Is it possible? Will Jay actually be able to cross off his "Bring the Squad back together" aspiration?
Knights of the Night
213_WoD3_KotN_Breaking_points_are_Bad?
[music] Hello, and welcome to Night to the Night's actual Blypond cast. This world of darkness story, the Syneater, was written and run by your storyteller Scott. And now, please enjoy episode 213, titled "Breaking Points Are Bad." [music] Alright, let's start with the feedback. We had one post from Anonymous on the KOTN podcast blog page. So I finally got up for the most recent episodes of Hell of a Slug, and it seems like you're all missing an obvious part of the bad guy's MO. Don't tell us. Who laid the Western Union trap, because that bastard was clearly summoned there. You know what I thought of that? I talked about it, but I've been in another universe since then, so I haven't been able to get any of that. Yeah, you weren't there yet. Yeah, you're right. Over to Facebook, on episode 211, which was titled "On Hand Me Good, Sir." What a title. It was a good title. That was Scott, I think. Tom Rocket said, "Damn, Scott, too soon was too released from the tree." I know. Only to follow the Black River of Despair back to the trailer. Please let the doorway leave back to the trailer. And Rachel, stick to Silver Bell. I know Zelda is awesome, but Dresden will return soon enough. What does that mean? Because you mentioned you had the player card in front of you, so someone puts Zelda there and he said, "Oh, can I play her?" So. Greg Conant also posted and said, "Michael Clay finally gets to use his bra-skit brawl." [laughter] This is bra-skilt. This is bra-skilt. His bra-skilt. I think he's starting to like 1930. Do you think he'll choose to stay when it's all over? And I believe you posted a rather lengthy post on it. It's a really good possibility. There was also a post on Facebook on episode 212, which was titled, which I believe is Pimp. I was thinking the name of the episode. That's what they voted for. I believe. You used another quote from me about 20 no better. There's a good title. Christopher Foster said, "Sister Kitty gets plus three dice to cognitive reframing." Must be a psychologist. How are you posted and said, "On feedback, now that you mentioned it, I have talked with Tom about this some time ago. The trio of Thomas, John, and Tom sound very similar." It's almost like we're related. Or something. Yes. I don't know how that could be. Well, Tom has the same undertone. But at the same time, it's hard to tell John and Thomas' voices apart in getting confused which character is doing what, even though Thomas has a very, very whitish way of talking. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Very whitish. Yeah. Christopher Foster posted and said, "My problem is that in any given campaign only one is conversational. In Dresden, Roberta was the main character, and Thomas was quiet. And so for a few times when Maxwell spoke, I thought it was something that John was saying, and it confused me. And vice versa with Edgard and Daniel." So he's also having trouble keeping you down. I think one of you should pick false set over something. Can you talk like I can't make my voice do that. Can you go lower? I don't know. Just hold it. No. Do you want me to start howling around the neighborhood? Who is going to hold your nose when you're talking? No. Can't you, like, tweet the pitch at all? I am not going through every single time down the stocks and dropping an octave. No. It'll be too bad. I don't know what to say. If we recorded all of our channels, you could do that, you know. We need better equipment. We do. Kevin Bates posted and said great episode nights, though I think I disagree with the assessment that fate can't be used for horror because of the ability of the players to declare. Even if the players were allowed to declare things like no, the crickets, they don't stop and everything is fine and it's not spooky, the loss of a fate point early in the game for basically no reason should be treated with the same player association as Burning Will, Power and World of Darkness or Inspiration in 5th edition or just pulling an extra tile in dread, which I don't think any of you might have except for me. The player might avoid spookiness early on by doing things like that, but the loss of a resource for effectively no gains means it's going to come crashing back down on them sooner. Not given how slow we play. Horror to me is more about the ominous and the sometimes visceral wait for the other shoe to drop. In the game it's not about anything a GM declares is happening, it's also about the awful feeling of being forced to make a choice between two terrible endings like the movie Saw, the realization that the only thing that your saw can cut through and being forced to make a choice is far more horror than anything the GM could describe to the character. At least that's my opinion of horror. You had mentioned Ken Hight last week as did the horror seminar, I think one of the key things I took away from that was you need a captive audience in some way or another. That's what worries about the haunted house alien on the spaceship where you can't get off. Your characters are locked in basically to the situation. That's part of it. I think that's a huge part of it and that's what I got on a wall at. I would say that what he described as horror was done just in our last story, Shagrin, and the trailer when he had to make a choice, a very horrible choice when he was having a flashback to his father's house in New Mexico. We do hit that type of horror as well as that I also endeavored to, which is more descriptive. That situation was classic captive audience because it was a kid. It had nowhere to go. On our main page on Facebook, Steve Ela, which previously I pronounced Ela, said, "Hi, folks. First off, since the subject of pronunciation was brought up, my name is Ela with a long E. About the horror setting, this is what I found out, we're starting up a new D&D campaign and one of the options was labeled as horror. More than half the group agreed that it would be very hard to maintain a horror feeling over a campaign, especially for seasoned gamers. A few of us wanted to give it a try and we found that there was a conflict and opinions. When we looked more into it, we found that the horror came more about the setting itself than a style of play, the greater presence of undead, dark magic, etc., the things that happened to be in a world were horrific. It's about this time that I heard your feedback on the issue, perfect timing. We talked about what a horror meant and here were some of the responses. Always trying to catch up with a bad guy, high body count along the way with a doomsday ticker in the background. Suspense/horror. End of the world by powers beyond your control, Cthulhu style. Tearing apart the human soul slowly through experience and action, one of my favorites, an ordinary setting just off center with something running the show that cannot be seen. Most of these would be difficult to maintain in