Mayday Plays - Doomed to Repeat Ep. 8 - "Reverberations Through Time"

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

We complete our playthrough of “Reverberations” by Shane Ivey. In this climactic episode, the bitter reunion of F-cell and the friendlies must work together to break into the Detroit-Cadillac hotel. Rose, Echo, and Frogg are escorted to the penthouse by the terrifying Tanyika while the others follow as back up. The group learns the truth about Reverb and they come face to face with their worst nightmares; 24 flights above the burning city of Detroit. One way or another, the devil will get his due. This episode contains profanity, violence, and references to drug/alcohol use. Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are © Mayday Roleplay, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property. CAST OF CHARACTERS • Aaron - Agent Fluke, FBI • Allegra - Rose Alvarado, Professor at Detroit University • Amanda - Agent Frost, U.S. Marshals • Caleb - Oliver Lake, Journalist at the Detroit News • Eli - “Echo” Blackwood, Owner of Hightower Records • Zakiya - Agent Frogg, DEA • Sergio - The Handler MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron A. Pabst • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) DELTA GREEN LINKS • Delta Green (http://deltagreen.com/) • Reverberations (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/218944/Delta-Green-Reverberations?cPath=1459_8165) MAYDAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay7) • Mayday website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/maydayrp/)

Doom to Repeat is a Delta Green actual play podcast with violent themes and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to episode eight of Doom to Repeat. I'm Sergio, your handler. I'm Erin Papps, and I'm Agent Fluke. I'm Allegro and I'm terrified. Hahahaha!

Thank you. Also I'm Rose. Also I'm Rose. I'm Amanda, and I am Frost. My name's Caleb, and I'm playing Oliver Lake. I'm Eli, and I'm playing Echo Blackwood. I'm Zacchia, and I'm playing Agent Frog. Tonight we complete the scenario,

Reverberations, by Shane Ivy. I'm gonna take these final introductions to say thanks to the folks who have made our initial release of this podcast such a success. We started promoting our show around the same time as another called Spot Hidden. They run Call of Cthulhu Dark Ages, and we love watching them stream every Tuesday on Twitch.

London, Carly, and the other players have been incredibly supportive, and we hope you take the time to check them out. We inevitably plan to start streaming on Twitch ourselves, so look forward to some collaboration with them in the future. Thanks again to the Spot Hidden team, and as always, to you, our listeners.

Listen, Vic, there's a lot I have to cover here, so forgive me if I glop, just know that it's all important, and everything it is in these tapes and notes. It's enough to justify every stupid fucking thing I've done, and that's saying a lot. You saw me, I was climbing into the back of an ambulance with a bullet wound inside my legs. I'm better now, at least physically.

I'm sure you saw more than my open leg, though. Please tell me you saw those guys in the suits. If you haven't, you'll be acquainted with them with every tape in this cache. You remember my old informant, Echo? She ordered a Detroit white APB through the people's police, and boy, did they listen. Shot up the whole diner.

They rushed us to the hospital. On the way, the two Chi-men went missing. They locked the muscle up, frost, and the other, the mastermind, Fluke, went missing altogether. Back at the hospital, we all managed to patch up and learn something I didn't think was possible. One of the agents of this supposed organization

told the truth. Frog, the heart of the heartless, brought our confidant, Debra Constance, out of the DEA into our fold, and told her everything that I've outlined in my notes and tapes, all the things that you know now. Even better, she believed us, agreed to outfit, and head up up the mission to stop Devil's Night

and find the supplier. We all came to an agreement. The loose ends were with that new gang in town, the network. And out of all the leads, we chose the human one, the skinned and avian expat, enjoying the Great Lakes by the name of Heinrich. If that name is new to you, it's in the notes. I refer to him as Ikea in most of the tapes,

of course I have it. With him in our sights, we trailed him back to the second club I mentioned on our first night in notes. We were knocked. Myself and Rose trailed Ikea while the rest of the group tracked a new development. Tanika, from what they explained later, they trailed to a cemetery where, as a show of dominance,

she was eaten off a human forearm like it was pulled pork. Our move later, like a bat out of hell, like her limbs were hollow, like she was a kite that caught wind. Anyways, there was some negotiation on their part to talk Sally into giving up the supplier, or at least the point of contact. A name we already had, Spider J.

They all agreed to follow through his apartment and get a chance at asking some questions, finding out the real story. Back with Ikea, I made the dumbest play in my life. Set up a high-stakes drug deal predicated on the association between the network and the Detroit News. Yes, I know how that sounds, but I always told you

if I was going to get fired, I'd do it in style. I think it worked. We met up at Spider J's, Rose spoke with him at length, trying to get information. Tanika picked up a package there. I'm not sure what it was, either. It was the reverb or worse, the book. I'll tell you in the afterlife, I'm sure.

There was something else there, though. J was obsessed with this. The thing I mentioned earlier in the notes, I can't say its name. I don't want a chance hit, neither do you. You keep that name out of your mouth, Vic. Set up defenses, all the cameras in the world couldn't save us, so it's about the corners, Vic.

It likes the corners. If you can't find a way to break the corners, you have to make a world without them, get rid of every thought of them. Sometimes though, sometimes though, sometimes it still comes. The rest of the day is a blur. I was under a dome in my mind.

I hid like some roach, scurrying away from the boot that wants me, not even a day later, I still feel like that. I haven't told the others, but I never stopped thinking of that dome. There was a message for us in the evening. I blacked out for a moment, woke up to it. The Lord of Thought wanted to meet in the same place

that Tanika had mentioned to rendezvous with the other group, and just like that, we had a date for Devil's Night. We spent all of today planning, going over in gross detail, and before the planning was done, both of those shells we called G-Man were back on the team.

At this point, I don't even care. Whenever I see his face, I just look to the dome, it keeps me safe. We're going to the Cadillac Detroit Hotel. While half the city is burning, our plan is to go through the sailor reverb to the Detroit news in one room, and the rest for the book and Tanika and the other,

hopefully getting some answers in the process. Either way, I think this is my last one, Vic. Goodbye from here on out, and whether I live or die, I'll be known as one of the worst conspiracy theorists in the country, but it was all true. I promise you that. I do pass.

Don't fight it too hard. Get the truth out there and make it clear you distance yourself as much as possible on the blowback. I have to work. I need you to check on Rose Alvarado, regardless. The thing that is mine is hers. She was the best thing that ever happened to me,

and I was a fool to wait so long. There's a letter in this box addressed to her. If we both die, Mary Soul Alvarado, she'll know what to do. Finally, Vic, I got a message to the city of Detroit. We've always been on fire, and when you live like that, it's about pain management. But it's time we did something more than treat the symptom.

We ought to look at the problem, and that has always been the system. The system is a petulant child. It works against those who made them. Even worse, it lies. There has been an organization of government, elected Gestapo. It has operated in secret for decades

by my estimation, and has employed killing machines as the frontline defense against everything paranormal. Agents will tell you they have the world's interests at hand, that they are here to stem back the scourge of the unknown, that they are doing their best to keep us safe. It's fake. It's about keeping us complacent,

murdering innocents in the dead of night to keep their agendas and inviting ignorance to the reality of the world. They are out there, and even worse, whatever they're fighting, it's out there too. And it's coming for us. There's only one thing we can do. Spread the truth.

Put out the fucking fire. It's October 30th, 1984, Devil's Night. Agents of F-Cell, Rose and Oliver, you have made your way through the burning streets of downtown Detroit, and have pulled up across the street from the Cadillac Detroit Hotel. The hotel is all boarded up.

All of the front doors are completely covered with wood, metal, and metal. The hotel is all boarded up. All of the front doors are completely covered with wood, and the hotel overlooks a park. And so the police that are stationed here are acting as lookouts for the block and for the area. They are surveying large parts of the neighborhood

because they have a good viewpoint. You know that their attention isn't immediately on the hotel and that they're kind of watching the block. Agent Constance is with you, and she turns to you all and she says, before we go too far, let's pass these around. She starts handing you all walkie-talkies and flashlights. She continues and says,

so we have two options. I can come with you or I can stay out here, and if you signal to me that there's trouble, I can notify all the officers that are down here and I can bring them up as backup. What do you think is the best idea? I think we should have backup, ready just in case. Does anybody object to that?

Again, no issues with that, but if we're going up there, then the group that's doing the drug deal, we need to be on separate channels for that walkie. The only way you can contact with us is if it's an absolute emergency that might blow our cover, right? Okay, I'll try to get a little bit closer to these police that if things go bad,

I'll get their attention and get them upstairs. Perfect. She kind of takes a big breath and she's like, all right, well, best of luck. Please, anything you need, just make sure you reach out to me. I appreciate it. Thank you, Constance.

You slip out of the van and you start making your way around the block. Echo, would they run into you or are you keeping a distance? No, they'll see me because they knew I was coming anyways. Okay. So you meet up with Echo

and you begin making your way around the block. Eventually, you get to the point where you can see the back of the building and what you see is that there are a couple of truck-sized doors, kind of elephant doors that are closed and locked, but there is a main double-door entrance in the back of the building.

It looks like it's a kind of a utility entrance. And although the entire, it's kind of a large space where maybe cars might be parked behind it, but all that you see in front of those double doors are three police officers. And you are far away enough, maybe hiding behind a fence or some debris that's outside

that you are not seen, but you can see that. They're just kind of milling about one spoke of a cigarette to them or having a conversation. Nealed up next to the fence, I will cock my gun, having heard the officers. And I will look to Echo and say,

I don't think we've been formally introduced. Yeah, you're right, we haven't. Sup? You hit me with a car, tried to. Threatened my life. I did not. We don't have time. We don't have time.

