:41:20] Speaker B: We just, you know, it might be, it might be better if we maybe have some mutual form of communication. So even if we're not all together, we have an instant way of getting in contact with one another. I've got a couple of phones that we can use for. Are you all rat popper? [00:41:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm fine. [00:41:57] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:42:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Certainly would help if we all had some burner phones. [00:42:06] Speaker B: Yeah, some burner phones. I've got a couple I can hand off. And then I'm going to have to get a hold of a guy who knows a guy who nozga to get some. [00:42:22] Speaker A: It's always helpful to have at least that option. [00:42:27] Speaker D: Yeah, we definitely need to be able to keep contact with each other. [00:42:35] Speaker B: Rosanna will go into the bunk bed that she crashed on, like back when they used to really rendezvous one another. And she's going to lift the mattress up and pull out a bag with the last couple of burner phones that she has and bring them back out and just toss the three of them a phone each. [00:43:04] Speaker F: Excellent. [00:43:06] Speaker B: Without the hello kitty charms. This time. [00:43:12] Speaker F: Each of you is given a new burner phone. Thankfully, these aren't difficult to get. They're literally just, you go to a store and you can just buy them. [00:43:25] Speaker C: Repay Max tell or something. [00:43:27] Speaker F: Yes. [00:43:32] Speaker B: All right, well, keep these with you at all times. The only numbers that are programmed are the numbers of the other burner phones. If we can avoid it, don't give anybody these numbers out that you don't 130% trust. And even then, maybe take a second guess. [00:43:55] Speaker A: I don't know if I trust anyone that much again. [00:43:57] Speaker D: Like I said, not much has changed from before. [00:44:03] Speaker B: These can be our primary ways of getting in touch with each other. I have taken the liberty of actually starting up a little group chat in there. Group chat? Think of it as Arthur. Maybe not when you used to mass send messages out to other flip phones and you would get the message, and then you would send a message out, but everybody who was involved in that mass text would also get that message. It's that type of group chat. [00:44:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:50] Speaker B: Oh, and there's Tetris. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Even better. [00:44:53] Speaker D: Oh, boy. [00:44:56] Speaker C: Are you talking about a chain letter? [00:45:01] Speaker B: Send this to three of your favorite besties or be cursed for the next 40 years. [00:45:06] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what you're talking about. So it's like that? [00:45:11] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:45:12] Speaker B: So it's like a chain link. It's a good way for all of us to get in contact with one another without putting one another at risk. [00:45:21] Speaker C: So just message into this group thing, and then you all get the message. Yeah. [00:45:31] Speaker B: Got it. And again, you got Tetris. And I think one of you've got snake. [00:45:40] Speaker D: The wheel of who gets to play snake. [00:45:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:46] Speaker D: All right, so we've got contact information. We might have more information coming in a couple of days, but we don't really have anything to go on. Well, we don't have anything actionable to go on. [00:46:04] Speaker C: Yeah, we have some things, but not enough. [00:46:07] Speaker B: Yeah. It might be worth it to maybe poke into what we know and see if we can dig anything else up. I know that I've got some stuff I need to look into, and if things turn out fruitful, then I can maybe present it to all of you for us to potentially look into together. [00:46:33] Speaker D: Yeah. Not sure how easy it's going to be to track. Car keeps changing license plates. That's kind of why they'll do that. [00:46:47] Speaker C: But. [00:46:52] Speaker F: Just as a reminder, you also have Zephyr's stuff to look into. All you know is that he went to Brown. You guys haven't really done any digging there yet. [00:47:09] Speaker C: Not quite. Yep. [00:47:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:11] Speaker D: We have a phone number, don't we? [00:47:13] Speaker C: Yes, we do. [00:47:14] Speaker A: I think it might be better if somebody that knows him gives him a call. [00:47:22] Speaker B: Going to look to Arthur. [00:47:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll call. I'll call the number, and hopefully it's him. [00:47:38] Speaker F: Okay. Are you calling here? Are you going to step outside? [00:47:47] Speaker C: Part of me wants to call Cagey. [00:47:49] Speaker F: With each other, so I have to. [00:47:50] Speaker C: Ask, but I'm probably going to step outside just because. Yes. [00:47:57] Speaker B: Okay. [00:47:58] Speaker C: Step outside. That's what's going to be. [00:48:00] Speaker F: Okay. [00:48:02] Speaker C: It's because Zephyr is the one that's trying to be secretive and hiding. Not Arthur being cagey and untrusting. That's not what. [00:48:09] Speaker D: Of course not. [00:48:09] Speaker F: No, not at all. You guys have definitely not all been cagey and untrusting with each other. [00:48:14] Speaker C: No, they're the pillar of trust. [00:48:20] Speaker F: You pull out the piece of paper that you got. Well, I should say the piece of paper that you wrote, the number that the lady at the restaurant wrote on your hand down on and you dial it and it rings and it rings and it rings. And on the fourth ring, a woman's voice picks up. Hello, Newcrest Animal Hospital. How may I help you? [00:48:59] Speaker C: Yeah, sorry. I was just trying to get in contact with someone who may or may not work there. [00:49:13] Speaker F: Does this someone have a name? [00:49:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's an old friend. My name is Arthur and I'm just trying to get hold of an old friend named Zephyr who, you know, I was just kind of in town and was trying to get hold of them. I was kind of given this as a point where maybe they were. [00:49:40] Speaker F: There's a long pause. Can you make me a wits and insight roll? [00:49:49] Speaker C: I absolutely can make a wits and insight roll for you. Get over here, dice. That's four successes. [00:50:11] Speaker F: So there's this pregnant pause right where it's just silence between the two of you and for a minute there you actually think that she might have already hung up. And then you hear an exhale and then the click of the phone hanging up. She recognized the name. You're not sure if this is how she was supposed to react or if there is something wrong. [00:50:46] Speaker C: Quickly checking my memory, what did she say the name of the hospital was again? The animal hospital. [00:50:50] Speaker F: Newcrest Animal Hospital. [00:50:53] Speaker C: Got it. To call again or to just find out where Newcrest Animal Hospital is. I'm going to call again. [00:51:13] Speaker F: Okay, you call back and again there's several rings and then the phone picks up, and this time it's a man's voice. Newcrest Animal hospital. How may I help you? [00:51:27] Speaker C: Hi, yeah, my wife dropped off our animal there a little while ago and I'm supposed to pick them up, but I've never actually been to your hospital before, so I'm just trying to make sure I can find it. What is your address so I can be able to pick up my animal. [00:51:49] Speaker F: Make me a manipulation and subterfuge role, please. [00:51:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fine. Is this count as bluffing? [00:52:04] Speaker F: Yeah, I'll give it to you. [00:52:06] Speaker C: Okay. [00:52:07] Speaker F: Even though you literally said, my wife dropped off my animal you could have said cat. You could have said dog. And it would have said, it's so natural. But you said, my wife dropped off my animal. Like you didn't know what it was. So this is going to be a difficult bar to Clear. [00:52:23] Speaker C: I don't know what kind of animal hospital it is. For all I know, they specialize in Komodo dragons. Can I reroll the failures? [00:52:33] Speaker F: Yes, you can absolutely reroll the failures. [00:52:36] Speaker B: Okay. [00:52:37] Speaker C: Four successes. [00:52:40] Speaker F: The guy sounds like he's potentially at least a little put off and concerned, but he rattles off an address to you. That is in checking my notes. Checking my notes. Checking my notes. That is in Kentucky. In Lexington, specifically. [00:53:14] Speaker C: Very good. Okay. Yeah, it shouldn't be too long. I'll be by in a little bit. It's been a busy work day and whatnot, so thank you for that. And. Yeah, well, I'll see you in a little while. [00:53:28] Speaker F: All right. And he will hang up. [00:53:35] Speaker C: All right. Adding Lexington, Kentucky, to the list of places we need to go might take. [00:53:41] Speaker A: Us a little bit to get there. [00:53:43] Speaker D: Yeah, we might have to deal with a few things before we get to that point. [00:53:52] Speaker C: Okay, well, that didn't go as well as I expected, but I should have expected a little, basically that from Zephyr. [00:54:09] Speaker B: Actually. Zephyr. [00:54:11] Speaker C: I didn't realize how connected to shady people Zephyr was. But anyway, it sounds like that I called the new crest animal hospital, and whomever answered did know who I was talking about, lady, but she hung up after I said I was looking for Zeph. [00:54:37] Speaker B: Got it. Yeah. [00:54:44] Speaker C: But it's in Lexington, Kentucky. [00:54:47] Speaker B: What in the non hells would that boy be doing in Lexington, Kentucky, of all places? [00:54:56] Speaker D: Probably hiding. [00:54:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. [00:55:02] Speaker B: But at an animal hospital or involving himself with an animal hospital. I didn't know he was that connected with animals like that. [00:55:16] Speaker C: No, he was connected with death, bodies and anatomy. And if you're going to hide, then you need to hide somewhere where you can use some of your skills to the place where no one questions that. [00:55:31] Speaker B: You have those abilities. [00:55:33] Speaker A: That's fair. [00:55:38] Speaker C: If I were to go somewhere, I wouldn't hide as a preacher because, well, I mean, people would know. That's, like, not really a cover, but something where I could use some of my skills to blend in. [00:55:59] Speaker B: We now have at least a location on a list to go to. The question lies. What now, while we're here, I don't know if we're going to find the answers to any of the questions that we have here. [00:56:22] Speaker A: And it's not like we can take another look at the crime scene. [00:56:29] Speaker B: Yeah, no, unfortunately, Dietrix took care of cleanup. [00:56:40] Speaker D: Probably best that he did get the police involved. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:49] Speaker A: My eyes will twitch over all of that lost evidence. [00:56:55] Speaker C: I have some pictures, but it was that or lots of bad things involving law enforcement happened. [00:57:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't reference, things involving law. [00:57:07] Speaker D: Enforcement are bad, generally. [00:57:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Do we want to see possibly if anybody else has turned up recently with similar wounds? That might be a way to get any kind of. [00:57:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I was going to check newspapers to see if there was any incidents that involve maulings or brutal deaths in apartments, that kind of thing. [00:57:41] Speaker A: I think it might be a good way forward. I don't know, maybe I can bluff my way into the Emmy's office or something, or talk to anybody. If there's a specific bar that Emmys frequent because they like to go there and get drunk after work. [00:58:02] Speaker D: If I can get into their system, I can give us everything that they have. [00:58:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I could also try to. Like I said, there are a couple of smaller bars down the road from us. I could poke in there, see what I can find. [00:58:30] Speaker C: I mean, I could easily poke in there as well. We could split up, but want to split up. [00:58:41] Speaker D: We shouldn't. [00:58:43] Speaker C: No. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Bar crawl. [00:58:47] Speaker B: Maybe we take my car down to the nearest dive bars. Those who don't want to socialize don't have to. And those who want to go in and get pissed drunk can piss drunk. [00:59:02] Speaker D: Please don't. [00:59:06] Speaker C: Do we have any ET on Dietrich. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Storyteller? [00:59:17] Speaker F: Sorry, what was the question? [00:59:20] Speaker B: On. [00:59:21] Speaker F: Yeah, Dietrich said that he would be there in a day or two. That's what you guys told him. You said you needed the body for a day or two. [00:59:31] Speaker B: About a day or two. [00:59:34] Speaker F: So there's a good chance he's going to show up. Probably Sunday night, maybe Monday morning. [00:59:40] Speaker A: Okay, have an entire day. [00:59:43] Speaker C: Then I guess we check out the bars, see if anyone's heard anything. [00:59:50] Speaker D: Yeah, I can keep an eye on here just in case. [00:59:58] Speaker C: I mean, someone's got a Watch and feed goes. [01:00:03] Speaker F: Arthur, your phone rings. [01:00:06] Speaker C: My phone rings? [01:00:07] Speaker F: Yes. [01:00:08] Speaker C: Okay. Do I recognize the number at all? [01:00:13] Speaker F: No, but it's a brand new phone. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Cool. Is it a Kentucky area code or a California area code? Step outside and answer. Either way. [01:00:32] Speaker F: You step outside and you pick up the phone. The voice on the other end is male, but distinctly not human. It's robotic. [01:00:55] Speaker C: Hello? [01:00:59] Speaker F: Why are you calling for Zephyr? [01:01:04] Speaker C: Why are you asking me about Zephyr? [01:01:11] Speaker F: Stop calling for. [01:01:15] Speaker C: Um. Well, I can't do that since I need his help. [01:01:29] Speaker F: Is it an emergency? [01:01:34] Speaker C: Victoria's dead, and we have no idea. So, yeah, it could be. Who is one of those television voice modulator things? And is this efron the other end, or is it someone else? [01:02:01] Speaker F: I can't help you with Victoria. She was warned. She didn't listen. [01:02:11] Speaker C: Did you warn her? [01:02:14] Speaker F: She was warned. She didn't listen. [01:02:21] Speaker C: How was she warned? She know that it was a warning. [01:02:27] Speaker F: Yes. [01:02:31] Speaker C: You were clear about that. [01:02:33] Speaker F: Very. Just to be clear, there are pauses between all of these messages, but I don't want to have a bunch of dead air. [01:02:43] Speaker C: Sure. Have you warned us? Because I don't think I've gotten a warning. [01:02:57] Speaker F: If you got the number. If you got the number, then you got the. [01:03:05] Speaker C: Uh. So Zephyr's in hiding because Zephyr understood the warning. [01:03:19] Speaker F: Arthur, roll me just a straight intelligence check. [01:03:26] Speaker B: Okay? [01:03:27] Speaker F: Test your memory, my dude. [01:03:30] Speaker C: Not my smartest. I am not the smartest. Oh, wow. Two successes. Yeah. [01:03:40] Speaker F: So the letter or the note that you were left, that was left by Zephyr very clearly talked about being followed and hunted, and that's why he's hiding. You're smart enough to put two and two together and assume that that was probably the warning that this person is talking about. [01:04:12] Speaker C: Well, if you have the ability to contact Sephir, then you should probably know that we need his help, and there's a lot going on, and we don't know even where to start. But if you can't do that, then maybe if you're a friend, you can do something other than be a robotic voice on the other end of a phone. [01:04:54] Speaker F: I warned you. [01:05:04] Speaker C: Warned me. Okay, so what do I do from here? Go into hiding somewhere on some unknown network with some unknown network of friends? [01:05:25] Speaker F: That's up to you. [01:05:31] Speaker C: Is Zephyr safe? [01:05:37] Speaker F: For now. [01:05:39] Speaker C: For now? Should I be worried about the for now part? [01:05:52] Speaker F: You should always be worried. [01:05:58] Speaker C: Are you friend or foe? [01:06:02] Speaker F: Friend. [01:06:05] Speaker C: Okay, then I'll trust you for now. But if anything were to happen to Zephyr and you were somehow connected to it, you should be worried. [01:06:25] Speaker F: The line goes dead. [01:06:36] Speaker C: There for a little bit with his fists clenching. So angry, but doesn't know what to take it out on. [01:06:44] Speaker F: Do you have the phone in your hand? Make me a wits awareness check, please. [01:06:52] Speaker C: Sure, I can do that. Hold on. I have to cross reference my character sheet. Okay, hold on. [01:07:13] Speaker F: Miss. [01:07:15] Speaker C: I'm going to reroll some failures. Oh, that was better. [01:07:26] Speaker F: Yeah. You don't notice anything? [01:07:28] Speaker C: No. Yeah, no, of course not. Not with that kind of rolling. Okay, well, after taking a minute to just breathe and probably smoke a cigarette outside of the rV. Arthur will come back in and just look at the others and go. Some mysterious return phone call from my call to the animal hospital told me to stop looking for Zephyr and that Victoria had been warned. And she knew she had been warned, but ignored. The warning. [01:08:30] Speaker A: Feels incredibly vague. [01:08:37] Speaker C: However, this voice claimed to be a friend and said that Zephyr was safe. So whomever decides to call with a robotic, modulated voice from some number that I will show to Piper and the sort of, like, hint, hint. See if you can find out anything on this number. [01:09:05] Speaker F: Piper, make me a wits awareness check, please. Actually, anybody who could see the screen of the phone can make a wits awareness checks. [01:09:13] Speaker B: Sure. [01:09:16] Speaker C: On a phone just activated that has only been used to call said animal hospital. Fourth seems great. One. [01:09:34] Speaker B: Two. [01:09:35] Speaker F: All right. Some of y'all are very distracted by how pissed off Arthur seems to be. However, comma, Piper, as you look at the screen of this phone, at first you think maybe the screen's broken. Maybe some of the pixels are funky. Maybe Arthur, in his upset mood, like, squeezed the phone too hard and managed to damage the little screen. And then you realize that what is actually happening is that in a very rhythmic pattern, some of the numbers. Look, it's like all of the numbers in. In the phone number, except for one, will go slightly more gray than black, and then it'll shift, and the dark one will be one of the other numbers, and it's the whole number. It's obviously very intentional, but it's almost imperceptible. If you hadn't been looking directly at it to get the number so that you could look it up, you never would have realized. And it's doing it in a pattern over and over again. [01:11:01] Speaker D: Arthur, what the hell is going on with your phone? What is the pattern? Is it, like, anything important? [01:11:11] Speaker F: The specific pattern is not super important. What is important? I'm not going to call out a bunch of numbers, because for real life purposes, the exact numbers don't matter. What you notice is that it is the same numbers over and over and over again in a pattern. [01:11:35] Speaker C: I don't know. I used it. And twice. That's it. I don't know how many minutes were on this burner phone, but, I mean, I may have used them all up. [01:11:45] Speaker D: Give me the phone. [01:11:48] Speaker C: Yeah, pretty sure that I was just doing that. [01:11:51] Speaker F: Yeah. Should I assume that you are writing down the numbers? [01:11:55] Speaker D: Yes. [01:11:56] Speaker F: Okay. You write down the numbers, and after you write them out, make me. This is a weird role. Let's do int an investigation or wits an investigation. But I need you to tell me if you're going into wits and other people can help with this. [01:12:26] Speaker D: By the way, I will be going with intelligence. [01:12:30] Speaker B: I would like to help. [01:12:32] Speaker F: Okay, go ahead. And you can both roll. [01:12:37] Speaker B: Okay. [01:12:43] Speaker F: Holy. Well, I mean, you're welcome to roll if you want to help, but I really don't know that piper needs it. [01:12:52] Speaker B: I'll roll anyway, just to see what happens. [01:13:01] Speaker F: It. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds about right. [01:13:08] Speaker F: Legacy. It looks just like another. Like you're confused. You're going through the list. You're like, could this be like a combination to a lock somewhere? Could this be a phone number? But maybe it's just missing the area code. You're not sure, and you're really drawing a blank. And, Piper, as soon as you write it down, you realize that you can put decimals between every three letters. It's an IP address. [01:13:40] Speaker D: Oh, shit. Interesting place to hide that. It's an IP address in here. [01:13:57] Speaker C: An IP address? Like, is that a location that we go to? [01:14:05] Speaker D: No, IP address. Essentially, think of as a computer's location on the Internet. Essentially. It's the most simple way I can explain. [01:14:19] Speaker F: It. [01:14:22] Speaker C: Okay, so it's an Internet address, like a website? [01:14:29] Speaker D: Not exactly. Typically, it's tied to a single machine, but I might be able to figure out where it was coming from. Or at least I can try. [01:14:45] Speaker A: And it's more than we had ten minutes ago. [01:14:49] Speaker D: Weird that it was hidden. [01:14:59] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:15:00] Speaker A: Weird is kind of our entire lives. [01:15:07] Speaker D: You're not wrong. [01:15:09] Speaker E: Yeah, it's sort of the nature of our job. [01:15:15] Speaker D: Yeah. So I would like to, if possible, try and trace this IP address. [01:15:23] Speaker F: Okay. I'm going to assume that because you're you, you are taking all of the necessary security steps before you. Before you do this. Okay? [01:15:42] Speaker D: No, she's just gonna. She's gonna take her primary computer and just find it. No, she's going to. [01:15:49] Speaker F: Listen, I have to ask, because sometimes people don't want to invest the time. Because it does take time. [01:15:55] Speaker D: Yes, it absolutely takes time. [01:16:02] Speaker C: Your phone browser, and type in, like, 1681, and it just doesn't go badly for you. [01:16:13] Speaker D: She just looks up at Arthur. [01:16:18] Speaker F: I don't even know that Arthur would know enough to make that joke. [01:16:21] Speaker C: Arthur would not be able to. That was all Scott. Arthur, zero tech intelligence, too. He does not understand how any of this works. He said it was an Internet address. He thought it was a website. [01:16:31] Speaker F: Rosanna, do you want to help with this process? [01:16:37] Speaker B: Sure. [01:16:39] Speaker F: Okay. So you can help in one of two ways. You can either help with the security side, of things. Or you can help cut down on the amount of time the whole process is going to take by basically being the second gunner in a fighter jet where you are taking orders from Piper and doing what Piper asks you to do because it makes her life easier. [01:17:05] Speaker B: Your choice. I will totally do what I can. Oh, you know what? I will ask Piper. I offer my assistance because I realize, you know, what we used to get ourselves into. Do you need my help? And if so, what do you want me to do? I can help with security, or I can dig a little deeper with you. [01:17:36] Speaker D: I would say focus on security. Last thing we want is somebody finding us. [01:17:42] Speaker B: Got it. And she'll begin to dig deep into security. [01:17:50] Speaker F: Okay, Rosanna and Piper, I need both of you to make me intelligence and technology roles, please. [01:17:57] Speaker D: All right. [01:18:01] Speaker F: Piper, you do not get to add your surveillance. [01:18:04] Speaker D: I figured not. [01:18:14] Speaker C: All right, is there any more? [01:18:18] Speaker B: I'm going to willpower. [01:18:19] Speaker F: Reroll. Okay. What were you going to say, Arthur? [01:18:25] Speaker C: Oh, I was just asking if there was any more. That coffee. Because during all of this, Arthur is just going to sit there with a coffee cup and stare over their shoulders and nod sagely like he has any idea what they're doing. [01:18:35] Speaker F: Do you know how to use the coffee maker? No. [01:18:39] Speaker C: That's what I was asking. If there's any leftover coffee. If there's no leftover coffee, then no, probably not. [01:18:44] Speaker F: Because it's well into the. [01:18:49] Speaker A: I mean, Isabel can make coffee if it looks like you need some. [01:18:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, absolutely. [01:18:54] Speaker A: I'm a gremlin. And we'll just ice previous coffee. But I can make fresh coffee. [01:18:59] Speaker C: So will Arthur. [01:19:03] Speaker F: So Arthur goes to grab a mug and looks down and realizes that there is nothing but just the dregs of the last pot of coffee. Like, half of it is ground. Oh, that's gross. That's the kind of coffee that you could chew. That's disgusting. [01:19:23] Speaker D: Literally crunchy. [01:19:31] Speaker C: But yeah. [01:19:33] Speaker F: Isabelle steps up and starts brewing a fresh pot of coffee when she realizes she's like, okay, we could be here for a while. All right, so Piper and Rosanna are going to attempt to hack the Internet together. All right, let's see. Piper got five successes. Not bad. Okay, I did want to ask. You're underground, aren't Piper? [01:20:16] Speaker D: Yes. [01:20:19] Speaker F: Can't you use your. [01:20:21] Speaker D: I can. [01:20:24] Speaker F: I will allow you to roll an extra die. I mean, you guys only have the one, but if you would like to apply that, I will absolutely allow you to. [01:20:49] Speaker D: Well, that's a one. [01:20:52] Speaker F: Okay. I believe that danger goes up when you fuck up on those roles, right. [01:21:02] Speaker B: Either danger or she can danger, despair. [01:21:05] Speaker F: Or you can fall into despair. Do you want to go into despair, or do you want the