The Houselights are on and the back door is slammed open as Task Force S.I.R.E.N.'s plan collapses into chaos. The bees are swarming and their master is very, very angry. The Task Force learns an ancient lesson of war the hard way: "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy"
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 42: Shit Luck: 43 "Strategic Retreat"
[Music] Hello and welcome to Night to the Night actual play podcast. This world of darkness storyline shed lock was written and run by our storyteller Scott. And now, please enjoy chapter 15, scene one, titled "Strategic Retreat". Before we get started, I'd like to address a few things. We have a little bit of feedback, but I would also like to ask our listeners to visit rpgpoles.com where they have the RPG podcast listener survey for 2011. It's a quick little survey, you don't have to answer any particular questions if you don't want to. It's all cut anonymous, but the information is used by different podcasts to get listener information. So they know the demographic and credit card numbers, no credit card numbers, social security. This isn't Sony, this is the RPG podcast poll. So it's rpgpoles.com, go there, select our podcast, that's something you listen to. So we get, you know, bragging rates among the other podcasters. We'd really appreciate that. The other item we have is just a little bit of feedback. I think everybody's saving it for the contest. Well, you should probably announce the contest. Well, we have announced the contest on the website and the other places. Well, what website is that, Tom? The one they downloaded this from. KOTNpodcast.com, we have the information on there as far as how to submit your entry into the giveaway. The giveaway is for two GenCon 2011 complimentary passes. It's for all four days of the convention. They are, I believe, $68 value each. We're going to give that away to the person who gets the best feedback question or maybe even suggestion in the next system we should try. Like, what system would be good for this particular group to play? Because I've had some occasion where people will say, you know, has your group tried this. It'd be a really good fit for the play style of the people that play. So even that would be good. So any kind of feedback you want to give. If you go to iTunes and leave a review, come to our website and the blog, leave a comment saying that you did that or even our forum. Because we have no way of linking back on iTunes to send a message to you to say that you want or not. So we'd like some kind of relationship between any kind of reviews that were left there. If you left the previous review, mention that too in the forum. All the roles, KOTNpodcast.com, stop by. Enter today. You know what? We got two different forum posts from episode 41. Okay. One from DeviantAppostle and the other one from Rocket. We'll have got the storyteller read, DeviantAppostle feedback. Okay. Here is DeviantAppostle. I think there's another point to why the group would focus in on vitamin B while the 12 agents McGuffin faded into the background. You hear it all the time in noir detective stories. When you start poking around a situation, the sure sign you're onto something is when the bad guys take a shot at you. I tried to throw up a five star review on iTunes, but I had some sort of technical issue. Hopefully they fixed that by now. But I'm working on it. By the way, my favorite character is Dr. Lucius. Simply for making saving people's lives awesome. Even if he did need a bit of help from Lady Look. But Bob can relax because Chew stars in my favorite episode, no means no woman. My favorite storyteller character for Impact Alone has to be Heart Cook's brain. Limited screen time so far, but the impact on the story along with the spirit screen presence was impressive, particularly impressive in that it was pre-recorded. There also one big thumbs up to Mike for selling it. I'm hoping to see more of Jay and Sister Kate in future episodes. They're intriguing characters that need some time to shine. Plenty of people have already told Scott that he's telling a great story, but in particular, as a storyteller, GM and DM myself, I love the attack on the safe house. Being ambushed in your sleep is a creepy idea. Being gas in your sleep is nightmarish. Being gas in your sleep to become a host for a possessing entity is pure paranoia. And I haven't even mentioned the bomb yet. I paint miniatures while listening to the podcast episode, so I have them on a fairly continual loop while I work. You can hear how much the player's calm was damaged by that encounter episodes later. Thanks to everyone involved in this podcast. I'm always looking forward to the next episode. Well, thank you very much, Devine Apostle, for that rave review. That was a lot of good information packed in there. I'm glad that he acknowledged the safe house where we ambushed in our sleep with carbon monoxide poisoning and for good measure, a fertilizer bomb in the boiler room. With the potential also with the bees, you know, to possibly be, you know-- My favorite aspect is we didn't even consider that bomb or even think about it. And if you don't-- if you remember, I believe J was sniped at at the same time. Oh, yeah, I got popped. I did mention there were-- I did mention they had the building surrounded. Yeah, they