Chapter Six: A Voice on the Radio | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry" – Episode: "Chapter Six: A Voice on the Radio | Ten Candles: Eclipse"

Release Date: May 5, 2025
Host/Author: Geek & Sundry
Current Season: Ten Candles: Eclipse

---

Introduction

In this gripping episode of Geek & Sundry's "Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry," the players embark on a harrowing journey in the "Ten Candles: Eclipse" campaign. Set two weeks after a devastating cataclysm in Las Vegas, the story unfolds in a world plunged into tragic horror, where monoliths have risen from the ground, triggering natural disasters and causing widespread disappearances.

Character Introductions and Setup

The game master, Ivan Van Norman, welcomes a diverse group of players who introduce their characters by sharing personal virtues and vices, shaping their roles in the impending tragedy.

• Marcus: Shares his closeted nature, aspiring to be comforting despite his dishonesty.
• Asha (Anjali): A grief counselor grappling with her own fears of inadequacy, embodying empathy as her virtue and aggressive paranoia as her vice.
• Rocky (Cheno): A resilient purveyor of spiritually precious stones, battling extreme selfishness.
• Brandon (Jackson): An honorable yet compulsive liar, former backup guitarist dealing with internal conflicts.
• Timothy (Josh): Playing Tony Haller, a grifter seeking genuine closure, embodying comfort despite his dishonesty.

Notable Quote:
Marcus at [02:10] says, “...I have legit just shown up at a cabin in the woods, sleepover, and just settle down and be like, hey, do you want to play?”

---

The Journey Begins: Escaping Las Vegas

The players find themselves on the southern outskirts of Las Vegas, navigating a landscape scarred by earthquakes and the ominous presence of towering monoliths. The remnants of the city lay in ruin, with every vehicle having stalled due to an EMP-like event, leaving the streets eerily silent.

Notable Quote:
Timothy at [19:11] states, “I hope to give true closure and peace to one creature.”

---

First Encounters: Exploring and Scavenging

As the group scours the deserted freeway for supplies, Tony spots a potentially operational car, leading them to a crucial decision point. They encounter Samson, a destitute man desperately seeking water. Asha, embodying her empathy, provides Samson with precious drops of water, offering him a moment of solace.

Notable Quote:
Asha at [18:24] shares, “I would like to have a moment to admit freely that I have no idea what I've been doing with my life...”

---

Descent into Darkness: The Hotel and Ham Radio

The players infiltrate a devastated hotel, seeking shelter and resources. In the amphitheater, they discover a ham radio connected to a car battery. Attempting to contact others, Asha tunes into an emergency frequency, triggering a haunting dual harmony reminiscent of Tibetan throat singing. This spectral song attracts perilous creatures, escalating the tension.

Notable Quote:
Asha at [86:05] declares, “As I reach down and I see him...”

---

Betrayal and Tragedy: Internal Conflicts Emerge

The desperation for survival leads to mounting internal conflicts. Brandon's compulsion to lie and act dishonorably surfaces, resulting in sabotage that endangers the group's chances. The monoliths’ increasing prominence and the relentless aftershocks exacerbate the group's fragility.

Notable Quote:
Brandon at [116:56] muses, “We’re on team fail...”

---

Climactic Confrontations: Final Struggles and Demise

In the episode's climax, the group's efforts to secure safety disintegrate as the monoliths intensify their dominion. Characters face insurmountable threats from both the environment and each other. Asha's attempts to help Samson and bridge gaps within the group are overwhelmed by Brandon's destructive actions. The haunting song from the radio becomes a relentless force, symbolizing the inescapable tragedy enveloping the players.

Notable Quote:
Timothy at [207:01] reflects, “...we have to go. We have to go now. Come on.”

---

Conclusion: The Inevitable End

As the monoliths fully ascend, the players confront their inevitable demise. The dark, oppressive atmosphere underscores the campaign's central theme of zero survivors amidst overwhelming horror. The final moments are a testament to the characters' struggles, sacrifices, and the relentless nature of the catastrophe they face.

Notable Quote:
Brandon at [224:41] solemnly states, “...I just can't believe I'm saying this, but I've helped a lot of people through the end...”

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Final Thoughts

"Chapter Six: A Voice on the Radio" masterfully weaves a narrative of horror, suspense, and emotional turmoil. The players' interactions, marked by their virtues and vices, navigate the fine line between cooperation and betrayal, ultimately illustrating the fragility of hope in a world overshadowed by darkness.

This episode underscores the potency of tabletop role-playing games in crafting immersive, improvised stories that resonate deeply with audiences, especially within the actual play format that "Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry" so effectively champions.

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Disclaimer: Quotes are attributed with their respective timestamps for reference and contextual understanding.

Transcript

[Marcus]

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[Anthony]

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[Marcus]

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Ten Candles. Hello, everybody. Hi. Hello. Hi. Don't look at them. Look at me. I'm here.

[Asha]

I'm always more afraid to look at you.

[Rocky]

Now I'm looking at you.

[Marcus]

Yeah, well, now you're looking at me. It's okay, Angela. It's not okay, but it's okay. So. Hey, Schnome. It's been a long time, buddy.

[Rocky]

I'm getting more comfortable looking at you now.

[Marcus]

That's good. Yeah, it takes a little bit of time. This face is disparaging, and I tend to cover it up with sweet powdered sugar chowder. Sugar.

[Rocky]

I'm doing better now.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

I'm happy to see you.

[Brandon]

I have.

[Marcus]

No.

[Brandon]

This got really sweet. Very.

[Marcus]

So, just so you three know, I have known Shno for a very long time. We're close friends outside of the table. And I never get to really actually play with him. So this literally legit was they were like, oh, we need like 40 people for 10 candles. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna put some people who I wanna play with.

[Rocky]

This is a very special episode of Two Candles.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Because you get to play, you know, And Jackson, I haven't even played with you yet.

[Brandon]

I know. It's the first time we've ever played together. We get to do this.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brandon]

It's insane. All these years of running into each other in the geek and sundry green room. Finally.

[Marcus]

I know. Out of the sci fi and into the friar.

[Brandon]

Let's do it.

[Marcus]

Let's do it.

[Brandon]

There's nothing science fiction about. No, he's just hanging high in the sky.

[Marcus]

But otherwise it's just really big, guys.

[Timothy]

It's just really real big. Real bad.

[Rocky]

What's better than moon?

[Marcus]

More moon, more moon, more moon. Yeah, you know what? You.

[Timothy]

I don't think those are the rules.

[Asha]

Pretty sure that's not how this works.

[Marcus]

Josh. Hi, man.

[Timothy]

Hey, Ivan.

[Marcus]

We've never played a game either. And I think we talked about the phone. I didn't really. We got to know each other with our phone call. With our check in call. Yeah. But other than that, this is really honest to God, like the first time sitting down and doing something. So thank you for taking the leap of faith.

[Timothy]

That sounds like I'm in good hands. But I also know how the story ends.

[Brandon]

Good hands.

[Rocky]

Just hands. You're just in hands.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rocky]

Good, bad, indifferent. Hands. Just hands.

[Marcus]

Just hands. You're in good. Well, red dice. We did pick red dice for this. Not only because they read great on camera, also because you know exactly how much dice you have when they get into it. And Anjali, I don't know why you keep signing up for games with me.

[Asha]

I love you and then it's my chance to spend more time with you. So I hope it's a testament of how much I adore you that I keep putting myself through this.

[Marcus]

I'm so sorry. But thank you.

[Asha]

On a regular basis.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

A little misty right now.

[Marcus]

Yeah, it's very sweet. It will not help you.

[Asha]

Oh, no. I never thought it would help me.

[Rocky]

Have something going on.

[Asha]

I'm so excited. I'm so excited to hang out with Ivan and horrible things will happen.

[Marcus]

Yeah, that's fine. Right now they're not. So let's just enjoy that.

[Brandon]

You might be able to bribe Ivan. You can't ever bribe them.

[Marcus]

Jackson's. Played before.

[Brandon]

I love this game. I love this game. I'm gonna be the positive one in the world.

[Asha]

I'm so happy to hear that because I know nothing about this game.

[Marcus]

That's great. That's okay. Because that's one of the best things, honestly, about this, is that this is one of the few games in which I have legit just shown up at a cabin in the woods, sleepover, and just settle down and be like, hey, do you want to play? And then we just grab a group of and we just go straight into it. Now, granted, all those people have to know what they signed up for.

[Asha]

Yeah, I was just saying.

[Marcus]

But it is great with a close group of friends or some new friends who are all consensual beings and coming together for tragedy. So, speaking of which, let's get into it. So, as I mentioned, instead of cards, you have your pictures, which we're gonna write your virtues and your vices on, and then I'll tell you some context around the story. These are all things we've kind of talked about a little bit before the game. But just for everybody at home who wants see the process go into it, we're gonna start by taking one of your photos, and we're going to pass it to the right. To the left. All right. All the way down there?

[G]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

All right.

[Marcus]

It's going to the left. Now on that photo, I'd like you to turn it around. And then I would like you to write a virtue on it. Something that you aspire to be, something great that you look up to in someone. And that virtue. Anjali's using a pen, so I don't have the decisive scritching of a Sharpie to tell me if you're all done or not done. Thank you. That's good enough. Then let's take them back to their owners. To the right. All right, Josh, why don't we start with you? What did you get?

[Timothy]

I received comforting.

[Marcus]

Comforting.

[Timothy]

There's more.

[Asha]

Making feel safe.

[Timothy]

Making feel safe.

[Marcus]

Okay. I probably would pick one or the other. Either comforting or safety. You know, how do I make you feel?

[Asha]

Safety.

[Marcus]

Safety.

[Timothy]

Okay.

[Brandon]

So.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Asha]

Safety.

[Marcus]

So. But you want to do comforting in the way that you make feel safe. I'm sure there's a verb out there that describes that.

[Brandon]

I'm going for it right now.

[Asha]

Yeah, someone will find it.

[Marcus]

We'll get there. But for the moment, how about you, Jackson?

[Brandon]

Honorable.

[Marcus]

Honorable.

[Asha]

Okay, good one.

[Brandon]

It is a good one.

[Marcus]

Comforting and honorable on this side. It's a good combo. How about you? Schno.

[Rocky]

Resilience. Resilience.

[Asha]

That's written so boldly.

[Marcus]

It is.

[Rocky]

It's very bold. And the whole card.

[Asha]

The whole card.

[Marcus]

You got to eat.

[Brandon]

Sharpies write big, write loud.

[Asha]

That's right. I apparently have. I've already set myself apart from the world. I'll go back to the sharpies. I will conform.

[Marcus]

It's okay. What did you get? Anjuli?

[Asha]

Empathy.

[Marcus]

Empathy.

[Asha]

Yes.

[Marcus]

Okay, put your shoes on my feet. Okay, cool. Great. So then let's take our vise. Let's take another one of our cards and then let's move it to the right, please.

[Asha]

Certainly have the right picture for this particular.

[Marcus]

Ta. Ta da ta. That is a great.

[Asha]

Gave you the right picture for that, didn't I?

[Marcus]

Now this one is a vice. Something that you would never wish upon anybody but you are. Something that makes more problems than it solves is really what it's all about.

[Timothy]

Do you need tiny chess clocks?

[Marcus]

Yeah, I'm all about that. If there were such turns to be passed, if the clock is slowly to your demise, then yes, I approve of chess clocks.

[Brandon]

But these clocks can't be stopped.

[Asha]

I was going to do one that went along with the picture, but this.

[Timothy]

One just keeps taking just a gesture like. No, not this time.

[Asha]

I already am second guessing myself.

[Marcus]

Let's watch the crosstalk. Let's pass them back to the left where they belong. Yeah, that is saucy. All right then, Chanel, let's start with you. What did you get?

[Rocky]

I got extreme selfishness.

[Marcus]

Right?

[Rocky]

Oh, extreme.

[Marcus]

I think selfishness would have been fine.

[Rocky]

Yeah, no, but not.

[Marcus]

Instead it's extreme, not casual selfishness. Oh, okay. All right. So extreme.

[Brandon]

You'Re selfishness Skateboards.

[Rocky]

Oh, yeah.

[Asha]

You said something that I wouldn't wish upon anyone else. Yeah, that's true.

[Marcus]

And so you're wishing extreme selfish.

[Asha]

Extreme selfish.

[Marcus]

Well then what did you get, Angela?

[Asha]

I got aggressive paranoia.

[Marcus]

Ah, all right.

[Timothy]

Yeah. Modifiers.

[Asha]

The modifiers are going hardcore modifiers.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Asha]

And this picture is appropriate for some kind of vice.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Okay. Aggressive paranoia. That's fair. How about you, Josh?

[Timothy]

I am dishonest.

[Marcus]

What was your virtue again?

[Timothy]

So I'm comforting and dishonest.

[Marcus]

Oh, that's a beautiful combo.

[Asha]

Thank you.

[Brandon]

Thank you.

[Marcus]

How about you send me a joy you're self serving, son.

[Brandon]

Oh, we're going to be good friends. I'm a compulsive liar.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Asha]

Oh, look at that.

[Marcus]

So we have a whole. So a compulsive liar side of the.

[Brandon]

Table that you cannot trust.

[Timothy]

We're the sweet ones. Don't listen to one.

[Marcus]

What was your virtue again? I didn't trust you.

[Asha]

Look at that.

[Marcus]

Was that.

[Brandon]

I am honorable.

[Marcus]

An honorable compulsive liar.

[Brandon]

So I am an honorable, compulsive liar, which I am going to work out what that means. Okay, Real quick. Figure that one out.

[Marcus]

Yeah, get in there.

[Brandon]

Also, just as a bonus, I'm a compulsive liar. Frowny face.

[Timothy]

That's how you know it's bad.

[Asha]

That's really bad.

[Timothy]

Okay.

[Marcus]

All right. Well, let me tell you a little bit about the situation you're in. So you have your virtues and your vice, and I'm going to kind of describe to you where and how we're going to start this game. And really, I'm just going to recap what we all talked about a little bit before coming to the table today. We have decided that you are two weeks plus since the cataclysm has occurred, since these monoliths rose out from the ground. And since then, you have seen everything from earthquakes to tidal surges to people just disappearing out of nowhere. In fact, you've seen the emergence of them as you are slowly trying to make your way out of your safe haven that you created for yourself for at least a few weeks inside of Las Vegas. But now, for one reason or another, you were no longer safe and you had to leave. So now you're sitting outside of the outskirts of Vegas, making some kind of pilgrimage, maybe south. I think we talked a little bit about maybe having a destination like Palm Springs in mind, just something away from the city. And that is all you know, besides the torn land around you and the desert that surrounds your every horizon, as well as these monoliths. With that said, I would be honored if you would take one of your photos and turn it around and write a moment that you hope to accomplish in our story today. And that moment can be. Well, it should be something that is absolutely achievable, but at the same time has a potential to fail. And if you achieve this moment in the story, and it is the most visible card in front of you, I will award you with a delicious hope dice. These are 100%. You can keep these secret. These are for you. But they will have to be revealed at the time of you cashing them in, should the moment be fulfilled. In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I'd like to hear what your moment is as you introduce your character to me and everyone else at the table.

[Asha]

Oh.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Because that's what we've done already.

[Brandon]

Home.

[Marcus]

It'S the tapping.

[Brandon]

Oh, sorry.

[Marcus]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Asha]

Gosh, this is.

[Brandon]

I'm just so nervous.

[Marcus]

It's okay. To be fair, I've only recently begun to be a player and I found that I'm far more nervous being a player than I am a gm.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you were not a player at the same time as you started GMing. You would only GM.

[Marcus]

I GMed intensively when I first started doing this. And, oh, I've only been a player really at the hand full of time. So when I got to do LA by night here, I was legit, just a bucket of nerves and I was surprised how much. Maybe it's just repetition, but this is still nerve wracking, but in a much more. I control this nerve wracking environment. You know, kind of as a player.

[Timothy]

You'Re much squishier when you truly step into the shoes of your character and things are bad. Like, I don't get nervous before the game. Once I'm in the situation and I've been told that I'm probably gonna die.

[Marcus]

That's.

[Timothy]

I'm like, oh.

[Marcus]

Like many other things in life, you sometimes have to live in another person's shoes to really appreciate how you can serve that role on the other side. So, yeah. Josh, what is your moment? Who are you playing and what do you hope to create in this story?

[Timothy]

So I am playing Anthony. Tony Haller.

[Marcus]

Anthony Tony or Anthony or Tony?

[Timothy]

I prefer Tony.

[Marcus]

Tony.

[Timothy]

Okay, so Tony Haller and I previously made a living taking advantage of folks in pain. Easy marks.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Timothy]

You know, all right, so you were.

[Marcus]

A bit of a. Bit of a con man, a little.

[Timothy]

Bit of a grifter.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Timothy]

Some people say I have a comforting way about me.

[Marcus]

Okay, fair enough. And what moment do you hope to generate in this story?

[Timothy]

I hope to give true closure and peace to one creature.

[Marcus]

Okay, so you would like to actually provide comfort for someone versus it being a facade.

[Rocky]

Yes.

[Marcus]

Okay. All right, fair enough.

[Timothy]

Sounds good to set myself up for success with this.

[Marcus]

Sure, sure. All of it being a dishonest man. So, Anjali, who are you playing today?

[Asha]

So I am playing Asha Pratt.

[Marcus]

Asha.

[Asha]

I am a grief counselor by trade. Originally in the. In the.

[Marcus]

Were you like a doctor or.

[Asha]

Yeah, in the medical system. And then over the last few years before all of this happened, started to go into private business and traveling for individual work.

[Marcus]

So you were a bit of a. Not to put down anyone who's an actual grief counselor, but this is a luxury service. Or would you.

[Asha]

Yeah, it was more of a. Like Not a luxury service so much as. Originally it was people in hospitals who were psychiatrically needed to be needed. Psychiatric evaluation and help after that evaluation. And I would step in and provide them enough solace to be well. But then more recently.

[Marcus]

You're the ultimate bedside man.

[Asha]

But more recently, I have separated from the medical system, and now I am doing it more on my own, traveling to people in need.

[Marcus]

Okay, and what was the moment you hoped to create in this game?

[Asha]

I seem to live in fear of doing things wrong in my life, Anjali's life. So I hope that this is the right way to write it. But I would like to have a moment to admit freely that I have no idea what I've been doing with my life, even though my whole life has been providing solace to people and everyone around me. And I share the moment in this moment. I would share my coping mechanism that I have used over the last chunk of time.

[Marcus]

So if I'm interpreting that you basically hope to at some point let down all of your walls and then just let it all.

[Asha]

Exactly. At some point, like, yeah, take your own advice.

[Marcus]

Yeah, okay, cool. That sounds nice. Take your own advice, let down the walls, all of that makes sense. So, great, Shno, who will you be playing today?

[Rocky]

I am a purveyor of spiritually precious stones and herbs and tinctures.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Rocky]

There are people, lots of people call me Gypsy or Rocky. The dumb people call me Rocky. Nobody really knows my government name. That secret died with my mama.

[Marcus]

Okay, so you've been going by pseudonyms, wandering and traveling however you can. And what moment do you hope to generate in this?

[Rocky]

I wish I could just once in my life, truly trust myself or anyone else.

[Marcus]

So you want to trust someone? Yeah, I like that you want to trust someone. All right. Just once before you go. All right. There's a lot of distrust.

[Rocky]

I don't know why.

[Brandon]

Certainly not for you.

[Asha]

I was gonna say. Yeah.

[Timothy]

You guys are being ridiculous.

[Asha]

They look so wholesome and honest.

[Brandon]

I am extremely honorable. I don't know what yours are.

[Marcus]

All right, Jackson, who are you playing today?

[Brandon]

My name is Marcus Carver.

[Marcus]

Marcus. Okay, Carver.

[Brandon]

I. I spent most of my teens and twenties doing backup guitar and backup vocals for larger rock acts, okay? Country acts, pop acts, 98% of whom were assholes.

[Marcus]

You were a second fiddle?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I was a fifth fiddle. Got it. And a lot of that was because I wasn't willing to write about stuff I didn't care about. I wasn't willing to lie in my art. And part of that is that I Spent a lot of time lying in my personal life, and the dissonance ate me up for a long time.

[Marcus]

Got it. What moment do you hope to generate?

[Brandon]

Well, just before all this went down, I finally wrote a song that mattered, and it got me a little bit of something. And then within a week on the charts, the world ended. So I would like to find a radio somewhere in this landscape where I can play my song for whoever's still left out there.

[Marcus]

Do you have a tape with you?

[Brandon]

Do I have a tape of the song?

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

No, I'd be doing it here.

[Marcus]

You'd be doing it.

[Brandon]

I'd be doing it live.

[Marcus]

So you want to find a broadcast.

[Brandon]

That's what you write.

[Marcus]

Okay. So you don't hope to hear it, you hope to broadcast it.

[Brandon]

I hope to broadcast it.

[Marcus]

All right. I hope you don't mind if I interpret that as I want to sing one last time for an audience 1000%.

[Brandon]

I almost wrote exactly those words. Okay, so it doesn't need to be a broadcast. If the audience is corpses, then the audience is corpses.

[Timothy]

That's cheery.

[Asha]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

I'm here for you.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Asha]

At least that's success through lowered expectations.

[Timothy]

Hey, we can get your show right now.

[Marcus]

Not true, but it's perfect. But it also may not be the right moment.

[Asha]

Exactly.

[Marcus]

Then great. So we have met our crew, and we hope to have this moment. The final thing is we have to write a brink. Now, I will actually be participating in this brink with you. So, and this mostly applies to Jackson and Cheno here, what will happen is we'll take another one of our cards and we will pass them to the left. Now, what this means, Schno for you, and what this means for Jackson is that schno. I am going to write something that they have seen from you, something that they know about you. Them.

[Rocky]

The them that are they.

