The Listening Club TTRPG Special - Episode 2

Billy here, the voice of Alice in the Magnus Protocol, and today I'm here to tell you about the Magnus Archives Mysteries. Immerse yourself in the world of the Magnus Archives with the Magnus Archives Mysteries, a cooperative puzzle and deduction board game from the designer of the Magnus Protocol Mysteries. Become an interim archival assistant and help John, Martin, Tim and Sasha uncover the truth behind six new supernatural mysteries. Perfect for fans of escape rooms, the Magnus Archives' mysteries can be played at home by superfans and new listeners alike. No previous knowledge required. Crowdfunding for the game begins on the 9th of March on Kickstarter. Go to www.rustyquill.com forward slash mysteries to find out more and to sign up for notifications as soon as the project goes live. That's rustyquill.com forward slash mysteries. Thanks for listening. Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista are going completely out in the hilarious new action film The Wrecking Crew, inbegrepen by Prime. Damn pumped. Find the new Game of Thrones series A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, based on the bestseller of George R.R. Martin. Watch by being a member of HBO Max. So be brave, be just. So what you also seek, Prime Video, here you watch everything. Abonnement is revised. Inhoud can have content. 18+. The general requirements are of use. Hi everyone, Helen here, the voice of Azu, Enola and Laverne. Today, I'm here to tell you about Malevolent, a podcast launched on the RQ Network. Malevolent is a weekly horror fiction podcast filled with dark, noir, eldritch horror. Arkham private investigator Arthur Lester wakes up with no memory of who he is or what has happened, only a nameless, eerie voice guiding him through the darkness. Blind, terrified and confused, his journey will lead him towards a series of mysteries in the hopes of understanding the truth of what has transpired. As cosmic horrors seep into the world, Arthur must ask himself whether this entity truly seeks to help him, or are its intentions more malevolent? Search for Malevolent wherever you listen to your podcasts, or visit www.rustyquill.com or www.malevolent.ca for more information. Have fun and see you later. And with me, we have... It's Laurie! It's Laurie! And Laurie, who are you playing in The Listening Club? I am playing Elodie Jones. Anusha, hello. Who are you playing? Hello, Johnny. I am playing Margot Maria Bradley. Hello, Ian. Who are you playing? I am playing the redoubtable Alphonse Platt. And finally, Pip, who are you playing? Hello, I will be playing Barry Knapp. Brilliant. So, to recap all our nonsense last episode, everyone is playing a group of just normal people who gather together occasionally to listen to the horror fiction podcast, The Armitage Library. You have all come together to listen to episode 100 that has just released. You have just listened to the eponymous narrator, Arthur G. Neville, as he confronts the beast that's been stalking him for all four seasons, a terrifying creature of hair and blood. It travels through drain pipes and sort of snakes up. It's basically sort of a sentient, gory, clogged drain. Oh, no. He has apparently killed it forever, but there was a little postscript that was like, but maybe not. And so you are currently deep in discussion of this episode and indeed the episodes and the arcs that have led up to it. I will say there is usually a fifth member of your group, June, who has not joined you today. What is June like? She's nice, quite organised. She was actually the one who originally gathered the group together and suggested you all meet up. But she's lovely. Sort of on the short side, a little bit bubbly, but the bubbliness kind of hides a certain... She's quite stressed a lot of the time. She works very hard. But, yeah, she always makes the meetings. So we've just finished listening. You know, the Armitage Library was produced by Mouldy Pencil Productions. It's distributed under, et cetera, et cetera. Gosh, quite a lot of food for thought in that one, hey? Elodie is getting her... Well, her laptop is already out with the spreadsheet up so that she can start logging some details to cross-reference the episodes. Which episode do you think was a really good payoff for? Oh, 37. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's the episode that he first encounters, the drain clog monster, right? They call it Mr Clot. Oh, don't they? Must they? Yeah. It's pretty gross. It's a pretty gross podcast. Good for them. I just don't know why they just don't kill it, right? Because it's obviously not dead, is it? No, it's very much not dead. So Alphonse is just doodling away on a pad, making strange shapes with her inkwell. But, you know, we need to get the payoff. I mean, that was somewhat of a payoff, But obviously, you know, there's going to be another season, right? So we can't be killing it now because they're going to need it in season five. It's going to make a comeback, obviously. What I can't tell is whether this is meant to be the big bad of the entire thing or whether there's something else hidden beneath. And the way they keep killing it off and bringing it back, killing it off, it's like, it's getting too obvious now, you know? Exactly. I get it. It's an immortal amoeba. Barry will return from... I'm picturing us in a cafe. I was also picturing cafe. Yeah, maybe like a 50s diner-style booth. Oh, sweet. Barry is returning from a counter with a tray with everyone's drink orders on