Chapter One: Apollo's Cradle - Episode 2

After having a long journey encountering a few strange individuals, Special Agent Tate Clay and Marshal Birdie Johnson make their way into the forest. On their way toward Apollo's Cradle only to find more questions.

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Suffer Not is recorded while playing the Call of Cthulhu RPG created by Chaosium.

Transcript

00:00:02 [Applause] [Music] [Music] All right, guys. Let's quickly cover what we did last episode, what we saw, what we felt, what we yearned for. Yeah. And then we can hop right back into this fun little adventure. Yeah. Let's have you two kind of summarize what you remember from the last session. So, I remember uh a decently long train ride, right? and then an even longer cart ride and then an even longer walk through the woods and then finally we get to the ranger station and they're kind of creepy. Yeah. Yeah. We went upstairs and

00:01:12 it was like they were a not expecting anyone and b did not want anyone to be there, especially a couple badge wielding feds. Yep. We got told we couldn't go into the forest and that's laughable because we outrank them. But, you know, it's fun to But they're also armed. They tried to ease drop on us. Yeah. Things just aren't that right. And then we're we're we're holding watch going to bed. Mhm. I think Clay has the first watch. Why are you guys here? Oh, yeah. So Creedmore is a source for the CPMP who is a reporter and he went out

00:01:55 into the Pennsylvania deep brush in search of something. We don't know what. So some lights. And he left a note saying, "Hey, it was basically a if I'm not back in 5 days, send help." Yep. And 5 days passed and that telegraph went and here we are trying to find them and help him out. You when you went to take a piss in the woods found a number of cigarette butts. Correct. Yeah. Which was an odd detail. Weirdly placed. Yeah. When we showed up, there were two rangers. One was out on patrol, and they were very tight- lipped

00:02:33 about what they were patrolling for and what they were doing here. And they definitely didn't tell us why they weren't letting people beyond the firewatch tower. So yeah, that not all is as it seems in this place. And with that, we are inside the lodge in the morning. Uh, who's on watch right now? It was you. Lelay took the first watch. Yep. So Birdie would be on the morning watch. And ever the multitasker, he has got a pot of coffee going. What time about would he start the pot of coffee? Is he a 4:00 a.m.

00:03:17 6:00 a.m.? Oh, he's at 4:00 a.m. cuz he knows he's not going back to bed. He's a 4:00 a.m. And he would also dig around cuz there were some food stuffs here. And we brought food as well. Okay. So, you're going through like the cabinets and the just like the kitchen area essentially. Yes. Okay. He's looking for eggs. And if eggs aren't present, oatmeal reigns supreme. You find a large basket of eggs, couple dozen in there, brown. You find a few dozen cans. Some of them are labeled, some of them are not. The labeled ones

00:03:54 have, you know, beef, chicken. You also find some oatmeal. Any potatoes? No. No potatoes. Any hard tac? In fact, you do find some heart attack. He will leave the heart attack. Okay. There's got to be a can of grease or lard or something. There is a jar of lard that looks like it's been used a couple times. Nice. Yep. Birdie's going to get some oatmeal going and he's going to fry up some eggs. Okay. So, you grab There's already some split wood in there and some fire starters and all that jazz. Load it up.

00:04:31 Clay, you wake up to the smell of burning wood, to the smell of eggs frying, to the smell of coffee. You hear birds chirping outside as the sun begins to rise and pierces through the windows. You look over and you see your partner, Johnson, cooking up a storm. So, yeah, Tate's going to check his pocket watch. So, you made coffee and then you cooked? I made coffee to, you know, at 4:00 a.m. get a pot of coffee going. Cooking wouldn't start until the sun until I could see the sun or at least or at

00:05:06 least the very obvious, "Hey man, sun's coming up." What time would that be? Probably be about 5:50. It is 5:59. Tate's going to sigh. Kind of put his pillow over his head and lay his head back down for a few more minutes. Ah, rise and shine. their pretty head. Why? Why you got me up so early? I mean, early bird. You know, I was up till like midnight, right? Yep. And uh it is just about 6:00 a.m. here, so you got a solid. At least you're making breakfast. Ah, I'd never wake a man up without something like

00:05:43 that. Ain't right. Oh, and by the way, same goes. I don't expect to be waking up woken up without at least a cup of Joe to greet me in the day. It's a good thing I'll keep taking first watch. Tate will uh get up and kind of pack his stuff, rub his eyes, and start getting ready for the day. You hear a knock on the door. Um, a birdie would have removed the the shovel or noise contraption that we put on the door. As soon as I was up and brewing a pot of coffee, I would have removed that in a in walks. Ranger Leonard followed by