[Marcus]

Yes. At the same time, Jackson, you know what's coming. You will be writing something that you have seen them do, something to contribute to this world. And I implore upon you, this does not necessarily mean to mean these creatures that you may have run into or have been avoiding or been getting away from. This could also apply to the monoliths. This could apply to the moon. This could apply to other of these elements that are in play inside of this world. So I do not limit it to the proverbial them.

[Brandon]

Does it have to be something that I've seen, or can it be something that I've heard? Like observed?

[Marcus]

Yes. The observed is fine. I know.

[Brandon]

I saw is normally the thing I have seen.

[Marcus]

Yes. But in these circumstances, and we have established that because the rumor mill is strong as a result of the communication being extremely limited with what is possible, keep in mind that anything that you have heard could be construed as a rumor. Sure. Right. And it doesn't have to necessarily be a truth.

[Brandon]

Love it.

[Asha]

So when we've seen. I have seen you. Something, Something. It can be with people that weren't. That are not at this table. It can be with whomever I know. Somehow in the past, I have seen this happen.

[Marcus]

No, it's not even about that. You have to. For whoever you're passing it back to, you have to write. You have seen them. That character. Either an act, it can involve other people, it can involve you. Anything like that. But it has to be something you've seen them.

[Asha]

Not the proverbial them, but the character this guy do. And it's not. And it's just something.

[Marcus]

It's their worst moment. It's their absolute worst moment that you've seen them confer to in the book. They have a couple of examples. One of the examples is I've seen you lose it over this dead dog. You cried for three hours and I nearly left you. You know, or one is like, I've seen you worship them. I've seen you get on your knees and offer a silent prayer to them when you didn't think anyone was looking. You know, this is the. I want you to describe an action that describes the bottom of their emotional barrel. All right. Excellent.

[Timothy]

Did I do it right? If I made myself feel bad?

[Marcus]

Yes, you did. Yes.

[Brandon]

It.

[Marcus]

Thank you for that emotional prompt.

[Timothy]

Great.

[Marcus]

All right. These are secret. These will not be read. They are simply given, and they are simply true.

[Asha]

Are we allowed to. Are we allowed to see them?

[Timothy]

Yes, please.

[Marcus]

I like this one. I like a lot of them. Everyone who has delivered a brink to me so far has not disappointed me.

[Brandon]

I love the idea of a continuing 10 Candles game where the brinks are a way for each party to interact with the world. That is one of the coolest innovations I've heard you do on this game. I really like that.

[Marcus]

When we are done, I will share with you some of these other brinks.

[Brandon]

That's very cool.

[Marcus]

That'll come resulting.

[Brandon]

I'm going to steal that. I want to run an ongoing ten candles game now. I've seen you do it. I'm like, this is incredible. I've just seen you, your setup, and I'm like, wonderful.

[Marcus]

This makes me so happy.

[Timothy]

Eldritch Horror Always brings out the sunshine in me.

[Rocky]

Just saving that picture.

[Marcus]

Now, the last photo is simply for you to write. Your name, your concept, just to have a reference. If you'd like to have it for who you are, it really serves no other purpose than to be a reference card for you. It is your. It's as much of a character sheet as you will get in this game.

[Rocky]

Really shouldn't have saved my hedgehog picture. Well, I thought this one was gonna be special.

[Marcus]

Yeah, well, it is special because it's you.

[Asha]

Yeah, you say the nicest things.

[Marcus]

It's like my sugar glider photo. Great. Me too. All right, now, as you're writing these last bits, I'd like you to arrange your stacks however you'd like. Virtue's vices moments. They can go in any order you wish. The only qualifier is the brink must go on the bottom. Okay? That is the only thing. Otherwise make them as you wish. I could just drink your water.

[Brandon]

Oh, that's all right. The more gravelly my voice gets, the better this is.

[Marcus]

Anyway, yeah, not lying, especially since I've been thinking about this and I would like to add this proverbial piece of data as well, too. You have observed over the time since the monoliths have risen that the days and night cycles are getting much longer. The hours are ticking by, and your subjective time is now completely thrown off. Has anyone ever been to Alaska and been up there? Well, if you go, the closer to the upper hemisphere you get, the longer I can tell you. It's very odd to see the sun still up at 11pm as far as, like, your watch goes. Well, this is about as disorienting as that, you know, except for at this point, it being day 17, that is.

[Rocky]

Either better or worse by a day, I don't know which.

[Marcus]

It does mean that you are in the middle of your long. Of the long night cycle that you're in. And as far as, you know, subjectively, you've been awake for about three days. You know, if you can estimate. I don't know if one of you wants to make one of your equipment being a, you know, old style Swiss mechanical watch, but I can tell you it's definitely not accurate. But that type of. That kind of knowledge is what you have, as they are always out at night. Always out at night. And three days of walking and avoiding them has been taking a toll on you. You are exhausted and it's. Well, I mean, they do say that it takes about six days of no sleep for someone to succumb. You can literally die from being awake for too long. It is possible. So I don't think you're there yet, but you are definitely past the point in which anyone has pulled any kind of all nighter on any kind of project or report. And I've had to power through 72 hours.

[Rocky]

I've only ever done it on drugs.

[Marcus]

Right. And you don't even have the benefit of having that kind of adrenaline boosting through your system. So.

[Rocky]

But fear, it's a good motivator.

[Marcus]

It's the only reason you've been able to stay awake for this long. So we will start our story here. As you walk through the southern. Well, southern outskirts of what City.

[Brandon]

Of Las Vegas.

[Marcus]

Just out of Vegas.

[Asha]

Just out of Vegas.

[Marcus]

Great. So that I 15 that takes you past and down past the new stadium towards where the. There's that rock formation that's still up there. I'm trying to remember what it's called something heavens, like the eight heavens or something like that. But that was pretty much the last bit of true refuge. And the only reason that you even were able to tell them is because they were painted these incredibly bright non primary colors, these neon. It was some Swedish artists that just put it all down. But since the earthquakes they are tumbled and seem to just be broken rocks that are now scattered and dust all over the side of the highway. What do you do?

[Timothy]

Other vehicles around?

[Marcus]

There is a freeway and there's roads. Would you like to look for a car?

[Asha]

Yeah, yeah. Or anything.

[Rocky]

Just curious what's become of cars? Whenever this thing happened, when this thing went down, people in cars, how were they affected by this?

[Marcus]

Cause.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Rocky]

Like how does that work?

[Marcus]

So you've. Every car that you've started up to this point has not turned over. And it's not one of those. Oh.

[Rocky]

Cause it was like an EMP or something. Right.

[Marcus]

All the electronics. Yeah. And even some of the. Well frankly, let's call it at this point you haven't run into anything that hasn't had some kind of computer chip inside of it at this stage. It is Vegas, of course. So everything's either battery powered or has some kind of onboard computer that is highly reliant upon it not being shielded. So is that something you just want to continue? Excuse me. Is that something you just want to continue doing? Is looking for a old muscle car or some kind of clunker?

[Asha]

Cause are there just like cars lined up on the freeway just sitting there?

[Marcus]

So the crazy part about how this EMP hit is it basically froze technology on the spot. And that's when the monolith started rising, and that's when people started disappearing. So to paint a stronger picture in your head, these freeways, they don't look much different than if you were driving up the 15 to go visit a weekend in Vegas. But everything, it's not like what you would expect in a post collapse society where there's like traffic jams all laid up and people are off roading and trying to get around, to get anywhere around it. It's just like every car stopped where they were. So they've all. And they all either coasted and found a resting point. So everything looks like it just laid down and took a nap as far as cars are concerned.

[Rocky]

And then undoubtedly a lot of people got out of their cars. And when they get out of their.

[Marcus]

Cars, we don't know. There are certainly no people around you.

[Brandon]

Nor bodies in the cars.

[Marcus]

Nor bodies in the cars.

[Asha]

Can we. How much can we see? How far can we see in front of us? It is night, right?

[Marcus]

But the moon is so bright. It is illuminating the way that you would expect a full moon to provide. But it is so much brighter, like two or three times to the point of where you are in a. I mean, I would say that if you've ever been into like a dim room with low fluorescent light that's constantly humming or like when you set a dimmer on the very lowest amount, but there's still that recognizing amount of light that is all around you, and it is beautiful. It's like if you've. For all of us film geeks out there, it's like if someone just blasted on an HMI and put it over the entire world, it's only gonna make sense to like 15% of it.

[Brandon]

I'm on it.

[Marcus]

Yeah, but you're walking, and this is an opportunity. You're out of Vegas, so whatever you wish to do is yours.

[Brandon]

I look back at Vegas for a moment. If we can see that far still.

[Marcus]

You can see the dried husks of the buildings. That is once the city of lights.

[Brandon]

Did a monolith rise?

[Marcus]

Oh. Oh. Why don't you tell me where it rose? Is it in the city? Is it in the outskirts?

[Brandon]

Oh, no. A monolith rose right in the center.

[Marcus]

May we be poetic for just a moment and say that it went right through the Luxor Tower. I love it.

[Rocky]

That was exactly.

[Brandon]

I love it.

[Rocky]

I'm like, mm. And then you're like, mm.

[Brandon]

I'm like, mm. The pyramid shattered around it and sort of a crumbled mass where it once stood. And where that light once extended high up into the heavens now is a black spire.

[Marcus]

And when I. When he's. Monoliths. We are talking about an Empire State building for each monolith hundred stories tall.

[Rocky]

Do we only see the one?

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Asha]

How many of them are there?

[Marcus]

Is one on each horizon. This globe has been pinheaded with monoliths everywhere.

[Asha]

So can we see any other ones from where we can just see that one.

[Marcus]

You can see that one. You can see one to your direct, so in front of you, but slightly off to the left, AKA your southeast. And you can see one also in front of you, but directly to your right, AKA your southwest. So if you're walking directly south from Vegas, you're basically walking in between the pillars of two monoliths that you can see in the far distance.

[Asha]

Better than walking towards monoliths. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Timothy]

Do any cars appear to break the pattern of the slowed, calm, resting? What do you want to do with those?

[Marcus]

I want you to roll those dice. Josh. Anthony. Josh.

[Asha]

Hey. It had to start somewhere.

[Marcus]

Kudos to Anthony. As you're scouring the freeway looking for a bunch of sixes, which you got several. Four. You only needed one. You didn't have to overkill so hard.

[Timothy]

I found all the cars.

[Rocky]

Great job, Tony.

[Marcus]

This one belongs to me, so I will hold onto that for future rolls. The good news is this is the first roll you get to take narrative rights. So why don't you please tell me how this conflict is resolved in your favor.

[Rocky]

Can we make suggestions, or is it entirely up to him?

[Marcus]

Know your place. No, no, Rocky, when it is time, you will have an opportunity to be able to resolve a conflict, and should you succeed, is absolutely yours. But for now, this is completely Tony's territory. Yes, it is a fair question. I just like making fun of you. Yes.

[Rocky]

Sorry.

[Timothy]

So while we're kind of working our way down the highway and picking through cars, trying to find just useful items, I kind of wander off to the side and up on a large rock formation. Slowly, carefully, of course, staying within eye line. But about 100 yards down, I see a car that appears to have pulled off of the freeway and gone an extra, we'll say 60, 70ft past anything.

[Marcus]

We'Ve seen so far. More than the standard coasting that you expect when you see a vehicle.

[Timothy]

Yeah, there was something else happening in the driver's side door. Actually. All the doors are open.

[Marcus]

All the doors are open. Okay, great. So you walk over to the car or it's not.

[Timothy]

I'm going to flag them. I'm not doing this on my own.

[Marcus]

So please elaborate and tell me what you'd like to do.

[Timothy]

So I work my way back to the other three. I think that I may have found a car. I don't know if you guys have. Everything seems to have stayed where it. Where it was. But up ahead I see a car that seems to have pulled off the road and gone farther than anything else that we've passed by since leaving Vegas. Like it might actually work.

[Asha]

Is there any sign of anyone around it or anyone who it might belong to?

[Timothy]

All the doors were open. That's all I could see from here.

[Brandon]

I think we're well after property rights.

[Asha]

Less worried about that than people who might have walked away to try to find some help and are expecting to be able to come back to their car.

[Rocky]

Or worse than that, armed.

[Timothy]

Should we at least go look?

[Asha]

Let's go look.

[Brandon]

I'm overlooking.

[Marcus]

So at this point, you feel the ground slightly reverberate. It's an aftershock. This has been pretty consistent. You've been feeling them every once in a while ever since the majority 8.8. Anywhere from 7 to 8.8 magnitude earthquakes have been hitting everywhere you are. Occasionally there seems to only be a few minutes of actual sturdy ground before you're feeling some kind of aftershock. So you tilt and sway a little bit as you're on the top of your rock. But you jump down. At this point, it's more nauseating than everything. Especially with as little sleep as you've been getting. It's so disorienting just having the Earth constantly troll you the way that it is.

[Rocky]

How long has it been since the major quakes? How long have we been in?

[Marcus]

I would probably say you hit another one yesterday. Subjectively, you know, in the last 12 hours you felt another major earthquake. And that was one of your reasons for getting the hell out of Las Vegas. Because the building were just starting to come down around you.

[Brandon]

Let's get to the goddamn car, guys.

[Asha]

Let's go.

[Timothy]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

So you get over to where the car is and you can see that the doors are wide open. And you see that whatever has been inside of it has just been pulled and stripped out. It seems like they've left nothing left inside of it.

[Brandon]

Is the radio still working?

[Marcus]

You'd have to turn the ignition to see if there was in there.

[Brandon]

I immediately walk around towards the driver's side and check in the ignition to see if there's a key left in it.

[Marcus]

Okay. So you look over to the car and you see if you can find a key.

[Brandon]

You just took all the sixes from the keys.

[Timothy]

I know. I'm so sorry.

[Brandon]

We're doomed anyway.

[Asha]

Oh, okay.

[Marcus]

Two ones for me, but one six for you. Let me roll my one dice to see if I can steal narrative control from you. I cannot.

[Brandon]

Huzzah.

[Marcus]

So, Marcus, please tell me what happens.

[Brandon]

So as I get closer to the driver's side, I look into the ignition slot, and the key is not there, but I look up and I can see sort of dangling from the.

[Marcus]

Someone really did that thing, huh? Yeah, they did that thing where they put it.

[Brandon]

But there's the key there. But it's actually. There's a keychain that's dropping down, and the keychain has a. It's one of those hotel keychains. It's got an address for a little hotel.

[Marcus]

Several.

[Brandon]

Yeah, several miles off strip, in fact, maybe even down the 15. I don't know this area all that well. Right. But I sort of pull it out, and without looking much at the thing, I take that off and I toss it to you. You know that place?

[Rocky]

As it happened, I stayed there on the way in.

[Brandon]

I think maybe they've got. I don't know anybody else like you, knows their way around without technology. They help us out.

[Rocky]

I think that's being very presumptive, first off. But maybe. Maybe anything's possible right now. Well, this is the best lead we got.

[Brandon]

And I pull the key and I. And I put it up. We have a chance to get the hell out of here. But the minute that we turn this.

[Asha]

On, we gotta go as fast as we can. If we turn it on.

[Brandon]

I'm only doing this if we all agree we're gonna do this.

[Rocky]

I'm in.

[Asha]

We look around, you still don't see any sign of any other human that might come grab.

[Marcus]

It's so the desert is quiet. You can hear the chirping of crickets and the silentness that is the desert. I mean, you can. People have been out in the desert before.

[Brandon]

Look, I spent. Marcus is clearly like his anxiety is kind of taking over a little bit. So I spent a year in Amsterdam, and the car racing there is out of this world. I spent some time behind a wheel. You have no idea how fast I can take this thing. If you just all get in the goddamn car. Let's get out of here, please. It's too quiet. They are coming.

[Asha]

Let's do it. I get in. I'll get in the backseat and I just.

[Timothy]

Can I have just one minute? This is a stupid test, but I'm gonna do it anyway. I want to gather two or three of the largest rocks I can find and just heave them as far away as possible, but, like in sequence.

[Brandon]

Oh, smart.

[Marcus]

Okay, so you just want to heave a bunch that's coming into it. Yes, please, please, please, please, please heave some rocks to see what you can do.

[Asha]

Six.

[Marcus]

Two sixes. No ones.

[Timothy]

Great.

[Marcus]

So in the circumstance, I get a chance for an area of control. I get one six, but you have two. So in this circumstance, Please, you can narrate, but if you would like, I can tell you what happens as a result of the.

[Timothy]

I want that one.

[Marcus]

Okay, Anthony, you take these two. And in the desert, it is not hard to find a boulder bigger than your hand. And so you kind of grasp it and you get as much as you can to get as much momentum as possible. But there is also a thing in which you are not a world class shot putter. So the amount of distance you would like to be able to get on this is good. But you basically hear it thump onto the ground. And the thing that I want to make abundantly clear about this territory is that you originally might imagine a clear, flat desert with the hillsides that are part of this mountain. That's part of where Las Vegas comes into its flat desert area. But the earthquakes have done a lot to reshape and misshape this land around you. So you hear it crack and you actually watch as one of them thunk into a small crevasse. And you do hear it as it continues to go down what appears to be a deep, deep hole that was just over the ridge side that you couldn't see because it was facing towards you.

[Asha]

Like where we would be driving.

[Marcus]

Not necessarily.

[Asha]

Okay, okay.

[Marcus]

But definitely within chucking of rock distance. And as a result, you do stop as you hear the sound of the rocks closing and coming around. Nothing.

[Asha]

Well, that's as good a sign as any. But now that we've made some noise, I really, I really want to get out of here.

[Brandon]

Get in the car. Get in the car. Get in the car now. Come on.

[Rocky]

Wait, wait, wait just one second before we get in this thing and tear off like we're in the middle of Amsterdam. What's the road like?

[Marcus]

Like I mentioned, it's definitely navigable, but you're going to be doing a whole lot of swerving and moving and not straight.

[Asha]

Yes, but we also have enough light from the moon that we can see absolutely in front of us.

[Marcus]

Yes. So you, Marcus, you get in, you know, Rocky's making these last minute, kind of like, what are we doing before? But he's also saying this as he is sitting in the car in this circumstance. And you pop the engine and you hear it turn. You hear it turn, and it.

[Brandon]

Come on, come on.

[Marcus]

Make it start.

[Timothy]

White knuckling on the little. Like whatever those hand holds are for.

[Brandon]

Tragedy.

[Marcus]

Three ones. No sixes. You do have an option, of course, to burn. If you'd like to take one of your virtues and get those 31 rerolls. Or we can end the scene right now.

[Brandon]

I would just reroll those three ones.

[Marcus]

Right? You would just reroll those three ones.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

It feels.

[Brandon]

It actually really works. So my vice is on top.

[Marcus]

Yes. What is your vice?

[Brandon]

My vice is that I'm a compulsive liar.

[Marcus]

Great.

[Brandon]

Which turns out I've already done. I've never been to Amsterdam. I don't know how to drive a car, but I really want to get the hell out of here.

[Marcus]

So you have no idea how to drive a car?

[Brandon]

Nope.

[Marcus]

Great. Reroll those three ones.

[Brandon]

I can drive a car. I have no idea how to, you know, drive. Put me in a Fast and furious movie. I'm screwed.

[Marcus]

Okay, all right. We'll get there.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly.

[Marcus]

See how it is?

[Brandon]

Six and a one and a one.

[Asha]

Okay, but still the six, right?

[Brandon]

Yeah, but he's got a great chance to.

[Marcus]

Nope. I will take narrative control. You. You feel this thing kind of pip up, and it is definitely a muscle car. You have picked an old roadster that is running solely on what it is, and you feel this thing kind of rev to life, and you pop it into drive, and you feel and you hear as the dust just screeches around you as you kick up a whole pile of dust and you tear off. Which direction?

[Brandon]

So over the ridge, we've got. Help me understand the direction of the road. Cause I know we're heading south.

[Marcus]

There's the road that goes south. So there's the 15, which heads south. Okay. And then you go through Vegas. I described this little rock formation, which is slightly off to the side. So you are in between anywhere from a small paved but off freeway road and the actual freeway itself.

[Asha]

And what about the monoliths? The monoliths, Are they on either side of the road?

[Marcus]

Basically, they are on either side of.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

So by driving south, you will be driving in between the monoliths. If you go back north to check out whatever this hotel situation is, you'll be heading back north into the city.

[Brandon]

Oh, and probably best we just keep heading south. I.

[Marcus]

It was the direction the car was facing was south.

[Brandon]

Yeah, but I just go forward.

[Marcus]

Okay. You just peel forward and you begin to feel. As your car begins to move forward, it's rocking and it's bumping and you realize you are driving on four flat tires. As much as you're going through. And it just is digging and you hear it, but it is moving. It is 100% going forward. It just is a rocky, awful ride. And as you begin to get farther down the road, you can hear as the squealing of the metal is beginning to just as it's digging into small parts of the pavement. But you keep driving and at this point, I highly doubt you care about the integrity of this car as you're basically riding on rims on the dirt.

[Asha]

I do put on my seatbelt.

[Marcus]

Good. As you begin to tear, just creases. It's almost like you're taking a pizza cutter to the freeway at this point as you tear down into it and you can hear the gravel and it is the loudest thing you have. You're making so much noise in your life. And at that point you can start to see in the moonlight shadows.

[Asha]

They're coming. They're coming, just moving across.

[Marcus]

Right now you see them off in the distance. They appear to be only about quarter size in the horizon, but the moon illuminates them very well. And you can see that while many of them have, some of them have been lifted up in this kind of meerkat looking position, a lot of them have down and you've even watched a few of them just dive straight.

[Asha]

A few of them, as in we are seeing more than two.

[Marcus]

We are seeing multiple shadows moving across the desert skyline.

[Asha]

Do we know if it's better if we stop and hide or if it's better if we just go where the.

[Brandon]

Hell are we supposed supposed to hide?

[Marcus]

So you screech, tell me if there's anything you want to do, please. By all means.

[Rocky]

There's other cars that we're passing.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'm fully focused just on keeping us on the road.

[Marcus]

Yeah, there is. You are passing cars, I would say riding on rims, you're probably going at most 20 miles an hour.

