(eerie music) (blood squelching)
(coffins thud)
(lights flicker)
(quirky jazz music begins)
(wind whistles) (wolf howls)
(quirky jazz music continues)
(footsteps thud)
(quirky jazz continues)
(club beat thumps)
(quirky jazz continues)
(lightning strikes)
(quirky jazz music concludes) (ominous laughter)
Hello, one and all!
Welcome to another thrilling episode of
"Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness."
I'm your humble dungeon master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me as always are our intrepid heroes.
Say hi, Intrepid Heroes.
[Players] Die, Intrepid Heroes.
- Last we left off, the town of Purpee, Oregon,
was in the clutches of our coterie of Camarilla Kindred.
- Ooh. - Wow.
- [Brennan] Wow. - Alliteration.
- [Brennan] Alliteration. - Beautiful.
Did you write that beforehand or you just come up with it?
That's off the dome, baby.
- [Siobhan] Wow. - That's exactly
the kind of intro that we get some of the time, folks.
(Emily laughing)
Our Kindred leapt from the sky-walk
of noted author Estelle Laurent's lovely manor,
racing into the dark after Aaron Bow, a vampire hunter,
who had taken a shot at Darkness Man from the wood line.
Darkness Man suplexed an old-growth oak tree into the rubble
(Emily laughing) as Bat Child used-
- The fact that it was old-growth is so, so funny.
- I mean like a beautiful- - [Siobhan] Beautiful.
- Stunning. - [Brennan] A stunning...
They've got plenty.
Yeah, it's Pacific Northwest.
- It's Oregon. - No, true.
- A dime a dozen. - I will say,
oak... it's mostly conifer around here.
Sure.
Took Aaron Bow straight to the mat.
Bat Child using powers of Oblivion to wither his flesh
before Zaeth Bondana flew right into his chest
and he got eaten in front of everybody.
Also, two unrelated people were killed,
(players laughing)
as Zaeth flew into a vampiric frenzy.
What are you gonna do? The guy's frenzying.
Not my fault at that point.
With a slick cover,
the three of them jumped on the back of Ghorse the horse
and took off over the ridge
as LaVonte Worthy came out and, aiding his persuasiveness,
was on a phone call.
He was getting word that this was a Banksy.
It's not me. That's not coming from me.
That's coming from the phone.
- Hot off the presses. - [Lou] Exactly.
- You got the call. - [Brennan] You got the call.
- You never had to explain who you're on the phone with.
- Hey. - [Murph] Was it Banksy?
- You never do. - [Siobhan] It was a Banksy.
You never do.
- That's what happens when you roll 12 successes.
- You never have- - That's true, actually.
- That was a huge roll for you. - [Siobhan] Huge roll.
- Thanks, man. - I got your back.
(players laughing)
- [Brennan] The coterie took off after that party
and got their plan together for indeed,
rather than pushing Helena LaTour
in this sort of interim appointment period,
they set up Florian Whittaker,
a man going through a rough divorce to take the fall
as they put noted journalist Nancy Danderhoof
on the trail of this insane home stealing swindle
that the Silver Meadows nursing home
had basically seen fit to
use a bit of legal footwork
to rob people of their houses.
Putting Nancy on the foot
frees you guys up for your main downtime activities,
which were running down Cody,
one of the proprietors of the Crescent Moon Hostel,
who ended up being, we presume, a werewolf.
And a pretty nice guy, frankly.
- [Brennan] And a pretty nice guy, frankly.
- Strong. - Hard to make an argument
why we should eat him.
(Brennan laughing)
- Well, we don't have to eat him. We just have to repel him.
- Well I don't wanna- Frankly, it's hard to repel him.
- Yeah. - 'Cause he's nice.
- 'Cause he's so nice. - He's a warm guy.
- I don't wanna kick him out. - [Brennan] We found out
that the Second Inquisition was not present in Purpee,
but that some maybe, you know,
people that the former Aaron Bow
had associated with
were a right-wing group up the road in Medford a bit.
And we also discovered that our friend, Herbert Melvin,
the city councilman,
had a weird gargoyle of an ancient spirit
with a ruby in its beak that was shattered
after the ruby was taken by Bat Child
who was not struck dead on the spot,
even though the curse was to stop her heart.
- Could be anything. - Could be anything.
(players chattering)
Maybe that is how ghost bats work.
- I just don't understand bat anatomy enough yet.
(Brennan and Ally laugh)
[Emily] I just have to keep studying.
- Keep studying. - You just don't know
- enough about bats yet. - Bat to school.
(Emily laughing)
[Brennan] Going bat to school. Exactly.
Bat to school night.
- Bat Child, using her relationship with Herbert Melvin,
was able to thwart the Douglases
from getting a second seat on the city council.
- Did we find out if he was the sole person
voting against or did-
- Marisol also voted, and because Marisol and Herbert
were both gonna vote for Florian,
Gene Douglas is gonna go with it.
Okay.
- You guys also bought the Rogue County Lumbermill.
Infested with cinnamon gummy bears?
- Naked bears. - Naked bears.
(players chattering)
I have a book about Gumberoos.
Oh, right. Okay, yeah.
You can see what they like.
[Brennan] So with that purchased,
Cody asked if you guys wanted to all meet with him
and Maya, basically stunned
that in your short time here in Purpee,
you had located the source of this ghostly power
protecting the Whittakers,
shattered that monument,
that you had undone the town's hunter,
which it seemed that Cody was also worried about,
as a fellow monster,
and that you guys had not only done that
but had somehow done something that enabled Bigfoot
to return to the land after being repelled for so long.
So three huge wins for the coterie.
- And we saw a smiling Nixon. - [Brennan] And you still have
smiling Nixon down there somewhere.
That's four.
- [Brennan] So we return-
- Big bad. - The big bad of the season.
Smiling Nixon.
The most loud smile.
[Brennan] The date is January 12th.
The nights do begin to grow shorter,
though they are indeed still long here in mid-January.
The summer will bring challenges with it,
the ever-present sun here far north of the equator.
Koschei has said he is coming.
Zaeth, that is the last piece of info you have
as all of you return on January the 12th
with news of Florian's all but assurance to the city council
that Koschei is on his way.
- Did he hang up already? - If you're still
on the phone with him.
- I wasn't sure if I, how- - [Brennan] Yeah.
I'm kneeling but on the phone.
Yeah. Koschei beholds you.
(dramatic music)
"Zaeth, I am coming to make sure
all is going well in Purpee."
- Uh, it's actually go- It's going really...
We have figured a lot out.
It's going really good.
This is very good to hear.
I am on my way with Ermine.
We will be checking in on you in Purpee,
to make sure that all is going according to plan.
- Probably don't even have to come, but-
We will be there tomorrow night.
- Tomorrow night? - Click.
- [Zac] Where were we? - [Brennan] I think you guys
can all gather back together.
Cody says, "Meet up with me tomorrow night
and I'll talk to you guys. I'll bring Maya
and we'll talk to you guys."
Okay, so we met Cody.
- Cody is a werewolf. - Cody is awesome.
- But he's really cool. - Very chill.
He's really chill. He was cool.
He figured out that we were vampires.
How?
It just so chill, I think.
It just didn't...
it didn't go well when we were trying to-
- No. - ...sort of sniff him out.
He sniffed us out. That's kinda what he does.
- He kind of sniffed us out 'cause he's a werewolf, I think.
- Yeah. - Hmm.
But he knows Maya
and was talking about all of us getting together
tomorrow night to talk.
He's seemingly against
the Douglas/Whittaker situation,
so it doesn't seem like an enemy really.
Hmm.
- I have a very important piece of information
that's maybe going to shock everyone.
Oh my gosh.
- Go ahead and sit down. - Okay.
- All right.
- Sit down. - I'm gonna lie down.
- Lie down if you- - I'm gonna hang upside down.
I'm gonna lie down.
- You might hit your head, but-
Koschei's coming tomorrow night.
[Lou] Oh...
No.
He wants to check in on how we're doing,
and I said we got a lot figured out but-
And he's coming alone?
- He's bringing- Sorry, what was-
- [Brennan] Ermine. - Ermine.
The Tremere primogen of San Francisco.
- Yes. Oh no. - So...
We're looking alive.
- We got a couple of things. - We are looking alive.
- I think- We closed on the Rogue Lumbermill.
Yes.
So Elysium, theoretically.
Let's go make that look awesome.
Let's make the lumbermill look sick.
You know what? I had a thought.
And tell me if this is too crazy,
but you have some info about these fire bears, right?
- Nude fire bears? - Yeah. Gumberoos, yeah.
- If there's a way that we can lure them out
and into the weed dispensary to infest there
and live in that building instead of in ours.
That'd be cool.
- Can I look at my book and see if they like weed?
Go ahead and give me
- Occult and Intelligence. - [Emily] Okay.
- Do you have a PDF? You could just Control+F.
- [Brennan] Difficulty is one. - Weed, yeah.
- I do have a specialty. - Difficulty is one?
- Difficulty is one. Intelligence plus Occult.
- [Emily] I do have a specialty in Zoology.
[Brennan] So you can go ahead
and add a die for that specialty.
- [Ally] You're already to an auto-pass.
- [Zac] I think I know what the answer's gonna be.
- [Ally] I have a feeling I know what the answer's gonna be.
- I fail. (laughing) - Wait, Willpower.
Use Willpower.
- We can't make Bat Child use Willpower if she doesn't-
Look, my mind is elsewhere right now.
I apparently don't have a heart!
Yeah, you're a vampire.
- You have a heart. - I'm not a vampire.
- We all know that Bat Child is half bat, half child.
- And full vampire. - Yes.
[Siobhan] She seemed like a full adult.
[Ally] Half bat, half child?
- Half child, half- - Half bat, half child.
I'm assuming that's where the name comes from.
I'm not a vampire.
- When we go to the lumbermill-
Half human.
Maybe we'll have a chat just on the way.
Look yourself in the mirror
and tell yourself you're not a vampire.
It's empty.
That's a trick mirror.
Just like every mirror I've seen this since 2003.
- HJ, we've known this was a delicate subject for a-
I know, I'm sorry.
I'm just feeling wild 'cause Koschei's coming.
- The bats and the bees. - We gotta sit you down
- and have a little talk. - Just to be really-
I mean, I hate to be this guy but I gotta be this guy.
Kind of eternal war between vampires and werewolves.
You're a hundred percent sure this guy's on the level?
- I just... Here's the thing-
He wears shorts in the winter.
- I came at him so hard. - Yes.
And I tried to sneak around his place
and he saw me just go into his garbage
and he just acknowledged that I did that.
And then I kicked down
his bathroom door after saying I had to go to the bathroom.
And then I was just dressed as a superhero.
And then I started yelling at him,
and he just asked that we speak calmly, and then we did.
And he knew I was a vampire but he was still nice.
And I tried to get him on our side
by being just kind of helpless and also-
- Classic. - ...scared of Darkness Man
being a pervert. And he did not buy into that either.
- Wow, he didn't buy into Darkest Man being a pervert?
- Which is just to show that he-
He might be on the level.
It's irresistible sometimes
so that is actually very measured.
Was being kind of pervy.
So like it's an eternal war.
But what's a few more days, weeks, months
to an eternal war, you know?
Yes. Perhaps a lull.
So when are we supposed to talk to Cody?
Tomorrow night.
And when does Koschei get here?
- [Siobhan] Tomorrow night. - Tomorrow night.
- Oh, he's gonna be so mad. - Oh man!
We're gonna have two dinner parties.
We gotta have two dinner parties.
- The boss is coming. - [Siobhan] We can do it.
We'll put up a wall in the lumbermill.
- Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait. Hear me out.
Koschei shows up.
We are in the middle of expelling the lupine.
Have him go... We'll write a script.
No, 'cause Koschei will do a whole thing
where he'll kill him or something, right?
And I'm sure we'll do it perfect.
- And we'll do it perfect. - I think if we host,
if some of us host Koschei at our new Elysium.
- [Siobhan] Yes. - And the some of us
go and have a chat with Cody-
And we don't get lit on fire?
- That's so dangerous. - Yeah. Well.
[Ally] They're little nude bears
trying to light us on fire?
Well, Bat Child is reasonable, you know?
It makes sense 'cause we have to have
our freaking Elysium established before he gets here.
That's, like, bare minimum.
- Maybe me, Bat Child, and Zaeth host Koschei
- at the new Elysium- - [Siobhan] Yes.
...and work it out with the bears.
And then the three of you-
And Koschei, you speak to animal, right?
- So maybe you can talk to- - Oh yeah-
(players chattering)
So I really just have...
I have an ability to bond with animals.
I have one specifically strong bond with one horse.
- [Siobhan] Sure. - [Ally] Uh-huh.
And I'm sure it's gonna translate.
Let's give it a shot.
So you gotta bump the horse
and take on each little bear one at a time?
And I don't know if I can do that,
- but I'm not going to. - [Siobhan] Sure.
- So me and Ghorse are gonna just see what we can-
And you, Bat Child, you know all about that.
You have the book. You're a zoologist.
We got everything we need.
- I actually don't have any special abilities with animals.
- What? - Wait, what do you mean?
You're Bat Child.
- You're half bat. - [Siobhan] You're half bat-
- You don't have a special ability to half of you?
- After I got bit by a ghost bat-
- Uh-huh?
I tried to live amongst the bats.
- Uh-huh?
- I went to Bracken Cave just outside of San Antonio.
(Ally chuckling)
It's the largest summer colony of bats.
Okay.
And you just got in the flow of things.
- I can't speak at the high frequencies they speak at.
- Oh. - Oh.
I'm dog shit at hunting wasps.
(players laughing)
- They eat wasps? - Yeah.
And it hurts to eat a wasp.
- Yes. - Okay?
Were you able to get up there with them
- or were you down? Where? - No, no.
- So you would just at the bottom-
You were on the ground eating bees?
- You were in their shit, just eating bees?
- Just in the guano. - Yeah.
You were knee deep in the guano?
I was knee deep in guano.
- That's commitment and that is a superpower.
- [Ally] That's true. - Yes!
Commitment is a superpower!
- Gassing each other up. - It's a superpower.
- This is it. - Yeah.
- [Ally] You've got this. You've got the book.
- [Murph] It's a superpower. - Yeah.
You gotta get neep deep in the guano.
Neep deep?
- You've gotta get nip deep in the guano-
- [Emily] Okay. - ...of fire bears today.
- Okay. Okay. - We'll get you some waders.
- Look, I don't wanna throw a wrench in tomorrow,
but it's also my birthday.
(players laughing)
- Oh man. - Oh my god.
January 16th. It's her birthday!
- I forgot. - January 13th, Zaeth.
No, it's not. Oh, you're right.
- Yeah. (Siobhan laughing)
It's all right. You have to get the new calendar.
Sorry. It's the old one.
I have to use the bathroom again.
And I go upstairs and I try to order-
Oh shit. I have to run out to bathroom.
And I leave and I get on my scooter.
Where are you going?
Oh shit, I have to go the bathroom.
- I gotta go to Mike's. - What's that Ghorse?
Yeah, one second. I run. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
- I zip through the streets looking for a store
that's open to get a gift.
