Mayday Plays - Ep. 26: Doomed to Repeat - “Kali Ghati”

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

It’s 2019, and Two Delta Green agents, Ice and Pilgrim, posing as military intelligence officers, are flown to FOB Turner in Afghanistan. Their mission: track down the disappearance of fellow agent, Liam Morales, who went missing days ago. Unbeknownst to them, Liam’s sister, Kona (call sign: Hyde), is the helicopter pilot flying them to the station, harboring her own intentions to uncover the truth. As they delve deeper, both parties discover unsettling details about Liam’s recent behavior – heavy drinking, occult books, and strange dreams. Realizing the gravity of the situation, they prepare to venture into the Afghani countryside, knowing that the path to finding Liam leads to the unnatural…to Kali Ghati. This episode begins our playthrough of the scenario “Kali Ghati” by Shane Ivey. --- Merchandise Giveaway! Entries begin May 31st and run through June 28th. If chosen, you can win one of the following prizes; Perennial Airlines t-shirt Devil’s Night poster, 12x24” Perennial Agents sticker collection (5 stickers total) 1 month of Patreon membership FREE (Repeater - $5 level) We’ll announce the winners on June 28th in the intro to episode 27, “Death Awakens The Sleeper”. Receive one entry for each of the following: Write a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (please send us a screenshot). Talk about the show on social media and @ us (@maydayroleplay). Join our Newsletter: eepurl.com/iIVUjo (please send us a screenshot) TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNINGS: Implied self-harm, Blood, domestic turmoil, profanity, drug abuse, Fictious depiction of the war in Afghanistan, Military-industrial complex, Sexism in the workplace, Real-world Religion, Fake Religion and Cultural practices, Governmental Conspiracy, 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 • Lev (they/them) - Rory Lopez, Army Gunner (they/he) • Amanda (she/her) - Amy “Soups” Campbell, Hyde’s co-pilot (she/her) • Caleb (he/him) - Agent Pilgrim (he/him) • Eli (any/all) - Kona “Hyde” Morales, Army Pilot (she/her) • Zakiya (she/they) - Agent Ice (she/her) • Sergio (he/him) - The Handler MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron A. Pabst • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) • Glitch Machines (glitchmachines.com/) • Soundly (getsoundly.com/) DELTA GREEN LINKS • Delta Green (http://deltagreen.com/) • Kali Ghati (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/181675/Delta-Green-Kali-Ghati) MAYDAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/maydayrp) • Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/maydayrp) • Our website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@Maydayrp)

Doomed to Repeat is a Delta Green actual play podcast with violent themes and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome to episode 26 of our Delta Green campaign, Doomed to Repeat. I'm Sergio, your handler. I'm Lev and today I'll be playing Rory Lopez. I'm Amanda and I will be playing Amy Campbell. I'm Caleb James Miller and I'll be playing Agent Pilgrim. I'm Eli and I'm playing Kona Hyde Morales. I'm Zakiya and I'll be playing Agent Pilgrim. I'm Eli and I'm playing Kona Hyde Morales.

I'm Zakiya and I'll be playing Agent Ice. A big thank you to everyone who donated to our charity run for the community of Lahaina this month. We settled on donating all of the proceeds to the Maui Rapid Response Fund. We really enjoyed the process, so expect Mayday to host more charity-focused content in the future. As promised in episode 22, our May Day giveaway contest is back, and we're giving away even more prizes this round. Like last time, you can still enter to win a Perennial Airlines shirt or a limited print May Day poster,

but third place winners could win a collection of perennial stickers featuring the agents. Finally, fourth place gets a free month as a $5 or repeater level patron. You can submit an entry up to three times by doing any of the following. Write a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. You'll have to send us a screenshot so that we know it's you. Talk about the show on social media and at us at Mayday Roleplay. Or you can join our newsletter. The link to join can be found in the description below. Again, we'll need you to send a screenshot. We'll announce the winners on June 28th in the intro to episode 27. This episode, we begin the scenario Caligati by Shane Ivey. So it is July 15th, 2011.

A blisteringly hot summer day in the Sarhawza district in the Paktika province of easternmost Afghanistan. Aboard a Chinook heading south are the four of you. At the helm is Kona Morales, call sign Hyde. Describe for us Hyde nearly a decade younger, Eli. Hyde is kind of a little bit of the same, about close to six feet tall. Their hair's a little bit shorter.

It's not down to their back like they have it currently. It's more towards their shoulder, a little bit shorter. But you can't really see it over the pilot helmet that is currently on their head and the visor that's down on it. They're currently wearing a jumpsuit so you can't really see the usual tattoos but once Hyde does roll up their sleeves you'll see that it's a not a full poly tat it's up to the quarter sleeve and they just have the the rabbit on the other side that says rabbit is good rabbit is wise But other than that They they're pretty much the same. They have a little bit more of a lighter

Disposition kind of as they're flying and they're just sunburnt to shit just being out cooking in this desert for a long ass time for a long ass time. You've left Bagram Air Force Base to the north and have watched the terrain gradually change from the mountainous regions to a flatter, more arid landscape. The Hindu Kush Mountain Range with its snow-capped peaks passes you slowly to the east.

At your side is your co-pilot, Amy Campbell, call sign sign Soup. Amanda, can you describe Soup for us and what the relationship between you and Hyatt is like? I would like to say this is almost very similar, but very opposite, where not quite as tall. It's kinda a little bit, I would say, like a good three inches shorter.

Still very tall, pretty well built. Dirty, blonde, very short choppy ponytail. Little fringe coming out. Really embracing. Kind of think like Leo DiCaprio in 97 with that kind of like that bang coming off the side. Helen Hunt, 90s blonde-ish. And with that, it's kind of very much like Abadokunstello. So they're kind of like rocking around,

like kind of smirking. And they're comfortable. They're very comfortable right next to Pi. They're kind of just like keeping it focused, kind of just zoning out that kind of comfortable feeling when you're with good people. Your orders are to deliver two intelligence officers to a forward operating base known as FOB Turner. The approach to the FOB is a challenging one with the helicopter navigating through narrow valleys and steep cliff sides. Hyde, you're taking point on this. You'll need to rely on your skills and experience

to maneuver safely through the rugged terrain. Can you give me a pilot roll to see how smooth of a ride it is? Uh, that is a success with a 58. Amanda, you can see a look of determination in Hyde's eyes. This isn't just another routine mission

for them. Um... Whereas you can normally break them out of their stoic nature, they seem very focused. Very quickly, Sergio, the immediate weather, again, can you describe that one more time? Right now it is sunny and really very few clouds in the sky. You can feel the heat of the day in the helicopter. All right everybody thank you for riding with Hyde and SOOPS International Airlines. As you can tell my pilot right here really knows the

benefit of a great sunny day. Go pilot Hyilot, uh, hi. How you doing? I look over at Suv's and just roll my eye and just keep focusing on what we're doing. I'm not interested in the banter. Did I ever tell you about the time I found a body in the basement? Not that again.

Come on, and it's a great story! You in the back, you like it? You want to hear about the time I found a body? We creep into the back of the Chinook where the cargo is kept and where there are seats and there's basically just two people in here. The two of you can hear over the loudspeaker, the co-pilot soup, saying this stuff and kind of imploring you to interact with them. Yeah, I heard what you army fucks do with bodies.

I don't want to hear the end of that sentence. Oh look, Supes, we got ourselves a happy camber in the back. I was going to say, sir, unless your idea is that's comedy, I would recommend sticking to the day job. And by the way, I love how his thoughts were doing that with the body. Yeah. That says a lot more about you than me, right? I mean, it really would.

You should have really heard the story first before you made definitive statements, but you know, whatever. If we could concentrate on flying the machine that is in the sky before we touch the ground, that would be fantastic. Ma'am, you are flying with two of the best pilots this side of the Kush, so just strap your little self in and enjoy the ride. Zach, would you describe your character

and their current opinions about Afghanistan? It's bad. And that's for all the questions you asked me. But no, Lenita Morrison, or Len for short, is, I have in my description here, compact stud. They are very, very short, kind of alive, but because of their profession, they have the muscle that comes with work,

not vanity muscle, very short haircut. I'm thinking Shuri in Black Panther 2, if you need a quick image. They're sitting on the side with their arms folded wanting this to be over. Flying isn't their favorite, it's not a bad thing, it's just so loud and so much. It is loud and it is a lot, but you can, thanks to Hyde's success on the earlier role, you can tell that this is a competent pilot as they navigate through the lower terrain here. Caleb, could you describe your character and what do they do to pass the time while they're waiting? He is playing with this like dollar store

7-eleven Zippo lighter with a very phallic imagery that has been carved into the side of it. And he is just trying desperately to get it to light and he can't seem to get any flame out of it. But he is maybe the least CIA looking individual possible. He has hair down to his shoulders in this long, straight, dirty blonde. Big mustache. He has this wiry, too thin for combat, almost weasel-ish form. Taller than normal,

but skinny to the frame. But just like Let there, he has that worked muscle in. He's wearing a baseball cap with a black cat as iconography on the front of it. And the thermal that he wears under the Kevlar vest that is protecting most of his body is just enough to cover most of his tattoos. Except for a hamda on one side of his wrists and an evil eye on the other. And he has just this, his eyes are never focused on one thing for too long. He is constantly bouncing about the cabin, he's bouncing about the Zippo, he's looking up towards the pilots, he's floating around the room constantly. You guys, you fly these a lot. You guys are competent pilots.

You've been doing this a while. What is this? Supesat Tour 2? You know what? I kind of, it's a little rocky after the third one. Yeah. I don't know. You know, one desert after the other after the other.

They just, you know, every time we go back, they just send us right here. So yeah, let's just say that we've been here for like a minute. Yeah, they just send us right here. So yeah, let's just say that we've been here for like a minute. Yeah, they all kind of blend together. Well, the problem with being efficient is they bring it back quite a bit. Yeah. You prove to them once you can get something done and, God, they will pull every fucking bucket from that well, huh?

Yeah. Do you blink? Sometimes, yeah, if you ask real nice, I'll do anything for you. Hey, what's the worst thing y'all have seen out here? You done two tours, you must have seen something. What's gone out? What's the situation? I mean, we don't come down here much. I mean, how long have you been out here?

