The Wrath of the Wraith 3/3 | Call of Cthulhu by Gaslight

[00:00:00] Rusty Quill Presents Push The Roll with Ross Bryant is intended for mature listeners only. Check the show notes for content warnings and please listen with care. Want to get involved? Back us on Patreon and submit your ideas for our improvised games. Your suggestion just might inspire our next Call of Cthulhu adventure. Join today at patreon.com slash push the roll.

[00:00:24] As Emma goes to her guest room and all of you shuffle to your various servile quarters, Xerxes I think probably has a little chamber of his own as well. Let's see night well and truly fall over Ursuline Manor.

[00:00:45] As they're going to bed, Gregory does turn back to Xerxes and say, I won't speak of sickness. You're right. It's a haunting. Oh, shit. Hmm. And I would like to push the roll and get a new title. Yeah. Josephine, can you roll a D100 and get a title that will in no way disrupt or impede the forward momentum of what we're already doing? Yes. I just hope it's ultra modern. Yes. The computer wore tennis shoes.

[00:01:17] 36. 36. Okay. 36 is it's from Yes Anderson pronounced like Wes Anderson. Thank you for the guide. Yes Anderson. That's great. Yes Anderson submitted. No bones about it. No bones about it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Right below that was we got drip. That's what the kids say, right? That's so funny. Could have been.

[00:01:47] What could have been. What could have been. Well, thank you. Yes Anderson. No bones about it. The cosmos is a cyclopean infinity of chaos. Infinite branching paths stretching off to vistas in the distance that will drive the mind mad. Shall we shrink in the face of all this?

[00:02:17] Or will we climb aboard the chaos and ride it to the end, letting chance guide the way? This is Push the Roll. We're rolling dice against your Patreon suggestions to create improvised Call of Cthulhu adventures in real time. With themes of eldritch horror, the weird, the transhuman, the transmundane, the cyberpunk, the splatterpunk, the anything punk. We don't know until we roll. Anytime, anyplace, anything can happen.

[00:02:46] When you push the roll. Let's have a little interlude. What does it look like when Ida sleeps, if she sleeps, in her servants' quarters? Uh, she does sleep, but it is for about two hours. And the exactness with which that time kind of passes, it's almost on the nose. At which point she rises.

[00:03:12] She puts on a housecoat situation, not fully dressing. But she does have her pistol. And then she begins to patrol the hallways, especially with a little, um, with a candle. Especially the hallway out in front of Miss Wentworth's bedroom. Hmm. Okay. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Perhaps, uh, Xerxes, who was on his way there. Xerxes, you see a candle in the hallway.

[00:03:38] And Ida Schneider there, like a, like a lone sentry, stalking back and forth, uh, in the hallway in front of her lady's chamber. You're still in the shadows, but you can see the portal beyond which is the woman who swooned into your arms today. You can't, you cannot shake the memory of that, of that forbidden intimacy. Xerxes, the lascivious way that your master's eyes were beholding her over the dinner table.

[00:04:05] And the strange frailty of her voice as it intoned a song you have not heard since the former Countess Southbroke sang it. Uh, Xerxes is going to try, if, if Ida is patrolling. Oh shit, how am I going to do this?

[00:04:29] I think Ida is, is, that Emma is lovely and she has fended off many a wayward suitor before. I think if she sees Xerxes, she might stop and she'll say, ah, Master Arendelle, yes, uh, my patrol was just about to take me elsewhere. I would remind you that we are still in an era where they do things like check the sheets after a marriage. Jesus Christ.

[00:04:59] But, but if there is some comfort that you are able to give my lady that can remain between the two of you, then who am I to interfere with her pleasure? Off I go. Uh, and she'll just turn smartly on her heel and start to kind of walk away. Holy shit. Holy shit. Very progressive Ida Schneider. Extremely progressive.

[00:05:29] Listen, she, she's got it. Yeah, she loves Emma. So nice. And I feel like Xerxes is like, as you've gone, is like, I was simply doing my rounds. Hmm. We suddenly see a young Ida Schneider participating in the revolutions of 1848 in Germany.

[00:05:48] Um, um, standing up, standing up for republicanism and free love and, uh, being chased out of Germany by the, by the repressive forces of reaction and going to, uh, going to America. Realizing that one has to be self-assured to have a clear sense of themselves and, and build up their own power and authority. Steal the Promethean fire from the heavens for your own. Superstitions are a luxury of the week.

[00:06:17] And, uh, perhaps Ida Schneider takes many lovers herself. Well, you know what? Maybe she starts heading, she, no, no, I don't want to do that. She thinks for a moment, hmm, I wonder what, um, if the East Wing really is off limits or if that is, you know what, let's put that from the mind and just, let's keep walking. But I feel like Ida, like, really planted the seed or watered the seed in Xerxes' mind.

