TALIESIN: An ancient
threat stirs beyond the edge
of what is known. Candela calls upon
the Crimson Mirror to delve into
long-buried machinations from Oldfaire's sordid past. A long-forgotten power, crawling towards
its destined ascendancy. Our investigators must
plunge into the void with only each other
to light the way. As to what they will face beyond the darkness
that lies beneath, not even Candela knows. We must hold our light
to the darkness when there is nothing left
but despair and all hope is lost. The Circle of
the Crimson Mirror: Assignment #4822,
Into The Abyss. ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ TALIESIN: This episode
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during the break. TALIESIN: The "Candela Obscura
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to dive into. Visit
darringtonpress.com/candela to learn more. LIAM: As if through
the thinnest membrane of flesh and blood, a sky burns in a deep
and vibrant vermilion, a sky burns in a deep
and vibrant vermilion, sun hanging low, pregnant with
its radiating heat over a city vast and proud, grand arches looming above
its gleaming roads. An aging man with stretched,
sallow skin stands atop a high peak, far above the walls
of this mighty place. With a frenzied eye, he calls in a strange tongue, flecks of spittle
flying from his mouth, a staff in one gaunt
and jaundiced hand, and pointing towards the
lands outside the city gates with the other. Legions of war gather
in those hills, spear and blade at the ready. Thousands, hungry
for destruction. The old man bellows. Your vision within
this scarlet haze carries you up, up above this man, higher than the crow flies. You see the masses gathered like ants before you. So many, so insignificant. Your world is crimson. You dive from aloft and soar above these armies
of men and women, and soar above these armies
of men and women, opening to them and delivering their doom. Fearsome warriors choke
and scrabble in the dust, eyes running with blood, hearts and lungs melting like rotten milk
into the earth. Mere moments, a massacre of
unthinkable scale, a massacre of
unthinkable scale, and yet, not sated. The city lies behind us. Those walls would
crumble so easily. Those walls would
crumble so easily. The mulling parasites
within fall and fade. The mulling parasites
within fall and fade. More. More! But an aging, matting voice
echoes down from above, impossibly loud, sharp words, deep meaning, and the culling halts. The tethering of power we have never known. We that are misery, that know no fear, we are bound, smothered. The sky of blood turns to a numbing dark. Malcolm, you wake from a troubled
night of sleep again, sitting up in a sweat
in a darkened bedroom tucked in one of the endless
corners of the Fourth Pharos. You sit on the edge of
your bed, breathing fast, staring at your own
troubled reflection in the dark glass of
a mirror in the room. The details of your dream quickly fade
from consciousness. In minutes, all that remains is a queasy foreboding
in your gut. You have been increasingly
on edge, Malcolm, in a way you're
not accustomed to. Standing at the mirror,
you can't help but notice that the whites of your eyes are looking
a little bloodshot. Exhaustion. You're definitely feeling
the weight of all this, Candela's business
and your family's. Tell me, as you stare
down at your own hands, one flesh and bone
and the other mechanical, what is running
through your mind? IMARI: I haven't really had, ever since we entered,
or were thrown, into the Fourth Pharos, I haven't rested at all. I wouldn't even call it rest. I would call it moments of, of blankness, questions. Is my family involved with what transpired
at that auction? Why was my older
brother there? What transpired with Edgar? Seeing Grimoria almost
beaten down to death, barely escaping
with our lives. Then all of a sudden, we have a secret
sect that appeared. Who are they?
What is their purpose? Could I have done
more to protect the people in my care, which would be my teammates? Could we have done
things differently? Because everyone's
been affected by this. I don't see where this ends. It seems like the longer
I am with Candela, the more questions I have, the more ingrained
I feel I become with uncertainty. LIAM: Your eyes burn a bit. You raise a hand,
rub at them. This has been creeping up
in the last few days. You chalk it up to
exhaustion at first, but, it's hard to wonder
if it's not more. Luckily for you all, you walked away
with your lives. After handing over the chest, Candela has been
able to verify that the remains
of Atia Griffia in their entirety have been accounted
for finally, and are now sealed away under the protections
the Fourth Pharos provides. Your lives back in Newfaire, well, we'll come
back to that. The first few days
here were bad. Grimoria, your exposure
and entwinement with the echoes
of Atia Griffia left you bedridden
your first few days here in the Fourth Pharos, giving you nothing
but time to think, your mind awash in the ripples
of all that you've survived. The masquerade, the church, the final moments of one of
the most powerful alchemists in Oldfairean civilization, your mother's charred remains
in the ruins of Westecklyn. your mother's charred remains
in the ruins of Westecklyn. In those first 48 hours
of recovering, how do we find you, Grimoria? AIMEE: Well, I think
her conscious mind is looking for answers. Part of the reason
Grimoria found herself wanting to be involved
with Candela Obscura is because she didn't
know what to do with the souls after
she was done with them. What happened?
What happens to them? She made-- She didn't
make Atia a promise, but she said to her:
I can help you. We can help you. You know, her remains
are locked away, but did they really help her? Did they work to give her
soul any rest or peace? She doesn't know. I think that causes
a lot of distress because on the one hand,
she's learned so much. She's had so many
more experiences in the last few
days than she's-- Actually, she's had
a pretty eventful life, but she's learned a lot
in the last few days, and yet not really anything
towards her original goal of finding a way to give peace to these souls that she encounters. So I think that's what
she's been grappling with in her waking mind. I think in her unconscious, in and out, drifting, has been having
a lot of flashbacks to her origin story and also how she
discovered her gift. I think that her new scar is manifesting in that way. It's not just voices anymore. Now she's having
full flashbacks, things that maybe, little details she'd
forgotten over time are now rushing back without any warning
or ceremony. And it's all becoming
untenable, too much. And it's all becoming
untenable, too much. LIAM: What a bizarre
accident or twist of fate that the Foggs, who you've come to learn
are at the bottom of the pecking order
in the Red Hand, led you to your gift. AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: Planting a ring
on your finger. A farm girl. AIMEE: Yeah. I think she has less answers than she started with, which is pretty tough. Maybe that's just part
of growing up. But I think she knows, she really can't shake
the feeling of fear that Atia must have felt, but also the directives
that she got from her, which is, the player, I can't really remember
your exact words, but I think it was something
like destroy him or talking about-- I don't know if she was
talking about the priest or a father or religion. LIAM: That voice said
to end his legacy. AIMEE: End his legacy. Right. So she's like, who am I? How can I do that
if I can't even, forget this soul, but
any soul she encounters, she can't help
them in any way. She just uses them. So I think she feels
totally unmoored and less sure about her
gift and her contribution than she did
when she started. LIAM: And yet not alone in those stretches
of time by herself in this room
in the Fourth Pharos. The whispering never ceases. At times, it's more
pronounced than others. But all those souls,
restless. AIMEE: I think there's
a fear growing in her. Maybe she's always
had this fear, but it's a real fear
that one day, whether through this
work or even worse, through her performances
or her Friday night shows that she puts on
at the Foggs' house, she will encounter the soul
of her mother or her father trapped somewhere. What will they think of her? LIAM: It's easy to feel small
in this very large world. LIAM: It's easy to feel small
in this very large world. Edgar. In these first days, your turmoil,
bottled as best it can be, you've spent your time
tending to your colleagues. Your waking hours are
spent with Dr. Aguilar tending to Grimoria and Leo, conferring with Malcolm, and using what private moments
you've allowed yourself to puzzle over an ID
you've pulled from a wallet to puzzle over an ID
you've pulled from a wallet from the man you bricked
in the Shriveline. ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: As well as the
magick channeling weapon you ripped from his hand. Eventually stuck, you shared the wallet with
Zora, your Lightkeeper, in the hopes that Candela
would see something that you could not. While you wait, tell me where your mind is
in all this. ALEXANDER: He is... stuck. He doesn't-- The last two times
we've gone out has ended in (chuckles) him taking a life when he didn't mean to. And he's-- He's never, in the 18 years since his... (chuckles) his sister left, he's never heard that sound
or seen that effect again. Then all of a sudden,
it pops up while we're dealing with
something entirely different and it's a weapon, or this is a weapon and harnessing something
that happened 18 years ago. He doesn't know what to do
with that information. And he had the person who
might know in front of him and then killed him to save one of
his colleagues. And he's trying to
wrap his head around giving up everything
he came here for to save someone's life
who's not his family, who he's been looking for. That's tearing him up
and he's not sleeping. LIAM: Whatever it was
that happened all those years ago
in the park that took
your sister from you made no sense, was random, like it fell from the sky. ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: It rended
your life to pieces. You've spent 18 years
picking those pieces back up, assembling them into
a new life at the hospital, helping as best you can. Now, all these years later, that same phenomenon somehow resurfaces and rips you open anew. ALEXANDER: Yeah. (sniffs) Yeah. LIAM: Leo Amicus, I fear
you fared no better. A good bit worse. For those first few days, you were utterly
unresponsive, lost somewhere in the
corridors of your own mind, still reliving the nightmare you've tried to
put behind you ever since The Dawn Society
came to a close ever since The Dawn Society
came to a close on that night of revelry, when a party game
ended in tragedy, and the curiously exquisite
clockwork contraption your sister bought you
for your birthday from some quixotic
curio dealer began to toll its
broken melody in a sham of a seance, gripping the heart of
every youth in that room with a terror that
ended their lives, including your sister. As you slowly resurface
from the fog here in the Pharos, what are those first
conscious thoughts running through your mind? TALIESIN: Has it
all been a dream? Am I waking up for
the first time? Am I still with my family? Am I not crumbling yet? Hmm, no. (sighs) It just isn't fair. Not just me, any of it,
to anybody, it's just not fair. I can hear the sound so much. It's so much louder now, I can hear it
over everything. I see it again, the machine, I see. I remember her face, I remember too much. (sighs) When did I start crumbling? When do you stop growing
and start crumbling? I don't trust myself. It could be worse. I'm going to put that on my
tombstone at this point. LIAM: All of us
in this life have so many desperate
questions we ask. We're lucky if we find
even a few answers. It doesn't seem fair often, but occasionally, there are. A few days later, you did know a little more than when you started
here in the Pharos. Diving into Candela's files, Zora was able to ID
our dead assailant. His wallet identified
him as William Criswell, but Candela knows that
to be a pseudonym linked to a man by
the name of Duncan Webb. Webb served under
Halen's special forces in the latter years
of the war, and in recent years,
has been linked to EONS, the Esoteric Order
of New Sciences, which working for Candela, you know is an organization looking to implement
alchemical phenomenon looking to implement
alchemical phenomenon into daily life,
business, and beyond. The other detail of note
that's worth mentioning is one that, Malcolm,
you yourself recognize, examining the weapon
Webb carried, this glove. Aside from the two lines
of alchemic sigilry running along the contours
of this gauntlet, when you peel back a flat bit of metal paneling
on the back of it, you find a line of
extremely small print etched into that metal: The letters TR, followed by a familiar
pattern of numbers. IMARI: Mm. The brand of the Trills.
LIAM: You recognize it, a string of digits used
as a numbering convention in your family's
munitions factories. IMARI: Mm. LIAM: The effects on those
killed in that church were unmistakably close
to what killed your troop in Westecklyn. While maybe farther removed, it was also reminiscent
of your sister's death all those years ago, Edgar, in the midst of a string of
disappearances in Regent Park. The war ended
three years ago, brought to a halt by an
unparalleled phenomenon that destroyed the
entirety of Westecklyn on the west side of Newfaire, where you lost your parents, where your unit
was obliterated only months prior to
the end of the war. But your sister was murdered by some version of this
technology in 1889, five years before
the conflict even began. The war machine
was hard at work long before enemy troops
set foot on Faireland soil. Three years after
the war's close, it looks to still
be going strong. Your lives back in Newfaire
are upside down. Leo, at the very least, your father is pressing
the family about you. Malcolm and Grimoria, you can only assume
powerful people are actively looking
for you now. Edgar might be the best off
in this regard, but then again, who's to say someone from
the hospital board wasn't in the
crowd that night? You don't know. So, that is where we are as we wade back in tonight. On a brighter note, I think after last game, you four have persevered
through enough adversity to have a little
circle advancement. I would love to do
a little game talk and know what small upgrade
options you are choosing, what circle ability you
are adding to your circle, deal with any scars
that have been taken, and use the last, <i>the last</i>
of your circle resources before moving forward
into our third chapter. AIMEE: Shall I begin, or should you begin?
ALEXANDER: I can go. AIMEE: Yeah, go for it. ALEXANDER: For my
advancement, I've taken two additional
points of drives and I have taken a-- ♪ Bah, bah, bah, bah ♪ What else did I do? I took a new gilded die, which is a gild in
the Move category, gilded die in Move. As, I believe, for our
thing we all took together, we took Stamina Training, so. LIAM: Which gives the circle
three gilded dice at the beginning of
every assignment. ALEXANDER: Yes. LIAM: They can just
be pulled from, one at a time, as needed, for anyone.
ALEXANDER: I also took a Refresh and a Train. LIAM: Okay. Okay, Grimoria? AIMEE: For my advancements, I added two drive points in the Nerve and
Intuition category, and I gilded my Move, just like you. (laughs) I also took the last
Stitch of the group and a Refresh. As far as my scars, I think I mentioned that, but I've now suffered a
another scar, a bleed scar, which is manifesting in the way of flashbacks of the death of her family. I think with that scar, I also have to move one
of my action points? LIAM: Yes, you pull it from one and give to another.
AIMEE: I pulled from my Read, I would imagine that
that would be confusing, flashbacks and voices, and moved it to Strike, because maybe she's become
a little violent because of it.
LIAM: Okay. IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: Understandable. Grimoria is in the lead with
scars now, with two scars. ALEXANDER: Yes.
LIAM: The only member with two scars.
IMARI: Yeah, she's so hardcore. (grunts) AIMEE: She would get a tattoo
if it wasn't nineteen-oh-whatever. IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: Do it with a knife.
AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: All right, Malcolm. IMARI: I chose to, willed
myself two additional drive, one for Cunning and one on Nerve.
LIAM: Mm-hmm. IMARI: I also gave myself another action point
for Read, because I figured we're
going to be doing some investigation. Yep, that's what I
chose to do for myself. I think that's
going to be adequate. LIAM: Okay. IMARI: We hope.
AIMEE: (laughs) I hope. LIAM: And Mr. Amicus. TALIESIN: Well, for
my upgrade, I suppose, I gave myself a action point
in Move and I gilded it because I think I'm
learning that running is a better option in general.
IMARI: (laughs) AIMEE: Yeah.
LIAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. TALIESIN: I imagine I'm
getting a little better at it. As for scars, I did
take a scar last game, and it is my-- LIAM: You're tied then,
because you started with a scar.
TALIESIN: We are tied. We're at two each.
AIMEE: Oh, right, right. LIAM: I misspoke.
AIMEE: Yeah. TALIESIN: The effect that long
periods of silence had on me where I would start
to hear the box again, now it doesn't really
need the silence anymore and it has begun to manifest
visually on occasion. Clearly, at the
end of last game, it became very apparent the sort of things
that can happen now, especially since I was
not prepared for it. So I have lost
a point of Read, because spotting lies
is now a bit harder, and I've put it into Focus because I'm attempting
to compensate by keeping track
of my reality and attempting to maintain a sense of my surroundings and what is real
and what is not. Yeah.
LIAM: Isn't it funny that someone who
is struggling so can be so stabilizing
to those around them? TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
AIMEE: Mm-hmm. TALIESIN: Then taking
a Refresh and a Train. LIAM: Okay.
IMARI: Choo-choo. TALIESIN: (laughs) ALEXANDER: That's my joke. IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: Well,
before the choo-choo-- (laughter)
LIAM: -- leaves the station, I'd like to open
this up a little bit and ask if there is anything that any of the four of you have been dying
to do or discuss? Any threads you specifically
want to pull? IMARI: I think
seeing my brother forced things back
into perspective. Malcolm's always been-- Just to give some side
story to our audience, my family was basically
not very loving. I think I talked
about that before. The men on this side tend to go into the military
aspects of the family, as the women tend
to take care of the business side
of the family. So we're one of the oldest
families in Newfaire, and we've been ingrained, I believe since
the founding of it, so we've established ourself
pretty significantly. The way that we deal with
maintaining our power is kind of like a monarchy, where we marry other families
of equal power or greater and we consolidate that, and we expand upon it. One of those
is being ingrained with the Periphery, as well as the Primacy, my dad holding power
in the parliament, as well as having some
sort of associations with EONS as well. Maybe possibly selling
weapons to them, possibly investigating, possibly advancing R&D. I have no idea, because I've been
excommunicado from the family because I did not wish
to follow along that path. LIAM: Well, you have somewhat
better of an idea. IMARI: But I have
a better idea now that I figured out that
part of our equipment was within the Ascendancy. So now that's nagging at me, and my brother being there and absconding rather quickly
before this went down is also on my head as well. He ran away pretty
quickly from the party, He ran away pretty
quickly from the party, or maybe he ran somewhere
else, I have no idea, but I'm also thinking
about that, too. I want to know what
he has to do involved, but I'm more focused
on what my father, because my father's
been the one who's always pulled
from the shadows, and what he's gotten my
older brother involved into, or maybe, does he know? This is what's on my mind. LIAM: Okay, well, the night at the masquerade, things did go
very, very south, and the Red Hand
is a lethal opponent, and the Red Hand
is a lethal opponent, but we still have access
to Leo's apartment via the Fourth Pharos. So would you seek out
your father? IMARI: (sighs) Just like Leo, I haven't thought about
even glimpsing my father, I haven't thought about
even glimpsing my father, because why battle
with a hungry tiger when you know you're
going to get eaten? Especially if you
haven't seen him, or you left in disgrace. So I don't know if me
appearing in front of him would be
the easiest scenario, I don't know if
I should ease into that, or if I should just
investigate from the shadows. I know my sister
and my mother, even though they'll
never admit it, have a soft spot for me. AIMEE: (chuckles)
IMARI: So I don't know if I would ever maybe
try to go around their route, in a secret way, and try to contact them
and ask for something. I haven't spoken to them
for, I would say, two years, or even seen them
in two years. The occasional notes have
been passed over that time, but really, if anyone's seen
with me in the family, it will be questioned and it
will not be good for them, so. LIAM: You tell me, because we'll go there
if you want to. IMARI: (sighs) I want to send a message
to my sister. Actually, I want to send
a message to my mother. I want to question-- I want to be very vague, and I want to establish a
meeting place we could potentially-- where we could
potentially meet. LIAM: It's as easy as that. Using Leo's apartment
as a staging ground, a letter is sent off
to your mother, yes? And four days after arriving at the Fourth Pharos,
and mind you, you are feeling a burning in your eyes, and now on the inside
of your ear somewhat. Temper is just
a little on the line in a way that you're
not accustomed to. But so far so good. That note is sent out, and you agree to meet in a corner of
Regent Park in 24 hours. We will move to Regent Park, where, as you wait on
the agreed-upon park bench on the southeast corner, you see, for the first time
in a great long while, your mother approaching
from down the walk. She stops 200 feet away, looking at you from afar. You can see her
catching her breath, and then picking up her pace
again and walking your way. She sits down next to you
and stares out at the green here in this area. "You look like you're not
taking care of yourself." IMARI: (laughs) Mm, Mother, of course the first thing
you would notice would be my appearance. How are you? LIAM: "Well,
we're keeping on. "Keeping the ship
steered right." IMARI: And how is Father? LIAM: "Curious, as am I. "Perhaps you'd like to
explain the other night?" IMARI: Before I explain
that, Mother, I ran into Desmond, as you
know. I'm pretty sure he's-- LIAM: "Oh, I'm well aware." IMARI: Before I explain, what
is our dealings with this auction? I know just you being here is
a dangerous thing for you, so I appreciate you, and of course I don't
need to express our need to keep this quiet,
so to speak. LIAM: "Your brother was making
an investment that night, "an investment that
has gone up in smoke. "I don't suppose you know
anything about that, do you?" IMARI: Well,
all I know is that there was some sort of unexplained
phenomenon that took place and a life was lost, and that I think it's a
little bit more complicated than you're letting
on an investment. I think multiple people
might be interested in the family's investment. Something interesting
did happen though. I did see battle, and I
had a piece of equipment fall into my hands. Equipment that was
manufactured from our R&D, our family R&D,
from the source. Would you happen to have
any insight into that? LIAM: "Come back in,
Malcolm." IMARI: I can't come back
in, Mother, come on. (laughs) LIAM: "Well, I am not going
to talk to you about this "unless you're--"
IMARI: Mother, I would disrupt the entire family if I came
back in, you know that. Father would never allow it. Desmond would never allow it. Only Adonya and you
have ever had my back, and if that, a minute
fraction of what I need to survive in that family. No, no, no, no, no. No, I'm better by myself.
I'm better alone. I'm better in the
shadows. You know that. LIAM: "If you don't come in, "I cannot keep them
off your back. "And with the mess
you are in right now-- "Son, come back in." IMARI: But, Mother, what will
happen when I come back in? How can you
guarantee my safety? Can you guarantee my
safety if I come back in? LIAM: "I can't
guarantee it--" IMARI: No.
LIAM: " -- unless you come back in." IMARI: I need to stay in the
shadows for a little bit, mother, now's not the time for that. I can't tell you exactly how
I know, but this goes deep. In the phenomena
that occurred, there's multiple
fractions at play and I think you know that, and
I think father knows that. Now, I don't know
how he's involved, but I recognize the Ascendancy
and I recognize the Hand. Now maybe, maybe
I can do something where I could scratch your
back and you can scratch mine. Is there any information
that I can give you that you might need that
you might not understand? Because I don't think Father
knows the full picture. I don't think you know
the full picture of what is transpiring here. LIAM: She turns to you and
puts a hand on your cheek. You feel a thumb
stroking your cheek. "I am going to give you three
days to think about this. "I'm serious, you'll only be
safe if you come back in. "I don't need another
word right now. "Think about it, son, think. "It would be good to have
you at our side." She gives you a light pat on
the cheek and she stands. "You know I'll
always love you. "Heartbreak aside, you've
done our family so proud. "Heartbreak aside, you've
done our family so proud. "Just wish you saw it." IMARI: I can't be what you
expect me to be, Mother. Which is a machine. I'm a human being. I'll
protect other human beings. I'm not interested
in your power. I'm not interested in your might
and that will never change. No matter if I'm by your
side or I'm in the shadows. I will always feel that way. I will never conform.
You know this. LIAM: She just stares back
at you, nods her head, holds your gaze and you see
her breath catch a little bit holds your gaze and you see
her breath catch a little bit and she turns and
begins to walk away, back down the way she came. Back in the Fourth Pharos. Anyone else have
any business to see to? ALEXANDER: I'd like
to check on-- At some point during
the time we're here, I'd like to have gone in after
Leo's awake and coherent. I'd like to have gone in after
Leo's awake and coherent. I want to just be
in check on his hand and go in and see him. How are you feeling? TALIESIN: I think
I'm feeling how you look. AIMEE: (laughs) ALEXANDER: Thanks,
that sounds awful. TALIESIN: It is.
How are you feeling? ALEXANDER: Well, both you and
Grimoria are awake again, ALEXANDER: Well, both you and
Grimoria are awake again, so that's good news. Malcolm is doing
his hero work, and I guess we all have to figure
out what our next step is. How is your hand feeling,
or hands I should say? TALIESIN: Well, they feel
better than they look. Oh dear. ALEXANDER: You definitely
did a number on them. TALIESIN: Yes, old ghosts. Very old ghosts. Did I ever tell you? I know
I told you a little bit. ALEXANDER: What? TALIESIN: That was
the room where I nearly died and my-- I hesitate to even call
it my carelessness. I don't know. I don't feel,
well, uncertain, although I know
I'm not responsible, but I don't know how
not to feel responsible for watching people die
in such a horrible manner. for watching people die
in such a horrible manner. It doesn't go away. ALEXANDER: No. That's where your... sister? TALIESIN: My sister
and others. I try not to think about it. Honestly, everyone
there. It's fascinating. There were dozens of people
at that party, quite a few. No one ever talks, not one. Not a single bloody person has ever actually told
anybody what happened there. ALEXANDER: This is why
you don't exist in the same way you used to. TALIESIN: Between
embarrassing my family and also them blaming me
for my sister's death, which I was perfectly
capable of doing on my own. I didn't need their help for that.
ALEXANDER: Mm-hmm. TALIESIN: We're not a
very forgiving family. I suppose money does things
to people. I wouldn't know. I've never not had it. I'm lucky, normally
they just bury their indiscretions,
not divorce them. I've been watching you. I watch everybody, but
I've been watching you. ALEXANDER: Yeah. TALIESIN: Thank you
for saving everybody. ALEXANDER: What else
is a doctor for? TALIESIN: Thank you for,
I know it hurt you, and I know it hurts you
what you've had to do. I know that face and you are a bad liar. ALEXANDER: Yeah,
I guess I am. TALIESIN: I know it doesn't
help, but I am grateful. ALEXANDER: I appreciate
the appreciation. TALIESIN: Your sister, I know
we've spoken a little bit about it, but much less than mine. ALEXANDER: Yes, she's... that was her... I guess I'm going to take it
as a way of saying goodbye. That thing, that item, the firearm I brought back. I don't know why or how, but it makes the same noise
and causes the same effect as I heard the day
she disappeared. TALIESIN: And we find it--
ALEXANDER: On those people. TALIESIN: In the place where
everything happened to me? ALEXANDER: These are-- When she left, I don't
remember it happening, but I guess she
tried to hold on and there's 15
of them in total. Here and here and here
and all down. No one believes me
or believed me. I woke up on
the steps of my house and was taken to the hospital
with all these burns. Coincidentally the same shape
and size as my sister's hands. Everyone thought
I was in shock. No one cared to come up
with a rational explanation as to why I had a bunch of
hand prints all over me. I tried to explain what
I saw, no one believed me. And that was 18 years ago. But it put me here eventually,
thanks to Decklan, who believed me
for the first time. And now I just get to
carry these around, and then I get to
ruin the chance of me finding out who did it. TALIESIN: Well,
clearly you're mad. It's perfectly
rational explanation, all of that.
ALEXANDER: (laughs) I guess so. TALIESIN: Yeah, I woke
up institutionalized. ALEXANDER: Great. TALIESIN: Told
a couple people, immediately learned that
was a terrible idea. ALEXANDER: Mm-hmm.
