Shownotes
The Agents are on the trail of Dante Sombra, finding that their target has a keen interest in local cultural sites.
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Transcripts
Hello?
Speaker B:What time is it?
Speaker A:Who is it? I don't know. Situation green, black flies.
Sorry, love, I have to take this deposited onto an hour long Viva Erabus flight that was arranged by Snediger and onto which you were escorted by Caracas and Lopez with no fuss. Again, security not batting an eye at whatever credentials that they flash on your behalf.
You carry your pistols on board with not so much as a glance by any of the registered agents there at the gate or on the plane itself. And as promised Forest, the flight is comfortable.
There is no first class, but there's a business class here on this small plane and that is where you four are seated. The chairs are luxurious, the service is brief, but does include alcohol if you wish to partake.
Unfortunately, there's only one drink being served, so for the rest of you, you kind of grimace when you see it's a giant neon blue fishbowl sized cocktail. But Frankfurt sees that, nods approvingly, and orders two for himself.
Speaker C:That's our party boy.
Speaker D:Oh, man, I don't remember buying tickets for this train. There's the conductors.
Speaker A:There is a moment where the flight crew does note that there's going to be a great amount of turbulence until everyone realizes that's just the sound of Frankfurt's pancreas quivering in fear. All right, man.
Speaker D:Really laying down the tracks tonight. All right.
Speaker A:Yeah, man.
Speaker C:And for in flight entertainment, any movies from the Mant series that we might have.
Speaker A:So there's a pretty good lengthy luchadora remake series of mant, and they do have time to show about 20 minutes of it. So you watch El Santo and the Mant together.
This is the one where they've already gotten over their differences and they have to fight a bigger wrestler.
Speaker C:Oh, hell yeah.
Speaker A:They're.
Speaker C:Yeah, this is a good one.
Speaker A:They're taking on what looks like a cybernetic armadillo, and it looks like a good one, but unfortunately, right at the climax, they have to turn it off to fly into Oaxaca. Hey, Chris, to your left.
Speaker D:Sorry, I'm checking the script here. And it's actually a cybernetic donkey that you put down, not cyberdetic.
Speaker A:Oh, it's the cyber bull. Okay, Yeah, I forgot.
Speaker C:He's painted to look like a zebra.
Speaker A:So, yeah, you land and disembark. Oaxaca is a beautiful, vibrant town full of historical relics of the past.
And so you've got modern buildings that are clustered around larger ancient edifices from times past. What would you four like to do? Did you want to set directly out to visit Sombra's hotel?
The Hotel del Solitario or was there anything you wanted to do first?
Speaker E:We should definitely check in with Horatio and get that backup plan started. A little care package or whatever it was.
Speaker A:Yeah. Felix, are you going to make that call again or is someone else.
I can make it if there's nothing in particular you want to ask of Horatio or Smiley or whatever. Knight is on the phone.
Speaker C:I'll just inquire.
Speaker A:We can just quickly hand wave that.
Speaker C:Yeah, I just wanted to. I would probably ask like for further detail on the insurance policy.
Speaker A:The gentleman on the other side of the line who's taking your call is fairly silent, just listening to your words and pauses for a while. But he says instructions will be included with the item. It will be deposited at the airport within 24 hours. We'll contact you when it has arrived.
Speaker C:Okay. Felix is pleased.
Speaker A:Nice. Okay, go ahead and add a morale bonus of 1% to persuade Woo.
Speaker C:You guys are playing this game wrong.
Speaker D:What just happened? Paris also calls Horatio and says, hey, that's all I got.
Speaker A:She says, I don't like you. I've never liked you.
Speaker E:She's Tommy Wiseau.
Speaker C:I knew it.
Speaker A:Oh, hi. Oh, hi, Felix.
Speaker C:Damn it.
Speaker E:This turned into an inspector's episode.
Speaker A:Oh, shit. Oh, my best boy. Well, you're here in Oaxaca de Juarez around 10am local and you've made your call to your bosses at Pegasus.
They've assured you that an insurance policy will be deposited within 24 hours nearby, in fact, the very hotel you're standing or the very airport you're standing in front of. What do you want to do? It's an unfamiliar city to all of you, especially our Canadians.
And you're pretty much without any equipment, any vehicles at this exact juncture. You know, Snedeker's arranging things for you. You made quite the laundry list for him, but it's only been about an hour and a half.
Speaker E:Suppose we gotta start setting up a base of operations. Maybe get an Airbnb or a hotel of some sort.
Speaker C:Yeah, I was thinking a hotel close to where Sombra's hotel is or apartment is. So at least we're close by.
Speaker A:Yeah, sure, yeah, you can get something very close by. Absolutely. So you make arrangements at a nearby motel. Actually, it's going to be a Holiday Inn Express.
Seemed very familiar and comforting when you found it pop up on your Google search. Yeah. You arranged for rooms for yourselves.
Speaker E:So we know all we really have to go off on is the last place that he was at, correct?
Speaker A:Yeah, he disappeared completely. Remember, the assumption is he Made his tail and he ghosted everyone that was surveilling him.
All we know is that he stopped using any of the payment methods that were previously being used to track his actions, behaviors and whereabouts. And the last place he was known to have stayed is the Hotel del Solitario.
Speaker E:I guess we should probably call in with Snedger and see if he had any other, like, known.
Speaker A:He gave you a full briefing.
Speaker E:Okay, so he has.
Speaker C:No, no, no.
Speaker A:If you're thinking there's more information if you're thinking there's more information that he didn't give you, that is not correct. You got everything during the briefing.
Speaker D:Paris is going to go and start doing some research while we're waiting and see if there's like a CCTV system in this area or if there's anything you learn about the hotel itself in terms of security.
Speaker A:Yeah. Did you want to do a walk by, like, how are you?
Speaker D:Yeah, I think what he'll do is he'll just go do kind of walk by, stroll by the hotel, just kind of see what the security situation is and then also look for, you know, potential CCTV cameras, like in the city itself. I don't know if they have any or not, but he's going to look.