By the way, I would have gone a shade lighter on the makeup. First time. Hey, we pass around threats against each other's lives like it's fucking candy on Halloween. Can we just calm down a second and admit that that's our form of affection? I don't like any single one of you.

That's fair. Listen, we gotta go. The plan is, at least in my mind, that the book team should go in first, give us some time to get Tanika away from Heinrich and Ikea so that we can make this drop as smooth as possible. What do you guys think? Makes sense.

I think that's smart. Sure. I'll be right behind you. Book team, you ready? I need a minute. I'm gonna pull Ollie far enough away that they're not gonna hear us too much. I'm gonna take a deep breath and I'm gonna say,

I have a secret. What's your secret? I can tell you. OK. Gotta stay alive to find out. Well, that sounds like a bunch of bullshit. You want me to win a gold medal at the Olympics too? Yep.

You fucking stay alive and you find out the secret. OK. You can tell me in Canada, right? Yep. I'll tell you in Canada. Hey, I got a secret too, but I can tell you right now if you want to know. Yeah, tell me your secret.

Love you. We're gonna be OK. Quit. Quit joking about dying. It'll be fine. I can't. It's a fucking, it's a mechanism. I'm dying.

I love you too. While they're trading secrets, I'm just gonna go. So I understand that you want to get into the building, but I just described that there are three police officers blocking the entrance, and you know that if they see you, they will likely shoot you away. Well, like I've said, Fluke's gun is cocked. I don't think that'll be necessary this time.

Is there like a trash can or something, like debris somewhere off to the side? There is a trash can near you, but you also know that maybe on the other side of the block there might be a trash can, but you'd have to kind of head over there. I'm gonna do that. While they do that, can I just quickly

switch to channel four in updating content? Like, hey, we got three officers in the back. Do you mind calling them out of the way? There's silence for a moment that she says. Oh, yeah. Sorry, that's kind of my fault. Earlier yesterday, I told everyone to kind of double their efforts in this block.

Maybe distract them? I mean, I don't know. I don't want to play my car right now. If I come out and start telling them to stand down, do you think something fishy is going on? I'll just say rad, right as she said that to me. Was that when Amanda was constant? Yes.

That was. Yes. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh, god damn it. Chris, man, you're fighting against yourself. That is some god tier G.E.B.A. right there. Yeah. Instant.

That is the most us bullshit in the world. We've already shot ourselves in the foot. God damn right we did. That's who we fucking are. Frog is going to turn to Echo. Since you seem to speak for the trees or whatever, do you mind summoning some sort of street youth to distract? I don't even listen to what she says.

I'm going to go find the trash can. And what do you want to do with that trash can? I'm going to set on fire. Yeah, you're OK. I'm going to set the fire on fire. I think that's easy enough to do. It takes a couple of minutes, but eventually guys on the opposite block to your left,

you see a trash can suddenly rolling on fire in the middle of the street and just rolling down the street. And there are two officers who are talking to each other. They notice the fire and they're like, oh shit. And they both start running over to this thing. And I mean, it's a long distance away. So they are clearly moving away. But there is one officer still at the door.

And just when you are not completely sure how to get this guy out of the way, let me ask that everyone make alertness checks. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. How are you feeling about that? I succeed. Negative 20.

Succeed. Not feeling too good about it. Oh, I actually succeeded. What the fuck? That's all barely passing. 99. Oh, honey. I think, I think, Echo, you're the only person that really

doesn't have to do this check because you are kind of, you're probably running back to the group now. But the point is, is that those of you that succeed, you're looking at the police officer and something catches your eye. You look up and just a couple stories up, there's this black mass that is like spider crawling down the building on the hotel.

And as it gets closer to the police officer, it's illuminated by some of the lights that are on the walls. And you realize it's Tanika. She's coming down the walls. And you see that she's about to pounce on him. Do you watch or do you turn away? I'm turning away.

Anyone that does not turn away, except Agent Flu, must make sanity checks as she leaps onto the man. And incredible silence just takes him out. He drops to the ground and you can see her kind of hovering over him, chewing on something. Pass my sanity check. I pass sanity as well. OK, you do not lose any sanity.

After a moment, those who did not turn away, including Fluke, announced that she seems to have finished her business. She is beginning to stand. She seems like she's heading through the doors. I'm a follower. I'm going to pull my face out of all these chests, give him one big fucking, we're going to fucking live

through this kiss and then follow. Frog, Echo, and Rose, you begin making your way across the lot. The two police officers are still distracted by the fire. They're putting it out and they're calling for backup and stuff. You make it up to the double doors. By now, Tanika has already disappeared inside. I assume you go through?

Yep. Yes, you go through the door. Inside, the hotel is completely black. There are no lights on. The best you can tell, there is no power running in this hotel. But you are still, you're struck by the kind of ornate nature of the Cadillac Hotel.

There's antique furniture, these grand marbled hallways. And you come to the main lobby where there are elevators. And there seems to be a pair of doors that lead to stairs. As you are kind of making your way in, you begin hearing these soft animal meeping noises. And if you don't know what a meeping noise is, it sounds kind of like animalistic. What do you do?

A Tanika or somebody who's real chill with Tanika. We're chill with her. Emerging from one of the shadows is Tanika. And her mouth is covered in blood. And she drops the body of the police officer. And she is now carrying his night stick and kind of twirling it in her hand. There it is.

And she says, oh, I wasn't actually expecting you guys to show up. And it looks like you brought your friend. We just had a few follow up questions for you. Standard procedure, you understand? Questions? Oh, sure. I love questions.

Well, why don't you follow me? And she starts making her way to the staircase. I follow. I follow her. I'm thinking in circles and following. She opens the doors and begins ascending. You are in pitch black. And you turn your flashlights on.

And you can see that there is a square staircase that circles up and up and up high up to the air for at least 24 flights. And she begins going up. And she says she's going up. Before any questions, how's Spider? How's he doing? I'm sorry to say he, we don't know.

He's gone. Well, I'm sure he's at peace. In peace, no. He never did figure out he was being played from all the angles until the end. How do you mean? Oh, well, it's kind of a long story, but it's really quite brilliant, I got to be honest.

Well, we've got a lot of stairs. I love a good story. That's true. She begins ascending the steps. And about the fourth or fifth floor, you guys notice that there's a body on the floor. And she kind of stops, looks. Do you guys aim your flashlights at him?

Yes. Oh, god, what kind of a question is that? Sorry to your question. Agent Frog, you are the only person that recognizes this. There is a dead Asian man. And with a forensics, I think you have a forensics of 60 or something, you can tell that he died of a bullet wound to the stomach.

And he died holding a gun. Like his hand has kind of frozen into a position that looks like he might have been holding a gun, but there is no gun there. But you remember that Fluke had mentioned there was an Asian man that he had shot at that might have been a pusher. No.

OK, OK. She's going to keep it together and keep going. I guess he didn't quite make it up to the top. Is that what happens if you can't do it? Well, it is kind of a marathon, huh? Yeah. Everyone that is outside, it's been about three, four minutes. What are you guys doing?

I'm getting antsy. Let's go. I'm going to, before we enter the building, I'm going to grab both of their shoulders so we can look and be like, guys, we don't have time to fuck around. We have to have trust right now. Are we all on the same board that we

are here to trust each other from this point until this is over? I won't get her. I think that Ollie is looking past her at the horizon of the city. But he nods. He goes, yeah, I'll do whatever it is you two need. I'll take point and I'll enter.

OK, you dart your way across the lot, and the police officers are just kind of finishing taking care of this fire problem. So you have moments before they catch you. You sneak into the hotel, and you enter the main lobby, the grand main entrance, and it is completely silent. You see that there is a pair of staircases,

and you see that there is elevators that are currently out. All right, I'm going to tap on the elevator door. Nothing happens, because it seems that the entire hotel is out of power. OK. Yeah, the electricity's out. Dare well it is. I will be careful to ensure that I am the back of the pack.

And I will make my way up quietly. Those of you who are in the first group, you are a few minutes ahead, and you are winding up the stairs. And Tanika is being very open and honest with you about how this all transpired. She explains that she was left alone a long time ago in Detroit. She always felt like she really knew Detroit. And so she made a deal with the network

that if they would help her become the main person in charge of drug running in Detroit, that she would give them the last artifact of her people. And she kind of slaps her backpack when she says that. And she says, the Lord of Thought, he sent dreams to Spider. Before I even knew him actually, and he told Spider to join the army, and he did.

And then he told Spider to leave his post when he was stationed in the Philippines. He went all the way to China, Himalayas, in fact. And that's where he found it, the Lao. And the funny thing is the whole time he thought he was the brilliant one coming up with it. He brought it back to the States. He added MDMA to it, and he started selling it.

And that's when I became his girlfriend and made sure that it all went according to plan. Because sure enough, he sold to the Earl Flynn's. And when he was too paranoid to really keep working, that's when the Lord of Thought came into town. He had his protector bring the drugs to the Pony Down Crew. Soon it'll be Black Mafia, and then it'll be all the other ones, and then it'll just be me.

Well, me and the network, I guess. Isn't that brilliant? It's pretty genius. Thanks. Fascinating. What exactly is the Lord of Thought? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, he's a dude.

I know that. I don't know his name. He's really kind of mysterious. But he's part of the head of the network. They're called the faint. The faint? Like pass out? The faint, F-A-T-E. Like it's your faint to die.

Have you met him in real life? He actually visited me just a little bit before actually you met Spider. Like on the same day? Yeah. Wow. What was he like? Honestly, he's pretty stoic.

But he's followed through in every way. He's made sure that I'm exactly where I want to be. So a deal's a deal. And Heinrich, where does he fit into this equation? Heinrich, he's a neo-fight like me. He's kind of a middle management. Well, he's like a strong arm for the Lord of Thought. And he came in with the Lord of Thought?

