Best Intentions Ep2: An Incident at the Backstrom Eststate

The stakes begin to rise. Ben and Joe head towards the home of Blair Backstrom. The first obstacle comes to light, the estate is guarded by thugs. Ben and Joe will need to proceed carefully if they are to get the answers they need.

Prepare for some action in this one as the plot begins to thicken, and more questions are raised, in the case of the missing Blair Backstrom.

Credits:
Author and Dungeon Master/Keeper: Tony Dionisio
Sound Editing/Engineering: Spencer Peerson
Production Lead: Dave Larson
Some Royalty free music from https://www.FesliyanStudios.com
Additional Music by Nicolas Jeudy of Dark Fantasy Studios

Based on the novel "Best Intentions" and inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft

Cast/Characters:
Benjamin Harris: Spencer Peerson
Joseph Wheatley: Dave Larson
Literally Everyone Else: Tony Dionisio

Content advisories: Language, Smoking, Violence

Transcript

hey everybody this podcast isn't safe for work or children or Scholars looking to research the concept of infinity

have a fun time previously on best intentions

[Music] greetings Mr Harris my name is Adam Backstrom

and I sent you this letter in hopes that I may acquire your services for a matter of most dire much of the things that we

have to do with the young Adam here is not exactly textbook I say he won't last the Year to my dear

nephew in this will I bequeath everything to you I hid it in a place

that's only I think you might be able to find do you remember that old Butler's desk I kept in my private study fired

all of his staff at his estate next thing we knew he was on a tugboat and he was gone

my cousins Liza Thomas Grand

been wanting to declare and deceased so a thief burned a whole bunch of

letters and took a key to Adam's uncle's estate looking up and at the door

is a singular rat very slowly being covered up and blanketed by this fog

that's rolling up out of the sewer grate Joe we're gonna check out the Backstrom

estate

[Music]

foreign [Music]

and Joe you guys leave Adam's home and start heading up to the Backstrom estate

as you're driving up to North Side at the uh going over the bridge over the miskatonic river you can see the rain

creating puddles and small ripples all throughout the river the tugboats going

back from Lane to Lane puffs of dark smoke rising from their Smoke Stacks I

gotta get some clean burning tugboats over here never happen clean burning yeah 1923 just not Black

come on now no you know what 1920s no excuse okay

let's go back to 1920s to start the green New Deal then climate change [Laughter]

so you guys finally enter into North side with an Arkham and driving up the street

you cross over onto the street where the bathroom state is and both of you can

see outside the Backstrom estate there are several men standing outside the

gates almost like guards to a castle you see one two four five men that's what

littered about with one larger individual standing at the front you had to count are you looking at a board that

we can't see are are we trying to teach children the importance of the count

oh God anyways there's a large individual standing at the front of the gates yeah

yeah guessing from what you can see at the distance he looks to be about Joe's height he's standing Joe how tall are

you uh Joe is about six four six five yeah he's about the same height as you

wearing something of a nice suit but it's tattered you can see it's muddy on

the bottom of his pants and he's holding an umbrella above his head as the rain's coming down you guys slowly

pull up to the estate he walks and he approaches the front driver's side I

decide that you're on Ben leans in can I help you

yeah I'm here to uh check out the estate as per nurse uh

[ __ ] I should I should have read the notes before starting this episode of

[ __ ] notes he says new character

[Laughter] yeah I'm here to check out the estate as

per Adam backstrom's request sorry nobody gets in the estate

yeah as the as according to who that's what I want to know

on to the legal matter instead why don't you just keep on driving I'm sorry that can't happen we're part

of the legal team but that's kind of the point yeah make a one of you make a uh let me think here

do persuade someone do persuade okay done one second uh 47 over

50. so it's a pass but barely he looks at you part of the legal team huh

as a matter of speaking yes you don't look like lawyers you don't look like you're supposed to

be here either what's the point I was hired to watch the estate Yeah by

who which law firm you with I don't think you understand what we meant by law team we're working with the police

department oh with the police I see a badge no of course not sorry no

badge you don't get in let me ask you a question who are you working for hmm

nenya that sounds like a mordecai to me

I'll just keep driving before we have some trouble let me put it to you this way if we keep

driving then there will be trouble you stay here you're definitely gonna have some trouble

he's leaned into the uh car is that correct yeah he's well he's not leaned into the

car he's bent down and like looking at the car he's still maybe about like a foot away from you okay

you do see that he has it's him and then four other guys behind him so there's not like space to open the door right

you could I mean there is like a little bit of space to open the door but like if you open the door you're gonna hit him okay pal my friend here he's the

private investigator played by the family to figure out where this guy is at and

you're here for the investigation but what to make sure nobody takes anything from the estate until this guy's declared dead or

whatever oh you have by the family that's what I said by Backstrom yeah we

were high by the family too and guess what they told us nobody gets into that [ __ ] house

um I don't like this guy's tone me neither as I said

it'll be trouble for you I have larger connections than you probably would think oh I'm sure

I shift the car into drive and let me look at this map here I literally just go around the corner to

like N4 okay like a block away okay I park it on the street

and uh look over Joe well Joe this is what I brought you on board for so uh

you up for this are we are we gonna go when guns blazing oh I'm not thinking Jesus no God no no

okay I was I was worried for a second so I decided to kill nobody but uh

what what are you thinking well I'm thinking it could get ugly if they catch us

we're gonna go in through the back uh not in love with the plan but I can't

think of any uh any better ideas at the moment oh we can't just go in guns blazing this

isn't the war anymore yeah no it's I was kind of worried like you can't spill blood in these streets

without expected consequences no of course not but it could get ugly we might need to bust some heads

yeah I think I'll leave the shotgun behind but I'll be able to you know bust some knuckles

all right sounds good to me probably a good idea to um

I'm bringing my pistol yeah I know you do that I'm just not gonna bring it freaking shotgun actually