00:06:29 Ranger Conrad. Conrad has his rifle slowing still. You see that Leonard has a pistol on his hip. Morning, boys. Morning, Jets. You fellas hungry? Oh, as the sun does shine. Yes, I am. Conrad is here, too. All right. What about uh what about our third friend? H He'll be back. He's off doing some work. All right. Well, I got some oatmeal and eggs going. Oh, very good. You find the sugar for that oatmeal? No, sir. Go ahead. It's uh up there behind that. Yep. Right here. Yep. Just move that over. There you go.

00:07:06 We we we hide it from Granty. Hey, a bit of a sweet tooth that one, huh? No, we just, you know, h just Yeah. Yeah. How'd you sleep? Oh, man. Uh, like a babe. Like a babe. How about you? Really liking the weather over here. Oh, yeah. It's nice out. Hear them birds singing? In fact, they woke me up. Yeah, I won't hear that in the city. Isn't that the truth? I was uh doing a bit of sunny side over here, but you know, I ain't opposed to taking specifics. If you guys got particular egg, well, I think uh Conrad probably

00:07:44 take them scrambled. I'll take them however you're feeling. Matter of fact, go ahead and do me uh do me one fried nice and good. You got it, Birdie? Yeah. Hey, you got any bread over there? I don't know. Do we pack bread? You got the heart attack. You know, I mean, I could bring this back to life, I guess. You know something? Yeah, I'll get some bread going. Is that Is that hard tack over there? That's uh indeed what it is. Just toss it to me. I'll be good. I mean, let us be civilized here. I'll fry

00:08:16 it up in the lard and then we'll make it a proper meal, not just, you know, rations. Man, heart attack brings me back. Yeah, it shouldn't. All right. Yeah, just sit tight. Got the pot on, too. So, if you need a beverage, go ahead and help yourself. And Birdie's going to whip up a bunch of fried eggs and some scrambled for our Ranger friend. Okay. Tate will have a smoke and steal some coffee. Ranger Leonard also walks up, grabs a cup of coffee next to you. So, uh, when are y'all heading out? I figure get some

00:08:51 food in her belly and, uh, pack up and, uh, yeah, probably on our way here. I don't know, half hour. All right. Well, when you get back to town, go ahead and let uh let Oadia know to bring some more uh some more of this canned herring. This stuff's good. We're not going back to town. Oh, well, where where are you going? We're going off into them woods. Nope. Excuse me. Well, I can't let that happen. That's my job. Unless you guys come back with some paperwork. Birdie, pretty sure we're just supposed to check in on the ranger

00:09:23 station and then we're supposed to go back to a HQ. But we got a train later today. Am I getting all confused over here or? I I think so. Well, he winks at you. Well, heck. All right, man. But maybe it's because I've had too many cups of this here coffee. It's a strong brew. We get that special ordered. Sorry about that. He likes to drink a little with his coffee. No need to go sharing bits of info that don't need sharing now. Uh yeah, I do like to Irish up my coffee on occasion, but that's between you, me, and the

00:09:57 Lord. Wow. Well, not my place to judge. Matter of fact, sometimes I do myself. Yeah. Still wish we would have brought horses, man. That's a long walk. Yeah. Well, you know, it is what it is. Happy you guys, you know, help yourself to the food and coffee and refill your water sack. And anything you need us to bring back message wise or any correspondence? Abraham knows what to bring us. You know, just let him know. We'll do. Can of herring. Extra extra cans of herring. Is can herring very good out here? Out

00:10:35 here? You know, it's as good as it gets. I suppose it beats None. That's right. It does be none. Ain't that the truth? Yeah. That's the miracle of canning. Oh yeah. You can have yourself some fish miles away from any fish. I never had canned herring before. A buddy of mine brought it out to me once and you know it just I tell you I cracked it open at the office. It didn't make them happy. Yeah. It's a bit pungent. Oh yes it is. But nice savory. Oh, yeah. Mhm. My wife really like canning. Yeah. All right.