TALIESIN: Mm. You deserve answers. It's not fair. ALEXANDER: No, it's not. TALIESIN: It's good to say that
out loud on occasion, I find, even if we know it. ALEXANDER: Yes, I haven't-- I haven't talked
about it in 18 years. (laughs)
TALIESIN: Mm. It's been 23 years
since mine. The only person
I've ever actually told the whole story to is
the young one, Grimoria. Wrong place, wrong time. ALEXANDER: Yeah.
TALIESIN: She knows all of my secrets. She could get me
in such trouble. ALEXANDER: Well, I
guess it's a good thing she keeps getting
hurt the worst. If we lose her, then
no one has your secrets. TALIESIN: That's very fair, but, hmm. I will say to the race
to the inevitable. ALEXANDER: (laughs) See who gets there first. LIAM: It's a cold comfort
to you both, learning that you have
walked side by side for months, over a year, and you are so similar. You share so much in common and never knew
until this moment. Hello, Grimoria. AIMEE: I think panic
is rising in her as I sit in
the room by myself and against better judgment, I scribble a note
to the Foggs and I say, "Can I come home?" LIAM: Do you give
a return address? AIMEE: I put the
coffee shop downstairs. LIAM: Got it. So that message gets
sent out to the Foggs, and a day goes by and
there's no response. On the second day,
you visit Leo in The Endless Well
down below, the coffee shop, and a message
has been left for you. It simply says,
"Where and when?" AIMEE: From the Foggs?
LIAM: Mm-hmm. AIMEE: I think I go
upstairs to Leo. I don't understand
the response and the only person I can
really talk it out with, who knows
my whole story is Leo, so I show it to you. TALIESIN: Oh, dear. I don't think this was
a wise move, dear. AIMEE: I have
nowhere else to go. TALIESIN: Nonsense,
absolute nonsense. You can stay here
for as long as you like. AIMEE: I have to
make a living. TALIESIN: Well-- Why don't we,
and I'm well aware that every time
this conversation happens, it never goes well. (sighs) Why don't we just take a breather,
take a month, and find something else,
find anything else. Those people are going to-- I find their message
to you unsettling. I don't trust them.
I trust them less now. They're not good people. You have so much time and so much potential than to (sighs) let it break on those rocks
over and over again. AIMEE: Yeah. It's difficult because... they're the only parents,
for better or worse, that I've had
in the last few years. And I feel like
I owe them something. But I-- Maybe I don't. I do think it's clear I'm not welcome back. In the way that
I'd like to be. TALIESIN: I, um-- LIAM: You have a sudden
flash of a memory from when you were eight, sitting out on
the porch in the sun. Sitting in your mother's lap. Your father waving
a toy in front of you, and you laughing and laughing and never feeling more safe
than in that moment. Your father could
make you laugh. It passes. AIMEE: It's funny because
when I lost my parents, I was forced to grow up, and now I feel like
I'm not getting younger. and now I feel like
I'm not getting younger. TALIESIN: Mm. I promise you that feeling
will go away. AIMEE: (chuckles) TALIESIN: Oh. AIMEE: Thank you
for your hospitality and I promise
I won't stay long. TALIESIN: Stay literally
as long as you like. And if you get... tempted to go back to those
terrible, terrible people, as somebody who was raised
by terrible, terrible people. I understand the... perverse need. You have something, though. You have real parents. Even if they're gone. You should (sighs) think about what
they would want for you. AIMEE: Oh. I think they wouldn't
recognize me if they saw me. TALIESIN: Well, that's
what children do. I think they would be
impressed, though. AIMEE: Thank you. TALIESIN: What was his name? Felipe? AIMEE: Yes.
(chuckling) TALIESIN: Look at that,
it's good to be remembered. AIMEE: (chuckles) Yeah. TALIESIN: So, rest. I'll talk to Charley to
make sure we pay attention to see if they come
snooping around. AIMEE: Thank you, and thank you
for your patience. TALIESIN: We've all
been young. You are well ahead of
the curve, believe me. ALEXANDER: If I might
knock to come in, from the Fourth Pharos. TALIESIN: Oh, it's crazy. All right, I'm opening the-- I'm looking into
the mirror, walking back and flinging it open
with some drama. ALEXANDER: Considering
this is your home, I do like to knock
before I enter. TALIESIN: This is why I know
it's crazy Uncle Edgar. Come on in. ALEXANDER: You make it
difficult to find you when I need to do
your checkups. AIMEE: Oh, sorry. I feel okay, physically. ALEXANDER: I'm sure you do. TALIESIN: She'll be staying
here for the duration, so she'll be much
easier to find. ALEXANDER: How are you doing?
How are you feeling? After waking up. AIMEE: Um. ALEXANDER: Now that you've
had a little time to orient yourself. AIMEE: Well,
I physically fine. ALEXANDER: Right. All the other things? AIMEE: Well, not great, but I don't think any of us
are doing that great. LIAM: I think I would
drop in here that Malcolm, you are returning
from your visit with your mother in the park. Down the hall and
are heard in here. Malcolm joins you here
in Leo's apartment. TALIESIN: Oh, I know
that knock. That's a very heavy hand,
excuse me. IMARI: Gents and lady. TALIESIN: Uncle Malcolm. ALEXANDER: How is
the espionage going? IMARI: Oh well, you know. As swimmingly as possible. Grimoria. Edgar, did you make her cry? AIMEE: No.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, that's what I do. TALIESIN: That was me. LIAM: All of you,
the three of you, can't help but note
the bloodshot appearance of especially
Malcolm's left eye. But both, really. ALEXANDER: Now that
I have you all here, may as well do all
the checkups at once. How are you feeling? IMARI: Well, I'm a
little run-down, Edgar. ALEXANDER: Really?
IMARI: Yes. ALEXANDER: Um, any... new sensations, side effects,
things with the eyes, or the breathing
or the lungs? Or anything that
could've been infused with said powder that
was blown in your face? IMARI: I swallowed
that fucking powder. TALIESIN: (chuckles) ALEXANDER: Right. IMARI: I just keep
thinking about it. I have the worst pain
in my left eye right now. ALEXANDER: Mm-hmm. AIMEE: Do we have
a sample of the powder? ALEXANDER: If
I remember correctly, you did have a bag of it. TALIESIN: I may have gotten
rid of that bag. LIAM: I think it was handed
over at the Fourth Pharos and it was examined, yes. ALEXANDER: We do. IMARI: I have
a burning in my head. At first, I thought maybe I
was coming down with something or maybe it was the seasons
or what have you. But it's intensifying. ALEXANDER: Well,
you are in luck. I can't help you. IMARI: Oh. ALEXANDER: This is not
the kind of doctor I am. But I'm sure someone in
the Fourth Pharos can assist. I will do my best to help
anyway I can. IMARI: Sure. ALEXANDER: But I have no idea
what's going on with you. I have no idea what's
going on with you. Or as much as
I would like to. I have no idea what's
going on with me or you. And now,
what are we going to do? This is the bigger question. TALIESIN: I'm
deeply worried now: the doctor has gotten snarky. I'm going to go make
some lunch for everybody, excuse me. Figure it out, you all. IMARI: I could do for
a glass of scarlet, that's for damn sure. TALIESIN: Done and done. ALEXANDER: That will
help everything. LIAM: After this string
of difficult days, grappling with your
situations and yourselves. You made me tear up,
Taliesin Jaffe. TALIESIN: Just so you know,
I don't a role play for this, but I am just
securing my ass. I talked to my solicitor. I'm making sure that I have
extra layers of protection if my parents decide
to get snippy. I'm moving everything deeper
into a fucking web. LIAM: Right.
Shuffling things around? TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
There we are. LIAM: A moment does
come where each of you in your reflection,
are brought word that Zora wishes to gather. An older gentleman, Kahn, with a waxed
and manicured beard finds each of you one by one
within the Fourth Pharos. He's wearing a suit and
a dark red fez on his head. He gathers you all
and quietly leads you down hallways
you're not certain that you have
traveled here before. Until, that is,
he takes a turn up an alcove set of stairs that deposits you,
for the first time, in the seemingly endless
vault of the Fourth Pharos. You gaze on rows and rows
of cages. Stretching out before you
like unending bookshelves in some impossible library. Endless aisles storing,
as Kahn tells you, every dangerous phenomenon
Candela has ever secured. For centuries. High above it all,
a massive astrolabe. The devices that keep
the Fourth Pharos safe and still within the Flare. A gigantic one gleams down over the entirety
of this vault, spinning in a perpetual
rotation that maintains everything you see before you. Leo, you hear the hum of it. Massive bands
of metal spinning. Ticking away. Ceaselessly. Bigger than any clock
you've ever seen. The guide says,
"This way, please. "Down this aisle." You begin to walk down
one long path between rows and rows
of cages. As you get
between them, you see a gold to yellow shimmer
on the bars. You pass by one cage, some of
them have objects in them, but some have people. One has what looks like
an overgrown tree inside of it with roots and branches
wrapping around the bars of it and you see
what looks like a man with the complexion the same
texture and color as the wood. Melded into it. And you hear "(groaning creak)" as he turns and
watches you pass. A little further down is a cage with glass
lining the inside of it. Grimoria, when you get close, a little girl about 12 years old--
AIMEE: (startles) LIAM: -- swims up
to the glass. IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: With her face pressed,
she wears a dress, soggy wet. She spins around to
put her back there, but another face appears
and stares at you. And rolls and another,
and rolls. Almost like when
you go to the zoo and some of the sea life
plays with the kids watching. She traces her way,
or their way, along the glass
until you walk on. You see a- not human-
severed head resting on a pillow on
a small wooden table at the center of one cage. Its eyes just follow you
as you walk by. Eventually, he leads you down where you take a left, passing through multiple
rows of these aisles. You pass through an archway on the outer edges
of the vault and descend down
a new set of stairs into a new hallway. Eventually, he points to
a door in the distance which looks almost completely
upside down to you. In this skewed twist
that happens so often in the Fourth Pharos. But as you progress,
the hallway seems to shift. Or maybe it's you
that shifts in place. You find yourself standing
outside of a single door with Kahn in his fez outstretching his hand. ALEXANDER: I don't think
I'm ever going to get used to the way this place works. LIAM: You open the door
and find Zora in a small,
but warmly lit room sitting in a comfortable,
red loveseat next to a low table set for tea. There's a desk
off to the side, a few stacks of files
spread out a bit on it. In one corner,
a violin rests on a table and a huge book lies open,
set on an ornate lectern and a huge book lies open,
set on an ornate lectern for easy reference. You notice, immediately, the
unmistakable shine of tears in Zora's eyes as
she glances at you all and gestures for you to sit. "I'm so sorry. "Do sit, please. (sniffles) "I had them bring in some tea. "Sit, sit." ALEXANDER: Is everything
all right? IMARI: What's wrong, Zora? TALIESIN: How's Decklan? LIAM: Her eyes
well up immediately. "Well, you see, Decklan
passed away in the night." IMARI: Oh. Oh no. LIAM: "He was stable for
a while, but... "things started to decline. "He was not alone
when he went, "Dr. Aguilar
was there, Edgar. "(sighs) "Aguilar's not certain
what happened, really. "We've never seen
anything like this." She just stops herself
and hangs on you, Malcolm. She just stops herself
and hangs on you, Malcolm. IMARI: You don't even
have to say it. I know where this is going. (sighs) LIAM: "We have-- "As I told you, we'd been
waiting for Decklan's circle "to return from their work. "And they haven't. "They were a few days
behind schedule, "that day you
arrived on Serenity. "I was anxious
at the time, now "we fear the worst.
I don't... "know if it's connected
or not, but." AIMEE: Where were
they supposed to be? LIAM: "Honestly, with all
that you have laden "on your shoulders
already, I-- "I hate even troubling
you with any of this." AIMEE: Well, I'm out
of a job now, so. IMARI: Oh, Zora. LIAM: "(tearful sniffle)" IMARI: You know,
we're all family and we're going to do
what we need to do. LIAM: "It has been a spell
of weeks, I'll tell you. "Like everything
is coming undone. "(sniffs) Um. "Decklan's circle,
since you asked, "the Circle of the Wyrm. "Let me back up, I suppose. "For decades now, Candela
has been chasing a myth "or a fairytale, depending
on your point of view. "Incidental references
that have been found "in a few disparate texts "about some sort of
an ancient Oldfairen vault "dating back before
the fall of the empire, "possibly built by "Emperor Calinus,
at the time." Emperor Calinus,
a name that has come up at this table before. Emperor Calinus, a name
known to anyone who studies any level of history of this place, of Oldfaire. The last reigning emperor
before the end. "Before the ocean
sundered two millennia ago. "Housing things
of terrible power, "say these
disparate mentions. "The texts are scarce,
but there has been a concern "within Candela for a
great while that it was real. "And if real, that
someone with ill intent "would one day find it. "And that finally happened. "Fortunately, it was Candela
Obscura that discovered it. "For little over a year,
the Circle of the Wyrm "has slowly been sifting
through that place. "A handful of dangerous objects
have already been extracted "and are here now, contained. "Decklan and his circle
were making regular trips "into the depths
for this purpose, "always reporting back
within set timeframes. "Dependently so. "Until now. (sniffs) "Dear, I fear they're
either trapped or worse. "Um. "(sighs) "I hate myself for
proposing this. "But I know it is difficult
for you all to walk "through the streets
of Newfaire, "right now,
there are too many unknowns "and it is too dangerous. "But perhaps you can
still fill a purpose." She takes a deep breath. Finding the will to continue. "Your new assignment, "is to find
the Circle of the Wyrm. "Rescue them, if they
are able to be rescued. "And short of that, "figure out what
happened to Decklan. "And you, dear. "Um. "Right, logistics. "I'm sorry. "None of you
have said a word. "Where are your heads at?" AIMEE: I didn't really
study much history. But I'm assuming that this
vault is somewhere deep in... But I'm assuming that this
vault is somewhere deep in... where? LIAM: "Well, yes, it is
quite deep in Oldfaire. "However, we've done a good
deal to mark the way there. "However, we've done a good
deal to mark the way there. "The Circle of the Wyrm
has been traveling there "for over a year." AIMEE: Via ship? LIAM: "I'm sorry?"
AIMEE: Via ocean ship? LIAM: You know, all of you know
that Oldfaire, the ancient city that Newfaire
is built upon the bones of-- AIMEE: Is underneath. Yeah.
LIAM: -- is down below the modern city streets.
AIMEE: Right, right, right. Okay. LIAM: So it means-- And, again, I know
we're all players joining for the first time, but as the Circle of
the Crimson Mirror, you guys actually have--
AIMEE: Been there? LIAM: -- been in a little. It's not really
your circle's-- TALIESIN: Purview.
LIAM: -- specialty, purview, correct.
AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. LIAM: You have been
more about dealing with issues topside-- AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: -- and investigations of phenomenon in
and out of the city. Your Lightkeeper-- Sometimes members of circles
do move from one to another, like Decklan,
for different reasons, but a Lightkeeper will have
any number of circles going at once. AIMEE: Do we know, have you mentioned
why Decklan broke apart from the Circle of the Wyrm? Was he on a sabbatical, or we just don't know
how he got separated? LIAM: What she told
you originally when you were on
the ship at sea was that he came back
from assignment. She was very thin
on details then, but said that he had
come back from assignment and was a little haggard and was looking for
some time off or away-- AIMEE: Got it.
LIAM: -- and rekindling or reconnecting
with his family. IMARI: It now makes
sense, though, why he would have time, especially if he was infected with whatever's infecting me. ALEXANDER: Well, I do
have a question in that. When you did send
us to Serenity, you stated that he-- Yeah, forgive me if
I'm getting this wrong, but he didn't come back, he just left a note for you saying he was going
to visit his family. LIAM: "Yes, and I didn't
think anything of it." ALEXANDER: Right. But he never actually, or at least no one
saw him come back to the Fourth Pharos. LIAM: "Well, no. He did,
and I was getting to that. "I'm not sending you
down there blind. "You see, a single member
of that circle "is actually accounted for." AIMEE: Hmm. LIAM: "Working at Briarbank
College the last month. "Her name is
Alessandra Gregory, "Professor Alessandra
Gregory. "She's a historian there. "For the last month, she's
been split off from the group "doing research related
to their work "in Briarbank,
The Antiquarian, "here in the halls
of the Pharos. "She did see him briefly "before he set
out for Serenity." IMARI: Is there
a way that I can actually talk to this woman? Well, I have a suspicion, well, I'm pretty certain
that whatever Decklan had when we got to him,
it was infecting him. I'm pretty sure he was
infected by the time he came and visited
the Fourth Pharos. ALEXANDER: How do you
know that? IMARI: Well, he
came from below with the Circle of the Wyrm, and I'm assuming
what he had-- ALEXANDER: What he had seemed--
IMARI: -- infected him. ALEXANDER: There are a lot
of assumptions in this. IMARI: Well, I was
blown in the face with a white substance.
ALEXANDER: Yeah. IMARI: A white substance
that he was covered in. He had a translucent growth on his face. Now I'm not sure,
this is a hypothesis, but I'm pretty sure
that's all connected, the dust that was
blown in his face, the dust that was attempted to
blow in other people's face, and what was blown
in my face. LIAM: Candela and Aguilar,
Dr. Aguilar have confirmed-- ALEXANDER: Yeah.
LIAM: -- that the growth on his face and the
pulverized powder that was thrown
in your face, blown in your face, they do share the
same composition. ALEXANDER: Yes.
LIAM: They're just in a different form. IMARI: Mm. AIMEE: Is there anything
of Decklan's, a personal item
I can maybe try to glean some
information from? TALIESIN: Yes. LIAM: "Well, "I am going to send you "to Professor Gregory. "She will act as your guide. "She's been down countless
times with Decklan, "like they all have. "(sighs) "She's rightfully hesitant "to make the trip on her own. "It is always-- "It's never an easy
thing to go down. "But again, they have been
there many times before. "They have marked
their own path. "They go down and come
back like clockwork. "For over a year they've
been doing this." She goes over to
her desks, though, and rifles around, and she comes over
to you with a chain with a simple little
medallion on it and there is the image
of a lighthouse on it. AIMEE: Mm. LIAM: "I gave this
to Mr. Murphy "when he was young, "when we were in
a circle together. "Several years ago,
he returned it to me "with a very nice letter
as a birthday present. "I'd forgotten it existed,
to be honest. "It was just a trinket. "But I've always
held onto it. I'm-- "I've always been very
fond of the boy." AIMEE: It's really hard
to lose people we love before their time. Is there anything
Grimoria can feel, anything spiritual or
anything Decklan would've, I don't know, imbued? LIAM: She presses it
into your palm. Why don't you make
a Sense roll for me? AIMEE: Great. Ah! That's a good roll.
IMARI: Three dice, baby. AIMEE: That one's
a good one for me. Five. LIAM: Five? You close your eyes, and again, your
work at the Foggs', 95% of the time it is fakery. AIMEE: Yeah.
LIAM: But every once in a while, you hold
something in your hand and are awash with feelings, with memories, with thought. You begin to see Decklan with people you don't know, maybe in Hallowharbor, certainly on docks somewhere, pointing off
towards the sea-- AIMEE: Hmm.
LIAM: -- and laughing with them. AIMEE: Do I recognize the dock
as a place I've been before, or is it the docks of Newfaire?
LIAM: It looks similar to the docks where
you left from. AIMEE: Well, I don't really
know what this means, but it seems like
he was happy and looking forward
to going home. I mean, I think I
read that correctly. I could be wrong. (laughs)
IMARI: (laughs) TALIESIN: We do what we can
with what we're given. ALEXANDER: Until further
evidence comes about, I just want to keep
it in everybody's mind that the powder and
what is affecting you and what affected Decklan does not necessarily, or is not necessarily
linked to this. We only experienced
the powder and Decklan's infection
while on Serenity. We have no evidence
that it was down there. Just playing
devil's advocate. AIMEE: He didn't seem
sick on the dock where I just saw him, but-- ALEXANDER: He did seem?
AIMEE: Did not. He seemed happy, laughing. ALEXANDER: Exactly my point. IMARI: Here's one thing. Sisters were all possessed, killed their own mother. ALEXANDER: Only
on the island. IMARI: Only on the island, but they were
strangely attached to that bag of powder. Then we saw those two
atop with their animals. It seemed like we were
surveyed by the whole town. ALEXANDER: On the island.
IMARI: On the island. Now, maybe he found something or maybe he was possessed
when he went to the island. ALEXANDER: I don't think
it's a possession, I think it's an effect
of this powder. IMARI: Well, I use possession
as a very loosely base, but this powder obviously
causes some sort of change into your personality.
ALEXANDER: Right. IMARI: Right?
ALEXANDER: I'm just asking to keep an open mind that the powder might not
necessarily be connected to his or his
circle's disappearance. TALIESIN: It could've come
directly from the island. ALEXANDER: Yes.
TALIESIN: But we should probably keep an eye out for it.
ALEXANDER: Yes, absolutely! I'm just--
IMARI: It could be either. And I agree with you. I'm simply saying they
were investigating Oldfaire and then he took a break and then he went
back to his island. Wherein, people in the island
were under some sort of influence from
whatever was there. We don't know. But his mother
was killed by his sisters. We don't know. But his mother
was killed by his sisters. ALEXANDER: Please, I remember
what happened. IMARI: He was in the cone, covered with the substance. ALEXANDER: Yes, no, we were all there.
AIMEE: Well, I think we can ask Professor Gregory
if they came across-- ALEXANDER: Yes, exactly. AIMEE: -- anything
down there. IMARI: My fear is that
whatever's going on, number one, I don't want
to be affected by it. Number two, if we're
going on this mission, I don't know how long I have, if I have any kind of time, if there's any
progression going on or if it's something secondary
that we don't know about. But there's a lot
of variables at play. ALEXANDER: Yes, there are. I'm keenly aware of how wrong
I was about the island. You don't have to remind me. But, asking the good doctor when we meet her about the
powder is exactly my point. Asking where or if she
knows where it came from. If she's never
heard about it, then it's a completely
separate issue that we will still
have to deal with because, obviously,
you are affected and you are getting worse. LIAM: "And she is ready for
you whenever you are. "I'm not sending you
now, of course, "but she's prepared
to go and lead you." AIMEE: I'm ready to go. IMARI: Well, there's
nothing on my plate. It's been such
a delightful place to have a good
old tea time at, by the way, I might add. TALIESIN: Decklan's body. ALEXANDER: Yes. TALIESIN: Where's it
going to be interred? Is he going to be in one
of those delightful cages that we passed on the way in? IMARI: Oh, don't even
say such a thing. TALIESIN: No, I want to know. ALEXANDER: I want to know. LIAM: "You are correct,
Mr. Amicus." IMARI: Oh. TALIESIN: Makes sense.
IMARI: How could we let him stay in those-- Who would let him stay there? ALEXANDER: Because
he's dangerous and we don't understand
what it is. TALIESIN: Out of
idle curiosity, how often does
a circle member end up in that little menagerie? IMARI: Are they
all circle members? LIAM: "No, no, no. "But it does happen." TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. I don't mean to-- LIAM: "The work is dangerous, "and sometimes "our members are touched. "I wasn't going to
bring this up, "but it isn't pretty. "The body has undergone
rapid decomposition in hours. "The body has undergone
rapid decomposition in hours. "I've never seen
anything like it." TALIESIN: We're going to
need to see it. ALEXANDER: Yes. TALIESIN: You know
we need to see it. LIAM: She stands and walks
over to the shelves next to her desk and pulls out a drawer and
pulls a sideways bottle of brown liquor out of it and walks back to the table and pours a little
bit into her teacup, standing, and then
downs the tea. "All right, well,
now is the time, then." ALEXANDER: You don't have
to if you don't want to. LIAM: "Of course
I do, darling. "Come." You guys wind your way
through the paths of the Fourth Pharos and arrive back to that
same isolation room with a large, round window sealing off Decklan's body from your viewing. The sheet has been
removed at this point and Decklan's body is just on
a bare mattress on this bed. There aren't many
features to look at. His head has caved in to a degree, crusted over with
mottled white scabbing crusted over with
mottled white scabbing and has sunken in
almost like fruit left to rot for
too many days. You can see, Dr. Lycoris, that that moves down the neck and into the chest, which is sunken in partially, not to the same degree
there as well. TALIESIN: (suppressed gag) IMARI: Oh. ALEXANDER: Is the effect and the decomposition located to areas that specifically
would've been infected by inhaling a powder, i.e.,
the face, neck, and lungs? LIAM: Sure.
Make a Focus roll. TALIESIN: Definitely
not assisting. ALEXANDER: Candela. LIAM: Candela. (laughs)
IMARI: Oh yes! LIAM: It lives. IMARI: We love those rolls. TALIESIN: (laughs) LIAM: Yes, you can tell that
it is, from the nature of it, it follows the line of the breathing
passages in the nose-- ALEXANDER: And from there--
LIAM: -- throat and lungs. ALEXANDER: Checking
extremities, fingers, toes, is any decomposition
happening there, apart from normal form? LIAM: There is some
discoloration that travels beyond the worst of it, but it does seem to mostly be
centered in those places. ALEXANDER: Okay. Well. (sighs) I undo my kit, take a vial, and I'm going to
take some scrapings. LIAM: "Hold." She leaves for a second and comes back
with Dr. Aguilar who comes in with a mask on and an apron,
carrying the same for you, and holds them out for
you before entering. ALEXANDER: Thank you. I suit up. And you--
Please stay outside. LIAM: Dr. Aguilar
just stares at you. He looks at you after
the to-do he made and looks at
Murphy's ruin and and looks at
Murphy's ruin and deflates a little bit and walks in with you. ALEXANDER: I go in and
collect some samples so that I can
look at them later and try and
figure out something. LIAM: Okay. ALEXANDER: Doctor, I'm sure you noticed
the same thing I did, that it appears to be the
decomposition is located directly to areas closest to the breathing passages
and lungs. LIAM: "Yes. "He was stable for a week "and the vitals began to drop "and his breathing
became cumbersome. "In the middle of the night,
they stopped outright, and-- "I've never seen anything
like it, Lycoris." ALEXANDER: Neither have I. LIAM: "Days! "This should take days for
other comparable conditions." ALEXANDER: Well, upon just
this short glance I've had, ALEXANDER: Well, upon just
this short glance I've had, my initial idea, or at least a place
to start is that this is possibly some sort of dried, bleed-infused fungus that then, when blown
into the nasal passages, coats the interior
and then takes root and enhanced decomposition. LIAM: "Yes, the little
sachet of powder "that you brought
does seem to be "almost like it
was harvested--" ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: "From Mr. Murphy
or someone similar." LIAM: "From Mr. Murphy
or someone similar." ALEXANDER: (sighs)
I don't know. It will have to be
upon further inspection. Obviously, we have someone
else we need to look out for. LIAM: "I understand you may
be going into Oldfaire." ALEXANDER: Yes. We'll also try and ascertain whether or not the powder
came from Oldfaire or from the island
of Serenity, as we only encountered
it on the island. Not sure if it came
from Oldfaire. LIAM: "Well, I wish you luck. "We may all be carrying
it at this point, "I suppose."
