Chapter Two: The Photograph | Ten Candles: Eclipse

Summary

Summary of Podcast Episode: "Chapter Two: The Photograph | Ten Candles: Eclipse"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry
• Host/Author: geekandsundry
• Description: Geek & Sundry’s hub for all things RPG! Each week, deeply nerdy storytellers take you on epic journeys across the multiverse in critically acclaimed actual play podcasts, including Critical Role’s Campaign 1.
• Current Season: Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode
• Episode: Chapter Two: The Photograph | Ten Candles: Eclipse
• Release Date: April 7, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Session (00:30 - 03:14)

The episode begins with a brief introduction to the gaming session, setting the stage for an intense role-playing experience. The host, Alex Ward, welcomes the players, reintroducing familiar faces from previous sessions and highlighting their respective characters.

Notable Quote:

• Alex Ward (03:14): "Like not to the person who will die, but the person who is my friend sitting at the stairs."

2. Character Introductions and Motivations (03:14 - 15:26)

Each player introduces their character, detailing their background, current situation, and personal goals within the game. The characters are part of a team navigating a world transformed by mysterious monoliths and a pervasive darkness.

• Lexia Avila (Livingston Moss)

  • Background: Social media influencer whose parents disapproved of her career choice.
  • Motivation: To prove her usefulness in the face of impending apocalypse.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Livingston Moss (13:00): "I'm a devout man of faith... my moment is I hope to hear the voice of God directing me on how to get out of this situation."

• Cameron Wakeford (Arielle Hartman)

  • Background: Former delivery driver from San Francisco, estranged from family.
  • Motivation: Driven by curiosity to see one of the monoliths up close.

• Valerie Velacour (Valerie Velacour)

  • Background: Survivor of a tragic car accident that claimed her best friend's life.
  • Motivation: To save someone's life, breaking her self-imposed boundaries of non-religiosity.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Valerie Velacour (14:55): "I hope to get to actually save someone's life for once."

3. Setting the Scene: Monoliths and Rising Darkness (10:36 - 15:26)

The host describes the catastrophic events triggered by the appearance of monoliths, plunging the world into darkness and causing widespread chaos. The characters find themselves confined to Lexia's boat, stranded in the San Francisco Bay as the environment becomes increasingly hostile.

Notable Quote:

• Alex Ward (10:36): "About 10 days ago, monoliths rose out from the ground. The world has been dark for five days... Rumors that people are disappearing."

4. Initial Conflict and Exploration (15:26 - 33:29)

The players decide to venture inland in search of food and resources, leaving Lexia's boat. Their journey leads them through a devastated San Francisco, encountering collapsed buildings and treacherous terrain. The group's dynamic is tested as they navigate these challenges, emphasizing themes of trust and survival.

Notable Quote:

• Alex Ward (27:16): "Trusting people, trusting each other. I feel like delegating it would be the smarter choice so that nobody else can steal the boat."

5. Escalation: Building Collapse and Character Deaths (33:29 - 168:57)

As the group explores a toppled high-rise building, tensions rise. Attempts to navigate the hazardous environment result in severe injuries and tragic deaths:

• Arielle Hartman's Character (Cameron Wakeford) attempts to pry open a door but is fatally impacted by falling debris.
• Valerie Velacour's Character (Lexia Avila) suffers a critical injury from a fall and subsequently drowns while trying to save a fellow character.

The narrative delves deep into the emotional and physical struggles of the characters, highlighting themes of sacrifice, regret, and the dire consequences of the apocalyptic events.

Notable Quotes:

• Valerie Velacour (64:20): "There's no point. There's absolutely no point."
• Jeremy Walker (116:18): "And Lexi, this is the day that I do it."

6. Final Moments and Conclusion (168:57 - 210:18)

In the climax, the remaining characters confront overwhelming odds as the San Francisco Bay floods. The sense of hopelessness is palpable as the last surviving characters grapple with loss and the impending end. The episode concludes with poignant messages from the characters, reflecting on their journeys and the futility of their struggles against the unstoppable forces engulfing their world.

Notable Quotes:

• Jeremy Walker (203:00): "The sun has darkened... Our world, your world, is forever changed."
• Valerie Velacour (202:45): "If you can hear this, please know that I'm so sorry."

7. Post-Game Reflections (207:46 - 210:18)

After the gameplay, the episode transitions into advertisements and promotions for other shows and sponsors, maintaining the informative and engaging tone characteristic of Geek & Sundry's actual play podcasts.

Notable Quote:

• Alex Ward (209:43): "The Core is recapping Seth Rogen's new Hollywood satire the Studio... Search for the Core all things Apple TV plus on Apple Podcasts."

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Key Takeaways:

• Emotional Depth: The episode masterfully conveys the intense emotions associated with loss, sacrifice, and despair within a catastrophic setting.
• Character Development: Each character's motivations and backstories are intricately woven into the narrative, providing depth and relatability.
• Engaging Storytelling: The seamless integration of gameplay with storytelling elements captivates listeners, making the dire circumstances feel immediate and personal.
• Themes: The exploration of trust, survival, and the human spirit's resilience are central to the episode's impact.

This episode serves as a compelling continuation of the Ten Candles: Eclipse campaign, showcasing the strengths of Geek & Sundry's storytelling and actual play format.

Transcript

[Jeremy Walker]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock.

[Alex Ward]

It's tax season and we're all a.

[Erica Fermina]

Bit tired of numbers, but here's one.

[Jeremy Walker]

You need to $16.5 billion.

[Erica Fermina]

That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year.

[Jeremy Walker]

Now here's a good number.

[Alex Ward]

100 million.

[Jeremy Walker]

That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first [e-mail] podcast terms apply.

[Erica Fermina]

Welcome to the realms of peril and glory. Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale, the paranormal mysteries of liminal London and the cyberpunk chaos of Cyborg. You'll be immersed into unforgettable campaigns and heart pounding one shots. Search realms of peril and glory to find out more.

[Alex Ward]

Warning.

[Erica Fermina]

The program you're about to listen to contains explicit language and descriptions of adult themes and graphic violence that some people may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.

[Alex Ward]

Hello, everybody.

[Arielle Hartman]

Hi.

[Alex Ward]

Hi. Welcome to my table. Welcome to 10 Candles. Beautiful. I am very excited to be getting to play with this table, especially one because I have some old faces of which I've played games with before. Although not played games with you, but you know, abilities and abilities and have only heard in whispers and dreams of as far as their role playing ability goes. Except for that tiny time that we did when we did celebrity D20 together. Right? And then people who are love and appreciate but have never played ever.

[Valerie Velacour]

Just mind games, just mind games.

[Alex Ward]

Just loading mind games and usually games about yelling things as loud as we possibly can. That little Kickstarter video.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Alex Ward]

Ages ago. So thank you so much and I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

[Jeremy Walker]

Thank you for torturing me one more time.

[Alex Ward]

I know you keep coming back, Jeremy, so I know you do this all the time, but you all have choice.

[Arielle Hartman]

So I don't have a choice. I just compulsively do this.

[Valerie Velacour]

It's been a hard few weeks. I'm ready for this.

[Livingston Moss]

Really great.

[Jeremy Walker]

Cool.

[Alex Ward]

Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Well, I appreciate that. So before we get into what we're playing and who we're playing, just for some folks who may not know who you are, let's just do a quick who you are and then we will hop into character creation real quick. Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

And by who we are, who we actually are.

[Alex Ward]

Like not to the person who will die, but the person who is my friend sitting at the stairs.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yes, me. All right there. Okay. My name is Alex Ward. I am on Geek and sundry. Rather regularly on LA by night. And I also am a professional actor and player of all things creepy.

[Alex Ward]

Player of all things creepy.

[Jeremy Walker]

Love it.

[Alex Ward]

Thank you. Yes.

[Livingston Moss]

Hi, I'm Erica Fermina. You can find me on Girls, Guts, Glory, and sometimes here, sometimes here, sometimes today.

[Alex Ward]

Here.

[Livingston Moss]

Today here.

[Jeremy Walker]

For sure.

[Livingston Moss]

Right now.

[Alex Ward]

Yes. Jeremy.

[Jeremy Walker]

Hello again, everyone. Hello, Ivan.

[Alex Ward]

Hello, sir.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm back again. Jeremy Walker. You may remember me from Sagas of Sundry Madness with this gentleman right here. And yes, I decided to come back again and be with him, have a little bit of fun and I'm very excited. You can see me all over the web on tv. I'm an actor and I'm loving role playing games and I think you got.

[Alex Ward]

Bit by the bug, man.

[Jeremy Walker]

I got bit by the bug.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

You're back.

[Jeremy Walker]

And I'm back. And today's the day that I do it.

[Alex Ward]

Arielle.

[Valerie Velacour]

Gotta follow that. I'm Arielle Hartman. I'm an actress, singer, hostess, Silly Gilly. Currently annoying everybody on their TV through commercials. And I'm also in Trump and Space at Second City through the rest of August.

[Jeremy Walker]

Very nice.

[Valerie Velacour]

Final extension.

[Alex Ward]

We did Rocky Horror together in college.

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah, we did.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, not like that today. Today's gonna be fun, just in a different way.

[Valerie Velacour]

Not as much women's lingerie.

[Alex Ward]

No, not as much, unfortunately.

[Arielle Hartman]

Try me.

[Alex Ward]

I got secrets. I got secrets you don't know. All right, well, let's. Let's get straight into how we wanna play with you today. I've seen you.

[Valerie Velacour]

I almost said that to you earlier. I've seen you in women's lingerie, but I didn't know how much you wanted known.

[Alex Ward]

There's a lot. There's a lot. It's on the Internet. You can find it. Talk about your characters. The first thing we're gonna do is we are going to write virtues and vices and we're going to be giving them to our neighbors. So to begin, I would like you to take one of your cards that has all of your delightful photos on it, and I would like you to pass one of them to your right. Skipping me.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, wait. Oh, right, yes. Do I write anything on it yet?

[Valerie Velacour]

Hell yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Stand by. So now that you have your neighbor's card, I would like you to write a virtue on that. A virtue is full of virtue. Something that really gives an insight onto how they can help solve problems.

[Jeremy Walker]

Hmm. One word.

[Alex Ward]

One word. Descriptive.

[Jeremy Walker]

Hmm. Something like this. Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Good.

[Arielle Hartman]

This gets hard.

[Jeremy Walker]

Wait, what?

[Livingston Moss]

One single word?

[Alex Ward]

One word.

[Arielle Hartman]

Single word. Okay.

[Alex Ward]

What is A virtue is a virtue that maybe you would like or something that you wish upon somebody else in these circumstances. All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

The look that you're giving me right now.

[Livingston Moss]

Well, I wrote a virtue. It's a good one.

[Alex Ward]

Now, let's all pass it back to the left, and let's hear what everybody got. Alex, let's start with you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Ingenuitive.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, great.

[Alex Ward]

Erica.

[Livingston Moss]

Practical.

[Alex Ward]

Practical.

[Jeremy Walker]

Resourceful.

[Alex Ward]

Resourceful.

[Valerie Velacour]

Organized.

[Alex Ward]

Organized. Resourceful and organized. Hey, cool.

[Valerie Velacour]

Team building.

[Alex Ward]

Great. Now, let's take another one of your cards and let's pass it to the left, please. This one is a vice. What is a trait that causes more problems than Generates. Causes more problems than solves. That's the word I was looking for. What is something you would never wish upon anybody, but thus you have to. Now.

[Valerie Velacour]

I feel like we're writing, like, a burn book, like, from Mean Girls.

[Alex Ward]

Rough. Yeah. Good movie.

[Valerie Velacour]

You know how this game is like Mean Girls?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. Yeah. Except instead of feelings and emotions that are getting hurt, it's bodily harm.

[Livingston Moss]

Usually some psychological and some psychological.

[Alex Ward]

Absolutely. That's part of the Venn diagram.

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Ten Candles and Mean Girls.

[Valerie Velacour]

We're gonna find more similarities as we go on, I swear.

[Alex Ward]

It's slowly becoming closer and closer, so. All right, then let's pass it back to the right. Ariel, let's start with you.

[Valerie Velacour]

Cold.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, cold. All right. You, sir.

[Jeremy Walker]

Dishonest.

[Arielle Hartman]

Ooh.

[Alex Ward]

All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

This is not the face of a dishonest.

[Livingston Moss]

Addicted.

[Alex Ward]

Addicted. That's the best. That's something you get. That's a gift you get to decide.

[Arielle Hartman]

So impulsive.

[Alex Ward]

Impulsive. All right, that sounds like we're already fleshing things out. Now, let's take a third card, and let's briefly bring you up to speed. Before we write anything, let's briefly bring you up to speed on the situation that you're in. About 10 days ago, monoliths rose out from the ground. The world has been dark for five days. And as a result, you are now basically, wherever you look in the horizon, there is a monolith that's out there. And ever since these things have written, there has been some weird undertone that seems to just be in the air, in the body. It's just something permeates permanently into your both physical and mental being. We'll talk a little bit about where you are and what you're doing. But the world is dark. The monoliths are there. There are rumors that people are disappearing. In fact, it's hard to even call them rumors. Some of you have probably even seen it. With your own eyes. And there is rumors, but there is rumors that there is something under the earth. So with that said, let's generate a moment that you all hope to accomplish as part of your story today. It can be something. It should be a very specific thing, but it should be something that also has a potential of failing. That's the most important thing.

[Arielle Hartman]

All right?

[Alex Ward]

And this is for you. This is not for anyone else. This is something that you get to have for your character, part of your story. Now, I will be up front because transparency is key in games like this. We've all had a chance to talk a little bit about where you might want to be. And what I've just told you about the monoliths isn't news to you. It's all stuff that we've been talking about. But how this story transpires is, of course, up to how everything happens. But you at least know that the events that have come into place are consistent with what you've heard, rumor wise. So let me see. Oh, yes. And we'll get to the gift in a short few.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

I'd like to take this opportunity because I really liked it in the last game I did, to be introduced to who you'll be playing, as well as describe the moment that you hope to create in this game. So, Erica, would you start us off?

[Livingston Moss]

Sure.

[Alex Ward]

Yes.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm playing Lexia Avila, social media influencer in life pre apocalypse, which was something that her parents never really agreed with. They wanted her to have a useful skill. So her moment is that she wants to prove her usefulness.

[Alex Ward]

Prove her usefulness. Okay. Yes. Do you just. That is a little broad. Too broad, I might want to say. Is there any way that she could be useful in a direct way? It could be, like, in saving someone's life, or it could be in, you know, overcoming a great consequence. Something like that. Just to give us a little more. So we can very distinctly say, yes, you've just made that moment, you know, not opposed to it. I think actually being useful is awesome.

[Livingston Moss]

Mm.

[Alex Ward]

Yes, useful is great.

[Arielle Hartman]

I prefer when people are useful.

[Jeremy Walker]

You as a useful person?

[Alex Ward]

Well, I'll let you think. Think about it while I keep going. So, Jeremy, would you tell us who you're playing today?

[Jeremy Walker]

Am I here? I'm playing Livingston Moss. My friends call me Lib.

[Arielle Hartman]

Lib.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm from the south, originally from Jackson, Mississippi, and I'm a devout man of faith. I'm hard of hearing in my left ear.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

But I can hear okay. Just can't hear as well. My moment is I hope to hear the voice of God directing me on how to get out of this situation.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, you would hope to hear? And how do you think you will find the voice of God, if I may be so bold?

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, if you've ever felt the voice of God steering you in a direction, it's more of a feeling than hearing.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. Yeah. So you're hoping that at some point the Lord's guidance will bring you into a position I'd like to see again, coming back from Erica a little bit. If there's a specific situation in which you might be able to find the voice of God, does that mean just being alone for a short while, does that mean finding a message from God that you feel like is important?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah, I would say it's maybe a sign or a light.

[Arielle Hartman]

Got it.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

See, those are good. We can work with that. Finding some kind of light that for you is a beacon of faith.

[Jeremy Walker]

Perfect.

[Alex Ward]

Beautiful. Awesome. Auriel.

[Valerie Velacour]

My character's name is Valerie Velacour. She was originally from San Diego, California, and when she was in high school, before she graduated, she was driving a car with her best friend and got into a really bad accident. And she survived and her best friend didn't. And it's one of those things that just informs you for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. So she does a lot of self help things for people, retreats, things like that. Anything to try to make things better.

[Alex Ward]

You want to pass along a message of a lesson that you've learned.

[Valerie Velacour]

And she's also deeply not religious. She really doesn't believe in any sort of religious beings or anything like that. Because of the accident? Because it was one of those of like, why not me? How could a God let this happen?

[Alex Ward]

Kind of for you, it was. It has to be chance because otherwise, you know, what's the point in the situation.

[Arielle Hartman]

Cool, cool, cool.

[Alex Ward]

And what's your moment?

[Valerie Velacour]

I hope to get to actually save someone's life for once.

[Alex Ward]

Great. So you want to save somebody's life. Excellent.

[Jeremy Walker]

Do we need to?

[Livingston Moss]

That's what I did. To expand mine by saving a group member.

[Alex Ward]

This is not. It is not. Having similar moments is not something that is mutually exclusive. It does not mean that there is anything wrong with being able to have that. If anything, it is a tie that would be both lovely and tragic because you would both earn each other's hope tie and then immediately lose it. But that's fine. Yeah, I'm not mad about it. Cool.

[Jeremy Walker]

Do we need to talk about our oh, yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Did you want to lay out. I want to hear from Alex and then you can lay out how you guys are doing stuff together. So. But Alex. Yes.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. I am Cameron Wakeford. Cameron and I grew up and lived or live in San Francisco.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. Which we've established is where you guys are going to be.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yes. So when living in San Francisco, he was a delivery driver.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Delivered food, whatnot, and didn't. Had no plan for his life and was. Dad passed when he was young and was kind of estranged from his mother.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

No real family. None of that.