[00:06:43] He finds himself on the other side of Emma's door, but he's, like, fighting with himself. So he's, like, kind of against the door, leaning against it. And all Emma can see is perhaps, like, a shadow in front of her doorway, you know, as some form is clearly on the other side. Yeah, that is, that is, of course, if, yeah, or if Emma is, is sleeping. No, I have an idea for Emma. Emma could not sleep.

[00:07:11] She has a balcony and she's thought about perhaps throwing herself off it. Oh, my God. But then she thinks about Ida and her promise to fix this mess as soon as she's married. And she goes over and she trips and she grabs a candle stick on the wall and it goes crack and suddenly pop. A secret passage opens.

[00:07:40] Yes. You know what, Emma? I think that's true. Oh, good. You fall forward. You trip on your, on your, on your gown. I guess. You clutch the wall at a candlestick that is shaped like a human arm. Yes. Yes, that's it. It's adhered to the wall. You touch it and it bends and turns like a latch and a whole section of the wall opens up. Make a spot hidden for me, Emma.

[00:08:11] Oh, okay. M'lady? Assuming this is noisy. I think it is. Oh, a 12. Ooh. Hell yeah. That has to be something good. Wonderful. Yeah. Nice. I think maybe you would have just thought that this was a casual trip, but your spot hidden sees this seam open in the wall and you can see now a little draft coming through it. And you realize, oh my goodness, this is a passage here.

[00:08:39] You could walk kind of into the wall and that's what you get for a regular success. And as you kind of write yourself, you mentioned you were on a balcony and I'm imagining like the kind of windows of your door parting and the billowing drapes like flowing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There's so much flowing. Into the room, like purple, like purple waves. Mm-hmm. But you see something maybe you shouldn't.

[00:09:05] As the candle like tilts off on its side and you can hear wax like tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip onto the floor. As it spills down, the light from the candle creates a galaxy of reflections in the various warped panes of the door that you just opened to peer off the balcony. And reflected in each one of them is a bone white woman's face staring at you with burning eyes.

[00:09:36] Oh, bah. Oh, malady, malady. Uh, roll sanity. Okay. I am screaming very loud. Oh shit. Well then. Yeah, I won't knock then. No doubt. The door bursts open and Xerxes rushes in. But you are of course still rolling sanity. My sanity is 57. So I could use my luck to try to make that work, which I will. I'm running out of luck.

[00:10:05] You cannot spend luck on sanity rolls. Well then I missed it. Oh shit. Shit. I like that. You would. You sick fuck. Emma Wentworth, you just saw something that shouldn't be. They've just been stacking up now. The full horror of what just occurred when you were. You can't go to sleep because something was inside you.

[00:10:30] Something invaded you at the piano forte, sung through you, and you were able to shake it off for a moment. But now, now that you are just gazing down the cliffside, contemplating perhaps your own doom, would it not be better to shuffle off this mortal coil and tumble down to a watery grave? And then suddenly, a strange opportunity opens up this aperture in the wall, and then you see her face gazing wrathfully back at you from every windowpane,

[00:10:59] leering with a gaze of fury and rage at you. And you take five points of sanity loss. Oh shit. From the d6 that I just rolled. Whoa, dude. And this sets something into motion, Emma. Oh, that's not good. I need you now to roll intelligence. Okay. This is a roll that you want to fail. Because if you succeed this intelligence roll, you will understand something that the mind should not understand.

[00:11:29] All right, here I go. You got this. Oh, okay, wait, wait. I think I did pass it because my, it's 60, 30, 12. Oh no, you did pass, yeah. What did you roll? 48. Ah, wonderful. A 48 under 60. Emma Wentworth, you are now experiencing what this game calls a bout of madness. You are...

[00:11:59] Is she dancing? On the floor, writhing, writhing madly under the burning gaze of the specter, nay, wraith, that is gazing at you from the windowpanes, reflected by nothing as your gaze moves around the room. You see nothing in this room. She's not there, and yet there she is, peering at you from the mirrored surface of every windowpane. In fact, there she is in the mirror by the vanity, looking at you from the glass. I am dancing. You know the red shoes sequence where I go,

[00:12:29] the woman goes crazy. She's like dancing. I'm dancing, and I also am very good at dancing. So if you need me to roll dancing, I can roll dancing. It looks, this breakdown looks great. So, Xerxes, what happens is you hear a scream. You fling open the door, and what you see is Emma Wentworth waltzing with no one. The drapes blowing in with the moist air from outside, and she dancing and trembling there in this room.

[00:12:57] I think this provokes a sanity roll from you, Xerxes, seeing this unnerving scene. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, she's driving me crazy. I succeeded. I got a 16 under 45, so. Okay. All right. You take no sanity loss. It's just a weird scene, not a sanity wrecking scene. My lady, you continue to haunt me. Ooh.

