Candela Obscura: Flesh and Blood/Transcript

List of Transcripts

Introduction

TALIESIN: Festering within the heart of Newfaire, the sour taste of vengeance lingers on the palate as we suffer another loss. This is the price we pay as investigators. The temptation to harness the power within our collection of tools and artifacts is strong. But to serve Candela, one must acknowledge the danger in such hubris, and that underestimating such power leads only to destruction. It is always and forever our duty to stifle any remnant of bleed that seeps into our realm. The Circle of Needle & Thread, Assignment #538: Flesh and Blood.

Part I

SPENSER: We open on the exterior of a house in The Eaves. Outside, a man stands at guard, waiting. A Candela Obscura pin on his lapel. We hear a carriage pull up. The rain collecting in puddles on the street here. Lightning flashes. And a man steps out. He's well dressed, wearing a blue suit that has a Candela Obscura pin on his lapel as well. As he approaches the front door, he nods at the patrol outside. "Adrian. It's raining. You should go home." Adrian looks at him. Stoic. (Adrian) "You know I can't do that now." (man) "I know." He says, "Try and stay warm." Pats him on the shoulder. Walks into the house. Within, the hardwood floors echo as the man steps forward. "I'm home," he says. Another man turns the corner wearing an apron. A bigger, more burly man. Large beard. (burly man) "I'm just cooking. I'll be out in a second." (man) "Thank you, love," he says. Drops his keys in a basket. Takes off his shoes. (burly man) "How'd everything go today?" We hear echo from the kitchen. (man) "It's okay. I can't believe they still got somebody outside." (burly man) "Yeah, well after what happened, I'm not. Come here." The man, now shoeless, taking off his coat, taking off his vest, left in just a dress shirt, walks towards the kitchen. (man) "I missed you," he says. His husband in the kitchen turns to him. He's got stains on the apron. Looks like it's maybe red chili or something. "Come here," he says, and embraces him. The man takes a deep breath as his husband holds him, and he finds that his breath can't quite be taken to its full potential. He's being hugged tight. (man) "Are you okay?" he says. But there's no response in return, as the hug gets tighter and tighter. We watch as the man's hands, apron now splitting at the shoulders, reaches into the back of his husband. Pushing his fingers in on either side of the spinal column, and splits him in half.

TRAVIS: (groans)

SPENSER: Two sides of a body now lay before him. The screams of agony echo through the house, as Adrian comes in, gun drawn, but finds nothing but two halves of a man laying on a kitchen floor. He turns left and sees blood coming out from under a closet. Opens the door and finds the face of the husband, mangled body distorted, crunched up in the corner. And that's where we cut to all of you.

TRAVIS: (laughs nervously)

MARISHA: Boy.

TRAVIS: Cool.

SPENSER: We land first on Nathaniel Trapp. Nathaniel. It's in between assignments here. What are you doing?

TRAVIS: Well, I think following the events down in the metro station. I've taken stock of my eye. I forget about it from time to time. There was an initial haziness that occupied almost half of my vision or almost like a cloudy overlay of sorts. But it was more the faces of people that passed me that really have caught my attention. I stand out more than I did. I admit there's a small amount of vanity in me, but-- That turn, every single head that passed lingering on my face as I walked by them was too much. So I sought out a well reputed optometrist and he said that there was something that he had worked up for some of the fellas that had come back from the war.

SPENSER: Mm.

TRAVIS: There was a glass lens that could be put in the eye socket or over the eye to help mask the appearance of any sort of damage that might have occurred there. So I found a blue colored lens that now fits over the eye. But something strange started happening. Even after the lens was put in, the cloudy overlay of my vision also started to trail certain people as they would move. Buildings almost seem to have a secondary outline around them. It might just be my brain trying to compensate for the lack of periphery on the right side or-- I'm concerned it could be something else.

SPENSER: Mm.

TRAVIS: So I've tried to mask that and I've taken up in our headquarters in the meantime.

SPENSER: We get a shot of you waiting upstairs, the stained glass playing on your face. There's a knock at the door downstairs.

TRAVIS: Do I know if I'm alone?

SPENSER: Here? Doesn't sound like anybody else is around. This place is a labyrinth.

TRAVIS: I'll head down the stairs and make my way towards the door. Is there a window I can check? A peep hole in the door?

SPENSER: Yeah. Outside the window you see a small boy holding a letter.

TRAVIS: Oh, I open the door.

SPENSER: "Hi, sir."

TRAVIS: Hello, young man.

SPENSER: "Hello. A letter for you from your father."

TRAVIS: Oh. Thank you. Oh, just a moment. Reach in my pocket.

SPENSER: His hand is already out for the money.

ZEHRA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Good lad.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Here. Now make sure you go back to the letter's origin and be sure to tell the man there to match it.

SPENSER: "Will do." Tucks the change in his pocket. Makes off.

TRAVIS: What does the letter look like?

SPENSER: It is ornate, bright scarlet in color.

TRAVIS: (sighs)

SPENSER: It says, "Mr. N. Trapp."

TRAVIS: I'll hold it up to the light. Doesn't seem to be poisoned.

SPENSER: It does not.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: I'll break the seal and open the letter.

SPENSER: "My son. Meet me at the water's edge. We have important business to discuss." Gives you a date and time.

TRAVIS: Signed, C.F. Trapp. What kind of father signs his own fucking letter to his son? Anything on the back?

SPENSER: No.

TRAVIS: Crumple it up, commit the date and time to memory, and I throw it into the nearby fireplace.

SPENSER: (flames incinerating)

TRAVIS: (exhales heavily) Sure. Why not? I drop into an armchair nearby. Pop right back up. Nope. This requires bourbon. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Pour a glass, then commit myself to the armchair.

SPENSER: We see your eyes close, a glass of bourbon in your hand. From there, we look to you, Marion. Describe for me what moment we jump in on with you here.

LUIS: This is in between-- Space in between the assignments?

SPENSER: Correct, though we can explore anything here.

LUIS: Okay. I am not in my own bed.

SPENSER: Hmm.

LUIS: I am on the sofa that is in the residence of my friend, Jean.

SPENSER: Mm.

LUIS: Last thing I remember before falling asleep was my head on her lap. But I am somewhere else in my dream.

SPENSER: We see you sleeping. We push in on you and as that happens, our frame transforms into the dream that you're having. What is that dream?

LUIS: (thoughtful groan) I'm eight years old. It's a year after I acquired the scar that's been on my chest, the starburst scar. I am in my childhood bedroom. There is a strange man visiting. Someone that my father called upon to help us. I had been hiding the scar in my chest from him for as long as I could, but he found it and he became very afraid. Concerned, he called someone that people in the neighborhood made him aware of, a man that performs a ritual. Exorcisms.

SPENSER: We see the man enter the frame of your door as you lay there, alone, different, feeling different. Jean, will you describe what your father looks like, or looked like?

ZEHRA: My father... When I was a very young girl, what stood out to me most about him was his long, dark, wild beard. It seemed to grow every which way, and yet it was never what you would call unkempt or messy or filthy, just a wildness. In contrast to the lack of hair on top of his head. It would seem that all his follicles were gifted in his face. And as he walked, it would stay very still and in place. But when he went to work, when he held a book in front of him, it was only then that I saw the hair of his beard sway and flow. Dark, navy blue robes. And something on his wrist, some adornment. The memory, the details are hard to make out. Green stone? Brass?

SPENSER: We see that glint in the light. As he leans over the top of you in this memory. Zehra. I'm going to have you play your father here because you know this memory better than I do. So I turn things to the two of you.

ZEHRA: I regard this child. This little one before me. Do not be afraid.

LUIS: Dad? Dad, who is he?

ZEHRA: You must not speak.

SPENSER: You see your father, over his shoulder. Your father turns, disappears down--

LUIS: Dad!

ZEHRA: Child, be not afraid.

LUIS: Get away from me, I don't know who you are!

ZEHRA: I pull out a small vial, uncork it. It's filled with a pungent herb, medicinal, almost a menthol smell. I hold it gently to the nose of the boy and restrain him ever so gently with my hand.

LUIS: (resistant whimpering)

ZEHRA: Breathe. Breathe, child.

LUIS: Eventually you got to breathe.

ZEHRA: When he is calm, I pluck from my wrist piece a green gem on a pendant and I hold it over the child's head, and wait.

SPENSER: There's a moment of stillness here as the pendulum sits. you watch it, Marion, as if on its own, suddenly it starts to sway in a circle around your chest.

ZEHRA: (exhales heavily) I have only seen this once before, I think. I become very concerned.

SPENSER: Hmm, we push in on you here.

LUIS: I close my eyes.

SPENSER: Another person, he thinks you're different.

LUIS: I close my eyes and I think back to a year ago when I first found this scar on me. I was asleep, I would sleepwalk, and I remember waking up and I was at small garden that my parents have in front of their house. I remember seeing this light getting pulled out of me. And I saw maybe something in front of me. I'm not sure what, but I knew the moment that I woke up and I saw this, I knew at seven years old something was taking my soul out from me, right out from my body. Then in the blink of an eye, everything was gone. The glowing light that I saw being pulled out of me, gone. The thing pulling it, that feeling of that, gone, and I was left with this scar. The night was quiet and the garden stood right in front of me as if nothing at all had happened.

SPENSER: We see the garden in front of you, a starry night between you. We move to you, Beatrix. Where did we find you between assignments?

MARISHA: Well, you know Auntie Bee. Still has to do her regular check-ins, wants to still make sure that all of her wards are being watched over and tended to. Well, she takes a little bit of the pocket change that she got from the train at the beginning and goes by a bakery, gets a few loaves of bread, strikes a deal with them, does a little bit of a bargain, gets a few loaves that are maybe a day old but can buy much more.

SPENSER: "Bee, you can have these loaves. They're old. Nobody's going to buy them. We're going to throw them out."

MARISHA: Oh, please, I can't. You know me.

SPENSER: "No, you can just have them for free, Bee."

MARISHA: Well, then, at least keep this for yourself, and you don't go and tell the manager.

SPENSER: "A good one, Bee."

MARISHA: I'll see you soon. She also stops by the farmer's market, gets a giant satchel of beans. She shuffles her way down to the South Soffit, checks in with her latest generation of boys and girls that she loves to watch. Hands out a few loaves of bread, divvies up the beans, puts those in some canisters. She has a particular liking to the single moms. Then she makes her way around the block, goes and pops into Grayslate.

SPENSER: We get a shot of Grayslate here, the sanatorium that you do laundry at--

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

SPENSER: -- if I'm not mistaken, for money? What does Grayslate look like?

MARISHA: It doesn't have to look sad from the outside to not still have an emanating aura of just profound depression. Just those certain inanimate objects that you can look at that you don't know why, there's just something a little off about it.

SPENSER: Hmm, are you talking about the thing, the inanimate objects?

MARISHA: The front façade.

SPENSER: The front façade, yeah, the architecture itself feels--

MARISHA: Feels sad.

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: Even though it's painted bright yellow.

SPENSER: Interesting.

MARISHA: But it's got some paint that's starting to chip and wear away. They put some bushes in the front, like they're trying overtly to push. Maybe if we paint the sanatorium a happy color, people will forget that we've relegated and pushed.

SPENSER: I think we get a really interesting juxtaposition here too, as you pass by the brightly colored façade, as you turn the corner and they missed a plank.

MARISHA: Yes, yeah.

SPENSER: And it's that old paint.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SPENSER: And for a moment--

MARISHA: Gray, chipped away.

SPENSER: -- it brings you back--

MARISHA: Yeah.

SPENSER: -- to Seasway.

MARISHA: Yes.

SPENSER: To the manor that you used to have there and how everything used to be bright and bold. And now it's just left dull.

MARISHA: Left dull.

SPENSER: We see you pass the threshold of Grayslate into the building here. What's a normal day for you at Grayslate look like?

MARISHA: I go into the locker room, change out of my clothes, put on one of the standard uniforms, the maid uniforms. Take my apron, take my overcoat, my shirt, toss it in with the towels and the sheets that need to be done for the day. Move, shovel off, toss the linens into the wash bin, give them a stir. While I let those sit, I start pacing through the halls visiting those who I have a connection with. First and foremost, checking in with Miss Margaret Mary Finnerty.

SPENSER: Peggy.

MARISHA: Peggy.

SPENSER: We see Peggy sitting in her room. She is graying of hair, eyes are bagged, like there's been much stress put on her very recently. We see she shares that room with another woman who's staring out the window that is only a slit in the wall about eye height, and she's whispering to herself. "Come here, little piggy. Here, little piggy, come here." Peggy is not amused by this. Her eyes light up as she sees you. What do you do?

MARISHA: You know, we are old friends. We go away back just as old friends do. We drop into our usual banter. I poke fun at her. Yeah, you've looked better, you old hussy.

SPENSER: "Mm-hmm, don't I know it."

MARISHA: (laughs)

SPENSER: "Thank you for coming by. I appreciate it."

MARISHA: Of course. I, as I always do, regale her of the stories of my most recent adventure. Inform her of the status of her youngest son.

SPENSER: "You talk about him like he's a hero."

MARISHA: Well, he is.

SPENSER: You see her eyes start to well, "Can you give him this?" as she pulls a piece of parchment out of her pocket.

MARISHA: You know I always will.

SPENSER: It's enveloped. "Thank you for coming by. I'm going to miss you."

MARISHA: Miss me?

SPENSER: "Yeah. I'm going to miss you."

MARISHA: Ah, honey, you're going to see me sooner than you know it. We're going to keep working the plan. We're going to get you out of here.

SPENSER: She looks around, "Don't let them hear you."

MARISHA: I forget how loud my voice can carry sometimes.

SPENSER: "Here, piggy, piggy, piggy. Come here, piggy."

MARISHA: I just nod. Miss Cynthia. To the woman by her.

SPENSER: She turns back. "Rosa, an honor as always, Rosa."

MARISHA: I do love the titles you give me, Miss Cynthia. (laughter)

SPENSER: She turns back to the window. (shouts) "No, no! (screams) "No! (intensely screams) "No!"

MARISHA: I just grasp Peggy's hand. Stay strong. I shuffle off continue to tend to my laundry duties for the day, wash up myself, fold the linens, and then I end my day by shuffling down to the Hallowharbor, find my old lavender-painted house with the mint green shutters.

SPENSER: You're going to Seasway?

MARISHA: Going to Seasway.

SPENSER: Going to Seasway, okay.

MARISHA: Going to Seasway. My poor old cottage is dilapidated and falling apart and in complete disrepair. They pushed me out for no reason. No one's even living it in anymore.

SPENSER: It's the perfect, sterling image as you look at it. What it was at its peak. There's a man in the upper window. He's waving at you. He misses you. Then you know it's a fantasy, because next to him a child. The house goes decrepit, the child disappears. The man is left.

MARISHA: I just, little kiss to my old Blue.

SPENSER: And he's gone, too.

MARISHA: I turn around and I sit down on the front stoop and watch my hernia, ah. I pull out some old silk flowers that were just given to me out of the scrap bin from the fabric district. Pop off my hat, take out a needle & thread and hum to myself as I add a few more flowers to my hat. Watch the sunset over the Glass Sea.

SPENSER: Sean, you see an old woman sitting in front of her house.

SPENSER: Auntie Bee.

MARISHA: Sean, what are you doing here?

BRENNAN: I had a sneaking suspicion that you might be back in this neck of the woods.

MARISHA: (chuckles) I probably shouldn't come back here as often as I do. I don't know if it's good or bad for my mental health, but I can't help the sense of calm it brings me.

BRENNAN: If it brings you calm, you know, can't be too bad.

MARISHA: I imagine. I thought you'd be drinking in the Red Lamp on your day off.

BRENNAN: (chuckles) Nah, I haven't been in the Red Lamp in a minute. I'm pulling double shifts over at the chapter house you know, helping them take care of, you know, storage all the artifacts, and cleaning up, and managing the armory and stuff like that, just because I-- I figure I got to pay for my room and board, sleeping in the side room like I do.

MARISHA: I think you're far too generous with your time, you know that?

BRENNAN: I know, the wife and kids at home, they're not-- No, wait a minute. Oh. No, no, I got nothing going on. (laughter)

MARISHA: I'm not one to judge, look at me.

BRENNAN: Did you stop by Grayslate today?

MARISHA: I did.

BRENNAN: How's Ma doing?

MARISHA: You know her, always the optimist.

BRENNAN: Thank you, Bee. I know it's-- I know you got the moves, but it's not no danger getting stuff like this in and out of Grayslate.

MARISHA: If you want to send anything back, you always know.

BRENNAN: I don't want to send nothing back. She'll hear from me when we get her out.

MARISHA: We'll get her out. She's strong. She's a strong woman.

BRENNAN: You ever, you ever seen people get out of Grayslate in all the time you worked there? I mean, I know it has to have happened at least a couple times, but I guess it's one thing, you know. Personally, I don't think anyone that goes into that place gets help of any kind that they need. But I know in Ma's case, it wasn't even that she needed help, it's just a place they wanted to throw her away.

MARISHA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Do you, have you ever seen anyone, maybe, I don't know, even someone rich, someone with connections, get pulled out of there?

MARISHA: Of course, bureaucracy goes a long way. It's still an institution, still with limited meds. Institutions also cost money and there's no limit to the amount of people that might need to disappear if it benefits somebody else up top. So, yeah, there are people who got out. There are a lot of people who will never see the light of day again before they close their eyes for good. I will say though, Sean, a strong woman, tough as nails as she is, that place becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Isolation, it's not good for the mind.

BRENNAN: No. You saying the clock's ticking?

MARISHA: I am.

BRENNAN: Yeah. All right. Well, we got to make moves.

MARISHA: You know what, though? We've happened to come across, gotten to know over the past few weeks, these few missions with Candela, got a rich friend.

BRENNAN: Yeah, I've been thinking about that.

MARISHA: And I got to say, that Nathaniel owes you one.

BRENNAN: He doesn't owe me shit. What do you mean he owes me? Owes me for what?

MARISHA: He opened up the hole that he got... He opened up the hole that you got kicked down, you and all of your brothers.

BRENNAN: That's not on him. No, LT's not responsible.

MARISHA: Then he stood there on the edge of that lip and extended his hand to lift you back up. He owes you one, and he owes Anthony, and he owes Jimmy. It would be the least that boy could do. Now, I'm not saying he did anything maliciously, but naivete can be quite harmful, my boy.

BRENNAN: (sighs) I respect that you're looking out for me, Aunt Bee. If I had a list of all the people who had done me the worst, I don't think LT would be anywhere near the top. There's a lot of people to get to before his bill comes to, if at all. I appreciate this. Take it easy and make sure that you don't stay out here too long. You can never tell who from the old days might recognize you. I'm going to lean in, give her a kiss, and I'm going to walk off and read the letter. "My baby boy, Sean, I miss you so. Your Auntie Beatrix tells me that you're still doing what you do best, killing those who are different from you simply because you're told to. Following orders to eradicate people with families and loved ones, then letting those same people you choose to obey kill your brothers. And now I am here in this wretched place because of you, Sean, because you didn't look out for our family. You let us down, and I cannot forgive you for that. With all my love, Mom."

SPENSER: As you stare down at the road where the letter used to be you feel blood pouring down your face. You feel pain in your shoulder. (muffled thudding)

BRENNAN: (heavy breathing)

SPENSER: And just as quickly as it started, you're brought back, and you're holding a letter unopened in your hands.

BRENNAN: I'm going to go find somewhere to be where people can't see me.

SPENSER: You turn a corner. You find a place alone in an alley.

BRENNAN: I'm going to take my gun out of my coat and I'm going to throw it down a storm drain.

SPENSER: The gun (clunks).

BRENNAN: "My baby boy, Sean, I miss you so. Your Auntie Beatrix tells me that you're still doing what you do best, (tearily) saving the world. It's funny, I had a dream the other night, took me back to when you and your brothers were children. I was tending some laundry while watching the three of you play soldiers in the courtyard. The silly sounds you made pretending sticks were rifles always made me laugh. Sweet Anthony was probably too old for make believe, but he always played along, like the wonderful big brother he was. It brought me some comfort knowing you and your brothers were together. Know that I am working every day to leave this place so I can be with my boy again. I hope to be there to tuck you into bed again real soon. Until then, with all my love, Mom."

SPENSER: We sit on you in the alley for as long as you need.

BRENNAN: I head back to the chantry. I head back to our chapter house.

SPENSER: We see you disappear down the street towards the chapter house. We land on you, Jean.

