TALIESIN: Knowledge of
what lies beyond The Flare continues to be elusive. Glimmers of understanding
lead us down branching paths with no discernible end. The mark of
a strong investigator is to always question
the status quo. An extraordinary investigator is one who's
not afraid to question the nature that
lies within them. The phenomenon which occurred
in Newfaire at The Steel was the catalyst needed
to test such a theory. Lightkeeper O'Neill
had her concerns that the newly found
circle in question could benefit
from further training. But, then again, there is
no sufficient preparation for the horrors that
bleed into our world. Thus begins the
trials of the circle known as
The Vassal and the Veil. Assignment 436:
The Cold Embrace. (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music fades) MATT: Welcome to Newfaire, a vibrant, expanding metropolis
of industry and culture nestled along the west coast of the verdant, fertile
Fairelands Valley within the northern
country of Hale. The year is 1907 here
in this world, not too unlike our own
in a similar time. However, a decade-long cold
snap known as The Shiver left many outsiders envious
of the region's resources, leading to the last great war with the foreign
invading forces Halens refer to
as Otherwhere. It was with the invention
of electrical technology and the armaments it inspired that the Fairelands were able
to end the six-year conflict in victory, though,
at a great cost. Three years have now passed, and the city of Newfaire
is bustling with a booming economy,
expanding industry, and a populace that is trying
to distract themselves from the trauma of war, whether it be through
new spirituality, raucous debauchery, or a renewed focus on
climbing this divided, often classist society. The citizens of Newfaire
straddle the line between the promises of innovation and the myths of superstition, for it is within the
subterranean ruins of Oldfaire beneath
the city, the terrifying mysteries of
a long buried civilization seep into this world
in nightmarish ways. This is where
our story begins. Now, a storm has settled
overhead this evening leading a dark gray sky
to encompass the horizon, the rain falling in sheets across the
smokestack-lined skyline of The Steel, the industrial
district of Newfaire. Factories tower over
the waterlogged streets billowing black
columns of soot rising into the clouds above. While the dull glow of
street lamps glitter across the puddles that splash, as the
numerous blue collar workers finish their shifts
and rapidly disperse toward their evening
rest or revelry. As the factory lights dim and
the chill of night settles in, we see a figure carrying
a satchel avoiding the rain, darting
from overhang to overhang among the cluttered
impoverished homesteads that dot the outskirts
of The Steel. Auggie James, would you
like to describe yourself? ASHLEY: Hey, that's me. MATT: (laughs) ASHLEY: My name
is August James, but call me Auggie for short. I'm 19 years old. I was an orphan,
dropped off at McMannigan's-- Saint Mannigan's Lodging
House for Children, and been there my whole life,
working the streets. Yeah, you need something,
you call me. MATT: Great, and what
do you look like here darting from the rain in
the middle of the storm? ASHLEY: Just a little
scrappy, you know, clothes that don't
really fit, messy hair, hat,
dirty, freckles. MATT: Great. As you trek through here, ending your days bit of work,
the odd jobs and tasks that you've been taken
since you were a youth among these streets,
you're finishing the last of your long-run paper route
amongst your other jobs. ASHLEY: Get your papes! MATT: (laughs) Finishing up with your
last often stop here on the outskirts
of The Steel, the apartment
of Donald Kinzel. He's an old retired foreman and an elderly gentleman who
you've taken kinship to, as not many other people seem to be paying
him much mind. As the years go on,
you like to stop in and see how he's doing, give him his paper and
spend a bit of time, understanding he's probably
not too long for the Halen cityscape. But as you comb your
way through the streets, eventually seeing the
ramshackle apartment complex where he resides, you
climb up the side of the exterior stairs trying
to stay under the overhangs letting the gathered
droplets of rain pass between the bars of
the iron fire escape until eventually you get to
the third floor where he sits. Stepping into the hallway where you see the
peeling wallpaper, and the dark somewhat
moldy wood that lines the sides
of the hall. You see the various doors to
your right and left of you until you come to
the third on the right. There you see it
partially ajar, the apartment of Donald. ASHLEY: (knocks)
Hey, Donald? MATT: "Hey, come in,
come in." (creaks) You enter the room and inside you can see
the very familiar, very modest apartment
of Donald Kinzel. You see a small kitchenette
on the side, mostly just a basin for
washing his 10 or so cups, mostly just a basin for
washing his 10 or so cups, dishes in total. You see a few stools that
are set off to the side of the chamber, long
hardwood floor that has mostly begun
to curve and warp from the moisture
in the air through the rainy seasons
of the city. Across the way, there's
a couple of paintings that are affixed to the wall and the low slung lanterns, two of which that hang from different iron
hooks in the walls, faintly giving some bit
of light to the interior. In the far corner, you
see the iron furnace the centered bit of warmth that he keeps and
sets himself around. He's over there with a big
shawl over his shoulders and a blanket over that. He's in his mid 70s, spent
most of his life working in these factories, and you can see it's
taking a toll on himself as he coughs a bit. Looks over towards you. "Hey, hey, it's nice for
you to come by, Auggie." ASHLEY: Got a good thick
one for you today. MATT: "Oh, thank you."
ASHLEY: Lots of stories, lots of good shit. MATT: "I appreciate that. "You want to sit
down for a second?" ASHLEY: Yeah, would love to. MATT: Sets the paper down and
puts it within the basket. "You had a good route today?" ASHLEY: I had
a pretty good route. I had a pretty good route. Made a little bit extra. MATT: "Oh, that's fantastic." He goes and grabs a
chunk of charcoal wood. He has a bundle of kindling
and other bits of fuel. He starts shoveling into his little furnace--
ASHLEY: Let me get that, let me get that,
I'll help you out. MATT: "Oh, thank you kindly. "A lot of people out here "don't really pay much mind
or respect to those of us "who used to work hard
before the war, you know?" ASHLEY: Boy, they sure
don't, you know? That's why I like to show up
and, you know, help you out. I know how it is to be a
hard worker, you know? MATT: "That you are. "Let me tell you, you
remind me of those of us "who built this city,
you know?" ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: "Those who "had respect for a
hard day's work "and for earning
your keep here." ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah. MATT: "That's a good
kind of pride. "None of these scum suckers
and the varnish and the eaves "hold their noses high
above the rest of us "hard working folk."
ASHLEY: The worst! MATT: "(coughs)" ASHLEY: They don't know
how hard it is. MATT: He grabs a chunk
of charcoal and throws it into
the furnace again. Starts poking around as it begins to
light a little bit, a bit of warmth
beginning to emerge as the firelight
begins to crackle and resting arms against it. He sits there for a second and starts taking a
poker and poking at it. "You, uh-- "You got aspirations
there, Auggie? "You're going to be running
the paper rest of your life?" ASHLEY: Maybe, maybe
running the paper maybe. Maybe be the mayor
of the town. MATT: "Ah, see that,
I like that ambition." ASHLEY: Yeah, I think
I'd be good at it. MATT: "I bet you would, too. "You got a clever mind. "You got bright eyes. "You speak from the heart. "These are things that, well, "things that we need in the "political circles
of this city." ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: Reaches over and
grabs some more kindling and throws it in. ASHLEY: How you been feeling? MATT: "Ah, you know this,
this recent rainy weather's "starting to really cough it
up a bit in the lungs, "you know, but
I'll be all right. "Got a sister of mine is
coming in town on the trains "in the next month or so."
ASHLEY: Oh. MATT: "Going to bring some
teas from the northern sides--" ASHLEY: Ooh.
MATT: "-- the Fairelands "and hopefully that'll help "clear me out a little
bit, you know?" ASHLEY: Oh, that's
going to be fun. I didn't know you
had a sister MATT: "Indeed, haven't talked
to her in a long time." She's younger. (laughs)
ASHLEY: Oh, all right, all right. MATT: Grabs a big old chunk
of weird looking charcoal and throws it
into the furnace. "And that's what I've
been wanting--" (explosion booms) Suddenly, there is a massive
explosion in the chamber as the chunk of odd, almost
obsidian-like charcoal that he thrusts into
this detonates and this blast of bright
blue energy (explosion booms). As it explodes outward. You feel this impact, this force blast into
your body and chest and you feel yourself thrown
back out of your body. You suddenly see the
back of you, your head as you begin to
tumble backward, your hat tumbling off,
your eyes vacant as you see your body
somewhat translucent, faintly blue, (whooshes) and you begin
to shunt back into it. Just as you glance over at
where the detonation occurred you see ice (ice shatters)
begin to crash around the room and ceiling, freezing
it instantly. As well as Donald thrust
backward as well. His weird, translucent,
glowing echo pushed from his form. As the dizziness
begins to take you, and your consciousness
begins to fade, you see a shadow (whooshes) begin to escape from the twisted
remains of the furnace. Now... Across the city, in
the region known as Briar Green, within the halls of
the Briar Bank College, the esteemed marble walkways, the numerous auditoriums
and libraries and research facilities here
in the later evening when most of the students
have gone to their homesteads and studies for the evening,
beyond the halls. Staying behind in his
office to his own business, we have Dr. Howard Margrove. If you please describe yourself
and what you are doing. ROBBIE: Sure. Well, as per usual, Howard
is buried in books and papers. He has a grim look on
his face, consternation, working through whatever
puzzle's in front of him. Even though it's
late in the evening he's dressed as if it's the
first thing in the morning. Astutely appointed, tall hat (laughs), and he's leafing
through papers, really trying to work out what's in front of him. Yeah, he's
an older gentleman. He's 52 years old. He wears spectacles,
but it's hard to tell whether or not they're
for reading or far away. And yeah, he's a professor
at this college And yeah, he's a professor
at this college and this is his office, that's
not only filled with books, but some oddities and it's
very pristine inside, yeah. but some oddities and it's
very pristine inside, yeah. MATT: About this time, you
hear the door behind you creak open a little bit.
(creaks) "Howard." You turn around and
see Professor Errol Dennings, who is a younger
professor who you've, I wouldn't call it a
friendship as much as it is a space-sharing rivalry
within these halls. Steps in for
a bit and glances, not quite over your shoulder, but definitely
in your direction. "Don't mean to disturb
you, Professor, "but are you planning to
sleep in your office?" ROBBIE: Where I sleep has no bearing on
your work, Dennings. What can I do for you? MATT: "I'm just
expressing concern. "You, you should really
get out more. "I mean..." ROBBIE: I have office hours. I get out on my own accord. What's this meeting about, Dennings, what can
I help you with? MATT: "Me and a few of
the other professors here "have discussed just, oh,
we're concerned for you. "You should come out with
us drinking tonight. "It would do you well to
be social a bit, you know, "maybe engage with the rest
of the university body. "You could use the, "could use the "relationship
building experience "of being part of a faculty." ROBBIE: Well, I have many rich
and diverse relationships in my life, and if you would care for me
to expand upon them into the professional circle,
I would be delighted. Let's go have a brandy
sometime, I suppose. Is that all? You just invited me
out for a drink? MATT: "(chuckles) "As I expected. "Well, should you ever decide "to take us up on such
and offer, please do." ROBBIE: All right, thank
you, I suppose. (chuckles) MATT: He turns to leave, at which point, another
figure is in the door and goes, "Excuse me. "Don't stay up too
late, Professor," and wanders off
through the door. Behind them you see
a squat gentleman rounded of shoulders in a navy thick jacket. Gloves on, a fedora
that they're wearing at the front that has a bit
of a blue feather on the side. Stepping in, takes
the hat off a bit and shakes the rain
off at the step as you glance up you see a completely bald head, a pair of small round glasses that seem almost pushed
into their eye sockets to the point their eyes
are so further sunken in. You don't recognize
this figure, but the the figure, as
they step forward, goes, (raspy, weathered)
"Ah, Dr. Margrove. "My apologies for
intruding this evening." Reaches over and hands
you a small envelope. ROBBIE: (sighs) All right. MATT: "Candela requests
your assistance. "There has been
a phenomenon." ROBBIE: Immediately, Howard
snaps out of what he's doing, puts everything to the side. All right. Where are we meeting? MATT: "I believe she
wishes to meet at the diner." ROBBIE: She? MATT: "Your Lightkeeper
for the evening." ROBBIE: Oh. MATT: We pull away
from that moment. Instead now, Arlo Black, whereabouts
are you this evening? LAURA: Oh, I'm sitting
in my bedroom, actually. MATT: Please describe
the scene where you sit and what we see as we come
into your personal space. LAURA: I'm sitting
in my bedroom in front of a vanity. She's been dressed
for the day and staring into the mirror, completely silent. Every once in a while, her
eyes will drift to the side and bring it back and
stare at herself again. Not saying anything. MATT: (knocking) LAURA: Come in. MATT: The door lurches.
LAURA: She turns around. MATT: It's locked. LAURA: Right. I get up and unlock the door. MATT: Okay. The door opens
and immediately you see the
pouring rain outside. You see a hunched figure, dark blue navy coat, fedora. He pulls it off there,
bald, bespeckled face looks up at you with
a wide, pleasant, if slightly jarring, grin. (raspy, weathered)
"Miss Arlo Black, "my apologies for disturbing
you this evening. "Candela requests
your assistance. "There has been
a phenomenon." LAURA: Wonderful. Thank you. MATT: "We are to meet
at the diner "at your
earliest convenience. "The night is
still young enough "and time is of the essence." LAURA: Mr. Tellbrook, tell Mother I'll be going
out for the evening. MATT: (laughs) From
the other doors, you watch us this tall,
lithe, old gentleman goes, (proper) "Oh, very well.
I'll notify her. Not to worry. "Will you be safe? "Do you need assistance? "Do you need an escort?" LAURA: As I tug on my glove. No escort will be
necessary, thank you. MATT: "Very well. "Your mother will be unhappy,
but I will deal with it." He turns, continues back as you begin
to gather your things and prepare yourself for
an unexpected evening out. Now, here on the outskirts
of Red Lamp, the somewhat
debaucherous region of the city of Newfaire, where the middle
to lower class comes and spends
their evenings in all sorts of alcoholic
revelry, music, dancing, and occasionally, in
a scarlet-based speakeasy. It is here, not too far from where
the more affluent members enjoy similar mirrored
merriments in The Varnish, that instead they come here,
on this side of Red Lamp, to the Sight Unseen
Bar and Club. Here, in the evening hours, amongst the bustle and fun and joyous, musical, playful,
human, animal experience that this club tends
to bring into itself, patrons are stepping through and clinking glasses
and laughing and cheering and very much escaping
for a few hours from the reality that
day-to-day life brings. Here you are perusing
amongst your various patrons, the individual
responsible for and keeping watch
over this establishment. If you wouldn't mind,
Charlotte Eaves, what are you doing and
what do you look like? ANJALI: I am standing
in the doorway between my back office
and the front of the bar. I'm watching
my right-hand man, Stinson, watching him as he
tends to the bar. I'm surveying all manner
of humanity in the room. Some who perhaps it's their
first time in the Red Lamp, and some who are using
this place as an alibi because they know that
I have a particular reputation that somehow smooths
over certain transgressions. I'm watching carefully, making sure there isn't anyone
that I have to deal with, and fondly looking
back occasionally at a small cot with a
rumpled blanket and a pillow. at a small cot with a
rumpled blanket and a pillow. That's about it. MATT: All right. As you look at that pillow, time seems to almost slow. Color seems to
fade in the periphery. For a second, time
seems to stretch or stop, lost in a memory, before you feel a hand
touch your shoulder and shake you out of
your sudden consciousness as you see Stinton,
arm on your shoulder, go, "Um, excuse me, Miss, "are you feeling all right? "You looked a bit distracted
and focused for a minute. "Make sure you're okay." ANJALI: I'm fine. Thank you
for worrying about me. There's no need. I simply was falling
into a reverie, remembering good times. MATT: "Of course, of course. "Just, you know, "you've been stressing yourself
out here a lot recently "and I want to make sure you're
taking care of yourself. "You take care of the rest
of us enough as it is. "If there's
any trouble coming "and you're getting
yourself into, "you know you got friends." ANJALI: (chuckles) I do. Trust me, I'm not involved in anything
I can't get myself out of. MATT: "(laughs)
I understand that. "I understand that." Scratches his beard. "Okay, well, if you're feeling
you want a drink or anything, "You know where to find me." ANJALI: Thank you. MATT: He wanders back
behind the bar. You watch as a
somewhat affluent couple who are slumming it
here in the Red Lamp get into a brief,
not an argument, but a disagreement
with the doorman as another figure
pushes past them. You can see a squat gentleman
in a blue coat, fedora, You can see a squat gentleman
in a blue coat, fedora, step in past. The doorman turns to
look towards him and sees your hand as
he pulls the hat off, looks over towards you. "Miss Charlotte Eaves, "my apologies
for the intrusion. "Candela requests
your assistance. "There has been a--"
ANJALI: Oh, not here. I invite him
into my back office. MATT: "Hm. "Well, "no need for formalities. "Just read upon. "Your Lightkeeper will
await you the diner." ANJALI: Thank you. MATT: Puts the hat back on and darts back out into
the cold, rainy night. Auggie. ASHLEY: Holy shit! (laughter) MATT: You dart up
out of consciousness, not knowing how much
time has passed, and yell, "Holy shit"
into the area. Your vision's
blurred and fuzzy, and you immediately watch as six people turn
around and face you. ASHLEY: Whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. MATT: You can see two of them begin to talk
amongst themselves. You can hear the whispers of them discussing
amongst themselves, your head swimming with
an odd series of sounds, unsure to really grasp and
pull in what's being said, what's being done, before a hand
grabs your shoulder and lifts you onto your feet. Your vision begins
to clear a bit and you can see
you're still standing within Donald's apartment, but now there are
multiple figures all dressed in long, dark
peacoats and business attire. Some of them have hats, many
of them are taking notes. They walk with an authority
like The Periphery, the police that look over, for some, the
city of Newfaire, but not quite
dressed with that authoritative presentation. As they lift you up-- ASHLEY: Hey, hey, hey,
get your hands off me. MATT: Pulls back. This middle-aged
gentleman goes, "That's all right,
that's all right. "Aaron? "He's awake." You see this one
tall, thin gentleman in one of the same
matching long peacoats sits amongst the
rest of the crowd that are in the process
of now investigating the interior of this room. They're taking samples
and putting them into boxes. They're turning
over furniture and looking about
what's transpired here. You can see, in this moment, the ice that has been
thrust across this room like it was flash frozen, all emanating from the center of where this now broken
and twisted furnace is. ASHLEY: Donald? MATT: You see no sign
of Donald anywhere. That tall gentleman
turns to you, his cheeks sunken and sallow, stretched features, very, very short, dark hair,
graying on the sides. He looks back in your direction, starts walking towards you. ASHLEY: (stammering) Whoa, whoa. Where's my friend? MATT: (authoritatively)
"What's your name?" ASHLEY: What do you need
to know my name for? MATT: "You were present
for a violent event." ASHLEY: I didn't do it. I didn't do anything. MATT: "I did not
say you did anything, "but you are the only witness
to this and we need--" ASHLEY: I wasn't
the only witness! My friend Donald was
here, now he's gone. MATT: "Your friend Donald
is not here for now." ASHLEY: Is he okay? MATT: "Your friend Donald "is no longer with us. "You are the only witness. "So I need you to be
completely honest with me." He gets down on one knee. You now realize, you're 19, you're
not a short fellow, but this guy is probably
about 6'6" at full height and has to get down
to eye level with you. The closer he is to
you, you can see his-- ASHLEY: All right, you
don't have to be insulting. (laughter) MATT: You see his
pale, gray-blue eyes, the whites are a bit
yellowed, strained, like this man
hasn't slept in days, that looks to you. "Please, "you can trust us. "I am Field Officer
Aaron Weimer. "I'm of the Office of
Unexplained Phenomenon. "I need your help to
find out what happened "to your friend Donald. "What did you see?" ASHLEY: What? This is... I don't even know what's
going on right now. I came in here to give Donald his paper. Then we were sitting
here at the furnace. He was loading it up. He was putting
in the charcoals, and then he put one in, and there was a blue flash. Then I came out of my body, and I'm seeing my body
from far away, right? Then I go back in and
then things are like ice. Then I look over here-- I don't even know
what the fuck. MATT: "Understood." He gives you a very long look into one eye, then the other, reading your facial
micro expressions before standing back up. ASHLEY: Wait,
wait, wait, wait. You said you're
from the where? MATT: "We are a subsect
of The Periphery, "just ensuring that
the peace is kept "when strange events happen. "I'm sorry for your friend "and we will see to it "that when we discover the
purpose of this tragedy "that when we discover the
purpose of this tragedy "has been brought to justice, "any next of kin will
be awarded in his stead." ASHLEY: His sister's
coming into town. MATT: Puts a hand up and
somebody takes a note of it. "Very well. "Regardless, "it appears here there was
some sort of fungal infection "within the neighborhood that's
been causing hallucinations." ASHLEY: Ugh!
