Team S.I.R.E.N. has arrived at the old house of the "beekeeper" that keeps coming up in their investigations. Almost immediately, the team realizes that there are greater forces at work than they had previously thought. Will they discover answers to their questions or fall deeper into darkness? Listen in as Team S.I.R.E.N. come face to face with the curiously strange Mr. Benjamin.
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 07: Shit Luck: Ep. 8: "The Curiously Strange Mr. Benjamin"
This World of Darkness storyline, shit and lock, was written and run by our storyteller Scott and now, please enjoy chapter 4, scene 2, titled "The Curiously Strange Mr. Benjamin." Alright, so this is going to be chapter 4 of World of Darkness story, shit lock. I'm Tom playing Jonathan Alton and I was a former soldier in Iraq and now I'm a security specialist, basically a soldier in profession, the World of Darkness. My name's Mike and I'm playing Michael Clay, who is an academic adventurer who deals in artifacts. I'm by playing a shoe park, a rescue, a special investigator for the FBI, and Brian playing John Beamer, I'm a laborer, laid off blue-collar horse. And then you find yourselves at the front door, the doorbellon, there is a doorbell. Yeah, that's brilliant, oh sure, but not, you've got a shotgun, you know, just as an old pistol and Michael has two cans of ortho and a dagger, not out, but right, yeah, there are maybe copockets or something along those lines, and the dagger, where do you normally keep that? It's either kind of in a back sheath, like on the belt, so you can, Scott, yes, you can identify the traces of otherworldly energy around a human soul, you can make a reflex within a cluster called the world to identify any magic, is there any character who possesses the gnosis or gift merit? Gnosis, gnosis. G-N-O-S-R-I-N. I didn't pronounce a G, I assume you have a sound. It's not a good news, or gnosis, or no, it's just enough. He wants to be able to see the witch, normally, but the cloud of magic around her is unmistakable. Fair enough. Can you have, have, or have not drank that drought? It's heavy. It'd be cool. And you'll like this. Actually, you have to inject it into my eye. What? That really sucks to be you. Yeah, it does. It actually requires a roll to steal myself to do that. Needle in the eye, baby. So it's kind of like being stuck in the eye by a bee. Look, if you're a wimp about it, you could put drops in your eyes, but out on your floor. You go straight with the injection. The needle lasts the whole scene, the drop's only last few minutes. All right. Needle is on the passenger seat ready to go. It also mentions the fact that I get a defense against the witch because I know of the magic etcetera, etcetera. Okay. So if it ever comes to an animal, the doorbell rings. You hear a buzzing echoing within the house. It sounds like you're standard, you know, just type of doorbell. Again, all the shades are drawn on the house. There's no way to peer into the home, at least legally from the outside. There's no way to peer inside the home. The shades are drawn. You don't see any lights. It's overcast. You might actually see a light if there was one on the home, but you don't see any signs of life within the home. You listen. No one comes to the door, no footsteps within the house. At least nowhere close by where you could actually detect them. So no movement within the house and no sound from within the house after about 30, 45 seconds or so. I tried the doors a lot. The door is locked. There's actually a screen door which opens and is not locked and then the actual wood frame door is locked. It's because the door is solid or does the door have window panels in it? It has some small window panels on it. They're of the, almost like stained glass. So it's really kind of hard. Or that model. Kind of like that model stained glass. So it's tough to see through, but... I'll try anyway to kind of see if I can see the lights or shadow. Alright so you put your face up right up to that window. Right up to it. Right up to it. All I'm asking for now, baby. I collected his brains up outside. Go ahead and make a perception role, please. Perception is five. Minus anything? Minus three dice because of the, the difficult stained glass. That's our, our, ah, one success. So you catch it at just the right angle where you actually get a pretty clean look. You see a foyer? It looks pretty cluttered boxes and there seem to be a couple of tables and, you know, a couple of lamps. Nothing jumps out at you as being out of place or suspicious, but it's definitely... Just let me ask you a question to clarify. When you say cluttered, do you mean clutter is this as if I'm getting ready to move out of this house type of clutter? No. Or clutter that's been around there forever and there's lived in and lived in the water. Okay. A home that obviously just, no one's worried about, you know, guests coming in or arriving in the home itself, it's basically in a state of clutter and, you know, you can't really see much more than that to be fair, but there's a couple tables, there's a bunch of stuff in the tables, there's umbrellas, you know, lying off the side, there's boots and a coat and, you know, laying on the floor. So it's just a cluttered look to the entranceway to the foyer. And there is no answer after you bring the bell again, another minute to happen. You guys are intense anticipation in the car. I look back. I shake my head. No saying no one here. Um, walk around the side slowly. Is there even a yard or you said the yard was pretty over right after that? I'm gonna walk outside. Take a look at the map. What you have there is you have the sidewalk, you walk up to that front veranda-ish area. And when the only real entrance right is that gate right there that you looked at the crest earlier in our scene, you looked at that crest and saw that it was the plantar crest. And so as you walk around the house again, overgrown thick grass, you know, four or five inches high on the side of the house, you see large bushes that are overgrown, trees that are overgrown, a slight path kind of looks like it's been walked back and forth to that particular gate. And then around the gate and around the entire backyard looks to be at least an eight foot tall wooden fence. And you also see that within the inside of that fence, you can see a lot of trees, again, in a strange summer or late spring bloom, even though it's just started being spring. They're tall out there, 10, 15 foot trees. So in some cases, even much taller than that, and they're kind of falling over the wooden planks that make up the outer perimeter of his backyard. You mean like willows or a variety, to be honest. You've got some deciduous that are coming into the season early, and you've got some coniferous, like pine trees of various sizes that if are always in bloom. And there seems to be almost like a wall of trees above the wall of wood. As they disappear around the side of the house, I sigh and pocket the syringe, check my gun, get out with John. I'm kind of starting heading that way too, we can't let them get out of our sight. Right, and