Before Vespers and the return to Benjamin's apiary from hell, team S.I.R.E.N starts to roll into action. Supplies are delivered, locations cased and a digital assault has begun on the Vitamin Bee Corp. The first steps toward the final confrontation has been taken. There is no turning back now!
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 40: Shit Luck Ep: 41 "Paperwork"
[Music] Hello and welcome to the Knights of the Night actual play podcast. This world of darkness storyline shed mark was written and run by our storyteller Scott. [Music] And now we will enjoy chapter 14 scene three titled paper work. [Music] Before we start to play, go over a quick bit of feedback. We've got a post in regards to episode 40 answers. From Rocket, whatever. Right, he's a prolific poster and a big favorite. Yeah, well he might be because he states once again good planning session. Michael Clay and Special Agent Chubed delve deeper into the mystery and I can't wait to see what the stake out from St. Peter's church yields. I think he meant St. Patrick's. Yeah, what's St. Patrick's. I'm sorry, it is St. Patrick's. No, no, that was my mistake. Okay, I thought she was going to get a little bit of payback. He actually said good things about it. Yeah, he did. I know there's some there's some true compliments in there. And I can't wait to see what the stake out from St. Patrick's church yields. Jay's leadership is solid as he is the first in the bell tower to observe the hive of villainy. Good luck to the heroes and remember the night of sacrifice and avenge John and Tony. All right, nice post rocket. Yeah, it's actually almost nice to you. He's got a soft spot. Yeah, he's coming around. He's coming around to the to chew and some good points to that there. That was a really good planning session that last podcast and it really is coming down to the end. Oh wait, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, it really is coming down to the end game. So it should be interesting to see how these last couple of weeks play out. We also got two new reviews and iTunes both of them five star reviews. Wow, pulling on those five stars recently. The first was from Dalomar 52 on May 5th. It was titled excellent podcast. This is a spectacular actual play podcast of the world of darkness chronicles and is well organized in both the storyteller and players are pitch perfect at bringing the hunting atmosphere of this excellent story to life. This podcast really highlights what makes world of darkness storytelling system so amazing. Great job guys and keep up the good work. Well, thank you. I appreciate you. Dalomar 52. Appreciate the comments and compliments Dalomar 52. Well, I do enjoyed and thanks for taking the time to fill out the review. We really appreciate it. The last one on iTunes was from Nerdbound Neil who also sent me an email which will read shortly but he does have a his Nerdbound podcast and I've listened to him. He recently played one of our problems which was very nice of him and I will be playing one of his in this episode as well so I'll listen for that folks. I've listened to some of them. I didn't listen to all of them simply because he's got over 82 of them and their actual play so they can run up to three hours a piece and that's a lot of hours that I haven't had a chance to go through yet but the ones I've listened to mostly run by Neil as GM. They're doing some 4e stuff. He's got a good group of players there. He's a really good GM. I thought he did an excellent job on handling stuff on the fly. Storyteller. No, no because it's 4e. Oh, 4e, yeah. I'm just not thinking. And then on some of the episodes they do a Skype adventure where some of the people from his forum actually taking part in an adventure that he's jamming and they're doing it over Skype which is kind of interesting. It could be good in bed. Yeah, it's sometimes there's a problem with the delay in Skype when you talk over each other but we do that without the delay anyway. So, Neil on iTunes gave us five stars and said great role playing great story. His review was. It's an obvious review. I thought that was your story. No, no. That's the same. That's very, that's it. That's all I do. He said it's obvious right out of the gate that this group isn't just filled with seasoned gamers but seasoned gamers who have played together for a while. Each player does a great job of role playing his character and the group dynamic is solid. And let's not forget the GM or storyteller in the case of the New World of Darkness who keeps things moving and is created in engaging tense and mysterious investigative scenario for this group. Kudos all around. That done. Oh, paragraph two from Neil. This game is very investigation heavy so don't expect run and gun action adventure. Expect instead, detective work, creative solutions and a few mishaps along the way. The auto quality is good. Judicious editing means that the episodes are under an hour and tightly focused on the meat of the game while the table talk is removed. If you are still reading this, stop. Download the episodes and listen to them over a week like I did. You won't be sorry. So, that was from Nerdbound Neil. And again, his podcast and I think it's nerdbound.com as their lead. Any of the forum. He has a forum there as well. But from the sounds of it is very very nice feedback. And thanks, Neil, for taking the time to. I mean, that was a very thorough feedback as well. He kind of touched on all the points, role-playing, story, whether it was, you know, it's gone heavy or mystery and the timing of the podcast as well. So, really kind of hit on all the major points there. I appreciate him taking the time to, again, appreciate everyone taking the time to going to iTunes and filling out a review there and giving us whatever stars you've seen or deemed necessary. Absolutely. The iTunes reviews are very important when people are searching for things to get you to bump up. We're actually starting to show up on other people's. For instance, if you're looking at Nerdbound, at the bottom of it, it has a listening of people who listen to this also listen to this. So, there's cross-referencing. And ours has started to show up on other ones because the number of reviews it reads to a certain critical point. So, the reviews are very important in getting us more listeners and more. Well, you've heard of people in Texas. Get out there. Get to the polls. More exposure to the polls. Last but not least, I'm going to read one email that we got from our feedback at kotnpodcast.com. It is also from the same meal. Well, but you're reading it correctly. But, yeah. Or the correct one. Hey, guys. So, I was reserving comment until I caught up on all the episodes. Yeah. You were on top of the list of podcasts to catch up on. I would have gotten away with it sooner, too, if it weren't for that