Because frankly, I don't like to kiss and tell. Well, if you don't want to share, we don't got to share. We can shut up and sit. But I thought, you know, we can act like a second grade and pull something out and tell the class. It doesn't have to be the worst thing maybe just an interesting fact just for the sake of conversation oh I have an interesting fact actually about today July 15th Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 2 comes out anyone gonna see it no I'm a little busy I am I'm not much into

the wizard shit I don't get it. I mean, you could just easily have brought a nine millimeter and solve that whole story. If someone, if even one person had one, it would be maybe one book, maybe a short story. Oh no, I can't hear. Oh, can't hear you guys in the back who don't like Harry Potter. I'm flipping coms off. Thank you. Supes is like doing that jerk off movement back

and just like, sorry, hi, they piss me off. They're annoying. I don't like them. They're worse than Marines. I swear to Christ. Agent Ice, Agent Pilgrim, you know why you are on this Chinook. And with this moment of comms being cut

where you're just able to basically communicate with each other, is there anything you wanna say before the Chinook lands? So what, this fucker, he went walking out into the desert in the middle of the night, no fucking reason, no communication with us, with our people, with... I mean, death sentence into the middle of nowhere with no communication. What's on the mind of a fucker like that?

I mean what what's? some motive That's the Problem, I don't think it's a person making a decision. I Think it's something worse. I don't think there's a mind to make a decision like that or He didn't go on his own make a decision like that. Or he didn't go on his own. Something walked him off.

Yeah, I mean, my first goes to like fear or calling, right? Like something so big you couldn't ignore it, right? Right. I don't know. It's a good way to die. What's our first step when we land? I know you've probably already got the whole thing fucking mapped out out right?

I... well... okay yes yes but whatever these people that are supposed to be showing us where to go we need to make up with them first because this is gonna be a bitch and a half whatever Yeah yeah I just want you to keep your fucking eye on the prize because sometimes you get a little too close to these people and I just don't want you to be... They're gonna help us, sure, but... Let's just remember why we're here, yeah?

Yeah, I... We're here to find somebody. Yeah, yeah, but you got this soft heart about you. You wear that shit on your sleeve, and I just want you to know that that's how you get fucking slit. When we get down there, and they get us to where we're going, that's it.

We detach. We fucking cut the train and we move forward, okay? Because really, truly, it should just be the three of us out there in that desert. You, me, and this fucker we gotta find. If you're the one doing the detaching, there should be one person holding on, one person that's not. How many times are you gonna, like, I feel like you're still breaking me over the coals for this. We can both move on from this situation.

I don't need you to hold on or anything or worry about me or worry about what it's gonna mean when we walk away from these people. But the easiest option is if we do it ourselves once we know where we're going. Because more people add more circumstances, add more consequences, add more things that you and I are gonna have to deal with. And we've done this too many fucking times to know that any of them are gonna help us.

I would love not to worry about you. What the fuck does that mean? Look, at the lightest you just... you just bragged about how great you could clear out what is effectively a middle school. I'm just saying the wizards aren't very good at their fucking jobs, okay? A Vatican Dabra is not faster than an M4. That's all I'm saying. They don't even have a PE program, I agree, but the point is... it's weird to be this heated this early. We're just here to talk to people, find a guy who's hopefully just tripping off his balls in the forest, and come back.

Yeah, but I just... you and I know that it's not tripping balls in the forest. It never is. We always say that. We start off every single one of these fucking things saying, well, what if this one's fucking normal? And then we watch. I'm gonna stop, but... yeah, I'm on you. But I need you to know that what happened Had to happen and what we're doing now It's gonna be better and you don't have to worry about me because I wasn't going off the handle. I was protecting us Yeah, okay. I Have had your back since fucking day one since we were little babies since we were on the fucking egg. I

Know it's gonna be that way. Yeah. I just hope you're feeling the same way Day one, since we were little babies, since we were on the fucking egg. I know. It's gonna be that way. Yeah. I just hope you're feeling the same way. You're not looking at me from behind my back like I'm some fucking monster, cause... No, man, you're on my team. You're on my fucking team, okay? I'm with you. I just... I want us to move together. I don't want to have to worry about jumping the gun. Okay. We're cool?

Look the other side of the pillow, man. We're cool. You look out one of the portholes to a landing site in the hills of a mountain. The helicopter descends toward a designated helipad, and hide you carefully adjust the speed and altitude to ensure a smooth landing. As the helicopter touches down, the rotor blades slow to a stop and the large cabin bay door in the back smoothly glides open.

You can see an individual waiting to greet you at the edge of the landing site. I think that Pilgrim is like fucking itching to be off of this plane, so he'll hop off and adjust the Kevlar and all of that gear that weighs him down. I mean he's just adjusting the weight and everything and he'll walk over not even really questioning any of it and put out his hand to shake theirs. Yeah yeah I think she's doing

the thing that you check to make sure no one forgot anything even though we're on a fucking plane in the desert and just puts her best like like regional man at your face on and walks forward. Agent Ice and Pilgrim, you are greeted by a tall, muscular man dressed in fatigues. He shakes each of your hands and says, welcome to Fob Turner, I'm Captain Byers. Strong arm, hi, you could just call me Len.

This is my colleague, Tel. We'll be here to figure this shit out. Hopefully we come out winners, huh? Yeah, yeah, it's good to meet you, Captain. It's good that you're so gung-ho about me and this on the fucking tarmac. I mean, we got a welcoming committee and everything. It's good to meet you.

Well, it's just a polite thing to do, no worries. Why don't you follow me back to my tent? He begins walking with you into the base. What's going on with the pilots? Um, I'm gonna wait for both the, like, for them to deboard. So when I'm taking my headset off, I'm gonna like grab high by the arm and be like, good? Yeah, I'm good. Think. Once I find Byers, ask around a little bit. Figure out where he's at. Campbell, I appreciate you doing this man. I know we're supposed to be like a couple days off, and like this is an extra thing. But I do appreciate you coming with me on this one.

Just get down on your knees and propose to me already. You stupid ass bitch. coming with me on this one. Just get down on your knees and propose to me already. God damn it. You stupid ass bitch. You still in love with me. I know you're in love. I know it's not gonna happen. Fuck off. I'm sorry.

Fuck off. My heart belongs to another. Come on. Oh, fuck off. Get out of here. Get off the plane. Or the copter. Pilots, you see the two intelligence officers that you were tasked with bringing here

meeting what you must assume is Captain Byers and they are walking into the base. You wanna come with me to talk to Byers? Or do you wanna stay with the bird? Nah, I think... Let me go stretch my legs out. Let's go. Alright. We're gonna slowly head towards, follow where they're going to Byers 10. And note, I'm going to allow Hyde take a little bit more lead because I'm kind of like their junior. So I'm going to be like, even though they're equal, I'm going to let them take point. Agent says Byers walks you through the camp to his office.

You get a good look at the base. It stands in the mountains in a rough rocky area broken up by steep river valleys that were once heavily forested but now seem a lot more sparse with years of deforestation. Scrub brush and scraggly trees cling to the dusty ground where muddy creeks flow. It's summer, hot and thirsty. As you walk, Byers explains that FOB Turner has been in the process of standing down for months. Only about 60 US soldiers remain in huts built for a thousand. Organized in two platoons, commanded by Captain Byers and his two lieutenants Castro and Jacobson. Captain Byers and his two lieutenants Castro and Jacobson. He points out to another section of the base and says about 120 Afghan National Army soldiers

have moved in and are being prepped and trained by the American troops. There's been an uneasy ceasefire with the regional Taliban. Things were peaceful for the last few months until this week. You continue walking, you pass through some of the off-duty soldiers hanging around their bunks. Lev, could you describe your character and what they might be up to on their time off? You see a kind of small in stature framed like a gymnast person. They've got a buzz cut, black hair, probably every minute run their hand through Their face has a couple scars where piercings used to be there's one on their eyebrow

There's one on the side of their lip They've got freckles and I guess the most interesting thing about them is that they have one green eye and one brown eye you see them tossing a football back and forth with another Corporal they're they're pretty low-ranking tossing a football back and forth with another corporal. They're pretty low ranking. They've got their army jacket tighter on their waist, so they've just got the kind of tan brown shirt on top, their pants on the bottom,

and they're trying, like they look like they're trying to throw the football beyond the other corporal and make him run as much as fucking possible while staying in one spot. They rarely exert themselves to catch the ball when it's not in their wingspan kind of area. You, along with every other soldier in the area,

pick up on these intelligence officers and the captain walking amongst your ranks, heading towards their office. Joining the captain is his lieutenant, Lieutenant Castro, another well-built Spanish man. It seems like Byers whispers something to Lieutenant Castro, who kind of breaks off from the agents, heads up to you, Lopez, and calls you off the field and to join him. Me?

Come on, Captain's orders. Yes, sir. I turn and I chuck the ball one last time as hard as possible and I say, Ravel, you're not hauling ass enough, man. Come on. And slowly they pull a lollipop out of their pocket, like a dum-dum, stick it in their mouth and kind of slouch off behind Castro, not, definitely not trying to look the part

of an army soldier looking more like a moody teen than anything. I think Castro probably notices and before entering the tent tent he will stop you and Kind of start brushing your shoulders back putting your arms in place Man quit. It's fine. We're soldiers here. So act like it Yes, sir, and they'll kind of Brush their own shoulders off like they're trying to wipe away

the touch of Castro and crack their neck. Keep the sucker in their mouth, but kind of comport themselves physically more like a soldier and enter behind. You have all entered this tent. You were hoping for a little bit of relief from the extreme sun, and while you do get that, it is still as bit of relief from the extreme sun and while you do get that it is still as arid and hot in this tent probably more so just because of the trapped moisture but you are able to acclimate. Captain Byers's office is basically made up of a desk, a couple of filing cabinets, a computer, pretty Spartan. He sits down, offers you seats. Lopez and Castro stand behind you

and the captain doesn't really beat around the bush. He kind of immediately gets into it. He understands why you're here and he says, uh, I appreciate you guys coming. Um, I have to be honest, there isn't a lot for me to offer you. We just don't really know much about what happened to Morales. He kept mostly to himself while he was here. He's been here for a few months, but in those months he became increasingly isolated, especially in the last few weeks. A few days ago, Tenencastro here, decided to check up on him because we had not heard from him and we found his hut empty, Morales missing. He seemed to have cleaned it out and left it pretty empty.

Security footage shows Ellis pacing outside his hut one night and then he was gone the next. Byers kind of finishes there and doesn't really have much more to say beyond that. So his bunks are empty. He was super weird a couple of days before. Do we have any word? Did he say anything?

