The crew is scattered all over Cleveland and unaware that the Warden is stumbling into something that is going to require all of them to reunite..
Knights of the Night
KotN Actual Play Podcast - 168 DFRPG Roberto Makes an Impressoin
(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Nature the Night Actual Play Podcast. This Dresden File Story Rituals was written and run by your GM top. And now, please enjoy episode 168, titled Roberto Makes An Impression. Actual play begins 25 minutes, 36 seconds. (upbeat music) All right, let's get into the feedback. And on Facebook, just a general post, Scott McDonald said, hey guys, I am part way to listen to the Joe's in the world and creation, and I have a question and might sound like a criticism, but it's meant to be a clarification of an important part of the game. When it came to replacing constants as a face and or threat, it sounded like a few of the players had some suggestions on what the state of her dominion might be. Tom, especially at the beginning, seemed to have his plan for where things had gone since the end of the delivery story, so some of those suggestions were not taken. Do you think that this in-between adventure phase of the game should run more like the initial world creation phase of the game setup, or is it DM wrap up? If the former, that would mean that the fate of constants and the fallout of her downfall would be open to player discussion and player definition, but the latter would be for the DM to decide on his or her own thoughts. - I think that's for the DM to decide. - I would say it's approach. - It's valid. If the players had an idea in mind on what would happen to constants in the preceding three months, and it didn't radically affect the adventure that I was planning on running, then I would probably have said. - Well, we've happened to the actual character of constants. What happened to her after she left? - Yes, I think some of you were coming up with ideas and I may have shut them down and said, no, this happened instead. - I would assume, since her sister took her into the other world, that she would have took her there to try to fix what was done to her, or at least put her under some care there. - I think Scott's question is more along the lines of should you guys have input into that? Should I be more open to accepting that type of input and changing the adventure? - It all depends. I think you should ask down because you had something in mind is my take on it. Like we gave up some stuff and you're like, you know, 'cause you had something that you want, you want the story to go in a certain direction, or you want her removed as a point of contention right now or something. But you had something in mind that we need to just trust you and follow along with that 'cause you don't do that too often. - Yeah, it goes two ways. Do I trust the players to come up with ideas that are not selfish to them and like playing some long game scan where they go, ha ha, this is what really happened, you foolish GM, which none of you would do. And by the same token, I think you trust me enough to say that if you make a suggestion and they shoot it down, that there's a reason for that, that something else is going on, that it's all weaved together and that your suggestions might have interfered with that weave and made it less believable as the game was flowing. - Well, I think that's something we don't have to decide upfront, I mean, if we come up with these ideas and you say, yeah, okay, maybe, or something. - Four of those are really cool. - Yeah, and we don't really know what happened until we need to know what's-- - I think that's part of it too, is yeah, you guys don't necessarily always wanna know what happened. You can get suggestions and I may incorporate some of those, but not let you know that so that it's still a surprise to you because as characters, you certainly wouldn't know. - Yeah. - But there's some separation between the characters' knowledge and the player's knowledge, and you have to deal with that as well, so. And it's an interesting question, Scott. We also had a comment from Colter Guthrie, who said, "Glad to start listening to Dresden again, but I did love all the other one-time games that you guys did. I've read all the "Dress and File" books and I wanted to point out that Jim only needs approval from one person to turn his restaurant into the accorded neutral grounds. The courts are short for the unsely accords, which were created by Mab, the Queen of Winter, Fink, and she, or an appointed representative, approves all neutral grounds. I thought that I would point this out and I thought that it would be good for a role-playing opportunity to have Jim meet with Mab. Maybe a trading of favors would be in order to give his restaurant approval. As always, I love listening to you guys and I'm looking forward to listening to your story. I would respectfully disagree with that assessment. - Same here because it's Cleveland. - Well, not only because it's Cleveland, but let's say someone comes up with the United Nations and everyone agrees, all the nations agree and say, "That's a wonderful idea. We all vote right now, remember?" That original creator of the United Nations can't say, "Oh, I want to change the rules again." Or say, "This is how it works." Or, "I am only in charge of doing this." That's not how it works. - Or the person who came up with the idea of the United Nations or the country that came up with the idea says, "You can't create embassy in your country unless we okay at first." - Right. - You must I okay at first. - And just the thought of being the sole creator of Court of Neutral's Grounds is a bit, it's just potentially dangerous. I don't see the other faction saying fine, all of Earth is the Court of Neutral Grounds now because Mab declares itself. There has to be some checks and balance in place and the people who sign the Accord, they're not gonna say, "I'm giving ultimate power to Mab to make those decisions." I would think at least you'd need a majority of the people who sign the Accord still agree to any gratifications or changes like declaring new. - We could make it interesting where everybody's signed off on it except Mab and she will sign off on it. - Yeah, if we went in a fast ball, but I think it would be much more interesting to me to have you have to get in contact with these people. - Right. - Or through London as your representative because he has more context and more social skill, you both meeting with different people that are signees of the Accord and getting each of them to agree, at least half of them before you can declare your area by Accord and neutral ground. - And my initial objection was the fact that Cleveland is the Wild Wild West. So maybe it doesn't always follow the rules of everything because they send a warden here to die, basically. They just keep replacing them every couple of years. And so from that aspect, how tight are they in really following the strict nature of law when it comes to people? - Which is one possibility as well, but that might come down to many of the signees going, "No, we don't want an Accord ground in Cleveland. We like it the way it is." - Yeah, that's true too. - The fact that scrying is not available in Cleveland, that would make it more difficult to enforce. - Right. - But it's still, I think, an interesting story point that we will play out as if he needs more than just one signature to get it added in our universe. I think it makes more interesting, so we're going with that. Back to Facebook on episode 167, the most recent one, The Wardens Return, Logan Swanson said, "Halfway through and I'm already loving it. A good supernatural plot boiler is always welcome. And the idea of a ritualistic murders reminds me of the HBO true detective in the best way." I haven't watched it yet, but I wanted to. - Hard, good thing. - Yeah. Opening episode always grabs me so much kinetic energy and the story could go in any direction, and everyone is grasping for leads. Can't wait for next week. - Just hemorrhages kinetic energy after that, but I'm glad to look at it. - Hemorages kinetic energy. - Well. - Sounds painful. Hopefully with editing, it won't be so. We do lose a bit of steam after the first episode, but I think pace is decent. - We regain it pretty quickly. - Ari stated and done. And continuing straight from delivery into these new episodes on the delivery storyline, you guys must be like a good wine as on the second listening, it was even better. This time I was more focused on the mechanics too as I'm rolling towards my fate core RPG cult game and got a load of good pointers on how to handle things. And now as the new storyline is in fate core too, it will be doubly helpful. Also anxious to see how the new players shift things, but Tom must have his hand full with a number of players. - Yeah, it's true. - I truly get the dropping of aspects from seven to five as do I. - Sure. One more thing about the, on the last episode, previously you were worried that declarations weren't used to their fullest, but now we've already gotten to see it raised its twisted head. Although maybe the shadow could have been blasted on the wall from Hellfire for a fate point, or at least Tom might have been forced to buy the declaration off from his pool of fate points. This is, as always with your crew, sounding so good. Hmm, I should tweet about this too. Yeah, the gag rail was a blast too. And what he's referring to is when last week, during feedback I stumbled over tweets and tweets. - I just thought he's in a right way. - I should Twitter this. - Yeah, well, that's what he was saying. Maybe you should do that, instead of tweet. I took that whole thing and just threw it at the end of the, yeah, the whole gag reel. I was actually laughing through some of it as I was listening to it again, 'cause you did good making fun of yourself. - I do that well, yes. - So you did really good at making fun of yourself. - Yes. - Makes me have to try harder. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Richard Watts also posted, and he said excellent opening movement. I actually really enjoyed hearing how Dresden's storyline affected everyone's characters, especially Anne London. The sword hitch was a great story way to explain a mechanical change in London, maybe growing a soul. Also, I really like the background music choice in this episode. Tom did a great job of supporting the moody atmosphere. - Well, thank you. - I kind of rushed it, so I'm glad it worked out. Wasn't, I mean, sometimes I listen to the whole song and make sure it fits the mood. In this case, I went through listening to the episode, chopped up in little scene changes. Here we have a three minute scene, and then it switches to you being Jim and Maxwell and Edmond's character. And then, so then I put some music there, and then it switched back to Mike, and every time that happened, I switched music. 'Cause if you can chop it in smaller pieces, it's easier to find bits of music. When you have a long 30 minute one, it's like, I guess I could throw a 30 minutes worth of music, but they don't always have the same tone to them, so it's difficult. - Right. - Thank you for the compliment. Over to kotnpodcast.com, we had a comment that was on the World of Darkness page. It was anonymous, so we don't have a name, but they stated, "These sessions," as I honestly tried to listen, are well edited. However, I cannot embrace the fact that the storyteller speaks three times more than all the other players combined. Also, you give away too much detail and extremely unnecessary stuff. Like the understanding on Benjamin's doorstep, it was enough to have said, "You don't hear anything from behind the door, period." Why are you babbling about how the sounds cannot be heard from where they are standing or something like that, from within the house, et cetera? My gosh, it seems like the players have a minimal influence on events as you, the storyteller, make you feel like you're reading a book. So sorry, I cannot digest the kotn's World of Darkness sessions. - Oh. - Aw. - I'm sorry to hear that. - We've had comments in the past about how people enjoy your descriptiveness, and obviously this listener, and I'm out of this. - Didn't work for him. - Didn't work for him, and that's-- - And that's okay. - That's understandable. You and I both have totally different styles. I'm a little quicker and you're a little more descriptive. - Yeah. - Isn't that setting the scene? - Well, I mean-- - Well, that's how I do it. I don't recall it. - Right. - But, you know, each person would be different. I just have been watching Netflix a lot lately. And two shows I've been recently delving into is Hannibal, which is actually done by, I think NBC, if I'm not mistaken, but just exquisite. - I've heard about it. - And then Dexter. So I'm watching two serial killers because, you know, "World of Darkness" kind of appeals to my sensibilities. - Netflix suggested them to you. - Of course, based on my view in his viewing habits. But I would describe a game of Dresden like almost like watching an episode of Dexter and a game of-- - Really? - "World of Darkness" as viewing Hannibal. And if you watch even one episode of each of those shows, it'll become incredibly apparent why I would make that-- - Well, I've watched Dexter and I wouldn't paint that as-- - No. - But I don't have Hannibal to compare. - Right, exactly. It's just, it's lighter, it's easier going. You know, the gore isn't quite as gory. The storyline, there's jokes, there's more humor involved in it, which I think in Dresden it lends itself 'cause it's more mysterious than it is horror. None of which has to do with the commentators, the anonymous poster said-- - The way it does, you-- - In a way, yeah, I'm painting a picture, I'm telling what I think is a more descriptive story. You, on the other hand, are pulling it, I think it also, the systems letting themselves that way too, is that you need more feedback in the fate system. - We're driving over here on the way, and that was discussing the systems that we prefer are very, apropos to our personalities in the way we like to run a game. - Right. - Mine is more character-centric, they have more power and it's faster pace. - And it's also off your hips sometimes as well, which is what you really sell at. - The game is built to be run that way, and yours is more descriptive and more more of a setting piece. And we're sorry you didn't enjoy it. - Yeah, sure. - It's not likely that you're gonna change your style. - You're sorry to change your style. - But it's good to know that all people-- - We get so much positive feedback. I don't mind getting some negative feedback because you'd know that your people are out there. - No, people are out there that probably don't even respond with the negative feedback you just got listening to it. - Right, maybe. But they might just not listen anymore. - Other than babbling comments. - Right. - That was a little harsh. - Right, babbling, well, I don't mind. 'Cause again, it's gonna appeal to some people and it's not gonna appeal to some people. And babbling is-- - What do you mean by descriptive? - That's a four-star review right now. - What are you doing right now? - The four-star reviews aren't particularly useful in the sense of learning anything. - Yeah. - It's the negative reviews that if you're gonna learn anything, that's-- - Right, and in this particular case, I think that's just something I like and I don't hear too much-- - Which style of the picture. - Yeah, the players, the players seem to enjoy it. So, probably not gonna change, but I do appreciate the feedback and I'm now to find it at all by his viewpoint or her viewpoint, depending on who it was. - Right, it was anonymous, so it's hard to tell. But I'm also not gonna change the editing to cut that out because that's your stylistic choice. I'm not that heavily handed as an editor that Scott's babbling, that I've put it out, although I have an occasion because sometimes you repeat yourself. - Right. - Then I'll remove and keep the best version of what I was supposed to say. - Yeah, it's important for us to do that. - It's definitely, yeah. - No, for the listeners. - Okay, we also got an email from Darce who said, "Hey guys, I found this podcast "while I was just dying to get more "neuminary on my life." So, thanks for putting this high-quality story arc out there for me. - It gave me a lot of ideas as a GM and also exposed me to a very different playstyle, which is helpful. - Rambling and babbling. - Apparently. - Or setting it a door for a 10 minutes before we go in. - That too. Some thoughts after a wrap up, sorry for the length. Feel free to not read this. Actually, it's not that terribly long, so I am gonna read it all. I'd love to see a female member in the cast as well. I'm running-- - We do, we do. - I got one. - We've already responded to your feedback. - That's right. She's not here today. - Do you hear this before? - No, this is a different one. I've run Numenair on my first experience jamming after years of playing different systems for seven females and 13 males over the course of several one shots, and people are asking for more. As an aside, someday I'm going to run a TNT game with all females. Numenair has been a fantastic entry system, I found, though I rule that the GM intrusions on I1 can be partial successes if it makes sense, which is straight from the book. I reward creative problem solving rather than combat, and I think that it makes the new players more comfortable. This does make glades much less useful, but I suspect the upcoming character options book will give them non-combat abilities. My Numenair thoughts. Skills, there is a suggested list in the books and the player guide, but I totally agree that some more concrete examples would have been helpful. The Numenaira skill is really tough, though. If everything is Numenaira, does it apply to everything? Hopefully this will be clarified in the upcoming character options book, or it would be well suited to be in a glimmer. Glimmer is a small PDF that Monique Hook puts out, so I mean, there's quite a few out there now. Also, like you guys brought up in the listener question feedback, I will probably houserule that everyone gets to pick one skill at characterization, that their background helps define, to make people feel less seany. Rolling in One is not a critical failure. In GM intrusion, page 328, one of the categories is partial success. I often ask myself, why is this person rolling? Is this truly because he has a 5 to 15% chance of failing? Or is it because some element that's going on may complicate his ability to do it unhindered? I think this kind of thinking, which Monique clearly points out, if you read the book, would avoid a lot of frustration that you all had. XP, an option in the book you probably would have liked, is requiring one half of XP to be spent on short-term benefits. This way people will advance more evenly and won't be agonizing over using the XP to reroll. Finally, I had not a great experience with fate, Dresden specifically. But I don't think we were playing it right. First of all, we weren't using fudge dice. We took a positive die six plus a negative die six, which gives a very different distribution, as it does. And made it so that I often had my entire plus three or plus four skill negated by a high-value negative roll. Yes. It would. Further, I have never had an aspect compelled by a gem, and I'm not sure I get how to use aspects yet. Looking forward to listening to your Dresden game to see how a successful fate game can be done. You might want to go through-- Thanks folks, Darcy. Go ahead. You might want to go back and listen to delivery work. Yeah, it was relevant. Or even the one before that, where we dove into a lot of the mechanics, because we were learning them ourselves, they handle how the game works fairly well. And I think we talk about aspects, at least, in the pre-gen long. I was talking to Roy with the Rusek gamers, and he said that his group didn't like Dresden, because I swear it was Dresden that he was talking about. But he's played a lot of different games, so he might have been referring to another game. But he thought that the skills in the game had-- his players thought that the skills in the game had too much influence over the outcome of whether something was successful, and that the dice weren't enough of a factor in the game. As compared to how we felt with Neumannero, that the dice