a long campaign, eventually you would either give up, die, or worse. The last one is perhaps the best for a long game, searching for the source of the weirdness, throwing in bits and pieces of other types of flavor, and I think you could keep a game running, interesting, and memorable. Plenty of chances for the character development, good and bad, and like a TV story where the grand story arc, the episode that focuses on the grittier aspects. Thanks for running your games and allowing us to sit in our comfy chairs and listen, Steve. Interesting feedback? That was, I believe he was the one that suggested that they had a bunch of different opinions in what horror it was and he mentioned. I think I would also offer a good horror is a combination of maybe a couple of those things. Yeah, I was going to say, I think we saw, we see several of those going on right now. Yeah, at one time. So, there's definitely so many pulling strings in the background, we know that, yeah. It's a really good summer, and ripping souls apart slowly, but surely, is the Kentucky audience on the audio house in 1935, and we can't get out. Right, exactly. It's a captive audience, good cocktail horror, right? Yeah. Thanks, Bob. Yeah. Take a peek! Okay. I'll get to one just for the compliment. Over on the fan pages, just a couple things going on I wanted to mention. And I made a post that mentioned that we, that KOTN is at 212 episodes, and what it is that we are, we are longer running than. And one of them was Star Trek Next Generation, and there were a couple other things. Someone mentioned a show that had 700 episodes and said that we should set that as our next goal. That's not going to happen. We're going to stop at 600 something. We have 212 right now. Well, and that took us four years. We needed to go probably in other 10 years. Or shorter at 700. Maybe when our kids were playing with their kids. Yeah, but someone else is going to have to step up and edit because I'm not sure I can do this 10 more years. We just saw Rachel raise her hand. Yeah. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Awesome. You said we get paid enough that we can pay an editor, we'll be set for life. We'll be 90-year-old. I'm going to cut out the... What? We can't go through it, I don't have to do that. So there you go. The bandit layer of useless bullshit is up to 38 replies and it's still going. Oh, what should be in it? Yeah, what should be in it? Other possible titles for 212. They were... This is much better than following the river. What did I get them wrongly? This was, again, a Thomas quote. Well, Ridd and Michael Kleistel I think was Bob, but I didn't, I did, but I didn't inhale. That was also Bob. Mm-hmm. Aegis Kai, whatever, was Rachel. Smoke harder, I think, was Thomas and I think you'd think, and that was actually Scott and Bob was peer pressure. Mm-hmm. Which I thought would have been a good title, but nobody voted for it at all. Wow. Peer pressure. Sonnet. They totally was peer pressure. Totally was. They made you take drugs. And very good pressure. And it gets swallowed by a snake. Simon Gillian also posted an in-depth comparison of Silver Bell and Roberto. In-depth? In-depth. Oh, my God. How many pages? In terms of annoying the group or what? No, it is on a fan page, which is a good place for a discussion like that. I didn't see that one. You don't have to go check it out. Yeah, you don't have to go look for it. It was basically comparing how Roberto act and how it's similar to how Silver Bell's acting and how we... How are we? We acted differently. And those were entirely different groups and entirely different systems, so it's not necessarily. But it was a good... It was a good post. Six. Six. Wow. We're playing the sex car. No. I don't know. But you can't play that card. Other than that, we had some email at feedback@kotnpodcast.com from Schumannbag. So when I cited episode 165 before on re-listening, I think it was Tom saying, "You're making your role to make it okay for the GM to be an asshole. This was about new Monera and the GM intervention role." I think some people interpreted my email as saying the GM intervention role caused assholery, but that's not what I meant. Basically I think the issue is that GM interventions don't distinguish between constructive complications and screwing over the players. In other games with no payment mechanism, the player can just call bullshit and the GM learns to distinguish what's appropriate. Even a good GM can occasionally make a thoughtless call. I think the XP payment encourages both GM and players to view it as a simple XP transaction, with no distinction over good or cheap interventions. Bad stuff to players always cost extra 2 XP from a bottomless purse, and there's no mention of negotiation other than paying to reject it. There's no second tier of no, I don't reject your intrusion. I say it's not an appropriate intrusion in the first place because it's total bullshit. A GM who knowingly becomes an asshole can point to the rules. Worse, an inexperienced GM may be trained into assholery because of the learning mechanism views these situations rather than a social one. If you don't like it, pay the XP, that's the rule, right? So that's what I meant by legitimizing S-holery. The mechanics essentially says that doing bad stuff is okay because you compensate them for it. An experienced group like yours won't see any problems with this because you have a strong social dynamic already, and the GMs have a good sense of what's okay. Anyways, let's shut up about this now. And also, you asked about my name. It's an obscure branch of Gaelic from the island of Man. The more you know. He also wrote a second email in which he said, "So I finally cut up with the podcast I feel ready to agree that Silver Belt is quite annoying. Which is to say, Rachel's doing a fantastic job of applying a self-absorbed and mistrustful teenagers surrounded by murderous weirdos and trapped in the last century. Who doesn't want to have to keep explaining every single simple little thing to these fussy old guys who just keep on talking?" I agree with Chris Foster's comments on 210 here. I think other players' reactions are a big factor in how she comes across. Eventually, whoever is in Silver Belt gives up arguing with her and moves on. Generally, she does have a good idea, so it isn't hard to argue with the intention. She just skips a tactful step where she runs things past the team or explains herself. So far, very much a teenager. I think the unrealistic bit comes when she doesn't get called on her bullshit. 