meddling vacation. Anyway, you guys have a great game here and a great group. It is obvious you guys have game together for a while. The story is top-notch. Thank you. And I really appreciate the free entertainment every week. Now that I got the compliments out of the way, I always use the compliments sandwich when possible. Here are my other comments and questions. That damn shoe. I hate them so much. No, like that's rocket. Yeah, this is rocket's email. First, I would definitely enjoy longer episodes. Something in the hour range is a sweet spot for me. I know other folks, like shorter episodes, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Second, I really think the pace of the game has improved. At the beginning, there were a lot of scenes where the players went in circles, speculating on what was going on. I'm definitely okay with with scheming, planning, and pontificating about possible scenarios. But I think a balance between that and action keeps people more engaged. I think that was twofold. I think we really were confused. Yes. We ran around in circles not knowing what the hell was going on. I don't think we were supposed to. Right. But I think also, as a storyteller, you took a while to get your flow going. Yes, I did. You got a mixture of action and with the... Well, one of the under-appreciated things that people don't realize is that there is a pace to a game. Most definitely. And if you've ever dm'd, gm'd, or been a storyteller, you know that it's one of those fickle things that you sometimes can't quite control. Or you can improve upon as you learn how to be a better storyteller. And I think as the story went on, this being only my second story in World of Darkness, I definitely got a better feel for the pacing of the story and pushed you guys sometimes when I saw you floundering a bit. And it would help the pace. And I think that was something that was sorely lacking in the first couple episodes. And I think I got better as we went on. But I think it was more of a storyteller, to be perfectly honest, than the players. Because you guys could only deal with what I put on a table to you. And you did the best you could with what you had. To some degree, you know, sometimes you lay out things. Because I'd gm as well. And you lay out things and they just don't take it. They don't get it. It's like, God, it's right there. There was a lot of information that the process, though, from the information that we got from Jade. And, you know, just the things going on around us. Yeah, your own research on the internet. And then what you were experiencing, you know, just interacting with people as well. So different different sides of it, trying to figure out, you know, which side is good, which side is evil, and stuff like that. Which is how reasonable from a real life scenario type of thing. But he's right. It flows better if you've got the mixture of investigation. And that's true. There really wasn't a ton of, they missed the action of the very first scene where the car came through the window. That's true, too. So then the first next set of action really didn't happen until, you know, I'm not quite sure. Yeah, because you pretty much started that adventure with a bang. Right. It started with the, yeah, the story started with the bang and then that was lost to the, you know, there was a little bit, I guess, when, I don't know, was that did it make it to one of the recordings where Henry fled your benevolent? Now that happened in the second session. Yeah, the first two sessions. Right. So then it was a long wait until you were attacked, I think, was the next major action scene was being attacked in the apartment. So yeah, that's unfortunate. So, but I think there was some truth there, too, that the story did start off with a lot of information and then build up steam as we went. And I also learned a lot as a storyteller as well. And to continue on, after the first handful of episodes, the group really seemed to hit their stride. I can't wait for the next story once this arc finishes up. Now for the tough questions. Am I crazy? Or is there no clear connection between the 12 missing agents and the vitamin B company? I feel like if I stand back and ask why the group is dead set on stopping the bees, it's more because it's weird and that car almost killed them in episode one rather than because they have a lead on the dead agents. Isn't their management concerned with them not looking into the 12 dead field operatives? Sorry, had to ask. Obviously I've listened to like 20 hours of you guys playing in the last two weeks. So it's not negatively impacting the game. I just thought it was kind of funny. Okay, if you read this on the podcast, it's already taken like 20 minutes. 22 actually, no kidding. So I'll wrap it up. Keep up the good work and I'll make sure to spread the word about KOTN to this point about the 12 missing agents. Oh, I so pointed that out at some point during the adventure. I remember saying, are we losing focus here? It's been going after the 12 has been pointed out several times. Yeah, right. Well, to get back to your your story without, you know, obviously we don't want to get to the we've played the story already. We don't want to tell what happens, but you're not that far off in your in your estimation that there doesn't seem to be a really strong link. And I think that if the best way for me to describe it is to say that this is a story arc and the 12 dead operatives while very important, there's no real information right now that have come up missing. Oh, missing right. Well, he put dead in his in his right up. So yeah, we didn't know that either. Damn it. No. So from Neil's point, no, this is a this is a long story arc. So there'll be several other stories in this in this storyline. And it's not necessarily going to be you're not necessarily going to find the answer to these 12 missing agents in this story. Could it happen? Sure. But you're not crazy to think like, wow, this hasn't been really a focus. And we haven't heard much of these 12 agents do and like Bob slash two is saying, you know, it could have been more than just me other players pointing it out during the story, which is got why are we focusing on this one? What does it have to do? It was because you had nothing else, which again, is what yeah, but I do remember at some point, take telling us that it was something that we should yes, nail down that this is a danger to Cleveland. And you know, and it could lead to something. It maybe won't lead to the 12 agents, but it's mysterious. It's something unusual. And we have nothing else to give you right now is he haggles with the bureaucracy of the various government departments. And he's trying to get information from Task Force Valkyrie, who's the agents who are missing from that that's the conspiracy. So you're right on point