[Alex Ward]

Kind of lived without purpose.

[Arielle Hartman]

Without purpose. And when this. When everything started happening, kind of just lived with what he could scavenge.

[Alex Ward]

Got it.

[Arielle Hartman]

My moment is to. As much as he doesn't want to, he can't stop thinking about seeing one of them up close.

[Alex Ward]

One of them. He wants to see what one of them is.

[Arielle Hartman]

If they exist, he wants to see one.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, duly noted. Duly noted. Great. So are we. You wanted to talk about it a little bit because it sounded like you guys had a tie. You wanted to talk. Talk about.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes, we are here in San Francisco. We actually had a team building workshop that we were doing in Silicon Valley.

[Valerie Velacour]

That we were leading for one of the big tech companies.

[Alex Ward]

You want to be co workers?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes, we are co workers.

[Alex Ward]

Are you a part of this team building exercise or are you executing this team?

[Valerie Velacour]

We're leading it. And we had two other members with us as well that were from the same company.

[Alex Ward]

No longer with you?

[Valerie Velacour]

No longer with us.

[Alex Ward]

Yes. How did they go?

[Valerie Velacour]

We were thinking that the first one that we saw one of them taken by the them and the other one just kind of went crazy eventually after, like, it was all. It was three of us staying together.

[Alex Ward]

And then did they leave? Did they end their own life?

[Jeremy Walker]

I would like. Yes. I would say after about a week of us living on raw fish, you know, we went to visit Fisherman's Wharf after one of our exercises, sightseeing the area.

[Alex Ward]

So this is fairly recent that you just lost a member of your crew then?

[Valerie Velacour]

Yes, pretty recent.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. Cause it wore at this point. Got it. Day 10. All right. So you freshly had someone removed from your group. Anything else to share with anybody else?

[Livingston Moss]

I'm living on a boat.

[Alex Ward]

Right. We did talk about that. You're all on her boat and you brought this boat from up north?

[Livingston Moss]

Yes, so living up in Portland.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

And as soon as the spires or the monoliths started showing up, I decided to go to my dad's bunker in San Francisco. Got it where the bunker did not save him.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, yeah, we did talk about that a little bit. So you've actually seen someone get. Someone get snatched. Right. Okay. But that bunker probably did and has sustained you for as long as you've been able to be at this point. Great. Well, then before we get into too much context of the story that you're in right now, we need to write your Brinks, and we need to discuss Brinks. So if you wouldn't mind, take one more of your cards and do me a favor, let's hand it to your right. And Lexi, I get to write you a brink about them. Oh, they have seen you situation. And then I get to give you this one, and you get to tell me something about them.

[Livingston Moss]

About them?

[Alex Ward]

Yes. It cannot be a strength, something that makes them stronger. You cannot write a. I just said the wrong thing twice. It cannot be a weakness. It cannot be something that, you know, makes them easier to kill or something that's difficult. But it can be something that expands on the lore, something that you've seen. The way that it's best described in the book is to say, I have seen them.

[Livingston Moss]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

All right. Does that make sense?

[Jeremy Walker]

Cameron.

[Livingston Moss]

Is this.

[Alex Ward]

Yep. I'm the waiter now. I can do that. I'm allowed.

[Arielle Hartman]

I run this game.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can I just say that how the feel in this room is very, very tense.

[Alex Ward]

Very.

[Arielle Hartman]

Really? I don't know why.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Is it possibly your imminent death or something?

[Valerie Velacour]

Group suicide.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Let's do a 30 second.

[Jeremy Walker]

Very cold.

[Livingston Moss]

It's very. And that's it?

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah. What was in the water?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. Okay, fantastic. Look at this.

[Alex Ward]

I love defacing everything. I should have just rubbed your face, too. All right, perfect. We can all take it. These are for us and us only. But obviously the person who wrote it knows that they have given this information to another.

[Jeremy Walker]

So is that something that you can.

[Arielle Hartman]

Work with.

[Valerie Velacour]

The way you said that? God.

[Alex Ward]

Great. So we do have the benefit of knowing that we are on Lexi's boat, which means that your equipment is normally in the game. It states explicitly you have whatever is in your pockets kind of a situation. So we'll be limited in what we'll be able to make available onto the boat. But as with anything, a roll can offer quite a bit when it comes to narrative ability, you know? And let's begin. I'm going writing my breakdown of my notes.

[Livingston Moss]

So, wait, is it the one that I wrote?

[Alex Ward]

I only got one.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah, I'm trying to see what he was actually thinking prior to this.

[Alex Ward]

Did I. Did I scratch it off enough?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Sweet. Great. So. Hi.

[Valerie Velacour]

Hi.

[Jeremy Walker]

Hey, Ivan.

[Alex Ward]

Your story begins with the four of you on Lexi's boat. You are sitting how far away from the San Francisco Bay from the wharf? You had mentioned Fisherman's Wharf a little earlier. How far out into the water are you?

[Valerie Velacour]

I think we're probably still in the bay somewhat, but not too close to.

[Livingston Moss]

The docks right now.

[Alex Ward]

Not even. So you're out on the water. Okay, cool. So you're out in the water. Are you hooked up to a moor or anything where you just kind of.

[Arielle Hartman]

Anchored out there?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, great. So you're anchored out on the bay. So you're sitting out in the middle of the water at the moment. A brief overview of the Mechanics. You have 10 dice to work with because we have 10 candles. When you roll one. Six is all that's needed to succeed. Any 1s that come up, I now own, in which, if I have to do any conflict rolls with you. Conflict between you and I only counts for. For whoever has narrative results of a success or failure. So we didn't play it too much in the last game, but I'm going to try to be a little better about it for this one. In the meantime, let me tell you your circumstances. You are. Well, it's been 10 days. You've been eating whatever preserved or canned goods you've been able to hold onto and whatever fish you've been able to catch.

[Valerie Velacour]

So much chowder.

[Alex Ward]

So much chowder. And, you know, the good news is that some archaic technology, such as a propane heater or even a wood fire, should you ever try to try a wood fire on the boat, they will definitely result in cooked food. You know, ironically, the radio that you have had on the boat. I will tell you one fact. This is important, Lexi. When you. When you. When you got the boat, after the monolith had arrived, the boat would not start at all. You had to go basically fish out a fresh battery and hook it up to the boat in order for it to start.

[Livingston Moss]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. So the boat does have power, which has been odd because you have ostensibly been the one tiny blink of light in an otherwise dismal and bleak darkness. And even those crappy fluorescent lights from those tiny little dashed lights has been some comfort and safety. But you've also been using it so much that, you know, gas was out a while ago, and you only turn it on intermittently. In fact, really, you're trying to make sure to save the boat as much as you can so that you can go in the harbor and out. So you are on fumes at this point for the boat and, well, fish aren't arriving anymore, so.

[Jeremy Walker]

We'Re on fumes as well.

[Alex Ward]

So you're all on fumes. The boat's on fumes and you are on fumes. What would you like to do?

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, I don't foresee us surviving much longer with zero food. So I would like to think that the first order of business would be to do anything we can to find some food.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

So you want to head to the.

[Arielle Hartman]

Bank, head into dock. Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

And go search for food. Yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

And I'm gonna put some trust into Cameron here. He's the local, he's also a food delivery man. So maybe he's got some sort of access to something that we don't know.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, I know my way around the city. I don't have any place offhand that has anything.

[Alex Ward]

But you can search for food.

[Arielle Hartman]

You can search.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, you can absolutely go and attempt to look for food out on the bay. Now the question is, is this all together or is this being delegated at this point?

[Livingston Moss]

Well, I feel like as a group we could be more powerful.

[Jeremy Walker]

That's one of the things we talk about in our team building workshop. Trusting people, trusting each other.

[Valerie Velacour]

I feel like delegating it would be the smarter choice so that nobody else can steal the boat.

[Livingston Moss]

I mean, at this point there's not much to steal.

[Valerie Velacour]

As long as you're okay with it, it's your boat. Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

So it's not going to get us that far.

[Arielle Hartman]

It's not like we can get away with it. So staying here, look for food.

[Alex Ward]

Cameron, use that old noodle of yours to see what's around Fisherman's Wharf at this point to find what is necessary. So we got two ones that will become mine. But one six is all you needed, so many fives in order to make that work. So you guys and ladies start walking inland as much and you've definitely at this point raided about as much of what you can get right off of the docks. So at this point, you spend a good hour just getting inland enough to try to find areas that are what you hope to be more fruitful. Instead, what you find is the ruins of a completely looted and torn city. You've been on the boat for a week now and you have been kept awake by the screaming of people out on land has been part of your nightmares that you've been holding onto. But to see the devastation of close to see the paveways, the driveways, the buildings around some of Them are clearly leaning up against other buildings in the, you know, high rise parts of San Francisco. And what is spectacular to you is just how broken up the ground is. It just looks like there was just a massive earthquake and it just literally ripped all of the dirt up and has led spires of concrete and dust and dirt everywhere. So as you're going inland, you are basically climbing craggy hills, you know, and a few times you have to stop yourself just to not fall down. What has become like, you know, a small pitfall has two pieces of, of earth have essentially split away from each other. But as a result, going inland, you manage to find a little bit of food. What do you find, Cameron?

[Arielle Hartman]

Find a few cans of beans? Find some of those bagged tuna?

[Alex Ward]

Oh, yeah, really gross. Maybe some sardine tins as well too. Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Like some mustard?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, just enough to at least have a few meals off of, you know. And whether you choose to sit and indulge in that pleasure now or whether you wish to hold onto it and ration it for later is up to you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Later is better in that we're out in the open here.

[Alex Ward]

So do you want to keep going inland or would you like to go back to your boat?

[Livingston Moss]

Well, we know we can sit and relax on the boat for a little bit at least.

[Alex Ward]

So it takes you about another half an hour or so since you know where the boat is and you've got your landmarks in place. And you walk back to the boat and as you get close to the pier, something seems odd to you. You look down and you notice that the tide has receded. But more importantly, you've noticed the tide has receded to a point where the boat, your boat is laying on the floor of the, the harbor coming out. The darkness doesn't really give you much of a breath. You can't see currently where the water line is at, but you can definitely smell the fresh seaweed and the smell of like, you know, a tide pool. Right. And it just is encompassing your senses as both the sea salt and the, the smell of kelp and, you know, barnacles. It's just assaulting your senses. Okay, okay, okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

What do we.

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, what do we do? Okay, so we have some food with us. We can, if it's okay with you. You know, the boat is turned over, essentially.

[Alex Ward]

It's flopped.

[Jeremy Walker]

It's okay.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. It's not only on its ridge, but it's tipped over.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, is it.

[Alex Ward]

Can we make a climb down the pier and get to the boat? If you wanted to.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can we do that and get inside and maybe just to keep us. Maybe. So we're.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, that seemed dangerous.

[Valerie Velacour]

That seems dangerous.

[Arielle Hartman]

If the tide comes back in, we're inside of them.

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, wait. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

[Livingston Moss]

It's not overturned. It's just.

[Arielle Hartman]

No, it's not.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. I mean, look, I'm originally from Mississippi, you know. I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience on the oceans.

[Alex Ward]

Well, it's up to you. If you would like to climb down to the boat. I will consider that fairly dangerous. It's not life threatening by any circumstances, but it is something that I would like to see a roll from. Otherwise, if you're fine just leaving the boat where it is, then you can go along your merry way.

[Jeremy Walker]

Where can we sit?

[Valerie Velacour]

He can just sit on the pier and eat something. Come up with a. I don't like.

[Arielle Hartman]

Being in the open. I don't like just sitting out here.

[Livingston Moss]

But I'd rather be on the pier than sitting on the street or inside the boat. We could try to climb one of these fire escapes nearby just so we're off the ground.

[Arielle Hartman]

I like that better.

[Valerie Velacour]

And get on top of one of the buildings. At least we can see what's happening.

[Arielle Hartman]

Or inside or something. Something off the ground.

[Alex Ward]

So you guys would like to try to enter into one of the buildings that's on the wharf so that you can get a higher purchase and see what is around you.

[Livingston Moss]

Great.

[Alex Ward]

Fair enough. So I think in that circumstances it was your idea. So let's see a reasonable roll.

[Livingston Moss]

I hope that we will see a reasonable roll.

[Alex Ward]

Two sixes.

[Livingston Moss]

Two sixes.

[Alex Ward]

Only one which I will take actually. I think in this circumstances I'm going to voluntarily. Normally we would not give away narrative control, but I think I'm very curious as to hearing how you get a hold of a high purchase. So I'm willing to relinquish it over to you. Tell me how you get somewhere that has a higher vantage point.

[Livingston Moss]

Well, along the piers there is the station, the taller building. I forget if it has a bell tower on it.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yes. It's the pier thing that has this little spire in the middle and does this kind. I can't remember what it's called.

[Livingston Moss]

I walk along those buildings until I can find a fire escape.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

And work my way up to the top.

[Alex Ward]

So maybe Cameron or Liv like gives you a boost up so that you can grab the fire escape and shunk it down because they're for a reason. Usually with outside of normal reach. But you grab this and the wrenching of metal on metal in this kind of quiet atmosphere that you mostly live in is just as it just slaps down. But you slowly take the rungs one by one as you climb up the fire escape and lead to the roof.

[Arielle Hartman]

I want to. Is it possible to pull it back up after we go?

[Alex Ward]

Absolutely, I do that, yes. So you pull the fire escape up with you and it's awkward using these kind of muscles after so long, but you. And you let it naturally latch to where it is. There you are and you sit and you look upon a darkened bay. And the light of the moon is so bright that as you're up there, you can actually see a lot of the bay laid out in front of you. And it's so bright that it's almost as if someone has put a dim, soft light over everything. And you can actually see as far as to what your eye can perceive with what relative dark vision you have. The water has receded for miles.

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't. Yeah, no. I'm glad we didn't go down there.

[Valerie Velacour]

And there's no life down there. I don't see any trace of life.

[Alex Ward]

It's difficult to tell, especially with the dark light. But you do see some figures, some, you know, what could be life strung around. Whether it's small flashes of movement, it's incredibly hard to tell. And there is actually distinctly, I will say this, there is actually distinctly something quite large in the water that seems to be very far out in the.

[Valerie Velacour]

Bay or in the water in the bay? In the dried out bay.

[Alex Ward]

In the dried out bay. And you can definitely see a large object in the dried out bay. You know, fairly far. Into where? Into the coastline or what was the coastline.

[Valerie Velacour]

Is it moving?

[Alex Ward]

It is moving ever so lightly. So. Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Any guesses as to what that is?

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, maybe it's like it might be a whale or something. Yeah, something.

[Valerie Velacour]

Beach.

[Jeremy Walker]

Beach cone. I mean, is it alive? Do you think it's moving? It's moving, but it could be just with the.

[Arielle Hartman]

Maybe.

[Jeremy Walker]

I can't tell. I can't tell anything. I don't want to go check.

[Valerie Velacour]

No, it's not like we can do anything to help it.

[Livingston Moss]

I don't think we can push the boat out that far.

[Arielle Hartman]

No. No. Okay, so. So let's eat something and then figure out our next move.

[Alex Ward]

Yep. So you enjoy your bagged tuna and sardines.

[Jeremy Walker]

Kind of brings me back to home when I was growing up. Oh, yeah, we used to. Yeah, we used to eat sardines like this all the Time as kids, when you grow up, you don't have much, you know, you gotta deal with it.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

Almost like right now.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, dealing with the. Right now. And Cameron, did you. When you left the boat, did you bring that photograph with you?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, I always have it with me.

[Alex Ward]

Would you look at it now and maybe describe it for me?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. So I take out a folded, well worn piece of paper that has printed on it. This image of what is being said is one of these things.

[Alex Ward]

In fact, the image is a photocopy of some kind of developed film, not unlike, you know, the photos that we have here for all of you. But it is clearly a copied over version of this photo. And this photo is just of a man who is standing in like a T pose. And he seems to be orating, or at least he's talking. And there is columns of dirt being flung up around him and what appears to be these weird, wiry forms. And people are speculating, you know, because it has been passed around, that this is the best photo of them that is out there at the moment. Even though most of the photo is taken up by this man.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's definitely. It's a very bizarre thing to have, and I just. I can't.

[Alex Ward]

You had to trade quite a bit for it as well, too.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, I needed to know what. I want to know what these things are.

[Alex Ward]

And what do you think you gained from that photo?

[Arielle Hartman]

Looking at it, I gained an extreme dislike for being on solid ground. Cool. Cause if they're underground, I don't want to be on the ground. Got it.

[Alex Ward]

All right, duly noted.

[Arielle Hartman]

Or at least not staying in one place. On solid ground, you are.

[Alex Ward]

So anything else you would like to touch upon or go into before Mila said done. And you tell me what your next steps are.

[Livingston Moss]

Does that photo look familiar?

[Alex Ward]

Not for you.

[Livingston Moss]

I mean, does it look like. What, snatched?

[Alex Ward]

Oh, you know, that's tough to tell because when it happened for you, you weren't in the room when it happened. You heard the screams, and it was suddenly a hole in the concrete bunker. And it, you know, it looked like it doesn't even really make like a hole, like it came through. There was just a pile of rubble inside and he was gone.

[Livingston Moss]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. The true thought. I mean, your imagination can do wondrous things when it comes to inferring what it is. So it also depends on how much Camera has been sharing this information with you as well, too. So.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

Where did the photo come from? Who was.

[Alex Ward]

Where did you get it?

[Arielle Hartman]

When all this started happening. I heard about it. There were rumors. People talking about what was going on. And I heard rumors that someone had taken a photograph and that someone had tried to spread the word. Someone had tried. They had photocopied it onto a bunch of little leaflets and passed them around. But there weren't that many. Maybe they got taken before they could distribute a lot of them.

[Alex Ward]

He has one of the few ones.

