Agent Ryan, you are walking through the dark swamp.
You still have your night vision.
You're able to navigate it.
Can you give me another survival?
And then if you're trying to do this stealthy, a stealth.
Survival looking at 50 got 27.
Okay, you're still on track.
You follow the tracks just fine.
Okay, stealthy, don't have much, I'm looking for 13, nope, 42.
Okay, you're trying to be quiet.
You're trying to avoid any of these other things seeing you.
Any thoughts that you wanna share with the audience as you're walking toward or following these tracks?
Yeah, mean, a lot of thoughts and no thoughts at the same time.
I mean, I'm thinking about the encounter I just had and the situation I'm now in and, you know, kind of thinking like I should have just been the one, should have just volunteered.
And that still might be the case in three days, but...
Also contemplating like, you know, what my story is once I do reconnect with Barone and Dell.
Great.
You're passing through the swamp.
On the other side, Barone, as you are packing up to go look for Ryan, what is your tact?
What are you taking?
Ooh man, so still being dark, anything to see with flashlight, uh my backpack gun, mainly anything to fight with.
I probably have my firearm at my side and then my M4 kind of strapped uh catty corner across my chest, like ready to go.
uh Gloves on, ready to take on the night to try and find my friend and maybe kill a couple things in between.
Great, go ahead and give me survival and then search as well.
Okay.
Let us start with survival looking for 37.
I got a 27.
Good there.
And then what was the other one?
search.
search we got a 56 above 54 so I missed by two
Okay, yeah.
So you set out into the dark swamp, you have your flashlight and you are presumably following your tracks or are you taking another tact for where you should walk?
Nope, I'm going right back where we started.
anything, I'm thinking in my mind, okay, there's gotta be footprints or impressions somewhere.
And maybe if I'm quick enough, Ryan's not too far gone.
So I'm going exactly back where I came from.
Perfect, great.
Del, in the cabin, you are sitting there.
Karas is still with you and is kind of putzing around the cabin, organizing some papers, mumbling to himself here and there.
Do you have any questions with him now that you're alone with him?
Yeah, I want to know what led a man to embed himself in an organization like Majestic in the first place.
straight to the point.
um Not to split hairs, but I worked for a company called Armitage, which was, uh I guess, affiliated in ways with Majestic.
was, I am a biologist and a medical doctor as well.
I used to look at things, samples they brought back, things that weren't from here.
It was a good job at
paid well and then one day it wasn't a job anymore.
But um scientific pursuits were always the goal for me.
I was never involved in the, I guess, clandestine or deep state activities of the organization.
can imagine that being the bleedingest edge, perhaps on planet Earth, my curiosity gets the best of me sometimes too.
You know how these things happen.
You are just a talented biologist in college.
um Getting your PhD and you get approached by a company, it gives you a lot of money.
And before you know it, you're looking at alien biology.
No sir, I don't know the first fucking thing about that.
Well, I wish I could be in your position.
I'm a simple sugar man, but I'm a...
You are an astronaut and I'm an astronomer.
I have to look from the sides.
Well, it does seem to have ended us both up in the same predicament.
I know it doesn't do well for my heart.
If you're on the way out like you look, I don't know.
I can't imagine this is the end you would imagine for yourself.
No, of course not.
But this...
the promise of a different type of end is...
something I...
yearn for at this point.
When you say promise, who exactly is promising and how much stock can you put in that promise?
I can't put any stock in any promise.
This is, again, new territory.
uh I am fairly certain that if I were to sing this song I could talk with these little green men, or maybe even their masters.
This thing carries some power to it.
Just the uh incomplete version that the Verdant Path had.
discovered would bring them.
So, of course, the complete and full version must do something more, right?
you need the other half.
Yeah, I mean, look, our third um did the most investigatory work on uh Finch's aftermath.
It's possible that, you know, he has a footnote or something about a verse or a tune.
But in this year's Swamp, we heard a song, a singing, something or other, if you could call it that.
Not a night or two ago.
Feels like maybe something else ah has heard this lullaby.
That is the Verdant Path.
The swamp people, lack of a better term, they were human once and they knew the song and could sing it in a melodic and beautiful way once.
They worshipped with it at one time, but they got too close to the cultures and they started to eat the swamp, I guess.
is the only way to describe it and then they started to become one with it and now the version is a it's a disgrace a bastardized version of what they once could sing
I
Yeah, I think I'll just mull that over.
