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Pre-Show[]

TALIESIN: Our radiant order is bound to a sacred mission: Reduce, contain, and eliminate bleed. For those that attempt to harness its chaotic power, great danger awaits. When caught in the crossfire of such phenomena, one cannot be held to account for the scars they are burdened with. Though, time is a fleeting luxury when a circle is knowingly assembled outside the parameters of our belief. A grim demise awaits those who leverage the powers of magickal bleed. The Circle of Tide & Bone. Assignment Number 39-26: Candles in the Dark.

♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪

TALIESIN: This episode of Candela Obscura is brought to you by our partner, Demiplane, creators of Candela Obscura Nexus. Join the thousands of investigators on Candela Obscura Nexus, embarking on supernatural quests, both in person and online. Whether you're a master storyteller or a curious explorer, their platform equips you with the tools to dive deep into any assignment. Unleash your imagination, manage your journey effortlessly, and connect with a vibrant community. Lightkeepers and players alike can discover the magick at candelaobscuranexus.com. Use code REDLAMP for a 20% discount on your gateway into the unknown. Stay with us for more from Demiplane during the break.

TALIESIN: The "Candela Obscura Core Rulebook" has arrived and is ready for you to dive into. Visit darringtonpress.com/candela to learn more.

Part I[]

AABRIA: Lightkeeper Nokari sits at the Council of Lightkeepers for the Fairelands, distracted by their strange dream the previous evening. A whale covered in pale, vicious looking scars that appear more like claw marks than the bites and gashes of a marine predator's attack. It dies suddenly, swimming through the deep, dark water. As it falls, scavengers pick its flesh clean. Until there's just a pristine, gold skeleton sitting at the bottom of an ocean. Lost in rumination, it is the expectant eyes of the other Lightkeepers that draws them back to the present. The regularity of the early minutes of these fairly consistent meetings allows Nokari to answer the unheard prompt without any lack of confidence or misstep. The assignment has reached a successful conclusion. "The calls of the phenomenon with the drowning of the Periphery officers in Groundswell has been identified and handled." (Other Lightkeeper) "Handled? How? Handled like the Unabridged was handled by your circle?" (Nokari) "I trust this circle's judgment and in the field, in both of these instances--" And Nokari is cut off. "Perhaps then, it is your judgment that we should be discussing here, Nokari. The assembly of your circle is deeply unorthodox, and several members, I believe are a phenomena in and of themselves. How could you expect them to--" They continue to chatter and bloviate. Increasing in volume and fervor, driving towards their pre-established conclusion. Nokari's dream suddenly makes sense. They understand it. They haven't had a dream worth heeding in years. Not since their time in the field. But even here, at the edge of waking from this life, Nokari remains a powerful and talented medium. They close their eyes, shutting out the pontification of their peers and they open a third eye. Milky white, with white ducts and white lashes. Sort of gently weeping caustic tears down the inside of their sternum. Burning deep trails into the bone and cartilage there. The eye, turned ever inward, searches in hope of one final communion. It reaches out, searching for phenomenon in the area. And it finds you. Dr. Rajan. Inside your chest, Raj, you hear it speak with the cadence, though not the tone of your Lightkeeper. "They are coming. They do not understand what you are, why you are. If they catch you, Candela will hold you within the Fourth Pharos and study you until they figure it out. Tell Dr. Roberts I am sorry. I could not keep my word. Tell Cosmo he must not fail. Go now!" The communion is broken. Raj, where did that find you?

NOSHIR: In our recovery, I find myself unable to sleep. So I have pulled a chair up outside of Elsie's room where I wait. As I listen to the message and come to my feet, vermin that had bordered her doorway and her windows slowly come back to me. I have not allowed my children to observe her and I will keep her privacy, but I will look for the professor.

AABRIA: You move down the hallway. You find Cosmo in his chambers.

NOSHIR: Professor.

LIAM: Dr. Savarimuthu.

NOSHIR: We have to leave. The Lightkeeper has delivered me a message. Dr. Roberts is in great danger. He warns that he is not able to keep his promise to us. They are coming.

LIAM: All right. Soon then.

NOSHIR: I think if we had any time at all, he wouldn't have reached me this way. It came at great cost.

LIAM: Yes. All right. Yes. Well, I can be ready to go promptly, but we need to assemble the others and go. I will think of somewhere. You do the same. Let's get to it.

NOSHIR: The Madam and your son. Oscar. They are at her place?

LIAM: Yes, yes.

NOSHIR: Then I will go up and make sure that Dr. Roberts is prepared.

LIAM: All right, I'll meet you downstairs. In the front shop. 30 minutes.

NOSHIR: I don't know that we have 30 minutes.

LIAM: Let's make it five.

NOSHIR: I run back upstairs, and give a light knock.

ASHLY: Elsie is asleep, but it's light. She's having a dream. Of The Serious Man. She's going through hallways looking for something. And doesn't wake up at the knock.

NOSHIR: Little bird. We have to go. I knock again.

AABRIA: Raj, I need you to take one brain. You are affecting a sense of calm, but you know Nokari reached out with whatever they had left in them to get you this message. You don't have time for this. She's in danger.

NOSHIR: I understand. Patience. Patience! After a breath, I try the knob.

AABRIA: Would you have locked your door?

ASHLY: No.

AABRIA: It yields.

NOSHIR: I allow the door to swing open. My gaze never actually entering the room. Trying to give some manner of decorum. Elsie! Elsie, I need you to wake up. We have to go.

ASHLY: Raj. What's happening?

NOSHIR: Prepare your things. Nokari. It's a long story. They are coming for us. More importantly, they are coming for you. We cannot let you fall into their hands.

ASHLY: It's Candela, isn't it?

AABRIA: Take a token.

ASHLY: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Ooh!

GINA: Oh boy.

NOSHIR: So much for promises.

ASHLY: You can't come with me. If I go, I have to go by myself. You can't come with me.

NOSHIR: Little bird. Where exactly do you expect for me to go?

ASHLY: When I get up and I start getting frazzled, you see this fall out.

NOSHIR: You've kept it?

ASHLY: Look, Raj. Just, um. I will get ready. I will meet you, but go ahead of me. They might not know about you.

NOSHIR: Elsie. It has become quite clear, they know more than any of us would like to think. I turn my back so that she can do whatever she must do. That Oscar is an interesting fellow.

ASHLY: Elsie is getting ready as quickly as she can, putting things on.

NOSHIR: Clearly, he has earned your trust.

ASHLY: This is a weird time to be bringing this up, Raj.

NOSHIR: I don't know that we have much more time.

ASHLY: Yes, he has. Why do you ask?

AABRIA: I've got to. Take a token.

ASHLY: Fuck!

SAM: Oh!

GINA: Oh fuck, already?

AABRIA: How many tokens is that?

ASHLY: That's all of them, friend.

AABRIA: Oh! Question. Do you feel like now is an appropriate moment?

ASHLY: I think it would take maybe a little bit more questioning.

AABRIA: Okay. You've accrued six tokens, the roll stands, but if you take a bleed, you can push for now. Until the next time you would take a token.

ASHLY: Okay, yeah, I'm going to say that the questioning is confusing. Is this an inopportune moment for jealousy? Is this-- what is this? So I think, because I don't know exactly where it's coming from yet, I steady and I go: I thought time was of the essence, Raj. Why are you asking me this?

NOSHIR: We are going to be on our own. We may have to leave the others behind, if necessary.

ASHLY: What do you mean?

NOSHIR: I'm not leaving you, Elsie. So if you decide, for whatever reason, that you don't want to put the rest of the circle in danger, I will stay with you. I've failed you once. And if there is something that Oscar has been willing to give you that you feel that I have not, I will give you-- I will give you everything I have. You will never be alone while I am here.

ASHLY: We need to go. Elsie's going to start heading out. But then she stops and takes your hand and squeezes it. And then moves to the door.

LIAM: In the time that they were discussing, Cosmo closed the door of his study, rolled back over to the desk, and takes a moment to stare at the painting of the Straverford on the wall. The ship that my father almost drowned on all those decades ago. I rifle through my desk and I pull out a small, red flower. A flower called the Timely Iris. Which was always ironic to me because my sister that I lost on that ship was named Iris. But these flowers come from Trust's Clearing in the Scarlet Wood. Candela has been experimenting with them to soak bleed. They are poisonous, but they soak bleed and I have had a dull ache in my bones the last 24 hours. One that I am familiar with. So I crush the iris in my wizened hand and swallow it. Chew it and swallow it. As a bleed soak.

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: I will leave that up to you if that gives me a body.

AABRIA: No. I think, for what's to come, I will allow this to be an unalloyed success.

LIAM: That gets me down to one bleed. And then, I wheel over towards the door. I look down at my dog, who is grinning at me like he always does, scratch him under the chin, knowing it's likely the last time I will see him.

AABRIA: He knows nothing but infinite and unbounded love for you. He does his best to hop into your lap.

LIAM: Oh, oh no. Okay, okay, just a moment. I give him a few scratches as I think back on all my decades working for Candela. All the good we did. The mistakes. But the good. And I think of all I have tried to do for my father and so many nights I thought I could walk the tightrope and end my life pleasing everyone. But life is crueler than that, and I prepare myself to say goodbye to the life I have known for so long. Then I kiss this dog on his head and place him back down on the ground. Take one final look at all the oddities and books. All of the books. Then I turn and open the door, and wheel out into the shop and wait for the young folk.

AABRIA: Cosmo. You feel it. The building. How long has it been since you felt that real rush of adrenaline? You've been in the field for decades. You're not often surprised anymore, just weary, a little forlornly hopeful. Will this be the thing? One last good deed. Save your father. Give him peace. Give you peace. You know this is it. If you fail, he's lost. If you can't find the source, whatever happened to him, made him this way, whatever happened to Elsie, made her this way. Even Raj. There's a knot at the center of your understanding. If you can't pick it apart before Candela finds you, then this, all of this, everything you've suffered is for nothing.

LIAM: Let the final die be cast.

AABRIA: You come back to yourself and you are joined quite quickly by Dr. Roberts--

LIAM: Oh.

AABRIA: -- and Raj.

LIAM: Children?

ASHLY: Cosmo.

LIAM: Are you ready to go, Elsie?

ASHLY: I'm sorry, this is my fault.

LIAM: Oh. Fiddlesticks. We can try to share the blame on the way. Let's go, please.

AABRIA: You cross town. You head to the Glass Cat to find Madam Glask and Oscar. What are you doing on an average day in the casino? Where will they find you as they rush in?

GINA: Madam Glask is currently sitting on the floor of her bedroom. Her skirt is surrounding her. In front of her is sitting that sweet girl, Mina.

AABRIA: Mina.

GINA: That she's taken in. Mina's back is faced towards her, and Madam Glask is gently tying a bow in her hair. Now, you don't drag your feet when you walk. That's just lazy.

AABRIA: "Great."

GINA: Stand up straight.

AABRIA: "Okay. Okay."

GINA: Uh-huh.

AABRIA: "Right now?" She tries to stand up, but she's being held by the hair. (laughter)

GINA: No, there's a--

AABRIA: "Got it. In general."

GINA: In general. When you speak to people, you look them in the eye. What is the number one thing I've taught you? You must always see the money first.

SAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: "(laughs) Yeah, money."

GINA: Good. Yes?

GINA: "Yes. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Okay. Okay, what am I going to-- Okay. Can you let go of my head now?"

GINA: Oh, sorry.

GINA: "I'm not un-parented. I get it. Thank you. Oh, oh, that's your spit."

GINA: Just a little--

AABRIA: "Thank you so much."

GINA: There we go, sweetie. (laughter)

AABRIA: "You don't have to do that. I don't like that at all. Thank you so much."

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: "(laughs awkwardly)"

GINA: Oh, and Mina, one more thing.

AABRIA: "Mm?"

GINA: Madam Glask reaches--

AABRIA: "Am I allowed to drink?"

GINA: Drink water?

AABRIA: "No, this is a bar."

GINA: No, child, you are--

AABRIA: "But I go here."

GINA: No, absolutely not. We are not going down that path anytime soon. You don't want to touch any of that.

AABRIA: "Okay."

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Never.

AABRIA: Make a Sway roll. (laughter)

GINA: Okay, two and a gilded. Okay.

SAM: This is it. High stakes.

ASHLY: I know, Gina breaks out her drive. (laughs)

AABRIA: Yeah. These stakes are higher than you think.

GINA and LIAM: (laugh)

GINA: Am I going to be a good mother of the sea?

AABRIA: Establishing dominance with a 12 year old.

LIAM: Keep a child on the straight and narrow.

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Whoo! That is a six. Success on a non-gilded.

AABRIA: Amazing. You see her kind of-- You hit her with just enough of the mom look that she's like, "(scoffs) Fine."

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: That's my girl. But one more thing.

AABRIA: "Mm."

GINA: She reaches into a pocket in her overcoat here. She brings out a dainty necklace with an impossibly sea foam green stone pendant. She puts it around Mina's neck, says: This is for you. If you ever find yourself afraid, just touch the stone and remember you're safe and I'm here for you.

AABRIA: "Thank you. I appreciate that, Madam Glask."

GINA: Or Mom.

SAM: (laughs)

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Yes. Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: "Okay, that feels pretty forward. My mom died days ago." (laughter)

GINA: Oh, did I say that out loud? I'm so sorry. Oh, oh.

AABRIA: "Yeah, you did. You did, but it's okay. I do like you a lot. We'll get there. It's early."

GINA: Yeah.

ASHLY: (laughs)

NOSHIR: (laughs)

AABRIA: "I'm going to go."

SAM: I'm going to knock on the door.

AABRIA: Yeah! (laughter)

SAM: Madam Glask.

GINA: Oh! Sorry, you said to get you up. Start the day.

GINA: Of course, Oscar.

SAM: Can I-- Are you decent?

GINA: Yes, absolutely. Come in.

AABRIA: "I'm not, Cary."

SAM: Oh.

GINA: Oh, you're calling him--

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: "He said his name is Cary."

GINA: Oh, he told you his name was-- Okay.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: "What? Is it not Cary?"

GINA: Yeah-- It's--

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Cary's fine.

SAM: So can I come in?

AABRIA: "What is your name?"

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: Can I come in there or--

AABRIA: "I'm more naked than before."

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: All right, I'll wait.

GINA and ASHLY: (laugh)

GINA: She zips up her dress. I don't know how you dress.

AABRIA: "Oh, no, I'm clothed."

GINA: Oh.

AABRIA: "You're just fiddling with the zip-- Yeah, you can come in."

SAM: All right. I just go in.

GINA: Oscar.

SAM: Come on in.

GINA: Come on in.

AABRIA: "Is it Cary or Oscar?"

SAM: Oh, well, a lot of people call me Cary.

GINA: (exasperated mumbling)

GINA: She's a child and you're already lying.

AABRIA: "All right."

SAM: They're easy to lie to.

GINA: (laughs)

SAM: Hey, we got stuff to do. I know you like your beauty sleep, but--

GINA: That's fine. How are the numbers at the door?

SAM: Last night was good.

GINA: Mm.

SAM: You know.

SAM: Pretty good. It was a little lower than normal because of the curfew, but folks find a way to get out anyway.

GINA: Occupation percentage in the rooms?

SAM: 69, like always.

ASHLY: (laughs) Goddamn it.

SAM: Just kidding.

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: Just kidding.

AABRIA: Mina moves over-- (laughter)

AABRIA: She doesn't get the joke, so she didn't really know that was a moment, but you see her move over to the window and she's just looking out. Go ahead. Keep going.

GINA: Oscar, look.

SAM: Oh, sorry. Sorry. I lost some money last night. He holds up the paper and points. The Nightingales beat the Bolts. In 11 innings, too. So I lost a bunch.

GINA: That is unfortunate. Yes, I know you've put a lot of--

ASHLY: You're killing Aabria. Look at her. (laughs) You're killing her.

SAM: I lost a few pieces.

GINA: Yes, yes.

SAM: Anyway. Well, we should get going.

GINA: Yes, absolutely.

AABRIA: "You guys are Candela, yeah?"

GINA: Thank you, Oscar.

SAM: Well, I don't think people are supposed to know that, but yeah.

AABRIA: "There's more coming?"

GINA: Huh?

SAM: More?

AABRIA: "Are they supposed to be coming?"

GINA: There's more coming.

AABRIA: "Mm-hmm, they're outside."

GINA: Outside?

SAM: Oh. Oh, shit.

GINA: Madam Glask runs over to the window and looks down.

AABRIA: You look down, and you see assembled, pouring out of cars, wearing fine suits of light wool with that tiny little diamond on their lapels. They file out. Six of them--

LIAM: Oh no.

AABRIA: -- and begin reaching back into the vehicles, passing something between themselves.

GINA: Oscar?

SAM: Yeah?

GINA: Did we have any reservations for a party of six?

SAM: No. Certainly not this early.

GINA: Oscar--

SAM: Are these your people?

GINA: No, no. I was not informed of any of this. Why are they here?

AABRIA: You see a flame pulled out.

SAM: A what?

AABRIA: As they begin-- A flame pulled out as they begin lighting something glass. Begin throwing them--

SAM: Oh, shit!

AABRIA: -- at the building.

GINA: Oscar!

LIAM: Oh boy.

GINA: I immediately grab Mina.

SAM: Oh shit.

GINA: Oscar!

ASHLY: Oh no.

GINA: Madam Glask runs over to her vanity table and reaches under the table and hits a button.

SAM: Of course.

SAM and AABRIA: (laugh)

SAM: Of course.

GINA: Then immediately runs in her best girls, Samantha, Liamel, Noshira, and Ashlyn.

ASHLY: Aw.

SAM and LIAM: (laugh)

ASHLY: (laugh)

AABRIA: Okay.

LIAM: Delayed reaction.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Of course, her main bartender--

AABRIA: They will eventually file in.

GINA: Girls--

AABRIA: You press a button?

GINA: Yes.

AABRIA: I will say, in the intervening two minutes it takes for your best girls to reappear from wherever they may have been sleeping for the night, the outside edifice of the Glass Cat is on fire.

SAM: Above board here. Are there any-- This is your place. Are there any secret passages-- (laughter)

SAM: -- or quick escape places in this place that I would know of?

GINA: Yes, absolutely. As security protocol, when I hit that button, there is a sequence of things that you all know to do. The main girls and you, as head of security, know to do. There is a passage behind the bar, behind the liquor case at the bar.

SAM: Okay.

AABRIA: You hear glass shattering downstairs.

SAM: Oh shit.

GINA: Okay. The girls are assembled?

AABRIA: They are making their way down. You hit a button.

GINA: Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: But without any sense of what's going on, they'll make their way at a--

SAM: We're upstairs or are we on the ground?

AABRIA: Yeah.

GINA and SAM: We're upstairs.

SAM: All right, well maybe we can't go down there then.

GINA: Yeah.

AABRIA: You hear the screams of a couple patrons.

SAM: We got to get out of here.

GINA: Okay.

SAM: Out the back window.

GINA: Yes.

SAM: Go.

GINA: Okay.

SAM: Just go. I'll go back there and see if the back window-- I'll look out the back window, see if there's anyone in the back of the building.