there, Neil, the 12 missing agents have kind of faded to the background a bit as they pursue this lead. But they're not forgotten. I think one example where the question did come up is when we encounter the security guards, who try to ambush us. I do remember that. You know, there's a question as to, you know, are these that one of the missing Valkyrie that the Valkyrie agents had been interrupted and that they were right. Exactly. Yeah, that was I think a question that was asked several times. Either by you or by Jim. Right. So great question, though. I mean, great for someone who's listening to realize, you know, to listen to the material closely enough to realize that the 12 agents were really the impetus or the spark to start to send you guys undercover to Cleveland. Don't worry, Neil, I'm working on a second story as we as we talk here. And these characters will be coming back for several more stories. And this story arc, I hope to take to its full conclusion over the course of maybe between three and five stories, depending on on the actions of the characters throughout these stories. The way we move probably five. Probably. All right. And with that, we'll go into the game. Actually, before we get into the story, let's take a quick break for a promo. Hi, everyone. This is Neil from the Nerd Bound podcast. Nerd Bound is a weekly actual play podcast featuring sessions of Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition, New World and Dark Sun campaigns, Warhammer 40K RPGs, including Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, Trail of Cthulhu, Wild Talents, and a whole lot more. But don't just listen, be a part of the podcast. We run one shots with our listeners and have a wide variety of play by post games available on our forums. So max max your entertainment by downloading a podcast via iTunes or your favorite podcast aggregator. And be sure and visit us at www.nerdbound.com. This is World of Darkness story shitlock. With us tonight, starting from my left is Mike playing Michael Klez by playing special agency park. I'm playing Jay Alton. And Jim playing Sister Kane, co-founder. If you guys are waiting for the best first, I want you to go over the film that we've recorded to see put in the time while I'm back in a child. And then when best first we move, but go ahead and talk. Well, I could also spend a little time looking at the park cook's brain. You do that at you and Katie will take a look at the footage to see if there's anything. Okay. I see what time the workers get there and you notice anything on the other one. Right. So I think Jay would know from his very brief association with Sister Katie O'Connor that she does not have the ability to focus on things and investigate for a long period of time. And as you were trained as were the rest of your group in this stakeout maneuver, it's a wits plus investigation role, which he might as well just have his dead dog watch and watch it. Right. Because she's just not going to be. I mean, all right. I think you would think of it more in the sense of she hasn't been trained to go over footage and what they'll really look for. I'm sorry, just to clarify. Was the footage on Benjamin's house or vitamin B? Vitamin B. Okay. We set up a camera up in the church. We also had cameras set up at... No, we never said that we talked about it. Oh, okay. That's right. And electronics didn't work too well there. All right. That's right. Okay. So who's looking at the tape? I'll take a look at it. All right. You could download the footage. You don't actually change anything. You just download the footage to your laptop. And you can view it, but I mean, it's, you know what I mean. It's boring. It's boring and it's about 24 hours between the two cameras of footage. So it really would help to have somebody else working on it from your perspective, you know, you're sitting down. Right. But go ahead and make a width plus investigation role. This were a movie. This would be a montage scene. Mm-hmm. I think I could probably look at some footage as well because up in the tower, I'm watching and only during changes to shift there when there's something interesting going on. Am I really going to focus to any great deal of time and effort? I mean, most time you just staring at it. I'm sparking my people walking around in. That's interesting. I have my dice pool set up. Are you applying any minuses? Yeah, for boredom. I'm going to give you a two die minus because it's just watching a bunch of nothing for hours. Go ahead. I would argue one point that since he is a investigation is one of the specialties that to him, it's a technique. Like for me, it would be boredom. But to him, he has a method and a technique to it because it's so part of what his character was based on. All right. I'll take it from two dice down to one. FBI is a lot of bunch of boring words. Let me tell you. Well, that's what I mean. They have to train to be alert. They have to do that work and still be able to function. I don't know how anyone sits doesn't fall asleep or your steak out. Sure happens. I am rowing of six dice. I see a ton again and that's it. Two successes. Okay, two successes for two. Reviewing film. I say you were going to do it up top as well in the power. Go ahead and roll. All right. And what is the minus two for me? Yeah, probably. Okay. I spent another one. I already had marked it off. Sure. I wanted to. I see a zero. No, I roll five dice and I roll four successes with a ten again. And that was an eight. So five successes for exceptional. For exceptional success? You got your bag of popcorn like this is interesting. Look at that. Right there. You take L.S.D. before you watch these. No. This is unenhanced. After two hours of watching the recordings from chew and yourself and actually those rules are supposed to take 24 hours. So we're just going to apply it to as if you were spending 24 hours eventually, you know, looking at videotape. So I won't give you any big conclusions right now. You look at some stuff and you found some interesting facts. You found that the construction is going 24/7. There seems to be groups that come and go throughout, you know, like there's a group that left right after one o'clock in the morning. Group left and another group came to take the or one came and then they left after another group had assumed the role of taking over the construction on the new site. You saw from the front gate, which is where the camera pointed, you know, down at the front of the building. Right. What is the type of security when people come in? I mean, how thorough are they with that? That's about eight hours into the take. So not going to give you that right now. They'll be a little further along. But since it's, you know, you're looking at the stuff that happened in the early morning hours, you said that stuff up pretty, you know, much