TALIESIN: Those that rise
from the trenches only to boldly dive into the
catacombs of the Fairelands are few and far between. Any investigator, be they soldier or civilian, will eventually find
themselves forced to abandon what is right
for what must be done. The scars of war
are deep and timeless. Those who survive must
balance on a delicate thread of ever-fraying purpose, for to stare too deeply
into the chasm of the past is to see nothing
but a reflection of terror. When retribution
crawls from the darkness, our inner fortitude
is put to the test. The Circle of
Needle & Thread. Assignment #533:
Eye for an Eye. (tense mysterious music) SPENSER: We open on a man in his 40s laying in bed. We're above, looking down. He's staring up at us. His eyes seem lost
somewhere else. We push in slowly
on him from above. Moving closer and closer. We see he's laying
on one side, the left side, an empty
side on the right. As we get just into his face, we hear a knock. He starts up and smiles. We see a child silhouetted in the doorway,
about five years old. The child's holding
a teddy bear. It's so long that it's
scraping the ground where he stands. The boy says, "Dad, I think I heard
something in my room. "Can you come check?" The man smiles, gets up out of bed,
and as he does, we see him pass by our
frame, out of frame, and we land on
the nightstand, where we see a photograph, a rare thing in this
world, but nonetheless. It's of him holding a baby, and a woman standing
next to him, arm in arm. We linger on the
empty side of the bed. We cut to the man in the child's room. There's a bed in the center, clothes and toys strewn
about on the floor. The father walks
over to the closet. The boy says, "I think
I heard it in there." He confidently grabs
the doorknob, pulls open the closet door. Inside, we see clothes and toys. Nothing here. We cut to the
underside of the bed. The man flops down
onto his stomach and looks left and right. There's a ball, a shoe.
Nothing here. He walks over to
the boy and says, "It's all clear, bud." Little boy salutes him.
He salutes him back. The boy looks down, sad and says, "I miss Mom." The father stares off for a moment, gathers
himself, ruffles the hair of the child and
says, "You need to go to bed. "You have school
in the morning." The boy runs to the bed, dives underneath the covers. Turns over. The man blows out the
candle on his nightstand, moves out to the
threshold of the door, gives one last look
back at the boy, and then closes the
door behind him. We see hanging on the back of the door a coat. It's just a coat. TRAVIS: (laughs) MARISHA: Stressed already? BRENNAN: Travis, it's
been three minutes. (laughter) SPENSER: The man continues
down the hallway, moves into his room, takes a deep breath, closes the door just slightly,
and lays down on the bed. He stares at the photograph
on his bedside table. The woman's face is happy. Her eyes closed in smiles. And he takes a snuffer and
snuffs out the candle on his nightstand as well. Just like the child,
he rolls over and closes his eyes. We sit in this
shot of the man in the foreground
laying towards us. In the background, his closet sits still. We sit in this
shot for too long. Until, ever so slightly,
we start to push in. As that happens, the closet door opens just a little bit. We see a shadowy, long hand reach around the door, push it farther open,
and then disappear. A face comes into view, breaking the threshold
of the door here. It's a ghostly white
face, pale blue skin, as if it's floating out of the closet. Eyes are closed.
Mouth, agape. It moves forward
towards the man. This woman looks
familiar to us. As it gets closer and closer, the man twitches
in his sleep. We get a shot of the
photograph on the nightstand. Then a shot of the face
floating towards him. They are of the same woman. He turns, eyes opening for
just a moment, and sees her face above him. He says, "Allison? "Allison, what are you-- "What are you--"
and he starts to sit up and as that happens,
the face snaps back. As it does, it reveals
a jagged set of teeth. As it does, it reveals
a jagged set of teeth. At that time a hand, same dark
hand that was over the closet, covers the mouth of the man. He screams and
we see chromatic light pouring up the
hand of this creature. It starts to shake and twitch, starting
at its wrist and then moving up
into its shoulder. As that happens,
the man also starts to writhe and twitch. The creature takes
its other clawed hand and sticks its thumb,
the nail on its thumb, into the lowest
part of the neck. You know this part right
here that's super soft? Sticks the thumbnail
right into there and then slices
straight down, fileting the man wide open. As that happens, the candle (rekindling) comes back to life. The creature takes the hand
off of the man's mouth, who's now in shock,
looking down at his body. The creature reaches into--
TRAVIS: (laughs nervously) SPENSER: -- the
body of this man and parts it wide open, breaking
the rib cage. We see a pulsing
heart within. That's when we see
a crack of light in the doorway. MARISHA: (gasps) Oh no.
SPENSER: There's an eye looking into the room. ZEHRA: No. SPENSER: The little boy
stands outside the door, holding the teddy bear,
staring into the room. He drops the bear and runs. MARISHA: Yeah, smart kid. SPENSER: That's where we're
going to cut to all of you. TRAVIS: Fudge maker. (laughter) MARISHA: That it was.
SPENSER: (laughs) ZEHRA: Just a little
thoracic surgery. LUIS: Oh my gosh, right?
MARISHA: Yeah. SPENSER: That's where we're
cutting into all of you. You are all finishing
up a mission, an assignment that
you've been sent on Where your job was
to intercept a package, a device that EONS
was transporting from the Bridleborne
Mountains to Newfaire. You know that it is
coming on a train. So we know that all of you
have gathered on the train. There have already
been a number of incidents that
have occurred here. We will get into
those very shortly. But your goal is to find and take this device that Candela has told
you is very dangerous in order to keep EONS from
getting their hands on it. EONS, so that you know, is the Esoteric
Order of New Sciences. They are essentially
like if Tesla and Edison got
together with magick and made bad magick shit. Basically, using magick
as a form of science, trying to utilize its power in ways that help
them to make money. It's capitalism.
LUIS: (laughs) SPENSER: So, that
is the information that we start with here
at the end of this mission. We start on a shot of
the Bridleborne Mountains, moving into
the Scarlet Woods. The Scarlet Woods
are bright red, Scarlet Wood, rather, bright red trees that fill the bottom
of our frame like a pool of blood. We see, just in the distance, the smallest trail
of smoke here. the smallest trail
of smoke here. As we zoom into that, we
get a shot of a steam engine that is moving very quickly
down the side of a mountain through the
Scarlet Wood here. It is almost on a
vertical incline. So it is going down the
mountain at an extreme speed and we hear the
blow of the horn as it's blaring past us, the trees whipping
in its wake. From there, we land on a man who is cradling the device that you all know you're supposed
to be getting. In the other hand,
he has a gun. He's dressed in
a burgundy suit. He has a very-- What's that,
pencil thin mustache? TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: You see that he
is on top of the train, about four cars back
from the engine car. MARISHA: What kind of fucked
Tom Cruise shit is this? SPENSER: Uh-huh!
(laughter) SPENSER: On top of the
train, about four cars back from the front. He is holding onto the
device with one hand. He's flat against the car
so that he does not blow off of the car, and his
other arm reaches back with the gun to take a shot. We hear the crack of the gun go off. We see the smoke almost
paralleling the smoke from the steam engine coming off of the
gun as this happens and we see the person
he is shooting at. Who is it? BRENNAN: Me!
SPENSER: It's you. Okay. (laughs) I love that. MARISHA: Secret robber hands. SPENSER: (laughs)
LUIS: Yes. SPENSER: Just stepping in first.
BRENNAN: I didn't see anyone else jumping up.
(laughter) SPENSER: Love that.
Jumping right in. So we see the gun raised,
we see the crack-- Or we hear the crack,
we see the smoke, and we get a shot of you. Sean, do you want
to describe for us what you look like
here as you are on the back of the
train as well? BRENNAN: (New York accent) I
want you to picture how I look sitting at the table right
now, but with way more fucking pine needles in my face. (laughter) BRENNAN: We are rocketing
down this hillside. I look uncomfortable. I got a coat. I think the
second I heard the first crack, I jumped in between two cars,
grabbed onto the ladder and I'm reaching for
a piece in my jacket to come up over the
top and get this guy. SPENSER: I love that.
TRAVIS: Yeah! SPENSER: We hear the
first crack go off. We see you leap down, pull yourself up as
you're grabbing the gun. Mark that you
have a hand weapon, since that's what
you're taking there. Then we see you lift
yourself up over the train. You're about two
cars back from him at this point, about
the sixth car back. As you peek your head up, you see the barrel
pointed at you again. The trigger's being pulled. You're going to get
another shot fired at you. What do you want to do here? BRENNAN: This guy's
a scientist. Do we assume or do I
know that he's a soldier? SPENSER: Assume that he's a-- You would make the
assumption, given his outfit, that he is a scientist. BRENNAN: Then I think this
guy, firing from prone on top of a moving train is not going to be able
to hit the side of a barn and I'm going to
let him fire wildly in reverse while
I steady my shot. SPENSER: I love that.
Okay, that sounds good. So we see you pulling yourself up, you're
going to steady your shot. I'm going to have you make
a Control roll here. I will set the
expectations here for this, that this is one,
a high stakes roll and two, on a mixed success
or a miss here, you will take some body marks
from getting shot. BRENNAN: On a mixed success. So a six would help me
not get shot, right? SPENSER: Yes, correct. (laughter)
LUIS: Crap. BRENNAN: I know the rules! SPENSER: A mixed success would
not be as bad as a miss here, but you are just letting
him shoot at you. BRENNAN: Yes, that's correct. I'm going to spend a Nerve-- SPENSER: Okay.
BRENNAN: -- drive because I have Sharpshooter. "When you want to make a
ranged attack with a weapon, "you may spend one Nerve to "steady your aim
before shooting "and add plus two dice "to your next shot
at this target." SPENSER: So are you just
popping up and shooting at him while he's shooting at you? Is that kind of the thought? BRENNAN: I'm in between
two cars. SPENSER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: I'm going to put just my eyes-- I'm giving him just the
top of my head to aim at on a moving train, arm over the side,
steadied on the ground, and I'm going to
take my shot at him. SPENSER: Okay.
BRENNAN: I'm going to let him fire wildly. If this guy can clip
the top of my cranium on a moving train,
he deserves it. (laughter) SPENSER: Great, so you're
making a Control roll here. BRENNAN: I'm going
to Control here. I'll go ahead, actually, and throw another
drive on there for an extra die.
SPENSER: Okay, sounds good. BRENNAN: Okay. TRAVIS: Everybody's dead.
LUIS: (laughs) BRENNAN: That's a mixed
success. That's a five. SPENSER: That's a five?
Okay, it's a mixed success. So, here's what happens here. You shoot. He shoots. You're a better
shot than he is. You know this. But as the sound of
the bullet traveling out of the barrel of your gun
reverberates in your ears, you feel a kickback like you're
not used to from this gun. Then suddenly you feel
searing pain on your hand. At that same time, you
see him (grunts) get hit in the shoulder
from him leaning up, the back of the
shoulder, and go down. His arm looks as though it--
The arm that had the gun, it looks as though it's
being covered in blood here, but as you look down
at your own hand, you see that there is-- The bullet probably
hit the gun. Your gun is completely
out of use now. BRENNAN: Gotcha.
SPENSER: And your hand is just covered in blood. You can take
a body mark for me. LUIS: However,
I see it coming. SPENSER: (laughs) Okay.
LUIS: So right under Sean-- SPENSER: Uh-huh.
LUIS: -- is Marion. As soon as I see
you drop down and I see you moving
up the ladder, your old buddy Marion
is there right beside you. As I see him go over
the side to take aim, I'm right underneath him,
and I steady myself. I close my eyes and as soon
as I have this premonition of what you just described
flashing through my mind, you feel a tug behind you and you hear me
say: Drop the gun! BRENNAN: I unthinkingly
drop the gun and toss it. SPENSER: Yeah.
LUIS: I'll try to catch it with my vest, I'll catch
it to protect myself from the heat a little bit.
SPENSER: Love that. LUIS: So I used an ability
called Premonition where I have momentary
visions of the future. When an ally is about to
take one or more marks, I burn an Intuition
resistance to warn them about the coming
danger, and then I soak-- SPENSER: So cool.
LUIS: -- one of these marks. SPENSER: Great, so you
take that body. You do not take that body. You soak that body, and
instead you pull him down. This guy is still shot, but
you're able to pull the gun in time to make sure
that he was not able to hit Sean in return. What happens here?
LUIS: Hot potato, hot potato, hot potato! Here, here, here!
BRENNAN: Oh, I got it. I'm going to throw
it into my jacket and look to you and
say: Good eye, Marion. I'm going to clap
you on the arm. I'm going to kick the
door to the train car in to move through the
train towards the car that that guy's on.
SPENSER: Love that. We see the door fly open. This is a passenger car
that you are bursting into so you get eyes on
you as this happens. We're going to
cut away from that. BRENNAN: Great. SPENSER: We are going to cut
to the EONS tech train car SPENSER: We are going to cut
to the EONS tech train car where they're keeping
all of their equipment that they're transporting
back and forth. We get the crackle
of electricity as some of the devices work. We see sine waves on
the rudimentary displays on some of these devices, the smell of ozone
is in the air. As that happens we see
one figure silhouetted by the lights, the bulbs
that are lining this room by the lights, the bulbs
that are lining this room that are surging as the
electricity from, as the wires that are traveling down
the side of that car and to the wheels
that are powering the lights in this room surge and crackle. We watch as this
person silhouetted is facing off against two large
individuals. They are rising
a head above them, and they roll
up their sleeves. We can tell from
their movement that they have just
entered the train car where this person was. This person who is now facing
down two EONS security members is going to have
to fight them off. Who do we want that
to be? Who is that? TRAVIS: I guess
it could be me! (laughter) TRAVIS: Unless,
you know! (laughs) Oh, no, I'll--
SPENSER: Yeah? Okay. TRAVIS: That's me! SPENSER: Sounds good to me. Great, so we get the
shot of you standing. Will you describe your
character for me? TRAVIS: Yes, Nathaniel
Trapp stands there in his shirt and vest, pocket watch loosely
hanging out. He was hoping to use his
words more in this situation, but seems to
have found the car with the two big fucks in it.
(laughter) TRAVIS: And is instead
looking up and trying to wonder how
he got in this situation and why he didn't
bring a gun as well. SPENSER: (laughs) Yeah, as
you stare up at these two, you hear one of them yell, "Hey, what are you
doing here?" TRAVIS: Oh, I'm so sorry.
Is this not the dining car? SPENSER: We see one of them
reach into their vest pocket and pull out a knife. As they do, we see a cord that is wrapping around
their arm down their vest. They flip a switch
and (energy pulsing) a crackle of electricity
comes over the top of it. This is like a switchblade,
but it's electrified. They say,
"Get on the ground!" TRAVIS: Oh, absolutely. Actually, I reach
in my breast pocket and I pull out a
notepad and I say: This is exactly what
I was looking for. I did not think the circus
was coming to town, but if you would be open
to answering a few questions, I would love to figure
out what that is. (laughter) SPENSER: We cut
away from that. We cut away from that
over to the last train car. We sit for a moment on the face of Jean here, looking up at her. Her arm seems to
be extended out. As we pull back from that, it's revealed that she is
holding a gun in her hand. Now, you don't
need to mark it because this was given to you.
ZEHRA: Hmm. SPENSER: We see a face
appear over your shoulder, a face that you know well. This is Violet Boucher. She is a mentor, a friend. She is a mentor, a friend. An enemy might be too strong
of a word, but maybe also that. She smiles at you. "It's time for you to
prove yourself, Jean." We pull out a
little bit farther and we see a person on their
knees in front of you. "It should be easy, Jean. "It should be easy." We hear the (clanking)
of a train door opening, a railroad car door opening,
and we get the wind, (wind blasting) whip
in to the cabin here. As that happens, we see
the passing red trees in front of you. Silhouetted against
those red trees is a figure wearing
tacked together clothing. is a figure wearing
tacked together clothing. Beatrix. MARISHA: Ah yes, you
see good old Auntie Bee stumble into
the back of the car. She looks a
little disoriented and, oh my goodness,
is this not? Is this not the express
to the Red Lamp? I, I just had--
TRAVIS: (laughs) I fear I may have gotten
on the wrong train. SPENSER: (laughs) As
you say that, we see that you're patting
your hands down and Violet grabs
your shoulder and then slaps you
across the face. MARISHA: Ah! Did you
just smack an old woman? SPENSER: "Yes," she says
and releases your shoulder. Now, and for the first time we
get a full shot of you, Jean. Will you describe
yourself for us? ZEHRA: Jean is wearing
standard-issue EONS clothing that would be issued
to an EONS doctor. Normally, she is quite
composed and put-together, but in this moment there
is ever so slight a tremble in the hand that
holds the gun. She is not accustomed
to holding a firearm. In her eyes is a
steely, cold reserve that at this moment is
threatening to shatter as she weighs her options. Surely, Dr. Boucher,
there is another way. SPENSER: "Ah," Violet says, bows her head a little bit. "You know, if you were not "somebody who
split their time "between two organizations
the way that you do, "I would never ask a
loyalty check like this. "But it seems to me,"
and she looks over to the corner of the car. "It seems to me "that there's been
correspondence behind my back "instead of the agreed-upon
method of communication." She pulls a letter
out of her pocket. "I found this. "It was going to be sent." She wanders over to
the back of the car as she's doing this. "You know, this could
have ruined everything, "but she isn't as sly
as she thinks she is." She tucks the letter
into her pocket and she opens up a cabinetry that would normally hold
beakers and vials and things, but it's been cleared
out and inside is a figure, a woman with dark hair,
grabs her, pulls her up and drags her up to sit
kneeled down next to you. This is Avery Choi,
somebody that you know well. Somebody that all of
you would know as well. Avery Choi is a liaison
between EONS and Candela, oftentimes providing services
much like Jean does here. oftentimes providing services
much like Jean does here. She says, "See,
I am loyal to EONS, She says, "See,
I am loyal to EONS, "so this--" She lets go of the rope. We see Avery with a piece of tape
over her mouth trying to yell. "This makes this
whole situation "rather easy for me." She pulls out a gun. "So, you first?" ZEHRA: So to clarify.
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. ZEHRA: In front of me
are kneeling Ms. Monroe and Dr. Avery Choi.
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. ZEHRA: (sighs) Dr. Boucher
wants me to shoot them. SPENSER: Violet, Dr. Boucher,
is holding the gun at Avery. ZEHRA: I also have a gun.
SPENSER: And you have the gun. ZEHRA: (sighs) Is there a way I can turn the
gun on Dr. Boucher? SPENSER: Definitely. As she waits for a moment, watching you nervously
hold the gun-- Do you whip it over? Do you slowly move it?
What's the play here? ZEHRA: (sighs) I think-- I exchange glances
nervously with Ms. Monroe. I think perhaps
we have talked about if a situation like
this were to occur. MARISHA: Yes, we-- ZEHRA: Some sort of
distraction. MARISHA: We Saw This Coming. (laughter) MARISHA: Which is
one of my abilities. LUIS: (gasps) MARISHA: So three
times per assignment, you may add a
dice to your roll. ZEHRA: Excellent. MARISHA: Because
of course we knew Violet was going to be here
and of course we knew that we were going to be
using Jean over here as bait. So, Beatrix just
takes the easy way and almost looks like
she's going to go to run, but in this process
knocks Violet, shoulder checks her out of the way.
SPENSER: Oh, so good. Yeah, so we see
you get up to run. You're not taking the shot. ZEHRA: Yes, I take
that opportunity when I see Violet slightly
knocked off course to whip the gun on her. SPENSER: Great,
the gun is on her. She whips the
gun back onto you, and now you're holding--
ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: -- guns at
one another. ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. I am a doctor and
I am very skilled about what part of my body
can be injured without-- SPENSER: As you're saying
this, she pulls the trigger. ZEHRA: Oh!
LUIS and TRAVIS: (gasp) TRAVIS: Oh! SPENSER: What do
you want to do? ZEHRA: I turn away
from my heart-- LUIS and TRAVIS: (laugh)
ZEHRA: -- so that the gun strikes me in
my right shoulder. SPENSER: Okay. So you're going
to make a Move roll for me. ZEHRA: Okay.
SPENSER: I will say, in the very least you're
going to take a body mark. ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: Could take more. MARISHA: And add a dice--
ZEHRA: Add a dice. MARISHA: -- from where
we Saw This Coming. SPENSER: Yep.
ZEHRA: Thank you. TRAVIS: Try to get skinny.
SPENSER: A critical success you will not take any damage.
LUIS: That's your-- MARISHA: That's my--
LUIS: And it's called that. ZEHRA: I'm also going to
burn a Nerve drive. SPENSER: Okay. ZEHRA: Here we go. Oh! SPENSER: (laughs) It's
okay, those gloves are-- ZEHRA: Oh!
LUIS: Ooh! TRAVIS: (laughs)
ZEHRA: Six. SPENSER: Six?
MARISHA and TRAVIS: (laugh) SPENSER: That's
a full success. She pulls the trigger.
We see you turn sideways. You feel (air whooshing)
across your shoulder. ZEHRA: Mm-hmm.
SPENSER: Across where your sleeve is,
your arm, (air whooshing)
a cutting, searing pain, but way less than
it would have been. You dive out of the way here. She cries out, grabs Avery, and holds Avery as a
shield in front of her. MARISHA: May I--
SPENSER: Yeah. MARISHA: Look around, do
a Survey check of this car. SPENSER: Mm-hmm. MARISHA: A lot of times
these old cabooses-- And this isn't
the car with the goods. SPENSER: This isn't
the car with the goods. This is an empty train car-- MARISHA: Because I'm standing
by the gate in between and normally there's a lever
that can detach the cars. SPENSER: (chuckles) Uh-huh. MARISHA: Can I look and see if
I see anything like this? SPENSER: Yeah, so
you've made a run for it. They're now standing
face to face here. You're going out
the back of the car or the front of the car? You're going
towards the engine or away from the engine?
MARISHA: Towards the-- SPENSER: Towards
the engine, great. So you're
headed out that way. Yeah, you're able to
pry the doors open, and you see there is
the thing that would detach if you were to try
and separate cars. It normally takes
tools to do that. You can't just pull
the lever and do it. MARISHA: Yeah.
SPENSER: But that doesn't mean that you couldn't try and
force it, if you want to. MARISHA: All right. Uh-- Sure, I'm going to
try and do it. TRAVIS: Holy shit!
(laughter) SPENSER: So you're trying
to detach the car? TRAVIS: We're literally
on the fucking train. MARISHA: May-- Be ready.
(laughter) MARISHA: I look up and
I'm like: Jeanie. Time to go. ZEHRA: Already hanging
onto my shoulder. Hanging onto the side.
LUIS: Oh my god! MARISHA: Can we say that
maybe I have like a little bit of a
tiny little dagger, or a blade, or something? SPENSER: Yes, you should have
a hand weapon on there as an option.
MARISHA: Yeah, all right. I'll take a hand weapon that
I try to use to help lever. SPENSER: Great, normally
without anything it would be basically impossible to
try and pry this apart. But because you're
using a weapon I'll say that it is more effective
because of that. All of these, by the way,
high stakes rolls, right? That's why we're rolling
environment damage. All of these are high
stakes rolls. So you're reaching down
trying to pry off the, or pry open the
mechanism to be able to separate the cars. Yeah, that's the plan? Okay, what are you using? Do you have a dagger? MARISHA: Yeah, I have
a little blade or something like that.
SPENSER: Great, love that. Okay, that sounds good. Go ahead and make
that roll for me. That's a Control? MARISHA: Okay.
SPENSER: Control or Strike. I would give you
one of the two. MARISHA: I'll do Control.
SPENSER: Okay. MARISHA: Okay, and I
just have one in it? SPENSER: Yep, so you
can spend drive. You could spend Nerve, if
you'd like to add more. MARISHA: This
feels important. TRAVIS: I'd assist you,
but, you know. We're busy.
ZEHRA: Could I assist you? How would I assist you? SPENSER: Yeah, you could. ZEHRA: Oh, I would have to
do it with a Nerve drive? SPENSER: A Nerve drive.
ZEHRA: I don't have any left. I'm sorry! You can do
this, Miss Monroe. MARISHA: I'm doing it.
I spent a Nerve. Ugh, I stopped doing pilates
about five years ago. All right, I'll
take a five. SPENSER: That's a five.
That's a mixed success. Are you standing on the
car that's being separated or are you standing
on the car that is-- MARISHA: I want to stay on
the car that is detached and try and get Jeanie to
do a little train jump. SPENSER: Got it, okay. So you're staying on the
car that Jean is on? MARISHA: No, I want
to get on the one that's going to keep going and I want this one that
they're on to go away. SPENSER: So, here's
what happens. You, well, describe for me how
this works for you very well. How do you do this? MARISHA: I get up and I slip
a little bit on my coat as I shove Violet
out of the way. I'm trying to reach and
I'm a little bit torn to try and reach for
Jean at the same time as I'm trying to go and
use what little strength of my 55-year-old self
I have left to yank it and hopefully hope
this fucking harebrained idea works.
SPENSER: We see you drive the dagger
into the mechanism and then pop it open. At that point, in order
to get that leverage, you had to be on the
opposite train car, the one that is
still attached to the rest of the
train to do it. As you do, the train, woo,
separates by about two feet. It's getting wider
and wider and wider every moment that you are
not keeping it together. MARISHA: Jean is more
spry than I, so I'm going to
take my opportunity. SPENSER: Okay. MARISHA: Before it gets too crazy. SPENSER: Yeah, so you
actually had to get unto the other side. So are you jumping back?
MARISHA: Right. So now I'm going to. I'm staying on the one
that's still going. SPENSER: Staying on the one
that's still going, okay. The gap is widening
with every moment. ZEHRA: I sprint past
Violet and Avery and my final words as I
leap to the other car: Consider this my resignation! SPENSER: Ho, ho, ho! So good.
LUIS: (laughs) SPENSER: Okay,
I'm going to have you make a Move roll
again for me here because you are trying
to sprint by them. What I will say,
high stakes roll. She's holding a gun still. Things could go bad
on a mixed success. Things won't go that
bad, but just setting the expectations that
this is very dangerous what you're about to do.
ZEHRA: Believe that. SPENSER: Cool. So it's one die? ZEHRA: One die. Four, mixed success.