ALEXANDER: Yes. It's possible. Don't know how much it
dispersed into the atmosphere when it was blown into
Mr. Trills' face. LIAM: "Well--"
ALEXANDER: Or how much is coming off the body. LIAM: "Best of luck." ALEXANDER: Thank you, doctor. And thank you for--
LIAM: "Please be safe, "all of you." ALEXANDER: Thank you for
watching out for him and watching over him
when he passed. LIAM: "It is
our line of work." ALEXANDER: Yes. I'll exit the room. LIAM: Okay. I will slide us
through Leo's apartment into the waking world, unless anyone has a-- ALEXANDER: I do have
one thing to do. LIAM: Yeah. ALEXANDER: As we leave
and we're walking through the Fourth Pharos,
leaving, I want to get your attention and have us hang
back a little bit. AIMEE: Okay. ALEXANDER: A lot of things
have happened to you in the last couple of weeks. I know that, I know you and Leo were
very close, and you-- I guess what
I'm trying to say is that I may not
show it as much, but I also care
about you very much and I want you to be safe. AIMEE: Thank you. ALEXANDER: I'm bringing
this up for a reason. I know we all trust Malcolm and he is part of our circle. I don't know the effects
of this powder and what it might do
to his mental state or to his decision making. So when we go into Oldfaire, I need you to just
have your eyes open. AIMEE: Yes. ALEXANDER: I need you
to not-- If he starts
acting irrationally, do not go near him. AIMEE: Okay.
ALEXANDER: Because I don't know what he will do, considering the state
we found Decklan in. I don't know what affects
proceed that state. AIMEE: I understand.
Thank you. ALEXANDER: So just... Don't be in front this time. AIMEE: (scoffs) Well, I'll try not to be. ALEXANDER: Thank you. IMARI: Can we get this show
on the road or what, guys? AIMEE: Yes.
IMARI: Let's do this. AIMEE: Okay.
ALEXANDER: Yes, sir. LIAM: All right. Circle of the Crimson Mirror, you wind your way out of the Fourth Pharos and end up briefly
back in Leo's flat, not knowing what dangers lay in wait. The four of you hop
into a carriage, a horse-drawn carriage, for the most anonymous
path to the Varnish, The western part of
the Varnish, which is where Zora
has sent you guys. She's given you an address. 111 Waverly on the
west side of the Varnish along the Stentorian River. Eventually,
you guys stand in front of a brownstone building,
somewhat run down in this section of
the Varnish. It is midday, bright sun. You're just off
of a main thoroughfare and you can see
hundreds of people going about their day on your way here, and
now off in the distance, up the block. But you head up the stairs, business at hand, knock on the door, and you hear through it, sound like footsteps
coming down some stairs. The door opens,
and you see a woman standing before you in her early forties with sandy blonde hair, straight and pulled back
into a very neat ponytail. She's wearing a tan jacket or coat that looks
like it is durable, and some darker colored
slacks and boots that she's wearing. "Hello. "I'm Alessandra. "I've been expecting you?" ALEXANDER: Yes.
IMARI: Ma'am. ALEXANDER: Leo, Malcolm. Grimoria.
LIAM: "Grimoria. "You must be, and that
would make you Edgar." ALEXANDER: Yes. LIAM: "Well, come in.
Come in. "Let's not talk
out here on the stoop." She closes the door
behind you and she begins to walk up
a set of stairs, up this thin brownstone that looked like it was
about four stories tall from the outside. It looked four stories tall
from the outside. You follow her up
and she leads you past a couple of doorways
into an open sitting room or a salon that is scattered with notes and
scraps of paper, maps pinned to the wall,
and charts. There are sketches
on the wall, really well done, of different objects
or artifacts. There's one of a mask that is halfway between
an oval and a triangle with large round eyes and lines going down that
read like strange pupils, and lines going down that
read like strange pupils, no mouth, and little slits
where the nose would be. There's another picture of what almost looks
like a snake, but it is really
like a string of interconnected
rhombic dodecahedrons, which are, you might
know as a d12, except these look larger and it looks intricately
carved in this drawing, and they trail out
from behind a much larger
spherical shape, and on the other end,
a knife is tied. It's very bizarre,
the things on the wall. So they're the first
that catch your eye. "Come in. Sorry.
I know it's mess." ALEXANDER: It's fine. LIAM: "It's always a mess. "I'm a bit of a mess." ALEXANDER: (chuckles) LIAM: "Any word on Decklan?" AIMEE: Oh. TALIESIN: Gone.
IMARI: Oh. LIAM: "What?" IMARI: Unfortunately,
he passed. TALIESIN: Gone.
LIAM: "No." TALIESIN and ALEXANDER: Yes. ALEXANDER: I'm sorry that we
were the ones to tell you. He passed last night. TALIESIN: Sacrificed upon
the altar of the future, as we all might be
in the next 24 hours. Sorry.
The tea was very bitter. ALEXANDER: I apologize that
we're the ones telling you. LIAM: "Will you excuse me
a minute?" ALEXANDER: Yes. IMARI: Way to let
her down slowly. LIAM: She leaves, and
you hear her walking just down to another room,
and a door shut. You look around the room
a little bit more in this awkward silence
while she's gone. Again, there's
tables of notes and bits of gear
hanging around, a couple of lengths
of rope in one corner and packs, traveling packs
and sets of boots. There's also, you spot
over in the corner, something you haven't
seen in over a year. You spot this green,
worn leather journal that you recognize
as Decklan's, sitting on a stack of papers. AIMEE: Is it appropriate
to pick it up? LIAM: I mean, can you
as a player pick it up? AIMEE: Yes.
LIAM: For suresies. AIMEE: I'd like to
pick it up and maybe-- Well, first, I think
she would try to see if she could Sense anything. You know, this is
what she does. Shall I try? LIAM: Sure. AIMEE: Great. I think at first, she's going
to try to Sense something on the spiritual realm. LIAM: Mm-hmm. AIMEE: Candela on my gilded! LIAM: Candela.
AIMEE: Yes. IMARI: Damn, that's--
AIMEE: Damn it, I should have-- Yeah. IMARI: Gilded Candela,
the best. (chef's kiss) TALIESIN: Yeah.
(laughter) IMARI: Candela gold, baby! AIMEE: Candela gold,
(laughs) TALIESIN: There we are. LIAM: You turn your back
to the group and hold this journal
in your hands and look down at all
the notes on the table, and you can see they're in
Decklan's hand as well. You squeeze it as tightly
as you can in your hand. You want to know
something so badly. You're about to put it down and you just feel
an overwhelming presence. Not a memory. AIMEE: Mm. LIAM: Just a notion, a gut feeling. Stay away. Stay away. You hear Alessandra, Professor
Gregory, coming back, and as you turn,
holding the journal, a photograph falls out and lands on the ground,
and you look down at your feet and you see a picture
of yourself, all of you and Decklan leaning against
a truck in a grassy field with a farmhouse on a hill in the distance behind it. You look very nervous
in the photo. You're very serious. Malcolm's leaning back
against the truck, his eyes are closed and
he's just bathing in the sun, and Leo is side eyeing him and Decklan is
off to the side, just smiling at
the lot of you. AIMEE: Excuse me for
looking through these things, Professor Gregory,
especially after giving you such terrible news in
such a terrible way. LIAM: "He was
with you first." AIMEE: Yes, I--
ALEXANDER: Yes. AIMEE: I was just wondering, why do you have
all of his things? Why do you have this journal? LIAM: "We all practically
lived here." AIMEE: Oh. LIAM: "We do, for different
stretches of time." AIMEE: I see. LIAM: "There's a lot of his,
some of his clothes are here." AIMEE: I know that, Zora
mentioned that you saw him before he left for home and I was just wondering
what he seemed like, what his mindset was, and did he seem like himself? LIAM: "He did. He-- "He was only in for
about a half hour. "I've not been with the group
for five or six weeks. "I have been trying
to figure that out." She points to a drawing
of this large conch shell sketch, and there appears to be some
sort of a gemstone or mineral, crystal embedded near
the small tight end of it. crystal embedded near
the small tight end of it. ALEXANDER: It's-- It's okay. We can just take a minute,
if we need to. We don't need to be
so formal about this. LIAM: "No, no, no, no. "It's like we're
distant family, in a way." ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: "No, he was only here
for 20 or 30 minutes "and I was taking a break "from the libraries." IMARI: How did
he appear to you? LIAM: "He was
a little anxious, maybe, "but really,
that's the worst I can say. "You know, we've
been going down "pretty deep into the city,
the old city, "for so long that we each take
turns every once in a while. "Like, oh, it's Nestor's turn
to take two weeks off. "Because it can be
hard down there. "Just the darkness, "even just that."
ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: "So he definitely
seemed like he was in "that frame of mind, but
he's been there a few times. "He's been there
the fewest times, but-- "He just said he was
going to go home." ALEXANDER: Yeah. AIMEE: While she talks,
I wonder if-- I will just look at
the last entry of the journal, see when that was and see if there's any
good information in there. LIAM: Sure. On the very last page, he talks about how well he thinks
things are going. AIMEE: Mm. LIAM: He talks about
something called, he references something
called The Tulquist in it and says he's glad that he didn't burn
his hand worse than he did, and glad that it got back into the Pharos
and accounted for. He--
IMARI: Tulquist's last mission. AIMEE: And what's
the date on that, relative to when he-- LIAM: Relative to now? It was maybe four weeks
before Serenity. ALEXANDER: Okay. IMARI: Tulquist. I don't know this because
you're reading this, right? AIMEE: I could maybe
say that out loud. Or what is a Tulquist? LIAM: "Oh, that." She points to the thing that looks almost
like a rosary bead of polyhedron shapes. AIMEE: Okay. TALIESIN: With the knife? LIAM: "Yeah. Yeah." TALIESIN: Oof. ALEXANDER: You found
that down there? LIAM: "(sighs) We did. "Our work. "How much has Zora told you?" ALEXANDER: You found
the vault, and you've been down there
searching through it. LIAM: "Yeah, another circle
found the place. "We've been tasked with
making our way through it "and clearing it out,
so to speak. "We've been down there
for a year. "We've gotten
four things out. "But that's because
we take our time. "You don't run down there, "you don't jump headlong
into Oldfaire, "and we never want
to just rush in "and grab these things,
which is what I'm for. "That's why I spend
so much time in the stacks. "We like to know
what we're picking up "before we pick it up." AIMEE: The last thing
you remember Mr. Murphy picking up, did it seem unusual?
I mean, more than normal? Was he the only one
who handled it or-- LIAM: "Oh, no. No. "I mean, I handled it." AIMEE: Oh. LIAM: "But you don't want
to get blood on it." AIMEE: Of course. LIAM: "Because then it hurts. "Anyway. Not anymore. "That's done. "We've kind of had
a really good track record. "The work can be slow and
the darkness gets to you, "but we're good
at what we do." ALEXANDER: Um. Obviously, you didn't
know he passed, but were you told
what his condition was, what was afflicting him? LIAM: "Yes. Yes. "I knew that he was
in a bad place. "I just didn't know
that the end had come." ALEXANDER: Well,
none of us did. It happened very rapidly. Did you, while you
were down there, or did he
find a small satchel or did he
find a small satchel of a powder-like substance or any bag or
anything that was almost like a ground up
white chunky chalk? LIAM: "No." ALEXANDER: Okay.
AIMEE: This is when I would ask for
an insight check. TALIESIN: I was going to say, I am definitely,
I want to figure out whether she's telling the truth.
AIMEE: What's that? ALEXANDER: That is a Read,
I believe? LIAM: That's a Read roll. TALIESIN: I would love to
take that Read roll. AIMEE: Yeah, you go for it. LIAM: Some of you can
do a group Read, or you can go your own way. TALIESIN: I have a-- AIMEE: He's got stuff. ALEXANDER: I've got
two in it, gilded. TALIESIN: The first Cunning.
Let's see. "The first Cunning
you spend on the roll "is worth 2d instead of 1d." So I get-- Lie Detector,
"When you make a Read roll "in an attempt to
figure out whether a person "is telling the truth,
gild an additional die. "The first Cunning you spend
on the roll is worth plus 2d "instead of plus one." So I have one point in Read, so I get two
gilded dice for this. LIAM: Okay.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, and I will give
a drive to that because I'm also looking, TALIESIN: Oh! Then I'll also spend
a drive on that as well. AIMEE: Cool. TALIESIN: Since I'm just
going to get it back anyway. IMARI: Candela all around. AIMEE: Oh!
TALIESIN: Oh, that's a Candela. Yeah.
AIMEE: (laughs) I saw that one
from here, baby! TALIESIN: That's
very much a Candela. Although,
I don't get my drive back. That's okay. LIAM: Leo, you are excellent
at reading people. You can't mistake
the earnestness on her face from
the moment you walked in and the the real emotional
impact your news hit her with. You believe it. ALEXANDER: Well,
you have even-- The item or the substance
I'm addressing is, we believe, what caused Decklan's unfortunate
circumstances, and it was something we
encountered when we visited him, or found him,
more accurately, where he grew up on Serenity, the island off the coast. LIAM: "Yeah, Zora has
told me a little bit, "and I've been
waiting for the--" She waves you over and points to a photograph
pinned to the wall amongst all of this stuff and there's a photograph
not too different from the one that you just
discovered by accident. But you see Decklan again. AIMEE: Which I kept,
by the way. LIAM: Mm-hmm. I think she clocked it,
but she doesn't mind. AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: This time, Decklan's
in the middle of it and he's got his arms
around Professor Gregory and another man
in the picture with darker skin
and a shock of white hair in a long coat. There's another man
in the picture, has a bit of
a Halen Navy look to him. He's wearing a pea coat,
he has gloves on. And two other women, A woman with this
dark black-haired bob cut. She's wearing
a bomber jacket and boots and almost looks
like aviator pants, and then a very tall,
very broad woman in this
black and white photo, just the hair looks white, but she looks young,
relatively young, and she's wearing a shirt with the sleeves
rolled up really high and her arms are huge. "That's us. "That's your
extended family." AIMEE: May we
have their names? LIAM: "Yes." She points to, "So that's me,
obviously, and Decklan. "This other gentleman that
Decklan's got his arm around "is Alonzo Whitlock. "He's the closest thing
we have "to you, Grimoria,
in the group. "This man here is
Nestor Ronquillo, "and then the woman here
in the bomber jacket, "that's MaryAnne,
MaryAnne DeWitt, "and then Hilda's our muscle,
Hilda Greenwald." ALEXANDER: I couldn't tell. LIAM: "I'm worried
about them, too." ALEXANDER: Yeah, I'm sure.
LIAM: "It's been a long time. "Once, seven or
eight months ago, "some of the group
were delayed for a while. "They got stuck. "There was a bit of
a cave-in, but-- "I was nervous,
and now with him, "Decklan, I mean, in the-- "Decklan."
ALEXANDER: Yes. At this point in time,
we have no evidence that what happened to Decklan
came from Oldfaire, so this is possible, that this happened
after he got to his home. Unrelated circumstances-- LIAM: "Okay."
ALEXANDER: -- to what has happened, what, if anything,
has occurred down there. LIAM: "Knock on wood. I guess
we're going to find out." ALEXANDER: Doesn't mean
it didn't, but we just have no evidence. Sorry. AIMEE: I don't mean to rush
anyone, but maybe we should get started looking for
your missing team members. LIAM: "Okay." TALIESIN: Do we have-- I assume you have
supplies and ideas. LIAM: "I do."
TALIESIN: That sort of thing. LIAM: "I do, I've made
this trip 20 times. "Stick close to me.
It really will be fine." TALIESIN: I apologize, earlier,
for my briskness. I'm just-- I think I'm a bit worn thin. ALEXANDER: We've had
a long couple of weeks. LIAM: "I'm real sorry." TALIESIN: Uncharacteristically angry. ALEXANDER: (sighs) LIAM: "You okay?"
ALEXANDER: Yes, I'm trying-- We can talk about it
on the way. It's fine. LIAM: "Okay.
Well, it's not far. "Come with me." ALEXANDER: Before we leave, this is the college where
my father works, right? LIAM: Say that again? ALEXANDER: This is the college
where my father works. LIAM: Briarbank.
ALEXANDER: Yes. LIAM: That she works at.
ALEXANDER: Yes. LIAM: Yes.
ALEXANDER: The same place. Okay, I just wanted to-- I don't have time to do
a proper check in, but my father works here,
in the same department. LIAM: We're not at
Briarbank. She was-- ALEXANDER: She was there.
LIAM: We're in the Varnish. ALEXANDER: Thank you. Sorry, I
was confused as to where we were. LIAM: Briarbank is
in Briar Green, and she has been spending
time in Briar Green, and this is
their chapter house. ALEXANDER: Thank you.
LIAM: I could've been clearer. ALEXANDER: Then I will go past
this, then, at some point. LIAM: Okay, all right,
well, she grabs a bag, a satchel, and throws it
over her shoulder and says, "All right, follow me." ALEXANDER: Okay.
LIAM: She steps out of this operations room,
is what it looks like, and heads down the stairs
with you all following, and, instead of going
out the front door, she hooks right and walks to
the back of the brownstone and starts walking down
another set of stairs. She lights a lantern and
walks into a darkened room She lights a lantern and
walks into a darkened room below ground level under this
brownstone, and before you, you see there are sacks and
gear thrown around in here. you see there are sacks and
gear thrown around in here. All kinds of stuff, crates,
you even see one box with two rifles in it
and some ammunition, but the main feature
of this room is that there is a massive-- No, massive
is overstating it. There's a large pit
in this room with scaffolding
coming up and out. Malcolm, you just got led
down into the basement of this place where there is
a pit in the actual floor. IMARI: My gosh,
you have a lovely restroom. LIAM: "Help yourself. Anyone else
have to go before we set off? "Because it's just going to
be in the rubble, if not." ALEXANDER: I understand.
LIAM: "Okay." IMARI: We can find
a bush next time. LIAM: "You get used to it."
ALEXANDER: Let's move on. IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: So there's this large hole
lit now by a lantern down here and there is metal scaffolding
coming up out of the hole. "Okay, so where we're going
is actually not under here. "It's further northwest, "but that's closer
to Groundswell, "and those entrances--" You guys know this. That is a spot where
there's been a lot of sinkage over the years and lots
of Oldfaire ruins poke up, over the years and lots
of Oldfaire ruins poke up, and that is an easier way
to get into Oldfaire. However, it's also
highly regulated by the Periphery
and the Primacy. "So we use here
because during the war, "this whole neighborhood
sank a bit. "They think there was some
structural damage underneath "because of the shelling
that happened by the river. "Anyway, a lot of collapse, "and now you can
get in around here. "Not as many places,
but this is one. "So when I go down in
and you follow me, "just step where I step, "but I'm going to say it
out loud, just so we're clear. "Do not go left, okay?
Just follow me right." She starts to climb down
this metal scaffolding into the pit
with the lantern hooked on a little ring
she has on her belt. ALEXANDER: Are there any other
lanterns up here that we can take? LIAM: Yes, there's
all kinds of to-go gear. This looks their
staging ground to go in. ALEXANDER: I'll have
grabbed a lantern. IMARI: I'll grab a lantern, too.
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. AIMEE: Same.
LIAM: Okay. AIMEE: Maybe I'll sneak
the rifle, too. LIAM: You want a rifle? Okay, so you loop a rifle
around your back, for sure. There's two. IMARI: Oh, I would love a rifle.
LIAM: Okay. AIMEE: I don't know what
I'd use it for, but it's a shame leaving it here.
LIAM: Firing bullets! IMARI: Can't I bring my rifle?
AIMEE: Yeah. IMARI: (laughs) It might get crazy.
AIMEE: Yeah. TALIESIN: Anything else
of value? I don't know. LIAM: There's rope.
There are provisions. There's food that
could be taken from here. ALEXANDER: If there's
a backpack, I'll load it
with food supplies. LIAM: Sure, there are
two or three backpacks. It's staple food and
stuff that can travel. ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: She just
waits patiently, half of her body already
disappeared down this pit. ALEXANDER: Sorry.
LIAM: "No, no. "Better prepared. "Okay, ready?"
ALEXANDER: Ready. AIMEE: Yes.
IMARI: I'm ready. LIAM: "Don't go left."
ALEXANDER: Don't go left. LIAM: She disappears down
into the hole, and you watch as her lantern illuminates
down the darkness below her. You can see a line
of stone beneath her. She moves to the right, and
you can see stone and void, and she moves over
to the right, and you see her drop, and it takes a second to
process what you're seeing, but she lands on ground
maybe six or seven feet below from where she dropped. "Where I am. Don't go left!" She walks out of view. You guys, one by one,
move down the scaffolding. With your lanterns, you can
see that she has dropped onto the roof of some sort
of building down here. AIMEE: Mm. When you lean to
the left and look down, you can't see ground, so
you go right and drop down, and now all of you are on the stone rooftop of-- You can see little
glimmers of light in a few remote places
off in the distance, not two places, but that
doesn't help you over here. They just look like
stars in the night, almost. You can see that you're on
a rooftop that stretches out about 40 or 50 feet,
and she leads you and says, "Come on, this way, and
again, I've taken this route "so many times, but best err
on the side of quiet, okay?" ALEXANDER: I do have a question.
LIAM: "Yeah?" ALEXANDER: How do
we get back up? LIAM: "Oh, you can
get back up. "I mean, it's a pull--" ALEXANDER: It's fine,
it's fine. As long as there's
a way to get back up. LIAM: "Here, here." IMARI: I'll give you
a boost up the ladder. ALEXANDER: Thank you. LIAM: "You have to stand
on the lip of the roof. "Be careful." ALEXANDER: Yes.
LIAM: "Okay." She moves towards
stone stairs that move down the side of the building,
so off the roof and down, and you guys begin to
wander down stone steps that head down this thousands-
of-year-old building. Going down two flights,
three flights, four, five, and you find yourself stepping out onto<i>
old</i> stone stonework from the old world,
and there is tons of rubble. Half of this building, maybe
a third of this building, is collapsed on one side,
and you can just see, when you hold your lantern
in that direction, the base of
a mountain of rubble. She points out and says, "That's part of
the damage from the war, "so we're not going
that way, follow me." You start to move through
the streets of Oldfaire. You see arches
over your heads, both broken and occasionally
one that's complete. Impressive, old structures. The further you go,
you start to see even shafts of light
in the distance. You travel for
10 or 20 minutes, just stepping through. At one point,
she pauses you guys and she reaches into her pack
and pulls out a little ball and cup toy. She puts her finger
to her lips and she walks over to
what looks like the broken remains of
a fountain, no water, and she sets the little
ball and cup down on the stone, and then she waves you on,
and you guys pass on by. Of course, curious,
you look back, and Grimoria, you see
in the dark there now, as you carry
your light sources away, you can barely see what looks like a child
standing in the darkness, completely covered
in a dark line, wearing a simple shift. You look back to the rest
to say, "Do you see this?" And they're gone, and the
little ball and cup is gone. Alessandra shrugs
at you and moves on. "We leave something
every time we go by." AIMEE: That's nice. IMARI: That's
downright creepy. LIAM: "Like all of this, you
get used to it, to a degree. "Come with." You continue to travel, and you can only guess
that you are moving under South Soffit, even. AIMEE: Under--
LIAM: South Soffit, which is the area
under the Eaves, since you're
moving northeast. She says,
"We're getting closer "to the point where
Groundswell starts. "We don't have to go
all the way in, but "that's our target." Eventually, you pass by,
you see maybe 200 feet off, a large surviving
stone building, quite large, and all along one
wall of it are carved eyes, open eyes placed
at different spots. You can only see it because there are
rays of light coming down from holes in
the earth to this place. At one point,
you think you can hear the subway going
far above your head. "That is the-- "That was the seat
of power there, "that building with the eyes. "Iomene first, and then
before the end, Calinus." She moves on,
leading you forward. Maybe 30 or 40 minutes of this
quiet march through Oldfaire, you walk out into
this large brick square surrounded by a series
of arches all around it. This looks like maybe some
sort of massive meeting place or open square
from the old world. Professor Gregory
just passes through. All your little lanterns
are swinging in the dark as you go, and you realize,
too, as you walk by, until the point where you
got to this open square, you've been passing by these
little metal spikes or rods in the ground with a little
red smear across the top, similar to what you
find on hiking trails. IMARI: Markers. LIAM: Mm-hmm, and
she is, you can see, absentmindedly noting
them as she goes. We get to the square, and
she starts counting arches. "One, two, three, four-- "Okay, follow me." She starts heading
in a certain direction and passes under an arch. You go down this
long, broad road with arches over it, and eventually get to this
large maw of an opening in the city in front of you. You stand at
the top of a ledge. You hold your lanterns out,
and she says, "They call this
the Endless Descent." ALEXANDER: Do they?
TALIESIN: Why? IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: "I'll show you." TALIESIN: Oh no.
AIMEE: No thanks. LIAM: She moves
down the left-- She moves towards the left,
down along the lip of this, the edge of a 30- or 40-foot
drop to you. You can see, just barely,
the ground down there below. She arrives at
two more spikes that are splashed red
with paint, dry now, but there's a rope ladder
affixed to those, and she twists around and
begins to climb down it. ALEXANDER: Okay. TALIESIN: I'm so sorry. Okay. LIAM: You begin to travel
down the Endless Descent, 20-foot tall step by
20-foot tall step, going down these rope ladders
that the Circle of the Worm has left for
their travels here. You get to the sixth stair
and get to the bottom and look at
the wall of that stair, and you see a strange, almost beehive pattern
carved into this step. Did not look like that on steps
one, two, three, four, five, but here,
the entire height of it, and stepping closer, Leo, you see that the one you
get near with your lantern-- Actually, the one
next to it, too. All of them have intricately carved
cities of stone in them, little miniature vistas, obviously not like Newfaire, but not the architecture
of Oldfaire either. Strange, alien to you. You've never seen
anything quite like it, and you are a connoisseur of fashion and
architecture and style, but you've never seen this. You hear a clicking
in the distance. Everybody freezes. Professor Gregory
does hold up a hand, waves you all to cool it. A minute or two goes by. She nods her head, and
you continue your descent. 10 of these stairs,
20 of them, 30 of them. You've been traveling
down these stairs, because it is slow going,
for 30 minutes. You get to the
34th or 5th or 6th, and you find what looks like
an abandoned encampment. There are tents pitched here,
what look like very old packs. There are tents pitched here,
what look like very old packs. The tents are tied shut. As you wave your lanterns
in front of them, it causes shadow play
along these tents. The shadows,
for a brief moment, don't move the way
you would anticipate with the movement of
your source of light, and the shadow spins
around the tent and up the side of it, and you can see what
looks like people inside, but silhouettes, and they look like they turn
to each other and talk, and then recede into the base
of the tent, into the shadow. "It's okay. "It's okay." Grimoria, the whispers in
the back of your head pick up, a crowd speaking
in your head right now. (echoing) "Stay with us.