AABRIA: Doing this sort of dual glance, Mina's screaming and running around, by the way, you look out the front and you see that these six Candela members are spreading out, but they're not to the back of the building yet.

SAM: Okay.

AABRIA: So you see the back window. It's clear. It's a set of fire escape ladders that will let you down into the back alley so you can move into the streets.

SAM: Okay, I'll open up the window and get the girls out first.

AABRIA: Yeah. As you're opening it up, they're running down and filing down, they smack into you. "What's going on?"

SAM: Just go, just go, just go. Get out of here.

GINA: Girls, you know what to do. All right?

AABRIA: "What's happening? What?"

GINA: We've practiced this. Out the window.

AABRIA: "Oh, okay."

GINA: Mina, come. I grab Mina. I let the girls go first and then I follow along with Mina.

AABRIA: Yeah. Mina's like, "Put me down. I can get out."

GINA: I forgot how tall she is.

AABRIA: "Yeah, I'm a whole-- Yeah."

GINA: Mina, now's not the time! Go, just go!

AABRIA: "Okay! Ah!" She scrambles out and starts making her way down. Do you follow?

SAM: I'm going to quickly go back and if I can sort of peer down the stairs to the bottom floor to see if anyone's down there, if anyone's broken through the front door or if they're all just on the exterior.

AABRIA: There are two figures in the front moving not through the front door, but through the windows as they clear, as the front door is now patrons milling out and they're climbing through the broken glass and moving against the salmon current of patrons even here early in the morning that are making their way out.

SAM: Shit. They haven't spotted me yet or anything?

AABRIA: Not yet.

SAM: Is there one-- How on fire is this place?

AABRIA: Not bad yet, beginning to get a little worse. You can see that the very edges of upholstery are starting to catch and you know the moment it hits the central part of the carpet, where alcohol's spilled constantly or if it gets over to the wood bar that's either covered in alcohol or so well polished that the fumes of the cleaning agents will ignite it. You guess that you probably have a minute.

SAM: I want to know who these fuckers are and why are they here. So knowing that she's safe--?

AABRIA: You know that she's scooting. Yeah. You're peering out over the banister.

SAM: I'm going to try to jump down on one of these guys.

LIAM: Mm!

AABRIA: Oh, amazing.

SAM: They're fucking with my place.

AABRIA: They are fucking with your place.

SAM: I'm sorry. It's your place, Madam.

GINA: Oh no, it's fine. It's your home, too.

AABRIA: Go ahead and give me a Strike roll.

SAM: Okay, Strike roll. Let's see here. Behind me, nope. Basic Training, nope. Okay, cool. I will burn a drive.

LIAM: Now up to bat, Cary Grimm.

SAM: Yeah, I'll take out my chain and sort of-- Actually, I won't have time to use the chain. I'm going to jump off the stairs and try to elbow one in the back of the skull.

AABRIA: All right, you've got a beautiful option here. You've got sort of right dude and left dude. Left dude seems sort of tall, gangly, a little hunched, being uncomfortable with their physicality. The other dude, the dude on the right feels brawny and burly and sure of himself and his form. He is thick and confident.

SAM: Well, I'm going to go for him first.

AABRIA: Yeah. (laughter)

SAM: Let's see what we got! Five.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: Okay. You're going to take one point of body, as you drop down a floor onto this person. And-- Yeah, is the goal to sort of surprise tackle?

SAM: I want to knock one out and hopefully capture and quickly question the other.

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: If possible.

AABRIA: You land. You both land in a heap and a crumple, a couple patrons moving around. You get sort of swept up, but they continue on all fours, scrabbling away and the other person's going to turn and wheel on you as they see their person drop. They go, "Bran!"

SAM: Bran. The initial instinct--

SAM: That's a nice name.

AABRIA: -- was to reach out and then they begin to reach back into their overcoat and reach for a weapon.

SAM: As he reaches-- Is the guy I have just conked, is he out-ish, we think?

AABRIA: You can't quite tell.

SAM: Well, I'm on him.

AABRIA: If you give yourself-- Yeah. He's face down.

SAM: He's less of a threat. So I will pull out the chain.

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: And before he can reach for whatever he's got, I will try to swipe it across and connect with his face.

AABRIA: So standing up to connect with the face?

SAM: Yes, please.

AABRIA: Or staying low to just--

SAM: No, I'll stand--

AABRIA: -- connect as quickly as possible?

SAM: And lunge and swipe.

AABRIA: Okay. Give me a Stri-- Or no, no. This would be Control. Because this is your weapon?

SAM: This is my weapon and I'll use my Hard Hitter feet.

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: Or whatever it's called.

AABRIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: Oh, this is Control. Okay.

GINA: Okay, but are you planning on interrogating, asking questions here? Or are we going to kidnap him?

AABRIA: You know what's really cool? You're not there to talk about it. (laughter)

AABRIA: You're running away!

GINA: Oh, okay.

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: I got three fives.

NOSHIR: God dang!

ASHLY: Wow!

AABRIA: Three fives?

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLY: Pretty good.

AABRIA: That's pretty good.

LIAM: Grand bam.

AABRIA: You stand up and swing out and you connect, wrapping this chain around the upper chest of the gangly man that didn't have the reaction time to get his weapon out in time. You catch him up and as you pull him towards you and knock him off your feet-- Yeah. Bran, the guy below you, who is not unconscious is going to grab and lunge for your leg and is going to pull you back. One more body.

SAM: Oh boy. Oh boy. This is not good!

AABRIA: As you drop to a knee and Bran, this dude that-- Now that you've interacted with his physicality, underneath the sweater and the collared shirt, it's just thick muscle. He reminds you of the soldiers when they've freshly returned from the war. Bran's built different, and he's not out of this fight yet. But you've knocked the other man down to his knees. So you're doing a good job sort of managing this fight. But it's becoming apparent that unless you can get one of them fully knocked out, they're going to eventually overwhelm you because it's two on one.

GINA: Can I help? Because I maneuvered the girls out, but I haven't left.

AABRIA: How do you want to help? You maneuver the girls out, you ushered Mina out, you're upstairs looking down at this. What do you want to do?

GINA: Okay, I trust-- Madam Glask, trusts that the girls, take Mina, take, just go, and I am watching this go down and Madam Glask is pissed. Everything that I've ever worked for, this is how they ruin me. Everything that I have. I would like to use my powers to help him.

SAM: Powers?

AABRIA: What do you want to do?

SAM: As in persuasion? (laughter)

AABRIA: Roll Sway from the top.

GINA: Hey, stop that.

AABRIA: Just pop a titty out.

GINA: Please. (laughter)

AABRIA: You are far away from this and your Prestige is a trick that works better up close. Do you want to try something with a higher degree of difficulty, or do you want to enter the fray?

GINA: I'm going to enter the fray. Madam Glask, you know what, she rips her dress to make more space to run down and she runs down to help Oscar.

AABRIA: Okay, you push through the crowd of people leaving. What do you attempt to do?

GINA: She looks at Bran?

AABRIA: Bran is the soldier.

GINA: Yes. Yes, I would like to use my Prestige. You want me to--

AABRIA: Give me a-- break me off a piece of what you're attempting to do.

GINA: Okay, I want to control the moisture in the air and build a cloud of incredibly hot steam on his face.

AABRIA: Oh. Okay. Okay, give me a Sense roll.

GINA: Okay, I'm going to use a drive.

AABRIA: Probably a good call. I will set your expectations here. This is a fight, and the moment you move into range, you see Oscar doing his best to hold his own against two Candela operatives, and when you make eye contact with Bran, you are not looking at a little suited man that sits and does research all day. You decided to lock eyes with the one that's a killer, so you better not miss.

SAM: What are you rolling?

GINA: Sense, intuition.

SAM: Ah, can I give her a drive by trying to distract him in this moment?

AABRIA: Sure, but that will have repercussions for your portion of the fight.

SAM: Well then, fuck. (laughter)

GINA: You're a wonderful security guard. This is the reason why I hired you, thank you so much.

AABRIA: What do you care about more in this moment? Protecting Glask, who has come here to help you, or winning this fight?

SAM: Winning this fight.

NOSHIR: Are we riding on Cosmo's chair? What the fuck? Where are we? (laughter) I want to kick ass!

AABRIA: Things are happening simultaneously!

LIAM: It's just another seven blocks, then a left.

AABRIA: You are in a car and Candela made a call about where to go find you.

NOSHIR: Oh.

LIAM: Here comes another curb, slow, slow, slow. (laughter)

AABRIA: There's just a lot of traffic.

GINA: Did you want to?

ASHLY: If you could--

AABRIA: So, what are you going to do? If you focus on the fight in front of you, you will leave Glask to her own devices.

SAM: I mean, she's pretty badass, so.

GINA: I hope so.

SAM: You go.

GINA: Okay. Oh god, please.

SAM: Glask.

ASHLY: Come on, baby.

GINA: Two twos. I roll two twos.

AABRIA: High is a two?

GINA: Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: You raise your hand. You're trying to pull moisture in the air, but the room, even the light burning of it, it's distracting. It's already a little too dry in here. The pressure is so much. You are looking in the eyes of a man who has decided immediately that he will harm you. Your hand is up, he grabs, disengaging from Oscar, grabs you by the wrist and he twists.

GINA: (yells)

AABRIA: You feel the pearls around your wrist crack, and then you realize what you heard was not the bracelet, but your radius and ulna snapping in his hands.

GINA: No! No!

AABRIA: Take two points of body.

SAM: Oh shit!

ASHLY: Okay.

SAM: It's on.

NOSHIR: This dude's a monster.

ASHLY: How far along are we? (laughter)

NOSHIR: Seriously, seriously.

AABRIA: All right, you guys can be here now.

ASHLY: No, no, I met in the session. There's just a lot of time.

LIAM: No, thanks. (laughter)

AABRIA: No. Y'all want to teleport, come get some.

SAM: I see him do that to my boss and my friend. I'm going to grab whatever I can, if there's a whiskey bottle nearby--

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: -- and go to fucking town on the back of his head.

AABRIA: Yeah, go for it.

SAM: Is this Strike, Control, Strike?

AABRIA: So to give you a little more play here, you've got your chain in your dominant hand still caught up on the gangly man.

SAM: Yeah.

AABRIA: You reach down on the ground to find-- it's probably not a whiskey bottle, it's probably an empty beer bottle to clock Bran, the soldier. Go ahead and make a roll, an attack roll for me. Let's call it--

SAM: Going to burn a drive.

AABRIA: Do you want it to be drive or do you want it to be Strike?

SAM: I'm sorry, wait, Strike or Control?

AABRIA: Oh, that's what I meant, sorry.

SAM: Strike.

AABRIA: Okay.

SAM: Please.

LIAM: Let's go, Oscar.

SAM: Five.

AABRIA: Mixed success. You are holding him at bay. You grab this bottle and you swing it across Bran's face. You make contact, the bottle shatters, cutting him, and you feel blood splatter across your face. But you're so divided and distracted and now you have someone else in the fight, too, and she's losing. You lose a little bit of track with what you're doing. You hit Bran, he falls away back. He pulls Glask with him. He has too strong a grip on her. He takes the damage, but Tolliver gets enough time behind him. He gets pulled forward with you, but reaches in and pulls out a revolver and points it at you and then looks at Glask and pulls the trigger on you. In this moment, he is point blank range, but he is aiming for your body. He seems not that confident with his shot and he's still off-kilter. I need you to make a Move roll to try to dodge the worst of this.

GINA: Can I help him?

AABRIA: Only a critical success will allow this to somehow miss.

SAM: Well, then, I will use a drive.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: I'm gripping my pencil so fucking tight right now. (laughter)

GINA: Am I allowed to help him?

AABRIA: If you help him, which you absolutely can do, you will put yourself at a disadvantage.

GINA: Disadvantage.

AABRIA: Do you help? He's about to roll. You got to make your choice.

GINA: Let me-- wait, what are you rolling?

SAM: Move.

LIAM: Trying to dodge a gunshot.

GINA: I have to give you a fucking-- no, I think you're going to have to take that.

SAM: Six.

ASHLY: Oh!

LIAM: Ooh!

GINA: I've believed in you this whole time, that's why.

NOSHIR: What the hell? (laughter)

NOSHIR: He is a badass.

ASHLY: Whoa!

GINA: Can I have my dice back? (laughter) We traded just before this and I want it back.

AABRIA: Full success.

ASHLY: Holy shit.

LIAM: Oh my goodness.

AABRIA: Question, did I say it had to be a crit or a full success to avoid?

SAM: You said a full success.

AABRIA: All right. I'll hold myself to that. You are able to, he pulls the gun out, he's aimed at the center of your chest and yet you can see this, he's so young looking and--

SAM: And my chain's still around him.

AABRIA: And your chain's still around him. He's off-kilter. He doesn't have that dog in him. You've killed a man. You feel in Bran that death is nothing new to him. This boy, shaky of breath, doesn't quite have it and you're able to get him enough off-center that it passes through the side of your cloak and scatters harmlessly into the ground behind you. Glask, you're grappled. Your wrist is broken. What do you want to do?

GINA: I have to get out of here. Okay. I am going to try to distract them. I want to use my, my flash powder.

AABRIA: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Give me-- I'm going to call this misdirection, so give me a Hide roll.

GINA: Woo, okay. One, two.

AABRIA: As you pull out your flash powder. I'll say because you're using one of your few items, the stakes for this are pretty low.

GINA: Okay. That's two and a gilded. Oh jesus, five on the non-gilded, mixed success.

AABRIA: Okay. What does it look like when you use your powder?

GINA: He's still holding onto my wrist?

AABRIA: Yeah, describe what the physical effect is and I'll describe how you disentangle yourself.

GINA: She pops the pearl off of her earring--

ASHLY: Sick.

GINA: -- and flicks it onto the ground and a flash of bright, blinding light explodes from the pearl.

AABRIA: It's enough that between the missed gunshot and whatever this is, Bran is off his game and he lets you go, but it is a mixed success. You have to wrench your broken wrist out of a soldier's grip. Take one more body. You are free.

GINA: Ah, okay.

SAM: Go, go, go, go, go.

GINA: While doing that, okay, she--

AABRIA: Oh, I'm sorry, y'all talked a lot of shit before we started. (laughter)

ASHLY: No, no, no.

NOSHIR: No, no! We love you.

ASHLY: You're great.

AABRIA: Too late for that now. (laughter)

AABRIA: You're free, continue. (laughter)

GINA: Oh god. In the bright flash of light, she slightly digs her nails into his skin so he lets go and she yanks. (pained yell) Just takes off.

AABRIA: Are you booking it?

GINA: Yes, yes. (laughter)

AABRIA: So question, in this moment, are you running past these two and running out the front door, or are you running to where your girls and Mina were fleeing out the back door?

GINA: I'm running towards the back.

AABRIA: Okay. Give me, I just want one more-- Give me a Focus roll as you get up and book towards the back.

GINA: (laughs) Oh no I'm so bad at this.

LIAM: Let's go. (gasping)

GINA: That's a success.

NOSHIR: Yes!

AABRIA: Beautiful.

GINA: Yes!

AABRIA: You get up and you start running. That's where your girls are, that's where your girl is. Then you remember a bit of what was happening, what Oscar was seeing and reporting. Two came through the front, but six were on their way. Best you understand is if there aren't four more people coming through the front, they're headed for the back. You can go that way if you want, but you do understand that you're running towards more Candela operatives.

GINA: Are they coming from the front to the back, or do they surround?

AABRIA: They're going around the building to get to that back alley.

GINA: Okay, four more back.

AABRIA: Do you continue towards the back? Just yes or no.

GINA: Yes, I do.

AABRIA: You sprint towards the back towards your girls. You know what may be waiting for you back there, but you hope that even with all of this, you are still faster than they are getting there, because at this time, that our Antiquarian contingent arrives in front of a brick facade beginning to burn.

ASHLY: I feel like I would beast up immediately.

NOSHIR: Oh good. (laughter)

GINA: Hooray.

ASHLY: I don't mean to fuck everyone up, but like--

AABRIA: It's not even-- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: The car explodes. (laughter)

ASHLY: Well, I think we see-- it's rounding the corner and I see flames?

AABRIA: 100%.

ASHLY: I think I'm starting to hyperventilate in the back of the car.

AABRIA: Yep, I think this is a high enough stress situation that I wouldn't say that this is you choosing to summon your beast.

ASHLY: I could try, maybe. Can I try to see if I can get out of the car before I start? I don't think I'm going to control it. I want to see if I can like--

AABRIA: I just want you to make the beast roll and then we decide what happens as we go.

ASHLY: Well, you guys are seeing this happen, so hold onto your butts.

LIAM: I'm in the back seat, what's going on?

ASHLY: Six.

AABRIA: Six dice.

ASHLY: Fuck me.

LIAM: So easy.

AABRIA: And just as a little reminder--

SAM: One of them are supposed to be what?

AABRIA: Huh?

SAM: What happens?

LIAM: I think every one is a death she has to achieve.

AABRIA: Correct, any ones means she rampages.

ASHLY: I have to do, how would you phrase it? A significant amount of violence or something?

AABRIA: A significant, a tasty little amount of violence, but it depends on how many ones you roll, if any. You might not.

ASHLY: I rolled one one.

SAM: Hey!

ASHLY: And two sixes. That doesn't matter, does it?

AABRIA: That doesn't matter.

ASHLY: Great, great. (laughter)

ASHLY: Great, that's fine.

NOSHIR: Just in case.

ASHLY: No, that's fine, it's fine.

AABRIA: I'm going to offer you something in this moment because of course you would rampage. Of course this is a lot and you held on as long as you could through the strange conversations, through everything you've seen, and now it's on fire and you know that your friends are inside. You know that Oscar and Madam Glask and that girl are inside. Of course you rampage. I'll leave you one chance to control it. The rules for this have accelerated. You took in that little bit of the Maw. So the rules are thus. You're going to make a Sense roll.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: It will take a critical success.

ASHLY: Remind me what that is.

AABRIA: Critical success is multiple sixes.

ASHLY: Multiple sixes, okay.

SAM: Oh shit.

AABRIA: Multiple sixes allow you to be entirely in control of what you're doing.

ASHLY: Fuck. Okay.

AABRIA: A full success, and I will ask that you be a little more indiscriminate in your violence.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: A mixed success or a failure at this point and I'll choose your targets for you.

ASHLY: Fuck, fuck. (laughter)

GINA: Oh shit!

SAM: But she'll probably choose nice things.

AABRIA: Probably.

GINA: Definitely not us.

AABRIA: Probably.

LIAM: How many dice in this roll? One?

SAM: Can you do it on drives or anything?

GINA: What are you rolling?

LIAM: How do you get a critical if you have--

SAM: You can't.

ASHLY: So I have a lot of drives I could use. I'm guessing the stakes are pretty high.

AABRIA: Pretty high.

ASHLY: I am going to burn all of my drives.

AABRIA: So here's the thing: we're an hour in. You sure?

ASHLY: Fucking cock. You guys are with me. You see me hyperventilating. Does anyone want to help?

GINA: Which roll are you doing?

NOSHIR: What's the?

ASHLY: Intuition.

GINA: Intuition.

AABRIA: You see Elsie begins to double over and rock.

LIAM: Who's where in the car? Who's driving?