Him and that guy, and she points back to in the direction of the Asian man that you left dead on the stairs. Is there a name for what you are? I mean, other than neo-fight? Well, it depends on what you mean by me. I'm Tanika Tillerson, the most gorgeous girl at the club. But sometimes I can be other people. It depends.

I have to eat people's brains to be them, but. Naturally. Makes sense. Are you asking what I really am? Yeah, if you don't mind. I'm feeling generous tonight, so sure. I'm a member of an organization called the Keepers of the Faith.

Well, that's what they were called. I don't really know if they're still around. I haven't heard from them in a very long time. I'm basically the last of them. But the Keepers are special because they've found out how to live forever. They don't need food or oxygen to survive. We can run fast and climb and we're really tough.

I've heard people from Delta Green refer to us as ghouls. Is that like another gang or something? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that's what you were, and she gestures to Frog. You know, G-men, men in black. You guys have always had kind of a history with the Keepers of the Faith. Where does Delta Green even come from?

That's not... Who told you that? I didn't come up with a name. All I know is that the Keepers of the Faith say watch out for that group Delta Green. I don't have time to think about what that could mean. All right. Tanika, can I ask you another question?

Of course. Yesterday, you were talking about how Luca is Heinrichs. He's in charge of him or he takes care of it. What does that mean? Well, that gets to the last group, the ADEPs, A-D-E-P-T-S. They're kind of the hands of the network. They do things for us.

They operate, and sometimes it's something as simple as passing a message, and sometimes it's being a drug mule. But I think that's what Luca is. He's an ADEPT. Most of the times, it's homeless people, destitute people, crazy people. They make great ADEPs.

I've learned this all just recently, mind you, because I'm kind of a new member myself. But you're not an ADEPT. No, I'm even better. I'm a neo-fight. Gets me one step closer to being special. And if I run Detroit well enough, who knows? Maybe I'll become part of the fate.

How does that work? Don't you have to kill the alpha or something like that? You are very astute. That's probably the most likely way, yeah. Tanika, I was joking. That's OK. Oh. I was trying to joke.

That's my apologies. I forgot who I was talking to. Let's cut back real quick to the second team. You guys just begin ascending the stairs. And you also, eventually, about the fourth or fifth floor, Agent Fluke, you recognize him immediately. You come and you find the dead body of this Asian pusher. Well, how about that?

I kneel down at the corpse, and I start patting it down to see if there's anything on him. There is nothing other than his clothing. Gotcha. One more bad guy off the streets, I guess. And they're yours? You shot me. Right.

As you continue your way up the stairs, it becomes obvious that you can hear four feminine voices, a dozen floors above you guys. Does Fluke is Fluke able to discern any details of that conversation? Does anything stand out to him or is it all just muffled? You can tell that it is Rose and Frog and Echo and this girl that, actually, I don't

think you've met this girl yet, have you? No, I have not. OK, so you hear four voices, three of which are familiar to you. The details are probably, I would imagine that they're speaking relatively softly, so it's not super clear now. Gotcha.

We ought to keep our distance, so make sure that they stay about this far away from us. A little about you, but I know how to be quiet. I'm just going to put my finger to everybody's mouth, like, and then keep moving up. First team, did you have any other questions? I had several. Go ahead.

Stand one. Go ahead. Lil nerd, Lil nerd's here. Tinika, you'll forgive me for pestering you with questions, but I'm something of a bookish sort, and I've got a couple more questions, if you don't mind. Gee, I guess, yeah, sure. What else are we going to do in the stairwell, right?

Yeah, you have a point. So why reverb? What does the Lord of Thought get from the lay out? What does he get from making the people go after the thing that was scaring? What's the point of it? I don't understand. They feel like they're disparate things.

Why are they connected? Well, like I said, it's a little bit of a roundabout way, but I'm getting what I want. He got the reverb for me and set it up. The reverb started getting sold. The pushers start disappearing. I started replacing the pushers with network members, network operatives, and before I know it,

I'm the only person in town doing the drug. What he gets out of it is, well, you see, the fate and their desires, they're a little esoteric. They want artifacts of power, and so they kind of build an entire criminal enterprise on this. I've got just what they want, and again, she kind of motions to her backpack. What is?

Let's just say it's an artifact from a time when other things ruled the world. To be honest with you, I don't really know. It's just been passed on from member to member, and I've just had it for a while. You'll see it soon. Don't worry. Does the Lord of Thought know about Shukran?

Well, sure. It was his idea to sell the Lao. I mean, there couldn't have been a better drug for the situation. Sell drugs to people that make them disappear. Sell it to all the pushers who are going to definitely use it. They all disappear, and the competition's gone. But what happens after that?

You're the only one around. You have this artifact. You give it to them. What's to stop them from just ending? Like, why does this mean what a promotion for you? Oh, yeah, it's definitely like a promotion. I mean, basically, think of it like this. I mean, like I said, the network runs on criminal enterprise.

I'm going to sell drugs. I'm not going to sell reverb forever. I don't want to make the entire city of Detroit disappear. That'd be my whole clientele. So I'll sell something else like crack or heroin, whatever's popular at the time, and the network will make a cut of it. All of this for money or power? For me, it's money and power.

For them, it's, like I said, these artifacts of power. I guess it's more important to them. Money is just a means to an end. Doesn't it matter that they're people? To be honest with you, I'm not really sure who is a person anymore. Well, that's fucked. I think I read a I read a book about this.

I think a long time ago, well, not that long ago, probably two or three years ago, something about France in the early 1700s. Were you around then? She kind of pauses and she says, what are you saying? Do you remember the name of this book? It was it was something I found in passing in the library. And I read it because it was different and interesting. But when I went back to find it the next day, it was gone.

Yeah, that was that was one of those last artifacts in Detroit. I was hoping to get that myself. But looks like Delta Green got it before I did. Oh, no, I'm sorry. You don't have to say you're sorry. Sorry, it's not your fault. Well, it's a book of your people. I don't want to deny you your cultural rats.

I appreciate that. Weirdly progressive of you. You have an appropriating culture. Look, Rose is a nerd. She's soft. I swear, this is my last question. I'll stop bugging you one day. But I'm just this is so interesting.

I've always been interested in learning more. One of our friends disappeared and he he had a recording device on him. We didn't hear much, but we heard wings flapping when he disappeared in that something. Wings flapping. Do you know anything about that? Oh, that must be Emmanuel. He's kind of like a punk. I don't know. I don't really like him too much.

He's he's kind of he's like a loyal lap dog to his master. I don't I don't know. He's weird. I met him. Oh, really? Gave him the creeps. No, me too. She says as his blood smeared all over her face. But he's he's part of this, too. He he knows the Lord of thought.

Yeah, you know, I haven't really been able to figure out his place in all this. He's not really part of the fate, but he's not a neo fight. I don't know what he is, but I suggest you just stay away from him when we get up there. Yeah, it sounded weird. I wasn't a fan. Of course he is. The two teams will say that the first team gets up there first, but to ascend 24 flights of stairs even at a leisurely pace is a challenge. I need you all to roll D4s and you will reduce this from your willpower.

Sergio, quick question, the second team. Do we hear any of that regarding Emmanuel at all in particular? You can make an alertness check. It will be at minus 20 percent only because it's very echoey. I'm going to go. I'm going to try that. I would like to try that. OK, go ahead. No.

Not even close. No, just missed it. You're able to make out words on the occasion. I'll give it to you that you hear the word Emmanuel, but you don't know in what context that is. So team one, you are ascending the stairs. You're only about four floors away. When you see that there is light emitting from the 24th floor,

there seems to be a door open and through that door, light is coming through your startle for a moment. And you see a man. He looks homeless, just kind of in raggedy clothing and seems kind of passed out with his head back up against the wall. And your flashlights kind of instinctively move up. And there you see another homeless looking man. And and then there's a woman and you start realizing

as you kind of look that all up the staircase at random points, there are just homeless people that seem to be out of it. Maybe they're on drugs, maybe they're sleeping, but they aren't reacting to your light and they are not reacting to your voices. But they do seem alive. Do you continue to ascend? Yeah, yeah.

Okay. You kind of start stepping past them. And some of them will occasionally, you know, they'll make some kind of noise. And when you flash your flashlights on some of them, you can see that their wrists are open and you can see needle marks where they might be taking heroin or something like that.

All of them on their left wrist have a little Egyptian eye tattoo on them. These are your ad-hips? You get to the top of the staircase and you enter a beautiful kind of entryway. It's not very large, but it's big enough to obviously be an entrance to a penthouse suite. You look to your left and you see that there is a large pair of wooden double doors.

Tanika says, I'm going to ring the doorbell if no one has problem with it. Go ahead. She walks up to the door and you guys are, you know, just a few steps behind her. She presses the doorbell and the doorbell is part of a large like speaker box. There's silence for a moment. And then you hear, you hear a voice over the intercom's day.

Place your weapons on the table or you will not be allowed in. Ikea, your boy. I'm going to put my medium pistol down. Okay. And that's it. Even the bat? You want to put the bat down? Sure.

I'm going to put the bat down. And the gun that Frost gave me. I'll put down my pistol, but I'll keep my derringer and my switchblade in my pocket and my derringer, like tucked in the back of my pants under my shirt. Once you put the final weapon down, there is a buzz at the door and Tanika opens it. She says, would you like to go first or should I?

After you lead the way. You're in charge. Oh, you're too kind. She enters and I assume you guys enter after her. Yes. Second team, you have reached the 20th floor when you also come to the homeless people in the stairwell. What do you do?

I'm going to start checking the homeless people to see if they have anything in their pockets or anything either reverb weapons, just anything. So that's what I'm going to start doing. Sure. You start checking the first person who does kind of react to you touching him, but it's in a very glazed over like dazed sense. And you check his pockets and he has a dollar on him.

