Once Upon a Starlight | Ep. 8 | The Pursuit

You all speed through the air of Neonifex, massive skyscrapers whirring past you. You hear the garbled voice of Blarby through frost's phone as the static becomes all consuming. The last words you hear are, she's gone! And then the call loses signal and you hear nothing but a dial tone at the other end. Me, me, me, me, frost. You hold your phone as the call disconnects. Your situation has gone from bad to worse as Gideon pilots the very sexy toward the Concordia Hotel. What did she say? It was hard to make out but I think she was trying to say that Mila's gone, she's missing. What do you mean from the hellhounds, she's not there? She was all garbled. Remind me again, did I get a sense that she'd been kidnapped or that she just couldn't be found? Did I get any more substance than just that Mila is gone? It was incredibly hard to hear the things that she was saying. I would say, yeah, the most you could hear is really that Mila was gone and she didn't know where she had been. That's all I know, that's all I could make out, it was all static. We have to get back underground very quickly. Why would she go? I mean she had hurt, is she a Blarby? She had the hellhounds and she had murder fang? And perhaps someone took her, I couldn't hear, that's why we need to go right away. Try calling, call her again, call her again. I'll hit speed dial. Nobody could have got in on the hellhounds right into her back, I mean she just can't get it, she can't have gotten snatched. No way, no way. I'm not even getting voicemail, there's no signal up here, I can't connect. Oh shit man, first everyone now this? We're just going from bad to worse. I'll text her. I deserve this. I feel like this is some kind of cosmic punishment. I will text, stay right there, we're on our way. You send the message and you wait for the letters to go bold, but they never do, as the message never sends. She left a note? She won't run away, I mean I used to run away from her when we went on call through an accident, I mean in an argument. There's no way for us to know until we get there and the only way we can do that is to get to the elevator, make our way down and Torbac leaves us back through. Back to the hellhounds. Yeah, yeah, Frost is right. We gotta get back on the ground as quickly as we can. I only hope we don't run into more Nexus security on the way, if the way is clear then it shouldn't be too long on the shot, but we have to not act suspicious at the same time so we can't run, it's very frustrating. We gotta get on the ground and if Lady Luck has one more favor for us, maybe Carmero Nexus doesn't know the full extent of what she's up to. Maybe we don't even pitch the car, maybe if Barrel just thought he misplaced the keys or the ticket or something and we might have, if they haven't reported stolen then maybe we don't want to talk in the pitch and taxi the fucking taxi everywhere. We had trouble, I thought she was snotting it out, eh? We still gotta get back to the hotel and get our shit and get out of there before we head back down, we can't just leave it at the opera. Oh no, it's just bad lights. One thing at a time, one thing at a time, one thing at a time, one thing at a time, one thing at a time, one thing at a time, I'll pop one of my pills. I agree. If anyone left anything at the hotel, we should go to the hotel and we should take care of it and then we should, it's not that far a walk, we should probably ditch the car and just make our way to the elevator and then once we're there, we will casually... Frost, you hear whoop and you look down and you see that your message is sent. It went through, my message went through. Alright, she knows that we're on our way, we need to hurry, we need to hurry as confidently and as calmly as we can. Well, we should hit the hotel, get our shit, we'll ditch the car, I guess we should drop it back at the opera, maybe we catch a taxi back to 84, back to the elevator, I mean I guess we're going down the same way we came up, we can't go through 87. That's all shut down. I don't see why we take the car back, it'll be found, he'll be able to put out a report. Yeah, fuck Barrel. I don't. Fuck that old drunk. Oh fuck him, I don't give a fuck about Barrel. The opera's too obvious, how about, why don't we park it in the shopping district, we'll leave the keys in the car and we'll just stroll away, they'll find it and at least we didn't wreck the damn thing. Alright, shopping district should be on the way to the elevator, right? We're going back to, going back to 84, to elevator 84. That's our best bet, same way we came up. No, Mila, I just don't understand, I'll notice that Frost is taking his pills. I'll kind of just look at realization and I'll say, oh no, Robby gave her the medicine before she went to bed, how many hours does she have? Oh fuck. She can't administer it herself. Can she? There's no way, she wouldn't- 12 hours? If she even took it with her. I mean the half-life's about 12 hours but I mean, if we're lucky it'll have some effect after that. She's a ticking time bomb. Damn it. Yeah, no, we're not going back to the opera. Fuck Barrel and his stupid wife. Sorry, Barrel. Now we gotta, we'll get our shit, we did you the shopping district, we get back to the elevator, we get back to the drain, we figure out what the fuck's going on. I mean, hell, maybe she just misplaced, maybe she's hiding out and then what the hell happens? And Barby just can't find her. Maybe she's hiding, yes, that's good, that's good. Just a kid, maybe she's playing games. Yes, Barby might have freaked out. Who knows how long it's been or what the situation, we have to get down there. How much further are we away from the hotel now? Look, don't go more than nine over, all right, we can't speed, we don't want to get pulled over for anything, all right, just play it cool. I'm good, I'm good. Couldn't use his worth that opera, maybe Act II is wrapping up in never 20, 30 minutes and then it's probably, I mean, Barrel's gonna be like, you know, he might be passed out for another- They're not driving more than that anyway, man, they're probably taking a taxi. Oh, it's a fall, I should get fucking luck. I bought a garage, bought a garage. We might be in for a very long stretch of time without any rest or sleep. Are all of you gonna be okay? Can you keep this up? I'm gonna get all right. How are you holding up? That fucking thing swallows you whole down there. I can do this all day. Yeah, I'll soon feel chilling me bones, but at least I can move. I feel like this chill is gonna stay. Maybe when we get back, how good is the hellhound stew down there? Is that possible? It leaves something to be desired, that's for sure. It's all sewer anties. Just be ready in case there's more fighting ahead of us, we don't know what we're going to come across. Be ready for anything. All right, all right. We get to the Concordia, we have our plan, we get to the elevator, and if there's any fucking luck or provenance, they'll let us down. And once we get down there to the matter of what the fuck Efrima does after that, the doctor is powerless. We'll be in the sewers, we'll be in the inner city. Back on the earth. See how many power down there? What could she be up to? Do you have any idea? No, I don't. I don't even think I know her anymore. She had dead eyes, like a doze-eyes. It didn't seem like she was interested in turning profits, man. No. It's all a means to an end with her. And that's the thing, you can't even negotiate with that. I could offer all the notes in the world and I think, you know, she wants to achieve perfection. Yeah, I hate to say it. If there's any chance we could find Mila before Monaya. What was the name, Zenya? Yeah, yeah. Zenya doesn't already have her hands on her. Maybe we have to go to her? You were able to talk your way out of that? We weren't able to talk our way out of what the fuck we just experienced? We got to do it in the popsicles! It's a fucking miracle we're alive and... Look, I'm just gonna say it. There's a chance that at some point very soon none of this is gonna be any of our problems anymore. And I apologize for that. I'm sorry that any of y'all mixed up in any of this. And what I will say is, once we can make it back down, if any of y'all want to give up and quit, go into hiding, lay low until the heat is off, I understand, alright? No hard feelings. And I will accept your resignation on the spot, no need for two weeks notice. Grimmy, shut the fuck up! With all due respect, Mr. K, he's right. How many times do we have to say goodbye? With all due respect, Mr. K, he's right. How many times do we have to say it? You sound like a fucking moron, would all due respect, Grimmy. We almost got turned into Space Cucumber Robert, good quadraheasin trousers, popsicles down there. And we're still here! We're gonna fight for that little girl, we're gonna fight for Mila, we're gonna fight for you! And we're gonna fight for the starlight, that's a home! We don't got no home besides that. Guys are right, Grimmy. I mean, heck man, we're all in it now, and even if we weren't, we will be, you know? Grimmy, I fight for the truth. I still feel a tremendous amount of gratitude and loyalty for the years that you showed kindness to me and showed me a path to a better future. But, Evrima clearly knows what happened to me and why I am the way that I am, and I think you know also. And my patience is running thin, I want to understand the full story, to fill the gaps in my memory. So I'm in this all the way to the end. All the way to the end. And besides, if we don't make it, at least we tried to do some good before the end. Yeah, that's right. Maybe you know, some, even if we could at least save the Greenland District, make it a better place to live. I think that's worth dying for. That's something worth dying for. Not that, whatever sort of chemtech zealotry, or otherwise. That's a hope, let's hope we don't come to that. So stop flapping your fucking gums about doom and the looming prophetic fucking visions. There you have Grimmy, I'm sorry about that. Well I don't want to fucking hear it no more, all right? I don't want to be questioned. And I know Tolback doesn't, and Frosty certainly doesn't. We're all frosty heads, and a young lady down there. I'm sure she feels awful frosty, let's make sure we don't make her feel any worse, all right? Well I can tell you, Gideon loves me in question. He doesn't, that was irony. I don't understand. We just have a temp levity in this life situation. This is a serious fucking moment, all right? No, I understand, I understand. All right, look, just get us there, and I just need to come up with a plan. I need to come up with a plan. You just gotta take this one step at a time for now. We're gonna pull it to the hotel here in just a minute. Slow down Gideon, slow down. Oh never mind, about ten minutes. I'm just gonna shut my eyes for a moment. Okay, Talbot, you probably shouldn't shut your eyes for a little bit, are you all right? I'll be all right. You're all right? I just, I just need a minute. How many fingers am I holding up, lad? Three, get your fingers out of my face. Okay, all right, all right. Well listen, he can stay in the car, we can go up, we can grab whatever stuff we need, we can come down, and then, just rest, man. I don't have much, just my old clothes. Yeah, you should stay here, lad. Just rest, we'll grab. The remainder of what I am wearing, the jacket is, wait, shreds. There's one sleeve hanging off the thing, the rest of the jacket is gone. I can picture it. The monster. I still have my slacks and my button-up shirt and my tie, but I'm disheveled, I'm stained, I was swallowed. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. This thing's couch, right? I look like a nightmare, the jacket is gone. I basically peel the sleeve off and drop it into the car, and just kinda lean back and like shut my eyes and just try to rest for a minute. All right. You stay in the car, and if anyone comes fucking snooping, maybe you get behind a drama scene and just fucking peel out of your head, all right? Sure, I don't think anyone will bother me. I've got all reliable anyway, and I pat the hand cannon on my belt, and I will sit in the bunseat if everybody else is going to go up and just... Yeah, I don't have anything. You would know that I have just a couple articles of clothing. So we gather whatever's relevant to you. Wherever, if maybe you left your dog tags up there, and bein' where those, something like that. Yeah, that makes sense. And I would just, I know it's not enough for a short rest, but Torbjörg would just shut his eyes for 10 minutes. Yeah, I'd say if it's fair enough, we're probably back to the hotel room. Yeah, come here. Grab some stuff, I'll check out. For the sake of brevity, you're easily able to hand off tasks to each other as Torbjörg watches the car, Kremi goes to check out, the rest of you make your way into that same pristine elevator and ride all the way up. With a couple of quick requests to Judy, you're able to round up all of your, all of the possessions that you brought with you and quickly pack them back into your bags. And it takes barely any time at all for you to wrap things up in the hotel room and make it back down to the lobby. I would have asked Judy to basically, I don't know if they have, this is maybe too fancy. Yeah, Judy. But if there was some like the instant noodles where you can kind of rip it and it gets hot, instantly, and it heats up, I would be kind of, I would immediately ask for that. And I would basically just, oh, and I'm going to grab an extra one for Torbjörg. Yeah. Because I know that he's probably cold as shit. Thank you. So I basically pack that with my stuff. A tray of noodles for you, sir. Thank you, Judy. And there's a noodle for each of you. I'll take the noodle, but I won't eat. I'm going to wait until we're in a more stable place. What I will instead do is, I actually look relatively pristine. I didn't take any massive hits. I didn't take any huge damage. I lost my mind and I was a rageful warhead monster. But I look kind of like the dishevelment of someone at 2 AM after a long wedding day, as opposed to in a fight having been swallowed and engulfed and frozen and all these nasty things. So I will change, make my very expensive outfit that I now treasure, one of the most expensive things that I own, even certainly more premier than the shoes that I wear. I will carefully put that in my pack and change back into my streetwear, knowing that probably shouldn't walk around the Greenlight District wearing as soon as nice as that. I would feel out of place. And so I will change and I will run a hand through my hair and take the noodles to go. I'm not changing. I don't want to take the time. Before I go into my room, I'll say, before Frosty, you can go into yours. I'll say, Frosty, you look a little straight up like you're rock. I'm concerned that we won't be able to find Mila. I'm worried about everything we've learned over the last 48 hours. I was already on the edge of panic before. All of this based on the financial situation of the Starlight Lounge. I'm on the edge. I'm not leaving to finish this loud. I'm going to hand him a beer. And you better drink the whole thing quick because we got to fucking go, Frosty. And I'm going to go to my room. I will have bought a duffel and I bought a bunch of stuff at the shopping district. I would have bought kind of a sturdy duffel bag. I knew I had to make it back to the Sewers. And I've had all of the gifts and the things that I bought in the shopping district, basically blowing most of the stair cash that I brought with me. And I'm going to stick it all in there. I'm going to throw in the extra noodles, the pat noodles in there as well. And I'll have my guitar case. I wish I'd been able to bring it to the opera. And so I'll sling that over my shoulder. And I think that's everything. I'm taking also a couple of Krispies. I love that. I hit like all the other rooms. I'd get tour back stuff. I'd get crummy stuff. I'd get my own normal street wear, my workman's belt. I too wouldn't change out of my clothes just yet. Thinking that I would definitely, I think Frost normally wears a slightly higher class of clothing than both Rico and I do. But I think that we would stick out. You know they need the best in the higher quality clothing. Yeah. As much as he can afford. As a front of house guy, you know, you're far more presentable, I think normally. And I think we would stick out as a sore thumb all the way to the elevator. So I'll keep the clothes that I have on right now. I also didn't get too messed up in that fight. I would say like, even especially with the lockdown, that you would know that someone who looked like they had a lot of money is going to be much more likely to get through security than people who look like they're out of place. The better you dress the more you get away with. In topside. 100%. Exactly right. I will also grab, not something that looks terribly expensive, but I would grab a bottle of nice liquor, like a whiskey, something like that off the bar as I'm running around just to take back with us. And if Frost and Rico are coming back into the room. The Wahale whiskey, sir? Perfect. And she will get it down from the top shelf and hand it to you. I don't remember anything. She's not going to like that. Before that happens. Oh, sorry, sorry, not before that. Oh yeah, before I would have gone and done that. I wanted to mention is that it looks like what the reverse of a nest tea is, which is Campbell soup. So I look like a snowman and I eat the soup and I turn back. I turn back in the, that's a little bit of a wish light joke for you as a treat. This doesn't happen. We get one. Yeah, we get one. One at a time. One at a time. One at a time. I will meet and obviously unzip the duffles. Hey, I got tool back stuff. All right. And I will. Here's his stuff. Because I know that you have Kremi stuff. And so basically all takes tour backs up. I'll put it all in the duffel that I have as well. And I'll zip it up and I'll say, all right, Kremi's going to fucking kill us. We're right now. Don't tell him. Don't tell him. See the prices on some of this shit, man. It's very interesting. I hope you checked that beforehand. I hadn't really thought about it, but one more moment. There's enough room in that duffel, I think. I race back to the bathroom and I grab the extremely fluffy robe and I find one in Barbie's size. And I roll it up and I stuff it into the duffel and then I race over to the food and beverage area and I will open the drawers looking for what I know her favorite suite is, these sour candies. And I pull it out. There's a cartoonish image of someone's head exploding. It says atomic bombs on the top. And I can't say the actual name of the candy. That's my sub glass. And then I run. And then I throw it into the duffel and I race to Gideon and and Grico ready to go. Well, I mean, we've already done enough damage. Roger sunk cost fallacy. I will one more pack of crispy Judy. One more pack of roadies, please. I feel like we should get some of those nuts for Torback, man. You really like the. Oh yeah. Okay, you're wrong. And they also have Pocky here. It's just Pocky. There's nothing. It's remarkable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah, so clear out and basically kind of just like knowing that that's a tomorrow problem and at least the small comforts that we have on our way back is basically what I'm grabbing. If we're worried about paying those debts, it means we survived. Yeah. Smash goes to the front desk. I'm checking out and I'm reviewing the bill. No, I don't know. I want to sign up. No, no, no. I just pay by the gods and I'm starting to sign and then there'll be an alert behind the desk and say, oh, sir, it looks like several more items have been added to your folio. Let me print you out a new bill. And he hands me a new bill. Oh, by the gods. All right. I'll start the sign. One more. One more has come in. Wait a minute. There's more. All right. All right. Just give it to me. Give it to me. And another. Oh, fuck. He's handing me like print out after print out like bill after bill. Great choice. A bottle of Wahole Whiskey. Top shop stuff. You got the Wahole. Oh my God. And at the bottom of everything over a seat, it's an additional note for each receipt. Because it's printed on like nice embroidered paper. 100%. Yeah. Stack in front of the receipt. A search arch. The receipt search arch. Oh, man. And I will finally sign the final bill. Pray to the gods that they don't take anything else. All right. Take care. And you'll see you next time. I'll show you. Your room keys, sir. Oh, wait. Y'all just, you know, you're going to print more, right? Well, here's mine. I believe in our notes that we had a total of five. No, just talking for it. I got to go. I'll wait one moment. Does he print off another receipt for four room keys? Thank you. You have a lovely day. You as well, sir. We hope to see you again at the Concordia, Mr. Necru. I will turn it. I'll get back in the car and wait for them to come down. When you open the door and get in, I'd probably wake up. And I wasn't really asleep. I was just resting. I'd probably come to and just, uh, Mr. K, is everything all right? No, no, yeah, everything's going to be fine. All right. I can't believe they approved all that. But you know what? That's a problem for future Krammy. And we wait for the remainder of the gang to show up. It takes 15 years. Jesus. Jesus. We all die. It was a lot. No, it's not. It's not that. It's not that much longer after Krammy pays for the missing room keys that you make your way out of the elevator, stumble out into the lobby with your, all of your bags, now extra bags laden with paper, paper towels with, um, with fluffy hotel towels. Burn paper towels. Burn paper towels. I'm excited to take this. Who knows? Um, with fluffy towels, little bottles of expensive lotion, basically everything. The shower cap. The shower cap. Anything that you could pilfer from this place, you have tucked into your various, uh, satchels, um, and cases as you make your way through the lobby and out to the streets of Neo at Effects. And eventually. I have one of those, uh, wheeling units and, uh, 66 inch LED television on top of it. I feel like it's gotta be worth it for you to try to dispute these charges as far as doing it with Nexus Finance. Yeah, if we live, yeah. Just play off like you've already got stolen. Oh yeah. I was not even there. Yeah, who? We were readying ourselves for this concert. The hotel was very nice. They charge $1 per receipt, but when they print out the receipt, they don't print the receipt for the receipt. And it would just go, keep going and going. Yeah, oh, that's true. That's true. It is. And you know, the statement, the statement period doesn't close for another week or two, and then I have 30 days from then. So I've got like probably 40, 45 days. Yeah, yeah. If we survive. That's true. That's true. That is true. I don't have the TV. Um, no, you don't. Definitely don't. But I did take, I did take the robe and the atomic bombs. And the Keurig machine. I did take the Keurig machine. You took the what? And anyway, we can, we can use it at the bar. It's so much easier than manually brewing coffee on the, in the drip. All you have to do is put in these little pots. Oh no, it's an egg boiling machine. It's an egg boiling machine. It's called a Keurig for some reason. You boil eggs. Have you ever had your eggs boiled, Grimmie? I mean, I've had boiled eggs. But I mean, could you just use the one at the, at the lounge? This one knows when the center is at that perfect gooey temperature. It has an obnoxious red light. Again, we, again, we keep it Grimmie. Can we keep it? Yeah, yeah, for us, we can keep it. And with that, you all pile back into the berry sexy and. Oh, two back, lad. Here we go. I've got you the, the Rody Miracle Breakfast of Champions. And I hand them the noodles and a beer. Wow. I'll got you stuff too. Don't worry. Thank you. We all good. Greco, this is very considerate. I appreciate you thinking about it. I really ripped the cord on this thing and be the sip line. Cause even though I don't look outwards, cause I'm so fuzzy, I'm still very cold. Deep down in my bones. And I begin to drink from this thing. And you can tell that I'm genuinely touched that you thought about me. All right, now we gotta look after each other. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a rough couple of days. Yeah. Yeah. Now are we taking the berry sexy to the elevator or are we taking a camp? Frost. You check your phone. Frost, you check your phone and you see that the message has been sent, but you do not see that it's been read. I've got no confirmation that my message is even received. We're red. It's just, I'll just hope that the signal goes through. All right, well, we gotta hurry then. We gotta get down there and figure out what the heck's going on around here. So we'll take the car to the shopping district. We'll drop it off. We'll hoof it to the elevator. It's close by. We'll head down from there. Tram, you have to grab the bottle and we'll holler. Something to take the edge off. All right. I know. I know. I saw the bill. Well, you look at the bill. Well, it's probably the single largest purpose I've ever made in my life. Who reads the itemized portion of it? I mean, we're in a hurry. Tram, you took the time to read the itemized list. Well, it came up in conversation with the front desk guy. Complimented your taste. Well, Judy just handed it to me. So, you know, it's pretty easy, but it looks good, man. Oh, did she just hand it to you? Yeah, she just handed it. I mean, you know, she took it off the shelf, handed it over to me, said, hey, this is good. This, this, this gets you the right place. I didn't know she could reach the top shelf. That's a miracle. She had a stretch, you know, get on her tibby toes, you know, but. You're at the full itemized receipt. Yes, I did, bro. And that includes any of the pay-per-viewed movies that might have been viewed overnight. We don't know what. Well, let's, let's, let's move on. Let's go, let's go. We, we, we, me was missing. What are we doing? I wasn't planning on bringing that up first. I just needed to know. Oh, my God. I'm making a new one. You, you immediately, you immediately think back to the receipt. And the itemized list, gelatinous boob, gelatinous boob, gelatinous boob, over and over and over again. I was gonna say backdoor, who's mine? The ninth one, specifically. No one's ever seen one through eight. All of you know, Krammy, that the 10 airship 20XD6 concert, Laven concert, is well worth the price. I mean, there's nothing better than getting absolutely wasted and watching old recorded live concerts. No, it wasn't the porno that you saw in that receipt. It was things like marble racing. It was things like... Why pay for any of that? No, it's hard to know. But it was the pay-per-view marble racing. 