Favor, Episode 30: Drowned Sorrows

Welcome, venturers to another episode. First off, we want to say thank you for your patients lately with our delayed podcast episode releases. As we have made some changes to our editing processes, we've encountered some bumps in the road, but we are continuing to do our best with the resources at our disposal. With that said, I don't want to keep you from the action. So let's hop in. Thank you so much to Emily Mayo for composing our wonderful theme song.

Thank you to tabletop audio for providing additional ambient music. And thank you to all you find folks who support the show by leaving ratings, reviews hanging out in our discord and supporting us via Patreon. Y'all. Rocks are sucks. Alright. So here's a recap of what happened last time. Then we'll dive right in last time on Venture Maidens are maidens get further embroiled in the mystery of Lily Hall as they meet with the members of the Pollyanna family.

After hearing testimony from the groom and the mother of the bride, our heroes decided to keep watch over Enzo's bedroom to catch whatever dark force has been visiting him night after night while it took up watch Lou and Cassie went for a romantic moonlit boat ride.

The date was interrupted when the pair spotted a body dressed in white on the lake's edge just before their horrible discovery was jolted into action by screams coming from Lori Silver Taels Room arrived on the scene just in time to save Tony's uncle from a spell that was causing his lungs to fill with water with the immediate danger passed. The group noticed a parting message that had been scratched into the wall and that's what happened.

So now here's the show gather round travelers to hear our tale. Something is stalking Lily Hall with strange powers at back in call. Now we'll hear who brought it here and past mistakes become clear. Stay afloat as we head into favor. Episode 30. Drowned sorrows. Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back. It's another episode of Venture Maidens and not only is it just another episode, it's our dirty 30 yeses. Episode 30. Oh my God. We've made it.

We're at the fun flirty, sexy age of 30 which is great and very timely. Yeah, we're mature. We've got our ship together, but we're still having like a ton of fun. Amazing. How are you all feeling 30 episodes? I'm feeling, yeah, definitely falling into the role, feeling mature, feeling like level headed and like ready to really to dive into stuff. Yeah, I feel like you all are like getting a handle on things in a lot of ways and this is kind of like a turning point.

You know, y'all were like new to the world and babies before this. But now, but now you're here. You are solving mysteries. Fighting fate in the mortal plane. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. Cool. Welsh. It. Let's go ahead and get into it because I'm very excited. So, hey, everybody. My name is Celeste Conduit and tonight I will be your dungeon master. Hello, I'm Katie and I'm gonna be playing the very South. Your drought rogue.

Hello, I'm Naseem Hamed and I'm playing your half orc fighter for Tony, a silver tail and I'm sage and I am your beloved Bard to Flannery. Yes. So for those of you who don't know are new here. Welcome. This is a dungeons and dragons actual play fifth edition podcast set in the world setting established in the Venture Maidens campaign guide known as the Planes will say this is a very adult themes stream.

We keep just like a general body horror content warning up for, you know, graphic fantasy violence and all that nonsense. This episode, we have some specific content, warnings including drowning suffocation and like intense grief, especially family based tragedy. If those are themes that you don't feel up to handle this may not be the episode for you to watch or listen to but with that out of the way. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So we are in the middle of a mystery.

So last episode, we met a lot of people and we started to get some clues about something that is happening here.

So before we, you know, pick up on the action, the very last thing that had happened, you know, in the middle of this date, you know, Lou and Cassie had been in this stupid like swan paddle boat heading out, you know, 2 to 3 a.m. at this point on a moonlit night towards the on the big like family like artificial lake that they have here, which is given Lily Hall its name and there's like a little hideaway island with a cute like lake cabin, a topic that you were heading out towards.

And as you have been making your way, they're discussing some intimate details of Lou's life and relationship history. Cassie had yes, spotted something on the shore and Lou very quickly, you know, with your amazing vision had been able to take a look as well and see. Yeah, there is a young woman lying there apparently like in a seeping like wet, just nightgown collapsed on the shore. You're not sure you're probably about 30 ft away or so from that shore line there.

So you're not sure if she's like dead or sleeping or what, but she's not moving, she's face down on, on the shore. So panel as close as they can and then Lou is going to jump out of the boat and run over to her and check for Paul's breath. All that you like hop out of the boat and do the, you know, the sledging over thing where you're stepping through water and like climbing, climbing up the shore and Cassie is scrambling out of the boat, you know, behind you.

So you run over and you see, yeah, her lying face down there. And as you had seen before, this is a young Children woman who looks an awful lot like Ariadne e that woman that you interviewed before and then you haven't seen Raina. It's pretty safe to assume that this may be her. So as you flip her over, you can see, yeah, you confirm the fact she is absolutely not dressed to be outside. She's in that like long white nightgown. She is out cold. So her eyes are completely closed.

But you can see that her, her chest is rising and falling so she is not dead and her hair is sopping wet to almost like she Yeah, swim here and Cassie runs up behind. He was like, how is she good and looking at her too? Why don't you go ahead and give me that medicine check as you're kind of looking her over. Yes, that is an 18. You get down there looking for, you know, life sign. So yeah, there is the chest moving and falling. You can put your ear up to her chest.

You don't hear any like obstruction or anything So there's no like water in her lungs, she seems fine and you also look her over to, there doesn't appear to be any kind of injury. No, like head wound or anything that might indicate why she is passed out here. She is very, very cold. Obviously, the night is cold and she is wet. So you feel like she's probably going to be in trouble if you don't get her warm and dry soon, but there's no visible trauma you can see.

Yeah, if she's not responding to like light shakes, you know, saying her name because I figured that's who she is at this point. Then I guess I'm going to look for that cabin that we had originally been coming to go see and see if it's anywhere near that we could take her over there and get her inside. Yeah. So now that you're looking at the island here, it's a very cute little island. It's not very large. I mean, what you had to climb over was that rocky kind of sandy shore line made up here.

So you see on, you know, both like most sides of this island. They are these like jagged kind of piles of rocks, but you have landed on one of these little sandy patches. There are a couple like a very small dock that has been tied off here so you could tell the paddle boat off and from this little beachy spot there is a pathway that winds up through these like ornamental kind of tiered layers of trees and flourishing plants all very well manicured and decorated less than a 10 minute walk up.

You would reach like the center area of the island and you can just make out like the, the edges of some kind of white and golden domed structure. Yeah, we will look at Cassie and be like, she wanna grab her feet and we can try to get her up to where it's warm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And she, you know, kind of struggles a bit but helps you. Neither of us are very strong.

Yeah, she doesn't look like the strongest lady in the world, but, you know, she's tall and, you know, you're tall, so it's fine. Rayna's but maybe a little close to the ground and you're like, you know, navigating up these, these twisting ways, but you do up the winding path, see this structure and it does look almost like a gazebo as opposed to an actual cabin, but it is closed in here.

You can see lovely painted, like white shutters and a door with like lots of little flowers painted on it and it's cute. Ridiculously cute. Everything is closed up. Like maybe people haven't been in here and sometime I will gently set my half down and try the door, the door is unlocked. You don't have to get the lock picks out just yet. Date one. Yeah, I'll go ahead and open the door and do a quick peek inside and as long as I don't see any creepy movement we'll go on in.

No, you look inside and it's cute. It looks like it's, it's kind of a studio apartment style layout in here. So you see one of those nights beautiful, like four poster beds in one corner, like a little door that leads off to, you know, lavatory area. But otherwise it's like really kitschy, cute like tables and chairs and yeah, what you would expect from a very like high end glam p cabin. Alright, take her over to the bed and get her tucked in for now so she gets warm.

Yeah. Yeah and like a quick search of the room to you know, there is a wardrobe and there are some of those nice like fluffy robes and stuff that you can like you know, throw her into one of those and so it's packed, it's got a nice little soaps and like chocolates and ship very like airbnb fantasy airbnb God, why didn't we get to stay here? What the hell? Well, apparently it's just open to anyone whatever.

Yeah, so you get her all tucked in and uh the minute she is like warm and stuff, her temperature, her skin starts to return to a normal temperature and she seems to be out of like any kind of immediate danger. And Cassie looks at you and it's like this is not how I expected this evening to go, but at least she's alive. Yeah, I guess it could have been a worst date. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. Always true.

Yes. I definitely want to return to our conversation at some point, but I feel like maybe now not the time. Yeah, I, yeah, what is she doing out here? It's wearing that. Exactly. It's not like she decided to come out here. She's wearing her nightgown. She's like a rich lady. They don't do that. They got an outfit for everything. Yeah. Okay. Well, do you, do you want to stay with her or should I stay with her?

And we should probably get like a doctor out here, I guess, or her parents or something? Yeah, I can go, you know, I'd better meet up with the girls and, and tell them what we found here and she'll take like the ear piece that she took and give it to Cassie and she's like, I got an extra one of these ear pieces from the event coordinators. So you can scream into it if something happens and will come. Okay. Presents on the first date. That's very nice.

I'm a lot of things but I treat my ladies well. So next time it'll be better and more fun than this, I hope. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, go, go head back and I'll watch over her. No problem. Okay. Thank you for a lovely paddleboat. Time it was the most. I've enjoyed a boat until the end. So I'm gonna short and sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, bye. Okay and lose. Just gonna try and do a paddleboat by yourself. Be super fun like literally like straddling between them to get a foot on each side.

This seemed like a good idea at the time. Yeah, so she will head back over across the lake to try to get some help for Rena. Alright. So yeah, you start awkwardly heading back across the water doing your best and we're gonna go ahead and jump over to the scene with FIFA and Tony.

So when last we left off, you had to, you had just basically saved Lori's life by using that lesser restoration and like getting it to the point where he coughed out all this water that was seemingly coming from nowhere.

And just as he had kind of stabilized, that was when Tony, you were able to arrive on the scene and you had seen all of that, the weird like the water that had been coursing down the walls and the floor had started to dry up as if exposed to like a heat lamp just all of a sudden it's gone. So there's no water left in the room. Your uncle was no longer in immediate danger. But in those last moments, you had tried to ask him like what's happening? Did you see anything?

And he had like gone pale and terrified as he looked across, you know, in his four poster bed written on the wall. See me, those two words scratched into the wallpaper. So here you are and your uncle is still, he's coughing and taking things in and he is, he is so pale. You've never seen him? You've never seen him show a lot of emotion in general. But seeing him this frightened and it's very uncomfortable. Tony, you've never seen him like this are the windows in his room open or closed?

They're closed. Are you okay? Does anything else feel wrong? Feel hurt, feel damaged in any way? No, no, I'm fine. Thank thanks to you. He looks at you to thank you, Tony turns to you as well and says, thank you. I'm glad I got here when I did. Me too. I don't know. What, what did you see anything? I, I've never felt anything, anything like that. I mean, I run here in here as soon as I heard you, I heard the maid screamed when she saw the water coming out from under the door.

