Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:54 Greetings Creatures of the Night and welcome back to Compelled Dual Desert song. I'm Barry
Speaker 2 00:01:00 And I'm Al. He didn't tell me he was gonna say that.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 And we are a spooky, spooky single player co gMed TT, R P g actual play podcast. I, I know this episode's going up in December, but I'm bitter about Halloween being over and it's a horror podcast, baby. It fits.
Speaker 2 00:01:24 Anyway, previously on compelled dual desert song.
Speaker 1 00:01:32 Okay, plan A was run and that was a disaster. So onto plan B.
Speaker 2 00:01:39 Okay, I'll bite. What's plan B?
Speaker 1 00:01:43 Hide.
Speaker 3 00:01:46 I'm in the airport right now. You heinous bitch.
Speaker 1 00:01:51 Hello Ellis.
Speaker 3 00:01:53 Hello Alice. You owe me $900 and the time and date of your death is tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 00:02:03 Maybe we should go back to the city. I mean, it's the last place they're gonna expect us to go. And the good thing about Vegas is that it's a good place to disappear.
Speaker 2 00:02:15 Well, Kalin O'Connell as I live and breathe.
Speaker 1 00:02:18 Yeah, must be nice.
Speaker 2 00:02:22 Well, there's no such thing as a free lunch, but, and then she taps a help wanted sign on the counter. There is such a thing as an employee discount.
Speaker 1 00:02:33 What's your deal anyway? Why are you helping us? What's the catch? Dahlia still texting nods over at you without looking up from her phone and goes, because I wanna see what this little motherfucker does next.
Speaker 2 00:02:45 You are the weirdest fucking woman I've ever had the fortune of meeting.
Speaker 1 00:02:50 Thank you. Flattery gets you everywhere. You know,
Speaker 2 00:02:54 I, I get in the fucking limousine.
Speaker 4 00:02:58 All I know is that I woke up dead in the middle of the desert a few days ago. All of the people who care about me seem to think that I'm losing my mind. And Damien's alive.
Speaker 2 00:03:14 Your grandmother stubs a cigarette out in an ashtray on the table. Now we're getting somewhere. All right, since we're not doing an end of session experience for the interludes, for reasons that I hope are obvious, let's get right to it. Kaylen, we find you sitting at your kitchen table in the late afternoon, early evening with the ghost of your grandmother. I imagine this is a lot to cope with. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 00:04:00 Staring into the fucking abyss. Thank you very much. They just bring a hand up to pinch at the bridge of their nose and sigh deeply.
Speaker 0 00:04:14 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:04:15 Oh yeah, now we're getting somewhere Damian's alive, which apparently is a refreshing change of pace for people with this address.
Speaker 2 00:04:24 Your grandmother with an infuriating calm for a dead woman. Takes a sip of her tea, puts it down and signs. Go ahead sweetheart. Let it out. We don't have anything important to discuss.
Speaker 1 00:04:39 I will. I will let it out. Thank you. I'm a zombie. A revant. A ghoul. One of the shaming undead. That's enough to make anybody have a rough fucking day. Alright, but we got a isat cake with the fact that I don't remember anything about this place or the people that used to live here, except for the random fleshes of nightmare visions that I've been getting. What the fuck is up with that?
Speaker 1 00:05:01 You know, UGA booga dead scary lady in the bathtub. But hey, take it easy. Kalin. You're scaring your family and friends. Oh, I'm sorry. Is my decedent status inconvenient for people? Cuz last time I checked, I was the one that completely checked out for two weeks and then came back to my whole fucking life on death in a shambles because I lost my job and then this morning my fucking washer breaks and I get it. All right. I get that. I'm overreacting to common everyday life issues and I should probably be talking to my psychiatrist about them instead of a ghost, but any port in a storm. Okay, so yes, I will go on.
Speaker 2 00:05:44 Your grandma reaches into her pocket, pulls out a pack of ghost cigarettes, lights one, and does not say anything.
Speaker 1 00:05:53 Caitlin just freezes mid sign arms, splayed wide apart big emotions, closes her eyes, shakes out her wrists, and slowly puts her hands back at a more normal position. I'm fine, I'm cool, I'm fine.
Speaker 2 00:06:13 The ghost of Bridget O'Connell raises her eyebrows and then signs. All right, got it outta your system.
Speaker 1 00:06:23 Yes, I'm normal now.
Speaker 2 00:06:26 She snorts and signs you weren't that even when you were alive.
Speaker 1 00:06:32 So I've been told speaking of that, I, I gotta be real with you grandma. What the hell is up with our house?
Speaker 2 00:06:41 She takes a drag off of her cigarette and then signs my house is, how do I put this kind of like fly paper
Speaker 5 00:06:54 For
Speaker 2 00:06:55 The departed? We'll we'll say,
Speaker 1 00:06:58 Oh, okay cool. So it was like this before I bit the dust. I'm just checking to make sure that I'm not the problem all the time.
Speaker 2 00:07:08 Oh, we were all around before, but you clawing your way back from the great beyond as uh, given the place a little more juice than usual
Speaker 1 00:07:19 K's. I twits. So what you're saying is that I'm the problem all the time.
Speaker 2 00:07:26 I didn't say that The combination of uh, this house and somebody coming back from the dead would've been a bit of a disaster no matter who it was. It's at least as much my fault as it is yours. But my house, my rules, everybody knows better than to try to fuck with me.
Speaker 5 00:07:48 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:07:50 Yeah, sure. All right. I can do the whole mutual respect and a shared living space thing, but if you try to give me a curfew, I am calling the Ghostbusters.
Speaker 2 00:07:59 I think calling in a shared living space might be low blow
Speaker 1 00:08:07 Anyway. I don't know if you want to have a family meeting about the whole Damien situation, but given that we know that he's alive and he's no longer in your house, I would like to rectify that situation. I just don't know how
Speaker 2 00:08:23 She takes another drag off her cigarette, taps it out in the ash track. One problem with that, seeing as I couldn't keep him in this house, I can't really do much outside of my jurisdiction.
Speaker 1 00:08:40 You dunno what to do.
Speaker 2 00:08:43 Her mouth pinches into a thin line. Not yet at least.
Speaker 1 00:08:50 Cool. Cool. So you're mean and useless.
Speaker 2 00:08:55 Look, kid, we're not all walking around being al all the time. I'm doing what I can. She gestures around her at the house. Generally I am keeping as much at bay as I am capable of. As you may have noticed, there are a couple people in this house that aren't happy with you.
Speaker 1 00:09:24 Yeah, I've been wondering what I did to piss off to your old mom and dad. You wouldn't happen to have any insight on that, would you?
Speaker 2 00:09:32 Your grandmother's eyes flash like coins as she takes a sip of her tea and she gives you a slow smile, puts the cup down and signs not everybody's as coherent as I am. We'll say like I said, my house, my rules.
Speaker 1 00:09:53 Cool. Horrifying. I'm going back to work Now.
Speaker 2 00:09:58 As you say that in the wake of this unsettling energy that has overtaken your grandmother, you start to feel this like strange oppressive energy in the air. It is kind of similar to what you were feeling in the bathroom yesterday, but, but it feels, there's no other way to say it. Whatever's in the bathroom is angry. Whatever you are feeling now is nothing but pure unadulterated malice. You start to hear this low, hello unsettling murmur from the backyard and as you hear that your grandmother doesn't have her hearing is in. Presumably she can't hear it, but she whips around and you hear a low animalistic snarl tear out of her and in the glass of the sliding door you can only see her eyes lighting up almost white. She pushes her chair back and bangs twice with her fist on the door and yells, shut up art.
Speaker 2 00:11:22 That energy drops outta the air immediately and then she turns around and gives you a crooked smile. Looks totally normal. Just kind of a nice lady. In her late fifties, she raises her cigarette almost in a toast and signs, oh, I should be clearing out too. Seeing me for too long. Puts him in one of his moods. She stands up from the table and walks around. It leans down to give you a kiss on top of the head and then steps back into your field of vision to sign. Have a good night at work. I'd go out through the front door and then she walks past you into the living room.
Speaker 1 00:12:12 I'm gonna go look out the back door. I'm not opening it and I'm checking to make sure it's locked, but I'm just gonna go peek out there and see if I see anything.
Speaker 2 00:12:22 Nope, you don't see anything. Maybe more bugs out than usual.
Speaker 1 00:12:28 Yeah, you know, I've already gotten one more life than most people get at this point. I'm not gonna play with it. I'm gonna go out through the front door.
Speaker 2 00:12:38 Sitting on the front step. Leaned back against the outside wall of the house is a young man, dark, kind of wavy, curly hair, tilting his head back against the wall. Purple lipstick like smeared across the corner of his mouth like he wiped his mouth and it just left us streak holding a bottle of vodka. He looks up as you stand in the doorway and you see that it is the young man that your friend Frankie identified as the uncle that your brother is named for. And as he looks up, you see that there is a spreading red stain going down his chest. He raises the bottle at you smirks and says, welcome to the trip baby girl. And disappears.
Speaker 1 00:13:33 I hate it here. I hate it here. I hate it here. I hate it Here I'm going back to the laundromat. I'm gone. The only thing I'm stopping to do is before I start the car I'm gonna text Lydia where I am just so she doesn't come over and find me gone and freak out.
Speaker 2 00:13:53 Okay? You go to the laundromat, Bev is sitting up at the front tapping her nails on the countertop. She looks up when you walk in and gives you a little two finger salute. Did you remember your name tag?
Speaker 1 00:14:06 Yes, I remembered my name tag. Can you just give me something to do where I don't have to talk to people? It's shaping up to be a really weird day.
Speaker 2 00:14:16 We got a dry cleaning order in the back.
Speaker 1 00:14:20 Fine. Give me 10 minutes of peace and quiet and a Google search about how dry cleaning machines work and I shall move the world.
Speaker 2 00:14:28 She gives you a thumbs up, jerks that thumb in the direction of a door in the back and says have at it and uh, make sure you hold it onto the name tag. It's the only part of the uniform I care about
Speaker 1 00:14:42 Case Quin at her but then goes in the back room. Can I roll something to check the name tag to see if she has it fucking bugged or something? Cuz that was suspicious
Speaker 2 00:14:52 Rule to investigate a mystery I guess.
Speaker 6 00:14:58 Whew
Speaker 1 00:15:00 13 on this
Speaker 6 00:15:02 <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:15:03 I don't think this is technically how the rules work, but back in episode two when I rolled a 13 on read about situation, you let me ask one free question and two off the list. So I think that's just how we're gonna play it. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:15:17 First question, what can it do?
Speaker 2 00:15:20 It's a metal rectangle that has your name on it. It has a pin on the back.
Speaker 6 00:15:26 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:15:28 Smart ass. Second question, what is being concealed here?
Speaker 2 00:15:33 It's a metal rectangle
Speaker 6 00:15:35 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:15:36 With your name on it.
Speaker 1 00:15:39 I'll fucking kill you. Third question. My open ended one. Is there anything about this name tag that has been messed with or is weird in any way?
Speaker 2 00:15:52 Yeah, sure. Um, you look at it very closely, kind of run your fingers over it, tilt it into the light, and it's a metal rectangle
Speaker 6 00:16:00 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:16:02 That has your name engraved into it.
Speaker 1 00:16:06 Man, fuck you. I'm gonna Google how to work a dry cleaning machine and start on my job.
Speaker 2 00:16:13 I'm just gonna point out you're the one who wanted to investigate a name tag
Speaker 1 00:16:17 Because the weird lady was being weird about it. There's being unreasonable and then there's being cautious.