[Asha]

Do they seem to be gaining on us?

[Marcus]

What's that?

[Asha]

Do they seem to be gaining?

[Marcus]

Very hard to tell when at this point you've just seen. It's almost like watching o shark fin in the distance pop out in the water. It's not there, but it's hard to miss. These abominations as they are just in the desert skyline.

[Rocky]

You know what, guys? We're at least safer in this car, right?

[Asha]

I don't know. Can they swallow the car whole?

[Timothy]

I don't know. That's true.

[Asha]

Rocky, you're still. Just keep driving. Keep driving while we're talking. Yeah, it's already loud enough we can obviously talk full voice. You guys, we have to go somewhere.

[Timothy]

Have you guys ever seen when they jump out of a car in a movie? Tuck and roll. Seems like maybe the move and just let this thing fly.

[Brandon]

You think they follow the car and just leave us?

[Asha]

They follow the sound and the movement. If we can get somewhere where we make no noise.

[Brandon]

Who's got a brick? Anybody got anything I can put on this gas? Just so it keeps going as long as we can get.

[Rocky]

I got some sage in my pack. We can wedge it down.

[Brandon]

And I reach back. Give it to me. Give it to me now. I'll do what I can, but we gotta keep at pace.

[Marcus]

You hand him the sage, the giant bag.

[Brandon]

I take the bag and I shove it under my foot, stick it there. And.

[Marcus]

Let'S check the integrity of the sage a little bit, huh?

[Asha]

That's good.

[Marcus]

That's fine. One one. No sixes.

[Rocky]

Story of my life right there. One one.

[Marcus]

You have an option if you wish. It's just one reroll, though.

[Rocky]

I can just give him my whole pack. Well.

[Asha]

I have an umbrella. I have an umbrella in my bag.

[Brandon]

Well, I think a failure.

[Marcus]

It's already been done. There's a failure and it has occurred. So you have an option to roll this or not?

[Rocky]

No. No.

[Marcus]

We will end the scene immediately.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Marcus]

All right. So good news. You're back up to nine dice. But first, we have to speak some truths about what is happening in this world. First, the world is dark. And with that, Rocky, you get to speak our first truth as the person who rolled the failed conflict. In this circumstance, knowing of course that the conflict failed.

[Rocky]

There's no unbroken path between here and safety.

[Marcus]

Everything. The road is torn up.

[Rocky]

Yeah, Great.

[Marcus]

Going clockwise, the car is out of gas.

[Brandon]

We run into the desert.

[Anthony]

Greetings, adventurers. Folks, let me tell you, summer is just around the corner, lurking and waiting. And the folks at Mint Mobile have a piping hot take. Getting a summer baud is out. And getting your savings bod is in. Now, this spring and summer, we want skimpy wireless bills and fat wallets. And with premium wireless plans for just 15 bucks a month, you can have both without breaking a sweat or the bank and folks, let me tell you, I used to have a fat wireless bill and a skimpy wallet and life was miserable with one of those other carriers. Seriously though, my bill was atrocious. It was crushing me. I felt like Giles Corey in Arthur Miller's the Crucible. Read a book or see a play.

[Marcus]

I'm begging you.

[Anthony]

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[Brandon]

As far as our legs can take us before exhaustion forces us to stop in a small cave.

[Marcus]

You find respite in a small cave. As far as your legs can carry you. That's fine, Anthony.

[Timothy]

We're not alone in this cave.

[Asha]

As we were running, I saw one of the creatures devour the car.

[Marcus]

Awesome. So what's with the fifth? Please, you're next.

[Rocky]

I saw, not far down the road from where we were in the cave, a travel trailer.

[Marcus]

Travel trailer.

[Rocky]

Like a motorhome.

[Marcus]

Oh, in the desert skyline. Great.

[Rocky]

On the freeway.

[Marcus]

Oh, on the freeway.

[Rocky]

Right.

[Marcus]

Not in the desert. So you saw a motorhome on the freeway. You all left so fast. You left all of your provisions in the car. 7.

[Brandon]

It takes only 15 minutes of us trying to sleep before we hear the breathing in the cave. We all know we're not alone.

[Marcus]

Okay, and Anthony, you get the last one. What's going on here?

[Timothy]

There is the sound of water in this cave.

[Marcus]

There's water in the cave. All right.

[Timothy]

There's the sound. I don't want to be too generous.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Timothy]

Or too evil.

[Rocky]

We just need to go a little deeper into the cave. Yeah. With the breathing to get the water.

[Marcus]

Great. So we will pick up our scene with nine dice and in this cave in which we'll start this scene kind of exactly how you described it, Marcus. This is that you sat there, you ran, you were exhausted. All of galactic acid is just burning your muscles. And whatever little amount you had, you ran for all of your life is worth. And you ostensibly all collapsed inside of this cave. None of you even thinking about it. Came to a point where you started to fall asleep. And that's when you started to hear the breathing.

[Timothy]

I don't hear that. You guys don't hear that either, right?

[Rocky]

Oh, yeah, I hear it.

[Asha]

I can't tell if that even sounds like a person.

[Brandon]

My eyes scan the darkness.

[Marcus]

You are broken by how little light is able to make it into this cave. And just the contrast of the moon is so intense that it is like you have nothing in here. And your night vision while sitting in here does not go deep enough into the cave for you to tell what exactly is making this kind of breathing sound.

[Asha]

You have nothing with us.

[Marcus]

You have.

[Asha]

I mean, what's on our bodies is what we have.

[Marcus]

Well, what is ever on the. What is ever on your skin is what you have. You ran with such vigor that you left your provisions in the car.

[Rocky]

Nothing good comes from that.

[Asha]

That's.

[Timothy]

It sounds a herd.

[Asha]

It sounds like a person. It sounds like a. Someone hurt.

[Brandon]

Those. We don't know what those things can do. It could be m. It could be mimicking a person.

[Rocky]

Nothing. Nothing good comes if it's a person. If it ain't a person, it's nothing good.

[Asha]

So what are you saying? We leave the cave? Where do we go?

[Brandon]

I saw.

[Marcus]

I saw.

[Rocky]

Not too far. Not too far. If we could go quietly. I saw a motorhome. And that motorhome's gotta be stocked. They were on vacation. They were coming back from vacation. Something. They've got provisions in there.

[Asha]

Unless it's been looted already.

[Marcus]

He just said water.

[Brandon]

Hello? Hello, Marcus? If they're hurt, we can't leave them.

[Marcus]

The voice is continuing to moan and breathe. And it's having. It's not really answering your call, but it does seem to. The slight amount of breathing that you're hearing, it does seem that it is making any kind of attempt to be louder than what it is. But it's so. It's so weak.

[Asha]

I'm going with Marcus. Yeah, let's go. See.

[Marcus]

So as you stand up very slowly, very, very slow. So Anthony and Rocky, as you.

[Timothy]

I'm going with.

[Marcus]

Oh, you're going with? Yeah. Okay.

[Rocky]

I'm going for shit.

[Marcus]

So, Rocky, as you watch as Asha, Anthony and Marcus stand up, you find yourself from their perspective illuminated by this backlight of moon. As your body slowly gets farther and farther away as they make their way deeper into the cave, you find that the cave is not very deep. It doesn't go too far. In fact, you only walk about another 10, maybe 8ft or so before you can hear the breathing getting louder. And you see something lying on the floor, cradled in a fetal position, just propped up against a couple of rocks. You can see he's wearing hardly any clothing, just a small bit of torn cloth, ripped up jean shorts that just seem to be barely covering his emaciated naked form. And he is just lying there. And you can hear him now that you're closer, just slowly repeating. Water.

[Asha]

Can we hear where the water in the can we hear where the water in the cave is. We heard water. Right?

[Marcus]

You do hear Is probably what drew him here. But you cannot tell in this light where the water is coming from. It's that whisper of something close by. And you. I mean, you'd have to dig for it, look for it, search for it. With this as your background harmony.

[Asha]

I'll search for it. The only one that hasn't rolled.

[Timothy]

Start pawn around the cave.

[Asha]

Can fit all these dice in my hand. Okay. Well, that one didn't do well. Okay, that's a few sixs.

[Marcus]

Many sixes. No ones.

[Asha]

No ones.

[Marcus]

Great. All right, Asha, please tell me what happens.

[Asha]

So as I hear him say water, I'm immediately kind of galvanized into, we have to do something. And I start walking along the side of the cave and putting my hands up, both to figure out where I am, but to feel for any kind of trickle of water. And as I do, I get to. I get to a spot, and I feel a stream of water coming down in the cave, up against the. You know, up against the wall. And there's enough that I can definitely scoop it in my hands.

[Marcus]

So it's more like a. It's more like a film than it is truly like a stream. But when you try to put your hand as flush against it, you do feel the soft, cold water kind of come into your hand. And the first thing it does is it just wipes away the caked dust that's accumulated from being out into the desert. Then you slowly, as moments pass, and you can continue to hear the right as it cups slowly.

[Asha]

Right. It cups slowly. And I say, can you tell where he is? Can you. Can you tell where he is?

[Brandon]

I guide you to him. I'm here. I'm here. I've got him. I've bent down sort of next to the form.

[Marcus]

Yeah, we got you.

[Brandon]

We got you, man.

[Asha]

Come here, Asha. I come over, and I start to pour the water.

[Marcus]

Yeah. By the time you get over to there with your hands cupped the way they are, a lot of the water does slowly start to drip away, but you get a few precious drops into his mouth.

[Rocky]

I wouldn't drink it.

[Marcus]

You kind of feel Marcus as you get close to him. You kind of feel or look at him get this wet water on his lips, and he grabs your arms with as much strength as he possibly can, and he just takes your hand, and he just starts licking it and just putting as much of the moisture into his mouth as he possibly can. It's amazing. His small emaciated form can hold so much strength onto him.

[Asha]

And as he grabs, I just go, get more, get more, get more for him. Get more.

[Brandon]

Okay, okay. I run over and I also cup some water in my hand.

[Marcus]

So you kind of chain it back in a very similar reaction. He just is so water starved at this point that he is just putting as much of it in there as he possibly can. And you can feel that every drop is counting for something. Am I dead? Is this. Is this it? Am I finally tasting respite?

[Asha]

No, we're here. You're not dead.

[Rocky]

We'll be.

[Asha]

Stop it.

[Rocky]

You don't know what that's been gunning through the rocks.

[Timothy]

Rocky, you tell us. What. Come on, man.

[Asha]

All of you, stop it. Stop it. Drink, drink. Just drink. Don't talk.

[Marcus]

Takes a little bit as it can, and it's. It's a frustrating process getting him this water.

[Timothy]

I'm gonna lean down, put my hand on his shoulder and try to guide him as best I can to where the water is.

[Marcus]

Okay. So you kinda get there and you do guide him to it. And now that he is there and can basically do this kid at a water fountain kind of motion, he kind of goes into it and in between lard, he slowly goes. God, thank you. I had hardly anything left. I heard the water and I just couldn't move. In fact, you can see he's. I mean, to your point, Rocky, he is not much longer for this world, even with the little amount of water that he has. But you can tell that whatever you're doing is giving him something. Goes. Hey, I heard the water and I had to try. I'm.

[Rocky]

Thank you.

[Marcus]

Thank you so much.

[Brandon]

Hammond. Where. How did you. How did you get all the way out here? You come from Vegas?

[Marcus]

What? What?

[Brandon]

I'm sorry, Vegas? Did you come from Las Vegas, where we came from?

[Marcus]

No. Yes. No, I came down from Vegas. Yes. Whatever is left of that torn up city. I. I'm so sorry. I can't think very straight right now. It's.

[Asha]

Put my hand on his shoulder and say, do you know your name?

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

No.

[Marcus]

I'm Samson.

[Asha]

Samson.

[Marcus]

Samson? Yes.

[Asha]

Samson. I'm Asha.

[Marcus]

Oh, God.

[Asha]

It's very nice to meet you.

[Marcus]

I didn't think there was people left in the world. Asha. Thank you. I got. He goes in for another deep drink of water as he can. He goes, I'm. I, Asha. And he kind of grabs your hand and leans into you and goes, I am a coward, Asha. I should have died in this cave. There's. There's no Reason for me to be here right now, I should be dead.

[Asha]

I lean into his pole and I put my hand on his hand so he knows I'm not pulling away from him. And I say, you don't have to worry about that right now. You don't have to worry about anything right now. Let yourself let that go. You're here and you're with us, and that's all you need to know.

[Marcus]

And this very soothing tone that you're using as you get him into this place of just relaxation with the water and with this tone you kind of watch as even before the last words escape from your lips, he just finds a place to drift slowly into sleep. And he leans his head against the wall, keeping that film of water against his face. And he is just out 100%. I mean, as much as a man who has found a last grasp can.

[Asha]

I pull my hand away from him. And I look up and I say, we should check if he has anything in this cave.

[Brandon]

We can't let him just go to sleep. If we leave him here, he dies. If we.

[Asha]

I didn't say anything about leaving him here. While he's resting, let's see what is in this place. I'm not asking to abandon anyone. I would not do that. I am asking to look around and see what is in this cave that he may have brought in with him that may help us all get out of here.

[Timothy]

Did you see his jorts? There's no way he got in here with anything. He ran for his life. That was it. This is it. He is it.

[Rocky]

He's a liability is what he is.

[Brandon]

I'm wondering if he's the man who came in with that tractor trailer or.

[Asha]

That travel trailer, the motorhome.

[Brandon]

What I'm trying to. What I'm. I keep looking at the body.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Asha]

Just make sure he's not like that.

[Brandon]

What I am trying to determine is whether or not if we take that we are stealing from this guy, dying man or not.

[Asha]

If he ran in here looking for water, he didn't have much else.

[Timothy]

And in his shape, he's not gonna be using anything.

[Brandon]

We can't just leave him here. It doesn't matter what shape he's in. He's dead or he's one of us.

[Asha]

You're absolutely right. We can't leave him here.

[Rocky]

No. Because. Is he walking anywhere? No. All right, then that means we're carrying him somewhere, which means that we're going slower and louder, which means we're easier to catch. So one can die as God Intended or all of us can die. I'm gonna opt for a.

[Asha]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've helped a lot of people through the end. He has comfort right now. He has what he looked for, but he already knows he's not going to make it. I actually think we have to do what Rocky says.

[Rocky]

Said no one ever.

[Timothy]

He's dying no matter what we do. So I say, you know, had we just passed by the cave, had our tires not been blown out, he'd be dead anyway. We're not changing the course of history, but we might live.

[Asha]

But we have given him some comfort as he goes.

[Rocky]

Or poison stop, maybe.

[Asha]

Well, either way, that happened, then he is put out of his misery.

[Marcus]

Sooner we run off that road.

[Brandon]

We don't run from those things. We end up under another car and hiding. And some band of other people walk past us and they've got an ability to help us. And you just forgive them for passing you by because you're already dead. That's not how this works. You don't leave people behind.

[Timothy]

Hey, Marcus. Why don't you tell me where your food is? Where my food is? Where their food is. What we had on us. Where is it?

[Asha]

Marcus, I know how much you want to do this, and I do too. I really, really do. I feel what you're feeling. But we have to think about the bigger picture here. He's not going to make it no matter what we do. We don't have a hospital. We don't have a way to save him. We have a way to guide him to whatever is next in the world. He's in this cave and they're not coming for him here.

[Brandon]

There's a long pause and then there's medicine in that travel trailer. This is on you. And I just walk out towards the entrance of the entrance of the cave.

[Asha]

If there's medicine in the travel trailer, we can come back.

[Marcus]

So is that the destination right now? Or are we going to try to make the long walk into the travel trailer?

[Asha]

I'm going to tear off a piece of my scarf, which is already ragged and stained and anything and everything, and leave it with him. Soak some of it with him so that he can get more. If he ends up moving, he can get more.

[Marcus]

So as you begin to walk slowly over toward.

[Timothy]

Good. Leaving him there, I'm gonna stick in the entrance.

[Asha]

Okay, good. Good idea. That's a good idea. Because if he wakes up and he's alone, he's gonna need someone. And we'll be Back. We'll just check out the trailer.

[Marcus]

Okay?

[Timothy]

I'm not saying we take him. I'm just saying we don't leave him this way.

[Asha]

Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're absolutely right.

[Marcus]

So, Anthony, as you kind of stay at the entrance and you watch as your three compatriots continue to walk off and you can see the trailer, it is within your eyeline. It just is. It's just kind of a miniature in your vision. So I'm not great with distances, but you're probably looking at at least a quarter of a mile if that far, you know, that's far away.

[Asha]

I'm wishing I was the one who stayed back. And you went, no, mostly because, look, let's look at the four of us. I'm not exactly the brawny one. I'm not exactly the one who's gonna be much use somewhere else.

[Brandon]

But you are the one who knows medicine from not fair.

[Marcus]

And you begin the walk and you are comforted by the sound of your boots just trudging into the desert, which has become incredibly familiar at this point. The sores of your torn up shoes are beginning to rub and chafe against the calluses that you've been developing as you've done these miles and miles of walking. And you're starting to feel that the sweat as a result of the adrenaline is now providing a brisk, deepening chill. As the wind brisks over you and starts to chill your skin. You walk and you continue to walk as you get closer and closer to the trailer. And every once in a while you will see some movement, just something, and you'll freeze and you'll lock up and you'll wait before you start moving again by movement.

[Asha]

What are we.

[Marcus]

Just movement. Anything, like just a moment. It could have been a bird, it could have been a rabbit running through it could have been one of them.

[Brandon]

But Eric is one of them.

[Rocky]

Because the animals are. We've seen.

[Asha]

We don't know. We haven't seen animals.

[Marcus]

There has been less and less animals as the days have gone by.

[Rocky]

Okay.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Rocky]

But there are. We have seen visually some jackrabbits or whatever.

[Marcus]

Yes. Okay. Whether you've seen one in the last 12 hours or so.

[Rocky]

Right.

[Marcus]

Is left to interpretation. But you do make it over to the trailer and you did get closer and you notice that it is a long kind of streamliner with a hub. And you do see that there is a small pop up shed that's not too far from it. If there was an area where there was a car Parked. It is long gone.

[Asha]

I reach down and pick up the closest hand sized rock and I nod like, grab yourself something just in case to both of you.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I reach down and grab a long sharp rock.

[Marcus]

Yeah. All right. You all arm yourself with rocks as you walk up to this streamliner. So there is a shed and there is this motorhome which is the target first.

[Rocky]

So I'm trying to understand the shed. The shed's on like on the side of the road. What do you mean the shed?

[Marcus]

So the motorhome. If I'm. If I'm imagining this being out in the desert, the way that it is off of a dirt road, I'm literally imagining like a almost non existent fence.

[Rocky]

Oh. Where it was like parked.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay.

[Marcus]

I thought you were. I'm sorry if you were originally mentioned. Part of your truth was a motorhome that was literally on the road.

[Rocky]

The freeway?

[Marcus]

Yes, on the freeway.

[Rocky]

That's what I was imagining.

[Marcus]

That's fine.

[Rocky]

We can alter.

[Marcus]

Your truth is welcome to carry into that. But if we can stick with this or we can go to the road.

[Brandon]

Let's stick with it.

[Rocky]

Great. Yeah, it's fine.

[Marcus]

Off on the dirt road, you do see this motorhome and there is a tiny. Like I said, it's basically four pieces of plywood that have been nail gunned together.

[Rocky]

Gotcha. Gotcha.

[Marcus]

All right. That somehow has managed to stay upright despite all the earthquakes.

[Asha]

So can we sort of see what's. We have to pick one or the other.

[Marcus]

The moonlight is giving you an illumination of the closed shed. What is inside of it? You would only have to tell by going inside. Likewise, the motorhome appears to be closed at the moment.

[Asha]

I don't like either of these.

[Brandon]

I look at you.

[Rocky]

I'll nod towards the shed.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Marcus]

Right. You go over to the shed and you do see that it has a padlock on it. It is definitely locked.

[Asha]

But you could ostensibly break the lock with our stones. It would make quite a sound.

[Brandon]

Anybody know how to pick a lock?

[Rocky]

Make a lot? Hell no. But hinges have screws.

[Marcus]

Mm.

[Rocky]

Are hinges on the outside or inside?

[Marcus]

How about this? How about we just make a roll?

[Asha]

Since this is a fair conflict, fairly an engineering role.

[Marcus]

None.

[Timothy]

Anthony's losing his mind just hearing like distant shuffling. I'm like. I'm like already tensed up for the sound of a rock hitting a lock.

[Rocky]

I have famously bad luck with rock.

[Asha]

No, don't say that. Don't say that.

[Brandon]

Yeah, great.

[Marcus]

The right.

[Timothy]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

Except.

[Brandon]

Hey, yay.

[Asha]

You only get one.

[Marcus]

Great.

[Asha]

You get four sixes.

[Marcus]

This is all you, Rocky. Why don't you tell me what happens?

[Rocky]

Yeah. As it happens, the hinges are on the outside and a couple of the screws are already rusted out. So should be pretty easy to. If we can just find something to wedge in there.

[Marcus]

Okay, I've already got a sharp rock.

[Rocky]

I'll hand you the sharp rock that we should be able to take it off the hinges and just leave the lock on it.

[Marcus]

Great.

[Rocky]

So you open her up.

[Marcus]

So you jam the rock in the middle of the hinges and you use it as a makeshift chisel as you ostensibly take your hand or maybe one of the other rocks and lightly tap into it as you feel the screws. Just. And the whole thing. You've got to catch the weight of it as the door comes down. But it basically creates a makeshift door as now it is only being held on by the lock that is oh so acutely holding it in place.

[Rocky]

It is. It is doing a great job.

[Marcus]

Master lock.

[Asha]

It makes you like you can't or.

[Brandon]

Peer into the darkness of the.