were way too much of an influence. Yeah, it was inverse. There was no skill that was involved in the dice determining. It was all dice, and they didn't like Dresden, because it was the opposite, that the dice had little effect, and then it was mostly player skill. Obviously, that's a choice, that why people play different systems. But I think that I would rather have my character's skill determine something rather than randomness. But that's my choice. Um, again, Monte put out a blog, and he brought up some of these main points that were just discussed here that if you roll a one, it could be a success. Anyways, are partial success? Right. That just bugs the shit out of me. In the sense that, are you telling me then if I roll the two, that it would just be a failure? That it can only be a partial success if I roll a one, because that's got a GM Compel? Again, you are fudging things because it's-- It's not working. Don't use a die 20, you won't have to do this shit. Right. And the other thing is to say that XP has to be divided into two, that you can spend half of it, you have to spend half of it on advancements, and the other half you have to spend or can't spend it on advancements, it has to be better. Well, my point is, why the fuck call it XP then? Make it two separate things in the first place, and then you don't have to make this arbitrary distinction. It makes no sense. So anyway, thank you. I had an interesting topic starting, and it had some interesting discussion there. And to finish up, we have Greg Hutton posted and said, I figured I'd post here on Google+ rather than the KOTN podcast, Google+ account. It must be annoying to track so many social media sites, Twitter in particular. So again, he's referring to the feedback last week. I have to rescind my previous suggestion of adding an additional minor consequence for a high resource skill. Sorry about that, Jim. He's referring to the wealth, and he made a suggestion that we added, because after actually going back and reading the optional rules on wealth, it's already gets its own set of consequences that attract separately from all the usual sets of consequences, so that his suggestion was kind of already built in. The good news for Jim is that he can't be taken out of a social scene because of Abigail or any other nefarious villain who has managed to freeze all of his assets, thereby using up all his major consequences. Although that would be funny as hell and kind of awesome. I suggest Jim keep a fake point handy for a safety deposit box full of cash as a declaration. That's just where I keep it. So thank you. Why would I keep it in my bank? Put it in my mattress. In your mattress, you know that in my mattress? Who needs a safety deposit box? So that's all the comments for this week. I want to thank everyone who's still using that Amazon link. You're using it like no thank you. Well, I am, but I have another comment. You have another comment? Sure, several in fact. One was the one who was using six-sided dye instead of the fudge dyes. I just posted something this week in RPG on Flipboard called fate dye distributions. And it shows you the exact percentages. For instance, rolling minus four on the fudge is only 1.23%. It's pretty, yeah. Yeah. And rolling-- getting a zero effect is like 23.46%. You have to add up the plus one minus one and zero. I mean, I'm just curious on what percentage that would be that mid-range, where you're maybe losing one, maybe gaining one, or you're keeping the same. That's got to be a huge difference. It's like 60%. Yeah, so it's one to plus one. So the Rusek Amers point that the fate dyes don't really make any-- they nudge it slightly in one direction or another is valid. But I like that about the fate system. That's what I enjoy is the fact that my character's skill is what's going to determine that. He's absolutely right in the sense that you can see that. It's definitely an issue where you don't get that much movement. You don't get radical swings. But you still have the ability to push with fate points and take it to a higher place if it's important to you. Right. I don't know. I enjoy the system. I like fate. I like fate, small favor. I don't know, and I'll watch you all. Did you have something else for me? I just-- I got a lot of subscriptions to the RPG on Flipboard from the last mention, so. Bring it up again, yeah. No, like you said, Scott, when you go to the doctor's office or something, you get some time to bring it up, and there's always something interesting in there that didn't necessarily know about. I mean, even though I am friends with a lot of RPG players and designers in the field on Facebook and Google Plus, and I see a lot of stuff flowing through there, that Flipbook always shows me something I didn't know before, even though I'm pretty tied into that area. Yeah, even if you see something on Google Plus or Twitter, it just-- it becomes more obvious in Flipboard. It looks prettier. And you see the graph that pops right out at you. You don't have to read something and then click through. And it seems like Twitter, in my opinion, is very spontaneous, and it kind of fades just as quick. It's like, in the moment thing, where Flipbook is kind of like a magazine where you can bruise an archive. It's an archive. That's a good way to describe it. But even to the same for Google Plus and Facebook, that stuff flows by so fast because of the number of people that are participating that this is just a highlighter. It's a lot of noise. Yeah, or an archive, like you said, that you can go back and page through at your leisure. So other than that, I want to ask, aren't anybody-- I myself didn't have a chance to go through the fan page and highlight anything. Does anybody remember any? I know that the Skype game had another update. I just recently saw that. I'd like to remind some people occasionally post things on the fan page that are kind of aimed at us. And I know, Scott, you answered one recently, didn't you? Right. Not necessarily the best place, because we might overlook it there. And it definitely tends not to be mentioned in the feedback. If it's a subject that you want mentioned in feedback and discussed thoroughly, that's probably not the best place to put it. If you want the fans to discuss it and probably else chime in as well, that's perfectly valid. But if you want to make it to the show, throw it up on our main page on our episode, and we'll definitely discuss it. And with that, we will wrap up the feedback and get on to the episode. Please enjoy. All right, we're starting our second session of our second campaign of "The Dresden World." We don't have a title yet, but I'm your GM Tom. And starting on my right. I'm Michael, playing Rep. Affairs, an antiogenic, organic alchemist. I am Jim playing Edmond Shabowski, who is a rich businessman and a black court-powered scientist. I am Scott, playing London Deals, a moral seer to the supernatural powers. I'm Mike, playing Alan Montgomery, the Warden of Cleveland. I'm Thomas, playing Maxwell Edison, an undercover homeland security operative. I'm John, playing Roberto Martinez, People's Garden, and powered by a fallen angel. OK, and since when we stopped, we were not in the middle of any particular action. Everybody gets to refresh their fake points up to the maximum. If you have more than that, you keep it at that level. And as we're starting a new session, you have a minor milestone. And that means you can switch skills. If you have something out of the three and something else in the four, and you want to switch those, you still have to keep it the pyramid. You still have to do that. That's an option. Or you can change a stunt or spend refresh on a new stunt or power, or rename one of your aspects. These are all options if anybody has anything. However, we did have some people doing a little more with their aspects, because we're starting over again. So they had some major changes that they wanted to make, and they hadn't finished them last week. So there are probably a few that made more than just one aspect change. But if anybody had anything that was important or relevant, you want to bring it up now to let the audience know it's fine. We'll just move on. Finally, thought of a fifth aspect that will work for now, which is, I know I'm easy to talk to, but please shut up. OK. And my weekly London is perfect, so I'm not changing anything. I reduced the tower and turned it into a pyramid. Let's go. OK, so you move skills around. And again, normally at this point, you'd be able to only do one, but we're restarting. Yeah, we're restarting, so that's fine. If everybody else could, then we will. Mike, you want to bring yourself to speed on where we were at, because it evolved mostly your character. Keeper of Notes. Ron Logan from the Cleveland PD, a lieutenant, called me and wanted to bring in to consult a crime scene. And I learned that there are several rituals that have been going on for the past few months and that keeps on getting worse and worse. And the latest scene here has gotten really bad. We have a ritual circle, a wreath of bad magic, and there's even residual of what I believe to be health fire. Yeah, I'm talking about that, though. Also that the victims that were used in these rituals are all missing a body part, but not the same part. And there doesn't seem to be a pattern, at least that we've detected yet, between the victims. And the victims range from a young person all the way up to a male, female, older. We're still early days. We're still trying to figure out a pattern. The most recent one that we're looking at was a person by the name of Darnell Norton, whose leg was chopped off and there's no sign of the leg. But while I was there investigating 'cause Ron Logan gave me a little bit of time to look at it before we got chased away, I also ran into the Ed and Max. We were also in a restaurant where I believe I met Rappa. Ed, myself, and Maxwell are heading to Mitchell Hospital where we will investigate Darnell's body in the morning. For those of you who have no idea, this hospital has no connection to, say, Clinton Clinic, right? No, not to my knowledge. All right, so you guys arrive at Metro Hospital? Are we at the end of the body and we leave? They don't normally just