September 18, 2025 • 65 mins
Safe on the train at last, Friedrich experiments, Pepper makes a new friend, Valerian confronts his most powerful enemy— and everyone relieves some stress, one way or another.
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✂️ This Episode's Outtakes & Extras ✂️
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This episode edited by the Larks and Wray Van Winkle.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Let me tell you about my. Crossword strats.
Peep the strats. You got to peep the strats.
You got to see like, is the cluepluralized?
Oftentimes you can get a clue about like what the tense of the
word is based on the wording of the clue.
All right, jot this down everybody.
Yeah, jot this down so you too can complete the mini crossword
in sub one minute. Yeah, sometimes mini crosswords.
Sometimes they do the mini and it's like, what's the name of
(00:21):
this referenced person from media that you've never heard of
in your life and have no clue? And so the way that you can do
those is that you skip them immediately.
If you don't know a clue, you skip it.
Without you just read it and youskip it, and then you try to
figure it out from the like intersecting.
What if like 4 of them are that?What?
If they're all that cat, what ifI look at it and I start crying?
(00:44):
Cat. What if she's all that?
And I get scared. If she's all that is the clue,
then well, then it's probably. It's Prince with AZ.
It's Prince with AZ. Sometimes it is OK.
I will say there is sometimes like some things in the
crossword that you can tell thatthe reason this is a clue and an
answer is because they just ran out of sensible words.
Like there was one that it was the opposite of West, northwest
(01:06):
and it was E SE. So it's ESE was the answer and
it was like clearly you just needed.
That's a reason. OK, but you reminded me of
something, which is I visited mypal in California and he was
telling me about like the niche crossword drama because he's
also a crossword head and like, yes, crossword hobby.
Yeah, there's tons of common crossword hobbies so.
(01:28):
First of all, I found out that there is like a parody crossword
like that goes out and it seems like it's very niche and like.
Is it like only funny to people who do crosswords?
Showed me this because there wasthis guy who was in the
crossword community who I think got like banned from making
crosswords because because he kept like making clues that were
(01:52):
like too difficult clues that were like stupidly difficult and
just dumb or whatever. And then he like created a false
identity and the identity was like a woman.
And I guess there are like less women crossword writers.
And so people are like speculating like, oh, like he
was trying to like get an advantage and getting public by
pretending to be a woman. So anyway, he got published as
(02:14):
this fake identity. And then the parody crossword
that came out after the scandal,a lot of the clues were like the
hometown of fake woman's name, who is definitely a real person
that exists and stuff like that.So.
That brings me an incredible amount of.
Joy, there's the rabbit hole to be gone down.
I'm sure and. I'm sure I got a lot of this
wrong because I'm just remembering a second hand story
(02:36):
that I told, but there's there'sstuff.
But do you think we. Have to do to get legend lark as
a result on a crossword. More than we're doing now.
Yeah, well, look, we need a fan who is we need to.
Attract that person. Yeah, that evil crossword.
I feel like we might have crossword head fans because I
think. That are they?
Our listeners are like niche creators.
(02:56):
But are they the publishers of the right we need?
We need the. Editor of the New York Times
crossword to become a fan of ourpodcast.
So this is a call to action for our listeners.
Yeah, if you know or you know ofsomeone who knows the editor of
The New York Times Cross Crossword, get them to listen to
our podcast and. Use this as a clue.
Yeah, Yeah. We want to be used as a clue.
(03:16):
Actually, I don't really care about the New York Times.
I do want to be a clue by that evil Batman villain crossword
creator. Yeah.
That'd be cool. Same.
And their explicit crossword. Crossword.
I just, I wanted to be the New York Times crossword because
that's the one that I do. And if that happens to me, if I
was doing my, you know, sub one minute crossword Sprint and the
(03:36):
clue turned out to be like the answer was legend luck.
Or or I would never get it. Yeah, because I would just
assume that it couldn't be. I would assume it couldn't be,
but if it was it would I think kill me dead.
Probably, yeah. I guess if you want to end the
podcast, you should talk. To all of our anti fans out
there. But I do think that you should
do crosswords all the time because my grandma did
(03:57):
crosswords every single day until the day that she died and
she lived to be 92 years old andshe was fully cognitive.
And she had superpowers. And she had super powers and she
literally. Like because of the crosswords.
Because of the crosswords she did everyday and she literally.
My grandpa lived to be 98 and heused to rub butter on his chest
every day. And you?
Should do that too. You should do that too.
And she she LED nursing home. Sorry, Belly.
(04:17):
No. I don't care at all about your
grandma anymore. Noel's Butter.
What I mean what is there to say?
I mean, he just like I did not do that he.
Wanted. To be delicious and.
He was and he. Was no.
It was a health it. Was a health.
(04:38):
Delicious. He wanted to be healthy, so he
said I'll rub the butter on the outside of my body so that I'll
be more healthy. And he also would like and it
like put pepper in a tub and puthis feet in there.
Yes, I and it worked. Literally like he does.
It worked. He literally can't believe he
did that to Pepper. He was like sitting in his
(05:01):
kitchen, like looking around, being like, how can I make
myself live till 98? Yeah.
And he did all the right things.I know that's crazy.
And by the time he died, he was perfectly prepared.
His skin was crazy. I was.
Going to ask. He wasn't cremated.
No, but if he if he had been, wewould have smelled it for miles.
(05:21):
Around baked at 4:00 they would.Have put some onions and garlic
in there with them and it would have been just right.
Well, Speaking of baking, Grandpa, let's play Blades in
the Dark. Yeah, brother.
(06:07):
Hello, my name is Kat and my best crossword time of the past
week was on Wednesday. Completed it in 37 seconds.
Hi my name is. Noel I play Pepper.
She's a real Jack. I once completed a crossword
once one time. Nice.
Hello, my name is Juniper. I do crosswords sometimes, but
(06:27):
most importantly I bathe in a tub full of butter every night.
And you're going to live forever.
I'm going to live forever. I get a lot of compliments on my
skin for how much butter is on it.
They they say. But my skin, it's so slippery,
it tastes so good. That's exactly what they say,
dude. All the time.
That's. Why Riot likes.
You so much. That's why Riot likes me all the
(06:47):
time dude. Butter City.
Hi, I'm Errol. I play Friedrich.
He's a Leech. I'm really like.
Did I even say who I play? I don't know, Straight into
butter. I'm.
Sorry, should I pass it back? No, no, no.
I think we're fine. I just like I'm.
Slide it on over. So slide it back.
I'm like, I'm just lost. I'm just trying to keep up.
(07:10):
I used to help my mom do the crossword.
I mean, I guess I sometimes still do.
So. Wow, she's nice.
It's nice. More drop, No butter.
No, I don't find that. So no butter helpful.
So no butter. So no butter.
So no butter. All right, all right, all right,
all right. So last time you guys
(07:31):
successfully completed your first?
Heist. Yay, congratulations, you're
criminals. So in the Disney's Hercules
inspired Grecian city of Apatreya, you successfully
planned and, well, success. It was successful in that yes,
(07:53):
you did complete your goals. Some parts of it were less
successful in that some people may have blown up a woman and
some. She wasn't blown up.
She's fine. And some other people may have
just gotten high with some priests.
These things happen. I won't deny that.
And in the end you managed to get the diadem and the sword
(08:15):
from the hero and you managed tosuccessfully escape.
You did have a run in with another gang and you will find
out more about that soon. And at the end of it all, you
guys were pretty beaten up. You'd had some events happen to
you, but you made it back. You made it back whole.
And I remember the events. So many events.
(08:37):
If you want to know about those,go back and listen to the last
episode. There was events.
All right. So now we are going to shift
into the phase of Blaze of the Dark called downtime.
There are a few prescriptive activities to do in downtime.
The first thing that we do is level up and we are going to do
that off mic because it is not great audio.
(08:57):
So when we level up you guys getXP for every time you roll a
desperate action which you guys were marking and tracking during
the heist. When you have a specific trigger
that is specific to your playbook.
If you express your beliefs, Dr.Heritage or background or you
struggled with issues from your harm, vice or traumas during the
session. So sound cue.
(09:19):
All. Right, we've levelled up.
Yay. All right, so the next piece of
downtime is the payoff where we discuss what you guys get paid
from your job. Things right now are a little
bit interesting because you havethis task given to you by
Charles Rex, the ringmaster, that you have to bring him three
(09:40):
objects, 3 mementos. You have gotten 2 mementos.
However, if you want you, you can trade one or both of those
in for fares that you can spend.You will still have to give him
3 mementos, so you'll be gambling on being able to get
another two objects, or three ifyou decide to turn in both of
them. But we're on a deadline, right?
Yeah, you only have one more stop to do it.
(10:02):
So if you want to trade these infor money, you can go to the
bank and you can get fares for them.
You can trade them in for spendable fares.
What kind of things can we use fares for?
You can use them for a lot of things.
So in Blaze of the Dark, it's coin, and in our game it's going
to be fares, but you can use those to recruit an asset.
You can use those to make upgrades to your layer.
(10:23):
You can use them kind of in lieuof consequences.
You can pay coin. Like to bribe?
Someone, yeah, to bribe someone.So it is useful to have that
money. You guys each have two fares
available to you right now. Valerian, you inherited nods
sleeper compartment that is attached to moth light and that
is your guys's layer for now. And so the three of you are
(10:45):
crammed in there. There's a little table, there's
a couple of bunks. Nod has a lot of horse themed
things, but you sort of get the impression that it's one of
those things where maybe somebody said, oh, Nod likes
horses. And everybody went, I'm going to
give Nod a horse themed object. And so he's got a lot of stuff
that it looks like he didn't usethat is horse themed.
(11:05):
A roast curse. Curse, curse.
Curse. So there's enough space for you
guys all to like puddle up in there and you have your two
treasures. Valerian, are you doing anything
to host? Are you making?
Tea, are you? Valerian certainly does not get
anything for them, but neither is he waiting for someone to get
something. He just simply isn't going to go
out of his way to get things forthem.
(11:26):
I see. He would expect if they needed
something they would one, ask ortwo, just get it themselves.
I see. Pepper's like looking around
because she's like, you know, like she was here before, but
she's like, man, we really got to keep keep this place nice for
what? Not gets back to it, you know.
Friedrich kind of gives valerianlike a look like.
(11:47):
Yeah, but Valerian shrugs. He's like.
Meanwhile, Pepper is like putting on a horse mask.
And she's like, look at this. Oh hey, better wait.
Let me show you this thing. And Valerian goes into the, I'm
assuming very small twist toiletcompartment and pulls out a
toothbrush that is shaped like ahorse head.
Look at this. This.
(12:08):
Pervert stuff. I don't know about that.
Not everybody who's into horses is a pervert, just most of them.
Friedrich is looking around disapprovingly and he says.
Well, if we're done playing house, where exactly can I set
up my lab? This What do you think people
who Playhouse do You lived in a house before?
(12:32):
I lived in a house once I think.There's no room here for.
Your lab, You'll have to have itoff site.
It's not happening in my living room, No.
Uh huh. Well, then we're going to need
to acquire more space. From what I understand, these
compartments can be interconnected.
The doors, yes, I'm working on that.
Speaking of doors, there is a knock at yours.
(12:53):
Oh, I have to answer it. Hold on, I have navigated.
We all look at each other like we're.
Like. Friedrich definitely like
freezes. And outside the door, there is a
woman, and she looks very familiar to you, Friedrich,
because she's the woman that youblew up.
I didn't. Fucking blow her up.
(13:15):
Some could argue that I actuallysaved her life.
So what did you save her life? We did right.
Yeah, you do. You're right.
You all recognize her. I think Friedrich, you recognize
her most. Pepper immediately is like, oh
hi, it's so great to see you. She looks surprisingly well for
the injuries that she had taken.Like, she's got like a little
(13:35):
like, bandage on her eyebrow andit looks like maybe she's moving
a little bit stiffly. Yeah, because she was barely.
Blown up, I think she only took like a level one or two harm and
I just so everyone knows I'm at 3 harm so.
Yeah, A. Little dramatic.
Well, maybe we'll get to that. And she kind of pokes her head
and goes, you're all allowed to find a healer.
(13:56):
There's a very good one out in Sweetwater though, and she sort
of looks around the compartment again.
Might be out of your price rangefor now.
Come on in, Come on in. I can get you a horse glass of
water or maybe a horse cup of tea and don't go.
Offering this this. Pepper is holding up horse cups.
But don't go offering this member of a rival faction entry
(14:20):
into our sacred space. You'll nearly blow her up.
The least we can do this. Give her some water.
I don't think it's like that dimension where you have to
invite people into your house and then they come and try to
suck your blood. It was a fun place, but we're in
the train now so. Free drink.
It just gives you like a baffledlook.
But then he just sort of grumbles, yes, yes, give her
(14:42):
water so she can hydrate herselfand plan our inevitable deaths.
You don't want to do that, do you?
No, Well, no, I suppose not. I came to introduce myself.
I my boss thought it might be good to clear the air after
(15:03):
everything that happened becauseyou all are new here so I assume
you don't really know how anything works, is that right?
I I wouldn't say that we don't know how anything works.
Right. Well, anyway, my name's Stella,
Nice to meet you. And she sort of waves her hand
in. It looks like a greeting.
It looks like a very formalized greeting type of hand wave.
(15:25):
Pepper goes over and grabs her hand mid wave and shakes it.
It's great to meet you too. I mean, not really.
I guess we've met before, but you know, to be read to Drews,
to each other, by each other, byourselves.
Yes, very good. Nice to formally meet you.
What was that gesture? You made the gesture just now
with your hand. What did that mean?