24 hour special. I was gonna say. Alright, shopping district, and then we just get a cab to the elevator. And if by all the gods of Agafos, there's any fucking mercy to let us through. Here's hoping. Clenched up, boys. I'm gonna have you roll a group deception check to see how well you do navigating the streets. Oh, I'm pretty good at that. To take this car, hide it, and then make your way to the elevator. Not bad. I got 17. It's a deception? Natural 20. I'm leaving Rupa-Dallar Wayne over here now. That's too bad. That's a 30. That's not enough. I thought I did well. 24. Yeah, that's better. Oh, 14. I got a 14. You're right. The DC for this is 52. Oh, man. But we had all these cars up, right? No, no, no. At least one of you has to reach 52. And a flash of armor and wings. 24. Thank you, Quabdice. That way you're listening to other radio. I'm turning that off. I love this. All right, all right. Yeah. All right. That lowers the DC. Yeah, for woman's sake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you get, Mace? 14. 14. 14. What did you get, Torbac? 17. Okay, fantastic. Yeah, but between all of you, that's more than enough. As you are easily able to make it through the streets of Neo at FX. And though this place has changed since you spent the majority of your time here, since you lived here, Crummy, you still have a good sense of where you're going. You still have a good sense of where to deposit this vehicle. And as with constant reminders to Gideon to make sure he doesn't go over nine miles, nine miles over, you are able to, you're able to keep eyes off of you. You do not draw the attention of law enforcement in any way. You make your way into the, into these back streets. You're able to deposit the car and make your way towards, towards the elevator to District 84. When we park the car before we get out, I'll say, all right, fellas, just hold your breath for a second and I'll pull out a canister and I'll shake it up and I'll press a button and this, that same kind of detergent gas that I used after that first night at the club in this campaign will sort of spread through the car and any kind of dirt or grime or blood or muck will be sort of eaten away as the gas dissipates. Nice. That was thick. We're casting Prestidigitation on the car and all of our clothing. Nice. So that we are as presentable as possible. And I was not going to like, you know, bring a skis back, but no. He looks at least kind of stylish now. But I would say part of that, part of that deception with that Prestidigitation with that, with that gas, you were, you imagine that one, when this car is found, there would be no trace of who took it, where it's been or how it got here. You never trust people with Prestidigitation. Yeah. Those murderers can cover up anything. Damn, I'm good. And with that, unless there's anything else you want to do. Shall we lock? I'm going to leave a note from like, from like one of Beryl's mistresses or something to say that she took the car or something. No, absolutely. You want to put this guy over and wait more? Just leave it, just leave it and miss it. I mean, if it gets him off, I'll tell you, okay, nevermind. Bad idea. Why? They were sleeping around anyway? Well, I mean, yeah, but they're still getting mad at each other. That's a brilliant idea. Hold on. Give us a piece of paper. Hey, hey, hey, come here. You're a pig. You are. It's a pig. Hey, get in. Are you kidding me? Oh, that's a stupid idea. Yeah, okay. Look at this guy. A lot of operations and engineers. What the hell on the technical purpose of this? And say that I do not agree with this decision. He knows just a sound guy. Just a roadie. He's not smart with no good on things. All right. I'm just checking my phone. What was I saying? What should I say? I don't know. What did I say? You do figure this out. I'm going to go fix TorbEx and Jack. Say, Barrelled. All right. How could you? Gosh, what was all those super operas that men used to like? Oh, that. Oh. How could you sleep with my twin sisters? Those, those knots on Prismara were unforgettable. How could you throw away all that with your ass queen of a wife who don't do the things what I do? You know what I mean, Barrelled? Did you say that? That little thing. Oh, what about like you said you were going to leave her five years ago? Oh, exactly right. Exactly right. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. And then you said, Oh, did you see the poo boy? Did you see something? Oh, oh, yeah. And say, Oh, we know what we know. We seen the poo boy and that the poo boy and you know, those little, those little trunks he wears. He wears those for a reason. That was the name of the video you saw, the arse queen and the poo boy. No, that's an oven. All right. All right. Nope. I'm trying to do it in almost like a, like a flourishy pretty looking. Oh, and someone at perfume you go, you know, well, I'm going to, I'm going to have you roll another deception check for this one. All right. Wait, hold on. I will reach in my coat pocket and I'll say you can do it at advantage because you have Grico's health. Oh, tell us he's pregnant. Tell us he's pregnant. Oh, they're always pregnant. Well, fucking brilliant. All right. No, she's pregnant now. What else should she be? Oh, she. Congrats. Oh, I left the collars a warning something bad's going to happen in the future. Oh, she's like a fortune teller style thing. Oh, kind of just more thinking like a threat instead of like any kind of gift of prophecy. Oh, this is. I don't think she's a clairvoyant. I mean, she might be. You never know. Look at this guy. I mean, I guess that's true. I mean, I wasn't thinking that she was. Lots of flavors of Esper in the world, you know, I don't think I have any clairvoyance. Oh, tell her. Tell her, uh, hey, barrel, you should probably get checked out. You know what I mean? You should get the never regions. Tell her you should get checked for hallmarks. You know what I mean, bro? She should get a chance to get a whole march. Oh, man, fuck barrel that guy sucks. I know. I'd also miss the full boy thing. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Okay. I think that's pretty good. You some of that fancy, you know, you still got that perfume. Get out of here. And I'll fold it up and I will take some perfume that I have on me, of course, and I'll. Oh, wait. Really seal the deal. I'll reach into my pocket and I'll pull out some lipstick. And I'll get really on there. All right. This is really self-filling. And I'll like kiss the bottom. I should sign it. Who should I sign it by? Oh, my gosh. I don't know. What was? What a nice name for this? Do you need some sort of like a nickname like your eternal love or something? Yeah, just like a... Oh, a vague. Oh, yeah. Your wed-wed woes. I'm Tiffany. They're all named Tiffany. Yeah, you're packed. Tiffany. What's wrong though? I kind of like some sort of like... Oh, oh, oh. Oh, then you'll project on who it could be. Exactly right. Oh. What's a good like, the first theme kind of like pet name? Uh, uh... You're like... Give me a little nimbus. What about you like... Uh... You're Fluffy Puff. Oh. You're Fluffy Puff Care Bear. Duh. You're Fluffy Puff Care Bear. Oh, my God. This might just work, fellas. I need you to roll a deception check. Hot damn! I'll leave it on the, uh, on the driver's seat. Hopefully they don't do any DNA testing on the lipstick. Was I assisted in this deception? Yes, yes. You are at advantage. I was really hoping that Mace would come up with a name. I like when Mace has to come up with a name. That's fair. Eternally yours, Gerbert. Uh, 23. It sounds like Gerbert. Gerbert. Gerbert. Gerbert. Wait, you used 14? 23. Oh, okay. I don't know where I got 14. Uh, you feel like that's probably good enough. We ruined this, guys. Well, we didn't kill a Rima, but I'm pretty sure we killed Meryl. He's gonna have a heart attack if this guy sees those. He was already dead inside. Let's go. Yeah, I should have put the door. Alright, to the elevator. And if it's even, we probably have to take a car there, some vehicle, if it's like, you know, some... I think we will at least like four blocks. Oh, yeah. We have to walk down the east road. And you hail a cab. Yeah, we definitely walk with you. And you hail a cab, and you make your way towards elevator 84, or towards district 84, and the elevator down. Do we think, Game Master, this would be constituting the short rest? Oh. So you guys make sure we're going to take a short rest, or a rest break. Because I need to use all of my hit dice. Thank you. After hailing a cab, you make your way through the streets of Neo-Ed effects, and eventually arrive at elevator 84. You step up to the Nexus security guard as he looks over your identification. He looks back and forth between the image on the identification in each of you. And then he does a double take. His eyes narrow as he looks you up and down, looking closely, and then he speaks. Wait a minute. Your outfit's from Harry's. I love his stuff! What cuts are these? Oh. Oh. Yeah. That color looks great on you. Henry's. Did I say Harry's? Yeah. I meant Henry's. Oh. He said Harry's. No, he said Henry's. Oh. He said Henry's. Canonically, he said Henry's. Yeah, they're from Henry's? Yeah, you know Henry's? I love his stuff. I get all of my best suits from him. Well, I hope you clean up good. Wow. I'm glad the Nexus security can afford those pros. You know what I mean? Yeah, I was about to bet you all were. Whatever it is, it isn't a not-froggie. You know they do. Oh, yep, yep. Uh, you uh... Oh, I don't want to hold you up. You shouldn't, you know. Yeah, yeah. Let us know. Oh, yeah. Oh, so Nostage, Nostage. So it's, we're good. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I get my ID back. Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. You start handing back the IDs. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. You appreciate it. You like it? Yeah. I'm gonna get a look at it. Do you think it would look on me? Carol Trast. Would it look on you? Would it look on you? Maybe you should stick with Navy. You can't see much about him. He's fully armored. He's got a helmet on and everything. Oh, you know what? What if you try chocolate brown? Oh. Oh. Right? Yeah. What do you think? Nice brown suit? Well, I don't know, man. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you'd pull off a nice chocolate brown. He stands up a little straighter. He's a little fat. And though you can't see it, you imagine that with a smile, he punches a button on the panel and you are let into the elevator. Again, the rows of benches are entirely empty. The door closes behind you and the elevator door groans shut and lurches as you start to descend. As you finally sink below the line that separates the undercity from the topside of Neowetteifex, you watch as the security guard waves down at you happily, wishing you well on your way. The moment that the door closes, I'll kind of like let outside relief and I was just saying this for a fan to feel like. It is absolutely canonical that this guy, there's no way in hell that he can actually afford these suits from Henry's. It's exactly like the I think you should leave sketch with Dan Flashes with the real expensive shirts where he's not eating. It's exactly my style. And he's spending every day that he has on Dan Flashes. That's probably true. That's really true. And he just thinks he can afford it, but he really can. It makes him feel really good about it. Right, exactly right. I'll let outside relief because I didn't speak to her that in her eyes. I was right. Well, there's your bit of luck. That's wrong. It's not all lost, slide, side. Well, I mean, this is like step two, step three. We got a long way back still. We got to get down there. Then we got to get to the drain. Then we got to make our way back without getting killed by horrible monsters. I feel way better about our chances through the drain and getting back to the hellhounds than up there. I still have no idea if Blarby knows we're on our way. She's probably freaking out. Either way, we're going to have to find Mila. So if we just get down there and hopefully she hasn't gotten far, you know what? I've got to say, Lances, no, so that is up there with all the comforts and all the fancy fuss. I'm so glad. Is it just because I have the same window as the other ones? Like we can probably see like we're going down. You can see as you're going down. Like welcome to the playground starts playing from our kids. Yeah, as we're seeing it. I'm like kind of looking at a little wistfully. It's like, you know, nothing beats home. And especially once I get to see the Green Lodge and the Green Lodge district, that will be so nice. Great. I scan the view. There