You get in your truck, you know exactly where that dirt path leads and you're able to find it you head down and it does narrow and get narrower and narrower till you feel like you
might scratch your truck a little bit with the overhanging trees.
It's not kept up.
yeah, the sunlight here.
feels like it's baking the swamp beside you now that you're getting further into it.
You can see the black mud everywhere and then the sun is hitting it in spots that the tree doesn't cover and you see cracked, dried mud.
It doesn't smell good.
and you end up on a small little turnaround where you could spin the truck around and then you do see a foot trail that goes off to the north from there.
Okay, yeah.
Circle around, get our day hiking stuff.
Maybe enough stuff to set up a blind watch site if fancy strikes us.
take a look for recent recent footprints around and then get to it.
Do you take any weapons?
yeah.
Oh yeah.
taking everything with us or just something that's like concealable and inconspicuous?
I got a rifle.
I got a full on rifle.
It's probably wrapped up, it could look like camera equipment, right?
It could look like the long legs of a tripod or something like that, but it's sizable.
Okay, yeah, think during the daytime, I think I'll probably just take my GP100 tucked away and just like a uh loose backpack, like whatever my clothes are packed in, like traveling
type backpack, water bottle and toss it in there, because I don't think we're going too far.
Can I look at the ground?
We know that there's a missing bike.
I want to see if I could find any of those tracks around here as well to start maybe mentally mapping like.
where this person might be coming to and visiting frequently.
so let's do a few rolls.
Everybody roll survival for setting out on the trail on foot.
And you're gonna roll another search for the tracks as well.
Where do I see server?
it's on the big list.
Yeah, I got mine at 37.
And you said search as well?
if you're looking for something specific.
Okay.
I'm looking for the red bellied hummingbird because I'm genuinely interested in seeing this bird and I'm kind of killing two birds with one stone while I'm out here.
Pun intended.
Yeah, go ahead, agent Brown.
What's your role?
16 on my survival and then that searched whenever we happened to get to a 76 so that's not going to get it.
76 out of 50.
Yeah.
got a critical success with a 22 for search.
saying.
right, and what exactly would you be looking for?
So Dusky.
I was looking specifically for recent footprints, trying to differentiate groups from singles, from vehicles, you know, all those things.
you set out and the trail, like a lot of trails starts off pretty traversable.
You get about...
probably half a mile in and it starts to be more squishy and swampy.
There is a significant like byway through here.
It's not a game trail.
It does look like people are passing through and you see footprints.
with your critical success, they are fairly recent.
Your guess is within the last week, somebody or potentially a few people have been hiking in and out of here.
The boots and the shoes themselves, one of them looks like a pair of Converse, another a pair of Vans, and another one looks like some generic tennis shoe.
You don't see any combat boots or anything of that nature, just like looks like casual footwear, which is also a little strange being that this is a swamp.
And you're continuing on, none of you.
are stumbling over yourselves or feeling exhausted at this point with your successful survival checks.
So you're taking this hike pretty easy.
Yeah, you said the feet seem like they went both out and in, so we've got like some repeat visits from these couple pairs of shoes.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I guess we just keep on trudging forward.
How often are we having to make decisions about which way to go, or is it kind of just one trail into the darkness?
one trail so far.
So, yeah.
Interesting.
So I know that I rolled real, real bad on that search to find this specific bike that I was looking for, like those, those moto tracks.
Is there any other like widely smashed down grass that I could see any larger vehicle or is this just 100 % walk?
Yeah, this feels like Walk Path.
Yeah, you're pushing through and there's large sawgrass that is now covering the side of the trail.
The trees clear up and you go through a clearing.
Sweat starts to bead on your shirt and you can feel the grit of the swamp working its way into every fold of your skin.
And yeah, there is just this sense of suffocating humidity still there, but it's one step after the next.
one step after the next and you do finally get to a fork.
The trail on one side is quite mushy to your right, to your left it's drier.
It looks like the footprints went to the left in the mushy, luckily for you, but the dry side that's more under the trees looks more pleasant to traverse.
Do we know how far, like we know there's a ghost town up here.
We know that there was a, not a coven, but there was, there were people there at some point in time.
Do we know how far up this trail that is?
Is it six miles, 10 miles, or is it like a nature walk distance?
Yeah, roll your navigate plus, well actually what's your navigation?
It's like 70, right?
yeah, 80.
Yeah, it's.
you would just know.
based on the map that you have and getting a sight line on it, your guess is they're talking about the structure you saw at that river.
And it's about another three miles from where you are now, if you wanted to hike there.
if you knew you could probably just walk straight through the swamp to the north and end up there.
uh Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how far we specifically want to go.
I mean, we're somewhat equipped, but do we want to keep going?
I don't really have an opinion of which which direction or if we should sit tight for a minute, don't?
I mean, getting eyes on something would make me feel better about this whole situation.
Otherwise, it feels like we're just a little blind and aimless.
So I guess I'm not fixing to like, you know, get entangled with anything, but I sure would like to see a bird or something else.
What time of the day is it?
Sorry.
Yeah, you're at about 11 a.m.
at this point, so.
we got plenty of time to still explore.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, I'm down.
uh Which way are we going?
towards the footprints.
uh
Alright, one vote for footprints.
Yeah, I don't know, I don't have a beer on me, but I kinda like the dry side.
you
You
Okay, dry side it is.
And we'll head up that way.
Yeah, the shade, once you step into it from being in the sawgrass feels nice, feels like a brief respite from the baking sun.
the smell of that swamp starts to hit you.
It's a mix of death and mud.
It could be, you know, a carcass, but it also could just be the smell of the swamp.
Whatever it is, is quite pungent.
And you're starting to realize how hostile this land is the further you get into it.
the sunlight here doesn't cleanse anything.
It's uh not a bright shining beacon.
It just serves to bake the rot on the ground.
And it falls on thick and greasy mud all throughout the oaken canopy in front of you.
and these trees are starting to coil together overhead like sleeping serpents and the air is still and hot and heavy and you get that sense of decay coming up.