they will be, you know, because the trees are thick, as soon as they start winding their way down that path, they become very difficult to see. Just to clarify, when you said that the trees had overgrown the fence, you mean in height, not necessarily that their branches are dripping over the fence, and before we get home. So conceivably, one of us could jump up, grab it, and chimney on up the fence. If one did not want to attempt the gate entrance, one could conceivably jump eight feet to catch the fence, and then grab a branch, you know, that's close by, and try to make it happen. Mr. Academic. We checked the door first. We checked the door, but I'm also an academic in the art of the occult, and thresholds are known to be a pretty dangerous place for spiritual energy, or, you know, so when I was back here, I was a beekeeper in the middle of the day. I like both Chu and Michael to make a perception role, please. Straight up perception. No minuses. Two successes. Two successes, yeah, and Mr. my two, you had two successes as well. You hear a whoa buzzing. At this point, they catch up, Jay and John catch up to you at the gate to the back, getting back a little bit. They're in sight, but I'm not. So you're going to decide the house kind of crouched military position or an act away? And I'm not trying to draw attention to myself. Well, I bet. I'm not hiding within all of the overgrown, which is, I'm like, yeah, trying to stay in the shape, but I'm not like overly crouching and ducking behind things, I'm just kind of. As you described this yard, though, flying casually, with it being overgrown with hundreds of places to hide, that means that we are relatively obscured from the neighbors. So with the exception of our car, I saw it front, we shouldn't necessarily, a couple of us kind of crawling around the old man's home wouldn't necessarily be noticed since people have grown accustomed to not paying attention to an old measurement. Yes. I would say that that is a fair, solid, my zealot, that is a fair description of the situation. Okay. The overgrowth of the trees and the bushes and the shrubbery, various plants and flowers, all that stuff overgrown makes it very easy that once you came around the side of the house, you could basically remain hidden if you wanted to get a better picture of the gate. Well, here's another thing, too, is that, you know, we do know for a fact that this guy keeps bees, so it shouldn't be out of the ordinary that we hear bees. Right. What? No, that bees like that. No. I just want some haunting tones to go with our bed. Those are like double bees and I'll be leaving now. Those are bees playing winded chimneys. Yeah. Oh, it's an elbow, don't worry about it, it plays the elbow, can't be mean. So you're in front of the gate, it isn't that on your tombstone, wait, wait, wait, wait. To give you an idea, it's a wrought iron gate. Okay. And it's probably, I would say about eight feet as well in height. It matches the wood that comes up, you know, it's a curve top of the gate and then it comes down. Yes, it is. And it has a lot of iron bars, you know, in the gate and the crest is where the iron bars kind of go up to where the crest is at. Maybe they'd already looked at that gate and crest before, right? Yes, you have. And you can actually see through because it's their metal bars. So, right, my point was that we already had evaluated the occult quality of the gate and whether there was something we could detect. I don't believe we found anything. What you see directly inside the gates is a large hedge, maybe three feet in directly in front of you, blocking off sight. So it looks like you would open this gate and then turn to the right to follow that hedge into the backyard. Like a tree? It's a backyard. It's a hedge right in front of you, right? And if you go in and move around, it might become a maze, but from where you're at right now, what you can see, it's just a hedge that's locked on your way, put their hedges along the sides of their boundaries as well as it were. This one's going to be more blocking off. I think it's fair to say that its intent would be to block any vision. As you can see, exactly, their metal gates you can see through. In addition to the buzzing sun that we're hearing, do we hear anything that might be I don't know the sounds of somebody woman in nature? Well, the sounds of someone working in a garden, whether it's tools or whether it's like digging or whether it's a wheelbarrow or anything like that just because I'm happily tempted to like call out, you know, hello. You need to hot air balloon with a camera so you can see what's in the backyard. You both can listen and make perception rolls, but the long and short of it is you're not going to hear anything. Well, that's what I expect and if the bees are buzzing, that might make me think that he's servicing the thing that's what it's about. It's a bible, yes, because usually they don't buzz unless they're agitated. I could be wrong. See, I don't do bees, man. I do artifacts. That's my gig. You're doing well so far. All right. Well, let's see what happens when I get stung. I think a single one of us is a bee iceberg. Okay. Is the gate locked? The gate? Touching the gate? I'm looking at the gate because it locked. When you look at the gate... I'm sorry. When I say when I ask for a living before I... Yeah, they're a big, gaudy lock. Is there a latch? Is it a... I mean, it's a gate so there should be some way to open it. How is that like a simple latch that I can think? Is it... Is there like a mechanism or a lock or...? It looks as if there is a latch on the inside and I have a latch on the inside and when you look at it, there's a, almost like a lock face that's flat with something you would put a key in or something along those lines is what it looks like from a glance so you don't know whether it's locked or not. It just is closed and... It looks as if it could be opened by a subtle knife in certain types. That's exactly what I was going to do. Are there any rocks that want a high key on there in the area? There is a shit ton of rocks and... Look, you don't know things along those fake rocks. Yeah, have really stupid like little chunks of rockers. Oh, you have to make an investigation of rockers. With plus investigation. Okay, I have the term that going through this gate where the bee noises are would be when I would roll it. Oh, one bees are going to bother me. I have three successes. I think that's fair. I mean, you're getting a little bit nervous. Oh, yeah. You're going to race a little bit because of the bees. One success? Three. Three successes? One. One success. Yeah, three. Three some very conspicuously placed rocks and don't find any keys. This guy is just not following me. Okay. My iPhone. He's not listening to the tropes at all. Oh, I changed my plan and I rode back in the car. Oh, we all run away. They are not that loud. How about this? He's sounding great. That was to me. Yeah. Still tuned up. It's two ominous. That's the same one. Yeah. Those are like, those are the ones hitting the, you know, the like you have in the backyard, the bug zappers, like shooting