MATT: "So "I would give yourself
some time to rest, "perhaps flush it
from your system. "What you saw tonight
was indeed unique." ASHLEY: Am I going to
explode any minute? MATT: "I certainly hope not. "Just drink some water
and rest for a few days. "This was an unfortunate
use of improper fuel "within his furnace,
which caused his death. "You are lucky to be alive. "But it was just
a mundane accident. "Now, "if you wouldn't mind, "we'd like to escort you to
your home and off the premises "to a place safe while we
finish our investigation." ASHLEY: I don't
need an escort. I can go myself. Where did you take him? MATT: "He has been taken to
the morgue for processing. "I'm sorry." Looks over to somebody else, then somebody
grabs your shoulder and starts pushing
you out of the room. ASHLEY: Yeah, okay, okay. MATT: "Take the furnace,
anything else of interest." The door closes behind you as you're pushed back
out into the hallway that leads outside of
the apartment complex. ASHLEY: (sighs) Okay. I don't know
where else to go. I go to see Charlotte. MATT: Okay. You step down the
fire escape again, exiting the back side
of the apartment complex into the alley. No more than maybe two
minutes into this walk, a familiar sense
comes over you. You're being followed. You glance over your shoulder
and you see one figure that's stepping about
20, 25 feet behind you, hands in a long
jacket's pockets, and just keeping pace. ASHLEY: All right. I'm going to pick up
my pace a little more. MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: And try to go
parts of the street that I know are very bright. MATT: Okay. So you keep to a bright
portion of the street where others here can be
watchful of where you are. As you step out
into the various-- There are gas lamps
and some electric lamps that have been brought in
in recent years as well to give a unique scattering
of color and glows to the streets here. You step into one of
the nearby gas lamps to give a little bit of
light, looking about. At this point in the evening, there's really not a lot of
people in The Steel working. There are a handful
of folks walking and they look like they
would pay no interest to a young pauper wandering
in the middle of the rain. It's about this moment that the figure steps out
of the nearby alley here. You see now it's
a female figure who begins to
step towards you. The voice that comes
out from their shadow as the gas lamp begins
to light their features, "I saw you talking to them, "and I think it's good if
we have a conversation." ASHLEY: Why? What? Who are you? MATT: She steps
closer and you-- ASHLEY: A thousand people
are coming at me right now that I don't even know and you're all
telling me to-- Who are you? MATT: She steps
into the gas light. You can see a woman in
her mid-fifties or so, brown skin, hair up in thick locks
that are pulled to the top that drift past the shoulders with gray streaks
that run through. She looks intensely
towards you. One of her eyes, her
right eye, is clouded white. What you can see
is these heavy scars that streak down the
face and through the eye that look like
lightning bolts that carve through
past the cheek. Leans in. "My name's Alexandra. "What's your name?" ASHLEY: Um, Auggie? MATT: "Auggie." ASHLEY: Nice to meet you? MATT: She sees your hand
out there, shakes it. "Don't trust the OUP. "They're not looking out
for you or your friend, "whatever the hell
happened up there. "(sighs) "Look, I'm sorry for
your friend you lost. "I have to ask you, "do you trust them?" ASHLEY: I don't know
who to trust right now. I don't even
know who you are. MATT: "Good."
ASHLEY: You're telling me not to trust them. How am I supposed to know
I'm supposed to trust you? MATT: "Good. "That's what kept
me alive this long. "Hold on to that. "Eventually you have
to trust someone, "but definitely "be careful. "I'm--" You see she turns, the
light catches her eye, and for a second, the pupil
flashes gold in the reflection like an animal through
the middle of the woods. She looks back
over that space. "Let's at least step out
of the light for a moment, "just so they don't
see us talking." ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: She steps off into
the nearby alley before turning once so that you're both
in sufficient shadow. ASHLEY: I'm going
to keep my space. MATT: Of course. "I want to find out
what happened up there. "I want to find out what
happened with your friend. "Because, unless
I'm incorrect, "it's not normal." ASHLEY: No. MATT: "I specialize in
things that aren't normal. "Me and a number of
my compatriots have "for a very long time." ASHLEY: Like stuff
that happened up there? You've seen it? You deal with weird shit? Because what I saw was... I've never seen anything
like that before. MATT: "Well, now
that you have, "there's a good chance it
won't be the last time "you see some
strange shit again. "I want to offer
you an opportunity "to work with me "to figure out what
happened to your friend, "and if we can, stop it from
happening to other people." ASHLEY: What's in it for me? MATT: "Well, "maybe a sense of being
a good Samaritan, "maybe some answers, "maybe a bit of rest
for your friend. "Who knows? Maybe there's a bit
of change in it for you, too. "You don't look
like a stranger "to doing the odd job
here and there, huh?" ASHLEY: I make do. MATT: "Are you
a curious one?" ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: "Good. "Us, too. "I'll tell you what, "I want you to meet
a few friends of mine. "If you like the
energy they bring, "if you like what
I'm talking about, "and you feel we
can work together, "then we will, and we'll
get to the bottom of this. "If you don't,
leave immediately. "Never see us again." ASHLEY: Yeah, okay. MATT: "Okay. "Your experiences in this "could be of value
to our investigation, "so I hope this
can come through. "Let's head to the Blue Derby
Diner in South Soffit." ASHLEY: Oh, that
place is delicious. MATT: You go ahead and
follow this Alexandra. Passing through the bustling
nightlife of the Red Lamp and briefly hopping atop
the screaming trolley car that streaks down the street, watching the sparks
shoot off of it as it scoots down the road, off the way the (ding, ding)
bell as it goes by. Stomping through the muddied
streets and winding alleys that live in the shadow of
the affluent Topside District of The Eaves, you now enter South
Soffit, or The Soffit, as it's referred to
as the common denizens of the city of Newfaire. The high-stacked
buildings and apartments look top heavy in places, built into the exposed
ruins of Oldfaire, the ancient city
long buried below, and just barely rise from these forgotten
catacombs of history, their ancient steps
climbing up towards the elite neighborhood above, that block-- of a
neighborhood above that prevents most of the
daylight from reaching The Soffit when the sun is in the sky. You pass more of
the dimming gas lamps, the occasional ramshackle
electric cable that's been run down from the
above portions of the city, giving some bits of odd glow. Electricity, being a newer
technology to these recent times, has begun to spread
like wildfire, and even finding its way
down here to South Soffit is a unique change, though it does make
for rising living prices for those who already
had a hard time affording a place
within the city. Following Alexandra's step, you head towards the exterior
of the rundown diner, of weathered blue paint, and slightly yellowed,
dingy windows. Once you are inside, you're hit with the familiar
smell of cooking grease and mildewed towels that greet you as you walk
past the booths and tables, past the kitchen and
into the hallway in the back. Turning left,
following Alexandra, a single door
lies somewhat open within a darkened
interior chamber, a single, hanging
electric bulb gently swinging to
alight the interior, where you see a
round table beneath it and three other figures that sit within in a
semicircle booth around it. The rest of you, who
have been waiting patiently within the interior
of this chamber, watch as Alexandra
steps within, kicking some of the
mud off her boots. "Hello, good evening.
Thank you all for coming. "I'm glad you all have some
sense and aren't too busy." LAURA: Never. MATT: "I know it's been a
it of time for some of you. "Well, thank you for joining. "Auggie. "Auggie here was present during
this evening's phenomenon, "and from a little
bit of hearsay, "seems to be a bit knowledgeable
in the ways of the city "and getting about. "A clever one. "May be very, very useful
to the investigation ahead. "Auggie--"
ANJALI: Pleased to make your acquaintance, Auggie. My name is Charlotte. ASHLEY: Oh, Ma'am, pleased to meet your
acquaintance as well. I am Auggie. Who are you? ROBBIE: So Candela's recruiting
fetuses now, are we? ASHLEY: I-- MATT: "(laughs)" ASHLEY: Listen--
LAURA: Arlo Black. ASHLEY: Hello, ma'am. It's a pleasure to meet you.
LAURA: Pleasure. ROBBIE: Dr. Margrove. Howard Margrove. ASHLEY: Oh, wow. All right. Okay. MATT: "I am Lightkeeper "Alexandra Elise O'Neill. "Well, "welcome. "I want to... "This is always the
very interesting part. "What you saw tonight,
Auggie, was very real. "Whatever they told
you at the OUP, "you're not the first to encounter
such strange phenomenon. "But what you saw tonight
is only a glimpse "of the terrible truths "that lie beyond most
mundane understanding. "This realm, "our realm, "is but one of
many in existence, "and there is a boundary
that keeps us separate "from these other realms, "one that we've known "and called for some
time, The Flare. "Now, there are places
between these worlds "where this Flare
becomes weak. "We call those thinnings. "It's at these places that
dangerous metaphysical energy "leaks through from these
other realms into ours. "Some refer to it as magick, "if we want to be a
bit colloquial with it. "But when it comes into our
realm, it leaves an impact. "You see, it can alter
things in our world, "objects, "places, "people, "irrevocably changing them "in strange, horrible ways." She points to her
eye on her face. "I'm one of the lucky
ones, comparatively. "Now, such magical
incursions leave behind "a corruptive force
called bleed. "This bleed, it emanates
from supernatural phenomenon, "and if left unchecked, "can build to the point
of taking one's will, "one's health, "even eventually, one's life. "What you witnessed tonight
was one such incursion, "a moment of a thinning
where something bled through "and took the life
of your friend, "and, very luckily,
did not take yours." They pull this
strange device out from inside their coat. You see it has these
whirring, almost mechanical, clock-like interfaces
on two different sides. As they twist one, you see it begin
to spark and whir, this humming sound.
(mechanical whirring) As it does, this glow
suddenly fills the room. As they hold it out, this
energy begins to crackle. You didn't notice until now, but there is this faint vibration
on the front of your coat. Glancing down, you can see this
black, oily substance, you can see this
black, oily substance, but it's translucent. It's present, but not
at the same time. It's hard to-- ASHLEY: What's this? What-- What is this? MATT: "That is bleed residue. "Could somebody go ahead and
help Auggie and contain..." ANJALI: I'll help
the young man. I'll pull out a, sort of a mechanical
containment vial type thing sort of a mechanical
containment vial type thing that you spin open, so it seems like a certain
combination of spinning parts. I click it open, and I just begin to
roll it up and around. As I do, the bleed starts to almost
pull itself into the vial. LAURA: Can I just
walk up to Auggie? Do you mind? ASHLEY: Anytime. LAURA: I'm just going to touch
right here on their shoulder. Does it seem familiar,
this substance? MATT: If you would like
to make a Sense test to see if you can ascertain the nature of this
odd, corruptive bleed. LAURA: Great. I don't sense anything. (laughter)
MATT: So you rolled? LAURA: Two threes
and a one, baby! MATT: Oh, great. So you reach out
and go to sense it. As you come in contact with the echo of
this bleed signature, the residue of some sort of catastrophic Flare
crossing event, you feel it, just like it would collect
itself into Charlotte's jar, this almost jumps
to your hand and that cold
sensation hits you, and the corruption briefly
touches your very essence. I need you to go ahead and mark one bleed on
your character sheet. LAURA: Already?
MATT: How does this bleed affect you? LAURA: Fucking hell.
MATT: How how does it cross into your consciousness? LAURA: Well, I touched
it with my gloved hand, but it wasn't enough, and I feel it
almost in the hand that had already felt cold. It travels up my arm and hits my chest for
a moment. (trembling sigh) I look up and
all of the things that have been
on the periphery sort of drift into
focus really fast. I'll close my eyes and
see if I can push it back. MATT: It takes a moment, and you feel your hand
shaking with the cold. The rest of you,
the room is temperate, but yet, you watch
as Arlo exhales with a shivering
quiver to the voice and the breath
itself is visible, like they're in the middle
of a frozen cold snap, though a temperature
none of you experience. At which point, Alexandra
reaches out and grabs your jar and quickly collects
the rest of the bleed from the front of your coat before latching it and putting
it within their pocket, handing you a new,
unutilized container. ROBBIE: A little
slow, Charlotte. ANJALI: I didn't see you
jumping to help, Howard. ROBBIE: Fair point. MATT: (electronic powering down) The device shuts down as
the Lightkeeper, Alexandra, puts it inside another
unforeseen pocket, a number of pockets
within her long coat. She looks back up to you. "You've had a wild night
and I know it's a lot. "I think it's best that now
we tell you why we're here. "We are part of
an organization "called Candela Obscura. "This organization is older
than the city we stand in, "possibly older than
the city below, as well. "We are sworn protectors
of the people, "seekers of truth, "and vanguards against
these terrifying powers "that threaten to corrupt
and destroy all we hold dear, "the same powers that long
ago ruined Oldfaire itself. "We are investigators "who wish to prevent history
from repeating itself "by securing and studying
these incursions. "by securing and studying
these incursions. "These three have worked with
me and other Lightkeepers "for some time. "Given your
experience tonight, "you are free to
answer how you wish. "Will you join us?" ASHLEY: (scoffs) I-- I-- Yeah. Yes. Yes. MATT: "Hm. "Very well. "I thought I saw curiosity
brimming in there. "I think tonight will show "how much of a bright
future you have." Tosses you a
small pin emblem. "Now, the four of you
will become a circle, "a circle of Candela Obscura, "and this will be your first
investigation as this circle. "Lest anyone else wish to exit
before we complete the pact? "Very well." At which point, you see now she takes her coat
off and sets it down, and she has this thick vest, white, billowing
blouse sleeves that are rolled
up to the elbows. You can see other scars and ink tattoos across parts of her forearms as she begins to
reach into a small pouch within the other
side of her coat and begins to draw a
symbol across the table in the center of
this half circle booth. Upon marking this odd,
glyph-like emblem in the middle, Upon marking this odd,
glyph-like emblem in the middle, about two feet
across on each side, finishes up, sets it down. "Hands?" LAURA: (laughs) (laughter) MATT: Imagination. (laughs) MATT: "It is within my esteem
and authority of Candela Obscura "to forge this circle,
the circle of--" What are you
naming your circle? What have you decided
previously? (laughs) ANJALI: The Circle of
the Vassal and the Veil. MATT: "The Circle of the
Vassal and the Veil." At this point, you
watch as she reaches into a small, metallic
compact almost, pulls it open and takes this iron
filing type material, and tosses it out in the air. As it does, it
ignites in a blue flame and the symbol in
the center of the table glows for a moment. For a brief instant, not an unfamiliar experience
for the three of you, but for you, Auggie, there is a shared
lasso of warmth that goes through the arms. You feel almost like you're holding every
hand in this circle. ASHLEY: Whoa.
MATT: For but a moment, it tingles. You feel the hair on the
back of your neck stand up, and then it's gone. "Well."
ANJALI: You'll get used to it. MATT: "The evening is
still relatively young. "I think the more time that goes
by, the less chance we have "of gathering all the
necessary information. "Who knows if the OUP will
have left with everything "or return for more answers. "So I recommend you do
what you will to prepare. "Get out there
before it's too late. "It's a pleasure to have
you among us, Auggie. "Do us proud." ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: "And stay safe. "We need no heroes." ASHLEY: Oh, okay. MATT: Puts her coat back on, pulls out a thick cigar, and lights it and kind of-- "Let me know what you
find when you're done." Gives you a nod and she
leaves out of the chamber, leaving the four
of you to (laughs) catch up a bit,
if you'd like. ANJALI: (sighs) ASHLEY: H-H-How do you
all know each other? ANJALI: We've all worked
at various points with the Candela Obscura. And you, I wish you weren't here. LAURA: Well, that's not
very kind, Charlie. ANJALI: I have to be
frank with both of you, and I hope you will... I hope you will not
judge me for this decision, but I know this young man. I didn't want
Alexandra to know because I wasn't sure how the
organization would feel about working with someone that
I have a connection to. However, if he is going
to be with any circle, I would rather
he be with mine. ROBBIE: Secrets
at the outset? I like it. ANJALI: Mm. LAURA: Did you work
at the Sight Unseen? ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah, I've been-- W-W-We met-- ANJALI: In a
manner of speaking. ASHLEY: Yeah.
ANJALI: Yes. ASHLEY: I've known Charlie
since I was about 10. ASHLEY: I've known Charlie
since I was about 10. LAURA: Wow. ANJALI: So. ASHLEY: So what do you do? You go out and then you--
LAURA: Oh, yes. ASHLEY: How does
this even work? LAURA: So this happened
at his apartment? That's what the envelope said?
ASHLEY: Yeah, so, I went in to go see Donald. He's at the end of my route. I go in there and he's
sitting by his furnace, and we're filling
it up to get warm, and then he puts in
a piece of charcoal and then it just explodes and everything's blue
and there's ice, and-- ROBBIE: Did you say blue? ASHLEY: Yeah. ROBBIE: Everything as in...? ASHLEY: It had a hue. ROBBIE: An energy? ASHLEY: Yeah. ROBBIE: That was blue. ASHLEY: Yeah. LAURA: I don't think
that was charcoal. ASHLEY: I don't
think it was, either. I was like, was it
some other piece? I don't know. Then everything blew up. I was outside of my body and I saw my body and then, and then I woke up, and all those people were
there and Donald was gone. ROBBIE: Hmm.
LAURA: So they were still there
when you left? ASHLEY: Yeah. ANJALI: (sighs) We
might be too late. ASHLEY: It was
a guy named Aaron. Aaron, Aaron
something or other. Aaron--
ROBBIE: We're familiar. ANJALI: Yes.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay. No good? ROBBIE: Mm. ANJALI: Depends on who you
work for and work with. In our case, not good. Did Donald have any
other friends, relations, people that you knew of? To ask the obvious
question, any enemies? ASHLEY: Not that I
can think of, I mean, he was just
a normal guy, and his sister was
coming to town. LAURA: When? ASHLEY: I don't know, I just,
that she was coming soon. LAURA: And he lived in
The Steel, correct? ASHLEY: Yeah. LAURA: Do you know where
he did his shopping? ASHLEY: Oh, yeah, yeah, because
sometimes I would help him out. MATT: You do know
that Donald, he, because of his failing health,
and late onset black lung, working as a foreman in
his particular factory, would pay for some of
the local scavengers to bring materials to him. That's the extent
that you know of. He'd occasionally
go shopping, and there's different
marketplaces around here, fairly simple, but
anything specifically, he had friends that used
to work in the industry, or adjacent to it
that would just find what he needed
for a good price. ASHLEY: I mean, he didn't
really shop at any one place. I think it was just
whenever he was out, which was not a lot. Different people
helping him out, bringing some things
when he needed it. I was one of them. ANJALI: And you've
never met any of them? MATT: Not really.
ASHLEY: Not well enough. LAURA: Well, I don't think
we're going to solve this. We should probably go home. ANJALI: (laughs) I saw you dive to check, by yourself to check on
this particular material we found on the young man. LAURA: Yes. ANJALI: I suspect this
is not your first circle working with, right? LAURA: Oh no, actually,
professor and I have worked together before. ANJALI: Oh, wonderful.
ROBBIE: That is true. Yes, former student,
diligent studier. Yeah, truly you are--
LAURA: You're so kind. ROBBIE: -- astute and keen to parse out
the details of a person. Something that I'm not
quite so good at, myself. But yes, we've had some
experience in this department. ANJALI: In that case,
I don't need to warn you not to
do that again, do I? LAURA: Thank you, Charlie. ROBBIE: Yes, yes, we all care
for each other very deeply. Young man, do you have any
education, by any chance? Did you go to school? ASHLEY: I mean, yeah,
I have, I had education on,
oh, on the street. ROBBIE: Oh, sure.
ANJALI: Oh, your education goes far beyond
book smarts. ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: That's true, that's true. Are you familiar with
the term, a hypothesis? Do you know it? ASHLEY: Yeah. ROBBIE: Great, I'll help
you, but obviously you know, and it's like a
educated guess. ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Before you have all of the information. ASHLEY: Did you also
need some help pulling that stick out of your ass?
LAURA: (laughs) ROBBIE: Oh! (laughs) ASHLEY: Because I actually
know what a hypothesis is. ROBBIE: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
insult your intelligence, or knowledge.
ANJALI: (skeptical noise) ROBBIE: Apologies. So, if you had one for
this particular scenario that you experienced tonight,
what do you think happened? Was it the charcoal? ASHLEY: (scoffs) I don't know, I don't--
ANJALI: Auggie, you are a particularly
good, mm... You see things.
I know you do. You have a keen eye
for differences. The things that
have changed, the things in the the picture
that aren't as they seem. Do you remember
anything that wasn't as it should be
when you were there at that moment with Donald? MATT: If you would like to
make a Survey roll to either immediately, actually,
no, this would be Focus, because this would be
recalling things in the past. So make a Focus
test for me. ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: How's your Focus? ASHLEY: I got one, so that
means I roll how many again? MATT: One dice. ASHLEY: One dice, shit.
LAURA: You know what? I'm going to give
you some help. ASHLEY: I also have a
Resistance, so I can use that. MATT: If need be. You have drives.
You can use two to add more dice if you
want to, you just-- ASHLEY: You know what?
I'll do another drive. LAURA: Okay.
MATT: Okay. So one drive from you, or?
LAURA: Yeah. ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: We need this, this is super helpful. ASHLEY: Urgh. MATT: Three, one,
three. (laughs) ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Damn. ASHLEY: There was--
LAURA: So I get it back. ASHLEY: It was--
ANJALI: (laughs) MATT: That's true. You did
choose a circle ability. (laughter) MATT: So, the circle ability
you chose for this was? LAURA: We chose
Trauma Bonding. MATT: Trauma Bonding, which
means that if you help somebody and they fail, you both get
your drives back, if I recall? LAURA: Yes, so you get
your drive back as well. ASHLEY: Yes! Okay. ROBBIE: So, their drives were what--
ASHLEY: God, that's cool. ROBBIE: -- gave her the
extra dice roll, right? LAURA: Yes.
ROBBIE: Oh, okay, great. ASHLEY: Okay, okay. I just, I wasn't
paying enough attention. It was just like every night. ANJALI: Right.
ASHLEY: You know? I was just sitting
there, and then-- MATT: In recalling and
trying to focus on this, all the moments
that transpired, of feeling your
spirit leave your body, it seems, almost
for a moment, the being surrounded
by strangers, being immediately
interrogated, while pressing them,
you find that stress begins to
build up within you. The sweat begins to
build on your brow, and you all watch as
this 19-year-old begins to almost fall into the
onset of a panic attack. You need to take a
brain mark for me. LAURA: Oh no.