was a tremendous amount of violence not a day ago. And I'm wondering if the air has cleared. Does it look like everything's on fire? You're on the elevator. We're districts over. We're like three. Oh, yeah. We're three. We're district four. We're coming down and you forget what I just said. Yeah. I would just look at everybody else's. We're kind of like mulling this over and say, look, once we get to the green Lodge, once we get back, then we can assess the situation. And I think I have an idea, but we need to talk to Blarie first. We got to have, I mean, we got to head back there and figure out what the hell happened. And now I think is the time we get changed. All right. Because now is the exact opposite situation. I'm going through the fucking. The under city like just like this. We're gonna stick out like a fucking sort of. Three. Well, I mean, there's nobody in here. I may as well stop getting changed. Oh, no, absolutely not. I'm already going to. I'm already. Taking my. My. My. There's enough time for a couple of. I got my crispy boy and I'm going to toss out some beers. Some elevator beers. I'll just sit my beer. I'm already changed and look at the other passengers of the elevator. There's no being in there. I am. I'm very much wearing boxers that are way too long for me. So they let go down in my shins. That's so funny. That's so perfect. And I try to fold up. I do a very bad job. So I try to fold up and I kind of get frustrated. I just shove into the bag. No, no, no, no, no, don't do that. There's a nice. It's a nice piece of my. I grabbed the clothes and I like with a few twists. I'll just. Then I'll. Then there you go. I'll ninja twist it. And then right in your face. You'll see me passing my jacket. I don't even look at you. I mean, right. Just grab them and immediately start folding. That's my bag, please. There you go. Not that bad. My other bag. You got a lot of money. You can't have so many bags. I never know what I need to wear. Thank you. How much. How many pairs of shoes. Mr. K. Oh, like a bunch. Oh, man. You know, there's no closet space. Probably not. It will depends how much of a sneaker had. Frost is. Okay. So I don't think it's like the wall to like sure. Florida's ceiling, like all the boxes, but he has probably dozens of pairs of shoes. Yeah, I don't agree with that. Many different colors, many different styles, finishes, sheen, and I don't know. Frost is a sneaker. I think it's that it all be drushes. Frost is a sneaker head, but he doesn't. He's never been able to afford more than a few pairs. Okay. They're extremely expensive. Yes. On par with any of the best shoes that you might own, but he has to save up for months, if not years for that. True. True. I don't know if anyone's seen these videos of these people or it's full closet of just sneakers. Yes. And so maybe if we, you know, if Frost could afford it, rich one, that's what he would do. Yeah. So Frost is to answer your question. As fancy as all that stuff is, nothing beats denim leather. Hey lads, you know what I mean? Now I'm imagining Greco with denim underpants. Denim underpants. Oh, that's nice. Oh, comfy. We know when they warn us warning, oh, it's just nice. Oh, this is comfortable. Hey lads. Yeah. And proper footwear for kicking in some, some not so immune, you know. Okay lads. When we get down there, just stay with me. We can pick up the pace now that we're not under the watch of any prying eyes and I'll get us back to the hell quickly. We still got to move a little safely, man. I mean, what if we run the security with down the drain last we came up bare if they're still sweeping anything's possible, but I'm hoping that the hellhounds ran them all off. Yeah, they did quite the number on as we were leaving. That was that was quite funny. Be ready for anything. But again, be tough and I'm gonna stick it out over not. Sure. Might make things worse, but we're going to find out. All right, lads. I got my guitar around my back and then my duffel bag. I'm ready. I'm ready to ride. As they built it on. Oh, look out. And I'll say no, 84 doesn't have the same charm as 87. No, the main thing is don't. Well, that's all 84 right now. I'll say, well, Tom, the maybe almost dying a drain. Hey, be cool. Okay. You enter district 84 and Torback guides you once more to the entrance to the drains. You descend into the stinking depths and follow Torback's guidance through the maze of sewers, pipes and processing pathways to the section of the drain beneath the green light district. What surprises you is that Nexus security is not guarding or patrolling down here like they were when you left. It seems as if the hellhound massacre scared them off along with the urban legends about the sewers. As expected, the temperature rises more and more until it becomes sweltering as you get beneath the Toulouse implants of district 87. And finally you arrive at the ramshackle barricades of the makeshift settlement of the hellhole. It's not much longer until you make your way towards the seven hells where Blarvy is looking absolutely distraught. As you come up to this place, you see that she is running around the perimeter of this place. She's looking, picking up the same rocks, the same turned over large barrels and just panicking, sweating profusely. All the while chewing on her lip and blowing the biggest Blarvy bubbles you've ever seen as she is just panicked. Does it look like anyone else is assisting or is she alone in this effort? It is oddly strange. It is oddly quiet. Okay. As soon as we spy Blarvy, I will raise forward. Blarvy, Blarvy, we're here. We're here. Oh God. Oh my God. Blarvy, is everything all right? What's happened? No, everything is not all right. She's gone. I fell asleep and I woke up in the morning and frost, I'm so sorry. Mr. Crummy, I'm so sorry. I didn't get anything over the phone except that perhaps Mila was gone. I don't know where she is, but what, you said you fell asleep and she's just missing, we don't know where she is. Yeah, I woke up in the morning and she left this cute little note. She left a note. She did, yeah, she left this cute little note. May I see the note? Sure, and she hands it to you and you can see that it's written in this, this loopy child-like scroll and it doesn't say much, but most of it is, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I have to fix this. I'm headed back to the hospital and I won't be your problem anymore. I read this. Thank you for everything that you've done. I'll miss you. I read this out loud as I'm absorbing it. I don't read it all the way through and then speak it. You do see a little... I think it as I'm reading it for the first time. There's a second sheet and as you turn to the second sheet, you see that she's drawn all of you as a little family and it says with love, Mila, never forget. Oh my God. I show off the image and... It's awful. It's the worst. She must have run away. This is... I was worried that she'd been kidnapped. She took a knife. Who told her that a kid could have a knife? It's not your fault. She stole a knife from the bomb? This could have happened to anyone and Mila was clearly determined to wait until you were asleep to leave. I don't know how I fell asleep. I was staying up. I don't know. It says right here that she intended to go to the hospital. She's anywhere between here and wherever the nearest hospital that Mila would think to go to would be. I can't even imagine. She'd probably just pick a direction and hope that she'd run into the place. I can't imagine she knows how to get back there, giving everything going on with the mind, but she didn't take a medicine with her, did she? No, no, she didn't. And then Murtifang and the rest, they went off to look for her, but I didn't have anything to give them. And so they were following a cold trail, but I found this after they left and she holds up Hootie. I'll take a step forward and say, Flourby, that's perfect. Listen, when I used to run back with the hounds, my job was to track down, take care of the people who chose to run away. I can find her. You just got to give me the doll. Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. Oh, God, it's a cause. Don't call Hootie with her. No. But at least she has a knife. She's not kid, she's armed. We're going to find her. Everything's going to be all right. I will step down, I think she needs the knife. Closer to Flourby. I'll put an arm around her and I will try to comfort her as long as she's upset. No, Frost, I'm so sorry. You're okay. I have one job. I was just supposed to keep the little ones safe. You had two jobs, you did one of them expertly. You gave me this lucky Flourby and I'm scrunchy and I'm back. Yeah, I'm so glad you're safe. I don't want my panic over the little one to make you think that I... No, no, we have much to do and you're panicking over the right thing. If I were in your shoes, I'd be upset too, but we're going to solve this problem together and we're all here now. I was truly concerned that she had been kidnapped on this spot, but there's a chance now, there's hope. How did she... I just... These tunnels, they're dangerous. I know, I know and we will sniff her out if I had to guess. I'm mostly concerned on a kind of... I wouldn't normally be thinking anything down here could threaten her, but with what you made her, she's a sitting duck, eh? At least she's got a knife. That stuff was pretty strong, right? Hey, that smell, that's good thinking. You think she's totally turned off? She can't wield any kind of power? I don't know. I just don't know. I mean, it's possible if the medicine book design tended... You're right, I mean, she won't have too much access to blowing people's heads off, but... I hate to say this, but I don't know how I fell asleep. I hate to blame her, but I think... I think she did something in my brain. Well, that's the thing, right? It's... For her to get out of here, out of this place unnoticed, I have to imagine it wasn't just through savvy and wit. Yeah. Wow. It's also perhaps an explanation for the sudden change of heart. I just don't know. She was so... When we left, she was so nice. We had a very nice chat, and we promised we'd be back. That's not even the worst part. And she moves over to a pile of rubbish. The... Murder thing found this when they were bringing one of the drunk friends back from a night-out party and in the tubes. These have been put up all over the place, and she holds up a missing child paper. Oh, shit. With a reward, a very large reward on the bottom. If anyone finds it... If anyone finds it... They're gonna take it, whoever this is... Whoever's number this is. She'll be recognized more easily with that advertisement out, and... I mean, she's not looking as... There's games after there is the... She's not looking as sallow, and she's looking healthier now that she's being taken care of, but you can tell it's her in this picture. All right, guys, listen. Don't worry, all right? We're gonna figure this out. We're gonna find her. We'll track her down. We'll bring her back. We'll straighten this whole thing out, all right? Yeah. It's not your fault, Bobby. No, it's not. No, I mean, you're just a bartender. I'll do respect. I'm just disappointed that Doomhound could have let this happen. You should have heard him howling when he found out she was gone. They created such a fast friendship. You're a guest in this place. It's not your responsibility to keep an eye on things. No, they're all... They're all feeling it, too. It's just... I mean, over not. She changed her mind. Were you keeping an eye on her when she was sleeping? Did it seem like she had any bad dreams? Not... Not that I could... Not that I could tell. She seemed like she was doing fine. We're all playing games. She was worried about you guys. I could tell it was way in honor. I mean, oh, gosh. What are you thinking, Grico? Exactly what I'm thinking. Right, Grico? What are you thinking about? She was. She was hiding it. Why the change of heart, Grico? That's what I'm saying. I just... We noticed she had that one dream and she blew the whole side off of the stala. And she was saying that she was sorry. She said that she was sorry here. I would have bet my sneaker collection that she wouldn't have run away like this. When we left her, she was safe. She was with Blarby. She was warming us like a family. And she decides to suddenly say, I'm sorry, and get up and go and sneak away in the night. That doesn't seem like her at all. While this entire conversation is going on, I would be spending time with this stuffed animal and trying to see what kind of scent I can pull from it and then see if it's familiar to Mila and what I can glean from spending, you know, while this entire conversation is going on, I'm... Roll a perception check for me. As I'm thinking about this, I would also like to try to evaluate whether or not I feel the card is genuine. I'm questioning everything. The letter that she left. I want to look at it very closely and try to determine if this was a... if she was kidnapped and a forgery was left as a deception to... I'm looking under every stone at this point. Frost is trying his best to see through something to find... Roll a name's insight check for me. Thank you. Oh, easily with a 22. You hold