Speaker 2 00:16:27 Ok, ok. Okay. You Google how to work a dry cleaning machine. You start mowing through, uh, a bunch of dry cleaning orders. You are shagging along, getting through your work. And then after maybe an hour and a half, two hours, Bev pokes her head in and says, uh, there's somebody here to see you.
Speaker 1 00:16:52 I don't want to be seen.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 Bev nods and then says Caly. I'm gonna be frank with you. There is a drunk young woman in my laundromat and she's here to see you. You need to make her leave somehow.
Speaker 1 00:17:10 I just want one day Bev. I want one day where absolutely wild shit does not happen to me. Move. Okay, I've got it.
Speaker 6 00:17:22 Kayla
Speaker 2 00:17:23 O'Connell has been resurrected for 48 hours.
Speaker 6 00:17:27 <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:17:29 You walk out of this back room and sitting on one of the folding shelves is Francesca Napolitan. She is wearing yet another weird outfit, but weird in a different way. She's got like a Peter Pan collared crop top and high waisted shorts with the two rows of buttons and what appeared to be Chucks modified to have Healy wheels in them. And her leather jacket is red today.
Speaker 1 00:17:59 I cannot emphasize this enough. Ca staggers under the weight of her own exhaustion up against a washing machine.
Speaker 2 00:18:07 Frankie stops adjusting her hair, which is in like extravagant 1920s ass finger waves and looks up at you and waves.
Speaker 1 00:18:19 Hey, hi.
Speaker 3 00:18:20 Over here.
Speaker 1 00:18:22 Yes, I see you Francesca Napolitan, why are you in my workplace?
Speaker 2 00:18:28 She hops off the shelf and hes toward you.
Speaker 3 00:18:33 Well, so you see, I texted Lydia to figure out where you were and she said you were at work, but then I went to the bookstore and the bookstore was closed. So I asked what work? And she said at the laundromat. And I said, okay. And then I came over here.
Speaker 1 00:18:46 It is amazing how you were able to say that much and not answer the question I asked you, but yeah, I I I don't work at the bookstore anymore.
Speaker 3 00:18:57 I gathered that
Speaker 2 00:18:59 Instead of stopping herself by popping the wheels back in, she stops herself by grabbing your arm.
Speaker 3 00:19:07 Sorry,
Speaker 2 00:19:08 She lets you go and gives you a big smile and says,
Speaker 3 00:19:12 So there's a basement show downtown that I really wanna go to, but Bailey and Lydia both have work in the morning and I cannot be trusted on chaperon,
Speaker 1 00:19:20 Uh, a base. Frankie, are you completely missing the fact that you walked into my employer while I am on the clock and want me to leave with you?
Speaker 3 00:19:37 I think you like the band.
Speaker 1 00:19:39 Oh my God.
Speaker 6 00:19:41 <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:19:45 They're
Speaker 3 00:19:46 Local. We have to support local artists.
Speaker 1 00:19:49 Okay, I'm gonna say this really slowly to get my message across. I am working. I can't go with you. How is it that I know that you are the only person in this friend group who does not work to pay your bills?
Speaker 3 00:20:06 I'm told I have kind of an aura of somebody whose dad is in the mob. So that's probably it.
Speaker 1 00:20:13 Is your dad in the mob?
Speaker 3 00:20:16 I don't have to answer that.
Speaker 6 00:20:19 I hated
Speaker 3 00:20:20 Here. I hated
Speaker 1 00:20:21 Here. I hated here. I can't go with you. Frankie,
Speaker 2 00:20:28 From behind you. Bev says, I mean I'm alright if you go early.
Speaker 1 00:20:33 Kay doesn't turn around but just puts up one finger. Do not encourage this Beverly.
Speaker 2 00:20:39 That's not what Bev's short for
Speaker 1 00:20:42 As it all right, out of curiosity, what is it short for
Speaker 2 00:20:47 Beverage Anyway, I'm okay paying you for less hours. You can go anytime.
Speaker 1 00:20:53 Kay turns around just enough to side eye
Speaker 2 00:20:55 Her Bev waggles her eyebrows at you and then says, go have fun with your friends. Bye.
Speaker 1 00:21:04 Extremely defeated. I'm just gonna reach out one hand for Frankie.
Speaker 2 00:21:09 Frankie cheers pops the wheels back out of her shoes and toes you out the door.
Speaker 1 00:21:20 Damien, we pick back up with you where we left you in the back of a strange limousine with your new vampire bestie. One Dahlia Amari Castillo Bennett is sitting on the bench seat across from you delicately sipping at one of those little mini bottles of champagne and just watching you analytically like she thinks. You're a fascinating little science experiment. Luke Johansen is sitting beside you fucking dissociating to be honest. And through the rolled down partition you can see into the front of this limousine as the young teenage girl driving it is just cursing colorfully at the traffic and swerving between lanes.
Speaker 0 00:22:08 What,
Speaker 1 00:22:10 What's going on in your head right now buddy? What are we doing?
Speaker 2 00:22:15 I mean I'm very happy for Dolia and Luke and their little bottles of champagne, but I am not going to calm down for several hours. I am in full go go gadget hypervigilance mode. I am looking out the windows. I am making sure everything's cool. I am trying to calm the fuck down.
Speaker 1 00:22:33 You do not see any sign of the mounted hunters that we're pursuing you back at the hospital, but you don't know how much of that has to do without running them. And how much of it has to do with the fact that you're in the middle of the Las Vegas strip right now? It'd be kind of hard to ride a horse here. The traffic is bumper to bumper. The sidewalks are crowded with tourists walking up and down in front of the different casinos. All sites that you realize in this moment of quiet vigilance are extremely familiar. You look at the names of these places flashing neon through the night, the Bellagio, the Venetian, and you find those names coming back to you. You had forgotten them, but it's like holes in your memory are being filled in. The girl driving the limousine fixes you with a death glare in the rear view mirror and just raises one eyebrow. Okay, so is anybody gonna tell me what the fuck is going on here?
Speaker 2 00:23:43 Damien size and pinches the bridge of his nose and says, look, it's a really long story. I don't wanna go into it. Suffice to say monsters trying to kill me and this guy and then he points at Luke,
Speaker 1 00:24:01 The girl in the driver's seats expression gets even more bitchy like in only that way that a 17 year old girl can. Oh this is fantastic cause you know I have a calculus test tomorrow, but why would I waste my time studying or maybe getting a couple hours of sleep? No, no. Forget about it. I'm out here driving in the getaway car for an episode of Scooby Do Gone Wrong.
Speaker 2 00:24:28 Damien is not even looking at her. He's starting to look out the windows again. He says, yeah, I'm really sorry that me trying to avoid murder is inconvenient for
Speaker 1 00:24:36 You. Yeah, it really is. But hey, thanks for acknowledging it Dahlia. This is all your fault. Dahlia who looks very used to being harangued in such a manner is just absolutely filing one of her nails. Then you should have left me to die if you were gonna get that pressed about it. Don't worry about her boys, she's not a vampire yet. So her bark's definitely worse than her bite.
Speaker 2 00:25:02 Damien looks at Dahlia and then at this girl driving the limo and then says, okay one, I don't love the use of the word yet in that sentence. Uh, two, I'm a middle child so I hope y'all are gonna forgive me for not getting involved in whatever this is.
Speaker 1 00:25:18 You can practically see like that anime lightning bolt going between their eyes as they stare at each other in their rear view mirror and in unison they both go, she's not my sister. Dahlia looks away first and just goes back to filing her nails Octavia's more like a uh, super annoying roommate or maybe a pet, you know, like one of those really yy little purse dogs that'll sink its teeth into your arm at the slightest provocation.
Speaker 2 00:25:49 What else is a little sister? Really?
Speaker 1 00:25:52 The girl driving the car. Octavia apparently just snaps get fucked. Dahlia and peels off around a corner.
Speaker 2 00:26:02 Anyway, anybody wanna tell me where we're going? Not to sound suspicious of either of you ladies, but uh, I've been kidnapped before and I didn't like it the first time. I assume
Speaker 1 00:26:16 Luke breaks out of his stupor long enough to squint at you. I thought you said you didn't remember anything.
Speaker 2 00:26:24 I don't, like I said, it's an assumption.
Speaker 1 00:26:27 Okay. Dahlia doesn't even blink at the revelation that you have been kidnapped before. Just takes another sip of her mini champagne. We're going home. Like I said, I've got connections, somebody that could maybe help you out, but we just have to go ask first From the front seat, you see Octavia put on the blinker signal and kind of steal a glance out the wing mirror. Uh, maybe we're going home that Cadillac's been tailing us since we left the hospital.
Speaker 2 00:27:03 I'd like to rate a bad situation.
Speaker 1 00:27:06 Okie doki. You do that for me,
Speaker 2 00:27:10 Huh? 12.
Speaker 1 00:27:13 Okay, so you get two questions from the list and one open-ended question.
Speaker 2 00:27:18 Are there any dangers we haven't noticed?
Speaker 1 00:27:21 You waste a couple seconds trying to follow Octavia's eye line into the mirror, but because of the angle you're sitting at, it's too hard. So you just turn around and look out the back of the limo and yep. There is a long black classic Cadillac car that is riding your bumper. The windows in this car are tinted very, very dark. You cannot see in and if you look off to the side, you see another identical Cadillac sort of closing in on your flank like it's trying to kettle your car in essentially.
Speaker 2 00:28:00 Well, it's my best way out. Uh,
Speaker 1 00:28:03 Well unless you'd like to hop out of the car and start running and take your chances on foot, I would suggest you buckle up.
Speaker 2 00:28:12 Okay. And for my open-ended question, um, we've seen that me trying to slow motherfuckers down is not like great <laugh>. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:28:24 Yeah. Friendly word from your keeper. You're in the middle of the Las Vegas strip. There are so many civilians around.
Speaker 2 00:28:34 Yeah. Um, can I speed our car up? Like do I think I could do that and it would work? Uh,
Speaker 1 00:28:45 Let me look at the rules for magic real quick. So I'm looking at the prescribed effects of used magic as a move and I'm not really seeing anything that is analogous to speeding up the car. If you want you can try for big magic, but when big magic goes wrong, it goes wrong. Way harder than regular magic does. So I'll leave that up to you.
Speaker 2 00:29:13 Okay. Big magic. It is.
Speaker 1 00:29:15 Okay, cool. So I get to pick a prerequisite for this. I'm going to pick that it will have a specific side effect or danger. So you're gonna roll like you're using magic and if you beef it, it's not gonna be good.
Speaker 2 00:29:30 Okay, well I have plus two to weird. Uh, nine.
Speaker 1 00:29:37 All right. That is a mixed success. So please your spell effect and a glitch for me.
Speaker 2 00:29:45 Uh, I will take one harm. Ignore armor.
Speaker 1 00:29:48 Okay, tell me how you're casting this spell. What would you like to do?
Speaker 2 00:29:55 I feel like the effect is similar to like cartoon rocket Blasters. <laugh> just he makes a gesture like he's pushing something out in front of him as he's looking back through the back window and just a bloom of fire comes out the back of the limousine. It probably catches this first Catie, uh, in the front bumper and probably the front wheels. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:30:18 Along with like a planter box on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 00:30:22 I'll give a shit about property damage, my man.
Speaker 1 00:30:26 Okay, the back of this car lights up like a Roman candle and you lurch forward with the sudden burst of speed. Dahlia spills some of her champagne and curses. Luke grabs for the little handle up above the window. I don't know what it's actually called. My mom always just called it the Jesus handle. He gets kind of tossed to the side from the momentum and bangs his head on the window and goes,
Speaker 2 00:30:53 Whoa.