[00:13:26] And suddenly, suddenly he's there. Xerxes is there. But you understand something, Emma Wentworth. What you said before was true. You're going to die here. You're going to die here because she wants you to. She won't let you leave. She won't let you leave unless, unless your spirit leaves. She hates you. She hates all who would come here.

[00:13:54] All who would claim him. Who would be intimate with him. And if she can't destroy your body, she will destroy your mind. Until, until you destroy yourself. Your doom is assured. And you feel the wrath of her emanating off of every surface. You no longer see her reflected in the panes, but you can feel her presence in this room still. Lady Wentworth. Lady Wentworth. Lady Wentworth.

[00:14:24] And I'll... Oh, yes. There's that charming voice. Come here. And then I just rip my shirt off. Lady. Lady. I close the door. The shirt comes off and... My double D's. They were double D's, not just G's.

[00:14:55] Tossing to and fro. Tossing? Like the froth on the ocean outside, waiting to embrace me with its cold fingers. Are you going to... If you're going towards the balcony, I mean, Xerxes will have to intervene. I'm dancing toward it. I'm dancing. I'm dancing. I'm swaying. I'm just... Emma Wentworth is swaying and swaying towards the balcony, dancing and screaming and singing.

[00:15:25] She rends her bodice open, her bosom seeming to float and bob like this spew upon Neptune's wave. Yeah. Golly, if... Like the waves. There's something riding upon the waves. Some sort of motor boat. No. I incest. And Xerxes puts himself right in the way. But then he steps on my...

[00:15:53] He steps on my dress, my bottoms, and they rip off. Oh, God. They didn't wear underwear back then. It's okay because Xerxes pulls off his shirt to cover you, to cover you, and wraps you in his arms. And I just want to see you right now, like kind of trembling. Your... This look upon your face, as this madness still holds sway over you. You can still feel her, still feel her in the room, beckoning you,

[00:16:23] nay, commanding you to throw yourself off. She's here. To throw yourself down the cliff. She wants me to throw myself. I have to throw myself. To fix this. I must fix it all. Who is she? She's the god of this place. No, no, no. Do not throw yourself anywhere, but here. And he kind of throws... As you go to throw yourself, he wants to redirect you and kind of like yeet you onto the bed. Oh, boy. And then I just spread eagle.

[00:16:52] And you tumble onto the bed. And perhaps maybe this scene that you're seeing, Xerxes, means that you have not yet noticed the secret passage that is opened. Absolutely not. I'm distracted for sure. Out of character, I forgot about the secret passage. And I'm just going to kind of like draw a discreet curtain over this scene for a moment.

[00:17:22] As we cut suddenly to a tiny servant's quarters, a single candle burning, you can perhaps hear some commotion from upstairs with that book that you mentioned, Gregory, spread open on the small table next to the bed, looking over your psychical research notes. Oh, he didn't find anything earlier, so he opened it with the intention of recording what he saw and what he heard from Miss Wentworth.

[00:17:52] Wonderful. I would love to think that like perhaps in this book or perhaps in your possessions, you maybe have other researches that you've done as you've described yourself as something of a, you've got a sort of a cultic temperament. What is your precise occupation? What do you do here exactly? Interior decorator. You're an interior designer. Okay. Yeah, you're one of those living interior designers. But on the sheet, it does say a cultist as my occupation, so. Very multi-

[00:18:20] He's very multi-talented. Yes. It's like when your hobby starts to overwhelm your real job. Okay. Which I can relate to. I want to put you then like almost montage style. So you kind of like recording your findings in this, in this book. The image of that woman. The strange occurrences at dinner. The curious landscape. The highwaymen who seem to want your jewels but also seem to

[00:18:49] who are so quick to run away as if they feared the very ground they walked on. I'm just curious. What do you want to do in this moment? So I think that before this, before he came back to record in his journal, his intention, he's so obsessed with making contact with his father that what he saw from Miss Wentworth earlier compelled him to try to startle her from sleep and hypnotize her. But I almost feel like he walks upon the most bizarre scene he's ever seen

[00:19:19] in his life and just kind of like goes about face and retires to his quarters to kind of record everything he's seen in his journal. As you drew a veil on the scene, he was doing the same thing. Great. So you maybe like creaked open the door a little bit and saw Wentworth and Arendelle spooning. Yes, yes. I want to say on your way back, you're attuned to interior design. As you as you descend the staircase,

[00:19:48] you see a feature of interior design. As you pass through a hall on your way back to your quarters, the light of your candle illuminates the gold flake painted frame of an enormous portrait. He just kind of yeah, gazes like from bottom to top just gazes up at the face. You look up. It is a beautiful

[00:20:17] young woman standing on the forbidding beauty of this coastal landscape with craggy cliffs rising in the background. So craggy. Vanishing off into a sea beyond. Her pallid features look back at you from the painting.