And he also has a little baggy of like a white, like a beige substance might be heroin. I'm going to pocket both. Okay. Take the dollar. You're going to take the dollar from the homeless man. I am taking the dollar, too. We are looting the homeless right now.

That's a tough job. Fluke will grab one of them by the head and just kind of try to pull one of their eyelids open and see what their eyes are doing. The eyes are completely bloodshot and like rolled in the back of their head. Fluke will will slap this same man to see if he can get a reaction out of them. Oh, he kind of, you know, comes out of it a little bit, but it's incredibly groggy. What's your name? Will Will.

How did you get here? Will looks around and it's I mean, it's basically pitch black where you guys are. And he says, I don't remember who brought you. You got any juice on you, man? And he kind of signals to his veins, I need another hit. Um, yeah. Yeah, I have some juice, but you're going to have to tell me who brought you here. I was like in a dream, a voice told me.

A voice told you. He kind of just drops his head. Okay. Well, this is useless. No, he's, I think he's telling the truth. I'm sure he's telling the truth, but it's nothing that we don't already know. You can see that just a few floors up, there is an open door with light coming out of it. I'm going to approach the light, but in route, because I know there's more people on the staircase.

I mean, I'm going to start actually patting things down because I just want to make sure this isn't like a trap and that they actually have weapons. So I'm going to actually start checking everyone as I go up the stairs. Feeling up the homeless man. You, you, you remain in the staircase, kind of just making sure none of these guys have any weapons or anything like that. You do find the occasional switchblade, which you can take off of them, but almost all of them either have nothing on them, maybe a couple of bucks, probably some drugs and, you know,

the occasional switchblade, nothing beyond that. And they all have these little Egyptian eye tattoos on the left forearm. Okay, I'm going to pocket all the drugs though. I want that off them. I'm going to keep one switchblade, but any other switchblade, I'm going to toss it down the stairwell just in case down the center, just so we don't have any repercussions. And if there's any more money, I'll be nice and I'll just leave the rest of the pockets.

Just that guy, Ollie. Not going to loot all the corpses. No, we got a mission. I think Ollie is just apologizing profusely to each person. Oh no, the boy. I promise it'll get better. I don't know what to say here. I'm sorry.

Keep your goddamn voice down. While you guys are doing this, let's cut to the group who has just entered the penthouse. The penthouse itself is quite full of people. I wouldn't say it's necessarily cramped, but there's a lot of homeless people in the penthouse as well. They all also seem to be drug-induced stupors. But as soon as you come in the door, you notice that standing by the door is the blonde man, Heinrich, and he is holding a submachine gun kind of over his shoulder. And he's just kind of aiming at you guys.

He's gesturing for you guys to enter. As you enter, you take in this rather lavish penthouse. And I will remind you that the entire hotel does not have power, and yet this floor is perfectly lit. Inside, you see to your left and to your right hallways that lead deeper into the penthouse. But in front of you is this very large, open living room space. And along the left side of the wall of the living room is this massive entertainment system. There's speakers and a record player, and there's a large television. And there seems to be a Nintendo sitting on top of the television.

And displayed on the television is a game called Duck Hunt. Oh, God. Directly across the TV, sitting on this huge plush leather couch, is the boy that you have become to know as Immanuel. He is still wearing his gremlins mask, and he is very excitedly shooting the ray gun that Nintendo provides at the screen. And pretty much missing every single duck that comes across the screen, but he's very excitedly like,

Yeah. Next to him sits Luca, Echo's cousin. He is visibly shaking. And when he sees you guys enter, he locks eyes with Echo. And he just like, he just kind of softly begins to cry in recognition of noticing you, Echo. Can I just reach out and squeeze her wrist and like comforting kind of like, I'm with you way. Slap that hand away. That's fair.

That's fair. Agent Frog, you are the first to notice this, but the rest of you also notice that on the balcony across, there is this large, these two large panes of glass, and there is a very beautiful balcony. And there stands a tall, gaunt man whose back is towards you. And he is looking out to the city of Detroit as it is a light with fire in all directions. And at his feet is a bound and gagged Hector Nunez whose eyes go wide when he sees you, Agent Frog.

And though you can't see him, you can tell that he's kind of trying to move and react to the fact that you have just walked into the room. I'm going to as not quite like make the hush sign, but something like covering my mouth to sort of communicate, please be quiet. He kind of stops doing his excited movement on the ground. Emanuel loses his game of duck hunt. He says, god damn it! And he stands up and kind of walks over and turns the Nintendo off.

And for the first time, he looks at you all and you're kind of startled. His eyes are behind the mask. They're just wide and they're staring at you unblinkingly. And he says, ah, you brought company. And Tanika says, yeah, can you call your boss in so we can get this over with? He turns around and like takes a shoe off of his leg and just throws it at the glass. The glass, boom, makes this noise. And the man who is standing outside turns and faces you guys.

He is about six foot. He looks like your average kind of waspy male light skin brown hair that is gray. But he opens the door to the balcony, the glass door, steps in, and he is dressed impeccably in like a beautifully tailored black suit. Expensive shoes, expensive watch, an expensive gold ring. And he is walking with this solid black walking stick. It's like a king, not more than like three feet high.

And he steps into the room and he just kind of stares and Tanika steps forward and takes her backpack and begins to unzip it. Team two, what are you guys doing? It's been a few minutes. You can hear that team one has already walked in. Can you describe the hallway or is there like a fire escape or is there other things? Yes. So so you take the time to kind of poke your head in to see what is in this lit room.

And what you see is a like a 10 by 15 entryway. If you know penthouses, you know, sometimes the entire floor is the penthouse. So you don't walk into like a typical hallway. You walk into what is essentially a room that leads to a main door that's kind of an entryway. And the elevators are kind of right next to the staircase as they were downstairs. But you don't poke your head in too much. You just kind of see this when you lean in, but you do not see the other team in there. If we go by the elevator doors, would they would I be seen?

If you were to step into the main room, you would probably be seen. Yes, by the monitor. I'm going to hold back then. I'm going to motion everybody like I would advise that we stay within your shot and wait and see how things unfold. Yeah, listen. Yeah, we have an appointment. We wait until we're sure that they've got at least part of them moved away.

And then we can we can call in our meeting back to team one. Tanika opens her backpack and pulls from it a six to seven inch milky white crystal. She holds it up and Emanuel, their eyes kind of widen. But the man that you know is the Lord of Thought shows no emotion on his face. Extremely stoic. In fact, now that you're looking at him and you get a good look, he almost he almost looks artificial, kind of like how Fluke has that bad makeup job. He just almost looks like he isn't human like the uncanny valley.

Yeah, yeah, there's just something unsettling about it. Maybe it's the fact that his face just gives no expression whatsoever. But Tanika puts the crystal down on a glass table and you see her take a big breath in. Oh, and she kind of lets go of the crystal. The man that you know is the Lord of Thought walks up to it and picks it up. And you see him kind of give a shiver as if something just ran down his spine. You all hear a voice. You do not see his mouth move.

You hear and I need all three of you to make sanity checks. Oh, boy. Oh, no, I didn't pass my sanity check. Oh, no, me neither. Failed on a 57. I hit I hit my sanity exactly. Okay, we'll say that you succeed. Literally one point for breaking.

Rose, you do not lose any sanity because you are convinced this is some kind of parlor trick. People cannot speak with their minds. But Agent Frog and Echo, you have seen some crazy shit over the last couple of days and you are convinced this man is speaking in your mind and you are both going to lose one point of sanity. You hear his voice one more time and he looks at Emanuel and he says, Emanuel says, I'll be right back. And he starts walking to the balcony. He opens the doors, closes the doors.

And you see him beginning to gesticulate and throw his body around in a very strange fashion. It's almost like he's performing some kind of ritual. You are standing alone in a quiet room with this Lord of Thought and with behind you, Heinrich, are you guys doing anything? We are waiting for this call to be made. I'm going to go to sit on the couch towards the end where the duck hunt was happening. You walk over and at first Heinrich is kind of jumpy but the Lord of Thought does not move or react other than kind of looking at you and watching you.

And you sit down on the couch. I assume you're sitting next to Luca? Yeah. You sit down next to him and he's just kind of shivering and he looks at you and he says, I want to go home. We're working on that. And she's going to take off her jacket and put it on him. It's not going to help too much but she's going to do it anyway.

Rose and Echo, do you want to do anything? I just want to make sure I'm standing next to Tanika. You would have to walk closer to her as she has walked away from you. Yeah, I'll walk closer. As you walk closer, she turns to the Lord of Thought and says, uh, actually this one said she wanted to sign the book. And he gives no expression at all but he looks you up and down Echo and you just feel this wave of content coming from him and you hear in your mind,

and I need you to make another sanity check Echo. Oh, I failed. You will lose another point of sanity. But you get the feeling that he is saying, if you want to join, put up or shut up. If I join you, can my cousin go? Can I take his place? He looks to, Luca, looks back to you, he has signed the book. But I have more value than he does.

And you would get more from me than you would get from him. Make a persuasion check. Yes. Okay, I succeeded. He looks to Luca and then he looks to Tanika and you hear again in your head, it's at this point that Emmanuel has finished his wild motions and gesticulations and the strange noises he was making out there that are muffled by the glass. He just kind of drops his arms, opens the glass and says,

it'll be here soon enough, boss. The man known as the Lord of Thought, carrying this crystal, begins walking to the balcony. And he turns around and he says so that everyone in the room can hear. Emmanuel cracks his fingers. He says, oh, I've been waiting for this. Run! Agent Frog, you hear the call. He wants you exterminated.

