[Music] Hello, and welcome to the Knights of the Night actual play podcast. This World of Darkness story, Shagrin, was written and run by our storyteller Scott. [Music] And now, please enjoy episode 118, titled, "A Christmas Carol in July." Actual play begins 14 minutes, 39 seconds. [Music] Before we get started with the episodes, we have absolutely no feedback. It sounded like what we're helping people get out of the ball. [Music] It was a cold look. It's a cold week, maybe. And we'd love to see some more iTunes reviews. As always, use Amazon, like, we can discuss really quickly the voting, which is all. Kind of bunched up. Edgards at the bottom with four. Yes. Daniel has eight. Two. Michael Clay and Sister Katie all have ten. I would doubt they can. And Jay has 13. You're losing votes somewhere? Is that what's happening? I had it done. I think Jay's totally losing them off of the end. Actually, I haven't moved in a couple of weeks. So, I don't know where they're going. I haven't looked at the latest stats, but aren't we approaching our 100,000s download? Oh, you know, I don't know. Which is about 999,000. 900 more than you thought we would be. And 900 more than I thought it would be, yeah. Yeah, it is kind of amazing to think that people enjoy listening to us. At all. At all. Period. That's the end of the sentence. Full stop. Before we came here, and this is something we should discuss because eventually, some day, it's rumored that the World of Darkness is venture-aligned. No. That would probably play something else. And before we came here tonight, Jonathan Thomas and I, and their younger brother Mark, played around with Dungeon World. And I was thinking about maybe sneaking in a session to two of that when we finished World of Darkness before we go back to Dresden. Is it a story-killing game? It is definitely fantasy. Dungeon World. We definitely dodged that quote. No, I know what you wanted to say. It is extremely storytelling. Did you try to sell me that? No, no. You discussed recently that you were interested in maybe returning to heroic fantasy. Something along being a paladin. This is a guy fighting against evil instead of the drudgery of modern horror. So I got to ask the two guys here other than myself because I GM did. What did you guys think of Dungeon World? Well, in Dresden and in World of Darkness more or less. When you really care about something you're going to do, you can influence it and succeed. Yeah, guys, folks. None of that. I saw him in the balls. He rolled... He rolled... Here's the thing. Not old school. Here's the thing. You roll two dice and you add in your modifier for whatever stats appropriate. If you're shooting, for instance, it would be your dexterity modifier. And he's a ranger. So he would roll two dice and add in two. If you roll six or less, you fail. Period. Don't succeed. Do you want to roll six? Yes. Wow. With a plus two. Plus seven. That's anything more than average. Well, you're adding in a modifier. But you get an experience. And in this game, you get seven experience points plus your level. So, for instance, he would need eight to level. So you're almost cheering to fail. Is that the premise that you learn more from your mistakes? I believe it is. Okay, I believe it is. Unfortunately, you have to survive to get to the next level. Which is an excellent master effort. I almost leveled for my near-death experience. He almost in the first time we played yellow's level. That's how bad his night was. That's how bad he was rolling. You were like Bob? He was rolling like Bob. And he claims they're not the dice. But at the end, I think, if I were to give him the option, he would destroy those two dice. He would vaporize them. That's funny because after playing here for almost 15... Probably. 15 years? I'm playing one of the darts. I've never seen this ever been real worse than Bob. Right. Thomas, however... Consistently. He was rolling an exact opposite. I saw more sixes come... I failed his dice. One. Seven to nine. You succeed. But with a complication. Like for instance, if you're shooting arrows on an attack, you've just used up one of your ammo. And as a ranger, John started with five or six ammo. Six. So, I mean, that's substantial. One sixth of your ammo is gone. You get to choose from a number of different options. Or the GM could choose. It depends on the type of move you're doing it. They call it a move. And each class has their own special moves. My youngest isn't here, so I'll talk for him. He loved the system. He played a druid. And he could change into any animal that lived in the place where he grew up. Which was a desert. And he was a desert elf. But being an elf, he could also change... Does he fit in the sand or anything? Does he burn the souls of his feet? The weirdest thing is out of all of the environments you could choose. Desert? How many animals are there in the desert to begin with? Why would you want to change into any of them? Artical. But since he's an elf, he also got the woods. So he could change to any animal that lived in the woods or the desert. Which isn't quite a large grouping. I know my desert biosphere says a lot of animals. You'll be able to help him. Oh, yeah. Squirking and foxes and small animals. There's like no limit. Like you could only change five times a day or even one and two times a day. There's nothing I can find. He could change as many as you want it to. And how good his role was how many actions he could do as that creature. So they're getting attacked by... Are they here that goblins are coming? He changes into a hawk flies up, scouts out the area. And they were trying to break into a castle. And he changes into a little squirrel and goes between the bars of the port plus. I mean, he was getting really inventive and the uses and absolutely loving it. I think that class, especially even in the old game, contributed more to a storytelling approach because you had all these cool options and resources other than combat. Because all you had was like a wooden sword or wooden shield. The game system reminded me more of a 3.5 rather than a 4 and D&D. Because it was just in some rewarded and let you go wild. It was less restrictive and rules in terms of it was more open. You