Agent Ryan and Agent Barone, you are on the edge of the swamp.
Agent Ryan, you are bleeding out of your leg.
You feel the warmth surrounding your calf as it rolls down your leg.
Agent Barone, Del has run off and you're trying to pull Ryan out of the water
you hear the sharp, distant fire of two shots ringing through the air.
What do you do?
okay.
do we have Ryan up in safe?
God, I can't.
Fuck.
can't leave Ryan.
Ryan, that's that's not a good sign.
We got to go.
Can you walk?
I can help and then I'll try and try and get you up.
I'm in so much pain.
Just go.
Just go without me.
Go check on Del.
Listen, absolutely fucking not.
we are- this is not a good space.
You need to come, I'm not gonna leave you also.
I can't get up.
Like I'm trying so hard to get up and I am in so much pain.
Okay, is there like-
go ahead and roll your con.
I got 36 which is under 60 so.
Okay, you push really, really hard and as you're doing it, you start to go lightheaded.
Can you roll me power?
Minus 30.
minus 30 so under 50 is what I'm going for and I got 97.
So you start to black out a little bit as you're standing up.
Agent Barone,
Ryan's gonna need significant help.
There's no way you're be able to get to Dell quickly if you're dragging Ryan with you at this point.
Ryan is pushing 250 pounds.
So it would be quite the task to even have him lean on you and wobble with you.
Okay, you need to hang in there.
Listen, I don't need anything happening to you too.
Do you have a gun on you?
In your hands?
do, yeah.
And okay, you listen, look at me.
You need to stay on top of this.
I will be back as soon as I can.
You can't get jumped.
Okay, you need to be self-sufficient.
Give me three and a half minutes and I'll be back as soon as possible.
Do your thing, go help Del, I'm good.
Alright, and you, uh it's still dark right now, correct?
Okay.
Yep.
And Ryan, do you have a flashlight?
I do.
Okay, great.
Cool.
So you're set.
I'll kind of patch you in the corner, give you a good strong squeeze, and then sprint off in the direction of the bullets.
Good luck.
you run toward them, you using your flashlight?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, give me a dex roll.
Times five.
decks times five I'm looking for seventy I got a fifty five so crit success hey whoo
sprint through the swamp like a gazelle.
You have a mission.
Your flashlight is perfectly illuminating any sink holes in the swamp.
You're able to dodge past the sharp sawgrass and you get to the beginning of the boardwalk and continue.
And you're running as fast as you can, I'm assuming.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, you are beating feet and you see the outline of a four wheeler in the distance and your flashlight starts to get closer and closer and you see just a clump on the ground of
two figures.
The man looks like he's under a piece of meat.
Del is laying there splayed out and something's on top of him.
The machine beside them, the four wheeler is just kind of silent.
Looks like it's completely suspended.
Feels like time is stopping as you're approaching this scene.
uh Yeah, I think you also kind of hear the sound of a muffled growl.
It sounds almost like a wounded animal, a...
With like a wet gurgle in there.
Sputtering.
And it goes quiet for a few seconds and you hear what sounds maybe more like a pained moan, like a...
woman in deep in labor.
It's kind of like rhythmic heaving.
beautiful and you get close enough and you see the carcass of the...
swamp creature, it's like a ruined weight.
It's flaccid, its flesh is covered in this poorly tanned hide, just laying on him, squishing him.
There's a viscous black fluid, not quite blood, not quite bile, that's marinating all over his wound and seeping into his skin and all over his clothes.
A mingling of simple red is highlighted throughout it when your flashlight hits the wound and
He's still alive, he's still a product, but he's packaged in gore.
And you hear that breath that he described and a small mechanical rise and fall.
His processing, his process in his brain is not yet finished, but he is fighting for his life.
fuck a fuck a fuck a fuck and I will slow down from a sprint to more like a fast gated walk with my gun up tracked on the thing on top of them.
It's not moving at this point in time.
Okay great.
ah Son of a bitch.
I'll get as close as possible literally right next to him and do kind of like a scanning 360 to see if something's coming right for me as well.
Give me a search role.
And then Dell, can you give me a luck roll after that?
Nice.
Search, we're looking for 54, I got a 29.
you are scanning around and you don't see anything.
It's pretty dark, your flashlight cuts across parts of the swamp, you have a limited field of view and there's nothing coming that you can like track, but you do hear in the
distance the sound faintly of a dirt bike.
Oh, okay.
Fuck the dirt bike for now.
Dell's the priority.
As I'm spinning and the shadows are dancing across my field of view, I'm like, okay, okay, I think we're okay.
And I'll put my flashlight hands down, have my gun still in my other hand, and see if with one hand, without sacrificing readiness, I'm gonna see if I can try to grab that gory,
semi-tanned flesh.
and pull it off of Dell.
Yeah, you're able to get it off no problem.
You're strong enough with your strength.