Speaker A:For them to see if there's a city CCTV system. It's not one that's advertised publicly. You don't see any precariously placed street cameras on top of light utility poles or traffic signals.
But you do stroll a couple blocks down to the address of the Hotel del Solitario and yeah, you see it. I'll describe it to you. This building is nestled within these kind of twisting, labyrinthine streets.
The area where it's located is obviously one of the older parts of the city. And it takes quite a few twists and turns to place yourself in front of it.
And it is on a cobbled street, not a street that's paved for general traffic. The crumbling gray stucco facade, to you, it exudes an air of maybe washed out grandeur.
It has ornate wrought iron balconies and cracked ornamentations. And these hint at maybe a time of elegance that's now tarnished by recent neglect.
It's a four story affair and there's really no room between it and its abutting structures. And it appears like a smudge of anachronistic architecture between what looked like more modern developments.
In fact, it seems forgotten by the city and it seems to stand still and maybe some ambiguous point in the past as it nonetheless decays. Frankfurt. You look around at this Again, decaying exterior. You don't spot any obvious cameras.
In fact, like I mentioned, it's almost as if you're peering back through time at a much older building.
Speaker D:He'll wander a bit and then head back to the hotel and wait.
Speaker A:Cool. What are we waiting for?
Speaker D:Oh, I assume Snediger is going to be getting in touch with us with all of our gear, cars and guns, et cetera.
Speaker A:Okay, so we're all going to sit tight and wait for Sneddegar to get all that ready for you. We don't know a timeline on that, so that could be days, it could be hours. We have no idea how long it's going to take. You did ask for some pretty.
Speaker D:I didn't make an assumption.
Speaker A:Difficult things.
Speaker D:I did just assume everybody's kind of, like, checking into their rooms and getting settled. So that's just what Frankfurt was going to walk off and do real quick and then come back.
Speaker A:Absolutely. I'm just trying to get an idea of what the team's doing.
So if the team is waiting for Snedeker, if that's what we're waiting for, I'm just letting you know that's an indefinite period of time, and it could be days.
Speaker E:Yeah, the thing about that is we don't know. We don't want to tip off what's his name that we might be looking for him yet.
So maybe it's just safest to wait till we have everything for abducting him before we get started. What do you all think? Cool.
Speaker A:Well, you don't know where he is. Remember, he's not at the hotel.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:The whole point of going to the hotel is to try to pick up his trail. They've had him under surveillance for months, and they've lost him. He's not at the hotel. He's not in a Oaxaca. From what they can, they lost him.
Speaker E:Meaning, like, he's twigged that they've been looking for him.
Speaker A:Right. So if you feel like going into the hotel is going to give you away, that's an unlikely outcome.
Speaker E:You think so? Okay.
Speaker A:I mean, I don't know how you would make that logical leap. Maybe I'm missing something.
Speaker E:Well, you know, spies being spies and maybe hiring somebody to report in when they see somebody asking around. I don't know.
Speaker A:I guess that's true. Well, that'll happen whether or not you have a go bag in your hand or not.
Speaker D:Also, I think that's our. Unless I missed it, that's our only lead.
Speaker A:Yeah, that is correct.
Speaker D:Yeah, the hotel. So that would be the logical leap I think we're making. It's that. That's why we're gonna go to, you know, that's why, Frank.
That's why I had Frankfurt walk. Just walk down the street.
Speaker A:So. So is the.
Is the idea that you want to wait to be able to walk into the hotel with a bunch of equipment versus without a bunch of equipment in a panel van?
Speaker C:No.
Speaker A:Well, is that what we're waiting for?
Speaker D:No, this was. Frankfurt was literally just my thought was everybody's kind of settling in.
We just got there, and Frankfurt's like, I'm just going to go for a quick walk. And he just walked around a few blocks and walked back.
Speaker A:Yes. And we narrated that. And now it's time for the next action.
Speaker D:Yeah, I think. Well, now I don't know what to do because I thought the move was to go to the hotel and look at his hotel room.
But you imply that that would make sense, so I'm guessing we.
Speaker E:No, I've implied that because I'm a.
Speaker A:Paranoid asshole, which is fine. That's totally, totally okay. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't reading. If you're being a paranoid asshole, that makes perfect sense to me.
I just wanted to make sure I hadn't given you some sort of indication that going to the hotel room would tip off this guy who has disappeared.
Speaker E:No, I'm just letting my paranoia guide me.
Speaker C:So, y'all, we need to start getting on this trail before it gets too cold. We should go check out the apartment.
Speaker D:Yeah, I did a little walk earlier. We were getting settled in. I didn't see any cameras anywhere. Really.
I don't think we're gonna be luck there also means I don't think we'll be seen if we weren't trying to go check out dig through this hotel. Is it a hotel or an apartment? I'm sorry, I thought I've heard it called.
Speaker A:It is Hotel del Solitario. So it's. It's a hotel.
Speaker D:It's not an apartment. Got it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I think we dressed to the nine. We look sharp. I don't see why we couldn't go in there and just flash pictures, say we're looking for our friend. Oh, that's a creepy hotel. Really is.
Speaker E:Yeah, it really is.
Speaker A:No, it's just old. It's not creepy. There's no. This game's positive. We already talked about it. So you made optimistic, positive experiments tonight.
Speaker B:It's the thing. It's the face that the Top.
Speaker E:It's the gross face on the top. Yeah, that face looks like salad fingers.
Speaker C:Is the stone. Is the stone like a green soap stone? Like.
Speaker A:Yeah. Unknown basalt composition. Seems like it would be more suited for under the waves, perhaps than something above ground or above sea level.
Speaker B:Definitely looks like it's been underwater for a long time.
Speaker A:Some of the ornamentation has a whitish gold kind of impure metal casting on it. And you can hear chants to Father Dagon from inside. I forgot to mention that.
Speaker C:I always forget to ask. It's my fault.
Speaker A:Yeah, you should really prompt me for that.
Speaker C:Well, we could always flash our credentials. I mean, cops checking a room of someone who's gone missing, that's not a. Doesn't raise too many eyebrows.
Speaker B:I think I'm here for that.
