Welcome to Vikings and Valkyries, an actual play podcast. We are playing When the Wolf
Comes, an RPG where history as we know it has been put to the Viking sword. My name
is Ian Stuart Sharpe and I will be your Smith of Battle for the campaign ahead, which we
call the Thought and Memory Saga. Joining me to test whether plot armour is really a
thing are Steve, Bill, Becky, Sam and CJ. Welcome to the Hall of the Slain.
Thank you.
Oh, thank you. Do we get a free cup of mead on entry?
Now before we dive into this episode, I do want to share a little anecdote from the week.
Now if you're listening to this, you might see alongside the recording there's a transcript
that goes out with each and every show, which is auto-generated by a Dverg somewhere. Now
each week we get to hear Bill make mincemeat of various characters' names, so I wanted
to share with you what the machine thralls came up with for his character, Ljomi. The
first is instead of Ljomi, they call him You-Know-Me. And the second one is The-Homie.
You-Know-Me, The-Homie, Ljomi. Yeah, okay.
And then my favourite is just the simple Naomi. Every fine wine needs a pairing, so it was
good to see what the AI came up with for Eir. Any guesses as Steve?
Error I suppose would be good.
Claire.
Claire maybe.
Claire. Bill, you got it. And so instead of just Wood & Stone, our two friends here, you
can refer to them as Naomi and Claire from now on. CJ, Grjotgoth came out
came out particularly easily actually, they mainly got it right. They didn't get the full
Norse lettering.
Even as the game spills into our reality, he still gets all the breaks. Like what the
hell?
That's plot armour and life armour.
What the actual hell?
Now bewildering as it is to me that no one spends them, I'm still going to offer you
these chance to earn some inspiration points to spend in the adventure ahead. This week
since you clearly have a date with destiny, we're going to tackle Viking Battles. And
yes you thought you were here to play an RPG, but instead it's back to school. So let's
start with an easy one. The first question is can you name a major battle involving Norsemen
that took place in 1066?
The Battle of Hastings, the Battle of Stamford Bridge and...
Fulford, the Battle of Fulford. That was Harold Harada coming over trying to get York under
his grip.
Bill and Steve, you had those on the tip of your tongue, right?
I wanted to give the young people a chance. The highly educated young people with a lot
more knowledge of Norse history.
Thank you sir, thank you. It's been a while since I've been complimented.
Let's step a little bit further back in time. How about the year 845 AD?
Oh sure.
What happened in 845 AD, another Viking battle?
1066 is so easy because it's the supposed end of the Viking Age, the historical Viking
Age.
I gave you that one as an easy end, as a layup. But 845...
Oh wait, the Siege of Paris was in 845.
The Siege of Paris, that's right.
Well done. I was thinking of something else entirely.
And then also that was... No wait, 843 was not... Also in 843, the Battle of Fontainebleau
Montpuisat, in which the Frankish nobility was decimated. And that's partly what opened
the door for the Vikings to arrive up the Seine was in 845. It was ill defended because
the Frankish armies were busy fighting each other. And the Vikings knew this. And in fact,
I just, I mean, I'm going to have to plug.
Go for it, go for it CJ.
Go for it.
And the Kings of the Sea ends in 845 with the Siege of Paris. Hastings is allegedly there
according to me. He wasn't actually. But so yeah, so that was an easy answer for me too,
because it's my books.
Again, I felt sorry for you about giving you all of the Old Norse phrases. So this week
I thought we'd give you something that was much more up your alley so to speak. And we're
going to step back further still now into the midst of legend and lore. What battle
allegedly took place in 770 AD.
Come on you guys know this. I know.
Not the battle of Brandenburg.
I can see it in your eyes.
No, no, that's not, no, that's later actually. That's after Alfred. So no, that's not it.
No, 770. I mean, 770 technically predates the, the invention of the keel. So the so-called
Vikings wouldn't have been able to leave home in earnest at that point. It's a very famous
mythic battle between Harald Wartooth and Sigurd Hring. And at some point a penny is
going to drop in Bill's brain.
Yeah, it was starting to. I could hear something tinkling around up there. That's where I died.
That's where Ljomi, your homie, you know me, died before I became the Woodman.
The battle of Bravellir.
Yeah, I was just about to say.
In that battle there were apparently 40,000 dead. And well, you, you make that noise Bill,
but I think as a military tactician involved in that battle, you were partly responsible.
Well I died very early. I pretty much the first axe that was thrown in our direction.
I was out. I also want to call out CJ a little bit because in previous episodes, anytime
we've suggested he might know the answer to some bit of Norse scholarship and he's gone,
no, no, no, not really. And yet tonight you're pulling all this stuff out of nowhere apparently.
Just.
Well he's pulling it all out of his, out of his well researched.
And I'm not just deflecting Ian's attack on me, onto you. Although I am doing that. But
I'm not just.
I did specify my expertise is in the, I went into the Frankish empire, the campaigns, the
dates, the, the real history. But once you get into mythology, I do fall off a little
bit.
Well, 770 AD is an auspicious date. And just be a little bit careful with Bill if he does
try and interest you in any of his tactics. You've seen how they work.
I'm getting much better at archery. That's what I want to, that's what I want to really
stress.
There's only two out of three so I can't give you any more inspiration points there,
I'm afraid.
Let's start proceedings.
As a quick recap, you have volunteered to help remedy the hijacked signal at a fuel
station. The handiwork of a disgruntled musician seeking vengeance for poor reviews. The sounds
of Svartar Sunnadagr have been on every radio in town since. On your arrival at the weather
station Magnus Ljosfoot, a technician at the Firefox Institute, marched towards the control
room only to disappear in a kaleidoscope of colour. And that is where we now open the
scene as we find all of you staring at this horrifying situation. You all have various
forms of second sight or tree sight, the ability to peer into other realms. Some of you were
discerning tricks of the light or flitting shadows. There was something out there in
the fog. The only person who was able to fully perceive the horrors that lie ahead was the
dökkálfar and perhaps it was something to do with his staggeringly high trauma score. But
the kind of mental discord, the fractured mind of the dökkálf was able to see these
entities that were lurking in the weather station and it caused him to gain an extra
trauma. So Steve, just to note you are on trauma eight.
Not double digits here.
No, no, just give me time. Give me time.
Oh, okay. Wow. Well done, sir.
And I mean, you call it trauma, Eir calls it Monday.
All right. Well, let's see. Ljomi remembers that we met the aging rock star who had some
singing, had this weird singing tune that he was playing over and over again through
this station. And there was some suggestion of, I want to say almost angelic forces or
something like that. Some hint of something coming from beyond. Anyone else have that
memory or have I had some dreams in between sessions?
The depressed rock star had not only decided to mix up music from different times entirely,
but also send it out on a particular frequency, which was 1111. Four ones, I believe.
Right.
Let's go back to Krapti again to refresh your memory. Krapti Thorfridsson, the law speaker.
He had asked you to investigate something.
We are investigating the Northern Lights that are not Northern Lights. And Gigi remembers
that but he remembers nothing from the rock star because he's still a little offended
that he did not recall the silver medal that he had won in the Tonka Honk.
You are investigating the Northern Lights. This red scar in the sky has been lurking
above your heads ever since the very first episode when Bjarne Bjarnissoen made you clap
wildly in its general direction so as not to offend the spirits. It's come up in various
different forms. It's still there despite it being broad daylight with the sun in the
sky in this in the middle of this arctic summer. You should not be able to see this atmospheric
disturbance but you can very vividly and it looms large above full station and the various
antenna that beam off their signals into Midgard beyond.
And we're still standing on the beach. Is that where we ended?
No, we went into the compound.
And it blew up.
You are standing on the...
Well, it didn't blow up. A guy marvelously disappeared into an unsuspecting, well, an
undetectable vortex of light and colour.
It's always the engineers.
And Magnus marched in.
After Fulk had told him that violence surely laid ahead because the spirits had told him.
That's very true. He ignored your warning but perhaps it was because he didn't have
the blessing of second sight and he paid the price for it. You can all be a lot more circumspect
because you are aware that there is something there between you and the resolution of your
task, which is working out the connection between the Northern Lights and at the very
least shutting down that signal.
Gryotgarth draws his pistol.
Brynn will turn to him and she'll say, if you've seen what I have seen flickering
almost between these buildings, I do not think our bullets will do any damage to them. They're
there but they're not there. It's very strange.
So then Gryotgarth puts his pistol away and draws his sword.
Steve, you are the person who's seen most of these entities. Have you got any questions?