What are you doing? You know that directly in front of you is Emmanuel and Tanika and behind you is Heinrich. They're all three of them are very fast, but I'm going to try to shoot Goblin Boy. Yes, I will shoot Goblin Boy. Try to shoot him somewhere vital in the middle, anywhere in the middle. Okay, so you pull out the hidden weapon, you aim right at him and you fire. Go ahead, give me a roll. Oh, that's a pass.

Go ahead and do your damage. That's four points of damage. You fire squarely in his chest and he reacts. His whole body kind of shifts as he turns back to you. You can see the hole in his shirt and his flesh is completely unpierced by the bullet. And it literally drops on the ground. Cool, super cool. Feels good.

Echo, it is your turn. What are you doing? How far am I away from Luca? Maybe six feet at the most. I want to try to grab him and go. Okay, you run to him. He sees that things are going down. He gets up with you and begins moving.

I'll say that you can get to the door. Okay, can I draw my gun too? Sure. Okay, I'm going to draw my gun. Rose, it is your turn. Oh no, I'm not ready. Oh no, I'm, oh fuck, I have nothing. I'm going to pull out my walkie-talkie and say constants now please.

I'll say that's a free action, no problem. Oh, I have to do another thing. Okay, I'm going to, is there like a table or anything? Absolutely, there's lots of furniture in here. If you want to try to get cover, you absolutely can. I'm going to flip one of the tables up. And if I can get like close to frog and flip one of the tables up, with my tiny little skinny self, I'm going to do that.

Okay, go ahead and give me a, give me a dodge roll. A dodge roll? A dodge will guarantee that no damage comes to you, but hiding behind something just guarantees a little bit of extra armor. I'll, I'll try to dodge. There's a very low chance, but let's see. Yeah, I feel. Okay, you, you try your best to, to run behind something,

but you are still in view of Heinrich, the guy holding the, the sub machine gun. Fuck me. It's all my be all over your kids. Oliver, you are waiting quietly when you hear the first gunshot ring out. What are you doing? I clapped the two agents on the back and I, we got to fucking go. Yeah, I'm, I'm taking off. I'm running towards the penthouse at this point.

Oliver, you run in and you see all of the weapons on the left, and you see the big door in front of you. I don't have a weapon, so I'm going to grab a medium pistol. And then I'll, I guess I'll go straight through the door. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm going to get the pistol. I'm going to wait for the other two. I'm not in the business of dying as much as I'd like to be.

Agent Frost, you run up and on your turn, you see the door and you see Oliver waiting for you. Okay. Because I only have one remaining. I'm going to grab the bat and the other gun left behind. My protection spell that's on my dog tags. Is it doing anything unusual at this point? You don't feel anything? No.

Okay. I will also say, I mean, is it out? I'm going to, I was going to expose. Yeah, it would be out. Okay. You pull it out and it is now dangling in front of you. Okay. I'm going to lock and load and wait for a homeboy to come up.

Before it is your turn, Fluke, it is Heinrich's turn. He sees Echo and her cousin running out the door or trying to, and he sees Frog and he sees Rose. But I think the main person that is trying to hurt his master is Frog. So he is going to turn his gun at her and Frog, you either, well, if you want to survive, you're going to need to make a dodge roll. Got it. Interesting for you, man. He is going to fire.

At least for now. Come on. Do you want to survive? Okay. Reading. Okay. I got a 12 and my dog is 30, so hell yeah. That is a success.

You had me worried for a second. You hear him cock the gun and you turn around and you just dive behind the couch and it opens fire and this thing just, just a good spray across the room. Those of you who took the dodge action, you have forfeited your action for the coming term. That is how dodge works. So just FYI. Oh, yep, yep. I did not know that.

I would have made a different choice. Oh, fuck. He is going to move and he is going to basically come up to Rose and he is going to, like he wants to grab at you, but he's already used his turn, but he is aggressively moving towards you. You hear over the walkie, we're coming, we're coming Rose. Deborah Constance says over the walkie. It's 24 flights a series.

At the top of the initiative is the Lord of Thought and he's actually he's going to stand there and do nothing. He's just kind of watching what's going on. Oh, God. But I will say that Agent Frog, he can clearly see you and yet he is choosing to do nothing. Oh, thank you. It is Emanuel's turn and Emanuel is going to say, you're leaving too soon and he's going to leap over the couch

and land and try to catch you at go. So he is going to make an athletics check to pin you. I need you to make an opposed athletics check. No, I fail with a 30. So Emanuel grabs you by the shoulders and as he's cackling laughing, he pulls you back into the room. Luca is like, oh my God, echo. He's standing at the door.

I was like, run. Don't look back. You had to. It is Tanika's turn. She looks around at the chaos and says, okay, time to go. And she literally runs up to one of the windows and starts bashing it open like she's going to leap out of it. Agent Fluke, it is finally your turn.

Please go off, boy. Lose yourself if you had one shot. Oh, sure. Now you want me to lose it. Yes. Oh, sure. Break glass in case of emergency. This is that glass breaking moment.

Well, so I'm down the stairs a little bit. Is that right? No, you're right with us. You know, you can absolutely run into the main penthouse floor. You could even interact with the door if you wanted to. I'm going to make sure that the shotgun is cocked. I'm going to reach in under my shirt. I'm going to grab my elder sign necklace.

I'm going to tear it free from my neck. And I'm going to be holding it Van Helsing style. As I charge into the hotel room and I'm just holding it out in front of me. And as I run into the room, I am cackling. And when I cross the threshold of the door, I say, time's up, bitches. And I'm looking for something to shoot.

All right. Let it shoot. I love this. You bust through the door and you pass Luca. And you're kind of standing just past the threshold of the door. And you see the two year left is a blonde man hybrig who is grabbing at Rose. There is Emmanuel who is holding Echo.

And from this vantage point, it looks like she's like a body shield for him. And then you can see the man in the impeccable suit standing on the balcony. So I look looking looking in. I imagine I see Ikea with the submachine gun. I am identifying that as probably the biggest, the most immediate threat. So I'll just swing around and pop a shot off at him.

I rolled a 70 and my firearm is 70. You know what? You know what? He's going to try to he's going to try to dodge out of the way. He does succeed with a four percent. So you fire at him and just roll out of the way and your shotgun blast spatters the wall. Like all of these holes suddenly appear on the wall

just above Rose's head. Almost got something at least. And then I guess if that's the case, I will try to find the slightest bit of cover. If I can. Otherwise, I'm just holding my elder side necklace out in front of me, hoping it does its thing. Yeah, unfortunately, you burned most of your movement.

So you're basically standing out in the open. Asian frog, you cannot go this round. Echo, you have not done anything. You have not dodged. So if you wanted to, you could attempt to break free or fight this weird kid. I want to. Yeah, I want to break free.

OK, go ahead and you can make a athletics check. I want to break free. Thank you. Thank you for that. OK, I succeed on this one. And what is your number? Oh, 25. OK, excellent.

He rolled a 13 percent. So you succeed and you managed to break free of him. You like you kick him in the chest as hard as you can. It doesn't seem to hurt him, but he kind of stumbles back just enough. You can break free of him. Now what are you doing? I'm running. I'm trying to catch up with Luca.

The doors wide open. You run up to Luca and the two of you start running. I'll say that you can get to the threshold of the staircase. OK. Rose, you have dodged. So you have forfeited your turn. Oh, man. Oliver, it is your turn.

Holy shit. That was too quick. OK. Come on, baby. OK. I'm going to run in. OK. Yeah, I'll run in through the penthouse door.

And with everything going on, I'm going to try and throw a swing, just a wild hook at Heinrich. OK. So you run all like you see him kind of dodging behind a pillar and you run over to him and you're just engaging him physically. Go ahead and make a strike. A 32, which is under my unarmed combat. He rolled a 13 and you rolled higher than him.

So I will say that you successfully hit. So go ahead and make that punch. It's a three total. So you land solidly on his cheek. Sounds like something kind of crunched in his jaw, but he is still alive. And that probably burned all my movement, right? Yes. Agent Frost, go ahead.

OK. All right, all right. Bring in the sharpshooter. Yeah. Yes. OK. So I enter in. I'm at the door.

Who do I see? Just so I know the position of everybody. You see Emmanuel, the punk kid wearing the Gremlins mask. You can see farther in the distance. You can see the Lord of Thought standing in the balcony. And then to the left, you can see that Oliver is fighting with a blonde man. OK. I'm going to go ahead and run in towards behind Oliver.

And I'm going to take the top of my bat and I'm going to swing at this motherfucker's head like an eight-nil thing. Damn, it's not a heavy weapon or it's not an arm. An arm is better. OK. OK. OK. So.

You got this. Come on, girl. OK. It's a success. Don't worry about it. Yeah. I just want to, I just want to practice this toilet. I got it too.

Yes. I got it too. Yes, man. Yes. Mm-hmm. Because if we can get this fucker's Uzi, we might actually stand a chance. Right. It's a D8.

Oh, it's a D8. Hold on. Give me that. Fuck yeah, that's an eight. Yes, bitch. Crit that motherfucker. Brain confusion. Reckless.

You hit him so hard that he's going to have to make a con times five. Hot. We'll see if he stops. I'm up. Fuck is knocked out. Thank God we got you out of jail. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a mess. He does succeed. So you swing hard and you crack him across the back of the head and he stumbles outwards. But he is still up and he is trying to aim his weapon. But he has used his turn to dodge so he cannot be slammed. Let's go, bitch. Let's go, bitch. At the top of the initiative, the Lord of Thod is seeing that things are beginning to change

and his pickup has not arrived yet. So he waves his fingers at some of the homeless people that are sitting here. Yeah, she knew it. Tint. Tint. They come out of their stupor and there's three of them that lock eyes with Agent Frog. And they all just start stumbling and running towards you, Agent Frog. They're all going to attempt to pin you to the ground.

