The Task Force is on the verge of their final assault against the enemy that has plagued them ever since coming to Cleveland. Questions are asked and debated as the Task Force calls upon hard-knock experience, the occult, the Church, a possibly magical knife, and even Winston Tate himself to get answers.This is the beginning of the end-game.
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 44: Shit Luck 45 "Battle Plans"
[Intro Music] Hello, and welcome to Nights of the Night's actual play podcast. This world of darkness storyline, shit luck, is written and run by our storyteller, Scott. [Intro Music] And now, please enjoy chapter 15, scene 3, title battle plans. [Intro Music] Before we get started, I'd like to cover a few things in addition to feedback. First of all, I'd like to give a shout out to Evil Hat. They put out the drugs and violence RPG game, I sent them an email, telling them about the status of my book I've had at the bottom while I've been reading through. And the binding's coming off. By the time I sent the email within like 15 minutes, I got an email back from them asking if the address I sent them was my shipping address, where I wanted the new one sent, I said yes, and the book was up the way. I mean, it was like that fast, they were just like, you sent them a picture of your book? I took a picture of the binding the way it's pulling away from it, as proof, and then I sent it, and Fred Hicks was like boom, boom, boom, and it was in the mail on the way. Actually, Fred said they spent a lot of money on the binding that they're really well done, but a handful of them got out into the wild as he put it, or the glue wasn't set and it was pulling apart, and he had no problem with replacing it right away. Well, I think that's awesome. Good stuff. And it makes that one a buy more of their stuff. Absolutely. That's wonderful. The other issue is a contest. Really good chance of winning, guys. Just send some feedback. Any feedback will do. KOTN Podcast.com, the rules are there. Just send us some feedback. Speaking of feedback, we have two. One came in a feedback email by Marty, if Scott wants to read it. Sure. He's a storyteller. Oh, geez. I love the storyteller. Oh, of course we all love the storyteller. Okay, this is from Marty. Favorite player? Oh, hell no. Favorite storyteller, Scott. That's right. I only had to pay him a little bit for this. Let's see. We only have one out there, right? Yeah. That's a big choice. Favorite storyteller is the only storyteller. After the inner voices episode, it dawned on me that although all the PCs are exceptional, yes, even Jay, although I'm beginning to wonder if it is Jay that is Michael's a writer, because he sure does seem to be riding his ass all the time. Really? It actually says that yes. That is true. He needs it. Anyhow, no. He likes it. Anyhow, it's the story that makes this podcast rock. The storyteller brings this entire production together from the chill, inducing voice of Heart Cook's brain to tying small details together, such as the last name of the CEO of vitamin B with Benjamin, possibly in parentheses there. It's small details like that that add depth and a true feeling to the story, keep up the good work, Marty, who was, interestingly enough, born in Lutheran Hospital in Ohio City. So thanks, Marty. That's one thing I wanted to mention. If people want to send feedback to get into the contest, one of the things they could do is tell us their favorite episode. Yeah. Which episode they liked the best, which one they thought was well, every time. Favorite episode or favorite moment or something? Yeah. That's the only end of that. One last thing we had before we get into play is we received another iTunes review, Five Star. Nice. The title of the iTunes review was Great Story Exclamation. It was by Josh Mannin. I generally only listen to actual play of games. I want to know more about how they work. But these guys have got me hooked with the story they're telling together. After listening to the latest episode, I've gone back to the beginning to follow along. Well worth the time to listen. So this might have been a gentleman for contest reasons when it went to the most recent one and then just got hooked in and went back and downloaded them all. Seemed like a lot of people do that. Seemed so. Yeah. I mean we saw a huge spike when the contest was first announced. But it was scattered across all episodes. So a good deal of the people went back and listened to them all. Excellent. Good stuff, Josh. Thanks very much for the Five Star review. We certainly appreciate that. And thanks for the kind comments about the story and the collaboration with the players. I think that's important too. It's not my story that really makes this podcast sing. It's everyone. A lot of them are a bit to the table. Our forum is located at rpgcrossstock.web.com. A lot of comments there have been about how the players trust the gym, trust each other, work together as a team. Yeah, even when they're conflicting, they still only conflict to a point of not derailing the story. You know, chew unhappy