As you're trekking this trail north, right in front of you, you start to see some boardwalks and the ground gets a little softer and there are boards scattered in that
ground sunken down a little bit and
A small corner takes you around to just a full on swamp scene.
And there is a dilapidated boardwalk that crosses through this swampy area.
What do you do?
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it hasn't been maintained, but if it, you know, looks like it'll hold my ass, I'm going on out.
Yeah, that looks...
safe as hell.
yeah, Tell, absolutely safe.
You know what we're not safe from, though.
Mosquitoes.
Is this about time to redo the fashion show from earlier and get swamped up?
Yeah, yeah.
You wanna get, uh, mesh hijab?
I guess it's not a bad idea.
And she throws her pack down and starts unpacking a bit of it and starts tossing that on.
I don't hesitate because I love how I look in all my mosquito gear.
So putting it on as well.
It's specialty gear, it goes on and it is a little hotter than what you had on before.
You're putting it over your clothes, but it is not so hot that you are gonna get exhausted quickly, but it's definitely heating up as you are starting to cross into evening.
And the boardwalk stretches out and beckons you.
Alright, uh, Swampy Perrone in the swamp.
Let's let's go team.
Del you wanna, you wanna take the front?
Yeah, that's fine.
You guys can follow in my footsteps.
I'll check the ones, the boards before you do.
love it.
What's everybody's power score on their character sheet?
80.
score of 11 and in 55 percent.
65.
Okay, Ryan, can you just roll power for me?
I've got 69, dude.
Agent Ryan, as you walk out onto this boardwalk, something begins to change for you and only for you as far as you can tell looking around.
It's not a sound that you hear in your ears or something you see.
It's like a pressure.
A low static hum seems to vibrate behind your thoughts.
The air grows heavy, heavier than it already is because of the humidity.
But there's a sense of attention on you, you feel.
You get a sudden unshakable feeling that you're being watched, as stereotypical as that might sound.
But it's not like a feeling of being watched through a sniper scope or a predator in the trees.
You don't feel it from one place.
It feels like everything's watching you.
Hey, guys.
I'm starting to feel a little uneasy.
I just want to let you know.
I don't know.
I'm just feeling like something is kind of weird in this area.
And you guys, do you guys feel anything?
Sense anything?
told you to go easy on breakfast.
It's gonna be a long day.
You know, I have to have my daily rations of beans in the morning.
Yeah, no, I just feel sweat literally running down my back.
It's a bit warm, but no, I feel pretty good.
Maybe because I stuck to the liquid bean, but who knows?
Are you okay?
What do mean?
How do you feel?
I just feel like something is out there.
Something is kind of watching us or something.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just getting a little overheated, but I just feel a little uneasy going down this path.
interrupt your thought but I think Dell as you're bringing this up is just trying to kind of key in to the surroundings right like how much nature sounds like it is present does it
feel like this place is alive or like am I getting a lot of senses that just like dead on dead on dead
Yeah, you can roll for alertness.
Yee-haw!
That's success.
You take a moment, stop, get your bearings.
It seems pretty typical for a swamp.
hear the sound of either crickets or cicadas, some sort of bug.
Listening intently you hear some sawgrass in the distance waving and cutting against each other Sightwise it just looks like a boggy swamp the one thing that does stick out a
little bit is the color deeper into the swamp off to your left almost has a purple hue to it, it's like a purple green, but it just looks strange
Just keep your eyes peeled.
don't know, it's just, I don't know.
I just have a weird feeling.
I've never felt this really before, so.
Yeah, so like I think from the outset Dell didn't give a lot of credence to what you were saying but like you and Barone going back and forth and he just kind of scans the place
and it's not like there's anything that really sticks out but it's not like he feels entirely settled either and so you know as he kind of like comes around from the scan like
you get a knowing nod that says like he's taking you seriously.
Yeah, no worries.
How about Dell takes the front?
Ryan, could go in the middle and I'll be on back here and I'll watch out a little bit.
Sounds good to me.
you push forward, is there a specific thing you're looking for as you're doing this or keeping an eye on?
Like what's the passive business you're doing as you're walking?
I think I'm scanning the brush, right?
I'm just looking for anything that looks like it might have eyes looking at us.
I'm looking for something, I mean, vague to say something of note, right?
But something that doesn't look like ambient swamp.
If there is a structure, a creature, a sign of life, an animal that has been killed, other people walking about the place.
I don't know.
Great.
Agent Barone, what are you looking for, if anything?
so I think as we came into this place or came into this whole area, the thought was like, that's a pretty good place for a trap.
So I think Barone's not knowing what could be here, what could or could not be here.
Mainly that's what her eyes and thoughts are on.
Agent Barone, you roll me alertness.
Agent Ryan, give me a natural and then Agent Sendusky, you will give me search.
We're looking at 75 out of 80 success.
18 out of 20 success.
Fail 89.
Okay, make sure you mark it.
Do gotta try though, right?
you're walking.
The sweat is definitely pouring down your bodies after a few steps in this gear.
You leave the boardwalk and you step into some sawgrass.
If you hadn't had your gear on, would have probably thin cuts on your arms, but the heat's constant, it's a leaden weight.
sweat beads on you soaking your underclothes.
Each of you watch the person in front of you and it looks like you're looking at them through a almost like a suffocating wave of grass pushing in and out.
You lose track of them easily but you're close enough to where you don't get lost in the muck.
And yeah, you put your feet where where Dell's put his feet and march on forward.
Agent Barone, as you're looking around, you're looking for an ambush or some sort of threat in here.
You don't get that sense as you're scanning.
When you're walking through the sawgrass, though, you do start to see some very aged containers.
Some of them look like old tin from like canned fish and they're often sprinkled around like there's been people who have sat here and ate before and they're all metal.
Well, uh, she'll squat down and grab one of these.