Do we have a search history? Anything at all? I think he may have had a computer, but I don't have that on me right now. We haven't really tossed his room, to be honest with you, so if you wanted to look into that, that might be a good place to start. We haven't touched it since we saw that he disappeared. Did he work with anybody on base? I know that he was part of a major intelligence, but sometimes they'll use the resources around

the base, right? Was there anybody he used in particular or any place in Turner that he was familiar with? Well, like I said, he did kind of keep to himself, but there were officers on base who he interacted with with one reason or another. I believe he spoke with our interpreter, a man named Yaseem, who is on site currently. He traveled the area a little bit and for that reason requested a driver, so I sent two officers with him, one named Bryant and another named Booker. Okay. Yeah, we'll have to see if maybe he had a destination in mind or maybe he was just touring the area. He, he, you said you had footage, you know, footage of where he left in the direction of, where was he headed, if you can. Yeah, yeah, and he signals to Castro, who kind of goes behind one of the shelves and

brings out a small DVD player. They set the DVD player down and begin to play it, and what you see is a security camera kind of at an angle looking at a row of these tents, clearly the sleeping area. And sure enough, outside of one of these tents is a man that fits Liam Morales' description, pacing back and forth in front of his tent, smoking a cigarette. Repeatedly throughout the footage, there are moments of static. Something breaks the feed, and Captain Byers preemptively explains that there is strange electromagnetic interference all around this valley. So this is pretty par for the course. Sure enough, one of those bouts of static lasts for about 15 to 20 seconds and when it dissipates, Morales is gone.

So we don't even see him leave. to 20 seconds, and when it dissipates, Morales is gone. So we don't even see him leave. I mean, we figure he probably jumped the fence, and no one's really looking for folks leaving. People on patrol are looking for folks trying to get in. Do you have a camera on the fence that he supposedly jumped over? We do have one or two facing the fences, but nothing conclusive. Do they all cut out at that same time, I'm guessing? Yes, yeah.

You said that you had reached a sort of peace in the valley until just recently, right? Yeah, things have been good. We have been trying to complete our current mission of handing over the reins to the Afghanis. And do they experience the same 15 to 20 second pulse of interruption? I mean, if you're in conversation, is that something that they would even tell us? Speaking with their leaders, yes, I believe they were and are aware of the strange static issues in this valley, but that seems to have always been the case so

They don't really pay much mind. Hey when your life's an episode of ghost hunters You don't go calling he kind of turns his head not completely getting the joke But ghost hunters like they are always talking about electromagnetic. It's no man. I get it. I watch the fuck out of it Yeah, the grunt gets it. Why is the grunt here, by the way? Lopez, by the way, who are you? Lopez, add attention, please. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Captain. This is Lopez Rory Lopez. I'm going to ask them to assist you while you're here. Lopez, I want you to look after them, make sure that they're taken care of. They can have their own huts, any access to whatever we might have on site you're welcome to. I have assigned two

MRAPs as protection. They are on standby in case you do need transportation for some reason. I hope you understand I'm trying to be as compliant with you as I can be, but I am operating at a slight disadvantage here without a full staff. Right, you're living in a ghost town. I must get lonely down here. You like your ghosts, don't you? No, I just realized I put the two metaphors right next to each other. I'm running out. I'm not very well worded. Thank you, Captain Byers, for this lovely debrief. If it's possible, we'd like to be shown to our quarters now. Of course, immediately.

The lieutenant can show you. Lopez, stay behind. Aye, aye. Captain. Castro leads the two agents out of the tent. And Lopez, you can feel the familiar tension in the air when the captain is getting ready to ream you again. And he steps up to you, kind of sizing you up, and says,

Lopez, I was kind of hoping that I could give you a little bit of responsibility without you fucking it up. Do you think you could do that? Yeah, man. I, uh, never really had a chance so far, so happy to stretch my leadership wings, as it were. I'm going to look past your insubordination, because we're close to the end here. And to be honest, I find it cute. Thanks. That's what I've gotten by on that a lot, honestly. And Lopez is probably like five foot one at most.

He takes a step closer to you and softens his voice and even more and says, if these agents poke or prod or go anywhere that they're not supposed to do, I would like you to report it to me. You understand? I'll snitch. Sure. Specifics. Where aren't they allowed to look? Because usually if there's muckety mucks from the wherevers, you guys are bending over your own dicks

to make sure that they get what they want, so. He makes it clear that they are basically allowed access to whatever they need to get the job done. There is very clear intention from him that he wants them out of here, out of his hair, and this story of the missing boy, Liam Morales, to go away as soon as possible. The obvious things are places like personal quarters, other than Morales's, and his office, places where information and security are very important.

Otherwise, the communications room, the stockade, the weapons cache, they're welcome to all of it, and he reminds you that there are two MRAPs, which are armored personnel carriers that are available if they need to use it, and he insists upon you that they always have a team of soldiers in one of the MRAPs going along with them. Are we hiding something at this base? We're not hiding anything other than the relevant information of troops and our resources. We're keeping...

This is compartmentalization, Lopez. This is normal. Okay, but like, aren't they CIA? Like, aren't they supposed to know shit like this? I was told that they're military intelligence, but... And he kind of like shrugs his shoulders like they're obviously not oh So there's something there's something sketchy then why the fuck'd you let him on the base captain like above my pay grade All right, man I got you Know where they need to be know where they don't need to be don't embarrass the slow pez I

Make no promises on that front I'll do my best though Scouts honor. I was never a scout, but you pez. I make no promises on that front. I'll do my best though. Scout's honor. I was never a scout, but you know. It's all I can ask of you. Sir, yes sir. And they salute with their sucker, slam one down on the desk, start to

leave, and then turn at the door and go, oh, am I dismissed? Dismissed. Thank you, sir. Salute out the door By two pilots. What are you doing in this time? I think if we'd be waiting I would be waiting out Byers Tent I maybe I missed the agents, but I probably would have passed Lopez on the way out. Sup y'all flew that bird Yeah, rad.all flew that bird? Yeah. Rad, what's that like, honestly? Because I'm thinking about like changing career paths. If I'm being totally frank, don't let, you know, no.

How much training do you have to do for that? I look at their rank on their chest and look back up at them. Got a lot of work to do, kid. I mean, I came from nowhere. Ohio. I got here. Oh, that's a man I came from new New fucking Mexico like desert to desert shit. Yeah, but at least it's like good scenery We got nothing. Yeah, you know what Ohio New Mexico. We're not there. Where are you from turns to hide? I'm from Hawaii. Oh Sick y'all got like jungles and shit there. Yeah, they're more like, forests, yeah. Oh, man. There's like, no fucking trees.

The flap of Captain Byers' tent opens up, and he yells, Lopez, get moving now! It's an order. Ah, sir, yes sir, ah yes. Been an honor, birds. We'll catch you later, Lopez. He watches with these, like, dagger eyes as Lopez walks away, and then he realizes there's two people here that he doesn't recognize. Can I help you?

I'll turn on heels and I'll enter the tent and I will salute the captain, and I'll say, Kona Morales, sir. And I'm gonna, Stoops, Amy's gonna chuckle fight the chuckle off But also go to attention Copilot Amy Campbell sir You're the pilots, huh? Yes, sir. Welcome to Turner. What can I do for you? I'm looking for somebody sir. Somebody who has stationed at this operating base

And who would that be? Liam Morales, sir. He kind of cocks his head and his eyes narrow and he says Morales... Kona Morales, your Liam's sister. Yes, sir. You called me a couple days ago asking about him. And I asked for a presence on this base and you denied it.

And yet you're here anyway. They needed an escort. Funny how that worked out. I'm in good graces with the one in charge of me, sir. Those two intelligence officers are your superior officers while you're out on the field anyway, so just don't fuck around at my base. Never, sir. I'm simply here to do the job.

Look, I am sorry about your brother. If you want to know more about him, you need to speak to those officers, because I don't have much to tell them. Your brother was here one minute, and then he was gone. Then I'll do that, sir. Morales, you are a pilot. I would just recommend that you leave this to those who are capable of doing the job of finding a missing person. Absolutely, sir. I'm here just to fly the plane and make sure those two officers stay alive. Is that all? That all you are dismissed? Turn heels and I'll leave sir. I just want clarification

Permission to use mess halls rec facilities, of course. My base is your base officer So make yourself at home Just don't embarrass yourself or the base and you'll be fine as long as you guys don't have that extra spicy chili. I'll be fine As you walk out you notice you managed to put a smile on his face. So I'm just turn walk out Hi what so we're not gonna talk about the world's worst acting performance from the captain about Your brother. No, I mean I'm very much aware that worst acting performance from the captain about your brother? No, I mean, I'm very much aware that captain's gonna try to fucking, you know, he's not got a good intentions. He did not expect me to be here. You know, how would you like to handle this? I want to talk to the people that Liam had mentioned that he's been hanging around on the space. There's two specialists that have been driving around, Brian and Booker.

I gotta go find wherever the fuck his tent is. So I think the first thing we should do is just find Booker and Brian. Okay, just try the mess hall first. Get her something to eat. I'm relaxed. I'm fine. See, this is you getting hangry. You're getting hangry.

You didn't eat. And I'm gonna have to deal with your whiny ass. So we're gonna tour around, go on the mess hall, stuff your face, shout up, and then we'll go ahead and then we'll just go swing by your, let's go. All right, all right. The two of you know that going to the mess hall is a great way to speak with the other soldiers

and kind of lay some groundwork to get the information that you need. While you are eating, you do learn that Bryant and Booker typically hang out together. They can probably be found amongst the MRAPs. So specialist Bryant is the mechanic and the two of them are usually hanging out amongst the vehicles, so you can find them there.

Agents, you are led by Lieutenant Castro to two empty bunks that are Spartan in their setup with a cot and some utilities like desks and chairs. And it is early in the day, probably before noon. How would you like to proceed? I'll catch Castro just before he leaves and ask him, could you do me a favor before you leave us to it? Could you get me the personnel file on Lopez if they're gonna be working with us?

Yeah, of course. In fact, they've already had it printed out for you. Here's Lopez, and here is Morales, and he hands you two files that go basically over the details of their stay here at Turner. Obviously Morales is a little lighter. Lopez appears to be a low-ranking soldier who has a couple of demerits. Responsibility has avoided them, whether by accident or by design, but they seem to be a competent soldier, just not a well-behaved one. Castro leaves and around that time Lopez appears by your bunks. Lopez announces himself by crunching loudly on their dumb-dumb in their mouth and sticking the still sticky stick in their pocket.

Military intelligence officers suits in our midst. Hello. My name is Corporal Lopez. I'm here to assist you in any way that you need. When we take the MRAPs out, I'll gather some soldiers. I'm really here to just help with whatever y'all need. So I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's real good. That was a great intro. What flavor was that? It was one of those mystery ones. I think it was pina colada, if I'm being honest.

It's usually banana, if I'm being honest. Look, I like banana, if I'm being honest. We're saying if I'm being honest too many times. What was your name again? You were Tell, and you were who? You can just call me Len. Like, like Len Goodman. Don't call me Lenny, but yes.