LUIS: Oof. SPENSER: Four, that's
a mixed success. So, we see you
sprint by Violet. She yells, "No!" and pushes
Avery out the car door. You have an opportunity here. You can save Avery from
falling out the train door, or you can continue onto
the other train safely. What do you want to do here? ZEHRA: I think to myself
in that split second when I have to make
this decision. Avery has been my confidant. They've been the one
that has helped me connect with Candela. How could I let? I do no harm. How could I let harm
come to Avery? And yet, that gap is growing
wider and wider and wider. I make the leap to
the other car. SPENSER: Okay, we see
you take that second, one second to contemplate. Avery tumbles over the threshold and disappears out the
door as you leap across. MARISHA: I try to grab her with what little bit I have
to steady her balance. SPENSER: The train cars
start to separate more. If it had been
one moment longer, they would have
been too far. Violet stands at
the doors watching the cars start to separate. Her hair whipping in the wind. From there we cut back
to the two of you. We never got your description. We focus in on you here,
as Sean is recovering. Do you want to give us
your description? LUIS: Well, as soon as I hear
a shot come from the back you see my attention
go from my buddy Sean, immediately whipping
back because I know that she's in the back at
one of those last cars. What you see is a
man, Marion Collodi, about 5'9", so he is, you
know, the tall end of short or the short end of average. SPENSER: Right. LUIS: Medium-slim build,
dark hair, dark beard. He's got this intense look in his eyes. He's focused on what's
happening around him, but he's also focused
on another layer of what's happening around him that the naked eye cannot see. SPENSER: Mm. LUIS: I am whipping
back and forth. I'm seeing, I hear the
gunshot, I whip back, I go back to where you are. Sean, there's trouble in the back. BRENNAN: We got to go. I am walking. The guy we're chasing, is he moving to the front
of the train or the back? SPENSER: Moving to the
front of the train. Towards the engine. Towards the, yeah. BRENNAN: Did you say
trouble in the back? I'm going to go--
LUIS: There's trouble in the front. BRENNAN: I'm going
to say like. I look at you and I'm like: Hey, trouble everywhere,
right? (laughter) BRENNAN: I'm going to say: You need to go get
Auntie Bee and Jean? LUIS: Yeah.
BRENNAN: All right, hey, thanks for
the heads up. I'm going to start to
run through the train. SPENSER: Yeah. SPENSER: After the dude that
I know is going to the front. SPENSER: Yeah, you're
sprinting towards-- BRENNAN: Do I happen
to know where Nathaniel is in the train? SPENSER: So Nathaniel
would be behind you. BRENNAN: So everyone's behind
me and I'm running forward. SPENSER: You're like four
cars from the front, which is where all the
passenger trains are. BRENNAN: Okay, cool. I'm going
to start to, that guy is, did I see that guy really
hoofing it on the roof or was he struggling
to make progress? SPENSER: Oh, it's hard
up on the roof. BRENNAN: So, I'm not
going to run. I'm going to move my
gun around in my jacket and walk politely nodding to people through
the passenger car. TRAVIS: As they hear
(heavy impacts). BRENNAN: Yeah, as to
not arouse suspicion. I'll start to walk through. If anyone grills me
anymore about it, I'll do something. But the best defense
is not opening your fucking mouth
in the first place. SPENSER: I love that. Go ahead and make a
Hide roll for me as you do this, because
there are people onboard that are, you know potentially
people onboard here that are EONS members as well, that are looking out for
people that they are not with. BRENNAN: That's a three. SPENSER: It's a three. You continue forward. Nobody seems to
bother you here as you move to the next car, but as soon as
those doors close, you take a look back
and see one person get up from their
seat and move towards the doors behind you. BRENNAN: Okay, so they're
in the car I just left. SPENSER: They are. BRENNAN: They picked
up my tail. I am going to, is
there anything here in between the cars
like a bolt that you would lift
up to lock a door? Or anything else like that, that I see in the area. I assume there's
chains and things attaching the
two cars together. Is there
anything physically that's like a bar out here? SPENSER: Yeah, in the
immediate there doesn't look to be anything that
will detach quickly. But make a
Survey roll for me, because that's to give
a more thorough look at what's around. Maybe
there's something underneath the carriage of the
train or something. BRENNAN: A three.
SPENSER: A three. Yeah. There does not appear to
be anything around here and you notice the
person getting closer and closer to you. BRENNAN: I'm going
to lean back as I see them approaching me and I'm going to light
a cigarette to look like I'm just smoking out
here in between cars. SPENSER: I love that. They lock eyes with you
and you see them reach into their lapel. We cut away from them,
over to you. BRENNAN: Ha! SPENSER: They, what position
have you taken here? If you are okay-- If you are okay with them
doing whatever they want they are going to lay
you flat on the ground. If you are not, then
I would like to know. TRAVIS: I'm going
down to my knees and I still have
my notepad out. Gentleman has the
lightning dagger, or whatever the fuck that is. Then the other one,
I assume, as well. As I am doing that, can I
survey the room real quick and see like, <i>any liquids
of any kind</i> in this place? SPENSER: Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and make a
Survey roll for me. TRAVIS: Okay. SPENSER: Only because
this is high stakes, if you were in this
room by yourself and there was
no time pressure it wouldn't be a big deal. But you're looking around
in a hurry to do this, so. TRAVIS: That's a five. SPENSER: That's a five, okay. It's a mixed success. So, what you see here
is there are, there's actually what
looks like a set of bunsen burners that have a liquid inside of
them that are boiling. They are being held
by metal clamps so that in the vertical
descent of the train where the liquid--
Actually, at this point, the liquid is
pushing up against sort of like this, right.
TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: It's pushing
up against the side of the burner. As that's happening,
they're being held in place by a metal
device that has a-- What's that thing called? That steady cams use? BRENNAN: Gyro?
SPENSER: The gyroscope? Like a gyroscope that
keeps them level as the train moves so that
they don't actually get hurt. Or they don't spill. They are being lit on fire, essentially, from
below, boiling. One of them is a dark liquid and the other one
is a clear liquid. Both of them are not
within an arm's reach, but you could make
a sprint to grab one. TRAVIS: Excellent. So
because it's on the side and there are two of them, I know if at least I move
to one of their flanks, I'll put them in
a single line. They can't both reach me with
the same amount of speed. SPENSER: Sure.
TRAVIS: So I'll say: That actually
looks fascinating. I'll move towards the beaker. As I pulled out the
notepad, there is a pair of brass knuckles that's
underneath the notepad. MARISHA: Oh shit!
TRAVIS: I have it in my hand. I'll loop it, try to--
SPENSER: Uh-huh. TRAVIS: -- loop
behind the beaker. Incredible! I'll try and fling it towards the one that's closest to me.
SPENSER: So good. So, I'm going to
say this is either a Strike or Control
roll here to do this. TRAVIS: God, both
of those suck. SPENSER: I'm sorry. (laughs) TRAVIS: No, that's okay. Oh, a three!
SPENSER: That's a three? So, you go to put your hand
on the back of the beaker. Are you a scientist? TRAVIS: I am not. MARISHA and ZEHRA: (laugh) SPENSER: So what you realize--
Not being a scientist, it wouldn't have come
to you maybe as easily. But now that you've
wrapped the brass knuckles around the super hot
glass, you realize those knuckles conduct heat. TRAVIS: Fuck.
ZEHRA and LUIS: (gasp) SPENSER: So you put your
hand around one of those and suddenly the whole
inside of your knuckles just light up on fire. Go ahead and take a body mark for me as this happens.
TRAVIS: Yep, yep. SPENSER: You go to fling
it and the vial goes-- Because of the burn,
the vial goes wide left. TRAVIS: Fuck.
SPENSER: Smashes against the door,
and you see the vial, the dark one is the
one that you flung. It starts to eat away
corrosively at the metal of the train car. TRAVIS: That would
have worked so well. SPENSER: (laughs) They both move towards you, the other one now pulling out a electrified switch
blade as well. They take a swing at you. What do you want to do here? TRAVIS: Well, you know, if you're going to
get in a knife fight you're going to get cut. Sometimes the fastest
way to the end is to just keep going. So I'm actually going to keep
my arms up in front of me and try and wait until one
of them does move forward, knowing that I will get
cut and try and use leverage to swing them into the other to try and make use of
the momentum in the car. SPENSER: That's so cool.
What do you want to use here to do that? That sounds like there's
a couple of things that might work. TRAVIS: Yes, yes, yes, yes. SPENSER: What are
we looking at? TRAVIS: Boy. I could
have used more stuff in this non-talky shit. (laughter) TRAVIS: You know what?
I will-- I'm going to make a Read on
one of the two in the room. Is one of the other
more aggressive than the other one is? SPENSER: Yeah, so the
first one to pull out the switch blade is
definitely the aggressor. The other one looks as though they are answering
to the first one. TRAVIS: Great, so I'm going
to make my move towards the aggressor and I'm
going to offer my left side. Just this whole side, to try and capture
an arm and know that I'll probably take it. Then I'm going to try
and use that motion to bring him around into
the other one, if I can. SPENSER: Yeah, so what I'll
actually ask you for here, if you're okay with it,
because you're trying to convince him to do
that, I would say Sway is probably what
that falls under. Is that okay?
TRAVIS: Oh yeah. SPENSER: Okay, great. So you're trying to
convince him to hit you. I will say you will take
some body marks here for this.
TRAVIS: I am counting on it. I entered a knife
fight with no knife. SPENSER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. TRAVIS: I'm going
to burn two drive. SPENSER: We'll see, maybe
some brain too because this is a stressful
situation that you're in. SPENSER: So I'm setting those,
depending what the roll is-- TRAVIS: Where the fuck
is Sean? SPENSER: (laughs)
TRAVIS: That's a five. SPENSER: That's a five.
Okay, that's a mixed success. You're going to get what you
want, but describe for me how the blade makes its way into your side
so successfully. TRAVIS: Yeah, so it
does take the flank, but it goes off of my lat, off of my rib, and
I can feel the warmth immediately start
to pour down the side. But the natural instinct
to trap the arm is also made by the need to
protect all of the organs inside of that ribcage.
SPENSER: Sure. (laughs) TRAVIS: So I trap the
arm and I will turn with everything that I have and try and whip him around
into the guy behind him. SPENSER: I love that. We get the shot of it slicing
the side of your body. Blood pouring down. Go ahead and take a body
and a bleed for me, because the stress of
this situation is so much. TRAVIS: I'm coloring in
a lot of slots, you guys. ZEHRA: I'll be there soon!
SPENSER: But with that five, you get the success here. You trap the arm underneath. You spin and throw this one security officer
into the other. Then letting go of the arm, they fall into one another, giving you an opportunity
here to break free. TRAVIS: You would
think I would run, but I'm not going to. I'm actually going to
follow on the guy that I threw him and
try and keep that arm with the electric dagger
and try and put it into one or two
of either of them. SPENSER: I love that. What
are we using here to do that? TRAVIS: Just blunt luck. I'm just going
to roll for it. SPENSER: Okay, what
action are you taking? TRAVIS: Can I do--
I'm going to do a Strike. SPENSER: Okay, sounds good.
That's a Strike roll. You run over,
grab the dagger. TRAVIS: Ugh! It's a two. LUIS: Oh no! TRAVIS: (laughs) SPENSER: You grab the dagger. MARISHA: Oh, when
the GM has to pause. TRAVIS: Uh-huh,
uh-huh, uh-huh. SPENSER: You grab the dagger
and you push it. Describe for me
what you're trying to do so we get the visual of
how this might work. TRAVIS: They've slammed
into each other and I imagine either the
dagger is still in his hand or it's hanging from that
electrode wire under his arm. SPENSER: Uh-huh.
TRAVIS: I'm trying to grab it and still pin the
first guy against the second and try and move that current
into him or the other one. But it seems like probably
grabbing a swinging dagger from a hanging electrical
wire is going to be tricky in a moving train car. SPENSER: You grab the dagger,
but you grab the wrong end. ZEHRA: (gasps)
LUIS: (sharply inhales) SPENSER: It slips through
your hand. Go ahead and take another
body and a bleed here as you realize that this
thing is being powered by some kind of magick
as well as electricity. What does bleed feel
like for you? TRAVIS: Well, in this moment,
the dagger is familiar. That hurts, but the ache, the throb that comes with
the pain is unnatural. It almost burns, but
the pervasive travel of that numb feeling as it
moves up towards my shoulders is almost as if you've lost
blood flow to an area, as if it's on
pins and needles. SPENSER: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Your arms, my arms feel heavy,
and luckily, there is a little bit of
redness from the knife, and if I can, I'm going to
try and flick my fingers to get anything I can in their eyes.
SPENSER: I love that. TRAVIS: I'm going to
turn and run! SPENSER: Yeah, we see
the blood flick out from your hand covered in both the
blood of the knife cut covered in both the
blood of the knife cut and also the singed skin
of the electricity, and maybe something
else from the bleed, from the magick that's
flowing through it. We see you bolt.
As that happens-- TRAVIS: It's not a cool
run, by the way. My arms are just like-- SPENSER: (laughs)
MARISHA: (laughs) SPENSER: As that happens, we
cut back to the two of you. You both are in a train
car. You've made it across. The other car is getting
farther and farther away. You know that up ahead of
you is where Nathaniel was supposed to be exploring what EONS had to offer here, what else they had to offer
here as part of the mission. What do you all want to do? MARISHA: You did
wonderfully, dear. ZEHRA: I-- I-- MARISHA: And you
still look fabulous. ZEHRA: Well thank you,
Ms. Monroe, but I-- I promised I would do no
harm, and I let Dr. Choi die. MARISHA: She is a very efficient,
very intelligent woman. She will figure it out. You can't put all
of this on you. And please, call
me Auntie Bee. Come on, let's try and
catch up with the boys. ZEHRA: Okay, Ms. Monroe.
Auntie Bee. SPENSER: You move forward
through the train here. As you enter, these train
cars that you're in, these ones back here are
just storing crates. As you move into the next one,
you hear the scuttle of feet. For a moment, you think that
there might be somebody here. As you look over, you realize
that it's a crate of chickens that are all sitting,
looking up at you, pecking at the ground. These are simply
holding supplies that are coming down from
the Bridleborne Mountains. MARISHA: Before we move
into the next car-- SPENSER: Yeah?
MARISHA: Can I look forward and see, just keep wanting to
scout ahead of us and make sure we're not
walking into a shitstorm. SPENSER: Great, make a
Survey roll for me. MARISHA: All right. "To make a Survey roll,
you may spend a drive--" I'm going to do
a straight Survey. I don't want to spend
a drive for this. But this one's
gilded. All right. Four on the gilded die. SPENSER: Four on
the gilded die. The train cars ahead
seem as though, the train car right ahead of
you, the one that you can see, seems as though
it's carrying the same sort of set
of supplies, right? It has crates of apples and
other fruits and vegetables. It doesn't appear as though
there's anything nefarious in the train car
ahead of you. ZEHRA: Before--
SPENSER: That was a five? MARISHA: It was a four.
SPENSER: It was a four. Sorry, okay. ZEHRA: Before we move forward,
could I take a moment to see if I can Survey,
Focus on these chickens? SPENSER: (laughs) Sure.
ZEHRA: See if there's anything to be gained from
their beady eyes? MARISHA: (laughs)
SPENSER: Sure, yep. Actually, may
I have you roll-- Yeah, you can roll,
Survey would be looking at a general place.
BRENNAN: These are chickens! SPENSER: If you want
to Focus on them, that's probably what it is.
ZEHRA: Great. Great. I'm great. BRENNAN: (gasps)
ZEHRA: Six. SPENSER: That's a six. LUIS: Those are two sixes.
ZEHRA: Oh, it's two sixes! I thought it was a one! BRENNAN: That's
a super success. There's guns in the chickens. (laughter) SPENSER: The chickens
are holding guns! LUIS: They're under
my command now! BRENNAN: (clucking) ZEHRA: Good on me!
LUIS: Yes, yes, yes. ZEHRA: Bawk bawk,
motherfucker. BRENNAN: What do you want
to know here about this? ZEHRA: I want to know why--
LUIS: Are they delicious? ZEHRA: I worked for EONS
recently, and I want to know, why are there
chickens on board? This was not part
of the item list. SPENSER: Oh sure, yeah. As you come down
to inspect them, you notice that there is, the waddle that's down
below their chin, they have waddles, right? MARISHA: Sure.
ZEHRA: Roosters do. SPENSER: Roosters? Okay.
TRAVIS: <i>These</i> chickens. SPENSER: These chickens
have waddles. As that happens, you notice that they're just
slightly glowing. Something's not quite right. ZEHRA: I do believe
these animals were the subject of
an experiment. Perhaps it's related to-- MARISHA: Can they be used
as a weapon? Distraction? ZEHRA: I would like to take
a crate of chickens. (laughter) SPENSER: We see you grab,
it's a large crate. We see you dragging a crate
of chickens behind you. BRENNAN: This is not
video game rules where it's a crate
of chickens and it goes, boop!
SPENSER: It just disappears into your inventory. BRENNAN: In your inventory.
ZEHRA: In my skirt. SPENSER: We see you pulling this crate of
chickens forward. ZEHRA: With my shoulder
that's not-- SPENSER: Oh yeah, with
your other shoulder. Yeah. ZEHRA: Did I take a
body, by the way? Or I missed it enough,
the gunshot? SPENSER: Oh yeah, you would've
taken a body. Thank you. ZEHRA: I'm glad I asked. SPENSER: Yeah, thank you
for the reminder. No, it's good, it's good. It's in line with the fiction,
right? That's our goal. Great, we're jumping
back over to you here. What do you want to do?
LUIS: I mean, so I'm hoping that I was actually close
enough to their car to hear the gunshot
that got my attention, because I'm worried
about them. SPENSER: Yeah. LUIS: Seeing Sean go
ahead, I'm going back. SPENSER: As you're
running through the train the
opposite direction, you see ahead of you
a struggle happening. One guy, a large man, gets
tossed into another man, and they hit the wall of
the train car and collapse, and then you hear
commotion from in there, the scene that
we just described. LUIS: Great, so as
I'm approaching that, I'm going to keep
going in that direction. If I see <i>you</i>
looking rough, I'm going to pull out a hand
weapon, a retractable baton. SPENSER: So cool. LUIS: I guess it's more
like (unfurling) TRAVIS: I'm an asshole.
(unfurling) LUIS: I'm moving in, because
if I see you messed up, then I'm coming in for backup.
SPENSER: Yeah, I love that. As you move into
the train car, what does Marion see
here as they enter? TRAVIS: Yes, you see a
very well made suit, but it is covered in dark
crimson down the left side. My arms are draping and
I'm a little pale in the face. My eyes are telling
the story. I'm like: (shouts) Help! LUIS: I'm rushing in and I'm clobbering the
guy that's nearest him. SPENSER: Great. Two of them
are on the ground. LUIS: Don't care.
Hitting them. I fight dirty!
SPENSER: Just framing for you. You see both of
them on the ground. One of them has an
electrified dagger, switchblade, in their hand. The other one is coming to
their feet and has dropped it. LUIS: The one then
that's recovering? SPENSER: Yeah.
LUIS: Pop! SPENSER: Right over the side. Go ahead and make
a Strike roll for me. LUIS: Okay, I'm going
to use a drive. SPENSER: High stakes roll. LUIS: Four. SPENSER: Four. That is
a mixed success here. We see you clobber this guy. Describe for me what
this looks like as you hit him
with this baton. LUIS: So as soon as I see
the look in Nathaniel's eyes and I track everything
that's happening, the sort of training from
being a soldier in the war kicks in, and I've already
retracted the baton, and I swoop in and use
the momentum of my run and basically backhand
this guy, pop, in the direction that
he's getting up, hopefully to spin him away
from the other two figures that are on the ground,
Nathaniel being one of them. SPENSER: I love that.
We get the baton swipe across his face. He goes flying backwards, your training from
being a soldier kicking in, your strength
coming out here. As that happens, you finish
that upstroke on him, and then you feel a
searing pain with that five? Four? Four.
LUIS: It was a four. SPENSER: With that four,
you feel a searing pain in the back of your calf. This guy has driven
into your calf the dagger, the switchblade, and is starting to carve
down your calf with it. Go ahead and take a
body and a brain here. LUIS: Oh my god. MARISHA: Jesus Christ,
goddamn. That gets sympathy pain.
LUIS: (painful scream) I thought you took
one of them out! They're both still up? SPENSER and TRAVIS: (laugh) TRAVIS: No, no! SPENSER: What do you
want to do? TRAVIS: Now that Marion
has run past me, do I see anyone else coming? Do I see Sean? Do I see-- SPENSER: You can see
through the train cars, when the doors open, you can see Sean moving
through the passenger cars, but disappeared very quickly
as the doors closed. TRAVIS: From where we are, do we know that if we're
in the middle of the cars and Sean is further up north-- SPENSER: Sean is further up
towards the engine. TRAVIS: Then--
SPENSER: Then back behind you is where these two are.
TRAVIS: Shit, right, okay. I'm going to grab Marion
and say: We should try and-- We should try and regroup! Let's meet up with Sean! At least we'll
have numbers, then! SPENSER: We cut to Sean
as this is happening. What do you want to do? BRENNAN: How close are
these two guys? SPENSER: These guys are
about two cars back. BRENNAN: No, no,
I mean the guys, you said that I was made and
that people are coming. SPENSER: There's one guy, he's
heading straight for you as you're smoking
the cigarette. He's coming towards
the train car where the doors would open. BRENNAN: Are the doors sliding doors?
SPENSER: Yeah, uh-huh. BRENNAN: So you need to
open them all the way to be able to walk through.
SPENSER: Correct, yeah. BRENNAN: I'm going
to give myself another piece of equipment. SPENSER: Love it.
BRENNAN: I reach in for a pair of handcuffs
for the scientist. I say: Buddy, you're
going to be knocked out. I'm going to handcuff the
handle to one of the chains on the outside of the car.
SPENSER: Love that. BRENNAN: So that you can't
open the door. SPENSER: Uh-huh.
BRENNAN: So lock it, and I'm going to look at the
guy who's walking towards me and go: Hey, fuck you! (laughter) SPENSER: He grabs the door
and tries to pull it, and it is locked, and his
hand immediately pulls out, his other hand pulls
out of his lapel and he grabs the
back end of a gun and starts to try
and break the glass that is separating. BRENNAN: I'm up the ladder,
after the scientist. SPENSER: Love that. Up
on top of the car. You see the scientist
pulling himself along, still two cars ahead of you. What do you want to do? BRENNAN: This motherfucker,
all right. I'm going to say: Hey! Be reasonable! TRAVIS and SPENSER: (laugh) BRENNAN: You're crawling
on a moving train! Have some self respect! We gotcha! SPENSER: He turns around. He's holding the
device in his hands. You see it now. This
is what it looks like. He has it in his hand,
and he threatens it over the side of the train
and points the gun at you. What do you want to do? BRENNAN: I am going to-- He's holding this thing
over the side of the train. SPENSER: Uh-huh.
BRENNAN: Holds the gun at me. I am going to attempt to
shoot the gun out of his hand. SPENSER: Yeah, okay, so
what I will say is that on a mixed success,
this thing will go rolling. BRENNAN: Okay. SPENSER: It will not
immediately fall off, but it will put it in
danger of being lost. BRENNAN: I would love to come to these woods
some other night when I'm not being shot at and
look for that fucking thing. SPENSER: Sounds great. BRENNAN: This piece of
his super science-- SPENSER: Uh-huh. BRENNAN: -- I'm going to
assume that he likes a lot more than I do,
so, you know, it's like-- SPENSER: Yeah, the assignment
from Candela was to get it, but it's like,
at what cost, right? BRENNAN: Yeah, buddy,
I hate to tell you, they're not going to
give that thing to me when we bring it back, so
priority more for you than me. SPENSER: Great. BRENNAN: I'm going to burn
just a whole bunch of Nerve. Let's go one. I'll burn
one for Sharpshooter. SPENSER: Okay. BRENNAN: Then I'll burn
two more for four, so I'm going to be
rolling with six. SPENSER: Damn, that's the most
you can roll with. BRENNAN: The most I
can roll with. TRAVIS: We're up there.
MARISHA: Wow. BRENNAN: Actually,
sorry, there's one, two, three, four, five. Sorry, it's just, yeah, I only have to burn
that many to get six. SPENSER: Right, because
of Sharpshooter. BRENNAN: Because of
Sharpshooter. I'm going to shoot the
gun out of his hand and be ready for a dead
sprint afterwards. SPENSER: Yeah, so good. BRENNAN: Okay, we roll. That's a five, and what
I'm going to do here is I'm actually going
to spend a resistance-- SPENSER: Okay. BRENNAN: -- to reroll two
of the die as well. No sixes, that's
a mixed success. SPENSER: Mixed success. LUIS: That's okay,
that's all right. SPENSER: So, here's
what happens. You shoot. The gun goes
flying out of his hand. It clamors along the train
and then falls off the edge. He, with the device
still in his hand, falls backwards in between
the train cars. You hear a click, and
suddenly your train car is falling back
behind the engine. He's at the engine car. You're
one train car behind it. MARISHA: Does that
mean that we-- Do the rest of us
feel a jolt? SPENSER: It's so subtle when
these train cars separate that you definitely
can't tell immediately, but if someone were to
look out the front window, you'd see the steam
engine of the train moving further away from
the actual train itself. TRAVIS: What would you say our
speed is? 12 trees a second? SPENSER: Probably 25 trees.
You're almost on a complete-- TRAVIS: We are on a descent, that's right.
SPENSER: Descent, yeah. It's very bad. LUIS: So we're still
going fast because of gravity.
SPENSER: You're still going very fast.
TRAVIS: Away from the brakes, currently. SPENSER: Away from the brakes.
What do you want to do? BRENNAN: This guy has fallen.
I hear a click. He's still got the device. His gun has flown
off into the things. Everybody's got to
make it hard! I'm going to
start running, and I'm going to run and
leap onto the engine. SPENSER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: As fast as I can. SPENSER: Sounds like a Move
roll for me. Make that roll. BRENNAN: Okay. (laughs)
We're-- We're going to burn all the rest of the
Nerve drive down to the bone. SPENSER: Down to the bone.
First hour, down to the bone. BRENNAN: Here we go. Okay, that's a six. SPENSER: That's a six.
BRENNAN: That's a six. SPENSER: Describe for me how
you get this thing from him. BRENNAN: He's in the engine.
SPENSER: He is. BRENNAN: I still have my gun. As the cars start
to move apart, you hear (thumping) whoosh! Leap, and I grab the
lintel of the roof and double foot kick
him in the chest through the engine car. SPENSER: He goes
flying backwards. BRENNAN: The thing spins up in
the air and I catch it midair. SPENSER: So good.
ZEHRA: That's cool. BRENNAN: You don't got to be
a fucking prick about it. Running around like this,
making me jump over trains. All right, and
I'm going to grab the thing, and I'm going to go stand
over his prostrate body. SPENSER: Yeah, he's like,
"Oh god! Oh!" BRENNAN: Now, your friend
made me lose the handcuffs, which is why<i>
this</i> has to happen. I'm going to stomp on his head
and knock him unconscious. SPENSER: Yeah, you stomp
on his head and knock him unconscious. As we see the foot
come down onto his head, we cut back to the
two of you, I think. MARISHA: Was that on
your gilded die that you got the six?
BRENNAN: Oh, it was. MARISHA and SPENSER: You get
that drive back. BRENNAN: Thanks, Auntie Bee. MARISHA: I'm just looking
out for you, Sean. SPENSER: Will you describe what
we did so that people know? BRENNAN: So I rolled
all these dice, my gilded die, because my Strike is gilded, on that die, I replenish
one of my Nerve drive, which means all these
resources I'm burning, a little bit come back to me.
