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Knights of the Night

216_WoD3_KotN_Mr.Dr._Clay_OR_There_is_no_Door

Duration:
1h 2m
Broadcast on:
25 Feb 2015
Audio Format:
other

It's go time. There is a child to be saved, a shattered man to be stopped and a Cleveland past to be returning to.

[Intro Music] Hello and welcome to Nights at the Night's actual play podcast. This world of darkness story, The Sin Eater, was written and run by your storyteller Scott. And now, please enjoy episode 216 titled Mr. Dr. Clay, or there is no door. Actual play begins immediately. [Intro Music] This is the world of darkness story The Sin Eater. I'm your storyteller Scott and with me tonight on my left hand. Rachel playing Silverdown, thanks to Abba today teenager. John playing Daniel Morgan, non-mentor mercenary and ex-member of Task Force Valkyrie. Bob playing FBI Special Agent Chew Park, a member of the Basie conspiracy. Mike playing Michael Clay, the academic adventurer from the Aegis Kydore. Thomas playing Edgar Montes, if you're doing a practitioner and a member of the Linus III conspiracy. I'm Jim playing Katie O'Connor, a non-NS car driver. Tom playing Jay Alton, a member of the ascending ones. Michael playing Ethan Clark, a medical doctor and member of Aegis Kyduros since 1929. I think we'll take a quick moment to go around the table and look at our aspiration to see if any have been fulfilled. See if any of you have been fulfilled at the end of the last week. I don't think we've refilled them though, do we? You said save, nothing changed, if nothing changed. Yes, all right, we'll start with Ethan, am I right? My long-term is save children from the shattered man and the short is research shattered man weakness, which I think I'm really close to completing mine. Yes, I would say. And that's all I've got right now. So you're in need of one extra short-term aspiration? Okay, I need an additional short-term one. I changed one of mine to save the child, Emma. And I need one additional one that I'm... And your long-term one is the same though. I just get home. Get the hell out of here. Right. I changed both my short-terms. One is to save a child and the other one is to confront the shattered man. I'm missing a short-term, I think I accomplished it. And the other one is steal some replacement cigarettes because I'm running out. And then I grabbed a new long-term one and I'm going to try to banish the shattered man with some degree of permanence rather than just you can come back tomorrow night because he's a problem and he's fucked with me and I'm rather pterrated about that. Pissed. Yeah. Okay. You said nothing. So if you buy a pack of cigarettes, would that not fulfill your... No, no. That's the secret. Cigarette doesn't buy cigarettes. It's like a fucking nickel in 1930, really. And I can deal with it. Well, wait a minute. Salmon cartons. If you steal a nickel and then buy it with your stolen nickel, does that count? Yeah, that would count. It's stealing. Clearly. Okay. Micah. Mine are similar to Dr. Ethan's. My long-term is still to get back to my own timeline. I'm in the middle of a short-term. We're doing our research on the shattered man. And then my other short-term was to help save this trial demo from the next attack. Nothing has changed from me. Still stuck here. I'm not making any changes. Sign binary hex. Short-term respiration. Okay. Well, Bob, your other one is? You okay for the share? I don't care to share. Nothing. I played nice. No one cared. I'm done playing nice. Wow. How tricky is real? It's just not real. It's just not real. Well, you got to treat your personality better, Karaje. You can send us back to the stage now. It's my fault, Karaje. Obviously. Yep. I spent two of my experience points to increase my firearms skill. I'm really considering keeping the lack of an eye as a character flaw. Like, I had a critical failure by injecting poison into my eye. Right. In 1930, that would have some pretty serious long-term effects. Sure. I think if you want to keep it, we'll give you a condition. I don't have any condition cards printed outside. No, that's what you're going to do. But I think we can go with a condition of not blinded, but partially long-term. Blinded, right, impaired is a good term. You shouldn't really affect your sniping, though. Does anyone else spend any experience points before we start? Chancellor, how do I... How much does it cause to raise an attribute? Two for a skill, four for an attribute. Doesn't matter what dot it is. Okay. If we recall, there was a group of you that were skulking through the shanty towns of the industrial flats of Cleveland. And according to Grace's pocket watch, it was two minutes to 3 a.m. And you believed, for some reason, that I'm not sure of, but it's been believed that 3 a.m. is the witching hour in his particular instance. And you believe that the shattered man is going to strike a child in this particular lean-to by the name of Emma. The group that was out there, I believe, was everyone with the exception of Ethan and Mr. Clay. Those were the two that were back studying the latter. Dr. Clay. Mr. Dr. Clay. There you go. The group of you in the shanty town were led by Chu, who had navigated his way through the maze of fallen structures and trash and dead-ends and whatever else that might have affected your ability to get there in time, and he got you there two minutes early. Jay, being the leader of the group and this being a mission of sorts, do you want to take charge at that moment, or do you want to let people kind of do their own thing as you come upon the lean-to, which is relatively large in size. I would say it's at least 20 foot long by about 10 or 15 wide. It looks like most of it is put together by corrugated metal from shipping containers and some old wood boards that came off of the B signs or other things, and then kind of all held up with oil drums filled with sand or things along those lines. And the front entrance, you don't know if there's a back entrance at this point, you've just doubled upon it. And the front entrance, you have a very, what looks to be World War I issued, so old, old, tattered military blankets that have kind of been sewn and stitched together, and they're falling over the front of this particular domicile that the Thompson's are reputed to live in. So that's a quick snapshot. On either side, you don't have much space. A lot of times they're built like right next to each other with awnings and two by fours, and they kind of come off each other. So there's not like alleyways to get behind it. If you wanted to get behind this particular hovel, you would have to actually go up a side street and then over to go to the back of the location. So right now, the group of you are standing in front, it's two minutes to three a.m. It is a night that there is a relatively decent moon, so you've got some light to navigate by, and you don't, as you come to a stop, you don't hear any noises that seem to indicate a struggle or anything happening inside that tent at all. It's completely dark on the inside. Ethan? I was just wondering if the revelation that we came up with is going to affect them at all, and where we are time-wise, if I could get that information to them, or is this happening before what I was doing? As we're walking up to the place, I would call in and check on their update on what's going on. Absolutely. What I was thinking is, you're Ethan and you can correct me if you'd like to be done a different way or not that that's interesting enough, but what I was thinking is, you're running down ideas. Does he not like the look of reflected glass? You're writing down questions on the sheet of paper, and as you get deeper and deeper