ASHLEY and ROBBIE: Oh no. ROBBIE: I'm sorry. I was just to--
LAURA: We are so ready. ROBBIE: -- get
you to use your-- MATT: But I will say, as you
do know as investigators, that often the first place
to begin an investigation is the scene. LAURA: Yes.
ANJALI: Yeah. LAURA: We should
try it out anyway, see if the--
ANJALI: August. ASHLEY: Yeah. ANJALI: You breathe.
ASHLEY: Okay. ANJALI: Breathe. ASHLEY: (labored exhale) ROBBIE: I'm sorry, Auggie,
forget the hypothesis. Let's skip straight
to observation, shall we? ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay.
ANJALI: Let's start. ASHLEY: Yeah.
ANJALI: Are you comfortable returning? ASHLEY: With you guys, yeah. ROBBIE: Oh.
ANJALI: Then I suspect we should go. ASHLEY: All right. Yeah, well, I'll take you guys
there. I know where to go. MATT: All right. So, you gather your supplies. Do you have any particular
equipment you wish to bring on this investigation
that you will have marked, or you can mark as we go, should something be
of interest to you? But following Auggie's lead,
you step out once more into the night air of the
ever later growing eve here in Newfaire, the distant
rumble of thunder crackling as the storm pulls overhead. You leave the Red Lamp.
LAURA: That's for you to hold for me.
(laughter) ROBBIE: Ah.
LAURA: Thank you. MATT: And head back to
the exterior of the Steel. Back to the apartment complex where the evening's
events first kicked off. There, you find the
outside of the alley that leads to the fire escape. You see no immediate signs
of anybody bustling about. ANJALI: Can we see, is there
a way to look in the front of the building to
see if there's anyone stationed out there,
or anything? MATT: The other side
of the building? You move around to the
front, and stake it out. You do see a couple
leave the front of it, and duck underneath an overhang, and begin to make their way, avoiding the storm itself. But no sign of anybody currently staking the exterior of it either. LAURA: Do you know how to get up? ASHLEY: Yeah, you want, I mean, up the fire escape, is that okay? LAURA: Let's do it.
ASHLEY: Is that okay for you, sir? ROBBIE: Oh.
ASHLEY: Are you're going to, you know, mess up your
clothes a little bit? ROBBIE: Mm, maybe,
but I've got others. ASHLEY: All right, after you. ROBBIE: Why thank you,
what a young gentleman. MATT: All right, as you
ascend the metal steps up to the third floor of this
complex, you reenter the hallway within the apartment
complex proper. The floor creaks a bit
with your first footstep. As you, light on your
feet as you are, glance off to the
where the hall is, you do see a chair that
is placed on the outside of the door that
leads to the apartment. There is one gentleman
sitting in the chair, wearing the same dark long coat wearing the same dark long coat as the OUP officers
that you had spoken with. The person is just
sitting stationed there. ANJALI: Have they seen us yet? MATT: They do not appear to be
aware of your presence yet. ANJALI: Are we in full view,
are we all in full view? If they--
MATT: You all are stepping into the alley--
or sorry, the hallway, and then it divides
left and right. On the left is where that is, so you're out of sight, and just looking this way--
LAURA: On the T? MATT: To see where
they are beyond the T. ROBBIE: He's the only one we
can see in front of the door? MATT: At the moment, yeah. LAURA: Is he, what is he doing? Is he just sitting there? Does he seem distracted, does he? MATT: He's just sitting there, twiddling his thumbs,
lost in thought. ANJALI: All right, then. Seems we'll need a distraction. I'll go. I swish around the corner. Excuse me, sir,
I'm so terribly sorry. I'm here to see a friend, and I'm supposed to
find the address, and I can't figure out
which room she's in. Is it possible that
you could help me? You look like you've
been here before. MATT: The gentleman,
who looks over at you, he's one of those figures where
the neck is just wide enough that the head just
becomes one solid shape into the shoulders.
(laughter) ANJALI: Mm. MATT: Has a bit
of a bulbous chin and a round button nose,
a rosy complexion in the cold weather
of the evening. He sniffles a
bit and looks up. "Oh, I'm supposed to
be keeping watch here. "I don't know this
apartment well." ANJALI: Please,
I'm so terribly sorry, but I really
need to find her. She's unwell, you see, and
I just need to make sure that I can knock on her door,
and make sure that she's okay. MATT: Go ahead and make a-- ANJALI: I guess it's a Sway. MATT: It should be
a Sway roll, yeah. ANJALI: It's to convince,
command, or consort. MATT: Indeed. So, make a Sway test
for me, if you don't mind. ANJALI: And I have a gilded die.
LAURA: Ooh-hoo. ASHLEY: Ooh!
MATT: All right. ANJALI: So, if I'm right,
I have two Sway, plus a gilded, plus a gilded die,
so three dice. LAURA: Yes.
MATT: Well, two Sway, and one of them is
gilded, so it's two dice-- ANJALI: Two dice.
MATT: -- one of which is gilded. ANJALI: Delightful. ASHLEY: I see.
LAURA: I see. ASHLEY: I thought-- Okay.
ANJALI: Six. MATT: A six. Great.
(whoops) ROBBIE: Shit.
MATT: That is a success. LAURA: On the gilded,
or on the regular? ANJALI: On the regular.
LAURA: Okay. ANJALI: But I haven't spent
any, so I don't need-- LAURA: Okay.
MATT: So you're fine. So, the gentleman scratches
his chin and goes, "Uh, yeah." Looks around,
looks in the door a bit. "Yeah, okay, miss. I mean,
what apartment you looking for?" ANJALI: (stammers)
MATT: "I can help you out here." ANJALI: I'm looking for number... Just come with me. I believe
it's on the first floor, but I'm not entirely sure. It's in the rain,
this piece of paper has gotten soggy and wet. Oh please, you could help me.
MATT: He reaches for the paper a bit. ANJALI: Yeah.
MATT: Takes it. ANJALI: Oh, no, no, no,
no, no, you can't. You can't possibly.
MATT: "Well, I got you. "Yeah, just take me
in, I guess, ugh." Kind of walks along with you. "Are you sure you got
the right address?" ANJALI: Oh, absolutely,
I'm perfectly positive. As we walk by them in
the hallway to the stairs, I just say: I'll see
you in a minute. And keep going with him. MATT: All right.
LAURA: We block Auggie a little bit. I'll, shit, turn towards
me, and we'll talk, and-- ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. LAURA: Yes, so they can't. MATT: (laughs) Okay. Distracted enough by
your conversation, and his flummoxed
experience with your, help me but not really, but
please help, but not really (laughter) tug of war. LAURA: No, you can't,
sir, please, no! ANJALI: Men like you
make me so nervous. You're so big and
strong and manly! MATT: He's, "Oh no,
oh no, don't worry. "We'll get you sorted,
hmm? (laughs)" Begins to lead you, or
begins to walk with you down the staircase
while the rest of you-- LAURA: We immediately
duck around them. MATT: Duck around, and
head over to the stairs, or start heading to the doorway, which is partially ajar.
LAURA: Peek in. Is there anybody
inside the apartment? MATT: It is not, it is empty. LAURA: Wonderful.
ROBBIE: Hmm. Walk, walk, go, let's go in.
LAURA: Yes, yes, we move in. ASHLEY: Yeah, let's go in. MATT: When you step within
the interior of the apartment, in glancing around, the
air itself is chilled, and you see your breath
in the air with each exhale. You can see there are
some elements of water where some of the ice that
sit at the very outside of whatever that blast
was has begun to melt. But looking within, what
little bit of light is visible from the now only
singular working oil lantern that's over by the kitchenette, that's a light in the
middle of the room, you can see the
glittering exterior of the light dancing
across the ice, like thousands of just
little pinpricks of white. As you go over and
take the lantern, and hold it up front of you
for the visual perspective, you can indeed see all
the furniture frozen over. You can see a lot of it's
been shifted and moved. You can see many footprints in the frost left behind. Indeed, the furnace is gone, there's just that small
crater in the ground, in the wood floor
where it once sat. What would you like to do? ROBBIE: (uncertain noise) LAURA: I'm going to pull out-- ROBBIE and MATT: Yeah? LAURA: I'm going to
unhook my watch, and I'm going to hold it
towards where the furnace was, and I'm going use my bleed
detector to see if I can-- (interested oohing) MATT: (energy buzzing) As the energy begins to
emanate from it, it causes this odd
buzzing sensation across your arm as it
begins to activate, and you hold it out, just instinctually
away from your face, as the energy, shh, shh, shh, begins to crackle around it. You can see now as this chamber, looks like there are
faint signs of bleed residue that has been collected, meaning the OUP has
certainly been through here, and gathered what they could. You can see some
of the furniture has the scrape marks, and
you can see there are, it looks like a lot of
this has been turned over. But you can see
there is definitely was at one point
a heavy amount of bleed throughout
this chamber. LAURA: Is there anything, an
area that it seems heavy, but is farther away
from the furnace? MATT: You can make a Sense
test if you'd like to. LAURA: Okay. MATT: See if you can
sense any currently lingering strong
emanations. LAURA: A four. MATT: A four, okay. You, with the detector
out and about, you feel still,
closing your eyes, you've had an experience
in your past that tethers you
to The Flare, and that sensation of powers
beyond what we understand. As you close your eyes,
and focus, one arm out, revealing some senses of the bleed within
the space, the other arm becoming
a divining rod almost. the other arm becoming
a divining rod almost. You feel this tug towards
where the furnace last stood, and you begin to step
in that direction, approaching it. There, you can see where
the frost is thickest, where the ice seems
to be shot outward, and locked in frozen spikes, like someone had flash
frozen a fiery explosion, and there, it was laid in this
eternal frozen winter moment. There, you can see there is
a broken part of the wood floor that sinks about six,
seven or so inches before it would break
into the apartment below, but it just barely
stopped before that. LAURA: Can I get down and
inspect that closer, the area that's sunken in? MATT: Yeah, you look down inside. If you would like to make a,
we'll call this a Survey test.
LAURA: Ooh. ASHLEY: Can, no, can
I give her drive?
LAURA: Oh, does any-- yes, I am very bad at this.
ASHLEY: Give you drive. ANJALI: I'd love to help,
but I'm off flirting. LAURA and MATT: (laugh) LAURA: Sure, you're helping me? ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll-- LAURA: Okay, so if I have
none, then I would get a one. MATT: Correct.
LAURA: Okay. MATT: It's a low stakes
roll on this one. LAURA: Okay, okay--
MATT: Presently-- ASHLEY: You know what? I'm going to use,
I saw this coming, because three times
per assignment, I can assist a member of the<i>
crew</i> without spending a <i>drive</i>-- ANJALI: (clicks tongue) ASHLEY: -- by saying how
I'm going to do it. MATT: All right.
LAURA: Okay. ASHLEY: Because I was here.
LAURA: Right? ASHLEY: Because I saw
this shit, I want to help you out,
and feel out in this area, it's right here. LAURA: Oh, okay. This is where he
kept his charcoal? ASHLEY: Yeah.
LAURA: Potentially? ASHLEY: Yeah. LAURA: (nervous laughs) ASHLEY: Wait, can you
roll an extra one? Because I was--
LAURA: No. Because I was going to roll none, I
would roll two, and get the disadvantage
on it. ASHLEY: I understand.
LAURA: Yes, this-- ASHLEY: Because you had none. LAURA: I had none, and
I still failed. I'm not very good at seeing
things that are here. ASHLEY: It's more. MATT: So, glancing down, you can just see
that pocket there, but you do sense
there is a strong, there was a--
LAURA: This is wood. ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.
LAURA: Yeah. ROBBIE: Yes, Arlo, it seems as
though this is the center, or the epicenter of
the explosion, so. MATT: And--
ASHLEY: What a genius. MATT: -- it's about this moment
the temperature begins to drop. LAURA: Uh-oh. MATT: Even lower. ROBBIE: Oh.
LAURA: Oh. ROBBIE: Oh, it's basically--
MATT: And colder. LAURA: I didn't-- We didn't
cause that, did we? MATT: As you begin to
look at each other, and this faint pale blue
light begins to glow behind where Arlo stands-- LAURA: Oh.
MATT: Here, as you see a humanoid figure
just begin to drift as you see a humanoid figure
just begin to drift into the air about a foot
and a half off the ground, emanating this pale
blue light. As it drifts, it comes
into sharp focus. You can see the
elderly image of Donald Kinzel drifting in the air, head
to one side, eyes black, drifting in the air, head
to one side, eyes black, sunken and vacant, the
jaw slack and open. A void of darkness. The arms stretched out, extended as it
begins to inhale. "(gravelly gasps)" ASHLEY: Donald? MATT: "(groans)" ASHLEY: Are you okay? MATT: (spectral whisper)
"What happened?" ASHLEY: Where are you? MATT: "Where am I?" ASHLEY: What, what, what?
MATT: "Why is it so cold?" LAURA: What do you see, sir? MATT: Turns towards you, and you can see
those black sockets, the emptiness behind them,
they almost seem to widen when they meet your direction. "You're so warm." ANJALI: Pull back, Arlo. I'm in the doorway suddenly. MATT: What have you done in this time, by the way?
ANJALI: Yes, exactly what I've done. (laughter)
ANJALI: Let me tell you. So I got the address
wrong. I'm so sorry, the water,
it just messed it up. You've been so
delightful, though. Can I please buy you
a drink at some point? Maybe even tonight? MATT: "Oh, I mean, sure,
yeah, we can maybe, "I've got business, too.
Supposed to stay for the night. "Maybe tomorrow night
we can do something." ANJALI: Oh, no, no, no--
MATT: "Have a good night now--" ANJALI: But it<i>
must</i> be tonight. Please, please, oh, please,
you've been such a dear. I'll meet you, I'll meet you at the, The Sight Unseen. MATT: "Very well, I'll meet
you there when I finish my shift." ANJALI: Oh, no, no,
no, no, no. (laughs) Why don't you head
over there now? MATT: (laughs)
Make a Sway roll. ANJALI: Oh god!
ASHLEY: Come on! MATT: This is a high stakes roll.
ANJALI: Hardcore, this is a high stakes roll,
so I am going to-- MATT: He's starting to-- ANJALI: I'm going to use--
MATT: -- feel a little weird about this encounter.
ANJALI: -- a resistance, so that I can have three
dice with one gilded. MATT: Oh, is that one of
your abilities? ANJALI: Yes, it's got a
diamond and two things. MATT: Okay, now, so--
ANJALI: I'm going to use-- MATT: So, that means
you have two dice, and one of which is gilded. ANJALI: Right, but then I'm
going to use a Resistance--
LAURA: Oh, you mean a drive, you mean a drive, not a-- ANJALI: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm
going to us a drive-- MATT: Yeah, a drive.
ANJALI: Not a resistance. I knew that, a drive.
MATT: You got it. ANJALI: I'm using a <i>drive</i>! MATT: Three dice.
ROBBIE: Theoretically, because she's by herself, we can't help her, right?
LAURA: Can't help at all. MATT: Correct.
ROBBIE: Yeah, okay. ANJALI: It's fine, it's fine. LAURA: Come on, Charlie!
ANJALI: It's fine, it's fine! LAURA: I mean--
ROBBIE: Roll them bones! LAURA: (gently) Come on, Charlie.
ROBBIE: Come on. LAURA: You can do it. ANJALI: Five. LAURA: (claps)
ASHLEY and ROBBIE: Yeah! ANJALI: I did, so I get
that bad boy back. MATT: Yep, so you get the drive
back from the gilded die. So, he goes, "(sighs) I mean, they probably
finished their investigation, "they haven't been
on for a bit. "It wouldn't hurt to take a
couple hours off, I guess." MATT and ANJALI: (laugh) MATT: "Don't tell anyone." ANJALI: I'm going to
stop by my house, and freshen up a little bit. This rain has gotten me
so soggy and wet, and I'd like to look
good for you. MATT: "Yeah, yeah, okay,
okay, now go for it. "What's the name?" ANJALI: Alice. LAURA, ASHLEY,
and ROBBIE: (laugh) MATT: "That's sweet. I know
your name's Charlotte. "I've seen you around.
(laughs) "Believe me, I've been eyeing
you for a while, this is--" ANJALI: Aha! MATT: " -- this kind
of a surprise." ANJALI: Oh, darling,
okay, well, fine, and since I'm so happy that I
don't have to get that act on, listen, I really do want
to offer you a drink. MATT: "Oh no, I'll meet
you there in a bit. "I know your place." ANJALI: (laughs) I've had my eye on you
for a while as well. MATT: "Oh." ANJALI: (laughs) I'm going to see you there. MATT: "All right, don't
keep me waiting." He heads out the
apartment complex. ANJALI: I just roll my
eyes at myself. Jesus, right. You're losing your edge! (laughter) ANJALI: Go running up
the stairs. Actually, yes, I go
running up the stairs. MATT: Running up the stairs
and enter the chamber just as you see this
spectral entity reaching out towards Arlo. ROBBIE: I'll instinctively
step in front of Arlo, and put my safety belt hand, but I know it's pointless,
but it's just an instinct. MATT: You put your
hand out and-- ROBBIE: But in front of
her to shield her, and it is an instinct.
MATT: Right. ROBBIE: Yeah.
MATT: The ghostly entity of Donald "(gasps)" turns towards you. "Oh, warm, warm--"
LAURA: Back away, back away. MATT: And is reaching
out, grasping. As he does, you watch his
arms stretch and extend, exaggerating--
LAURA: Oh jesus, what do we do? MATT: -- the fingers spreading
out like spider legs, these spectral claws that
reach for you. "(gasps)" ANJALI: Donald! LAURA: Ah, ah. MATT: Still reaching,
what do you say? LAURA: I trip over my dress,
and fall down on the ground, and start backing away. ANJALI: I instinctively called
his name to pull him away, but I obviously can't
flirt with the spirit, so I don't know
what to do. ASHLEY: Donald!
ANJALI: Donald, we can get you
out of there. ASHLEY: It's me, it's me.
ANJALI: We can save you. ASHLEY: You remember me? MATT: As soon as you start
speaking, the spirit "(gasps)" the jaw begins to subside,
the form, the imagery, the features begin to
return to a more human, less ghastly appearance. ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: "(gasps)" ASHLEY: You know me, and your
sister's coming to visit soon. MATT: "Auggie?" ASHLEY: Bringing your paper? MATT: "My paper. "What happened?" ASHLEY: I don't know. Well, what did you
put in the fire? MATT: "I buy fuel from
the scavengers." MATT: "I buy fuel from
the scavengers." ASHLEY: Which ones? MATT: "Mainly Layla." ASHLEY: Fucking Layla. Yeah, okay. MATT: "It's supposed to
keep me warm. I'm so cold." MATT: "It's supposed to
keep me warm. I'm so cold." LAURA: No, no, move away--
ASHLEY: Donald, Donald, Donald. MATT: He begins to
reach towards you. LAURA: No. MATT: "(gasps)" ASHLEY: I am going to... I'm going to-- Eh, I'm going to hide. (laughter) ANJALI: Behind one of us?
I don't know. MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: I'm going to
hide, I'm going to-- MATT: How are you hiding? ASHLEY: Get behind one
of, a chair, a sofa, or something, I don't know.
LAURA: I'm instantly sad I didn't take this. I want to take
that ability now. MATT: All right, there is
some scattered furniture on the side of the walls
here, so you could try, and flee, and hide
from the spirit. ASHLEY: All right, I'm
going to spend a drive. Okay. ANJALI: One, two, plus
gilded, you can-- ASHLEY: All right, so, two. Plus a gilded. Okay. Oh no. ANJALI: Oh no, no, it's
mixed success. ASHLEY: Four.
ANJALI: Yeah. MATT: Mixed success. All right. So, you dart away, and jump
behind one of the nearby So, you dart away, and jump
behind one of the nearby pieces of furniture,
darting behind, and pulling it, scraping
over in front to try, and put something between
you and the spirit. As you do, you end up
landing on the side where one of the chunks
of frozen ice-- ASHLEY: Ah!
MATT: -- is currently jutting out-- LAURA: Oh no.
MATT: It sticks into your side. You take a body.
ASHLEY: Ow! LAURA: Oh no.
ASHLEY: Ow! LAURA: I have a question. So, one of my abilities
is Let Them In. MATT: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: But that's if I've taken a bleed in
relation to that phenomenon. MATT: Correct.
LAURA: Which I did earlier because of
Auggie's coat. MATT: Yes, yes, you did. LAURA: Is it possible to quickly
remove my glove that I had, and feel my hand of where the
bleed had hit it earlier? MATT: In this instant,
I'll allow it, yeah. LAURA: All right.
ROBBIE: Mm. LAURA: All right, then
with this ability, whenever I take
one or more bleed marks, I also gain
additional information about the phenomenon
that harmed you. ASHLEY: Oh!
MATT: All right. So, first, I want
you to describe what everyone sees when
you take your glove off. LAURA: When I remove
my glove, you'll see that my hand is not
what you would expect. It is gray in color. My nails have turned black. The skin is cracked
along the hand, and along my forearm, you'll see
just scratch marks. Deep gashes that look old, but not healed. MATT: As you focus on that, you also watch as her eyes
go white for a moment. You feel this wave
of emotion, and a buzzing of energy
cascading in intensity and a buzzing of energy
cascading in intensity until it bursts, and it's not
connected to this spirit. until it bursts, and it's not
connected to this spirit. It's connected to something
else, freed. For a split second, you
see something dark, and smooth with
carvings in it, like an art piece or a
capsule, before this release, and something shadow-like that is gone. ASHLEY: Does Donald seem to
have any of the markings of that shadow
that I saw? Does he look connected
to it in any way? MATT: You would
guess that whatever may have caused
this detonation is responsible for his death, so there's a connection
somewhere. LAURA: We have to go. We have to get
out of here. ROBBIE: Did you get
what you need? MATT: "(gasps)"
LAURA: Yes. ROBBIE: What floor is this on?