had you guys pretty well covered in the fact that you escaped that alive was-- or at least everyone escaped that alive at that point was kind of amazing. I think Tony Bonantium might argue with that. Well, he still was alive. That was almost self-inflicted. We had one other additional bit of feedback from episode 41. We'll give-- that's from Rocket since he's a fan of Bob. Well, we'll let Chew read that one. Hey guy, good episode. And isn't it time for Chew to get a visit from vitamin B recruiter again? His last interview went so well coupled with his drone-like approach to investigation make him a perfect candidate for the hive. Drone-like approach? Oh, that Chew. Oh, that Chew, how I hit him so. Just kidding. The ramp up to the conclusion is very suspenseful and exciting as both the physical intrusion and cyber investigation by the multi-faceted expert Michael Clay. You mean the information on HCB seems to hint at a deeper mystery. The team seems poised for the final encounter where Jay has a chance to shine and hopefully Michael realizes the full scope of his decisions. That's right, Mr. Possession. It'll happen. I can't wait to run this adventure for my gaming group. So thank you for the documentation on the game. Well, it's not going to run a version of it. Yeah. It sounds like, yeah. It's not about royalties. And he's talking about the documentation that we have up on the Facebook as well as on our blog site. That's maps and documents that we got from Jay having to do with research on. All the handouts. All the handouts, yes. We do have a couple more that we could put up there if we can find that-- Mays. Mays. Mm-hmm. And also player character sheets. We should get everybody scanned player character sheets. That would be wonderful. We gave them to someone. They're on my to-do. So the multi-faceted someone, apparently one facet less than-- That's another facet. You can only look at one facet at a time, boys, right? So Rocket, thanks very much for that feedback. I'm glad you're enjoying it. And it's going to be-- I'm looking forward actually to hearing some more from Rocket when he runs it for his own group. Yeah, that'd be cool. It'd be very interesting to see how that plays out. Maybe they're much smarter than we are. It might be solved in three like chapters in the city. Then three chapters along. 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-- Tom playing Jonathan, also known as Jay Alton. Jim playing Sister Katie O'Connor. Bob playing Special Agent Chew Park. Mike playing Michael Clay. All right. So when we last left, a chew had handheld bug back and was holding one of the frames from the beehive and was trying to pull or trying to suck in the queen bee. And she was quite resistant. She's a larger bee. She had continued to bees around her and she was hanging out with all she could before the vacuum suction took her into the implement. As she was pulled from the frame, all the lights went out of the house. The house lit up like Christmas. So at this point, I would like everyone to go around the table and to make an initiative role place. Wow. Okay. Michael has nine. Katie's got 80. Katie is an eight. I need a good dose. We have two. Fifteen. Two. Very quick. Jay? Fifteen. Seven plus eight, could you both have a roll off to see who has a higher initiative please? I got another seven. I got an eight. Two says suck it. Two. All right. Chew, your first. You've extracted the queen bee and anywhere from 20 to 30 other bees. The lights go on. What do you do? All of the lights in the house go on? Not just like four times. No. All of them. Huh. Magic man. I think it's kind of hard. We need to take the wings off here. A quick answer would be good. You're talking to me? Yeah. I met the magic man. You know the most about rituals? Actually, I would guess everything has to be here. Well, that was our plan. That was the plan. That's not what I wanted for the record. Start pulling wings. No way. Well, then the only options are to somehow negotiate with a hostile earth mage that's going to be dropping on this any minute. All right. Well, and we didn't plan to have a syringe ready to take the blood of the queen because he's got the syringe. And he crossed the port. And he crossed the port. On the other side of the yard right now. The plan was to extract the bees into the back and then take them over by the gate and then do the procedure over there. I agree. So that's what I'm going to do. Okay. But first I'm going to notify... Oh, I'm going to learn. Well, yeah. You're looking at the house. I'm sure you're aware of the situation. But I don't know if the sister's going the other bee. Do you have the map of the back here? It's right here. Here's the hives. Oh, you know what? And this is, yeah. This is the path that you came down. And this is where the maze is or was. But you walked right through it. Right. And Jay is over here looking out at the back porch. All right. Well, just to make things go a bit quicker, I just say. Right. Benjamin's aware. All right. And what do you do? Are the bees acting any differently? In the split second, you've looked up in the light. Come on and you have to act once you want to cast your turn. No. Well, then I'm going to head over to where the gate is with the bee back in one hand. And I can use a smoker anymore. I'm going to have a can of ortho. Yeah. What