Transcript - Episode 8: The Day We Met? (Part 3)
Audio for The Day We Met? Part 3
The Day We Met? Part 3
Wed, Oct 1, 2025
“Push the Roll with Ross Bryant” is produced for the ear and includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
Ross Bryant 00:00
And with that, I'd like to know what our second title is.
Paula Deming 00:03
Ooh!
cuppycup 00:03
Oh, man. Okay, so people are gonna think we're cheating, Ross, I have to say, because the one that I have lined up is from Your! Friend! Nate! and the title is "Even Here Wednesday Is Spaghetti Day." [laughter]
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 00:26
Big pasta account!
Rashawn Scott 00:27
Yeah.
Ross Bryant 00:28
Wow. Okay. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 00:29
[MUSIC: melancholic guitar theme] 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? 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 when you push the roll.
Ross Bryant 01:24
[SFX: footsteps going down stairs] You go down a flight of stairs. You come down into a landing, down another flight of stairs. Up, down, sideways, down. [MUSIC: ominous piano] You're like getting lost in a stairwell. And down. And you're now in sort of back rooms, long hallways that seem to terminate but open up into another hallway. Down a flight of stairs into another anonymous-looking hallway. You know you're somewhere in this penthouse complex, but the internal geography of it doesn't seem to make sense.
Roger Madigan (Ross) 02:03
I don't know when the revelation was first made for you, Mr. Shell, but for me, my studies in architecture and building led me to some interesting mathematical theories. But great, great revelations were revealed to me.
Ross Bryant 02:24
And down a stairwell, and he opens a door, [SFX: heavy door opens] and you are now in a giant triangular-shaped room. Please roll Sanity, because there's no way a triangular room of this size could be in this building. You are in a room that is larger than the building you are in. The geography does not make sense.
Speaker 1 02:46
I'm in denial, apparently, or something. I rolled a 14 under 70. I'm like, this is an optical illusion.
Scott Dorward 02:53
Yeah, same. I passed that one. And I think Marty is just so caught up in the weirdness of the situation that he hasn't even noticed the dimensions of the room. He's just looking in panic at Lucy just saying,
Marty Shell (Scott) 03:07
(whispers) I don't know what I'm doing.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 03:08
(whispering) Where is Jordan?
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 03:10
You... I don't know what happened to him. I turned around. I came back from the bathroom, and he was gone.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 03:15
Aww.
Ross Bryant 03:17
Yeah, you walk into this room. The people file in. There's more of them in here. There's maybe 20 more people in this room. And now that you're inside, yeah, they're all dressed very, very arch, very pristine, in dark blacks and bright whites. Everyone is in these sort of monochrome outfits. Make a Spot Hidden, Lucy.
Speaker 1 03:41
It went on the ground. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 03:46
Oh, I love real dice. I love real dice. They never... [laughter]
Speaker 1 03:51
That's a 34 under 35 so that's pretty exciting.
Ross Bryant 03:56
Then you definitely catch the flashing eyes of Jeremy L. Derrigan across the room.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 04:02
He's here. I hate it and I love it all at the same time. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 04:07
[MUSIC: ominous drone] It is then where Roger kind of walks up to you, Pamela.
Roger Madigan (Ross) 04:14
I had others coming. Other arrangements were made. I hired people, but, I suppose they can be left to their own devices. It won't matter much after tonight, anyway, because you have been brought to us. The providence of the triangle moves apace. The angle is complete, and you have been brought to us. It wasn't chance that brought you to my penthouse. This is a fated meeting. It was fate when you and I met here, just like it was fate when you and I met here, Mr. Benning. [laughter] And now you can see across the room in one of the points of the room, restrained to a sort of metallic chair is Jordan Benning. There are sort of metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles and his neck on this chair that is like a bright chrome and it's at one of the points of the triangle.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 05:17
Jordan? Honey, this is such a different look for you.
Rashawn Scott 05:23
Are you gagged?
Ross Bryant 05:24
No, let's say no. I think and you're maybe conscious now, your consciousness is swimming back. [MUSIC: ethereal piano] You awake from a dream where you were walking on the ceiling of your airplane and you looked out the window and the curvature of the earth was now flat and seemed to bend upwards. And it wasn't as though you were looking at a flat Earth. It was more that you were looking at the interior of a hollow Earth, a geometry that all makes sense to you, that you're not flying over the Earth. You're somehow flying inside the Earth, and you wake up and you're strapped to this chair.
cuppycup 06:07
Could I roll Sanity on waking up?
