Following Jay's orders the team cautiously approach the farmstead in the dead of night. But when point-man Edgard takes a single step onto the farmstead proper things turn dangerously violent in an instant...Actual Play starts at 16:24:03
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 104: Chagrin - First Contact
[music] Hello, and welcome to Night to the Night in Actual Play podcast. This world of darkness story she grew in was written and run by her storyteller Scott. [music] And now, please enjoy episode 104, titled "First Contact". [music] When we get into the episode, we got a little bit of feedback. Also, from Facebook, first bit was from Martin, please, by like, sorry again, Martin. [laughter] He said in his feedback that we hack his name, but it was normal that we should hack his name 'cause it's difficult to pronounce, so I just wanted to give my two cents. Maybe he could phonetically give us a hint. Does it help the young Americans, Martin, or Russian, or? I really don't know. He was all those wise, I think it's Russian, right? It's definitely slobbing. Of some, I guess. Right. Eastern European of some sort. Anyways, I'm going to try to read through this without interrupting Martin, and then we can comment on it. And Martin says, "Hello, once again, first, please excuse my English because it is not my native language, and we do easily forgive you, Martin." Not see, I'm already interrupting myself. Ignore this. I'm interrupting. Don't interrupt. Time, stop interrupting yourself. Yeah, that's exactly right. Now that you've teased me at the beginning of the second world of darkness story, I have to listen to your Dresden Files game. In the beginning, it was only to pass the time while I was waiting for a moral world of darkness releases, and now I'm really interested. Good job, guys, and it's very enjoyable to listen to you all. By the way, yes, I have finished my version of shitlock with our group. And we'll get that long ago, he commented that he was running it for interrupting him. Yes. I am. We all had a lot of fun, and would like to thank you all for the inspiration. It is really interesting how different the same story can feel with other players and points of view. We started not as agents, but as normal, upstanding citizens who realized something was not right in their city. Through some circumstance, they joined together to investigate this. You played in the city of New Orleans, so the city spirit was very different. And we wanted not to be changed into some organized working drone, but to remain all that New Orleans stands for. Major differences were they were being introduced to Side Street Billy by some old school hunters who wanted the werewolf to be killed. The players realized Side Street Billy could be a potential ally in the fight against the spirits, and befriended him at first, and killed him, and killed him later. After they had killed and eaten one of them to end quote statement. One player character had been infected by the bee spirit. Before they disposed of Tammy Song, seeing her as a completely possessed by spirits and not to be trusted in any form, players watched her bring her son to school. These were wonderful situations for a hunter game. The player characters had to realize that the monsters are not horror movies, stereotype, but they seem to be normal human beings with feelings, family, and normal lives. But despite all of this, they do not follow normal morals and ethical behaviors, and often see themselves as better than mere humans. I do not want to type a giant wall of text here, so I'm going to stop for now, and thanks again for the podcast, I really enjoyed it. Even if you butchered my name in episode 79, just kidding, it's quite hard to pronounce if you don't know how, but you didn't tell us how. You know, there's no phonetics. I know, it would be nice to tell us how. Why was the bone, Martin? I don't know. I see you struggle. Your English is wonderful. And we would like to know where you come from. That's hard to criticize someone who speaks more than one language, when we can really become Americans who speak only fairly English. It does sound interesting the way he took the same story and twisted it a little bit. And if any of the fans could have been here to see Mike pumping his fist in anger when they said it was discussed out of the werewolf, he could be an owl. Yeah, our group is for the most part in that adventure, a little hesitant on killing anybody. At first, things are situations, especially the big powerful bad guys were a little nervous about the repercussions and didn't really want to pull the trigger or anybody's super bad, but it's kind of funny to hear how in their campaign, just poof, he's gone. Right. He's bad. Tammy's gone. Billy's gone. And that's, you know, obviously, especially if it's a one shot, that's a very legitimate way to handle it. You guys are playing an arc of what I imagine will be seven stories by the time we're done. And I think that you were undercover, I mean, you're a government agency that was undercover, so you were trying to make as small footprint, yes, in the supernatural or just you didn't want to make yourself screaming out, here we are kind of situation. So definitely, I think the situation to the player characters, the way they started had a way to play into the different way the campaigns went. But players too, you know, I don't know if you guys would have just offed Billy if it was a one shot. I don't know that he could have. Sure enough. Just to wrap up, I want to thank Martin for sharing that story with us because it was very hard for people to take the same adventure or pieces of the adventure. Right. And just the fact that we inspired somebody to try a certain type of campaign, that's just really cool. So thanks. Appreciate it, Martin. We also had some feedback from Scott Lee McDonald on the same episode, but he was talking more about, well, I'll go on. He says, "Woo-hoo, listen to episode 101 and my feedback from about two months ago was mentioned on the air, chuckles, now to listen to the backstory of shitlock." Which was discussed in episode 102. Mr. McDonald was referring to the fact that leaving up to episode 100, we asked for feedback and he gave that feedback two months earlier and we saved all that feedback. Which the only thing I want to address with that is we recorded that in two different sessions and we ended up losing one of them or part of one of them and then we had to re-record them. So if people did submit questions that we never answered, our intention was to answer them all. If you didn't, that's our fault, please resubmit it or let us know and we'll gladly answer your questions. And we're glad that he's excited enough to get into the World Darkness and to go back and listen to the first story. We also had a comment from Cal Ordo who