LAURA: Leave him. MATT: Third floor. ROBBIE: Is Donald between
us and the door, or is it--? MATT: Donald right now is
between you and the door, and parallel to the
rest of you. ASHLEY: Want to go out
the fire escape? ANJALI: Does it go straight
into his apartment? LAURA: Do you have
a lighter on you? ROBBIE: Oh man,
I believe so. I actually would have a
lighter on me, yeah-- LAURA: I look around Donald's
apartment, is there a bowl? Is there anything metal? MATT: Yeah, there
is a tin cup that's over by the kitchen.
LAURA: I'm going to run, and grab the cup, and
rip one of his books, and crumble up
a piece of paper, and will you light it? I'll set it in the ground,
so that there's warmth there. MATT: Okay, as you're doing
this, you can see the spirit is still moving
in your direction. It's, "Auggie, help me." ASHLEY: I don't know what--
ANJALI: August. LAURA: Warmth. MATT: "(gasps)" As the flame flickers
within, "(gasps)" the spirit goes, and seems to
dart towards this tin cup, and surround it. As it does, the flame
that's burning immediately begins
to flicker out. ANJALI: August, run, come! MATT: All right.
ASHLEY: Take off. MATT: All of you dart out of
the room just as you hear the "(gasps)" that weird baleful voice of
the spirit of your friend that weird baleful voice of
the spirit of your friend bound to this space,
locked and left behind bound to this space,
locked and left behind as you close the door
to the apartment, and step back out
into the hallway. ANJALI: Are you all right? ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm fine. Wha-- I don't understand. LAURA: Your friend is connected
to some darker entity. Something was released when
the explosion happened. ASHLEY: That was
already in him? LAURA: I don't think so.
I think, I think the entity
killed him, and now he's attached to it. I believe that if we can do something to control
that entity, maybe your friend
will be released. It's just a guess. ANJALI: But a very educated one. ROBBIE: The energy of
the departed tend to tether themselves
to things in this world. Places, people, events. Your friend seems to be
anchored to that spot, or something that
happened there. Perhaps we can help
him, perhaps not, but this new information
does change things a bit. ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: Regardless, we should tell Alexandra that there is danger
in this apartment, maybe somebody can guard it. ANJALI: And we
should find Layla. ROBBIE: I've already pulled
out a small notepad and I'm writing down
a series of notes. Is there some kind of
messaging system to reach Candela, like a post, or?
MATT: Yeah, there's missives you
can send, and you know, short range telegrams
that can be-- LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: -- dropped across the town. ROBBIE: Okay, cool. MATT: Various code
names for utilization. ROBBIE: I'll take this note that basically is
a quick sum up about what we just
experienced, and I'll-- LAURA: Attach it
to a little pigeon. ROBBIE: To a little bird.
MATT: (laughs) LAURA: And send it
into the sky. ROBBIE: Go, fly to the
lighthouse, little bird. But save it for a moment when I can deliver
it for sure. MATT: Okay. Layla, you know
is Layla Orens, is... You knew them
because they were, while not of the same
orphanage you were, they were another one of
those kids of the street that was about four
years older than you, and was kind of a bully. She definitely
was one of those, one of those kids who was
either going to eventually become the head of
a criminal organization, or wind up in
prison at some point. ANJALI: Mm. MATT: But they're a
forceful personality and you haven't really heard
that name in a little bit. You do know that-- Actually, no. You
would know likely that they probably have been seen not wanting to live in this
particular place specifically, because of some of
the business that they're involved with. They spend a lot of their
time in The Clara House back in South Soffit,
which is a shelter and soup kitchen for
the various abodeless individuals of the city. ASHLEY: I know
where she could be. I mean, if that's the
next plan of attack here. But I can take us. ANJALI: How well
do you know her? ASHLEY: I mean, I haven't
seen her in a while. But she's-- She's tough. She's older than me, and she runs a lot of shit. ANJALI: Hm. Well. That's someone I
can get behind. The two of you at least are
on good-to-neutral terms? ASHLEY: Eh. ANJALI: Yes. Well,
I don't suppose we have any other
leads at this moment. ROBBIE: It won't be the first
time we've convinced someone to give us some information. ANJALI: Mm. LAURA: Let's go. ANJALI: Arlo. LAURA: Yes?
ANJALI: Are you quite all right? LAURA: Wonderful. ANJALI: Mm.
ASHLEY: Ah-- Ma'am, I don't know
if this is rude. what happened to your hand? ROBBIE: Oh yes,
that's very rude. LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: It is rude. It's just you took
off the glove, and-- Does it hurt? LAURA: It's quite
numb now, actually. I had a bit of a run in with-- It's numb, it doesn't
hurt very much. I'll touch the cameo
that's on my neck. We should go. ASHLEY: Okay. Okay. This way. MATT: All right. Heading back out into
the evening rain here, now pushing close to
midnight here in Newfaire, you trudge back to South
Soffit, to The Clara House, to pursue this
next possible lead as to what has happened
to your friend and whatever this
entity that you saw in your vision might be. And that's where we'll
go ahead and take a break. LAURA: Ooh!
ROBBIE: Oh! ASHLEY: Ooh! ROBBIE: ♪ New part of town ♪ LAURA: ♪ Dee-dee-dee-dee ♪ ANJALI: ♪ Whee whee whoyo ♪
All righty! MATT: All right, so we'll
ASHLEY: Oh boy! pick up from here
in a minute, and see where this
mystery takes us. Yeah. Hang back
for a few minutes. We'll see you here shortly.
ASHLEY: Ooh! ROBBIE: Yes!
LAURA: Well, all right! (dramatic string and marimba music) SPENSER: Hey friends,
my name is Spenser Starke. I'm one of the designers
of "Candela Obscura," a brand new horror
role playing game that follows a century's
old secret society on their quest
to protect humanity from the terrors
of the unknown. It's set in a fictional world filled with turn of
the century technology. "Candela Obscura" is powered by the
Illuminated Worlds system a game engine we've
created to facilitate fast, easy to pick up,
cinematic style play. I'm not going to cover
all the rules here so make sure you go download
the Quickstart guide if you want more details,
but by the end of this video you should have enough to
follow along with the show. To play, you only need
six-sided dice or d6s. The game uses
a dice pool system, which means you'll be
rolling a number of these dice and usually taking
the highest result. A six represents
a full success. A four or five
is a mixed success. You get what you want,
but it comes at a cost. And a three or below
is a miss. In order to know how many
dice are in your dice pool we'll need to talk a little
bit about character creation. Each player will
choose both a role and a specialty
inside of that role. Think of these kind of
like a class and a subclass. The five roles are Face, Muscle,
Scholar, Slink, and Weird. Each role contains
two specialties. The Face has
Journalist and Magician. The Muscle has
Soldier and Explorer. The Scholar has
Professor and Doctor. The Slink has
Criminal and Detective, and the Weird has
Medium and Occultist. When you choose a specialty, you'll then take
its custom character sheet. At the top, you'll find space
for your character's name, pronouns, and style, as well as your Circle,
Catalyst, and Question. Under Circle,
you'll write the name of the Candela Obscura group
your character is a part of. The Catalyst is the moment
in your character's life that led them to search
out the secret society, and the Question is what your character
is seeking answers to now that they're
within the society. These are jumping off points to help you build out
your character's backstory. (dramatic piano music) SPENSER: On the left side
of the character sheet, you'll find actions,
drives, and resistances. These are the core of
the Illuminated Worlds system. Each action has a rating
between zero and three that determines
how many dice you roll when performing that action. Those actions each fall
underneath one of three drives: Nerve, Cunning,
and Intuition. Nerve includes
physical maneuvers like Move, Strike,
and Control. Cunning pertains to your
interactions with people, like Sway, Read,
and Hide, and Intuition is your mental
and metaphysical aptitude, like Survey, Focus,
and Sense. Whenever you make a roll, you may also spend points from the drive that
action falls under to add additional dice
to your roll. For example, if you're
trying to convince someone to let you into
a place you don't belong, the GM may ask you
for a Sway roll. You would take
a number of dice equal to the action
rating you have in sway, which in this case
would be one, and then you could also spend any of your Cunning to
add additional dice. I have six available. I'm going to spend two to get a total of
three dice in my pool. Drive points are
a liquid currency, so once they're spent,
they must be refreshed before they can
be used again. Under normal circumstances, there is only one way
to refresh drives during an assignment,
and this is done through gilded actions
represented by a diamond on the left side
of that action. Anytime you make a roll
using that action, you'll replace one
of the standard dice with a gilded die instead. If you choose to take
the gilded die's result, you refresh one point in the drive that
encompasses that action. For example,
my Sway is gilded, so if I took the
gilded result on the roll I would refresh one Cunning. Sometimes this might mean you choose to take
a lower dice result in an effort to earn
back your drive. If you have zero points
in an action, you can still
roll that action. You can either spend drive
points to roll that many dice, or if you don't
want to spend drive, you roll two dice and
you take the lower result. Lastly, we have resistances. You'll have a number of these
at the start of an assignment and can spend them to reroll
dice when you want to push back on the consequences
of a bad roll. (folksy accordion
and autoharp music) SPENSER: Okay, moving to the
center of your character sheet you'll find your
character's abilities. These vary from role to role
and specialty to specialty, but you'll choose one ability
from the top section and one from the bottom
during character creation. For example, if you choose
to play the Journalist, you might take an ability
that gives you more context in the city, or lets you
tell when people are lying, or gains you insider access
to important people or places. Below that, you'll find
your Illumination Keys. These represent how you earn
experience within the game by offering playable goals
to work towards during each assignment. (intense string music) SPENSER: On the right side
of your character sheet are marks and scars. Marks are how you
take damage. There are three types of marks:
body, brain, and bleed. Body represents
physical injury. Brain represents
mental stress and fatigue, and bleed represents damage
taken from dangerous magick. Each of these categories
has three available slots, and if you're ever
inflicted with a mark, but cannot take it because
the slots are already full, you'll drop incapacitated
in the scene, clear the marks to zero in
that section, and take a scar. You'll come up with
what your scar is, then shift a point from one
of your actions to another. This reflects how
your character has changed because of the scar
that they've taken. If you should ever
need to take a scar and all three scar slots
are already full your character is permanently
incapacitated or dead. Below that is a section
for relationships. This is to write
down the names of the other characters
you're playing with and the kinds of connections
you share with them. You'll also answer prompts
based on those relationships that help you
flesh out the details. Finally, let's
talk about gear. On each sheet,
there's a list of gear that is unique
to that specialty. You don't need to choose
your gear ahead of time. In "Candela Obscura," you select your gear
only when you need it. You may mark up to three gear
slots during the assignment declaring you brought
the item with you, and in this way,
your character is prepared for any situation
they encounter during their investigation. There is plenty more to learn about the
Illuminated Worlds system as well as the world
of the Fairelands. So go grab
the Quickstart Guide and follow along as we embark
upon the strange adventures of "Candela Obscura." (dramatic orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music) MATT: And welcome back. So, Auggie, you lead
the rest of your circle away from the climactic, if dangerous circumstance in which the apartment of
Donald was left behind. Heading towards The Clara House
in South Soffit, you said? ASHLEY: Yes.
MATT: All right. Returning to the
subterranean regions of the city, pushing
through the rain. On this side of The Soffit, you pass by a number of
the buildings themselves that emerge, protrude,
or look like they are about to slip out of
the extremely stark, brutalist, angular
structures left behind of the Oldfairen ruins that emerge from the
ground at odd angles. Many of which has been, in
some way, shape or form, been carved and retaken
and built upon others that have crumbled
with the time through wear and tear
and the weather. But it makes for
a very unique, slightly subterranean journey beneath The Eaves. At this late in the
evening, within The Soffit, it's a little more busy
than it is in The Steel. There's several people
wandering the streets, some heading towards their
way to the Red Lamp, others that are getting
ready to cross the bridges over the Stentorian River. There are some
that are taking an odd peek at you
as you pass by. But as you approach the
exterior of The Clara House, you can see it's
a modest shelter that is further back
than it is wide. It looks like a homestead
that has been expanded to three times the
length of a normal home. The windows are simple,
looks like there are some batched curtains that
close the entry window way and the front door is closed. There's no interior light. Here at midnight, it looks
like The Clara House is, for the moment,
not welcoming. LAURA: Are they open all the time?
ASHLEY: Should I knock? I mean, you can go in. I mean, if you need a
place to stay, you know. It is pretty late,
but should I knock? ANJALI: Is it a
place that people are used to receiving
visitors this late? ASHLEY: Well-- MATT: You've never been
here that late, necessarily, but from what
you know of Clara, she's never really
turned anyone down. ASHLEY: Let me just
go in and see. I'm going to give a
knock on the door. MATT: Okay. There's a pause for a bit before the door unlatches and opens up ever so faintly. You see this vibrant red hair that is knotted up into
a tight bun atop a head, and a somewhat
tired-looking woman who peeks through a
chain that's locked on the inside of the door and
goes, (softly) "Right, right." ASHLEY: Clara?
MATT: "This is Clara." ASHLEY: Yeah, you might
not remember me, Auggie, sometimes I've
been here before. MATT: "I remember your face. "It's been some time,
hasn't it?" ASHLEY: It's been some time.
MATT: "You're a bit older than I remember." ASHLEY: Well, you know,
that's what happens. Is Layla here? Layla Orens. MATT: "Layla, I
think is resting. "Aye, she's staying
for the night." ASHLEY: Would you do me a big
favor and go wake her up? I really need to talk
to her. It's real important. MATT: "Sure, sure.
I'll let her know "you're here waiting outside.
Just a moment." ASHLEY: Thanks.
MATT: "Oh, hello." Kind of glances back. "You all look like you have
places to stay, right?" LAURA: Thank you, ma'am, yes. MATT: "If need be, there's
always soup in the kitchen." Closes the door. ASHLEY: She's the best.
MATT: Steps away a bit. ANJALI: That was quite
possibly the kindest person I've met in weeks. ASHLEY: She's a
wonderful woman. LAURA: How many people
usually stay here? ASHLEY: It depends. I mean, they got about-- MATT: A few dozen at
any given point in time. LAURA: Wow.
ASHLEY: Yeah. ANJALI: And is there
a particular age where they let the
birds leave the nest? ASHLEY: Anyone. I mean,
if somebody needs a bed, Clara will take them in. ANJALI: Incredible. LAURA: Mm. MATT: A few minutes
go by before you hear some heavy footfalls
like (thudding) come to the door and
the door tries to slam open a little bit, but the chain
catches it and "Motherfuck--" Chain unhinges and opens
up a bit and you see this woman in probably
her mid to late 20s. This messy mane of
auburn-brown hair This messy mane of
auburn-brown hair that just falls past
the shoulders. She's wearing a vest
that goes past her waist and a thick
flannel-like jacket underneath the vest as
well as a thick scarf that's hanging over
the shoulders. She looks a bit dirty
in the cheeks, and you can see has
dried, cracked lips a bit, and you can see has
dried, cracked lips a bit, but has already a
look upon your troop as she looks at you
with complete mistrust and frustration and goes,
"What the fuck, Auggie, "you're waking me up this
time of night for what? "To introduce me to all your
well-dressed friends here? "Is this a birthday?
Is it my birthday? "Is it my fucking birthday? "Happy birthday to me, what the fuck?"
ASHLEY: No, it's not your fucking birthday. I needed to ask
you a question. MATT: "Ask me a fucking question
so I can go back to bed. "What is this shit? "I haven't seen
you in years." ASHLEY: I know. But I-- You know Donald? MATT: "Yeah, I know
Donald. Why?" ASHLEY: You were selling
him some fuel. MATT: "Yeah. Yeah, you know, "just making a little scratch
on the side. Yeah, why?" ASHLEY: What kind was it? MATT: "It was, you know. "Stuff we had left over." ASHLEY: Leftover from where? MATT: "From work. "Why are you asking
these questions?" ASHLEY: I just-- Something happened. ANJALI: Can I read her
while this is happening? MATT: If you'd like to, yeah. Make a Read test under your
Cunning, if you don't mind. ANJALI: Four.
MATT: A four. All right, she is
definitely being dodgy and her walls are starting to
quickly come up through the questions
and the nature of these three
well-dressed strangers that are looking upon her as these questions
are being asked. So you gather that dodgy
atmosphere very quick. "Okay. Yeah, no, I got
them from work, that's--" ASHLEY: Where?
Refresh my memory. Where you been
working lately? MATT: "All over the
place. Look, I'm tired "and I need to get to bed."
LAURA: Layla, I apologize for the
interruption in your evening. Can I pull out
a couple of coins? MATT: Yeah. LAURA: Thank you so
much for your time. Can I help at all? MATT: "Is she for real?" ASHLEY: Yeah, I mean, she's
also going to pay me for my time later.
So she's paying up. MATT: "So you hiring?
What's this deal?" LAURA: I am, actually. I need information
on the fuel. MATT: Make a Sway roll with
the coin in front of you. LAURA: Okay. MATT: Because you
are offering coin, I'll add a die to it. LAURA: Okay. ANJALI: How's your Sway? LAURA: My Sway is
not very good. ANJALI: Okay, I'll give
you resistance for it. LAURA: Okay.
MATT: A drive you mean? ANJALI: A drive. I knew
that, a drive. It says resistance-- MATT: I understand.
So it would be adding a Cunning drive
to that, yeah. ANJALI: Yes, I'm adding
a Cunning drive. LAURA: I'm going to try
to help myself out more and take one as well. MATT: You got it.
LAURA: So I'm rolling four. ROBBIE: Oh, shoot.
ANJALI: Drive, Drive, Drive. LAURA: Two successes.
MATT: Two successes? LAURA: Well, okay. Fives, successes with--
MATT: Two fives. All right, so that's
a mixed success. LAURA: Yes.
MATT: So she goes, "Yeah, no. I've just
been doing some work "for a little bit
for some folks. "Been traveling on the
outskirts of the city, "gathering things, selling them
off and we had some extras, "I sell them off
to the foundry "and I got some couple
of things I sold "to some other folks on
the outskirts of The Steel. "We need to keep ourselves
warm here in the weather." ASHLEY: Yeah, definitely
keeps you warm. Maybe a little too warm. MATT: "What, are
you fucking eating "or hugging the
charcoal or something? "Y'all are crazy. Look--" LAURA: Where on the
outskirts, Layla? MATT: "(laughs) "All right, this is an interrogation."
LAURA and ASHLEY: No, no, no. MATT: "I've been in this before.
I've been in this shit before." Takes the coin from
your hand and goes, "I've answered your question. "I think this
might be a setup. "I say this respectfully, you
might have gotten had, friend." ASHLEY: This is not a setup. ANJALI: I'm putting my foot in
the door before she closes it. MATT: It slams onto your
boot and you catch-- "The fuck is--" ANJALI: Layla, I don't know
if you're familiar with me. MATT: You can see other figures,
other younger teenagers and Clara start appearing
in the distance hearing some of the
scuffle in the front. ANJALI: I don't know if
you've heard of me before, My name is Charlotte,
Charlotte Eaves. I work at an establishment
called the Sight Unseen. We are indeed looking for
new sources of materials and fuel for my
establishment, this is true. We simply, because of certain regulations in the city, we simply have to look for
other sources, you see. Now, I feel that we
have mutual interests. You are interested in coin and I am interested
in discretion. This is why we're here. I trust as a
friend of Auggie's who I trust with my life, that
I might be able to trust you. I'm going to pull
out some coin as well. MATT: You make a Sway roll. ANJALI: ♪ You bet I will,
and I'll shoot a resistance ♪ MATT: A drive?
ANJALI: That one is gilded. A drive, a drive!
(laughter) MATT: I'm going to keep
pushing 'til you get it. ANJALI: I'm going to cross
this word out right here. MATT: There you go.
ANJALI: Drive. I knew that, if you want
to help out, I will be happy. ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm going to
do Saw This Coming, and-- LAURA: Oh nice.
ASHLEY: -- add an extra-- ANJALI: Thanks,
sister-- brother. ASHLEY: Listen, I've been
working for Charlie here for about nine years
now and she pays well. She's fair, she pays
well for loyalty and this is someone you
want to have on your side. MATT: Go ahead and roll. ANJALI: Six on
the gilded dice. So I'll take that.
MATT: Fantastic, so you get your drive back.
That's awesome. LAURA: Does Auggie get
his drive back too? ANJALI: Only if I--
LAURA: Oh right, because you did
the Saw It Coming, so you didn't actually
use your drive, got it. MATT: Yep. "All right, all right. "I'm always down for
more business opportunities "in this city. "I got myself my own
network of individuals. "Little birdies that
can scatter around. "We got a troop of people
who are good at finding "some interesting, weird
shit, so you let me know "what you're looking for. "Appreciate the
recommendation, Auggie. "Who the fuck are you?" ANJALI: They're associates
of mine. ROBBIE: Doctor. Not medical. MATT: "Shame, could always
use a medical doctor. "Doctor of?" ROBBIE: "Of philosophy,
actually." MATT: "(laughs)" ASHLEY: I didn't know that. MATT: "That's pretty funny."
ASHLEY: That's pretty good. That's pretty funny.