bees with a blow gun. Oh, that's better. Anyway, I have the iPhone and I do a little, you know, a little Verizon to like a walkie talking. You're getting a little text over, oh, your voice to speed are up. Yeah. Whatever their version of. Whatever their version of. What's the talk? Yeah. Push the talk. Thank you. And so I'm like, okay, here's the sitch. We got some, we're at the gate. No sign. You're a good 30 out 30 feet behind you or so it's right where the corner starts. No, I figured you were about 30 feet behind. Oh, okay. You said you weren't going anywhere close to that gate. Yeah. What am I had said to you? The house is about 30 feet back. Okay. You know, like a 30 feet in length. We have the ability to communicate. Why not use it? Yeah. We have the gate about 30 feet behind you right where the house turns to the front, from the side of the house, to the front of the house. You and John are kind of hunkered down into some, shit, well, we should have brought a ladder, some coverage. So I'm like, okay, here's the situation and appears to be a lock gate. We looked around for a key. We don't see a key anywhere. We hear bees, but we know that the guy has hives on them and the promises. So that could be nothing. And what next, what do you think, should we go inside? Well, reconnaissance wouldn't be a bad thing. All right. Are we straight up breaking it into this guy's house? Well, you see it. Do I even know the bad thing? In the middle of the day? We are in a yard which is heavily obscured and covered from all the growth and flowers and plants. All right. I don't want to worry about illegality. We're part of the good guys, right? This is my first time in the field, guys. I mean, is this what you guys do all the time? Well, usually in the FBI, we have this thing called a search warrant. Well, then now you go first. All right. The bee's supposed to be this active all the time. I don't know. That's what we're going to call in one little duck route. That's what I think. Well, that's true. I mean, if you're going to, we're going to, well, we're not here to kill bees per se. We're just here to-- We're on the cusp of the-- I want to open the store. I don't want to be quite-- I just know. He's a rational nation of-- Yeah. Surely just looking around isn't bad. Just taking a peek. Do we know what Benjamin's last name is again? No. We still have time. Although. Plantard. Plantard. I call out. I go. Mr. Benjamin Plantard? No answer. Just some bees, I don't want to eat them. I'll call it again. I'll say, Mr. Plantard, we're from vitamin B. We'd like to speak with you if you're there, please. No answer. Do it. I'll click it. Oh, that's it. That's it. Let's go. Well, if we can't come into the gate, please just say so, sir. If you don't want us to break in, no say, dude. It would be okay if we break in. Don't say anything. He doesn't say anything. If he's there. Bees. I'm just thinking, you go first, identifying ourselves from the company that we think he just murdered someone from might not necessarily be a good idea, but that's what I thought, too, but I also thought I might provoke a reaction and that's kind of the basis of our cover. Is that what you want me to go through? Yeah. Someone's going to tell the tale of what happened. You got to target on your forehead and jump into the fittest name first, didn't you? Sir, I'm an American. I don't think we should be doing this during the day. Good idea. Well, bees are usually less active during night, but it's also hard to see things at night. Ben, he would certainly have the advantage in his own territory tonight. Plus, I'm not entirely sure what we're looking for. We got it. We're looking for missing-- We're looking for health grade agents. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry. Yes, I realize that we're looking for missing health grade agents, but we're actually looking for-- I'm missing health grade agents. Big backyard. Can you say they're adjusting the B volume so we must be adjusting the B volume? I'm just making you nervous that it's going to be a job. I'll touch the game, kind of rattle it a little bit. It opens. Are you going to be able to cover us? What do you mean? It opens. You touch the gate and the latch goes click. It wasn't locked into place. And the gate opens about an inch or so from your gentle push. Well technically, it's not breaking. It starts to slide back closed. As you let go of it, it's weighted to close. And it's closed. Aw, just missed it. I had to take a sip of water. I would have stopped. My intention was to stop it from closing. If I would have been and hadn't latched, then I would have caught it before. Well, it latched exactly the same way it latched when it was opened. Oh, so if I push it in, it opens again. It opens again. I understand it. Open the door. Open it up. Open it up. Open it up. Academically, I'd say that this gate is unlocked. Whatever. I get on the phone and I go, well, it gets unlocked. You are the operational leader, Jonathan. Jonathan said it was forward. We're using video file. Video, a video file with us. He gives you the move forward military sign that you learned when you were training for your whopping 30 days at NSA headquarters. You're training in your head singles. This field work is easy. All right. I have my camera out. But I also have a camera out. You take a can quarter up? A little handheld one. Okay. Better than a phone. I take it. Who's going first? How about this? Would you rather I run the can quarter? I don't know where it's called. I don't know where it's called. Bekeeper. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. I don't know where it should be. There is a password protected wireless network called Acadia. Acadia or Acadia? Acadia. Acadia. Let me verify that just for a second place. What would be getting into this network entail a skill that you don't have? I have computer. Acadia. I was going to tell you more dots in computers because we need. Boy, somebody should have more dots in computer in this group. What's the packing? A skill. Which is what? Packing in your dots times three. So it would be six straight up. A computer is usually something. Intelligence plus computer plus equipment. And you don't have a ton of equipment right now. I mean, you're not at a robust machine with a lot of spyware cracking. You know what? If I'm going to be in that, I could do it right now. I'm sorry. A wireless network called Acadia comes up on your iPhone along with another that is Ew is the second one. And that's password protected as well. So there's two wireless networks, Ew and Acadia, which one is stronger? Acadia. Okay. So what happens? We need a remote controlled blimp to fly over. On it's cam. On it's pointing straight down. The military guys have a UAB. You can just like throw in the air or something. One of those predator drones? Yeah. Come on. Did you tell her to be real? Tell her to watch from NSA and Jade will watch them for you guys from NSA. I do a lot of different. Yeah. Nice. I bet we have them. I bet we have them. If I'm moving up to the door because you guys are moving in then I'm going to make the roll. How are you guys