ZEHRA: I'm tucking in Marion. I see him squirming in his sleep, and the blanket that I've thrown on him on the sofa is coming off. I gently scooch it up him, making sure not to touch its scratchy fibers on the scar I see emanating up his neck. I'm intrigued by it. I want to look at it further, but it's best to let him rest. I go back to what I was doing in the wash basin in my kitchen, looking out the window, cleaning and doing my best to sterilize the equipment in my medical bag, scrubbing furiously at my hands. I'm slightly nervous. I'm worried that EONS' officers may be watching my home. They don't know my private residence address, but I wouldn't put it past them sending someone to spy on me to see where I live in case they needed to use that information. I'm nervous, but I don't sense any immediate danger. I go back to scrubbing at my tools.

SPENSER: As we see you scrubbing at your tools, the tools in your hands change. How are the tools at EONS different than the ones you currently hold?

ZEHRA: There's no escaping it. Every time you pick up a tool at EONS, there's a slight charge of electricity. It's enough that every day picking up these slightly charged tools I shy away from using electricity in my private life.

SPENSER: You hear-- Oh! Go ahead.

ZEHRA: They're very clean, very precise, very sharp. They do great work. But every time I touch them. I have to steel myself against the shock.

SPENSER: You hear, "Are you okay, honey?"

ZEHRA: (gulps)

SPENSER: We get a wide shot of you washing the tools in a basin next to your father laying in bed.

ZEHRA: I hear his voice. I do not look at him. Over my shoulder I call out: Yes, don't concern yourself with that. Finish washing the tools. And I turn to look at him.

SPENSER: Standing over him is Violet Boucher. She says, "Thank you for doing that, dear." She's holding a vial glowing green. She shakes it. You see the particles within twist. She sticks a syringe into the top and fills it.

ZEHRA: Dr. Boucher, if you don't mind, I would like to do this part myself.

SPENSER: "Of course." She hands it over to you. "So tell me, when you were there with me, did she say anything, anything about the Anitithenai?"

ZEHRA: I'm afraid nothing that I can recall.

SPENSER: She's still holding onto the vial or onto the syringe with you.

ZEHRA: But I think I am getting closer. I just need more time.

SPENSER: "More time, more time? You think we have more time?"

ZEHRA: Just a bit more. I am not talking about a matter of weeks, I am talk--

SPENSER: And she releases it.

ZEHRA: Matter of days. By the next session, I will have something to report.

SPENSER: "You know what will happen if you do not?" She looks over at your father.

ZEHRA: You have my word.

SPENSER: As we look at him, describe for me what he looks like in this state. We saw him before, now we're seeing him in his current state. What what does he look like?

ZEHRA: Once a robust, flowing man, flowing of energy of robe, of beard. His beard has turned white, brittle and is trimmed away, shaved away in parts. He's very much-- You can see his weak chin underneath the growth. His complexion, once olive and vibrant, is now completely sunken in, sallow, pale. And his eyes, sunken in, where you expect to see the natural redness of human eyes, is a pale, glowing blue. (raspy gasp) My chest catches as I hear him struggle for breath. Wheezing.

SPENSER: (wheezing)

ZEHRA: His skin is covered in, I would describe blackheads, pustulous domes that, as I bring the syringe closer to his body, seem to reel. Some pup with small screams? It's like an active lava field. I cannot bear the sight for very long. I find the injection port in his thin, thin arm and I inject the syringe and slowly begin to push the adjuvant in.

SPENSER: We see the liquid escape into his veins. (raspy wheeze) A breath. His eyes grow wide.

ZEHRA: It's done, Daddy. Sleep. I put my hand on his left shoulder gently. Sleep.

SPENSER: From there, we move to you, Sean. Within the confines of the chapter house, you pass by a sleeping Nathaniel Trapp on the bottom floor to make your way up.

BRENNAN: I'll look at him and I'll-- I think I'll look at him and I'll stop in. Do I see a bourbon bottle or anything else around?

SPENSER: For sure.

BRENNAN: I'm going to skulk in and try to get a whiff of LT's breath to see if he would still be hammered if he woke up right now.

TRAVIS: Just a half full glass. I'm just a super lightweight. (laughter)

BRENNAN: I'm going to go in, take a drink.

TRAVIS: (grunts) (laughter)

BRENNAN: I'll take a glass. All right.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: LT. Psst. Hey. Got the drop on you.

TRAVIS: Uh, no? No. I heard you coming--

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: -- and merely pretended to be asleep.

BRENNAN: Well, it worked. You've lulled me into a false sense of security. Now I guess you got me exactly where you want me, which is crouched over your supine form.

LUIS and SPENSER: (laugh)

TRAVIS: Yes, yes. My master plan has steps two through five that will now be executed, but in the sake of conversation, I will put them aside.

BRENNAN: I'll give you a hand up.

TRAVIS: Thank you. (grunts)

BRENNAN: You sleeping at the chapter house?

TRAVIS: Uh... Yes. Yes.

BRENNAN: (sighs) All right, well, I got a little roomie. I've been sleeping here, too.

TRAVIS: You have?

BRENNAN: Yeah. I don't have a house.

TRAVIS: You don't have a-- You don't? What--

BRENNAN: Well, when-- I mean, Anthony and Jimmy never came home and my Ma got put in Grayslate. And, you know, two months later with nobody there paying rent and the only thing that was protecting Ma was because she had sons in the military, but when she got put in Grayslate, the landlord repossessed our tenement.

TRAVIS: Of course, I feel so stupid. I'm--

BRENNAN: No, it's not your problem.

TRAVIS: No, I'm sorry, Sean. I should have asked sooner. It's--

BRENNAN: Hey, hey, hey. You ain't got to worry. Listen. About that. You know, Beatrix, Auntie Bee. She works as a laundry woman over at Grayslate and you know, the doctor, this guy, Sergei Orlov, who is the person who diagnosed my Ma, I think he may have been in error and I'm pursuing understanding how this may have happened. Because Ma has always, you know, she's always been a worrywart, but you can't get put in Grayslate for that.

TRAVIS: Mm.

SPENSER: So there may have been some mistakes made. But the last name Finnerty doesn't really carry a lot of weight in this town. The review board for Grayslate, it can take months or years. But there are certain last names that if we got a doctor's note, could maybe jump to the front of the line and, hey, I don't feel great about jumping to the front of the line, but at the end of the day, I'll take my guilty feelings with my Ma by my side rather than with her in the sanatorium.

TRAVIS: I mean, if you can't use a name like mine for something like this, what can you use it for?

BRENNAN: LT! I'm going to lean in and give you a big hug.

TRAVIS: (strained) God, you're strong.

SPENSER and LUIS: (laugh)

BRENNAN: Well, I think you're also a little sleepy and drunk, but that's okay.

TRAVIS: Don't squeeze too hard. (laughter)

BRENNAN: I'm going to smile. I'll look and say: All right, I got to retool up.

TRAVIS: Wait, how long has your mother been in Grayslate?

BRENNAN: How long since I got back from--

SPENSER: Yeah, probably three years.

BRENNAN: Three years? Yeah.

SPENSER: Yeah.

TRAVIS: And Sergei Olaf.

BRENNAN: Orlov. Sergei Or-lov.

TRAVIS: Orlov.

MARISHA: Orlov.

BRENNAN: The R is in the middle of the word and you know. (laughter)

BRENNAN: This is why they'll never make me a lightkeeper. You know that?

ZEHRA and MARISHA: (laugh)

BRENNAN: Because if I have to bring the new guys in, and I say: Gentlemen, I've invited you here because Newfaire is beset by eldritch harrahs. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Doesn't sound right. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Everything needs an evolution sometimes Finnerty. You know, we can certainly go that route, and we should, but just in case my name doesn't trade, you know, there's always other tactics we can take with Mr. Or-lov.

SPENSER: As you say that, you continue speaking, but we see letters being delivered to you three to come to Candela Obscura. Continue.

BRENNAN: I'm going to look at you and say: Maybe a retraction of that diagnosis along with a noted journalist writing a letter saying there was an error in the diagnosis. Maybe we find a way to persuade Dr. Orlov.

TRAVIS: Sometimes unwanted attention from the Civil Tribune could lead to, oh, I don't know, review of medical notes and see if even, maybe an error that was made or a switching of files. Honest mistakes.

MARISHA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Would you need anything to help you with that? Would you need-- You're a reporter, right? So you want to show up at this doctor's office, a little bit of evidence with a lead you're chasing down. You know, you can't trust everything you hear on the street in South Soffit, but word on a corner is that Dr. Orlov's office started looking a lot nicer. He started to get more business because he was kind of a hack sawbones, you know? Started looking a lot nicer when he started to get a lot of referrals from Arthur Duffy. Arthur was the landlord for a lot of the apartments in South Soffit. And... I'm just thinking. If you were to get some piece of tangible evidence, an anonymous tip, something like that, that maybe Dr. Orlov makes a lot of money from Arthur Duffy for more than just checkups? Would that streamline your process for a noted reporter such as yourself?

TRAVIS: It certainly couldn't hurt.

BRENNAN: Good to know. I'm going to get a new gun from the armory and I'm going to-- Knowing that if our friends are on the way, we're supposed to be meeting up here.

SPENSER: They're coming soon, but you still have time.

BRENNAN: I'll go to a little side closet. It's like an empty pantry back when this was a place that needed food in it, you know?

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: There's a military bed roll on the ground and I'm going to go in there, grab a couple of things for whatever assignment's coming up next and I'm also going to grab a baseball and put it in my pocket and move this little letter to another pocket so that I can hold onto the baseball.

SPENSER: I love that.

TRAVIS: As he leaves, I'm going to go over to one of the shelves in the chapter room where I was not sleeping.

SPENSER: Downstairs. Yeah, yeah, downstairs.

TRAVIS: Yeah. On the shelf, there's a mahogany box that opens on a hinge. Inside is a very polished officer's revolver sitting in a velvet inlay and I'll pick it up and look at it. Put it back, shut the box, exit the room.

SPENSER: That leaves you alone here. Would you like to wait or would you like to do anything else? It's up to you.

BRENNAN: Hearing LT down in the other room, I grab the baseball, I grab a new hand weapon, a couple other things. I had a couple little things left to do volunteering in the archives.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So I think I'll swing by the archives and finish that business up as well.

SPENSER: Great. We see you swing up the stairs and around the corner. As that happens, we see the rest of you starting to arrive. Upstairs in the archives, out of the labyrinthine hallways that stretch past the chapter house, a figure emerges. Draven approaches you.

BRENNAN: Mr. Kingsley.

SPENSER: "You don't have to do that, you know?"

BRENNAN: What do you mean? Don't have to do what?

SPENSER: "The organization, all the things that you're doing here. I know you're compensating for something."

BRENNAN: Mr. Kingsley, I appreciate it. I don't have anything. I don't have anything.

SPENSER: "I know."

BRENNAN: If there's a reason for you to tell me not to do this, I won't do it. But the truth is, spending a couple minutes dusting shelves is probably the nicest part of my day, all things being equal, sir.

SPENSER: "Heard. I lost my sister, so I know what it feels like."

BRENNAN: I'm sorry to hear that.

SPENSER: "Thank you. The hollowness, the pain, the rage, the desire to find blame. I know what that feels like. I want you to know you're not alone in that."

BRENNAN: How'd you lose her?

SPENSER: "That's a story for another time," he says. You hear the (chiming) of the door open below. As the rest of you start to approach up the stairway, he says, "We are the same." Then, as he says that, the rest of them move up the stairs. All of you join and see--

MARISHA: Toodle-loo! Hello!

ZEHRA: So sorry to wake you when the missives arrived. Did you get enough rest?

LUIS: I think so. I mean, how's it looking? Did you patch me up okay?

ZEHRA: Yeah. You're looking a lot better. No more worse for wear.

MARISHA: Marion, help me up the stairs.

LUIS: Okay. I immediately go to help you up the stairs.

ZEHRA: How is your hernia, Ms. Monroe?

MARISHA: (groans) It's fine. There's nothing wrong. I'm more worried about this one.

LUIS: You mean...

MARISHA: What are you--

LUIS: I feel okay.

MARISHA: What do I mean?

LUIS: I slept all right.

MARISHA: What do you-- Yeah, that's-- It's quite noticeable now, dear boy. How are you feeling?

LUIS: I feel actually pretty good.

MARISHA: The rest do you some good?

LUIS: I got a little rest.

ZEHRA: I would love to take a closer look at it when we have an opportunity.

LUIS: Anytime.

MARISHA: Did any of you other boys go and have fun? Hit the Red Lamp? Meet some people, y'all?

TRAVIS: Oh yes. Always money to be spent.

MARISHA: Good.

ZEHRA: Does anyone need any medication?

LUIS: I could still, you know. I mean, they're obviously calling us here for a reason, and I did pay you a visit to get a little patched up (laughs), so to speak.

TRAVIS: (laughs) (clears throat) (retches) (laughter)

ZEHRA: Dr. Jean, everything is going over her head. She just stares blankly.

SPENSER: You see Kingsley holding folders in front of all of you.

MARISHA: Tell them, Kingsley. Tell them! They're too young to be wasting away their lives.

SPENSER: He gives you a slight smile. He looks around at all of you. I'm going to have all of us describe what we look like here again in this moment as we pan across all of you in the same space. Let's start with you. Nathaniel Trapp, what do you look like here?

TRAVIS: Nathaniel is, he's changed his shirt of a darker variety this time. New vest, pocket watch remains, holsters empty but in place. There's a slight discoloration between his eyes, but it doesn't show the white burnout from our last adventure. He's attempted to put some kind of makeup around the scarring that's started to creep from his ocular cavity. But he's still there in dark slacks and is glad to see you all. Although the back of his head seems to have a vertical cowlick in the back from sleeping-- (laughter)

TRAVIS: -- awkwardly in an armchair.

MARISHA: Auntie Bee is wearing the same old coat, same old shirt, freshly laundered, a few little extra stains from blood, from the kibble, from the squid dogs.

LUIS and ZEHRA: (laugh)

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: But, you know, she's making do and maybe feeling-- Look maybe a little more pale. Eyes a little darker. Hair's still a little unkempt. She looks a little stressed, but. While she may be wearing it on her face, she's not wearing it in her spirits.

ZEHRA: Mm.

SPENSER: Love that.

BRENNAN: Sean looks-- You know. It's very clear that Sean doesn't have a wardrobe. So it's whatever he has, you know, wearing the same shirt.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: That's been cleaned, but it's the same, so any holes that were there. You see there's some crude stitching around where one of the dogs bit him. Also, at the end of the last episode, he took a stitch. He did not take a stitch. So I think the main thing is body mark, brain mark, and three bleed marks. So I think Sean is looking sleepless and agitated.

ZEHRA: Dr. Jean, on first glance, looks much unchanged. New pair of crisp white gloves, freshly pressed, long, mint green peacoat. Not a hair out of place. But if you were to study her a bit more closely, also having two body marks, you can tell she's trying harder than ever to keep it together, keep it aligned. And with three bleed marks, she's a bit distracted.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

ZEHRA: When she starts to feel-- It's almost like this sense that kicks in when she's doing surgery is kicking in at random times now, and she has to really steel herself and focus to stay on that tight tether of focus.

LUIS: Well, (laughs) Marion is doing great.

MARISHA: (laughs)

SPENSER: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Apparently not, it's quite visible my boy.

MARISHA: Doing great. (laughter)

LUIS: Well, you do see that there is that-- Whereas he used to be able to cover the scar that he had from his childhood up, now it's, because of the events of last time, the scar has spread, and the spread of it is absolutely a bluish, silvery-ish bluish color. It's starting to move up his neck and across his chest. He still has some wounds that are on the mend but are still some body wounds that are still definitely not 100%. But he's wearing, he's got the same pants and the same shoes on pretty much all the time as well.

SPENSER: Yeah.

LUIS: His vest is his favorite vest. It's nice. He loves it. The shirt is another version of-- He's got a couple different shirts, but they all might as well be just the same version of each other.

SPENSER: Right, right.

LUIS: It's definitely a fresh version of the same shirt.

SPENSER: Yeah. All the same shirt.

LUIS: Yeah.

SPENSER: I love that. You see Kingsley in front of all of you. Draven Kingsley. He's dressed in a dark gray suit and a tie. He's holding folders in his hands. You notice you all have folders in where you normally sit. He's holding other folders. He quickly tucks them next to the seat, and you see a photo of you peeking out from one of them. "We had another incident recently."

TRAVIS: Damn it, Finnerty.

BRENNAN: Bad news. I'm a squid dog, and I go to unzip-- (laughter)

BRENNAN: Nah, I'm playing.

ZEHRA: Good boy.

BRENNAN: (pants)

SPENSER: "A member of Allison's crew was taken out."

MARISHA: Oh, so exactly what we feared. More retribution?

SPENSER: "I fear that is so. I appreciate the work that you all did last time, but there still seems to be more in front of you in that regard. This thing, whatever it is, is still on the loose, and I would hate to see it track down anybody else."

TRAVIS: How many were there in her circle?

SPENSER: He stares at you for just a moment.

LUIS: (gasps)

SPENSER: "There were four. So," he says, and he turns. He seems nervous. His eyes flit. Seems a little jittery. "In front of you are the details from the attack that occurred. One of our men, Adrian, was there, but was not able to stop him in time."

TRAVIS: Mm.

SPENSER: Comes over to you. Stands close to you. "I wish to ensure that all members of this circle stay safe." Moves in by your side onto your shoulder, by your shoulder and puts his hand on it. "Especially you, Mr. Trapp."

TRAVIS: I thank you for your concern, Mr. Kingsley. I assure you we're in very capable hands.

SPENSER: He gets a little too close to you. "Yes. I believe that is so." Looks around.

MARISHA: Did it seem suspiciously off?

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPENSER: Yeah. Make a Read roll for me.

MARISHA: Is he a face-stealing monster?

SPENSER: Make a Read roll for me.

TRAVIS: I will assist you.

MARISHA: That sounds great.

TRAVIS: Because he's all up in my shizz.

MARISHA: Because he's all up in your shizz.

TRAVIS: And he had onions for lunch.

BRENNAN: In this moment where everyone's really focused on Draven, who's acting weird, can I grab the folder with my photo?

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: Great.

MARISHA: I rolled a six and a one.

SPENSER: A six and a one.

MARISHA: So a six.

SPENSER: So six.

TRAVIS: Yeah, six, yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah, a six.

SPENSER: So here's what you get from the six. He's acting not like himself. His voice is the same, but what you notice is that the scar on his head isn't quite the same shape--

MARISHA: Oh, fuck this.

SPENSER: -- as it normally is. You hear, from across the room-- (pounding)

ZEHRA: (gasps) (pounding)

SPENSER: -- in one of the cabinetry.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

LUIS: Oh no!

SPENSER: As that happens, you feel searing pain on your back.

ZEHRA: Oh!

SPENSER: He's moved around to the side of you and put his hand on your back, and he takes what feels like his nail, and he drags it all the way down your back.

ZEHRA: (gasps)

SPENSER: Then you feel a hand--

ZEHRA: (gasps)

SPENSER: -- around your spinal cord.

TRAVIS: Oh! (laughs)

MARISHA: Someone do something!

SPENSER: Another hand grasping your lungs. We hear (gasps) come out of your mouth as he squeezes those lungs tightly. Go ahead and take three body for me.

TRAVIS: Oh!

LUIS: No, uh-uh, not on my watch. No, no, no. So as all everything you described is happening in my head, I see his arms wrap around him--

BRENNAN: This is a good ability.

TRAVIS: Fucking yes, it is!

BRENNAN: This is a good ability.

TRAVIS: Looper motherfucker. (laughs)

MARISHA: Yeah! (laughs)

LUIS: Flashes of what's about to happen. I see him about to get torn apart, and I rush right to you, and I pull you towards me and tell you: Run!

SPENSER: As that happens, you feel yourself pulled forward. He didn't get his hands around your lungs, but he is holding on to your spinal column here.

TRAVIS: (groaning) Gah!

SPENSER: You're able to soak one of those.

LUIS: Got it.

TRAVIS: Finnerty!

SPENSER: Correct? So you take two body.

TRAVIS: I drop. (groans)

BRENNAN: We're in a well-appointed room, right?

SPENSER: Yes.

BRENNAN: I'm going to grab a, what is supposed to be a decorational double-handed claymore broadsword off the wall and chop his fucking arm off.

MARISHA: Yes, yes!

BRENNAN: I can't kick him out the window because he's got ahold of your fucking spine.

SPENSER: Uh-huh.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I said I drop, but I think I just go like this. Just hung down.

SPENSER: We see your body lurch forward here as a broadsword comes off of the wall. Go ahead and make a Strike roll for me here.