210 was very striking. The surprising invisibility stunt could have gotten her killed. It's thoughtless and dangerous in a tense situation like this, especially one where she starts casting an unexplained spell. It's hard to blame anyone if they had pulled a gun. She doesn't check that her spell won't interfere with other players, plans, or cause a problem. Considering how unforeoperative she's been so far, it's even suspicious. Then she sort of reveals that she may have opened a gate to another dimension or not, straight answers, even though that was a huge factor in what kind of plans they were making. They argue a bit, then they shrug and move on without getting answers. I keep expecting someone to pull a time out and tell her to either shape up or stay home. She's a loose cannon, and that's a major problem in a dangerous situation. She gets argued with, but I can't remember her ever having to concede. In particular, she never has to acknowledge her behavior as a problem, so it doesn't get changed. Basically, it feels like the other characters are putting up with Silver Bell's baggage and working around her, like working with a difficult co-worker, while Silver Bell doesn't make any concession. If she won't reliably act like a member of the team, it seems like realistically they would give up on her and leave her behind until they have a special need for her. I remember Roberto being left out of plans for this very reason, but I don't think that this is on Rachel. If Silver Bell doesn't get called on her actions, why should she change? Looking at the things from Silver Bell's point of view, she's basically always been right so far, and her way of doing things has worked for her. She doesn't see a problem, she doesn't really learn to see other people's point of views. I remember being like that. I'm sure this is a little more striking for the audience than the players, because we're not part of the group dynamic. It's part of being a PC, really. It's just like we sometimes stretch plausibility a little to keep the game going. There's a certain level of metagame and knowledge that keeps the party functioning even when they're at odds. And of course the players know Rachel is running Silver Bell as she sees the character they don't want to force change on other players. As an outside observer though, it kind of feels odd sometimes. I'd like to apologize on how long my email feedbacks always seem to be. I was written by someone who's clearly never raised a teenager. They don't learn and they don't apologize and they don't concede in general. Because they get older. Or until they sometimes get burned enough where they can do themselves. But a lot of us believe that she's the reason why we're here. So why can't just put a bullet in her head or leave her behind if you think that she's going to do this. You can probably let anyone back go, but we're going to let you in there. Well, since the majority of the points on this particular email, and it might be because he's a few episodes behind that he's unaware that we've discussed this a number of times recently, very recently, we really don't have that much to say on it that hasn't been said already. So what we're going to suggest if anybody wants to continue this conversation, that the place might be to do it is on the fan page where I know at least I will read it and contribute to it. But I think we've kind of said everything that we have to say on this particular subject. So that's why it might be a better place to take that conversation to. I would say one final thing is if you listen very closely, you can actually see that she has changed. She has grown more accepting the group from the very moment they met her to the moment that is in the game right now. She communicates more still as a teenager, still annoyingly frustrating like she should be. But to say that her character hasn't changed, again, it could be because he's a couple of episodes behind, but she has definitely become more communicative and definitely has revealed her thoughts to a greater extent over the last couple of episodes. And the other thing too, the person that's going to call her on the bullshit of sneaking in and doing magic was, it's going to be Jay. And Jay's not there. He's the only one that has a tactical, he's the only one that's been in squads before, and he's the only one not there. The rest of the group-- He's the leader. Right. The rest of the group is floundering on what exactly they should be doing. They're trying to find some way to help us and rescue us, but they don't. And first of all, they aren't a squad and none of them are leaders. So I don't think we've been that far from reality, but I guess I can see that it might stretch. And I think each person who listened to it has a different viewpoint and what reality truly is. Right. And with that, we have no more feedback, but we do want to mention that Nicholas, the Patreon page, has the honor of taking us to $100 a month. He topped us off. Wow. So thank you, Nicholas, and thank all of our patrons who contribute. We appreciate that. And next week, we'll be giving away another t-shirt. Another thousand listeners doing that. Oh, good shit. Okay. Thanks, everybody, for the feedback and we're going to go on to the episode. This is the World of Darkness story, the cinneter on your storyteller, Scott. And with me tonight, starting on my right is Michael playing Ethan Clark, a medical doctor and member of Aegis Kaiduro since 1929. I am Jim playing Katie O'Connor, who is a member of the Amelius Malphacharum, and it confused none. I'm Tom playing Jay Alton, member of the Ascending Ones, Mike playing Michael Clay, the academic adventure from the Aegis Kaiduro room, Bob playing FBI Special Agent Chew Park, member of the best youth conspiracy. Thomas playing Edgar Montes, a platoon practitioner, and a member of the Williams-Stairs conspiracy. John playing Daniel Morgan, a mountain man turned mercenary, an ex-member of Test Force Dr. Rachel playing Silver Ball, an angsty teenager that nobody trusts. You see this serpent, Loa, for all your knowledge, Jay, and Chew looking like a spirit, something that you saw, like the spirits of time that you've seen in the past, that crazy, be-creature you've seen in the past, it strikes back memories of that as this serpent with a female face and limbs of a human slithers through the ether and appears before you and looks at Edgard and says, "What is it you desire?" So I'm terrified. Yeah, I would be to be completely honest. And this made up very honestly a breaking point for everyone. For everyone. Yeah, I should have rolled previously, but I was going to wait until later. If you wait for the breaking point, we don't need to have it right this side. I don't know about you, this is like a Tuesday for him, but I'm fine with this right here. Thanks, assholes. Don't worry. She's great. I'll improve her. Previously, the Stuart Dance thing is what it's up now. I've had a bad experience with a big old ritual going on, all right? Right, and we'll get to that. Thank you very much for telling me. Can I still get a plus for the morphine, hi, though? Probably call me down a bit. You are basically talking to the spirit, you're not doing an actual, I don't think, you're an action. It's a breaking point, okay? I got a plus for the morphine now. Sure, I'm sure that will help numb the pain. But long story short, you need to make a roll like you did before, which is your expression plus persuasion, was it? Expression plus presence. Presence, excuse