Tony how crime ridden are these streets not really cry I mean there's crime

obviously it's not like 1920 Chicago where like gang violence just happened all the time yeah no no it's it's

generally pretty quiet and most things are done very secretively okay yeah like

open shotgun fights is not probably the way to go yeah that doesn't really fly here okay

figured just making sure I get out of the car though I also get out of the car and we walk North past n69 and we swing

back through whatever that is it looks just like empty country sort of just like fields or something

all right if uh you guys could both make uh stealth checks for me I feel like we might have some

generalized Advantage for how far away we are also I'm gonna go get my dice because I don't like I want to roll something

okay yep uh but yeah go ahead and make some general stealth checks for me

good job Joe oh

I don't want to tell them can you tell them but say in a way that he he won't get mad at me okay

um I got I got I got the dice tray I'm I'm doing things I'm just I'm keeping you updated I'm giving you the

play-by-play I've I've now put on my headphones so now I can hear you guys

too that's a that's a that's a fitty one which against myself is 52.

so you just make yourself roll a Joe so as you guys are sneaking what did Joe

get did he get a one behind you got yeah oh my God so oh my God

so oh that's probably something important for the listeners a critical success in this game is a one a critical

failure is usually a 100 but it could be as low as like a 90 or 95 pinning skill also if you make a skill check you uh do

check it on your uh sheet because you don't level up in this game your skills

increase as you are successful with them yeah I don't think I was successful this time though Spence so I was though I was

successful in a persuasion and on a still continuing on as you guys are sneaking up past that way and going

around the back uh you see that the estate is surrounded by a fence then you

are able to kind of hop through and over the fence Joe as you are hopping over

the fence your pant leg gets caught on one of the prongs of the fence yeah so

and as you as you Dismount it rips it all the way up to the buttocks

are you serious that's not a failed stealth that's a failed fashion

this is embarrassing and these were your nicest pair of pants that you've owned

oh no you did just get paid Jesus you got paid 50 bucks so that you should be

able to replace that pretty good as your feet touch down into the muddy grass it's kind of splashes up and gets

you know on your skin and up on your leg how it's all wet oh God

I thought you were better than that I thought so too doesn't really seem that anyone's really

back here so you haven't been spotted but you you did Rip Your Pants great okay

I'm gonna look for uh way inside I mean can we not just see the back of

the house and there's a door I'm just like looking for like a place that's like inconspicuous

from what you guys can tell it looks like a two-story house there is a large porch out in the back with an outside

dining area and you do see two double wide doors that lead inside yeah I'm just gonna walk up to the doors

and try to open them okay um you do uh roll luck okay oh that's

the thing that's in this game yeah that can be used or as a stealth role or as a role

oh man you're never gonna believe this 61 my luck right now is 60.

so unfortunately you do try the door and it is locked wait was there no recovery from last episode don't you get luck

between episodes oh yeah there is luck between episodes um I forgot to do that we didn't roll

any skills so I don't think that matters but like luck should have gone up yeah what is that a d10 usually it's

like a d10 or do we not want to do that right now let's not worry about it right now we'll deal with it after this episode okay between episodes going

forward yeah between episodes going forward we'll go ahead and remember to roll for luck okay so yeah unfortunately as you

try the handle the door is locked okay I don't know how to pick a lock I don't

think there's no lock pick skill um I know there's locksmith I don't know how to do that either though I would

have a one percent chance of being successful and I have no tools is there a gutter that goes could we

climb up to the second porch what kind of door is it it's a it's it's double wide it is glass

paned so there are like on each door there are six glass panes

okay Joe's gonna just walk up and like smash out one of the glass but he's

gonna like wrap a Dwight do I see him starting to get ready like I see him wrapping up his hands that you break that glass we're gonna alert everybody I

mean is there another way in potentially there was the porch I might have a glass door on the top there's also Windows

let's not Resort right away to the idea of make a mess okay fine

so stepping back and looking up there is a balcony that does overhang on the second story that you can see that does

also Overlook the backyard you see some gutters running down that filter the

water offline running off of the roof and down into this little man-made stream that then goes into a pond so you

do see there there is possibly a way that you could climb up is it the gutter

um The Gutter and there's also those beams kind of running up the length of it and if you get a boost you can

probably like boost somebody up there yeah well how about this I'll give you a boost get up there and see if the upper story

is open yeah yeah let's do that so which would be easier going through

the gutters or going up the beams I mean the gutters will just crumple

under most people's weight I think yeah let's let's try the beams and I figure if I give you a boost along

the beam then like you can get to a point where you can reach it probably so kind of interlocking your fingers

together Joe you put your foot down on his hands and then you raise them up and

get them up to the top of that balcony and Joe luckily you're tall enough so outstret your hands and you're able to

grip down and clasp down on that and you're also pretty strong too so you

lift yourself up and get yourself up and on to that second balcony okay are there

any um doors you do see a door and you see that it's just a single door

it does also have some window panes on it and if you were

nibble enough or at least maybe a small enough guy you could probably shimmy across the ledge and get to one of those windows on the far end I mean try the

