Chapter One: Apollo's Cradle - Episode 3

Special Agent Tate Clay and Marshal Birdie Johnson have an unexpected meeting before finding more questions. A close encounter follows and something feels wrong.

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

Transcript

00:00:02 [Music] All right, guys. Let's do a little recap. Tell me what happened. All right. So Birdie and Tate Clay successfully, or so they believe, successfully fooled the raining rangers into thinking that they were heading back to town. But then they doubled back through the woods and came upon a row of barbed wire with a patrol path eroded around it, which we believe is where the rangers have been setting up their patrols. We cut our way through, found an old dilapidated shack

00:01:16 with a corpse and a tin that contained a partial note because some of the stuff had been faded away or burned away. And it had to do with uh Sedeski, why don't you fill us in on that? A delivery of something. Uh Mr. Dr. child's something was missing something, but they had suits ready and a capture device. There was also dynamite, wasn't there? Wasn't there a mention of dynamite? My handwriting is not that bad. Yeah, dynam dynamite. Dynam. So there either something is dynamic, i.e. everchanging

00:02:01 or evolving, or they're talking about dynamite. I'm guessing power core. It could be a dynamic power core, but this is 1910. Well, yeah, it could just be a 1911 a company that gives you power. Possible. I'm thinking there are explosives a foot, but I've What do I know? So, yeah, we made it to a shack and that's where we found these little clues. And then we continued on and we found the remains of an older ranger tower station that had clearly been there for a decade plus if not more. And it was totally run over and bad. But I do

00:02:44 believe we found some more cigarette butts there. Correct. Yep. More cigarette butts there. And how was the do you remember the condition of the body that you found and kind of the burned burned to a crisp but the box that it was holding wasn't burnt and there were scorch marks on the shack but it was not like burned down flash fire. Yeah. Yeah. Intense heat which is the same as the ranger station. Correct. You see a lot of similar markings. So, you guys got to the old ranger station. It's an almost identical layout

00:03:22 to the one you were at with Leonard, Conrad, and Granty. Except for it is clearly [ __ ] up. The tower is collapsed off into the woods. You guys have found some similar cigarettes. Clearly, there's a trail developing here. You also found a can of tuna. You guys were traveling left and right. Birdie was traveling left, correct? For the cardally gifted, uh, Birdie was taking the southern half of the Ranger Station while Tate was taking the northern arc. H. All right, Tate. How about I'll head up along the left over there and you

00:04:08 take the right. That works for me. I'd love to take this side. still keep an eye on each other. Absolutely. Awesome. Okay, so Birdie is moving to the left. That is correct. And Tate Clay is moving to the right. Yes, sir. Okay. And you're just trying to get like a scan of the perimeter, right? Well, I think we're going like building to building. Okay. Dubois, you're like moving toward the lodge then, correct? And Tate, you're moving toward the stable. Stable. I'll start with uh where we left off then. Tate Clay, you get to

00:04:42 the stable. You get inside. You're looking around. So far, you don't see anything. Meanwhile, over to the right near the lodge, Birdie, you hear something big moving in the woods. You hear a branch go some brush shuffling around. And you hear you recognize that there's a bear in the grass, in the trees, in the bush somewhere in the green. You can make out a pretty good estimation of about where it is. Right about when it starts to charge at you. Birdie is going to draw his revolver and simultaneously yell

00:05:23 bear. Bear and he's going to draw on it. I'm going to need everybody to tell me their dexterity right now. We are in combat. 35 for Tate, 70 for birdie. given that you have a higher dexterity than the bear, you will so it has kind of like a surprise round on you, but that surprise round is it running at you as it's like in the bush. You're looking around all of a sudden charges through the trees and gets right up to you. It gets right up to you. You have just enough time to draw your pistol and

00:05:58 fire. Now in Kthulu, you can either fire once, which is like an aimed shot, or you can fire three times, but all three shots will be at disadvantage. You also have a revolver. It takes one full turn to reload it. Birdie is going to fire three shots at this bear. Draw. Bam. Bam. Bam. Oh yeah. Go ahead and roll. Disadvantage for all of them. So you will have to roll twice and take the worst one. All right. And that's uh 2d10. Yep. Actually, I'm sorry. I'm going to I'm going to redo that. Since you drew this turn, I think you're only

00:06:31 going to have time for one shot. Fair. Fair enough. Okay. Here is one shot. So, just normal. That is a 20. What is your firearm stat? Handgun. I think that's a pass. Uh 60. Okay. So, you hit it. Go ahead and roll damage. 1d8. Two. Okay. It is now the bear's turn. So, you might recognize it. The the bear has black fur, so you take your shot. You roll the two for damage. Correct. So, the bullet smacks it in like the center mass in some of the big fatty fleshy area, and it doesn't seem to do a ton. It is almost unfazed as it comes at

00:07:09 you. It stands up and goes to take a swipe at you. And right there in that moment, you notice that it the bear looks a little [ __ ] up already. And then it swipes at you. And it misses. It goes right over your head. Birdie, you managed to kind of like duck to the side a little bit. Um, and then it goes in for another one. Birdie, you get a claw just barely grazing the side of your arm. You take two points of damage. Clay, it is now your turn. Hearing Birdie yell, I think Tate Tate would be, "Huh? What? What's going on out

00:07:51 there?" Then he hears the shots. He will peek out the door and see the bear and take a shot at him with his rifle. Okay, go ahead. It's a 67 under 70. Okay, so you hit it. Go ahead and roll damage. 2d6 plus 4. Big money. 10. 10. Wow. Okay. So, you turn around and quickly react. You raise your rifle. You've trained. You've practiced. You've shot at moving targets before. Hold your breath real quick and fire. You hit that thing square and it like reels over to the side in pain. How a bear sound. Adrian.