I mean, they did say that there was squatters and drug users out here, but it's, I don't know, I don't think just anybody litters and I'll pick it up and turn it over my hand, see
if I could maybe figure out what exactly it was, maybe where it came from.
Yeah, it came from Tacoma, Washington, and it looks like it was an old tin of salmon, but the date on it is 1936.
Huh, a little older than I thought.
Hey, Del, look at this.
And I'll hand it over.
Yeah, I mean, that's a very peculiar thing to be finding in the middle of nowhere.
mean...
If I was squatting, I'd squat near something is all I'm saying.
Yeah, dope.
Yeah, good point.
Barone will stand up and kind of take a look around.
I know before there was discolored brush.
we see if we see anything that looks, know, smashed more down, smashed down more than normal or a space that's not growing grass where it kind of should type thing.
Mm Yeah, you stand up.
The sawgrass is quite tall, but you can push it forward and see about 15 feet, 15 to 30 feet, I would say, at a time if you pull it apart and look at your survival.
Uh, fail 81 under 30 or 81 over 30.
yet nothing is peaking your interest as you scan around.
Agent Sundusky, with your search, you find some more footprints and go ahead and roll survival to see, however you would investigate the footprints, describe it and then I'll
see if there's a roll.
Well, I guess given the age of the fish tin, I'm very curious about the timing of all of these things.
If it seems like these are all the same event and the same people, it feels like it's an old fish tin that was a long time ago with an old boot print that was made a long time
ago.
I'm trying to figure out how many timelines we have.
So I think survival and understanding how the preservation of that print is appearing.
with the timeline of everything else sounds okay to me.
Okay, yeah, survival is good for the footprint specifically.
Great.
Yeah, 46, that's success.
You peer down into the footprint and it's pretty deep because it's a swampy area.
So that means it's probably new.
Like you're assuming that the swamp would eat up any footprint that's been here for a long time, but it seems barefoot.
bare human foot and of a typical human size.
about a size nine from your estimate.
just one set heading in a particular direction towards anything in particular.
It's chaotic.
It almost looks like footprints that you would see at a dance or a battle.
Your guess is as good as mine on it.
They're all over the place.
And as you're looking even further and following them, you see ones of other sizes.
You can estimate there's probably about five to six different ones.
Hey, I think we stumbled onto a trail of something.
Might've wished we hadn't, but what do you make of all this?
I'm kind of standing further behind, just letting them kind of scope everything out.
And then I start to move a little closer and take a look.
again, I'm feeling kind of uneasy about this, but mostly because I can't imagine walking barefoot on this ground and how that must feel.
And I'm wondering why somebody would make that choice.
You could keep your socks on if you want.
nothing cute.
Yeah, no, it's just another level of protection for your feet.
That's no, that's fine.
Wet, human, soaked socks.
Well, it, it seems like if there's a bunch of people who were here, they had to come from and or go somewhere else.
So I say we pick a direction we're out here for.
And she looks at her watch, at least another few hours.
Let's just pick, pick one and, and
chase it down, guess.
Can we look and see if we could find the directions that they came from?
Yeah, between your earlier survival roles, you're able to pick up and you see that the footprints kind of do a big U back towards that swamp that you just crossed the boardwalk
through.
you get to the watery part of the swamp that looks in the distance like it has that weird purple hue to it.
and the footprints stop at the edge of the swamp.
Alright, well, kind of weird, but there's no...
I don't know, I guess I'll be brave enough to head out there.
uh Del, do you wanna just watch me make sure I don't get pulled under and drown anyhow?
I mean, I'll tie a rope around you, but I am just curious for clarification.
Like, I imagine you're kinda like, and out there a little bit to get a little closer.
I'm curious about the direction of these footprints going into and out of what seems like just the muck.
Yeah, you look at the footprints and there is a strong line of where the roots of the sawgrass keep the mud together and where this watery part of the swamp begins.
And you see the footprints go up into that and almost in a strange, I guess, unified way, they line up along the bank and then just disappear into the swamp.
Yeah, I'm not getting any closer.
If you trust this rope and you trust me, giddy up.
Yeah, sure.
No, could team bonding right off the top here, huh?
Yeah, this is like a truss fall but with rope so Sure, and she Ties it around her waist throws the other end to tell gives a little wink and starts waiting out as deep as she
could go without Splashing water into her boots to get those wet wet socks
Dell puts a bow and anchor around a tree, kind of, you know, bends vaguely this way, but it's strong enough.
So as you're waiting out there, go ahead and give me your dexterity times five or athletics, if whatever one's higher.
That's for sure going to be dexterity.
So dexterity times 5, I'm looking for a 70.
We got a 31.
Success.
you start to get to the point where...
it's gonna come up over the lip of the boots and you're having to exert yourself quite a bit just to lift your leg out of the mud.
But the water is starting to not clear up, but get more, get less muddy as you're pushing out there.
And there's more what looks like, I don't know if they call it seaweed in a swamp, but seaweed for lack of better term, that starts wrapping around your legs as you push through
it.
You're about,
30 feet from this area that seems different with the purple fungus.
And that's about when you would feel like, if I take another step, the water's gonna get into my boots.
What do do?
uh Do we have any binoculars over there by chance?
Yeah, you have some.
Okay.
I think at this exact moment, I probably don't quite want to go very much further.
So let's go ahead and take binoculars out and see if I could.
Obviously that doesn't give me the right angles per se, but at least I could get a little bit zoomed in and see if I could see something that way before taking a deeper step.
Yeah, rule your search plus 30.
Sure.
Plus 30.
We got 48.
All right, you pull out your binoculars and are scanning that area.
The purple nature of it does seem like it is fungal.
There's a strange cluster of fungus in that area.
There are branches that go into it and you can see some of the purple fungus going up the branch and almost like
overtaking the moss, like the moss itself takes on the color and then stops at some point.
And as you're past that, you catch out of focus a glimpse of, it looks like a small oval shape just sink into the water quickly.
Ooh, all right, time to go, Dell, I'm coming back, Dell.