[Arielle Hartman]

And I had to. I gave up something really important to get one of these because I needed. I wanted to know. I wanted to see what it was so that I could. So it could be. It could make sense.

[Jeremy Walker]

So it could be real to you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Cause otherwise it's just people disappearing. There needs to be. There's no cause. It's just an effect without a cause.

[Valerie Velacour]

What did you give up?

[Arielle Hartman]

I gave up something my mom gave me when I was a kid. It was one of those plastic disc things that have the little metal ball in it. It's like the puzzle games. And I just had it forever and. But the guy that I got this from was. I don't think he was. It had affected him. He didn't want money or anything like that. He wanted something that meant something to me. I think it was more important that I give up something to get this to him than it was actually giving him something he needed.

[Alex Ward]

Rough.

[Arielle Hartman]

So I did that.

[Jeremy Walker]

Like you traded a part of you to get a part of them.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

Did you always carry that around with you or was that new? The special thing from your mom?

[Arielle Hartman]

No, I always carried that with me. Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Do you mind if I look at the picture?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Don't.

[Livingston Moss]

I don't.

[Arielle Hartman]

Don't drop it. You can just. Don't lose it.

[Alex Ward]

It's not too hard to see by the light of the moon. It is clearly a photocopy of a photo. But it is distinct that there is something in those columns of dirt that are being flown up. And it does not look like anything you've ever seen. And part of your imagination wants to put that together and wonder if this is what it looked like moments before he was taken.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm gonna hand it back to you.

[Alex Ward]

Thanks.

[Arielle Hartman]

So the back of my pocket.

[Alex Ward]

No boat eaten the food you've scavenged?

[Arielle Hartman]

Well, we don't have a place anymore. Doesn't look like we have access to our semi consistent food source anymore.

[Jeremy Walker]

So we don't have much of anything.

[Arielle Hartman]

No.

[Jeremy Walker]

Anymore.

[Arielle Hartman]

No, we don't.

[Valerie Velacour]

We've been completely out of options.

[Alex Ward]

Well, there are options. You could go inland. Yeah. If you want. You could Follow the coast just to see what's going on. With this inland tide, you could go into the water or what was once the water to investigate things further. It just depends on how you want to spend your time.

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, I'm a little concerned about going inland, and you seem to have a little bit more knowledge about them than I do.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, that's the extent of my knowledge of them. I have a photo, a blurry, blurry photo.

[Valerie Velacour]

Seems like being on the water was safe for a while. So maybe just staying on the coastline is a good idea.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm concerned about going inland. If we're low to the ground and we're walking through the city and stuff like that, and these things are.

[Alex Ward]

Sure.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know what's sparking them to come.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, I don't. No, I don't want to go inland. I don't. But I also don't want to just be walking on the ground.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, I'd rather. If we can find a way to be up higher, maybe there's a.

[Arielle Hartman]

Maybe we can find our way into an apartment or something. Something that we could maybe break into or something to have a place.

[Valerie Velacour]

Is there a lighthouse we could find.

[Jeremy Walker]

Or perhaps a bridge we could get to? Maybe.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, is the Golden Gate still there?

[Alex Ward]

Yes, the Golden Gate is. I mean, last time you saw it, it is a dark world. You cannot see where you are. But you being familiar with the area, know where the Golden Gate Bridge would be.

[Arielle Hartman]

There's the Golden Gate and there's the Bay Bridge.

[Alex Ward]

Do you want to head to one of those landmarks?

[Arielle Hartman]

Golden Gate doesn't necessarily lead to anything directly at the other end. There's just tunnels and hills and a few places, a few houses, and I.

[Livingston Moss]

Feel like tunnels will put us in a really vulnerable.

[Arielle Hartman]

Bay Bridge leads right over to Oakland, which then puts us in another metropolitan area.

[Livingston Moss]

Tall buildings.

[Arielle Hartman]

Tall buildings.

[Jeremy Walker]

At least being on the bridge, at least we're above water.

[Arielle Hartman]

You're correct.

[Valerie Velacour]

If you want to get somewhere high, maybe we could go to Coit Tower. We didn't get to see that. Hey, but it's high up.

[Alex Ward]

Sure.

[Jeremy Walker]

That's one way to do it, I guess.

[Valerie Velacour]

Right.

[Alex Ward]

So it sounds like you are interested in finding a monument that could keep you. A monument and. Or building that keeps you off of the level floor and, you know, is still not so far inland that you have to travel large distances.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

Right. Then I say, at this point, do you want to go with the Bay Bridge or do you want to go with. Because the Bay Bridge will probably be a Little farther away from where you are currently from Fisherman's Wharf, you could find a building probably presumably closer to the water. Or you can go for the Bay Bridge.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, Golden Gate seems like a good idea to me. There's a lot of. Yeah, there's more high rises close to the water that direction than there is towards the Baybridge.

[Alex Ward]

Right. So off to the Golden Gate. So you begin walking and you continue to walk and the broken ground in front of you, every, the crunch of the torn up concrete below your feet just echoes off of your senses as you continue to make footfalls going into the city. Occasionally you'll hear a stray gunshot. Just a single. Seems to be somewhere off in the distance. It's so far away, it's hard to tell really which direction it's coming from. And minus that, it is eerily quiet. As you continue to walk through the city, at some point you get to an area where clearly one of the large high rise buildings has toppled and has cut literally a huge portion of downtown San Francisco, San Francisco, in half, basically laying its, you know, now that it's horizontal, five or six stories in front of you and seems to be laid out, you know, 20 or 30 stories on either side. It's directly in front of your path. So you would either have to go around or through.

[Valerie Velacour]

Okay, well if we go through, we can probably see if there's anything in there. We can collect supplies and we can maybe even.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know how we can even do it. But get to higher ground even in the building.

[Alex Ward]

Exactly.

[Valerie Velacour]

Because it's not going to topple again.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, true, it may be unstable inside structurally.

[Livingston Moss]

It's not supposed to be sitting like this.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. And also the fall could have damaged supporting walls and things like that that could fall through into.

[Livingston Moss]

But it would be faster than grinding.

[Arielle Hartman]

It would be faster.

[Alex Ward]

So the first thing to conquer on a toppled building is the mountains of glass that has shattered from a high rise building falling like this and laid out in front of it. Who is going to go first.

[Arielle Hartman]

To.

[Jeremy Walker]

Smash the glass, to walk through the.

[Alex Ward]

Glass, to go through the glass. And I mean there will be no shortage of broken windows. But who is venturing into the building.

[Arielle Hartman]

First is what I'm trying to say. I can do it. I can go in.

[Alex Ward]

One six and one one for me. How many are in there? Three. Six. I will take four. Let's see if I get any sixes. I do not.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh.

[Alex Ward]

Cameron, would you like to take narrative control and tell me how you find your way into this building?

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. So I go so up to the building and everything's. There's a hill of looks like rubble and broken stone and things like that. It's leading up to an area where there is a big. Looks like what was once like a sliding glass door to an apartment that's partially busted.

[Alex Ward]

Right.

[Arielle Hartman]

So I'm going to go over and try and I'm gonna put my foot on it to try and gently push the glass in.

[Alex Ward]

So you feel this push and just.

[Arielle Hartman]

Adding a little bit more pressure to time too.

[Alex Ward]

You just hear something give and you watch as it just slaps down. And this was reinforced plexi on this laying glass door, not like a windowpane. And you kind of watch it and it wobble more than it shatters as it falls. And then actually at this point would tumble down. It's fallen down. It would tumble down about five or six feet to the nearest wall where it is. And you peek your head inside and can see it's almost like a scene from inception. Just this living space that has been turned on its side and everything that wasn't nailed down or bolted down is basically lying on one side of the wall in front.

[Arielle Hartman]

And so is there any sharp edges or anything that's still in this frame.

[Alex Ward]

Or is this frame? No, you can move the entire door frame.

[Arielle Hartman]

Great, great. Okay, I look down at everybody and I go, I'm gonna check it out really quick and I'll signal you guys to come back up. Just don't be hide maybe, I don't know. I don't. Don't stand out in the opening.

[Valerie Velacour]

What do you want us to say if we see anything? How do you want us to let you know?

[Arielle Hartman]

No, just come. Let's all stay together.

[Jeremy Walker]

Actually, I don't want him to go by himself.

[Alex Ward]

We all crawl up the rubble and Cameron with having this trying to be a leader but having also a tough time trying to make a decision kind of moment, you all rally to bring yourself up and you all look down the five or six foot drop where all of the accoutrements are now laying as well too. And you can see the door frame which is across from you about 10, 15ft and down about another 5 or 6ft.

[Arielle Hartman]

So we have a way in. It just has a more than dangerous ball pit at the bottom of the drop.

[Livingston Moss]

Are we supposed to just slide down?

[Arielle Hartman]

I think some of us could lower some us down.

[Alex Ward]

Who'd like to be lowered down first? Probably.

[Livingston Moss]

I can go.

[Valerie Velacour]

You probably.

[Alex Ward]

Great. You know what's coming? Oh, no.

[Arielle Hartman]

All right.

[Alex Ward]

So there's 1, 1 and 0 successes. Which means unless you'd like to attempt to reroll this one with one of your virtues and vices, this scene is over. Three, two. You'd have to do the top one.

[Livingston Moss]

Oh, I have to do the top one.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

I didn't know this was in an order.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, or you can put it in whatever order you want. So we'll have that opportunity now as this scene ends. So we have some truths to speak about the scene coming up. Good news is you're back up to nine dice.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

But we need to speak of some truths that are now part of this world. The first one is the world is dark. The second one will be spoken by Lexi, who unfortunately failed the conflict role in the circumstances. So, do you mind telling me a truth of this story? Um, and it can be immediate. It can be flash forwardy. It can. It is just the truth of this story. It is the truth of this world. It can be about the circumstances, or it can be about the moment as well, too.

[Livingston Moss]

Okay.

[Erica Fermina]

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[Alex Ward]

Would you like to give me an example to kind of help to start the thing off?

[Livingston Moss]

Maybe the building is stable.

[Alex Ward]

The building is stable. That is a truth. Okay, Cameron, Um.

[Arielle Hartman]

The building that we're entering into.

[Alex Ward]

Is.

[Arielle Hartman]

Darker than the outside.

[Alex Ward]

That is the truth. 3.

[Valerie Velacour]

Is it all about the building?

[Alex Ward]

It does not have to be.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, okay.

[Alex Ward]

Circumstances or the situation? Both can apply. In this situation.

[Valerie Velacour]

There are starting to be loud noises coming from far away. Indiscernible ones.

[Alex Ward]

Good. 5.

[Jeremy Walker]

We don't know how to get to the other side.

[Arielle Hartman]

Excellent.

[Alex Ward]

Five. Five. V. You stole mine. Yeah, you did. Sorry. The ball pit below you is filled with sharp objects. 6. I know.

[Livingston Moss]

Am I allowed to add to your.

[Alex Ward]

By all means.

[Livingston Moss]

There's a couch on top of the sharp objects.

[Alex Ward]

Cool. All right. Yes. Seven.

[Arielle Hartman]

I. I didn't go first on purpose. Cool.

[Alex Ward]

That's a good truth.

[Valerie Velacour]

I feel really guilty.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. That is the truth. Absolutely.

[Jeremy Walker]

I miss my kids.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, I think that's a given, but we'll take it, so we'll keep. It also establishes you have kids. Great. So now we will start this scene with nine. I'm going to wrestle narrative control from you, and I will say that, Cameron, as you were lowering Lexi down, it was less a deliberate slip or anything important, as Mora was just being completely unfamiliar with being on your side. So while you were attempting to slip, bring her down, put her feet against the wall, her sudden weight actually toppled you forward, and I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do to you right now. Your legs kind of split and you fell onto the. The grind, like in the. In between, as you held onto yourself, as you kind of toppled over and you're able to catch and support yourself. But Lexi toppled, and after doing, you know, kind of a. Not a Like a quarter twist flip, basically landed on the back of her neck and the top of her back on the couch. And you kind of feel the wind being knocked out of you as you impact onto this thing as hard as you can. And you. You do feel your legs roll off onto it, and it's settling in the debris somewhere. But you are terrified, because right now, you can't take a breath. You're just gasping for air at this point.

[Arielle Hartman]

Lexi, are you all right? Are you okay?

[Livingston Moss]

Maybe.

[Alex Ward]

You. Yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

Can we can. You take your shirt off, and I can take my jacket off, and we can tie em together. We can get her out. I mean, if we both pull her up.

[Arielle Hartman]

But we're going through here, aren't we? That was the whole point.

[Jeremy Walker]

We can't. I mean, we can't just.

[Alex Ward]

She's about five or six feet down.

[Valerie Velacour]

It's not that long.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, that's enough so that it hurt like a son of a bitch when you fell on it. But it wasn't far enough. Yeah, far enough.

[Valerie Velacour]

But we're not leaving her.

[Arielle Hartman]

No, we're not leaving her. But do we. I mean, she's down there already. What if we just continue and go in?

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't see what choice we have. I mean, Lexi, do you see anything down there that we don't see?

[Alex Ward]

Just to be clear, it knocks the wind out of you, but that's one of the reasons it was so hard to take a breath, is that your body has basically just lost all of its capacity to take a breath for a second. So after a few terrifying moments while they're talking about whether it'll leave you or not, you basically are able to rerotate your body so that you can feel this shaky breath come back inside of you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Are you alive?

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Okay, okay, okay.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. Let's not do something like that again, guys.

[Livingston Moss]

Look around and see it is pitch.

[Alex Ward]

Black in this building. The light that you are getting is from the hole that Cameron made as a result of this plexi door. And the moonlight that you're getting is almost like a shaft of light that's actually beaming through this otherwise entirely black interior. You can't even see an inch in front of your face right now.

[Livingston Moss]

I can't see anything.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, this isn't gonna work. We can't go through here. There may be stuff we can use in there. But if we can't see anything, I mean, we don't have any lights.

[Alex Ward]

We don't have. That wasn't one of your truths.

[Arielle Hartman]

No.

[Livingston Moss]

And I don't think I can even reach the cabinets to look for things.

[Alex Ward]

You could if it's what you want to do.

[Livingston Moss]

I mean, I'm down here. I might as well look for supplies.

[Valerie Velacour]

There might be matches or a lighter or anything.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, how about this? If you can go and look for stuff, you two. Or one of us goes down and waits right at the base of where we dropped her so she can have somebody to find her way back to, and then the two of us up Here can pull them back up.

[Alex Ward]

I'll go to her.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

It's a five or six foot drop.

[Jeremy Walker]

You could try anything. I can climb.

[Valerie Velacour]

We have a team building thing where we hold onto people by our forearm.

[Alex Ward]

We saw all that. Well, but no, at this point point, since they attempted to lower down at 5 or 6ft, you could definitely grasp a hold of the side and then drop down that five or six feet without too much problem. But you will be on the debris field. So I'm okay with that. I'm still going to want a conflict roll just to kind of just. You'll be on incredibly unstable surface, but you are starting back with nine dice again. So.

[Jeremy Walker]

I was pretty athletic growing up.

[Alex Ward]

I'm less worried about you lowering yourself down. Yeah. And more worried about the stuff you're walking on. All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

God be with me.

[Alex Ward]

No ones. Several sixes.

[Valerie Velacour]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

All right.

[Valerie Velacour]

Doesn't prove anything.

[Livingston Moss]

Much more graceful than my intrigue.

[Alex Ward]

Deftly kind of Spider man style. Just lift yourself up to the other side and you lower yourself onto the funtime ball pit.

[Jeremy Walker]

Lexi coming for you.

[Alex Ward]

And the first thing you hear is actually cracking of glass as your weight is now put upon presumably something. But then you also manage to find the plexiglass door that was kicked in by Cameron. And that actually gives you enough level footing in order to kind of find where Lexi is in the dark. And Lexi. Yeah. Is it time to start sorting through the rubble a little bit? What are you looking for?

[Livingston Moss]

I'm looking for cans of food, if there's any that may have fallen out of cabinets.

[Alex Ward]

Right.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm looking for maybe a flashlight, weapon, first aid, anything that you are reaching.

[Alex Ward]

Blind in the dark. I would like to see what happens.

[Livingston Moss]

Maybe some pills. Nothing to do with the character.

[Alex Ward]

Better living through chemistry. All right. Two ones.

[Valerie Velacour]

Two ones.

[Livingston Moss]

But there's also a six in there.

[Alex Ward]

Yep. So I don't have enough to roll these yet. So why don't you take over for a second and tell me what happens here?

[Livingston Moss]

While I'm gingerly touching rubble, I find something that's not super sharp that I can use to push stuff away. Push stuff away. While also lightly tapping so not to get stabbed by any of this broken glass. And I can find some canned fruit like those peaches. I'm able to find some half empty ibuprofen bottle maybe. What else do people keep in their kitchens? A knife.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, just like just a regular knife that you use to prepare.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah. Regular kitchen knife.

[Alex Ward]

I think that sounds like quite enough. That's fine.

[Livingston Moss]

I was gonna Keep going. If you didn't stop me and I find a flashlight.

[Alex Ward]

Well, I will say, especially since I know I'm excited about the prospect of you going through this building. And then you've had several opportunities to earn a flashlight at this point. If you would like to earn a flashlight.

[Livingston Moss]

Oh, I'd love to earn a flashlight.

[Jeremy Walker]

Would you please learn a flashlight?

[Alex Ward]

I will at least give you one of those chunky, like, wide beam ones that use the giant D batteries that are inside of it. And what you actually find, and this is very important, so I'm going to mention it for those who are paying attention. Is that the tab? It's brand new, so it had batteries installed into it, and you had to pull the tab for it to turn on.

[Valerie Velacour]

So we know we have it for.

[Livingston Moss]

A while, and we can always put.

[Valerie Velacour]

The tab back in.

[Jeremy Walker]

Fantastic.