Agent Sandusky, what was your luck roll?
I'm about to roll it or rather flip it.
I made the executive decision that if you don't tell me to modify it, I'm just doing a coin from here on out.
And that looks like a success to me.
You had enough time before you were attacked to pull a med kit out and it is laying there conveniently beside your body and you discover it, Agent Barone, as you've pulled this
disgusting creature off of Del.
Alright, Lady Luck, hello there, and I set my, do one quick more cursory glance around, set my gun close, but definitely down.
I need both hands to help out, and I'll start checking Del out.
Del, Del, are you okay?
What the fuck happened?
Del?
Dell make a con save or con roll.
I mean, I think as you are maybe like rolling me about and I get an 89, so it ain't mattering, but it's like you're kind of like rolling me to the side and all you get is
like the expel, expellation, exhalation.
How do you expel something when your breath is forcibly expelled and there's just kind of like a hushed murmur that comes out.
It is human, but nothing about it.
tells you that there is any life behind.
Okay, alright, hang in there, hang in there.
I think the first thing I need to do is find any scrap of clean anything and start wiping down to see what I could see.
it gushing?
Where?
Where is it coming from?
So I'm going to start into first dating.
You look at his body quickly, you see the tear around his collar bone and it looks like the blood is coming out from there.
And you would have to remove the shirt a little bit.
The med kit has some clean gauze in it that you can pull out.
And there are some of your old clothes in these duffel bags as well.
Okay, so for the wipe down, think it's get whatever clothing out of the way, however that needs to happen.
Usually in med kits, if it's a good med kit, you'll have clothes cutting shears in there.
So maybe not fully remove his stuff.
And of course I don't have that much time, so at least a snip so I can open and kind of see.
I'll use the dirty clothes, whatever cleanest part of the dirty clothes, could be whatever, to wipe it down.
and then start, I mean, stuffing gauze in there, man, and looking at ways to get it secured.
Yeah, you're able to snip away with the small scissors that came with it that are there for sutures.
Yeah, sutures.
Or sutures, what are they?
Sutures, yeah, sutures, yeah.
You're able to use the small scissors there to snip away the shirt and.
Under it is disgusting.
Like you see the teeth marks.
You can see part of his bone is exposed on the collar side.
His blood is continuing to roll out of his body there.
And yeah, you do see that black liquid, whatever this creature's blood was, is definitely co-mingling with what Del has inside of his body.
Okay, shit.
Yeah, I think right now it's just stop the blood not continue to get it clean or sanitize the area.
I'm going to take some gauze and stuff it down in there and start start putting pressure.
As I'm well, let's I guess let's see if the the paint like that's not going to tickle by any means.
Let's see if the pain rouses him at all when I give a good hefty little press on that bad boy.
All right, go ahead and roll your first date at this point.
since you're, oh, go ahead, sorry.
no, I was just gonna say I'm looking for 34.
Yeah, you can roll it plus 10, so.
plus 10 so I'm looking for 44.
25 okay.
All right, you push down on it, he groans in pain.
Does not.
come awake from it, but you see that he's still responsive to whatever you're doing.
And you're able to put some pressure on it and hopefully stave off the bleeding.
The med pack has some super glue you think you might be able to use.
There's also a lot of gauze that you could shove in there and large bandages and a wrap.
So you could wrap it if you wanted.
And your first aid will cover whatever you decide to do with the wound.
great yeah sounds good I think is is getting pressure on that one I think a collarbone is such a weird place it would probably have yeah no absolutely not so get as much in there
get some pressure on it yeah and then kind of go you know a little bit cross body a little bit over one show a little bit cross body and just kind of do what I can and then move on
to the next and then get that kind of locked up and then move on to the next and just not doing a
phenomenal job of doing good enough to at least he's not bleeding out here and maybe I have some time.
Dell give me a power times five roll.
1985 that's not looking good
Okay, you feel touch on you.
It's not a kind touch, it's a frantic touch as you're being wrapped up.
You don't know what the touch is.
You're coming in and out of consciousness and there is a scene splayed before you.
as you fall deeper and deeper into your subconscious, you remember your wedding day with Abigail.
You remember the touch of her hand.
There's nothing else but you and her almost on a blank canvas.
And you just remember the words at the end of your vows, till death do us part, ringing in your head over and over and over again.
Yeah, I think the echo of that echoes through many aspects of life, right?
Even to the hands that are touching me now, right?
The idea of were we really done is the question that comes to mind, right?
Like through all those transgressions within the marriage, throughout the choices in life, throughout the risky maneuvers that ended us here, like is this
really what we were supposed to end on.
You're left wondering, you have no conscious thought or ability to speak your thoughts aloud, but that is what is repeating over and over again as you're being patched up.
Agent Barone, you get him fairly cleaned up.
He is not coming to though.
He is a wet sack.
