Chapter One: Apollo's Cradle - Episode 5

[музыка] -Вообще-то. -Да, мы будем начать с Миром Рекап. Что вы remember в прошлом году? И, пока сейчас, что-то ситуация. -Упустя пару паров до этого инвестик. Брата из Дельфия, я помню, что это Херисберт, Pennsylvania. -Херисберт, Pennsylvania. -И теперь мы в Бунии, в центральной Пенсии, я думаю, в этом пиле, в этом пиле. В прошлом эпизоде, я не думаю, что мы были в этом, но в этом, чтобы было, в один раз, в структу, и в два шеда. Мы спинули этот эпизод, пытаясь грузить в доме, и Клей был в Меснера, с какой-то мусором. Да. Все так же, и как мы ездим с heuteством, ecosystems, мы не нашли нужно. ann Abi мы должны пробовать этому cookbook, неCSомяющим투циями, многие antiquа из своих名ныхся кумб и вовсе. Но вы не понимаете, что вы делаете на муне. Думаю, что вы делаете на муне. You're pulling what flashes left of this face off. There's obviously still some little amount here and there that's attached to the bone of the skull, but a lot of it is coming off with the mask. It's pretty grotesque. What's left underneath is a couple of teeth. The jawbone is kind of loose. Bertie. - Yeah, you could probably stop with that now. - Yeah, this might be some acid they're doing or something. - Yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, look at it. - It puts to me, it looks like this fellow right here and I'm guessing the rest of them. Bertie's gonna kind of walk around and check the other two, well, the other corpse that still has a head and just see if the straps on the mask are fused to the back inside of the skull. - You find essentially an identical situation with this one. This one's a little bit taller. Arms are a little bit longer, that type of thing, but it is essentially an identical situation. - If you look at it, this doesn't look like acid. This looks like they went into a furnace, you know, or a forage, a smelter or some kind of they got hit with intense heat. And melted, I don't know how they're still up and about. That's the crazy part. They should be long dead from burns like this. - Yeah, you're not wrong. Looking at that hole in that chest, those at average size, what you'd expect with that shotgun or. - I mean, you know, did it blow away a little extra? - Now that looks about right. I mean, I haven't put that many rounds through the chest of folks, but. - I figured as a capillary guy, you know. - Well, you know the handries, you know, that's what we use mostly, so, you know, shotguns weren't as common. But now it looks, doesn't look like it did anymore than it should have. - Maybe out the back is pretty wide, but without rolling a medical check, or some kind of something like that. - Bertie is going to take a peek at one of the tanks that one of these folks has on him. So just look at the tank a little more. - Tate's gonna roll over the guy he's working on to check out the tank, too. - Okay. So the one that you shot in the chest, rolling him over and looking at the tank, it's clearly damaged from some of the buck shot that went through the body into the tank. - Bertie is gonna roll the body onto its side to expose the tank on the back, and he's just gonna do a visual inspection. He's looking for markings and graveyards. Any kind of, you know, are there distinct colorings on it that would tell him what kind of tank this is because most tanks do have identifying markers on them to let you know what's inside of it. And those that don't are, you just assume they have the worst shit in it. (laughs) - Yeah, that's a safe, very safe thing to do. - Quick question. - Yeah, is there a valve on these tanks? - Yes. There is a round handle right next to a gauge. The gauge is broken and the, and when you look at the actual tank itself, there's some green paint still on it, but a lot of it has been worn off over some period of time. You can make out the letter BR, you can make out the letter EN here and there, but that's it. And the same thing is true on your Sideski. Yours just has less holes in it. - Burdy is going to do a closer inspection on the suits they're wearing, not the mask, but the actual suits. Keep put a hole through it, so now he can pull out his knife and pull the suit away from the body in the nasty hole that he created. - You have to peel it off. It's pretty stuck on. It's thick and there's a puffy, the texture of something that used to be a little puffy, but is compressed or degraded over time. Do you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Like wall insulation type of stuff. - So the most likely explanation is that these tanks were air, you know, they had air tanks, right? And then you got these thick suits looking at them. They don't look to be waterproof, right? So much is, I mean, this is thick stuff, man, this is, they're all burnt to shit, right? - Well, material does it appear to be. Roll an education check. Tate's education is a 70 and year old A51, which is a pass. - Which