Critical Hit: A Major Spoilers Real Play RPG Podcast
Critical Hit #751: Down Time (Part 1) (PANS01E64)
In this installment of Critical Hit: A Major Spoilers RPG Podcast - Injured and beaten, the team spends the downtime recuperating.
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- Duration:
- 1h 17m
- Broadcast on:
- 22 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Critical hit Punch Hall Nazis takes place in the early days of World War II and combines high adventure with cosmic horror. All dates, locations, and historical events are thrown out the window in order to create a fun story, so don't put too much thought into historical inaccuracies. All accents are done poorly, but with love, and no disrespect is intended. [MUSIC] Last time. >> Uncritical hit. >> As much as I hate to say it, are we just going to take the L here? I don't think it's a matter of taking the L, I think the L has been handed to us. >> You have one bad guy in custody. He appears to be shattered both in physical form and mental form. [MUSIC] They are able to kind of catch you up and get you back to England and to tents. Carlos, you are standing in front of the mirror, and you are shaving off your beard. And you go down to splash water on your face and clean off the shaving cream. And you put the towel in your face to dry off your face. And when you take the towel down and you look into the mirror, there's your father looking right back at you. >> Do you mean like metaphorically? >> He is the reflection in the mirror. >> Like seriously, that's what I say. >> Yeah. >> I do a little pantomime. >> And he kind of does it and then he's like, Carlos, you need to knock this off. You need to get with the program and you need to get on the right side of all of this. Everyone's watching you. And at that moment, you wake up and you are laying in the medical wing of Majestic HQ. You've been here about a day, you've gone in and out of consciousness. You were almost dead when they picked you up from horn. And the boat went as fast as it could. But it still was about a day or so to get you back to the Majestic HQ. You are, I should say, sorry, Section M HQ. You are stabilized, but you are resting now. And you've got some really good morphine in your system. There are a couple of other soldiers who are in beds as well. And one of them you recognize as Colonel Badger. You met him very, very early on when you were first inducted into this secret war. And he's got part of his face all bandaged up. And he looks to be in good spirits, but you can tell he's gone through some stuff. And then he's on the bed to your left. And then across from you is another soldier who is missing an arm. And he's missing a leg. And his face is also wrapped up. And then all the way in the far corner of the room, there is a curtain pulled around somebody in that bed. Your doctor has advised you in the times that you have woken up that you probably should take it easy and not do too much for the next couple of weeks. Does anybody been by recently? I think the nurse came and emptied everybody's bedpans a while ago. Gross. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the soldier across from you, he's not getting up. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll make it easy for her and go pee in the bathroom. All right. Good for you. Very good. Yeah. You can walk around. You can move around. You do have on pajamas, so it's not like you can't walk around without your backside showing. So you kind of can walk around the facility if you need to, but again, the doctor has advised because of your stitches and everything that you don't do anything too strenuous for a while. Yeah. After that, I'll try and see if I can get ahold of somebody at the library. Yeah, sure. There's a there's a librarian guy that comes up. Hey, can you. Help me look for some books. Oh, yeah. Sure. This is that nerdy guy that you've met a couple of times, right? See if you have anything on mysterious languages like Atlantean or Enochian or whatever. Okay. I can do that. And the actually, I mean, like, though, the key of Solomon is a book, right? You understand it that is a could be a book could be a parchment could be a scroll, but you understand it that is a spell that is controls, controls creatures, presumably. Right. Okay. I see. Yoggs of off. Right. Yeah. Actually, give me anything that you can find on Solomon, the guy and also look for Suleiman. Okay. Those should be relatively easy to find, sir. I'll see what I can do. Give me an hour. Thanks. Sure. If you need me, just tell us for Stephen Jettick. Okay. All right. Thank you. He goes off and leaves. And as he is leaving, there is Sally Armadage is there, yeah, Sally Armadage is standing there at the door and she was looking at you and she says, I thought the doctor said you weren't supposed to be doing any strenuous activity. Yeah, I'm just reading, unless this is a really backhanded thing, it should be okay. She laughs and she comes over and she gives you a cigarette and she gives a badger, a cigarette and helps you light it. So what are you looking for? Well, since I'm bedridden for a bit. I figured I'd see if I can approach any of this stuff from a different direction, see if now that we know what all the objects are, when I see if I can either find any stories in which like Solomon himself came across them or whatever, I know that the objects are part of the thing that seals Carcoza, but I don't know if we know where they come from. I don't think we know it like if the luminaries made them to do that, right? That is the general thinking that we have right now based on the diary that you brought back that everything was crafted together by the luminaries because they were trying to keep what we can tell a wizard or a sorcerer or whatever that the person called himself from getting into Carcoza and using the King of Solomon to control Yogg's Thoth and yeah. So we believe it was all crafted by the luminaries. So then yeah, in that case, I guess I'm looking for a best case scenario and looking for any mentions of the key of Solomon itself and also any other mentions from cryptic languages or in cryptic languages about Carcoza or anything like that. I'm sure that right now the research department is really, really trying to figure out what that flute is supposed to do. So I'm going to stay away from that research for now. From the only thing that we know right now, and it's unconfirmed because we don't have the flute with us, but my father and his research before he passed away, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, did I know that he had passed away? I believe so. If not, then he passed away shortly after you guys left America. I see, I see or after you left Arkham, that's why you couldn't get ahold of him that night. Well, I don't think I'd gotten around to my condolences then. So my condolences. No, thank you. Thank you. My father after dealing with the stuff initially in Dunwich really leaned heavily into the occult section at the library and poured through all of the text multiple times. I'm surprised that his mind lasted as long as it did considering