And I'll pack my binoculars away in my bag really quick and start shuffling backwards, or at least sideways, try not to lose track of what was over in that direction, but
definitely making my way back.
Yeah, go ahead and roll your SAN to see if you can do that.
Your sanity.
Looking for 55, I got 26.
All right, you still lose one sand just from seeing it and you are able to trudge back through your hearts racing.
The adrenaline helps you get there faster and you make it back without a hitch to the shore
I assume it took some effort for sure, so she's like, okay, uh so definitely creepy for sure.
There's something here in the water.
There's something, I'm not sure what, didn't see too much, but there's something here, guys.
What did it look like?
I don't know, I mean, if it was like the, it could have been like the top of a dome or something, like a sink down in the water.
I didn't see any shapes more than that, but it's a little freaky if you're expecting nothing, you do definitely see something.
dome, like the size of like a human or what what size are we talking about here?
Rango, or Agent Baron, roll your intelligence.
Times five.
So, looking for 65, we got a 0, 0 and a 6.
Is that 6 %?
Yeah, it's quality roll.
So you
that exact line for you a time before.
It was exactly like that.
I think I was zero zero six.
That's just a six.
Yeah.
Agent Barone, you wave them off.
Say, just give me a second and you start to put it together in your head.
You start to piece together what you saw.
Uh, it was, it was 100 % humanoid.
It was very much like a, like a, uh, uh, uh, lizard meets human type thing.
I'm not sure there were eyes, but they're, they looked kind of dark.
I couldn't have sworn that if they were eyes or not at first, thinking about it, I think so.
Yeah.
I, something.
You had any brushes with something you didn't think came from Earth before, Agent Brome?
Yes, I mean nothing that I've seen but I've definitely been in places and heard things that were out of step with the norm for sure, yeah.
Yeah, I just checking on a count of it does shake you up the first time you see it something proper.
I ain't got no idea if I seen what you seen, but uh we all seen something like that.
I'm glad you're in the fold.
I'll tell you what though when I get a piece of paper and a pencil, I'll try to draw it out a little bit.
I'm not the best, but I mean any log of anything is kind of worth something.
Also, I know in the original email that the biologist Kuras definitely mentioned an interest in fungus and
fungal goings on and it's it's creeping up there guys there's there's some fungus in that water look like it was making it up the plant so is that there's some crossover there for
sure
None of us are biologists ourselves or have backgrounds in any of that.
I'm trying to think like, it worth it to within, well, I guess I'd look down at my boots.
On my boots, is there any residue that kind of matches what was splashed up against the grass over there?
Yeah, real luck.
Cool, yeah.
There's no way that's gonna make it.
There's a 95 for ya.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, you don't know what's lucky and what's unlucky in this situation.
yeah.
You see your boots are covered in fungus and stuff.
You could absolutely, if you had something, a container, a water bottle or something, you could uh pull some of it off and keep it.
Spare binocular lens maybe?
Use it like a microscope slide?
I'll grab my binoculars and then go ahead and take the lens cap off one of them and scoop some of the goo into one of the lens caps and seal it back on the binoculars because that
was a great idea.
So um at least we have a sample and then I'll wrap like a towel around it or something so it can't goo out and stick it back in my bag safely.
As we start getting out of there, also, like, she would like to inconspicuously palm her pistol um if she can, because she is little creeped, little creeped out.
Curious, does our night vision goggles have any infrared technology on them?
Yeah, just strict night vision, not a predator.
That hurts.
Butterfield doesn't love us enough.
Can I put on my night vision goggles and kind of stick my head into the water and try to see what I can see?
You
mean, hell yeah.
Go ahead and roll a search minus 40.
Okay.
you to learn that mud is not the same as night.
You never know what's under there.
OK, search minus 20.
Well, my search is only 22, so.
Okay, if you get a critical success by rolling a one, then you can succeed.
Weirder things have happened.
So you're saying there's a chance.
All right.
No.
All right.
Yeah, you stick your face in the water.
Well, what did you roll?
Okay.
And it's pretty gross in there and it's really thick, especially over here.
Maybe if you trekked in as much as Agent Barone did, but from here it's uh pretty icky.
For some reason, I don't have a problem sticking my face in the water.
But walking into the water, I have a problem with.
I'm like, yeah, no, I'm good.
Yeah, seeing you just like, trudge dutifully to the edge and shove your face in, there's just kind of like a bewilderment and you're like, you pop back up, you got clear off the
goggles, just like, nothing there.
It's just like, wait, what the fuck?
Like, so unlike you, but I want a go-getter attitude.
I mean, I'm a wise person, but I'm not very smart.
So
Yeah, you're good with computers.
Yeah.
Well, I think we're all losing our fucking minds.
Hahaha.
Yeah, and so you wanted to triangulate.
that mean you're gonna continue to head to the landmark of the river or are just heading directly back?
Well, I don't know if there's a sturdy tree that looks climbable.
We could get up and try and just like, you know, figure out like trigonometry of the sun or some other peak nearby.
Oklahoma doesn't have peaks.
Who am I kidding?
I don't know.
Some sort of landmark I could see.
pretty flat, as far as looking at the map and your expert navigator with Agent Baron, you know that the river is probably about 30 minutes march north still, if you didn't wanna
turn back.
Listen, Del, I don't care where we go as long as it's away from here, my guy.
But okay, I mean, that's a guarantee.
Any which way will get us away from here.
It's just a matter of if you wanna be confident you will be safe and sound come nightfall, or if you feel like traipsing a little further, who knows what we might get stuck in.
No man, I'm a brave independent woman who's super brave and stuff so we could for sure press on.
independent too.
Yep, all by herself.
All right, back into the sawgrass it sounds like.
Yeah, I think we're pressing forward.
Again, Expert Navigator may be helping us plot out our way back so that it's relatively easy to Hansel and Gretel if we need to.
Yeah, great.
think that's a great idea.