[00:20:47] Her dark hair cascades over her shoulder. The intensity of her gaze finds yours and you are looking into the eyes of the woman you saw on the heath. Should I roll sanity? Yeah, I think so. Just a quiet question. I think maybe he rolls sanity as since we had him back in his quarters in the journal, I think he's now

[00:21:16] like just kind of mindlessly recreating the painting. He's sketching what he saw and maybe he even like as he kind of takes it all in what he's drawn, he sees like his father's eyes in the face of the woman that he's tried to recreate here and he is maybe cracking a little bit. We'll find out. Let's see. Yes. So 80 over 39 is a fail. Ooh, yeah. Nice. Uh-oh. And maybe it's to the point where he's like

[00:21:46] hearing the song in his head too and he can't get it out. The song that Emma was singing. Since you heard the song, it just, the melody of it just kind of continues to play in your head and you can see the mesmeric gaze of the woman in this painting almost kind of lulling you to sleep like a lullaby. A woman whose face you saw out there. It was as though you saw the painting come to life. That's impossible.

[00:22:16] Roll a d6 for me. He's like, like a lullaby. Like a dirge. Okay, three points. So he's not there yet. In the clear, but how do you think that manifests? I think it's just like, it's almost impatience at this point. He has to know what's going on in this house. So he's going to try to track back to the sound he heard earlier of whoever was

[00:22:45] suffering from possibly consumption. But then he kind of realized maybe this is a haunting. So he wants to go to where he heard the voice coming from earlier. Great. And you got a hard success on that listen roll, so you know it's coming from the forbidden part of the house. From the east wing. The east wing, yes. I think he's going to do his best to avoid Ida's patrol. Yeah, what of Ida's patrol? Where do you think you are, Ida? I mean, Cup, you want that east wing to yourself?

[00:23:16] Maybe we could leave it up to a stealth versus a spot hidden or something just to let the dice tell the story. Sure. Yeah. Go for it. Roll a spot hidden Ida, roll a stealth Gregory. Okay. 96 on spot hidden, I'm not even going to bother. Oh wow. Oh my gosh. Oh no. Oh and I actually only have 20 but I passed, so 16 under. You're rolling so well, Cup. Cup, what's happening? Yeah, you're such a good cup. I'm sorry, it's Haxhorse. It's not usual, we'll just say.

[00:23:46] This is very unusual, yeah. Really? Okay. Ida, what's your spot hidden? My spot hidden's 50. Ooh, she barely didn't fumble. Okay. So yeah, you do not see him. Maybe Ida didn't go too far from the, um, from Emma's room, but the sounds coming from there, she's just trying not to listen or perceive anything. This is fine, the young ones, they have their own ways of expressing love, I shall.

[00:24:15] Here's what I'll, I'll say. The reason you don't see Gregory Putin creeping past you into the East Wing is that you hear something. You just hear a little like, Ah, if I can tell where it's coming from, I will walk towards it. It's coming from a, I mean, this, this used to be a convent there, there, it's rather a labyrinthian inside and you can hear that creaking like,

[00:24:45] Oh no. Coming from the interior of a room nearby. It's, it sounds like someone is moving, like moving around in there. I think she'll take out her pistol and we'll go to the door and we'll try to slowly open it and peer inside with the candle held aloft. Um, great. You, you, uh, have your pistol in one hand and your candle in the other. You kind of open the door and

[00:25:14] you're looking into a little sitting room. It looks almost like a, like a lady's toilet. There, there are, uh, like chairs, a chest, some chairs kind of like stacked together. Looks as though nobody's been in here for a while. Um, yeah, I think, uh, she'll fully open the door. She'll start to look around for whatever was making the sound. I really have to emphasize here that it's night and you've got one candle.

[00:25:44] You look, you look into the room and you see this little abandoned room where you know you heard something. Your candle moves to the, to the left. You see a bare wall. It moves to the right. You see a little, a little engraving hanging on the wall of a country scene. You move deeper. You move, you see the, uh, the wall, the chairs, the chest. You kind of move back and there's that

[00:26:13] country scene again and the woman in the hill and you kind of move back. Your candle moves back and in the engraving, the woman is closer. Uh, I, I think that she probably doesn't trust her eyes at first and so she'll, she'll kind of like lean in a little closer, uh, and hold the, the candle closer as well. In the engraving, you see this, a landscape of the world nearby.

[00:26:41] A ruined chapel or chantry. Trees bent and warped by their exposure to the harsh sea air. And there she is, the woman you didn't see before. She looks even closer now. So she was a part of the background but now is like somehow part of the foreground. Ida's hand reaches out. She wants to touch the surface of this painting to see what exactly it's made of. Is this, this is some

[00:27:11] sort of trick of the light surely? You touch the surface of the painting. And as soon as you touch it, the candle blows out and you are plunged into total darkness. That same grinding of wood against stone. gun. Yeah, her, her gun is in her, like, uh, kind of waving around wildly in the dark.