me. Your presence and your expression plus your level, which in the conspiracy, is a total of five. On this, you may spend willpower or risk willpower. Okay, so you're risking in this particular instance? This is all right out of here. I've only got one point, but that's perfect under risk, all right. Well, speaking of, I mean, this is a different scene from the previous one, right? Or not. Kind of a continuation. Well, I'm not talking about the smoking, I'm talking way back, well, for instance, when I did the eye injection, I lost all my well. Oh, yeah. So I'm either without will at this point. This is a completely different scene, and you fed into your pride, and chew, you absolutely fed into your sloth in the last scene, and we're very disruptive to the whole idea of this ceremony. So go ahead and give yourself all of your willpower back. Okay, you beseech Rowana, the great spirit of... I learned a name, right at another me. Excellent. You did fulfill one of your short-term aspirations. She stands before you in all her majesty. She is a large serpent, large spirit. It is quite intimidating, but you have, I believe, six dice at this point. Five base dice after I spend will, I add three and a nine again, so a total of eight. Okay, so a total of eight dice, and she looks upon you with disdain, because she is who she is, and she's been taken to a place that she doesn't really appreciate, and you are of the first level. So you're going to have minus three dice to your role as you try to get her to understand the sheer importance of your plight, and why she must open the door for you back to 1935. Or... Hey, is it thankful? 2011. 2011. I'd love that. But also, we'd be dishing all our friends. I think Jay would be against it, and we'll see what we can do. However, we offer it. We haven't all forget. Oh, I know. It's a complex process. First, I want to do that, because I'm going to pull up. There's no offering yet. She's saying, "Why did you bring me here?" "Why did I bring you here?" And you have no idea what she wants, so I think you would first try to beseech her before you made an offer, because usually what you do is with the low in the past. Yes. True. Good luck to you. Yeah. Oh, that's a single nine, but I have nine again, and three, whatever. One six sets. She listens to your plea, and she says, "The way from this place is to embrace your sin." So I am the gateway. You make the offerings, each of you three, and if you please me, I will open the way. And her mouth unhinges, and a huge cavity, not cavity is a teeth, but cavity is an entrance, is available, is beckoning you. And in your head, you hear her say, "Enter and offer. Your fate is mine." Right. So I'm going to go in last, because I'm the only one who's definitely going in. Other people might be afraid of this shit. I'll go in first. I'm going to go ahead and say, "This would be a really good time for you guys to make your roles for a breaking point," because it might very well influence your decision at this point. So if you guys don't mind, I believe you have an integrity of six currently, both of you. Sure. Where's the new rule book? John, I need to look up integrity of the role. All three of us. For what's the point? All three of you, correct? How does that role work? Here we go. Your integrity is... Six. At least six. All of us six. That's a plus one. I will. Two resolve plus composure. Character is protecting himself. Plus one. Are we? I'm going to say yes. The plus one applies. Okay. Character is acting in accordance with his virtue. My virtue is shitty, but it's technically helpful. Character is protecting a loved one. Nope. You love Jenny. Nope. Stole is morphine. Character is acting in accordance with his vice. I'm thrilled to see you. Definitely not for you, too. You're not acting in accordance with your vice, right? Well, this is not slothful. This is scary as shit. Well, it's lots of exertion than walking down the road. True. Yeah, it's a cost-benefit thing, man. His slothful vice isn't a play out in him being lazy. It's just him wanting to do, not wanting to get involved with anything that doesn't have to do with his aspiration of tracking out slashers. Right. He's kind of disinterested in anything that doesn't pertain to that. Right. He's kind of disresistant when it doesn't involve a serial. Right. Right. So that's the sloth virtue. Okay, I'm going to name these things often. You guys decide whether or not they apply, because I trust you all implicitly. Witnessing a supernatural occurrence minus one to minus five. I think that is highly dependent on the character. You decide how freaky this is to your character and tell me what you think the minus would be. Look at the locale that they're in, mitigate that. Oh, yeah. What about demorphin? That's not in the rules, obviously. Yeah. I mean, I'm higher than I quite know. Whatever. She ain't talking. Yeah. Okay. You might go in the mouth. Okay. Yeah. Let's see where we're at. So minus one to minus five. Let's talk about the minuses first. Let's get the minuses. Then we'll get the pluses. And minus two. It's pretty freaky. I don't do supernatural very well. Unless it revolves around a serial killer. My point was more than... I'll get to plus. Where they're at, this might be a good thing, you know what I mean? To get out of where they're at, is it? They're in a supernatural place, and they want to go home. Right. It seemed a lot of shit over the last few days, anything was true then? This is just old, bad dream or something, not. So Chu's going into a safe place that he goes to. Right. So you're thinking maybe a minus one instead of a minus two? Maybe rationalize it, not real. Minus one dream. It's probably a nice five, I don't know. You really think? It's not like this is something that someone else can do it. If it's something... Yeah, I have to like believe in. Right. Well, this thing's asking you to step inside its mouth, and it will decide once you give it a sacrifice, whether or not you're willing to be eaten or carry away to safety is what you got out of it. Right, minus one. Okay. Fair enough, Jay. I was thinking too. So we've got two two five for the minuses. And I don't think there's any other major minuses unless you're acting in accordance to your vice. Jay, do you feel like you're acting into any of your... Your vices? No, my vices. Pride. Pride. I don't see how that would really apply. Okay. And Chu, I don't really see this being necessary. I think the sloth thing was a little bit of a reach, to be honest. I don't think it's a minus. So I've got a minus two, a minus two and a minus five. For that in particular, I took another minus one for the acting in accordance with my vice two. Okay. I took another minus three, minus two, minus five. And then the pluses. Okay. The character is protecting himself. I think you're all think in some degree you are protecting yourself because if that thing comes back, it's going to kill you and if you have to walk through the thorns, you're going to lose your soul. So I'd have to give you a plus one for