Lopez, I get the feeling that us working together is a form of punishment for you. No, I was actually told that this was a responsibility and not to embarrass the FOB, so. How do you think you're doing so far? Oh, fucking ass, man. I'm, I'm not built for this shit. I'm honestly in the fob, so... How do you think you're doing so far? Oh, fucking ass, man. I'm not built for this shit.

I'm honestly in the army for... It doesn't matter why I'm in the fucking army. I'm trying to do my best, my guy, so... Yeah, yeah. If you could just refrain from the my guy. If you really do want to up that score, the my guy would be the first to go for me. What's the best way to address you then, fella? The sir was real good, but really,

if you could just stick to tell, which is, again, my name. Did you ever meet Liam? Uh, maybe like in passing. He was like, he's a little weird. He kept to himself. He didn't really hang out in the mess or do anything. I'd see him, he paced a lot and he seemed like he was like he was like a cerebral dude you know yeah and I

can tell how that might be shocking for you hey that was almost an insult almost I specialize in that I like to run the middle line, so if you blink too fast, you miss it. Clearly, the guy was odd, but any, I don't know, creepy interests, spooky interests? Did he talk about things that weren't there? Did it seem like maybe he should go home a little quicker than somebody else? Serge, I like saw him in passing at most, yeah? Yeah, Agent Ice, you get the feeling that most of the soldiers here didn't seem to have much of a relationship with Morales from what Captain Byers said the way

Lopez is describing what they knew about them. This man kept to himself and the few names that Byers gave you are probably the Easiest ways to get any information about Morales' personal life on this base. But yeah, no, he'd like hang around if I was watching Ghost Adventures easiest ways to get any information about Morales's personal life on this base. But yeah, no, he'd like hang around if I was watching Ghost Adventures, but then if I tried to like talk to him about fucking Zach Baggins or whatever, he'd be like, man, and then he'd peace out. There are some Ghost Adventures. Zach Baggins is not on one.

Have you been on a Ghost Adventure, dude? No. Excuse me. I appreciate the team building that's happening in this room right now, but I would love to just get going Yeah, let's let's go toss the 10. Oh, yeah Lopez Will lead the way across the camp toward where Morales is Morales's tent was on the way

they take another sucker out of their pocket, stick it in their cheek, and then kind of like gesture over their shoulder with two more as like kind of an offering to the other two. Cute, thanks. I will just take it. Pilgrim takes his and tosses it clean over his shoulder and steps back to talk to Len. Hey, so like like, get this.

They just started vacating this place, right? Yeah. They just started pulling everybody out of this place. They're looking to demilitarize the situation, right? Mm-hmm. But they also just mentioned that their time of peace has just recently come to an end, right? What do you see in that?

Do you see anything? I'm getting hackled. I can feel something like like a bend here before There's smoke, but we're not fighting that means it's something too big for us to fight It takes a lot for the United States government to leave a place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and Unbidden, you know with no real reason to and of course the electromagnetic shit is where you and I are headed But I mean there's about a million different things that that could be.

We need to find, one, what caused it, and two, if we can get that missing footage. I mean, who even knows if we can? And obviously, Tell is keeping this as far from Lopez as possible, but he takes an extra double step away and says, we couldn't even tell if that's actually electromagnetic. I mean, for all we know,

maybe Byers is keeping something from us. You know, footage goes missing all the time. I'm worried about the exact time that he disappeared too. It's usually some witching hour bullshit and I, it might be worth to just keep eyes out if we get that timestamp. Yeah, because without knowing that he went somewhere, there's no telling that he went somewhere.

I mean, people get snatched up out of the fucking sky all the fucking time. I mean, you're here one moment, you're gone the next, you exist in every moment you've ever had, so who's to tell this is the moment that you don't fucking vaporize, you know? Yeah. Also, don't get at me about being touchy feely when now you have your ghost friend You know Fucking vaporize, you know Yeah Also, don't get at me about being touchy feely when now you have your ghost friend with Zack biggins or whatever the fuck

Are you kidding me? I could bullshit about Zack Baggins with fucking anybody I don't this little fucking piece of shit grunt. Are you kidding me? Did you read that personnel file that is the last person we need to start getting close with that is it? I mean you ever watch fucking Star Trek? That is a red shirt walking motherfucker. No, but I've seen I understand the ref. I've seen enough essays and material about it to to kind of understand what that means.

So you never. So you have watched Star Trek, but you've read essays on Star Trek. It's very important. This historical, you know what? Yes. I said I stuff fucking hurts that sucks ass what you just said to me As someone who reads a lot of lore about shit. I never watch or play I feel very seen We're gonna walk over to Morales's town with a ketchup with Lopez you step into Morales's hut and what

you find is very Spartan and it stinks like bleach in here. There's a desk and a cot and under the cot you can see that there is some kind of folded canvas bag. You smell that? Yeah, it's cover up is what it smells like. It's weird to be spraying that much bleach around. You wouldn't have been doing it the day before he left, right? Well, pacing being known as a pacer? It's giving obsessive compulsive. He probably did. Do the two of you allow Lopez to enter,

or do you ask them to stay outside? I think I will suggest that they stay outside. And I will make it clear that this is an opportunity for growth for you. And I hope that you can, that you can't. You got it, Len. Lopez kicks up against one of the supports and definitely tries to listen in on anything that they're saying. When you feel ready, Lev, make that alertness roll to see if you hear them throughout the course of this scene.

In the meantime, the two of you are alone in this tent. How would you like to proceed? I grab the canvas bag, put it on the bed, and start emptying things one at a time. I'm going to sweep the room. I mean, prison guard, full on investigation status. I'm tossing everything over. I'm, you know, opening fabrics if I have to.

I'm over searching. Why don't you, Pilgrim, give me an alertness check? ICE, you pull the bag out from underneath and it is a US State Department seal. It has a US State Department seal and a dip. It's clearly a diplomatic pouch. There is a warning on it to not open without permission. And there is a padlock on it. Okay, does it seem like this, whatever it's sealed with, like if I could I guess the object inside just on like feeling the outside or I have to open it to know what's in there?

You kind of jiggle the bag and you can feel that there are maybe multiple things that weigh a couple pounds, two, three, three to five pounds, and there are other things kind of jiggling inside. You hear the sound of metal. I say it out loud, this bag very clearly says, don't open it. I'm gonna open it. We ready? Yep. Great. If there's like a, like a, not a clip, like lock cutters or something. Would you be carrying bolt cutters?

No, cause we already put our shit down. Then I'm gonna go, fuck, I'm gonna go talk to Lopez. You got bolt cutters in that MRAP? Something that can cut through metal real quick? Bolt got bolt cutters in that MRAP? Something that can cut through metal real quick? Bolt, bolt cutters. Just something to cut metal, yeah. Yeah, for sure, I can go grab one.

I'll run to the nearest supply tent and pick some up. Do I get to see what's inside since I went and got you bolt cutters? Lopez kinda like puts props their chin on their, on their fist and looks at you. Len, don't say yes to that. You could say yes to it. You can bullshit about ghost adventures

with fucking anybody. I will disclose information that is irrelevant to you at a later date. Hold on, that's irrelevant to me? I don't care about shit that's irrelevant to me. None of this is your business. I'm saying I might tell you something that we find in there.

Yeah, there's a kick-ass bed in here. Pilgrim, did you succeed on your roll? Yes, I have a 40 under 80. Like I described, this room has very, very little. The cot is so thin that searching it feels ridiculous as you just kind of roll it up and feel around there's nothing inside. The desk is literally just a desk with no drawers. The only thing that stands out is two things.

One, there is a trash can by the, and there are several dirtied rags along with a can of bleach in that trash can. Ah, shit. Okay, well yeah, it's definitely a cover-up. I mean, Len, I got the bottle right here, some rags. I'm gonna pick up the rags and see if I can tell what it's dirtied with. Well, you can tell that they reek of bleach

and there is some kind of brown ruddy reddish something on it. Yeah you're having a hard time kind of telling what it is. You have a little bit in forensics and when he kind of points out this stuff you can tell according to the kind of spread on the towel it's probably very old dry blood okay so yeah that's exactly what it looks like great but the the footage didn't show any obvious injuries right No obvious injuries that were apparent in this kind of low quality footage, yes. But then, I mean, he goes missing during that little gasp and anything can happen to him after that. Pilgrim, you're saying this and you're pointing out the rags and you notice the second thing. In the center of the floor, where maybe some of the dirt has been moved away.

It looks like there's something on the ground. Not really an indentation, like someone was moving the ground around with their fingers. Len, get by the door, take your gun out, yeah? She's there. He moves to the center. He's going to unstring his shotgun by the strap off one hand and then just keep it held aloft in his right. And then very carefully peel back the fabric to get a look at whatever this is in the dirt

with his left hand. You look more closely here and you can tell this is where the bleach was used. Something was rubbed out of the ground. And Agent Ice has some forensics experience, more than you do, and you've seen them bust out the occasional UV light, that kind of thing. You call for it, they hand you the UV light, and you begin running it across the floor, and you can see the remains of old stained blood finger painted onto the ground.

There are two phrases that are legible on the ground. The first one are two words, Kali Gadi. The second phrase says, death awakens the sleeper. Pilgrim starts like mimicking and mouthing out the words to that. And in fact, he even first gives speech to it and then cuts him off immediately as he remembers what he's been through before and knows for a fact what these things can do if they're said. And so he calls over Len with his free hand, his shotgun still resting in the dirt, and he points it out. Well, that's the weird we were looking for. You speak enough of their language? Does this register for local?

What is your score in the foreign language? 40. I think that's good enough. You have heard this term. Well, it's really not so much that you've heard this term. You know enough of the language to understand what these words probably imply. Caligati basically translates to something like the Black Valley or Death Valley. There are probably many more iterations, but that is the main... those are the main two words that come to mind when you read that. Black Valley, Death Valley.

What the... That's not what this place is called, right? That's... that's a different place. It's gotta mean something, right? There's gotta be more... I don't know. But they cleaned something up here, whether it was... I don't know, what he was thinking. We should go talk with that interpreter, see what we can find out about this here, whether it was, I don't know, what he was thinking. We should go talk with that interpreter, see what we can find out about this phrase, what it means. So I mean, finger painting your own blood, that's days of work.

Can't just do that. It reminds me, we don't know if it's his. You think he could take a sample, maybe we could find someone. I mean, it'll be a while before the lab gets anything back to us But we send we'd have some proof. Yeah, I'm gonna take one of the rags and if there's like dirt that's Specifically like worth collecting or super stained. I'll take both of those Yeah, I would say that the rags of bleach have probably destroyed any DNA that is useful,

so I will say that you can probably find a little bit of dry blood left on the ground, and you take a sample of that. Ice, you've received the bolt cutter, and you are reminded of the bag. You go through the process of cracking open one side of the lock and you are able to easily remove it. I think I just start emptying things one at a time on the bed. But I put on gloves, I should say that. What you find inside are a few cast off gun cleaning supplies.