said, "Yeah, Hunter is back. I miss the undisciplined antics of this group. Keep the good times rolling and try not to get anyone killed." Cal Ordo is actually a member of the armed forces for our country and thank you for your service. Absolutely. And also for... We don't know what bridge? I don't know how much I want to... Good enough. If you have a visit. But he also chuckled rather heartily at the fact that the ganam using apparently as Jay is a stationary sniper weapon that is pretty much a turret that is not... And you're just hoisting it out? I'm always on the top of a car and I'm putting over there. That's how powerful you are when you get your drugs in your suit. I told him we're going to have to hire him as our military expert to talk about me. Yes. That's interesting. What friend of critique in the story? Yeah, absolutely. It's a special modified version of that version. Yes. All plastic. Very loud. Thank you for the feedback, Cal. We also had some feedback from episode 102 in which Tyler Houdek said, "Great episode is always." Ari also posted, mentioning family getting around to this episode today. Did a little heresy though and listened to another actual play. And though those players were actors and did an excellent job of acting out the roles, the game side was less, well, way less satisfying than KOTN. The point that almost maybe quit listening was when the GM said that the role would not be checked and it would work as the GM decided instead. Ooh. That's far. Looking forward to delving into the world of darkness again. Ari, I don't even know who you are anymore. You cheated on us then, you know. The thing is, I have, and you have too, just said we're going to use this role and go on. We've done that, but it's usually when everyone at the table is in accordance and is at a time-saving maneuver. It doesn't happen very often. If it's something important, you look it up. Usually it's when, oh, this is taking too long, we're just going to hop for now and hold it on. Yeah, I think the way you're really looking for flow in a game. And so sometimes you can just say, hey, this is the rolling for right the second, we'll go back and look it up when it's done and we'll correct it for future sessions. But the way he made it sound was as if the GM might have been a bit pompous and... Yeah. P.S. Thanks again for the birthday wishes. It's a translation, Tom, and I am in no way finished with your podcast. Mm-hmm. Great. He posted two different ones and I took them and put them together and I... Oh, yeah. We get lots of feedback from Ari, so no worries there. I mean, I think you should go and listen to other podcasts. Oh, I'm fine. If you're enjoying ours, then go listen to some others. If anybody is listening to another podcast, actually a podcast they like and enjoy, feel free to let us know in and we'll let other people know about that. Well, listen to it if we enjoy it and maybe even steal ideas from it. I'm not above that, huh? We also had a comment from Chris Naples who says, "Episode 102, thoroughly enjoyed all of it. Great job, guys. I know the voting is over for the characters for delivery, but London was my favorite character for sure. Can't beat the interaction he had with just about everyone. Sometimes I burst out laughing while driving to work and listening. Keep up with the awesome job and the stories so far have been outstanding. Maybe not the New Dragon can stuff, but hey, it was a way to interview the system. Can't wait for the next episode. It turned out more for us than most of us. Yeah, that really was. I guess it could've. There's been a lot of responses that said it was canned. I think it's just because our other stuff is so creative or to some extent. Well, I think we docked it too. Yeah. So we knew it was a one shot. We weren't really playing up to our level. I guess we never had to release it, but at that point we hadn't started to deliver yet and I didn't know if we were going to play it and we wanted to get drugs out there. I think it's some form. The biggest problem with it is I wasn't there for most of it. Yes. It's probably why the fans don't like it. I would say you're right. I'd like to say that thank you very much for the compliment. Being the player of London, it's very nice that someone took time to say they enjoyed and laughed a couple of times when he said things. So thank you. I appreciate that. But we did decide that it was a tie. It was officially a tie. It was officially a tie. Even though I appreciate his thoughts. Okay. From RBG crosstalk, we had a post on episode 102, chagrin, in media res. And it was from Peter, who was also known as PAIP. I was surprised how excited it was about the return to a high city. Insert fan voice, Wheel of Delight. Starting in the middle of things is a bold choice, kudos to the players if they can stick with it. For a moment, I thought that the entire episode was going to be a discussion about getting out of the van, but eventually it's going to be worth it. Yeah. Instead, welcome to our play style. Now I was wondering what harmless, natural phenomena is going to be frightened with menace forevermore. I still can't look at bees the same way. Peter. Every single adventure we have, we have one situation where we stand in front of some type of portal. Or ear ears. Some hours on any. You can even be like a bunch of kind of cross this portal. How do we cross this? How do we cross the street? I don't know. How do we cross the street? Should we go to the light? Should we just jane walk? We had a post on a KOTN podcast.com, our blog site, also on episode 102, in which Beth's breath said, "I got shiverish when I heard the intro music for the Hunter game. Please keep them coming." So we sure will. And one last bit of feedback we have from the forums White Wolf, in which there is a post about our actual play. Tiberian says, "After listening to your whole podcast, I started out at the 20 minute mark. I have to say, you have a good game going. I'm not a Hunter the Vigil fan, but I enjoy what sounds like the beginning of a great session. I hope you pick up where you left off in the next podcast. Everything that I would like to suggest is keeping the level of the game mechanics maybe a little more hidden from the listener. This is simply a personal preference. But whenever I run a game, we don't actually call out the number of our successes, instead we use a very simple hand signal. So a closed fist is zero, one finger up is one, and so on. If you score more than five successes, you quickly open up and close your hand, then showing successes and excessive five. This way the storyteller can see the dice results without having to pause to listen to the player. It's still necessary to call out appropriate dice pulls, but doing this makes the game run a little quicker in my experience. I really like the way you handle