that. I give you a plus one for your integrity because you guys are at six or seven. My virtue is fortitude. I think you're powering through here. Yeah. I think that's a go. Want to get back home. Yeah. So fortitude is, I'm going to tough myself up and move through this obstacle as scary as it seems. And then as Ethan Clark suggested, the dream like state of where you're in right now is going to add another die to your role. All right. Total fucks. Okay. Roll. Can't spend well, right? Correct. A nine. Zero. Success. Jay. Eight dice. Holy shit. You're very, very tall, I've been composed. Yeah. Zero. Zero. Wow. 310 against. You can keep rolling. You can look. This ritual party was a very nice one. Okay. And then shoot. Yeah, I got four. Roll your dice and see if you have a breaking point. Breaking points are bad. Yes, they can be. And you can't spend a willpower. Yes. Not in this particular instance. You're never going to want to walk in the mouth of the snake again. Yep. I'm going to hack you for the rest of your life. Actually, Mike, because I plan to call this spirit a lot. I got its name. Your mind. I got it in eight. Okay. Everyone integrates this experience, whether you believe it's a dreamlike state, whether you believe it's a spirit that's more helpful than harmful and you don't really believe it's going to annihilate you if you've disappointed. You all may step into its jaws if you wish. You said you were going to stand first. Oh, I'm going first. Was this ballsy? I appreciate it. Sure. Because I'm the leader and I do that thing. You step into the dark cave that is this creature's mouth. You step over large, vicious looking, backward, spiked teeth, both above you and below you onto a dry, large, fork tongue, which is much like a gravel type surface that you step onto, you have darkness kind of envelop you as you step into the mouth as the stars disappear from the sky and you walk into the dark cave of this creature's mouth. Chew? You're up, Edward. You want to go live? I mean, I'm not afraid of, well, that's a fucking lie. I'm not too afraid of this thing. I've dealt with spirits most of my life. They've talked to me since I was young. This is a little bit out of the ordinary, but it's more for you. This is all your idea, man. If you run away, you're going to fucking get stuck back there. That's all I'm waiting for. I can go first if you want me to, but it just seems safer if you do. The spirit, now you trifle with time. Okay, I'm going. All right. I'm going to dip some toes in the first slice of that. You put one foot into the mouth, it does not clamp down you, although it's very nerve-wracking. I mean, there are rows of sharp razor sharp teeth above you. You step over a row or several rows of razor sharp teeth onto this gravel-like forked tongue. You put one foot on and at that point, the tongue lashes around you and pulls you into the mouth. Knew it. It was all nice. It was all nice. It was slop. It was the mother. Mm-hmm. Do you want to have any dice for me this? I want to show this. What's the gnashing teeth? No, not the gnashing teeth. This is the forked tongue. Chew. What's your defense? Five. One success, which is all it needed. It grabs you by the light you stepped into. It's forked tongue wraps around your leg, which is really like two or three foot across, and it just wraps quickly around your leg and drags you into the mouth and the jaws close slowly, not in a snapping quick motion, and in all of your minds you hear, make your offering. He knows what his voice is, and that's pride. He also knows the thing that he's probably the most proud of, which is a purple heart he received for basically saving his crew over in Iraq, so he carries it with them always so he takes out his purple heart and drops it into the gullet of the snake. All right. Eigard has an necklace he stole from a loved one during a funeral. It represents his greed, though also he's hanging on to sentimental reasons, but it's probably the most relevant here. Okay. Pulls it off his neck. Chucks it down. All right. Chew. Chew's slothfulness is actually his desire to track down serial killers to focus on that. Everything else takes kind of a backseat. Right. Anything to do with the task force Valkyrie. So far. Yeah, he does not want to be part of this team really. I guess a symbol of that would probably be his FBI badge. All right. That's really who he is and what he identifies with. So Chew winds up and throws his FBI badge into the darkness and gullet and in your mind you hear we want to speak again and she says you have chosen. And we're back to Cleveland at that point and we're going to get some stuff done with the poor gang that's been nicely waiting. We have a group heading down to the Cleveland public library. We make a phone call to your contact at Aegis Kydor route. He seems quite put off. He had plans this evening. There was things happening. But if it's that important and calling it a favor at this point, he'll make sure it happens then. He understands it's important. Yes. He meets you at the Cleveland public library where Katie you're finally able to, I assume you let her drive for the vehicle finally or she's still unable to drive at this point. There's no reason not. Except that it's mine. Yeah. I'm driving a car. Is that the thing of a deal? Do women drive in the 1930s? Not so much. Yeah, I'll drive. I mean you're walking in the drive truck when I'm not there but I'll drive. Okay. He drives. Yeah. Again, you guys get down to the library. It's open for you. You're ushered into the room. You have complete privacy. He does leave you alone because he trusts you to watch over everyone else to make sure nothing is taken or nothing is damaged in any way. As I'm representative of Aegis Kigeru, I make sure that... Right. All the teas are crossed and all the... Yeah, I trust Silver Bell, but I'm also verifying that she's... Right. And at that point, Silver Bell, should you ask some salient questions of where would I find, you know, some occult information in regards to this, that, and another thing? And you're of course relatively conversant in the restricted section, Ethan at this point. I'll give you a pointer in the right direction and she can then at that point make a roll. We're going to say that it's going to be a roll that is academics plus wits because you are not looking at books that you've studied, not looking for things that you've studied in the past. You're looking to try to draw conclusions based on non-tangible connections as you go from book to book trying to find the proper information to help you in your pursuit. Silver Occult can give you a plus one on your academics roll. Silver Bell, if you can tell me what you're looking for, I might be able to help. Just a vague idea. I don't really... Or else I don't... I'd have to look at the... Sorry. It's okay. It's already to do that. Switching gears quickly back to the Amsterdam and Michael Clay and Daniel Mordin is probably close to 11 p.m. at this point. Right. You've separated from the rest of the group. That is still in 