Hello and welcome to Your Worst Nightmare, another RPG actual play podcast. Solitude, a journaling RPG podcast, is just me in a room, not to brag, with a journal, a solo RPG, and some damn good coffee. I play to see what happens in the story, write in my fictional journal, and you get to hang out next to me by the fire. My name's Auri. Welcome. I hope you enjoy our time together. This episode is a dramatic journal entry reading for the prompts we got to in the previous episode. Some things might have changed a little bit from the decisions I've made in the episode since I've had a bit of time to collect my thoughts and write stuff down. This is Solitude. We do what in the shadows Prompt sixteen Putting Descartes before the horse december sixteen forty two It has been two years since my beloved Elise set out on Karen's red sailed ship which forever denies me passage. I feel as if there's a gaping hole inside me. A ravine so vast, no amount of greasy food or guilty masturbation seems to have any effect on it. As I am writing this entry, I am on horseback, riding east, away from Paris, away from France. The ride is quite unstable and the road bumpy, so my handwriting may at times be. I've left all my belongings behind. Why am I leaving in such a hurry? Because of the cursed philosopher and his blasted order, the Symposium. I wrote a song to mend my broken heart. After singing it to myself for a year or so, I thought it only proper to perform it, as a sort of personal goodbye to my beloved. So a gig I did a book. At a local tavern, the Blinking Dreamer, or in the local French, Le Dromeur Blinkig. Here is a small sample of the song. I'm so alone, so very fucking alone. Everybody's out but me, 'cause I'm a nerd and I stayed home. I'm filled with hate, a burning red hot fate. Nothing on my hands except my dick because all I do is masturbate, hate and masturbate, hate and masturbate, hate and masturbate, master hate beat the meat, to flick the prick, to rub on the chop, to grab the shaft, to masturbate and master hate The song is called How Does Blood Make You Feel? Granted, musically the song is not one of my best work, but emotionally I consider it a thunderous success. The song received applause, of which I was pleasantly pleased. Little did I know it also gained the attention of a nocturnal predator. And I'm not talking about the divorced fifty-year-olds at the bar, but something infinitely more terrifying: a philosopher. I was soon approached by this smiling gentleman known around here as the Mullet Man. But I was familiar with him from my life in the court. He was René Descartes, one of the foremost mathematicians, philosophers, and hair models of our current time. He made a little joke about my song, saying that masturbation is the devil's favorite pastime. I laughed it off, and in my post show high, probably said a little bit too confidently, That explains why I'm so damn good at it. He was intrigued. The mullet man's thin reedy mustache twitched in a wry smile. He said, I have clear and distinct proof of a few matters. My own existence, for one. I think therefore I am. But that led me to a second hidden truth. You drink therefore I Bam. For imagine there is an evil genius who fills my mind with immerses untrue. Oh no. This evil genius exists and I know its identity. A nocturnal horny beast who preys on the innocent, thirsting for their juicy life essence, a vile creature, though so very vile. The evil genius appeared to do a number on his French accent as he spoke, but one thing was very clear. He was into me. I shot my shots and used the discarded lyric from my song as a pickup line. Masturbation is a lonely pursuit. Perhaps you'd like to join me at my table, and I could show you how to too sturbate. He gave me a smile, snapped his fingers, and all of a sudden the entire establishment was filled with locals, pitchforks and torches in hand. I had been led into a trap. Descartes revealed what he was hiding beneath his coat, a bandolier filled with pencils, notebooks, rulers, all manner of nerd shit. But I saw the tips of these pencils were not black with charcoal. No, but instead red with blood. I recognized his stance. He was a trained fighter. I would never too sturbate with you, devil. In fact, I would never sturbate with anyone, for I am a philosopher. Then he had a one liner about giving me the D, but to be honest, I missed half the things he said because of that horrible accent. I have no idea why he stuck with English and didn't just speak French. I knew I could not best him in a fight. My body had to become soft in my decades of marriage and stable relationship, though the way he looked at me was in conflict with his words. Underneath his holiness was pure horiness. That was to be my angle if I wished to survive. Luckily the single ladies at the bar had just ordered the thirsty platter, and the table was full of suggestive material to work with. So work I did. I grabbed a baguette from the table, two hands. I began massaging it. I dipped my fingers in a pitcher of turkey grease. I drilled a hole on the tip of the baguette with my greasy finger. Then as I squeezed the shafts of the bread, warm turkey grease from the tip sprayed across the philosopher's face. Two brown chocolatey donuts I twirled on my fingers, tied a wheel of cheese chimbody style, got my melon sweat, spanked a pig, and as I began to pour champagne across my body, he was there to lick it from my belly button. I had him. I knew it. He knew it. His angry mob knew it. He had been utterly defeated, both in body and in spirit. He was visibly shaken and ordered his lackeys to retreat. It was just the two of us. He admitted to defeat and produced his neck for me to finish him. I declined. I said to him Life before death is the true edging experience. I didn't really say that. I wish I did. I