Stay, stay, stay here-- "Stay here,
here, here, here-- "No, no, no--" AIMEE: It's just
all too much. I think she really
feels the weight of all the people
left behind, all the souls that are
just aimless, not pinned down, or maybe they are pinned down,
but not at peace. It's just too much. LIAM: It also reminds you
of those first hours after the event when you crawled out
of your destroyed home. At different places in town, you saw people's silhouettes scorched into
the side of walls, like shadows painted
there forever. AIMEE: Yeah. It's just so
very overwhelming. IMARI: What are you
sensing, Grimoria? AIMEE: They have
nowhere to go. These souls, they're
just stuck here. It's so depressing. LIAM: Almost, Edgar,
as if your sister had been pinned to one place. You begin to move towards
the next rope ladder to climb down. There's a bit more gear and a crate, actually. Leo, as you pass
away from the tents back towards the next
means of climbing down, and you see a logo on
one of the bags here that is a very old
and outdated logo of the Steedwell empire. IMARI: Oh, wow. LIAM: Faded and dead. TALIESIN: I'm going to very
gently get a little closer. IMARI: I'm going
to fall behind. TALIESIN: Take a look. LIAM: Sure. You've seen these preserved and clean and kept well in-- The family home has
a bit of a museum in it of some of their
contributions to Newfaire society
over the years. You've seen clothing and coats on mannequins. Here is one of your
family's products Here is one of your
family's products from a past decade, just moldering in the dark. TALIESIN: I want to touch it. I don't think I-- LIAM: You hear a--
TALIESIN: I don't think I will, but I was hoping
to maybe see, just peek to see if perhaps
it was open, but not touch. LIAM: The bag?
TALIESIN: Yeah, I just-- LIAM: You reach your hand, and your thumb runs down
along the fabric of it, and you hear (soft ticking). TALIESIN: I jump back. LIAM: (soft ticking continues) That sound follows you down
the next rope ladder, and the next 40 stairs, 50 stairs, 60. Eventually you reach
the 72nd stair, and Alessandra gathers
you all together. "Are you all good? Do you
need to take a break or rest? ALEXANDER: (sighs)
LIAM: "We're about halfway." AIMEE: Oh my--
IMARI: Halfway. AIMEE: I thought you said
it was quick. TALIESIN: (laughs)
IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: "Well, we're almost
done with the stairs." ALEXANDER: Yes, halfway
to the vault, you mean. Not necessarily-- okay.
LIAM: "Yes, yes, yes. "We're going to be
taking a shortcut." ALEXANDER: If we
were halfway down, then we'd be reaching the
center of the earth before-- LIAM: "(laughs) I don't know. "But you will
want to see this. "Come."
TALIESIN: Is-- LIAM: "Yes?"
TALIESIN: Is it appropriate? I pull out the
bleed detector. Is it appropriate to use
something like this down here or does it become a problem? LIAM: "I use those." TALIESIN: Okay. IMARI: I still trust hers. TALIESIN: Well, I thought
you would appreciate the occasional checkup. IMARI: Oh,
I love the checkup. Always.
TALIESIN: I do a quick bleed detect on you.
(laughter) IMARI: Ah, love it. Good. LIAM: (laughs) It's faint. TALIESIN: But holding? LIAM: It's faint,
but it is there. IMARI: (sighs) TALIESIN: I'll keep checking.
LIAM: Meaning you are reading--
IMARI: How bad is it? LIAM: -- a faint bit
of bleed. TALIESIN: Just a touch,
just the slightest touch. IMARI: You let me know if it
gets any larger, will you? TALIESIN: I will.
Also, I should add, what on earth am I
going to do about it if it does? (laughs) IMARI: Take this
rifle off my back and do what you have to do. TALIESIN: Oh, if-- ALEXANDER: (laughs) TALIESIN: I will be very
impressed if I pull that off. LIAM: "The next stair
is a little different." She walks you over
to the edge, and weirdly, you don't
see a drop off. You do see the edge of stone, but you see leaves, the tops of trees poking up above the height
of that step. Nonsensically, as you
hold your lanterns out, you realize you're looking
at the edge of a forest growing down here. IMARI: It's magnificent. LIAM: "This is
the Great Landing. "Come on." She doesn't seem
particularly perturbed, and she heads down
the next rope ladder. "This one stretches on, "it does keep going down, "although we've
never gone further "than here down the stairs. "We're going over that way." She begins to lead you, her lantern moving between
trees in a forest, somehow growing roots
digging into stone. You can see soil
splitting up, somehow giving them purchase. ALEXANDER: That's odd. Wild. LIAM: She pushes through and goes much farther than the length of the stairs that you have visited prior and spent the last one
to two hours descending. She moves all the
way across it, moving through this
wood down here, and comes up on
a large crevice in the wall over here. Somehow this built wall, this stone wall has broken, and there are cracks going
down into the floor. In fact, you can follow
those cracks down under the trees. She says,
"Best we can figure, "at some point, there was
some sort of shift down here "and a break. "I said shortcut, "we are going to
be passing through "what we think
used to be solid. "It's not anymore, "but this isn't the actual
entrance to this place. "The actual entrance is
way on the other side "and also collapsed. "So, happy accident. "But follow me." ALEXANDER: Do we know
what circle found this? LIAM: "You would
have to ask Zora." ALEXANDER: It's fine,
I was just-- LIAM: "We were assigned here."
ALEXANDER: -- didn't know if you knew them or if
anything happened to them. LIAM: "Well, the story is that
they found this crevice, "but nobody wanted to go
into it for years, "and then eventually
it happened. "And they found my office."
ALEXANDER: Yeah, yeah. TALIESIN: Yeah, do we know
the name of the circle whose tents those were? LIAM: "I don't even know
if that was a circle. "Those have been there at
least the last 40 years." "Those have been there at
least the last 40 years." TALIESIN: Oh. LIAM: "The way I hear it." She pushes in and steps through this
large V in the wall. Soon, you are moving through
cave space in here, with large hunks of stone that look broken from
the cave roof above. But eventually, it opens more and you're able to dip your
head, especially you two, to not smack your
head on something. The lanterns throwing shadow on the stone around in here. Then you have to bend down
a little bit more, and then a little bit more, and soon it is
uncomfortable for you two. You've got one hand on
the ground, like Gregory, and you're half crawling, you can kind of be up. She looks back
to you and says, "I'm going to keep
my lantern up, "you might have more luck
here if you stow yours "and just follow."
ALEXANDER: Okay. LIAM: "But everybody,
you do you." She begins to move through, and you see her
lie on her stomach and she begins
to drag herself through this thin,
flattened-out crack. She looks like she is
navigating with purpose, very little hesitation. It looks like she knows
what she's doing, because she's
been here before. "Follow where I go." Who wants to go after
Professor Gregory? IMARI: I'll go.
LIAM: Okay. IMARI: Last words,
last deed. (laughs) LIAM: Soldier right
into the trenches. AIMEE: Mm-hmm.
IMARI: Into the trenches we go. LIAM: You start to drag
your body through, following behind Gregory, with her light dragging
(stone scraping) as you go. It just gets tighter
and tighter. You reach a point where it doesn't look like you should be able to
fit through there. She does, but she's smaller. But there was a really big
woman in the photo you saw, and you push through. IMARI: (strains) LIAM: You're moving, but it is a slow drag. There is a moment
where you think: I don't think that
I can go forward and I don't think
that I can go back. Let's take a brain as you begin to feel
the claustrophobia of where you are. Make a Move roll for me. IMARI: I'm going to burn
a drive on that. LIAM: Okay. You're jammed in place.
AIMEE: You have the extra Train, too. LIAM: You feel stone
pressing into your ribs in two places right now. IMARI: All right, let's do-- That's two,
that's one with gild, that's right, three
with the gilded one. Five.
LIAM: Five. IMARI: I'll take that with that one.
AIMEE: That was close. IMARI: Yeah, yeah, it--
(laughs) AIMEE: Don't take that one.
IMARI: (laughing) Yeah. LIAM: Okay. You begin to
pull yourself through, and you can feel your
healing knife wound begin to drag against
stony surface. IMARI: (groans) LIAM: You are worried
that you're going to tear this open. You are worried you are
going to hurt yourself real bad in here. You manage to rotate slightly and get that wound away
from whatever element is doing the damage and slide through about
five inches suddenly. IMARI: (grunts) LIAM: Yeah, it's
a mixed success. Let's take another brain. You are worried that you are
going to start to bleed out down here in the bottom
of the world, Malcolm. It starts to widen
a little bit, and you follow after her. The light source
is traveling away. Who's following Malcolm? TALIESIN: Do you want to go?
AIMEE: I guess I would. LIAM: Okay. ALEXANDER: I can go last.
TALIESIN: All right. LIAM: You follow
where Malcolm went. Thankfully, you are
nowhere near as large, but as you drag
yourself in here, you also start to feel
an overwhelming sense of closed oppression here. You close your eyes
to block it all out, You close your eyes
to block it all out, and you can see around you the cellar that you
shoved yourself into, the day your mother
shoved you into the cellar and you were pressed
amongst barrels underneath the family home. She told you to stay, she told you to stay quiet. You were there for days, jammed in there. Make a Move roll. AIMEE: Oh, thank god,
it's a gilded one. I mean, I'm going
to spend a drive. Let's see. Oh, that's-- Yeah. Four.
LIAM: Four? IMARI: Get your drive back.
AIMEE: Eh, get it back. (laughs)
IMARI: (laughs) AIMEE: I get it back. LIAM: You breathe and ignore the whispers
rising in your ears, like the sound of
leaves in a storm flitting around each other
along the street, and move through. You're smaller,
so you're able to scrabble all
the way through, in behind Malcolm. AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: But for a mixed success,
you'll take one brain. AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: Which I believe is
three for you now, yes? AIMEE: I got a stitch. LIAM: You stitched?
AIMEE: Or not a stitch. Yes, stitch.
LIAM: Yes, you're a blank slate. AIMEE: (sighs)
LIAM: Yes. AIMEE: Oh.
ALEXANDER: Going to have to work harder. (laughs)
IMARI: (laughs) He's like: Damn it. LIAM: All right. Who's next? TALIESIN: (sighs) Into
the abyss we go. (exhales heavily) Yep, yeah, I'm climbing up.
LIAM: Okay. All right, you can feel
your finer clothes dragging along stone and are not happy about it. You follow Grimoria into
this dark passage, into this inky abyss, with just the bare
bit of light shining through your
friends to you. It's still with you, you can hear it bouncing
off the rocks in here, too, so it's almost like
three sources of it or four sources of it. (soft ticking) TALIESIN: Stop, stop, stop. LIAM: Why don't you make-- TALIESIN: Oh, going to
fuck with me, are you? (soft laughter) LIAM: Why don't you
make a Sense roll? TALIESIN: (sighs) All right. Let me try this. Why not? Ah, Candela. LIAM: Candela.
AIMEE: (laughs) Finally, someone gets-- TALIESIN: (nervous noise) AIMEE: It's been two minutes. LIAM: You open your eyes wide
in the dark and just listen LIAM: You open your eyes wide
in the dark and just listen and tick along
with the clock, that clock that
is following you. The light source is
moving further ahead, you are on your own. You are in a church, in a room, on your back. You can't move. Your body is already still. You're watching your sister's
feet run away from you out into the church proper. But you scrabble a bit of
stone and dirt in your hand, squeeze as hard as you can, and you can feel the pain
here in this moment. Leo, for all the trouble
you're having, it's not real, it's not real. You know it is not real. For the first time
in a long time, you are grateful to
suddenly have silence. You scrape your way through, following Grimoria's path. In you go, Edgar. (sighs) You are tall,
but lanky, and begin to drag through, one foot at a time. Everyone has stopped in here, so it can't be good. As you drag,
you can feel your scars scraping along the
stone wall of this place. Every foot of movement
you take is a reminder, a reminder of
your other half, gone and with you every day. Make a Move roll, please. ALEXANDER: Spend a drive. Five, and I get
my drive back. LIAM: Five. ALEXANDER: Yes. LIAM: You continue
to drag along and you can't
maneuver your body to get your side free of that damage, and you just scrape
and scrape along, and by the time you get out,
you don't wound yourself, but for a five,
I will give you a brain. ALEXANDER: (breaths shakily) LIAM: As the loss of
your sister is now raw and red under your clothes. ALEXANDER: (fortifying breaths) LIAM: Gregory helps you
get up into a low crouch. "Come on, breathe. "Breathe."
ALEXANDER: (intentional breaths) Thank you. LIAM: "It was that bad
for me the first "five or six times
I did it, too." ALEXANDER: Well, it's a good
thing I'll be doing it the second time,
when we go out. LIAM: She leads you forward
and you guys, hunched, walk through this passage for
another five minutes. You hear her voice
say, "Wait, what?" She trots ahead a couple
of steps ahead of you. IMARI: Wait, wait, wait,
we wait for her. ALEXANDER: Shh, shh, shh,
just wait. LIAM: "I'm here, sorry. "Shit." You guys come up behind her,
she doesn't flee. She is looking at this thin, vertical gap in the wall between two walls of stone. The cavern comes to a pinch
here that you're in and travels on, and it
looks like somebody went at the stone here with a
hammer or an axe or something. You can see what looks like a bored or drilled hole here, but just stone
broken away from it. "Shit, I don't know. "Shit, normally
there's a rope. "We normally have
a rope here." AIMEE: Did one of
us grab a rope? IMARI: One of us had
a rope in their pack. LIAM: "Well, I have
a rope, but--" ALEXANDER: It's not secured.
LIAM: "It's not that easy. "There used to be "a spike here "with a rope tied to it
going to the other side." TALIESIN: What happened
to the spike? LIAM: "I don't know." AIMEE: Are we going
up or down? LIAM: "Across." AIMEE: Oh.
TALIESIN: Oh, oof. LIAM: "Okay, okay,
okay, okay. "I've done this so many
times, it's fine. "It's fine, here, tell
you what we'll do. "Big man, come here." She takes a rope out of her
pack and hands it to you. "Wrap this around your hand,
please. Hold on tight." She lets it all out onto
the stone floor here and she ties it
around her waist, and she crawls
into this space, which is this far across
stone wall and stone wall. Ground is right
there below it. She wedges her feet. She presses her
back up one side and pushes her feet
to the other and she's just
suspended there. "I'm going to do this here
so you can see how it works. "Get a lantern
over here, okay?" TALIESIN: All right.
LIAM: "Watch where I go "because you're going
to want to do what I do." TALIESIN: Oh.
LIAM: "Okay? "It's just leg muscles." She begins to slide her
back, and slide her back, and she's using
that oppositional force to move through She's got a lantern
ringed and hanging from her belt as she moves, so you can see the stone
floor beneath her start to-- AIMEE: Hmm. LIAM: -- drop and give way.
The further she goes, you can see that it
spills out into nothing-- AIMEE and IMARI: Oh.
LIAM: -- after seven or eight feet. She keeps going, pressing in this,
what is like, if anyone's ever gone
hiking in Utah-- AIMEE: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
LIAM: -- slot canyons, except there's-- This is one you don't
want to do this with. ALEXANDER: (laughs) LIAM: She moves
her way across and then she starts to dip
down actually a little bit. She's maneuvering her body and her legs tighten
up a bit, and then she starts
to angle up. So it's like she did a
loose V down and then up, and you can see her traveling
about 30 to 40 feet and you can see her traveling
about 30 to 40 feet away from you guys. You can see in the
distance there is a metal spike rammed into
the stone there and-- IMARI: I'm still holding
on the rope. LIAM: Yes, so that rope
is trailing out. IMARI: In case she falls, I'm the one who's going to
be anchored down to hold her. LIAM: Yes.
IMARI: Okay. LIAM: That's going
to be a bad scene if that happens, but yes. IMARI: Okay.
LIAM: Yes. She makes it across, and
you hear her footfall drop onto stone all the
way across there. You can see her lit now
across this dark void. Your lantern's here,
her lantern's there. She takes the rope off of her and she begins to tie it hard onto that metal spike. ALEXANDER: Mm.
AIMEE: Mm. LIAM: "There's a couple ways
we could do this. "You can't bring
the rope with you "or otherwise it's not
there for the next, so. (sighs) "You could tie yourselves
together and come across "and then I'll hold
and we got this. "But you saw where
I went, right?" ALEXANDER: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Oh, yes. LIAM: "Okay."
IMARI: Oh man. TALIESIN: Oh dear.
LIAM: Okay. Who's going to be the first
on the charm bracelet of our circle? TALIESIN: Oh--
ALEXANDER: Okay. IMARI: I'm the strongest. TALIESIN: So you should
probably go last. IMARI: Am I going to
be holding all of us? Are they getting anchored
on me for strength and support or
will it be like-- LIAM: Well hopefully,
no one's going to be weighing
on anybody, but you do maybe want
to think about gravity and what happens when who falls where--
IMARI: One slips. LIAM: -- in the worst
case scenario. ALEXANDER: So, just
to be clear, you're holding one end of
a rope that is going across. There is another that they have tied to the metal spike that is there.
LIAM: It's tied, yes. ALEXANDER: So we just have
the one rope coming over. LIAM: Yes. ALEXANDER: So in theory, we
would all tie into this rope. TALIESIN: Yes.
ALEXANDER: And go across. TALIESIN: That's the thought. ALEXANDER: Yes, so then
order is important. LIAM: You got another
60 feet on this thing. ALEXANDER: I think you
should go in the middle. TALIESIN: Really?
IMARI: Okay. TALIESIN: Oh.
IMARI: Could be a balance.
ALEXANDER: So if you fall, at least all of us can hold you to
a certain extent, that way you're not pulling
us all down from one side. I don't know if
that's accurate, that just in my
brain makes sense. But if you're at the end,
you are going to fall and cause the most
centrifugal force to pull. If you can fall and we can be
on two sides to hold you, you won't pull as much force. IMARI: Sounds like
a good plan to me. ALEXANDER: You are
the heaviest of us, not to insult
you or anything, you just are. LIAM: Okay, so the order-- ALEXANDER: I think it should be--
LIAM: -- will be-- ALEXANDER: You go first. Then you. AIMEE: Mm-hmm.
ALEXANDER: Then you, then myself. IMARI: All right.
TALIESIN: That makes sense. Right. Right, right, right. LIAM: Okay. So you link yourselves
all, tying a hook, a loop of rope
around your waist. Leo, then Grimoria, I think
you said, then Malcolm, then you, Edgar. ALEXANDER: Don't give it
too much slack between us. We need enough room
to maneuver, obviously, but if there's too much
slack and one of us falls, we'll pull too much force. TALIESIN: Yes, yes,
of course. ALEXANDER: Give it about
a foot and a half, two feet. TALIESIN: If possible we'll let--
ALEXANDER: Take it slowly. TALIESIN: -- Alessandra know
to wrap the rope as we go, keep it as taut as possible, or if she can pull.
LIAM: Yes, mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, that's a good call. Meaning as soon as rope
is fed, it can be-- ALEXANDER: Yes.
LIAM: -- tied on. Okay. Okay. Leo, you start
to move across, and you can handle it
okay in the beginning. Then Grimoria,
you follow along, maybe a five or
six foot distance. IMARI: Okay, here we go. LIAM: Then Malcolm, and you are still with
your feet on the ground. So here we go. These
are high stakes rolls-- AIMEE: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: -- right now. You can feel the
barest bit of (gentle breeze) underneath you and
under your legs. Leo, make a Move
roll, please. TALIESIN: I'm going to-- I'm going to burn a drive, and I think I'm going to use
my extra die because, boy. LIAM: Mm-hmm. IMARI and AIMEE: (laugh)
ALEXANDER: And we also, remember we have
these in case. TALIESIN: Those,
just in the case. AIMEE: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. TALIESIN: (grunts) I'm going
to burn a resistance. AIMEE: Yep. (laughs)
IMARI: Oh, Leo. TALIESIN: I only get to
roll what I have. ALEXANDER: Yeah,
base roll. Yeah. IMARI: Baby.
TALIESIN: That was rough. Nope.
LIAM: No. TALIESIN: Very bad,
I rolled a one. IMARI: Oh! TALIESIN: But I got
my drive back. (laughter) AIMEE: There's that!
LIAM: So one of you on the ground,
feet on ground, three of you moving across. Leo, you maneuver
your way down in the direction she did, and as you move up
the slot canyon, the two sides of this tight
space, it widens a little bit, so it's a little harder
and you have to push your legs a little longer. You reach a certain point where your toe goes
(grip slipping) and you feel yourself drop.
TALIESIN: Oof. LIAM: Now, what happens?
IMARI: I'm already over the edge, of course. I'm going to move to hold. I'm going to move to
anchor him before he falls, so I have to steady my body. AIMEE: Grimoria. AIMEE: Mm-hmm.
IMARI: Both begin to fall. LIAM: I need you to make a Move
roll right now. AIMEE: Okay. I'm going to burn a drive. LIAM: Mm-hmm. IMARI: Shit.
AIMEE: I think I'm going to use my-- Fuck, I don't know
if that's smart. Yeah, I'm going
to use my train. LIAM: You feel the rope
go taut between you and Professor Gregory as Leo drops.
ALEXANDER: One left. AIMEE: Yeah, yeah.
LIAM: You feel a yank so hard in your waist. AIMEE: Five.
LIAM: Five. You are still in a portion of this terrible
spot you're in where it is tighter,
and you press with all of your small
frame's strength to the point where you feel
stone digging into your back it hurts so much.
AIMEE: Mm-hmm. LIAM: Your feet scrape
down the stone floor and you feel the rope wrench your waist and gut. You take a brain and a body.
AIMEE: Oh, you're just taking
advantage now. IMARI: (laughs)
AIMEE: Because I got a blank slate. LIAM: You thought you were
about to be dropped into a hole to nowhere.
AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: Leo, you are
hanging suspended-- TALIESIN: (groans) LIAM: -- between
an iron spike and your diminutive
friend, Grimoria. You take a brain as you
dangle where you are. (sighs) ALEXANDER: All right
everyone, slowly, we need to back up to lift him up to
regain his footing. On three. One, two. LIAM: Why don't you make
a group Move roll. You can choose, Malcolm--
AIMEE: Who's got the highest? IMARI: I have the
highest in Move. LIAM: -- or Edgar.
IMARI: -- I can burn two drives. LIAM: Yes. ALEXANDER: I only have
one in Move, so. LIAM: Okay.
IMARI: No, I have-- I can do, I have one, two, I can
roll four die. ALEXANDER: Don't burn
everything, because-- IMARI: I won't. I still owe myself--
AIMEE: You want to use one of these?
IMARI: No, because I still owe
myself one more, one more because I
have Adrenaline Rush and I've taken two brain, so I filled up all my
drives off of that. Well, first Adrenaline Rush,
so with this one I spend I'll fill one again, so I'll only be spending one drive.
ALEXANDER: I don't think it stays. I think if it's full,
it just fizzles. IMARI: Oh, is that how it goes?
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. ALEXANDER: I don't think you
can bank it off in the aether to just sit there.
IMARI: Okay, gotcha. Okay, well then,
I'm going to, either way I'm going
to burn two drives. LIAM: Okay. ALEXANDER: So then
we all add a-- IMARI: So I'm going
to get four. LIAM: If you help, if you're aiding, which
you are with your body, then you can add a drive. IMARI: I have four,
I have four die. LIAM: Four die?
IMARI: Yeah. I think I'm good.
ALEXANDER: Okay. IMARI: Oh. Five on gilded.
LIAM: Five on gilded. TALIESIN: Not bad.
AIMEE: That's pretty good. That's almost a Candela. IMARI: Boom! I get to
replenish that shit. AIMEE: Pretty good! IMARI: Then I'll replenish
this drive. Actually, leave the drive
because I didn't erase it. AIMEE: Pretty good.
LIAM: So you're on the end. You start backing up and--
IMARI: (laughs) AIMEE: I was like,
that's good. IMARI: You're like,
"God, please." LIAM: Leo is dangling
and bouncing in this spot LIAM: Leo is dangling
and bouncing in this spot, like a marionette,
that you're in. It is hard,
what you are doing. You are dragging
this whole line back. You do have Edgar
pulling on the rope, but you are the one using
your waist and core. You can feel the wound
in your ribs screaming as you drag them back. IMARI: I feel
a body coming on. LIAM: Actually, no, I think
you're going to take a brain. IMARI: (groans)
Then I have a scar. Oh wait, it's three?
AIMEE: Oh, then you're out. TALIESIN: It's at four.
IMARI: It's four, okay. LIAM: Four.
AIMEE: Okay. ALEXANDER: Oh, don't go out. LIAM: But you raise
Leo up to the point where you have your feet
in there again. Now, I'm not going to
make you roll Move again. You are raised to a point
where your feet catch and you're good and you
start to drag your way up and you join as
the train moves back. Grimoria, we've got three,
we've got one across. Leo is standing
on the other side. ALEXANDER: We've got it.
It's all right, everybody. We have this, we can do it.
TALIESIN: Hold everything. AIMEE: So I have to
do another roll? No, sorry, what'd you say? I mean, I'm not talking
myself into another roll. LIAM: No, I think
that between-- AIMEE: I'm going to start
the bargaining phase of this. LIAM: No, bargaining's fine.
AIMEE: It's the grief process that's happening here. LIAM: Bargaining's fine. I think that with Leo's help and your size and
the gentlemen's size, that now that Leo
has made it across, there is enough manpower to
help you finish the distance, but that gets Malcolm
moving and Edgar behind. but that gets Malcolm
moving and Edgar behind. AIMEE: I mean,
I know it's not much, but I will assist in whatever
way the three of them, so hopefully that'll
help my puny little-- IMARI: Every ounce helps.