Speaker C:Anyone speak Spanish?
Speaker E:Lo siento.
Speaker B:No habla espanola.
Speaker C:Let me check if I do, just in case. Hold on.
Speaker A:This is gonna be a rough sequence, y'all.
Speaker E:I can do Quebecois.
Speaker D:And which. Which credentials are we flashing here? Is it our.
Speaker E:We have dea.
Speaker C:Dea.
Speaker D:Yeah, that's my point. Are we. We're gonna go into this Mexico hotel?
Speaker C:Whoa, I got Spanish. 30%, baby.
Speaker E:That's.
Speaker A:Hell, yeah. That means you're competent. I didn't know that.
Speaker C:Hell, yeah.
Speaker A:I'm so happy. I'm so happy right now.
Speaker E:That's a lifesaver.
Speaker C:I got that.
Speaker A:So, yeah, you were actually competent. That'll do it. That'll do it. Holy shit, man. That's great news.
Speaker E:The podcast is saved.
Speaker B:Felix redeemed.
Speaker A:We can wait for equipment from Snediger before we go in, which. Totally fine. I'm okay with that. Or we can go ahead and see if we can get access to maybe where he was staying. We know it's room 417.
Speaker C:Bominos mi amigos.
Speaker A:Yeah, you guys are all, like, super impressed with how articulate he is in this other foreign language.
Speaker E:Wow, that's pretty good.
Speaker C:Yo, Zoe, un naturallo.
Speaker B:Ben is just smiling and nodding her head.
Speaker E:Sounds good to me. No problems here. How's about you just keep it up?
Speaker D:Excelente.
Speaker A:You four are standing in front of this hotel that I have previously described to Frankfurt.
There are really no differences to make known to you now that you're in a group, but as you enter, you notice that the lobby is drab and splayed with threadbare carpets. The wallpaper is peeling, yellowed, and there's a curious amount of fat, lazy, black flies that slowly crawl across most visible surfaces here.
weltering already. It's about:She's typing at a newish laptop that seems honestly alien in comparison to its surroundings.
As you wander through the lobby you do see guests using a nearby staircase to navigate up and down to maybe the various halls and rooms above and perhaps below. Their faces are obscured by shadows. As the lobby is very poorly lit, they seem to do their best to avoid your gaze.
There's a faint scent of Kopal incense that hits you as you approach the clerk. You can hear soft strains of somber acoustic guitar crackling from the laptop speakers.
Xochil Cruz wears her brass name tag over a brightly colored and embroidered blouse. She has long ebony hair and it seems to shine in this again, very dark lobby as if possessing a bioluminescence.
She's middle aged and as you approach you can sense a trepidation in her demeanor. She watches you and says nothing as you park yourselves in front of the clerk's desk.
Speaker C:Hola, signora.
Speaker A:She she nods yes. Did you need a room? She looks like she knows the answer to the question already. She speaks in English.
Speaker C:I do not need a room. What I do need is some information and I'm going to pull out my DEA badge and put it face face up in front of me.
Where we are federal agents from the United States of America here to work with the Mexican government. We are looking for a Mr. Dante Sombra.
Speaker A:She nods yes. Okay. Well he. He hasn't been back to his room for almost two weeks.
Speaker C:See that that is to be expected. We were like to look through the room, see if we find any evidence of where he might have gone to next.
As you can tell, this is an international matter and we are trying to resolve this with a Speedy the speed.
Speaker A:She nods.
Speaker E:I thought you were going to say Gonzalez.
Speaker D:I see.
Speaker E:For not doing that after I said speedy.
Speaker C:Speedy Gonzalez came into my head and it's not where I was going to go. And then it really fucked with me and I couldn't think about anything else. So yes, correct.
Speaker A:Mr. Sombra did not check out. He left some personal effects. We are keeping them in Secure Lost and Fountains.
We keep such articles for about a month in case a guest returns for them.
Speaker C:Well, Signora Cruz, could we take a look at those artifacts ourselves?
Speaker A:Yes, yes, I can get that. She stands up and turns.
Speaker E:Can we just assume that he's translating back and forth as we're oh, she's speaking English.
Speaker A:She's speaking English.
Speaker E:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:She's speaking English.
Speaker D:And he's still choosing to speak like that, which is the best part.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's awesome. I love it. And she walks into what looks like a back office room. It's. There's no door there, just a doorway.
You hear her shuffling about for a few minutes. She returns with a laptop bag. Looks fairly dirty. And she hands it. Well, actually, she sets it on top of the clerk's desk in front of y'all.
His room was very dirty, and the cleaning staff said it needed more attention than most, so if you go up there, it should be fine. It's currently unoccupied. It hasn't been rented out since he didn't come back.
Speaker C:Well, we'll still like to take a look. Ma'am, if we could get key to that room and we can take a look at that. His effects in that room. Por favor.
Speaker A:She fumbles for something under the desk on the other side and hands you a metal key. This is not an electronic keycard, but a metal key. That's for 417.
Speaker D:I don't buy it. No way. No, no. Everything we've asked for, she just gives it to us. This is a trap. This whole building's about to come down our fucking heads.
Speaker C:It's because of my sweet Spanish skills. It's my Spanish skills. Come on.
Speaker D:All right, maybe. Maybe.
Speaker A:Since you said that. Frankfurt. I'll have you roll a sanity.
Speaker D:Just fine with me. And in character. There we go.
Speaker A:Okay. You did just fine. You will not suffer an acute episode, but you can feel as paranoid as you want.
Speaker D:I was totally gonna project onto Felix to protect myself.
Speaker A:You're welcome to be as paranoid as you just were, if not more so, but you're not gonna suffer an acute episode of paranoia.
Speaker D:How is this motherfucker doing this?
Speaker E:How's he not throwing us under the.
Speaker C:Bus right now, also getting you murdered? I'm gonna take the key and head towards whatever floor and room it is.
Speaker A:Yeah, you'll need to go up the stairs. There's no elevator that you can see in the lobby.
The stairs are in disrepair, but appear to hold your weight as you climb them steadily to the fourth floor. Who takes the laptop back?