But even with my spell to see invisibility to seem to beyond the veil on, I don't see anything in this room and you know, she takes a quick glance around, especially looking at the scene, see me and I'm assuming she sees nothing. No trace of anything. Yeah. Just the words like that's the only thing left, right? Otherwise there's no trace. There's not even like, water, like whatever water he was coughing out. There's, it's totally gone.

It's so peculiar because, I mean, if it were a matter, as simple as a ghost, I'd be able to see it with this site, but there's nothing uncle. Do you remember anything from your dreams? Did you have any dreams tonight? Yeah. Um, just nightmares. All manner of horrible nightmares are just, uh, and then feeling like I, um, like I was choking like I couldn't breathe.

And then of course I woke up and I was, uh, the water and I don't know where it was coming from and just the pain and the feeling I felt so heavy, I just couldn't breathe. Like something was sitting on your chest or like, something was pulling you down. Yes. Like something like just like that, like something was sitting on, sitting on me and you can see his, his eyes are also kind of working. Like he's struggling to remember something almost just out of reach.

Keep thinking about it, keep reliving it, keep seeing it. I think, I don't know if this was the, the nightmare, if it was real. But right before I woke up, I thought I saw a woman, not a woman, something, it had a big glowing eyes and long black hair and it was only for a second and I'm not sure if it was real. Did you have any kind of feeling of familiarity when you saw this? Figure, did it frighten you, did you feel anything? Yes, it was, it was horrible.

It, like I said, like woman but not really. It was, it was monstrous. Everyone here seems to be so in support of Enzo and Raina getting married. But, I mean, do you think that anyone would have any, anything to gain from them? Not getting married? No, I, both of them and so Raina, they're, they're both good people and as far as the old Yonas are concerned, if I had to pick an elder and family, that was the most agreeable, it would be them. I've worked with them.

I've known them for a very long time, all of them and they're all good people. I don't understand why any of this is happening and he seems to be getting very agitated. Can you tell us? I mean, is there someone here who's good with magic who can put some protections on your room so that you can actually manage to get some sleep tonight? That is if you, if you even want to go back to bed, I understand if you don't want to.

I mean, I guess if, if, if that's why you're here, you, you probably know more about this than I do. I don't, I don't know what's, I don't know any of this, like, and it's at this point that you hear kind of a knock outside and the door was left open from you, like storming in here. But for the first time, you know, as that knock draws your attention, you can start to hear some like chattering of voices, like worried voices out in the hall sten and it pokes his head into the room.

They hear and he walks in surveys things and kind of closes the door behind him. Is everyone alright? For the most part, yes. My uncle seems to have been attacked by whatever entity is causing all these troubles around this wedding and they attempted to drown him. There was water coming out of the room, out of the walls, out of his lungs. Right? I mean, this is by far the worst. Nothing like this has happened so far. I've, I've done what I can to calm the situation.

I'm encouraging people to go back to bed again. We don't want this getting out until we know what we're dealing with. If there's any way we can chase down some clues or something on this, I can watch over him in the meantime, but maybe if you take this to Cassie, this might give her a better idea of what we're doing with Out of character. How many more days are left until the to the wedding ceremony. So you will have one more like day, one more night.

And then on the dawn of that third day is when the festival and the wedding is supposed to be happening to have one more full day and evening before you have to get this solved or this wedding may not happen on the dawn of day three. Did I just call him my uncle to stand? You know, you did and he didn't seem fazed by it. There is a pretty strong family resemblance and he is a private investigator, retired detective, but he doesn't give you, he didn't give you any grief about it.

So, it's like maybe he figured it out early and he just hasn't pressed the issue. Yeah. Well, not bring that up again. We'll just pretend like it didn't happen. Maybe he was thinking about something else. Maybe you didn't hear it. You don't know. Is the rest of the household unaffected? Have they been checked on? Nobody else? Seems to have experienced anything this evening. Obviously, the scream woke some people, but I've written it off as just, just a bad dream.

The chambermaid us pretty shaken up. But I've done my best to convince her it would probably be best if this story didn't leave the house again. The last thing we need is people panicking. I mean, yeah, it doesn't seem like any of the other people are really the ones at risk here anyway. It's very much directed towards your family. It seems Enzo seems to have been the target for the last couple of nights. But you were watching him. Right. And looks at us to, I, I was, and I didn't see anything.

I think, you know, getting closer to the actual holiday in ceremony and everything she or whoever is behind this, whatever creatures behind this, I feel like, must be getting closer to their true target is my guess at any rate. Perhaps. I admittedly I, and he kind of looks back like over his shoulder, you know, he's talking the three of you and your uncle is like sitting there kind of against the wall just like taking deep breaths recovering.

Perhaps this isn't the best place I let's go get Lou and see if her and Cassie have uncovered anything and see if we can knock our heads together. Do you want me to stay here and watch over him? There's only a few more hours until dawn for the most part. It seems like most of whatever this is happens at night. I suspect that, I mean, hearing that it's just been Enzo, I suspect it's probably maybe just one attack for night. But yeah, I mean, I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry.

Well, it seems like you're doing fine as you are. So I will stay here and just watch over him and make sure things here quiet down, but you go and do what you have to do and you know where to find me if you need me, I'll be right back. I'm gonna actually make a tea for him, something just to help him get some shut eye and feel a little bit more at peace. Alright, I'll uh I'll head out and see if I can spot Lou and Cassie and flag them down. We'll meet back at the, at our tent.

I'll be there soon. Yeah, Tony's going to go down to the kitchen in this house and try and gather up all the spices out of herbal ism kit and whatever is in the kitchen that she doesn't have and wants to focus on creating a tea that will help him in any dream state to be more lucid, be a little bit more aware. So that should anything happen. Hopefully he can remember it or control it in some way to not be so terrifying. That is the intention behind this t cool.

Just so you all know, dear viewers. We very recently got copies of the Herbal Ism Primer Guide, which is a very cool book written by and by Anna Urbanik, which is like all about magical herbs and properties and ship and it's very cool. So we're leaning into that a little bit. Do you have any like specific plants or herbs in mind for this team? It according to the guide requires Altea anus Calendula, Cinnamon Holly mug word.

And er, oh, I imagine in a standard kitchen, I'll probably only find like three of these. So it'll be like an anise tea with Cinema Cinnamon Holly and I think she probably will have a little bit. I don't know what Yaro is and when you do some research here as so Yaro, Yaro is a relatively common ingredient. Holly actually might be something that would be a little harder to get out of season because we're just moving into in summer. But I think you can find enough of these ingredients.

Luckily this is a very wealthy home with a very well stacked pantry and culinary staff. Also, they're preparing for a giant festival with a lot of food so you can find most of these things. So go ahead and roll. Let's roll a check with your herbal ism. Oh, well, that was a natural 20 oh ship. Okay. Well, damn.

So you find so much stuff you have and what you don't have, maybe in your kit, you can supplement a few things or a few things that are adjacent enough to make a t that you think like this is something, you know, your mother might make. Sweet. Yeah, I'll return to the room. Give it to give it to my uncle. Drink as much as you like. It's, it's calming, it'll help settle your nerves at least. And I hope that you have sweet dreams. Thank you taking after your mother, aren't you? Of course.

I mean she always took care of all of us the best way. It's good to have you here. Antonio. I'm sorry, Tony, I'm glad I'm here. Figure this out. Okay. I promise by this point he's like wearing, you know, a dressing gown and sitting by a window and stuff and he seems to have very little intention probably ever falling back asleep. But he, you know, sips the tea and he's calmed and sten has like, taken a place, you know, on a parlor chair and is flipping through that newspaper.

You saw him moving through earlier filling in something like maybe doing a crossword. Mhm. I bid them both. Good night. And I'll make my way back to our tent. So, Eva, you are heading out of there.

Are you heading back towards like the tent or just, you know, looking for signs of where, where Cassie and we went, she had suggested that Lou and Cassie go off towards the cabin and the little, the little island to investigate, to see if they could see anything that was maybe out of place there because that was the place that Mina died. So she'll head out to the banks of the lake and see if she can try and see them or, or if they for when they come back. Is there like, hi.

Yeah, you start making your way like out of the, you know, the manor house and heading towards the shore and it's not long at all before you're kind of startled because out of a dark corner all of a sudden there's like a flash of movement and like a hand that lands on you and you see like shit like rook there, you know, in her now 16 year old for and she's like what happened? I heard a scream, evil foils back like with her are arms flailing and she's like, God, you scared the piss out of me.

Alright? I don't know what Lou and Cassidy have figured out if anything. But while I was posted up in Enzo's room, Tony's uncle got attacked by whatever this thing is and it was an invisible, it wasn't in the theorem realm. It might not, it might not have even been in the room, but it was like it was drawn in him. It was awful. It was clearly trying to kill him. He's not dead. I saved him thankfully. Really. I mean, she crosses her arm and like stamped her foot to the ground. Like, how dare you?

Sorry. Good job. Okay. All right. Fine. Fine. I know healing magic. It's the one. Yeah. Yes. Sorry, I'm learning whatever. Okay. Okay. Fine. So that's fine. Everybody is alive. That's fine. But this thing is getting more and more aggressive. It's just starting off with bad dreams and escalating to drowning and Mina was drowned. It's all got to be connected. Okay. Okay. Fine. That's actually not even why I came here to tell you so. But glad that's going. Who the fuck?

Let a Caroline into our tent? That's what I'm fucking here to ask about. What, what are you talking about? She said she didn't know anything about Carolyn's. She, who the, what she's looking at you? Like Wait, who are you talking about? I'm talking about the hot girl that lose flirting with or that's flirting with blue more appropriately, Luke. I'm sorry. Lou. What? And it occurs to you, Brooke never met. Cassie. Rook has no context for what Brooke has been like gone all day.

So she's like Luke. Okay. One super weird coming back. Yeah, I mean there's somebody stuff in there all these fake books and then this and she pulls out, you see now she has a big backpack on her that you didn't see cause she still kind of had halfway in the shadows and she pulls out that like a big case that you saw before that Cassie had like stashed under her bed and she's like this. What the fuck we can't trust fucking Caroline. What? Who let her in? Why?

Also why are we sharing tents with these people and what's going on? All right. All right. All right. So here's the deal sten the constable that we got the job from. He hooked us up with Cassie, who he had mentioned in our initial meeting. Cassie is a book learned fei expert who has never spent time out in the wilds. Are you sure about that? Okay. Well, you know, not really, but I asked her directly. Do you ever deal with the Carolyn's? And she said no, because Carolyn's don't lie, right.