the questions of, "Did the Hunter's Cell bring along what are essentially glorified walkie-talkies?" Making it into a dice roll in which everyone has to contribute made for an interesting situation where you can have a limited amount of retroactive equipment checking. But nothing unbelievable. Very nice. And I definitely keep this in mind for future games. By the way, it sounded like you were reading the description of the scene from a piece of paper. The way you talked in short and punctuated sentences instead of a more free form description of the general environment. I liked it though, although it sounded very odd without seeing whether you had a piece of paper in your hand. In an earlier post, Tiberian also mentioned after a little bit of guesswork, I found the mp3 file. The site doesn't have a streaming service, which bugs me, but whatever, which is framed to our kotmpodcast.com site. We're going to try to change it around a little bit, and at least when we post up a new episode include the direct link into there. Thanks to him for the suggestion, or at least for bringing it to our attention so that we could... He also mentioned starting 20 minutes in, which on each one of them I post where the actual play starts. So if people are new and don't want to listen to feedback on previous ones, or some people just don't like feedback at all, then they have the option to skip right to where the story starts. Another comment he made was, "You hope it continues along exactly where we left off," which it will. Probably an evidence to anybody who's listened for any length of time. But we play once a week. Our play sessions are longer than an hour, and we don't like our episodes to go over an hour mark because I find it difficult to listen to two or three-hour podcasts. We try to keep our smaller, and we edit them down. Given that, one night usually yields between two to three podcasts. And so some of the podcasts will end. Sometimes hopefully on a cliffhanger or a logical stop point, and then we'll continue on with the rest of that in the next podcast. In the White Wolf Forum, I responded to a couple of his thoughts or observations, like the dice rolling mechanic. It seems as if the vast majority of our listeners actually enjoyed that. I don't think we overdo it, but we certainly have people who want to live and die with the dice rolls with the players. And I think it's a part of our game that works for us. As I'm sure some of our older listeners know, we've discussed this before, whether to leave the rolls in, whether it goes to truly just story, or whether to have roll discussion in there. We've decided to leave a little more of the rolls in because some people like to listen to the podcast for the reason of understanding how to play the game. And if we take all that information out, it makes it useless to them. And if it does distract some people and kind of draw them out of the story, well, I apologize for that. Right. It's just a decision we have to make as to what we think our listeners want the most. And while I'm certainly a big fan of all story, it just seems like our listeners really like to know what's being rolled, how many successes were there, just so they can kind of, you know, like that moment of, is he going to make it or is he going to make it like, for instance, you know, Tony and his last roll in the first story shit lock. And there were other ones, obviously, that were for the episode right before this one in which one of the characters I think it was maybe Thomas's character. Yeah. I think it was four dice and rolled more successes or at least as many successes. It was picking a lock in the front of the door. So not to say that his viewpoint isn't valid, just not what worked for us in the podcast around the table. But thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, we're absolutely open to suggestions and we will make changes if it doesn't affect, for instance, putting a link up or showing where it started. You just want to listen to the play. That doesn't affect anybody, but I don't think that we're going to radically change our style ever. Right. We are playing because we enjoy playing the podcast as a side effect of that. Right. People obviously enjoy and listen to, but we're probably not going to change our style too much as far as that goes. But the first two posts and what we'll form, both had to do it. The first one was I can't find the link and the second one was you have to look a little bit which brought us to including the link now on our podcast page. So thanks for your suggestion. Use the Amazon link on kotmpodcast.com to help support the podcast. I won't even discuss Paul because there's only a few votes. There's only been a few episodes. The holiday season can be up, use those links and we put the Canada link up there for our request. I did mention that last week. Oh, that's right. I apologize. That's right. And with that, we will go on to the adventure. This is the World of Darkness story chagrin, the second story in the vanishing city storyline. My name is Scott. I'm the storyteller. To my right is, I'm Jim. I'm playing Sister Kay O'Connor, None and Crazy Driver. Bob playing Tupac, FBI Special Agent. I'm playing Jay Alton, the leader of this Motley crew. Mike playing Michael Clay, Artifact Hunter. Thomas playing Edgar Montes, Haitian voodoo practitioner. John playing Daniel Morgan, a mountain man turned mercenary. All right, last week, if we recall, we began in the middle of the sugar ring storyline. You found yourself outside a farm in Jaga Township. Task 4 siren was not alone. There were two vehicles parked to either side of the dirt path. You were at least a good quarter to half mile from a back road. It's a cloudy, moonless night. It's incredibly dark out here in the hinterlands of Jaga County. You tried various methods to investigate, found out that the land rovers actually belong to Task 4's Valkyrie, who is 12 missing agents you're trying to uncover the whereabouts of. You also found out that they were from the Project Damski Division of Task 4's Valkyrie and that you tried various methods to get in and eventually settled on having Kay drive through the fence part of the gate. That worked somewhat, made quite a bit of noise. You also disabled the other vehicle for Task 4's Valkyrie that you believe is theirs. And you were all standing on the other side of the fence deep in some woods outside of this farmstead which to your knowledge belongs to Danny Rocklin, who was the absolute star of the Cleveland Hunter scene back in the 80s and 90s and then retired sometime in 2000s. And you're searching for him in order to find out because actually the Task 4's Valkyrie missing agents were searching for him and you're trying to find him to see what might have become of them. Now he actually realized where his location