are you doing with the smoker? The smoker, I'm just going to drop down. Okay. On the ground there. I'm going to drop my smoker. So you drop smoker, pull out a can of ortho. You've got the bees in the bug back in your left hand. You've got ortho in your right hand. And are you walking, running, or jogging to a gate? I'm going to jog. I'm not sure how easy it is to get around in this suit. I'm assuming it's relatively bulky. It's kind of difficult, too, because it's dark. You've got the veil on the front, too, I would imagine. So I'm going to kind of jog. Not all I run, but, you know, we've had a quick pace. Okay. You get to the edge of the maze on this turn. Jay. Keep an eye on the building. I'm backing away from it. We say backing away, you're backing up towards the greenhouse, towards the gate. Right. So you're going down the path? So, yeah. Going parallel to the house, towards the gate. Right. But I'm facing the house and watching it and pulling out my black. How close are you to the gate? I'm on the path, so. You're probably off the path. Five feet. Those are bushes or trees or something? Those mountain things? Those are overgrown bushes. So you're probably going to bush to bush? How close are you to me? Come on, man. To start? Or at the end? I would imagine you would be walking the plane site down the path if you could walk behind the bushes a bit. Yeah. I'm not going towards the gate any faster than any of these guys are. So I'm just moving to the other side of the porch and by those bushes and I'm waiting for the rest of them. Right. So you reposition yourself to the bushes on the opposite side of the pathway that leads deeper to the backyard. Correct. And that's fine. And I'm watching the door carefully. Yes. The door opened. And you see Benjamin's lip frame silhouetted in the light from behind him in the house. And he again is crawling with bees. Is he still naked? He has been. To your quick glance, trying to see there's probably some shrubbery hanging down over the porch and stuff, you know, some vines and whatnot. But it looks to be that he's still naked and covered in bees as his picture denotes. These are free. So he opens the door and screams out in his high, you know, nasally voice. Thieves. Thieves. He's screaming. And he's also doing things with his hands. Michael, it's your turn. How far away is he from where I met? I was helping shoe with the, it's about 40 feet to his hives from the porch. And that would be Jay, that he's probably within 15 feet of view. So I'm fleet of foot, but I bet I cannot sprint and attack him to distract whatever spell he's doing. Well, what's your, what's your speed? 13. That's 13 is the number of yards you can move and a full, I mean, in a 30 day feast text, 39 feet. So you can, you can technically, but can I, is that the full action to, to do the run? You still have an action left. I've got the front line. Can I take an action? As far as I'm concerned, anyone can speak briefly, as long as it's, I don't want long conversations, but you know, if you want to say a word or two, I don't have any problem with that. Go ahead. No, I wanted to shoot. Oh, you can't. What you did was basically move and got down to a defensive position. You didn't say I'm holding my, do a typical holding your action type of, but next turn you could shoot away. Well, I do say Benjamin, a hold, we don't mean you any harm, but she's probably laughing. No bees are being harmed in the process of this ritual. Wow. Martha is his daughter, what do we think? Do you think? So saying that when this is to defeat Martha, we're not necessarily being a smart thing. I will run over to him and give him a big hug. And I will try to run like a way to hurry over to him and, you know, hands open and empty and try to do some fast talking or based on what I want to say that this ritual will not harm the bees, we just need to stop the bee lord. Hope that's not you. Wait, is he the bee lord? I don't know. See you guys. Good luck. Go ahead and make your fast talk, bro. Manipulation plus persuasion. Where anybody uses? I mean, there's you have. I want you to move the way, sorry, not going to do this again. How many days? Are you ready? Two. I thought it would have been fast wits and something else, but not in a place where you go. Right. Well, you're rolling off against him. You're trying to convince somebody and they get to roll against you. It's minus two dice because of his unbelievable anger of having his hives violated. So you go from two dice down to zero dice, but you always get to roll one dice. Say hello to chance. Watch. Zero. Zero. Yeah, you better only succeed in a zero. Shit. You roll one? No, I didn't. Good thing, because that would have been a dramatic failure, which would have been really fun. Well, he rolled exceedingly poorly, but he did get a success and he does not respond. It doesn't even take you in. It seems. Okay. Then. And you are standing at the bottom of the stairs. I would suppose you moved up to that one. I will. Yeah, right. He moved up to the porch. Yes. He moved up to the porch. I thought I was to do anything. I'd have to be close to him. We should leave now. No, we had to do this ritual here apparently because this is the best place to do it. I think that's a bad idea. No, that's all the talk for right now. Sorry. I mean, it's a three second turn. That takes