know, I try to take a look at Pathfinder based on a conversation that I left here with you guys one night where I thought it was crazy that I couldn't interpret it. That I couldn't get into it. Because I'm like, "Wow, how far away am I from this stuff that I can't decipher anymore?" It's called getting old, Mike. You don't want to sit down and read a huge book anymore. You want to just be able to play it? It just felt like there was just so much choice or so many options and choices that you're paralyzed by the... That's why I fall back. I'm just giving you the core system with core abilities and let the storytelling find those avenues. Then you will like this. I got to ask how much he's actually played it before. What was your take on it? I definitely enjoyed being a bard. It was fun. I spent exactly two rounds doing combat and all the rest, scaring the shell, goblins with words. That sounds like fun. It's a bit more grungy. I definitely enjoyed it. Got a little wacky, but we tend to whenever we're not being reported. Well, we should meet John at the mark. Yeah, there's no reason not to be wacky. It was a similar experience than what I want to see if we would ever play fiasco creativity. We just had a fun time. It's very open storytellerish like we were asking and free-flowing. There's no initiative. The GM says, "Wow, this happens and what do you do about it?" It points to somebody. After that happens, what do you do about this? It's very minimalistic rules. The rule side is really simple. I just explained to you everything you need to know about the rules. You roll two six-sided dice and you add it. If you get ten and above, you succeed gloriously. You do the damage. You're not hurt. You succeed. And then there's the mid-range, which gives you success with a modification. Failure gives you an experience and the GM gets a turn to make your life miserable. Is this related to Dragon World? No, they're totally different. Okay. This was a Kickstarter project and I picked it up. Written? Yeah, it's a good quality book. It's a very good quality book. I really like the game. I think it's got some possibilities, but it's definitely not as heavy. You can definitely play a campaign in it. Oh yeah, it's got... I think we should right away. It's got the ability to play up to level ten. And after you reach level ten, if you want to keep playing, you should retire that character and then become a teacher to some other type of. Or you can just restart that same character as a different class, but they start at level one. But they get to keep a couple things that make them who they are. Old school, multi-class. Kind of, yeah, and they have the ability to multi-class as well. It's just a really interesting system that I kind of like. And after we played it, I'm still kind of interested. And what are the classes? They're just the typical fighter. The bar, the cleric, the druid, the fighter, the paladin, the ranger, the thief, the wizard. And the wizard has spells, he gains every two levels. And they're pretty open. I was just looking at them because I never read them really, but they seem pretty open. Like charm person. Somebody acts as your friend for... That's my first multi-class choice. Come on, let me spell find it again. And what's interesting about that wizard is you cast a spell, it doesn't go away. But if you roll in that mid-range, one of the options to the bad thing that happens is the spell kind of unravels from your mind and flips away. And you have to re-study, refill that slot next day. So that's one of the bad things that can happen to you. Old school. Sort of, but you still can cast that spell all day long as long as you succeed. Oh, okay. And if you choose a different bad thing to happen, you can still keep that in your mind, but something worse happens. Like one of the goblins hit you and you take damage, but you still remember that spell. There's something about, I always like the idea that you retain knowledge, but it's whether you had power or energy or health to cast a spell. But it's also interesting when you start the game, you all have characters and the character sheets have choices that you make and you kind of flow down it. But the world doesn't exist until you guys are done and the gym makes the world up around. So Mark, my youngest son, designed his character and he just came up with this because he's 11. And he comes up with these really bizarre stories about his dad making a potion that he snuck in, installed and drank and allowed him to talk to the animals. So based on that, I'm like, okay, so then you went and studied with some other elves that taught you how to change into an animal, but they can only do it one animal. They spent their whole life studying about antelope and then they could change into that. But you, through this potion, have the ability to change into any animal. You can talk to any animal. So you are, in effect, the good. You're the only one. The rest of these guys are pale comparisons to what you can do. And that's now our world. That's how our world works. It's kind of almost like dress and ask that the world gets created as a player. You described something like the once and future king where Arthur was being trained by Merlin and he had to become a hawk for a while. He had to become a fish for a while. And even though he was a fish, he had to learn what it meant to be a fish. He could be a hawk. He had to learn what it meant to be a hawk. So that was kind of interesting. But as a possibility of slipping in between the sessions and playing something, going back a little bit old school and doing a little bit of fantasy, that might be an option. We might take that out. I'm still upset that I can't manipulate my die rolls. In what sense? Just in fate, if you want something to happen, you can make it happen. You have fake points that can modify the dice roll. It's not like I was doing anything that I really wanted to get done. I didn't want to die and I didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. One thing about the goblins, he decided to stay behind and delay them a little bit. That was stupid. And then they went off on this way and he went to catch up with them and he rolled, well, he succeeded but with a