some of the things that are found in those tombs. But he started to catalog a bunch of, I don't know if you call them gods, outer beings, old ones, whatever you want to call them, I suppose it's fine. But he did come across references to something called an azathoth. They have no idea what that is, but they said it was the idiot god and the only way that they could keep azathoth from awakening and destroying the universe in its madness was to have music playing all the time. And so there were these, I don't know if you call them angels, lesser gods, whatever. But they were tasked with playing flutes all the time. I don't know if that is the case here because we're dealing with another creature and not azathoth. Right. But I would imagine that if it's similar that it would probably be used to either summon something or control something, help control something. Mm hmm. Okay. That I would know about the flute, but yeah, it's a shame that they were able to get their hands on that. And that there were so many of them. She's read the reports of marines, Nazis, yeah, easy earthworm head people. Yeah, we really, yeah. We walked into a, hmm, low into a skirmish that we had a low probability of winning. And then that's when Badger next to you says, boy, ever since the Nazis have broken across the lines in the franson or heading to Paris, they've been ransacking every museum, every archive that they can find, and they are very aggressive at trying to find something. That's where I got this. And he points at his face, ran into some black sun. Yeah, those guys are not joking around. Yeah, they got this thing with a giant worm with a head. Right. Nasty bugger. Yeah. Yeah, we ran into some of those too. Oh, you're lucky you got away with the injuries you did. Timmy over there just almost didn't make it. And you see Timmy just kind of nod his head a little bit, which I'll get out of this bed and take care of that. Nazi over there, any gestures to behind the curtain. Oh, is that where they're keeping? What's his name for? I talk about Dean's talk, Dean's talk. He was beat up pretty bad. And for now, we're keeping him sedated until we think he's well enough for interrogation. You did quite a number on him. Yeah, I think I probably broke both of his arms. Yes, and most of his ribs and at least one leg. Well, that's all gravy. I was mostly just trying to incapacitate him. You did a good job at that. We're hoping that he'll be well enough to be questioned within the week. I'd like to question him now. Well, maybe if everybody's feeling better, they'll let you get a shot in before they throw him in an actual cell. He's not going in a cell as far as I'm concerned. No. I know there's places on the grounds where people don't go too very often. I can dig a hole pretty deep and put him in it. My concern is that given his knowledge of magic, putting him away from human eyes might not be the best idea. You won't be alive when he goes in that hole. You say that. All right. Anyway, I don't mean to argue about this. I get you. I get what you're saying. Anyway, I just wanted to check and see how you were. Is there anything that you need? I'll be. So, I'll be. Whenever you're sent. Even on. No. I'll be all right. They got me on a nice regimen of water and whatever this weird pudding substance is. He just smiles and nods and says, "You can walk around. The library is downstairs if you need anything." Yeah. If I need anything, I'll get down there, but I'm actually taking convalescing seriously. I don't want to rush this. I'd hate to be in a situation like this again and find that my knees are stiff or, you know, whatever. Okay. Well, heal well. And she leaves. No wave. Let's go see what Blisco is up to. Let's go. It's been a few days since you've been back. You filed all of your reports. Mm-hmm. No one seems to blame you for anything or your group. What are you up to? Well, I've dismantled, cleaned and reassembled all of my gear at least a couple of times at this point. A couple days you studied? Okay. Yeah. It's been a couple of days. Yeah. And I've probably found whatever vehicle in the garage or, yeah, the garage area is working the worst to figure out how to fix it. Okay. While you are working in there, you meet another guy. He's a mechanic by the name of Dan Greg and he is interested in your mechanical knowledge and you two are hitting it off. Yeah. Brian, you are a private Greg. All right. And a private Greg is a mechanic and he's also interested in a lot of the things that Blisco is interested in. So what'd you figure now here? Uh, do you even figure and fix this clunk? Yeah. This is a pretty old car. It's probably from the 1920s. One time it was probably a truck that was used to haul supplies to and from town to the estate. But modern times, this car is really not necessary and it's just kind of been left to to to sit in a rot. Oh, well, let's start it up and hear it. All right. All right. All right. Let's go. Why don't you try and roll a mechanic vehicles plus what are we going to insight I guess vehicles plus insight. We'll just make it a D one. Vehicles is a 14. Oh, yeah, this thing. You turn it over and there's not even a click. You don't know if it's the battery, if it's an alternator, if it's the whatever it is, but you tried cranking it and nothing and start over. All right. Well, there's certainly a lot of accumulated gunk all over the thing. And over the next couple of hours, you and and Greg are able to bond. There are some other mechanics that come in and out of this garage. They are more interested in some of the newer vehicles. One of them appears to be hot or Touton's main car and it's a very fancy like Bentley type car. They work on that, but you also see over in the corner people doing things with wires and cables and welding pieces and they will take it outside. And then somebody else will come back inside and they'll talk and they'll go back outside again and they'll they come and it looks like they're crafting something in a mechanic section of the garage and then taking it out of the garage to somewhere else. We're on full on hyper focus mode. Okay. Right. All right. The only way we're getting distracted with someone is the only way that Blisco is getting pulled away from this is when someone tells him to like someone actually grabs him and takes him away from it. Okay. How about you roll me a will plus resilience check D two zero successes. Yeah, you you're kind of hyper focused on on this. And that's great because it is also helping to distract you from the horrible sleep that you have been having ever since you got back to two section M HQ. You are plagued with dreams similar to the ones that you've had before where you're running and across the plains and you see ghouls attacking, Touton and other people. And that is that is made your sleep very restless. So not only are you trying to distract yourself by hyper focusing on this vehicle, but you are also kind of no weary from just nights of no sleep or very little sleep. Let's go see what's going on with. Let's go see what's going on with Nathaniel. Well, Nathaniel is probably making himself possibly a