with this particular assignment. Wanted to go find serial killers. First couple of episodes. First couple of chapters. You know, your character was very reluctant to get into the story. But not so much. Pretty much. Yeah. But not so much that you derailed the story or changed it. You know, and you got attention between Jay and Michael Clay for various reasons. And again, just enough to... I'm just glad it comes out that the listeners understand. And obviously they realize that you are being unfair and unjust to my... By me you mean Jay because certainly I'm not unfair. No, but you know, his first time in the field, you know, he must deal with the... Well, there's always that one guy you have to pick on to make an example of. So the rest of the team knows. Not to be like that guy. Don't be like that guy. Aww. I'm trying to save your lives. Really? No, I mean, really. Really? Then we're at a Cleveland going through him. And with that, we'll go on with the adventure. All right. We're here tonight for chapter 15 of The World of Darkness story. Shit luck. The story teller Scott. And with me here tonight from right to left is... Town playing Jonathan, also known as Jay Alton. Jim playing sister Katie O'Connor. Bob playing Special Agent Chew Park. Mike playing Michael Clay. Questions? What's our method of attack for now? Are we going to try to impersonate like a construction drill? Well, I would say one of the first questions is what type of vehicle or what type of working people get past the guards the easiest. What vehicles come in and out without being stopped? Well, being stopped. Does anything just get waved through because of the vehicle that it is that you can talk about? Right. Okay. Your first question and the first answer is every vehicle will chat to seemingly the same degree upon entering with the exception of once you saw someone, again, from a distance, but someone who matched the description of Tammy Song, who went in and out with barely the link of the eye. Maybe Tammy's clean to his heart. I could still call her and have her meet me somewhere. She still wants to possess my brain with bees. I told her you liked that little bee itch and you're having an itch for... You know what? One of the questions maybe we should ask is if an all her surveillance is married at the Burke, either come to the place and is still in the facility or she has a routine because we're not even sure she's in there. Second, if Tammy Song is like a junior queen, which there are such things as junior queens, then maybe the idol, I can force her to do it before a single action to get us in. I can maybe force, if we can, I can use the idol as a compass or a lodestone to find where these creatures are. So, I can... What do you mean? Well, no, with them individually. So, and I can use it, then... Oh, shit. We only have enough... We're gonna stuff enough for our own ritual. I can't, I can't force her. We'd have to get another 22 pinions and another drama blood. Yeah, that's enough. All right, they're right. I mean, from the research, we only have to do it through one, the queen. Right? Right. Why are we even dealing with this? I'm not sure if we need to be in the same building. We need to find Meredith. We need to find out what happened to the Jewish agents and then just leave. They're all dead and what's been sorry. Can we go home now? There you go. I think they're dead. Another day. They're disappeared. I'm pretty sure they've did this. Well, unfortunately, I think some wisdom wants us to do. Right? What's that? Well, now... Yeah, I mean... Yeah, first of all, we've been officially dead. There's a connection. No, there's no official connection. But they know who you are, meaning the bees. So, walking away, you know, I mean, I think that you'd all look at each other and say, "I don't know that we can walk away at this point." I mean, could you fly to some other country? Yeah, probably. Another state, maybe. But, right, you're doing it because you got involved. I guess my point is, if this idol, one of its things is that it finds the creature that we're looking for. It's not a summoner. It's not a protection. But it does act like a compass to get to them. And then once we have the creature, we can compel it to do one thing, which is not dispersed. Did we, one of the questions... What would you use in order? I don't think the idol does it at all. No, the ritual compels them to do one thing. Right. The idol only... But the idol makes... It's a compass and it makes whoever holds it appear to be a brother or, you know, nice to the bees so they won't. It's like they work out for you during a lesson counter. Do you have the idol with you? It's not the same thing. It's not the same thing. And I couldn't really invoke it because I wasn't holding it. I don't think you'd have to hold it. Put it in your smoking. But that's measurement. That's a different thing. We're talking about Shartha. That's what's... Can we use one of the questions to determine if the CEO had removed the building? That's one of the things I asked. That's why I'm submitting to you guys, whether has she