[00:27:40] You know, she is a little, yeah. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. It's water. It's raining inside. Good bones, my ass. This is terrible construction. Um, I think that just, okay, she, I think has been turned around because she's been waving her pistol wildly, but she will try to remember which direction in this pitch black darkness the door was and start to try to

[00:28:09] back towards it as she's still pointing her pistol in front of her. Give me a navigate or a track. Let's see if I have either of those two things. Sure don't. Uh, let's do, okay, if I don't hit a 10 on this, then, um, well, I got an 89, so yeah. She's spun around too many times. She's a little dizzy. She's kind of like tripping over her own feet. You're tripping over your own feet and you're moving into the, into the room past where the chest

[00:28:39] would be. You're groping for the door, groping for the door. It's so wet. There must be a leak. It's a leak. It can't be raining inside as you go further and further and you're further. This is not. The room is too big. It's too big. It's, it's, it's not. It was smaller than this. Your foot comes down on soft mud, not stone. What is happening? You can't be outside. It's still so dark. It's still so dark.

[00:29:10] You feel like the tree. How did you get outside? The dimensions of this room just do not make sense. It's the tree, the tree, the tree branches that move, that grasp your wrist because it's, it's not a tree. It's bone as a skeletal hand closes around your wrist. Okay.

[00:29:39] Now, now we're in more familiar territory. Ida is just going to follow the, the kind of line of the arm and point the gun in that direction and, and shoot. Just fire. Great. Um, go for it. Yeah, go for it. Shooting a skelly. This is crazy. Shooting the skelly. I'm going to, I will spend eight luck to make this a hard success. Oh, hell yes. Ida don't fuck around. Ida doesn't fuck

[00:30:09] around with guns. No, no, break them, break them bones. In the flash of powder coming from your pistol, like a bolt of lightning illuminating this dark interior like a strobe light, you suddenly see like bang, the skeletal visage of this woman grasping your wrist with just like her bone white hand, the jagged misshapen teeth

[00:30:38] in the skull screaming at you. And then as your ball just like blows the skull into like a thousand pieces and you stumble backwards out of this room onto the stone outside. There's not even an echo from your pistol ball. It's as though all of that happened somewhere else. And the room isn't

[00:31:05] wet, but you're soaking. What? Oh, shit. Roll sanity for me. Hmm. Oh my God. So I did, I did expect this sanity roll. So I did roll it. I got a four. I think that Ida is connecting some dots. And I think that just to the house, you know, she's, she's from Germany. They have folklore there. Murderous dead wives. This, this tracks. I think she might, she might just say to the house at large or to

[00:31:35] whatever, whatever evil spirits you have here. You next time should make sure to kill me. For if anything happens to Miss Wentworth, then the master of this house shall also die. And then she'll just take off towards Emma's room. Wow. And you, you fling open the door and there is no one there. Emma and Xerxes, you move through the hidden passage. Yes. I want to.

[00:32:04] Natural, natural post. Yeah. Your face is. Flushed. Um, you're no longer in a bout of madness, Emma Wentworth. It is as though you've had the traditional cure for a hysterical episode. It was, it was like he was a doctor. You have a candelabra in your hand as you move through this stony passage. The interior of this passage seems to date from the, the

[00:32:33] foundation of the Ursuline Manor. And you can see like faded paintings of saints holding sacred hearts pierced by nails dimly visible in your candlelight as you move through the bleached stone of the interior of this space. I've never seen this before. I think Gregory would love these. They would make a good redo of the living room. Oh, uh, well, you can do whatever you'd like, Lady Wentworth.

[00:33:02] It's incredible how deep you're able to reach. You see. It's somehow, it's incredible how deep you were able to reach. Oh my God. It's not the first time I've heard that. I am, you know, I'm just in his Lord's service. I must prep the guests, you see. Yes. Uh, Xerxes, you, you, strange things have been known to happen here when you live here.

[00:33:31] Strange sounds, curious noises, walking into rooms where the furniture seems to be rearranged. Rooms that seem to have an uncanny and unnatural chill, even when summer is at its peak. And, and even now, as you move deeper into this passage, you can see your breath because it's becoming colder and colder as you move deeper and deeper. And you know the confines of this house and you know that your pathway is leading you through walls that take

[00:34:01] you past a hall and skirting the scullery. There are two holes in the wall and if you peer through them, you can see from your vantage point, Gregory Putin walking away. It's as though you're looking through the eyes of a painting that he was just looking at. And as you move deeper and deeper, headed east. Are you sure you want to go deeper? You asked me that earlier and I said yes. Yes.