00:08:40 Adrien. Adrien. It falls over to the side. Birdie, it's your turn. Uh Birdie is going to immediately put three more rounds in this bear. Okay, so roll all three of those twice. Take the worst option. Okay, that is a 31 and a 50. So both the first shot hits is a 94. So that second shot's a miss. Third shot is an 83. So I hit it one more time. Okay, go ahead. Roll damage. That is an eight. You rolled max damage. I rolled max damage. The thing charges out of the woods at you. You managed to hit a shot. Grazing

00:09:24 blow. Do two points of damage. It gets up to you. Swipes. Swipes. You managed to duck out of one, but just coming over the other direction. You get one in the arm claw. It's bleeding. Tate hears what's going on. Raises his rifle. Takes aim. Fires. Boom. Hits it square where he needs to hit it. And it falls over to the side. Birdie, you take your revolver and fire three times at it. Probably a little unsteady. Adrenaline is really pumping. You're bleeding out of your arm. Bam, bam, bam. Two shots. Go high,

00:09:53 go low, but the center one hits true right in the head. It's dead. God damn it. Birdie. Birdie. I got it. You okay? Yeah. He's done a just a graze. Just a just a graze. Let's uh keep Keep keep looking. Keep looking. Tate's gonna go up to Birdie. Birdie's going to holster his pistol and pull out a shotgun. Wise. Yeah, Bernie. Yeah, there's no way they didn't hear that. Uh, let's hide out in the woods for a little bit. Uh, hold on a sec. Let's uh They're far, right? We've been moving a minute and uh we got

00:10:37 to stay and assess for a moment. Okay, let me reload my my revolver and keep your eyes out, man. There might be more than one. Probably not, but bear is being solitary. Let's be quick. Let's be quick and get you patched up. All right. How many hit points do you have in total, Birdie? Like 10. 14. 14. Well, now I have 12 cuz I took two. Okay. Birdie's a beast, dude. Yeah, that's pretty good hit points. You still can get shot once and die. Like if he had landed, if Tate Clay had shot you the way he shot that bear,

00:11:12 you would be unconscious and bleeding to death right now. Yeah, cuz you would have been shot by a highowered rifle. Yeah, that's a five and a one on the damage die. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, so you you patch him up. Not yet. Okay. Uh Birdie's going to reload his his revolver. How many rounds? Uh he fired four rounds, so he needs to replace four. Um, do you have the ammo count? Yep. All right, good. You have Would you like to know how many revolver rounds you have? Yeah, you have 26 revolver rounds left and 10 rounds of

00:11:50 buckshot. Perfect. We didn't come out here to expecting to go to war. So, that makes sense. And mark your ammo down. Well, how much ammo do you have left? 14 now. 14 of the What is it? 30 30 cal. Yeah. And then you How many rounds for your revolver? I didn't grab any ammo from home. Just the fully loaded guns. You guys have killed the bear. Tate, you run up to Birdie. What do you guys want to do now? That the bear's dead. You want us to keep going and searching? We're just going to keep heading west and we

00:12:22 have to search this place. Yes. I understand that. Let's hurry up cuz that was loud. You shot a whole lot. True. So, let's hurry up. Search season. The reason we probably stay off the trail for a little bit. See, the reason I'm not as worried about it is because I get the sense that them ranger folks don't come beyond that barbed wire place. I feel like if anything happens out here, I don't think they're coming out, man. Birdie could definitely be right. Rather safe than sorry, you know. Mhm. I mean, how fast can a horse move

00:12:57 down a trail like that? Oh, it can move at a good clip, for sure. I mean, it's not the greatest trail in the world, but definitely faster than folks on foot. I'd say we got at least a good 3 4 hours on them. Now, I'd be amazed if they didn't hear your shot in particular, right? Just cuz rifles what with the higher velocity. You know that. I'll let the bear get you next time. No, no, no, no. Good shooting. And he kind of slaps him lightly on the scratched arm. No, I think there's uh the potential for too much valuable clues

00:13:29 here for us to not do our due diligence. Well, I'll get back to the stable. All right, I'm going to get in that lodge. Uh, thanks for patching me up. Clay, you get to the stable. Go ahead and roll a search check for me. Okay. And while he's rolling that, Birdie, you're checking the lodge and the shed. And the shed. Okay. Go ahead and roll a search check for for both. That's fine. Okay. What were your rolls for the search? Tate rolled a 44 under 60. Searching the stable. Birdie rolled a 34 under 70 for