bit of a nuisance with the research team. Okay. Probably bugging Antoine and just I was like, well, I think unfortunately Dutch is going to be laid up a while getting leave here. Maybe we can knock off for a bit. Get away from stuff that would be wonderful. That would be so wonderful. We can we can get out for a while I've I've been here ever since they took us from from Paris and they brought us right to here and I've had very little chance to go out and explore where do you think we should go? Oh, I don't know if really looked around the city much, then I know every time we've been here, I don't know what do you know what's around. And then Pontus just kind of looks at the two of you and he's like, well, you've already been to Dover. You can go to some of the ports. If you want to go and look at that, I don't think I've had enough ships for a bit. Yes, I've read the report. There apparently are some orchards that you can go check out and it's springtime. So you might be able to see apple blossoms on the trees. So that might make for a fun day out possibly, but orchards. It's a little bit too close to home. Oh, OK, yes, we could go to Canterbury. We could go see the chapels there. We could go to to Leeds and see the castles there. We could just go to shopping and maybe do some eating. Yeah, I think that sounds good. Let's hit the town. Let's get a bite to eat. OK, I'll need to check if I'll need to check and see if we can if we can go and do that. Why don't you give me a observation plus insight D2? All right, great, two successes. So as you are walking through the main library, you know, there's that big table in the middle of the room where they have the map of Europe, you're able to see that they have these big red flags that are kind of coming in in kind of a point. And they are sweeping from Germany all the way across France and getting closer and closer to Paris. And you can see the Brigadier is there and he's pointing to two things on the map and conferring with the Touton and others. We've never seen the move so quick. It's amazing how quickly they're taking over. It's almost like there's no resistance. They are definitely headed to Paris for something, whether it's to claim the capital for themselves or for something else. And Touton's like, yes, yes, were you able to get all of the all of the books out of Paris? Well, we bought what we could, but there's no way we could get everything out. And then a man runs up and he hands a little sheet of paper to the Brigadier and he opens it up. As we suspected, the looting and raiding every museum and library on their way to Paris definitely after artifact research would probably explain why they were so intent on getting to Juan and getting the flute and why there were so many of them. Mm-hmm. To have a thing, tell them a thing, yes. And they continue to talk and you can see that there are other red lines that look like they're going radiating out from Germany, they're certainly what look like some flags that are in the middle of the water near Norway and Finland and over into Russian waters. And you can see that there's at least one flag that is getting closer to Romania, I believe is where we said the other one was that. Yeah, Romania. But you and Antoine are able to go out. You are able to get a car. It's just a very simple car, but it's warm as it's now the 1st of April and it is starting to warm up on the southeast side of England as you're able to drive into town and wander around. Is there anything specific that you are doing in town or anything that you want to do in town? No, most probably, I just want to get away and maybe just forget about troubles for the time being when there's not much I can do about it. Okay. Some good time with some good company. Yeah, and you and Antoine have a great time. You're telling jokes, you're laughing, you're teasing each other, you're able to go and drink coffee, you will go into what kind of shops would Antoine and Nathaniel go to? Well, there'd be, don't really matter much. I think just largely window shopping, probably would, you know, check, you know, find clothing and. Okay. Why don't you roll me another observation and insight, please? Alrighty. Hey. Two successes, three successes, very good. At one point, as you are window shopping, you notice a familiar face in the crowd or a face that you think that you know, you recognize him as Stephen Howland, who was one of the men, you were kind of told that he was maybe one of the spies hanging around the Paris office and you see him more than once as you're looking through the, through the window that you see him in the reflection behind you. And he looks to be just kind of wandering around as well, stopping looking in windows at one point, you see him sitting on a bench reading a newspaper. Maybe it's a time we start heading back. Oh, we're having so much fun, and it's such a beautiful day, please, just a little bit longer. Please. Yeah. Yeah. Let's spend a little bit more time. Okay. You duck into a little cafe to have an afternoon tea and crumpets. And about an hour later, you come outside and you turn a corner and Stephen Howland is standing in front of you and he's blocking your way. Hello, gentlemen. I think Mr. Dupree, it's time for you to come with me. I don't think he's going to be doing that. And he from his coat pulls out a little gun. And at that point, two other men kind of step from the doorways. We've been trying to figure out how to get you away from here for a long time, always surrounded by other people. But now it seems like a good time. And this accent, he's definitely not talking the way that you remember him. He had a nice proper posh English accent the last time that you saw him. Rodrigo, you have a character sheet for Antoine, we're going to say that that's the Antoine character sheet. And yeah, so there's two guys, two big bug heavy looking guys, and Stephen Howland. We've collected all the other things that we need, we just need you now. You'll come along quietly or do we make a lot of noise and hurt your friend? Oh, um, no, um, you can't hurt Nathaniel. No. Do you know what they want you for? I have no idea. He is a source of great information that I've learned by observing him for the last couple of months. And what he doesn't know now, I'm sure we can get information from him one way or another. You do have a, um, your pistol, yeah. And likewise, I think as the character sheet, you have Rodrigo have a pistol as well. It has a machine pistol. Okay. I'll give you to the count of three to make a decision. So Rodrigo from here on out, you are now Antoine. Okay. So we're going to combat now. So it is you plus, um, so you plus Antoine plus, uh, Dupree and, uh, these two other guys. And whoops. All right. Uh, you can, one of you can, uh, so you're pulling first, you're shooting first. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead and do what you need to do. All right, let, uh, just got one momentum. Yep. You have one momentum. I think I'll go ahead and spin that. You are in a street, um, it's not a super crowded street. You did just leave a cafe. So there are some tables outside, but for the most part this late in the afternoon, either people are, you know, already heading home, uh, because it still gets dark early, uh, this time of year, um, or, you know, people are just still at work. So there's not very many people on the street, but there are places that provide cover. You certainly got tables from the cafe. You just left, um, you've got doorways that you can duck into. So there are those kinds of things around. Yeah. So I'll, uh, try to shoot, uh, the main guy here. Uh, well, well, uh, yeah. So, uh, two successes. All right. That is the, well, that's really good. Yeah. That is enough, uh, to hit him, uh, why don't you go ahead and roll some damage. Uh, eight and four effect. Eight and four effect. Um, yeah. So that's, uh, one, two, three, four. Yeah. So eight. So that'll be. Yeah. You, uh, you hit him really good in the shoulder and he spins down on to the ground, uh, screaming in agony, he has an injury, uh, with, with that. Okay. And, uh, push, uh, and on, uh, back towards the cafe is like, go get, uh, hide somewhere. I'll take care of these guys. All right. So one of the heavy thug guys, he also, uh, pulls out his gun and he, uh, takes a shot at you and he hits, uh, does, he does two physical damage. All right. Would I still have a damage from the last excursion? No, no, no, no, no, no, all that stuff is cleared off. Okay. Yeah. So all your damage fatigue, et cetera has been cleared on. All right. Two damage. Okay. Okay. Um, Antoine, would you like to do anything? Yeah. Antoine is going to run in, but the moment he sees that a Valentino has been shot, he's going to pick out his pistol and say something like, get away from him. You brute or something. I don't know. There you go. All right. Go ahead. And who are you going to shoot at? Uh, the guy who just shot Valentino. Okay. Uh, duty 20 last man, uh, and his coordination and fighting. That's all Evan. So let's see how he does one success. Yeah. No, uh, that shot, he pulls the trigger. Uh, I don't know, um, Valentino has, as Antoine had any kind of weapons experience in his past. I ever known up. I mean, okay. That probably explains why the shot went wide. The other, uh, the guy also responds by, uh, turning his gun and shooting at Antoine and he misses it hits the, it clips the door way right by your face Antoine. And then the, um, Steven Howland goes and he misses as well. He shoots at you Nathaniel and also because of his injury, uh, it goes wide. We are at the top of the round. I thought I told you to run out of here and I'm going to shoot again at Steven. Okay. Wait. Okay. His fortune is. Oh, shoot. One. No application. No, no. So yeah, you, um, you raise your gun to shoot at, uh, Steven, uh, Howland, who's laying on the ground. And as you're about to do it, a woman, uh, walks right through your line of sight, you know, uh, with a baby carriage and she sees what's going on and, and she freaks out because she thinks that you're going to shoot her and she's like, this man has a gun and he's shooting a poor old man and goes running down the street. The bug rushes at you, uh, Valentino and tries to knock you down with, um, hand to hand. And so I need a posing role from you agility and fighting agility and fighting. Yep. All right. Hey, he two successes. Yeah. This guy also has two successes. And so he's able to, uh, very quickly wrap you up in a, uh, chokehold. And he, uh, throws you to the ground. Whoops. And does, uh, one physical stress of damage to you. And he continues to move towards Antoine run, get him or we can't let him escape. Antoine, uh, Antoine will run into the cafe, does the cafe have a back way? I don't know. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out when we get there. That's what they're going to do. Deliveries. Yes. You rush back into the cafe and as soon as the, you open the door and tinglingling, people are kind of looking at you and they see you with a gun and the four people that are sitting there in the cafe just freak out and start screaming and ducking under the, uh, the tables, the person who is kind of manning the, I guess the bar top area. He's like, Oh, wait, we don't need trouble here. And he reaches behind the counter to grab something, um, back outside. The other, uh, thug rushes to intercept where you are going and he passes by you Valentino for his turn. He's still in range of you, but, um, I don't know if you turn to look at, at him as he's going by, but that gives, uh, the other guy a chance to shoot at you and he misses as well. This guy's bad. Good. It's probably cause he's got an injury. So, um, there you go. All right. We are back to the top of the round. There is a thug that's running past you. There is Stephen Howland on the ground and another one that has, um, has already gone out of your sight chase running towards Antoine. Well, I'll try to stand up and turn and shoot at the guy that's walking past me. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Success. All right. Uh, you miss him and, uh, he turns around and fires his gun at you and misses and continues to run, uh, a little bit down the street. Um, Antoine, you are in the cafe with a gun in your hand and at that moment, a, uh, large thug man burst through the door behind you. And he's going to attempt, uh, to grab you, but that's, uh, that is not his turn yet. So, okay. Yeah. Antoine will try to make a beeline for the back door while probably gesturing while I'm being like, Nazi hot hat. Call the police. That's a, that's. He's bad. Everybody's looking, um, why don't you roll a, um, persuasion plus reason or will. Let's do will plus persuasion to see if you can convince anybody, um, as you're running through and I don't have your sheet up here. So I'm just going to go buy whatever you're yeah, it's nine. He doesn't have any persuasion. Oh, okay. Zero success. Zero success. Not very clear. A, a man that's dressed very fine running through with a gun is probably not convincing enough to everyone, but the shop owner has pulled a shotgun from behind the shelf and he's, uh, aiming at you always stop. And at that moment, the brute bursts in through the room, uh, through the front of the cafe. He sees what's going on. He points a gun at you, um, Antoine Azure running and fires and he hits, uh, he is going to, I don't know what you're one, uh, one physical damage, okay. And it clips you on the, on the thigh as you're running the shop keep the cafe owner hearing the gunshot go off immediately spins around and fires his gun at the, uh, the thug that has just entered hits him square in the chest and oh yeah, he goes, uh, hits him in the chest and he goes flying out through the glass front door. Um, he takes some, some hits on, on that, uh, out on the street, the other, uh, thug person sees his comrade flying out onto the street and rolls, uh, down and says, ah, there's a man there with a shotgun. Uh, let's see, uh, I think that is, oh, let's do a howland, he, uh, attempts to stand up and he's very little reason for you to fight us. We will always been in the end, it is a destiny and he's kind of really bleeding now, uh, but he points the gun at you as