I'll give you one broad comment that as Magnus did walk forward, he seemed oblivious to these
half-glypsed forms and the distorted faces that loomed out of the fog. And because you
have spent time in Valhalla drinking mead with the Einhajar, these creatures to your
mind are also warriors. They are creatures from the afterlife, just not your afterlife.
Oh, that's an interesting insight. Okay.
For the time being, they appear to have retreated into the mist and are now again unseen. Perhaps
it was Magnus marching straight towards that control room door and brought their fury towards
him.
Ljomi leans in close to Eir and says, Atrocity, if you can speak to them, I suggest using
large words.
I mean, that makes sense. Ian, at the end of last episode when Eir was confronted by
the visions of the spirit world, I thought we finished up by you saying that he was maybe
not totally incapacitated, but mentally, I guess, bewildered at best.
You have the frightened condition.
Oh, scared shitless is also a condition. Okay.
You are scared shitless for eight rounds.
Eight rounds. Okay. Eir would try to convey just the spirit world is here and it's angry
and it's coming from that control center.
Ljomi leans in close to Gigi and says, Gothpot, perhaps you should draw both your pistol and
your sword and stand in front of me.
Fabulous idea.
Gigi pulls his pistol.
If you're going into battle, it is possible for me to bless your weapon to work against
a haunt.
Oh, I can do that too.
That sounds like just the thing.
I have biting charms. What do you have?
My charms also will bite.
Poetically put.
You are both proficient in Galdarcraft, the spell song of the alfar. There is a second
technician. His name is Heimric. He is aghast at the loss of his long-term friend. There's
a kind of a storage shed over to the north west. He hightails it there, just running
full pelt and slams the door behind it. There is some kind of wooden bar because you hear
something thud down afterwards. A man of few words, he says nothing from the other
side of that.
Coward!
Though you have to acknowledge the certain tactic of it.
Yeah. It's straightforward. It's decisive and probably ineffective. So Magnus made it
to the door of the control room and tried to unlock it using a keypad or some sort of
device like that.
Yes, he knew the code.
He made it all the way there. So we could probably get closer. This is probably not
something Eir would be saying to me now that I think about it. He'd be advising the opposite.
I think a logical step would be for one of us to slowly and steadily approach the door.
And if those who can see these shadowy beings would let us know if they seem agitated the
closer we get. Because if they react to him approaching the door so quickly, if we're
very cautious, we may be able to get close enough to unlock it. I do have a rune of unlocking,
but it requires me to put the rune on the door to unlock the door.
Falk swallows very hard. And unfortunately, Gigi is a jofurr. They are honor bound and
he says,
I'll do it!
Falk wipes his forehead.
So Gigi starts stepping forward, little by little. How small of steps should I be taking?
Like this? Or like this?
Ian, is my second sight still up or has too much time passed?
Half your usual pace, Gigi. Half your usual pace. And wait for Falk to let you
know if the shadows get closer or have yet to appear.
Advance on it as if you were approaching an isbjorn. This has worked very well for us as
a party in the past.
Sam, I'm aware of your question in the background there. You were asking about second sight
and how long it would last. I think the duration is one minute, so it will start to fade. And
as it does so, the spectral images that you could detect in the fog receding back to whence
they came, you're welcome to cast it again in order to bring them back into sharp relief.
And if you remember, I described them to you. They weren't technically the Landvaettir. They
weren't spirits of this land. They were alien things drawn from elsewhere that seemed to
be in discord with the very environment. They seemed redolent of fear and betrayal, as if
snatched from somewhere before their time.
I would tell everyone that the creatures were of unknown origins, seemingly from some sort
of other world, and that they definitely had sinister intentions, but have also seemed
to back away some.
As Gryotgarth gets closer, what does he... does he see anything?
As you come past the Boathouse door, it does have some glass windows, frosted window panes,
and you can see someone has scrawled on that window pane as if they were counting down
the days in prison. There's lots of like ones, as if someone is scrawling. So, yeah, one,
one, one, one.
Are they tally marks, or are they four ones?
Or are they claw marks?
It's a good question. It's impossible to distinguish. They are in groups of four.
Then a full tally would have a line through, representing five.
Either someone was counting down in here, or they had a very anxious Chihuahua clawing
at the window.
There could be a crate behind the window, too.
We don't know.
With a Chihuahua.
We're finally bringing the full intelligence of the group to bear on the ground.
Were Chihuahuas invented in this universe, or did they come up with something else?
Or did they sensibly not?
Gigi, you are close enough to that Boathouse to look inside, if you so choose. You can
smell from this close proximity. The whole place reeks of this strong aroma of coffee
and cigarettes. It's very pungent, and it's exuding from this.
Gods, it smells like a French café!
Bryn is puzzled but curious, and so she will approach steadily and cautiously to make sure
she's not triggering any strange events.
Falk would pull out his rifle in order to cover both of them from afar.
Ljomi is attempting to push Air a little bit closer so he'll be able to use his power,
but without much effect. There has been the sound of slight snapping twigs, perhaps.
And I think Eir has regained some of his wits.
We will let the frightened condition recede so that you may move forward with some kind
of alacrity, looking through the window of this.
Difficult to make out everything, because some of it is under tarpaulin and cloth, but
there is an old rowboat. There looks to be a defunct dverg sitting there in some empty
equipment crates.
There is also, just in the corner of your eyes, there's a flicker of movement. You
can also hear some rather jaunty accordion music.
Gryotgarth is going to open the door, swing it open, and take two steps back, kind of
pure in. Falk has head to the side and look.
Hello?
What's the status of your second sight there, Sam? Are you recasting it?
No, because it only lasts a minute. I feel like I should save it.
Then I will describe to each of you what you see in the room, because again you perceive
different things. Without the ability to call on your second sight and peer into the spirit
realm, you see nothing.
CJ and Becky, again you see that. Just these little movements, these fleeting shadows.
Still the Omi sees, again, there's not an illusion here. There's nothing hidden. There's
nothing invisible, but there is something nagging at the edge of your... You have a
broad variety of sensors. You can detect chemical imbalances. You can detect changes in the
photosphere, but here there's something that you can't quite place your branches on. Steve,
you see something in complete crystal clarity. In the centre of the room, staring back at
you, is a man dressed in a strange uniform.
Strange in what way?
Strange in that it's not anything that you recognise from imperial uniforms, for example.
The people who fought in the Jotun War, the various people at the Noatun launch sites,
even the bodyguards of Finnbogi Asbjornssen. This is a style that you haven't seen at all.
The man standing here is wearing a kind of light blue uniform. He puts up his fists when
he sees you and he begins to hurl what must be insults or taunts, but in a language you
really don't recognise.
Yeah, I'm used to that. Question, is he giving off heat?
He's not. Your ability to see in the infrared spectrum, you see no heat signature. And to
be clear, Falk sees nothing in this spot. The rest of you see at best a distorted trembling
of the air, a brief shape. There's nothing of substance. It's only air that sees this
manifestation.
Well, he will try to communicate. He's just sort of in a, probably a shaky voice. I see
a man. He has his fists up as if he's ready to fight and he's screaming insults at me.
That person I really knew. Does anyone else see him?
Bryn will just shake her head.
Nothing.
Oh, good.
The uniformed soldier rolls up his sleeves and walks towards you. He's got his dukes
up. He's adopted a boxing stance and he strides up towards you.
He says something, something along the lines of, get over there. That's the phonetic sound
of which it makes no resemblance to Norse or any of the others.
Has he come outside? I'm not going in. Has he come outside?
He is looking fixedly at you and following you.
So if I back up.
It's almost as if he doesn't see the others.
Okay, I will back up. Does he come outside?
He continues to follow you and again, he sounds like he's saying something like, La Vache,
Zut Alors!
He seems agitated about something. Okay. Does he react in any way to gestures or motions
from air?
Only in a pugilistic fashion as he walks towards you, aiming to bop you on your stony nose.
I will point at him and tell the group he's coming right at me. I think he means to hit
me and I'll point at the spot on the ground where he is. He's right there. Is he leaving
footprints?
He's leaving nothing that any of your companions can detect. There is the overpowering stench
of that tobacco. There is the slightly haunting discordant accordion that echoes through the
fog, but they can see nothing.
I think the French might be invading.
I was just thinking, I was thinking I should look around for a cow loaded on a catapult.
Fetchez la vaiche.
Fetchez la la vaiche
Yeah, all I can do is just tell everyone he's right there. He's coming towards me. I think
he's going to take a swing at me. Does no one else see this?
I can't see him, but I can use second sight, but I only have one more use of it until we
rest.
I'm not sure that seeing him would do anything.
Eir is not going to swing first. He'll probably regret it.
