As I turn around in that thick ponytail braid, flipping to my back as I turn, and I'm like, so doctor, um you were mentioning the symbiote for the lack of better word, that's.
Now inside him needs to be fed.
as a caregiver for a short period and maybe an educator, once we get out of here, can you tell me a little more about, um, about what he needs, when, why, anything.
Well, I haven't seen an infection from the swamp things.
I think the verdant path, folks.
And so I'm not quite sure, but it's definitely a different strain from what I have.
m But some heavy metals here and there when he's hungry should...
Okay, there probably will be no cure, but I'm hoping that the sodium I put in his system kills most of it But my guess is it was a little late for that usually have about 48 hours
from what I've seen but His case is more severe he'll just need to eat metal like I would Recommend
Mercury in small doses and taking lead and grinding it down and putting it into capsules.
There are uh plenty of strategies to give him a long life, but just know, m depending on who you are and who your connections are, he will be haunted.
We are, for lack of a better term, special in a way that scares.
lot of the powers that be out there.
What do mean, uh, hunted?
Hunted by the powers that be, if you will, but like, not a police officer.
Is it the Boogeyman?
Who?
Well, I couldn't help myself and I had to know which boogeymen you are.
So I dug through your duffel out on the ATV and saw your weaponry.
um My guess is you know exactly what type of boogeymen I'm talking about.
oh I bring that to you with no offense or judgment.
um There are...
various unnatural things out in the swamp that attract people of your kind, my kind, those who study, those who kill.
um And it seems like you're the killing type.
If you weren't here for me and you were here for them, what were you going to do to them?
Well, story about that.
I don't truly know.
Your uh shot in the dark at me being the killy type is half true, I suppose.
uh I kill when I need to, but realistically, if I don't have to, I'm just here for the ride and the education a bit.
um So it sounds like, and pardon me for not being, you
forthwith with this information I...
walking into this place I didn't know if you would pull a gun out and shoot me right in the head anyways it seems like you and I have come to some type of balance and nobody's
necessarily after the other person and we're both here uh learning like uh I mentioned but...
Right, um so you being the studying type, uh what exactly are you studying out here?
Well, there are creatures who are attracted to areas like this.
That swamp is, I guess, soaked in mercury, and it attracts types of beings, and I think they at one point were here and left their cultures in the swamp, and it's been infected.
with them before any of us were alive.
That's why I'm here, is to study those cultures, because my infection, while not m from the swamp, was some years ago at a previous employer.
And I just spent some time searching and searching around areas that were heavy in copper, lead, and mercury.
when I finally found this area and the...
I hate to call them creatures, but they are creatures at this point, but the people who live in the swamp.
Yes, yes, the burden path.
They were a cult at one point.
m And I just decided to study and figure out what was infecting me and...
That's when I found balance with it by studying the cultures in the area and trying to balance them with what was in me.
And I found a balance between those cultures and the lead that I take.
Alright, so information seeking through and through.
As you know, I am part of the Boogeyman.
uh At least one of them.
It sounds like this information that you're gleaning and pushing and pulling for.
uh You're not hesitant about sharing.
Why is that?
Well, um, I...
I knew who I was employed with and I knew that I would be burned if anything like this happened.
I guess you can call me old and a little disillusioned and cynical about that whole process, but my end is near and I guess I don't care anymore.
Is there a timeline on, and she turns around and looks at Dell, on Dell as well.
Oh, no, no, my end is near by choice.
can hopefully live a long life when he glances over.
um That's his name, Del.
Okay, thank you.
I was wondering who I was treating, but I didn't want to invade his privacy.
No, no, no, I am choosing my end as I see fit.
um But my timeline has been extended.
for lack of a better term.
Not by my choice, though.
What?
Well that's ominous.
What do you mean by that?
Uh, well, I was working with another...
It's hard to call him a researcher, but he's gone dark on me.
He was getting data from me and trying to find some...
Well, I guess um something I was missing um for my end.
missing for your end so you need help to bring your story to a close?
I was looking for it.
And is this, why I guess is the reason.
Question.
My end is a tapestry or a puzzle and I've only got one piece of that tapestry in this swamp and I believe he was close to the other.
Alright, well, I guess information is a give and take type bit, isn't it?
And I'll take my gloves off and tuck them in my pocket and I'll walk up right in front of them and put my hand out for a handshake.
And I'll be like, my name is uh Morgan Barone, agent Morgan Barone, and I put my hand out for a handshake.
Yeah, he shakes your hand back, his touch is cold, and you get a better look at the tinge of his skin.
It does have a jaundice-type yellow with purplish veins under it.
Alright, well there's a bit of information and then I'll pull up a chair and flip it around backwards and sit on it with my legs coolly draping over the top, er, not legs, my
elbows coolly crossed and draping over the, yeah, just kick them up, fuck it, let's, hey, we're best friends now, whatever.