us to Katie. What do you do, young lady? These men got us into this. Yes. Does look a little dicey right here. She says to Benjamin, queens alive. If you harm us, you may harm the queen to try to get him to not do anything to us. Katie. That is also a persuasive type argument. You're trying to persuade him. I think it's still fast talk because you're still trying to convince him to do something that he doesn't want to do as I understand it. Your character needs to convince another person to look the other way or simply be distracted for a few moments. I got skills. What's your manipulation plus persuasion? Manipulation is one and I do not have persuasion because your god help us. And minus two dice puts you in a chance die as well. So you have one dice to convince him otherwise. I think it's a nice try. It was a good argument, but it was a brilliant argument. But apparently the doctor certainly wanted to talk. I rolled a two. Better than rolling a one. Yep, I know. Again, he doesn't even hear you. He's so enraged. There's veins bulging on his neck. His eyes seem almost a glow and his hands are up like this and he's just, he looks and incredibly, for a diminutive man, covered in bees, looks incredibly frightful at this moment. I'm hooking over to the gate. Do I have time? Do you do anything else? Yeah. You did your action first. Now you get to move. So your movement is, what's your speed? Ten. Okay. Moving ten, what was your movement, your speed? Nine. So I'm moving a little bit slower than you, but he was further towards the gate than you. She was able to move to the very edge of where the hedgemaid starts. You can catch up to him and be right like next to him, but can't quite get into the maze itself. Uh-huh. Is that okay? Sure. Is that what you want to do? All right. Next turn. Chew. Go. All right. All right. All right. Yeah. It's a new initiative. So if you want to say a couple things, you're able to, because it's a whole new turn. I say wait for the coin to run. Yeah. All right. As my action, I'm going to, this is the center of power, but leave it to me. All right. Well, I have a can of worth on my one hand and a bug back in the other. Yes. And can you delay it until absolutely can delay? I'm going to take the can of worth on and stick it at the end of the back, like I'm going to spray it in and I'm going to say, you know, bedroom and stop, we're just here to collect a few things and it will be on our way. Did you spray it in as and kill the beast? No. I didn't spray it in. I'm right. It's like putting it on the end as a threat. Is that right? Yeah. Do not attack us, but I will kill the queen. Yes. That would be in trying to intimidate someone, which is different than trying to fast talk somebody. So intimidation, chew, your role is going to be wits plus intimidation. That's right. And I'm going to give you an equipment bonus of two because you've got a can of fourth though, and this place is lit up like Christmas right now, the backyard is just curious whether it be a, since he technically does have a hostage. The equipment bonuses is that's, that's for the threat. Okay, I'm rolling five days. All right. And because of his anger, and in fact, he thinks he's not easily intimidated, but in his current state, it's minus two died from your current situation. Basically your threat to his beast kind of wavered his ability to be angry or kind of watched his, his anger to successes, three, two out of three, for all that three. So once again, you try to intimidate him, he actually is not overly impressed with your threat. Again, seems angry behind all rational thought, and you still have a move, actually, if you like. Yeah, I'm just going to head out the gate. I can't, there's a maze between us and the gate, and I said, I've heard the coin, you might want to play. Well, we already got through it. What the coin? I don't know about getting out. There was that thought, I guess. Well, we have to be relatively close to each other, right? That's how we came from. Well, who knows how that goes? Who does know how to think about this? My thought was once you're in, you're good, and getting out would be a problem. Why would there be a maze on the way out? You want to stop people from getting in. I mean, that's just- Right now, right now, you probably want to stop us. Right. But- If you ask control over it, there's a maze. Right. I don't know if there was a ritual to put it, in fact, if you can change it very quickly, but I'll just move closer to the gate then. You're going to do the maze? No. Okay, well, you're right at the edge of the maze right now. All right, then then I want to stay there. Okay. Come on. Right. Yeah. Move it. All right, that takes us to Jay. Is he still wiggling his fingers and doing spells? Oh, yeah. I'm disrupting that. I'm sure you're trying to, by putting a shot through his hand. Hand? Hand. All righty. I'm spending a little, it gives him three. My firearm is four, that's seven. My dexterity is four, that's 11. I specialize in the pistol, that's 12. Okay. My pistol itself, he's at close range, what's the range? Close. The range is 20 for close, 44. I believe those are yards, not feet, so I think you're in really good shape as far as that goes. Go ahead and make your roll. No, minus it all. Minus one, yeah, he's covered in beads. Yeah. Is his hand covered in beads? Yeah, he's