modification. The modification was, because it was in that mid-range, that he took the wrong path. So he did escape from the goblins, got far enough ahead of them, that he would have been safe except he took the wrong way. He figured that out and he had to come back, which engaged him with a small group of the goblins that followed his path rather than the main path. Well, then he got stuck and then he got treed and then he got, I mean, he kept rolling worse and worse and worse and worse. He didn't roll a single one. No, he did. It sounds like you had the freedom to make all sorts of choices with the choices word. You were bigger than the best choices. Like he picked the best choices to die. You know, like how you wanted to die? I delayed it as long as I could. It was, he jumped from one tree to the other. And again, he rolls that mid-range, you know, he didn't succeed and he didn't fail. So he bounces on branches all the way down and hits the ground and I say you take damage. He rolls a one. He has an armor of one. He takes no damage. So actually it's not bad. He made it. Now I don't think he would have like three without. There was a success coming in that. You escaped from the big goblins. I wasn't turning away from that. Seven to nine is... Seven to nine is... Composition of success. Condition. But you're getting, usually a plus one or a plus two. So you've succeeded three times in a row with no stuck wins, whatever. One skill with a minus one. Kind of like the idea that just a plain two to die mechanic. Right. When you're attacking, you do the hack and slash move. You just attack somebody. If you roll that mid-range, you hit them. You do the damage. They're going to hit you back. Because that's... You succeeded. But now if you roll ten or above, you hit them and they never even touch you. So it's an interesting mechanic. And it's simple and it goes across everything. So just a lot. Oh, this is interesting. Yeah. It's fun. I'm interested in magic. They looked like they had good magic spells. So that's enough babbling about Dungeon World. Thanks for listening everyone to that nonsense. But remember using Amazon link. Stop by. Vote on your favorite character. And while you're at it, I haven't been said for a while. But if you want to stop at Facebook, we have a lot of stuff out there. Pictures of player characters, non-player characters. A lot of information based on our... The maps of the city, maps of the farmstead. Alright. And with that, we will now get on to the adventure. This is the world of darkness story. Shagrin. I'm your storyteller, Scott. And with me to my right is... I'm Tom, playing the character Jay Alton. Member of the ascending ones. Bob playing FBI Special Agent Chew Park. Member of the VASQ conspiracy. Mike, playing Michael Clay. The adventure academic. Who is part of the Aegis Kaidooru. Thomas, playing Edgar Montes. If we're doing a practitioner, we're building stairs. Conspiracy. John, playing Daniel Morgan. Mountain Manta in mercenary. X-member of Task Force Valkyrie. Jay. Why would someone do this? So many things to do. And your one turn from the door. Well, you want an action when you get in there. Do I have an angle at the guy in the top of the corner? You're running right down the middle of the fairway. So it was... You loaded up with bullets. Beat him with bullets. And it's not... He actually doesn't have as good a cover as... Before. Or... As... However, we're shooting through that. Bored it up. That was a really nice sniper. First of all, I glanced behind me at the helicopter. This is helicopter armed. It's attack helicopter. I mean, I'm a military guy. Yeah, you're just on a bitch. You have machine guns. It's unlike any helicopter you've seen before. True enough. You haven't seen this type of helicopter. But it looks to you as if there are missile tubes on the undercarriage of the helicopter. And what looks to be machine guns as well. Yes. So it's a gun show. It's an armed helicopter. No, no, no, no. Right. Those are called gunships. They've got rocket pods and if they've got machine guns that you can see. Alright. Michael. Yes. Over the hill, there's a lady. If she's dead, she's now zombie. Watch. Does he? Daniel, sit, rep. And what the hell's going on in there? There's shots going on. Who is the most dangerous? I got away from my turn on top. No. Oh, yeah. We got one agent down. But there's an unknown shooter on the second floor. Dog. That's shooting an unknown shooter on the second floor. Alright. You stop. I stop, take aim, and fire. Okay. I have 13 and I'm going to risk my last big risk. You get balls, you son of a bitch. Yeah. 4, son. 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 16 dice. Minus 2 for cover, so 14. This gentleman has minus three for his capital act, which is-- Good luck with the capital act. Well, it's the capital act. Three successes. Nice. And we roll three. We roll three. Four, five successes. We roll two. Five successes. His head disintegrates. And he might keep all of them. Did he get a view of who this was at first? He thinks it's Valkyrie. It looked like Valkyrie. If I saw a little needle hanging from the eye, I would aim for it. Fair enough. I should have tried it, because you definitely in your scope would be able to see that it's somebody of a military bent and not Danny Rockland who won. It turns out that we killed all the Valkyrie people that were trying to find another down 16. That's what they get for coming to Cleveland after agreeing with them. They were told, "Let's come back." I'm operating under the impression that these guys are coming in to wipe out the only clue we have and who's wiping it out. They're undercover agents. They're working for the mole. They're mole people. They're mole people. They're in league with it. From his neck up into -- I mean, it literally entered into underneath his chin in his neck and just took off his hat in a burst of his run hat. I already got. And you definitely hear that from inside the house. The flames are starting to dance across the floor as well. Not all the way to where you're at, but when you first came in there were some pretty serious flames to your right in the kitchen area. The flames are now spreading into the living realm. Just so