BRENNAN: Okay.

SPENSER: As you come down on this creature.

BRENNAN: I now have the Tenacious ability because we're an Interdisciplinary circle. So one of these is actually gilded.

SPENSER: Amazing.

BRENNAN: It will go here. Then actually, one of them is gilded already. This is a Strike roll, correct?

SPENSER: Strike roll, correct.

BRENNAN: Okay, so I'm going to burn--

SPENSER: You took two, right?

TRAVIS: I took two, but that filled with three, which is a scar.

SPENSER: Okay.

TRAVIS: That means I take a new one.

SPENSER: Yeah, okay.

BRENNAN: Okay.

LUIS: Just go down one. I still absorbed one.

SPENSER: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Two was enough.

BRENNAN: That's a six.

SPENSER: That's a six! Describe for me how you do this. As you see one hand grasp around the spinal column of your lieutenant here, who is now leaning forward only supported by this single dark, long spindly hand that has dived into him.

BRENNAN: I've wanted to kill Draven Kingsley since the earlier conversation upstairs.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: Oh my god!

LUIS: Just moments ago?

BRENNAN: I think what to everyone looks like, "Wow, Sean's always really quick to act," is always, "Sean wants to kill a lot of people."

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: He's thought about this.

BRENNAN: I've thought about this. I clocked the sword up on the wall before. It's all been clocked, everything's clocked. So I grabbed the photo, file that away, turn around to see Marion getting upset. It's before-- As Marion gets up to grab LT, I'm getting up at the same moment to grab the sword.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So that as the length-- He's holding on to the spine, and as Marion pulls, he has to extend the arm to go.

SPENSER: Right and leaves the arm wide open. You see it bends the wrong way as this happens.

LUIS: Oh!

SPENSER: That's the natural way that it's-- (laughs) Fascinating.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SPENSER: That's the natural way it's body bends.

BRENNAN: There's a moment where I clock and I go: Weakest at the shoulder or the elbow? I go for the--

TRAVIS and LUIS: Oh! (laughter)

BRENNAN: I go right for the elbow. Bam!

LUIS: Goddamn it.

SPENSER: It slices clean through the elbow. You watch as the hand lets you go, you go tumbling forward unconscious here as--

MARISHA: To be fair, I hate it when people say, "We're the same" too. As soon as he say that, I was like, "Fuck you!"

SPENSER: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: I'm not even Sean, and fuck you! (laughter)

MARISHA: "We're the same."

LUIS: (laughs)

SPENSER: He stumbles back, the tendrils of his arm starting to grow back as the ichor drips.

TRAVIS: Goddamn it.

MARISHA: It started growing back?

TRAVIS: Tendrils.

SPENSER: Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

ZEHRA: While this is happening, I stay out of harm's way. I want to run to where that thump was heard to see if it's actually our Mr. Kingsley, we can enlist his help.

SPENSER: Yeah, you were hearing thumping. There's a cabinetry unit.

TRAVIS: What the fuck is-- (laughs) (laughter)

SPENSER: There's a cabinetry unit--

TRAVIS: Stop! (laughter)

SPENSER: -- that you run to and open. You see Mr. Kingsley within. His face is wide and contorted. His eyes are bulging out of his head.

LUIS: Uh-oh.

SPENSER: His shoulders have been engorged, and his body is covered in black veining. He looks as though he's screaming, but nothing is coming out of his mouth. His body is tucked into the cabinetry, all as though he was a contortionist, but he's not a contortionist.

MARISHA: Ugh!

ZEHRA: Can I check his vitals to see if he's still alive?

SPENSER: Make a Read roll for me, a Read or a Focus roll for me.

ZEHRA: I'm going to Focus.

SPENSER: Great.

ZEHRA: Since I'm Well-Read and retain knowledge better than most, when I use Intuition when making a Focus roll, if I fail the roll, I'll earn back any Intuition I use. So I'm going to burn one thing. I'm also gilded on Focus. So I'm rolling four for Focus.

SPENSER: Great.

ZEHRA: Three.

LUIS: Uh!

SPENSER: Three. So you go to touch him-

ZEHRA: Wait, can I take the one as a gilded to get my drive back.

SPENSER: You can take the one as the gilded. Get your drive back. As you go to open that cabinetry, and you reach your hand in instinctively to touch his pulse, right? He is covered in black ichor, covered in black veining. You feel a pulsating in your temple, a ringing in your ears. As you grab him, you feel his pulse is still there, but for a moment, yours is not. You're going to take two bleed marks here.

ZEHRA: And that's a scar.

LUIS: No!

SPENSER: And that's a scar. So you watch as Jean at the cabinetry drops as well in front of Mr. Kingsley here. Both of them laying on the ground. Black ichor on her hand.

MARISHA: While all this is happening, if I may?

SPENSER: Please.

MARISHA: Aunt Bee looks around. She's looking for a silvered serving tray, or a mirror, or something reflective.

LUIS: Yes, yes, yes.

SPENSER: So make a Survey roll for me.

MARISHA: All right then, Street Smarts.

SPENSER: As that happens--

TRAVIS: We still have our hand mirrors.

SPENSER: We still do have the hand mirrors.

MARISHA: Yes, oh, that's true.

SPENSER: You could put as your gear if you want to mark gear for this.

TRAVIS: Bleed containment gear and hand mirrors.

MARISHA: I'm still going to do this, and I'm going to spend the drive because I can get it back. Potentially, I'm going to spend--

SPENSER: As you're rolling that, this thing makes eye contact with you, Sean, and says, "I know the vengeance. I know what it's like," turns to you, "to watch somebody you care for die. My sister died," stares at you, "at their hands."

MARISHA: Is the sister from...

SPENSER: The creature starts to transform from Kingsley into--

MARISHA: Sister.

SPENSER: Kingsley's head slides up onto the top of its head.

LUIS: Oh no.

SPENSER: Its maw starts to extend out. This is from the description, very clearly, the creature that killed--

TRAVIS: Antonio.

SPENSER: Antonio. And was not like the description what you saw.

MARISHA: He said Allison is still alive, but if he doesn't know that.

SPENSER: Well, Allison was--

LUIS: Halved.

SPENSER: -- was hurt by some other creature that was like this, right? And then lit on fire. So he's staring at you going, "They killed my sister."

TRAVIS: Oh, yep, yep.

MARISHA: Oh.

TRAVIS: That was there.

BRENNAN: I think this creature says this to me, and Sean's internal-- The inside of Sean's-- Ears hear, but the mind doesn't.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: The second that there was a hand around LT's spine, everything this creature says is like (pops and whirring). I hear gunshots and fire and everything is controlled breathing. Everything is just red. There's some part of my mind feeling the letter inside of my coat and then goes: Everyone wants to talk after the shit goes down. I'm going to drop the sword and take out the shotgun.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

BRENNAN: If this thing's trying to tell me a sob story, I literally can't hear it.

MARISHA: I rolled a six for my Survey, by the way.

SPENSER: Amazing. So you were looking for a mirror here.

MARISHA: Mirror, silver tray or something.

SPENSER: You know there's one downstairs in the bathroom.

MARISHA: Fuck that. I don't have time for that. I pull out the mirror from my fucking pocket.

SPENSER: The hand mirror?

MARISHA: The hand mirror.

SPENSER: Yeah, the tendrils of this creature's hand reach out and shatter the mirror in your hand--

LUIS: No!

ZEHRA: Oh!

MARISHA: Yeah, okay. Fuck.

SPENSER: -- crushing it and letting it go.

LUIS: What the hell?

SPENSER: This thing is far beyond--

MARISHA: Shit.

SPENSER: -- what you've faced here. As this is happening, though, we see you staring ahead of you. This creature is here. LT is still here on the ground, but this is as though it's in the battlefield for you. You see this creature standing in front of you yelling at you, its arm dripping in black ichor. It's trying to convey to you, "We are the same!"

BRENNAN: (laughs) I'm hearing that.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: All I'm hearing in my head is the voice of Dr. Nero back in NoMAD being like, "You may see strange things on these missions."

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: "You may even see enemy combatants take the form of children. They may beg you not to hurt them."

MARISHA: Oh!

SPENSER: "But you must simply understand." I look as this thing says, "I'm like you," and I go: (scoffs) No shit, I'm a monster, too. And I raise the gun.

MARISHA: Oh!

BRENNAN: And-- (laughs)

SPENSER: Take a shot?

BRENNAN: Yeah, take a shot.

SPENSER: Okay, sounds great.

TRAVIS: God. Fucking--

ZEHRA: Yeah!

BRENNAN: That's a six.

SPENSER: That's a six.

TRAVIS: (snaps fingers)

SPENSER: (body trauma) This creature gets hit, too, in the stomach.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

SPENSER: It looks down. You see its body is dripping purple chromatic ichor now. It touches its chest. "She's coming. She's going to get out. We're going to get her out. We're going to get her out," and then stumbles backwards and then falls out the window, the stained glass window.

ZEHRA and LUIS: (gasp)

LUIS: Not my window!

TRAVIS: (laughs) Oh, fuck!

ZEHRA: The petunia.

SPENSER: And disappears into the night.

LUIS: It-- oh. So there's no trace at this--

SPENSER: If you go look out the window, this thing is gone.

LUIS: Damn!

BRENNAN: I am going to-- Seeing this thing fall out the window, I am going to look at Marion and say: Fake Kingsley was upstairs. I'm going to rush up to the archives where all of the dangerous magick shit--

TRAVIS: Oh shit, yeah. Oh yeah.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Rush up there.

SPENSER: You all are already upstairs but there's--

MARISHA: What is missing? 100%

TRAVIS: He's had a hall pass.

SPENSER: You're already upstairs, but the archives are back behind where the meeting room is.

BRENNAN: I'm rushing back. I say that to you and I'll look at Aunt Bee and I'll be like: Check to make sure this motherfucker's dead! Doc, LT's hurt! I'm going to rush into the archives.

SPENSER: Great. Yeah, you rush--

ZEHRA: I'm hurt.

LUIS: Doc is out.

ZEHRA: I'm out.

LUIS: Unconscious, unconscious.

ZEHRA: I got a scar. I'm like--

BRENNAN: Marion, tell Doc--

LUIS: I got it.

BRENNAN: Yeah. (laughter)

LUIS: I got it. Go, go!

SPENSER: You rush back into the archives.

TRAVIS: (laughing) Holy shit!

SPENSER: It's as though this place has been raided.

TRAVIS: (drawn-out sigh)

MARISHA: Oh, son of a bitch!

SPENSER: Things are gone here. You were fixing things that were in the front room, but as you enter the back area that you aren't normally allowed to go, they are-- It is raided.

MARISHA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LUIS: We're in the room together?

MARISHA: We're in the room together. Aunt Bee yells up to Sean and goes: Check the cabinet where the androphage was! Which was up there, right? He put it where we--

SPENSER: It's in the room that you're in right now.

MARISHA: The room that we're in.

SPENSER: Yeah, because remember, he took it from you--

MARISHA: Fuck!

SPENSER: -- and put in the cabinet.

MARISHA: Put it in the cabinet. I open the cabinet.

SPENSER: Yeah, the cabinet. As you open the cabinet, you pull out the drawer. It's a hidden compartment back there.

MARISHA: Uh-huh. So the androphage is still there.

MARISHA: As well as the other containment vials and stuff?

LUIS: He ransacked stuff that's more important than that.

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LUIS: I don't want to lose him. I don't want to-- I want to make sure that that thing is down there and is out, and if not, I don't want to lose track of him. Can you? I'm holding her.

MARISHA: You go track that. I'm going to get her up so she can get him up.

LUIS: I'm going to run outside.

SPENSER: Yeah. As you run around, you see a spot on the ground where the creature hit a carriage.

LUIS: Okay.

SPENSER: Crushed a carriage down.

LUIS: Uh-huh.

SPENSER: You see twisted metal and wood, but the creature's nowhere to be found.

LUIS: I'm going to try to Sense to see what direction it went.

SPENSER: Great, that sounds good.

LUIS: See if I can get a ping.

SPENSER: Make a Sense roll. As you do that, we see Kingsley and you on the ground. The danger for the moment in that room has passed so your eyes flit open and you see a man lying sideways, looking at you also lying sideways, his mouth wide open. His rasping breath reminds you of the sound that your father made, overtaken by bleed. He says, "Kill me. Kill, kill me! (raspy breathing) "I'm not done! Don't let me end up like her!"

MARISHA: Can Auntie Bee hear this, too?

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: I see the horror on Jean's face and I snap her face to look at me.

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: Don't worry, don't. You can't worry about that right now. You got to get Nathaniel up.

ZEHRA: Mm.

MARISHA: I can handle him. You just, you tend to him.

ZEHRA: All right, I'm unsteady on my feet and I look at Nathaniel and go to patch him up, grab my bag. And-- Ah! My hand. There's something wrong with my hand. Pull off my glove. And where the tips of my fingers on my left hand used to be are little tendrils of blue flame. It's very hot, and I'm horrified, but then I'm fascinated. Huh.

SPENSER: Classic doctor. Love it.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh! (laughter)

ZEHRA: I grab the sack with my good hand, and I head back to Nathan to do some patch up.

SPENSER: Yeah, you kneel down next to Nathan, Nathaniel. The danger in this room has passed. We see your eyes flit open, but you are still very hurt. You took an additional body, is that correct?

TRAVIS: I did.

SPENSER: Okay, great. So you have one body on your sheet. You're going to use Patch Up here to do this?

ZEHRA: I'm going to use Patch Up.

SPENSER: Okay.

ZEHRA: So I'm going to make a Focus roll to heal an ally one body mark.

SPENSER: Then, Luis, we're going to come back to you. Don't worry. As this happens, as that roll is happening, tell me what scar you're going to take. It's a body scar, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah, I mean, he had his hand around my fucking spine so-- (sighs) When you run your finger along someone's back and you can feel the little nubs of the vertebrae--

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: (groans softly)

TRAVIS: They're a little bit bigger than they were before.

ZEHRA: (gasps)

TRAVIS: They crest just between the scapulas, between the shoulder blades up to the neck. And what really hurts in the beginning starts to feel really strong in short order.

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: But also very numb and strange. And for some reason, his right leg isn't quite working the way that it should.

BRENNAN: Mm.

LUIS: Oh man.

SPENSER: Great. What action points do you want to move?

TRAVIS: Yeah. (laughs and stammers) (laughter)

SPENSER: You can also think about it right now, if you'd like to.

TRAVIS: No, no, I'm going to move one of Focus.

SPENSER: Okay.

TRAVIS: Into (chuckles).

ZEHRA: Oh, that's right.

TRAVIS: Into--

SPENSER: Yeah, you need to shift one as well.

TRAVIS: Strike.

SPENSER: Ooh, going full strike.

LUIS: Good.

SPENSER: Good, we're going to need it.

TRAVIS: I, fuck, yeah.

LUIS: I lost my Strike last time.

MARISHA: Looking at, oh, sorry.

SPENSER: Yeah, please go ahead. No.

MARISHA: Looking at Draven while Jean handles Nathaniel, I'm over top of Draven. From what educated experience I have from tending to wounded soldiers, does he look beyond repair?

SPENSER: He looks pretty bad. He looks not like you're used to with soldiers. He's covered in bleed. This is not injuries like you're used to from the war. This is injuries that are supernatural, paranormal in nature. It's very hard to tell from your expertise whether this is something that's survivable.

MARISHA: Is he still pleading for death?

SPENSER: Fading in and out of consciousness and pleading for death. We're going to cut back down to you since I know you rolled to Sense which direction this went.

LUIS: I'll roll now.

SPENSER: We can come back. I just want to make sure since I told you to make that roll.

LUIS: Six.

SPENSER: That's a six. Yeah, you can tell that this thing just went up to out of the carriage that it crashed in, up the street, and then took off up on top of buildings.

LUIS: Got it.

SPENSER: Scurried up on top of the buildings and went out into Hallowharbor away from the ocean.

LUIS: Okay, so more towards the city.

SPENSER: More towards the city. More towards the center of the city itself, correct. That's the direction that you know it went. What do you all want to do?

ZEHRA: Uh.

SPENSER: Yeah.

ZEHRA: I rolled a five on my Patch Up with the gilded die.

SPENSER: Great.

ZEHRA: So I am taking-- I have to take two Intuition away to use this, but I also, it was gilded so that means I earn one back.

SPENSER: One back, so you only spend one to do it.

ZEHRA: Great.

SPENSER: Great. And on the gilded die, just making sure, when you have a gilded action, it doesn't add a die to your roll. It only--

ZEHRA: Right.

SPENSER: So I don't know if you--

ZEHRA: Oh, I see. It replaces one of the--

SPENSER: It replaces a die.

ZEHRA: I will note that for next time.

SPENSER: So for next time. Yeah, no problem. Great, you take that five.

ZEHRA: That five is directed to his heal.

SPENSER: Great, you're going to heal one body mark here. What's it look like as you patch this up quickly?

ZEHRA: Oh, it's not my best work, but the skin, I try to put the skin back together around this enlarged spinal column, and it's very tender, but it comes together all the way. There's very, very little chance at any infection even as the bone is pushing against this.

TRAVIS: Can we see any of that blue flame on your fingertips?

ZEHRA: Then for added benefit, I cauterize it.

TRAVIS: I was going to-- yeah!

SPENSER: Yeah! So good.

TRAVIS: Yes! (pats table and laughs)

MARISHA: Dang!

LUIS: What the hell?

ZEHRA: And because I--

TRAVIS: Wait, give me the bourbon! (groans) (laughter)

ZEHRA: I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!

TRAVIS: That's good, that's good. (groans)

ZEHRA: That should do it.

LUIS: I give you some more of that bourbon or scotch that you were drinking.

TRAVIS: Oh, thank you. (groans)

LUIS: Here, just--

ZEHRA: Because I took this scar, I removed a point from Hide because there's no hiding a flame hand. I moved it to Control because I have to work harder and be more specific now with my hands.

SPENSER: Yeah, I love that. It's such a good shift.

LUIS: Nice.

SPENSER: For the moment here, there is calm outside. There is calm in here. Kingsley's breath (inhales raspily) rasping in front of you, wracked with bleed. As you look over at him, hearing that voice, that familiar voice, you see for a moment your father's face in his.

MARISHA: His body was all contorted and shoved and broken and just fucked up.

SPENSER: Correct.

MARISHA: I--

SPENSER: What do you all want to do?

TRAVIS: Can I move over to King--?

MARISHA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Can I move to Kingsley and say: Listen, with whatever time you have left, where did that come from?

SPENSER: "(breathes raspily) I don't know."

TRAVIS: Fuck! I shake him.

SPENSER: "(grunts)"

TRAVIS: Who do you report to? Who is above you?

SPENSER: "(inhales roughly)" He looks over his shoulder. "(inhales raspily) They're going-- They're going after Allison. (inhales raspily)"

MARISHA: Allison is who they have to find.

TRAVIS: Do you have a key? Anything? The hidden parts of this chapter house.

SPENSER: "(groans raspily)" His eyes bulge and they start to fill with blood.

ZEHRA: From my bag, I pull out a vial of shining green.

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

ZEHRA: We have to keep him alive.

MARISHA: What?

ZEHRA: We have to keep him alive!

LUIS: We have to keep him talking. At least for that much.

ZEHRA: I begin filling a syringe with the vial.

MARISHA: What is that, my dear? Is that from EONS?

ZEHRA: It is a temporary solution. Something I would hoped I would never have had to use again. And I plunge the syringe--

MARISHA: Fuck! All right.

ZEHRA: -- into Mr. Kingsley's arm.

SPENSER: "(gurgles)" His eyes go wide. There's, for a moment, a sense of relief.

TRAVIS: Finnerty?

BRENNAN: I'm upstairs in the archives looking around.

TRAVIS: Fuck. I step back.

LUIS: I want to tie him up.

SPENSER: Okay.

LUIS: I'm sorry, sir. We just got to-- We can't trust you right now, but we need you to talk. I'm going to start to get rope and I'm going to start to tie his hands behind his back. If there's a chair, I'm going to sit him in a chair and I'm going to start to tie his legs.

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: While he does that, I will go back to that mahogany box with the finely lacquered varnish, open it. I will take the officer's pistol out of it now and stick it in my fucking holster.

SPENSER: We see it slide in, Lieutenant. And that's where we're going to go on break. (shouting)

BRENNAN: Hey, oh, hey!

MARISHA: That's right, break. Jesus christ!

TRAVIS: (chuckles)

MARISHA: Yeah, I was two seconds from putting this guy out of his misery. (laughter)

MARISHA: No, no--

LUIS: I know.