LUIS: Little bit come back. SPENSER: Great, great, great. Wonderful. We cut back
to the two of you. What are we doing here? We're
dragging a chicken crate? ZEHRA: Dragging a
crate of chickens. MARISHA: Crate of chickens. SPENSER: (laughs)
ZEHRA: How far away-- MARISHA: Where are
these damn boys? ZEHRA: Yeah, are the
boys anywhere up ahead within earshot?
SPENSER: Yeah. So I think that,
at this point, the two of you, have you
left the train car yet? No. You're still in--
LUIS: We are in process of-- SPENSER: Of leaving.
LUIS: Following through with whatever that moment was. TRAVIS: We were going to
go catch up with Sean. SPENSER: Oh yes! That's
right! That's what you said. Go catch up with Sean.
TRAVIS: Who has moved on. (laughter) SPENSER: I love that! The train cars open. As you're saying,
"Go catch up with Sean," you hear the doors
opening in the train car, not the train car
that you're in, but the one behind it,
to see what's beyond. Basically, the train car
that you all are in, opening those doors, and
then through the window you see the face of
these two behind you. What the four of
you want to do? Because now you're
all in the same scene with the two security officers
still in this train car with you. LUIS: Is the one that
I clobbered, is he out? SPENSER: He's down. LUIS: Uh-huh.
SPENSER: But he's not like, out-out. This was a mixed success. So he took some pain,
but it wasn't-- MARISHA: Are both
of them down, or is it just the one? SPENSER: So one
of them is down, the other one was the one-- LUIS: I get it now. SPENSER: -- was that
stabbed you in the leg. LUIS: Yeah! (grunts)
MARISHA: So we're walking into a situation.
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. You're walking
into a situation. MARISHA: With a
crate of chickens. SPENSER: Uh-huh!
MARISHA: All right. Fantastic!
SPENSER: (laughs) MARISHA: This is going great. TRAVIS: Yeah, we
look across the car and we see a
crate of chickens. LUIS: Huh.
TRAVIS: What?! SPENSER: (laughs)
ZEHRA: You don't look good, Mr. Trapp.
TRAVIS: No, no. MARISHA: So now we're all in the car together? TRAVIS: We're literally
on opposite sides. SPENSER: You're literally
on opposite sides of the car and between you two
are the two security. LUIS: Where's the shock
knife stick thing that the other one had?
SPENSER: Still on the ground. Still on the ground.
LUIS: I'm picking that up and I'm stabbing the guy
that just stabbed me. He's right there.
SPENSER: Yeah. Uh-huh. LUIS: That looks nice.
I want that weapon now. SPENSER: As you pull on it, you notice the line, what's it called, the wire, is attached to the man
that you clobbered. LUIS: Okay.
SPENSER: So you're not able to go that far. Make a Strike roll for me against the guy who's got
one dug into your calf. LUIS: Okay. Yeah, I got to-- (laughing) I'm
burning a drive. I'm burning a
Nerve drive because this is very scary! TRAVIS: (laughs) LUIS: Five.
SPENSER: That's a five. It's a mixed success.
LUIS: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: So describe
for me how you-- Well, actually,
here's what happens. LUIS: Yeah. SPENSER: You lunge
forward with the knife. LUIS: Yes.
SPENSER: It doesn't quite go as far as you want it to. You go to stab and
get pulled back by the wire. LUIS: Because the cord
is still attached-- SPENSER: The cord is
still attached. Yeah, it dis-attaches so
it's no longer electrified, but the knife
sinks into the man. LUIS: That's good
enough for me. SPENSER: He wails out in pain and then, as it's pulled out, he starts to bleed. We see the--
LUIS: Help! SPENSER: -- three of
you. What do we do? MARISHA: I see you boys have
been making some friends. TRAVIS: (strained) Yeah.
LUIS: Like we do. TRAVIS: Some better
than others. MARISHA: What can we do?
TRAVIS: I'll run up as well and I think we'll try
and give some jaw kicks to the gents that are down.
LUIS: Make sure they're out. TRAVIS: We really should try and catch up
with Mr. Finnerty. MARISHA: I'm actually--
With that, I'm going to try and poke my head ut of the train window.
SPENSER: Uh-huh. MARISHA: See if I
can see any sign of what the hell is going on. SPENSER: Yeah, you see the
steam engine pulling ahead of the rest of the train.
LUIS: Oh no. MARISHA: I have a feeling
I know where Sean is. SPENSER: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Where? MARISHA: There he goes. SPENSER: (laughs) TRAVIS: Shit!
BRENNAN: Can I see-- SPENSER: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BRENNAN: Let me see that real quick.
SPENSER: Yeah. Do you want to pass that?
BRENNAN: Sorry. LUIS: Yes.
SPENSER: Sorry. We'll pass it down.
LUIS: Ooh! Oh no! ZEHRA: Oh no!
LUIS: It's-- (laughs) ZEHRA: Oh no.
BRENNAN: If you're seeing me from far away, it's just me in the back
of the engine going-- SPENSER and TRAVIS: (laugh) MARISHA: What? Oh yeah! No, I see him. It looks like it got
the thingy, though. TRAVIS: Right. So, a
simple point to make. The engine not only controls
the acceleration of the train, but also in charge
of the braking. MARISHA: It's how we
stop. That is correct. TRAVIS: We should probably
think about getting off. ZEHRA: Would these chickens
be of any service? I hold up the crate. LUIS: Oh man!
SPENSER: (laughs) TRAVIS: How do you mean? ZEHRA: They possess
magick in some of-- TRAVIS: You found
magick chickens? SPENSER: We cut from
that to Sean. (laughter)
BRENNAN: All right. I'm going to turn to look. The guy's unconscious,
I've got this thing, and I'm looking
and I'm like-- SPENSER: There's a--
What's it called? A driver of the train? BRENNAN: Oh, engineer!
SPENSER: There's an engineer, and he's like, "The
fuck is going on here?" BRENNAN: Buddy,
it's a long story. BRENNAN: "What's
that in your hand?" BRENNAN: If I knew-- Listen.
MARISHA: (laughs) BRENNAN: You should
slow this train down because we've
just come undone from the whole
rest of the train. SPENSER: "Oh shit!"
he says, and grabs the brake and starts to--
LUIS and ZEHRA: Oh, oh! SPENSER: -- slow the
steam engine down. As that happens, you
see that they're starting to come back together here. MARISHA: Boys,
I have a feeling we should brace for impact. LUIS: Uh-oh! BRENNAN: I'm going to look at
the guy and say: All right, I'm going to tell you when
they're about to touch, okay? SPENSER: (laughs)
BRENNAN: I assume I just put the bolt
back in through holes? SPENSER: He goes,
"I don't do that part!" BRENNAN: What do you mean,
you don't do that part? SPENSER: "I don't
do that part!" BRENNAN: Well, I do all
the other parts either! I have some awareness! (laughter) TRAVIS: Can I leap
out of the train car and look in between the cars and see if there's any
sort of emergency brake or anything that
could be pulled? SPENSER: Are you doing this from the train car
that you're in? TRAVIS: Yes. Yeah. SPENSER: No, there's
not. Not here. TRAVIS: Cool!
SPENSER: That's not the way that they're built. But what you do see is
the other train cars starting to slow, the steam engine
starting to slow down. TRAVIS: Okay! Okay.
We can work with that! SPENSER: As that happens,
you hear commotion coming from the
passenger train. People are
starting to realize that there is shit
going on here. TRAVIS: Yeah.
SPENSER: Going down. LUIS: Uh-oh! So hearing one more time my former lieutenant not necessarily
issue a command, but give a directive. We got to get back to Sean. So looking down at these guys that I just stabbed
and clobbered, I follow that same instinct
and follow you back to the front of the train, but still looking back because
I don't trust these two. SPENSER: So you guys
are running towards the front of the train?
LUIS: Yeah. I'm basically right
on his heels, trying to figure out what
to do about this next thing with these trains. SPENSER: Are we
collectively doing this? So are we all moving towards
the front of the train? TRAVIS: I think we
would be trying to move towards the front
of the train, at least if a re-attachment
moment happens, and also scanning outside
to see if there are any, you know, hay bales
or creeks or rivers that we might be going over,
just in case we need to ditch. SPENSER: I love that! Yeah, go ahead.
ZEHRA: I'm looking at the crate of chickens that I've inexplicably
brought with me this far and I'm wondering, are
there wooden or metal dowels on the cage that--
SPENSER: Oh, for sure! ZEHRA: --potentially could be.
SPENSER: There's metal dowels. Yeah. ZEHRA: What if we were to take
one of these metal dowels, and I pry it and pull it--
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. ZEHRA: -- and use
this to fasten, now that we've slowed
down a fair amount? TRAVIS: That's
an excellent idea! LUIS: We can try to use that. Okay.
ZEHRA: I move to do so. SPENSER: So we are going
to make a group action here between the four of you. So one person's going to lead and then anybody else can
spend drive if they want to. They don't need to. But one person will roll
for everybody, essentially. Who wants to
lead that action? Sounds like you were-- LUIS: I was moving
forward. Yeah MARISHA: What kind of roll is this going to be?
TRAVIS: We're in a passenger-- SPENSER: A Move roll.
MARISHA: A Move roll. TRAVIS: We're in a
passenger car as well? SPENSER: So you're in the
EONS technology car right now, but you're going to be moving through the passenger
cars to do this. TRAVIS: I will help by trying
to say: Ladies and gentlemen, as you see, things have
kind of gone shitty bananas. We need you to
stay in your seats or find a bracing
position, please. Everything is fine! (whispering) We're lying.
LUIS: Uh-huh. I'm running. SPENSER: Okay. LUIS: I start to run
and then take the cue and I calm myself
down, sort of, and really, really,
with urgency, move as fast as possible-- SPENSER: Great.
LUIS: -- towards the front. SPENSER: So we're going
to make that Move roll here to get to the front.
LUIS: Okay. SPENSER: Go ahead and roll.
We're going to roll with Move. Anybody who wants
to spend drive can, but you don't need to.
ZEHRA: I don't have any drive. LUIS: Move.
SPENSER: It will be all four of you moving, you helping to
keep everybody calm. It's going to be very effective.
TRAVIS: Do we want to use one of these? ZEHRA: Oh!
MARISHA: Oh! SPENSER: You could
use a gilded die, yeah. So you guys have
Stamina Training. ZEHRA: Yes! Yes!
LUIS: Yes, we do. SPENSER: So you have three
gilded die at the beginning of every assignment
that you can use. LUIS: My Move
is already gilded, so I can roll with two gilded because of that.
SPENSER: Yes. Correct. LUIS: All right. Come on! Six on the gilded die.
SPENSER: Six on the gilded! So go ahead and take
that Nerve back. ZEHRA: Yes!
BRENNAN: Woo! LUIS: Then this goes away-- SPENSER: That goes
away for good. TRAVIS: Just for
the assignment. SPENSER: Just for
the assignment. Great! You all make your way towards
the front of the train, and as the steam
engine slows down, you see Sean across
in the engine room with the engineer and the two cars
slam together. But in that moment, you're
able to drive the metal pole into the area where they meet and keep the two trains
from parting once again. From there, we pull
out of the train and we pan over to
the city of Newfaire where the train is headed. BRENNAN: I was going to say--
SPENSER: Yeah, please. BRENNAN: I look
at you and say: That's some quick thinking,
doc, way to go! Hey, did you pass a guy trying to break through a
handcuff on the way here? ZEHRA: Did we?
BRENNAN: No? MARISHA: No, it
was a broken window that we saw.
ZEHRA: Yeah. BRENNAN: I'm going to whip my
gun up and shoot straight up. SPENSER: Yeah! You hear (grunts) and
then a guy falls over. MARISHA: Yes!
TRAVIS: (laughs) LUIS: Amazing! MARISHA: Should've known that
broken window was suspicious! BRENNAN: Smart guy.
That guy was smart. I mean he's dead now,
but he was smart. SPENSER: We get a shot
wide of the train as a man falls off the top and the train
continues into-- MARISHA: What are the pass-
engers doing at this point? SPENSER: The passengers
are all-- You were able to keep
them calm with that six. It was kept calm and we're
pulling out to the city and that's where
we're going to cut into your home base
in Hallowharbor. MARISHA: Can I, real
quick, before we go. SPENSER: Sure. Please. MARISHA: Auntie Bee wants to
move through the passenger car and say: Surprise! That was a
surprise performance from the Red
Lamp Renegades. ZEHRA: (sparse clapping)
SPENSER: There's some claps. MARISHA: Thank you. We do take tips, by the way. She goes through and she
takes off her little hat that she has adorned
with faded silk flowers and goes through.
Tips for the performance. SPENSER: Make a
Sway roll for me. LUIS: Oh my god.
MARISHA: All right. (laughter) MARISHA: Five.
SPENSER: Five! Yeah! It's a mixed success! You get a couple of pieces into your hat.
MARISHA: Thank you. Thank you. It goes to support
an old lady. SPENSER and TRAVIS: (laugh)
ZEHRA: (laughs) SPENSER: I love that! As that happens, we
land on the exterior of your chapter house
in Hallowharbor. What do we think
this looks like? What does the chapter house, what's the exterior of the
chapter house here look like? TRAVIS: Hallowharbor is a beautiful area
just off the water. It's fairly nondescript, but
after having been in there, we've done our best to
spruce it up a little bit, wood, a little bit of stone
working goes a long way. At Marion's insistence, we actually had a
little half window, a little half dome of
stained glass put in above the of the doorway
of his favorite flower. SPENSER: I love that!
LUIS: It is! It is a midnight-- No, a starry night
petunia, actually. ZEHRA: (awed) Oh!
SPENSER: Starry night petunia. So good.
LUIS: A burgundy starry night petunia! So it's actually got red and these white spots
that look like stars. SPENSER: So we sit on that stained glass window
for a moment and we see a figure pass by. As we do, we cut into the inside of the
chapter house here. All of you are collected in
various seating arrangements, and in front of
you stands a man that you all know. His name is Draven Kingsley. He's your Lightkeeper. Your Lightkeeper is the
person who assigns you to the different missions that
you're supposed to go on. He eyes you with the device in your hand. "Interesting," he says. BRENNAN: Yeah, I'll say. SPENSER: "Do we
know what it is?" BRENNAN: No, I don't
know what it is, but I named the
little guy Johnny. MARISHA: (laughs) SPENSER: "Johnny?" MARISHA: Is it
moving in there? SPENSER: Yeah. Uh-huh.
MARISHA: What is it? All right. SPENSER: It's like a
purple little worm thing. ZEHRA: If I may, Johnny looks like something
I may have seen before. BRENNAN: Oh. ZEHRA: It's a creature
known as androphage. LUIS: Androphage?
MARISHA: Androphage. ZEHRA: Used possibly
in an individual ZEHRA: Used possibly
in an individual to induce a
state of euphoria. BRENNAN: Euphoria?
ZEHRA: Temporary euphoria. TRAVIS: Yeah.
ZEHRA: Before, of course, the creature takes
over their entire body and bloats them to death. LUIS: So it's
like a parasite? ZEHRA: In a sense. LUIS: But it gives you
euphoria before it kills you? ZEHRA: Exactly. EONS would often use it
as an anesthesia of sorts. MARISHA: They've heard
of bourbon, right? We've got bourbon. MARISHA: Why would
you need that? What's that? LUIS: It's less deadly.
MARISHA: I'm sorry, I'm a little--
LUIS: A little less deadly than the thing that kills you.
MARISHA: It was loud on the train. Oh, it's less deadly. LUIS: Yeah, yeah.
MARISHA: Yeah. Sorry ZEHRA: I don't think I've
seen a purple one before. BRENNAN: How many people know
about a thing like this? I mean, how common
are these things? ZEHRA: Mm... It's not in common practice
to use on patients, certainly not in
the medical field. I'd say it's for those seeking
more of an experience. BRENNAN: I feel like
the least a guy could do is buy you dinner
first, right? TRAVIS: Recreational
androphage. MARISHA: Hmm.
TRAVIS: Hmm. SPENSER: Draven reaches
out his hand. BRENNAN: Here you go.
SPENSER: Pass it. BRENNAN: So the device,
that's like a little cage or a prison or
something like that? SPENSER: Yes! He shows the the device and he clicks it and
the thing pops down. LUIS: It's to contain it. SPENSER: "Correct. "I've seen a container
like this before. "Keeps bleed
from getting out, "but "seems dangerous. "Thank you." LUIS: What do you think they
were going to use with that? I mean, it seems-- SPENSER: "Well,
we're not sure, "but this is all part
of an investigation. "EONS has been after
strange creatures like this "to harvest for use in
things like drug dens before. "to harvest for use in
things like drug dens before. "I've heard of phage dens. "I'd never seen one, but--" ZEHRA: If I may,
that is a small one. It is not yet fed. They tend to grow in size
inside the human host once they begin eating. SPENSER: "Understood.
Thank you." TRAVIS: How big? ZEHRA: How tall are
you, Mr. Trapp? TRAVIS: It's a
tall androphage. SPENSER: He takes the device
and moves over to an armoire, opens it up, and then touches
one of the shelving units opens it up, and then touches
one of the shelving units on the inside, pulls it out. As that happens, you
see the back slides down and reveals a
hidden compartment. He slides the device back
into that hidden compartment, pushes the shelving back,
and then closes the door. This is where you
know they often keep items like this
for safe keeping until they're
transported back. LUIS: While he's turned
his back towards us, I lean into Sean. Are we going to tell
him about the chickens? BRENNAN: Wait, chickens?
LUIS: We got the chickens. The chickens that she--
BRENNAN: I missed the whole chickens
conversation. What happened
with the chickens? TRAVIS: Yeah, they're
worth mentioning. I go over and grab a chair
and sit back, cross my legs. LUIS: We got to patch you up.
MARISHA: Oh, sorry. TRAVIS: No, I'm
fine. I'm fine. MARISHA: Are we going
to tell him about-- ZEHRA: We will patch you up. MARISHA: Tell
him about Avery? Feels like we should, right? BRENNAN: Yeah,
probably, right? MARISHA: Avery's been loyal.
ZEHRA: There was one noted casualty
in the mission. MARISHA: We don't know that.
We don't know that she's dead. LUIS: There should
be a search and rescue, at least.
ZEHRA: No one could've survived, not even Sean. Sorry, but you couldn't have. LUIS: It might be worth
confirming the fatality. MARISHA: Or at least
a recovery. It was Avery, Avery Troy. ZEHRA: Dr. Avery Choi. SPENSER: "Oh, god. "I'm sorry for your loss. "I know you two were close." ZEHRA: Jean says nothing. SPENSER: "Well,
sacrifices are made," and you see the man, Draven Kingsley, he turns,
he's a taller man with the sides of
his hair buzzed and tops a little bit longer,
swooped over to the right, and as he turns you
see a scar that goes from the corner of his head all the way down
around his ear, down to his neck, and
then you see it reemerge on his shoulder,
down to his hand, and then to his fingertip. He puts his hand up on
his neck and readjusts. "I'm sorry,
we have to ask you "to go back out in
the field so quickly. "I know that this was
an assignment that was "not as easily accomplished "as it could've been, but "(sighs) "we have a situation "that I think "requires you as part of it." MARISHA: Draven, with
all due respect, you know we're always happy
to volunteer our services-- SPENSER: "Thank you."
MARISHA: -- to Candela, but as you can see here,
Nathaniel is quite injured. The doctor's been shot.
We're pretty banged up. SPENSER: "I understand.
We've..." Turns to you. "We've had a death
close to home. "I don't foresee you
wanting to let "somebody else handle this. "It was "a gruesome scene. "We only have reports
from--" And turns. You hear a
pitter-patter of feet as a child runs out
from around the corner. Sort of peeks
through the door and then comes running
towards Draven's side. From this one, a
caretaker for the child also makes their way
through the door. The child runs over and grabs
Draven's leg, holds on. He's about five years old, dark black hair,
big brown eyes. "Antonio Suarez was
taken from us. "Antonio Suarez was
taken from us. "Antonio was somebody we were
hoping we could take care of "Antonio was somebody we were
hoping we could take care of "in the aftermath of
his wife's incident." "in the aftermath of
his wife's incident." Looks to you again. "But it seems something
decided to take revenge. "But it seems something
decided to take revenge. "It's interesting," he says. "These creatures from
beyond the flare, "we're not quite sure what
their motives are. "Still seems enigmatic to us,
the way in which they operate "but we've seen them
express vengeance "in a way that tells us
there's intelligence "we don't quite understand. "I've put in your," and
motions to the folders that you see sitting, scattered around
the space here. "In your dossier,
the information "for this assignment, "whatever it is that killed
him, we need it stopped "whatever it is that killed
him, we need it stopped "before it continues to
hunt down the others "that were involved in
that incident." He looks somber. "I, in the meantime," ruffles
the hair of the child, "will continue to take
care of this one, "but I don't want more
to end up like him." "but I don't want more
to end up like him." TRAVIS: Mr. Kingsley. SPENSER: "Yes, sir." TRAVIS: You can count on me
to answer this call. I look to the boy. SPENSER: He averts his eyes and then slowly looks
back up at you. TRAVIS: What's your name? SPENSER: He looks scared.
Draven pushes him. He says "Lucas." TRAVIS: Lucas,
that's a strong name. SPENSER: He stiffens up, straightens
his shoulders back. TRAVIS: I can see a
lot of bravery in you. I knew your mother
very, very briefly. SPENSER: His eyes go wide. TRAVIS: If your father was as fierce an
individual as she was, you come from very,
very strong stock. I promise you will
be looked out for. SPENSER: "I miss her." TRAVIS: I imagine. You know the thing about
people that leave us, they can always see what
we do, remember that. SPENSER: He smiles and hides himself a
little bit behind Draven. (Draven) "Thank you,
Nathaniel. "Again, apologies for
the quick turn, "but I have some
people to alert "and some security
to put in place "for the rest of the team
that was there that night." BRENNAN: What'd we stop? SPENSER: "Sorry, will
you say that again?" BRENNAN: Johnny, little
guy, androphage? SPENSER: "Yeah."
ZEHRA: Androphage. BRENNAN: What'd we stop? What were they going
to use him for? SPENSER: "It's
a great question. "Could be for
one of the dens. "Could be for some
sort of attack. "Unclear, but I will say
that the people of Newfaire "Unclear, but I will say
that the people of Newfaire "and the Fairelands are safer "because you brought
that to us." BRENNAN: Sure. Minus Dr. Choi, of course,
but the rest, absolutely. SPENSER: "Yes, minus
Dr. Choi. "Any questions?" He says and he starts
to shuffle some papers and look as though
he's about to return. MARISHA: Honestly, I
have a great deal many, but I have a feeling that by
the look in these boys' eyes that they can answer
them for me. LUIS: Everything we
need to know is in these folders, right? SPENSER: "Sure is." LUIS: You sure about this? You're not looking so good. TRAVIS: Oh, I would need some care from
the doctor if you-- ZEHRA: Yes, may
we have a moment to take care of Mr. Trapp? MARISHA: Draven, you mentioned
you've seen more devices like the one that that
little bugger's in. You haven't got access
to any more of those because that could be good if we're containing
a bunch of bleed. SPENSER: He says "Yes, if
you'd like." Shuffles through. He actually opens up
the armoire again, pulls out the shelving
unit and looks back, moves some things
out of the way and grabs an additional
bleed containment vial. You can put it on
your circle gear. That would be on your
circle sheet here. So it'd be on that
one, yeah, yeah. So that's a thing that
all of you can use. If there's more things
you need to contain, you can place them
inside of there. LUIS: A bleed
containment vial? SPENSER: Bleed
containment vial. You all have one available
to you during the mission but if you need an additional
one, you got that. He says, "I'll give you
all a minute to recoup, "but then," and then slides
a little note card forward, "the address for
the Suarez family. "That's the best
place to start." BRENNAN: What would we
normally do with a captured EONS scientist? Like the one we had in
the engine of the train? Would we have dropped
him off somewhere? SPENSER: So generally,
Candela Obscura will come in to clean up messes like that,
so they probably took them. BRENNAN: Gotcha. SPENSER: So yeah, that's
not something that you would have
to worry about. BRENNAN: I'm going to look
at Draven before, as he slides the address
over I'm going to say: These whatever,
these worm dens where people do these
worms recreationally, do they have them
in Newfaire, or is this something that's
only going on in-- SPENSER: "I've heard rumor of "these kinds of dens
around here, yes. "Usually for those
who are wishing "to get some sort of
high out of it." BRENNAN: You got fiends
running around looking to get this worm
inside their body? All right, I understand,
thank you. TRAVIS: Mr. Kingsley,
one more thing. I know it's not
my place to ask. Has Allison been
made aware? SPENSER: He looks down
at the child, looks over at the
caretaker, and says "Go." The caretaker shaved head,
thin, lithe body, The caretaker shaved head,
thin, lithe body, reaches out their hand
and takes the child and they disappear. "Mr. Trapp, as far as
the child knows, "Allison is no
longer with us." TRAVIS: You've told the child
that her mother is-- SPENSER: "And Nathaniel,
I'm sorry, and--" TRAVIS: Antonio?
SPENSER: "Antonio. "Allison is not in a
place to return home. "I'm sorry, "we're doing all we can, but "she's not going home." TRAVIS: And that's a
decision you've made, that Candela Obscura
has made? We're collecting
these creatures. We don't even fully
understand them. There could be things
that we discover a day, a week, or a
month from now, and you've told this boy
that his mother is unsavable? and you've told this boy
that his mother is unsavable? SPENSER: "It is a decision
made above my head." TRAVIS: Above your head. Shit always rolls
down, doesn't it? SPENSER: Straightens
his back up. TRAVIS: Understood. If you'll give us
a bit with these documents, I'm sure we'll have
more questions. SPENSER: As that happens, are
you going to Patch Up? ZEHRA: Mr. Trapp, I'm
ready for you now. TRAVIS: Thank you. SPENSER: We see you
cross the room. As that happens, we sit on the stained glass
window from inside. We cut to outside
the chapter house and pull away from
the stained glass window. And that's where we're
going to take our break. MARISHA and BRENNAN:
(thudding) LUIS: Wow.
TRAVIS: Jeez! MARISHA: So many questions.
LUIS: Me too. MARISHA: What the fuck?
What the fuck? TRAVIS: Just a nice
little gentle entry. (laughter)
MARISHA: Oh my god. TRAVIS: Spenser,
what the hell, man? SPENSER: Okay, we'll
be right back. (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) SPENSER: And welcome back. We find ourselves
in a carriage on its way to
the Suarez home. We have a little
bit of time here, so, now that we're not
in the heat of the moment, we're going to go around and
do character descriptions for everybody. What we see here, as you're
sitting in the carriage on your way to your
next assignment. So, we'll move
around the table. But before we do that, because
we're on a new assignment, I'm going to refresh
your stamina. TRAVIS: Yeah!
LUIS: Nice! MARISHA: Stamina Training.
TRAVIS: Training ability. SPENSER: Great,
that's refreshed. Then anybody that has
an assignment thing can also refresh that. So I know you have three
times per assignment you can do a thing.
MARISHA: Saw This Coming. SPENSER: Saw This Coming. Anybody who has gear marked,
you can unmark that gear because the next assignment
you will have three pieces of gear
that you can take. ZEHRA: Great.