AIMEE: Thank you, guys. I know. IMARI: Stronger,
small but mighty. AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: Okay, but you, with your size,
and the stitch in your side, I will want you
to make a Move. Roll again as you travel. IMARI: I'm going to
burn a drive. LIAM: You moved all the way
back to the beginning and have to start over. IMARI: I'm going to burn
and drive on that. I'm going to run three. ♪ Ah tah tah tah ♪
tah tah tah ♪ TALIESIN: I was going to say
he's pretty solid for this one. AIMEE: Yeah?
IMARI: Yeah. AIMEE: Let us know if you need.
IMARI: I will. TALIESIN: Because we'll know.
AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: I am scared
to death for you. IMARI: Well, in that case,
I will burn another drive. AIMEE: No! (laughter) AIMEE: Are you sure
you don't want help? IAMRI: Yeah, no. I want you guys-- LIAM: Is it six? How many dice
do you have in your hand? IMARI: I have four die.
LIAM: Four die. IMARI: I know, I want
you guys to keep your, I want you guys to keep it
because we're going to need it. We're going to need it. You
guys need to keep your drives. I can replenish mine off
of Adrenaline Rush. I'm fine. AIMEE: Oh. IMARI: Candela. TALIESIN: That's good because
I saw the other thing. LIAM: I saw the
other two from here. IMARI: I also had a five. I would've been good. ALEXANDER: I have a hypothesis
you've done something terrible in your life
to deserve this. (laughter) ALEXANDER: Somehow you did something
terrible just to get good rolls. LIAM: So Malcolm, I mean, this is what you do. You are 200 pushups a day,
every day, right next to the bed
and you-- IMARI: I take pride
in this body, I eat efficiently,
I eat clean. AIMEE: "I eat clean." Clean and mutton. LIAM: I eat Candela
for breakfast. You begin to press
your way across and you do not have
the same problem that Leo and Grimoria have of
that widening out because of your size, your height,
but you have to follow up, following behind Malcolm. AIMEE: How you doing?
ALEXANDER: Move? LIAM: Oh, yes.
AIMEE: What you got? You need help? ALEXANDER: I'm good,
I have three. AIMEE: Okay. IMARI: What we got, baby? ALEXANDER: Four. IMARI: Oh, baby.
LIAM: Four. TALIESIN: Oh. IMARI: I feel a brain
and a body coming on. AIMEE: Shh!
Don't give him ideas! Maybe if we don't think it,
he won't know. LIAM: Okay.
IMARI: It's always worse that, like, it feels your thoughts.
LIAM: Yeah. (laughter)
IMARI: He reads our thoughts. LIAM: Here. Here we go. ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: You start
to move across. And Edgar, you follow behind,
placing your feet as you go. Your ribs are still searing
from the past 10 minutes. ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: And your legs
are shaking, but your back just burns
as you move. You are ignoring it and
ignoring it and ignoring it. You think,
"Ah, if I just shift," and then you feel your whole
backside start to slide down, and you swing,
losing your grip. ALEXANDER: (gasps) LIAM: Swing beneath Malcolm,
who holds like a fulcrum. You go swinging and
you feel (thudding) ALEXANDER: (grunts) LIAM: And go black. ALEXANDER and LIAM: Body. AIMEE: So he's out?
ALEXANDER: I'm out. AIMEE: Fuck. Or let's pull.
ALEXANDER: Oh my god. IMARI: I'm going to
pull him up immediately. AIMEE: Well, we all help. TALIESIN: We all help pull him up.
AIMEE: I mean-- LIAM: That's plenty
of people. You begin to drag and drag. AIMEE: Crap.
IMARI: Steady arms, steady arms. Steady!
LIAM: Edgar's limp body gets pulled up and over, and there is-- Some skin on his forehead is
broken and flapped away a little bit and he is bleeding
down his face. IMARI: I want to check
a pack immediately. Just from me being
in the field, I know that could
either be a concussion or it can seep out and
cause further infection. I want to bind
that wound immediately. I want to try to find a gauze or something inside the bag.
LIAM: Sure, sure. TALIESIN: He'll have
something in this kit. LIAM: Yeah. You rifle
through his bag. What I'd like you to do
right now is make a Control. What I'd like you to do
right now is make a Control. AIMEE: Shoot,
I have nothing in Control. IMARI: Ugh, god. TALIESIN: Where's Control?
Yeah, I got nothing. IMARI: I'll burn a drive.
ALEXANDER: Oh good. Every one counts. TALIESIN: Let me give you
an extra drive for that. AIMEE: Sorry.
IMARI: Yeah? TALIESIN: Yeah.
I'm going to assist. I'm going to give a drive.
ALEXANDER: Wait, you nothing in Control? IMARI: I have one. I have one.
No, I have two dies. AIMEE: Can this bring
him back, though, or no? I'm just saying here, if this is just how
good we bandage him up. IMARI: Is that two die? TALIESIN: Which? IMARI: If I have one--
TALIESIN: That's one die. IMARI: That's one die.
Right, okay. TALIESIN: I'm giving you drive,
so that's two die. ALEXANDER: I thought you
were the gun guy. AIMEE: Wait, but do you guys
hear what I'm saying? Is this high stakes? LIAM: This is not high stakes.
AIMEE: Oh, yeah. That's why I was like-- LIAM: This is not high stakes.
AIMEE: Because if this is just how well we--
LIAM: That's a good reminder. Yeah.
AIMEE: You know. TALIESIN: Yeah, I'll hold. IMARI: Hold your drive, then. Okay, well then,
I'll just roll. I'll just roll.
LIAM: Yes. IMARI: I'm going to roll
this one little die. Edgar. AIMEE: If anyone can
do it, it's you. IMARI: I'm coming
for you, Edgar! ALEXANDER: I feel like you're
supposed to be better at this. AIMEE: Don't--
LIAM: You hear him in your head. AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. IMARI: I'm like-- (laughs). AIMEE: Oh! IMARI: Five.
AIMEE: Five! That's still
pretty good, you guys! IMARI: I find
a dirtied bandage. It was used before. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Thank you. AIMEE: Where do you even
have that dirty bandage? (laughter) AIMEE: It's like
a tampon, just-- ALEXANDER: So you rifle
through Edgar's bag and you pull out some bandage and you get it wrapped
around him tight. You've seen this man
work for a long time and you've picked up
the barest notion of how to tend to wounds. A minute or two later, everyone gathered
around him on the ground, his eyes flutter awake. ALEXANDER: (quick inhale) AIMEE: Maybe some
smelling salts. LIAM: Jolts up
your nose and-- ALEXANDER: (grunting) LIAM: Sharpens you
even further. ALEXANDER: Not necessary. IMARI: Welcome back to
the land of the living. Looks like we got to patch you
up this time, huh, old boy? TALIESIN: I really
thought it was going to be me that
got knocked out. LIAM: Edgar, you're having
a little trouble seeing. There's blood in your eye. IMARI: Take your time. I want to try to wipe
that out for him. LIAM: Okay.
ALEXANDER: ("wait" noises) Just give me a second.
Don't touch me. LIAM: Mm. Vision is a little not right.
It's a little blurred. "How are you, doc?
You all right?" ALEXANDER: Well, I assume
this means I'm alive. LIAM: "You're alive." ALEXANDER: Okay,
then I'm serviceable. LIAM: "We could stop here.
We could wait." ALEXANDER: Just a minute,
just give me a minute. LIAM: "Okay." ALEXANDER: (heavy exhale) LIAM: "There's been a taut
rope there for over a year "and we just hook it
and move across." TALIESIN: Someone undid it. LIAM: "Yeah." TALIESIN: Why would
they do that? ALEXANDER: (creepily whispers)
I don't know. (normally) The spike
wasn't there. TALIESIN: The rope
wasn't dangling. ALEXANDER: Is it dangling
on this side? LIAM: "Yeah." ALEXANDER: (whispers) Okay.
LIAM: "Looks like somebody--" ALEXANDER: Ripped it up. LIAM: "Missed it
on the way out. "Or-- I don't know." AIMEE: Can we, I don't
know, shine our lanterns to see if there's
a body down there? Somebody that may-- LIAM: It's--
AIMEE: Too deep? LIAM: -- too deep.
AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: Okay. ALEXANDER: Look, I
don't want to be grim. Maybe we should
pull the rope up. The one that was dangling. LIAM: "Sure. Save it for us." ALEXANDER: (whispers) Yeah. LIAM: Okay, so you guys get
it all in a loop, and bring with? Leave here? ALEXANDER: I mean, the original
rope, was that wholly gone? LIAM: Yeah, mostly. It
was like a foot or two. ALEXANDER: Okay,
so it was cut? LIAM: Yeah. Well, there was a
frazzled bit of rope on that side. ALEXANDER: Yes, okay. AIMEE: We should
definitely take it with us in case we need another. ALEXANDER: Yes, take our rope.
LIAM: "Your rope, yes." TALIESIN: Yes.
That's a good idea. ALEXANDER: I'm having trouble seeing out of this eye
where I hit my head, on the left side.
LIAM: Right. ALEXANDER: I keep seeing... I feel like
I keep seeing movement and it keeps catching right
at the corner of my eye and I'm having a hard time. I keep seeing shadows move and I can't tell
if it's just here or if it's physical, but-- LIAM: If it's real. If you wish it were true. ALEXANDER: Yeah. LIAM: At this point, you would
move one of your points. This is your second scar. ALEXANDER: Yes. TALIESIN: I'm going to have
a quick check to Malcolm really quickly to see-- ALEXANDER: I'm moving
one out of Read as my vision's not as-- LIAM: Right from Read to? AIMEE: To Move. (laughter) ALEXANDER: I think
it will go to... Yeah, you know,
Move is applicable. LIAM: Leo, as you pull
out your detector again, you are maybe imagining it, but you can't help but wonder
if it's a little stronger. but you can't help but wonder
if it's a little stronger. AIMEE: Can I sense
anything specific? LIAM: Sure. You can do Sense. AIMEE: Anything useful,
I don't know. LIAM: Toward Malcolm,
you mean, yeah? TALIESIN: Or in general? AIMEE: Yes. Well, I don't know if that'll
give me any more information. Or maybe just general. How about a general
sense of danger? Maybe if there's
something lurking, or-- LIAM: You're trying to figure
out what specifically? In the story. AIMEE: In the story, I
guess I'm trying to sense if something magickal
nefarious has happened to block our path, you know? LIAM: So not related
to Malcolm, but where you are?
AIMEE: No, because he's, I mean, I don't know what I
would learn from that. LIAM: Okay. AIMEE: Yeah, just--
LIAM: Sure. AIMEE: -- to see if
there's anything specific. LIAM: Well, then you would
use Sense still here, too. AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: Mm-hmm. AIMEE: Oh, well. Hold on. Do that again. That was a five,
though, but-- Another five on the gilded. LIAM: Five.
IMARI: Yes! AIMEE: Yeah. IMARI: I like that. LIAM: You are in tuned with
ancient remnants of the past, LIAM: You are in tuned with
ancient remnants of the past, and it's not close, you
can't place it yet, but you can feel yourself
in the presence of that feeling in your
gut and in your heart when you are picking
up the 50th thing Mr. Fogg has given you. AIMEE: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: <i>This one</i> has ties. This one is real. Gregory looks to you, says,
"If you're all right to go, "we're getting close." ALEXANDER: Yeah.
LIAM: "Can you walk, doc?" ALEXANDER: I can. I'm fine. I just-- I'll have to get
a new pair of glasses. LIAM: "Okay. Here. "Why don't you come with me?" She loops her arm up
under yours and walks you down the
path of this cavern, which widens and closes
again and widens. But thankfully nothing is
hellish as the last half hour. Eventually, you find yourself spilling out
over piles of stone and into flat ground. AIMEE: Thank god.
LIAM: And turn around and see that you're
crawling out of a cave-in in some sort of structure. You're in a building somehow. She said-- Gregory says, "Okay, start looking around. "This is the place. This is
where we spend our time. "You can see in there,"
and she points into, there's a room with
two doors opened only about
30 or 40 feet away. The doors have
a golden sheen to them and they have lines, curving
lines etched into them. "This is the first thing
that we pulled. "That was the mask that we
pulled out of here of Ardos. "Took us like two or
three weeks to get in "and then one month to figure
out what to do with it. "Anyway, I'm not here to
give you a tour per se. "We should start
looking around," and as she moves a little
further into this space, you can see that you're on
the corner of this building, and there's a hall
going off down this way and a hall going down
off that way. This way, there are a few more rooms
in that direction where you can see doors open, but past that are many more
sealed doors down the hall. It is eerily reminiscent of the Fourth Pharos
for a moment, although nothing is
spiraling in your vision. Maybe in yours, Edgar. AIMEE: (laughs) IMARI: Oh, shit. LIAM: She moves through. You guys follow her
because she's the one who knows what's up in here. She looks into one room and you guys follow in
and it's empty. She looks into the next.
She shakes her head. You get to the-- She crosses to the other
side of this hallway and looks into
a doorway here, and you actually see there
is a pedestal in here like there have been
in the past few, but those pedestals
were empty. This one has a large, by lantern light you can
see a white and pinkish conch shell about this
large sitting on this thing and you can see
a black stone, glimmering, glinting
from the light of the lantern
that she holds up. She looks around, "Shit, shit, shit!" AIMEE: Professor Gregory,
are we looking for your team? LIAM: (emphatically) "Yes!" AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: (desperately) "Yes." IMARI: This is where
they're supposed to be? They're supposed to be here? LIAM: "Well, this is the
last place that I saw them. "This is the last place
that we were all together." TALIESIN: Well,
let's take a second. I don't know how
this necessarily-- This place is filthy. Wouldn't there be-- ALEXANDER: Footprints?
TALIESIN: -- footprints of some kind to touch? LIAM: That would
for sure make sense. Make a Survey roll. TALIESIN: Oh, right. I'll make a Survey roll. Well, I'll even-- Yeah.
AIMEE: Sure? TALIESIN: No, I will not.
AIMEE: Don't do it. (laughs) (laughter)
AIMEE: Sorry. Like, "Really, no!"
TALIESIN: Yeah, no. LIAM: Looking for
footprints is low stakes. AIMEE: Footprints
in the sand. LIAM: For your health.
TALIESIN: A five. AIMEE: All right! IMARI: Trying to find the line.
LIAM: Five. Well, you can see Gregory's fresh footprints in
the dust down here. That's pretty easy to see, but you do see prints
moving around. Lots of them. You take a few minutes. She looks like she wants
to start running around, but she holds. TALIESIN: Yes. LIAM: You guys watch as Leo with his hands
behind his back is looking down in
the lantern light that you guys supply. You begin to follow a couple sets of tracks off down the long hallway
that you were headed. Do we follow these? IMARI: Yeah.
AIMEE: Yes. LIAM: Okay.
IMARI: Well, I want to first, before we do that, I
want to take out my, I want to activate my
bleed detector on my hand and see if I get
any kind of sense. LIAM: Your hand, as soon as you access the detector,
your hand begins to glow a <i>very, very bright</i>
color from it. IMARI: Is this towards the
footprints that we're walking towards? LIAM: Not the footprints. Well, not that you can tell. IMARI: Right. Just all around. LIAM: Perhaps you're
walking between doors, and behind the previous doors were things that Candela
came here for to lock away. So it is a safe bet
to think that behind every door
in here of this vault that they believe belonged
to Emperor Calinus 2,000 years ago, that there are things
that are going to set off your detector for bleed. So by the light
of the lanterns and the light radiating
off the back of your hand, you guys follow Leo as he does seem to have a
bead on a pair of tracks. They get messed
every once in a while as older tracks
cross through them, but you're following
one specific shoe tread and you take a right and take a left. Gregory starts muttering
herself as you go. "We should not be
going this deep in. "It's against protocol." But she falls in
next to you, Leo, and can't deny that
you're onto something and you guys continue down, take a right, and then go down
a set of steps, maybe 30 or 40 stairs-- AIMEE: Ah, I'm drowning!
LIAM: -- and walk forward. Down here,
there are no other tracks. AIMEE: So it just disappears? LIAM: No, I'm sorry.
I wasn't clear. There are five sets
of tracks here, whereas previously
there was many and you were trying to
find the freshest in the mess. But you leave that behind and you are following five
sets of footsteps moving. AIMEE: I think we're
missing four people. LIAM: There is also one set of tracks coming out. IMARI: Oh shit. TALIESIN: Fuck. IMARI: Oh man, I have a sense of
what those tracks belong to. AIMEE: Who? IMARI: Look. I mean, to myself,
I'm thinking, I'm like, I'm going through
my brain and I'm thinking, I'm looking at the tracks
because, I mean, I do know how to read tracks since I've been
special military unit. I'm aware of how
tracks are spread, but then I notice
the tracks going out and I have an eerie suspicion that those tracks
might belong to Decklan. TALIESIN: What kind of shoes?
How big? LIAM: Oh, then you
would have to do a Focus roll for that one. IMARI: I'll Focus roll it. LIAM: That's
a low stakes roll. TALIESIN: I've got it,
my Focus is a little better. IMARI: Okay. TALIESIN: I have a theory. Four. Double fours. So four. LIAM: Double fours. TALIESIN: I'm just curious
if it's-- LIAM: You're focusing
on the prints leaving? TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm trying
to get a sense if I think it's
the right size for Alessandra, or Decklan,
or someone else. LIAM: Well, they're
not her size. She has pretty
petite feet, comparatively. TALIESIN: Just checking. LIAM: He did like to wear
work boots, and-- You think that's
what these are. They line up to
Decklan's size. They look older, the prints, than the ones that
are left on the right. AIMEE: Sorry,
just for clarity, the trail ends,
is that what you're saying? Or we just noticed the other
pair and then we're like, "Oh, okay." LIAM: They're continuing
around one more corner. AIMEE: I think we should go.
I think we should-- LIAM: You can see past that
corner, more stairs going up. So perhaps two sets of stairs
meet here in the middle, or maybe that goes
somewhere else entirely. But the tracks bend
around the corner. TALIESIN: He didn't
say anything. IMARI: Hmm? TALIESIN: I mean, he left. AIMEE: No, yeah.
TALIESIN: Others didn't. ALEXANDER: It doesn't help us
to jump to conclusions. Let's just wait 'til we
find evidence of anything. TALIESIN: We just don't want
to become evidence of anything. ALEXANDER: I understand, but getting bent out of shape
is not going help anybody. IMARI: Can I roll a Survey roll?
LIAM: Yeah. IMARI: I'm going to
roll a Survey roll. LIAM: Searching for? IMARI: I just want to further
investigate the tracks. LIAM: Do you want to
follow the tracks? Because you don't need
a Survey roll for that. IMARI: Well, no, I want to,
just the tracks leaving. I want to see if I could see
anything else that might be, I mean, you got
a four, right? LIAM: Mm-hmm. IMARI: So I would need
to get something better. LIAM: It's low stakes. IMARI: Well,
I won't see shit. (laughter) LIAM: Yeah.
AIMEE: Sees nothing. LIAM: You look over, you place
a hand on Leo's shoulder and you stare at them and you can't tell-- AIMEE: Delaying
the inevitable here. LIAM: But Leo--
AIMEE: We're trying. AIMEE: Leo, his grip on your
shoulder's a little tighter than is necessary
in that moment. TALIESIN: How are
you feeling? IMARI: Hm? TALIESIN: How are
you feeling? I gently put my hand
on the grip. IMARI: Feeling good. I'm good.
TALIESIN: Perhaps too good? IMARI: (sighs) I'm good. TALIESIN: Okay. IMARI: I think we should
follow the track. TALIESIN: Yes. IMARI: I'll lead the way.
TALIESIN: Okay. Keep talking if you need to. Don't pretend you're
better than you are. IMARI: Feeling slight pressure
on my scar right here. It's like, I have a, the burning's always
been there in my eye, but now it's almost
like a migraine, but it's a little bit
on the frontal lobe and it's just sort of-- I can feel it
pressing on my scar. LIAM: Okay. IMARI: But it's not constant, kind of pulses
every now and then. LIAM: Malcolm leads the way
and you turn the corner and see about 60 or
70 feet down a hallway. Large golden doors, 40 feet high in here, and one of them is
cracked open. Through the light
that is being thrown by your lanterns
down that hallway, you think you can see a hand on the ground. AIMEE: Like (hand clunks) that? AIMEE and IMARI: (quiet chuckle) LIAM: Yeah.
AIMEE: Oh shit. IMARI: Okay. In the doorway. LIAM: Past the doorway.
IMARI: Past the doorway. LIAM: Just barely alit by
from this distance. TALIESIN: Don't suppose we
can just say we found them, get on our way. ALEXANDER: I have to
see if they're okay. IMARI: We're going to have to
do the hard work. Let me do-- I'm going to drop
my pistol from my holster and I'm going to
hold my lantern. I'm just going to be ready. LIAM: Yeah. AIMEE: I-I-I will
grab my rifle. (laughter) LIAM: You've never
used one before. AIMEE: I've never
used one, but I'm-- IMARI: I taught you
in the yard before. AIMEE: Oh yeah, okay.
IMARI: I let you shoot a few times. AIMEE: I know how to
pull the trigger. IMARI: Not enough for you
to be familiar with it. AIMEE: Yeah, I'm not
a sharpshooter. ALEXANDER: I'm going to
go check on the body. LIAM: Okay, you guys
move forward. Actually, she,
Professor Gregory gets a little bit
ahead of you, Malcolm, and she starts, (huffing)
her breathing picks up. She runs in with
her lantern and you hear, she breaks in
just before you do. "Oh, no, no, no!" ALEXANDER: Shh, shh, shh,
wait, wait, wait, come back,
come back, come back. IMARI: Doctor. LIAM: A sob escapes her chest
and she chokes it and sinks into your body
as you hold her in as you guys enter here
and lamplight illuminates what looks like a crime scene. AIMEE: Oh shit. LIAM: The door opens into
a large, round room, LIAM: The door opens into
a large, round room, and for the location
we're at, directly across, shadows thrown against it
is a stone face carved into the far wall
facing out here and it has got a look of
revulsion on it. This is Oldfairen era, obviously, like
everything else in here, you have seen sculpture
from the time and it is quintessential. The hair on this face
is almost like a wavy, what's the word?
Like a Caesar cut, I guess, from Earth-One's terms,
but the face is drawn back from Earth-One's terms,
but the face is drawn back like it is seeing
something horrific. That aside, the Circle of the Wyrm lies scattered about
the room, all dead. AIMEE: All of them? LIAM: To the right,
just inside the door. Let's do this, this will
help you visualize. Even though the table's
not the same shape, this table is
the room and this, you two are at the door. The stone face is here. There is a body
right about in front of where you are sitting,
Malcolm, in the room, at about four
or five o'clock, and this is MaryAnne DeWitt. This is the woman with the
bob cut in the bomber jacket, which you see in here, and there are multiple
puncture wounds in this jacket. She has been
stabbed many times. She is lying with both hands. She's on her back and
in one hand she holds a gun, a revolver, which is pointed 'til about 11 o'clock
in the room, pointed towards a man
who lies on the ground, Alonzo Whitlock, and he has a bullet wound
in the back of his head and is splayed out off kilter from the center of the room. IMARI: Is he holding
a knife in his hand? LIAM: He's not. He's not.
AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: Not that you see. So DeWitt has been stabbed
near to the entrance and Alonzo Whitlock has been
shot in the back of the head. At about the nine o'clock are
two bodies close together. The large woman, Hilda, she has a bullet wound
in her chest, and the man near her,
Nestor Ronquillo, his throat has been cut, and Hilda does have
a knife in her hand, so it is pretty obvious that
she cut this man's throat for whatever reason
and we've only, we see one gun in this room and it is in
DeWitt's hand by the door. ALEXANDER: I'm slowly
doing my job, check the pulse
on each one of them, knowing what
I'm going to find. LIAM: But you know what
you're going to find. These bodies look like they've
been laying here for a while. AIMEE: Which one was
their Medium? Nestor or-- LIAM: Alonzo, who is-- IMARI: That's good, yeah. LIAM: Here at the front. AIMEE: I think
Grimoria would-- You said Nestor,
sorry, or Alonzo? LIAM: Alonzo Whitlock. AIMEE: I would go
to Alonzo, and I don't know, touch the body
to see if I could, like if a Medium would leave
a message for someone else, like some sort of trail, some sort of
spiritual message. LIAM: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. IMARI: That makes sense. LIAM: Make a Sense roll
for that, for sure. ALEXANDER: You stay with
what you're doing. Let's back up out of
the room, everybody. AIMEE: Five. LIAM: Five. You place your hands
on Alonzo. Close your eyes
and reach for him in the way you know how, and he does feel close, but not here. It also feels different than any moment, any intersection you've
ever had with a spirit. any intersection you've
ever had with a spirit. It feels muted somehow, but you know that it's near. AIMEE: Muted like... LIAM: Qualitative
essence of a spirit. I'm not sure.
AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: It doesn't feel
as present and visceral for some reason. AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: She drops down next
to him as well, Gregory, and she looks scared
to touch him almost. She touches the edges
of his hair for a second and then her hand on his face
and she looks back at DeWitt by the door and she shuts her eyes
to block it out. She pulls away, clutching herself
there over his body. Leo, you notice off
to the side by Leo, you notice off
to the side by Hilda and Nestor's bodies. Now that you've been
in here for a minute or two, there are thin grooves
in a few places in the wall, some sort of design
or architectural feature. some sort of design
or architectural feature. You can see down
on the ground, growing out of
a crack in the wall, the seam where the wall
meets the floor, there is a little splay of-- AIMEE: Oh no. Shit.
LIAM: -- white matter. AIMEE: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Yep. Back up. LIAM: As you guys back up,
you look to the professor who's
staring at the statue with her back turned to you, and her head turns
with a blank stare and her hand slides into
the mouth of the statue. You hear (clanging). You hear the sound of
metal go (sawing), and a glut of blood
splurts out and runs down the wall. [floor splitting]
IMARI: Fuck! AIMEE: Ew! LIAM: The floor beneath
begins to lower. 20 feet, 30.