BRENNAN: I'm so glad-- No, everyone, I was literally--

TRAVIS: Like, "I'm upstairs."

MARISHA: He was about to go night-night.

BRENNAN: If Sean had been there it'd be like, "Okay, this guy wants to die."

MARISHA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: We all want him to be alive. It's a fucking democracy. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Majority wins, motherfucker. Talk. (laughter)

SPENSER: Amazing. All right, we'll be right back.

TRAVIS: Oh!

ZEHRA: Whew!

Break

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SPENSER: Hey friends, my name is Spenser Starke. I'm one of the designers of "Candela Obscura," a brand new horror role playing game that follows a century's old secret society on their quest to protect humanity from the terrors of the unknown. It's set in a fictional world filled with turn of the century technology. "Candela Obscura" is powered by the Illuminated Worlds system a game engine we've created to facilitate fast, easy to pick up, cinematic style play. I'm not going to cover all the rules here so make sure you go download the Quickstart guide if you want more details, but by the end of this video you should have enough to follow along with the show. To play, you only need six-sided dice or d6s. The game uses a dice pool system, which means you'll be rolling a number of these dice and usually taking the highest result. A six represents a full success. A four or five is a mixed success. You get what you want, but it comes at a cost. And a three or below is a miss. In order to know how many dice are in your dice pool we'll need to talk a little bit about character creation. Each player will choose both a role and a specialty inside of that role. Think of these kind of like a class and a subclass. The five roles are Face, Muscle, Scholar, Slink, and Weird. Each role contains two specialties. The Face has Journalist and Magician. The Muscle has Soldier and Explorer. The Scholar has Professor and Doctor. The Slink has Criminal and Detective, and the Weird has Medium and Occultist. When you choose a specialty, you'll then take its custom character sheet. At the top, you'll find space for your character's name, pronouns, and style, as well as your Circle, Catalyst, and Question. Under Circle, you'll write the name of the Candela Obscura group your character is a part of. The Catalyst is the moment in your character's life that led them to search out the secret society, and the Question is what your character is seeking answers to now that they're within the society. These are jumping off points to help you build out your character's backstory. (dramatic piano music)

SPENSER: On the left side of the character sheet, you'll find actions, drives, and resistances. These are the core of the Illuminated Worlds system. Each action has a rating between zero and three that determines how many dice you roll when performing that action. Those actions each fall underneath one of three drives: Nerve, Cunning, and Intuition. Nerve includes physical maneuvers like Move, Strike, and Control. Cunning pertains to your interactions with people, like Sway, Read, and Hide, and Intuition is your mental and metaphysical aptitude, like Survey, Focus, and Sense. Whenever you make a roll, you may also spend points from the drive that action falls under to add additional dice to your roll. For example, if you're trying to convince someone to let you into a place you don't belong, the GM may ask you for a Sway roll. You would take a number of dice equal to the action rating you have in sway, which in this case would be one, and then you could also spend any of your Cunning to add additional dice. I have six available. I'm going to spend two to get a total of three dice in my pool. Drive points are a liquid currency, so once they're spent, they must be refreshed before they can be used again. Under normal circumstances, there is only one way to refresh drives during an assignment, and this is done through gilded actions represented by a diamond on the left side of that action. Anytime you make a roll using that action, you'll replace one of the standard dice with a gilded die instead. If you choose to take the gilded die's result, you refresh one point in the drive that encompasses that action. For example, my Sway is gilded, so if I took the gilded result on the roll I would refresh one Cunning. Sometimes this might mean you choose to take a lower dice result in an effort to earn back your drive. If you have zero points in an action, you can still roll that action. You can either spend drive points to roll that many dice, or if you don't want to spend drive, you roll two dice and you take the lower result. Lastly, we have resistances. You'll have a number of these at the start of an assignment and can spend them to reroll dice when you want to push back on the consequences of a bad roll. (folksy accordion and autoharp music)

SPENSER: Okay, moving to the center of your character sheet you'll find your character's abilities. These vary from role to role and specialty to specialty, but you'll choose one ability from the top section and one from the bottom during character creation. For example, if you choose to play the Journalist, you might take an ability that gives you more context in the city, or lets you tell when people are lying, or gains you insider access to important people or places. Below that, you'll find your Illumination Keys. These represent how you earn experience within the game by offering playable goals to work towards during each assignment. (intense string music)

SPENSER: On the right side of your character sheet are marks and scars. Marks are how you take damage. There are three types of marks: body, brain, and bleed. Body represents physical injury. Brain represents mental stress and fatigue, and bleed represents damage taken from dangerous magick. Each of these categories has three available slots, and if you're ever inflicted with a mark, but cannot take it because the slots are already full, you'll drop incapacitated in the scene, clear the marks to zero in that section, and take a scar. You'll come up with what your scar is, then shift a point from one of your actions to another. This reflects how your character has changed because of the scar that they've taken. If you should ever need to take a scar and all three scar slots are already full your character is permanently incapacitated or dead. Below that is a section for relationships. This is to write down the names of the other characters you're playing with and the kinds of connections you share with them. You'll also answer prompts based on those relationships that help you flesh out the details. Finally, let's talk about gear. On each sheet, there's a list of gear that is unique to that specialty. You don't need to choose your gear ahead of time. In "Candela Obscura," you select your gear only when you need it. You may mark up to three gear slots during the assignment declaring you brought the item with you, and in this way, your character is prepared for any situation they encounter during their investigation. There is plenty more to learn about the Illuminated Worlds system as well as the world of the Fairelands. So go grab the Quickstart Guide and follow along as we embark upon the strange adventures of "Candela Obscura." (dramatic orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music)

Part II

SPENSER: And we return to Kingsley in a chair, tied up, black veins snaking up his neck, across his face, down his arms. They're pulsating. Looks worse for wear, but alive for now. What would you all like to do?

LUIS: He is just emanating bleed?

SPENSER: Just emanating.

LUIS: I want to see if there's a way that I can determine by just tapping into that other layer that I can experience how much time he might have before he becomes something else or just drops dead.

SPENSER: Great. Make a Sense roll for me. As it's happening, you see his head start to drop a little bit and he pulls himself back out of consciousness. Unconsciousness, I should say.

LUIS: That is a six.

SPENSER: That's a six! He looks as though he will survive for at least the next hour or so. Beyond that, it's hard to know.

TRAVIS: Can I start to inspect this level?

SPENSER: Sure.

TRAVIS: Rooms, the folder, why Sean's picture was in there.

MARISHA: Oh yeah.

TRAVIS: Just everything.

SPENSER: Sure. You go over to the folders and you flip them open. What you find are that there are folders on all of you.

ZEHRA: Oh.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

ZEHRA: And you used that picture? Hmm. (laughter)

TRAVIS: I did.

SPENSER: That's so good. Sean's photo was the one that happened to peek out but there are photos of all of you, files on all of you. What you would gather from this is that this creature, whoever they are, was trying to learn who all of you were before you arrived.

BRENNAN: Does this look like Candela had the-- Also, I'll come back from the archives and say--

SPENSER: Sure, yeah, yeah.

LUIS: We'll come get you.

BRENNAN: Yeah, I'll just come back and say-- Yeah. Got to him.

TRAVIS: They raided us?

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LUIS: There's nothing left up there?

BRENNAN: You know, crumbs, couple of things. Anything that was juicy is gone.

TRAVIS: The androphage?

MARISHA: Oh yeah.

BRENNAN: That would've been in the--

MARISHA: We got that. And I'll take the androphage.

SPENSER: Yeah. There you go. You want to pass that?

TRAVIS: Yep.

SPENSER: Thank you.

MARISHA: Might as well.

ZEHRA: Johnny, was it?

TRAVIS: (gulps)

MARISHA: (shouts) Oh god!

BRENNAN: How's Johnny looking? Is he all right?

MARISHA: (uncertain noises)

TRAVIS: (high-pitched) Free me.

LUIS: Free me!

MARISHA: He's our new friend.

BRENNAN: Looking at our folders, does this look as though these folders were being kept by Candela and the creature made use of them?

SPENSER: Correct.

BRENNAN: Okay.

SPENSER: You see on the folders themselves, they have a description of you, physical description, height, weight. They also have a section on personality and temperament. Then there's also like address of where you live, as well as specialties that you would have.

BRENNAN: Do we see anything-- I think Sean will take a moment to read his.

SPENSER: Sure. Yeah.

BRENNAN: Specifically looking-- None of this raises a flag? Like having the location and information, we have a dangerous job and the organization tracking us is in one way reassuring, but I think Sean is looking for anything un-reassuring and is looking for anything that would be more-- Also, if there's a section on personality, I think there's a moment where he's like, "Yeah, what am I like?" You know? Like, to look at it and read the personality section.

SPENSER: Yeah. On your file, as you open it, it says under location, N/A. Then under personality, it says, "Focused, diligent, hotheaded, violent, prone to rage. Question mark."

BRENNAN: The list doesn't mention my keen sense of humor anywhere.

LUIS: Really? It doesn't? Let me see. Nope, it's not there.

ZEHRA: Focused?

MARISHA: Hmm.

BRENNAN: The hell?

TRAVIS: Would we know where files like this were kept?

SPENSER: Yeah. You would know that there are files within the archive somewhere. If you wanted to make a Survey roll to see where the rest of the ones for-- What you do know is it's this chapter house that would hold the records for the part of the organization that comes through this chapter.

TRAVIS: It feels like we need to keep Draven talking, but if there are files on Allison and the rest of her circle, we should try and find whatever they had on the rest of her fellows. Figure out where they are.

LUIS: Right. They're not mixed in with the files that we have. These files are just ours.

SPENSER: Those are just yours. Correct.

LUIS: Okay. I'm going to go take a double check. I think that you-- Look, he's got about an hour. You are very convincing.

TRAVIS: Uh-- Yeah, five.

SPENSER: Five. Okay.

LUIS: So other people here are more convincing than I am. I'm going to go take another sweep. I'm going to basically go back, retracing your steps, and I'm going to scan. I'm looking for artifact. I'm looking for anything that we can wear that's going to protect us against supernatural powers.

TRAVIS: It's loadout time.

LUIS: I want necklaces. Yeah. I mean, I want to really raid this and hopefully look for secret compartments that may have been missed anywhere.

BRENNAN: You're going to be going looking for stuff?

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: I'm going to say: Listen. I mean, I can beat the shit out of Draven. I don't know that I can convince him to do anything.

ZEHRA: Let's please not beat the shit out of him.

BRENNAN: I agree, so listen. If we're not going to--

SPENSER: "(gasping and wheezing)" He coughs. "I want to help."

MARISHA: Where are the files? Where are the files on the other members that this monster is stalking?

SPENSER: He points to the back area in the archive room where you were. "Second-- Second drawer."

BRENNAN: Where's the kid?

SPENSER: He looks at you.

BRENNAN: Where's the kid? Lucas? Where's the kid?

SPENSER: We cut to a shot of a teddy bear being held by a boy. He's cowering in the corner downstairs in the bathroom.

MARISHA: Oh, this poor fucking kid.

LUIS: He's here!

SPENSER: Who is standing there with him? Who went to find him? Is that you?

BRENNAN: Yeah, I'll go, but if Draven says that he's in the house, I'm going to go find the kid.

SPENSER: Yeah, the kid. So the shot that we get-- We see-- you're running off to go with the files.

TRAVIS: To the second drawer. Great. We see you going to the files in the second drawer, flipping through them with your fingers. As that happens, we cut to you standing in the doorway. A soldier. Face to face with-- Not face-to-face, but like, one-on-one with the boy who is cowering in the corner of the bathroom holding the bear. The bear still has an evidence tag hanging from it. He says, "Is he okay?" Looking at you. "Mr. Kingsley? Is he okay?"

BRENNAN: It's all right, kid. I'm going to walk over.

SPENSER: He gets scared as you approach him.

BRENNAN: I am having a hard time seeing this kid look up at me in fear. It's all right.

SPENSER: He tries to scoot, but there's nowhere to go.

SPENSER: Kid, (sighs) you got nothing to be afraid of, all right? Just get up. Draven's not doing all right. Okay?

SPENSER: Make a Sway roll for me.

BRENNAN: That's a five.

SPENSER: That's a five. The boy looks up at you, tears filling his eyes. And you know. You've seen this look before. [creepy violin scales] [explosion]

SPENSER: When you cornered that child. [gunshots] [creepy music]

SPENSER: And you saw this fear-- [blaring siren] [gunshots]

SPENSER: What did he look like? [gunshots] [siren blares]

BRENNAN: We were deep behind enemy lines in Otherwhere. Northern Maritime Allied Defense. [gunshots]

BRENNAN: They're a regular battalion. [three thudding explosions]

BRENNAN: We're in Bravo Company, third platoon called Ghost. [giant explosion]

BRENNAN: Our Lieutenant, Alice Hayes, worked with a man named Dr. Oliver Nero. We were told that the enemy had tools beyond reckoning. Dangerous, powerful technologies. [gunshots]

BRENNAN: It was strange. Had the potential to wipe out all of Hale, everyone in Newfaire, dead in an instant. [gunshots]

BRENNAN: Technology is not the word I would've used to describe what we saw. [gunshots] [explosion] [gunshots]

BRENNAN: This look of fear on a child's face-- [creepy music intensifies] [gunshots]

BRENNAN: -- mirrored my own, because we had seen all the things that these kids could do. Research all just starting. If the kid had just come with me, and if there hadn't been that flash in his eyes like he could do something that I couldn't understand. [explosions]

BRENNAN: I'm not holding a weapon right now, so when my right index finger twitches, nothing happens. [explosions]

MARISHA: Can Auntie Bee come up and just grab Sean? I'm kind of seeing. Hey.

BRENNAN: (whimpers)

MARISHA: Hey, hey, hey.

BRENNAN: Get off of me.

MARISHA: It's all right. It's all right. Come on, honey. Why don't you come with me?

BRENNAN: I'm sorry, kid.

MARISHA: I look at the kid. Right. Go with Dr. Jean. You know you'll be all right. I'm going to let him just scoot by.

SPENSER: Take two points of brain.

LUIS: (whispers) Oh fuck.

SPENSER: But with that five, the child looks at you.

BRENNAN: I'm going to kneel down. Never go in the tub. What you got to do is look at these vents in the corner, all right? They got four screws in them. You find something like a penny that fits in the slot. You unscrew all of them, you crawl inside. They're going to sweep every single room. (aggressively) You understand?

SPENSER: He drops the bear. "Are you saving the world or are you hurting it?"

BRENNAN: What'd you say?

SPENSER: "Are you saving the world or are you hurting it? I think you're saving the world, but I think you think you're hurting it."

BRENNAN: (shudders) Freaky little fucking kid. Fuck. Fuck out of here.

MARISHA: Come on, come on, come on.

ZEHRA: Mr. Suarez? Come with me.

SPENSER: The child walks forward, keeping eyes on you the whole way.

BRENNAN: Let's get out of this fricking place. (stammering) I leave the chapter house.

SPENSER: Okay.

BRENNAN: I'm out of here.

SPENSER: We see you walk out the front door.

MARISHA: (sighs)

SPENSER: Land on the four of you. You have rifled through the paperwork here. There are names of people that are part of the Hallowharbor chapter house, but that doesn't seem to be where these individuals would be. Allison is not in there. There is not a remnant of-- Sorry, forgetting the name. The guy--

TRAVIS: Antonio?

SPENSER: Not Antonio, because he wasn't in the circle, but it would've been Joshua Fisher, I think was the name, that was the other man who was killed. I don't think we even mentioned his name, but Joshua Fisher, yeah, would've been the one. You don't see either of their names here. So they were clearly in a chapter house that was not Hallowharbor.

ZEHRA: While I've made sure that the child is kept occupied in another room, I want to go back to Mr. Kingsley and try to ascertain the extent of his bleed. Also if he can tell me anything about the nature of how did this creature overtake him?

SPENSER: Yeah, he looks at you, eyes wide. "(wheezing) I'm not going to make it, doctor."

ZEHRA: Mr. Kingsley.

SPENSER: "What did you use on me?"

ZEHRA: That's not important.

SPENSER: (gruffly) "What did you put in me?"

ZEHRA: Adjuvant. You know what it is.

SPENSER: "That's EONS tech."

ZEHRA: It was developed by EONS to mitigate bleed in humans.

SPENSER: He looks down at his arm, which is glowing, blue, green, purple, blue, green.

ZEHRA: But it's only temporary. It won't last long. You will need more of it to survive. But may I ask, if I may, what does it feel like? The Adjuvant?

SPENSER: "Like sea water. It washes in and out. I can hear my blood moving in and out. You have to help them."

ZEHRA: Help who?

SPENSER: "Duncan and Farrah and Allison."

ZEHRA: Duncan? Fora?

SPENSER: "Farrah."

ZEHRA: Farrah. Where can we find them? Do you know?

SPENSER: "No, it's-- (choking)" As he says that, you see his tongue starts crawling out of his mouth.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

LUIS: Oh no.

SPENSER: It goes down his neck and then falls onto the floor.

ZEHRA: Oh.

SPENSER: "(wheezing)" He can't speak, but he's trying to reach out for something to help communicate.

ZEHRA: I hand him a pencil.

SPENSER: Uh-huh.

ZEHRA: And a piece of parchment.

SPENSER: Yeah, uh-huh. He takes those in his hand as carefully as he can, though his hands are shaking, he writes, "Silvers--" And then it slips.

ZEHRA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Is this the other chapter house? Is this what he is trying to show us?

TRAVIS: That's where they would be at.

SPENSER: Then brings the pencil back up and writes the numbers of the address and the beginning of the street. He has to focus to do this, but he gives you where to go before the pencil snaps in his hand and his fingers start growing, engorging. The strength of his hand grows without him knowing. He puts that hand down onto the chair that he's sitting on and the chair snaps underneath him. He's now laying sideways on the chair. He puts his hand down on the ground and it goes through the floor as this happens. What do you all want to do?

MARISHA: I'm getting nervous.

ZEHRA: We have to contain, we cannot let him die. I know he's given us information we need to move forward, but we-- I cannot let him die.

MARISHA: Jinnah, you can't save everyone and that's not-- that's not your fault. You're not doing harm by letting him go. If anything, you may be doing more harm trying to keep him alive.

ZEHRA: Bee, please.

MARISHA: That shot you gave him, does it do anything to take the pain away?

ZEHRA: I don't know. It seems to help mitigate certain symptoms, but I have not seen symptoms the like of Mr. Kingsley and the amount I gave him, it seems to be wearing off.

SPENSER: As you look up at Bee, you see over her shoulder, Avery Choi standing there.

LUIS: Oh.

SPENSER: You don't see anything behind you.

MARISHA: Jinnah, focus.

SPENSER: Avery's standing in the corner of the room staring at you.

MARISHA: Jinnah, whatever you see, it's not real. You have to focus in this moment.

ZEHRA: He lives. I will not let him die.

MARISHA: Jinnah.

ZEHRA: Turn away from Auntie Bee, and I look back at Mr. Kingsley and consider options to help contain the bleed.

MARISHA: I'm going to go up to Kingsley, and if you're not going to let him go, then at least not let him suffer. She's going to reach into her little medicine pouch that she has hanging off and she pulls out a little capsule and she's going to break it under his nose and it's a capsule filled with scarlet in a breathable powder form. So she uses it like a smelling salt to at least try and mitigate some of the pain.

SPENSER: I'm going to have you make a Sway roll to keep him calm with this. The effect will be greater because you're using an object to do that.

MARISHA: Five.

LUIS: Ooh.

SPENSER: Here's what happens. You break that under his nose. His head starts up at you. His hand grabs your hand.

MARISHA: It's all right, sweet boy.

SPENSER: His hand that just broke through the floor, grabs your hand and he pulls you towards him and your wrist pops. Go ahead and take a point of body for me.

MARISHA: (groans)

SPENSER: But he lets go, realizing what's happening, not knowing his own strength.

MARISHA: I try to just--

SPENSER: His eyes start to swirl as they do when the hallucinogens.

MARISHA: Non-Combatant, my pain spurs others into action. If I haven't hurt anyone yet, which I haven't, when I take a mark, each of my allies in the scene can recover one drive point of their choice. So I think every, you're not here, but--

BRENNAN: I ran out of the chapter house.

SPENSER: The three of you, you watched as Bee gets hurt.

MARISHA: (groans)

LUIS: How far away am I because I went back up to look, to where the artifacts were. I'm still nearby.

SPENSER: You hear her yelp as this happens, you're still here.