moving into the backyard? Describe it to me please. He's taking points. I'm on the film. She was surprised to hear that. I put this on YouTube. This is a bad idea. Okay. Chew. Describe it to me. Why are we recording our breaking entering? I mean, I'm not in the law much, but it just seems a bit. He saw you pull out the camcorder and just took his direction. Oh, yeah. This is fine. We're also trying to collect information. Good enough. No. It's hard. It's like one of those things. Do you open the gate? Yeah, YouTube. Well, what's up? Huh? Do you open the gate? Sure. Let's go. Okay. Let's go. You open the gate. Good idea. Three feet. Three feet in front of you is a large eight foot hedge looking a bit more groomed. Then the rest of the yard, right? It looks like he actually, or someone is keeping up with this particular hedge so it doesn't become too overgrown. And it's blocking your view forward. That map. That map. I'm gonna spray myself with off. That map that we have is... You don't have off. You have ortho. No, he got off. You got ortho. I'm sorry I got ortho. It's not directly, you shouldn't directly apply it to yourself. No, we stick killed them and it didn't get any off. You didn't get any off. No off. You didn't get anything to get off. He got smokes. Super. Okay. I would like Jonathan and Jon, Tom and Ryan to step into the office over there and close the door please. And yes, I realize you do have phone communication. So you are in the Victorian. Two, you've walked through the gate. And, you know, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary or different. You walk through, I'm assuming you have your start off shotgun in your hand? Is that what you have? Or you just hands free at this point? Phone? Where do you got your hands? Well, I have the phone in my pocket. It's a Bluetooth connection. Bluetooth headset. Microphone headset, right. So you walk in, you see that you're being directed to the right by the large hedge directly in your way. When you look to the right, you see that there is another hedge maybe five foot away from you. And it's cutting directly across. So you've got a hedge coming, you know, perpendicular to you. And then right in front of you. And then you turn to your right. And then there's another one in front of you. But there's a gap between where the one in front of you, the first hedge ends. And the second hedge, you know, moves forward in that direction. So basically you need to turn to your right, walk forward, and then turn to your left to see the back yard. Because you don't have any of you right now. So go to the very edge of it and just peer over, peer around the corner. And you, as he steps forward and moves, you know, forward and then goes to the edge of, you know, moves forward about. Yeah, I don't have the camera. I have the camera in the viewfinder, but I'm kind of, you know, keeping them and doing this kind of thing. Right. And so you're kind of like, do you have a hand in his back or how are you proceeding forward? I would be within five feet of him, I would imagine. Okay, the turn, you know, through the gate, you make a right hand turn, you go forward. That hedge that would now be on your left hand side ends after about three feet or so. And that's where it chews down. So are you inside? You mean, are you just inside the gate or you run inside the gate? I'm inside the gate. There's not five feet to make at this point. Okay, I'm inside the gate. Okay, you're inside the gate. Basically looking at you in the corner. Two, you look forward around the corner and you see the hedge on your right at this point going forward about five feet or so. Then again, you have one directly in front of you. So it looks like you need to now make a left, you know, a left hand turn to follow the hedge. It's ridiculous. And you still hear the bees and you're still... Do they sound louder at all? No, they sound louder at all. No, they sound about the same. So I'm... Remember, it's a big backyard. I'm still inside of the gate and I'm still inside of the shoe, correct? Absolutely. But what you're describing is... Oh, wait, wait. Let me draw it. I'm drawing a zigzag. Here's the gate. Here's the first hedge. Here's the second hedge. And then there's another one. And then here's as much as you can see because you're just peeking around the corner and it's kind of blocked. So this is where shoe is at, peeking around that first corner and this is where Michael's at. All right. Are there any trees on your bottom? You see trees, like you can see branches and stuff. Over here what you know goes along the line of the fence line and you can see some trees over here which you think is going to be on the other side of the yard. The middle of the yard has a few trees as well. There are trees by the gate you were saying. There are trees here, like outside the gate and there were some bushes here as well and just large undergrowth and, oh, I'm sorry, not undergrowth. Yeah, really both. Overgrowth and undergrowth. There's a little pathway that went between it and there's the gate. All right. Right by the entrance. There's no trees. No, just some bushes and some shrubbery, you know, flowers or whatnot. All right. And so in here is where Jay is at, he moved right up to the edge with John Beamer right behind him. How easy is it to see through these hedges? So they're great. Impossible. Impossible, completely. Yes. Are you familiar with boxwood? No. Okay. So there's a very dense type of coniferous, keeps its leaves throughout the winter, coniferous hedge or bush that can be shaped in the hedges and this is the type of boxwood. So it's through the gate, you've turned right, you've moved forward three feet and you are now looking to your left where there's an opening to follow this pathway along. How thick are these hedges? The hedges themselves are probably about, you're guessing, somewhere in the vicinity of three to five feet. Okay. Oh. What are those guys doing? Are they coming in behind us? Right now they're waiting at the, they're waiting at the gate. I'll do a little check, can you hear us? Okay. A little soundtrack check, one, two, check, one, two. And the reason why, to help you explain this, the reason why I'm curious to see if on this side of the gate, if our communication is still good is, you know, I suspect maybe some occult interference or maybe something else. So if we're, if we're cut off, then I think we need to pull back. Jade is typical sardonic manner says, right here, okay, there's a lot of bees here. Screw you, Mike. Okay. I'm taking the liberty. Sure. For Jade. Yeah, I don't think your, your tool. I don't think you're far off. All right, you. What are you doing? I can't see the foot a little bit. Okay. So chew disappears, that disappears literally. He moves forward, where do you Michael can no longer see him? Are you moving up to where? I'll follow him and then I will also draw my dagger. Okay. And chew, you move around the corner, you see a hedge just basically like this up ahead. Where are you positioning yourself? Stay right there. So you edge the corner. This corner right here, okay. So chew is here and Michael is