I'll very much be taking special care to look at landmarks and keep those in a mental picture in my head so we could have a nice exit strategy.
Yeah, I imagine you're marking up the map when you're walking.
It is slow going, so you have time to do it as you march forward.
And you start to hear water up in the distance about 20 minutes later, a small, the sound of a small brook, maybe, a little bit of peace in this oppressive atmosphere.
And as you get to this small creek, it shouldn't even be called a river, like you could hop over this thing in the distance past it, you see the makings of a triangle on the top
of a building, almost like a church steeple could be some other type of building.
But that's what it reminds you of is a church steeple looks dilapidated from even from here.
But you look like you.
are on the precipice of this ghost town.
And what time of day is it about right now?
You're looking at about 3 p.m.
So still plenty of of daylight.
Yeah, I I think keeping our distance and maybe like finding a radius to walk around and see if we could find a sight line.
Maybe just to get a little bit more visibility into what's over there before we get any closer.
Yeah, so everybody will roll stealth if that's the case.
And you can roll alertness to see what you pick up as you're walking around.
Okay.
And I think, yeah, pace is absolutely not the concern.
I think we'd sacrifice even more pace for like to be able to use binoculars steadily or something like that.
Okay.
ah
Oh man.
I fucking rolled a 2.
Couldn't I just save that for a time I needed it?
I got it.
I got both stealth and alertness.
My stealth was 60 in this scenario and I got a 68 so I failed on my stealth
you're still not sure what to make of what you saw earlier and aren't totally in the moment.
So maybe you're plunge, plunking around in the swamp water a little bit more, But as you break from that oppressive tangle of the swamp,
A trail opens up and you see some alleyways, a long road into a ghost town with your binoculars.
You see that there's a single sad road that goes through it and the carcasses of old buildings, they're worn down to the bone.
There's sad porches that are slumped over roofs that look like they're sagging in black windows, boarded up windows.
The board up windows almost look like they're vacantly staring at you from this ghost town as you look down into it.
There's a large ancient tree that forced its way into the middle of the road.
They probably built a town around this thing.
But this place is fairly silent.
There's some dripping water here and there and...
with that alertness you hear the crackling of a campfire somewhere in there as well.
I'm probably walking up to the first building on my right and just kind of seeing if there's cracks in the boarded up windows that I can peek through or kind of listening at
the doors and stuff.
Yeah, as you start to enter the town, you get to some of the buildings and it's as expected when you look into them.
There's vines growing around.
These are slowly being overtaken by the nature around them.
There's a musty smell to them, a quite natural smell at least, but there's nothing out of the ordinary other than that.
Does this look like fish 10 age?
Yes.
Um, Dell, did you, did you go up to, um, up to the building with Ryan?
I guess if you was hanging back, I was in between.
I say don't split the party.
Let's just go ahead if we're going in and we went this far in let's just go for it.
Let's go ahead and yeah sneak on up to that there town.
Yeah, I guess I'll finally admit to myself that this is a gun and not some sort of vaguely concealed walking stick and we'll get in kind of, you know, combat ready position.
Yeah.
Love it.
Yeah, as soon as we start getting like towards that building, we could get to where you could see the roadway.
I would like to I know that at that the Forest Rangers station, there were tracks of a dirt bike that zoomed off somewhere.
I would like to look down that road and see if there were any, you know, dirt tracks or pressings or anything of dirt bike wheels.
Also, if there are four-wheelers that align with the Rangers for any reason, we don't know who is or isn't involved in anything.
Yeah, absolutely.
Since you're so acquainted to vehicles and tracks, you do find the tracks.
No roll needed.
You do see the dirt bike tracks at least.
okay.
Hey, hey guys, yeah, so the tracks that leave the station, they're over here too.
So whatever's here is whatever left the station, which means could be our guy.
Yeah, I mean that's the hottest lead on Karos we've had so far, it?
Would he just be out here putting around in the daylight though?
I don't.
I wouldn't know, I just mean I think we, you know.
This feels like this trail has his stink on it is all I'm
Will you guys hear that crackling fire sound?
Maybe there's something to that.
Maybe we should go scope it out.
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to get closer.
You both, I'm just like kind of looking at your mud covered visages.
You seem a little out of your element.
I'll report back.
what I can see of the fire.
Yeah, your earlier stealth role will carry you through.
You sneak up, I'm assuming under the eaves of these porches and the dilapidated buildings.
as you round a corner in this smallish ghost town.
You see the beginnings of a fire and a woman with seemingly blonde hair hunched over it, trying to stoke it and get it started.
Behind her is a building and there looks to be three figures in there.
And you hear some laughter from in that building as well.
And she doesn't notice you.
She's continuing with the fire.
anything you're looking for in this scene.
state of these people, how long it seems like they've been clean, or how long they've been living out here, if there are signs of sedentary transience, or if it seems like they're
new.
Yeah, go ahead and roll human intelligence or humant.
Oh, my human is gonna be so good by the end of this.
I have increased 50 % already.
Just by misreading waitresses and shit.
Yeah, fail again.
Feed me, Seymour.
Yeah, you can get a bead on the people in the house.
They are absolutely high on some sort of stimulant is your guess based on how much they're laughing and fooling around.
The woman though, it's hard to say.
She's managing a fire.
So I think your gut says probably not super high unless she's vibing out and is about to jump on that fucking thing.
But that's the...
your first glance, what your first glance gives you.
Does she look like caked in dirt?
Like her hair?
It's blonde?
Is it like, unsalvageably messy?
No, absolutely not.
And you notice that she's wearing some very filthy Converse shoes as well.
Okay, so the feeling is like maybe she's a day tripper out here as well.
I'll return back to the group and just let them know nobody's out here laying traps, laying in wait.
They're just out here trying to be left alone it seems.
Yeah, you turn and as you're turning you look, there's a fork in the town at this point.
On one side you have the lady with the fire, the other side you see a small path, almost a dirt track.
And there it is at the end of it, the weary angles of a church.