I understand the person that was just killed now was upstairs from where Jonathan is and where he's also hearing the growling. Yes. Does the quality of the growling change at all after the death? Great question. The growling was interrupted. The growling stopped after the shot. I inform everyone over the headset that the Valkyrie and the Colonial is the neutral eye. We had a sniper zombie. I did for us. I turned towards the helicopter, point to my ear, and give him a signal with my fingers on what channel we're on. Okay. This is really -- He's watching you. And the stealth helicopter. Oh, he's watching me now. We're on channel number one. One motherfucker, the middle channel. The stealth helicopter is coming in. It's not hard and fast as far as how it's approaching. It's approaching -- I wouldn't call it cautious based on your military background. I would say it's coming in somewhere between hot and cautious. So it's coming in pretty quick. It has reached probably the edge of our map right now, over the trees. So speaking of basically what you're describing as a combat landing. Well, I'm not going to say a landing because it hasn't shown any signs of landing at this point. It's making a combat approach. That's a great terminology like this. It's coming from the south. From the east. Quick, which is right where we came. It's right on the east of the map right now. It has passed over where the cars that were parked, or disabled, or driven through fencing, or tangled up in fencing escape. They're not blowing up and on fire, are they? Cars shouldn't they? They are at least -- Oh, you mean did he take a mile? Yeah. Right. They're at least a quarter to a half mile away, and you are on the opposite side of a hill. But he is running in that direction to be glowing. And columns of smoke. And also wouldn't we have hurt that? Potentially. Potentially, yeah. It's a stealth explosion. It's a stealth. It's a stealth. To be fair though, there is a lot of roaring right now in the sense of the fires. The missiles have speakers on them. Right. They turn those off. So I'm repeating the action a number of times here, and then this is the channel from here. So you're not moving? No. I'm standing right where I am. Which you can't move after you fire. Absolutely. But I have turned to face the helicopter, and I still have my sniper rifle. Yes, and that would be my question would be, is the sniper rifle pointing towards the -- I can't really do that at the same time. So my sniper rifle is in my left hand, but I'm holding it so I can bring it up quickly. But I am -- Sure enough. Doing motions with my rifle. Last time someone aimed a sniper rifle? Oh, no, it was you. You're aiming to gun it. I never hit a sniper rifle. You just hit a pistol. So don't do that. Whatever you do, don't do that. I have no fear. Allah is my armor. Daniel, you hear a human voice from upstairs say, "Fuck you. Kill me if you're going to do it." Male voice? 14-year-old little girl voice. No, no. Do I draw the demons to me or are they still -- You didn't draw the demons. The demons were pissed because you were using the light and you were speaking with blood in your mouth just six seconds ago. So when the children took off running after Sister Kate scared the shit out of them and they ran away from her, the feeder demons chased the children. Your reappearance with the light in the blood in your mouth and slowed them up so they're circling now. You and the children, but they didn't attack class turn. And the children are trying to be strong. They're holding each other's hands and they're shaking and they're trying to get through it. And you're just about at the foot hill of the hillock but to the south because you were to the south anyways, where you were at. So you're west of the hillock, so the hillock is between you and the cars and the vehicles in the path out of here. And you're about 30 to 40 feet to the south of where the hill kind of goes down to a gentle slope. So you can actually see the path off in the distance. And you don't see any flaming vehicles or any of that sort. I asked the kids really quick if they ever had a sing-along. What's their favorite song and if they can come up with something like "I'm going to let it shine" or something that the idea is I want to get their minds on something and singing. It's a boy and a girl. How many kids are there? I thought they were like a dozen. No, they're like... Daniel pulled 12 kids in the burning building. Yeah, he went and he ran a few people preparing him. I don't know if you remember that. Hey, I just assumed that he's awesome, right? He left the other dozen. I'd take the credit for a fact. I don't know why I thought that they were writing... That's right. The little girl in a shaky voice says "root off the red nose." And we'll do it the Dean Martin version. So, singing with me... She starts trying to sing to hear their voice start shaking. The boy doesn't start at first, but she shakes them a little bit. And then he starts singing. So, I'm trying to get their mind off their fear, at least onto something other than fear and come along with that and I'm trying to keep them around me or I'm trying to put myself between clothes. It happens because there's three dons that are swirling around it. It's possible to keep them all between you and the kids. Okay. And then I do have a question for the demons. You know, I saw blood in my mouth. And I asked them, "What are their names?" Oh. This is Ted. Who are your names? I'm trying to. Phil. You were speaking to... You spoke to all three or tried to get it. Or instead of their name, I can ask them what their master is. I mean, I'm just trying to give them a question to keep them occupied. No, I actually named them a good one because it doesn't give you power. Well, that's what I was kind of... Right. So, one of them, because you could only really speak to one of them at a time, is per the band that they have. Okay. Which is what they call weakness of a demon or a spirit. Everyone speaks that his name is Asriel. Nope. You sure? Yeah. There could be more than one name to Asriel. Not in the spirit world. That's one. Okay. It is. It's Asriel then. It's his nickname. I'm just... Asriel's like one of the higher level