Speaker 1 00:30:56 And from the front seat for the first time, you see Octavia's very sour expression change into a slow malicious smile. Oh yeah, I can work with this. And she slams on the gas.
Speaker 2 00:31:12 Damian grimacing as he takes whatever this one harm is, just goes sick. Work with it faster, please. Barry, what's my side effect from this?
Speaker 1 00:31:28 Uh, namely that it hurts like hell. There's this odd feeling that's like the engine of the car is inside you. You can feel pistons rumbling against the insides of your ribs and your heart is beating all out of whack. You feel almost like a rubber burn, like you're trying to grab a belt that's rotating rapidly along the skin of your palms as you press them down to the floorboards of the car. It does not feel good to the point that you're not really able to process what happens next other than there's a lot of screaming Octavia drives up onto the sidewalks scattering passerby in her wake. She is shouting in absolute unbridled glee as she does this. One of the Cadillacs is on fire and stalled in the street, but the other one cuts across traffic to follow you. Octavia just fully drives down through a promenade like a foot traffic only area with lots of stores.
Speaker 1 00:32:32 She's driving over curbs. She's Tokyo drifting this limo around corners. It's like a zero gravity simulation in the back of this thing like Luke and Dahlia are just hovering in the air. Pretty much you go screeching out onto some kind of little access road behind a bunch of these stores where you would assume truck deliveries go in and out and the magic dies. Octavia looks back and forth, checks all the rear view mirrors, and still with a big smile goes, okay, that was rad, we lost them. Let's go home. And you just pass the fuck out. You're unconscious for a moment. You're just floating in that inky softness of unconsciousness and then you're not there anymore. You perceive harsh fluorescent light through your closed eyelids and open them to the interior of a classroom. You're at a school, not your school, but a school somewhere, and you're bowed forward with your head on the desk like you've just been sleeping through a lecture. There are other people at the desks around you all sitting up straight ramrod posture, staring forward directly next to you. You see a girl about your age with long matted mousey brown hair. Every one of her joints is protruding from malnutrition. She looks like she's starving to death.
Speaker 1 00:34:28 Her head is facing forward, but her eyes are locked on yours wide and terrified and over the too loud hum of these lights overhead. You hear her grate out. Whisper between clenched teeth.
Speaker 5 00:34:46 Damian help.
Speaker 2 00:34:51 I'm gonna clench my jaw and then look forward at whatever everyone is facing.
Speaker 1 00:34:58 It's extremely hard to understand what you see at the front of this classroom. Predictably, there's a whiteboard and a plain metal desk and standing behind it is an English teacher, not any English teacher you've ever had, but you know that one mean English teacher that everybody hates that everybody's had one of. It's like you're staring at the concept of that English teacher. It's really hard to make your eyes focus on her because it's almost like her features keep changing. Her hair is long and gray. One second, and then jet black and pulled up in a severe bun. The next, her eyes keep going back and forth between different colors and shapes, but as she notices you watching her, they go solid void like black and her head tilts slowly to the side.
Speaker 7 00:36:05 Mr. O'Connell, do you care to summarize the lesson for everybody?
Speaker 5 00:36:13 I I I don't. What's
Speaker 2 00:36:18 I'm gonna look around the classroom.
Speaker 1 00:36:23 You see a room full of people roughly your age, all in a state of severe malnutrition and neglect and abject terror. You try to look out the windows and then realize that there's nothing outside them. It's not just that it's dark, it's that there's nothing outside and fast too fast for you to process way too fast. There are two hands braced on your desk in front of you, and this teacher is up in your space. Her features still warping and twisting and changing, but those solid black eyes never shifting boring straight into yours.
Speaker 7 00:37:07 You know I don't take well to inattentive students. Mr. O'Connell, I'm gonna need you to stay after class. We need to discuss your recent absence
Speaker 1 00:37:21 And then you wake up in the back of dahlia's limo soaked through with cold sweat
Speaker 2 00:37:30 Caly. We find you following your friend Frankie Napolitan into the basement of a club where there is pounding hard rock music and bright neon lights. She breezes past the bouncer, easily flashes her Id gets a little stamped and she's in. I assume you're going with her having not reconsidered this whole venture,
Speaker 1 00:37:56 Both of you two, assume I haven't reconsidered it, but yes, I'm going.
Speaker 2 00:38:01 You get some weird looks, but then you find yourself in the middle of a crowd. There's a band on stage just finishing up a set. As you get closer and you hear more of the music, you can tell they're kind of alt punk, but with a little harder of an edge, if that makes sense. The front man has awful like pushed up. You know the hair, you know the hair, uh, and he's wearing a big like checkered jacket, desperately holding onto the mic and crooning beautiful voice. Like you want to get closer to the stage to hear better. But Frankie is taking off into the crowd.
Speaker 1 00:38:43 Frankie don't. She just stands there. Arms kind of half raised looking extremely awkward and like she would rather die than touch anybody around her.
Speaker 2 00:38:57 After a minute, Frankie Healy's back through the crowd.
Speaker 1 00:39:02 How I've been in the crowd at basement shows. How is she healing?
Speaker 2 00:39:08 Francesca Napolitan has powers beyond the can of any mortal man. <laugh>, uh, she heals back through the crowd and holds out to you in one hand, an extremely fruity cocktail with a little curly straw in it.
Speaker 1 00:39:24 I stare at her and then pull out my phone and Google, can I still get drunk if I am dead?
Speaker 2 00:39:31 Frankie sips at her own equally fruity cocktail and then says,
Speaker 3 00:39:36 Look, I know these things make you uncomfortable, but like you need to loosen up for a second. It's been a really hard week for you
Speaker 1 00:39:44 After finding what I'm sure are irrelevant search results. Kay just takes the drink and downs it and then stares back at Frankie again. Oh, yes, it's been an extremely difficult week for me. That's why you drug me out to a crowded social function. Thank you for your service. It's very selfless. Well,
Speaker 3 00:40:07 Listen, the crowd's for me, the music's for you.
Speaker 1 00:40:10 Keep telling yourself that they go to the bar.
Speaker 2 00:40:15 Frankie gives you a two finger salute, <laugh>, and says,
Speaker 3 00:40:19 I'm gonna go post up by an amp if you need me.
Speaker 2 00:40:22 And then he's away.
Speaker 1 00:40:24 Kay walks up to the bar and shouts over the music at the bartender. Hey buddy, give me a shot of screwball. I got an experiment I wanna try.
Speaker 2 00:40:34 The bartender gives you a nod and pours you a shot and slides it across the bar top.
Speaker 1 00:40:40 Excellent. If my hypothesis is correct, it means I finally get to eat a Reese's Cup. If my hypothesis is incorrect, it means I get to leave this place. Everybody wins. I take the shot of peanut butter whiskey with my peanut allergy. That might not be a thing anymore since I'm dead.
Speaker 2 00:41:00 First of all, you find that you do not actually like the taste of peanut butter that much. It's kind of weird. It's mostly just salty. But more importantly, you are subjected to one of the weirdest physical sensations of A, you're on death and B, you think probably your life before <laugh>. You have all of the symptoms of an allergic reaction without the feeling of not being able to breathe. Within minutes are starting to get hives and like your throat swells up, but you are fully cognizant. Was it worth it?
Speaker 1 00:41:44 Curiosity killed decay again, they look down at their hives and try to cuss, but because they throat is swollen shut, just a horrible rattle comes out
Speaker 2 00:41:58 From to the side and slightly behind you. A voice goes, oh my God, are you okay?
Speaker 1 00:42:05 I think as somebody that had a deadly allergy in life, Kay probably keeps an EpiPen in her purse and just takes it out, flips the cap off with the flourish, turns around to face the source of the noise and goes, no, and just jabs it into her leg.
Speaker 2 00:42:24 Okay, you turn around, you do this, you look up at the source of this voice and you know when someone is so attractive that for like a second your brain just turns into TV static.
Speaker 1 00:42:40 Uh oh.
Speaker 2 00:42:42 You have that reaction standing in front of you, going to dig into her own purse. Looking concerned is a person in like maybe their mid twenties, a little older than you, but not much black, dark skinned, very pretty braids in, uh, mostly dark, but with like a couple pops of blue and purple near her hairline. She's maybe five and a half feet tall wearing like plaid, corduroy, bell bottoms and a sparkly black halter top eyes very big and round as she is digging around her purse. And then they stop and tilt their head a little bit and go, huh,
Speaker 8 00:43:30 I have.
Speaker 2 00:43:32 And then she digs in her purse a little bit more.
Speaker 8 00:43:36 Uh, um, I I, I mean,
Speaker 1 00:43:43 Uh, no, no, it's, it's all cool. It's fine. It's not like it's gonna kill
Speaker 8 00:43:48 Me. <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:43:51 They perch themselves on a bar stool next to you and finally come up with also an EpiPen and a packet of antihistamines and then just hold them out to you. Are you sure? Cuz I can, I have a car outside. I can take you to a hospital. Um, I'm Lola by the way.
Speaker 1 00:44:12 I just realized that Kay didn't get to change before they left the laundromat. So they're still in their ratty hoodie and like probably still have trash and shit in their hair and, you know, covered in hives. That's, that's another thing. They just stare at this beautiful, beautiful person like a deer in the headlights. The only thing the hospital will do for me is give me a v i p tour of the morgue. I'm ca
Speaker 2 00:44:42 You watched this person, Lola, apparently take a closer look at you kind of leaning forward on the bar stool. This close. You can see that she has glittery highlighter on and a very pretty dark lipstick. She squints a little bit and then smiles and nods and goes, okay, um, you look really uncomfortable though. Uh, and then she turns around with a ruffle of braids and waves down the bartender and says, Hey, can we get an ice water over here? Thanks.
Speaker 1 00:45:18 I'm looking around desperately for Frankie. I can't do this alone. I need a wingman.
Speaker 2 00:45:24 The bartender comes back over, slides a glass of ice water across the bar, top to you and Lola seeing that you're looking around goes, oh, are are you here with somebody? Should we go?
Speaker 1 00:45:38 Uh, no, no, I'm not with anyone. I mean, I came here with someone, but I'm, I'm single. That's not what you were asking. Was it?
Speaker 2 00:45:51 She blinks at you and then says no. I mean, always good to know, but, um, it, you seem like, I mean, I know you just did the EpiPen, but you seem like you're having like a really bad time.
Speaker 8 00:46:05 <laugh> <laugh>. Oh yeah. I'm actually having a really shit time. Lola, thank you for noticing. It's good to feel seen.
Speaker 1 00:46:15 Oh, it's really not. This is mortifying. Actually, I drink my water so fast.
Speaker 2 00:46:22 Uhhuh, she turns back to the bartender again, makes a gesture and says, uh, another water for me please. And then she looks at you again and squints and I'm gonna roll something for her. Okay? Uh, that'll do. She looks at you like she's trying to figure something out for a long second and then puts on a big bright smile and says, okay, can you walk? Because you're supposed to go to the ER after you use an EpiPen and I'm gonna be a good Samaritan and drive you there. I just have to get a friend of mine. I don't know where she went.
Speaker 1 00:47:00 Nail hospitals. Uh, uh, I, you know, I'm fine. I don't have insurance. That's the
Speaker 2 00:47:13 Truth. Um, can I drive you back to your hotel then? I just wanna make sure you get back, okay? Uh, you could help me look for my friend if that would make you feel better about the situation. You seem like you're a lot taller than I am and you could kind of see over the crowd.