AABRIA: You have a driver.

NOSHIR: No, I'm just kidding.

AABRIA: Cosmo appears in the fucking car.

LIAM: Ah! (laughter)

AABRIA: I'll let you tell me what is your arrangement in the car. Who's sitting where?

LIAM: I'm in the back seat.

SAM: It's the monster.

LIAM: Oh, dear.

ASHLY: Maybe I would be driving.

AABRIA: You think you're driving?

ASHLY: Well, do you drive?

AABRIA: No, I love that.

NOSHIR: Who do I look like?

ASHLY: (laughs) That's what I mean.

AABRIA: So you're both in the back and you're--

NOSHIR: I've got no depth perception to save my life.

SAM: Is it a motorcycle and two sidecars? (laughter)

NOSHIR: We just cut one loose. Shoom!

ASHLY: Someone draw that, please.

GINA: It's adorable.

LIAM: No, it makes sense that you'd be driving, yes.

ASHLY: Fuck me, fuck.

NOSHIR: I have to be in the back because I need to be the one to help get the professor out and in.

AABRIA: You see, she begins to double over the wheel.

ASHLY: Raj.

AABRIA: Hyperventilating.

ASHLY: It's happening.

AABRIA: She grimaces and her, the muscles in her mouth pull too far back. Too much mouth, too many teeth. [growling]

NOSHIR: Glorious.

ASHLY: Fuck. All right. (laughter)

GINA: It's not the time! Time and place, mister!

SAM: What the fuck?

ASHLY: Am I making this roll by myself?

GINA: That's a weird kink.

AABRIA: Don't kink shame.

GINA: Oh, no, I'm not.

AABRIA: This is the monster fucker season!

GINA: I am--

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: I will yuck no yums.

LIAM: I want to help by using Speak Their Language.

AABRIA: Okay.

LIAM: And she will hear my voice in her mind, and I will lend two, no, I can only do one.

AABRIA: You can only lend one.

LIAM: I will lend a drive from Sense as I speak into your mind and try to-- Hold on to yourself, Elsie. Hold on, child. Hold on.

AABRIA: I'll just tell you, if you fail, you're going to roll the car.

ASHLY: Okay. I'm going to burn-- You gave me one?

LIAM: Yeah.

ASHLY: So there's one. Okay, I'm going to burn three drive.

SAM: Oh!

AABRIA: Okay.

ASHLY: Fuck me. Fuck. Fuck, I'm so nervous.

AABRIA: It's okay! If you fail, you both get a drive back.

ASHLY: You'll kill the person I love, great. That's fine.

LIAM: But you can no longer drive. (laughter)

ASHLY: I had too much caffeine today, I am like (vibrating).

SAM: All sixes.

GINA: Oh my.

SAM: All sixes. Five sixes.

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Praying to the sea gods.

ASHLY: I'm speaking to myself.

GINA: Praying to the sea gods.

ASHLY: I'm hearing Cosmo's voice. Calm down.

SAM: Nope.

ASHLY: Remember who's in the car. Remember who's in the car. I fail.

SAM: What?

AABRIA: Beautiful.

SAM: Wait, is there a resistance or something?

ASHLY: There is a resistance.

AABRIA: Do you want to use your Resistance?

ASHLY: Yes. But I don't get to spend the drive?

SAM: No.

AABRIA: No.

ASHLY: Then it's just one fucking die.

SAM: Oh god.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: Fuck it, all right.

GINA: (groans)

ASHLY: Episode three, baby, woo!

NOSHIR: (laughs)

ASHLY: Fuck.

GINA: Oh my god.

ASHLY: (groans) Fail.

SAM: Oh! What?!

GINA: Valiant effort, valiant effort.

SAM: Burch! (laughter)

AABRIA: You try to hold on. You're driving and two of the people you care most about in this world are behind you and they trust you. But the beast will not be stopped. You double over the wheel, and involuntarily, this isn't the choice, this is just the rictus of transformation. You pull the wheel, you roll the vehicle. It goes side-over-side, coming around a corner, slamming into a building as you see the fiery Glass Cat in front of you. You will emerge from this fine.

NOSHIR: Oh good.

AABRIA: Yeah. But I need the two of you to make Move rolls.

GINA: Oh my god.

ASHLY: I'm beastie when I come out, I'm guessing, right?

AABRIA: Mm-hmm!

ASHLY: Okay.

LIAM: So with nothing in Move--

ASHLY: Fuck.

LIAM: That's roll at disadvantage, correct?

AABRIA: Yes.

GINA: He's like 1,000.

AABRIA: He's a billion years old.

GINA: I know, he's the oldest thing in Newfaire right now.

AABRIA: 100%.

GINA: Oh my god.

AABRIA: And there's Oldfaire in Newfaire. He's still got that number one slot.

LIAM: I think of my mother. No.

AABRIA: Failure.

NOSHIR: Mixed success.

AABRIA: Okay. The car slams into the curb, rolls, smacks into the wall. Massive bang, wreckage. Emerging from it, peeling as though it were tissue paper, the beast that is Elsie emerges unharmed behind it. I'm going to give you two body. You're able to squeeze your way through, make it out, follow the safe path. But safe for how long? She is rampaging. You will immediately take a scar.

ASHLY: Fuck.

AABRIA: The beast is loose. You have an objective of one. What do the two of you want to do as you emerge to the sight in front of you from the sight around you?

ASHLY: I don't think I get to choose. I think you do, right? Because I failed.

AABRIA: Yeah. Yeah. We'll see what you want, and then we'll see-- Well, you know what? It would be so cruel of me to take over here. What do you think I want you to do?

ASHLY: I think you want to attack him. (laughs)

GINA: (groaning) Oh!

AABRIA: I think that's a great idea.

ASHLY: But I'm wondering if, and not just so I don't attack Raj, if the flames would draw me more, if the chaos and the disorder of what's happening in the building would draw the beast more.

LIAM: I like that pitch.

NOSHIR: (laughs)

AABRIA: That's a solid pitch, Burch.

ASHLY: Ashly likes that pitch. (laughs)

AABRIA: That's a solid pitch, Burch.

GINA: Yep.

AABRIA: What do you do as you emerge? Because that will put a little thumb on the scale for what happens next.

NOSHIR: I'm looking to try to see where the professor landed, because--

AABRIA: He's still trapped in the car.

NOSHIR: Then I go back into the car.

AABRIA: So you turn your back on the beast to search for Cosmo.

NOSHIR: I do.

AABRIA: I love it when their back's turned.

ASHLY: Can I see him?

AABRIA: Of course you can.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: You can smell him.

ASHLY: Fair.

AABRIA: The blood of him. Easy meat. I want you to give me a roll.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: We're going to call it a Focus roll.

ASHLY: Love that.

AABRIA: Yeah? Full success and you can go for the fire.

ASHLY: All right.

AABRIA: Failure, you're going to attack both of them.

ASHLY: Mother fucker.

AABRIA: Mixed success, you pick one. I'll let you pick.

GINA: She's so mean. She's so mean.

SAM: She's awful.

GINA: I'm scared of her.

ASHLY: I'm burning the rest of my drives.

AABRIA: I hope you took your drive back from Forged in Fire after your other one.

ASHLY: I didn't, actually.

AABRIA: You, too.

GINA: That was nice of her.

SAM: She's a good one.

GINA: She's a good person, I like her.

AABRIA: Thanks. I'll come back to you in a second. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten.

ASHLY: These are such big dice pools. These are such big dice pools.

AABRIA: You're doing great.

ASHLY: They're such big dice pools, you know? You would think, you would think, at least one baby six.

AABRIA: Just one.

ASHLY: (exhales)

SAM: (laughs) What are you doing over there? (laughter)

ASHLY: I've got mixed successes, that's it.

SAM: Oh okay.

AABRIA: A mixed success.

GINA: It's something, it's something.

ASHLY: So I pick one.

AABRIA: Yes. You pick. You get to pick.

ASHLY: Son of a fucking bitch. Do you think I'm full beast mode, or that there's any glimmer of Elsie?

AABRIA: I think there is something at the back of you. You have bonded with this beast, you've empowered it. I think you are there, but in the same way that in moments of ecstasy you can lose yourself to a feeling. Elsie's there, but Elsie loves this. But yeah, you're there.

ASHLY: I think, in that case-- Oh, did you want to say something?

NOSHIR: Well, I just wanted to ask if I'm allowed to take any sort of action here?

AABRIA: I want her to pick her target.

NOSHIR: Great.

AABRIA: Then we'll adjudicate from there as you are going for Cosmo.

ASHLY: I think if there's any Elsie in the beast, there is a reason she still wears this necklace. There's a reason that I lost it when I even saw that Raj was part of this group and what he might see. So I think... The conversation they just had, the feelings that she had for Raj are reignited, if they were ever dimmed. And for that reason, Elsie goes for Cosmo.

AABRIA: Love will destroy the world. You feel the slam and the car lurches as the beast that is Elsie rounds back on the vehicle and is making her way back towards the two of you as you go to free Cosmo. What do you want to do?

NOSHIR: I could never strike my queen, but I need Cosmo. I'm going to loosen my cravat and see if I can fill the car with my host to at least make it harder for it to see where we are in the vehicle.

AABRIA: Okay. You're going to take a bleed as you try to direct your host. Give me a Sense roll. Actually, no. Make it a Hide roll to see if you can fill this space and obscure the two of you.

NOSHIR: Okay.

AABRIA: I will say expectations and stakes here: A full success will allow you to fill it. She's going to swing, she was swinging for Cosmo. The best you can do is that you divide the damage between the two of you, and that would be enough to save Cosmo's life.

NOSHIR: Understood.

AABRIA: You died immediately when she attacked you.

SAM: Yeah, but, but-- (laughter)

AABRIA: He's made of talcum powder. (laughter)

LIAM: (dry poof) (laughter)

GINA: Wait, do you have two scars right now?

LIAM: Well, we started with one.

GINA: Oh, that's right, and you--

LIAM: I just got a second.

NOSHIR: A six on the gilded.

LIAM: You need to roll like him. (laughter)

ASHLY: I'm fucking trying!

AABRIA: Take your drive back. This space fills with vermin. Biting, stinging pest and pestilence. You lose sight, you're swinging based on smell. The blood of the old man, the blood of the one you love. You slam your fists down equally. Take a scar.

GINA: A scar?

AABRIA: Take a scar.

NOSHIR: Any particular kind?

AABRIA: Body.

GINA: Oh, oh, oh.

LIAM: Remind me, since I've never been this far down the road, three scars or four scars until we are gone-zo?

AABRIA: On your fourth scar, you are gone.

LIAM: So-- Understood.

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: Understood.

NOSHIR: Does this reset any marks we had for body?

AABRIA: Yes. Let's reset as a sort of--

NOSHIR: How merciful.

AABRIA: Y'all took a lot. I will allow you to reset your bodies.

GINA: Does this mean that they're out?

AABRIA: They're both unconscious--

GINA: Unconscious. Oh, okay. Got it, got it, got it.

AABRIA: -- buried by beast-Elsie's fists in the shrapnel. Sufficient damage was dealt and you can return to yourself. Upon looking at the thing that you've done, please take one brain. No, it's two.

ASHLY: I take a scar.

GINA: (gasps)

AABRIA: The car is down. You come back up, you see what you've done. You remember the choice. Take out Cosmo, save Raj. But you hit them both. You wanted them both. That's a lot. A little too much. And you faint. We'll come back to you three in a moment.

SAM: Jesus.

AABRIA: So!

SAM: Jesus.

GINA: Oh god.

ASHLY: Sorry, guys.

AABRIA: Inside of the burning Glass Cat.

GINA: I just want to let you know you're so pretty right now.

AABRIA: Oh my god, thank you. It's actually fine and the fire's out.

GINA: (laughs)

AABRIA: You are still engaged with both of them.

SAM: Nobody's down?

AABRIA: Nobody's down, but they're both very hurt and they're struggling with you. You've done this thing where you are handling them both and you're able to keep them to you so Glask gets away and is moving towards the back. You hear the massive slam. Some accident outside. What do you do?

SAM: I mean, the thing that I'm good at is hitting things, so I'm going to take the guy, what was his name?

AABRIA: Bran.

SAM: Bran. Just overcome with fury for having seen him hurt my friend, my boss. I'm going to-- I'm going to grab that good old chain away from the other guy, and if I can, wrap it around either his arms or his neck or something and basically throw him over towards the fire, if I can.

AABRIA: Yeah, love that. Go ahead and give me a Control or Strike, I'll let you decide.

SAM: I'm going to go Control. Using my ability.

AABRIA: Nice.

SAM: Five.

AABRIA: Yeah. What happens here isn't you taking damage as you do it, but understanding the opportunity cost of focusing down on a single target. You release the gangly one, he's barely a threat anyway, and throw all of your focus on Bran the soldier. You swing your chain around his neck and as it wraps and as you catch the other side, you pull tight. Something in you remembers a part of you long ago that was so good at escaping these chains. I'm going to offer you something here. If you lose yourself to your fury, take one more mark. Brain or bleed, your call. You can finish Bran in this moment.

SAM: Happily, I'll take a bleed, and not just end him, but hurt him.

AABRIA: Yeah. You hear something again, like a language you don't know but understand the feeling of, pouring itself into the space where the version of you who still remembered his name as Grimmick exists, and you lean in, wrap him up. You understand chains. This was your-- This was your trick when you were with the circus. And it's easy. So much of it is about body weight and controlling yourself. And he has no control, he's panicking. I want you to describe for me how you kill Bran.

SAM: (sighs) Drawn to the sound in the front and also the flames that are crawling up the front of the facade, I would love to wrap him up and throw him out the front door. Just smash it open.

AABRIA: Yeah. You burst the door, which has been swinging open and shut as patrons are milling, or not milling, sprinting out. It's almost empty now, and you knock the heavy wooden doors off its hinges with this body. You felt something, he didn't quite have control of himself. He's going to hit. You see his neck hit across the door, his body immediately goes limp and ragdolls the rest of the way out. As you look past him you see a car you recognize, crumpled on the corner of the street.

SAM: I'll run out there straight away. I mean, I know that the other guy's alive, but I don't think that he's going to be doing too much. Well, maybe he will. I don't know.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: We'll find out. You sprint out the front.

SAM: Yeah.

AABRIA: Let's go cut to the back. Give me-- It's got to be a Move roll.

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: Full success, you make it out ahead of the agents that are coming around from Candela. Critical success, and you have enough time to do something about it.

GINA: It's one. I'm going to use two out of three drives. What are the stakes on this? Is it really bad?

SAM: Everything's high.

ASHLY: Everything's high.

AABRIA: I would say a failure is you-- The worst possible scenario is you running out at the same time--

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: -- as the Candela agents. Which, for that being the worst thing, that might pull focus. You have this weird sense that because they focused down Oscar and you, they might be after Oscar and you. So even your worst case scenario might be pulling a bit of heat off of your girls, which isn't great, but a win's a win.

GINA: I have three body already. Yeah, I'll just roll here.

NOSHIR: I really hope Mina's down there kicking ass.

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Yeah, right?

SAM: Shit, she's got a monster. Why isn't she fighting?

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: Goddamn it!

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: (laughs)

NOSHIR: If we take her back, you can drink, Mina. You can drink.

ASHLY: Yeah! (laughs)

GINA: That was a mixed success.

AABRIA: Mixed success. You make your way out, you burst through the back doors. You see the girls have absolutely-- Heels are off, skirts are slit, and they are hauling ass down this alley. They're trying to reach back for Mina who you see on the other side by your trash cans, doubled over, retching water down. She didn't need-- She's safe because of the choices she's made. She's holding that necklace, not in a desperate plea for comfort, but that she knows that there's someone who cares enough to want her to be safe, someone else to fight for. She pours that water and you can see some of the steam rising off of it. It begins to run and form, as you see starting to peek around the corner, two sets of agents on either side of the building. Mina reaches out without looking up at you and waves you past.

GINA: Okay! Oh my god, I'm so proud of her!

AABRIA: Do you keep running or do you stop? What do you want to do in this moment? She's trying to flag you to go past her.

GINA: Yeah, I run past her, but I still make it a point to turn around and watch and duck behind the trash cans just in case she needs help.

AABRIA: Yeah.

GINA: Yeah, I'm hiding behind the trash cans now, peeking out to make sure that she's got this.

AABRIA: Yeah. She pours the sentry out of her. It forms and stands and squares off against these Candela agents and it launches itself at them. They're trying to move around to get to the girl, to get to you peeking, and it will not let them pass. It fights with sharpened water and pouring itself to any available orifice. You feel your body sing with the urge to join it. Do you watch or do you try to join in?

GINA: Crap. Oh my god, I have three bodies already. How far am I from the Candela agents? Do they see me? They know I'm there.

AABRIA: There is definitely an agent that can see you peeking out over the trashcan.

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: Saw you sprint by. It's very obvious that you did not continue down the alley or they would see you continuing to run. So they know that you're there. They're having a tough time getting at you. They're probably 10 feet, max, away.

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: And just as a reminder, your Prestige uses bleed, not body.

GINA: Yeah. I'm going to try it again.

AABRIA: Okay.

GINA: I'm trying to do it again.

AABRIA: Do you try for a specific effect? Or are you trying to push your ability into what is already extant in here?

GINA: I want to connect with her sentry. How far is the sentry from them? Is the sentry attacking--

AABRIA: The sentry is in melee with all four of them. They're all 10 feet away from you. This thing is doing its best to keep all of them away from the two of you.

GINA: Okay. I want to connect with the sentry.

AABRIA: Okay.

GINA: To--

AABRIA: Give me a Sense roll.

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: And we'll see what you can pull off. The stakes for this are pretty low. This thing already exists and everything in you, the magick that is in you wants this.

GINA: I have one. I should've put more drives in Intuition. Okay. Oh my god, that's a six.

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLY: Yes.

GINA: Oh, thank god!

AABRIA: Beautiful. I will give you an option here. More or many?

GINA: (chuckles) What does that even-- Many.

AABRIA: You reach forward and it doesn't feel like the times you've tried to cast and send out specifically your water into the world, giving it shape and intention. You simply release what is in you. The gift from-- You've believed for so long that it was a gift from your god. You think back to the KeGa Islands and Katma, the god you and your people worshiped. You feel the water flow from you. You feel, for the first time, the wrongness of this, Cordelia. This is not the gentle waves and warm currents of your home. This is something different. It's been doing a poor approximation of the ecstasy of your god. This is still your power. You have access to it, but this is not of your home. You release it forward and it gives itself shape. It pours itself into the sentry. Then the sentry doubles and doubles again.

GINA: Holy shit.

AABRIA: One for each officer. Every member, all of them in that shape and bearing, though in slightly different physicality of the sentries. That even you, though you didn't get a formal school education, though you weren't from here, you know that's the shape of the sentries. The soldiers of Oldfaire that stood on the harbor walls and dared anyone to cross into the empire of Iomene's building. They make quick work of four men. Snaps necks, filled noses and mouths. You barely hear the gurgle of it and all of this for the wrongness of it, for the foreignness of it, feels right. You hear something less like the crashing of waves and more like the purr, someone revealing herself to you in a moment of great triumph. "Yes. Know me. Find me. Come. The only way through is down." And all four of the sentries unmake themselves and fill the alley behind you and around you and in front of you with water mingled with blood and viscera. You and Mina and the girls behind you still running, never looking back, are safe.