close to midnight. You also see some workers leaving, some workers cars leaving around just after midnight, like around quarter after 12 or so, which of course is very late for people to be leaving a workplace unless they have telemarketers and matters of where we're working, you know, certain chefs. But you don't see anyone come to take their place seemingly that these people just left for the night. So you saw some employees maybe, I don't know. I thought you said they were eight, the construction workers were working in chefs. Yes. And then at one o'clock, we saw amounts to a shift change. Correct. I'm talking about workers, my apologies. I'm talking about workers inside the building, inside the building, actual office workers. I was referring to the front gate where the guard check is. How? Right. You know, when someone pulls up, I mean, did they just go or do they like check paperwork? Okay. There seemed to be a pretty comprehensive check when people were coming into the facility. Yes. This truck was stopped. There was, you know, questioning for like, at least the guard was talking to the person pulling in for a good couple of minutes. It wasn't just a simple, pretty thorough. Right. It was, it was thorough. So that check was fine. So between 12 and two, which is about the two hours take, you're able to review both of you, you notice some unique things. People leaving the workers leaving the building very late, which was unusual in even thinking from that type of company. And then a shift change, like one o'clock in the morning, so the construction can keep rolling along. The construction crews did they appear to know each other? Like, the way they interacted is they, when one crew shows up, or there's a lot of conversation going on. There's definitely some, some conversation. It didn't seem like it was overly long or, you know, friendly. But there certainly was a, there was a shift and there was some, you know, drinking some coffee for a little bit. Yeah. There was definitely some, some interaction between the two groups. Any, any company names, we can get off maybe the side of the van or anything like that. Yeah, it's a specific construction company that's doing the work. Right. Is it all the same company or different contractors from different companies? Does it look like being workers or somebody else? Yeah, it looks like actual construction workers, not necessarily. Why don't we know what you mean by be workers specific? No, I think you met, are they employees of the corporation or their, their construction for a third party? Well, I think it's fair to say that you can kind of, when you watch somebody or if you've ever watched a crowd, you've got the people who have like the thousand yard stair or kind of muttering to themselves and they kind of stand out versus the people who are, you know, talking like when during the shift change, if they're talking to each other and if there's kind of smiles or, or acknowledgement, I mean, there's body language and facial expression, communication is maybe one for us, so each other, two of the ends are, you know, yeah, you have to remember to that, you know, this is a little bit distant. Even though you're zoomed in, you're zooming in on the entire right place. So you can only zoom in so much, it only catch so much, but to go to your point, again, there was certainly some camaraderie in the sense. They weren't walking down the side, you know, but it was very wick and they seem to be very efficient with what they were doing, but yet there was definitely camaraderie. There wasn't, it wasn't just a zombie walking over to, yeah. What do you mean with the zombie? No, that was me. But I mean, they weren't walking around, mine was drones, they were, well, none of them are, are mine is drones. Or distant, or whatever, we have no idea. I mean, Henry was perfectly normal. We have no way of knowing these people. Well, emotional, but yeah, you're right from from 100 yards of what you could, right? I mean, even up close interacting with these people without special powers, we have no idea. Okay, so kill them all. So that's the equation you cleaned from about four hours of video surveillance, two hours each, at three o'clock a white van pulls into the parking lot of the rectory of the church, and another car pulls in behind. Someone gets out your, none of you are picking this up, but you're picking it up from the church tower. Someone gets into the vehicle, which is just a typical Ford escape or something, and they drive away. It's very unremarkable. They don't make a big deal out of it. They just drop the pan off, a white van, and then they pull away. Push to talk, our supplies are here. They leave my cell phones in there. Oh yeah, you're supposed to get yourself on it. So you guys go to the van and find out that the van contains a case with a small case. It almost looks like a drill bit case, and you open it up and it has 12 silver tipped bullets in there for the guns that six for a gun that you carry to, and six for a gun that you carry. A nine millimeter ammunition? Sure. I mean yours is, and yours is J, whatever your main weapon is that you wanted. It's six o'clock. Okay, so they're all interchangeable. I have a Glock check out in this type of rifle. I don't think I'm shooting where I went from that far away, but I'd like to. I would prefer shooting. That would be a war, you know, from very agreeable. So you have that. You have the included four hand held, one hand smokers, which, you know, create, basically there's just a bellows on it that you hold and it just shoots smoke out great from it. So there's four of those, actually five of those because they would have one for Lucius as well, of course. So five single handed, what they call smokers, there is two small hand held vacuums to be able to extract bug bags. Yeah, okay, we'll call them bug bags. We actually have one of those. There are five beekeeper suits. That are all conspicuous. And there's also the hats that, you know, have the facial protection and the full head, which, of course, will limit your visibility quite a bit by wearing them, but you'll be protected from bee bites. And they're also also gloves. And you also have like boots that you slide your suit into like large work-type boots. So there's a full uniform, five of them in the back of the van as well. Sister Sarah's phone. Sister Sarah's phone is there. Sister Kate's phone is there. And there also is a couple of smoke grenades, two of them to be precise. And I believe that is the main thrust of your requests. And that's just taken. They didn't quite come through. She's supposed to get better hacking this offer. Yeah, our new laptop with the latest upgrades of... Not that we need it anymore, but at some point it was requested. It was. Well, this is the first time we've had a chance to deliver stuff to us. We asked Jade for a lot of information that she ever got back to us on. I believe the one outstanding piece of information that she hasn't pulled her back to yet was schematics of the building. But she said she was working on it. And she looked right in the name of the 12 agents. 