gregettes. No. Okay. Okay. We'll then go with... Asriel. How's that? All right, there we go. I feel much better about it. Yes. Okay. Because it is. Yes. Quite removed. Because I'm in the... We're really... We're really all demon side of the family. We're all... They're from the seventh ring. We're really out of the... It's Asriel. It's the seventh... It's Asriel. It's Asriel. It's Asriel. Oh. Tom Basriel? Nope. Sorry. Still happy these are your friends? All right, yes. I unfortunately caught that. So, we've got... Hey. Hey. This is not... Marion. Wow. Only old people will get that joke. Not their fans. The fear demons. Yeah, they'll intimidate them a little bit if I'm asking them their name. They're backing off a bit. All right. There's a lot of white bin shined between you and Katie with your lash light. She's talking as well at the demons. It's praying to her God and trying to keep them occupied as well. You are... And they're starting to... Not dissipate, but they're starting to back off because it's become not such an easy meal as it was just a few seconds ago. And it takes us to... Just another play we're trying to... Am I allowed to keep moving? Well, at least moving a little bit down that path. A bit. All right. Slowly, but yes. You're moving towards the path. You mean now you're equal with the hill like as opposed to being... As long as we're in progress. Right. Put it at guard. Oh, damn, I'm slower now. You are slower. Just a bit. Just three feet. You need to stop to shoot last turn. I did. And then you heard your... I measured that. Then you heard your boss tell you that you're clear. No. I'm glad I have someone who's a good chat on my side. Because it should help. The counter goes blowing and mowing it out. Jay, I have been told about... One chance to shoot his sniper rifle. In the previous... In the previous story. So he's definitely making up for last time. I'm gonna keep running towards the kim. I mean, I'm not really sure what I can do with this point. I certainly couldn't lift anyone out of there. I don't know how to push forward that. All right. So you've done a little bit of a close colonial... All right. Go ahead and make a resumption check, please. Which plus composure is... I forgot again. Five. Just five. Mm-hmm. Minus your wounds? Minus three. Good luck. Yeah. We still have our resolve bonus to mind. And if you look off then... Which has been happening now. Good to know. Good to remember. I just wondered why I have plus six here and then I... From here. What'd you get? Head guard? Absolutely. Absolutely nothing. Nope. You're running towards a house that looks like it's on fire. And obviously there's a lot of action going on there right now. Because the one just got shot in the upper window. And you heard Daniel reporting his report from inside. The interior. So next turn you'll be there. Chew, you're up. I think the zombie goes before I did. You're absolutely correct. It does. He used to walk down the line. He's got a minus one because of your partial cover. And again, another shot. This actually was fairly close. It went into the ward of the pokes by a complete accident. And it's actually quite close now. How many rounds do you... Two pistols hold. There's a little 18. If it's a Glock, it's what? No. 18. 18. That's what mine said. Yeah. Chew's other arm off. God was shot gun. Yep. Chew's other arm off. Let's call only for aiming for the arm as a three. It's full. I have to look it up. I gave him a minus two to John before when he's trying to step on his arm. I'm going to try to blow off his other arm then. Okay. Two minus two. Oh. Oh. Did he do a certain amount of damage for it to come off or just one of his first? Well, they've been... That's probably not me. Yeah. I'm going to make this... So just a minus two then? Minus two and he's wearing Kevlar. So another minus two. All right. Rolling five dice. Now, I'm behind one cover or a concealment that doesn't apply. Yeah. It does. What you do is you take your cover and you subtract one and that's your penalty. So since you're only one, it goes to zero. Gotcha. Rolling five dice then. One success is a nine, so... Nine again? In this case? Come on. Don't chew. Just one. Well, one was... You didn't take his arm off chew, but you shot his arm and it spun backwards and the pistol went flying backwards. And he continues his inexorable march toward you. About how long until he reaches me? Probably two turns. Okay. If I was other hand off, he would be able to grapple you. It's a little fight though. I'll bleed on you. I'll bleed on you too. Chew you fired. You do anything else? Movement wise. I'm pretty much going to stay there. When the helicopter does come, it's going from the east and I'm over here. You're by the fence? I thought he was running to the colonial. No, he was running to the Morton building and then he ran back towards where Michael and none were. We said that's what you did. You kind of rallied towards them because they were in trouble. The week you weren't here? Okay. It was on the fence line about right there. This guy has marked up the fence line shooting and... Was that the one that Michael was having trouble with? That was the one that you moved past as well. Yep. The same zombie. The guy that you helped kill with Jay. Yes. And then the guy who got up in was... This guy shot Nash. Potentially. I mean... Where the fuck was this shot came from? Yeah. I'm just going to stay there. Okay. I mean it could have been the... The tan. Could have been a guy in the helicopter. He continues to pray and move in the direction and try to hold off the pewter demons. We are now at Daniel. Daniel, what have you got? Alright. I put on my finger out of my body. Oh. I kicked the gun away. Not a buddy. Just some guy you had to chow with and... Yeah, I met my victim. Right. I kicked the gun away and like throw myself on the fire trying to put it out. My fire. The one that's spreading. I'm going to stop dropping a roll all over this gasoline field fire. Oh, brilliant. Well, we will cover you in gasoline. I know. I'm trying to think of a better way to solve this. But... The fire begins. A couple of things I guess could give you an idea. You've walked into a living area. It was a long area, probably