Like you maybe even try to lift him one or two times and see if he'll wiggle.
He's just a breathing slice of meat at this point for you.
Okay, so he's a slight man, a tiny baby boy, right?
Okay, okay.
And talk to me about this boardwalk.
You know, it could be kind of a skinny boardwalk, you know, barely three feet across, or it could be a double pass boardwalk, which would be like 10 something.
Which one is it?
This is skinny.
Fuck, I was hoping you gonna say the other Nick.
uh Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Oh god, what do we do?
Roll your alertness.
Yeah, looking for 81, so pretty good chances.
And it is a 36.
Yeah, you hear some sawgrass part behind you, the reeds at the top slapped together, and you also hear a few squishy footsteps.
Okay, whatever I'm doing is stopping.
am reaching down to my right knee where that that gun is sitting, grabbing that flashlight and spinning in that direction with the gun up ready to shoot.
All right so he emerges from the reeds not so much walking as he is flowing because your flashlight is illuminating his top half his small frame is taut with a gaunt energy.
Mud clung to him it seems like less dirt and more like a second skin.
He stands with a peculiar asymmetrical cant, like lean off to the side.
and it seems like he's anchored by some unknown root system to the earth being pulled askew.
His skin held a pale strangeness.
It's not greenish or anything like the swamp preachers.
It's just a sickness, but his eyes, as your flashlights reflect in them, have an intensely alive color to them.
They're bright.
They're metabolic.
They have a fire and
He walks forward toward you, his hands up like this, and he says, excuse me, your friend will not survive this.
Yeah, neither the fuck will you unless you tell me who you are.
My name is Dr.
Garris.
Oh.
Uh, okay, I...
Um, you said he...
Is he, literally bound to the ground via other things, or is that just beautiful descriptions?
It's just a description.
He is walking towards you.
It looks like he might have some sort of scoliosis of the spine, something like that.
It just makes his gait strange, right?
And he's kind of walking towards you with his hands up.
He has no weapon that you can see, right?
He's like, what you're doing will not help him.
You're just pushing the inevitable around.
yeah, no shit, absolutely, I'm not a doctor, my guy, in any capacity whatsoever.
It sounds like you can choose to help me or my friend will die.
Which is it?
I heard the shots and I decided to come out here and see what it was and it looks like the trauma he endured is exposed.
And you're not...
you've stopped the bleeding but it's not the bleeding that I worry about.
I am worrying about literally everything right here.
I am fully open to a little bit of help if you want to come over here.
I'm willing to put a little trust in something.
Okay, well, we can't do it with what we have out here.
In another ten minutes or even less, I worry about the cellular cascade that will be irreversible for him.
I do not want him to come apart in front of us.
If you help me get him on your vehicle, I can show you where my cabin is and I have some things that might help.
It's not far.
yes.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure.
This isn't the only one.
There's one other person with us.
Let's get him taken care of first.
And then I'll sling the gun around and start moving to try and put him on the back of one ATV.
Are both ATVs like close to each other?
I assume they're probably like, you know, two or three paces.
Okay, great.
Yeah.
Help, help!
Yeah, he grabs for the legs and he is under his breath talking as he's looking at him.
He's like, oh, I the stabilizers.
Looks like some coagulants.
Okay, I don't have any IV.
As he's looking him over and he helps you lift and put him on the four wheeler.
Did you see anything on your way over?
Anything at all?
No, I have not seen anything.
and you have not been jumped or attacked and I like look them up and down you look fine I need five minutes do we have five minutes
Of course, yes.
Alright, I look him dead in the face, like, I'm trusting you.
And then I turn and sprint towards Ryan.
Yeah, he he tries to sleep wait, what I my bike is parked at the old church.
Have you seen it?
Um, no, I've seen your tracks.
We did not see the bike when we were at the church, right?
He was, he's asking if you've seen the church.
the church.
yeah, we stumbled through there once upon a time.
If you putting this much trust in me, let me drive him to there and then meet me there with your friend.
You know that is a lot of trust.
This is a matter of logistics, he cannot make it much further.
I'm offering you...
the only variable that doesn't end in his death.
Your friend will dissolve.
He told you we got 10 minutes before the cellular cascade starts and you're like, can I have five?
Yeah, yeah, okay, you know, you got me there Jordan.
You got me.
I look him straight in the face and I'm like if he dies you die and I turn and run
You run back along the boardwalk and Agent Sundusky, you're on the back of this four-wheeler.
You feel a hand holding you down as it slowly makes its way through the swamp, trying to keep you from rocking.
It seems like a caring hand.
It is quite gruff and strong on your midsection.
but you still are not able to rouse.
And Agent Brone, as you're running, you do hear the four-wheeler start and you hear it going in the direction of the ghost town.
Some ease for you maybe.
you get to the place where Ryan is and Ryan is not there.
And I just yelled for him.