12, of course. And of course your van, because it has some dry walling and some other stuff that makes it look like a construction vehicle. And the name of the US, if there was a name on the side, De Nardo Construction is the name of the company. D-I-N-A-R-D-L. De Nardo? That's the name of the construction company. That seems that all the bands that come in have the De Nardo name on it. All right. So, to Benjamin's we owe. Well, if it's time. It's 3.30 in the afternoon. Any of the people leaving look like Tammy's song at all? Or Chiu? Any female construction? There's a couple female construction. Or at least from the distance look like female construction workers. So, no, Tammy did not leave the building last night with that group. At least no one that looked to you like Tammy. So, anything from 4, 3.30 until dusk at 6 p.m.? What do you want to do with these bullets? We've got 12 of them only. I know Michael definitely wants some. What kind of bullets do you get with these? They'll work for the werewolves. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we shouldn't give them Michael. Wait, what do you say? Give them to Michael. Do you mean like hand them over or? Yes. I'm an animal. Okay. Hey, yeah. I mean silver bullets and spirits. Do you know anything about that? Michael? To my knowledge and I can roll forward or I can wing it, I don't believe silver affects spirits. Now, it might affect, it should affect, well, corporeal entities such as werewolves and delight. College professor of time for the mosquito. The cult plus, wait a second, may you guys mind? If I cult plus wits would be 5, total of 5 days. Michael believes that the silver bullets, you know, obviously werewolves, of course, because everyone knows that silver bullets work against werewolves. And that there are some spirits that do like spirits can be, you can't see them like the one you just experienced or you can see them. They basically become corporeal. They manifest to use a spiritual term. And that that silver bullets, if that was their ban or something that really hurt them. But in general, what we should hurt them more. Okay. In the time that we have before going to Benjamin's, we researched the location of Dennardo, we drive over there and we do a little bit of dumpster diving looking through some maple work in the dumpster. Hey, something that was thrown out or? I'm guessing Dennardo construction is a cash only business that doesn't keep records, but that's just mean. They've got to throw out this is clear the box. But I'm a lot disturbed. That's, you know, you are. Yeah. Okay, I would say the most telly person in the room. Right. We're going to need a plan for how you're going to pull it off in a sense of what are you driving? Who's dumpster diving? Are you trying to be inconspicuous? Are you trying to be conspicuous? Are you going with the disguise or you don't want to regular people? Yeah, I see that. We find the location. We do drive by in, well, let's save the white van for not associated with anything. Yeah. So Dr. Lucius' car just to see the situation. We're going to drive around the building or around the block or whatever it's required. We're trying to find out where they store their garbage. They've got to throw out their paperwork. Sure. So we're just looking for old schedules or, you know, something that they're paperwork that they'd be using to get in. What about the building inspector? What do we know about what the new construction is? I suppose if we add on to the building, is it something in a separate area? Is it, you know, a dome up box building, a shed, a parking garage, do you know anything about what they're building right now? I mean, we should be able to see that right now. Yeah, it looks like it's another hexagon shaped type, you know, it's called the honeycomb building for a reason. And the reason is it's shaped like a honeycomb. And they're building another one off of it, another honeycomb shaped building where the building, you know, maybe it's a couple feet off the ground as far as the the stone work at this point. The concrete is, you know, the first level. They certainly have a hollowed out for a basement. They've got some some work going on there, but it's still in the very beginning stages of that. It will be. Yes. Okay, if we're going to do some a quick drive-by or need a primary actor or just someone who's going to pick the role for a WITS+ investigation role, see where they can find out by driving around in our construction. Oh my god, I'll take a look rolling seven dice. All right, quick drive-by. I'm going to really test your ability. So mine is two dice from that pile. That's a good one. Seven dice is your normal role? Seven dice is my normal role, yeah. Okay, you can add any, you got risk from a little power or nothing like that. I have that. Okay, go ahead. That's pretty good. Add up one? Yes. All right, I got two successes and one again, 10 again, and two, two successes. All right, it looks like it's part of an industrial park, small industrial park, but it's a group of industrial buildings together in a stretch of the street. There's like traffic in the area. There are no obvious dumpsters or whatnot up front of it, because you've got like green type of lawn with a bill, you know, like with one of those signs that says all the tenants of that particular strip of industrial buildings, but there is a driveway on either side of it that has parking with entrances on either side of this long, narrow building that's probably at least two or three hundred foot long and broken up to different businesses. And then around back, you know, you could see the parking lots going around the back, and that could be where there's some, you know, dumpster type situation. That's your initial view, and it's a relatively, again, it's a long building broken up in the several areas. The parking lots aren't either side. It looks run down and quite shabby. The grass is, you know, overgrown and looks crappy, but all in all, it looks like what you're looking for would be around the back end of the building. All right, is there anyone going in or out of the building at this point? The parking lot at either side of it probably contains somewhere in the vicinity of 25 to 30 cars on either side. So you don't see the one out, but that's a lot of cars. Yeah, it's got to be 50-60 cars between both of them. There are probably a lot of jobs. How many vans, either in the parking lot, there are two whitish vans towards the back of the first of the two parking lots that you passed with scenario on the side of them, and