(15:45):
It was really pretty. That is how we greeted people in
my world. Valerian starts trying to
replicate it. He's like.
No, it's more of a an. Arch with the wrist.
It starts with an arch of the wrist.
No, that's a. That's a wave of the wrist you
need to arch. It's fine.
We will. I'd love to learn properly
later. Continue, please.
(16:06):
As she narrows her eyes at you, Valerian like she does not trust
your interest in her home culture.
Oh sorry, just trying to buy polite I don't know.
But she shakes her head and saysanyway, You've pissed off the
House of Ma. I'll cut right to it and say
that as I assume you did not know that the High Temple
(16:30):
section of the enemy ever is their territory and they have
first dibs on anything that comes up in that district.
We were on contract with the Hemlock hands to acquire that
diadem, and she sort of looks around for it to see if maybe
it's sitting out somewhere. No, it's not sitting out.
You've stashed it away. It's in one of the horse
drawers. Yeah, you put it inside the
(16:51):
horse drawers. She sort of gives a slight nod
of approval that it's not just laying out on the table
somewhere. You.
Hung up on the wall. So now House of Ma is pissed at
you and she's pissed at me. Well, my employer, I suppose.
No one blames me for getting blown up.
(17:12):
I. Wouldn't say blown up.
I mean, how could they blame youfor that?
I mean, you look. Fine.
Yes, like I said, there's a verytalented healer in Sweetwater.
Anyway, and she takes a seat on the train compartment bench and
she crosses one leg over the other and spreads her arms out
over the back of the chair, justmaking herself very comfortable.
(17:32):
Pepper sits right next to her, chin on hands.
Deeply uncomfortable. And to remind you guys that
Stella is a very wintery lookingwoman.
She's very pale and has hair that's almost sort of the same
color as her skin. It's just sort of this all this
very pale aspect to her and she is dressed in a dark green
double old rested jacket with a hand on the lapel.
(17:55):
Each finger of the hand is a branch with leaves on it.
And that's the faction that she's what was it called?
Yeah, she is a hemlock hand. Pepper says I already forgot
your name. What's your name again?
Stella, Stella Coldgrave. Whoa.
That's such a cool name. My name is Pepper Pendergrass.
(18:16):
That's a very warm name. You're so funny, Pepper.
Like hits her on the arm. It wasn't a joke in my world,
we've measured things by seasonsand temperatures, so Pepper
would be a very warm name in my world.
Interesting. Well, I can hardly see how it's
our fault if we managed to more competently complete the task
(18:36):
than your little group. Well, we just weren't expecting
you because like I said, House of Mall has claim on that
territory and they are going to come and they are going to ask
for a tithe and payment. For what was lost?
What sort of tithe? Money.
Usually. How much money like price point?
(18:59):
One fair is the typical custom though.
If they knew that you had gotten2 momentous out of the deal,
they may ask for more, but I didn't tell them and I suggest
you don't either. Thank you.
I appreciate your discretion, Stella.
That means a lot to me. Pepper has stars in her eyes.
She's like. You're so nice.
(19:19):
Why are you trying to help us? She points a finger at you,
Friedrich, right to the point. And I like that.
This isn't help. It's not for free.
Nothing on this train is that isfree help.
However, I have come at the behest of my employer, Mr. Diane
L Khan. Mr. Khan, he has a proposition
(19:41):
for you. He will consider the hemlock
hands and your. Do you have a name for
yourselves yet? We're the three friends.
No, that is not our name. We have no name.
We have no name, no name group. A band of.
Borders. Sorry.
(20:03):
No, I like that the band of borders is not bad.
What is it Borders Good. I tried to say brothers sorry.
It was just like paper and paper, basically the same word,
brothers. It's.
Pretty funny. Yeah.
All right, well, your no name group, then we will consider you
and us square. If you simply let Mr. Khan hold
(20:29):
on to the diadem for one stop, you'll give it back.
What you must understand is thatour group is not particularly
interested in the sale of objects for riches, only the
riches of the mind. You see, Mr. Khan is a he
wouldn't say he's an academic. You see, the academics live in
Kendall Hall. He is a collector of
(20:51):
curiosities, and he would like very much to examine the diadem
for whatever magical properties it has, make a study of it,
catalog it, and then he will give it right back to you.
What kind of guarantee that we have that he would give it back
to us in exactly the same condition?
I suppose our word means nothingto you as you have absolute
(21:13):
ignorance of our reputation throughout the city.
Through. Though it is a good one and we
do deal fairly in all things. To the assurance I shall.
Well, I suppose it'll leave this.
I will leave with you 4 fares which is the bartering price of
your memento and if we do not give it back then you can keep
(21:35):
the fares. A huddle.
Huddle team. Oh, Oh yeah, let's do it.
And Pepper grabs you guys both by the shoulders and hauls you
in. Valerian says.
I think we have not much choice here.
It's probably the best offer we're going to get.
What are your thoughts? She does have us between a rock
(21:55):
and a hard place. That's really messed up to say,
Pepper. I trust her.
I I don't know. There's just something about her
I. OK, Pepper's.
Pepper's intuition is really bad.
So I don't think that we. Can count her but.
I still don't see what other option we have.
I agree. Also, I don't understand why
(22:15):
this ritual needs to be conducted with.
Touching. No.
I mean, it makes no sense. I'm highly skeptical, but again,
I think we don't have a choice. When?
Friedrich asked. That Pepper, like, starts giving
him a shoulder rub. She's like, maybe the touching's
not like nice enough. And he just.
He goes so rigid, it's like you're like fucking trying to
(22:38):
shoulder rub a fucking boulder. Friedrich is the type of person
I imagine if you try to give hima massage, he like completely
collapses to the ground and goescatatonic.
Like, that's not like. He's a little tightly wound, you
might say. He's like a tiny bit high
strung. Just a little.
Bit and sensing that. OK.
(23:00):
So we're an agreement that we take the deal.
Yeah. Yeah, OK, Stella, I mean.
Pepper is an empath. We accept your terms.
If you provide us with the four fares right now, we will give
you the diadem. Very good.
And she? Temporarily, but not forever.
Yes, it is a lone have you paperand pen.
(23:23):
We have paper right there. And he points to Pepper.
And Pepper smile, kind of like twitches.
And then she. Runs to one of the horse drawers
and pulls out of some horse paper in a horse pen.
Yeah. Stella smiles fondly at the
horse. Stuff she has.
Oh, nod. He hated horses.
(23:47):
Whoa, he's, he's so complicated.I really can't wait for him to
get back. Oh.
OK. So you knew him?
Oh, everybody on the train knew Nod.
Tragic, absolutely tragic what happened to him.
And it's all your fault, all three of you.
But. No, you can't blame us for his
choice. Very true.
He would not accept the price one really has to pay in order
(24:13):
to move up in the world. Still, that's a tragedy.
Now she writes out like a quick contract on the horse paper with
a horse pen that just says we, the Hemlock Hands write this
note of promise that in exchangefor a bond of four fares, we are
given in exchange this diadem from the world of Afetrea.
(24:36):
Should the diadem not be returned promptly within one
stop, we shall forfeit the four fares to the No Name group that
lives in Nod's old. Room.
Nice. Yes, this looks good to me.
Yes, it's. Airtight.
And she pulls out four slips of paper, each of which is embossed
(25:00):
with gold ink that say 1 fair onthem.
And they have like a little illustration of a train.
The front of the train is comingout of 1 circle, and the back of
the train is coming out of another circle on the other side
where it says 1 fair. So it looks like it's going
through a portal. Hell yeah.
And so she hands the four of these to you guys.
Well, actually before she does, she says.
(25:21):
Now the diadem, please. Yes, one moment and Valerian
goes over to the same drawer that Pepper got the paper and
pen from and opens it up and pulls up the diadem.
And while Valerian is going overto the drawer, Friedrich
sheepishly says, Well, I supposeI'm sorry for throwing a grenade
you, but you did pull a knife onme.
(25:43):
It's all in the past. These sorts of things happen,
and those of us who are practical, we'll let them go.
I should warn you, though, that not many people on this train
are practical. The practical sort?
Don't run away and join an interdimensional crime circus.
I kind of glance over at Pepper and Valerian and I say.
I get that sense. She takes the diadem from You
(26:04):
Valerian and then slides over the four fairs and her note of
contract. It's very good.
Our business is complete. I would warn you to expect a
representative from the House ofMA at some point.
Be careful with them. What type of are we talking?
Torture Representative. Verbal negotiator?
(26:28):
Kidnapper. What kind of representative I?
Thought they just wanted to collect the money.
They sound horrible. It's hard to say with them.
They will want to collect the money but it's mostly for form
the House of Ma. They're an interesting group.
It's I'd say it's more of a cultthan anything, but a cult
implies more membership than they have.
(26:49):
Would you recommend booby trapping the home?
Oh, absolutely. OK.
Thank you. Yeah, that's all I need to know.
We'll be good. We'll be ready for them.
Well, it was. Interesting doing business with
you. I will be by to replace the
diadem once my employer is done looking at it.
(27:10):
Good day and she gets up. Pepper gives her a hug.
Oh, and she is surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly considering
her name, very cold. And she hats your arm and then
sort of just extracts herself out of the hug and backs out of
the room. Hey.
(27:33):
Good day. All right, you now have 4 fares
that you will have to return, but you can also spend.
Like if we think we can because,she said they'll be back before
the next stop or after the next stop.
After the next stop, so once youguys do need to turn these
things into Charles Rex. So we could gamble with them.
(27:54):
You could gamble with them. We do have our own fares in our
inventory. Each of us have two and my
personal thought would be that like we should hold on to, you
know, the two artifacts we already have and just try and
get one more at the next stop because like it was really lucky
that we even got 2 and not just one.
Yeah, I'm in agreement with that.
(28:15):
My smart risk adverse friends. What's up you guys?
I just listened to the mid roll that Errol recorded last time
when they did it without a script for the first time ever
and like I'm so proud of them. They've come so far, they've
(28:38):
finally fallen to my level. A bitch who records their mid
roll 15 minutes before their starting stream because they
forgot to do it the day before when they were supposed to.
And there is no script. There is no guidance.
This is just raw, unedited bullshit.
(29:03):
So welcome and welcome Errol. I can't wait until you follow
the rest of the way. I don't know where I am, but
like, I'm pretty far down there,so you've, you've got a long way
to go, but I, I trust that you'll get here one day.
Well, let's do the mid roll and let's hope that nothing happens
during the mid roll. Nothing untoward, nothing
inappropriate or unfortunate. So we have a summer sale going
(29:26):
on and it's like a summer slash fall sale because we sort of
forgot to start it. So it's going until September
30th on the the Legend Lark store, which you can find at
Legend Lark dot store on the Internet.
It's an Internet store and untilthe 30th of September we have
15% off of all products. That includes, oh shoot, what do
(29:49):
we actually have on sale right now?
I don't want to say something isgoing to be on sale that we
don't have in stock. Can you imagine how embarrassing
that would be? Oh thank God the world of Fall
in Love mug is in stock. 15% offthat 15% off of our shirts, the
amazing pins that Errol has madeand the cute little Darius
(30:10):
friend patches that are I'm obsessed with, all of those are
15% off. And if you want to shout out
somebody, give them a special little message or advertise
something, you can also purchaseone of our ad reads or personal
messages for 10% off until the 30th of September.
(30:31):
In addition to that, the other things I have to advertise are
Riverdale Roulette, which is ourbiweekly.
Is it biweekly when it's every other week?
That's got to be Yeah. Because, like, what else would
it be, right? Anyways, every other Monday, we
watch an episode of Riverdale ina random order, out of order,
each of us, and we split into teams.
We fight each other to the deathin an attempt to explain what
(30:52):
has happened on that episode of Riverdale.
It's very difficult. We fail every time, but we're
really trying hard and it's a lot of fun.
And it's on our YouTube, which is the same as what we are
everywhere else, which is LegendLark YouTube.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not Googling it to make sure
(31:15):
that I'm right. It's Legend Lark podcast on
YouTube. But if you search Legend Lark,
it'll come up anyways. You should check that out.
It's a lot of fun. It's crazy.
Also, Cat does an amazing job making this like, crazy serial
killer board before every episode.
And like, it's genuinely impressive.
It's very aesthetically beautiful and I'm obsessed with
(31:35):
it. OK, so that's, that's what I
have to plug. We also have a special message
this week. It is one of those very special
personal messages that you can buy on our store where we read
whatever you want us to say to the world.
And those are 10% off until the end of September.
(31:56):
So this one reads as follows. Happy 19th birthday to Nate
McManus from his parents Val andCraig and brother James.
Nate is a bit of a super fan andis so grateful to be part of the
Legend Lark community. He wishes to thank the
podcasters for the many, many hours of joy and connection he's
experienced during some very tough years.
(32:18):
For those who know Nate by his Discord nickname McMahon
Mcchild, he wants to give you a special shout out as well as the
Legend Lark fans he has recruited including Tommy, Mars
and Mom. Happy birthday Nate, you are so
loved. Happy birthday McMahon, I was so
excited when we got this messageand I'm so excited that I get to
(32:39):
be the one to read it to you because I love to see you
whenever I stream and this is awesome.
Happy birthday. Oh my God you are a child
though, one day you'll grow up. I believe in you.
I hope you had a good birthday. OK?
Anyways, now I have to thank ourpatrons.
We have a three new patrons of this week, two weeks, whatever
(33:00):
they are. Tam, thank you.
Alyssa Lemon, Lehman, Lehman, I'm sorry and Heath Sledge.
What an incredible name. I am obsessed with that name.
Very good work. Thank you all for supporting us.