Yeah, go ahead and give me a search or a survival.
doesn't answer, I'm going to do some tracking.
Let's do search.
Search is a little bit better.
We're looking for 54.
I'm so glad that we learned our lesson from last time.
We were like, man We had the most problems we've ever had because we split the party.
Let's never do that again And then here we are Split more ways than we thought possible
Yeah, but it was forced on us.
wasn't a choice, which is kind of the cool part.
I'm into that.
We were looking for 54 and we got a 40.
So that's success.
You see that it looks like at some point Ryan stood up and waded into part of the water based on the tracks, but beyond that, they are, it's unrecoverable.
the tracks disappear under the messy swamp.
um You could start doing canvassing and stuff, but you're going to lose all the time you have.
you have a choice in front of you.
Do you find Ryan or do you save Del's life?
okay, so does it look like Ryan walked into the water or was pulled into the water by something?
Based on your search role, looks like he walked.
Why the fuck would he go anywhere?
I will slowly back away from the water, shake my head, look at the ground, look up again, and then head back towards the ATV.
you get back to the ATVs, you see the tracks that Karis took and you are able to follow them, follow them.
You see the tracks that Karis took and you are able to follow them.
I swear to God if Ryan went to send that fucking letter, I'm gonna lose it.
Okay, yeah, we jump on the ATV.
We, I, Barone, has split personality now apparently.
Barone jumps on the ATV and heads off in the direction of the tracks.
love the mental image of a dutiful USPS person trudging through like knee deep in the muck with like never rain nor snow nor sleep nor like just like go into the mailbox.
you say?
I'm here for a jab.
Thank you.
You are following Karas's tracks and you get to the church.
He waves you down with the ATV.
He's still on it.
Del's form is still on the back and he says, hurry, come.
Do you want me to take this one or do you want to switch?
Well, I mean, there's no switching for some reason.
Our other teammate seemed to have made himself a ghost somehow.
So it's just us and I look a bit downtrodden.
I'm free to help and then I'll turn off the ATV, pop off and start helping move down.
Yeah, as you're doing that, you hear him muttering under his breath and he's, the damned verdant path, damn them all.
And he's helping you move and you get geared up and he says, all right, you follow me.
I won't take it as fast as I usually do.
Make sure your friend is held tight.
Okay, sorry, I m My misunderstanding I thought we had gotten to the church already not we just met um So we are at the church
you back to the cabin, like his house, basically.
going into the church, which is what I thought he meant to do.
uh yeah, no, I'll stay close.
And I rev that bad boy back up, ready to go.
Okay, yeah, give me a drive roll.
Drive roll.
Yes, it's happening.
All right, drive 70.
We're looking for 70.
We got a 35.
Beautiful.
He takes off through the darkness in the swamp.
His headlights illuminate a world that seems like it's far away from you, but you see that same world as you pass the same spots.
There is a disassociative feeling.
as you're going through here, you love driving ATVs, but you are in such a dire situation that you feel your mind separating from your body.
You can almost watch yourself driving through this swamp from the air.
And it feels very surreal.
Can you roll me a San?
Yeah, definitely.
We are currently at 48.
I rolled a 54.
Yep, 54.
Okay, sorry, you're good.
a fail, no, okay.
take one San loss from helplessness as you feel completely lost in this situation.
You're with your mark.
Del is potentially dying and Agent Ryan is gone.
What can you even control in this situation?
Agent Ryan, you're laying in the swamp.
Agent Barone has just run off to help Del, your old friend, your confidant, the one who has saved your life on many occasions.
What do you do?
I quickly jump into action and run to the nearest post box.
No, I'm just kidding.
Just kidding.
No, I am in pain, but I kind of over exaggerated a little bit what kind of pain I was in.
And I can stand.
So I do.
And I wade into the water.
and make my kind of like do a you and go down the shore a little bit and make my way back to some sand and the beach.
go ahead.
Yeah, you're pushing through the swampy area.
You find a clearing in the swamp that is mostly made of mud and a little bit of sand and clay.
It is surrounded by reeds, but it takes you a good 15 minutes to get that far out there.
Yeah.
I pull out a piece of paper from my coat pocket and I have written down some notes that I found in Arthur Finch's notes of some symbols.
And I quickly find a stick and start to surround myself in these symbols by drawing them in the sand around me.
These symbols have no geometric consistency.
It's like a script that was given to an insane person by the most intelligent being beyond our understanding.
You have no way to read these symbols as you scroll them around, but there is a sense of comfort and clarity as you are starting to.
scribe these non-geometric strange symbols in the mud, you start to get into a rhythm of it and as you're doing it the symbols activate that chant in your mind that you were
hearing in the swamp and you can hear it echoing through your subconscious coming into your conscious thought.
uh
You are all done scratching the symbols, what do do?