they're right towards the back where you can see the parking lot going around to the back of the building. And there's also some chain link fences there that look like they'd like clothes at night with some barbed wire above them. But right now, they're open during little today. Any CCTV or cameras or anything? Not, you noticed. Tell me the other thing I can think of is that we may know at least from watching the B Company as to how often they're coming and going to the B Company. And you've ate hours in this you know, eight in the morning. Yeah, you know, there's at least one ship right around between 12 and one. We want to make sure that we're not there when people are arriving or meeting or so. So what's the plan here just to get some generic paperwork or? Yeah, I just want to see if we can just go about something that gives us some validity for driving into the place. You think that the first, you know, again, it's a long building about 300 feet long, but the sign de Nardo, which is rusted in, but it's above the very first, is it, you know, the first part of the building. So there's two trucks parked in that first parking lot. So you think that obviously de Nardo is probably that first section of the long industrial park. And that's where, so you should probably go into that first parking lot if you're looking for a dumpster and you probably would go to the first dumpster you saw, because de Nardo looks like the first business in that building. Okay, let me go over to where the vans are. Is anyone else going on with you in the car? So I mean, I'll be driving the car. Yeah, she's a good driver. If you want to just pull over by the vans, I want to check out and see if one of them is unlocked and maybe there's some paperwork in there. Well, you guys are doing that. I thought I'd be back at the safe house. Probably doing a little bit on the hard cooks grain. All right. Let's see if there's anything whether it's symbology or metaphor that might give us some clues. Actually, can I have some of the mighty newbies and gators? To do what? Find out what's going on in the company. I didn't check out how many already do this. How do you ever know? You hacked into the Cleveland Psychiatric Institute. That's the reason why I'd ask for the new equipment. Now that I've got the new equipment, maybe I will see what there is about that. Check out maybe either controls on power or maybe they even go to Cleveland. What's the Cleveland energy incorporated or whatever it is. And if I just shut down the whole powered grid to grab that block. Okay, so you're going to do your research on your hacking. And so too, when Katie pulls up to the two Denardo construction bands, you see that where they're parked, you're looking straight into the entrance, the side entrance. That's where their park gets. So to give you a quick check. All right. So someone who's in there might be a list. Yeah, I wonder what I'm saying. It is because you would probably want to do some type of Del or something along those lines. Okay, this is very poorly done on that, but it gives you an idea. As you're coming down the street, there's a parking lot that kind of goes around to the back and there's here's a fence. The fence connects to the building there and goes around the back. And there's a fence here that closes at night, right? And so the two trucks, the two vans are parked right there, which is where this is. And as you look in here, it's actually a long corridor, stretching the length of the building. And you think that Denardo is this one because it has a sign out front. And then this is the front where there's like a sign for the industrial park. And then there's like a walkway that you could enter from the parking lot. Does that make sense at all? Because we can park the car here and just kind of block it. Yeah, for a little bit. I'm not right. That's like really large and easy. It's in the driveway. Yeah, it's got like, you know, wheelchair access that's crumbling and kind of broken down a little bit. That made more off here, but just to block some of our. All right. All right. You you check that out. So Katie, you pull onto that door pretty much or at least away from the door, but blocking a view with your charger that everyone's driving in or a Dodge Charger. And you're going to need to make a stealth roll. I can't. I don't I'm not. This isn't my thing. What's there? Stealth breaking into cars. I bet you're just checking the doors open. Yeah, but I got a point of stealth, which is probably more than you. That's better than a minus one. Right. No stealth in one. I have a specialty on an automobile mechanic. I don't know if that's going to help. Sorry. I'm going to auto mechanic and I might know how to break into our car. Oh, me too. We can maybe combine our skills and the coat hanger trick. Well, well, I'm going to I'm going to stealth and look and see if I can see anything to make whether or not it's worthwhile doing, but okay, so what am I rolling? Stealth plus what? Whites plus stealth. That's three. Okay. And it's the middle of an afternoon towards the end of the afternoon by the time you do this around four o'clock, which means people are walking in and out. So, you know, there's two ways you can go by it. You can just walk up to the van and start looking around and risk questions or you can try to be stealthy. I'm just walking up to the van and kind of clancing in the windows and looking for paperwork. That's all I'm doing at this point. Okay. In that case, you're not going to need to stealth, but there are people come, you know, there are going to there's a potential for someone to come out of the building and that's what I'm going to roll for here. See how your luck holds up. You're going to run a diversion in there. Okay. Your car's parked out front. Katie, you're watching the hallway to see if anyone's coming down the hallway towards the door. No one's coming. You walk around to the van, you test the locks quickly. You notice that the vehicles are locked and secured. I test one and then I come around to the driver's side, which is I think where the vent number is. And I make it look like I'm checking the vent numbers of the vehicles, but I'm actually scanning inside to see if there are any clipboards of paperwork. Right. And you're the dash or in between the driver's seat. I'm sorry, the door's locked. Did you? Yes, they are locked, including the sliding doors on the side. So they're locked up. You look at the first one and there's just coffee cups and a donut box and a Wendy's bag and nothing that really jumps out at you as being a potential paperwork or whatnot. You go around to the second one and you see same type of things where you see soda cans and lunch bags, but it looks like there might be some kind of, you can't tell what kind of paperwork it is, but you see something with the dardo