We really appreciate it. I know Errol said this a little
bit in the last whatever mid roll.
(33:22):
I'm literally, I don't have timeto edit this.
I'm sorry. Anyways, Errol mentioned this in
the last mid roll. But like, we really, really,
really appreciate all of you whoare able to donate to us on
Patreon because we love making this podcast so much.
But it is very time consuming and a lot of work and we put a
lot of work into it. And sometimes that means that it
sucks to have also a day job because we all do have day jobs
(33:45):
in addition to doing this. And we live in a society.
And so it genuinely helps us to like cushion our lives and make
things a little bit easier for us sometimes because we know
we've got that sweet, sweet Patreon money for chicken at the
end of the week. So thank you guys so much.
We really, really appreciate it.Oh, next, I have to pick a
(34:07):
Spotify comment to respond to you.
I already picked it because I knew I wasn't going to be able
to edit this. So I was so smart and I picked
it in advance and it's also one that I'm so interested.
I just want Cat to respond to it.
It is from 61 Sydney and it sayswhat a fun episode Purple Heart.
Side note about the train, my brother and I have a crack
theory. It is somehow related to Dawson.
(34:28):
Maybe Dawson has transformed into the train or has merged
with it and is now an essential part of the train.
Maybe Dawson created the train or directs it somehow.
Or heck, maybe the train is his brother freed from the bag.
Colon up, Carrot nose, parentheses.
It's a :). I would also like to know that,
(34:50):
because I think Sydney, we all know that in the final episode
of the Names of the Dragons campaign, Dawson went somewhere.
And we all know Cat has plans for dot.
Like she's not going to let him.Go.
So like, I'm also curious. I'm just suspicious of
everything related to him. I know that if he is not part of
(35:12):
the train or connected to the train, he will show up and ruin
our lives at some point and I'm just waiting for it to happen.
So astute observation, Sydney. Anyways, if you want more of
this stuff that I'm doing right now, you can follow us on our
social medias, Tumblr, blue sky Instagram.
We have a Reddit now and also a fan run discord, which is super
awesome and very active, and I've heard really good things
(35:34):
about it yes, all of those places Legend lurk or as I found
out with YouTube earlier today, legend lurk podcast.
You'll find them. And now, oh, my God, a message
to Chantelle. Chantelle, I'm so sorry I had to
bail on you this weekend. I'm.
I'm a fool and I can't schedule myself properly.
(35:55):
And I'll miss you. And I hope you are thinking of
me during your activities. And yeah, the code word is
vengeful Snail. The sleeper agent is active.
Go. OK.
(36:23):
OK. Next we're going to move on to
heat. So heat is going to be tracking
how much hot water you guys got in with your heist and it never
nowhere because we are kind of between two cities.
I'm adding a second heat meter and that's going to be your
notoriety. Your heat is going to track how
much hot water you're in in the any ever.
(36:45):
So anywhere outside the train that you are doing crimes.
Those crimes are going to reverberate through the
multiverse and there will be consequences even though you
have moved to another world. Right.
So if you end up with very high heat or a wanted level in the
any ever that will carry over between worlds.
You will also be tracking your notoriety and that will be
(37:06):
tracked at half. Like every time you take two
heat, you'll take one notoriety and that tracks how others in
never know where are perceiving you guys.
So if you're getting too notorious, the other gangs in
never Nowhere are going to say hey, you guys are fucking things
up too much and you need to coolyour jets.
And they will enforce that through a variety of means.
(37:28):
So is that different from reputation?
Because that's a thing too, right?
Yes, there is also reputation. Reputation is positive,
notoriety is negative. OK, Heat's also negative.
And heat is also negative. Yeah.
So heat and notoriety are negative.
Because notoriety is basically never nowhere heat.
Yeah, basically. So heat 0 heat would be smooth
and quiet, low exposure. I don't think that's what you
(37:50):
guys did. No, there was an explosion.
Yeah, there was also pepper fellthrough the floor.
Yeah, I was on stage and then itwas clear that I wasn't part of
it. I emitted a vapor that filled
the stadium. Yeah, it was A2 heat contained
standard exposure. I don't think that necessarily
applies to you guys either, so. Then we're into. 4 Heat, loud
(38:13):
and chaotic, high exposure. Wait, did we skip 3?
No, like it's 246. Oh, OK, 024.
Six, yeah, 0246, OK 6 would be wild, devastating exposure.
I don't think it got that bad. No.
I'd say you guys take 4 heat from this.
It. Goes on our little.
Yes, that goes on to your sheet tracker and that means with the
(38:34):
system I have for never Nowhere,you guys are taking two
notoriety for four heat, which means everybody heard what you
did and pops you on the back saying great job for making it
out there. But they all know what you guys
do. So we will add one heat for a
high profile or well connected target.
I would say yes. You guys robbed the high Church
(38:57):
of Apatreya. Yes, add one heat if the
situation happened on hostile turf.
Yeah, so it's not hostile turf. All right and then it is one
heat. If you're at war with another
faction, you are not. So you don't take that heat and
add 2 heat. If killing was involved, you did
not kill anybody to your knowledge.
Correct. So we got 5 heat in all.
(39:17):
You got 5 heat in all and two notoriety.
Well done. So that is heat.
So also Rep as part of heat. Here you gain 2 reputation when
you complete a score. Nice.
One Rep for a target that is a higher tier than yourself.
Everyone's a higher tier than us.
Yep. So you get one extra Rep for
that. Yay.
So that's three Rep. Yep, 3 Rep total.
(39:40):
OK, all right. And now the next part of
downtime is entanglements. Entanglements are based on the
amount of heat you have. And then we roll a number of
dice equal to your wanted level.If wanted level is 0, we'll roll
2 dice and keep the lowest result.
So your wanted level is 0? We'll roll 2 dice and keep the
lower. How much heat did you end up
generating? 555.
(40:01):
OK so that is the table that I am looking at here.
Who wants to roll this? And we roll for the whole crew.
Yep, this is for the crew. Roll 2 dice and we'll take the
lower. Hey, the lower was a three.
OK, so it is going to be steppedon toes or Porter's Justice.
(40:22):
So I'm going to go with stepped on toes because that makes
sense. In stepped on toes, you
knowingly or unknowingly fouled another gang's plans during your
last operation and they will expect recompense one way or
another. So that makes a lot of sense
because you did step on the toes.
Yeah, you probably did step on toes there.
So either you will pay recompense and they already
(40:43):
expect check 1 fare out of you. So this is going to be in.
Addition to that, oh man. Or you can forfeit Rep equal to
your tier plus one. Can we use coin to help with the
stress and the harm? Can we?
So when you guys are taking downtime actions, you can spend
coin to take additional downtimeactions.
OK, so I guess we do so I feel like.
We want to, yeah, we want to save.
(41:04):
OK, our claim. Then and give our Rep.
OK, so the consequence of that is that you are going to lose
reputation. Yeah, one Rep.
So how that manifests is as you guys are out in the city, you
are starting to hear rumors about yourselves and they are
not flattering. They're basically everyone's
saying that this upstart no namegang is out there.
(41:28):
They don't care about the rules.They don't care.
They haven't learned anything about the city and they're just
charging ahead. And everybody knows that they're
already in trouble with Charles Rex, they're already in trouble
with the ringmaster, and now they're getting themselves in
trouble with the House of Ma. Everybody knows that the House
of Ma is unstable at best and crazy at.
Worst. So these guys, they've got
(41:51):
something coming for. Them this is so embarrassing.
It's. So embarrassing.
I mean, it's literally all. True, also Friedrich is just
used to everyone constantly talking shit about him behind
his back so. Valerian understands the whims
of public opinions and knows that it can change to the drop
of a hat, so he's unconcerned. Pepper's really sad.
(42:14):
OK. Next we are going to move into
downtime activities. So your options for downtime
activities, each of you get 2 downtime activities.
You can repeat these. So if you decide you want to say
reduce harm twice, you can do that totally fine.
And then you can either spend Rep or coin to take additional
downtime activities if you want.So your options are acquire an
(42:37):
asset, start a long term projector work on a long term project
if you have one going, recover. So reduce your harm, reduce your
heat, train a skill or indulge your vice which will reduce your
stress. So who wants to go first with
their downtime activities? I mean, I have a lot of
recovering I need to do as well as as do I?
(43:00):
So maybe all of you need to takea trip to nurse.
Debbie Yeah. I think we all need to go see
Nurse Debbie. I think that's a great idea.
So normally you would have to acquire an asset to get a doctor
on your side or have them as oneof your friends.
Valerian chose to have Nurse Debbie as an enemy, and I'm
going to count that. I thought Nurse Debbie like
didn't give a shit though. Exactly.
(43:21):
That's The thing is I think Nurse Debbie is, it's not
actually Valerian's enemy or rather Nurse Debbie's Valerian's
enemy. Valerian is not her enemy.
She does not care in that way. So you guys find Nurse Debbie's
clinic in the moth light. It is a small plastic door.
It's like a blue plastic door with a window set into it.
(43:45):
And when you push inside, you find yourselves in a small
clinic the size of 1 boxcar. There are a couple of beds
separated with mismatch catched curtains and there are 4 hard
plastic chairs laid against one wall along with a desk and a
table that has a bunch of medical stuff on it.
(44:05):
There are so many little figurines on shelves all
throughout this room. Most of them are little like
cartoon figures. Some of them are little like
toys that look like you know what we would see is like a
Happy meal toy. And in among all of this is
Nurse Debbie. She is a small woman, about 5-2,
(44:28):
with a thick mane of frizzy red brown hair and sort of a very
narrow, pointed face. And she is sucking on a
lollipop. She has like 1 clenched in her
mouth when you guys come in. Nurse Debbie is dressed in a
pair of light blue scrubs with cartoon bears on them that we
would recognize as Care Bears. And she looks up as the three of
(44:50):
you enter. And she goes.
Oh Jesus, what? What happened to you 3?
Oh my God, sit down, sit down. Valerian has to be dragged in.
Pepper like she is dragging you,but she's like so excited she
like barely even notices that you're like pulling back.
Sure, she's just like overwhelmed you with her excited
strength. Right.
And she is far stronger than me.Yeah.
And Friedrich is totally unconcerned with you and is very
(45:12):
interested in, like, he's just looking around at some of the,
you know, equipment and trying to kind of suss out and
understand some of the examples of modern medical technology
that are in this office. Yes, and modern, being modern to
the 1980s America, because that is the level of modern that
Nurse Debbie acts on as she seesyou coming in or being dragged
(45:35):
in. Valerian.
She says, Oh my God, you get in here, you stupid little cat boy.
I don't care. If you want healing, you have to
get in. If you want someone to wave
magic hands over you, you can gospend a fortune in Sweetwater.
You decide which one you want todo.
I don't care. I want to be waved on the magic
hands. I don't want these painful.
(45:56):
Procedures. Oh.
My God, Jesus Christ in heaven above.
An honor to meet you. My name is Friedrich Weiss.
I'm a I'm a chemist. I've heard that you are skilled
in the Medical Sciences. Oh sweetie, I'm just a pediatric
nurse. I worked in an elementary school
and then I worked in a hospital.I'm not a doctor or anything, I
(46:18):
just know how to stitch people up.
Now, you all look pretty bad, soI'll take you one at a time.
Who's hurt worse, do you think? Let's see.
Valerian points to Friedrich notbecause he knows that Friedrich
is hurt worse just because he doesn't want to go.
Well, I have level 2 harm, but what about you, Pepper?
I also have a level 2 harm, but my level 2 harm is being touched
(46:39):
by a ghost so it's. Yeah.
Is there a medical technology for the Ato?
Medical procedure once. Once I get my twisted ankle and
my pile drive injury under control, my my ghost touch is
going to go down a level so it'sgoing to be fine.
Yeah, so, Friedrich, she crooks a finger at you to to beckon you
over to one of the beds, and sheshuts a curtain behind you.
(47:03):
Valerian peaks because he's curious and terrified.
All right, let's take a look at you.
Looks like you got some some problems around your throat.
Did you get choked? Yes, an astute observation.
Yeah, looks like a big ham hand too.
Ouch, Ouch, Ouch. All right, well, I'll get you
some ice for that. And she just starts doing like
(47:24):
because you said it's you got choked and was your other.
Was your other house? I got some little cuts from
being cutted with a knife. That's right, you did get cut in
with a little knife. I she's like, all right, I'll
get you some ice for your throatand then I'm going to have to
stitch you up. You ever been stitched up
before? Not for a long time, I'm afraid.
All right, you going to be a baby like your friend.
(47:45):
It's. Certainly not.
All right, well, very good. Then.
I'm just going to give you one shot of whiskey and then we're
going to get started. All right and she gives you a
shot and let's see how good of ajob Debbie does.
We are going to roll on your healing clock.
So you will see on your character sheet there is a four
count clock. We are going to roll, or rather
(48:05):
Debbie is going to roll and she's quality level 2.
So I am going to go ahead and roll to die and get the higher.
Oh, higher is A5. That's good.
Hell yeah. So that would be for A5 you get
to clear 2 segments of your clock.
You are now halfway to clearing your Level 1 harms.
(48:26):
Healing is hard. You could also spend one coin to
improve your result. Yeah, I probably will do that
for myself. Sure.
Yeah. So that would bring you up to a
full success. And then you would clear 3 on
your clock, 3 sections on your clock.
So then you could spend another downtime activity healing more,
or you could spend another coin to clear it entirely.
(48:48):
Damn, like so healing is. Hard.
Jesus Christ, I guess I'll use my other downtime action.
How much stress do you have? A lot, but I'm just gonna have
to use my one other coin to like, try and have less of that.