GINA: Oh, that's a good girl.

AABRIA: You take a moment, collect yourself, collect Mina, and out the front door. You head to the car?

SAM: Yeah, book it to the car. Slide to a stop. Are they all three splayed out, unconscious?

AABRIA: Splayed out, unconscious and bugs flying, biting things are filtering out of the hole as if they were all gathered. And only at your appearance, understand the importance of scattering and revealing the scene. What do you do?

SAM: I mean, if bugs are present, and I assume Dr. Roberts' clothes are shredded, but in very convenient places.

AABRIA: Yes. (laughter)

AABRIA: We have invented, along with a flashlight and baseball, spandex. So you're good. Bits are covered. Yeah.

GINA: Pasties. Pasties. Monster-shaped pasties.

SAM: Slightly ripped, but not in the private zones.

ASHLY: Yes.

SAM: I can sort of piece together a little bit of what happened, but not really, not much. So I will-- First instinct will be to dive in and grab Cosmo and pull him outta the car if he's still in there.

AABRIA: Yep.

SAM: See if he's alive. Take his pulse.

AABRIA: He's alive and badly battered.

LIAM: Since I took two scars, I would say that when the car rolled, first Cosmo's face smashed into the window next to him, crushing his glasses. You see actually the stem of his glasses actually going through and into his mouth, but not through the mouth. His eye is intact, but swollen shut and there's blood dripping down the side of his head. Then the second scar would've been from Elsie. I think in her handling of his body, his left arm is badly torn. Still holding on, but somewhat unattached.

SAM: I'll cradle him and just-- I don't know what I'm doing. So, Cosmo, come on. You got to wake up. Please don't do this to me. Please don't go. I don't know how to do anything. So I'll try to wake up Elsie because she might.

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: I'll try to shake her and rouse her gently.

AABRIA: Yeah. So because we are in a moment of safety, the threat has been cleared with the exception of Toll-- The tall gentleman inside whose name you don't know, even though I said most of it right now, you don't know what he's doing. But he doesn't appear to be coming out, you-- Even as you are cradling Cosmo and trying to rouse Elsie, you're keeping an eye over your shoulder. Nothing is appearing.

SAM: Maybe he burned up.

AABRIA: Who could say?

GINA: We don't have a sprinkler system.

AABRIA: We don't know.

ASHLY: So do his attempts work in that case?

AABRIA: So yes, because we are in a moment of safety.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: You can be roused. All three of you, at a moment of your choosing.

ASHLY: So as you're shaking me, because I took a brain scar I'm going to gasp for breath and when my eyes open, they're just white. No pupil, no color, nothing. They're just white.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: I don't know that, though.

SAM: Well, from my face, you probably see something bad.

ASHLY: Oscar? Do I see-- Can I tell that Raj and Cosmo are both alive? Just by looking at them?

AABRIA: Yes.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: I mean, you're seeing ragged but steady breath.

ASHLY: (panting, gasping) Where's Glask?

SAM: I think she's okay. She ran out the back with the girls.

ASHLY: And how hurt is Raj?

AABRIA: Raj, how hurt are you?

NOSHIR: The last thing that Raj did as the beast was rampaging was to fill the space and try to ward over the professor. When the strike came, it tore the sleeve and degloved his arm from essentially elbow to the tips of his fingers. So all the flesh that was on the bone here has unwrapped itself like a sleeve, and is hanging off of what's left of his hand, which has been essentially torn into half. But wherever there was raw meat it is now covered in a moving, shifting, iridescent pattern of insects that are slowly starting to cut away at dead flesh.

ASHLY: Knowing that, I have an awareness of the choice that I had made when I was a beast, I'm going to-- (gasps) Oscar, wrap his arm.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLY: Take off your coat and wrap his arm.

SAM: Well--

ASHLY: Then I'm going to turn to Cosmo.

SAM: I'm going to take off his coat and wrap-- (laughter)

SAM: It's already ruined, so-- (laughter)

ASHLY: I see his arm is basically coming--

AABRIA: Out of the socket.

ASHLY: Fibers. Is it fibers?

AABRIA: Oh yeah, is it torn or is it--

LIAM: It's dislocated and torn. So you can see a bit of the inner working, but it's not hanging--

ASHLY: Okay.

LIAM: -- by three pieces of string. It's torn open.

ASHLY: Okay.

LIAM: You can see the old man muscle and blood.

ASHLY: Uh-huh.

LIAM: It's totally out of place.

ASHLY: Okay.

LIAM: And it's this one, but you don't need to get out of your chair. (laughter)

SAM: Ensure is just dripping. (laughter)

AABRIA: Why did you give him a milky center?

ASHLY: Vanilla Ensure.

SAM: Mm-hmm. (laughter)

ASHLY: So Elsie-- I'm going to put my hand on your okay shoulder. Cosmo? (pants) Look me in the eyes. Cosmo?

LIAM: (groaning) I'm going to have to do something very painful. I need you to stay with me. I'm going to take his arm and crack it back into place.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: You hear (pained grunts) and he passes out.

ASHLY: Then I'm going to start to try to bandage it using Patch Up. So, also, I'll say, so you know.

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

ASHLY: When I took the scar, I moved a point from Sense--

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

ASHLY: -- because I think it was so traumatizing being in the beast, and seeing what happened.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: That I don't think Elsie wants to be there anymore.

AABRIA: Ooh, I like that.

ASHLY: So, Sense is gone, and then I added to Move.

AABRIA: Love that, hundred percent. You can clear your beast pool while you're at it.

ASHLY: Oh yeah. So I'm going to make a Focus roll to try to patch you up for one, if that even fucking matters at this point. But oh wait, is your body clear?

SAM: Oh yeah, all the marks get cleared.

AABRIA: Yes, because of the double scarring.

LIAM: Game mechanic, you guys.

AABRIA: Yes.

ASHLY: Oh, so I don't even need to roll.

AABRIA: You don't have to roll.

ASHLY: Oh, okay, great.

AABRIA: You can just describe.

ASHLY: Then I'm just--

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: I'm wrapping-- I'm trying to stem the bleeding on his face, and I'm taking, I guess, because my clothing is-- (laughter)

SAM: Very tasteful.

ASHLY: Tastefully covering--

SAM: Very tasteful.

ASHLY: Ripped and tastefully covering different parts of my body-- I'm going to take his tie, and unravel it, and start bandaging the wound.

LIAM: You might also want to pull the glasses.

ASHLY: I forgot about the fucking glasses.

GINA: Oh no.

AABRIA: One thing at a time.

ASHLY: Yes, I do that. Slowly and discard it--

LIAM: He's unconscious still.

ASHLY: But it's still a lot for me! (laughs) Then press this to the cheek to stem the bleeding.

AABRIA: He begins to rouse. What's happening over here with the boys?

SAM: I have wrapped his arm with his very fine jacket as I'm using it to, the tails of it to wrap around his arm, I can't help but notice the fine craftsmanship of the garments. (laughter)

SAM: It seems like very, very fine threads, and satins, and silks, I wrap it up as tight as I can, not really knowing what I'm doing. Then I give him a smack across the face to wake him up.

ASHLY: Do I see that happen? (laughs)

AABRIA: Yes, as he goes to smack, I will note that as you were tying off his mangled arm, the bugs weren't scattering. You could tie things over it, but you would be crushing them on his bones.

SAM: It's more of a loose wrap.

AABRIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: Like a mummy wrap.

AABRIA: A hundred percent.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: So yeah, you can still see the shifting under it--

SAM: Sure.

AABRIA: -- as you go to give a smack.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: You want to intervene in the smack, or are you letting this happen? Ash No, I'm going to see it, and I'm going to--

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: (laughs) Goddamn it, Oscar, I told you to wrap his arm, not hit him, just go to your father!

SAM: He's very hittable.

GINA: (laughs)

ASHLY: Then I'm going to take Raj, and try to get his head up--

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: Take him by the head and the face, and try to--

SAM: I'll do the same with my son.

LIAM: (moans)

AABRIA: Raj.

ASHLY: Raj.

LIAM: What, what happened? (groans)

ASHLY: I'm so sorry.

LIAM: Where is--

NOSHIR: What a sight.

LIAM: Do we--

AABRIA: As you come back to consciousness, you feel the bugs, you feel your damage. Your mind begins to put together the things that have just happened. You protected the professor, you've guarded your access to knowledge, to secrets. But you can't shake it. You know you've got to do something. You've played this close to the vest for so long. Even as you're bringing yourself back, you can hear her voice. You can hear, far away as though underwater, Cosmo's voice as well. You're running out of time. You need to find what you're looking for. You're not looking for Grimm. You're not looking for Elsie. You're looking for a secret. You're looking for a truth. Why? Why, why the Maw? Why The Serious Man? What-- What happened? What are you doing? What's been done? Raj, what are you looking for?

NOSHIR: I'm looking for a truth. I'm looking to find what happened, what my mother was involved in. Why it tails into the Maw and The Serious Man, and why, when I needed them most, Candela abandoned us.

AABRIA: They didn't just abandon you, they are hunting you down. You are running out of time. Let them go and go find your answers before it's too late for you, and the old man, and the love of your life. They are coming. And you come back to yourself.

ASHLY: Rajan.

NOSHIR: Elsie. Is everyone okay?

ASHLY: I'm so sorry.

LIAM: We still can't stay here.

NOSHIR: But we must go.

SAM: Where? Where, go where?

GINA: I join in with them, I finally catch up. I have the girls, I have Mina with me.

AABRIA: The rest of your girls have hauled, they are no--

GINA: Oh, the girls.

AABRIA: Yeah, they just took off.

GINA: Okay, good. I show up then.

AABRIA: Yes, Mina's with you.

GINA: Oh, good. Mina's with me. Good girl. I just: What's going on? What?

ASHLY: Where do we go?

GINA: You know what? I see the wreckage. I have my cars. I have my cars. We just got to get out of here.

NOSHIR: We need shelter.

AABRIA: "Where?"

NOSHIR: We need to find a place that Candela cannot get us at.

AABRIA: "This is Candela. Aren't you Candela?"

SAM: These are different Candela.

AABRIA: "You said it would be safe."

ASHLY: We are not Candela anymore.

LIAM: We have to get underground tonight.

SAM: Where?

NOSHIR: Underground.

AABRIA: "Why?"

SAM: What does that mean?

LIAM: We just have to get off the streets--

SAM: Oh.

LIAM: -- and I know places underground.

NOSHIR: The well.

SAM: The well? The one in the Groundswell?

NOSHIR: The well in Groundswell. They said it taps deep into Oldfaire.

AABRIA: "It's-- Yeah, it goes straight down. Are you just trying to--"

SAM: Have you been there?

AABRIA: "To the well?"

SAM: In it?

AABRIA: "No. I've gotten water out of it, but there's probably a lot of people around. The protests have been happening. So that could be good or bad, I don't know, but if you're just trying to get to Oldfaire, you can, we can go that way. My people help."

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: "Whatever you need."

GINA: Mina, if we get there, you have friends, people that can help us?

AABRIA: "Yeah."

GINA: I need you to tell them that we're here to help. We need their help. If we get there, can you do that?

AABRIA: "Yeah."

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: "Whatever you need."

GINA: We have to get off the streets. As a safety precaution, Madam Glask has an escape route, she knows, she has cars parked a little bit further away from The Glass Cat. We can take my cars, we can go to Groundswell.

LIAM: Oscar, can you--

SAM: Yeah.

LIAM: -- salvage my chair?

SAM: Yeah, I'll pull it out of the wreckage and see if it can still roll.

AABRIA: Ooh, how good's that trunk? You know what? Give me a luck check.

SAM: That's not a thing!

AABRIA: It's not a thing!

SAM: Yeah, you can't make things up!

AABRIA: I know I can make a choice.

LIAM: It's called Rollies.

SAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: It's Roll-- (laughs) It's Rollies!

LIAM: Who's doing it, me?

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: What am I rolling here?

AABRIA: You're just going to roll 1d6.

LIAM: 1d6, all right.

AABRIA: Do you want to roll against me? Do you want it to be Rollies?

LIAM: No, you're the boss here.

AABRIA: Yeah, I'm asking you. We're all playing.

LIAM: My time is done, you are on the rise.

AABRIA: You have to beat a three.

LIAM: Well, I got a one. (laughter)

GINA: Oh, honey!

AABRIA: Your chair, in all of its pieces, the frame is bent, it is fixable, but as it stands right now, will not be usable. You'll have to repair it as you go.

LIAM: (groans)

SAM: I'll grab it, I'll put him on my shoulder, and try to hold this thing, and hobble towards the cars.

AABRIA: You go for the cars. Can I get-- Whose head is on a swivel? I think it's yours.

SAM: Sure. That guy?

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: Fuck, I forgot about the fucking guy.

GINA: Ah jeez, that's right.

AABRIA: Give me a Survey roll.

SAM: Survey, now is this-- This is a high pressure situation you would say?

AABRIA: Okay. I would say. I would absolutely say.

SAM: Okay. I would say that too. "Survey roll, add a number of dice equal to your current Nerve resistance." So I get one extra dice. Right? Yes. Okay. Five on the gilded.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: Gorgeous. You get your drive back, and you spot it. You see the little thin, dainty barrel of a military issue revolver out the front. This lanky kid has been setting up his shot. It's not a good shot. But as you all move towards the cars, you can pick it out. He's not aiming for any of you. He's aiming for the girl.

SAM: For the girl?

GINA: Mina.

SAM: Oh fuck.

AABRIA: A phenomenon, one you didn't turn in. You put it together. Even within all of this, they are being-- All of you are being hunted, but she is still the end of an assignment that needs to be turned in. You're going to be there just in time as Tolliver pulls the trigger. So in that moment, what do you do?

SAM: Well, I don't have a gun. I have no way of blocking bullets with my mind.

GINA: (laughs)

AABRIA: There is a chance he will simply miss.

SAM: There is.

AABRIA: You know he is a terrible shot, and missed you while right in front of you. Do you risk it?

SAM: No, I would use-- I have a feature called Behind Me.

AABRIA: Oh.

SAM: I will spend one Nerve to choose an ally who is about to take a mark and take it for them, and I will step in front of her.

AABRIA: Yeah. You slide in. She freezes as you suddenly fill the space by her. She doesn't know what is expected.

SAM: Back, back, back!

AABRIA: As you interpose yourself, you're going to take one body as you get hit in the calf with a bullet.

SAM: That's a scar.

GINA: No!

SAM: An Os-scar.

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: Sorry. Edit that out, please.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: (laughs)

AABRIA: They absolutely will not.

ASHLY: Leave it in!

GINA: Take a brain for that.

SAM: (laughs)

GINA: (laughs)

AABRIA: You have done so much. You fought off two Candela members, protected your boss, protected the girls, protected this girl, rescued your father. It's a little-- It's almost embarrassing that one little hit is enough to overwhelm you. But down you go. You fall your knees in front of Mina, who's suddenly at eye level with you, confused. She catches you instinctively, and keeps you from falling any other way, and is holding you as you slump into her. She looks over your shoulder at the Doc, at Glask. "What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? "He shot, he shot him!"

ASHLY: I make a beeline for Oscar.

GINA: Get him in the car. Get him in the car!

ASHLY: I'm going to try Resuscitation. "When a nearby ally takes a scar, you can make a Focus roll in an attempt to immediately revive them."

AABRIA: Yep.

ASHLY: On a six, it works.

SAM: I would still take a scar though, yeah?

AABRIA: Yes, you're still going to take the scar.

ASHLY: Okay, so, Focus roll. I have to get a six, or you're not back up--

SAM: Jesus.

ASHLY: -- basically at this point, because I have no drive. Oh wait, drive of my choosing. Okay, whatever, I'll just roll.

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLY: (sighs) Fuck. Okay, I'm going to spend two drive from Cunning, and one from Nerve to get you back to your feet immediately.

NOSHIR: Jeez.

GINA: Oof!

SAM: That's a lot of drive! I'm not worth it!

ASHLY: Yes, you are!

GINA: You are!

SAM: Oh boy.

ASHLY: So taking a cue out of your book, I slap you across the face.

SAM: (pained groan) (laughter)

ASHLY: Get the fuck up!

SAM: Yes, ma'am. Is he pursuing? Should we-- Do you think we can get-- Can we get away?

AABRIA: You absolutely can. It's not a matter of-- You could close the distance, engage in a fight with this guy, or you could just go farther away. He barely hit you, and he's been steadying that shot for a minute.

SAM: Sure.

GINA: It sucks.

SAM: Through the--

AABRIA: It really does suck.

GINA: How'd he get hired?

NOSHIR: Where is he, like how far?

AABRIA: He's poking his gun and head out of the busted window of the front of The Glass Cat, maybe 50 feet away.

ASHLY: So he's going to get burned up soon, maybe, then.

AABRIA: Probably.

LIAM: I got dropped, someone will need to help me.

GINA: Oh, oh, oh.

SAM: I mean, through the pain, I can keep, I can try--

ASHLY: I'm going to say to Raj: Get Cosmo, everyone to car!

GINA: I grab your arm to guide, to help you.

NOSHIR: Take him up, and help move him towards the car.

LIAM: (grunting) Can't hold him for long. (groans)

AABRIA: You ignore the final Candela member, and make your way to the vehicles, vehicle. Where are you headed?

GINA: To Groundswell. To Groundswell to meet with the protestors. Mina can convince them to let us in through the well. Mina, these are your friends, these are the people that she grew up with. We go to Groundswell.

AABRIA: "Okay."

GINA: I know that they don't like the rich people. These getaway cars are not, like, Bolls Boyces. (laughter)

AABRIA: Violence.

GINA: They're--

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: Every time you do this, I resolve more firmly to destroy you. (laughter)

GINA: So it's harder for people to spot me if I need to escape. They're more like Bonda Bivics. (laughter)

LIAM: Everybody take a bleed. (laughter)

AABRIA: The GM will remember this. (laughter)

AABRIA: You jump into more discreet vehicles.

GINA: Bonda Bivics.

AABRIA: Violence.

GINA: Say it. (laughs)

AABRIA: I simply will not. (laughter)

AABRIA: And make your way across to Groundswell. You hear it, the din of the Calinus Market before you even arrive. You're able to park not too far away, but this is the site of a full-blown protest. The people of Groundswell and South Soffit are making a impassioned stand around the well against just an incredible amount of Periphery officers, and agents of the upper class here that are yelling back across the protest lines, that this is an integral piece of Newfaire's history, and can't be risked being destroyed via their use. You hear them yelling that all of their fears about cullet, there's no substance to it, it's all conjecture. No, get away, move away. The Periphery does what the Periphery does, which is enforce the laws that benefit the powerful. They push in, batons out. You hear and feel a faint crackling in the air. Their weapons are not normal. They are using electrically boosted shielding, and weapons to push through the crowd. People are dropping, and screaming, and surging forth, but the line is being held six people deep, protecting the well. Mina is the first to scramble out of the car. "Okay, that's a lot of people, I don't really know what you want me to do here, but we could try to go around back."