is. Oh, that's where we're at right now. You're all on the opposite side of the fence. Obviously late at night, probably 11 o'clock in the evening. It's a very hot, sweltering night. Your clothes are clean to your body, your covered in sheens of sweat, the air is heavy. It's a very dark night and you're in the woods and you hear crickets and birds and you feel this very, very big sense of isolation and you're away from anything civilized at this point. Out of that, there's some bad-ass Valkyrie agents somewhere in these woods as well, probably up to no good. Am I wrong in thinking that the Valkyrie agents are specifically not to be here. The Valkyrie pulled all of its agents out because they didn't want to lose anymore. They were pulled by higher ups in the government, cease and desist all Cleveland operations. That's what I thought. And I'm sure we all realize that this guy's an experienced rock star former Hunter who I don't think we ever hunters or ever really retire, so crashing as well fortified place in the middle of the night is- He's got to warn him that people are sneaking up on him, yeah. Which I understand, yeah, but that's- Hopefully he'll understand that. But he doesn't know how to identify us as friendly either. That's my only point. No, he does not know you're coming. Edgar. I want you to take point. Go down the road. You're quiet and you're unseen. Definitely. Go down the road about 20 feet in front of us and scout for us. Get to the road. You're 30 foot off the beaten path of the south of the dirt road. Because of where the car crashed through the woods and crippled it. She went off the road. There are already feet down the hill. Yes. Right. All right. We're going to go up to the gate. Then you're going to go about 20, 25, 30 feet in front of us. Keep us in sight, but scout the area and move quietly up the road. We'll follow behind. We got lucky talking. Just down the road. We're not going to stand the edge of the road. We need to move fast. And I assume we all have whatever weapons we had before. Yes. Whatever you have in your character sheet is what you have unless, you know, a situation arise where you can make a really good argument that you have that on you. Okay. What's a Leatherman? So you have a camera? Oh, I've got a Leatherman. I think you got a Leatherman Ultima. How do you do it in here last week when I got through that gate so easy? You would have clipped through that fence in like 10 seconds' length with your Leatherman Plus. Is this where you're mocking me? No. I mean, that Leatherman could have done the job and no one had one. I did. Well, you did. But you prefer to climb the fence and be cold in the park where. I'm sure you've got infrared or night vision lens on your camera. It does both, yes. Could you keep an eye on the woods to see if anything's moving while we move along? Just be sure. Do you want me to check every once in a while? Stay here? No. I don't want you to stay here. Yeah. I want you to go with us. Sure. But you stay in the middle of the pack and scan the woods. Okay. At that point. At that point. You take point. You work your way through the undergrowth. It's hard to be perfectly silent because you are off beaten path and it's pretty dense in this area. Once you go ahead and make a dexterity plus stealth roll to see how quiet you are. Stealth is three. Dexterity is five. That's eight dice. Okay. And I'm going to say for the undergrowth minus two for the darkness minus two. Darkness makes it more. Yeah. This is where you're stopping. This is where you're stopping. Right. Gotcha. The affordance. The affordance. Oh, cool. One success. All right. Edgard moves quietly away. So watch him go up to the gate and scan the area to make sure it's safe and then he calls the soft one. He's ready. Edgard make a perception check please. That would be wits with lost composure. That's just five dice. Total five dice. You're listening and you're looking. So I'm going to give you minus two for the darkness for the looking part of the equation and go ahead and roll your three dice. I got no success. All right. The waist clear? That's clear. How far is he ahead? He's about 30 feet away and through all the underbrush you stop. It's pretty tough to see him now at the road but you hear a whistle or some kind of sound back. Oh, I'm sorry. You have the headsets. He says all clear. I'm the headset. I do have the camera out as a telephoto lens and light vision and infrared. It's not an infrared right now. Just pick up any heat signatures. Right. They're probably in my rifle boats. Right now you're picking up a line signatures because of the warm temperatures and the light is going to happen. All right. Okay. With that, always and everything else is heated up pretty decent from the day. That's right. And then I would probably be on night vision. Okay. So then you switch over to night vision and go ahead and make a perception check, please. Not an investigation. Sit. Straight perception. With plus composure. Rolling seven dice. All right. That's fine. I got two successes. There is nothing within your field of vision which is somewhat limited again because you're in the deep area of the woods but you do catch a hint of Edgard at the road. You don't see anyone else between you and the road or even off towards the farm area. You know, heavier woods towards the farm. Looks clear from way. Start moving down the road. Check in with us. Short interval. Just pick an interval so we know. Every 30 seconds. Just a quick. Clear. And move. Okay. Michael Glenn. Do I know what spherical Danny Brockland was part of? Not for the purposes of right now. Wait. What will we reveal? Okay. So Edgard takes off down the road as per your instructions. Edgard, I'm going to make you make a stealth roll every 50 feet or so that you move forward quietly. Are you sticking to the dirt path? Well, I want a clear range of vision but if it would help to be in the forest, just sneak unnecessarily. It could be just off the side of the path. Once you step 10 or 15 feet into the undergrowth, it's really hard to see the dirt path in there because there's a slope down and there's a lot of undergrowth. There's branches. There's trees, et cetera. But if you look on that map, see how the path goes between those green, foresty areas. So the north and south of the path, that's where you're at right now. You're in the heavy undergrowth part. You haven't broken out of that yet to the clear of the farm. You can't even see the farm from where you're at. And the south patch or the north patch? You can choose. I got the impression around the south patch because we went to the left of the gate. You did go to the left of the gate so you could stick that side if you went into it. You say if I go too far into the woods, it'll just become difficult because I won't be able to see through it. Yes. But if I