So Gryotgarth is going to move up to the location where Eir has pointed to the ground where this
supposed figure is. He's just going to start swinging his sword.
Attaboy.
That's the spirit.
We'll find him.
The spirit quite literally is.
Come out of hiding you cow-eyed. He's right there.
You again, you can see like this, this kind of whispering darkness, this distortion in
the air, almost like it's a heat shimmer. So I will allow you to make an attack roll,
but you will do so with three woes.
Whoa.
A three?
12 minus five is seven.
As is so often the case when your intrepid band enters into combat, you swipe and thrust
at the air and anyone who was looking would imagine that you were engaged in some kind
of training practice.
And Ljomi would like to cast biting charms on his sword. On Gigi's sword.
Didn't someone already cast something on Gigi's sword?
We talked about it.
Am I imagining that?
Okay.
I imagine the line.
I would like to start chanting the Sun Song so that I can give someone a bonus to their
next roll. I can give them two wheels every round that I keep singing it. And so I will
give that to Gigi as I begin playing my drum and chanting an ancient war tune.
Very good. So now Gigi, you are supported by two practitioners of Galdar craft, Galdar
men who stand there and sing in your general direction, sing ancient songs that fire your
steel and gird your loins and next time you will be able to roll with hopefully more success.
Becky did you want to do anything particular?
I'm presuming now we're taking fast turns and that we've moved into combat.
Well Brynn, as she quite rightly pointed out, she doesn't think swords or guns are going
to hit this thing. She was hoping to look into the room, but now it's looking like Gigi
is doing some kind of war practice routine but with music.
There's a lovely duet going on.
As a new player to the game, I'm going to give you a little hint and a tip. One of your
professions as a scientist from the Firefox Institute, it's Comparative Orlog and Wyrd
or lay being the law of fate, weird being the tug of destiny. And it may well be that
you can use your guest counselor ability to help CJ strike this creature because you have
a feeling, it's your instinct that there is something going on that is drawing these spirits.
Once again, like I said, they're not from the afterlife that you know, but they're from
an afterlife. You've got enough scientific nous and ability to detect these things that
you can also grant wheels to CJ as he thrusts and parries into what seems to be the air.
That is what Brynn would like to do. She would like to take a scientific approach to this.
She herself will not start flinging her seax around and lay there and start possibly chopping
people's fingers off by accident. She would like to bear in mind what Air said about the
guy's uniform that obviously seems to be a human type creature. Therefore, kind of like,
okay, that's the height of Eir, that's the height of a potential human. Kind of like
methodically try and get estimation about where CJ should strike and she'll almost
be like the coach saying, no, box left, no, box right, kick low, kind of thing.
With all five of us in action, we have a chance of hitting a target. Nice.
Steve, what did you want to do? What does Eir want to do in this environment where this
being...
Okay, question is that I have the Gand spell, Gand fly, which targets a creature or object.
Does this count as a creature?
It does. Your Gand fly would work.
But do I want to take the first shot?
Sure.
CJ's already taking a swing at it.
Air's not going to take the... Oh, but it hasn't actually taken a swing at me yet. Has
it reacted to the sword swinging in any way?
As far as you can see, it's dimly aware of CJ, but it's focused on you.
Can I focus on what it's saying and try to make sense of it?
It's clear that it's mouthing the same words over and over.
Right. He's trying to communicate something specific.
They're kind of exclamations, exclamations of shock and awe and surprise. And that's
what it is, what the creature's continually mouthing on repeat, like a broken record.
If there's repetition in what he's saying, is there any repetition in his movements?
His movements are...
Like he's on a loop?
Not quite. They're jerky and erratic, if he were on film, as if he'd skipped a couple
of frames.
He's of time and outer place.
Yeah. No, I don't want to... I'm not going to swing first.
Are you going to take any...
I'm going to go full dodge.
Eir will concentrate on dodging to the best of his rather sad ability.
He swings a haymaker in your direction, catching you on the chin for four damage.
Oh boy. Well, I mean, I meant what I said. Let him swing first, four damage.
Can you also make a will challenge off me?
Probably not. But no, we'll give it a go.
Oh God. Did you learn to roll from Gigi?
That would be... Yeah, that would be four.
Okay, you need to add two trauma to your...
Double digits.
Double digits, everyone. I told you.
And just to explain the rules here in advance, what is your total will score? It's 11, right?
It is.
When your trauma equals your will, you will suffer shell shock and you will not just be frightened,
you will go into... It could be a range of things from hysterical blindness to maniacal laughter.
A range of different things could happen to you. And you're very much on the verge of that mental breakdown.
I thought I'm supposed to be playing a character.
You're just channeling yourself.
It's not just myself.
Well, okay, I said I was going to let him swing first. He did. Now we're going to give him the gandfly.
Okay, so it says you send a destructive pulse towards the target. I'm guessing sort of like a shockwave sort of thing.
It says it takes one die six damage. There's no mention of a roll to hit sort of thing.
No, it's an automatic hit. Such is the strength of Gand.
Gand is this understanding of the primal forces through which the world was formed.
And you're able to control the elements, manipulate root particles and sister particles to hurl projectiles or seize the wind.
It was once the preserve of Finnar, the Finns, the sorcerers of old.
But you have turned it into a science.
Fantastic. And I mean, yeah, and even I can't miss.
Which is the whole appeal.
So that way...
So do roll for damage.
I rolled a six for damage on a one die six.
Your spectral missile slams into the uniformed creature and it's clearly invisibly hurt,
staggering back, falling to one knee, wiping its brow.
And again, you hear it say, Merde!
Yeah, I hear you, buddy.
OK, my body language is just don't make me do that again.
I'll even say that out loud, although he won't understand me.
Let's see what everyone else does, see what happens.
OK, CJ, if you wanted to take a fast turn this time, you are supported by the guest council from Brynn,
the sun song from Folk and you're supported by biting charms from Ljomi.
So make a roll.
And if it fails, then you are willing.
You are welcome to spend that inspiration.
All right, here we go.
Give me something good.
Good luck.
Oh, inspiration time, isn't it?
I'm holding my head.
Are you searching for inspiration?
You have two wheels you can use.
I'm searching.
He's got three wheels which cancel out the three woes.
So it's just a straight roll, but I will take the inspiration.
Brilliant use of that.
Nicely done.
Inspired.
First ever use of that.
Yeah.
You are inspired by the gods, partly because you think you are one of them.
Please do make your damage roll.
It's like six.
Oh, wow.
Woo hoo.
Nice.
Oh, yeah.
First good roll in three ways.
Well done.
This time you smite the soldier with your sword.
And although he seems somewhat insubstantial, your blow still manages to connect.
Take that.
Ha.
I imagine that me and Bill are just in the corner.
Dun dun dun dun.
Dun dun dun dun dun.
Yes.
Dun dun dun dun.
And I do want you to remember, Sam, you do have your winnowing drums.
Yeah.
You're your own rhythm section.
You also have effectively played the tambourine.
Everyone continuing just with their support of CJ and his heroics.
Brynn would like to look to Eir, and does he look very visibly hurt in a major way?
Or have you just got a minor scratch or something?
Like...
Me or the soldier?
You air.
You.
For air, the damage is on the inside.
You did take some physical damage, though, Steve, as well.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yep.
Oh, I did.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
Just wondering if she used to give you a plaster or not.
Ha ha ha.
Sure.
A little.
Well, being made of stone, a little.
If you have some cement, that would be handy.
The soldier dusts himself off, straightens his uniform, pulls up the lapels, adjusts his
peak cap, and then assumes his boxing stance again and strikes a blow aiming for your chin.
He fails, and the blow glances wide.
So we go to the next round.
And if you take fast turns, you may again gust another gandfly or take a sword blow
or continue to proceed as you wish.
Well, I'm just going to keep tambourining, man.
Yeah, we're going to we got a jam going.
I'm going to try.
So we're going to keep it going.
Yeah.
So Gigi hit it with a sword, a physical object made of steel, right?
Correct.
So in that case, a lead shot might work.
I have gandball, which lets me launch a lead shot at the target, although I have to roll to hit.
So let me see, so there'd be a wits with one wheel.
I'm going to cancel out that wheel, though, because it is a horrifying creature.
There's a balance house.
But I'm an atrocity, aren't I?
So are of the French.
Fair.
I rolled a six, so I would like to use inspiration and try that again.
You can use that inspiration point.
You're burning through them.
We're still rolling with the same effectiveness.
Six episodes in.
So you also feel the touch of the gods on your shoulder and your gand shot hits home thudding into the soldier.
What's your damage?
One to six plus extra damage equal to your power, which is.