TRAVIS: Nice. SPENSER: I know that you were
talking about you had a gun. You have the option of having
a hand weapon there. So if you ever
want to mark that you have a hand
weapon during play, you can declare that
you have that gun, that it was given to you. ZEHRA: Great. SPENSER: Great, so I think we
start outside the carriage. We see it being pulled by
horse out of Hallowharbor. We see it being pulled by
horse out of Hallowharbor. Into the roads
that are towards the Suarez home which
is in Groundswell. Not that far away. As we jump inside,
let's start left and go right here. So you want to give
us a little more in this moment of quiet,
what you look like, what you're doing here. TRAVIS: Sure. You see Nathaniel
Trapp being tended to, thank you, by the doctor. A jacket off to the side. He has very well made
clothes that look like they come from money, as much
as he tries to hide it. A pocket watch in
his breast pocket and strangely enough now, he's
brought with him holsters. They have wear on them. They seem like they've seen
years of some sort of action, but they are
strangely unoccupied. He holds his brass knuckles and puts it back
into his pocket and tries to smooth down
his smexy facial hair. And gather himself knowing
that he watched the men that he served
with so many years save his ass once again. SPENSER: I love that. As we pan across you and
over to our wonderful Auntie Bee here, will you
describe yourself for us? MARISHA: Yes! You're now
looking at Beatrix, AKA Auntie Bee, Monroe. She's currently helping
the doctor holding some bandages
and handkerchiefs, just trying to be
a second hand. As we go over a
bump she: Ah! Jeez, my fucking back. SPENSER: (laughs) MARISHA: My lower back. You see she's got, her clothing is threadbare
and worn. Not necessarily dirty,
but clear that she has to wash it a lot. Indication that she probably
doesn't own many garments. Stains on a lavender,
button-down shirt with an overcoat made out
of patchwork quilt that is clear that she
probably repurposed it from a blanket that she once
had for many, many years. Under a little pillbox, oversized pillbox
hat with ratty, sun faded silk flowers that she <i>for sure</i>
decorated herself. You see very frizzy salt
and pepper hair that she has made some
sort of half-hearted attempt to pin, but also cares little
about the physical appearance. to pin, but also cares little
about the physical appearance. Similarly her face,
you see she's trying to hide wind burn
and sunspots with way too much
blush, and probably a blush palette that she
has owned for a decade now. Maybe taken a little bit of
that same blush palette and patted it on her lips
to try and still hold on to some sort of shard
of femininity and youth. Even though she knows
that it is fleeting. On top of her ratty clothes that are falling apart, you
see standing out against that backdrop a few select
pieces of nice jewelry that stands out and
has an appearance that probably has some
sort of nostalgic sentimental value in
order for her to have held unto it
and not pawned it after all of these years. SPENSER: Yeah, the
juxtaposition between the very nice jewelry
and the-- MARISHA: The completely
torn up coat and clothing underneath.
SPENSER: So interesting. TRAVIS: Forgive me,
I should have said Nathaniel Trapp, he/him. SPENSER: He/him pronouns. MARISHA: Auntie Bee, she/her. SPENSER: She/her, great,
thank you so much. BRENNAN: Sean Finnerty,
he/him. Sean is a, well, he's a younger soldier. He enlisted in
the war previously, illegally when he was
like 16 or 17. So even though it's
been many years since the end of the war,
he's still only in like mid-20s. He's got, any
article of clothing that is hard to
replace is filthy. Anything that's easy to
replace is clean. ALL: Mm! BRENNAN: So, the suspenders
and the shoes, ooh brother, have seen better days. (laughter) BRENNAN: Shirt and the
pants are fine. Minus a hole or two, but. I think Sean looks about as-- I think to the average
observer Sean looks like a healthy, fit,
hale and hearty guy. But all the telltale
signs of grooming and clothing around
that are of someone who doesn't go
home to anybody. SPENSER: Mm. I like that. We pan
over from Sean. ZEHRA: To Dr. Jean Basar,
she/her. A young woman
focused intently on healing the wounds in
front of her, of Nathan. Nathaniel. There's a focus
behind her eyes that never leaves her face despite how she moves
through the world, there's a steel focus
that is always present in her dark eyes. Dark, mirroring her dark,
jet-black hair that almost gleans a
midnight blue in the sun. Everything about this woman on first glance is
cold, cool, steady. But beneath that cold surface there is an inherent warmth
through that focus of care and this very clear, noticeable to only
those closest to her, a sense of balance trying to
walk a very firm center line. Her clothes are pristine. She wears a long,
pale, green peacoat with pastel pink underneath. Pristine white gloves
with very skilled fingers that at the moment, are ever so unsteady as she reflects on the events
that just passed on the train. as she reflects on the events
that just passed on the train. They do not, however,
interfere with the focus and the adeptness with
which she renders the human body whole. A very skilled surgeon. Skill that was gained
on the fields of war. A single bead of sweat
falls from her forehead as she continues to
patch up Mr. Trapp. SPENSER: Make that roll
for me, for Patch Up. ZEHRA: All right. SPENSER: I'll come
over to you. ZEHRA: I'm going to use
my ability as a doctor of Patch Up. "When you have
a few moments of calm, "you can make a Focus roll to
heal an ally one body mark." TRAVIS: Thank you. ZEHRA: That's what
I'm here for. So, I'm going to
take two Focus. I'm going to use one of my, I'm going to use a gilded. BRENNAN: Can I assist?
SPENSER: Yeah. ZEHRA: If you would like,
certainly, Mr. Finnerty. Seeing as you did not take a single body damage
during our ordeal. BRENNAN: The champ
is undefeated. TRAVIS: It's not
a competition. It's not a competition.
LUIS: Inevitably. BRENNAN: (laughs) ZEHRA: So with the assist
I take an additional die? SPENSER: Yeah, and you'll
spend a drive to do that. ZEHRA: Thank you. SPENSER: You're using Focus,
so you'd spend an Intuition.
BRENNAN: Intuition, yeah. ZEHRA: Four. SPENSER: Four is the highest? ZEHRA: Is the highest.
SPENSER: Great, so what's the move say? ZEHRA: So the move says,
"on a four to five, "spend two Intuition
to do this." MARISHA: Mm! ZEHRA: If it were a six, I
would've spent one Intuition, and if it were a
three, a failure, I would have marked
a brain mark to take the four or five
results instead. But this is a four,
it is a mixed result. SPENSER: Great, so you'll
mark two Intuition if you want to do that,
to be able to heal. ZEHRA: Yes, I think Mr. Trapp
needs it desperately. SPENSER: As we see you
stitching into the body, we watch as the needle
pierces the skin. TRAVIS: (groans) SPENSER: And gets
pulled through. MARISHA: Oy. SPENSER: As we land on
our last member. LUIS: I'm Marion Collodi,
he/him. Once again, stands about 5'9" which we all know is the
short side of average. Or the tall side of short. Dark hair and a dark beard. He's wearing an olive,
light brown, olive shirt. Very much like what
I have right now, with these small
flower patterns. He's wearing a vest
that looks nice for a working class man. A hand-me-down
from his father. Trousers are typical worn,
working class trousers. But he is, unlike his
good friend Sean, does take care of
his appearance. He does have his
hair well kept, and he does take
care of his beard. He has no one to
come home to, but he cares to try to make
whatever he can look nice. but he cares to try to make
whatever he can look nice. Right now, he's finishing
up a Ritual, which is an ability
that I have. When I have a few
minutes to prepare, I can take a bleed
mark to perform a ritual on myself
or someone else. In this case I'm performing
a ritual on myself to regain the spent resistance
that I used earlier to activate my
Premonition for Sean. SPENSER: What does this
Ritual look like? LUIS: So I am, whether we
are already in the carriage-- The patching up is
happening in the carriage. Initially, I started
watching Jean at work. I find the artistry of the-- her finger work, her focus to be familiar, even
though I'm not a surgeon. And it is hypnotic. After a few moments of
watching her focus, I lean back on the
carriage and close my eyes and take a deep breath and
start to concentrate on what happens in those
premonitions is like a collage what happens in those
premonitions is like a collage of images hitting me. I start to piece them together
to have that premonition, the vision of
what was to come. It sort of is that in rewind. It's that unspooling and then settling
and grounding. It feels hypnotic,
in its own way. I have a scar on my chest. As I'm leaning back
you see my shirt, it's unbuttoned halfway
down and opens up a little. You see that on Marion's
chest is already a scar that looks
like a starburst. As I take the bleed mark
by doing this Ritual, almost imperceptibly, a tiny
pulse moves through it. almost imperceptibly, a tiny
pulse moves through it. Kind of bluish, veiny swirl. Then that settles as well. SPENSER: As that happens we
hear the snip of scissors. As the needle and thread
are pulled up and removed. As the needle and thread
are pulled up and removed. We see them dangling
in the air. The Circle of
Needle & Thread, and they're put away. You all have a moment
here before you arrive. What would you like to do? TRAVIS: I think I might
take this opportunity to answer the expressions
on my friend's faces. to answer the expressions
on my friends' faces. SPENSER: Yeah. TRAVIS: Obviously, we still
have to review the documents, but I felt it might be wise
to read you in a bit on who this Suarez family is
to me, at the very least. We all have our
introductions to Candela, one way or another, but mine
involved investigating my own family's
railroad operations and some dark dealings
that were happening there. Allison Suarez
was an investigator that I came across. She saved me
in a moment of need. Sacrificed herself. Putting herself between
a very dark entity. And it transformed
her horribly. I was led away from
the scene before I could extend my thanks or
even check up on her, and I've been trying
to do that ever since. Mr. Kingsley has not
allowed me to do that. She is not dead. She is poorly. I admit, I found myself
a bit peeved that they would
just deem her death something that could be
so easily communicated to her own child. And now it seems that
the boy's father, Antonio, has been befelled
by something. I can only hope it
was not the same sort of thing that
I encountered underneath. So forgive me if I am a
bit unsettled by all of this. BRENNAN: You and Allison, she was an investigator
for Candela? TRAVIS: She was.
BRENNAN: All right. ZEHRA: And you were close? TRAVIS: No, afterwards I was
taken out of the metro station underneath The Steam
and I was given a pin. Much like we all were,
and an address. Said if I had any questions, I could try and
receive some answers. I only had one. How she was doing,
what could I do. I was never allowed
to see her. I had hoped that by
working with Candela, in addition to
making a difference, I might be able to repay
that debt in some kind. We know how
important that is. MARISHA: And what exactly
happened on this mission? What were the horrors
that you saw? TRAVIS: It's hard to explain. There was a, almost
a shadowy creature that moved as if on its
front limbs, its appendages. There was a lean to it. I came down into
a metro station and I saw across the way
a young man trying to hide. He was telling me to run, but the sound that he made
gave his position away and this creature
moved on him and stood up to
an incredible height and picked this fellow up as
though he was made of paper. When he did,
his form began to shift and undulate and there was
a horrible screeching sound. I, uh-- I ran. I wasn't armed. I wasn't prepared for
anything like that. Before I could reach
the street level, the creature had
caught up with me and was about to do
the same to me as well, before Allison showed up. A lantern in one hand and
a large mirror in the other. She jumped in front of me
and holding up the mirror, I saw this creature that
had the same expression, almost as if it had
taken the face of the man down below, but its body
contorted in horrible, physically impossible ways. It started trying to
mimic Allison's face, but its gaze shifted between
her face and the mirror, almost as if it couldn't
decide what form to take. Locked in some sort of limbo. Anyway, it was just enough
time for her fellows to arrive and throw a Molotov cocktail
at its feet, and set it ablaze. But I think the time close
spent to that creature, I saw her hair start
to turn white and her face began to age and
her shoulder began to swell to disproportionate amounts. I was pulled away before
I could see anything else. I just remember her screams. BRENNAN: You think
they got her locked up in that Fourth Pharos
over there? TRAVIS: I hope. MARISHA: GM, would I
have heard any stories of an Allison that was
sent to the grays? SPENSER: Not to
Grayslate, no. Your instincts of
somebody like that being sent to the
Fourth Pharos, which is an area
beyond our world in the Flare where they take
these artifacts, creatures, maybe people, as
sort of a vault. That's probably the
most likely outcome for somebody like Allison. They'd be taken
somewhere like that. Or not somewhere like that, they would be taken to
that place and kept there. BRENNAN: They told the
kid she was dead? TRAVIS: Yes. BRENNAN: How sick do you
got to be where you go, "Hey, we got to break
it to the kid soft. "Just tell them she's dead." LUIS: Right? I guess there's things
worse than dead. I guess. Well, clearly we
know there's things that are worse
than dying, but. TRAVIS: I know there's
an amount of trust we all have with
this organization. We see what we're
fighting against. We know what sort of evil
there is in the world, not just the kind
that <i>we</i> make. But-- LUIS: But they
withhold a lot. TRAVIS: It feels that way. LUIS: It is that way. Would you have risked
everything we did for what they explained
was in that container? A creature that's used
to get people high? That's all there is to that. ZEHRA: There-- Marion,
if I may, there may be-- It's deeply disappointing
to understand that money seems to move a lot of these organizations
through the world. There may have
been monetary gain that Candela was
trying to prevent by stopping the
androphage transfer. There are certain groups that
would pay a great sum for it. All I'm saying is
maybe Candela isn't immune to some of these
capital gains. MARISHA: Well, look. Any institution,
even an institution that stands up
against institutions, well, I mean
they're not immune from their own
organizational flaws. However, I would still
like to believe that out of all of the other capitalistic and
governmental factions that rule our
day-to-day lives that hopefully we're choosing the one lesser evil. TRAVIS: Ms. Monroe. Beatrix. You've been with the
organization longer than any, and I've looped
my men into this with a certain
amount of trust. Have you ever seen anyone
marked by bleed changed? Have you ever seen them
made whole, amended? MARISHA: I tend to find
sometimes the best route is to just keep your mouth
shut and your eyes open. Oftentimes you'll
learn far more than what people
can tell you. We've all been
touched by bleed, whether we want to
accept that or not. No, I guess, to
answer your question, not to, what it sounds, the severity of
Allison's level was. But I would still
like to believe that that's why
we're fighting. You certainly had no problems standing up and calling
out the organization to Mr. Kingsley. Which is a little
bit surprising, I got to say, Nathaniel, for someone who's quite the
institutional man himself. TRAVIS: Force of
habit, I'm afraid. ZEHRA: Well, speaking
of Mr. Kingsley, what did he mean when he said
it was someone above his head who made the decision to
tell Lucas, was it, the boy? TRAVIS: Lucas. ZEHRA: That his
mother was dead? Someone above a
Lightkeeper's head. LUIS: Everybody answers
to somebody else. BRENNAN: I don't know
if that's true. I guess there's got
to be a few people don't answer to anybody. I'm going to open the folder
and look in at the papers. SPENSER: Yeah. You
see a description of the opening scene
that we went through from the child's
point of view. Is there anything in there that you'd like to
ask a question about? BRENNAN: I'm going to
hand it over to Dr. Jean BRENNAN: I'm going to
hand it over to Dr. Jean and I'm going to
look up and say: Kid says he saw
his ma in a room, not exactly herself. Seems like Candela
Obscura feels like they have her under
their protection and yet she's appearing,
according to Lucas, in this room in some
kind of spectral form. MARISHA: Sounds awfully
familiar to that smoke monster you were just describing. TRAVIS: Whatever it
was, smoke, ichor, seemed to lift and drip
all at the same time. It was so dark that-- You've lost trust in your
own eyes before, yes? ZEHRA: Yes. MARISHA: Dr. Jean, I
can't help but notice this scar that
they drew on here. It almost looks
like an autopsy. ZEHRA: Yes. Could I Focus on the photo-- SPENSER: Sure.
ZEHRA: -- of the body, and see if I can
learn anything from it? SPENSER: Yeah. Great. Go ahead and make a
Focus roll for me. ZEHRA: Four.
SPENSER: A four. What are you trying
to learn here? What are you looking for? ZEHRA: I'm looking at
this photo of the body, the crime scene, so
to speak, with the, as Bee noted,
a scar, a slice, an incision on the body.
SPENSER: A slice down the center of
the stomach, yeah. ZEHRA: A slice down. SPENSER: It's from the neck, the bottom of the neck
down to the navel. ZEHRA: The thoracic cavity. SPENSER: Yeah.
ZEHRA: Yes, I'm trying to see. Was this surgical,
was this bleed, do I see any evidence
of surgical touch or is it more of a violent? SPENSER: So with a four,
two things happen. ZEHRA: Mm-hmm.
SPENSER: One, you can tell from
the photograph that the slice was
by something sharp, but was not scalpel sharp. It was serrated in some way. It's not a clean cut.
ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: It doesn't look-- On the surface, even
though it appears to maybe be surgical
in direction, what you can tell
is the intent appeared to be to
open up the body. ZEHRA: Mm-hmm,
rib cage and all. SPENSER: Yes, to get
deeper into the body. That was just the method
of parting the curtain, that is skin.
ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. MARISHA: Parting the curtain.
SPENSER: Right? LUIS: Yeah.
MARISHA: God. God! SPENSER: (laughs) But the other thing
that happens here, is you're staring at
the picture of a dead man. MARISHA: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: Your eyes,
for a minute, shift-- ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: -- and you're staring
at a picture of Avery. ZEHRA: (starts) I slam the folder shut. SPENSER: Take a
brain mark for me, as the trauma starts to set in.
TRAVIS: Oof. ZEHRA: I can see
Avery's face-- LUIS: What do you mean?
ZEHRA: -- in my head, as they tumbled
beneath the train. It is clear that a
fair amount of violence and force was used
to open Mr. Suarez up. It was not done by a tool,
a knife, as far as I can tell. Looks a bit more organic. It's hard to determine, but it split his bones all the way through cleanly. Singular. SPENSER: As you say that,
you feel the carriage lurch to a stop. MARISHA: Aw jeez,
this hernia. (laughter) BRENNAN: Auntie Bee, what
happened to the little pillow? MARISHA: (moans and groans)
TRAVIS: (laughs) MARISHA: Oh, I should
get a little pillow. LUIS: You're not
doing your stretches. I thought we talked about
you doing your stretches. MARISHA: This journey
has been real-- That train ride really
messed me up, you guys. BRENNAN: Oh, hernia. I'm thinking hemorrhoids. LUIS: Oh, I was thinking
something else. MARISHA: I mean, a little
lumbar support might not be bad, though. BRENNAN: No, that makes sense.
TRAVIS: (laughs) LUIS: I don't know if you
can stretch a hernia. ZEHRA: You can, but you
don't want to know how. BRENNAN: Yeah. Oh yeah. Listen, if you got hemorrhoids, you don't want
to do stretches. Let me tell you
that right now. LUIS: Yeah, I'm also, I'm
looking through the folder as this moment lightens
us up for a second. BRENNAN: I'll give you a
hand out of the carriage. MARISHA: Thank you, sweet boy.
SPENSER: Yeah. Door opens.
MARISHA: (moans) SPENSER: Light pours over
the folder you're looking at. LUIS: The first thing
I want to know. I'm searching,
searching, searching. We know that this
creature is violent. I don't know if it was
feeding maybe, or what, but I want to know
if they've documented any kind of weakness or any kind of weapon
that can be used. I have a hunch based
on the story you told. SPENSER: Totally. So the
account is from a child. So the amount of
information you have, based on what's in the
folder is just that, just that, that
you've been told. The thing I will say is
that they have noted that it is similar
to an attack that happened previously. So the nature of the attack, the brutality of the attack, is not unlike other
attacks that happened around a similar time as when Allison was hurt. What I will say is that they
note that there was a period, a gap of time, where
those attacks stopped. LUIS: Okay.
SPENSER: Now suddenly, something has happened
again here that is similar to the attacks that
were occurring before. LUIS: Does it say how
long that break was? SPENSER: Yeah, so after
the attack on Allison, which I think we talked about
was a couple of months ago. TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. MARISHA: Wow.
SPENSER: Yeah. The cases ceased very
shortly after that. I think maybe there
was one or two other attacks reported
that were similar. Then those stopped and then this was
a similar attack that happened as
of last night. ZEHRA: Hmm. LUIS: Okay.
MARISHA: Did they assume that they stopped it? Does the organization
think that they stopped it or did it just like, oh, just stopped one day. Fuck it.
SPENSER: The notes only say that the attacks ceased and that it seems as
though this might be-- LUIS: A continuation of that. This is the gap in
between those incidents. SPENSER: Exactly. ZEHRA: I'm sorry, how
long was the gap again? Two months? Couple months.
LUIS: Couple months. MARISHA: That's
not that long. TRAVIS: I mean, this is
just the initial report. I'm (throat clear) sure we'll be able to glean
something additional inside. LUIS: Well, we'll be
able to know, hopefully, whether the presence of
whatever this creature is is still there. If it's not there,
then we know it's probably moving on to one of
the other members. They've stationed
security there. BRENNAN: We're talking
about vengeance, right? LUIS: It's vengeance.
BRENNAN: Yeah. LUIS: That's what they said. BRENNAN: Well, let's stop this creature in
seeking vengeance. TRAVIS: Outside the house,
is anyone positioned outside of the
residence, the door, any sort of guard or sentry? SPENSER: As the door opens you see there's one
older gentleman in a suit. He is standing
outside on the porch. This is somebody
that is clearly standing guard
outside the house. They wear a Candela
pin on their lapel. As you all exit the carriage, they nod at all of you
and turn the corner. TRAVIS: Well, it's
safe to assume that it should be
relatively secure but we know that's worth
fuck all in our job. LUIS: Right. TRAVIS: Sean, Marion. Shall we? LUIS: Looks like it, yeah. SPENSER: Great, we cut
from there to the front door opening, the light spreading across
the hardwood floors here. One thing I'll note
is that this is within the district of Groundswell. So this place has been built
into the ruins of Oldfaire. So this place has been built
into the ruins of Oldfaire. So the architecture
here is very brutalist in its design.
The interior of the house appears as though it
was slightly renovated, not to the point of
being extravagant, just to the point
of infrastructure. There's beams on the ceiling that are holding old stone that form the walls here. As you move deeper in, you see available to
you, the house and the bedroom on
your left hand side. You can smell, immediately,
the waft of death. What do you all want to do? BRENNAN: Is the old man in the
suit coming in with us or no? SPENSER: Oh, when he
saw you all arrive, he turned the corner
and disappeared. BRENNAN: Gotcha.
TRAVIS: Left his post. BRENNAN: I'm going to
look around and say: Always nice to get
a warm welcome. And I'm going to take a
shotgun out of my coat. TRAVIS: Eyy! BRENNAN: I like when
there's not, what do you call them?
Bystanders. I'm going to take lead and move around the
corner with a shotgun. TRAVIS: Not shy,
Mr. Finnerty. LUIS: I'm going to take out
the weapon that I acquired. SPENSER: Ooh, yeah. LUIS: So the knife
that I had pulled, the knife that was
attached with the cord to some sort of
a shocking device. I pulled it off of it, but I would've liked
to have tried to see if there was any way
to repair it, or any way to make it-- I mean, I'm going to have
a knife on me, at least. SPENSER: Sure.
LUIS: But any way to see if there's something to make it functional
in that regard. SPENSER: Great, write down
that you have a phase knife. LUIS: Okay. MARISHA and TRAVIS:
Phase knife! LUIS: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: (sneezes) ZEHRA: Phase.
MARISHA: Let's go. SPENSER: Go ahead and make a Focus roll--
BRENNAN: (sneezes) MARISHA: Bless you.
SPENSER: -- for me. Bless you. TRAVIS: Stop it.
SPENSER: Go ahead and make a Focus roll for me to see if they're able to--
BRENNAN: You stop that! SPENSER: -- figure out
what it needs, how it needs to be hooked up. LUIS: Okay.
BRENNAN: Shame on you. LUIS: I will use a drive. SPENSER: Great.
LUIS: I can use more than one. SPENSER: You can. LUIS: Yeah, I'm going
to use two. Oh, that's a gilded die. Okay, come on. Come on, baby, I want
this cool-ass weapon. Five is my highest number. SPENSER: Five is
the highest. Great. Yeah, so you
have it hooked up. What I will say is that
it is very experimental. You have like a--
It's just hooked up. You were able to
pull the device off of the coat of the EONS
member before you left. You rewired it back together,
but when you turn it on you notice it sparks
at the wire. LUIS: Yikes. SPENSER: So it is not super
safe for you to use, but it does
exist here for you. LUIS: Okay, I have
that as an option. SPENSER: Mm-hmm, you do
have it as an option. As you-- Yeah, go ahead. BRENNAN: How big is
the house, roughly? When we were approaching-- SPENSER: Sure, yeah,
it's a townhouse, so-- BRENNAN: It's pretty small?
LUIS: Two stories? SPENSER: So it's
pretty small. Two story, but probably you would guess it's about a three bedroom. BRENNAN: I'm going to,
if it's a small house and the guy leaves
and I'm like: The dossier didn't say
that there'd be anybody in the house that we're
trying to rescue. Right? TRAVIS: Shouldn't be,
but we should check. BRENNAN: All right,
listen up! If there's anybody
in here who's human, make a noise saying
I'm human right now. If you don't and you feel
confused or conflicted, understand you got
a 10-second window before your only greeting is
two barrels in the chest. SPENSER: Make a Sway roll
for me. LUIS: (laughs) TRAVIS: I would assist you,
but I-- (laughs) SPENSER: I don't
think you need it. TRAVIS: What he said. BRENNAN: It's a two.
SPENSER: It's a two. LUIS: Oy.
ZEHRA: Oh, you got a five. BRENNAN: I don't have any dots
in it, so it's a two. SPENSER: When you don't
have any dots in it, you roll two,
and take the lowest. ZEHRA: Oh.
BRENNAN: Yeah. It's more for the moral,
it's the moral-- SPENSER: I love it. BRENNAN: Because I'm not,
I'm trying, you know-- This is what's going on. You have the
information you need. I'm not necessarily
trying to persuade any of these monsters. It's more about
if you're human-- LUIS: You're doing
your due diligence. BRENNAN: Due diligence,
this is a due diligence. SPENSER: Yeah,
roll due diligence. (laughter) ZEHRA: I have the beginning
of what is a migraine from Mr. Finnerty's
quite loud proclamation. But the migraine lingers and I maybe see something
cloudy in my periphery. I would like to see if
I can sense anything. SPENSER: Ooh. Okay. Yeah, so nobody
responds to you, but as you walk closer
to the bedroom, yeah, you definitely
can make a Sense roll here. ZEHRA: Six!
MARISHA: Ooh! SPENSER: Six is
a full success. What does it feel
like for you? What does bleed feel like
for you, in specific? ZEHRA: It's like the
beginning of a headache, pinprick of an intense pain, but the pain
doesn't continue. It gets my attention. Sometimes, I see
something in my periphery and then I look and
there's nothing there. Sometimes when that
pin prick happens, it's not even a visual. It's a sense and then a
sensation washes over me and I instinctively know.