So we'll roll again for Debbie. Highest is a four, which is
(49:09):
going to get you another 2 segments out of your clock,
which fills it. And now you can.
Get rid of your harms. Thank God.
So yeah, as nurse Debbie is likestitching me up, I'm definitely
flinching every time I have to be touched and like wincing.
Valerian has to stop watching because he's starting to get
nauseous. He like, runs away.
Pepper has just been like examining all the little figures
(49:32):
and like exclaiming every so often.
So cute. All right, Freddy boy, let's get
you up. Thank.
You, I think you're going to live here.
She reaches into one of the drawers of her rolling cart with
all her medical supplies in it, and she reaches into one of the
drawers and she pulls out a basket full of suckers.
Says take a sucker. Oh, I I I don't.
(49:53):
It'll help you heal. Take the sucker.
And he he timidly takes the sucker and puts it in his
pocket. All.
Right, next patient. Ever says oh me.
And then she runs in. She.
Runs in, she runs in Will. Still limping by the way I was.
Going to say a little creakily runs.
In she has a twisted ankle, her body is just like bruised from
(50:17):
getting pile drived into the ground, and she also has like a
strange light in her eyes as shehas basically taken kind of like
a spiritual injury by being touched by the ghosts.
And Debbie, she waved a little flashlight in your eyes.
She looks in your mouth. She goes, Yeah, I had a little
spiritual run in, huh? All right, let me get you a
(50:38):
heated blanket. And here we're going to put this
under your feet. And she puts under your feet
like a warmed, you know, like a heating pad that's full of rice.
Debbie, you're such a good nurse.
Well, thank you Tell Valley General Regional Hospital that.
I'll try. I hope you don't.
One time we went to an almost anywhere of where I used to be
(51:00):
from. Terrible time.
I hated it. Never want to go back there.
My husband was still alive. Horrible.
I chime in almost anywhere. Oh, yeah, that's just a
colloquial term. I mean, I guess there's no other
term for it but the colloquial 1.
You know, we never go back to the same world twice, but
sometimes you get pretty close, right?
(51:21):
And things might be almost your anywhere, you know?
So for me, we were back in Boston.
It was 1982. My husband was still alive.
Horrible. I mean, he was still alive in my
world when I left too. But I keep hoping that anytime
we go to an any ever that's close to mine, he'll be dead.
That was, you know, that was thegoal.
(51:42):
But here we are anyway. And Friedrich just looks like
his eyes are like very wide and he's kind of like zoned out,
like he's, he's trying to process this information.
Pepper's like, I hope your husband dies.
Really. Soon.
Me too, sweetie. See, that's how I ended up here.
Really. I'll tell you a story while I
(52:03):
work. See, when I was back in my own
world, my husband, horrible man,couldn't stop drinking.
And you know what I found out, and I found this out too late,
is that when somebody's a heavy drinker, they can tolerate a lot
more of a drug that would otherwise kill them.
Crazy, right? So anyway, that's how I ended up
here. Turns out when the hospital
(52:23):
finds out that, oh, maybe there's a little bit too much
morphine missing, they're going to start looking at who was on
duty. And I was the only darts on
duty. So here we are now.
Valerian's in the corner. He doesn't understand what any
of this means, but he knows it'snot good for him and he is in
the corner like in a ball, and he's shaky.
And Friedrich is pulled out of his catatonic state as he's
(52:47):
observing this phenomena with you and.
Pepper is like. Sometimes you have to break the
rules to help the ones you love.I get it.
That's so true, honey, that is so true.
And that's all I was trying to do is help the ones I love.
And by the ones I love, I mean myself.
Now let's see what we can do about those injuries.
What happened to you? Did you get knocked over by a
(53:09):
steam engine? Come on.
Not this time. Highest is a six.
What? Does that mean?
That means 3 segments of your clock have been filled if you
want to spend a coin. Don't even get 4 for a six.
You get 4 for a critical if. I want to two sixes.
Yeah, Christ. So you can upgrade it to a
critical if you want to spend 1.Of your.
(53:29):
I want to upgrade it to a critical please.
OK, that clears your level 1 harms.
And that uses one of my coins. Yep, it was just one of your
coins and now you feel a little bit also like the heated blanket
and the warm foot pad. It has helped you come back a
little bit closer to life, away from the deathly touch of the
ghost. Okay so my twisted ankle feels
(53:49):
better, my pile driveness feels better, and now my ghost touch
is a level 1 which I would assume means I'm gonna have less
effect if I have like a ghost related yes action.
Yeah, if you try to roll a what is that, Arcane?
Yeah, Arcana. OK cat boy, your turn.
No, I don't want to go. Please.
All right, then get out. Pepper's like it's going to be
(54:11):
OK, you're going to feel better and.
She's like talking around the sucker in her mouth.
And you get a sucker at the end.Valerian says.
I don't know what that is. Friedrich looks very smug and he
says to. Valerian, Valerian, Don't tell
me you're. Afraid of this charming woman?
Yes, I am afraid of her. What is your problem?
(54:32):
He pushes you. And you're like so much taller
than him, Friedrich, almost like.
Valerian's crouched on the ground.
So that means he like pushes like.
Friedrich's knees and Friedrich collapses.
In the knee. Yeah, it's like when you slap me
on the back gently and I, like, collapse.
I'm imagining it like, you know,those little, like, wooden toys
where you press the bass and allof the strings that are holding
(54:54):
up the toys, like, kind of collapse.
Yeah, it's exactly like that. He runs over and helps Friedrich
up and is like. He just got better.
Don't hurt him again. Come on.
Time. And Friedrich looks even more
smug. I forgot how small of the weak
you are. He's very small and weak.
Come on, how? Dare you?
Valerian runs and scuttles over to the bed, and then he sits
(55:16):
down in the bed with his arms around his knees.
You're going to have to UN pretzel yourself if I'm going to
take a look at you do. You need to hold my hand.
No. Would it make you feel better if
you held my hand? I would not feel anything.
Pepper goes over and holds your hand.
He lays down on the bed. He's so stiff as a board.
He knows he's going to be poked.He literally has bruised ribs,
(55:37):
so I don't think he is going to be poked at all.
But he has no idea what the potential procedure could be.
He's like a cat that doesn't like to go to the vet.
Yes, that's exactly what he is. All right, Debbie rolled A4 so
you can fill in two segments of your clock.
Do you want to do any more healing or is that enough for
Valerian today? Wait, if I used my second
downtime action would I get another roll?
(55:59):
You would, yes. OK.
I think I'd I'd rather do that because then I can buy another
downtime action with my coin, right?
Yes. OK.
That's actually true. That's a really good point.
OK, so you're gonna spend a cointo do another downtime activity,
and your next second downtime activity is going to be
recovering more. To be staying here, yeah.
OK. And she rolled the six so.
(56:23):
Hey, cool. OK, so.
So, Valerian, you are so terrified that she's going to
cut or poke or prod you. She's going to cut in and like
move my ribs. No, all she does is just like,
wraps your torso in a bandage and goes all right.
Don't move too much for the nextlike week and you'll be fine.
That's it. There's no needles, there's no
blood or moving of my organs or.Cutting.
(56:46):
No, I can give you a shot of whiskey for the pain if you
want. Oh, please, please yes.
All right, shot of whiskey and the sucker coming right up.
Larian is like he's shaking, he downs his whiskey, he puts his
sucker in his mouth, his little cat eye pupils dilate because
it's very sweet and yummy and hejust walks out.
He doesn't look at you guys. He's gone.
And Pepper looks down at her hand, which has been really
(57:08):
squeezed hard. Yeah, there's like claw marks on
your hand. All right, So you guys each want
to spend the rest of your money to do another downtime activity
to just clear some stress? I do I still have another
downtime. Activity.
That's true, you do. But Friedrich, what is your?
Vice and how are you going to indulge it?
(57:29):
Yes, so I picked weird. Yep, OK.
And the the description for weird is you experiment with
strange essences, consort with rogue spirits, observe bizarre
rituals or taboos, etcetera. And in this particular case, I
think I will be definitely experimenting with strange
essences, because that's what I like to do anyway.
(57:51):
OK. But I think Friedrich is really
excited about the fact that he now, in this world, has access
to totally different substances and chemicals than he did in his
home world. So he's, yeah, very much just
trying to get a sense and an understanding of these new
materials and, you know, maybe doing a little self
(58:13):
experimentation. OK, so to clear vice you are
going to make an attribute role using your character's lowest
attribute rating and then you will clear stress equal to the
highest die result. So what is your lowest attribute
rating? For resolve that's my lowest, I
just have one circle filled in and sway.
(58:33):
So does that mean I would roll one dice?
Yep, roll one die. OK.
OK. So that's three.
You have cleared 3 stress. Nice.
And I think that's all I can do because in order to do this, I
used up my last coin and I already used up both downtime
activities with healing. OK, you are a stressed out
(58:55):
little guy. Yeah, I've got 4 which is better
than it was. It is.
That's better than it was. All right, Pepper, what is your
vice? Pepper's vice is obligation, so
she whenever she has a free moment, she wears like a long
coat, as I've mentioned. And when she has a free moment,
(59:16):
she goes and finds somewhere to be alone and she takes off her
coat and she lays it out so thatthe inside of it is like facing
up and on the inside of her coatis basically like a serial
killer wall, serial killer wall slash, the tattoos of the guy
from Memento. So she has, I mean, like I'm, I
(59:37):
won't go into everything she haswritten on there, but she has
like marks down how many days it's been, how many months it's
been, how many years it's been tallies, some more crazed than
others. There's like a drawing of a harp
and of a pair of hands playing the harp.
There's lists of locations. Some of them are crossed out.
(59:57):
Some of them have checkmarks by them.
And at the center of it, it saysin words that have been
overlined and overlined and lined over again, Don't trust
her. And for her vice, she writes
over it one more time. And she adds Epitrea to her list
of locations and. Passes it out.
All right, roll your vice all. Right, my lowest attribute is
(01:00:21):
Insight, but I still have two. All right then roll 2 and take
the higher. Nice.
My highest is a six. Hey, I got such good luck.
I really, really fucking needed it, you guys.
That's good, yeah. And that, yeah, that's.
So how many stress did you have?I had a lot I have.
You had more than. 6123456 8. Okay, yeah, you needed that 6 I.
(01:00:44):
Needed it so bad. I asked because it is possible
to overindulge in your vice and you will to clear more vice or
more stress than you have. You will overindulge and there
are consequences. For that fun, yes.
All right, Valerian, what is your vice?
Valerian's vice is luxury. So cat tell me where the
(01:01:05):
fanciest place in town is and that's that's where Valerian
would want to go. Where you would probably want to
go would be Madersberger and Co which is in the Dark Lamp Canal.
It is the place to go for daringand avant-garde fashion is an
atelier that collects the finestfabrics from the any ever and
turns them into all sorts of beautiful garments and household
(01:01:27):
creations. Yeah, OK.
I think he would go there and hewould indulge in window
shopping, but I think he would also go if they allow him in,
which I assume they would because it's not like the crazy
expensive place. No, yeah.
His main thing would be touchingthe fabrics.
He would want to touch all of the fabrics and feel all of the
fabrics and then like imagine the fabrics on him and.
(01:01:47):
Then why don't you roll? Why don't you roll?
We'll see how this goes for you.I.
Got a one? How much stress do you have?
A lot. Oh no.
Yeah, I'm too stress away from taking a trauma.
And trauma you can never get ridof, right?
Yeah. Yeah, traumas are forevers.
So what does that get rid of 11 stress for me?
(01:02:10):
Yeah, OK. Poor baby.
Yeah, we were in the same boat, Valerian with stress.
OK, I'm gonna spend my last cointo stay in this shop.
Yeah, you. So what happens is the man who
runs Madersberger and Co, which is not Madersberger himself, he
kind of comes up to you Valerianand he looks you up and down in
(01:02:32):
your rat catcher clothes which you came onto the.
Train with and he says, Sir, if you would like to buy something
you are welcome to stay, but otherwise I will have to ask you
to leave. Valerian says.
Where did you get your fabrics from?
Well, we get them from all over the any ever.
(01:02:53):
We contract out with various gangs, various groups to run
jobs for us to procure whatever the du jour material of the
world is. We acquired some very fine linen
from Afetrea. In fact, I can show that to you
if you have coin to spend. Valerian says let me see the
(01:03:17):
linen. I will buy.
I will. Buy and he brings out like some
very like beautifully woven linen, just like it's buttery
soft to the touch, but it's got like creases just super, super
right. So it makes like these really
knife sharp pleats. It's in some really lovely
colors, some like deep Reds and some dark purples.
(01:03:40):
Oh yeah, Valerian wants to buy the deep red.
OK, deep red. And what does he want to have
made out of it? An off the shoulder Cape.
OK, Valerian will spend his fares his one remaining fare.
One remaining fare on an off theshoulder deep red cake, deeply
irresponsible, reduces stress. Yep.
(01:04:00):
That's true. Well, let's.
Find out how much stress that reduces Juniper.
It's a two no. It doesn't hit quite right.
Valerian. It's a beautiful Cape.
I think it's a beautiful Cape, but it's like you're looking at
it and you realize it just does not go with your rat catcher
outfit. Yeah, maybe so.
It just makes you want more. What does that bring you down
(01:04:23):
to? I have 4 stress.
OK. That's what I have left.
Too it yeah, it could be worse. It could be worse, could be
worse, could be worse. All right.
And with that, we are done with our downtime activities.
So let us go ahead and shift on over into free play and we will
see what you guys are going to steal next.
(01:05:10):
Yes, I give her my journal. We've got paper, right?