I go to some student's house party
and just shoplift from the students.
- Great. Everyone runs out to go get a gift for Bat Child.
I'm staying home.
I'm going to admit I forgot your birthday like a man.
It's okay. It's okay.
I meant more like, I don't mean to put more on our plate.
Something I think she might really like
is something stolen from the precinct.
- From the what? - You're gonna steal? Okay.
From the police precinct.
- This whole episode's just gonna be you doing-
(players chattering)
- Us finding you in jail. - In jail.
- You murdered eight- (laughing)
[Brennan] We're gonna go around.
Who all leaves to find Bat Child a gift?
(Emily laughing) One, two.
I do a lap and I come back empty handed.
Here's what I would like to get
for Bat Child on the computer.
Aw, okay. Gotcha.
- [Murph] So I do a little thing on the computer.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm. - I come back.
I didn't get anything.
[Brennan] HJ, you go to police precinct.
This is what I would like to get
for her at the police precinct.
Great. You got it.
[Lou] It just says, "a gun."
[Brennan] Great. Okay.
So you walk into the police precinct.
A person working the front desk looks up
and points at the bell on the door and says, "I'm sorry."
And walks up and takes that off
and goes, "I don't know how that-"
I thought that was weird, too.
(players laughing)
I say: Good evening, I'm here to see a client.
(Emily and Lou laugh)
Oh, you're a public defender?
- Yeah. - Great. What's your name?
Boris.
[Brennan] Not getting a Boris.
Weird.
Like, do you mind if I call them and-
Yeah, what's your client's name?
Boris.
Are you saying Woris?
Yeah, I'm here to see Woris.
- Your name's Boris. - My name is Boris.
- I'm here to see Woris. - Great. Give me...
- [Ally] I'm just gonna hop on the phone really quick.
Payphone?
(players laughing)
I just try to step to the side,
and if they turn around, I make a run for it.
(cast laughing)
- What's happening? - Deeper in or to leave?
- Towards the evidence room. - [Brennan] Great. Roll me-
What are you doing?
- [Brennan] Roll me Intelligence, Investigation
to know where the evidence room is.
[Ally] I've got this.
[Zac] The open door of evidence.
[Ally] I've got this, all right?
I'm gonna...
[Murph] What the fuck are you doing?
[Ally] I pass. Okay, great.
- [Brennan] Intelligence, Investigation. Difficulty of four.
[Ally] Okay.
That's two. Gonna re-roll.
Okay. Hey, there we go. Four.
- Great. So you see down the hallway an evidence lock.
I wait for them to look the other way.
- You see the person turns. The person says,
"Did you make the appointment today or did you-"
(Ally mimics quick running)
All right. Great. Do you have Celerity?
- [Zac] Not at all. - [Lou] Of course not.
I have Presence.
So is there a way to do-
So you're more visible, if anything.
(players laughing)
- Great. - You're getting texts
- that are like, "Come back." - I bail, I bail, I bail.
(players chattering and laughing)
I grab his gun and that'll be good enough.
All right, great.
Go ahead and give me Dexterity...
[Siobhan] One in Dexterity, lowest stat.
You're gonna have to wear your fake face
for the rest of the campaign.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
(players laughing)
- Give me, Dexterity, Larceny. - Oh my god.
This is gonna be a difficulty of three.
Difficulty of three.
(Siobhan laughing)
I forgot to roll this one.
(laughing) I'm sorry.
I'm gonna re-roll.
[Brennan] Okay.
So you have to crit?
(Ally laughing)
- Three failures. - [Brennan] Three failures.
(Ally and Emily laugh)
What the fuck are you doing?
Let's just pretend this never happened.
(cast laughing)
No, I want this in the final cut.
Let's just pretend this didn't happen.
This is me talking to the cop.
- You just, like, touch the gun and then stand there.
Let's just pretend this didn't happen.
(Brennan laughing)
- Okay, great. (bell chimes)
(players laughing)
- I'm scooting home. - [Brennan] Okay, great.
- I'm scooting to Beth's. - You gonna grab his gun.
He goes, "Hey, hey, hey!"
Let's just pretend this didn't happen.
(bell chiming)
[Brennan] Uh, great.
(players laughing)
- Fuck! What can I get her if not a hot gun?
- [Brennan] Okay, as you take off on your Bird scooter,
behind you, you hear-
(imitating police siren wailing)
Fuck! I go to Beth's.
(cast laughing)
That's the next best thing I could get her.
- [Lou] Peel off. - A female friendship.
(players gasping from laughter)
- No, I go home. - [Brennan] Okay.
- And we just start- We go right back to where we were
kind of all in the room together.
Okay. Okay.
Go ahead and give me Dexterity, Stealth,
- if you'd be so kind. - Okay, great.
- We can't keep pulling this Banksy shit, all right?
Blood Surge.
I mean the Masquerade's still happening.
- Yeah, of course. - They might just go to jail.
Yeah, exactly.
- That's a one. - [Brennan] One success?
Okay, great.
As you pull away on the Bird scooter,
the cop cars begin to pile onto Main Street.
You're going right down the main drag.
I start changing my face.
(cast laughing)
[Brennan] Great.
(Emily laughing)
Great. Hold on one second.
(players chuckling)
Okay.
Are you making an attempt to dodge
or to resist with Fortitude?
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, let's do that.
Give me Stamina plus Fortitude.
I could do... I have Protean,
and I also have Dominate that I have better stats in.
Okay, for right now,
you're just being shot at with a lot of guns.
(players laugh)
So go ahead and give me Stamina plus Fortitude.
- Jesus. - Yeah. You got it.
So we're not actually just cutting back
to where we all were?
I mean, I get it. I'm gonna Blood Surge.
- [Brennan] Okay, great. - I pass.
- Great. - Okay, great.
- We're good. - Three for that.
- We're good. - We're good.
- [Ally] And then I added two 'cause I Blood Surged.
- HJ just dies. - We got one.
I'm gonna re-roll with Willpower again.
- [Brennan] Okay, great. (Emily laughing)
This is just Bat Child and me
just sitting in the living room?
- I came back. - Oh, great.
- Two successes? Great. - Sitting in the living room.
- [Brennan] HJ, you take 10 points of Superficial damage,
halved to five.
As you are (guns firing)
being riddled with bullets.
(Emily and Brennan laugh) (bullets ricocheting)
You get to the bridge.
The question is-
I go off the bridge.
- [Brennan] You go off the bridge into the water.
- Bird scooter destroyed. - That's okay.
- [Brennan] Bird scooter riddled with bullets.
You sink to the bottom where you do not need to breathe,
and you see that the cop cars pull up
and begin to shine lights into the water.
What do you do?
I hide under the bridge, if I can.
Okay, you hide under the bridge.
- You wait- - How deep is the water?
Can I go deep where the light won't-
- You can go deep where the light won't touch.
I get down, like, angler fish deep.
[Brennan] You get angler fish deep.
- You can also probably- - Angler fish.
You can also probably spend
the rest of the night crawling
up or down river, on the bottom of the river
to emerge where the cops won't see.
(Siobhan laughing)
Great.
(cast laughing breathlessly)
- They just think they shot you into the river and you just-
- Can I Luck check- - [Brennan] Yeah?
- ...find something actually really beautiful and antique
that's been thrown in the river
to give to Bat Child once I get home?
- Roll two dice and if they're both successes,
you'll find something.
- Fuck! One. - [Brennan] One success.
- One success. - Great.
It's mostly just rocks down here.
- You are crawling. - Grab a rock.
I'm gonna write
- a poem on it in Sharpie. - [Brennan] Great.
So HJ is not present for this next scene.
(Emily laughing)
Where's HJ?
I thought maybe
we were all kind of doing a scatter moment,
finding something cool, coming back.
- Zaeth doesn't get one. - I didn't find anything.
- I just went on the computer. - Where did Madelaine go?
- I'm gonna go to these fucker's houses over here.
- [Brennan] Rory and Miranda? - [Siobhan] Rory and Miranda.
And I'm gonna steal the most disgustingly
tiny pair of underwear.
[Brennan] Great.
[Ally] What?!
- Ew. - Wow. Established early on.
That's what Bat Child likes.
Tiny underwear.
Other people's tiny underwear.
This is definitely a gift that Madelaine
thinks is quite a good gift.
So Madelaine, go ahead and give me Charisma, Persuasion.
- [Siobhan] Great. - [Brennan] Difficulty is one.
- [Siohban] I got it. I don't need, I'm gonna-
- [Brennan] You wanna halve? - [Siobhan] Yeah.
Great. You walk in.
Rory and Miranda both say, "Hi."
- Yeah, I got three. - [Brennan] Yeah.
You grab a nice little piece of underwear,
you come back. Bat Child you get some underwear.
That's the only gift you get for your birthday.
- I give Bat Child a Hallmark card with no money in it.
How did you know?
It's the thought that counts more than the money.
[Siobhan] It's the thong that counts.
That's what they say, the thong that counts.
The thong that counts?
And you'll get your present from me
on your actual birthday.
Is it a singing birthday card?
- Oh wait, is today your birthday or tomorrow?
- Tomorrow. - Oh yeah,
- tomorrow you'll get it. - We have all this time.
We have so much time.
- I also wasn't even asking for birthday presents.
I was just saying like,
hey here's just another thing going on.
So this is more than I ever could have expected.
Where's HJ?
(players laughing)
[Lou] I'm texting HJ.
I mean, he just kind of ran off in the night.
I can't lie...
He's been doing some new drug that I think
is really playing tricks with his on mind, yeah.
I noticed a lot of sort of flexing.
- Did you see how he kept taking his shirt off yesterday?
- He was doing the X. - [Lou] Yeah.
- No shirt but a wooly scarf? - Pretty unreliable,
if you need a number two, you know?
(cast laughing)
(deep water moving)
- He's crawling along. - The bottom of the stream.
- [Lou] It's a creek. - The bottom of the creek.
This fucking vampire.
Like a fucking aquatic grinch.
- Thank god this setting doesn't have you die
in running water for vampires.
- [Siobhan] Yes. - Jesus.
- So do we wanna try to set up the lumbermill a little bit?
Yeah, I think so.
I think if there's a party store in town
or just somewhere that has decorations.
We just work on cleaning it
because we should, you know, we should let him know
that it's still a work in progress.
- Yeah, but I mean, Zaeth, if you could spray paint
- some stuff, you know. - Oh.
- Really? You know? - Yeah.
You know what Koschei likes.
Spray paint some stuff he likes.
- Yeah. - Maybe we get long
reams of red silk fabric and just have it hanging.
Let's go, team.
Do we have about a thousand candles?
- [Siobhan] Oh, good idea. - I mean, we can get it.
Have them weirdly close to the silk
so it feels like it might set on fire.
You want to text Tyler
and see he can get a thousand candles?
- Tyler, I need a thousand candles by tomorrow
at the Rogue Lumbermill by
3:00 PM, 4:00 PM?
- You get a text from Tyler immediately saying,
"In my car on the way to Medford.
Big box store will have them.
Store is open till midnight."
- "That's my big dog." And then a gif of a barking dog.
- Tyler! Unscented. - Make sure they're unscented.
- Thumbs-up emoji react immediately.
You guys take off or just go over to the lumbermill.
Are you guys really going to go physically there
to start getting it ready tonight?
- Yeah, I mean I think we might as well-
He's getting here tomorrow night.
[Brennan] Yeah.
- We've got some time. - Yeah, that way we can-
Some people can give him a tour
while others go and talk to Cody.
[Brennan] Hell yeah.
You guys arrive at the Rogue County Lumbermill.
Where am I at?
I'm closing, right?
- I'm probably right here. - [Brennan] Closing distance.
Yeah, I think you're down here.
- [Ally] I would imagine. - I would say you're here.
(players laughing)
[Siobhan] You kinda got turned around.
- It's a little bit hard to tell where I'm going but-
- I feel like it. - Yeah, I'm coming over here.
- Let me ask, in terms of the time is passing
kind of weirdly in the waterway as you're traveling.
- [Ally] Yeah. - And you really don't wanna
get grabbed by the police so as you're moving, go ahead
and give me Intelligence, Survival
for how long you should take
getting out of the river.
I'll say that you're looking for four successes.
- [Ally] Okay. - But you just don't
want to get less than three.
Okay, I'm gonna Blood Surge.
- [Zac] Blood Slurge? - [Brennan] Blood Slurge.
Okay. I got it.
(dice rattle)
- One, two, three, four, five. - Five successes. Great.
Cool. You get out wherever you want in town.
Do I find a little pearl or something?
No!
(players laughing)
- [Lou] You gotta ask though. - You gotta ask.
We already rolled for that.
You don't find a little-
But I just nailed it so much just now.
- I thought maybe I'll- - If you hadn't nailed it,
I was gonna have you come out of the river in Medford
and have to run back.
(players laughing)
All right, fair enough.
So can I get out right by the lumbermill?
You guys pull up by the lumbermill
- and you see HJ. - [Emily] HJ?
[Brennan] Riddled with bullet holes.
What the hell happened?
[Emily] What happened to you?
- Did you get any of our texts? Is your phone wet?
My phone's long gone.
How did you know to come here?
- I knew that we have a lot of work to do, gang.
Let's circle up.
- HJ, you good, man? - I couldn't get it.
You couldn't get what?
I had a really good idea for a present.
It just seemed like everything was against me all at once.
Was it in the river?
- Do you have your Bird scooter? I can charge it.
- No, it's gone. It got shot up by the cops.
It got shot up by the cops?
Yeah.
Anyway, happy birthday.
I got you something but I'm not done with it.
- That's fine. - And I try to hide
the rock that I'm holding but it's really big.
- I look at the rock like I really want it.
Great. Okay, good.
You're gonna like even more when I write a poem on it.
(Emily laughing)
- All right, let's all get in the lumbermill.
(Siobhan and Murph laugh)
- [Brennan] You guys, having closed on the property,
Yanis was understanding about it
'cause you guys were moving the finances pretty quickly.
There's a small lockbox.
He's given you the code to the keys.
You're able to open the big padlock
on the front of the lumbermill.
You open it up and see...
First, a bizarre smell,
ash mixed with tons of fire extinguisher.
There's sort of that fire extinguisher
flame retardant material
that's scattered all over the floor.
Enormous ceiling-mounted buzz saws, catwalks,
huge open saw tables,
carpentry stations, workbenches, vices,
big heavy duty equipment.
In the back, a large sort of staging area
adjoining the back sort of warehouse.
Upper level offices or administrative places.
You can see that near that sort of larger staging area,
there's, again, huge table-mounted saws and wood panels.
The equipment here looks pretty nice
in terms of being an actual usable working space
but obviously it's not...
it is not set up like a brewery right now.
I'd also ask anyone that wants to
to give me Wits, Awareness.
I'm gonna text Tyler.
- "Actually, scented." - Scented. Actually, scented.
Two.
One.
I got five.
- Oh, six. - Oh, I crit.
Four, five, six, seven.
- How many did Zaeth get? - Two.
[Brennan] HJ with two.
- Yeah, we're literally in a battle right now.
- It sounds like initiative. - Yeah.