door first man yeah I'm gonna try the door first okay yeah do uh do a luck to see if that

thing's locked oh you did it hard success he's looking

at 16. yeah 16 over 60. so as you go to try that door handle it sticks a little

bit and you give it another little push down and it looks like the lock wasn't quite

fully set door opens up okay I'm going to

try to quietly Stealth at least some would say make my way downstairs to open the door for Ben

all right so as you you want me to roll stealth yeah you can roast yeah go ahead roll stuff

yes okay yay 32 over 55. regular success good job so does my stealth ability

increase you get into the adventure we'll go through it you give it a little check and then you it might increase at

the end so the higher it is the more likely it is that you will succeed and get the chance to increase it but also

the higher it is the less likely it actually will increase so you have to get under the number to be successful on

rolls and stuff but you have to get over the number in order to increase it at the end okay that's cool all right this

is my first time playing Call of Cthulhu guys it's like my second it's exciting yeah this is like your second or third

time the third time something yeah I don't know so we test ran this before we put it on a podcast yeah sure we did we

walked in blind no we tested this we're better than that yeah so you start to head your way down the stairs it's

fairly small well not fairly small but as you get up there you enter into what

looks like to be some kind of guest room you open the door and you look out left and right there's a hallway with another

door directly across from you you can see another large window at the end of the hallway with two more rooms and then

kind of an overlooking balcony that has the stairs that lead down to the ground floor okay is there anybody out there or

now that you can see it looks looks pretty clear it's dark because although curtains are drawn and the only light

that is coming in it is very dim as it's starting to get dark and cloudy outside but you move out you look around you're

about to be in a mansion with a Cthulhu guys it gets dark outside um but you you look around and you don't

see anybody and you start to head down the stairs and as you get someone halfway down the stairs you see one of

the men from outside opens unlocks the door and comes inside and starts making

his way towards the kitchen and just kind of watch him for a second so you do see a guy here kind of on the middle of

the staircase and you see this guy walk in and go right into the kitchen as you watch him he grabs some bread he kind of

rummages around finds himself some mayonnaise and like some meat and he smells it to make sure it's still good

Dave he just kind of makes himself a sandwich Dave choke him out you need a new pair of pants

let me do the Terminator scan of this guy

Sky you can see that he also has a gun on his side and then on his hip on his

right hand side because the guns to his left and then on his hip on the right hand side looks like a claw hammer

what oh geez like a hammer and a gun what's a claw hammer

it's just a hammer the the thing that you can use to take the nails out oh it's so it's just a hammer

yeah as he's making himself a sandwich he's humming to himself he's like

[Music] this is some Progressive music here

one day one day I'll make it I'll make it I'll be a star everyone will see and he hears

you hear someone yelling outside and you see him to have to stuff the sandwich in his mouth and like run back outside and

as you see him leave a door shut you quickly get down the stairs and open up the door for Ben okay you just missed

the wackiest dude make it a sandwich but we're good for right now okay thanks for opening the door I I saw

Turin I imagine I was probably like waiting outside just underneath the balcony or something yeah walk in hands

in my pockets hmm this is uh

this is the estate huh I would have thought that it'd be bigger more fancy from what you can tell it

looks pretty humble for an estate it's not too flashy it's not too showy it's

built for comfort yep somehow Tony I read your mind somehow

you're welcome I guess we're here to check out the estate we're looking for just generalized Clues letters something

probably I think we're looking for his bedroom I agree with that idea or no we're looking for a study

or a study does I mean if he has one the guy who doesn't like flashy stuff he definitely is a study a place for uh

research okay yeah Tony should I make a roll no just as you guys are very

quietly making your way through the estate not trying to bump or make any noise inside you do see on the ground

floor there does look like an office in there has bookshelves and you can see a desk and the desk is placed up against a

window that overlooks the front yard and it's in a way that you can kind of see people coming up the pathway to the

house okay and the whole place like this this office looks like it's been tossed there's

books all over the ground you can see the drawers were taken out of uh the

desk and overturned and loose paper fills the room I'd like to make a spot hidden sure

what's that 32 my good guy that's over my 52 so it's not a hard check but it is

a regular check sorry 60. so it's still true but yeah so kind of doing like a

spot hidden in this room and looking around for anything that could have been hidden you do find what it looks like to

be a false back to one of the bookshelves and you push in and it

undoes itself and it opens up into a safe I like to think that I went up and just looked at the bookshelf for like

three seconds it was like yeah this is it like it's not the first time I've gone over this it's not my first rodeo

yeah this definitely isn't your first rodeo here it is and the thing opens up to a safe interesting thing about this

safe looks like the handle or certain parts of it have been burned with acid

burned with acid like corroded and it's all rusted yeah like it melted away like

alien acid not like it's been corroded with acid okay does it open

it does open okay and as you look inside you do see a fairly thick file and you

open it up looks like it just got put back into the safe but as you look at it and you open it up it appears to be just

all of Adam's medical records and bills and expenses that looks like his uncle

has been paying for let's see can I do like a first date check to see if there's anything that jumps out to me on

Adam's medical records yeah you can do that just for some rudimentary training right so go ahead ooh that is a critical

success oh wow God of one a one there's regular hard extreme and

critical he got a critical um oh man one in 100 chance of that

happening baby I'll give you a little bit more information than you would otherwise get yeah I think you should let him increase his medical on that