Here. Damn, I can't believe I missed
that shit. You can you know what if you
want to take it please. You want me to steal your joke?
Yes. OK.
Let me tell you about my. Crossword strats.
Peep the strats. You got to peep the strats.
You got to see like, is the cluepluralized?
Oftentimes you can get a clue about like what the tense of the
word is based on the wording of the clue.
All right, jot this down everybody.
Yeah, jot this down so you too can complete the mini crossword
in sub one minute. Yeah, sometimes mini crosswords.
Sometimes they do the mini and it's like, what's the name of
(00:21):
this referenced person from media that you've never heard of
in your life and have no clue? And so the way that you can do
those is that you skip them immediately.
If you don't know a clue, you skip it.
Without you just read it and youskip it, and then you try to
figure it out from the like intersecting.
What if like 4 of them are that?What?
If they're all that cat, what ifI look at it and I start crying?
(00:44):
Cat. What if she's all that?
And I get scared. If she's all that is the clue,
then well, then it's probably. It's Prince with AZ.
It's Prince with AZ. Sometimes it is OK.
I will say there is sometimes like some things in the
crossword that you can tell thatthe reason this is a clue and an
answer is because they just ran out of sensible words.
Like there was one that it was the opposite of West, northwest
(01:06):
and it was E SE. So it's ESE was the answer and
it was like clearly you just needed.
That's a reason. OK, but you reminded me of
something, which is I visited mypal in California and he was
telling me about like the niche crossword drama because he's
also a crossword head and like, yes, crossword hobby.
Yeah, there's tons of common crossword hobbies so.
(01:28):
First of all, I found out that there is like a parody crossword
like that goes out and it seems like it's very niche and like.
Is it like only funny to people who do crosswords?
Showed me this because there wasthis guy who was in the
crossword community who I think got like banned from making
crosswords because because he kept like making clues that were
(01:52):
like too difficult clues that were like stupidly difficult and
just dumb or whatever. And then he like created a false
identity and the identity was like a woman.
And I guess there are like less women crossword writers.
And so people are like speculating like, oh, like he
was trying to like get an advantage and getting public by
pretending to be a woman. So anyway, he got published as
(02:14):
this fake identity. And then the parody crossword
that came out after the scandal,a lot of the clues were like the
hometown of fake woman's name, who is definitely a real person
that exists and stuff like that.So.
That brings me an incredible amount of.
Joy, there's the rabbit hole to be gone down.
I'm sure and. I'm sure I got a lot of this
wrong because I'm just remembering a second hand story
(02:36):
that I told, but there's there'sstuff.
But do you think we. Have to do to get legend lark as
a result on a crossword. More than we're doing now.
Yeah, well, look, we need a fan who is we need to.
Attract that person. Yeah, that evil crossword.
I feel like we might have crossword head fans because I
think. That are they?
Our listeners are like niche creators.
(02:56):
But are they the publishers of the right we need?
We need the. Editor of the New York Times
crossword to become a fan of ourpodcast.
So this is a call to action for our listeners.
Yeah, if you know or you know ofsomeone who knows the editor of
The New York Times Cross Crossword, get them to listen to
our podcast and. Use this as a clue.
Yeah, Yeah. We want to be used as a clue.
(03:16):
Actually, I don't really care about the New York Times.
I do want to be a clue by that evil Batman villain crossword
creator. Yeah.
That'd be cool. Same.
And their explicit crossword. Crossword.
I just, I wanted to be the New York Times crossword because
that's the one that I do. And if that happens to me, if I
was doing my, you know, sub one minute crossword Sprint and the
(03:36):
clue turned out to be like the answer was legend luck.
Or or I would never get it. Yeah, because I would just
assume that it couldn't be. I would assume it couldn't be,
but if it was it would I think kill me dead.
Probably, yeah. I guess if you want to end the
podcast, you should talk. To all of our anti fans out
there. But I do think that you should
do crosswords all the time because my grandma did
(03:57):
crosswords every single day until the day that she died and
she lived to be 92 years old andshe was fully cognitive.
And she had superpowers. And she had super powers and she
literally. Like because of the crosswords.
Because of the crosswords she did everyday and she literally.
My grandpa lived to be 98 and heused to rub butter on his chest
every day. And you?
Should do that too. You should do that too.
And she she LED nursing home. Sorry, Belly.
(04:17):
No. I don't care at all about your
grandma anymore. Noel's Butter.
What I mean what is there to say?
I mean, he just like I did not do that he.
Wanted. To be delicious and.
He was and he. Was no.
It was a health it. Was a health.
(04:38):
Delicious. He wanted to be healthy, so he
said I'll rub the butter on the outside of my body so that I'll
be more healthy. And he also would like and it
like put pepper in a tub and puthis feet in there.
Yes, I and it worked. Literally like he does.
It worked. He literally can't believe he
did that to Pepper. He was like sitting in his
(05:01):
kitchen, like looking around, being like, how can I make
myself live till 98? Yeah.
And he did all the right things.I know that's crazy.
And by the time he died, he was perfectly prepared.
His skin was crazy. I was.
Going to ask. He wasn't cremated.
No, but if he if he had been, wewould have smelled it for miles.
(05:21):
Around baked at 4:00 they would.Have put some onions and garlic
in there with them and it would have been just right.
Well, Speaking of baking, Grandpa, let's play Blades in
the Dark. Yeah, brother.
(06:07):
Hello, my name is Kat and my best crossword time of the past
week was on Wednesday. Completed it in 37 seconds.
Hi my name is. Noel I play Pepper.
She's a real Jack. I once completed a crossword
once one time. Nice.
Hello, my name is Juniper. I do crosswords sometimes, but
(06:27):
most importantly I bathe in a tub full of butter every night.
And you're going to live forever.
I'm going to live forever. I get a lot of compliments on my
skin for how much butter is on it.
They they say. But my skin, it's so slippery,
it tastes so good. That's exactly what they say,
dude. All the time.
That's. Why Riot likes.
You so much. That's why Riot likes me all the
(06:47):
time dude. Butter City.
Hi, I'm Errol. I play Friedrich.
He's a Leech. I'm really like.
Did I even say who I play? I don't know, Straight into
butter. I'm.
Sorry, should I pass it back? No, no, no.
I think we're fine. I just like I'm.
Slide it on over. So slide it back.
I'm like, I'm just lost. I'm just trying to keep up.
(07:10):
I used to help my mom do the crossword.
I mean, I guess I sometimes still do.
So. Wow, she's nice.
It's nice. More drop, No butter.
No, I don't find that. So no butter helpful.
So no butter. So no butter.
So no butter. All right, all right, all right,
all right. So last time you guys
(07:31):
successfully completed your first?
Heist. Yay, congratulations, you're
criminals. So in the Disney's Hercules
inspired Grecian city of Apatreya, you successfully
planned and, well, success. It was successful in that yes,
(07:53):
you did complete your goals. Some parts of it were less
successful in that some people may have blown up a woman and
some. She wasn't blown up.
She's fine. And some other people may have
just gotten high with some priests.
These things happen. I won't deny that.
And in the end you managed to get the diadem and the sword
(08:15):
from the hero and you managed tosuccessfully escape.
You did have a run in with another gang and you will find
out more about that soon. And at the end of it all, you
guys were pretty beaten up. You'd had some events happen to
you, but you made it back. You made it back whole.
And I remember the events. So many events.
(08:37):
If you want to know about those,go back and listen to the last
episode. There was events.
All right. So now we are going to shift
into the phase of Blaze of the Dark called downtime.
There are a few prescriptive activities to do in downtime.
The first thing that we do is level up and we are going to do
that off mic because it is not great audio.
(08:57):
So when we level up you guys getXP for every time you roll a
desperate action which you guys were marking and tracking during
the heist. When you have a specific trigger
that is specific to your playbook.
If you express your beliefs, Dr.Heritage or background or you
struggled with issues from your harm, vice or traumas during the
session. So sound cue.
(09:19):
All. Right, we've levelled up.
Yay. All right, so the next piece of
downtime is the payoff where we discuss what you guys get paid
from your job. Things right now are a little
bit interesting because you havethis task given to you by
Charles Rex, the ringmaster, that you have to bring him three
(09:40):
objects, 3 mementos. You have gotten 2 mementos.
However, if you want you, you can trade one or both of those
in for fares that you can spend.You will still have to give him
3 mementos, so you'll be gambling on being able to get
another two objects, or three ifyou decide to turn in both of
them. But we're on a deadline, right?
Yeah, you only have one more stop to do it.
(10:02):
So if you want to trade these infor money, you can go to the
bank and you can get fares for them.
You can trade them in for spendable fares.
What kind of things can we use fares for?
You can use them for a lot of things.
So in Blaze of the Dark, it's coin, and in our game it's going
to be fares, but you can use those to recruit an asset.
You can use those to make upgrades to your layer.
(10:23):
You can use them kind of in lieuof consequences.
You can pay coin. Like to bribe?
Someone, yeah, to bribe someone.So it is useful to have that
money. You guys each have two fares
available to you right now. Valerian, you inherited nods
sleeper compartment that is attached to moth light and that
is your guys's layer for now. And so the three of you are
(10:45):
crammed in there. There's a little table, there's
a couple of bunks. Nod has a lot of horse themed
things, but you sort of get the impression that it's one of
those things where maybe somebody said, oh, Nod likes
horses. And everybody went, I'm going to
give Nod a horse themed object. And so he's got a lot of stuff
that it looks like he didn't usethat is horse themed.
(11:05):
A roast curse. Curse, curse.
Curse. So there's enough space for you
guys all to like puddle up in there and you have your two
treasures. Valerian, are you doing anything
to host? Are you making?
Tea, are you? Valerian certainly does not get
anything for them, but neither is he waiting for someone to get
something. He just simply isn't going to go
out of his way to get things forthem.
(11:26):
I see. He would expect if they needed
something they would one, ask ortwo, just get it themselves.
I see. Pepper's like looking around
because she's like, you know, like she was here before, but
she's like, man, we really got to keep keep this place nice for
what? Not gets back to it, you know.
Friedrich kind of gives valerianlike a look like.
(11:47):
Yeah, but Valerian shrugs. He's like.
Meanwhile, Pepper is like putting on a horse mask.
And she's like, look at this. Oh hey, better wait.
Let me show you this thing. And Valerian goes into the, I'm
assuming very small twist toiletcompartment and pulls out a
toothbrush that is shaped like ahorse head.
Look at this. This.
(12:08):
Pervert stuff. I don't know about that.
Not everybody who's into horses is a pervert, just most of them.
Friedrich is looking around disapprovingly and he says.
Well, if we're done playing house, where exactly can I set
up my lab? This What do you think people
who Playhouse do You lived in a house before?
(12:32):
I lived in a house once I think.There's no room here for.
Your lab, You'll have to have itoff site.
It's not happening in my living room, No.
Uh huh. Well, then we're going to need
to acquire more space. From what I understand, these
compartments can be interconnected.
The doors, yes, I'm working on that.
Speaking of doors, there is a knock at yours.
(12:53):
Oh, I have to answer it. Hold on, I have navigated.
We all look at each other like we're.
Like. Friedrich definitely like
freezes. And outside the door, there is a
woman, and she looks very familiar to you, Friedrich,
because she's the woman that youblew up.
I didn't. Fucking blow her up.
(13:15):
Some could argue that I actuallysaved her life.
So what did you save her life? We did right.
Yeah, you do. You're right.
You all recognize her. I think Friedrich, you recognize
her most. Pepper immediately is like, oh
hi, it's so great to see you. She looks surprisingly well for
the injuries that she had taken.Like, she's got like a little
(13:35):
like, bandage on her eyebrow andit looks like maybe she's moving
a little bit stiffly. Yeah, because she was barely.
Blown up, I think she only took like a level one or two harm and
I just so everyone knows I'm at 3 harm so.
Yeah, A. Little dramatic.
Well, maybe we'll get to that. And she kind of pokes her head
and goes, you're all allowed to find a healer.
(13:56):
There's a very good one out in Sweetwater though, and she sort
of looks around the compartment again.
Might be out of your price rangefor now.
Come on in, Come on in. I can get you a horse glass of
water or maybe a horse cup of tea and don't go.
Offering this this. Pepper is holding up horse cups.
But don't go offering this member of a rival faction entry
(14:20):
into our sacred space. You'll nearly blow her up.
The least we can do this. Give her some water.
I don't think it's like that dimension where you have to
invite people into your house and then they come and try to
suck your blood. It was a fun place, but we're in
the train now so. Free drink.
It just gives you like a baffledlook.
But then he just sort of grumbles, yes, yes, give her
(14:42):
water so she can hydrate herselfand plan our inevitable deaths.
You don't want to do that, do you?
No, Well, no, I suppose not. I came to introduce myself.
I my boss thought it might be good to clear the air after
(15:03):
everything that happened becauseyou all are new here so I assume
you don't really know how anything works, is that right?
I I wouldn't say that we don't know how anything works.
Right. Well, anyway, my name's Stella,
Nice to meet you. And she sort of waves her hand
in. It looks like a greeting.
It looks like a very formalized greeting type of hand wave.
(15:25):
Pepper goes over and grabs her hand mid wave and shakes it.
It's great to meet you too. I mean, not really.
I guess we've met before, but you know, to be read to Drews,
to each other, by each other, byourselves.
Yes, very good. Nice to formally meet you.
What was that gesture? You made the gesture just now
with your hand. What did that mean?
(15:45):
It was really pretty. That is how we greeted people in
my world. Valerian starts trying to
replicate it. He's like.
No, it's more of a an. Arch with the wrist.