I hate this. Sergio, you don't have to do this. You don't have to go that hard. I'm just saying. Two of them just tackle you and are holding you down. One's got your legs. One's got your arms. And the third one just kind of tumbles over the other two and is being useless, is doing nothing.

But at least two of them haven't been. It is Emanuel's turn. He does not like that you got away from him, Echo. And he is going to go chasing after you. It focused on them. You're getting a shit turn. He runs to the threshold of the door and he's just going to go to try to smack you. Please say backhand.

It's not a 49 is going to succeed. He runs up to you and it's like it's like a cement truck hits you. He smashes into you and he deals you six points of damage. Oh no. Is she dead? Is she dead? I'm not dead. I'm not dead.

This is shit. Echo, you have lost over five health. I need you to make a common times five check or be stunned. Oh, shit, the health event. Echoing fast. Oh, Echo. I'm gonna die. Who would have known our worst enemy is a fucking kid without Redlyn?

Like what the fuck? The slap. I made it. I made it. He smashes you against the wall, but you use the momentum as you bounce back to continue into the staircase. But you are bleeding badly like internally. You can feel like something is cracked and broken inside you. Tanika on Tanika's turn.

She breaks out the glass of the glass and just says bye and just leaps out the window. Could I could I have said anything to her? Sure. What do you want to say to her? I'm going to say, wait, wait, wait. If you leave now and they kill us, you'll never find the book. Okay, fucking up, bro. Fucking up, bro.

Make a make a persuasion check. Oh, God. And my Christmas in the shits. I just barely fail it. She smiles at you and says everything I want have already gotten. She walks out the door, walk up the window, I should say. 24th floor as she just jumps out. Holy shit.

Agent Fluke, it is your turn. I will I will say that you noticed that as Emmanuel rushed past you, he did go and kind of made a noise. I fucking thought so. Okay, however, I have a Scandinavian man that I would very much like that. So let me ask you this first question. How far away is Ikea from the from the broken window? Yeah, he's more on the interior side of the build of the penthouse.

Is there a window behind him? Make a left roll. Come on, you crazy bastard. 82. Okay, he's he's he's kind of in the kitchen area and there's not a window in that in that area. Well, there goes defenestration plan. In that case, I will just try to shoot them in the face. I get an 85.

So regardless, I'm going to fail that. If I have any movement left, I would like to navigate my me and my elder sign hand closer to the freak in the gremlin mask. You fire and it hits the pillar that they're kind of all fighting behind and it misses and you turn around and you recall that this weird boy was reacting to your elder sign and you start kind of walking towards and the look on your face, Sergio, that you just had is exactly the look. Echo, what are you doing?

I call out to Luca. Let's go and like try to keep running. If I run, can I still dodge? You can run about nine feet, which is about three meters. And then if you want, you can take the dodge action. Yeah, I'll do that. If he attacks you in any way, you can make the dodge attack automatic rose. What do you want to do?

You just had a shotgun blast fly over your head. It looks like Heinrich is being taken care of. The strange punk kid just ran out the door after Echo and Fluke went after him. And you can hear Agent Frog struggling as some homeless men are grabbing on to her. And you can still see the Lord of Thought. Does the Lord of Thought still have the rock? Does he hold men? Oh, yes, he's holding it.

Yeah. Do it. Hey, do it. Grab his dick and twist it. She's going to go get Frog. What? That's what she'd do. Rose.

That's what she'd do. That's what she'd do. So you can see that there are two men currently struggling with her. How do you want to help her? Can I just, like, pistol whip one of them? Like, pull out my derringer and just smack him across the face? Sure. It'll have to be a melee combat attack.

Okay, that's fine. I don't think Rose would want to shoot them. I fail. You are absolutely like, you know, in the middle of struggling to get him off, but he's got a good grip on her legs. Oliver, this blonde man is on his last legs. He's kind of stumbling around and you know he's about to aim his gun at you. What are you doing?

Oh, fuck. I'm going to trust in the other two. They seem like they've got this whole idea. Honey, he has the southern king gun. I'm not going to do anything. I just punch things. I am going to run for glass balcony doors that separate us from the Lord of Thought. You manage to run and you are within five feet of him

and he's kind of staring at Agent Frog and his attention is drawn to you. He's on the other side of those double doors, right? The doors are open, but he is on the balcony. Okay, I'm going to try and run at him and take the crystal. Okay, so you want to make an opposed athletics check to steal it from him. Ten bucks says he gets heated off the balcony. Go ahead and make that roll. As long as I get the crystal, right?

Caleb, you succeed this game. I got an eight. I got an eight. I got an eight. I got an eight. I got an eight. I got an eight. I got an eight.

I got an eight. I got an eight. He actually failed with a 95. His attention is drawn to Frog and he doesn't see you run up and you steal it right out of his hand. And for the first time, his eyes kind of widen. He looks in your direction. You better throw that thing.

Fucking run. Run, Forest, run. I will say you've used all of your movement and your action to grab it, so you're basically standing right in front of him. Agent Frost, what do you want to do? Homeboy, I'm going for that machine gun. I'm going to go ahead and try to... I'm going to kind of tackle him.

So therefore, it's like an unarmed to take the machine gun. So that's what I want to do. Come on. You got this, Frosty. Let it go, Frosty. That's why I'm like, that's way higher than my other. Okay, okay. 41.

Yes. Oh, yeah. You tackle this blonde man and as he falls to the ground, he hits this marble floor hard and you hear the back of his skull. Correct. I need Agent Frost, Oliver, and Rose to make sanity checks. As you witness her kill this man. Oh, 17.

I'm fine. Oh, I'm very not fine. 35. I pass. If you failed, you're going to roll a D6. If you succeed, you will lose no sanity. So, Serge, no matter what I roll, I'm going to hit my breaking point. What does that mean?

You can, if you want, also project onto a bond and reduce that. Oh, you got it. So if you hit your, if you roll six, you can still roll a D4 and possibly reduce it from one of your bonds. I got a five. Okay. You are going to go temporarily insane unless you project onto a bond. Oh, fuck.

I'm going to project onto my father because he's the one that told me all these terrible stories and I didn't believe them and now they're true and like fuck him for telling me that. Echo, you're, you're running down the staircase. You hear the sound of electricity. And then one floor after another as you're running down, it's starting to turn on.

You can tell that someone downstairs has turned on the power, probably Deborah Constance. At the top of the initiative, the Lord of Thought sees that this man has stolen his precious stone. And he is going to raise his hand and his fingers touch the side of your head. Oh no. Oliver, I need you to make a power check.

I'd pass with a nine. Yes. You, you feel as if he's about to start doing it. It's almost like static electricity when he touches you, but you managed to shrug it off and you are not affected by whatever he was trying to do to you. Holy shit. Okay.

Wow. Power the cracker. This is with my fucking negative 22. Like, holy shit. The boy in the Gremlin mask, Emanuel, is watching Echo run down the stairs, but it's almost as if he feels something burning on his neck. If he turns and looks and he sees Agent Fluke.

Come closer, bitch. Thanks, crazy. He's going to do exactly that. He runs up to you and for a moment, Agent Fluke, you can see some of his flesh beginning to like, it's almost like it's receding, but he bites down on your shoulder. And when he does that, your entire chest caves in

as if something much, much bigger is biting down on you. You take 15 points of damage. Yeah. Good night, sweet prince. I'm dead. The rest of you here, Agent Fluke, cry out in the hallway and Agent Fluke, you drop to the ground. Your entire chest cavity crushed and your last moments

are looking at this boy who has removed his Gremlin mask and he just looks like some regular old Spanish punk kid with blood dripping down his face. In my last moments as he's lunging at me, is there any chance I can shove the elder sign into his face? Yeah, you do that and you see that it does burn his flesh. It pushes it away. Agent Frog, it is your turn.

You have two of these homeless men holding you down and you know that you've got to fight through each one first to get free of them. They're like, you said one at the hands and one at the legs. Yes. If you wanted to, you could fire at it, basically at a point blank range. Okay.

Yeah, good. I think I'll do that. I'll give you a plus 20 to that role because he's basically right on top of you. Zero and zero, zero, so 10. That is a success. That's a success. That's three points of damage.

You shoot him and I'm going to make a athletics check for him. He fails and he starts stumbling back on his ass as he now has a bullet in his stomach and he's crying out in pain. Echo, what are you doing? I'm still running. I'm calling out to see if it is Constance down there but I'm going to keep going down the staircase with Luca.

Okay, you're moving as fast as you can calling out for Deborah. No words or sounds yet but you are getting closer and closer to the bottom. Rose, it's your turn. I'm temporarily insane. So you must choose whether you want to fight flee or freeze. I'm going to flee.

I'm going to scream for Oliver and I'm running toward the elevator. I'm just like, Oliver! And I run toward the elevator. Okay, I'll say that you can get to the elevator pushing the button, pushing the button, pushing the button. It lights up and you feel like it's starting to rise very slowly. Can I have my gun out?

Sure. Okay. Oliver, what are you doing? I look at the Lord of Thought. I say, uh, happy devil's night, bitch. Run away. Don't be smart about it! God damn it!

And is Tanika's night stick still on the ground? I guess it is. I'm going to pick up the night stick. I got the crystal in the other hand like a fucking football. And I'm running after the rose for the elevator. I will point out that you both make it into the elevator room, but waiting for you there is Emmanuel standing over the dead body of Agent Flue. So Oliver, I can say like you can run to the threshold of the door

and see him and you can perform an action if you like. That glass, that glass. Oh, but I have to get so close for that. I'm going to see that he's there and run for the stairs instead. Because there's just no chanceing them getting this fucking crystal back. So as soon as I see him, I'm like, oh, fuck, and I've run the other way. Agent Frost, what are you doing? Okay, uh, question.