Speaker E:Sure. Shields would be happy to hold it.
Speaker A:You shouldn't use your real name on an op. You have to use your codename.
Speaker C:Ooh, you got in trouble. You got in trouble because you gotta have faith.
Speaker B:Faith.
Speaker E:Oh. Cause faith. Okay, let me just rewind.
Speaker A:Yeah, you don't want to fuck up OPSEC this early when talking about my character.
Speaker E:You really ruin these things. Okay, let Me back it up?
Speaker A:No, no, you're good. I was just.
Speaker E:We're deleting everything I've ever said before and we're coming in new. Hi, my name's Eric Lundberg. I'll be playing Faith.
Speaker A:Y'all head up to the fourth floor, make your way down a fairly dingy and again, poorly lit hallway. There's only about maybe a dozen rooms up here. They seem pretty tightly packed, small rooms, and you make your way to 417.
The key that was handed to you by the clerk Xochitl Cruz fits perfectly. But with some strain and difficulty, you finally are able to force the lock open and the door creaks inward from the struggle on its own.
Speaker C:Go inside before stand.
Speaker A:There we go. All right. Felix walks inside, leading the group.
Speaker C:I turn on lights as I come in. I will keep my eyeline to the ground, like staring at my feet, if possible.
Speaker A:Yeah, you do.
Take note that outside of the rooms, a copious amount of black flies, some dead, some alive, lining the crease between the wall and the carpet inside. The room itself seems a bit cleaner, actually, which is nice.
But across the way as you walk in, there's one twin bed, a small writing table, a CRT television on an end table, and a window that looks out on part of the city. Curtains are half drawn, but you do see that there are black flies, dead, maybe a few, lazily scuttling about in their final moments of life.
On the windowsill there, to your left, there's an open door into a bathroom. The faint scent of urine assails your nostrils as you walk forward into its open frame.
Speaker C:I'm going to glance around the room and just see if there's any reflective surfaces on the walls.
Speaker A:There's something in the bathroom, but you quickly get out of the eye line of where you might actually catch a reflection of yourself there, and move yourself quickly into the living sleeping space proper. There are no decorations in this room, and that does include mirrors.
Speaker C:All right, I'll start rummaging through stuff, drawers, shelves.
Speaker A:Let's see if you can find anything that's been hidden from view. Roll a search, please.
Speaker C:Yeah, I got a critical success. 22 out of 81. Felix being Felix, I can categorize anything.
Speaker A:While Felix starts categorizing things in what appears to be an expert, using an expert system of some sort that is quite foreign, but still impressive to all of you. What would you like to do?
Speaker E:Faith is going to be looking through this laptop bag, seeing what he can find, checking the seams and all.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker E:Making sure there's nothing sewn into the inner lining or outer lining, what have you.
Speaker A:Forest. Frankfurt.
Speaker B:Forest is going to. Well, let me ask, how many windows do we have in here? Are they closed? Can we open them up? Are there curtains?
Speaker A:Yeah, you walk over to the windows or the one window, it's across the way, and there is a curtain there. It's kind of half covering it. You see that? It does look out over part of the city. And yeah, you can open it.
There's no screen there, so it just opens directly to the air.
Speaker B:So Forest just opens. Yeah, the window wide open and then moves on, probably to check around. Any closets, any closets in the room. Just look through those.
Speaker A:Across from the open door to the bathroom, there is a closet and it is empty except for an iron board, but no iron.
Speaker C:That's a clue. That's a clue. It's a fairy. Because it can't touch iron.
Speaker E:That's right.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker E:Cold iron. They can't touch cold iron.
Speaker C:Cold iron. Okay, never mind.
Speaker A:Yeah, hot iron is just fine. They'll touch hot iron out there.
Speaker C:They love it.
Speaker A:And yeah, they love that shit. Frankfurt, what are you up to?
Speaker D:Frankfurt's going to do a. Just a cursory, like, search of the room. Spend a few moments, you know, looking at the windows, checking to see if anybody's looking up at the room.
And then he's rolling.
Speaker A:Alertness, please.
Speaker E:You son of Ed.
Speaker A:You can check that.
Speaker E:God damn it.
Speaker C:So unaltered.
Speaker D:It was already checked, apparently from last time.
Speaker E:You should have rolled last time.
Speaker A:Yeah, roll up. Roll up your skills first and then check alertness.
Speaker D:All right, all right.
Speaker C:Yeah, Chris. Also, all of my skills were checked from last time, so I'm just going to roll up real quick my entire skill list.
Speaker A:Oh, you. You failed every skill last time. Yeah.
Speaker C:That's impressive. Even the ones I don't have.
Speaker D:Yeah, I would very much like to. Occult, psychotherapy, unarmed combat. The laptop bag, please.
Speaker A:Oh, we're doing tripled skills now. I got it. Yeah, you look outside and it's not really looking at. Over a very busy thoroughfare.
Most of the spots where you think you'd be able to see a lot of passersby are blocked by other buildings. You don't see anybody watching you.
Speaker D:Cool. He'll just turn his attention to the laptop bag. Just regular help. Look through it. Not triple skill roll. Look through it.
Speaker A:Oh, that was a mistake.
Speaker D:Oh, okay then. All right. Occult, melee weapon, stealth search.
Speaker A:Yeah, you fail, you can go and check all three of Those. Fuck yeah. Let's go ahead and just start with Felix. Since you kind of rolled in with full swagger. You look under the bed and it's filthy.
Filthier than you would have thought it would be.
Speaker E:Filled with monsters.
Speaker A:This room was supposedly clean.
You can sort of see a line where it appears the cleaning staff vacuums around the bed rather than underneath it, leaving a fairly gross rectangle underneath the piece of furniture. But you see a lump there and your stomach turns immediately upon seeing it and you gulp hard and you go ahead and roll sanity from violence.
Speaker C:Dang it. Also, by the way, this city is beautiful. I'm looking at pictures of it online.
Speaker A:Would you like to potentially project any loss?
Speaker C:Nah, I'll take it. I'll take it on the gen. You.