bodies. And I believe your derangement says if you're trying to actively, I guess my point is that a sniper is trained to put a sniper rifle. Yeah, but they're still marksman and they're trained to put it within a dime at a lot of different distance. Right. I'm not doubting that. Okay. I'm just saying the point is, he is terrified of beads, and he's within 10 or 15 feet of beads that are now being very angry and agitated. So as far as your derangement goes, Tom, what was the, I rolled two successes to overcome my derangement? Right. To overcome the fear to run away. That's the second time. Right. Yeah. Well, a different situation. I don't know. I'm not saying I'm asking him. No, I do. Yeah. If you thought that was a good idea. Right. Yeah. That's fine. And then is there any minuses to engage? Not if I make the roll. If I mess the roll, then the only minus there is is because of it's somewhat dark, minus one die for the limited darkness, the light from the house is definitely helping. Is there a minus? I assume for shooting his hand. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Hand is minus four. I'm down to nine guys. It's what I do. Yeah. Good luck to you. One, two, three, four, five, with three of them roll against. Right. And none of those were a success, so just a total of five. All right. Those being a trained veteran of the Iraq War would know that under normal circumstances that would have blew someone's hand up, especially someone the size of Benjamin, you know, found that little man. Your bullet did pierce his hand, but it grazed it instead of going all the way through it and taking it off like it should have and he's bleeding and he like snaps out of, you know, the, the supreme rage he was in, you know, and looks at his hand like he can't believe he actually got hurt at all, but it's not, it's, it's slightly demoralizing the fact that it wasn't the exceptional success like I did not at all. I don't know if it matters or not, but in my left hand, on the right hand, I had the pistol and a lot that was touching the coin, which breaks through ethical boundaries when I shot. Right. Nothing. Okay. We're just reminding you it's worth a track. So it's Benjamin's turn. Oh, you get to move to if you want. I delayed my movement waiting for Michael to the game. Realizing. Yes. Realizing. But you know what? I can analyze it to the game. Move. Okay. It's Benjamin's turn. To be fair, I am ready for a move. You are what? I am ready for a move. He also might be a little bit blind from being inside the house. No. He just whispers something lowly that no one can detect what he said. And the bees that are on his body immediately form a swarm. He was obviously, you can see his picture. I mean, he's just coded in them. So it's a relatively large swarm, not coded, right, but in the picture, but he is when he comes out, like there's spots where you can see him, but he's definitely, it's a decent size form, I guess. We'll say it's about two yards across and two yards high. So you're looking at about a six foot swarm on the porch and it immediately dives onto Michael. And then for you, you feel yourself enveloped from behind. The two of you, meaning two and Katie, you can see what these two can is the hives that you spent such a great time smoking and calming the nice bees down and picking them up and sucking out what you needed are they just, when he spoke, when he whispered, they just erupted into four huge swarms, one of which just barreled across the short distance to envelope J, another one envelopes Michael. So he actually has two large swarms to swirling about him and two other head towards the both of you who are right at the gate. So there are five swarms. One is a two foot swarm. The other four swarms are at least five by five, six by six yards. They're huge swarms. The entire hives came up and just were upset. Even the hive that you remove the queen from is still attacking or looking to attack. Now, the good news is you're all wearing these, yeah, feces. So there's definitely some major advantages there, the keeper's. When you are in bloke in the swarm, when you are enveloped, in the swarm, I will, you would take, under normal circumstances, one bashing damage from all the bees going in and stinging you and flying all about you, but the suit protects you this turn, but you also notice that the bees are trying to get into sleeves and trying to get, you know, they're trying to basically find a way through. They were much more docile when they were smoked by the hives, but now they're incredibly aggressive. They're trying to get underneath the flap that comes down. Well, these suits are designed to prevent that breathing from happening, right? Exactly. They are designed to prevent that, but they're by no stretch of imagination impervious to the bee stings, especially, they're impervious to some bee stings, but not to all, they get up through. Okay. But yeah, you should normally see the ability, but the rules here for swarm, one bashing damage, but if the swarm decides to half in size, two bashing damage, if it has to size again and concentrates itself in one area, like you, three bashing damages set for the bashing goes up. There'll be a point where the suit just can't keep up and you'll have to assume that some have gotten through the suit and gotten to you. Same with you. In this