Speaker 1 00:47:36 Uh, no hotels. I'm unfortunately a townie. I'll help you find your friend though. What do they look like?
Speaker 2 00:47:46 Uh, she gestures a couple inches above their head and goes about ye tall, light skinned hair up in a puff dressed like Barbie.
Speaker 1 00:47:57 I look for the aforementioned person.
Speaker 2 00:48:02 You don't see anyone dressed like Barbie in the crowd.
Speaker 1 00:48:06 Well, that sucks. On that note, do I see Frankie anywhere
Speaker 2 00:48:13 Role plus sharp
Speaker 1 00:48:18 12.
Speaker 2 00:48:22 Okay. Uh, you do not see Frankie in the crowd.
Speaker 1 00:48:27 She turns back to Lola trying very hard to not look worried. Um, I don't see your friend and also I don't see mine, so,
Speaker 2 00:48:40 Huh? Hmm. Well, I know Cam wasn't done partying for the night, so she probably didn't leave. How about we check the ladies' room?
Speaker 1 00:48:54 Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 00:48:57 Okay. Lola leads you through this crowd and sure enough, outside the ladies' room sitting on the floor, you see one Francesca Napolitan shouting Animatedly with a about five 10 light skinned black girl. Very pointy, like pixie, like features hair up in a puff indeed dressed like Barbie and proportioned like her too.
Speaker 1 00:49:28 I have exceeded my social quota for the day. I am going to let Lola handle this.
Speaker 2 00:49:35 Uh, Lola walks up to you. Think you heard her refer to her friend as Cammy, um, and just kind of crosses her arms over her chest as she looks down at her friend sitting on the floor and says, so Camille, and this girl looks up at her sheepishly and goes, hi Lola. And Lola says, what exactly happened to meeting me at the bar?
Speaker 1 00:50:07 I, I, I think I can figure it out. That one's mine. It's probably her fault.
Speaker 2 00:50:14 Frankie dramatically presses a hand to her chest and goes, um, rude.
Speaker 1 00:50:22 No, that was honest. What I'm about to say to you is rude. Can I talk to you for a second?
Speaker 2 00:50:29 All right. She attempts to stand up stumbles a little bit because she's still got the wheels of her heels out, uh, but then catches herself on the wall and says, I'm good. That suck.
Speaker 1 00:50:44 Kay pulls her around a corner and rattles her a little bit. I don't have much in the world, Frankie, I'm an amnesiac. Remember, could you not have told me before you set me loose alone in the club full of beautiful women that I have less game than a broken tennis racket. I am dying out here again. And do you care? No. If you're having drunk girl bonding sessions outside the bathroom and drinking your cosmos, meanwhile you see the bus coming from me and whoop right under it.
Speaker 2 00:51:20 Frankie looks between you and Lola who is talking to her friend, very wide-eyed and then says,
Speaker 1 00:51:31 You didn't wanna come out tonight. I didn't think you'd be
Speaker 2 00:51:33 Flirting with anybody.
Speaker 1 00:51:36 Oh, I assured you that what happened was not flirting no matter how bad I wanted it to be. What it was was painful and humiliating. And for whatever reason, Lola over there seems to want to continue flirting. Maybe she's a sadist, I don't know, but me, I'm over it. I'm done. Just take me out back like old yell
Speaker 2 00:52:00 At this point, towing Camille by the wrist. Lola walks over to the two of you and again, big smile says, so me and little miss five shots deep back there need to be getting back to the Venetian. Um, since I can't give you a ride, can I at least give you my number so you can text me and let me know you got home? Okay? Ha
Speaker 1 00:52:30 Uh, yeah, yeah. I I have a cell phone. Kay looks over at Frankie like, do you see? Do you see what has happened?
Speaker 2 00:52:43 Frankie wins and goes, oh, um, Lola gives you another big smile and says, great, um, here I have a pen. And then she takes a pen out of her purse and grabs your hand and just writes a number on it. Ha. And as she's doing that, you hear somebody yell out in the club floor and then the fire alarm goes off.
Speaker 1 00:53:17 Uh, not that I am ungrateful for the opportunity to remove myself from this cringe fest with all possible speed. I am gonna look around and try to see what's going on though.
Speaker 2 00:53:30 I mean, the fire alarm is going off, people are moving for the exit.
Speaker 1 00:53:36 Well, yeah, but is there like smoke or fire or anything
Speaker 2 00:53:40 Roll to rate bad situation
Speaker 1 00:53:46 Eight.
Speaker 2 00:53:49 Okay. You get to ask me one question.
Speaker 1 00:53:53 Are there any dangers we haven't noticed?
Speaker 2 00:53:58 So you don't smell smoke. Uh, you watch everybody heading for the exit. It seems like there's the possibility of like a little bit of a trampling problem by the stairwell, but everybody's moving. You don't see any fire. What you do see is one of the side exits, the door is cracked just a little bit and hanging off of the door handle is a bright grain kind of shawl thing. Like a sparkly little wrap just hanging there.
Speaker 1 00:54:40 Okay, well, whatever that's relevant to, I get plus one ongoing trying to address it. I'm gonna head out.
Speaker 2 00:54:49 Cool. Uh, yeah, you head out. Frankie, Lola and Camille are going with you. Everybody just kind of stands outside as the fire department rocks up.
Speaker 1 00:55:02 Kay. Probably a little louder than is socially acceptable because alarm sounds bad and she turned off her hearing aids looks around and goes, well, this was a relaxing evening.
Speaker 2 00:55:18 Frankie flips you off and you have your hearing aids off so you don't hear whatever prompts this, but apparently there's a noise from off in the crowd because Lola and Camille and Frankie all turn their heads a little bit. Camille and Frankie quickly brush off whatever it was, but you see an inquisitive look go across Lola's face and her eyes narrow and then she wipes it away, looks very relaxed, uh, turns back to you. And I assume your speech reading as she says this, uh, she says we should get going back to our hotel. Uh, it's gonna be a long night. So again, just text me so I know you got home, okay. Right?
Speaker 1 00:56:04 Okay. Gives them a thumbs up and then kind of leans out around her to follow her eyeline and see what she was looking at.
Speaker 2 00:56:19 Okay? There's just a young woman, the crowd kind of grabbing people's arms, leaning in, asking something and like three people in a row just shake their heads at her and move on.
Speaker 1 00:56:34 How far away can I be treated do you think?
Speaker 2 00:56:39 I wouldn't think this far away. She's like maybe 30, 35 feet away through the crowd.
Speaker 1 00:56:47 Okay. To quote a dear friend of mine go-go gadget hypervigilance. Something about this whole thing stinks. I'm gonna turn on my hearing aids and go over to where she is and see if I can scope out the situation a little bit. I don't like that Lola looked concerned about this.
Speaker 2 00:57:06 Lola and Camille head off through the crowd and you walk a little closer. A lot of people are chattering, but you get a little closer and this woman is speaking up quite a bit. So you hear her saying,
Speaker 3 00:57:22 Has anybody seen my sister? She was wearing a, a green wrap about
Speaker 2 00:57:27 Yay high.
Speaker 3 00:57:29 I have to find her before I go home. Can somebody please?
Speaker 2 00:57:34 And she looks frustrated. She is just grabbing at people and they're all just shaking her off. Clearly. Nobody's seen this issue that she's looking for.
Speaker 1 00:57:46 You said the fire department's already here, right? There's no way I'm getting back in that building to get my hands on the wrap that I saw.
Speaker 2 00:57:54 No, not unless you stick around for a while. I
Speaker 1 00:58:02 See. I know that we should probably dip, but like, I still really don't like this. Is there any way I could get around the outside of the building to try to see where that side exit door spits out?
Speaker 2 00:58:16 All right, first I'm gonna have you roll two act under pressure to not be noticed doing this
Speaker 1 00:58:24 With my negative one to Cool. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Six. So, um, let me just mark that experience real quick.
Speaker 2 00:58:38 Okay. You have not been undetected, but you managed to get around the side of the building and there is a little like side exit that lets out into an alleyway. Go ahead and roll to investigative mystery.
Speaker 1 00:58:54 Good. I'm better at this one.
Speaker 2 00:58:58 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:59:04 Eight. I mean, that's something, but still God,
Speaker 2 00:59:10 God's damn. Okay. Um, that's one question
Speaker 1 00:59:16 And that was with plus two to sharp, you ever just bomb a meat? Cute so hard that it impacts your ability to be a paranormal investigator? For my question, I'm going to ask what happened here and keep in mind I do have the site as one of my moves for the spooky. So if there's anything invisible, especially spirits or magical influences, I can see slash interact with it.
Speaker 2 00:59:46 Yeah, with that you round the corner into this alley, there's a kind of a weird like heat haze in the air. You're not sure what's up with that, but it's like very localized and right outside of the side door, which is still cracked just a little bit, you see two sets of footprints, one larger with kind of a work boot tread and one smaller seems to be in heels, uh, that drags a little bit in this kind of haze of sand and cigarette ashes and glitter outside of this club door. It's not like a thick layer of any of those things. So you can't see super clearly, but you do just see the drag of a high heel a couple times and then a full footprint not being dragged anymore of the same shoe.
Speaker 1 01:00:46 Are these footprints going in a direction that is well lit?
Speaker 2 01:00:52 Not particularly. They're going further down this alley
Speaker 1 01:00:57 And I don't trust like that. I am going to make a note of what I see, just fly a little way mentally and then turn back around and go try to find Frankie.
Speaker 2 01:01:08 Yet Frankie is coming at you through the crowd, uh, kind of waving a hand as she heals toward you.
Speaker 1 01:01:16 What the fuck are
Speaker 2 01:01:17 You doing? Uh, and following her is, uh, one of the firefighters looking significantly less like fondly amused than Frankie is.
Speaker 1 01:01:31 Am I about to get into conflict with someone in a position of authority?
Speaker 2 01:01:37 It seems like,
Speaker 1 01:01:40 Fuck that. I'm out. I run. Frankie will find me later.
Speaker 2 01:01:47 You watch Frankie execute a perfect turn on her heels as she skates after you and you head out.
Speaker 1 01:01:59 Okay? Did Frankie like bring her car or anything or did we just heal to the club?
Speaker 2 01:02:05 Frankie doesn't drive. I think you caught an Uber.
Speaker 1 01:02:10 All right. I would like to Uber back to my house with Frankie or not. She can go home if she wants. It doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2 01:02:22 Nah, she piles in with you. Uh, Frankie is drunk and has cultivated an instinct to stick with her friends when she is in a state.
Speaker 1 01:02:32 All right? If they get home with no incident, Kay is going to set up a little drunk nest on the couch for Frankie, like a little trash can on the floor, lots of blankets, a bottle of water, and a couple ibuprofen and just get her situated.
Speaker 2 01:02:54 Yeah. As you do this and haul Frankie's ass into this drunk nest, you're not there anymore for just a second. Uh, you are sitting on this couch, your eyes are kind of achy and you feel like you've been crying and Frankie is just like bodily wrapped around you, is kind of hugging you to her chest and then you're back. And Frankie 23 and quite inebriated is just actively crying. Just
Speaker 3 01:03:31 I'm a really bad friend. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 01:03:35 Kay. Puts another blanket over her and then turns on the TV to whatever channel has like those awful late night infomercials on it and then just sort of crouches down next to the couch and looks her dead in the eyes. I know that your heart is in the right place and that even though you abandoned me and left me to fend for myself when faced with a very, very attractive individual, I I bombed that. Did I tell you that I bombed that by the way?
Speaker 3 01:04:17 Yeah. You told me I didn't need you to tell me.