Shimbol shakali shilapakali hata kivama yakni shito nanapesa lalusa falaya shilapikani hata kili chocho pa yakni yakoli yakni shimbol shakali shilapakali
Ha-ta-ki-vam-ah-ha-kni-chi-to-na-na-pa-sa-la-lu-sa-fa-la-ya-shi-la-pa-kani-ya.
you start to chant.
Can you roll me your D10?
One.
my God.
You start to chant and your intelligence and familiarity with Finch's symbols that he got from his star traveler, his space angel are so powerful and accurate that you only chant
for a minute until you start to feel an energy.
touch the air around you and you feel your stomach sink as you realize you have succeeded in the chant in a very, very quick amount of time.
How much willpower do you have?
That's power, yes?
Oh, I have current 12.
Okay, to continue and finish the last bit of the chant as you're feeling that energy you think it could consume you, you are going to have to burn nine willpower to finish.
Do you do it?
Yes, I do.
You surrender everything.
You use your mind, a spear of focus and open yourself up entirely as this chant has gone on.
And the symbols beside you seemingly ignite, not in fire, but they have a strange purplish glow to them.
And the night is silent already.
The chattering of the insects and frogs have long ceased.
And from the blackness above you, you see three lights descending.
They were not lights that a human would know, but shapes of a geometry that has no place in this world.
They fell from the heavens without any sound and they weren't in haste either.
It was slow as they descended and they bled this strange purple fire onto the dark water and it reflected off the trees and oaks around you.
The color looked like a deep and ancient bruise.
One of the shapes left the other two and drifted over the water toward the place where you are sitting on the shore.
Is this similar to what we saw that night when we were keeping watch?
No.
OK.
completely different.
yeah.
And so the shape that left the others has made no sound.
There's only a black seam in the world where a little bit of purple light bleeds through and the wound, the violet wound starts to pulse almost like a heart.
And then it came.
It didn't walk, but it was born out of the humid air, a thing of pink meat and shell and wings that didn't even beat with a sound.
And the head came through.
It looked like a knot of feelers and it pulled one claw into your world, almost like it was being birthed.
and slipped all the way through and that purple light disappeared while the other two remained behind it.
In front of you, it's hard to describe.
It was a wet chrysalis, a peeled muscle, a dark glistening shell, a thing born into...
world in a disgusting, maybe even satanic way.
Its body was a promise of two distinct horrors, the hard, unfeeling carapace, a deep sea insect almost, and then a soft world.
It has like a pink and purple tinge to it that's been like a body turned inside out.
And where the shell meets the flesh, there's no clean seam,
only a raw and weeping line that looks like a badly stitched wound.
And it wore those two insides on its front and back.
And on the back, there were two membranous wings veined with dark, almost black blood and a sticky fluid felt like it was covering the entire thing.
You look into the face, you think of this thing.
and its head looks like a crown of pale, thinking meat.
It's like a beautiful but also obscene looking flower that pulses with soft and internal light.
It wasn't a solid mass, it just looked like a knot of thick cerebral tendrils wrapped around and coiled almost like snakes that have become lovers.
And it started to writhe slowly.
and it unspooled many of its appendages that had no symmetry to them and it floated in front of you.
This is a new gospel of flesh, a body that looked like both a tomb and something that came from a womb and it was just born in front of you and it feels hungry.
Thank you because I, my brain cannot comprehend.
yeah Nick pops into mid-journey and he's like disgusting gore trash enter like oh okay yeah
Disgusting, but also beautiful.
It floats in front of you.
You hear an insect like buzz coming from inside of your mind as your brain starts to shake.
Go ahead and roll me your pow times five.
And then also we'll need a sanity roll.
Okay, I'm looking for 80 for pow.
I've got 11.
Ah ha ha.
And I'm sorry, sanity.
Looking for 64.
And I got 18.
Okay, you still lose one San from the unnatural at seeing this and you're able to maintain power or maintain consciousness through your willpower.
And the buzzing crescendos, it feels like it's trying to communicate with you, but you have no means of communication with this thing.
And just as you're doing that, can you also roll the alertness?
Yes, I am looking for 45 and I got 42.
OK, great.
From the side, you see.
a swamp creature emerging from the grass coming almost in worship.
It is supplicated as it crawls forward with its arms above its head.
It is in a has a deep reverence for this thing.
It is drooling from the mouth and humming that same chant you just got done enunciating under its breath.
as it marches forward toward it and doesn't even pay you any mind.
It is singularly focused on this fleshy disgusting carapace in front of you.
What do do?
Um, hmm, what do I do?
I think I am absolutely horrified and terrified, but also extremely curious, too.
I'm almost just like the swamp creature, like in awe and worshiping this thing, but also everything in my bones is telling me to revolt and run away from this thing.
Um, but it's almost like I'm, I'm paralyzed in its presence.
Like I can't, I have no more free will to do what my body is telling me to do.