Speaker A:Reach for this lump and then stop yourself. Take out your phone a little bit shakily. Turn on the flashlight just to double check to make sure what you're seeing is what you're seeing.
And it is a rotted and withered severed fingertips.
Speaker C:I will pull it out.
Speaker A:You hesitate again, but gulp and then pick it up with your bare fingers. Pull it out from under the bed. As you do, you notice that looks like just outside of this dirt line, someone has tried to clean the carpet.
It's a bit matted and dried as if some chemical was used, but not entirely pulled up by the cleaner. And you can see this kind of matted pattern on the carpet leads to the bathroom from this spot.
Speaker C:Does it have a smell to it?
Speaker E:You gonna sniff it?
Speaker A:Yeah, the whole room smells a little bit like must, urine and bleach.
Speaker C:Okay, so like my room, you look.
Speaker A:Around and you see a Justin Bieber poster and you realize where you are.
Speaker C:What, does the finger have a ring or anything? Nail polish?
Speaker E:It's just the tip. And only for a minute.
Speaker A:Ah, you took it from me. Yeah, it's just. It's just the tip.
Speaker C:Okay, I will put it on top of the bed.
Speaker A:You realize, like, Jon and I wrote this scenario just to make that joke, like, I don't have anything else. That was nothing else.
Speaker C:That was the whole thing.
Speaker A:That was it.
Speaker C:We're winging it.
Speaker A:Yeah, that was the whole fucking scenario. We're done. Thank you so much. You can stop recording.
Speaker C:It was really good, though. Thanks.
Speaker A:Sorry, sorry. Where did you put the tip?
Speaker C:On the bed.
Speaker E:Where did you put the tip? Marconi.
Speaker D:Where is it?
Speaker C:Well, the tip's just going to go on the bed for now.
Speaker A:Okay. You unceremoniously drop the tip on the bed.
And this is sort of next to where Faith and Frankfurt have started pulling papers, brochures, and a laptop out of the laptop bag. And they see this little chunk of rotten flesh fall down on the throw of the bed. Wow.
Speaker E:Just barehanded, huh?
Speaker C:Well, I don't know how he got it off his finger.
Speaker A:Forest, you hear this in turn towards the group.
Speaker B:Okay, so she's gonna pull out. Well, I don't know. Sorry, I lost it. I was thinking maybe I would have something on hand that I could just put the fingertip into, like nitrile.
Speaker E:Gloves.
Speaker B:Gloves.
Speaker A:I'm okay if y'all brought, like, normal investigative shit with you. All we did was ask for weird shit like panel vans and warehouses.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker A:So if y'all have your normal investigative stuff with you, I'm not adverse to that.
Speaker E:Cool.
Speaker A:Because you just got off of an awk.
Speaker E:We start bagging that finger. Maybe we need to run that through some systems to see if it matches anything. Like CODIS and whatever qualifies for CODIS in Mexico.
I don't know if they have such.
Speaker B:A thing rotten or not. You should be able to do something with it, right?
Speaker A:Yeah. You go ahead and put on a glove and pick up the nub and pop it into a small plastic bag. Go ahead and roll your forensics if you have it.
Speaker B:Nope, I do not.
Speaker A:All right, go ahead and roll your alertness. Minus 40% failure.
Speaker C:Dang.
Speaker E:Check it.
Speaker B:Six to one.
Speaker A:Yeah, it looks like it was definitely severed. The flesh is fairly rotten. Bluish. This has gotta be fairly old as well. You're not sure how old.
Speaker B:I don't know that we're gonna get much out of this rotten finger. Bennett's curling up her lip to her nose to kind of drown out the stenchy idea of this rotten finger wool.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker A:Roll a sanity from violence, please.
Speaker C:Felix is just going to continue to look.
Speaker B:I am going to project onto my woodworking class.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker E:That's how a lot of things remember.
Speaker A:When you project, it takes 1d4 of your warpower and 1d4 of the bond. I'm just going to give you a clue. Severed finger ain't going to be that much of a loss if you lost, but you're welcome to project anytime you want.
Speaker B:Okay. Yeah. No, I see. So not really.
Speaker A:You might want to save that. You might want to save the projection for when the deep ones come out of the. Out of the next. The next room.
That's probably a good time to use the projection.
Speaker B:Okay, then.
Speaker A:Severed finger, which is something that you've probably seen in the course of Your duties often, unfortunately, is not gonna be too much for.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, that's why I curled my lip.
Speaker A:That's a little meta tip.
Speaker B:Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I curled my lip and I put it in a bag, so I wasn't incredibly affected. Okay. Yeah.
Then I will retract my projection and save it for the next room.
Speaker A:Okay. The doors blast open. There are five deep ones. Roll your sanity. Nice.
Speaker D:Hooray. I knew it was coming.
Speaker C:I'm glad you mentioned that, because I've been going by vibes on these rolls. I'm like. I don't know. I feel like I would just not project on this one.
Speaker B:Okay. But really roll.
Speaker A:No, absolutely not. The doors flew opens on this floor. That would be ridiculous. That's way too high for deep ones. They like deep floors, like, lower floors.
Speaker B:But this building looks like it's been underwater.
Speaker E:Maybe there's a basement.
Speaker B:We don't do well with basements.
Speaker E:No, we don't. Don't throw flashbangs in them. Learned that the hard way.
Speaker C:Don't do anything tactical.
Speaker A:Literally the only game where that's probably a bad idea. I think every other game, that'd be a pretty good thing to do, but. Defucked you. Dude. He got you good.
Speaker E:He got me good.
Speaker A:All right. All right. You pop this in the bag. You furrow your brow and cringe your nose. Frankfurt. You don't care. Faith. No caring.
We're just kind of like cool finger.
Speaker E:Well, I mean, I check it out. If we're done checking out the.
Speaker A:You're not done with that? We haven't really gotten to that at all. The finger is kind of a distraction for the moment.
Speaker E:Okay, then I would in the distraction, seeing as Faith suffers from adhd, as I do. I check out the finger.