[Marcus]

And as you ruffle and pull this thing forward, you do see that it is about what you would expect to be a pop up shed. There is various outdoor materials. It's not a large shed. You can see that there is probably maybe a couple of pieces of canned goods. There is definitely gasoline inside of there and you know, some other utilities. You put your step in there and you walk into it, you suddenly hear a loud. And you look down and you see at the base of your foot a small coiled creature that has its rattle and it is up and it is within inches of your foot right now. What do you want to do first?

[Rocky]

I wet myself?

[Marcus]

No, no roll for it.

[Rocky]

Make a roll.

[Marcus]

No. Wetting yourself is a free action. Thank you.

[Rocky]

Oh, hell. Well, you know, I mean, I. I suppose I just do what came natural as I try to get as far away from it as possible as quickly as possible. Which is probably the stupidest thing to do.

[Marcus]

That's the stupidest. But it does demand a roll.

[Rocky]

Yep. I'm just gonna jump back.

[Marcus]

Jump back.

[Rocky]

Am I still at nine dice?

[Marcus]

I haven't. Well.

[Rocky]

Oh, because I gotta get a one eight times.

[Asha]

Eight times.

[Rocky]

Oh, because you take one one six.

[Marcus]

One six and three ones for me. Unless you want an option to burn a virtue or whatever is on your top right now.

[Rocky]

Cause you're gonna get.

[Marcus]

He'll get all three chances.

[Asha]

He'll get three chances to get a six.

[Marcus]

No, I'm just Gonna take these away.

[Rocky]

Oh, you're just gonna take those away?

[Asha]

Okay.

[Rocky]

Oh, Gotcha.

[Brandon]

For the rest of the scene. Yeah.

[Timothy]

If he rolls things other than ones, do you still get to take those dice?

[Marcus]

If he rolls anything other than ones, then he gets to hold onto them.

[Asha]

So these are all ours.

[Timothy]

That's interesting.

[Rocky]

All right, I'll burn one.

[Marcus]

All right, what's on top?

[Rocky]

Resilience, as it happens.

[Timothy]

Good time to burn it, I think.

[Marcus]

All right, so describe to me how you're going to apply resilience to mitigate these ones that are now potentially still going to be mine.

[Rocky]

I'm going to go against my visceral instinct to jump the back.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

And stand my ground and trust to the leather of my boots. Let's see how it goes. I reroll these.

[Marcus]

Yes, you do. Yeah. Great. So please tell me how it happens.

[Rocky]

So this little bastard goes with his instinct, strikes out.

[Marcus]

Right?

[Rocky]

Right. His teeth hit the, you know, the. The pull up straps of my boot. Got it hit that bounce off.

[Marcus]

Yeah. And you see this moving. Immediately it sees it.

[Rocky]

It's. It's definitely outgunned here. And it takes the fuck off.

[Marcus]

Great. So as you watch as you stand, nothing. And you watch the serpent just go straight for your feet. You just hear it strike as fast as a snake does. And then looking up, it takes a second to assess. And as most snakes do, they strike and run. So it just slowly slithers away.

[Asha]

Are you okay? Did it get you?

[Rocky]

I think I have wet myself.

[Brandon]

Dude, if you hadn't said that, I was about to say that was badass.

[Asha]

Are you. It didn't get you here good?

[Rocky]

No, I'm all right. I'm all right. It didn't puncture.

[Marcus]

It didn't puncture in some way. You look down and you expected the pain. You expected something to hit against you, but surprisingly nothing is there. And you even take a time to touch your ankle and realize, holy shit. Shit. That is a very, very rare occurrence that something like that would happen. Snake would strike and miss Tabis. Dice, please.

[Asha]

So should we see what's in this shed? Really?

[Brandon]

Yeah. I've gone down and I've already sort of pulled the gasoline tanks and I'm sort of moving the gasoline tanks out of the shed.

[Asha]

Great. What tools are we seeing? Are we seeing?

[Marcus]

What would you like? Where are we?

[Asha]

We're in the reason tools. I mean, we've got like a hammer. Hammer.

[Marcus]

We have a hammer.

[Asha]

We just came from Vegas. We don't need no hose. Sorry. I had to. I had to. I had To. I couldn't resist it.

[Rocky]

What happens in Vegas.

[Asha]

Exactly. Stays in Vegas, therefore that we don't need any.

[Brandon]

Except for us. We're the only four people that don't.

[Asha]

Stay in Vegas who didn't stay there. Hatchet. Yeah. I would like to see something to cut or sew or sew or cut or.

[Marcus]

You can probably find a small wood chopping hatchet. I mean, this thing was untouched.

[Asha]

So is there anything like any kind of supplies, like a first aid kit or anything that looks like something?

[Marcus]

I highly doubt. And I will go so far as to say, and I'm happy to say that a first aid kit would probably not be in this garden shed.

[Asha]

Okay, fair. I mean, it's clearly not my garden shed. I've got first aid kits everywhere.

[Brandon]

Well, I'm already looking. I've taken the sort of gas tanks out and I'm looking at the motorhome.

[Asha]

Yeah. Do we see any movement around the motorhome?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'd like to. Crowbar.

[Asha]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Crowbar.

[Marcus]

I will allow a hatchet. I feel like I'm playing Outbreak Undead again.

[Asha]

Thank you.

[Marcus]

Jeez. But I think at this point, if you all wanted to have something to arm yourself with, I have no issues with that. So we can ostensibly say a hatchet, a crowbar and then what would you like, Marcus?

[Brandon]

I'm actually going to hold on that. Yeah. I've got the gas cans. There's something I want to find in the shed. So Fun in the motorhome. So I'm going to hold off on that.

[Asha]

And for me, the hatchet is less about defense than tool use.

[Marcus]

So you have a couple of small.

[Timothy]

Items one of you kind people think about.

[Asha]

No, no, no, I'm looking. We're thinking about Anthony because as all of his. I keep looking back and when I grab the hatchet, I try to see is there anything. Not a Swiss army knife, but just kind of a small like a whittling knife or anything like that.

[Marcus]

So I'm allowing you for Anthony's sake, if you want to take something for him. If you would like to give him.

[Asha]

I would like to take him a knife.

[Marcus]

You'd like to take him a knife. So we'll give him. We will give him. What would we find in a garden shed that would be knife emulsion.

[Brandon]

This be like a spade or something.

[Asha]

I mean, a multi tool would be amazing.

[Marcus]

But let's go with a spade.

[Asha]

Let's go with a spade.

[Timothy]

Great. Okay, cool, cool.

[Marcus]

Now at this point, you're looking at this motorhome. And it is adjacent. It's so very close to you that it's so tempting to not want to try it. Of course, Marcus, as you get up to it, it is locked. It is not opening at all.

[Brandon]

Is there a window on this thing at all?

[Marcus]

There's a plexiglass window, as motorhomes do. And you can see that the blinds are down on it. Mm.

[Brandon]

I. I really think there's someone in there. I think there may well be. I look, I turn back to the thing, and I turn back to you guys.

[Marcus]

It's locked.

[Asha]

Should I. I might as well. Yeah. Knock gent. Quietly. Right.

[Brandon]

And I take the, you know, Stone.

[Marcus]

Stone. Hold it back, reach up. It's so loud. It's just clicking against it. It's just. You hear the stone against the plexiglass.

[Brandon]

I'm sorry, this is my fist. The stone I'm holding behind my back is like a knife. But, yeah, fair enough.

[Marcus]

Still loud.

[Brandon]

Yeah, still loud.

[Marcus]

As you kind of hunt to it and you actually hear as the sound. Because it is so quiet. You can hear the sound bound bounce off the mountains just for a single moment, and you hear nothing.

[Asha]

All right, well, that made enough noise that something is coming if we don't hurry up.

[Brandon]

Okay. Okay. Let's go. Let's go. Is there. I turned back to you. Do I see that? Do you have a crowbar?

[Rocky]

I do have a crowbar.

[Asha]

Let's get this.

[Brandon]

Can you get this door open?

[Rocky]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Brandon]

We need to see if there's medicine in here. If there's not medicine in here, this is all for nothing.

[Marcus]

Crowbar it up. You're getting a lot of rolls today, sir. Look at me. Yeah.

[Asha]

You are risking yourself regularly. Thank you.

[Rocky]

You know, it went well when I.

[Asha]

Talked about what I mean, but who knows if, you know, like, let's just leave it.

[Timothy]

Let's just.

[Rocky]

That didn't work out. That was bad.

[Marcus]

That is awesome. Ones. Zero. Sixes.

[Asha]

Okay. You want to burn some crap, and.

[Brandon]

Because he's already burned, he can't burn. Oh, he did have a six, so he can't burn anyway.

[Marcus]

No, he could burn to take those ones and reroll it if he wants to use the next one on his top. But he has to choose in 3, 2.

[Rocky]

I heard that no one had ever gotten to there, so I'm going to burn this.

[Asha]

Do it.

[Marcus]

What is it?

[Rocky]

I'm going to burn this. Extreme selfishness.

[Marcus]

Okay, please roll those four ones and tell me how you would like to apply extreme selfishness into this action.

[Rocky]

Oh, my Whatever's in there.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

I earned it.

[Marcus]

Great.

[Rocky]

That is with me.

[Marcus]

Feel free to.

[Brandon]

Feel free to have thrown me out of the way.

[Rocky]

I'm serious.

[Marcus]

All right.

[Rocky]

All right. But at least we don't lose them.

[Asha]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

There's no sixes.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

So this is a failure.

[Rocky]

Okay, but you don't take four of our.

[Asha]

He doesn't take anything.

[Brandon]

Well, he's about.

[Marcus]

Doesn't matter because end of scene.

[Timothy]

Yeah, we reset.

[Asha]

So we have. We have ended the scene.

[Brandon]

But so on your way to that. On your way to that thing, you must have thrown me out of the way just so we keep that selfishness.

[Marcus]

That'll be good. So I actually know how this whole scene ends.

[Asha]

Oh, no, I love it. Oh, okay.

[Rocky]

Oh, like that.

[Marcus]

Rocky, as you say, do you. With a crowbar. And all you can think about right now, Rocky, is that stuff is in there. And this is your time. You've finally been given something to do something with, like an actual piece of metal that you can ostensibly apply and take care of these whiny little. Just.

[Rocky]

Idiots.

[Marcus]

Idiots. All right? And this is an opportunity for you to finally take charge of the situation a little bit. And so you shove Marcus to the side. You just kind of push into it, and you don't even care about the sound at this point. You just jam this thing straight into the door, and you feel it more. You're not prying this thing open. You're putting a hole into it so that you can just get this thing. And you can hear the sound in the metal just screech as you punch through it again. And in your mind. In your mind, you know that the quicker that you can do this, the quicker you can get in there, the quicker you can get out. And there's no quiet way to do this. So you punch it again and again and again. And while he's completely focused on this very, very selfish task of trying to get in there as much as you can, all you can do is just hear the sound. And even after the first one hits, you can start to see as. Oh, crap.

[Brandon]

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

[Asha]

We've gotta get out of here.

[Marcus]

As these little. As these bodies just start to move. In fact, at one point, you actually see a spray of dirt just lift up as you see something lively pulling itself out from some kind of cavern as Rocky continues to pound on it again and again. So we are going to now tell some truths about this world. The first is the world is dark. It is dark. But, Rocky, since you had the failed circumstance again, you do get the first truth.

[Rocky]

There's definitely medicine in there.

[Marcus]

By shoving a hole into this door, you've jammed it shut.

[Brandon]

The fear takes over and we run.

[Marcus]

You and I. Oh, you can even just say you run.

[Brandon]

Yeah, fair enough. The fear takes over and I run back towards the cave.

[Timothy]

Anthony Samson has passed away.

[Asha]

Can I ask a question? Am I allowed to ask a question in this moment?

[Marcus]

Depends on what your question is.

[Asha]

The size of the them. The they. Are we talking like they could potentially swallow the motorhome?

[Marcus]

No.

[Asha]

Okay. But they could climb it. They could potentially do anything to you.

[Marcus]

Think of them. The biggest one you've seen in the distance is probably the size of three horses that make an L shape like two long and one horse on top of another.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Marcus]

I could just say three horses. It's probably just easier to say as big as three.

[Asha]

Cause it reared up like this. I'm paralyzed by indecision, trying to decide whether to try to grab Rocky. And I can see that he won't come. He won't come with me.

[Marcus]

You're saying he will not leave.

[Asha]

He will not leave with me. I'm trying to grab him and he won't leave with me. And I run after.

[Marcus]

I like the truth, if you don't mind me just adjusting. I like the truth. Rocky will not leave.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Marcus]

That doesn't put you into any choice where you can make your decision on your own.

[Asha]

Okay, good.

[Marcus]

Come into it. But you can say, rocky will not leave.

[Asha]

Rocky will not leave.

[Marcus]

6. What is your truth?

[Rocky]

Their window.

[Marcus]

We did establish there are windows. Yes. You do have a truth to use. The windows have already been established. If you'd like to do something with those windows. This is an opportunity.

[Rocky]

That's salvation in there.

[Marcus]

Okay. That's salvation in there. That's your truth. Great.

[Rocky]

That's my truth. Delusional though it may be.

[Marcus]

Okay. One, two, three, four, five.

[Timothy]

That was six.

[Asha]

Six.

[Marcus]

That was six.

[Timothy]

None. Including that. The world is dark.

[Marcus]

Yes. So I have another earthquake is coming.

[Asha]

Starting as in feeling it.

[Marcus]

It's coming.

[Brandon]

Having returned, back and seen. We all converge now on Rocky, trying to get him to leave.

[Marcus]

You bring Anthony back to Rocky? Yes. Great.

[Brandon]

And we all converge, pulling him away from this as he screams of salvation.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Okay. We'll pick up this scene with eight candles with shadows all around you and three of you pulling with all of your might on Rocky as he screams from sleep deprived delusions of salvation as he is past the point of no return and does not care anymore. What happens? What do you do?

[Asha]

Where are we going? If we're pulling him off, where do we go?

[Brandon]

I'm not sure we can pull him away. Are we physically able to pull him away, or what's our combined strength?

[Marcus]

Your combined strength. I think three people will be able to pull one person away, but I would. I would love to see a conflict roll for it. So, Marcus, if you want to take this opportunity, please. And you can at this point, see as these small strips of shadows. And at this point, you can actually see the small tendrils that are lifting up from these segmented bodies as they are beelining.

[Brandon]

God damn it, you hick maniac. Run.

[Asha]

Great. You got it.

[Marcus]

One, two.

[Asha]

You have a six and a six.

[Marcus]

Marcus, take it away.

[Brandon]

We pulling you away and pulling him away. And as we finally manage to catch the crowbar and pull it out of Rocky's hand, having pulled that away, I hand that to you. And the two of us grab Rocky from either side and pull him backwards from the.

[Rocky]

And I'm just screaming, stupid fuck, get in the window. It's safe in there. We're gonna die out here.

[Brandon]

Nothing's safe.

[Marcus]

Look around you.

[Brandon]

We have to run.

[Marcus]

As you hear, as your voices accumulate, you can actually see as these rigid, open, serrated teeth are now coming across as you begin to run with whatever little strength you have left. And you can see as you're going forward and they are just making an aggressive line for you, and they are coming across. They are still a distance away that they have not made it to you yet. But you can hear them. You can actually feel the.

[Asha]

You have something, right? You have a thing. You have something.

[Brandon]

We have the gas cans is what we have.

[Asha]

You have the gas cans. I throw you the crowbar.

[Timothy]

Okay.

[Asha]

Rocky, anything. Rocky, does anyone have anything that can light?

[Brandon]

As we're running, I'm running and I. And then I stop. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And I start opening up the gas can. Rocky. Rocky. Flint.

[Marcus]

Flint.

[Brandon]

Do you have any flint?

[Rocky]

In my bag.

[Brandon]

Oh, fuck. Fuck. And I start pouring out gasoline.

[Timothy]

What are you doing?

[Brandon]

As we draw. Let's go, let's go. Now we're running. I throw you the other gas can.

[Marcus]

You basically start running backwards as you are pouring this gas behind you. And you're leaving wet trails on this dark, dusty floor on top of you. And you can hear it slosh. You're getting some on your legs as things are just kind of coming down. But you can definitely see as the creatures are running across the trail that you are making at this point from the gasoline. Yes.

[Asha]

Do I have to roll for something that I know I have had with me on my body the entire time. It's been part of my makes.

[Marcus]

The best story tell me.

[Asha]

I look at them, and I just reach into my bra and I pull out a lighter and some pot and toss the pot. And I flip on the lighter and I light it up.

[Marcus]

Right as you toss this last bit.

[Timothy]

I reach for it in the darkness.

[Asha]

And I light it up.

[Marcus]

As you bend down and it is wet. The sand is wet. And it's hard at first. At this moment where you just kind of get into it, you can catch a whiff of this. Sent fumes into it. You feel lightheaded for a moment, and you try to catch your balance as you flip, and you try to just put this thing on six.

[Asha]

And one for me and one for you.

[Marcus]

And then I will take. Well, we haven't. This is our first time going into this, so tell me how it goes down. Asha.

[Asha]

In that moment of lightheadedness, when I toss the pot, I'm just not even thinking what I'm pulling out except the lighter. So that kind of goes. Just kind of goes. Cleavage is a wonderful storage area. It's a good thing to know. And I just spin around and go low underneath them as they continue to go. And I light it up, and it lights up in these two streams. And I see. I see, like, several creatures on that path just start to. The flames start to eat them under their underbelly, under their underbellies and start to eat. And we're hearing that awful noise that you make all the time.

[Marcus]

Yeah. And you kind of watch as they. As the flames kind of come up to their underbelly. They instinctually just, like, jump out of the way and just jump from the flames of this as they kind of dive off to the side. And you can see that that's the break that you absolutely needed as this thing's kind of. And the light more than anything is disoriented.

[Asha]

And that'll also attract them in that direction. And I just keep saying, go, go, go, go, go.

[Brandon]

I cap what's left of the gas.

[Marcus]

And run right as rocky. What are you thinking right now? As you just watch this desperate attempt, this use of gasoline as you're now running again through the desert.

[Rocky]

I just gotta get rid of these people.

[Marcus]

That's what's going through your mind?

[Rocky]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus]

Anthony. Yeah.

[Rocky]

If I'm gonna survive, this is dead weight.

[Marcus]

Well, this is just. Is this something you say out loud.

[Rocky]

Or is this something going through internal monologue. Yeah, I gotta get rid of you.

[Marcus]

Yeah. But this is going through you. As you continue to just watch as these things burn. As you're looking at all that precious weight away. Oh my God.

[Asha]

It worked.

[Brandon]

It worked. Oh my God. They can die. Oh my God. They can die. They can die.

[Asha]

I stuff it back. Have we gotten to a place of relative safety? Can we get to a.

[Marcus]

You can't stop moving ever like you are now in there. So there is no stopping to have a conversation.

[Asha]

You are just talking and talking. I take the lighter and pop it super back and sturdy. The girls are holding onto it. And I look back at Rocky to see if Rocky is okay. And I see the look of determination and the look of anger and the look of head shaking on his face. And I look directly in his eyes and I know not to say anything. I know not to do anything.

[Brandon]

I don't. If I notice the stop. And I turn and I see you. And then I see the sort of phase in the internal model that's going on there. And I know silence speaks. So I turn around. We've been walking one direction. I turn. I walk right towards you. You. What the hell was that, man?

[Asha]

Marcus.

[Marcus]

What the hell?

[Asha]

Marcus, Stop it. Stop it. We don't.

[Brandon]

He's insane. He almost just got killed.

[Asha]

Turn around and walk.

[Marcus]

He just got us.

[Asha]

Turn around and walk. Okay, I step.

[Marcus]

Were you taking up Rocky?

[Rocky]

Rocky.

[Timothy]

Are you going to do anything like that again? Look, you weren't getting in that rv, man.

[Rocky]

I am trying to get this across to you thick headed people. That was salvation.

[Timothy]

Is that in?

[Rocky]

There were supplies that we needed in there could have been weapons that we used. We could have set up a base there. We could have sat there quietly until these things went the fuck away. But now they're on to us. Now they got our scent. Now we got fuck all. What you got to drink, what you got to eat.

[Timothy]

There is no away, Rocky. What you did was bring them all down in our heads. Thank you for that, by the way.

[Asha]

Guys, can we keep walking while we have this conversation?

[Marcus]

Oh, you're all walking until you tell me you're not. You're moving, guys.

[Asha]

Just keep moving.

[Rocky]

But we're not running anymore. We got.

[Marcus]

Keep moving.

[Asha]

Keep moving and keep quiet.

[Marcus]

I would say this is an angry power walk at this stage.

[Asha]

Keep moving and keep quiet. We all made mistakes here.

[Timothy]

Some of us larger than others.

[Asha]

Stop.

[Rocky]

Yeah, exactly.

[Asha]

I'm just gonna keep walking and shaking my head.

[Marcus]

So you continue this angry power walk for God knows how long. Minutes pass into tens of minutes, which pass into a half an hour at this point. And if you weren't already at this point, those 15 minutes that you have gotten, and now that the adrenaline is out of your system, it is. It is to the point of where just even keeping your eyes walking, you're trying to nap while moving. Your eyes are just dropping as you are continuing to move. And that is when you start to feel the ground start to shake, just ever so coarsely move again. And you can feel that this one at this point. Maybe it's just the disorientation at this point, but it starts to get just bigger and bigger, and you're having a hard time holding onto your feet now.

[Asha]

At this point, is there anything. Are there any high rocks or anything around us? Anything that could topple towards us, or are we in a clearing?

[Marcus]

You basically have brush, small rocks, and you aren't anywhere necessarily close to a large rock formation at this point. But you. Yeah, you don't have anything that will necessarily topple on you. That's close by. At the moment.

[Brandon]

I get dizziness overcomes Marcus, and he sort of falls to his knees and just holds the ground like this. And I just close my eyes.

[Marcus]

You put your hand down as you feel into it. And that's a moment when you actually feel, more than anything, the ground crack. And it cracks under your hand. And for a moment, you feel it open up.

[Brandon]

Oh, my God.