into the text, you're crossing off something you believe to be true, and circling others that seem to be on point and getting your idea more and more in sync. And you roll nine successes, and there weren't nine pieces of knowledge in this particular tone, but there were quite a few bits of knowledge, and so I was going to take it where you were kind of coming to conclusion right about the same time. You're starting to really draw some serious, heavy conclusions with the help of Michael Clay, and you're ready to call into them when the walkie-talkie goes off and startle shoot in the hotel room with Doc Plough. One other question I have is the excess successes, if you will. Is there any mechanism for carrying those forward? Like, oh, I found basic way that the stuff is presented, so that might help me in the future. We could allow for that in the gaming system, not really, although I'm allowed to determine what an exceptional success means, and in this case, gives you all the information that's available, and I don't think it's necessarily unheard of to say, maybe you did an extra die on your other roles, even though the Latin's different and whatnot, but it was just such a profound success, you really felt comfortable in the text. Yes, Michael. Would it be reasonable that sometimes with these kind of code breakings, once you've got a foothold, everything else kind of starts to fall in place? Sure. Could he have some revelations about the other texts that we were working on? I think that ties in nicely with what he's saying with an exceptional success, and that we should probably give a dice or two bonus on the other two texts. That's right. As you delve into those. Those are the two more challenging texts, because the one had the Flemish influence in the Latin, and the other had a southern of Frankish influence in the Latin, whereas this one was pretty much straight up and down Latin with maybe just a little local dialect thrown in, by this particular writer. Yes, there'll be some advantages, but maybe not huge advantages, but certainly, yeah, we want to reward almost a double exceptional success, so I want to make that the chime. So, as you have this ledger that you're writing things on, and what you believe be true, and you're crossing it off, and you're asking Dr. Clay to look up things in the Latin to English dictionary, and then reference this, and he's aiding you quite heavily in your search. As you get towards the bottom third of the text, it really all just starts to coalesce into a very sensible narrative for you, and this is, again, minutes before 3 a.m., and if you're having that aha moment, literally then, they stumble upon the Hubble, and go ahead and call in. So, Jay, you can call in if you want. I'm calling the two that are doing research, and asking them-- And he does this. That means stand still and be quiet. I'm a engineer. I call in, do the good doctors, both of them, and ask them if they have an update. We're about to the last house, we're pretty sure this is the one. Got anything for us? Okay, you are where when you're making this pronouncement. Within sight of the house, we know that she has reached us there. We don't want to be standing outside there, talking and waking people up, so we're a little bit down the street. Okay, we'll say there's a convenient tea to the north, and if you continue on, you would actually be able to find the crossing street that would run behind this particular groupings of homes. So, you call in to Ethan. I think that Michael would be operating a radio, because I'm not familiar with the technology. Oh, for the first place. All right, but this is your thing though. I would say, oh my God, yes, we just find something. Okay, Michael, as you're looking at his ledger and all the information that he was jotting down, you're seeing him circle very heavily in the idea that writing a name on the mirror in reverse is absolutely the way to summon the shattered man. You believe that to be the case in various other ideas that you guys have talked, but this text says it unequivocally that if you are writing a name in reverse, that's the first step to summoning the shattered man. The second revelation that Ethan has arrows drawn to from that particular discovery is that the mirror in question needs to be broken, but not shattered. So there needs to be a crack in the mirror, but the mirror itself, it should not be shattered. Do you mean as step two that that has to happen or that from the beginning? It's not clear in the text. It was written in the text. Second is you ask Ethan, does it mean like one, two? He puts his hands up like, it's written later in the text, but not necessarily the second thing that needs to happen. So far the mirror in the western Union office that Edgar just follows those two. It was cracked and it did have a name on it. Correct. Yeah, that does conform. The third revelation that Ethan with your help again, Dr. Clay has stumbled upon, was that the name needs to be written in a bodily fluid. In the Latin text, it's the spit of a clergyman or the blood of a virgin, or the, you know, there's a bunch of different bodily fluids that are mentioned. Like looking for different effects or for different properties. Just, that's what the name needs to be written backwards in. It's not very clear, but there's bodily fluids and there's a real name backwards with those. I understand that it's unclear, but are we allowed to know if you need the bodily fluid of that specific person, or is it just the bodily fluid in general? That's a great question, actually. It's the bodily fluid of the summoner, not the target. I'm here in a bunch of ways. To get it, we want to stop it. You know what I'm not hearing, though, is you're summing it for a purpose, and the payment is this kid, but what is the benefit? Where's the, why some of them at all? I think that, Dr. Clay points to somebody who's assisting him, doesn't it? I break it on the radio, but I'm not hearing. 'Cause how to stop this motherfucker. Well, I'm standing outside of a door. I need to go to the list a few more here. Well, boss, you might be able to reroute him somewhere else like it. Is there a reason I shouldn't go in there and smash all the mirrors right now? Yeah, we don't know the rest of these points. He said he had a ton of them. Let's get through them quickly, please. Your research is fascinating. The fourth point of revelation in this document is that the person who wishes to summon the Shatter Man must have forsaken all faith. That's impressive. Do I know if that's religious faith or just all? Is it? Well, this was written by clergymen. Okay. You know, maybe the 10th century or the 11th century? Might as so, and it's, you mean spiritual or religious. Yes, I think it's very safe to assume that. The fifth point, a reflection of a mirror weakens the Shatter Man. So if you have a whole mirror that is unbroken, and he catches his reflection in it, he is weakened. The sixth point and last point is that this information on the Shatter Man, it's a fraction of the information that was gleaned from an ancient text called of "Gin and Dreamings" by Khalifa al-Aradabik in 804, the year of our Lord. That is the last bit of information that you're able to suss out of this particular tone. And so at two minutes to three, Michael Clay, you go ahead and 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6. Well, 0.5 is the one that gives them the edge. Catching them Shatter Man's reflection in an unbroken mirror will weaken him. So we've got to get like two mirrors. You've got to get a couple of everyone should have their little compacts and get their little ones done. However, to help summon them, you need to crack, but not broken