Hootie up to your nose and you take in a big inhale. And there are a myriad of scents that you have to untangle before you're able to get to the one that you very clearly associate with Mila. And as you have that at the forefront of your mind, you begin to move around the space. And it's almost as if in your mind's eye, you can see these trails of scents going off in different directions. You pick up on the scent of Murderfang and Gorehowl. Doomhouse. Doomhouse. Sorry, Doomhouse. Don't forget Greggie. And Greggie. As you pick up these scents that you recognize and you see as they are looping all throughout this space, you see it's almost like you can envision the lapse that Blarby has made around the exterior of this place, overturning everything, trying to find any sign of Mila. And then you catch the scent, Mila's scent. And where the Hellhounds went off in one direction, Mila's scent goes off in another. I'll take a minute. I'll take a deep breath. I've got it. And I let it dole back. Are we ready? You take a couple more minutes with this letter crossed. And you, though you've never seen anything that she's written before, as you're looking at this, you can, you see the tiny tear stains on the parchment as she was, as she was writing this. You see the shaking of her little hand as she, as she was trying to form these words, the little misspellings, the extra Rs, the, all of the missing punctuation. And you see a tiny smudge that clearly could have only been made with a tiny palm. Okay. And it's very clear to you that this was, that this was written by Mila. I feel pretty confident about that. And I don't voice that thought. I just have taken the time to look at the letter more closely and seeing that everyone's ready to follow Torbek and his Witcher senses. I will, I will quickly turn to Blarby here. I need you to take care of this. I'm going to hand her my pack and keep this safe. It's got some nice clothes in it that we got on the upper side. And also, and I'll go through the duffel bag. I got you this candy and this rope. This is for you as a thank you for everything that you've done and you have earned it. I know that you might not feel that way right now, but you've done a tremendous amount more than you needed to. And thank you, Blarby. Thank you, sweetheart. It's so nice. Get it back for me, okay? We will. We will. Thank you. Oh, God. Just get out of here, dog. Oh, no. Hold it. Hold the place down. Get out of here. All right, that's your dearest. Will you mind putting this up in our room? Oh, yes, sure. Sure. Sure. Just leave everything. He will get it all. All couple rotis while we go. We should run. We should run. I didn't even drink the other beer. Here's a crispy. Oh, I need that. She pops it immediately and she chugs it. We'll be back. Stay safe. Stay here. And if you get any messages or you have any updates, please text me. No signal isn't been very good as of late, but it does arrive in time. Come on, lover boy. Blarby, I owe you another one. Can you grab her medicine for me? I should have it on me just in case. Sure. I got it on me right here. And she moves her fanny pack around to the front and she unzips it and she pulls out the medicine and passes it over to you. All right. Hopefully I won't need this. There's no stealth, Flatch. We run. She's passing me can without falling into any kind of toxic ooze. We fucking run and we yell for her. She doesn't know the area. She's just a little kid. So hopefully we can catch up quick. Stay close. Here we go. Lean the way. And I take off. I started a brisk jog. Meena! I am screaming. Meena! Torbac. Yeah. You follow the scent of Mila. I have you roll a survival check. Okay. Because I'm going to have you roll one. Okay. Is it advantage because he has the scent? You know what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It will be. So you, you have... That's an assist, right? You have found the trail, but I need you to keep the trail. I roll 14 and 13. Just like an 18. Oh, yeah. Easy. Not bad at all. Meena! You follow Mila's scent, which oftentimes gets overpowered by the stench and smells of the drain. But you were able to guide your friends on the path that Mila took, out towards the direction that you took to reach the hellhole. But then the scent continues off towards a side pipe that is so narrow, you need to crouch to travel through it. This way down here. The path leads to an overflow tunnel, and you see a flashing glow in the darkness ahead. It is bright and colorful. And as you approach, you realize there's a small sneaker with lights flashing in the heal. You immediately recognize it as Mila's. There. There. See it quickly. Come on. Come on. I'm going to run right up to it and, and grab it. I'm not thinking about any kind of evidence. I'm going to grab it. Is this the, the sneaker, the frost? It looks, it looks very much like the sneaker that Frost gave to. Meena! Meena! We're here, we're here! We're not, we're not mad. We're not angry, Meena. We just want to make sure you're safe. Your voice echoes back towards you from the tunnel. I check to make sure the shoe is actually hers. Yeah, roll a perception check for me. I'm just scanning. I, I, I appreciate Grico's yelling and I understand its prudence, but I am deeply concerned. You're all standing there looking around. Meena! Grico's shouts are echoing back towards you. The only sound in this, in this darkened tunnel. The only light, the fading blinking of this sneaker. It seems like it's been blinking for a while and the light is slowly starting to dim over time. As you begin to sniff to make sure that you're in the right direction and immediately you pick up on the scent again. But not just one scent. There's another scent that's now mingling with Mila's. A scent that is terrifyingly familiar. Clegg. I will be, I'll be holding this. Oh, shit. I'll be holding this sneaker and I'll, and I'll stop. I'll straighten up and I'll look at the rest of the crew and I'll say, Clegg! What? Do we know who Clegg is? We don't know who Clegg is, dude. Oh, we, we would have felt it. Yeah, you guys, you guys have felt it. You guys don't know what it looks like. You've seen him, right? But like, you're aware of it. You're aware of everything. Oh, sure. You might be slightly taken aback. Grico and I are four-one. Frost let you know about, you know, the partially slitting of his throat. Oh, yes, it was, it was absolutely. I let the sneaker fall to the ground and I turn and I bellow. Clegg! Where are you, you bastard? Clegg, where are you, you bastard? You bastard, you bastard. This is not good. No, I won't, I won't, I won't. Hey, guys, he's a fucking maniac! Yeah, he's desperate. Hey, if he knew anything about the ransom, it would all be over. Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. Look, the good news is that you're on a trail. All right, just keep going. And maybe he's just happened to take this way too. Right? Maybe it could just be a coincidence. There's no sign she's been hurt yet, right? I try to focus and I try to think about what Mr. K is saying and I try to think about where her son is leading and now trying to pick up on this new scent to see if I can see, if I can also follow where Clegg might have gone to. I'll have you roll another perception check. Just follow Mila's scent. Even if he's got her, we can't keep shouting through the tunnels. Man, if he has her, surprise is going to be our best element if we got to deal with this dude. If he's as bad as you guys say. No more running in back to the south, I quite agree. Perception. Yeah, you're at advantage for this. Oh, okay. You have the shoe with both of their scents. You have the, you have a hoodie with her scent. You've got enough to make this easier for you to manage. The one that you're thinking of is that it's when I, when an ally, I see me in the 30th, he fails at d20. Oh, I don't know. Oh, this is just proficiency. Oh, God, I'm sorry. Which has been helped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just added to it. My high roll is a 12, unfortunately, a little bit lower this time. But I'm going to, I'm going to rile up. You're riled up. I think with it, with a 12, that is enough. It just takes you significantly longer than you, than you would expect. You are, you sniff around and you follow the scent, but you are so overwhelmed with what this could possibly mean. The ramifications of what it means. Clegg has found Mila in these tunnels, that you occasionally get lost in your own thoughts and you drop the scent and you have to backtrack. And what should have taken you maybe 10 minutes takes you 30. Okay, yeah, that's like. But you do follow the scent until you see a glint in the darkness. As you approach, you see makeshift bedding made of bloody newspaper and cloth, empty whiskey bottles scattered about. This must have been where Clegg was sleeping after his exile. And there at the top of the pile of bloody newspapers is a, is a missing child's advertisement that you, that the same exact one that Blarby had just recently shown you. But there is blood. There is blood. I would immediately go for the blood and sniff it to see then if there's more of it. Maybe a trail or even just anything worth it's just localized in this spot. That would seem weird to me, but I would immediately lock onto this blood. Is the blood from when you beat the shit out of him? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I would see how old it is. I think I would immediately lock onto the scent of blood. Roll another presumption check for me please. Oh, much better. I'm feeling helpless. I have no way to help. You. You immediately smell the scent of iron and your eyes focus on the blood and you see that this is very clearly recent. It's far too recent to be the blood from the wounds that you, that you administered to Clegg. The blood is relatively recent. It's fresh. The, you can smell both Mila and Clegg here. And as you get closer to the blood, it's nearly impossible to disentangle those scents because you see on the ground the small knife that Mila had stolen. Coved, covered, coated in dried blood. Uh, does the blood smell like Mila's scent or Clegg's scent? It's hard to tell. They're intermingling. The girl, the girl was here and someone was stabbed. I can't tell exactly whose blood this is. You fucking go. We should have banished him. To a man who should have just killed him right there. There's no way to know that this is going to happen. This is a, uh, one in a million gins. I should have been put down. Hey, listen, we can't worry about what it could have, all right? Right. Mila still needs us. She's ahead of us. You got the scent. Maybe she's in danger. It's almost certain he has her. It's almost certain he's trying to turn her in. All right. He's right here. He is the missing girl report. He probably knew who the fuck she was or at least recognize her to this. All right. He's trying to pay. He's trying to get a payday, which means she's probably hopefully still alive. Exactly. I don't know that, that no, it's probably got a man. Maybe, maybe she, she caught him in the heart. Maybe she caught him in the throat and he's on his way out. Maybe a couple more steps. We'll see his dead body and her standing over. All right. Let's get the knife. Let's, let's make sure that we've covered everything and then Torbac. Can you follow the scent? Yeah. I'm just trying to focus on this mean interim mingled scent now. Even though I can't distinguish between the two, presumably they are together and I'm trying to lock onto the singular mixture of sense to follow. I will keep your perception check for that role. Thank you. As you are choosing to, to leave and continue on. Oh yeah. There's nothing here that I can see immediately that I give a shit about. Immediately. Yeah. Immediately you're able to, you're able to tell that they're the co-mingled, the co-mingled sense of Clegg and Mila continue deeper into the sewer system. As you follow the sense through the pipes and tunnels ahead, you see even more bright red. As your stomach sinks, you realize that there are larger puddles of fresh blood. As you continue to follow it, you're able to see that this blood couldn't have been shed more than an hour ago. I'm just, I'm sticking to this trail. Would I get the sense though that the amount of blood that we're seeing would it be too much for a little girl or is it still not clear? I would say it's not clear. Looking at it, once again I'll use your same perception check. Looking at it, you are, you can very clearly see there's only one trail of footprints and they're very much too large to be a small girl. And as these footprints are making their way through this space, the blood is dripping in tandem with them. Okay. So it almost looks like something that Clegg is carrying is potentially bleeding. With every step that is taken, blood is being dropped. And so it almost looks like, I would say that to you. It's too hard to tell. I'm not going to say anything to the guys because I don't want to worry them and I'm not certain of what I'm seeing. So I don't want to make an assumption and set Brickle off or upset Frost or anything like that. So I'm going to keep following this trail the best of my ability. But I pick up the pace. Like I am hustling. You do. You take the time to investigate the scene, but you notice that there are more drops of fresh blood ahead. I would take a look at Brickle and I'll say, look, I mean, he's bleeding like a stuck pig. That's how much you've got him. Even if he does have him and we don't know if he does or not. Right. Like, I mean, he might just bleed out and he'll just scamper away. I'm sure she's fine. All the mate was just breaking. He was doing a little bit of being in. I don't mean baking an eggs and he nicked his leg on a piece of broken glass. He was dead an hour later. Oh my God. Well, yeah, maybe that's what happened. Holy shit. Let's go. Let's keep going. Does everyone keep their voices down? Let's see if we can sneak up on him if he's still alive. But not we'll find Mila at the end of this. I am just going to sprint them. I'm using every six seconds. I'm dad. We're not stealing. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow. I am yellow.哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎 morphe, straight into Mulnaia territory. The pipe opens up to a huge cylindrical chamber, which had once been a waste management chamber used to house the waste from the processing of countless fish and other creatures. Now, however, it's filled with toxic sludge from the underhanded dumping from the various factories in the neighborhood above. The bubbling, acidic waste is slick and sheening with a pearlescent hue, almost filling the space with a gyrating rainbow glow. Your tension is drawn upward as you see something moving. High on a ladder, several dozen feet above you is Clegg, a bloody stab wound on his leg as he struggles to climb up the metal rungs, wrestling with a squirming mela in his grasp. He is heading towards the surface. The moment that I see him, oh fuck. Clegg! Oh my goodness, help me! Oh no! He puts his hand over her mouth and continues to try and wrestle with her. He looks down and you can still see the wound on the side of his mouth that was put there by murder fang as he opens his mouth and lets out a laugh as he continues to make his way up. Not concerned, he's so significantly high above you, you are not a threat to him. I whip out from the back of my belt what starts out, it looks almost like a small thing that wraps around my hand and expands out and it takes the shape of what almost looks like a grenade launcher. And I pointed up at him and I just shut up. Hey! You dropped that kid and you're coming down hard! Don't you fucking hurt her! You'll whistle you! Did he blow you up? Do you see him begin to move up a little more? Mila is wriggling in his arms as he has one of his hands firmly clasped around her mouth as he tries to make his way up. But as you shout this and you see as he looks over his shoulder and sees the, you said it's a gun? It looks almost like a giant triple barrel grenade launcher. Oh a grenade launcher. Well it's like a giant gun, it's a big gun. It's a big old gun. It's a big old gun. It's a big old gun in the entire three barrel like lots of bullets. But it looks like it shoots massive like canisters. Gotcha. And as he sees this aimed at him, there's a nerf gun that does that, it's really cool. This fully catches his attention. As you fully make yourself known to him, the Leica hangs off the ladder with a maddened look in his eye. He clutches Mila around the neck, his sharpened claws dangerously close to her throat. These gnarling words bark out and echo through the metallic chamber. One step forward and I tear the girls throat out. I'm getting her to Milnaa and I'm getting that bounty. You're not stopping me Torbac. And you see the claws digging into her throat. You see even from this distance you can see the darkened spots where little tiny droplets of blood are beginning to form. I pointed him when he mentions me and I say, I spared you, Clank. Your life is mine. I own you. You've crossed the line. You are nothing. I'm getting my life back and I'm doing it with her. You and I both know you're not leaving the drain alive. You make one motion and I'll rip her throat out. I'll do it. You took everything from me. Everything. You're not going to see a damn set if you do that. They want her alive. You rip her throat out. The next thing that happens is your throat comes out. He roll a persuasion check at advantage for that one. In this moment as they're aiming their weapons, I'm sort of edging a little closer. I'm sort of moving to the side. I'm being very, very still and I'm not being aggressive. But each of my companions in turn will hear my voice. If Mila drops, I think I can get to her in time. I just need to get within 60 feet of her or so and I may be able to reach out and catch her with my mind. Are you talking openly to us or is this in the mind? This is telepathically. Can we answer you? Yes, you can. I'll say this moment saying this. Well, tell me what you're all. I got a 27. I got a natural 20. You immediately see the color drain from his face as he realizes that what you've said to him is indisputable, that he does need this girl alive, but that's his bargaining chip. He is breathing heavy. He's growling. You can still see his claws digging into her neck and you see as he looks like he's about to say something to you, but he leans down and he begins to growl and speak quietly enough only to Mila. You see her entire body go rigid with fear as whatever he's saying to her is imperceptible to you. As Frost says this to you in this moment. If you can catch them, I can drop them off there later, I think. Just try not to hit Mila and I'll be able to stop her from colliding with the ground or falling into this sludge. Oh, it's better be fucking careful. Can we all talk to each other? Or is it like a one way? I would say you know it's me. I'll say you better be fucking careful. Yeah, I agree. This ain't gonna end the way you think it will, Clegg. This is all happening in a moment as he has this realization. You communicate to each other. You see Mila go rigid and then in a split second he drops for a moment and then lunges forward trying to bridge the gap between him and the very, very top. With one arm, he's got her in one arm, his claws digging into her neck. He grabs on to the final rung. It is about to pull himself over as his fingers slip coated in the blood from his very own leg as Mila bites down on his hand and lets out a scream. The both of them begin to plummet. Clegg's maddening eyes go wide with surprise as his hands and feet slip, both he and Mila falling. She manages to squirm out of his grasp the shock of the fall preventing him from keeping her firmly clutched to him. Both Clegg and Mila are plummeting towards the acid below. What do you do? I immediately jump into action. I'm going to, with a focus that you perhaps have never seen, I am going to jump immediately over the, not even thinking over the toxicity all around us. I'm going to catch myself with my psionic abilities. I'm going to unleash that explosive power within me to fly. And I'm going to sprint forward 120 feet in six seconds as I, it's like whenever Superman jumps into the air and there's that sign. Oh, the crackling. I lift up into the air and then when I'm going to supersonic try to catch her in midair before she hits the ground. It's almost as if time has slowed down. Gideon, that you, as you, as you readied your weapon was the catalyst that caused Clegg to panic enough to lunge himself forward, not thinking about the slick grip that he would have on this rungs as all of this begins to happen in, in milliseconds. But for you Frost, everything is slow as you propel yourself forward and launch yourself into the air. And with quick movements, you're able to snatch Mila out of the air just in time as she screams in terror mere feet above the bubbling waste. Clegg, however, is gnashing and barking all the way down before his exclamations are suddenly replaced by a sickening crack. His back lands hard on a steel railing for just a moment before his crumpled form crashes into the toxic ooze with a splash. His form hisses as it begins to dissolve and sink beneath the surface. Mila clutches to you. She is screaming. I have to make an unending scream when I pivot in order to not collide with the wall because I beeline straight to her. And so there's this moment where I'm flying, but basically running along the wall trying to slow down as I grip her screaming. She's just, she's screaming and, and holding onto you. Hold on to me. Hold on to me. A little too tight. You can feel her tiny little nails digging into you. But she is, she is very clearly distraught. I would have, as soon as Mila had been default, I will use my second level spell slot. And I would have whipped around my guitar with a wailing burst with this cool guitar riff. I'm going to cast Misty Step as I burst forward, but you just rock it past me as I am going as, and I see you, as I see you grab her. And I don't think all of us who wins is we're here fucking close. Oh yeah. Snap. And I would then, as soon as I finish the distance, I basically, my, my, my dad instinct is kicking in as I will start playing that kind of like a simple riff that I played her before. She's got a smile and it seems to me reminds me as I would play a suddenly turning it into a lullaby despite the horrid echoing of the snapping spine. And I'm going to try to cast calm emotions from my global end. You're hearing the music and recognizing that Grico is very near me. I will gently lift myself away from the wall and from the. You are perched precariously close to this pool of assets. Yeah. I, I've come to rest, but Mila is still screaming and screaming and I jumped towards you and slowly fly down to land by your side where I can bring you Mila's and listen more closely to your melody. And I would basically do it like an unplugged version with my electric car. Sounds a little, sounds a little tinny. Sounds a little tinny. Perfect. But it's kind of like going into a lullaby as I will try to sing what I would have sung to Lorelai when she was feeling like trying to calm her down, perhaps having like a violent episode in her, in her sickness as I will use my, my once a day calm emotions and an attempt to cast that you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. I'm trying to comfort Mila as she's listening to this music and I'm looking to my companions to see what they're doing, where they are as I, as I let Grico try to calm this or girl. I'll say what I'm doing. So this is chaos. Oh, absolutely. But Torbjörn is focused on one thing and one thing only. And it's the slowly dissolving body of Clegg as I just watch as he sinks into this toxic ooze. And I think to myself, there's no place in Agatha's for him. You watch as with a final pop, his hand, the, the last remnant of his flesh sinks down beneath the, the goop of this toxic waste. And, and you know that just from the smell of this place that not, not a single piece of him will ever be found. And I'm just, I'm just, that's what I'm doing. I saw the girl was saved and frosted his thing and everybody's like, you should have called me. I'm just, I'm just thinking about Clegg and she okay. How does your calm emotions? How is that working, Grico? Oh, that was intense. Oh, thank God. Oh, technically, each humanoid in a 20 foot radius sphere, I would probably just be the three of us must have seen that Christmas saving. There will be affected by one of the following effects. Ready to charmed and frightened conditions. So this is the frightened and it, there's one about basically being hostile or indifferent. So I am trying to suppress her fear the best that I can and perhaps also calm our heart rates. I will be enjoying the music and I will be holding Mila if it feels like she wants to run to Grico or if she wants me to let her go, I certainly will, but I'm holding onto her because I have a kinship with her spirit, us having gone through so much of the same experimentation and uncertainty and our minds sharing so many of the same patterns. I am grieving along with her, I'm sure experiencing some of the same kinds of fears that she ran away about, even if I'm perhaps a little older. She is screaming at the top of her lungs still as she is clawing into you. She is horrified. She is scared as Grico, you begin to play this song and almost instantaneously frost. You feel her limbs turn to jelly in your arms as she collapses against you, breathing heavily, but no longer screaming. A gentle whimper against your shoulder as she begins to sob quietly. Grico, you look on as you see frost patting her back and you see that she is covered in dirt, covered in dried blood, very clearly Clegg's blood as frost moves her further away from this caustic, her little legs dangling there, only one shoe remaining on her feet. The other one is a dirty, damp sock as you move her back towards everyone else, but she is at first not saying anything and then gently you begin to hear, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry. I know, you're alright, you're alright. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to cause more trouble, I'm sorry frost. You're just glad you're safe and I promise everything's going to be okay, don't feel the need to apologize, we're so glad that you're safe, you were very brave. I stabbed him. Yes, we found the trail, that's how we were able to catch up to you, everything's going to be alright. Did she look hurt at all or is it clear that that was like Clegg bleeding? It was very clear that it's Clegg bleeding. You see scratches, you see a couple of bruises from where she's fallen down, tried to get to escape, he probably grabbed her, but there are no, it's definitely not, you don't see any knife wounds or any intentional harming in that way, it all appears to be accidental wounds from her capture. I'm going to let you down now, just hold on. Did I kill him because I bit him and then we fell? Was it my, I killed the sock? No, no, no, no, you didn't kill him, it was the acid that did that, it's alright. Possible is that rain wet. It's just too commonly, a little combination, little column, column B, but hey, you know what, we're not mad. She rushes over and immediately gives you the biggest hug. You found me. You know what, we're alright, we're all right, we're all together, just like in the lounge, hey. And I'll look at Gideon and I'll say, why don't you just make triple quadruple short enough and come back up, ain't that right? Yeah, yeah, alright. I'll go to the beach head of the acid and just, I'll drop both my turrets. You walk right up to me. And I just nod at you. I'll drop both my turrets right at the beach head. They're set to auto walk. I would say you got one of them angled up towards the exit to this place, then another one down the tunnel that you came in, that way both are guarded, should anyone or anything make their way in this direction. I am glad to have comforted Mila and I feel for her and I know that she's now being comforted by Grico and that things are settling down. We aren't in any immediate danger. And the initial sprint, the surge of that psionic energy is still coursing through me, but balanced in a way that I've never experienced. Some combination of the experiences that have happened over the last few days and the pills that I've taken and what order, perhaps a combination of the alcohol I have in my system. I don't know what it is, but I'm able to lift off the ground again. And for the next few minutes, I seem to be able to control my movement in the air in a way that I've never been able to. And this is shocking to me. And so I experiment with that a little bit. I'm not trying to show off or show the others, but for a moment I'm just kind of amazed by this thing that's unlocked within me before I settled down and continue to be with the rest of the group. But I'm still grappling with what just happened when I shot off to save Mila. Hold on, careful Frost, not so close to the asset, alright? Is that you doing that? With your mind? Yes, I'm in complete control. I seem to be able to... That was pretty unbelievable, man. You moved through the air. And you have pills today, didn't you? I had two pills this... Even in the last few hours I had pills. Speaking of that, Mr. Crummy... Am I in trouble? No, no, you're not in trouble, Mila. We're gonna have to figure out why you wanted to run away from the Hellhounds and do this. I mean, you put yourself in danger, but you're not in trouble, but... I was going to go back to the hospitals and to the doctors so that my new family would not be in trouble anymore. I had a nightmare on us. I was sleeping, and I would be the reason you were all dead. Look, look, trust me, if anyone's gonna be the reason that we're all dead, it's me, okay? Don't feel bad about that. No, it wasn't your fault, it was me. No, no, I promise you, it's my fault. No, it wasn't gonna die, alright? Maybe I should leave with that. Look, you didn't kill Clegg either. I think Gid just spooked him. I mean, look, you're putting that big thing at him. I'd be spooked if that happened to me. Yeah, that's quite the conversational list. I mean, she's... Well, that's this ear, that's my giant, you know... Mila, you're not in trouble. Can I pull the trigger? If you want to. Shoot him again! He might turn into a mutant down there and give her the gun. Yeah, take it. It's bigger than she is. She steps back from the end. She swings around in a circle. Where am I? Oh, no, no, no! Right here? I'll kick out a little stand that she can kind of place it on and it'll balance it right at the acid pool. And I'm gonna... I have earplugs on me, musician. And so I'm gonna basically make sure that she has earplugs in. And it's like, he was right down there. I mean, I think the railing got him, but just make sure, Mila. Alright, now listen, kiddo. The entire thing, so it doesn't kick hard, but for you, it's gonna kick like a mule. So hang on tight. Don't keep it on your cheek, but not against your eye. This is extremely irresponsible. Your body's gonna move with the recoil. So when you pull the trigger and it's just 5 ounces of pressure, that's all you need, and it'll go off. What does recoil mean? You're about to find out. When you pull the trigger, make sure you release the trigger. shooting a grenade launcher in Golden Eye on temple level. What's Haragren? He's got something wrong going on with his mind right now. Don't worry about him. He's been through a lot in the last two hours. Make sure you get him. So I just... She swings it over. No, no, no, no swing it around. No, we're down range right now. The acid's like, well, below. She's got it pointed. Just occasionally she swings it around. The plug's hand is slowly going into the acid still. Alright, just shoot right there. Pull the trigger. Right now? If you want to, man, you want to distract. She literally flies backwards. And that's recoil. Oh my god! It's so big. Yeah. You're sitting on the ground. She's looking at that bill. It's really cool. Yeah, and there'd be like a pretty, like probably like a big spray of acid that we... No, it rains down acid. And massive shells. We don't have any umbrellas. I would say it is. Everybody's dead. No, it's 66 outside. Let's shot down. Alright, well, fun fact, you got to shoot that before I did. That's very funny. I'm really dangerous. Hell yeah, you are. See, Mila? Now, now we're sure that he's not going to hurt nobody no more. You know that he also hurt Tullbeck quite a lot for quite a long time, right, Tullbeck? More than you know. He was so mean, I was walking down the tunnel and he came out of the side and he said, hello, would you like a candy? And I said, no, I don't take candies from people. I don't know. And then I said, oh wait, you're that little bitch that got beat up in that little, in that little pit. And then he left on me. See, you were very brave and you even stabbed him, almost fatal. I did right and I just went, grrr, and then I dragged down. And Mila, I think that if you hadn't stabbed him, we wouldn't have been able to catch up with you. But am I in trouble because I used the bad word? Mila, you'll be in trouble when you do things intentionally malevolent. I did say it intentionally and in the bad word. But you were being brave and you were standing up to a bully. That is a very different thing and when you understand the difference, then you'll know that you weren't in trouble now. I felt really guilty afterwards. You ain't in trouble, kid, alright? You ain't in trouble. We just got to get you out of here. Right now we're standing next to a pile of acid and it's got dissolving in. I can't come with you home. And Mila's secret base is probably right above us, okay? This is the worst possible place to be having this conversation. At least in the neighborhood, alright? We need to get you back. Blarby's very worried about you too and we have to go back. Why do you think you can't go back? Hey, take a hit of this, by the way, alright? Just breathe in here. What are we? It's a breather. It's going to make you feel better, alright? Okay. And so, you know bad dreams? I'll cast cure wounds on her. With the breathing mask that I used to when we were going to go back. Okay, Mila, little one. Hey, dreams. It's all just fancy. It'll come true. And even if it was sort of a prophecy, you know, my uncle Globo, he used to have a saying about prophecy that it was like a treacherous woman. Actually, no, I shouldn't tell you that, son. It's not going to come true. It's nothing to be afraid of. Whatever you saw, it's just your mom playing tricks. And your mom's been through a lot over the last couple of days. So, it's hard to tell what's real. You don't have to worry about none of that. No matter what you saw, even if it was some sort of premonitions, we're going to take care of it. You know what? Everything's going to be alright. Remember, Mila, what I keep telling you? Everything's going to be okay. And if it's not, we're going to make it okay. There's six of us together. There's seven. We're blobbing. I hope I did the eight of us with Udi. Alright? But my dreams like to come true. And she looks to frost. Don't you or? We could start a fricking carnival. I'll be honest. I don't dream like you do, Mila. We have many shared experiences and I have had dreams, but... So, I'm just the broken one alone. No, no, that is not the case. Eventually, as you grow up, look, look, watch me, and I will lift her up and I will pull her. And for the last few moments that my magic lasts, I will float with her five, ten feet in the air, letting her experience this. I am able to do this because I've been able to get control over my abilities. And when we master these things, it's not broken. There's a tremendous power within you. Your clairvoyance, your ability to see through your dreams when you sleep, may feel like a burden now, and it may feel like you're looking at terrible things, but I promise you on the other side of that door, there's magic like this, you see? I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt any of you. You're my family. You're all I have now. Mila, when I get upset, I... Sometimes I lose control and I'll be honest. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt and shame when I... catch my friends in the crossfire. But there's a tremendous amount of trust between all of us. And you're still my friends. No matter how your powers sway you or what happens, I will still be your friend no matter what. You understand? And I promise you. I don't... I don't want to be in this world without you now. Come here. I'm gonna hug her. You don't have to be. As long as you stay with us. All right? No more running away. You will... You will keep Mila even though it is dangerous for you to do so? We keep all of each other even though it is dangerous to do so. We all have... our own dangers. And... I hope you want to keep me around just as much as I'm telling you that I want you around. You understand? No... Okay. Come on. I'm gonna land with her. I won't run away again, but you have to promise that you won't die. I promise not to die. Promise? Yes. Now, let's have this discussion when we're not directly underneath... By sludge. Yes. And the dead man. Yes. The smell is just out of control. Potentially whole, you know, mute monsters and all that. We should probably start heading back. But speaking of mean people and... Look, first of all, I'm not gonna let you hurt anybody, all right? And second of all... You won't die, Mr. Crummy. Well, I'm... You have to promise that you're not gonna die, Crummy. Let's say yes, man. She's a kid. Just say you're not gonna die. I promise... I will not die. However, unlikely that outcome may be. I'm really tired. Me too. I do have one question, Mila. During all of that, did you ever think about making Clegg's head explode? No, I thought about stabbing him in his butt cheeks. Did you ever, like, try to make his head explode? Or, like, you know, that... That... Moniah felt that, you know... I didn't... No. I don't try to make anyone's head explode. I got very, very scared. Did you feel the same kind of feelings? Yes, but it felt like I was underwater a little. All right. I'll make another of that. Good. You know, I never had someone walk me through it when I was Mila's age. I never had anyone focus me, and the outburst had been very chaotic. With some more mindfulness, perhaps, Mila, you might be able to more safely unlock one's intermagic. I'm gonna need you to make a log of every pill you took and the exact time you did over the last 48 hours for me, all right? Easy enough. No rush. It's getting the fuck out of here. I turn around. I just, like, start walking around. I have no idea where I'm going. I'm trying to head back to the fall. I'll wait. Torment, please! The moment that I see Mr. K. start to walk off, I would catch up and basically start to lead us back to the hellhole. Come on, Mila. Suddenly you feel a hand on your back of your collar as Super Clegg shows up. From Frontinia Boon Ninja Turtle 3. I would Molly walk that bitch. Oh my God. He would be picked a wrong motherfucker to mess with, okay? Oh no. I'd like to see him try. Come on, Mila. We don't have time for Super Clegg. We don't have time for Super Clegg. We don't have time for Super Clegg. We're still waiting for him. It's certainly not. It's time for bed. We'll have a Noshmin Noshsnack. Nathan just begins to rumble. Super Clegg right now. Oh, he's just rumbling. Oh no. We'll have a Noshmin Noshsnack. And that's it. Can I ride on your back? Of course. No. Gringo. Oh, you'll