shown up and not left or has she... If she may not even be in the facility for a long time... Can we use the last question to know whether or not if Tammy's selling is the last thing entering or leaving the building? First of all, there's only one question to ask. Yeah. Got five more. What's the first question? I mean, second question. What do you got? Second question is do the same workers appear to be working? In the 24-hour span, you asked you had... The workers go in and workers come out. I see that our surveillance is only for 24 hours, so it's kind of hard to determine if it's the exact same crews of people that are working in the building. The cars were similar. People who've lost it may night seem to come back in at 6 a.m. Okay. The CEO, did we ever see her in the 24-hour period? We've never seen her. If one person won buy that didn't have to be stopped and questioned, wouldn't you think it would have been the CEO? Yeah. Third question. Is that the third question? I'm going to drive a firehouse. Let me see if she's there. We drove by our house once before. We haven't had a good time. Wait, it's evening. I'll think about Ethan. Timmy. So no, whatever he means. What does it mean to get again? I'm thinking Timmy, someone who's now the queen. Oh, be the way. Well, maybe the vital will let us pass. That's one of Timmy's songs, Caliber. According to the writings of Alistair Crawley here, when the bee creature showed up... I understand your logic, but... You're talking about the reaction of the bee creature to the idol, not the bee creature's human-drowned queen to the idol. Bee must deal with pheromones and the like. It makes bees feel... I understand it's point. It's a big gamble. It makes bees feel positive/brugly toward the whole... We're just going to walk. If I engage you. Sure, though. I'm sure more. It'll let you maybe walk past Timmy's song, or Meredith, or some high-ranking bee-drowned person. But Joe's most security team guy, who probably has no bees in him, maybe, hired off the street just to keep people from going to the house. But he might not even have anything be related to security people. I mean, if you wanted to try something like that, drive up to the front gate, and try to drive right through, you could do it in a costume that took pizza delivery. And if they let you through, you never even stop. If they do stop you, then you try to block your digital speech. Timmy, you think it sounded like you were the printout? Nope. Notice I said it was you guys, because I'm up in the tower with a sniper rifle. Well, that's one way to get around the security guard, but it's not going to get us in the building. You've asked two questions so far. You've got four more. No, I mean, I am deadly up in the tower with a sniper rifle, but if you guys are in the door, I'm used to it. So am I going in or am I staying? What about if there's a corner? Any area of the compound, maybe there's a corner with a corner fence where there's a bunch of barrels of something. From the back. In the park, is there like a patrol on the fence, and is there a pattern that we can break in? Yeah. I guess the thing that I'm not clear on. We have to be where ever she is, and now we're saying that there's two candidates of who that she is. Well, yeah, I mean, the CEO might be the queen, and the queen never leaves the building. Right. The CEO might be Tammy, and Tammy comes and goes. Right. Don't really see that as being, you know, she seems more about Lieutenant the queen. Right. But if I understand everything, and I'm looking through here with the notes, we don't need to be in the building unless we're trying to find her. If she's not in the building, there's no point. So you want to roll out her house first? It's a good call. I'm just asking to clarify. I guess, yeah. I guess, that's not to say that she's not going to be protected there, or defended. That might be a good reason why her house is so immaculate this because she's never there. Well, she is a queen. Would she be this B creature type hybrid human B? I don't know enough about what really is that high. Yeah. Right. I don't, well, we took off. I think that was a bit of an exception. But yeah, if she's not there, then it's cool because we have control of the... That hopefully she's going to be near a window because we... He's not going to be able... No, I can go in. I have no problem with going in. You know, we haven't made a plan. I guess my point is that I don't know how the idol will somehow disguise me enough to get past the initial levels of security to get inside the building. All right. But we just discussed. Our third question should be, in the back camera that's in the park, is there a patrol that does the back fence and is there a hole in the patrol that we could sneak in? Is that your question? Bob? Choose yes. You're the right question, man. There are gaps in your surveillance. It's hard to see, for instance, on the real western side of the property, you can't see the fence line. From the tower, you're seeing the front and up to the fence line, but then it kind of disappears in a distance. And