mirrors. So I can see the summon one working, maybe sending him against a white king. Well, I don't think that's a real name. Sure. I know you want to go against Pioneer Hacks, but that's for a later day. That's also a pseudonym. So that's not going to do as any of you. So you need a mirror? Anybody got a mirror? It's a family animal that you found and a girl that was missing. It was cracked. It had a single cracker. Right. Does anybody have a mirror? Two pulls out his iPhone with a camera's cell phone work. If a front-facing camera, it's kind of a mirror. Oh, it's kind of a mirror right now. He means, oh, he means to reflect the circle. I have the actual camera itself. Well, that would be an interesting experiment. Sure way. I'm all for a cameraman. I'm not. Well, it might occur to me that we could drop him here and solve the immediate problem. Yeah, I'm going to go smash those mirrors. Well, it might solve their immediate problem, but indeed, it needs to come through all cracked, but whole mirror. Gotcha. That's probably the best solution to stop it from getting this child right now. Edgart, take sister and take the right side of the house. I want you to watch the side, the right side in the back. I'll watch the front and the left as best we can. Either of the sides are more easily approachable to the back, or they both have to go around and nail it. Typical military or police is when you have a house in order to watch it, you can put one person at the right front and another person at the back left, and they each watch two of the sides and the house is covered. There is no sides in the house, just so you know. Edgart, it's a circle? No, no. There are houses coming off of it, other coordinated roof. Yeah, it's a row. Another, so there is a back, but you would need to go down the street and hook a right, which is going to be heading south to go behind, where you believe would be behind. You don't really know what it could be blocked off. It might be a dead end there. It's hard to say, but yeah, what you're looking at right now is maybe 20, 30 feet down this particular tee. So in the south, you would be able to get to the entrance. The back, you don't know. As you would call in, you got the information. You didn't send anybody at that point on the kind of side. No, we're moving towards the house. I want you two to stay on the front, that being the sister and Edgart. I want you, Daniel. So where about you going in to talk to the child and the parents? Then what are you doing? I don't know, you tell me, boss. I just did, and you said no. No, you asked me. Then going without. I go around to the back. Okay, so you dashed down. I just wanted to know if our conversation is complete. Do you need us to do anything else? If you can give us any additional information. Well, here's what we can do. Do you need to use it in emergency? We're in a hotel, and hotels have lots of rooms with bathrooms and mirrors. Right, that's what I'm saying. We set up the emergency out. Yeah, and I figure we can start to collect whole unbroken mirrors enough to equip everyone here. So here's an opportunity to use our Leatherman and start on the screen. Think mirrors from the wall. I think at this point, we want to stop tonight's encouragement. You guys can stop the incursion by breaking or whatever's around you, but if we need mirrors that whole unbroken mirrors that will weaken him, we then also need a supply of mirrors. That's a good point. That's fine, yes. Okay, who's going? Well, I'm going around the back alley myself, Edgard and the sister in the front. Okay, Edgard and Cady are in the front. Going into the- No, they're watching the front. The three people going in are Chu, Daniel, and Silverpunk. In the front? They're going in to talk to the family. Okay, great. And you are dashing down the street and making a quick right to head south. What you think would be the way out. Yes. Great. Potentially the back of the building, just in case someone's exiting there. At the building? Yeah, the house, the family's in. He's trying to run around the back to make sure that he stops something from happening. Okay, so Chu, Daniel, Silverbell, front and center. Jay, your leader has set an order. What are you doing? Ladies first. Chu always the gentleman. Knock, knock, knock. Well, there was actually blankets that are sewn together, like old military war blankets. They're sewn together over the front entrance. They're not really into- You're not going to let you go to the side and kind of knock on the corrugated metal there. So there's no doors, what you're saying? Right, it's just a sheet. Yeah, basically a sheet door. I don't know how to politely enter then. I guess I walk up and I pull the blankets aside and say, "Excuse me, hello, anybody home?" All right, at that point, I believe it's maybe it's like 30 seconds to 3 a.m. When you pull open the blankets that were being acting as a doorway for this little shanty. And you look inside and Daniel, where are you? Right behind. Guy, Chu? We're behind Daniel. All right, so the three of you are at the entrance way, but both of you behind the 16-year-old girl and- Down the gun. Right, with a gun. And with a, with just your man, Chu skills? Be behind me. I figured that Chu would be at start to get to the social, but I forgot, he's still high as a fucking kite. He really is high as a boy. Yeah, that's right. Great. It went, I'm standing to the left or right in the store. I'm covering it. Yeah, you and Edgar are watching just- This is even the right house. I'm not going to round for any whole mirror set. It might be on anything hanging in any of the lean twos or places around here. Car parks or anything. Anything that's got to- 'Cause I'm your on it. Or a craft mirror for that matter. Any mirrors. Katie, you make a quick look around. Nothing jumps out at you as far as mirrors. Grace, when you open up the entrance way, you look inside and it takes a while for your eyes to adjust, obviously, 'cause the moonlight is pitch black inside. But you believe you see what looks to be the form of a man, a woman, tough to say. Crouch down about halfway. Two-thirds of the way into this little huddle. Crouch down. That individual is wearing what looked to be gray robes. The moonlight kind of catches the gray, 'cause it's not as black as the rest of the room kind of thing. They're crouched down. There's a hood over the face of this individual. They're crouched down and they're doing something with their hands. As soon as you pull back the blankets that are blocking the entrance, the person looks towards you, face lost in shadow, startled, and immediately starts running towards the back of the shanty. Dropping his cup of piss. I know that Jay has run to the other side. You know Jay is attempting to run. I'm on my way. He had a longer run than you did. How fast are you? Okay. Oh, I'm fed. So, let's go ahead and-- I'd probably shout out until I left him, 'cause I can't see this, right? Well, they're right behind you. One second. They're right behind you, so you could shout out it. What would you shout out? He's running. He's on for all the kinds of purposes. He's running and she pulls back the-- It's a relatively small structure though, right? It's 20 feet by 15 foot. I hope he should get that. It's pretty small. But he can't get behind it without going down the side street that he believes leads to that and go ahead, Ethan. Is that true? I mean, if they've got rags for doors, can he just go to the neighbor's house and blow through the house? He couldn't have had he chosen to do that yet. Well, I just don't know if he knew-- Yeah, I mean, I'm taking the shortest. He'll be able to make that choice. I'm taking the shortest possible route. My