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. ZEHRA: That's correct? SPENSER: Yeah, your eyes
fall to the bedroom and you feel an
emanation of bleed, not so much that it would hurt
any of you by walking in, but enough to say there
is remnant bleed there from the attack that
occurred, for sure. As that happens, I think we
see a gathering of flies that are starting to
swirl around your head. MARISHA: No. Nope, nope. Hate that! TRAVIS: What? LUIS: Do you feel
like it's a-- TRAVIS: No, no, no.
MARISHA: No. LUIS: Don't shoot the flies!
(laughter) ZEHRA: Please, don't
shoot the flies! LUIS: Don't shoot the flies. BRENNAN: You don't think
I can hit them? LUIS: You can-- TRAVIS: I have
every confidence-- LUIS: You'll hit everything. ZEHRA: Be careful in
the bedroom, but w-w-what is happening? I-- SPENSER: (buzzes) TRAVIS: Doctor? MARISHA: Perhaps you
should sit down, dear. LUIS: Step behind me,
actually. I want to get
in front of you. ZEHRA: I do so.
SPENSER: As you do, the flies make their way
back to the bedroom and they all fly
up almost like, you know how birds
fly in patterns-- MARISHA and TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.
SPENSER: -- and create images? You see it's
a collection of flies that are all doing that same
sort of patterning work. Then, they land on the
wall of the bedroom. TRAVIS: Is the bedroom
on the first floor or-- SPENSER: This bedroom's
on the first floor. Correct.
ZEHRA: The door is open? We could see in?
SPENSER: The door is cracked open. LUIS: Ah--
MARISHA: Is there-- Oh, sorry? LUIS: Well, because we did
get a lot of information, I think, from what
you recounted, are there any mirrors
around here? MARISHA: That's what I
was going to say. SPENSER: Go make a
Survey roll for me. MARISHA: Can I assist
him in that? SPENSER: I would love that.
TRAVIS: Can I assist as well or is it a single assist?
SPENSER: Yeah. That's a group action roll. Yeah, so both of
you can assist. You would be making a roll. You would take a
number of d6 extra equal to drive.
MARISHA: We spend a drive for that, correct? SPENSER: Yeah. So if
you want to spend drive and you want to spend
drive, you can. I want to be clear
before you do this, you can also assist
without spending drive by declaring
you're assisting. It will potentially change
how effective a roll is. It will potentially change
how effective a roll is. But all you do is
spend the drive to mechanically add
dice to the bowl. LUIS: Okay. SPENSER: So you have how
many dice to start with? LUIS: I start with one. SPENSER: You start with one. You're going to
spend a drive. So you'd spend Intuition. LUIS: Uh-huh.
MARISHA: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: Then you could
spend Intuition, if you'd like as well. TRAVIS: Yeah, let's do that.
SPENSER: Okay, great. So you'll spend one.
LUIS: A total of three dice. SPENSER: Total of three dice.
MARISHA: Then wasn't there a situation where,
if he succeeds, we get a drive back? SPENSER: That's only when, I think it was one of
the circle abilities from last chapter.
ZEHRA: Oh! MARISHA: That's right.
That's right. SPENSER: When somebody fails, you get that back.
TRAVIS: In This Together. Yeah.
MARISHA: That's right. SPENSER: So you'll
roll three dice. LUIS: Got it. I got two sixes out of that. SPENSER: Amazing! TRAVIS: Let's go! LUIS: Got two sixes
and a one. MARISHA: 50 mirrors! LUIS and TRAVIS: Yes!
TRAVIS and SPENSER: (laugh) MARISHA: I found
this disco ball! LUIS: Do we find
phase mirrors? SPENSER: Phase mirrors! No. So here's what you find. LUIS: Ask for phase weapons
every time. SPENSER: (laughs) On the first floor, you find with,
with a double six, with the critical success, you walk into the bathroom, the first place you go
to look for the mirror, and you see that the mirror
there has been shattered. ZEHRA: (gasps) LUIS: Okay. SPENSER: Going up to
the second floor, you find a mirror
on the wall, hung on the wall
in the bathroom, the bathroom there for
the two bedrooms. LUIS: Okay. SPENSER: And that one
is still intact. You're able to
pull it off. LUIS: I'm opening drawers to see if there's
any hand mirrors or anything.
SPENSER: Yeah. There's one additional
hand mirror. So if we want to put
that on the circle gear, you can put mirrors. TRAVIS: Hand mirror. SPENSER: Yeah, hand mirror. TRAVIS: But enough for-- SPENSER: Enough for, yeah.
TRAVIS: Got it. MARISHA: I'll follow after-- SPENSER: Yeah. MARISHA: -- after Marion
mentions the broken mirror, I'm going to peek my head in. Does it look like the
mirror is shattered like something shattered
out of it, or is there an impact?
LUIS: Ooh. Impact. MARISHA: Like I can see
the source of ground zero, if it were, of where it-- SPENSER: Go and make a
Focus roll for me. MARISHA: Okay. Which is
♪ gilded! ♪ SPENSER: I will say,
this house is affected by bleed,
at this point. So you would be in danger of taking some bleed
by doing this. MARISHA: (grimaces) Three on my gilded die. SPENSER: Three on the gilded, so you can earn back
one of your drive. It's really hard to tell because the mirror itself
is no longer on the wall. The pieces of the
mirror are scattered all over the bedroom. As you walk in
to observe this, you look down and see
a thousand reflections of yourself. As you look at yourself in a thousand different
ways here, I want you to tell me what
you used to look like. MARISHA: (exhales) Right out of the gate,
Spenser, with the fucking emotions! SPENSER: (whispers)
I'm sorry. MARISHA: Yeah, I think the
glittering of the glass reminds Beatrix of the
glittering of the Glass Sea and her life that she had very happily with
her husband, living in a little
cottage in Seasway. As she starts to lose focus and it all starts to blur, and at first it seems
like the ocean, and then she can see
elements of her happy in her youth with bright, strawberry
blonde hair and just happy, and simple clothing, but still nice and she's still presentable and ever so slightly,
in the corner, it's almost like
she can see images of her husband again as well, almost as if they're
arm and arm again. SPENSER: Yeah. Each piece of glass
reflecting a different memory from the life you
had before this, then suddenly, with a start, it's back to reflecting
you as you are now. I'm going to have you
take a brain and a bleed for that failure.
MARISHA: (gasps) LUIS: (groans) Are you in the room with me? SPENSER: No.
MARISHA: You went upstairs and I followed in after you. LUIS: My Premonitions?
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. LUIS: How far or how
near do they need to be? SPENSER: You can try and
pull her out of this reverie before it does that.
LUIS: Yes. While you are there, everything that you just
described starts to flash inside of my mind
as I have a vision-- SPENSER: Mm-hmm. LUIS: And as tempting
as it is to get sucked into it myself, a brief window into who you
once were, something I don't know very much
about so far, long ago, my memories of that
were that of child. You hear, hopefully
loud enough, me shout down to you: (forcefully) Come back! MARISHA: Hearing
Marion's voice, at first, it sounds
like the Marion I knew when he was a young
adolescent man as it starts to morph
into Marion's voice today of a grown man, of a soldier, has, yeah, Auntie Bee
is shaken out of it and she puts on a good face and pinches her cheeks, get a little bit
of that rouge, and steals herself as
she walks back out. TRAVIS: Do we all hear
that shout? SPENSER: 100% hear
that shout. Go ahead and erase the
brain mark that you took. LUIS: The other one stays. SPENSER: The other one stays. LUIS: It's only one mark. SPENSER: It's only
one mark, correct. You all hear the--
MARISHA: Just close that door. I look to the others and
I say: Don't go in there. TRAVIS: Are we okay? MARISHA: We're all right. LUIS: Is she okay? Are you okay?
MARISHA: I'm all right! You sweet boy. LUIS: Hmm. TRAVIS: What time of
day is it, by the way? SPENSER: It's getting
to sunset. TRAVIS: Okay. The lights in the house, are there lights
in the house? SPENSER: Candles. TRAVIS: Candles. One thing to note, it messes with light, or it doesn't like
it or it does. I couldn't tell. It caused it to flare and then retract. So keep an eye
on the lights. BRENNAN: Do you think
we should go around and try to light them
before the sun gets too low in the sky? TRAVIS: I'm generally
a fan of more light in darkness,
so yeah, that's a great idea.
MARISHA: The candles? BRENNAN: Yeah. Let's light them up. SPENSER: Great. We get (blows) as the candles
on the wall take light. There's a couple of oil lamps
as well throughout the house. BRENNAN: You said Allison the
first time you saw her, before she actually got
taken by the monster-- TRAVIS: Right.
BRENNAN: She ran in and she had a mirror, a
larger than average mirror in her hand that she
was using to fight with. That rooms got broken
mirrors in it. Is this monster that,
you know, talking about light,
mirrors reflect light. I'm putting pieces together and my conclusion's
always going to be, you figured it out, smash every mirror. I don't know if
that's helpful though. TRAVIS: Right. It seemed like
the mirror impeded this creature's ability
to do what it does to adapt or absorb the person that they were focused on. The light, I-- BRENNAN: When you
were looking at the broken mirror
in that room, did it look, and I know
it's not easy to tell, but did it look like
it happened recently or a long time ago? MARISHA: I didn't get
a sense of when. TRAVIS: Was there blood
on the ground, any sort of markings? MARISHA: No. TRAVIS: Clean? MARISHA: I will say, though, it seemed far more scattered than any type of other
localized mirror glass shatter that you would expect. There were pieces all over in every corner
of that damn room! ZEHRA: Hmm. LUIS: I think the mirrors
are going to be something that we'll need to
use on it, I think. ZEHRA: And the lanterns--
MARISHA: Can I just... Yeah, I was going to say,
can I actually dislodge maybe a couple
of the lanterns, of the gas lanterns,
so we have them as a mobile light?
SPENSER: Sure. Yep.
MARISHA: Okay. ZEHRA: You said Allison
had a lantern with her. TRAVIS: She did. BRENNAN: Well, maybe we
want a mirror of our own. TRAVIS: Yep. LUIS: We got the hand mirror
that we found earlier-- MARISHA: We have,
what, two mirrors? SPENSER: Yeah. Two mirrors.
LUIS: So those come off? SPENSER: You got a big mirror,
you got a hand mirror. LUIS: Those are the two
mirrors that we have? SPENSER: Mm-hmm.
LUIS: Well-- TRAVIS: We have
the second mirror. Who would like to? Ladies?
ZEHRA: I'll take it. TRAVIS: Auntie Bee? MARISHA: Oh, all right. I've got my
tiny blush compact. SPENSER: (laughs) LUIS: Look-- BRENNAN: You know, between
that and the shotgun, I just got it. (laughter) BRENNAN: You know, we
got so many mirrors. This feels like this
is hedging our bets because it's like this thing might have a specific
vulnerability to mirrors, but I think most things have a broad vulnerability
to shotguns. ZEHRA: If there is
a corporeal body, your shotgun could
come in handy. LUIS: You will be
able to shoot that. BRENNAN: Great.
LUIS: At this thing. BRENNAN: Let's go. ZEHRA: If I may, the flies
that manifested around my head and are now parked on
the wall in that room-- SPENSER: Yes. That is a sentence
you just said. (laughter) ZEHRA: I feel like that
warrants further investigation now that we are
armed with some tools. SPENSER: Yeah. Pushing into the room,
the door creaks open and you see the body of
Antonio Suarez still there, and you see the body of
Antonio Suarez still there, fileted open on the bed,
blood caked along the sheets fileted open on the bed,
blood caked along the sheets and having poured out
onto the ground below. The closet door still
sits open, as described. The candle on the nightstand has melted entirely down, just leaving wax residue. That wax residue has
poured off of the candelabra or the candle holder,
I guess, and has actually covered up
the face of Antonio Suarez on the photograph, leaving
just Allison showing. ZEHRA: Hmm! Hmm! Hmm. Where are the flies? SPENSER: Still on the wall. ZEHRA: Are they in a certain
formation of any kind? SPENSER: They're all parked on
either side of the threshold. BRENNAN: There's a dead
body in the room and the flies are all
parked on the wall. SPENSER: Uh-huh.
ZEHRA: Mm-hmm. BRENNAN: I'm going to look
down and be like: Oh, customers don't
like the sirloin, huh? LUIS: Mm-hmm. TRAVIS: (muffled laughter) LUIS: I would like to
pull out a bleed detector. SPENSER: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Yeah. ZEHRA: I know that bleed
is going to be everywhere-- SPENSER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
LUIS: But I want to see specifically if
those flies ping. SPENSER: Mm-hmm. Okay. ZEHRA: Like the chickens. SPENSER: Yeah.
LUIS: The chickens! SPENSER: Yeah. Go
ahead and mark that. As you start to wave it
over them, you notice as... As you start to wave it
over them, you notice as... Well, first of all, what's the bleed
detector look like? What does it look
like for you? LUIS: Mine looks like, it almost looks like a light. SPENSER: Mm.
LUIS: It's got a handle to it and then it's like
a fluorescent tube-- SPENSER: Yeah. LUIS: But it's emanating
a really soft, almost no light. But what you know is,
as you scan with it, anything with bleed
is going to ping. SPENSER: Yeah. Yeah, so as you take it
over the top of the flies, they scatter as you do and it goes absolutely crazy. The flies then
start to resettle along the wall, and as you turn
the bleed detector into the room itself, it obviously pings on
where the body is, too. LUIS: So the flies
are glowing? SPENSER: The flies
are reacting to your bleed detector.
LUIS: To the bleed detector. SPENSER: Totally. LUIS: Okay. Wow! TRAVIS: Can I move into
the bedroom a bit, I'll pull out from behind me
a very small camera with replaceable flash bulbs, and I'll move ever so
carefully towards the closet. SPENSER: Mm-hmm. TRAVIS: Is the door open or-- SPENSER: The door is
still ajar, as it was described. One of the door,
it's a double door closet, so one of them is ajar and
the other one's still closed. TRAVIS: Can I move to
open the doors fully? SPENSER: Yeah.
TRAVIS: I'd like to step back and take a picture
with a flash. SPENSER: Yeah. Both the doors wide open, we see (shutter snaps) the flash of light inside of the closet. This is not an
immediate development. But we can track from that. As the light flashes
on the closet, you see clothes that appear
as though they've been melted and fallen off
of their hangers. ZEHRA: Mm. TRAVIS: Just a thought. As I step back
from taking the picture. In the photographs
in the file, were there any mirrors
visible in the pictures? SPENSER: In the photographs
from Candela? TRAVIS: Yes. Yeah. SPENSER: No photos
of mirrors. ZEHRA: Hmm. BRENNAN: Wait a minute. You mean the photos Candela
took of the crime scene didn't have any
mirrors in them? The photographs
Candela Obscura took of the crime scene didn't
have any mirrors in them. TRAVIS: Doesn't look like it. LUIS: We still have
the file on us, right? BRENNAN: So, what? Antonio Suarez gets murdered the day before the interior
decorator gets here? SPENSER: Oh, there aren't
photos of the bathroom. It's just photos
of the bedroom. TRAVIS: Right, and there are
no mirrors in this room? SPENSER: There's no mirrors
in the bedroom. BRENNAN: So the mirrors we got
from other rooms in the house? SPENSER: Yes.
BRENNAN: Okay, gotcha. Cool, cool, cool. MARISHA: I'm going to-- SPENSER: That was upstairs
that you got those from. BRENNAN: Gotcha.
LUIS: Oh, we're downstairs. Because their main bedroom
is downstairs. SPENSER: Their main bedroom
is downstairs. MARISHA: I'm going to shuffle
over to Lucas' room. SPENSER: Uh-huh. Yeah. MARISHA: Since
the boy said he-- LUIS: I'm right behind you. TRAVIS: The clothes melted off the hangers.
MARISHA: He said he saw it first. I imagine it would've
been in the file that it had mentioned
monsters in the closet? SPENSER: Yeah.
MARISHA: Type of a thing. SPENSER: Yeah, totally. We see you go up the ramp
to the second floor and the bedroom is there. MARISHA: Okay,
she's going to, got her skirt all hiked up and she's just taking
it one step at a time. Yeah, any type of indication of also melted clothes
in the closet? Were there any mirrors or reflective surfaces
in the boy's room? SPENSER: Go ahead and make a
Survey roll for me here. MARISHA: Okay, great. Street Smarts! May spend any drive
instead of using my-- I'm going to-- Yeah, why not? I'm going to spend a drive and hopefully get it back.
SPENSER: Okay. MARISHA: Spend a Cunning. Ooh, well, it's a six. I don't get the
drive back, though. SPENSER: That's a six.
MARISHA: That's a six. SPENSER: So,
surveying Lucas' room, you see that that room in particular does not appear as though it's been disheveled
in any way. ZEHRA: Hmm.
MARISHA: Hmm. SPENSER: It was
left completely as it was in the photographs and as you would
assume it was in its state before the
attack happened. It seems--
MARISHA: Are there any mirrors in his room that would
dissuade this guy? SPENSER: There is a
dresser with a mirror. MARISHA: A mirrored dresser. Okay. I'll report
that to the others. SPENSER: Yeah, the three
drawers with the mirror. You know what
I'm talking about? MARISHA: 100%.
BRENNAN: Can you see-- I'm going to shout
out to Auntie Bee. You don't see a teddy bear in there anywhere, do you? I saw one in the
photo in the dossier. MARISHA: Any teddy bear? SPENSER: Oh, so the
teddy bear was-- There were actually
photographs of it in the dossier because it was
left in the hallway outside of the bedroom.
ZEHRA: Oh. LUIS: That's where
he dropped it. SPENSER: That's where he
dropped it, correct. It's no longer there.
It's been taken. MARISHA: Okay.
BRENNAN: Okay. MARISHA: They must
have confiscated it. BRENNAN: Confiscated the
poor kid's teddy bear. What kind of heroes are we? MARISHA: Poor child.
LUIS: Right. MARISHA: Seeing all
of this, too, I mean. Just imagining. No five-year-old should
see anything like this. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MARISHA: (heavy sigh) LUIS: It seems like he
saw the whole thing. BRENNAN: So this
thing, right, how many phenomena
are we aware of in the house right now? These flies on the wall, they won't touch
the dead body. LUIS: No. Well, maybe they already
touched the dead body, which is how they
got the bleed on them. Now they want nothing to do with it.
MARISHA: They're like, "Bleh." Yeah. BRENNAN: And now, we know this thing
won't appear in a room with mirrors in it. LUIS: Doesn't seem like it. I want to know if it's left. I want to start to scan to see if I can
follow a trail. Because if it is on
the hunt and it's trying to satiate
its vengeance-- TRAVIS: What did it take? Does the body look similar to the ones down in
the metro station? Does the physical
appearance remain the same? Or has the face gone gaunt and sallow and-- SPENSER: Yeah. It appears as though
it has taken its life force. It split it open and sucked it dry. Are you looking deeper? Are you looking more closely at the body here?
TRAVIS: I'm going to fall back on old habits and start
to approach the corpse and actually peer into
the chest cavity and see what's in there.
SPENSER: Sounds great. Yeah, make a Focus roll.
ZEHRA: I would like to follow behind
to assist you because I would like to examine the body
myself as well. SPENSER: Great. Okay,
so both of you are-- MARISHA: Please
don't touch it. Please.
SPENSER: Go ahead and make a Focus roll for me.
TRAVIS: (groans) MARISHA: (laughs)
LUIS: (laughs) What's it taste like?
ZEHRA: I'm going to burn an Intuition to assist you. TRAVIS: Awesome. SPENSER: So both of
you are looking? Go ahead and make the roll.
TRAVIS: Yeah. Five, two fives. SPENSER: That's two
fives, great. So here's what you see. Two things looking
at the body. One is that the area where the body
was flayed open, it appears as though
the skin was parted and the insides
were exsanguinated, that all the liquid
was taken out of there. MARISHA: Oh, jesus. SPENSER: But you
also-- (laughs) You also see where
the heart is, something glinting white-- TRAVIS: Oh.
SPENSER: -- upon it. Hard to tell with
the staining of blood, but something
strange on the heart. As you see that, you also see the
rest of the body. The intestines aren't
where they should be. They're shriveled up and more in the upper
right side of the body. It's almost as if the spleen is growing
fuzz or fur upon it. TRAVIS: (laughs) That's
really fucked up. BRENNAN: Hey man,
this is nasty. (laughter) SPENSER: You're welcome.
BRENNAN: Man, it's real nasty, okay? SPENSER: You're welcome.
MARISHA: What?! ZEHRA: Two thoughts
spring to my mind. The first is a memory of crouching over
a young woman in the Red Lamp district, Ms. Monroe to my side. Both of us are looking
into the chest cavity of this young woman who
is underneath anesthesia. There's inside her beautiful, perfectly formed heart is what appears to
be a human eyeball. That's the first
thought that comes as I gaze upon this.
MARISHA: Oh yeah, I remember that.
ZEHRA: The second that-- MARISHA: That was crazy.
ZEHRA: -- comes upon me-- TRAVIS: Oh! ZEHRA: I'm curious
if the anthrophage from earlier, do I see any evidence
of anthrophage activity in the way the organs
are moved about? SPENSER: No, no, this doesn't
appear to be anthrophage. The anthrophage
would chest burst. This appears as though
there was an incision made. ZEHRA: Yeah.
SPENSER: Cut down and opened. ZEHRA: The organ
movement isn't-- SPENSER: The organ
movement is strange, but-- ZEHRA: Does it remind
me of anything I've seen before?
SPENSER: No. The closest thing
is that heart that you found
with an eye in it. The other thing that you find as you see the body
laying there is that the clothing, the
man still has on a night dress shirt, or a night shirt,
I should say, and a pair of pants as if he just laid in bed after, you know,
after coming home. You see sticking out of
the corner of his pocket, a little tab, a
little piece of paper. The shirt obviously
has been torn open but the pants remain intact. TRAVIS: Wow.
SPENSER: You see the corner of something there. With that five, both of you take bleed marks as well.
ZEHRA: Ooh. MARISHA: Doctor, have any forceps in that
medical kit of yours? Tweezers?
Something of the like? ZEHRA: Let me check. I open up my medical gear.
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. ZEHRA: It's a beautiful
pale green bag. From out of it, I pull out a pristine pair of tweezers. Will these suffice? MARISHA: Mind if they
get a little gunky? ZEHRA: Not at all.
SPENSER: (laughs) Gross. MARISHA: I will
start with the paper before I maybe
let the surgeon go for whatever might
be in the heart. SPENSER: Great, I love that. MARISHA: We'll start
with the paper. SPENSER: Make a
Control roll for me. As you're getting this
close to the body, what does bleed
feel like for you? MARISHA: I've been
thinking about this a lot. Similarly, already
foreshadowed this with what Beatrix's
saw in the bathroom, in the broken glass.
SPENSER: Oh, cool. ZEHRA: Oh, cool.
MARISHA: She gets that taste of salt
water in her mouth like when salt water
is in the air, starts to feel almost
a little bit of that, rushing water
sound in her ears. It's probably just from blood and being overwhelmed. But she interprets
it as the waves and almost as
if a light breeze is hitting her face. It reminds her of the happiest
times in her life, which is why it is
the most painful. So she gets probably a little teary-eyed
as she tries to-- She probably even says
under her breath: It's not real, Beatrix. She pulls out. SPENSER: Great, make that
Control roll for me. I will warn you
that a consequence might be taking bleed here. MARISHA: Mm. Okay. (thoughtful tongue clicking) I'm going to save it. I'm going to save it. I only have one drive left. Two!
LUIS: Oh. SPENSER: It's a two.
MARISHA: Yeah. SPENSER: So, the
forceps reach in, they grab ahold of the paper. The difficulty is not
getting the paper out. The difficulty is doing it without putting
yourself in danger. You feel your hand clasp around the tweezers. As you start to pull, the paper sliding
out of the pocket takes on a form of tendons and ligaments. As you take it out, slowly starting to pull it, and you see that it becomes-- It goes from being
a piece of parchment to being a flap of skin that's being pulled out. It's slimy and covered
in black ichor. As you pull that out, you see a hand
start to reach out, and try and grab
it back from you, and pull it.
TRAVIS: What?! BRENNAN: Sorry, a hand from the body?
ZEHRA: From the pocket? SPENSER: From in the pocket. None of you see this.
MARISHA: Is it, this is in her head?
SPENSER: Only you. LUIS: It's all in her head.
ZEHRA: Ooh. SPENSER: A hand reaches
out, tries to grab it back. There's a moment where you think it might
pull the flap of skin with tendons attached to
it back into the pocket and take you with it. ZEHRA: (gasps) SPENSER: And then
you're clear, and you're holding
a piece of paper in your hand in front of you. You're going to take a bleed and a brain here
for that failure. MARISHA: Okay.
SPENSER: But you do get this. LUIS: Whoa.
ZEHRA: Ooh! MARISHA: They all see Beatrix for sure, the look
on her face of sheer terror as
she lets out a yelp. LUIS: Fuck. MARISHA: I think would
actually almost drop this towards Sean's direction. BRENNAN: Auntie Bee,
you all right? MARISHA: Did you see that? ZEHRA: I take your
arm and steady you. Are you all right,
Ms. Monroe? MARISHA: It's not-- It's not covered in-- It's fine, right? It's fine. What's it say? BRENNAN: So your
family used to work with a railroad
company, right? TRAVIS: Yes, they
were in very early in the railroad
business in Newfaire. SPENSER: Trapp Transit. MARISHA: It's a train ticket? LUIS: Oh. TRAVIS: "Departing
Steel Work Station. "Arriving Groundswell
Station." SPENSER: As you say
Groundwell Station, or sorry,
Groundswell Station, something clicks for you. There's the newest station of your family subway that has just opened
here two days ago. TRAVIS: Groundswell is the
newest station in Newfaire. MARISHA: I know you
said you first encountered this beast
in the train station. TRAVIS: Yes, it was
months ago, but... BRENNAN: All right,
Groundswell Station. That ticket got
punched, right? I mean, we know
his ticket did. SPENSER: (laughs softly) MARISHA: You know,
it seems this, whatever this beast is, it prefers darkness
and the shadows, and subway tunnels are real dark. BRENNAN: Summer 12, 1907. How many days ago was that? SPENSER: That was last night. BRENNAN: Is that when
the murder happened? SPENSER: Mm-hmm.
BRENNAN: Okay. All right. ZEHRA: Did something
follow him home from the train station? BRENNAN: Quite possibly.
But I think we ought to go
check out Groundswell. LUIS: Yeah, that's
where we need to go. ZEHRA: I'd like to take a
closer look at the heart before we leave.
SPENSER: Sure. MARISHA: I hand
over the forceps. SPENSER: Great. You have
a bleed containment vial if you'd like to--
LUIS: Right. MARISHA: Doctor.
SPENSER: -- try and do that. ZEHRA: Great. I pull it out. It's a pale pink in color. It's quite pretty. It has ornate
carvings on the sides. Hate to give this
one up. (sighs) TRAVIS: (laughs)
SPENSER: (laughs) MARISHA: I bedazzled
this one. (laughter) LUIS: This one's quite fancy.