MARISHA: I just kind of, I steady everyone off. Get--

SPENSER: He's watching something floating by.

MARISHA: Get what you need out of him. I've got to go check on Sean.

ZEHRA: I will heal you later.

MARISHA: Auntie Bee turns and--

ZEHRA: I'll take a look at that wrist.

MARISHA: I'm fine! Then Bee turns and goes look for Sean.

SPENSER: Great, we see you exit the chapter house. We stay on you here as the streets sit silent. There's a crushed carriage outside that was left over from when the creature fell out of the window, but besides that, everything here is pretty quiet in Hallowharbor. You hear the dinging of the ships. What do you want to do?

MARISHA: Any sign of Sean? Quick scan.

BRENNAN: I'm happy to leave it up to the dice, or if it makes more sense for me to--

SPENSER: Let's roll Survey.

MARISHA: All right.

BRENNAN: I'll roll--

MARISHA: Street Smarts.

SPENSER: You want to roll high.

BRENNAN: Yeah, I'll roll high.

SPENSER: We'll say tie will go to the initiator.

BRENNAN: That's a four.

SPENSER: That's a four.

MARISHA: Five on my gilded die.

SPENSER: Where does Bee find you?

BRENNAN: I'm outside the chapter house. I was prepared to charge off into the night, but the shattered carriage has reminded me that there's something a little bit more pressing and important going on. I think I'm smoking, and I'm moving a baseball around in my hand and I'm counting the stitches because it's a Möbius loop. It's just one line of stitches. I'm counting it kind of like a rosary.

MARISHA: ♪ Take me out to the ballgame ♪ ♪ Take me out to the ballgame ♪ Do you remember that time, shortly after we lost your dad, me and your mother? It's like you and I think Tony, I don't think Jimmy was with us from what my shaky memory can recall.

BRENNAN: Jimmy was sick.

MARISHA: He was sick, that's right. We took you to the game. I don't think you boys had ever seen a, seen a building so big as the stadium and that ball field. Think your, your mother saved up for months to take you all to that ballgame. I think even still we had to borrow a little bit of cash from the neighbors. When they launched those fireworks, after that home run, never forget the flash of rainbow colors on y'all's face as you just stared in awe. [fireworks booming]

MARISHA: Purple, green, red, golden yellows. [fireworks booming]

MARISHA: Got to cherish those, those rare moments of happiness. Can't forget them, you know? Got to remember. Got to remember that those moments are also who you are, Sean. Not just the bad ones. If I recall, you had a little bit of allowance that you saved up. And being just the sweetheart that you are, you use that to buy a baseball cap for your brother.

BRENNAN: (tearily) He was home sick. He was looking forward to the game.

MARISHA: He was.

BRENNAN: I just thought if he had a baseball cap, it'd had been like he was there.

MARISHA: You're a good man, Sean.

BRENNAN: You can't say that to me.

MARISHA: You're a good boy and I watched you grow--

BRENNAN: You can't--

MARISHA: -- into a good man.

BRENNAN: You have no idea what you're talking about! Are we good? You and me? We're good people? There's a kid inside right now. Head's all screwed up saying strange shit to people. LT's got his spine fucking grabbed by some ghost thing. Doc's got some kind of syringe full of EONS shit that's in a Candela place. Nothing makes any fucking sense. Draven's dead. He was alive when I saw him. I'd be amazed if he still is. And Marion has got something growing on his chest. Like... How much longer am I going to have even him around? So you're talking to me. I just wish people would stop telling me they fucking understand. Everyone wants to take care of me. I don't know if it's obvious enough to you, Bee, I'm doing a lot of the taking care of around here. The last thing I need is anyone to come fucking take care of me. We're going to get Ma out of Grayslate. We're going to kill whatever this thing is running around. We're going to put its head on the desk of whoever Draven's direct report is, and then I'm done. So let's go take care of business and stop asking me how I'm doing.

MARISHA: I think that'd be good for you, for you to be done. And no, Sean, none of it makes sense. We don't have to pretend like it does. None of it makes sense as to why I lost my husband, to why you lost your brothers, to why both of us are homeless, to why life has repeatedly chosen to enact its horrors upon us. But, it's in these moments that define who we are as people. So, I won't ask you how you're doing again, but this is the last time that I will ask for you to pull your fucking shit together so we can go and save the fucking world. And then, you should turn in your pin. When you're feeling better and you finish that cigarette, I'll see you inside. And I walk inside.

SPENSER: We sit on you for just a moment. You hear the waves lapping against the shore. You see the Glass Sea before you. On the other side of that ocean, the place your life changed forever. And we return to all of you. What are we doing here?

TRAVIS: I race downstairs and I see Mr. Kingsley looking even worse. I'll go over and grab the bottle of bourbon. Keep it close. Is there any sort of a call sheet for Candela? Anything that would allow us to communicate chapter house to chapter house or give listings of other areas in Newfaire that we could go to, knowing that there's no file on the other two members of Allison's circle.

SPENSER: What you know is you have the address.

ZEHRA: We do have an address.

SPENSER: Of where the Silverslip chapter house would be. That's what we have there. You were searching for--

LUIS: I'm looking for anything, any kind of artifacts that I'm completely, maybe I hear in a distance an outburst happen, but rather than letting that pull me out into what's happening there, I'm trying to focus on finding something here. I'm trying to sense any kind of magickal objects.

SPENSER: Yeah, this place looks raided for most of the things that would be of use here. But you rolled, did you roll a Survey for that?

LUIS: I did not. I'm trying to Sense it.

SPENSER: Oh, try and Sense it, love that. Okay, yeah, make a Sense roll for me, knowing the expectations here that like anything incredibly powerful has already been taken.

LUIS: I'm just hoping to find something.

MARISHA: The telegraph just started, right? We don't have-- Telephones are rare.

SPENSER: So telephones are very rare.

MARISHA: Right.

SPENSER: Here, I would say that you could have telegraph, but it would be--

MARISHA: Slow.

SPENSER: It would be-- Well, electricity was just being implemented.

MARISHA: Just coming on, right.

SPENSER: So it is not going to be from one house to another. It's going to be like from the railway station to the other railway station, right?

LUIS: Five.

SPENSER: That's a five. So, here's what I'll say. This place is pretty picked over, but I will give you an additional ward for your circle sheet.

LUIS: Okay.

SPENSER: What you can do is mark that as part of your gear and that will soak one bleed. So put it on your circle gear down there.

LUIS: So it could be on any of us when we declare the use.

SPENSER: Anybody, yeah, anybody declares the use and marks the little box that is empty next to there and--

MARISHA: What is this? Huh?

TRAVIS: It's a bleed soak. It's like a ward.

SPENSER: It's a ward.

MARISHA: Cool, cool, cool, cool.

SPENSER: Yeah, this place is pretty raided, but he was searching for, Luis was searching for, or rather Marion was searching for anything here that might be of use to all in gearing up.

ZEHRA: Is it just one ward?

SPENSER: Just one that is in the circle gear, but if anybody wants to use it, they can take it, then nobody else can take it.

ZEHRA: Great.

SPENSER: Yeah. So that's what you have, you have the address, you also have the name of the--

ZEHRA: Duncan and Farrah are what Mr. Kingsley said were the members of the circle. Does that, do you know these?

TRAVIS: I don't. But he gave you an address and he mentioned the Silverslip.

ZEHRA: In Silverslip, yes. I had an office there, I know it. It's not far.

TRAVIS: We should go, but Doctor, I'm sure you've thought of this, we can't leave him here.

ZEHRA: I'd like to focus my attention once more on Mr. Kingsley. Is there anything I can do to at least keep him in a contained state so he's not hurting himself or others other than the hallucinogen that Bee administered?

SPENSER: Looking around, the only thing that you might think of that would help him would be very dangerous, it'd be very risky. You have an androphage. He seems to be in pain.

MARISHA: Oh god.

SPENSER: This is something you could--

ZEHRA: He needs to feed.

SPENSER: -- do if you wanted to take pain away from him for a little bit. You'd have to be very careful to not let it burrow.

ZEHRA: Mm.

SPENSER: This would be a medical procedure. You'd be using experimental tech to do that. But, besides that, there doesn't appear to be much here that would be of use to that particular goal.

ZEHRA: Do I have any sense of how much time is left? I know we were given an hour approximately an hour ago.

LUIS: (laughs)

SPENSER: Yeah, you know that he is looking worse for wear. It hasn't probably been an hour. It's probably been maybe like 20 minutes or so since you got that, since you got that judgment of time. You know he probably has half an hour, 45 minutes.

ZEHRA: If we leave here, he won't survive.

TRAVIS: Doctor, I don't mean to tell you your business, and I know you want to care for Mr. Kingsley and that speaks to your character, but I can only assume that you've been in hospital wards where sickness can run rampant. If we can't help him, perhaps we should be thinking about containment.

ZEHRA: Containment.

TRAVIS: I hold up the bottle of bourbon and take my Zippo lighter out of my pocket.

ZEHRA: Fine euphemism, that. Containment. That can't be my call to make.

TRAVIS: No. No, it can't. I believe Mr. Finnerty is outside if you care to join him.

LUIS: Come with me, I'll take you up. Come on, come on.

ZEHRA: Young Mr. Suarez, should we bring him with us?

MARISHA: Yes.

LUIS: We should.

ZEHRA: Okay.

LUIS: Come on.

ZEHRA: Go to fetch him from the room he's been sequestered in and leave with Marion outside.

MARISHA: Keep him away from Sean.

LUIS: All right.

MARISHA: The kid.

LUIS: You got this, yeah?

TRAVIS: I do. Thank you, Marion.

MARISHA: He's still awake, right?

LUIS: I owe you one.

SPENSER: Kingsley?

MARISHA: Kingsley.

LUIS: He's hallucinating, no?

ZEHRA: Yeah.

LUIS: He's a little--

SPENSER: Yeah, watching.

MARISHA: Even through hallucinations, though, we should at least put him to sleep before we light him on fire.

TRAVIS: I'm open to suggestions.

MARISHA: (frustrated sighs) Fucking-- Bee goes over. She's had to do this before. She sits down and she puts his head on his lap.

TRAVIS: Hold on, you're getting close?

MARISHA: It's all right. She takes her apron and she's going to try not to touch him with her bare hands.

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: She's going to cradle his head and she's going to give him a knowing nod.

SPENSER: "Mum? Mum?"

MARISHA: You'll see her very soon, sweet boy. She's going to clasp her hand, one hand over his mouth and then the other over his nose and press real hard.

SPENSER: Make a Control roll for me. This is not to see whether it works, it's to see how well you hold onto yourself while this happens.

MARISHA: Four.

LUIS: Wow.

TRAVIS: On a gilded!

MARISHA: On a gilded so I do get it back.

SPENSER: Yeah, take that gilded. He struggles underneath your hands. "(muffled groans)"

MARISHA: She just lightly--

SPENSER: "(muffled screams)"

MARISHA: -- lightly hums. Rocks back and forth.

SPENSER: "(muffled whimpers)"

MARISHA: It's all right.

SPENSER: "(muffled whimpers)"

MARISHA: Shh.

SPENSER: And then quiet. Mark two brain for me.

LUIS: Oh my god.

SPENSER: As you watch a man go lifeless in your arms.

LUIS: There's a flash of feeling Auntie Bee, it's slow but feeling her take a hit and on impulse, I try to reach out and then it just fizzles out and I'm out of steam.

MARISHA: Are you in the room?

LUIS: I was on my way out.

MARISHA: I say then the two of you can regain a drive from my Non-Combatant--

SPENSER: Yep. Agreed.

TRAVIS: Oh okay, cool.

SPENSER: One comes back.

MARISHA: And then--

LUIS: I'll take that.

MARISHA: I try not to look at him. I'll see you outside.

SPENSER: (intense whooshing) You hear the sound of flames. Through the cracked stained glass window above, fire. All of you on the street soon joined by Nathaniel.

TRAVIS: We should be quick about this.

ZEHRA: I am holding Lucas in my arms, my hand on his head. I reach into my pocket and hand you the slip with the parchment that Mr. Kingsley wrote upon, "The chapter house in Silverslip."

TRAVIS: We'll hail a carriage or take our own and start to head towards the chapter house in Silverslip.

SPENSER: We cut to the inside of a carriage with the five of you, as we ride in silence. We see the exterior of the Silverslip chapter house. Silverslip is the district in which most of the government buildings are contained. It is opulent. The chapter house is opulent. A large stone door is framed by a building that looks as though it was constructed to appear like it was from the times of Oldfaire, but it's clearly new. The door is ajar.

MARISHA: (frustrated groans)

TRAVIS: Not what we wanted to see. I've had a thought. This thing mimics other people. We should have a code, a term, a word, something so that you know who you are talking to, even amongst ourselves.

MARISHA: Smart.

TRAVIS: Petunia, perhaps?

LUIS: The name of my flower? The starry sky petunia?

TRAVIS: We'd have to be on edge, even with each other. Let's go.

LUIS: This kid is with us?

BRENNAN: Yeah, I was going to ask.

TRAVIS: Fuck, Lucas is with us. That's right.

ZEHRA: He's on my lap.

MARISHA: We've got a kid.

LUIS: We've got to send him somewhere. That carriage that dropped us off.

SPENSER: You can send him somewhere. It's not too late.

LUIS: I don't want him here.

MARISHA: (sighs)

LUIS: Could have sent him away.

BRENNAN: You have a family house, right?

TRAVIS: I do, we can send him to the--

BRENNAN: What's--

ZEHRA: Are there any Candela members outside the chapter house? It's completely barren? All right, I can take him back to that house, join you all shortly.

BRENNAN: For right now, is it all right for him to stay with you until we can get him to Nathaniel's house?

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: All right. The door is slightly open. So I'm going to shrug, get the shotgun out.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: And walk in.

TRAVIS: Habits.

LUIS: On the way here, I would have done a Ritual.

SPENSER: Okay.

LUIS: You see my eyes roll back and the veins glow a little bit as I take a bleed mark, but I get back a resistance. Intuition resistance.

ZEHRA: I think I would've also done a Patch Up on somebody who needs it.

SPENSER: Yeah.

ZEHRA: Before we go into this next section.

SPENSER: For sure, who would you like to have Patched Up?

ZEHRA: You have two body.

LUIS: I've got two body.

ZEHRA: Nathaniel, you have how many body?

MARISHA: His spine is exposed.

ZEHRA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Actually I'm body, brain, and bleed, one.

ZEHRA: One each and then Bee, your wrist?

MARISHA: Just one, but I'm all right.

ZEHRA: I should tend to Marion. Okay, so I'm going to make a Focus roll. I'm going to burn a drive of resistance.

LUIS: It's gilded, too, so one of those are gilded.

ZEHRA: Thank you.

TRAVIS: Remind me of the prison or the police force here.

SPENSER: The Periphery.

TRAVIS: The Periphery.

SPENSER: The Periphery are the police force.

ZEHRA: It's a five on the gilded.

LUIS: Whew.

SPENSER: Five on the gilded. So you'll spend two Intuition to do that.

ZEHRA: Only one because of Well-Read.

SPENSER: Oh, because of your Well-Read.

ZEHRA: I get one Intuition back.

MARISHA: Oh yeah.

SPENSER: Great.

LUIS: So one body goes away, one body mark. I got one, one, one, one.

SPENSER: Remind me what that says again.

ZEHRA: Yes, so Well-Read, "You're well-read and retain knowledge better than most. When you use Intuition while making a Focus role, if you fail the roll," oh, whoops, wait a second. I didn't fail.

SPENSER: That's why I was asking.

ZEHRA: "Earn back any Intuition you earned," okay.

SPENSER: So you can spend as much as you want. If you fail, you get them back, but if you succeed, you don't get them back.

ZEHRA: If I succeed. So I've burned two.

SPENSER: Great.

ZEHRA: And you have one less body mark.

LUIS: Thank you. I'm walking in right behind you.

TRAVIS: Before we enter, I will remove the officer's pistol and I will go to a darker place and I would like to burn a bleed to switch.

SPENSER: Great, you'll burn brain.

TRAVIS: Brain, right.

SPENSER: You'll mark brain to be able to switch into your other character sheet.

ZEHRA: What?

LUIS: What?

MARISHA: (laughs)

LUIS: Have we seen this happen?

SPENSER: No. What does it look like when you transition?

LUIS: Yeah.

TRAVIS: The pistol represents quite a few things. The hammer comes back and I fan through the revolver, counting the bullets. I spin it, slick it back into the holster and I begin to chew on my lip.

SPENSER: You see a physical change in the lieutenant as he approaches.

LUIS: I walk up to him as I see this change and I look at you and I say: What's the flower?

TRAVIS: (deeply) Petunia.

BRENNAN: Any particular kind of petunia?

TRAVIS: Stars all over it.

BRENNAN: That's close enough. (laughter)

SPENSER: So just so you know, you'll keep your marks, you'll keep the amount of drive that you've spent, but you will be able to use your role and abilities, sorry, your role and specialty abilities.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SPENSER: And your new action ratings from the character sheet. Just to be transparent with everybody, you are switching from?

TRAVIS: Journalist to Detective.

SPENSER: Journalist to Detective.

ZEHRA: Oh!

SPENSER: Great. You all proceed forward. Except for you, you're staying in the carriage?

ZEHRA: I am babysitting.

MARISHA: (laughs)

SPENSER: You're babysitting. Are you staying in the carriage or are you taking the carriage back to The Eaves?

ZEHRA: Let's not waste time, let's be efficient.

SPENSER: Okay.

ZEHRA: I'm going to go to the Trapp residence to drop off Lucas.

SPENSER: Great, we see the carriage--

MARISHA: Then you're going to come back here and meet us?

ZEHRA: Yes, shortly. Yes.

LUIS: Do we know--

ZEHRA: As fast as I can.

LUIS: -- how far away is that from where we are?

MARISHA: I hate it, but all right.

LUIS: The Eaves from Silverslip?

SPENSER: So The Eaves from Silverslip are not that far. It's a district or two away.

TRAVIS: Across the bridge.

SPENSER: Yeah, so it's not that, in fact we can see, you have the district maps here. So if you want to look. The Eaves are, sorry, Silverslip is number four and The Eaves are number six.

LUIS: Six, okay.

ZEHRA: Okay, just across the river and back.

SPENSER: Right across the river.

TRAVIS: I'll also take out my little notepad that I have from the Civil Tribune and write a small note to give along with Lucas--

SPENSER: Oh, amazing.

TRAVIS: It'll say "Father, take care of this one as if he was one of your own, if that's something you know how to do."

ZEHRA: (gasps)

TRAVIS: "Signed, N.T."

MARISHA: Oh! Good call!

BRENNAN: (laughs)

LUIS: Wow.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

MARISHA: Jeez Louise.

SPENSER: You see it slip into your coat pocket. The boy looks at you as the door shuts. You see in his face, you see in the carriage door as it closes, your own face reflected back at you and as you watch the carriage go, the memory of the boy's face, he looks so much like Allison. But you're staring into nothing. We return to all of you, what are we doing?

TRAVIS: We'll stack up actually on Finnerty. I'll tap his shoulder, go behind as we roll in.

LUIS: I'm right behind, I'm third.

TRAVIS: Auntie Bee, count to 10.

LUIS: Hold on, wait, wait, wait. Let me see if I can sense something. I want to know if something's right behind, right through the doorway, upstairs. I'm going to try to ping any paranormal--

TRAVIS: Do your thing.

LUIS: -- shit in here.

SPENSER: That sounds good.

MARISHA: I'm not going to waste time, though. 10--

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: -- nine, eight.

LUIS: Six!

SPENSER: It's a six.

BRENNAN: Woo.

LUIS: (gruffly) Mm-hmm!

MARISHA: Five.

SPENSER: You feel, like wind on your skin, bleed pouring from within. What you sense here is very similar to what you sensed previously in the lighthouse.

MARISHA: Four.

LUIS: Okay.

SPENSER: There's some sort of rupture here.

MARISHA: Three.

LUIS: There's a rift in here.

MARISHA: Two.

LUIS: And the doctor who sewed it up before is the one we just sent away.

MARISHA: One.

BRENNAN: I'm going to look and say: All right, looks like the surgery will have to remain open until the doctor returns. I'm going to nudge the door open and start to cover the rooms and sweep.

TRAVIS: Yep.

SPENSER: As the door flies open, the counting stops. We get to "one," boom, the door flies open. Light pours in from the street outside. We see you silhouetted holding the gun. The inside looks as though it's been ransacked. All the oil lamps have been broken. The mirrors on the walls here, the mirrors that would hang up to the left and right of the entranceway have been shattered, glass pieces all over the floor and from within, you hear a pulsing. What do you want to do?