speed is 12, by the way, which is pretty high. I mean, I'm working fast. He's probably going for people's houses. If I have to. Well, after they start shouting. But, yeah, I just don't think that it became urgent until-- I mean, it was urgent. Yeah, I was probably going around if I hear her say, runner, I'm taking it suddenly over. Now I can listen to houses and whatever it's for. Like, you might actually want to do something a little bit more aggressive, because-- Super clear, but I'm not running after him. No, I got that. It was-- well, you quit anyways. You walked up to the hovel. You pulled back the curtains. You saw someone and you shouted, "He's running." Right. That seems very much like a full turn of action to me. I do have a flashlight. And I would probably start shattering all the bears. Okay. Unless it was damaged in the van crash. No, you got a flashlight. Everyone roll for initiative except for the two that aren't there. Dexterity plus composure. I'm going to make a roll to see if the person in there is surprised. Because if they are surprised, they lose their turn. Which means they cannot run away. And now if it just goes, I'm probably going to change what I do. That's perfectly okay. So I'm probably-- I'm not even caught. Oh, initiative. Die rolls don't explode, do they? No, they do not. I actually rolled two successes on four dice. So what happened happened? They saw you. They were startled but still had enough to kind of scramble over hands and feet towards the back of the shanty. And you shout out, he's running. Go ahead and give me your initiatives. Grace? Nine. Daniel. Fourteen. Two. Eight. Two. You're fast. Ad card. Nine. Roll up for it. You guys are high. Did you subtract your rolls from being high? No. Katie, go. I think I thought it. Well, okay, you're fast. Jay. Thirteen. Okay, so Grace is gone. Ringing gone. Has gone for her turn. Your turn is now up. Over. You're gone. Sit and discard. Katie, go ahead. Is there a clear path that I could run after this person? You have no idea what she talks about before. I mean, people in front of me, I can't get through the door because there's 10-5 people. Three people in the doorway. You know that there is obviously somebody inside the tent and then Jay is running behind to get behind the structure. That's what I was planning on doing. So you want to follow Jay? No, Jay took off this way. I'm going the opposite way. If that's a rod that looks like you can take, if there's an intersection going the other way, that I can head around the other way, that's the way I'm going. Okay, fair enough. So Katie starts speaking off down this particular logist thoroughfare. That takes us to Daniel. Can I chirp on the radio? Head and west. Okay. Daniel just rushes past Silver Bell. Shouts blind him and makes a sprint for the guy. Okay, makes a sprint for the guy. As you run through this small space in the dark, I'm going to have you make a dexterity plus athletics check unless you have something that would be more on point. To maintain your balance, there's things hanging from the ceiling. There's things protruding from the walls. They have little stoves. They have people slipping on the floor. Just to see if you can make your mad dash. So Daniel, give me your dice total first, please, and then we'll go ahead from there. I did not far again. Is he still in the room? He's still in the room. Yes. How many dice do you have for dexterity plus athletics? Four dice. Due to the cramp nature, I'll take one die away. Due to the darkness, I will take one die away. Although Chew is trying to flash, I'll like pass you, but you're a freaking mammoth. So it's mostly getting your back. Go ahead and roll your two dice. Good luck. 10, 10, just 16. One success, but you need to-- What's your speed? 12. Oh, you're pretty fast. You eat it all. Those long strides, right? Yeah, I got a bonus one because of that. Okay, so for movement, you were able to-- Really, you didn't pick your way through? Daniel, you just kept over and out of the way. All the way over, you just piled your way through. And the thing knocked you off balance enough to stop you. What you do is you end up right next to him as this-- Can I try to take him down? --and take him down is trying to throw his shoulder into the back of a barn or something like that. There's a big piece of wood that's kind of the back of this shanty. He's throwing his shoulder into it as you come. You can try to tackle him, absolutely. Okay. I do. That would be the dreaded grapple. Oh, we don't have to-- Which-- Any system-- I can just hit three. I shoot him instead. Yeah. What should you do? What should you do? What's your strength plus bro? Okay. That's six dice. I'm using a willpower before this even happens. So you're up to nine dice? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. You would then subtract three dice for his defense and one die just for the constraints of where you're at and you're stumbling and you're falling forward. You try to tackle him. So a total of minus four dice, but that gives you I think five dice remaining. Uh-huh. Okay. So Daniel valiantly charges into the tent. Slams right into the wall and bounces off. You want to grab him and he happened to like whip his right foot and plant it directly into your solar plexus and push you back and you kind of just stumble backwards a few feet. That's-- But you're still right next to him. But you did kind of slow his momentum a bit and it's now Jay's turn. Yes, I continue to run around. Jay, you move 12 meters every three seconds, which is 36 feet. I do. The junction that you wanted to turn down was 25 feet the distance. So you ran down the street, charred right in just three seconds or so and came to a dead end where there's tires and there's wood and there's metal rebar. There's just this massive pile of junk. That can be traversed. I think they're going up and over or straight. That's what I think. You should go through this does not seem like-- I'm not that strong. So over. But over sounds really good. It's about maybe 15 to 20 feet high. It's not a huge impediment. But it's certainly going to slow you up a little bit. My blindness, I don't know how it's going to affect anything. OK, I'm going to say you can-- But the rule is that if you're entirely blind, you don't get any dice except for a chance dice. If you can replace other senses, you get minus three. I'm partially blind. Yeah, I think there's a world of difference between-- Oh my god, partially blind into it. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like I'm going to go off a concealment and think that with your one eye close, and it kind of seems like it'd be like a minus two to me. Does that sound-- Yeah, no, no, that's fine. OK. I think minus one isn't enough. And minus three might be a little too much to do. Right, so I think minus two is fair. You move your full movement. You get to the mass of junk and debris. And then you could attempt a climbing check, if you would like at that point to get started on vaulting over this craziness. Do what's a climbing check. Dexterity plus athletics role. Are we going to do minus for the eye or no? Absolutely. We're going to do minus one for the darkness, just in general. Finding the right hand holds and such. And then minus two for the eye. So how many days did you have to start? I had eight to start with the minus three. I have five. OK. Good luck to you. Literally. That's just my turn. Wow. Do this. I did not succeed. I rolled lots of ones and a few sevens. OK. So you start to climb, but you aren't not able to get a really good purchase. My depth perception is really fucked up right now. I just want to ask if the military radios have a ability to have an open mic. Is