Like, it sounds like...
a way to turn the page to the next chapter, but I'm honestly not sure if we shouldn't just burn the book.
Yeah.
Yeah, I am quite tired.
I'm going to retire.
If there's anything else I can do to make you comfortable, please tell me now.
Yeah, can you prop that up and he'll kind of like, crook his elbow so that he can put the firearm in it to point at the doorway.
Of course, I hope you won't be needing that but yes Sure, yeah, he props your arm up and um Opens the door and leaves to the outside um Doesn't stay in the cabin you hear
footsteps recede in the distance we will cut over to Agent Ryan agent Ryan you are walking
You've long passed the church at this point.
And in the distance you see shadows of trees cast over each other as a flashlight starts basically um almost looks like police sirens through trees and looks choppy ahead of you
like a strobe light.
Do you go towards the flashlight?
Can I make out who or what, like the shape of who's got this flashlight?
No, it's in the distance.
Agent Barone, you are getting to the area where the ghost town is.
Give me another search and see if you can see Agent Ryan.
Sounds good.
uh Crit fail 99.
Yeah, you know how flashlights are.
Sometimes they can be a little, um they can kind of blind you to what's right in front of you and you aren't looking in the distance, but you are wandering on the same tracks.
um Unless you're trying to hide Agent Ryan, you're gonna see each other.
Are you trying to hide Agent Ryan?
I'm not, I'm kind of guessing like it's somebody looking for me at this point.
I'm gonna drop to the ground and pretend like I'm crawling.
because my legs kind of fucked up.
eh We're all just a bunch of liars in this party.
You guys are tearing each other apart.
ah Yeah, Barone, you see the form on the ground of Agent Ryan covered in mud, crawling towards you.
He still has his service pistol and his large satchel that is on his back, but does look like he's injured as he crawls.
Agent Ryan, can you roll, oh, sorry, sorry.
Agent Ryan, roll me a deception.
Okay, um deception.
Am I supposed to have that on my list?
Because I don't.
is it performance?
Let me see.
Let me bring up my character sheets.
Neither of those are present.
I Persuade.
Okay.
uh 2461.
Fuck.
Yeah, as you're crawling, um Barone, this is a long distance to crawl, right?
Like you were on the ATV and it took you about six minutes to get from the church to this spot, right?
So you're, you know, you can take it at face value, but it does seem a little strange to you that Ryan is crawling.
so a lot, but you know.
Not not four days, which is how long it would take you to crawl that distance.
way, as soon as I see Ryan's form, that's not the first thing that's most important and top of mind.
uh Barone starts running like gun out still definitely scanning around but starts running towards Ryan.
She's like, holy shit.
Holy shit, Ryan.
my God.
Stay there.
Stay down and I'll kind of like uh kneel next to Ryan in like, dude, just do a sweep around.
Knowing that last time somebody was down and we were trying to save them.
We got ambushed immediately So I'm watching eyes open like a hawk for that
Yeah, go ahead, you can roll your alertness and then give me first aid as well.
Sure, so alertness, we're looking for 81, we got 62, success.
And then first aid, have epic fail, 100.
We got 100 on first aid.
snap.
Sorry, I don't need it anymore.
Yeah, given the extreme circumstance here, Agent Perrone, you you look at the wound, it does seem like it would make Ryan crawl.
Maybe Ryan just has this like extreme lease on life and has been like crawling his ass off to get here.
But you're, you feel like it's too dark and muddy to do anything about it.
Yeah, absolutely.
And when I see you, right, I'm like, bro, I'm so glad you found me.
I've been crawling for so long.
My leg hurts so bad.
I'll take one glance back and just see footprints go straight to crawling and I'm like hmm, okay, not gonna fucking, no dog in this fight, absolutely not.
Jesus' footprints.
you
with that alertness I do or do not hear anything.
You do not, it's very quiet.
Ryan is a snotty crier, right?
Like when you, when snotty, like.
definitely.
He's snotty when he's not crying.
Gross.
Yeah, not seeing anything.
I think I put my firearm slung back across my chest and I grabbed Ryan.
I'm like, I don't know what the fuck happened to you, but my God, I'm so glad you're alive.
Nobody's died.
Nobody's died on my team.
I'm not dead.
We need to get out of here.
Funny story.
The doc or Dr.
Carras, kind of a good guy, not really sure.
That's where we're holding up.
Will?