It starts with an arch of the wrist.
No, that's a. That's a wave of the wrist you
need to arch. It's fine.
We will. I'd love to learn properly
later. Continue, please.
(16:06):
As she narrows her eyes at you, Valerian like she does not trust
your interest in her home culture.
Oh sorry, just trying to buy polite I don't know.
But she shakes her head and saysanyway, You've pissed off the
House of Ma. I'll cut right to it and say
that as I assume you did not know that the High Temple
(16:30):
section of the enemy ever is their territory and they have
first dibs on anything that comes up in that district.
We were on contract with the Hemlock hands to acquire that
diadem, and she sort of looks around for it to see if maybe
it's sitting out somewhere. No, it's not sitting out.
You've stashed it away. It's in one of the horse
drawers. Yeah, you put it inside the
(16:51):
horse drawers. She sort of gives a slight nod
of approval that it's not just laying out on the table
somewhere. You.
Hung up on the wall. So now House of Ma is pissed at
you and she's pissed at me. Well, my employer, I suppose.
No one blames me for getting blown up.
(17:12):
I. Wouldn't say blown up.
I mean, how could they blame youfor that?
I mean, you look. Fine.
Yes, like I said, there's a verytalented healer in Sweetwater.
Anyway, and she takes a seat on the train compartment bench and
she crosses one leg over the other and spreads her arms out
over the back of the chair, justmaking herself very comfortable.
(17:32):
Pepper sits right next to her, chin on hands.
Deeply uncomfortable. And to remind you guys that
Stella is a very wintery lookingwoman.
She's very pale and has hair that's almost sort of the same
color as her skin. It's just sort of this all this
very pale aspect to her and she is dressed in a dark green
double old rested jacket with a hand on the lapel.
(17:55):
Each finger of the hand is a branch with leaves on it.
And that's the faction that she's what was it called?
Yeah, she is a hemlock hand. Pepper says I already forgot
your name. What's your name again?
Stella, Stella Coldgrave. Whoa.
That's such a cool name. My name is Pepper Pendergrass.
(18:16):
That's a very warm name. You're so funny, Pepper.
Like hits her on the arm. It wasn't a joke in my world,
we've measured things by seasonsand temperatures, so Pepper
would be a very warm name in my world.
Interesting. Well, I can hardly see how it's
our fault if we managed to more competently complete the task
(18:36):
than your little group. Well, we just weren't expecting
you because like I said, House of Mall has claim on that
territory and they are going to come and they are going to ask
for a tithe and payment. For what was lost?
What sort of tithe? Money.
Usually. How much money like price point?
(18:59):
One fair is the typical custom though.
If they knew that you had gotten2 momentous out of the deal,
they may ask for more, but I didn't tell them and I suggest
you don't either. Thank you.
I appreciate your discretion, Stella.
That means a lot to me. Pepper has stars in her eyes.
She's like. You're so nice.
(19:19):
Why are you trying to help us? She points a finger at you,
Friedrich, right to the point. And I like that.
This isn't help. It's not for free.
Nothing on this train is that isfree help.
However, I have come at the behest of my employer, Mr. Diane
L Khan. Mr. Khan, he has a proposition
(19:41):
for you. He will consider the hemlock
hands and your. Do you have a name for
yourselves yet? We're the three friends.
No, that is not our name. We have no name.
We have no name, no name group. A band of.
Borders. Sorry.
(20:03):
No, I like that the band of borders is not bad.
What is it Borders Good. I tried to say brothers sorry.
It was just like paper and paper, basically the same word,
brothers. It's.
Pretty funny. Yeah.
All right, well, your no name group, then we will consider you
and us square. If you simply let Mr. Khan hold
(20:29):
on to the diadem for one stop, you'll give it back.
What you must understand is thatour group is not particularly
interested in the sale of objects for riches, only the
riches of the mind. You see, Mr. Khan is a he
wouldn't say he's an academic. You see, the academics live in
Kendall Hall. He is a collector of
(20:51):
curiosities, and he would like very much to examine the diadem
for whatever magical properties it has, make a study of it,
catalog it, and then he will give it right back to you.
What kind of guarantee that we have that he would give it back
to us in exactly the same condition?
I suppose our word means nothingto you as you have absolute
(21:13):
ignorance of our reputation throughout the city.
Through. Though it is a good one and we
do deal fairly in all things. To the assurance I shall.
Well, I suppose it'll leave this.
I will leave with you 4 fares which is the bartering price of
your memento and if we do not give it back then you can keep
(21:35):
the fares. A huddle.
Huddle team. Oh, Oh yeah, let's do it.
And Pepper grabs you guys both by the shoulders and hauls you
in. Valerian says.
I think we have not much choice here.
It's probably the best offer we're going to get.
What are your thoughts? She does have us between a rock
(21:55):
and a hard place. That's really messed up to say,
Pepper. I trust her.
I I don't know. There's just something about her
I. OK, Pepper's.
Pepper's intuition is really bad.
So I don't think that we. Can count her but.
I still don't see what other option we have.
I agree. Also, I don't understand why
(22:15):
this ritual needs to be conducted with.
Touching. No.
I mean, it makes no sense. I'm highly skeptical, but again,
I think we don't have a choice. When?
Friedrich asked. That Pepper, like, starts giving
him a shoulder rub. She's like, maybe the touching's
not like nice enough. And he just.
He goes so rigid, it's like you're like fucking trying to
(22:38):
shoulder rub a fucking boulder. Friedrich is the type of person
I imagine if you try to give hima massage, he like completely
collapses to the ground and goescatatonic.
Like, that's not like. He's a little tightly wound, you
might say. He's like a tiny bit high
strung. Just a little.
Bit and sensing that. OK.
(23:00):
So we're an agreement that we take the deal.
Yeah. Yeah, OK, Stella, I mean.
Pepper is an empath. We accept your terms.
If you provide us with the four fares right now, we will give
you the diadem. Very good.
And she? Temporarily, but not forever.
Yes, it is a lone have you paperand pen.
(23:23):
We have paper right there. And he points to Pepper.
And Pepper smile, kind of like twitches.
And then she. Runs to one of the horse drawers
and pulls out of some horse paper in a horse pen.
Yeah. Stella smiles fondly at the
horse. Stuff she has.
Oh, nod. He hated horses.
(23:47):
Whoa, he's, he's so complicated.I really can't wait for him to
get back. Oh.
OK. So you knew him?
Oh, everybody on the train knew Nod.
Tragic, absolutely tragic what happened to him.
And it's all your fault, all three of you.
But. No, you can't blame us for his
choice. Very true.
He would not accept the price one really has to pay in order
(24:13):
to move up in the world. Still, that's a tragedy.
Now she writes out like a quick contract on the horse paper with
a horse pen that just says we, the Hemlock Hands write this
note of promise that in exchangefor a bond of four fares, we are
given in exchange this diadem from the world of Afetrea.
(24:36):
Should the diadem not be returned promptly within one
stop, we shall forfeit the four fares to the No Name group that
lives in Nod's old. Room.
Nice. Yes, this looks good to me.
Yes, it's. Airtight.
And she pulls out four slips of paper, each of which is embossed
(25:00):
with gold ink that say 1 fair onthem.
And they have like a little illustration of a train.
The front of the train is comingout of 1 circle, and the back of
the train is coming out of another circle on the other side
where it says 1 fair. So it looks like it's going
through a portal. Hell yeah.
And so she hands the four of these to you guys.
Well, actually before she does, she says.
(25:21):
Now the diadem, please. Yes, one moment and Valerian
goes over to the same drawer that Pepper got the paper and
pen from and opens it up and pulls up the diadem.
And while Valerian is going overto the drawer, Friedrich
sheepishly says, Well, I supposeI'm sorry for throwing a grenade
you, but you did pull a knife onme.
(25:43):
It's all in the past. These sorts of things happen,
and those of us who are practical, we'll let them go.
I should warn you, though, that not many people on this train
are practical. The practical sort?
Don't run away and join an interdimensional crime circus.
I kind of glance over at Pepper and Valerian and I say.
I get that sense. She takes the diadem from You
(26:04):
Valerian and then slides over the four fairs and her note of
contract. It's very good.
Our business is complete. I would warn you to expect a
representative from the House ofMA at some point.
Be careful with them. What type of are we talking?
Torture Representative. Verbal negotiator?
(26:28):
Kidnapper. What kind of representative I?
Thought they just wanted to collect the money.
They sound horrible. It's hard to say with them.
They will want to collect the money but it's mostly for form
the House of Ma. They're an interesting group.
It's I'd say it's more of a cultthan anything, but a cult
implies more membership than they have.
(26:49):
Would you recommend booby trapping the home?
Oh, absolutely. OK.
Thank you. Yeah, that's all I need to know.
We'll be good. We'll be ready for them.
Well, it was. Interesting doing business with
you. I will be by to replace the
diadem once my employer is done looking at it.
(27:10):
Good day and she gets up. Pepper gives her a hug.
Oh, and she is surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly considering
her name, very cold. And she hats your arm and then
sort of just extracts herself out of the hug and backs out of
the room. Hey.
(27:33):
Good day. All right, you now have 4 fares
that you will have to return, but you can also spend.
Like if we think we can because,she said they'll be back before
the next stop or after the next stop.
After the next stop, so once youguys do need to turn these
things into Charles Rex. So we could gamble with them.
(27:54):
You could gamble with them. We do have our own fares in our
inventory. Each of us have two and my
personal thought would be that like we should hold on to, you
know, the two artifacts we already have and just try and
get one more at the next stop because like it was really lucky
that we even got 2 and not just one.
Yeah, I'm in agreement with that.
(28:15):
My smart risk adverse friends. What's up you guys?
I just listened to the mid roll that Errol recorded last time
when they did it without a script for the first time ever
and like I'm so proud of them. They've come so far, they've
(28:38):
finally fallen to my level. A bitch who records their mid
roll 15 minutes before their starting stream because they
forgot to do it the day before when they were supposed to.
And there is no script. There is no guidance.
This is just raw, unedited bullshit.
(29:03):
So welcome and welcome Errol. I can't wait until you follow
the rest of the way. I don't know where I am, but
like, I'm pretty far down there,so you've, you've got a long way
to go, but I, I trust that you'll get here one day.
Well, let's do the mid roll and let's hope that nothing happens
during the mid roll. Nothing untoward, nothing
inappropriate or unfortunate. So we have a summer sale going
(29:26):
on and it's like a summer slash fall sale because we sort of
forgot to start it. So it's going until September
30th on the the Legend Lark store, which you can find at
Legend Lark dot store on the Internet.
It's an Internet store and untilthe 30th of September we have
15% off of all products. That includes, oh shoot, what do
(29:49):
we actually have on sale right now?
I don't want to say something isgoing to be on sale that we
don't have in stock. Can you imagine how embarrassing
that would be? Oh thank God the world of Fall
in Love mug is in stock. 15% offthat 15% off of our shirts, the
amazing pins that Errol has madeand the cute little Darius
(30:10):
friend patches that are I'm obsessed with, all of those are
15% off. And if you want to shout out
somebody, give them a special little message or advertise
something, you can also purchaseone of our ad reads or personal
messages for 10% off until the 30th of September.
(30:31):
In addition to that, the other things I have to advertise are
Riverdale Roulette, which is ourbiweekly.
Is it biweekly when it's every other week?
That's got to be Yeah. Because, like, what else would
it be, right? Anyways, every other Monday, we
watch an episode of Riverdale ina random order, out of order,
each of us, and we split into teams.
We fight each other to the deathin an attempt to explain what
(30:52):
has happened on that episode of Riverdale.
It's very difficult. We fail every time, but we're
really trying hard and it's a lot of fun.
And it's on our YouTube, which is the same as what we are
everywhere else, which is LegendLark YouTube.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not Googling it to make sure
(31:15):
that I'm right. It's Legend Lark podcast on
YouTube. But if you search Legend Lark,
it'll come up anyways. You should check that out.
It's a lot of fun. It's crazy.
Also, Cat does an amazing job making this like, crazy serial
killer board before every episode.
And like, it's genuinely impressive.
It's very aesthetically beautiful and I'm obsessed with
(31:35):
it. OK, so that's, that's what I
have to plug. We also have a special message
this week. It is one of those very special
personal messages that you can buy on our store where we read
whatever you want us to say to the world.
And those are 10% off until the end of September.
(31:56):
So this one reads as follows. Happy 19th birthday to Nate
McManus from his parents Val andCraig and brother James.
Nate is a bit of a super fan andis so grateful to be part of the
Legend Lark community. He wishes to thank the
podcasters for the many, many hours of joy and connection he's
experienced during some very tough years.
(32:18):
For those who know Nate by his Discord nickname McMahon
Mcchild, he wants to give you a special shout out as well as the
Legend Lark fans he has recruited including Tommy, Mars
and Mom. Happy birthday Nate, you are so
loved. Happy birthday McMahon, I was so
excited when we got this messageand I'm so excited that I get to
(32:39):
be the one to read it to you because I love to see you
whenever I stream and this is awesome.
Happy birthday. Oh my God you are a child
though, one day you'll grow up. I believe in you.
I hope you had a good birthday. OK?
Anyways, now I have to thank ourpatrons.
We have a three new patrons of this week, two weeks, whatever
(33:00):
they are. Tam, thank you.
Alyssa Lemon, Lehman, Lehman, I'm sorry and Heath Sledge.
What an incredible name. I am obsessed with that name.
Very good work. Thank you all for supporting us.
We really appreciate it. I know Errol said this a little
bit in the last whatever mid roll.
(33:22):
I'm literally, I don't have timeto edit this.