it, and we'll sort of put that down and start handing them over to people. I think Margo's on to something there, actually, because it's not... Like, it's a big, hairy sort of blood monster, right? But, like, who's behind the creature is what I'm wondering, because there's got to be more to it than that. Like, where's it from? Did somebody, like... It's summoned, right? Somebody has to have summoned it. Exactly. There have been so many hints that there's something beyond it. Exactly, right? That's my point, exactly. Puppeting it? I don't know. Interesting that you were talking about someone being behind it. Elegy's going to turn her laptop around so everyone can see the screen and start a presentation. So I was cross-referencing all of the prime-numbered episodes the other day. And the monster, or at least this person... Bing bong! The little email chime. And it looks like you've had an email from June. It's Ray, upcoming meet. Oh, great. The latest message just reads, need to see you now, urgent, quick. It's been sent to all of you. Ellie's laptop is where you can see it, but if you check your phones, you have all received this message. Hmm. That's strange. I mean it isn like her to miss a meeting I immediately just text back like where are you Yeah you can send that message A few minutes pass and there no immediate response Sit and wait. I'm going to try and ring her. Yeah. Yeah, good call. Check she's not in trouble. Hi, this is June. Sorry, I'm really very busy at the moment. If you leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks. Hi, June, this is Margot. We just got your email. We just got your messages. Is everything all right? Over. That's kind of how she always ends messages whenever she leaves. Even in text. Over. It's kind of become a little bit of a joke between her and June. There's no location on this email, right? No. It looks like all the other emails that she has sent, which she normally sends from her computer. Do any of you know June other than through the listening club? How old is she and what kind of work does she do? Mid-30s. She does, like, audio stuff. She works a lot with corporate clients doing voiceover editing for adverts. I think she's probably done an ad, right, for the accountancy firm that Elodie works for. Yeah. So in which case, Elodie will probably have been over to her house once or twice because she has a little home studio. You do know where she lives. It's near. It's near. It's a short bus ride away. I mean, that is not like her. My laptop's got plenty of charge. We can just do this on the bus if we want to hop over there. Yeah, let's. I think that's a good shout. Yeah, I think we should do that. Can we get these to go? Yeah, I'll get them in. I'll put them all back on the tray and take them over to the cabin. Get them all transferred into... Alphonse has already drained his black coffee. The barista is like, yeah, OK. Yeah, sorry, mate. Oh, and maybe get a marker for June. Does the barista here like you? You know what? I'm going to ask for a roll. It's going to be a level four challenge. It's an intellect challenge. Is there any way I can help? I actually did write down that Margo is a barista. Oh, okay, yeah. Do you have any sort of skills that might assist? I've got performance. A combination of performance and barista solidarity. Lower that to a nine. Great, okay. Oh, gosh. I don't know if a natural 20 is a thing in this game, but I've rolled a full 10. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The baristas are all really nice to you because you're pretty sure the manager is into you. she's always just behind the counter like just not giving you the eye obviously but maybe just giving you the eye the brister almost rolls his eyes when you ask for them all to be put into takeout cups and then gives a sort of look over to the manager who is staring at him steely faced you can get all your coffees to go cheers you hop on the bus it's the number 42 going to didsbury just dropping in that that little local flavor that uh it's very important i think for authenticity purposes and yeah two pounds each it's b network it's pretty good and 15 minutes later you are stood in front of so june has a flat it's a three-story building with a front door with four doorbells on it i mean obviously elodie will remember which one it is because she's very organized oh yeah yeah yeah you know it's the third one down yeah buzz well there is no immediate response i'll buzz a different flat a neighbor what are you doing well it's Hello, hi. So sorry to intrude on your day. I'm trying to get hold of June. I'm a little bit worried about her and she's not answering her door. June, your neighbour, your upstairs neighbour. The one who always asks you to keep the music down because she's recording. Oh, yeah. She dead? No, but could I come in? I've got a package for her. Thank you. Actually, wait, hang on. I'm going to ask you. I like package. I am going to ask you to roll. You need a six. Level two. That's a twelve. Twelve? Yeah. Great. And yeah, the door buzzes and you can head on inside. She's on the second floor. Great. Straight up. So yeah, head up. It's a pretty new build house so it's got quite a sturdy fire door on the front. No windows, nothing like that. Just a little number three on it. Knocking? No response to a knock. And the door is shut, right? It's closed, yeah. Well. We'll sort of look inquisitively at Margot. So I know I didn't select it specifically as a skill, Jonathan, but can I try and pick the lock, please? Oh, you didn't take