00:11:16 Well, we'll have Granty go ahead and take care of the uh dishes when he gets back. Uh how about I How about I walk you boys up to that trail? Yeah, sounds like a plan. All right. Ranger Leonard walks with you to the path that you guys came in on. Conrad following behind him slowly. Short little fella, rifle slung. If you turn around to kind of look at the area, you do notice that the horse is not in the stable. You get to the trail. All right. Safe travels. Well, nice to meet you. Yep. I appreciate your

00:11:57 hospitality. Thank you. Oh, yeah. God bless you. Probably never see you again, so good on you. Yep. I hope so. Birdie, you ready? Birdie's gonna roll a smoke and hit the road. Yeah, let's do this. Ranger, Leonard, and Conrad stand there watching. If you peek back, you can see them still watching you. But eventually, you get far enough away that you can't no more. At that point, where we can't see him, Tate's going to start walking diagonal off the trail into the woods. Tate, hold on. Uh Birdie's going to kind of He He sees

00:12:35 what Tate's trying to do. Hey man, hold up a sec. Not Not yet. Mind you, let's just let's just keep a casual stroll down the south down the path here and let's just keep an eye out for our for our friend on the horse cuz uh something tells me he's not out there. He's around here keeping an eye on us. Tell you what, Birdie, give me just just give me a minute if you wouldn't mind. Watch my back for a second. Uh, I'll be right here on the path. Tate's going to walk a little bit off the trail, take his

00:13:07 rifle, and take the sleeve off of it and look through a scope back down the path. So, the path is not perfectly straight. Yeah, kind of winds a little bit here and there. Um, and there is a lot of foliage. I should reiterate, I'm not looking outside of the path. You're trying I'm looking just down the path to seeing if they're following us. Oh, I see. Roll a secret spot hidden. Shake up the box and give me the box. For the listening audience, let me explain what a secret role is. Sometimes I don't want the player to know if

00:13:50 they've failed or succeeded in something. So, I will have them roll a secret rule. What we do is we have a cigar box, the Girka Revenant cigar box. I'll have them put the dice in. They shake up the box, hand me the box, I look inside, which I am doing right now. Okay. What is your spot hidden? Tate's spot hidden is 60. Okay. And then after I've looked at the results in the box, I'm going to shake it and hand it back to them. As long as you don't touch my dice with your hands. Looking through your scope and down the

00:14:28 path, you don't see anything. I mean, you see trees, you see leaves, you see bushes, you see flowers, you see one tree that's dead with like moss and mushrooms growing throughout it. You notice, you do notice a black squirrel running around. That's kind of cool. I don't see that very often, but that's all you see. With that, Tate will shoulder his rifle and go back up to Birdie on the road. Looks like they're not following us, Birdie. Yeah, maybe not on the path. Birdie's been keeping an eye off the

00:15:03 path, casually smoking a cigarette, admiring the, you know, the tops of the trees and just casually looking around 360°. What is Birdie's spot hidden? Birdie's spot hidden is 70. Holy [ __ ] Don't roll. You don't need to roll. I will say if you're just passively looking around, I'll kind of use your skill. You don't notice anything. You know, when it comes to setting ambushes, right, or keeping an eye on common paths, a tactic used is, you know, you have your scout off a ways in a well hidden area and you just keep

00:15:50 an eye on a certain area, right? And you know that folks should go through there, right? Well, right now the boys up at the tower know that we're walking down this path. Okay. our buddy, whose name is eluding me at the moment, but the the fell on the horse could easily be an hour down this path waiting for us to pass a certain marker. And if we never pass that marker, then they know that we're not going back to town. I hear you, Birdie. So, makes a lot of sense. There's the short game and there's the long game.

00:16:25 Well, Birdie, I think I might have heard that horse around midnight last night. And you did not. Hm. Did you hear anything at all? I didn't hear a peep. And it it was the same ranger that was back late, right? That's right. Yeah, there was only the three of them as far as we know. And then he left at midnight. Means that poor horse only got a couple hours of rest before they went back out on it, you know. And it had that uh, you know, that faulty hind leaving at midnight. I mean, hell, he could be all

00:16:58 the way back to the road proper by now. Could also be at the town. Yeah, that horse wouldn't have made it to the town in that time unless they're trying to kill it. But you would know a lot better than I would. Yeah. No, they could be heading there though, you know. Yeah. I'm guessing they'd be probably walking. If he was at all considerate of the horse, he'd do uh you walk the horse and then guide the horse. Do that alternately to take some strain off it. from around midnight to now. I mean, that's a good six hours of, you know,

00:17:29 six, seven hours of moving. It could be anywhere down this path or nowhere even close to it, heading back out into the woods somewhere. We just don't know. I hear you there, Birdie. What we have here is a crossroads of sorts. Do we head all the way back to the road just to see if we see them or do we roll the dice as they say? Cut cross country. Just keep our heads on swivels and see see what we see. I think we're supposed to go in the woods right now. I think I might follow your lead. Fair enough.