Speaker 1 01:04:22 Cool. All right. You acknowledged that you were complicit in what happened then. It's good to see some accountability even though you abandoned me and you know, subjected me to a social function, which even I the amnesiac know that I don't like. I get it's cuz you wanted to make me happy and I appreciate that. I am gonna go upstairs,
Speaker 2 01:04:58 Frankie sniffles <laugh> and that says,
Speaker 3 01:05:01 I'll buy you breakfast in the morning if that makes it better.
Speaker 1 01:05:07 I don't need to. You know what? Yeah, Frankie, that'd be great. Night, night,
Speaker 3 01:05:15 Night
Speaker 2 01:05:16 And she just sideways collapses into the drunk nest.
Speaker 1 01:05:22 Before I go upstairs, I am going to make extra sure that the ferrets are enclosed in their enclosure because I do not want to deal with the fallout of middle of the night attempted drunk ferret snuggles.
Speaker 2 01:05:38 You do have a baby lock on the ferret enclosure. It occurs to you for the first time to wonder why that is there. And then you realize immediately as you are wondering it, that it's for this exact situation.
Speaker 1 01:05:53 Even though nobody's watching Kay bites down really hard on the inside of their own cheek to keep from smiling fondly and walks over to Frankie passed out and just pats her on the side of the head, sleep well, little baby, and then goes upstairs as soon as they're in their room and have the door shut behind them, they're gonna pull out their phone and send a text to Lola.
Speaker 2 01:06:24 Okay, the number on your hand got a little smud in the chaos, but it is still readable. What are you texting? Lola?
Speaker 1 01:06:35 Hi, it's Caly made it home safe. I think I saw something weird at the club, but can't be sure mind giving me a second opinion.
Speaker 2 01:06:53 A couple minutes pass as you are settling in, in your room for the night and then you get a text back that reads, sure thing was planning to check out this coffee place tomorrow. Anyway, see you there around one and then a shared address for a coffee place.
Speaker 1 01:07:18 Kt, text her back. I, I should mention that K sends every text message like it is a professional email, like capital letters, proper punctuation, everything sounds great, semicolon. See you then exclamation point, smiley emoticon, not the emoji, the little colon and parenthesis, smiley phase.
Speaker 2 01:07:46 Lola sends back the little like smiling jazz hands emoji.
Speaker 1 01:07:52 Hey, weirdly specific, but very important physiological question about me being a zombie. Can I blush?
Speaker 2 01:08:02 I think it's funnier if you can. So yes.
Speaker 1 01:08:07 Okay. I'm sure that's horrifying to behold given the whole corpse factor, but Kay blush is very hard. Looks down at her phone, stares up into the middle distance and to no one says coffee date. Oh my God, do I actually have game? Is this a full circle thing?
Speaker 2 01:08:31 Thankfully nothing in the house responds to your question
Speaker 1 01:08:37 And we're even learning what a rhetorical question is. Good job gang. Hit the showers
Speaker 2 01:08:48 You hear the distance sound of running water
Speaker 1 01:09:01 For those just tuning in. Welcome to the Jackalope America's premier pirate radio station dedicated to exploring the unknown, the unexplained and general weird shit. According to recent listener reports from the bayou, the creature from the Black Lagoon. No seriously, the real actual one, not the thing from the old school horror movies has been spotted prowling through the spa plans and has been noted to target many an unsuspecting fan boat in the southern Louisiana area. After follow up interviews with local residents, we've come to the conclusion that this activity can't be contributed to local spirits and or mythology, and that these incidents are being caused by post veil thought forms running a muck. We all know that mass human attention has gotten very powerful these last few years and that the consequences are still unfurling, but they pulled a guy off the shore of Lake Poncha train in an ooze cocoon, man, come on. Anyway. Here's your friendly neighborhood, supernatural enthusiast here at the Jackalope urging you that if you're going to devote your attention to a movie about a creepy swamp monster, at least make it the shape of water. And if that particular swamp monster is interested, give my number and now here's vampire money by my chemical romance.
Speaker 1 01:10:22 Damien, you are a little over halfway conscious, sort of half slumped out of the seat onto the floor of this limo distantly. You are able to realize that the engine is idling and the car seems to have stopped moving. And through your blurry vision, you can see the concerned faces of Luke Johansson and Dahlia Amari Casti o Bennett hovering over you a little too close. You feel like you are on the bad end of a kick from like one of the Budweiser Clydesdales. Your chest hurts, your head is screaming, you can barely breathe and jubilantly way too loud from up in your face. Dahlia perks up and goes. He lives
Speaker 2 01:11:26 Not if you keep yelling. Uh, I'm gonna sit the rest of the way up if I can without getting way dizzy. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 01:11:36 The interior of the limo does spin a little bit, but you are able to sit up. You see that you're sitting in a parking garage, the partition still rolled down. You see Octavia's up in the driver's seat, absentmindedly gawing on one of her nails and checking her reflection in the little mirror in the sun visor. Okay, cool. So if we're not gonna have to do body disposal, I'm gonna go park. You guys can go ahead upstairs.
Speaker 2 01:12:12 Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, if the, if the limo has stopped spinning, I'm gonna get out.
Speaker 1 01:12:22 Dahlia and Luke follow you. And the limo takes off down the giant echoing corridor of this parking garage.
Speaker 2 01:12:33 I am going to emphatically take my inhaler <laugh>,
Speaker 1 01:12:38 Those good good corticosteroids help you a little bit.
Speaker 2 01:12:44 Yeah, I'm sure it's not fun with my fucked up heart though. I'm just gonna press a hand over my chest not a couple times and go, all right. All right. That was a not a fun one.
Speaker 1 01:12:57 Luke sort of has his arm looped through yours to help keep you upright, but Dahlia has no such compunctions. She's typing on her phone with one hand and digging around in that tacky novelty purse of hers with the other. All right boys, let's go. And she takes off towards a big automatic sliding door at one corner of this parking garage.
Speaker 2 01:13:26 Okay. Yeah. Um, if I feel like I can, I'm gonna extricate my arm from Luke's and then follow her.
Speaker 1 01:13:35 You emerge into a ritzy garish lobby that sets off a little ping in your brain that instantly says casino marble floors. Big fancy chandeliers, long check-in desk along the front of the room. And even though it is the wee hours of the morning, you still hear the sounds of people. There's laughter and the smell of cigarette smoke and the artificial jingles of slot machines. Dahlia breezes right through all of this. However, just making a bline for a cluster of elevators over to the right, she presses a button, hops on, and then sort of braces her arm across the door and waves you in extravagantly?
Speaker 2 01:14:31 Yep. I'm going.
Speaker 1 01:14:34 You've been, uh, mentally and physically off the map since 2012, so you don't really know what an R F I D reader looks like, but Dahlia pulls a little plastic card out of her purse, taps it against this little black box on the side of the elevator that beeps, and the doors close and you start going up and up and up and up for what feels like an eternity before the elevator finally dings. And the doors slide open to reveal a very small mall. Not even a hallway, really. It's just like an ant, a chamber with a single gilded door directly across from you.
Speaker 2 01:15:30 Uh, Damien is trying to like subtly lean against the wall of the elevator and before he starts moving, he says, you know, I'm not gonna lie. This feels a little bit like the shining
Speaker 1 01:15:43 Dahlia pauses by this door and turns around to grin at you with those very sharp canine teeth. Hello, Damien. Come and play with us. And then she pulls a key ring out of her purse. It's got a little black plastic bat on the end and unlocks the door with a flourish and steps inside. Are you following?
Speaker 2 01:16:11 Absolutely.
Speaker 1 01:16:14 Luke kind of hangs back behind you a little bit, staring through this doorway and goes, yeah, I don't trust this. If I die because of you, I'm haunting your ass forever. And then he follows you in, you walk into and obscene display of wealth, same marble floors that you saw downstairs. Really nice expensive track lighting on the ceilings and evidence of the world's most eclectic collector's hobby. Like it takes you a minute to soak in all of the things that are on display here. It feels like half house, half museum. You walk through a big open concept kitchen and dining space, but along the walls are just shelves upon shelves of it. It it looks like someone just collects media. There's vinyl records and VHS tapes and gds and cassette tapes and CDs and every possible method of recording known to the history of man. You even see one of those like old Edison wax cylinder recorders up on an end table with spindly legs.
Speaker 1 01:17:53 There's artwork on the walls, but it is wildly incongruous. There are medieval tapestries and what are very clearly original impressionist paintings. There's a Pink Floyd tour poster that looks like the genuine article in a little plastic frame. This place basically just looks like a time machine exploded all over it. The big high ceilinged entry hall slash kitchen dining space that you're in narrows into a hallway that you can see widen a little further down, but from your vantage point you can see that the far wall of this place is all just floor to ceiling windows. And the grand expanse of Las Vegas is splayed out through these windows. You are in a very nice penthouse somewhere on the strip. You can just tell from the positioning of it you don't remember much. But in the midst of this abundance and variety of stuff and your surroundings, you acutely remember the feeling of being a lower middle class kid walking into an upscale department store and wondering, can I afford to breathe in here? Dahlia, however, displays an astonishing lack of regard in comparison to you. She chucks her purse and her big stompy golf boots that she took off back at the hospital down on the surface of what appears to be an extremely antique mahogany dining table. And then abandons you and Luke to go wondering back this hallway into the penthouse beyond anybody home.
Speaker 2 01:20:02 Okay, I'm going to sit down like the good chronically ill little boy that, that I was raised to be. But I feel like if I touch any furniture in here, I will be instantly killed by a sniper. Um, so I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna take a seat on the floor.
Speaker 1 01:20:20 Dahlia stops at the end of this hallway and pivots around to look at you. And Luke, you are sitting on the floor. Luke is avidly browsing through this vinyl collection in one of the shelves along the wall. She just raises an eyebrow at both of you and goes, what are you doing? Come, come on.
Speaker 2 01:20:43 I'm going to very hesitantly get to my feet and follow after her. Trying so hard not to touch anything.
Speaker 1 01:20:52 This little hallway emerges into calling it a living room. Seems like kind of a disservice. I think the technical term is great room. The ceilings are super high in here and in one corner you see a big antique grand piano, lots of other musical instruments on the wall and the floor surrounding it. In another corner there's a fully functioning wet bar with very high end liquor in glass cabinets behind it, there's sort of a hallway that goes down and into further parts of this penthouse that you can't really see. And then on the other side of the room there is a massive entertainment center. The biggest fucking TV you have ever seen with top of the line sound system lined up around it.
Speaker 1 01:21:55 The decor here is very cluttered and anachronistic. There's mid-century modern furniture pieces mixed with like shit that looks like it's literally from the 18 hundreds mixed with very like current big box furniture store stuff. There are still cases of all these collectibles around the edges of the room, but you also see lots and lots of what you would call family photos if they didn't obviously span hundreds of years. There are like strips from mall photo booths and old Polaroids tacked to the wall with push pins. There are department store photography pictures in cheap plastic frames. There are old black and white and even old west sepia looking photographs. A couple paintings I think you go to look closer at them and then are distracted by a voice from behind you going, oh look and you brought friends. I'm terribly afraid you've missed supper. There might be some leftovers in the fridge though.
Speaker 1 01:23:33 In front of the biggest TV you've ever seen splayed out across a Victorian fainting couch. You see objectively the most beautiful man you've ever seen in your life. He's not standing up, but you can tell that he's tall, middle Eastern dude, curly black hair that's a bit longer on top but kept in a very neat undercut and fade beneath really sharp defined facial features. High cheek bones. He's wearing a crushed velvet smoking jacket and silk pajama pants. He has a wine glass in one hand with something that is dark red and very thick in it. And the biggest TV you've ever seen is replay old episodes of absolute trash reality tv.