[00:34:31] I just. Penetrate every, every corner. I always like to double check. That consent is key. I appreciate that. That is why I, I have such, I feel so safe with you. But we must uncover the secret or I'll go mad. And I can have you. Okay. Diving into my crevices to bring me back to sanity every time. I would do it every single time, Lady Wentworth.

[00:35:00] But stay close for there is a chill in the air. You move through the passage and you can see up ahead the yellow and sickly light of, of candles up ahead. And you can hear also a feline sound. You also hear that sound, Gregory, as you move up the stairs into the east wing, coming at it from another direction.

[00:35:28] And now is the point where I would like some, it sounds like a pincier maneuver is happening at this moment. As Gregory moves through passageways past more paintings in this labyrinthine interior, you come to a door that seems to have a huge and weighty lock on it. And you can hear that, that strange feline voice of definitely a ruined

[00:35:56] throat desiccated by consumption gasping from the interior. I don't know a lot about removing a lock with an ornate dagger, but is that something you would entertain Ross? Could I like crash the pommel of the dagger against the handle or something to try to open this door? An ornate dagger. Yeah, of course. It's all I have. Really force your way in. Yeah, I want to force my way in. I'm not, I'm not knocking. I think, I think you could.

[00:36:27] Yeah, but I think you need a really high level of success. Right. Like a strength? You got this. The age of this place. Yeah. Use, use strength. And it is only because you have this ornate dagger that this doesn't need to be an extreme success. It has to be a hard success in order to have any effect. I do have good strength. Yeah, let's see. You've been rolling rocks. Let's go. I don't have a lot of luck though. So let's see how I do. You could do this. Get it done. Get it done.

[00:36:57] Okay. Six, 64 under 70. Oh, I only have 25. Look, I need a 35. Oh no. Can I, can I push the roll? Push. I want to actually like run back all the way down the hallway and then run full force into the door. And charge. Because I'm a huge guy. I just want to crash into the door with my body. Mm. Okay. Go for it. Come on. Oh, so close.

[00:37:26] Why wasn't that the first roll? Yes. I did roll a 40 and I needed a 35. So I failed my push. You failed. You failed your push. Great. Here's what happens. You succeed. You succeed. You, you, you slam your dagger on the lock. It kind of buckles and breaks, but it doesn't quite budge. And you realize you've got to throw your full weight into it. You step back across the dusty and dark hallway and you lurch

[00:37:55] forward and just nearly smash this door off its hinges. And you tumble out into a space. This looks as though it was some sort of a chapel area when this was an active Ursuline convent. And as soon as your eyes, well schooled in occultism, take it in, you realize that you are not in any holy or sanctified place.

[00:38:24] This room has been desanctified. There are sigils painted on the walls. There is a crucifix on, on the altar that has been nailed to the wall upside down. Red blood, red candles everywhere. A giant circle on the floor, which as you look at it, you realize is made up of animal bones set together to create a unhallowed verge.

[00:38:54] And in the center of it, just a heap of gray, rotted flesh. Ew! A pile of skin and meat. The aroma of it almost, almost makes you faint. It just looks like, like a pile of grotesquely misshapen flesh. Next to it stands

[00:39:22] Lord Cyrus Mowbray, dressed in a cloak. And you can see that he's muttering something. It's like, yes, don't worry. He will feed you, will feed you anything to calm you. My darling, just let, don't worry. I'll have her for one night. You can give me that, won't you? Before, before I give you to her and all the rest of them. And then you will be, bang! And you tumble out into the floor.

[00:39:52] You behold this occultic ritual. You can see the boneless face of the woman in the portrait. Her black hair strewn like, like a gnarle of serpents in the middle of this unhollow, sigilistic form on the floor. As her empty eye sockets seem to kind of writhe there on the floor. As, as she looks at you with no eyes and you just hear her say, UGH!

[00:40:20] And that is when Moe Bray just takes you in in a glance and is like, Americans, I thought I told you what was forbidden. Someone, it seems, Mr. Putin, cannot listen to their betters. and, uh, he, then he just says like, Asmoth, interrotto! And suddenly all the candles in the room just like,

[00:40:49] flicker and you feel your own skeleton push against your flesh as your own skeletal system rebels against your ability to control it. Oof. Can he be like, so he's gonna walk in and kind of think like, this is vulgar. It's practical but it's pretty vulgar. So he's gonna like, he's got like all these tight rings

[00:41:18] on his fat fingers and he's gonna try to pull off a particular black ring when he walks into this room. His hope, which now that the skeleton is forcing its way out of his body might not work, he's hoping to hypnotize this man to stop whatever it is he's doing in here. Maybe he even breaks his finger trying to get the ring off at this point if the skeleton's resisting him but he's gonna try to get this off and just kind of spin it in front of the man and say like, I will loosen the collar on your thoughts. You will give in. Make no bones about it.