[ __ ] yeah sure after going like Mark medical and Mark first aid Mark medicine and happy birthday there you go we're

about to get a doctor in the group so as you're looking at it you're reading some of the doctors handwriting uh some of

it's from Isaac turnbaum who is his personal physician you see that what's

written down is his bones are becoming less rigid and they're becoming more

flexible almost kind of rubberizing his bones seem to be rubberizing and as they

Bend and flex they also seem to once again Harden back and regain their rigidity you see another document

talking about some signs that look like he has pneumonia but it isn't pneumonia and you have a few drawings and will

look to be photographs of Adam as he's laid out on a table in his

underwear and it's just it looks like his body is trying to get away from him

in a weird way there are his his arms are bowed inward his fingers look like

they have arthritis his legs are somewhat zigzagged in its appearance you

can see his feet have swollen up it's it's just a mess oh geez and then as you

continue to look through you can see the medical bills some of these are in the thousands of dollars for 1920s that's

that's real you see one final letter written personally to Blair with deepest

and most sincere apologies explaining that his nephew is not going

to survive yeah well you might want to get more of that uh payment up front than uh

might want to get that sooner than later are we saying that you just shared all this with me

yeah okay hmm yeah he's got he's got stuff I've never heard of like rubber bones and the

rehardening and just what's happening to him is this uh it's not really

explainable so he's gonna die then I suppose I guess that already this

hasn't been a whole lot of help not a question of if it's a matter of when what it does tell us is that Blair was

well aware that his son was going to die so perhaps he went look nephew right perhaps he went looking for a cure in

any case there's probably more here to look for additionally this room has told us that somebody's already been here which isn't

uh good also this safe was uh was open not by

somebody who knew the combination exactly so whoever got what was in here is who

we're looking for at least yeah that's another lead we got going on here also

Joe as you were finally finishing up with that paperwork you look up

and through the curtain you can see a silhouette of what looks like a rat kind

of scurrying out and along the outcropping of that window outside of the window

okay can I do a spot hidden on the rat or it's obscured because it's you can't

see you can see like it's outlined but you can't see actually yeah no go ahead and just um give that a whirl let's just

see what happens the dice decide 18. you can see that the rat's head you can't

you get kind of its profile of the rat head it doesn't have a normal

head it doesn't come down into a snout it's flat and you can see it has like

what you would say is a human nose

but once again like you aren't seeing it you aren't seeing the actual you weren't seeing the actual rat you're just seeing

an outline of its profile it's like a darkened silhouette outline

of its profile Ah that's that's where uh okay

well I don't think that this is been something that I noticed so I think I'm starting to walk out of the study

unless anyone stops me for some reason yeah Joe you you kind of stop

and you're looking you're following it as it like scurries along the outside of the window still being obfuscated by the

by the curtains and then it drops down and you don't see the the silhouette of it anymore

must have been a trick of the light from outside the the room you coming Joe

uh yeah yeah I'm uh right behind you all right good we need to uh we need to keep moving

all right so um I'm guessing his bedroom is probably upstairs probably I mean was that not

what you passed through when you went through the balcony I was more focused on getting you inside than checking to

see if somebody slept there well let's go check it out then we go upstairs looking for a bedroom is

there a bedroom uh so as you guys travel back upstairs you do see several bedrooms as well as

another bathroom upstairs but these are all arranged looking like guest bedrooms

or at least quarters were the people who worked at the estate would sleep but

none of them look like there's no master bedroom yeah it's weird that is weird can I do like a single

spot hidden to look for maybe a secret door throughout the estate I guess instead of going into every room and

doing that yeah yeah oh oh

what was it [Laughter] oh boy that was as bad as it can go

um I guess I don't see anything so how long are you guys willing to stay at the estate I mean until we think that

nothing's here we can get back in so you guys both have the exact same luck don't you

yeah right now yes all right so I'll let you two choose between whoever wants to roll the luck

roll uh may I roll the luck roll sure you may sure go for it

[Music] I see they're really good or really bad

60 on 60. does that does Meat Beat no that's no meat meat succeeds all

right so it does take you guys almost about two or three hours just

carefully scanning going through each room and then just every now and again ducking and hiding as one of the guards

outside or you know one of the people outside comes inside to either use the restroom or right the fridge

but eventually upstairs you find just the Secret Door where the

wall Falls in and then closes up on one side and you see a spiral staircase leading up did we

not see that the house was taller than this from the outside [Music] just looks like a two-story house from

the outside so where the [ __ ] is this staircase going up into you don't know but whoever designed to

say that in character which is uh but whoever whoever designed the house

and built the house made it look like it's just a two-story house so it's hidden some way

oh yeah I thought this was a two-story house but you know what [ __ ] it let's go

how did we find this did it just fall open on its own no as you guys were looking around you found a um there's

two candlesticks sticking out from either side of it and you just happened

to bump against one which made it turn and then it opened up okay

yeah all right well I was about to give up on this place let's go we go up the stairs I do