now, actually, what's, actually, what's, what's the ground here? The ground is, I would say it's overgrown grass, like five, six inch grass that's been trodden down. You know, it's been walked down quite a bit. So if I were to take the knife and carve a symbol into the ground, it would, I would be able to see it pretty clear. Yeah. I would say because of, again, you wouldn't, if the grass is fine, it's just high straight up. Because it's tr, you know, it's basically beaten down into all the, all the paths. Yes. Absolutely. I'm going to draw kind of an arrow back to our, to the gate. Got it. You lost your anybody? I, I'm not lost yet, which is why I wanted to start. Okay. Chew. So you're around the corner whispering back and forth, the mic is peering around the corner. You seem, you know, digging the arrow into the ground. And so you're talking to each other, neither one of you has a phone out. So you're just talking voice-wise. I want to see each other. You're going to blow up. Yes. We had, yeah, we were talking on the phone saying that it looks like it's some kind of hedge maze. I'm going to do it myself. I wish, I wish we had a ladder. Well, maybe there was a garden show that we could find something with our final ladder. Do we find these eggs? I know. No, I'm not really, I mean, no one can support your weight. It would just be. Actually, it means it raises a question. I mean, I know boxwoods are pretty thick and dense, but can we maybe, you know, look through, maybe push through, look. You could try to push through. Yeah, I mean, you could absolutely try to push through, but they are very, very decked push. I wasn't trying to push through. I'm not wanting to say push through, but just kind of like, okay, can I leave some? Not tall. Are they? Eight foot in foot. I should give that camera. So about as high as the ceiling right here, we get like a stick or something, tie it on there, show it up to her, and rewind it and see what we see. I don't know. Or we can stop doing like a bunch of scared babies, be fucking men, gosh darn men. And I think this is PG-30. Sorry. I know. I corrected myself. No, I think it's okay. I think occasional flipping is okay. Well, then you can go first. Okay. Here's the camera. So when you say that, I wouldn't do that. That's not prudent. And I sip at the next, the next, I'll come up to the next intersection, I'll make another arrow here, and I'm known back here. You walk in through the gate, you turn left, right, you then walk three foot forward, you turn left, you walk up to where two is, you're going to turn left again, and you draw your arrow back. Right. Okay. So you and you are now no longer within sight distance to the other two, then let's try to not have a lot of sight, which is exactly what you're waiting for, of course. Jonathan was, or J, excuse me, no, J Jonathan, same thing, was, you know, are you guys going to take all day? I mean, really? Can you? I mean, you've walked three feet, you know, thanks. Let's move forward at this point. So when you actually, I can still see you, you know, he's basically ribbing you. And when you walk around the corner, he's in mid conversation with you, like, I can still see, and then he cuts out. So it seems as if your electronic communications is no longer enough. Is the camera so functioning? The camera is showing a blank screen. I check it. I take it on my phone, what is it doing? He's saying no signal, he's saying no signal. All right, let's go back, all right, let's go back. You guys both turn around to the right and come back around the corner to go to where the gate is, and the gate is no longer there. Fish. All right. Michael, what's your intelligence to? And chew, what is your intelligence to? Well, you both have average intelligence. That's what it means. That's what it means. Yes. Which means, see where it says start on this map, I've described it for the listeners. It's a map, it's basically a maze, and it's of the Roman pantheon. Start drawing, boys. That's where you start. You can not go backwards from the end, so don't do that. You have 15 minutes to accomplish it. Go. Yeah, all right. What? Can we collaborate? Certainly, you can talk all you want. Yeah. Well, here. You're together. All right. You come to that first break. You go 14 and a half minutes. And you go left. I'll go right. So, what are you going down? I'm not trying to go up like this. Yeah, we'll do it. I'm already stuck. All right. Can I erase it? Yeah. All right. Hey, you. What? I'm out of time. Guys, keep it down. I want these two are coming back in and I don't want them to know what's happening right now. [coughing] 12 and a half minutes. Okay. So, they've disappeared around the corner. You've lost communication with them. And it was almost instantaneous to when Michael walked around the corner to disappear as two had kind of disappeared around the corner when the phone communication was lost. Okay. We've got to go back. Yeah. I mean, obviously. Okay. You move inside the gate. Yeah. There's a hedge directly in front of you. And if you look to your right, there's a hedge. You hate to waste those rolls. There's a hedge. No, no, no. There wasn't a way. If you look to the right, there's a hedge directly in front of you. I see what you're doing. I got you. A hedge directly in front of you when you turn to the right about five foot distance. The hedge that's now on your left as you turn coming in the gate is three foot distance and there's a two foot gap on your left hand side. And to give you a better description or I was having a tough time with the guys as well. It's kind of hard to describe, but we'll go ahead and draw off here, which is here's the gate, here's the hedge and here's another hedge right here. And here's the wall and here's trees and some more trees over here. So you've got here's a wall and here's a wall. So you've got a hedge and you've got an opening here, but you're standing right here through the gate. So when you look down at direction, you can see what we saw them was here. We're going around the corner. So when we go to that point first, that roll was, of course, to injection stuff, right? No, it was a B roll. It was not to be affected by the B's. Right. Right. You've got 37 or 6,000. Obviously, the concern you have for your fellows is all that matters at this point. So you charge, well, move quickly around the corner. Are you right behind him, John, or are you taking the point? I'm taking out a weapon too. Okay. Which would be a pistol? A pistol. And John, what do you have in your hands? I'll take out a pistol. I'm assuming I don't have any other weapon with the out shotgun and I certainly don't have any. I certainly don't have a sniper rifle. So did we get a can of spray? Yeah. We've got 10 minutes. So you both move around the corner and when you do that, you notice that your headset, that you're able to talk to each other like, okay, let's move forward, you know, and you move forward, start moving forward, as soon as you move around that corner, the headsets go down. And you see another hedge directly in front of you leading to another gap off in the distance to the right as you move around