1935 and it hasn't disappeared and they obviously have some late night dining options if you're inclined or you can go back up to your room when you guys choose to do. I'm not really hungry. I'd rather do my research and try to get this going and be ready when Ethan and Grace show up. Okay. Okay. So you head up to the men's room as you call it. There are two rooms that you have in Amsterdam. When we come to the Amsterdam, is there like a night at 10? Oh, absolutely. Okay. And how do they greet us? Oh, you know, as if you're your valued guest, Mr. Clay. Okay, okay. Mr. Mordin, so glad you could make it this evening. No sense of fear or trepidation or anxiety. Nothing like that at all. Okay. How can I help you? Would you like some late night dining options? We'd like something to send up to your room, you know, just a very pleasant greeting at the door. At the door, at the desk that is the checking in. I know you're a big guy if you need something to sustain myself. The United Tenant says, "We'd be more happy to send some food up to your room if you'd prefer." Mr. Mordin. Okay. I get food, whatever. Right. So you order something? Some sandwich. Right. And you head up to the room before studying, going back to Silver Bell, Ethan, and the good sister. He asked me to help him. Is there a section that he could point you in, perhaps? I need some information on performing a dance, speaking with the dead, closing that veil between the living and the dead. Okay. So there's a way that I can assist her to make her roll better. Absolutely. What you would do would be make an academic plus which role as well. Actually, I'm going to say that yours is going to be intelligent because you have a very good knowledge of this library since you've come to Cleveland. You've become intimately familiar with its books and its working for Kelwell. Kelwell. Thank you. That's good enough. Go ahead and make a role and your successes will then apply this extra dice to her role. Seven. Seven dice. She's not obviously just looking for seance talking to her. There's some specific things she's looking for, so remove one dice for the detail nature of what she's looking for, just because it's hard to buy. You might not have it in the collection. I see a 10 again, so you can roll again. Just a little. Okay. So you get to add one guy to your role because he was assisting you and helping to look for those books. And your die total is eight dice as your wits plus your academics plus one for occult specialty and plus one for him is a total of eight then. I will remove one die look at it before for the distinct finite nature of what you're trying to look up. Go ahead and roll your seven dice. Two successes. Two successes. I would say that that one research took probably an hour's worth of time to look through several books and to get the information looking for. And sure enough, you find something that you believe was written down in a diary of an actual archeologist of Egyptianology. And in this particular diary from his various archeological digs in Upper Egypt, you are able to find what you believe is the key to what you're looking for. So you can go ahead and spend merits and it is written in a blend of English and Egyptian with a dash of hieroglyphics. Being able to get what you need, it might be a little bit difficult, but you do also have an app on your phone you always had where it was a language app. So the only it might be difficult is the hieroglyphics. The Egyptians not going to be that difficult. The English certainly is going to be difficult, but the hieroglyphics might be a little bit difficult. But if you only had two academics who also are archeologists, who are also well known in research, you could definitely hit up Michael Clay and Ethan for help in that particular realm of knowledge. You could take a picture I'm assuming with your iPhone or whatever you might have of the pertinent pages of the text because you cannot remove the book obviously, Ethan tells you. Okay, so I'll take a picture. Okay, several pictures because it's several pages that are the ones that are of importance. You are just sitting by sister and watching the proceedings, correct? I'm probably out tuning up the truck. Okay. Considering hot wiring it and taking it for a ride. Just so you can get that aspiration. No, just because she's been itching to drive a car, so she's in here. Sure. Understandable. It's about an hour that they're gone. We'll say that you surreptitiously, well again, that's, I mean, is that part of your new? I think she's going to do it because she's pissed off. Actually, I could probably leave the keys in case you needed to move it or something. Okay. May only 1935 will not feel comfortable having a female driver. I don't have any problem with that. You're a real one because he's in the car. Right. So you take it around the block once, fulfill your obligation to drive a true 1935 Ford flatbed, the world's a better place, you feel a little better inside and you may now pick another short term aspiration. There's not as much rubber on the tires. Right. I'm sure there's not. Going back to the hotel room, which is Michael Clay and Daniel, Daniel, your dinner arrives. It's sumptuous. It's absolutely fantastic. It's everything you hope it will be. I don't remember when I said gloss over it. Yes. That's fine. And Michael Clay, you have three distinct documents in front of you. Right. A document that was found by Silver Bell. It was you felt some type perhaps of wording or some type of protection from a medieval version of the shattered man. And it was written in a Latin, I want to say it was either the 12th century or the 14th century. I can't remember what I said several weeks back. It's old and it has it was written in Southern France. So it certainly has a dialect of that French, which is really a bane for you. It absolutely is. There is a Northern European written in some Germanic type of Latin, written several hundred years later than the French, again seeming to mention some protection, but nothing clear because you haven't delved into it. Then there is that really large volume, the dense, well, it's not a volume, it's a picture in your phone, but you found a very large tome that was written, I believe it was the Middle Ages as well. But in pretty much straight Latin, you were thinking about potentially might have something to do with some type of incantation or some kind of, it looked like it was spelled like in talking about a ritual, some sort regarding the shattered man. So you have two seemingly something that might be up the vine of protections and one that might be up the blinds of who knows, summoning a dismissing bands. Am I able to, as I'm kind of just getting a feel for each of these before I delve into them? Am I seeing similarities or repetition or anything that would look like, would link these together? Like I would show something to common that keeps on occurring, so maybe I can like focus on that when I delve into them? You don't notice any major paragraphs being borrowed from one set of