GINA: Yes.

NOSHIR: What's the most valuable, or expensive building within our area?

AABRIA: Here at the market, there's a decent amount of clearance in every direction. But the most prominent building, the one that juts out a little more towards the market, closer than everything else, is the Heritage Center here. It is the home base of all of the various groups across Newfaire that seek to continue bolstering Calinus Market as a tourist trap and a heritage site, and embracing the history of it while ignoring the people that still use this market and this well every day to live. Big wooden edifice.

NOSHIR: Perhaps we just need to redirect their attention. I hold up the oil flask I had from before and a length of cloth.

ASHLY: And a candle?

AABRIA: (laughs)

NOSHIR: I mean, I only have a flashlight, but whatever.

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Oh, look at that.

SAM: You mean a beamy?

NOSHIR: Yes.

AABRIA: A beamy!

NOSHIR: That's nice.

GINA: The character development you've created!

AABRIA: That's what we call a growth arc.

GINA: Good for you.

SAM: You want to start another fire? (laughter)

AABRIA: I got that button ready, so you just let me know.

GINA: (laughs)

SAM: Okay.

NOSHIR: I don't know how else we're going to clear the path.

GINA: Mina, did you say something, you know a way around or through?

AABRIA: "Well there's a lot of officers, but if we go to the-- Maybe we can squeeze in back behind. It feels like everyone's over here but I don't know."

GINA: Then Raj, if you can distract them then we can all sneak behind. Mina, you can lead the way.

AABRIA: "Okay."

GINA: Oh!

AABRIA: "Are you trying to jump down the well, is that what you're doing?

SAM: We need some rope.

GINA: Are we going to jump down the-- Is there another--

SAM: I mean, yeah.

AABRIA: "There's rope-- because we use it to pull the--"

SAM: It's a bucket well?

AABRIA: "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

GINA: Mina, I need you-- We need to convince these people to make a scene elsewhere. Do you think you can do that?

AABRIA: "Elsewhere?"

GINA: Where Rajan is going to throw the fire.

AABRIA: "Okay. Do you want me to use my--"

GINA: No, not the (gags). Not that right now.

AABRIA: "Okay, I wasn't-- Just, it's fine. I got two options."

GINA: I love it though.

AABRIA: "Yelling, barfing out a monster."

GINA: What if we spread the word a little bit amongst the protestors? Hey, just make a scene. Make a scene over there. We just need your help right now. Just make a scene so we can distract the--

NOSHIR: Professor, in your learnings, have you heard of any other access to Oldfaire nearby?

LIAM: Well, we're in Groundswell, correct?

AABRIA: Mm-hm.

LIAM: So with decades I have been below, and never through this well, but I would ask you, Aabria, if Cosmo would know anything adjacent or in the area that he would believe would connect, or is this not in my purview?

AABRIA: So, Groundswell's famous for the tides revealing parts of Oldfaire. So there's bits of the city that are at the edges of the water here and because of the Shiver, because it's been so cold that water gets trapped into big glacial forms, the level of the sea has dropped to an all time low and more of Oldfaire has been uncovered than anywhere since it was lost. You can absolutely go and try to find an alternate means through the mud and silt to try to find your way down into Oldfaire. That is absolutely an option. The well, absolutely an option. It's whatever you want to risk. Do you want to burn time looking through and trying to find an alternate way in? Or do you try to risk a direct route in the midst of chaos?

LIAM: I guess I'm just curious. Have I ever-- I've never been down this well myself but have I heard of people doing so?

AABRIA: Ooh. Give me a Focus roll.

LIAM: Okay, before I make that roll--

AABRIA: Sure, sure, sure.

LIAM: -- a little sidebar in the terrible accident.

AABRIA: I love a sidebar.

LIAM: I am moving my one mark in Control and putting it into Focus.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: Because I can't work my arm.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: But I have to think, or we are dead. I'm taking one from Read as well, because it was two scars, and that's going into Sense.

AABRIA: I love it.

LIAM: So this is a Focus roll.

SAM: Also, for me, he winged me in the leg so I'll take a mark. I mean, I'll take a point out of Move and I will grow in anger and move it into Control so I can--

AABRIA: Love it.

SAM: -- hit even harder.

AABRIA: Amazing.

LIAM: I'm going to use Intuition drive. So this will be four for Focus. Five, mixed success, not gilded.

AABRIA: You don't have-- You don't have enough evidence to a academic mind to move with perfect confidence. But yes, there are people, stories of young kids trying to prove themselves with this despicably deep well, lowering themselves all the way down, reaching a wellspring and cavern, something very low in Oldfaire.

LIAM: In a flash, I think of how unlikely it will be for me to get to the bottom of this well, and I turn to the group and say: We should go down the well, it's the most direct path.

ASHLY: (scoffs)

GINA: Oh.

SAM: I start-- We're still in the car, I assume, or have we gotten outside?

AABRIA: I'll leave that to you. I think you could be close enough to have this conversation in whatever way you want.

SAM: I start taking off all my clothes.

AABRIA: What?

SAM: (laughs) I'm going to change into my policeman's uniform.

AABRIA: Okay.

GINA: Oh, we still have it! Oh.

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: From the other night. I don't wear underwear though. So for a while, for a few moments you see me completely naked.

AABRIA: Incredible. Incredible.

GINA: Covers Mina's eyes.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: Everyone take--

SAM: Thank you, please.

AABRIA: -- three points of bleed. (laughter)

LIAM: She would be like-- (retches) (laughter)

AABRIA: Yeah! (laughter)

AABRIA: Mina's just barfing out extra monsters. (laughter)

SAM: Just in case we need some sort of cover to get through the enemy lines.

LIAM: That's a good call.

NOSHIR: Smart thinking.

AABRIA: Yeah.

GINA: And the shoes?

SAM: Shit. (laughter)

SAM: Same shoes.

GINA: (laughs)

LIAM: Maybe in the chaos--

AABRIA: Who would notice in the chaos? Anything else anyone wants to put in place right now? We've got a Periphery officer moving to do something that will resolve. You're going to go set a fire. Mina's going to go help distract and pull people in your direction. What are Glask and Elsie going to do?

ASHLY: I might take your coat.

SAM: That's nice.

ASHLY: Because of my situation and then--

GINA: Oh right.

SAM: Oh yeah.

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: That's right, that's right.

ASHLY: Then I'm not going to let Rajan throw that thing by himself, so I'm going to go with him.

AABRIA: Okay.

GINA: I'd like to--

SAM: I--

GINA: Hmm?

SAM: Oh, sorry, my coat's a little long. If only we had someone here who could sew or do some... No, you're not?

NOSHIR: I left my tailor at my second house.

SAM: All right. (laughter)

SAM: I'll just tie it off for you.

GINA: "At my second house."

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: I would actually be with Mina to spread the word and convince people that the moment you hear an explosion and the Periphery officers' attention is turned that way I want you to bum rush and try to push them away from the well in the chaos. Mina and I are trying to convince these picketers, these are her people, they know who she is.

AABRIA: Go ahead and give me a Sway roll.

GINA: Ooh, okay

AABRIA: I will-- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sway. You have Mina assisting you.

GINA: Yeah.

AABRIA: So the stakes on this are low.

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: They trust her and know her, so they're listening to you and you are already quite persuasive.

GINA: Okay. Ooh! I have a success on a non-gilded.

AABRIA: Amazing. They listen to you. Mina nods along and they go, "Okay. Okay, wait for an explosion."

GINA: Yes.

AABRIA: "And then--"

GINA: Spread the word, spread the word.

AABRIA: "Sure, sure. Okay."

GINA: Yeah.

AABRIA: "We'll wait for you and we'll surge forward. Good luck."

GINA: Thank you.

AABRIA: "Okay. Okay."

GINA: Everyone ready?

AABRIA: They move away. You can see the ripple of conversation happening and they are waiting for your cue.

GINA: I move with Mina towards the front, slowly towards the front of the crowd so that I have the Periphery officers in my eye line so I can keep an eye on it.

AABRIA: Okay. I will say if you push yourself to the front, then if they surge forward, you will have to fight through that to get back to the well. So maybe split the difference a little bit.

GINA: On the side.

AABRIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect.

SAM: We're in a market area, yeah?

AABRIA: Yes.

SAM: There are vendors of different sorts.

AABRIA: Yes.

SAM: There are maybe hand carts or hand trucks around.

AABRIA: 100%, everywhere.

SAM: I'm going to steal one.

ASHLY and GINA: (laugh)

AABRIA: You know what, I'm not going to make you roll for that, because it feels like a thing you could and should do.

NOSHIR: Love it.

AABRIA: (laughs) Is that the play?

LIAM: That'll work. (laughter)

AABRIA: Cosmo, freshly situated in a hand cart. Where do you want to be when this pops off?

LIAM: Well, with someone, because I'm not going to be on the move. It was a hand cart?

SAM: I don't know what model.

LIAM: No, it's fine.

SAM: But yeah. It's not going to be comfy.

LIAM: No, I'm just wondering if we throw a bunch of linens on top of me or something so you don't look like you're shuttling around an old coot. (laughter)

SAM: That's fun, yeah. I'll take the clothes that I had taken off and pile them on top of him.

AABRIA: Perf. Okay. Everyone's in place?

ASHLY: Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: It all starts with you. Please make a Control roll--

SAM: You could light yourself on fire right now.

AABRIA: -- to light it up.

NOSHIR: I hold the oil flask and measure out a length of my cravat. Where the insects had been covering my hand, they seemed to have started to meld together into this sharp black carapace. Where I had five fingers, now I have three, with the hints of some sort of insect-like claw at the end. Grasping a match is never going to happen. I ask Elsie, can you light this for me, please?

ASHLY: The match is in your clawed hand?

NOSHIR: I'm holding onto the flask. So I'll hand you the match with my left.

ASHLY: I put my left hand over the hand holding the flask and I take the match and I strike it. Don't fuck this up.

NOSHIR: It's all in the timing. I'm not even going to throw it. I'm going to place it up in a corner, hidden slightly out of sight behind the door and let the flame rise on its own. This gives us a little of time to maneuver, and also, frankly, I don't trust myself to throw it with any accuracy right now.

AABRIA: Time, a thing that feels so precious. Control and precision, timing is everything. You place it and slink back as close to the crowd as you dare, staying back so that once the signal's given and the surge happens, you have a clear shot, as clear as you can get. In the midst of this din of this yelling of the swinging and screaming, are those gunshots? What's happening? An explosion, a surge. As they push forward into the Periphery officers, a little extra distraction, Mina points over to a sign that says Calinus Market. It's this beautifully carved single piece of wood. They raised funds for the name of the sign for the market that's been here since Oldfaire's been here, and they tear it down, and as the word "Calinus" cracks, chaos. It is not just a surging forward, an earthquake, temper boulevard, a straight shot. It's blocks and blocks away and yet you can feel it and hear it. Something surges and cracks and breaks back in the Sidle, in your home. Everything changes, everything surges forward, and you feel something powerful deep below you, back past you, almost purr with approval. All of you disappear down the shaft one at a time, quick and quiet down to Oldfaire. And that's where we're going to take our break.

SAM: Whoa!

NOSHIR: Goddamn. (laughs)

SAM: (fearful yell)

ASHLY: (laughs)

GINA: Oh my goodness.

SAM: (nervous moan)

AABRIA: We'll see you in a little bit for the second half.

GINA: Can we take a nap?

Break[]

TALIESIN: This chapter of Candela Obscura is presented by Demiplane, creators of the Candela Obscura Nexus, your guide to the hidden and the forbidden. Navigate the perilous streets of Newfaire's Red Lamp District with Demiplane's digital reader. Access a labyrinth of information from actions to specialties in gear to mysterious phenomena, all with a mere flick of your finger. Ready to dawn the cloak of an investigator? Bring them to life with the character builder on Candela Obscura Nexus. Track your journey through the night with the digital character sheets journal, circle sheet, and relationship tracking, all while you delve into Red Lamp's seductive dangers. Whether your story is shrouded in the allure of darkness or lit by the crimson lights of intrigue, Demiplane lights your way. Venture into the night at candelaobscurenexus.com, using code REDLAMP for a 20% discount on your journey into the unknown.

(music)

TALIESIN: Delve into a new tabletop roleplaying game of investigative horror with the "Candela Obscura Core Rulebook" using the Illuminated Worlds System by Darrington Press. Roam the turn-of-the-century- inspired setting of the Fairelands, including the bustling city of Newfaire and the ancient ruins of Oldfaire below. Assemble a circle of investigators within the paranormal secret society of Candela Obscura. You'll analyze strange and horrifying events, fight back against dangerous phenomena, and contain the bleed that spreads from corruptive magick. Choose from 10 custom character sheets to empower your investigations and explorations. Use tactical intuition and brawn with the Soldier specialty, use your charm with finesse and flair as the Magician specialty, or study and practice mystical arts as an Occultist. Explore districts of Newfaire, competing organizations, four full assignments, and dozens of example assignments to inspire you. If you choose to brave the role of Game Master, this guide contains everything needed to pave the way for your Candela Obscura investigators. Offered in both a standard edition as well as an ornate limited edition for collectors, the "Candela Obscura Core Rulebook" contains 204 art-filled pages, including maps, items, immersive notes, mysteries, and plenty more to power your very own story. Keep this tome close for the knowledge obtained may be the key to protecting you, your allies, and the Fairelands.

Oh hey, it's us. Your friendly neighborhood ambiguous shadowy weirdos here to say cryptic things at you as usual. Are you ready for the third and final season of Midst? We certainly are. Some of you have been waiting a very long time. Good news: the wait is almost over. Midst, man. What the heck? A lot of questionable characters doing incredibly problematic things to each other in a series of increasingly insane escalating circumstances while struggling to follow their warped moral compasses and do what they think is hopefully the right thing. Can the Trust get… worse somehow? Can Phineas get less worse? How much longer can Lark outrun her past? Are there any objectively good guys in this story? Other than Moc Weepe. How can any of these threads possibly be resolved with only one more season to go? And we STILL don’t even know what happened with that dang moon. Are we ever gonna get some ANSWERS? Yes. As a matter of fact… we will. The third and final season of Midst unfolds February 14th. Listen to the pure sound experience anywhere you stream podcasts or watch illustrated video episodes on the Critical Role YouTube channel. In the meantime, you can follow us at @midstpodcast or join the Fold on Midst.co to get early access to episodes, behind the scenes bonus content music downloads, digital artwork, and more. Everything’s been leading to this. We’ll be with you to the end. Do you Trust us?

Part II[]

AABRIA: And we return now, the five of you, Mina staying up to help with the distraction. A little too young and a little too scared to go down an impossibly deep, dark well. You all made it, and with some clever rope work, you're able to get the handcart down, too. You find yourself maybe a hundred yards below the surface. This well went so far down. There's a little island that you're able to make your way to off the side as you drop in and hop and step through sandbars. There's still plenty of water here and the smell in this place is of cold, clear, clean water. But you are in a massive domed cave, a cavern from back in Oldfaire's founding. You know that a couple people, ambitious, youths trying to prove their bravery to their friends have been down here before, but neither of you in your academic studies have much in the way of an understanding of how much this has been mapped and controlled and understood. It was always held at arm's length as the last great piece of Oldfaire still around today and thus was treated preciously even by the researchers and explorers of the city across the centuries. There's not a lot of light in any given direction and you hear the low drip and feel the echo of a rumble, like a hunger that hasn't quite faded. But it's quiet and it's safe, so what do you want to do?

LIAM: We're on a small island in the middle of the reservoir?

AABRIA: Yeah, you can move across. Looking down, if you had a little bit more light, I don't know how many candles you've got on you.

ASHLY and GINA: (laugh)

AABRIA: If you've got enough. Two candles.

NOSHIR: They're like birthday candles. (laughter)

GINA: Ha! Cute.

AABRIA: You can find some sandbars to make your way across to the better curated ground at the edge of this dome. You can see a couple tunnels heading off in different directions.

GINA: It's a dome down there?

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

NOSHIR: Can I use Sense to see if taking in any of the structure or possibly glyphs or carvings, if there's anything that reveals itself as what the purpose of this area originally was?

AABRIA: Yeah, give me a Sense roll. Stakes are pretty low; you've got time and space to think.

SAM: I'll-- Oh. There you go, I was going to help him, but forget it.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: How'd you do, bud?

NOSHIR: I got a six and a two, but I'm going to... I'm going to take the loss.

ASHLY: To get a drive?

NOSHIR: And I will Learn From My Mistakes.

SAM, ASHLY, and AABRIA: Oh!

SAM: That's a special ability.

AABRIA: Yeah. "Anytime you get a result of one to three, describe what lesson you've learned from this failure and refresh a drive point of your choice."

ASHLY: Ooh!

AABRIA: Clever bit of mechanics there. You look around, but you've made a choice in this moment to look with not your eyes right away. You try to feel first, and I don't know if you are united enough in your purpose yet, still coming down from the adrenaline rush of making it down here anyway to really suss out a direction, because I think there might be a part of you that's still trying to figure out what you want. So with that in mind, what lesson do you think the good doctor is learning?

NOSHIR: I'm learning that sometimes the desires of the individual are less important than the desires of the whole.

ASHLY: Ooh! (laughs)

SAM: Oh god.

NOSHIR: I've taken--

GINA: Sick!

NOSHIR: -- my host--

AABRIA: Yes.

NOSHIR: -- and I use my power to detect bleed and ask the horde to show me the way.

AABRIA: Oh! Wonderful. I want you to give me... I'll let you pick it. Is this Survey, Focus, or Sense using all of you finally not holding back anymore?

NOSHIR: My host doesn't just live in the present, they have a memory that spans much further back than me. So I think part of it might actually be something they recall from a time long by, in which case it would be Focus.

AABRIA: All right, give me a Focus roll.

NOSHIR: I'm going to add a drive. Well, what are the stakes here?

AABRIA: Put it this way, you are reaching towards something in a place that wants you to reach towards something more. Oldfaire was defined by its love of and embracing of magick. I would say this is a regular stakes roll with a reasonable understanding of a heading, unless you offer me a bleed, in which I will say it's a low stakes roll and you will get something good no matter what.

NOSHIR: Let's sacrifice the bleed.

AABRIA: Good man.

NOSHIR: So that brings me to three.

SAM: Oof.

AABRIA: I love that. Go ahead and make your roll. Even a miss will yield useful information.

NOSHIR: Well then, maybe I shouldn't sacrifice the drive. So a gilded Focus with two means one regular and one gilded.

AABRIA: Correct.

NOSHIR: A five, mixed success.

AABRIA: Love it. You lean and embrace all of you, every part of you. And now that "you" feels like a "we" in your mouth as you send your host out in every direction and you feel the parts of it. These are bugs and vermin, flying things that live only for a few days or a few weeks and then die. But there's this turnover to it. They were part of something more, they were connected to the Maw, and the Maw has been around for as long as tales have terrified children in the Fairelands. You can feel them, the ones that move. I think even now dropping down, you still have a sense of orientation. You're an academic. You feel it due west back towards the Sidle, your chapter house. Your vermin, like a horse given its head, begin to head home. The others return to you, bolster you, and you know the way and you can feel the buzz as they move through the space and it feels like the buzz in the back of your throat and you know you're getting closer to the thing. Whatever it was that was so strong that it could pull your mother, Vimala, into this, too. I think you feel, for the first time in your long life, even as you've become a professor of the same kind of archeology that she did, that maybe for the first time in your life you are truly walking in her footsteps and begin to drift to the west.