this corner. So there's another opening about three or four, maybe five feet ahead of you on the right hand side. And they're still not responding. They're still not responding. Well, if you have, yeah, you have no signal, they can't respond. I have no signal. You have no signal. You lost a signal to them, but you were still able to talk to John through your head, your Bluetooth headset. Right. As soon as we were out of the corner, we lost even a signal to each other, you know, standing right next to each other. You could talk to each other, but you've lost the signal. Yes. And we could take a step backwards. Yes. Do you take a step backwards? I'm assuming if you said you can't take a step backwards. Yeah. And I test that. I guess. When you take a step backwards, the gate's no longer there. Is there a little wall still there? What's your intelligence? Uh, two. Yes. What's your intelligence? Two. You have 15 minutes. Start at the S. Good luck to you. But we're still next to each other, still next to each other, and can collaborate if you wish. You can not start from the back though. Please do not go to the end and try to look your way up. For anyone who has to be listening to this podcast, the players are currently moving their way through a very detailed maze, which is the interior of the Roman pantheon. And it's a very difficult maze on paper. And they're trying to accomplish this within 15 minute time frame. I'm not sure why they're not sure why 15 minutes is important, but they do feel a pressing need upon them. The heart rate's beating a little faster. And they know that it's urgent. They get out of this maze-like setting within the next 15 minutes. The first group has 10 minutes remaining, actually we're closer to eight and a half minutes remaining for the first group, and we're at 14 minutes for the second group. So again, Tom and Ryan, you can talk to each other, Jonathan and John, Jay and John, and Chu and Michael can talk to each other if they wish. The collaboration is okay. You're walking through this together. So I don't know if anything to get from now, no, no, no. 60 seconds, John, this would be the first group at the second group, so 20 seconds, of course, 10 seconds down, or in this case, passes. I'll describe what happens in a moment, let's say 60 seconds, five minutes, John. That'd be really annoying. Follow me, Jay, I think I got it. What? So follow me, I think I got it. I will follow you, 50 seconds, 45 seconds, 40 seconds, I'll keep going all the way up, I did it to 35 seconds, 30 seconds, through here, got up into this column, 25 seconds, right on top of the color, 20 seconds, and zigzag all the way through all this. And then you get the seconds, 10 seconds, and then you get the seconds, and then you get the second. I was just joking, you two can make it together, you're standing next to each other. I just want to see if you can pull it off or not, so I'm going to handle it in two different groups. Once again, if John Deemer and Jonathan Alton, otherwise one is Jay, can step out of the room for a second? We're the right ones, the ones who didn't go in. You have the key to see if I actually did it right. It looks like you, it looks like you did. Yeah, it looks correct, me too. All right, you both find yourselves in basically a clearing, you're walking through this maze back and forth, obviously lost, obviously frustrated, and you walk into a clearing. You see something different in the clearing, chew, you see a table, and on the table is non-blope, and the envelope says the answer. Beyond the table, you see the gate leading to the outside, back to where you originally came in. Of course, it doesn't make any sense, because it was behind all that twisting and turning, but here it is, you're in a large clearing, there's a wooden table, envelope says the answer. Beyond it is the gate. You intuitively know that you've got to virtue a fortitude, fight your way through and not taking the easy answer. You've got a vise of sloth, which would be the easy answer. Their option here is to walk through the gate, continue on with your quest and not look for the easy answer, or to take the easy answer, your choice. Michael, you see the same clearing, but on the table, instead of looking at an envelope with the word the answer written on it, you see what looks to be a small statue of some ancient god with a beard made of bees. And you see the exit departing from this frustrating, dark maze. Your virtue is prudence, and be prudent just to leave and allow for the fact that the quest will go on, and you made it out safely. Your vise is greed, there's an artifact singing a table waiting to be picked up. You know you can only choose one. What's the choice that both of you choose? Do you choose to give in to your vise, or do you choose to live up to your virtue? I thought I was going to walk out the gate, because I don't want to be here in the first place. That's very frustrating, I knew it was a bad idea. That's tough. If I were to be fair, I mean that's why. Alright pick up the statue. Alright, I shoot him. When you walk through the gate, you walk past the table, Michael stops the table. You look back, you continue on, almost like in a dreamlike trance, you've made your decision. You're watching yourself do this, right? You reach the gate, you walk through, and you're struck with just a nice thing migraine headache. You know that just it was a terrible experience, and you take one bashing damage, and you care to shoot. You pick up the artifact, grin to yourself, because you're very excited to have your hands in the artifact. And then you see yourself standing there and declaring with the artifact, and then all of a sudden you're being blown through the gate, like you see yourself almost like you're standing outside the gate where she was currently standing, and your back hits against the gate. You know the gate opens up, you go tumbling through, still clutching the artifact in your hand, and you take four bashing damage. If you both would get up, walk into the other room and tell the other two gentlemen to step in here, I'll try to make it as quickly as I possibly can so you're not away from the story for a long time. Alright, well done, Ryan, what do you get to the end of the maze? You walk out and you see much, much like you did on the Google Maps when you saw the aerial view of the area, you see a backyard, it's relatively expansive, overgrown trees, you see paths along these trees, you see a bunch of boxes full of basically boxed beehives, you know having them in large crates, and you see like a garage type shed over here. Over the back you see some greenhouses, you see some bees, you see them, no you do not see them, you see bees in the area of the boxes, those are the ones that are making the noise, you see some moving around the yard and pollinating, but the vast majority of the bees are congregated on the box hives, and standing neck, oh sorry, what we really went through, like how big did it seem like a maze. To you it seemed like it was the size of the pantheon, it was huge, it was obviously hedge, it was wilderness, it wasn't the actual pantheon