00:14:12 searching the shed and shack. The stable clay looks like it hasn't been used in a very long time. You do find all the things you would expect to find in a stable. Not that you're like a cavalryman, but in this day and age, you would be as familiar with horses as like the average person today is with cars. You know what I'm saying? You see some old brushes that are worn out, decrepit. You see spiderw webs. You see signs of animals just using and abusing this structure. The shed and the lodge. Birdie, it looks like almost an

00:14:51 identical layout to the one that you were at earlier. As if the same builders has had built it or people were copying someone else's homework. Of course, it looks again similar to kind of that shed. The beds have been chewed up by creatures. You see foam and feathers that have just like withered away over time. You see a couple holes in the floor where some kind of an animal has dug its way up and there's like a mound of dirt on the floor. The cabinets are open. One of the cabinet doors hangs from a hinge where a

00:15:29 spiderweb kind of glistens in the light. The foot lockers are absent. You do not see foot lockers. And the shed is empty. There's almost nothing in there. some like a nut bolt or a rusty nail, but it is otherwise empty. Birdie is going to make his way to the ranger tower that is laying on its side. You would meet Clay there. Done. Peeking around the Fallen, correct? Correct. Yeah, you're So, you're you're peeking around the Fallen tower. You're like out of the clearing. You're into the woods a little bit now. Um, Tate's going towards

00:16:09 the watchtowwer part of it, the top. It looks like it's snapped somewhere along the base and you get to the very top like firewatch, you know, ranger part of it. When you start looking around, it is flattened, you know, on one side from from having trees, moss, plants, vines have started to grow through it. When you get close to it, some birds kind of off and a little squirrel runs away and chirps at you from up in a tree. Just then, Birdie gets to you. Nothing in the shed or the lodge. Stables. Stables are pretty

00:16:55 empty. Your typical stuff. Yeah, got it. Well, let's go. We We're here. It's what's last. Yeah, let's go take a peek. I'll let you go on first. You got that fancy shotgun after all. It doesn't look like there's much to go into. We also didn't think there'd be a bear here, Birdie. Yeah. Well, ears open. If you guys would like to periodically roll uh listen or spot hidden checks, kind of to check your surrounding, please do. Birdie would like to do that right now actually because he's his arm is still throbbing. Okay.

00:17:33 That is a 64 over 60. That's a fail. Okay. It would have been a successful spot hidden. I imagine he's nervously looking around the trees in the leaves kind of like in Predator. Oh yeah. When they're like they're like, you know, their eyes are wide and they're darting from shadow to shadow and each one of them has a different caliber weapon and only one of them has a single canteen for a foray into the dense bush. Oh yeah. Absolutely. They were the best of us. Oh yeah, like a 5,000 round backpack

00:18:04 of ammunition to just like burn through in 10 seconds. Epic. It was That is an like one of my favorite action movies. It's knock knock. They're dug in like an Alabama wood dick. Anyways, I ain't got time to bleed. You got time to duck. You've seen that movie before, right? What one? Predator. Predator, I believe. So, with get to the chopper, I think so. Karina. Get down. Get through the chopper. All right, let's play. Okay, you ADHD heaven group nards. I love Predator. Okay, so do I. Not Predator 2. Uh, Concrete

00:18:43 Jungle was fine. Anyway, uh, so you don't see anything in the woods or hear anything rather cuz you rolled a listen check. Tate, search in the top of the tower. Roll a top of the tower. Search. Tate rolled an eight under 60. It's difficult to navigate the inside of this place. Having rolled as well as you did, you could maybe tell what this used to be if you hadn't already visited one that you know within the past 48 hours. You see remains of a candle of a cot. You see some books pages are just kind

00:19:28 of crumpled up here and there, ripped out, chewed up. You see what maybe used to be a desk drawer tangled up in a bunch of leaves in a pile of like lumber. You go to reach for the desk drawer and you pull it and you give it a little bit of a tug and it kind of [Music] like slides out. Inside you find a journal, a leatherbound journal, some other papers, some old maps. You unfold the maps. They don't look any more helpful than the one you already have. Some of the papers are weather reports. Oh, it's

00:20:11 going to be 85° and clear. Looks like that type of stuff. Looks like there used to be a maybe a carrier pigeon here as well. You see some some notes about that. You go to open up the journal. Correct. Do you go to like show Birdie what you found? It's You're kind of like a little uncomfortable where you where you're like climbing around inside this thing. Yeah. I think Tate's going to do like a really quick page check. See if there's writing on the pages. There is writing in the pages. It is like close it and 3/4 of the way full.