this possible that we're listening to this? I was also going to ask who has a mic. I assume I have one. I don't know how many we have. Well, there's three of them. I took another radio. We all had mics. We were all wired up for that when we went into the farm stat because our cell phones didn't work. We all had that. So obviously we have one at the hotel. But we didn't have the battery life. For constant communication. So I thought we were using the-- It's just a key to fix this up on that. OK. I'm going to go ahead and say you guys planned for this. It was a big thing. So you have your actual wireless headsets. Right. But wouldn't those wireless headsets require some-- I don't know. Network? There was no network we could reach out there. I don't think military ones would require any network. Right. OK. So we're going to go ahead and say that you guys have your-- over the ear, like the earbuds, and basically that's the type of communication you have. You also have the more heavy duty walkie-talkies. Which, at this point, you're not using-- Well, actually Somerville would probably have one because she doesn't have an over the ear. OK. She doesn't have an over the ear. Ethan doesn't have an over the ear. And somebody-- I think Daniel said he was taking one, correct? Yeah. OK. And anyone else think they have one that I don't know about? Everyone has an over the ear. I'll talk about an actual military grade walkie-talkie. I think there was three of them. I want to say there was three of them. I don't know if we're certain that would be the three. So Daniel, Grace, and Ethan have the walkie-talkies. Or I assume our open channel at this point. I don't know if anyone would keep turning it off and keep pressing the button to talk at this point. Yes, no? I just put it on whatever you said it was. OK, the channel and the shards, Dan. Sure. How heavy are these blankets? They're long blankets, so-- and there is a bunch of them that were sewed together. Just one bit better, just rip them off so we can actually have light and see inside of this thing. That would be an excellent thing to do, on your next instant action. OK. Next up is Edgard. We've got a runner. Daniel runs into the house. Sister Rex says, OK, runs over. She runs in the other direction. She runs in the other direction of Jay. We'll go through the house next door. That's unoccupied. It is, unfortunately. Well, there's probably people in there, but I just mean there's none of us in there. Right, so you're crashing through the shanty that's closest to the intersection that you're at. But next to the shanty that Daniel was just charging to. I think it was wise to do that. All right, I'm sure in your present condition, it seems very wise to do that. So go ahead and make yourself a athletics plus dexterity check, please. He should get a bonus if he lives in Haiti, because we're pretty much in Haiti, actually. Right, but he was born in Haiti, moved to New Orleans a couple of years into his youth. So good trial. Well, he was a toddler. And a way to totally alienate all our Haitian listeners. Yeah, all of them. Total of six. All of them. Well, there's a total of dexterity. OK, you're high. So we're going to go ahead and subtract and die just for B and I. One die for darkness. One die for clutter. Go for it. Right, I draw my gun as well. OK, sure. You want to scare me? Everyone's doing it. Uh, guys, zero. Go, go, go. That didn't get returnable. No, it's between two different bad moments. How many successes are there? Success, total. That's excellent. So you crash through some similar type of-- but it's actually next door. It's like more of a light-winning type of cover. So you crash through it. You disentangle yourself from it so you don't walk through this shanty looking like a ghost and freaking everyone out. And you stumble through the shanty. I mean, just knocking shit over. Thanks for the stealth mission. Yeah, people are screaming, yelling. You work your way to the back of this particular shanty and like the shanty that they're experiencing now with Emma in it, you come across a large wooden wall along the back. That's relatively sturdy. So you come to that, and I think that maybe next turn, you'll be able to try to beat your way through it in some way. Is that OK? So there's no door on the back? No door on the back. Where the fuck was that dude going? This is what I don't think as he stares in the wooden wall and thinks what he's going to do about it. That man, that was a good trip. Two, Grace has pulled back the blankets. You saw Daniel charge in. You're trying to shine your flashlight as accurately as you can in there, and most of the bouncing off of his gargantuan back. He goes to tackle your hair up. There's some pants falling over and some-- you're starting to hear screams from inside of the shanty. And as a matter of fact, screams next door, actually, enough on the shanty as well. Mass chaos. I forgot that I had a tack light on my shotgun as well. Nice. Well, you're trying to-- I'm probably using that at this point. OK, sure enough. Looks like Daniel's trying to wrestle with whatever it is. Right. And you saw Daniel make a leap in with the light that you had from your tack light. And you saw him, the person in robes, which you can't-- you can't see limbs and stuff. Or she kicked a leg out and pushed Daniel back. But he was kind of off-balance anyways from stumbling over some things in the shanty. Yes. He's high as a kite, too. Yes, he is. He probably sees him fighting a bear or a ghost. Right. It was totally cool. [INTERPOSING VOICES] I did inhale. So chew, go. Are there multiple rooms to this place? There's almost halfway through what would be actually about 2/3 of the way through. It closes in a bit on the sides. So it's almost like a quieter back area, probably where the kids are at. That way he's blank. It's a separate difference. Right. And some boxes and wood crates and stuff like that. So yeah, it does narrow down a bit. But nap rooms per se. I'm going to try to head off to where I think the kids might be sleeping. You think it's back there with Daniel and the bear that he's wrestling with right now in your heightened state of awareness? Throw a flash back. So I guess I just started heading in that direction. Is there a rule for aiming? There is a rule for aiming. I just read it because I wanted to shoot someone in a particular body part. It's plus one dies for each full turn, spent in it. What do you want to aim with a shotgun for? It's a slug. Nice to set the room. Is the leg on it? Let's remember that more than likely this guy is a tool. Chew is deciding what he's going to do. I'm going to move to where I think the kids are. So I'm going to move kind of to where Daniel is wrestling. You're moving your way. You're moving cautiously, like tactically? That means that so you're going to walk just carefully, slowly, through the areas so you don't fall. Because to me, Daniel's not against the flash side. I'm sure he's using that, too. That's what I'm saying. If he's not aiming, you can use your flashlight. Or you want to keep it on the back of Daniel and the cloaked individual. How far away is the cloaked individual from Daniel? Would I hit him with a shotgun? Yeah, Daniel's standing right in front of him, literally in his personal space, within two or three feet. Now, it's not to say that there's not a limb showing that you could try to, well, have a shotgun. But I'm going to try to get off to the side. So when I shoot, I'll be tuning to the side enough through Daniel to get a better shot. Right, so go ahead and give me a role, athletics plus dexterity, to pick your way through the bullshit on the ground. And tell me how many dice you have. Five. And I'm just going