(Murph mimics flames erupting)
- [Brennan] LaVonte, looking down at your phone,
Tyler immediately hits you back with,
"Do you have exact smells?
If not, give me three evocative words."
Winter, warmth, tropical.
- He gets back to- - Tropical winter.
- Tropical, winter, warmth. - Hawaiian winter.
Wow, I love. I can smell it.
I would buy that. I would buy that.
Okay, tropical, winter, warmth.
As you say that, LaVonte, you suddenly look up.
Darkness Man, Bat Child, your superhero senses kick in.
Snuffling from under one of the tables, you see
an enormous shape lunge forward towards you.
Its sort of pachyderm elephantine skin,
like a rhinoceros or an elephant,
is choked with creosote.
It squeaks like the thick ash of a wood stove
scraping against each other
with the movements of its bodies.
Enormous digging claws,
more like that of a wombat or a badger than of a true bear.
As this ursine shape leaps out of the darkness going-
(Brennan snorts and snarls)
Its nose lights up as sparks snuff out of it.
And you guys see that a Gumberoo charges,
nude and screaming from the shadows underneath the buzz saw.
(Murph screams ferociously)
I run at it and I tackle it.
So I've read about Gumberoos.
What do they like?
Like, what would I, a zoologist, have clocked about it?
- Give me one more-
You can do so with two extra dice from your Zoology skill.
Give me Intelligence plus either Animal Ken
or Occult, whichever you prefer.
(dice rattling)
- Four. - On four successes,
you know a couple different things.
Number one, this thing leapt out from the shadows
underneath one of the tables.
As it does so, what you see is a thin veil of ruby light.
You and Madelaine both see in this moment
that this creature,
you are catching it on its first night
fully on this side of the veil between life and death.
All of its other attacks on the property
and the people that must have seen it,
must have seen it under liminal circumstances.
Perhaps there were ghostly events happening
or it was a solstice or an equinox
or something else was going on.
On four successes, you realize that
whatever that owl creature was in the Templers' basement
has been undone
when Herbert cracked that statue in half.
And it is very thankful that you guys
are the first people here.
Otherwise this thing would've openly breached
the Masquerade and escaped from the lumbermill
at the next possible opportunity.
That's what you get on four successes.
- Okay. - [Brennan] What you know
about this is,
this thing is a potentially fatal
- encounter for all six of you. - Whoa.
[Brennan] It uses fire.
You remember online seeing in some column associated
with some piece of research you were doing
that someone had hinted towards a possible weakness
but on four successes,
you do not remember exactly what its weakness is
but you remember where to look for it.
There was a path online for it.
You also potentially could have it in your book,
if that's traveling on your person.
You would've brought it I think 'cause
we're really trying to fix this place up.
You either would've read it or brought it.
So it's definitely on me.
- When it gets to your turn it will be-
I'll take a read action.
- [Brennan] Take a read action, essentially.
Darkness Man, you're gonna lunge at this thing first.
Yeah.
(Emily gasping)
I don't have all the info.
- I'm just doing whatever- - Yeah, no, no, no.
Punch it, Mitch. Punch it.
I'm gonna tackle it.
I don't know if it's a good guy or a bad guy.
Punch it in the nose!
- I don't know if it's a good guy or a bad guy!
- Give me Brawl plus Strength. - [Murph] Okay.
- This thing- (imitating snarling)
I don't know if you're good or bad!
[Emily] Be careful. They shoot fire.
[Murph] Okay.
Yeah, try to dodge the fire.
I'll try to just get around back,
and so I am gonna Blood Surge.
I successfully don't get a Hunger.
- Are you going to move around it in such a way...
- I'll try to not get sprayed with fire, if I can.
I'm gonna try to dive on its back and like-
So you're less trying to do damage to it
and more trying to-
I'm to literally to grapple it.
- Trying to grapple it. Cool. - Just hang on it.
[Brennan] Okay, awesome.
If only you'd gotten that gun.
- Fuck! (Emily laughing)
That hot gun.
- Imagine if we had a hot gun in this scenario.
- Only... That thing that sets on fire with a hot gun.
- The Gumberoo crits for a total of eight successes.
- Okay, okay. - Oh my god.
I think I'm in trouble.
I've got five so far.
Your Willpower reset, by the way.
- I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna use a Willpower.
- [Brennan] Okay. - [Murph] Do I get to add
anything for Potence?
Yes, you add your Potence as dice.
- On top of Brawl and-
[Brennan] On top of Brawl and Strength.
Okay, great. Okay, so I actually have...
Okay, so I actually am gonna roll six more
so I might not be in trouble.
- Okay, five successes. - So five successes.
Oh my god, I rolled so bad. Fuck.
- Just six. - Okay, you go
to grapple this thing.
You see it rolls onto its side
(Brennan snarling)
keeping its mouth and nostrils pointed
towards your companions.
Perversely, you have actually gotten out
of whatever its snout looks like it's pointed at
and are sort of now
not in the cone of influence potentially,
but you see that your friends,
it's still... it's just wiggling on its side.
It has that animalistic way of moving
where wrestling it, it's just so flexible in its spine
and joints that it gets its hind legs around
to scrape and turn.
Bat Child, that's going to be you.
- Okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna look for the weakness.
- This is going to be Intelligence plus either Occult
or Animal Ken.
Give me-
Can I add my Zoology to this?
- [Brennan] You can add your Zoology to this as well.
- I'm gonna Blood Surge. - [Brennan] Mm-hmm.
Okay.
(dice clacking)
Oh my. Okay.
- I will Willpower. - [Brennan] Okay.
Yeah! Okay.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
- [Brennan] Six. - Wait, wait.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!
[Brennan] Seven successes. Unbelievable.
In this moment, I will allow you to choose
between learning one of its immunities
or learning one of its vulnerabilities.
- Vulnerability. - [Brennan] Okay.
The Gumberoo is deathly harmed by fire.
What?
- [Brennan] The Gumberoo is deathly harmed by fire.
Fire destroys it.
- Well we have a lot of candles on the way.
Everyone, it's hurt by fire!
- Doesn't it make fire? - How is the fire...
It comes out of its mouth?
On seven successes,
you read the paragraph further, mid-combat,
as this thing is wrestling, trying to get Mitch.
It looks like that these things both breathe fire
and are highly flammable
and that when they are set on fire they die
because they explode.
- [Siobhan] Oh. Outside. - Okay!
Okay, so everyone, I think we just gotta get outside.
LaVonte, you now watch a Gumberoo
that you are in the middle of fighting.
- Mm-hmm. - This piece of lumberjack
- Americana folklore. - Mm-hmm.
That you realize very well may destroy
a significant portion of your liquidity here in Purpee.
Terrifying. Nothing scarier than that.
LaVonte will open the doors wide
and run outside and start jumping around
and start- Eat me!
Come eat me, you big stupid bear!
[Brennan] Incredible.
This is going to be Manipulation, Animal Ken.
[Lou] Great. I have no Animal Ken.
But I have some Manipulation.
Can I use Presence at all?
You can use Presence here, potentially.
[Lou] Great.
- If you want that, Daunt might be the-
Yeah, I think I want,
I wanna look big and scary,
big and scarier than Mitch somehow.
I take my double breasted suit
and I open it wide.
(Lou attempts a threatening grunt)
Nice.
We'll Willpower these two.
[Emily] Ooh, yes.
For a total of all successes.
- Six successes. - Six successes?
You get outside, saying-
Come eat me!
Mitch, ride it!
- Ride it toward me. - I'm trying!
(Lou grunting strangely) (players laughing)
(Murph grunting in confusion)
- (through laughter) - Ride it towards me.
(Murph hooting)
(Lou hooting)
- [Brennan] Give me Stamina plus Fortitude.
[Lou] Okay.
Three successes. (Ally cheers)
Three successes.
This thing slashes into you for...
it was seven successes of damage.
Now four halved to two.
It has not used any of its fire breath yet,
but just slashes across you with a big claw.
Ah!
(Emily laughing)
I'm not strong!
(players laughing)
Oh goddamn!
Ah, shit!
- LaVonte. - It's a $500 shirt!
(players laughing) No!
[Brennan] Zaeth, that is your turn.
- But did it come outside? - [Brennan] It came outside.
- Okay, okay. - It is now about
15 feet outside the front doors.
- Is it worth trying to just sort of bond with this?
Ah! Do something, Zaeth!
Ah!
All right.
Zaeth- I'm gonna get on Ghorse and go up to him
and be like: Whoa there. Easy.
(players laughing) (Lou groaning)
Easy now.
- [Brennan] Give me Manipulation plus Animal Ken.
- [Zac] Okay, I got four. - Does Beauty work on animals?
- It does not work on animals. - [Zac] Are you sure?
- The Gumberoo doesn't think he's hot as hell?
- Wow. - I'm gonna use
my Blood Surge.
- [Ally] Hell yeah. - [Siobhan] Nice.
Great.
- Okay. - [Ally] All right, now.
- See ya. - Oh crit.
- Crit plus two so. - Five?
- Six. - Six successes.
Successes.
What are you trying to communicate
to the Gumberoo in this moment?
You don't have to do this.
(Emily and Lou laugh)
I was like you once,
blowing up at any chance I got
and like you, I was always burning myself.
(Emily laughing softly) (Brennan snorts)
You see it bows to you
and begins to charge down the street
with Darkness Man on his back.
We figured it out.
(players laughing)
- It's all good. - Is Darkness Man okay?
- Darkness Man, are you where-
I'll handle it!
Are you where you wanna be?
- Zaeth does successfully shoo the Gumberoo
- away from the lumber- - Is it going toward the town?
But this is gonna breach the Masquerade.
- It's going towards the town. - Okay.
- [Brennan] It looks like it's headed down Mill Road.
- Okay, can I try to- Okay.
I have Relentless Grasp.
Can I try to pull it towards the weed shop?
- Sure, absolutely. - Yes, yes.
Absolutely. HJ and Madelaine,
is there anything you're doing at this moment?
Do you wanna run after the Gumberoo?
- Yeah, can I catch its eyes as it's passing?
- [Brennan] Sure. - With him.
Okay, I just want to...
You've told us a little bit about getting the ruby right?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Ally] Okay.
I wanna use Mesmerize which is eye contact
so that's why I want to just catch it.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - And I wanna say:
Heel to the Jack of the Pines that's on your back.
- [Brennan] Okay. Hell yes. - I'll hold up the ruby.
Go ahead, give me Charisma, Persuasion.
- Okay. And it's two. - [Brennan] Okay.
Blood Surge first. Got it.
Okay.
(dice clicking)
- You can also roll Presence here, if you have it.
Oh, nice.
I have two in Presence.
Oops, didn't need to roll that one. There we go.
Okay, so here we go.
Re-roll, Willpower.
- Got one extra, three. - [Brennan] Three successes.
As you say that, as you speak to it,
it does not understand the words that you are speaking.
The Mesmerize power requires there to be a shared language.
As you say Jack of the Pines out loud,
you all hear the wind picks up,
the pine boughs shake,
and you see far distant
all the way across town to the heights, you hear...
(military marching beat)
And feel almost drums in the distance
as the Gumberoo looks up towards that far distant hill,
and you see it sees bright green light
that flashes for a moment.
And the Gumberoo goes- (imitating groaning)
Develops a massive erection
and starts to charge over the railroad.
(Emily laughing)
I can't.
Darkness Man, are you okay?
- I can't let this thing run into town, right?
- What did you do? - What are you doing?
What do you mean?
What did you do, you pervert!
Freaking pervert!
Mitch, kill the bear. Don't fuck it.
(Siobhan laughing)
I'm not fucking it!
(Emily and Brennan laugh)
- Madelaine, is there anything you're doing?
There's nothing I can do here.
I have no physical skill.
I'm just wandering through the space going:
So these catwalks up here,
maybe we can have models dancing up here.
(Brennan laughing)
The saw blades, can we have sparks coming out of them?
Madelaine, not yet, not yet.
- Into to the dancer space. - They're great ideas.
- There's a bear with a huge erection out here.
- Great, Madelaine-
That's... Don't kink shame.
Some people like that.
Maybe Darkness Man found his person.
Oh god.
- Madelaine, go ahead and give me either Composure
or Resolve plus Awareness in this moment.
- Got a two. I'll re-roll. - [Brennan] Mm-hmm.
- Three. - Three successes.
You can go ahead and add two dice to whatever roll you use
- to prepare this place- - Okay, great.
- ...when it becomes time. - [Ally] Nice.
And I think in this moment you also look
and realize that in terms of taking charge
of the design of this space,
you find yourself here in this moment doing some work.
This is some work.
- Oh no, this isn't work. This is decorating.
(Brennan laughing)
- It's not work. - [Brennan] It's not work.
It's something else.
We go to the top of the order.
Darkness Man, that is you again,
as this Gumberoo charges over the railroad tracks.
I try to pull it towards the weed shop
- and I'm going to try to- - Relentless Grasp.
I'm going to use my Relentless Grasp
and once again pull against it.
I'll do a Blood Surge again.
- Maybe your Relentless Grasp is causing...
(players laughing)
It's autoerotic asphyxiation.
- Yeah. - He looked and saw-
- Stop! - [Ally] A green light.
You just said he was pulling on it.
I swear! That's what I heard as well.
- [Brennan] All right, great. - Stop pulling on it, Mitch!
- Not pulling on it like that! (Emily laughing)
- This is straight out of "The Great Gatsby."
- I'm rolling insane over here. That's nine successes.
I have a chance. Come on.
That's a lot of dice.
- Okay. - And this is all
for jerking off the bear? (players laughing)
Stop!
Murph's sexiest episode yet.
(Emily laughing) (Murph counting quietly)
- So you got nine successes. Meets it, beats it.
So nine successes means
you can pull it in the direction.
You can pull what?
He beats it. It beats it?
- I've got six. - It beats its meat?
(players chattering over each other)
- So close to beating it. - Oh, you beat that meat.
And I've got a crit so I can maybe get,
- if I got one more crit- - Okay.
- Come on, beat that meat. - Beat that meat.
- Ah, I did it. - Yes!
- (players cheering) - He beat the meat!
- [Brennan] Unbelievable.
Yeah, I got a... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He comes fire and it kills you.
(players laughing)
So as this thing is running,
with an arm around its neck,
you by the way are covered in this reeking creosote.
This almost like petroleum ash
and soot all over its body.
There's just a constant squeak
as every time you move on this thing.
So all you guys hear from that outside is-
(imitating creaking)
(Murph yells)
As you begin to pull it,
pulling its ear and it's heavy elephantine jowls,
it charged down the street, trying to pull
across the railroad track, continually getting pulled back,
and it looks pissed off, fire in its eyes looking at you
as you prevent it from following up the hill
towards where it wants to go.
You see in its throat (mimics growling and huffing)
and you begin to see sparks and embers
- coming out of its mouth. - Get outta there.
- [Brennan] Bat Child, that's gonna be your turn.
- What? - But you are halfway
to the weed shop.
(Emily exhales deeply)
Okay.
Could I use, try to use Touch of Oblivion
to seal its lips shut?