This is uh fine.
um
god he as you as you do that he says well, I
I have a sneaking suspicion that those creatures weren't who you're here for.
I believe you are actually here.
And you know me.
Or by name at least.
Are you here for me?
Honestly, yes, pretty much.
ah I would be lying if I said I wasn't relieved that this didn't turn into another bloodbath and we could actually just sit here and talk like, like people.
I may be decidedly uneducated on a number of things and you're willing to share what is in your head there.
So I am all ears.
I don't have much more to share about my story.
I've told you what I can, em but your story ends here, but there's a way you can walk away from this without extinguishing my flame.
Hmm, that's a good question.
We were told our mission is to take care of the problem.
Bring him to our side.
those were pretty much our two options handed down by our handler, correct?
Okay, okay.
Del is still decidedly unconscious.
Can Del hear me talking right now?
Still, give a willpower roll, or sorry, a pow times five.
That's got to be close.
How to have 565, yeah.
All right, you can hear through the veils of your comatose reality, this conversation, the revealing of his unnatural, um I guess, his unnatural.
bent towards the world.
Feels a little disgusting as you hear it.
It's a little perverted, but you get the sense that he has saved your life, so it doesn't cause you too much anxiety.
uh I think that in this comatose state, like while the words are coming through, it's almost like in a dream where you can incorporate some of the features around you, right?
And so I was um in a long past memory where I was going through a drive-through to get a double cheeseburger for my dog in the passenger seat and all of a sudden,
you know, after the attendant had just taken my money, she starts speaking to me um about these extra planetary goings-ons.
And it doesn't make sense, but it does make sense as we are just standing there and her microphone is kind of like, you know, cascading static about the Dr.
Pepper that's being ordered behind us.
And it's very surreal, but I am starting to be able to kind of piece together what is of that world and of this world.
Beautiful, love it.
Yeah, you are hearing the dialogue through that medium and sitting in a forever long drive through just hearing their voices through the PA system.
Let's go back to Agent Ryan.
No, okay, great.
Agent Ryan, this swamp creature has lifted in front of you and has said hello to you.
Do you respond or do you just stand in awe?
stand off for a moment and then I say hi?
Yeah, the croaky voice feels like it's recalibrating.
It hums a little bit.
like,
strange, um no affect to it at all, and starts to stabilize through that humming.
It says, you sang the song.
oh
What do you need?
I need to know what you are.
Yeah, it pauses.
Do we know what you are?
Brian Dwyer, this is you.
Yes, that's me.
We know it is you.
And you want to know us.
Yes.
Will you help us?
What does that mean?
What does that entail?
There was a time when you helped us before, but your help was insufficient.
Will you help us again?
I will help you.
It opens another slit in reality and one of the tendrils comes out and pulls out a empty brain jar much like the one you saw before and it hovers in front of it.
the swamp creature croaks a little bit.
Would you, oh shit, you can hear that?
Okay.
Yeah, it's just a dude just like going.
I could hear it too, but I wasn't sure because I can't hear like my...
It's probably both of us to be honest.
It's probably mostly me though, right?
Great, all the time.
just gonna look and see what it is real quick.
Yeah, sure, we could give it a sec.
We have like these older neighbors that he'll like basically just blow everything from his yard into the road and leave it.
Just, yeah.
And it's like, that's just gonna blow into my yard.
Yeah.
have no trees in our yard yet we have all these tree leaves.
Yeah, I think it's Don, though.
Yeah, that guy.
Yeah, it's definitely Don.
He's a character for sure.
Yeah, sorry guys.
think he stopped.
No.
He's like riving it up right now.
He's like, nyeh nyeh nyeh.
mouth right now too.
That's a power move before 10am my time on a Saturday.
Cigar.
mowed, oh, the cigar, yeah, for sure.
He'll be like walking down the street doing like calisthenics, but he has like a giant cigar like hanging out of his mouth.
I know, he's classic.
He's awesome.
He's lived in this house for like 30 years or something.
He like knows this neighborhood real well.
It's funny.
Okay.
Nope.
Oh, doll.
can't hear it anymore.
it just started back up.
My bad.
Yeah, I really wanted to know what the brain jar ask was.
Fucking Dawn.
Excuse me, Dawn.
um We're in a pivotal moment in our podcast.
An alien is handing me a brain jar.
Do you mind just turning off the leaf blower for a minute?
You could just make a canon pivot and send Ryan to go collect Dawn's
Yeah, it's a good brain probably.
He's still going at it.
turn down my gain and then get really close.
Yeah, is there no way to like, I don't know, cut the background noise and editing?
You can, it's just if I'm talking over something like that, like while I talk, it'll definitely be there.