She shrugs like, how am I supposed to know this? What I mean? Look at this and she, she flips over the case and like, there's like a little, she's like feverishly pointing at like a little inscription that like kind of looks like a bell symbol that's been engraved in there. Did you open it? No. What if it's trapped or some stupid? You open it and she like, kind of shoves it at you.

She puts her little fist on her hip and she takes it from her and she puts it on the ground and she very annoyingly opens the case. Yeah. And you do and look like backs up visibly as you do. So, and as you look inside you see the case opens up and it is indeed an instrument case. And inside you see like a beautiful seven string lyre in there. And it's again like, yeah, the curved silver with these patterns of like flowers and birds and just a freaking gorgeous instrument.

And if it puts our hand out to present, like, are you happy? Look, it's not bells. I don't think they have to use just bells. I think some have other instruments. And then why would there be a bell symbol on it? And then also why does an elder know so much about Fay? Huh? Because Faye don't like bells. First of all, everyone knows that. And secondly, I don't know. But anyway, she's got, she's a researcher. All right.

I know you wouldn't like her and she just like, she has her hands on her temple and she's just like, trying so hard to figure out what she could possibly say that's going to get through. And she's like, all right, look, she's a researcher. I don't know why she's really into fate. I don't really give a shite, but quite personally, she's here to solve whatever the facts happening here. So she was in adjacent tent.

I told her to move into our tent because it's going to be a basis of operations and we need to figure out what the heck is going on if we're going to say anyone here. So she's just like, just motions like, I don't know what you want from me And she's looking at you and totally kind of mirroring your like, she's like, I don't know either and I'm frustrated about it. You're both 16 and angry like standing there in the street and she's like fine.

Okay. But I, I think we should probably just, maybe just, maybe just not like, put all of our faith and trust in this. Cassie is all I'm saying here. Oh, no, for sure. I just hope that she knows something for how we can kill it and what, what, what it is. But I mean, we're stuff that Carolyn would probably know. Huh? I mean, probably, but Whistler's a fucking dumbass. I don't think he would know either. So, if she knows something, at least we can exploit that. Right.

And we're only doing this for a couple of days until we figure out and then maybe we go separate ways, like maybe we never have to see her again. Just don't share personal details like you would anyway. But we won't either. Fine. Okay. All I'm saying is I am not going to, I'm not going to sleep where she's sleeping. That's all I'm saying. I'm sure you could take her tent fine and she goes over and she kind of like kicks close the lid of the heart and she's like, I guess I'll just put this back.

Don't let her catch you. I'll stall. She yells at like with the case and so she she picked up the case and she's like, okay, fine. I'll go put it back. But where is everyone else? Every meeting in the tent later or what? And also you should probably tell them that that this Cassie may or may not be extremely suspicious. Alright. I'll try to slip it to them if I can get them away from her, I'll make it happen. We're meeting back in the tent so we can have a discussion thing.

I'll wait there, I'll go through the rest of her stuff just to make sure she shrugs. Alright. Sure good. And she like disappears off into the shadows like clutching the instrument case real talk though. I definitely vibe with Rick because I'm a nosy bitch and I will go through your medicine cabinet. Oh yeah, Brooke is here she's like, nope, you sleeping in our house? All right. Full scan everything on your person. Every dirty secret I can learn. This smells weird. Why? Why you smell so weird?

Why do you have three deodorant? Huh? What's that about? Like that kind of? I like a value. Okay. Listen, I have a Costco membership. I don't know what to tell you. So after that, so that happens. Yeah. So after that you can keep moving along your course. And I think you probably run into Lou about this point as soon as she sees them within shouting distance and the little paddleboat, she's like, oh my God low, Cassie. Are you right? Cassie isn't there? It appears to be just lou leading over.

He's freaking out just like, fuck. I was hoping nobody would see me like this just like with your hands on one pedal and your feet on the other. Oh Yeah. Oh my God. And she like finally like takes a minute but gets back to this stupid little dock and she scrambles out of the boat and she like puts her hands on her thighs and like bends over, puts her finger out, like give me a second before you say anything. Yes, he's fine.

I don't know about that date, but more importantly, sorry, Raina was just like stranded, like passed out on the sand when we, oh my God, when we got there and she's alive, but she wouldn't wake up. So we took her back to the cottage and then got her warmed up and Cassie is with her now. Oh my God. I gotta get in shape and we gotta send like a doctor or something. So, but everyone's alive. I, I gave, gave Cassie the ear piece and it was just standing there with mouth and gape just shocked.

And she takes a minute, she kind of shakes her face a little bit to remember what the funk she was going to say. And she says, oh my God, Tony's Uncle Laurie. He was attacked by whatever the creature was. It tried to drown him. Like in his bed, water was coming out of the walls and coming through the door. It was positively nightmarish, but he's fine. He's fine and stand staying outside his door. But this is huge. I mean, we need to get Cassie together because maybe she knows something.

I think that's a great idea fully with you. Let's not do the paddle boat again. I never want to see it ever again. We should probably get sten or something to like, get a doctor or what. I don't know, I don't know what's wrong with her, but like she clearly didn't mean to be there. She was in her like nighty gown. So you don't let anyone see you in your nightgown. So weird. Like, it's just like what happened to our sister out there on the night?

Well, mm, I mean, I don't know your, your, the Magic one. This, this is just all magic. E&I, we just need to, we just need to find some order here for a second. Let's get that doctor and Tony's uncle, he's, he's all settled. He's all settled. Tony is getting to him some tea so he can be more at ease and be warded in his dreams, hopefully from whatever attacked him. And I said that we'd all meet back in the tent.

So let's go there, rendezvous will get Rook, get suited up for maybe trying to hunt this thing out, find a doctor and I knew this would happen. But Rook is, it's just insanely suspicious about Cassie. Oh my God. She thinks she thinks she's so Caroline, even though I specifically asked Cassie and she said she had never worked with the Caroline because that's like a whole different bag. Well, that's totally ridiculous anyway, because my mom said that all the Carolyn's went back to Ash Star, right?

So anyway, just being a little oversensitive and it's going through all of Cassie stuff in our room. That's the whole situation. But I mean, Of course, rock would have beef with the one person who asked me out on a fucking day in 10 Goddamn years. People just kind of like nods and commiseration. So also probably Tony, you would probably show up kind of around, around this. You see, you know, them exchanging things here too. So Tony struts up to the tent, sees them.

I don't know, Gavin about something. I'll just interject with Uncle Laurie is doing better. He's got his t stand is there with him. So, what happened with you tonight? Lou, what's, what happened on your little love boat, Excursion? Love boat. And you can just share that story again. Yeah. You've gotten really good at telling it so Tony you can be caught up all the speed. I don't know. But if I, do you mention the behavior or 100%?

Yeah. Well, just info dump on the both of them, make sure everyone's caught up. I can't deal with both of these things at one time and I'm trying not to be confrontational because I get stab e when I'm confrontational with Rook. So I'm just going to table that and we can continue to use Cassie as a resource. It doesn't seem like we're going to get any closer until this is figured out anyway, at which point we can have a conversation before anything else happened.

Anything happened there happens there. So let's get that doctor and have them send out a boat so they can get Cassie back. Let's go get in there, talk to Brooke a little bit before Cassie shows up because she's either not going to want to be in there or we need to tell her to chill for like a minute till we get this contract done. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's no surprise. Obviously, we all thought Rook would do this, but it's okay.

I think if she wants to be a little skeptical to think that's a little healthy. As long as she doesn't stop us from doing what we need to do. That's all that matters. I don't see, I don't, I don't see that happening personally. At the end of the day, we know no matter what happens, she's going to be out there with her crossbow shooting at things with us because that is her joy. So, yeah, Brooke cannot like it as much as she wants. But for better or worse, this is our situation right now.

Okay, Doctor Boat. I'll go. Yeah. So you can, uh, we can definitely, you know, hand wave this too, like you can run up and, you know, talk to sten, he can make sure that he goes and gets the family physician and it's all taken care of and it's discreet and stuff and so you can leave that to him and he will make sure that can both Cassie and Raina get brought back.

He gets into bed and like in a, in a good situation and she's taken care of those events all happened very quickly over the next hour or so. So, yeah, if you all want to meet up and talk with Rook before Cassie shows up, you can totally, we can jump to that or we can start when Cassie appears. So whatever scene you want to do next? Probably talked to Brooke to clear the air first. You guys agree. I really am not interested in clearing air with Rook anymore.

Just like Rook will do what Rick wants to do and then we'll continue doing our job as well. So Tony will just be there for moral support. It's like, ok. Okay, I'm here. Yeah. So you show back up and, you know, Brooke is at this point, you know, there's, there's nothing out of place in the room, it looks like whatever investigation she's done, she has already done and has packed away and she's sort of sitting on her cot looking like, trying to look like casual, which is just very, not, not great.

She's, she's sitting there like, with her hands in her lap and kind of when you all come in, she, like, stands up a little bit and then sort of sits back down and it's like, oh, it's just you guys? Okay. Hi, Ruk. How have things been during this hectic day for you? Did you find out anything interesting or? You just been? Yeah, a few things. Did he talk to you? Yep. Even talked to us and I think that for now we got to get the job done, but I understand your concern.

Okay. As long as everybody's on that page, I did actually also, I was kind of talking to people like normal people today, not all that. And she like waves a hand towards the thing and, yeah, and I guess actually there have been some weird things going on with more people than just the rich people shocker. Right. Apparently there have been like several dudes that I talked to who have also had like bad dreams and woken up and been, like, weirdly tired and whatever.

But of course, because they're like groomsmen and stable people and hunters and whatever, nobody's fucking talking about that. So I talked to at least four other and they're all guys and they're, you know, and they're all, they all slept alone one. So, like, none of them had like a wife or whatever or someone there with them and this happened to them. So no one was with them physically. But it did come any kind of like when this happened. So nobody could, like, yeah.

But I mean, like, did you happen to go into their, like, romantic situation with any of them or any of them pursuing someone? Oh, yeah. Well, I asked them, like, if anybody saw it or whatever and they said no, so nobody was like, sleeping with them and I mean, they're all like, like, I mean, are they dating someone? Are they like, single? There's no one in the picture or they, like, they are with someone, they just weren't with them physically.

I'm curious about the relationship status of these victims. Oh, I mean, I guess she looks, and she's like, trying to do like human calculations, like, okay, Aldrin normal. Um, I guess they were all kind of young and honestly sort of like awkward dudes. I guess so. Maybe like none of them were like married or anything. Okay. I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to look for similarities or differences. At least that means that it's not specifically just your family. So that's good, I guess.