itself, but it seemed enormous, and when you look back it looks like you walk out of a row, maybe you know three back and fourths of a small little hedge maze, really not much more than a very small thing, so you're struck by how little distance has traveled, in the backyard, obviously it's very shaded, very secluded, you do hear some birds in the background, the bees, you see it incredibly, just small, like maybe five, four or so, man, he's elderly, he's bald, he's very light skinned, he's covered in bees, and he's naked, like that covered in bees, but he has bees kind of on him, and he looks up from his beekeeping, and says you shouldn't be here in a high-pitched whiny type voice, your electrical devices still do not work, damn it, and the bees seem to be, you know, forming around him, and again, not necessarily threatening yet, but he says to you, you shouldn't be here, I sneeze, or pretend to, and do it again, turning around and that's when I inject my eye, if I can manage to pull it up, okay, that sounds like some sort of subterfuge, done it, that's hope so, and I will say that that particular role needs to be, I think, subterfuge is an excellent skill, and I would say, apparently I didn't because I don't have it, that's what I write, I'm going to assume what is a lot that can really apply here, I'm going to say you're trying to keep your composure, so, composure plus subterfuge to pull off the, I guess there's two different things, you're going on, certainly, going on here, one is to actually jab myself in the eye with a needle, and that will be your standard role, okay, and the other is just possibly to get him to delay long enough which I can do, I'll just say we have some questions for you regarding that, so go ahead and make your roles, Tom, okay, and while you're doing that, John Beamer speaks, and John, I'm going to go with, I got one success, so that's all you need, was that for injecting yourself or for? No, that was the, the composure, so John does a great job of distracting Benjamin. Oh, then I get an extra guy, you know, I should have gave you an extra dime, to be honest, it worked, so, right, so I'm going to go with socialize, and I'm going to go with socialize, I'm going to go with presence, you're trying to get his attention, you're trying to, you know, not be too outgoing, but something that it's not a good, I'm going to use a will point, a willpower, okay, it was a one presence and zero, it was socialized, so it was minus one, zero, you were more with beer and, you know, beer and pretzels kind of guys, this is obviously a high academic individual with his beekeeping and such, so add a three dice on to your zero dice, because you're actually at zero does, gives you three dice for the world. This is naked and this is throwing up. That would, that would be, that would be, that would be, that would be, that would be one. I'm not accustomed to being held accountable for my actions, certainly not by the likes of you, so while you're able to at least delay him, he doesn't seem thoroughly convinced that he should be revealing information to you at this point, still have some work to be done I guess, ow, so I do get out myself in the eye, yes, and when you, when he says that to you, the bees start to coalesce behind him, maybe slightly more aggressively than they were before, as if they can understand him or read his emotions or something, but you know, he's looking at you in his nakedness, which is certainly disturbing enough as it is, but he's covered in bees and they just seem to be, I would say they're swarming a bit at this point, they're starting to get larger and more aggressive, in number, not larger, actually, in size, and so Jonathan turns back around, or Jay turns back around at this point in, what do you do, Jay, I can make a reflexive wit and a cult role to identify any magic user, have at it, wait a while, two and one, for a total of three, so I'm going to spend a will to make it up to six, okay, I'm not going to risk it, but actually just ruin it, and, for some reason, you're going to be removing two dice from that pool, oh, fuck's that, that's all failure, that is, is it redoable, I don't know that, alright, take a look at your, I'm not well versed with that particular elixir, so let me know if it is possible to do again, and we'll go from there, so, Jay looks towards Benjamin, and whispers to you, I got nothing, I got nothing, and what, Benjamin is looking towards both of you, expectantly, as the bees continue to coalesce, and feed off the thoughts, emotions, words of their master, it doesn't seem that it's, it's redoable, but it does state that there are other effects, and that I received a three dice bonus to just mine altering effects from someone. We'll say that you can do it again on another scene, I mean if you get another elixir and try it again in the future, you can't never read him again, right, okay, okay, but you, and you will get the benefit of, you know, if this turns nasty or what not, but let's continue on with the conversation, you realize that it wasn't quite as effective as you do and you probably shudder a bit, you weren't able to, let's go with something, let's go with more like, you couldn't quite control it raging inside, you were pretty good at it, but you weren't able to harness everything, it was too wild, it was too unpredictable, and your body couldn't quite contain it, you know, and effectively narrow down your focus to where you needed to be, he's thrown it back to you, he doesn't expect to be questioned by individuals, anyone for his actions, especially individuals of your stature, so it came across as quite, you know, cold and aggressive in his response, we're only looking for answers, that would describe the entire human condition, we're all looking for answers, the gate is behind you, please exit the way you came, and fast talk might be the more appropriate, your socialize, you're able to socialize with him, but he's determined that he, you know, socialize for a few minutes, but now you have, or a few seconds, but now you have to leave, if you want to continue the conversation, fast talk would be the way you'd have to go, what would be the question the last one is, does he work forward slightly, yeah, we'll do fast talk, isn't it, we're just, we're just trying to, fast talk is, just you know, is manipulation plus persuasion versus his, well, versus his nice pull, which I'll roll, I'm not sure it says his two, but what is, what is manipulation plus persuasion, persuasion is the skill, manipulation is the talent, one, or the attributes, excuse me, which I'll throw, go ahead, which is, I guess, one better than him, and you can always risk will power or spend will power as one, could I assist in that, or would that just be two people talking at the same time, you know, you can hear Jack thoughts and comments into it, absolutely, you get one extra guy in your room, okay, so, what are you saying to him, because I got to know whether he's going to try to empathize with you or detect your lies, as you're fast talking to him, so you need to phrase it, yeah, I was thinking a lot of those lines, I mean, first