from the back, you're seeing part of it. But again, there's gaps. From what you're able to ascertain, though, the patrols were pretty regular. They were armed guards. But regular means a pattern, like every 15 minutes or every 10 minutes. There is a pattern in the pattern has holes. So three questions out of the way. Someone passes, we've got three minutes. We don't have to go. I just don't think it's silly. Even if we get into this place and we get into where this freaking rock is, which I think it sounds like we're trying to do when we start to perform this ritual, just people building right there. Well, that's what I'm saying. I don't think the rock or the rift or the locus is the issue. That's a side issue now. You're trying to destroy the... Yeah. When I'm trying to steal it or destroy it, I'm trying to exorcise the demon from... I just wasn't sure if the ritual had to be performed at the locus or not. I don't think anyone knows that answer. No. Maybe the spirit of Cleveland. That's when I get ridden like a... Your date with Destiny 2. $2.4. Then... You are the chosen one. Yeah. You're liking me. So, we want to go to her house and verify that she's not there. If she's not there, then the assumption is she is in the building and she never leaves. We have a gap in the back fence, at least in the pattern where we can go through. And she was a tough martial artist that controlled bees too, right? True. If she's a lieutenant, we're going to have to have a plan to take her out. She will. Or keep her busy while you do your spirit mumbo jumbo. Do you want me to set up a meeting with Tammy? I think we can just try to go in and get the queen and she's going to be there. Okay. She might help us with getting in. Tammy. If this idol has the power Michael cleans... I don't know if it has a... Can we just rip and die? I don't want to count on that. I'd rather sneak in the back entrance to try to assume that the idol has powers. We don't know whether it does or doesn't. I want to make a call to Winston. I need another gun. I mean, I can get one but there's a two week waiting. What do you need a gun for? It's bullets. I think. Because I don't have one. What do you mean? You have like a freaking armory in your car. I don't want to have a shotgun. You drop the gun. I'm actually thinking about getting a couple of blocks because Sister Sarah can do... Katie. Can do a... I've got an addiction on the gun that I've got so many shots that do like holy damage. And then the gun deteriorates. Said like a second backup. And I'm wondering if we shouldn't get like rubber bullets or something to take out Tammy without killing her. And then if we dispense the spirits she'll be free. And we didn't actually kill her. And she and her can get married and have babies. Exactly. They didn't kill the kids. I mean, they'd be so cute. Shut the hell up. You don't know what she's like. Yes, she has a controlling bitch isn't she? Calling Winston. Requesting. You still have three questions. And just so we're clear. It's because there's a gap in the security around the perimeter of the building. It doesn't mean that there's not other layers of security. It doesn't mean you're not walking across a hundred yard concrete parking lot. It's not like once you're in the gate if you slip through the crack. Oh, you know, we're home free. But there's a lot more to it than that just to make sure you're all on the same page. It's not like the building's butts up against the security fence. There's a good, you know, hundred yards all the way around. Except for the front where there's no fences where it is open. The building is very close to the street to Woodbine Avenue. That's the only real quick hit. But even there, you know, you've got the security guards. There's two standing at the front entrance. And then there's two driveways with gates with the traffic stop and with armed guardsmen in the gates. So I think there's three layers of security. Magical. We have the coin for that. There's the security guards. And we're talking about how to deal with that. And then they probably have electronics security, like cameras, motion detectors and whatnot. And if we have Michael try to break in again, maybe we can try to... The best I can do, I think, is maybe to try to crash their system, which I'm willing to try. I say we have to do that at the point of inception. Because anything he takes down is going to last a long time. It's going to happen exactly when we need it to. And the intrinsic detection can be traced back, so we want to be able to be moved. Well, I should be able to... If I have a rifle with a scope and a silencer, I can take out any lights in the parking lot. Okay. But what about cameras, the motion detector? Without light cameras. We haven't talked about that. Yeah. The diversions. They're different, right? Well, let's select some of the buildings on fire. Set a neighboring abandoned building on fire on fire. All right. What if we take out the power to the building? Take out a bag of generators. The beach, you know, they are very industrious. Whatever. If you take out power and