[00:41:49] Ooh, he said the thing. Bingo. Aida and Xerxes, you hear this in the passageway as you draw ever closer and you can see just the one light coming in through the crack in the door which you can push open if you wish. What are you gonna roll to try to hypnotize this guy? Hypnosis. Oh, hey. There you go. Roll hypnosis. Yes, yes. Get it, Cub. This is such a fun sheet. Get it. Oh my god! What?

[00:42:19] You've gotta be kidding me. That's the worst thing I've ever seen. I love this. What did you roll? I rolled a 100 over 70. Yeah, you're fucked. That was the only thing I couldn't roll. You're fucked. Here's what happens. Oh no! You were rolling so well! What happened, you idiot? Emma, Emma and Xerxes, are you moving into the room? Oh yes. Yes, because I I owe everything

[00:42:48] to Lord Mowbray. I would do anything for him. You push open the panel. And I kind of push you forward. Great. You push, Emma, Emma, Xerxes pushes you forward into the room. What is in here? This altar has been altered and every, every saint has been repainted to appear misshapen. Their limbs replaced with claws and beaks and tentacles. Their, their forms

[00:43:17] bulbous. They, they seem to give birth to, to strange spidery things out of, out of like orifices in their chests. And this whole like debased altar swings open on an unseen hinge. And Emma Wentworth looks into the secret chamber and sees the result of rolling 100 on a hypnosis. Oh my God. Gregory Putin, here's what happens. You attempt to flash the ring at him and he just smiles as your skeleton

[00:43:46] answers his command. And Emma, you see him reach up to his face and you, you pulled off your bodice earlier. Xerxes rent off his shirt earlier. And right now you see Gregory Putin tear off his own skin. Yes. Rip his flesh off of his body like someone taking off a garment. His skeleton steps out of his body.

[00:44:16] The meat of him topples to the ground in a wet heap. And the skeleton like, like, as if by stop motion staggers and judders into the holy circle and begins to dress itself in the flesh that is piled up inside. Wow. And you now see the woman that has been speaking through you and looking at you through every pane of glass pulling

[00:44:45] her flesh onto Gregory Putin's skeleton and reforming herself in front of you. And you can see now also Mowbrie like, yes, yes, my love, we shall be together again. Just give her to me for one night. Prima Nocta. Wow. Ew. Wow. I call upon you gods of lasciviousness. Yes, gods of the flesh,

[00:45:15] gods of bone, gods of this material world who pay homage to the pleasures of the flesh. To you I pay homage. And you can see now this rotting flesh being pulled like a disgusting and distended mask over the skeleton of Gregory Putin. Roll sanity. Me? Yeah, you, you're seeing this. 26.

[00:45:45] By the way, Gregory, you're dead. Thank you for that. 26. I am fine. You're fine? 26? Well, I have a 52 sanity. Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. You. Okay, but listen, I have a gun. I always carry my gun. Ida trained me well. I, and I look at Xerxes. I need to roll to see if I think he brought me here on purpose.

[00:46:16] Was he in on this? I'm going to glee this up to Xerxes. Are you or are you not in on this? Was he in on this? Um, if this is under 50, yes. Oh, shit. Oh, no! yes, he was. Xerxes was in on it. Xerxes isn't just his ward. He is an acolyte of dark and nameless gods. Xerxes is always the hot ones. He

[00:46:46] wasn't found. He wasn't found on the heath. He was cut off of a boy on the heath. He was put onto the skeleton of another boy on the heath. He wears unholy flesh and thanks to the gifts of the arch magus Lord Cyril Mowbray he will live forever. All he asks is a little pleasure. Okay, so I lean in to Xerxes and said

[00:47:16] you were my first and my last and my gun is under his chin and I shoot him up through his head. Damn. I don't think this is point blank. This point blank. As I kiss him softly. Oh, yeah, of course. It was worth it. I'm gonna go ahead and roll that damage to be quick about it. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, this is point blank. Xerxes not to put too fine a point

[00:47:46] on it. Your lock lock is cocked back and she in kind of symmetry with Emma's actions has her pistol under Cyrus's or at the back of Cyrus's head. You have snuck in as well. Great. I think yes, you said you were coming this way. Gregory slipped you, but you were on your way here.