So can you still hear it with my game down a lot?
ah Can you mute yourself, Christina?
Yeah, yeah
talk.
Yo yo yo yo, I am talking.
Can you hear me or am I too quiet?
no, you're perfect.
Nick, can you mute yourself and Christina?
We'll try you now.
Hello?
I think that's good.
I think we're good.
I think he actually stopped too, so right on cue.
Yeah, I'll keep it down for now.
This wriggling creature has pulled out what you know as the brain jar and set it right in front of you.
It is floating in the air and the swamp creature, sorry, Christina, can you mute yourself?
I can hear myself.
There you go.
Brain Jar sits there in front of you, an invitation almost.
The swamp creature starts to jiggle, almost like in excitement, and its mouth opens and it says, to help, you must come with us.
To come with us and survive the pressure of our world.
This will be your new vessel.
You can take some time to think about it, but you, this is a big choice in front of you.
m
I'm thinking a lot about.
you know, what I would be leaving behind, obviously.
um I've never been super fond of my physical being in this world.
um So leaving, you know, that part behind while unimaginable, I don't have a super huge attachment to it.
I am...
considering, I mean, my sanity has gotten to the point, I think, where I am more likely to accept this new existence rather than.
you know, except and accepting all of the consequences of the people in my world, including Barone and Dahl and what this might do to the mission, but also, you know, the
bonds that I have back home thinking and weighing these things.
You're asking me to put my brain in this thing?
You cannot put your own brain in this thing.
I will remove your brain, open the cylinder and put it in there.
Brian cannot do this by yourself.
Okay.
um
I'm gonna need a minute.
Think about this.
Ryan needs a minute to think about this.
Ryan, your time is very different from ours.
A minute is 60 seconds.
Okay, I mean, it's a figure of speech.
I may need a few 60 seconds.
Ryan Dwyer is not being precise.
We do not understand.
Can Ryan Dwyer please be precise?
Brian Dwyer needs a...
Some time, I don't know what the precise amount of time is to think about whether I would like for you to put my brain into this vessel.
Ryan Dwyer needs an imprecise amount of time to think about this.
Ryan Dwyer, you know the song and the words, your words to bring us.
Yes, I will think about this and uh sing out the words when I have an answer for you.
Ryan Dwyer does not make us wait too long.
We see.
but we are confused why you called us at this time.
Where would you be taking me in this new vessel of yours?
to where we call home.
Home is where a person on earth lives, correct?
This would be the place where you could say, we live.
And would this become my new home?
Ryan Dwyer would exist and he spins the empty vessel around here in this home, in our home.
Ryan Dwyer would not enter this home here again.
Okay.
um
What if I say no?
You brought us here.
You sung to us.
We require something from you for coming.
Ryan Dwyer does not have to return home with us, but we need to bring something home with us.
Okay, and a different brain.
This is a human biological term brain.
Yes.
The human exists in this piece of the biology.
We require the human part of the biology that the human exists in.
Yes.
Okay, I will think about it and...
Ryan Dwyer's thoughts exist where Ryan Dwyer exists.
Thinking about it is an uncertain statement.
We require certainty or we take you now.
Oh, I will give you uh the human biology that you seek one way or another.
This is certainty and we required certainty.
are satisfied with this certainty.
But if Ryan Dwyer does not give us the certainty we require, Ryan Dwyer is our certainty.
Does this make sense to you?
Uh-huh, yep, locked and loaded.
I mean, yes, it makes sense.
Do you require anything else of us while we are here?
How much time do you require for me to give you this delivery?
Ryan Dwyer has a limited amount of time inside of his brain.
when your time is up is when your time is up.
But we require this in a term which you would call soon.
Can you be more precise, wise one?
Give me units of measurement to be precise with.
Time is not something.
The human equivalent of 24 hours is desired.
Rindwire, please define what 24 hours means.
One full day in human time.
One full Earth spin in our universe.
Great.
We will watch your Earth's trajectory to understand more what you mean.
Please, please, please, please.
Okay, we require three of those spins before we come to take the certainty of rind wire.
Okay, uh okay, thank you for giving me extra time.
You sung the song.
Yes.
If that is all you require of us, that is all we require of you.
oh
Do I need to return to this location to sing the song, or uh can I sing this song from anywhere on my planet?
Your planet was once mined, almost dry, by us.
Your metals are not sufficient to draw us, but in some places they are.
This, what you call area of your planet, is sufficient.
Okeydokey.
Understood.
I don't believe I require anything else from you at this time.
The swamp creature goes slack in front of you and slops to the ground, uh completely dead.
And the slit opens up again and this thing slides back into it, almost like a reverse birth.
And it closes, but the purple light remains as it flies to the other two that are floating behind it.
And they both...
start to rise to the sky like some perverted angels going back to heaven and you are laying there at this point on the ground.