00:20:44 Close it and crawl out. Okay, birdie. Yep. Let's get out of here and check this out. and he kind of flashes the journal up at him. All right, sounds good. I'm just keeping an eye out here. Let's go a little bit into the woods. I'm going to have you look over this and I'll wrap that arm up for you quick. All right, sounds good. You guys might be starting to get a little Oh, it's lunchtime. Let's have, you know, a can of I think we're more focused on what we just found. Correct. Well, like you could sit down for, you

00:21:14 know, a couple minutes. We're going to into the woods right now. Okay. to hunker down, look over this, and check over ourselves. Okay. You know, you had a good point earlier. We should probably get aways further west and then, you know, take a spell and you can patch me up and we'll dig into that uh that book you got there. Let's get on our way then. Let's do it. How long about do you guys want to walk? 15 minutes. Yeah. Okay. find a comfortable yet securish looking location. Big falling down tree we can

00:21:51 lay our backs against or something like that. Yeah. When you're walking down a trail in the woods, there's clearly areas that you don't want to stop and then uh every now and then you're like, you know, if I needed to, I could I could spend a moment here. I could dig a hole back there. Yeah. Yep. So, you guys start making your way west from the old ranger station and you manage to pick up another trail. It's continuing the same way that you're going. It is very light. Looks like maybe deer take this route

00:22:21 once in a while. You do see some droppings and you get to a small area that's just a little bit more clear than the rest. There's a log that appears to have fallen. Seems like it might make a good spot to sit for a little while. H. Is this still on that game trail? Right off to the right. I think this will do. Birdie, I kind of want to get a little more off the trail than this. Yeah. I mean, let's just go about 10 15 ft into the woods. Oh, okay. Yeah, we can do that. Uh, why don't you lead the way? I got it. And Tate marches off. I

00:23:02 don't know, 30 ft into the woods. You find a nice little rock to sit on. Perfect. Or just a larger tree with less undergrowth beneath it. Yeah. So, you get to a large tree that has a It's a little bit clearer underneath, a couple mushrooms growing, and you pop open the journal. The very front page says, "Station log book, handwritten, Ranger Oadia Adams." You flip through it and the majority of it is pretty mundane stuff about uh the animals and the trees and the birds and the sun setting and how

00:23:42 beautiful it is between the two peaks off in the distance. You do notice a couple passages about animals being abnormally aggressive. And then toward the end, the last handful of entries, I'll just read them out loud to you guys because I didn't print them off. I am ready. What does it say? March 17th. There is no year. I am often left to my own devices up top this tower. Left to my own thoughts, writings, readings, and the songs of the animals below. In all honesty, I had not thought much of them strange lights that on great

00:24:25 occasion show themselves through the trees. My assumption had them to be a simple trick of the eye, a reflection of the stars above or some such thing. A few men would mention them on passing the corner of their eye or far at top a hill behind the trees. Much to my surprise, some men from the Forest Service showed up asking about them. Just yesterday they had come, four of them with survey gear to investigate the lights. Something seemed off by my determination, but I am no man of the mind. I showed them the map and they

00:25:03 went off. Had the smell of city on them. March 20th. I found another one of the animals. Put the poor thing down. I've forgotten my count of the times I've had to fire upon one which charged creatures which are otherwise peaceful. Odd things and odd times. One of the men came by to send a bird back to Harriet's pawn for more supplies. But based on their packs, I can't imagine they'd need much more. March 27th. Many more men came carrying a tremendous amount of equipment. I'd think they were setting up to colonize

00:25:42 the area. Some of their wares seemed rather scientific. Odd again and odd again. March 28th. Heard a series of gunshots. Sounded more like a shootout than hunting. They won't tell me anything. Said they were scaring some wolves away, but I know better. It's not unheard of, I guess. Big dogs get hungry. Could be that the aggression scene and some of the other animals went and gotten to them. March 29th, some of them same men returned, informing me that I am being relocated to a different station away from here.

00:26:21 They gave me some explanation about gases leaking from the Earth itself being ignited by some spark of the Earth. They said it was unsafe to stay at my station. Sounds like a load of horse croc, but I will do as I'm told. I suppose learned men may know more about those sciences than me. Either way, I worry what they'll do with Marge. Her little lodge isn't exactly legal, per se, but she never bothered nobody. She's a nice lady. Brings me a slab of meat every so often. The antlers hung on the door were a birthday gift from her,

00:27:00 matter of fact. Strange woman, assuredly. Always rambling nonsense about them lights and that stream over west. Plus, the woman considers herself some sort of a philosopher, a poet. I'll say if she's a poet, then I'm the pope. But irregardless, I hope them Forest Service folks are nicer to her than they were to me. Ranger Oadia Adams signing out. Birdie, this kind of gives me more questions than it answers. Yeah. Yeah, it sure does. But I'm guessing burnt down shack we came by. Yeah, it's probably old

00:27:35 Marge. RIP. Here's what I make of it. Some folks came out here to look at something and whatever they looked upon gave them the sense of profit because they brought more folks out here, right? Profit or discovery. But I'm assuming the those are often the same. You know, the gentleman in the other shacks, the other watchtowwer. Mhm. This kind of confirms that they're with them and they're probably not Forest Service. Well, I mean, they didn't really have the Forest Service vibe about them anyway, did they? Why would a government

00:28:17 agency be shutting down another government agency? Well, I mean, that's assuming it's a government agency, man. This could be private. That's my point. Yeah. So they come out here, they're taking a peek at something. They clearly find something that warrants more investment and time and manpower and material. But at the time of this journal, you know, that station we just left was up and running and now it ain't. So I'm thinking whatever they found, let's just say they probably regretted finding it. And now they're in