ASHLY: Does anything, given that a part of me absorbed the Maw. Does anything happen as he's doing this, to me?

AABRIA: I think the thing you get most of all is as that host pushes out and scatters and they're all given their own heading and bearing, they're not being driven to fill a space or attack. The ones that fly past most of you will move around and move in directions searching for information, but maybe 10, 12% of them land on you, crawling across your face, an affinity. I think even though you've absorbed some part of the Maw, there's something a little different at play here and you'll get different information if and when you trust yourself to lean into your beast.

GINA: There was a voice that spoke to Madam Glask earlier. Is there a way that I might feel words pulling me towards or trying to connect with me to show me where to go?

AABRIA: Go ahead and give me a Sense roll.

GINA: That's a no.

AABRIA: No, not so much?

GINA: No, it's a one. Madam Glask looks around and goes: Well, well, well.

SAM: (laughs)

ASHLY: (laughs)

LIAM: Miss Glask.

GINA: Yes?

LIAM: Cordelia, I-- I am so sorry.

GINA: Upon hearing Cosmo actually say her name, she rushes over. She goes: How serious is this, Cosmo?

LIAM: I would beg your forgiveness, but I am scarcely worthy of it.

GINA: Cosmo, what are you talking about?

LIAM: What you built over the years, your home, in a day. I'm so very sorry.

GINA: Oh, Cosmo. She lays a hand on his shoulder and I'm assuming he's sitting or kneeling. She kneels down. Cosmo, you, being the closest semblance to family I've had since I was a child, I would lose it all over again. Over and over and over again. You need not be sorry. You are more valuable than all the riches and gold I've made there.

LIAM: You're very kind, child. All of you are very good children.

NOSHIR: Yes, she is very kind.

LIAM: I pull a silver coin out of a pocket and it has a worn visage of a woman's profile on it. It's at least a thousand years old. Maybe it's Iomene, maybe not, hardly matters. I turn it over in my hand a few times, and look at this place down here that I visited a few times in my life. I press the coin into the palm of my hand and close my eyes and try to see Nokari. I want to know where they are.

AABRIA: Give me a Sense roll. The expectations on this are that if they are, there's just such a high variance. You are so attuned, maybe now more than ever, but it really does depend. It's kind of a coin flip. I think you know that going in.

LIAM: I've very little left, but I'm going to use a drive out of friendship.

AABRIA: Before you roll. We've talked about it in the terms of that jawbone that you use as a bleed detector.

LIAM: Yes.

AABRIA: What does it feel like, in general, when Cosmo is in the presence of a tremendous amount of bleed as it suddenly rushes you?

LIAM: I lose all sense of self for just a moment. The world bleeds away, especially in recent years. My frailty melts and my consciousness expands and it feels, just for a flicker of time, that I hold all the city in my heart. Sometimes, I'm left with new knowledge and sometimes not. But the rush is always worth it. Five.

AABRIA: Mixed success. You feel the bleed swirl around you and the tendril of it reaches out and touches you and connects you back and up overhead. You feel yourself pulled past The Antiquarian. You can feel the cracks in its foundation, that tremor down the temper being sufficient enough to disrupt it. Your home is broken. There's no going home again. Then past it, away, out past Westwreck, past the bounds of the city, up towards the Verge where the Council of Lightkeepers for the Fairegrounds meets. A lighthouse that I don't think has ever appeared on any map to you. You can feel them there. They are safe, but agitated. You feel how full they are. You feel every one of those scars. That feeling on the brink. One more reach into the magick, too close to a thinning, too close to the Flare and it will be too much and they will be undone. They're agitated because they're still, even in this moment, trying to advocate for you. They are resigned because they know they used the last little measure of ability they have in this world to try to warn you and defend you. A debt that Nokari feels as though they could never repay for services rendered decades ago. They're okay. They're not in any danger of being harmed by Candela.

LIAM: One more loose end. Well.

GINA: Cosmo.

LIAM: Children, boy.

SAM: Yes, boy?

LIAM: What shall we do now?

SAM: Follow?

NOSHIR: West. Whatever it is we seek, it is powerful and old and it is due west. Perhaps we will have some answers after all.

AABRIA: Are you leading the charge?

NOSHIR: I would like to, but as I finish speaking to Elsie, I notice that the insects that had flitted past are lingering, centipedes and cockroaches rise up in the ground and cover her shoes.

ASHLY: What's happening?

GINA: Elsie.

NOSHIR: I don't know what this behavior is, but they are seeking something. Do I notice anything?

SAM: (sneezes)

AABRIA: Bless you. You're allergic to Oldfaire. It's very dusty down here. I think the thing you notice, without reaching too far and while moving in the direction of west, that there is a connection here. You remember the way Elsie as the beast destroyed the Maw, taking some part of her into it, and in the same way that sometimes a pet will get confused if it smells its owner on you, there's just a little too much of a familiar stench to her that they cannot help but brush close as they move forward in their purpose.

ASHLY: Do I remember doing this as the beast?

AABRIA: I think now you do. I think you have controlled the beast before and you have watched helpless behind it, but you were there and witnessing and I think you can look back into the times that you've turned and see the things that you saw there and realize a bit that a lot of that was a desire to look away and let whatever the beast would do, do. But yes, you recall taking a bit of the Maw into yourself.

ASHLY: What does it mean? Am I going to be like, like her? Like The nun?

NOSHIR: No, Elsie, I wouldn't worry about that.

AABRIA: Go ahead and take a token.

NOSHIR: Your power is very different. Perhaps we'll learn more as we go. I allow what part of my host wishes to linger, to linger, and open my mouth to allow those that want to come home to come back. (laughter)

AABRIA: I will offer you something terrible. As you share that part of yourself, finally so trapped in your fear of what you'd become at such a young age, this is a strange intimacy. If it comes down to a moment where Elsie would take a mark of bleed, you can, via your shared host, soak the bleed for her at your discretion.

NOSHIR: Who has the needle?

AABRIA: It's in the shared hammer space of whoever needs it in the moment.

SAM: Probably someone who has three bleed like you.

ASHLY: (laughs) Yeah, maybe we should use that.

NOSHIR: The needs of the whole versus the few and I'll use the needle on myself if I can to extract a point of bleed.

AABRIA: So very specifically, this works not by extracting extant bleed, but you leave it in your body and when new bleed would flow into you, it gets siphoned into the needle instead. So this will not reduce you to two bleed, but it will stop the fourth.

NOSHIR: Great.

LIAM: So you walk around with it jammed in?

AABRIA: Yeah. Yeah, it's a nasty game. (laughter)

GINA: Ugh.

NOSHIR: I open my vest, put the syringe to my skin, and allow my insect host to pull it deep inside the nest for safekeeping.

AABRIA: Somehow you made it worse than I did. (laughter)

SAM: I don't know, that's like the fourth or fifth grossest thing-- (laughter)

SAM: -- I've seen on your body. (laughter)

AABRIA: Okay, don't forget you also have a second-- Well, you have a group stylus blade and the doorknob.

ASHLY: Can I ask a question?

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: The doorknob.

ASHLY: I had the doorknob. Fuck, we should have gone to the doorknob. The dream I was having, is any of that familiar? Is there parity between locations at all?

AABRIA: Yes, I think you feel close, but in that same way that when Dr. Savarimuthu leaned in and felt an urge to move, you feel the same thing, that you're close. It's like being beside the right room around the corner, farther to the west, closer to the source. The thing that the Maw wanted, whose hunger still runs through your veins, farther down, keep going. I think it's mingled like a predator with their blood up knowing that prey is close, but also like a going home. All roads lead in this direction. Will you go forward?

SAM: Yes, please.

GINA: To the west.

LIAM: As we start to roll me out of here, I, with my one good hand, reach out this coin and place it in your palm. We're in a well, toss it for luck. (weak chuckle)

SAM: Make a wish? That's a good idea. I don't believe in any of that stuff, but tried everything else, I guess, right?

LIAM: Old habits die hard.

SAM: Hey, I know that, you know, it's going to get hairy down there and you're already looking kind of rough. (sighs) Saying goodbye is a big part of life and it's not one that I've, not something I've been able to do, ever, so I guess I'll just, I just want to say thank you instead. Thank you for (sighs) what I can remember, anyway. Thank you for being my son, and my brother, and my father, and my grandfather. Thank you for showing me what it's like to live a life. I didn't get a chance to grow up, grow old, have a family, retire, but you did, and at least I got to watch, so thanks for letting me visit your life and for giving me a chance to live it, even from afar. In some ways, children are nothing, if not second chances for their parents. Well, you gave me a chance.

LIAM: You were a good father.

SAM: Was I?

LIAM: Oh, yes. You didn't invite this upon yourself. You did the best you could with what you had, but if it's to be just you moving forward, try not to be too hard on yourself. I led a good life.

SAM: You did.

LIAM: I had a good family. Loved. Lived. I read a lot of good books.

SAM: Yeah, yeah.

LIAM: Saw a lot. They're getting away from us. Better move this thing faster.

SAM: Ah, sure, I'll make a quick wish and flick it behind me and push the cart forward. Now, it's an ice cream cart, so when it moves, it goes, ♪ ("Pop Goes the Weasel") ♪ No, I'm just kidding. (laughter)

AABRIA: Yes, yes. Canon accepted. There is ice cream and "Pop Goes the Weasel." When you flick the coin, is there intention behind it?

SAM: Yes, yes, there's a wish.

AABRIA: What do you wish for?

SAM: Oh boy, if you say it, it won't come true.

AABRIA: Fair. Okay. You walk forward and I think through the sound everyone filtering down to the west and you sitting in the cart, the sounds of the cart, the squeak of the wood, the groan of it all, you're the only one that catches that it never makes a splash.

SAM: Does that mean anything to me?

AABRIA: I don't know. What do you-- A moment of intuition, a very long life, and a growing recollection of what you are in the place that you go when you go, but do not pass into other realms. In your heart, you don't hear the splash, but you feel like the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. What are you afraid is behind you right now?

SAM: What am I afraid is behind us? Whew. I mean, there's monsters, but I guess I'm most afraid that the voice that I speak to in my head is there, that this will be my last memory. That the veil will swallow us up.

AABRIA: Okay. There's that struggle, especially with someone who has lost and forfeited so much of your memory. You can't tell if you are constructing this one in this moment, but you can feel it, a slender, feminine hand catching the coin out of the air and waiting as you leave the room, knowing that even as she stands behind you, she knows that you're moving toward her. You turn around or do you keep going?

SAM: Boy, I don't want to see it if it's something bad, so I'll start to turn and then push on.

AABRIA: You feel just a little warmth of a breeze, something easily explained by the space in this room and the light and world from up above. Just a gentle puff around you, not pushing you. You don't need to be pushed anymore, but you keep walking.

LIAM: Wiser than Orpheus.

AABRIA: Hmm? Leading the charge, I'm going to say that this is a Move roll. If anyone wants to assist, the stakes are thus. Moving forward, you have a bearing and a heading, but the ease with which you will traverse this part of Oldfaire, this unmapped bit, will come down to how much you all work together, so he can roll solo, or you can contribute whatever you think is best.

SAM: What kind of roll is this?

AABRIA: Move roll, just to navigate through this tunnel system. And, I will say, there are things down here and they might find you if you take too long. You are safer, but not safe, and success means an easier way through the dark.

SAM: I'll gladly help, my friend.

NOSHIR: I would appreciate all the help I can get.

AABRIA: (gasps) Did you say friend?

GINA: Aw!

AABRIA: (touched noise)

SAM: No. (laughter)

SAM: I said my--

NOSHIR: I heard you. (laughter)

SAM: My end, I'm looking for the end. I want to help my own end.

NOSHIR: You know, at the start, I didn't know why you were here. You felt like such a waste. You have proven to be a wonderful surprise, Elder Grimm, and I look forward to knowing you better.

SAM: You're not the worst person I've ever met.

NOSHIR: Don't hurt yourself. (laughter)

NOSHIR: Professor, if you have any insights that would help us make a plan moving forward, or if Madam Glask, your water talents can in some way guide us true, we'll gladly take the help.

GINA: I can only use Nerve, huh, to assist?

SAM: He's doing a Move roll, right?

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: So yeah.

GINA: I don't have--

AABRIA: I mean, if you can make a case for something else, I'll happily allow it.

GINA: I want to see if the water surrounding us in this well can show us any safe passage or route.

AABRIA: You are walking out of the main well dome, so beyond it, pointing in the direction you were already moving in, there's not a lot of water already around. But if you want to try to channel some more, you could use The Prestige, if you want, to try to assist with this.

GINA: I do, yes. I do want to use my Prestige to, I guess, use the moisture in the air or even put more water on the ground to see if there's any disturbed water ahead, like if someone's standing on that water.

AABRIA: Hmm. Oh, that's fun. Okay. Make your Sense roll.

GINA: Oh boy, okay.

AABRIA: Then we'll come back to you. (laughs) You're always so distraught. (laughs)

GINA: I know. I should have put more drives in her.

AABRIA: Nah.

GINA: Into Intuition.

AABRIA: It's fine. What's the worst that could happen?

SAM: Next time.

GINA: A mixed success.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: Okay.

GINA: Yeah

AABRIA: Go ahead and mark one bleed because it is a success.

GINA: Madam Glask closes her eyes and she channels the sea god.

AABRIA: You reach for the sea god, and you feel it, that problem. How many times, Cordelia, have you reached for Katma in this strange land and come up with nothing, come up dry? You know now. It's hard to admit, but you know now, your gods did not come with you here. You did not treat with the lords of your home when you made that deal for power and wealth. So what do you reach for when you reach for your gift?

GINA: I reach for an unknown entity that has always sat in the back of my mind. I so desperately wanted, thought it was Katma my whole life, but she's failed me too many times. But there was always some thing back there.

AABRIA: Mm.

GINA: Earlier, back at the Glass Cat, when I tapped into that sentry, she spoke to me.

AABRIA: She did.

GINA: I don't know who that is.

AABRIA: Yeah. But now you are looking in her direction, and instead of closing your eyes and wishing for the thing that it would be, you are looking at her. She looks back at you and moves into a warm, golden light. You see smooth, symmetrical features, ornate braids covered with gold and jewels, long robes wrapped around, and even facing dead on. I don't know if you ever saw the coin that Cosmo held, but there have been reproductions of ones like it. You've lived in this city for decades, you'd know that face in profile. Some worshiped her as a god, as a goddess. She became the Mother in the Ascendancy's triad. But a thousand years ago, she was simply an empress. Iomene the Everlasting looks back at you, leans in, and says, "Finally." You feel your hands curve around the damp, dank, thick air here and pull water. It dances across your fingertips as easily as breathing. She sits back, acknowledged, and you feel yourself move into your gift more fully.

GINA: It was you. It was you. Cordelia doesn't know whether to thank her or fight every fiber in her being to attack. It was you. How could that be?

AABRIA: "I have waited for so long for you, all of you. Come to me. There's much to discuss. Do not falter."

GINA: (breaths shakily) Her eyes roll back, and she looks at everyone ahead. She's-- It-- She's there. With my Sense, I know that something's there, can I tell by how disturbed the water is how big, how far ahead, any details?

AABRIA: You hold this puddle in your hand and then release it onto the ground. You feel the surface tension of it, and it feels like it connects to all the other puddles and bits of water in this place. You feel footsteps and you feel something hovering over the water but not touching. You feel a set of four deep, heavy paw prints stalking across the ground. Those moving the most, those feeling the closest, but they all feel like the same thing, part of something. Behind you and before you.

GINA: Behind me?

AABRIA: Yeah.

GINA: It's here. It's here, we're not alone. We're not alone.

NOSHIR: What did you see?

GINA: We're not alone.

ASHLY: What's here?

GINA: More than one. Ahead, behind. I don't know what it is, but we're not alone. And a creature of some sort with it.

SAM: I felt something, too, but it might just be trying to confuse us or turn us around. I think we just keep going straight ahead.

LIAM: If there's one thing I've learned in my time down here over the years, it's that Oldfaire can always get under your skin. Most of the time that's metaphorical, sometimes it's not. He pulls out his jawbone. All right, we're busy burning darkness here. Let's go, Oscar!

AABRIA: Does anyone else contribute a drive to this Move roll?

GINA: Can I also tell them?

AABRIA: Hmm?

GINA: Can I also tell them, whatever's ahead of us, it's strong. She calls herself Iomene.

NOSHIR: Yes. She has touched every one of us in some way or other, and we are running out of time.

LIAM: It's not every day you get to meet an empress.

GINA: We're going straight to her.

NOSHIR: Madam Glask, I would present that we advance, and if you feel anything that guides us to deviate from that path, we will, with most haste. But we must move in quickly.

GINA: Of course.

NOSHIR: Fair enough?

SAM: Yeah.

GINA: Yeah. I keep the water there just to make sure if anything changes, I will be notified.

ASHLY: So it's just drives, there's no, if I have a really good Move, I can help?

AABRIA: You can make me a case. What you got?

ASHLY: Well, Move is currently my best skillset now since I got my scar, so I'm just wondering if there's a way I can assist since we have this strange connection now.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: If we can split while still being connected and be able to communicate to each other? If we could both make the Move roll?

AABRIA: Okay. Because group rolls-- Just for ease of use we'll have one person rolling, but I will say that even without spending a drive both your action and your action will commit a d6 to your roll. It's a little weird down here.

NOSHIR: Understood. So that's three assists?

SAM: You got one from me in the form of I gave you a hard candy--

ASHLY: (laughs)

SAM: -- to try to calm your nerves. It helps.

GINA: Oh jeez. (laughter)

SAM: Helps me focus.

NOSHIR: How adorably pedestrian.

ASHLY: You eat it, Rajan.

SAM: Live a little.

GINA: Oh my god.

AABRIA: (laughs)

SAM: Then there are their two drives, so you got three?

ASHLY: Was it two between us or just one? A collective one?

AABRIA: So it's one from each.

SAM: One, two, three.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: Oh okay, great.

GINA: You know what? I'll give you my last one, too.

ASHLY: Okay, so you got four then.

ASHLY: No, you can only give one.

AABRIA: No, you can only give one.

SAM: Fine. You're good, he's good. He's got this.

GINA: What?

ASHLY: You can only commit one drive.

GINA: Yeah.

ASHLY: You already had done.

GINA: Did I?

ASHLY: Yeah.

AABRIA: Yeah, I'm saying when we moved to you and I asked how you were helping out you used--

GINA: Oh, I did!

AABRIA: Yeah.

GINA: Totally forgot, sorry.

AABRIA: That's all good!

NOSHIR: That's a six on the gilded.

AABRIA: You love to see it.