Go ahead and roll your sand for me again.
I don't know how I cannot sever something.
63 is the number we're looking at and I got 41.
Okay, you still lose one from the unnatural and tell us what do you do from here?
Uh, shit, my pants.
Um...
sit there and weigh the gravity of the situation for a bit.
I realize this is quite a conundrum that I have ahead of me.
There is a brain of some sort that I need to get into this jar in three days time, whether that be mine or somebody else's.
I also
can't just run around town advertising this.
And I slip the jar into my fanny pack.
And I start to walk back towards the shore.
I mean, I'm at the shore, but even further back to the path.
And.
just kind of start wandering a little aimlessly back towards that boardwalk area.
um
just kind of trying to get a grasp on what the fuck I'm gonna do.
Yeah, as you're thinking these thoughts and reflecting on this unnatural experience, you have very little willpower left to push on, but you do see um some very defined ATV tracks
um by the boardwalk exit.
Yeah, so we cut back to you in the cabin.
You are sitting there with your arms on a stool engaging with, you know, seemingly your mark.
um Any other questions for him as he seems a little open?
So many.
Yeah, absolutely so many.
uh Karas.
So, as you know, uh the Boogeyman has ways of sorting situations and they send people like me and Del here, really with a task to do one of two things.
Get them to turncoat and help us and be an asset or silence them.
I may be a bit...
empathetic for this job but at the same time it sounds like you are attempting to silence yourself I think we might be able to bend those rules a little bit and not report exactly
how the silencing happened and I um would be open to brokering a deal I have questions and information that I would love
to collect and hear from you and in trade for that, I think I would be open to helping you find your end.
Did I misunderstand anything that you've said?
oh No, did not misunderstand anything.
um I'm willing to work with you.
I just don't think you have what I need.
Okay, yeah, great no, uh Let's let's start there.
What what do you need you you mentioned that um?
Somebody was was looking for that.
uh I assume your contact was Finch just laying it all out there What was Finch searching for for you?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, yeah
Okay, so...
Did you silence Arthur?
that's a good question.
I didn't, and I kind of knew what happened there as an Asian.
I guess I would have been informed by that, correct?
Harcell exclusively protested the silencing of Arthur Finch.
If Arthur Finch was silenced, it was not by our hand.
I'm gonna say exactly that.
If Arthur Finch was silenced, it was not by our hands.
No.
Okay, I will have to trust you on that.
He was a good friend.
We met at a conference and exchanged information, but he had...
He had information for me that he was never able to send on.
was some symbols that I needed to complete my work.
and I never received those symbols.
uh
Symbols?
Okay, you're talking like, uh, runes to complete a ritual.
Do you...
Are you not able to die without some sort of ritual?
I have been preparing my vessel to exit it.
Again, I apologize for not being as forthcoming as I could be, but I also noticed you have one of these vessels in your duffel.
I am preparing myself for that vessel.
Okay, uh you are getting to one of the very next things that I would like help with and I go ahead and go to my backpack that I had set kind of down by Dell that has been on my
back um and I go ahead and take the vessel out and carefully place it on an empty countertop.
Yeah, great.
So step number two of this trust fall, if you will, is what?
Is this...
this is the vessel?
uh In form?
Yeah, tell me.
Where did you find it?
So you remember that church that we met at um to meet up with ATVs.
It was in there.
The uh church itself was strange and uh a lot seemed to revolve around it.
uh The curiosity bit the shit out of the cat on that one and we went right in.
uh I was drawn to the floorboards and this was buried uh underneath the floorboards.
Did I ship off the...
um
rolls of paper that had all the stuff on it or did I just take pictures and send the pictures?
you ship them off.
I did ship them off.
Okay.
Ah, shit.
Now I wish I had everything.
well, so in our first op, I put in a request for us to get a Polaroid instead of a camera that would have to be developed.
Is there any chance that we Polaroid did some of the Torah script?
Sure.
Okay, great, awesome.
we, lo and behold, can't tell the future, right?
uh We sent that off for informational process, we sent off a Torah for informational prophecy that came with this.
I don't have that now.
I wish I was any more help, but we do have these and I'll take the Polaroids out and kind of show them what was accompanying this.
It was with it under the church floor, so.
It was all packaged together.
I don't...
he looks at it.
um Yes, I am not quite sure what it says.
I've never encountered this um script before.
I have sifted through that church, but it, Well, the nature of it was very disturbing to me, so I didn't spend too long there.
I guess I should be more blunt in my scientific endeavors.
That's what my colleagues have always said.
But, uh sorry I cannot read this for you.
But the vessel.
I was more just trying to provide information more than anything else.
But yeah, yeah, back to the vessel.
We believe that, um...
Well, I think that this vessel will, with my preparation and the metals I've consumed, will be the right place for me in the future.