lock picking, did you? No, I picked pickpocketing, but I think it would still be vague. You too picked pickpocketing by the way. Vaguely within her bailiwick. All right, all right. Well, it is, I'll be nice. It's an internal lock. It's a very standard Yale, so it'll be a level four, so you need a 12. It'll be on speed. Do you want to spend any of your speed to boost it? Yeah, I think I will. So if you spend three points of your speed pool, you can lower that to a six. Oh, I got exactly a 12. God damn it, I didn't need to lower it. Hey, okay. What are you using? Describe yourself lockpicking. It looks like the kind of thing that would be used on stage for lockpicking tricks, but it is very, very functional as a standard lockpicking kit at the same time. That was a success. You have successfully locked the door. Did we not... Did no one before I... You can unlock it again. Is that not 101 of lockpicking is... Yeah, no, it wasn't locked. It wasn't locked before you started. To be marginally less cruel, you spend a while tinkering with it and then you realise it is unlocked. whether you tell other people this or whether you are like, I've done it. That's up to you. That's up to Margot. She doesn't say a thing. She's kind of embarrassed. As far as anyone else is concerned, Margot has just successfully done a master bit of lockpicking. Elodie is very uncomfortable about this. I'm not sure if we're breaking into her house. It's fine. And you're the one they heard on the intercom. That comes straight to you. Oh, God, Alfonso, you're right. Oh, God. No, it's fine. Look, we're checking up on a friend. that's all stride into the flat you push the door open inside it is quiet the lights are not on and it's still daytime but the curtains and the blinds have been drawn there's a certain gloom a certain dinge inside the main hallway of the apartment it's quite narrow elodie as the investigator you notice that june's keys are still in the little bowl so it doesn't look like she's left so elodie's been here before. Has anyone else visited June before? I think maybe once. Like, to inquire about some audio stuff. You'll know that there's standard bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, combination room, and a spare bedroom that June uses as a recording studio. All the doors are currently shut. June? June, it's Listening Club! Hello? No response. I think I'd start knocking on the doors. No response. Just going to grab a handle and open. Which of the three doors do you go for Ian? One, two or three? Right, because I don't know what they are, I'm gonna go for two. You open it, small bit pokey bathroom, shower cubicle, toilet, pretty standard. You don't immediately see anything out of the ordinary. Also June's not in there. No, no June. Is there a particular place where she keep her laptop where she would have sent the email from She usually works in her recording studio It kind of doubles up as an office Sure I think I check there then Opening the door to the recording studio it is slightly darker in here than the other rooms because she has a pair of thick soundproofing curtains over the window that are currently pulled closed. The light is currently turned off, so the only light is currently spilling in from the hallway, and it illuminates an unlit desk and a large sort of high-backed office chair that is currently turned away from you with a pair of headphones sort of just kind of hanging off the side. I feel like I need to check if there's anything in this office chair. Are you turning the lights on first or are you rotating the office chair first? So I put the torch on on my phone and I kind of pull the sleeves of my very big jacket over my hands so I'm like putting fingerprints on as little as possible. And I go up and I kind of like, I don't push it or anything, I just kind of look around the edge of the chair very, very slowly. There is nobody there. You do notice in the torchlight, it takes you a second to recognise them. They are Sony Minidisc players, which you recognise as the iconic media storage device used in the Armitage Library. All the horrible ghost stories are all recorded onto Sony Minidisc. I might come into the room, like, after Bargo, and immediately, just kind of almost offhandedly, pick one of these up and just at random and press play yep it's kind of garbled audio nonsense as far as you can tell it's a bit unpleasant to listen to how many are there 12 sort of small portable ones and two slightly larger units that will be used for recording i take a photograph of them and consider gathering them up but i'd want to check other rooms for june first as you're looking around barry have you turned the light on yeah i think i will do now that we're sort of both in the room looking at these mini displays i'll flick the light on yeah you notice that the light is slightly reflecting off one of the inner ear cups of the pair of headphones dangling over the end they're the sort of big thick wired headphones your sort of old school audiophile style and you will notice if you look closely that the left ear cup on the inside it's shiny with a with a slightly viscous dark liquid i'll pick the headphones up by the connecting band and lift turn the angle and see if any of whatever this is drips out there's not enough for it to drip okay it's hard to tell what it is could be blood could be anything that's not blood good to narrow it down. Everything in the world could be blood or not blood, Johnny. I'll very tentatively just reach out and dab it with a finger and then bring it