Speaker A:You do check it out, and it is as severed and rotten and withered as I previously described. You're welcome to take your sanity from violence.
Speaker E:Okay, Should I roll an alertness minus 40?
Speaker A:Uh, no.
Speaker E:Well, fine.
Speaker A:So there has been the discovery of part of a human body in this room that is disturbing for many reasons. It is particularly disturbing in this case because of who it might belong to. Is this Sombra's finger? Is it a victim of his passenger, if he has one?
What does this mean?
Speaker E:I mean, I would assume somebody bit it off or cut it off.
Speaker A:So you look closely at it to try to ascertain if there's maybe a bite mark there. You do not have forensics. Go ahead and roll your alertness. Minus 40%.
Speaker B:There it is.
Speaker E:Cool. Critical success, 33 of a possible 43.
Speaker A:It looks like it was sheared off. This is not a bite.
Speaker E:Okay. It looks like it was cut clean off. Huh. You can tell by the lack of tooth marks, huh?
And the fact that I've seen a number of sheared off fingers in my day.
Speaker B:I wonder if there's anything around here that might have done that.
Speaker E:Well, we could take a look.
Speaker C:Look for shears.
Speaker A:Felix, did you want to go into the bathroom to see if there were shears in there?
Speaker B:You mean where there's a mirror. Don't go.
Speaker E:Or a nice cigar coat.
Speaker A:There's a mirror maybe in the bathroom? There could be. It's a common thing to have in a bathroom.
Speaker C:Super common. Turns out.
Speaker E:Why though? Why do people like to watch themselves poop?
Speaker C:Yeah. The mirror usually is above the toilet.
Speaker E:You guys don't have mirrors above your toilet.
Speaker D:Anyhow, you gotta make sure your form is right. It's the same reason you have in a gym.
Speaker E:In a gym?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I hire a spotter.
Speaker E:Yeah, I mean, that's why we get married. So we always have a spotter.
Speaker B:That's not me.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, we have a special spotter who lives in an attic.
Speaker E:That's very nice.
Speaker A:His name's Crusty Jim. Crusty Jim. All right, team, what are we up to? All right, what are we doing? We've got a bunch of laptop accoutrements.
We have a dirty finger that was sheared off. We have a bathroom that no one wants to go into.
We have a trail of matted, cleaned carpet that leads to the bathroom from the bed where we discovered the severed finger. We have a bunch of black flies in an open window. What do we want to do?
Speaker C:Felix is going to continue looking in that room until there's no more looking to be done.
Speaker A:Roll your search. Actually, you had a critical success. Do not roll your search again, please.
You go through the end table, the writing desk, and begin very slowly cataloging what little there is to be found. The rest of the team, what are you up to?
Speaker B:Is there a particular area of the room that's more obvious, like more flies than any other spot?
Speaker A:The windowsill.
Speaker B:Just the windowsill. Okay.
Speaker A:You watch as a big, fat, lazy fly, obviously with very few minutes left to live, just sort of tumbles out the now open window and down below.
Speaker C:Someone better interrogate that fly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker E:Excuse me, fly. Why are you so feeling so down? What's the wrong guy?
Speaker B:I was going to smack it with my hand, but he just took himself out, so.
Speaker A:Well, I'll Go ahead and describe some of the things that came out of the laptop bag. Maybe that'll spur on some thoughts.
Okay, so as you were sort of spilling those contents out onto the bed before the finger entered the scene, you found a laptop with a charging cord. It's a modern Dell. You found a dog eared copy of Grey's Anatomy coloring book.
And there are several poured over brochures of what look like nearby, maybe cultural sites. And that's it.
Speaker E:Tourism book of nearby cultural sites.
Speaker A:Several poured over brochures of nearby cultural sites.
Speaker D:Frankfurt's gonna open up the laptop, see if it can be accessed.
Speaker A:Yeah, it boots up to a UIF VPN portal does require credentials, but it is working. He types in password does not work.
Speaker D:Well, that's about all I got.
Speaker A:You do not check your computer sciences to be extremely clear.
Speaker D:Oh, I already checked it.
Speaker A:So yeah, uncheck that shit and like negative check it please.
Speaker D:I just want to double check that I heard with the finger. Somebody said we are going to run it for like prints and all that.
Speaker B:Just the tip.
Speaker D:Yep, just a tip.
Speaker E:Got it.
Speaker D:Only for a minute on the brochures. Any are these all within like say like a day's drive from where we're located?
Speaker A:You go ahead and glance over at these brochures and begin to spread them out on top of the bedspread. They look to be those of nearby Zapotec and other early Mesoamerican ruins. Step pyramids. They're all pretty vibrant and touristy.
Lots of photographs, historical context, all in Spanish. Some have some English there. Looks like it's aimed at a multicultural audience.
And as you sift through these materials, you can see that someone has paid special attention to one brochure over the others, underlying certain passages and obsessively circling seemingly mundane details on some of the photographs. It's a relatively small ziggurat ruin called Yolotl. Shoshotli.
Speaker E:Yolittle what?
Speaker A:Shoshotli.
Speaker B:Shoshotli.
Speaker A:Shoshotli.
Speaker E:Sounds important.
Speaker D:Frankfurt holds that one up to the group. Says anybody feel like going sightseeing?
Speaker E:We got a job to do. Frankfurt okay, but seriously, you lose minus.
Speaker A:One to your your persuade. Frankfurt yout remember how it went down? You feel really hurt actually.
You notice that the other two agents like are kind of smirking to themselves when they heard that hard burn.
Speaker D:Teeth are looking nice there, bud.
Speaker E:Well, thanks anyhow. Back to the real world. Checking out Grey's Anatomy. What's up with that? Anything like dog eared or.
Speaker A:It is a dog eared copy of A Grey's Anatomy coloring book.
Speaker E:Of a coloring book. Well, this is gonna be.
Speaker A:Grey's Anatomy coloring book.
Speaker E:This is gonna be great. Let's have a look through.
Speaker A:Open it up and you can see it's been systematically colored in, but the artist has only used various shades of red. And often they use strokes so heavy as to indent and rip various pages with severe, outside of the lines, repeating slashes.