danger to go up? You are currently at one danger. [01:21:15] Speaker D: Yeah, I think the danger going up is the better option, considering. I don't want Piper to be in despair because it'll kind of fuck her whole thing up for a while. [01:21:29] Speaker F: For a while, yeah. Okay. All right. Desperation stays where it is, right? [01:21:43] Speaker C: Yes. Desperation really only goes up when you kind of want it to. [01:21:48] Speaker F: Yes. Story stuff. Got it. Okay. All right. So you are going to succeed because you did roll enough successes, you're just going to succeed at a cost. Yeah. Here's what happens. Rosanna, how many successes did you get? Two. Okay. Yeah, no, that's fine. Rosanna, you're effectively monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic and kind of playing ping pong with any general queries that come in. Piper's setup is incredibly sophisticated. It does a lot of stuff for you, because Piper is only one person, and no matter how fabulous she is, she only has two hands. Essentially, what your job is, is to kind of monitor, and if anything looks like it is trying to brute force its way into your system to try and stop it and turn it back, which you are more than equipped to do with two successes. Assuming that it's brute force. Piper, you run a trace on this IP address, and it turns out to be linked to what looks like it might be a server of sorts. But you can't get to, let's say, 99% of what's on the server. This thing has the kind of security on it that you honestly could see yourself spending an awful lot of time just poking at it to try and figure out how it works. As good as you are, you recognize that it would probably take you months of work to get inside of the system, unless you wanted to brute force it and make yourself very obvious. And given the kind of security that you're running into, you don't want to make yourself very obvious. However, what's weird is that it is like this thing has been set up specifically for you to find something. They know exactly what they want you to find. When you get here, you poke around a little bit, of course, because you're. You're subtle, you're not aggressive about it, so you're not leaving any traces. You are confident enough in your abilities, at least with that. And what you end up pulling. Excuse me, pulling up is actually the hosting information for a web page on the deep web. And when you open up said web page, it looks like, just a jumble of chaos. It is a lot. There is code. There are, like, mathematical sequences. There are symbols you've never seen before. There are names and references to things, names that stand out to you, given your involvement with some people who are very into weird conspiracy theories, including Rosanna, to be fair. In fact, that's kind of how you two met. Looks like it's a hot mess. Are you. How do you have your screens oriented? Are they, like, turned towards a wall so that only you can see what's on them, or can people kind of peek over your shoulder? [01:26:29] Speaker D: They can look over my shoulder. [01:26:31] Speaker F: Okay. I would like Isabelle specifically to roll me wits and investigation, please. Okay. [01:26:57] Speaker A: There is. For successes. [01:27:00] Speaker F: Very good. Okay, Isabel, one of the advantages to doing the job that you do is that you have to be able to hyper focus your attention and block out extraneous details and emotional triggers. You have to be able to look at the worst kinds of horror that human beings can do to one another to do your job. And you have to be able to do it dispassionately and emotionlessly and boil it down to its most basic, core, fundamental truths. So that tends to make you very good at other things, like puzzles. And it takes you a minute of staring at this huge jumble of information that Piper has up on her screen, and it hits you. You're not entirely sure what the answer to the puzzle is, but this is a puzzle. It is a very intricate and detailed puzzle, but it's a puzzle. There's a pattern to everything that's on that screen. [01:28:23] Speaker A: And it does appear to be some sort of puzzle that we should solve. And I'll start pointing out, like, the repeating things and the parts that make it a puzzle. And sort of seeing, like, here and here. I can't tell what it means, but the repeated information like this, it is almost like a game. [01:28:57] Speaker B: Rosanna is going to take out a journal and a pen, and she's going to start noting all of these down to see if putting it on pen and paper and having her actually write it out will help her kind of click things in motion and begin to kind of slowly intertwine and piece things together. [01:29:21] Speaker F: Okay, that is totally doable. I'm not going to make you roll anything to be able to copy it down. It does take you a while, because there is a lot. And I would say that you are intelligent enough to know that your first priority needs to just be getting it down on paper, because you don't know how long you're going to have access to that page? [01:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah. She'll copy all of it down and then try to break it down, like, piece by piece from what seems to make sense to kind of put together once everything's been written down and copied. And I'm sure her hand and wrist are very sore at the end of that. Quite sore, yes. But then she'll go and she'll start kind of, like, breaking it down and seeing what seems to fit together. [01:30:24] Speaker F: Right. Got you. Well, there is a very clear order that everything needs to go in, so that's helpful. There's a string of numbers and letters that look like they're probably code. There's a section that is a math math equation, like a really complex math equation. There's a section that looks like it might be a riddle, and there's a section that looks like it's in gibberish at first, until you realize that there's every chance that if it's not another language, it is like an anagram of some sort. You're not entirely sure what you're going to get when you solve all of those sections, but you have the feeling that if you solve all of them, that they will give you some greater insight. [01:31:21] Speaker B: All right. Then she'll kind of split. So it's basically like four pieces, right? Or is it like multiple sections? [01:31:33] Speaker F: There's more than that, but, yeah, it's basically four pieces. [01:31:37] Speaker B: Okay. So she's basically willing to cut this puzzle into four pieces and hand them off to everybody and be like, here. Organizationally, this makes the most sense. If we all work on one chunk of this puzzle together and kind of mesh them in, we might have at least a better probability of figuring this out. [01:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I am more than happy to sit down and solve this puzzle. [01:32:09] Speaker C: You mean to say that standing here observing you with coffee is not good enough? That was a joke. Sorry. Get back to it. I'll go solve what I can. [01:32:20] Speaker D: And if you can't solve it, feel free to switch with somebody else. [01:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah, we've got four minds. I think we might be able to figure this out if we take the time and really focus in on this, because this could be important, or it could be a complete waste of time. Knock unknown till we try. [01:32:42] Speaker D: Well, thankfully, with the Internet, this is all deliberate. They wanted me to find this. So either it's here for them to. [01:32:51] Speaker B: Laugh at me, or it's here to give us a direction. [01:32:56] Speaker D: And considering we don't have a direction, then. [01:33:00] Speaker B: Better than nothing. [01:33:02] Speaker D: Exactly. [01:33:05] Speaker F: All right, you all have split up the puzzles. The sections of this big interlocking puzzle together among you. I'd like to know who is going to take which puzzle. [01:33:31] Speaker C: I didn't have a choice. So whichever one was Hannah, Darth, whichever. [01:33:35] Speaker D: One was left. [01:33:42] Speaker A: I think isabelle would gone for. Whichever one outwardly may look a little bit more complex simply because it's hyper focused. Brain kicking in. Must solve puzzle. [01:33:59] Speaker F: Out of everybody here. I mean, they're all really complex, but they're complex in different ways. And I'm going to say that with your particular background and what you know of the people around you, you are most likely to be the strongest one with the math section. Given your stem background, you've taken lots and lots of math classes. [01:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I am, for once, playing a masque. [01:34:31] Speaker F: Yes, I love everything about that. The masquet. Okay, I'm going to assume Piper is going to want the one that looks like it's code. [01:34:51] Speaker D: Yes. [01:34:53] Speaker F: Rosanna, do you want the riddle or do you want the. [01:35:01] Speaker B: Hmm? I mean, both kind of work with take. I'll take the anagram. [01:35:15] Speaker F: Which leaves Arthur with the riddle. Okay, so I have good news and bad news for everybody. The good news is we're not going to spend the next half hour to an hour actually manually doing all of these puzles. I'm not interested in having to read them all out on stream and make you guys hunker down and do them. So I'm not going to read out anything or anything like that. The bad news is they're not easy and you are at the whim of the dice. If you guys don't solve it tonight, that's fine. You can try again later. This is something that you can do over a period of time. It is a big, complex, multipiece thing. The reality is that each of you has, like, multiple mini puzzles that you are going to have to solve, that all link together. They just come in four different flavors, and that's how Rosanna has split them up. And Rosanna has, like, the big master key that shows how each piece connects to the next piece. It's a little bit like you've all been given, like, tests in school. You've just got a bunch of disparate puzzles that are all unique in their own way. So let's see. Who wants to be the first person to get messed with? [01:36:44] Speaker D: I appreciate you not calling us victims directly. [01:36:47] Speaker A: I'll volunteer. [01:36:50] Speaker F: You're going to volunteer as tribute? Is that what's happening? [01:36:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll volunteer as tribute. [01:36:55] Speaker F: Okay. Well, Isabel, I would like you to give me int and let's see. Give me int and academics um, and I'm going to lower the difficulty for you because of that thing that I had you put on your sheet. You're still looking for the same target number in your roles. I'm just going to lower the number of successes that you need. And I would like that five times. [01:37:46] Speaker A: Five times. [01:37:47] Speaker C: Okay. [01:37:47] Speaker F: The same role. Five times it. [01:37:56] Speaker A: Starting off pretty good with the first rolls. Four successes is a crit. [01:38:00] Speaker F: Very nice. [01:38:04] Speaker A: Two successes. [01:38:05] Speaker F: K. [01:38:10] Speaker A: Four successes. [01:38:13] Speaker F: Very good. [01:38:19] Speaker A: One success. Would I need to spend willpower before, like, moving on to the next role? Because if I wanted to spend willpower on that one success, just to bump that up. [01:38:34] Speaker F: Yeah. Okay. [01:38:37] Speaker A: Move that up to three. [01:38:39] Speaker F: Very good. [01:38:47] Speaker A: And I'm going to spend another willpower on that. [01:38:50] Speaker F: Okay. [01:38:52] Speaker A: And move it up to four. [01:38:54] Speaker F: Well done. Okay, who's next? I will give you the outcome to all of this once we've all done our roles, just to let everybody know. [01:39:08] Speaker D: I'll go next. [01:39:10] Speaker F: All right, piper, give me five rolls. I would like int and technology, please. [01:39:20] Speaker D: All right. [01:39:25] Speaker F: No, your specialty does not apply. [01:39:27] Speaker D: No, I figured three, six. [01:39:35] Speaker F: Holy shit. [01:39:39] Speaker D: Five. Three. [01:39:45] Speaker F: Two. Okay, you've both managed to get at least one critical. Rosanna, you get to go next. You don't have a choice. [01:40:01] Speaker B: Why? [01:40:02] Speaker F: Because I see you over there actively chickening out and I'm going to make you go. [01:40:09] Speaker B: Okay. [01:40:16] Speaker F: You have the anagram correct. But let's see what I'm going to have you roll for. That's. This is going to be a weird role. Okay, we're going to go with Int and insight it. [01:40:55] Speaker B: Come on. All right. Three a. [01:41:17] Speaker F: Four. [01:41:18] Speaker B: A it. Another three, a five. [01:41:34] Speaker F: Awesome. Girls are kicking ass right now. [01:41:41] Speaker B: Two, but I'm going to reroll. [01:41:43] Speaker D: Okay, three girls put most of their stats in the mental. [01:41:51] Speaker F: Arthur, you have the riddles. [01:41:57] Speaker C: Yes. [01:41:59] Speaker F: All right, this is going to be, again, another weird combo. This is going to be manipulation and investigation. [01:42:25] Speaker C: Okay. After all that, five times, right? [01:42:35] Speaker F: Yes, sir. You can use willpower, but you have to use it immediately and not when you get all of them done. [01:42:43] Speaker