just stick on the side of the road, would it grant me any benefit to sneaking or would I just be better off with completely clear field of vision in that state? If someone's looking down the path and you're five foot off the path, there's enough cover there if you're moving discreetly to take advantage of it. So yeah, if you're probably going to get an advantage. Okay. Then I'll stick just five feet off the path. Okay. Now, what is everyone else doing? Moving up to the gate, we are not trying to be glad because it isn't possible with this crew. Right. If you're staying about 50 feet behind a guard, is that about correct? Probably closer to 40. If you try to keep them within range of vision, we choose night vision. I don't think it's impossible. I mean, we can at least attempt. We can attempt. That's fine. Yeah. I'd rather attempt. I'd rather attempt. We will attempt to be quiet as we move the gate. Walking down the path, are you trying to walk off the side of the gate? We're walking off to the gate while he's going down the road, and then we're turning and falling him down the road, staying on the side of it. Like he is. Like he is. Okay. That's fine. So what's the role? For right now, I'm going to assume that with the crickets and the birds and everyone being somewhat cautious, you don't need a role because everyone moves forward to some degree. Edgard, you're feeling, you know, pretty comfortable and they're staying their distance. You're staying underneath, you know, you stop at different shrubs and different trees. You're finding some really good coverage. You're moving up. They're slowing down, making sure they're staying at about 40 to 50 feet behind them. 30 seconds. He's checking in with me at the same time, both to choose, scanning the front arc. I'm scanning the back arc with my sniper rifle to just see if we spot any heat signatures. Right. And up to the point where Edgard emerges where the thicket of trees, Edgard, starts to kind of part and open up into the farmland and you can see the path kind of take a turn there towards the farm itself. That's where we'll pick up the action. Edgard has come to that place, you can say what you wish them at that point because you are now out of. You don't have a lot of options as far as cover goes. What you see in front of you is a small hillock, it's not a big hill. It's a small hill that the path goes up and then disappears for a bit and then the farmland stretches out in the distance and in the distance you can see some of the buildings are like little hulking, dark buildings in a distance. Not a lot of light, very hard to see, but you can see some of those outlines from your Google satellite map appear on the horizon, if you will. But there is that hill which is kind of blocking some vision directly behind it for probably a good 15 to 100 feet. This is what the hill looks for. Yes, apparently. What you see is darkness, it looks like the whole place is under a blanket of darkness and it's so dark in the night anyways, you have to sit there for a good 30 to 45 seconds while your eyes really adjust to the open plane and what little light there is coming through, what ambient light you're getting and you can see then those hulking structures start to come out of the darkness, we can kind of see them at that point. What time is this? You're talking about 1130 at night. I just feel it's still likely that he might be awake. If it's completely dark, something might have gone wrong or maybe he's a little low. You're talking about any alarms that are available, he's up if he's a little low. Yeah, but this is my full play. If he has the type of gate with the locks and the setup and experience center, I'm willing to bet there's all sorts of backup sensors or perhaps look out even for traps. What do we crush a van through the side of his fence? That'd be fair. Get away. This guy. From where Edgard is right now to the stone colonial, which is probably close to almost a half mile away and you've moved probably another quarter mile from where the intentional ramming of the fence took place and to be fair it also took place in the woods. I'm not saying it would muffle the sound completely, but certainly having all the trees and the shrubbery around, it's going to lessen the impact that happened in the wide open area. Yes, I would still send him when I cut the power. Yeah, but I still think he might not be on the grid. If I were setting up a compound, I would have the cutting of the power setting off an alarm. And independent generators, if you should live out in Sugarin with us. We're going to cross that. The biggest problem we're going to have here is crossing these empty fields. I want you to stay to the left hand side. Once you're cleared there, we'll follow you up. If I was going to hide something, I'd put it right behind the hillock. I mean, they could be waiting for us, they know. But the hillock's not shown in the map, just to be clear. Right. Well, this is your show, but do we want to kind of be open and direct, keep on the road, and not be approaching covertly and stealthily? I've got six armed guards in two dogs in the woods. I want to be stealth. Right. Can I continue to sneak through this area? You said there wasn't a lot of cover left. You could see the wood starts to peel off, starts really falling away to the south, and it starts falling away to the north. We all gather at the edge of the woods, and then Edgar's going to make a move. Okay. So you all meet together. Right. Okay. So everyone gathers together. It's dark. Sure, and I are scanning the compound. Right. Again, your eyes adjust. You can see the compound starting to come out on the dark. Because there is a little bit of ambient light, obviously, but it's very, very minimal at this point. So you can see the structures. They seem to match up with the structures that are, again, from your satellite map, you were able to procure. There doesn't need to be anything out of the ordinary. You don't hear any noises except for crickets and some night birds making some complaints to each other. Edgar takes one step in the direction of the hillock, and at that point, the birds go silent, the crickets go silent, and you are approached with an unearthly quiet that just falls over this little valley, this little farm valley that you're in, literally when you took one step into the open, that's what occurred. And then everyone needs to make a Wix Plus composure roll, please. There's a little bit of wind, which you're actually somewhat thankful for because it's such a difficult, warm, humid night. So it's minus one because of the wind, the noise of the wind, moving through the grass and the trees, because if this is a hearing thing, they have a seeing thing. Oh. You're just trying to hold our own as we freak out over the sun pockets. No, that's certainly freakable. This Wix