be my hider. I mean, you're tall and I am. But you're so strong. Okay. Here, I don't have to get down there. Okay. Yeah, because didn't I go on to have to jump? We hear a bone crick as he likes. She wraps her arms around your neck and clings on. And dangling there, she's about as tall as you are. Yeah, I mean, you know, okay. Here we go. Here we go. It's falling. It's falling. Just go back to the hell. Perfect place for a job. Nothing. We did it. And that, you led something. That was a snap when he landed. I'll never forget that sound. Oh man, I feel like my back's going to be like Clegg's after this. Oh, man. I'll follow Torback back to, yeah. And with that, Torback, you're able to easily lead the way back to the seven hells. And when, when you make it back, you see that the rest of the hell hounds have returned and Blarby rushes straight over to you. Tears streaming down her face as she veers directly towards you frost and just throws her arms around you as she begins to sob. Mila is very clearly fast asleep on Grico's back as for the sake of brevity, because you're right. It is 1146. The, um, the hell hounds specifically murder fang chats with you a bit. Um, is very happy to see that Mila's back, but calls off the rest of the hounds and orders for them to be quiet, give you the space that you need. They all hang out around outside as they begin to pass beers around and other, and other drinks and things. They build a big bonfire out here and begin to quietly celebrate Mila's return. Uh, and the, uh, five of you was seven of you. Um, Mila and Blarby included are able to make your way inside of the seven hells upstairs to the back room that you guys, uh, that you have all been, um, that you have all been occupying. Um, and you were able to, uh, find a quiet amount of respite even amongst the, um, even amongst the riotousness of the hell hounds. We finished telling, uh, the story of Torbac's unbelievable survival abilities and tracking the skills and how everything went down, uh, to Blarby. I would say, uh, it's not just me. Everyone's sort of chipping in now. They, uh, they contributed and she gets the whole story. At this point, Blarby's got, um, Mila on her lap. Mila has, it is drifting in and out of a peaceful sleep, but occasionally she wakes up to, um, interject about something. You can tell she's slowly expanding on the story, making it seem even more heroic, uh, even more adventurous, um, uh, very clearly, um, telling a tall tale, spinning a yarn. Oh yeah. By the time Mila is telling this story, I'm sure that she's doing it. I'm sure that she's doing like, uh, uh, martial arts and, and, and, you know, they're actually like shooting laser blasts. Yeah. Her, her and Clegg had a hand-to-hand combat at some point. He was incredibly weakened by the time that you guys got there. Um, but he had almost made it out before you were able to toss her the gun and she blew his head off before he plummeted into the acid. It sounds like crouching Leica and, uh, Leica and, uh, hidden Mila at that point. Mm-hmm. And, uh, all of this is happening and Blarbie's face is just an utter shock as she looks around. You let this child fire a gun? Yeah! Oh yeah. That's perfectly safe. Oh, what's that, Dan? That one offered five minutes. It matters, Dan. She went lost. I objected to it. Didn't matter. Oh man, she's got, she's got a little, yeah, I was young. I was young, I was young. I was young. I was young. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Yeah, popping a couple of crispy boys and firing guns. I mean, Uncle Globo taught me how to fire a gun like when I was eight. You're not, you're not, it's a bug. You know what? It's none of my business. I'm not, I'm not asking any questions on none of my business. She's here safely. You're all here safely. I'm exhausted. Oh, you can rest now. Oh, what, what, what are we going to do come tomorrow? Are we staying here? We heading back to the Starlight Lounge? Are we finally done with all of this so we can go home? It's just the beginning. Yeah, it's just the beginning. I think, I don't know, I gotta come with a plan. But I'll be honest, I don't think we discussed it tonight. Right now we know we're okay and even though there is a timer on our dealings, we would do well to rest and when we wake up our minds will be clear enough to think of the right plan. Yeah. Is that tomorrow? We got about 24 hours left. So we got time. Oh, 24 hours. That's just better than I thought, aye? And to your point, I don't have a plan to discuss right now. I'm still mulling it over. I'm just saying that we would mechanically benefit from such a charge. Yeah, I mean, it would be nice to get a long rest, aye? Oh, yeah. I think that was eating whole or like an hour or so. Exactly right. To my point, is it the left head or the right head of the rat stew that's lucky? I got the left head, I think, Emmy rat stew. Who told you that? I don't know. I think it was Doomhow. It sounds like Doomhow. Yeah, it was even the left head of the rat head what was lucky. We got a lot to learn, buddy. You ever get used to the smell of mildew living down here? Yes and no. Sometimes it's just not as bad as other times. Sometimes you block it out. Yeah. Well, either way, at least we have a day. We're gonna figure it out. The kid and I are gonna go in the corner. We're gonna get some sleep. Yeah, before we go to bed, Mila, I got you a bunch of stuff from the top. So I got a whole bunch of fancy doors up there on the things. Did you get me my very own gun? No, no, they wouldn't. I didn't have the papers. There's a lot of papers and regulations about getting a gun up there. They sold those at the hotel they would have. Yeah, exactly right. So I got you a few sets. This is all arranged. I talked to the people what worked at the tour store. And we got a Mark Friendly Lama Corn. Here we go. Wow, you're so rainbow. We got pumpkin patch pals. The kids are dancing a little creepy. I don't mean the kids apparently like it. Here we go. Okay, this is all arranged. I love it. Miss Mellonhead. Oh, and I can put things out of her butt and onto her face. Yeah, there was also a Miss Mellon's, but I don't think that was quite appropriate. I don't get this. I don't think I could ever solve this. This is a double Helix Doe Decahedron. Apparently this is for like all the smart kids. She grabs it and immediately solves it. Wow, that was incredible. Wait, Frosty, could you even beat that? I can try. Do I have to roll? Yeah, yeah, let's have a roll off. Oh, nice. Intelligence? Yeah. Street 15. Natural 16 plus your intelligence modifier. You are not faster than Mellon. Wow, that tracks. This is a slumpy. This is clearly for you. Slumpy. I am very good at this. Yes, it comes very naturally to you. It's slumpy. This is a slumpy. And I mean, it's like a membrane filled with ooze that kind of slumps down the stairs. It slumps so cute. Look at it. It feels like glitter and dolphins and stuff. Hold on. Let me, when you slap this slumpy, it goes faster. And she slaps it and it rolls down a bunch of barrels. That's gross. Very aggressive. That's really, that's really cool. And it was cool. Technically, they sent it to the boys toy, but he looks really cool. He looks like he's ready for some sort of war. It's elongate leg power. I've always wanted one of him. Yeah, look at his crud cut. Fuck that meme. Look at his crud cut. Look at his lead-up. It skips leg day. It's on the box. I love him. It skips leg day. He can help to protect her teeth. Oh, stretch arm. I gotcha. This is amazing. Just don't pierce it. If you pierce it, it'll be right on. And I got you, I got you, uh, his good friend Gun Havre. Aw. I can't believe that Gun Havre gets to have a gun. So Gun Havre, yeah, Gun Havre and elongate leg power up house. And then finally, it's a big old box. And uh, see, this is called Spooky Skitterers. How did you clip this all in the duffel? What's a big duffel? It's a big duffel. Spooky Skitterers, you bake a bunch of like gooey, creepy, crawly aliens. I take the box. You just get it right. Definitely. I take the box and I flip it over and I say, why is there a 100,000 watt light bulb in this? That'll burn the shit out of you. I don't know. I mean, it's for children. It's the time of red. It was a different time. I can't make, I can't wait to make some crawling cakes. You can make, look, look, there's even a bolt for long worm in there. That's amazing. It totally is. 100%. So anyway, I'll figure what we're probably going to go off, you know, taking care of business here and there. I feel like you would, you know, you need some toys. I mean, who do you, and you know, who do you miss? You too. I don't want to seem ungrateful, but on the back of the box, it says you can get the 286 flies collection that's got the trace for 286 flies. I mean, I kind of wasn't able to afford that. I didn't see that. I was hoping to see that. No, that's okay. Meala, Meala, look around. We've got 286 flies right here. Yeah. And there's a whole bunch of collectibles along with Gun Havre. They're not eatable. And we didn't have enough for Jair, but the account, and I know he was very, he was all sold out. Oh, I like him so much though. Yeah. I know he's got a tie and glasses. I mean, I love how all these nexus subsidiaries are just shameless. Look at Gun Havre's box, man. I'm going to just buy all our place, hit some toys. Yeah. I mean, right there on the package. Yeah. Anyway, I'll just, you know, get some sweet dreams. There's very thoughtful, Greg. If you have a dream that's nasty, this is nasty, things are going to happen. It's not real and it's not true. All right. Okay. Okay. I'm going to bet this has been a long, long day. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry I made your night order, but thank you for coming to get Mila. Mila, I know that it was a little difficult for you and that's you were upset and we had to put in the effort to find you and all these things, but I'm oddly grateful. I feel that you can truly trust us now. Don't do that again. You had us all terribly worried, please. But we're not angry. Thank you for not being angry. I was just trying to do good. We're glad, exactly right. We're glad you're safe. Now get some rest. We all are. And if you have a scary dream, don't run off into the night just let Blarby know. Let us know. We're here to come for you and make sure that you are stable. Don't forget before bed, medicine time, right? And I'll give Blarby back the meds. Medicine time and just a few sips, okay? She's... All right, then she knocks back a shot. Injection, but... And then she looks over to Blarby. Can you turn that shit out of the way right away? She's a fire gun. Oh, man, come on, Luxie. No, no, no, no. We're not doing that. It's not going down. Oh, fine. And Blarby looks to her. You know what time it is. And she goes, yeah, it's jelly bones. And then she just goes completely jelly, Blarby. Blarby does the injection. And then they snuggle up into bed and quickly falls asleep. That's a tough key. We have a campaign of science fiction where we have sciatic abilities, magic, a world made of technology, all of these layers, but the most unrealistic thing is that she would take her medicine immediately. It would be like getting a kid to brush her teeth. It would be impossible. What I would say is there would be promises and bargaining. It would go back and forth. No, any other night, that's exactly what would happen. But she feels horrible for what happened. So she is not going to jelly bones right away. All right. All right. This is probably the only night that this would happen. That's justified. Thank you. Is there anything else that you want to do before sleep? I hear one of them. Crispy. I've got play. And we paid for a night, lads. Come on. One night cap. One night cap. We all have a beer. Cheers. Hey. Cheers, lads. Cheers. Cheers for another night alive. Man. You all enjoy a nightcap and you settle down to sleep in the seven hells, unsure of what tomorrow holds. And frost, you dream. Immediately, the darkness of slumber turns to bright flashing red as a siren wails all around you. Roaring fire rages, casting shades of flame against bloodstained walls that had once been a sterile white. You peer from your hiding place, whimpering as tears run down your face. You glance down at your hands, at your body, and you're not much more than a child. You are filled with terror, but something possesses you to move. You creep forward as you see small pale feet pass you by, levitating off of the ground. Your head peeks out of the air duct as you see a human girl rip open a dinosaur door with her mind. The lab around you has been completely destroyed and the floor is littered with the corpses of many scientists. The girl stops for a moment as she notices you behind her. All you can see is her brunette hair as it shrouds her profile from view. And then she turns to look at you before drifting off into the green lights of the undercity. And the face you see is shockingly familiar. The teenage face that stares at you with eyes filled with hatred is unmistakably an older version of Mila. And that is where we'll end the session. What the hell? Uh huh. What? Uh huh. Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Far, no.