[00:48:16] And it sounds like Cyrus Mowbray was kind of distracted. So here's how I want to do this. I'm going to roll his spot hidden against your dexterity. If he notices you in this room before you're able to get this shot off, he's going to do a spell on you. Okay, let's see what we... Jesus Christ. no. I know what he rolled. What did you roll? So I rolled

[00:48:46] an 84. I have 38 luck. I will spend it all to make it a 46. Amazing. He rolled a regular success? Yes. He rolled a hard success. Oh, you motherfucker! Oh, shit. I swear to you, I'm not... No, no, no, I believe you. You're the... Yeah. We believe... A 26 under 75. What? Okay. Okay. This is upsetting. You just see his eyes flash

[00:49:16] for a moment and Emma, over out of the corner, you heard that click and then you just hear and then you just feel a shudder. The temperature like drops. It almost takes you, takes your breath away how cold it is for a moment and you just feel like the whole fabric of reality seems to like bend and lurch off its axis for a moment. You're like seasick and when you glance back into the room, Ida Schneider is no longer there. It now falls to

[00:49:45] you. Emma, do you engage in battle with these people or do you run away? No, I'm gonna shoot him. Okay. I have to shoot everybody. I'm an American. You just shot one bullet. How many bullets does your flintlock pistol have in it? Is this the kind of thing where you gotta take like two minutes to reload this thing? Nope. With Ida's training, I mean, she's so fast. It's true. I've already, I can disassemble it and reassemble it. Go for it. Go for it. Go for it. All right, here I go.

[00:50:15] I'm gonna shoot. 86. What are we doing? I'm shooting and I have a 40. So that was very bad. Oh shit. Can I, can I push to do it again? You cannot push combat rolls. Oh yeah, I forgot. Yes. Okay. So I'm sorry. These games often end in tragedy. It's okay. Listen, I tried. I was plucky. The, the, I want to say that the, that the, that your bullet though, it goes wide and it hits bang, one of those

[00:50:45] red candelabras that falls down and I want to say it hits a tapestry and fire begins to like, like cascade up one, one, one of the walls and now just backlit by this fire, the woman incorporated in front of you, just a look of pure, unadulterated loathing. She may not have been this way in life, but since she's crossed a veil, since she has given herself to whatever beings allowed

[00:51:15] this procedure to take place, she is much changed. Um, and, and you can see, uh, Mowbray fall to his knees. He's like, please, just, just, uh, it would be just one night. That's all I wish. And she just takes her fingers and just like plunges them into his eyes. And you can see him just like, uh, shake and twitch as, as she just

[00:51:44] bores her skeletal digits into his brain and like, pull them out. And then her desiccated gray tongue, supported by Gregory's bones, licks the, the blood off of her hand. Ew. Oh my god. And then she moves towards you. And let us see just off in the distance, a cascade of smoke coming out of a, out of a belfry

[00:52:12] on this manor on the edge of a cliff. And for the last time, perhaps, we hear Emma Wentworth's shrieking scream as she falls victim to the wrath of this horrid thing. As the house burns and a woman, now dressed in finery, kind of pushes her face into some semblance

[00:52:42] of life as she walks away from her manor. She is a woman fleeing a burning mansion, moving off across the cliffs, away to parts unknown to spread the gospel of the gods she serves. And our camera moves into the mansion, past her portrait, looking young

[00:53:12] and vigorous, past the chalices fallen to the floor, past the torn and rent bodice of Emma Wentworth, into a room, onto a picture, an engraving, and there, seeming to claw at it as though she is someone trying to escape from the painting, a scream frozen on her otherwise stoic features.

[00:53:40] is an image of Ida Schneider, trapped in a painting by the sorcery of the magus Cyrus Mowbray, all of them doomed, ruined, despoiled by the wrath of the wraith, and the candle blows out. Yeah! Hell yes!

[00:54:09] It's been a while since we've all died. That's a really sweet thing to happen. So glad to have been here during that, yeah, at least I got some before I died, you know? At least, at least. That was by far, by far, our most, our horniest campaign. Really? And that's saying a lot, and yet, he was the most disgusting maybe as well. Yeah. You know what? We got the peaks and the valleys. Two sides. I for one loved it.

[00:54:39] That was fun. Thank you so much. Thank you so much to my amazing players, Josephine McAdam, Nick Rosenberg, Cup, and Felicia Day. Thank you so, so much. And thank you also to our amazing title givers, Chris and Yes Anderson. Thank you so much for joining us on Push the Roll. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was a thrill. Thank you Kickstarter backers who went to the URL. Yes, watchtheguild.com. If you like the way I was horny and died, watchtheguild.com.

[00:55:10] Yes. Please back right now. Join in on the fun. We're going to have a great time. Get those stretch goals. Not quite as horny, not quite as graphic, but hey, still a good movie. We'll catch you next time on Push the Roll. Oh, man. Brilliant. Awesome. Oh, amazing, Ross. That ripped, y'all. Amazing, everyone. Amazing. That was great.

[00:55:42] Thanks so much for listening to Push the Roll with Ross Bryant. You can follow me on Instagram at Ross BB. And if you enjoyed the show and want to shape future episodes, find us at patreon.com slash push the roll. Subscribe, submit your title ideas, and help decide where our next role takes us. Catch you next time.