is a pass. Tate, I'm assuming at some point in your life you've worked with Asbestos before. Who hasn't in this day and age? - In this day and age, who hasn't, right? It feels like Asbestos that's been sitting in a wall or something like that for a long time and just been really abused. Do you think it might be Asbestos? - Birdie, this might be. You ever seen those old houses from the late 1800s? They got the curtains made of Asbestos? - I've never seen a curtain made of Asbestos, but I know that, yeah, that's that good, fire retardant or insulator. - That's, I'm pretty sure this is what that is. - So these are like, fire suits. - Yeah, I never seen no fire brigade wearing them. - Fire suits and the flash fires? - All right, so clearly these weren't it. Well, I mean, you see the straps of their masks being melted into their heads. You'd think the, I don't wanna speak ill of the dead. It looks like they had a major oversight though because why no hood? - You thinkin' maybe they survived the fires and then the fires did this to them? - I mean, that's, I mean, they're all, let's just look at what we know. We know that these are some crispy critters. They're wearing some thick suits that definitely have that feel of, hey, protect me from fire. They're wearing tanks, which are most certainly, I mean, we don't know for certain, but, I'd be willing to bet their air tanks, right? - Well, let's see, breathe in in a fire. - Just to be safe, I'm gonna take this one. - Tate will make sure the valves closed and work on takin' the tank off the body in front of them. - You're gonna remove the tank? - Yeah, figure we can bring it back with us. - Oh shit, man, I mean, we ain't goin' back yet though. - I mean, I don't see it as a problem. I mean, if we can bring it back and somebody at that HQ, I don't really know 'em that well, but, I'm sure that somebody over there can figure it out, you know? - All right, I hear you. How about this for a compromise? Because that tank's gotta be, I bet that tank's at least 20 pounds, maybe 30. I don't, we leave it here and then, when we come back down the path, we'll pick it up on our way back. - You sure we're comin' this way? - I mean, I don't know, this has the feel of a one-way in, one-way out. Well, I guess there was the left and the fork and the road. - I'm gonna grab it for now and if it gets too much, we'll just leave it. - All right, friend, there's still another one here. Well, there's two more here, so. - First, Tate's gonna look at the gauge. Is it reading a level in this tank? - It is not, it's broken. The glass is almost entirely broken out of the gauge. - Holding is, the dial is like below zero. - Holding has faced a little bit of way, he's gonna do a quick crack of a valve to see if he can hear any stuff come out. - You grab the valve and you have to really give it some torque, but you get it to move. You move it one way, which you presume is open. Nothing happens. You move it the other way to close. Nothing happens. Tate just kinda eats the tank. (laughs) Never mind, Birdie, ain't shit in it. - Yep. - Check the other two quick though. - All right, Birdie will check the tank in front of them. - Tate, we're on and check the other tank. So, you guys look at the other two tanks. One of them has holes in it from the buck shot, but the gauge is the same thing, it's busted, it's broken, it clearly wouldn't function even. There was something in the tank adjusting the knob, does nothing, gone to the other one, it's the same. If you were to give it a good wrap with your knuckles, (mimics gunfire) you could maybe make a safe assumption that they're empty. - Hey, you know, we've been spending a lot of time on these bodies, the hell were they trying to hit us with? I assume they were trying to hit us. - I think the one that came after me was just coming at me with some claws. - The first one I shot had a club of some kind, I'm just, man, he's right over here. Birdie's gonna go and try to find the weapon that this thing was running at him with. - And Tate will start inspecting the bodies as a whole. Pockets, feet, toes. - Birdie, the one you're looking for, looking at a couple feet away from his right hand is a maybe like a table leg or something like that. It's hard to tell exactly what it is. It's clearly been used and abused for some period of time but it has that general shape of like a nice thick table leg. Clay looking at yours you don't see anything immediately that would have looked like a weapon and you don't see claws. I'm searching for them. Oh nice. Searching the bodies. Okay go ahead and well yeah roll a pad down. Sure why not? We'll do a roll. I like dice. It's a 23. 