MATT: "That's pretty funny. "(laughs)"
ROBBIE: What's so funny about it? MATT: "I don't know, usually
doctors, they're helpful. "Anyway--"
(laughter) MATT: "Sorry, they're
your associates "and as a possible
former employer, "I don't mean to
offend your friends, "but this is fucking funny." ANJALI: I appreciate someone
who calls it as they see it. MATT: "Regardless, no. "Okay, come out of the
rain for a second. "Clara, I got some friends
here for a second, "if you don't mind." Clara's like, "Oh right, no,
I'll get some soup ready." Wanders off. Some of the other kids
that have also woken up from the whispers
and you can see them watching and listening
and Layla goes, "Go to bed, I got this." They all scatter a bit. You get the sense already
that she runs the place underneath or
alongside Clara, at least some of her
network also stays here. So grabs one of the
stools and parks it up and Rikers over it and
sits down at the tables. ASHLEY: Yes.
LAURA: Nice. (laughter) MATT: "So yeah, I mean
what kind of work you need? "What kind of business
are we talking?" ANJALI: Well, I'm interested in
finding new sources for materials and I understand that you
are exceptionally good at, I hate the word scavenging, but I'm afraid that's
the word I'm looking for. Exceptionally good at
finding goods in places where others
might not find them. MATT: "Yeah, you
could say that. "We got a few secret
paths here in The Soffit "where we can find
where the stairs go lower, "if you know what I mean." ANJALI: What we're
really interested in is a particular
kind of charcoal that you sold to
Donald, you see. It's a very special kind and it looks a little
bit different, I believe,
than normal charcoal. Might you have found that
somewhere, or seen it? MATT: "I think I know what
you're talking about. "Yeah, yeah, no,
here's the thing. "We occasionally take these
jobs from this woman "at the Alizarin Gallery,
I think, in The Varnish, "kind of intense lady,
but she pays well, "bring her back any sort
of weird shit we find "when we're on
our excursions. "While I'm down there, anything
else we find we get to keep. "So we made a deal with
the Evanoch Foundry "over in The Steel, that if we
found anything they can use "for their bellows,
their factory fuels, "anything that's burnable "that can keep the forges
burning hot, essentially, "they give us
a real good price, "because usually they got to "either import that shit
or a pay premium price "for their mines
outside of town. "So yeah. "We found a couple of
these great stores down there. "I'm not going
to tell you where, "because that's where
our business cuts from, "but we've gone back
and forth a few times "and found some of the shit
runs really, really well. "So yeah, we've had
a good thing going on "with the foundry for a while
and we sell the most of it, "and then every now and then
we take whatever's left over "or keep some to
the side to give "to some of the people
we like in The Steel "and some of them
here as well. "Especially during
the cold weather fronts." ROBBIE: Have you ever
burned any yourself? MATT: "No, I don't need to.
We stay here with Clara. "She's got plenty of wood." ROBBIE: Have you ever seen
one of your clients burn this fuel before? MATT: "Yeah, we've been
doing it for weeks now. "They all seem to be--" LAURA: The most recent
delivery, though, to Donald. Did you notice anything
strange about it? Was it located anywhere
different than usual? MATT: "It had some-- "Yeah, you know what,
there was some strange, "looked like sculptures,
some boxes or something. "It all gets made
of the same material. "We assumed it
would burn as well. "So we just said it
was a better fuel "and sold it for a
little bit extra coin." LAURA: And that was next to
what you gave to Donald or that is what
you gave to Donald? MATT: "I think we
gave one to Donald "and we gave one to
the foundry originally." ROBBIE: Was it intended
for the foundry? MATT: "Well, I mean the
foundry's the one "that usually pays for
the majority of the fuel." LAURA: How recent was that? MATT: "That was yesterday." LAURA: We should get
to the foundry. ANJALI: We should. Last question,
from me at least. The Alizarin Gallery, the
gentlewoman that you mentioned. Do you know her name? MATT: "She doesn't
give me a name. "She does wear
a pair of gloves, "pair of brown gloves,
short black hair, "kind of a very
intense woman. "One of them hoity-toity
artist types." LAURA: Have I ever been
to the gallery before? MATT: You may have actually been
to the gallery in passing. It's a beautiful art
gallery in The Varnish. They have a number
of themed displays that happen on
cycling schedules. They have some galas
that are thrown there by friends of the gallery. It tends to be a
social hosting spot. ANJALI: I don't know
if I can ask this of my GM or if
I can ask of her, but would it be a place where
they would show artifacts or relics or mostly paintings
and sculptures and such? MATT: I guess the question is
how often have you been there? Do you think you
would be a purveyor of this gallery often or was? ANJALI: I think I would find it
to be an excellent meeting place to do business
with people who-- MATT: Okay, as far
as you can tell, most of it's sculptures
and paintings, but they do have, a lot of
them are historical paintings. A lot of them are
imported from even beyond the Vastchasm and are
from creators and artists the Vastchasm and are
from creators and artists from Otherwhere and
foreign spaces. Especially in
the post-war era, it's considered taboo
to display such things. So those tend to be a
little more secretive and a little more
invite-only. They do have themes that
deal with Oldfaire sculptures They do have themes that
deal with Oldfaire sculptures and artistic expression, but there are a lot of
places here that also study and talk of the lost
history of Oldfaire. ANJALI: To the Foundry? LAURA: Yes. ANJALI: You, Layla, have
been of excellent help. I pull out a card. If you ever find yourself,
I hope you don't at this age, but if you ever find yourself
near The Sight Unseen, drop in and hand this
to a man named Stinson. MATT: "All right. "Thank you. "Pleasure doing business." Puts a hand out for the
coin that you offer. ANJALI: Oh, yeah.
No, absolutely. One, two, and one extra. For your time. MATT: "All right, all
right. Well, perfect. "Yeah, we'll be
in contact soon. "I guess best to
merge our network, "see what kind of
good come out of it. "Sorry about the whole
laughing at you thing." ROBBIE: Oh, it's
quite all right. You don't know any better. ANJALI: We laugh at
him all the time. It's fine.
MATT: "Yeah. "Maybe you don't
start with that." ROBBIE: Sure, I won't. MATT: "Look where we live." ROBBIE: (laughs) MATT: "Anyway. "Nice meeting some of you. "Good to see you, Auggie. "You grew up right. "I like it. You filled out." ASHLEY: Thanks.
So did you. (laughs) Sorry.
MATT: "Yeah. "Fucking weirdo. Get out
of here. Get out of here." ASHLEY: All right,
all right, all right. MATT: She pushes you
all out the door. Clara goes, "Oh, I just
brought the soup," and the door closes.
ASHLEY: Whoa, whoa, whoa. ANJALI: Take it to go! ROBBIE: As we're leaving, I just pull
my little journal out. I just take it and just write her first name in my journal. Just put it back
in my pocket. That's all. MATT: Okay. ANJALI: Do we know
where this foundry is? Do we have a sense
of where it is? Or could we have a map?
MATT: You know it's in The Steel. ANJALI: Okay. Right. So it's after midnight
right now, right? MATT: It is. ANJALI: How comfortable are we
going to The Steel at this hour? LAURA: Quite. ASHLEY: I think
we're all right. Yeah, I think we'll be okay. ANJALI: All right. Why don't you show them some
of the backstreets, Auggie? ASHLEY: You ready? You ready to see this? I start.
(laughter) ASHLEY: Parkouring!
(laughter) ANJALI: Parkour! Parkour! (laughter) LAURA: I just walk. We all walk.
ASHLEY: Unnecessarily parkour. LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: Yep, yep. ANJALI: It just makes him so
happy; I had to let him do it. (laughter)
ASHLEY: Wee! MATT: Brilliant. Through the slickened streets rising up through
The Soffit once more, you begin to climb towards
the more surfaced region of the city of Newfaire,
heading back towards The Steel where you had encountered the spirit of Donald before.
LAURA: Back and forth, back and forth. MATT: Yep.
LAURA: We should really think about taking a carriage. MATT: You could take a
trolley, if you'd like. LAURA: Yes.
ROBBIE: Trolley? ASHLEY: Yeah, we can take a trolley.
LAURA: It's a long walk. ANJALI: Might as well. ROBBIE: Yeah. MATT: All right. You wait for a little bit, walk along the street
before you begin to hear the familiar distant sound
of static crackling, electricity popping, until
eventually around the corner you see the massive
cable car, one of a handful that run
throughout the city of Newfaire. As it begins to
approach, it slows down towards one of its various
onboarding locations along the side of the street. It doesn't fully
come to a stop. It just comes to a slow rest and you have to leap
on and grab the side. As you do, it
begins to pick up and sparks above begin to
spray out from where you are as it takes off and
continues down the street. The bell, ding, ding,
ding, ding! Everyone holding on and you eventually
get a little used to the sparks it
leaves behind, the blue hueness, the smell
of ozone that drifts behind as it begins to cruise
through the city, the rain pouring off the sides
of its somewhat extended roof and the oddball
crew of people that are currently
sitting aboard it. You see in the back,
there's a very old gentleman with a big thick cane
that's just hunched over it with a long pointed nose and
he's just falling asleep on it and rocking as it goes by. There is a middle-aged woman who is currently holding
an infant in her arms and she has like a hood up, a bonnet-like hood that
ties under the chin, a very full-cheeked
smile that looks up at the rest of you and
gives you big grin. You see the conductor of
the trolley in the back just holding on and
keeping an eye out and changing and shifting
from which cable car track it's shifting
through the city, until eventually it
brings you past the bridge back over to where
The Steel is. Actually, you wouldn't
have crossed the bridge. You would be right here. No, you would cross the
bridge from South Soffit. Yes, you would. So past the bridge, passing
over the river at night, you can see the sheets of
rain falling through the sky, the occasional crack
of distant thunder that rolls through
the evening storm, until you come back into
the city streets once more, the rain splashing
past people and faces just darting
by until eventually you can see the
large smoke stack columns that break the
skyline as you return to the familiar
site of The Steel. LAURA: Where do
you live, Auggie? ASHLEY: I live
in The Shriveline. LAURA: Oh.
ASHLEY: Well, I used to, but
now I kind of-- I sleep wherever I
can find a spot. But sometimes--
LAURA: Oh. ANJALI: Sometimes
I take care of him. ASHLEY: She's got an extra
spot in a back room and when it gets real
cold, I'll sleep in there. Thank you. ANJALI: Always. MATT: As you step off the
trolley stop here at The Steel, you can see there
are two cars with red lights about two blocks
down the way, cycling. It looks like a small crowd is gathered alongside
another set of buildings, not but three blocks away
from the apartment complex where you had
previously come from. ANJALI: Auggie, do you
know that building? LAURA: That's
Donald's building. ANJALI: Where the crowd is? MATT: The crowd is a little
ways further down from that. ANJALI: Yeah.
LAURA: Oh. ASHLEY: Oh.
ROBBIE: Oh. ASHLEY: I mean, I've seen it. I don't know what it is. Do I know what it is? MATT: I mean, you haven't
had much of a reason to stop by that
particular home. It looks like it's still
in the small clumps of residential housing-- ASHLEY: Mm-hmm.
MATT: -- that is dotted throughout the
industrial district. A lot of people that
work at these factories, or if they aren't going
to the other districts, there are some places with
relatively cheap housing, basically because of the
proximity of the factories make them not the
healthiest place to live. LAURA: Is it on the way to the
foundry if we walk from that way? MATT: It's not away from it. It's more like an
adjacent journey. LAURA: Okay. Let's walk by
the crowd just to make sure. ANJALI: I'll hop off
and check it out. MATT: Okay. As you begin to
approach the outside of this cluster
of apartments, you can see now
the two vehicles that are present here, these two carriages with these red torch lights on top that burn. You can see the electrical-- When I say torchlight,
I mean flashlight. I should specify. This electrical red
light that spins signifies The Periphery, the police force is present and in the process
of investigating. There are people
looking around. As you begin to approach, you can see they are
currently carrying you can see they are
currently carrying two sheet-covered bodies towards one of
these carriages. ANJALI: Do I happen to recognize
any of these gentlemen as people who may be on my, for lack of a
better term, payroll? MATT: Make a Survey
test for me, if you don't mind,
under Intuition. ANJALI: Six. MATT: Six? Success.
ASHLEY: Yes. ROBBIE: Nice.
ANJALI: Not on the gilded die. MATT: You see most of
them you do not recognize and The Periphery-- The police force of the city, while they do hold
the rule of law, they also inherited a lot of
the militaristic technology that won the war a
number of years ago and have been enjoying a
seat of progressed power within the city ever since. So you've been careful
with not crossing anybody in that space necessarily, because you're not
sure which ones are more or less keen to allow the business that you are purveying.
ANJALI: Yep. MATT: But you
do recognize one. You see one gentleman
named Simon, who is in his early 40s, receding orange-brown hair. He has a bit of a
bushy chin strap beard and a nose that is
very like W.C. Fields, wide in the middle
of his face. He has his cap on
signifying his position amongst The Periphery, probably one of
the local captains. He's wearing his
long coat as well and is currently giving
orders to a few of the men as they're gathering the bodies
and beginning to place them within the back
of these carriages. He doesn't see you there, but you just see him
going about his business. ANJALI: Do I know him
as in a friend or foe? Or neither? MATT: You have briefly
encountered him a few times at the Sight Unseen,
which means you know that at least he
enjoys the nightlife. You may have had
a brief conversation with him once or twice, but you don't know
him extremely well. ANJALI: I mean, I could
ask what's happened, but I'm wondering if we can
glean it from where we are. ROBBIE: Are there any, from where we can see among
the hubbub and personnel, are there any OUP mixed
in with The Periphery? MATT: At a glance around, you do not see anyone wearing OUP signifying
clothing or gear. This looks to be
just Periphery based. LAURA: They're coming
from a house? The bodies were
taken from a house? MATT: You don't know if
they're coming from a house or if they're coming
from the street, you just see them moving
these two bodies on carts and they're wheeling
them towards the back of their
wagon-like cars. ASHLEY: I'm going to
run up to the crowd, run up to just
somebody who was close. MATT: Mm-hmm.
ASHLEY: Hey, what happened? MATT: You run up to
this this one dude who's in his late 20s or so. He's waterlogged
from the rain. He's holding his
cap in his hand. He's got a rain slicker on
that looks a bit tattered. He turns and goes, "Oh, apparently they found two
people dead in the street." ASHLEY: Just right
out in the road? MATT: "Yeah, yeah. "I don't know them.
Do you know them? "Do you know who it was?"
ASHLEY: No. You didn't see?
MATT: "No, no. "I just got here."
ASHLEY: All right. MATT: "I just haven't
seen a dead body before. "I was kind of curious." ASHLEY: How you feeling? MATT: "I don't know.
I don't know him, yet." ASHLEY: It's weird
seeing a dead body. MATT: "I haven't really
seen them yet. "They've had a
sheet on them." ASHLEY: All right.
Have a good night. MATT: "Yeah, you too." You seem him trying
to catch a glance over the front row of the crowd. LAURA: Me too. (laughter) ASHLEY: They just found
the bodies in the street. They were just in the road. LAURA: Oh, I hope Donald
didn't get them. ASHLEY: Huh. ANJALI: Is Simon anywhere
where I might be able to-- He's very much in the fray,
right? He's not anywhere- MATT: He's in the fray,
but he's about 15 feet from the outer edge of
the crowd that's gathered and keeping a
non-intrusive distance. ANJALI: Can I just slide up
to the edge of the crowd and try to make eye
contact with him? MATT: Sure, sure. I'd say make a
Sway test on this to see if you can give
him enough of a reason to step away from the midst
of his business right now. Because he is in the thick of it.
ANJALI: ♪ We'll find out ♪ Six on the gilded dice. ASHLEY: Nice!
LAURA and MATT: Nice! ANJALI: This is a good die.
MATT: There you go. ANJALI: You're doing
good. Good job. MATT: (Irish) "All right.
Get it inside the cart. "Move it along.
Move it along. "Pardon me, just
keep it going." Walks over, tugs his
cap a little bit. "Miss?" ANJALI: Sir, what's
happened here? MATT: "We found a few folks
here wondering at night. "They were taken
down the street. "It looks like
they were slain, "killed. We're trying
to investigate the moment. "Thought it might
be the weather. "It's not quite cold enough "to put them in the
state they were found in." ANJALI: Frozen, you mean? MATT: "Aye. How'd
you know that?" ANJALI: Well, you just said
not quite cold enough to put them in the-- MATT: "Oh, right."
ANJALI: -- state of this weather. MATT: "You're
astute. I suppose." ANJALI: When did
you find them? MATT: "Oh, we were
called down here "about 20 minutes
ago by the-- by folks." ANJALI: By folks. LAURA: It's not anything we
need to be worried about, is it? MATT: "I'd say, recommend
stay indoors. It's a bit late. "You shouldn't be up
this late anyway, miss. "Dressed as you are, liable
to be gathering the attention "Dressed as you are, liable
to be gathering the attention "of folks that would be
doing such terrible things "to folks like this. "So you know, best be safe." ANJALI: Right. Thank you. MATT: "Of course. Of course." ASHLEY: Who was it? Do you know who they were? MATT: "We don't know. We just
got here and found the bodies." ASHLEY: I understand. Okay. MATT: "Based upon the
dress, we could say "they were probably
either individuals "that were working around here
or living around here, "not wearing threads quite
as nice as the rest of you." LAURA: We should
get back then. ANJALI: Yes.
MATT: "Right." At this point,
another officer of The Periphery
comes up and goes, "Captain, Captain, "they found another one about
two blocks up this way." He says, "Oh, great. "It looks like we have a
late night ahead of us." LAURA: Which
direction was the-- MATT: You saw him
pointing further in, in the direction where
you were traveling towards the foundry. LAURA: Oh great. ANJALI: Where did
the dead bodies go? MATT: They're being
loaded up into the wagon. You can see one of
them under the sheet, the hand is exposed
and it is blue, and you can see ice drifting
off of it locked in place, slowly dripping
with the rain. LAURA: Oh no. ANJALI: If we go that way, I'm
sure we will find more proof. LAURA: Did we ever
send that message? ANJALI: Oh, yes. LAURA: To Alexandra? MATT: I assumed you have. LAURA: Okay, good.
ROBBIE: Probably on the way. LAURA: All right.
ROBBIE: We tied it to a pigeon, remember? LAURA: Okay, then it's
probably not Donald. It's probably the
shadowy terrible figure that I saw in my vision. ANJALI: We don't yet know
what to do about that, do we? LAURA: We go to the foundry. ASHLEY: Yeah, go
to the foundry. Let's go to the foundry.
ANJALI: Let's go to the foundry. MATT: All right. (laughs) Okay. ANJALI: I had a thought
and then I didn't. MATT: Not a worry. All right. So you
continue past this chaos and you can see as
other Periphery officers are heading in the direction of where this other
body seems to be, you walk in parallel with
them and then pass by. Indeed, you can glance
over and see a scene of a woman in her late
30s, it looks like almost, who is on the ground
arms out, aghast, but herself frozen solid--
LAURA: (gasps) MATT: -- like her entire
body has been cast in ice. ANJALI: As we're walking--
LAURA: Oh, that's awful. ANJALI: -- if I can
walk next to Howard and slightly away
from the others. Howard, I hesitate to bring
this up, but I must. ROBBIE: I'm an open book. ANJALI: Is this,
by any chance, similar to the
experience you had? ROBBIE: Glance back to make
sure they're out of earshot. Hmm. Somewhat. A bit
more malevolent, if I were to classify it. Seems to be some sort
of freewheeling spirit, less interested in torment
and more interested in murder. I feel like that's
fairly obvious. I just don't want to
frighten the children. ANJALI: Yes. No, of course. The reason I'm asking is, was there anything
in particular that you were able to do
to stop that from happening? that you were able to do
to stop that from happening? ROBBIE: Oh, certainly. Appeal to the being's logic, quell its emotions. Though, if I'm
being quite honest, this feels
somewhat different. ANJALI: Yes. I doubt that this creature is particularly persuaded, particularly
easily persuaded. ROBBIE: I'm not particularly
easily frightened, but the one thing that
does make me uncomfortable is not knowing. I have very little knowledge about what's happening
this evening, but it seems now
we have a time issue. ANJALI: Yes. On we go. ROBBIE: On we go. LAURA: Is it possible
to use one of our gear? We can use it multiple times
as long as it's on us, right? MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: As we get closer to the body and pass by it, can I look at my detector and see if there was a trail from the other
bodies to this one? MATT: Sure.
LAURA: And beyond? MATT: You turn on
your bleed detector. As you cruise by, the
energy crackles a bit and you can see across
the frozen corpse and in the space around it,
a smattering of bleed residue. You can see as one of
the officers comes forward and begins to
inspect the body, they touch one of those areas of bleed--
LAURA: (whispers) Oh no. MATT: -- and watch as
they "(quick, short breaths)" begin to have a momentary
emotional freak out. One of the other officers
begins to try and console them and they look a bit spooked. The other officer takes
them and sets them down, not fully understanding the
scope of what's happening. As you remove your detector and see that there is
indeed a continuous thread of corruption with
bleed corruption being left in the wake
of whatever this is. LAURA: Does it go beyond
the body of this woman? MATT: Best you can tell, as it strikes past the body,
it seems to dissipate. LAURA: Okay. MATT: If you'd like to
try and make a Sense test to see if you could gather where that residual bleed
energy might be leading you. LAURA: Okay.
MATT: You could attempt that. LAURA: I'm going to
use some drive. A five. MATT: A five. Okay. As you continue moving
along, you focus in, thinking of your hand, thinking of that
sensation from earlier when you had touched the
lapel of Auggie here upon first meeting them, of that memory of that
dark, shadowed entity that you recall watching freed
from within that furnace. You sense that endless cold, that need for warmth,
that need for heat. As you begin to blink
your eyes back into focus, you can see that you
have lost a few blocks and the rest of you
are now approaching the outskirts of
the Evanoch Foundry. The massive smokestacks, some of many throughout
this district, but the black columns of
billowing foundry smoke now replaced with
gray-white smoke and steam. LAURA: Oh, so the foundry? ANJALI: Yes. ROBBIE: In our journeys
throughout the evening, has Arlo shared
their experiences at the apartment with us? Do we know what you
know at this point? LAURA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ROBBIE: Yeah. Okay. LAURA: Definitely. Did you say it almost
had jewels on it, the figure? Jeweled? MATT: No, not jeweled.