What?
Um...
The right place, okay.
Is this place...
I mean, I just assumed it was some sort of death pact.
Does...
you want to become a...
a uh brain in...
one of these?
And do you want to be, and I point out that the brain...
did like...
like swapped with that one?
Who is that?
Do you know who that is?
don't, but I encountered some writings earlier in the century um about this specific one, which is what drew me here originally.
And those writings express that this verdant path, or what became the verdant path, um once the settlers moved in, they found this and they
believe began to worship it at some point.
The details are foggy, but it was enough to get me exploring here.
Do...
I do not know what becomes of me in this other than I will transcend this painful existence I have in this body.
and be freed from it.
And whether that brings some sort of conscious death or unconscious death, I welcome it because ah I want to transcend this experience.
You look at his face as he's explaining this.
You've clocked him as very rational and deliberate in his help of Del.
This is also rational and deliberate, but in a very insane way.
Like this man, now that you're listening to him, he must be insane.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, um, clearly he is insane.
think right now, uh measuring his sanity and judging that is not like I need what he knows and I need to get it from him.
And I think, you know, flowing with the current of his sanity in this point in time, fine, great.
Let's do it.
And in, in thinking that he's like, okay.
or she's like, uh, okay.
That's a lot, well above my understanding, but I think, I'm willing to step out on that ledge.
and, um, you know, consider this a gentle woman's pact of I will help you if you can help me just a little bit more.
One thing that's been bugging us and me specifically.
You mentioned in your email um that Arthur was uh holding a scalpel that belongs to surgeon that he cannot see.
What did you mean by that?
He was involved with uh little green men, as I call them, puppets.
They seem intelligent on the surface, but they go inactive from time to time and they hibernate, which was always curious to us.
The more I started to study them and understand them, the more I felt that there was a puppeteer behind them.
The brains were strangely structured and, well, give me a second.
He goes to his desk and starts digging through a small stack of organized papers and he hands it to you.
If you're looking for something for your superiors, um bring them this.
And he gives you a document.
the document is titled Genomic Analysis Addendum 7b Comparative Genomic Analysis Homo sapien baseline to EBE type 1 slash gray.
um As you're reading this document, the conclusion reads that
There is a prevailing hypothesis now that the grays represent a discrete extraterrestrial species and that hypothesis is flawed.
uh All evidence suggests that these were built by some sort of servitor race manufactured using terrestrial human DNA as clay.
And there are two DNA sequences that are slightly different below.
You see...
I can see this as, as you're reading, can tell it's setting in, but we believe that those creatures, much like the ones in the swamp, are us.
Changed and created for a purpose beyond our understanding, but I believe that this jar comes from our, comes from their puppeteers.
Okay, alright, so it's...
They're not...
They're made of us but not by us, by something bigger that also is tied to this jar.
My head is literally drowning uh in information and I mean, I'm a simple driver in most capacities.
uh I think that's enough information for now.
uh
Do you have a place where I could rest and digest a bit of this?
Or maybe pull out a chair or something to lay on next to Dell as he recovers a little bit.
And maybe some coffee or whiskey.
Oh, well, I do have some whiskey.
um It's in the kitchenette there.
I will pull out a cot and make it up for you if you want to help yourself.
um
and I will try to get some rest too.
Great, great.
Yes, uh speaking of whiskey and she walks over the kitchen and uh starts helping herself, man, she's just looking for those glasses.
Would you like a couple fingers as well?
it, uh, yes, sure, but I will have to put some iron in it and I'll have to grab some from my uh workshop.
Yes, sounds good.
Go for it and I'll reach for the glasses and start...
um Start dishing out that brown.
Agent Sandusky, can you make a con save and a power save times five?
Yeah, but I am surprised that his drink of choice isn't Goldschlager.
Zing.
Alright.
45 on the con, that'll do.
And the other one was a wheel power.
we're rolling in it today.
43 is also going to succeed.
Barone, you are getting your whiskey.
You hear a cough and you hear Sandusky say something.
What do you say, Agent Sandusky?
It's not over.
It can't be over.
Fuck Dell!
And I'll set the whiskey glasses down on the counter, abandon, and sprint over, you know, the six steps it takes to get across from him.
Holy shit, you're okay!
uh How many fingers am I holding up?
And I'm like...
Yeah, I think I think I kind of like was backpedaling into like the arm of the couch still in kind of like fear mode a little bit, right?
My eyes are not focused on anything.
And as you are charging toward me, it is more alarming than anything.
But as you stop it like right there is kind of like a you know, bracing for impact or like maybe like a southpaw you see coming up to like meet your chin.
But yeah, as you start holding up fingers.
um I'm gonna try and steady myself and bring myself back to reality.
I have no earthly sense of where I am.