[Marcus]

Briefly. And as you pull your hand back, you pull it back just in time to feel it just come back into it again, as now everything is starting to move and shake. And you can actually hear them screeching now in the back in the distance far away, as you see and start to really notice that these cavern pieces of rock are now splitting everywhere around you. And you all feel the weight shift below as your piece of land that you are on sinks 6 inches just suddenly out of nowhere, and you all drop to the ground. It slowly, slowly starts to subside. And you can actually see, as one of the creatures in this rock formation that you've dropped down. You'll see a small opening as one of them is attempting to come out. But as the rock shifts, you actually are hearing bone crunch and cartilage grind as you are watching one of them just be ground into nothing.

[Brandon]

In this earthquake, I stand up as I do, I see it, and I focus all my energies on that and try to get my shit back together just enough. Just enough.

[Marcus]

That's fine. Because at that point, then a tentacle whips out and it slaps onto your shoulder as you. You hear it scream again, and it pulls you in its death throes.

[Asha]

I instinctively, I have my hatchet, and I go out.

[Marcus]

Go for it. Go for a chop. Great. Let's see.

[Timothy]

There's no way for this to go wrong.

[Asha]

Yes. Okay. Two sixes and no ones, man.

[Marcus]

No ones. You need a whole crew of no ones right now. Tell me what happened.

[Asha]

Fantastic. I see that happen because when I saw him go down, I immediately, just out of concern, looked towards him and was keeping an eye on him. And then when I saw that, as soon as I saw it to rear and crinkle and saw that he couldn't get up, I kept the hatchet handy, and when it came out at him, I just screamed, no, no, no, no.

[Marcus]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Asha]

Bad, bad, bad. And started hatcheting at it.

[Marcus]

Bad, bad, bad, bad.

[Asha]

Stop, stop, stop, and tell me what happened. The tentacle releases and I hear that noise. I can't do it as good as you do. And the tentacle comes off and it kind of like wriggles on its own and then flops. And then I keep going at it, just going at it while it's there. As the rest of it recedes into.

[Marcus]

The outcropping, it actually more like goes through its final death throes. As you hear this final crunch. As the body is now splintered into.

[Brandon]

Ground pulpit, I slowly approach. Are you still going at him?

[Asha]

No. I stop. And then I turn around and I see you slowly approach, and I go. That would have been much cooler if I said something else, wouldn't it?

[Brandon]

I look back at my shoulder and then back up at you. It's pretty fucking cool.

[Asha]

And I just start laughing.

[Brandon]

Thank you. I reach a hand down to you.

[Asha]

And we both help each other up.

[Brandon]

Thank you so much.

[Timothy]

That was really cool. Also super gross. Are you okay?

[Brandon]

I looked down at my shoulder. Am I?

[Marcus]

You have some superficial scratching and a little bit of blood, but you did not take anything other than a whole bunch of scarring.

[Brandon]

I've been through worse. I haven't.

[Asha]

I gave you the crowbar. Right, the crowbar.

[Timothy]

Well, man, I'm glad you're okay. Ish. As much as we all are.

[Rocky]

We all got to get armed. But we only got.

[Asha]

I hand you the spade. I have this.

[Rocky]

What we got? We got this shovel. We got a hatchet. We had a crowbar.

[Asha]

And the gas, gas, gas, gas.

[Rocky]

Maybe the one with the gas needs that lighter. You got secret away there. I don't know, maybe in case you Guys get split up.

[Timothy]

He's got guys with the keys, the nuclear keys. Maybe having it separated is better.

[Rocky]

I. I'd hate to see him needing that gas and not be able to get to that lighter.

[Asha]

I reach in and I just hand it over to you. Take it.

[Marcus]

What's on the lighter?

[Asha]

A dragon.

[Marcus]

Cool.

[Asha]

A red and black dragon. And it is a white lighter.

[Brandon]

Is it a. Is it a Bic or.

[Asha]

It's a. It's a. It's not like a Zippo.

[Brandon]

Okay?

[Asha]

It's like.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's like a store bought light.

[Asha]

Okay, but. But it's. It's a little. Like, it's a little fancier than store bought. Like, it looks like the store bought guys, but it's a little fancier.

[Marcus]

It's her pot lighter.

[Brandon]

It's her pot lighter. Yeah, I know, I know.

[Rocky]

What's up?

[Brandon]

It's been worn down. All right, I'll look at it.

[Asha]

Just make that face.

[Brandon]

Honestly, I wish you hadn't thrown that weed away.

[Timothy]

Yeah, how did you not tell us you had that this whole time? It's the apocalypse.

[Brandon]

Come on. She's the responsible one. You think she wants to let us know that she's the one who. Get an eye in the back.

[Timothy]

Are you gonna counsel me through my grief over that weed you just threw into the goddamn desert?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'm with you on that, man.

[Rocky]

Trust me. The last thing we need is for you people to get stupider than you are.

[Asha]

And I look over at him and I smile and I say, to be honest, I felt like we all needed our wits about us. And for me, that's more about pain management, if we ever needed it, than it is about getting high.

[Rocky]

So just say no, kids.

[Asha]

Although, anyway, next time you lose your.

[Brandon]

Shit, say no, old man.

[Asha]

And I see that smart ass comment and I just put my hand on his shoulder, like. And we move forward.

[Marcus]

You move forward and you continue the walk. And the aftershocks have finished and the area around you is more ruinous than it was before.

[Brandon]

Are there any high points where we might be able to take a survey of, like, the general area?

[Rocky]

New high points?

[Brandon]

Yeah, new high ones.

[Asha]

From the.

[Marcus]

So it takes about another half an hour of walking to really get a new version of the landscape that you weren't able to see because the limited amount of moonlight that you were getting into it. But I would say at this point, you've walked far enough south you can actually see, see the cut that the i5 or the i15 has made with both the mountainous regions. And you can actually see, especially if you're this far south of Vegas, you actually can come up and you can start to see the darkened ruins of a tiny Vegas small little one, just one hotel that just seems to be out and encased on the foothills of a spanning mountainside that has been shifted and adjusted. And you can see there's rubble all down. In fact you can see where a large portion of that rubble that was disjointed from it has actually rolled into those small casinos, single hotels.

[Rocky]

Is this that little town? That's right on the Nevada?

[Asha]

Yeah. Is that the one with the.

[Marcus]

I'm not going to say the names.

[Timothy]

But that sad little be like oh, oh, we're here.

[Asha]

We're not here exactly. You're like another coast. Oh, that's right.

[Marcus]

We reached Nevada.

[Brandon]

At this point it's just more rubble.

[Marcus]

At this point it is more ruins. And at this point you've definitely seen where the earthquakes have broken the structural integrity of all the buildings around you. And actually see the hotel has been cracked and has fallen on half of it at this moment. Like it has collapsed on itself.

[Asha]

I mean it's worth going to at least see what's in there to supplies or anything. Right?

[Rocky]

Something or. God damn it. Just a place to just shelter, sleep.

[Brandon]

That's all we need.

[Rocky]

Just if we could get if it's got anything with like a. A couple of rooms above the ground. Let's put some air between us and her.

[Brandon]

Set up room. That's all we need, man.

[Asha]

Yeah, yeah, go there. Yeah, go.

[Brandon]

I've actually.

[Timothy]

Have you stayed here before?

[Brandon]

I played here before. I've never stayed there. I always made them put me up in the big town.

[Asha]

You played in this one and stayed in the big town?

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Well not on my tour. On bigger tour than mine. I was just, you know, I was the guitarist. But they put us all up in the nicer suites outside of town. Or we just stayed in the damn bus. But I do remember this place. There's suites all the way up that tower. So maybe, I don't know, maybe there's at least one or two beds if we can get inside.

[Asha]

Let's go. It's worth a try.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Timothy]

Look for emergency exits.

[Brandon]

Worst case scenario. I'm pretty sure it's cowboy themed. There might be guns.

[Asha]

So we get there.

[Marcus]

Yeah. No, it takes time. You do walk, but you do get to the outskirts. At this point you haven't been dogged. But you do still occasionally see those brisk flicks of shadows that are around and always present whether it's your delirium or something actually, there. It's hard to tell, but you do get to the outskirts first across the freeway, and you get into the off ramp. You can see the gas station that is there. And from that, you can absolutely see the broken, disjointed hotel in front of you.

[Asha]

As we pass that gas station, is there any kind of store supplies? Anything? As we're walking past that.

[Timothy]

Ooh, a can. We siphon some gas into our gas can.

[Marcus]

Ooh, lovely idea.

[Asha]

Two sixes. No ones.

[Brandon]

Wow.

[Timothy]

Damn.

[Rocky]

I nominate Asha to roll everything.

[Asha]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't jinx it. So as we're continuing to walk, I say hang on a second and walk over to the gas station. And I just stupidly just start kind of like squeezing the handles, as if anything ever works that way. And something starts to go, and I go, ah.

[Marcus]

Ah.

[Asha]

Marcus. Marcus. Marcus. Gas, gas, gas.

[Marcus]

Hey.

[Brandon]

Oh, my God. And I roll up, but here, into the tank. Come on.

[Asha]

So we pour some gas into the tank. I was like.

[Marcus]

You get half a tank just in pipes, just in whatever gravity, as in there for the. For the hose. It just drips in.

[Asha]

I. I'm not gonna ask. Thank you. Okay, we're good.

[Brandon]

It's kind of insane to see anything work.

[Asha]

Yeah. Can I, with this same rule, check the store?

[Marcus]

Well, and in the store, you kind of come around as Marcus is sitting there with half a tank, having a moment. The world is okay.

[Asha]

The world is okay. I mean, for more lighters, the price.

[Marcus]

Has been looted, ostensibly. Definitely. Other people had a similar idea.

[Asha]

Do I see any more lighters? There's always a stack of them right by the front.

[Marcus]

You can grab a lighter. Yeah, grab a lighter.

[Asha]

Go grab another lighter.

[Marcus]

You also notice that you definitely see that the whole floor has been ripped the shit apart. There is nothing left of even surface. And as you are walking around, you cannot put your even footing because there's just so much disjointed rubble. In fact, the only way you were able to even find said lighter is because you had to lift up a piece of broken concrete and looked underneath it in order to grab it.

[Asha]

Okay. All right, we have. We've got two. I'm looking around, seeing. Looking. Dan's looking to see if you can.

[Marcus]

Roll for a Ho Ho. Roll for a Ho Ho if you want.

[Rocky]

I don't know if I want to.

[Asha]

Burn that just for a Ho Ho.

[Marcus]

Sometimes.

[Brandon]

Sometimes you just need to roll for a Twinkie.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Asha]

Just. And I'm scanning. I'm scanning I'm looking for any kind of snack, any kind of food you do find.

[Marcus]

You find some temporary relief in finding some food that hasn't spoiled. I mean nothing fresh is going to be there. You're basically relegated to say it.

[Asha]

Sport bars.

[Marcus]

Sport bars and hostesses and Ding Dongs and there's a. You shove yourself with sugar and you basically power into it and you don't even care that the crash will come in just a few moments. So yeah, it's not much but it's at least for all of you to have something for almost.

[Rocky]

More importantly, do we find any water?

[Marcus]

Yeah, no, no, no water. All that was taken.

[Timothy]

How far is this gas station from the tower suite that Mark has pointed out?

[Marcus]

Just a. I mean you're talking like a five minute walk and more. Problem is that as you're walking close to it you can actually have to climb more than you are walking to the building. Because the tremors were so great that you almost had to get to a place where you're climbing vertically. In fact as you get closer you actually notice that aspire of basalt that had jutted up from the earth. Earth had basically created a bit of. That's the only word coming to my head right now. So I'm gonna roll with it. This pride rock kind of like just jut right in the middle of the desert. And this immersed rock is basically creating a crest in front of you that you would have to climb up or go around in order to get to it. And it is a big piece. It will take a while to go around it.

[Timothy]

Marcus, can you think of like any other like low lying hotels or motels, something?

[Brandon]

Man, there's nothing. Stories, there's nothing in this area for miles. That's the whole point of this place. No one would come to this place if it weren't for, you know, the fact that it's the only place here. We just. We're so close guys. We're so close. We just need to. Let's keep going to keep going. We can get up there, just help each other out. Come on. Do this as a band or we don't do it at all.

[Asha]

Let's walk. How long when you say it's a long walk around?

[Marcus]

Yeah. I mean you can't even really see the end of the spire at this point. So you have to assume it stops at some end. But you're going to have to keep walking in the moonlight to find out where it is. Come on. And the climb, it's treacherous for sure. It is 100% something where you're going to have to apply some rudimentary rock climbing skills to get up. And the highest point is something like 25ft.

[Asha]

Let's walk around, you guys.

[Timothy]

Yeah, in this.

[Asha]

Let's at least walk around until it's a little bit lower.

[Marcus]

Right.

[Asha]

And we can climb up.

[Marcus]

You do walk around for a bit. It does wear on you more. There is just, again, the prospect of it being so close. You can see that the best that you're going to get at some point is something a little more manageable, 10ft, where you can really boost somebody.

[Asha]

Let's do a battle that's beyond doable. Let's do it.

[Marcus]

Okay. So you grasp who would like to go first?

[Asha]

Someone who can pull someone up or can help people up. I should not be the first person to go.

[Timothy]

Okay, you want to boost me?

[Brandon]

Absolutely.

[Marcus]

All right, great. So, Anthony, you get in position with Marcus and you kind of get that heel up, and then you start boosting yourself up and you grab onto it and you feel. Are you familiar with slate as a rock? You're basically having a jutted piece of slate, almost like a really. Like a gypsum, like a really fragile rock. And as you climb ahold of it, you do hear and feel as this sharp spire of rock just cracks right underneath your weight.

[Rocky]

I see a six.

[Brandon]

We have two of them.

[Timothy]

Two, six and a one.

[Asha]

Finally, a one.

[Timothy]

Slide that behind the candle. That didn't happen.

[Marcus]

Yeah, but please, by all means. What are we at? We're at six here, and I'm supposed to have eight. So let's roll two for narrative control. Nope. Tell me what happens.

[Timothy]

Did I get how far up the rock?

[Marcus]

You tell me.

[Asha]

It's all you.

[Marcus]

It's all you.

[Timothy]

Okay, so I've gone. I'm almost at the top. I have one of my arms over.

[Marcus]

You can feel the rock kind of grating against your skin. It's sharp and it's taking some skin with it.

[Timothy]

Search crack. And I had this stupid move, like the stupid idea to grab the crowbar and wedge it in at the top somewhere.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Timothy]

And so as the rock starts to crack and I lose my balance, I'm in the air for a second and I just slam it into the side of the rock.

[Marcus]

You just try the stupid idea again? Yeah. Okay.

[Timothy]

I just, like. I double down the stupid. I wasn't high enough to get it in above.

[Marcus]

Yeah. So when you slammed it down, you initially felt the whole spire just start to pile up underneath or fall underneath you, but you got deeper into it. And managed to find a purchase. You can actually feel the weight of that rock kind of press down upon your chest and it falls and it collapses onto you. Marcus, since you were the one boosting him up. So please apologies as this 20 to 30 pound piece of disjointed rock. Rock slams down onto you. But please, one sticks.

[Brandon]

Boom.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I see the rock coming and I initially throw my hands up. Like somehow that's gonna help. And around the time it hits my hands, I realize I am about to be crushed. I sort of pop back forward, slipping a little bit off the rock as I do and leaving you in the air.

[Marcus]

Kind of volleyball set it.

[Brandon]

Yeah. As you push and fall back, kind of trying to find purchase and scrambling a little bit but not making a lot of noise and not injuring myself.

[Marcus]

And you do hear the rock just collapse as it rocks into it. But then it slowly trickles down and. And Anthony. Yeah. You're dangling with one hand with the crowbar.

[Brandon]

Are you okay up there?

[Timothy]

Could have been worse.

[Asha]

How far off the ground is he? Can you pull yourself up? Can you pull yourself up? Do we need to get under him to hold him?

[Timothy]

I was near the top, so.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Marcus]

It's still your success.

[Timothy]

Yeah. I'm going to get my second hand around the crowbar and kind of do the really sad. You can't really climb. Like roll my body up on the rock.

[Asha]

Done it many times, right?

[Rocky]

Yeah.

[Timothy]

And I now realize I didn't have anything to help. So now I just. I'll. It's 10ft up.

[Marcus]

You said 10ft up.

[Asha]

Not that tall.

[Timothy]

All right. I'm going to like who. Who's got the best ups and lay down on it and just.

[Asha]

I mean, I'm the easiest person to pick up or to boost, so I don't know if I should be the last one.

[Brandon]

No, I walk over. So the slate has. Because it's fallen right. And I've sort of pushed it forward. Ideally. It's actually given us a little bit of a.

[Marcus]

At this point. Then with Anthony up, I'm, you know, can all pull each other. Unless anyone has any other things they want to try, I'm not going to penalize for continued climbing up.

[Asha]

Fantastic slate climbity climb.

[Marcus]

So you all make it to the top of this. And as a result, you can actually see that the declining slate in front of you does reveal the road. Actually, now that you're on top of it, you do realize that just underneath the slate is the pavement. And it kind of peeled back as if someone was cracking open an Egg and pulling back its shell. It's kind of rolled off to itself, and it's just piled up underneath. And there's. You can see the broken hotel that's in front of you. It looks like at some point during the earthquake, it shifted. And since Nevada. You know, Nevada doesn't have to worry about earthquakes usually. Like, at least not major ones like it is on the San Andreas Fault. It looked like what it really did was it just kind of buckled, and then it fell on itself. So really what you're seeing is just basically the top third of the building sitting on its own rubble. At the moment, that's all we need.

[Brandon]

Okay. We just need to find a way in. And then there should be suites just beyond. Maybe the first couple levels are going to be hard, but if we can get up to the top, should be a bed. It's not gonna be much, but, like.

[Rocky]

Just a place to lay down.

[Asha]

Yeah. Can't we just get inside?

[Brandon]

Yeah. So I walk towards the building, looking for any kind of entrance way.

[Marcus]

All right. You climb up, and you can definitely see that whatever entrance way that this building had had when it was on top is now underneath its rubble. There are windows that have been broken and shattered at this point that are higher up atop. And you can see inside of the building a little bit with the moonlight. And, you know, at this point. At this point, it's pretty much through the windows.

[Timothy]

I want to look for emergency stairwells.

[Marcus]

Emergency stairwells?

[Timothy]

Yeah. There ought to be at least two.

[Marcus]

Two ones.

[Timothy]

Those stairs were not worth it.

[Marcus]

So you. Well, actually, at this point, I get to go for narrative control. Do you want to burn.

[Timothy]

Two ones?

[Marcus]

Three. Two. Yes. One. All right. Two ones.

[Timothy]

Yes.

[Asha]

Oh, it's a tough one, huh?

[Marcus]

How are you being dishonest in this moment as you roll those?

[Timothy]

Well, my father was an architect, and I didn't learn much, but I know that big buildings like this have to have emergency exit stairwells rather than climbing in through a window. If we can find a way into one of those stairwells. Straight to the top.

[Rocky]

I trust you, man, but do we trust stairwells?

[Marcus]

Shit, no. Won one for me. Great. So I'm assuming you find some emergency stairwells.

[Timothy]

Well, in one of. The truth is that I actually read Architecture Digest once. My dad was not an architect. And so I basically pick out, like, the most windowless portion of the hotel, and that's where the stairs would typically be. Circulation is usually not.

[Marcus]

And you can get there. And as you get closer to it, you can definitely see that. Well, presumably, since you're all going off of his word. You're looking into it, and you can see that even though there is no door leading into it, the rubble is loose enough underneath that. You could, in theory, underneath it, work your way in. Yeah, but it's gonna be a crawl.

[Timothy]

I'm just belly down. I'm like, this is.

[Brandon]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, man.

[Asha]

Okay. I mean, he just goes without us.

[Marcus]

He goes ahead.

[Asha]

Why is this safer?

[Marcus]

Belly up, roll through. As you start to move and crawl through this concrete, you can feel as it shifts around you, three sixes. You continue to crawl through it and tell me, yeah, Anthony, you're going to.

[Brandon]

Roll for narrative control.

[Marcus]

Why?

[Brandon]

Yeah, right. You can't against three sixes.

[Marcus]

Yeah, well, there's three eight. Wait a minute. Three, six, eight. Yeah. I mean, at this point, I would literally have to get all four, but that's always a chance. Nope.

[Asha]

There'S always hope.

[Marcus]

Please, Anthony, by all means. Got you.

[Brandon]

Grouping your sixes today. This is actually an incredible amount of unsuccessful.

[Asha]

Yes, we're cursed. Well done.

[Marcus]

Yeah, by all means, narrate your caterpillar, like, crawl through this concrete.

[Rocky]

He's one of them.

[Marcus]

So.

[Timothy]

Yeah, I just kind of went for it. Like, I looked back at them and just kind of put her shoulder down and just tried to slide in there. There's like, chunks of concrete are hanging off of rebar and swinging back and forth. I'm getting scraped up. Assume. Yeah, like, the. The finish of the building is all just torn to shreds. And it's shredding me, too. But the. The premise of being away from the outdoors for a split second just has completely. Has completely taken me. And I'm like, if you guys are not following, then this is goodbye. And I just pull my feet into the hole behind me.

[Marcus]

Yep. And you go in and you basically crawl in through. You crawl in through at one point to get up there. And you do realize you basically come into a break in the stairway, and the first glimpse of your goal that you had had is the fact that you do see railing. Railing and what is remainder of whatever steps are there. So, yeah, you three watch him disappear into the concrete.

[Brandon]

Hey. Hey, Tony. Tony, can you hear me?

[Marcus]

I mean, he is through the wall. I mean, you hear him, but it's more like a muffled sound than it is words. It's going through a lot of concrete.

[Timothy]

Okay. So I just yell back down, like, what are you guys waiting for?

[Brandon]

And we can hear a little bit of that.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I turn back to y'all. Okay, here goes nothing.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Let's all crawl through.

[Brandon]

Do we have to each individually roll for the.