I I also go up the stairs going up the spiral staircase

you guys enter into this room open up another door and inside you see an untouched library that of personal

collection of books that Blair has assorted you see um old relics and ancient artifacts from

all of his digs that are placed in glass display cases hung on walls various

kinds of indigenous masks there are some swords and a suit of

armor as well as a master bedroom uh I'm gonna see if there's any books

relevant to like I'm gonna see if there's any relevant books like stuff on

abnormal medical conditions or what have you I'm gonna look for like a journal or

something that might explain why he left okay so Joe make a library use ooh boy

so you you're looking through it and as you're scanning all the books all the

words seem to kind of blur together and you get kind of a dyslexia going on and

you get a little bit confused and it's gonna take you I don't know probably a little bit longer than you actually would have liked to look through all

this Library stuff right my library use seems to be higher than his I could help if he were to tell me but [ __ ] keep

trapping this dice don't drop the dice going into the dice tray but uh is there anything is there a journal around

that's easily accessible or should I look for it or what's going on with that you go into players master bedroom large

bed a few big trunks a dresser another kind of walk-in closet and you can see a

statue of what looks to be of Norwegian make

um and it's holding a bowl and you can also just see on the floor it looks like some scratch marks along the floor looks

like it's been recently pushed up and uh out of the way or back into place I I moved the statue out of the way of

what I'm guessing a wall that is blocking so you move it out of the way and you find once again another little

door you open up the door which leads to just this back room Hutch which is just

wide enough for someone to walk into by themselves and at the very end of this little hallway is a desk

just kind of shoved into the corner okay all right I rummaged to the desk going to rummage the desk it's it's put in

long ways so you kind of have to drag it out a bit so you can like actually access and open up the uh open up the

drawers sure Joe do you think you can um help me with this yeah um I'm gonna

use some uh some of my mechanical repair stuff to to I just need a box

yeah I'll come and help uh we pull out we pull out the desk I

imagine yes you guys are able to pull out the desk and as you guys are inspecting it

you can see underneath the desk is a series of what look like individual

segmented circles that turn and rotate individually from one another do they

appear to have like runic symbols on them in any way they do um

all right so unless they clearly will just match up [Music]

um do they I guess otherwise I'm gonna need to look for something no it does seem a little bit more

complex than that okay and this also appears to be the desk

that uh Blair described in the letter to Adam I need to re-read that letter really

quick uh uh letter to Adam which so this is not the

desk that the desk was never delivered then huh so no it was never delivered was the the

amulet or whatever I knew the amulet was never delivered

but this this desk was also not delivered or did it get sent back or what's up with that because I thought this was just always

at the desk was always at the estate the decimal never left the estate

um do you remember the old Butler's desk you have to the private study well I thought it might give you one last bit of fun once I leave there's a special

lock on it with my own design a modified type of combination lock Adam in this wheel I between everything to you do

with it as you see fit you are far more deserving of it than any other person I know okay yeah so it doesn't actually so who

Adam might know how to solve this but Adam's bedridden

I mean we can just go back and ask him and then come back here but that seems like a pain

yeah we'd have to sneak out and sneak back in again so as you guys are dealing with this you

can hear from downstairs somebody else hey what the hell hey did you guys know that there was a door here

did we forget to close the [ __ ] door behind us I thought about closing it but this is the outer character I thought

about closing it behind me but then I thought hey you know what you know what's gonna happen we're gonna get locked in here or something

so I didn't bother to you and character uh

uh it seems so

here several pairs of footsteps coming up the stairway yeah uh now I think it's the stairwell

it's a spiral staircase Dave yeah okay yeah that said you know if this big or

four five guys if a big old statue were to come tumbling down the stairs you

know um I don't think you guys are gonna be able to get it there in time before they get up the stairs okay Dave do you

do you want to approach this like a cool guy or do you want to approach this like a murderer let's go let's go cool guy all right so

uh we hear a bunch of we hear a bunch of footprints coming up the stairs um yes Footprints I'm looking at this

map that you have now but yeah Footprints coming up footsteps coming upstairs

uh we're scared that Bigfoot's molds Are Gonna Get Us um no so I I um I hear footsteps coming

up the stairs I say all right Joe push the desk back in there and re-hide it and then I go out to the wall next to

like the the sliding door where they're ultimately gonna come up I lean up against it casually I'd light a

cigarette and get ready to be smug as [ __ ] all right um Joe what are you doing after you

um put the desk back and push back the statue oh I just do that okay we have time we

have time for both of those things I was going to kind of distract them oh yeah no yeah good point so you got

Joe while you're doing that um the sliding door opens and two guys show up it wasn't uh the guy that you

dealt with outside but two of his uh underlings show up they look at you one

immediately puts it draws a pistol to you I I have a cigarette lit and I'd like look at them one of them draws a

pistol what's the other one do the other one's kind of still behind the guy who drew the pistol so the one who

entered first drew a pistol is pointing it at you the other guy is still behind him and he's kind of looking around

how the hell did you get in here uh first put that thing down before you get hurt second I got in here because I'm

better than whoever it was that hired you guys to investigate this whole thing I told you or rather I told your boss

that there would probably be trouble if he didn't allow us to investigate the house on his own so here we are the

other guy draws his pistol oh well the way I see it if you think that I'm the only one who's

here if I go missing you guys will too again put down the guns before you get

hurt and we can have a talk persuade

uh what is my persuasion that might be a hard success suede uh it's a regular success

regular yeah 32 over 50. they kind of look at each other they start to

put their guns away Joe you just finished putting the desk back and you're making your way back to put the

statue back we know what he hears me yeah

so they put they put down their guns it sounds like yeah so they yeah they reholstered their guns

are there uh like any chairs or anything in here I'm guessing not

oh no you see like a couple of chairs Okay I uh I I pull up a chair and I gesture to another one

they keep standing one of them crosses their arms so

you uh this is the second guy talking still giving a smoke yep looking at him like I just

own this [ __ ] universe so uh use use what's coming here in there

just causing trouble for us huh if I was causing trouble for you it

would have been far worse I'm here just doing my job you find what you was looking for