We are still on earth, aren't we?
Well yeah, story about that.
We're definitely on Earth and you wouldn't guess it, but I found somebody as well.
Keras is here.
yet and I'm going to uh put my hand in my waistband and start fumbling for a pistol.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, it's okay, it's okay, it's...
Trust me, my guy, if uh it were a danger in this exact moment, it would have been taken care of.
Believe it or not, I don't know if he's good or bad, but he's definitely hasn't killed us yet and there's been zero threats.
If anything, he's helped you a little bit.
And she points at your chest wound.
Yeah, I will touch a finger to it and taste it and see if it tastes spoiled or anything.
If it doesn't seem like there is any sort of active infection, maybe I will lower my guard a little bit.
Trust isn't something I have in spades, but I guess if we come this far...
mean, spare a little, but...
I...
I sure have a story for you.
Hmm.
Uh, yeah, well, give it a minute.
I feel more like a sieve than a bowl these days.
I'm not sure I can contain anything you got to tell me.
Well, I think you should at least try and contain some water and I'll go and fetch him a glass of water.
as I am taking uh a drink, there is a wince because you can see that there is a slight dribble where, like, my incisor had pierced through my cheek when I had bit through it.
There is, like, a little pinkish dribble that runs through my beard and down onto my shirt, but, like, we're mostly okay.
My man, you are not wearing a shirt, but you see that dribble down onto the bandages that are on your body.
And as you look down at yourself and the size of the bandage and you gonna have to give me a sanity roll.
Yeah.
45 what's our current what we working with 56 no biggie I expected to see a crater the fact that it's still like convex feels pretty good
Yeah, you are able to hold it together and you both hear footsteps outside and a hunched man comes through the front door, which was a jar already holding a few capsules, it looks
like, in his hand and looks over to you, Del, and smiles and we all graced with some luck today
Agent Ryan, you stand alone in the sudden profound silence of the swamp.
The purple lights fade from the sky, leaving you in the mundane darkness of the night.
The terrible buzzing hymn of the cosmos that filled your mind is gone.
It's quiet and there isn't a bug or a cicada sound.
I'm gracing your ear.
But you may be changed by this.
Can you give me a sand roll?
Yes.
007, look at me, special agent.
All right, you still lose one SAN from this profound experience, especially processing that this thing potentially wants to put your brain in a jar.
You came out as an investigator, an observer, somebody trying to find something and you did find something.
And in finding this, you have now made a successful transaction that you will have to pay your side of eventually.
What do you do next?
I stand up and kind of brush myself off a little bit as much as that can be after like waiting in like muddy water.
um But more just like kind of gathering my head a little bit like what just happened and what do I do next?
I think I'm...
just kind of like kicking myself a little bit, but also like I got it, I only have three days.
gotta get busy here.
And I know that um Dell is in bad shape.
And so I'm like, okay, I need to like go find Dell and Barone and like see what's going on there.
So I start to make my way back to the path.
to see if I can see them or, yeah.
Go ahead and make a survival check as you're walking back.
Survival, looking for 50, got 13.
You see incredibly well-defined ATV tracks going off towards the town.
You could easily follow them if you wanted to.
Is that the path you're taking for sure?
yeah, I am.
I am taking that path.
So we will cut back to the agents in the cabin.
Dell, you've just woken up.
What are some initial thoughts in this alien place for you?
I mean, I'm looking around to see what kind of things he must keep in jars or like, you know, if this couch is made of like flayed skin or just generally like what a snake man
would keep in his house.
Yeah, you can give me a quick search if you want.
Do I ever.
67, that's a real quick search.
Yeah, your vision's a little blurry still.
You're feeling a little dizzy as you sit up.
Things are coming in and out of focus, in fact.
So it just looks like a cozy little cabin with a kitchenette and a small desk and some bookshelves.
Yeah, I mean, I think maybe like you know when you like fall out of a dream and you are kind of like startled awake and You are ready to spring into action.
I think there is kind of that kind of like well I need to get my bearings about me.
I need to prepare for danger, but it's Kind of disarming and maybe that's even a little bit more disorienting right like just not at all what I anticipated falling into So I will
quietly try to Yeah
bring my senses together.
Yeah, give me a power roll times five.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Looking for a 65.
We all right.
Okay, yeah.
You pay attention to your body for one second and realize that it would be tough for you to even stand up at this point and walk.
You are still in quite a bit of pain.
You're not obviously incapacitated anymore, but it is tough to even move and thinking about standing up even makes you dizzy.
Yeah, I think those initial flinches were already uh regretted as I kind of like am trying to settle against my best instincts here.
Yeah, Kuros walks straight up to you from outside and puts a hand on your forehead and then checks your pulse.
Doesn't ask permission just as touching you and he's counting.