[Marcus]

I think it's time to start making some rolls to crawl through. Okay, one, one. No successes. Option to reroll.

[Brandon]

Just to reroll the one one.

[Marcus]

Right. Reroll the one one.

[Brandon]

Nah.

[Marcus]

All right, then. Let's end this scene. We reset back to seven candles, seven dice. We have seven truths in which to speak. First, the world is dark, and the next truth goes to you, Marcus.

[Brandon]

The crawl goes well for a moment, but around the time I can see your face and you can see mine, the foundation shifts and collapses on my legs, trapping me.

[Marcus]

Anthony.

[Timothy]

These stairs go to the top.

[Asha]

I realize in the moment that I see him go in and then him get pinned that I'm not going to leave any one of these people behind.

[Marcus]

You're never leaving anyone behind ever again.

[Asha]

Behind ever again.

[Rocky]

There are other people here.

[Marcus]

And they're.

[Rocky]

Not happy we're here.

[Marcus]

And you guys are making up for all those sixes, aren't you? Okay, there's other people here and you're trapped. These stairs do go to the top. They have guns. Dope. Last one. No, second to last one.

[Brandon]

And they are already. And they have already surrounded us.

[Rocky]

I was hoping for a good one.

[Marcus]

After we went pretty dark.

[Asha]

Yeah, we're in bad shape.

[Marcus]

And Anthony, you get the last one.

[Timothy]

I managed to grab the weed before we all scrambled away. Oh, that's so frustrating.

[Marcus]

It's great. It's fine. But you haven't told anyone.

[Timothy]

Disappointed? Not me.

[Rocky]

But where there is weed, there is hope.

[Asha]

Exactly.

[Marcus]

All right, well, we start this next scene. Seven candles, seven truths have been spoken. We're gonna start this scene with Marcus as you intended. You crawl through and you can feel the foundation shift. And you get in there and you basically feel as this rebar, which, as Anthony had narrated, was just dangling. And I won't even go so far as to say the full foundation fell upon your legs. But this 80 pound piece of concrete in a compromised position, just like a water droplet ready to go, just decides to. And you hear it crack and it lands on your legs and on the rock. Some of the impact is taken by the rock, but you hear it go against your leg and you scream for what it's worth. And at that moment, you, Anthony, can start to hear a door slam open and clang against the side. As now footsteps are running down.

[Brandon]

Oh, my God.

[Marcus]

Help me.

[Brandon]

Help me. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Asha]

Can we see?

[Rocky]

Is he closer to?

[Brandon]

I should be closer to. He can see me, so.

[Asha]

But Is there any part of him. We can hear him screaming.

[Marcus]

You can hear him screaming, but you can see no part of his body unless you go in after him. Tony, help me. Help me. Tony.

[Timothy]

I'm coming, Mark.

[Brandon]

I'm reaching an arm out.

[Marcus]

Yeah. So you grab him and you pull.

[Asha]

Is the crowbar still outside?

[Timothy]

Yeah. Did I bring the crowbar with me?

[Asha]

Did you? I'm asking you that question.

[Timothy]

I'm gonna assume that we would not leave such a valuable tool behind. And I had taken control over it once.

[Brandon]

I.

[Timothy]

It saved my life.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Please feel free to make assumptions on truths until I tell you it's not.

[Timothy]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

So you can literally say, take that crowbar. And what would you like to do with Marcus with it?

[Timothy]

I'm.

[Marcus]

He is screaming in pain right now.

[Brandon]

Oh, my God.

[Marcus]

Please.

[Brandon]

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Just. Just grab my hand. Please. Please. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry.

[Timothy]

I need both my hands right now. Just brace yourself somehow.

[Brandon]

Brace myself for what? What are you doing?

[Rocky]

What are you doing?

[Timothy]

I am going to take the crowbar and wedge it against a separate, ragged edge of the wall and get it underneath the rock.

[Marcus]

You want to try to pry that rock off of his leg?

[Timothy]

At least create some space?

[Marcus]

All right. Pry the rock off. As you hear footsteps, and you can start to hear people starting to shout out, who's down there?

[Timothy]

Housekeeping. One for me, one for you, two for us.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Tell me how it goes down.

[Timothy]

So Marcus is freaking out, and I'm just. Just stay calm. Stay calm, man.

[Brandon]

You stay calm.

[Timothy]

No, everything's gonna be fine. Just stay calm.

[Brandon]

What do you mean, everything's gonna be fine?

[Timothy]

Just be prepared to apply pressure. And on three. One, two. Oh.

[Marcus]

And he jams up. And you feel for a moment two things. A relief of pressure and a sharp pain.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Oh. And I grab with both hands and pull myself forward. You feel it?

[Marcus]

The concrete just scratch belly. But you do get away as you hear the concrete tumble as it comes down. And at that moment, you can see three people on the top of the stairs. And you hear the distinct sound of a slide being pulled back. Don't move.

[Brandon]

I'm hurt. I'm really hurt, man.

[Marcus]

Don't shoot.

[Brandon]

I. I got nothing.

[Marcus]

You've got nothing, huh? Well, then why are you coming into here?

[Brandon]

We just want to sleep. We're just trying to sleep.

[Marcus]

You hear? Watch as people come down. And you can see and you can now hear. We can hear other voices at this point.

[Rocky]

Shit.

[Marcus]

Shit.

[Brandon]

Me and my friend, where you're all alone. We're just trying to sleep.

[Marcus]

Just.

[Brandon]

Please, just a bed.

[Rocky]

Just a place to sleep.

[Marcus]

And you can see a couple of these men. Yeah, we're gonna go here real quick, see what they're going. All right, stand by. Standby. We're going over here for just a second.

[Asha]

We can't leave them behind, Rocky. We can't. We can't. We can't.

[Rocky]

We don't know who's here. I promise you, whoever's here, they set up camp. Cause this is safety.

[Asha]

I know, but I said I wouldn't. I said I wouldn't. I wouldn't ever do it again.

[Rocky]

God damn it.

[Asha]

Maybe there's some other way inside. Maybe there's some way around. Maybe there's another entrance anywhere.

[Rocky]

Well, let's just. They know where they are. They don't know where we are. Let's see if we can find another way in and maybe we can fucking rescue them. God damn it.

[Marcus]

All right, so you guys are gonna find another entrance in, presumably one of these windows. We'll come back. We have a confrontation here. It's happening. And you do see, as these two men come down. You're putting your arms up.

[Brandon]

What do these guys look like?

[Marcus]

I will tell you now. You come down and you can see that it is clearly. Clearly three people who aren't in a much better shape than you are. They're not wearing anything other than just disheveled clothes. One of them actually has a souvenir T shirt on from the hotel that they're wearing at the moment. But they both have pistols trained onto you at the moment. It's hard to tell because in the darkness, since you are not anywhere where the moonlight is able to get to you, that you're simply just people in the dark. But the stark white souvenir T shirt is the one that sticks out in this moment. And you do see as one of the guys comes up to you, they're keeping 100% at least six feet from you, but they have the guns trained and go, hey, man, did you crawl from under there?

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we just crawled in. We were trying to see if. And I looked to you, trying to see if anybody was alive. We're just.

[Marcus]

Well, there's people alive in here.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're trying to help you. We're trying to help you, dude. Do you know who I am?

[Timothy]

Marcus. Marcus, just bring it down, like, two notches in. In the service of full disclosure, my friend here has misled you a little bit. We have friends. They're here. There's only four of us.

[Marcus]

Where's the other ones? Where's the other two?

[Timothy]

They got trapped outside. When he got trapped by the rock.

[Marcus]

Towards his other guy.

[Timothy]

I just. I don't want anybody getting surprised. I do not want any guns going off for no reason. We were just looking for shelter.

[Marcus]

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm gonna make a real simple for you real quick, real fast. There is no shelter for you here. You can go back out the way that you've done and we will not shoot you. Or you can come closer and we can shoot you. Those are the two options right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But that's the case. That's. We can't. We can't take you in right now.

[Brandon]

We've been. We've been. We've been through a lot of hardship too. I know how bad it is out there. We just came from Las Vegas. Where you from, man?

[Marcus]

Well, not from here, that's for damn sure.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are you from?

[Marcus]

Wisconsin.

[Brandon]

Okay, and you made it all the way here?

[Marcus]

Yeah, we were on vacation and we got stuck in this shitty hotel and we haven't left.

[Brandon]

Okay, man, so I'm not from here either. I was just on a tour bus.

[Marcus]

Okay? Okay.

[Brandon]

We ended up here too.

[Marcus]

I don't want to hear your life story, man.

[Brandon]

What I'm trying to tell you, man, is that we're not a threat to you. All we can do is help. We got supplies, we got gasoline, we got some rocks.

[Marcus]

Gas. You have supplies? Where's your supplies? I don't see anything on you.

[Brandon]

Yeah, they're with our friends outside like he said. They'll confirm our story, man. I got lots of spiritual rocks. I think we got some weed with us.

[Timothy]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

What?

[Timothy]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus]

What? And you kind of watch.

[Timothy]

Talk about lifesaver, right?

[Marcus]

He. He snatches the weed straight out of your hand. He kind of looks at it.

[Timothy]

Come on, man. That is one of the most precious things you can have in these times.

[Brandon]

We're offering you a trade. One night of sleep. And I'm not even talking one of these six day long nights. I'm just talking 12 hours in a. It doesn't even need to be a bed, man. It just needs to be a room with a roof and some. Where some centipede isn't gonna eat me and my friends. Where maybe I can like, you know, bandage my leg. That's all I'm asking. You get the weed, we get life. Just seed is life. We just get six hours. Okay?

[Marcus]

Okay, six hours. Take one of the upstairs rooms. There will be a guard at your door.

[Brandon]

Fuck. I can't believe this.

[Marcus]

God damn it. Brandon's gonna kill me.

[H]

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[Brandon]

Is bridge a leader? Is he like.

[Marcus]

You're like no boss. Brandon's an asshole is what he is.

[Brandon]

But cool. Fuck him.

[Marcus]

Yeah, buddy. I don't know anyway. God, I don't know how I'm gonna explain this right now. Just stay here. Just stay here for now, okay? Just don't go anywhere and get and wherever your friends are. And he kind of looks back to the guy who's already started to go up the stairs, get them all together so that we don't have any surprises. And he kind of like looks and looks at the weed, looks at you guys, and then he starts climbing back up the stairs, kind of leaving you with one guy who is looking troubled at the moment. So we'll go back outside to our split party. Right, Right.

[Asha]

So we are sort of exploring the outside, and I can hear him grumbling. He's very unhappy about the fact that we've stayed. And I can't believe that I made a promise. I made a promise to myself. I can't do it. Almost did it with Samson. Can't do it. Can't leave someone behind.

[Marcus]

Okay. So then you start looking around for various places, and you can't see very clearly that there are windows, and they are not at all. Some of them are definitely at rubble level. Some of them have rubble that has cascaded into them.

[Asha]

At this point, does anything look like an entrance of any.

[Marcus]

To be fair, they all look like entrances. So, you know, at this point, it's a dime a dozen. If you want to go through, then all you have to do is climb.

[Rocky]

And try and find a path.

[Marcus]

Just tell me who's going first.

[Rocky]

Let's roll some dice.

[Asha]

Let's roll some dice, baby. Let's roll some dice.

[Rocky]

All five of them.

[Marcus]

Six, seven. Oh, no. We have six. Yeah. Six.

[Timothy]

We lose.

[Rocky]

We lost one.

[Marcus]

So who's going first, Rocky or Asha?

[Rocky]

I had not the only fail, but one of the only fails.

[Brandon]

I failed.

[Rocky]

Right?

[Brandon]

Some failures.

[Rocky]

We're on the fa. We're on team.

[Brandon]

We're on team fail. Yeah, we're on the fail train.

[Asha]

Oh, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Two sixes, but two ones.

[Marcus]

Great.

[Timothy]

Okay.

[Marcus]

So I can beat it.

[Asha]

So I. First of all, I look at him and I say, I'm sorry we pulled you away. I know it made you mad. Let me do this first to make it up to you. If I don't come out, you run.

[Rocky]

We'll see.

[Asha]

So I just kind of scramble in because I'm tiny. I scramble in and around the window, and I actually see. It seems like I'm scrambling right into a room. Like a hotel room.

[Marcus]

It is basically a hotel room.

[Asha]

Yeah. And there's crumbled furniture. I mean, broken furniture around me. And I can kind of see a sink and all that. But what I also see is an open door, and I can see. What do you call it? An intact hallway.

[Marcus]

An intact hallway. And as you kind of are climbing down, you manage to just in time see the. A laid floor of plywood that had someone take nails and just shove them all up underneath the plywood. And just about. You put that floor.

[Asha]

Yeah. And I see that.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Asha]

And I stop and I call back and I say, I can't be sure, but this looks like a trap.

[Rocky]

It's a trap.

[Asha]

Like, no, no, no. But it tastes like. No, but I can't be sure. But this. Get in here, Rocky. This looks like someone else has been here.

[Marcus]

You step over.

[Asha]

I step over it. I step over it and I say, someone else has been here, and they don't want anyone else here.

[Marcus]

You see the similar. The same situation, but you are in the room, and this room does have. Whatever's been bolted down is still there, but otherwise it's been gutted.

[Asha]

Is there anything else that we can grab? Because all he has is a spade. Can we grab that piece of wood as a thing? Is it big enough? Is it something to use as a weapon?

[Marcus]

But it probably, at this point is just about as effective as the spade. But if you would feel better about.

[Asha]

It, I don't know. It's up to you.

[Marcus]

In this circumstance, again, unlike Outbreak, a weapon is a weapon.

[Asha]

Yes, Fair.

[Marcus]

In this circumstance.

[Asha]

Fair, fair. Fair. Thank you. In which case, now that I've seen that, I've got my hatchet out.

[Marcus]

Great. So you pull your hatchet out, and you basically creep into this disheveled, unoccupied room. And you do see the door half open with this intact hallway as you're in there. And you can actually see the faint glow of lamplight coming from the hallway as well.

[Asha]

Lamp light.

[Marcus]

Well, it's a small, tiny, tiny little fire. So. Yeah. Yeah. And you make it to the hallway, and you look down either way, left and right, and you see it is completely just empty. No one is there. And there is one tiny lamp. It's not on the wall. It's just laid out on the floor. And you can see that the sputtering flame is slowly dying.

[Rocky]

Okay. There's usually stairs.

[Asha]

Yeah. I wouldn't mind if that light actually went out, because I have the lighter. Yeah, let's not disturb it. Can we, like, edge around the walls? Keeping. I mean, can we, like, edge by it?

[Marcus]

You can do whatever you want.

[Asha]

Yeah. So we edge by it and check out where that hallway leads to and what we can see beside it.

[Rocky]

And is the hallway level?

[Marcus]

As level as one can expect at the very bottom of a broken building. Right.

[Rocky]

Okay.

[Asha]

The idea being we are trying to. At least I think we Are trying to move in the direction that we would conceive that they would be in.

[Marcus]

Right. So you're going back the direction of where you thought they would come from. Correct. So as you're slowly edging along this wall, you do hear footsteps as someone is clearly coming down into. Above you. You can hear them above you, and they seem to be climbing down the steps. And you do see a door just start to. Eek. Open just down the floor.

[Rocky]

Can we get into a room?

[Asha]

Can we get anywhere they can't see us?

[Marcus]

Make a conflict roll.

[Asha]

That's you, boo.

[Marcus]

And see if you can dive into a room.

[Rocky]

It's four dice.

[Marcus]

Four, yes.

[Rocky]

Six. I just need to roll six. Maybe three sixes.

[Asha]

One six. Just one six. There you go.

[Marcus]

Maybe two sixes and a one for me.

[Asha]

There you go, Boo.

[Marcus]

So, rocky, tell me how you dive into a room successfully without being seen.

[Rocky]

Yeah, well, I mean, as it happens, as soon as we hear. Because, you know, they're metal stairs, and we can hear them. Tang, tang, tang, tang. So we start looking immediately for an open door. There's actually plenty of them because most of them are splintered off their hinges anyway.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

So we just pull back into a room that's pretty close to where the entry to the stairs are.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

So there's a good chance if you got that hatchet now, we're safe. If we get in there and I got the spade, if we can get behind, somebody get them.

[Asha]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

So you kind of find a hiding place in a room that's as close to the stairs as you possibly can. Maybe under a bed, behind the door frame, kind of behind yours, where I'm.

[Rocky]

Figuring us to be.

[Marcus]

So, Anthony and Marcus, time goes by, and you kind of sit as you wait as this one guy who is kind of just staring at you with this gun. But at this point, he's seen that you're not armed, so he's kind of at the top of the stairs while you're at the bottom of the stairs and just kind of has his gun trained on you. But it's down at this point in no real conflict kind of a way.

[Timothy]

Hey, man, like, my buddy's in kind of a bad way. Can you just, like, take us to the room that your friend said we could have for the night? Like, we got at least take care of him, right?

[Brandon]

You can still take our friends to.

[Timothy]

Meet us, but, yeah, like, we need this rest.

[Marcus]

Should probably wait until. I don't even know if I should say his name. Man, it's so weird seeing Other people. God.

[Brandon]

Are you talking about Brand?

[Marcus]

No. He's gonna go. Timothy's gonna go talk to Brandon. All right. All right. And he should probably do that. Cause if we do something and Brandon's not okay with it, we're gonna get gutted. Cool.

[Brandon]

Well, like, literal gutted or, like, figurative gut?

[Marcus]

No, like, figuratively gutted, man.

[Brandon]

Don't worry about him. And if he comes at us, we'll literally gut him.

[Timothy]

Oh, let's.

[Marcus]

Whoa.

[Timothy]

So my friend has a way with words.

[Marcus]

Yeah, just.

[Timothy]

Marcus.

[Brandon]

We're just survivors.

[Rocky]

I'm not.

[Brandon]

I'm not threatening. Dude.

[Timothy]

Let's. He has a very.

[Marcus]

He's.

[Timothy]

He's a creative type. And his sense of literal and figurative is not set in stone.

[Marcus]

I mean, I just want.

[Timothy]

I want you to know that you guys are.

[Marcus]

Yeah, dude, no, I, I, I get that. And that's all the more reason why you should probably wait for Timothy to get back, because I can see you bleeding all over that. And, man, I don't want to wash those sheets.

[Brandon]

Yeah, okay.

[Timothy]

Dude, turn up service. What is going on?

[Marcus]

You know, I don't know how to explain this.

[Timothy]

We'll wash the sheets.

[Marcus]

With what? There's no water. I don't care. Because I just want to get some sleep, man.

[Brandon]

I'm so tired. We're all so tired.

[Timothy]

He's lost a lot of blood. Can we just get him into a bed?

[Marcus]

Look, here's the deal. If I come down and help you or check your leg or something, you guys can jump me, and then you'll have the gun, and I won't have the gun. And then that's bad for me. It's real bad for me.

[Timothy]

Let me help you out. You lead the way with your gun trained on us, and I'm gonna help him up the stairs.

[Brandon]

You know, dude, scout's honor.

[Marcus]

I appreciate that. Both of you are trying to get what you need right now. If you're tired, just lay down like no one's. I'm not gonna stop you from laying down right where you are. The problem is you're real close to the floor, and that sucks. But here's the deal. If I take you up, then I'm compromised as a citizen of whatever fucked up left of society that we have made out of this tiny little building. And I really don't want to be compromised, man. Like, think about it. What if you were in my position? What if some randos just came in and then just started asking and demanding things, dude, you know, Are we demanding?

[Timothy]

Are we.

[Marcus]

We're just Asking, just lay down. Just go ahead, lay down.

[Brandon]

Dude, if I lay down on this fucking concrete, I don't know, know that I'm gonna get up.

[Marcus]

He kind of, like, looks at his jacket and like, kind of, like, takes it off and throws it down on you. Goes, guess that was a pillow or something, man.

[Timothy]

Just chill. I'm gonna. I sit down next to Marcus, and I'm like, hey, hey, man, you can rest on me. But I just want you to know. You're a fucking asshole.

[Brandon]

Tell me something I don't know.

[Marcus]

And I sort of.

[Brandon]

Yeah, go ahead and sit on you. And as I start to fall asleep, or try to fall asleep anyway, I start to sleep, I just sort of say under my breath, there's no fucking way. Your dad was an architect. He'd never let you do that. Crawling under their bullshit. And then I just sort of fallout.

[Marcus]

Yeah, you're out. Even with the pain. Even with the pain. There's just no way you're staying awake. Asha, Rocky. You do hear the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. People coming down. And you do hear as the door swings open, and you hear multiple footsteps and goes. And you hear one guy go, okay, check all of the doors. See if you can see them through the windows. If they show their face, give them one chance. And if not, then shoot. Then you slowly hear as, like, people are starting to. In a very. As much as you can, with only a few people go regularly through their doors.

[Asha]

But they kind of pass us because we're in this room, you're in this.

[Marcus]

Room, and the first one. And it happens very quickly because, like you said, you picked doors that were very close to the stairwell. You watch as one person, emergency, immediately just finishes the door. He just swings it open, and he takes a few steps in, and you absolutely see him before he sees you. What do you do? Fuck.

[Asha]

They're giving us one shot. They're giving us one shot. I think we have to just.

[Rocky]

Hey, hey, we're here. We're here.

[Marcus]

I'm here.

[Asha]

We're here. We're here. We're here.

[Brandon]

God damn it.

[Marcus]

Are.

[Rocky]

There's too many.

[Marcus]

Okay, so they kind of like. He kind of like, roughly grabs your shoulder, Rocky, and kind of swings you around and kind of gets you away from the wall and more into the center of the room. Same with you watching. Kind of pull you in and goes, are you two with those fucking crawly guys outside?

[Asha]

Marcus and Tony? Yes.

[Marcus]

Yeah, whoever they are. All right, so what's your deal?

[Asha]

We Were trying to find them. Are they okay? Are they okay?

[Marcus]

Well, one of them's legs all busted up, that's for damn sure. But yeah, they're fine as one can be on the ground.