00:28:52 a cleanup mode as it were, right? No one goes west. It's been about three months. Three months, you say? Let me take care of the arm real quick. Well, man, appreciate it. But why why do you say three months? It says here March. Oh, but there ain't no ain't no year on it, man. This could have been last year. It could have been three years ago. I mean, we we a I mean, look at how you know, I suppose you're right on that one. Yeah. Look at how And how how new did you say that other ranger station was? Well, the

00:29:23 the first one with our friends, that one hadn't been built more than a year or two past. So, it probably, and I'm just speculating here, probably has something to do with each other. So, the old one we left earlier, that one felt like there hadn't been anybody there, like that hadn't been running for at least a couple handful of years minimum, right? I mean, the overgrowth. See this? and he points to where it says spark of the earth. See this? My guess is all these scorch marks here and the scorch marks at the cabin

00:29:59 are from whatever they say is the gases with the spark of the earth. I mean, I've never heard of that and I've been a few places. Yeah. I mean, you know, we are in Pennsylvania, so there is a bunch of coal and ground gases and whatnot, but yeah, the these seem too too isolated, like too coincidental. Yeah. Old Marge, we assume, you know, her shack goes up in a bright flash. Tate dumps some alcohol on your arm and wraps it with gauze. Are you rolling first aid or medicine? This would be first aid. Okay. First aid can only recover

00:30:42 one HP per I took a little bit medicine, but I don't think I'm outfitted to do it here. Biggest thing right now is prevention. Well, medicine is like, oh, you have the flu. Yeah. Okay. Let me treat it. First aid is like, oh, you're bleeding. Let me stop it. Should I roll first aid? Yeah. Go ahead and roll it. Tate's first aid is 60. I rolled a three under 60. Okay. Birdie heals one HP. So, here's how it works. And for the listening audience, if you couldn't tell, we are also kind of learning. We

00:31:22 usually play really rules light, more focusing on the narrative. And we are making a concerted effort to be a little bit more mindful of the rules. So, please bear with us if we are doing something wrong. I'm terribly sorry. It's all Cody's fault and it's all my fault. No, it's not. No apologies. Deal with it. Deal with it. Okay, so the way it works, characters without a major wound heal one hit point per day. A successful first aid can heal one point. And there's a bunch of other [ __ ] That's

00:31:56 where we'll leave it right now. So, you heal one point and within 24 hours you will heal another point. That's the textbook bandage you got there. Done it a couple of times. I would hope so. Well, either way, appreciate it. Absolutely. I got to have you uh stick around for the fight. Well, let's hope there ain't one. Not a lot of men put three, four shots in a bear like that. Well, only two of the four landed, but I appreciate you glossing over that fact. I couldn't see it from the stables. Either way, it got got

00:32:32 So, we got an outfit that spent a bunch of money and then maybe bit off more than they could chew and now they're in damage control. Right. Speaking about chewing, Tate digs through his bag and pulls out some lunch. That's absolutely what it sounds like. Or they got the answers they were looking for and got something out of it. Regardless to say, they didn't stop anything. So, they could be trying to do almost the same thing we're doing. They just got one a hell of a jump on us, birdie. That's possible. I mean, the barb wire, the

00:33:06 extra tower. This book's looking like they only had one ranger out here originally, and now there's three fake ones. Mhm. Something's something's off. Yep. That just means we got to stay vigilant. Can I have you guys roll a perception check? Spot hidden. Listen, upper either. Birdie rolls a 28 under 70 for spot hidden. Tate rolls a 56 under 60 for listen. Birdie, as you two are sitting there and you're kind of on edge already, Clay pulls out some food, cracks open a tin, hands it to you with a spork, cracks open one for himself.

00:33:55 Correct me if I'm ever describing something you guys like, oh, he wouldn't do that. He'd have a spoon. You guys are chowing down on your lunch. Suddenly, you realize the forest is quieter than it had been previously. You notice that, Clay, with your listen check, and you [Music] hear birdie, you look around a little bit. You notice that Clay has heard something. He makes a face as he's like looking around. You notice about 30 yards away there's just a line 30 yard where there aren't any trees or brush or leaves. There's almost

00:34:42 just like this little tube through all the foliage and you see a silhouette and at first you're not sure if that's just the shape of a tree or a log. Do you say anything? Birdie's going to put his hand on Tate's elbow like not not aggressive. just he's going to like put his hand on it and he's going to raise his other hand and put his finger in front of his lips in the universal sign of sh. Tate looks up, looks at birdie, looks back straight, and I see it right. Birdie's going to point where he's

00:35:25 looking. So the finger he puts to his lips, he then points that direction. His hand's still on his elbow. When he points toward it, you kind of have to lean over a little bit, but then you see it. Yeah. Tate will like rub his eyes, squint. And when you squint to rub your eyes, Birdie, it moves quick. To the right, and it's gone. Birdie is going to quietly. Let's see. He's sitting at the base of a tree. He's going to pull out his revolver first and just have it up. Tate opens his eyes and doesn't see nothing. Must