SAM: Take that drive.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: Take that drive. You move forward. You feel that connection with Elsie, you feel that connection with this group, and you feel that connection with yourself. And for someone who's prided themselves on standing away, on refusing connection, you cannot deny its efficacy as you move forward. I think between the two of you, and everything that was clocked even by you back in the room, and you with your water, and you with your jawbone in your hand, you can feel it. There is something bestial circling you, waiting for a moment of weakness in this space to move forward, to hunt. But you are not running, you are approaching, and as such you have not marked yourselves as prey. It continues to prowl and wait. Whatever that figure is at the end of this walk continues to beckon. You move forward. It isn't very much time at all until you find yourselves under the crack under Temper Boulevard. You can see just the last bit of light fading in the day through the bits of broken asphalt 100 yards overhead, shining down bits of weak light. You continue on. You're under the Sidle now. You're past the edge of the city. What could be over here? You remember Toren Gevni digging through the ground of the sanatorium via the Maw. He was aiming for something. You can feel it, all of you. I think you feel the surge of bleed kick up before everyone steps far enough into it to immediately take a point of bleed damage. Do you halt them? Do you let everyone move forward? The jawbone goes painful and cold and buzzing and almost electrical in your hand.

LIAM: I don't think I say anything. I've heard them all musing over her for the last 15 or 20 minutes. I just prepare to meet her.

AABRIA: Then unwarned, you walk forward. Everyone will take one mark of bleed.

GINA: (sighs) Why?

SAM: Would that include you?

ASHLY: I'm at three bleed.

SAM: Me too.

ASHLY: Oh, fun.

GINA: Oh boy.

AABRIA: Oh, we love it here. I'm going to stop keeping track; we're doing great. You feel, Raj, that bleed enter into you. Instead of finding purpose and purchase, it wicks through you like opening two windows in a house and moves into the vial at the center of the hive at the center of your chest. It is full and it detaches from you, and it is resting in state inside you, loaded. Then you see it: a massive cavern. Black, even against the darkness here, far outside at the edge of the city. There are scrawlings in Ancient Fairen everywhere. But those of you that can read it, you understand the franticness of it. There are words, "Danger: Go Back" for those of you that can translate, but there are pictograms for those of you who do not. How do you explain to people that might meet this place in the future and not speak your language, that this is dangerous? Tread no farther. Symbols and signs. But you know forward is correct. A cave inside a cave with stalactites and stalagmites reaching down, looking like a giant... maw. And more darkness still, in and beyond. For those of you who have studied the esoterica of Oldfaire, this is a rumor. A thing, a place referred to in legend and hushed tones, that no one could confirm was real, or if they found it, they never returned. The Anitithenai. Rumored at the center of it, a sarcophagus of smooth, black, uninterrupted stone, and within it, the deathbed of Empress Iomene. The radioactivity off of this, it prickles your skin. It feels like you are being burned by the ferocity of it. But that's the direction. So what do you do?

SAM: How big is this sarcophagus?

AABRIA: You don't even see the sarcophagus. That is sort of the rumor of this place.

SAM: Oh, it's just a black--

AABRIA: All you see is the big cave maw and then something like a table or a pedestal with, it's maybe, if you've got your depth right, and it's a little hard to judge depth in this dark place, I think your birthday candles are burning down at this point. So if anyone's got a flashlight, you got to bust that out. That halfway into this opening in the cave, maybe 30 or 40 feet back, there is an eight-foot-long table covered with some sort of mound. You don't even think you're seeing the whole of this place.

GINA: I-- With a sense of some familiarity, I approach the mound.

AABRIA: You're going to move into it?

GINA: Yes.

SAM: I will turn on my beamy.

AABRIA: I'm so sorry.

NOSHIR: (laughs)

SAM: Flashlights don't exist in this world.

AABRIA: Yeah, you turn on your beamy.

ASHLY: With your favorite baseball team on it.

SAM: Mm-hmm, sure. The Silverslip Swarms.

ASHLY: (laughs)

LIAM: Maybe it's just an old timey brand name. (laughter)

LIAM: It's an electric torch made by Beamy.

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: As you flick your beamy over the entrance of this, you pick up a set of words carved in, almost lost to erosion and time. Written in Ancient Fairen but you read it clear as day, that says, "When one enters, all are cursed." (uncertain sounds)

SAM: Yikes.

AABRIA: Do you just rock up?

GINA: Yes. I--

SAM: Go on in.

AABRIA: (laughs)

GINA: I walk up, but I'm very careful with this.

AABRIA: With what? In what way are you careful?

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: I've described-- That's being like, "I'm going to tiptoe into Chernobyl." (laughter)

GINA: Yeah.

AABRIA: Great.

GINA: It's a sense of familiarity. This is someone that's been with her for so long that she slowly walks in.

AABRIA: Take another bleed.

SAM: Oh boy.

ASHLY: Oh. Is that a scar, my friend?

GINA: That's a scar.

AABRIA: Okay.

GINA: That's a little bit too gung-ho, okay.

AABRIA: You move in carefully, but the words were not a false threat. This place is bad. Even through the sense of familiarity, you can feel the pain of this place and it overtakes you. Your last thought as you fall to the ground is of a rushing wave toward you. Even as it pools around you, it surrounds you and seems to pull you back like the riptide, and then you are gone. You all see her drop maybe five feet into the mouth of this terrible place.

ASHLY: Glask.

SAM: Doc?

ASHLY: Just give me a second. I'll get her up, I'll get her up.

NOSHIR: You're going to enter as well?

ASHLY: She needs help.

NOSHIR: Do we have a grapple? Anything that we can use to pull her back from safety?

AABRIA: Go and take a token.

ASHLY: I can't leave her in there, Raj.

NOSHIR: I understand, but perhaps there is a safer way. Please don't sacrifice yourself so willingly, I beg of you.

ASHLY: I'm a doctor, that's what I do. I'm going to walk forward. But I wouldn't know that she's taken a bleed, but Ashly knows if I take a bleed I'm going to get another scar.

AABRIA: Oh, now that's fun. Yeah, no, no, no, let's stay here for a second. You walk forward and you can feel it. All of that fear. You're walking into something painful and dangerous. You see the signs, the parts of you that know you cannot read Ancient Fairen, read the words. When one enters all are cursed and you know fear. But beyond human fear, you feel that animal terror for your own life. The beast, it feels as though it sinks its teeth into your shoulder and tries to drag you back and away. You can go forward, this thing, you may not make it, but the beast is built differently. A curse for a curse.

ASHLY: You're saying if I keep going, the beast will take over?

AABRIA: I'm saying, if you do not give yourself to the beast, you will suffer the same fate as Madam Glask.

ASHLY: I do have an ace in the hole, if he chooses to use it.

AABRIA: Fair.

SAM: Oh, him.

AABRIA: Do you hold onto yourself?

ASHLY: I, shaking with fear, say to the beast, I am tired of letting you rule me, to hold on to this thin rope of life. I'm tired of letting others hurt at your hands. Get back, and I take another step forward.

AABRIA: You take another step forward. And that feeling of your beast with its teeth in your shoulders, you feel it tear through you as you say back. And it is helpless but to obey. It feels as though it holds your shoulder. All the flesh and bone and sinew of it in its mouth as you tear yourself forward and you step and you take another bleed, and you feel it. Too much for one person. What do you do?

ASHLY: I realize I never got how much bleed you had.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: You have three, don't you? Fuck.

AABRIA: And three scars.

ASHLY: Oh no!

NOSHIR: Rajan takes a step.

SAM: I will step faster than him.

NOSHIR: It doesn't matter.

AABRIA: You have to explain to me how you know what's happening.

SAM: Well, do I see her buckle or shake or anything as she approaches?

AABRIA: You see her step forward, and yeah, she staggers, but I don't know if you know or how you would know unless you reach towards something you barely believe in to see what's happening between them and the impossible choice that they face. If you want to intervene.

ASHLY: You have three scars.

NOSHIR: Let me do this, Oscar.

AABRIA: No, this is not a discussion. Bullet time. You stepped forward, you feel the tug, and before this adjudicates, what do you do?

SAM: I would, if I saw any or sensed any sense that our doctor, my friend was going to drop, I would dash forward and punch her out of the way.

AABRIA and ASHLY: (laugh)

AABRIA: You run forward. I need you to make a Sense roll.

SAM: I have no Sense.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLY: Fuck.

SAM: I'm not very smart.

AABRIA: Totally fine.

SAM: I got a one and a six, but it's at disadvantage.

AABRIA: It is.

SAM: So that's the one.

ASHLY: Ooh!

AABRIA: A miss.

SAM: I could burn a resistance.

AABRIA: This might be the most important roll.

LIAM: There might be time later. (laughter)

SAM: I will burn my resistance and basically just reroll, right?

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: Two dice, taking the lower.

NOSHIR: Can I offer a drive?

AABRIA: You can, you can. Flat roll.

SAM: Okay. Which one was it?

NOSHIR: It's the four.

SAM: Okay. (laughter)

ASHLY: What was the other option?

SAM: Five.

ASHLY: Oh. Both mixed success, is that right?

AABRIA: Yep.

ASHLY: Okay.

AABRIA: Mixed success. Oscar, you race forward and you feel it, something inside you that snaps to a tether deeper in. You feel like you're running through water. You feel like you are drowning in bleed. You feel like you are dying. But you can see it just as easily as you can see the tether between you and the being at the end of this cave, this place. You see the tether between these two. You understand full well that for either one of them to take this damage is disastrous. You're breathing, labored, drowning inside this bleed, in this moment begins to calm down. You have that sense like a tidal flow. Inhale, exhale, breathe. And the thing at the end of your tether breathes with you. You can do this. Inhale, exhale. Take it. Take it from them. You are the only one in this world like me. Eat the sin of this world and this place. Take the bleed, you're the only one that gets up when it becomes too much. So as you move forward in this moment, there's no punching her out of the way, she's moved forward. You've moved into it, too. Someone here is going to take bleed. Either you or her or him. Who will it be?

SAM: I mean, it's me, 100%. If I can throw her back into him, that would be wonderful. But if I can't and if I can just use the Behind Me feature to absorb her mark for her, I'll take it.

AABRIA: There have been times in your long, long life where you've thrown your body in the way of problems. This is that, but this is more, and it's different. You don't even make contact with her. You reach forward and with a flick of your wrist, Elsie goes flying back, Glask goes flying back. Even Rajan goes flying back far enough to safety, and you keep moving through, drowning, breathing in this bleed and you take it. Though it would be enough to level you, too, the person you have talked to who talked you through this, through your tether, honors your sacrifice, honors your connection and your commitment, and she takes it from you and it gets pulled back into the dark and a being who has spent long centuries doing just this, for not a person, but for an entire empire, takes this away and you are fine, standing inside the mouth of the Anitithenai, with your friends back behind you and safe.

SAM: I didn't take a mark?

AABRIA: You did not. Something deeper did, for you.

SAM: I'm sure that's fine. (laughter)

AABRIA: Probably.

GINA: We'll pay for that later, that's fine.

SAM: I'm in the Maw?

AABRIA: You are in the maw of this cave.

SAM: I turn back to them, unsure of what just happened or why I am still standing and I don't know what to do. Should I keep going?

LIAM: Take me in, boy.

SAM: Take you?

LIAM: Yes.

SAM: Okay.

LIAM: Yes.

SAM: Okay.

LIAM: Oscar. It's time. I'm tired. If it's not now, when would it be? It's all right.

SAM: I'll extend my hands to my sweet baby and pull him in with me.

LIAM: I think I will actually crawl my way up and out of the cart and stand next to you and walk in.

AABRIA: Oh! It looks as though Cosmo is walking through that same thick, viscousness. Too much blood, too much water. It's slow going, but it does not hurt. The gravity is not quite the same. You make your way in, join hands with your father and arrive in short order at the table in front of you. You see carved into it, a full-scale map, topographical, of the ancient city of Oldfaire. And in it, different areas, sigils, alchemical marks explaining kinds of disaster, magickal bleed, like a map of fires. Then one a little in front of it and off to the side. Can you make for me a Focus roll or a Sense roll? Your call.

LIAM: Cosmo's one eye is wrecked, but the other one goes wide, forgetting for a split second what he intended. Just at the majesty of it. Sense, you say? Let's burn a drive. If not now, then when? Five on the gilded.

AABRIA: Take one bleed. You read them, the fires, but this one in front of you you can't look away from. The carvings of it, the curse of it. This is a pooling of the bleed of the radiation of this place. It's allowed to sit here and fester to warn people off from moving further. But it is a sigil, it is a symbol. It is a working of magick, specific and intentional.

LIAM: In this moment, I would like to back-to-back use two of my abilities, Speak Their Language. I can speak the language of any phenomenon I encounter and my voice begins to reverberate, and my vision from one eye vibrates and blurs, and I say: We are your children's children's children's children, sifted down through time. We would know you better. And then because I took a bleed, I would like to Let Them In and ask you one question about the source of the bleed.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: You, who I have chased the threads of for so long. How will my son, and daughter, and friend, and my father garner your blessing rather than your ire?

AABRIA: You feel the thing you reach to break as you call it Mother, remind it. Remind her of her duty, of her connection, the rage and pain of her. That beast that's been circling you backs away. In the face of being seen, truly seen for the first time in so long. You feel your attention turned to the sigil in front of you. "Change it. Change the symbol. Cancel the effect. I would speak to you. I have known you your whole lives and watched and waited and hoped. Please, my child."

LIAM: I hold up, in a very weak old man's hand, the dagger meant for writing in the old way.

AABRIA: You speak the words, you've connected with her. You've connected with this language. There is no roll, no thing to understand. You know this like you know yourself, like you know the things you've researched your whole life. Make your mark. Simple cuts to cancel. Simple cuts will cancel it. If you are ambitious, maybe more. What does Cosmo dare at the end of a long, long road?

LIAM: I, in this final moment, will try to win a god's blessing for Oscar. And I begin to carve.

AABRIA: You carve and you cut and though your father made a wish and did not share it with me, I think you're making a wish now, too. And I want to know, Cosmo Grimm, what hope do you put into your carving? Abjuration, of course. Blessing, yes? Anything else?

LIAM: Let the Grimms' story have its end.

AABRIA: You carve.

SAM: If I see his arm falter, I'll take it and help him, help him make the last few cuts.

AABRIA: With the last few cuts, you feel something bigger and heavier than what you originally intended take effect. This place shakes and trembles with the power of what you have dispelled, and all of you can feel it. The bleed softens, and you can move forward, and the path is laid for you. A being beckons you forth without reservation to answer, to end the story. All of you together. I think at this point, Madam Glask comes back to herself, rising. What scar has she taken?

SAM: Oh boy.

GINA: She coughs up water. (gagging coughs) Foam all over. (whispered) What? What happened? Her scar, her waters have filled-- Her lungs have filled with water and she can only speak in a whisper now. She is an unkind goddess.

SAM: We'll see about that. So far she's been okay.

NOSHIR: She's certainly shown you great mercy, Cordelia.

GINA: I sure hope so. Or so you think. Do I erase my bleed?

AABRIA: Hmm?

GINA: I erase my bleed, right?

AABRIA: Yes.

GINA: Okay.

AABRIA: What stats did you move?

GINA: I removed one from Sway to--

SAM: Water. (laughter)

GINA: My lungs are pretty shot now.

AABRIA: Yeah.

GINA: That means I cannot speak as well as I used to, and I can move it to whatever I want?

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

GINA: Got it. Okay. Let's go to Sense.

AABRIA: Okay. You move in. Does everyone go?

SAM: I think it's safe, if you two are okay.

NOSHIR: Is Elsie up and--

ASHLY: I never took the bleed, so.

AABRIA: Yep.

ASHLY: Sorry.

NOSHIR: You don't ever apologize to me.

ASHLY: We follow him.

AABRIA: Everyone moves forward. You move from room to room, you feel something turn your gaze as you pass by rooms full of curiosities and treasures and writings and sigils. "No, not that way. Down here farther, to me." Then you find yourself standing outside a massive set of gold doors carved with impossibly small depictions of a centuries long life. Five panels, five sections built into the wall, into the doors. Five sets of rituals, each corresponding to a name. The Everlasting, the rituals that had gave her such long life. The Lady of Light. You see her hands spreading out, sharing, moving her magick into the world like electrical poles spreading out power to the city. The Bane of Empires, a terrible hand reaching out. Weapons and armies falling at the feet of Oldfaire. Unblinking, this is the one you understand. She sits on a throne, breathing bleed, inhaling all of the poison of her world and exhaling pure air, dying, her body locked in a rictus of pain, of death and rebirth again and again and again, losing herself to the suffering of it. The Vengeful at the bottom. These ones carved with a little more ferocity. This is not the story that Iomene tells of herself. This is a cautionary tale placed by the one that put her here. Emperor Calinus and Aku locking her away. The doors stand there ready. You know they're unlocked. You can feel the pressure of this place and the answers to your lifelong questions on the other side of one last door. But I can't make you go through it. That's on you.

LIAM: I think Cosmo in this moment is aware that he is dying, and taking some satisfaction from being on his feet. He places a very weak hand on the door and pushes, knowing it is not strong enough to push.

SAM: I will push with him, but my hand on his hand so sort of feels like he's doing it.

GINA: Oh, Cosmo.

SAM: You got this, son.

ASHLY: I reach for Rajan's hand.

NOSHIR: With my other hand, claw, I suppose, I gesture to Madam Glask. You can lean on me, if you need to.

ASHLY: I put my free hand on the door next to Cosmo's.

GINA: I take Cosmo's arm to help him stay up and I put my other-- Oh, that's broken. I hold onto him.

SAM: Oh shit.

AABRIA: You push together. The Circle of Tide & Bone, standing finally in front of the mystery at the heart of all of their mysteries, beyond assignment. The question that has driven you to Candela and from it. You open the door, and find each of you alone. So we're going to take this one at a time. We're going to start with Rajan.

NOSHIR: Hmm.

AABRIA: You find yourself in the darkness. They are gone now. She's gone now. There is only the one, the thing, the siren that called your mother forth down into Oldfaire to find something, a weapon to end the war, a way forward and through for her family that she loved so much. She could not commit to the dust to which she was consigned in a moment of tremendous violence. She came back for you. She sacrificed it all for all of you. You have walked in her steps and they have led you here in front of a woman, tall and proud and cold. And maybe it's because after so long and losing her so young you started to forget the face of your mother. But in that, Iomene reminds you a little bit of Vimala, too. "My child. You made it. You found me. What's wrong?"

NOSHIR: I strayed so far, thinking that I was walking in my mother's footsteps. Sin-Eater.

AABRIA: "Yes. You know me."

NOSHIR: My mother wasn't looking for a weapon. She was looking for a cure.

AABRIA: "For what? I need you to say it. I need to know you understand." The flies around you pour out of you and off you. You feel hollow and empty. Smaller by the moment.

NOSHIR: She was trying to keep me safe, to keep her children safe. A world without bleed, without abominable sickness.

AABRIA: "Yes."

NOSHIR: And supernatural war.

AABRIA: "An ambitious goal."

NOSHIR: She was always a dreamer.

AABRIA: "(chuckles) She is lost to even me now. Gone beyond to a place I cannot go."

NOSHIR: And what of my sister?

AABRIA: "Aadtika. Lost, but not forever. She is caught in a place you call a thinning. Trapped, but not lost. Would you find her? How much more of yourself would you give away in order to regain the things you think you've lost?"

NOSHIR: I don't know how much of me is left to give, but we would pay a heavy price.