about 30 foot long. Maybe about 15 feet deep. And it really was a living room, if you will. There's couches. There's a teeny, you know, battered teeny set. There's a bunch of chairs. Do you have a map like of this? No, I don't. I'm just taking it up my head. We might need it later as well. On the right hand side, the stone colonial continued into a kitchen area. The kitchen area was on fire when you walked in. You spun around the stairs where the far end of this long room was the living room that you were in. The gentleman was running up the stairs. You shot him. He gobbled back down. You moved across that 30 foot space. Well, actually, he wasn't 30 feet away. He was more like 13 or 23. Your shallow stairs. You've moved up, stepped on his arm, and the fire continues to roll up the walls. And twice the floor. The stone is on the outside of the house. The inside house is a lot of old, dry wood. A quick scan around the areas I can only see right now. Is there a fire extinguisher around? Great question. I would check the kitchen honestly, but I don't know if I have it in sight, totally. There is nothing in a quick sight. And again, you've got flames, you've got some smoke. You've got the situation that's turning a little bit dire here down in the lower level. And you've seen no fire extinguisher inside. Just pictures and pictures and pictures of a 14-year-old girl. I look at my friends and say, "I've got to put this out." And I'm waiting for him to give me a suggestion, and I start walking to the kitchen. He said, "Is you a walker's kitchen?" He says, "What a burn." I think you burn, motherfucker. See, I would have been standing out his hand and kicked him in the head with the other foot and then went upstairs. But that was me. I don't know that I could come down into a place in inferno and get out with whatever's upstairs going to heckle me. Okay, so you talked to him as a free action. He talked back to you as a free action. You're walking towards the fire? In the kitchen, because I believe a fire extinguisher would be there if they have one on their own. I'd say over the mic, the fire raging in the kitchen. Okay, you start walking towards the kitchen. The heat is relatively intense. You're getting a lot of, I don't know how much it's spread. Again, there was a lot of wood and it was old dry wood. And whatever was used to start the fire was a military-grade accelerant. So you take two steps towards it. It's like... Day pump. You feel a ton of heat coming in your direction. You know that going into the kitchen is probably going to... Endanger me? Endanger you. You are wearing Kevlar, but... I don't think Kevlar just wants you going to spray us. Right. I'm going to spin one turn right then. But I need to make sure there's nothing I'm missing that I can stop this with. Okay. So you move to the towards the kitchen as close as you can get, which is not even to the front door if you came in at this point. Because the fire is really starting to pick up pace. And you look towards the kitchen and... Go ahead. Make a... I really shouldn't have stiffed those hands. You just jumped on the fire while it was tiny. Well, it was tiny, but with the potential to reel. You would have a tiny... I see a lot of potential. That is not spread. Right. Jumping in that pile would have just spread it quicker. It would have been ugly. You're going out of a window. The bench. Okay. It's just... Yeah. Military grade accelerants burn under water. I mean they're... Yeah. Okay. I thought it was just dry wood. You want to really open... Right. You don't spec up a little bit because... Daniel is of the military mind and training that John is not. Sure. I don't mind taking the stuff back. I don't mind you doing anything. I mean, it's a military grade fire. I still get gun away and say, rather than helping solve this problem, I should get out of here. And I start marching my way upstairs. He said... Let it burn. Just successfully said anyways. And you start running off the stairs. I still pissed a lot about it. Right. If you remember, I had that out. Yes. Give me an athletics plus dexterity check because you weren't the stairs, please. I don't know if I had a pistol. I think I shot him with a rifle, honestly. No, I usually... I think you... No, I thought you pulled it out the first turn. No, maybe he shot him with a rifle through the wall. Yeah. So you still have your rifle up? I say, hold on, I'll enter first and then you're like, here, he's up the stairs. That's enough room? Yeah, fire. So I stole the rifle. Rob, I don't know if I'll be able to use it upstairs. So what is your athletics plus dexterity, please? One plus dexterity of two. Is there a sniper in our assault rifle? It's the military sniper rifle that the snipers had. I took it from him. I'm just saying those are in indoor situations. Those are pretty unwieldy. Right. And they're not really good at short range. They are not really good at short range. We'll see you actually back down. Well, you realize when someone's close. And so to chew, it's very difficult to get out. Don't try the shot. Minus one die for the smoke and the stairs are actually really old and freaky. And maybe you're going to put your foot through one on the steps. Go ahead. Okay. He's a ricky old staircase. Well, two and a six. No. So you move halfway up the stairs and your foot goes right through one of the steps. And see. It's gorgeous. Luckily, the Kevlar that you're wearing on your legs protects your legs. You don't take any splinters or damage. But you basically stick your foot through. Your Kevlar protects you from the wood splinters. And you can't pull your leg back out if you'd like. That would be your double move for the turn. Yeah, I will do that. Okay. Anything like, am I above the floor line? You're halfway up the stairs. You're a tall man and a heavy man. Which is why your foot went through. Kind of handsome. Don't dance. Don't dance. This is what you are. So you can see. Well, yeah. You can definitely see at the top of the stairs, there's a door that's slightly open or a jar. But you cannot see into the room except to know that there's a very low light. Like candle, a small lantern. Something. There's a very low degree of light in the room. And it's