00:18:02 Logistically speaking, are we heading east down this path south? What cardinal direction are we going? You are heading east. Perfect. All right. Cuz Apollo's cradle is west, basically due west, right? Yep. Yep. Let's see here. It's June. Sun favors the northern stretch a bit more. I say we cut south. Cut south for a mile, maybe two, and we head on back west. Do we really need to go that far out? Well, the closer to the road we are, the more likely it is that we might stumble upon somebody who sees us before we see

00:18:40 them and then they get first crack at it. How dense is this forest? It's pretty unkempt. Do I get the sense we could walk through it relatively on scene? Yeah, you would have to be pretty close to like get like a really positive visual uh like visual of of like another person walking through the woods. Yeah. Well, look at it, Birdie. I mean, you can't see more than 20 ft into there. True. Um so, let's I I agree with you. Absolutely. I just don't think we need to go a mile or more. All right. The further away from

00:19:19 the path we go before heading back west, the greater our chances of passing by the station undetected. And the greater our chances were we're getting lost. Well, and the greater chances there's some sort of evidence we might be able to look at. I don't know. I I'm willing to compromise on this. And uh by the way, your boy Birdie over here don't get lost. What's your navigate skill? [ __ ] out of curiosity. I don't know. Oh, all right. That It's okay for him to have the confidence. I'm just curious. It

00:19:55 It's uh There's nothing there. It's a 10%. Oh, [ __ ] Uh Birdie, I'm glad you don't get lost. If you do, as long as I can see the stars, I know where we're going. I'm more of a sun guy myself. Two peas, one pod. Maybe a mile's a bit aggressive. We'll go in a spell and then we'll head back. Works for me. Let's go. Okay. So, you guys start moving south. So, you said a mile was probably a little too much. How How many minutes do you guys want to walk that direction? I mean, it would take a few minutes walking through this this dense

00:20:35 area, I'm assuming. Oh, yeah. Half an hour. Half an hour probably get us a mile. Sure. 15 minutes. Sure. 15 minutes. Okay. So, you guys walk 15 minutes south and then you start moving west again. Correct. Yes. Okay. You start moving west. You travel the same distance that you walked east about 30 minutes. You get to about the same point that the tower is. And if you look to your right, you can see it off in the distance through the trees and the foliage. All right, good. Pretty much exactly where we wanted to be here. So,

00:21:24 that's it's a good sign that we're navigating through this brush appropriately. I think this is our last landmark, Birdie. Once we're past this, it's all on you. Well, once we're past this, if you look west there, you can see off in the distance, we got Apollo's cradle. That's ultimately as long as we have that in front of us, we're going the right way. It's news to me. I'm glad you're here. Mhm. So, let's hope the sun doesn't set. Well, I mean, at night, we'll stay put and then wait for the dawn and continue.

00:21:57 So, you guys are have your little chat and then you keep moving west, correct? Another 15 minutes go by. Birds are chirping. Squirrels are jumping around. You see a possum kind of shimmy. You feel something tickle your neck. Clay. Clay smacks it. Pull your hand up. You see a big fat corpse of a spider. You keep walking. Eventually, you notice something up ahead. You might recognize it since both of you have a military background. But as you approach, you see barbed wire. big round long. You get up to it looking in

00:22:38 either direction, north and south. It goes for as far as you can see. I know the more economical way to use this is to stretch it out and wrap it between posts, right? To keep uh keep your livestock in check. Coiled up like this. Yeah, it really looks like they didn't want people around. Yeah. Yeah. This is a people stay out thing, not not animals. I still think we could probably move it. Oh, yeah. We can cut this. No. I mean, [ __ ] It ain't nothing but what? Maybe, you know, 8 10 gauge wire. But if we cut

00:23:09 it, they might know. I mean, at this point, do you really give a [ __ ] And and if we cut it, spread it, go through, and then push it back to itself. You'd have to be looking pretty careful to see that it's been cut. We could probably just walk through it pretty carefully, though. Describe it a little more, would you? Yeah, it is. It is like a coil of of barb wire wrapped, you know, kind of. So, yeah, they spent a ton of money on barb wire. Oh, yeah. And time. Tate will kind of play with it. Something you you