not yet well we know what we haven't either

perhaps our interests aligned then so why don't we help each other out so that

way we don't have any uh complications works for me potentially

what is it you're looking for Joe go ahead and make a stealth check to

move that statue quietly eat my big mouth

do you want to spend luck points yeah I'm going to see you seven of my luck points

all right 62 over 55. see you

lift up the statue it's it's a little bit heavier than you thought it was and you just got

shuffle your way and put it gently back down you can still hear them talking to

each other out there how about you let us have free reign in this place

you know you go on your way we won't harass you you can walk right out the front door well here's here's the

problem with that our interest may very well align but it seems like it was I'm guessing

you guys who destroyed the safe downstairs

very valuable information could have been in there I'm not here for money I'm not here for

anything particularly valuable I'm here for information and if you destroy this place before I can get it

then if my job becomes so much harder complications for me nothing for you

way I see it I found this place left a door open inviting you upstairs so that we could have this chat

you hear another set of footsteps coming up um one much heavier foot falls

probably the man that you guys talked to outside in the first place Joe what are you doing

uh I'm just kind of hanging out in the bedroom I don't want to [ __ ] up uh Ben's whole thing

uh is there any like uh probably unlikely but is there like any like weapons or anything in the bedroom

that I could like arm myself with oh my God please let there be like a shotgun or something

there isn't a shotgun there is no shotgun um but what you do see is what appears

to be an antique Medieval mace oh I was hoping there'd be like an elephant gun he just walks out and blows

one of them up yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna grab the Medieval mace so at least I

have something oh did you not have a pistol when you walked in here no Oh I thought you brought a gun

no you you you brought a gun okay I naturally don't have a gun because I

work at the Docks most of the time or odd jobs fair enough okay well uh you we

hear some footsteps coming up the stairs then and there you do see

the guy you were talking to originally out front well well

looks like you guys didn't [ __ ] listen to me where's the other one

it's just him we didn't see no other guys we we checked the room thoroughly

because kind of Squints at his two underlings he looks back over to you

I I don't actually say anything but I'm holding the cigarette and I just kind of like

casually shrug my shoulders and like twist my wrist where it's like sure

like what do you want from me so you were hired by Adam I imagine a number of other people too

Adam was just the first person to contact me taking a big one last whiff of that

cigarette before having to put it out I gesture towards the chair he looks at the chair he looks back at you

well the way I see it we can't have you snooping around as that interferes with our business

you have yet to tell me what your business is our business our business is this we

keep [ __ ] like you out of this house

and we wait for the initial death of young Adam Backstrom

for the legal proceedings to continue and then for everything to fall into place from there

we get paid everyone's happy here's the [ __ ] problem

you you're a [ __ ] problem luckily we found an excluded third room

which nobody [ __ ] knows about which seems to be he Stomps his foot

pretty [ __ ] quiet he looks at those two shoot him and he starts to go back downstairs

I uh dodged for cover all right roll roll Dodge

uh 22. 22. you're 30. dive behind one of the so as you dive out of the way you grab one

of the bookshelves and throw it down as both of those guys pull out

um their pistols and take shots at you so they're gonna disadvantage on these no

so no on the first one and no on the second one is they both and you can hear the gunshots going off

Joe uh you hear the bookshelf clattering you hear two gunshots go off what are

you doing oh God this is terrible I'm gonna I guess I'm gonna run out with a mace

[Laughter] it's like I'm about to die here

so you run out from out of the bedroom with a mace raise directly at one guy

um oh oh oh and I'm I'm screaming like a maniac so I think that would be a little

intimidating I will also you get two bonus dice for this go

ahead and roll three times and take the best of those three results isn't it just the tens that you or do we just

roll three times it's technical you would grab like two more you know 100 sided dice and then

roll it okay yeah yeah so so my rolling brawl or

am I rolling what am I rolling uh roll brawl in three times oh

yeah do it though you have to do it

for the listeners benefit he got a five over 45 a 20 over 45 and a 31 over 45

literally getting an extreme then a hard and then a regular roll again see if it's a failure just for fun sake I'm

just gonna stick with my extreme success all right so the extreme success with the mace is going to be 11 points of

damage yay so you run out you Club this guy right on the side of the head and he

just goes down you can see that you cracked his skull open quite a bit and

some bit of his uh brain matters leaking out and starting blood is just pulling on the bottom of the floor the other guy

looks at you freaking out at this Maniac with a mace

they try to kill me in France they didn't do it then you're not gonna do it now um unfortunately because it was an

artifact and actually like not really a workable mace the mace is broken at this point

one good swing out of it yeah now he's got like a sharpened handle oh yeah a

stabby stick my favorite heavy stick he looks as he looks at as he looks at you

terrified um now you can go ahead and Ben and if you want to pop out and try to take a shot at him oh yeah I would like to just

just kind of I don't know if they're called shots for headshot

um yeah you just roll a pound to die I feel like it's a better idea just to shoot him like two or three times let's see I got a nine millimeter

uh just a handgun the regular 60 hard third wait no I think yeah regular 60

hard 30 stream 12. the damage is 1D 10 plus so fewer and it's effective so how many how many times are you shooting uh

if I shoot three times what was the there's like it says one so if you're shooting if you're shooting more than

once every roll is going to be just a penalty so you're rolling three times and then just a penalty die with each one okay

um yeah I'm gonna fire three times with a penalty I suppose

all right I think that's gonna have a better way to go

okay so the first one

I'm Gonna Roll all these and see how it works out first one was too over that one was well the 77th the 62 77