LAURA: I feel like I remember some weird words, but that could have been a different--
ASHLEY: Smooth like an art piece? (laughter) ASHLEY: Did you say
smooth like art? LAURA: Something. MATT: Oh, the-- ANJALI: The-- MATT: The box, you mean? Yes. ASHLEY: Oh, never mind. MATT: It wasn't jeweled. It was smooth and looked like it was
intentionally sculpted. LAURA: Oh, okay.
MATT: With grooves dug into it that looked like some
sort of intentional design. ANJALI: Right.
LAURA: Okay, okay. So, at least we have a visual of what that kind of looked like.
ANJALI: We might be looking for. MATT: You do, yes.
LAURA: Okay, yes. ANJALI: Is there any kind
of-- I don't know how. I've never been to a foundry. Is there anything
like an office or guards or anyone there? Because it's steaming
24/7, it seems. MATT: Indeed. It looks like there
are office entrances on the left-hand side. You can see some
smaller windows and an outcropping
from this massive, concrete-like
foundry structure with a massive double
central front door that leads to the interior
that is currently closed. There are a number
of doors on the side, and it is dark from what you
can tell from the inside. You do, however, see that
two of the doors are open-- LAURA: Shit.
MATT: -- and steam is billowing out from them. You see two figures, two people come
screaming out, just--
"(screaming frantically)" They come running
out into the night on two different sides.
ASHLEY: Hey, hey! ANJALI: What's happened?
What have you-- MATT: One of them has
wild, blond hair, and you can his skin
looks like it's been flash burned, probably from hot
steam or something. His face is just red. He's like, "(gasping) "There's something in there!" LAURA: What happened?
MATT: "Whole place is filled with smoke! "Oh god!" ANJALI: Use your
bleed detector. Do we see it on him? ASHLEY: Help him,
doctor! Help him! MATT: "You're a doctor? "Help me! Help me!"
ROBBIE: No, PhD, not MD. LAURA: Is he burned? You're burned?
MATT: Yeah. They're not serious burns, but there is some
low-level burns on his body. ROBBIE: But my specialty
is in medical ethics and I've met many doctors. I have a master's
degree in chemistry. You don't care
about any of this. As he's mumbling to himself, I'm going to pull out my safety equipment
that I have and I'm going to see if
there's any sort of chemical that I would know that would
neutralize a chemical burn. MATT: I'd say yes. You would know that
you have salves specifically for
your own use, because you do deal
with dangerous chemicals, and you want to make
sure that you can treat your own injuries
in this process. So you do have a few
salves that can help, and it looks like only maybe his forearms and his
face have been affected, because the rest of him is
still wearing foundry clothing. So it looks like this
will be of help to him. ROBBIE: I'm just listening
to him scream into my face. MATT: Yeah, he's like,
"Help me, help me!" ROBBIE: I'm not
good with feelings, but I'm rubbing
lotion on his arms and anywhere
that looks burned. ASHLEY: (laughs)
MATT: "(trembling relief)" ASHLEY: Oh, all right, all right.
MATT: "Thank you, thank you." ANJALI: It'll be all right.
MATT: "Oh." ROBBIE: Is anyone
else still in there? MATT: You hear a
gunshot on the inside. LAURA: How many people? MATT: "It was the late shift. "We only go for
another hour or so. "It was eight of us
in there at night, "just keeping the
furnaces going, "and then it just
started going dark. "All the lights
started going out "and then this place
filled with steam "and then I heard screams
and I had to run." LAURA: Keep running. MATT: "Huh?"
LAURA: To the hospital. MATT: "Okay. Okay." He goes running off. LAURA: We should go in. ROBBIE: All right. I've got my cowl on. I'm going to pop my hood on. I'm going to put my safety
goggles on from my safety kit, wrap a thing around my face. I'm going to
walk into the steam. LAURA: Oh. ASHLEY: We're
going to walk in? We're going to walk into where people are
running out of there? ANJALI: We're going to
let the doctor lead. LAURA: Can you try
to find a safe path? ROBBIE: Sure.
LAURA: Thank you. ROBBIE: Muffled. LAURA: I duck to try to duck below
any smoke and follow in after. ROBBIE: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. Upon getting closer and
closer to the building, you hear two more gunshots and that ever-present
(hissing steam), that odd sound of just massive moisture being turned to
mist and steam-- LAURA: It might explode in here.
MATT: -- emerging from the inside. LAURA: Maybe we shouldn't
enter the building. ROBBIE: Are we already in or have
we been walking towards it? MATT: You're just on
the outskirts of it. You hear another scream
on the inside. LAURA: Oh.
ROBBIE: There's people inside. MATT: Yeah.
ANJALI: There's people inside and they're shooting
at something. I don't--
LAURA: As long as they don't shoot at us when we go in. ANJALI: (trembling sigh) LAURA: Okay.
ROBBIE: This is one of those moments where
we decide who we are. ANJALI: Indeed.
ROBBIE: In or out? ANJALI: Auggie, I want
you to stay behind. ASHLEY: No, you're
not going in there! No, no, you're not
going in there alone. ANJALI: Then stay behind--
ASHLEY: I run in. ANJALI: Oh shit. I wrap
my scarf around my face and I run in right after him. MATT: Great. Okay. ROBBIE: I don't like the
way you said "great." LAURA: Yeah. (laughs)
MATT: (laughs) ASHLEY: Great.
LAURA: This was a dumb choice. ANJALI: ♪ Great for
the story ♪ MATT: All right.
ANJALI: Stories are fun! MATT: So have all of you
charged into the foundry at this point?
ANJALI: Goddamn it. Did you detect bleed on him? We never asked.
LAURA: I'm detecting bleed. ASHLEY: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
ANJALI: We never asked. On him.
MATT: Sorry, on the gentleman who ran out?
ANJALI: Yeah, ran out. MATT: All right, so you turn
on the bleed detector. None on him. LAURA: Oh. He had nothing. Is there another entrance? MATT: You can look for one. LAURA: Yes. MATT: All right. For that,
I would like you to make a Survey test for me--
LAURA: Oh, I'm very bad at this. MATT: -- under Intuition. LAURA: Goddamn it.
I'm going to try-- Ah, I'm going to-- ANJALI: Can I look for her?
LAURA: Get another-- You don't know. I don't succeed. (laughter) MATT: What did you roll?
LAURA: I rolled a three. MATT: A three, okay.
LAURA: Three. MATT: So you begin to wander--
LAURA: I rolled a three. MATT: -- the outskirts
of the structure, looking for another entryway. What are you doing
at this time? ROBBIE: I was going-- MATT: So you've already gone into the steam?
ROBBIE: I've gone in. I'm trying to fold into
the smoke already. MATT: All right, so
the three of you-- ROBBIE: Stealthily.
MATT: The three of you enter the building
through the steam, keeping low, because
it is rising up high and it stings
your eyes a bit, but if you keep low
enough, it's just hot. As you press in
further and further, it gets colder and colder as the steam seems
to be subsiding. The inherent mass of heat that was once the foundry's
bellows and furnaces that was once the foundry's
bellows and furnaces is slowly being snuffed as
you begin to step within. You search on the outside. LAURA: I wander home. (laughter) LAURA: Where am I? MATT: You watch as
one of the smokestacks stops putting off steam. ANJALI: Howard, do you
still have your lighter? MATT: You swear you
can see a bit of frost appear on the outside of it. LAURA: Oh no. I'll turn around and run
back into the foundry. MATT: Okay, you run back,
and the door they entered is currently closed
and frosted over. ROBBIE: (gasps)
LAURA: Oh no! ROBBIE: Oh no! Split the party. LAURA: Oh no.
ANJALI: Howard, do you still have
your lighter? ROBBIE: Oh, certainly.
Do with it as you wish. ANJALI: I'm going to take
the scarf off my hand and keep the lighter in
front of me, just in case. If we see anything that requires us to, like
a decoy, a heat decoy, I'm going to light that
on fire and throw it. MATT: Okay. As you begin to step beyond the offices of the entry
where you came through, you push past desks and
paperwork scattered about and chairs that
got knocked over as the people
within the foundry immediately fled
outside of it. You step into the main chamber
of the central foundry itself, steam rising up in
plumes all around. You can see there are these
massive grooves in the ground, these deep pits of concrete where you can see molten
metal had been poured and set to build beams
for construction and other means of building
throughout the city. You can see there
are massive pours, these cauldron-like machines that are affixed by numerous
thick chains above, and there are ladders that
rise up to catwalks that go all across a second
and third level up above. The entire height
of this building is roughly 25 or so feet to 30 feet up from where
the floor of it sits, but you can only
see it in parts because of these columns
of steam that are rising. From where you can see,
the furnaces and bellows are all now these
cooled, low cinders, and ice has gathered around
chunks of these structures, around parts of the ladders,
along parts of the catwalk, and you can see
about five bodies all frozen in places. You can see two on
the catwalk above. There is one towards the
center of the foundry. There's one towards the front
of the massive double doors that open the front
of the foundry itself for larger hauls to be
brought in or taken out, and there is one that is to the left of where
you are by the office. As you glance over and look at the one to your
left that's closest to you, you see the faintest bit of
blue light begin to appear about three feet above where
the frozen body stands that slowly begins to take
the shape of a humanoid form. ANJALI: (groans) This is the same. This is
the same that had happened in the apartment, yes? ASHLEY: Well, I didn't
see that thing before, but everything turned
to ice like this. ANJALI: Arlo! Oh, damn. Where is she? ROBBIE: Oh.
MATT: Arlo, what are you doing? LAURA: Pushing on
the door. Anything? MATT: Uh, (laughs) If you'd like to
make a Strike test-- LAURA: Yeah, right.
MATT: -- to see if you can somehow break the ice that encases
the doorway and force it open. LAURA: Oh!
ANJALI: Ooh! LAURA: Oh, I take the
lower. It's a fail. ANJALI: Ah, damn. Damn!
MATT: (laughs) You're desperately
pushing and pushing, and you slam into it once
more, not realizing that some of the ice that
had gathered on the side has a bit of a
jagged edge to it, and you end up taking your
gray hand and, (whoosh), impaling it slightly
on the piece of ice. It doesn't hurt, but
as you pull away, you can see there
is now a gash in it that, where it's
open, you can see what would be exposed flesh instead looks like just a vacuous void of
nothing beyond the torn skin. I do want you to
take a body. ASHLEY: Ooh. LAURA: Okay. Change of tactic. Are there any vehicles
on the street? MATT: When you look
around, there is a large, it looks like a hauling
wagon with wheels for carrying massive
amounts of materials, and you can see there
is piles of ingots, like melted metal,
ready for crafting, and utilized in all sorts
of metallic construction, as well as stone, chains,
and tools and such that are pushed upon it, but it's a massive
truck-like vehicle. LAURA: Can I go see
if it's open? MATT: Yeah, you go to the
side of it and it is open. LAURA: I'm going to
try to turn it on. MATT: (laughs) Okay, now, these
sort of vehicles are relatively new
to Newfaire. LAURA: Yes, but our family does
have an electric carriage-- MATT: Indeed.
LAURA: -- so I'm used to driving. MATT: I would like you to-- let's make a Focus test,
if you don't mind. LAURA: See if I can
remember how to drive it. MATT: See if you can
remember how to drive. LAURA: It says Control is in
charge of driving as well. MATT: That's true, actually. LAURA: Either way,
it's the same roll. MATT: I'll say
you can choose. Either Control or Focus
is your-- LAURA: Okay. MATT: Because this
is less about controlling the
actual vehicle. It's more about knowing
how to operate something that is very different
from what you're used to, but trying to allocate that
knowledge from one to the other. LAURA: Oh,
that's dumb, Laura. What? Which one was which?
ANJALI: (laughs) LAURA: I wasn't looking. ANJALI: That one, I saw was a five.
LAURA: This one? ANJALI: But I don't know
what the rest of them were because I couldn't
see where they went. LAURA: This one was a
five. That one was a five. They're all mixed in. ROBBIE: I think that five
was one of your rolls, on the right side there, yeah.
LAURA: Okay, okay, okay, okay. Then five. MATT: Five, okay. That's
a mixed success. ROBBIE and ANJALI: (laugh) LAURA: I don't see any major
full successes, so we're safe. MATT: No worries. So you head
to the front of the vehicle, and you see
where the crank is and you start going,
ugh, cranking it. (engine sputters) Eventually, it picks up. (engine sputters to life) LAURA: Sure. ANJALI: Oh! MATT: You get back in the
vehicle and it's heavy. It's got this in intense
vibration to it, and then even as
you begin to try and shift it a bit,
change the gears a bit, you can feel some of the
stuff in the back of it that's not currently
tied down shift. LAURA: Oh. MATT: It's not ready
for hauling. LAURA: That's okay. I'm going to drive forward and try to <i>drive it</i>
into the doors. ANJALI: That's my girl!
MATT: Now I'd like you to make a drive test. ASHLEY: Yes.
ANJALI: That's my girl! ♪ Control ♪
ASHLEY: Come on, come on, come on. ROBBIE: There's airbags,
right? We've got airbags? (laughter) MATT: She is the airbag. ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ANJALI: She's going to drive! ASHLEY: (laughs)
LAURA: Okay, okay, okay. I'm going to use
my last drive. ANJALI: You got it. You got it.
ROBBIE: Yes. ANJALI: Drive, drive!
ROBBIE: Show them what a strong, independent,
turn-of-the-century woman can do! ANJALI: Drive, drive,
drive, baby! LAURA: Okay.
ANJALI: Yeah, exactly. LAURA: No!
(laughter) ANJALI: Ooh! (laughs)
LAURA: Three fails! ROBBIE: Oh, every
one of them. One, two, three.
ANJALI: Oh no! LAURA: Oh no! ANJALI: Oh no. Such a
brave, beautiful woman. LAURA: Oh! No, fuck that! Oh, I don't have any Nerve. I only have resistance and
Cunning and Intuition. ROBBIE: No!
LAURA: I can't even reroll it. ROBBIE: No, my sweet student!
ASHLEY: No! LAURA: Oh no! MATT: So, you manage to, essentially, you don't know
how to turn it around. It's too big and too wide, so you back up as
hard as you can into the entryway
to this foundry. You just, (engine roars). It's about a 30, 40-foot strip
of space between the two, and you slam into it
as hard as you can. Boom, it hits, and the
door cracks a bit open. However, as soon as the
vehicle stops moving, some of the poles--
LAURA: Oh no. MATT: -- that are resting
in the back of this, "Final Destination" style, come rocketing
through the back from where you're
currently sitting, and, thankfully, you
are an intuitive entity who has attuned yourself to
the dangers of the world, and there's something,
something here, that tells you to
duck desperately. Not fast enough to not take a
heavy knock to the head, (crack), as two of the poles go
shooting through the front and one hits you.
You take a body mark.
ASHLEY: Oh. LAURA: (sad whistle) MATT: The door is partially
damaged, but not fully open. ASHLEY: I can't get out! MATT: While that's happening,
while that's happening-- LAURA: I trapped
everybody in. MATT: -- you all are
inside right now, and you can see now from the
various frozen bodies, the steam rising to the
center of this foundry, and, indeed, that slowly
apparating bit of ghostly blue. ANJALI: Do we see
any of the others? MATT: No. Just the one that's
right next to you. LAURA: (laughs)
ANJALI: Oh, stop laughing. It is funny, but oh goodness. ASHLEY: What do you do
in these situations? ANJALI: I'm going to tear up
the scarf and start with one. Light it on fire and put it
in front of us and back up. MATT: Okay. You all back
away from the scarf there. The spirit apparates and
you can see it takes on the humanoid limbs of
the frozen body below it, and you watch its jaw
descend and stretch, the vacuous dark eyes
like Donald's. It becomes this ghastly,
horrifying nightmare being that reaches for the
heat and embraces it, and the flames immediately
snuff as it does. There's a brief glimmer of nightmare-ish euphoria
on its face, and as you all
have backed away about 15 or so feet
from where it is, you can see it
look around, confused, and then slowly pull back, and become this faint, glowing blue orb
above the body, just resting. ANJALI: Keep going.
Go further away. Go further in. Go. ASHLEY: Do you capture these
things? What do you do? ANJALI: I don't know. ROBBIE: When you first mentioned
that Arlo was not there, the first time I
clocked it so there's no way I'm going to-- I'm not going to leave
her behind. Yeah. MATT: (explosion)
At which moment, you immediately hear this--
LAURA: (laughs) ROBBIE: Yeah.
MATT: -- heavy boom! This impact that echoes
throughout the interior. The whole foundry shakes. LAURA: Oh!
MATT: You can see bits of ice fall from
different places within the interior of the foundry. It echoes, as it
is a <i>loud bang</i>. It's going to get a
lot of attention. ANJALI: Oh shit. ROBBIE: I'm going to take off back toward where
we came from. The door where we came in. MATT: Okay, you go back
to the door and indeed, it's closed and--
ROBBIE: Yeah. MATT: -- kind of,
currently, I will say, the impact on the
foundry from this seems to have cracked
a bit of the ice. If you were to attempt--
ANJALI: Yeah. MATT: -- to kick it open
or something, you could certainly try that.
ANJALI: I'm going to drag Auggie back. This is too dangerous to
have him in here. Let's go. Drag him back to him. ROBBIE: Yeah, I'll kick--
MATT: As you're doing this-- ROBBIE: Oh, sorry.
MATT: Sorry, you both do what you're doing.
ROBBIE: Yeah. MATT: We'll come
back to you. ROBBIE: Oh, yeah, I'll
kick a piece of rebar from off the ground
into my hand and try to jam
into the door and see if I can just
muscle and pry it open. MATT: Yeah, make a Strike-- ROBBIE: Strike?
MATT: -- Test for me, if you don't mind.
ROBBIE: (vocalizes) I'm going to spend a drive. MATT: Go for it. ROBBIE: ♪ I would like our ghost
person to be here with ghosts ♪ Fuck, all fails. LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY and ANJALI: No! MATT: Do you have resistance
you want to spend or-- LAURA: Oh!
ROBBIE: Yes, I-- ♪ Should be good at this ♪ LAURA and ANJALI: (laugh) ROBBIE: ♪ It's the one thing-- ♪
MATT: You can roll two on there then. ROBBIE: That's right. I
don't get to use my drive. But it's not the worst.
It's not a disadvantage, right? MATT: No.
ROBBIE: Okay. MATT: You still have
two on there. LAURA: Oh my god! ROBBIE: Snake eyes. MATT: No shit?
ASHLEY: No! ANJALI: Oh god. ROBBIE: Wow!
LAURA: This dice gods do want me to enter the building.
ROBBIE: Wow, they do not want you in, girl.
MATT: Apparently. You are striking. Trying to break
off the ice, trying to break
off the handle, trying to do whatever you
can to get through this. It's barring you
from getting through. That noise and the impact
of that, as both of you are deciding to back up, you watch as something just darts through the mist. Through the steam,
some sort of shape, just (flutters) like a bird. Like the shadow of a bird. Almost winged, but
they're not wings. Just something (flutters) disappears through the
steam, through the mist. ANJALI: I grab Auggie's hand
and I keep moving backwards with eyes in that direction,
keep moving towards that door. Keep moving towards him. MATT: (whooshes) Out of the nearby mist, you
almost see it begin to roll and spin, like a breeze is
blowing through the steam. As it does, you see a face made of shadow
begin to push through, invisible to the eye,
if not for the middle of this steam bath
that's been created. You see its form
for a second. Its eyes glowing a
faint, angry orange. A mouth opens up,
"(growls)" As it darts towards you.
LAURA: (gasps) MATT: You instinctually duck
out of the way as it darts into the chamber as you're
trying to smash this door. Instead, it strikes right into your body from behind. You feel--
ASHLEY, LAURA, and ANJALI: No! MATT: -- your entire form
begin to seize up in pain. You take a bleed, my friend. You immediately turn around and try and pull away
from this striking pain. How does this bleed
affect you? How does it strike its
way into your perception? ROBBIE: The strangest
part is it's familiar. It hearkens back to a
memory from a year ago and it fills me with guilt and revulsion
and shame. And-- It affects my mind, which is
one of the most-- The highest guarded
place of me. And it's the
worst experience. MATT: You hear a voice
ring through your mind, "You fool!" That memory strikes and
you take a Brain as well. LAURA and ASHLEY: (gasp)
ROBBIE: Uh-- LAURA: Oh, no! You did
it to yourself! ROBBIE: You all, going,
"Snake eyes, snake eyes!" MATT: (laughs) ANJALI: No! MATT: But as you wrestle yourself
away from this frozen form, you do manage to (slams) force the door barely
open before you stumble and tumble onto the ground. You, turning around
and seeing this shadow creature
(whooshes) turn up and then vanish
into the secondary floor, spectrally disappearing
through the solid matter and return somewhere
within the foundry. ANJALI: I run to him and-- Howard, Howard! ROBBIE: Yes? ANJALI: I won't even bother
to ask if you're all right. Can we go? Let's go. MATT: It's about
this time that Arlo stumbles out
of the vehicle, blood pouring down one
side of her face. ANJALI: Oh lord.
LAURA: (painful gasp) ROBBIE: I'm kind of
half out the door. ANJALI: Yeah, yeah.
ROBBIE: I sort of wave. LAURA: Howard!
ROBBIE: Hello. LAURA: Did it work? ROBBIE: No.