00:23:42 notice while you're like playing with it. It does look like there is a trail that has been kind of carved out along the wire. Birdie, it looks like a horse has been patrolling up and down this this area. On the east side or the west side? Like up and down the whole thing. The side we're on. Yeah, the side you're on. Got it. Okay. This looks strange. Birdie, any clue? Yeah, let's uh let's keep our voices down. Okay. Uh hey on it. You look south for a stretch. I'm going to look north. Okay. This is

00:24:16 almost certainly where our ranger pal's been patrolling. I hear it. Tate will swing around and first look with his eyes and then second look through his scope. Okay. And just so you know like like it is well tread. It's not brand new or anything like this is clearly been patrolled probably since this has been installed. Okay. And you guys want to cut the wire? Yes. I think we're I think we're looking down both sides. Okay. First to make sure nobody's coming down. Hey, uh Clay, go ahead and keep an eye both ways if

00:24:48 you can. I'm going to I'm going to get ourselves a path through this real quick. I got you. Tate will look on both sides and first with his eyes, second with the scope. See if he sees anybody coming. Roll the spot hidden. Secret. What's your spot hidden? Tate's spot hidden is 60. Tate Clay, you do not see anything in either direction. Birdie, we look pretty clear. Birdie's going to take a [ __ ] Now I have to assume that Birdie has some kind of means to cut the wire. You guys have basic camping equipment.

00:25:29 Is there something in basic camping equipment that you could use? It's too early. I don't think Leatherman's existed in 1910. I don't think so either. Maybe a hatchet. I would say you you guys have like a a Yeah, like a small one of you has a small hatchet. I think that makes sense. Perfect. Uh Birdie will kind of spread the coils out, right? Go in nice and careful and spread them out until he can isolate an individual strand and then kind of stretch it out on the ground. Just give it a good concentrated whack with the

00:26:04 hatchet. So, you do that a couple times and you get through it and the wire's cut. The first thing Brady's going to do is spread the wire apart and then push the dirt back over where he struck to kind of conceal that area. All right, Clay, come on through real quick. Tate will carefully dance through the break in the wire. Soon as Tate is through, Birdie is going to push the wire back together and do his best to cover his tracks to make it look like it's been undisturbed. Okay, you guys are on the other side of

00:26:40 the wire. Continue west. Yep, that's cool. Once we're, you know, a couple hundred yards west of the barbed wire, Birdie is going to chat with Tate. Okay. So, you guys travel, you said one or 200 yards. Yeah, about about 200 yards. Voices travel. Can I have both of you roll a spot hidden? I want this one to be secret for both of you. I I will roll mine in front of you. What is your spot hidden? Mine's 70. Holy Peyton is 60. Okay. So, you guys walk 100 200 yards past the wire and you said you wanted to have a conversation. Yep. And

00:27:22 Birdie will kind of keep it subdued. All right. Take In my experience, you don't put up a bunch of barred wire and have a well trodden patrol path for nothing, right? Which tells me that there's something out here that these boys are nervous about. Last time I've seen bar Boyer probably would have been at the end of a beach. Fair enough. Which the same reason, especially this much of it. Yeah. So, from now on until we get back on the other side, we're just going to keep it quiet. And we're going to assume that

00:27:57 we're in the lion's den. Let's keep our eyes open cuz it could be for keeping something in, too. Exactly. Yep. In or out? Either way. That's a barrier and we just bypassed it. So between this barb wire and those rangers who I'm not quite sure actually are rangers. Yeah. Mhm. This is a little worrying. Yep. But I got you, so I can't be all too upset. Same. Well, we'll keep things quiet. I'll follow you. And we're going to keep going. Tate is wielding his rifle, too. And Birdie has his shotgun slung.