TRAVIS: As we break through the door, we would know, we would signal to each other. He would take near side, I would take far side corner and sweep in towards the middle of the room, cataloging all of that, clearing the fatal funnel of the door and then we would move in edgewise.

MARISHA: Bee is going to fall into old habits of hiding from the Periphery and she's going to literally basically turn and crouch and I'm going to hide.

SPENSER: Yeah, okay, that sounds good.

MARISHA: And watch and wait until the boys clear the room.

SPENSER: You're good to hide. There is no danger in the immediate, so there's no roll to be made. You duck around the corner there. What I will say is entering here, this chapter house is set up like other chapter houses. It's very clear that there is a back area behind, there's the entranceway here, and then there is a set of stairs that go up and then that probably leads you to the archives where the folders, the files for these people would probably be. But as you move forward here, you hear a scurrying from above you. (rattles) From the floor above you. Something is up there. You feel it.

TRAVIS: Mirrors at the ready, we move.

SPENSER: Great, moving in further, what we see here is a plethora of creatures that are stalking on the walls towards you.

MARISHA: Plethora?

SPENSER: A plethora of them.

MARISHA: That's great.

LUIS: That's like two.

MARISHA: That's great.

SPENSER: There's a number of them here. What I'm going to say is you all know how to clear a room. We're going to make a roll here to see how that goes.

LUIS: Okay.

SPENSER: That one roll is going to be the whole sequence here of you all getting upstairs. So we will make that roll and we will decide how that goes. Somebody's going to lead it. Anybody can spend drive to be able to help with that.

MARISHA: I'm going to say, as soon as that door was cracked, as soon as we got into that carriage: We Saw This Coming.

SPENSER: Oh yeah. (laughs)

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SPENSER and LUIS: Yes.

MARISHA: And add a die because we planned for this shit.

SPENSER: Yep.

LUIS: Okay.

ZEHRA: I would also like to call over from the Trapp residence: Maybe a gilded die would be-- (laughter)

MARISHA: Yeah, actually, it was a good time.

TRAVIS: (groans)

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

TRAVIS: The doctor's power has grown.

BRENNAN: A gilded die--

SPENSER: Just earns back drive.

BRENNAN: But a gilded die also, does that add?

SPENSER: That adds.

BRENNAN: It adds a die, okay.

SPENSER: So normally, gilded die don't. Those are particular, if you look at what the ability on the circle sheet says, it says that they add plus 1d to the roll and they are gilded.

BRENNAN: Gotcha. I can-- Because we have that Saw This Coming, I actually am already rolling with six dice.

TRAVIS: Killer.

MARISHA: Great.

BRENNAN: Cool.

MARISHA: Groovy.

LUIS: So we keep that.

BRENNAN: Yeah. I'm sure there will be more rolls coming up. That is a five.

SPENSER: A five.

BRENNAN: And that refreshes the drive I used.

TRAVIS: I see it.

SPENSER: So. Describe for me the absolute practiced method by which the three of you enter and clear this place. We are now back in Lieutenant mode. We're back in military mode. What does that look like as you do this?

TRAVIS: We would stack up on the door, slowly push it open and we'd do what we call slicing the pie, moving slowly around the edge of the door so that you can clock as much of your enemy in the room in front of you without giving too much of your position away and when we are ready, we disappear. It's just cold, hard math, machinery at that point. We know to move, we can hear each other breathe, we can see each other's demeanor shift and we would move in, covering our sections of the room and begin to sweep and move outward-in, and finish the job.

LUIS: So that they're able to concentrate on taking down the enemy that's in the front, my eyes are on the ones that we pass. Anyone that wiggles around a little bit, I take the retractable baton that I have and I finish them off. So I'm taking the end and making sure that my eyes aren't as forward as theirs are. They're in the immediacy right around us as we're passing, and also behind us, making sure that none of them pop back up that they've already hit.

SPENSER: Love that. We land on you here. As you're firing off, you see these creatures, these horrors in front of you, and we watch as the light dances on your face. What is it like for you being back in this moment with the two of them?

BRENNAN: I have Marion in my arms who's been injured and I'm running through trenches, trying to get back to the lieutenant. It's a total route. The lines fall into either side of us. I'm running and can see enemy soldiers running the same direction as me, ahead of me. It's total fear. And then I just start hearing, ♪ (baseball stadium ♪ "Charge!" vamp) ♪ I'm gone. I'm fully gone, and LT's words are the only thing I can hear. In the moment that I'm listening to Nathaniel's commands, I get to die. I get to not be myself. I get to just be someone who's doing what he's told and I don't have to think about what I'm doing, and it's the first rest I've had in a long time.

SPENSER: We see these creatures peeling off of the walls, the wallpaper erupting in shots. There's some crawling on the ceiling. They scream "(monstrous scream)" at you and then their mouth gets filled with bullets. They drop in front of you. You all push through to the staircase. You're climbing up the staircase, shooting, covering every angle, until in front of you, you see a door. Around its edges is like a gilded design, gold design. The door is wide open.

MARISHA: Oh, goddamn it!

SPENSER: Before you, you see what you would imagine to be an entrance to the Fourth Pharos.

TRAVIS: Oh fuck.

SPENSER: But this one has been corrupted. You see the Flare ripple before you. You know from having seen the one in the lighthouse what it goes to. Something got here first. Something changed how deep this rift goes. You are staring into a portal into the beyond. As you are, more creatures crawling out of it, shuddering for getting shot as you're there, but you know that they are going to continue to pour out of here. You know that you're going to be overwhelmed soon because you are now at the place where they spawn. What do you all want to do?

MARISHA: Well, do we have a rough idea of the ETA of our doctor?

ZEHRA: Yes.

SPENSER: Yeah, make a-- This would be a Control roll because it's navigate, to see how quickly you're able to get back here. On a six, you'll be back shortly. On a four or five, it's going to be a little longer.

ZEHRA: All right.

TRAVIS: Let's be clear. This rift, Fourth Pharos are very rare. This rift is like the one that we saw in the previous lighthouse tear. This is not a rift to the Fourth Pharos, or is it?

SPENSER: Correct. It looks as though it's positioned to be one, but that something came in and tore through it deeper.

ZEHRA: (sighs) It's a five.

SPENSER: That's a five. We cut to you. How are you getting this carriage here as fast as you can?

ZEHRA: Hyah, hyah!

MARISHA: (laughs)

SPENSER: We see horses galloping across the bridge.

MARISHA: Hyah, hyah.

TRAVIS: I didn't have a carriage. Fucking crawl out: You're going too slow!

MARISHA and SPENSER: (laugh)

LUIS: You kick the guy off. Tell him: I'll take over from here.

MARISHA: (laughs)

SPENSER: I love that. The guy's next to you like, "Uh." No, we see the hand of a boy holding a teddy bear reaching up to grab a larger hand. As we pull out from there, we see a large older man, a tall older man, standing in the doorway of a beautiful mansion here. Describe for us what your father looks like in this moment.

TRAVIS: Christopher Francis Trapp is a very tall, very proud man. Gaunt face. Silvery beard comes down to a point. Long, extravagant mustache that's been finely waxed and curled up at the ends. A widow's peak that draws his hair straight back behind his ears and thinning up top. Bushy, bushy eyebrows and tremendously large hands. Hard-working, labored hands. He wears the finest finery, even at home, a coat that resembles tails, pleated vest, and an ascot of purple velvet.

SPENSER: We see him flip open the note that you passed and read it. He looks up, scowls, and looks down at the child. We watch him move inside as we cut to you, booking it across.

ZEHRA: I am very sorry to do this. I remove my glove and I touch my flame fingers to the horse's flank in an effort to get it to move faster.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Yeehaw.

SPENSER: We see the carriage weaving in and out of primitive automobiles and other carriages.

MARISHA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: "Tokyo Drift."

TRAVIS: Yeah, that's true.

SPENSER: "Tokyo Drift" across the bridge that is up above the Stentorian River. We see you on your way across there. We cut back to all of you.

LUIS: Oh man.

SPENSER: What do you all want to do?

BRENNAN: How big is the rift in front? It fits in a doorway, right?

SPENSER: So the doorway itself is into a room where the entrance to the Fourth Pharos would be. It's about two stories tall, this rift is.

LUIS: Two stories tall?

SPENSER: Yes, it is. Once you enter that space, this area within is like an extra-dimensional space.

BRENNAN: So it's enormous. Gotcha. Okay, looking at this massive rift, does it look like the rift-- As I'm looking at it, does it look like the rift anchors at any point to the material of the architecture? Does it look like there's any point at which, hey, because it's replacing this Fourth Pharos thing, and that Fourth Pharos thing was built by Candela Obscura members, that, in other words, it's not floating here in an abstract location that happens to be in a house, but it's actually anchored to something physical?

SPENSER: I love that. Make a Survey roll for me. A Survey or Sense roll.

BRENNAN: Okay, we're going to do Survey.

SPENSER: Okay.

BRENNAN: I think I'm going to go ahead and burn my last drive here.

SPENSER: Okay.

BRENNAN: My last Intuition drive. Oh, it's a six.

SPENSER: That's a six. Great. It doesn't appear as though there is an anchor for the rift, but what you do see is that, just beyond where the rift is, there is one of these.

BRENNAN: Cool.

SPENSER: Like what you saw in the lighthouse.

BRENNAN: And is it active?

SPENSER: It is actively turning. It is what is essentially creating the-- It was modified, broken, changed to be able to let something through.

BRENNAN: Is it through the rift or on the other side of the rift?

BRENNAN: So you see it as though it's behind it, but in it at the same time. Do you know what I mean? Like it's extra-dimensional space. But what you know is that the way in which one of these spins, it's not moving naturally anymore. It's been reversed and the gears are turning strangely and it is corrupted. It's covered in bleed, it's covered in ichor.

BRENNAN: Great.

SPENSER: This has been corrupted in some way to open up a rift somewhere else.

BRENNAN: This wave is coming at us and we can tell that there's-- I'm reaching into a belt where ammunition is lessening rapidly. I'm going to say: Hope Doc's on her way. Light a stick of TNT, and throw it through the rift.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: At the base of the fucking astrolabe.

MARISHA: I love that you just raided the armory before you left the war. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Don't leave home without it! (laughter)

LUIS: Grenades, TNT.

SPENSER: So are you throwing it at the base of the astrolabe?

BRENNAN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Still waiting for a claymore into the buttcheeks. (laughter)

SPENSER: I want to be clear that the astrolabe is what controls the flow in and out. If there is not one, then what happens with rifts is they do essentially what happened in the lighthouse. It is open and completely free-for-all.

BRENNAN: So, okay, I misunderstood. So it's not that destroying it would stop this.

SPENSER: Yeah, I want to be clear about the expectations here before you make that move because you would know this.

LUIS: We want to keep it running.

SPENSER: You would want to get it to do what it's supposed to do.

LUIS: Okay.

SPENSER: Or you'd want to at least stitch it up in some way, like you did with the other one. But blowing it up here, as much as we would love to blow it up, you are aware as you're going to grab that, you look up, and remember the training that you did get that tells you these hold these things closed or control the way in which moving through them operates.

BRENNAN: Does it look like it's moving in the wrong direction?

SPENSER: It's moving backwards and it's also glitching and it looks as though the wheels are turning. It would be like if it was here and then suddenly down to there, and then over there.

TRAVIS: Because you're stacked, I'm going to look and say: Hold the line however you can. I'm going to run over and use this Detective's ability to Scout, which is, if I have the time to observe a location, I can spend one Intuition to ask a question. Something like, "What do I notice here that others do not?" "What might be of use to us?"

SPENSER: Great, great. That sounds good. So spend an Intuition.

TRAVIS: Okay, great.

SPENSER: You're seeing things pouring, these creatures pouring out of this rift, tearing towards you. You're holding them off. What do you want to know here?

TRAVIS: I want to look at the astrolabe. From the one that we've seen last time, if there is a gear that's moving the wrong way or catching, can I analyze it and try and figure out what needs to be moved, flipped, put back, wiped, anything, and analyze it and figure out where the misfire of it all might be?

SPENSER: Yeah, so what you see is the actual base piece here, the big-- the one that's cracked, is glitching out in many different directions. It looks as though it should be moving the opposite way than it currently is, from what you saw the last time. The added information that you'll get here is that it looks as though that piece is what is causing the major infrastructure damage.

TRAVIS: Almost like it's come off the gear or track?

SPENSER: Yes, exactly. But it's doing it in a way that does not seem mundane. It's doing it in a way that seems like it was touched by bleed. It is literally glitching in that it is appearing here at one time and then glitching out this way and glitching out that way.

TRAVIS: Okay.

SPENSER: It looks as though it's phasing in and out of existence. Does that make sense?

LUIS: Yeah.

SPENSER: I want to be clear with how this looks because it's weird.

LUIS: I got something.

BRENNAN: Cool.

LUIS: How you-- I'm assuming that this information is passing between us as we're observing this.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm calling it out.

LUIS: Okay, so. Cover me as best as you all can. I'm going to put my attention on that because if it isn't mundane, then it's magickal in nature. As far as I know, I'm an empty vessel. If bleed is happening to that and it's getting in the way, then I'm going to open myself up to it and I will take that shit into me and absorb it. So I'm going to-- I've been using a different way of seeing things to interpret the other layer of the world that's not just this mundane world, and now I'm going to actually reach into it and interact with it, hands-on, somehow.

SPENSER: Make a Sense roll for me as you do this. What I will say, before you do this, if you are attempting to take this bleed into yourself, the expectations of the roll are that you will be hurt very badly. I will immediately give you a bleed scar for this.

LUIS: Stakes are high.

SPENSER: Stakes are high.

LUIS: And we're in trouble.

TRAVIS: I can see Marion contemplating this, and I will say: I know that you are special. We've known this for a while. And while it may be better to be a warrior in a garden rather than a gardener in a war, without gardeners, none of the flowers will grow. Use your gifts and I will have your back.

LUIS: I just give you a nod. Okay. All three. I'm going to save one. You guys might need it.

SPENSER: As this is happening, there's a continuous wave after wave of these creatures that are coming towards you. They are starting to push you back a little bit because of the overwhelming amount that are coming out. You start to hear sounds behind you of ones that have gotten by your bullets that are dropping. We see you having to shoot and hold them off as you approach this thing, attempting to connect with it, attempting to take on, as a vessel, the bleed, that it is pouring out.

LUIS: Two sixes on two gilded dice. (cheering)

SPENSER: Incredible. (cheering)

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

SPENSER: Take back two drive.

TRAVIS: Come on, dude.

BRENNAN: Wow.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Well done, well done, sir.

SPENSER: And immediately take a bleed scar.

LUIS: Okay. Fuck. All right.

SPENSER: What does it look like here as you succeed?

LUIS: I start stepping forward to it and I see-- stuck in my mind. The last thing I say to you as I step forward is: I owed you one from last time. As if it's second nature, Marion steps forward right to the edge of that rift and I start to see these things around me, these creatures that are crawling through drop as my friends are here covering me, taking them down as they start to lunge at me, and then, pop, they're dead on the floor next to me. None of that is even noticeable. I look at this thing on the other side of this world through this rift and I feel something pull me. Something that I feel like must have been tugging at me for a long time.

SPENSER: You see a thread coming out from your chest, moving into the rift itself. You feel the pluck, pluck, like somebody's plucking the strings of a harp.

LUIS: I grab it and I let this thread start to dance around my fingers.

SPENSER: It crawls up your arms, circles up onto your shoulder, wraps around your chest, dives into your scar. Fills your veins. You watch it crawl underneath your skin.

LUIS: I start to remember back, seven years old, this thing getting pulled out of me and me reaching for it and trying to pull it back in, my soul.

SPENSER: As you do, you see beginnings of a rift in front of you, a thinning, in that garden, just (whooshes) with a finger, a tear in the fabric of reality.

LUIS: And I'm pulling it, and pulling it, and pulling it trying to keep it inside of me. Not wanting to let go.

SPENSER: Just like the rip that went down your back, just like the rip that went down Antonio's stomach.

LUIS: I start to see flashes in my head of all of my friends, other moments of them that haven't happened yet, but claws on them, ripping them apart.

SPENSER: And then, in that moment, a childlike wonder and fear from when you were seven years old, grasping the thread of life being pulled from you. You see through that tiny rift in reality, an eye with a strand of black stringy hair and a finger scraping along the thread.

LUIS: I snap back to what's happening right now.

SPENSER: Yep.

LUIS: The string is dancing around my fingers, holding it. And this time, I reach out towards the rift that's right in front of me. If you want this, fine. Speaking to the thread: Show me where you want to take me.

SPENSER: (whooshes) You feel yourself being pulled into the rift. All of you see Marion here being pulled as if by a rope behind a boat, right? Like being literally yanked into the rift in front of you. What are you all doing--

TRAVIS: I instinctually grab the back of his, yeah.

BRENNAN: Same.

SPENSER: Great, I'm going to have whoever wants to make the roll, somebody else can help, but this would be a Move roll to get there.

TRAVIS: I'll assist.

SPENSER: First, you have taken that bleed scar, what I will say is this is a life or death moment for Marion.

ZEHRA: Where's that last gilded?

MARISHA: Yeah, where's that gilded?

SPENSER: Right there.

TRAVIS: I feel he'd be even--

BRENNAN: Okay. I rolled an additional--

LUIS: My hand outstretched and focusing on that piece that's not working. I'm trying to manipulate it and get it to work and get it to go back--

BRENNAN: Are you assisting me, right?

LUIS: -- in the direction it's supposed to go.

MARISHA: How many do you have?

BRENNAN: I have four right now.

MARISHA: I have one more Saw This Coming.

BRENNAN: There's another one, and I'll throw a drive on there, too. Okay.

SPENSER: Move roll.

BRENNAN: Move roll. Double sixes.

MARISHA: Hey.

TRAVIS: Come on!

SPENSER: Double sixes, that's a critical success! (clapping)

SPENSER: Tell me, how do you keep him from going through this rift? The two of you, or any of you who helped, what's this look like?

BRENNAN: Totally instinctual. Me and Nathaniel are moving in unison. I see, and because you're stacked up on me, I know. I turn to give you the base of my fucking suspenders. Like, you know, just, whoa and grab him and I grab his legs. And I think I was so angry at Auntie Bee earlier and she's just given me this dice from I Saw This Coming, and I grab around Marion's legs. And for a moment, I just remember holding Marion's legs to help him climb up on a roof when we were kids, and he was with me and my two brothers. And whatever kind of monster I am, I just, I am holding on and I'm burying my face into his calves on his legs as he's being pulled away. Just going like: I cannot lose another brother.

TRAVIS: (deeply exhales)

MARISHA: You know, Marion and Auntie Bee have talked a lot about his condition.

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: He's confided in me.

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: I just, from the back, almost telepathically from our connection, I just go: You belong here, Marion.

LUIS: Ooh. But the pull in there is so strong.

SPENSER: You feel yourself being pulled and then you drop. (thuds) And the rift. (whooshes)

TRAVIS: I'm immediately grabbing the suspenders of Sean which is attached to Marion, and I'm backward driving, driving, driving.

SPENSER: As you're pulling him back, the astrolabe (crackles) and falls apart, explodes.

MARISHA: Auntie Bee immediately runs and throws open the door, looking for the carriage, looking for the doctor.

SPENSER: Uh-huh, as that happens, the carriage is riding up outside. What do you want to do here?

ZEHRA: There's a light emanating, the explosion?

SPENSER: Yeah, there's an explosion of magic from the top floor here that you see as you pull up.

ZEHRA: Breathless, I stop the carriage, jump off the platform, a disheveled mess. What did I miss?!

MARISHA: It's Marion! Get in here.

ZEHRA: I had felt something, something, something pounding in my head in that-- in that instant, and I'm whipped up into a frenzy. I come in to the main room with Auntie Bee.

MARISHA: He just closed the rift by taking it in.

ZEHRA: (whispers) He took it in?

MARISHA: He soaked it, he--

ZEHRA: He took it in.

SPENSER: We see Marion laying on the ground. You took a scar here so you would've dropped, your eyes are starting to flit open now that the danger has passed, but it is taking its toll on you. That is, if I'm not incorrect, three scars--

LUIS: Three scars.

SPENSER: -- for you. You are on your last legs here.

LUIS: The veins that were on my neck have now wrapped all the way up my face and now they grab around my eyes.

TRAVIS: Oh!

MARISHA: Jean, be careful, touching him.

ZEHRA: I go immediately to his side.

MARISHA: I pull out one of the extra bleed containment vials that we have.