building as you're breaking in. Still, if there's a backup generator, it kicks in on the system. Maybe not. Maybe that is this so we can get past the electrified fence. You know what? Right fence is going to be dangerous. Right here? Yeah. They suck. Well, like anything else, they can be disactivated. Is there any indication that the fence is electric? Is that one of your questions? Is that one of our questions? I don't see how we can determine the information. Well, unless they're trying to deliberately conceal it. Security fences or... All right, clearly. I don't think it legally can have an electrified fence. I think so. I'm going to assume that. Certainly not in a residential neighborhood, so I guess what's the matter. We can weigh one of the work teams, take their van. I mean, we know where they're coming from and where they're going to. Here's an obvious question that might have been constituted a question. It's how many people at the most would be in the building at a time. And that'd just be a simple matter of counting the cars and the parking lot. All right. You could see between 25 and 40 work vehicles throughout the day. How do they get in the building? They have badge cards. Key cards? They have key cards. And the swipe is inside the... There's a glass atrium that the guards stand outside of. And sometimes they go inside of it when they're... They just move around, keep themselves active. But going to the atrium occasionally, the atrium has a double set of doors with a key card. Key card that is slid through. That's your fourth question of six. So if we need key cards to get into the building or someone to hack it, or steal one from someone I could have a meeting with. Getting inside this place is a fact that we're probably going to have to get inside this place without these suits. We get into the middle atrium area and we get a couple swarms sitting us like they did at Benjamin's place. We're not wearing suits. We're dead. People walk around with swarms of bees inside them. You know there's got to be bees in there. Yeah, but that's only after they've been killed. The only thing we know about the building is it is a huge house shelf. What the hell is inside of it? It could be beehives. We know. Thousands of them. Yeah, we just don't know. I'm not too happy with the performance of these suits. Really? I mean with the bees saved their life. They saved their life. Yeah, they could have been better. This country need is a better bee suit. They're controlled. No, but they are spirits. Totally, right? Yeah, they're more spiritual, not actual nature bees, right? We don't know. The one that tried to climb in my skull didn't sting me at all, right? Is that correct? I didn't sting you, no. It didn't sting me at all. I'd definitely try to get inside. It's an angry bee. Not a happy bee. Their logo's even angry. And logo's got an angry bee face. It's about 3 a.m. now. Any more questions then we can think of it. Burn the building down to the ground and then go in and see what's there. I say we sleep on it and we think of questions. But I got to call the boss and fill them in. We have a primary target of berry. We have a secondary target of Tammy. You know, which one is the queen. Do we want to tranquilize your guns? We're overruled so we don't kill people. Do we really not care? Oh, I care. Sure. Better we kill anybody we don't have to. I'm not a spawn of Satan. There you go. She followed it up nicely with the spawn of Satan. You don't believe in anyone who can be saved? I don't believe that people that can't be saved should be killed. I guess he's asking you if there are people that are irredeemable. I can think of one group right off the bat. Wells? Oh, two. Alright, so we call Tate. Really quick. Do we need anything from Tate? You call Jay. I call Jay. We don't have Tate's number one out important. Those beanbag, shotgun pellets. You know what would have been awesome is a flamethrower. No, I'll tell you about killing bees. Oh, I got you. I don't give a crap about bees. Hi, Jay. Morning. Sorry to wake you up. This is becoming a... Yeah, I know. But since we worked 24 hours, sometimes... So do you. And we have to take a break. I didn't say I was complaining. From the reckless pace. I just said it was becoming a habit. Could we... Could we do a wake-up or boyfriend? Or husband? It's not me. Yeah, baby. Jay, we need to fill in Tate and we might be moving tomorrow so we don't want to wake that one. Mm-hmm. Apologize for us, please. I'll do that. Hold on one second. She puts on hold for a lot longer than one second. Excuse me, Tate comes to the thump. Jay here. Oh, he sounds like a weight. He comes to the same boat. What? All comes together. All comes together. We're the men of the boat. Damn you. I'm knocking boots. So I fill them in that we have been to Benjamin's. We've acquired the proponents that we needed, which is the blood of the queen and the opinions of... 11, that we got into a fight there and gunshots were... Why wouldn't they exchange? Because he was mostly getting us to a figure with the occult spells. Magic and stuff. All right. But