to say you have the light. So I'm going to give you the equipment bonus of one die for that. And just minus one die for the clutter. So back to five, need one success to step through, go to the pinch point, which leads to the back area where the kids are, and then kind of move over to the side to try to get an angle on the individual in the cloak. I'm so under the influence. Is there a negative for that? It should be one more die, minus for that, sorry. Good call. And inhale. You did. That's the only reason the thing worked. But you can mind the side, say it once. It's people like yourself. Okay. All right, so I'm rolling four dice. Four dice to the left. I got one success. Jew moves cat-like through the shanty. And you, I'm missing lots of losses. And there's actually a girl, a little girl, to the left that's crying. Oh, you could only assume, even in your drugged out state, that that must be Emma. Sitting there crying, I actually give you the choice. You move to the left where she's at to kind of try to reassure her. Or do you move to the right and point at gun at her like Sister Katie would? I mean, how do you handle this? Can I stand in front of her between being calm? Yes, what I think is the shattered man in her. Yes. Daniel, as you see a revolver come up from the folds of the-- I still have my body armor from the-- I understand. From the-- From the friendly reminder. You see a revolver come up point blank range. It certainly is startling as it comes out of the folds of the robes that this person is wearing. Go ahead and make a perception check, please. Okay, how many dice do you have? Wits and composure? Six dice. Okay, it's dark, minus two dice, roll. You're not high enough, guys, I can't go for it. Okay. Oh, she got his gun. I see everything. He does. With a ten foot on it. Yes. How many successes? Three on four does. Three on four ice, excellent. You are looking into the eyes of what seems to you to be a middle-aged-ish, maybe thirties, man. He's got a cloak on and his eyes look a little crazy to you in the sense that I would like you to read too much into just how crazy his eyes are, whether they're crazy, crazy, or whether they're crazy 'cause he's all sudden in this situation that is very frightening. But he's going ahead and pulling the trigger. Now, the interesting thing is, since you are right next to him, normally when someone fires a gun at you, you don't get to dodge. You don't get to use your defense in any way. But when someone is right next to you at a hand gun, you get to try to knock it away. You get your defense when you are right next to someone. I can imagine how this goes if I fail. Yeah, it's really cool. So, what is your defense? Good, sir. It's four unless I calculated it wrong and it really had to use this. I always get chatted far, you know? Dexterity or it's plus athletics. Okay, thank you. We rolled one success, it's a ten again. Ten again. Stop forgetting. Seven, knock white. Okay. So, two successes plus the-- It's a robber, then it does two damage. Weapon damage for a heavy revolver is two, it's a light revolver. So, it is three damage. This is feathers, shoot feathers. Right, now, you had armor, which was-- Because it's definitely one. It's one for knives, two for bullets. So, one lethal gets through and you-- A bruise. Well, I think it's a rifle. Well, I guess you could be that brave. And then it is movement, he doesn't move because he's trapped. And he shows not to try to get out the back, he's supposed to try to kill you, not knowing you had high-tech massive armor. So, you take one damage, describe your damage. I was wearing Kevlar, so it obviously hit me in the chest. Oh, good. I got a terrible bruise all over my shoulder. Lethal bruising and lethal bruise. It's horrible, did you mark the damage? Does it affect any of your dice rolls? No, I am fairly well healed, thank you. Oh, that's excellent to hear. Yeah. Damn it. Unlike other people. Right, and it takes us to Grace, who hears the large cacophony of a bang, of a firearm, and you see Daniel stagger back a little. If you see if he doesn't fall, he has a crumple from the shot, but you see a smoking revolver in the hand of the man-- So, I can see him fully and clearly. They've gotten what a flashed light like-- Oh, yeah, like you wouldn't believe. So, there might be even a little bit of temporary. But, yes, you can definitely see he's wearing a type of cloak that's gray in nature, anything else that's pretty much it. I mean, the shot lit up the interior of the shanty. I guess for a second, you see a startled mother. You look at these little vignettes of startled mother waking from her bed and reaching towards the back of the shanty towards her daughter. You can't really see the girl, but you see Chew kind of holding a hand back like he was trying to protect somebody. You see him in the back of the-- See, he has a gun aimed-- He has a gun aimed in back. You see Daniel stumbling backwards from the impact, if nothing was the kinetic impact of a firearm. And the smell of cordate starts to obviously whip through the air. And your turn. Now, just to be fair, you don't know that he saw him stagger backwards. He didn't fall yet. You don't really know how damaged he is. I just wanted to make sure I understood everything so that I could-- Right, that's fine. It's a roll, correct? No, it's not. It's just a straight expenditure. It's just a straight expenditure and it happens. Except for watch. All right, so we'll go around the table. Ethan, you are listening riveted to the action. You hear a gunshot go off. You hear screams and shouts and children crying. It looks like there's something really crazy going on. Jay, you find yourself entangled in this crazy dead end of twisted metal and tires and all kinds of other things. Katie, you find yourself alone frighteningly in a way, maybe running down a street hoping to take a left and cut down and work your way back to the back of this shanty. Edgard, you find yourself really just putting a shoulder down into a wall that you're going to try to pressure away or bash away through. Dr. Clay, you find yourself, too, on the edge of your seat, hearing the people you've known for months and have worked with, obviously, in some kind of horrible situation of gunfire and confusion. Chew, you've got your gun with your tack light trained now as Daniel stands back, you know, staggers back a few inches. You've got it trained right in the center of this person wearing this cloak. Daniel, you feel the sting and the pain of the shot. You stagger back a bit, you try to catch your breath and find that it's a little bit difficult because of the pain, but you're in one piece and you're thankful for that. And all of a sudden, you're all standing at the tee. And Dr. Clay is reading off the other points and you're back to where you were one minute before you charged into the shanty. Are we experiencing Deja Vu or do we not realize that we're back at the beginning? Am I aware that we've moved in time? No. I would say that... I would have to convince them, right, because we've just moved back in time. I didn't. Otherwise, there'd be two versions of themselves if they were going back. No, I know what you're definitely saying and everyone's back to planning. Nothing has happened. Literally nothing has happened. You're talking? I've heard from them the plan. You're in the middle of talking to Dr.... It's going down the bullet list. Yeah, you're going down the bullet list again. Okay, so I'm saying... Can we just cut to the chase at the end where we have a way to actually stop this guy rather than how to summon him? We don't want to summon him. What's our defense against this guy? There's number five. Number five, which is... Can we see if this does happen again or... No, they don't. So I'm just going to sit here and... So he's here talking and you know all this already. Yeah, I do. So what do you say? I wasn't surprised a lot too. Yeah, sure, absolutely. I was just trying to say... Okay. I was just doing what I did. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. No, she's always annoyed with everybody. So everyone's done it 100 times before. Exactly. Jay, we don't need to listen to this right now. But what we do need is for you to trust me. This is a redo. We tried this and it didn't work. I need you to listen to what I'm about to tell you. Go on. There is no way to the back entrance around here. So don't even think about trying to get there. You're going to run into obstacles. We need to go through the front door. There is a robed man kneeling down performing a ceremony on the other side of his blankets. Man? Yes. He has a revolver. Okay. The girl is still inside. Her mother is still in there as well. Okay. So far, the shattered man has not come. How much time we got? We are one minute back. Man, we ended up rather than... Okay. Everyone participated tonight. We have a beat. And we're going to go around the table just like we did in the old days of D&D. And you're going to try to sell me on a beat for two. Oh, God. What do you got? I just got him to trust me and listen to what I had to say instead of blowing on my argue. That's an aspiration, which you're going to get rewarded for. But you did move them seemingly. Well, you either have to read illusion or you've moved them back in time. Well, if I walk into the place and verify exactly what you just said, then I'm going to trust her because she just... You wouldn't know that. Go ahead. Daniel. So good. Nothing. You don't want to pitch me? I didn't do it all done. Wait, you were... You had an exceptional goal. A success there. Yeah, I did a three. I don't know. I thought that was a dope reward. I enjoyed it. You were in there when selling sasquash. Yeah, you went cool sasquash kind of sasquash. Oh, no. By the way, does that hurt still? I know. Oh, I still owned it. He's not wounded in that. Yeah, he's like... Yeah, you went full-splash. That was great heroic. Thank you. I guess. He seems to speak a little for me. You protected, like, for tonight, you protected the child. Yeah, for tonight. You protected an innocent. I mean, I... I did that. I did that. Yeah. Did something brave. All you almost... Right. Yeah. In pursuit of, like, almost like a serial-type killer thing. Almost. Not quite. Go ahead and take a beat and next your beat. It's not quite a lie. Michael, play. What did you do tonight? Everything kind of like, you know, pizza most arts. Well, you didn't think any mistakes and rating those notes off, did you? No. He got a nasty paper cut. Right. End guard. I ran into a house and experienced the same problem. That was probably set out loud, but I wasn't listening. I don't think you knew that it went all the way across to the other ones. I mean, it was fair enough. Honestly, I thought I couldn't have heard that. So I was role-playing. Perfect. Right. And you role-playing someone who's high, so take a beat. Go ahead. I did not terrorize any children. That's true. Did you have time to do so? Yes, I did. She could have went into the shanty, but she chose to avoid children. That's true. You don't take a beat for that. You chose to avoid children. That's awesome. I think I stationed her outside. Yes. She's not allowed to go. Which is where you hit your beat. You're at the bottom of the car. No, I chose to have my character be blind because I thought I was blind. Yes. That's worth a beat. For the residual effect of the six points of knowledge that was learned, an additional beat for Ethan is blind. It was awesome. Thank you for listening tonight's of the Night Actual Play podcast. If you'd like to send us questions, comments, or feedback, you can reach us in a number of ways. From Twitter, @kotn_podcast, or by email feedback@kotnpodcast.com. And don't forget the iTunes reviews or our Facebook page, facebook.com/kotn.podcast. Speaking of Facebook, join like-minded folks at our Facebook fan page. And lastly, there's our blog page, kotnpodcast.com, where there's an Amazon link on the right-hand side. Thanks to Zen Audio Smith for the intro and outro music. Get your own music at zenaudiosmith.com. And join us next week for more mystery and adventure. But she is a very intuitive young lady, so if he was dripping with sarcasm, she would be thinking, fuck. I'm still not appreciated around here. Or something other team chef said. I think I said it. I think there has to be a hug in a father/daughter moment. It was more like things that are not going to happen. I think it was more like dealing with my younger sister and just, yes, I appreciate what you did now. Shut the fuck up. Exactly, that's what it is. It's the best you could get on Jay, so I think that would take a beat. I'm not here in a beat, no way. Michael Clay would get weak meat over a statement like that. So, do we take a beat because of anything or just quick press? Well, you said you gave me a compelling reason off Mike last week after the session ended that you wanted a beat for. And he said, I grant you that beat. That was actually two sessions ago. That was not this past session. This past session you gave me two weeks because I had the one awesome role in the end. The one argument. The one argument. Yeah, you went around the table and you gave that one. I just edited that, so I remember what she said. It was two weeks prior. I don't want she totally about to take it anyway. Thomas Plank, Edgard Montes, Bedroom. Here we start. Thomas Plank, Edgard Montes. If we're doing a practitioner and I'm gonna go to the ladies' tray conspiracy. It's about as rolled as it gets. Roll it, bitch. You had a question. No, I just wanted a clarification, you just said it. I didn't hear you say that there was anyone in residence in this place, but you just said that there were people sleeping on the floor. There's a dragon sitting right there on the top of the treasure. I'm sorry. Okay. Strength plus brawl minus defense. That's exactly what we had. So hey, we did it right. One in the row. Dead end. Wait a minute, dead end. Dead end. Dead end. The attack going slow this guy down. He attempted to tackle and the guy turned around and kicked in. He turned around and kicking. Yes, which is why he... Yes, it basically... Well, he gets a squash. He gets a defense. Okay. To any action that giant takes in addition to what he was doing. So in his turn, though, I did slow him up because you could normally move your full movement and in action, which would be putting your shoulder to the corrugated, I'm not corrugated, but the wood of the back wall. The way I said was because he was kind of a crouch. He had to stumble over things. He just got to the back wall and to get at his turn. So I didn't give him his full set of actions he could take, and we'll see what happens. And concealment is if you're like kind of like trying to hide behind one of these poles. You're like, "Look, I'm hiding behind a pole." It's minus one to someone to attack you. If you're hiding behind the hood of a car, but your upper body is a little bit exposed, minus two. Then if you're crouching fully behind a car, it's minus three. And then if you're like behind a wall, it's minus four. You're totally done. Dexterity. Clung would absolutely be dexterity plus your climbing skill. There's such a thing. If there's not athletics, I thought there was a climbing skill. I don't see...no, just athletics, but I'll get it. Make me sound really smart and take that out now. Right after Jim's. 20 feet to the