[Livingston Moss]

Put that in my pocket.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

Flashlight tab in my pocket.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. Flashlight tab in your pocket. So now you and I would like to paint this picture for you. Sure. As you can hear Lexi rummaging around, you suddenly see a huge beam of light just wash over you as you in the pitch black are now being hit by this wide beam of light.

[Livingston Moss]

I've got good news.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah, we see that.

[Alex Ward]

Wonderful.

[Livingston Moss]

Sorry, I didn't know where you were. I didn't mean to blind you.

[Jeremy Walker]

No, it's great.

[Valerie Velacour]

It's great, though. Down there.

[Livingston Moss]

No.

[Valerie Velacour]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm looking away from the building, up at the top. I'm watching behind where we came.

[Alex Ward]

Where you came from?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. That sound that Valerie described, you're aware of it now. It's more like you feel it than you hear it.

[Valerie Velacour]

Especially since it's so quiet.

[Alex Ward]

So what's next? Everybody?

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay?

[Livingston Moss]

Guess we're gonna get out of this room.

[Valerie Velacour]

Let's get out of this building.

[Arielle Hartman]

Well, okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

The only way, really way we know out is the way we came in.

[Arielle Hartman]

But we have light now.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, it's true.

[Arielle Hartman]

Which means we can go through.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah. And the door is, like, right there.

[Valerie Velacour]

Let's do that.

[Alex Ward]

All right.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, great.

[Alex Ward]

So you managed to get to the door without a whole lot of kerfuffle. Everyone kind of comes down, especially with the light. It's so much easier. So much easier. You know, Lib's there to lower you down, Valerie, and you, Cameron, a lot easier to bring you down. And as you kind of get to the door, you kind of, you know, you have the knob in front of you, and you kind of twist the knob, and you can feel the weight of the door kind of take itself as it falls to the outside, as it kind of just on its hinges. In fact, the weight of the movement is so strong that you actually see a moment where one of the hinges just kind of just knocks it off like someone hit it with just a mule kick. And you kind of hear as it just right across the back of the building. And. And since you are ostensibly only at the end apartment on one of these tall buildings, you can look down because you're in the hallway for this whole area at the moment. And you can look down, and it's only about five or six feet before you see just rubble, just rubble laid out in front of you. But you can point the beam up and you can see all the way up the hallway way with various little pricks of, you know, things that are obstructing or pushing itself in the way. But you're looking about five or six stories straight up. Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

This is really unsettling.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, I. Okay, how do we do this?

[Alex Ward]

How do we.

[Livingston Moss]

Well, luckily, it's much shorter down.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Until we go up higher.

[Alex Ward]

Across.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't even really know.

[Alex Ward]

So across.

[Arielle Hartman]

Across.

[Livingston Moss]

Yes, across the apartment.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And is that door close?

[Alex Ward]

It is not closed. Okay. It is. It is closed. That's what I meant to say.

[Arielle Hartman]

It is closed.

[Alex Ward]

It is closed.

[Arielle Hartman]

It is closed. Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

How wide is the building? So if we're going, we're making our way across.

[Alex Ward]

It was difficult to tell because you obviously were looking at one side of the building into it. But from where you are, if I imagine it being a large apartment building kind of a situation, and if it is, I mean, it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be thin or skinny. It's probably gonna be more like a square or oblong the way it is. So this building in front of you or this apartment in front of you would not lead to the other side of the building.

[Jeremy Walker]

We'd still have to go through several more.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Is the door recessed into an alcove or is it flush with the wall?

[Alex Ward]

It is recessed into an alcove.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. And the distance between our door and.

[Alex Ward]

The edge of that alcove is, I would say a hallway length is about four feet.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. All right.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

So maybe we get across into that other apartment and see what its situation is. Like maybe some of the walls have come down in there. Maybe there's a way through. If not, we'll figure that out when we get there.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

I mean, we're also going to go up.

[Valerie Velacour]

We can at least see what's in there. If there's anything else we can do.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can't go up. Going down is so through.

[Alex Ward]

So who wants to make a tiny jump about four feet?

[Livingston Moss]

Well, I'm not going first this time.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm happy to do it. I just, you know, you guys all saw my skills, so.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. Yeah. You ready to go?

[Jeremy Walker]

I can do this. Guys.

[Livingston Moss]

I've got the flashlight.

[Jeremy Walker]

Thank you.

[Livingston Moss]

Lighting your way.

[Jeremy Walker]

Hang on.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. Little tightness.

[Arielle Hartman]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

But I'm good. I'm good.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, Copy with me. Damn.

[Jeremy Walker]

And again. He is.

[Alex Ward]

No.

[Valerie Velacour]

Doesn't mean he's real, but I'm glad you're alive.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. Two sixes. No ones. Let me see if I can seize narrative control of this, but nope. Lib, why don't you tell me exactly how this happened?

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, it's four feet jump to an alcove. Into the alcove. So what I do is have Lexi flash all the area so I can see. Kind of get an idea of my bearings here and where we are, what the jump's gonna look like, and where my landing's gonna look like. Of course, I take a nice stretch, and then I rev myself up here, right? Take a long jump over the four feet, land into the alcove, and plant my arms against the wall there.

[Alex Ward]

So you basically have either side of the alcove that's attached onto you, and you can see the door handle right above you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Right above me. And so what I do is I keep my hand planted and just twist.

[Alex Ward]

The doorknob, and actually, because when you twisted it, it would slide down and you'd hold onto it, and basically, you're now kind of sandwiched in between the door jamb and the door. And, Lexi, you can basically shoot right through it and look into the next room. Now, when this door opens, because it is right above you, you have a moment in which you basically feel huge amounts of pressure placed down upon you. And you can also see the tumbling of items as they just cascade out from that room on there. And it occasionally will make an impact, and it will press you up against the wall a little more. But after everything settles, like, see, you shoot yourself right through, and you poke around, and you can actually see pretty far down. I mean, the other wall is there. And where the balcony was, there is a wall, but that wall is shot to shit as far as structural capacity goes.

[Jeremy Walker]

What do you guys see? Cause I can't.

[Livingston Moss]

There's a wall. We might be able to break through it, but I don't know what that would do for the Stuff above us.

[Arielle Hartman]

Are you all right? Can you get out of there?

[Alex Ward]

You lift the door a little bit, and it actually feels like some of the weight that's on you. I mean, it's pinning you. You're pushing it up, but something is creating a bit of a fulcrum. And now it's almost like it's pinned you in that situation a little bit. Like you can lift on it, but something is jamming you a little bit. Like a leg got caught in between the jam.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm not real sure how I'm gonna get out of this situation, but I think if I can. Is there a way I can break the door off the jamb and maybe give them sort of like if it falls the other way, they can cross.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, so if I'm hearing you correctly, you basically want to try to shove this door off of its hinge. Cause it's in front of you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

You've got the floor kind of to your right a little bit. You can see the. The linoleum that's kind of laid out to the side of you. And then much, much farther is the ceiling. And you've got this door. Who has flopped onto its hinge in front of you kind of like waist up.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

And you want to try to rip it right off so that it can fall down, Right?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. I mean, the idea I would like to think would be to get it to where I can create a way that they can get across to the other door.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, I see. Ooh, man, that's going to be a feat of strength to literally pop it off its hinge, rotate it, and then make a plank out of it, so to speak.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know how else to get them over.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. Unless they all want to jump. So it's one die roll or three, however you're feeling about it.

[Valerie Velacour]

What's the length of the jump again?

[Arielle Hartman]

Four feet. Four feet.

[Valerie Velacour]

Four feet?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

It's not that long.

[Arielle Hartman]

It's not that long.

[Alex Ward]

No. And in fact, at this point, if you don't mind me saying, we could be in a situation where if you held the door up to a certain point, they would gain an extra two feet. They could a sensibly long step over. And that would just be supportive. You'd have to like full blown support the weight of these people, you know, as they're walking across.

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, maybe the first person that comes can, I don't know, can they get in a position to help me?

[Alex Ward]

They'd have to go underneath where you are. And if they're trying to go over to get into the building. Basically, it'd be like the equivalent of you're the stone. Right. And they'd have to go under the water to be another stone, or they'd have to. Or they could leapfrog from the point to the other. So it's completely up to you. Also, you could be in a position where all of you can basically mean, we've got the light, you've opened the door. That is a conflict. But I. For the purposes of this story, I would not punish you if you wanted to basically hold these up and then have people long step. Cause it's probably just gonna be for just a second while they make their next step.

[Jeremy Walker]

I think I can handle it.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

The door's gonna support most of the weight.

[Alex Ward]

Door's gonna support most of the weight.

[Jeremy Walker]

And I. You know, you were the hit.

[Alex Ward]

You are the, you know, the brace, so to speak, in this situation. So, yeah, let's play that out.

[Arielle Hartman]

Right.

[Jeremy Walker]

So I can do this.

[Alex Ward]

So Lib is puts us back up against the wall. What do you want to say to them?

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, guys, this is the plan. I think what I can do is I can bring the door up just enough where you guys can jump. You don't have to make the full jump. You can just kind of bounce one step and then into the apartment.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

All right, you guys, can you handle that?

[Livingston Moss]

Can you handle that?

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah, I think so.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, we'll find out.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

So you brace the door up.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

And then you kind of feel as each one. Lexi, Cameron, Valerie. Each one kind of has their weight on the door for just a second before they ostensibly leap into the next. And this one is, again, circumstances in which, like, the floor is the way that it is. Both of you. Well, at least two of you can be able to just immediately go to either side of the door and be on either the side facing the ceiling and the side facing the floor. It's mostly about what's going to happen with the last person through, because they don't really have a place to go unless they're literally rolling on top of one of you. So. And. Yes.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

Is that how it works? Yes. Cause you'd be coming in, and theoretically, you'd have to stand up against a wall, depending on where that wall is.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Right inside the door. So that we're laying on, like, a ledge sort of situation. Yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

So there's no way they could catch and do a kind of a catch and hold type thing.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. I mean, it's Just, I mean, again, the physics of this is all really funky and even I'm trying to wrap my head around it in a big way. So let's just say that all three of you do get into the sideways building in front of you to the point of where one of the walls is close enough to where the door jamb is that you could all ostensibly walk along this wall. That would lead to the wall that is across from you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Great.

[Alex Ward]

There is junk and shit everywhere. But let's leave it there, shall we?

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, cool.

[Alex Ward]

So you're all now in this disheveled apartment, not unlike the room that you left. It was a kitchen, living room set up that you went into. And even though you didn't explore the other rooms, that's kind of what you're seeing here. Everything turned on its side. You can see above you. You can actually see the 55 inch flat panel that's still bolted to the wall, just hanging right above you like a chandelier midway down. So what would you like to do?

[Arielle Hartman]

You said the wall was inside the apartment, was broken down. Or is it the. So the wall, the one across that.

[Alex Ward]

Lexi was looking through, it looks cracked and disheveled. And upon further investigation, depending on how much time you want to inside of this building, you go and Valerie, as Lexi's shining the light, you kind of look over there and you can see that the wall's broken. And you could crawl through. I mean, there's enough holes that you.

[Valerie Velacour]

Could do it to the next apartment.

[Alex Ward]

To the next apartment, but it's gonna be a tight squeeze.

[Valerie Velacour]

What kind of a hole? How big of it? How big is it exactly?

[Alex Ward]

We're talking spelunking size.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. And there is drywall and, you know, asbestos. Not asbestos, sorry, insulation. Insulation, probably asbestos. That's probably more. More than anything. How you can get through it is you basically have seen enough broken support, like just the frame way in between it, that you could probably. And you know, if you wanted to, you could probably try to reach your hand through to see if you can get through the other side, through the insulation, onto the other part.

[Valerie Velacour]

Can I try to break it open more with some debris that I find?

[Alex Ward]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That sounds a little dangerous though. So why don't you roll for it?

[Valerie Velacour]

That isn't new, see?

[Alex Ward]

Ah, okay. I'll take those three ones. But you did succeed. Absolutely. Unless you would like to use a virtue to try to reroll these. That's up to you. Or whatever is on the top of your stash.

[Valerie Velacour]

Is that what I Should do or.

[Alex Ward]

That's up to you. You can save them for later if you want to.

[Valerie Velacour]

What do you guys think I should do?

[Arielle Hartman]

3 dice is a lot, but it's.

[Livingston Moss]

Really up to you.

[Alex Ward]

But you did succeed.

[Valerie Velacour]

And if I burn one, then I just reroll those.

[Alex Ward]

You just reroll the threes. And you never get that back.

[Valerie Velacour]

I never get the success back.

[Alex Ward]

Or you never get that virtue and or vice back.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, gotcha.

[Alex Ward]

It's a one time use.

[Valerie Velacour]

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

[Alex Ward]

Three, two, and.

[Jeremy Walker]

What's the significance? If she does burn this, she has.

[Alex Ward]

To find whatever the context of the story is. Which one was on top? Cold. How would you like to be cold in this situation in order to apply it to the story?

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, is that what it is?

[Alex Ward]

Oh, yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

Cold. I think I just.

[Alex Ward]

In order to succeed, you get narration rights over this. You get to tell me how you break this wall to make it a little easier to squeeze through.

[Valerie Velacour]

I gotcha.

[Alex Ward]

But I also want you to tell me. Tell me how you're cold about it.

[Valerie Velacour]

Well, the thing of it is, is that Lib here, it was his idea to. He found like a broken chair leg that was really sturdy and had the idea to do it, but I had already said it before and nobody heard me. And so I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it because he gets the credit for everything. And so I grab it from him and we have like a tug of war for a minute and finally I shouted his face.

[Alex Ward]

You shouted his face?

[Valerie Velacour]

I shout that I never should have slept with him.

[Alex Ward]

Great. And then you start whacking that thing as hard as you possibly can and you just tear that wall apart.

[Jeremy Walker]

I can't believe you just said that.

[Valerie Velacour]

Well, it's no time like the present, right? I am. I regret it. I've regretted it the last three days.

[Alex Ward]

So you've made a reasonable size hole. You can re roll these. Now, if they. If they're anything other than a 1, then they don't go away.

[Jeremy Walker]

She was just kidding, guys.

[Alex Ward]

What?

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm sure I didn't hear anything.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

And this passageway that you make from tearing into this wall is now big enough to where you won't have to compromise any kind of conflict by squeezing through.

[Valerie Velacour]

Right?

[Alex Ward]

Right.

[Valerie Velacour]

So you can be mad at me or you can climb through the goddamn wall.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, go. Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Do you want help?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, I'd love to.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Let's go first.

[Jeremy Walker]

You guys can go first.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. So, Lexi, you start to brush away as much insulation and drywall as you Can. And you kind of have to use your elbow to nudge it through to punch through the rest of the drywall. But you make a hole from the hole that Valerie had created, and you find yourself again in complete blackness as you are.

[Livingston Moss]

Flash, flash, flashlight.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. And not an UN like, similar situation. In fact, this apartment, which, again, this building has the same layout for every single one of these. It feels just like another high rise San Francisco scummy apartment.

[Arielle Hartman]

All right, I'm going to follow after her through the hole.

[Alex Ward]

There's one thing, though, Lexi, that's unique about this apartment. What is it?

[Livingston Moss]

It's. It's a studio.

[Alex Ward]

It's a studio. Okay. It's a big studio. Yeah. And it has a loft ceiling. All right, all right. So you get in. But really what that means for you is that to your left, which is where the ceiling would be coming through, goes down quite a bit, you know, and then actually, to your point, the pile of stuff that has accumulated in front along the side is big enough that you kind of have to start climbing over things in order to get back to where the door is on the other side. So all of you push through, and that's when you start to hear cracking. Thank you.

[Livingston Moss]

Everybody get off the ground. Stand on something. Climb on something.

[Arielle Hartman]

What's around right now is there.

[Alex Ward]

Just.

[Jeremy Walker]

Careful, guys.

[Alex Ward]

Just. There's a pile of things. And right now, the cracking that you hear underneath you is more like the drywall underneath your feet. As you kind of are feeling that and you watch it, and it's like spider webs as you put one foot down and kind of feel it start to buckle underneath you just a little bit. And you notice that all of the things that are in front of you, the fact that you're in this part of the building, all of the things in front of you are putting a lot of weight on this wall.

[Arielle Hartman]

Right now, across the way, looking to the other side of the apartment, is there a door? Because there would be the front door over there.

[Alex Ward]

Studio. The front door. Because again, the floor is to your right. So it would be in front of you over there. And it could be. Yes. And it could be a little down. Like, it could be a little to your left and then cut across into it. Or could be. Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Now, from. Okay, I know the ground isn't that far below us because of where the thing was. I book it across the floor.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

I shoot across the room to try and get the floor.

[Alex Ward]

Shoot across the room. All right, let's dive straight for the door. Oh, wow. Three Sixes. Geez.

[Jeremy Walker]

Nice work.

[Alex Ward]

Let me see if I can rest narrative control, which I doubt it. One, six. So absolutely no circumstances, please, Cameron, tell me.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, so I'm standing at the top of the pile of debris right after we came out of the wall, and I start seeing the spider webbing floor go. And I don't. I don't think. I just. I need to get out to the other side. I need to get out. This was a bad idea being in here.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

And so I just. As fast as I can, I sprint down the hill and I shoot. And I'm kind of like leapfrogging between the pieces.

[Alex Ward]

You have to make a little bit of a leap. I would think you actually have to make a little bit of a leap just to get up to the door to where it is. And you grab the door handle that's right above you as you make this leap. And you feel it as the weight just. Well, no, you just hold onto it because all the doors open out. So you're just holding onto it right now as you're dangling from the door knob. And Lexi, you watch him. It's like a shadow in the night. Just leaps up. And then you hear a vroom as his body just impacts against the wall on the other side.

[Arielle Hartman]

I got the door.

[Livingston Moss]

Can you open it? Is it opening?