[Asha]

Can you take us to them?

[Marcus]

Sure, man, yeah. You can all die together. Live together, I don't care. And they unceremoniously take you through them. And it's only about half a staircase before you see Marcus and Anthony literally at the bottom of the staircase. And terrible.

[Asha]

Just for the record, as all of this is happening, every time I catch your eye, I'm apologizing to you with every bit of my eyes as I can. And at the same time appreciative that you've gone with me. Because I know. I know. I just. I know. Yeah, I know what it's done. So we see them.

[Marcus]

Yeah, you see them at the bottom of the steps. At that point, you hear the door swing open again. And you hear a loud booming voice.

[Rocky]

What the fuck is going on up here?

[Marcus]

I swear to God.

[Brandon]

What are we doing? We run into hospital hospitality service here.

[Rocky]

Why are you letting people in?

[Marcus]

You wake up?

[Asha]

Yeah, we turn around, we look, we look where the voice is. Where's the voice? We see the person is all the way up top.

[Marcus]

You can hear as steps are coming.

[Asha]

Down now how many armed people are around us? How many people? How many of them are around us?

[Marcus]

You see at least three people, two of them with firearms. One of them is, you know, as far as you can tell, unarmed.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Rocky]

We got a compound.

[Marcus]

Oh, yes. Okay, you can see it. You do see Brandon, he comes down, he is a big looking man with a button up shirt with a bolo tie and a lot of attitude. You can kind of see as he is just kind of. He looks like, you know, he maybe could have owned this place beforehand or maybe he just decided he owned this place after everything happened. But he comes down and goes, who the fuck are you for?

[Rocky]

Listen, I don't know who any of you people are. All I can tell you is this place ain't gonna last.

[Marcus]

Well, that's for shit's truth.

[Rocky]

But where we're going, we got supplies, we got weapons, we got other people getting to that same place. We've been in communique.

[Marcus]

Yeah, and how have you been in communique?

[Rocky]

Radio, radio, radio, radio. Before we left Vegas.

[Marcus]

You sound like a lot of desperate men I've seen doing a lot of desperate ramblings. Where is this compound of yours?

[Rocky]

Palm Springs.

[Brandon]

We're coming from Vegas. It's all rich folks I'm. I sort of look up and like, I'm in a daze at this point. I don't suppose you're a music lover.

[Rocky]

Oh, God.

[Marcus]

Really? This guy?

[Rocky]

No, not really. Not really.

[Brandon]

We just. I have a. I have a hit. Means I've got, you know, money, friends with money and connections.

[Timothy]

He's got Marcus.

[Marcus]

What, has he been hit in the head or something? We all know Marcus.

[Asha]

Marcus, honey, shh, be quiet for now. Listen, he's right. We do have a compound in Palm Springs, you say, and we'll take you there.

[Marcus]

Heard of him on the radio, huh? All right, let's see. And he kind of tells him, bring him up. And he kind of starts waddling up the stairs at this point, and he escorts the four of you and starts walking you through the building. And you can see the penny tour that you're getting is. This is just. It smells. Yeah, it smells bad. It is just stunk up as far as, like, everything has tried to take at some point to kind of plot up. You do see that you're probably dealing with more than a couple of dozen people. Like, this is the most amount of people that you have seen ever. But they all look like shit.

[Asha]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

Royal shit. And, you know, this is a little bit. And everyone is just as surprised to see you as you are surprised to see them as they go through. But they take you through this little walk, this disheveled building, and you get to a. An amphitheater. A tiny little amphitheater. It's basically like. Have you ever been to on a cruise and you've seen, like, the small, like, black box theaters that they have? It is the broken down version of that.

[Asha]

You know, as we walk in there, I'm just trying to clock. Do I see the signs for emergency exit anywhere? Do I see anything that looks like it might be another egress if you.

[Marcus]

If they were around, they were no longer lit for sure.

[Asha]

Right, right. But I'm just saying, does it look like. Because I know where there's an amphitheater, there's no emergency exit.

[Marcus]

Right. Well, since you came from the staircases, there is no emergency exit.

[Asha]

There's not a different one.

[Marcus]

Yes. And at this point, you've been walking through the middle of the building, so you can see one on the other end of the building, since this place is mirrored in the way it is. And you do see emergency exits that lead down to what may have been once the casino floor, but is now no longer the casino floor. And it's just rubble.

[Asha]

There's no Way out. There's no other way out than when we came in.

[Brandon]

Is there anything.

[Marcus]

I'm sorry, no. Please.

[Brandon]

Is there anything else in the amphitheater?

[Marcus]

I will get to that right now. In the amphitheater, you can see ceremoniously, in a small way, you can see a car battery laid out on the floor with two wires hooked up to a ham radio right there.

[Rocky]

All right. That was much better than I thought it was gonna be.

[Asha]

No, I actually.

[Timothy]

They're just torching a radio.

[Marcus]

It's okay, Rock. Yeah.

[Rocky]

I'm like, we're gonna find out.

[Asha]

I see where you were going. I wouldn't even. That didn't even occur to me in any way, shape, or form. You're just gonna test.

[Marcus]

I feel like there's a real opportunity there. Yeah.

[Timothy]

I was on the same page as you were. I was like, ooh, that's a left turn. It's just a radio.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Asha]

Y'all are dark.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

Now I. Now I see where we're going.

[Asha]

I see where we're going.

[Marcus]

So not getting in there. But you.

[Rocky]

We call that feeding the gm.

[Asha]

Yes, exactly.

[Marcus]

However, you do see, it is hooked up to. Yeah, I'll stick to my guns.

[Asha]

Do it, do it, do it.

[Marcus]

Laid out right there. And you watch as the man with two other people goes up and he motions to the radio and goes, go ahead. Contact them.

[Asha]

I step forward very confidently, and I start to move the dials to the emergency frequency from the hospital that I used to work at in Palm Springs.

[Rocky]

Like a boss.

[Asha]

That was not like a boss. That was not like a boss.

[Timothy]

No, it's okay.

[Asha]

It's only three, you guys.

[Brandon]

We believe in you.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Brandon]

Leaf is not.

[Asha]

All right.

[Marcus]

So there is no ones to reroll.

[Asha]

Oh, right. So it's just a failure.

[Marcus]

It's just a failure.

[Asha]

Okay.

[Marcus]

So with that, we end this scene.

[Asha]

Okay. Okay.

[Marcus]

And move on to six candles. Six truths. First, the world is dark.

[Asha]

The world is dark.

[Marcus]

Next, Asha, the truth goes first. Truth goes to you.

[Asha]

I. Oh, my God. I can't. I can't. I'm sorry. I'm freezing.

[Marcus]

Take a deep breath and think about what is best for the story.

[Asha]

I dial the frequency to St. Anne's and while we can hear some kind of something coming back at us, we can't hear the actual.

[Marcus]

You can't hear a voice.

[Asha]

It's just. No, but you can hear, like, some kinds of sounds coming back at us that is not just static, but we can't actually make any kind of contact.

[Marcus]

I see. You can't make contact.

[Asha]

But we can hear voices. So we know that that is legitimately a number. Yes, it is a legitimate number, and they know it is a legitimate number.

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Rocky]

Rocky, there's another earthquake coming.

[Marcus]

You hear in the radio a voice that is not of this world.

[Brandon]

The voice begins to sing.

[Timothy]

Brandon and his frat lost boys have not been sleeping either.

[Marcus]

Sure, you get the last one.

[Asha]

I can tell that most of them are not actually sober at this moment. That's how I. They're all jittery, and they have signs of some kind of substance that is keeping them.

[Marcus]

They've all been drinking.

[Asha]

No, keeping them up would put them to sleep.

[Marcus]

Got it.

[Asha]

The reason that they can't sleep is because they're used. They're using, and I know the signs very, very, very, very well.

[Marcus]

The reason they're awake is because they've been using.

[Asha]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

Great. Okay, so we start this. Six candles, six truths, as you described. Asha, you have dialed into a frequency in which you can hear some sort of emergency broadcast. It's muffled. There are distinctly voices of someone frantically talking. And it seems to. To be a repeat broadcast over and over again. What's it saying?

[Asha]

It's saying, this is. This is William at St. Ann's can you hear me? This is William at St. Anne's can you hear me?

[Marcus]

Okay.

[Asha]

Anyone? Anyone? This is [e-mail]'s can you hear me?

[Marcus]

All right, so you hear this woman's voice who is just male. Yeah, you hear this male. I went with St. Anne's but yes, you hear this voice repeating over and over, trying to make contact. You attempt to talk back, but you hear no response. Just the continued call.

[Asha]

Right. So I keep saying, William, this is Dr. Pratt. William, this is Dr. Pratt.

[Marcus]

All right. And no response comes in at that point as you bring it back, because as you pull on the ham radio, you know it stops. But as you lift it up one time, the static ends. And instead, a clear, distinct voice starts. And you can see it is in mid voice. It is in mid. It is in the. Well, it's in the middle of a chant, and you can hear it. And it holds that note. It holds that one note. And it seems. Have you ever heard Tibetan throat singing? You're familiar with harmonizing with yourself. This voice begins to go into this dual harmony, and it is so crisp coming through this radio. And you hear Brandon go, what the hell is that? Turn it off.

[Rocky]

What the hell is that?

[Asha]

I turn it off.

[Marcus]

It doesn't stop. It continues to play.

[Asha]

I turn to you, the battery. Take the Battery.

[Brandon]

It can't stop. It won't stop. It won't stop. I saw this happen already. I know.

[Marcus]

What do you mean, you saw this happen already?

[Brandon]

Back in Las Vegas, back when it started. This was coming out of every speaker in our entire goddamn theater. And every single one of those things sang along. They're coming. They're coming. We have to go. We have to go now.

[Rocky]

Oh, no.

[Marcus]

What are you. What is he talking about? He talking about them? Those beasts out there?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'm talking about them, man. You gotta go. You gotta go now.

[Asha]

Let's go.

[Rocky]

He's right. We gotta run.

[Marcus]

All right, so, I mean, everyone's disoriented. You can kind of see us at the point you've shocked them into this kind of. This weird. He goes, go up there. He tells one of the guys, get up. Confirm what he says. And you kind of see as he kind of runs around, but he stumbles, and he kind of, like, looks around, and you watch as Brandon just decks him right in the middle of the face and goes, get on up there. And he walks into you and goes. And he grabs both of you by the shoulders. You two who have made the most amount of noise and starts pulling you down and takes you to the stairs and he puts a boot to your ass. Or I'm sorry. No, you're the one that's been yelling, puts a boot to your ass, Marcus. And then just punch you down the stairs as hard as he can.

[Brandon]

Can I roll to, like, grab.

[Marcus]

Grab him on the way down? Yes.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah. I was gonna just grab her. No, I will grab him on the way down. That sounds great. I do not do it. Okay. But I am. Well, it's only one because I would only be rerolling the one, right?

[Marcus]

Only be rolling the one.

[Timothy]

Yeah, them's not good odds.

[Brandon]

They're not good odds. So, no.

[Marcus]

We've been abusing you, but the abuse continues.

[Brandon]

Yeah, do it, man. Marcus is getting knocked around.

[Marcus]

Five candles, five truths. We go back, and we speak now of Marcus first truth. First. The world is dark as it is, and Marcus, you speak the first truth.

[Brandon]

By the time I hit the ground of the stairs, I am staring at one of them.

[Marcus]

Anthony.

[Timothy]

I can hear the singing inside my head.

[Marcus]

Asha.

[Asha]

I want to kill Brandon.

[Marcus]

Rocky.

[Rocky]

When Brandon throws him, he's putting a lot of weight. I'm just going to shove him as hard as I can.

[Marcus]

So you shove him after him. A monolith will rise straight through this building.

[Asha]

We knew it was coming. We knew it was coming.

[Marcus]

All right. Five candles, five truths. Marcus, as you tumble down the staircase, you feel as every impact is another beaten part of you. And you do feel as the leg of which was torn and ripped is now just in so much pain as you hit the bottom of the staircase. And at this point, you can actually hear as Rocky, who in his truth, just. How did you take him down? How did you literally make sure that Brandon followed Marcus on the way down?

[Rocky]

So just as he kicks him, so his momentum's going that way. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna push him. I don't know if I need to make a roll.

[Marcus]

No, absolutely.

[Timothy]

Truth.

[Marcus]

You spoke.

[Rocky]

Oh, okay.

[Marcus]

So this was your turn.

[Rocky]

So he goes after.

[Marcus]

So you can hear, in fact, you hear the loud celery crack of bone snapping as this man is just tumbling down. And by the time Marcus, you make it to the bottom, you actually feel as Brandon's lifeless body just lands on top of you. And you can feel warm, trickling liquid slowly start to eek out onto your body as you feel more than hear or see just something displacing the earth around you, as you feel tiny little legs stamp upon his corpse, as something lifts itself up out of the rubble and it bends its head up and you see as it starts to wallop its head back and forth to and fro, and it sings. It cannot harmonize with this dark voice that was coming through the radio, but it makes its own sound, like a screeching bat in the night, that rather than clicking to find whatever prey is in front of it, just holds it for what seems like an eternity. As you can feel the pincers sink deeper into Brandon's flesh as the weight is pressed down upon you. What do you do?

[Brandon]

I stay so still, so still. Silent and still as to not betray the pain in my leg and not let it know that I am alive. I would like to roll to make sure it does not know that I am there.

[Marcus]

I celebrate that. You want to roll? I was going to say it anyway. Thank you. Are we on the end there?

[Asha]

Yes.

[Marcus]

One, but three for you. You hold it together, Marcus. You can feel the pain. And that. I don't know that. Five, ten minutes of sleep. You got something. There's a lucidity. You lose yourself in your mind. You hum something in your brain, the one thing that will keep you in a place beyond pain, beyond fear. It is your place, Anthony. Asha, Rocky. You can hear this sound. You can hear the singing. And you hear someone from up top goes, holy shit, Brandon.

[Rocky]

They're everywhere.

[Marcus]

And you see as this man comes down and goes, oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die. Shh.

[Asha]

When he says they're everywhere, is he seeing them behind us or is he just seeing that one down there?

[Marcus]

He just ran down from the roof, from up top. It's the sigh they sent up. And he just sits in a corner and begins to cry. He lays there with his. And you can hear he's just repeating a name over and over in his head as he just sits there and has checked out from existence.

[Asha]

Where's the gasoline?

[Timothy]

You tell us. We didn't.

[Brandon]

We left it with you.

[Asha]

No. That means we carried it in, though.

[Marcus]

Yes, we carried it Would have absolutely confiscated it as you got into. So it probably would either be back down at the bottom or in the.

[Asha]

Amphitheater where we just were.

[Rocky]

Yeah, it probably did back down the.

[Asha]

Bottom, see where it is.

[Rocky]

Because I had the spade, you had the hatchet. So we were in kind of like attack mode.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

So we wouldn't have had the gas.

[Marcus]

So it's okay. No matter what getting it is going to be involved. So you either go down to the steps, which I think's more interesting that they left it down at the bottom. So would you like to go get.

[Asha]

The gasoline down where them and he. They and he are?

[Marcus]

He's on the bottom of the steps in the emergency stairways. You'll have to go through the emergency steps to get to the bottom where the gasoline is.

[Asha]

Gotcha. But I see the thing.

[Marcus]

You see nothing other than the screaming sounds of them singing everywhere and the cries of all of the dozens of people who are now terrified as something is coming. You can't put your finger on it, but that damn sound continues.

[Rocky]

Damn is bad. UB is life.

[Timothy]

I've just started humming in the background.

[Asha]

You're humming. It's taking them.

[Marcus]

Others are joining you in the process as well.

[Asha]

So, Rocky, I feel it happening all around me. And everyone else is humming. I know it's taking them over. It's taking them over. Rocky, if they're all over, I don't even say it to him. I just. I see the them or the they or the whatever the thing, and I throw my hatchet.

[Marcus]

I would like to make this a bunch clear in the area where the amphitheater is where you shove down. If you would like to throw at it, you would have to literally get down all the way.

[Asha]

Oh, it's not. We're not near enough.

[Marcus]

Absolutely not.

[Asha]

Absolutely. Okay, then how many flights then?

[Brandon]

Up quite a bit.

[Asha]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

Okay, so he went down pretty far.

[Asha]

He was a hatchet. Then we go, and that's fine.

[Marcus]

If you want to go and attack this thing while it's singing into it, you can absolutely go down there and I will allow you to throw that hatchet with. With the role.

[Asha]

Right after I hear Rocky say we have to go up. Up his life. I look back at you like, you're right, but I can't. You go, and I say you go. And I go. Go, and I run down.

[Rocky]

I'll go with you. We'll do it. We'll do it.

[Marcus]

We'll do it. All right. So you go down and you can see as you look down the staircase, as you open this door and look down to where Marcus has fallen, you can absolutely see this swaying creature several flights down as it seems to have its head up and its call is just reverberating against the walls.

[Asha]

Yes.

[Marcus]

All right, tell me what happens.

[Asha]

I see it and I see him underneath it. I can see just parts of his body underneath it. And I don't know if he's alive, and I don't know if he's dead. And I just scream and I hurl the hatchet right at it. And it spins through the air and hits it right where whatever that sound is emanating from those. It goes straight into that orifice.

[Marcus]

Hear it screech as the blade is driven into its mouth, as it cries into it. And you hear it just as its sound displaces from its singing and it now is throwing its body against the. The various parts of the concrete, trying to displace and unlodge this hatchet.

[Brandon]

Having now felt that I stand, I actually.

[Marcus]

No, you go.

[Asha]

You go. You gotta.

[Marcus]

You're under the butt.

[Rocky]

I shut down with the shovel, so.

[Marcus]

I'm gonna get one. Get one, get one. This is literally to kill it, okay?

[Rocky]

So no pressure.

[Marcus]

No pressure. No business.

[Brandon]

No big deal.

[Rocky]

Don't look with those, like, eyeballs.

[Asha]

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no.

[Timothy]

I got this, Rob.

[Marcus]

No, no, please. I'm ready.

[Asha]

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Marcus]

No one's.

[Asha]

No one's successes, okay? That's okay.

[Rocky]

And there's no re roll, right? You sure there's not just, like, if.

[Marcus]

Your moment is not available.

[Rocky]

No, I.

[Marcus]

So nice. Wouldn't it?

[Rocky]

Since friends for a long time.

[Timothy]

I.

[Marcus]

Haven'T burned anything, so. Four candles, four truths.

[Asha]

Oh, boy.

[Marcus]

We do start with you, Rocky. You do get the first truth.

[Rocky]

All right.

[Marcus]

The world is dark. The world is dark.

[Rocky]

Okay, I Just want to make sure we establish that.

[Marcus]

Imagine is dark. Yes. What is best for the story?

[Rocky]

It's bleeding.

[Marcus]

It's bleeding.

[Rocky]

It's bleeding. And it's getting weaker.

[Marcus]

It is bleeding and it's getting weaker. As it's dying. It's going to collapse this hallway with it. Marcus.

[Brandon]

You'Re both down in the hallway with me now.

[Marcus]

Yeah, yeah. I would assume that she's actually at the top.

[Brandon]

I just want to get the image.

[Rocky]

We're, like, in a stairway, and we're, like, maybe three flights down from where we started.

[Marcus]

Yep.

[Rocky]

Okay. And so when you say it's gonna.

[Marcus]

Collapse, this whole freaking section is going to collapse.

[Asha]

All of us. Where all of us are, including up at the top.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Rocky]

Except he's with.

[Timothy]

I drifted with you guys now.

[Rocky]

Oh, okay. Oh, I see.

[Brandon]

I. But just as it begins to collapse underneath us, the monolith raises.

[Marcus]

Oh, under you. Okay, all right, that's fair. So the monolith will come under you is your trait.

[Brandon]

It is coming under us.

[Marcus]

Great. So, Anthony, you get the last one.

[Brandon]

It is. Will come. It is happening.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Timothy]

Monolith rises. The ruptures that the monolith creates in the building are teeming with them.

[Marcus]

Great. And that's it. And with these four, we will establish the four truths. Marcus, as you are down, you're pulling yourself out from this thing as it is lodged with a hatchet into its mouth. And, Rocky, you've taken this thing and you've just stabbed it into it. It doesn't die, but you definitely put the spade into it. And you can actually feel, as you're trying to pry this thing in between its segmented plates of armor that it seems to be holding into it. But just like a sandworm with your hooks, you get underneath, and you just start to pull this thing off, and it shrieks. And you feel its tiny tentacles just. And come onto and grab you for all it's worth. As you start to hear and feel the rumble of something. Brr. And you feel it's just earth is starting to rumble and move around you as something is appearing out of the rock. What do you do?

[Brandon]

We gotta go. We gotta go. We gotta go. Oh, my God, we gotta go. And I grab you and try to pull you out, like I'm trying to get out the way we came. It's all shifting, so hopefully there's some kind of grouse.

[Marcus]

So you run. You start to go up. And as you continue to go up the spiral staircase, you kind of watch as this singing creature.

[Brandon]

Actually, I'm Sorry. I'm sorry. Can I rephrase that, please?

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Brandon]

I start to run up without him and then stop and cannot bring myself to leave him to die. And so I turn back. I have a moment of like. And I run back down and I reach down and try to pull him out of the grasp of this creature.

[Marcus]

Yeah. And it is. Okay, so you actually. It's a good point. I did say he was grasped by the creature. Pull him off the creature. We are at the point with the candles now.

[Brandon]

All right, so that's two ones I'm going to burn. Honorable honorable Which I think I've already effectively done with the way that I hold this.

[Marcus]

Effectively.

[Brandon]

I've not really allowed myself to be quite the bastard that I wish I was. Come on, one.

[Marcus]

Six.

[Timothy]

Do it.

[Marcus]

That's not a six.

[Rocky]

It's a five. Even you put them together, it's only a five.

[Marcus]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is how ten candles works. Eventually.

[Asha]

Eventually goes fast.

[Brandon]

The last, like, three scenes are like, oh, we all get one.