allow people to walk in and go-- Well, was Ron Logan with me? No, he's actually a Cleveland police officer that has a job. Now, because I was brought in as a consultant, do I have any type of credential to investigate or to look at this? Yeah, I'll pass you. Obi-Wan, or is that considered mind magic? Well, I'm pretty sure that's considered mind magic, yes. We don't look interested, right? Hey, illusion is fair game. All right. Oh, bending their wheels so they don't see me. Logan. Not so much. All right. Let's say Ron has a card and he gave it to you something signed on the back saying that he's granting permission if they want to call. Or how I asked his number on it. My plan is to go up to the office and Lieutenant Logan would have called ahead. I have an appointment to see the medical examiner. OK, so it takes a moment. And Sharon Parker, the medical examiner, meets with you. How can it be of assistance? I'm sorry? Hello, my name is Alan Montgomery. I am working with the Cleveland police department and Lieutenant Logan asked me to discuss a recent case that was just brought to you this morning. Let me check my records here at Darnell, Northon. Yeah, good morning. OK, give me a moment, please. She leaves. OK. You can see her walking over to the security booth, and she's-- say, how did that have an actual office type thing? But there's glass windows, and she's talking to a few of the officers in this. She comes back to you and says, OK, this way, please. And she leads you down. The assumption is that all of you are going down there. I don't-- she doesn't have a problem with it. I don't know. Just repa? No, I'm in my laboratory gleefully. Because we had passed a chemical-- I'm sorry, just to remind, we had passed or given repa a sample that had taken from the ritual circle. And he and his eagerness as his welcoming-- What exactly does he know what is the word no of? Actually, nothing. You've never-- No, he looks like a hippie to me. Let's go. Well, grateful. And go to repa for a moment. He doesn't have a blood sample. He has a sample of the circle, of the magic circle that was. Did he get the help by your scrapings or something too? No. I don't believe that-- The one who kept those and didn't tell us about the help by her. There's one of the stunts that took high quality workspace. So I got a pretty nice place. Where were we? Well, you were out in a house city. Yeah, that place. So there's some nice areas around there that you could have a lab of sorts. A lab/woft where you live above it, or is it a separate facility? Oh, no, it's where I live, yeah. So it's in the same area. So the main floor is your lab upstairs as you're living quarters. And you bring the scraping into that area and you're attempting to do what? Well, first I'm going to go with the standard life stuff to see what kind of chemical-- Chemical analysis and independently. Depending on what I see, I imagine I'll be getting into-- My lord isn't as strong as scholarship. OK, so we'll do a scholarship role, and we'll say that this lab work will take you-- I would imagine somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour or so. Probably takes a lot of that, really. Probably, but-- He's good. He's good, and he's got a really nice lab here. And I don't want to tie him up with all day. And we would say that it would just require a good scholarship role to determine the different types of chemicals that are in this sample. So that way that works is you would take your scholarship role, which is five. You would roll fake dice, and hopefully not rolling in minus three. Four more. One. So minus one takes you from your five down to a four, which is a great result, which is more than enough for you to identify this. So after about an hour, you find out that composition of this material that you were given is basically sodium. You've got what seems to be a decent amount of salt, but there's also-- which was obvious just from looking at it because it was black. And that component seems to be ash of some sort. Did Alan tell me where this-- what the context was of this, or just what did you recall? Senior calls, saying that we picked up from the ritual circle because they were aware of rituals. It's going to take you longer to determine if you want what type of ash this was, what the original material that the ash gave from. But that's going to take you longer. And right now, you've used an hour of time. So we'll go back. Sharon Parker, the medical examiner, will go back to her. She's got you down to the morgue. She opens up to the department. She checks a book, looks up the name of who we're looking for. And this is Darnell Norton. And he is still on a table. He hasn't been shuffled off into a drawer yet. He's-- Mid-exam? Just been brought in. They haven't done an autopsy yet. Because it is relatively recent that the body was brought in. So I imagine we're in the clean room. It's chrome. There's tile. There's bright lights. Bright lights. And it's just the four of you. I look around. Is there any type of-- They want a mask. They want the gloves. They want you guys all. No, that makes sense. It makes sense. Is there any type of computer equipment? And the-- He doesn't want to blow anything up. There is definitely equipment nearby, but nothing right next to the table. OK, so I can keep it-- It's a little farther away. And if you can keep your discipline under control. I don't want to use my sight. But I guess I use my lure to examine him. Specifically, I'm looking for, is he just a straight up victim? Or was he actually a functional part of the ritual? You know what I mean? OK. And we're also-- I mean, just a general, like, pull a sheet away and let's get a good look at the guy and pull the way he looks at his physical look at to see if there's anything distinguishing. Or can you describe Darnell? Darnell, Norton, African-American. The age they have on the report is 36 years old. He looks in reasonable health. There's no signs of any type. I mean, other than the fact he's dead. So he's reliable. I mean, he isn't-- He was fit. He was fit. Actually, in really decent physical shape, as far as that goes, he wasn't overweight. He took care of himself. There's no signs of track marks or drug use. He was a perfectly healthy individual that apparently took care of himself. There's kind of two ways I'm looking at him. The first way using my lore to magically sense-- if I sense anything. And then I would use my not-as-good ability, my investigation, to kind of like, does he have defensive wounds, is he? Well, first of all, you have two other guys here that are investigation-type guys. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yep. I want them to make an investigation rule to see if they notice anything unusual about the body. And I'm assisting Max. OK, so you're assisting by setting up a maneuver. Keen insight. To do that would require a good role on your investigation skills to set up a maneuver. A maneuver, OK. Well, I gave him a superb eye roll. Holy shit. Plus two on my good, which brings it up to a superb. OK, and what are we going to call this? Keen insight is suggesting. I wanted a good, which was three. You rolled a superb. I rolled a plus two superb. OK, five. So if you put this in the middle of the table, that's a little thing. This is keen insight. I want you to put one fake point on top of it, which means that it is out of the pool, because that means it's usable by anybody in the party and they would take that off and that would disappear. Had you rolled high enough, you would get to put two things on there that people could use it for. So consistent. That's what we're going to do, and we'll now go on to Maxwell. What we're going to have you do is just make a general investigation roll, the higher the more information you get. OK, plus four. And you get a plus two if you tap that aspect. Wow. Well, because they're all negative one. So he uses the aspect to add plus two to his roll, which gives you a total of what? Sperb. Let's just check minus one for my dice for base. Sperb, which is again five. OK, in looking at the body, what you see is that the leg was taken off-- Postmortem cream one. Yes, postmortem. He was already dead. But also, it was taken off rather cleanly. Wasn't how they used to saw. Wasn't chewed off. And something that you might have missed, but your keen detective eye picks up, is that there was some sort of tourniquet or binding thing right above the cut. It's no longer there, but you can see the impression or the marks on the skin that indicate that something-- They restricted blood flow to the leg before they cut it off. So maybe they started when he was still alive, and they restricted the blood flow to the other one. It's an odd combination of why bother to do it after. But yet, obviously, there's something there that was-- Might have been complacent. Are there any defensive wounds that did look like he was in a fight before? You examine him closer, and it doesn't seem to be. He could have been part of the ritual. So you say there was no defensive wounds. Are there any wounds that you can detect of restraint, particularly around the elbows, the wrists, the neck, restraint, or struggle? That struggle, restraint. No restraints. No restraints. Might have knocked him off beforehand. No contusions, no evident strike points where he was hit with a blonde object, no. No, he just got him while he was sleeping. You went before him. Did Sharon Parker say that she had not yet performed any of her autopsy or her inventory? No, she's assuming, because it's a murder case, that there will be one, but she hasn't gotten the orders yet that she needs in order to perform it. Is she still there, or is she leaving us to-- Yeah, she's not leaving you alone. That's just-- they don't. Right. I understand you haven't completed your investigation, but do you think was this a bleed out, or is there some apparent-- Is there anything obvious from her? Yeah. As it being a-- There's no stab wounds. There's no defensive wounds. Right. I mean, the reason for death is not terribly obvious. OK. Did you do any blood work? We had blood work sent, but it's not yet been back. Do we have our own nod? Shh, no, I'm further down. We do have blood. I think I've got blood sent, is that