LAURA: Oh. ANJALI: Yeah, Auggie,
go help her. I'll grab him and put his
arm around my shoulder. Unless you have another
idea? Go for it. You're a man with a
mind of your own. ASHLEY: We're just
going to leave? LAURA: Did we find it?
Did we find the beast? ANJALI: Well,
we found it, but-- We still don't know
how to defeat it, and we still don't
know how to stop it. We still don't know
how to capture it. We don't know yet, Auggie.
LAURA: Maybe we can find one of those--
ANJALI: Okay. LAURA: -- fuel things and
capture it back inside of it. ANJALI: That's exactly-- LAURA: So we should find
it within the foundry, right? ANJALI: Was it within the
foundry or was it someone around the foundry? LAURA: Isn't that what-- MATT: Layla did mention
that one of them they gave to the foundry as
part of their usual drop off and then one was
given to Donald. LAURA: To Donald and that
would've been taken by the OUP. So we have to find--
ANJALI: I want to find the source of the cold. ASHLEY: Because I know
what it looks like... ANJALI: Mm-hmm? ASHLEY: Is there anywhere
I can do a-- Check out if
I can see it? MATT: You can if you--
ASHLEY: If I'm still inside? LAURA: Go back in?
MATT: -- if you go back in, you can try that,
if you want to. ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: Is the door open enough that I can come in? MATT: Oh, yeah, he bashed
through the door. LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: I'm just going to take a peeksies.
LAURA: Are we good to go in or should we leave? ROBBIE: I have a theory if
you're willing to hear it. LAURA: I would love to. ROBBIE: I'm not certain this
is the source of our woes, but just, perhaps, the
food of our woes. Are you familiar with the
law of thermodynamics? Entropy? ASHLEY: (sarcastically)
Oh, yeah, of course! ROBBIE: The long and short
of it is, I believe we unleashed something and it
has a hunger for heat and we've simply stumbled
upon its dining space. This may not be the place to trap it or hurt
it or defeat it. I believe we've just wandered
into its feeding grounds, but I could be incorrect. It's a highly unsubstantiated
theory at this point. ASHLEY: So it's just
a hungry ghost? LAURA: But if my theory
doesn't hold and we can't trap it
within the rock again-- ROBBIE: We may.
LAURA: -- then maybe if they put enough heat
on the other rock, then we'll create two
of these shadow beasts. By accident. So we should probably
find it, regardless. Right? ASHLEY: All right, I'm
going to take a peeksies. I'm really good
at hiding. I'm just going to
go in there and I'm going to
just look real quick. It's okay. It's okay. All right, I'm
going to go in. I'm going to try to just-- MATT: Sneaky throughout? ASHLEY: Sneaky peekies,
maybe take a quick-- Did you say that there was
a little office area that-- MATT: There's an office
area where you all first entered through. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: Then the back door of that opens into
the foundry proper. ASHLEY: Okay, I'll
check in the office. LAURA: All the bodies are
in the foundry proper. MATT: All the bodies
are in the foundry, correct. ANJALI: Okay, let's
search the office. ASHLEY: Yeah, we'll
check the office. ANJALI: I can't let
him go in there by himself.
MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make a Survey
test under Intuition for me, if you don't mind.
ANJALI: Can we both do it or only one? MATT: Hm?
ANJALI: Can we both do it or only one? MATT: Well, if one of you
wants to do it, the other can help. ASHLEY: Your Survey is
better than mine. ANJALI: Yeah, you know what?
Just help me. ASHLEY: Do it. Yeah. ANJALI: ♪ Help ♪ ASHLEY: Let me-- I'm going to do the
Saw This Coming again. So you get-- (mutters rules) Okay. Okay, I'm going to assist you by looking around and
telling you what I saw, what it looks like,
I know what we're-- ANJALI: You're so much younger.
You have such better vision. ASHLEY: I have
really good eyes. Eagle Eyes, they call me. ANJALI: Four. MATT: Four, okay.
That's a mixed success. So you go into the
office and you start scouring the space as
quickly as you can. Everything in here looks
like it is formal paperwork. It looks like it is ledgers, it looks like
it is documentation of contracts they've
signed with the different guilds and figures around the
city to keep things going. You're starting
to get frustrated. LAURA: We're so fucked.
MATT: Then as you're glancing by the doorway that
leads into the foundry, you also see
large containers, metallic containers that hold all sorts of coal and
fuel that are often shoveled into the various
furnaces to run the foundry. ANJALI: Grab one, just grab one.
LAURA: No, what if we find the-- The whole container? You're just grabbing
the whole container? ANJALI: How big is it?
It's like a barrel? MATT: It looks like there's
three or four of them that are about six
and a half feet tall and about four
feet wide each. They're all filled with--
ASHLEY: I'm going to just-- MATT: -- combustible material.
LAURA: Can we dump them on the ground?
MATT: They're inside the foundry. ANJALI: Oh, they're inside the foundry.
MATT: They're inside the foundry. LAURA: See, that's where
it's going to be. ANJALI: All right. ASHLEY: All right, what if
I just do a sneaky? I'm really good
at being sneaky. Just a-- (rapid footsteps). Quickie.
ANJALI: I can't tell you what to do. ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to--
LAURA: Keep an eye out, Auggie. If you see a shadowy beast
coming towards you, don't-- ASHLEY: Get the fuck out?
LAURA: Yeah, don't go towards it. ROBBIE: She may have just
been in an automobile accident, but this is sound advice.
ASHLEY: Yeah, you're bleeding out of your head
and you look a mess. ROBBIE: Thank you. ASHLEY: Okay. Okay, I'll be
two seconds, two seconds. All right.
(sneaky footsteps) MATT: All right, you're
going to sneak in there? All right, roll--
(laughter) MATT: -- Hide under Cunning
for me, if you don't mind. Go ahead and test that. ASHLEY: Hide under
Cunning, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. LAURA: Oh, there's a Hide. We
could have taken skills in Hide. MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: I should've done that. Or really anything else.
ASHLEY: I have two of these. You know what? I'm also
going to spend a drive. Oh, wait. I already did that. ANJALI: So you have--
ROBBIE: It's okay. ASHLEY: Oh, wait.
I didn't do that one. Okay. So. ROBBIE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ANJALI: Come on, baby.
ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! We need this!
ANJALI: All right, all right, all right, six!
ASHLEY: Okay, we got a six. We got a six. LAURA: Whoo!
MATT: You got a six, that's a success.
ROBBIE: Finally! ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: So as you're sneaking through--
ASHLEY: Bob and weave, bob and weaves. MATT: -- the steam still
rising around here, you can see the shape darting through, occasionally
hearing (withering growls). As it moves through, it
looks like it's searching, seeking new sources of heat, and is avoiding the
space where you are. You go near one
of the ice bodies and you see that-- As you get closer, you can
see there's a faint blue orb that begins to apparate
at your proximity and you move away
and it dissipates. You begin to
pick up the sense that these spirits that
are locked in place are drawn to the
proximity of heat. So you feel safe
at about a 15-foot distance from them.
LAURA: Oh, good. MATT: As you begin to
move through and around, you begin to
eventually move past the dying orange
glow of the nearest foundry divot where
that thick molten, steel and the
burning materials have now grown cold. You head over towards these massive containers with large small bricks and briquettes of fresh coal and other burnable materials. ASHLEY: Those are bigger
than I thought they'd be. Okay. I'm going to quietly
try to start searching. MATT: All right.
I would like-- I'd like you to
make a Survey test to try and-- ASHLEY: Okay. I'm
going to use a drive. ROBBIE: How big is this
container of coal? MATT: There's four of them and they are six and a
half feet by four-foot. ROBBIE: Oh, okay, okay.
LAURA: Is this foundry-- I would imagine it's mostly
made of metal, not wood. MATT: Concrete metal. ANJALI: Am I close enough
that I could help him or no? MATT: You can try and sneak
in to help, if you'd like. ANJALI: My Hide is shit. LAURA: Are there furnaces
around that we can see? MATT: There are two furnaces
in the middle of the chamber, two massive ones,
but they're both-- There's a very faint warm
glow of light in them. They're almost out. ASHLEY: They're all ones. LAURA: Oh!
ASHLEY: They're all ones. ROBBIE: All ones?
ASHLEY: They're all ones. MATT: All ones.
ASHLEY: That's right. Not going to
touch those again. ANJALI: Can I see him? MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: Can you use a resistance? Can you roll again?
ASHLEY: Yes, I can, yes, I can. Yes, I can!
ANJALI: Yes! Oh, yes! ASHLEY: This is like--
ANJALI: I keep forgetting those. ASHLEY: This reminds me--
LAURA: We can't help! We can't give
advantage on this. MATT: Nope.
ASHLEY: This is like in "Maverick" at the end when he
doesn't look at the cards. ANJALI: Spoiler alert!
MATT: Yep, here's the thing. How many points do
you have in that? (laughter) MATT: On Survey. ASHLEY: One.
MATT: So you get one dice to roll on this, to re-roll. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: Unless you want to spend more drives.
LAURA: Not "Top Gun: Maverick." ANJALI: Oh!
LAURA: Old "Maverick." ANJALI: The ye olde
time-y "Maverick"? MATT: Yeah, Mel Gibson, cards--
ANJALI: Not a spoiler, watch the movie. LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Or you can just
leave it up to fate. ASHLEY: I'm going to
leave it up to fate. MATT: I love it.
ASHLEY: No, I'm not that stupid. (laughter) ROBBIE: Do it, Auggie,
do it! Let's go! ANJALI: That's my boy! Ah, that rolled over other dice.
ASHLEY: It did, it did, it did. It's a one.
ANJALI: That doesn't seem fair. MATT: It's a one.
ANJALI: It literally rolled over other dice.
ASHLEY: I know, it really did. ANJALI: That's not allowed. ASHLEY: It was a wonky--
MATT: It was worth a shot. ANJALI: Okay.
MATT: So as you're looking through, you're peering
through, moving it around, some of them falling and
making a little bit of noise. You're like, "Shit, shit."
You're moving through. What you don't notice
is what you see. Across the way is, suddenly, after the thing has
been flying around, you don't notice
it moving anymore. Then out of the floor
right behind Auggie, the dark shadow emerges. (groans) ANJALI: I scream: Here! I light my scarf on fire and I throw it on
the floor. Here! MATT: You got it. You scream this at the same
time that the creature runs its long shadow claws
up through Auggie's body. ANJALI: No!
MATT: You feel like all of your internal organs instantaneously spot
freeze within you. You feel all the
muscles seize up. For a brief moment, you
remember what it was like once again to have your spirit
jettisoned from your body from that detonation. You take a bleed and a body, and I need you
to explain to me how you are affected by
this bleed corruption. ASHLEY: Okay. I feel like-- It tastes a little
bit like iron and it feels like
a micro current. It's like electricity
moving all around, and it hurts. I think I'm just
really scared. MATT: Okay. As that sensation leaves you and you
fall to your knees, you cough and you can
see black liquid just (thick liquid squelching) onto the ground, which then
spot freezes (ice cracking) onto the ground.
It almost cracks. The shadow entity
flickers up. You, screaming out-- (growls) ANJALI: Is it possible? I would like to attempt to dive behind
something to hide, dive and as I'm getting
closer to him, some godforsaken way,
parkour my way out of this. MATT: The burning flame does
seem to have caught its attention. ANJALI: Mm-hmm.
MATT: Now you could make a Hide test to see how well you can
use it to distract enough to get you past it. ANJALI: Excellent.
LAURA: Can we do the same? I want to try to just run. Once the thing is on fire, I'm going to just try
to run towards Auggie. I'm not even hiding. I'm just trying
to run towards Auggie and the fuel sources.
MATT: Yeah. Okay. And you are? ROBBIE: Yeah. Oh,
yeah, absolutely. I mean, if that's the
most immediate threat to the group, for sure. ANJALI: Yeah.
ROBBIE: I'll go for Auggie. ANJALI: That's what we're
all trying to do. I'm just trying to
parkour, parkour! Sorry.
MATT: You got it. ANJALI: I'm going to use two Cunning drive! Not resistance. I used the right
word this time. MATT: You did. ANJALI: One, two. So I get
one die and then I used two. This is a high stakes
roll, correct? MATT: Oh, yeah.
ANJALI: Okay. No, because I'm checking
what I can actually do. Six.
ASHLEY and LAURA: Yes! MATT: Nice. So as you ignite the
scarf and throw it, the scarf lands. As it hits the ground,
it looks like some of the scattered
charcoal materials nearby actually catch as well and
it becomes a brief bonfire about two feet wide.
LAURA: Yes. MATT: Begins to ignite. The creature sweeps into it. It hits it, and the
flame flickers out but then begins to re-catch, resisting the immediate flash of cold that's
thrust upon it. You can see crystals
emerge around it. Parts of the outside
of the briquette freeze over, but
the flame emerges and begins to melt it. In this instant, you run
and dart around the side. The other two of you
running across the way until you all meet
up with Auggie. LAURA: Charlie, Howard, do
either of you carry a flask? ROBBIE: Never been a
drinking man, I'm sorry. ANJALI: Of course I do! LAURA: Save that.
Next fuel source. ANJALI: Yes. LAURA: I'm going to use
the bleed detector on the fuel sources
and see if I can sense where that stone might be.
ASHLEY: Good call. MATT: As you engage
the bleed detector, looking in this space, in
this brief intense moment, you glance around and I would need you to make a Survey roll. LAURA: A Survey. MATT: Or somebody make one, but--
ANJALI: I got it. LAURA: Or a Sense?
ANJALI: Can I? LAURA: Maybe a Sense roll?
MATT: Actually, you can make a Sense as well because--
LAURA: Okay. MATT: -- that is where
you are definitively-- LAURA: Okay.
ANJALI: Yeah. MATT: This is opposed
to looking for it, more like using this
to amplify your ability to feel its presence and
guide you like a beacon. LAURA: Okay, so I'm
adding two dice. I get a gilded as well on this. Anybody helping? Just in casies? We're good? ASHLEY: I can't. Mine are all out.
LAURA: Okay. ANJALI: Okay, okay, okay.
LAURA: Okay, I got a mixed success. MATT: Mixed success, you got it.
LAURA: Yes. MATT: As you focus your eyes,
even behind your eyelids, extending this, you can
feel your gray hand. LAURA: The glove is off. MATT: Yeah, it's drawn
in a direction, like it's pulling you again. As you let it do so, your hand pushes through
this pile of fuel, of coal rocks and
you push past, eyes still closed until you
grab something and pull back. It tumbles out,
making noise as you do. You pull free a
cylindrical-like structure, about this big that is made
up of smoothed obsidian with caps on the end, but
it is intricately carved with all manner of
glyphs or runes or language that you
do not recognize. It is pure black and
cold to the touch. As you look at this and realize what you
hold in your hand, you know this is <i>old</i>.
This is ancient. It's at this moment,
as you all are looking at
this with surprise, the shadowed hand emerges from
the center of your chest, from behind,
the shadowed claw of this ghostly entity
pushing through your sternum, your eyes go white and
you feel as the bleed begins to strike from
within and spread outward. You take another bleed. LAURA: Does it come
close to my necklace? MATT: It does.
LAURA: Then I'm going to say that hits
my bleed ward. My ward soak, rather.
MATT: Oh yeah. LAURA: So it soaks
one of the bleed. MATT: So as the arm goes
through, your necklace flashes with a bright burst of
like a localized sunlight. As it does, the hand withdraws
and the creature pulls away and darts away, like
it was burned by the proximity of
this relic you have. LAURA: What do we do with
it? How do we open it? ROBBIE: May I?
ANJALI: Don't open it. ROBBIE: I'm going to take it
and I'd like to look over it for any discerning marks,
even from Oldfaire, anything that I would
possibly know. MATT: I'd like a Focus
test from you to see if you can ascertain
the nature of what this is. LAURA: Oh, I wish I could help you!
I don't have any more drive. ROBBIE: ♪ Should be good at
it, but maybe I'm not. ♪ Let's find out. ROBBIE: A four on the gilded.
MATT: Four on the gilded. So you get a drive back.
LAURA: (claps) Great. MATT: And that is
a mixed success. ROBBIE: Yeah. MATT: Okay, you,
looking it over, notice that in the
scaffolding above you and to the left of you, two of
the bodies that are frozen, you've moved a
little bit close to, and the glowing blue orbs
of spirits that hang are beginning to form into
their spiritual bodies and slowly drift
in your direction. You've drawn the attention of
some of these other spirits. By glancing at it, you can
see these carvings in here. You don't understand
the language at all, but it looks like
they are grooves for something to be
placed against them. It looks like something
is meant to activate it. Something is meant
to fill these grooves. ANJALI: Do we see
those things? Do I see those things?
MATT: You do also, yeah. As you all are glancing
and you see this-- ANJALI: I'm going to
immediately open the flask and pour a little bit of
alcohol out and light it and... LAURA: Back up?
ANJALI: -- let's get the fuck back out of here. MATT: The two spirits
immediately begin to convene towards the alcohol fire
that you've left behind. LAURA: I'm going to
think about... Do you say that out loud,
that you know something's supposed to be going
in those runes? ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, sure.
LAURA: Yes? ROBBIE: Yeah, absolutely. LAURA: I don't know if
this is going to work, but I'm going to think back
to Eddie and I'm going to... I'm going to bite my
hand as hard as I can and try to put some
blood in those grooves and see if it does anything. MATT: Okay, you bite your
hand, your left hand. LAURA: Oh, why did I do that? I have fucking shitty
blood all over my face. I'll wipe and do
that instead. (laughter) LAURA: That's stupid!
ASHLEY: (gushing water) LAURA: Hey! MATT: Okay.
ANJALI: Oh no. MATT: You do have plenty
of blood on your face. As you wipe it free, you place your hand
onto this device. As you do, it begins to
get warmer to the touch, and you watch as the red
coloration of your exposed blood begins to seep and
fill the grooves along the exterior
of this device. Just parts of it, not
quite enough blood to completely encompass
all of the markings that are drawn across it,
but it seems to be almost absorbing what
you rubbed across it. LAURA: It's warmer? ROBBIE: It feels hot
to the touch. I want to look around
at the apparitions and see if they're
reacting to this at all. MATT: The apparitions, the only
two that are the natural spirits that were left behind are currently absorbing
and quenching the flame that you ignited while
you're all backing out towards the entrance. You just now,
after seeing that, the shadow entity
flee for a moment, you can see it's
now rising back up in the center of the foundry. Now you get a
closer look at it in the midst of this
steam. You can now see it has a humanoid form. Its feet, its legs drift
into a long shadow tail but you can almost see
shoulders and a head, like armor you
don't recognize. A warrior headdress that is multiple
metallic-like quills that almost run off
the back of its head. It looks like it is adorned in some sort of ceremonial
battle gear that you've never
seen before. Its glowing eyes fit
within the center of that shadow structure. You see it rise up
from the center. Its jaw extends,
its eyes go black, and the shadowed form
becomes almost immaterial as it begins to dive through
the mist in your direction. ANJALI: I immediately go
like this and you see, there's a little bit
of wax in my hand and as I pull forward, you
see a hidden jackknife appear into my hand
from my sleeve. I flip it open,
I cut my hand open, and I put it on the... MATT: Okay, mark a body.
ANJALI: Yes. MATT: As you wound yourself
and place your hand on the opposite side
of what you're holding. Howard, as you're
clutching it, you watch as the
rest of the blood that's pulled from
Charlotte's body begins to seep into
the rest of the grooves until each one of
them is filled with that
deep red coloration. The minute it is, the red
begins to brightly glow into a reddish-orange color. ROBBIE: I certainly hope we're
correct about this theory. MATT: As you hold
it in your hand, the shadowed entity comes
shrieking towards you angrily, its arms out in front.
LAURA: Put it down in front of you. ROBBIE: Oh, I don't
want to do any of this. (laughter) MATT: As you set it down, it
(clatters) onto the ground and the shadow creature
swoops up and seems to take
in the sight of what you've just
set before it. It spins to go as the
runes glow brightly and you watch as these
red tethers whip out, like dozens of tentacles
that wrap around it before pulling it back into
this chunk of ancient obsidian before it just goes quiet. LAURA: I can't believe
that worked. ROBBIE: Neither can I. ANJALI: Are there still blue
spirits around us, little orbs? MATT: You look around
you at the other bodies and you see all the
orbs indeed have formed into the spiritual
bodies of the humans that lie frozen on
the floor beneath them. As they all stand there
floating in the air, you swear you
can hear voices. (ghostly) "Thank you,
thank you, thank you." As they all drift
away into nothing, passing to where
other boundaries await them beyond The Flare. LAURA: We shouldn't
touch that. Maybe wrap it in our coats. I'm going to take off my
jacket and wrap it around it. MATT: Okay, you go
and pick it up. It's still heavy
to the touch, but you're not directly
contacting it with your skin. LAURA: We should get
out of here before... ANJALI: We need to
get this to Alex. Taking whatever little
remnants remain of my scarf and wrap it around my hand. I don't even look at you and
I just take your hand and go. LAURA: Is there a way to
get out of here quickly? MATT: Indeed, as you're heading
towards the exit of the foundry, you can see a number of
unmarked electric carriages begin to approach
from the outside, that you recognize to be
commonly used by the OUP. ANJALI: We should go in
a different direction. LAURA: Is there another exit?
ANJALI: Is there any other exit that we know from? MATT: There are back
exits to the foundry. LAURA: Let's do that.
ANJALI: Let's go that way. MATT: Okay, so you push out through the rear
portion of this, and as you do, the
temperature is notably warmed within this foundry and
you can hear the drips of rapidly melting
ice, no longer held by whatever dark
spiritual presence that turned this place
into a massive freezer. You shove off into now the
dark early hour morning, sifting through the
alleys of The Steel. You are currently heading to? ANJALI: Is there a Candela
safe house type thing that we know about?