It looks boarded up and a little more untouched than the other buildings, less decayed.
The steeple reaches up its bone white faded point is pointing towards heaven and it's probably looked this way for a long time.
The windows and doors are nailed over with raw and weathered planks.
It's like a crude final act of quarantining or something.
Someone has tried to scrawl something meaningless of their own scripture on the boards in spray paint, but it's unfinished.
Kind of an insult to the solemn decay of the entire place.
But you notice something else.
The boards are unbroken.
No one stripped them off to enter the church.
Looks like the junkies and what other ghosts haunt this place have left it alone.
Who do you know to play by unspoken rules out here?
I wouldn't think anything is sacred.
um Did Del rejoin us kind of back where we were then?
That was just what he saw on his way back.
Got you, got you.
Sorry, are you talking about the church?
uh I haven't really peeked my head out.
What's going on?
Yeah, well, I mean, most of this place seems like it's been pilfered through and rifled through to no end time and time again.
But, that church over there we done seen on our way in, it seems like maybe there's a reverence that everyone seems to be able to give to it universally.
When was the last time you saw that many strangers agree on anything?
Yeah, I mean, not really ever.
That's kind of weird.
What's going on with the fire?
It's just some woman.
She seems to be new in town, as far as I can tell.
I didn't really get a good read on her.
There's a few more individuals down the way.
They seem to be having a good time on their own and I'd incline to let them keep doing that.
But yeah, like I said, are people out there but they don't seem to be looking for anybody much less us.
Alright, well I guess that's a bit reassuring, especially if they're actually humanoid people and not green, slimy swamp people, guess.
I guess I was expecting more and she'll holster her sidearm.
Well, do we go check out the church and see why nothing's broken?
Or do you want to go talk to the people?
Were they worth talking to or did you think we should stick away from them?
They may be.
Look, I'm a nervous type and if secrecy has been maintained and it can be maintained and there's more courses of action to proceed with while it is maintained, that's generally
going to be my inclination.
But if you'd like to announce our presence and go talk to them, I don't think they're the harm.
That's for sure.
Uh, Ryan, what about you?
I mean, I think that we walk in like we're out here exploring and go towards the church and see what we can find, but not necessarily be too careful about how stealthy we are.
Alright, so still nix the people, but head for the church and not necessarily be sneaky about it.
Dell respects your decision, but you do see that he is not as confident pursuing it as he might normally.
He will walk with you, but there is a nervousness to his gait and he is probably trailing 12, 14 feet behind you with nervous sweeping glances from side to side.
you
You okay, doll?
What's going on?
Yeah, I mean, there's just an awful lot of windows out here.
We don't have enough eyes to keep eyes on.
you
that's fair.
Keep your eyes especially peeled.
I'm gonna try and see what we can see with this church.
I'll try and give the people that we knew that were there kind of a wider berth and not necessarily be as loud as possible.
But not being too terribly sneaky as well.
And kind of make my way over to the church.
Yeah, you walk up this dusty, muddy-in-places road and you take the fork towards the church.
You hear a female voice shout out behind you and say, hey, who are y'all?
Hey, hey there.
Yeah, we're just tourists for the day, kinda sort of.
I mean, we're here actually looking at the bird life.
You guys bird people?
She starts to walk over, starts knocking some dust off of her clothes.
She looks firmly middle class in how she's dressed and has a small jacket on and her hair is slightly parted and she's attractive for lack of a better way to describe her and she
smiles at you and she says, birdwatchers, huh?
No, I can't say that I am.
But what brings you all the way out here to this ghost town?
Oh, we're looking for red-bellied woodpeckers.
It's a rare bird that's out this time of the year in this area, and we're making a documentary about them.
This is an interesting place.
We didn't expect to stumble across a ghost town.
What do you know about this place?
I guess not a lot, but I know that it's...
She points to the house where there are people high.
It's where a lot of people come out and party, I guess.
But yeah, uh it was a little commune out here for years until they all just left at some point.
There's conspiratorial things out there about them disappearing in the thin air, but you know, I don't really believe in any of that.
But you're looking for birds out here.
That is so interesting.
Yeah, I'm surprised that there's not more people out this time of the year doing the same thing.
Yeah, just really surprised by that.
So, so, well, OK, so are you local?
How do you know about this?
The story about this ghost town?
Yeah, I mean everybody knows it around here.
I think anybody who's grown up here knows about it.
Used to be a reservation and then I guess they relocated the Indians from here somewhere else.
And then it became a town, I don't know when, must have been like the 1910s or something.
yeah, it was a...
thriving town until the railroad got built and diverted most of traffic from the area and then it I guess slowly became more of a a commune and now it's a ghost town
Hmm, very interesting.
Yeah, we were on the lookout for this bird, but we were gonna go check out this church over here real quick.
Go ahead and roll your human intelligence.
was wondering if I could too, on account of the way she greeted us was a little too akin to the way we were greeted in that diner.
I just don't have a good feeling about the friendliness.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
failed mine 54 out of only 14.
Okay.
What's apparent is she's nervous.
Beyond that, you can't pick up anything else from her demeanor.
She does look a little nervous.
Did she react in any way when I said we were going to go check the church out?
She did.
She just had a little twitch in her face.
Also when she pointed over and when she was like, people like to party here and she pointed over to the building could we still see the three figures in the building?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, you see one of them is in like a Limp Bizkit, $3 Bill Yall hoodie.
There's another one who has like large Janko pants with like a wallet chain.
He's like laid sprawled out on the ground.
And the third one is hard.
there is uh just refuse and there's like snacks out there and you look by the fire where she was set up.
It looks like she has like a small cooler with some food in it as well.
yeah, you look a little nervous and this church here looks like nobody's messed with it, which everything else here is dilapidated and kind of falling apart and a bit tagged up
and the church looks fine.
Is that...
What's deal with the church?
I guess before I said I don't necessarily believe in this, but we've heard it's haunted.
Anybody who's ever tried to go in there has come back with bad stories.