SPENSER: It's really fancy. BRENNAN: Once we contain bleed, we get those back, right?
ZEHRA: It's my special vial. MARISHA: Yeah.
(laughter) TRAVIS: I'd love to go to the
Fourth Pharos forever. MARISHA: Yeah.
(laughter) BRENNAN: Is it like a big tank, you just pour it in, and you wash and bring it back. TRAVIS: Just re-wash it. SPENSER: Yeah, it goes in one
of those tubes from the bank that takes the--
TRAVIS: Sandblaster. MARISHA: Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. SPENSER: Hopping around,
yeah. 100% ZEHRA: I would like
to, as if playing a skilled game of Operation.
LUIS: (laughs) ZEHRA: From a distance--
MARISHA: That's exactly what it feels like.
SPENSER: Dude, yeah. MARISHA: Yeah.
ZEHRA: Reach in and see if I can pluck the glinting object--
SPENSER: Yeah. ZEHRA: -- out of the heart.
MARISHA: Worst game ever, by the way.
TRAVIS: That horseshoe, dude. That horseshoe is a bitch! SPENSER: Make a Control roll for me, yeah.
ZEHRA: Control. MARISHA: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Yep. BRENNAN: That's how
I learned surgery. MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)
TRAVIS: If you play Operation, you can perform on somebody. LUIS: Oh wow. Whoa, nice!
SPENSER: That's a six! BRENNAN: Woo! ZEHRA: I am an
excellent surgeon. (laughter)
SPENSER: So you feel the bleed emanating towards
you in doing this. What does bleed
feel like for you? ZEHRA: Bleed, much like the things I sense, starts as a sharp prick
at the side of my head. It pulses in images that
I can barely make out. It's like a cloudiness
in front of my eyes. But I see, I see a man holding a book and rising it to the
sky, pulsating images. And I see a girl clutching something
in her hand. Bundle of greens? Plants? The image gets paler and paler until
it's flashing white. It's a white agony
in my head. SPENSER: You're able to
stave that off here. The white fading into
the reality before you, the white object that
you pulled from the heart. As you turn it over, you see it's looking at you. ZEHRA: Hello, there. I place the object, turning the ornate lid
of my bleed containment. Drop it in, seal it. MARISHA: It's looking at her like an eyeball!
SPENSER: An eyeball rolls around in
your bleed containment. MARISHA: What the fuck. LUIS: You pulled out of
where the heart was. ZEHRA: Give it a couple shakes
for good measure before putting it back. SPENSER: It rolls around and then goes
into your pocket. LUIS: Oof.
ZEHRA: (clears throat) SPENSER: From there, we cut to the sound
of carriage hooves as the door opens and you all emerge
at the station, the newest station, the Groundswell Station.
TRAVIS: Groundswell. SPENSER: There is
a grand opening sign still above the entrance to a station down below. If you imagine Paris, the Paris art nouveau,
art deco, metropolitan thing.
TRAVIS: Yeah. SPENSER: It's like that with
a grand opening sign above it. There are people flooding
out of the station. It is right about the time people get off work normally. So there are lots of people
exiting here as you observe the entrance. TRAVIS: Has night
fallen by this point? SPENSER: Night is
just about to fall. The sun has crossed
the threshold. It's starting to go dark. TRAVIS: Well, we
did our best. Time to head home.
(laughter) MARISHA: Nathaniel, come on. LUIS: I have that mirror. SPENSER: Yeah.
LUIS: I brought it with me. SPENSER: Great.
TRAVIS: Oh yes. ZEHRA: Yes, I have
it with me. SPENSER: We see it underneath
your arm, yeah? LUIS: Yeah, I'm carrying it.
MARISHA: We have the lanterns. SPENSER: And the lanterns. TRAVIS: This will be
a target-rich environment. I would say we
should spread out, but it feels like
there might be safety more in numbers? LUIS: I think we
should stay together. TRAVIS: Fair. LUIS: But I have a hunch,
I don't know. I just want to run
it past you all. It seemed like of
all of the targets that it could have
had last night, it chose someone that
seemed to be familiar? Maybe there's
some sort of something to say about that. But if anything,
you're familiar. It already targeted you once. ZEHRA: If it's
seeking vengeance, it wants to finish the job. LUIS: It already maybe
marked you as someone that disturbed wherever,
its lair, I guess. Where it seems
to want to live. TRAVIS: (gags) God, I hate
even having the thought of-- LUIS: Being bait?
TRAVIS: Yeah. LUIS: Me too. BRENNAN: Don't worry, LT. We'll get a turkey
baster and baste you up. Put a little garnish on top.
LUIS: We're going to make him real delicious?
BRENNAN: Put some parsley on the edge.
LUIS: (laughs) TRAVIS: See, this is
why I keep you around. SPENSER and ZEHRA: (laugh) TRAVIS: You just know how
to brighten everyone's day. BRENNAN: Hey, you know.
What's the worst that could happen?
LUIS: Are you just hungry? Is that what's up? TRAVIS: From the fellow
back at the house. I mean, I could just be-- BRENNAN: But at least
the flies won't eat you. ZEHRA: Well, given
your current state, I was able to heal
you up a little bit. But you still do have
significant injuries. I am worried about
putting him out as a bait of sorts. Is there another way? LUIS: I don't know. I think we got to be
strategic about it. TRAVIS: I have
three bleed, so. LUIS: I'm going to be
right there with you. I'll try to be as out of sight as possible.
TRAVIS: Yep, yep, yep. BRENNAN: I'm not saying we
should use him as bait. I'm saying if we go
in this train station, he's already bait.
LUIS: Right. He is the bait.
TRAVIS: Yeah, fair. Fair. ZEHRA: I guess
that's unavoidable. TRAVIS: I am not afraid. I have led people
into battle before. MARISHA: Yes, you have.
TRAVIS: Nothing different about this moment right here. Plus, my family
owns this station. We're on favored
terrain, friends. ZEHRA: That's true.
Home court advantage. BRENNAN: You know, you should
explain that to the monster. TRAVIS: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You say, you know, you're trespassing right now? SPENSER: (laughs)
LUIS: Yeah, right? BRENNAN: Maybe it
doesn't know. LUIS: Did it pay its fare?
I mean, it owes you money. BRENNAN: Oh, skipped
the turnstile. We got to get
the police in here. LUIS: Sure do.
MARISHA: Are you saying you think the monster
hates nepotism? TRAVIS: (sighs) I head down the stairs.
SPENSER: (laughs) LUIS: Wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait. I need a moment before
we get too carried away. I'll go up to Auntie Bee. I'm sorry, I saw
what happened to you. I saw what happened
to you earlier and I saw that it
started to happen again. But I can't-- I can't stop it every
time and I'm sorry. MARISHA: You've always been
a sweet, kindhearted boy. You know that? I have a fair
warning for you. Groundswell. You've
seen this architecture. It touches the
fringes of Oldfaire. It's highly likely the Trapps dug a little too deep. LUIS: Huh. MARISHA: Watch yourself with
whatever you've got going on. LUIS: Okay. I'm going to take a
couple more moments. I quiet down,
my breath slows. My eyes close, and again,
I start getting flashes of some premonitions that
I've had and they start to go in reverse slowly. I'm taking another bleed. I'm going to get back my-- I'm using, again, my Ritual. SPENSER: Great. LUIS: I need to have enough
resistance to try to keep you alive if you're the bait. So I'm getting
my resistance back and I'm taking a bleed.
TRAVIS: Would we know if the metro closes
at a certain time? SPENSER: Yeah, so the metro
will run until about midnight. TRAVIS: Hours before
that, though. It's still early night. SPENSER: Still active, yeah.
TRAVIS: Okay. SPENSER: It's probably about
7:00 to 8:00pm right now. So you have some time. TRAVIS: Plenty of time to set our trap(p). Ah? BRENNAN: Ah!
TRAVIS: Ah? SPENSER: (laughs)
MARISHA: Eh. (laughs weakly) BRENNAN: You know. All right, someone's having fun.
MARISHA: I was late. BRENNAN: We're
having fun again. TRAVIS: Needle & Thread,
best circle ever. SPENSER and MARISHA: (laugh) SPENSER: With that, we cut
into the subway station below. The last passengers are getting onto a train or getting onto a
subway across the way. That subway takes off into the darkness
of the tunnel. You hear the sound of
another approaching car. As you all enter,
you feel the rush of wind across your face as the impending
train pushes the air into the station as it does. What would you
all like to do? BRENNAN: I'm going to be
slow going down the steps and hang back to
walk with Marion as he finishes his Ritual. Be like: Hey, pal, quick on the draw on this last couple
assignments, huh? Good looking out. LUIS: Thank you, Sean. Guess I had a
little practice. BRENNAN: Got a
question for you. LUIS: Okay. BRENNAN: We never really-- We never really talk about what you can do. You ever seen anything that you didn't want to stop? LUIS: I think I
can get a sense that something is starting. Then I think
it's a bit of a-- Sometimes I feel
like I can choose. Sometimes I don't.
Sometimes it just happens. BRENNAN: Well, just, you
know, I remember that-- I remember that time
back in Echo Company when we had to fall back. Point of egress
was compromised. Making our way through
all those trenches and you were just
calling out to me, "Left, right, stop." You know, you just
knew, and then a mortar would go off. LUIS: I didn't know that
I could do that until then, Sean. I didn't know
what was going on. That was my first time. But I just felt
like I needed to-- I don't know, I just saw
stuff happening in my head to you and I saw a bullet go clean right through you. I had a millisecond to recognize that
it wasn't real, that it wasn't happening,
but it was about to happen. And I don't know.
I mean, it freaked me out. Now I know a little
bit more about it and I hope that our time
together in Candela, I hope that it helps me
understand that a little more. BRENNAN: I just think
you should always be really careful about who you tell that you can do that. LUIS: I just think only
the people here know. No one outside of Candela. BRENNAN: That's how
it should stay. LUIS: Are you okay? BRENNAN: If I wasn't, you'd
be able to tell, right? LUIS: Sometimes. If you weren't,
would you tell me? BRENNAN: Fuck out of here,
come on. Let's go. LUIS: I let him walk
ahead and I watch him. SPENSER: There's a moment. We sit on you. Alone. And then you walk by us. You find yourselves in a fairly empty subway station. A couple people sit
around the fringes, waiting for the next
train to come through. You hear it approach. As it pulls into the station, you see something flip up along the windows. Something that was wasn't
on the trains before. Passengers load in. As you're standing there
looking at the subway, as you hear the last call and the doors close, the windows shutter with mirrored panes, and the subway disappears
into the tunnels beyond. You're left with the remnants
of that look at yourselves, You're left with the remnants
of that look at yourselves, all standing together
in the station. MARISHA: What? TRAVIS: That's not-- That's not an addition
standard for the metro cars. It's new. That means that someone
working on these tunnels has outfitted the trains to provide a defensive
mechanism against whatever is in there. That means they know.
MARISHA: Your family knew? SPENSER: You hear
the screeching of subway trains. TRAVIS: In that moment,
can I look along the track, the deck-- SPENSER: Mm-hmm.
TRAVIS: -- and just take a deep breath
and scan faces. Is anyone watching us?
I'm looking for eyes. SPENSER: Make a roll. TRAVIS: (exhales)
MARISHA: (sighs) TRAVIS: Okay. (calculating hums) Can I use-- Can I use Lie
Detector to roll, to attempt to
figure out a person telling the truth?
SPENSER: Oh, sure. Yeah, if anybody's trying
to keep themselves from-- TRAVIS: To hide their--
SPENSER: Yeah, I love that. LUIS: Oh! SPENSER: That's a
great use of that. TRAVIS: Okay, and
what am I rolling? SPENSER: Survey or Read.
TRAVIS: Survey. SPENSER: Read, actually,
would probably be more apt because you're looking to see if people are staring at you. TRAVIS: Great, I'm
going to burn a drive. TRAVIS: Aw. Oh! A six, but it's
not a gilded die. SPENSER: But we'll
take the six. TRAVIS: Yeah, we'll
take the six. SPENSER: You look around. Those who are left
here in the station appear to be minding
their own business. You are alone. MARISHA: When is the
last train running? SPENSER: Midnight. MARISHA: Do we know
how much time we have? SPENSER: It's about
four hours. TRAVIS: You mean
in between trains? SPENSER: How long you
have in between trains? Is that what you're asking?
MARISHA: Yeah. SPENSER: Yeah, it's about
five minutes in between the train that came before
and the train that came now. I would say, you
would estimate it's anywhere between
five to 25 minutes, depending on where the
train is coming from. TRAVIS: The reason I had been
going down into the stations for the Civil Tribune
was because we had heard that the tunnels were
interfering with the remnants of Oldfaire
underneath the city, disturbing things, and
people were being affected or going missing
or taking off of work and not reporting back in. The tunnels are
where we should go. LUIS: But we can't do it
out here with anybody watching because we know what other organizations will
do to those that witnessed. BRENNAN: If you say
it's the tunnels, LT, let's go to the tunnels. ZEHRA: We certainly
have enough light. MARISHA: Does there appear
to be any type of a-- A lot of times these
subway tunnels are equipped
with fire escapes or other type
of mining tunnels that we can maybe quickly run and tuck into a side tunnel? SPENSER: Make a
Survey roll for me. LUIS: Repair
tunnels or something? MARISHA: Yeah. TRAVIS: I'll assist you
by burning a drive. MARISHA: Okay. LUIS: Can I make
a bid for a roll, a different type of roll? SPENSER: Sure. LUIS: I'll turn to you
while they're surveying, because I know
you sense things too. ZEHRA: If you could
call it that, yes. MARISHA: Three. LUIS: Three, okay.
MARISHA: Two ones and a three on the gilded, so I get it back.
SPENSER: Take the drive. LUIS: I want to see if
I can sense the creature. ZEHRA: Mm.
SPENSER: Yeah. I love that. What direction? LUIS: If there is a
tunnel that we found, a maintenance tunnel or
something? Did we find-- SPENSER: So there's no
maintenance tunnel. You look around, you don't
find any maintenance tunnel but you do know within-- You know within
there's probably areas for workers to be in case things break down.
TRAVIS: Enclaves and-- SPENSER: It's not
immediately apparent. It's not like there's
a clean tunnel to go down where no subways
will be there. But you know that
there are outlets for you to be able
to move through. But nothing safe
because of that three. What I will say is that
with that Sense roll, if you were going to
roll Sense to do that-- LUIS: Yeah, I'm going
to roll Sense. SPENSER: -- the two of you,
that you would be able to tell which direction from the
station you should head here and maybe how close it
is depending on how well the roll goes. ZEHRA: So would we both roll? SPENSER: So if you want to
help, one of you will roll. One of you can spend
Intuition to do that. LUIS: I want to see what
happens if we both-- I'm going to take that way. I imagine us
going back to back. ZEHRA: I'll take the other way. LUIS: Yeah.
SPENSER: Great. MARISHA: You guys are
on the train tracks? SPENSER: So only one
person would roll, the other person could spend
Intuition to help them. ZEHRA: To assist. All right.
LUIS: Oh, copy that. Okay. ZEHRA: I'll assist.
LUIS: Okay. SPENSER: So you'll
take another die. LUIS: Got it. I mean, do I need to go onto
the train tracks to do it? SPENSER: No, you can
do it from here. LUIS: The idea of stepping
onto train tracks, just like-- (laughs)
MARISHA: Terrifying. LUIS: Yes.
SPENSER: Yeah. TRAVIS: Warm it up.
SPENSER: So for right now, you're okay from here.
Here's what I will say. LUIS: Yeah. SPENSER: If you want to step
out on the train tracks, it will be more
effective of a roll. I will give you
better information if you decide to do that.
LUIS: Five minutes? MARISHA: You have
five minutes. ZEHRA: Are they
electrified, the rails? BRENNAN: I'm going to
jump into the train tracks. SPENSER: Great.
ZEHRA: Oh! BRENNAN: Come on. You think me and
Tony and Jimmy weren't down here
all the time? LUIS: Yeah, well, it always
takes one of you to do it first
for me to do it, okay? BRENNAN: I know!
LUIS: Okay! BRENNAN: You're still
playing tag-along all these years later.
Come on. LUIS: (grunts) I jump in and
I start to turn red. SPENSER: Great, I love
that. Make that roll. LUIS: A two, a three,
a four, and a four. I'll take the gilded four.
SPENSER: Great. A four, a gilded
four is great. LUIS: Did you give, actually, give me that?
ZEHRA: I did. Wait, did I?
LUIS: I don't know. SPENSER: You're trying to
sense where this is from. Describe for me what it's
like as you reach out, as you both reach out
to forces beyond yourself. LUIS: Oh my gosh. I'm still newish
at this, but-- ZEHRA: I've placed my hand
gently on Marion's forearm. The way I am
assisting this is-- Through that act
of touch, I feel a pulsating in my temple
that's star shaped. It's like the star
on his chest almost, and that's the image
of white, that pulses. [rumbling] ZEHRA: And then I see
what it is I see. [rumbling] LUIS: I close my eyes and
I start to reach out into what I describe as seeing past the things
that are for your eyes, I guess. And sort of feel with a different set of eyes. As soon as I feel
her hand on my forearm, I immediately grab it and hold it as tight as I can and sort of lean forward. [rumbling] SPENSER: What you see is a dark trail. Black ichor. Almost as though it's snaking
its way through the tunnels. It passes by you, and out up the stairs, but you see where
its trail came from. To the left,
down the far tunnel. The one where the train is
coming towards you, not away. LUIS: And this
feels like a trail that it's just left. SPENSER: This feels as
though it's a trail of where it came from.
LUIS: Got it. SPENSER: Where it's
come from before. You're seeing
the tracks of where-- The tracks that
it left behind. You can also feel an undulating
in your sternum, right where your scar is,
you feel an undulating and as you turn
towards that entrance, you feel it get stronger. You can tell that this,
whatever this is, it's not far from here.
LUIS: And I know the way. At least I feel like
I know the way. As I turn to face
that direction and I open my eyes
and I drop your hand. It's that way. ZEHRA: I remove my hand,
blushing ever so slightly. Yes, that way. TRAVIS: I hop down into
the tracks as well. MARISHA: Oh, before you go--
TRAVIS: Oh. MARISHA: I grab
Nathaniel real quick. There's still people in
this train station, right? SPENSER: Just a few. MARISHA: All right. You got
some identification on you? TRAVIS: I do. MARISHA: Says your
last damn name? TRAVIS: Yes, my press
credentials and-- MARISHA: Oh, come here. We go to the handful of
people that are still there. Sorry, gentlemen,
ma'am, everybody here. Trapp Management. We got
to close this place down. TRAVIS: Yes, we apologize
for the-- MARISHA: Inconvenience. Sorry.
TRAVIS: Inconvenience, terrible maintenance
this late in the day.
MARISHA: Maintenance issue. Don't want anyone getting
hurt, you understand? So get the fuck out. SPENSER: (laughs) TRAVIS: Your rides will be
compensated at the front desk. MARISHA: Yes. TRAVIS: (whispers) Thought
you were doing it. BRENNAN: Front desk, do
you even ride the metro? (laughter) BRENNAN: In all the place,
you were riding it? SPENSER: We see a couple
of people confused-- BRENNAN: A front desk, the concierge. Where do you live? TRAVIS and MARISHA: (laugh) SPENSER: They fuck off
and leave. TRAVIS: (laughs) SPENSER: That's great. We get a shot from
within the tunnel as we see the five of you
moving into the darkness here. Lanterns lighting
up your faces. As you're traversing in, I'm going to have
somebody make a Move or Control roll to help
move or navigate you all in the right direction.
BRENNAN: I will make a Move roll. MARISHA: Come on!
SPENSER: Great. So anybody that wants to
help can. You don't have to. I will say this is a
roll for all of you. It's a group action.
TRAVIS: I can't. SPENSER: So all of
you are doing this together but this
will determine the macro of what this is.
BRENNAN: I'll do Control. SPENSER: You'll do
Control, okay. MARISHA: I'll say: We Saw This Coming. You know, Bee gave a little
bit of a heads up. She knows her way
around the tunnels of the under city and
brought those lanterns. So I'm going to give
you an extra die. SPENSER: Amazing.
That sounds good. BRENNAN: Do we want to use one
of, how critical is this roll? Do we want to use one--
SPENSER: Yeah. BRENNAN: -- for gilded die?
SPENSER: So what I will say is that this will determine
how difficult the path towards whatever you felt is. LUIS: I mean, we got
three of them. BRENNAN: We use one, or we
could save them up for later. But--
TRAVIS: Let's use one. ZEHRA: Let's use one, yeah.
LUIS: Use one, save two for when--
MARISHA: I think it's good. LUIS: -- it tries to kill us. MARISHA: I feel this is
the pinnacle moment. BRENNAN: I will take
the four on a gilded-- SPENSER: Great.
BRENNAN: -- to get a drive back.
LUIS: Nice. BRENNAN: Of course. SPENSER: Love that. On a four. BRENNAN: Oh no, that's gone. SPENSER: Yeah, you can
just, I'll take it. BRENNAN: You're gone forever. SPENSER: Yeah. Perfect.
LUIS: Bye. TRAVIS: You rolled a six. (laughter) SPENSER: You saved it. MARISHA: (laughs)
LUIS: Damn you. SPENSER: As you all make
your way through the tunnel, you feel in your
individual ways, the forces of bleed
pressing onto you. You feel the wind
blowing in your hair. The trains are moving
quickly down here. You find a maintenance sort of offshoot in
one of the tunnels. With that mixed success,
you wait for the subway to come by. As it does, you hear the
surge of electricity pass. And you hear the screams of a creature. (creepily squawks) You know the path is forward, but that direction is also where you heard
this cry come from. What would you all
like to do? TRAVIS: My first inclination
is to hide or sneak, but we have light. MARISHA: And we have mirrors. TRAVIS: I'll actually take out
a Zippo lighter and (ignition scratches). SPENSER: It surges
unnaturally here. TRAVIS: I filled it up
a lot before we-- SPENSER: (laughs) BRENNAN: I'll unholster
the shotgun. SPENSER: Yeah. LUIS: I am going
to stay close about two feet
behind Nathaniel and I have the mirror
in my hand. ZEHRA: This preacher, how did we know it was a
preacher's particular scream? SPENSER: It sounded
otherworldly. It didn't sound as
though it was human. BRENNAN: I'm going to
look around everyone with the mirrors and
light, ready my shotgun. ♪ Take me out to ♪
the ball game ♪ I'm going to shoulder it and start singing as I
walk down the tunnel looking for the creature.
SPENSER: I love that. We get a super wide shot here of you leading out
front your-- ZEHRA: He's a preacher?
SPENSER: Creature. ZEHRA: Sorry. I was like,
a holy man is screaming. How do we know this?
SPENSER: A <i>creature</i>. MARISHA: Oh, that makes sense.
LUIS: A <i>preacher</i>. BRENNAN: A preacher.
SPENSER: That makes so much sense now.
BRENNAN: I love it. You're like,
"Why a preacher?" And Spenser goes,
"Other worldly." And you're like, "Got it."
SPENSER: Got it. LUIS: And then
I was like, ah. I'm like, ah... yeah. ZEHRA: Hallelujah.
SPENSER: Hallelujah We get a super wide shot here of you leading out front with
the shotgun being illuminated by the lanterns, as
you hold a mirror, you all hold fire moving
forward through this tunnel. MARISHA: After
the train passes, Aunt Bee is
going to start a-- It's going to be
rough and dirty. It's not going to be
exact, but a little bit of a second count
in her brain as she tries to count the
minutes between the trains. SPENSER: I love that. [clock ticking] MARISHA: Oh, Jesus Christ. BRENNAN: Now that's prepared. (laughter) BRENNAN: That's prepared. SPENSER: We hear the
seconds ticking down. Another train. Five minutes?
10 minutes? You have the chance to
move out of safety here, out of this
maintenance outlet and continue on. As you do, as you
push forward, you hear rustling in the
darkness in front of you. As you push on further, that
rustling seems to get closer until you are
seeing the glint of metal before you. At first it feels as
though it might be a train, but it's not. Where it looks like
there once was another maintenance outlet or maybe another direction for the subways to
branch off to, there is what stands maybe
25 feet at its tallest, there is what stands maybe
25 feet at its tallest, a massive metal steel plate that's plugged a hole in the caves here. At the very top, the metal has been
flayed open, burst through. As you get closer, you see the reflection
of four eyes collected you see the reflection
of four eyes collected in the same space staring
at you from that hole above. You also feel the wind
on your faces, on your neck and you hear the distant
sound of a train coming. What would you
all like to do? LUIS: Get out of the
way of the train. ZEHRA: Priority one. BRENNAN: Are we on the
tracks right now? SPENSER: On the
tracks right now, what used to be
a maintenance outlet or maybe another hole has been
blocked off by this metal. BRENNAN: We see eyes
up in the-- SPENSER: You see eyes up
where the only entrance in. TRAVIS: I'm going to
take out a small glass flask of whiskey, that I keep on me, unscrew
it, take a swig and take a handkerchief and
I'm going to shove it in the mouth of that bottle,
turn it upside down and (clicks) (whooshes). And prepare a fiery bottle.
SPENSER: As that happens, the light grows unnaturally in your hand and
then recedes again. You get a look at
this creature for the briefest moment. It has four eyes
that are positioned on the top and bottom
with a mouth in the center. It sort of recedes
as it sees you. Its clawed hands digging
into the metal, twisting it now that it's already bent. ZEHRA: I see the eyes
of this creature. SPENSER: Two and two. ZEHRA: Do they look anything
like the eyeball I plucked out of the heart? SPENSER: No, no. These
appear to be dark. You're only seeing the
reflection of light in them. They're sort of--
ZEHRA: All pupils. SPENSER: Yeah, all pupils. BRENNAN: This is
the creature. LUIS: Yep. SPENSER: This is<i>
a</i> creature. It looks-- BRENNAN: Not like what was
described in the kid's book. SPENSER: No, it has a
beak sort of face, a beak mouth out the center
and then two eyes on the top, two eyes on the bottom. Not the description
you all saw. TRAVIS: Still a beak.
ZEHRA: It's a Furby. TRAVIS: Still a problem. LUIS: When you first
saw this thing, I mean, a train is coming,
so we better move. BRENNAN: Yeah. Bee, how much time we
got on this train? MARISHA: I've been counting.
We're at about-- BRENNAN: How many?
SPENSER: Couple minutes. LUIS: Couple minutes?
MARISHA: Three minutes maybe. Maybe four.
TRAVIS: It doesn't remind me of the thing I saw
in my pre, yes. SPENSER: No. It reminds
you of it in concept. TRAVIS: Yes. Yeah.
SPENSER: But it is not the thing that you faced, no.
TRAVIS: Right. ZEHRA: Is there
a thin platform such that if we were to flush
ourselves against the wall there would be any hope of the train passing
without crushing us? Or is there no platform? SPENSER: No. ZEHRA: There's only
this tunnel. BRENNAN: Yeah.
SPENSER: It's right up against the railway.