Speaker 1 01:24:40 It switches over to a commercial break and the glint from the screen flashes off his eyes. You see that they are the same shade of blood red as dahlia's and as he looks over to smile at the group of you, you see that his canines are also similarly very sharp. You register this dude seeing you going from lighthearted to serious in a second flat as he realizes that you're in bad shape and he stands up from the fainting couch. Now that he's upright, he's about 6 360 4 oh 10,000 sons of a thousand pitches. Dahlia, what did you do?
Speaker 2 01:25:30 Uh, no I I was like this when she found me more or less. Is there somewhere I could lay down? Cuz I think I'm gonna, and then he kinda reels a little bit and like braces himself against a wall. He is still being so, so careful to not get close enough to anything to touch it or break it.
Speaker 1 01:25:51 The room you're in is very big. This guy like Dahlia is very fast. There's a blur from over at this fainting couch and then you feel two very steady hands holding you up and lowering you into a recliner that just screams 1970s for some reason it feels very comforting and as this guy is hovering over you looking extremely concerned and Luke is poking around in this forest of musical instruments. In one corner of the great room, Dahlia scoops up a remote from over on the fainting couch, switches the TV over to a movie channel that is showing absolutely awful horror be movies and says, yeah. So my snack run got very interesting. Um, Mick Damien and other guy Luke's head snaps around. My name is Luke Dahlia rolls her eyes. That wasn't me asking Damien, this is the guy in the smoking jacket knees down next to you and extends his free hand. Michael Dossi. Um, can I offer you something to drink? We've got plenty of and he swirls the wine glass that's still in his other hand with that thick red liquid inside.
Speaker 2 01:27:44 Uh, I don't, I can't, I'm not.
Speaker 1 01:27:49 He looks at you, looks at the wine glass, looks over at Dahlia who was pulling out a blood bag that she apparently smuggled out of the hospital and shoving a Capri sun straw into it. Looks back at you, presses a hand to his chest and goes, oh, no, no, no, no. I've been around far too long to be reduced to a walking stereotype and besides I don't partake for religious reasons. You see this is a Cabernet
Speaker 2 01:28:21 Damien, uh,
Speaker 1 01:28:23 Slowly
Speaker 2 01:28:24 Contemplating the circumstances that have led him to this point and then says, okay, I don't like wine, but thank you. Is there somewhere I can lay down? Actually no. Is there somewhere I can take a bath, I can lay down in the bath and I can't afford to clean your furniture.
Speaker 1 01:28:53 Oh yes, of course. Look at me being a horrible host. Uh, up the stairs, second door to the left, he waves his hand off towards a big chrome and glass spiral staircase that is shooting up from the floor of this great room to apparently the second story of this penthouse.
Speaker 2 01:29:18 Cool. Great. Awesome. I'm going to attempt to escape up the stairs. I need to not be around people right now.
Speaker 1 01:29:29 Okay. You escape up the stairs and follow the directions that Michael Darcy gave you and end up in an extremely nice bathroom. It's got like one of those big corner tubs with the jacuzzi jets in it lined with very, very nice bath products. Are you treating yourself?
Speaker 2 01:29:51 I am not touching anything in this room that does not belong to me. I will use my horrible three in one from the superstore that will not be named <laugh>.
Speaker 1 01:30:02 Okay, I just need to clarify something here. You've been on the run for like two weeks since then. Are you telling me that you made it out of all these safe houses in and out of the hospital and to this penthouse with a bottle of head and shoulders?
Speaker 2 01:30:20 All the things I own in the world right now are the bottle of head and shoulders. My meds and a packet of hair ties. My dude
Speaker 1 01:30:30 It. All right, fair enough. You take a very nice bath with your very not nice soap. Do me a quick favor, just roll plus sharp for me. I swear no monsters are coming out of the bathtub drain at you or anything.
Speaker 2 01:30:50 Okay? And better not be uh, that's a 10.
Speaker 1 01:30:57 Okay. You are gonna manage to overhear everything you need to overhear then. So you finish up this bath, you I'm guessing put your dirty clothes back on, which is kind of tragic and as you have your hand hovering over the doorknob of this bathroom, you overhear the sound of hushed conversation from the hallway. Dahlia is finishing up a sentence. Well they look like they had a rated a couple Western wear outlets since the last time anyone saw them in a mythology book, but I'm pretty sure it's the Wild hunt. And Damien, that is the first time you have ever heard somebody give a name to whatever has been after you. I'm not gonna have you roll for anything. Uh, just true to character. What do you think realistically that Damien would know about the wild hunt?
Speaker 2 01:32:00 Honestly, probably not much.
Speaker 1 01:32:03 Yeah, fair enough. He doesn't strike me as a mythology nerd kid. So hearing that doesn't really affect you. But the worrying thing is that it seems to affect Michael. You hear a very long pause in response to what Dahlia just said. Do you realize what a precarious position you have just placed me in? I work with the Sealy court, Dahlia, the Sealy court who that ravenous pack of dogs is not affiliated with. The only thing I can do here is step on toes. Are you aware of precisely how dangerous it is to go stepping on toes in this particular arena?
Speaker 2 01:32:52 Damien is staying as still in as silent as possible.
Speaker 1 01:32:57 Dahlia Scoffs. You can like hear her eyes rolling. I thought you didn't mind stepping on a few toes if it meant saving somebody from a situation they didn't deserve. That's what you told me. I look if you're gonna be an asshole and I'm on my own with this, fine, just put him up for the night and I'll figure out something to do tomorrow. We just need tonight Michael's size and you hear the sound of a hand running over his mouth fine. And then two sets of footsteps disappearing down the hall.
Speaker 2 01:33:44 So what I have learned from listening on this conversation is one, the name of the thing that wants me dead and two that I am not safe here. I'm gonna walk outta the bathroom and back downstairs and try to pretend nothing's wrong
Speaker 1 01:34:06 By the time you get downstairs. Luke has also apparently been off somewhere to take a shower and has kicked off his shoes, not changed back into his dirty clothes. He is now also wearing a smoking jacket and a pair of silk pajama pants splayed out across this recliner and watching whatever awful horror bee movie Dahlia turned on the tv,
Speaker 2 01:34:32 I'm still not feeling awesome. So I am going to very carefully sit down on the couch,
Speaker 1 01:34:41 He looks over at you and does one of those like upwards bro nods. You can uh, ditch the rags if you feel like it. Dahlia said her dad or whatever is letting us stay the night and from somewhere deep, deep in this penthouse you hear yell he's not my dad.
Speaker 2 01:35:01 Damian gives Luke an extremely tight lip smile and says I'm good actually. But uh, good to know. We're saying the night. That's great.
Speaker 1 01:35:13 Hey man, suit yourself. Well I'm beat. Apparently there are a whole mess. Guest rooms down that their hallway, so I'm going to get a well-deserved tonight's rest. I hope you do too, bud. He stands up from the recliner, claps you on the shoulder, kind of condescendingly and just swaggers down the hall in his smoking jacket and you are alone in this living room.
Speaker 2 01:35:42 Okay, I didn't put my shoes back on after my bath, uh, for this exact purpose. I'm going to very quietly walk over to the hallway that Luke indicated and see if it seems like that's where all the bedrooms are. Like I'm gonna take a quick lap of the living room and try to see if there look to be anymore down anymore hallways or anything.
Speaker 1 01:36:07 You did see several doors in the hall upstairs when you went up there to take your bath. So you would assume that there are a couple rooms up there, this little hallway that Luke has just walked down. You do see a door swing shut behind him has like five doors along the walls. There's the one Luke just walked into a couple nondescript uniform looking ones and then one down on the far end where you can hear like thumping death metal music from inside and there's a hastily scrolled sign on there with scotch tape that just says Octavia's room keep out. You don't see any lights on or anything beneath any of these other doors though, so apparently it's just you, Luke and Octavia down here.
Speaker 2 01:37:02 Okay, um, I'm going to go into the first room down this hallway, like the one closest to the living room and I'm gonna lay down in there for a while. I am pinching myself to keep myself awake and I'm gonna try and listen up until it sounds like everybody has retired for the evening.
Speaker 1 01:37:30 The morning actually you are starting to see the first gray ribbons of sunrise creep over the horizon outside the window of this guest room, which again, like everything else here is very nicely appointed super soft bed. It's really hard to not take a nap.
Speaker 2 01:37:49 If that's the case, I'm going to sit on the floor.
Speaker 1 01:37:53 Okay?
Speaker 1 01:37:56 You hear the horror movie that Dahlia had put on the TV wind down and then the TV turn off. You can't hear in like extreme detail because the walls here are not thin and it's a pretty big space to cover, but you think you hear her go upstairs. Michael seems to be up and about for quite a bit longer though again, you can't hear details, but you're pretty sure he's having several phone conversations. Like he'll hear a one-sided conversation for a little bit and then silence and then another one-sided conversation and then silence. But finally, he also seems to go retire somewhere. You hear a door opening and closing in another part of the apartment and there is complete silence except for the surprisingly not muffled sound of Luke snoring next door for five, 10 minutes.
Speaker 2 01:39:03 Okay, as soon as it seems like everything's winded down, I'm going to walk back out into the living room and I'm gonna try to leave.
Speaker 1 01:39:12 The lights in the living room are all off. And you notice that with the sun coming up, all of these big floor to ceiling windows have been extremely securely shaded. There are like blackout curtains pulled over each and every one of them top to bottom by all appearances. However, you've got a clear path to the front door.
Speaker 2 01:39:34 I'm out. Fuck this shit, I'm out. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 01:39:40 You get in your shoes.
Speaker 2 01:39:43 I'm putting them on after I get out the door.
Speaker 1 01:39:47 All right, first hurdle you run into, you seem to need a key card to make the elevator work.
Speaker 2 01:39:58 I'm going down the stairs.
Speaker 1 01:40:01 Yeah, it takes a little searching around. This area you're in is pretty small, but it looks like the emergency stairwell has been sort of camouflaged to allow for aesthetics, which probably isn't up to code, but you do find the stairs. So you start down and down and down and you're not even sure how close you are to the bottom when there is a whoosh sound from directly over your head and you get slapped in the face with a wall of coy red hair. Dahlia is hanging from her knees from the landing above you like a bat just upside down smiling. Hi besty.
Speaker 2 01:40:58 Ah, I jump and probably stumble back and hit the wall.
Speaker 1 01:41:07 Stop screaming. It's just me.
Speaker 2 01:41:11 Damien puts a hand over his chest staring at her and goes, okay, tip number one, don't sneak up on the guy with the heart condition. If I had made it through the last 21 years of my life and this was what gave me a heart attack, I was gonna be so pissed.
Speaker 1 01:41:33 She raises an eyebrow at you, which looks really weird, upside down, but then braces her hand on the railing of these emergency steps and like back flips down. So she's standing next to you, it's very Citi sole. She has changed into pajamas like this little matching set of silk shorts and the caol with little skulls all over them, but she still has the demos on. They stomp loudly as she lands on this step beside you. Sorry about your shitty heart or whatever. Where are you going
Speaker 2 01:42:13 Outside? Uh, I, I was just gonna get some air.
Speaker 1 01:42:18 You're pretty sure you've never gotten a side eye that physically hurts before but this one stings a little bit.
Speaker 2 01:42:28 I'm gonna roll to manipulate someone.
Speaker 1 01:42:32 Okay, good luck.
Speaker 2 01:42:36 I'm gonna flash her a winning smile and say I'm really good. You should just go back up to the penthouse and that's an 11.