No, no, he found us and you would know that if you were where you were supposed to be and then I slap him in the face I'm like what the fuck happened to you Ryan?
Oh, excuse me.
um I don't know why you're slapping me, but I am completely innocent here.
was...
You ran away from me.
You left me.
And all of a sudden, a fucking swamp monster came out of the swamp towards me and I had to crawl my ass away.
I was saving my life.
You know, all right, maybe I was a little too harsh.
If I could take that slap back, I would, but I can't.
So you're just gonna have to live with it for now.
ah That's my frustration gift to you, but I'm also glad you're alive.
And then I'll start helping Agent Ryan to the ATV.
And Del's in really shoddy shape, but if we get back to him and get together, we could at least figure out what the fuck to do next.
Yeah.
yeah, I would like to see that, let's go.
You get on the ATV, start heading back, back at the cabin, Dell, you are alone in his living space.
What are you thinking you wanna do?
I am uh not moving first of all, but scanning for things that look like pockets of interest, right?
So if there was any sort of bizarre uh trinket or knickknack, if there was a book on the shelf that looked like it had been particularly worn, if there was a stack of papers that
looked
loose and accessible, those would be what I was hunting for.
I'm looking for uh something that looks like Karas references.
Often uh a book that has been heavily trafficked, a stack of loose papers, or something weird and unnatural.
Those are the three biggies.
His desk has papers all over it.
You would have to get up and walk over to it.
You can give it a shot.
You'll just need to give me a power roll or sorry, a con roll to attempt it.
And the bookshelf, it's kind of tilted away from you.
You'd have to go up to it and investigate it.
Alright, well it's gonna be con to do either of those I imagine, so I mean no time like the present.
It's obviously inadvisable, but like, what are we here to do if not investigate?
55 is the number and a critical success, I guess.
let's go.
Dang.
Okay.
Yeah, you said curiosity gets the best of us all.
It's getting the best of you and you're able to push through some pain and hunched over almost to the point of crawling, you get to the desk and start looking through the papers.
You have enough time, you're not pressured by time, so you don't need to roll a search.
But looking through them, it seems like there's...
scientific papers on different metals, specifically mercury.
There is a DNA analysis that is very technical.
I'm not sure exactly like what it means.
There are a few old photos of him.
Looks like him like at the desert with like groups of people.
And there is finally a
a piece of paper at the bottom that has a bunch of scrawled symbols on it.
And it's aged.
It looks fairly old, like he's been at it for a long time.
not like Torah aged, but like just he has worn it over time.
Yeah, it's been in and out of his pocket.
Here, I'll put it in Slack, or not Slack, but Discord.
these symbols do they look like they are of a similar font to what uh Arthur Finch had scrawled?
Absolutely.
Yeah, then I guess I am thinking more and more maybe that Agent Ryan might know something about this song and I am feeling a little foolish for not paying more attention when he
was rattling off all those little factoids sitting in that car.
It was just a fucking lot, man.
It was a lot.
Okay, uh the DNA analysis.
uh I understand that I cannot necessarily parse the science.
Does it seem as though I could determine what the subjects were, right?
Like, whose DNA are we analyzing, and for what, maybe?
Yeah, the way, let me see.
Let get you to roll for this one.
Go ahead and roll your occult.
Hmm, no, not even close.
Yeah, it's a little too cryptic for your eyes.
Like it's not adding up to you.
I imagine I'm also like a little flustered for time, right?
And this is no time to like try and actually read through an abstract.
It's just gonna be way too dense.
So yeah, I think my eyes flit over to em the door and make sure that Karas isn't coming back or whatever.
And then the bookshelf is probably my next stop.
you get to the bookshelf and what you're tacked with the bookshelf.
So you're just pulling books out, looking for specific books.
No, I'm looking for things that have been uh trafficked, right?
So places that he seems to refer to often or a heavily worn book, right?
So signs of tracks in the dust or what have you.
Yeah, that one will require a search, but also give me a look.
Okay.
Search says no, and the luck says no with a 51.
It doesn't say no, it says fuck you, actually.
Yeah, you're digging through, it's a simple bookshelf, but there is a lot of materials on here.
There's philosophy, there is biology, there's some military science or some biographies, there's history, any specific genre you would look for and go like diving.
have to imagine I failed this search on account.
There are too many big fucking words.
I gotta stop saying fucking this episode.
I imagine I failed that search on account.
There are too many big words on most of these.