[Arielle Hartman]

Can I put my feet on the wall and twist the door handle?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, I'm going to do that. Hoping there's nothing on the other side of the door.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

I shine the light at the door just in case. Just in case anything happens.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, my gosh. Do I want this? Do I want this? You just did a roll. I want another one.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, man.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, my God. 1 1. No successes.

[Arielle Hartman]

No successes.

[Livingston Moss]

Oh, no.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, so. Oh, okay. I know what happens. Unfortunately, this scene ends, and we now have to speak some more truths about what made Cameron jump. All right, so we are back to eight dice, and we have eight truths to speak. Cameron, we're gonna start with you. First, the world is dark. This building is dark. Second, Cameron.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm terrified of that noise.

[Alex Ward]

Got it.

[Arielle Hartman]

And I'm trying to get away.

[Alex Ward]

That sounds like a fair truth.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

Valerie, Cameron only cares about himself.

[Alex Ward]

That sounds like a truth library.

[Jeremy Walker]

If he opens that door, something's gonna. Something's gonna fall in, and we don't know what's gonna happen next.

[Alex Ward]

Something's going to fall. If he opens that door, something is going to fall. You are not safe from them.

[Livingston Moss]

They're what is causing the floor to crack.

[Alex Ward]

And finally, Cameron you get the six, or we have seven. Sorry. Eight.

[Arielle Hartman]

Eight. I'm hoping that they take them first.

[Alex Ward]

Seven.

[Valerie Velacour]

The noises that we heard before are getting much louder and much closer.

[Alex Ward]

Thanks.

[Jeremy Walker]

They're surrounding the building.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, you guys were not nice to yourself at all.

[Arielle Hartman]

Apparently we hate ourselves.

[Alex Ward]

All right, you are all still alive.

[Jeremy Walker]

We're all still alive for now.

[Livingston Moss]

Got my flashlight.

[Alex Ward]

I got whatever that stick that I was Cameron cleaning up. You have this door.

[Valerie Velacour]

I do.

[Alex Ward]

And you put your feet and you twist the knob, and as soon as that latch clicks down, enough of your weight is on it, you fall forward immediately. In fact, you tumble over the door jamb, over the door hinge, and you barely hang on as you are flipped along the other side and are hanging with your hands behind you above, and your back has impacted. You can feel this wash of pain come across your lower back and your legs. And as you're looking above, you can see the darkness above you as the stories are just. The hallway is just long and ominous. And you look below you and realize that by leaping up to get to this position, you are now 10ft or so before the end of said hallway, which is now a pile of rubble. And you can see that rubble starting to move. What would you like to do?

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, worked for him. At least he got the door open.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, it's open.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm gonna pick, like, a rock up or something next to me, and I'm gonna toss it in the middle of the room. I just want to see.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, in the middle of the room. Just the room that you're in.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, you're just on the floor.

[Alex Ward]

You throw this item onto the ground to where the wall is that everything is laid out upon at the moment, and you chuck this item into that area, and you see as the impact from it just starts a hole. Just as a small pile of rubble that was laid around, it just starts tumbling into it as if it's just falling directly into whatever part of the infrastructure is left from here to the bottom of the building. The bottom of the building.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, my God.

[Livingston Moss]

I just wanted to see if anything would come up from the floor.

[Alex Ward]

Well, there is now a reasonable hole in the wall.

[Livingston Moss]

Well, now we know where not to step.

[Jeremy Walker]

Mm.

[Valerie Velacour]

Mm.

[Alex Ward]

Cameron, are you keeping your cool up there or are you screaming or what's going on?

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm staring. And the ground is moving. Correct. I'm just staring.

[Alex Ward]

I go, is it moving? It could be moving.

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't really want to be out here anymore. I want to try and get back through the door.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. We'll get to there first.

[Arielle Hartman]

But I do. I'm starting to make kind of like whimpering noises on the other side.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can we see him?

[Alex Ward]

No, he flipped on the other side. For all you know, his fault. Depends on how loud he's whimpering. Yes.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can I scream, call out for him?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jeremy Walker]

Cameron?

[Valerie Velacour]

Cameron?

[Jeremy Walker]

Cameron.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Yeah. Are you okay? Maybe. Yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

Is anything broken?

[Arielle Hartman]

Not. No, not me. No. I don't know if.

[Jeremy Walker]

Do you see any way. Okay, call. Just keep it together, dude. Good breath. Cameron.

[Livingston Moss]

Is there, like, what do you see what's across the hall from.

[Arielle Hartman]

There's a. What is directly across the hall?

[Alex Ward]

It is a. You're in another hallway, and there is yet another door similar to the same hallway.

[Arielle Hartman]

It's the same as the other hallway. There's another door, I think. I don't know. I think the ground's moving.

[Jeremy Walker]

You think or it is.

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't know.

[Alex Ward]

It's very dark.

[Arielle Hartman]

It's very dark in here. I don't have the light. I wasn't thinking.

[Livingston Moss]

I'll try to get over there.

[Jeremy Walker]

Well, we all need to try to get over there.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

This was a bad idea.

[Alex Ward]

Hmm.

[Jeremy Walker]

Let's think. Let's think. Is it.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm gonna try to replicate his leap frog pattern.

[Alex Ward]

Right.

[Livingston Moss]

While also trying to avoid the hole in the middle of the.

[Alex Ward]

Well, you threw it to the side. But since the door's already opened and the door was about another foot and a half to where the knob was before he shoved it down and flipped over, tumbled over, you can basically run up and kind of like, with a small leap, get the door jamb on the side of it, and then you can pick yourself up.

[Livingston Moss]

Okay, I'll do that. And I'm gonna shine the light down, down, down.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, great. Please make the conflict roll. Ah. Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

Oh, should I reroll this one, or should I add it?

[Alex Ward]

You're keeping. It fell off. That is no successes. No ones.

[Arielle Hartman]

No ones.

[Alex Ward]

All right. Hmm.

[Livingston Moss]

Oh, no. I forget. That's what that means.

[Alex Ward]

This ends this scene. We have seven candles left. Lexi, as you are shining down to look upon this rubble, find out to ease Cameron's and everybody else's mental state of where you are at the moment you are looking down and you can see maybe the rubble was moving when you first shined it. But just as quickly, it stops. Almost as if, like, nothing had actually happened. As you shine your light down onto there, it's at that moment you hear a loud clang right above you. And you look up just for a moment before you see A fire extinguisher just frack you right onto the front of your head and you tumble down into the rubble below. Oh. We are now going to speak seven truths about what's going on moving forward. Lexi, let's start with you. I can help you if you'd like.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm scared.

[Alex Ward]

I can go first.

[Livingston Moss]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

You've broken a bone.

[Livingston Moss]

All right.

[Alex Ward]

Which bone? It could be decided.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Of course.

[Livingston Moss]

I did. I did not break a limb.

[Alex Ward]

Great.

[Arielle Hartman]

Three, I am losing my grip.

[Valerie Velacour]

Four, she has a nasty cut on her head that's bleeding pretty bad.

[Alex Ward]

Five.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm regretting making the decision to take this trip.

[Alex Ward]

I already spoke mine, so. Which means we can have you be six.

[Livingston Moss]

The ground is not currently moving.

[Alex Ward]

And seven.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm. I want to try and help her.

[Alex Ward]

All right, well, then let's pick this up from seven. You now have seven dice to work with. What would you like to do?

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Are you all right? Are you okay? Are you down?

[Livingston Moss]

I'm. I mean, I'm hurting pretty bad.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

And you said from where I am. How. Vaguely. How far is it down?

[Alex Ward]

About 8 to 9ft.

[Jeremy Walker]

Same from us.

[Valerie Velacour]

From where he is.

[Alex Ward]

From where he is.

[Arielle Hartman]

She fell through the door over me.

[Alex Ward]

In fact, that's why it's eight or nine feet, because you probably have about a foot and a half to two feet on the other side from the door jamb.

[Jeremy Walker]

So we still have to get through.

[Arielle Hartman]

Shit.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

We have no choice. We have to get the other side. You got somebody who's just got smacked by a fire extinguisher.

[Alex Ward]

And with you two where the door jamb is, you could. You won't be able to see over it, but you could get up to the point where you could easily reach up and reach the door jam.

[Valerie Velacour]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

All right, that's what we're gonna do. Cause he's just starting to lose it, and he needs help.

[Alex Ward]

You can hear it.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah, he needs help. She obviously needs help. Right. I think at this point, we're the best choice to do this.

[Alex Ward]

You tell me, are you the best choice?

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm the best choice.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. All right, Lib, so are you going to push yourself up to go and hop down the other way, either?

[Jeremy Walker]

Could I use.

[Valerie Velacour]

I'll give you a boost.

[Alex Ward]

So she'll give you a boost up, and you will easily look over to see where Cameron is currently laid down. And the only reason you can see Lexi is because the flashlight, which we didn't say it. It's not working. So it's working. The flashlight is spraying its pattern. And you can see the dust that's kind of settled up from her impact.

[Arielle Hartman]

Is there any area down there but I can see within the light that has like a larger slab of rock enough.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, I can.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

When this building hit, it basically broke the wall and is now laying on the floor of there. So it's not even like you see concrete bits or whatever. You're mostly looking at broken wall and dirt.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. I'm gonna. I'm looking down and I'm holding onto this doorknob like this. And I just. I'm trying to spot an area that I could foreseeably make a decent landing. Yeah. And putting my feet on the wall and letting go. And I try and push off to land in that spot and roll as I hit.

[Alex Ward]

Absolutely. So I think this is enough that you could drop it because it's a big enough space that you're not going to land on her. Especially if you keep close to the wall. You just kind of land and it's an 8 or 10 foot drop. So your knees buckle.

[Arielle Hartman]

I try and roll with it.

[Alex Ward]

Right. Not well. Not well. It hurts. Your knees are killing you. That was painful. In fact, they kind of impacted against the ground a little bit. But you didn't land on her. And boob. You got the pleasure of watching this all kind of happen. Just as you peered over the side in order to see Cameron basically fall in from darkness and then tumble onto the floor. Spilling with it. Coming up.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm going to go over to her. Are you all right? Are you all right?

[Livingston Moss]

Can you grab the bottle of ibuprofen from my pocket?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I go searching through her pockets and I grab the bottle.

[Alex Ward]

All right. You dish out as much as she wants.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. So pours and pills into her hands.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm just gonna chew him.

[Alex Ward]

Just chew them.

[Livingston Moss]

Just chew them. There's nothing else I can do.

[Jeremy Walker]

Right.

[Alex Ward]

Valerie, Something. That sound you were talking about, the one getting louder. It's permeating your senses at the moment. And it is feeling a lot like there's moisture in the air at this point. And you not being on the other side of this at the moment, it's starting to sound like an orchestra when they have a rising crescendo. You can hear this thing getting louder. You have no direct way to. Obviously you are boxed in and of this apartment complex at the moment. But I want you to know that even though they can't hear it as loudly as they can now, you can absolutely hear it.

[Valerie Velacour]

So I'm hearing It more so than everybody is 100%.

[Alex Ward]

And it's not that. Like that bodily humming that has happened ever since the monoliths have come up. It feels more like just like. Just loud.

[Valerie Velacour]

It's just like static, just, like, permeating my head.

[Alex Ward]

Yep. Absolutely. What is going along in your mind right now?

[Valerie Velacour]

I can't. I can't think. I can't think, so. I can't think. I can't think about anything. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. Vel.

[Valerie Velacour]

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

She's. So you hear Val behind you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

And you see Cameron and Lexi, and at least looks like Cameron is over Lexi now at the moment. Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

I would like to go back. And she's obviously, you know, we're all.

[Valerie Velacour]

Losing it, but I think I found myself in a corner in the room, and I'm just hiding there. And I'm not even. I. I'm. I'm. I'm in the process of giving up right now.

[Alex Ward]

Cool. All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't want to let that happen. I feel like we have strength in numbers.

[Alex Ward]

All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

We need to. We need to get her help. You know, we need to get out of this building as fast as possible.

[Alex Ward]

Right.

[Jeremy Walker]

She and I obviously have a history.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, my God.

[Alex Ward]

Why do.

[Valerie Velacour]

You don't have to keep bringing that up.

[Jeremy Walker]

You brought it up.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh, my God.

[Alex Ward]

Well, are you talking to me, or are you talking to her right now?

[Jeremy Walker]

Listen.

[Alex Ward]

It sounds like you're talking to the darkness.

[Jeremy Walker]

Val. I don't. Listen, we're all here. You and I did some things. The only reason why I decided to take this trip, to be in this. I wanted to get closer to you.

[Valerie Velacour]

Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Please. This is the last thing we need to be talking about right now. I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear this.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't. I didn't. I didn't want this to. Listen, I'm missing my family, but I can't sit here and watch you die and know that I could have done something about it, that I could have actually maybe helped.

[Valerie Velacour]

And there's no point. There's absolutely no point. There's nothing left for me out there. There's just more death. It's just running from death. Is that what the rest of our lives are gonna be now.

[Jeremy Walker]

Then we'll. At least we have each other. Liv, I don't know what else to say to you to calm me down.

[Alex Ward]

Your feet are starting to get wet.

[Jeremy Walker]

We have to go. We have to.

[Valerie Velacour]

You don't hear that?

[Jeremy Walker]

I hear we. I hear everything. We all hear it. We have to go. We have to get out of here. You have to let me help you out of here, please.

[Alex Ward]

Valerie, you can start to feel water at the pool of your ankles now.

[Valerie Velacour]

What's happening? What's happening?

[Alex Ward]

What's happening? You can definitely feel the wetness.

[Jeremy Walker]

I would like to pick her up.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. Valerie, do you consent to being picked up right now?

[Valerie Velacour]

I don't, but he's still going to do it. But I'm going to kick and scream the whole time.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, well, then the sound of kicking and screaming on the other side of the wall.

[Arielle Hartman]

Did you break anything? Can you move?

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, I can sit up.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, Sit her up.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, you two can start to also hear more than see. See the trickling of water as.

[Arielle Hartman]

That's really not good.

[Alex Ward]

Something, groundwater. Something now seems to be seeping into the rubble that you are currently in.

[Arielle Hartman]

We need to get out of here. Something's going on on the other side.

[Livingston Moss]

How do we get out of this pit?

[Arielle Hartman]

Are you two all right?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. It's getting wet over here. We're trying to get out of here.

[Arielle Hartman]

Same.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah, I. Val, we have to go. We have to go. Okay, fine. Put everything behind you. We have to go.

[Valerie Velacour]

Fine.

[Jeremy Walker]

So I grab her, and we're, you.

[Alex Ward]

Know, getting to the lip.

[Jeremy Walker]

Getting to the lip.

[Arielle Hartman]

Is there anything at the bottom of the shaft that I can prop up as almost like a slide?

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, that's.

[Alex Ward]

At this point, enough has fallen. At this point. You could probably do that. Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. I want to make some sort of slide. They could get down from that ledge easier.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, is there anything. You guys have anything over there that can help us? Because we sort of.

[Alex Ward]

You basically put up a huge piece of drywall.

[Arielle Hartman]

If you can get over that lip, you should have a way down. I've propped something up. You could slide down.

[Jeremy Walker]

Still have the flashlight?

[Livingston Moss]

Yep.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, we still have it.

[Jeremy Walker]

Perfect.

[Livingston Moss]

Still on.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, you ready?

[Valerie Velacour]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

So you both kind of tumble over. Valerie is at this point just running with the motions existentially at this circumstances. So she doesn't react much when she just impacts and slides down. Meeting with everybody else here at the bottom of an overturned building.

[Arielle Hartman]

I try and catch her as she comes off the. The thing.

[Alex Ward]

And the water is getting louder. It's Starting to fill this small area which you found at the bottom of the hallway.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. We're all down here the same way around.

[Alex Ward]

We're all down there together.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. We need to go higher. We need to get out. We can't.

[Livingston Moss]

How do we do that?

[Arielle Hartman]

The other door you said was across the way.

[Alex Ward]

It is across the way.

[Arielle Hartman]

And if we put this. If I move the drywall piece over to the other side, would it create kind of a ramp somewhat up to that doorway?

[Alex Ward]

It would give you about another 4 to 5ft, potentially of scalable surface, which would only give you about 10 minus so about 6ft or so.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Not great, but it's something.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

That's the only other. That's the only other closest ledge than the way we came through. Correct.

[Alex Ward]

You guys are. Guys are in a shit position. You're at the bottom of this building. You know, there is a world in which, you know, I won't read you too much, but that is definitely the most obvious way way at the moment. Besides, obviously where you came from. Right?

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Okay. So you seem to be exceedingly athletic.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can you name.

[Valerie Velacour]

Shut up.

[Arielle Hartman]

Can you do the same thing you did before? Open that door? Can you get up there?

[Jeremy Walker]

I can do it.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

I have no choice.

[Alex Ward]

He's got a boost and he's got no choice. He says, so let's go.

[Arielle Hartman]

I've got no other idea. Unless somebody has another idea.

[Jeremy Walker]

God. With me.

[Arielle Hartman]

Oh, my God.

[Livingston Moss]

I mean, at this point, anything helps.

[Arielle Hartman]

Sure.

[Alex Ward]

Why not? Three at this point, One success and one. One. Let's see if I get narrative control. Nope. This is all you, Lib. I will take this. Tell me how it resolves.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. So like you said, we had the door, the drywall. I take that, swing it up to where it connects with. There's the framing alcove. Yeah, the alcove up there. One by one. Or. I'm gonna hold it here. I help everyone get up to the top.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

Or climb up the drywall to the top to the alcove.

[Alex Ward]

The alcove was really only big enough for one person. If you're intent was to kind of climb up there to open the door.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Then that would probably. Would be the first thing to do.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. In that case, then that's what I'll do, is I get boost Cameron up.

[Alex Ward]

There first and then bring the door down.

[Jeremy Walker]

Bring the door down. So that way we have the drywall and the doors on top of the drywall. Right. So that can kind of. That holds it in place.