he's kind of stumbling down the road towards you and fires and he hits, uh, Valentino or one physical damage. All right, top of the round. All right, so, uh, is, how would the only one like in my, uh, you could still probably get a shot off on one of the other, um, I don't know, you can get a shot off on any of the three because the one guy has just run up onto his friend who's now lying on the sidewalk. Okay. Well, I'll, uh, try to shoot after one that's still standing over there. Okay. Uh, just trying to prevent anyone from chasing Antoine, okay, and trying to buy time more than anything. Uh, it was just one success, uh, be great if you would aim. You have the ability. Yeah. Well, that's true. I was trying to. Okay. Moving to. Yeah. So you shoot and you hear a whistle, uh, from down the street, you know, it sounds like a Bobby whistle of, uh, of people running because of a woman who was screaming at the top of a voice. This alerts, uh, howland who is going to fire at you one more time. And he hits or three physical damage this time. And again, if you have any armor, you make sure that you're calculating any of that in. Oh. Okay. Uh, all right. Um, Antoine. You were in the cafe. You're running out. You've been clipped a little bit on the thigh. It kind of burns. This is probably the first time that you've ever been, uh, shot and hit. Uh, so that is a different experience. Um, yeah, Antoine's going to keep running through the cafe to get out the other way. You back and you burst through the back door. You run through the kitchen and there's some people that are surprised, you're not supposed to be in here and, um, and you are able to burst out the back back door into an alley where deliveries are made. Um, it's kind of trashy back here. There's trash cans with litter piled up. There's probably a cat and a rat, uh, back there as well. Um, you have exits that are, you know, north and south of you. Uh, okay. I think Antoine's going to try to hide in this alley. Okay. You would give me a, uh, stealth plus coordination, I guess. Okay. We'll do a D one on this. Okay. No successes. Zero successes. Yeah. You, you look around and, um, well, this is, this is garbage. Uh, garbage is not something that you want to jump into or hide under. This seems kind of, of gross. And the smell is also kind of gross. Um, the man on the ground gets up and with the help of his other friend and they start to move into the cafe and you hear another gunshot go off. Um, from the store owner, boy, get out of here. And both the thugs kind of duck, uh, and they're kind of hiding on the either side. Uh, let's see. And then, uh, howland is, oh yeah, he already went. So we are back up to the top of the round. All right. So where are the two thugs? They are standing outside the doorway of the cafe trying to avoid getting shot by the proprietor. Well, if they got him, them tied up, if he's got them tied up, I think I'll, uh, turn and aim at howland and shoot at him. Okay. All right. Go for it. We're going to go to that 13. Hey, two successes. All right. Go ahead and do some damage on this guy, a trap, holy crap, man. Uh, yeah, this guy is down. You shoot him in the back and he falls to the ground. His black hat goes rolling out into the street and does kind of one of those, you know, like, uh, bins around in the, in the wind and before it finally lands. And the other two thugs are like, please don't pay me enough for this. Come on. Let's get out of here. And they both, they both take off down the street. End of combat. All right. Well, I'm going to, uh, go try to run and see if I can find Antoine, uh, you try to enter. And as soon as you do the shop owner, cafe owner, points his shotgun at you and says, stop right where you are, hands up. You have a gun in your hand, uh, while you hear police whistles getting closer, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. And then you see a couple of bobbies, uh, show up and they're like, put it down, son. All right. Put him down. Okay. Rush back into the cafe with his waving his gun and be like, I'll save you Valentino. I think we're good now. And at that point, the, the shop owner points his shotgun at you, Antoine and you stop with your hands up and the bobbies look around and they kind of rush over to you and, and force you down onto the ground Antoine and, uh, they're both like, I don't know what's going on, but, uh, you're coming in, uh, to the station with us and they've got you both handcuffed and there's a broken window or broken doorway, I guess. And pretty soon more police show up and you guys are all the way down to the police station. Yeah. I'll definitely tell them that like if, uh, Stephen Howland still alive that they should get him. Uh, he's a German spy. What a German spy and, uh, they, they do say that he has, he is dead and they do find some German papers on him a little bit later. So they believe the story, um, not too long after probably within an hour of you being in police custody, uh, Sally Armitage shows up and you can see through the, through the, uh, the jail cell that they have you and the temporary jail cell, both of you can see Sally Armitage come in and she's explaining things and showing papers and she's pointing at the, at the two of you and eventually the police, uh, get on the phone and then later they come and unlock the door and allow you to go back to, uh, the section MHQ with, with Sally and on the right back, she's like, well, you two certainly have had a busy day. Yeah. Any idea what was going on? I don't know if we know too much specifics. Uh, apparently they were winning Antoine's expertise on the matter. Um, which I couldn't think of a good way to try to find what that was without them taking them. Hmm. Yes. Um, one would presume that how long because he was hanging around the section M headquarters in Paris was obviously stealing secrets and may have assumed that you went on our repository for all of the research that has been done so far. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I imagine it was probably quite like that. Oh gosh. I'm such. Oh, I'm just so glad you're, you're okay, Valentino. I'm glad I was able to save you. I'm glad you're not injured too bad. Yeah. Well, I probably got a few extra, uh, souvenirs for, you know, my tour year, but no, oh, no. Uh, it looks like, uh, you may have gotten one yourself. I thought, uh, the Brigadier had told me that you had flushed out the spy that was at section M, uh, well, there is more than one. I mean, uh, he wasn't embedded, so, but, um, yeah, we do need to keep on our toes. You never know who might be the next, uh, the next turn code in our, in our company. And then you guys get back to section M and the Brigadier seems very distressed because he also thought that you guys did a fantastic job in, in finding the spy before he didn't realize that there were more than one. Uh, so he's a little, uh, put out by that, uh, certainly, uh, Proutin says that we'll keep it quiet. The upper brass don't need to know about this as far as, you know, the spy getting away under, under the Brigadier's nose. But they do suggest that everybody kind of go