So I'm gonna go for something that seems a little bit more manageable.
If there are any picture books with aliens in them or uh something that is a little bit more illustrative, we'll start there.
You're cruising through the spines and you do see a, it looks like an old binding of a book and it is just called Alien Encounters.
And there is a few books next to it as well that don't have any words on them at all.
They are just hard bound books.
Go ahead and roll me another look.
Yeah, lucky today, 17.
Okay, yeah, as you're pulling these books out, a photograph comes out between this alien book and the nondescript one and falls down to your feet.
I really wish I was quick enough to catch that because I'm gonna be wincing all the way down, but I was stupid.
Yeah, go ahead and give me an intelligence role.
where you guys learned my secret power.
86 no good
Okay.
The picture is old.
You see Karas in it and he is sitting with a group of different aged men.
They are at some site in the desert.
There is some makeshift tents and bunkers behind them and you just recognize Karas.
But the photo on the back,
has a date and that date is 1983.
m If I had to imagine Karras 15 years ago, how much do I think this affliction has aged him in the meantime?
It has aged him a lot.
he looks like he hits the golf course every day.
He looks pretty spry for a, know, he's in his middle ages, but upper middle ages at this point, but he is not gaunt.
He has a bit of a gut in fact.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't like that prognosis for myself, and I think that's ringing in the back of my head.
But I will pocket the photo on account of somebody's got to know who these men are.
I think I will return to the couch so as not to be conspicuous.
Perfect.
All right, you pull through the swamp you're cruising and you pull up to this just, I mean, it would be picturesque during the day, this cabin out in the middle of nowhere.
You hear the gentle hum of a generator somewhere around it and the lights are on through the front window.
You see the outline of maybe Dell shoulder with a rifle sticking up aimed at the door.
and you're able to get off and go inside.
Is that what you're doing?
So kind of weird.
ah This is home for the night.
Kuros has been nothing but nice to us.
We have some talking to do with him.
Come morning, but right now I think beggars can't be choosers and we're just gonna spend the night in the belly of the beast if that's all right.
I don't have any other options, so I plop myself off the ATV and start crawling up the steps to the cabin.
Okay, Ryan, don't have to, by God, you don't have to fucking crawl.
And I put his arm over and just practice that deadlift that I've done a bajillion times and like give him a bit of brace and help his chunky body up those stairs.
This chunky body.
250s around your max and that's what he's pushing.
you're, but you're able to deadlift him up and help him in Dell.
You see them come through.
You heard the ATV, you glanced out the window and saw it was them.
Anything you want to say to them as they come in?
the door comes open and I just yell, bang!
Did not tell you to watch your six.
No!
Fuck!
Del!
Sorry, I meant it.
We thought we'd be super loud and like, obviously it's me and talking to Ryan.
Oh, I found Ryan.
Ryan's safe.
He's not dead, so that's all three of us safe and home and sound and I walk him through the door.
And I'm like, I thought you said that was in bad shape.
Seems like nothing's changed to me.
no, he's a spry little kid, that's for sure.
No, he looks great, doesn't he?
And I turn around slowly with like eyes decently open like...
Hey doll, you look like me.
Yeah, he looks pretty tore up, especially around the chest area.
Agent Ryan, what do you reveal to Del about where you've been?
I don't offer information unless I'm asked about it.
So I just kind of dropped to the ground when Barone let's go of me and just kind of sit there and like warm my body a little bit after being out in the cold.
Yeah, for sure.
think I kind of drop you down to the to the couch, not the ground, because you're still very much my friend and teammate that is half alive.
ah And in doing so, uh I'll set you down and be like, well, tell you, Ryan here got ambushed as well somehow and crawled six miles all the way back to where I found him on
the ATV.
Isn't that right, Ryan?
And I turn around and look at Ryan with like a skeptical face.
Yeah, she also slapped me.
So there's that part too.
But yeah, I had to crawl quickly away because I was on the edge of the swamp.
And wouldn't you know it, those swamp creatures came back and tried to attack me.
And Barone left me.
I'm glad you're alive, but Barone left me and I had no choice.
So I had to crawl to safety on my own.
And luckily you guys had some pretty thick ATV tracks that I could follow to find you.
Yeah, man, those...
you fought off another assailant in the swamp all yourself?
You must have quite a story to tell.
I mean, I didn't do much to fight it off.
I just quickly crawled away back to the shore and went as far as I could and it didn't seem to follow me for some reason.