[Alex Ward]

Yes. Yeah. To A certain degree, yes. And if you came out from underneath it, the door would have a much more vertical climb than the drywall would. So it would kind of be like this a little bit. But, yeah, you could theoretically come up from the door.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. And then. So I next boost Val. Cameron helps pull from the other end her. Lexi's pretty hurt.

[Livingston Moss]

I can walk. Walk.

[Jeremy Walker]

I mean, if. If we boost up and the two of them can help assist her, by.

[Alex Ward]

The way, if you'd like. And this is fair, if you want just a broken rib.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, that's what I was hoping for.

[Alex Ward]

Then I'm okay with that.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah. That was the.

[Alex Ward]

The least worst.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Can it be a broken rib?

[Jeremy Walker]

Climbing would be.

[Valerie Velacour]

Broke my walrus bone.

[Alex Ward]

It hurts. It hurts like a son of a bitch, Lexi.

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah, it does.

[Alex Ward]

It is ridiculous to the point of where you actually, without realizing it, you do, like, as you. That first movement, as you try to use your upper body strength to pull yourself up, you do scream, you know, and it resonates inside of this building as you kind of hear it come back onto you.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm gonna pull. I'm trying to assist her, everybody. Yeah. And I'm gonna try. Cause we're. Same thing as before. We're on the sides of the door kind of thing. We're laying on those ledges. I'm gonna try and roll her up so that I have her.

[Alex Ward]

Got it.

[Arielle Hartman]

Because I know she can't pull herself up.

[Alex Ward]

Right. So you're kind of. Kind of roll up with her and lay her down. All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

And I'm. Last one through.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. So, Cameron, you kind of lift Lexi up and kind of roll her over into this, you know, weirdly awkward position.

[Arielle Hartman]

You all right? You okay?

[Livingston Moss]

I mean, it's. Do we have any more of those painkillers?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. I don't want to knock you out.

[Jeremy Walker]

But let's try to save some for the rest of us.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Is there a bathroom? Is there something. Is there anything that we can lock in?

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't know. We'd have to go further into the apartment. I am. It's probably. You probably broke something or did something.

[Alex Ward]

I don't. I don't know.

[Arielle Hartman]

Hold on. I'm gonna. I take my sleeve and try and, like, clean the cut that's on her head a little bit and try and see. And see how bad it actually is.

[Alex Ward]

Actually, at this point. At this point, if it's been bleeding for as long as it has, you're probably starting to get a little light headed as well, too, so.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. And I Like, it's pretty. It's a dash.

[Alex Ward]

So when you clean it, like, it. You know, you notice that once you, like, rub it back that it is still bleeding.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, I'm gonna try and, like, if there's an exposed nail or something, I'm gonna try and, like, take a little bit of the end of my sweatshirt and just, like, get a strip and then make, like, a headband for her.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, well, you give her a little tiny patchwork bandage onto it, and it does alleviate it, puts some pressure on it to help with the bleeding. But now the headache is even worse, Lexi, than what it was beforehand.

[Arielle Hartman]

We're gonna need to get you somewhere stable. We can. This. You probably broke something, and you've got a big cut in your head. Sorry, I'm not really good with the whole.

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah, thank you for this.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, let's.

[Livingston Moss]

Someone take this freaking flashlight and look.

[Jeremy Walker]

I got it. It's fine. Okay. We have to get out of this building.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, we do.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, so at this point, I have the flashlight. I'm looking around the room, around the room to see if there's anything. Obviously, we can help her. I would like to. If it's a rib, can't we, like, you know, brace it?

[Alex Ward]

A little hard to tell. She hasn't been very vocal about where it hurts yet. But, you know, that's. There's two ways to go about this now. So your intent would either be to go and look around for something to help treat her, or your intent would be to go and find the next route out, so to speak. So I do need you to pick.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. The next route out. Sorry, we got to get out of here.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'll stay with her, and if you check the room and find a way for us to go, then we can move her.

[Alex Ward]

I.

[Valerie Velacour]

Can I check into the bathroom?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, if you want. While they're going through it. Yeah. For checking in the bathroom if you're looking for supplies. Yeah. Yeah.

[Valerie Velacour]

Okay, great.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, there it goes. No ones. Either ones. No sixes. Which means that this.

[Valerie Velacour]

Sorry, Lexi.

[Alex Ward]

That is. Let's speak some truths now that we are down to five dice. Yeah, we'll save the setup for after the truths are spoken. Valerie, we'll start with you.

[Valerie Velacour]

Truths about the everything. About everything. I don't want to live anymore.

[Alex Ward]

Great. Too.

[Jeremy Walker]

Lexi has. Is addicted to painkillers.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, I think we're seeing the obvious here right now with some of those, but I'll let those two slide. I'll just make mine even better to make up for you two. Valerie, while you Were looking in the bathroom, a wall burst open, and now there's water flooding into the room that you're in, and it's pouring through.

[Jeremy Walker]

That made up.

[Livingston Moss]

Everything hurts. Everything.

[Alex Ward]

Everything hurts.

[Livingston Moss]

Everything hurts.

[Arielle Hartman]

I have her kind of on top of me so that if something comes through the previous room, I can dump her towards it.

[Valerie Velacour]

I'm going to just try to stay in this room and get it over with.

[Alex Ward]

So we're going to pick up this story now with six candles, and you are still alive. That is the truth. And as I mentioned, Valerie, your room is flooding in with water. And if I may be so bold to paint this picture, I feel like, based off what you said, you were casually looking for something to help Lexi put together. And that was a very automatic and rhythmic. But as you see this start to burst through and water start pouring in, you kind of just sit there and look at the water and just watch as it's pouring in. And the water is so cold. In this water, the numbing sensation that it gives you is a direct reflection of just what you're feeling on the inside right now. The choices, the methods, the place in which you're in. There is darkness in your heart, and it is filling as quickly as this room is. You three, as you survey the rest of this room, you do find that there is a sliding glass window similar to the last part of the building. And as you shine that flashlight through, you do notice that water seems to be everywhere. It hasn't quite risen to where the level of the sliding glass door is, but it actually seems to be. Be lower than what it is. But there is water outside. That much I can tell you.

[Arielle Hartman]

So we're still at the door. So we haven't seen this yet. You're just in the apartment with the flashlight. Okay, I've got her Lib. Do you see anything? Do you see a way out anywhere?

[Jeremy Walker]

All I see is the. The sliding glass.

[Alex Ward]

And it's not hard to tell either, because the moonlight, just like on the other side of the building, is casting a perfectly cut shaft of light into the room right now.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, I think I see sliding windows that we can open. You know, it's getting really wet, and the moonlight's coming through, so I don't really. I think if you guys can get in, we might get a little bit wet, but I think we can.

[Arielle Hartman]

Is it raining?

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know what this is. I don't know where this water's coming from.

[Arielle Hartman]

You don't know what it is.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know where it's coming from.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, okay. Okay. Can we move you? Let's go down the hallway. Okay. I start helping her walk down.

[Alex Ward]

So I know that when you originally kicked this door in, are you going to try to similar momentum or are you going to try to slide it down from where this.

[Arielle Hartman]

Is this something that a sliding glass door that we could unlock and just open like normal, like slide it open.

[Jeremy Walker]

Or do we have to.

[Arielle Hartman]

Or if it's.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, no, I mean, it's.

[Arielle Hartman]

It's broken.

[Alex Ward]

It's cracked enough that yes, it does seem like it is locked. And when you clip the latch to kind of like let it slide down it off center and it goes. And it kind of like sticks onto itself with now kind of an obscure angle.

[Arielle Hartman]

Right. And the angle is not big enough for us to squeeze through.

[Alex Ward]

Not on this side.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Yeah, I kicked it out. I kicked it in last time. So you'd have to pull it down or push it up.

[Alex Ward]

And the water in the room is starting to lift up objects off of the water.

[Jeremy Walker]

Why is this like a pipe bursted or something?

[Alex Ward]

Where's Val?

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know.

[Alex Ward]

What.

[Jeremy Walker]

Val's in the bathroom, I think at.

[Valerie Velacour]

This point I'm already like up to my chest with water and it's freezing and it's salty.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yep. Valerie, Val, Valerie, Are.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, by the way, props.

[Arielle Hartman]

Are you okay? Are you. Are you all right?

[Valerie Velacour]

It doesn't matter. Just go. Just go. Just get out of here.

[Jeremy Walker]

Val, we can't leave you here.

[Valerie Velacour]

It doesn't matter. We're all gonna die whether or not it's in here out there.

[Alex Ward]

Would you go get her, please?

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm gonna try and get this door open.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, so you're gonna try to kick this door open.

[Arielle Hartman]

So it's. It's to my. It's above me.

[Alex Ward]

No, it is above you. Into the front.

[Arielle Hartman]

Into the front. Okay, so it's higher. Okay.

[Alex Ward]

And now it's askew like this.

[Arielle Hartman]

Can I take. Is there anything in the room that I could stick into that askew ness to try and pry it open?

[Alex Ward]

Let me know.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay?

[Alex Ward]

You tell me. If you get this right, you can do whatever you want. There's two ones and no sixes.

[Arielle Hartman]

Can I burn somebody to reroll those once?

[Alex Ward]

What do you have on top?

[Arielle Hartman]

Impulsive.

[Alex Ward]

Roll the ones. Two sixes from those ones.

[Jeremy Walker]

Woo.

[Valerie Velacour]

Oh my God, that's amazing.

[Alex Ward]

Cameron, please tell me how you impulsively get that door open.

[Arielle Hartman]

So there was. There used to be curtains over the sliding glass door and they have fallen down since the building Went. And I grabbed the curtain rod that was there, and I just jam it in. And I use all my weight to just wrench it down and pry open the door.

[Alex Ward]

All right. You feel as you basically are wrenching this thing, you feel the metal bend and bend. Cause it's a curtain rod, right? And you just kind of feel it and. And you're like, oh, God, please, please let this work. Otherwise we're stuck here forever. And right before you're about to lose all of your momentum from the entire weight of it, you just hear this thing go as it slides down and slams down at the bottom of its full arc. And the give that this door does kind of makes it so that it kind of comes back up and hits you in the face. And you kind of feel it as it stings. But you know you've pried this thing open, and you look out, Cameron. And after you clear it from your eye, you look around, and the first thing you see when you look out is the moon. And you see it. And I want you to hold your hand up, like from elbow to finger when you look in the sky. That's how big the moon is as you're looking into the night sky. Oh, that's okay. And the door's open. Okay. Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Ta da. The door's open. Let's get you out of there.

[Livingston Moss]

Do you need anything? I mean, you're bleeding.

[Arielle Hartman]

Am I?

[Alex Ward]

You got cut. Yeah, I mean, it's not her kind of level Gash.

[Arielle Hartman]

We'll deal with that when we're out of. I need to get you up top. Are you guys coming?

[Alex Ward]

Lib?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes. So I go into the bathroom.

[Alex Ward]

Wait, Valerie, did you shut the door?

[Valerie Velacour]

Did I shut the door to the bathroom? No, I did not, actually. Okay, so a lot of the water is billowing out right now, and it's actually over my head.

[Alex Ward]

It's over your head.

[Valerie Velacour]

I'm kind of fighting to stay in, actually, but. But I'm holding onto a towel rack, just trying to keep myself there.

[Alex Ward]

Are you taking. Are you trying to drown yourself now? Yes. Lib, you have one chance for this. You have one chance to try to get her out, and this is it. No matter what it is. You can see water is billowing over the side. You get this, and we'll let you pull her out. Despite her own attempt to hold onto this rack as much as she. You do not, and she dies. Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

You just have to make it interesting, don't you? And I didn't pray to God before this. One failure, bro.

[Alex Ward]

One failure. No Successes, one, failure. What do you have on top? Dishonest. Can you find a way to play that into the story to reroll this one? One, three, two.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

All right. Rolling. He already chose.

[Valerie Velacour]

Maybe you should pray this time.

[Jeremy Walker]

I thought you were the one that.

[Valerie Velacour]

Didn'T believe I'm underwater right now.

[Alex Ward]

Look at this dishonest face. All right, well, I am going to take over this scenario real quick. Lib, you are watching this water just pour out from this bathroom, and you're crying out for Valerie's name as you try to push up and get yourself over this lip. But the water, it's just like a cascade. It's just hitting you in the face, and it's so much resistance as you're attempting to reach around to pull her. And you do feel her hand. You feel her arm. It is icy cold, but it is there. And you grab it and you pull on it, and you pull on it, and you realize that she's not letting go, and you pull on it, and you feel the towel rack give away just a little bit, and you yank on it. And then suddenly, you feel her hand just drift off as she lets go of it. And this cloud of bubbles just erupts out from the top of the overflowing water as you see her body just slowly start to lift up to the surface. And not only that, but her. It just kind of slowly bumps along the side of the main area. And the hole that had created when she had burst it out just flushes in water anew as you and her body are just swept out into the main room, where both Cameron and Lexi have already made their escape up into the other area. Valerie, you felt this man who you've resented and is a catalyst for this choice that you've made. And you, out of pure defiance, I would assume, just held on with all of your mind what was going through your head while this was happening.

[Valerie Velacour]

Because even if things got better, we couldn't be together. And I've loved him forever, and he's my husband's best friend, and it's not okay. And it'll never be okay.

[Alex Ward]

And these are the thoughts that come with you as you excel. Accept the salt water into your lungs, and you feel blackness descend upon you as slowly you drift into the night. Ariel, thank you so much for playing. I really appreciate you being here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave my table. Thank you. Thank you.

[Valerie Velacour]

Thank you for having me.

[Alex Ward]

See you on the other side.

[Valerie Velacour]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

That we darken another candle, and we are now left with five and only three, we need to speak five truths about what is going to happen next. And lib, since it was your failed conflict that led to the darkening of the candle, I would like you to begin.

[G]

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[Alex Ward]

Hey folks, we're the hosts of Comic Sans, the podcast about comics for those who are sans knowledge. I'm Yann. And I'm Nat.

[Arielle Hartman]

Comic Sans is a show for people who are new to comics like me.

[Alex Ward]

And people who love them like me. I make Nat read some of my favorite works in the medium, including Saga, Daredevil and the Flintstones. And Yann talks about what makes that comic special. We've just launched season three of Comic Sans with new episodes every two weeks and you can binge the first two seasons wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jeremy Walker]

This was.

[Alex Ward]

I yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

I knew I could save her.

[Alex Ward]

You knew you could save her.

[Jeremy Walker]

But deep down I. I didn't. And I somehow think it was the. The right thing for it to happen this way. And I don't know why.

[Alex Ward]

The boats from the harbor are starting to be washed inland.

[Livingston Moss]

The one of the lights on my boat I kept on at all times.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm starting to hear what I perceive to be whispering.

[Alex Ward]

5.

[Jeremy Walker]

I I'm seeing the sign.

[Alex Ward]

The sign.

[Jeremy Walker]

The sign.

[Alex Ward]

The God sign.

[Jeremy Walker]

The God sign.

[Alex Ward]

You're going to see it this round. We are back into the Story Five dice. Three players remaining. Cameron and Alexi, you are out of this building now. At least so far as that you can tell as a slowly climbing water level is now approaching you on this side of the building. While Lib, after this moment had passed and this rush of water that cascaded into the bathroom through this path of least resistance leading into the area, you and Valerie's body are washed into the next room. And you can feel her corpse bumping against you as you look towards the moonlight in front of you.

[Jeremy Walker]

I take. I take her body and.

[Alex Ward]

I give.

[Jeremy Walker]

Her one last kiss on her forehead and tell her that I love her and that maybe in the next life we'll be together. And then I. As the water rushes, it's rushing through the.

[Alex Ward]

It's rushing. It's creating a tiny little horrible.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can I send it out of the.

[Alex Ward]

Like, it's not so far that it's going out yet.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, what's up?

[Alex Ward]

She will be in the. For a few minutes still.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, okay.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. I know what you were trying to do. And unfortunately, it can't happen. It can't happen.

[Jeremy Walker]

It would have been so dramatic.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah. The poetic ending that you wanted for her is not going to occur. She will be in this room at least until the water starts flowing out through the patio room. Okay. Patio room.

[Jeremy Walker]

In that case, I do what I was doing. Give her the kiss on the forehead, tell her that I love her, and maybe in the next life. And I make my way.

[Alex Ward]

And you meet up with both Cameron and Lexi, who are sitting at the top of the ledge, presumably standing on the support beams that are part of the patio at this stage.

[Arielle Hartman]

Well, I reached trying to help him up out of the sliding glass door. Where's Valerie? No, just.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Did she. What happened?

[Jeremy Walker]

She. She drowned.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

All right. Get up. Get up. Get out. Get out. Okay. She drowned?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Was it an accident? Was it something that caused it? Are we.

[Alex Ward]

Is there something down there?

[Jeremy Walker]

I think she was. I don't think she wanted to live anymore.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

And I couldn't get to her fast enough.

[Arielle Hartman]

Right. All right. Okay, we. Okay, we need to keep going. Cause when you said it was wet outside, that was an understatement because this looks like the ocean here.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, fuck. If you would take the light to shine it across what you can see around you, you can distinctly see on the building to your right, which is the farthest away from the shortest distance from where things are. If you look down that side, you can see where this building, it's acting like a large Break right now, because you can see water pouring in on your other side. And whatever it is, it's filling it around. And the water level that is in front of you is reduced as a result of just the sheer size of this building right now.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. Okay. Okay. That's something. Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

Are we still trying to get to the bridge? I don't know what we're trying to do.

[Jeremy Walker]

This point is just to get. Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

Get anywhere.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay. So we can get down.

[Alex Ward]

We get into the water.

[Jeremy Walker]

Otherwise, we're just gonna get, like. I mean, with the way the building's.

[Alex Ward]

The way the building is. The floor that was from you. On the other side of the building is now. If not at least waste water waist deep, slowly climbing higher and higher with each passing second.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, and are we on the building's laying down? We're on this other side now.