00:28:36 Birdie? Yes, sir. So, after you guys have had your conversation and you're walking west still, you notice something off to your right. It looks like there's a little bit less foliage, potentially a path. Make your way over there, I would assume. Mhm. And you do. You find a small path. Looks like it hasn't been used very much in a very long time. It continues west. It goes in either direction, east, west. So you travel down it west further and along it you see covered in branches overgrown with moss. A tiny

00:29:20 shelter one could barely call a cabin. A modern equivalent would be like an ice fishing house, you know, shack. Okay. It's it's very small, one little window. You guys approach? Yes. Uh cautiously. Kind of describe how you approach it. Birdie would give the universal sign of halt, which is raising his his uh non-firing hand up above his shoulder, palm wide open, walk back to Tate. Hey man, we got a got a little structure up ahead. Looks like a shack of some sort. Do you want to check it out? I mean,

00:29:58 hell yeah. I can watch your back from out here. It's probably the best way to go about this. Perfect. Yeah. All right. Yeah, you'll hang back. Bride overwatch. I got you. All right, cool. I'm going to come in nice and slow. Yep. Ears and eyes open. I got you. All right, Birdie is going to carefully make his way down the path, alternating between scanning the path for dry leaves, twigs, loose stones. He's going to approach stealthily. Do you you said you have your shotgun slung, correct? Okay. Pistol in your holster. Yep. Birdie is

00:30:38 going to draw his pistol. Okay. I'm sorry. Birdie is going to get just a little like maybe 10 ft down the path and then it kind of clicks like All right, he's going to take off. He's going to shrug off his pack nice and carefully and set it down on the path and lean the shotgun against it. He's going to unburden himself. Pistol at the ready. Pistol at the ready. You make your way toward the shack. The closer you get, the more you realize it hasn't been occupied in a very long time. When you get closer to it, you start to

00:31:14 see scorch marks on it, like at some point it had been caught in a flame. You see two windows that have wooden covers that would like drop down, one of which is dangling, barely holding on. It does have a door. The door is closed. Is there a window on the same side of the building as the doorway? There's two on the same side of this door. One of them is closed. The other one is dangling. Like one it like there's two hinges that hold it up. One of the hinges is broken and it's dangling by like a single point. So

00:31:52 there's a little like triangle that you of like darkness that you can see from where you're standing. Birdie is going to cautiously make his way up to the dangling window shutter and he's going to hold his pistol right by his head and he's going to carefully look inside. It's really dark obviously uh but there's enough light ambiently from the sun peeking in through the many cracks in the log structure. It looks abandoned. You see some spiderw webs reflecting these beams of light coming in through the cabin's

00:32:30 cracks. Birdie is going to turn around and make eye contact with Tate, right? Just to, you know, assure himself that he can still be seen. And he's going to gesture at the doorway and make the I'm going to go in to this door. Cover me. Okay. Take gives him a thumbs up. You grab the latch, pull it up, pull the door open. Inside you see a bunk bed with cotss, two cotss. You see a pile of dirt. It looks like some kind of a critter has gotten in through the bottom and maybe at one point made a home here. There's

00:33:10 droppings and some of the wood inside is chewed up. There's a couple of cabinets that are open. There's dust, spiderw webs, some dead bugs that just couldn't figure out how to escape the shack. Looking at the cot, it is like collapsed on itself. There was some fire in here as well. Things are scorched. Birdie is going to basically check all the corners, make certain that there's nothing in here. There is not. It is very I mean, it's smaller than this room that we're in. Perfect. Once he's confident that this is empty and secure,

00:33:46 he's going to go back outside, wave Tate over. Actually, he's not going to wave him over. He's going to walk back so he can grab his pack. Okay. Hey, man. That that place hasn't seen anybody in a long time. So, you think we're all good to go? Yeah. Birdiey's going to look up and gauge the time of day. 10. 10 makes sense. It is. The CS are in a pile like they have collapsed onto themselves. Yeah, there's nothing here. But going forward, I think this is a good rally point. Okay, if we go up and for some odd reason we get

00:34:24 separated until we find another one, this is where we meet up. I don't plan on getting separated, but if [ __ ] hits the fan, let's hope we don't. I agree. I I agree with you. All right, so this is smart man, birdie. Hey, we got to always have a plan. It's a great fall back point. Great. Would either of you like to roll a search for the interior? Not me. I'm not going inside. I will search the exterior. Uh Birdie will go in and get a little more detailed search. Yes. Go ahead and roll for it. Should I roll for the

00:34:58 exterior or no? Yeah. 15. And we're rolling. That'd be a spot hidden, right? Yeah. Unless there's some We'll We'll let the audience comment on uh whatever they want to comment on and let us know if the spot hidden seems like the perception role of this game, you know. Yeah. What did you roll, Mr. Clay? Tate rolled a 78 over 60 for a failure. Okay. So, Birdie, you meet back up with Clay. Grab your pack. You walk back to the shack. You take a quicker look. You said you rolled a 15. I rolled a 15 under 70. Yes. That's really good. So,