I'm sorry. Anyways, Errol mentioned this in
the last mid roll. But like, we really, really,
really appreciate all of you whoare able to donate to us on
Patreon because we love making this podcast so much.
But it is very time consuming and a lot of work and we put a
lot of work into it. And sometimes that means that it
sucks to have also a day job because we all do have day jobs
(33:45):
in addition to doing this. And we live in a society.
And so it genuinely helps us to like cushion our lives and make
things a little bit easier for us sometimes because we know
we've got that sweet, sweet Patreon money for chicken at the
end of the week. So thank you guys so much.
We really, really appreciate it.Oh, next, I have to pick a
(34:07):
Spotify comment to respond to you.
I already picked it because I knew I wasn't going to be able
to edit this. So I was so smart and I picked
it in advance and it's also one that I'm so interested.
I just want Cat to respond to it.
It is from 61 Sydney and it sayswhat a fun episode Purple Heart.
Side note about the train, my brother and I have a crack
theory. It is somehow related to Dawson.
(34:28):
Maybe Dawson has transformed into the train or has merged
with it and is now an essential part of the train.
Maybe Dawson created the train or directs it somehow.
Or heck, maybe the train is his brother freed from the bag.
Colon up, Carrot nose, parentheses.
It's a :). I would also like to know that,
(34:50):
because I think Sydney, we all know that in the final episode
of the Names of the Dragons campaign, Dawson went somewhere.
And we all know Cat has plans for dot.
Like she's not going to let him.Go.
So like, I'm also curious. I'm just suspicious of
everything related to him. I know that if he is not part of
(35:12):
the train or connected to the train, he will show up and ruin
our lives at some point and I'm just waiting for it to happen.
So astute observation, Sydney. Anyways, if you want more of
this stuff that I'm doing right now, you can follow us on our
social medias, Tumblr, blue sky Instagram.
We have a Reddit now and also a fan run discord, which is super
awesome and very active, and I've heard really good things
(35:34):
about it yes, all of those places Legend lurk or as I found
out with YouTube earlier today, legend lurk podcast.
You'll find them. And now, oh, my God, a message
to Chantelle. Chantelle, I'm so sorry I had to
bail on you this weekend. I'm.
I'm a fool and I can't schedule myself properly.
(35:55):
And I'll miss you. And I hope you are thinking of
me during your activities. And yeah, the code word is
vengeful Snail. The sleeper agent is active.
Go. OK.
(36:23):
OK. Next we're going to move on to
heat. So heat is going to be tracking
how much hot water you guys got in with your heist and it never
nowhere because we are kind of between two cities.
I'm adding a second heat meter and that's going to be your
notoriety. Your heat is going to track how
much hot water you're in in the any ever.
(36:45):
So anywhere outside the train that you are doing crimes.
Those crimes are going to reverberate through the
multiverse and there will be consequences even though you
have moved to another world. Right.
So if you end up with very high heat or a wanted level in the
any ever that will carry over between worlds.
You will also be tracking your notoriety and that will be
(37:06):
tracked at half. Like every time you take two
heat, you'll take one notoriety and that tracks how others in
never know where are perceiving you guys.
So if you're getting too notorious, the other gangs in
never Nowhere are going to say hey, you guys are fucking things
up too much and you need to coolyour jets.
And they will enforce that through a variety of means.
(37:28):
So is that different from reputation?
Because that's a thing too, right?
Yes, there is also reputation. Reputation is positive,
notoriety is negative. OK, Heat's also negative.
And heat is also negative. Yeah.
So heat and notoriety are negative.
Because notoriety is basically never nowhere heat.
Yeah, basically. So heat 0 heat would be smooth
and quiet, low exposure. I don't think that's what you
(37:50):
guys did. No, there was an explosion.
Yeah, there was also pepper fellthrough the floor.
Yeah, I was on stage and then itwas clear that I wasn't part of
it. I emitted a vapor that filled
the stadium. Yeah, it was A2 heat contained
standard exposure. I don't think that necessarily
applies to you guys either, so. Then we're into. 4 Heat, loud
(38:13):
and chaotic, high exposure. Wait, did we skip 3?
No, like it's 246. Oh, OK, 024.
Six, yeah, 0246, OK 6 would be wild, devastating exposure.
I don't think it got that bad. No.
I'd say you guys take 4 heat from this.
It. Goes on our little.
Yes, that goes on to your sheet tracker and that means with the
(38:34):
system I have for never Nowhere,you guys are taking two
notoriety for four heat, which means everybody heard what you
did and pops you on the back saying great job for making it
out there. But they all know what you guys
do. So we will add one heat for a
high profile or well connected target.
I would say yes. You guys robbed the high Church
(38:57):
of Apatreya. Yes, add one heat if the
situation happened on hostile turf.
Yeah, so it's not hostile turf. All right and then it is one
heat. If you're at war with another
faction, you are not. So you don't take that heat and
add 2 heat. If killing was involved, you did
not kill anybody to your knowledge.
Correct. So we got 5 heat in all.
(39:17):
You got 5 heat in all and two notoriety.
Well done. So that is heat.
So also Rep as part of heat. Here you gain 2 reputation when
you complete a score. Nice.
One Rep for a target that is a higher tier than yourself.
Everyone's a higher tier than us.
Yep. So you get one extra Rep for
that. Yay.
So that's three Rep. Yep, 3 Rep total.
(39:40):
OK, all right. And now the next part of
downtime is entanglements. Entanglements are based on the
amount of heat you have. And then we roll a number of
dice equal to your wanted level.If wanted level is 0, we'll roll
2 dice and keep the lowest result.
So your wanted level is 0? We'll roll 2 dice and keep the
lower. How much heat did you end up
generating? 555.
(40:01):
OK so that is the table that I am looking at here.
Who wants to roll this? And we roll for the whole crew.
Yep, this is for the crew. Roll 2 dice and we'll take the
lower. Hey, the lower was a three.
OK, so it is going to be steppedon toes or Porter's Justice.
(40:22):
So I'm going to go with stepped on toes because that makes
sense. In stepped on toes, you
knowingly or unknowingly fouled another gang's plans during your
last operation and they will expect recompense one way or
another. So that makes a lot of sense
because you did step on the toes.
Yeah, you probably did step on toes there.
So either you will pay recompense and they already
(40:43):
expect check 1 fare out of you. So this is going to be in.
Addition to that, oh man. Or you can forfeit Rep equal to
your tier plus one. Can we use coin to help with the
stress and the harm? Can we?
So when you guys are taking downtime actions, you can spend
coin to take additional downtimeactions.
OK, so I guess we do so I feel like.
We want to, yeah, we want to save.
(41:04):
OK, our claim. Then and give our Rep.
OK, so the consequence of that is that you are going to lose
reputation. Yeah, one Rep.
So how that manifests is as you guys are out in the city, you
are starting to hear rumors about yourselves and they are
not flattering. They're basically everyone's
saying that this upstart no namegang is out there.
(41:28):
They don't care about the rules.They don't care.
They haven't learned anything about the city and they're just
charging ahead. And everybody knows that they're
already in trouble with Charles Rex, they're already in trouble
with the ringmaster, and now they're getting themselves in
trouble with the House of Ma. Everybody knows that the House
of Ma is unstable at best and crazy at.
Worst. So these guys, they've got
(41:51):
something coming for. Them this is so embarrassing.
It's. So embarrassing.
I mean, it's literally all. True, also Friedrich is just
used to everyone constantly talking shit about him behind
his back so. Valerian understands the whims
of public opinions and knows that it can change to the drop
of a hat, so he's unconcerned. Pepper's really sad.
(42:14):
OK. Next we are going to move into
downtime activities. So your options for downtime
activities, each of you get 2 downtime activities.
You can repeat these. So if you decide you want to say
reduce harm twice, you can do that totally fine.
And then you can either spend Rep or coin to take additional
downtime activities if you want.So your options are acquire an
(42:37):
asset, start a long term projector work on a long term project
if you have one going, recover. So reduce your harm, reduce your
heat, train a skill or indulge your vice which will reduce your
stress. So who wants to go first with
their downtime activities? I mean, I have a lot of
recovering I need to do as well as as do I?
(43:00):
So maybe all of you need to takea trip to nurse.
Debbie Yeah. I think we all need to go see
Nurse Debbie. I think that's a great idea.
So normally you would have to acquire an asset to get a doctor
on your side or have them as oneof your friends.
Valerian chose to have Nurse Debbie as an enemy, and I'm
going to count that. I thought Nurse Debbie like
didn't give a shit though. Exactly.
(43:21):
That's The thing is I think Nurse Debbie is, it's not
actually Valerian's enemy or rather Nurse Debbie's Valerian's
enemy. Valerian is not her enemy.
She does not care in that way. So you guys find Nurse Debbie's
clinic in the moth light. It is a small plastic door.
It's like a blue plastic door with a window set into it.
(43:45):
And when you push inside, you find yourselves in a small
clinic the size of 1 boxcar. There are a couple of beds
separated with mismatch catched curtains and there are 4 hard
plastic chairs laid against one wall along with a desk and a
table that has a bunch of medical stuff on it.
(44:05):
There are so many little figurines on shelves all
throughout this room. Most of them are little like
cartoon figures. Some of them are little like
toys that look like you know what we would see is like a
Happy meal toy. And in among all of this is
Nurse Debbie. She is a small woman, about 5-2,
(44:28):
with a thick mane of frizzy red brown hair and sort of a very
narrow, pointed face. And she is sucking on a
lollipop. She has like 1 clenched in her
mouth when you guys come in. Nurse Debbie is dressed in a
pair of light blue scrubs with cartoon bears on them that we
would recognize as Care Bears. And she looks up as the three of
(44:50):
you enter. And she goes.
Oh Jesus, what? What happened to you 3?
Oh my God, sit down, sit down. Valerian has to be dragged in.
Pepper like she is dragging you,but she's like so excited she
like barely even notices that you're like pulling back.
Sure, she's just like overwhelmed you with her excited
strength. Right.
And she is far stronger than me.Yeah.
And Friedrich is totally unconcerned with you and is very
(45:12):
interested in, like, he's just looking around at some of the,
you know, equipment and trying to kind of suss out and
understand some of the examples of modern medical technology
that are in this office. Yes, and modern, being modern to
the 1980s America, because that is the level of modern that
Nurse Debbie acts on as she seesyou coming in or being dragged
(45:35):
in. Valerian.
She says, Oh my God, you get in here, you stupid little cat boy.
I don't care. If you want healing, you have to
get in. If you want someone to wave
magic hands over you, you can gospend a fortune in Sweetwater.
You decide which one you want todo.
I don't care. I want to be waved on the magic
hands. I don't want these painful.
(45:56):
Procedures. Oh.
My God, Jesus Christ in heaven above.
An honor to meet you. My name is Friedrich Weiss.
I'm a I'm a chemist. I've heard that you are skilled
in the Medical Sciences. Oh sweetie, I'm just a pediatric
nurse. I worked in an elementary school
and then I worked in a hospital.I'm not a doctor or anything, I
(46:18):
just know how to stitch people up.
Now, you all look pretty bad, soI'll take you one at a time.
Who's hurt worse, do you think? Let's see.
Valerian points to Friedrich notbecause he knows that Friedrich
is hurt worse just because he doesn't want to go.
Well, I have level 2 harm, but what about you, Pepper?
I also have a level 2 harm, but my level 2 harm is being touched
(46:39):
by a ghost so it's. Yeah.
Is there a medical technology for the Ato?
Medical procedure once. Once I get my twisted ankle and
my pile drive injury under control, my my ghost touch is
going to go down a level so it'sgoing to be fine.
Yeah, so, Friedrich, she crooks a finger at you to to beckon you
over to one of the beds, and sheshuts a curtain behind you.
(47:03):
Valerian peaks because he's curious and terrified.
All right, let's take a look at you.
Looks like you got some some problems around your throat.
Did you get choked? Yes, an astute observation.
Yeah, looks like a big ham hand too.
Ouch, Ouch, Ouch. All right, well, I'll get you
some ice for that. And she just starts doing like
(47:24):
because you said it's you got choked and was your other.
Was your other house? I got some little cuts from
being cutted with a knife. That's right, you did get cut in
with a little knife. I she's like, all right, I'll
get you some ice for your throatand then I'm going to have to
stitch you up. You ever been stitched up
before? Not for a long time, I'm afraid.
All right, you going to be a baby like your friend.
(47:45):
It's. Certainly not.
All right, well, very good. Then.
I'm just going to give you one shot of whiskey and then we're
going to get started. All right and she gives you a
shot and let's see how good of ajob Debbie does.
We are going to roll on your healing clock.
So you will see on your character sheet there is a four
count clock. We are going to roll, or rather
(48:05):
Debbie is going to roll and she's quality level 2.
So I am going to go ahead and roll to die and get the higher.
Oh, higher is A5. That's good.
Hell yeah. So that would be for A5 you get
to clear 2 segments of your clock.
You are now halfway to clearing your Level 1 harms.
(48:26):
Healing is hard. You could also spend one coin to
improve your result. Yeah, I probably will do that
for myself. Sure.
Yeah. So that would bring you up to a
full success. And then you would clear 3 on
your clock, 3 sections on your clock.
So then you could spend another downtime activity healing more,
or you could spend another coin to clear it entirely.
(48:48):
Damn, like so healing is. Hard.
Jesus Christ, I guess I'll use my other downtime action.
How much stress do you have? A lot, but I'm just gonna have
to use my one other coin to like, try and have less of that.
So we'll roll again for Debbie. Highest is a four, which is
(49:09):
going to get you another 2 segments out of your clock,
which fills it. And now you can.