and uh okay so I'm going to use two lock points and have at least one of those hit

okay uh and that is a d10 plus two

I roll this bad boy that's a nine eleven points of damage and yeah so you fire uh so how many of

those hit and how many missed uh two of them missed one of them hit notably it was the first one that hit

yeah so you also say you fire once and you

get them right on the side of the temple actually blowing his brains out and then the other two hit him in the chest but it doesn't matter because he's already

dead okay fair enough the double tap and you guys are standing

there with two dead guys in this room and you can start to hear some noise coming from downstairs

uh I grabbed one of their guns yeah they had pistols they had like little uh

snub nose six round Shooters what's the what's the rule on like um

do a wheel thing oh dual wielding is just

um you just roll with penalty die okay because I think the best strategy here

would be to like as soon as they come up the stairs just spray that doorway with a bunch of bullets

um so if I do a wheel they each roll with a penalty did you guys does it get worse if you have two pistols or

well yeah I mean I I grabbed uh both those pistols and I tossed one of them

over towards um towards Ben because it's like I I want one just for myself to have one but I

also want uh been to not have to reload in case uh in case he runs out of ammo

and he just has an extra gun with him yeah that's fair I got uh I guess only

four rounds you guys pistol so as you guys are standing there at the

top looking down at the spiral staircase you can hear one set of footsteps coming

up is it the heavy is it the heavy foot which is the top just you know another one of those it's not the heavy footsteps just one

guy shows up yeah I was like drawn yeah I would have liked to be gaming so he's gonna go as soon as I see a body fire is

that not something I could have done all right that's something you can do okay so I

want to take like a quick pot shot at them is there is there like an aim function that gives bonus die or

something nope I mean you just because you're starting your turn firing it's going to

give you an extra plus 50 to your initiative so I think that's like 110 for you oh God

um because you go based off of your decks so your decks is 60. so plus 50 is 110. okay

and he's also starting off firing but his Dex is 50 so he only has 100 so you're still shooting first okay well

I'm gonna fire admin when he comes up I'm also while he was on his way up I'm gonna gesture to uh Joe for like stand

behind that bookcase so if they get through the doorway you're firing at them from the side yeah I'm obviously gonna do that I'm

gonna just stand out in the open and get shot at oh I figured I didn't want you coming over to me was the thing

um no no no yeah I'm gonna fire off Adam I'm just gonna not I'm not gonna spray it I'm just gonna fire once and try to

pop him okay uh I'm going to use a single lock point

to make that a hit okay we're going real damage I will roll damage

that's an eight plus two ten points ten points um you hit him Square in the

chest and he just Falls backwards and just rolls back down the spiral staircase and with a thud and as you

guys wait there for another 10 or 15 minutes it's becomes obvious that nobody else is coming up

well we just turned this uh disappearance into a triple homicide I

mean you do hear coming up from the spiral staircase whatever sound is being carried into the house

you do hear what sound like sirens yeah 10-15 minutes I don't think it would

have taken that long for me to tell Dave to get the or tell Joe to go get the move

the desk back out so we can go through it uh well we could close the door and uh

and hope that the police don't don't uh find the door and we'll just keep the

bodies up here with us um I'd I'd rather get what we need and run

yeah let's do that uh and like sure there's a puzzle to this whole desk but um do you guys just want to try to

break it open yeah I'm sure there's like so like the the mace is is broken but is there like

another weapon like a Max or something that can just break open this desk with um so luckily for you he does have a um

display case of medieval Weaponry I am curious was there like on the back of the statue

an engraved symbol or something that just matches up with the lock um yeah yeah I'm gonna look at that and

put that in as Joe comes over with an ax and as he's turning the dial so I'm

going to start swinging at the top of the desk you get a couple of hits in

um Joe what's your decks would I not be able to say stop I'm just

trying to find out first is the puzzle solver gonna get done first or is he gonna break in through my well my I

think we have equal decks is it both 60 yeah yeah it's about 60. well is Joe

gonna keep going even though I say stop you all say that he's got an advantage because he's like already trying to get

in there and yeah figure stuff out and all that Joe so Joe you get like maybe one or two x hits in when him yelling

stop finally Clicks in your head and then just say points as you go watch the door

Joe smash oh Joe Joe come on now stop

stop okay I'm good I'm gonna go watch the door with it with my with the my

recently acquired pistol all right and you hear this clicking

noise and then the bottom shelf search their bodies if there's no like

maybe they got money or something I don't know I'm gonna do that

see if they open your notes money uh mementos from loved ones that we can totally

picture pictures of uh children we don't need anything notable if pawn shops will

track that back to us but yeah the thing opens up and underneath is what now and as you as it clicks and it slides

open it is a manila folder and as you open it up the contents are

backstrom's will that's what I'm packing anything else in this thing also make a

very quickly very very quickly for me sir

go ahead and just make a uh make a make an education roll just roll education also

known as a no role like a no roll okay

um uh Ed hue because there's education and

then there's also there is no no role I see education yeah well when you make a no role you're rolling your education

okay uh 40.