particular instance, because they're actually on you, I'm going to have you make another role, right, please, and you too also, meaning, too, and sister Kate, you're enveloped in the bees, but your suits protect you. This first round is you take one bashing damage each, but the suits protect you. All right, once it does, not to print out, but that was damn close. All right. If they do the same thing for you, one bashing, yes, and you take another bashing, Michael, as a second swarm hit you, but again, the suit protects you. So I'm taking bashing, but the suit is absorbing it. The armor of the suit is so fine, I have no bashing. Correct. Okay. As much as I don't really like to do this to myself, I took off one of my gloves to shoot. In that case, I don't really have an option. I can't shoot it because I put it on your own, hit that when you're done. I'm not going to give you any damage, but your hand was sung several times. I'd like you to reroll for your panic, but there's going to be a minus because you are now being attacked on your hand and they're going to start climbing into your suit because you're no longer cinched up quite as well as you were with your gloves on. Yeah, I'm using it. Okay. And then I'm going to give you a minus two dice for the panic of just the handle. Had you been more exposed, more dice would have been mine, I think, appropriate. If I think you two would say, no, it's not. Holy shit. Rolling six dice, four successes, three of them are rerolls. Wow. That's really good. And those weren't. Okay. An exceptional success was going to grant you a need to be able to get through the scene without it. If worse things happen. So, you know, something like that might be a step towards healing. Right. So, actually two, it's a good point and it's a good game point real quick, is if you ever want to spend experience points to get rid of a derangement, you can do that and you could use this example of how you control yourself in this situation. Do so. Yeah. I knew that. I wasn't doing it because there's never been a point where my character couldn't set. He sucked it up and overcame it. This might be it, but up until now there wasn't. Michael, you're up. You, I feel the platonic ideal of Cleveland coming over me. You feel like you've chosen one now. Yeah. No miles, miles, plenty of years. The bed, I'm running. All right. You run. I complete a well look. You don't need to run to get to the edge of the hedge maze. Then we might get, you might get to the same place. I might get to the gate. If you want to get to the gate, you've got to go through the hedge maze. Right. As he runs past me, I grab onto his shoulder and we both run. I was just waiting for him. Right. I was bling until he did. And as he joins me, then we run past these guys grabbing them and we all go through. Right. As far as we can. Except for Katie. Why? Because Katie moved her movement and did an action trying to convince him to calm down. She didn't have a move, action saved. Okay. She had a move, action saved. Michael had a move, action saved at well, it's his turn now so you can just move. And you had a move, action saved after shooting him in the hand. So as far as Katie and when you stop and wait, you go as far as Katie and wait, you don't go into the maze. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if we're going to lose her. No, I don't. I don't need people. Bye. Right. Chew, you're up. Is he away from me? Is he at the waiting at the gate? I'm standing right next to you now. And you're running out of from one area encompassed by bees to a brief respite of no bees between you and Chew and Sister Katie, but then you have to dive headlong again into another two forms. So unfortunately, as much as I hate to do it, you need to make another role, no penalties on this one. It's got to get the role every time you encounter here, whatever sets off your arrangement no matter what. No, no. That's something. Yeah. I mean, in a sense, yes. This is a situation unfortunate which very unique where he's like, he's entering the back yard. That's a role. Right. Then he's trying to shoot somebody with covered bees. That's a role. The swarm hits him and attacks him and he's got hyperventilating because he's surrounded by his thingy fears. That's a role. And he runs away from them but chooses to run into another swarm which is another role. So unfortunately, yes, until he actually gets rid of that arrangement, it will continue to be something that makes him very nervous. I would also argue though that he's had significant success each time he has been facing this and so eventually. Yeah, but may not be saying it's 12 seconds is my take on it. Like I said, he gets an exceptional success or if you would have said, I'm going to risk willpower in three is an exceptional success into the five then the exceptional success sure rests the scene. Don't worry about it, but I'm not going to reward him for one to four successes on something that he is pathologically afraid of and in running into, I mean, like he's actually not avoiding it. He's going against avoiding it. Okay. Anyways, it is truth turning. How far is Jay away then? If you want, you can all delay your moves to move together at the same time, but it will be after Benjamin gets to go. And I guess delay and delay, delay, delay, my move action, I'm going to hold the