Plus composure minus one. Whoo! Oh, really good. Three successes. Three. Four. Jay. Two hat. Three. Three. Four dice. Kitty got one. Kitty got one. I got one. How did Daniel do? Daniel got one. Edgard? I rolled three and two or ten. So ten. Ten. Four. Another ten. And again. Another ten. Exceptional success at five. You're just five. Okay. Five and then Michael Clay. Michael Clay is zero. Zero. Michael Clay is still freaked out by the sound or the last of the song. The sound from the birds and the crickets all stopped and went to that step. It kind of like raised your hackles and you kind of were thrown off a little bit. Everyone here is squeaking. It's like rusted metal that has been oiled in a while. It almost sounds like an old windmill. Because it repeats. Spinning in a stiff wind. Yes, it does. It's almost imperceptible at first and then it's a little bit louder as you listen for a few seconds. And it's definitely coming from the direction of the farm itself. There's this rusted wheel windmill sound coming from that direction of the hillock. Do we recall looking at the map on Google Maps? No? No. You saw some silos, you saw some different farm buildings, some equipment, nothing along those lines. It's then angered. You had obviously an exceptional success on your roll and to you it sounds as if it's a bicycle with a rusted wheel, maybe an older wheel or something because it's going forward and getting closer. That's really weird. It's getting closer. You get back to the wood minding. Okay, who's stepping back towards the wood line of the decking? Oh, who is he hidden if something is going to happen? Okay, so you turn around and kind of start making haste in that direction. Yeah, I'm looking for cover and backing up. Okay. Pulling up my pistol. You may stop in the area where there was just outside of where there was cover. So it's easy to take three steps back and be somewhat shielded from whatever it is that seems to be approaching. I'm staying put and scanning the compound. Standing. Kneeling. Kneeling. Prawny. Okay. Trying to be quiet as I retreat back to the cover. Okay. Michael Clay will use a stealth step back and just inside the tree line and also kind of spread out of it. I don't want to be grouped up together for probably a big bomb. I had live problems. And Daniel. Big wood weapons. I'll back up into the trees but bring out the right hand. Anyone turning around or is everyone backing up and stumbling through the wood line? Michael Clay would look backwards and backwards. And impacts and go slowly, right? So you're kind of taking your attention away from the noise. Yes. I'll turn away from the noise. The noise was coming from the farmer. It's coming from beyond the hill. I definitely am paying attention to the noise. I mean just more than other people might be as I know what it is and where it's approaching it from. So I don't think I'd turn around. Okay. What do I want to add? Do you're stepping right back into the arms of the creature? Yeah. Okay. I'm assuming if I'm taking the frontward arc that she's taking the back. Right. He's got military trains and you never know. Do I'm an FBI? It's a little bit. They're a military. Okay. I'm going training. Katie, turning around, keeping your eye on the hill. Oh, I'm keeping an eye on whatever we can. Backing up slowly and just backing up slowly. Yeah. Basically keeping an eye on where the sound's coming from and there's some of us that aren't backing up. Only one. It's there. Only one. I'm covering him. Yeah, I'm still on the point. Shoot. Turning around. I'm not turning around. I'm going to try to cautiously back up a little bit. I'll have my camera out so I can possibly catch a glimpse of him. All of those who are cautiously backing up without turning around, make a stealth plus dexterity roll, please. Let me know how many dice you have before you make the roll. I'm not doing anything. You turned around. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, I'm back to the back of the door, please, today. Katie has three dice. Katie, you have three dice. I'm going to do minus one for not looking. As you're backing up, you can't remember what was back there, but you're kind of going off memory. So, good luck. I got a one and a two. Well, and we shouldn't get two ones triple versus carrier habit. So, she backs up and she, she steps on a twig that makes a little bit of noise, so she does not back up gracefully. Can I judge about how far away the sound is, how much time we have until it's within visual range? It sounds like it's just on the other side of the hillock. Three seconds, six seconds. It's not a big hill. Yeah, you would say probably less than the turn or two. All right. I'm going to go ahead and back up then after I hear Katie make a bunch of noise. All right. So, you're going to turn around and back up. I'm just going to back up. Oh, actually I'm saying since she's already made some noise, who cares? Okay. Go ahead. What's your role? Dexterity plus stealth is three. All right. Mine's one for you as well. One. All right. One success. You do it recently and you're fairly well hidden where she's kind of a little bit more out in the open. Daniel, you said you were turning around. Yes. I suspect it's going to be a diversion. So, go ahead and make a stealth plus dexterity role please to move quietly and with camouflage into a better position. Yeah. Two dice. Two dice. Which brings you down to one dice, which is not a chance dice. So, you're going to roll at one. It's good. Seven. So, very close. Yeah. You move back into the thicket. But you made a little bit of noise and you're still a little bit exposed. Mike, go ahead. Make your roll. I have stealth plus dexterity is five. Okay. I'm not going to go minus because you turn around the look and you've been in that little thicket anyways. So, you kind of are a little bit familiar with the area. I'm not going to give you a minus for the darkness. Go ahead and roll. All right. Hey. One success. Excellent. And last, not least. Edgard. I'm going to turn around. What's your stealth plus dexterity please? Eight. Eight. Eight. Minus one for not turning around. Three. Three successes. Excellent. Sure. Okay. You move quietly into the stealthy position and all as well. I want to use static moral support in case this is some sort of sort of mental thing just to bolster everybody's bravery a bit. Okay. It just takes a couple words from the primary and secondary. Yeah. It's basically like easy guys. So, together this is nothing we can't handle. It's done by the primary and the secondary. The primary has to have resolve of two, empathy of one. You got that? I can do this. I can do this. Or manipulation of three. Resolve. Okay. Go ahead. Well, it would make sense if you were the primary because you're the leader or your calling their nerves. I can be either of the