Well, I mean, none of them, you know, we're like, magically drowning or whatever. So I think it's pretty safe to assume that there's something up with your family and it does seem like Enzo is the only one who's been through this like multiple times. So these were all like, kind of went off right there seems to be like an area of effect even though it's targeted at one person. Yeah. I mean, they didn't look nearly as shitty as your cousin. Sorry. But like they didn't.

So Tony is your uncle married? So he was married a long time ago, but his wife died when Enzo was like 10. Like he's been a widower for a while. It's interesting that this creature is going after unmarried men for sure. Yeah. Lou takes out her notepad and starts writing that down. Anyone good at history checks. What's your question? We might be able to spin it to some other skill.

I'm just thinking if like any of us can recall or maybe you've heard of similar attacks or like folklore about attacking single men. Yeah. If you want to do history, like, maybe in like, recent empire history or something of that nature. Well, I'm not great at history is the thing I'm okay at it. I mean, I could just do it anyway, but I have plus two. I'm gonna do it.

Well, I got 15. Okay, 15. There's certainly nothing like this in the history of, like the shifting planes or in, you know, your tribe or the tribes around you that you can recall. But I mean, all kinds of weird sh it happens in Children society and you know, like any burgeoning society there of course, have been like serial murders and crime sprees, things of that nature.

So maybe like maybe something like a sensational string of like unsolved murders might come to mind and there are certainly creatures in this world that prey on, especially unmarried people like virgins is a big thing like, you know, some monsters or like Faye maybe even might be like really attracted to that kind of victim type.

There are things like sirens that maybe price specifically on like that, that kind of that attraction or like you can like succubi or in Q by or a type of like demon that praise on like attracting their victims and like stealing the life from them through like physical contact. So there's certainly a precedent for like supernatural stuff or more mundane things. Like it seems very clear that this is like a targeting profile thing.

You feel very secure in seeing that, that pattern is probably really important to what is happening now that we've cleared the air a bit with Rook. Definitely get Cassie's mine in on this and relay what sort of theories and what we've learned to her. Yeah. And Rook will say she's like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I mean, I'm just gonna be watching her, like, just in case, but she wants to play ignorant. That's fine. Get what we need. Fantastic. That's her stance.

She's not here to like, throw a wrench in the plan and she's just like warning everybody that she has this just special. Yeah. So you want, you want Cassie to come and meet up with you all? Okay. Yeah. So you rendezvous and, you know, Cassie basically helped to see rain and go and get settled and so you hear eventually it's, now it's at this point where like you can see the first rays of dawn kind of creeping up over, over the hills as you have had a very long now action packed night.

And so in that pre dawn, you know, you hear the kind of weird knocking on the outside and Kathy sticks her face and, you know, under the flap looking just haggard and tired. Okay. So good news Rena is fine. She's sleeping now, but she did, she did wake up, she seemed really confused about where she was and didn't seem to have any recollection of how she got there. But the doctor said she's fine at a glance anyway, he's doing more tests. But, oh, hi.

She kind of waves at Rook who's sort of haunting a corner there. She's like, oh, you must be Rook and Rook nods. I'm Cassie. Nice to meet you. And Rock says, uh huh. Kind of nods, like narrows her eyes. She's like I heard that you were an interesting person and I'm looking forward to getting to know you more. I'll get, I'll get it out of you. Guy. Laughs and Rook says we're just here to do a job. So if we could really focus on that, I would really prefer that.

And Cassie is like, cool and then looks at the rest of it was like, all right, glad you got back. Okay. Let's move forward in, in what we found out and then I think we all need to fucking sleep for a little bit. Yeah, I guess. How do we want to do this? You all have been seeing stuff and basically at this point there's so many the things that it could be anything you have to give me like anything you've observed or anything.

If you could list it out like that, that's all good stuff that will help me circle in on what exactly this is so out of game, kind of what we're doing here as this like mystery stage. So I have a list of like facts that are helpful and important about identifying this creature. So clues that you've learned so far, this could be things the monster has done the circumstances like anything you might have noticed.

And if we get a certain number of these Cassie will be able to successfully identify what this creature is and you will be able to get more information. So that's kind of the mechanic we're working with here. So you want to put your heads together for a second and bounce around and pull out what is what you think are the critical details about identifying this creature? We'll do that, see if we can identify it. Casi kind of lays out a notebook and has several of her tomes sort of around her.

She gets herself situated ready is like a quill. It's like, alright, what do we know? Okay, Lou takes out her own little notebook and flips through back a couple of pages. Cassie goes, oh, makes it cute. Like when you pull out your own notebook, Lou turns bright red and clears her throat.

So in general, there just seems to be like a very calm attitude about the wedding happening even though there's some really dark circumstances just one year prior with his previous fiance and Rayna's sister Mina dying by drowning, which is strange anyway, because she was somebody who was good at swimming, having grown up here. Okay. So some kind of like you suspect like a charm effect maybe. Or some something manipulating the emotions of these people could be.

I mean, Enzo himself said that it doesn't feel like he should feel this happy considering they would normally be doing something to celebrate the memory just a year later. Instead they're, they seem to be erasing it with this wedding and nobody seems to be particularly alarmed about the strange mishaps that are happening. Yeah. I wonder if that's the creature, if that's just Children, society very well could be okay. Okay. What else?

Okay. What happened when we were on the island will go over like the whole situation that happened with Tony's uncle that he had been drowning like water coming out of his mouth, which is once again similar to how Mina died and whatever entity was doing this scratched out, see me on the wall. So we think it's trying to be seen. It's trying to make some, somebody see it.

Yeah. What, what seems like a cry for help but also to had a c invisibility and would have been able to see it if it had been in a different plane as well and did not see it in Enzo's room or when she ran into Tony's uncle's room either. Okay. So I can travel unseen but it's not invisible. It seems it's extending its abilities beyond where it physically is and it's not doing it from the ethereal plane. So probably not a ghost or ghost like thing and isn't specifically invisible.

But the other weird thing too is that her Uncle Laurie said that he has a vague memory right before he woke up of seeing a woman with big glowing eyes and long black hair, like over him, like pressing on his chest. And that looked particularly monstrous and not looked vaguely feminine. And Enzo had also mentioned that he had felt this sort of pressure on his chest and this is when they were sleeping, having the nightmares.

Oh, actually, it's weird that you kind of say that about the rooms and stuff. Totally just thought of this. When, when we went to drop off Raina in her bedroom, the door was locked from the inside. They had to like, go and get someone to open. It. Was there anything strange about the room when they did enter? No, I mean, it looked totally normal. But, but yeah, the, the windows were locked and the door was locked from the inside. So, yeah. So how did she get out?

So, some sort of teleportation, I guess in some way, because I don't if everything was locked, including the window then, so this thing teleported Raina, I have a feeling this thing is traveling through dreams.

So it must have made her, I don't know if you guys took any time to interrogate her while she were returning her, but we should definitely find out if she remembers anything because if it is traveling through dreams it could have forced her up and out of bed, locked the door before closing it behind her. I mean, that's, that's the only thing with the weird mist that they've been seeing, maybe it's turning people into mist so it can bring them out of the room.

So that way she could get through, through the cracks of a closed window or a door. Perhaps. I mean, that does explain how it could travel, I guess, unseen. Okay. What else Enzo seems to be? There are other people on the premises around the area who have been experiencing these scary nightmares that they wake up from and feeling that same sense of like drained in this, in that pressure on their chest.

But Enzo is the only one who continuously has this happened to him again and again, all these men seem to be single men until tonight when Enzo wasn't attacked, correct? That he's the only one who's had it happened to him several times when we were in the room with him. Then he went after Laurie or it went after Laurie and all of these men are single, unmarried men then just to get them out of the way.

There's the two pieces that we walked into knowing, which is that people have been seeing the mist in the hallways at night. This always seems to happen specifically at night and that there's weird weather phenomenon going on in the area. Alright. Anything else? Also, I just once again, might be an l drin thing, but everybody is really rushed to get this wedding none by ox CIA, which is strangely enough, like I said, one year specifically away from when Mina died.

Okay. So there's maybe an important date or triggering event that has this creature upset. I'm thinking that since it's been almost a year to the day when Mina died, that perhaps some deal was forged, that the two families should be conjoined within, you know, like a year and a day sort of situation. And maybe someone prevented that from happening when they killed Mina.

And then you know, the Russian to get these two kids wed because the deadline's coming up for them to meet this stipulation on the deal. Perhaps that's my thoughts definitely seems like the marriage is probably some kind of triggering event for this thing. Question out of game. Do we know? Is there like a timing coincidence between oxy A and that date that wanted the enigma code by like a certain data, certain moon I remember, is there any correlation between these dates?

The last full moon that happened? Yeah, about three weeks ago or so before that like action happened that that was the last full moon. Another one hasn't come up yet. You can as players sort of put together all the reports of the Carolyn's meeting an ash star seemed to line up around that full moon, all of the sharp increase in fe activity across the empire seems to have started happening around that full moon. It's safe to say there was probably some correlation that happened there.

But OXY is specifically isn't, doesn't fall on the night of a full moon or anything. Okay. I think this must be at least some sort of use given that we have done some deal with the fe recently rock makes up kind of sound like from behind you. And Cassie goes sorry, what was that rug? Nothing. Just be being quiet over here, just not over sharing over here, you know, in my corner and Cassie is like, okay, I'm sorry, what were you saying?

I know a fe she's looking at rug while she says this, I know there's a fae who has their hands on a powerful book and wanted this book to, we don't know what, we don't know why she wanted it, but she wanted it before the next full moon. And since she had this book, we know that the full moon, the full moon's passing brought along an increase in fe activity. We also know that all the Carolyn's seem to have returned to Ash Star since then or by then.

And a lot, just a lot of an increase in face strangeness since that time. Uh and Cassie, you know, choose on the end of her quill. Okay. Well, I mean, I think it's pretty undeniable to say that. Yeah, things have gotten really dicey. In the last month or so. Do you, do you think that's relevant to this investigation?

I don't know if, if, since OXY A is an, on a full moon, I don't think that the full moon is going to trigger anything because it seems like OXY is more important than that right now. But I think maybe the start of it, I don't know if it's connected to OXY. I just think something maybe got its power or got its energy from whatever took place on that full moon. Well, I mean, certainly the empire we are seeing more fae sightings than we have in decades.

I guess the Carolyn's and are very strict when it comes to finding fae hunting them down, you know, removing any artifacts that might be threatening or anything. It is very concerning that there is a fe one here, I guess. And then also so close to the capital and with all of these people, it, it really doesn't feel great if this is a fait and something of substantial power enough to change weather and like going after El Drin the high society. That is definitely not good.