we managed to handle the situation and we were followed but lost it, and we still believe the safe house is safe. Followed by who? Katie. I just described what little I can of the car that was buying me. Right. And that was right after you left Richmond's. Yeah, which would probably be a good indication that someone was there watching us while we were there, because it was too soon for him to call someone to follow us. Were there any cars parked on the street on the park there? Yeah, it's a neighborhood that people do tend to park in the street quite a bit, especially in the spring. So there were some cars in the street. What color was this sedan? Do we know? It was a dark color sedan. It was about as good as you could tell. Here's a danger. Blue, black, grey. We left Dr. Lucius alone in the car while we were at Benjamin's, who used to say that the Chiron group that beat him up wasn't keeping him under surveillance. Perhaps this is some... the Chiron goons that are keeping on him, so maybe they got tipped off to what we're doing. Where might it be? I don't think vitamin B would come that close to Benjamin's if we understand the relationship that's going on there. Which I don't know. Which we don't, but... I informed him that the gun, my gun, was dropped in Benjamin's backyard. I don't think that'll be an issue, although my prints are certainly on it. I don't think Benjamin's typed to go to the police. I doubt he has too many contacts in the police department, at least I hope not. However, that means I need a replacement. Work on that, of course. And it's probably best to have two because Katie can do something that'll end up destroying the gun in the long run. Okay, where did you lose? This one. Black, 17. Black, 17, okay. I'll get him delivered tomorrow. We were also thinking that going into the B complex tomorrow, we might want to take some non-lethal weapons with us. There's no need for us to kill everybody in sight if our intent is to take off the queen which should un-possess everyone else. So, Lord, we hope so, right? So, some rubber bullets. Is that what you're looking for? Either that or tasers or trancons or whatever. I think we're going to need to make them move quickly. I don't know how ready you are. I'll put together where I can for a non-lethal package for you guys. I had a call from Father O'Leary. Actually, Jade took the call. I was in a meeting earlier this evening, but somebody discovered your sniper rifle in the tower. You left it up there? I didn't. And it's now with the father in his office and he would like us to explain to leave the premises. This is our last night there. I'm going to call you guys tomorrow and break it to you. You've left it. I don't know if you're ready to move on this or not. I'm a little bit leery about going back to safe house number two. We have been watching it and there's not been any canine activity there that we've been able to notice. It seems for all intents and purposes safe, so we might have you return there. I mean, we don't have much more time at this point. Are you going to need the towers? We have equipment. No, probably not. We were just for surveillance. Okay. I don't think we'd burn the bridges. He was just taking it back and didn't want his tower being used, obviously, for, you know, mass murders. I don't like Mondays. Yeah. Exactly. I'll get you some non-lethal tomorrow. I'll get the van there as early as possible. If you can get out of the premises before evening tomorrow, that'll be good. Let's tentatively call safe house to the destination, you know, where you'll spend your next evening because we, I mean, obviously you're pretty much homeless at this point ever since the condos were rocked with that explosion and we lost. Well, we didn't lose Tony. How is Tony doing, by the way? Borderline. We can't figure it out. There's something wrong. The best doctors we have and the best occult figures that we have working on it can't seem to figure out what's wrong with them. He is a member of Chiron. Well-noted. All right. Well, I believe. But then again, they want him dead. They want his perks. Right. I'll, uh, let me get on this as quick as I can and then we'll have your stuff to you as early as possible, but clear out if you can and retrieve your rifle, if you would, in the morning, please. I know why you had it up there, but it probably would've been better if we didn't leave it up there. He didn't minus surveillance cameras. He just minded the sniper rifle and he suggested we find another place to bed down the following evening. Thanks for the report. Well, everyone's okay after your encounter with, with Benjamin, he sounds quite interesting. Yeah. We got lucky. He's pretty powerful. Yeah. It seems like he did the smart move by getting in and out of there as quickly as possible. Good thing for us. He couldn't pursue. Good night, gentlemen. And Katie. And Jay. I know she's listening to you. Well, sleep. Next morning. First thing is we hit the, uh, CEO's house. Yeah. Uneventful night. Okay. Yeah. It's about 3.34, if you sleep in about 10 or so, probably good enough to get