alternates. So, go ahead. You'd be the alternate. Calm them down a bit. You just roll. Whites plus expression. I have four dice. Do you need to take any minuses? Edgard, you've said, I think it's a bike or did you not? I did. Okay. So, the sound is, is a little bit more reassuring. I'm going to give no dice penalty at all for your attempt. Just. Wipe. Maybe carriage. An evil baby carriage at the bottom, right? You're supposed to be a fucking encourage. Oh, that's right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. No, it's a force again. It's a baby carriage. Two successes. One is a zero. Ten again. Oh. Zero three successes. Ten again. Oh, zero three successes. Ten again. Zero three successes. Oh, four successes. I don't even need to talk. He's got it on. All right. Four successes. Four successes. So, very nice. All right. I've got five dice on mine. Good. All right. I'm very suited. We've done this before. We practiced this. Everyone call. I've only held one. So, I'm like, yeah, what he said. All right. Michael's right, everyone. Yeah. Chill. Chill. Game over, man. Game over. Well, we can't hurt you. Did you get Michael's bonus dice on your roll? I think he should be primary. Now. But I think you had his four extra dice is how that works. Oh, I didn't do that. I wanted to throw him and draw my game. Oh, my God. Tiggly was like, no way. A nine. A zero. A zero. Wow. Wow. So, that's four more. That's total of five with three exploding. That was zero. That was zero. So, that's six. And that's it. Okay. So, in the effect is? Total of six. So, that is added to the six dice or added to the resistance trade for the purposes of countering mental or emotional control of some kind. Right, okay. So, if any kind of... It comes. Like, how is that led to the entire series? The whole thing. Guys, we trained for this. We got it. Let's go. Look at the guy. It's much better. That's how it should go. So, your eyes strain in the blackness. Everyone's eyes are trained to top of the hill up to see what will happen, but you don't hear anything but that damn squeaking, getting louder and louder and louder. Each second seems like your heart's starting to beat in time with the squeaking of this wheel. And finally, you see a shadow fast approaching down the hill through the fields of grass away from the barn. It's someone on a bike with wide hips, unkempt hair. The bike is only barely in control. It bounces down the hill like a runaway horse. As it approaches, you're certain you hear someone, a woman sobbing. Double tap or just be sure to see what that is. All this double tap. Is it coming down the road? Towards up? Yes. It's coming over the hill and down towards you right now. So, she's away from the farm, coming down the path, pedaling like a crazy woman. The bike is, like I said, it's an older bike. She's a larger woman. It's barely in control as it's going down this hill. And eventually, she hits the bottom of the hill and she's speeding towards you at this point. Not knowing it because she's looking backwards, her hair is just whipping in the wind. You want to stop her? I stand out and I'm going to stop her. Right. We can try to let it maneuver and take somebody out peacefully. So, explain to me what you're doing specifically, Jay. I'm going from a kneeling position to a standing position and holding up my hands. My don is at my side. Stilt and reach, put it into my side. Like, whoa, hold it. Stop. So, you've got your guns on the grass next to you? It's kind of leaning against my life. Okay. So, barrel. Barrel down or barrel up. Barrel up. It's got good social skills. It's not me. I do. But, she's in the hurry. I can lie. She's looking back to the ladies. And he's looking back. He's looking back to the girls because I'm thinking it wasn't anybody on that outside. I don't know. I don't know. The other block range. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Remember Michael Play has a Essence flaw about spirits. Yes. Very rare. Sorry. Give her a hug. Jay stands up everywhere. Everyone is like... Everyone is crouching with the executive Jay in varying degrees of concealment. Jay stands up, puts his hands up, and as you put your hands up, you hear a crack. And it echo from the crack of a rifle. I always take the first shot in the forehead. That's the second fuck of time. It's a thundering report that just kind of echoes across the fields. And the woman on the bike cries out. The bike front tire kind of wobbles back and forth. She manages to write it for a second. Then she tumbles over the handlebars. And her or the bike just goes in a heap off the north side of the dirt path into the grasslands that are on the crack side, scooping up my rifle and running towards her. And she hits the hard earth with like a sick thud and it kind of like swirls across the wicker like grass because it's really dry. The grass is and the lady's face down kind of tangled in the bike. The way she's screamed out, you've heard people die before Jay. And this was certainly the sound someone makes when they're shot. She tumbled towards us or away from us. Towards you. She came down the hill. She hit the bottom of the small hill up. That's when she got hit. That's when I was going to handle it. I'm trying two things. I'm running towards her because I know some medical stuff and maybe I can help her. But the other thing is I'm trying to ascertain where the shot came from based on anything I have to go on, which is the way she moved when she got hit. With your experience, can you tell if it's a rifle shot or a type of rifle and probably not a pistol? I'm trained in virtually every. Between a pistol and rifle? Yeah. Probably tell what a caliber. Well, that's my point that we might know. As Jay was standing up and reacting to it, everyone else was kind of watching what was happening. Let's roll for a surprise just to see how quickly you guys get to act. Okay. It's either going to be this turn or next turn if you fail your surprise. So it's not really a huge issue. But go ahead. Surprises with plus composure, which is a role we're making a lot lately. I still thought I was going to take a shot in the forehead. Mm-hmm. Never take it by the hill. Yes, you wasn't. She's closer to the hill. She's on a bike. Yeah, too. On any minuses? No. You saw her coming so you were kind of on edge. You saw what was happening, but the record report is what really kind of caught you off guard. So just a straight up roll. Damn. If you get a success, you can act this turn. If you don't get a success, you cannot act this turn. Okay. You got two successes with my dice. Okay. I got zero on seven. Yeah. I got three. All right. But you may act this turn, Jake, because you were in the thick of it, I'm going to let you go first as far as new ship goes. You take three steps and we have our first flashback. You see yourself in Winston Tate's