00:35:41 you open up some of these cabinets that probably have not been opened up in a very long time. You find a couple cans of food, some of which are degraded, some of which maybe would be okay still. You open up some cupboards below. You find some very basic tools, cast iron, and then you look at the CS that are crumbled onto themselves. You kind of pull them apart a little bit, look underneath, you find a corpse. Oh, you find the charred remains of a human being. Based on the size or of anything else around it, is this a

00:36:24 child? Is it a fully grown person? it. You would presume it was a fully grown person. You you wouldn't have to roll anything for that. It's it's not a small body. It's like a fullsize grown adult body and it is clutching something. Birdie's going to look at what it's clutching. So, you peel the hands up off of it. Yes. It's arms out in front of its head holding this thing. You peel the hands away and you find a tin, a small tin box. You open it. Birdie opens it, but he opens it like he turns the

00:36:57 opening away from him and holds it out and opens it. He He had a bad experience once where he opened a box and inside was some heavily rotted raw meat and he got hit full frontal with that smell and just projectile vomited. So now he's cautious when he opens things. So you very cautiously open it. It does not hit you with the disgusting smell of rotten meat. What you find inside is an old revolver, six rounds of ammunition, and a few folded pieces of paper with a pencil. We're just going to assess the

00:37:39 quality, the reliability of the revolver. Is this thing rusted beyond repair? or does it look like it could probably still function given Bird's like history and knowledge and all that? It looks like it could work, but you maybe wouldn't want to rely on it to save your life. Perfect. Birdie's already wellarmed, so he's more interested in the paper. Let's uh he's going to gingerly try to unfold it. Okay. It looks like it's been sitting here for a while. It's degraded a little bit. You open it up, the pencil markings, a lot of them

00:38:19 have faded and also just the paper is degraded. A lot of the words are missing. You You're able to make out some of them every so often. And this is what you are able to read. Huh. Let's see here. Ta delivery of dynamite. Ben plant. Oh [ __ ] Oh wait, Dr. Child's and Mont confirmation with me missing the however suits ready capture device Dorian and All right. Well, that's a bit of jumble there, but Birdie is going to leave the shack and go find Tate. Okay. I assume Tate's close by. You just kind of find Tate

00:39:18 walking around assessing the area and assessing the building that you're in. Birdie's going to kind of flag him down. And Clay, you don't find anything out of the ordinary. Seeing Birdie flag me down, I will walk over to him. Did you find anything? Yeah, there's a corpse in there. More of a skeleton. Been there for quite some time, I'm guessing. Tate will peek inside and see it. Yeah. Looks like fire out. If fire was enough to burn him, why is the rest of the shack up? Right. The shack does have scorch marks.

00:39:56 Like it was hit with like a flash fire that didn't burn the rest of the structure down. Yeah. I'm just saying how it's weird. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there was some kind of fuel in here or what, but either way, something burned hot and fierce and scorched her buddy over there, but poor fella. Yeah, he was holding on to this metal tin and I found this piece of paper. I think we need to heed what it says. Now, mind you, it's a bit jumbled. You know, this is faded and old, but there's mention of

00:40:25 dynamite. Okay, so we definitely got to watch where we're stepping. Keep an eye out. keep an eye out for something like that. Uh, it mentions a Dr. Child's and to the best of my reckoning, we haven't heard anything about that in particular. That's something to report back to the headquarters when we get a chance. Let's see. Suits are ready. They also mentioned something about a capture device. So, there's more going out here than we're aware of. That's for sure. Perhaps that capture device is the barb

00:41:00 wire. Or do you think it's something a little more intense than that? I think it's different than the barb wire. Barb wire is less a capture and more of a deterrent. I'm still curious about these suits, too. Yeah. Are they talking about people in suits? You know, I don't know. I mean, it could be just the common vernacular for business folk. So, he's working with dynamite and business folks and this doctor to capture something or somebody out here. Yeah. Or it could be protective suits of some kind. I don't

00:41:34 know. Uh just ain't enough information. But there's also a mention of a Dorian. Dorian. Yep. And I don't know if Dorian is a person, a place, or a thing. Sounds like a person to me. The big takeaway from this is we now have another person of interest, Dr. Childs. I'd like to share a few words with them. We know that there are explosives. What with the dynamite? Well, actually, now that I think about it, it could be dynamic, but let's assume the former. All right, so we got to be wary of explosives. And