I'm just going off of like the worship part of it and wanting to stay and see this thing through whatever this thing may be.
So I kind of just like stand almost in like a brother ship with this swamp creature.
you feel the reverence.
Maybe you see this swamp creature as it's supplicated, you subconsciously start supplicating yourself a little bit as well.
You get a little lower in front of this thing and the swamp creature gets closer.
The thing in front of you,
barely even acknowledges it.
is singularly focused on you, but as the swamp creature gets very close to it, almost within touch,
It doesn't simply attack.
It's almost like a violent intimate surgery.
With a sound like the snapping of wet celery, you see a claw plunge into the creature's back and lift it off of the ground, not to kill, but to unmake it.
And it finds the spine as if it was its lover being able to run its fingers down its back and it splits it at the spine.
and a single, ecstatic twist in the thing's neck to pelvis and it arches its back.
It screams a little whisper and the creature's back is parted into a curtain of flesh, revealing glistening, pearlescent bone and vertebrae.
And with no pause from the writhing, a cerebral knot from this space creature's head, a single thick tendril detaches itself and slips into the back of the head of the swamp
creature.
the swamp creature freezes for an instant, but then starts pulsating almost like a marionette with a life of its own.
it seems like the tendril has found something in this thing's brain and has communed with it.
a moment later, you hear from its mouth a almost serpentine croaking hello.
and we will cut to our other friends.
Impeccable timing.
Okay.
gospel of flesh, that's a fuckin' line right there.
am so glad I'm not there and I'm just with Del bleeding out on a table.
Much preferred.
Yeah.
I enjoy my simple life, dying.
You're following the four wheeler in front of you.
Karas is taking it slow and suddenly the trail ends.
There's no grand arrival, no sense of destination.
The swamp simply gives up and is no longer around you and the ground feels solid and you find your, ahead, yeah.
way, so sorry, along the way, knowing that there's no way to leave breadcrumbs.
Is there any way I could like every once in a while do kind of a hard swerve to leave like a divot to form some type of path like, hey man, I don't know where Ryan is.
I don't know what Ryan's doing.
If we can't tell Ryan where we're going, if I could leave like some way that's apparent to somebody who doesn't have tracking skills, like, oh, very clearly, like something went
this way.
Awesome.
That's right.
your earlier drive roll, that's no problem too.
every once in a while you do have a little swerve, you even maybe downshift and then flip some mud up to almost create like a little tire hole and spray some of the mud around as
well.
And when you get to this cabin, it's just a simple cabin.
Like you...
Might've seen it in a magazine, a old photograph, right?
The wood is a little faded.
It's a non-committal gray as your headlights hit it.
There's a single stone chimney that rises from the roof, but no smoke is coming out.
It's hard to tell anyone lives here from the outside.
And you stop.
What do you do at first?
Park the ATV, turn it off and my first concern is to check on Delta to make sure he's made it through this ride and to be there to help.
My job is mishelper right now, um so I get off and head straight to him.
Yeah, you get off, see him, his chest rising and falling.
It's bated breath, it's not a calm breathing.
You can tell he's still in significant pain.
And as you're pulling him off, the porcelight comes on as Khorras has started to open the door for you.
And when he opens the door, a small orange cat runs out.
from under, or sorry, a small orange cat runs through the doorway under his legs and jumps onto a chair that's on the porch and you get Dell up.
Are you going straight in?
hang on tell hang on yeah i mean i'll do a cursory glance around to see if anything stands out i guess my head cannon for karas's cabin is not a clean perfectly manicured
picturesque area so this is this is interesting i think i'll just take a quick glance but no i got it we got to get him worked on we time is ticking
you find a couch right inside the door.
You get inside, it smells a little damp, but it's like almost an academic damp, like you walked into a library in a wet climate.
It's a single room when you first enter.
It has a couch, a small table.
There's a record player and it looks like there's some glasses with melted ice by the record player.
The turntable has a old jazz album just sitting right next to it.
And you set Dell down and look at him and he's still breathing.
He looks in pain.
His face is a mask of tension.
Like he's holding something back and gritting through it.
Dell, can you give me another con save?
Dell, can you give me a con roll times five?
I can sure try.
Nope, I was 60 looking for a 55.
Okay, Keras comes over and says, well, here, I will get him something for the pain.
We need to take the bandage off so I can see how much he's been infected.
Do you mind doing that while I get something?
He's talking to you, Brun.
Sorry.
Yeah.
sorry.
yeah, yeah, no yes for sure.
Okay, he leaves the front, he goes outside, strangely, you hear him walking away and go ahead and give me either Dex or First Aid to cut the bandage off.
Dex or first aid?
It's probably, it's going to be dex.
Yeah, my dex is 70.
Looking for under 70.
We got a 72.
We failed.
a
Yeah, you are cutting through, you don't slip or anything, but it is quite painful to him.