you your one willpower back. So it's the 6th of May. It ends up being a very gray, blustery, cold morning in May. Looks like there's another storm front rolling in from the west. And you grab some breakfast, probably across the street, that's a small little diner. Do you want to get one willpower back? Small egg. Only get one. Willpower is a precious commodity. And being able to risk it is one of the best advantages a hunter has. So the next morning you check out. You do a drive by of memory. Actually, we're pulling in the driveway. Okay. Or in the front of the house and we're actually going up to... It's a nice brownstone. The door. The leaf. Well manicured lawn. No one answers the door. Doesn't seem to be any stirring inside. It must be at work. I've seen this before. It's just a nice garden. It's not overgrowing. Again, you knock. And again, there's no answer. The house seems dark. I don't have to start. I don't have to say. Back on the door. Okay. This is where we need to go. Oh, he's gone. Here. Someone answers. You know, your typical middle-aged housewife. I just informed her that I'm trying to get a hold of her neighbor. I have some papers to serve on her. Has she seen her recently? Relax. Go ahead and make a fast-talk? Sure. What is that? That is, fast-talk is manipulation plus persuasion. Probably didn't even open the door. She's probably shot. Yeah, she's like looking through with crack. One success. None for her. So she tells you that, wow, she hasn't seen Meredith in a long time. She has people come and take care of the house and gardeners and lawn people, but she hasn't seen her out in forever. Well, I thank you for your time, man. You've been very helpful. Sure. So we go back in the car. The neighbor hasn't seen her in a very, very long time. Like three years. All right, gentlemen. What's the plan? Have we ever seen a picture of Meredith Burke? Sure. Why did she look so like Teddy's son? There was a lot of reports on her. We did some research on her. She went to, I think, Ohio University, if I'm not mistaken. You guys have a sheet somewhere. I'm just going off the top of my head. So you have a breakdown. We didn't have any photographs of her. She's meticulously gone about after the death of her husband and children. She started erasing any links to her photographs and social security numbers and got off all the, I'm on to all the do not call and do not mail lists. We go back to the church. I stop in the father's office and explain to him. I used to be in the army and I used the scope to spy on people. If you notice, there's no bolts on God. And I want to apologize for that. And I get my gun back. Yes. He gives you your gun back. He just gives you the scolding. And a scolding just, you know, weapons. That's a pointed look. Yeah. Weapons in the place of God are just, they're anathema to each other and we just... Just think of it as a very long binocular. Well, shall not bear false witness. So liar. Yeah. He totally doesn't believe you. Oh, come on. That's a roll. You can roll if you want to try to fast talk the priest. Seriously, you left it in the tower. You still have the problem with this. I'm not lying. There were no bullets on it. Then why leave it in the tower? I don't recall you saying there were no bullets in it, to be honest. So why don't you roll a chance? 50/50. Whether there was bullets on it. One, three, five, six, or ten. Ten. Because I announced which is which before you rolled it. Yes. Why? There was no bullets, amazingly. There's zero bullets in there. Well, you've got to go high. Because you're always trying to roll a nine, nine, or ten. You're not going to roll a one. No, okay with that. You're fine. No bullets. So you're not lying. You're not lying to the priest. That's not the truth. You're not really telling a truth. So you're going to want to fast talk him. No, no, no. Only one success. Yeah, he shakes his head sadly. Yeah, you'll believe it. Never could. But he does return your weapon to you. He understands that you're doing God's work in your own way. My father's a priest and I never could lie to him either. Or I just buckle like that. Closing in on noon, you've got your sniper rifle back. Got that going point. Yeah, take it apart and put it in his case. Right. All right, things we know are soon. The queen is in the hive. And once we get in there, we do what? This is the idol. The two powers I know it has based on my research. It will act as a compass or a low stone to find the queen or creature. No. Why do you say that? We didn't work for Crowley. No. No, no, no, it doesn't summon. It doesn't summon. And it doesn't protect. But it will act as a low sonar compass to find it. To find. To lead us to it. To find what? The queen. Or the, the, the. Maybe this has to put. I think it would help both of your arguments. It seems to me that it helps them. It was in the presence of the B spirit. It didn't say anything about the queens or such. I think he's making me assumption that. Here's a passage. And the relic that I had assumed was a focus for summoning the alien spirit was in fact the exact opposite. Not only