23 okay. I don't know what my pad down check is but rolling that. Okay so you padded down your dead guy. Is this the one the one I revolved the one you revolved that you peeled his face off. Yes. You go and fill up the pockets. One of the pockets has a hole in it. There's nothing inside of it. Another pocket had a wallet and a leather wallet and you have to kind of struggle to get it out of the pocket. There's like dirt and muck and grime that's dried up inside of it. You pull it out and opening it up is actually somewhat reminiscent of peeling the mask off. You have to really peel this wallet open. When you look at the contents inside of it all of them are faded browned. It's not a lot to glean out of this. Anything that looks like it could be identification. Everything in this time was paper and a lot of it was one-sided. So anything that's in this wallet is seemingly useless. Any cash? Maybe. Maybe it used to be. It's like destroyed. Okay. Can I tell how old and faded this is? Think of a relevant role that you could make. Make an argument to me. We'll come back. What was I doing? I found the table leg. Yep. All right. That's just an improvised club. You know I don't think we're gonna learn much more off these fellas here. Hang on. I got a few things over here. Oh yeah. What you got? Birdie is gonna make a. Birdie is still like. Check that body. Check those bodies quick. Check their pockets and stuff. All right. I'll check their pockets. For visualization birdie isn't just head down in the sand looking. He is scanning the woodline looking around and then like. Okay. Needle down and patting a pocket and then looking back up. Like he does not want to get caught off guard. Okay. Would you like a role? You don't need to. I'll kind of carry his role on to it since he got a crit success. I'll just say you don't see anything. You feel confident that you're cleared. Yeah. This one's clear. This one over here is clear too man. I found a wallet over here. Oh you're searching the bodies? Yes. Oh I thought you were like scanning the perimeter. I was scanning the perimeter but instead of like okay now I'm gonna like set my gun down and kneel down and keep my face six inches from this body and really do a close inspection. It's more like you know take a knee look at the surroundings. Pat down some shit. Look at the surroundings. Pat down some more. You know like birdie does not want to get surprised. Dubois your character named Birdie Johnson. Fills up the pockets of the one that you blew the head off of that's by the corner of the bunkhouse. One of the pockets you feel up and it feels like there's something kind of big and heavy in there. You reach in pull it out and there's a rock just like a rock. Feel the rest of them up. Not a whole lot. It's this thick coat with this tube up in the head or where the head used to be. The left pocket you pat it down you don't feel anything but you reach in and you pull out dog tags. Old worn out dog tags. Looks like we got a veteran over here. Those are the stamp dog tags? Yes sir. Looking at it right now. What's it say on it? So it got ourselves a Dorian Cooper here. We haven't heard that name have we? I sure have. Me neither. Yeah. Poor soul. The dog tag is around brass coin essentially with the whole punch through it. It says Dorian Cooper. Private. Seventh Infantry USA. B company. Well all right Dorian. Looks like you finally bought it. All right P. I think we're done here. Well you wanted to give a rough idea of how old it was? Yeah or a spotting thing hidden in this wallet. Roll the archaeology check. Twelve or five. You're trying to pull some of the paper out and a lot of it's fused into the wallet or melted. Clearly this this thing has been through the elements and this suit is not clean by any means. It's certainly seen its fair share of of the elements. So to have the contents inside it's pretty old but you're not sure how old. Birdie I'm bringing this back with us maybe Peggy or Ricardo can make something of it. That wallet? Yeah and the old burnt remnants in it. Just keep it all in the wallet stuff it in your pack. Yeah they can dig through it and see if they can't. You know I'm one step ahead of you. Good man. And how about the last body? He checked it already. Oh all of them are checked. Yeah okay. There was nothing in the third one worth your time. Yeah yeah these are we pretty much did what we could here. I think it's time actually we're looking at the sun it's about to set. We got options here. With the way I see we got two. We can hold up in this bunkhouse. Right that has a door and a lock and stuff in there. It seems like our best option to be honest. See the that we head out into the path at night and yeah I think we stay here for the night. I'm not sleeping out there tonight not after this. All right let's let's get in here and get ourselves a bit of fortification. You still got that ax in your pack? I got a hatchet yeah. Mind if I use it real quick? Go on it's right there. Tate will go and grab the hatchet. Birdie I'm gonna get a couple of logs down real quick. Well you ain't going alone. I'm just going to the edge of this forest here. I know I'm going with