So, yeah, well, all we can do is try to protect what little people we can in this particular case. And. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Any, anything else? I mean, obviously you were there raina was completely soaked through. So, I don't know. She was like sleep swimming, which is fucking crazy. Yeah. This doesn't, I don't know why she would have been.

We definitely need to talk to her more and also inspector room to see if there's any secret passage or anything that she could have gotten out through. But that's for tomorrow and then I, you know, in general, I think we've covered it, but that Enzo's symptoms are that he's having those bad dreams. He has the pressure on his chest and he seems to be almost being drained during these, but that's about it. Alright.

Well, I've got some good stuff here, so I guess I don't think we have much time to waste. So I'm gonna just hit the books and see what I can come up with. So I don't know, give me a couple hours maybe get some sleep and I'll keep at this and you will do what you need to do and Cassie already can tell her attention is like drifted away from you and she's already starting to put, pick up various things.

And so she's kind of like half answering you at this point as she's, you know, like a hunched over sitting on the floor and like terrible posture, spreading out papers all around her, starting to get that going and looks like I'll stay up and just keep watch just in case. How about that. Huh? Chirac and Cassie is like, yeah, sure. She's looking at a flipping through a book. Sounds good.

Well, I guess bedtime and uh look kind of like grabs her stuff and it's like I'm going to go change in the bathroom area that like scrambles out the tent. There's like something that comes from Cassie of acknowledgement.

We all want to take a long rest and so you all will kind of sleep through the early morning and then you can be active, you know, 10:11 a.m. after my four hours of elf nous, we will get up and just like, quietly leave and like come back with like coffee and food and just like, set it down for everybody and just like slowly insert the coffee into Cassie's like I frame. Oh yeah. And she reached out. She's like, I think, I think so.

You all take a long rest and I think it has been a very long night and despite the horrific things you've seen and experienced, it's probably pretty easy to get to sleep after everything that has been happening or it's been go, go, go since you got here and it's a nice break that you finally get to have.

As you said, lou, you know, after you're done with your four hours, you go out and you get some coffee and you kind of put it in front of Cassie who has been up this entire time, hasn't really moved from her crops position other than to like she lays on her stomach sometimes or twist to the other side, right? Or goes and gets a book.

It's a very quiet affair and everybody else is sleeping other than Rook who's just been sitting cross armed in her cot, just kind of watching Cassie this entire time. So Brooke nods as you kind of come back into the tent and gives you like a, don't worry, we're still good. Look just rolls her eyes.

But the hands Rook a cup of coffee too and when you do kinda slide the coffee in front of Cassie and she, she says, oh, you know, and grabs it and then kind of seems to remember where she is and looks up at you and she's like, can I, can I ask you something about, about this whole thing? Sure. Go for it just out of game for a second. Tony. You have not mentioned that you are related to the silver Taels at this point, right? Or have you in front of Cassie?

No, but when we were talking earlier, I did hear Lou slip out that Lori was my uncle to Cassie. Yeah. So Cathy will be like, and she lowers her voice a little bit because everybody's sleeping in the same space and she says, I don't really know what's going on with, you know, Tony and everyone. But how much does does Tony, is she close to, to Enzo or, or this uncle?

You know, I think that like as she says, that Lou kinda gets an o shitfaced if she realized that she had said Tony's uncle and then she just, like, clears her throat and she's like, she knows. Sorry, I just know. I just, I noticed things, sorry, you're fine. I mean, we were trying to keep it on the down low but I was reading off my paper anyway.

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't, from what I can tell it doesn't seem like, I mean, Tony loves her family but doesn't have like a super in depth relationship with her uncle and her cousin because I have my suspicions about what might be happening and I don't think it bodes very well for them. So they're, there might be some hard questions incoming like he's definitely gonna die or he's a bad person or what are we looking at here?

Well, I mean, the creature that I've, that I'm more and more I'm checking, I'm double checking. But this thing I think it's, it's here for a very specific reason and that reason, I don't think it's good. I know this girl, there's a death and there was some mysterious circumstances and it seems pretty clear to me that this thing wants revenge or to punish someone. You've been up all night.

I can only assume that if you're really bringing this to the table that more and more it looks, it looks like that's the case you gotcha. I mean, this is something that we need to talk to Tony about. I don't really feel comfortable having this conversation on her behalf. This is her. Of course. I just wanted to, you know, kind of know. I don't know. It just sucks. You know, when the facts don't go the way you want them to. Wow, that's life.

And ultimately, even if it's not what we want, we can still try to take what's left and make the best of it. So, when everyone else finishes sleeping, I guess we can have this conversation. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And I'll, you know, I'll keep, I'll keep, I'll keep checking and can I can I get you anything else other than coffee? There's still going to be a little bit here. So yeah, I get it like a like a bagel or something. That would be it would be great.

Still definitely feeling a little bit of that meat that we had earlier long, you know, just let me get you something incredibly gracie, I'll be back and she kind of she, you know, she's sitting on the floor so she kind of like taps, you know, pets your calf and sort of smiles up at you like so tired but in a way that makes her eyes scrunch, just clears her throat again in the Oh no, she's really cute and I was like um so right,

I'll be right back and just skedaddle out to make the greasy ist like egg breakfast sandwich to hit all the hangover help. Alright, cool. Do you want to go ahead and fast forward to kind of the end of the long rest and sort of lay it all out. Sounds good to me.

Yeah. So you come back, Cassie Eats a sandwich, but you all wake up, go through your morning stuff and you can hear at this point too and loo you would have seen it like, because tomorrow morning now, so less than 24 hours will be the festival. Like the gates will open, people will be arriving. So this is the day that pretty much everyone is showing up and like final setup is being done. So it is packed the gardens everywhere around the house.

It's just crawling with people setting up food, carts and games and the entertainment. There are rehearsals going on for all the various events that are going to be taking place. You see coordinators around the house like setting up like the wedding area there, you know, the chairs and like the stage, it's all being constructed and it's just, it's chaos. Luckily there seems to be some kind of enchantment on your tent that keeps the sound out.

But the minute you step outside, it's people yelling like six a.m. sharp. You know, people are just all over the place. So many loud noises, construction sounds. It's it's complete chaos. So in the middle of all this, you know, you all come together, get ready back in the tent and Cassie has some notes in front of her kind of circles you all up and she says okay.

So I put together everything and checked and double checked and she kind of cast sort of a weird glance at you, Tony that you'd probably just casually clock and I'm, I'm pretty sure that this is what we're dealing with. And she kind of, she opens up one of these books and like, lays something down on the table in front of you all and you can see it's like a sketch style kind of field notes journal it seems like.

And you see this illustration of this very tall and kind of emaciated female figure, um like drawn skin looks almost like undead, these long long stringy hair and these like small wings, black feather wings sprouting out of her back. And you see these huge eyes set into her face and you see that the entry here is titled Mayor M A R E. She says this creature based on what we know so far. I think it's a mayor which is interesting.

Usually they show up in more like rural communities in particular mirrors for some reason are, well, the thing is they're women who basically are the mayor kind of possesses, they're born from the spirit of unmarried women who die usually in some kind of tragic or un fulfilled way. And when that happens, that spirit is kind of transforms into this thing that possesses a living unmarried woman to carry out usually some kind of revenge or get satisfaction for the cause of their death.

And I mean, all the, all the signs are there. So essentially their M O they come and they ride, she just like quote hands, victims, usually again, unmarried men and plagues them, torments them, feeding off of their life energy as part of that vengeance. So I think that's probably what we're dealing with here with, you know, the dead girl, Meena. That's what I got. Wait, what type of creature did she say? It's a fait.

So it's sort of a weird amalgamation between because one of somebody passes in a way that is violent or unfulfilled or in some way, I mean, a very angry spirit turns into this fae and then one step further, the fae specifically has to possess a living person and usually they take over at night transforming whoever they're hidden inside of to enact this vengeance. And of course, they can turn into mist so they can travel around.

So obviously to deal with this thing, we're going to have to find some way to, I mean, get it there. So get it to show up, prevent it from leaving. And then the only way to drive a mayor out of a living host is to basically force it to change in the sight of others. And then even still to make it more complicated after the mayor has been separated, the only way to get it to go is to lay it to rest. So to give it whatever promise, whatever vengeance it was here to fulfill.

We have to let it get what it wants. Yeah. And there are some, some cases, of course, obviously it just, it wants direct revenge. And some of these women though who turn in these things, it's a simple matter of just exposing what happened to them or even in some cases proposing marriage to the creature or fulfilling a promise that wasn't kept? And do you suspect that it's attached itself to Enzo or to Raina if Rina was out in the water and there was no way out.

I got to assume that it's possessing her. It only possesses unmarried women. So I think poor Reena has become the host for this thing. But who it wants vengeance on and why? I mean, clearly this marriage set it off and if it was Mina, I think it's safe to assume that it's probably has something to do with your family. Tony. She says kind of sheepishly and sort of re stacks her notes in a way, making herself just busy and kind of avoiding your gaze.

So Minhas revenge is taking it out on my cousin. I don't know. I, I don't, I can't tell you what, what exactly this, this, this particular reason, this thing has been conjured, but clearly there was some great infraction or pain that has caused maybe Mina and we don't even know what's Minhas a spirit too seek vengeance. And the fact that a wedding is occurring and that's when it started seems to be, that is some probably logical to assume.

She looks at you lou like, I don't know what to say here. I think that we need to speak to people again now that we have what this creature likely is and reframe some questions, kind of see what people's relationship was and we need to be open to potentially some people who we thought in a certain light of could be not what we think they could be, but either way, whatever we find out, it seems like your cousin is probably going to be not in the best of ways if we don't figure this out soon.

Yeah, the end of these stories are usually not gripped if the marriage just allowed to continue. So yeah, I would say time's of the essence and if the marriage is happening tomorrow, it yes, seems like this creature is getting angrier and angrier based on what we saw last night. Lose, just looking at Tony. Tony is very much trying to keep it together after hearing what lou just inferred or implied. So she's going to walk out of the tent and go see her dad just lets her have our space.

As Tony walks out and Rook stands up and just bolts out after Tony and Tony, you're walking like down the way, there's a hand on your shoulder and Brooks like Hey, sorry. Are you? Are you okay? I mean, you're clearly not okay but like, is there anything I can do? You know? I'm sure things are never as easy as people say, especially people with paper and notes and, and the thing with the fae, it's never that simple.