to the light. I'm very inquisitive and I'd like to know what it is. It's red. You think it might be blood? I'll sort of put them down on the desk. I'm going to take a photo of it. Meanwhile, Elodie, where are you and Alphonse looking? I will have a look through the kitchen living room area and I'm basically looking for signs of where she might be did she leave in a hurry and potentially in the back of my mind being like do we need to call the police or something bedroom is a lot more chaotic than you'd associate with june but not in a suspicious sort of way you just think that this is maybe the room where she keeps all her chaos elodie has a cupboard where she keeps her chaos no one's allowed to see in there she was clearly working on some stuff around the podcast she's got a whole bunch of old transcripts of bits highlighted and circled. This is clearly where she does a lot of the work that she brings to the listening club. You're an investigator, so I'm going to say you do notice that on a couple of the more recent transcripts that she's been going through, she has quite heavily circled the public address of Mouldy Pencil Productions. Alphonse, looking through the kitchen and living room, you can't see anything immediately like... There's no body, there's no splatter of gore. It looks like the food in the fridge is fresh. It looks like she was here until pretty recently. Okay. Although none of the appliances show any use of immediate use. You know, the kettle's not warm, anything like that. On the small coffee table in the living room is an open letter that just reads, Dear June, thank you for getting in touch. We really appreciate it. Please find what you requested enclosed. A-G-N. I'm going to look in the envelope. Is there anything enclosed in there? No, it's a slightly bigger envelope than you would expect from an A5 letter. But whatever was in there, it's not in the envelope or on the table currently. Yeah, so gang. Huh? She got a letter from Arthur. She got writing to him. Oh, she's been highlighting Maldi Pencil Productions' address as well. I'm actually quite impressed with the level of... Sorry, anyway. I think maybe I'm just going to give them a call. Is there a phone number for Moldy? I'm going to Google to look for a phone number for Moldy Pencil Productions. Elodie, they have an email address. They have social media handles. They don't have a public-facing phone number, from what you can see. I will say you can send whatever email you like. You will receive what seems like an automated holding email. And if you get a response, you would not expect to be getting a response within the next few days. One of my skills is tracking. Can I argue that I could find an illegal website or something? Absolutely. Could you make me an intellect role? I'd say you probably need a nine, but I'll lower that to a six because of your tracking. Great. 13. They don't have anything immediate in their public facing stuff, but there's all sorts of official documentation that you have to file to be a company. That is stored various places is that if you know where to look, you can find it. And you can indeed find a phone number that is the official phone number that has been given to various regulatory bodies and official organisations for Mouldie Pencil Productions. I mean, she's calling that. I'm just calling Mouldie Pencil Productions. Just so everyone knows what she's doing. Good, I'm going to check this laptop. This number is not in service. This number's not in service. Great, there's a laptop. So, incidentally, your researchers into Moldy Pencil, they have a lot of, like, behind-the-scenes photos. They apparently have about 12 people working for them, all of which have, like, a really nice sunny profile about how much they just love listening and microphones. From the page, it looks like they've got, like, quite a nice little office space. And you can open up the laptop. There is a password screen. Do you want to take a crack at what the password might be? Yeah. Give me a pitch of four passwords Margot might try. Okay. Does the password have to be a particular length? No. I think she would try testing, testing, one, two, three. As in typing out? Yeah. No. Not mouldy pencil, mouldy pen, because that would throw people off. Nope, not mouldy pen. This is my password, kind of upper and lower case to... Nope. And I think she try I love llamas 27 June does love llamas but that not the password I give you an intellect roll You only need a nine Do you have any skills that might help I mean I got an intellect edge of one Yep. You can lower it to a six for two points if you want. I've got discerning motive. Isn't this also lockpicking, but just electronic? Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I was going to give you discerning motive, but Ian ruined it by trying to get lockpicking. So for being cheeky, no, you don't have the skill. I will let you spend two intellect points. I wasn't even cheeky. That wasn't on me. No, but Ian was cheeky on your behalf. As a team? Collective punishment, as expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention. I'll spend two instead of three, because I have my edge. So you need a six. And that is a 17. Nice. 17, perfect. It's Armitage, but the A is a four. Oh, okay. A lot of her stuff is to do with work. You are very clearly breaking quite a few NDAs looking through her laptop, but a lot of her recent internet searches, there's a lot to do with Maldi Pencil Productions. A lot of address searches and trying to find out a location. It