You find 18 used 9mm shells. You pull out the wreckage of a laptop computer. It is clear that bullets have been shot through the computer several times. There is a small mountain of empty mouthwash bottles. And finally, you pull out a half-burnt journal. You immediately open the journal up, and you can tell that it is written in some kind of cipher or code that was probably personal to Morales.

Ice turns around to Pilgrim, holding the journal with the open cipher. It's a puzzle one. Oh, fuck. Not again. We're gonna be here for weeks. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I need some place that's... I need some place to work. We gotta talk to the interpreter, but this is gonna be a night.

Yeah, it's gonna be a night. Let's cut away to the pilots. Pilots, you've had your meal, and you have gotten the information you needed about where Bryant and Booker are, and you have gotten the information you needed about where Bryant and Booker are and you head over. Sure enough, there are Humvees and MRAPs and other vehicles that are used for the area and hunched over an engine block is a short skinny man who is kind of perpetually got a grin on his face.

As soon as you enter the room, he kind of looks to see whether he needs to salute you, doesn't see that there's a need, and kind of gives you a chin up, and kind of goes back to his work. Standing across, or rather sitting across, reading a Playboy magazine is a very brawny man who you can assume is probably Booker. You Booker? You Bryant? Who's asking? I'm asking. Yeah, I'm Booker, that's Bryant, the man holding the Playboy says and points to Bryant and

Bryant kinda hops off of the vehicle and, you know, gives you a hello. As they both talk you can tell that they are probably from the Philadelphia area. They have a little bit of an accent and at least one of them seems like a real city boy. You all know Liam Morales, yeah? They both kind of roll their eyes like not again. What's with the eye rolls? What's going on? What's that about?

What? We just, we don't want to get involved in whatever the hell Liam has gotten himself involved in. Like you gotta, the man walks out into the desert and what? Now suddenly he's my responsibility? I mean, if you're responsible for him. Well, I'm not. I was just his driver. Hold on. Let's take it down a notch. Hi. You call me Supes. Call this one Hyde.

That's a nice issue you have right there. It's alright. See? We can... We good. We apologize. We just needed clarification cuz we're stuck bringing these people back and forth and bases And we just thought we just ask around some questions. That was it. Are you guys the intelligence officers? Do they look like intelligence my god? No, you look like pilots damn fucking right? Oh my god. You scared me shit mother Jesus that What do you want to know about Liam? Leaves my brother. Oh shit. Yeah, so just keep this between us. I'm just looking out for my brother

Booker who was like kind of back leaning against the wall not really interested in getting himself involved in another person looking for Liam closes the book and kind of leans forward and You know the gossip is is like gold here in the fob So he's certainly intrigued by what you just said. Look, I'm not trying to stir any trouble and I don't mean to make it your problem, but I lost contact with my brother a couple days ago. I just want to make sure he's good and Obviously it doesn't seem like he is It took a hell of a lot of way to get me here just to come and look him in person.

Can you help me out, Elise, man? I just want to know what's been up lately. Bryant looks back at Booker and they kind of look at each other and Booker says, hey, man, I'm sorry. I didn't know he was your brother. It's all good. He was an okay guy. Me and Bryant, we just accompanied him as he drove around. There's a village nearby, Calooshkel.

It's the local tribe. For some reason, he wanted to talk to him a couple of times, but that's it. We really didn't interact with him much more beyond whenever he asked us to drive him around. You never mentioned anything to you guys? No small talk? No nothing? I mean small talk about what? Home life? Family life? I don't know. Like, you know, just general chit chat. Anything interesting. Did he like the food? Did he hate the food? Hide, make a persuasion check. And you can have plus 20% because you have convinced these guys that you're part of the team. You're just another soldier

You're looking for answers for your missing brother That's a success with a one. Whoa. Let's go These boys are hesitant and you're thinking about it and you realize that everyone on this base is hesitant because your brother was not part of this fob, at least not in the way that all the soldiers are. Everyone here is scared to become responsible for someone who has done something ridiculous like wander off into the desert. So you realize this hesitance is coming from people who don't want the blame to fall on them, but Booker and Bryant start admitting that

yeah, they they took your brother out on a couple of trips and in that process came to know him a little bit and They admit that once or twice Liam mentioned things about what's going on at home trouble with his wife and wife and his child who are estranged from him. Seemed like he was really worried about that stuff, but he also seemed really focused on his work. Yeah, he came off as a little agitated and the two of them tried to make him laugh once in a while to brighten the mood. Did he ever talk about what he was doing out there at that village who he was talking to. They seemed to push back again, a wall coming up. Again, there's this fear that they're going to get in trouble. Hey man,

I'm not here to point blame or anything, man. I'm gonna, I'll do this. I'm gonna do this. If it makes it better, would you guys like me to step away? And I'm not hearing anything. Would that make you feel comfortable? Look, I feel for you. Can you just, can we keep this between just us? Always. Morales, he started, he snuck some contraband onto a base, some little bottles of alcohol. We enjoyed it with him once in a while. We drank a little bit, okay? And that's a big no-no, so you can understand why we're a little bit. Okay, and that's a big no-no. So you can understand why we're a little nervous sure and Once or twice he got a little too drunk probably

And I don't know he he talked about this place What was it called and Booker speaks up and what do you say the the Black Valley and it reminds Brian Caligati? He said there's this place And it reminds Brian. Caligati. He said there was this place. Old Afghan and British writers said it was, I don't know, some place hidden in the mountains to the east. But doing his research, he couldn't find anything on the maps.

And I don't know, he was saying that all the experts thought it was a myth. But apparently he believed that it lied under Varjita Mountain to the east. It's like 40 kilometers north of Turner. But there's nothing really out there. There's no way, but there's nothing really out there. There's no way there's something like that really out there. The Taliban would have destroyed it or taken it over by now, so I don't know. We mostly disregarded his drunk ramblings. How was he the last time you saw him?

Pretty fucked up, if I could be honest. He was drinking almost every day at that point. I don't know. He just, he kept going on and on about wanting to find this place, wanting to find this Caligati. I mean at first he was saying he wanted to drone strike it and take it out into oblivion, but before he left, before the end, he was saying that there were old stories about how people at Caligati find peace and live forever. I don't know, I think he just wanted to see the truth for himself,

you know. I appreciate it and this is gonna stay between us. Do you know where Liam bunked here? I don't know where he was his tent. Yeah, we escorted him a couple times and they point out to you where you can find his tent. Before we leave, I'm going to pull out like a couple of cigarettes from my pocket. I'm going to hand it out to the two guys, see if they will like, thanks guys. Do either of you have a human intelligence?

I do. You hand them the cigarettes, they say thank you, they light them up. Hi, you can tell that there's still something that they're holding back. I'm going to be on base until tomorrow or something, whenever these intelligent officers want to ship out to wherever they're going. If you think of anything, please let me know, alright? Because think about it, it would be like a dickish move to leave someone's family who's

literally going all this way to, you know, find a brother. Hi, you can give me one more persuade roll. You will have plus 20 because you're a woman. And that seems to have an effect on these gentlemen. That's a five. Nice. You're rolling well today. I'm rolling very well today.

I wouldn't, I don't know if that's a good thing. Maybe I put on very well today. I don't know if that's a good thing. Maybe how I put on the water work. This moment that you share between them, you kind of come closer and you look them in the eyes and whether you mean to or not, you cause them to kind of soften the way a man does when a attractive woman is asking for help. Booker speaks up and he says, look, there is one last thing. He talked about dreams. He said that he would just have these reoccurring dreams of sounds that weren't sounds, like voices that weren't voices. I don't think it really means anything. Clearly, he was probably cracking up at that point, but I don't know, it just stood out to me.

It was strange because he said he had him a couple of times like regularly okay do you know what he said what the voices said to him he said he could never understand them but just that somebody was talking to him okay thank you yeah we'll see you around the base have a good one night guys head out you know where Morales is tent is if you want to head in that direction. Yeah, I'll start heading that way. I'm gonna catch up and I wanna make sure by the time we're far- a little bit further away from the guys, I'm just gonna... It's like, all you have to do is show them a little tear and they fucking fold it.

Well, when you're just stuck out here in the fucking nowhere, I mean, Bat and I can get a mile. I hate doing that shit, but fuck. What does that mean though, man? Like he's talking in voices? This doesn't sound like Liam. You don't know everything what they're saying. They sound like bo-bos anyways. Your brother was smarter than this, you know that. There could be something that we're not seeing. Lopez, do you see the two pilots walking towards the tent? Lopez is going to take a couple steps away from the tent,

kind of breaking off the listening that they'd been doing. And they're going to probably cross towards the other two. Uh, sup, birds? They'll do like a half-ass salute and like a halfway standard attention because they're technically higher ranking than Lopez's. Can I help you? I mean, if you're gonna do it, can you at least try more than half-ass?

This is about as good as you're gonna get with me. Why are you outside this tent since you're talking rank? Why are you outside this tent, corporal? I, sir, I've been told, sir, that... Speak up. I can't hear you. Sir, I've been tasked to help our guest, sir. Agents Ice and Pilgrim, you can hear Lopez yelling at someone outside.

I think Lopez kind of seeing the direction they were going, and I'm assuming they were moving with purpose. So Lopez isn't stupid, and they can maybe infer direction they were going. And I'm assuming they were moving with purpose. So Lopez isn't stupid and they can maybe infer that they were going towards Liam's tent. And I think they're gonna lower their voice and say, I mean, I heard what they're doing in there, but you don't wanna know. Far be it from me to try and step in

on your information base. Shut the fuck up, corporal, stop. What do you know? Yeah. I'd like to say that at the first sound of loud noise and there's a conversation there, Pilgrim would have broken the threshold to see what's going on.

Oh, tell sir, there are guests, sir. And I'll kind of give them a look like snooze you lose. You little shit. Sir, these two were coming upon the tent, sir, and looking for information. You gotta stop fucking talking like that, please. I swear to God. Oh, thank fuck.

Thank you, man. Can I do something for you, pilots? Just walking around. Taking a walk, taking a mozy? Taking a mozy, yeah. Just saw this little corporal. No worries, and thanks, Lopez. Keep a good watch.

Yes, sir. Real loud on that one, weren a good watch. Yes sir. Real loud on that one. Absolutely sir. What are you guys doing in there? Are you guys staying in this tent? We're no we're not staying in a tent this is this belonged to just belong to a former intelligence officer we're just taking a look. Well this was a great convo love y y'all. Have a good day. And I'll jump back in the hut. I'm gonna take a step right up to Lopez.