I look up at him while he's putting his hand on my head and I just give him a little tongue flick.
I understand that I may not be popular among whatever organization has sent you, but I did save your life, so let me continue to keep you alive.
Yeah, I can imagine you think of that as a mercy.
I'm not so sure.
But, um, for now, I do appreciate that.
And I'll tell you what, Del, I would probably say that I'm better with you here than without.
So welcome back to the land of the living, my friend, and I pat him on the shoulder.
Yeah, great.
Glad I could help.
Well, yeah, sure, yeah, definitely.
Also, um slight update, you're an alien now.
You gotta find a better way to pitch that.
You know, there's not.
There's not a better way.
That's just what you are now.
And I'm sorry, but you could not be here and I had a choice and now you are here and I'm fine with that choice.
Dr.
Cross, you want to chime in here for a second, please?
When you said you saved me, what exactly did you save?
Well, excuse me, um you're not an alien.
Your friend is probably still in shock too, but you do have a...
We would call it a parasite here, but it's a technically some sort of metal that reacts to other metals.
And we used it to save your life.
I was hoping that I could kill it with...
some sodium bicarbonate but I'm not so sure that worked.
you've kept it alive instead so now I'm just a host harboring this parasite.
It's...
not actually an alien, so one step better?
Heh, yeah?
Maybe, until it grows up to be a big old fleshy thing that rips out of my chest.
No.
I never thought about that.
Doc?
No, um highly unlikely.
um Again, this is new territory for even me.
you say highly unlikely, your sample size is credible, right?
I sample sizes myself.
you do notice his skin is a strange color.
He lifts his shirt and shows you the jaundice-y purple veins going through his chest.
I've been living with this for some years and I finally found a balance with it.
It has neither tried to consume me or rip from my chest, as you say.
But it does give me strange dreams.
Yeah, I think, um, Dell settles at the notion of him perhaps not being, you know, the subject of an experiment.
If Dr.
Cross is truly uh under the same affliction, then either he's fully gone and we are totally fucked, or he is doing as best as he says.
Yeah, I mean, you can roll human intelligence if you want.
I mean, I think that the...
I will, I absolutely will, but I do think that the demonstration and the way that he kind of like scientifically launched into not trying to like appeal to me as a person, but just
like based on my observations, I blah blah blah, right?
It's like, okay, clearly self-preservation is like backseat to this man.
It was an 11.
That's a critical success.
um Looking for an 18.
your estimation of him is correct.
He is stating the facts.
it doesn't seem like he has any ulterior motive in, you know, describing this parasite or, you know, he, used it to save your life.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that was felt before we studied his micro-expressions and all that.
yeah, Del now feels like maybe he has intruded on a, put the brakes on a conversation that was already well on his way.
So as Kharas kind of comes back with a wet compress, he will give him a thanks and hold it himself while he...
you know, watches the pair get back into it.
And if any of you were exposed to these creatures for any amount of time or injured by them or inbited any of their blood, um I do have the bicarbonate here if you if you need
it.
um But
Barone puts her hand up slowly.
Um, yeah, how about like a finger into a leg causing a new orifice type thing?
Would that count?
Well, it just depends on your symptoms.
It was quite obvious with him, we saw the veins going through his body.
But have you been craving heavy metals or any metals whatsoever?
No...
Nope.
Okay, well, um then you probably don't need the bicarbonate, but um it can usually stop it early in the first 24 hours.
know, yeah, no, totally, for good measure, let's just stick it on in there.
And I stick my arm out and start prepping it and cleaning the spot.
We could just, we could just give it good old try.
You get a big wet thwap on the back of your head as that cloth just like wraps around.
You motherfucker, what you been keeping?
Ooh, ooh, ooh.
Well settle down Del, I'm not keeping much except a quarter inside my stomach that I'm trying to figure out how to pass.
Yeah so maybe I have been craving metals a little bit and a little off-kilter and kind of strange.
So let's put that shot on in me.
We could just go ahead and do that right?
Yes, you...
it was not as severe as his it looks like.
You're wounded though?
Is the wound okay?
uh Yeah, I think so.
And I'll go ahead and start revealing my leg wound and start unbanning it for this new super best friend, Doctor, to take a look, I guess.
Okay, he's gonna roll his first aid.
Okay.
It seems, it seems trivial.
I mean, that does quite the scratch, but here we can, here, I'll go make a shot real quick.
And he takes um the bottle that he had for Dell and uh the same syringe, unfortunately, and um goes into the kitchenette and starts adding water to it.
And you see him trying to sterilize it as well.
um
anything you want to say or look for under your breath as he's about nine feet from you.
I was giving him the next question, exactly how far he was away.
um So I'll look to Dell and give him that nod of like, hey, we're here, but don't lose the edge that you have type thing.
um And kind of glance down at my firearm at my side to let him know it's right here.