seems like she doesn't think that their official address is their real address. She's searching a lot of stuff about audio distortions, audio strange thing, aspects of the audio, sit like on various message boards seeing if anyone else has come across anything and she recently downloaded what seems to be a sort of audio cleanup program like a custom piece of audio cleanup software i'm gonna choose one and i'm gonna give it a listen that's just listening to it like straight off the minidisc i'm showing my age here by asking how minidiscs work okay so minidiscs they're like is it like a record where you can take it out, flip it over, you've got to... No, they're like little CD cartridges that you use to slot into a player. So more like a cassette tape? Like imagine a cassette tape but there's a CD in it? Oh no, no, nothing like a cassette tape. Nothing like a cassette tape. I wouldn't draw that parallel at all. Of course. Completely different. Cassette tapes you can turn around and have a difference so it's not that. They are digital rather than analogue but they are digital physical media. I thought I might have some here but I can't find them. For those listeners who weren't around, And the next big audio storage tech after CDs was mini discs, which were these like little sort of CD cassette things. Oh, okay. That were very much pitched as the next big thing. And they are a fun little bit of obsolete technology. In terms of using them, they are similar to a tape or a CD, but they are digital media. So you can't really, you can't like wind them like you can with a tape. Okay. I think she'd go through and listen to all of them. They're all a bit garbled, but you do notice one of the larger sort of player recorder units does have a cable coming off it, which has been plugged into what looks like a USB adapter. Okay, I'd like to plug in the USB to the laptop and see what comes up. It looks like it's taking the audio from the mini disk and converting it into a file that can be fed into the various audio programs on the laptop. Okay, I'd like to try and retrace the steps that June is taking here and see what programs she has, see what I can feed into what. Yeah, the most recently used program, it's called Open Ear, a custom program designed to sort of de-scramble and de-noise audio. Currently, you can do it, and it definitely looks like it has done something to the audio track off the mini-disc. Whatever it is, it's coming out of the headphones, though. I'm staying far away from the headphones, but I'm turning the volume on the laptop up to where I could just about hear what's coming out of the headphones and I'm pressing play. So I can just about hear if it's garbled or not. It's definitely not garbled. There are definitely words and something slightly weird about the way the words sound but you can't make it out. I press stop and I call the others in. Come in. I'm holding this envelope but I'm coming in. When everyone's there I explain about the headphones that according to Barry have blood on them I explained about this process that June has been going through trying to clear up some audio on these discs. There are coherent words coming out of the tracks that are able to be listened to and made sense of. But I'm very concerned that if I listen to them too closely or too loudly and I kind of just gesture at the headphones as a case in point, that could be blood, this could be bad. I don't know how to proceed at this point. Does anyone have ideas? She might just be hurt, right? Like, it's suspicious, but... I feel like something in this might have... I kind of flick my own headphone to... Right. What, like in the show? Yeah, like in that one episode? Yeah, I know the one you mean. It's a good one, but... 24, yearworm. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, there was an episode where there was a ghost that basically reached out of the receiver of a phone into your ear and squirged your brain. Maybe not that exactly Yeah, Alphonse goes over And puts the headphones on Is it still playing? They're covered in blood Oh, well that's unhygienic They're not covered in blood There is a little bit of blood on them Alphonse has put the headphones on It's a bit blood That's awful Yeah, I'll try to warn you as you go over Oh, nasty And we will find out what Alphonse is Next episode Thank you all very much for joining us for this most second episode of The Listening Club Magnus Archives tabletop roleplaying game. We will see you next week. Bye-bye! The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International License. To subscribe, view associated materials, or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. Rate and review us online, tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us via mail at RustyQuill.com. Thanks for listening. The End In the mountains of central Appalachia, blood runs as deep as these hollers and just as dark. Since before our kind knew these hills, hearts of unknowable hunger and madness have slumbered beneath them. These are the darkest mountains in the world. How dare we think we can break the skin of a god and dig out its heart without bringing forth blood and darkness. Old Gods of Appalachia is a multi-award winning, critically acclaimed audio drama podcast. Old God sits alongside this very podcast as one of the most popular fiction podcasts in the world. Experience it for yourself by searching for Old Gods of Appalachia wherever you listen to your podcasts. Or go to www.rustyquill.com or www.oldgodsofappalachia.com for more information.