AIMEE: We got to get out of here. LIAM: 50. You watch as the lip of the
hallway you entered from rises ever upward above you. Your stomach lurches as
you take a sudden drop. [bricks tumbling] LIAM: But the platform
catches and drops again, and then grinds
to another stop. Some sort of resistance
is slowing your descent, but all too soon,
the momentum becomes too great and all of you start
to plummet fast. [air howling, swooshing] [floor crashing] (panting) Before our story goes any
further, let's take a moment to thank today's sponsor, Aura. Aura is an all in one platform that provides comprehensive
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sponsoring this episode. (creepy music) (adventurous music) TALIESIN: Delve into a new
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may be the key to protecting you,
your allies, and the Fairelands. Oh hey, it's us. Your friendly neighborhood
ambiguous shadowy weirdos here to say cryptic
things at you as usual. Are you ready for the third
and final season of Midst? We certainly are. Some of you have been
waiting a very long time. Good news: the wait is almost over. Midst, man. What the heck? A lot of questionable characters doing
incredibly problematic things to each other in a series of increasingly
insane escalating circumstances while struggling to follow their warped
moral compasses and do what they think is hopefully
the right thing. Can the Trust get…
worse somehow? Can Phineas get less worse? How much longer can
Lark outrun her past? Are there any objectively
good guys in this story? Other than Moc Weepe. How can any of these threads possibly be
resolved with only one more season to go? And we STILL don't even know what
happened with that dang moon. Are we ever gonna
get some ANSWERS? Yes. As a matter of fact… we will. The third and final season
of Midst unfolds February 14th. Listen to the pure sound experience
anywhere you stream podcasts or watch illustrated video episodes
on the Critical Role YouTube channel. In the meantime, you can
follow us at @midstpodcast or join the Fold on Midst.co to get early access to episodes,
behind the scenes bonus content music downloads, digital
artwork, and more. Everything's been
leading to this. We'll be with you to the end. Do you Trust us? LIAM: Edgar. ALEXANDER: (labored breathing) LIAM: You shift in place on a broken stone floor, your head ringing, bits of dust raining down from higher
up in this shaft as you open your eyes
in the darkness. Your vision is a blur.
Your mind is a blur. Before we proceed any further,
a bit of housekeeping. Everyone at the table
takes three body. AIMEE: Well, I'm out. TALIESIN: Well, you're not
taking it now. You took it. AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: So what that means, if you took a scar from
plummeting down-- I'm so on edge, you guys. Plummeting down this shaft and striking the bottom, you take a scar, carry those three
body through, and we'll get to
you in a moment. Just keep track of where
you are with scars and marks. Remember, if those
bodies carry to a scar, any remaining body move
through to the next. TALIESIN: So you should be
one lower than you were. LIAM: You push yourself
up on one arm, look around you, and start
to try and get your bearings. look around you, and start
to try and get your bearings. You are sitting, it almost
feels like a slide. The floor you're on
is on an angle, and down at the
bottom of this angle, you see your three friends in a bloody heap. ALEXANDER: Okay. Okay. LIAM: Off to the side, you see
Dr. Alessandra Gregory, her face split
open on a stone-- AIMEE: (despairing sigh) LIAM: -- her body
face down, limp-- ALEXANDER: Okay.
LIAM: -- and very dead. As your vision comes into clarity here,
you realize, somehow you can see, even though no lanterns
at the moment are burning. It is very, very pale,
dim lighting, It is very, very pale,
dim lighting, and you can see
up behind you, up this stone ramp and a five- or
six-foot crawl up is a hall, and all along the arched
roof of that hall that you can see
from where you are has fingers of
white fungal growth spreading down.
ALEXANDER: Oh shit. Okay, okay, okay.
LIAM: What do you do? ALEXANDER: So they are all
down a slide from where I am. LIAM: Not moving, akimbo, half piled
on each other. ALEXANDER: Can any
of you hear me? Are any of you awake? LIAM: Leo.
TALIESIN: (groans) LIAM: You hear a voice in
the back of your head. ALEXANDER: Hello. TALIESIN: That depends.
Am I unconscious? ALEXANDER: Okay,
stay very still. I'm coming to get you. TALIESIN: Oh no. No, no, no. ALEXANDER: I'm going to try
and slowly start making my way down to them. LIAM: Leo, your back, there's something
wrong in your back. You twist your shoulders
where you lie. You can move,
but every movement comes with a small price. You hear stone and
dust and skittering as Edgar slides
down toward you. TALIESIN: Careful,
just careful. ALEXANDER: I'm being careful.
TALIESIN: Okay. I don't feel great. ALEXANDER: I wouldn't
expect you would. Okay, now tell me,
can you move your fingers? TALIESIN: Can I? I try. LIAM: Yes. Yes, they move.
TALIESIN: Yes. ALEXANDER: Can you
move your toes? TALIESIN: Just as
much as normal. LIAM: It hurts your lower
back a little, but you can. TALIESIN: Oh, that does not
feel good though. My back is-- ALEXANDER: Okay, okay. Stay still.
TALIESIN: Okay. Right. ALEXANDER: Now, position-wise, who is on top? Is it Leo? LIAM: Leo and Grimoria
are sort of in an X. ALEXANDER: Okay.
LIAM: With Leo's body over Grimoria's
lower back and legs, and Malcolm is
underneath them all. ALEXANDER: Hey. TALIESIN: I'm going to tap-- ALEXANDER: Grim,
are you awake? Can you hear me?
AIMEE: I'm fucking passed out. ALEXANDER: Okay. LIAM: You feel a hand
on your shoulder and slowly come through, and the first thing
that strikes you is a sharp, sharp pain
in your left shoulder. You start to realize that
your arm is pinned underneath your own body
and someone, something. ALEXANDER: Okay, I'm going
to try and gently detangle the both of you. TALIESIN: (skeptical groan) ALEXANDER: We're going to
do this very slowly, because we're all in trouble. TALIESIN: (laughs) ALEXANDER: Apart
from the fact that we fell a long way-- AIMEE: Mm-hmm. ALEXANDER: -- there's a lot
of that mushroom above us. LIAM: There's also bits
of particulate dust, even hunks--
IMARI: Oh shit. LIAM: -- falling
from above you. ALEXANDER: Okay.
LIAM: If you think about it, as you were plummeting,
it felt like you were smashing through or scraping some resistance for part of the trip on the way down.
ALEXANDER: Yeah. Okay. I'm going to-- I go over to Grimoria.
LIAM: Yes. ALEXANDER: I take the
bottom of her skirt and I start ripping bandana-sized strips
of cloth for everybody. I'm sorry, I'm ruining your
dress, but we need this. AIMEE: That's okay. ALEXANDER: I start tying them around their mouths
and my mouth. LIAM: Understood.
ALEXANDER: Then I have one for Malcolm when I get to him. LIAM: Understood.
TALIESIN: Well done. ALEXANDER: Okay. Let's try
and move you all. TALIESIN: (groans)
ALEXANDER: I'm going to start with Leo.
TALIESIN: (groans) ALEXANDER: I'm going to
try and slide him out, off to the side. LIAM: He moves sideways,
still on his back, still not risking tempting
it, probing it, and you have clearance
now for Grimoria. ALEXANDER: I'll move
Grimoria off of Malcolm. LIAM: Grimoria, as you sit up
and your arm comes free-- AIMEE: I think she throws up. LIAM: You do, you throw up
all over your front. ALEXANDER: It's okay.
AIMEE: I feel like I want to throw up. (laughs)
ALEXANDER: It's okay. It's okay, it's okay,
come on, let's get you up. LIAM: You try to move
your arm, and you can, but it is not what
you are accustomed to. You can manipulate your hand, in pain. You can raise your
arm up, in pain. It's functional,
but damage is done. AIMEE: Okay. Can it be put
back into place, or no? IMARI: Dislocated. LIAM: Sure, you can--
ALEXANDER: I'll examine you. We'll see if we can fix it. TALIESIN: If not, we
can make a sling, I believe.
ALEXANDER: I just need to get to Malcolm. TALIESIN: Coat and skirt.
(groans) ALEXANDER: I place
a hand on Malcolm. Is Malcolm face
down or face up? LIAM: His legs are facing,
not straight up, but on an angle up towards
this passage that is above, and his head is bent,
not horribly, but he has probably
slid and sunk into the base
of this incline. ALEXANDER: Before I try and
wake him up, how is his face? How does it look? LIAM: Well, his face,
his eyes are closed. His mouth hangs open, and you can hear slow
(labored breathing). If you're asking if
there's any telltale signs of what you've seen
happen to Decklan, you can make a Survey.
This is a low roll. You don't have to
burn any resources, if you even have any left. ALEXANDER: I do. Four.
LIAM: Four. Yeah, it's low stakes. You've never seen anything
like this condition or this growth, but it's
not like in the last hour his condition or his traits
have progressed any further. ALEXANDER: Okay. Malcolm, can you
hear me? Malcolm? LIAM: Malcolm, you
start hearing a voice echoing in your
dreaming mind, and then realize that you're--
IMARI: (groans) ALEXANDER: Don't move.
LIAM: -- awake. IMARI: (groans) ALEXANDER: Okay. Hey,
we fell a long way. Is there pain anywhere,
other than just-- Anything major?
IMARI: (groans) My head. (groans) My head. LIAM: You feel a welt
growing on his head, a lump on his head. Malcolm, you also feel
your right shoulder, stiff and pained.
IMARI: (groans) (groans) ALEXANDER: Okay.
IMARI: Oh, my shoulder. ALEXANDER: Yeah.
IMARI: My right shoulder. ALEXANDER: All right,
let's get you up. We're on a bit of a slide, but everybody's
been pretty hurt, so let's just get our
bearings, but first, I tie it around,
keep this on. I point up. IMARI: Gotcha. LIAM: Leo,
lying on your back, your view aimed up
this stone shaft, your view aimed up
this stone shaft, you notice that
there are recessed shelves or grips moving up this very tall shaft. It looks like whoever
built this place left a way to leave it,
should anything go wrong. However, you also see,
you think, in the shadow and texture
of this growth that swirls in the shadow and texture
of this growth that swirls up and up and up and up and
up and up this passage, the shadows in a few places,
two, three places, are moving, the shadows in a few places,
two, three places, are moving, maybe 100 feet
or more up, slowly. maybe 100 feet
or more up, slowly. TALIESIN: I don't mean
to alarm anyone. First of all, there is,
it seems, a clear way up, by someone who has
a cruel sense of humor, and I don't think
we're alone up there. IMARI: What do you see? TALIESIN: I've not been the best observer, the best observer, but I think there's movement. LIAM: Why don't you make
a Survey roll, Leo. TALIESIN: All right. Low stakes, I assume. LIAM: Yes. Well, relatively. TALIESIN: You are terrible. IMARI: (laughs) TALIESIN: Three.
LIAM: Three. TALIESIN: Gilded,
so I'll take that. LIAM: You hear movement every seven or eight seconds. TALIESIN: That's not what
I'm used to hearing. LIAM: You're worried,
maybe you're imagining it. TALIESIN: Oh.
LIAM: Maybe you're imagining it. There are still bits
of particulate and dust raining down every
few moments. ALEXANDER: Try and breathe
through your nose. LIAM: All of you can see now.
TALIESIN: There. LIAM: Your eyes are
adjusting down here, and you can see this
growth from the arch in to where you are. It curves around and up, traveling up to-- IMARI: Where's our exit? LIAM: Well, you came
from up there. IMARI: Up there, so we have
to go back the same way. ALEXANDER: There is a--
LIAM: There is a ladder, and there is a passage--
ALEXANDER: -- pathway, a passage.
LIAM: -- at the top of this. IMARI: Is any of that growth by the passage,
by any chance? Is any of the growth
by the passage? Is there anything
growing by there? LIAM: The passage is clear,
it looks like, climbing up this fallen
platform you're on, and the lip of that hall or way up there seems clear, but the ceiling above it
and the walls are grown. So it looks like if
you went in there, you'd be walking under
fingers of this stuff. ALEXANDER: Okay. LIAM: Last detail, it is
that growth that is giving off the barest bit of light,
and why you can see here. There are torches. One of them is shattered to
bits. The glass is broken. But one managed to survive, cradled between
Leo and Grimoria. ALEXANDER: We have a lantern
that seems intact. LIAM: Yeah. ALEXANDER: Can I make
a quick Survey check-- LIAM: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: -- to see if the gun that the body was holding
is around here anywhere? LIAM: Yes, yes. AIMEE: And maybe one
of the knives, too. I think there are two knives. TALIESIN: Two knives.
AIMEE: No, just the one knife. LIAM: You saw one knife.
AIMEE: Yeah, maybe-- LIAM: You thought
there might be two. ALEXANDER: Five.
LIAM: Five. You're looking for the gun?
ALEXANDER: The gun. LIAM: You do see the gun.
You have to walk over to-- Not walk,
you have to slide over to the body of Dr. Gregory. You can see a bomber jacket
partially underneath her, and you pull back her body,
and she falls to the side, and you see just a ruin,
just a ruin. Very little detail left. You can make out a few teeth and one eye still
in its socket, but everything else is gone. You now see DeWitt with her short cut
black hair, slightly bloodied, but those
bodies were there a while, and you find the gun a few feet
down the ramp there. ALEXANDER: I put it
inside my vest, or tuck it into
the edge of my pants. LIAM: You start to
hear sound from above. AIMEE: Yeah, we need
to get out of here. ALEXANDER: Okay, everybody. LIAM: You start to hear
more pronounced sound. TALIESIN: It's not just me. AIMEE: Of cracking,
or movement, or what? TALIESIN: There's
something in here. LIAM: Something
beyond the dust. AIMEE: Yeah, okay. LIAM: Fragments of--
AIMEE: Yeah, we've got to go. ALEXANDER: Okay, okay. We need to go slowly. We don't know if
this is stable. So we've got to
get to that ladder and get up to that passage.
TALIESIN: Okay. AIMEE: I'm going to crawl. LIAM: Sorry,
I wasn't clear enough. There's a ladder in
this shaft that leads up from where you came.
ALEXANDER: Oh, okay. LIAM: But something is
coming down that direction, and from that ladder, this platform that
you crashed down on is slanting up and, whoop,
you can go somewhere else. AIMEE: I see, okay.
LIAM: So that ladder would be cool if you felt up to
a whatever long climb. ALEXANDER: But there's
things up there. LIAM: Yes. ALEXANDER: Okay.
Grimoria, you start climbing. We've got to drag him up. TALIESIN: Where's-- There's a-- There's a crushed lantern. ALEXANDER: And an intact one.
LIAM: An intact lantern. TALIESIN: Does the crushed
lantern still have fuel? ALEXANDER: Does it? LIAM: Yes, it's the
glass that's shattered. ALEXANDER: Okay. LIAM: But it has
landed in such a way that there is still-- TALIESIN: Do we want to
attempt to make that ladder, which I assume is wood. LIAM: No, no.
TALIESIN: It's stone. LIAM: It's carved recesses.
TALIESIN: Yeah. IMARI: That's right. Into the thing. TALIESIN: We could
leave a little-- Well, we have an option
at some point. LIAM: The sound
is getting closer. TALIESIN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Let's go. IMARI: We got to go.
All right. I want to help start-- I want to get to my feet,
shake it off. LIAM: Mm-hmm. IMARI: I want to, first we
need to tend to Leo first. LIAM: And, Leo, you can move. Everyone can move.
ALEXANDER: Okay. LIAM: It just hurts.
TALIESIN: Oh. ALEXANDER: Okay.
LIAM: It just hurts. ALEXANDER: Make our
way to that tunnel. AIMEE: Okay.
IMARI: I'll stick behind Leo to make sure
I can prop him up if he slips from there
or something like that. I mean I know I have
one bad arm, but I could still
use my hand to prop. LIAM: You are still a circle. IMARI: Yeah. LIAM: You guys climb your way
with difficulty up this ramp and then pull yourselves
up a four-foot raise because it's wedged
down a little bit below maybe where it was
supposed to rest and climb into a hall. You see the whole
hall ahead of you goes forward and
up on an angle. All along it is
this fungal growth-- IMARI: Shit.
LIAM: -- hanging down from above. You can see more
pale light beyond, it just looks like
all that same color. You're not close
enough to understand or decipher the
color you're seeing or detail from that color,
but you gather there is more. IMARI: Grimoria. AIMEE: Yeah? (laughs) IMARI: Can you channel? How conscious do you think
you channel right now? AIMEE: (stumbling mumbles) IMARI: Can you channel that
old woman that you did? AIMEE: Yeah, I can, the
problem is I was waiting, I mean, just
above table talk. LIAM: Sure.
AIMEE: I was waiting because it doesn't
cost me nothing. ALEXANDER: Yeah. AIMEE: So I was
waiting for some-- I could do a Sense roll
to see if I can, I don't know what possibly-- IMARI: Maybe there's a secret
passage that you can-- AIMEE: Yeah, maybe something.
I was just trying to-- LIAM: If you're looking
for a secret passage, that would be Survey. But if you're looking for
magickal phenomenon around you, that is Sense and you
can, you especially, can sense things
if you roll-- IMARI: Can she sense
something to tell us how to get the fuck out? LIAM: There is no game guide
or cheat code in this place. IMARI: (laughs)
AIMEE: Because every time I use Sense, it's always some answer
that's not helpful. IMARI: It's always
an answer of answers. ALEXANDER: Before we do
anything, I think we need to get a little further
down this passage. TALIESIN: I assume we
were just walking. AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: Okay, you limp your
way, the four of you. ALEXANDER: I pull out the
glove and I put it on. LIAM: Put it on your hand. AIMEE: I have the rifle
pointed at whatever the fuck. IMARI: Is there anything I can
use to make a little small torch to burn something that
might be in front of me? Something like a lantern? LIAM: You can strip away
some of the clothes quickly from the Circle of the Wyrm. TALIESIN: Well, I think
I've got a plan B for that. We're going to be fine.
LIAM: But I'm going to give you 30 more seconds to brainstorm.
AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ALEXANDER: We don't know--
IMARI: We're just going to go. ALEXANDER: We don't know if
this fungus is flammable. IMARI: We're just going to go. LIAM: Okay, so you begin to walk--
ALEXANDER: And we don't want to-- LIAM: -- limp your way
along this hallway. That door, that passage, that arch in the
distance starts to widen with your perspective
as you get closer. You step out onto
a stone platform, created, built, manmade, and find yourself
looking up at a massive, massive underground cavern. The entire cave roof of which is just grown over
with this stuff. It is huge! Inside the hull,
it's like its size adapts to the amount
of room it has. In the the passage it was
relatively small hands of it, but here in the cavern, it's
like an upside down forest coming down from the ceiling. It looks oddly-- This is not in world
I don't think, like Velcro growing
down from the ceiling. A forest, it looks
climbable even. It is so thick and curved,
snaking around each other. That you see. The stone platform you're
on stretches out in an arc across to a building
in the distance. But the bridge is broken
20 feet in front of you. Across this expanse, you
can see the other side of that bridge
that has fallen into this pit below. There is a large building with huge, tall
doors all around it. with huge, tall
doors all around it. There is growth coming out of some point at the top
of the dome of this place, stretching up into the
ceiling and all around. That growth stretches
from out of the building all the way across the
chamber, down around you. If you wanted to,
you could reach out and step up on a part of it. Everything is pale and glows with just a tiny
bit of luminosity. The torch you have lights
up your surroundings well, and then it is just this
dimness stretching out so far. AIMEE: So it looks like
our only way out or away from here is
just more of the growth. It's not less growth,
it's more. LIAM: Physically where
you are, Grimoria-- Do me a favor, make
a Survey roll. AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: As you think
about whatever it is that is coming
down that shaft and looking at a broken
bridge in front of you, and you don't see an elevator
out of here anywhere. AIMEE: Okay, I'm going to
burn a drive for that. Five. (sighs)
LIAM: Five. LIAM: Okay, you take
in the entire chamber while the men just stand
slack jaw looking at it. A few things you
process very quickly. One is that the
sound behind, you can hear it still
behind you back there. You're not missing
any hidden exits that you're maybe
searching for, but you can definitely
see if you <i>wanted to</i>, you think one area
of this growth on the left just curving down and growing into the
side of this bridge, where if you wanted to, you
could climb into this mess and make your way
up and through. But you also, as you're
surveying this entire chamber, off to all of your right, you
see the growth over there is shifting in your view. It's like it's alive or it's something
the same color as it is moving through. A few of them, no more than a few.
AIMEE: Okay. IMARI: It's only one section? LIAM: No. Your head darts around
looking everywhere, hearing these things now you
think, it sounds like maybe they're scrambling about the
bodies, maybe, behind you. But you can see a couple more
moving off on your left, too. It looks like two
little clouds of life are moving through the
thickets along the walls. Closing on your location. AIMEE: So I relay
this information, very quickly ask, I mean it
sounds like our only option is to go to the growth
connecting to the bridge, so-- ALEXANDER: I think making it
across to that other building as quick as possible,
as quietly as possible is the appropriate response. I don't know what
those things are, but there could be any sort of bleed-infused
life being down here. IMARI: Do we want to try
to burn through this? ALEXANDER: No!
IMARI: Want to burn it down? ALEXANDER: If you want to stay
over here and burn it down after we get across,
by all means. IMARI: Do we have to
burn a path through it? Is it blocking our path? AIMEE: No, no, because we
can go down the growth and up into the bridge. IMARI: All right, cool,
then I'll follow. ALEXANDER: I'm just going
to put down a blanket. No burning. IMARI: All right, cool.
ALEXANDER: No burning right now. AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ALEXANDER: It's bad.
AIMEE: So we do that. LIAM: Okay, okay. Each of you, one by
one, starts to move up into this hanging forest
of fungal growth. Malcolm, you take the rear where these things
are coming behind and you look behind
you and you can see low to the ground
down that passageway, some sort of forms with obvious
arms and feet or fingers-- some sort of forms with obvious
arms and feet or fingers-- IMARI: Oh shit. LIAM: -- just moving pretty
quietly along that stone floor. You see one coming along the
ceiling in the hallway, too. You almost missed it. They're about halfway
up as you climb up behind the rest of the
group and you begin to lift and climb your way. It's probably
500 feet across. Everybody, as you
climb up high, it's not like you're hanging
just from the bottom of it and then it's
a straight drop. You're wise enough to move up through several
bands of this stuff, because you can see how far
you will go if you drop. Knowing that, everyone
make a Movement roll. All our rolls
are high stakes. AIMEE: Can we burn-- Oh, so I get one more
if I use my drive. TALIESIN: Once you use your
resistance, you don't get it back if you fail your drive again.
LIAM: You don't get it back. TALIESIN: Okay,
I just figured. AIMEE: Five on the gilded, so
I'm getting my drive back. IMARI: Four on the gilded. TALIESIN: Candela.
LIAM: Candela. IMARI: Who got a
Candela? Oh, nice. LIAM: So--
TALIESIN: I got fucked up. LIAM: -- your circle, this quartet moves
in a quiet little parade through this "Alice in
Wonderland" nightmare. You make it a full,
almost halfway across. You are in the vault
of this cave's temple. Grimoria, you are behind Leo
moving through this stuff. It's like climbing trees
when you were a kid. He gets a little
bit ahead of you. You hear him
grunting as he moves, and he dips down out of
view and another form and he dips down out of
view and another form comes in from above, and you see slowly moving, what looks like a white,
muddled abdomen or torso. Long, thin, and slender. You're watching this
thing move in horror as it comes towards
you slowly. It doesn't feel like it
is alerted to you yet, but your brain wants to
make there be arms and legs. But the four limbs you
see are not adhering to the anatomy you
are familiar with. They seem to move in any angle
and direction they need. There is no difference between
the feet and the hands. They're just long
tendril-like digits, They're just long
tendril-like digits, not too different than the
stuff you are climbing on. It comes down
into view and turns so that it is right-side up. You see it almost is a low
moving white-scabbed crab, You see it almost is a low
moving white-scabbed crab, but there is no head on
this thing anywhere. What looks almost like two
flexing moving shoulders here, just has a melted pile
of growth, just a hump. just has a melted pile
of growth, just a hump. It crawls up next to you. You are about six or seven
feet away from this thing. You're a little further back,
you are a little further back, and it is just
hanging in space there, and a little
thin sliver or gap (growls) opens in the center
of its body. You see as soon as that
white scabrous exterior opens, it's just<i>
red</i> inside and a thin little
moving red tendril and a thin little
moving red tendril with little nodes or
bobbles on the end of it with little nodes or
bobbles on the end of it just twists in the air. It turns and instantly
begins to rush you. What do you do? AIMEE: I'm just, I
don't have a choice. I'm going to
invoke The Prestige and invoke Atia Griffia's
soul/spirit, and invoke Atia Griffia's
soul/spirit, and trust that
this is her realm. She would know
what to do here. LIAM: Got it. You hear
a voice in your mind. "Come, child. "I am with you. "Take it "and go." AIMEE: Take what?
LIAM: Now, you have this spirit
commingled with yours. You still have to deal
with all these guys. So tell me in this moment, overlapped with Atia Griffia, in a story that
you're writing, what would you want
to do right now? AIMEE: Okay, so just
to set the scene, there's this thing
coming towards, so we're in,
is it an enclosed space or we are in a tunnel
and he's in front. So he's already passed?
LIAM: It's not tunnels, it is branches,
it's like climbing through endless white tree branches. AIMEE: He's maybe
relative safety. I don't know,
I don't see him. LIAM: He disappeared
like eight seconds ago. He was climbing,
also, you don't hear that language is in
the old tongue, but you understand. AIMEE: What I
would want to do if I could do
anything right now is to create a spiritual tube that we are all encased in, so that we can get
through this safely. If there's a way to
also quietly exterminate these little funguses,
that'd be great. But I would just literally
take getting us to safety. LIAM: I'm going to work
with you on that. Will you give me
a Sense roll, please? AIMEE: Yes. AIMEE: Candela.
LIAM: Candela. IMARI: Oh my god.
Yes, baby. LIAM: You hold on here
and stretch one hand out and you see your hand and you
see another transparent hand, slightly overlapped
and both press forward and you watch this creature with its little
snaking probe go (crackling growls) It presses back into
branches of fungus around it. Another one,
as that's happening comes sneaking around
from a different direction, but immediately
starts getting shoved back
away from you all. You start to climb through, you don't understand
what is happening and all of you climb
as fast as you can. Leo, you are arriving,
you're almost there. You can hear this
rising noise behind you as everyone moves
down through. Eventually, you plop down onto
stone on the other side. You drop out of this growth and you are standing
on a wide precipice in front of this building that
now towers high above you. You've made it across. You can hear,
as you guys arrive, climbing down out
and joining Leo. You can hear
(chittering) in the distance and looking back across,
you can still see what looks like
20 or 30 amassing on the other side and crawling
in to that forest and coming. on the other side and crawling
in to that forest and coming. AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: You turn
towards the building and there are massive doors,
double doors. Set on this curving
exterior of the building. AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: (chittering) AIMEE: I think that-- TALIESIN: Do the
doors open or--? LIAM: Do they?