did it confer a sense of other warliness to myself, driving me in a cloak of spiritual essence. But the pulsing of the idol increased as I drew near the library. It was a load stone for finding the creature. I don't see how you get out of that. Let's see. I am corrected. Somehow the secret idol which I had carried the night in my smoking jacket had conferred a sense of brotherhood to the alien being. The creature was not trying to harm me as I had originally suspected. It was attempted to communicate with me on equal terms. Okay, so it helps us find the queen. And it puts you in equal terms with it in size. Right. Which the opinions and the blood is the ritual. I'm sorry. It's the band. And it prevents the spirit from escaping or dispersing. Quote, "It is a means of forcing a single behavior from the beast. So whatever behavior we wanted to... And where did we get the impression that that behavior was to prevent it from dispersing her?" You guys make your own determinations on this. But what Billy said was, "A shark hunt is something that is spirit and flesh. And if it's ever destroyed, whatever habits it. It's called a host. And whatever inhabits it, just flies away. Either to this world or to the spirit realm. And then rebuilds itself again. Or builds up its strength until it can become that again. And then this band will stop it from being able to disperse. And break into its bee parts. But that would still indicate that we have to kill the host. To make it... Kill or separate it from its host. I don't know how do you separate it from the host when you're trapping it in the host. The host is probably already dead. If what happened to Henry is any indication of what happens when these things get to have her... To have a point because they've both been under control. We would assume, probably, her or more than the other three years. The two dudes that you guys were battling in the back alley were both alive and had beasts in them. They were fresh. Yeah, they seemed to be just recently possessed. Or that's the assumption we made. That was before your time, Kitty. Sister Kitty, sorry. Because of whether here doesn't mean it wasn't true. She's been filled in fully. So, this band, is there a ritual that needs to be done? Yeah, we're down to a trap sprull. And what do we do? Does that bring in your spirit of rock and roll? Yeah, do we throw the winning... Then the minions, blood and relic were a means of limiting a single magic power of the creature. But how? All you can go on is that nowhere in any of the things that you've read or heard from Bill, he never showed up by the way. Just to follow through with that idea. Right. All the things you've read have never really said you need to say this in Latin three times while holding hands in the circle. All you have is some big reference to a harvest festival back in 400 A.D. Where everyone's surrounded the circle and held hands and prayed to the buzzing beelord to bring them a good harvest. But nowhere else does it say, you say this, you lay down the 22 pinions, you dance in the circle a little backwards and be out above three times, click your heels. Nothing like that. So you don't have an answer for that. I don't have an answer for that. What is it? Well, that's where this mysterious... Do we need the spirit that will apparently come into me? So, instead of doing more research on it, what is going to go? The spirit will give us the answer. If it doesn't really work well, we're going to be standing there. I would like to take a full year to research it. But I don't have that time. You know, if you're giving the answers that fit into the time frame and the conditions that we've been presented. But it seems an awful long shot to work on a plan to sneak into this place, to work into getting into the building, to pin her to one location, to extract the spirit and then stand there with our dicks in our hand, hoping that your spirit is going to come out. I mean, that's an incredible... It's a good point. My dicks going to be in my own hand, by the way. Why? Okay, that's not part of the ritual. You know, it might be that we prevent her from dispersing, which means that she's trapped inside the woman, and the woman will, if you want to be a martyr, say she's a martyr. If you want to say that she's sacrificed for the greater good, I don't know. But maybe that means that she would have to be killed. And I don't know, we're forced to make a moral decision of, you know, the killing innocent and destroying evil. 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 form for comments and suggestions, or you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com or contact us via Twitter or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcast or business, please visit ZenaudioSmith.com and please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. You don't believe in anyone who can be saved? I don't believe that people that can't be saved should be killed. I guess he's asking you if there are people that are irredeemable. I can think of one group right off the bat. Wells? Oh, two. - Two. (laughing)