So I, your family seems like good people and you're good people and I don't think you should listen to that shit. Oh, this is work talking to me. She's a little bit surprised that Rook is offering any kind of comfort is like, oh, yeah, I mean, well, thank you. I agree. I think this is bullshit and I, I can't imagine my anyway, neither. Neither of them would do something so horrible. I know if they're anything like you. I know. Yeah, I just need to talk to my dad.

I mean, come with me if you want but know that I'm telling him everything. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I got your back. All right. Let's go. So no matter what, what they say or what they think. I believe you. She gives a very tight arm squeeze that she does back. Total does back. She's like, all right, cool. I don't really know what to do next. So I guess I'll just, I'll just hang out like, outside. I don't want to, you know, do you? Yeah, I'll be right back.

So, yeah, you continue down the way and you get towards that tent where you know your dad and geo staying and the door is already open. You can smell like bacon coming from inside immediately. Your dad has always been an early morning riser and you can definitely tell he's already cooking and stuff. You can hear the, you know, clattering of pots pans and all kinds of stuff going in. So, uh, so yeah, you can step inside. You see your dad in a very like two way too small for him.

Apron flipping over some, some food on a camp stove that they apparently brought with them. Their ignoring the one that just built into the glamping tent and geo kind of turns around from cleaning dishes. Like Tony. Sorry, Tony. What's up? Oh, little brother that, like, immediately melts her little icy edge that she came in with. And it's like, hey, geo, it's okay. You can be, you can be silly and weird. I'm not just your, your tough soldier sister wasn't trying to be silly.

And why does everybody think? I'm trying to be silly and weird. I'm just like, are you hungry anyway? It's good to see you. Did we sleep? Well, is everyone waking up? Okay. Today your dad turns around and he's already, he's putting pancakes on a plate for you and putting it, like shoving it towards you. Yeah. Surprising. Well, you know, the, the noise out here, there's just not enough of it. So that was a little strange. But, yeah, slept good here. How are you? How, how is everything going?

Well, I'm not gonna lie. I have some tough news. We had our first watch last night on the, you know, the newlyweds or the, is Enzo? Okay. Enzo is okay as far as I know. But Uncle Laurie had some trouble last night and you see your dad, like, like, like he got punched and he's like, nobody told us our, if I have to go see him and he goes and he's like, rips off the, hold on, hold on, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, hold on. You'll see him. I'll take you. He's okay.

He thanks to my friend to, she saved him in time, but there was an attack on his life. Something was trying to drown him. There was, I don't know what it, well, we have a theory now but at the time, it seemed like some magical interference was attempting to drown him as he was asleep in his room, water coming from the floors from the walls. But he put a stop to it and he's awake and he's okay. He told us everything he could remember from his dreams. She reiterates it all.

Like the woman, the feeling, the heaviness on his chest, all of that. And what do we do? Well, that's what I want to know if I don't know what you might recommend. I know it's not really your realm. It's more of mom was really into that spiritual stuff and knew more about that kind of thing.

But between her and, you know, your experience with the fai, the consultant we're working with thinks it's a mayor and goes on to reiterate what that is and the fact that it's affecting single and married men and all that. Like, do you know, have you heard of this thing before? I have old, old stories. But, I mean, that's, that's sort of why it's called the mayor, right? I think they even originated in the shifting planes.

It's not only do, they often do that to humanoids but, but sometimes even 22 horses waking up in the middle of the night, exhausted nearly to death, like sweating. Why, why would something like that attack Laurie? I, he, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't know enough about, I've just heard stories but I mean, it's, it seemed like a ghost story, honestly, you know, one of those cautionary tales to respect women and not turn back on your promise is not like a actual, what, what, what, what do you think?

What did this consultant say? Did she say? Why did they say? Why? Well, the conclusion right now is that this thing is possessing Raina and seeking revenge for the most part on Enzo then? Why did it attack your uncle? That I'm not sure of? Maybe because he's been kind of skeptical of this whole wedding from the beginning and everyone else seems to be so gung ho about it. I mean, he wasn't skeptical. I, I think it's perfectly normal for a father to feel that way.

And it was surprising, especially also after, after Mina died, of course, I, it seems like your uncle didn't even, I didn't even know he was still in contact with the family. I don't, I don't think he was, I think he even severed ties and, and Enzo introduced this again. Lori was so surprised by this whole thing. I mean, he was devastated after what happened last time. I, I don't understand any of this.

Well, that's maybe part of it is that he's kind of the only one who is still trying to figure out why this wedding is happening in the first place. I mean, I agree with you as he should. He's, he's Enzo's dad. I mean, he can't help but be concerned about what his son is feeling and going through right now on the anniversary of his former fiance's death. But I think the fact that this creature wrote, see me on, on his walls on Lori's balls.

Yes. And Laurie being the one to have some sort of rationale in this whole situation, urging them to slow down and think about it. Your dad, he, he puts his like giant, you know, head down on his giant hand and like kind of leans down on the counter for a second and Joe has been making himself very like distantly further and further away from this conversation. Like, sensing the tension I, I, your dad seems to be very struggling with, with something.

Is there anything you do to encourage him or just kind of let him work out himself out? I think she's just reiterating that like, I trust your judgment. I, I know that there's nothing no harm that Enzo or Laurie would have caused to that family if he really loved them and wanted them to be a part of his life. So, I mean, I'm trying to protect our family as best as I can. But I'm most worried that this is going to lead towards some kind of false accusation on Enzo.

And he has a deep, heavy, heavy side that rattles his whole chest. As he says, Laurie was very close to the family before Mina died. Honestly, I didn't know much about her, but I know he cared for the family a great deal and even Enzo barely knew Minna or the All Yonas before, before the marriage was announced, its I would talk to Laurie. He knew much more about the family and he might be able to shed some light on what happened.

Not that I think he would ever do anything because of course he wouldn't. But he was devastated when she died. I mean, I know Enzo wasn't very close to Mina being arranged and everything. But could you say the same thing about him? He was here a lot. He stayed with them on several occasions. If Laurie definitely would have known her more. Danso ever did. I think Enzo and she met maybe once. But do you think he'd be capable of doing something like that? I, of course not. He's my brother.

He wouldn't hurt anyone. I mean, look at him. He's, no, no, no, not Laurie. Enzo. I mean, I just haven't been around as much. I haven't been around both of them since I was a kid. So I don't want to believe he is capable of that. But no, no, he's a, he's just a kid. I, no, no, neither of them know. I know. I know but he does. He raises his hand and puts it on her shoulder and he says, I trust your judgment and I know you're doing the best you can.

And if there's anything you need from me, I want, I want this to stop even if that means asking hard questions. Do you want to come with me when I talk to? I mean, you want to check on him. So you want to go with me now? Should we go talk to Laurie? If you think that's helpful, then? Yes, of course. I'm here for you. I'm okay.

Let's go, I'll take you when we pop out all update Rook, let her know that we're going to go talk to Laurie if she wants to go tell the others that they can meet us or if she wants to come, she can come. Yeah, looks kind of the same.

She's like, yeah, I mean, wherever, wherever you need me and then I don't know what's been happening back in the tent, but Cassie will kind of break down a few other things, I guess for you all while the conversation is happening before she's like, yo, and you really need to go to bed. So essentially just in summary, the way you're going to have to deal with this creature.

One, you're gonna have to set up some kind of trap or something to get it in a place where you know, it'll be too, you have to find some way to secure whatever this place is to make sure it just can't leave because it can turn into mist and just run away. So one lawyer it to trap it in a place. Three, you're gonna have to weaken it down to the point where it's forced to like change back and separate from Raina that probably means fighting it.

And then four, once it's out arena, you're gonna have to find a way to resolve whatever is keeping it here, give it some kind of peace or sense of satisfaction. So it will actually go otherwise it will just come back for Reno again.

So those are the four steps that Cassie outlines and in terms of like binding it and stuff, Cassie can mention there have been some tales of like herbs and stuff like you know, bundles of specific things that maybe you can wear, like as a defensive charm to keep the mirror away from you. So, the logic might dictate. Maybe if you can surround the room or cordon it off with those same herbs, it might keep it in. But otherwise, yep, that's what she has to share.

And then she is gonna pass out unless you all need anything else of her for a few hours. She goes to bed so it's up to you now. Yeah. Party. What do you want to do next? I think finding a room that we can do the herb thing to surround it with and then going, I can go to like kitchen staff and find like the herbs and stuff that we need or go through the gardens too and get that all set up for that part.

I feel like as far as like the questioning, like it's become like very much like a family matter. So with the event planners and coordinators, with the schedule that loose snagged and the rocky talky that she also snagged. We can know where the bright is going to be at certain times of day. So we can pick an opportunity where she is in the smallest group of people during the day.

Like, you know, maybe there's some kind of like little bridal shower luncheon or whatever that's happening and then we can pick that point to maybe have her come in early or stay late after that when we can get her alone and she has a reason to be there. So people don't suspect. And then, yeah, with the Tonys Herbal is, um, to maybe magically seal the room or something to keep that like protection from fe situation happening in that room.

Yeah, like you were saying, sage, since she has like events and stuff that she needs to go to, she's probably got like changing rooms because she's that rich lady. So if we can use that to find like an outfit change moment and keep her in there. Oh definitely. So I think you all have totally secured yourself with all the schedules and stuff you stole like it won't be hard getting rain alone. Um You might need some way to draw the mayor out because Raina will transform into the mayor.

Usually it only happens at night or perhaps if it's lured to come out, so you'll need some way to kind of bait that. So getting Raina by yourself. Find, I think you all with your magical like knowledge and herbs can seal the room. But so far the trouble is going to be making sure it comes out and then one you're gonna have to weaken it. So that means potentially fighting this thing. The thing you really need to know is why, what does it want? So you need to know how to address it.

So you're not sure if the y yet hopefully Tony can find that when she used to speak to them. I guess we could talk to Raina too while she's not in that form. See if we can find out anything from her. So, what's going on? We haven't spoken to her yet.

And I think if a in particular would want to interview the house staff, track down the house staff who were there a year ago who would have been like a lady's maid for Mina or something to be like, okay, because out of character, out of character, what I've got from Tony's conversation with her dad is that I don't think anything of malice necessarily happened because much like we saw with Penny who had an incomplete or like incorrect knowledge of the situation,

which led her to be this haunting figure who was bent on this singular thing that would solve her problems. I think the same thing or a similar thing is happening with Mina and her spirit that because this promise was broken, not necessarily out of malice, but because it was broken is what's causing. This was the initial like cause for the haunting.