I'm being careful as well.
And then I'll turn back and watch the doctor as well.
Yeah, it's funny that you would say that.
On account of Dell is now actually more comforted by the doctor's presence than yours on account of he's been much more forthcoming.
Hey man, girl gotta have her secrets sometimes.
They have prices though.
He creates a uh very small amount of liquid in this syringe, um nothing compared to the 200 plus milliliters that Dell got in the heart and grabs your arm and injects you with it
if you just let him.
yeah, 100%.
I want this quarter infatuation to end immediately if at all possible.
I guess I was kind of...
uh
you know, settled into the thought of like, well, I have a symbiote now as well.
So if there's any way to kind of save it and hopefully not, then I'm gonna take it.
Yeah, he um quickly removes the needle and puts it back in the kitchenette, walks over.
I am an old man and getting quite tired.
uh And he hands you the aforementioned whiskies and he does put an iron capsule um in his and pour some in there and swishes it around.
He offers you the same Dell.
He holds up a capsule for you in a glass of whiskey.
Do you take it?
I will take it and swish it, but honestly I have been sucking on one of my back molars that has like a backwoods filling in it and that's doing the trick right about
All right, beautiful.
He says, do you mind if I ask you a question?
Fire away, not literally.
Your colleague didn't know for sure if Arthur, Arthur Finch I should say, was retired, as we used to say in the business.
the audio is super choppy for me it's probably my internet though
You were asking if he, if he was retired.
Yeah, he asked Dell if he was retired.
Um, well, to be honest, I didn't get a latest status report, but the state that we delivered him in, I'm not sure that he was, um
Well, I'm not sure that there was much of a man to return to.
The way that we found him when he was diving down that hole communing with that gray, um I'm not sure how much of Finch was left.
communing.
Communion.
If that's what he called it, it looked like something wholly different to me.
Did you find any um documents?
Well, sure, he had been performing all manner of experiments, if you care to call it that way.
It seemed as though uh he had found a way to open a connection, and that pain was a most helpful tool in uh easing that communication.
Okay.
It doesn't seem like Finch that I knew.
was a kind and gentle man, but...
Who knows what this type of journey can give you along the way.
You slip a couple of bath salts into anybody's drink and you your guess is as as mine.
I don't know.
He seemed like he was pushing himself further and further of his own volition.
I think...
um
I don't know what I-
That's quite alright.
He was a friend and he got an idea in his head.
He thought he found some crash sites in the desert and read some books.
Thought he knew something.
He went looking for saucers and government secrets.
He didn't find any, but he did find the old copper mines.
He found something else down there and I was hoping he would have been able to give that to me.
the nature of what you were hoping to find was it uh like notes or a blueprint or an actual artifact of some sort?
uh A second half to a song that I've been keen to learn.
A...
Agent Brown.
that peak your ears at all?
Yeah, no, not necessarily, but just to touch on it lightly, something that happened while you were out is the doctor here wants to leave this world, if you will, in one way or
another.
I am apt to let that happen to solve our mission in some way in trade for a little bit more information out of him.
As far as how to finish that off, I have no clue, my guy.
I don't know anything about any songs and she just kind of shrugs a little bit.
And the...
he was cataloguing symbols that he had found in these old copper mines.
Those symbols were the missing piece I was hoping, but it seems they are gone now.
um
Your organization, would they have murdered him?
I wouldn't put it past him if he weren't capable of providing any more intelligence.
Okay, that's what I assumed, but um you never know.
Nor do I.
In fact, I prefer not to.
It doesn't come out so helpful in moments like this, but it helps me sleep.
Okay.
Well, um this was my only question again about Finch.
I be, I'm quite tired, but if there's anything you need to talk with me about, um we can either talk in the morning or you can talk to me now if you are feeling up to it.
Well, I definitely do have more questions, but and she looks around we're still down one Dell Ryan when we packed up and started going, Ryan was gone.
I don't know if he's out in the swamp.
I don't know if he's safe.
I got to head back out there tonight before I could get any more sleep.
He can't I can't just leave him.
If there's any of those monsters left, there's it's not it's not good.
His legs wasn't working.
What do you mean he was gone?
He didn't leave on his own, did he?
I truly honestly don't know the answer.
I went back, called his name, I could tell you what, if I was being pulled off into the swamp and somebody yelled for me, I would yell, the fuck right back.
So either something took him.
Thank you, Del.
Yeah, no, didn't think about that.
I assumed Ryan was alive, alive until dead.
um either way, got to, got to find him.
we're not, Doc, we're not quite done with all the questions we, we have to ask, but I think we should maybe collect our third party member before we ask anymore.
Um, I guess you guys get some rest and she starts grabbing her bag and, you know, putting her backpack on, but I gotta, I have to head back out there.