texts, another like verbatim? Are there words that appear? I guess like for example, if they keep on mentioning that the shattered man has a red scarf and that red scarf is mentioned in all three, is that like, there's something common there that maybe shows there's some veracity, that's something common that is shared by all three that I can use as a starting point. Go ahead and make an academic plus intelligence role as you really delve into them with, I mean not delving into them to a great degree but trying to look over them quickly and see any matches. How many dice do you have first? Five. Five dice. Due to the nature of being three different dialects of Latin, I just, two dice for that and go ahead. Nothing. Okay, you do not see any major points that seem to be repeated but your gut also tells you not to dismiss that idea because it very well could be. It just might be. It just might be different dialects and written, you're using different words to describe. One might be a red sash, one might be a crimson scarf to use your analogy. Right. Yes. Sorry. Are we still at the library? Just to. You can still basically, I was going to wrap it up that part of it but if you need something else, absolutely. I mean, I don't think you're rushing her but you start to imagination. I don't want to spend any more time than we need to here because we're being weighted on so we get what we need and leave but if you need something else. Well you also know that a child is going to disappear later on as well which may or may not be a concern. You see that's the thing is we know that they're at this hedge like tree place. Yes. It might be good to do some research on, you know, if I'm trying to get a message to Jay with what the hell we're going to say to him, I mean we might be able to help them in some way to get it out. To break it down in meta terms, it would take about another hour worth of research to try to find something whether it be folklore, children's fairy tales, basically really folklore is really what it comes down to when you're talking about the hedge in Arcadia and different fairies and different types of magical creatures. Do we know we have any idea where they are of the missing at this point? Well I told you, they described it to you. Oh okay. So there is a belief that it could be that but I don't know that you guys are 100% positive that's the case but you're looking at about another hour's worth of research. It is currently roughly midnight so it would be around 1 a.m. You think the child disappeared sometime when the men folk stopped drinking. So from that aspect it probably, well you know it's 1935 and they don't have jobs because everyone's unemployed so it could be very late in the night but don't know if you want to risk it but that's a group decision. Or not. Well you do have other members of the group, they still have their cell phones right? And they're back at the hotel. It's like what? You can't. But you do not have, you can't use them. Oh that's right. No cell towers. Right. Or exciting. We have an emergency radio. We could do have a shortwave emergency radio. Like half of it. Should we call the hotel? There was, there was broken up into I believe two groups. There was the one that was going to Western Union and there was the one group that was going to see the priest. We could pick up the library phone and call the hotel and have transfer us over. There's okay. Yeah. Do you want to ask? What's your thought there? What's your thought about? Ask in the group. Because I would really like to at least have something viable to give Jay if I can contact him. Otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be nice to have some information. I'm not there. You guys aren't there either. I think research is important at this point even though it's getting light. We need to do, what we need to do quickly. We can go all over there and contact them. I mean the sister said she wanted to drive. She could always drive over there. Why don't you continue your research and ask Sister Katie to inform them however she can. Even if it takes driving there. I think I'm going to pick up a phone if I can't get a touch of them that way. I'll drive. The rest if he needs any information too. The restricted section does have a phone after some initial fumbling. You are able to figure out, you know, I battle this and then that and then some lady comes on the line and asks what you want and you stumble through the fact that you want the hotel Amsterdam and she asks you a bunch of questions you don't know the answer of and she eventually sighs heavily and transfers you to the front desk of the hotel Amsterdam which then puts the phone call up to the room and the phone rings in your room. As you're doing your research and as you're eating your hoagie. I don't know. 30 so you're eating a hoagie. At that point pick up the phone it's Sister Katie and go ahead. Daniel, we're going to be here for a little while longer. We'll be there as soon as we can, is there anything we can look at, look up while we're here to help out Mr. Clay. Clay do you need any more research? Is there anything from the text that I learned that I can share with them or? Not yet. No, it's one hour in and yours is you're like learning major things in languages that you're not super conversant in so I think it's going to be a longer haul than that. Yeah, I tell them unfortunately this isn't written in Hebrew or Egyptian or else I'd be able to read this fast so I'm going to struggle through my latin. Yeah, you're latin. You need like a translator and you're trying to type on your phone and it's just been a pain in the ass to get the translations down the way you want to say. How could you get a latin English? Forably Frenchy. Frenchy latin. Do you need it? Clay? Is that what you're asking for? No, he's not talking to you so you're talking to me. I'm not asking him. Because he really need it. He said. If he needs it we can get it. That'd be helpful. Dr. Ethan, being a doctor knows latin. All doctors. Because back then they were... Some degree? Absolutely. And bookstore. Even now, I mean Greg knows latin and he's a lawyer because of the terms. A latin to English? Yeah, they would have those translation guidance in the mid-30s. I'm sure that's all they did. Not that so much. But latin English absolutely and that would be the main library? We could take that. By the way, yes. I mean, I don't know how much this might be metagaming but in the real world, Sister Katie as a nun would probably certainly have been exposed to latin. Right. She could definitely help you. She could absolutely help you upon her return but her knowledge of latin is again going to be religious mostly. Not that this isn't. This is written by monks to a great degree. I mean religious texts are all written. Yeah. Those were the latin things. So I think she could be able to help you. I don't think she's a scholar but it... It might help. Right. That's all I'm saying. I agree. Katie. Are you going to get back for that? Hopefully. I can't leave clay