front. Open it up. Did it search? Everyone else moved 20 feet. Everyone else moved 20 feet, but didn't search. And then sprint some more. That's a very heavy blanket. You had to move out of the way. Very heavy. You were going to charge in there and tackle him? Yes. No, but when you had to go start shattering, as soon as he started running, I was going to go shatter in the mirror. That's the most important thing. But no. I had to stand there. Well, you could politely ask if I might have made a mistake. And I could say, "Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I shouldn't be able to make action." I'm a frustrated teenager because I love it. Well, no. You're not a teenager. No. You're a Rachel. No, I'm kidding. So, what you did was to put it in game terms. No, it's important for you to understand game terms. You have a move action and you have an actual physical action, which is called an instant action. You're instant action because it's not a move action focus. You're instant action was drawn back the thing and searching to see what was inside. It wasn't immediately apparent to you that there was someone there that was concealed and kind of crouched down in doing something. So, your instant action was pulling back the blinds and looking inside, pulling back the covers. If we have the talk button locked or whatever, then they can't communicate with us though, right? So, in one way? I think it's like putting your speaker phone on your cell phone where it's just kind of cool. Yeah, I don't want to get bogged down in it, so I'm going to say that you guys can talk back and forth. These are magic. Yes. It's a technology that is at least five years ahead of what's available in 2011. It wouldn't be any different than a full-on channel, so you can sit and receive at the same time. I'm thinking of like an old CB radio. Yeah. Okay. Where's the back door? So, what kind of eye is this? What did you guys take? What are you? What are you? They smoked rubber works for those guys? Does that work? I don't know if that works. Apparently it works great. It's a replica to walk through a wall if he was on morphine. Well, you're in the hedge. Smoking morphine is awesome in the hedge. Right. It has a whole new world, literally. So, you... Did you say pants falling over? Pans. That's a bit of pants falling over, pots and pans cluttering. You know, pin stuff falling off of shelves. Yeah, whatever. I was just going to shoot him in the foot so he couldn't... Just sound. I don't know what shoes they were in. And all likelihood this is just a puppet. I figure all the programming is from my iron hatch. There's people with their... You could have people? No memory. Yeah, that's what we said at the time. You didn't make that joke? No, you said you could have printing presses. Which was a lot more impressive to my... No, when he went and was sort of that poetry. I said I bet when we looked through the mirror to see the guy who gave the... Thing for buying our hatch, the telegraph at the other end. It was just another challenge. I don't see buying our hatch being on our side because this is a Scott world and no one's on our side. But I don't see him as a big guy. Oh, they'll help us out. Yeah, that's what I mean. He's not the big bad. He's playing his own game. Sure. Okay, maybe he's playing with us. Oh, definitely. But I think he's helping us along the way, but only when it helps him. But I don't think he's the big bad. Yeah, so he's the third party. So if this guy is a program MOOC, I don't think it's buying our hatch's program or whatever. Go with no enough to sneak into that. The bad would be doing that. Yeah. The White King. Go with no enough to sneak into the telegraph office. Correct. A mirror that they know. Maxwell's coming to me. It could not be correct. But I suppose one of the... Whatever. End guard. End guard. End guard, and White has named on it, knowing that he's going to be up there. To bring that. To bring the words out. Well, that's an environment actually. It does. But why does he do... There's either a connection between the victims that we haven't found or discovered yet because... They're all in the chant again. Yeah, but what's their common factor? Otherwise, what purpose is being served by summoning this thing? I think that... It's being used as a weapon, presumably. Was there any question of who this creature attacked in the past? None of that particular attacks. Was there always children, for instance? I don't think this was a... Somebody is pointing in multi-timelines. Yeah, binary hex seems to be one of those summons. Someone was dealing with the torso murders in our time and back here. Right. Well, you can't prove that. They haven't happened back here. So... This is a time period that happens. I thought it happened a little bit later. So we... That's what I thought. So they had those... They had those time had demon floating things. Time spirits. Yeah, they had them locked up in the basement with... Grace. Apparently, her breast buds would never harm her according to her... And... Well, they came out... We scared them away as possible. They could have went back in time and then hooked up at someone to start taking out people that were part of the game that put them... They got them locked up. They're getting with... Trying to pick out their ancestors, so they can't do that again in the future. We don't know what we don't know. This is a different reality. Great. Well, it's a reality. You keep saying that sky keeps arguing that it's not. He said it looked like a different feeling. It's not like that it had different skyline and different buildings. The blunt parts could have been realistic. I know. That's not my point. But we didn't tear down tall buildings and hide them. Right. So I guess the question is, when you said it wasn't all at different... The different skyline, is it a different skyline because of the time period? Or is it a different skyline even in that time period? Like those buildings never do the same thing. They never existed. These are totally new buildings. Yeah, you made that clear. Yeah. Or somebody adjusted the time and me doing the two periods. Which makes me think that if we go back in four or a time, we can go in and head up. I didn't sign up with this shit. Oh, shit. Yes. Hey, you're chasing a serial killer. Quit bitching. Just having a supernatural shattered man serial killer. Serial doctor. How's that? I can't get him to shut up during feedback. Right, but here. I just started firing my gun in a random shanties just to wake people up. Morning. Motherfucker. Good morning. Shut your wife, sorry. It'll be like this. Okay. Our copy of that came out of your life tomorrow. You were the one? Your copy of it? Mom mentioned it. It was like $11 on Amazon, so... What's that? Banking. Monopoly. Monopoly. Monopoly, yeah. Monopoly, yeah. Aaron was, like, Monopoly dead, really? Who are you? Who are you? Don't be a games fan. You're a games fan. Oh, I am a games fan. Okay. I won't play the real Monopoly on it. How long does it take to run through that? Daniel. That card game is like five. It doesn't mean it won't destroy anything, but it's like time. Right, but at least you haven't. It depends on how many players, with two players. Well, you should get two. Okay. Yes? You are listening riveted to... Sorry. It's right. You can't help it. What a bunch of worship. It's a dover babble. What is that okay here? Wait, was that leave leave? Yeah, I mean, we will shortly. Is this now that I know that he's already in there? I like it. Put your eye up. Yes. Would you say that that's enough to... I know it's dark and everything. Right. I can only see, like, a form. Typically, in order to do... Well, let's just say...