Is there like a fire escape that I can see? Because I have the submachine gun as far as... I will say that there is probably a fire escape. And Frog is the only one left in the room, correct? Right now, yes. Okay, so what I'm going to do is... Okay, I'm going to go ahead and like... The person that's holding her down, I'm assuming that's by her feet.

Yes. I'm going to straight up Spartan 300 that motherfucker off her. And then I'm going to try to get her to stand up if I succeed, so we'll find out. You can make an unarmed combat attack or you can try to make an athletics check to like throw them off her. 44 pass, yes. All right, roll your damage. I only did one then.

You, although you only do a little bit of damage, it's enough to kind of, uh, she gets knocked off of her and Agent Frog is now free. Okay, is there, can I get her up? Is that, is that all, can that be doable in my action or is that a no-no? I'm going to say you've used your action to kick this guy off. So you're like basically standing over her, putting your hand out for her to, for her to get up. The problem is, is that Agent Frog looks at you and then she looks out at the balcony at what is appearing.

You hear at first the flapping of the wings. Descending from the black night sky is this completely black creature that resembles like a great antelope or a serpent. It's flesh moves and dances in strange ways. It almost looks like a kite caught in strange winds. This thing's glowing red eyes descend to where you can see them. And it has these enormous bat-like wings and one massive dark paw after another grabs onto the cement balcony.

And as it's sitting there writhing in, in invisible wind, it looks in your directions. And I need you both to make sanity checks. It's, it's the fucking Sky Devils. It's Wyoming. I fucking told you. Yeah. Yeah, Frog failed. Pass, pass.

You are, you're both going to lose one point of sanity as this is a horrifying monstrous visage. And what's even stranger is that the Lord of Thought places himself and sits on the back of this creature. The creature's leg reaches out and grabs Hector Nunez and kind of pulls it up with him. Nunez. Bye. Bye, Frog. It is Emanuel's turn. And he has seen that you have taken the crystal and he's going to come after you, Oliver.

Okay. He's going to run and I think he's literally going to push you. So you're going to make an athletics, a pose athletics check against him. I fail with a 35. He succeeds and he shoves you. You begin tumbling down the stairs and you are going to take five points of damage. It's just bam, bam, bam, bam. You're rolling down the stairs and the whole time he is just laughing

and slowly walking down those stairs to catch up to you. I'm dead. Agent Frog, you're watching this man sit on this giant creature. It grabs Hector Nunez and it looks like it's about to take flight. I'm going to still take a shot at the Lord of Thought and aim for his head if possible. Okay, so it will be at minus 20 if you're doing a college shot. You got this. That's a 44.

Six points of damage. Yes. You shoot him and it hits him squarely in the cheek just under the eye and he stumbles back, but then his head leans forward and as it leans forward, sand begins pouring out of his face. And just with giving no expression at all, he looks directly at you and I need you to make a sanity check. Both of you. Oh, 17.

One. Fuck. You are almost both expecting this. You succeed and though it is obviously uncomfortable to see, you are not losing your mind over it. Echo, you continue going down the stairs and you can at this point hear men running up the stairs. We hear you. We're coming. I'm going to pocket the gun for safe measure because it's the poem.

You can hear behind you the laughing of Emmanuel. Just keep going. Just keep running. Keep pushing Luke along. Rose, you have seen Emmanuel rush after Oliver. What are you doing? And then you hear Oliver cry out and you hear the sound of him tumbling. I'm temporarily insane still, right?

Yes. I think she'd freeze. Okay. I don't think she would know what to do. The elevator is about halfway up to reach the 24th floor. Agent Frost, what are you doing? I got that submachine gun. It's going south.

I could see it. A quick question last. I know I asked about the fire escape. Is that on the balcony with this asshole? Um, no. Where is it? The fire escape is probably in a different part of the house. Probably in one of the bedrooms.

But I can't see it from where I'm standing. No, no. Yeah, okay. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and shove Frog towards the door. Say, get him out of there. And then I'm going to go ahead and unload on this guy to create. Like try to hurt him as much as possible, but try to get Frog out. Okay.

Yeah. So you push Frog in the direction. You aim the submachine gun and you begin firing out into the balcony. Go ahead and make your attack. Okay. I have a 12. Okay. So that's a success.

Now roll your lethality, which I believe is 10%. And that's, oh man, only a three. A three is a success. Point the gun and you begin firing. The creature instinctively raises its claw that is holding Hector Nunez and he is littered with bullet. Oh, sorry. The creature raising its paw and having Hector Nunez take the blow lowers it and you realize that the Lord of Thought survived.

However, the creature also did take those shots and you can see this black icker kind of dripping from it. Sorry, Hector. At the top of the initiative, the Lord of Thought pulls out a small stone from his lapel and he points his fingers in your direction and I need you to make a power roll. Question. Does my like little like etching dog tags of the Elder Sign help me at all? Because they're already out.

It is out and I would say that the creature is reacting, but the Lord of Thought seems unfazed by this. Gotcha. Okay. I got a 20. Yes. You got a 20. He got a 35.

So he beats you on the power roll. You are going to roll a d4 and you're going to lose that much sanity. And what happens is, is that your entire body begins to seize up and you cannot move. You cannot pull the trigger. You're literally just watching as he performs this magic on you until your next turn. You're going to have to make a power roll. Otherwise you will remain like this. But at the end of his turn, the creature unfurls its wings and in one big swoop,

just raises up into the air and begins to disappear into the night. But he does not have the crystal rose. You are clicking the button. And that is when stepping out of the staircase door is Emmanuel holding the white crystal that Oliver was holding. And he looks at you and he smiles and he says, you're next. But he's used all of his movement and his action to return upstairs. Agent Frog.

I'm running towards the door. Okay. As soon as you get to the threshold of the door, you can see Emmanuel, the strange boy holding the crystal and he notices you. Bullets. Perhaps a free one for you today. That hits with a 32. Yes.

Put this boy to sleep. Seven points of damage. You shoot him square in the face and the gremlin mask shatters and he stumbles back. And when he looks at you, there is still the bullet sitting in the middle of his forehead and it drops to the ground just like it did the last time. Can you take any damage? It does not appear like he took any damage. I don't have, I can't do anything else, can I?

You have used your action to fire at him. Okay, can I say that when I got to the hallway, I like got two rows? I'll say that you're within five or six feet of hurry up. Echo, you continue running down and you can finally see about three floors down. There are two police officers that are running up the stairs. You keep going. Yeah, I'm going to keep going and I'll just keep, I'll point up and be like, they're up there. Rose, it's your turn.

This man is in this, this person is in the room with you. Now that his mask has shattered, you can see he's like a 17 year old Spanish looking kid. His hair is not well done. He has these big brown eyes and when he smiles at you, he has these crooked teeth that have clearly never seen an orthodontist. And he, he dropped the rock, right? Yes, he did drop the rock. I'm grabbing it.

I'm grabbing it and I'm, I'm grabbing it and I'm running. You grab the rock and where are you running down the stairs? I'm running back by fraudulent. I'm grabbing it. I'm like dipping it and grabbing it and running back. Agent Frost, the creature is now easily maybe 60 feet away from you at this point. The creature is gone.

Is the Lord of Thought still, he's still there, correct? He is still riding on the back of this creature. Oh, he's riding on this motherfucker. Okay. Yep. Staring at you the whole time without a single expression. So I'm going to haul back as to the hallway. I'm going to see Emmanuel's like, is he right in front of the door?

He is close to the, he's close to the, the entrance where the, the staircase is. There's no one else in front of him. That's what you're going to find out. There's no one else in front of him. So if I were to unload on him, it'll least by them the time, correct? Absolutely. Yes. Hopefully this, oh, does, does, does my dog tags affect him too, by the way?

You know, yeah. Well, when you walk into the room, he does like immediately react to you entering the room. Yes. He's not to have lost a lot of power by now. He, he has. Got an 18. Thank you, Jesus. Okay.

Unload on this little fuck. So you just start, you, you spray the entire clip at him. Go ahead and roll your lethality. Day four. No, that's good. Wow. You succeeded again. You just unload your clip on him and he just stumbles back and takes all of the shots.

And you can now see that he is bleeding a little bit. Oh, holy shit. We got a little bit. And that's when the elevator door opens and there are about four cops and there is Constance and they just all kind of notice what's going on and they also begin firing at him. They're going to make the rules. Oh my God. If I saved your athra, are you better vouch for me?

I will. I will. MVP. They, they kind of fire around him. He does get shot in the chest, but it looks like it didn't really pierce whatever armor it is that he has. It is his turn and he sees that he's cornered. He's going to run like a velociraptor and leap onto you, Agent Frost.

And you're, you're literally going to just slide into the room with him on top of you. Oh, she succeeds. Remember, I have armor. I have armor. He's going to deal you a total of 10 damage. Okay. Minus three is just seven. So that sucks.

So right now he's on top of you, like literally chewing on your neck and blood is, is, is spurting out. Agent Frog, you see that Deborah Consis is here. What are you doing? You know what? Let me also ask that the two of you make sanity checks. You and Rose, as you witness one of your partners get violently attacked by this creature. I deeply failed.

Yeah. She's past her breaking point right now. It's five. Okay. So five, you would go temporarily insane even if you project onto a bomb because I think you've hit your breaking point. Yes. So are you fighting, fleeing or freezing?

Fleeing. Okay. As you flee, your disorder kicks in and you go blind. I need you to make a dex times five check. Oh, man. Fall down those stairs. It's going to be bad. The elevator's up behind us.