here researching. Well, I guess I could but I'm not going to be able to stop Chatterman by myself. Yeah. Well, we're doing research on this to help the group together and figure out how to stop them. So we're going to look for that. Okay. So, YouTube... Mostly using this possible. Right. Okay. That conversation ends. Sister Katie and Ethan go up to the main library that's closed but you're able to take out a book on English, latin, latin to English. So you have something at least as a reference book for... I'll leave my... ...like a clay. Also French. And French to English to French. English to French. Mm. You're a document. I was talking about PhD. You can cover that. Okay. Dr. McCoy. And then let's go ahead with one more academic role without the plus one from Ethan because he's upstairs trying to chase down translation. Still the plus one from a occult or no? The plus one for the occult, yes. So one guy lost the last one. Academic plus. Wait. Because it's a little more off your optical. You had three left last time. You said one last because he's not helping. Right. But I have one for occult. And I made... I'm three and three and then plus my occult. And then minus one because I'm evil. Wouldn't I be able to help you? Because I'm just saying I'm pointing out the section. Oh. I'm telling you, I thought you wanted to walk her upstairs. I do. But I'm saying this would take seconds. I think. Then you would be able to help her. I think that's my argument. Is the same rolling? Yes. Okay. Same rolls before. Seven. Yep. It's something we have. Or you need to get rid of them. Yeah. That's awesome. That's a mosque. Six. Six. Ten. Eight. Eight. So two successes. One of them at ten again. On seven dice. That's it. Two. Okay. Two successes. You get two extra dice to your roll. And then I go do it. Yeah. Because I'm me. Right? You need those. I have to keep. I got one. Eight. It's not hard enough. I got one. That's all you need in this game. It was a ten again. You don't actually roll a ten again. You keep it as a ten. Oh. That's a success. Well. Excellent. One success. So you find one part of a folklore and this particular folklore is actually from Eastern Europe. And it contains a reference to a maze like hedge that separated our world from the world of the fairies. And that there were different parts of this maze that were called hollows, which were areas that different creatures of legend lived in. That didn't live in fairy and didn't live in our world, but they were scary creatures kind of in between those two rounds. And they lived in this maze. And they lived in a hollow and you need to do a lot more reading on it. But this is at least the start of it. You've got some information on something that sounded like what you saw when you looked at check. Wait to clarify them. I have to do a lot more reading. You mean that? No. You just take some pictures of it. You take some books, you find some it looks salient. You take photographs of the pages you think are important. What part Eastern European? Eastern European folklore is talking about a land between the fairy land, which is called, they call Arcadia on this particular legend, and our world. It's called the hedge. Within the hedge, there are mazes of thorns. And within this maze of thorns are hollows, which are actual locations that evil beings, they call them evil, live in. And that sounded like this hollow looks different from the rest of the maze, like in the photographs, or not photographs. It looks different than what I saw. It would be, well, the pictures that you see drawn by these old monks in this ancient folklore, you see a maze that looks like a hedge. Because I use a hedge like maze, but then when we talk about these hollows, all of a sudden they have different pictures of what different hollows look like. These specialized locales that these evil creatures live in. And one has a picture of these trees with these incredible form branches that looks very much like what you saw Jay impaled upon in your memory of the situation. Just one of those hollows looks like that? There are several different pictures on the page that you took a picture of, drawings, and one of them looks like Jay's. The others do not. Does anyone else, I think this would be a good place to call it, because I think at this point the library group is now going to reconnoir back at the Amsterdam? Even Michael Clay is getting fully into his research in Latin, although he is a bit handcuffed in the sense that you didn't have the sister or any of the translation guides you needed, Dr. Clay. And Edgard, Jay, and two are hanging in the balance of whether they made the right decision or not to remove themselves from the hedge and from certain death to a loa of indeterminate power in mind. One of those is a good cliffhanger. Yes. Thank you for listening tonight's of the night actual 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. [Music] Come on, leave a name for crying out. Throw some man out. Throw some man out. Or one up. Or whatever the woman I put up. Or a swirly mood tonight. So go. So I finally caught up to the most recent episodes. [Laughter] Oh, this is going to go really? [Music] It's just me in the bathroom and I'll just splice in you guys. That's on my phone. That was an elevator. Who left their phone in? Was it you or no? Yes, it's me. I like Wing Sam because I don't know if it's a problem. My phone should be over there anyways. Rachel Booth, again? She is. She was over there. Hey, she's off today. Leave her alone. [Laughter] This is going swimming. This is going swimmingly. Yeah, we played like one. One, two, three. That's a beautiful start. You're at the bar. What time is it now? It's eight forty nine fifteen. Wow. I don't know what it is. Let's go. I got the over. [Music] And in all of your minds you hear. Assholes! Make your offering. Ten fifty. A lot of them. Nice. I'm rounding up. It's almost midnight. It's almost midnight. Well, when we started. You had the Soviet doctoring years before to actually entrust the verify. It's a minor thing as well, but I don't think they had phones in hotel rooms in the thirties. They might not have been thirty five, but the Amsterdam's ahead of its time. No, I'm just trying to carry the story along. They also didn't have Zeppelin's flying around. They did. They did have Zeppelin's flying around. I know. And we have phones in our hotel room. Right. No, I mean in real life they had Zeppelin's falling around in the nineteen thirties. They were going to stay because you guys need to be honest. The terminal solid was- This is all off to- I mean, it sounds like they're like more and it was something that was unusual. Right. Oh, I did mean to, but they actually did have Zeppelin's as forms of transportation in the thirties before the Hindenburg disaster. In which case everyone said I'm not going to fucking go on one of those things and crazy. This is interesting. I got the helium. Right. And thralling. But- Michael Clay is getting fully into his research, although he or his farm bill. No, I'm kidding.