So your power is one.
Okay, so one die, six.
That's a four plus one is five.
The lead shot hurtles towards him.
In Old Norse, it's called Trollskud.
It hits him squarely between the eyes.
How's it looking?
Eir?
Rough?
The soldier is clearly on its last legs, breathing heavily, looking haggard and forlorn and wincing with every movement as it tries to strike a blowback.
One more good hit should do it.
Twenty.
Oh, what?
I almost haven't done the spell on you now, but never mind.
All right.
And roll your damage.
Two.
I have a runic ability that is really good for when you roll a twenty, but I thought the chances of it happening are like how, how, how, how, how low or how.
Your sword thrust is not quite so effective.
Eir, you see him go down on his knees, roll over and lie still.
That finished him.
He's down.
I'll draw in the snow around him so that everyone can see he's right here, like a chalk outline at a murder's well.
I mean, we do, we do.
Were anyone to attempt to prod that space that you've clearly demarcated, you'd feel a kind of resistance in the air, but again, nothing solid, nothing substantial.
Very interesting.
Falk will walk over and bow his head and say, cattle die and kinsmen die, and so one dies themselves.
But one thing now that never dies, the fame of a dead man's deeds.
He's a deep cove.
He's, he's, he's brought out the classics again.
The fallen soldier, the unknown soldier is just lying there.
There is no, there is no breath escaping from him.
There is no light flying into the heavens.
There is, there is nothing apart from this spectral pull on the tongue.
Yeah, does prodding it with a stick have any effect?
Like, does it move?
Does anything happen?
I'm wondering.
Part of me wants to immediately lose its pockets, but.
For you, it does.
You were effectively kicking a corpse.
There is something, there is something solid.
There is something robust and resistant to your force.
You could, if you liked, rifle through its pockets.
There is something real and tangible for you and perhaps all the more so because of your distressed mental state.
It's lucky for us you're so fragile.
What an asset.
Eir will just go through, just look through its pockets, examine its, and examine any insignia it has.
Any equipment it might be carrying.
Good idea.
That sort of thing.
Just.
There are some pieces of paper, maybe typed orders that are scrunched up in its pockets.
Is there blood on Grotgarth's sword?
Oh.
There is no, there is no substance of any kind.
There is no ectoplasm, there is no blood, there is no trachea.
There is no trace that you have impaled someone with.
So if I take the crumpled up, the typed orders on a piece of paper and I take them out of the body's pocket and hold them up, does it remain substantial?
If I drop it on the ground, can anyone see it?
You are the only person who can see any of these objects.
That's bizarre.
Okay.
I'll take the orders and one of the lapel, like I guess is it a pin or something or is it embroidered?
The insignia on the lapel.
Yeah, it's brocade.
Okay, so I can't take it without damaging the uniform and I'm not going to do that.
No, you could remove the jacket and wear it if you chose to do so.
Wear an insubstantial jacket.
I think that would make a strange sort of sense.
I was just mentioning Emperor's new clothes because he effectively wore things he thought he could see but no one else could.
But this time they're real.
Uh-huh.
This time it's real, I mean it this time.
Just don't take off the rest of your clothes and parade around naked.
Aren't I technically naked all the time?
Sort of.
It's entirely up to you and the PG rating of this podcast.
Bryn is going to stand up from the snow and roughly turn around and then enter the boathouse.
She wants to know more about what was in there to have made the marks, the scratchings.
Can I transfer my two weals onto her since I'm still, Sunsong is up for a full minute?
The spell song is like a psalm. It's an incantation that can range anywhere from the high pitch to the rhythmic.
But they are generally all pleasing to the ear.
I do need to follow her with my drum.
Singing this. Exactly.
And give me an awareness roll, Becky, please, if you would.
What do you know? That was a natural 20.
Two wheels plus four makes it 24.
The sons and daughters of Ivaldi are known as the Watchers for a reason.
They have a very high awareness.
And as you scan them, it becomes immediately apparent to you that the rowboat is not seaworthy.
There is, however, a seat locker on the rowboat.
And within that are three sticks of dynamite.
Perhaps someone used it to go fishing, fishing with extreme prejudice.
The diverge in the corner is old, is antiquated.
It doesn't look like it can be rebooted.
But there is a key that is dangling on the end of its nasal sensor.
I would like to take the key.
I would, if I may, yeah, I would, Eir would like to first he will put on his lovely new insubstantial jacket.
It's real to him, OK?
And yeah, and then he will follow Brynn into the, into the boathouse, because I want to see, does he see anything that no one else sees?
You do not.
There is nothing hidden from you that your senses would otherwise detect.
CJ, just behind you, though, as you stand at the doorway, or they went there a moment ago, you could have sworn.
But now there are some rather elegant white lilies that have been laid in the doorway.
Hmm.
I'm going to watch your face.
Just on the floor, they're just on the, is that something Gigi would even notice?
I drew your attention to them because they are so elegant.
They remind you of the kind of bouquet that you would have been gifted when you stood on the podium.
Ah.
But they're clearly a floral tribute.
They're clearly a wreath of some sort.
So, Gryotgarth will draw everyone's attention to the lilies and say, has anyone else noticed we've received flowers?
Do we also see the flowers when they're pointed out?
Everyone sees the flowers, although you notice their petals begin to curl and wither.
And within the space of 30 seconds, the icy breeze that glides over the tundra rustles those petals and they begin to drift apart.
And the whole bouquet very quickly turns from fresh to putrid, brittle and disintegrates.
Intriguing. They were not there when we first approached or opened this door.
Is the body still outside?
The body is still outside.
It could be connected with the demise of whatever spirit's thing, person, creature.
Do they have any cultural significance?
It's a Christian symbol, right?
Would lilies even exist anywhere on this planet? Because Gigi would have won on Asgard.
So, would they be totally out of place?
Yes, this podcast has transformed into Gardeners Question Time.
Religious gardening.
Well, if you ask if chihuahuas agree, I think it's perfectly sensible to ask if lilies agree.
Yeah, the chihuahua people agree.
It's all starting to make sense.
Yes.
It is, yeah.
Falk, you glanced down and you noticed that your own elegant clothing has been bizarrely replaced.
You're actually now clothed in some kind of mud-spattered khaki uniform and you're wearing a steel helmet.
For Falk's sake, I step a little closer to examine.
Can you make a will challenge roll for me, please?
Yeah, I step further away.
I rolled a nine and I have plus one will, so ten.
If your resolve is somewhat shaken, you are unnerved by the appearance of this strange and unnatural clothing.
Within a few moments, it too has vanished and left you back in your normal clothing.
I will exit the boathouse immediately and go back outside.
It's safer out here.
You can almost feel where the steel helmet was too tight.
Yeah, I start trying to comb my fingers through my beard to get it back to the right fullness.
Ljomi steps into the boathouse checking around with tree sight because you know how well trees can see.
So just to be clear, everyone else has gone into the boathouse, they've all scoped it out,
and then just almost like a kind of coda as a period of full stop, you go in just to pick people up.
That's correct.
Brynn's still in there. She hasn't actually left yet.
Good.
Yeah.
Okay, you detect nothing that anyone else has not already seen.
The three sticks of dynamite do call out to you just because you're aware of the incendiary nature of them,
and you wouldn't like to go up like a Canadian forest in the summer.
A Canadian fir tree, yes.
Okay.
All right, I'll step back out again. I'll go stand a little farther away than Eir is standing. His instincts are good.
Brynn is looking down at this key.
Now, is it like a typical kind of like paddle key, or is it a card type key?
How classic or modern are we going with this key?
It would be a kind of key code similar to the one that Magnus made well up possessing.
She's going to double check the space to see if there's nothing in the room that this key code would have technically, theoretically possibly unlocked
before she starts thinking, could this be for the door over there?
Yeah, the boathouse is almost like a secondary storage area. It hasn't been used for quite some time.
Perhaps the Dverg was some kind of local servitor or janitor.
It may well have used the key code itself in order to access the buildings before such time as its battery life ran out with it powered down.
So at least we can now get in, perhaps, the main building.
Potentially. That is a very good hypothesis, and I will endeavor to find out first. I must study these markings.
Now, were they on the window pane or on the wall around the window, or just a wall in the space?
On the window pane. On the window pane and there would be akin to you using your finger on a window full of condensation.
And would you go in one, two?
These mark the left not by any of us and certainly not by this old mechanical thing.
And yet we fought something, well, Gigi fought and defeated, so to speak, and to my keep him on it, something that isn't corporeal yet seemed to be corporeal to air.
Brynn, do you have a device that would tap into the frequency of 1111 while we're here?