00:36:05 have been the sun. Birdie's going to let go of Tate's elbow and point both fingers with his non-shooting hand at his eyes and then point again where he saw this silhouette move in the brush. Birdie, there's nothing there. Birdie's going to put the the barrel of his revolver to his lips in the moment. Tate just kind of shrugs and Okay. And goes back to eating. Birdie's going to grab his elbow again and squeeze it a little firmly. Not not he's not trying to hurt him, but he's like, "Yeah, like take this seriously." Tate

00:36:45 stops what he's doing, just plays along. Birdie is going to lean in and ever so slightly whisper, "Movement 30 yd out there." Tate will nod and raise his rifle and look down the scope. Do I see anything? Birdie is going to then holster his revolver and pull out the shotgun, taking care to be quiet. Do I see anything? Looking through the scope. Roll spot hidden. 45 under 60. Looking through the rifle in that direction. You don't see anything. You guys sit there for a minute. Birdie's going to move the He

00:37:30 has now shouldered his shotgun and he's looking down the barrel and he's going to nudge Tate with his elbow and move the barrel to the right. It went that way. Tate's going to look directly behind him. You slowly turn your head behind you and just as you're turning out of the very corner of your peripheral vision, you see something about 20 yards away duck into the brush and move quickly. You can hear a little bit tuna. Tate will lay his rifle across his chest with a sling, hold out his can of food

00:38:15 towards whatever it was he saw just move. Birdie is watching the opposite way, by the way, of where he first saw the the movement. And Tate's going to slowly bend down and set the food onto the ground and push it that direction. Birdie's going to stand up, too, by the way. Uh, we were sitting right. Okay. A minute goes by, nothing happens. How long do you guys want to wait, Birdie? Let's move. Yeah, just that minute. All right, let's get out of here. That looked like someone. If you're hungry and looking for food, I

00:38:58 got more. Let's have a chat. Who the hell are you talking to? whoever or whatever just hop behind the trees behind you. Or you think that someone's out there lurking through the woods right now and they're just hungry for a rations. Look kind of humanoid. Well, and if it is, well, what's a key to every man's heart? His stomach. Well, then [ __ ] Grab a can out of my pack real quick. I'll keep an eye. Just leave some [ __ ] here, man. Tate will grab a can of corn beef or spam out of Birdie's pack and set it on

00:39:39 the ground next to the open can of food and start to make his way back towards the trail. Still watching behind until we get to the trail. Okay. So, I have imaged this as Birdie watching the 180° from south, west, and north. And Tate watching the opposite 180° north, east, south. Yes. Agreed. Okay. But now we're moving towards the trail. Can you How are you guys moving down the trail? Who's ahead? Are you guys you have like your shotgun and your rifles at the ready? Shotgun definitely at the ready. Not up and

00:40:20 scanning, but at the at the low ready. Low ready. Yep. Tate's got his rifle slung. And by this point, he would have moved it to his back, but walking around handon pistol. Okay. Still holstered. You guys are moving down the path west. Correct. The As you guys move, you suddenly notice a bird start chirping. You notice a squirrel start moving around. You hear a woodpecker now. An owl. Birdie. Yeah, we got animals again. Yeah. Yeah, it got got eerie there for a minute. Weirdly quiet, right? Yep. Well,

00:41:03 you know, I think that's nature things. Probably something we should keep an eye on as we move a few more hours and find a spot to sleep. Well, I I can't wait. But yeah, we got to keep moving and we're going to head west. Well, we will we will maintain that heightened alertness for at least the next 20 minutes, half hour. And Birdie's leading. Yeah, Birdie's leading. You guys walk for about another 35, 45 minutes. You get to a fork in the road. One goes left, one goes right. So they would be going like northwest and

00:41:42 southwest. Birdie's going to stop at the fork. I don't suppose he want to split. Hell no. I hear you. No, we're sticking together. Why not? Tate will grab out a quarter. Heads we go left and tails I think we go right. Yeah. I can't think of a better way to figure this out because this ain't on the map. One and two is heads. It's a three tails. We'll go right. Birdie is going to assess the sky. About what time is it? 1:30. Looks like we got a few more hours in front of us. Yeah. And uh I'd rather

00:42:26 not camp out at a crossroads. I hear you. Mhm. I could probably use a break every now and then, too. This is just a lot of straight walking with quite a bit of weight on us. True. And uh we're not going at a break neck pace. No. God, no. You know, we're we're we're going night. We're we're we're walking. We're being tactical. Three and a half miles an hour. Yeah. At a good clip. That's uh probably probably closer to two two miles an hour. Yeah. If that. Mhm. Well, I mean, there is a path. Okay. So, you guys take the right

00:43:02 trail, correct? The paths diverge. Southwest, northwest. You take the Northwest Trail. You walk for about 20 minutes, then another 10, another 20. It's pretty empty. Nothing out of the ordinary. And suddenly you see something up ahead. You get closer and just looks a little unusual. You get closer. When you get up to it, it appears to be a small cabin, not a little shack, like an actual cabin. You can see it's been burned to the ground, set on fire, and it is a pile of ash. You can see some bricks from where the chimney