He wriggles under your touch and tries to pull away from it as much as he can, but he's in a state that he can barely move, so it doesn't get in your way too much.
And you get it off and you see that the wound in the light of the cabin, there is something spreading from really close to his heart.
There is small,
black and purple tendrils in his veins and his blood isn't gushing out anymore but whatever he's infected with is taking root.
Alright, so clearly Karas knows what's going on.
Doctor?
He comes in with that strange hunch through the door as fast as he can.
He's not much of a runner and he has a few syringes.
He takes a nondescript bottle, fills it up and he says, it's just morphine.
And he puts it close to the wound and injects him.
Del, you feel nothing but bliss as this has entered your bloodstream.
You don't feel the pain anymore.
You feel Del relax.
And he says, you will need to check his heart rate from time to time because I'm not an anesthesiologist.
So please keep an eye on him.
And he starts to inspect the wound.
And now I get to use his character sheet.
Alright.
critical success.
He looks at the wound very carefully and in fact he pulls out some glasses from a pocket in his utility shirt, puts them on and he starts tracing some of the tendrils.
Then he feels where Del's heart is exactly and he looks at you grimly and he says, well, I was hoping we could stop this but I don't think we can.
I think he's...
gonna die unless we do something a little unorthodox.
I feel like my entire day has been a bit unorthodox.
I'm pretty sure I'm okay with that.
I know you are, but who would he be?
We...
And he steps backwards.
He's like, can you steal yourself for a second?
have something to tell you.
yep.
Okay, we're there.
I was once infected with a similar thing, not as um quite as abstract and dirty as what is in his body, but I found way to suppress it and manage it.
And he pulls up his shirt,
and you see that his skin is strangely colored.
It's almost like it's bruised with yellows, blues, but it's almost in a spiral Anybody who is exposed to this will have a craving for different metals.
He will have to live his life.
seeking out and consuming heavy metals to feed what's inside of him.
Interesting.
Um, hmm.
So what is inside of him exactly, specifically him and nobody else?
I don't know why you're here and who you are and why you're so armed, but my guess is you were looking for something in the swamp.
The cultures, as you might call them there, are extra-dimensional and definitely extra-planetary, but I think extra-dimensional.
They seem like fungus on first glance, but they're actually a parasitic metal themselves from a different planet.
As far as I have been able to discover and go ahead and roll your sanity
sanity.
Sure, looking for a 47 now and a 32 success.
Great, you don't lose any.
You're able to hold it together with this information that you've been infected with the same thing that Del has running through his body.
And he says, metal will feed on other metals.
So you have to feed it just enough for the rest of your life, but it will give you, it'll give you visions and make you have.
strange, I guess, proclivities throughout your life going forward.
I don't know exactly what this has done to me fully, but I do have to consume lead from time to time and mercury, but also I hear things in the night mostly.
and he kinda like twitches at the mention of it.
But that's beside the point.
If your friend would want this, you have to make a decision for him.
We can end this quickly or we can, I can try the procedure.
What do you think he would want?
Yeah, sure.
Let me ask him.
Hey, Del, would you rather die or have to eat some metal and do a little bit of acid once in a while?
Oh, you're good with that?
No, he's fine.
Yeah.
Yes.
Also, let's put a pin in that.
A couple questions since I'm making this decision for him.
But yes, please, please just help him.
Of course, um What's going through your mind as he's collecting what he needs?
I think the first is just a slight wave of, at least there's something in like slight relief.
Not really.
It's still like angsty AF, like right on the edge, but maybe just at least, hey, it's not all lost.
There's a path forward and a bit of curiosity without even knowing it or meaning to.
I've learned a bit more about why I will forever swallow quarters and nickels and dimes and stuff.
Yeah, I think that's probably the gist of where I'm at.
A little bit of curiosity with a little bit of relief and a lot of tension.
He comes back with an armful and a small bag of things.
There's a small scalpel in his hand as well.
And he sets it down by Dell's feet.
And he says, here, can you take this?
And he gives you the scalpel.
When I ask for it, please give it to me quickly and carefully.
And he gets to work on Dell.
He is giving him injections.
You see him pull out what has to be a vial of mercury and he opens Del's throat and sticks it down with a finger and holds it there.
You hear Del choking a little bit until Del swallows and he pulls out a large supply of some sort of pill and sets it down and then takes...
bunch of capsules and starts to put them in water or saline something and shake them really hard together.
And he fills up a syringe with the largest amount you've ever seen in a shot.
Like it is, you know, it's pushing probably 200 milliliters.
And he says, this is going to be quite painful for your friend even with the morphine that I gave him earlier.
do you mind holding him?
Yeah, sure.
I look around is there a blocks a box of like The gloves the not nitrile is a nitrile Whatever the the medical yeah that the medical gloves are I don't want to infect more if I
don't have to I think I'm gonna slap this on really quick and then hold them down
Yeah, you have your med kit which has a pair still.