on top of it. Actually, it's folded. It's not a nice clipboard. It's just a piece of paper stuffed in between. It's kind of sticking out of a seat between a seat in the council, and it's sticking out a little bit and it says, "Dennardo on the side of it, but you can't quite tell what type of form it is in that quick look." Right. And no one's, you know, at this point, you got that far and you didn't see anyone coming at that point. All right, I walked back to the car tell them as I slip into the backseat because I'm done. I don't break into cars. It's not my thing. Right. So Katie, you taking off at that point? Where are you staying? Where you're at? I'm in the FBI. Well, law abiding. Well, I'm just kidding. You said you had a good shot at breaking into one. I don't have those skills. I'm a law abiding sniper. I know about cars. I think I know how to do a word so I can get in there a bit on the tools. Yeah, I'm going to spin it. I don't know if you have any tools, but you need tools to break into a car. Yeah. And I must come in here garbage. Why don't you guys jump out of your car? These are older models. So actually, you know, if you had a log, you could do it. You could force the lock. All right. That was planned. Hey, we got people walking all over here and I don't think this is a wise move. Let's go. Let's just drive around the back. See if there's a dumpster that I could toss out this bag full of McDonald's in. Okay. Or maybe you're scrappy looking for more. All right. So you go around the back and there is a dumpster outside and it's kind of a it's it's pretty big. There's also a large garage back there with a couple more vans nearby parked and locked up in a garage with some people. The door is open because it's a relatively nice spring day and the door is open. There's some people working on stuff and they're they're loading up a van for probably tomorrow's jobs or whatnot. So you got a garage back there. You've got some people loading some stuff up some a couple more vans. But unfortunately, you know, there's guys working and then right outside the back there's an entrance of and someone smoking next to the two dumpsters that are either side of the door. So someone's sitting back there smoking. We don't need this to be gone. So you keep driving. Oh yeah. Around to the other side. You know, a couple of brief looks like what's a car doing back here kind of thing, but nothing. No one shouts at you or stops. You drive around to the other side and pull out of the parking lot that way and then continue where? Benjamin's back to the church. All right. Back to the church. In the couple hours at the hour they were gone. Like you are going to focus on what you're going to focus on the breaking into vitamin B. I'm going to see if I can't access any of their internal systems. You don't even need to hit it from their website. We might be able to have access to the wireless routers because we're so close. Right. That's always so big and easier. Also as a backup, maybe any of their security communications. See if there's, I can get out of their communication frequency or I'm assuming that there's security people not using landlines and stuff like that. So maybe we can tap into their communication. So go ahead and make an intelligence plus computer role please. And I will, when you have your dice pull ready, please let me know. All right. So intelligence plus what? Computer? Computer. Five. And I'm using the new equipment with new software. Okay. So your equipment bonus is plus three. Sweet. When you are doing the research you're doing and trying to find a way in, you are confounded by the complexity, not confounded, but you're just surprised by the security and the encryption. I mean, it's almost government-esque at what they have going on here. It's minus five dice. So much higher than any typical. Anything you've ever seen. Yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. So much more than a vitamin company. Again, government-esque. I'm also, if you want to take another dice away, I'm trying not to trip any alarms or is that... I think that's standard operating procedure. Yeah. I mean, I'm not stopping in there, but all right. Five dice. That's a pretty good bet. All right. That is. It's huge. So go ahead. Okay, right. Well, yeah. All right. Realize. Wow. Nothing. You're thwarted in your first attempt with their security system, their encryption system, their... To the extent where you think a couple of the moves that you made, you think there might actually be assisted men actively online monitoring traffic. And it caused you to be much more cautious than you wanted to be, because you do want any trace back to you. Sure. Although you have your own great encryption as well, but it still was nerve-wracking and you were unable to make any progress in about a half hour. You have about another half hour before they return. So you can choose to either attempt to pierce the veil again if you would, or you could switch your gears to Heart Cook's brain, whichever you prefer. I'm going to switch gears to the Heart Cook's brain, but it's just the fact they have that level of security and that level of active counter intrusion. They're hiding itself off. Okay. So, where do you want to research Heart Cooks? Well, I'm going to try to, based on the information that was revealed in my previous public library searches, my conversations with Nico and the occult experience I have, especially with any type of platonic ideal of a spiritual nature and all that, I'm going to try to kind of box it in those terms, you know, because obviously I know that if it's an existing song, I can get digressed down, you know, something that I don't need. I don't need to go to Amazon, I don't need to go to iTunes, but you don't want to buy the CD. But, you know, whatever type of themes or metaphors or symbology that hard versus mind or whatever that would pertain in the box of the content that we're dealing with already, I will try to, I mean, I don't want to vague there, but I'm just trying to. When I was looking for more, are you entering the public domain? Are you going to, I wasn't clear myself, my apologies. Are you going for the public domain to do this search? Are you looking to access the private, you know, the level one archives of, you know, the age is Kaidoru, the age is Kaidoru. All right. So, you're going to forego the public exposure at this point or the public search, excuse me. You're going to focus on what age is Kaidoru might know about this particular spirit. So, go ahead and give me your dice pull when you get a chance. It would, of course, be your typical occult plus intelligence role. All right. It's four, and I have a status with age is Kaidoru of two. So, if my status implies any type of security clearance or maybe greater access to two is slightly better than one. So, in that