MATT: There are a few spots in the city where
you know contacts can lead you into
some hidden rooms back. You head to this small like an eclectic bookstore that sits on the
outskirts of The Varnish that's called
The Gilded Rainbow. It's a small, little,
looks like a family-owned place. You step inside and you can
see the man who runs it is this rather handsome-
in-his-older-age gentleman with Reed Richards-
looking hair, bit of a scruffy beard,
glasses, and a long pipe. It comes down to here. He's just currently poring
over a book in front, these late hours,
and you know no bookstore
in its right mind would be open for
business at this hour, but this is definitely
not your normal bookstore. As you enter, Reggie,
as you know him by, glances over the rest
of you and goes, "It's rather late
for arrivals. "You look a bit
worse for wear. "I assume your assignment
has been taking its toll?" LAURA: Completed, I
believe, for the most part. ROBBIE: We were part of
an industrial accident. MATT: "Understood, well,
who's your Lightkeeper?" LAURA: Alex O'Neill. MATT: "I'll reach out
to Alexandra "and you may clean up
in the back room." LAURA: Thank you. MATT: Closes his book,
takes a puff off his pipe and goes and closes and
locks the front door. ANJALI: As we're cleaning up, I haven't looked at
Auggie for some time. Then finally when I do... I came to Candela
because of something that happened to me
when I was your age. Something nobody should
have had to see at your age or at mine. I came here to make
sure it didn't happen to any other child,
to try to do my best to keep that from happening. Now I have seen plenty of
things in this universe that are terrifying,
truly terrifying. I don't need you to
create them for me, I need you to stay safe.
Do you understand? ASHLEY: I understand. ANJALI: I'm also very
proud of you. ASHLEY: Thanks. That was probably the
craziest night I've ever had. That was probably the
craziest night I've ever had. ANJALI: You haven't
spent any nights in the red light
district then, have you? ASHLEY: Well... ANJALI: (laughs) ASHLEY: Is everyone okay? ANJALI: And you?
LAURA: (laughs) I crashed a truck
into a building. ANJALI: (laughs)
ROBBIE: I saw. LAURA: It didn't work.
ROBBIE: It did not. LAURA: I'll have to send
payment to them, I believe. ROBBIE: May I see the object? LAURA: Oh, of course. ROBBIE: Thank you, thank you. I'm going to-- LAURA: It's still
wrapped in my coat. MATT: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Yeah. I'm going to look around
for-- what was his name? The older gentleman
from the bookstore. MATT: Reggie.
ROBBIE: For Reggie. He's still in the back? I'm going to pull a larger
tome off one of the shelves and lay it on a desk
and take the object out and set it on the
tome and roll it into the page so that it
makes an imprint of it. ASHLEY: Fucking smart.
ROBBIE: Then fold the book back up and
give it back to her. Thank you, Arlo. ANJALI: Aren't you
a clever man. LAURA: Brilliant. There's a reason
he's a professor. ROBBIE: Thank you. ASHLEY: That was actually
pretty cool. MATT: A short time later,
you hear the front door open and coming in from the
now softening rain of the evening weather, Lightkeeper Alexandra
steps in. "Well, you all certainly
look like shit. "But Reggie tells me that
you had quite the night out "and word around town is "there's been
quite a scuffle, "and a very pissed off OUP
on the outside of a foundry. "So you're alive
and successful." "So you're alive
and successful." ROBBIE: Don't set it on fire. ANJALI: Yes, yes.
LAURA: Oh, yes. MATT: "Good to know. "Do you know the nature
of what did this?" LAURA: He seemed
like a warrior. A warrior spirit. ANJALI: Ancient. LAURA: Yes, definitely
from Oldfaire. MATT: "Hmm." "I wonder if this was
either a burial rite "or it was a punishment." LAURA: He seemed like he did
not want to go back in. MATT: "Well, poor boy. Hasn't
been your night, has it? "(laughs) "We'll get it
to our researchers "and see if we can ascertain
the historical connections "to who this
individual may be, "as well as the
incantation that binds it "and if there are more
to be discovered, "so we can keep them from
creating more mischief "so we can keep them from
creating more mischief "and losses in the future." LAURA: Alexandra.
MATT: "Yes?" LAURA: Can you let Candela
know that I would like some of my donations to be
rerouted to The Clara House? MATT: "Certainly."
LAURA: Thank you. MATT: "I can have that done. "Well, you've done well. "Not bad for a freshly-forged
circle, I'd say. "And a freshly-inducted
member of Candela Obscura." ASHLEY: I don't know if I want
to be a member of this club because this was a bit much. LAURA: Oh, but Auggie,
you were so wonderful. ASHLEY: I was? LAURA: Truly, you
were very brave, and I've never seen anyone
hide as well as you did. ANJALI: I would say if
you're going to learn about terrifying things, I'd
rather you do it next to me. MATT: Alexandra grabs
a chair and scoots up and sits right directly
in front of you, eye to eye, and goes, "Look, Auggie, you don't
have to do this. "You can walk out of here
and never see us again "for the rest of your life. "That's entirely up to you. "Unfortunately,
like the rest of us, "you know what you've seen
and you know what's out there. "That'll never leave you. "What you've done tonight,
whether or not you believe it, "has saved the lives
of innumerable people. "What you could do in the
future can save many more. "But that choice is yours
when the time comes. "There's no pressure here. "We don't do this-- "<i>Most</i> of us don't do it
because we like it. "It's because if we
don't, who will? "There's far worse people
out there than the OUP. "They're at least
just incompetent. "There are others that have
more malevolent interests "There are others that have
more malevolent interests "with the sort of
things you've seen. "So, "you do what you will and
know that we respect that. "Even just your time
tonight is appreciated." ASHLEY: Okay. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I'll think on it. MATT: "Think on it. "Regardless,
on behalf of Candela, "thank you all very much. "I think it's time
you all got some rest. "The sun should be rising
in the next few hours. "I think you can probably
take some time off maybe." LAURA: Oh, but you have a gentleman
waiting for you, don't you? (laughter)
ANJALI: Oh, lord. Can't keep him waiting. (laughter) ROBBIE: He did
have a nice frame. ANJALI: Mm. (groans) Different tastes
for different people. But he did help us. MATT: "And hey, Reggie." (Reggie) "Yes, Lightkeeper?" (Alexandra) "You've got
a guest room back here, aye?" (Reggie) "Yes, I do. "But I mean, hasn't
really found anyone "to take up the rent
here as of late, why?" (Alexandra) "Well, if you
need a place to stay, the very least, Candela's
happy to give you "all the books you can read,
nice bed to sleep in. "Reggie's not the
worst company." ASHLEY: Well, what's the
rent going to cost? MATT: "No rent. "I think you've
paid it tonight." ASHLEY: Yeah, all right. Thank you. MATT: "With that, I've got
business to attend to. "My night is not over. "'Til we meet again.
Hopefully, long from now." She pulls her coat up, puffs
once more off her cigar-- ASHLEY: She's so cool.
MATT: -- and exits off into the night. ANJALI: Well. It's a step up from
a cot in an office. ASHLEY: Hey, anything's a
step up from a hard street. ASHLEY: Hey, anything's a
step up from a hard street. ANJALI: Hmm. LAURA: What's the name
of this bookstore again? MATT: It's The
Gilded Rainbow. LAURA: The Gilded Rainbow. ASHLEY: That's pretty. ANJALI: I think she's right. I think it's time we
all found some rest. LAURA: Of course. ANJALI: You'll be okay, yes? ASHLEY: Yeah. I'll be fine. ANJALI: You always
know where I am. ASHLEY: I do. LAURA: Do you believe you'll
be staying here, Auggie? ASHLEY: (sighs) I think so. I think so. I think this is the nicest
place I've ever stayed in. Yeah, I'm going to stay. So
if you ever need to find me, I'm just going to
be right here. LAURA: I do like to find a
good book every now and then. I believe we'll be visiting. ASHLEY: I bet he's
probably going to-- There's lots of books
for you here, doctor. ROBBIE: Certainly. And by the
way, for the record, tonight, I would give your
performance a C minus, but-- ASHLEY: All right.
ROBBIE: There is room for improvement. ANJALI: Trust me. From him,
that's a compliment. ASHLEY: Thank you, professor. MATT: As you all begin to scatter
off to your evening's rest, to find your daily activities and recovery from the events
from the previous evening, We'll conclude this venture here,
the first outing as the Circle of the Vassal and the Veil. under Candela Obscura,
in the city of Newfaire. LAURA: Yes. MATT: That being the case, let's take your
Candela Circle sheet and mark your progress here.
ANJALI: Oh! LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.
ANJALI: Yes, yes, yes! MATT: So, going through the
Illumination questions. ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are
you in charge? You're in charge. LAURA: I'm in charge.
ANJALI: Yes, yes, yes. LAURA: I'll do it.
ROBBIE: You're in charge. ANJALI: You're in charge.
LAURA: I'll be bookkeeper. MATT: Perfect. At
the end of a session, we have some questions
to get through. Did you contain or destroy
a source of bleed? LAURA: Yes!
MATT: Yes, you did. That's one point. Did you provide comfort or
support for those affected? LAURA: Yeah, yes.
ASHLEY: Yes. ROBBIE: Yes.
MATT: You rubbed a salve on a man.
ANJALI: Someone rubbed Vaseline all over-- ROBBIE: I slathered
a nice man up. ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: You did, you did. Greased him well. ANJALI: Delicious.
MATT: Straight to the elbow. ANJALI: Nice.
(laughter) MATT: Did you bring
something of importance back for Candela Obscura to study? LAURA: Yes, we did!
MATT: Yes, you did. That's three points there.
ANJALI: It's covered in blood, but-- MATT: You have at the bottom
of your sheet XP triggers. As long as each
of you hit one-- Raise your hand if you hit
one of your XP triggers. ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: Great. Awesome. Well, just so everyone knows,
we'll go around here. What was your XP trigger? ASHLEY: Making a Deal. MATT: Making a Deal. Awesome. ANJALI: Deceive. MATT: Great.
LAURA: I Acted Bizarre. MATT: Yeah. Great.
ANJALI: (laughs) ROBBIE: Mentored an Allie. Ally, not an Allie. ANJALI: (laughs)
ROBBIE: Hello, young Allie! (laughter)
ROBBIE: Come under my wing. MATT: Perfect.
LAURA: That's one for each person. MATT: One for each person. That's four additional points
in the Illumination chart. LAURA: Ooh, we're going
to get a bold circle next! MATT: Great.
ANJALI: Where's that? LAURA: Yeah. Our next circle
that we fill in is bold. I don't know what
that means, but it's-- MATT: It's a milestone, which can affect some of
the abilities in the circle. ROBBIE: Nice.
LAURA and ANJALI: Ooh! MATT: Now, that
being the case-- LAURA: Okay, okay, okay. MATT: We also have Candela
Obscura resources to spend. ANJALI: Okay. MATT: There should be
five in each: stitch, refresh, and train. Now, these resources
do not refresh until you complete
the Illumination track. So, these have to last you through the end of the
track's going, which means-- LAURA: Oh, for our
next couple games. MATT: Exactly. LAURA: Got it.
MATT: So these have to last you through the rest of
the next two sessions. So, the first ones, the
stitches, a person can spend one to clear all of the
marks they've taken. Now, remember, three marks,
you're still okay. Once you get a fourth mark,
you get a scar. It doesn't mean you're dead. It just means you get a
scar, which you have to basically change one of the
action points to another place that kind of describes
the scar's change to you, but a stitch does
clear your marks on your body,
brain, and bleed. Refresh gives all your drives
back and your resistances. Then, train, you can spend
them to give yourself a dice that you can use on any roll
during your next assignment. So you got five of
each to last you basically through your three-episode arc.
LAURA: Ooh. MATT: So how do you
want to divide these? ROBBIE: How many of each?
Five? MATT: Five of each. ROBBIE: Five of each.
ANJALI: For the whole time. LAURA: So, if we think of it, let's think of
it mathematically. We shouldn't do that. I would say each
of us would get three of these things to use as we want over
the next few games, but if somebody has a-- ANJALI: Yeah, if
someone has more. ROBBIE: But it's one slot. But it's one slot
per die per person. LAURA: Exactly. ROBBIE: So we could pick half of
us to have it for the next game and then have three,
have a little more for-- LAURA: The next, going
into the third? ROBBIE: The third game, because maybe that's
when we would need it. LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ANJALI: Yeah, I like that. ROBBIE: Or just give
one out this time, and load up for the-- LAURA: The next one? I feel like I definitely
did not think smartly and I used all of my drives. ANJALI: Yeah, you
got to refresh. LAURA: So I've got to
refresh or else I won't-- ANJALI: Refresh! LAURA: Did anybody else make
the same stupid mistake as me? ANJALI: I did not use all of
them, but I certainly used-- ASHLEY: I used three. ANJALI: -- some that I
could really use back. ROBBIE: We have
three refreshes. LAURA: And then we
have four refresh left. I will definitely be
smarter with my usage in the next game, so.
ANJALI: Yeah. ROBBIE: I'm pretty okay. I'm a little bummed I used
one of my resistances, because we would get that
back with a refresh. MATT: Correct. ROBBIE: But I only have
a brain and a bleed, and I feel like
that's not areas that maybe I would
typically take damage. So, maybe I'll chill and maybe just take
a dice for this round. LAURA: Oh, yeah.
Take a train. ROBBIE: Maybe
I'll take a train. LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. MATT: Yeah, so mark that on
your character sheet somewhere that you have
a train dice somewhere. ROBBIE: And when
we're playing, I could set it out
to remind myself. MATT: Correct. LAURA: If the next session
goes as poorly as this one did, as far as body goes,
then I will definitely be losing a limb or something
in the next game, so maybe I should stitch
myself up in this one. ANJALI: I support that decision.
I don't need a stitch. I mean, I just cut my
hand open. No big deal. You took some
serious body damage. ANJALI: You went, yeah. ASHLEY: I have two
Body, but I mean-- ANJALI: And one bleed. ASHLEY: And one bleed and one brain.
LAURA: You should probably-- Oh, you've got four marks? ROBBIE: You've got four marks?
LAURA: Auggie, take a stitch! ROBBIE: You take a stitch.
ANJALI: Yeah, can we fix up the baby? LAURA: Yeah, take a stitch. ASHLEY: And that gets
rid of everything? LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: Yep. So, stitch and a stitch
and a refresh? ASHLEY: Okay.
ANJALI: I'll take a refresh. LAURA: You'll take
a refresh. Okay. MATT: So, a stitch and a stitch
and a refresh and a refresh. All right, so-- ASHLEY: All right.
MATT: Arlo Black, how do you get stitched up and how do you refresh
yourself after this venture? LAURA: Oh gosh. Well, I go home. MATT: Mm-hmm. LAURA: I avoid my
mother and father, but I do find Mr. Tellbrook
and Ms. Thomas. MATT: (Tellbrook) "Yes,
of course, dear." LAURA: Ms. Thomas, would
you mind drawing a bath? MATT: "Of course. I'd
be happy to." LAURA: Thank you. MATT: "My, you look a bit
worse for wear, miss." LAURA: Yeah. Do either of
you have any medical knowledge? MATT: (Tellbrook) "I can
stitch you up on my own." LAURA: Thank you. MATT: "I was a field
doctor in the war." LAURA: Of course you
were, Mr. Tellbrook. I knew that.
MATT: "Aged out, "I thought, but they
needed help, so." LAURA: Sunny told me about
that. Would you mind terribly? MATT: "Of course.
I'd be happy to." LAURA: I'll sit while
he works on my head, and I'll tell them all about
everything that happened, and don't tell anyone. MATT: "Of course." LAURA: Oh, I do think we
should send something over to The Clara House. Now, I already told
Candela to do that, but I think
we should send more, and if anybody comes
knocking from The Steel, I may have damaged
the foundry over there. Direct them my way before
sending them to Father, please. MATT: They both look
at each other. (Tellbrook) "Of course.
An eventful evening." LAURA: It was quite an
exciting adventure. MATT: They look like they are happy to dive into the
frivolities you speak of, and it's wonderful you
have an active imagination, but you shouldn't hurt
yourself anymore. LAURA: After I take
a long bath, where I'm completely
shriveled like a raisin, I will crawl into bed
and sleep for the entire day, and just lounge
about the house, doing nothing but
staring at the ceilings. MATT: That is my favorite
way to refresh. LAURA: Yes. MATT: I haven't done
that in eight years. LAURA: Yeah, right?
MATT: (laughs) All right, and so,
after that, we have, Auggie, you got stitched up. How do you go about getting yourself stitched
up here in Newfaire? ASHLEY: Boy. Gosh. Who would I go to? Yeah. Okay, I think... I was thinking, I love
this new place that I have, but I'm feeling like,
tonight, I want to feel a
little bit of comfort of what feels like
home for me, and that's my cot at The Sight Unseen in Ms. Charlie's office,
so I'm going to go back there. I'm going to cuddle up,
hold my pillow, and try to get
warm and sleep. MATT: Okay. ANJALI: Knowing that
he's come back, I would like to
speak to Stinson and have him bring
over the doctor, the one who occasionally
helps some of my coworkers the one who occasionally
helps some of my coworkers stitch themselves
up after fights. MATT: "Don't worry. I'll
go ahead and fetch him." ANJALI: Thank you. ASHLEY: Thank you.
MATT: He wanders off before the doctor returns. This, you know,
Stonewall, you know, or thick, side beard,
mustache combination. or thick, side beard,
mustache combination. Frizzled out hair
on the sides, hunched at the
center of his back. Kind of looks like Brad Dourif
from "Deadwood," essentially. LAURA: Yes, yes. MATT: And wanders in and goes--
ANJALI: Hopefully a better doctor. MATT: "All right. You need
to be stitching up anyone? "Let's see what you got."
ANJALI: Yes, yes. Discretion, as always, but-- MATT: "Always. It's
how I operate. Yeah." ANJALI: For this time,
a bit of gentleness as well. MATT: "I'm as gentle
as wool is soft. "(murmurs) Okay."
ANJALI: Shh. I open the door
and he's asleep. MATT: "Oh."
ANJALI: Yeah. Can you take care of
him as best you can and give him
something to rest? MATT: "Yeah, yeah.
If you want me to "clean his wounds and stuff,
he's going to wake up." ANJALI: That's fine, but
then if you could give him something to rest. MATT: "Fair enough." He goes and opens
up his doctor's bag as you close the door and-- ASHLEY: Hey, what
are you doing? MATT: "I was just
trying to help you!" ASHLEY: Whoa, whoa,
whoa, okay. MATT: "Take a sip of this
and then relax a bit. "I'm going to make sure
you're all taken care of." ASHLEY: Oh, that's
delicious-- (slurs speech). ANJALI: (laughs) Exactly. MATT: "Don't worry. I'm
just going to stitch. "This isn't going
to hurt you much." ASHLEY: (snores)
ANJALI: Exactly. MATT: You wake up about
12 hours later, sore, but your scrapes, your gashes have all been
stitched up and cleaned. The area in your chest
where there's almost the beginning of
frostbite had kicked in from where you were
clawed through by the entity has been treated with
salve and is recovering, though it's kind
of red and raw. You feel pretty well
recovered from the endeavor. ASHLEY: I'm going to get up
right before the sun comes up, go pick up my papes,
and get back to work. MATT: Hell yeah.
ANJALI: Papes. MATT: And you, Charlotte,
how do you refresh yourself? ANJALI: Yes. I do go back
to The Sight Unseen, but I tell Stinson I'm going to take a few days
away, if you don't mind, if you can watch over the... everything. MATT: "Not a worry,
ma'am. I got you covered. "We'll take care of it." LAURA: The... All of it.
ANJALI: There's so many things. It's so difficult
being a businesswoman, a proprietress in
this day and age. ROBBIE: Watch your mouth.
ANJALI: So many companies. So many dealings.
So much to do. MATT: "Can't even begin to
try and understand it, "but we got you covered." ANJALI: Thank you.
MATT: "No worries." ANJALI: She makes her
way up to a very nice home
in The Eaves, and she opens the
door, doesn't knock. She opens the door,
and there is an elderly gentleman there. Sherman. MATT: "Yes, my dear?" ANJALI: How is she today? Is she clear? MATT: "Clear as usual. She
seems to be in high spirits. "If you'd like to
give her a visit, "I think she'd
appreciate it." ANJALI: I would. I'm going to
be staying for a little while. Not too long, perhaps. MATT: "Of course. Rooms are
ever-prepared, just in case." ANJALI: Thank you. I go up the very grand
staircase to a bedroom, where there is
an elderly woman sitting at her desk with
a lot of papers and books, but looking off into
space and not at them. I knock. MATT: "Yes?" ANJALI: Gertrude, I have a story for you. MATT: "Tell me a story.
That sounds nice." ANJALI: Mm. I pull up a chair and I start to tell her all
about everything that happened. I change the details
just a little bit, so there's very much of
a happy fairytale ending. I'll be here for a
few days with you and perhaps I'll have some
more stories for you, yes? MATT: "Please. I
like your stories." ANJALI: Just seeing
her is such a... It transports me back to
a very simpler time, a much simpler time
when I didn't remember what I had seen. I had seen it, but
I did not remember. It gives me some
peace for a few days. MATT: Wonderful. I believe that's all
the resources we've spent between sessions here. And with that, we close this first episode
of Candela Obscura. ASHLEY: Ooh! MATT: Thank you so much,
my wonderful players. Robbie Daymond. Laura Bailey. Anjali Bhimani.
Ashley Johnson. I'm your game master,
Matthew Mercer. Thank you so much
for joining us. We'll see you soon for the next episode
of Candela Obscura. (laughter)