vacuum planer away from my body. So it's not exposed to the Ken Ortho and I'm going to spray Jay around his hands, right his hand area where the B seem to be falling up in his suit. Go ahead and Ortho range dexterity plus in this particular instance, you're not throwing a weapon, which would be athletics or aiming. So you're more like, do you have, yeah, do you have firearms of some sort? I think we all are training. Yeah. Well, that's a good point. So go ahead and use dexterity plus firearms. Okay. I have four. Okay. You can't really miss because there's so many of them, but obviously Jay is running and he's shaking and he's trying to hide his hand. So I'm going to give one die just for the, the frenetic activity that's going on right now. Okay. Zero. Now, okay. You don't succeed in getting his hands, but you still succeed in spraying his body overall. You'll get used to this now. Yes. Jay. I am delaying the run because I'm all waiting to go as once. I'm still clutching the coin and I'm screaming at Benjamin and knock it off. Goddamn it. And I'm pumping shots into him. I'm not even aiming for anywhere now because I know he's protected and I'm not going to kill him. I'm just trying to distract him. Whether that's true or not. That's my rationale. Am I feeling any warmth from the idol in my pocket? You are currently about 15 yards away from Benjamin. There are several swarms in between you. Well, go ahead and give me your dice before and for again and the gun is two, so that is a total of 10. My special teammates will love it. Okay. No risking of willpower on this. I've got to say something later. Fair enough. No what? I will rest. I've only got two and it would be a pity to lose them, but with 14 dice, I really don't think I'm not going to get a success. I'm glad you feel strongly about that. Okay. The darkness plays the same role as it did before, minus one. So you go from 14 to 13, 15 yards is not medium on your, no, it's 20. It's 20. Okay. So this is there for that. However, the swarms in between make it very difficult and on either side, the porch is like a lattice work. It's not completely open, it's not an open porch at all. So he has concealment, I'm going to say, of partially conceal, that sounds about, right? Minus two, dice for that. And then substantially concealed by the swarms minus three die for that. And then that's your role. All right. So say good luck to you. More shot to ring out in the cool Cleveland evening. Three successes. You can't see what happens. Right. I'm just trying to distract. Right. It felt good. Felt like you, you know, when struck home, back bitch, right? I don't miss. Okay. You hear him doing some more moderate pain, moderate, unfortunately. I surrender. I surrender. Okay. Good luck. What is your resolve? You feel your hand that is exposed, it has the gun so you can fire. You feel prickly stinging much, like a thousand times, like needles just piercing into your flesh and your hand goes just incredibly numb and you take four fashion damage from these needle sharp needle-like pains that are thrusting into your hand. Okay. And it screams out again. Return the bees. Return the bees. Return the bees. And it is now Michael Stern, who delays for Sister K. I'm money for Sister to get her ass in gear. I'm going to run a Benjamin, full speed, and take them on and tackle them. Not. I won't, I'm sorry. One thing I forgot to do when it was Benjamin's turn, the swarms converge. The swarm that's on UK, he doubles down the size. Again, two fashion damage. And the suit absorbs at this turn, but you're getting the, you're starting to feel them crawling inside the suit. You're definitely feeling like you're losing the ability to be protected as a swarm goes from something that's six foot in size, down to three foot in size and just, I mean it's absolutely focused on you. Same thing with you too. Swarm condenses to a three square foot swarm and you take two bashing, but your suit protects you, but again, things are getting through. Michael had two swarms on him. The first swarm comes, doubles down in size, two bashing. You take it. Second swarm, two bashing. You take it again, because it was two separate attacks, but now the swarm are one concentrated on you and you know that next turn, bad things are going to happen as the bees start to work their way in. And same with you with one swarm, two bashing, J, two bashing, you resist, but you can feel them starting to get in, especially because your hand is open and they're crawling in, we're going to say one bashing damage is turned. Okay. I'm spraying, if I can, I'm going to just spray his hand with Ortho and push him into the maze. Okay. Fair enough. Go ahead and make a firearms plus dexterity roll, six, six. And now I'd like you to subtract one because of the mass confusion that's going on right now, and that would be it. Spray away, Ortho girl. So yeah. She coats your hand in Ortho, obviously the bees that have already made it through are happy, but it does seem to have an effect, you know, these kind of keep away for a few moments and hesitate on the opening for your hand. It doesn't mean you're not trying to get into other places like your mask and other areas. You all run through the maze as one, as one, it zags to the left, zags to the right, zags back to the left, zags back to the right, and then on your left, it