I'm gonna grab Lopez on the side too. Hansi. What did they tell you? Come on, man. Don't, don't bust my nuts. I don't have time for it. You don't want this. Why you want to know so bad?

Just for curiosity's sake, my guy. That sounds like some grade-A horse shit, sir. Hi. We're on the same team, Lopez. I don't understand the animosity. I'm not your superior officer. We don't have to play this bullshit game. No, but you're all cagey as fuck. Anyone higher than a fucking corporal's being a cagey motherfucker. Oh my god, relax relax you little bastard. Look, we're just wanting to know what happened to so-and-so in there. Is that so hard to believe that we may happen to care?

Why? Just have, we have a general interest in the officer that's in there. They're just like looking back and forth between you and kind of enjoying the fact that they finally have some ounce of leverage in this godforsaken desert. Look, we know his family, okay? You know his family.

He's from Hawaii. On he's from Hawaii, I look to hide. Would I see any familial resemblance there, Serge? I don't th- I think to corroborate with your story of really not interacting with Morales very much, I don't think you would necessarily be able to immediately draw that conclusion, but. Do they have their name on their jumpsuit?

Oh, probably. I would imagine Morales is probably printed on the jumpsuit. I think on that, I see on the, they're from Hawaii, I kind of flick my eyes over to over to Kona and then down at the the nameplate and they kind of freeze and kind of size you up and Nod slowly. Yeah

Family. All right. Good you put two and two together. Yeah, you got there. Yeah, y'all are not cryptic and fucking all. I'm trying to keep this down low. I don't need these two assholes. I don't know who they are and stuff like that, but I don't need bureaucracy up my ass either, okay? That, I fucking respect actually. Cool. I'm glad we're on the same page about the bullshit. Please tell me, yeah, please tell me what the fuck they've been looking in there or what they've been saying. I'm gonna kind of glance over my shoulder and make sure the other two are safely within the flap and then kind of push Or not push but like walk forward enough that they follow me to where what I would assume is out of earshot

I didn't see what the fuck was going on in there, but they said something's a cover-up They said it smelled smelled weird the words Caligati and then death awakens something. I couldn't hear the end of it. Last thing I could catch though was finger painting in your own blood. So I don't know what the fuck your family was into, but it's not sounding great. but it's not sounding great. Sorry. Genuinely, that was genuine sorry. When you said it smelled weird, what kind of weird?

There's many different weird smells. Well, they said it smelled weird and I caught a whiff of bleach when it came. The wind came whistling through, so if they're talking about finger plating in your own blood, it's not a hard jump from point A to point B. That's all I know, I swear. I respect doing shit for family, so you know. I'm going to kind of look at Hyde and be like, the news is that those smells are, that's at least, you would rather have bleach than other smells, Hyde, so at least we know

he's at least live. Sounds have bleached than other smells, right? So at least we know he's at least live. Sounds like they're covering up something. They did say it was, they literally said it was a cover up. So like, yeah, for sure. What's your exact detail on these two? Like, what are you supposed to be doing for them? I'm supposed to take them wherever the fuck they need to go, get them whatever the fuck they need.

If we take one of the MRARaps out, keep them safe, but don't let them poke their nose into too much. If I can find you later, you keep an ear out for me? Yeah, I'll give them my tent, which bunk is mine or whatever. Wherever they go, you tell me what they're talking about. I'll keep an ear out. Look, my respect for you doing this for family only goes so far.

I'm not gonna fucking die for your whatever, but... I'm not asking you to, Lopez. I'm not asking you to jump on a grenade for me. I'm asking you to keep your ears open. Can you do that? I'm just setting expectations here. Y'all flew in today. Hold on. No, Lopez, I thank you. Respect. Thank you for letting us know. Now I'm gonna extend my hand out to shake theirs. I think this is the first time that Lopez, in a long time, has been shown like a modicum of humanity

from another superior. So they'll take it and like shake it like a true, you know, person for a minute. Yeah, I'll keep an ear out, but I'm not promising anything. Appreciate it. I really do. Take care. If they're there, we'll probably try to come back later.

As they're walking away, Lopez starts backing towards the flap of the tent and says, Yes, sirs, sirs, I will do my duty at the fob toons. Now you're just doing it for you. You're doing it for you at this point. This is exclusively for you. Sorry, sir. Can't hear you through the canvas, sir. Oh, you can't? Huh? Agents, what do you want to do now that you feel like you've thoroughly tossed this space?

It's now about it's's a little, a little, about an hour afternoon, otherwise known as 1 p.m. The cipher notebook and the laptop, I want to make sure they're in a bag to where they cannot be seen as I'm walking around with them. Yeah, I mean you have that bag that was found in the the hut if you want to take that. Yeah, is there a way to hide all of that? Like, I want to put this bag in my bag. Yeah, I'll say that you have, yeah, your backpack you're able to store it in there, yeah.

Okay, cool. Then yeah, I think next is the interpreter, yeah? Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking. Before we go, I'll leave the tent and touch Lopez on the shoulder. Hey, good job. Sir, thank you, sir. Leave the tent and Touch Lopez on the shoulder Hey Good job, sir. Thank you, sir Okay, you really don't have to do that. I just really appreciate it. Seems like you don't you have trouble following instructions

That's nothing to be ashamed of and you really you really did great. They're taking it back by another genuine moment and kind of stare at you Why do you think they uh, don't take this the wrong way, why do you think they kept you around? I mean this place is, they said they went from what you know thousands to 60s in a matter of days and they're going to the lightest personnel possible. I mean wouldn't they just give you a ride home? You don't exactly act like you want to be here. No, I think that's why I'm here still, actually. If I'm being fully honest, I think I fucked myself over. But also, not to toot my own horn, I'm a damn good shot. Are you? You're doing a lot of shooting these days?

Only on the range, sir. What's your go-to? You good with the M4 the m4 use standard issue or you like to paint outside the lines I'm a heavy artillery kind of guy. Oh, yeah, they kind of they kind of crack their neck again m2h mg is Purring like a baby in my hands. It's like you got the whole world in your hands, right? Just for a minute for a little grunt shit like me take it with a grain of salt. We're all grunt shit. That's all this is. We're little fucking specks that are gone and here and gone again. And it just carries on until the end, right?

You and I are gonna be here for a long fucking time. You might as well talk about yourself a little higher. I don't know how long we're gonna be here, but... Forever. Alright. Let's go! You begin making your way to the ANA side of the base. The soldiers here are doing something interesting, which is that you notice some of them openly smoking hashish and drinking.

It's a little bit more loose here on this side of the base. But you keep your mouth shut and you continue on. And you find the station where Yassim Rahimi, he is the civilian interpreter who works for the Americans. He is a short man with a tightly cut beard, little bits of gray kind of growing in it. He wears these circular spectacles, but has a friendly face and acknowledges you, salutes you, and introduces himself. How can I help you, sir?

It's good to meet you, Jesse. We're here as a part of military intelligence. My friend here has got a book that they're just gonna go fucking wild over with you, but we got some questions for you. What he's trying to say is we're here to investigate what's going on with Leah Morales. Oh, yes. Terrible shame, him disappearing.

Yeah, yeah. We're trying to figure that out. It's looking like we're gonna come to that out. It's it's looking like we're gonna come to a conclusion but we do need your help. This, uh, this black valley, Death Valley, do you know anything about that? Caligati? You say Caligati and he stares at you blankly for a moment and then kind of cracks a smile and says, uh, I don't understand. I I don't know what you mean. It's like I Mean, it's it. It's like a like a mythical place or like a legendary

Place. I mean even if it's not just does that ring any bells that doesn't sound familiar to you I said as you speak to him you can tell that he seems to be Holding back he is doing the telltale signs of obfuscation, pretending like he doesn't know what Caligati is. I'm happy to talk to you about the Cluj-Kel, a local tribe, but... No, no, we don't wanna talk about that. We wanna talk about Caligati.

And I think that Pilgrim is trying to hold himself in such a way that he is playing terrible cop to Lenn's good cop. Just giving daggers at this man instantly, like trying to catch on to that idea that maybe this isn't the full story. I'll ask in as well as my Farsi will allow me to. Listen, we're just trying to get to the bottom of things. It would be really nice if you could be helpful. Caligari means Valley of Death. It's an old legend, an old superstition. It's nothing. It's an old wives tale. How old? Very old. As far back as I think. I don't know. It was a legend to me as a child. My

grandfather told me and he said his father before him. Is it local or continental? There is a legend that there is a valley in the area called Caligari. It's said to be found under the Varjita mountain and he points to the east. Great, great. Thank you. But I mean, there is no evidence of such a place. Everyone knows that this Caligari, it's a curse, it's just a blasphemous thing to say. People who go out to seek it are doomed.

Yeah, what's the story there? There's gotta be a myth, right? Why would you go seeking it in the first place? Caligari is a cursed place, but there is meant to be a guru there who can show the path to enlightenment. You see, many of the tribes here, some of them before converting to Islam worshipped pagan gods. There was some tribes who never left those pagan beliefs. This dates back before Islam, before modern religion came to this place.

Does this guru have a name? I've only ever heard the guru. I wonder what they teach. I wonder what you can learn out there in the desert, huh? Ais, you also notice that it is a little strange that Rahimi is kind of so apprehensive. For the most part, he does not appear to be a particularly religious man. He seems to be more of a man of science, more of a modern Particularly religious man. He seems to be more of a man of science more of a modern kind of person compared to some of the other Afghanis here who seem to live simpler lives this man seems to be educated and

So it is a little strange that he still is so apprehensive you ever speak to Liam directly He ever come to you with similar questions similar Intentions to see something that you could help him with? Yes, Mr. Morales knows that I am fluent in a local dialect that he was not, so he came for me for lessons. He asked me certain questions, certain phrases. When I offered my services to join him in his trips out to Cluj-Kell. He refused. He said he just wanted just to better his ability to speak the local language. So I never really ventured out with him. I just sort of taught him what I knew. Answered his questions. Did he ever do anything? Did you ever see anything to make you worried about what he did on these trips?

We know he kept to himself. He was a little odd, but anything that stuck out. I think you are pointing out the obvious, yes. Officer Morales was, I don't believe he was in a good place. He seemed to be hurting, maybe distracted, I'm not sure. He seemed odd, but he didn't seem... I don't know. I- I- I find often many of the customs of the Americans here to be a little strange, so... He ever offer you any Listerine? You two knock back some mouthwash together after some lonely nights?