of all, where are our two friends, there are two other people that came with us, where are they, they're back where you should be, as well, through the gate, well, we came here to ask you some questions, and I said, I'm not held accountable by anyone who made up those roles, how about my friend in the hospital, you're kind of accountable for putting them, or at least you believe so, unless you can answer questions that will prove, otherwise, pawns on a chess board, no human lies, a dime, a dozen, that means yours too, I suppose, oh, mine is definitely worth more than a dime, all right, eleven cents, maybe Canadian, don't know, but you got some things they answer for my friend, still fast talking at this point, just so you know, if you're, sounds more like a threat to me, yeah, that's kind of a threat, then, then that, so, if we're going to be threatening, as opposed to fast talking, that would be a different role, that would be intimidation, yes, and I would say, presence, plus intimidation, still the same, I have intimidation of one, and presence of two, how about it, let's just do that, do I get his assist, if he can role success, one, I take out by Canada, oh yeah, there you go, does that equipment bonus, you know, yes, it's good, but it's also bad, because it upsets him, so it's kind of bold, he sees it, you're prepared, but he also is slightly angered by the fact that you take out something that would hurt his beloved pet, so it ends up being plus one, minus one, or a four, or a flash of zero at that point, just to be clear, she got a successful one of helping me, but we were arguing equipment bonus, right, you still get the one, you still get the one extra die, all right, and I am going to, because he's in his home turf, and very comfortable, I was going with risking well, right, I was going to, well, go ahead and cut up your dice, and I'll let you know what the penalty is, all right, I got them all, you got them all, okay, because he is a presumed potential, you know, powerful figure of some sort or another, at least he thinks he is, and he's on his home turf, I got pride, I think I'm a pretty, you do, but you just went through some kind of funky nays that you have no idea how the heck that happened, so I'm going to subtract three dice, because he's on his home turf, and I've already rolled his success, you know, what he has, so you're a bonus is minus three dice, three, eight, eight, eight, and the rest will does not last, right, exactly, three successes, three successes, and that matched it, so you can continue to talk as the battle of wills goes on, he didn't dismiss you outright, he didn't close down, but you certainly didn't intimidate him until we'd be in any information, he didn't, that was a pretty good roll, three successes and all right, so can I assume then that you're not refuting the fact that you were responsible, you called the man upon and now he's in a hospital, I neither refute nor deny, it's your hand, he holds up his two hands, does anything look unusual about his palms, those hands, no, they're dips, no, you don't see any kind of protruding stingers or anything that would be obvious on that level, as you can see my hands are clean, I guess you weigh more than I want to see, but the question is, what have you got against the invite even be company, that you're killing off the members of them, maybe there's something we can help you with, maybe we're on the same side, that sounds like fast talk, yeah it certainly does, what was that again, John feel free to jump in and you can assist as well, if you don't have that, but if you assist I want to hear something, assist wise, like say something, because you can't just say I'm assisting, it is manipulation plus persuasion plus equipment bonus, so no equipment bonus I can think of at this point, again totally looking for you, one success with an argument of fighting the evil umpires by mistrust, yeah you know we got a guy in the hospital, we got people dying on us, we just want to know what's going on, alright and he gave you one success, go ahead and roll your notes, I'm going to fail it in my bones and I just rolled four failures, did you risk me willpower, I did not, okay, I have what I need to succeed, the vitamin B company, there are conspiracies afoot beyond what you could possibly imagine, you are pawns on a chessboard, you cannot help me, you cannot aid me, you will probably only get in my way, please, the gate is there, leave, and the bees are getting much more aggressive at this point with this latest response and the bet that you lost that contestant, if you roll, you know they're coalescing around him, they are a literal swarm at this point, and if they look, well to you especially, they look terrible, but it looks like with you know a flick of his hand or a flick of his mind, they could come barreling towards you, and he looks resolute in his answer, it doesn't mean you can't try again, but you certainly got shut down at any future attempts to fast talk him would certainly be at a minus, you did tie at an intimidate, so you could try to be fast talking again. Right, exactly. Putting a ball through his forehead, not that I can do. Yeah, he doesn't seem overly concerned about the gun, either. So your choice is, yeah, all right, we beat a hasty retreat, when you go back into the hedges, you do not have to find your way through the difficult maze, whatever, you know what he says, you know, deep through the maze, I've made sure it's easily gotten through. And our friends, your friends are on the outside, right where I said they would be, right outside the gate, that they shouldn't have entered in the first place. And our friend is a plantar, parting shot, the seal thing, the crust, plantar family crust, he's saying our friend is a plantar, this is what he says, he says, your mom is a plantar. So you leave through, and you see them basically looking days, shaking a bit, she doesn't look overly shaken, he looks like he's, you know, got his composure about him and he's looking around and he's got his wits about him and he's looking through the gate and he's glad to see you guys turn around the corner. Michael Clay is like sitting down and got one hand on the ground, he's breathing heavy and he looks, his hair is definitely must up, he looks like he has like grass stains on some of his clothing, he just, and he looks ruffled, you know, he just looks like he's been out of sorts a bit, you see them come around the edge of the edge and they open the gate and they walk through it and you are now all together in the same place. Thanks for listening to Nights of the Night actual Clay Podcast, visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures, where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling, props, and even a forum for comments and suggestions, or you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com. All music for this podcast has been created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcast or business, please visit zanaudiosmith.com. That's all for now, join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. Bye! the next time. you. (upbeat music)