you. Oh you can see me so. Yeah I'm going with you anyway. You know that I can help you carry some wood back too. Let's figure it through. They came up real quick on us you know what I mean. Roll a stealth check if you're trying to hide something and then you're gonna roll a contested spot hidden. Got it. I rolled the 62. Is that a passer or fail for you? Under 70 for spot hidden. Okay. For the listening audience, Sideski rolled a stealth check which was contested by Dubois and his character Bertie Johnson. Sideski sent me a photo. I'm looking at it. I see it. Okay. Bertie doesn't notice anything. Tate rolls a one under 60. Okay go ahead and describe what you're doing. Well no he's just going to get wood. There's just things going on with him. He doesn't want to show. So Tate's like trying to hide the fact that he's visibly shaking hands, arms, bodies. I see are all shaking but he's trying to hide the fact and walk away so he doesn't see it. So that's where he's trying to hide right now what he does. Clay goes off into the woods and he gathers the edge of the woods. The very edge starts cutting up a tree about you know five six inches thick and you don't notice anything odd. He just does that and comes back with some wood. Sweet. Bertie's there keeping an eye out to protect Clay and help him bring back wood. And you both still have your firearms drawn or no? He has his shotgun slung and his pistol out. Tate's pistol is holstered and he doesn't even have his rifle on him right now. Okay it's like in the bunk. Okay. As you are coming back with your wood the sun is now starting to really set. It is quite late becoming night time. Describe to me you said you wanted to kind of get set up for the night. What do you guys do? Well was there any like furnace or anything inside the building or was just a lamp? There was a very very small little like you could put a couple split logs in it which is a tiny little chimney. small little thing just to heat up that small little space. Yep, that's what I was. Was there a flat top on it for a spot of tea? No. Okay. Well, probably, I mean, it's like a cast iron box, you know, like, yeah, you could put a kettle on top and it would get warm. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we can stay warm with that. We should keep that going. I think that's a plan. We'll probably get a little more wood for the night, but I mean, I thought I saw some wood in there already. I might search something out here too, just to help light our surroundings, you know? I mean, that's a, we could, but that would also behave kind of like a beacon too. If you're worried about it, we won't just figure it'll be a little nice in this weather. Yeah. My thought is we keep the fire low inside. Keep the, I'd say I would vote against, against a fire outside. I'd say let's, let's try to stay under wraps. Everything in that's a bad idea. We don't need to do it. All right. Alternate watches. Get some shut eye. Maybe get a little grub and then wait for the sun to rise. I'm gonna go look for something to sit on. There's, there's bunks in here. Yeah, there's, there's sit on, sit on outside. Oh, you're gonna keep watch outside. I just want something to sit on outside for now. Oh, like a log. A little stool. A piece of broken shit from the main building. Sure, there's a log that has yet to be split that you roll over next to the door. You sit on that. And Tate will lay the cigarette. Start smoking. What's Johnson doing? Birdie is inside the shack. You want to take first watch? You know I always got first watch, birdie. All right. Well, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and tuck in. All right. I'll be out here for a little while and probably come in if it gets cold. All right. Shotgun's right here if you need it. I appreciate you. Birdie's gonna lean the shotgun on the inside of the hut right next to the door. Okay, it is now dark out. The sun has officially gone down over the horizon. And there is maybe the tiniest little bit of light showing out through the forest. But you can see the star's opposite. Birdie would have started off a fire in the little small furnace with some sticks and little wood pieces. But it's not aggressive. He's not trying to sweat the place out. Okay. So just like some kindling and a couple logs. Correct. Or a couple split pieces. Yeah. Tate's gonna sit outside for a while. He will grab his rifle. Kind of laid across his lap. Smoke a few smokes and do his watch. Both of you should be able to handle violence at this point. I think you're a combat veteran and you have a pretty good history with what you're also a combat veteran. Correct. So both of you should be able to deal with combat and not take sanity damage every single time unless something really egregious happens. However, this is highly unusual. Some weird stuff is involved here. You pulled the face of somebody off. Clay, go ahead and roll a sanity check for me since you peeled someone's face off earlier. Johnson, you're okay. So I rolled 79 over 75 in my sanity check. 