Uh, what is Listerine? Uh, uh, uh, uh, fucking, um, mouthwash, mouthwash. Oh, uh, he ever drink with you? I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I- He didn't do anything out of the ordinary, but you seem on the edge about this whole thing. It's a... you said it was a legend, a myth. What's... why are you scared right now? Forgive me. You have to understand that I'm trying to do my best here, and I'm trying to put my best foot forward here at the FOB. I want the Americans to feel ready to leave as soon as possible.

My nervousness comes from... I'm easily scared, that's all. I have learned in my life that it is best not to tread where people tell you not to go. Yeah. He's clearly, visibly, kind of, uncomfortable by that laugh. I understand. What's the city known for?

He kept making trips out to this village. What do you think an American would want out of there? I mean, that's not necessarily the place you're not supposed to go, but definitely it's something out of the ordinary, right? What do you think he might go out there for? The Cluj clan are familiar with the area. Maybe he was asking them about the myth. Maybe he was trying to find out more information about where Caligari could be. Yeah.

They're friendly people. If you want to speak to them I'm happy to join you as an interpreter. I don't know. I mean Len can speak pretty well. Len, do we need... I don't know that we need another translator, do we? If it's the local dialect, we might need the help. Listen, Rahimi, was it? Yes. I understand that you're nervous. We're here with the same goal. We just want answers. If you stay with us, we'll make sure that you have nothing to be afraid of. Well, as you said, there is nothing to be afraid of, correct?

As far as we understand, the more information you tell us, the more we can confirm that. There is plenty to be afraid of, but I mean, we got no fucking control over that, man. If you're asking if we're capable, that's 100%. I agree with you, officer, that there is a lot to be afraid of in this area but um I feel bad for Morales. Although he seemed to be hurting he was kind to me and I would be happy to help if I can. That's kind of you. Yeah we're gonna take a visit to that place. I don't know when but soon we'll catch you up and you can come with us

That's as far as you'll go. Okay, we'll go there. We'll have a conversation. You'll come back here. It ends there. Yeah, I appreciate that very much Yes, okay that thank you for your cooperation. By the way, I'm so glad this didn't have to go any other way I am too. Goodbye officers. Nice to meet you. We walk outside Wow Nice to meet you. We walk outside. Well, fuck Len. What? Why was that a problem? He has to come. He's the interpreter. No, I get it, but he's not going anywhere farther than the city. We need to stop. We the amount of people on missions like these. I don't know I don't know it. It's just it's nice to have Others around sometimes. I mean, yeah, we were we work together

Well, right but of another voice in the room. Well, it used to be just us We did fine on our own in those first few years. I mean, yeah, it was hard, but we were fine. There were no walls. I'm just, I just, it's good to mix it up a little bit. Get a different perspective. Sure. Do you wanna go to the city tonight or do you wanna work on that cipher?

I really wanna work on this cipher. Okay, so maybe we post up in the mess hall or something. Actually, what the fuck am I saying? We go back to our tent. Yeah, although food does sound good. I can make a trip. Or better yet, we'll send our fucking lackey. You're right.

You're right about that. Keeping them busy would be a good idea. It's better than doing anything else with them. Fine. They'll get food. Puzzle night. Lopez has been posted up with the folks from the other side of the fob.

Not partaking in anything, but watching with like a hunger. You know that you have two possible ways to find out more about what Morales was up to. There is the notebook, and there is his laptop the laptop is obviously destroyed But you are aware that there is a team on the base that might be able to help extract any possible information from the laptop if you two don't feel like you have the resources To do so yourselves.

I don't know Len, how are you doing in the computers category? I'm decent, but this thing has more holes in it. More holes in it than I think I can work around, so... Again, different perspective. Yeah, I'm just worried about putting more hands on this fucking thing. Just one more set of hands. So maybe you stay with the cipher. I'll go with the computer geeks and I'll stand over their shoulder and make sure they're not putting files where they shouldn't

and fucking refresh in the USBs when they shouldn't. Exactly. That'll work. It's about 3 p.m. And the two of you decide to split off and see what you can find from this information. Agent Ice, how much time do you want to dedicate to this notebook? You said it's just about three? I think she's probably willing to go until like a late dinner, like eight. Potentially up to six hours. Yeah.

Agent Pilgrim, you take the destroyed laptop over to a communications hut and there is a man named Sergeant Sams who is kind of in the middle of rewiring some microelectronics and looks up with you with those expanded goggles on his eyes and he immediately lifts it up, asks how we can help you. Oh man, you look so much like the Goonies right now, I love it. I got a question for you, I got something I gotta give you. I'm with the military intelligence team that just dropped down, yeah? But I'm absolute shit when it comes to anything after Microsoft 7.

So if I could just give you this laptop, need you to run a full trace whatever you can do to bring any information off of it but it's really really important to our None of this can be disclosed and I'm gonna stand around and make sure that that comes to a head if you can help us Yeah, yeah, yeah look for stuff, but don't read anything. I I'm familiar with this operation He takes the laptop from you and looks at it and he's like, God damn, well, I mean, it does look like the hard drive is still intact, so I should be able to. Yeah, you got any guesses at what happened to this fucking thing?

If you had to make an educated guess, I mean... He holds up the holes and looks through one of them at you and is like, I think somebody shot this. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Okay. I can totally start working on this for you, sir, but it's gonna take me a little while. Probably, I mean, I probably won't have it ready till tomorrow morning. You know what? Yeah, that's fine by me. Uh, what do you like to eat?

Oh, uh, you like anything from the mess hall specifically? I mean, they don't really do special order, but- If they got any Froot Loops left over, I'll take some. Holy shit, Froot Loops. I mean, not the best cereal, but very good. I like Captain Crunch. I like the fact that it makes my teeth bleed. I like Froot Loops.

This is excellent conversation we're having right here. This is just, this is what it's all about, huh? I'm gonna get to working on the laptop for you. Good, fuck yeah. Yeah, good, good. I'm gonna go, I go over to Len and I let them know the plan that around until Len is done with the journal bit I'll check in but outside of that I'm sticking with this guy eating free loops. Well I'll fast forward a little bit for you. It will get to a

point where Sam's will have to call it a night Probably around seven or eight He does get to the point where he is able to connect to the drive He can tell that there's information and he is just beginning the process of kind of getting it So that it is visible readable usable, but he has to take a break by by that point to sleep ice You take your time trying to decipher this code and it's not particularly difficult You know well you you've had a cipher in your time It sounds like you like using puzzles working on puzzles and you can tell that it's not particularly complicated

But it does take several hours to Piece together what's going on between the cipher and the burn pages. There's a lot of missing information, but I will allow you for the six hours of work to ask six questions and I will tell you what the answer is or at least what is available in the book. What is your first question? Do any of these notes directly link to hypergeometry? The notes do not appear to have any hypergeometry written in them, whether it be calculations or turns of phrases. You are able to decipher the same phrase that was said on the ground, Caligati, death awakens the sleeper.

But Morales does seem to be on to something. He is, though he doesn't speak about specific hypergeometry, he believes there is something special about this place that might infer hypergeometry. Is there any, um, any clue as to what or who the sleeper is? Morales references a old British document that he scanned on his laptop that is supposedly a first-hand account of a British colonel who has some experience with this area. He explains that this Colonel is a man named Arthur Blythe Merriwether and that

he is the first one to reference a guru at Caligati who explored states of consciousness that led to immortality but could only be achieved by near-death experience. Morales points out that the author also said that the village vanished altogether when he departed from it. When the Colonel departed from it, or when the Guru did? When the Colonel did. This Colonel purports to have visited some kind of site. I'm going to assume that you share this information with Agent Pilgrim at some point,

probably at the end of the night. Pilgrim, you have a 40% in a cult, correct? Yep. You recognize this name, Merriweather. Some of the books you've read, some of the literature that you've read in your time as a member of this organization. Merriweather is recognized as both an author of some occult literature, but he is also a notorious opium addict who spent years in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. And it's not clear from the text whether he ever actually spent any time near Caligati or if he ever even spoke to this guru. But it seems like Morales took this man's word very seriously. You have four more questions. What was the last entry? Are there like dates on when these,

when he's writing in the journal? At the end of the book, it is clear that Morales has become obsessed with Caligati and finding it for himself. He seems to be of clear mind enough to know that he doesn't want to bring other people into this danger, but he does want to find it. The last entry was four days, three or four days before you arrived.

And it says something like, I have to see it for myself. It's calling me. I have to see it for myself. Is there any like any description of what the Black Valley entails? I mean, obviously it's a physical like space, but is there is it like a ritual site? Is this just where the guru lives? Again, referencing these old materials that he says he was able to bring along in his laptop, Morales explains that his theory is is that the people of Caligati are likely some kind of pagan offshoot before Islam, before Christianity, before Hinduism. He is able to recognize that there's an old dragon god that has no name but was deemed blasphemous by the local religions and yet the people of Caligati seem to hang on to this god, this dragon god. And so they lived in the Black Valley with their guru. He references there are the Zunils who are

an ancient people whose idol the Caligati citizens likely stole from, as Zun was a draconic sun god who was related to Shiva, but was shunned thousands of years ago. Morales speculated that Caligati's dragon god was the same one. Any indication? I mean, the last journal entry, it seems like this man was, there wasn't much of him left other than the obsession. But is there any personal indication, like personal notes, things about Leon leading up to the last entry? Morales, in the beginning of the book, mentions his family once in a while and then just stops altogether and the last entries are his Theories as to where Caligati might be after speaking to those Villagers from Kalushkel he believes that

Caligati can be found in the shadow of Varjita Mountain which is 40 kilometers to the east It's a tribal area. It's right on the Pakistani border. It is well outside of where Americans are allowed to operate But he believes that if he's gonna find it, that's where it would be Okay, good good And if that isn't just the fucking Poster for what it is you and I do. I don't know what is. You start talking about how much you miss your wife and your kids and your family,

and then stops dead in the tracks for the big golden sun dragon and everything falls to shit, huh? I mean, it just seems like a green box to me with a lot of, you know, pomp and circumstance around it. I mean, that's more than what we had. I want to... The last thing I want to check for is any names of people that we already know,

that we've already been given names about. I want to see if Byers is mentioned, if Lopez is mentioned, the two people, Brian and Booker, like anyone. Other names that Morales mentions are Captain Byers. He references Byers. He references Byers simply as stating that he is the captain, he has very little interactions with the captain. He does mention Bryant and Booker. He admits to drinking with them, smuggled contraband that he brought onto the base. There seems to have been a relationship that developed between the three of them where Bryant and Booker

were maybe kinder and friendlier to him than he expected. He did not interact a relationship that developed between the three of them where Bryant and Booker were Maybe kinder and friendlier to him than he expected. He did not interact with Lopez in any kind of meaningful way He did not write it down. He mentions Yacine as an interpreter of who which he got the information that he needed to be able To communicate to the Cluj clan and the only other mention is of the leader of the Cluj clan. And the only other mention is of the leader of the Cluj clan. He mentions the village elder, Zaheer Cluj. He mentioned though he was friendly, he was difficult to pry any information from, but he believes he was able to get enough to understand where Caligati is. Okay. Amazing.