Potentially. You could run up
but then you're gonna be closing
on this very dangerous thing.
- (sighs) Are you staying here or are you gonna hop off?
- I'm gonna hop off once somebody lights it up or something.
- Okay, then I'm gonna try to seal its lips.
- Okay. Go ahead and give me your attack roll.
[Emily] So that's Strength and Brawl?
That is Strength and Brawl.
I'm gonna do the thing to get two extra.
[Brennan] Okay.
(dice clicking)
Okay, Willpower.
- I got two. - [Brennan] Two successes.
You go to lunge for it.
You don't have to spend any arcane resources
as a result of this.
As you go to lunge for it
to try to melt whatever thing it is,
you just pull and some of the ash and skin just comes off
as this thing just fades away in your hand
causing some Superficial damage to this creature.
It (mimics guttural roar) roars at you in this space,
looking to try to throw Mitch off in front of it.
LaVonte, you're gonna be the last to act.
- The last to act. - Before the Gumberoo acts.
I'm gonna throw my phone to Madelaine.
Just tell Tyler what you need.
And I'm going to just wander off
down the street after Darkness Man and Bat Child.
- You go running after. - Do you know what it likes?
Is there a way to find that out?
Nah, Bat Child's got the data.
- Yeah. Yeah. - Anyone who wants
the book can have it.
(players chattering)
- I feel like we can't let this thing go, right?
- That's what- - I'm inclined
to just let it go.
It looks like it's just saw something
green that it wants to go fuck.
- But isn't it just a giant bomb-
That's all the way across town.
It might breach the Masquerade.
Isn't that breaching the Masquerade?
- And then we got other people in town who are-
- Yeah. - Ah.
LaVonte, you have to act.
Throw me the book, Bat Child!
I'll throw you the ruby as well.
If I can get the book and the ruby,
I'd like to read the book.
Give me Intelligence plus Occult.
Well I don't have Occult,
and I have little Intelligence.
- I'll Blood Surge. - [Brennan] Okay.
I succeed.
(dice clatter)
Oh god.
One success.
God, I can't read fast and while moving.
- Pages fluttering in the wind. You rush up.
Also you're holding a ruby
so you can't turn the pages as you're running up.
The Gumberoo is going to try to breathe fire
on Darkness Man and Bat Child.
Okay.
- It, first of all, it's gonna try to throw you off
- its back in this maneuver. - Okay.
Go ahead, if you'd be so kind,
and give me Strength, Athletics.
Does my Relentless Grasp do anything?
- [Brennan] Yes. You can add two dice here.
Okay.
Bad roll from the Gumberoo.
You're only looking to beat five successes.
Okay. I'm gonna Blood Surge.
Fail. I get a thing.
Beep, beep, beep.
(dice rattling)
- What am I trying to beat? - [Brennan] You are trying to-
- Five. - [Brennan] Five.
Okay, gotta use Willpower.
- Failed. - [Brennan] Failed.
He throws you off his back
just in time to breathe fire on you
and Bat Child simultaneously.
I'm gonna roll in the Box of Doom.
Fire coming your way.
Here's the deal with fire damage.
If you are able to dodge this,
you can potentially add your Celerity if you have,
I think it's like Catlike Reflexes.
- Yeah, Rapid Reflexes. - You have Rapid Reflexes.
So you can roll Dexterity plus Celerity in that moment
to try to avoid.
If you have Fortitude, you can also
just roll Fortitude to attempt
to withstand the fire damage.
- Don't have Fortitude. - I have Fortitude.
I only one in Celerity and two in Dex.
I have one in Fortitude.
[Brennan] I'm gonna roll Box of Doom.
However many successes
is however much Aggravated damage is coming your way.
I'm rolling so fucking bad.
(dice clicking)
Wow. A garbage roll.
Great. Oof.
One Aggravated damage coming your way.
- [Murph] Okay. - So you need only
a single success on your Fortitude die.
- Is it just Fortitude or Fortitude, Stamina or?
- Unfortunately, because it's Aggravated damage,
- it's only Fortitude. - Just Fortitude.
- Okay, if I roll one die. - Like you can't use
your normal toughness to withstand it, essentially.
- But I can Blood Surge? - You can Blood Surge.
Yes.
I have a lot of Hunger now.
- I'm at four Hunger. - [Brennan] Okay.
Okay, so I'm gonna do Celerity.
- [Brennan] Hell yeah. - I got two successes.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm. - Can I make it-
Use my Zealotry because literally my man is in the way.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - Can I use my Zealotry
to make it a messy critical to help if he needs help?
- [Brennan] Hell yeah. - I'm gonna do the same thing
and messy critical 'cause I got a two
and I also have Zealotry.
Okay. Hell yeah.
You guys both are full vampires here on Mill Road.
[Ally] You guys eat the bear?
It's 2:00 AM.
Right now it's like late, late, late in the town.
However, a big gout of fire is breathed on the road.
You don't know how much time you have,
but both of you are visibly- Your fangs are fully distended.
Jaws unlocked.
If something catches on me,
can I basically, as it hits my cloak, whip it around
and try to throw it back on the-
- [Emily] Yeah. - [Brennan] Hell yes.
How many successes did you roll to avoid?
- Two, which I turned into a messy critical.
Turned to a messy critical, gotcha.
I think you basically see that that move works.
On two successes, you're like, "Okay,
if we need to produce fire somehow
the next time this thing breeds fire, I'll be able to do-"
You basically use your second success there
to ready that action the next time this thing breaths fire.
Okay. Great.
It is once again
- Zaeth's turn. - [Zac] We're over here?
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm. - [Zac] Kind of?
- By the weed store sort of? - [Brennan] Yeah.
- [Zac] Did the bear explode or it's not...
- Oh yeah. - [Brennan] Hmm?
- How did the fire seem to affect the Gumberoo?
It came out of its nostrils and mouth
in a cone that went away from its body.
It went-
I'm gonna follow the way that they went,
and I'm looking for the first car I see over here
and I'm gonna try to hotwire it real fast.
I'm on Ghorse, chasing after them.
- [Brennan] Hell yeah. - And I hotwire a car.
- [Brennan] Hell yeah. Go ahead and give me-
I have Larceny Hotwiring.
- Hotwire it instantly will be a difficulty five
Dexterity plus Larceny.
But you can also use your specialty here.
Okay. I am going to Blood Surge.
Hell yeah.
Okay. Don't get any Hunger.
Let's see.
Shit.
All right.
(dice rattling)
What was the difficulty you said?
Difficulty is five.
- That's five. - Hell yeah.
(players cheering)
You leap off of Ghorse.
Just go through the windshield of a car?
Go through the windshield. Blam.
You are in the car, you reach down
and basically one-handed hotwire the car.
- I'm just going to drive it straight at the Gumberoo
and dive out of the car.
(cast laughing)
Hell yeah. Go ahead.
Give me... This is going to be Dex plus Drive
with an additional four damage from crashing the car.
How does the four damage impact?
It just means that you add four.
If you get one success you get five successes, right?
- [Zac] Okay. - You just add four
if you succeed.
I feel like narratively,
Zaeth should have a specialty in abandoning vehicles.
I love that.
Yep. A hundred percent.
Great.
I Blood Surged on this turn so I can't do it again.
- Is that? - Yes, that's correct.
Okay, great.
All right, so this is Dex plus Drive.
- This thing does not have a high Dexterity.
- [Zac] Okay. - It only rolls one success.
So it's gonna cancel out one of your successes.
- I think that's just two. - Okay. Two successes.
It cancels out one
but that one success still means you deal
five points of damage.
You guys see an old Buick slams into the side
of the Gumberoo (Emily laughing)
as Zaeth dips out the window again.
The Gumberoo rolls a couple times down the street, injured.
This thing looks like it might have
a fucking heavy dose of health, right?
However, it has moved further down the street
in the direction of this weed thing,
and being away from the sources of its ire,
you see it looks up
and looking down here to this other road
that leads into the town,
it begins to charge down Mill Road,
its eyes on the far hill.
But it is getting closer to the weed store right now.
- HJ, your turn. - Okay, I pop in
where all the equipment and stuff is,
and I go to if there's any welding stuff.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - Grab a blow torch
- and run towards them. - Hell yeah.
You grab a blow torch,
are sprinting down the street after them.
You've got an active blow torch here.
I'm gonna say you spend your turn just grabbing that
and closing distance,
sprinting down the street as fast as you can.
- Cool, I'm trying to have it cut from Mill
towards the weed shop, if I can catch up.
[Brennan] Okay, you wanna get
on the other side of it over here?
Yeah or even on its side
or just pop the blow torch thing
to have it cut towards the weed store.
Hell yes.
Madelaine, Tyler gets back to you.
He's taken a picture of a big box store
with a bunch of Yankee candles.
Great. I sent him a selfie.
And then I go: Tyler, white plain candles, no scent.
I said no scent, Tyler.
He responds back, "Got it."
You're not gonna send me a selfie?
You see he sends you a selfie back.
He is sweating bullets.
It looks like he's been running
at full tilt through the store.
He has four shopping carts
filled with scented and unscented candles.
Great.
They're all like nutmeg mango.
(Lou laughing)
[Siobhan] I'm hearing the craziness
that's happening outside.
- You are hearing the craziness happening outside.
- Can I Rouse to use my premonition-
- [Brennan] Yes, you can. - ...to find out
what it's trying to get to
or whatever information around this that might be useful.
- You can. - [Siobhan] Great.
- I succeed. - Hell yeah.
You get a premonition. Off in the hills
of the Douglas Farms, the Golden Bounty Farms,
you see, amongst various hay bales outside of a red barn,
that there looks like a massive stone slab
that appears to have a groove in the side
running off to drain liquid.
Blood sacrifice?
And you see that there are a number
of massive twig-based sculptures
sort of made of pine boughs looming over in this space
that are hanging from vines from various trees
around this farm yard.
And that's what it's trying to get to?
[Brennan] Standing on the altar,
work boots, Carhartt jacket,
you see his flannel shirt fully undone
and fully erect is Boyd Douglas
who is screaming-
(Brennan ululating deeply)
"Come to the sound of my voice!
- Gumberoo." - [Zac] He wants it?
He's the Jack of the Pines?
A pervert for real!
Oh my god, he tried to fuck the bear. Kill it!
(Ally laughing)
Oh my god, that's so nasty.
And I've lived for hundreds of years
and that's the nastiest thing I've ever seen.
You get this premonition of Boyd Douglas
casting some kind of blood sorcery up on this altar.
He left his boots on?
(Brennan laughing)
So nasty, makes it worse.
Make him more naked.
One of them is so naked.
One of them so close.
- I do hate to say, he did have his hat on.
Oh no!
That's so down low behavior.
Tell me he doesn't have a watch on.
Watch. He was holding his phone.
- (players laughing) - Whoa.
Whoa.
There's porn on the phone, right?
No, it was an open email inbox.
- Oh no. Psychotic! - [Brennan] Psychotic!
- Psychotic! - [Brennan] Psychotic.
Per your last email.
Yeah, just had to get his shirt open
to do a weird blood rune on his chest
and then pants slightly down.
- Trying to come with your email open challenge, 2027.
Glance at the most recent email you have
and try to still come.
- Bet you can't. - [Brennan] Bet you can't.
- Bet you can't. - Madelaine, you call out
"Kill it, kill it, kill it."
- Darkness Man, it is your turn. - [Murph] All right.
- This thing is a little bit past you, but surging down.
It's basically come,
it's like right down here, essentially.
Okay, great.
I'm going to try to get on top of it again.
Less of a... I'm not gonna be able to
fully wrestle it where I want it to go.
So I'm gonna just jump on, grab on,
and then I wanna basically wait until the moment
it goes to do its fire
and then throw my jacket over its face.
- Okay. - So that it
- wafts it back in its own- - Cool. Hell yeah.
All right, you get your jacket ready
to make that move happen.
Bat Child, it is your turn.
- I see that and I'm gonna do the same exact thing.
Hell yeah.
You get your move ready to do that at the same time.
LaVonte, it is you.
- I'm gonna get a notepad out and write down the name
of every business with a security camera in this complex.
- Oh, smart. - [Brennan] Hell yes.
You do exactly that.
It is its turn again.
It is once again going to breathe fire on the two of you.
I'm gonna roll in the Box of Doom for how many successes
you're trying to avoid here.
Once again, garbage roll!
Only one success in the Box of Doom.
You know what?
Just to keep it spicy,
I am gonna have it use Willpower here.
Okay, three successes.
So I'm gonna say,
you guys have three Aggravated damage coming your way.
[Murph] Okay.
Here's how we're gonna do it.
I'm gonna ask for each of you guys
to give me some Willpower rolls,
difficulty of one, in this moment.
- I only have two left. - I have five.
- [Brennan] You have five. So go ahead and roll.
You'll do one.
- I crit. - I failed.
So Darkness Man, Bat Child.
You, Darkness Man, have this insane feeling
that you are about to be burned to death.
- Mm-hmm. - So,
what I'm gonna ask is this.
I'm gonna ask you to assemble a dice pool
that is simultaneously you trying to avoid
those three points of Aggravated damage.
If you can get one additional success,
you will get the coat over it
with a Dexterity, Melee check.
- Okay. - [Brennan] Okay?
- Can I just see that this has all gone to shit
and actually just change what my reaction is
to make my mouth into...
to make my mouth into a portal to the abyss
to swallow the fire to save Darkness Man?
- You will take that Aggravated damage if you do that.
And it wouldn't help Darkness Man?
I think it potentially could.
If you would, at this last minute,
let's see if Darkness Man can pull this off.
So you are looking to do Dexterity plus Celerity
to cancel out the damage.
If you get one additional success past three,
you'll be able to immediately roll a Melee check
- to blow up the bear. - [Murph] All right.
I'm pretty screwed 'cause I don't have...
I have so many blood dice, I can't do Willpower.
Oh, I can- If I Blood Surge, I'll have five if I fail.
So I kind of don't want to go to-
I don't want to frenzy.
All right, I'll just...
- Two and a Bestial failure. - Two and a Bestial failure.
No, but you get to roll four, right?
Oh, no, you don't get to roll more.
Oh, no, you actually do get to roll.
Your Hunger does allow you to roll more.
- Yeah, that's right. - [Ally] Okay, one more.
- That's a three. - Three. Three successes.
So you see, (players cheering)
you get your jacket up in front of you
and fully prevent yourself from being incinerated.
You don't take any damage.
You can see at that last minute,
you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna do it!"
And then you're just like, you're about to die.
- Fire's gonna burn. - Fire!
- [Brennan] It's the only thing that hurts you.
That and the sun.
And get your jacket up.
You do not frenzy.
You do not lose your will here.
Also, you've hemmed in the fire on half of it.
You, now knowing that you don't have to save Darkness Man,
can roll your readied action here.
- Yeah, I just wanna push the fire back on it
- so it's blows up. - What I'll say is this,
because you succeeded on your Willpower,
you can just roll a full attack roll
in which you only need one success.
In other words, I'll ask you to do one of two things.
You either have to split your dice pool
to partially avoid the Aggravated damage and go for it.
But if you don't care about
taking the Aggravated damage-
I'll take the Aggravated damage.