So and I think, yeah, is there anyone we can um that you can think of guys that we can send like letter to or, or anything like that any other outside resources about? Because I really don't know how to coax her out, you know, I mean, not that Tandy's the, you know, source of knowledge, but we don't have very many correspondents outside of, you know, our family's. Yes, I think the situation or the answer to the situation we're gonna find here that someone knows something.

We just need to interview some people to see what we can find and then we can and then that will give us our, our white or how to coax. So then what is step one? What are we doing right now? I'm really curious to see the conversation with Tony's family first, I think. Okay, so Tony, who specifically are you going to talk to and who's coming with you? I'm going to take my dad to go see Laurie and I want Enzo to be there as well.

Alright, you grab them, you know you refer to the schedule and grab them in between like you know when when all of the ladies of the party are getting fitted or whatever and the dudes are kind of sitting around, you can like kind of swoop them up and your your dad is like, is it okay, Joe doesn't come. He's a great kid smart as a whip. Not quite there in terms of emotional maturity yet. I would almost rather not have him see this just just in case. No, that's fine.

I mean I wanted, I wanted him to be aware of the situation and that's enough. Can I also offer perhaps a little bit of advice? Mm I know that if I had done something. I may not want to admit it in front of my Children first. I might want to break that to them on their own. So, if we do talk to Laurie, I, I might recommend not having Enzo there to start. Okay. That's fair. Fathers have to be so much for their Children. They should be so much.

And if he kind of looks at you and with a pained expression and sort of just taps you on the shoulder again because you're one of those like, shake you a little bit back and forth. Don't worry, dad, I've always thought you were amazing. You don't have to do anything else for me. You've done enough. No, there's never enough. When you're a parent you'll, you will see one day. It's hard. It's hard when you love something so much. Mm. And he punches, he's like, okay, okay.

I'll stop and does a little, you know, side hug as you're walking up towards the house, she like fun, slaps him away. It's like, come on. I mean, everyone already knows we're related but we don't have to broadcast in. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard when your heart is walking around outside of your body. That's what it feels like Antonia having Children. Don't do it lightly. Trust me. I'm not going to, so you head on up to the house. So what so sage, what is it going to be doing?

Are you heading off somewhere else? I'm assuming y'all, it sounded like y'all didn't necessarily want to be part of the interview. Yeah, I definitely think that if anyone's going to get the truth out of Lori about the nature of his relationship with Mina, it's not going to be in front of strangers with that. If a is going to take the time to track down any staff who would have been really close with Raina and Mina a year ago and see what they know new surmised about to get an idea.

Yeah, secret gossiped about. Yeah, covered up perhaps for sure. Alright. And lou are you heading off with fo as well? Yeah, I'll hang around because I'm not going to talk to people by myself anyway, so follow the Bard. Alright, so okay. So yeah, so you you split off and yeah, so you Tony and your dad eventually find find Laurie. Uh he's sort of sequestered away still in like a sun room or something. Seems to be taking some time to himself.

Your dad immediately like steps in and cross over and he's like I heard what happened. Are you all right? And it goes and just like through, you know, holds his brother and, and a tight hug and glory is clearly trying just to be stone faced and and not emotional about it, but he kind of nods and you know, they also clap arms and step away from each other and your dad says, well, you know, Tony is helping get to the bottom of all of this.

So we wanted to talk to you Lori and to ask you some, maybe some hard questions. Yeah. And Tony, well, Tony will jump in with the information that Cassie has put together her suspicions. We think that it's going to be a bit of a battle, taking care of this creature. Um, we will have to bait it somehow.

We will have to draw it out somehow so that Raina isn't in danger, but we still need to know more about what it wants and seems most likely that it's connected two Mina spirit and something that she feels she was promised and didn't receive before her death. I mean, it's very possible that that's as easy as the marriage between her and Enzo, but I feel like it's not that simple and hopefully you can shed some light. Your uncle has been like stone faced just listening to you his eyes growing.

It looks very far away as you're explaining this and he waits for your finish in. So and so had nothing, had nothing to do with this, you know that right? He God. Are you sure? Are you sure? It's me now. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I mean, he leans back in his chair and you can see tears starting to come to his eyes and your dad is like looking at him like what the funk is going on at the table is like your uncle is showing more emotion than he's ever shown to you, Mina and I were very close.

She was, she was so young and I never meant to and she was supposed to marry my son and it was all such a mess. I don't, I don't know, I don't know what the spirit wants or what, what it is. But if it is Mina, then, then it's my fault. I'm sorry. I, I don't know what, ask your questions. I, the whole thing, I've been trying to forget it but clearly this, it's time for it to come out. So you're telling us that you did have an affair with your sons with drove. I did trying to end it.

In fact, that's what I was, that's what I came out that night to do. We were supposed to meet and we were going to end things. But when I got there, she was already dead. She must have fallen and I saw her and I didn't say anything. How could I, she was already dead? Who, who was I going to hurt? I'm sorry. And like bites. You can see he's like biting at his hand trying to like keep, keep back, tears, pain, whatever it is. Did she know you were trying to end it?

She did, we had written back and forth. She knew that's why we were meeting, but she was out there because of me and I just left her there in the ward. I didn't mean for any of it to happen. I didn't know, I didn't know her when I arranged the marriage. It was just, they were family friends, but I got to know her. And it's been so long since I suppose I have nothing else to say in my defense. If this spirit is here, that must be why you left her there.

Meaning that, did you help them recover the body? Did you, were you the one who told them that she had been out there? No, I rode away. No one knew I was there. No one knew what we were. He was my son. She was, I thought it wouldn't, it would be best. It would be easiest. I wouldn't have to hurt anyone if, if they didn't know, I didn't think anyone would get hurt. So I saw her there when I saw her body, I turned my horse around and I went right back.

I left the property and no one ever knew Tony is having a really hard time looking at him. Yeah, my knees looking down at his lap. He's clearly deeply ashamed by the whole thing. And your dad too is having trouble looking at him. So when all this strangeness started happening, you didn't think once now would be a good time before my son ties himself to this family forever. It's been so long. How could I, how could I have known? I, I didn't even know Enzo was talking to them.

I, I severed all ties. I, I wanted to be as far away from all of this as possible and I had no idea. And when I got the letter that he and Raina had met and it just all came crashing down. What was I supposed to do? How could I have known this would happen? I couldn't know. I'm sorry. Of course. I'm sorry. What do you want me to say? I want you to tell me how you're going to fix it now. I don't know how, how can we? It's not like I can tell her. I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do?

You want me to tell him? You want me to tell my son what I did? How will that help anything this way? Everyone will know what they're fighting and why this is happening. It doesn't matter if you knew this was gonna happen or not, they're the consequences of your actions. So we are going to have to draw this creature out. And yes, I want you to apologize to it. I want you to have that conversation you didn't have with Mina. All right, whatever it takes.

But if this comes out, you have to understand. I don't think the family is gonna let Enzo and Raina get married. So I will take whatever punishment you think is fit. But please factor the heart of my son into this decision. Whatever you tell them, whoever you tell them. It's clearly not in my hands anymore, but please don't punish him for what I did. Well, I would have thought that you might see why it's the right thing to do.

Given as you weren't considering your son's feelings before he closed his eyes. And that goes right. Yep. The knife that he knew was in his heart as a twist. I will do whatever, whatever you think I need to, to set this right. I'll call on you when we're ready to get things started. He looks up at your dad and he's like Luca, I, sorry. And your dad just stands up and says we have to go and starts walking out of the room. I just hold onto my dad as we walk out of that house.

So, with that in mind, do you all want to rendezvous again and share that or do you feel like you got the juicy DEETs you might have gotten from talking to others? I mean, I'm ready to rendezvous with them but yeah, you guys wanted to go and talk to people. I don't really know what else I would have to ask after that. Yeah, I feel like you got, you pretty much got the scoop. Yeah. Do we want to say that we, when we got herbs to get ready for sealing off the place then?

Yeah, for sure we could have gone. Okay. Sounds good to me then. So we've got that ready for later. So we rendezvous. Tony enters the tent clearly looking like there's something on her shoulders on her mind. A little bit angry also. And I assume Brooke is there. I don't know about Cassie. We'll think about that later. Maybe asleep, probably asleep standing up.

She'll say that hearn my dad and I just want to go see my uncle and after telling him everything about the mayor and what we know of that creature and what it wants, he confessed to having a affair with Mina before their wedding that my cousin never knew about still doesn't know about. And the night that she died was the night that they had arranged to meet and end things. She knew that that was gonna be the conversation.

But when my uncle got there, she was already dead and and he left her there, he left a young woman in the water according to him, he didn't want to hurt anyone but that shirt didn't fucking stop that from happening. Did. So I told them we are going to seal it separated from Raina and he's going to give her the apology. She never got I it sounds like it sounds like Mina never got the closure that she needed.

And perhaps if she can say her last words, if she could hear Laurie say that he's sorry for leaving her in the water to be heard. The creature scratched to see me in the wall. So yeah, and he fucking did see her sounds like we need closure but at least we know there's no malice in it. Nothing violent happened. It was, it really was an accident a bit salacious but no one's a murderer. No, just a coward. Did you guys get the stuff? You get the Arabs? Yeah, we, we got them all.

We figured out time at night before one of the events that uh Raina would be alone that we could get her into the changing room and we can go in advance and get everything ready. Do we know what we want to use to get her to come out? I mean, it might be as simple as having Tony's having Laurie in the room trying to have a conversation with her saying maybe he's ready to talk, ready to hear her, ready to see her. I think that all help, at least if not draw it out completely.

It's gonna be an interesting conversation. Well, Rain is still in control. Not really sure how to prepare her for that. And then in the end she'll probably heaven inkling. Oh, here's an idea to bait her out. Go on using our letter writing mechanic if Laurie and Mina had correspondence with each other and agreed to meet on this day.

If Lori happened to keep that letter from his last letter from Mina could have that sent to the house and can read it and that might take her out an interesting proposal and we have not had a letter read. So perhaps one exists. That's a good plan. I think that's, that's a great idea. I mean, I don't really know how it all works for sure, but I think that would be enough to rile up anyone dormant or not. Indeed.

Yeah. Have Laurie read, read that letter from, from her to him and offer that space for her to give her, give her parting words and potentially fight her. You do know part of the process is going to be having to weaken her enough that she has to let go of Raina because otherwise she'll just transform back into rain because right now she, the two of them are inseparable. That's the only way to get the mayor to let her go to basically beat her into submission.

She leaves Raina alone because I didn't do. It just happens to be the hapless victim here. Does that mean though that we're attacking Raina first? Well, it seems like from basically what, what Cassie was saying, it's a pretty complete transformation. So like the body and everything and the thing that's been like that Lori saw sitting on her, right? It's like a full last transformation. So yes, so you can't kill, you cannot kill the mayor.