C: Okay. Just want to make sure I have the right numbers. Okay, that's two. I'm going to leave it so two on that one. [01:43:21] Speaker F: Okay. Zero. Not good. [01:43:30] Speaker D: The dice roll ended up almost exactly the same. [01:43:33] Speaker B: Hold on. [01:43:34] Speaker F: Where you roll your next roll. [01:43:36] Speaker C: Yes. [01:43:38] Speaker F: I need you to roll me. Resolve. Actually, roll me your unspent willpower. [01:43:49] Speaker C: Ah, that sucks. Okay. [01:43:55] Speaker F: All right, you're cool. You can move on to the next one if you would like. [01:43:58] Speaker C: Okay. Gosh, these are riddles that are bending my mind. Awesome. Cool. Fun times. Three. How many, Matt? One, two. [01:44:16] Speaker F: You've done four. [01:44:17] Speaker C: Three. Four. Okay, so last one. [01:44:23] Speaker F: Four with a critical. Not bad. Not bad. Rosanna, were any of yours criticals? [01:44:31] Speaker B: Nope. [01:44:32] Speaker F: Okay. You just got really good roles in general. Okay, very cool. Now, from absolutely everybody, I need all of you to roll me. Let's do composure and apologies. Hold on. Just roll me. Your composure. [01:45:17] Speaker A: Would my flaw have affect any of. [01:45:22] Speaker F: That, looking at your flaws? No, it would not. I to roll. Do you want to willpower that, Aubrey? [01:45:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. [01:45:56] Speaker A: I don't want to live with zero. [01:45:59] Speaker F: Go ahead. And I'm living with zero. [01:46:02] Speaker B: No. [01:46:04] Speaker C: Welcome to my world again. [01:46:06] Speaker D: Almost the exact same fucking role. [01:46:10] Speaker F: You know what? The dice have their opinions, and they're going to make you. You will live and die by those opinions. Okay, Isabelle, you did the first role. You did the first group of roles, I should say so. These aren't easy equations to work out. You do have to work at it. The first one, you kind of fly through. In fact, you fly through it so quickly that it surprises you a little bit. That's the one that you rolled the critical on. It went very quickly. The second one was harder and kind of annoyed you a little bit, and it took a lot longer for you to figure it out. In all reality, it was probably something that you would have encountered in a higher level math class than you actually took. But you did eventually get through it. You kind of had to pull out your personal phone and google some math rules to make sure that you were doing things the right way. But you did figure it out. And the final three, you didn't blow through quite as quickly as the first, but you did eventually get through them. All in all, that entire thing took you about 4 hours. Had you blown through the second one as quickly as you blew through the others, it probably would have been closer to, like, two and a half to three. But because you got hung up on that second one, it took you a lot longer. Piper. The first, fourth, and fifth. The first and the fourth were absolute slog fest to get through. They were really hard for you. The second one was a breeze. No problem at all. It was a language that you are intimately familiar with. You've used it a million times. You got it. The problem that you're running into is that every single one of these is in a different code language. So the first one was hard. The second one was a breeze because it was something that you were familiar with. The third one, you have used enough that it was not super difficult for you. It's not a language that you know really, really well, but use something very similar on a fairly regular basis. The fourth one, again, was really hard. The fifth one, you have not figured out yet. Rosanna, you figured out everything. The first, third, and fifth were really fucking difficult. Really, really fucking difficult. The second was a little bit easier than those three, and the fourth was the easiest out of all of them. Arthur, you didn't figure out the first one. You have some vague notions of what it might have been, but you're not sure. The second one was really difficult, but you're 99% sure that you got the right answer. The third one, you have no fucking clue. And you actually almost felt compelled to keep working at it until it hit you that you were making yourself angrier than you were accomplishing anything. You're like, if I keep trying to hammer away at this one problem, I'm just going to get so frustrated that I don't make any more progress. And you manage to pull your mind away from it and move on to the next again. Fourth one, really difficult, but you're 90% sure you got it. And the fifth one was super, super easy. Okay, so from what I could tell, you guys have three pieces of the puzzle that are not sorted. By the time that all of this is done, you guys have burned most of your evening. It is late. You guys skip dinner. You guys all kind of look up from what you're working on and realize that it is pitch black outside. It was like twilight when you guys started this. It was just the beginning of the evening. It's real fucking dark. And a glance at a clock shows you that it is two in the morning. None of you is entirely sure how you managed to get that hyper focused for that long. [01:52:04] Speaker D: That's concerning. [01:52:09] Speaker F: Rosanna. [01:52:11] Speaker B: Yes? [01:52:14] Speaker F: Make me. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm looking. Wits and awareness, please. [01:52:25] Speaker B: Okay. Two, three. [01:52:45] Speaker F: As you straighten and it hits you. As you straighten and it starts to hit you what time it is, the world falls away for you again. Arthur, if you could make me wits and insight, please. [01:53:09] Speaker C: Wits and insight indeed. I had this one before, but I forgot already what my numbers are. Wits and insight. Okay, cuckoo. That would be four successes. [01:53:32] Speaker F: Okay, you see the second? Rosanna's eyes lift from the piece of paper that she's working on that her gaze goes distant and unfocused. Rosanna, you are standing in a forest clearing. You look down and there is a circle of stones. They're small, they're not big. A circle of stones around you in this small clearing. Once again, you can taste the magic on the air. It's so thick, it's a little bit like being able to breathe in, like the energy coming off of a live wire. It's intense and it rushes up and down your spine and from this place in your gut down to the tips of your fingers and the tips of your toes, the clearing around you is as beautiful as it is unnatural. The leaves on the plants, anytime they shift in a breeze or move, maybe because some small creature that you can't see darts across a branch above every time there's a shudder or a shake, you can swear that the colors of the leaves change and ripple and you can see lights that resemble fireflies but are too big to be fireflies, dancing and bobbing up and down between the trees around you. They're just out of reach, but you can see them, and you see, you hear first shifting of branches and the caress of leaves against wind. And you look up and there is a long, graceful fingered hand reaches out like it is grabbing a curtain of vines that are hanging between two of the trees like it is about to pull the curtain aside. And then what you're seeing changes and you're no longer in the forest. You are standing on wooden floors in a. Sorry, not wooden floors, stone floors in a cold, damp, dark place. You do not taste magic on your tongue anymore. This place feels like despair to you. And as you look around, you realize that you are in a small room. There is a pile of straw in a corner. There is a bucket that smells to high heaven in the other corner, and one of the walls is iron bars. You are in a jail cell. An old, old jail cell. And as soon as you get your bearings and realize where you are and reach out to touch something, the scene changes again and you are standing again, but you can't move. Your arms are tied behind you and you realize that there is something round and coarse between you and where the bonds are like a post and you were leaning against it. And as you look down, you can see wood and kindling piled up at your bare feet. You can't see any faces, but you can tell that there are people congregated in front of you in a crowd. And you can already smell the smoke coming off of the torch that one of them is holding. And you are hit with the nauseating reality that you're going to die. And then the torch hits the wood and you can hear the crackling as the flames start to catch and grow. Despite what they show you in the movies, it's not a quick process. For a pyre like this to go up, it takes time. Because not only does it need to burn hot enough to kill you, it needs to burn long enough to destroy you. And then the world shifts again. And you are in another forest clearing. And there is a face of a woman. Pale skin, freckles, curly copper hair. You know this face. You've seen this face before. She's looking at you, but she does not look. She doesn't look caring and happy the way she did the last time you met her. She looks angry and hurt. And you can see a delicate gold and silver manacle around each of her wrists. And you're holding the chains attached to them. And she speaks in a language that Rosanna. You know. You don't know. You just don't. But you can understand her. I did what I. I did what you asked for. I saved you. Now let me go. And then you wake up. [02:02:07] Speaker C: Rosanna. Rosanna. [02:02:11] Speaker B: And she's checking the bottoms of her feet and like, patting herself down. [02:02:17] Speaker F: And you are untouched. [02:02:25] Speaker C: Arthur. Arthur will move in close. Rosanna. Rosanna, look at me. Breathe. Breathe. You're back. You're here. [02:03:03] Speaker F: You who. [02:03:05] Speaker B: Where. [02:03:10] Speaker C: Homie was a bad one. I can tell. [02:03:25] Speaker A: As a medical professional. Can I you. [02:03:31] Speaker F: Anything about this making into medicine. [02:03:51] Speaker A: Successes? [02:03:53] Speaker F: It, um. I mean, it looks like she's probably having an anxiety attack right now. But you have no idea what triggered it? Whatever triggered it had to have been really fucking sudden because you didn't notice anything. [02:04:11] Speaker B: Ah. [02:04:19] Speaker F: Fire. [02:04:20] Speaker C: Were you in the fire? Did the fire come from someplace? Did someone set the fire? What? Can you remember? [02:04:30] Speaker B: Forest magic fire. [02:04:43] Speaker C: You. [02:04:44] Speaker F: It. [02:04:45] Speaker B: Oh my God. [02:04:51] Speaker C: It you. Do you know where this fire. Where this fire is going to be? Or did it already happen? [02:05:02] Speaker B: Do any of y'all know much about the Salem witch trials? [02:05:16] Speaker F: Anybody who would like to can make me an int. And I will give options. Either Int and academics or Int and. [02:05:33] Speaker A: Go int and Isabelle is just looking between them, just with a slightly confused look on her face. The fuck's going on? [02:05:44] Speaker D: I will roll into academic. Okay, that tracks. [02:05:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:05:56] Speaker A: Three successes for. [02:06:03] Speaker C: It'S because you like. [02:06:03] Speaker F: Spooky Piper, you know that there were Salem witches that that happened and that now Salem as a whole kind of like both celebrates and honors its spooky witchy background. [02:06:19] Speaker B: And the place where the Salem witches were hung is now a Walgreens fun fact. [02:06:29] Speaker F: Okay, well, she doesn't know that because she only got one success. [02:06:33] Speaker D: I would like to think that that's the only thing I know about. [02:06:38] Speaker F: Okay. Okay. I'll allow that. You know that the place where the witches were hung is now Walgreens. That's kind of it. You watch some bizarre web documentary, and the only thing you took away from it was that fact, because it struck you as weird that you thought you were watching a documentary on the Salem witch trials, and they opened with a. [02:06:59] Speaker B: Walgreens, and you're like, actually just an ad for. [02:07:05] Speaker E: A. [02:07:05] Speaker C: It was a Walgreens commercial based in. [02:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:07:10] Speaker F: Arthur, weirdly, you don't know a ton about the burnings themselves. What you know is from the opposite side of things. As a man of faith, you know that the text that was used to tell people how to find witches, how to determine if somebody is a witch, and ultimately how to destroy a witch called the malais malificarum. And the reason why it got as popular as it did is because it came out around the same time the printing press was created. I believe it was literally a couple of years after the first printing press, and because of that, it was able to be produced. It was one of the first mass produced books. Isabel, on the other hand, my spooky, spooky girl, you know, a bit more. The salem witch trials is really only as popular as it is in the US, because the reality is that that was child's play compared to what happened in Europe, Germany, especially southern Germany. Witch burnings were like mass events for a long time. You know that it was primarily something you found among Catholics. Protestants were a little less