Ross Bryant 06:09
Yes, please. I wish you would.
cuppycup 06:10
Okay, after the dream.
Paula Deming 06:12
(laughing) I wish you would.
cuppycup 06:14
I'm coming so close. I failed. 38 over 33.
Ross Bryant 06:18
Alright, I'll be kind to you here. One point of Sanity loss.
cuppycup 06:24
Okay. Ross, I might have missed the description. How was Jordan dressed? Was he dressed at all on this table?
Ross Bryant 06:30
I didn't even consider that he might be totally nude balls, but yeah maybe he is. [laughter]
cuppycup 06:34
(joking) He's wearing a towel. [laughter]
Paula Deming 06:37
Towel guy! [laughter]
Ross Bryant 06:41
You're wearing a similarly stark black and white outfit.
cuppycup 06:44
Okay.
Ross Bryant 06:45
Your pilot outfit has been exchanged.
Scott Dorward 06:47
They didn't even let you keep your cap? [laughter]
Ross Bryant 06:50
No, sorry. [laughter]
cuppycup 06:52
On the one point of San loss, could the involuntary reaction just be kind of like a wide-eyed stare at his friends saying,
Jordan Benning (cuppycup) 06:58
We're inside the goddamn planet! [laughter]
Ross Bryant 07:05
Madigan is like,
Roger Madigan (Ross) 07:06
[MUSIC: ominous drone] Yes, yes. Inside, outside, up, down, black, white. We live in a world of these strange dualities, don't we? Each one of us, solitary, seeking our better half. But what if there was a third way? The love that generates the cosmos. Love is not one to one. This is a triangle!
Ross Bryant 07:40
[SFX: mechanical movement] Rising from the floor now at one of the other points of the triangle, you see, similarly restrained to a seat, Melissa Huntington.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 07:52
Melissa! Melissa, are you alright?
Paula Deming 07:55
I'm just gonna go over to her. I'll go right over to her, unless they stop me.
Ross Bryant 08:00
She seems sedated.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 08:04
Oh, Melissa? Melissa?
Paula Deming 08:06
Pat her face. No, just nothing?
Melissa Huntington (Ross) 08:11
Can't a girl have it all? [laughter]
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 08:13
No, I don't think she can.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 08:16
Melissa, what have you gotten yourself mixed up into? I don't even know where we are.
Roger Madigan (Ross) 08:24
Don't worry, Miss Forge, you'll know everything soon enough, and you'll know just how meaningless that question is. Where we are, when we are. There is no where, when, up, down, black, white, evil, right. There is only will.
Ross Bryant 08:46
Roger is now kind of gesturing to the crowd around you, Pamela. And you are being led towards one of these chairs at the point. At the third point of the triangle.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 08:56
No, thank you. I'll just watch. [laughter] I don't need to participate. I don't have any... No triangles for me. I'm free willing. You know, I'm a woman of the world, and can't tie me down, no way. [laughter]
Rashawn Scott 09:10
And she does her best Samantha Jones. Please, please, please no. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 09:17
Your pleading is falling on deaf ears here. And yes, you are being led to this chair and sat down and they're beginning to put these restraints on.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 09:26
Okay, I have a firearm.
Ross Bryant 09:28
Oh, do you?
Rashawn Scott 09:30
Yes? Can I blast someone, please?
Ross Bryant 09:34
Okay, so yeah, you're being pushed down towards this restraining chair. As you move closer to it, Pamela, you can see that there are all these sort of like ridges and seams in it. It looks as though that the chair itself can articulate and move, perhaps, in some sort of like strangely articulate way. And they're pushing you towards it, but you've got your gun on you, apparently.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 09:56
I reach into one of my shoulder pads and pull out a pistol. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 09:57
In one of your shoulder pads is a pistol? [laughter]
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 10:03
Now, I didn't want it to come to this, but you... I am not going to be restrained, and I'll shoot down any one of you who moves towards me.
Ross Bryant 10:11
The people who are around you kind of let go a little bit but they're still nearby, eyeing you warily.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 10:18
Back it up.
Rashawn Scott 10:19
And like, I'm parting the sea, I'm like gonna try to look towards any sort of door. Is there a different door than I came out of? Is there, glaringly, an exit sign anywhere?