ZEHRA: I take it.

MARISHA: Just be careful, please.

ZEHRA: I want to see if I can sense if there's anything I can do to help. Would Cold Read, my new ability, be of use? On a successful Sense role, I know what ailment stress or loss a person has in their life, even if they're hiding it. But just to glean any extra information.

SPENSER: Love that, yes, absolutely. Go ahead and make that roll.

TRAVIS: How many bleed do you have now, Marion?

BRENNAN: Three scars.

LUIS: I have three scars, but I think now my bleed is--

SPENSER: Yeah, wiped.

LUIS: -- is wiped.

TRAVIS: Okay, okay. I didn't know if you were sitting up at like two or three bleed also. We have that ward, but--

SPENSER: Yeah.

ZEHRA: A five.

SPENSER: A five.

ZEHRA: I put my hand gently on his left shoulder without thinking, I don't care about bleed.

LUIS: Am I out?

SPENSER: You're coming back to as this is happening.

LUIS: (staggered breathes)

ZEHRA: And what do I sense?

SPENSER: A scared young boy, a little boy who wants to fit in, who just wants to be loved, and knows that he never will. In a medical sense, you feel that he is on the verge of going. It's not much further to the veil of death. But what you can do to help him here with a five, is you can hold him and he can clear one brain.

ZEHRA: I clutch him to my chest and stroke his hair, careful to avoid the bleed around his eyes, not because I care about myself, but because I don't want to exacerbate his pain. I just hold him and I rock him like a baby.

SPENSER: The consequence from that five, that brain that you're going to erase--

LUIS: Yeah.

SPENSER: That goes to you.

ZEHRA: I take a brain, gladly, I'll take as many as I need to.

LUIS: As I start to come to, not even, I don't even have conscious, I start to become aware of you. It's your smell. I know your smell, and I relax and I take your hand and I put it right on my scar because I'll never forget the first time you touched it, and how gentle you were with me.

ZEHRA: Was once a very familiar shape. Now it's changed.

LUIS: It's not changed.

ZEHRA: There's more of it.

LUIS: It's just showing what's always been there that you couldn't yet see. Sean, Sean?

BRENNAN: I'm right here, bud.

LUIS: Come here.

BRENNAN: I get down and just hug him.

LUIS: Don't yell at Auntie Bee again. You got to yell at someone. You know, you're my LT.

TRAVIS: (laughs) (laughter)

BRENNAN: Auntie Bee, I'm sorry I yelled.

MARISHA: Don't be.

BRENNAN: Hey, you look like shit.

LUIS: I feel pretty much like shit, too, but I also feel kind of cool.

BRENNAN: You like, what are you, some kind of magician?

LUIS: Did I do it?

BRENNAN: Yeah, you fucking did it.

LUIS: I did? And I turn to look. I fucking did it? (laughs) I fucking did it!

BRENNAN: You're a goddamn hero, Marion.

LUIS: We're doing some good shit. Hey, hey, no, no, no, no.

BRENNAN: You got to, I'm going to tell you something. You got to rest. I know that this thing is still out there.

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: But you can, there's a million fucking pieces of shit like me that can shoot a gun. I've never seen anything like that before. You got to rest. You got to come back from this. You got to listen to Dr. Jean.

ZEHRA: He's right.

LUIS: I feel okay.

BRENNAN: I know you feel okay, but you got to do what's right. You always wanted to be normal. Marion, you know the maddest my Ma ever got at me? You don't know this, but I heard you one time when you were crying, when you were a little kid. I mean, you know you were a year or two older than me but I know you've thought your whole life that you don't have a soul. And I told my Ma when I was little I didn't believe in The Ascendancy no more. I didn't believe in any of it. I said, "Because the best kid we know don't got no soul." And all the men that worked with Pop, the men that sent Anthony into that battle, no artillery behind him, the men that court-martialed Jimmy, me, we all got souls, what good does that do at the end? What I know is whatever happened to you didn't change the fact that you're the best man I ever knew.

LUIS: Sean, I wouldn't be any anybody if it wasn't for you and your friendship and your brothers. Like you can't, you can't just, I didn't come, I didn't just be this.

BRENNAN: I know, Marion. It's a fucking heartbreaking world. I know it's been your deepest wish to be normal.

LUIS: I don't care anymore.

BRENNAN: Good, because you're not normal and you've never been. And we're all depending on that.

LUIS: Who do I get to depend on then, you?

BRENNAN: Dr. Jean.

LUIS: I want you to tell me, who, can I depend on you, Sean?

BRENNAN: I'm a pretty trustworthy guy.

LUIS: I know, but that means you got to stick around.

ZEHRA: I think we all ought to be sticking around from here on out. I'm very glad I did not witness whatever just passed.

LUIS: That was so fucking cool. (laughter)

LUIS: It felt so fucking cool. It fucking hurt, though.

BRENNAN: So is Candela Obscura done? Is this over?

TRAVIS and ZEHRA: (laugh)

MARISHA: No.

BRENNAN: That's two chapter houses in one day, bad day for Candela Obscura.

TRAVIS: Actually if we set this one on fire, then we're two for two.

MARISHA: Candela Obscura has existed for thousands of years. It's not going anywhere.

TRAVIS: Well, maybe we don't set it on fire then.

ZEHRA: Were Duncan or Farrah here? Any sign of anyone?

MARISHA: No, it's been raided.

SPENSER: You know that there are folders here to find out where they are.

MARISHA: Let's turn it.

TRAVIS: If the layout is any way similar to--

SPENSER: It's similar.

BRENNAN: I'll go check the archives here. If you want to check out what the files are.

MARISHA: Sean, I hope you listen to Marion. Keep the pin on. Mr. Trapp. Can I--

BRENNAN: How'd you know I was looking at my pin?

MARISHA: -- talk to you for a second?

TRAVIS: Yes, would you accompany me to the location?

MARISHA: Yes, absolutely.

SPENSER: We get pulled two folders. They're laid out in front of you from The Circle of Silver Flame.

MARISHA: Ooh, ooh, what a--

TRAVIS: Duncan and Farrah?

MARISHA: That's a cool name. (laughter)

ZEHRA: Wow.

SPENSER: That is--

ZEHRA: Kind of want to join those guys. (laughter)

SPENSER: Allison.

MARISHA: Oh.

SPENSER: And Joshua.

MARISHA: Circle of Silver Flame.

BRENNAN: We got Needle and Thread and they got Silver--

MARISHA: Silver and Flame?

SPENSER: I said Silver Flame, so we'll go Silver Flame.

MARISHA: Silver Flame.

SPENSER: Yeah. That was--

TRAVIS: Allison.

SPENSER: -- Allison and Joshua. Then Duncan Walter and Farrah Morales.

TRAVIS: Morales.

SPENSER: Morales.

MARISHA: Duncan.

SPENSER: Duncan Walter.

MARISHA: Walter.

SPENSER: And "Fahrrah"--

MARISHA: Morales.

SPENSER: Or "Fairrah" Morales. It has their addresses on their folders.

MARISHA: Okay.

SPENSER: What would you all like to do?

TRAVIS: We have the addresses. What's on your mind?

LUIS: I'm sitting in a chair. (laughs)

MARISHA: I'm trying to keep this a little bit private. Mr. Trapp, I'm too old to beat around the bush. I think, you know, I don't like you. (snickering)

MARISHA: Don't like you very much at all. Honestly, it has nothing to do with your character or your personality, it's what you represent and what you stand for. I think this war and all the damage it's done to all of us, we all seek blame. And I think I've maybe put a lot of unfair blame on you for bringing all those boys, all the Finnertys into the war. You see, I, was never able to have children of my own, and maybe it was unhealthy for me to build such a strong bond and connection with them, but they've felt like my boys. You, being the recruiting officer, well, felt like you were responsible for everything that happened to them. [siren wailing]

MARISHA: But. [explosions booming]

MARISHA: I know you're just a victim just as much as the rest of us and them. [guns firing] [siren wailing]

MARISHA: And I thank you for your actions just now, saving Marion, and it's clear that Sean has a very strong respect for you. I always viewed you as a coward. [explosions booming]

MARISHA: But your actions today, and our last mission and our last mission, have shown otherwise, so I feel I owe you an apology.

TRAVIS: No, I don't think you do. Your nose serves you well. I am a coward. I've always been a coward. My older brother was the hero. He was taken far too soon, and I've spent my entire life trying to be him, pretending I'm not the man that I am. Bringing in those with talents I don't possess, strength that I don't have to be near me, support me, work with me, in some vain attempt that it might rub off somehow. So no, you don't owe me an apology. All I can do is try and make amends for my shortcomings, and of the shortcomings of my family, and that's why I'm here.

MARISHA: As I tried to tell Sean earlier, we don't have to be defined by our past. It's the actions in the hardest times, what we choose to do, that's what defines us.

TRAVIS: I couldn't agree more. I'll give you this assurance. When we turn our back on our families, it's up to us to choose a newfound family.

MARISHA: Well, you can call me Auntie Bee.

TRAVIS: Auntie Bee. ("Ahntee")

MARISHA: Oh. (laughs) You and your posh accent.

TRAVIS: (overly pronounced) Ant-ie Bee.

MARISHA: There you go.

BRENNAN: You drop the T a little bit.

TRAVIS: (slurred) Auntie, Auntie Bee.

LUIS: That was getting better, yeah.

MARISHA: I don't know if that's--

TRAVIS: I'll work on it.

MARISHA: Good job.

BRENNAN: What do you say, LT? I feel like we got to let Duncan and Farrah know, if they're still alive. We got to warn them and say that the chapter house fell. But I think we got to get Marion and the Doc somewhere where he can be safe. You know, maybe me or just you and me or just me and Auntie Bee run out to these different-- Run out to Duncan and Farrah and say: Lay low, get to safety. Both our chapter houses fell today.

LUIS: Wait. I don't think-- Let's say this thing has already gotten to them. Who do you think is next on the list? I think it's him.

ZEHRA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Why?

LUIS: Because he was there. He's already encountered this thing. It already tried to turn into him.

TRAVIS: If it hasn't taken them out, we do owe them the responsibility of at least trying to warn them.

BRENNAN: Well then you stay with Marion and the Doc, and maybe one of us goes to Farrah's and one of us goes to Walter's and we try to get to them as fast as possible.

TRAVIS: Do we know if the entrance to the Fourth Pharos is compromised, broken? Does it work? I mean, this is destroyed.

SPENSER: This one has been destroyed.

TRAVIS: Okay.

SPENSER: It's unclear where another entrance would be. That's not information that you would be privy to.

MARISHA: What are the addresses?

SPENSER: Yeah. So, one of them is going to be in The Varnish, which is the downtown district.

TRAVIS: Actually, very close to here.

MARISHA: Oh, it's very close.

SPENSER: It's very close to you. Then the other one is going to be in the bottom part of The Steel. So very in the industrial--

TRAVIS: East.

SPENSER: So Duncan Walters is in The Steel and Farrah Morales is in The Varnish. So two separate directions.

LUIS: Two opposite directions.

SPENSER: But all within this side of the river. One will be going north, one will be going south if you're going to split up in that way.

MARISHA: There's still a horse.

BRENNAN: All right.

MARISHA: If you want to take a horse and go down to The Steel, I know a quick shortcut through to the Varnish.

ZEHRA: Please don't mind the burn marks on the horse.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: The what on the what? The burn marks on the horse?

ZEHRA: Just take the horse, Mr. Finnerty.

TRAVIS: Are you burning horses now, Doctor?

ZEHRA: (sighs) Yes.

LUIS: Okay.

TRAVIS: Fantastic.

BRENNAN: I appreciate the honesty. All right, well, alternative medicine.

MARISHA: I'll meet you back here.

BRENNAN: Okay.

SPENSER: So we're breaking up three ways from my understanding.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SPENSER: The three of you are going somewhere.

MARISHA: You're going to stay here?

TRAVIS: We're going to try and fortify here and see what we can glean--

LUIS: Yes, hunkered down there.

TRAVIS: -- from this chapter house, and y'all are going to run errands.

BRENNAN: Try to warn Duncan and Farrah.

SPENSER: Are you going--

TRAVIS: That is the rule of TTRPGs is--

ALL: Split up.

BRENNAN: Split the party.

SPENSER: Split up three ways.

MARISHA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Three ways.

SPENSER: Thank you.

TRAVIS: Like a Horcrux.

BRENNAN: I'll go to Duncan.

SPENSER: You'll go to Duncan.

MARISHA: I'm going to go to The Varnish to find--

SPENSER: Farrah.

MARISHA: Farrah.

SPENSER: Great. What are you-- You're taking it by foot?

MARISHA: I'm going to go on foot, I imagine. I've got my Street Smarts.

SPENSER: There are street cars.

MARISHA: I know everything.

LUIS: Call a street car.

SPENSER: There's trolleys. There's also the subway. So whichever, you can also go by foot, too. I just want to make sure you know your options.

MARISHA: What is the fastest?

BRENNAN: The fastest would probably be jumping on a trolley up on top of the--

MARISHA: I'll take the trolley.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah.

MARISHA: I'm not going underground.

SPENSER: Cable car.

TRAVIS: Dude, you're moving through this city no problem.

MARISHA: I'm not going underground. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: I'm going to, you know. It's no longer Candela Obscura Auntie Bee, it is old lady, bird lady, shuffling through the streets unassuming Auntie Bee.

SPENSER: Love it.

TRAVIS: Like Drunken Master, holding onto vehicles as you--

SPENSER: (laughs)

MARISHA: Yeah, pretty much.

TRAVIS: Going down the street. Flipping up. (snores)

MARISHA: Yep, and then flipping through alleys where I power-walk and then back on the trolley and then power-walking through the alleys and then-- Yeah.

SPENSER: We see you doing that. How are you getting to-- You're taking the horse?

BRENNAN: I'll grab a horse from the carriage.

SPENSER: Okay.

BRENNAN: Leaving three out of four or whatever.

SPENSER: One, yeah.

BRENNAN: Yeah, or leaving one to pull the carriage.

SPENSER: There'd be two--

TRAVIS: Is it the one with burn marks on its bottom?

BRENNAN: You know what, I was raised better than that. I'll take the burnt horse. (laughter)

ZEHRA: Don't be tempted by the smell. Your appetite might get whetted.

SPENSER: Don't look a burnt horse in the mouth. I think that's what they--

BRENNAN: Don't look a burnt horse in the mouth.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Or don't look a burnt horse on the ass. (laughter)

BRENNAN: I'll get on it and giddy up.

SPENSER: Great. So we have this scene where we're seeing you go through the downtown Varnish, you're going up through Silverslip here and then into The Varnish, breaking through from the government buildings into what would amount to this era of skyscrapers, right? They are not as tall as they would be.

MARISHA: It's full Slink-level shit.

SPENSER: Yeah.

MARISHA: She's going to trespass because she knows if she cuts through the front of this building, it's got an easy out and she doesn't have to go around the block. She can just cut through buildings.

SPENSER: Right, right, right. We see you walk straight through a building and out the other side of the building, as people are watching you. I'm going to have you make either a Hide or a Move roll for me. You are on horseback, we see you galloping down out of Silverslip down towards The Steel. The smokestacks erupting with smoke here as the moon shines down and you're going to make a Control--

BRENNAN: Cool.

SPENSER: -- roll here to be able to do that. The three of you, what are the three of you doing inside of the chapter house as this happens?

ZEHRA: First things first, I just want to take a bodily assessment and see where we're at. First, I turn my attention to Marion. If there's anything more medically I can do to help?

LUIS: I got one body mark.

ZEHRA: I'm going to roll a Patch Up.

SPENSER: Okay.

LUIS: How you doing over there?

TRAVIS: I'm all right. I'm one body, two brain, one bleed.

ZEHRA: One body, two brain, one bleed?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

ZEHRA: That's a four. I'm going to burn a resistance.

SPENSER: Okay.

BRENNAN: Oy!

ZEHRA: Reroll. That's a five. So that's for Marion. I at least try to put balm on the freshly-minted eye and forehead area.

LUIS: Mm. That feels nice.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LUIS: I pretend that I need her to do it longer, for longer than I actually need her to do it.

ZEHRA: I'm very patient. I stand there rubbing it into his temples.

LUIS: Hey, Doc.

ZEHRA: Yes?

LUIS: I'm sorry about your dad.

ZEHRA: Me too.

LUIS: You okay?

ZEHRA: (sighs) It's a complicated question, Marion. But yes. I think I will be.

LUIS: You know what I think? Time is really fucking weird. Sometimes it feels like it moves so slow and then other times, it's like bam, bam, bam. So fast, and it just slips. You can't waste time. We don't know how much we got.

ZEHRA: No. We certainly don't. I'm just glad that your time has not yet run out here.

LUIS: It kind of feels-- I don't know. I feel like a piece of me went through that thing.

ZEHRA: What did it feel like? May I?

LUIS: You want to touch me?

ZEHRA: Yes, other than your temples, I would like to-- If you will allow me, show me what you felt?

LUIS: Oh. Yeah, okay. I don't know if I know how to do that, but I'll try.

ZEHRA: We'll do it like we did it before.

LUIS: Then you got to take the lead on that.

ZEHRA: I take his hand with my right hand and that pulsating star begins on the side of my head. But it's bigger. It mirrors his new additions and it takes over my entire field of vision.

SPENSER: I'm going to have you roll Sense for me.

ZEHRA: Four.

LUIS: That's gilded, but that's okay. (laughs)

ZEHRA: I didn't gild it.

SPENSER: It's okay.

LUIS: Damn.

SPENSER: The pulsing hurts at first. There's a lot of new pain within Marion. A lot more bleed within him. Only through sheer will do you push through it. What do you let her see?

LUIS: I was just going to ask, do I have any agency? But okay, yeah. Fuck. I feel like time is-- Time is running out and I don't want to hide. I'm going to take her-- It's as if you encounter a seven-year-old version of me and you see this figure look right at you eye-to-eye. It maybe takes you a couple seconds to realize that it's a seven-year-old version of you standing next to me. I take your hand. I want to show you my garden. I take her-- Suddenly, we're at the front door of the house I grew up in and instead of pushing the door open, it just dissipates. We walk through that threshold.

ZEHRA: I've been here before.

LUIS: Of course. Then, poof. We're a little older, just a year, and still looking at the garden, everything that was there, all those flowers have grown a little bit more and we're in the same exact position. Your father is coming up. This is when you were here last. I step away from you, turn around, and ask you to follow me.

ZEHRA: I do.

LUIS: You've seen this already.

ZEHRA: I know what happens next.

LUIS: It doesn't matter. The past is done. Everything that happens in the past is what got you to where you are. So this time, I want you to watch. Don't close your eyes. I'm led back to my bed, as back when I was eight and this man came to fix me, to rid me of the curse or the demon that was in me because of the scar that my father saw. I remember he brought his daughter.

ZEHRA: I'm there. I'm holding the bowl. It's full of herbs from your garden and some from our own. I'm watching this boy writhe in pain, in agony and my father, beard flowing, smiling.

LUIS: Don't close your eyes this time. I want you to see everything.

ZEHRA: I won't. I'll see.

LUIS: There's a thread that starts to move out of my chest and it starts to move around you and it moves into your chest and out your back, out the door that dissipated somewhere else. There's nothing wrong with you, just like there's nothing wrong with me. And I let go of your hand.

ZEHRA: Time isn't running out for you, not while I'm on watch.

LUIS: My eyes hurt, can you touch them more?

ZEHRA: (chuckles) Yes, but hang onto this for good measure. I pull out my pocket watch. I give it to Marion to hang onto while I return to my ministrations on his eyes, ever more gentle, ever more lingering.

SPENSER: We stay on that for just a moment, watching these two. The world, for once, here at peace, if only for a moment because we cut back to the two of you.

MARISHA: Shit, that's right. We're still in this game. Oh my god. (snickering)

SPENSER: What did you roll?

MARISHA: What did I roll?

BRENNAN: That was so beautiful.

MARISHA: Four.

SPENSER: A four. What did you roll?

MARISHA: On a gilded die.

BRENNAN: What do you want from me?

SPENSER: What did you roll?

BRENNAN: I don't know. (laughter)

SPENSER: No idea.

BRENNAN: I was watching a movie.

SPENSER: Me too.

MARISHA: No, exactly!

SPENSER: Control.

BRENNAN: Control. I rolled a five!

SPENSER: Amazing, okay. Four and a five.

TRAVIS and LUIS: (laugh)

BRENNAN: What do you people want from me?

SPENSER: I'm here enjoying good entertainment.

MARISHA: Yeah. I know.