Speaker 1 01:42:52 Okay? I'm at a bit of a gameplay and storytelling impasse here because mechanically, if Dahlia does what you ask her to do, she's gonna mark experience and get plus one forward. But also if Dahlia does what you want her to do, you're gonna die and the campaign's gonna be over
Speaker 2 01:43:14 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 01:43:17 So unless you have a really good backup story about how Damien's long lost twin brother Jaen also escaped, uh, the wild hunt lined up. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do here. So what I'm gonna say is Dahlia is just not gonna take that experience or plus one forward. She stares at you and the other eyebrow raises. Yeah, sure, I would love to do that. I should be in bed right now, so I'll walk up with you.
Speaker 2 01:43:55 On a scale of one to 10, how able to use magic right now do I feel given the everything of a couple hours ago?
Speaker 1 01:44:11 Are you gonna set the woman who saved your fucking life on fire?
Speaker 2 01:44:19 No, I'm just asking a question. I'm not planning to set her on fire.
Speaker 1 01:44:30 See, but the way that you said that makes me think that setting her on fire is not out of the question.
Speaker 2 01:44:38 I'm not gonna set her on fire. I'm just trying to make a quick exit. As a dear friend once said, I do like living,
Speaker 1 01:44:50 There's nothing mechanically holding you back from doing any magic right now since monster of the week doesn't have like exhaustion, mechanics or anything like that, but Dahlia stands there on the stairs next to you, levels a long unblinking look at you and goes, I wish you would.
Speaker 2 01:45:14 Yeah, yeah. Uh, I feel like shit I am rocking like too harm. I I'm going back upstairs.
Speaker 1 01:45:26 She stays in step with you the entire way back up. You guys have to take some breaks for breathers on the landings going up is way harder than going down and it's a lot of flights on one. She just reaches into the pocket of her pajama pants and pulls out, pulls out some kind of palm sized plastic straw looking device with lots of little plastic bats and skulls all over. It just cranks absolute cotton and goes, look, if you've got a death wish, you really should have told me before I saved your ass because now I'm invested. I don't know why you thought that trying to run off was a good idea, but maybe trust the person who again, can't emphasize this enough, saved your ass when I say that this is the safest place in the city for you right now. I know the interior design is so, so ugly, but we don't have anybody under this roof that actively wants you dead. Okay,
Speaker 2 01:46:38 <laugh>. Oh yeah. It's just a roof owned by somebody who's only letting me stay under duress because he's more worried about stepping on toes than you know my life. Which fair? He doesn't know me. None of you people know me. I don't know any of you. I've known Luke the longest and it's been what, three weeks?
Speaker 1 01:47:02 Yeah. I noticed that you are really one to call people's loyalty and goodwill into question. You've known him the longest but you like broke the sound barrier with how fast you hung him out to dry. I only brought him along cuz it was what you wanted. I probably would've just had him as a snack if you disappeared.
Speaker 2 01:47:26 Yeah, well the person that gave a shit about any of that is dead. I am trying to save what's left in my fucking skin.
Speaker 1 01:47:35 Yeah, and if you could take five seconds to surgically excise your head from your ass, maybe you would see that. That's what I'm trying to help you do too. I'm trying to be a nice fucking person here, douchebag and yeah, apparently you overheard a little bit of that conversation that I had with Mick, but I promise you he is the biggest and safest fish to swim behind in this city. Okay? Now he'll put on heirs and be dramatic and complain about what an absolute inconvenience it is that he has to save your worthless ass. But that's what he's done to everybody who's worthless ass he's ever saved. In fact, it's only living with him. That has made me begin to develop a sort of sympathetic bent for people who remind me a lot of just, you know, like a wet kitten in a cardboard box on the side of the street. So maybe instead of absconding out in the middle of the night to get run down by spectral horses in the middle of the strip, you could go for a thank you Dahlia, or I appreciate the help Dahlia.
Speaker 2 01:48:49 Uh, I think Damien is sitting on the stairs, so he just kind of leans his head against the railing and says, you know, at this point I think this kind of counts as imprisonment without trial.
Speaker 1 01:49:03 Yeah, well you're not cute or pathetic enough for my patients to have a limitless supply. So slap me in a polyester robe and call me Judge Judy. Get upstairs.
Speaker 2 01:49:14 Ca we find you outside the coffee house where you are supposed to meet Lola at the prescribed time. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 01:49:26 Sitting in the driver's seat of the cut list, looking in the rear view mirror and trying to do some positive affirmations. Kay was acutely aware of how she looked last night and thus has tried tohu it up a little bit. No more ratty hoodie and bad hair. She's in like a sundress and a cardigan and just frantically staring at her own reflection going, you are normal. You are attractive to women. You can talk to them capably. You are worthy of and deserving of human connection. This is gonna be bad. They get out of the car and go inside.
Speaker 2 01:50:22 Uh, you walk in. Lola is sitting at a table in this coffee house, uh, with a book open on the table in front of her. She is somehow more attractive in the daylight. They're wearing a beret and a fucking peco. It is haunting and she looks up when the bell over the door jingles as you walk in and gives you a quick wave and a smile.
Speaker 1 01:50:53 Yep. Positive affirmations are out the window. I freeze. I need a minute. I'm gonna go to the counter and get a drink. Four shots of espresso and a cup please.
Speaker 2 01:51:08 The barista looks over at Lola, looks at you and Wordlessly makes your for espresso shots in a cup.
Speaker 1 01:51:18 Thank you for your service.
Speaker 2 01:51:22 Yep. You get your drink, you walk over to the table. Uh, Lola has something with a lot of whipped cream on it, on the table next to her grins as you walk over and then pulls a notepad up from under the table and puts it down next to her book.
Speaker 1 01:51:44 Hello.
Speaker 2 01:51:47 Hi. Uh, take a seat. I do that. You sit down. Uh, Lola looks awkward for a second. Takes a long sip of her drink and then very brightly and casually says so. Uh, how long have you been on dead?
Speaker 1 01:52:09 Kalin pauses with her drink halfway to her mouth and just does a full Kubrick stare. That is a preposterous question with a really complicated answer.
Speaker 2 01:52:28 Lola gives you almost an embarrassed look and then says, I'm sorry if that was really forward. It's just that I have a bit of a vested interest in all things strange and supernatural and I was just hoping I could get some information
Speaker 1 01:52:51 And that's why you invited me for coffee to do a case study <laugh> a case study.
Speaker 2 01:53:01 That's not the only reason I asked you to be up with me, if that helps. I was also hoping we could compare notes about what happened at the club last night.
Speaker 1 01:53:15 Yeah, sure. Um, well, I mean, if you have genuine curiosity, as far as I know, I've been unad for like less than 73 hours. It's been a bit of a wild ride. Don't know why it's happening. Don't know how it works. So, you know, not a great primary source as far as the club though. Uh, did you hear that girl looking for her sister last night?
Speaker 2 01:53:51 Lola pers up and goes, yes I did. I have. Um, and then she flips open her notepad and pushes it toward you. It is like the notes of a full interview.
Speaker 1 01:54:06 Oh, so you're like, case stops before she can say insane
Speaker 2 01:54:14 <laugh>
Speaker 1 01:54:16 A really talented journalist, huh?
Speaker 2 01:54:20 Oh no. This is a hobby. I actually translate freelance because it's kind of the only thing I can do with an art history degree right now. The economy, right?
Speaker 1 01:54:31 I know nothing about the economy. See on top of the whole unad thing there's like an extra bonus layer of amnesia. So the only thing I know about economics is that I got let go from my job for being dead. Is that something I can sue for?
Speaker 2 01:54:50 Lola takes her notepad back and clicks a really professional looking band a couple times and then poisons herself to start writing and they say undead and an amnesic. Do you think those two things are connected or are they separate events? She gives you a big smile.
Speaker 1 01:55:10 I haven't given it much thought. I am swiftly learning that I do not do well with the mortifying ordeal of being known. Can we go back to talking about the club? Because I found that girl's sister's wrap hanging off of an open door and there were some footprints and it was really weird and it was not at all related to me.
Speaker 2 01:55:35 Yeah, you said in your text you thought you saw something really weird. Um, she writes something on her notepad, flips a page and then looks at you again and says, can you describe it?
Speaker 1 01:55:48 Yeah. Something intensely strange. I thought I saw the prospect of me having a normal conversation with someone. Um, yeah, this side door next to the stage was open before everybody started running out after the fire alarm there was a green wrap shawl thing kind of hanging there. And then when I walked around the outside of the building, I saw footprints. It looked like somebody in boots and then somebody in heels that was being pulled or dragged. I, I I just, I wanted to check in, um, to see if that corroborated with anything you found out. Just because I have um, a lot of reasons to not trust my perception of reality. So,
Speaker 2 01:56:44 Um, okay. Uh, I didn't see any footprints. I wasn't around the side of the building I just talked to and then they flipped the notepad back to the front page and start reading Courtney Hernandez 26. Uh, she and her sister Chloe, 22 were at the club to see the show. It was a late celebration for Chloe's birthday. Apparently Chloe has a habit of picking people up in clubs, uh, and she walked off and then didn't reappear when the alarm went off. When I asked Courtney said that that yell that we heard before the alarm could have been her sister, but she's not sure.
Speaker 1 01:57:35 Okay. Um, this is gonna sound really rude and probably insensitive. You said that you had a vested interest in the supernatural. What makes you think that this isn't typical humans being fucking awful? Worst things have happened in Vegas. I don't need all my memories to be able to tell you that.
Speaker 2 01:58:02 Lola actually squirms a little bit in her seat. They look extremely uncomfortable and then she smiles again and says, I have a sort of sense about these things. Look, if it turns out to just be some douche bag at a club decided to take this girl home, then nothing we do is gonna hurt the investigation. And if I'm right, which I am, then everyone else is probably gonna be looking in the wrong places.
Speaker 1 01:58:50 And this sense you have is that what told you that I am no longer among the living or
Speaker 2 01:59:02 She looks you up and down and says, I mean don't take this the wrong way, but you look like a straight up corpse.
Speaker 1 01:59:16 Yeah,
Speaker 2 01:59:18 I mean, my sense of things helps. That really wasn't meant to be an insult. I know I come off a little bit blunt sometimes, but I you're a very attractive corpse.
Speaker 1 01:59:31 I would like to stop this conversation.
Speaker 2 01:59:36 Oh, thank God. Uh, yeah, yeah. We can um, talk about something else and then she looks back at her notepad.
Speaker 1 01:59:44 Yeah. Uh, so before you keep studying me like a new species of insect, would you like to know my favorite movie or something?
Speaker 2 01:59:54 This is very obviously one of the most awkward moments in this young person's life. They look up at you like a deer in the headlights smile and say, please tell me what your favorite movie is.
Speaker 1 02:00:10 I don't know. It wasn't Memento though.
Speaker 2 02:00:16 She lets out a startled laugh, just <laugh> and then looks mortified and claps a hand over her mouth. Please tell me that was a joke and I didn't make this conversation more awkward. Just now
Speaker 1 02:00:34 Consider my situation and ask yourself if I can't laugh about it, what do I have?
Speaker 2 02:00:42 They take a really long sip of their drink and then put it down firmly and say, okay. So I was thinking that we could maybe go back to the club now that it's daylight, it'll probably be empty and we can poke around a little bit more, see what we can suss out.
Speaker 1 02:01:07 I'm sorry, I remember you mentioning something about staying at the Venetian. Do you just go places and play paranormal Sherlock homes? Like is this what you do on vacation?