Ross Bryant 10:28
There is no exit sign anywhere. There is, of course, a door you walked through, but it's kind of hard to discern in this vast, dark, triangular room. You came in on one of the flat sides of it. There's a triangle sort of inscribed into the floor with one of these chairs at each of its three points. You're right by one of those now, and Roger is now looking at you.
Roger Madigan (Ross) 10:50
[MUSIC: ominous drone] Very unwise, Miss Forge. Very unwise.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 10:57
I don't think so. I won't be forced to do anything that I don't want to do. Let me go. That's all I'm saying. Do whatever you want, but I want no part of it. I won't say anything to anyone.
Ross Bryant 11:08
He just says,
Roger Madigan (Ross) 11:10
5, 0, 7, 9...
Rashawn Scott 11:13
I shoot him in the leg. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 11:16
Take your shot. When he says that, everyone in the room who is not you begins intoning in unison. (in cultist voice) 5, 7, 12, 3, 8, 0.
Rashawn Scott 11:29
Can I push it? I was at 55. I mean 66 is what I rolled. But I have 55 in Firearms.
Ross Bryant 11:35
I always forget pushing the luck rolls when it comes to combat. Can you push a firearms roll like that?
cuppycup 11:40
You can't.
Ross Bryant 11:41
Yes, I thought so. Unfortunately, attack rolls, you cannot push.
cuppycup 11:45
You can use Luck, though, right?
Scott Dorward 11:46
You can, yeah.
Rashawn Scott 11:48
Sure, I'll use Luck. How many Luck points do I have? 55.
Ross Bryant 11:53
Okay.
Rashawn Scott 11:53
So I'll use 12 to get under.
Paula Deming 11:57
Yes, yeah.
Ross Bryant 11:58
Okay, and you were aiming for the leg, you said, kind of calling your shot.
Rashawn Scott 12:01
Yeah. In the thigh.
Ross Bryant 12:04
If you had this in your shoulder pad, it's probably rather small. You want to say that this is like a .32 revolver if we're being kind or a Derringer if we're being realistic? That it kind of got under your shoulder pad?
Rashawn Scott 12:16
The tiny James Bond one.
Ross Bryant 12:18
Yeah, the tiny little guy. The Walther PPK? Yeah, let's say it's that. So the base damage here for that would be 1d8. So go ahead and roll 1d8.
Rashawn Scott 12:28
Thankie. Thankie. Alright. Two to the leg.
Ross Bryant 12:33
Bang! [SFX: gunshot] You nail him in the leg. He drops. [SFX: impact with floor] But as I said, the entire room is now chanting together. (as a cultist) 5, 0, 9.
Scott Dorward 12:44
With this chant, I mean, Marty has never really understood relationships, and every bit of relationship advice he's given over the years has been bad. He's destroyed countless relationships through his advice column. [laughter] And I think here as this is all kind of relational as this... You know, this is a numeric expression of relationship, maybe slightly deliberately, or maybe completely inadvertently, he is totally fucking it up.
Ross Bryant 13:12
Okay.
Scott Dorward 13:12
He's getting the numbers wrong. He's getting things in the wrong order. He is just messing with the rhythm of this whole thing.
Ross Bryant 13:21
Great. You're trying to kind of work against this chant, so to speak.
Scott Dorward 13:25
Yeah.
Ross Bryant 13:25
Well, they rolled an extreme success [laughter] on the spell that they're casting together.
Paula Deming 13:31
Of course they did.
Ross Bryant 13:32
I'll say that maybe your trying to fuck it up brings that down to a hard, which still succeeds. [laughter]
Scott Dorward 13:37
Okay.
Paula Deming 13:38
Is Lucy even also chanting numbers, just like caught up in this thing or that she might be choosing to not?
Ross Bryant 13:46
Totally up to you. I don't think you're compelled to join by what you're hearing, but you might be if you're swept up in it.
Paula Deming 13:52
I think it's a little too upsetting at this point seeing her friends in this way. I don't think she's quite caught up in it, especially since she succeeded so well in her Sanity roll when they first got in. I think she's holding on to some sense of herself. So I think during all this, she's kind of like sidling her way over to where Jeremy is, to be like,
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 14:11
What? What's going on? Why are you here? What? What's happening? What is this?
Paula Deming 14:16
Even though he's chanting the numbers, she's trying to get him to stop to answer her questions.
Ross Bryant 14:21
He looks at you. He's just peering into your eyes, that same look of disdain that is just a mask for desire. Disdain and desire at once. Two are becoming one, a union of opposites, as they are just saying, (as a cultist) 0, 5, 8, 9, 9, 9.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 14:40
No. No! Stop, stop this!