Get rid of your harms. Thank God.
So yeah, as nurse Debbie is likestitching me up, I'm definitely
flinching every time I have to be touched and like wincing.
Valerian has to stop watching because he's starting to get
nauseous. He like, runs away.
Pepper has just been like examining all the little figures
(49:32):
and like exclaiming every so often.
So cute. All right, Freddy boy, let's get
you up. Thank.
You, I think you're going to live here.
She reaches into one of the drawers of her rolling cart with
all her medical supplies in it, and she reaches into one of the
drawers and she pulls out a basket full of suckers.
Says take a sucker. Oh, I I I don't.
(49:53):
It'll help you heal. Take the sucker.
And he he timidly takes the sucker and puts it in his
pocket. All.
Right, next patient. Ever says oh me.
And then she runs in. She.
Runs in, she runs in Will. Still limping by the way I was.
Going to say a little creakily runs.
In she has a twisted ankle, her body is just like bruised from
(50:17):
getting pile drived into the ground, and she also has like a
strange light in her eyes as shehas basically taken kind of like
a spiritual injury by being touched by the ghosts.
And Debbie, she waved a little flashlight in your eyes.
She looks in your mouth. She goes, Yeah, I had a little
spiritual run in, huh? All right, let me get you a
(50:38):
heated blanket. And here we're going to put this
under your feet. And she puts under your feet
like a warmed, you know, like a heating pad that's full of rice.
Debbie, you're such a good nurse.
Well, thank you Tell Valley General Regional Hospital that.
I'll try. I hope you don't.
One time we went to an almost anywhere of where I used to be
(51:00):
from. Terrible time.
I hated it. Never want to go back there.
My husband was still alive. Horrible.
I chime in almost anywhere. Oh, yeah, that's just a
colloquial term. I mean, I guess there's no other
term for it but the colloquial 1.
You know, we never go back to the same world twice, but
sometimes you get pretty close, right?
(51:21):
And things might be almost your anywhere, you know?
So for me, we were back in Boston.
It was 1982. My husband was still alive.
Horrible. I mean, he was still alive in my
world when I left too. But I keep hoping that anytime
we go to an any ever that's close to mine, he'll be dead.
That was, you know, that was thegoal.
(51:42):
But here we are anyway. And Friedrich just looks like
his eyes are like very wide and he's kind of like zoned out,
like he's, he's trying to process this information.
Pepper's like, I hope your husband dies.
Really. Soon.
Me too, sweetie. See, that's how I ended up here.
Really. I'll tell you a story while I
(52:03):
work. See, when I was back in my own
world, my husband, horrible man,couldn't stop drinking.
And you know what I found out, and I found this out too late,
is that when somebody's a heavy drinker, they can tolerate a lot
more of a drug that would otherwise kill them.
Crazy, right? So anyway, that's how I ended up
here. Turns out when the hospital
(52:23):
finds out that, oh, maybe there's a little bit too much
morphine missing, they're going to start looking at who was on
duty. And I was the only darts on
duty. So here we are now.
Valerian's in the corner. He doesn't understand what any
of this means, but he knows it'snot good for him and he is in
the corner like in a ball, and he's shaky.
And Friedrich is pulled out of his catatonic state as he's
(52:47):
observing this phenomena with you and.
Pepper is like. Sometimes you have to break the
rules to help the ones you love.I get it.
That's so true, honey, that is so true.
And that's all I was trying to do is help the ones I love.
And by the ones I love, I mean myself.
Now let's see what we can do about those injuries.
What happened to you? Did you get knocked over by a
(53:09):
steam engine? Come on.
Not this time. Highest is a six.
What? Does that mean?
That means 3 segments of your clock have been filled if you
want to spend a coin. Don't even get 4 for a six.
You get 4 for a critical if. I want to two sixes.
Yeah, Christ. So you can upgrade it to a
critical if you want to spend 1.Of your.
(53:29):
I want to upgrade it to a critical please.
OK, that clears your level 1 harms.
And that uses one of my coins. Yep, it was just one of your
coins and now you feel a little bit also like the heated blanket
and the warm foot pad. It has helped you come back a
little bit closer to life, away from the deathly touch of the
ghost. Okay so my twisted ankle feels
(53:49):
better, my pile driveness feels better, and now my ghost touch
is a level 1 which I would assume means I'm gonna have less
effect if I have like a ghost related yes action.
Yeah, if you try to roll a what is that, Arcane?
Yeah, Arcana. OK cat boy, your turn.
No, I don't want to go. Please.
All right, then get out. Pepper's like it's going to be
(54:11):
OK, you're going to feel better and.
She's like talking around the sucker in her mouth.
And you get a sucker at the end.Valerian says.
I don't know what that is. Friedrich looks very smug and he
says to. Valerian, Valerian, Don't tell
me you're. Afraid of this charming woman?
Yes, I am afraid of her. What is your problem?
(54:32):
He pushes you. And you're like so much taller
than him, Friedrich, almost like.
Valerian's crouched on the ground.
So that means he like pushes like.
Friedrich's knees and Friedrich collapses.
In the knee. Yeah, it's like when you slap me
on the back gently and I, like, collapse.
I'm imagining it like, you know,those little, like, wooden toys
where you press the bass and allof the strings that are holding
(54:54):
up the toys, like, kind of collapse.
Yeah, it's exactly like that. He runs over and helps Friedrich
up and is like. He just got better.
Don't hurt him again. Come on.
Time. And Friedrich looks even more
smug. I forgot how small of the weak
you are. He's very small and weak.
Come on, how? Dare you?
Valerian runs and scuttles over to the bed, and then he sits
(55:16):
down in the bed with his arms around his knees.
You're going to have to UN pretzel yourself if I'm going to
take a look at you do. You need to hold my hand.
No. Would it make you feel better if
you held my hand? I would not feel anything.
Pepper goes over and holds your hand.
He lays down on the bed. He's so stiff as a board.
He knows he's going to be poked.He literally has bruised ribs,
(55:37):
so I don't think he is going to be poked at all.
But he has no idea what the potential procedure could be.
He's like a cat that doesn't like to go to the vet.
Yes, that's exactly what he is. All right, Debbie rolled A4 so
you can fill in two segments of your clock.
Do you want to do any more healing or is that enough for
Valerian today? Wait, if I used my second
downtime action would I get another roll?
(55:59):
You would, yes. OK.
I think I'd I'd rather do that because then I can buy another
downtime action with my coin, right?
Yes. OK.
That's actually true. That's a really good point.
OK, so you're gonna spend a cointo do another downtime activity,
and your next second downtime activity is going to be
recovering more. To be staying here, yeah.
OK. And she rolled the six so.
(56:23):
Hey, cool. OK, so.
So, Valerian, you are so terrified that she's going to
cut or poke or prod you. She's going to cut in and like
move my ribs. No, all she does is just like,
wraps your torso in a bandage and goes all right.
Don't move too much for the nextlike week and you'll be fine.
That's it. There's no needles, there's no
blood or moving of my organs or.Cutting.
(56:46):
No, I can give you a shot of whiskey for the pain if you
want. Oh, please, please yes.
All right, shot of whiskey and the sucker coming right up.
Larian is like he's shaking, he downs his whiskey, he puts his
sucker in his mouth, his little cat eye pupils dilate because
it's very sweet and yummy and hejust walks out.
He doesn't look at you guys. He's gone.
And Pepper looks down at her hand, which has been really
(57:08):
squeezed hard. Yeah, there's like claw marks on
your hand. All right, So you guys each want
to spend the rest of your money to do another downtime activity
to just clear some stress? I do I still have another
downtime. Activity.
That's true, you do. But Friedrich, what is your?
Vice and how are you going to indulge it?
(57:29):
Yes, so I picked weird. Yep, OK.
And the the description for weird is you experiment with
strange essences, consort with rogue spirits, observe bizarre
rituals or taboos, etcetera. And in this particular case, I
think I will be definitely experimenting with strange
essences, because that's what I like to do anyway.
(57:51):
OK. But I think Friedrich is really
excited about the fact that he now, in this world, has access
to totally different substances and chemicals than he did in his
home world. So he's, yeah, very much just
trying to get a sense and an understanding of these new
materials and, you know, maybe doing a little self
(58:13):
experimentation. OK, so to clear vice you are
going to make an attribute role using your character's lowest
attribute rating and then you will clear stress equal to the
highest die result. So what is your lowest attribute
rating? For resolve that's my lowest, I
just have one circle filled in and sway.
(58:33):
So does that mean I would roll one dice?
Yep, roll one die. OK.
OK. So that's three.
You have cleared 3 stress. Nice.
And I think that's all I can do because in order to do this, I
used up my last coin and I already used up both downtime
activities with healing. OK, you are a stressed out
(58:55):
little guy. Yeah, I've got 4 which is better
than it was. It is.
That's better than it was. All right, Pepper, what is your
vice? Pepper's vice is obligation, so
she whenever she has a free moment, she wears like a long
coat, as I've mentioned. And when she has a free moment,
(59:16):
she goes and finds somewhere to be alone and she takes off her
coat and she lays it out so thatthe inside of it is like facing
up and on the inside of her coatis basically like a serial
killer wall, serial killer wall slash, the tattoos of the guy
from Memento. So she has, I mean, like I'm, I
(59:37):
won't go into everything she haswritten on there, but she has
like marks down how many days it's been, how many months it's
been, how many years it's been tallies, some more crazed than
others. There's like a drawing of a harp
and of a pair of hands playing the harp.
There's lists of locations. Some of them are crossed out.
(59:57):
Some of them have checkmarks by them.
And at the center of it, it saysin words that have been
overlined and overlined and lined over again, Don't trust
her. And for her vice, she writes
over it one more time. And she adds Epitrea to her list
of locations and. Passes it out.
All right, roll your vice all. Right, my lowest attribute is
(01:00:21):
Insight, but I still have two. All right then roll 2 and take
the higher. Nice.
My highest is a six. Hey, I got such good luck.
I really, really fucking needed it, you guys.
That's good, yeah. And that, yeah, that's.
So how many stress did you have?I had a lot I have.
You had more than. 6123456 8. Okay, yeah, you needed that 6 I.
(01:00:44):
Needed it so bad. I asked because it is possible
to overindulge in your vice and you will to clear more vice or
more stress than you have. You will overindulge and there
are consequences. For that fun, yes.
All right, Valerian, what is your vice?
Valerian's vice is luxury. So cat tell me where the
(01:01:05):
fanciest place in town is and that's that's where Valerian
would want to go. Where you would probably want to
go would be Madersberger and Co which is in the Dark Lamp Canal.
It is the place to go for daringand avant-garde fashion is an
atelier that collects the finestfabrics from the any ever and
turns them into all sorts of beautiful garments and household
(01:01:27):
creations. Yeah, OK.
I think he would go there and hewould indulge in window
shopping, but I think he would also go if they allow him in,
which I assume they would because it's not like the crazy
expensive place. No, yeah.
His main thing would be touchingthe fabrics.
He would want to touch all of the fabrics and feel all of the
fabrics and then like imagine the fabrics on him and.
(01:01:47):
Then why don't you roll? Why don't you roll?
We'll see how this goes for you.I.
Got a one? How much stress do you have?
A lot. Oh no.
Yeah, I'm too stress away from taking a trauma.
And trauma you can never get ridof, right?
Yeah. Yeah, traumas are forevers.
So what does that get rid of 11 stress for me?
(01:02:10):
Yeah, OK. Poor baby.
Yeah, we were in the same boat, Valerian with stress.
OK, I'm gonna spend my last cointo stay in this shop.
Yeah, you. So what happens is the man who
runs Madersberger and Co, which is not Madersberger himself, he
kind of comes up to you Valerianand he looks you up and down in
(01:02:32):
your rat catcher clothes which you came onto the.
Train with and he says, Sir, if you would like to buy something
you are welcome to stay, but otherwise I will have to ask you
to leave. Valerian says.
Where did you get your fabrics from?
Well, we get them from all over the any ever.
(01:02:53):
We contract out with various gangs, various groups to run
jobs for us to procure whatever the du jour material of the
world is. We acquired some very fine linen
from Afetrea. In fact, I can show that to you
if you have coin to spend. Valerian says let me see the
(01:03:17):
linen. I will buy.
I will. Buy and he brings out like some
very like beautifully woven linen, just like it's buttery
soft to the touch, but it's got like creases just super, super
right. So it makes like these really
knife sharp pleats. It's in some really lovely
colors, some like deep Reds and some dark purples.
(01:03:40):
Oh yeah, Valerian wants to buy the deep red.
OK, deep red. And what does he want to have
made out of it? An off the shoulder Cape.
OK, Valerian will spend his fares his one remaining fare.
One remaining fare on an off theshoulder deep red cake, deeply
irresponsible, reduces stress. Yep.
(01:04:00):
That's true. Well, let's.
Find out how much stress that reduces Juniper.
It's a two no. It doesn't hit quite right.
Valerian. It's a beautiful Cape.
I think it's a beautiful Cape, but it's like you're looking at
it and you realize it just does not go with your rat catcher
outfit. Yeah, maybe so.
It just makes you want more. What does that bring you down
(01:04:23):
to? I have 4 stress.
OK. That's what I have left.
Too it yeah, it could be worse. It could be worse, could be
worse, could be worse. All right.
And with that, we are done with our downtime activities.
So let us go ahead and shift on over into free play and we will
see what you guys are going to steal next.
(01:05:10):
Yes, I give her my journal. We've got paper, right?
Here. Damn, I can't believe I missed
that shit. You can you know what if you
want to take it please. You want me to steal your joke?
Yes. OK.
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