hidden. Because a bit brighter, pretty soon. Somewhat closed. Go ahead and make a roll please. And we're going to say that it's fully leg out. Dexterity plus, I don't know. Athletics? Strength plus athletics. Good luck. This is four toes. That's fine. Go ahead. No minuses. Your foot comes back up through ripping out shards of wood and basically the entire step disintegrates as you pull your shotgun display. You follow me. And you take one step towards going back up the stairs and that's when your turn out. And that takes us to Jay. What has the helicopter been doing for the whopping three seconds? The whopping three seconds is still coming in at you. You can't tell if it's seeing you or not. It actually goes after you. Well, one after me last turn. Yeah, it did go after your last turn and it kept coming. So it's... I thought he went after him like it was a fan. No. It is now over the hillock. Well, it's not probably going to shoot the people on the hillock. You guys are safe. They're not on the hillock. They're actually kind of covered by it, you know, behind it almost. Yeah, but they don't have to shoot at them anymore. Right. Unless they pull it off. Yeah, that's not going to work. Yeah. But that's not happening at this point. Jay, I will continue my actions for three more seconds. You're out of people's snipe. Oh, no, I can snipe the pilot and then I can guarantee you I can hit that guy in the helicopter. I'll be a little tough. I mean, not to hit it just to get through the glass. You understand it's going to be bulletproof. It shoots so rinses. No, I don't even have that anymore. I have it, but I take a turn to load. Mm-hmm. All right. So you do your actions for three more seconds. Do you say anything over the loudspeaker? I mean, I'm sorry. Over the mic. You're saying loud speaker? Yeah, I don't have a loud speaker. Land. No. Okay. I called to the helicopter. Okay. And here's a highlight in the helicopter. Respond. There's a helicopter. We're safe. Oh, good. Make a... So you made it to the stunt wall, man. Not something like that. You want to go in? I couldn't even lift someone to pull them out if I could. Well, I think I'll just watch. I'll just watch the sideline. It's beautiful. As a stealth helicopter is coming in, it's probably not more than 100 feet off the ground. And you hear that hollow sound when it's firing something. Mm-hmm. And you see what looks to you to be now a missile come screeching overhead of you. Ages. And it's a big thing. Oh, we're dealing with the whole new level of bullshit. Yeah. BS. You see two... They look like almost like they're just an oddly shaped missile. And they're short. And it's not like they have the fins on them. It's just they look bulky and... They arrive. What's that? They arrive before three seconds, right? They don't drop off. They do the pimp and then you hear it out. I'm sure they're supposed to explode or something. He hears a sound going overhead. And both of them strike along the front of the stone colonial. And the colonial... He tases the house. No, the colonial is just... The front of it just goes up in flames. It seems to be some sort of, again, a napalm or some type of fire. Right. That they fire it onto. And you feel the house rock. It wasn't, though. It wasn't a explosion. So, the napalm itself is actually an explosion of the fireball. This is more of... It's almost as if the missile hit some kind of flammable item ran up the side of the house. And then there was some kind of spark that lit a flame. So you felt a huge jolt which pushed you to the side. But it wasn't... If they hit this house with napalm, the house would probably have been absolutely leveled. It was something that looks like fire. And maybe they want to make it... Look like it naturally burned. I report to Daniel that you've got to move faster. The outside of the house. I'll just flame. Spend all my will. I bring out my sniper. And I'm driving this guy away or taking him out next shot. Right. And he is about halfway to the stone colonial at that point. So he's right above you almost at that point. That directly above you by being like at a 45 degree angle up on your sniper rifle. That's where that copter is at this point. I want to know something. Sure. Can our radios do like a full band transmission? Sure, why not? Because then we can contact them. I mean, no matter what channel they're on, they'll hear it. What do they hear? They just ignore our clear warning until... There was a warning of one guy in the darkness going on. Everything's on fire. There's no darkness anymore. They saw. Yeah, well, this tells me two things. Obviously, he's part of the same group. Not in front. They're part of the Operation Red Burn or whatever the hell they call it. Burn burning. Alright. Hey, I guess you know, they're going to burn everything. And we have a flashback. Which will end the night on it. Oh. After you guys do the search of finding the names of the two dock workers who were founded in the Kyahoga River, you do a search all morning long. That's about noon by lunchtime. That's what two and Michael Clay have come up with is. Okay, we know one wife isn't used and at least Lassus reported. Another one lives in the near west side. I've got her address and her phone number. I've got the police report. And he's got the coroner's report as well. So you guys have as much information as you were able to grab that four hour span. Binary comes back online with a text. Alright. I've reached the end of the info train. I don't know where to make of this, but Danny's grand finale took place at the Cleveland police men's museum. And it seems like it was a success. Although nothing. I mean nothing was reported in any of the media of the day. I got that from a final post from an apparently stoked Danny. And I quote, "We did it. We found her. And everything he told me is true. I've got her back again and I'm never going to lose her." Time for a long deserved retirement away from all this darkness. Time to put things right with my girl. Then they'll try to find me, all of them will. But I'm never going to let them hurt her or us again. The dot workers are officially done. Don't try to look for us. We won't be happy to see you. We won't play nice. Because the