ZEHRA: Okay. SPENSER: You would assume
that the train almost scrapes it.
LUIS: Smash. BRENNAN: I'm going to look at
this thing and you know, as Brennan, I see a creature hiding
in a hole and I go, "Aw, little guy." Sean lives in a world of
only eldritch horror. So he goes, oh
got it, blam! (laughter) BRENNAN: Just going to shoot
in attempt to kill this. SPENSER: Great. I love that. Make a Control roll for me as you shoot at this thing. ZEHRA: Handy to
have a gun around. BRENNAN: We'll burn a drive. Use Sharpshooter.
SPENSER: Yep, love it. BRENNAN: That's double sixes! SPENSER: Double sixes,
a critical success. TRAVIS: There we go. There we go.
BRENNAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. SPENSER: Describe for me what
this thing looks like as you take it down, it's
going to fall towards you, so you get the
chance to look at it. It's going to die. BRENNAN: Sean looks around, looks at you light
the Molotov, says: How many minutes do we have? And goes bam! And before the
creature falls, Sean, before the creature falls
and hits the ground, I'm already unholstering rope because that
problem is solved and I don't need
to look at it and I'm going to throw
a rope up into the hole to get us into the tunnel. SPENSER: I love that.
TRAVIS: Yeah. SPENSER: We see the explosion
of light in the tunnel and it recedes just as
quickly and a body flops to the ground. It's splayed out. It has six limbs that
are all moved out in unnatural directions. It's pulsing with
chromatic light and then immediately goes dark
upon hitting the ground. TRAVIS: As quick as I
can from the hip, I'll take a shot
with the camera. SPENSER and TRAVIS: (click) BRENNAN: Hey Doc, you think I'm bad for
the scientific community? I'm going to throw the
grappling hook up into the-- SPENSER: With full success,
the rope stays on one of the curls of metal. It's not difficult to
get it to hold. BRENNAN: Cool. I'm going to
help whoever needs help to get out.
SPENSER: Great. ZEHRA: You could
help me first, this dress is very full. BRENNAN: Doc. I promise I'll
help preserve your modesty. Nobody look! I help get the doctor
up the rope into the tunnel.
SPENSER: Yeah, you start making your
way up the rope. I'm going to have you make
a roll for me here. I would give you either Move or Control to make this
whatever you'd prefer. ZEHRA: I am going to Move. SPENSER: Great. BRENNAN: If it's possible
for me to, I don't have to--
ZEHRA: You don't have to spend anything to help-- BRENNAN: I can help.
SPENSER: -- but you can say, narratively, you're going
to help here. ZEHRA: As I'm making my
way up the rope. SPENSER: Exactly.
So it would be-- LUIS: Oh.
ZEHRA: One. SPENSER: So. LUIS: (laughs) SPENSER: You will
make your way. BRENNAN: Okay, does
helping do anything for her? SPENSER: It does,
narratively, it affects the expectations of the roll. So by you helping, what I'm
going to say here is that you are going to
make it up the rope. ZEHRA: Okay.
SPENSER: You make it up to the top. And you peer through. TRAVIS: Oh shit. SPENSER: As you do, you hear the sound of
the train getting closer. You all see the light. Now, it's far,
but not that far. It's coming very quickly and you're going to
have to get up. But you are distracted by
what you see beyond here because as the light
starts to reflect off of the sheet of metal, off of the steel plate that
you are braced against, you see the outline
of something large you see the outline
of something large and structural like a
building that is hanging almost upside down. Like it's fallen. It has been trapped against
the wall of the caves here. As you peer in closer, you
see this is a lighthouse. LUIS: Oh no. SPENSER: A lighthouse
that has fallen through during an excavation. ZEHRA: Oh no. BRENNAN: A lighthouse
of Candela? SPENSER: Of Candela Obscura. It looks old,
it looks ancient. LUIS: An old light-- Oh no. ZEHRA: I tell the others
what I see. SPENSER: All of you hear
that as a train. You're hearing it over
the train blaring its horn as it's approaching. ZEHRA: I rustle, I hurry up. Oh, skirts sort of get caught
over the jagged metal edge, but I fling myself over
and land on the ground with a bit of a thud.
SPENSER: What I will say is, it's a 25-foot drop down. ZEHRA Oh!
SPENSER: So it is 25 feet up. It is 25 feet down off
of the metal steel plate. ZEHRA: I don't drop.
SPENSER: I'm just clarifying the expectations here. BRENNAN: I'm going to get the
back half of the rope, and I'm going to
toss the other end up to you and say:
Just hold on, brace your feet against
the back of the wall. And just feed her down the-- SPENSER: Great. We see you slowly repel down as you land
safely on the earth below you, you feel your feet sink in
about three inches or so. As you pull them up, you feel
it's like mucus on your feet. MARISHA: Auntie Bee is almost
in a daze staring down the tunnel and
she's just still, she starts 30, 29.
TRAVIS: You're up next. Come on, you're up.
MARISHA: 28. TRAVIS: Go, go, go. SPENSER: Great, make a Control
or a Move roll for me here. MARISHA: Please, boy.
Yes. My hernia. Four, it's not bad. SPENSER: Yeah?
MARISHA: Today. SPENSER: That's
a mixed success. You start the next wave of
getting them up and over. But the train is
getting closer. I'm starting, officially
starting a countdown die. Which means when this
ends, the train will hit. LUIS: Okay. SPENSER: Any misses will
tick it down by two. Any mixed success will
tick it down by one. It is currently at three. LUIS: Oh no! BRENNAN: Okay. TRAVIS: (laughs) BRENNAN: I am going to,
who has good Move between us?
LUIS: Me. BRENNAN: You have good Move?
LUIS: I do. BRENNAN: I'm going to say:
Marion, get over there quick. Get ready to pull
on the other side. LUIS: Okay. BRENNAN: Yeah,
I'll help as well. LUIS: Okay. So are you
helping with the thing? Do I get another die to help? SPENSER: Not mechanically, not die wise.
LUIS: Okay. Okay. SPENSER: But you are
helping to do this. So you're going to get over
and then that could effectively
make this countdown not go as quickly, so.
LUIS: Okay. ZEHRA: Is it worth
using a gilded? BRENNAN: We have two more
people to get through this. LUIS: No, no, no,
I'm good. I'm good. ZEHRA: Okay.
LUIS: I'm good. I'm going to burn one
of my own drives. BRENNAN: Okay.
LUIS: So now I have one drive left. I have two in Move and it's
gilded so I should be okay. SPENSER: Okay.
LUIS: I hope! Four.
SPENSER: That's a four. That's a mixed success, it's
going to tick down one to two. LUIS: Okay. But I get over. BRENNAN: With you pulling
on the other side. I'm going, yeah,
I'll say: LT. TRAVIS: No, you've
got to go first. It has to be you to go first. BRENNAN: I don't like
to spend time arguing with a train on the way. (laughter) BRENNAN: I'm going
to go through. LUIS: Come on! BRENNAN: I can follow orders. TRAVIS: You got the
shotgun, use it! Remember me! BRENNAN: Remember me!
(laughs) I've got pre lit Molotovs
staring in their faces. TRAVIS: Oh! (laughs) BRENNAN: Okay, I'm going
to jump through. I got Move.
I got two dice here. Ba-ba-ba.
We got another gilded. We do have these more.
TRAVIS: Two more, yeah. There's two of us.
BRENNAN: All right. There's two of us. You take a gilded.
TRAVIS: Yep. BRENNAN: Good. All right. Oh, I'm going to
burn a resistance to reroll two.
ZEHRA: Yes. LUIS: Okay. Okay. BRENNAN: I'm going to burn a
resistance to reroll two. SPENSER: Hear
the train coming. LUIS: Oh my god. MARISHA: Oh!
SPENSER: What is it? MARISHA: Oh!
LUIS: Miss? BRENNAN: I make it
through. It's a three. SPENSER: It's a three. So that
ticks down to nothing. The two of you are left as
the train is approaching you. What do you want
to do in this moment? TRAVIS: The train
is approaching. SPENSER: The train is
like moments away. BRENNAN: I'm going to, so I've used two of
my items, correct? SPENSER: You can
use one more. BRENNAN: I can use one more? I'm going to say: LT, I
didn't want to do this. I'm going to take a grenade, throw it on the side,
and push you up. The last couple seconds
before the train hits, I'm going to blow up
the steel container. And say: Everybody
inside, step back! LUIS: What?! TRAVIS: (shouts)
You found a grenade?! BRENNAN: I've been holding
on to it. LUIS: Oh my god. BRENNAN: But explosives
are one of the things-- SPENSER: Explosives.
You have those, yep. Go ahead and make that roll. It's going to be a Control
roll or a Strike roll, one of the two. TRAVIS: As he throws it, I'm
going to use In The Trenches. I've done enough dangerous
journalism work to know to keep
ourselves safe. I also know
the metro tunnels, and in between where the
wall and the ground hits, there is a very narrow margin--
ZEHRA: I knew it! TRAVIS: -- where if
you hug it, it is just enough an
angle between the wheels and the bottom of the train
where there is a maybe space. SPENSER: Right, you will <i>not
die</i>. That is the idea. TRAVIS: It might potato
peel us a little bit. I don't know.
MARISHA: Ugh! BRENNAN: Okay,
that is a five. SPENSER: That's a five.
That's a mixed success. So describe for me what
this scene is like as the grenade blows out
part of the steel here. LUIS: Oh my god. BRENNAN: I get us all the way
back because we need distance from the grenade
for this to work, which means that
we are going to have to run right in front of the train--
LUIS: Oh, what! BRENNAN: -- right
before it's about. So I'm going to and I'm
like: Don't worry, I did this with my brothers
all the time down here. All right. Three, two, one. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Boom! I'm going to grab the
back of your shirt and leap right in
front of the train to get through the
hole in the wall. SPENSER: Amazing.
MARISHA: You just hear Auntie Bee on the other
side just scream: Sean! TRAVIS: (laughs) SPENSER: There's
an explosion. Shrapnel of steel flies
towards all three of you on the other side. Everybody's taking a
body because of that. The two of you barely
make it through in time. You're both going to
take brain for this because the stress of
seeing literally a train about to strike you.
LUIS: Oh man. SPENSER: As you just if it was a tenth of
a second longer, you would not have
made it through, but your heel clears the wall just as the train comes by
and you're on the other side. TRAVIS: I feel like we
need to catalog everything that's
on your person. Also, thank you. BRENNAN: That was pretty fun.
SPENSER: (laughs) BRENNAN: That was pretty fun. TRAVIS: You and your brothers
lived a very different life than the one that I had. LUIS: It's not fun, Sean!
TRAVIS: Holy shit. LUIS: <i>It's not fun!</i> BRENNAN: It's a little fun. MARISHA: It is at this point, because Auntie Bee is
not laughing. She's not having fun. And Auntie Bee grabs
Sean by the arm and pushes him up
against the tunnel with a little bit of like, oh
fuck, Auntie Bee still got, we didn't expect this
from an old lady. SPENSER: Sure.
TRAVIS: Old lady strength. MARISHA: Old lady strength
out of nowhere. I'll look at you down
in the eye and I say: I made your mother a promise
that I would keep you safe. Don't, don't do that again. Please. Give me a goddamn heart
attack, all right. Let's go. BRENNAN: (quietly) You
got it, Auntie Bee. SPENSER: You push forward
seeing the hanging lighthouse as though it fell
through some excavation that was being done here
to create another tunnel, caught itself on the
corner of the wall. What you all know
about lighthouses, just as a reminder, is that Candela Obscura
builds them around thinnings. Where creatures like
what you've seen have been able to pierce
through the Flare where the Flare is thin enough
and escape into our world. When one of these thinnings
needs to be maintained. they will build a lighthouse and put within
it an astrolabe. This kind of astrolabe that magickally seals
shut that thinning. When that astrolabe is
turning, when it's powered, there's light that's emitted from the top of the
lighthouse that spins, just like the device, warning people away. That is the lore
within the Fairelands and anywhere that
Candela Obscura is. People stay away
from lighthouses. All of you know what
it truly means. This lighthouse sits dim. Unmoving. It's a good a hundred
yards in front of you. Probably a good 30
feet above you, sitting as though it
were almost upside down. And having fallen
through the ground above. LUIS: Has it been
toppled over? SPENSER: Yeah, like they
were drilling underneath it, the ground gave way, it fell and got trapped
in the tunnels. ZEHRA: <i>Trapp</i>ed. SPENSER: What would you
all like to do? TRAVIS: I'll first of all
take the fucking handkerchief out of the bottle of booze. Stamp it on the ground.
SPENSER: Yeah. BRENNAN: Wow. TRAVIS: Yeah, it's good shit. BRENNAN: You got to
get worse shit if you're going to make
molotovs out of the thing. TRAVIS: I didn't think. LUIS: Ooh, ooh, pass
that over here, too. TRAVIS: Just what
was available. ZEHRA: Wiping the blood.
BRENNAN: Also, just because we're showcasing the game,
I have Adrenaline Rush, which means for
each mark I take, I immediately refresh a
drive point of my choice. So that brain mark, so
literally taking marks. That train thing,
I am invigorated. I'm doing better. ZEHRA: Was that the first
mark you took? BRENNAN: First mark
I've taken. ZEHRA: Holy crap.
LUIS: Wow, what the hell? SPENSER: What did
you refresh? What drive did you--
BRENNAN: Always Nerve. SPENSER: Nerve.
BRENNAN: Nerve. SPENSER: And Nerve every
time, baby. BRENNAN: You don't even
have to check, baby. It's Nerve every time. TRAVIS: I'm going to use
my In The Trenches to once per assignment, you may burn one
Cunning resistance to soak a body mark. SPENSER: Oh yeah. LUIS: That's once
per assignment? SPENSER: Oh, so a soak
would happen as you take the body mark. TRAVIS: As I take
the body mark. All right, I'll wait.
SPENSER: Correct. So if you take
another body mark, you'll be able to
use that ability, which essentially does
exactly what you just did, just happens in the moment. Yeah, keeps it clean. TRAVIS: Trying to
get all preemptive. SPENSER: Love that. ZEHRA: I take a moment to
wipe the blood out of my eyes that the very shrapnel has carved delicate
incisions onto my face. TRAVIS: Oh no. ZEHRA: Just sort of wipe that
out, and I turned to Marion. Are you all right? There's blood on him as well.
LUIS: Yeah, yeah, I got some. ZEHRA: I start sort of, my pristine gloves
stain crimson as I sort of wipe
it out of-- a drop that's about to
fall into his eye. (sighs) LUIS: Are we really
doing this? This isn't, I mean, this is a
broken lighthouse. TRAVIS: Yes, it is. BRENNAN: Marion, if we go
back and tell somebody, who do you think
they're going to send? We're already here. MARISHA: He's got a point. LUIS: They'll just
send us right back. BRENNAN: Okay. At least maybe we'll
get some answers. ZEHRA: Would certainly
explain why this place has fallen vulnerable
to creatures. MARISHA: How are we going
to get up in that thing? LUIS: Well... maybe we don't
have to get up in it because whatever <i>was in
it</i> has already come out. Looking at it hanging
upside down, there's no clear path
to get in there? SPENSER: So the
lowest most point of where the lighthouse sits is the top where
the beacon would be. You see that that area
has been shattered, but it is essentially
a cage, right? A metal cage that sits
on top with glass around it. So, that's maybe 20
feet up in the air. It's closer than
that hole was. So there is a place to be
able to climb up and in. You will be walking through
an upside down lighthouse to get there. ZEHRA: Very M.C. Escher.
LUIS: Oh gosh. SPENSER: As that happens, as you're observing this
about the lighthouse, you hear a reverberating, a thumping happening
in the ground or in your core, you're
not sure which. This reminds you
of what you felt when you first came
into the tunnels here. It's a pulsating
happening in your chest. Something, something
big is here. What do you all want to do? LUIS: Oh my god. Go home. (laughter) MARISHA: So we got to get
the rope up and in there? Is that what
we're talking about? BRENNAN: (whooshes)
Up in the cage. SPENSER: So about a
hundred yards to go before you get there
as you move forward swinging the rope around. Have you ever been
to the Everglades? ALL: Mm-hmm.
LUIS: Yeah. SPENSER: Okay, have you
ever shined a flashlight out at the water at night? TRAVIS: (pew pew pew)
LUIS: Oh. TRAVIS: Snipe hunting.
MARISHA: Mm-hmm. BRENNAN: So many
alligator eyes. SPENSER: As you move forward, the lanterns reflect
off so many eyes. LUIS: Oh my god. BRENNAN: You hear the snarl of 20, 30 creatures before you. As your light gets
closer to them, or they move closer, it's
hard to tell which, you see what look like
canine figures, but the latter half
of their body is, is morphed, changed, or maybe has always existed
this way, as tendrils. These are what all of
you lovingly refer to as squid dogs.
MARISHA: Squid dogs. (laughs) SPENSER: Standing guard
over the thinning. MARISHA: Oh my god. SPENSER: What would you
all like to do? LUIS: How many? BRENNAN: 20, 30. LUIS: Oh my god.
TRAVIS: I also just want to-- SPENSER: They're small,
to be clear. They're like the
size of dogs. TRAVIS: I just want to ask. You don't happen
to have a claymore tucked in between your ass
cheeks or anything, do you? BRENNAN: I'm going to look
around, and I'm like: You know, that would be
great if we got that. Put some kibble on top. LUIS: That's a good idea. BRENNAN: Arm full. MARISHA: You know, that's
actually not a bad idea. You know, I'm living
at the beach and whatnot. I love feeding all the
ducks and the seagulls, and as one of the items
that I'm going to pull out that I'm going to
decide I have right now is little bag of feed. TRAVIS: (laughs) Yes!
SPENSER: Oh, it's so good. MARISHA: Little pouches
out of my bag. SPENSER: Uh-huh.
LUIS: Oh! SPENSER: Are you going
to throw it to them to try and get
them distracted? MARISHA: Yeah.
LUIS: Wait, wait. BRENNAN: Or yeah, away. SPENSER: Away.
LUIS: But wait, what do we
know these things eat? TRAVIS: We don't.
MARISHA: We don't. LUIS: So I'm going to
take the fresh blood that was trickling on me
from what has happened, and I'm going to squeeze
a little bit on there and maybe we can shake it up. ZEHRA: I'll do that as well. MARISHA: I got a little
shrapnel as well and squeeze it into the bag.
SPENSER: I love that. TRAVIS: And just before
we do this, I don't want to
speak for all of us, does anyone have any
particular knowledge about restarting or repairing
ancient lighthouses? MARISHA: No, not at all. ZEHRA: I do have a
relevant textbook. LUIS: You do?
BRENNAN: You brought a book down here?
ZEHRA: I always have a book with me, Mr. Finnerty. TRAVIS: I just wanted to make
sure we had something before we, you know. ZEHRA: I pull open the book, and I flip to see
if there's-- SPENSER: So this is a
book from EONS. They were studying what Candela was
doing with lighthouses. They were trying to siphon
the power from lighthouses, but in that, it also details
how they actually work. How they function.
ZEHRA: How an astrolabe moves. SPENSER: Yep, correct. What needs to be done
for it to exist. MARISHA: Well, let's get
up in there first. TRAVIS: Yeah, good book. At least we'll have
something to use. BRENNAN: All right.
TRAVIS: Kibble bum. BRENNAN: Stepping up. Bottom of the ninth. Beatrix Monroe pitching for
the South Soffit Sidewinders. LUIS: All right. TRAVIS: Cinderella Story.
BRENNAN: Let's do it. MARISHA: Like the-- TRAVIS: Crowd on
its feet here. MARISHA: Like the bird
lady from "Home Alone 2," I'm going to start
shuffling through, and I go: ♪ Take me
out to the ball ♪ (laughter) MARISHA: ♪ Take me out to-- ♪ SPENSER: There's snarls
that come in your way as you start to
throw this feed. Go ahead and make a
Sway roll for me here to see how well you're
able to convince them to follow that kibble. MARISHA: I'm going to
use a drive. SPENSER: Love that. MARISHA: That feels--
SPENSER: Important. MARISHA: -- <i>importante</i>. LUIS: I feel like
everything is. MARISHA: Double sixes.
BRENNAN: Oh! TRAVIS: Ooh!
MARISHA: Let's go! LUIS: You befriend them? BRENNAN: So now do we
have squid dogs? MARISHA: Come here,
my squid hounds. TRAVIS: We have packs,
platoons of squid dogs. We are the squid dogs. SPENSER: We are all
squid dogs. LUIS: They teach us
their language. SPENSER: Today, we
are all squid dogs. TRAVIS: (howls)
BRENNAN: All right, Octo-Fido. You're going over there.
(laughter) SPENSER: So good. No, here's what happens. You throw the kibble, and
they pounce on it. The fresh blood
calls to them. So you have a moment as the
dogs start snarling, growling, biting at each other
to get to this food. They are clamoring to
get to the kibble that you've thrown out. You see a clear
pathway forward. You have a few moments here
while they're distracted. What do you want to do? BRENNAN: (whooshes)
MARISHA: I'm just going to. TRAVIS: We're booking ass.
BRENNAN: As fast as possible. SPENSER: Great, I love that. We get the dogs snapping. They turn to see,
you see the rope, but the kibble was
too enticing for them. The blood is really
what's enticing to them. They are digging at
the ground now, hoping to get more. You throw more their way
as the rope goes up. Make a Control roll for me since it's under
pressure to do this. It's about 20, 25 feet
up in the air. TRAVIS: ♪ Under pressure ♪ SPENSER and MARISHA:
♪ ("Under Pressure") ♪ BRENNAN: Oh, that's a four. SPENSER: That's a four.
Great. The rope catches
on the lighthouse. At that point, the dogs turn. Couple of them see all of
you gathered at the base and start sniffing
your direction, leaving behind the food
that has now run out. What would you
all like to do? MARISHA: Where we at, Sean? BRENNAN: I'm going to take the
bullets out of my shotgun, the one that I have loaded, and I'm going to
hold it by the barrel with the butt on
the end of it. Say: All right. I'm not going to waste bullets
on fucking squid dogs. Let's get up there.
(laughter) TRAVIS: You're going to bat
right now, Finnerty? BRENNAN: Coming up
to the plate, young Sean Michael Finnerty. South Soffit's own. SPENSER: There's two, three,
four of these squid dogs coming towards you. Like when wolves get
down on their hind, is it on their front paws? They start to
move towards you. We see them
starting to descend on you as you hold that as the rest of you
start your way up. What I will say is if
you are holding them off, we can make a group roll
for all four of you to get up together. It will be a Control
or a Move roll, whoever wants to lead that. But you will be defending. I will also have you make a
Strike roll to keep them safe. ZEHRA: Could I assist?
SPENSER: Totally. ZEHRA: My gloves
have blood on them. I can ball them off and toss them.
SPENSER: Throw them. Great, yeah.
TRAVIS: Not your gloves! ZEHRA: I'll get new ones. SPENSER: We see
the gloves go flying. A couple of
the squid dogs peel off and start to
devour the gloves. Their mouths open and you see for the
first time the mechanism. They have inside their
mouths the beaks of squids instead of teeth, and it
extends out xenomorph style, and then devours the gloves.
TRAVIS: All right. Come on now.
SPENSER: Their head turns up and starts to
swallow the gloves. ZEHRA: Those were
my most expensive pair. LUIS: Oh my. SPENSER: Who wants to make the
Control or Move roll here? You're making a Strike roll. MARISHA: I reach out
to Marion. I grab him, and
I just say: Sweet boy, it's been a long time since
I was in physical education and did one of these. I may need your help.
LUIS: Got you. I got you.
SPENSER: Leading it. Anybody else
helping mechanically? MARISHA: Can I, well. Oh, it's a group roll.
SPENSER: It's a group roll. So you can spend
drive to help here. You can spend Nerve
to be able to help here. MARISHA: I will spend-- fuck. I'm going to spend
my last Nerve drive to help Marion.
SPENSER: Okay, sounds good. MARISHA: Hopefully
haul my ass up this rope. TRAVIS: Use this last gilded. ZEHRA: Oh, that's
right because-- LUIS: Because it
blew up before. SPENSER: So as they are
starting to climb up, I'm going to have you make
that Strike roll for me. LUIS: Keep that. BRENNAN: That is a five. SPENSER: That's a five. So describe the scene for me as these dogs start
descending upon you and you start going to bat. BRENNAN: I start to-- TRAVIS: That's so
"Evil Dead." BRENNAN: I walk in, and
I think it starts funny and starts to get a little, it's like: Stepping up
to the plate, number one pitcher
squid dog coming in. Red Lamp Raiders. Oh, it's out of the park! God, god! And slamming into the dog
over and over again and just like truly. SPENSER: The more you
start hitting them, the more they start descending
until you're going left and right and forward and
back and forward and back and hitting as they come, more and more
descending upon you. As the squid dogs start, their own blood
starting to pour, the dogs themselves
start tearing apart their own counterparts.
ZEHRA: Oh! LUIS: Wow!
TRAVIS: It's a feeding frenzy. SPENSER: Eating them,
a feeding frenzy happening. As two of them leap
towards you, you hit one, but one grabs onto your
arm with that five. It beaks down onto your arm,
and then you feel the piercing of the beak tearing
into your flesh. You're going to take a body and a bleed here
as that happens, but you're able
to shake that off, blood pouring down your
arm as we see you still holding true as all
of you are going to roll-- LUIS: We're going to. SPENSER: You're going
to roll. Let's do it. LUIS: I got my two,
one's gilded. I got an extra one from a drive that I'm using-- and then an extra
gilded from the pile. MARISHA: Those comic
books, what were those? BRENNAN: (laughs)
MARISHA: Those damn comics. LUIS: I got a six
on the gilded. SPENSER: Yes! That's amazing!
ZEHRA: Yes! SPENSER: A six on the gilded. So as that happens,
you see Sean, all of you make your way
up the rope together, climb into the top
of this lighthouse and you see Sean down below, a dog on his arm.
TRAVIS: Finnerty, up the rope! SPENSER: (laughs) BRENNAN: The ump's
nowhere to be found! It's chaos out here, folks! (laughter)
LUIS: Oh wow. SPENSER: I'm going to have
you make a Move roll to get to that rope in time.
TRAVIS: Move it! Move it! SPENSER: Are you trying to
get to the rope in time? Is that what you're
trying to do here? What do you want to do? I don't mean to overstep.
BRENNAN: With LT-- I think with my lieutenant
yelling, "Move it, move it." Something autonomic,
my spine moves of so many drills
over and over again. SPENSER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: But I think without him there,
I don't go for the rope. I just stay here fighting
dogs until I'm dead. LUIS: To slaughter those--
SPENSER: Okay. TRAVIS: That's an order,
Finnerty, up the rope! BRENNAN: You got it, LT!
SPENSER: (laughs) We see the turn as you
run towards the rope. The scene here that all
of you are watching from above is all of the dogs, a
wave of dogs descending upon Finnerty here,
nipping at his heels. He's running as fast as
he can to grab the rope and climb up it. Make that Move or
Control roll for me, whichever you prefer. BRENNAN: Let's do Control.