- [Brennan] Great. - It was only three, right?
- [Brennan] Only three. - Okay.
- Can I use kumite? - [Brennan] Yes, you can.
[Emily] Okay, so I get an extra die.
I'm gonna Rouse.
Okay, take it.
Take a Hunger.
(dice clacking)
Okay.
Okay. I like what we're seeing.
Willpower.
Okay.
- Eight. - [Brennan] Eight.
Incredible.
How much health do you have?
- I have five. I'm at full. - You're at full.
Okay, so you take three points of Aggravated damage.
- (Emily groaning) - Bat Child!
(Ally laughing)
- It's worth it. - In this moment,
you see both of you getting your jackets up,
you surround the bear, the fire
hits that greasy creosote in its neck,
and you see it turns around and goes- (curious exclaiming)
(imitates object exploding) (Emily exclaims)
You guys watch as the Gumberoo explodes.
- (imitates Gumberoo exploding) - Whoa, whoa.
What?
♪ There goes my hero ♪
♪ Watch him as he goes ♪
(Lou mimics electric guitar riff)
- Right now I just re-rolled. It's fire damage.
It rolls again as it dies.
Two Aggravated damage is coming towards each of you.
If you cannot dodge or Fortitude this, Bat Child,
this I believe is destruction.
I have two. No, I have two left.
[Brennan] You have two, oh, two health.
- Two health. 'Cause I took three damage, right?
- Yes. You have three damage. - So, five.
But there's two Aggravated damage,
which would drive you all the way to zero.
- Okay. - So there's two
Aggravated damage coming.
Yes, Darkness Man?
Can I take some damage for Bat Child?
I'll say this.
If you submit to not trying to protect yourself at all
from the fire, I will allow you
to make a Dexterity, Athletics
to protect Bat Child in this moment.
Okay and it's three damage?
It is two damage coming your way.
Great. Okay.
- I am gonna do that then. - [Brennan] Hell yeah.
- Okay, so I'll do Dexterity, Athletics, which I don't have.
Great, I'll try.
Can I use my Celerity Rapid Reflexes?
- You can. - Great.
- Two. - Two successes.
You cancel out two Aggravated damage coming to Bat Child.
Bat Child, you see Darkness Man leaps over and covers you.
You take two points of Aggravated damage
plus another two points of Aggravated damage.
- Oh. - What?
- As you fully expose yourself to the flame,
you cover Bat Child.
What health are you at?
- I still have two health. - Oh.
- You guys see on top of you a smoking Bat Child
and Darkness Man
covered in an embrace, smoking here on Mill Road.
- Are you okay? - Right outside
of the largest Christmas tree in the Pacific Northwest.
Are you okay?
We did it. We blew him up.
We saved the city.
We saved Purpee.
The Christmas tree starts to go up.
(Murph and Emily yell)
- We're gonna keep that around until Valentine's Day
and decorate it for Valentine's Day.
(Ally and Brennan laugh)
- I get in the car and I drive it at the Christmas tree.
(Brennan laughing)
You see, as it starts to go up,
it does become a huge threat.
You smash the car into the tree.
- Away from the bar. - Away from the bar.
It falls away from Mike's.
- Into the weed store. - Into the weed store.
Oh yeah. You wanna knock it into the weed store?
Is it tall enough to go this way?
- Yeah, it's huge. - [Ally] Right.
- [Brennan] Great. Give me Dexterity plus Drive.
And then we have plausible deniability
because our bar caught on fire.
- Exactly. - [Brennan] Hell yeah.
It's the weed heads.
[Ally] It's weed heads. (laughing)
- Ooh. - That's two.
- [Brennan] Two successes? - And I'm gonna use
- a Willpower. - [Brennan] Hell yeah.
So three.
You smash the car into the tree.
A flaming Christmas tree in mid-January
comes smashing into the Green Aisle,
a Douglas-owned weed establishment here in town.
Smashing into it, the Gumberoo vanishes into ash,
and in the distance you see a crispy Bat Child
and Darkness Man.
LaVonte, you're getting all the business names here,
watching as the tree smashes into the Green Aisle.
The fire starts to spread
slightly to the exterior of Mike's.
And also there is no active fire department in Purpee.
So what do you guys,
what do you guys wanna do?
What's on fire?
The tree, the Green Aisle now.
And it is licking on the outside of Mike's Bar.
- I do have... One of my things is Check the Trunk.
It's one of my advantages.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - I have easy access
to an armory of cache or tools.
None of these items can exceed the value of something
a Resources 2 character could access.
Can I have a fire extinguisher?
- [Brennan] Sure. - Can I just find one?
- [Siobhan] I mean, we're in the-
- Mike's would have one, too. - Run into Mike's.
- Yeah. - [Brennan] Yeah.
- We definitely put the fire out outside of Mike's.
- [Emily] Yeah. - [Brennan] Cool.
- I think we let it go nuts with the weed store.
- I think it's gonna get the whole town high.
So seconds... not that long later,
you guys see as you guys are standing outside here,
early morning, you guys see (imitates police siren wailing)
- sort of squad car pulls up. - I, into the water.
- [Brennan] Into the water- (water splashes)
You just get the fuck outta there.
HJ is gone.
You see an officer gets up and goes, "Holy shit.
- What happened here?" - It was insane.
What happened?
These two kids had gotten a bear
and they were filming something, some sort of thing.
My bar caught on fire.
That's why I came down here.
- [Brennan] Officer looks over at you and says,
"You're business owner, you're part owner here?"
- Yeah. Mike's. - Whatever you need.
Really?
- If you own this business, then whatever you need, sir.
You mean that?
I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
We are here to protect the business owners of Purpee.
- (players laughing) - Oh god.
You see... You guys hear
(imitating engine revving)
a little moped, and you see a dude gets off his bike.
- Oh, no. - [Brennan] Absolutely roided.
- You see he's got- - Farner.
He's got a full bazooka on his back.
- Wow. - You see, he goes,
"Here there. Okay.
Who's lollygagging?
Who's up no good."
I don't know. Some kids.
I'm LaVonte Worthy.
- I'm part owner at Mike's Bar. - Yeah, this your car?
It can't be parked here!
That's not my car.
- The car that's on fire? - Is that a cop?
You see, he looks at you and goes, "No!"
And he starts to get on his moped
and scoot away as the other officer-
- Hey. - Is that Todd?
Who are you?
Officer looks and says, "That's Todd."
I'm at four Hunger. I have to eat Todd,
- I think, tonight. - I do, too.
- Officer, look this way. - Yeah?
I was so scared.
(Brennan stifles laughter)
I was really scared.
Go eat him. Go eat.
Go. We got this.
Look at him.
So Todd's riding away on a moped, right?
- On a moped, yeah. - Can I?
Jump out of the water, stop Todd,
- and stop him for you? - [Brennan] And grab Todd?
- [Siobhan] Great. - [Ally] Head off, Todd.
- Do you have a underwater sort of headset?
[Ally] I'm going, like, right here.
- [Brennan] Give me Manipulation, Persuasion-
- Okay. - Great.
...against these officers.
And HJ, Darkness Man, and Bat Child,
do you wanna pursue Todd Farner?
I think I'm gonna...
I'm so hungry.
But we've already made such a mess today.
- Yeah, if Todd's by himself- - What's one more broken egg?
- Yeah, we follow Todd. - Yeah.
I mean he literally put crosshairs on our car.
That's true.
- That's five successes. - Five successes from you.
One, two, three, four.
Eight successes. (Brennan cheers)
- I was really in my feels about-
You see, as you look over,
you see with a combined total of 13 successes,
one of the police is walking up
to the business's security cameras
and is wiping a magnet over the hard drives
of the cameras being like,
"Yeah, the last thing we want- I think it's a great point.
If kids were to see these stunts or pranks..."
It would be all over TikTok.
It'd become a new trend, TikTok.
- [Lou] Exactly. - Better just to erase it.
- We don't need to do fire bear stuff anymore. I swear.
- Can I say something? - Of course.
Thank you for owning a business.
(Emily laughing)
Somebody's gotta do it.
(Brennan laughing heartily)
He just smells your clothes deeply
and says, "I noticed you're bleeding.
- Have you been attacked?" - Yeah.
The kids, they pointed the bear at me.
(Emily laughing)
They said, "Get him. He owns a business."
(players laughing)
Those little fucking communists!
I swear to god.
They said, "Get that business owner.
Get him and his beautiful Italian silk shirt.
We'll show him."
We have a good idea who these kids are.
Oh, well, I can definitely identify them
if you need me to come down to the precinct.
- Great. - It's a $500 shirt,
which I think is grand theft in Oregon. Right?
- See, he nods and says, "You're from East Coast?"
- Yes. - He looks and says,
"All right, we're on it.
Thank you. There's some kids that are always
messing with bears around here.
Okay, we'll find out."
And you see that they get in their car and pull out.
For the rest of you, you see Todd
- on his little moped - As soon as he's by himself.
I mean he's around here.
- So it's pretty, like- - [Brennan] Yeah.
There's not much going on.
I tackle him off the motorcycle
and try to eat him.
No roll necessary.
(players laughing)
Todd pulls around and looks over
and sees the lumbermill
and it's just like, "Lights on inside.
That's a violation." (imitates air whooshing)
Lights out!
(cast laughing)
Great. You can slake all your Hunger.
- Yeah. - [Ally] Wow, huge.
And I guess we have a bazooka now?
[Brennan] You guys also have a bazooka.
(players chattering)
- [Siobhan] Incredible. - Keep the bazooka.
Aw, geez. I was so hungry.
How do I heal this damage?
- Healing Aggravated damage is incredibly challenging.
You guys are in a lot of trouble.
I need a sick day.
You can't have a sick day.
Our boss and our rivals are coming to dinner.
- It's her birthday. She can have a sick birthday.
Oh, she's sick on her birthday?
- [Siobhan] Oh my god. - Okay, I might as well work.
You know what? Have this bazooka.
Thank you.
- [Brennan] So you guys are going to carry these burns.
You can only heal one level of Aggravated damage
by making three Rouse checks at the beginning of a session,
in addition to the wake-up Rouse check.
And you have to succeed how many times?
- It removes one level each time-
- Oh, per. - Per level of damage.
- I should have just made my mouth into a portal
and mouth kissed it the whole time.
- Well if you mouth kissed it, it wouldn't have blown up.
And we had to blow it up before it got to-
I know. That's why I didn't.
It would've gotten to the Douglases.
Or it would've blown up in the-
- He was trying to fuck the bear. It was better.
- Was this the only bear? - This was the only Gumberoo.
- Four more Gumberoos come out-
- Yeah, four more Gumberoos turn the corner,
each harder than the last.
I hand LaVonte back his phone.
Me and Tyler have clearly been sexting.
- What? - What?
- From your- - From my phone?
[Siobhan] I got bored.
I don't have his number.
Having defeated the Gumberoo,
all of you are left wondering
about what Madelaine saw in her premonition
with Boyd Douglas astride that altar
on the Golden Bounty Farm
and what is to come.
However, some of your companions here are badly,
badly injured.
During that following day,
Tyler Morimoto gets a whole bunch of candles
and everything that you need and gets to work such that
when evening time rolls around,
you all find yourself awakening in your domicile.
And I will ask Darkness Man
and Bat Child if you would like to on this first evening
attempt to heal some of the Aggravated damage.
- Yes, that would be great. - Yeah, I would.
- It's going to be, in addition to your normal Rouse checks,
which everyone needs to make waking up on a new night.
You guys have to make your normal Rouse check
and three additional.
You will automatically heal a point of Aggravated damage,
but you're making three additional Rouse checks
'cause you might get way hungrier doing so.
- Does that make sense? - Okay.
[Brennan] Yeah.
What if I'm already at three Hunger?
- You might frenzy. - [Emily] So I go to bed-
- You might frenzy on waking up or potentially not.
If there's anything else you would try to do that night
before you got-
You want to go to the...
What were they called?
The volunteers.
Oh yeah, the blood banks.
- Oh yeah! Yeah, you could go and slake two Hunger
from your guys' herd that night, if you wanted to.
I could also share some of Todd.
Yeah, share some of Todd.
- So in that case, each of you only gets rid
- of two Hunger doing that. - Gotcha.
- [Brennan] Cool? - Great.
- Cool. How are we doing Hunger-wise
for everybody else?
- What's LaVonte at? - I'm at one.
- [Brennan] One. - I'm actually four.
- I'm down to one now. - Zaeth is at four.
- Madelaine. - Wait, I think I'm at three.
Because I think I got rid of one earlier.
[Brennan] Cool. One. Okay, Gotcha.
Zaeth's a little bit hungry.
So Darkness Man and Bat Child,
you guys are gonna roll your normal Rouse check
- and three additional. - Pass.
- Pass the first one. - Fail.
And then three fucking fails.
Full Hunger. Five.
- But you don't roll an additional one past five, do you?
- No. - [Brennan] Okay.
- I'm back up to three 'cause I failed two of them.
- So each of you heals one point of Aggravated,
and Darkness Man, you awaken hungry.
You are on the threshold of frenzy
on the night that Koschei is supposed to arrive.
All right.
I gotta go to our volunteers. And drink some blood.
- How much does that- - That gets rid of two.
- Okay. - I probably should go as well
and try to get rid of.
- Should we invite them? - Then it's gonna be just
one from each of you.
One Hunger level from each of you.
Should we invite them to Elysium?
We could all drink up there.
- Because we have three to choose from, right?
- A working lunch? - Four.
Because you're kind of coming
at a period of downtime the previous night,
there are extensions of how much others have-
how much it's safe to drink from people.
You can also drink more than that
depending on if it's safe or not to do so.
But it's about how often you're drinking from people.
Look, I'm fine with killing all of them.
There are four duds as far as I'm concerned.
(Ally laughing)
Koschei will probably expect to see them
in some... 'Cause aren't they... He hired them.
- I think he hired- - Does anyone have the Herd
advantage here or no?
- My Herd advantage is that we have a machine shop.
- Yeah. I believe you guys have two dots in Herd,
which means that you can slake that level
- of Hunger each week. - Each week?
Yeah. It's hard to get
less hungry if you're just taking polite little sips.
- I'm at three Hunger. - Okay. Same.
- Yeah, so. - If I took one,
if I got rid of one from the podcast editor,
then I would be at two?
Unfortunately,
the herd as a whole can only offer two points
of Hunger slaked.
So if you're starting at five, what Hunger are you at?
I was starting at three,
so I can just be at three, I think.
- [Brennan] All right. And you'll get down to three as well?
- Yeah. - Okay.
So three members of your coterie here at three Hunger.
What do you guys do that night knowing-
You're not exactly sure when Koschei is going to arrive
- or not. - We'll text him
the address at Elysium.
- I'm just having some second thoughts about the candles
after last night.
Should we tell Tyler to take 'em all back?
- They're already burning. - We kept the receipt, right?
We did all that with the bear.
We gotta enjoy our candles.
- Yeah! - Okay.
The nobody's gonna do...
Everyone's gonna be incredibly safe, you know?
We'll hang out.
Tyler got us a Bluetooth speaker.