Speaker 2 02:01:20 Only if an opportunity presents itself. I was going to a music festival, but now I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 02:01:31 You are fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 02:01:36 She beams likewise and then she stands up, grabs her drink and shrugs on a messenger bag. So, uh, I was thinking we could go do that now. Poke around, see the sites.
Speaker 1 02:01:52 Kay sort of bites at the inside of her lip and stands up. Yeah, sure. I can turn coffee into investigating a possible supernatural crime scene. It's not gonna kill me.
Speaker 2 02:02:07 They laugh again. Just <laugh>.
Speaker 1 02:02:12 Kay has another one of those internal, oh my god, is this working? Do I actually have game moments but decides not to push it and sort of just runs a hand back through their hair awkwardly? Uh, like I said, I'm a townie so my muscle memory can probably get us there without having to pay for Uber. My wheels.
Speaker 2 02:02:37 She smiles. Sounds great. Uh, lead the way ca
Speaker 1 02:02:45 A pretty person just said their name, Kay's brain devolves into tv static
Speaker 2 02:02:51 Not to continue kicking you when you're down, but I'm gonna invoke one of your spooky moves and have you roll for a premonition.
Speaker 1 02:02:59 Oh no. Am I gonna see the future of this date going horribly <laugh>. That was only a six.
Speaker 2 02:03:11 Okay, well, um, on the upside you mark experience on the downside, on a miss, you get a vision of something bad happening to you and the keeper holds three to be spent one for one as penalties to roles that you make. You're not there anymore, but it's different. It's different and strange compared to these breaks from the present that you've had a few times before. You are not standing in this coffee shop. You don't know where you are. You are laying on a concrete floor, your head is pounding, there's a ringing in your ears. You see blood on the floor in front of you, up against an equally concrete wall is curled up. A young woman about your age, maybe a little younger, clearly of some kind of Latina heritage, dark hair wearing a clubbing dress and some high heels clutching at her own arms looking at something that you can't see wide eyed. And in front of her stands, Lydia Antonov her stands square. She reaches up and wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and then shakes a little bit of blood off of it and looks down at you. You can see her saying your name, but you can't hear her.
Speaker 2 02:05:05 And then you're back.
Speaker 1 02:05:08 Kay, like sways on her feet. I think she reaches out and grabs Lola's arm to keep from just Keeling over.
Speaker 2 02:05:16 Whoa. Uh, Lola reaches out to steady you.
Speaker 1 02:05:25 I think that sense you have about these kind of things is right on the money. Let's go. Damien Dahlia marches you back up these stairs and into the penthouse back to the guest room that you're supposed to be staying in. My question for you is, do you sleep?
Speaker 2 02:05:51 I think despite myself, I do a little bit, uh, just from exhaustion more than anything else.
Speaker 1 02:06:03 Yeah, you're really tired and the bed is really comfy. You wake up and the clock on your bedside table tells you that it is mid-afternoon. Not much else about your surroundings has changed. You could still hear Luke sawing logs in the next room over and your room appears undisturbed. What would you like to do?
Speaker 2 02:06:32 Well, I am facing a distinct lack of options. So I'm gonna get outta bed and head out into the living room.
Speaker 1 02:06:42 The living room is not empty and dark the way it was when you went to bed. Those thick, heavy duty blackout shades are still pulled down over all the windows, but the lights are on, the TV is on at a low volume in the background and curled up on one of the mismatched couches. Dahlia still in her pajamas and one Michael Darcy are sitting there with their heads together in hushed conversation. They both snap around to look at you when you walk in and Michael gives you this beatific look. That seems a little patronizing. Oh goodness. Look at the state of view breakfast.
Speaker 2 02:07:35 Not what you wanna hear from a vampire. The first time they see you in a day,
Speaker 1 02:07:40 He rolls his eyes and stands up brushing off the front of his smoking jacket. Oh heavens no. Do we have to go over this again? Look, vampires eat,
Speaker 2 02:07:56 I mean blood. If all the books that I read in English class are anything to believe
Speaker 1 02:08:03 A vast oversimplification brought about by that hack stoker, I will never forgive him. The reality's a bit closer to this. Almost every culture has some sort of vampire mythos. Correct. And through all of those varied mythologies, vampires eat life essence, which can be blood, it's dahlia's preferred snack of choice. Dahlia, who does have a little bag of ab negative with the Capri Sun stuck into it, just gives you a two finger salute from the couch and Michael continues. But the term life essence is a little loosey goosey. And I prefer to indulge in what I believe is the purest form. After all, what is our life, but all the silly little emotions we spend so much time and energy devoted to how are you feeling? And Damian, you know, notice that for the first time in weeks you feel like chill.
Speaker 2 02:09:26 I actually don't like that at all. In a very chill way. Damien says, cool, I understand guys gotta eat. Please don't fuck with my head.
Speaker 1 02:09:45 Your anxiety instantly comes back and Mick takes a step back and kind of puts his hands up.
Speaker 2 02:09:53 I think you, I may be emotionally disturbed, but these are my emotional disturbances. I hold them close to my chest like children.
Speaker 1 02:10:04 Fair enough. Sometimes I forget I'm in the gambling business. You see, typically when I'm feeding off of people's woes and life savings going down the drain, they're paying me to do it. At any rate, Dahlia and I have been burning the midnight oil and we think we have a solution worked up for you.
Speaker 2 02:10:28 I'm gonna look back over my shoulder towards where Luke is still fast asleep apparently. And then look back at Michael and Dahlia with a big smile and say, you'll have to forgive my skepticism. I've been offered solutions to my little problem before.
Speaker 1 02:10:50 Oh, of course if you took us at our word alone, it would make you an idiot. An idiot with powerful connections, but an idiot nonetheless. Unfortunately, I find myself lacking a certain piece of material evidence that may be a bit more convincing, but he walks over to one of these many, many shelves of various collectibles and pulls down a little glass top wooden case and brings it over. It is empty, but you can see a velvet cushion inside of it where something once rested. You're not really able to discern a specific shape or tell what used to be there. But he flips the lid open and nods down at the empty space. I've spent some time making some phone calls and well, there's no way to put this delicately. I've figured out what you are.
Speaker 2 02:12:01 Damien goes incredibly tense.
Speaker 1 02:12:05 He notices this and so does Dahlia. She goes like, she's about to open her mouth to ask for clarification and Michael just puts a hand up as if to tell her to leave it. Dahlia informs me that you are being pursued by the wild hunt. And if the situation is, as I understand it, they will never stop hunting you.
Speaker 2 02:12:31 Damian clenches his fists super hard and plasters on a bitter smile and says, nice to hear somebody else acknowledge it.
Speaker 1 02:12:48 Mixed face kind of twists up into something between sympathy and cringe. Well, if you can't run forever, the well, if you can't run forever, the second best option would be concealment. Yes. I recently had access to an artifact that would render you undetectable to entities such as the Wild Hunt.
Speaker 2 02:13:24 Oh cool. Weird vampire guy has an empty box and promises in McGuffin.
Speaker 1 02:13:31 Weird vampire guy presents your first real option you've had since you broke containment. But by all means, take it to leave it.
Speaker 2 02:13:42 I shut up and sit
Speaker 1 02:13:44 Down. There's a good la he puts the box back on the shelf and starts slowly pacing back and forth in front of the tv. Anyway, I'd had the old thing kicking around on a shelf for a few centuries. I can't decide whether it was by design or a cruel twist of faith that I lost it in a bad run of poker about a month ago. Love to help you get it back, but I'm afraid that won't be possible. You're on your own kid. Oh, well you and Dahlia and I'm so sorry, what was the young man's name again? That's
Speaker 2 02:14:30 Luke. Uh, get it back from who exactly.
Speaker 1 02:14:37 Michael looks extremely uncomfortable. A fellow collector like myself who just so happens to be an ancient indescribably, powerful and notoriously crotchety arch fey.
Speaker 2 02:15:01 <laugh> <laugh>. Cool. So I can try to get the McGuffin and put myself right in the hands of the people that it's supposed to keep me hidden from. Great.
Speaker 1 02:15:20 Not necessarily. This particular individual is affiliated with the Sealy court and there's a lot of political drama that goes on. They're not really the people that want you extremely dangerous though. Don't. Don't get that twisted. And I would help you out if I could. It's just that creatures of the sort of persuasion that we're dealing with here are much more dangerous at night. So this would necessitate a daytime recovery and I can't really do that.
Speaker 2 02:16:01 Right. The vampire Wait, you said Dahlia was gonna help.
Speaker 1 02:16:07 Well, as long as she keeps up with her SPF regimen, she'll be fine. She's just a baby.
Speaker 2 02:16:14 I look at Dahlia quizzically,
Speaker 1 02:16:18 She's still sipping on her blood bag and just kind of shrugs like he's telling the truth. Yeah, I mean, I'm 21.
Speaker 2 02:16:28 Uhhuh <affirmative> And how long have you been 21
Speaker 1 02:16:34 Capri Sun slur noises. Five months.
Speaker 2 02:16:40 Damian puts his head in his hands.
Speaker 1 02:16:44 Michael says nothing and does nothing about your dismay. Just very brightly goes. And I'm 547 and when I go out in the sun this happens. He pulls back one of those blackout shades over the window and his fucking arm catches fire. He's like very calm about it though. You hear him his in pain for like a second and then he just lets the shade go back over the window and shakes his arm off, kind of bats at it until the flames go out. And I heal fast, but not that fast.
Speaker 8 02:17:28 Uh,
Speaker 2 02:17:30 Point taken. Please don't do that again.
Speaker 1 02:17:36 I felt obligated. I was the one that told you not to just take us at our word.
Speaker 8 02:17:42 Uh,
Speaker 2 02:17:44 Yeah, you did. What do you mean you've been around for centuries? This shit started in 2012.
Speaker 1 02:17:54 He looks away from where he's been picking at charred pieces of his smoking jacket and just flicking them onto the floor and fixes you with a big fanged grin. Oh darling, there's been strange and unusual things in the world since time I memorial. We just had the misfortune to think that we had the monopoly on being strange and unusual until the veil came down. But you know what they say? Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. I certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 02:18:26 I don't even know where to start with this man. Damien Stammers for a second and then settles on your Spanish
Speaker 1 02:18:39 Darling. I hustle Archy at pka for a living. Do you think Michael Dossey is my real name?
Speaker 2 02:18:47 I have no further questions that I think you can answer in a satisfactory way
Speaker 1 02:18:53 Behind you. You hear a door open and Luke very sleepy eyed comes shuffling out into the living room, blinking somebody, making burgers
Speaker 2 02:19:08 Gross.
Speaker 1 02:19:11 This apparently immensely powerful and immensely old. Vampire is looking more and more exhausted with every passing. Second. Just brings both of his hands up in front of his face. One arm still smoking fingers steepled in front of his mouth. All right, gentlemen, I am going to lead into this little sales pitch with just a bit of a reality check. All you've been doing for the past several weeks is running for your lives, correct?
Speaker 2 02:19:49 Yeah, at least the last couple weeks.
Speaker 1 02:19:53 Wonderful. I need you to keep that in mind as I ask you the next question. From behind his fingers, you see that pointy tooth to grin stretch out again and his eyes flash red. How do you feel about a casino heist? And that's where we're gonna wrap up this time.
Speaker 2 02:20:18 I do love to just be playing a feral cat that does not know how to be treated with kindness.
Speaker 1 02:20:26 And I love playing a trembling a possum at the bottom of a garbage can, not understanding why people think it's cute. We'll see what happens next time
Speaker 2 02:20:36 On Compelled Door Desert Song.