You have to weaken her significantly and then you also have to banish her. That's why this is so much harder than it normally would be because otherwise you are going to kill Raina the banishing part of it. That's just the resolution that she feels her promises fulfilled, right? Bringing her that that final resolution is the way to make her go like a permanent banishment laid to rest almost. So this face shares a lot in common with undead.

Yeah. So I've been drawing from fasten literally a game where you play fairy hunters. So I was like, we're going outside, dude. So I wrote some new stouts. Oh God. So this is the kind of ship that people were terrified of an ancient Norway. It's terrifying. Yeah. So women who, yeah, we're either like, yeah, they were murdered before they got married or somebody like portrayed them or whatever or somebody went back on their promise the mayor would come. I mean, that's kind of metal.

No, it's metal ship. I mean it's Norway, right? So like all the fucking fay from that, there's a reason this whole system is set in Norway because they like bunkers, bunkers amount of nasty fay. Alright, sweet. So, yeah, so what's the uh what's the game plan prep the room so that we can like have it open like by the door and then throw down the herbs in front of the door. So once she's in there, she can't get out.

We'll have Lori in there already with the letter and we're going to have him read it, right? And then that will coax her out and when she's out, then we fight and then Laurie needs to have his, his moment of closure with her. Right. That sound right. So I will say at this point to Lori's like, he's totally resigned. He knows he sucked up. He's doing whatever he will say. I mean, he and Mina met in that lighthouse, like, routinely.

That was where they had their trysts and he is pretty sure that she kept any of the letters he sent their sorry through my pen in anger, calm down. So I can't not do dramatic. I'm sorry, we'll have a fun fe one of these, I'm guessing our guest to be announced, we'll have some very fun episodes coming up, but not today. He thinks that probably if there was any evidence or the letters or anything, they may very well still be hidden at that place.

So also that was a place that was very important to the two of them. So if you did want to pick a room that might be extra summoning juice, we could probably convince one of the event coordinators that like something has changed, like switch out their record and like the one who works closely with Raina and have them be like, oh sh it, you actually have to go to the lake house. They decided that the party will be there. Yeah, this was booked and like, so this is where you're gonna come in.

We're changing, you're going to come in on a boat, you're gonna get dressed there. It's gonna be super cute and then yeah, we love you lou after you were like so nice to them so they love you. They'll make it happen for you and of course then will you know, help suddenly grease the wheels of whatever needs to be done. So sneaky does he want to be part of my family? He would be good but he's like a retired cop so he he has too much of falafel in him to ever really be part of the family.

But man, alright. Yeah that sounds good. I like this plan. I think we probably spend the afternoon searching the lake house for the hidden letters, setting everything up waiting for setting it so that the the after dinner party or whatever is happening at the lake house because it's going to be cute and whatever and lit with fairy lights and shit. It's perfect and then yeah stating that so after dark when she's most likely to be learned out.

Yeah, sounds good to me also then we'll be fighting by twinkle light and I love that for us fighting evil by moonlight. Cool. So yeah, you're running around all day. Are you what are you just expecting Raina to show up? Like you're just changing your schedule catch she's gonna show up. It's just gonna be you are you all going to talk to her at all beforehand or?

I don't really know that talking to her is going to really help at all because she doesn't have any idea about the affair or what's going on with her. We can say some sh it, like, it's just like, oh, you know, we're going to try this hypnosis technique trying to put you under, maybe bring up some memories of what happened. What took you out to the lake that night, you know, something simple and peaceful.

Yeah. Get any, like, leftover things out of you before you start your new life, your hubs just to make her more receptive to being, you know, we could set it up to that. Like Lori wants to like, share a moment with his future like daughter too and like, because he's going to just be there and she's like, what the funk. Why? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. You can totally arrange things and, you know, you're so you're running around all day, like getting that all prepped and stuff.

I do think at some point, Tony, your dad will want to talk to you. Yes. In the middle of something, you know, he'll, he'll kind of like pull you over and, you know, try to have a private moment and he'll say, um, I know that was probably all really hard to hear and I still don't really know what to think about all that. How are you doing? Well, let's say a lot of my family image is a little bit cracked and shattered, but I don't think that's as important for me as it is for you or Enzo.

So I've been trying to think about it. I guess we've, we've had a few hours and I don't know. I, um, I think that Lori is, he's never felt much. He's never had an easy time of expressing his feelings. He's always been very closed off. Even since we were kids. I never knew what he was thinking. He, he always played it so close. His heart was so closed off and the more I think about it, he must have felt so much for this girl. I know it's not fair of me to ask.

But I, I think we should forgive him at least a little bit for what he did. I know he regrets it and I can see how, how hard this must have been to go alone and if he loved her and was suffering for a year and didn't even, didn't even feel like he could tell his own brother that must have been hard for him. Dad, it's always very sweet how good you are to people and how big of a heart you have for people, especially when they make mistakes.

And yeah, I can tell it was a big mistake but I don't see any love in what he did. I think he saw what he saw and thought of himself first because I can imagine seeing someone you love alone, dead, cold and wet and walking away. You can forgive him. But I think we're more than allowed to be mad at him. At least for a while. I think as we've always said, what you feel is what you feel and you should feel it. I think we're all mad at him now, including himself, whatever you have to do. I ask that.

You remember at the end of the day, he is my brother and he has proven himself to be a fool, but even fools deserve their families protection. Well, I know that dad, you can't forget he's my uncle. That's why this is so difficult for me to imagine doing geo doing something like this. All right, I just wanted to say that just before whatever happens happens, I don't pretend to know how any of this stuff works. Any of this fe stuff works. That's your world now, not mine.

I just think of think of your family, dad. That's all I think about. I don't, I don't believe in, I don't care. At least I don't think he deserves extra punishment. Yeah, I'm mad at him and I'm not ready to give him any kind of forgiveness right now, but I don't intend to punish him further. All right, I trust you. I'm sorry this had to happen. We're all sorry. Alright. Well, you let me know if you need me whatever you need me to do. How about let's just not keep secrets from each other.

I promised that kid I've got nothing, nothing like this. How it's so easy for your mother. And I, you know, we got very lucky. It's never been easy for Laurie. Clearly was even more complicated than we thought. I mean, it was a wild story to hear. That's for sure. I can't, I can't if I had guessed, uh, that would not have been my guest. No, I mean, I guess it's really the end of the story. That's so terrible. I feel like it totally could have gone another way.

Had he just been honest about the way he felt? That's what's the hardest thing or if the tragedy hasn't happened, there are a lot of ifs and could have, that's why life is hard. Alright. I've taken enough of your time. I uh I've got to go get ready for a wedding. Alright. Well, you'll see glory soon. Well, you'll see me soon too. Thanks, boss. And that's where we're gonna end our episode. How y'all feeling, I'm feeling so much, you know, those family dramas. Get me.

I know somebody said, oh my God, the favorite campaign is just like the family drama campaign. I'm like, yeah, it is. This is when you have big families and you have so many ties to the world and oh my God has got like 900 siblings alone. Wait till we like wait even until we even get there. God, what is going on with Eva Sailor is the oldest. So there's not a lot of drama happening with her, mostly toddler siblings, little kids. The hottest goss is that your parents are super hot circus folks.

So that's just what that is so hot. But yeah, so thank you all so much for stopping by for sticking with us again. We are the Venture Maidens. If you enjoyed what you saw here, please do like subscribe, follow whatever platform you're on. Do the thing if you really enjoy us. Of course, you can always go to Patreon uh patreon dot com slash venture Maidens as we where you can go to donate, make either a one time donation or you know, a monthly donation to help support the show.

We love all of our beautiful, wonderful patrons and we will say thank you to the highest tiers and just a moment here. But before we go, we got some, some news. Heck yeah, you had some news, some updates you wanted to share as well. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh So the news is about a little, a little unchanged but things are still progressing in Iran. Um Protests have not slowed down. They are increasing in size as you are aware.

Hopefully by now that it is a full blown revolution and the human rights atrocities happening in Iran are only growing by the day. And there's ways that you can help by remembering that your representatives work for you. And there is a link coming to chat right now. Those of you listening at home, um can go to nuff Iran de Iran dot org. That's N U F D I R A N dot org.

And there is a link for you to locate your local representatives and whether Democrat Republican doesn't matter, it's not a political issue. There is a pre written script that you can copy and paste, send to those representatives that requests attention on the human rights crisis in Iran so that the representatives can find ways to support the freedom fighters on the streets. Starting my cat is all over the place where I'm saying this. Um And uh it does not call for Western intervention.

It's like giving internet access to protesters, drawing eyes on what's happening in Iran, getting Iran off the U N Council Commission for Women. Um Things like that and it would be really great if you could copy that, paste it and send it to your representatives and just continue to echo the voices that are coming from Iran itself. If you struggle at all to understand what those voices are saying because you're not Iranian. I totally understand. Follow me on social media.

I follow a lot of human rights groups, I'm Nazgul everywhere online. And if you want to stay up to date that way, I'm posting all the time about the situation so you can follow me as well. And thank you. And as always, you can find those links there in the chat right now and they will be included as well in the show notes of this podcast episode. So go and you can see it there in whatever app you're in, click on the episode, you'll see it right there in the text. All right.

Well, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, we like to take some time every episode to thank our Patreon who donate our Patreon donors at the highest donor tears, who I really do just work tirelessly to keep the lights on by like giving us money every month. Thank you. You're amazing, beautiful humans. I don't know if you know this, but podcasting doesn't make any money like on its own normally.

So we put hours and hours and hours, basically full time jobs worth of hours into making this show for you and it's completely free. So for those of you who see that and appreciate that if you've ever done anything free for anyone else. And you want to say, thank you highly recommend being like these goddamn heroes and donating at least something on Patreon to us. So we want to go around and say thank you with starting with our Arnie's cohort here. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Curry and thank you muffin at the one who the one on jewelry laying on Twitter. Indeed. And thank you Nisa mckinnon and for our fairest drinking mate here. Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you, Mark Ally. Thank you fable. Thank you, Tony. What's up Tony. Thank you so much, sheepish gnome and thank you to our wiki, God, Ben A K A flower crown. You beautiful God of what? Wonderful. Um Well, thank you everybody so much for being here.

I have been your dungeon master, Celeste Kana, which, hello, my name is Katie and I have played the very severe drought rogue. Hello, I'm Naseem and I have been your half work fighter, Tony Silver tail and I am sage and I have been your barred to Flannery. Yes. Well, thank you everybody so much for sticking with us through this Long Knives out juicy episode and until next time everybody, she way everybody. Bye bye.