legal? Can we take it away? You said the double one-- Another thing I should know. We don't get caught. If you were to claim who you truly are, it would be within your jurisdiction to do that. Not giving up that information. As a detective, you're a kind of a private citizen. But she informs you that she was told by Mr. Logan that you should be extended every courtesy, that as long as you're careful and you don't contaminate the-- You said the amputation was a very clean cut. A very sharp instrument was used. It wasn't torn off. It wasn't bitten off. Correct. It was also done-- You said postmortem. Postmortem. But it was done above the knee, to be clear. I didn't state that earlier. I ask her, that seems to be a very clean cut. Would you say that this is professional work? Or is this an industrial, like a reciprocating saw? Or is this the kind of precision you see in a fine instrument? Or like a scalpel or a surgical knife? Was it chapped off? When talking to Lieutenant Logan, he informed me that this was more than likely part of an ongoing investigation, which we've had other. With an arm missing or anything? Right, with body parts missing. And then-- No survivors, all dead? No survivors, all dead. And what we have seen is-- Well, this is the best cleanest cut we've seen so far. The first were very amateurish. So you've seen that you were aware of the previous victims? Yes. If you don't know, that's fine. But I'm just wondering, did they have the same lack of defensive wounds? Was it a tourniquet used? No, in fact, the first victim was in very bad shape, as far as abuse before. They ceased. They died of blood loss. That was the autopsy on that one. OK. I do take a blood sample, if we could afford it. Every. Yeah, she can take you over to an area where they have supplies. And you can do what you need to do. Well, Max, while I was with her, I'll-- Distraction. Can I do my lore and I'll examine in particular-- So while she's slightly distracted, you-- Yeah, I'm not sure. Do my little-- Are you looking for a magical residue, or are you actually doing an act of mercy to talk to its ghost, or opening your third eye, or whatever? I think he was just doing a general scan, it was what you mentioned. But yes, that's all optional. That's a good point. I mean, I do have a specialty in ectomancy. But I think if it's never made perfect sense, why don't I-- Maybe he can ask the ghost that's standing next to the table and what's going on. She has said that. We're all wrapped up in a nitty-gritty. I'll be with you in a minute, ghost. First of all, do I even-- No, just have a good next. Thank you. There's got to go standing next to you. You would have noticed that. Your use of that particular skill is much more elaborate, and would probably be noticed. OK. Just saying. He'd set up a circle. Right. I've got to take him a potential catch. It would be something that she would definitely notice that something weird is going on, as opposed to just opening up a little bit and doing a general feel of the magic in the area, which is what you're doing. You're not opening your sights. You're just tricking. To be honest, I really don't want to open my ectomancy powers in a hospital because I'll get flooded and in my trap. That's great. I'm not talking to you. Yeah, this is a place of death. Grab a sample, though. You want something? Specifically the more. [LAUGHTER] Love you. I'm not dead. All right. So I'm using my lure to let my wizard senses see what they detect, paying particular attention to the amputated leg, or the stump, the thigh, whatever. [CLAPPING] And I have a plus two. Nice. Got a number of them. So that would bring my lure up above superb. What's above superb? Fantastic. Fantastic. Six. So you got six? Yeah. What you get from this reading is that there's something very strange about the body in a magical sense. All bodies. All living things have a magical residue. Even dead ones, especially ones only recently dead. You mean like a soul or a spirit or an aura? I don't know, aura, more or less. In this case, there isn't one. Except-- and this except is only because of the fantastic role-- is you've got a small, pain-y ring of aura residue just below the turmericid. So is it kind of like edging or gleaming on the very-- where he pointed out, he being Maxwell pointed out where you could see the little bit of bruising, where there was apparently some kind of turmericid. Only the flesh below, it has a slight, very, very slight reading of aura. And the rest of the body is void of it entirely. And that's unusual. Even for a stream for a corpse. Yes. It's like his whole aura was pulled on to him as legume and then just chopped off and they had-- The aura slowly dissipates from a body. The biggest changes during the sun rising and the dawning of a new day. But only an hour after a body, there still should be a readable aura. Is there any quality about the aura that I can tell? Is it spiky? Is it colored a certain way? As fantastic as the role was, you've got like a thread here. OK. Well, how about this? How about as I see the aura and catch a glimpse of it, it kind of has also kind of vaporized or faded away-- Sure, finally. --so I don't really ever get more information. Right. OK. And in that case, if you do have a feeling that if you open your site, obviously you can get more, but you know the danger of that, especially in a morgue. You should grab a hair or a blood sample so you could track me with this ghost later. Does that one have a cell flood line? So you could track his leg, maybe. You already have a sample of his blood, right? Yeah. Do you have a cell phone? No. No, I don't. I have a cell phone, though. And you could have that number because I work for your boss. If you take a picture, you can search for a twin. So anyway, that's exactly what I was thinking of. I really think it's-- Well, not taking this toe, but getting a sample and helping find the leg. And that gave me a reason to call-- I don't have to text you by finding it briefly. Like, sodium, chard, still working. I was thinking that with this missing part of the leg, if I could get either a swap or a sample of-- First of all, do I know enough about London's abilities? Does the ability to track a different body part that's been separated from numbers to fucking best? Well, you know that London has told you about his skill is-- Go on London? From London's point of view, he's definitely told you that if he has something to hone in on, he can-- That's why I figured OK. He can find it. So what I'd like to do is, with my glove, go get a little bit of the blood from the leg-- From the sample. The blood sample has already been taken by Maxwell. Oh, OK. So we do a sample that I can-- He wants to go specifically from the leg. Right. As you just figured out, you're determined that, yeah, the aurocyte, you might want to get skin. You might want to get blood specifically from there. He did not. Oh. Then, yeah, that's where I'd like to-- So it's valid that you want to re-- I asked her, for example. Well, yeah, I asked Dr. Parker if you have a slide or a-- Yeah, obviously, yes. What you want, she's got here. I mean, this is a major hospital. It's not the Cleveland Clinic, but it's a serious hospital. And then I asked Maxwell, do you still have London on your speed dial? No, he's a dick. I do have his phone number, though. Thank you for the commentary. The commentary and your context on your speed dial. I must speed dial. Number, yes. Speed dial? No. You know, Ed and Maxwell, I'd like to talk to London. OK, first of all, you're still on the morgue, which is underground. Reception's a little difficult here. And you don't do cell phones very well. He's going to shut up the E. You like the landlines, but I'm saying you might not be able to do it here and the morgue. Oh, I see. You might have to go up a little farther out or-- Well, I say I love that I mean, I'm thinking that we need to bring London on this. We'll call them when we get on the morgue. OK. Which one? I'll always relay messages. I can't use the phone, though, like a landline. The right leg's missing. Landlines work for your foot. But you do get static on it, and occasionally, you know, sometimes it's difficult to hear over. Especially when you're extremely emotional. But I mean-- What time are you going to use it right now? It's just after lunch by my account. Yeah, it'll be started in noon. We should be getting the-- So I'd say close in a while or two-- Ruppa's just finishing up. Do you have anything else you want to do at the morgue? Then you can think of. So you guys are walking up. You may get the text at that point, because being down in the basement, it's difficult to-- I tell Dr. Parker, thanks for your time. And-- Truly. I ask her politely using my presence. I got resources, baby. Totally average. No, I ask her, Aga, when do you expect to complete your examination and-- We're waiting for the official order to do the autopsy. And can I get that from you? It is relatively high priority. So we will be doing it by the end of the work, damn sure. OK, well, I'd be able to get a copy of that, or should I work that through the table? You'd actually have to talk to the tenant about it. OK, understood. Well, they're three times. OK. Don't call London. You guys leave the hospital and we'll do a quick aside what exactly is London during this particular-- Probably. I remember I said a message earlier that we're going to be needing his services. He might have been getting out of that now. Oh, yeah, he did. He's that like a diva. So I would imagine he's having a liquid lunch and an appetizer in Coventry. Yeah, I don't suppose London drinks alone. So who is he with? I would, Terry. No, I don't think that's something that's percolating, but not quite moving in a direction. He's having a hard time admitting that he has feelings for him. And feelings for anyone. But yeah, for a girl, I mean, he just uses them and leaves them. So that's his way. So I'm going to assume that he's having lunch with one of his underlings who does research for him. And they're discussing a current case he's working on that is not high priority, but something that is engaging him and taking it some time. OK. And Roberto, where am I? What is Roberto doing at this time of day on November 