So.
that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
You quickly crawled back to the shore.
I did.
I'm a good crawler.
I know for a fact you can't even run a mile, you're not a quick anything.
Well, I don't know what to tell you.
I was able to survive the situation and get my ass halfway here.
So yeah.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
and I'll go grab that whiskey that was sitting on the counter and pour up a third one just to get a little sipper for everybody and I'll pass it around.
I'm to be like, well, here's to the team back together again.
And I'll hold it out for like a little cheers.
a lot of firsts for you on this uh operation, isn't it?
Yeah, yup.
Living the life.
nice good good burn and she pours the rest on down and sets it on the counter.
Well uh we have some talking to do with Karas.
He's searching for some stuff.
It's too much to figure out right now but you guys look comfy.
I will make a bed kind of there in the corner and I'll go in the corner kind of next to the door knowing that I'm the only healthy person and Karas' place is probably safe
enough.
But that's where I'll post up for the night, taking care of the team and making sure we're all safe.
will make sure to point out that uh Kharaz just waltzed off into the swamp when he said night night.
Wouldn't you have expected, doesn't he have a bedroom here?
Like I ain't been perusing the place, but where's he staying?
No, I'm sorry, what?
He just uh walked off and I'll kind of look out the front window.
I mean, I had no recourse.
I was in no state to go chasing after him, but yeah, he didn't offer any sort of explanation.
He just trudged off into the sunset.
Huh, alright.
And I will turn around to see if there's like any other doors like maybe Dell thought he did and he did it and he went in a different direction and I'll just kind of do a quick
search.
Yeah, give me either search or survival, because it's kind of a tracking too.
Yep, we did good, 15.
Great.
So you see, are you following like where you think he went outside?
gosh, yeah probably a little bit.
hang on, Del.
I'll be right back and I'll grab my firearm and uh yeah, I'll at least see which direction it went in for sure.
Yeah, you walk out, you see his tracks.
It's not like he's trying to cover them.
They lead about a hundred paces from the cabin.
And as you're walking, you stomp on what sounds like plywood with some dirt on it.
It's just sitting there and it sounds hollow under it.
it sounds hollow.
Alright, duck, I hope you don't mind me snooping a little bit and like just in like a normal voice I'll be like, forgive me for being thorough and I'll lift it just a little
bit.
Yeah, it lifts up and you see a ladder that goes down into darkness.
ladder into darkness.
uh Okay I...
nope that sounds ominous.
Oh snap.
What should I do?
Jordan, should I go in?
Dell is just spiritually thinking about the fact that he said that when Kharaz hears our motor coming that he's gonna run underground and he's feeling very validated and confused.
Is he a snake or isn't he?
I thought we were pretty good here.
I don't think you should go anywhere by yourself.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
All right.
If there's a little bit of push, I'd be like, no, you got me.
Okay, let's go down the ladder.
No, think safety is it.
And that's, that's funny.
I thought the exact same thing about being a snake underground.
I think I'll just take note of where that is, put the plywood back on down and go back and join my teammate.
That's teammates.
That's the most important thing in this moment.
between one person on the team being able to walk and zero people on the team being able to walk is a big difference.
Absolutely, for sure.
So I head back.
Beautiful.
back in here, Dell, are you sharing any of the pictures or papers you found or are you guys just headed to bed?
Well, no, I think I definitely do have questions for Ryan in particular about the nature of his discoveries in Finch's writings and specifically anything that would be akin to a
song.
in context of the paper you found or are you just keeping that to yourself?
Well, yeah, I'm not sharing a paper.
I'm just going to recount the fact that Karras was talking about being interested in researching the other half of this song and that uh Arthur Finch had maybe been on a lead
uh to something like that.
And that's really what he was most interested in.
And so I was just curious if uh Ryan could refresh my memory on the contents of uh Finch's writings.
Yeah, I do remember seeing, you know, some symbols scrawled here and there.
Couldn't really make any sense of, you know, what the meaning, you know, necessarily behind them was.
As far as songs, mean, most of the writings were just all over the place.
No rhyme or reason or, you know, anything song like.
that I can remember.
Yeah, these symbols, did they seem like a language?
Hmm, possibly.
Yeah, I mean, maybe it was something that he was, you know, doodling as he was communicating or taking that, you know, these drugs, something he was seeing on his own,
I'm not sure.
But there was no like, you know.