There's huge jagged red stars that frame the pages that show entire human figures. Overall, it appears to be amateurish at best, or the obsessive activities of a disturbed individual at worst. Will you run natural, please?
Speaker E:A 31 of 5 on the back cover.
Speaker A:In a contradictory level of passion, there's some careful words that are pinned there. Doesn't seem to be Spanish. Each phrase is numbered one through three.
Finally, there's a sentence in Spanish at the end that says para la piedra with the stone.
Speaker E:Is that right?
Speaker B:Google Translate that.
Speaker A:Yeah, if Faith. If you go ahead and pop that into Google Translate, you can definitely reveal what you find to the group.
If that's something you're communicating to them.
Speaker E:Absolutely. Hey, Felix, what do you make of this?
Speaker C:Felix will take a look. What does it say?
Speaker A:Yeah, the other phrases are very strange. It's not Spanish. Passage 1 is Vora Grothal has an apostrophe in there. That's not Spanish. The second passage is tlagnoth physaxalth.
Definitely not Spanish. The third is Sethoclar Uxak ehylathlor. And it looks like this is all titled Para la piedra, which means for the stone.
Speaker C:In this context, it's titled for the stone. Can I roll my occult unnatural or unnatural? 76 out of 10. No.
Speaker A:Very strange, these numbered passages. It's nothing you've seen before.
Speaker C:I don't know what the other ones say. I don't even really know what language those are. But yeah, you're about correct on the Spanish there. Felix will continue looking and I guess.
Speaker E:Faith will go to the bathroom and check out what's going on in there.
Speaker A:You go ahead and throw the brochure back down.
Felix, you do notice that there's quite a bit more underlined and circled on it, more so than just what was on the back there written in that carefully crafted pen. And Faith, you furrow your brow. Look around in here. Smells heavily of bleach and urine.
The mirror on the right hand side looks smudged, very smudged actually. And there's mold and cracked grout across all the tile. A claw foot bathtub with A thick ring of filth, but it is empty at this time.
And a sink that looks like it has been plunged many a time during its lifespan.
Speaker E:The smudge on the mirror is like a hand smudge.
Speaker A:Looks like just dirt and grease.
Speaker E:Okay.
Speaker A:In fact, there is a dirt and grease film across all of the tile across from it as well. On the opposite wall, on part of the ceiling, some of the floor.
Speaker E:And the grime around the cloth, it. Or inside the claw foot tub, is it like. I don't know how to put it.
Speaker A:Is it blood? Yeah, the blood or bodily fluid, you cannot tell though. It just looks like soap scum too.
Speaker E:He flushes the toilet.
Speaker A:Yeah, you flush the toilet. There's kind of a deep groaning from below your feet as you can feel the floor vibrate fairly violently.
After a few anxious moments, the water does suck down quickly into the hole and the tank slowly begins to refill.
Speaker E:Okay, well, back to. I guess I'll search the bathroom like a proper search rule, see if there's anything I'm missing.
Speaker A:Yeah, roll a search. I'm gonna have you hold onto that value once you roll it, and we'll come back to you.
Speaker E:Fuck.
Speaker C:Dang.
Speaker A:Cool. Well, that's a fail. No problem. You're gonna search through this bathroom. Let's go back to Forest in Frankfurt. What are you two up to?
Speaker B:Yeah, I was actually gonna.
Speaker D:I'm still crying from having attempted to share his findings with the group.
Speaker C:Getting totally smoked.
Speaker D:Horrifically burned.
Speaker A:Yeah, you got burned bad.
Speaker D:Just kind of sitting there on the bed, silently weeping.
Speaker A:Understandable.
Speaker D:Into the brochure itself.
Speaker A:Yeah. Forrest can't help but smirk at you again. It hurts force when she does that. So, Forest, what are you doing? While Frank Fritz is crying, I give.
Speaker B:Him a good pat two to three times on his shoulder, and then I'm actually.
Speaker A:You accidentally hurt his injured forearm when you do this. And he screams in pain and falls to the ground. New tears forming in his eyes, fills his diaper.
Speaker E:It's that kind of podcast, no?
Speaker A:Yeah, dude.
Speaker B:It's always put out my hand to help him up.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker A:I realize as he stands that he's now pregnant.
Speaker C:Sonic gets you again, baby.
Speaker B:The Marconi effect. Just the tech.
Speaker A:Is that what we're calling it?
Speaker E:That's awesome.
Speaker A:Oh, the Marconi effect. So good.
Speaker B:Boris is actually going to follow in behind Faith into the bathroom just to do that thorough search as well.
Speaker A:You both are looking. It's a very small and uncomfortable bathroom.
Speaker B:Just gonna scooch by it.
Speaker A:And there's really grime everywhere as I described. Neither of you have any forensics abilities. It's a shame. Let's see here. How are my stats looking? What can I throw your away to help you out?
Jeez, Forest, you are a certified genius with an intelligence 18. Roll that for me. Minus 20%.
Speaker B:Dang it. I could have searched really well. Nice success.
Speaker A:Felix pointed out the obvious trail of someone attempting to clean something. A trail that led to this bathroom.
Putting two and two together, you can imagine it was whatever leavings were present with the separate finger left under the bed for Felix to later find. If there was a way to perhaps reveal any lingering traces of bodily fluids, biological compounds, maybe something wasn't picked up with the.
Appears to be a very poor cleaning job. Maybe it would help paint a picture of what happened here.
Speaker E:Like a nice luminol spray.
Speaker B:I think I gotta have some of that in my search pack or my not search pack.
Speaker E:Sorry, Detective Kit.
Speaker B:Yes, thank you.
Speaker A:You think you got some oxidative luminol with you? Yeah, why don't you? Really luck for that one.
Speaker B:Look. There she blows. Nice success.
Speaker A:Yeah, you've got a little bit. It's almost expired, but yeah, you think to yourself, well, maybe there's more that we can find here.
The light in the bathroom doesn't appear to work anyway. So you go ahead and go back to your pack and pull out that small can bring it back to the restroom. And where would you like to spray it?