office in Washington, D.C. It's not even a week after the instance at vitamin B took place. Here at his office, you're sitting across from me, he's got a huge Mojave desk. He's looking all large and ambitious, which is what Winston Tate tends to be. He looks large all the time. I think Winston Churchill. He's got some jaws, Mr. Tate does, and he says to you, I've reviewed the case files, and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. I expected more leadership from a special forces sniper and an Iraq veteran. I suppose we're lucky to only have lost two team members, but another mission like that, and I'm pretty sure they're going to pull our credentials. We simply can't afford to lose another member of the task force, until we find those boundary agents. The 12 agents they lost? Right. Yeah. That means I need you to take command of your unit soldier. There is no one on your team that's been through Fallujah, Samara, and Tukrit. Your skills have been forged in combat, and I expect to see it on your next assignment. That's fine, but none of my men were forged in combat. You lost 12 agents in there that were all trained in combat. I'm dealing with rookies here. One guy's a pencil pusher, likes to have covered tiny little idols and dolls. We're doing the best we can, and we will get better results. That's what I need. I need you to grab hold of this group and forge it into an effective unit. That particular scene, face. Sorry, dude, I had the chance. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm just an example. Yeah. Just an example. Yeah, just an example. You're in a psychologist's office at NSA, the national security agencies, headquarters in Virginia for a debriefing. You're seeing across from Morton Chislett, who is the psychologist for that serving on Task Force Cybering. He's also works for Task Force Valkyrie, according to Winston Tate, who sent you there because everyone has to go see the psychologist up in their first encounter with the supernatural, or at least the first is car of the Task Force. So you're sitting in the office. You've been talking to Morton for a bit. And he says to you, "So, how did it feel to encounter your first any?" Were you scared? It actually wasn't my first. Well, first in the manner of Task Force Valkyrie, and according to the report, I mean, that was some pretty crazy shit that went down and invited him to be, wouldn't you say it? Oh, definitely. It's a very powerful any. So you were scared? Not scared? I mean, give me something here, you know? I got to put something in your case file. What was your reaction to seeing that creature in the basement of vitamin B-side quarters? Mostly concerned for my men? Not for myself. Not for myself. I can handle it. All right. How did you feel when you lost your first team member? What was that like? Did you feel responsible for the loss? And then when you got a second one, what about that? Have you ever lost somebody out of your command? I'm not in command position. My job is to ascertain whether you can go back out in the field or not. I didn't enjoy it. I'll tell you that much. So just a sad thought, you moved on? Yeah, I'm not going to love emotion from you here, Jay. I'm not seeing the talk. Just a fuck. You're behind. That's why. I've got a job to do. Let me do it. Well, we've lost two members of your team, and we have to make sure that you're going to approach the next mission with a clear mind, not a lot of guilt, not a lot of heavy conscious. We don't want you. When the moment strikes and you got to make your decision. Did you even read the report of what happened? I read the report. I dealt with it in the field. We had a guy. We lost him. We dealt with a person that did the killing. I didn't lose my mind. I didn't kill. I did what I had to do to get the job done. Well, from your report, it sounds like there was a couple of times, maybe this is a strong term, but it seemed like you might have lost control over your unit. Or making some decisions and doing things without consulting you, which probably led to John's death and Tony's critical wounds. So if you feel like you've learned anything from your experience in the field, I think the team has learned some things that they've got to work together rather than to go off pulling people out of the basements of hospitals and driving them places without any orders whatsoever. Yeah, I think the group has learned something, and you guys keep referring to it as a team. This is an incredibly diverse group of individuals that have been pulled from all different types of situations and thrown together. And instead of dying or getting captured like the 12 people we're looking for, we did take some losses. Yes. I don't want to accept them, no, but I have to, and we have to move on. Well, it sounds like a very healthy way to approach it. Okay, this is done. That's seen fades and your last scene, and so I like this scene. Ooh. Well, no, yeah. Oh, that's my sister. Yes. Whoa, awkward. That's a bit of psychology. I think some other issues are talking about it. I was like, Claire, oh, Alton, same as me. So you're back at home and he's like, I like my sister, yes. And you're talking to your teenage sister, Claire. Right. You're just one that you'll just listen to her because like all girls, you don't have to talk. Jay, you're never here. You don't know what it's like. The neighborhood is going to shit and you're part of the problem. Those little pick-me-ups that you come back for every couple of weeks, where do you think those come from? You think you're the only one they sell to? They're at every street corner doing their business. And if someone gets in their way, they don't ask questions. They just shoot and then see face again. And we're back to you taking steps running towards this woman with, Winston-Tates, don't lose another person and you answering that, you know, you've learned so much with the psychologist and that the team is better and you're not going to put people at risk. And your sister's telling you she needs you and she's also telling you that you're part of the problem and you're starting to make up ground on the grass as you run full of skin, full of sustainability. Thanks for listening to Nights at the Night at Actual 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 forum 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 and please join us next episode for more Vistri and Adventurer. Is this where you're mocking me? No. No. Or maybe carriage, an evil baby carriage at the bottom, right? You're supposed to be a freaking surgeon. Oh, that's right. Sorry. Do it ahead. Yeah. Just an example. Yeah. Just an example. So I like this scene. Ooh. Well, no. Oh, that's my sister. Yes. Whoa. One word. That's a bit of psychology. I think some other issues are talking about it. I was like Claire, oh Alton, same last name.