Like it didn't seem like there was any purpose to them.
It was just kind of like doodles on the edges of, you know, some of the writings of the papers and things like that.
Yeah, I imagine it was probably hard to figure out what was meaningful in all that slop.
Okay, well, um...
Yeah, I mean, I guess I will unfold the paper from Karas's desk and I will just ask if they happen to look anything like this.
Hmm.
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, I mean, maybe it's hard to say from, you know, just like my memory.
But yeah, it's possible.
mean, I wonder.
Because, yeah.
uh I think I was looking for that exact moment of realization or recognition to see if there was any sort of flash uh or a greediness even if that was in him.
Yeah, let's, so Agent Ryan, when you see the paper, upon first glance and scanning it, you have this.
oh
again, somatic subconscious connection to these symbols now.
And when you look at the paper, you realize that there's everything he needs here.
Like this is the entire cryptic, or sorry, this is the entire lexicon of symbols that he would need to.
finish this ritual in front of you.
If you wanna try to disguise any reaction to this, you can try, but it'll be a contested role.
So you would roll your charisma versus his humanant.
Okay, m I'm guessing my charisma's, it's 50.
It's not too bad.
Yeah, let's do it.
As well, fuck it.
27.
16.
ha ha ha.
God damn it.
but the higher number in a success, in a contested success takes the cake.
So Ryan is successfully able to mask the reaction on his face when he realizes that everything is here written down.
But that is curious to you, Ryan.
Because what they just told you is he was looking for something, right?
Like, why would he be looking for something else if he has everything he needs?
Maybe he doesn't know he has everything he needs.
So.
Yeah, do you say anything about this to Dell or Agent Brown?
No, I, you know, continue with my story of
kind of looks maybe, maybe, you know, symbols look like symbols to me.
And it is possible that some of these match what was in Arthur's drawings.
But yeah, I am curious as to why Cross wants this information for sure.
Yeah, and why he feels comfortable asking us for it as well.
Well, that might be my fault or to my credit.
I'm not really sure which one.
uh And as she's like, you know, making a little home for her, like by the front door and like starting to nest down a little bit.
Yeah.
So our mission here is to find out as much as we can about Majestic and Majestic's weapons and find Karos and silence him in one of two ways.
One being
Death the other one being he flips to our side Karas already wants to wants to die and exit this world and if If we can help him do that.
He is willing to be open with as much information as he possibly has I mean, I'm
what do you mean he wants to die and exit this world?
yeah, no, he wants to be that and I point over to the jar with the brain.
He wants to be that brain there in a jar for God knows what reason.
uh But if he wants to do that, which means he stops leaking and we get our information, I call that a win-win for the boogeyman.
so you wanna put his brain in that jar.
I'm not sure how to get to the resolution of this, but if he wants that and it stops him from being our enemy, then by all means, maybe if this, I can imagine something that does
that is maybe not 100 % about peace, so if it's of any danger, I'm more than happy to send a couple.
Bullets of lead straight through its body in some capacity whatsoever, but if it's no danger and leaves us alone, then, you know, maybe as the uneducated new teammate, maybe
it's the wrong call to say, let's find by all means.
Okay, well, mean, interesting.
I guess I'm looking forward to meeting him and talking to him more about this because, yeah, I don't know why anybody would just want to put their brain in a jar.
You know, I've learned to not ask too many questions and understand as little as humanly possible in a lot of situations here, so...
No, I don't know either.
Del, by the way, he's for sure a snake.
yeah, he is sleeping under the ground outside right now for sure.
I fucking knew it!
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I owe you a beer for that one.
That's that's on me
Yeah, when we get out of here, I'm getting one of those uh Mexican Cokes in the glass bottle.
Yeah.
I buy you one of those helmets with like two cups on it and we could just do like one Mexican Coke in each one and you could suck that sucker on down.
I like what you're slinging.
um
potion.
Yeah, um I am sure I had a pertinent thought, but it has escaped.
You still have the photo, but yeah, if you want you guys can also go to bed.
Yeah, it was about more information about the brain in the jar, right?
We contacted our agency and we sent some things back to be examined further.
And I recall that they know that we have the brain in the jar, but did we hand that off to get more intel on that as well?
No, we have that with us.
That's what he found in our backpacks and led him to be like, I know you're not just bird watchers doing the documentary.
So no, that's here and literally on the table next to us right now.