79. Is a fail. That is a standard fail. You take three points of sanity damage. Okay. So you're taking your first watch. Yep. Should I roll? Well, how long is the first watch? Is that four hours? Five. Five hours. So you're sitting there. Smoking your cigarette and it starts to get dark. For a while, you can see through the forest as it becomes like a dark pink into a just dark. Your visibility over the next hour. Very obviously degrades. Where once you could see into the green, you now only see darkness. Your face is illuminated by the cigarette that you smoke and a little bit of light is lit into the bunkhouse behind you from the furnace burning. But after some period of time, you are in almost pitch blackness. Go ahead and roll a power check for me or rather another sanity check. So you took three points of sanity damage. You should have a 72 sanity now. Correct. 52 under 70. An owl hoots off in the distance. You hear crickets start to chirp. And this real sleepiness starts to come over you, but you shake it off and your watch is done. When take goes to get birdie, he's going to check the back of his head. Just pat it. Does it feel normal? Yes. He's a little freaked out with the leather. Fused into the skulls. You know, he stayed outside for the whole watch. He's going to walk in the door and tap birdie. Hey, birdie. Yeah. So, good up man, you got to see what's going on. Is there something going on? Yeah, your watch. Oh, man. Words are important, man. And you're failing at them right now. It's a little tired, all right? Fair enough. Why, go ahead and get some shed eye. I got this. And take will go sleep. Birdie's going to put a couple more split logs into the furnace. Okay. Tate would have been ten each of the furnace if it was a lot of go out. So, and birdie's going to take up the same watch on the log. But like literally against the outside of the building right next to the door. Right next to the door. Perfect. Birdie's not going to roll a cigarette. Birdie's going to take some of his shredded up tobacco and water it into a ball and chew on it a little bit before tucking it into his lip. You do notice 15 cigarette butts and an empty pack of smokes next to this table. Birdie Johnson gets outside and is greeted by the orchestra of a forest at night. You can make out a waning gibbous moon up in the sky. And you sit there and you chew your tobacco or suck on it, whatever. What a lot happens. A breeze comes through the forest. You notice one of the birch trees in the distance shakes a little bit harder than the others. And go ahead and roll the power check for me as well. Or a sanity check. I'm sorry. 96 over 50. That's a fail. Okay. To the desk, you can have you leave the room. Birdie Johnson is sitting there in the dark. On the log next to the door of the bunkhouse. An hour, two, maybe two and a half passes. Spit some of your tobacco out. Look around. And as I said, you notice a big gust of wind kind of come through the trees. One of the birch trees that's just visible from the light emanating from the bunkhouse illuminates a birch tree. So you see that move just more than the others. And you're looking at it. And this odd feeling comes over you as you focus on this tree. And suddenly you're in the forest. It's daytime or at least it seems like it might be since it's bright, but it's foggy. And such a way that you can see, but not far. You look around you and there's no clearing. There's no cabin or bunkhouse or corpses on the ground. You're just in the woods. And this birch tree waves. And it stops and it's still. You're standing there staring at it. And you can see what looks to be a cabin. A very stereotypical looking log cabin. A chimney reaches up, smoke pours out of it. It's maybe a hundred yards away. Bertie's gonna make his way towards the cabin. You walk toward the birch tree and around it. You find a small path to well tread. You walk along it. Toward this cabin. You walk for a while. It feels like you're walking for actually maybe a long time longer than an ought to take, but eventually you do get to it. You're surrounded by all variety of trees. You're not an expert, but nothing sticks out to you until you get toward the cabin and it's surrounded now by birch trees. Almost in a perfect circle. You see in the cabin two windows and they sit open on either side of a brown door. Smoke rises from the chimney and you notice movement through one of the windows. You get closer and you notice little decorations scattered around in the grass and flowers. A pile of rocks painted white. There's a doll without hair and it sits in front of an empty chessboard. Scattered tubes from a wind chime are stuck in the dirt. Getting closer to the cabin you can hear someone within as the smell of what you imagine is soup fills your nose. You get