00:43:55 used to be. You keep going or what would you like to do? I mean, we got to check this out. Okay. When it's just Is it just like a small clearing with a chimney and a bunch of ash? No. I mean, there's some logs that didn't get burned all the way and [ __ ] like that. I mean, it look it looks like a cabin got burned down. No standing structures? No. All right, Birdie, I'm going to dig through it a little bit. I mean, we kind of got to at this point. At this point. Roll for it, young man. Shut up. That's a

00:44:33 0000. Okay. So, you rolled a 100 critical fail. So, you dig through the ash a little bit and there's a lot of, of course, growth. The forest has kind of started to retake this area. And what did you roll? A 100. Oh, you rolled a 100. That's right. Okay. There's a section of the burnedown cabin where a bush that appears to have been growing along the side of it has started to encroach inside where the cabin walls used to be. There's a pile of ash and burned debris. You reach your hand in there and you you grab something. You

00:45:18 feel it and it feels like maybe a maybe a box or something like that. and you you go to like pull it out and your arm just does not come out. You realize suddenly you're you're stuck. Birdie. Yep. What is it? Birdie says shotgun now at the high ready. Yep. I think something's eating my hand. What? Yeah. Birdie's going to make his way over to Tate. As he walks up, Tate will do the whole like trying to pull your arm away. It's stuck. Just stay box or something. Just stay still. Let me uh Bird's going to use the

00:46:10 butt of his shotgun to spread debris away from where his arm is. You can see up to his elbow and then inside his arm is stuck like right just above his elbow. And you can't really see beyond that. It's It's like he reached his hand into a a hole and he just can't get it out. You guys don't have flashlights. They don't exist. So, you can't exactly get an angle down in there. Mhm. All right. Well, just stay still real quick. I'm going to I'm going to brush some of the stuff away from your arm there.

00:46:42 Birdie's going to start brushing debris away from his arm. Tate will use his other hand to grab a smoke. You'd have to use a strength check because it's logs. You know what I mean? He got his arm pinched. Yeah. All right. Well, well, hold on a sec. Let before you get all weird, let's just look at this. Bird's going to assess the situation. So, there's these logs and bricks, trees, branches, leaves. you you brush some of it aside and a whole mixture of all this stuff is is there's this perfect armsized hole that he managed to

00:47:21 stick his hand into and for some reason he can't get it out. You feel like you would have to roll a pretty high strength check to pull him out and depending on what is stuck it might hurt. Young man, take clay. It feels like your arm is kind of stuck at the wrist area, but it it's hard to tell without being able to see it. All right, so you got got yourself in a bit of a jam here. Before I just start lifting stuff, maybe make matters worse, where where's it pinching? Kind of hard to tell. Well, all right.

00:47:59 Well, tell you what. I'm going to move naturally. It seems like it's around my hand. Maybe a little higher. All right. Well, almost all the way up to my elbow, birdie. I'm going to ask the the dumb question first. Can you not take your hand out because you're holding on to something? Roll an intelligence check. That is a 49 under 85. You let go of the box and suddenly your hand is more free. You pull it out. Nope. Nope. Tate lets go of the box. and he'll like give a really good show of grabbing his bicep with the other

00:48:40 hand and like yanking his arm out as hard as he can and then it just boom pops free and take kind of falls back onto his back, lays there and pulls out a smoke, lights it up and he's like something's something's weird's here going on, birdie. Well, yeah. Yep. Yep. I think it might be you being weird this time, but uh All right. Well, why'd you have your hand in that hole in the first place? What's going on? Just trying to find stuff, man. Well, did you find anything? What? Hole that eats your arms? Some

00:49:13 sort of Maybe a box in there. Probably a corner of a window, though. Maybe a box. Probably a corner of a window. Well, [ __ ] On the maybe it's a box theory. Let's start clearing this away. Bird's going to start lifting [ __ ] away and kind of tape will work in tandem. Well, okay. It's going to take a lot of work to kind of move this stuff around. How much? Put it Put it in man minutes. Well, I was going to ask how many hours do you want to spend on it? Oh, well [ __ ] man. If there's something down

00:49:47 there. I think Tate spends about like two minutes. And he goes, Birdie, I got a lot of pain pulling this arm out. I can't do this too much. Well, I mean, uh, something tells me this I mean, look at this place, man. It burnt to the ground. What are we going to find in here that ain't already consumed? An arm eaten hole of something. Big old worm. Man, that ain't no arm eatating hole. You stick your hand in there. I'm not. No. Scared. Scared? More like practical. Oh, regardless, let's go. Yeah. Yeah, there

00:50:24 ain't much here. And we vomos. We leave. You guys continue moving west. Another 15 minutes. Another 15 minutes. Another 30 minutes. Tate's like nursing his arm this whole time. It doesn't actually hurt that bad. I know. But you're just like putting a show on. Yeah. Maybe you feel like really embarrassed and you're trying to like make it seem not, you know, worse than it actually was. Yes. Exactly. Birdie's seen more than one sandbagger in his life and he knows that he's watching a show. Deal. After about a hour and a half of