12th, midday or so? I worked for Dale Williams. I had a list of wizards I need to hunt down. So you're kicking in the door? I think I am. We're shaking down a wizard who's falling on hard times. You're shaking down a wizard? What do you mean by that? A sorcerer. Sorcerer. Whatever, they're all magicians to me. One of the ones on Dale Williams, let's just have managed to hunt down. OK. And do you execute these people when you meet them? I try to investigate them under the pretense of Dale Williams, I'll have to hire them back. And when I figure out what they've done, I usually kill them. Yeah. I mean, it depends on what they're involved with. If they were tearing souls out of babies, and I say that he has more work for that, and he's like, oh, I know. What to do? Because I did it. That's just wrong. I love everyone. OK. Baby murder right here, please. Baby murder, where are they having? I'm on board. I'm down. Well, working with souls is how I phrase it. Right. If they've been involved with that. In this particular case, you're just about done with this individual. And by done, I mean, you've been interrogating him rather roughly because you really want to find out whether they're telling the truth or not because this is dire stuff that they're doing. But it turns out that this individual, while working for Constance, is not one that was involved with baby murder in particular, but the rituals in general. He had an extremely peripheral involvement in the process, so, unfortunately-- Oops. So what I did him-- You can't kill this one. So I don't know exactly what you're going to do after you just read it. No, I investigated him terribly. You didn't investigate them terribly. You're given information by Dale Williams that this is a list of people that involved. But he wasn't handholding every single member of this project. He had a list of people that were, and this guy turns out that it was extremely peripheral. It was remote to the actual-- Well, then I-- --you're going on. Throw him to the ground and says, "Any word from the others in Dale Williams needs to know." And I-- Wait a minute. Shove the blame on someone else. Cut off his leg above the knee. It's all a rage. You're fun, right? After having one of his friends. Yeah, you happen to my pickup and answer it while I drive away. It's your mother who's coming. OK. She informs you-- I'm just getting off of work. You're with that. You just never come over anymore. You know, that's what they say. You don't call. But she also informs you that she hasn't seen your father for a few days. And the last time she did see him, he was hanging out with those guys, those ones that work at the casino. She thought she recognized one of them. So if you've got a moment-- I'll see if I can bring him back. OK. And we'll leave your scene as you head back to your car and head back to Dale Williams' office, your office. Or are you-- Where were the kneecap people behind the casino? Oh, so you're actually heading to the casino area? Yeah. OK. That suddenly became a higher priority for you. And then you head-- Well, I was fine. That's-- yeah, yeah. Then you head off to that area to see if you could find out some information. The last time you dealt with the casino people, the boss that you were working for, was John Rinaldi. That's up to you if you're going right back to him, or you're looking for some of his thugs that you can question. I was going to search the casino for him, and then-- I don't know. OK, so you're going to the casino to see if your dad's hanging out there. Yeah. Doing the stupid gambling where he loses all the family money is what he's going to do. He just wants to do it. OK, so you're heading to the horseshoe casino itself. And then we head back to Alan Maxwell and Edmund. Well, we exit the morgue, and then the hospital, and down to London because we have some tracking for him today. Thank you for making the call. I raise my eyebrows when I see who's calling, and I let go of voicemail. OK. OK. [LAUGHTER] Dick. Gave you a call because we have work. See you whenever you pick up your damn phone. We're good, friends. Yeah. When you say we have work, by that, you're implying a amazing detective, unless you say otherwise. That is what he would think. Yeah, actually-- So I'm just saying, do you mention the word-- Please say that you're calling-- At my request. Calling at the request of the manual of favor, too? Oh, nice. Oh, you probably owe a few men a favor. Calling, at the behest of Alan Montgomery, to whom you owe a favor, we have some work you need to do. Alan didn't necessarily want to use a favor. No, I'm not. Because that don't-- in fact, that is implied. Yeah. Don't, because then he says, there. All right, yeah, I returned your phone call. [LAUGHTER] I'm not even-- I'm still on the phone. But that's on the voice message. So the third voice message. That is a $40,000 phone call. I think you press star, and then re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re. I don't know. Oh, by the way. No, it's not mean when you want to re-re-- Because if I was going-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] London, this is Maxwell, calling on behalf of Alan Montgomery. We have a job for you tracking down something. We have a sample. It should be easy. Then you hang out. OK. After that phone call, you guys still have a little time you're doing what before you're waiting for London to call back. I ask Maxwell and Ed, do they have a line on tracking down Roberto? Well, if you're making an increase into that, I haven't kept track of it. I'd probably call London and have you track him down. Because now, yeah, but the answer is from all the time. We're going to have a lot of-- We're going to have a lot of what he calls us. No, OK, another line. That's fine, Roberto. I think that there might be a reason or an opportunity to consult with Roberto. Because he's consulting with him. I am thinking that-- No, I'm just-- it's a business thing. And it's on the open up. I just-- he might have an insight that we need. What do you think about heading down to the precinct and seeing what they've beat out of Philip Cook? That's a good next stop, I suppose. You was the one that-- I think it's one that came in and found. The body, so they pulled him in for questioning about what he found and how it was. They suspect he might be involved, so they took a man in there and cared to get him caught out of him, yes. The first thing the motor does is call the cops and say, I found this. Yeah, I don't know if they're being in a cop. That's not the standard procedure for any type of police investigation despite what a lot of people think. I'm not know if I'd like to hear what Cook has to say about what his roommate-- Yeah, I'd like to-- Yeah, it's a process to examine the witness. So if we don't have a line, maybe put in a call to run Logan and ask him if there is any news from Philip Cook about what he saw or what he found. And can we maybe talk to him? You call the police station, trying to get all the lieutenant Logan. First, you try to call him on his personal line, because you actually do have his phone number. Because he gave you a card. Right. He does not answer. When you call the police station, you're told that he is currently unavailable. Oh, no. He didn't die yet. He just got to understand, too. That was our next step. Listen, guys, while we're waiting for-- Repa. Repa. Actually, let's go back and see what Repa found out. And also, you and I both know we're London probably is hanging out. So while we can head that way to East-- OK, those are two different areas. So one is first. I'll have to wrap it up. I guess unless you're breaking up, which is-- I don't want to break up yet. All right, we're going to drop the blood sample. Oh, yeah. OK, Repa's lab is much closer. Through your chef, Mr. Darbusch, you have met Repa, and you've actually visited his lab, because he's done some work for you. So you know where he lives, and you can easily go there. You probably have a half an hour before they show up, so he could start the next procedure. I've got a security system, and I've got a buzzer with the camera. Yeah, OK. And what is the next step you wish to do? I mean, what is it? I'm going to see what other chemicals are involved here. I'm not sure if-- You're still working on the normal everyday-- Are you checking for other stuff, and I'm not sure what I didn't look for before? No, it wasn't the fact that you didn't look for anything. You've identified one of the two components in this mix as being ash, but the question is-- Ash is what? --what was the original composition, and that's a much more difficult. So you're still staying with the traditional chemistry of the modern society rather than popping any ludes and doing the trip far away. That might be taking a physical trip to the place where it happened later, or maybe just using-- well, I'll get into that later. That's to be determined. But yeah, just trying to get more detail on the physical aspects of the actual chemistry. You have the sample, and it's big enough for you to do any number of experiments. So you start another experiment that's going to take at least a couple hours for you to identify what the original source of the ash was. And about a half an hour into that, these guys show up. And meanwhile, Roberto shows up at the Horseshoe Casino, and you wander around. It's a public casino, so you're allowed in, and it's not a problem. But some of the gentlemen that work there, the muscle, they know you, two of them in particular, aren't very fond of you. Do those be? I said, who could those be? I think I remember saying-- I'm trying to intimidate them. One of them should just pass the other one. Yeah, that was a very bad job of intimidating each other, if I remember correctly. I don't know, which did an awkward moment. Yeah. But in wandering the casino looking for your father, you don't see him in the public area. But you know that there are private rooms here where the high rollers can go, the people that are-- Is there a one-way glass? Well, there are cameras. You can't murder anyone. It's like a change in it. I was getting the impression that you wanted to send a message to someone behind the camera or behind a window. Oh, no, I wanted to see if I could just look inside. But you said high rollers, and he's not, so-- Well, there are rooms in your room. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, assuming that he would be there. OK. I don't remember where I went to pay the people I owed earlier, but I would try to visit that again. OK, that's an office off of the main rooms. You head off to the area where you know the offices are, and you run into the bodyguards before you get there-- these aren't the gentlemen that you've dealt with before, but they're definitely in the doorway to get back towards the offices. What do you need, bud? I'm going to go look at it for Manuel. He's been through here. Don't know, no, Manuel. Martinez. Still not. He was picked up by a couple of your goons. My goons. I was saying, you goons isn't-- We're porous, not high on your-- No, no, no, no. Intimidation, but I can't do that here without trouble. Yeah, you live for trouble. Sorry. Don't know what you're talking about. All right, I brush past him. Will you try? I try, and-- I don't know what crushing people off is as a skill. In social situations, to end a conversation-- What? --with us, how much you're talking about. You're literally walking through this, man. That might be my-- Might. There is two of them blocking the hallways. They try to actually have to push through them if there's two guys in one hallway that's blocking the block. So his job is to be strong and muddy and thin in a way. He is a great. OK. His role is plus one, so he is superbly standing in a way. I use might to push past him or-- Yes. I don't want him to follow me with it. Being able to brush him off and say, look, I dealt with your boss. Get on my way, chump. That's a different approach. You said you were-- Yeah, I am pushing past him with his argument. Maybe both? That's fine. No, you might want to try the might part first. Right. Sorry. You didn't follow up on social. Right, and as you're pushing past him, good role. I roll a plus two. My might's three, so it springs up to five, superb. Which is a tie. So that means you can't see him as a rider. I'm not going to go like, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry. He has super strength. I was wondering whether that helped him. He's not using-- He's not going to have any human strength, but I'm not, like, chucking this man into a wall or anything, so-- OK. But you could, but I couldn't. He knows it, but you succeed at tying him, which means you can succeed with a minor cost. OK. Or you can spend a fake point and succeed, but-- I'll succeed at a minor cost, go. The minor cost is you just piss them off. I've got a job, I think. Just putting a shoulder on you and knocking them out of the way so you do bounce them back into the wall. And now you're attempting to use something similar to diplomacy. Not the best throw order. So we will go with your attempting to use what skill to get past him. If you're talking social, you're trying intimidation. He's using social defense, which would be either rapport or empathy. He's not terribly good at either of those. So let's say he's going to use rapport, which is only a plus one. A plus two, that brings my skill of three at the superb five. He rolled his one, but he rolled plus two, so it takes it up to a three. So you succeed when you tell him. I push on through and say, I dealt with your boss. Get out of my way. OK. So you succeed, causing him a little bit of social damage. Unfortunately, you ticked him off. Yeah. And now you're using Barriston. Did any of these make it into consequences or is he-- No, he's taking social damage, but not. So you brush past him. You start heading down the hall towards the door. And he's kind of looking a bit stunned and stymied. And the second guy's like, what the fuck? And he goes running down the hall after you and grabs you by the shoulder. And attempts to push you back the way you had come. His might roll again is two, and he gets one. So a total of only three good. You can attempt to avoid this might with athletics or just to like stand there stoically with a might roll of your own. Oh, this might be like so shitty. Apparently, I just take blows. But this isn't a blow. No, but he's grabbing it, which you can dodge with athletics. Do you want to say athletics or what? Athletics or what? You're either like-- It's like he's grabbing, and he goes to pull you, and you just stand out like a brick wall type thing. I keep moving. Yeah, I'll try that one. Keep moving. Yeah. Keep on hanging through the door camping too far away now. And I'm raising my voice. I don't even remember the name. John-- John's in all these guys, right? OK. He's yelling from all the-- I know you're in there, he's damn it. Right. He's on a good job. I rolled minus one. That brings my might to only fair, plus two. Do we meet? Unfortunately not, he was a good three. OK. You throw in one fate and use the aspect of-- Politics only slow you down. You try and deal with MOOCs and stuff, and-- OK. I'm trying to cut through the red tape right to the boss. Right, which takes you one higher than him, so you just kind of keep walking, and his hand slips off you as you go farther down the hall. He turns and grabs his friend and pulls him along, and both of them are coming after you at this point. And I speed up right with all. John, the rest of the distance under there, try to keep out of him, and do with what I guess. Yes, good luck with that. Because I don't want to fight here, and I know I can talk to him. I have in the past. I don't know why these people don't remember. OK, go ahead. They're plates. Each approach is apparently full of you. If you go to the London School of Social-- No, this is definitely not the London School. Real schmoozer. Yeah. Zero. So I got an athletics of one. This is only an average attempt to get it passed. OK. So one is going to use his fists to do brawling to put you, not actually strike you, but just slam you up and pin you up against the wall. The other guy is assisting him, so he gets to add one to the dice roll. Oh, you are a shit lot of trouble as he rolls. That was 4 old times. Oops. Accidentally killed you. No. They put you through the wall. So he rolls a 4, and his fists are 3. So that is epic. Well, actually, it's plus another one because of the assistance of his friend, so it's legendary. I think they just put his head through the wall. His rest of his body stuck out. So he grabbed each of them while the one reaches past you and grabs you as the other one does as well. And they slam you so hard into the wall that one of the pictures on the other side falls to the ground. And your ass actually goes into the wall. You leave it indent there. And there's a huge thought as this big-- I'm talking big-- picture falls off the wall and slams onto the ground. You hear just a bellow from behind the door. What the fuck is going on out there? I need to cause this problem. No, it's not your fault? The door just slams open, and there's another hole in the wall. Is the door time goes into the wall? These guys have you pinned fast to the wall with the legendary. Good luck trying to get away from that. Is that-- so what happens there? I want to understand a game better this time around, is it stress that he takes from that or nothing? It's just like-- He would, except they were trying to-- Had some points? No, they were trying to pin him. So they've got him in a hole. And then that lock stays until he breaks it? You would have to exceed that to break out of it. What a plus one. I'll try to understand the game better this time around, because I sure want it last time. They weren't trying to do him damage. Like they weren't striking him. Right. Other than it was a move on, it was a block against movement. It might move until I-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] --of their skill. OK. He comes out of his office and he is fucking pissed off. What the fuck do I pay you people for? I don't need to be interrupted with his bullshit. Oh, fuck. Really, Roberto? What do you want? Manuel. He was with you again. Manuel, why don't you bring this guy in? My dad's been paid. Get him out of here. I don't want even anybody here and bought this bullshit. They drag you into the office and the door is closed behind. What the fuck are you talking about? Your goons picked up by dad again. What has this got to do with you? I own his debts. You tell me they've been paid. Why are you picking him up again? Did you think you're the one who paid those? It doesn't matter. His debts are paid. They are now. His picking up was the payment. He had something that he had to do. He's doing it now. Is she coming back? I don't know. Not my business. I don't care. Where'd they go? We sold this contract. It's not our business anymore. That's mine. I want to get here. Where'd he go? Go deal with it if it's your business. It's not mine. Get him out of here. I stock out. You try to stock their character. What you can stock. They let go. The whole business lasts forever. It's one of those, you know, stuff hanging in. Dammit pushing. Yeah, they're trying to escort you out and you're shrugging them off. You're definitely stronger than these guys, especially when you tap the supernatural aspect. But even without that, you've got a little bit of muscle on them, but there's two of them. So they're definitely escorting you towards the door, but you're like, fuck you. I was leaving anyways. So they escort you out of the building, which I'm sure you were leaving anyway, so that's just fine. And then we will go to grandma. No leads on this. How do you do this? You should try to get some. You guys show up at Ruppa's lab. He's got a little button on the side of the door. You press it. It's my house, basically. Yeah, it's your house. It's a townhouse. There's a living area downstairs. Where's the open area? Is the living area downstairs in the lab upstairs? I assume it was the other way around. There's a basement, so it's actually like a townhouse thing where there's three levels. You're in the basement, and you hear the businesses. It's your front door, and you can look over and see the camera, and you see-- Yeah, I see what it is, and I buzz them in. It's on, I'll be up shortly. And I get to a stopping point in my experiment, and I go up, and