I don't know any first-hand or second-hand or even third-hand for that matter, but...
Doesn't look like...
If anybody else isn't messing with it, then I don't know why I should, so...
Yeah, leave it well enough alone, I suppose.
I know you didn't really know, but what type of bad stories would you say?
Just people going in or trying to get in and disappearing or going in there and not coming out.
And she points up to the roof and you see a sagging hole in the top of it.
I've heard somebody climb up there and miraculously fall down and break all their bones and their body.
Just, I guess, urban legends.
But again, I've never known anybody or...
I don't know anybody who knows anybody who's ever actually experienced it.
Alright, well I mean, that's fair.
It might be exactly what we said and leave well enough alone.
Maybe we'll give that church a wide berth.
Strange though, I would assume nobody really stays out here too terribly long, it looks like people at least try and travel through here somewhat, and she points over to the
tracks.
Where are those from, do you know?
Do you have any persuade?
I think that's probably pretty low.
Let me see.
Persuade 20.
So I have some.
It exists.
That or your, sorry, that or your charisma, whatever one is higher.
for sure gonna be Charisma.
Charisma at 45.
We got 84.
Okay, yeah.
No, can't say I know much.
I do see the tracks and I've heard the dirt bike around here, but I'm not totally sure who it belongs to.
okay, so it's not like, you know, do some drugs, ride the dirt bike around type thing.
Like it's somebody else that you don't know.
Yeah, yeah, it's not one of my boys, but it's, we've definitely heard it buzzing around the swamp.
wild, yeah those things get super loud and uh scare birds off quite a bit and she looks over at Ryan like, eh, I dunno, yeah?
Yeah, mean, yeah, especially the red-bellied woodpecker.
They're very sensitive to sound.
guess that's why y'all were so quiet coming up here.
Yeah, you got to tread lightly to get a good view of one.
um I'm gonna look at the church, like as Barone is saying that, you know, maybe we'll just leave it alone.
And I'm gonna focus on the black space between the front wall and the back wall that I can't see, and I am just going to think that I am going to burn it to the ground.
Yeah, roll your power
You feel nothing at the intrusive thought you're forcing upon the church.
Nothing comes back.
It doesn't seem sinister at all.
There's a good chance that this is just who do, right?
people fall off roofs all the time
Well, my name's Cheryl.
If you need anything, over here.
I do have some snacks to bring them in for my boy.
But I'll just be over here.
Be careful.
Your boy?
Yeah, yeah, that's my son in there.
She points to the one in the Limp Bizkit hoodie.
sorry, I thought you meant like your boys, like your posse.
My name's Morgan, by the way.
It's nice to meet you.
And she'll reach out her hand for a nice handshake.
Yeah, you get a good strong handshake back.
Yeah, that's my son, unfortunately.
I come out here and try to take care of him when he's doing this.
Picked up some nasty habits along the way and figured mother's gonna be a mother and help him out no matter where he's at in life.
This is certainly a place to find oneself in life, but I guess a pudding pack makes everything a little better.
putting that is a good idea.
He did like putting a lot, so I should do that next time.
Well, nice to meet you.
Again, if you see anything that could look like a red-bellied woodpecker, just let us know and we'll come running with our cameras.
In the meantime, we're gonna go explore a little bit.
Of course, and I won't make your business my business.
I really hope that you don't make our business your business.
I would hate for him to get into the trouble with the law again.
So have your way about the place.
I don't really care what y'all get up to as long as you don't care what we get up to.
I think your business is your own, especially if you're just trying to make do and support your family and be there in difficult times anyways.
And she'll kind of nod her head a little bit and start walking up towards where the track's lead, I guess.
Yeah.
She thanks you and walks slowly back to the camp, sits down by the log, starts throwing more on the fire, getting ready for the nighttime.
And you're looking at the track specifically, Agent Barone.
Del, you're going up to the church.
Agent Ryan, what are you doing?
Well, I am going to go towards the church.
My interest is piqued.
And I want to take a peek and see if I can see anything.
Without going inside the church, I'm just going to kind of walk around and see what I see.
Yeah, you see it is old, it has been sun worn and the elements have gotten to it.
It's not completely untouched.
the areas that are boarded up haven't been pried open.
Your guess is the only way people have ever gotten in is that hole in the roof.
and you get around back and you see a small dilapidated stairway up to a door that sits up a little higher.
And that door is also boarded up, but it looks like it has less oomph to the boarding and there's not as many nails and there are fewer boards on that door.
And walking up these stairs, does that get me closer to the roof?
I'm imagining.
Not closer to the roof, but it gets you closer to that door.
You would have to climb the side of the building to get to the roof.
It's not a, I mean, this isn't a massive church.
it's, the roof is probably a good 11 feet up.
Like you could boost somebody up there.
OK.
So the church looks like it hasn't really been touched, but the windows are boarded up and there's a giant hole in the ceiling?
OK.
By untouched, no one's pried the boards off of it.
Oh, I see.
OK.
I'm going to walk up the stairs and scope out the door, see if I can peel some of it back or how easy it might be to open it.
I'm investigating it.
What's up with this door?
If we wanted to open it, how easy would it be to open it, et cetera?
Forensics.
36 out of 64.
Great.
You look at it and you think that if you pry two of the boards off of the door that are attached to the hinge, you could probably push the door in and squeeze in with most of the
other boards intact.
I'm like, hey guys, check this out.
And I'm showing them, know, I think it would be pretty easy to rip these off.
What do you think?
That's exact kind of thing we should be notin', notin' and doin' nothin' right now.
Mm, mm, okay.
oh
So not going in.
Well, I'm not.
I mean, I have the desire to go in, but if everybody else is like too creeped out by it, I'm definitely like more hesitant about it.
out by it so much as I am creeped out by your change of pace today.
Like what's gotten into you?
Do I need to be worried?
Not worried.
I am just really curious about what's going on in this church.
I am looking for an experience here, Del.