[Marcus]

Action.

[Rocky]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

Rocky, as Marcus pulls onto you as everything he can, he yanks onto you. And you are held by this thing.

[Brandon]

Come on, you old bastard.

[Marcus]

As he just pulls it out and you're holding on it. You're trying to wrench these things out of your hand for as much as you can. And Marcus, you are holding onto this man for all that it's worth. Rocky, you are staring at this thing bleeding and dying. Slowly starts to inch its mouth closer towards you as it's coming into it. And Marcus is pulling and pulling onto you, saying, come on, you old bastards. As you start to feel almost like a prickle of a hedgehog's spine as it lifts and starts to crown onto the top of your head. What's going into through your mind right now?

[Rocky]

Hedgehogs are cute.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Rocky]

Fuck you is what's going through my head.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

And I'm just trying to wrench that spade as deep as I can.

[Marcus]

And you do, you just push it and you just shove it in for all it's worth. And you feel these tiny trickles of just teeth slowly crest upon your head as slowly each muscular movement. And it is agonizing and it is slow as it pulls you into its mouth. And Marcus, you grasp. And at some point you can start to feel his body shake as he's pulling into it. But you're still holding onto him as you feel this creature's mouth crest one more time as you have to let go because there's just nothing left to hold on to.

[Brandon]

No, no, no.

[Marcus]

And it pulls him, piece by piece, up into its mouth as you are consumed whole by this thing. And that is when it starts to rise through the air on the point of this monolith. Chanel, thank you so much for playing with me today.

[Rocky]

It was. It was good for me. Was it good for you?

[Marcus]

It was. It was. That's the word I'm looking for. It was. There's so many things I'm thinking about right now, and none of them can be said out loud.

[Asha]

Gratifying.

[Marcus]

But I appreciate it, and I think you're wonderful. Fantastic. I'm going to have to ask you to leave our table.

[Rocky]

I look forward to your imminent demise.

[Brandon]

Thank you.

[Asha]

We'll see you on the other side soon.

[Brandon]

See you soon, indeed.

[Asha]

Sorry we dragged you with us.

[Brandon]

I know, right?

[Timothy]

You came with us of your own volition after that big salvation might have.

[Brandon]

Been in that travel trailer.

[Marcus]

Now that I'm thinking about it. Yeah. As it was there. But, Mark, you do feel as Rocky's body just slips from your hand as something. It's almost insulting how it's not paying attention to you and it's put 100% of its focus just consuming this man in front of you. But that is when you can feel the dark, crisp, cut stone begin to rise up from underneath you as this black onyx figure starts to push its way up as a single pyramid begins to jut directly below one of them.

[Rocky]

Oh, my God.

[Asha]

So I am sort of at the top of the stairs, but close enough to.

[Marcus]

Oh, yeah.

[Asha]

Close enough to at least reach. Because he started running up. Right.

[Marcus]

Well, he was still at the bottom. Pulling him up. At this point, you have watched through the actions.

[Brandon]

Do we have three truths to do? Sorry?

[Marcus]

We have three truths.

[Asha]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus]

We've ended this. And we have three truths.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Asha]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

So the first is the world is dark. And while Rocky normally would have had the first truth, instead.

[Brandon]

No. I was the failure.

[Marcus]

Oh, my gosh. That's right.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Marcus]

You were the failure.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I'm why he's dead.

[Marcus]

That is both perfect and awful at the same time. Yes. Speak to me. Your first truth.

[Brandon]

The monolith is singing. Not just the creatures, not just the voice. Now that the monolith is rising, it is the monolith itself. And that is what reverberates through all of our minds.

[Marcus]

Anthony.

[Timothy]

I feel an urge to race to the roof and see it rise. Yeah.

[Marcus]

And Asha.

[Asha]

Rocky's death has so demoralized me that I just want to die.

[Marcus]

Three truths Three candles. We begin with everyone screaming as this continuous scene moves on. And this monolith just starts to push itself up and through and through. And it starts to gain speed slowly. It was starting to climb, but as it continues to go up, Marcus, you get ahead of it as you get up to the top and find Asha at the very top, limping on my.

[Brandon]

We have to go. Asha.

[Marcus]

Asha.

[Brandon]

Asha.

[Asha]

Rocky.

[Marcus]

He's gone.

[Brandon]

Asha. He's gone. It took him. They have him. We have to go now. Come on.

[Asha]

I'm in a total haze, and as he's pushing me, I'm going where he's telling me to, but I'm not really moving very far.

[Brandon]

And I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. And I grab your hand, and I pull it up, and I, like, make eye contact with you.

[Asha]

And as we start running and you're with us, right.

[Timothy]

As he was trying running ahead of.

[Asha]

Us, as we start running, the kid who sat down and started crying and was saying someone's name was there. Right. That was one of the kids with the gun.

[Marcus]

Right.

[Asha]

So as we're running by, I see he's got nothing. I see he's not. He's completely out of it. Grab his gun as we run.

[Brandon]

Great. Okay. I'm so sorry to do this.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Brandon]

But I have to. It's no other way. So we've run through the amphitheater.

[Asha]

Yes.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Where the ham radio and car battery are, right?

[Marcus]

Yep. Actually, I would say if you're going up to the roof to get to the elevator, you'd have to make a detour to go straight forward.

[Brandon]

So as we hit the stairwell past the ham radio and the car battery, I stop. And you just watch me stop and stare at the radio. And I look up to you as all this fucking chaos is happening. And I, like, I straight up stop for a second, and my leg is destroyed. And that's a giant staircase. And I sort of look at you, and I just go. This is when I pull up your hands.

[Asha]

Huh?

[Marcus]

Go.

[Rocky]

Go.

[Brandon]

I'm good. Asha, I've never been to Amsterdam. I've never stayed at this hotel before.

[Asha]

Shelby, come with me. Let's go. Let's go.

[Brandon]

I'm good. Go. And I let go, and I limp over to the ham radio and sit beside it.

[Marcus]

Great. As you sit beside it, knowing what you wish to do, Anthony, you watch as you see this monolith. And these monoliths are not small. They are gigantic. And this hotel may be huge, but the sheer scale of this thing is ridiculous. It's huge. And something. As you hum this tune in your head, as you feel something pressing against your mind because you can still hear that sound coming through that radio. And it seems to resonate through your head. Now as you. You can watch as the monolith comes up through the roof. You notice something on it, a yellow door. As it comes up. You can see it. And it slowly comes in front of you as you watch it pass by in front of you. Do you want to go for it?

[Timothy]

Yeah. At this point, I'm like full throated singing along with that dead note.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Timothy]

And I just. Yeah. It comes the. The door. The portal comes to the roof and I roll it.

[Brandon]

You gotta reroll.

[Timothy]

Yes.

[Asha]

Oh, right. Sorry.

[Marcus]

What is it?

[Timothy]

Interesting.

[Marcus]

What is it? The.

[Timothy]

The comforting and make people feel safe.

[Marcus]

Is that your moment?

[Timothy]

No, this is.

[Marcus]

Oh, this is the virtue. The comforting.

[Timothy]

The virtue.

[Marcus]

Okay. How would you like to apply that?

[Asha]

Can apply it to yourself.

[Timothy]

Like through. Through the echoing as this voice, this song bends and bounces inside of my skull and is, you know, like peaks and valleys amplifying itself. It's just this cacophony. And through that. I remember Asha and Marcus are downstairs. I don't. I'm not even entirely sure what happened to. To Rocky, but I get this vague feeling that we're together somehow. And I just whisper, fuck them, and I run for the door.

[Marcus]

Okay, roll it. Roll it. I'd like to see what this turns into.

[Timothy]

That was such a cool guy moment.

[Brandon]

It still is. Still is.

[Marcus]

So instead we end our scene here and now. And I will tell you two truths remaining. Two candles. First. First. The world is dark. He went for this door. And I'm trying to decide what is the more appropriate action into this. It was gleaming, it was looking for you, and it was inviting towards you. And as you attempted to go towards it and look towards it, it. Those words that you spoke, the ones in your head. Fuck them. That moment that those mental words escaped your mind, blackness sheer in front of you as the portal closes immediately in front of you. And now we speak two truths. Mart, Anthony, you may have the first one.

[Timothy]

I'm broken. I'm just down on my knees on the roof crying and singing.

[Asha]

Asha, he's higher up than I am, so I didn't see that. I didn't.

[Marcus]

What is your truth?

[Asha]

I see a door.

[Marcus]

You see the door?

[Asha]

I see it. I see the.

[Marcus]

Do you wish it to be a door or the door? We're getting into very specific wishes here.

[Asha]

I see a door in the monolith Starting to pass my level.

[Marcus]

All right. You see a door, two candles, two truths. Marcus, you're sitting in this area. The building is falling around you. You go to this ham radio, and you click to turn it on, and you realize that the battery has been ripped open. It is laying in front of you. It doesn't turn on. No, it doesn't. They turned it off. And you look down and you see that the battery is gone. It's somewhere. Someone took it.

[Brandon]

Where's the battery?

[Marcus]

No, you have to find it. You need to look for it. You need to find it. You need to look for that battery. As you grab, you find that someone had attempted to grab it, but they just.

[Brandon]

I limp over towards it, but my leg buckles. I fall to the floor. So my leg is broken. It's literally sideways now. So I'm on my arm, pulling myself towards the battery, pulling myself towards the battery. And I grab it and I. I flop back and I set the battery back, and I reach to the ham radio and I plug it in.

[Marcus]

Yeah. And it comes on, and you get that satisfying boom.

[Rocky]

And I click it on.

[Brandon]

And I start to sing.

[Marcus]

And from the floor of this amphitheater, this broken hotel, you sing. And you keep singing.

[Brandon]

But it's not that monolith song.

[Marcus]

It's not that monolith song. And you sing into it for all your worth. Asha, you mentioned in your truth that the door opened in front of you and you see a broken Anthony laying in front of you. He is crying, but you don't know why he's crying because you see this white door laid in front of you. And as the monolith is moving and it is coming up, up, it doesn't move. It continues to shine. But you see that every few seconds, it takes more of the roof in front as it slowly is creeping towards him. You could get Anthony, or you can get the door.

[Asha]

I run to towards Anthony. And I run towards Anthony, and I pull his shirt away. So I pull him back as I keep running, you. And I discard him. No, I pull to push to get him away. To get him away.

[Marcus]

And you go for the door.

[Asha]

And I go for the door. It's okay. And I am burning my empathy card.

[Marcus]

Empathy. How do you apply it in this circumstance? Dance.

[Asha]

And I say, as I'm running to the door, I. I'm screaming out, we all did our best. We all did our best. We all did our best for each other. We all did our best. And that's all I keep saying is we all did our Best. We all did our best. We all did our best.

[Timothy]

Anthony bursts into laughter as he hears this mantra start. Just maniacal, wild man. Crying, laughing, singing.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Asha]

All right.

[Marcus]

One, six.

[Asha]

I don't even know what success looks like in this particular instance, but I.

[Marcus]

You go forward and you say, we did our best. We did our best. You look to Anthony. You can see his maniacal laughter as you look to him. And there is something in your heart that is really, truly believes the words that are coming out of your mouth. You did our best. We did everything. We survived. You tried. You persevered. You did everything you could to help those that were deeply, deeply hurt. You spent a life taking care of people. You spent your whole existence trying to ease suffering and pain, and you stepped. Do you have something you want to say?

[Asha]

I think I do, but I think I might let you get one more because I have an idea, but I don't know if it's gonna go well with your story.

[Marcus]

I want to hear what you want to say.

[Asha]

I run to the door, and I pull out the gun. As I grab the handle.

[Marcus]

This is not one of those kind of. This is.

[Asha]

Okay. There's no handle. There's just a doorway.

[Marcus]

Simply a doorway.

[Asha]

Okay. Then I run. And as I run, I have the gun with me.

[Marcus]

You.

[Asha]

And I don't even know what I'm planning to do with it. I just have it.

[Marcus]

I understand. As I run, as you run through the door, you again have this emotion pass through you. This comfort, comforting, beautiful feeling that you've done everything you could for all the people in this world.

[Asha]

And, yes, I realize that I have no idea what is coming after life. But somehow, as I'm running through this, I know that that is where I'm going. The very place that I have been telling people forever, my whole life that I was trying to tell people this place exists, even though I didn't know it exists somehow. Now I start to feel that's where I'm headed.

[Marcus]

That's what you feel?

[Asha]

That's what I feel as I'm starting to move towards this is that I'm heading there. I'm heading to that place.

[Marcus]

All right, you have this feeling of you found the afterlife. You found that place that you're guiding people to. When you talk to them of your grief. As you pass through the doorway, you feel the gun disappear out as it does not pass through the portal, but you do.

[Asha]

Mm.

[Marcus]

Thank you so much for playing. I appreciate you being here.

[Asha]

I appreciate you. Thank you for letting me get to the other side.

[Marcus]

Is it the other side?

[Timothy]

I don't know.

[Rocky]

Thank you for playing.

[Asha]

It's nothingness and everythingness.

[Marcus]

Hi, guys. We still have two candles. We still have two dice. Anthony, you are laid out on this roof. You can start. You can. That voice that you heard, it is gone. It has been removed from your mind completely. But you can hear singing.

[Timothy]

I dragged myself up. I was lying on my back after Asha just threw me out.

[Marcus]

You did watch her disappear. You saw no doorway. But one minute Asha was there, the next second she's gone.

[Timothy]

The singing gone. My head is clearer than it has been since we turned the radio on. And I drag myself to my feet and make my way towards the sound of the song.

[Marcus]

All right. At that moment is when you start to see them crawling all up the monolith. And you can hear more than anything the scuttling behind you as just like colony of ants climbing up a tree branch, looking for whatever it can. You hear the screeches behind you.

[Timothy]

I don't look. I don't break my stride.

[Marcus]

You continue to walk forward. As you don't break the stride. You walk forward.

[Timothy]

Yeah, I'm not in good shape.

[Marcus]

This is it. Let's see if you make it. You feel as tentacles pump each one of your shoulders. Oh, no ones, no sixes. All right. As each one just comes right through you. And you continue to feel more as you are just hit over and over again. You make steps. You do. You go forward. You take two steps, three steps, each one punctuated by something just going right through you, slipping back out. And you can feel the warm trickle of blood in front of you. You take another step. And then you take another. And at some point, you drop to your knees and you slowly feel as something curves around your neck and under your arm as you are viciously ripped from your position and thrown back into the maw of one of the creatures. There's something going through your head, though, as you're making this last dance, these last few steps, as you're going towards what is in your mind, what takes you before darkness does.

[Timothy]

That's a pretty song. Too bad he didn't write it.

[Marcus]

Josh, thank you so much for playing.

[Timothy]

Thank you.

[Marcus]

Thank you for taking the time.

[Timothy]

What a terrible joy.

[Marcus]

And you. You know, I didn't even have to. To ask you, please leave.

[Brandon]

He didn't have to ask you.

[Marcus]

But he will. But I will. But thank you so much for playing, man. You did great.

[Timothy]

Thanks for having me. This was fantastic.

[Marcus]

We have one candle, Marcus. And I cannot wait to paint this picture. Of one man singing, crooning at the top of his voice, while the area around you. Yes, you can, of course.

[Brandon]

Your moment, my moment.

[Marcus]

You get the hope dice from the last scene.

[Brandon]

Just in time.

[Marcus]

Do you actually have a song?

[Brandon]

I do.

[Marcus]

Do you want to sing it while I narrate you out of this final scene?

[Brandon]

Yes, very much.

[Marcus]

Okay. Okay, I will.

[Brandon]

Can I say something right before we do, though, please, to counter off of what he just did?

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Because I'd love to. This ties to my brink, which I won't get to play, but I'd really love to talk about. Talk about.

[G]

All right.

[Marcus]

What's your brink?

[Brandon]

So the song is gone for a bit, and I stop for a second after he has died.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And I'm on the floor and I say into the radio, this last one, this is for all of you out there. My name is Marcus Carver, and this is my song.

[Marcus]

As the building begins to crumble around you and you see this monolith just lifting up, it's sliding just feet at a time. On the side of you, you see nothing. You don't register any of that. The pain in your foot is barely registering as you hold this microphone and you've pressed down the call button and you sing.

[Brandon]

My soul long neglected Never grows old Just sings in the darkness and thrives in the cold. Til you shined a torch lit the whole manifold all afar all afar all the flame you prepared.

[Marcus]

The forge, the forge, the forge, the forge. And as you lay on these last few notes, the last couple of notes aren't into the microphone because you can feel as the floor beneath you starts to give away. And your last verse of the forge is spoken as you fall into blackness, into nothing, as the building caves in around you. Jackson, thank you so much. That was lovely.

[Brandon]

Thank you.

[Marcus]

Literally, you just wrote that? Yeah. Yeah. Get out of here. You're so talented.

[Brandon]

Love you guys. That's awesome.

[Marcus]

Well, there is only one thing left to do, and that is to hear the messages of our dearly departed characters.

[Timothy]

In a past life, I took money from people in pain. Easy, Marks. It's funny the things you think about folks with more money than sense. Everything's so goddamn senseless now. What do you take when nobody has anything left worth taking? Am I sorry for what I did? I don't know. Does it really matter now? It's too late to make amends. Too late to apologize. I guess I wish I could take it back, but I just can't. Maybe it's just about finding some way not to fuck up the apocalypse. I'm sure I can find a way.

[Rocky]

I was on the southbound train from Salt Lake pulling into Vegas. I picked up a good haul of quartz, tourmaline, tiger's eye hematite and that. Eat that shit up down on the Strip. And I'm talking a proper train, not one of those Amtrak abominations where the government knows you know, where you've been, where you're going, who you are, watching every move. And of course, I had to Sage out the box car. You never know what kind of hateful hobo spirits are riding the rails. We were coming up on Vegas lights when the first quake hit. The whole goddamn train twisted like a pitchforked snake. I barely made it out of that clusterfuck alive. It wouldn't be the last time in the past two weeks that I've had that thought. I just remember that huge, black, monolithic son of a bitch rising out of the ruins of the Strip and thinking, God damn it, they finally did it. They've unleashed the seven fucking hells. All according to their master plan.

[Brandon]

They're dead. They're all dead. Got Brittany before we even saw him coming. Eyes were on the goddamn monolith, and then she was just gone. Teresa tried to put a bass drum in front of it and just ate the fucking drum. And then it ate her. And then it got Zeke. And the last thing I said to him was, fuck you. I thought I was gonna have to keep the secret from the world for a long time. Thought I'd go through my whole damn career getting credit for his work. Lucky me, I guess.

[Marcus]

Fuck.

[Brandon]

I guess that's what I get for lying. I guess it's what we all get.

[Asha]

The one thing I really didn't expect to feel right now, thinking about the end of the world is relief. Pretty soon, all the world's grief will be gone. I mean, at least I hope it will. I don't know what awaits us after this. But this thing, this thing that I have tried to help people through and past for most of my life, will just be gone. Like old technology. Grief will become obsolete. Or again, maybe not. I don't know. I guess we don't really know until. Until we get wherever we go. Maybe we will transmute into some other form. All of us, all our souls, where. Where grief becomes like an antique hairpin or a corset. Something unnecessary in our new lives, but kept for sentimental value as a reminder of what once was. Or something to try on in moments but never to have to have anymore. Not imposed, but chosen. For entertainment or just to reminisce? I guess I find strange solace in that.

[Marcus]

Foreign.

[Timothy]

Good, Bad billionaire.

[Marcus]

We explain how the world's billionaires made all their money.

[Brandon]

Pop stars and tech titans, founders and filmmakers, inventors and investors. We cover them all. And for the first time, we're talking about a video game designer.

[Marcus]

Yep. We're talking about Marcus Persson, the Swedish coding king. King who programmed the world's most successful game, Minecraft, all by himself.

[Brandon]

He made a billion.

[Marcus]

But is he good, bad, or just another billionaire? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire.

[Brandon]

Listen on the BBC app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Anthony]

Nothing is as it seems in liminal London. Hidden amongst everyday people are werewolves.

[Brandon]

You'll be the werewolf then.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Mags.

[Anthony]

Wizards.

[Brandon]

Montgomery Archibald Barker at your bloody service.

[Anthony]

And those cursed by the fey monarchs of the city.

[Brandon]

Declan Buchanan, PI he has quite a large pair of antlers growing out of his forehead.

[Anthony]

Join the unlikely misfits of liminal London as they work to take down the powers that claim to rule the city.

[Marcus]

I think the queen doesn't like you.

[Anthony]

With incredible guest players like Johnny Chiodini.

[Asha]

Say, there's sludge.

[Marcus]

Yeah, sludge.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Rocky]

I'm the sludge boy.

[Brandon]

Love sludge boy. No, again, I'm not that sludge boy.

[Anthony]

Grant Howitt.

[Marcus]

Isaac Newton didn't study in Putney, did he? Who's Isaac? Oh, my God.

[Anthony]

And Sharmini Bundell.

[Marcus]

There's a magic community.

[Brandon]

There is.

[Marcus]

Yay. I'm in a magic community.

[Anthony]

Go to realmspod.com or search realms Pods, Realms of peril and Glory wherever you listen to podcasts to find this mysteriously magical actual play series.

[Marcus]

I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer and director.

[Anthony]

You might know me from the League.

[Brandon]

Veep, or my non eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

[Marcus]

We love movies and we come at.

[Brandon]

Them from different perspectives.

[Marcus]

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know.

[Brandon]

Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't.

[Asha]

He's too old.

[Marcus]

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated. It is.

[Brandon]

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk.

[Marcus]

About good movies, critical hits, fan favorites.

[Anthony]

Must sees, and in case you missed.

[Marcus]

Ems, we're talking the Home Alone.

[Anthony]

From Grease to the Dark Knight.

[Marcus]

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look.

[Brandon]

And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Ganja and Hess.

[Marcus]

So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

[Anthony]

Listen to unspooled wherever you get your.

[Marcus]

Podcasts, and don't forget to hit the follow button.