So, and you've splayed that open while you were thinking through things and you put the gloves on and you're ready and you hold him down maybe by his shoulders or his midsection.
Yeah, prob-probably, probably his shoulders and around.
Ooh, where's the most force gonna come from?
Probably his shoulders.
Yeah.
Hang on there, Del.
It's-it's gonna hurt a bit, but we'll be okay.
Roll your athletics.
Athletics is 30.
We got a 74, so a failure.
Okay, Dell, roll your athletics as well.
That's a success.
Okay.
the needle plunges directly through del sternum into his heart and you see that plunger going down slowly.
Like he doesn't want to overdo it.
He's pushing this medicine into his heart with.
extreme, extreme care and it is making Del wriggle in pain and he breaks loose from you and knocks the syringe when it's halfway through out.
Karras grabs for it and pulls it.
He's gonna have to make a luck roll.
ah He succeeds and is able to grab the needle and immediately jabs it right back in and just finishes it really quickly.
Del make another con.
Roll.
Times five.
Yeah, 20.
That's a success.
All right, Del gasps and you feel that wriggling turn into just a extreme tension as he bites down.
You see blood coming out of his mouth.
He's biting his cheek or his tongue or something, but it seems like he is now fighting, but he is still not able to speak.
Karas breathes a sigh of relief and he's like, please give me the scalpel now.
Yeah, so I'm sorry, I thought I had him.
And I'll turn and grab the scalpel and put it right in his hands.
He goes around where the bite is and finds the biggest vein of black and purplish tendrils going through his skin.
And he makes a long, just a jagged, jagged cut.
and takes some gauze and shoves it on the cut to try to seep it out of him.
It's like, think we can get some of it out and it'll hopefully, what I've given him will balance his system.
If he only had a small infection, we would just need the injection and he would be cured from of it, but this is too close to the heart.
I think it's taken root, but we can pray.
And he pushes hard on it and he's holding it there briefly.
deeply.
mean, I don't pray, but I do work hard and I'll grab them the next chunk of gauze and prep it and set it next to him to swap out as we're pulling out, you know, a bit after bit, or
if he needs to, to dispose of what needs to dispose and make sure everything's around him that he needs around him.
You clean up a little bit and you try to stay busy, it sounds like, right?
As you're doing, you see the pills that he grabbed and did.
It looks like uh a sodium bicarbonate is what he injected into him.
You mentally note that.
And Dell starts to breathe easy as this pain has subsided.
as you're watching him seep this up and staying busy what's on your mind?
Now I think it's another bit of a wave of relief.
We're through the hard part, but there's definitely a long way to go and we're not out of danger yet.
I think now is when I start taking catalog of what's around and where we are.
So in my mind, you know, Kuros person was this big dangerous beast of a mad scientist with
Monocles and 13 arms doing experiments and craziness and he's this you know half bent over Crippled old guy who has now just saved my friend, but I still don't think That he I could
just write him off as friends not foe.
So I think now is is when I start taking note of of everything from the exact color of the cats to what's around to any weapons that might be nearby to you know his his
combat abilities to anything I can.
Yeah, you go ahead and enroll me search for that and then enjoy it.
Yeah.
We're looking for search 54.
ah
a 37 out of 54, so success.
Great, you look around and there is a study and you can see that it opens up to a small kitchen in the back of the cabin.
The study is like this little alcove off of the living room.
And the study has just a desk that's clean with a stack of papers.
The bookshelf looks interesting as well.
You don't necessarily see full titles from where you are unless you're kind of pacing around looking.
And you also see that
There are lines of different types of shoes by the door.
Most of them look a little muddy and there are, there's just one size.
So you know that it might just be him.
The cat is orange and has now come back into the cabin and is sitting in the doorway of the kitchenette looking at you as you work.
Any specific thing you would try to investigate while Karas is here?
I anything that resembles parts and pieces from the swamp, anything that would reveal why he's out here, because that's part of the question, right?
Like who is he, why is he an informant, and why is he out here specifically?
And I think that is what I'm looking for.
Where's the doctor right now?
He's with you, sitting by Dell watching him and every once in a while checks his heart rate.
um
He is.
We're kind of there together in the same space.
Okay.
you could start a conversation with him too as well.
I I definitely will if I don't see anything that kind of checks those boxes, but obviously I'm not going to try and be too snoopy and out of place.
So make it look more like pacing, but it's secretly a search job.
Well, I'll go ahead.
need to like wear a medical bracelet to give like MRI techs a heads up in the future or something.
Like how do we get medical attention with foreign metals in us?
I think that you would not go to the doctor anymore.
That's 1000%.
Yeah, you could go in and get your teeth fixed and that's in your eyes.
It's about it.
Literally, yeah.
Yeah.
that's yeah that's what i'm saying get magnetoed
yes.
Yeah.