I don't say anything in response to that, but I don't like the words I just heard either.
can I try and check in on my friend a little here?
you can talk to your friend as much as you want in game, or you can roll a human.
I mean that is what I'm going for on account of this just doesn't seem like Ryan.
It was painfully close.
Yeah, it's...
Your guess at this point is that Ryan has a new lease on this profession after your last operation.
The proximity to the unnatural, the proximity to almost getting his head blown off has done something strange to him is what you're thinking.
You have seen a lot of violence in your time and it executed a lot of violence as well.
So it's hard for you to remember a time when you had that transition from kind of a normal person into, there's some crazy shit that can happen.
So you can't really empathize necessarily, but you can understand that something has shifted in Ryan.
I mean, look, I am deeply proud if the ability to shed that meekness is natural.
There is just a twinge that like it doesn't entirely feel as though it is and that maybe it's been co-opted.
But I'm just...
natural towards the unnatural, still very awkward towards uh anything else.
So you pull the boards off.
I'm just kind of looking dull, giving them a side eye, and maintaining contact as I rip the first board off, yes.
Yeah, I acknowledge you.
You're a fucking adult.
I am scanning like the baseboards and the siding for, you said there's not like obvious graffiti, but I'm looking for something that looks like an intentional marking, maybe
something small, something that is intended to send a message that only some people would find.
Hmm, okay.
We'll stay at the door first.
You pull the first board out and there's a second one that's attached to the jam as well that you would probably need to grab doing the second one too.
Yep, still maintaining side eye contact with Dell as I ripped the second one off as well.
you yank it out, no problem.
These nails have been sitting in this wood for a long time.
They've been dried out, so they just kinda, just needed a pull to get off of there.
And you are able to push the door in now a little bit.
Okay, I'm gonna do that and kinda see what I can see.
Yeah, you're immediately decapitated.
No, you push it open, there's a screech that echoes through the church inside and comes back to you.
And it's the screech of the door.
And you see shafts of sunlight coming in from the hole in the roof.
You see some broken down benches.
In the distance out of the corner, you see an altar and
On the ground, there is that some black mildew that has infected the floorboards and it looks like it creeps up to where the altar is and it gets thicker up the stairs from that
vantage point.
That's all you see at this point.
Dell, go ahead and roll a search.
Me on the outside?
Yep.
Yeah, there's, what you do find is an easy way to get on the roof.
You see a broken sideboard that is pulled out adjacent and then it goes up to a lip of a window and you could probably scale up onto the top of the roof if you wanted to.
Agent Brown, what are you doing?
Yeah, great.
I would like to generally just see what direction the dirt bike trail is going off into.
Because if we know, they're at the station and it's going off in one direction and from over here it's going off kind of towards the same direction, we could find generally where
we should be looking for the terminus of that trail.
Or like where we should be searching for something that is outside of this settlement.
So that's kind what I'm looking for
Yeah, the Dirt Brake Trail unquestionably goes northeast.
And you see the edge of town and it looks like it goes past the edge of town.
Sorry, so past the edge of town of of this town not of the main town that we came from gotcha gotcha Okay, great.
I think I'll just kind of Take note of the general direction it's heading in and knowing that the other trail is heading off in X direction also We kind of have a general area to
like for further search and I think by that point she probably hasn't really been been thinking about too much and turns around to
to where everybody else is and it's like, shit, Ryan Dell.
And she'll book her way back to, the church.
Cause I assume when she turns around, she sees an open door minus one human and she'll head back in a back to her party as quick as possible.
Yeah, you walk past Del.
Del looks like a paranoid dad looking at the side of this church, of like sizing it up and looking at little damaged spots.
And then you see the door, a jar and Ryan slipping into the church.
Sure.
Del, how could you let him go in alone?
god.
And she starts slipping in right behind him.
You notice the same thing.
As you step in, there is fungus and rot in the boards that leads up to this altar at the top.
The stench of rotten mildew hits you almost like a physical blow.
It's just not a smell that you are typically confronted with this level of decay.
it smells like it tastes, you would think, right?
It is a heavy, tinny, almost metallic feeling in your mouth and your mouths both start to water as you come in, as that metallic sensation hits them.
Is this something we would have come accro- does it- alright, does it feel natural or not natural?
Like, does it feel more like tear gas or does it feel like musty old dank smell?
Go ahead and roll.
Do you have any unnatural?
Unnatural.
do not know.
I have nine or ten.
Yeah, not you.
Agent Barone, power times five.
Looking for a 55, I got a 400, so 40.
All right.
Yeah.
As you come in there, first you start to feel that mouthwatering sensation.
There's almost a hit of MDMA as well as you go in there.
There's like this ecstatic, joyful, physical feeling that just erupts in your chest.
It's a chorus.
You feel...
unadulterated faith for some reason.
Like you are in awe as you walk in here.
Maybe it's the sunlight coming through the roof.
Maybe it's something else, but there's something at work here inside of you.
There's a love almost, and you look at the ground and see this fungus stretching up toward the altar and you find yourself just kind of wandering up towards the altar.
without even thinking about it.
And the taste in your mouth feels perfectly natural.
feels, in fact, feels beloved.
Hmm.
Okay.
When you say the fungus is stretching up towards the altar, do you mean literally or figuratively?
I mean, figuratively, it is embedded in the floorboards and it just gets darker and darker.
And as you're walking up there, I'm assuming you're following these sensations or you can also recess them if you want.
I think I'll follow them for a second.
Yeah, let's start taking a look at the altar.
And as I walk up there, I'm like, man, Ryan, you feel that this place is, there's something about it, that's for sure.
And then I'll make my way kind of towards the altar.
you step past the podium that's in front of the altar in between the podium and the altar.
There's nothing up here.
There's no cross.
There's no candles.
There's small pieces of wood, some old carvings in the wall and some fixtures, but it's not a current altar of worship.
But in between the podium and that altar, that mold turns into
almost like a swirl in this big black spot just between the two.
Can you roll your sanity?