Not on me personally. We could have indeed acquired one from the Institute, which is what I was hoping to do, but they pointed out that this station is not working correctly because of the same reason.
So it's all tied up. Perhaps if we get into the station itself, there might be something in there that we can use.
I believe Gigi is correct. We need to find out if this passcode is for that door and let's hope we don't beat the same fate as Magnus.
That's a good plan.
But the nearest building to you would be the main control room, the observation deck on top. You would have to go round it.
You can give it a wide berth, but you would have to go round it to get to the other two buildings.
One thing you do notice is that the tobacco smell and the accordion music have stopped.
So the main room is the control room and the other one is a meteorologist room?
A meteorology laboratory.
It's a separate building, right?
It's a separate building. So the meteorological laboratory is immediately to the north. You can see it through the fog.
And when you would know, again, being a scientist is the sort of place where you would conduct experiments.
It's a weather proof enclosure with everything from data loggers, batteries to recharge things.
It's that meteorological mast with a solar panel. The solar panel is not getting much power because of the fog,
but it is designed to conduct experiments and enable field operatives to do that work.
Do we explore some more of the buildings or shall we proceed straight to the control tower?
Control tower!
Very well then. I suppose it avoids meeting any more invisible creatures.
Let us...
Do you want to give me a mark?
We will go first because she has got the code.
I think Gigi, again, being honor bound is going to want to lead the pack.
You know, he is a god.
She will let him walk in front, but she will not be very far behind.
I suppose the critical question is who is bringing up the rear?
Tell me, Dibs.
I'm just in front of him.
I guess I'm in the middle then.
Wait a minute.
I think you accidentally caught Dibs on being last. Did you, Steve? Is that what you were doing?
It wasn't the plan, but...
It's where you ended up.
If Eir is the only one who can see these insubstantial things, okay, sure. He'll stay at the back.
It will be useful when they attack you from behind.
And he won't...
Yeah, and when they attack from the front, Eir... No one will know anything about it because Eir won't be able to warn them.
But he will see from behind.
I will absolutely see myself getting murdered from behind.
Err, can you make me a might challenge?
Probably not.
Okay, Steve, let's do it.
Err, one, two, three...
Might, you said, huh?
Might.
We got this.
Fantastic. This is exceptional.
I rolled a zero.
One minus one.
I think...
As far as I know, we haven't burned through all the inspiration yet. What do you think?
Use what is left, yeah.
Okay, inspiration it is.
And here we come across a salient lesson.
Spend ye the inspiration points too early, and they are no longer of use to save you in moments of peril.
You are engulfed by a numerous yellow cloud of suffocating gas.
And you take seven damage.
I also want you to add...
What sort of damage? I'm immune to disease and poison, right? It's neither of those things?
Do you know that's entirely a reasonable rebuttal?
Because you don't breathe, so you can't be affected by a greenish-yellow cloud of suffocating gas.
So you can ignore the damage, but I do want you to make a will challenge.
Well, better than the last one.
Wow. This is a twenty-sided die, right?
A total of six.
So while you are immune to the acrid fumes that begin to billow around you as if materialized from somewhere,
they don't go into your lungs, you don't have any, they don't seep into your pores,
they don't burn your eyes because of your stony skin,
but nevertheless the memory of suffocating causes you to have one extra trauma.
I think that has tipped you over Eir.
No, let's go for triple digits.
That's not your day.
That's the threshold.
Oh, he's just gone nuts.
He hasn't tipped over or he has gone nuts?
He will, Eir will say gas out loud if he can.
Let everyone interpret that as they wish.
Do we see anything when, or is there any sound component?
There's not. Perhaps it's a phantasm, perhaps it's a figment of his rather vivid imagination,
but now you do have this heightened sense of danger, air, your natural flight or fight response,
your flight or fight response has kicked in and I'm going to ask you to roll a D20.
Just D20, nothing fancy.
Straight D20 and I will tell you.
Stand by for failure.
Oh!
Nineteen.
Couldn't have rolled that last time.
Nope.
Rather than suffer anything from tremors to panic to indecision or confusion,
you actually become hypervigilant.
You are completely alert.
Perhaps you don't have a surge of stress hormones released into your bloodstream
because you don't have any blood, but your senses are all very much focused on this otherworldly attack
and you may reduce your trauma total by 1 by 6 plus your will modifier.
Oh, well, that's well...
There are a few rolls in which you get to overcome Shellshock quite so easily,
but you manage to fluke one of them.
1 by 6 plus 1 you said.
Total 4. So that'll reduce by 4 to 7.
That's a turnaround for the books.
What a great time to get his shit together.
Yeah.
Okay, he will... Air will immediately alert whoever's... well, everyone else.
Poison gas? There's gas everywhere. It's come out of nowhere.
And yet, it's okay.
For me, for me it's okay.
Yeah, I'm okay with this. It's gonna be fine. The rest of you, we'll see.
You can continue to sidle up to the door. I presume you are approaching carefully and cautiously.
Wait!
Gigi's gonna reach down and grab a... is it... can he... are there any rocks around him?
Is there snow?
Well, there's Steve.
No, but like pebbles, rocks, something he can pick up and just throw.
I'm sure you'll be able to find something.
Is there snow at our feet?
Yeah, you can grab a clod of earth and snow and hurl it and...
Yeah, he's gonna make a snowball, a brown snowball, and then launch it at the door to make sure... to see what happens.
Just to make sure there's not some kind of invisible barrier that's going to vaporize them, like what happened to poor Magnus, who was...
He just vanished.
His body just got consumed in light.
He just vanished.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so throw... yep, up the door. What happens?
When you throw your clod of snowy frozen earth, it thumps into the side of the building.
It reverberates on the window.
You kind of remind yourself of when you hurled the shot put back at the old Asgard games.
It's a hefty blow, but nothing happens.
Still, good precaution, just in case.
A rudimentary method, but I... I...
Kaleidoscopes?
...took marks for its theory and basis.
And Bryn will try and get around Grjotgarth and try and get to the passcode box.
Okay, so you're aiming for... you're going to type... use the key code...
Yep.
...and plug it into the door.
Yes, please.
Mm-hmm.
Here it comes.
We're going to need another Timmy.
Slight pause.
As you touch the door, you suddenly see a kind of endless vista.
It's as if you are being reflected in mirrors, one after the other, after the other, stretching on into infinity.
And then something beyond the door reaches out.
It's tearing through reality's veil.
There's a jagged form, a glitch in existence, and you can feel these shards of pain searing into your mind.
It's like listening to a symphony of dissonance.
He's rolling dice. He's doing something.
I'm going to give you...
Tell me something.
15 damage.
Yeah, yeah, that'll do it. That'll do it, boys.
Left me with a minus two.
Okay, so in this game, that doesn't necessarily wipe you out.
It just means that you have been incapacitated, and you're going to give me a fate roll.
I want to use Yggdrasil's gift to try and stabilize her.
I know you do, but you have to do that after she's made her roll.
Okay, here we go.
He's like the wooden red cross.
Oh, well that could have been a fate roll, actually.
It became a one, I'm afraid, guys. I'm looking at the beautiful wolf dice.
Do I get spared because I have your dice in?
Unfortunately, a one is probably the worst thing you could have rolled in this instance, because you die.
You are ripped from existence. Your body disintegrates into its component atoms, and your consciousness blows into the Tundra.
Bryn Blar Ivaldisdottir, has ceased to exist.
Bryn, we hardly knew ye.
I somehow feel responsible.
I should have done things differently, but I thought, well...
Is the door open?
Did he drop the key? Would have that disintegrate as well.
The door is not open.
Simply the act of reaching for the door caused whatever is lurking within to reach out, reach through the door.
Whatever reached out was mesmerizing. It glistened with all the colours of the rainbow as if reality had fractured around it.
And what Becky saw was the standing between two mirrors in an infinite reproduction of her own image before she became an echo of that image.
I'd like to say the last thing you all hear from Bryn is just the silent word of interesting.
And then she just goes.
And then she pops out of existence.
One eyebrow raising slightly.
Do we hear anything or just see this kaleidoscope again?
Oh, good question.
There is the faint and distant hum of the frequency that you recognise. The frequency 1111. It's as if the alfar song that was attached to this hijacked frequency has channeled something into this room.
It's as if a beam of intense information has plucked something from the ionosphere and brought it directly into this control room.
Certain is that which is sought from the runes that the gods so great have made and the master poet painted of the race of gods. Silence is safest and best.
The only nods. Speak plain normal man. I'm a skald too. I don't try that.
The only nods. Slightly and turns to Eir and says we should acquire another man.