Speaker B:Probably around the toilet on the floor, under the toilet.
Speaker A:You go ahead and aim for the toilet first as Faith kind of looks over and watches your work. And it's not surprising where you do find traces of biological material.
But I will, without going too much into detail, it does not tell the story that you were hoping, hey, maybe.
Speaker E:Take that from the path that the cleaning was done and kind of widen out from the cleaning and see if there's anything.
Speaker B:Sure, bud. So I'm going to start misting left to right.
Speaker A:Yeah, you start really where the matted carpet is. And it's clear whoever did try to lift out whatever was staining the already fairly filthy carpet did not do a great job.
And as you limit the amount of light hitting where the luminol is taking effect, you can see that there are telltale speckles of some sort of organic compound that was not fully removed from the carpet. And you back out into the bathroom, or I suppose back in to the bathroom, continuing to spray a bit.
And as you do so, it's extremely clear that someone just did a quick mop here. There are Streaks of this same organic compound. At this point, you're almost sure it must be blood. You make your way to the sink, and there's more.
The bottom of the sink, the sides.
It's clear that no one made a great effort to use any chemical there because it's gleaming fairly brightly under a portable UV lamp that you're shining as you go.
Then you make your way across from the mirror in the sink along the wall, where it looks like there are great splatters that were very, again, poorly attended to by the cleaning staff. Your brow starts to furrow as what you're revealing as the luminol oxidizes is writing. It's strange because it's partially geometric shapes.
It's clearly some sort of message.
Speaker B:Faith, do you see this? Come take a look.
Speaker E:Oh, yeah, look at that.
Speaker A:I'm gonna go ahead and share a handout with you now. This is gonna take y'all some time, so while you're doing this, I'm gonna go back to the other two.
But I do want you to describe this for our beautiful audience.
Speaker E:The message. Okay, Yep. Definitely not English or Spanish. It looks very, kind of almost mathematical in places.
Uh, it is like a strange, cursive looking mathematic script.
Speaker B:Definitely looks cursive.
Speaker A:Both of you, roll your luck. Minus 20.
Speaker E:Oh, wait.
Speaker B:Town in which you said that minus 20.
Speaker A:It's really mean to have a detriment to luck. Yeah, I don't. I don't really agree with it, but too bad.
Speaker B:I would right click.
Speaker E:Well, it's not even an option, but, hey, I made it. Exactly.
Speaker D:Nice.
Speaker B:Well, sorry, I'm trying to right click on roll luck, but it's not bringing.
Speaker A:You can't.
Speaker E:You can't. Yeah, it won't even let me.
Speaker B:Oh, so we'll just say it then.
Speaker A:Okay. I'm breaking the rules. Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay. All right, so I rolled luck. I failed regardless.
Speaker C:Very bad.
Speaker B:Negative 20.
Speaker A: . Then password: Speaker E:That's the extent of what you know.
Speaker D:Can I check computer science now, please?
Speaker A:No, no. Is there anything else you'd like to do with the laptop?
Speaker D:No, no, no. That's it for me. I am not a computer scientist.
Speaker A:Then, Felix, I'll describe this brochure in greater detail.
Speaker C:Perfect.
Speaker A:Yolotl Shoshotli is again, the name of the ziggurat ruin. The emphasized passages are in Spanish and You know you're competent with the language. Reading is not your forte. Let's see how well you do.
Go ahead and roll your Spanish please.
Speaker C:And I've succeeded. 18 out of 30.
Speaker A:Thankfully it looks like it's in simple enough language that it's really not something that's going to take too much time for you to get through. You parse it quite deftly. The emphasized passages are as follows. Here's the first one.
Carvings seem to indicate that the builders of this spectacular ziggurat originated from a large tribe fleeing the northern highlands said to have been escaping some celestial catastrophe. No impact evidence in the Sierra Norte region has yet been uncovered to help validate the stories the pictographs seem to relay.
Second emphasized passage. Like many structures of this time, archaeologists disagree on when its builders completed construction.
Some place it earlier than the civilizational peak of the Toltec kingdoms. Others believe its builders raised it much more recently. Third emphasized passage.
There are no other structures yet found in the region from the pre Columbian peoples that appear to depict tree worship.
Speaker E:Uh oh.
Speaker A:There's also a circled photograph of the small pyramid's entrance. There are tall carven trees with whirling vines that are engraved in the sides of the threshold.
And someone has placed dark circles ringing them in heavy blue pen ink.
There's also a photograph of a carved pre Columbian figure bedecked with feathers, holding a five sided floating object and shown with a glowing third eye. Other carven figures in this same pictograph seem to be cowering in fear or supplication. This is also heavily circled in blue pen ink.
Speaker C:In any of the writing, does the word baktun show up?
Speaker A:No, you do not see that word. Okay, that's a great question though.
Speaker C:From that documentation, can I identify the zigret in the picture?
Speaker A:So the whole brochure is about Yolotu Shoshoki. Okay, so it's that same ziggurat, the same place. And the brochure says where it's at, you know how to get there.
It's basically advertising a tourist place. So it's a tourist brochure much like the others. This is just the only one that has a bunch of annotations, underlines and circles.
Speaker C:Okay, I'm gonna walk over to Frankfurt and show him what I found here. Looks like maybe a next place to take a look.
Speaker D:Yeah, this is what I'm saying. I think we might want to head this direction next once we wrap up here.
Speaker C:Well, I wouldn't say we head out into the jungle yet, but you know definitely a place to check out. And then perhaps we go to a local university. Maybe someone knows a little bit more about this structure. It seems like an odd structure.
According to the documentation here, it doesn't really match up. What? What a standard here in Mesoamerica?
Speaker D:Sure, yeah. Which got a university in mind. I mean, I don't speak any Spanish, so I'm not gonna be any help there. I'm more of a well in the jungle kind of guy.
Speaker C:Yeah, no one's gonna ask you to read a book. Don't worry about it.
Speaker E:Oh, man. Let's get him some ointment.
Speaker A:Yeah. It's another minus. Minus percentage, I'm afraid.