essence, yes, you have a level of trust or pass or whatever. Yeah, and information, you know, hard information that is not trusted to level one, you know, members of the society. Right. So, you can go ahead and I'm going to give you two extra dice on your on your roll due to your status within ages Kaidoru giving you access to how well the research. I'm not asking for more dice, but I will also say that in addition to that with me being part of the scroll, since I was in the kind of the people who helped composing and writing these databases that maybe I have some inside knowledge and where maybe they can look at. Right. I see what you're saying. I'm not asking for another dice, but maybe in addition to what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually penalize you less than I was going to with my penalties. Because you probably do have a little bit better knowledge than the typical in the field agent in doing the search because you've spent a lot of time writing. Because I'm the guy that does write exactly. So, instead of the minus three, because the incredibly esoteric nature of hard cooks brain, it's going to be minus two dice instead. Four dice. One success with zero, one success. All right. Well, one's all I need. Well, of course, two is better, but one at least means success. You do find access to a reference to hard cooks brain. It is back in 1974. There were a group of agents that were in Cleveland performing a mission back in '74. And they seem to have an encounter with this spirit. And during that encounter, one agent was lost. And any other information has been redacted for higher level clearance. Yeah, I make you feel better. And at that time, everyone returns. Okay, maybe I should wait. I know that someday you're going to have to just be redacted in a piece of information. It is good to know that. Okay, so they come back and I will tell everyone what I found before they tell me what they found. Basically, I was not able to get into the security or get into access to anything with the vitamin B. However, the level of security and counter intrusion that I encountered was really unexpected and unbelievable. Like I couldn't, you know, it's on a almost military grade level of security. So that really kind of is there's somebody who's going to an extreme measure to make sure that no one gets into their system. So it must be something really interesting there. Also, regarding your hard cooks brain, I did find a reference, a limited reference to an operation in Cleveland in 1974 where several agents had encountered some kind of spirit. One of the agents was lost. Agents of what? Agents of either Valkyrie or of ages. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was Operation Burning River. Operation Burning River. All right, and yeah, so much of a kind or field agents were either interacting with our spirit. Don't know what spirit or to what extent an agent was lost, one agent, and the rest of the record has been redacted. What is lost me? That probably, it didn't say that. It didn't say that it just had lost. However, that's what I was able to finally in a half hour. Perhaps we could ask Jade to use her channels to step it up. And is it she knew? The phone rings. And it's Jade's phone. And that's right, boys, she calls me. That is probably. Probably that is. So, where is she? She calls me. And Jade says, hello. Oh, Jade. Are you guys holding up? Well, no one's died. That's always a good stuff in the right direction. That's good to hear. It's only three o'clock. Did you get the livery? Yes, thank you. Great. I've got, I've got some maps of the interior of vitamin B that you'd requested. Had a hard time tracking those down. But we pulled a few strings and pushed a few buttons and we were able to twist a few arms. Originally, I guess, the four design plans had disappeared. And the county's Richard Nixon tape disappeared. Yeah, didn't have it supposedly, but we made, again, we pushed and pulled and tugged and cajoled a bit in. We were able to get an intern to go down to the actual physical records and pull a box, which is why it took so darn long to find it. But they're finally able to find it. And I do have that over. So I'll send it over in PDF format. It's not much. It's just, it's basically a hexagon shaped building without a lot of, you know, I mean, it shows electrical and stuff like that. But they didn't, there's no interior they left. There was no nothing built in the interior, no walls. It was, it's an open space. What? And it's three levels. Yeah, it's just a wide open space. Yeah. That's not very efficient. It's two levels above, you know, two levels above ground and one level below ground. And it's just a wide open space. It's, that's what the records show. So I'll go ahead and forward those two. You guys need anything else? How big is this stone, by the way, then? Yeah, that's what I was curious if we could find a room the size that looked like it would be housing is done. That would put the whole building. Sorry? It's right, you need anything else. I'm, I'm going to go ahead and download those to you and you guys need anything else. Michael wants to talk to you a moment. Hi, Jay. Hi, Michael. I'm Michael. Yeah, we've talked. I need all data and materials regarding the project called Operation Burning River. Operation Burning River in 1974. Somebody's kind door room. Oh, it just kind door room. Okay. As you know, it's obviously, you know, I don't know how much I'll be able to get, but I'll get what I can. Each group tends to hold their information quite close to the best, but we'll see what kind of connections we have and what favors our own. And I'll actually probably pass this one up to Winston because he certainly has a lot more pool than I do with these organizations. So I will get back to you as soon as I can. Anything else, boys? Oh, yeah. I think, um, one other thing, um, Jay wants to ask you a date. I already did. Oh, sorry. She turned him down. Yeah, she did. Boys, we have to mention that part. Okay. I didn't know it's sorry. Perhaps you like to be the chosen one. Wait, me or her? I was in it. None of that was spoken to because you knew. I mean, your character. And so the call ends. At this point, it's about five 30. Dusk is coming and with a relatively cloudless day, so it's a little bit later in the day. Dusk, you know, it's not a really, you know, cloud year overcast night. So, um, you're able to, at this point, head over, at least start to think about heading over to. Yeah, we should go over early just to talk about whether, like, Benjamin's active. Thanks for listening to the Knights 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, perhaps, 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 podcasts or business, please visit ZenAudioSmith.com. And please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. [Music]