Very useful. Yeah, we we we stand the risk of going through a few more focus going to begin moving backwards.
Excellent choice away from the building and back down the stairs.
Do we have the key? The key card? The key is lying bereft on the floor as if just dropped as if discarded.
We need either a stick or a volunteer. Either will be fine. I think we may have used up our last volunteer.
I'm here. What about Heimric?
There's a reason why Heimric went straight to the shed and barricaded himself in to keep himself safe until he's needed.
I understand you're keeping him so well.
We're going to get him out. Should should we very sensible.
We go and interrogate him. He might know what's going on.
Oh, just a thought. I mean, no one's left. No one's left from the Institute.
I'm not from the Institute. I don't know what the Institute does here.
Frankly, I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing here.
They're going to be upset when we don't bring back their side. Well, I won't.
It looks suspicious.
Is there like a long piece of metal or something that I or some brave person could reach out and sort of try and drag the key card closer to us?
You could go back to the boathouse, fashion something from one of the empty equipment crates and return within short order to to drag it with a kind of wooden plank or stick.
Falk will hand you a crowbar.
I was hoping for something a lot longer.
The idea being to fashion something to hold the key card and deposit it in the slot while a long way away.
That would require some kind of pincers or prehensile tools that you don't have.
Or just stick with a slot cut in it.
I just thought from the guidance from the inspiration.
What are you thinking?
I'm thinking there was that dynamite. Now, I don't want to touch it, but there was dynamite and you might be able to use that in some fashion.
The important thing is it should be you and not Gigi because I don't think he is brave enough for this particular task.
I beg your pardon.
I do apologize.
By all means, it should be Gigi.
Although I must say, I think Falk and his military training is much better suited to handle the dynamite.
Falk is probably 20 feet away at this point.
And he could still hit me.
Falk's tactics are the same as Eir's. He is just a lot quieter about it.
While you are standing debating your next course of action, Eir acting as an early warning system because you still have enough trauma to be able to detect these manifestations.
You see two figures approaching from the direction of the laboratory.
One is a mustachioed soldier. He has a fixed bayonet of determination in his eyes and he is charging towards you.
There's another man.
Wonderful.
He is darting in and out of cover.
He carries a bowie knife.
Eir will immediately point at the two of them and announce in a loud clear voice, two miscreants with weapons are headed towards us.
Ljomi, can you give me a slight challenge roll please?
A 12 plus 1 is 13. Not a 1, not a 2, not a 3.
You are suddenly forced to fall as an invader of mud and iron erupts from nearby an explosion that almost took your boots off.
That's fine. That's okay. Okay.
Alright, this guy is charging at us.
We have some weapons.
Two guys charging. A mustachioed bayonet wielding soldier. They're wearing uniforms again.
Not light blue but various shades of dun.
Is the insignia the same as on my uniform?
No.
Well, there's your problem.
They might see me and think that I'm the other team.
Yeah, that was a really good idea.
I will try to launch a gand ball at the nearest one. The one with the bayonet, I presume, who's charging.
Okay, you can make your roll.
Yeah.
This is your last one of those.
After this, you'll be flawless.
Yep. Yep. So that's a wits with one weal. Are there any woes?
Yep. All cancelled out because, again, these are horrifying creatures.
And whilst you have overcome the horrified trait with that early roll, or as at least you've been released from its effects, you still roll with one woe against horrifying creatures.
These creatures are horrifying because they clearly do not belong on Midgard.
Total roll is a ten.
That is enough to roll your damage.
Oh, fantastic.
The lead shot whistles from your palm and flies straight towards the soldier, hitting him in the kneecap.
Oh, it just grazed him. Just one.
Oh, plus one for my powers. That makes two.
Okay. The mustachioed gentleman quickly regathers his momentum and velocity and continues to rush towards you, yelling out,
Zero hour, boys, I'm going to take out the squareheads.
And he repeats it over and over.
Zero hour, boys, I'm going to take out the squareheads.
What's going on?
Would I have made it back to the boathouse at this point?
If you were tracking back towards the boathouse, then yes, you can be there in with...
He's fucked off.
He's got sense.
Burst into the boathouse.
He's buggered off.
You can shut the door behind you if you wish.
The boathouse is empty. Its previous guardian denizen has been disposed of.
No smell of tobacco?
No smell of tobacco.
Okay, I'm going to run for the boat and grab the dynamite.
Okay, there are three sticks of dynamite sat in that boat locker.
All right. I'll grab all three.
Okay.
Okay, I have a plan.
Do tell.
Doesn't happen often.
I'm going to try... they're going to cast Evil Eye on the other Screaming Lunatic and see if I can charm it.
You're going to have to get quite close to do that.
Are you willing to risk that?
It says short range. How long range is short range?
Five yards.
Well, seeing as they're charging me, I expect they'll be in short range soon.
Okay. So what you might do then is use a triggered action so that when he enters your range...
Perfect.
...you cast a spell. You can actually do so with one wheel because you've prepared it.
So give me your best roll.
Okay, so that is a wits with one... well, I get two weal. One because of the dynamite.
Again, because it's horrifying, so it's just going to be with one weal.
So it's one. Okay.
So that's wits.
Oh, hello. 18 plus 2 is 20.
Well, your sorceress seidr enables you to reach beyond the barriers of this realm into the mind of this strange being and,
no longer hostile, it looks at you and says,
What a cock-up! Stretch your bearers at the double! What a cock-up! Stretch your bearers at the double!
And it keeps on repeating that.
Okay, yeah. Air will announce to the team. I've charmed that one. They can't see it.
I'll charmed that one. And the other one points at Eir and the other Eir at nothing in the other direction and is still charging.
The other one has a bowie knife and is flitting between the buildings, skulking in cover as if you're trying to approach undetected.
And certainly, while you can see him, he is undetected as far as all of the others are concerned.
Then air will keep up a running narrative of where he is. Behind that building, behind the barrel, behind that strange tree person, you know, that sort of thing.
To what effect? What is everyone else doing?
Oh, we've got dynamite now, for Falk's sake. I'm just going to keep hitting that joke until I get a bigger laugh.
Yeah, yeah.
You're really filking that one.
Oh, oh.
Nice.
Yeah, Falk comes running back up with three sticks of dynamite.
No way for this to go wrong.
Okay. What is the intent with dynamite?
Before they showed up, my plan was to put it on the keypad and try to open the door the old fashioned way.
Through.
There's a Michael Caine film where he says you weren't supposed to run the bloody doors off.
Are these buildings up on stilts or up on posts?
It's raised somewhat, yes, and there are steps and the steps go to the main door and then they continue up to the interface.
Perhaps we could just blow up the antenna.
Yeah, yeah.
The whole building.
Blow up the thing that's sitting on the ceiling.
Oh, okay.
I'm worried. I'm getting a sense of spirits from beyond in the other world that not everyone thinks might.
Those departed friends might not all think this an excellent plan.
Falk, that if you go anywhere near the keypad, it doesn't matter whether you have a key card or not, you're going to get caught. That's my concern.
Oh, well, then I definitely won't do that.
I think start lobbying.
From the area of the main control room, you hear a loud static burst.
It's as if tuning between frequencies and you can detect all of your names just in the crackle and hiss of the overpowering signal.
And then you also hear, the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want pretty soon they're going to ask for money.
Does everyone here? Does it sound like a Gregorian chant?
It sounds like a psalm or a prayer, but just kind of poorly modulated frequency, a static signal. It's not clear.
So, Falk, are you going to try to throw the dynamite at the door and we will take defensive positions over here?
Is there a door knob? Or like, how does the door open other than the keypad?
Yep.
And then your twister, your twisted handle.
I would put a stick of dynamite in the twisted handle, light it and run.
You're going to have to get really close.
Probably should get a stick with a crack in it so I can set the dynamite.
Okay, as you can creep up the stairs, the dynamite in hand with some kind of lighter ready to light it, but Eir, you'll be able to warn him now because immediately at his back is the creeping, prowling soldier with the bowing knife poised as if to assassinate you from behind.
You, Falk, don't see anything. Behind you? You get the hair's bristle on the back of your neck because you are attuned to the spirits, but it's only if you brought forth and unveiled your second sight that you would be able to turn and see this unknown assailant.
I will definitely use my second sight.
You whip round and see for a brief moment this soldier, his knife ready to stab at you. He is clean shaven, he is a young man, his eyes are haunted and glazed, and he is trying to stab his knife into your guts.
I would like to move out of the way.
Okay, you will be able to do that next round. We'll enter into some form of combat here.