We'll play some fun music.
We'll sit around, you know,
it'll be real classic Elysium vibes. You know?
LaVonte, you get a text from Maya.
- Oh. - [Brennan] Who says,
"Hey, heading up to the rocks with Cody.
Let us know when to expect you guys."
- We forgot with the whole bear thing to uh...
to cancel.
- I'm so hungry. - Okay.
I'm gonna be a mess tonight.
I'm just warning you guys.
- I'm hangry. I'm sorry. - It's okay, Darkness Man.
You're so put together all the other times.
You're allowed to be human.
Thanks. Yeah.
- I feel like you had a really good meeting
with Maya before, right?
Yeah.
And I had a good meeting with Cody.
I'm not as hungry. I guess.
- Maybe you and me go meet Cody at the rock climbing?
Okay.
And then these guys do Elysium?
Yeah, I was also thinking if you guys
want to get rid of some Hunger,
there were some really questionable people at the gun range.
- Oh, yes. - If you just wanted to...
Yes, that guy was very strange.
Grab someone.
No, not that guy. That guy's my friend.
But the rest of the people.
- The people he shot at? - [Ally] Yeah.
The people he shot at. You should kill 'em.
- The axe throwing guys. - [Zac] Yeah.
Okay. Four of us go to Elysium.
You guys go meet with Maya and Cody at the rocks.
If we don't want to rain check.
It just feels rude at this point.
- Yeah, you're right. - It feels rude.
- Hey, we're going to finally end the long-standing war
between werewolves and vampires.
I'll text back Maya.
Maya, so sorry.
Crazy day at work.
HJ and Madelaine
are for sure going to be there.
The rest of us are maybes.
We'll catch up with you soon, if not tonight.
- You get a response back pretty quickly saying,
"It's no problem if you wanna reschedule."
Okay, they said it's no problem.
Okay, great, cool.
- Yeah, yeah, let's reschedule. - Awesome.
- Oh my god. - Oh wow.
Happy birthday.
- [Siobhan] Happy birthday! - Oh my gosh.
- Oh my gosh. I forgot because we almost died.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
And we got these candles.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
- Hey, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.
Check your email. I got you a present.
Oh, I check my email.
You find an email
registering you for a zoology class at night.
A digital zoology class.
- Night class. - Aw, now that's a great gift.
- You don't have to be a full matriculating student.
You could just take some classes here and there.
- Oh. - It's really, really sweet.
- You love school. - Yeah, I love school.
It's really, really nice.
It's everything I always wanted at one point in my life.
(Murph laughing)
- You're kind of talking in the past tense.
So which one you like more?
The thong or the?
Well, I'm wearing the thong.
- Oh. - And the bir- and the-
- It's so small. - Yeah.
I know. I'm wearing like an anklet.
- Oh. (players laughing)
What? Just kind of twisted and wrapped.
- Oh, that's so creative. - Okay.
- Thank you. - Well, let's rain check
with Maya, head on down to Elysium,
and have ourselves a good old-fashioned
- lumbermill rave thing. - [Murph] How much-
Okay, he's gonna know we're lying to him when we lie to him.
What are we gonna tell him about the-
I say we tell him the truth.
- [Siobhan] About what? - Lying about what?
We're doing so good.
- Well, I don't want to tell him about Cody
'cause he's gonna want to kill Cody and-
- Well, okay, that's why we're not gonna go meet Cody.
We won't even tell him about Cody.
Say there's some mages in town.
We don't know what we don't know.
- We actually don't even know. - We don't know for a fact.
Plus, you're covered in battle scars.
I mean, come on, look at you guys.
- Yeah. - You're the picture
of hard work and us getting our hands dirty here in town.
Okay, yeah.
- Let's go. - We got a great story.
I say let's tell it.
- Let's get some beats pumping on the Beats Pill.
- Yeah. Exactly. - [Ally] Great, yeah.
- Yeah, I'm gonna add everyone to a playlist.
Will everyone just add two songs?
I'll do the fifth
- and the sixth best Bush song. - (laughing) Okay.
"Everything Zen,"
which I forgot during the "Adventuring Party."
And then "Chemicals Between Us."
- I'm gonna just do "Killing in the Name Of"
by Rage Against the Machine twice.
- Okay, great. - [Ally] Okay.
I guess I'll do "Killing in the Name Of."
- Yes. - And "I'm Like a Bird."
Okay, I'm gonna do that t.A.T.u. song.
- "All The Things She Said"? - "All The Things She Said."
And I'm gonna do the...
♪ I'm blue, da-ba-dee ♪
- Ooh, I love that one. (Siobhan vocalizing)
I'm gonna do that song twice.
(players laughing)
Awesome. Great playlist.
- [Brennan] You guys head to the lumbermill.
Is there any outside indication
that the lumbermill is open?
No, I don't think so.
And it hasn't been, right?
- Yeah, I think it's just when you walk in,
there's a bunch of red silk,
kinda strung between two parts
and some, you know, delightfully...
So many candles.
Every window is covered with that kind
of construction paper
when a restaurant's being redone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. At around midnight,
you guys see that Tyler has spent the entire day.
Red satin hanging from the catwalks, candles everywhere.
- It can't help- - What a fire hazard.
Here's the thing,
it cannot help but look striking in here.
The only things that- He's also cleaned up in here,
so it doesn't- There's not weird dust everywhere.
It looks like
there's still a little bit of power wash
or stain on some areas.
But the dampness kind of even adds a little bit of mystique.
It sort of reflects the candlelight.
There's so many candles.
It smells like cinnamon, nutmeg.
- Yes. - [Brennan] Coconut.
- Hmm. - [Brennan] Pineapple.
- Hmm. - Tyler, I said one thing!
- [Brennan] You see Tyler looks around at you
and he goes, "With respect Madelaine,
you're the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life.
And I would pull my eyes out of my head
to be an entrepreneur."
- That's the kind of-
That's the kind of talk I like.
Tyler, get the fuck outta here.
- Okay, if there's something insane happening, I like it,
and I'll do whatever you say.
- Hey man, one day you'll wear the mask. Not tonight.
"One day I'll be skull and bone!
Ow, I hurt my hand when I did that!"
You see, he goes and dips out of the hall as fast as he can.
You see that he shoots off into the dark.
Are there any other preparations you guys make
here for Elysium?
Beats Pill is playing.
I think we just- Let's lean into grand opening, you know?
I mean he's gonna ask us about Elysium,
like who's on the council of primogen
- and who's the Prince? - [Ally] Yeah.
- [Siobhan] Oh yeah. - We've established
- this is Elysium. - We've established.
What about the other two?
- I think Darkness Man should be the Prince.
And it's obvious. (Murph laughs)
- I feel like the person- - I don't want it.
- ...has some kind of levels in Charisma and Politics.
I think the Prince should... Maybe not.
Maybe harpsichord?
You guys are having this conversation
as a black town car rolls up outside.
- Shoot. - Okay, maybe he can pick.
Maybe it'll be a fun thing for him.
- Oh, we could tell him that he's the Prince.
Oh, we'll tell him he's the Prince.
No, but then he would hang out.
- He might- - You guys see the doors
slide open as you see two black
Armani suit-wearing security guards pull open the doors.
The sliding sort of elephant doors.
You see surveillance on.
One of them has a small, semi-automatic
sort of bulging outside of the fancy jacket.
And you see Koschei walks in, once again,
leather vest exposed,
broad brawny shoulders,
a bunch of old Soviet tattoos on his body.
And Ermine Damanescu who walks in behind him.
He walks in, looking at all the candles.
"You welcome us with fire?"
- Well, it's been a dangerous time in Purpee.
And we thought it was a fun thematic...
It's part of our journey.
- Mm-hmm. - It's part of our Elysium.
(sighs) Well it is good to see this.
You have
spent your time well here in Purpee.
Yes, so you're gonna stay or just leave?
- [Brennan] Ermine turns to you and says-
- First thing you say- (players laughing)
- [Brennan] Uh, you see-
We're doing well so,
you don't need to say.
Koschei sits on the edge of a table.
Ermine looks around and says,
"Do you have chairs in this place?"
No, it's mostly...
The expectation is when we're really up and running,
it'll be mostly writhing, so.
- Yeah. - We don't want anything
to get in the way of that.
She stands and says, "Tell me about
what you've accomplished thus far in Purpee."
- (laughing) Where to begin? - Wow.
So much. So many.
First of all, we think Nancy Danderhoof
is a shoo-in for the Pulitzer.
So there was some Inquisition hopefuls
that were trying to hunt vampires here.
- Took care of that. - [Ally] Mm-hmm.
Without raising any suspicion.
We're meeting with some mages.
- Yeah. Oh yeah. - You look very badly burned.
I am very badly burned.
You look not badly burned.
- What's this energy? - What's this energy?
[Murph] Bat Child?
I'm mouthing off.
- Stop arguing. - Did you just say
that you're mouthing off?
(Siobhan laughing)
- There was a horror festival. We take that over.
We'll do that. Yeah, we'll do that.
- There's a horror fest-
Basically control the aristocracy.
There's a horror festival coming up.
We're all in with that.
We're about to meet with some powerful mages.
- We have a- - Powerful mages?
- Very powerful mages. - [Siobhan] Oh yes.
- What methods have you taken to subdue these mages?
We punted a meeting.
(players laughing)
- It said embrace or destroy any mortal mages.
And we were trying to decide
whether we were gonna embrace or destroy them.
That's what the meeting was about.
- Exactly, we're gonna give them an ultimatum.
- And I took care of a leprechaun real good.
See Ermine goes, "What?
That's not real.
What do you mean, a leprechaun?"
- A leprechaun. She had one shoe in a bush.
- And they had sex in a dirty, like a-
- Next to a single shoe. - She had to be
a real leprechaun or she just fucked
sort of a short woman in a bush.
(Emily laughing)
- Right? - [Lou] Come on, now.
Did you know there's an eternal war
between the leprechauns and vampires?
- You see that Ermine and Koschei look at each other
- and Koschei says- - I took care of it.
Okay, so we fuck a short girl in a bush?
- Mm-hmm. Next to- - No she spun around
and gold coins come out of her hands. Come on.
Corrupt the clergy gonna be a slam dunk.
- We just gotta do it. - Yeah.
(Brennan stifling laughter)
Command the flow of money.
- It's coming up, honestly. - Oh, it's coming up.
Dominate all cultural forces.
- Oh, we did that. - [Ally] We have done that.
- We did that. - We've influenced someone.
We have a puppet that is going to be running
for local government soon.
- What have you done in terms of local government?
I mean, massive plowing of the fields
and lots of seeding.
I mean, of course time is,
you know, is always gonna be a factor.
- One of the main patriarchs has been taken down.
- [Siobhan] Yes. - Murdered.
- We destroyed- - She looks and then says,
"What do you mean taken down?"
He was killed in a bathtub
and we had nothing to do with it.
(Lou laughing)
And that opened up a seat.
And then Sasquatch ran back into the forest.
What part of control the aristocracy
is unclear here?
- Why are aristocracy- - I had questions about that.
You see Koschei nods to you and says,
"This plowing of field you're talking about,
you are set up here to do what?
What- Have you isolated
who is the movers and shakers here?"
- Yes. - Very much so.
- Yes. - Who they are?
- The Whittaker family and the Douglas family.
The Douglases.
And we're digging up dirt on them.
We think we're going to win the next
- election in a landslide. - [Siobhan] Oh, for sure.
- What do you mean you are gonna win the next election?
Well, we have a puppet candidate.
- She run a moderately tasteful- - Elevated casual.
- [Brennan] Koschei sort of hangs his head for a second.
You see that Ermine says,
"Why are you running a candidate?
You said that you were plowing fields.
What inroads have you made with the Whittakers
- and the Douglases?" - Oh.
- Well I'm fucking one of the Whittakers, so?
All right, Madelaine seems to be doing
a lot of the heavy-
Thank you!
I think you should let me get out of here
'cause I'm doing all the work.
[Brennan] She looks and says,
"Well that's part of what we are discussing here,
is there is an opportunity for some of you
to maybe be relieved of this."
(Ally and Lou chuckle nervously)
- We'll talk- - What are you talking about?
- [Ally] What?
You serious?
We don't have to be here anymore?
- No. Yeah. Some of us? - Which ones?
- Probably the ones that are fucking everybody
- and doing all the work. - Describe to me your plan
to control the aristocracy and master the engines of state.
We're gonna get the dog on our side.
We have the dog.
Okay, you have to understand.
Purpee is not normal.
This town that you sent us to
is filled with ghosts and fucking squeaky bears
and a Bigfoot and a smiling Nixon, all right?
This is a shit sandwich!
And I am eating it as fast as I fucking can, all right?
I am taking bites of the shit sandwich
and every bite I'm saying, "Mm, mm, good!
I have yet to say the shit sandwich is bad.
Am I yelling? Okay.
We're down to the crust.
And the crust is a fully erect lumberjack on an altar.
So you gotta work with us.
We're so close. Okay?
And I bet, honestly, a couple of us leave
and the rest of us could handle it.
- You see that Ermine says, "You seem not at your best.
Perhaps we didn't give you enough time to prepare,
but I'd like to know as much about this mortal mage
as you'd care to tell me."
- Well, he's uncut. - Whoa.
How do you know that?
- He only wears shorts. - Oh the-
Oh no, the Maya.
Oh, I don't know anything about her.
I've actually not really met her at all.
There's a lot of magic happening here.
- There's a lot of-
there's maybe good mages and bad mages.
The two major families,
the Whittakers and the Douglases.
- The mage-r. - The mages families.
- [Murph] Sorry. - Something is going on
magically with them.
And then I tell them everything that we know
about the Douglases' farm and the altar and I don't know.
- What is it, like warlock. - Erect.
- A fully erect, either way. - Shoes on.
- But uncut at that point. You're not sure.
- And those are the destroy mages we would say.
And then the embrace mages are the ones
we were going to have a meeting with.
- Very chill. Run the co-op.
Yeah, then we ended up punting.
- You look at Ermine. She says, "Understood.
I want to be very clear.
You were sent here to establish Camarilla dominance
in the town of Purpee, Oregon.
I see that this has created some stress.
For our purposes,
it just seems like we're once again having a repeat
of the Rediron building party a couple months ago."
- (coughing) The Banksy. - The Banksy.
We didn't run a Banksy again.
We wouldn't do that twice. That would be stupid.
Ermine takes out a phone and goes,
"Notable artist Banksy has kidnapped
two independent publishers from the town of Purpee, Oregon."
- Well, he's a killer and he'll strike again.
But that has nothing to do with us.
- And we didn't kidnap him. He decapitated them.
This says that the head was a fake
and that someone demanded to meet Banksy
to ask how he pulled it off.
And then someone went, "Uh uh, he! That's a man."
That's bad journalism.
AI written. Probably AI written.
I just want to be clear here.
I come up here and I hear that there's
one of the elders of the town who's been killed or drowned?
My question to you, HJ,
as one of the older Kindred amongst us here, is
having isolated who's in charge of the town,
why are they being killed?
Why are they not being corrupted?
Why are they not being overcome?