[Alex Ward]

Not the top.

[Arielle Hartman]

We're on the other side.

[Alex Ward]

Yes. If you wanted to get up the top, you'd have to climb about five stories up.

[Arielle Hartman]

That's not gonna happen.

[Livingston Moss]

Do you see anything floating around?

[Arielle Hartman]

Is there any down there?

[Jeremy Walker]

Or maybe like a.

[Livingston Moss]

Where's the flashlight you have?

[Jeremy Walker]

I haven't.

[Alex Ward]

I haven't seen a good Lexi roll.

[Livingston Moss]

No, I haven't had a good roll. Okay, maybe I should. Should pray. Lexi's not very religious, but she's gonna give it a try.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, one success, one failure. For me, I would like. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I need dice. Let's see if I get narrative controller. If you get good narrative control. Oh, no.

[Arielle Hartman]

Cool.

[Alex Ward]

I will take narrative control with my two successes over your one. Lexi, as you were looking out into the slowly climbing water line that is in front of you, you stare off, and you're feeling something right now. What is it?

[Livingston Moss]

Nausea.

[Alex Ward]

Nausea. As you are watching as occasionally just debris, cars, trees, just frothing mud, just sloosh out into the thoroughfare that's in front of you right now as the water level slowly climbs. And then you see something. A pinprick of light in the distance, this small candle of flame that is in front of you. And you can see it's moving as it comes down the right side of the building's sloosh. And it spins in front of you, and you see light.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm going to grab Cameron and I'm going to point. I'm not hallucinating, right? Is that the light? Is that the light from the boat?

[Arielle Hartman]

Do I see the sea?

[Alex Ward]

What she sees, what I have described?

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, either that or we're both hallucinating.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can I flash The. I still have to flash the light. I flash the light.

[Alex Ward]

It is some distance away, 60 to 80ft, I would say, at least in front of you. But that's still enough of a spill off from your beam that you can cast. And you see the familiar sail of your boat with the name. What's the name of the boat?

[Livingston Moss]

The Terminator.

[Alex Ward]

As you see the SS Terminator laid out on the side of the boat. And is your hope on. Is it on top at this point? Is it the next one available?

[Jeremy Walker]

My moment.

[Alex Ward]

Your moment?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yes.

[Alex Ward]

I would say at this point, you have fulfilled your moment. So the first one so far. So this light that Lexi so graciously handed you by being a part of this boat, I think this is God directed, instructing you on how to get out of this, which means whenever you roll the five remaining dice that are now a part of this, you also get a hope die, which succeeds on a five or a six.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

And that is now part of your dice, should you go with the conflicts. And this is over.

[Livingston Moss]

Moment's gone.

[Alex Ward]

Great. Is there anything else you'd like to contribute to the moment?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. So we see the light. We see the Terminator. I believe that this is God shining down upon us, saying that if we can get that, this boat will be safe from it all. And I believe that we can, because I've seen what has happened, what has transpired, and I've also seen his light. And every time I've prayed, we've made it through something. So this time, that's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to get us.

[Alex Ward]

The meek shall inherit the earth.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

What do you two say?

[Arielle Hartman]

So you're both founders?

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah. Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

All right.

[Alex Ward]

What are you gonna do?

[Arielle Hartman]

From our vantage point, the only real way to. To get there is to swim.

[Alex Ward]

I would say so.

[Arielle Hartman]

And how far below us is the water?

[Alex Ward]

Since the last time I started talking to you, I'd say about 10ft now.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay. And it's deep.

[Alex Ward]

It's touching your ankles now in the place that you are. It is rising quickly.

[Arielle Hartman]

And it's. It's now deep. Very deep.

[Alex Ward]

It's deep enough. Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. I think we jump and swim for the boat.

[Alex Ward]

Mm.

[Arielle Hartman]

Can you swim, do you think?

[Livingston Moss]

I'll try. I'll do my best.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

All right.

[Jeremy Walker]

I mean, what if we, you know, help her along as best we can?

[Arielle Hartman]

Is there a. Is there any debris in the water.

[Jeremy Walker]

We could create, like a raft or something? Okay.

[Alex Ward]

You'd have to go and switch if you wanted to bring Debris back. Oh, okay. Debris. Or are we swimming straight for the boat? Cause it is going.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can you float?

[Livingston Moss]

Sure.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, we're going for it.

[Alex Ward]

We're jumping. So you all three jump into the water. It is icy cold. It is brisk to the point of. Have any of you had the pleasure of doing polar diving or ice diving or anything like that?

[Arielle Hartman]

No.

[Alex Ward]

When the water is this cold, momentarily, all of your muscles seize up for a moment while it's trying to acclimate to the harsh thing around it. You guarantee. I mean, this is freezing, if not close to freezing water. And you begin to swim, and you shiver, but you swim. Lexi, it hurts so bad. Your broken rib. This is probably. Every movement, every arm coming above your head to try to get a little bit of water is just agonizing. And I need you to roll to make it to that boat.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm gonna try to figure this out.

[Alex Ward]

Figure this out. Here you are. This is. I should tell you. And this is truth. This. This could be lethal. Unless one of the boys pull you out of this, it will be a major source of the next scene should this not work.

[Livingston Moss]

Going to.

[Alex Ward]

You gonna spend your addicted.

[Livingston Moss]

Mm.

[Alex Ward]

Roll that one for me. That single one to see if it turns into. No. Another one.

[Jeremy Walker]

Looks like it's just you and me, Cam.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm trying to get the pills out of my pocket.

[Alex Ward]

And that's what you try to do instead of swimming. And you get. And you fall behind. As both Lib and Cameron do their best to switch swim forward. It takes a few moments for them to realize that you're not anywhere close to them. And the pain is so incredibly intense that you are treading water at this point, and it's the best you can do with your legs as you stay in place.

[Arielle Hartman]

Do I?

[Alex Ward]

We're gonna establish some truths now before we get to the next scene. Okay, Lexi, you get to begin. Four truths.

[Livingston Moss]

Lexi's got strong legs.

[Alex Ward]

She's got strong legs. Cameron.

[Arielle Hartman]

I kept the painkillers.

[Alex Ward]

You kept the pain. Painkillers. 3.

[Jeremy Walker]

Lexi. Because she was doing so much of this motion, and her rib was broken. It punctured her skin.

[Alex Ward]

You are awful.

[Jeremy Walker]

I mean, she's gonna die anyway.

[Livingston Moss]

I didn't think it was gonna happen, like, right now. I was hoping for a little bit of help.

[Alex Ward]

Pretty incredible. Do you want to do the next game? Do the next one for me. Okay. The current is quickening. So that's four truths. We start our next scene with four. And Cameron and Lib, you both notice after a few very precious seconds of continuing to swim that Lexi is nowhere near you. You can see the boat in front of you. It is just a few precious feet away. What do you want to do?

[Arielle Hartman]

Where's. Where is she? Do you see her?

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't know. I thought she was.

[Alex Ward]

At this point, the roaring that you had briskly heard is becoming so loud, it's now overpowering inside of your senses. It's just you to have this exchange. It's as if you had to just raise your voice to yell at each other just to get over the immense sound that is right there.

[Arielle Hartman]

And we can't see her. Correct.

[Alex Ward]

Well, you can't see her in front of you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

If you look behind, you can see a bobbing, floating figure in the darkness, bathed by the moonlight.

[Arielle Hartman]

And she's far away.

[Alex Ward]

You. I'm gonna make it so clear. You could go get her, or you can go to the boat. You could still make the boat with her. But if you don't want to roll, you need to choose.

[Jeremy Walker]

So you're saying we can make it to the boat without her?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Walker]

Or we can make it to the. Or we can. If we roll, we can maybe go get her and go to the boat.

[Alex Ward]

You can go back and get her, and you're gonna have to roll to get back to.

[Jeremy Walker]

As I said before, I saw the sign. I saw the light. I see what just happened with somebody I loved. I can't allow another person to die.

[Alex Ward]

So you're going to go to her.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm gonna go to her.

[Arielle Hartman]

Boat.

[Alex Ward]

Boat. Great. So, Lip, you swim with all of your might as you start to turn around and double back towards where Lexi is. Cameron, you have this moment where you look and you just start swimming straight for the boat as fast as you possibly can. Lib, you reach Lexi and you grasp ahold of her waist, of which she's sweet. Screams from the pain, but you keep her above water as you.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm just one arm. Just one arm going.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm going to kick. I'm kicking.

[Jeremy Walker]

Thank you so much.

[Livingston Moss]

That helps at all.

[Alex Ward]

It does try and bring the boat.

[Arielle Hartman]

Back to you guys.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, Hope, dice, and a regular and no ones. You grasp her and you both swim with every ounce of strength you can as you get to the boat, of which Cameron has politely descended the ladder. Help you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Thank you so much.

[Arielle Hartman]

You're welcome.

[Alex Ward]

Into where you are. And Lexi, this is when you start to notice that you are bleeding not just from your head, but from your chest as well, too. There is a distinct blood spot against your lower tank top right now. Guys.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can you. What is.

[Livingston Moss]

Oh, oh, I'm just gonna pull my jacket back.

[Alex Ward]

Do you lift the shirt up or do you just see the thing that you do? You lift it up ever so lightly.

[Livingston Moss]

See what's going on.

[Alex Ward]

Okay, so, Lexi, you lift the tank top gingerly up as you pull the coat back, and you just see this tiny splinter of white as it's pierced right through your skin.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm gonna hurl.

[Alex Ward]

And you would lose whatever moderate amount of lunch you had at the beginning of this whole situation.

[Jeremy Walker]

Tuna and sardines.

[Alex Ward]

Sardines. And you just can feel it. And the worst part is that you don't even see the whole rib. It's just a little tiny shard of it poking through. And the bleeding is not extensive, for what it's worth. But that also very distinctly shows the swollen area around it as well, too.

[Jeremy Walker]

Cameron, do you happen to have any of those painkillers for her? She's.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, here.

[Alex Ward]

So you crunch the entire bottle. See how that goes later.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, that's not what I thought you were gonna do. Or. Well, I did, but.

[Alex Ward]

You can feel as the tide, and it is distinctly a tide, as you are now lifted up onto the boat. And you can hear that roaring, that just incessant roaring that is close to you, but you are on the boat. What do you want to do?

[Jeremy Walker]

So the boat's up right now.

[Alex Ward]

The boat's up. Somehow, miraculously, it lifted without any issue to come to where you are now.

[Jeremy Walker]

We all know what that was. Everybody. We all know.

[Alex Ward]

Here's your hope. Sure.

[Jeremy Walker]

Thank you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Absolutely. It was. Whatever.

[Jeremy Walker]

How else would you have been here?

[Alex Ward]

What would you like to do?

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Are we resting on the boat right now?

[Jeremy Walker]

I'd like to find something on this boat to tie her to, you know, hopefully, you know, at least tie that bone back so it's not, like, exposed. So the wound's not exposed. So we go and look around the boat for.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, I mean, I would presume that you would have a first aid kit inside of the boat.

[Jeremy Walker]

Absolutely.

[Alex Ward]

It's probably not for intensive breakage like this, but you can absolutely at least.

[Jeremy Walker]

Have, like, the wraps and stuff like that.

[Alex Ward]

Sure. Yeah. You can wrap her waist for whatever it's worth.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, so we do that. See if there's anything on the boat, any sort of supplies we like, any food or anything.

[Alex Ward]

The same supplies it was when you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Left it, which is nothing.

[Alex Ward]

Which is a whole lot of nothing.

[Livingston Moss]

Can you check my pack?

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Livingston Moss]

See if there's anything else in there.

[Jeremy Walker]

So I find her pack.

[Alex Ward]

You go through it. She has some of the canned peaches that she had talked about.

[Jeremy Walker]

Perfect.

[Alex Ward]

Some of the, you know, small amount of food she was able to pull out when she was inside of the building itself. Is that what we're doing now?

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. So we pop that open, and you.

[Alex Ward]

Share some peaches between all of you.

[Jeremy Walker]

At least between the two of us.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm not eating. I'm not eating.

[Jeremy Walker]

I don't seem to want anything.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm looking over at the. Where the water's coming from.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah.

[Arielle Hartman]

Can I see the bay where we started?

[Alex Ward]

No, you can't see anything.

[Arielle Hartman]

All right?

[Alex Ward]

You see blackness. In fact, you're looking off into the horizon, and a fair amount of the stars seem to be gone as well, too. Okay, okay, okay.

[Jeremy Walker]

What do you see up there, man?

[Arielle Hartman]

Nothing. Literally. I can't see the bay. I can't see you that far. I don't. It's got to be clouds. It's got to be clouds. It's got to be clouds. I don't. We're missing stars.

[Jeremy Walker]

What?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. What is exactly right?

[Livingston Moss]

It's not just, like, overcast?

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't know. I don't. I don't know.

[Jeremy Walker]

Are you sure? I mean, it's foggy in the bay. Like, is it.

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't. The bay came here.

[Alex Ward]

What?

[Arielle Hartman]

It could very well be that stars are just going out. I mean, nothing makes sense. I mean, why would the water go away and then immediately, then come back over and spill over everything and then come and fill up a building we were inside of? I don't.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, okay. Everybody calm down. Okay? If the bay moved, was what you're saying, then theoretically, so did other parts of, like, the area. So maybe if we can take. If her boat's got enough juice to get us maybe to the other side of the bay where Oakland is. Can we get over there to at least. I mean, that's another area. Maybe we can find shelter.

[Arielle Hartman]

If the water rose up, the only way I could think that the water would come in here is if something from the bottom of the bay rose up, which displaced all the water, which pushed all over us. Now, if that happened, it would have gone on to Oakland as well. It wouldn't have just come to one side. Something did this pushed all the water over, which makes zero sense.

[Jeremy Walker]

Does our boat have enough juice to get us. We can at least go to the Golden Gate Bridge.

[Alex Ward]

Fumes. You can still run it, and we have a sail.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, can we get to the Golden Gate Bridge?

[Alex Ward]

So you're gonna turn on that boat and start just motoring it.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'll motor it.

[Arielle Hartman]

Sure.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm driving.

[Alex Ward]

Drive away, my friend.

[Jeremy Walker]

You guys ready for this?

[Arielle Hartman]

Nope.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Livingston Moss]

I don't even know what I'm ready for.

[Jeremy Walker]

Just take another pill over there, sunshine. Oh, wait.

[Alex Ward]

You're, by the way, starting to feel a bit groggy and can't tell if it's from all the tens of thousands of milligrams of ibuprofen that you just crunch or if it's from the blood loss. Blood loss. But you are getting woozy.

[Arielle Hartman]

I know you wanted painkillers. Probably should throw up a little bit.

[Jeremy Walker]

Oh, yes.

[Livingston Moss]

Again.

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah. Well, because you've now taken a lot of painkillers on. Nothing in your stomach, and that is bad.

[Livingston Moss]

I had some peaches.

[Alex Ward]

Excellent. You start motoring this thing. And before you start to motor, you actually do distinctly feel the boat start to rise for a bit, like a steady incline. And as you start to boat, you probably assess it to you just getting that momentum that goes when the tiller or when the boat's front goes up because the screw is just kicking up a lot of water. But you do feel for a moment as if the water was lifting behind you, almost like it was giving you a gentle push towards your direction. And you go with surprising speed and alacrity as you attempt to motor through fallen buildings and cars and stuff that you would expect to see in, like, an imminent flood rise, you know, as you're watching trees. And sometimes you have to make big, big, wide turns in order to get around some of the large debris that is ostensibly filling up San Francisco right now as you are motoring towards at least the direction that you know to be the Bay Bridge. And you start to see the glistening cables of the bridge by the moonlight as you look towards the bridge in front of you.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay, guys, I can see the bridge. I think we can get as long as we can get to the base of it. And we get up top, we can be above all the water.

[Arielle Hartman]

The bridge is up on a hill. You have to come down from where the bridge is, which means we have to dock the boat and travel across land in order to get there. Unless we climb up a very long ladder from one of the struts that are coming out of the water. But I don't know if the water is there anymore, if it's just here or.

[Alex Ward]

So struts or ground.

[Jeremy Walker]

You're from here. You know it better than me.

[Arielle Hartman]

I mean, the landscape has changed since I was last here.

[Alex Ward]

It's also about to get a good eye on what's going on. You can take the boat to either the struts or the land as well.

[Jeremy Walker]

What do you think we should do, Cam?

[Arielle Hartman]

The land is gonna be easier for us to walk onto the bridge.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Struts, probably. The bridge has a lot of fencing and a lot of safeguards for people who would jump off.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

So getting on from underneath the bridge, from not the land is going to be difficult because there's not supposed to be a way to get down from there.

[Alex Ward]

Sure.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

So docking the boat.

[Jeremy Walker]

Docking the boat.

[Alex Ward]

Great.

[Arielle Hartman]

Great.

[Alex Ward]

Let's dock the boat. So you motor it up to the land, and you are amazed at just watching slowly, the water climb almost in front of you. You can just watch it. Like, by the time you actually hit land and you start getting out of the boat, you're already. The water's up a few more feet as you've gotten there, but you throw everybody out. You get out onto the land, and you can. Even with an injury like what you have, you can start hobbling at least up the land quick enough, but. Oh, my God, are you moving again? Lexi?

[Jeremy Walker]

Come on, Lexi.

[Livingston Moss]

Lexi's probably gonna hurl again.

[Alex Ward]

Oh, you throw up.

[Livingston Moss]

Yep. Well, I'm just going to collapse here. Double over.

[Alex Ward]

Is that what you're doing?

[Livingston Moss]

Yeah.