You've been alerted just in time. He is coming up the stairs, he's slightly below you. You have the high ground.
Everyone else is, I'm going to say, down at ground level, keeping well away from the door. You may take fast turns if you wish to deal with it.
The charmed soldier is again just mouthing words standing next to him, as he has put his rifle with a bayonet down and has sat down on the ground, mouthing about stretcher bows.
So can Gigi see the boon knife guy?
Again, only insofar as you know that there's something there, there's a disturbance, but you can't make out anything tangible.
Only air can see this soldier in its full form.
Folk can detect an outline and see glimpses of its distorted, disheveled face.
I'm going to say, acting on some intuition based on the idea that Grjotgarth has felled one shadow figure already, and seeing this wisp coming toward his comrade, he is going to pull his gun, cast sharp runes on a bullet, and take a shot.
Okay, the spell will be your action this round. You can take the shot next round.
Ljomi, what's Bill doing? Chitter-chattering with his children?
Can I... no, I already used... no, I used biting charms. I can use weapon song on Gigi's pistol as well. Let's beef him up.
You can, for next round? So you're going to give him some extra oomph?
Alright, well then let's go in... oh, Eir, what did you want to do?
Well, yeah, two things. With one hand, he's going to point at the assassin and keep up his commentary, you know, he's on the bottom stair or he's three feet away from you or that sort of thing. With his other hand, he's going to bend over and pick up that bayonet rifle that the other insubstantial soldier put down. You said he put it down on the ground. Can Eir pick it up?
You can. He doesn't bat an eyelid or even look up at you querulously, such is the power of your evil eye.
That's not that evil. He will pick up the rifle and... he is... I mean, he knows how to use a rifle, like, I mean, in theory.
Yep, give me a sleight roll.
Yeah, oh yeah, this is going to be fine. Okay, so sleight with one woe. Alright, roll is...
Steve, you're fired.
No, I'm rolling the other one too.
Oh, no, that's it, you're canned.
So my total roll is a zero. Yeah, so that's great. Yeah, with the woe.
Okay, the bullet ricochets off the building, narrowly missing Falk, causing him to duck and curse at your...
Wait, would he? Does he have any idea that a rifle just went off?
I don't know.
I have spirit sight.
Or would he? It's a spirit gun firing a spirit bullet, sort of.
And he's got second sight and...
Oh, yeah.
Second sight and obviously a decent hunch that you're terrible with this thing.
Fair.
Alright, let's go to the top of the next round and you can all take your fast tens and proceed with the actions that you...
I'm going to shoot an arrow.
Is reloading an action, or is it part of the firing?
It is an action for that type of gun because it's a one round mechanism.
Bill, if you want to launch an arrow, let fly a volley.
We're going to take a valuable time watching you shoot off into the stratosphere.
18 plus 1, so 19. 19.
Okay, but you need to have, please, three woes because you can barely see this thing.
It is heavily obscured.
14.
Bizarrely, you hit, so roll your damage.
I knew that.
That is a first time for everything.
I rolled a 5.
Splendid. The arrow strikes true, striking the young soldier in the middle of his back.
He recoils in pain, looking bloodied in front of you folk if you want to take whatever swipe you were doing.
Is he too close to shoot with my battle rifle?
You can use your rifle butt to smack him in the face. That would be the most sensible thing to do at this rate.
I also have a question. I have mocking taunt, which is a triggered action.
That's true. You can use your triggered action now, and this is a good one for CJ to remember as well.
You can use your biting and sophisticated wit to insult this person or lampoon him in some way as you strike him.
I think then he gets woes on the user.
I try to use the same term that that other guy was saying about being a real cockup.
In hopes that he understands it.
Nice.
Rolling to attack, I got an 8 on the die.
Would this be might for attacking with the butt?
It would be might.
Unfortunately, he blocks the blow, but he does flash a look of rage at you.
Clearly your insult has connected in some way.
CJ.
I think he's going to shoot him.
You do have the benefit of the weapon song.
That gives me a wheel.
Because it's still indistinct, you have to do so with one or two.
I'm just trying to get this thing warm up.
Good idea. Maybe the microwave.
20!
So you rolled 20s or 1s, basically.
I feel like that's...
He's just flipping a coin.
So the sharp runes that I cast gives an extra 2d6 damage in this case, correct?
Yeah.
So 11 damage.
Nice.
Mince Tim, indeed your runic pistol shoots a bullet that goes straight through the base of his neck.
It snaps back and the body slides down, tumbling down the stairs in front of you and out of sight.
Alright, I will light the dynamite and roll it towards the door and then run.
What kind of fuse you set?
I'd say probably about 20 seconds.
Alright, gives you plenty of time to clatter and clamber down the stairs.
The dynamite rolls towards the foot of the steel door and then...
There is a massive explosion.
The door wraps off its hinges and topples to the ground.
You still have two sticks of dynamite left and now that smell of cordite that you could tell,
that spectral smell is infused with a very real and visceral smell of burning fire and exploded dynamite.
Again, this static voice comes out to you, you echo in from the room.
It's clearer now and you hear it say,
Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
It just keeps on repeating like that.
I have a plan.
Do share.
Is it coming?
Okay.
Put a tail on it and call it a weasel.
I'm thinking, okay, what if we give the dynamite,
because we've got a charmed, mostly substantial soldier sitting on the ground here,
if it turns out that he will follow simple commands,
how about we give him the rest of the dynamite and send him into the building?
That's a fabulous idea.
Do it now.
That's not a horrible idea, but I love it.
Does this charmed soldier, do they respond to, like, if I beckon them to come closer or point for them to stand in a certain place?
So it's going to be very difficult to get your point across. You can certainly try.
Like if I just do a beckoning motion as he starts walking towards me?
No, he's very non-committal.
It's almost as if he's got shell shock.
It's almost as if he has been ripped from existence himself.
He's seen stuff.
Yeah, he's been in the trenches.
Hi. I kind of want to sit down with him and just, you know, hey, man, and I know what it's like.
We could just throw the dynamite in through the open door.
That's what I was going to have Gigi suggest is, wait, I used to throw the javelin.
Dynamite must be quite similar.
What luck.
I'll hand you a stick of dynamite.
Light the dynamite. We should count to five. No more, no less.
Standing in the doorway, the newly opened, the newly rent asunder doorway is this.
You'd say angelic.
A woman.
Loose flowing garments, hair of burning gold, looking fairer than the sun.
Almost godlike is her mind.
Is she?
It's like everyone else is seeing this.
Do we all see it?
Everyone is seeing it.
You're gazing on this, this shining shape of which the prophets did tell.
She's inside the building, like in the hole that the dynamite made.
Falk hands.
Can you catch?
Falk's going to hand you a stick of dynamite, Gigi.
The catch.
Bill, you noticed that this figure has an echo to it, an echo of times past.
Perhaps it is the centre of this phenomenon, something that has brought these
host of phantasmal heroes from a different age to your land.
It sparkles and glistens, reflecting both the sun and the red streaks, the scar on the sky.
Should we try talking to it?
You get a sense of looking at it, Leomi, that, like I said, it's mesmerising, it's glistening
with the colours of the rainbow, reality appears to fracture around it.
Looking at it as you begin to talk, you feel like you're standing between two mirrors.
Again, just like poor Brynn, you see echoes of futures that may never be.
It'll be fine.
I don't know, I want to talk to it.
I have no idea what to say.
Like, zero, my brain's gone empty.
Okay, Leomi says, where cometh thou, traveller?
I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Gigi, why don't you throw a snowball and see if it catches that?
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not walk.
I respond by saying that Freyr is not a shepherd, he's more of a horse guy.
The being is now striding out of the control room with purposeful steps, each one towards you.
You who?
You as the collective.
Sam is closest because Sam is standing on the foot of the stairs where he tossed up the dynamite.
Oh, in that case, Falk will move back.
It matches you with speed.
Doorways clear.
It's moving with unnerving rapidity.
I'm going to start doing an enthralling performance to see if I can get this thing to be less aware and stop moving.
I also feel like her constantly quoting scripture is a bit of a challenge.
I think I'll begin, as much as Gigi doesn't enjoy me quoting Odin's words, I will begin reciting verse from the Habamal to stop this crazy angel lady.
That's interesting.
This is like a flight ting.
You are going to have a battle of wits, a war of words.
You are going to tussle with this being from beyond by using the best of the Skaldic furs.
Skaldic rap battles of history!
That's right, yo yo yo!
Alright, so, what?
A creature can use it, it says I just do it, do I need to make it roll?
A creature can use its action to make a will challenge?
I can do it.
You start reciting your epic, Eddaic verse and hoping that you can distract it or lull it or...