SPENSER: Okay. TRAVIS: Roll well, roll well,
roll well. BRENNAN: Here we go. That is a six. SPENSER: That's a six.
That's a full success here.
MARISHA: That's right. SPENSER: You grab the rope and
you start pulling yourself up. As you do, the dogs descend and clamber on top
of each other trying to get to you. You feel their beaks at
your feet, and as you do, you watch as the rope
below you gets devoured. LUIS: What?
BRENNAN: Wow. SPENSER: As they chase you,
almost like piranha. You pull yourself just
out of range of them. You pull your feet up and
you're swinging by the rope, but the dogs are
leaping up to get you. You finally pull yourself
all the way back up and you're standing with the
rest of your circle in the top that is now the bottom
of the lighthouse, and the pulsing gets worse. BRENNAN: (panting) What a bunch of bums. They got no batters,
they got no pitching. TRAVIS: You did good,
Finnerty. ZEHRA: Well done.
TRAVIS: Very good. ZEHRA: I'll see what I
can do for you later. TRAVIS: Five for five,
batting 1,000. ZEHRA: Taking care of that-- BRENNAN: What's that?
ZEHRA: -- arm. BRENNAN: What arm? MARISHA: Aw, Sean.
BRENNAN: Oh, that's them? ZEHRA: Did you even feel it? BRENNAN: (laughs) That was good. MARISHA: I rip a piece of the
bottom of my frayed hemline on my apron off and I just do
a real quick wrap of his arm. BRENNAN: No, not
your nice dress. MARISHA: Oh, this old thing? BRENNAN: (laughs) MARISHA: All right. Come on. Let's figure out how to turn this damn thing on.
BRENNAN: I'm going to reload and shoulder the shotgun. All right. LUIS: I'll go up to Sean
as he starts moving forward. You know, if you need me
to pee on it to disinfect it, I'm happy to do that. BRENNAN: Why do you keep
asking to pee on us? MARISHA: (laughs) SPENSER: We cut out of there
to all of you moving forward into the lighthouse. (laughter) MARISHA: Just over a decade this randomly
comes up sometimes. SPENSER: We see the inverted--
BRENNAN: I can't tell if it's a bit.
SPENSER: -- structure. BRENNAN: I can't tell
if you need to go! TRAVIS: Why do you
want to pee on it? LUIS: Just let me do it once. Just once. Come on!
BRENNAN: That's jellyfish and they kind of think it's
not even jellyfish anymore. SPENSER: We see the
inverted structure. What once was a stairway
going up is now a stairway going the opposite direction. Down because, well,
it's technically up for you but it used to be going
up the other direction. BRENNAN: I don't want to
criticize the omniscient voice but stairways do
go both directions. (laughter)
SPENSER: Right. BRENNAN: Kind of generally.
SPENSER: It's kind of general. No, but it's upside down,
so what it requires is you to climb it. MARISHA: Yeah, it's
a little weird, okay. SPENSER: Right, because of
the way that it's set up. It's upside down.
MARISHA: Okay. SPENSER: So we see you
pulling yourselves up the staircase here. I don't if that's the
physics of what we're doing, but it sounds cool
so we're going to do it. TRAVIS: It's like
M.C. Escher shit. SPENSER: Yeah,
M.C. Escher shit. Right. ZEHRA: Upper body strength. SPENSER: Yeah. We see you pulling your way
towards the center. You feel the pulsing
getting heavier and heavier You feel the pulsing
getting heavier and heavier as you approach.
What do you all want to do? ZEHRA: I want to fall behind
a bit before I go up to center because the astrolabe
is at the top of the lighthouse, right? SPENSER: The astrolabe
is within the core of the lighthouse and the light at the
top just indicates whether it's moving or not. ZEHRA: Okay, so the center
is where the astrolabe is. SPENSER: Correct.
ZEHRA: Then in that case, I want to
continue to the core because my focus is what can
I do to get this astrolabe back and running.
SPENSER: Right. So, you all push
forward into-- Or you at least push forward in the group, right? Knowing that that's there. MARISHA: Can I do a Survey
and just check my surroundings for any shadow monsters? SPENSER: 100%. Go ahead and make a
Survey roll for me here. MARISHA: All right. SPENSER: What I will say is
that this is high stakes. MARISHA: ♪ Then I will-- ♪ SPENSER: You are within
the belly of the beast. MARISHA: ♪ -- spend a drive ♪ Oh shit. Tits. LUIS: (laughs) Oh shit tits.
BRENNAN: Shit, tits, ass. MARISHA: Two on a gilded, so I guess I get
my drive back. SPENSER: Great. So,
here's what happens. You look around. You see a glint of shimmer in the distance. It's clear here around
you that black ichor has been left
behind by creatures. Currently, from what
you've noticed, they don't seem to be here
in the lighthouse any longer. But as the two of you
lead the pack forward, you find yourselves standing, almost too late, before a rift in reality-- LUIS: Oh.
MARISHA: (exhales) SPENSER: -- where the
astrolabe sits in the interdimensional space that would exist both behind
and in front of the astrolabe, you see a tear in the fabric of
space time itself. It is 15 feet tall and it's wafting like a veil in an invisible breeze. That's not the part that
scares you the most here. It's the movement
you see through it. The large movement. As something, some entity puts its hands on each side of the veil, and
like a curtain of skin opens it and looks through. You are looking at
a massive beast, almost incomprehensible
in its shape. Its jaw is open, Its jaw is open, but farther than
it ever should be. It has human-like
features on its face, but it's gaunt, that chromatic light
permeating through it. It's got stringy black
tendrils as hair. Its hands, its fingers
are long and curled. This is far bigger than what attacked
anybody else so far. As its jaw
(dry creaking) closes, it smiles wide at you. Everybody's going
to take two bleed. LUIS: (gasps) MARISHA: Two bleed? Well, I can't. I take one bleed and then... TRAVIS: I-I-I-- LUIS: I will drop. TRAVIS: I drop.
MARISHA: Take a scar. TRAVIS: I take a scar.
LUIS: I will do one thing. I can still have a
Premonition as I'm falling. So I have a vision
of this happening, and as I'm starting to take this mark
and take a scar, are we losing consciousness
as we take bleed? SPENSER: You're getting
lost in the bleed so we're going to go
through and see what happens to everybody here
who is dropping. LUIS: I push you
out of the way. MARISHA: Okay. SPENSER: So you
get one of those-- MARISHA: It's a full on bleed.
SPENSER: Full on bleed. But you also drop. LUIS: I do. MARISHA: I know-- Aunt
Bee knows what he's doing and she just, with the
last moment of consciousness tries to tell him
to not do this. But she knows it's futile,
he's going to do it anyway. SPENSER: As that's happening,
you are staring into the face of terror here. What memory from
your childhood plays? TRAVIS: I remember
being nine years old and seeing my older brother, the one that my
family loved, lauded, prepared to take the
helm of our family name into the future, as he
waded out into a river to get a toy of mine, and the waves
pulled him under. As he reached for
me and cried out, I found instead of going towards the water
to try and help I froze and watched him
dip beneath the waves. Never came back up. SPENSER: You hear the ripples of a river running
through your head. They get louder and
louder and louder, until you lose consciousness, and the finger
of that creature through the veil plucks. You all watch
as a strange blue begins to emanate out
from your chest. Just a ball that starts to be pulled
as the creature, like pulling on thread, its needle-like fingers inch it closer to it. You see this happen,
push her out of the way, feel yourself fall. LUIS: Mm-hmm. SPENSER: Another finger
reaches out and plucks at the string to pull at you, and
it pulls and it pulls and there's nothing
to pull and it snaps! Its face grows
wide and it says, (spectral, hollow) "Ah." "A vessel already prepared."
MARISHA: (gasps) LUIS: (gasps) SPENSER: What do
the three of you do? MARISHA: I watch as
the two boys go down and I just grab Jean
and I go: We've got to get to
the orrery immediately! That's how we help them. BRENNAN: You have the book
with the astrolabe, right? ZEHRA: I do, with the
instructions on how to, yes. BRENNAN: I'm just going
to look at you and go-- All the humor has faded
from me and I go: Run! I'm just going
to rush forward and fire into
this thing's face. SPENSER: I love it.
Make a Strike roll for me. As that happens, you
two are running towards. You're going to have
to run towards the rift, which is towards the creature because that's where
the astrolabe is. MARISHA: I just tell her:
Don't look at it, just run. BRENNAN: Question for you.
SPENSER: Yeah? BRENNAN: Can Sharpshooter
be used more than once in a single action?
SPENSER: Yes. BRENNAN: Great. Okay, then
we're going to do that. All right, rolling six dice. SPENSER: Great. It's a high stakes roll. MARISHA: Ooh.
BRENNAN: Double sixes! SPENSER: Double sixes!
TRAVIS: Come on! SPENSER: Amazing.
BRENNAN: Double sixes. LUIS: Oh my god!
TRAVIS: Come on! MARISHA: Hell yeah. SPENSER: Baby!
TRAVIS: (laughs) SPENSER: What does it look
like here as you line up? So give me, in this moment, you've seen something like this before in your time with
the Echo or with the... BRENNAN: NoMAD.
SPENSER: Yeah, with NoMAD, with the Ghost Platoon? Is that what it was called? BRENNAN: Yeah.
LUIS: Ghost Platoon. SPENSER: Describe for me what moment you've
had like this before that prepared you
for this moment. BRENNAN: I hadn't seen Marion in over a year. [sirens wailing] BRENNAN: My two brothers
were already dead and I didn't know. We were way
behind enemy lines. I moved in under
the cover of night. We knew, Dr. Nero said some kind of
intelligence came back. There was a weapon. Something with bleed in it
on the side of the Flare. Had to move in quick, burn
that place to the ground. Only problem is one of
the doors weren't locked. I saw what we
were doing there. They had gotten out through a
back window and I found them. I don't know
how young they were, but they were what
we were there to destroy. One after the other. No escapes, no survivors. We were told they
were dangerous, otherworldly horrors. Their faces look
perfectly human. I've seen this thing before
because when I looked up to make sure my job was done this was the face staring
at me out of the mirror. SPENSER: You let it fire. As that happens, the creature drops
the thread on you. Your soul comes
back into your body. You find yourself awakened,
on the ground. Clear your bleed marks. You've already taken a scar,
but you're back up. TRAVIS: Does that leave me
with one in the new because it was two bleed, or
does it just clear the bleed? SPENSER: So you
already had three, you took one as your fourth and then it gives you
an additional one. TRAVIS: Yeah, okay. SPENSER: Great, thank you. You see your lieutenant's
eyes light up. You see your lieutenant's
eyes light up. Flit open because
of this shot. The creature
stumbles backwards, the folds of the Flare close for just a moment as it stumbles
to get its bearings, not expecting shots
in its direction, not having encountered
something like this before. But you are staring at
your own reflection. How you see yourself. The two of you are making your
way towards this astrolabe as quickly as possible. MARISHA: Yeah. SPENSER: What are
we doing here? ZEHRA: I'm flustered turning
the pages trying to find the relevant section.
MARISHA: Sweet dear. ZEHRA: Yeah. MARISHA: If you're
going to do this, you have to have a
sense of calm about you. Calm down. Mistakes happen
when you rush. We've got to do this right. I've given her
this pep talk before. I've given it in
the VA hospitals. I've given it when we've
been dragging survivors from the war back
behind our front lines. We've Seen This
Coming many times, so I'm going to assist you. Breathe. You know this. ZEHRA: It's just surgery. MARISHA: It's just surgery. SPENSER: You see
in front of you the perfect precision cut in the fabric of reality, and you realize, you heal cuts like
this all the time. you heal cuts like
this all the time. It's your thing. MARISHA: Circle of the
Needle & Thread. SPENSER: Circle of the
Needle & Thread. MARISHA: Let's patch him up. SPENSER: Go ahead and roll
either Focus or Sense for me as you flip through that book.
ZEHRA: I'm going to roll Focus. MARISHA: This is just
to find the book, or is this the moment? You Saw This Coming, so
for sure take another die. ZEHRA: Yeah. Okay, great.
I'm going to burn a drive. This is a pretty
critical moment, right? SPENSER: You have the book
open in front of you, and you see the shape that
must be drawn with your hands in order to make this,
activate this magick. ZEHRA: My hands are
the needle & thread. SPENSER: Your hands are
the needle & thread. BRENNAN: Burning a
drive to add to you. SPENSER: Amazing.
Shooting again, keeping this thing at bay. ZEHRA: Okay.
I have two Focus. I have one assist,
it's gilded, and I'm also burning one
of my own Intuition drives. MARISHA: And you have
an extra die from me. BRENNAN: So that
should be six. SPENSER: Six dice. As that happens, we see a hand reach
out from the veil. As it starts to try and push
its way through once again, it puts its sights on you. Its hand-- Even with
the shots coming at it, the hand comes over
almost like a cage down on top of you. This is a high stakes roll. This individual's life hangs
in the balance of this roll. Setting the consequences.
ZEHRA: (anxious sigh) ZEHRA: I hear Auntie Bee's
voice in my head telling me to breathe.
I take a breath. LUIS: Wow.
ZEHRA: Gilded six. LUIS: Two sixes.
ZEHRA: Two sixes! SPENSER: Two sixes!
BRENNAN: Sixes! Hoo-ee! SPENSER: Describe how
this happens here. How do you needle
& thread this? ZEHRA: As if a mist, a fog,
has been over my eyes, in an instant, it clears. I reach my hands out, and the instruments made
out of space appear. Without even thinking,
my hands move at a record speed
with precise stability to quickly sew the rift in reality firmly closed. I would daresay
it's my finest work. BRENNAN and TRAVIS: (laugh) MARISHA: And that's why
she's my muse. SPENSER: As you say that,
you hear a voice in your head. "That's my girl." BRENNAN: (gasps) SPENSER: You realize,
you left Violet, the person who was
keeping your father alive, you left her in
that train car. You told her that
was your resignation. But he's here with you,
holding your arms, teaching you to sew like he always
wished he could. You feel a kiss on the back
of your head, on your neck, and he lets you go. And there's quiet here. The rift has closed. The severed hand of this
creature sits above you like a cage,
dripping black ichor. LUIS: Am I awake,
or am I still out? SPENSER: Your eyes open as danger has passed.
LUIS: (gasping breath) BRENNAN: I go over and roll
the hand off and drop down to lie down, hold him.
LUIS: (gasping continues) BRENNAN: Marion, are you-- LUIS: No, no, no, no, no!
BRENNAN: Hey, hey, hey, hey! LUIS: There's nothing
wrong with me! (sobbing) There's nothing
wrong with me! SPENSER: We pull out of
the lighthouse here. As we move out of
the inverted structure, the light at the top glows once again. The light sweeps
across the landscape. The squid dogs (squelching)
eviscerate into nothing. All is quiet here. And that's where we're going
to end our session today. LUIS and BRENNAN:
(heavy breath) SPENSER: Great
work, everybody. TRAVIS: (laughs) SPENSER: Are we okay? LUIS: Oh, yeah.
SPENSER: Okay, good. BRENNAN: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Holy-- SPENSER: Just checking in. BRENNAN: What a
Hollywood-esque-- SPENSER: (laughs) BRENNAN: Comes in here weeping. Yeah, I'm fine, dude! LUIS: I love it! BRENNAN: Yeah, I'm
fucking fine, guy. ZEHRA: (sighing) Oh.
LUIS: (laughs) MARISHA: We got
traumatized a bunch. TRAVIS: We're in it now.
SPENSER: Great work. Okay. We have one last thing to do, two last things to do,
before we say goodbye. I want to talk about what
our scars are that we took. TRAVIS: Yeah.
ZEHRA: Oof. SPENSER: So let's start here. TRAVIS: Staring into
that horrible memory that I've always
tried to forget, Nathan Trapp has piercing
blue eyes, but his right eye fades to white--
SPENSER: Oh shit. TRAVIS: -- as it just
glosses over completely. MARISHA: That's cool! TRAVIS: Almost burned out. LUIS: So the starburst
scar that I have is-- You can't tell
exactly what it is. It looks like scar tissue, but it had these sort
of small blue veins. But on the outside of
it, the starburst grows, and it's absolutely
bleed-based. LUIS: Taking over your body.
LUIS: Absolutely. These blue veins almost
looking like tendrils extending across my chest, and now a little
bit up my neck. SPENSER: The other part
about scars that we should talk about is you move one action point from one of your action
ratings to another. TRAVIS: Oh, right.
SPENSER: So you erase one and move it to somewhere else that's because of the
scar that you took. TRAVIS: Yeah, it would
have to be something that is around my perception, so I'll take one from Read. LUIS: Can it move something
beyond two at this point? SPENSER: It can.
ZEHRA: Oh! SPENSER: It can.
LUIS: Okay. BRENNAN: Is there a... Does any part of the scar
become visible on Marion? LUIS: It starts
to move up my neck, just little bits of
it, little veins. BRENNAN: I'll wait until
your breathing slows down, to the point
where it's just-- Adrenaline has to crash and it has to come down
a little bit. I think I'm holding-- I'm moving a thumb
across your head and holding you so that
you have someone there. LUIS: I bury myself
into your chest. BRENNAN: I'm going to
wait a long time until I can feel that your
adrenaline has come down. The first time
you look at it and see that I
can see it, too, I'm going to hold you really
close and look at you and go: You want me to pee on it? LUIS: Would you?
BRENNAN: If you asked. And I'm going to
hug you so close. ZEHRA: Mm.
TRAVIS: (laughs) LUIS: I squeeze the
hardest squeeze I think you've
ever, ever felt. BRENNAN: I got you, bud. LUIS: Would you do it in
front of everyone else? BRENNAN: I get shy. TRAVIS, SPENSER, and LUIS:
(laugh) LUIS: I hate you.
BRENNAN: (laughs) LUIS: But I love you.
BRENNAN: But I love you. SPENSER: Oh god. BRENNAN: I'm going to help him
get up and get out of here. SPENSER: You're
moving one from-- LUIS: I'm moving one from--
You feel my body-- BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. LUIS: -- less strong.
BRENNAN: Okay. LUIS: I'm moving
one from Strike. SPENSER: Into Sense. LUIS: And I'm moving it
to Sense. I am all up. Three in Sense. SPENSER: What are we
thinking over here? TRAVIS: I moved one from
Read into Strike. I'm going to have to use my
hands more than my eyes now. SPENSER: Damn. I love that. MARISHA: Also, to put
a button on all that. SPENSER: Yeah.
MARISHA: Bee looks-- SPENSER: Oh yeah.
MARISHA: -- over at Jean as we're seeing our men have these horrible,
traumatic flashback moments that we've seen
many times before, and deep down inside know that's the one wound
you can't really heal. But even still the same,
we just wait it out. I look at Jinnah and
I just give her a good squeeze of her hand. You did damn good. You did damn good.
You should be proud. ZEHRA: I'm afraid I
have a funeral to plan. MARISHA: I think I know. Auntie Bee is really
good with flowers, if you need anything.
ZEHRA: Thank you. (sighs) I look--
SPENSER: We cut-- Go ahead. ZEHRA: -- at the
light that's emanating from the lighthouse, take it in, and say under my
breath so no one can hear me: Goodbye, Daddy. SPENSER: We cut to
your chapter house. You all sit in silence
here for a moment. Draven is talking to you,
but it's silent. He excuses you.
It's still silent. Suddenly, you realize all
of you are alone here. Not alone, but alone. Going your separate ways until
the next mission calls you. You have the chance to
heal up your wounds, refresh yourself, train to make yourselves
better for the future. You have on your circle sheet
nine resources available, three stitch, three
refresh, three train. I will note for those who
are playing the game that are not at this table that that is because we are
only playing three sessions, which means we get
two downtime times to use those resources, which
means we are only using half, because normally a cycle
is about four commissions, four assignments. So you
have three in each to use. Stitch will allow you
to clear all of your marks; refresh will allow
you to refresh all of your drives
and your resistances; and train will allow
you to take a d6 that at the beginning
of the next assignment, you can put on
your character sheet and you can use on any
roll that you'd like. Now, those nine resources, they will not-- MARISHA: Regenerate?
SPENSER: -- regenerate. TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.
SPENSER: So this is what you have for
our adventures together. What would you
all like to use? LUIS: Wow. So my bleed is now
at zero because I took a scar. SPENSER: Great. LUIS: Because I barely
went over the threshold. I still have two
body and one brain, but we have ways to
take care of some of that. So if someone else needs-- SPENSER: Stitch?
LUIS: -- stitch, I will-- TRAVIS: I would take a
stitch to clear my two bodies. I would need refresh
or train after that. SPENSER: Stitch will clear
all of your marks. TRAVIS: All of them?
SPENSER: Yes, correct. TRAVIS: I would love that.
MARISHA: I also might. LUIS: But this is
for the whole thing, so after the next session, whatever we deplete
here, we won't-- SPENSER: You won't have it.
LUIS: That doesn't come back. SPENSER: So you have
three available. BRENNAN: Does anybody
have an ability to get rid of bleed or no? MARISHA: No.
LUIS: No. BRENNAN: Because
I have a body, a brain, and three
bleed right now. MARISHA: I'm in the same boat.
ZEHRA: Yeah, same. I have two body, a brain,
and three bleed. BRENNAN: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Oh yeah. MARISHA: I'm good on refresh,
because I have ways to regenerate my drives.
SPENSER: Mm-hmm. I didn't use any
of my resistances. LUIS: You guys need--
MARISHA: But I would take-- ZEHRA: Oh, refresh. MARISHA: I wouldn't
mind taking a stitch. TRAVIS: I can get rid of a
body. I don't need a stitch. I have a way to do that.
BRENNAN: Okay. ZEHRA: I can also do Patch
Up on body next time to anybody who
needs body help. MARISHA: Okay.
TRAVIS: You want that stitch? You said you were
up in the threes. Somebody else was
at three bleed. MARISHA: Me and him
are the same. ZEHRA: I'm up at three bleed. MARISHA: Oh, we're
all the same. BRENNAN: I think, actually,
you have more than I do. You have two, one, three,
and I have one, one, three. You have three bleed as well? MARISHA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Okay. MARISHA: I'm also
one, one, three. TRAVIS: Refresh gives
back all your drives? SPENSER: And resistances. TRAVIS and ZEHRA:
And resistances. ZEHRA: I mean, I kind of
want to refresh my one Nerve. (laughs)
TRAVIS: (laughs) LUIS: Do we also get other-- Isn't there other stuff
that we get to choose? SPENSER: So those are
your options in between assignments. TRAVIS: Train gives a d6. SPENSER: We're going to
potentially advance circles. Before next time, we'll talk
about what that looks like if we want to do that,
but we'll do that offline, and if we end up doing that, it would not refresh
your resources anyways because of the way
we're playing. I might just allow
you to advance because we're only
playing three sessions, but I will say that, given the parameters, this is the difficult part. ZEHRA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Does it make sense, I hate to use them
all right now, but we're only going to be
able to do this twice, so does it make sense
for the three of us to all just refresh,
because we're all at three? One bleed for any of us--
SPENSER: Or stitch. MARISHA: Stitch, yeah. BRENNAN: Or stitch
for the three of us. SPENSER: I will remind you,
you have four. You only are gone
on your fourth scar, so taking another bleed,
you take a scar, but then you'd have
three more chances to take scars before
you are gone. It's really a way
your character changes, not that your character
is dying. I don't want to keep you
from doing anything, but I want to make sure
that you all know the way in which
the mechanics work. If you take another bleed,
you're knocked out. BRENNAN: You get incapacitated
when you get a scar. SPENSER: Exactly, yeah. You go down until it's safe,
in that scene. LUIS: Gotcha. TRAVIS: 12 bleed, 12 body, 12
brain to go (blows raspberry). BRENNAN: I'm good to hang out
on a stitch, I think. MARISHA: I'm good on
a stitch as well. ZEHRA: I think I'm good, too. I would love to take
a refresh, though, so I'm full up on Intuition
for the next time. SPENSER: Spend a refresh. MARISHA: You're not going
to take a stitch? Is that what you're saying? BRENNAN: You know what? I don't want to get
knocked out in a scene. MARISHA: That's
my thing, too. ZEHRA: You're far
too valuable. MARISHA: You're so valuable. TRAVIS: They're here
to take, man. Otherwise, nobody's
taking a stitch. BRENNAN: If no one's taking
a stitch, I'll take a stitch. LUIS: Pick one. We should at least
save one, maybe, for down the road, or two. I already got two scars. TRAVIS: Because you
came in with one. LUIS: I came with one.
ZEHRA: Right. LUIS: So now I got two.
I can take one more. SPENSER: You can take,
technically, yeah, you can take one more,
and then the one after that. TRAVIS: It's that
fourth scar. ZEHRA: I'm going to heal
your body next time. MARISHA: Would everyone
be cool if I took a stitch,
cleared my shit? LUIS: Stay up.
MARISHA: Stay up. ZEHRA: So there's two stitches
being taken and one refresh? TRAVIS: Yep.
SPENSER: Correct, and that will leave
you with-- TRAVIS: One stitch,
two refresh, three train. SPENSER: So anybody wants
to take train, can. LUIS: Train is just
an extra die, right? SPENSER: Yeah, correct. LUIS: That you just
get to use once. SPENSER: Yeah, you just
get to use it on your-- TRAVIS: We already got
Stamina Training. So we get these three guys. SPENSER: You do have
three already, so that would give you
each an additional one, which is great. TRAVIS: We'll gain an
additional circle ability on the next-- SPENSER: We'll talk
about advancement, if we want to do
that this time, or if we want to wait
until the next episode. We'll talk about
where we're at, what we're looking at, what
we learned offline on that. We'll come back next episode, and whether we do
it that episode or at the end of
the next episode, that's sort of
on us to decide. MARISHA: Anyone
want to train, or do we hold it and frontload
it for the next one? SPENSER: Frontload?
MARISHA: I think so too, yeah. SPENSER: Okay. LUIS: We did two
assignments today, so. That's why it was harder.
MARISHA: That is true. SPENSER: You did.
You did do two assignments. ZEHRA: Very true. SPENSER: Great.
ZEHRA: Oh gosh. MARISHA: Wowzers. SPENSER: With that,
I think we are finished with our session for tonight. Before we go, because of
the madness of a new campaign, a new chapter
of Candela Obscura, I want to do one more pass
around the table and have everybody
say their names and what character
they're playing so that when we
come back next time, it's all available
for everybody. So Travis,
let's start with you. TRAVIS: Yes,
I'm Travis Willingham. I'm playing Nathaniel Trapp. MARISHA: And I'm Marisha Ray,
playing Beatrix Monroe. BRENNAN: I'm
Brennan Lee Mulligan, and I'm playing
Sean Finnerty. ZEHRA: I'm Zehra Fazal, and
I'm playing Dr. Jean Basar. LUIS: I'm Luis Carazo, and
I'm playing Marion Collodi. SPENSER: My name
is Spenser Starke. I've been your Game Master.
Thanks so much. TRAVIS: Yeah, man!
(cheering)