40 we're over 73 so regular you get the will as things kind of calm

down in your head kind of start to put things together okay there was a

let's see those guys have claw hammers on their side of the belts they're clearly gangsters

oh [ __ ] these were men who work for Mordecai Hammer yeah damn it I put it together as

you were saying that yeah I mean it's the same thing I told him when I pulled up I just made a guess

like you guys worked for him no damn it okay they lied to me they didn't say that you just said

nothing they didn't say anything okay yeah got it

um is there anything else in this desk because I imagine we started before 10 15 10 10 or 12 minutes or whatever

yeah no that's about the uh that's about the most important thing in that desk okay anything else that we can find me I

don't want a journal is there something underneath the bed is the uh can I do a spot hidden for an additional secret

chamber up here yeah but as you do clock's ticking yeah I got it 49 though anything 49 over 60.

uh doing a click doing a quick scan of everything uh you don't really see

anything that's really neat and tidy uh there doesn't appear to be anything loose hanging out uh anything on there

on their persons that we can find oh nope okay I'm looking okay any any easy

money um I mean like anything this was a rich guy

who had this place does he have like a a lot of cash in a dresser or something

um I mean unless you want to take time to look but like I said clock like literally 30 seconds to look in the most

obvious places that I might find did you pull out you pull out what assume it isn't is an underwear drawer

um so you pull out what you think is an underwear drawer and you just kind of dump all the underwear out to see if there's like any wad of cash or

something out there I'm rummaging I'm literally throwing stuff now because I do know that the clock is ticking three people are dead

all right luck roll luck roll I will lock roll

19. 19. that's uh at least that's Elite that's a hard

you find maybe 50 bucks done I'm out okay

as I passed by I passed by uh Jones like grab anything you want we're leaving now

let's leave before the campus get here uh I'm I'm grabbing the I'm grabbing the the third guy's gun on the way out right

so you guys run down the spiral staircase oh I do grab a hammer off of one of them

oh you do yes all right it's gonna be important all right you got one hammer

um so these guys are running down the spiral staircase and you exit out of that secret passage uh immediately you

guys hear some gunfire heading your way I was gonna say I super I'm not just sprinting

I am aware that people probably are watching for us to leave yeah

oh don't look look at that one okay um so you were each gonna get hit

there's no Dodge for cover huh I mean you guys can die for cover I will die for cover I'm I'm gonna die for

cover all right as you guys are run out immediately you hear all like this hell of gunfire coming your way

um so that's good so that's gonna be some disadvantages I got a 14 which is a hard success on Dodge

all right cool so let's go ahead and just roll those again to see

right Miss still a hit still a hit still a hit

so you guys are still both getting hit once at least okay um so as you guys are getting out of the

way and you're diving for cover you guys do get a couple of hits seven points of damage to you Mr uh

Benjamin oh ah and then four points of damage to you

Joe what's your luck at my luck's at 53.

okay Ben what's your look at uh my luck is at 57.

all right Joe you have lower luck this other bullet's coming for you damn

nine points of damage oh oh are you almost dead

nine points he got hit I'm down to five from seven yeah

so I need both of you to roll Constitution honest what the hell is that oh okay there is a constitution um

okay so my okay uh I'm I'm not at zero hit points you're at one what yeah

oh can can I use luck for this one you can

yeah there's also a mechanic in this game where if you use 30 luck you can survive that's only for doing

yeah you could just die in this one [ __ ] yeah I'm gonna spend 24 luck points to

not black out you told us both to roll constitutions yep because you both took over half your

maximum HP so you have to make Con safes I rolled a three which is an extreme a three okay so you're not blacked out

um but you do both of you do take a major wound okay oh boy

so Joe you feel a shot go right into your shoulder and then the next one go

somewhere maybe in your side and you guys are still running out getting over

towards the balcony uh Ben you feel you get shot somewhere in the upper thigh

and so now you're just kind of hobbling out you guys are both hobbling out you can hear them starting to move in order to get to a better position to shoot you

more at um but you finally reach the balcony and you guys just kind of found and Tumble

over the balcony and land it and land in the soft muddy grass as you continue to keep running trails

of blood leaking behind you what is going on with today Dave had like got knocked out I thought

oh okay he spent some blocks in that [ __ ] pass out he had 89 over 65. okay

yeah no I spent a lot of luck yeah as you guys are running through the

backyard Fields you can still hear them shooting at you the bullets whizzing past your head hitting the ground behind

you kicking up mud you guys finally reach the uh the gate and you can hear

the sirens of the police starting to pull up and attempting to encircle the estate at that point the rest of the men

who are chasing you down and shooting at you start to back off and leave and you guys just get over the fence and fall

into some bushes kind of obscuring you as the police cars drive past you you

get up from the fences and you start to hobble your way and get back to the car

we're leaving and leaving a trail of watery blood behind you guys we're gonna stick around for very long

let's walk through the bushes for a hot minute so we can find a way to cover our tracks but we also need to stop the bleeding as best we can I'm gonna First

Aid on myself first since I'm in the horse shape right now so can I do first aid yeah okay

success all right so he managed to get back four hit points

I'll take it and then after I've done you know checking myself out I'm going to take a

look at Ben as we're getting in the car and I'm just gonna check out his shoulders or driving away that was my

thigh that got shot huh oh your thigh I'm gonna check out this oh yeah Joe you're the one who got shot in the

shoulder and in the gut kind of yeah shoulder and gut oh boy

and that's the hard success for checking out his thigh one

one I get back yep okay couldn't do much for you that's fine point is we stop the

bleeding all right let's get out of here and we go back towards the road and take sort of a wide berth around get into our

car and I look at this will when you get into the car you open up the wheel and you start looking at it

you guys kind of bleeding on the leather of the car huffing and puffing you both

see this time sitted on the hood of the car is a rat

with the human face [Music]

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[Music] thank you [Applause]

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