back over all of your intelligence and information that you have and see if you can find out if any of the information that Howland had access to could have been got sent back to the Nazis. So you're going to have to, um, why don't you do an investigation here, Valentino, uh, let's do a insight plus observation. Okay. Do an add to one this one. And is there any chance since I'm probably going to have to join Dutch and some extra bedtime that I can take maybe double the time it takes? Yeah, sure. Yeah. All right. That means I can get a free bonus D 20. Okay. Cool. Hey, that's okay. That's all you needed. Uh, yeah, you, you do, you Antoine and Pontus do take a lot of time going over all the materials that you have bought brought back from Paris. And it is clear that the files have been moved around. It's clear that it's not the filing system that Antoine and Pontus had originally set up. Somebody has been going through all of this stuff. It looks like all of the information that section M has gathered is probably now also knowledge that the black sun Nazis have. So that would mean they know what all the artifacts are as well. They may know where some of them are located. They certainly know what artifacts that section M has. And so maybe they've even done research on their own research on this. So yeah, this is a major, this is a major leak. Nobody at section M is happy about this. Certainly at night after dinner, you can hear in one of the rooms, um, Touton and the Brigadier having a gentlemanly argument over how this could have been done. That they're going to have to re go through all the clearances for everybody that is part of section M, there's even some questions on whether they need to double check any of the majestic stuff. But you guys can hear those kinds of yellings at night. But Antoine does come in and take care of you Valentino. He does come and make sure that you have everything that you need. He brings you like some, some fancy pajamas, not the military issue pajamas that, that Dutch has. So you have some nice comfy pajamas to sit in bed with. He brings you tea and water and whatever else that you need. And he kind of pampers you for a couple of days while, while you, uh, kind of recuperate a little bit, you, you and Dutch are in the same room together. Try not to bleed on the silk pajamas too much. Oh, yeah, that would be great. Yeah. What happened to you? Uh, you remember Stephen Howlin? Uh, yeah, that bean pole over in Paris. Yeah. Uh, we ran into him. Oh, uh, he tried to take Antoine. Oh, was he a Nazi? Oh, yeah. Well, we put a stop to that. Oh, yeah, by the way, I don't know if you knew, but, uh, are the, the prisoner is the convalescing over there, not if these guys have anything to say about it. You won't. You're right. But I will, before I do, I will make sure that I get my revenge on you for what you did to my very good friend. Yeah, I'm sure it's all destined just like Stephen Howlin said, if he's destined, we shall always come out on top. And when we unleash the great God, then you'll be sorry. Well, yeah, I got to say for a fascist, you're very, uh, very dedicated to your friends. So I guess I appreciate that. I'm dedicated to the cause, the cause of the domination. Yeah. You know, that cause is going to grind your bones just as easily as anybody else is right. Oh, why would, why would somebody on our side hurt us? Yep. Typical. The God will be on our side and we would be, we would could write God under our control will only attack the bad people, which is you. Right, of course. And then he's quiet. Anyway, I want to punch him. No, we need him to get better first, although, and Padcher picks up like his boot off the floor and heaves it at, at the curtain and, and hits, uh, it's Dean stock, I don't know how. Job. And there's comes in. Is everything okay? Uh, yep, just, uh, a bit of, uh, shoe where issue, uh, nothing to worry about. Okay. She looks at you a little weird and turns around and leaves. Well, let's go. What else is, you know, you've heard the, you've heard the reports that, uh, something happened in town and your, your friend Valentino was, it was injured. Did someone come, did someone come and tell you that he was injured? Yes. Did someone explicitly come to say that Valentino has been injured or, uh, so what, what you heard was that two people, two, uh, people, the American and his friend, uh, went into town and, uh, turns out there's a Nazi spy among us who tried to kidnap one of them. And um, both of the, both of the people, the American and his friend are okay, even though the American was, uh, was shot up just a bit, that's, that's what you heard. That's the more accurate question. Did anybody explicitly tell Blisco this news, like comment on his face. I'm going to walk up with him, his attention and told him anything. Okay. He does not know anything other than this car isn't working right now. Okay. Um, yeah. Greg, you know, at one point he hit you on the arm, because, uh, American, is that your friend and the one that got hurt? Huh? The American, the one that, yeah, go ahead, Brian. Yeah. Uh, your friend, uh, heard that, uh, they ran into some, uh, German in town. Apparently he's laying up with your other friend up in, uh, infirmary. Oh. Oh, oh, uh, that point, Blisco basically just drops his tools at the car and rushes up to the infirmary. Okay. So you get up there and sure enough, there's a Dutch over there on one side with his chest, all, uh, bandaged up and, uh, Valentino on the other side, also with his chest bandaged up. They look to be comfortable. All right. They're awake. Yeah. I think you rushed in with enough noise that if they were asleep, they're awake now. Uh, well, the first excitement that duchess awake and active, we can, we'll hold it. Awake. Like, I don't know active yet, but, uh, and then rushes over to Valentino to check on him and apologize that he couldn't be there to help. Well, as, uh, not your fault, uh, was trying to get away a four bit and, uh, this stuff has a tendency of following us, uh, I guess. Yeah. Don't worry too much about it. I think I was the one that got, uh, at least banged up and hauling. I guess this is my payback. Yeah. You're doing okay, Blisco, you look a little, uh, a little frazzled. I didn't know you were awake and I didn't know Valentino got hurt. Well, sorry, I, uh, I guess I should have had my personal valet contact you Valentino, would you please tell Dutch or, uh, please tell Blisco that I'm all right. Blisco. All right. Yeah. I guess that doc was actually my valet, right? Yeah. No one seemed doc. Yeah. When you guys got back, he disappeared. Yeah. And has, has not been seen. Of course you haven't seen him, uh, Dutch, because you've been, been laid up, but, and Blisco's been very busy, but, uh, even, even you Valentino know that, uh, doc has kind of, uh, buried himself somewhere. But yes, when doc, when, uh, doc comes back, will, uh, I'll have them notify you that I'm up and around now. Doc left. I guess I haven't seen him where we checked to make sure he wasn't in a morgue, right? I mean, he's not a body in the morgue if that's what you're asking. That's