It's 9pm when you finally put the book down and your eyes are sore from just constantly staring. The night is just as hot and warm as the day, maybe a couple of degrees less, but unless you want to keep powering through, it's probably time for a break. You got good shit here, Len. I mean, you did incredible work. I mean, the puzzles paid off. It was a good time.

I mean, incredibly foreboding, but a good time. Ain't it always. I mean, the way I see it now, we got two options. And one I'm gonna vote for. So we either go into Caloosh and we start talking to this village elder and we find out everything that we can about this location, about what actually happens there, and we interrogate that situation. Or we Occam's razor this fucker and realize that he went out there to this location that he marks in that journal and that if he went anywhere,

if he's anything like you and me, he's down there in the Black Valley now. Yeah. I mean, it's just whether we want to be more prepared when we knock on the door. I'm always for being more prepared. And we can't just cut Lopez. I mean, if we should go into town, we should talk to this guy. This is here first. If it's nothing, it's short trip. But I'd rather make sure. You weren't about to say that we should bring Lopez

to the valley, were you? No, it's just they... I don't think anyone's really given them a proper chance. I mean, you saw the way that Byers was talking to them, right, they just... Yeah, yeah. Very clearly all they do is fuck up, but it's also because people only think they're gonna fuck up you want to bring them in

on this you know how that ends I mean you look at this fucker this fuckers just like us and he starts off whining and crying about his little fucking wife and his family back home on the island oh Oh no. And then he turns into chugging Listerine and smearing his own fucking blood in the dirt and praying to dark gods like all of them fucking do. If we go around giving out fucking tickets to the show, it really only means they're either gonna end up exactly like us or they're gonna get us killed. I know that I know that it It just seems like they just need a somebody to fucking I don't know I don't know like you I understand this is more dangerous and even if they were to be

Incredibly helpful, which I know they would be if we just let them come it would be It would be more dangerous wouldn't be worth it And you know what if they want to fucking' die, they can fuckin' die themselves. If they wanna take that extra step after us, they can do so, but they're gonna do it 50 feet behind, not alongside. Yeah. The two of you wind down for the evening.

Do you do anything in particular before you go to sleep? I think that Pilgrim goes back to the seedier side of the camp and sees if he can get in on smoking and drinking for the night. Without issue you find a group of Afghanis who are enjoying a long wooden pipe and they are smoking hashish. There we go. I'm gonna just hang out there for the night. The moon illuminates the base, and you have been in Afghanistan for a little while, dry and drinking only on the rare occasion. This stuff is strong, and when you look up again,

the stars seem in Legion. It is an unbelievable sight that is only enhanced by the drugs. And you realize in your inebriated state just how far away you are from society, how in the middle of nowhere you are, and how really you could do whatever you wanted out here as long as nobody caught

it. I think he turns to whoever's next to him on the right, he grabs him by the shirt, brings him in close, and goes, you know I've been here before? Like right here. Talking to you. My friend, my friend, he's clearly the man who doesn't quite know how to respond to what you're saying, and is kind of like tapping you. I fucking know you. I know you my friend. We've been here, buddy.

He starts mimicking this tapping of the forehead that you're doing and they're all just kind of laughing, stoned. I am so fucking sorry for what's gonna happen. Hahahaha. Ice, what do you do at the end of the night? I think she's just gonna try to get a beat on... Mostly she's gonna stay in, but I also want to see where Lopez goes. Lopez has been kind of floating around after they got sent off for food a couple times. Okay, cool. Yeah, I think I wanted to see how obvious it was

that Lopez is now involved with keeping secrets, even though I don't think Lopez knows any secrets, but they're like a snitch. I just wanted to see how close I could get to that tonight. But. Well, I mean, that's interesting. I will ask for a human intelligence role from you. And, um, Lopez, you can make a charisma role to see if you can keep that to yourself.

Sick. I got a seven. Lopez got a 14. As per the rules, the higher role wins. So Lopez continues to appear like their lackadaisical self and you don't nothing really gets tipped off yet ice amazing so am I good or do you need help with whatever the fuck you're doing no no you're good you're good feel free to you know sorry yes sir if y'all need to head out in the morning let me know so I

can get the convoy are you like what's your plan honestly what's your like plan here we are actually gonna head out soon so if you could just have that all ready as soon as possible with what probably 6 a.m i'll be six a.m 600 hours you got it i'll be i'll be ready by 6 a.m and it would be nice if we could go but it would probably won't leave for 6 but 6 would be nice I'd appreciate it. Six would be nice, cool yeah. I got you. I'll throw some lads together and we'll head out at 6 and on that they'll kind of salute Chiddley again and then beeline for Hyde. I think I'm just kind of like wandering base Looking for Morales and Campbell

Yeah, I think it's easy enough to find them asking around where the two pilots are resting or for the night Hide and Campbell before Lopez arrives. Is there anything you do before the end of the night as you're getting ready for bed? I don't think anything really except just hanging out in the tent or maybe doing anything, checking on the copter, making sure that there's anything we need to take care of our resupply. Yeah, I think we would have made sure our duties

were done first and foremost, to have it also stocked and ready to go in case we had to take off at a very quick notice. Also, we know that, you know, the captain may or may not like us. It's kind of like we did enough that we're just ready for standby. Got it.

Eventually, when you are at your bunks, Lopez shows up. Don't know how helpful this information is to you. Smaller one's been looking at some journal. Don't know what it is, couldn't really get a good look. But they're rolling out at 0600. We need a convoy, y'all are army folk. So I'm figuring. You can get us on that convoy?

What a coincidence, because we're gonna be up early around that point, won't we, Hyde? Yeah, I like early. Yeah, if y'all happen to be milling around, I may forget to talk to two of my boys. Yeah I'll be about. Well uh maybe I'll see you around then. Sure, we'll have to go, we'll go. I appreciate it. I don't know if they're gonna know who you are because you were on their bird but

I did my duty. I think you can come up with a good enough lie of why he picked us out of the convoy or for anybody else. Called it like, compartmentalizing resources. We're at, we're easy hand, not a part of the base. You know what? I'm not even worried. Lopez, you're a smart one. Uh, you- Yeah, so smart, capable. Look at this. I gotta get- Look at this.

I got an early call time in the morning. What do you think? Y'all get some rest now. Uh huh. Just gonna stand there and watch you sleep? I was just seeing if you had anything else for me, sir. Do you need to be dismissed, corporal? Thank you, sirs. Have a good night. We'll see you in the morning.

Lopez does a very subtle middle finger as they run their hand through their gloved hair. And leave. They don't make grunts like they used to. Look at that. I'm like, in the disrespect. Ay, Dios Mía. You know, we're getting up early. Like 5 a.m. Yeah, I just say 5 a.m. Campbell, I get up at 4. Like, you're the one who snoozes till 8.

You fucking animal! Animal! Put the pillows in them. It's like the least hot time of the day. You're wasting good, cool out there. You're an idiot. You're an idiot. Well, discipline goes a little far.

The two friends, the two officers who have been to war with each other and are now helping one another solve a problem go to bed. Hide. You're doing a good job of hiding it, but you're scared because your brother is missing and the things you're learning aren't adding up. But in the night, you find yourself suddenly standing at the National Cemetery, the same one you described in Art 2, with that beautiful view of the ocean. And you're standing in front of a grave. There's no name on the grave.

And when you look up on one of the cliffs nearby is Liam's hut. It looks exactly the same as every other hut you've seen today but you know it's Liam's hut. And you can hear sounds, maybe voices. You can't make out what they're saying but they're coming from the tent. I think I'm gonna check if Campbell's awake and if Campbell's like dead asleep I'm gonna just get up and just head towards there quietly. I assume it's it's late enough where I'm not gonna be bothered by anybody as I'm walking through right? You stand up the cot is behind you and is behind you and Amy is sleeping soundly in her cot which is strange because it's the middle of the day in Hawaii and your cots are in the middle of a grave but Liam's hut is there as well and somehow it propels you forward

and you start walking towards his hut you step step inside. Inside, you see a small room, a cot to the left, and Liam, with his back turned to you, is sitting on that cot, and you can hear him softly sobbing to himself. On the ground is a trash can with some kind of book or journal on fire in it. Is the journal retrievable? Like can I grab it and try to... You certainly can if you wanted to, yeah.

Yeah, I'm gonna try to grab the journal out of the basket. You pick it up and it is still on fire, but it doesn't seem to burn you. Can I try to open it? You open it up, there are no words on the pages, and it just helps fuel the fire as the book continues to be engulfed in flame. You're looking for answers and you look up at Liam and you realize that his arms were hidden from you, and you look and you see that there is blood. More than that, though, there is flesh carved in his forearm.

On his left, it says, Caligati. On the right forearm, Death Awakens Sleeper. And he shows you his forearmsarms kind of opening them up to you and you look at his eyes and he has the saddest most regrettable eyes looking at you he opens his mouth to speak but he doesn't he doesn't speak, he sings. He begins to sing a beautiful song that sounds like Arabic. Just as you're taking this in, you snap awake. You are in your tent.

And you realize the song that you are hearing is the morning call to prayer by the Afghan National Army, and it is the next day. I think if it's early enough and I have enough time, I'm going to leave and head towards Liam's tent really quick. I think you're able to do that. In these wee early mornings, there is only patrol and a few other folks out. You are able to find the tent. Yeah, I'm just going to, I'm going to go in there and I'm gonna stand where he was standing where

I remember it and I don't know just look around I don't know if there's anything else here I mean I can obviously see it's been turned over and I know that the the other agents have been in here, but... Um... I don't know, something about standing here just seems like the thing to do. And you do so. And... You wish that you can see something else that they're not seeing. But you can't help but also just feel the enormous vacuum of Liam's absence. Nothing seems out of place in the sense that you maybe they didn't notice something.

It reeks of bleach in here. And he has no personal effects here. Looking in the space you do not see anything. Where the fuck would you go? Maybe we'll find out where he went the next time we play. Okay, so god damn it. Nooo, why would you? You know what? I forgot to ask one last thing. Can you make a sanity check for me?

No, we fucked up. That sucks. That sucks. Sanity. Ooh, that's a success with a 49 out of 50. You do not lose any sanity. Ooh, that's a success with a 49 out of 50. You do not lose any sanity. Thanks for watching!