My dex. Okay. That's a 32 and that passes. That's a success. Okay. So as you begin running down the stairs, you go blind and you kind of start slowing down and you just started moving, you know, slowly as to not trip. Echo, you make it to the police officers who you signal that there's more commotion going

up and they go past you. They run past you. I want to keep running. Rose, what are you doing? I rolled a six on all of the sanity I lost. Okay. So you are still temporarily insane. I'll say that it's probably, you still want to flee.

Oh, very much so. You run into the elevator as everyone kind of runs out of it. I'm going to run in the elevator, push the bottom floor and curl up around the crystal and think about spheres and only spheres. Agent Frost, this punk kid is on top of you and he's tearing out your throat. What are you doing? All right. I'm going to grab my elder sign on the brace on the thing because I'm kind of pinned.

The best, I think the only option I have at this point is to take it and shove it in this fucker's face as best as I possibly can. You do so and he is reacting to it. He's kind of screaming out. It is clear that something is happening to him. It doesn't necessarily look like it's killing him, but it is certainly draining something from his. His life force seems to be draining the longer he is around this symbol. I'm praying Constance just walks her ass and hands it to me.

But that's my objective is to put that in front of him, to keep him off me as much as, because I can't do anything. I can't like shoot him, right? Well, I mean, you can if you wanted to. You could try to shoot him. Ah, ah, okay. So I still have a switchblade that I have from the homeless guy. If I can, is this possible where I could use the sign on his face

and then try to stab this fucker in the throat? Sure, make an attack against him. Taking knives off people does work. I see that 10 and the only opposite side is a 4. So you successfully stab him and just roll a d4. That is a quattro, quattro. You stab it into him and he seems to not like it as you kind of stab it into one of his eyes. Deborah Constance comes around the corner and just starts opening fire on him,

as well as the other police. They're going to make their attacks. They start firing and his back is lighting up, but it looks like it's barely doing anything to him. It is his turn. He is going to attempt to grab you. Yeah, I bet he is. Fail!

He rolls a 56 and is a success. He begins running and you're literally being dragged after him as he's holding on to you. And at the last seconds you hear the flapping of wings and you realize you are now flying over the city of Detroit and moving away from the hotel. I need you to make a sanity check. Oh my god. Oh my god.

God dang it. This is it. Luck rolled out. I'm at a 70. God bless. Okay, okay. That's a failure. You're going to roll a d6 as you realize you are helpless to bite this creature

and you are now within its grasp hundreds of feet above the ground. Okay, you lose three sanity. Echo and Rose almost as in slow motion. Echo, you are running down the stairs with Luca. You are nearly to the front. Rose, the doors close and as the elevator descends, it dawns on you that so many people that you know are dead and Oliver is probably one of them.

Oh no, she's been crying this whole time. Like just the second, the second she heard him hit the ground, she was like silent tears and it just kind of all explodes out. Agent Frost, you may do something if you like as... Okay, so I'm flying in the air, correct? You are flying in the air and when you look up, you realize that the boy isn't holding you anymore. Something else is holding you.

Something far, far bigger and far, far scarier. Yeah, I had a feeling. Okay, is it like his claw legs are on my shoulders or is that how it is? It's almost like it's a tentacle. A tentacle, okay. So is it like wrapped around me or is it like I just need to know where it is on me? It's basically wrapped around your shoulder and one of your arms. Okay, I'm going to try to use the elder sign again on the tentacle.

Wait a minute, before I do that shit, am I like flying above a building where I can land on a roof or am I flying above the streets where if he does like go, I fall onto the street and die? You're moving very fast and there are many buildings and streets below you. Okay. All right, I'm taking the elder sign. I'm going to sear into the tentacle arm and because I still have the knife I'm assuming,

I'm going to try to like slice that fucking tentacle to see if it'll drop me. It does in fact drop you. Deborah Constance on her turn runs to the balcony and points her gun as if she's going to help you, but then she just watches you fall out of the sky. Where do I, hold up, where do I land? Where do I land? Agent Frost. Yes.

Roll me a luck check. There's a mattress factory with an open ceiling. She lands immediately on the red dress and breaks the bomb. I have a 54. No. As you fall, you see that there is like a glass ceiling window that you could have fallen through, but instead you hit the side of a building. You fall another dozen feet and you smash to a gargoyle and you fall another dozen feet

and your limp body smashes to the ground. Before, when I know I'm about to be fucked just so you know as I'm falling, I'm going to just be like, I'm going to flip off that bird thing, but I'm going to accept the reality of the situation. Like I'm okay with what it is, as I say, fuck you. Yeah, you flip the bird to him, never closing your eyes, never turning back. Echo, you make it to the bottom of the staircase. You make it out of the building with Luca.

Rose, eventually the door opens and you see Echo and Luca running out the door. What are you two doing? Do I see Rose? Yeah, you see her kind of coming down as just as you are. I just motion for her and try to get her and take her out, and I'm trying to head back to the high tower. I will continue weeping and kind of pull myself up and just run with them and just like clutching the crack rock as close to me as I can.

Not the crack rock, the stone that we don't know what it is, but it is. As the two of you make your way out the back door, you hear the sounds of police sirens, cops and ambulances are pulling up to the area, but you manage to, you both manage to slip away. The night is kind of just beginning for a lot of people. You make your way through the city, eventually Rose, this horrible feeling that does not go away, at least subsides enough that you are not feeling insane, that you're slowly getting yourself together, and you both, all three of you,

just kind of walk, you walk and walk, and as you walk, you see buildings on fire, you see kids setting things on fire and busting open windows, and you walk and you walk, and you see the fires and the smoke, and you hear the ambulances that rush past you, the police cars that rush past you, and eventually you reach the neighborhood where Echo has high tower records. As you make the block, you see the sun is just beginning to rise, and you see three street boys, one of them is Greg Mathis, and all of them are kind of standing guard outside of high tower,

and they see you and they say, Echo, hey, we're wondering where you were, we're watching the place for you. Oh, that's so sweet. Mathis, my man, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, like, thank you, man, you, you have no idea how much this means to me. Luca turns to you and he says, I think I need to go to the hospital. Yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll get you, we'll get you there. As you, as you kind of look, you're like kind of looking him over,

you look at his wrist and you witness this Egyptian eye tattoo suddenly start to fade, and it suddenly just disappears. What does that mean? I just, I just embrace him and like just give him the biggest hug I can possibly give him, and I'll, I'll, I guess call an ambulance, try to get him to a hospital. You suspect Rose probably needs a little attention as well. I'm gonna start walking back toward the police precinct though, like even if she's, even if she's calling an ambulance, I'm gonna just immediately turn around.

Rose, Rose, where are you going? I have to put this somewhere safe. This, this, this, this, this, this can't, this can't, this can't be out in the world, this is bad, this is bad, they wanted this so bad, they, they, they, they, they, they can't have this, I have to take this, I have to take, I'll see you later, I'll, I'll, I'll see you later. Rose, I'll let her go. Rose, you eventually make it to the police headquarters. As the sun comes up, fires are still being put out in the police station,

still seems very alive with activity, but as you walk up to it, you see a lot of police officers covered in, in soot and, and some of them are coughing, some of them are kind of getting over the wild night, but you walk into the police station. I'm gonna just go to where I know Frog's office is and I'm gonna tuck myself up in a chair and just keep it like as close to me as I can and just curl up like arms around my knees and wait and just keep thinking of spheres and not anything else. Eventually you hear the voice of Deborah Constance, she ushers Agent Wu into the room and begins having the difficult conversation with you about what happened to Oliver and the rest

and what needs to be done next and that's where we will bring the scenario to a close. Okay Miller, you did your best, yeah. Go on and get home safe now, all right. Sheriff Taylor hangs up the phone and rests the weight of his body on the receiver. He's exhausted. His deputy has just reported back to him that the one strong lead they were following has come to a literal dead end. It's been over 48 hours since the Stevenson murders and Taylor knows he's out of options. He plops into his chair and for the umpteenth time cycles through what he knows. The Stevenson's extended family were devastated by the news and surprised at the murder. Porter seemed to have no known enemies. There was no doubt the man

had witnessed something at the bombing cabin but what? First there was bombing himself, retired IRS, rarely seen by the neighbors in Messick, died with little fanfare less than a week ago. Then there was his wife, Marlene, who had died five years prior but was found in the burned cabin. The autopsy of her remains indicates she was at some point exhumed and placed in the septic tank nearby. A subsequent sweep of the home found bullets of at least two different weapons that were discharged that night. It must have been a cleanup job. But why the weapons? Did they turn on each other? In Stevenson's 911 call he states he saw two Latina women. The children of Stevenson say they saw a man and a woman with dark hair. The teens from the Radisson described a white male

and a woman with lighter features. While at the Radisson, Sheriff Taylor pressed the hotel staff to look through their records. They were given the descriptions and matched it with a male who claimed to be from the CDC. Four rooms reserved under the name Allen Marks. Checking with the CDC proved no Allen Marks in their system. The prepaid credit card they used also impossible to trace. So it was some kind of group, maybe CIA, ex-military? This update from Miller sealed it for the sheriff. Someone wanted to erase something about bombing. Maybe the fact that he kept his wife's remains in a goddamn septic tank. There were many twists and turns, but nothing concrete. The depiction of Allen Marks by the criminal sketch artist was posted

publicly. But until someone came forward with more information, Sheriff Taylor finds himself with an investigation gone cold. He sighs and reminds himself of the limits to his power. Sometimes the bad guys just get away. But then it dawns on him. If the suspects were military, they might try a quick getaway, like through a military airfield. There were one or two near Lansing. On a hunch, Taylor picks up the phone and dials. Hi, is this Abrams Municipal? Hello there, this is Sheriff Taylor of Wexford County. I'd like to speak with your commanding officer if I could. Yes, I'll hold. You could say Sheriff Taylor was famous for his hunches, as they seem to always lead him inevitably in the right direction.