[Alex Ward]

So, Lexi, as you again, trying to make as much movement as you can going up the hill. You just collapse in pain as you fall straight to the ground, lay out. And it's just. It is better to just lay here now than do anything other than move with what you're dealing with, Even the numbness and the swimming head. Hell, at this point, it's not even about the pain. It's just the fact that you have so much dizziness and vertigo that it's hard to keep your eyes straight at this point. So we need three truths in which to establish. And, Lexi, I'd like you to start. Start.

[Livingston Moss]

The ground is moving slightly.

[Alex Ward]

The ground is moving. Cameron.

[Arielle Hartman]

The. There are shapes in the water.

[Alex Ward]

There are shapes in the water.

[Jeremy Walker]

That whirring sound that we heard earlier when we were in the building is coming very close.

[Alex Ward]

It's deafening. I can tell you at this point. The humming is actually louder as well, too, because you can see one of the obelisks in the remaining starlight not far from where you are. Three dice. Lexi, I know the pain that you must be going through right now as you are here. This is just as much about what you want as anything else. I need you to tell Me right now. Are you wanting to go forward, or do you lay down here and accept the fate that you are in? It will determine how these two do their next actions.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna move forward.

[Alex Ward]

All right. So you fight through the pain as you continue to just gasp. And even the gasping is painful, but you climb and you move, and both of you are comforted to see that Lexi is still behind you, even if she. She is moving at a slower pace than you are. And you see Lib, as you climb up to the Golden Gate Bridge, you see a graveyard of cars laid out in front of you, just all lanes filled, as if people were attempting to do everything they could to cross this bridge. And at various parts, you can actually see where the cabling has failed. And cars are half tipped onto the structure of the bridge, precariously poised. There's a rumbling underneath you. And this rumbling both makes the bridge sway, as it is prone to do in an earthquake. But it is also making these cars begin to move and slide, not unlike the ocean that's laid down before you as a few cars tip over the edge, and you can hear the loud crack as they impact the water. What would you like to do?

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm at a loss here, guys. I thought getting to the highest ground we could possibly get to would be something that would maybe help us out of the situation.

[Arielle Hartman]

We. It doesn't make sense. If the water is coming up this high, it should be going around flowing down because the ocean is there, and I don't. The water shouldn't be able to come under the bridge. So if we can stay up here, the water shouldn't be able to get up here. But if the bridge is broken, then we can't go anywhere.

[Alex Ward]

Do you want to go deeper into the bridge?

[Arielle Hartman]

Yeah, I got to see what we can do.

[Alex Ward]

So as you continue to walk slowly and now that you're not climbing vertically, it is. The pain is not so bad, but you do start to feel like you're losing consciousness as you eventually get close to one of the climbing struts. That's right where you are and Lexi, you collapse. Just. You can't move anymore. And it's not because you don't want to. It's because you are physically unable to. Both Cameron and Lib, you kind of hear her as she crumbles onto one of the cars.

[Arielle Hartman]

Why did you take those pills?

[Livingston Moss]

It hurt. It hurt. It still hurts. I can't.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can you keep moving? Are you.

[Alex Ward]

I'm trying.

[Livingston Moss]

I'm trying.

[Jeremy Walker]

Do Any of these cars, I mean, are they just jam packed into each other or are they.

[Alex Ward]

Yeah, they're packed. They're packed tightly, like sardines.

[Arielle Hartman]

Come on. I'm gonna try and look. Can you carry her? So I'm not gonna get far first.

[Jeremy Walker]

Can I smash through any of these windows? Look for anything in the car. Smash the car windows out.

[Alex Ward]

What are you looking for?

[Jeremy Walker]

Anything to help or easier right now.

[Alex Ward]

To ease her pain. You can spend time to go through these cars. Absolutely. If you'd rather have that than climbing up the Golden Gate at this moment, which is fine.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

No, no, that's all right. You're welcome to it. You have your hope dice. So.

[Jeremy Walker]

It'S either that or is she gonna.

[Alex Ward]

I don't know, you think I have control of.

[Jeremy Walker]

Yeah. Okay, maybe you could just.

[Livingston Moss]

Maybe if I just lean on you, I'll carry her.

[Alex Ward]

Okay. So you give her an arm. As you continue to just move through Lexi, you're putting all of your weight on him at this point. And eventually you do pass out as the blood loss is now so intense and the medication is absolutely through your system and you feel her going from a small amount of weight to a significant amount of weight. She just drops like a sleeping cat into your arms. But you do make it to the base of one of the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge. Ah.

[Jeremy Walker]

I'm.

[Arielle Hartman]

Have we gotten to a part where the bridge has collapsed yet?

[Alex Ward]

The bridge has not collapsed where the cars are tilting.

[Arielle Hartman]

They are, but they're still away all the way through.

[Alex Ward]

The cars are still there. They're swaying and tilting. And at this point, you can start to actually feel the rumbling of the ground as it was getting closer. And the vibrations are now so intense that the cars are now starting to slowly push you as they are shifting from side to side is what appears to be an earthquake is shaking this bridge. Of course, for what it's worth.

[Arielle Hartman]

Great.

[Jeremy Walker]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay, we have. If we can't stand here because these cars are going to push us off the bridge.

[Alex Ward]

Right.

[Arielle Hartman]

We can either climb one of the spire because there's a ladder that goes up for when they paint the bridge, or we can head back to the mainland and try and wait. But that's all freeway and it's not going to be stable either way with an earthquake like this. If this continues. Now there's the bridge, probably. So where'd we go?

[Jeremy Walker]

Just give me a second to think here. So if we get up the staircase.

[Arielle Hartman]

We'Re just on one of the pillars of the bridge and that's just sitting there.

[Jeremy Walker]

But it's pretty strong. It's pretty sturdy.

[Arielle Hartman]

The bridge is meant to withstand earthquakes, but nothing is indestructible. Or we go back to past the toll booths to how you drive into. Or one used to drive into the city, and we hang out there.

[Jeremy Walker]

So double back, essentially.

[Arielle Hartman]

Try and wait out the earthquake before we cross the bridge.

[Alex Ward]

God is up. If you want to be closer to him. Who has given you hope?

[Jeremy Walker]

He has given me hope. I would like to think that this bridge is gonna support us. It supports. I mean, you know, San Francisco's had many earthquakes.

[Alex Ward]

Mm.

[Jeremy Walker]

Golden Gate Bridge is very strong.

[Alex Ward]

Are you carrying Lexi up over your shoulder? Yeah. I mean, she's out. Yeah. All right.

[Arielle Hartman]

As he starts going up the ladder. The ladder. I'll watch him. Don't. I don't agree.

[Alex Ward]

You don't agree?

[Arielle Hartman]

I don't agree that up is the right answer. I think that up means that he falls into the bay when this goes down. So I don't say anything. I just start walking, doubling back and heading back towards. There's a toll booth area there. Then there's a building there attached to the toll booth area, but it's on the mainland. And if something. If the earthquake is going to continue and the bridge is going to go.

[Alex Ward]

Before the mainland does roll, to not have him notice you.

[Arielle Hartman]

I will burn whatever's on top.

[Alex Ward]

What is on top?

[Arielle Hartman]

Ingenuitive.

[Alex Ward]

Roll it. You continue to climb up. Lib. Lexi, as you drift into this place of unconsciousness, you talked about the pain and what it was doing to you. You start to feel that pain drift away from you slowly as your body becomes cold. And you feel this sense of something. What is it?

[Livingston Moss]

Something very what Lexi interprets as spiritual. She is having almost like a religious experience with having the pain leave and.

[Alex Ward]

Climbing higher and higher and higher.

[Livingston Moss]

She opens her eyes, and she can see how big the moon is.

[Alex Ward]

So big.

[Livingston Moss]

But she's not exactly sure why she's rising.

[Alex Ward]

Right. And as your body lifts up one rung at a time, you open your eyes briefly for a moment to see this giant, beautiful, laid in front of you. And it's so crystal clear, the craters and the various pockmarks that are on it. And it is. It is as if you could reach out and just touch it and you could live there. And there would be no pain. And everything wrong would now drift into sleeplessness. And that feeling of being able to touch the moon as you raise your hand out is the last thing that you experience before you die. Right. There on his shoulder from blood loss. Erica, thank you so much for playing.

[Livingston Moss]

Thank you.

[Alex Ward]

I appreciate it. That was. I'm so sorry. Thank you again. I'm going to have to ask you to leave my table, though.

[Livingston Moss]

That's okay.

[Alex Ward]

Libra, Lib and Cameron, there was no failure here. But there was neglect. It took you this long to even offer her a shoulder in which to lean on to get up to here. And she spent most of it climbing up herself. She succumbed to her wounds. And as you climb up Liberty, you climb up this spire and you go into it, you just think about everything that's happened at this point. And it doesn't ever occur to you to look back, to look down towards where Cameron would be or should be. And you don't notice anything about Lexi and the fact that she has slipped off from unconsciousness. But you make it to the top. You do. You get all the way up there, and it's so high, and the moon is so bright, and it looks magnificent. The sea that's laid out around you. As you can see, most of San Francisco is under the water now. Cameron, you've been hopping from car to car. You've been moving, slipping through. You make it to the toll booth. What do you want to do?

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm gonna. Is the water still rising up the hill?

[Alex Ward]

It is. Shit.

[Arielle Hartman]

Okay.

[Alex Ward]

Okay.

[Arielle Hartman]

I'm gonna go see if there's the station attached to the toll booths there. I'm going to go inside and just see if there's anything I can find in there that is useful, that is worth anything, that is something that's going to help me out of this situation.

[Alex Ward]

One, one, one, one. And no successes. No. You don't find anything useful, but you do find something else. Let's speak two truths, two last truths before the story ends. Cameron, let's start with you.

[Arielle Hartman]

I. There's something in here with me.

[Alex Ward]

I.

[Jeremy Walker]

Recognize that Lexi's moved on.

[Alex Ward]

Cameron, as you sit in this toll booth, you just are wrenching doors open and pulling anything apart. You're tearing this booth apart just for anything. Anything at this moment that might take you from this. It's a familiar movement. It's safe. This is okay. This is just about you. You need to be able to make it through. This is what you've always done. You've survived. This was supposed to be your purpose. This was supposed to be your meaning. And you lament the fact that you've gotten this far. And yet they never came. It never occurred. What? You're going to die here because the water is rising. You had hoped, at least at some, that the dignity of them would at least take you. And it's this awful feeling that descends upon you when you feel the ground shake down from underneath you. And that terrible fear, that awful, terrible fear that you have been holding onto, that you've been avoiding, that you have run from your entire life. And you attempt to throw yourself against the toll booth room in order to get out, and you bang against the door, but somehow you've managed to close it in the meantime and you keep throwing your body against it. You need to get out. You need to get out. You need to get out and you get out. Somehow you get out and. And you wrench the door open as you can feel the ground beneath you start to split as you start to scramble in front. And you pick your legs back up as you continue to run. And you feel something, a whip, a lash just come out in like a snap of a whip. It just cracks and it slaps you across your ankle. And you feel barbs sinking into your ankle as you look behind you and you see it. You see them and you look at it. It is this crystalline disc of teeth as these 12 big black dots lift themselves out of the ground for a moment and you can try to get away. One single, single dice. You feel as this tentacle pulls itself up and you can see it's long. It's long. What is it? Is it an incense? Is it a worm of some sort? Is it some kind of ancient prehistoric creature? And these moments are drifting into you as both the terror and the cure curiosity overcome you and the warm embrace of these muscles slipping and pulling you and engulfing you. Blackness overtakes you. There's this one terrible feeling of these small muscle movements like a snake just pulling you in. It didn't even crunch down upon you.

[Arielle Hartman]

Where did the stars go?

[Alex Ward]

The stars have gone out, Alex. Thank you, sir, so much.

[Arielle Hartman]

Thank you.

[Alex Ward]

If you had lasted a little longer, you could have had your hope Dice with it.

[Arielle Hartman]

But, you know, not everybody gets their hopes.

[Alex Ward]

Not everybody. Everyone gets their hopes. Leaving us with one candle left, Lib, as you mentioned in the truth. And there is only one truth to speak of, and that is the world is dark. It is the only one I can speak to you about. You lay Lip next to you. You lay Lexi next to you as you climb over this crested horizon. And you kind of sweetly lean her, almost like if she was a doll. You prop her up as you both sit and see as for the first time in so many days, the crest of the sun as it seems to be peering over the horizon. And something's going through your mind right now. What is it?

[Jeremy Walker]

It's time that I. It's time that I meet my make.

[Alex Ward]

This goes through your head as the perfect rays of the sun that start to crest into and spill over the now submerged San Francisco Bay area. It illuminates what has been hidden for so long. A wall of water. A wave so many miles high, it is taller than the monoliths. Even this giant skyline of water that is in front of you. And you can see that it has already hit the bay and it is moving. And it is a perfect cleansing wave that you know will be here soon enough. And this moment of the light sun coming across with the water as you and Lexi and her tiny fallen form is nestled against you. And in another world, in another place, in another dimension, this could have just been you and your kid sitting and watching the sun rise together. Jeremy, thank you so much for playing. Thank you. I'm glad they have to ask you to leave my table. And that just leaves us one final thing to do, and that is to play the final messages of our dearly departed characters.

[Valerie Velacour]

This is Valerie Velacor. I have no idea what to do or what's gonna happen. I thought I was brave, but I'm not. Just everything happened so quickly, you know? It just became dark so fast. The light. We keep searching for it, but it just doesn't stay. It just goes away so fast, so fleeting. It just seems so hopeless. Everything just seems so hopeless. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm trying so hard, but I don't know what to do. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

[Alex Ward]

If.

[Arielle Hartman]

If.

[Valerie Velacour]

If you can hear this, if you're listening to this, please know that I'm so sorry. And I didn't mean to ruin another family's life that wasn't mine.

[Alex Ward]

I wasn't trying.

[Valerie Velacour]

I'm so sorry. I really. I don't deserve to be here any longer. I don't.

[Livingston Moss]

Uh. Hey, dad. It's been days since the spires appeared. I don't know what to do or if you'll. I mean, I know you'll never hear this, but the water's low. All the fish are gone. I know you would say it's time to move on, but I don't know where to go. Your advice has gotten me this far, so I guess it's not the time to stop taking it. I really should have listened to you sooner. I'm sorry. It took the actual end of times for me, too. Maybe I could have actually saved you. But I just. I just feel so useless. Why was I the one to survive? Why me? Maybe I'm supposed to use your advice to save someone else. I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna do. But I'm definitely just gonna try. I'm gonna try and make you proud. So it's time for me to leave the boat.

[Arielle Hartman]

Hi. I don't know if you're gonna hear this. I don't know if you're still here, but. I know we haven't talked in a long time, but I thought I should say something. I'm still here in San Francisco. And we're going to go out and search for food. We don't have any anymore on the boat. I. I don't know why today is different, but I wanted to record this today. It feels different. I didn't feel like I knew what I wanted to do when. How things used to be. I just kind of waited for life to happen to me. I never realized I was wasting it. But when everything happened, when the monoliths came, I found what I found a purpose. I found survival became my purpose. And that made sense. It made sense to keep going. To keep living. And then I met everybody. Everybody else on this boat and got more complicated. But I always. I always knew I could go back to just surviving. Anyway, I don't know really what I'm trying to say. You probably won't hear this, but I'm sorry I never called you Mom. I miss you. Bye. I guess.

[Jeremy Walker]

Not really sure if this thing works or who will even hear it if it does. My name is Livingston Moss. My family and my friends call me Lib. Well, they used to. The day they came, everything changed. Not the change. My grandparents back in Mississippi used to say. Boy, change gonna do you good. Nothing about them is good. I had a life. I had a family. I had a house, a career. What does it even matter what I'm saying to you? Whoever you are, you're all dead. Just like me. So congratulations to them. The sun has darkened. The moon doesn't give the same light. The game is over. You've won. All I know is the vultures have gathered. The last trumpet has played its final sound. Our world, your world, is forever changed. I can't lose my faith.

[Alex Ward]

I can't.

[Jeremy Walker]

God be with me.

[Erica Fermina]

What's up, fellow TV watchers? It's Brian from the Core Podcast where we cover all things Apple tv, plus we are wrapping up our recaps of Emmy favorite severance, but 2025 on Apple.

[Alex Ward]

TV plus is just getting started In April and May.

[Erica Fermina]

The Core is recapping Seth Rogen's new Hollywood satire the Studio and Jon Hamm's dark comedy your Friends and Neighbors. We'll also be recapping the first two seasons of Apple's Sci Fi Thriller foundation heading into the third season of that later this year. Search for the Core all things Apple TV plus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

[Alex Ward]

Can you actually change your personality if you want to? How does peer pressure work and why is it so powerful? Should you ever really trust your gut when you make a big decision? These are just a few of the topics we've recently covered on my podcast Something you Should Know. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and each episode of Something youg Should Know covers multiple topics that are likely relevant to you. You'll discover things you can use in your life today, right now, like how to have a great conversation, how to be more courageous, the anatomy of the perfect apology, and much, much more. To date there are over 1000 episodes of something you should Know and we've gotten over 4,000, mostly five star reviews. I invite you to check out something you should know. Look for the bright yellow light bulb on the blue background. Something you should know wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Erica Fermina]

Welcome to the ultimate social deduction game, Blood on the Clock Tower.

[G]

The Evil Team must stalk the streets at night, hunting down members of the Good team one by one. Meanwhile, the Good Team must outmaneuver the Evil Team using their unique abilities.

[Alex Ward]

I'd like to kick things off by telling you all that I'm possibly the.

[G]

Demon Our players can make, mislead and manipulate others with absolute freedom.

[Erica Fermina]

I didn't like hearing my name in the same sentence as Demon. That was very upsetting for me. Emily and I will be your storytellers, guiding you through every labyrinthian twist and turn.

[Alex Ward]

How are there so many evil players in this game?

[Erica Fermina]

What's happening with guests from no Rolls, Bard, the Pandemonium Institute, and Oxventure? You won't be able to stop listening. Go to realmspod.com clocktower to find out more.