TALIESIN: Well. LIAM: They don't open for you
like someone's waiting. IMARI: Yeah, I'm going to
freaking open that door. TALIESIN: I was going to say, are
the sounds coming from inside? LIAM: No, no, no, no.
TALIESIN: Okay. AIMEE: Do I have,
in this ability, do I have her memories? Am I seeing through her eyes, or is it just
a little bit autopilot? LIAM: She is with you. AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: Her voice. AIMEE: I'm going to
listen to that voice, and see if it seems like
we're intuiting that safety is beyond those doors.
LIAM: You look at the building, you look at one set of
double doors in front of you, and you can see lines, intricate, curving around, concentric circles,
overlapping circles. You hear, in that old tongue, (Atia) "We will not bind him. "We will break him." AIMEE: I will help you. (laughs incredulously)
If I can. IMARI: Is that her
speaking to her? LIAM: You don't
hear it, but-- LIAM: -- you look at--
(laughs) TALIESIN: She gets all
the fun shit. LIAM: -- Grimoria staring
at the doors just-- Oh, but unless, I'm sorry, are you using The Prestige? AIMEE: Yeah.
LIAM: So you are seeing this translucent
double image. this translucent
double image. Part of the time,
you can see Grimoria, but part of the time, a mist moves and
swirls around her face, and you can see this
much older, tan woman, with white hair, floating. It just shifts
back and forth, sometimes both. TALIESIN: Oh, I hate
all of this. IMARI: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Let's see if, quietly, you take one side,
I take the other, just wide enough for
us to get in, yeah. IMARI: I'm going to help Leo. (strains) AIMEE: It's like
"A Quiet Place." (laughs) LIAM: That will be a
Strike or a Move, I'll let you choose. IMARI: I'll do a Strike, and I'm going to burn one. LIAM: Okay.
TALIESIN: All right. TALIESIN: Do you want a drive
or no? Are you all right? IMARI: I think I'm good.
TALIESIN: Okay. ALEXANDER: While
they're doing that-- LIAM: Yes?
ALEXANDER: Can I make a Focus roll to quickly see if I can suss
out how this thing works? The gun. IMARI: Candela.
LIAM: (laughs) Okay. AIMEE: Yes, baby
ALEXANDER: Candela. LIAM: Candela, Candela.
IMARI: Candela, baby. AIMEE: That good hand.
TALIESIN: I'm stealing those dice when this game is over.
LIAM: (grunts) IMARI: Candela. TALIESIN: On the gild?
IMARI: Candela gilded, too. LIAM: Okay, so.
AIMEE: Woo! LIAM: While they're
working on the door, you are looking
over this glove, with this cylinder that you
remember from the church, that man drew energy off
of Atia Griffia's remains, that man drew energy off
of Atia Griffia's remains, and it seemed to
fill that chamber. There is a little clockwork
disk in the hand, There is a little clockwork
disk in the hand, a little brass,
like a bowl-shape wheel. It turns in your hand. You can feel it still
possesses one amount. You can feel it still
possesses one amount. ALEXANDER: One shot. LIAM: You believe,
you believe, because as soon
as you turn that wheel, that cylinder and
all the little lines on it begin to shimmer gently. ALEXANDER: Okay, okay. LIAM: You guys
shove the door. Shove this thing, and as
your hands slide across it, you see the dust of this that
has been here, who knows? AIMEE: (chuckles)
LIAM: Who knows? Smear away, and you see a metallic sheen
of gold uncovered. Then your fingers
push in and around, and one big door. (thuds) (creaks) It stops, and you can feel
something fighting it, but you flex
as hard as you can, and Leo shoves into
your hands, and it goes. (sliding) There is enough room for
each of you, one by one, to slide into this building.
ALEXANDER: Go, let's go. Let's get out of here.
LIAM: You can see these two moving down about
15 feet up from the edge, coming down to the stone. So you--
TALIESIN: As soon as we're in, we're going to start shoving the door right back.
ALEXANDER: Shoving it closed. LIAM: (thuds) (slams) TALIESIN: Is there anything
to keep it from? IMARI: (laughs) So what are
we locking ourselves in? AIMEE: I know. (laughs) TALIESIN: It's better
in here than out. LIAM: You are focusing
on the door at the moment, and you can just barely hear, (creaking movement) (thuds) but then nothing. So you allow yourself
to turn and see what fresh hell
you have walked into now. IMARI: Oh, great. LIAM: It is a wide,
expansive space. You can see from the roof a flow of this growth moving
up the walls and out. It is like a wound or just (huffed laugh) a squinted eye at the top where all of these
stretches of this material where all of these
stretches of this material meet in the middle, and remembering
what you saw outside, you suspect grow up and out. But all the walls, you can still see glimpses
of the doors in here and they're less dust coated, so you can see glints
of gold here and there, but the fungus is<i>
everywhere</i>, even down to the floor, and there's just snakes
of it further in. TALIESIN: Does this
feel like it might've been ground zero for this, with such an intense focus
at the top? LIAM: Yeah, I'm not going
to make you roll for that. Yes, it seems like, in the center of the chamber, about 100 feet away from you, in this big, circular hole is a big mound or hump
in the middle. AIMEE: Aw, shit. LIAM: There's some sort of oblong shape perched on an angle, like some sort of strange,
melted modern art. AIMEE: Okay, okay, okay. No exits that we can see? LIAM: There are other doors, many of them are grown over.
AIMEE: Shuttered. IMARI: I think
that's the root, I think we have to fry
the living crap out of it. ALEXANDER: Okay, settle down with the burning
and the destruction. We don't know the effects
that will happen. Let's take a minute and
figure out where we are, and if there's a way
out of this room. AIMEE: Can I--
Can I, like, sense-- Can I get a sense
of what this is, what is this growth? LIAM: You can't
see it too well, you're about 100 feet
away from it. AIMEE: But even the ones we've
already seen, what is it? A fungus, is it just an unruly magick virus?
LIAM: Well, you see fungus on the ground here,
and it seems to be, there's long snakes of it, I think it's probably coming
from the center and out onto whatever this thing
is in the center. AIMEE: It's coming
from that thing? TALIESIN: Is it possible
to walk gingerly, or is there just nowhere for feet to find purchase?
IMARI: It's everywhere, right? LIAM: You can step amongst it for a while.
TALIESIN: Okay. LIAM: There does look like, the furthering you get, the
thicker it gets on the ground, but out here,
it is splayed with gaps. IMARI: Every door
is covered with this? LIAM: Not every, most. IMARI: I want to do a Survey
and see if I can find a door that's not covered
and see if there's-- LIAM: Well, the one
you came in is not covered. IMARI: Is the only one
that's not covered? LIAM: Make a Survey roll. IMARI: Shit. (sighs) I'm going to burn a resistance. ALEXANDER: Why? IMARI: I'm going
to burn a drive. ALEXANDER: Okay.
IMARI: Sorry, resistance. ALEXANDER: No, no, no.
IMARI: Sorry, (laughs) drive. (laughs) ALEXANDER: Panic. IMARI: You're like,
"Why?" (laughs) ALEXANDER: No, I just
didn't want you to burn something you didn't have to. IMARI: Yeah, no, no, no, no. Five. LIAM: Five. Malcolm, you take
a few steps forward, carefully stepping on stone between these things, and peer out. It is very dim in here, but you think you do see one, maybe two that don't look
too badly covered. You look over your shoulder, not too dissimilar than
the one you came through. That one is maybe the least, but not by much. Peering through, trying to get a better look, having spotted those
potential exits, you feel a crunch under your foot,
and you feel (cracks) some of this
material breaking. Then all around
in the chamber. [hisses] AIMEE: Fuck. Spores. IMARI: Oh shit. LIAM: All of you-- IMARI: Oh no. LIAM: -- smell,
taste something sweet. Your eyes-- IMARI: Fuck, we're infected. LIAM: -- start to blur
and burn a bit. IMARI: (sighs) LIAM: This room,
which is so pale and white, LIAM: This room,
which is so pale and white, begins to shift and warm. Your vision swirls in pink and red. in pink and red. It's almost like those vents of extreme heat
at the bottom of the ocean, or when you look at a location far off
on a hot day and your view moves
and shifts. Grimoria, you look around and don't see Leo, or Edgar, or Malcolm any... more. You are in a sea of crimson. You are in a sea of crimson. AIMEE: Can I try
to fight that, since I have
a special thing happening? Just try to see if I can
hold onto any kind of-- LIAM: You hear
a voice in your ear, Griffia's ancient
voice saying, "This is his woe, "this is his folly." AIMEE: How do we fight it? We want to
destroy him for you. Every trace. LIAM: "Come with me." You want to try to
do what specifically? I know that you want
Atia to help you. AIMEE: I want to know
so many things. I want to know what it is
that we're doing here and what she wants us to do, because this is her realm. So if she can give us
a directive, then I will do
everything to do that and also protect my friends
from getting more hurt. LIAM: Okay, I'm still
going to tie it to dice. AIMEE: Yeah, that's great.
LIAM: Make a Sense roll. AIMEE: Okay. Yeah, just kind of
tell us what to do here. Ah, fuck. Ah, on the gilded, fucking Candela.
IMARI: Ah, yes. (laughs)
AIMEE: (sighs) I swear, and this was
a fucking three, man, and a two. LIAM: You turn from
side to side, you look behind you, you don't even see
the doors you came in. It looks like an endless
landscape of (pants) fuchsia. You reach your hand out, and your hand, Grimoria, is curving impossibly
and bending and almost like it's
melting in front of you. But then in the distance, in this desert, far off,
you see a darker shape jutting up to the side. "He almost wiped us out once, "and now he will
do it again." Leo, your friends
are not around you. Your pain is gone. Your arms are just gyrating and floating in space. You see the red nothingness You see the red nothingness start to move and swirl, some sort of shape,
transparent, taking place off
in the distance. It is large, you have to tilt
your head back, which then begins to curve
too far to look at it. It looks so huge. Nearly invisible,
you just see the steam or particulates, stuff moving and
floating out of the way as you see the shape
of one massive leg. (whooshes) This being, transparent
as it is, (whooshes) silently turns to you. You see its surroundings
(flittering) invisibly float up and out in wide jets of heat, like massive wings. This being regards you as it moves
slowly towards you. "(guttural speech) "(guttural speech) "(guttural speech)" What do you do, Leo? TALIESIN: Am I floating? LIAM: "(guttural speech) "(guttural speech) "(guttural speech)" You look down, and you don't see any ground. Your feet just step and step, like you're doing
water ballet, your body twisting in
strange, rounded movements. your body twisting in
strange, rounded movements. TALIESIN: Just focus, and briefly close my eyes, and I tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. I know where I am,
I'm where I'm always, I'm in a room with a clock. It's where I am,
it's where I'm always. I'm in a room with a clock. Tick, tick, tick.
LIAM: It doesn't hurt, but you can feel your ribs--
TALIESIN: Tick, tick, tick, tick. LIAM: -- slowly
twisting and moving. You can see under your flesh when you look at your arms, and pull your shirt open, your innards are moving in rhythmic little
patterns inside. What are you trying
to do here, Leo? Your fingers are bending and moving and growing, six inches, 12 inches. TALIESIN: I survived
the clock. I know, I know time. I'm always time. I know when I am. I know what I am. I can look in the mirror
and I know what I am. LIAM: "(guttural speech)
(menacing hiss) "(vicious snarl)" Do you know what
you want to do, Leo? TALIESIN: Yes. LIAM: Then do it. TALIESIN: I breathe and
I pull myself into myself and I race towards
whatever feels like Grimoria and Edgar,
or my friends. I'm time,
I move through time. LIAM: Make a Survey roll. TALIESIN: ♪ (searching hum) ♪ IMARI: Do you want
another drive? AIMEE: Can we help? TALIESIN: No.
LIAM: No, not at this moment. AIMEE: Because we can't
hear any of that. LIAM: You have no idea. IMARI: All alone. TALIESIN: Let's burn
that resistance. IMARI: Do you want to use an extra die?
AIMEE: Don't forget we got this. TALIESIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll take one of those. AIMEE: Yeah.
IMARI: (blows raspberry) AIMEE: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Thank you. TALIESIN: Well,
that's one, two. Wow. IMARI: Please tell me there's
a Candela in there. TALIESIN: That's a one, that's a one.
IMARI: Oh no, no. TALIESIN: That's a one, and a Candela. IMARI: Yo!
AIMEE: Oh! You! IMARI: Oh my god.
(laughter) TALIESIN: Oh good,
I needed that resistance. IMARI: Candela on the gild?
TALIESIN: Yeah. AIMEE: Oh, you get
that back, baby! ALEXANDER: Christ.
LIAM: You swim through this sea of crimson, your body twisting
and curling impossibly. You can feel your heart
beating rhythmically. You can feel your heart
beating rhythmically. You feel hard,
mechanical parts inside it, and behind this moving, melting mask that
is your face, and you swim and swim. It all fades just
a little bit and the color dims
just a little bit, and you can see a strange, massive shape about
60 feet away from you. You see all of your friends
facing different directions. Malcolm is staring upward. Edgar is just looking
at his own hand. You see Grimoria staring at that large shape in the center of the chamber. "(guttural speech)"
AIMEE: Goddamn it. LIAM: "(growls)"
IMARI: Told you we should've burned that shit. LIAM: "(guttural speech)"
IMARI: Didn't I say burn it? LIAM: You move closer to her. You close the gap. You look to your side and see Leo melting out of nothingness
into being. Put a pin in it, you two. Malcolm, what are you doing? IMARI: I'm-- LIAM: You feel your whole body
curving like a serpent's. It feels like your head
will just keep going and eventually form a circle, your body just
spiraling in space. IMARI: I need to snap
myself out of it. Obviously, I'm in a trance. I know this enough
not to be reality. I've dabbled with
psychedelics before, and this does not feel
like reality to me. So I need to jar myself
out of the trance. I need to figure it out. Do I have my lamp by me? Is there anything hot? LIAM: If you want to find
your lamp right now, that is going to be the
subject of your action here. Your body feels
like spaghetti. IMARI: First of all, my
main thing is to slap myself out of the trance. I want to get Edgar's
thing off his wrist and I want to burn the shit
out of that middle freaking-- I want to rip it
off his wrist, I want to burn that thing
in the middle of the thing because I think that's the
source of what's going on. But I need to get out
of this trance first. LIAM: So make a Sense
roll to reveal. IMARI: Fuck. All right, I'm going to burn,
I'm burning both drives. LIAM: Okay. IMARI: I'm going to use-- AIMEE: Yep. TALIESIN: All right. IMARI: (exhales) Baby. Those are the worst. AIMEE: Oh! IMARI: Candela. AIMEE: Sorry,
I got ahead of it. I'm sorry,
that's your moment. That was your moment!
IMARI: That would be good. AIMEE: I'm sorry! IMARI: Candela. IMARI and AIMEE: (laugh) LIAM: "(guttural speech) "(guttural speech)" You talk yourself
down from this. You have been in hell. Like then, now you hear
impacts of ordinance striking the
ground, exploding. You hear the sound of
bullets (weapon ejecting), (bullets striking) people screaming
in the distance. AIMEE: (dejected sigh) LIAM: It melts away
like a painting, just draining
into the ground. For a moment, you see not the pink haze,
but dust in the air and a massive form moving through the cloud
in here with you. It is so massive. But there is Edgar
staring at his hand and Leo and
Grimoria together. (hissing sizzle) You feel a burning
behind your eyes. IMARI: (grunts) LIAM: The gravity
of the situation cuts through your
detached reality. What is it you
want to do now? IMARI: When I look around, you're saying there's
something pulsating, whereas it looks
like it's the root. There's something pulsating
in the middle of the room. LIAM: You can
barely make out-- IMARI: It's waving.
LIAM: -- these tendrils of fungus stretching
into the center of the chamber in some
large, humped shape 70 or 80 feet away from you. IMARI: I want to run,
and I'm going to throw my lantern at it. I want to test my hypothesis
before I lose, before I rip the
gun off of Edgar because I don't know
if that's going to work and we might need it. LIAM: Got it.
IMARI: I want to run. I want to throw my lantern
right at that mound and see what it does. I'm going to take
a freaking Hail Mary. LIAM: Good, I want
to see that, but getting out of the haze was your share
for the moment, so hold that thought.
IMARI: All right. That was fucked.
AIMEE: Fuck. Sorry, I got to keep it
together. I can't-- LIAM: Your hand
is stretching apart. There are holes in it. You look down at your side
and there are hands extending out of your ribs, your own body clutching
at your flesh, pulling at you, trying
to grasp your clothes and drag them into
your own body. "(guttural speech)" "(guttural speech)" What do you want to do
in this moment, Edgar? ALEXANDER: I look
down at my hand. I know I'm still
standing in the room. This is the effect
of the fungus. There's too much of it,
it's overwhelming my senses, but I'm still in that room. The real world still exists. There is a thing in the
center of this room. LIAM: Your thoughts
bubble around you, echoing, muted, coming
into razor-sharp clarity, then fading like
they're buried-- ALEXANDER: There was a thing.
LIAM: -- under the earth. ALEXANDER: There was a thing
in the center of the room. I need to find the
center of the room. I need to shoot the
center of the room. I used this in the
center of the room. I'm going to shoot
the center of the room. LIAM: Make a Survey roll to find the center
of anything right now. ALEXANDER: Critical. LIAM: Two Candela?
ALEXANDER: Two sixes. AIMEE: Double Candela.
IMARI: Double Candela. AIMEE: You better be
able to shoot to win. IMARI: Better work, baby. you better work it.
AIMEE: You better work it. IMARI: You better work it.
LIAM: You watch the hands suck into your body. ALEXANDER: No! LIAM: One of them
splays outward and is so clearly
a young and feminine arm and it sinks down
and into your guts. ALEXANDER: You are not here! You're dead. LIAM: The color
mutes to a degree and you can see you're facing one of these overgrown doors. It's still stretches and
twists in your vision. You turn away from it and you
see the tableau behind you, 70 or 80 feet away, this mound of material,
this thing. You see Malcolm a distance
away staring at it intently. You see Malcolm a distance
away staring at it intently. Grimoria and Leo are
close together, staring into
each other's eyes, glazed looks on their faces. You have found your target. The being begins to stride
through the chamber. Again, it is not corporeal,
it is a ghost of itself. You hear a voice
inside your ear. "It comes." AIMEE: Can I talk back to it? LIAM: (monster)
"(guttural speech) "(guttural speech)" Quickly, what do you tell?
AIMEE: I'm going to say: Atia. Calinus has
no new power here. These are all relics
of a past long gone. He is not here,
but you are here. He shot his shot, you're
just loading your gun. We have all the power here. LIAM: Its massive wings
flare out almost to the edges
of this chamber. Pull back (violent swooshing) and close in your direction. Make a Sense roll
for me, please. You feel an ocean of
force buffeting past you, You feel an ocean of
force buffeting past you, Atia and you shifting and
shaking in the heat of it. TALIESIN: Can I open this door now?
LIAM: You feel thousands of souls appearing like a multitude
in this chamber with you and they are moving
fast past you. Make your roll,
you will follow up. IMARI: Let's do,
let's do it, let's do it. AIMEE: Candela.
IMARI: Yes! AIMEE: Oh my god.
IMARI: (claps) Ah, fuck. AIMEE: He's not here, bitch. You're here! LIAM: That second skin of
Griffia moves forward and out and now you see her shifting
in the heat ahead of you and her hands splay wide and you see thousands
of transparent lives and you see thousands
of transparent lives break and wash past you. (souls scattering) You and she, you at her back, the Red Sea parting
around you, and you hear her voice. "Not then. "Not now." Leo. AIMEE: Yes. IMARI: I could
fight back maybe. LIAM: What do you do? TALIESIN: Do I see this? LIAM: For the moment, you do. TALIESIN: I am going to
walk over to Grimoria and I'm going to place my
hands on her shoulders and I'm going to steady her
towards all this and hold on. and I'm going to steady her
towards all this and hold on. LIAM: Your hands reach out. You don't feel any sensation
as your hands touch her. You don't feel any sensation
as your hands touch her. You see as he's suddenly
there in this place and his hands start to spread
and melt with your arms, and his hands start to spread
and melt with your arms, his arm and yours start
to ring and intertwine his arm and yours start
to ring and intertwine spaghettifying in
space between you, but you hear him, his face. "I'm here." AIMEE: Great. LIAM: Malcolm. IMARI: That was some
good shit, man. I wish I had some of that. AIMEE: Good for 10. LIAM: "(guttural speech)" IMARI: I'm going to
(like monster) fro-ta-ta my fucking lantern
right at that ass. That's what I want
to do straight. LIAM: Make a Move. IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: Make a Move roll,
Malcolm. TALIESIN: Go for it. IMARI: Throw ta-ta,
baby, it's right, I'm a burning two drives
on this bitch right here. AIMEE: Wow. IMARI: Burning two drives. Don't tell me to
throw ta-ta, how dare you. I'm going to freaking-- Four, right? That's four.
Sweet. No, that's three,
that's three. So I want that. All right, baby. Five, five gilded, so
I won't get too messed up. LIAM: You run
through this space, your limbs stretching out. It is more the will to move through this place
that propels you. You don't feel any pain,
any stress, any struggle. You don't feel any pain,
any stress, any struggle. You just glide
through this space and you feel the lamp
in your hand and it is twisting
and curving, moving. and it is twisting
and curving, moving. Its fire moving like electrons
in a little circle inside. Its fire moving like electrons
in a little circle inside. I need you to make
a Strike roll. You got there. IMARI: Oh no! LIAM: You got there.
IMARI: I though that was a Strike! LIAM: This is your complication
on a mixed success. IMARI: I'm burning
a drive on this. AIMEE: No one,
we can't help, right? LIAM: He is 80 feet away
and he sees a lantern that is (twisting). IMARI: I'm burning
two drives on it. Nope, that was not.
AIMEE: That was not it. IMARI: That was a drop. That was a drop. AIMEE: (gasps) IMARI: Candela gilded. LIAM: Somebody's got to get
this guy some new dice. (laughter) AIMEE: I'm sorry that I keep
gasping in the wrong moment. IMARI: Holy shit. LIAM: Which hand was holding
that lantern, by the way? IMARI: It was, well,
my good hand. LIAM: Yes. IMARI: It has a little
extra oomphy on it because it's freaking
a little robotic. LIAM: You will. You think your hands release
and the hand expands and grows wide, like a massive creature's
wing, but metallic. You can see the joints and hinges growing
and bending. That lantern, like a nebula. (thick slurps) (puffs) (vaporous expansion) You see flame erupt like a thousand
molten droplets in space with no gravity. One end of this growth begins to char. "(guttural, snarling speech) "(guttural, snarling speech) "(eldritch growl)" IMARI: That did something
to you, baby. It's lovely. I like that. What's Edgar doing right now? Is he still entranced? LIAM: That's a good question.
AIMEE: You were about to, he was about to do something? ALEXANDER: I can
see the room. I--
LIAM: For the moment you can. ALEXANDER: For the
moment I can. Did I see him
throw the lantern? LIAM: I will say,
in this moment, you did. ALEXANDER: Edgar has
a brief panic. He thinks about the fact that
the room is full of particles and spores, and that
this could erupt into a huge fireball if that breaks. Holds his breath. It doesn't. (sighs) Points out the gun. LIAM: The glove.
ALEXANDER: The glove. IMARI: (claps) TALIESIN: Mm. LIAM: I need you to
make a Strike roll. ALEXANDER: Oh, Strike roll. LIAM: Because this is
not the human anatomy and you are not
seeing perfectly well. ALEXANDER: Okay.
IMARI: Maybe that's precision. Does he need precision
and anatomy? ALEXANDER: For Strike rolls, I can roll Focus, but this is not
that kind of a thing. LIAM: Read out the
full text for me. ALEXANDER: "When
you know where "the body is
most vulnerable-- "When attacking an enemy,"
which I am not doing. IMARI: But you
are attacking it. LIAM: I would take that
to be, being a surgeon-- I'm probably need
somebody to-- TALIESIN: Yeah.
LIAM: -- fly in some water. TALIESIN: It's not about
the rule, it's about flavor. LIAM: You're a surgeon,
so you understand the human body
and where to cut it. You are looking at something
that looks like a giant rotting lima bean--
ALEXANDER: It's not a human body. Okay.
LIAM: -- in the center of this place. ALEXANDER: I am going to--
IMARI: Can I aid him at anything? LIAM: You're too far apart. ALEXANDER: Let me
just do this. LIAM: You ran up
and got close. Edgar is firing
from a distance. IMARI: Gotcha. ALEXANDER: Three. IMARI: Fuck, fuck, fuck. TALIESIN: Shit.
LIAM: Edgar, this hand stretches
out in front of you and you watch its
metal and leather and bronze melt
and share colors. The world around you
flares red again and you see an eruption of
(expanding explosion) green that sprays outward
impossibly. In the distance you see, in waves of red, an invisible shape, one of these
thousands of souls flooding this space, darken into a shadow and color bleeds up into it. Wavering 50 feet
ahead of you, you see your sister walking towards you, arms outstretched, inviting you. IMARI: Oh, hell no! LIAM: She's crying. IMARI: Oh shit.
We got to move, got to move. Knock down, break, punch. LIAM: You hear her
voice there, behind you, inside. "Ah, Eddie! "It's okay." ALEXANDER: It's not you. It's not you. LIAM: I'm going to ask you
to make one more roll, and let's make this
one a Sense roll. ALEXANDER: Okay. TALIESIN: We don't see
any of this. ALEXANDER: Five. LIAM: Five.
IMARI: Nice, love it. ALEXANDER: (shaky breathing) LIAM: You breathe. You breathe. It can't be her. It can't be her. It makes no sense. And yet... No. But what if? But-- You begin to run towards her. You're running through
the space. You know it is foolish. You know that this
will end you, Edgar. It can't be her,
and you don't care. You get about seven or eight more steps
through this place to her and skid out, sliding. Your hands splay wide and spaghettify off in
different directions as you try to grip the air, and her vision melts
in front of you. You find yourself staring at a porous surface six inches in front of you, white with streaks of
red and pink through it. You can see this close,
everything moving in little holes, little pores all over this hulking thing that you are now
standing at the foot of. IMARI: How far away
is he from me? LIAM: From you? 40 feet. You two are together. The creature is now moving. IMARI: Oh, dude. I want to
run towards that, I want to run towards Edgar, knock him out the way, knock him out the side.