You know that you've isolated the families in town
that control everything
and you're not manipulating these families. Why?
They were unmanipulatable.
We decided they were too stuck in whatever their agenda was
so it was good that the eldest died.
It shakes up the family a little bit.
We can control-
Shaking up is not what we're here to do.
Shaking up is never what we are here to do.
We live forever.
Steady as she goes,
you nincompoops.
- Don't you fucking call me a nincompoop, you bitch.
(players laughing)
I'm gonna need a Willpower roll
from LaVonte and anyone else
that feels like they're on the wire.
- On the wire in what? - In terms of
how close to frenzy you might be.
- [Siobhan] Oh. - This is the closest
I've been to frenzying.
- I'm pretty indifferent because this is all vampire shit.
(players laughing)
Just kind of melted.
Vampires. Can't relate.
Three successes.
- [Brennan] Three successes. - Two.
- [Brennan] Two successes. - Three.
- Three. You see that Koschei lunges towards you,
reaches a hand out, and grabs at the air around Ermine
who has just appeared,
rushing towards you in a flash of blood and smoke.
(Brennan inhales eerily)
"Call me a name again and I'll drag you somewhere
that the sun can't find you."
Yeah, take me there.
Hey, I'm already fucking there.
I'm already fucking there.
The place you're talking about,
it's called Purpee fucking Oregon.
- Koschei says, "Temper, temper. All will be well, Ermine.
Why don't you go speak to Madelaine
about this mortal mage who is uncircumcised outside."
I'll describe everything in detail.
"Thank you, Ms. d'Artois."
And you see that she walks outside with you.
Koschei looks at you and goes,
"Talk to a primogen like that,
you're gonna get destroyed, huh?
Don't wanna see it.
Who here is Prince?"
You are.
- What? (players laughing)
- We just thought that maybe if you wanted to be the Prince,
just because I'm like, I just wanna say...
No, which of you is Prince?
We've been working on it.
We were gonna actually kind of decide.
That's the first one I knock out.
- Yeah. Yeah. - Why don't,
which one of you is most dominant?
- Darkness Man. - No.
Turn into trash.
We'll show him how good he is.
- Hurry, hurry, hurry. - Come on, trash prince.
- Come on, my trash prince. - And we go Exhibit A.
You flop down and become trash.
He goes, "This a real uphill battle."
- Do you wanna be the Prince? - I don't wanna be the Prince.
Why don't none of you want to be Prince?
I'd be the Prince. I poke my head in.
- Yeah. You see he- - I'm kidding.
I want to leave.
You see, he looks out and goes,
"Why there is a huge caution tape all over area
right off the highway?"
A giant Christmas tree fell.
(players laughing)
There's a lot of, like,
mythical animals that are real and they keep showing up.
- Bigfoot. - Trying to mess up the town.
- There was something called- - Bigfoot?
Bigfoot is real here.
This... It was like a fire-
Bigfoot is real and he's my teacher.
- Stop. - [Ally] Fire bear.
You met him?
No.
(cast laughing)
Look, you guys are... I'm on your side.
You are fucking up, okay?
I think it's like we cleared the runway
to really make a lot of successes.
- Yeah. - The thing is,
is that Purpee, it has potential.
And if we do just corrupt the Whittakers
and the Douglases, they're already corrupt,
the town is just gonna die
and there's not gonna be able-
Who give a fuck about the town?
We do!
We can't have Elysium here if it sucks.
- Exactly. We can't have- What, to be in charge of Purpee?
Just Purpee? No, no, no.
Purpee will be more.
- Purpee will be San Francisco. - Yes.
Then once it's done being San Francisco,
it'll be New York.
Once it's done being New York,
- it will be goddamn Rome! - Yes.
And let me tell you,
just controlling a Whittaker
does not get you to fucking Rome.
It gets you to be the king of fucking Purpee
which you tried to make me but you are not going to win!
You're not going to win!
(Emily laughing)
[Ally] I pull him to the side.
We really appreciate you being on our side.
But look, tensions are high.
We don't wanna have Elysium in a ghost town.
I need to smoke cigarettes.
- I have cigarettes. - I'm not normal.
I don't breath anymore.
Have a little Snus packet.
I flick one in your mouth.
You know a Gumberoo?
Never mind.
Look, we're working-
I can't believe how much
made up sounding bullshit there is.
- Smiling Nixon. (Lou laughing)
His big loud smile.
"Why do I see this?
I get, I look up before we travel to town, I get this-"
He shows his phone and there's a wanted picture of someone.
(players laughing)
- You looking over your shoulder on-
- Just going over (players laughing)
into the river.
(players laughing)
That's how good I look?
(cast laughing)
- [Brennan] Outside, Ermine turns to you, Madelaine.
Yes. Oh my god, I miss you.
- Don't. - You look cute though.
Look, I need you to do something for me.
- What? - [Brennan] All right?
Anything, always for you. Always.
- You... This was a storks and crane situation.
You got swept up with some bad choices of
who you associated with.
- The other people, and I didn't do anything.
Finally you realize.
There is something I need from you.
- Okay. - I need a deal
in Purpee to go through and you owe me one.
- I do. And then the deal would go through.
And then I won't owe you one.
- I need the land around the Caroline Vine Trailhead
to be part of the deal that the Whittakers make
when they sell to Beholdr.
We need that data center open.
- You want the data center? - [Brennan] Yes, I do.
That's you?
There's wheels within wheels, Madelaine.
You're here as punishment
because of your association with the rest of your coterie.
But you might also be here for other reasons.
- Oh. - Maybe,
you could come back to a place like San Francisco,
if you so desired.
I do desire.
And all they gotta have is just a piece of land
with some water on it to the data center?
We need the data center to open.
Okay, well we didn't buy the data center
so I don't think anybody would care about it.
- You said you are fucking one of the Whittakers.
Yeah.
- Make sure you're doing whatever you need to do
to get that sold to Beholdr.
The data center and the land around the trailhead.
- You know his dad is about to get really hard canceled
so they'll probably need some money pretty quick.
Why is he about to get hard canceled?
Oh, we haven't quite done it yet,
but probably some really bad shit.
- (Ally laughing) - Hold off on that.
- Why? - Because
we need the Whittakers. Because!
But there's so many Whittakers,
I can't cancel one of them?
- No, we need the family to be in good standing
- so that the deal- - The whole family?
So the deal can go through.
- But this is really a part of our election plan.
- Madelaine. - For him to get-
- "Elections are fake. Just corrupt whoever wins."
And you see that she turns
and walks off towards the town car.
- Your ass looks good. - "I know!"
And you see she steps into the town car.
Koschei wheels around and says,
"You've heard what you need to hear, I think.
Look, you've only been here for a few months,
the blink of an eye in an immortal lifetime.
Just stop trying to rock the boat, huh?"
Koschei turns to you, Zaeth, and says,
"My childe, I would speak with you before we leave."
- I gotta go talk to my dad. - What?
- Is he your real dad? - No, he turned me.
Oh, okay. Like turned you dad.
He looks to you and says,
"The two... the fucking...
- The comic book ones." - Yeah?
[Brennan] Why they are burnt, for real?
We are not even lying.
- The Gumberoo that was- - Come on, man.
[Zac] Do you know what a Gumberoo is?
I didn't know it till yesterday.
- I don't wanna know what a fucking Gumberoo is.
- Naked-ass bear. He spits out fire,
- allergic to fire. - No.
- Yeah. - That doesn't make sense.
Fire power mean you immune to fire.
- It's basic Pokémon rule. - Right.
It defies the Pokémon rule.
- This place is fucked. - It is.
- Zaeth? - Hmm?
You hold yourself, your head tall.
I think perhaps in a place like San Francisco,
where all the wheels are already in motion,
there is nothing for you.
But you have found a real fucking mess here,
and I see you keeping your head above water.
You did not pop off or say some dumb shit
one time in that meeting.
That's crazy progress.
Thank you.
I really wanted to roundhouse kick someone in the head
and it could have been anyone.
But you didn't.
I try to roundhouse kick him.
(players laughing)
He grabs your foot and says, "Nice try."
Okay, I telegraphed it.
What's this horse?
It's Ghorse.
So a lot of my head being held up above the water
was 'cause I'm riding Ghorse through the stream.
(Lou and Ally laughing)
Ghorse, show him your teeth.
(Brennan whinnies) (fangs distend)
But it's not a vampire, right?
Not really.
He ate the shit out of another horse though.
Look, I'm figuring it out in my own way, okay?
I don't know how to do it any other way,
but I guess in some way I believe in this town
and I believe in these people
and I think we're gonna figure it all out.
You believe in these people like who?
- Your coterie mates? - Yeah.
- Well, the comic book ones frighten and confuse me.
Why a man would be that muscular
and that down on himself and self-conscious,
I don't understand.
He can turn into trash.
That is like a, hey, this is a red flag.
- [Zac] By the way- - Your magic power
manifest as become trash.
He's not really a pervert.
We just say that to him just to make him feel weird.
You guys are jokers.
The little child still does not know she's vampire?
She's working on it.
She thinks she's half bat which is very similar.
- HJ was very serious vampire in San Francisco.
His pupils so dilated. Why?
- That I can't really even-
(players laughing)
I can't even begin to tell you why.
We'll talk. We'll figure it out.
Look, don't trouble with embracing mage.
Better to just destroy.
- Very tricky. Okay? - Okay.
I am rooting for you, my childe.
LaVonte, this has broken something in him.
He's a big liability.
Why do you not want to be Prince?
- I just, it feels like a lot of responsibility
in a way that I'm just starting to learn
how to be responsible in a way.
I have a to-do list.
Right now, it just says "Tina Bunders" but...
I can wrap my head around it.
These glorious revolutions come and go
and life stays shit.
Unlife stays shit.
The wheel, it crushes. It's what it does.
Your job, Zaeth, is to stay on top of the wheel.
That's all.
- But what if you want to really like the wheel?
What?
- What if you're trying to stay on top of the wheel
while kind of decorating the wheel
and getting your buds on the wheel
to run with you at the same pace
and do pop a little wheelie here and there.
For style.
Just be careful.
And these ghosts here,
any other spirits you are aware of or no?
I told you about the naked bear.
Kind of a Bigfoot situation that was brought up.
I don't know, it does seem like
there's a lot of weird stuff here.
We're figuring it out.
All right, I will stay nearby.
I come check more often. Okay?
- Before you go, it's the little superhero's birthday
(Emily laughing)
and I think it would mean a lot to them
if you gave them a present.
I think, for morale.
They got so burned,
they're coming into their birthday kind of sick.
It just sucks.
- [Brennan] He walks back in with all of you.
LaVonte, question for you.
Have you sent out any feeler emails
around this idea of getting a big name Prince?
If you'll allow it,
I would've used my minor boon
and my minor boon advantage in which I have two dots
to send out feeler emails-
[Ally] Just to Austin.
- Just sending a really insane-
Like, all the best pictures of Purpee.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - Just saying that like-
Yeah, new hot town,
like, Prince-less.
New hot Prince-less town.
America's Got Vampire Prince?
Yeah, exactly.
We're gonna have zero taxes of any kind.
Yeah. I've definitely sent out feelers.
[Brennan] Hell yeah.
Koschei walks back in, getting ready to leave.
Says, "Vesper."
Yes?
(gun cocks)
Happy birthday.
Thank you. I shoot the ground.
- (gun bangs) - Ho! Come on.
Wait for me to leave!
There's a gun range. I can see it!
Okay. Thank you.
It smells stolen, too.
Yeah, the serial number's filed off.
You can get them- A good way to get a hot gun
is to make some connections with black markets,
sort of take things carefully piece by piece
over time, make these inroads, you know?
(Siobhan and Emily laughing)
I would say in the United States of America
to get illegal gun, probably the easiest it has ever been
in all of human history.
Tomato, tomatoe.
- Which one is tomato? Which one is tomatoe?
You can walk right into the precinct
and go right into the good closet.
- The good closet? - If you're fast enough.
Thank you so much for coming, Koschei.
Remember this. The names, yes?
And pick a prince.
Next time I am here, one of you is Prince, okay?
- Yes. - Okay. Boss.
"And remember we don't want to shake.
We want to control."
And you see that he walks out, leaving you all here.
Ermine takes one last look at you, Madelaine,
from the car as she drives off.
- The car takes off. - And close with.
Did I call that woman a bitch?
- You did, yeah. - You did.
- Wow. I fully lift my body. - That's okay.
I was floating over my body watching me.
(players chattering)
- And look, she is a bitch but also I owe so much.
- Why do you owe her again? - Don't worry about it.
You get a text from Maya saying,
"Hey, we ended up at Mama Angie's after a little night hike,
if you guys are still around. Otherwise, no worries.
- We can always rain check." - Let's do it.
The mages and the werewolves
are kind of cooler than our bosses.
I was gonna say, like,
I think I have a privileged position
'cause I'm not a vampire,
but watching you guys all grovel,
it just felt like it was beneath all of you.
Why do you suck up to these people so much?
I was sitting there thinking,
"What am I even getting from this interaction?"
They have no idea what we've seen here.
That this whole town is about to blow away,
completely off the face of the map.
It's dying.
We're gonna be hosting Elysium in a ghost town
with nobody around if we take their advice.
- They just wanna sell this place for parts.
- Yes. - Yeah.
- And we are not those kind of people. We are flippers.
Are you hoping to prove them wrong?
- Yes. - By showing that
- your system works better? - Yes!
We will revitalize this town.
But I don't think that's what they want.
I think if we came to them with a revitalized town,
they would say this isn't what we want.
It's not what they want.
They want to punish us.
They wanna make us in charge of a bad town
that is on the way out.
And what we are trying to do is do the work
to make it a great town,
to make it that we are in charge of something special,
something unique, something that everybody wants.
That's what we're doing.
Is there something to trying,
at least giving it a shot, to befriend the Douglases?
- The Douglases? - See what that would be like.
You heard what he was doing.
You wanna be that guy's friend?
- He was trying to fuck a nude bear on a slab.
And his tongue was longer than his dick.
I think he was trying to speak bear.
Is that what we can think that was?
It's whatever Madelaine interpreted,
- whatever I did as. - Don't think so.
- We did set a big tree on fire and hit their business.
Let's go to Angie's.
I could pour a Sprite out on the floor.
I will say, you know, I am a vampire
and I fucking hate listening to what people say
and what they want us to do.
But I do think if we don't do it,
they possibly might be powerful enough
to sort of disembowel all of us
and just kind of put us in that middle-
- I'm wondering if there's a middle ground.
We don't have to reinvent the wheel,
but we also don't have to do their whole plan.
I wonder if we can bond with one of the sides
of the family, eradicate the other family.
- Well, and to your point of the middle ground,
I mean is there some way...
I mean, we have this election in the bag
if we can just get to it.
If we just Danderhoof it, right?
- Little cherries for Koschei. - Mm-hmm.
Little cherries along the way.
[Ally] Little cherries for Koschei.
- All the small stuff that we can do that we can
make it look like we're doing our work.
It's a Black Forest gateau idea.
Will you text him "Nom, nom, nom.
Don't worry, big juicy cherry
next time you're here"?