00:51:06 walking down this trail, it's now about 3:30. You notice what looks to have been a wooden fence post with its beams broken. At the other end ahead is another clearing. The trees seem to have been converted into small buildings similar to the ones you found earlier. The largest sits in the middle. It's eastern wall having collapsed. Two smaller looking shacks, cabins. They look similar to the one that you found along the trail earlier with the corpse inside. They sit covered in green and life of

00:51:53 the forest. What do you do? Well, we got to check it out. Yeah, let's check it out. Let's take a short break while we're here, though, too. Yeah, we've been going nonstop ever since you got attacked by that bear. And you know something? I'd like a little bit of clearing, you know, to see what's coming at us if anything does decide to come at us. And some shelter in those little cabins. You know something? You're right. I understand. It's probably what 4:00 or something like that, but we ain't going

00:52:23 to find better than this. I hear you. Maybe we should Let's Let's check them out and bunk down for a little while. Deal. Deal. Get a good night's sleep. Well, good as we can and start fresh tomorrow. Okay. So, you have this larger building in the middle of this clearing that appears to have once had a wooden fence around it. The larger building is like twice the size of the lodge that you found at the ranger stations. And those lodges could hold uh what did I say? Six people, I think. Eight. Eight people.

00:53:04 Sure. About it's about twice the size of that building. And then you see two smaller ones that look like that shack you'd found earlier. You guys have your conversation. What are you doing? You're checking them out, but like can you describe to Oh, this this was a this was a a low volume conversation on the path. I see. As you're like approaching it. As we're like looking at it. I see. I'll take that one. You take the other. We meet in the middle. All right. So, we each take the smaller and then meet for

00:53:34 the larger. You heard it. All right. Birdie is going to take the further western building and Tate will head towards the other. Tate, you get up to this building. You notice uh one small difference between this one and the one that you had found along the trail is that this one does not have any windows. The door is slightly open. You go to open it the rest of the way. Correct. You have to really push it. The wood has warped, so the door is being pushed against the ground. And you have to like really give it some

00:54:13 elbow. Somebody observing maybe would notice that the arm you're acting like hurts. Maybe doesn't hurt all that much all of a sudden. He's at a different room. It's exactly if someone was observing, which no one is. You get your way in and it looks like a tool shed. You find hammers, drills, like big hand drills. You find some really long saws, as long as can fit in this shed. You find a couple boxes. One has normal size nails that are all like rusted together. The other has larger nails that are also all

00:54:53 rusted together. Birdie, you get to yours and the door is broken or as if it was pushed outside a little bit too hard. It is holding on purely by the friction of the wood. The the hinges are broken. It like it was opened up the wrong way. You know what I'm saying? With intense force. So, is the door further outside from the building? Yes. Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa. It It's the the door is still in the doorway, but it is like jammed into the doorway facing the wrong direction. Got it. Oh, that's weird. You go inside, I

00:55:37 assume. Yes. You find an almost identical situation to the earlier shack. Some burn marks, like a flash flame had happened. Inside you find the charred remains of somebody, their mouth wide open. Bernie's gonna do a cursory inspection of the the body. You You can now see what the inside of one of these looks like when the the bunk is not collapsed like the previous one was. Although it is not in good shape. Clearly the elements have not been kind to the interior, nor have the animals. And the corpse, it has some

00:56:19 dirt on it, a lot of dust, there's some animal debris. There's even a clump of fur on it. It looks like they're used to be a uniform. It is like if you sucked all of the moisture out of somebody, but also like they're charred. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. Desiccated and Yeah. Seared. Correct. Black teeth barely stick to the skull. The product of intense heat. Do you want to go through like the cabinets and stuff like that? Oh, yeah. Similarly to what you had found at the previous one, not to be redundant, but

00:57:02 maybe to be a little bit redundant. You find within these cabinets some old cans of food. The labels glued to the side of them have fallen off or worn off. They look old. I don't know if you trust them. I'm not going to eat them. Yeah. Unless, you know, it was do or die. Oh. Then I'd be eating the [ __ ] out of them. But um No. You find uh two distinct piles of clothes that have been chewed through, kind of eaten up, probably by moths. And there ain't nothing here. Birdie's gonna leave the shack and make his way

00:57:44 to the main lodge. He's not going to go in though until until Tate's ready. Okay. While you're here in this opening, like to make any other rules. What? Tate's got too much of a one track. Are there any rules that you want to you want to roll right now? Oh, rules. Got too much of a one track mind. Okay. I thought you said rules. Uh Birdie's going to walk up to the front of the larger structure. Assuming he gets there before Tate, he is going to do a hard listen. Okay, go ahead. That is an 81 over 60. That is a

00:58:29 fail. So, you failed your listen check. Mhm. You guys get up to this larger building. As I had said, about the the eastern half of it is collapsed in on itself. It is about 5:00. Yep. We will see what the inside of the building is next time. [Laughter] Heat. Heat.