the thing. Yeah. It's both. Yeah. There's two outcomes. And neither one is good if he's kicking around the morgue. Um, let's go. If you would, would you do a will plus, um, resilience check B1? Oh, resilience. Yeah. Okay. Finally, one success. Very good. Um, yeah, you are, you are very relieved that your friends are here, but you are suddenly the stress of the last couple of days, uh, has hit you and you are extremely tired. There's, uh, there's an empty bed in this room or you can go to your own room. Uh, let's go all sit down on the bed to just cat with the other two since. Okay. Like, he will, he wants to be with his friends because they both got hurt and they're all right. Uh, we'll probably fall asleep while talking again as you, as you slowly lean down because the lights have gotten darker and darker. And of course black out curtains, the nurse comes through and closes all the black out curtains, um, because of where you're located just across the English channel and there have been some, uh, air raids at this point. And so, um, black out curtains are done. So it's very dark in this room. The lights are are dim. There's only one light in here and it's a very cozy room, let's go and you kind of lean back and the next thing you know, you're running and running through the fields. Uh, and you get up to a doctor. Yeah. It is very familiar. In fact, you get to a point, uh, where there's a little hill and as you crest the top of the hill, you look down and you see, uh, men in red robes standing in a circle with their hands raised up in the air. They seem to be chanting something and inside the circle are a couple of ghouls and they appear to be, uh, tormenting, um, that, that guy, that Mr. Dean's talk guy that you guys brought in. The ghouls look familiar. They look like ghouls. I'm sure there's differences, but you just can't tell, but they're tormenting this guy. They're trying to swipe at him and bite him and Dean's talk is sitting there. No, I promised I was, I won't tell him anything. And the, the men in the red robes are chanting, oh, you know, whatever that they're chanting. I'm going to probably observe and do I understand this is a dream or does this feel real enough that I'm. Oh, well, why don't you roll a, uh, insight plus, uh, I can guessing, I guess we're gonna do insight plus observation at this point. Yeah, it could be worse. Okay. Roll to Lisa dream. Yep. That's right. Uh, one success. Yeah. You can tell that this is, this is so familiar at this point, since you've been back, you know, the, the running across the fields and seeing ghouls attacking people has become kind of a nightly occurrence for you. And so you're aware enough that this has to be part of some kind of a dream thing. You're not sure quite, uh, what it is, whether it is, um, you, you recognize that it's odd that the times that you have seen the ghouls in this plain area with these red robed men around whenever they're attacking people, you know that at least one person has died because of this. And you know that other people have also experienced, uh, extreme fatigue and extreme distress, the mornings after you've had these dreams. So you're aware that something is going on. You don't know if this is, as Brian said, a lucid dream, which I don't know if, if you would know what a lucid dream is, or if Blisco would know what a lucid dream is, um, you don't know if you were experiencing a different reality, or if you're in a different world, or if this is just your subconscious, uh, trying to play things out for you, like maybe you as a ghoul want to, uh, attack Dean's talk and kill him at one point. One of the red robed men in the circle, uh, sees you standing up at the hill and he taps another one on the shoulder and they all point up at you. Look. And, um, one of the men steps out from the circle and you can tell he's got like boots on, uh, like, not like boot boots, like garden boots. And you can see mud on these garden boots, uh, underneath his, his red robe and he starts walking towards you, uh, shouting something that you really can't understand. But at that moment, you hear a big rumble and you wake up and there is a airplane flying over the section M HQ and I mean, the hospital bed. Yep. You're still laying there. It's quiet. You can hear a tick, tick, ticking of, uh, clock somewhere, uh, everyone appears to be asleep. Although you hear what sounds like whimpering coming from whatever is behind the curtain at the other end of the room. Did I know that non-stock was in here? No, you did not. Okay. I am going to, I'm going to go ahead and check on the, uh, one at the end of the room. Okay, you go down to the end of the, the, the room and there's a curtain and as you pull it back, you see Dean's talk there, he is, his arms, um, have you seen it where people like break their arms and they have to have the arms elevated up at an angle from their bodies and they have those braces that run from their arms to their chest? Have you guys seen those? Yeah. Okay. That's mostly in sitcoms where characters hilariously get hurt, but yeah, that's exactly the way he is and he's got a big old bandage on his nose from where his nose has been broken and he's got like plaster or something around his chest and he's got one leg, uh, elevated and this man looks like he is having some kind of a nightmare. Do I recognize him as Dean's talk now? Oh yeah. You do know the, as soon as you pull back the curtain, you see that, oh my God, this is Dean's talk. He's here with, with my friends. He's not going to move very much because he's all bandaged up, but oh my God, Dean's talk is here. I don't know where else I would have expected him to be. Often a little race, like, yeah, we, we definitely did a number on him and he was going to need to be put somewhere to heal if we were going to do anything of significance with him other than block him away ever or forever. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. So it's like, probably surprising, but ultimately reasonable. I'm going to go find a nurse. The nurse is sitting outside the infirmary area at her desk. She's reading a magazine and listening to some music very quietly. She seems startled when you walk up. Oh, my goodness. Yes. What's, what's wrong? It appears the, the prisoner seems to be having some problems. Oh, and she gets up and she walks down there and she checks and he's, she kind of gives him a little shake. Mr. Dean's talk. Mr. Dean's talk. Uh, she shakes him really hard and then, uh, literally, she gives him a third shake and he wakes up and he is truly scared over what has happened. I say here, there's no one here. I said, God, she checks his pulse as best as she can and says he seemed to have been having a nightmare and she gives him a glass of water to drink. She doesn't hold it to his lips. She just puts a glass of water on the nightstand for him to drink, of course, both of his arms are in a cast. So, um, yeah, so yeah, it's probably best we just leave him alone and she turns and walks away, uh, uh, back to her desk. You're still standing there. He looks like, please, can I have some water? I will help him drink. And