Okay, I think my inclination then would at least be to try and get contact with Butterfield before we either helped or hindered Karos uh to finish out his plan to
de-brain himself.
On account of, like, that sounds like an okay plan if this thing is entirely benign, but we have
only the idea that it is of significant importance and should never be let out of our sight.
So I'm not about to like go make in another.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean I'm open to either I figured we get it here and if it starts doing spooky dangerous stuff We just pump it full of lead, but I'm I'm perfectly fine with trying to
make contact and Doing a sit rep if you will
Headed to bed, talking about the photo, what's next?
Uh.
I guess, did you want to make that phone call right now?
we have a means to?
thought last time we went to the gas station.
We did.
Yep, no sat phone.
Yeah, so I surely do, I promise you that, but uh it seems like we're gonna have to sit tight.
I guess my inclination would be then to buy us time with Kharos before we do anything dramatic.
I mean, not like we can't do anything, just don't put the man's brain in a jar before we know what the heck that even means.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think though how we would get out of this swamp, away from this area, do that thing and come back.
That sounds like a lot of time.
think, I think as Barone, we are trusted agents to, and you know, are trusted to complete the mission at whatever cost.
I think we take it under our own power and do what we think is best.
That sounds fine and fair.
Was he talking about, like, doing this tomorrow?
Like, wake up and unzip his noggin?
You know, I am not sure about that.
I figure he probably wants to do it sooner than later and not gonna lie, Del, if I could get out of this swamp tomorrow, sooner, tonight, I absolutely would.
I never wanna see a swampy mosquito or smell this putrid smell ever again.
Yeah, no, I do get that.
guess if we could perhaps encourage him to do it later rather than sooner, that's all I was advocating.
Right, well I guess let's talk to him in the morning and figure it out then.
And I'm just kind of sitting on the couch just like listening to them have this conversation back and forth.
I have my own motivations in this and am thinking already about how to.
not stall this.
yeah, I'm just listening to you guys and then obviously haven't met this person yet, but I know what his motivations are and I understand what my motivations are and it seems like
they are in alignment.
so I again, feel kind of like on the outs as far as like what the next steps are.
and obviously can't like reveal what my you know agenda is so
Yeah, um.
kids.
um
think I will, you know, seeing that we have kind of decided that next steps are to be taken tomorrow, I will just give kind of a flippant, like, well, good night, and I will
casually toss the photo of Kharos onto the little table in between us, and I will roll over to go tonight.
Anybody grabbing the photo taking a look?
If it's within reach and I can get to it while still pretending to be very injured, then yes, I, yeah.
Roll your intelligence times five.
Intelligence is 80.
16.
You look at the photo, scan it with some time looking at it.
There is a young man right to Karas's left, a young Butterfield by your estimation.
It looks exactly like him if he were just coming into his career potentially.
Can you roll San?
Okay.
Nope, 77.
Okay, roll me a D4.
Yeah, let me get that out.
and I got a two.
Okay, you lose two Sanon unless you wanna project.
my God, have low saline as it is.
I will fuck it, I'll take it.
I'm gonna take it, cause I'm crazy.
You're also low on willpower, so projecting would potentially put you in a psychotic state, but yeah.
is true.
That is very true.
If I'm not already there, right?
you realize that this is Handler Butterfield next to Keras.
Is there any indication in the photo of like when this was taken at all or what the context of the photo is?
It's about 15 years ago on the back.
And are they like chummy chummy, like Trump Epstein next to each other?
Or is it a different type of relationship photo?
No, it looks like one of those group photos of a project, right?
Where maybe they were working on something and somebody was like, let's take a group of all the people at the dig site or the whatever site.
So, but they are standing next to each other.
So they used to work together is what I'm gathering, right?
Yes, right?
Seems like it.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
just cause I'm curious.
He didn't, he didn't, Butterfield didn't tell us about this.
he, uh, presented carossus like this new person.
don't know anything about.
He wasn't like this one guy I used to work with, right?
He made it seem like Arthur Finch was the only reason he knew of Kerasa's existence.
Sneaky cat snake.
I mean, he does not have to tell us shit, but yeah.
Okay, well then this makes me extra curious about what Butterfield will say once we call with our update.
If we call with our update.
Yeah.
Off to bed?
Are we doing like any watches?
Is everybody just going to sleep?
Feeling safe?
What are you thinking?