00:42:08 they were trying to capture something. This doesn't tell us much, but it does give us more to be concerned about. This story is looking a lot bigger than I originally thought it would be. Yeah, you and me both. I think our main goal is still pretty clear, but if we find out stuff about this, we find out stuff about this. Mhm. I don't know if I'm ready to stick my nose in other places yet, though. Yeah, I hear you. And you know what happened inside that shack? That ain't the work of dynamite. Yeah, I don't think that

00:42:40 shack would still be here if it was. Exactly. Even if it was a smaller dose, uh there' just be a bit more scatter. We just got a bit more info to kind of piece together here. So, okay. I think we pretty much exhausted this place, though. I said we head keep heading west. We'll mulle it over and keep going. See if we see this doctor. But but most importantly, let's let's try to get Creedmore. Yeah, agreed. Okay, what do you guys do now? Tate's going to follow Birdie and I'm assuming we're heading west. We're going to keep

00:43:11 going down the path. You guys keep working down the path. About another 20 minutes. You notice very clearly in the middle of the path is a can of tuna peeled open and sitting there with a cigarette butt next to it. Tate will walk up and squat down and check out the cigarette butt to see if it uh looks similar or the same to the ones that he saw while he was out in the woods doing his business the previous night at the ranger station. Correct. Did you pocket any of those? I don't think I did. Okay.

00:43:52 Either way, they are the same. Apple strikes. Um, as you guys are walking up this path, like right after you found the can of tuna, I need both of you to roll like a nature check of some variety. Um, yeah. Nature. Natural world. Yeah. Yes. Perfect. Tate rolled a 76 over 10 and failure and Birdie rolled an 18 over 10. I mean natural world like is that like you know like you would be really high in it if you were a naturalist. Yeah. like you'd be able to identify, you know, some flowers or mushrooms or like, oh, that's not a

00:44:44 common pigeon. That's a emancipated pigeon. Got or some [ __ ] You know what I mean? Um, but yeah. Okay. So, go ahead and mark those down as failures. Obviously, we've been really bad at remembering that, all three of us. Um, Dupa, do you remember why we mark those? Because uh when we finish stuff, we get bonus points towards it. Hey. Hey, Birdie. Yep. Whoever's smoking these smoking the same thing at the ranger station. What do you mean? I mean, they've been using this path. Hm. Wait. Oh, yeah. You found you found cigarette

00:45:21 butts out in the woods when you were taking a piss. Yes, he did tell you that the previous night, too. So, these are the same brand. H. Birdie is a hand roller, so he buys pouches of tobacco and rolling papers. So, he's not as well-versed in the brands of pre-rolled cigarettes. How fresh does it look? Not fresh. May I see your character sheet real quick? You would guess. Roll me a dice. Tell me what it is. 25. You would say they are between one to two weeks old. Okay. Approximately. Could be more. Birdie. Yep. Birdie.

00:46:06 These have uh haven't really been here that long. It's really only been a a week, probably two from the look of them. So, this could be from our Creedmore party. No, I think this is from whoever was smoking at the ranger station. Well, I mean, uh, fairly good bet that Creedmore and friends probably went past the ranger station, right? I mean, we don't know that for certain, but but they said they they didn't see anybody like that. So, yeah. Well, you you trusting everything our ranger friends are telling us? If they're

00:46:37 lying, it just goes further to say that they're probably not our friends. Yeah, kind of. But there was somebody there smoking these same exact cigarettes and there's somebody here. There's a good chance a few weeks ago they were could have been coming down this path. Yeah, adds up, that's for sure. Have themselves a bit of a snack. Didn't even bother to chuck the can off the trail. I say we leave it and move on. Agreed. Tate will light up a smoke and walk on his way. Mhm. Uh Birdie's in the lead.

00:47:13 Do you still have your pistol drawn? No, Birdie has put his pistol away. Okay. He has reholstered it. Do you Clay have your rifle out still? Yeah. He's doing like the sniper hug with his rifle as he walks. Very cool. Thank you. So, you walk down the trail. Another 15 minutes go by. You see a clearing up ahead. The trail peels open into a wide circle. It looks kind of familiar. It looks like very similar layout to the ranger station you had been at earlier that day, except for there is a tower that is crumbled to the side into

00:47:58 the forest and the buildings are torched the same way that that little shack was. Birdie, didn't you say that last ranger station looked pretty new? Heat. Heat.