gung ho about the whole let's go burn witches thing. You know that there were some in the UK and Ireland and Scotland and places like that, but they were much more prevalent in places like Germany. Germany, specifically had the highest number. You, of course, know everything about the Malaysia. Well, not everything, but you know, the things that I told Arthur about the Malaysia maleficarum and when it came out and why it spread the way that it did. And you know that while men did get targeted as witches, and a lot of the time, scholars are 99% sure, even in this particular setting, in the world of darkness, most of the people who were burned weren't witches. Never did anything to even hint that they might be witches. They were politically inconvenient, and it was an easy way to get them out of the way. However, you've been hunting enough and involved in some weird enough stuff to know that there is a pretty good chance that some families with magical inclinations probably got caught in the crossfires. Do you? Occult specialization? [02:10:15] Speaker A: I do not. [02:10:18] Speaker F: Okay, well, then that's all you? [02:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I sort of kind of spout all that about. We're much more popular in Europe. Popular being the most of the time. People targeted by those things are just politically inconvenient. But there's probably a chance that people who have actual magic were targeted during the whole thing. [02:10:52] Speaker C: Like, people who can do magical stuff. Witches? Like real witches? [02:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:11:02] Speaker D: I'm pretty sure one of the execution sites sell wolverines now. [02:11:07] Speaker C: I mean, all I know is that the witch book, the Witch Hammer, really came out 50 years after the Gutberg printing press. And so that's part of the reason it got spread so quickly was because what else are you going to print at the time? That's what I know. People love their spooky supernatural, even if it's not true. [02:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I've been doing this long enough that I've rubbed elbows with actual magic. [02:11:45] Speaker B: She's gonna turn to Arthur and just lay a hand, just, like, on his shoulder. It's, like, shaking very unsteadily. And she thinks that she's whispering, but she's really not. So the other two can very clearly hear this when she just says. [02:12:09] Speaker F: I. [02:12:10] Speaker B: Was in a forest, and then I tasted it again. It was on the tip of my tongue. And then I got ripped and thrown into a jail cell. And then from there, I was burning on a pole in front of others, and then it was back in a forest. And she said that she saved me. [02:12:54] Speaker C: Who did? [02:12:58] Speaker B: And I was holding her chain. So the woman who gave me this. I don't know what. I don't know what I did, what my family did, anything. I know that. I know. I know that my family has ties, but I didn't know that it was that intense. I thought. I just. I don't. I don't know what I thought. I don't know what I can do to help it. [02:14:23] Speaker F: It. [02:14:25] Speaker B: I think I'm gonna go to bed now. [02:14:30] Speaker A: I think that might be a good idea. [02:14:40] Speaker B: She's gonna get up. Apologies, everybody. You all have a good night. And then she's going to turn away and very slowly make her way towards the back and go lay in bed. Okay. [02:15:22] Speaker C: Arthur's gonna make sure that Gozer goes with her. Someone needs to stay with her. [02:15:28] Speaker F: It is a reasonably small space. Gozer has to move about 3ft, but he will curl up beside the bunk beds where she's laying. Unless. Are you getting into the queen or double? [02:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm getting into the double. [02:15:53] Speaker F: Gozer will hop up onto the bed with you and will cuddle himself up against your back, leaving the rest of you alone. [02:16:14] Speaker A: So, does that happen often? [02:16:23] Speaker C: Ah, more recently than before it. I need a cigarette, and I promised not to smoke one here, so I'm going to step outside. And if you want answers, you should maybe think about having a cigarette yourself. [02:16:59] Speaker A: All right. [02:17:00] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:17:01] Speaker A: I'll take a few years off my life. [02:17:05] Speaker D: I won't take nearly as many years off doing this job. [02:17:10] Speaker A: That's true. Blanks are only liable to kill me before a cigarette does. [02:17:18] Speaker C: So Arthur will stand up, take his pack of cigarettes, look at the pink vape that Rosanna likely left on the table, take that too, and then head out of the rv. [02:17:38] Speaker A: I'll close my notebook and everything, and then get up and follow. [02:17:44] Speaker D: Yeah, Pepper is also going to follow. [02:17:51] Speaker C: Once he's outside, he's going to offer a cigarette, but he's not going to have any expectation that anyone's going to take it. Then he'll also offer the vape. After taking a hit for himself, Isabella. [02:18:05] Speaker A: Will take a cigarette. She is the kind of person to occasionally smoke, like when offered, but she doesn't carry them herself. [02:18:13] Speaker D: Piper debates, take movie, but decides against it. [02:18:20] Speaker C: And then once everyone is sufficiently lit or not lit, it's going to take a long drag and then turn to talk to them. In the last few months, we discovered that Rosanna could see things that the rest of us cannot see. And that was terrifying, but in some cases, helpful. And then something seemed to have changed. She was growing more kind of connected to those things, but so were the rest of us, honestly. And then she began to see visions that's more recent. But she comes back experiencing things that are from the seem to be messages or events that have happened or will happen. They're typical visions. And I would love to believe that these come from God. But as much as I am a man of faith, I am also a practical person and a hunter. And so I have no rightful clue where they come from or what they mean, but they, like today, I worry that they'll eventually become dangerous. She didn't seem, aside from her panic, to be injured, but I do worry that they're getting stronger and worse. [02:20:39] Speaker A: Could be. Yeah, could be a problem. But magic is not my thing. I might be able to research and see. I've got some contacts who we mostly all just deal with blanks. But maybe somebody has encountered anything like that before. [02:21:14] Speaker D: Yeah, I might be able to make something that'll stop them, but I can't guarantee anything. Can't guarantee that leaving. [02:21:28] Speaker C: We. We did encounter someone who seemed to understand the vision, the power that Rosanna possessed, that was someone who had lived a whole life and was relatively good and had grandchildren. Didn't like me. But that was like regular people stuff, not like a special supernatural dislike. So maybe she'll be fine. Maybe this is okay. But it does bother me and it does worry me, considering that. Considering the type of job that we do. [02:22:13] Speaker F: Yeah. [02:22:19] Speaker C: If you both think that there's something you can do, then I would like to ask if you could do it. [02:22:35] Speaker A: I mean, I'll take a look. [02:22:37] Speaker B: And. [02:22:40] Speaker A: I have medical training. I don't know how much that helps, but I technically know the steps to help somebody with anxiety attack. I've never been great with emotions, other people's emotions or my own. So I've never been great at coaching someone through the. Coming down from that. [02:23:16] Speaker D: With all of this coming to light, could I use sense, the unnatural? [02:23:23] Speaker F: You absolutely could. Is there a role associated with that? [02:23:27] Speaker D: Is wits plus science? [02:23:31] Speaker F: Go for it then. [02:23:35] Speaker C: Wits plus science. Are you using a piece of tech then? Curious. Oh, so you're pulling advice. Okay, that's what I wanted to know. [02:23:43] Speaker D: She doesn't pull anything out? [02:23:45] Speaker F: No, she does not pull anything out, but it is using a device. Holy shit. [02:23:53] Speaker D: Seven. [02:23:55] Speaker F: Okay, I have to look at the exact wording of sense, the unnatural, to make sure that I'm not giving you information you should not have. What Page? [02:24:04] Speaker D: I do also have position, so it tells me where it is. Page is 97. [02:24:10] Speaker F: 97? [02:24:13] Speaker C: Yeah, it's what it is, where it is kind of thing. [02:24:45] Speaker F: Do you have any specializations? [02:24:49] Speaker D: Only specialization I have is vampires. [02:24:52] Speaker F: Okay, well, that does not help you. Yes, there is something unnatural here, and it is specifically coming from inside of the rV. What is odd is that while I know that you have precision, your system doesn't. It knows that this is weird, but it doesn't have any idea what it is. That sometimes happens when you are getting lingering traces and there's just not enough to get a super specific reading. It also has happened the first time you've encountered something new before where you just didn't have the data. What you are getting from this, your earpiece is playing a low, almost lilting. It almost sounds like a melody, but it's faint and kind of rhythmic and it's so quiet that you really have to listen for it, but it's definitely there. Does that make sense? [02:26:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:26:23] Speaker F: Have you ever been somewhere where somebody has earbuds and they've taken one of their earbuds out and they were listening to music, but it was really quiet? So you're catching pieces of whatever that song is. But you have no idea where it's coming from. You just know that it's vaguely in an area. That's kind of what this is. That's kind of what that effect is for you. Except that you do know specifically that it is coming from inside of the rv in the direction that Rosanna is. It is not an unpleasant. [02:26:55] Speaker D: Yeah, essentially, what y'all see is Piper brings a hand up to her ear, like, talks her head. Okay, so there's something weird going on. What do you mean? That I don't know what it is. And is it. Is it playing music? I. I don't know, but there is. There's definitely something. [02:27:48] Speaker A: Has Rosanna tried to trace her lineage back, see if she could figure out who during the witch trials? Maybe that'll point us in the right direction. It's something I can also do very good at things. [02:28:07] Speaker C: I don't know if she's had time. [02:28:12] Speaker A: That's fair. [02:28:13] Speaker C: And I don't know if she's had the resources. And I don't know this because I abandoned her. And Victoria and Zephyr, it was a mutual separation. But. [02:28:38] Speaker D: You didn't abandon her. [02:28:40] Speaker A: Yeah, if it was agreed that you all needed time apart. [02:28:49] Speaker C: Listen, I. If you have something you can do, I need you to do it, because I can't lose her. I've lost Jillian. I've lost Victoria. Zephyr gonna take time to find if he wants to be found. [02:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah. When I have the time, I'll see if I can trace anything back. That's probably the best I can do, is see if I can figure out who might have been there. And maybe there we can get a name. And then a name opens a lot of doors. [02:29:46] Speaker C: This thing that happens to her, I don't know if it's a random brain thing, some kind of. That's good. Except that that's horribly bad, because that means that I have to think about something. I don't want to. [02:30:14] Speaker A: Which. [02:30:18] Speaker C: That'S not really something we can concern ourselves with now, but I'll let you know if it gets closer. It's just me worried about my friends and what to do about them. But I need you both, if you're wanting to stay and help, to promise me that you will do whatever you can in your power to make sure that whatever's happening to her, that she stays alive, no matter what. [02:31:00] Speaker F: Yeah. [02:31:06] Speaker A: This only works if we all work together and trust each other. [02:31:08] Speaker D: Helping people stay alive is what I do best. [02:31:20] Speaker C: As terrible as it was for you to experience or find this out this way. I guess I'm glad that we're not hiding her visions from you anymore. [02:31:37] Speaker A: Look, we've been here for one day. We haven't exactly had a lot of time to sit down and be like, this is exactly what's happened in however long it's been since I last saw you and worked with any of you. [02:31:52] Speaker C: And the last time you saw me, I probably would have just destroyed her on the spot. [02:31:59] Speaker A: There's that, too. [02:32:03] Speaker D: I don't think that's. That's definitely not the course of action now. And I don't think that would be the course of action. Future. [02:32:20] Speaker C: Thank you for understanding. [02:32:23] Speaker F: Yeah. [02:32:31] Speaker C: I guess we're all in this together. [02:32:35] Speaker F: For better or worse, that's how this works. [02:32:41] Speaker C: What is the music, by the way? Now I'm just curious to maybe a clue. And Arthur will come in to try to hear whatever sound. Lean