thought of that immediately after I got home. Instead I said something stupid like, If I leave Paris and never come back, will you let me go? He seemed surprised and agreed to the terms. As I was leaving, he said that as long as I was somewhere out there, he could not rest. He would hunt me, pin me down, and give me what a bad boy like me deserved. The D the Descartes. I left Paris to never come back, but I had a feeling I would see him again. And that made me smile for the first time in years. The gaping hole inside of me filled with D. Guy's skeleton, eighty-eight years old. Prompt eighteen. Circa Europe. November sixteen fifty-three. In the past years, I've forged the strongest friendships I've ever had the pleasure to experience. True comrades, allies, familial bonds that would last a lifetime, and grant me something I haven't had in a long time. A home. And then I went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid, like Eat Them All. For the past uh ten or so years, I've been part of the colourful cast of the Legionnaire Circus. Igor the Big, a strong man act, Igor the Small, a weakman act, and Igor the Medium, an average strength act. Then we had Giancarlo, the X-rated Ventriloquist, Stratos the Sword Juggler, Morrigan the Misfortune Teller, Adobe the Acrobat, Leopold the Lion Tamer, Mark the Receptionist, Theodora the Well Proportioned, Gogovich Andorovich the Siberian Clown Duo, and Silenzio the Mime. My humble addition to this expert cast was my persona as the Flaming Guy. It was the easiest job in the world. The audience would bring me whatever they wished, and I would burn it with my Hellfire hot right hand. I loved it for years. The attention? The glamour? The beautiful clothes and makeup I got to put on every night? And no need to explain my mask, glove, or aversion to sunlight. I had not felt beautiful in a long time. And now I did. Everyone here was a misfit. A weirdling, an outcast, but welcomed and made whole in the international travelling caravan of the Legionnaire Circus. For years I was truly happy. Burning stuff made me feel a lot better, honestly, for it gave me a way to purge my insides with the pure white heat that is the dark symbol of my dread affliction. For food, I ate a lot of customers, uh, an ailing grandparent lost in the woods while going to relieve themselves, a child who wouldn't stay quiet during my show, men named Robert, only people who I felt nobody would miss. But our circus started gaining a reputation for that, and we saw our ratings begin to dwindle. I changed my approach. Temporarily, of course, and only to avoid detection or starvation. Obviously, the clowns were the first to go, and they were delicious. One of them happy and moist, the other sad and dry. They complemented each other perfectly. Then the ventriloquist, whose adult-themed puppets was, according to him, carved from morning wood. After that, I sort of lost control. Little by little, act by act, I ate them all. Except for Silenzio the Mime, a peculiar, sort of spindly fellow. Always pulling on invisible ropes and slapping on non-existent window panes, he was as quiet as the neigh of a dead horse. Never uttered a single word. Towards the end for the past year, it has been just Silenzio and I. I think he suspects foul play, but I can't be certain. Well, suspect or not, tonight is the night I have to eat him. The circus does not draw a crowd anymore. It's not even called the Legionness Circus anymore, but Flame Guy and the Mime. We have a whole theme song and everything. Our show is quite good, but it is hard to keep performing to empty audiences. I feel my beauty escape me if no one is watching. And the fucking mime won't talk, so fishing for compliments is starting to get rather old. Tomorrow his fictional windows shall trap him no more. Though I must say it is a neat trick. I've practiced some of his movements in moments of boredom. Perhaps in his dying hour he will reveal to me the secrets to his craft. We shall see. I received news that the philosopher slash vampire hunter, Rene Descartes, has died in Stockholm, Sweden. I find it hard to trust this information. Sometimes when I'm alone in the dark, I feel as though he's looking at me. But perhaps it is just the what did he call it? The evil genius in my mind playing tricks upon me. Or perhaps it's the wandering spirits of the hundreds of people I've murdered. I deserve it. I deserve punishment. If the symposium of philosophers are incapable of delivering it to me, I will enact justice upon myself. I have to travel somewhere far away, somewhere where I am not able to hurt anyone ever again. The Mughal Empire in the East? The new world beyond the ocean in the west? The North Pole in the North The North Pole in the North? Matters not. Perhaps I'll throw a die and pick a direction. I will walk until no soul is in sight. No lives for me to destroy. I will retreat to the world's end. Perhaps then at the dawn of a new century, I'll find peace. Alone again supernaturally. Guy Skeleton, ninety-nine years old. Thanks for listening, folks. My name is Auri Itamaki and Solitude is my personal project. I hope you enjoyed this episode. You can follow Solitude on Instagram at SolitudeShow, and if you got something to say, please send me a message or drop a comment. If you liked this, please rate and review the show so people might find it a little bit easier. I don't have a marketing budget or plan or anything, so please if you know somebody who might enjoy this, tell them. Additional episode music and sound effects courtesy of epidemic sound and theme song by me. Solitude drops every week. Every other week there's an actual play episode, and on the off weeks, like today, I'll do a proper journal reading with music, sound effects, the whole deal. Thanks again for listening, everybody. See ya next week. Bye.