Here's what I want to do. LIAM: Yes. IMARI: I want to run
towards Edgar, snap him out of his trance, rip the glove off, and try to fry
the shit myself. ALEXANDER: (exhales) IMARI: That's what
I want to do. AIMEE: (laughs)
IMARI: So we can do a Move and then we can
do another Move and then I can do a shoot. LIAM: That sounded
like three things. IMARI: (laughs) No, I mean, I see no
other way out of this. They're enthralled. Big thing's coming
towards him. He's getting sucked in. He needs to snap out. LIAM: You try
to get him away. I think let's start
with getting him. IMARI: Maybe I should
shoot him in the leg. AIMEE: Ooh!
IMARI: Because I have my gun with me. LIAM: Go for it.
IMARI: If I can't-- LIAM: It's up to you. IMARI: If I can't
get him out. I'm going to run towards him. LIAM: Okay.
IMARI: Oh fuck. Yeah, I'm going to run because I'm going to
need that thing anyway. All right, I'm going
to do a Move. LIAM: Okay. IMARI: I'm going to
burn a drive. That will make me three. LIAM: Your vision is getting
redder by the second. IMARI: Yeah. Come on, baby.
Give me something I can-- Candela! AIMEE: Dude, I'm not even, I'm looking right at--
ALEXANDER: This isn't fun anymore. AIMEE: Oh, it's fun for me!
LIAM and IMARI: (laugh) AIMEE: Oh, it's fun for me! We're going to make it out!
TALIESIN: He's thinking about it. IMARI: Well, we still got
two more Moves left, so. AIMEE: Can I help? Maybe
while he's doing that-- LIAM: So, Malcolm with a
six, with a success, you slide through the
space and get to Edgar, just as your vision is
starting to cloud with red. The detail you saw
until now is vanishing and your hands mesh
with Edgar's chest, and you see hands
again, Edgar. Hands. Hands. You shove him back and you feel yourself--
ALEXANDER: Do I see the hands attached from anything? Are they coming
from something? LIAM: No, not with a three. No. You get shoved backward, floating through space. I will say that you
manage to drag that glove off as he goes-- ALEXANDER: If I feel--
LIAM: Yes? ALEXANDER: -- something
pulling on me-- LIAM: Yes.
ALEXANDER: -- and trying to remove this thing that is
the most important thing in the world to me--
LIAM: Mm-hmm. You want to contest it? ALEXANDER: I'm contesting by
pulling that gun and firing. LIAM: (exhales forcefully) IMARI: Why? ALEXANDER: Because
I don't see you. IMARI: Oh my god! ALEXANDER: I see monsters. IMARI: All right.
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. LIAM: Well, make a-- I will say you can make
Focus with this because there are
hands involved. AIMEE: This is how the other
group died, by the way. TALIESIN: Go on.
AIMEE: They had hallucinations. IMARI: Of course they did.
AIMEE: That they were attacking, and that's it. Fuck! ALEXANDER: Four. LIAM: Four. AIMEE: Say goodbye
to your foot. IMARI: Well, thanks
for my flesh wound. (laughs) He's like: Flesh wound, no. Kidney shots, yes. (laughs)
LIAM: Mixed success. Which side the success and which side the failure? Your goal, by shooting, is to hold on to the glove? ALEXANDER: My goal
is to use this to stop whatever's happening.
LIAM: Stop what's happening. Okay. Okay. I think I know how to
weigh in on this one. So you see hands appear
out of nowhere, grasping at your body, and you pull out a gun, which bends like a cartoon as it comes up. ALEXANDER: These are
not your hands! You don't exist anymore! You only exist in me! LIAM: You can just tell
you're pulling a trigger and your whole hand
(fleshy wavering) ripples, like an eruption in water. You, across the space, in this moment, see droplets of blood
fly backward out of Malcolm's body. IMARI: (grunts) LIAM: I'm going to
say gut for this. IMARI: Oh man!
The worst shots. LIAM: You will take a body. It splays out and floats in space,
moving behind him. Malcolm, you feel no pain.
IMARI: (grunt) Ah!
LIAM: However-- IMARI: (laughs)
AIMEE: (as Malcolm) Ah! LIAM: However-- IMARI: Shit.
I'm getting weak. LIAM: It was a mixed success. So, you see Edgar go floating backward from you and space pulses and
ripple between you. You don't feel anything,
but a little sphere bending of darkest red
floats by your eye, and you look down and you can see a shifting and twisting open cavity in your gut as balls of blood
float up and out. While it doesn't hurt, the fact that you acknowledge
that you have been gut shot and feel nothing
is terrifying, and you take a brain. IMARI: (grunts) LIAM: Now, I believe that's
four brain marks for you. IMARI: That is a scar. That's my third scar. LIAM: Now let me
explain something. Ordinarily, if you
take four marks and get a scar in the
middle of an encounter or a heated moment,
you are down. But in this instance,
in these circumstances, now that you have taken
a scar from brain, Malcolm is mine. TALIESIN: Mm. IMARI: Great. TALIESIN: Oh boy. IMARI: All right. AIMEE: Can I have a go? LIAM: Yes, absolutely. Anyone who wants to
jump in, please do. AIMEE: Okay, I really feel that I have-- I feel Atia, I feel like I've gotten, I think she understands. She's here now.
LIAM: Yes. AIMEE: Her power is present.
LIAM: Yes. AIMEE: With that, I
would like to Strike. LIAM: She acts with you. AIMEE: Yes, I would like
to Strike the thing that we're guessing
is the source of this mass hallucination. LIAM: Yes. AIMEE: So I'll do that,
(laughs) and I'm going
to burn a drive. LIAM: This will be Sense. AIMEE: Oh great!
LIAM: Two, now with Atia.
ALEXANDER: That's way better. AIMEE: Better. Okay.
IMARI: That's right, yeah, because you're not using
your physical for that. AIMEE: Okay. Right,
right, right. Okay. IMARI: You want the extra?
TALIESIN: This is a good time for the extra IMARI: You want the extra?
Do you want the extra that-- AIMEE: Sure.
IMARI: To lovey, lovey. AIMEE: If we all agree.
LIAM: Stop helping each other and die!
AIMEE: So at this point, what does this mean? It's just an extra die.
IMARI: (laughs) ALEXANDER: I'm trying, Liam!
AIMEE: This is just an extra die.
IMARI: He tried to do it. TALIESIN: I'm also,
I'm going to, for this, I'm going
to attempt to just-- LIAM: Yes.
TALIESIN: -- be as much of a psychedelic flesh
shield, at this point. I'm just trying to pay
attention all around. Because I know this is important.
LIAM: So your primary goal in your fever dream is to protect
your dear friend. TALIESIN: Yes. LIAM: Understood.
AIMEE: So, do I get an extra, or is it a drive, or no? TALIESIN: This might
be for later. AIMEE: Oh, okay. Okay.
TALIESIN: I'm putting that out there.
AIMEE: Great. So I'm going to also spend a drive
so I can get to have five, and then pray. IMARI: Let's do this. Drive that car, baby! AIMEE: (sighs)
Candela ungilded, baby! IMARI: Mm! So tasty! LIAM: Man!
IMARI: Kentucky fried gilded. AIMEE: (laughs)
LIAM: Oh man, I meant for this to be so much
worse for you guys. LIAM: You take--
AIMEE: It's early. LIAM: -- a few steps
striding forward. Leo, you float along, hovering like a
ghost beside her, and you see blue and white
robes trailing behind her. Grimoria grows another
foot in space. Her toes are not
touching anything. She touches down briefly, like she's walking
on pink water. Four arms: two that are Grimoria's and two that are Atia's splay outward, almost
matching the massive wings of this thing, and they splay out, and all four hands come
together and (whooshes) clap. You see a ripple that extends out
like a shockwave through this entire space, and you see the contours
of thousands of people suddenly glimmer
into existence, like translucent mannequins, twisting and bending and then vanish again. That shockwave (explosion) slams into this massive, I'll say it, chrysalis sitting in the chamber. "(growls)" "(growls)" You see a burst out of the side, which again,
floats up and out. You can see long, white bone-like fingers stretch out of this thing. Leo, you see Malcolm running at you, gun aimed at your face. It twists in
a spiral towards you. What do you do? IMARI: Oh man! TALIESIN: What can I do? I am-- How close is he to me? LIAM: It's hard to judge
measurements in this space but he looks--
IMARI: I want to aid in this movement. I want to give him a drive
because I can fight it. Because I can still
fight that. So if I can fight it-- LIAM: You're mine. IMARI: Oh shit!
LIAM: You're down. IMARI: Damn it!
LIAM: You're out of the scene. IMARI: Damn it!
AIMEE: Wow! LIAM: Malcolm is mine. AIMEE: Heads down, seven up. ALEXANDER: Heads up,
seven up. AIMEE: Yeah. Heads
up, seven up. LIAM: Decklan Murphy-- AIMEE: Oh shit.
LIAM: -- the Circle of the Wyrm. Malcolm Trills. AIMEE: No! TALIESIN: I don't-- LIAM: He looks like two grand
dining room tables away. TALIESIN: I'm going to try and move and tackle as best I can. I do--
AIMEE: I can help you, I think, because we're one, right? TALIESIN: You're a
little busy, but-- AIMEE: I'll give you a drive. LIAM: What are you doing? You're making a movement. TALIESIN: I'm--
LIAM: Trying to... TALIESIN: If he's charging, I'm going to try and-- Oh, I--
LIAM: Just tell me in story-wise and I'll tell you
what to roll. How about that? TALIESIN: I'm going to try
and entangle myself with him. I'm going to try
and pull him down with the mess that is mine. But especially, I'm going to, I feel like I have
some control with the clock. As long as I keep
thinking about the clock, I feel like I have
some control, and I'm going to Ensnare. LIAM: It's bringing time
back into your life. You see him step with
every clockwork rotation and tick. Why don't you make
for me Strike? AIMEE: You can take
one of mine. I can push him out. LIAM: Do you have any
drives to share in Nerve? AIMEE: I do. LIAM: Then share it.
AIMEE: Yes. TALIESIN: I will
take that drive and I will burn one
of my drives as well. So hold on. So that's-- Taking a drive, taking a drive. Okay, that's where I'm at. Better than nothing. IMARI: Come on, old chum. Yeah!
TALIESIN: Candela. IMARI: (laughs) Malcolm laughs
from the ether. AIMEE: Right!
IMARI: (laughs) LIAM: Malcolm comes running and this melting
revolver in his hand you see in slow motion as the clock goes, "Tick." (slowing ticks)
AIMEE: Oof. LIAM: (low thrum) You see that
shockwave coming. But Grimoria's hand
and Atia's are there, splaying wide, and a
torrent of heat and wave. (wet whooshes) You watch that bubble
of shockwave gets (wet whoosh) off
to the side and you receive Malcolm and your arms undulate
around him until they are hard
to make out, and your chest presses
into his and you feel his heart
beating with yours (quick beats which slow) in a knot on the floor. What you doing? ALEXANDER: As I float back-- LIAM: "(guttural whooshes) "(guttural speech)" AIMEE: Fuck.
IMARI: Oh god! (whispers inaudibly) LIAM: The invisible
giant, the angel-- ALEXANDER: I start reciting
in my head. LIAM: -- bends low. ALEXANDER: All of the
bones in the human body and where they connect
and the exact positions in which they connect in order to form myself
into a solid piece. LIAM: (growls) ALEXANDER: You don't exist. LIAM: (sighs) Let's make a Sense roll. You are in a hallucination. I can't think of
what else to do. ALEXANDER: Four. LIAM: Four. (inhales) (exhales) This massive angel
is bent down over its prize. Its heart, hands insect-like, stretching out. ALEXANDER: Let's give
this another shot. If you're listening, why don't you help
me this time? I hold out my hand above
one of the hands on my body and wait for her
to reach out. LIAM: Wait for your
sister to reach out? ALEXANDER: Then fire
the gun again. I have no idea if
it's charged. I don't even know if I
fired it the first time. LIAM: Okay. I didn't get to the complication
from your mixed success. ALEXANDER: That's fine.
Go ahead. LIAM: No. No, no. I like this. ALEXANDER: Okay. LIAM: This is a high
stakes role. ALEXANDER: Great. AIMEE: Can anyone help? LIAM: No.
AIMEE: Fuck! LIAM: So don't fuck it-- AIMEE: (laughs) Okay.
LIAM: -- up. ALEXANDER: All right. LIAM: That hand glides
around in a spiral and you feel it hold
yours and lift and you feel it hold
yours and lift and you hear in your ear as your finger presses and you can feel
like rubber, this in your hand. "I love you." (wet squish) Roll.
ALEXANDER: I love you too. What am I rolling? AIMEE: Sense. LIAM: You are firing. Clarify for me because I'm
in a fever dream here, too. ALEXANDER: I'm pulling the
trigger of the glove again. LIAM: The glove. ALEXANDER: No idea if
it's charged or not. LIAM: Right. Roll. ALEXANDER: Am I rolling-- LIAM: Sense.
ALEXANDER: Sense. Okay. LIAM: Sense. ALEXANDER: Five. LIAM: You're aiming-- ALEXANDER: For the
center mass again. LIAM: For the center mass. ALEXANDER: The chrysalis. LIAM: Okay. So a mixed success. (splutters) Between you and this
massive target, you see (splutters) (growls) viscera and blood bursts out and floats
all around you. You hear a massive
roar in the room, and then it doesn't hurt because nothing here hurts. But a hand, another one, wrapping
all around your body. Grimoria, you're the
only one who sees it. A large white hand, grasping Edgar and
pulling him into this bloodied,
leaking mess. into this bloodied,
leaking mess. Edgar, you feel all
over your body, your face, your
chest, your arm, it doesn't hurt, it's more of a thousand
little tickles, like if you've ever
gone swimming and you feel fish
nibbling at your body, ALEXANDER: I'm still holding
the hand where her hand was? LIAM: It's actually here now. ALEXANDER: Thank you for
staying with me for so long. LIAM: "It's all right. "It's all right. (deeply) "It's all right."
AIMEE: Oh no! LIAM: (slurps) That hand drags him in, and you watch as he melts
into this wounded elder thing and you watch as he melts
into this wounded elder thing and his face starts to mesh with what's in front of him, and his head disappears and then yanks back, like
a swimmer out of the water. (undulating splutter) behind him. AIMEE: So he's out of it? It was like a contact,
and then he's-- LIAM: Slowly, Edgar
turns around. The angel behind him
(slurps) fades-- ALEXANDER: (panting gasps) LIAM: -- and hundreds
of little holes open up all over Edgar's body. [hissing] He hovers higher into the air and you see wings
(splutters) peel, break out of his back. (growls) He begins to hover
towards you. I know.
AIMEE: (laughs) LIAM: What are you
doing with Malcolm? IMARI: (laughs) Fuck! TALIESIN: Am I aware of
any of this happening? LIAM: No.
TALIESIN: Okay. LIAM: Hands are wrapping
around your neck. It doesn't hurt, but you
are seeing Malcolm's fingers, both flesh and metallic, like a noose. (slurps) TALIESIN: I see the
metallic hands. LIAM: Yes. TALIESIN: He's a clock. I'm going to go into the hand and attempt to open it up and close him the
way the clock closed. I'm going to stop the clock. LIAM: Yes. I would like you to make-- (laughs) I know what I want, now what roll will
I have you make? I would like you to make-- It can be Strike or Control. Not your forte, I know.
TALIESIN: They're both terrible. I was really hoping I could
go Intellectual on this, but since this is just memory and physicality, it's not-- LIAM: You are dealing
with Play-Doh. TALIESIN: Yeah. Yeah.
LIAM: With your mind and your friend. TALIESIN: Hoping for a Focus,
but I'll take anything that-- LIAM: I know. TALIESIN: Strike or Control? LIAM: Or Control. TALIESIN: They're both
the same, so I'll burn--
LIAM: Tell you what. Tell you what.
TALIESIN: Yeah? LIAM: Tell you what. TALIESIN: Hmm? LIAM: I'll let you
make a Focus. TALIESIN: You'll let
me take a Focus? LIAM: Yeah. Is that
any better? TALIESIN: Oh, much better! But that might not
be what you want. LIAM: It is a high
stakes role. TALIESIN: Yeah. Then yes, please. Focus. Getting thin.
LIAM: As you try to-- I think, as you
have this thought to stop his clock-- TALIESIN: (laughs) LIAM: -- you simultaneously
try to shake off what you know cannot be real, even though it feels
weirdly good. TALIESIN: Four. LIAM: Your hands intertangle with Malcolm's
snaking fingers. (slurps) (whooshes) Your hand and his wreath around
each other like a serpent, metal and your flesh. It (violently slurps)
like that cobra (splutters) digs into the gaping
wound in his gut. TALIESIN: Oh god! LIAM: You feel no pain as that serpent winds
its way up the gears of the clock. You feel every angle, every wheel, every vibration, and you feel the heart
of that clock beating in your hand and (slurps) his gut gushes out
in a blanket all around you. As you smile, looking at the show, you feel in your own gut, (fluttering bursts) you feel no pain, but you take a body. Grimoria. AIMEE: Okay. Grimoria sees all of the souls--
LIAM: "(growls)" AIMEE: -- that have rippled,
and she's caught sight of them. Atia sees them, too, and I don't know if
this is possible, but she is such a powerful
sorceress, alchemist, is there a way to harness and summon all of the
thousands of spirits that are around to try to fight this thing
in a similar way that she did right before she died? LIAM: Yes. You can try this. You, behind Edgar, hovering in the space, you see the chrysalis (slurps) wilting, and there is a
spindly alien infant wilting, and there is a
spindly alien infant slowly melting into
what looks like pus, slowly melting into
what looks like pus, the form going as he approaches, and you hear her voice and you hear her voice in your ear. "Now he is bare." AIMEE: He's what? LIAM: "Now is the time. "Take him." I need you to
make a Sense roll. IMARI: Baby.
AIMEE: Okay. I'm going to-- IMARI: We rolled all the dice,
goddamn it. We burned them.
AIMEE: I'm going to burn a drive. I still got these two. IMARI: I can't even help.
I can't do shit. TALIESIN: No, you-- IMARI: I'm like,
I'm guts-ed out. AIMEE: Five on the gilded.
LIAM: Five. Five on the gilded. IMARI: Well, that's
better than four. AIMEE: That's
better than four. ALEXANDER: (grunts) LIAM: (whooshes) (slurping) He is there so fast, and you feel his hands, (popping) multiple hands moving up, grabbing your face. Seven, eight of them
holding you in place. You hear Atia's voice. "Now! "Now!" You open yourself to her and every soul in this place and you feel gravity, you feel movement. All of the lost souls
in this place (slurps) twist and pull into you. AIMEE: (exhales) LIAM: You take a body, you take a brain, you take a bleed. IMARI: Jesus! My poor baby girl. AIMEE: Well,
if she's going to go, she's going to go
in a blaze of glory. IMARI: Fuck it.
Let's just all go out. LIAM: You feel Atia's hands
on the back of yours. (slurps) (whooshes) You watch as rivulets of heat and energy move from your hands
into your friend's face. You watch his eyes, his head getting dug away and balls of fluid
just leaving, leaving. You can see
his skeleton, like rubber, all of it going. The hands pulling
free of your face. You both drop down, you, and Edgar, and Atia, like she's holding you
from behind. "End it!" AIMEE: How would I do that? IMARI: Shoot the thing in the middle of the floor.
LIAM: You tell me. TALIESIN: Shh.
LIAM: Don't roll the die. You tell me how you
defeated my monster. AIMEE: (sighs) I think, because there are
so many souls that are lost, and I, Grimoria, thought
they were powerless, but actually
they're not powerless, they're a source of power. Maybe I don't know how
to put them to peace, but we can all combine for the greater
good of something. I think, in the same
way that Atia, thousands of years before, right before her death in her last great
act of sacrifice, essentially ignited
a sort of nuclear power to make sure that his power didn't get any
bigger than that. It's the same thing. I think it looks the same, and I think Grimoria's
come to terms with what that
might mean for her. But however you want
to paint that picture, but I think essentially
it's like when she was standing on top
of that island, and all of these ancient
Oldfaire soldiers were charging at her, and she just muscled every
ounce of power around her to just end it. LIAM: Nearly 2,000
years apart, Oldfaire and Newfaire align. Atia Griffia destroying what an emperor sought, poisoning her own body, which survived
through centuries, only to spill
before your feet and bring you two together to finish this thing held in this place deep in the center
of the earth. Calinus is undone. (dissipating whoosh) Another wave (dispersing)
stretches out from you. Edgar's body hits the ground. Red, pink, fuchsia
bleeding away. He lies on the ground,
dying in front of you. Off behind you, you see Leo. Gutshot, crawling, confused, through the growth. And Malcolm, lying
lifeless and still, his eyes glazed, facing the ceiling. You hold Edgar's hand. One more hand holding Edgar. One more hand. He eventually goes still. Thousands in here, thousands of souls. Who were they? You couldn't know them all. They surround the two of you, the four of you facing into the center
of this chamber, and gently drift
away en masse. and gently drift
away en masse. You can feel their freedom. AIMEE: (relieved sigh) LIAM: You can't help but
wonder how long, how hard their imprisonment here was. Moments pass, Leo,
your senses come to you, to a degree. You feel pain, serious pain in your gut as you press your
hand to your wound and drag yourself
to your friend, and see that where
there were four, there are now two. TALIESIN: We have to leave. It's time to go. AIMEE: Okay. LIAM: One question
before we leave. Are you saying goodbye
to Malcolm and to Edgar here? AIMEE: I would rather not. Are they dead? Are they gone? LIAM: Yes. AIMEE: Do we know a way
that we can get them out? TALIESIN: No. LIAM: (sighs) It would
be difficult. You could maybe return, but there is a broken bridge and an upside-down forest to move through. AIMEE: Can I sense if their
spirits are still here or have they gone
with the rest of them? LIAM: Make a Sense roll. AIMEE: Candela on the gilded. IMARI: (laughs) AIMEE: Swear to god. IMARI: (eerie whisper)
Take Malcolm with you. LIAM: You look up at
the surroundings here, trying to feel them,
trying to find them, and you see two soul transparent forms standing by the door
you entered by. They turn toward each other. (dissipating poof)
Like smoke against the door. You feel their freedom. AIMEE: I'm sorry. I think we got to go. TALIESIN: We've got to go. LIAM: With some
great difficulty, you climb time your way
across this cavern. You spend an entire day
resting in the vault. You risk moving
across that drop. You risk moving
across that drop. Easier on the way out than on the way in. Slowly, slowly, slowly. Four days later, you limp your way through
the streets of Oldfaire, and climb stairs, moving up around a tall ruin. You help your friend
up on the scaffolding and climb up
into a brownstone, and take a moment to
look at the photograph of the Circle of the Wyrm
pinned to the wall. Leo gets you a taxi. A rarity, but not for someone
with your coffers. You step out on the curb in front of The Endless Well and climb a single
set of stairs, and find yourselves together, alone, the crimson mirror
reflecting your grief the crimson mirror
reflecting your grief and your relief. As you're looking at your
friend doze slightly on his seat here in his room where you've met
so many times, you notice a little envelope sitting on the silver tray on that small wooden table sitting by the door
to the Fourth Pharos. It has your name on it. AIMEE: Oh god. Thank you. LIAM: Why don't you
read that out for the table's benefit? AIMEE: "Grimoria, "apologies for having
this delivered postmortem, "but you would have argued. "I'd rather just skip to the
part where I'm right." (laughs) "Family is a rather touchy
subject for both of us. "While I've made peace with
my situation a long time ago, "I still miss the feeling
of legacy a family provides. "I'm hoping you will allow
me this continuity. "The apartment, its contents, "and my personal
accounts are yours. "It's not a fortune,
but it is more than enough "to be quite comfortable
for a long while, "even by my standards. "Keep it or let it go
at your discretion, "but know that it is
a great gift to me "knowing that they will
be yours." (voice breaks) "You'll find all necessary
papers and instructions "in the bottom-left
drawer of the vanity. "I have every faith you will
find a life that honors me, "your parents, and yourself. "With my eternal
gratitude, Leo." LIAM: He's sleeping
quietly on the couch. Tuck him in there
and let him sleep. It's been hard. The circle was broken. Two is not a circle. I know that is painful, but you know you
stopped something far worse than
individual heartbreak. far worse than
individual heartbreak. You also know the world deserves better, and Tottergrass, Westecklyn, your home, mine, for every person
under the sun. That's where we'll end
our story tonight. AIMEE: Wow. LIAM: Well, that's not how
I thought it would go. ALEXANDER: (laughs) LIAM: That was
heartbreaking. (laughs) AIMEE: (sighing) Oh. LIAM: But also very brave. AIMEE: Yeah. LIAM: And magic. Thank you for helping me
find magic in the dark. ALEXANDER: Thank you
for showing us that wonderfully
horrible story. AIMEE: Like only
Liam O'Brien could. ALEXANDER: (laughs)
AIMEE: (laughs) LIAM: (impishly) Sorry.
AIMEE: Eh. ALEXANDER: No, it was great. IMARI: Good job, man. LIAM: Well, I hope you
guys all enjoyed as well. The story may have
been terrifying, but I was terrified, too. AIMEE and ALEXANDER: (laugh) LIAM: Go down this descent beneath Oldfaire. I just thought you four were wonderful to be
at the table with. Thank you very much. Why don't you please, please, as we fade out for the night, drift away like
so many souls, remind everyone at home who you really are and who you were here. ALEXANDER: My name
is Alexander Ward, and I am a bit of a mess. I played Dr. Edgar Lycoris. Thank you. AIMEE: I'm Aimee Carrero, and I played Grimoria, AKA Alma Látigo.
LIAM: Látigo. IMARI: (laughs) My name is Imari Williams, and I play Malcolm Trills. TALIESIN: My name is
Taliesin Jaffe, but most of the time,
I am Leo Amicus. ALEXANDER: (laughs)
TALIESIN: I live here, so. ALEXANDER: (laughs) LIAM: To our deceased,
you went down gloriously. Thank you. Thank you for your sacrifice.
ALEXANDER: Aw, I loved it. I wanted nothing more. IMARI: I know. IMARI and LIAM: (laugh) LIAM: All right, guys, we'll see you later
for more sad tales, and hopefully some
sunnier ones as well. Good night.