in toward the RV or whatever. [02:32:58] Speaker D: No, that's not how this works. But it's. It's. But it's. It's barely there. It's one of those things where I have to not only notice that it's happening, but listen specifically for it. And even then, I can barely hear it. I think it might be a clue as to what is doing this, but I'm not sure how. The two of you should get some sleep. It's late. [02:34:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:34:11] Speaker A: I'm gonna just ash out the sig cigarettes and toss it away before heading back onto the bus or the rv. Yeah. [02:34:22] Speaker F: Okay. Rosanna, while they were out there, you are struck by a couple of heavy pieces of information that you had when you came out of that vision. But it took you a while to kind of come down from the initial panic before they sort of surfaced in your mind. The first thing you recognize is that you know a couple of things. Know how to do one specific thing that you didn't know how to do before this vision. Hate you. You know an incantation. You don't know entirely how you know that it's an incantation, but that's what your brain calls it. You feel a little bit like you have amnesia and you're remembering things from before you got the amnesia, but you don't know how you know them. That sort of thing. You know that you have an incantation that will allow you to summon a being. You also realize that you know the true name of the woman in chains and her name is Tuafla. That said, along with those pieces of information, is also a realization that settles into your stomach like a sickly thing. And you realize that it has always been there to some degree, but you just were blind to it. You have gone your entire life feeling like there is something different about you, and there is. And these visions and your ability to see and talk to ghosts and whatever are all part of that. But there is also something wrong with you, and it's been there your whole life. And because you always had it, it's like that pain that a person has that they don't realize is a pain until it's gone. Now that you recognize that it's there, you can tell you are carrying around what you can only call a very powerful curse, and it is tied to the most quintessential part of who you are. It is tied to your blood, your DNA, your parent. One of your parents probably had it before you and one of their parents before them, and on and on and on through goodness knows how many generations. And it comes from whatever that being is that you saw in your vision. It comes from that woman in the chains. You don't know what exactly the curse is, but you do know its source. You don't know what happens. You don't know if you can get rid of it. And if you can get rid of it, what would happen? You don't know yet. [02:38:28] Speaker B: He's gonna. [02:38:28] Speaker F: And I would like. Hold on. I would like you to add one extra dot to your flaw. Hold on. What's it called? [02:38:39] Speaker B: Nightmare? [02:38:41] Speaker F: Nope. Your dislike of the catholic church. I would like you to add another dot, please. [02:38:50] Speaker B: Let's go. [02:38:51] Speaker F: Okay. I can't tell if that is a. If that is a manic, I'm excited laugh or a freaked out laugh. [02:39:06] Speaker B: Yes. [02:39:11] Speaker F: Okay, so as you are laying there and all of this knowledge is getting kind of, like, dumped, like you're starting to recognize things as you calm down and Gozer's breathing beside you kind of helps you center yourself. Is there anything that you would have liked to have been doing while they were having this conversation? [02:39:33] Speaker B: She is kind of just sitting there going through the initial shock, but I think when she kind of takes a couple of deep breaths and just lays her hand on Gozer to kind of, like, feel his breathing, she is going to take her normal phone, which Arthur does have. She's only shared this number with, like, Arthur, maybe Victoria, definitely not Zephyr. And she's going to just send a text to Arthur that just says, I don't want to be alone tonight. [02:40:29] Speaker F: Well, Arthur, as you guys are having that conversation, that text pops up on your phone. Unfortunately, you were having the conversation, so you don't see it until the conversation is over and you guys are climbing back into the RV, but it's there. [02:40:51] Speaker C: So, funny story. Prior to her text, Arthur was thinking that when they came back into the RV, he was going to go check on her and at least make sure that she was covered in a blanket and safe. So he was probably already headed there when he checked his phone. [02:41:23] Speaker F: Well, as you make your way into the back and you check your phone, you realize that you may be doing more than just checking on Rosanna. You may be staying if you choose to. You've essentially been invited to do so. Piper, as you climb onto the rv and you are settling in, you realize that now that you are closer to the source of that music, that it is a little bit louder. You also realize that there is. [02:42:13] Speaker B: Almost. [02:42:14] Speaker F: Like there is a single instrument in an orchestra that is playing this song that is out of tune. Everything is sharp. It's discordant, it's not loud, but it's there and it feels wrong. [02:42:33] Speaker D: No, that makes me, as a player, hurt physically. [02:42:36] Speaker F: Yeah, I know. That's why I did it. That's why I did it. But, yes, that's what you get over time as people kind of settle in. And, I mean, you and Isabelle were asleep until fucking noon, so you guys are up for a while. I'm going to assume that Arthur and Rosanna end up kind of curled up because they were up early. And then unless anybody has anything super pressing, I'm going to do a time skip because it is very late. Two of you are going to sleep in anyway because you always do. The other two are going to sleep in because you're both fucking exhausted because you've been up all day. Since early, early this morning, Rosanna has taken some serious emotional damage. And Arthur is just exhausted because he's been up since the ass crack of dawn. So you all wake up the next day and it is like late afternoon. It is like four in the afternoon before anybody resurfaces. Actually, you know what I will say, because they are used to it and they slept in. Piper and Isabelle are the first ones up for once and just sort of hang out while the other two of you have your exhausted rest. [02:44:06] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a bit of probably absolutely. [02:44:09] Speaker D: Going to prepare food for everybody. [02:44:14] Speaker F: Good. There is food waiting. Rosanna, it is Sunday. [02:44:22] Speaker B: It is. [02:44:24] Speaker F: You had something planned for tonight? [02:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah, she's just going to wake up. And I'm sure that if Arthur did end up kind of like wakes up. [02:44:37] Speaker C: Next Arthur, that's for sure. [02:44:42] Speaker B: And I'm sure Gozer's nudged in between the two of them because I know how dogs are. [02:44:50] Speaker F: He's at the foot of the bed, but, yeah, his body is essentially, like, separating your legs. So, like, your shoulders are together and you guys are, like, in a v. [02:45:03] Speaker B: She's going to slowly open her eyes, kind of give them a moment to readjust. And then I assume that she's like, you know how you get so tired, you get giggling? Maybe it almost feels like you're kind of drunk, but you know that you're sober. I assume that she was probably that tired, too, when she went to bed. So waking up and seeing Arthur just dead smack right next to her probably throws her off just like, a little bit. Good afternoon. [02:45:50] Speaker C: I guess so, yeah. [02:45:54] Speaker F: Rosanna, I do need you to make your nightmare roll, please. [02:45:59] Speaker B: Nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare. Okay. [02:46:01] Speaker F: Unspent willpower. [02:46:03] Speaker B: Okay. [02:46:29] Speaker F: Okay. You toss and turn, but it's not as bad as some of the other nights. You're probably just too exhausted for it to have been any. To be too impactful. Plus, what are you going to dream about at this point that's worse than what you just dreamed? Worse than that vision that you had, girl. [02:46:50] Speaker B: Boss. Got it. [02:46:53] Speaker F: There were definitely nightmares, but it could have been much, much worse than it was. [02:46:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:47:02] Speaker F: Okay. [02:47:06] Speaker B: Then she's going to look at her watch and it's going to process for a minute because she's comfortable right now. She's just waking up. She does not want to get out of bed. And then her eyes are going to widen at the time. And then you see her roll out of bed and go into one of her suitcases and start ripping out clothes and makeup and everything. And she looks at the watch and she's like, oh, shit, I'm going to be light. I'm going to be light. And she's not even like a care in the world. She just starts unbuttoning her top and taking off and putting on a dress like she's in a rush. [02:47:47] Speaker F: You have woken up to one of your favorite only fans fantasies from the days that you were subscribed to Rosanna's page. Because you wake up and your eyes open and she is half naked. [02:48:04] Speaker B: And then it'll hit her that she was just half naked in front of her cellmate. [02:48:12] Speaker F: Multiple cellmates. Baby, you're in an rv. The others can see you, too. They were sitting there having a late lunch, early dinner. And you look up and Piper and Isabelle. I don't know. Are you guys attempting to avoid looking or are you just looking without any shame whatsoever. [02:48:33] Speaker D: Piper is probably focused on some little box of mechanical parts. Iris and shit. [02:48:42] Speaker A: Isabelle is attempting not to look, but I imagine I'm sitting on the opposite side of the table, that my eyeline is directly there. And so it's like, look at this. [02:48:54] Speaker F: Very out the window. [02:48:56] Speaker D: I'm not looking. [02:48:59] Speaker F: Isabelle has a charisma of one and a manipulation of two. She can't not look like she's trying to be subtle, but there is one. [02:49:08] Speaker E: Definitely looking up. [02:49:10] Speaker C: Arthur is unabashedly staring. [02:49:18] Speaker F: Sorry. [02:49:20] Speaker B: And then she's going to look around for a towel, if not for Arthur's gaze, for the poor girls behind her. [02:49:30] Speaker C: It's fine. They're women. And women have bathroom time together, or whatever. [02:49:38] Speaker D: Is something going on? Doesn't even look up. [02:49:43] Speaker C: Rosanna, just calm down. Just get dressed. It's not like I haven't already seen this. And he goes to stand up to leave. That's fine. I smell food. Do you want me to get you some? I don't know why you're panicking. [02:50:02] Speaker B: I have a meeting that I need to get to as soon as possible. You know what? Put it in the little mini fridge thing for me. I will eat when I get home. I've got important matters and matcha tea to go get. I'm meeting up with my friend today and I totally am almost 100% late. [02:50:36] Speaker C: Are you going alone? Because I don't really think we should go alone. [02:50:45] Speaker B: I don't know how comfortable he would be meeting a bunch of other strangers. But if you guys want to tag lawn and go and drink matcha tea, we're going to a really nice tea house. [02:51:02] Speaker A: No, I'm okay. I don't. [02:51:06] Speaker D: People. [02:51:06] Speaker F: I don't deal with people fair. [02:51:09] Speaker B: And that is completely valid. And then she's going to go and adjust the belt on her dress. [02:51:16] Speaker D: I don't think she wants anybody to go with. [02:51:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:51:19] Speaker D: That being said, I'm going to be keeping an eye on you. I won't be watching closely, but like. [02:51:28] Speaker B: I said, you guys can come and keep an eye out in whatever it is that you need to do. Unless he specifically asks to meet you. I know he knows about Victoria's death, but I didn't use her actual name. You and I have had this conversation before. He knows about you, but he doesn't know about you. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. Okay. And she's going to go, and she usually will dress up, but this. She's got a full dress on with heels, and her hair is actually done up like halfway. And she's wearing a full face of makeup, and she's, like, searching around for her keys. If y'all want to join, get into my car. And if not, I will see you all in a couple of hours. She's just going to run off. [02:52:29] Speaker A: Have fun. Be safe. [02:52:33] Speaker D: Piper is absolutely sending the drone after. [02:52:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Is she going to tell. [02:52:42] Speaker D: If Arthur doesn't go? Piper, I was going to say, is. [02:52:46] Speaker C: She going to tell Arthur that because his next move was to go to the driver's seat of the RV and casually tail a car? [02:52:55] Speaker D: Yeah. No, she's not being secretive at all. As Rosanna's panicking, she pulls up one of the boxes, flips it open. Like I said, I'm going to be keeping one. [02:53:12] Speaker F: Okay, so what's the plan? Are you guys going or are you not going? [02:53:18] Speaker C: I think that Arthur is going to go close enough that if something were to happen to Rosanna, he could run across a parking lot or something to save her. But he's not going to go into the coffee shop or anything weird. He's let the drone do most of that work, but he also is probably not going to follow. Just let the drone tell us where she's at and then go kind of nearby. [02:53:40] Speaker F: All right, cool. So we're going to establish a couple of things before we jump into the next scene. One, it is still afternoon. Your date is in the evening. That you have time to get ready. Fortunately, unfortunately takes a while to get ready for that kind of look, like your hair and your makeup and all of that other stuff. It takes a couple of hours. By the time you get there, the sun is starting to go down and the drive is almost 2 hours away. So you leave to go. You will be getting there during the after dinner crowd, which is kind of ideal because it's just enough people that it's not completely empty. You're not going to be meeting someone that you've never met face to face at a completely empty establishment. But it's also not so busy that it's, um, Arthur deciding that caution is the better part of valor, decides to sort of tail, but not really. He's essentially going to make sure that they are in the neighborhood in case anything goes wrong. And Piper is going to send the drone. You don't realize that Piper has sent the drone until you are pulled up in the parking lot of this t joint. And you hear that slight buzzing. And you look up and there is a drone above your head. [02:55:26] Speaker D: And it's a little one, too. [02:55:29] Speaker F: It is very small. It is very small. Most people would not notice. But you've known Piper long enough to be suspicious. And it's weird because you look up at it and you make eye contact with what you realize as a camera lens. And the drone does this little wobble in the air like it's waving at you. And then you continue inside. [02:55:58] Speaker B: I wave back at it before I head inside. And then I casually flip off the camera as I'm opening the door, as if I'm, like, scratching the back of my head, but she can definitely see. [02:56:11] Speaker F: So you walk up to the door of the happy minds tea shop and lounge. And as you realize that this place is called the Happy Minds Tea Shop and Lounge, you flip off the drone. So you're going in here with the best entrance ever. [02:56:28] Speaker D: The drone that most other people don't notice. [02:56:33] Speaker F: And you walk in, there is a little bit of a crowd. There's enough people here that there's some quiet conversation from different tables. Yada, yada, yada. And you look up, and you haven't ever seen him in person or even in pictures, but you are pretty sure that you know exactly who Peter is. He's already at the table and looks to be waiting patiently. [02:57:18] Speaker B: He's going to nervously approach the table and kind of put a hand right on top of the cold, I assume, surface. Aha. [02:57:42] Speaker E: And Peter will stand up to his full six foot three height, look down at her, and say, well, hello there, Rosie. It has been a long time since I've been able to actually have a good chat with you. And it's actually nice to meet you for once. [02:58:03] Speaker B: No, it's so good to finally meet you. [02:58:10] Speaker E: I didn't realize we were going to go for absolute fancy dress. [02:58:16] Speaker B: Sorry, I woke up a little bit late. I just kind of grabbed the first thing that I saw. A little bit of a hectic couple of days. Can I hug you? [02:58:29] Speaker E: You can certainly hug me. [02:58:31] Speaker B: She'll lean in and just give him, wrap her arms just around him like a big old hug. [02:58:41] Speaker E: He will return the favor with full on open arms, big, wide palms, reaching around, grabbing right under the shoulder sort of thing. [02:58:57] Speaker B: I can't believe that it's you. You also look very fancy. Look at you. When I saw vest. [02:59:08] Speaker E: This is casual for me. I do apologize, but the reason being business usually have to go to work not too long after this, so I figured I would dress at least somewhat nice before. No, well, first meetings and all. I'm a little nervous. [02:59:25] Speaker C: If you can't tell me too. [02:59:29] Speaker B: I'm so sorry that it took us forever. To me, between work and studying and cleaning up after messes. You know what? It does not matter. Um. Tea. We were here for tea. I'm very nervous. I'm sorry. [02:59:57] Speaker E: You're fine. Figured some of the imperial grade japanese masha would be good for both of us to enjoy. [03:00:08] Speaker B: Finally living up to that promise that we made each other. [03:00:13] Speaker E: Been a while. Certainly. Well, long and coming, I should say. Good to see you. [03:00:22] Speaker B: It's good to see you too. [03:00:25] Speaker C: How was. [03:00:26] Speaker E: Besides losing v, how was the journey? [03:00:33] Speaker B: Long. Excruciating. It's a lot to deal with. She was one of my best friends. And it's getting not easier to deal with. But it's settling in that I still have a. Don't know where Z went, but I. [03:01:13] Speaker E: Still got a. I'm sure Z will turn up eventually. I can't say for certain as because I don't know them, obviously, but they're a friend of yours. [03:01:26] Speaker C: I'm sure they'll come back. [03:01:30] Speaker B: Maybe. [03:01:32] Speaker E: We can always hope. [03:01:37] Speaker B: I. I am so. I'm sorry. I'm just so thrilled that you're here. And she leans in and just touches his arm. You're here. I don't know what I thought, but you are really tall. My goodness. [03:02:14] Speaker E: I can't take credit for my father's genetics. My mom was only about five. Five or so. Definitely not from her side of the family, I don't think. Please. And he'll go around to the other side of the table that he has and pull out a chair like I should. Actually, you know, be a gentleman for once. [03:02:42] Speaker B: Nobody ever really pulls out the chair for me like this. Thank you. Tell me, how's business going? I know they've been doing a lot of traveling recently. Tell me about that. [03:02:59] Speaker E: I can't tell you too much because some of it's government contractual work stuff. [03:03:04] Speaker B: So I can't say. [03:03:05] Speaker E: Bunch. No, I know. [03:03:07] Speaker F: I'm sorry. [03:03:09] Speaker E: But I can say that I actually did help bring down a ring of. Well, let's just say right wing extremists puts it lightly. According to the documentation, the police found. Records of bomb making tools, blueprints, manifests. [03:03:29] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [03:03:32] Speaker E: Not the most peaceful conversation, mind you, but I do apologize. [03:03:37] Speaker B: No, listen, I am so just curious. How long has it been since you and I have been doing the back and forth thing for the rude, like, emails and such? [03:03:56] Speaker E: Say it's going on five years now. I'd have to check the logs. It's been a while, but yeah. [03:04:10] Speaker B: I'm so sorry. Believe it or not, not great at meeting people online. [03:04:20] Speaker E: I would never have been able to tell. I think you were the one to approach me, in fact. [03:04:26] Speaker B: Hey, listen. You know how those message boards can be. You kind of caught my eye with some of the weird shit you were posting. Stuff. My apologies. I don't really. [03:04:38] Speaker E: Yes, the ship posting. The joys of being a much younger man at that time. [03:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah, you and I are both aging pretty well. I'd like to think like fine wine, but I'm only 27. [03:05:03] Speaker E: Glad I'm in the exact same boat as you. So the beer do that send an extra five years, I'm sure. [03:05:10] Speaker B: No. That you can't even tell. [03:05:15] Speaker E: Well, thank you. [03:05:20] Speaker C: The matcha. [03:05:22] Speaker E: He gestures over to traveling around one of the play mines tea shop workers. They're wearing a very nice kind of reddish green smock. It looks kind of Christmassy, but it's more like a plaid sorts. They come on over. Two imperial japanese matchas, please. I'll take mine hot. Do you want yours filled or hot? [03:05:48] Speaker B: Hot. [03:05:49] Speaker C: Okay. [03:05:51] Speaker E: Too hot, please. [03:05:52] Speaker F: Yes, sir. Is there anything else? [03:05:56] Speaker E: Do you want anything to eat? I already had a snack before work. [03:06:00] Speaker B: But I haven't eaten anything all day. You got anything strawberry in it? [03:06:13] Speaker E: I think they have a shortcake with strawberries. [03:06:17] Speaker F: We don't have any shortcake today, but we do have strawberry tarts. [03:06:22] Speaker B: I'll take one. [03:06:24] Speaker F: Okay. And she will turn and disappear into the back for a while. [03:06:31] Speaker B: Strawberry is kind of my favorite food and flavor. My poor coworkers and friends were subjected to me trying to find, you know those little strawberry cream candies, the ones that are. [03:06:45] Speaker E: Yes, you've told me before about actually, until reached down into a small side bag. I actually was able to find some strawberry creams for you. [03:07:04] Speaker B: And she takes them and she just. So sweet. Thank you. [03:07:12] Speaker E: Say that they came from an elderly woman's not home, but christian association. So I apologize if you're not much of a Christian, but apparently they like doing that along with the candies now. [03:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure it's grandma's purse. Candy is exactly what these things are. [03:07:34] Speaker E: It's just like the little strawberries that you used to find in strawberry candies that you used to find in, like, old style diners. [03:07:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Every Sunday after my daddy would do. My daddy is a protestant pastor, so every Sunday after service, we'd go. We'd go to this little diner that would be like, a couple of minutes down from our church. And I'm convinced that the waitress is the woman who got me addicted to those stupid candies because she would always give me and my twin sister, like, two of them and tell us not to tell our mom or dad. Oh, my God. [03:08:21] Speaker E: We'll say my grandmother was the reason for my sweet tooth when I was growing up. I've actually had to fight off that a little bit. I got a little patsy stomach, and you can tell there's a little bit of, like, okay, it's not fully like, food. Food. Not like muscle. Muscle, I should say. Not food food. I don't know why I said that. There's a bit of pading there, like, a little too chubby at that time. [03:08:45] Speaker B: Hey, listen, you need it for your line of work, and we will just call it extra layers of defense in my line of work. [03:08:56] Speaker C: I. I don't. [03:08:58] Speaker E: Know if it would provide very much defense in my work. Gan government contractor and all, but thankfully, I do not do anything. Front lines, if you will, along those lines and that nature. [03:09:17] Speaker C: No. [03:09:22] Speaker E: This is awkward. I'm so sorry. [03:09:23] Speaker B: No talking. [03:09:24] Speaker E: Mostly with myself. [03:09:26] Speaker B: No, listen. You have been there for me throughout some of the worst parts of my life, and the least that I can do as repayment is listen to your stories. I mean, you've got a very impressive line of work. Kind of put my work to shame, if I'm being honest. [03:09:50] Speaker E: Well, if I remember correctly the vague details of your work that I could gather you do enough in the shadows to do your best to help your common man. So not less than my work. I'd say it's about the same. [03:10:11] Speaker B: I mean, maybe it may not be. [03:10:16] Speaker E: Government contracted, but it's hard. At least try. [03:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it kind of sucks when I don't get government health insurance to do what I do in the shadows. [03:10:28] Speaker E: I will tell you this much. [03:10:30] Speaker C: It's not that great. [03:10:35] Speaker E: And it only is for yourself. Usually it's not for the family, unless you get a higher position, which thankfully, I have. But there's a few other under me that do not have that, and so. [03:10:45] Speaker C: They don't get the benefits. [03:10:47] Speaker B: Family. Is there a family that you go home to? [03:10:56] Speaker E: Not of any sort of blood relationship anymore. My mother and father passed away when I was in my early, early twenty s. I want to say 20, 21. 