- I feel like we have to take a different tact.
Do we want to go to Mama Angie's or not?
- Yes. - Yes. Before we go there,
I do think we should get on the same page
because I think they want- There's kind of no...
They want the opposite of what we want.
- So my vote. - What do they want?
- We don't even know. - They want status quo.
(players chattering over each other)
- I'm talking about Koschei. - Oh, Koschei. Yeah.
- I'm saying they very well may try to kill us
at some point, but for now all they're doing
is lightly threatening us.
I say we keep plowing forward with what we're doing,
and if they wanna show their fangs,
we'll figure that out when we get there.
Fuck yeah, Mitch. Fuck yeah.
I say we keep going. I say we keep going.
- They love obedience but they love blood and money more
and we can give them that.
Time to pop some wheelies.
- I mean, plus we're vampires, minus Bat Child, you know?
We're already dead.
You know what?
I think it's time that I admit something.
- What? - What?
I have a portal in my mouth
and I don't know where it goes.
Oh.
And I think I need to start to really
- sort of look into that. - [Ally] Oh.
- And figure out where the portal my mouth goes to.
I read a book about this,
about becoming a woman and you use a hand mirror.
- (players laughing) - A hand mirror?
- In her mouth. - You know,
literally you can open up your mouth
and use a hand mirror
and just really spend some time looking.
(players chattering)
- And that's why I got you this birthday gift.
It's the rock but glued onto it is a mirror.
Okay.
(abyss moving heavily)
I don't really see much.
You've just gotta spend some time.
Okay, okay. I'll do it privately.
- [Brennan] You guys roll over to Mama Angie's.
It is two o'clock in the damn morning at Mama Angie's.
You see that off in a corner booth,
you see Maya, her bicycle's outside,
and you see another bike outside
that seems to belong to Cody.
And you see them both waiting for you guys.
You see Maya sort of smiles at all of you walking in
and says, "Hey, good to see the whole gang."
You see that Cody sort of smiles and nods.
- [Ally] Maya's partner here? - Maya's partner is not here.
Maya looks at you guys as you walk in and says,
"Hey, thanks for coming out.
No worries if we need to reschedule,
if tonight's a bad night for you."
We've had a wild night,
but you are exactly who we want to talk to.
Jesus Christ. Are you guys okay?
- Yeah, we were doing that thing where you spray perfume
at a candle and it got really out of hand.
- That's why we smell of tropical Christmas.
Yeah, busy night tonight.
There was some gunshots on the police scanner
fired near the bridge.
You're also on the police scanner?
- Yeah. - That's so fun.
[Brennan] You gotta stay tapped into
what these little piggies are up to.
Is there anything I can do to help you guys?
- Is there? - Cody looks over at Maya.
Maya sort of shrugs.
He says,
"If you guys... I know that we're at a diner right now.
If you guys are hungry,
I've been told that the...
I've been told that if I can help you guys eat,
that you may be able to heal even faster.
But it's apparently a really wild rush."
- Okay. - How do I say no to that?
Yeah, I am definitely, I'm in.
Should we go somewhere else?
Yeah. Not here. Yeah, not here.
- There's a bunch of weird bunkers underneath the diner.
- Huh? - You don't know this?
- Smiling Nixon. - You see Maya goes,
"The ladle! I was always interested
in what was down that other door.
I was too honed in on the ladle.
Fuck. All right, sorry, shit."
Should we go down to the smiling Nixon
and have ourselves a little party?
- You guys are down on the catwalk by the smiling Nixon
as Maya's smoking a joint going,
"This is fucking crazy." (Lou sniffing)
- Yeah, right? - This is fucking
- crazy. - Oh yeah.
The smile's so loud.
- The smile's so loud. It's like-
You've never seen anything louder.
Cling wrap.
Do you think he posed for it?
He had to of. It's too accurate.
- It's a very photorealistic. And I met him.
Cody goes, "If you guys wanna partake,
do you want..."
Yeah, I'm covered. Thank you.
- You see Cody takes the joint and hits it,
hands it back to Maya and says,
"If you guys- I'm not trying to...
You guys are badly injured."
- Yeah. - [Emily] Yeah.
I didn't make drinking blood intimate.
That's just a thing
that's part of your existence.
- Gotcha. - Oh no, it's-
- But you did promise that it'll be a wild ride.
Do you have a preference of where?
Let's do arm, wrist,
- if that's okay? - Okay, great. Should we-
(Emily hisses) (Murph and Ally laugh)
- [Brennan] You see he says, "Give me one second."
And you see that he takes his shirt off,
takes his hat off.
I take my shirt off.
(players chattering)
You guys all disrobe
in front of a massive portrait of Richard Nixon.
- And you see- - Beats Pill out.
(players chattering and laughing)
You see he says, (exhales) "Stay calm.
You were given this form to protect people.
These people are in your realm.
They need protecting." (Brennan scarls)
And he grows to about eight and a half feet tall
and a massive werewolf stands before you on the catwalk.
And he extends his wrists to both of you.
Maya looks out and says,
"What does it look like if it starts to go bad,
if you guys can't control yourselves?"
- There's a lot of echolocation sounds, normally.
- Probably gonna be able to control themselves.
She says, "I'm just gonna step back
and if you guys start to freak out-"
There's sort of a door situation.
- Here take my gun. You can just-
- Don't want that. - You don't want to?
Don't want it. No, no, no.
- I'm saying like as insurance, if it starts to go bad.
- No, no, I'm just gonna go to the end of the catwalk
and if I see things going bad, I'm just gonna get Cody.
- Okay. - "All right?"
You see that she walks to the end of the catwalk,
and you watch as her eyes go sort of silvery white,
almost like two points of light,
as Maya steps back doing in-person magic for the first time.
- Okay, I think Bat Child feels thrilled by this.
And then I think she's gonna go up to Cody's wrist
and she's gonna echo what he said.
But she's saying it to herself.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm. - You were given this form
to protect people.
I'm a vampire.
I'm a vampire,
but it's not senseless.
It's to protect people.
(Emily bites and hisses)
- I'm going to need a Willpower roll, difficulty of five.
Whoa. Happy birthday.
- Darkness Man, are you going at the same time?
You know what?
Why don't I wait until after Bat Child goes?
- Hell yeah. - Okay. I'm gonna,
can I spend a Willpower on a Willpower?
- You cannot spend Willpower on a Willpower.
Okay, I got a three.
You immediately go to zero hunger.
You heal a point of Aggravated damage immediately.
And as you do so,
you are cast into a thudding heartbeat
at the center of the spiritual world
where you are riding a water flume of the tree of life
through all organisms that have ever existed,
branching off through zoological pathways.
- I haven't been in a waterpark since I turned!
(Brennan laughing)
(Brennan mimics water rushing)
And you see parasitism,
an absolutely normal branch of zoological study.
There are parasites all throughout
different zoological branches that are having them.
But you sense a curse.
Is this a curse? Is this magic?
Is there something else?
You see a portal, yawning, swallowing everything,
but energy can either be created nor destroyed.
You hear a howl in the distance.
You see a green source of light.
(militaristic drum beats)
"Jack of the Pines. Jack of the Pines.
Jack of the Pines."
And you see there's drums playing.
You see someone looking up,
their throat slit,
their blood falling, cascading into an altar
and soaking into the ground, soaking down.
But the plants here don't eat blood.
The salt in the blood is not good for the plants.
There's nothing wrong with spilling blood
if it goes back into the tree of life
over and over, the spilling of blood senselessly.
The destruction of life for no purpose.
These things and it's just coming again and again and again.
And you sense a malevolent spiritual entity
looming over all of Purpee from Golden Bounty Farms.
The Whittaker monument deserved to be destroyed
and it was destroyed.
That owl creature in the basement
of the Templers needed to be destroyed and it was destroyed.
And yet the barriers have been brought low
as a giant of pine trees,
malevolent green light,
a single massive Rockefeller Center sized tree
in its crotch pointed outwards
just like the Gumberoo as it beholds
in all of its pagan, otherworldly majesty and goes,
(Brennan inhales deeply)
"Blood spilled in Purpee.
Call them to me, my warriors."
You come back on the catwalk. Cody looks at you.
You have a temporary dot of Potence
from drinking Cody's blood in this moment.
- Whoa. - He goes, "Okay.
- You okay?" - Yeah. Did I hurt you?
Yeah, a little bit. It's all right.
[Emily] I'm really sorry.
You see, he licks the wound closed.
Do you do this for vampires often?
I've never met vampires
that haven't tried to straight-up kill me.
- But you have met vampires? - Yeah.
There are some vampires that swing by Mike's Bar,
usually on their way up and around.
There's enough werewolves out here
that it's not super safe for vampires.
The fact that you guys are all here is frankly shocking.
- Oh, we got sent here 'cause we fucked up big time.
- He looks at you and says-
I'll take a bite, if you don't mind.
"Yeah, go for it."
Go ahead. Give me a Willpower roll.
- Four. - Four. Okay.
Diving in, you actually look out and see images
of wolf prints going up the Caroline Vine Trailhead
up into the trail and see Cody working at the hostel
and see a lot of kids showing up at the hostel
that are either homeless
or have had upsetting things happen to them
and have all come here at the beginning of a lupine puberty,
that essentially this trail is
like a trail of being like, "Go up this trail,
it will be safe for you to have your first change
way up in the woods. Go at night
when there's gonna be nobody else around.
And there are other werewolves deeper into Oregon
that will find you.
Just stay hiking here for a couple days."
And you see that Cody's basically like this gatekeeper,
trying to scoop up kids
that get off the bus line here.
And you can see him meeting Maya
for the first time in his memory
as one of the bus lines gets cut in town
and a bus depot gets cut.
And he begins to explain to her
that he doesn't know how to help
'cause it was one of the main ways
that young lost werewolf kids could get to Purpee.
And Maya and him talking about
what they can possibly do about that.
You come back from that. Heal an Aggravated, zero Hunger,
and you have a dot in Auspex as you look around.
Only temporarily within
the short amount of time
of having that blood from him.
But you look and basically see Cody, you know,
there was some feeling in him
of a warrior or a protector.
And you see that far from this like
avenging knight of some guy
who's running around killing people,
he just stays at a hostel to be someone reliable
for these lost kids to find.
Thank you. Thank you.
- We're trying to get the buses back up and running.
That would be super tight.
- We're going to get the buses back up and running.
- They're actually trying to take over part of your trail.
- Really? - [Ally] Yeah.
And I tell him about the data center and the land.
You see, he goes, "Fuck, fuck.
No, they can't do that.
It's a fucking trail.
The stones at the base of the trail
are part of the journey.
That's like their anchor in the spirit world.
They keep the kids safe
when they go up on that nature walk."
- We'll make sure. We'll make sure it won't happen.
But they're, like, symbolic, right?
You see Maya goes, "Deeply unsymbolic.
Powerfully magical."
- Oh, good. Oh, great. - You see Maya looks
and just goes, "Why?
I mean, amazing. But for real, like, why?"
- Oh, well, I just wanna live in a town that I really like
and I wanna live near a zoo,
in walking distance to a zoo and a library.
And I feel like all of these are little steps
along the way to make that dream happen for myself.
So I guess maybe it's kind of selfish.
She looks and goes, "A zoo?"
A petting zoo.
- We're gonna start small. - A nighttime petting zoo.
- Nocturnal petting zoo. - Nocturnal petting zoo.
- For all the really cute nocturnal animals.
- You see Cody and Maya both look at each other,
and Cody turns and says,
"I know some dudes that work up the road past Medford
that do wolf conservancy stuff, if-"
- Yeah. - You see that Maya says,
"I could have my partner look into licenses
- for a petting zoo." - That would be incredible!
You should meet Amelia. She's great.
Yeah, I think that's great.
Well, we wanted to meet you guys to catch a vibe.
It doesn't really make sense.
People sort of don't show up with resources to help.
Oh, I don't have the resources. They do.
Cody has his own journey.
We help each other where we can.
We've been fighting...
You guys have shaken up a lot of stuff here
and that's awesome because we've been
fighting fucking tooth and nail just to hang on,
and it's pretty fucking chaotic.
The giant Christmas tree is insane.
The burning down of the thing is fucking crazy.
But a little bit of chaos maybe goes a long way
if it means that we've got a shot
at changing anything in this town.
And I don't know what we owe it to or why you care,
but I see that you do.
And as long as you care about Purpee
and the people who live here, then we want to help.
- What have you guys heard about Jack of the Pines?
Because I took a ruby out of an owl demon's mouth.
- You see, Maya goes, throws her hands to each side
and says, "Jump!"
Cody leaps into the air, as you say Jack of the Pines.
She vanishes with both of them.
You see as a root busts through the ceiling of the bunker
and shoots down towards Cody
to impale him through the heart, he vanishes.
In the moment that she's vanishing,
she goes, "Tomorrow!" as she moves away,
as this vine is just hanging down there.
- Was that the drugs or is that? That's real.
[Ally] No, that was real.
(players chattering over each other)
- Don't say it no more. - J of the P.
Nixon's frowning now.
- Yeah, it's hit the mouth. - It's so loud though.
- [Brennan] You guys get back above ground,
and you get service on your phone, LaVonte.
There are two notifications there.
The first you get is one from Maya saying, "All's good.
Sorry to dip so quickly. LOL."
That's so casual.
I feel like I totally fucked that up.
She says, "Tell Vesper all's good.
Jay Slice is well known to me.
Hard to talk about at night.
Presents a unique problem for us."
I guess we'll call him Jay Slice,
but she says you're all good.
You have another message
that has come back to you from your network,
from the Ventrue primogen of Austin.
Oh hell yes.
- Saying, "I've taken a look into some of the events
that have gone on in Purpee,
and I looked into the fiasco
at the Rediron in San Francisco.
From what I can see,
the fiasco was only kept from being a catastrophe
by some quick thinking on your part.
Banksy, indeed.
Austin is looking for a new Seneschal. Are you in?"
And that's all for this episode
of "Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness."
Tune in next week for another thrilling episode!
What is a Seneschal?
I'm not gonna fuck the dog.
Yeah.
That's fine.
- That's not even close to what we were-
I have my boundary.
That was the cold open of this episode.
- I know what you're all saying, and I'll be your prince.
- You don't even need a title to be royalty.
No, that is absolutely not true.
- You do need- - Really?
- Clearly, you're on a new path and I'm excited for you.
Please stop shimmying.
"Let's get the boots ready.
We'll go stompin' around for Bigfoot."
- Let's do it. - I woke up.
Fists full of gold.
- That sounds so hard. - Yeah.
LaVonte, you said you had a side hustle?
Yeah. I'm gonna go corrupt the clergy.
They are going to get us killed.
"You know, there was a time
when I thought I was going to be killed, too.
The Battle of Yorktown."
What drugs are you on, man?
SSRIs.
- It's my SSRIs. (players laughing)
Clearly, HJ's on SSRIs.
- "Ha, are you cold?" - A little bit.
Just a little bit. Can you tell?
"Yeah, I can. Sorry."
- One, two, three. (all clap)
- Beautiful. - Beautiful.
I'm gonna go to bed.