I'm sleeping right next to the door and I think ah I'm pretty much like put my foot in front of the door so when that opens it hits my foot and I am up and awake but I mean I
have taken a beating I'm just as tired as everybody else so I need some sleep too man or I'm not I'm not nothing's getting better
Sounds good.
Barone and Dell, can you roll me a con roll as you're sleeping?
87 no good.
48, success.
Del, you are feeling extremely hungry.
This thing inside of you is needing to be fed.
Like you just know it.
You're very paranoid and pessimistic about this thing already, but it's a type of hunger you've never felt.
Barone, you also feel extremely hungry, like uncharacteristically hungry like you were in the hotel room before.
you are able to steel yourself against it and still get some sleep.
Okay, great.
And when he pulled out those, when uh the doc pulled out those capsules, did he leave those on the counter by chance and leave those with us or did he take it with him?
He left them on the counter, they're capsules that are in, like they're just capsules in a white bottle.
There's no prescription label or anything.
I mean, yeah, I assume this is he ground up metal and put them in capsules himself.
I don't think there's like, it's not a corner for big pharma.
I don't think so.
Yeah, that tracks that totally makes sense.
Yeah, I think the first thing in the morning, I'm gonna probably go go grab that.
But all right, great.
I will uh smash my stomach, give myself a little punch, shut up in there, and then try to get some sleep.
Del, what are you doing to satiate this as you're trying to sleep?
Yeah, I'm tossing and turning and I'm not really liking this uncomfortable sensation.
I have to imagine I've been on a lot of watches where bodily functions could not be attended to and this is like a different kind of gnawing.
And I look at the bullet in the whiskey glass and it sounds really good but I am not going to
uh Allow anything that has come into contact with alcohol to enter my mouth And I am going to Just like quietly mutter to the room anybody else feel like a hot meal and I'm gonna
take my Pistol and I'm going to shove it down into the couch.
I'm going to Wrap a blanket around it.
I'm going to fire a single shot into the back of the uh the couch
and then I'm going to swallow the hot shell casing.
What the actual fuck, Del?
What is- what's happening?
And I'll sit up with my rifle, like, ready to go.
What are you shooting at?
Are you crazy?
Yeah.
I don't know what the hell is going on because nobody told me about like what happened to Dell.
And so I'm like, my God, why are you shooting your gun?
And I'm like, I like go to reach for my own gun and I'm like dropping it because I was deep asleep when this happened.
Yeah, the shooting of the gun becomes very secondary as I take that spent shell casing and I just start to like bite down on it and compress the walls in my mouth.
And I'll just say...
Price of living, I suppose.
I don't really know what to make of it, but apparently we got something inside of us now and they're hungry.
I mean don't say us, don't be a snitch, Del.
Ryan, kind of weird.
We're not aliens per se, but we definitely have uh metal-eating tiny monsters inside of us and it makes us all normal humans still also.
We just need to eat metal once in a while and I think I'll be fine, perfectly fine, but Del for sure would have been dead if we didn't do that.
So hey, there's the update.
uh No guns for no guns for anybody else and I'll walk around and I'll fucking grab Everybody's guns out of their hands.
I'm like no no for you.
No for you.
You guys are going crazy And I'll start walking back towards the door
You know, okay, but Del, there's an easier way to get a bullet out of your gun.
Just saying, you don't have to shoot it.
So if you want to eat bullets, fine.
You know, everything's fucking weird now, so whatever.
But can you just, you know, not shoot a gun to get a bullet out of it, please?
Thank you.
They only come out of my gun one way and I'm not gonna eat the gunpowder.
That shit'll give you cancer.
Right, fair.
uh not gonna lie, I maybe peed a little when you scared me awake, but uh that was pretty badass.
That was pretty cool.
Also, no guns.
So no more of that.
Also pretty cool, Del.
uh Go to bed.
imagine that you're feeling really good about the fact that you have a reason to take Dell's gun away from him that he will actually not fight you on this time because when you
were sleeping by the door, he had already gone to sleep with that rifle pointed at the door and his finger is sure twitchy when he sleeps.
no, I didn't even think about that.
All right, so with the bullet, can now get a Knight's Rest.
Everybody give yourself a D6 of willpower points back if you've spent willpower, and then you can take one hit point each.
So roll a d6 and whatever you get, you get that back in willpower.
Of course I roll a one.
Cool.
got a healthy plus four.
I'll take that.
And then what did you say?
We get what else?
Hit points.
Just one hit point back.
Okay.