let them down, or come and go up there, or whatever. May I help ourselves to the beers in the kitchen? Classy boss. Ruppa comes up and joins you in the kitchen. You're drinking his beers. And Microbrew, you're drinking it, of course. Of course, yeah. He bruises on. So I imagine there's all sorts of odors, mixtures, and his work. Mostly have this one. Great. Pretty great. You go upstairs and sleep in the-- That's work. I'm just saying, I'm looking around. I can just say I suppress my magic, so I don't short out any of his equipment and gear. What I'm going to say is that if you keep your distance from it-- My discipline is time. --while it is great. It has to do with your emotional state. When you are upset, I'm going to require discipline roles. If you're not standing right next to a computer, I'm not going to require it to you, too. You're kind of keeping your distance from its equipment. So if that's an issue of the living room, it's probably the best spot. I got some minor technology in the kitchen, and I don't want you to buy it in the basement. Start off-- I don't want to mess up your resources. Don't mess this microbrew. Kinder, gentler, warden. So you guys, you meet in the living room. Rappa brings you up to speed and what he's found so far. Yeah, we give you a sample. Yeah, we got a blood sample. Do we need some of that for talking about? Oh, excellent. Yeah, we'll need some of those. Mine-- you got the other sample. I've got the tracking sample. Yeah, I don't have much to report now, but I'll probably be working all night or whatever. I'm sorry, so you say that you've got sodium-- so a regular table salt and ACL, or is it like salt from the mines underneath Cleveland? No, I seem to be just normal table salt. All right, just not. And then you say it was ash, and no other substance? I'm working on what the ash was. OK. Do I need to make a lower role to determine what those two materials might be used for in a ritual? Would I know that, or is that too obscure? No, feel free. OK, I would say the knowledge of this would be good, required good role. Could you point him in the right direction, normally, in a ritual like this, these are the three or four common ashes that are used, so it helps him with his role? I'd even take another step difficulty to try to maybe make it harder so I can get-- Well, at this point, I'm thinking you need first one role to know what you're dealing with before you can say any specifics of what you're dealing with. OK, then I will use my lure. And it's a wash, so it is great. Which is one greater than required. So your knowledge of the use of ash in circles is definitely necromantic cleaning. And unfortunately, the role wasn't high enough to be able to give them any details on specifically what type of object he should be looking for for what type of reasons. So you can do additional research, but right now, in your head knowledges, we're dealing necromancy here. Right, or that's what I'm thinking. And to get anything more, I probably need to go back to my lab and do research. Probably. OK. Pissed off? Yeah, are you shaking your head over there? No. Goddamn. Renoli? No. OK. You're probably by that. I could just hire London if I did. A text comes through to Maxwell. Is it pubes again? It's so not interested is the text. You phone those off. There's a text, and the name says dick on the top of it. Dick's texting me. Oh, it's London. We're all surprised. He's asking if it's pubes. It's challenging one for you. I text back. Skin of the lower leg. No. It seems foot. No. No. No. Don't send. Back. Back. Back. Just a whole fucking sentence. This is about a job. Are you interested? You're particularly business. No jokes. Seems like a challenge this time. Yeah. How's that? It's work. And you'll be paid. Also payment. That's a plus. That's a plus. Ellen's paying. Work and plus. OK. The text comes back through to Maxwell from Dick that says, my brownstone. 6 p.m. See you there. Yeah. And I'm following everyone else. It says his brownstone, 6 o'clock. Something. Something. Does Roberto know where his traditional house is as his former banker? Yes. When you were first hired, you may have had to dealt with London's brownstone only if maybe to go there and remove a few things that he didn't want to get. Absolutely. So you know of its location and you also know that once things settle down that he moved back there because you kind of were keeping an eye on some of these guys. The reason I moved out during that last story was because it's well known. I mean people come to my brownstone to do business. I have a library on the first level where we meet kind of like a study slash library. We do mine. We talk. Business. Yeah. OK. Could you give London a heads up text it doesn't know where Roberto is because I think Ellen and I both want to talk to him. Oh yeah. Unrelated. Text him. If you knew the location of Roberto, we'd like to get in contact as well. All right. Text back. Jesus. Are you lonely? Stop texting me. Roberto. I'm sure I have a W-2 with his address on it somewhere. Look at this dick. Says to me. I have his name. I know. I know. No. We'll talk to him. But so yes, I have his address on the W-2 somewhere. OK. For the record, the W-2, the address you have on record for him is for his parents because that's where he was living at the time. I don't know if he's still living there? Three months have passed. So you got your own place and you're still at home with your parents. I also have his driver's license. I don't. And his license here is still. I love that. Whatever the case. Just fuck with him. No kidding. Even London wouldn't do that. So I have information. I say yes. I have information not a phone number but information on his W-2. We can discuss tonight. Please stop texting. I'm sorry. Roberto, just to be clear, is living at his parents' home? Still. Yeah. OK. Send him a smiley face with a tongue sticking out. You can do that. You have his number. I'm not that jovial about London. Or London. No London. OK. One more time we'll deal with Roberto. Are you guys contacting? Or London? Are you trying to contact him? I don't have his phone number. I have his phone number. But I'm right. He's no longer. OK. You know, I mean, plus there's that thing and it's awkward. Don't you? I know. Be crazy out there when it kicks down your door and asks you where his dad is. Yes. You actually do know Roberto. Ruppa. I'm more than happy to share information with them if they don't have-- if they haven't contacted by the time we have the meeting tonight at my home, I'll have the sole security number of the address, which I would assume that the Cleveland police officer could not address but the driver's license number, which I'm sure the officer could trace. And I also have the address of his parents. So we should be able to find him one way or another. And he may still have my phone number. I don't know. But I don't have his. If you've got the same phone, then he would have your phone number. Right. You had a couple of burners that you were using. I have two more. Plus I have to leave it. It's just out of spite because-- I was bitter. Because. Yeah. Roberto's plans for the rest of the day? He's waiting outside the brownstone with his father's blood hair and just waiting for London's show. We'll take you to London. We'll probably have about an hour before his meeting with these guys. So he might actually run into Roberto before these guys do. That'd be like, geez, we asked you where he is and like, here he is. London delivers, man. OK. We'll stop here for the night with Roberto outside the brownstone. London arriving at five o'clock. You guys scheduled arrive at six o'clock, which leaves Repa with a-- A couple hours at least, right? Three hours in which to finish the lab work, which we'll say you definitely finish it at that time. And we'll talk about the results in one next week play. Cool. Thanks for listening to the nights of the night actual play podcast. Visit KOTNpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures, where you'll find character stats, photos, storytelling props, and even a form for comments and suggestions. Or you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com. Or contact us via Twitter, or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcast or business, please visit zanaudiosmith.com. Please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. I am London. I'm Scott playing London deals. I am London. I can think of up the top of the hooker with the heart of gold. That kind of aspect, although no one's a prostitute here, and certainly no one has a heart of gold. Why are you looking at London? I'm a gold. You look at this. It's a broad statement. You really have no idea that someone here was a hooker. I wouldn't even. You know what? Please don't take offense today. I didn't think that you were a prostitute. I guess not. You're so asumptive. All right. You did it. It's back. You would put me in worse and it would be trouble. Eloquent tonight. Yes. Very much so. It's just like what is it? Yeah, Justin. It's a sinusus. So now I've got dry mouth. I'm screaming like a motherfucker and I can't talk for shit. We should grab our blood samples so you can try to come in with us guys later. We're a pup. We're a pup. It's my old Santa. Oh, you're so tired. It's a very method of tracking. Well. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. It comes over rubs the speed of the ground and shocks me. How come? How do you blow? What are you doing today? I'm so sorry. That is what I do. Yeah, come on. Sit back down. I guess I'll pull you. He's all over you. They're delicious. No, I used to, but not anymore. I'm off the stuff. The baby killer. I'm at a vegan. Okay. Isn't the comic character of the goon kind of like this where he's like this big burly crawler type that means well, but always ends up getting into these confrontations and fights. So the tale of this episode is ass print. Ass print? Yeah. Roberto's ass print. Then they just have another house fire in Cleveland where it was turned out that the fireman showed up to go, you know, put out the fire and they're like, oh, it's a pot throwing out. A pot house. Really? Cool. Apparently better. Better. I'm stoned. There's a shit junk in there somewhere.