truth is you can't win. You can't beat them. The best you can do is survive. And that's what I plan on doing far away from these bloody streets. You should all do the same. End quote. And then a text comes across from binary. Something's happened. I got to go dark. Good luck. Remember, don't take it afterwards. I'll be in touch if you survive. Bye, Nairn. Out. You got his daughter back. She's a werewolf. Both she and the other guy are upstairs. She's a werewolf? I'm not going to be a vampire. We're dealing with vampires from the dots. We're dealing with vampires from the dots. How far do they? Uh, I was... You found them? I'm not sure. I mean, they can be feral. They can be, you know... And it made their blood starve. That's why I thought maybe... Well, she got... I think one guy's had blown up and there was blood out there. I thought maybe she'd be busy sucking that down. Or... I don't know. But did he die again? With his flashback, we're kind of using the knowledge of the photos all over the wall and... The fact of daughter's. Oh, why? I mean, you wouldn't know that at the time, but you wouldn't know. No, no, no, no. I was speaking as of now, not in the flashback. Okay. There was nothing that binary is reported to you. To answer a choose question of how the daughter died. Just that she was 14, got it sucked. Well, I think that was his quote was something among those lines was... But he said he got his daughter back. And playing she wasn't dead. He never said so. Well, she... I'll say he did say so. He said she. Did he recover his daughter? I won't worry with the details. Danny met someone or something called ransom. This is round 98 or so. Right before he lost, loses his daughter. Yeah, that part sucked. She was only 14. Doesn't go in much detail, but you can tell he's her daughter doesn't mean that she's dead. No, but he was dead and he caught up. But then he recovers her, and what I think is kind of weird is that... I'm happy to read that paragraph again with the most recent one. Yeah, the most recent one. And I can also text it so that you have her with her. But eventually we did it. We found her, and everything he told me is true. I've got her back again, and I'm never going to lose her. Time for a long, deserved retirement away from all this darkness. Time to put things right with my girl. They'll try and find me. All of them well. But I'm never going to let them hurt her or us again. The dot workers are officially done. Don't try to look for us. We won't be happy to see you. We won't play nuts. Because the truth is, you can't win. You can't beat them. The best you can do is survive. And that's what I plan on doing far away from these bloody streets. You all should do the same. So, if we go with your premise that she... I mean, you know, in modern age, at the Shagrin farm, we go with the premise that you're correct. That she's not a werewolf, but a vampire? She's so entire. Who knows. But if we go with the vampire, the reason the pictures all over the wall are of her to remind her of her humanity. Plus, you maybe can't record her or take pictures of her with photographs. But they have to be portraits, and they have to be images and drawings. Some of them are pictures. Some of them were. But two, and again, maybe Daniel might have muttered over the lousy family. You know, we just saw pictures. Some of them were snapshots and photos. Some of them were portraits. All of them were when they were all when she was the same age. 14. Well, at least you assume it's 14, because that's what you had. There's no dupe photo. There's no baby pictures. There's no... Hey, this is what she's a toddler. This is what she's a baby. This is whatever. It's all when she's 14. Almost like the same picture, but, like, tweaked a little bit to make it different. Over, and over, and over again. Well, which doesn't really ruin your idea, because... No, let's just say something super nice. If he finds her when she's 15, then he can't take a picture. Yeah, this will be answered when Daniel steps through the door. Yes. Or at least part of it. Right. But another disturbing thing seems to be that his last hurrah mission that recovered her happened at the Policemen's Museum. Yes, the Cleveland Policemen's Museum. You know, we have one of them. Google it. Ransom. No, I mean, gave him the information to find her. It's part of the story. Right now? If you want. Yes, but it's not uncommon for unclean entities to seemingly help to benefit when really the long game is going to be a... You did retire Danny. No, I don't know why he didn't start all that at all. I'm sorry, I'm babbling. Sometimes when you're, you know, a bad spirit or entity will help for a certain amount of time before, you know, really any help it offers ends up causing more trouble. Okay, and Michael Clay would know nothing at all about that at all. You're a pretty serious spirit. Yeah, pretty shit. Helping out for the long run. Did you find he got time? Well, that worked out pretty well for you. Sure. If I can call upon him. Did he get phone number? If anyone else feels. I just got written and left. If I can work for another five minutes, you can Google the Cleveland... I'm feeling the scene is going to take a little longer than... Yeah. Okay. After the next week. Thanks for listening to the Knights of the Night at Action Play podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures. Where you will 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 podcasts or business, please visit ZenaudioSmith.com. And please, join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. [music] Huh. It turns out that we killed all the Valkyrie people that we're trying to find. Now they're down 16. This is a cool well with HQ. They're HQ. Not here. Todd Basriel? Nope. Sorry. So happy these reference? Alright, yes. I unfortunately caught that. So, we've got... [laughter] Marion! Well, only old people will get that joke. You're a tall man and a heavy man. Which is why your foot went through. And it handsomely. Don't dance. Sexy beast is what you are. You see what looks to you to be now a missile. Come screeching overhead of you. Angels. [laughter] It's amazing. [laughter] Oh, we're dealing with the whole new level of bullshit. Yeah, BS.