I don't know, perhaps you'll end up in fear.
I know which one I'm betting on.
Yeah.
So it advances towards you, glowing with incandescent light and reaches out what look like healing hands and places them very firmly on your shoulder.
Can I dodge as I perform?
I think she's caught you mid-sentence and your voice instantly seizes up.
Your vocal cords are wrenched, you feel suddenly suffocated and silent and then through the fog of this mask you're wearing,
you're suddenly in a wasteland chewed up by bombs and decorated by bodies.
All around you are the screams and cries of fallen soldiers drowning in the relentless thunder of guns and an artillery.
It's like you're back on Jotunai and you can taste the fear and you know that death works with every step.
The rest of you, you notice that Falk is no longer in your vicinity, having been ripped from the world of Midgar and transported to an entirely other realm.
This being that straddles the timelines has used its hands of time ability, the Cronul Shift ability and has taken Falk the Fair into the dimension from which it came.
It happens to be the Great War environment of our Earth, of our timeline as opposed to the Viking First Timeline.
Falk, you get the chance to participate in the Great War of 1914 to 1918 as a Viking Scallypher.
Wow. Alright. I salute you. Oh yeah.
Not quite dead, but I think the old poem, CJ, you'll probably know it, D'Ossiette de Coromest, Pro Battre Mori.
We need more men. I wonder if my gaulder still works.
Look around for Brynn.
So for the rest of us that are still around this being, is she moving? Is she setting her sights on anyone else?
There is again that kind of shimmering, kaleidoscopic burst of colour when it recedes. Falk is gone, leaving only two sticks of dynamite.
And not the lady.
And an open door. And an open door that beckons.
So I have a suggestion. One, I will throw the dynamite into the building, thereby definitively destroying it, and two, we're going to run like hell.
I support this plan.
And back to the boat. And back to the law speaker to explain what happened here.
Are we in agreement? Should I do it?
Yes.
Alright, so Gigi?
I'm going to require two slight rolls. One to snatch the dynamite off the ground. The next to launch it effectively.
This is the time for the double twenty.
And also to light it.
Oh, don't help them.
There will be a round delay here.
I think it should be lighting and throwing, perhaps, and not the picking up.
That's more like it. Yep. Yep.
Is Gigi drunk? He's just been back there drinking. I've been hiding me.
Just throw the unlit dynamite. That would be a classic.
Okay, we're going to throw a lamp dynamite. So you want two slight rolls.
Slight roll one.
Do we have any inspiration?
I'm pretty sure it was a twenty. I can see it reflected in your bookcase there.
Yeah, I can see it from here.
I can see how you could mistake it for a twenty, but it is in fact a two.
Plus one. Plus one. That gives me a three.
So Gigi attempts to pick up the dynamite and the result is?
You slide in front as if doing a diving tackle in front of the Angelic Herald and that's where your slide ends immediately in front of her.
I will dare will try to distract the Angelic Herald.
Okay, Leone, what you do?
Praying. Okay.
To what?
To the gods of the dice, obviously. That's where our allegiance needs to go.
Okay, I've used that. I think I'm going to keep moving back. I'm going to pull what's colloquially known as an air.
I'm going to pull an air and continue to move away from where the dynamite is.
The attempt to distract the Herald, the discontinuity, the break in time, only draws her ire directly at you, air, and she takes her palm and presses it heavily onto your head and you take...
Oh my word.
You really soak up a lot of damage. I mean, I've got to give you that.
I did. 12? Okay.
I'm... yes.
Your body begins to quiver and crumble as the stone begins to disintegrate.
Just make the throw. Fate roll? Fate roll? Die six? Or die what? Die...
Stop saying the word die. People might get confused.
No, they won't. What should I be rolling?
Die six. Die six.
It's your moment.
Three.
So you fall unconscious. So you will die in four minutes. Your statue is still rigid and upright, but it's starting to crumble away.
Are we into the next round at this point?
Alright. Come on, Gigi.
I'm going to... I suppose... I'm on the ground, right?
You are. You're immediately in front of...
Alright.
The Herald has just stepped over you in order to dispense with the annoying gnat that was...
So she's passed me so I could ostensibly pick up the dynamite and launch it at the radio tower or the building, right?
Could I still do it?
Time for a Hail Mary.
Alright, I'm going to launch it. So I need another...
When you say it, are you kind of double-fisting these dynamite stones?
Yes. And Gigi believes he is ambidextrous.
The die roll will determine whether he is actually or not.
I'm going to warm it up again.
There we go.
Why?
I feel like it went really well. So it was an 18, was it?
Yeah. That sounds great.
He just yelled it out.
It's a three plus one.
The important thing is he's not telegraphing the results.
He's not ambidextrous, he's nanodextrous.
Good. The sticks of dynamite, you hurl them with great force.
They bounce off the frame and land six feet away from you.
They have a 20 second fuse so you have one round before they blow you and the stony body of your friend to pieces.
How did you win a medal for throwing things?
He was pulling on a rope. He wasn't throwing things.
Throwing wasn't his thing.
Sorry, a bit of tone slipped in there. I was a little dismissive.
I'm going to stabilize the statue.
Just to be clear, if you go and stabilize the statue, you will be standing next to two fizzing sticks of dynamite that will blow up.
If I don't, then he blows up.
I'll be fine.
How many minutes does he last in his current state? Not very long, right?
20 seconds, guys.
20 seconds, yeah.
How can I not stabilize him? I've been waiting to use this gift for the whole game.
Grab the dynamite and throw it.
Oh, jeez, I never would have thought of that. That's an action plan.
I'm a tree, not a fighter.
All right, well, I'm going to...
Is the dynamite lit?
The dynamite is lying in the tundra. If it goes off, it's going to detonate and take out you, the Herald, the Doc Alpha, and Gigi.
You're all within its blast radius.
I watched how Gigi did his ambidextrous thing.
So I'm going to instead scoop up both sticks in one...
You know, I have long fingers, like I'm a tree.
I'm going to need two slight rolls, both with woes, because you have to circumnavigate this Herald, who is busy crumbling your friend's skull.
Is it potentially a dangerous move?
I'm going for it. I can't not do it. It's my moment. Instead of just running away.
So slight, I get a plus one on, so I'll roll the rolls one at a time.
All right, so on the first one, I rolled an eight, and then taking the highest of the woes, I subtract a four.
So I got a four altogether.
I didn't even add in the woes for it being a horrifying fracture.
You should have made a real roll and it could have been six woes.
Let's just say you don't quite know what it is.
Yeah.
Gigi, Gigi, what do you want to do?
Okay. How far are they away?
Your options are basically scramble to safety out of the blast radius or desperately leap into the fray of things, and it may well just go off in your face.
Come on, redeem yourself.
This is Gigi. Honor bound. It's a chance at redemption.
Okay, Grjotgoth is going for the dynamite for one last heroic throw at the door.
We're going to die.
Yeah, it's been an honor.
Well, I won't say I'm privileged, but it's been interesting.
19 plus two. 21.
Plus four woes.
Five was the highest, so 14.
In this desperate game of tumble and catch as you slide between people's legs, trying to scrabble up the dynamite and toss it back towards the control room, you heft the two sticks and they land in the doorway and roll into the control room.
Then there is a colossal boom.
And the entire structure shakes, sparks fly from whatever control room you distant, whatever was beaming the signal up into the ionosphere.
There is a burst of energy and terrible winks out of existence, leaving you standing alone on the sullen tundra.
I have a sunburn. Holy crap.
Yeah.
I should have said duck for cover, but I didn't have time.
Oh my God, it was literally exhausting.
Heimlich comes out of the shed at this point and says, oh yeah, you're gone and done it now. That's thousands of crowns of Imperial property.
And he buries his head in his hands.
But you're not dead, are you?
Is, uh, Guilherme looks up into the sky. Is the red slash still there or is it fading?
Is it improved in any way?
Nope. The red scar in the sky is glowing as ever.
Oh, disappointed.
We're not dead. I mean, most of us are.
No, no, most of us are still alive.
Well, yes, but, um, see, the dark elf are bound to their bodies by something called the dark giddet.
And if they become incapacitated, there it is, and it begins to fail.
So Steve has the minutes pass.
You feel your spirit leaving your crumbling stone form to drift across the tundra as if you were a roving eye.
And then all of a sudden you rush into the boathouse to startle awake in a new form.
You realize you were in the body of the antiquated Dverg, which now animates at your command.
Unable to actually die or leave this mortal realm, you now possess this broken down piece of old crap.
Well, fuck.
I believe it's pronounced F-O-L-K.
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