up to this log cabin and you look inside the window. You see a tall woman in front of a stove and she stirs a large pot. She turns away from the pot toward the counter and begins cutting mushrooms with a black knife. As she turns you see twigs and leaves tied into her hair. The inside of the cabin, what you can see, looks well lived in. Large pair of antlers hold a well-worn ulster coat. There's 12 identical looking leather-bound books sitting on a shelf above a desk and on the desk you see another book which looks to be a journal on an empty page. The woman speaks to you as she pours soup into a bowl. You're now sitting across a table from her. The old woman dips a ladle into the pot of soup. Before you is a bowl in front of her is also a bowl. Both of them are now full of soup. Please have some of my soup. Rest a bit. Then may hops we can find answers for you. Soup sounds lovely, thank you. What brings someone of your profession to these obscure parts? We're looking for a, I guess you call them a, I don't know, an associate of ours. I apologize. My name is Margaret. Those I'm comfortable with may call me Marge. An associate. Tell me about him. Yeah, it's a journalist who goes by the name of Creedmore and he came out here looking for something and they never came back and were worried about him. So we're out here trying to find him. What about you? What are you looking for outside of this forest? I guess you'd say I'm looking for the truth. The deeper meaning of things. Because right now the world don't make a whole lot of sense. She dips a large wooden spoon into her soup and takes a big sip of it. Birdie's gonna try the soup. You put your spoon into it and bring it up to your mouth just as she says. I've been here for a long time. Once upon I had loved the city and the people and those days are long behind. I prefer sound of leaves dancing through the music of the wind. I might not travel so often as before but at times I do make voyages away from my abode. I think you'll find what you're looking for. I sure hope so. Funny I don't really recall exactly why I came here. Why I'm here right now. Are you much of a reader? I used to read the good book until it didn't feel so good anymore. Well, birdie. You and your partner might find this interesting. She reaches into the breast pocket of her coat. Hands you a folded piece of paper. You set down your spoon to grab it from her. She pushes her chair back and gets up, puts a hand on your shoulder and kind of gestures for you up and she closes the door behind you as you both leave. You have a moment to ask her a question. Margaret or may I be so bold as to call you Marge? You may. Marge, I'd love to hear your thoughts on crows. A man called birdie asks me about the crows. They aren't what they seem. The crows keep an eye on them. You blink your eyes a few times and the thin mist creeps around your feet. You blink a few more times and you look around the grass and the birch trees around you are gone. There is no cabin. There are no decorations in the grass and you look up and see a waning gibbous moon. And again you hear the crickets and the owls. And what just transpired begins to fade like the memory of a dream. But looking down you see in your hands a folded piece of paper. And with that we will end this episode. Very nice. [Music] Hey everybody Cody, come on out with a number one big thank you and number two small small updates. Apologies if you hear my my dear cat Chamberlain meowing in the background. But yeah big thanks to everybody who's listened. We got some really nice feedback in the discord. Speaking of which if you're listening to the show and you're liking the show, please do us a huge favorite. like share, follow, rate, five stars, all that jazz, whatever service you're using, if you have nerdy friends who you think might be into this type of thing, hit them up, say, hey, there's this show, it's called Suffer Not and like, it's pretty awesome or something or whatever. Tell them it's terrible, you know, whatever you think, however you feel, yeah. I'll update on Patreon content. I've been really busy, I know Sadeski's been really busy, him and I are both trying to tackle editing and stuff like that. And so slight delay on that. However, the merch store is up and available and live. So if you like some of the awesome art that we have for our show and some of the designs and such and whatnot, you know, go ahead and grab a shirt or a coffee mug or something like that. I'd really appreciate it. And we did order a bunch of samples so we know it's good stuff. We know it's good stuff. It's great stuff. Anyway, yeah, if anybody's got theories, what's going on? Who's Marge? Who are these dudes and suits in the woods? What happened to Creedmore? What's up with the Rangers? Hop on over to the Discord and let us know what you think. Anyway, have a good one. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]