AABRIA: "I do love a bargain. Give to me what you have left, what little of you still holds honor. I will bend my power and bring her forth. But I haven't the strength to do it without a cost to be paid."

NOSHIR: I wrestle with the idea of bringing Aadtika back to a person she does not recognize. I won't let this all be for nothing. I will pay your price.

AABRIA: "Then it's time to come home, my child. You've done so well, suffered more than most." And she opens her arms to you. Three steps away from a trade that you cannot take back, but you know her word to be true. Aadtika will be free, returned to the world, to a life made comfortable by your family's sacrifice, by your hard work. Unblemished. A chance. Three steps.

NOSHIR: Unbidden by me as I take my first step, it's now become second nature. I start to recite: I stand upon the shore and seek a distant land. Salt upon my tongue, my skin burned smooth with sand. And I remember that long ago, there was someone else I cared for. Days spent with Cordelia as she tried to help me find a way to bridge the gap. Those days seem long gone now. Another step. The wind sings out her name and wicks away my tears. My heart slows with the tides and quiets as she draws near. And I hesitate. Will I remember her?

AABRIA: "The part of you that will continue can never forget. Not forever."

NOSHIR: Good. I take my final step.

AABRIA: Into her arms, outstretched. She embraces you. It's warm and it reminds you of being a young boy, swaddled and held by your mother.

NOSHIR: (inhales deeply)

AABRIA: And everything beyond her, beyond this, doesn't matter because this is okay. Whatever version of you may or may not go back into the world, it doesn't matter because this is okay. This was a good sacrifice, a worthy trade. And you, in your final moments, know that you are a good man. And then you let go. Oscar. You find yourself standing in front of her. You see her now, more than just a voice and a shape and a form in the darkness. She's always called to you between the veil and you feel yourself here again. So I don't think there's any fear to it. You've done this seven times now? "Cary? Oscar?"

SAM: I mean, most people call me Cary.

AABRIA: "(laughs) Grimmok? Or have you put that away, too?"

SAM: I honestly don't remember.

AABRIA: She reaches forward, quickly, but not to strike, and puts her hand on your cheek. And you feel it all come rushing back. Here, now, for the first time in 87 years, you are whole again. You remember them. Iris and Cora. Even your dog, Bruiser.

SAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: Quentin, and everyone you lost on that ship, on the day you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Welcome back."

SAM: (sighs) Thank you. It's been a while since I've-- (sighs) Wow. It's been a while since I've been me and-- (sighs) Is this a reward? A punishment? Did I do something wrong to deserve this?

AABRIA: "No. No. Even I don't think that the universe cares enough either way to reward or punish. I'm so sorry. I have to ask something so terrible of you. But you are the only person that I've ever known in my too-long life that was like me. I can't die."

SAM: It's the worst, isn't it?

AABRIA: "(laughs) It's the worst. I'm sorry I took your memories from you. I thought it was for the best. Over my years, it hurt too much to hold it all. I split myself, my breath, three ways. A body, this, locked here to do the work that I committed myself to over 1,000 years ago. To breathe the bleed, to take as much as I could. To die again and again and again for the ambitions I had for my home. My rage and my pain I carved into a beast that prowls this place. What little hope I have left, I split off into a child. But the good in me is gone now. Gone into the world, beyond where even I can find it. The work still must be done. There is still magick. You're the only one like me in the whole world. Will you stay? Will you help me?"

SAM: Oh. Oh. (soft laugh)

AABRIA: "What did you wish for?"

SAM: (scoffs) I wished for... I wished for death, but not for me. I mean, sure, it would be nice for me, but I really, (sighs) I don't care anymore about my memories or my past or the life I would've lived. I just want Cosmo to be-- I just want him to be-- (sighs) I want him to have the blessing of being alone for a moment, a day, a month. I want him to be his own man. Just once. I want him to remember me. A father is nothing unless he has a child to look at him and think of him. I just wanted him to be okay. Will he be if I stay with you?

AABRIA: "Yes."

SAM: He won't worry about me?

AABRIA: "I cannot presume to know everything, but I know what I've seen. He is smart and he is strong and he got that from you. He is okay. He will be okay. And I'm not just saying that because I want so desperately to not be alone. It is true. (sniffles) You did the best you could. Your circumstances were impossible. I wish I could offer you rest. But I can't, I don't know enough. Not yet. But I promise, if you stay, if you agree to stay, I will shield you from the passage of time. You will not be alone. And if some point in the future occurs where freedom for this curse lies for both of us, we will go wherever it is you go next, together."

SAM: I think that's a fair trade. Tell me one thing, though.

AABRIA: (sniffles)

SAM: You like baseball?

AABRIA: "(laughs)" She falls to her knees, sobbing. "(sniffles) Yes, I do."

SAM: Maybe we could talk about it, I guess. Pass the time?

AABRIA: "It would be nice to have someone to watch with. 11 innings."

SAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: "It's a long time."

SAM: I know.

AABRIA: "Even for me." (muffled laughter) (continued muffled laughter)

SAM: Where do I go now? What, do I just stand with you or--

AABRIA: She pushes herself up to her feet, wipes her tears. I think you have seen the humanity in Iomene that's been gone for so long, it's a memory and a myth. She reaches out, not as a mother or a goddess, just a partner, for your hand, and looks out towards the darkness with a bit of unsureness, but at least she will not be alone.

SAM: But he will be, right?

AABRIA: "Yes. He's earned it."

SAM: Okay.

AABRIA: You take her hand and you walk past, through somewhere deeper, and begin your work, and fade. Madam Glask. Cordelia. You find yourself in front of a goddess. She holds herself away and regards you, in a mirror of your curiosity and distance. "Hello."

GINA: Hello, old friend.

AABRIA: "(sniffles) I'm sorry."

GINA: I'm glad that I can finally-- No. You need not be sorry, I wished this upon myself without knowing the consequences.

AABRIA: "No, no. You didn't ask for this. What happened to you on that ship, the wreck, an accident. No divine decision. But I have limits to what I can do. And in a moment of great suffering, I did what I could to offer you a wish in exchange for what you'd lost. Pardon my deceit."

GINA: (sighs) I've come to find that all of it, all the gold and pearls and diamonds never, never filled the aching and longing of a home. Every self-proclaimed lothario that walks through my doors giving me a sense of temporary belonging, it was never worth it. My heart-- My person, my stomach is full, but my heart and my soul are still so empty. There is no home here. And I've learned that now.

AABRIA: "This place is a difficult land. This world is not easy. But I'm sorry. I cannot offer you this. It is beyond my purview. It is not that home is beyond you, beyond this, but it's something. The only value in it is what you make for yourself. You made a home for your girls."

GINA: Then, may I ask that if you can be so kind, may I ask for just one more? One more favor from the gods.

AABRIA: You feel a pulse around you. Where five stood, you feel two fewer, gone. "In the terms with which I deal, the price has been offered. I've strength enough. What do you want?"

GINA: The little girl.

AABRIA: "Mina?"

GINA: Mina. I gave her a piece of, a piece of you.

AABRIA: "No."

GINA: A necklace.

AABRIA: "You gave her a piece of you."

GINA: I only ask to let the sea reclaim me and unite me with my kin.

AABRIA: "You would not stay?"

GINA: For her, no. I ask that your calm waters wash away her sins. She's too young. If she does have to live this life again, I hope that she's graced with a loyal friend. That is all I ask.

AABRIA: "Yes. I am sorry that I'm not the gods of your home. They are blessed by the devotion of you. I will watch over her and smooth the way."

GINA: Then I am finally fulfilled.

AABRIA: She opens her arms to you. "Three steps."

GINA: She takes one step for Mina. She takes a second step for Samantha, Liamel, Noshira, and Ashlyn. And the last step for her dear friend Cosmo.

AABRIA: "He too is blessed to have been loved by you." As she embraces you, you feel that sea foam and water in your lungs choking, grows light and buoyant. Then you are the sea foam, light and buoyant. You look up and the sun is setting over you, gold and orange and red, and it's beautiful and peaceful. You are here, staring back at Mina as she looks into the sea, and you are lapping gently at sunrise at the islands of your home, and you're at peace.

GINA: With a gentle wave and ever so slight whisper, I hope Mina hears: Home.

AABRIA: You know from the startled look on her face that she does. And then nothing. You find yourself in a dark space with a deity, a queen, an empress who prowls around you, watching you. She sees the ferocity in your eyes. [growling] You do not know if the growl you hear or feel is her and the beast that she is, or you and the beast that you are. But you are seen. "Elsie. You found me."

ASHLY: What did I find?

AABRIA: "A person locked and trapped by their own making." She reaches up and undoes the top of her robes. Open just a bit, and you see markings and carvings, sigils and alchemy carved deep into her. Hundreds of years of experiments, searching for answers, for cures. "We are not that different."

ASHLY: You're searching for death. I've been searching for life.

AABRIA: "What do you want? A cure for cullet? A cure for yourself? Regaining status? Pride of place? What do you want? You're a doctor. Is it to heal the world or heal yourself? You've come this far. What do you actually want? There is no one but us here now. No one to pretend for. No one to hold back for. Be yourself, be the beast. I hold it all and bear it all and understand it well." You see behind her, a creature. It looks like a human and an owl and a jungle cat, but larger. A vessel, a monster prowls and you know that you are looking at her. She is that, too.

ASHLY: I want to heal, to right my wrongs, my sins. But I'm so afraid to die.

AABRIA: "Is it the unknown? What do you fear? You've known pain and death. You've known suffering. What is there to fear in one more door?"

ASHLY: That in my life, all I've known is greed, and then pain and suffering with one brief respite. But I can tell, he's gone, isn't he?

AABRIA: "Yes. I can return the shape of him if that is some comfort to you, whole and restored. But he is gone. Somewhere I cannot go."

ASHLY: What will it cost to heal those that are like me, Mina, her loved ones, from this disease?

AABRIA: "The problem--" You see her extend up, and you feel her senses reach out and around beyond this place, up into the world. "This is not magick, simply the doings of mankind and the cruelties we invent when we are afraid for ourselves and the ones that we love."

ASHLY: So you can do nothing?

AABRIA: "I can offer you time."

ASHLY: With the beast?

AABRIA: "You had the beast with you the whole time. You simply brought it forth. But, with time, many things are solved with time and patience and care and discipline."

ASHLY: I don't know if I'm capable.

AABRIA: "The others I've met that know you and love you, they know."

ASHLY: So you'll send me back just as I was, but a little bit more alone?

AABRIA: "I can send you forth through the veil with him, with all the sins and the wrongs that you have weighing on your heart, if that's what you want. Or I can send you back with a ritual." [beast snarl] "The things written in that tome. The others out there, they are not unkillable, but they have time. If they are careful, they have time. And a great many things can be solved with time. I would offer that to you--" [soft beast snarl] "-- because you brought them here. You protected them with your beast. You healed them with your gifts, and saw them safely to the end of their mission."

ASHLY: I was never very good. I was always quite selfish. And I find that it leaves a poor taste in my mouth now. Send me back. Give me the time.

AABRIA: "Okay. Good luck."

ASHLY: If I fall back on old ways, will you be watching?

AABRIA: "I will watch regardless, as I always have. And everyone, those who have left you, those who have yet to meet you and know you will watch you and hope for you to be the best version of yourself. Elsie Roberts, you can change the world, but that's on you. If you are worried, that you will return to chaos and imprisonment. I can offer boon enough to remove Candela Obscura from your trail." And in your hands, you feel a sudden sinking as a heavy, heavy tome. The outside solid gold, and the thin vellum covered in markings and writings, Ancient Fairen that you can read now. An Auric Tome of your own. "The ritual's simple enough. And if you give them that, they will be in your debt for a very long time. Your beast is your own. Tame it or lose yourself to it. Just stop treating it like it's not a part of you." [beast snarl] "You contain multitudes. You decide what to do, who to be, but it's all you, and it always has been."

ASHLY: Thank you.

AABRIA: This being understands that in you, she sees a kindred spirit and regards you not as a loving mother offering peace, but as a peer. Gives you a nod of respect. And you are gone. And you find yourself, Oscar. Cosmo. You find yourself not in a dark room, but sitting in the sunny parlor of The Antiquarian, and across from you, a goddess who pours you a cup of tea. "Hello."

LIAM: Hello.

AABRIA: "I figured I owed you a little more than a conversation in a dark room."

LIAM: Do you know I've read a great deal about you? You see?

AABRIA: "I do. I have notes."

LIAM and ASHLY: (laugh)

AABRIA: "I think I'm painted to be a bit more of a bitch than I think I am."

ASHLY: (laughs)

AABRIA: "But then again, they did lock me in a ziggurat. So who's to say?"

LIAM: Well, I don't know that I've met any one person who is any one thing.

AABRIA: "No. You've learned so much. I don't know if I have a right to be, but I am very proud of you."

LIAM: Oh.

AABRIA: "You've searched for a very long time, dedicated your life to your family. You've made a family so vast and wide and broad, both blood and the bonds of fraternity and friendship. Cosmo, do you know how loved you are?"

LIAM: I have been fortunate in this world. My father considered himself cursed for his lack of memory, but (chuckles) I've been blessed with so many. I can remember our little family long ago, and gosh, I've lost track of the circles. There was Gilded Glass, and Serpent & Thrush. Circle on the Hill maybe was my favorite.

AABRIA: "Yeah. That sounds very nice."

LIAM: It was. I have my missteps, of course, but who can't relate?

AABRIA: "Even I can relate. I think on the whole, you've done an excellent job."

LIAM: I think at this stage, I may be able to let go. But I am curious, I always have been.

AABRIA: "Yeah."

LIAM: I'm curious what will happen to my father now.

AABRIA: "(exhales) Out of the tremendous kindness of him, he's agreed to stay and help me. You get it. Right? What I do, what I am, and why I stay?"

LIAM: I have theories.

AABRIA: (laughs)

AABRIA: "Better than most. I'm sorry. Even I don't know how to free him. But he is safe. I hope he is happy. And I hope that someday in the future, we will both be free, and hopefully the world is a little better for the work that we put into it."

LIAM: I hope you do too. I feel very old. Not as old as Oscar. Not as old as you.

AABRIA: "Okay, rude."

ASHLY: (laughs)

LIAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: "I think if you are ready, you can let go. He can let go. You know, that was the trick of it. I looked for so long. Even I couldn't untangle it, not until you were here, not until you were close. He wasn't holding onto you. It wasn't that you were holding onto him, you were holding onto each other for exactly as long as you needed to. I know you are tired. Your rest is well earned."

LIAM: Look at us all. All like little candles in the dark.

AABRIA: "Yeah."

LIAM: I've enjoyed my little bit of light. Perhaps it's time to put the wick out.

AABRIA: "Yes. Whatever comes next, I do not know of a person in this world or the others I have not discovered yet who is more equipped for the mystery and adventure of wherever comes next."

LIAM: Wherever it may be, fair or far.

AABRIA: "You've done well." She's going to come over to you, and she holds your face in her hands, fingers covered in gold. She covers your mouth and your nose and places a gentle kiss over her fingers. Breath binding. A last act of respect for the venerated who have passed. She will stay with you for as long as you wish to stay here.

LIAM: Oh, it doesn't take long. I feel a familiar swirl of thoughts. I wonder this, maybe that. How will they? But ultimately, I just let it go.

AABRIA: The darkness holds you gently. And we come back finally. And in the place where five once stood, only one remains, only one returns home to Oldfaire, and then up, guided to Newfaire. Tome in hand, alone, to continue, to remember. There isn't a lot of time or space left for an epilogue, but is there anything else we should know about Dr. Elsie Roberts as she returns to the world?

ASHLY: I think several years go by. The Antiquarian, which was destroyed, or at least terribly damaged from the quake, has been repaired. Elsie doesn't live there anymore, she can't afford it.

AABRIA: (laughs)

ASHLY: She lives amongst Mina and her people. She's found a place nearby, and somehow knew that wherever Madam Glask is, she would not forgive her if she left her on her own, so they're sort of a strange duo. Mina has become somewhat of a lab assistant. She hasn't cured it, but she's found a way to let people live with it. The beast has taken on a slightly different shape. Things that remind someone of an insect and things that reference water. Every so often, there is a report. Something gets destroyed, a business gets smashed in. But for the most part, the beast has become a strange playmate for Mina.

AABRIA: In passing, at some point, you see her, a woman that looks so much like Rajan, it is uncanny. You put it together, the pieces of the things he lost, what he was willing to trade away to preserve and save. I couldn't presume to know if that is peace enough for you, but I think you would agree that it is peace enough for him. The world continues, and the circle lives on through all the things you do and be and make and put into the world. And from wherever they are, they watch. And wherever Oscar and Iomene are, they watch. Do you give yourself time? Do you use the book?

ASHLY: (sighs) No.

AABRIA: Beautiful. We're all just candles in the dark, and you create a beautiful flame with the time you have left. And that's where we will end the story of the Circle of Tide & Bone. (sighs) I've been your DM, Aabria Iyengar. (clapping)

AABRIA: I wanted to pass it around one more time to truly the most amazing table. Let's start with you.

NOSHIR: I'm Noshir Dalal, playing Professor Rajan Savarimuthu.

SAM: I've been Sam Riegel, playing Oscar "Cary" Grimm. (laughter)

AABRIA: You got it in there.

GINA: I am Gina Darling playing Madam Glask, and also did not know that we can choose to live, but you know, whatever. (laughter)

GINA: Like I saw two die, I'm like, "Oh, I guess I go, too."

ASHLY: Oh no!

GINA: Then I see her live. I'm like, "All right." (laughter)

ASHLY: Oh no!

NOSHIR: Come on, Gina, everybody's doing it.

GINA: I know! (laughter)

AABRIA: Peer pressure really caught you on that one.

GINA: Oh yeah, I'm a perfect mark.

AABRIA: Damn.

ASHLY: Shit.

AABRIA: Unfortch.

ASHLY: Well, I'm Ashly Burch, and I played Dr. Elsie Roberts, the only survivor. Sorry, man. Shit.

GINA: Well, thanks for taking care of Mina.

ASHLY: Yeah, well, I think it was the least I could do. Oh my god. (laughter)

AABRIA: That's the actual most heartbreaking thing.

ASHLY: Yeah! (laughter)

AABRIA: Just dang, wait a second.

ASHLY: A choice, she wants to go back to her family. I didn't think you, oh no.

GINA: I'm floating and my spirit's floating in the ocean, like, "Oh shit." (laughter) I could have gone-- All right. You know, whatever, man. (laughter)

AABRIA: Incredible.

ASHLY: That's so funny. (laughter)

LIAM: Hello.

AABRIA: Yeah! (laughter)

LIAM: I am Liam O'Brien, and in the course of playing this game of Candela, I have fused with Oscar Grimm. (laughter) Cosmo Grimm! I've messed it up just like you did. (laughter) I'm too old, there's too many details. (laughter) Oh, it's time to rest. (laughter)

AABRIA: That's it. (sighs) We will return with another chapter, another circle and another story. But until then, take care of yourself. Be a flame in the darkness, and is it Thursday yet?

LIAM: Oh yes.

SAM: That's great. (laughter)

AABRIA: Yay! (clapping)

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