20 years old. Exactly. It's been a while again. [03:11:14] Speaker C: 27. [03:11:14] Speaker E: Seven years pass. [03:11:16] Speaker C: Shit happens. [03:11:18] Speaker E: But I've made a new family, if you will. Much like yourself. In fact, currently I have my own v. However, he's doing quite well. He's working at the company I'm working for as well. And he's also doing amazing strides. Thankfully, you've heard of those unpaid internships. This one, thankfully, the paid one for him. So I'm going to get some Benny's. [03:11:45] Speaker B: He's one lucky bastard. I've been in one of them unpaid internships before, and let me tell you as hell, in a handbasket. [03:11:54] Speaker E: I started with this. [03:11:56] Speaker F: It's not fun. [03:11:58] Speaker E: Not fun. [03:11:59] Speaker B: Hey, eventually you get promoted. I mean, you might work yourself to death and feel like you're raising like a zombie or something, but. [03:12:08] Speaker E: If you eat enough ramen, you become the ramen. [03:12:13] Speaker B: Just don't tell that one to a. I don't think you'd like to hear that. [03:12:18] Speaker E: There are days I wonder if my blood is chicken flavored. [03:12:22] Speaker B: You don't eat normal food? What the hell? [03:12:26] Speaker E: No, I'm thinking it's an lasting thing that happened from before. Not now. Nowadays, I'm not dining at fine wine and caviar and so on and so. [03:12:35] Speaker C: Forth, but who is? [03:12:36] Speaker E: I am at least eating healthier if have salads, et cetera. Good red meat, occasionally fish. Like sushi. [03:12:45] Speaker B: Oh, I love sushi. It's been forever since I've gone to get sushi, man. [03:12:51] Speaker E: Last place I got good sushi from was actually in California. Was a little tiny hole in the wall shop. Very nice. Elderly japanese man was the sushi chef. [03:13:06] Speaker B: Back when. Back when I was living in. I grew up in Tennessee. Sushi was whatever my uncle Bill would bring in. Whenever. He'd bring in catfish and chop off the head and offer the eyeballs to me and my sister, be like, here, sushi. Like one of them nice folks in Boston or in California, and then would go off on a whole tangent about how fish are microchipped and whenever we eat fish, we're given our microchips to the government or whatever. I don't know. I mean, I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy. [03:13:45] Speaker E: Well, at least you have proof of your findings. Speaking of, how did that go down in Louisiana? That good? [03:14:06] Speaker B: Something like that. I found out I'm really good at archery. How? [03:14:15] Speaker E: That's not a normal skill to have. This isn't the 15 hundreds anymore. [03:14:21] Speaker B: Maybe not, but let's just say that my hands can work a little bit of magic when they have to. [03:14:34] Speaker C: Hmm. [03:14:38] Speaker E: Have, like, card tricks, or have you stumbled upon something fun? [03:14:49] Speaker B: Hmm. My fingers are just quite. I'm really good with the bow and arrow, and I'm just going to leave it at that before I go and make a fool out of myself by saying the wrong thing. [03:15:07] Speaker E: Okay. I will leave it at that. I'm sure I'll hear about it later on in another email. [03:15:13] Speaker B: Maybe if I'm feeling spicy. That came out wrong. [03:15:24] Speaker E: I've done my research. I know what spicy can lead to with you, but. [03:15:29] Speaker B: What? [03:15:33] Speaker E: No, I do not subscribe. [03:15:38] Speaker B: Huh. I just want you to know that is all it is, is just. It's. It's a side gig. I needed the extra cash, and when I was in college. [03:15:47] Speaker E: It's okay. I don't judge. A job is a job and got to earn a living somehow. [03:15:59] Speaker B: Thank you for understanding. Of course, most people who don't personally know me don't really get it. [03:16:10] Speaker E: Some of the folks on there, what I could tell from the research, make millions. So if you can make a bunch of money off of it, might as well. [03:16:19] Speaker B: I take from the rich and give back to my people. I'm like a feminine. [03:16:29] Speaker E: Robin Hood. [03:16:30] Speaker B: Robin Hood. Wow. I know that again. It's been five years of just back and forth with one another. I can't believe that we finally caught each other. [03:16:57] Speaker E: That's what happened when you finally come across the country one way, one direction or the other. [03:17:06] Speaker B: We were just never in the right place at the right time. [03:17:11] Speaker E: Well, I'm here now. You can touch me. I'm not going to vanish into vapors or anything like that. [03:17:20] Speaker B: Listen, if you did, that probably wouldn't be the weirdest thing that I've seen in this last week. [03:17:29] Speaker E: Well, I'm pretty certain the pilks here would miss me, too, because I'm a longtime supporter of theirs. [03:17:39] Speaker B: And she's going to look down to his arm in his hand and going to raise hers and just rest it on top of his. [03:17:59] Speaker E: Oja. I'm real. [03:18:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [03:18:05] Speaker E: I do indeed exist outside of the cyberspace that we both enjoy. [03:18:09] Speaker F: Are you sure? [03:18:12] Speaker B: This is only my first time seeing you in five years. And I'm pretty sure we've made arrangements to meet up at least six times. You have to see where I might be a bit skeptical. [03:18:23] Speaker E: I understand. Well, to be fair, the third time we met up, that was because of death in the family. That was not my fault. [03:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Listen, again, I'm sorry. None of those days matter. It is just us. It's you and me. And you're here now, and we're finally getting overpriced matcha. [03:18:53] Speaker E: Yeah, it is overpriced. Speaking of, it should be here by now. [03:19:00] Speaker F: As if on cue, the waitress does show up with matcha tea, which she puts down in front of the both of you and tarts. And as you two continue to have your lovely conversation. We are going to pivot back to the others. All right, my lovelies. Have you all been up to while Rosanna is meeting with her friend? [03:19:38] Speaker A: Well, since I have the time, and I promised I would, I'm going to just start digging into essentially how Rosanna might be connected to the witch trials, because I haven't gotten a name or anything, so I'm just going to see if I can trace her family back there. [03:20:02] Speaker F: Okay. Arthur and Piper, you just being creepers? [03:20:11] Speaker C: Well, kind of. So Arthur was looking over Piper's shoulder and kind of interested in the drone and its abilities. The ability to be able to spy from distance. But after the novelty of sort of talking about it, and probably assuming that while Piper was answering questions, wasn't like. Was also trying to fly a drone. [03:20:33] Speaker D: It wasn't just like, oh, yeah, she totally wasn't. She set that bitch on automatic. [03:20:39] Speaker F: Okay, autopilot, go. [03:20:42] Speaker C: Well, Arthur took the time to write in his journal some of his thoughts before I forgot them, which I actually already dropped in the. I saw, you know, just so that it was like I was trying to make it match with what was happening, but his thoughts. So he was sort of forming his thoughts based on what's been going on and mostly Rosanna's visions. So that's what he was doing most of the time. [03:21:10] Speaker F: Okay, Isabel, I would like you to roll me int and. Hold on. I have to look at your sheet. So many things to keep track of. You can go int an investigation or int in academics and use your research specialization. That's kind of the same number of dice. [03:21:41] Speaker A: Either way, same number of dice. But for flavor wise, that specialization, research is my thing. [03:21:48] Speaker F: Yes, it. [03:22:01] Speaker A: And I'm going to spend a willpower to reroll those failures. [03:22:05] Speaker F: Okay. [03:22:06] Speaker A: Which will push me up to four successes. [03:22:08] Speaker F: Excellent. Four successes. While you were doing that, I would like Arthur and Piper to roll me wits and please. Okay, Piper, you are a little bit more focused on your screens. You're doing everything from capturing pictures of faces of other people in the establishment to getting pictures of the guy that Rosanna is talking to. You are very focused on what's going on inside. So you don't see this, Arthur. At one point, you kind of get up to stretch your legs a little bit. Like, your pen dies, too. So you get up to go get another pen. [03:23:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [03:23:24] Speaker F: And you go up to where they go, up to the cab, which is where most of your pens and journaling stuff is. It's all in, like, the glove box. And you see, at first, it's only one there is a brightly green and teal colored. Might be a butterfly, might be a moth. It's not quite shaped like a butterfly. It's shaped more like a moth, but it's really brightly colored green and teal. It's just sitting there on the windshield doing that thing that moths do where they're kind of like slowly moving their wings. And then you realize that there are others perched in various places outside of the rv. They're on other cars. There's not so much that it's coding everything, but there are a number of these very odly colored moths. Can you roll me just a straight? Actually, not yet. There are a number of brightly colored moths all over the place. And that's what you notice. Isabella, haven't forgotten about you. There's just a lot of information, so I'm going to be giving it to you mostly off stream because we have to wrap. [03:25:00] Speaker A: Sounds good. [03:25:03] Speaker F: And I want to give Arthur a chance to react to this if he wants to ask anybody questions or get some help or anything. [03:25:12] Speaker C: There's these teal moths on everything. [03:25:16] Speaker F: They're like tealish, greenish. Yeah, they're very brightly colored. That's what stands out to you is that they are colored. Like, they might be some sort of weird butterfly, but they're definitely not shaped like butterflies. They're shaped like moths. [03:25:32] Speaker C: Strange moth things. [03:25:38] Speaker F: And it's not so much that it's super alarming, but there's a number of them in the area that you could see outside of the rv. [03:25:48] Speaker C: Hey, does anyone know what kind of moths these are? They're pretty strange looking. [03:26:00] Speaker F: I will allow both Piper and Isabelle to roll. [03:26:05] Speaker A: Int and science, pretty good science. [03:26:13] Speaker F: Or Int and academics, if that's better for you. [03:26:16] Speaker A: Oh, Int in science is better for me. [03:26:17] Speaker F: If you're rolling academics, you're going to have a higher. What did you roll? [03:26:24] Speaker D: I did science. [03:26:26] Speaker F: Okay. [03:26:29] Speaker A: I don't want to just blow through all of my willpower, so I'm going to sit with the one and just say I'm way too into this genealogy search. [03:26:38] Speaker F: Yeah, the one that he points out on the windshield looks vaguely familiar, but you're like, yeah, that's weird. I don't know. Pretty color, though. And then you go, like, it occurs to you that it matches your hair a little bit. And then you go back to what you were doing. [03:26:56] Speaker A: I don't know what kind of moths exist in Florida, Piper. [03:27:01] Speaker F: You look up and you realize rather suddenly, and it kind of surprises you that you realize this because this is one of those just bizarre pieces of information that you have no reason to have. But you, being who you are, have collected a lot of weird, useless tidbits. That's a lunar moth. They're actually like indigenous to the area. But when you get up and kind of peer over Arthur's shoulder outside, it's a little to see this many all in one place. [03:27:46] Speaker D: Yeah. So they're just normal moths. They're lunar mocks, but I feel like there shouldn't be this many of them. [03:27:59] Speaker F: Arthur. [03:28:01] Speaker C: Yes? [03:28:03] Speaker F: If you already know what the connection is, you could totally make the connection. If not, I'm going to prompt another role. [03:28:13] Speaker C: Well, I mean, I have an idea, but I don't know if it's enough. But I guess I was going to ask, if Piper seems concerned, Arthur is going to look at his wrist and see if it's glowing. [03:28:28] Speaker F: It's not glowing. They're just moths. [03:28:31] Speaker C: Okay, that's a good thing to know. [03:28:33] Speaker F: Roll me straight. Intelligence. [03:28:36] Speaker C: Oh, not my strong point. Not my worst, but not the best, actually. [03:28:45] Speaker F: Hold on, hold on. Let me look at your sheet because there might be something better for this one would hope. [03:28:53] Speaker A: They are just looking for the lamp. [03:28:56] Speaker C: They're just trying to find all the light. [03:29:03] Speaker F: Yeah. INT. In a cult. [03:29:05] Speaker C: Okay, that's far better than just straight int. Oh, no, sorry. It did something funny and deleted everything that I was typing. [03:29:21] Speaker F: The second piper says that they're lunar moths, your mind ticks back to conversations you had with Victoria. The lunar moth was the symbol of the secret society that she was tracking, called the Linnaeus Society. [03:29:42] Speaker C: And that's why it would have been intelligence. [03:29:49] Speaker F: And it hits you that you are sitting in this random parking lot a couple of miles from where Rosanna is talking to some person you don't know, and you are looking at the calling card and the symbol of the secret society that Victoria was hunting down. And then it hits you as you're sitting there that you were so concerned about tracking Victoria or tracking Rosanna that you left Victoria's body back at the restaurant with nobody to guard it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we are going to leave it for the night. Please join us again next week. Thank you for being here. We will talk to you later.