opens to where the gate is. The gate is shut. Didn't seem longer than I came in, but that was the same. Just by a more condensed way of saying it. Is your coin hot? My coin is probably hot. Your coin is hot. You get to the gate pretty much, I mean, there has to be some kind of marching order. You can't just go for wide through the maze. So why don't you give me a marching order through the maze? Because Katie pushed me on the back, and I had Michael by my gloved hand. So I'm going to try to be pushing shoe through in front of me. Michael's at my side. You were together more or less. And Katie, you lost. Got it. So you burst out through the maze and the gate's there, the latch is down. What are you doing since you're going to leave? Going to open the latch, I guess. Okay. Make a strength check. Don't you take your dots in strength only and roll them. You may spend willpower if you wish. But that's all you get to roll. It's not strength plus something, it's just strength. Rolling the two dice, just one success. Okay. One success. He reaches, he grabs the latch and goes to push the gate, and you see him freeze. And you all kind of barrel a little bit into the back limb and kind of bounce back. And he's just there, and he's frozen. Wait, to be clear, you mean like he's frozen? We don't see icicles hanging off of him. Like him coming or... In time. Right. He's immobile. He's immobile. Like a statue. And then, all of a sudden, he flies backward towards Jay. And Jay, you could make a dexterity plus athletics to catch him, as he flies back. Two successes. You catch him before he collapses. You take four fashion damage from electric shock. The gate... He's wearing the gloves and the B suit, I don't know. The B suit, but it does not insulate you, it's cloth gloves, they're not rubberized gloves. But you know what? That's a good point. I'll give you one. We'll say the cloth takes one of the... Oh, my shoes are. Sorry? The shoes are. When you were trying to open the gate with your shoes. But they're... They're browned. There's the grounds of it. Right. And they're browned. Right. Well, I was wearing tennis shoes and got them like a kidded one. So, I don't know how much I believe the whole grounding theory. But you just touched a hot, live... If you lived until the tail, you were grounded. Right. Well, he lived until the tail. Three batching. And he kind of screams flies backwards. You can smell like that smell of ozone, the litany air. And it's very obvious to this point that the gate has somehow been armed, that it wasn't armed before. Didn't he manage to open it? He managed to touch it. And that was it. Actually, touch it twice. Once with his hand to push and once with a latch and then got thrown backwards. So this strength check was for him to pull free. Otherwise, he would have been stuck taking that electric charge every single turn until you could be pulled away or could pull yourself away. Next turn. Everyone returns to their regular initiatives. Choose first. Choose first. Choose your first. Your staggered, pissed, angry hurt. And you hear that horrible buzzing in the background, you know, the bees and Benjamin are back there. But... They didn't seem to come to you to manage that. Yeah. They haven't yet. Well, there's some wires that we didn't notice before. The gate's metal. Oh, yeah. There's a rock iron. Yeah. The gate from... The assumption is that the wiring's on the inside of the fence, not the outside. So looking forward is a good idea. I mean, if you're going to put wires to electrical plants, you're going to be on the inside. Yes, I look for wires. Use your investigation plus width. You mean the wiring? The power is not the wiring that shocks it. Right. Four dice. Any money. But it's minus one. Tell me what to shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Three. Four successes. Seven. Seven successes. That's the exceptional success. Check that rolling zeroes. Yeah. Out of six. Seven out of six dice. Yes. Nice. You spot a very well concealed box that you believe runs electrical for the gate. It's off the side. There's heavy overgrowth and the box is even kind of painted and camouflage-like thing. I mean, it's really well concealed and it was going to take an amazing role to find it, man. You found it. Yeah. Shoot that. I shoot it. Second. Yeah. I shoot it. It's a large ball. Imagine it is. Minus one because it's dark. Do you have any wound penalties? The last three, two, or one boxes of your- I have three yet clear. Two boxes is minus one. One boxes minus two in your last box. I think I'm good. Get it? You're good. You have three clear boxes, right? I have three clear boxes. Excellent. Okay. Then because of the small size of- It's minus one because it's dark and I'm going to say minus three because of the small size, I mean, you want to get a good hit on it, so that's your dice pool. Right. That leaves me with some. Okay. Total of two successes. All right. You strike the box solidly. It doesn't have much durability or any- the casing in it was just, you know, hardened plastic and you hear- And then silence. If I still have a moment left, I flip up with a latch with my clogged hand. You're- I love the hands. Praying to God that it works. The door opens. And then I need to have it, yeah. Thanks for listening to Nights of 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.