BRENNAN: I got the best seat in the fucking house, bro.

MARISHA: We need popcorn.

BRENNAN: Fucking calm down, dude! (laughter)

SPENSER: Four and a five, both a mixed success. As you approach this third story apartment in The Varnish, we see you move up the stairwell, up to--

MARISHA: Keeping an eye out. Keeping an eye out.

SPENSER: Yep.

MARISHA: Keeping an eye out.

SPENSER: There's a hallway where they've installed lights. New lights.

MARISHA: Electric lights?

SPENSER: Electric lights.

MARISHA: Kind of hurts my eyes a little bit, I'm not used to it.

SPENSER: You see-- You know the address. It's 53, or 353? 353. But 53 on the doors here on the third floor. You continue down. 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53. The door is red with gold lettering. Three five three. You stand outside of it. All seems quiet.

MARISHA: It's not ajar? It doesn't look disturbed?

SPENSER: Not from what you can see out here.

MARISHA: Can I peek under the crack?

SPENSER: Mm.

MARISHA: I look under the hinges and see if I can see any movement, any light flickers if it's dark.

SPENSER: Make a Survey roll for me. As you do that, we cut over to you. You rolled a five.

BRENNAN: Yep.

SPENSER: You're riding down towards The Steel. You get to a house. It's an old, old house built maybe, you know, 80, 90 years ago. So, not super old, but old enough that it, you know, that it looks like it was-- It looks as though it's built of metal siding. It's not a house like in Silverslip, it's not a house like in The Eaves. This is--

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SPENSER: -- for all intents and purposes, more makeshift in The Steel here than it would be elsewhere. There are lots of these homes on this alleyway that you're in. They all look like they've been cobbled together. This is a working man's, a working person's place of residence.

BRENNAN: Sure.

SPENSER: The door here is ajar.

BRENNAN: Got you.

SPENSER: What would you like to do?

BRENNAN: The door is ajar. I'm going to look around--

SPENSER: Just a little bit.

BRENNAN: Just a little bit.

MARISHA: I hate that.

LUIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: I'm going to--

TRAVIS: You went after Duncan or Farrah?

BRENNAN: I went after Duncan.

TRAVIS: Yep.

BRENNAN: I'm going to walk in, and, oh, I'm going to take a gun out. Are there any lights around? Do I see any lights, mirrors, reflective surfaces, or do I see any possibility of a lantern, a gas lamp from a street that I could light a rag with to have light going into the--?

SPENSER: Make a Survey roll for me.

BRENNAN: Okay. That's a one.

SPENSER: You enter, and the house is dark. To the left, there is a family portrait that has been sketched. No photographs right now with this level of impoverishment.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SPENSER: But it looks as though there's seven, eight members of this family from, you know, a grandfather down to some grandchildren.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SPENSER: The glass is reflective here as you open the door, but nothing else glints.

BRENNAN: I'll knock on the door as I'm in the doorway. I'm going to say: Mr. Walter. Mr. Duncan Walter. My name's Sean Finnerty. I'm here from our mutual organization. You're in danger.

SPENSER: You hear the cock of a gun. You see the glint of metal.

BRENNAN: Hands up. I drop my weapon.

SPENSER: "Who the fuck are you?"

BRENNAN: My name's Sean Finnerty.

SPENSER: "I've heard you, boy."

BRENNAN: You want to know who I am. I'm part of the Circle of Needle & Thread. I'm here because you are being hunted by a creature working in the name of Allison Suarez.

SPENSER: He leans in. You see a slash of light across his face. He goes, "You don't think I fucking know that? I'm waiting for him." We cut over to you.

MARISHA: I rolled three on my Survey roll.

TRAVIS: Set us up.

SPENSER: There is movement within--

MARISHA: Should have spent a drive.

SPENSER: -- here, but it's hard to tell what it is from the space in the cracks. You just see somebody moving.

MARISHA: I'm going to take out a bleed detector that I got.

SPENSER: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: Put it up against the wall.

SPENSER: Great.

MARISHA: Does it sense any bleed through the door?

SPENSER: It twinges.

MARISHA: Well, we've all been touched by bleed. I just test the door handle.

SPENSER: Mm-hmm. The door clicks.

MARISHA: It's not locked? I open it. (humming) Ms. Morales. Ms. Morales?

SPENSER: As you enter, you see the inside is lit up and there's a woman in a night robe. She's standing, looking in a drawer. She's holding a pair of socks. She closes the drawer. (soft, hesitant) "Hello?"

MARISHA: Beatrix Monroe, Candela Obscura.

SPENSER: She throws the socks onto the bed behind her.

MARISHA: Initial glances. How's she look? Does she have any type of vibe like Duncan had? Like she's already been taken over?

TRAVIS: She's fucking with socks!

LUIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: (laughs)

SPENSER: She looks--

TRAVIS: She's focused! (laughter)

SPENSER: She looks worried that somebody's coming into her place.

BRENNAN: I love that the vibe of this place is someone's like, "Who the fuck are you?" and we're like, "I like your style."

TRAVIS: Yeah. (laughter)

LUIS: This guy's safe!

BRENNAN: Someone's like, I need to mend the socks.

TRAVIS: I'm good with you. I'm good with you.

BRENNAN: We're, kill them! Fucking kill them! (laughter)

LUIS: That's sus, that's sus!

BRENNAN: Kill them!

LUIS: The gun is not sus.

MARISHA: I want to do a quick scan of the room.

TRAVIS: Those socks don't match!

MARISHA: Does it look like there has been any type of struggle, any type of break-in, anything that would indicate that she's already been compromised?

SPENSER: The lamp is a little bit cocked here.

ZEHRA: Oh.

MARISHA: That's it?

BRENNAN: For Needle & Thread, that's enough to fucking ice you then and there.

MARISHA: That's it?

SPENSER: That's it.

TRAVIS: Demon core.

LUIS: Jesus.

BRENNAN: I'm not waiting for a fucking notification.

SPENSER: What do you want to do?

MARISHA: Ms. Farrah, you're in grave danger.

SPENSER: "Grave danger," she says. She pushes the drawer closed. "I'm aware that there's been a rash of killings lately, but I think I am equipped to handle my own." She turns towards you, and you can see the glint of a Periphery badge on her chest.

MARISHA: Oh, is she a cop now? I'm going to say--

SPENSER: She takes it off. Puts it down.

MARISHA: Ms. Morales, for the safety of you and me, can you quickly recount me with the details of the night that you all lost Alison?

SPENSER: She smiles. Go ahead and make a Sway roll for me.

MARISHA: I'm going to spend a drive.

SPENSER: Okay.

MARISHA: I'm going to spend two drives.

SPENSER: Okay. (laughs)

TRAVIS: Pat her down for firearm or tentacles?

MARISHA: Well. You said Sway. I spent two drive. Six.

SPENSER: Six.

ZEHRA: Mm!

SPENSER: She says, "What Circle?"

MARISHA: She's asking my Circle?

SPENSER: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: You tell me yours first.

SPENSER: She eyes you, sits down on the bed behind her. "You know about Alison? I've been worried about her."

MARISHA: What's your Circle's name?

SPENSER: She smiles at you. We cut over to you. (groaning)

MARISHA: This bitch is a facehugger! (laughter)

SPENSER: There's a glint of a gun facing you. What do you want to do? He just told you he knows that he's in danger.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. All right. Courtesy, we didn't know if you knew. Both chapter houses of Silver Flame, which is the one we came from, Silver Flame, right?

ALL: Silverslip.

BRENNAN: Silverslip.

LUIS: We came from Silverslip at the-- But it was the Circle of Silver Flame.

BRENNAN: Silver Flame and Needle & Thread's chapter houses both fell today. Door to the Fourth Pharos gone. Rift closed, but door to the Fourth Pharos gone. We don't know who the hell we report to anymore. Are you isolated, too, or are you still getting orders?

SPENSER: "We're locked in," he says, "I, I always figure I'm operating alone."

BRENNAN: I understand that. Listen, I'm not going to tell you your business, you're taking care of yourself. If you feel like your odds are better with help, there's help, but I'm not going to make you take it.

SPENSER: "I appreciate that. You try and send people to watch guard, I don't want them here. If it's my time, it's my time."

BRENNAN: I understand the sentiment. You want to unload my gun, and hand it and the ammunition back to me? It's a long ride back to the harbor.

SPENSER: He looks you up and down. "Give me the gun, you can go."

BRENNAN: Do I have a way of getting another weapon like this now that both chapter houses have fallen?

SPENSER: There's ways, in the city, yeah.

BRENNAN: Okay. Then I'll say: Well, you're probably going to need it more than me, Duncan, you take care. I'll back slowly out of the door.

TRAVIS: Oh good, there you go, (laughs) oh, whoa.

SPENSER: As you back out of the door--

MARISHA: Mm!

SPENSER: We hear him say: "We're the same, you and I."

MARISHA: (gasps)

LUIS: No!

MARISHA: No!

SPENSER: And he unloads.

ZEHRA, LUIS, and MARISHA: No!

SPENSER: Take four points of body.

ZEHRA: No!

TRAVIS: Oh, what? Whoa, whoa!

BRENNAN: Is there any ability I have that I can potentially roll to avoid this? If not, that's fine, I'll take it.

SPENSER: Here's what I'll say.

TRAVIS: Oh, (laughs) four!

SPENSER: As the gun gets pulled.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

SPENSER: You were shot once before. Well, you weren't shot, but you almost were.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SPENSER: And somebody saved you, and that person isn't here now. But you heard the gun go off. [gunfire] [sirens]

SPENSER: You knew that your life was over, and somebody pulled you out.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

SPENSER: With those instincts, I'm going to say you can burn a resistance in Nerve.

BRENNAN: Okay.

SPENSER: If you do that, I'll allow you to make a roll.

ZEHRA: Oh.

SPENSER: The expectations here are you will still be shot. You are backing away from him, no weapon, he had perfect aim, he was right at you.

BRENNAN: Okay.

SPENSER: But you can make a Move roll--

BRENNAN: Okay.

SPENSER: To at least avoid two of those body.

BRENNAN: To avoid two?

SPENSER: Two body.

TRAVIS: Of the four.

SPENSER: Of the four body.

BRENNAN: Two of the four. I am not going to lie. I have, I have burned both of my Nerve resistance, I have an Intuition resistance.

SPENSER: I will let you spend Intuition resistance, that feels like it applies here.

BRENNAN: Okay.

TRAVIS: Sure does.

MARISHA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: I'm going to do that.

TRAVIS: Some of this shit, you just can't teach.

SPENSER: Yep.

MARISHA: Yep, analyze, remember?

BRENNAN: That's going to make a-- So, that's going to make a-- I'll burn my Intuition resistance. That's going to give me a Move roll to try to avoid two of this--

SPENSER: Two of those body marks.

BRENNAN: Okay. So, Move is going be one, two, three.

ZEHRA: Can any of us help him from afar?

SPENSER: Nope, nope. Everybody is away, you all split up.

MARISHA: Well, why did we split the party?

ZEHRA: Can the memory of our love for him--

SPENSER: (laughs)

ZEHRA: -- help him?

MARISHA: In a horror game.

BRENNAN: That's sort of the heart of eldritch horror is that the memory of love is the most powerful.

SPENSER: Right, that's--

ZEHRA: Care Bear Stare!

SPENSER: That's the most common theme of eldritch horror.

BRENNAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Okay, so, it's Move. Let's go ahead, we're going to burn some drive here as well. Let's go one, two. We'll go one, two, and fuck it, we'll burn all of it we got to roll six-- [thunder rumbling]

LUIS: Oh god!

BRENNAN: Dice.

ZEHRA: Damn it.

MARISHA and LUIS: (laugh)

LUIS: It's the rumble.

MARISHA: That's the table--

BRENNAN: That's a six.

ZEHRA: Oh, thank god!

LUIS: Yes!

SPENSER: The gun erupts. Describe for me here what happens.

BRENNAN: I burn all of my drive, take two body, immediately get two drive back. I see him go for the gun, and as I'm backing away to the door, I move out of the way, take the shot across the chest. It's, you know, he has, I assume, a shotgun in his hand.

SPENSER: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So all the skin is gone off my chest.

TRAVIS: Poof!

BRENNAN: Just scrapes, I'm cheese gratered across the chest.

LUIS: (grunting)

BRENNAN: At the doorway, I grab a panel of loose wood on this shitty old house, rip it off the doorframe, leap forward, grab it, and I'm going to attack him with this just piece of wood.

SPENSER: As you're coming at him, you hear, (reloading) again for another shot to load up. What I will say is high stakes roll, expectations here are: On a miss, he will shoot you again.

BRENNAN: Got you, great.

SPENSER: On a miss, you might still take some more body-- or sorry, on a mixed success, you might still take some body.

TRAVIS: (high-pitched, nervous laugh)

ZEHRA: I'm disinfecting my hands from a distance.

LUIS: Question.

ZEHRA: Knowing what's to come.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LUIS: I'm going to read you the text of this ability.

ZEHRA: Oh.

LUIS: I have visions of the future. When an ally is about to take one or more marks, I burn an Intuition resistance to warn them about the coming danger, then soak one of these marks. Do I, I mean, he's not with an earshot for me to warn him.

SPENSER: No.

LUIS: But am I able to, even though he's far away, have a premonition, and be aware of him being in danger, even though I can't help him absorb, dodge any of those marks?

TRAVIS: Yuck.

MARISHA: Mm.

LUIS: Does something go off in my mind, and I see a vision of this gunfire coming at him in this doorframe?

SPENSER: You see it, but there's nothing you can do about it. You get the premonitions.

LUIS: Yeah.

SPENSER: But you are not within--

LUIS: I know I can't help him--

SPENSER: -- communication, you know--

LUIS: But I know he's in trouble.

SPENSER: But you know that he's in trouble. That's the compromise I'll make there.

LUIS: Yes, great.

BRENNAN: Burning all of my drive.

SPENSER: I won't make you burn a thing for that.

LUIS: Oh, okay.

SPENSER: You can just have that.

BRENNAN: I also want to say, just for posterity, that I have three marks in body, brain, and bleed.

TRAVIS: (claps)

LUIS: (groans)

SPENSER: Let's go.

BRENNAN: Fives. Two fives.

LUIS: Can you-- Do you got any rerolls?

BRENNAN: No, I got nothing. I got no rerolls.

TRAVIS: He's all spent.

LUIS and BRENNAN: All spent.

LUIS: Okay.

SPENSER: Here's what happens. You move forward. You drive this shard of wood into the chest of this creature. You see around the wound (pulsing) chromatic aberrations, and its face shifts into you.

ZEHRA: (gasps)

LUIS: (groans)

SPENSER: It pulls the trigger. You're going to take two points of body here.

BRENNAN: Okay. I'm out.

SPENSER: We watch as it rips the wood out of its chest, throws it down. We see black ichor dripping down its body changing in color as it drips onto your body down below. We pull out from there. In the doorframe, the two of you, him standing over you, yourself standing over you. We hear the hiss of the factories around you. We see nobody paying mind in a place like this. We hear the cock of the shotgun once again and that's where we're going to end tonight's session.

TRAVIS and MARISHA: (groaning)

TRAVIS: Oh no! No! Wait, our pins like light up and go (beeping) because someone's down, like at a rave?

BRENNAN: Certainly there's some kind of Care Bear stare somewhere. (laughter)

ZEHRA: The power of love!

BRENNAN: If we love each other enough, certainly no one can get murdered.

LUIS: I got the premonition--

SPENSER: This one is your Care Bear stare.

LUIS: -- and I couldn't help him.

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

LUIS: I mean, you know, to be continued.

MARISHA: There's no way you can get to him in time.

LUIS: I know. But we know he's in trouble.

MARISHA: He's too far away.

SPENSER: You know he's in trouble.

MARISHA: We don't know if my girl is a fucking day walker.

SPENSER: Well, we do know that there's only one right now that has been able to change shape in that way. So, ostensibly, maybe--

BRENNAN: So you're saying she's just that weird in real life.

TRAVIS: Were the socks matching?!

BRENNAN: Put your fucking socks down, lady.

MARISHA: What're you doing with those socks at a time like this?

LUIS: Yes.

SPENSER: Before we go, the three of you-- Well, actually the four of you, because the four of you are in a relative state of ease here, I'm going to let you spend one Candela Obscura resource because we are not at the end of an assignment. I mean, we are, but like, assignments are off the table now, baby. Like--

LUIS: We just closed another rift.

SPENSER: Yeah, you did close another rift, so like, there are reasons to believe that we should be able to spend things that help each other. But I will say, it's only going to be one resource from each of you because you all are not in a place of rest. So let's go around and figure out what we want to spend.

TRAVIS: Who needs stitch the most?

LUIS: I don't. I've just got one body mark.

TRAVIS: Yeah. I'm one, two, and one.

ZEHRA: I have two body, two brain, and one bleed. But I only have one scar.

MARISHA: I don't have any scars, so I'm okay. Maybe the doc? Unless, how are you looking?

TRAVIS: I have one body, two brain, one bleed and two scars.

MARISHA: Oh.

ZEHRA: I feel like you need--

TRAVIS: I could use a stitch or I could take a train and take that d6.

ZEHRA: We only have one stitch left, right?

SPENSER: You have two stitches left.

TRAVIS: We have two stitches left because he didn't take one.

SPENSER: So two of you could take it.

ZEHRA: I mean, if no one else is taking it--

SPENSER: But it means you won't have a refresh.

ZEHRA: Correct. I didn't burn a ton of drive.

SPENSER: Okay.

MARISHA: So I'll take a train.

TRAVIS: Okay.

SPENSER: Great. You'll take a die?

ZEHRA: All right, I'll take a stitch.

LUIS: We each just can have one, right?

SPENSER: Correct.

LUIS: Do we have a refresh as an option still?

TRAVIS: We do. There are two refresh left.

LUIS: We could just take one.

LUIS: I'm going to-- I'm going to refresh. Yeah, I'm going to refresh. I need all my drive and resistance back. It's good.

TRAVIS: I have one more of these right? And you can't take one? I'll take the last stitch, I guess.

ZEHRA: That's not fair!

LUIS: Damn.

SPENSER: That's how it goes, baby.

ZEHRA: Damn! (laughter)

MARISHA: The cold look as you yelled, "That's not fair," at a Candela GM.

ZEHRA: Usually that works!

BRENNAN: Fairness is one of the--

LUIS: It's called Fairelands.

BRENNAN: Fairelands!

SPENSER: It's called the Fairelands!

MARISHA: What kind country is this?

SPENSER: It's the Unfairelands.

LUIS: Your "fair" is spelled wrong. N-O-T Fair.

MARISHA: Rewrite the guide. (laughter)

SPENSER: Throw it all out.

MARISHA: (laughs)

ZEHRA: Okay. Are we out of-- Who took refresh?

LUIS: I thought, yeah, no. I was like, "The sock lady. No!"

TRAVIS: I took refresh so we got two train left and one-- Well, we all took one.

SPENSER: As long as everybody took one, that's what we're at.

MARISHA: She's got five seconds to tell me her circle name or I'm lighting this bitch on fire. (laughter)

LUIS: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: It's uh-- It's uh-- It's, it's-- No, no, no! (laughter)

MARISHA: It's been a few years. Give me a minute.

SPENSER: Great. With that, I think we're going to finish up. Do we have anything else we want to do? Anything else? I think that's the hold.

LUIS: That's it.

SPENSER: Yeah? Okay.

ZEHRA: We're in Silverslip.

TRAVIS: I think while they were doing their thing, I would do an inspection thing and just try and piece together whatever I can from the house with the hopes that they'd be bringing people back and we could fortify this thing. But there's a lot to happen before we get close to that.

SPENSER: There sure is. Okay. Well, just like we did last time, I'm going to pass around the table. We're going to tell everybody who we are, and then we're going to go home, and we're going to get some sleep, and we're going to come back and finish this thing off. Yeah?

LUIS: Get sleep.

SPENSER: Start with you.

TRAVIS: I'm Travis Willingham playing Nathaniel Trapp and I have two scars.

MARISHA: Marisha Ray playing Beatrix Monroe, aka, you can all call me Auntie Bee.

BRENNAN: I'm Brennan Lee Mulligan and I had the honor of playing-- (laughter)

MARISHA: No!

BRENNAN: -- Sean Finnerty.

ZEHRA: I'm Zehra Fazal. I'm playing Dr. Jean Basar and I have a hand on fire. (laughter)

LUIS: I'm Luis Carazo and I am playing Marion Collodi.

SPENSER: Amazing. And I'm Spenser Starke. I've been your game master. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.