he does. That's, that's very kind of you. It's going to be a shame when we have to destroy you unless you come to our side. I don't plan on letting that happen. And he's like, wait a minute and, uh, turns it light and there's a little lamp beside the bed. Yeah. And kind of squins at you, I don't have my glasses, but you've a zair, aren't you? You're zair when the ghouls were attacking me. How is this possible? Nightmare? Yes, in the plains, in the grasslands. Ah. Are you a visit? Are you a visit, too? No, I don't know spells. No, they're curious. They're curious. You saw some men in the red robes? I did. I have no idea what I think. The ghouls? Yes. The ghouls was there. The men in the red robes was there, too? With men in the red robes and the ghouls separate. Uh, so the men in the red robes were in a big circle and inside the circle was Dean's talk. Okay. And the ghouls were attacking Dean's talk. You're not a Norn. I don't know what this is. Not a what? But you tell them whoever your contact is, it tells them I'm not going to say anything. Of course. Yeah, you heard him say the word Norn, N-O-R-N. I think I said too much already. All right, go back to sleep. I'm going to go back to sleep now. I assume it's like pre dawn early morning. Yeah, yeah, it's like two, three o'clock in the morning. Uh, I'm going to wander around until I find someone of authority that is awake, or like to head towards where- Yeah, as you're, as you're leaving the infirmary, you can hear badgers say, oh, what a slit it's through. And yeah, you, you wander around until you find, um, like a desk station. Uh, where there's a officer on duty. And he's like, again, kind of an overnight shift, he's listening to, uh, music radio, same kind of radio that the nurse upstairs was listening to, but there's also, uh, short wave radio that he is also kind of half listening to, but it's fairly quiet. Um, anything that you might hear out of it is seems to be regular military maneuvers. And it doesn't seem to be good for, uh, what we would know as the allied forces, uh, because it appears that the Nazis are just running over town after town after town in France. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So may help you. Uh, I need to, uh, send an appointment to talk with, uh, one of the, basically some of the commanding officers about what I've seen. Oh, I don't remember which names I, um, Rob doesn't remember what I've seen. I remember which names. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're the American, right? Yeah. You should probably check in with, uh, Ms. Amatage in the morning. All right. Anything else, sir? Uh, keep an eye or have someone keep an eye on the prisoner. Hmm. Okay. And the infirmary, uh, I'm reasonably certain he's got important information. And I might have an in. Okay. Um, why don't you roll me a, uh, again, I think this time will plus. Resilience. Okay. Go with a D, D one on this. Hey, two successes. Yeah. Yeah. You feel, you feel a wave of like. You feel a little dizziness pass over you, but you're able to, to stand up. Uh, fine. You kind of waiver for a moment. And the man behind the desk is, are you okay, sir? Need some help going back to your room? Uh, no, uh, not been sleeping while lately. Uh, many people have said that. I'm on the day shift. So I, I'm on the night shift. So I sleep during the day and I've not had any problems, except for those damn planes always flying overhead. I was going to set up near Sally's office. I assume there's some sort of chair. Yeah. Yeah. At least near there. Yeah. The hallway just sit there and presumably I will be asleep when Sally shows up. Okay. Yeah. Uh, the next morning you, you feel somebody, uh, you know, giving you, uh, a shake. Let's go. Uh, yeah. And, and there's Sally standing. What are you, what are you doing here? Everything. I wanted to tell you about then experience with the prisoner last night. You had an exchange with Jean's talk. I did. All right. Come in and she ushers you into her office and has you sit down, offers you some coffee. Uh, this is one of the rare occasions where he'll gladly partake. Okay. So what happened? Uh, I'll talk about. I'll talk about. Seeing him in my dreams. Okay. Waking up to hearing him have a nightmare and then him. Howling me. My dream. Hmm. To me. And you explain the dream in detail as much as you can. Yeah. Okay. Did he say anything to you besides describing your dream? Uh, he, I think he thinks I'm on his side. Hmm. Uh, and he called me a Nord. Huh. So she writes, you see her. She's writing notes on all of this. Uh, why does he think that you're on his side? The last message he gave me before he went back to sleep was to. Let them know that he's not going to tell anyone anything. Hmm. Okay. All right. Interesting. Interesting. And have you had the stream before? Are you sure he's not messing with your mind? He's not doing some of his magic. Uh, yes. If I was a wizard, I've had. A recurring motif for this dream, but not specifically him as the victim. You've seen others? Yeah. I reported it to the doctors the first couple of times and have been taking notes. Okay. Now, when you talk to the doctors, did you mention, um, the, you know, the first time went church hill and, uh, Taunton and the other person who's dead. I forget his name off the top of my head. Did you mention those names? I, I know I mentioned the two that I knew. Okay. I don't know if I spoke with the doctors before, after we saw Churchill's picture. Okay. All right. Um, when you do, you, you do know, also now give me an observation plus insight. Uh, be one on this one. Observation. That's not great, but okay. Hey, zero successes. Yeah. At least, at least to you, uh, everything that you tell Sally, she seems to be taking very clinically. She's just taking the notes and, uh, huh. Um, you know, she does keep glancing at you when you mention the men in the red robes and the ghouls and you mentioned any of the names of the people that you've seen. She seems very interested in, in those things. Um, but you can't tell anything else besides that. And finally, she says, well, um, let's go. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. And yeah, let's just keep track of, of this stuff. Um, if you would either make a copy of your journal or make sure that the report that you give to the doctors gets to me. Okay. Okay. Um, be well. You as well. Okay. Um, it looks like you do for a couple of days worth of sleep. Uh, between the dreams and the car. Car? It's difficult. I've been working on the, I don't want to just rattle off the explicit name of the car. Okay. She's like, we have no need. We have no need for that. Uh, I'm not great with doing nothing. Uh, uh, okay. All right. Well, I guess good luck. Back on, I guess is what they say. Critical hit Punch All Motsies is a production of Major Spoilers Entertainment. It was produced and edited by me, Steven Schleicher. If you would like to get a behind the scenes making of this episode, be sure to check out the GM Roundtable Octum Cthulhu edition at our Patreon page, on Patreon.com/MajorSpoilers. 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