Paula Deming 14:41
She'll put her hands on either side of his face and kiss him to get him to stop it. [laughter]
Rashawn Scott 14:49
Love will save us. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 14:52
I love that. Roll Power, Paula.
Paula Deming 14:55
Oh, gosh. Okay, okay, okay, okay, where's my Power? Okay, it's 70, so.
Ross Bryant 15:00
Okay.
Paula Deming 15:01
I don't know if I want to fail or succeed it. I rolled a straight 70. I rolled exactly what it is, that's hilarious. I rolled 70 and it's 70.
Rashawn Scott 15:08
That's the power of love.
Ross Bryant 15:10
(singing with Paula) That's the power of love. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 15:11
I hesitate to bring this up, but it seems apropos that I did roll a 69. [laughter]
Paula Deming 15:20
Nice. [laughter]
Rashawn Scott 15:22
Nice.
Ross Bryant 15:23
[MUSIC: eerie synth] So a couple of things happen. Pamela, despite these efforts to interrupt this chant and what they are trying to do, these are practiced elect. Officiants of whatever this process is that you've been brought into. And what happens is you feel their gaze on you. These numbers are just like hitting your ear, but more so, you just feel as though what is being said is that they are somehow describing the contours of not just this room, not just you, not just the gun that is pointed at Roger Madigan, but of reality itself. And that the numbers that they are evoking are evoking a paradox that is reaching into the very numerical structure of reality and picking it apart. The pistol, it is in your hand. And then it is your hand. As you sit there, and you watch as the stock and trigger of this pistol, this Walther PPK in your hand, suddenly kind of merges with your palm. [SFX: flesh movement] Your finger bends, warps and painfully knots itself through the guard in front of the trigger and winds itself around the barrel as your entire hand, just in the most serpentine, spidery way, just kind of engulfs the metal of the thing. And suddenly your entire hand is just this crude simulacrum of a hand and a pistol, and the last thing you see is your flesh seal over the mouth of the barrel [disgust] as your hand just engulfs the thing. Please roll Sanity. [laughter]
Rashawn Scott 17:11
(laughs) 32 over 85. This is nothing. Light weight, light work. [laughter]
cuppycup 17:17
This is nothing compared to what goes on at The Forgery.
Rashawn Scott 17:20
Sorry, Roger, I did a bunch of drugs before I got here. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 17:25
Well, I can't believe it, but yeah, you only lose one point of Sanity for that.
Rashawn Scott 17:29
Okay.
Ross Bryant 17:30
But I will say that what you notice is that you could get another shot off.
Rashawn Scott 17:34
Oh.
Ross Bryant 17:35
You have this connection with the gun now. It is you. But of course, in order to take a shot, you'd be shooting through your own flesh, so you will take damage if you shoot.
Paula Deming 17:43
Oh my gosh. So it's like really happening. It's not a hallucination. Her hand has become the gun. Oh god. [disgust]
Ross Bryant 17:50
Now you kissed Jeremy L. Derrigan. Children's author Jeremy L. Derrigan's lips are against yours. You...
Paula Deming 17:56
My rival.
Jared L. Derrigan (Ross) 17:56
(makes kissing sounds) 5, 0, mmm.
Ross Bryant 17:58
And you're kissing. He also got a regular success. What is your Power score?
Paula Deming 18:03
It's 70 total.
Ross Bryant 18:06
I'm afraid that his Power score is higher.
Paula Deming 18:10
No.
Ross Bryant 18:11
When you touch, he is not just intoning the numbers. He is now kind of speaking them into your mind.
Paula Deming 18:19
Oh, no, it's over. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 18:24
He shows you something.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 18:28
That's right. Remember the feeling of true love. When you know it's right, it becomes all encompassing, and the rest of your life falls apart.
Ross Bryant 18:37
Yes, yes. [laughter] A union, a union. And for a moment, you have the sensation that your two heads are not two heads, but are fused at the lip.
Ross Bryant 18:46
[MUSIC: ominous drone] Merging one into the other, engulfing each other, your two bodies becoming one. [laughter] Your skeletal systems bending and wrapping around each other, knitting together. [SFX: flesh movement] But this, of course, is not happening. This is just in your mind. But he is showing you the power of the potential of their movement, that they are communing with the numerical substrate of reality. They worship it. They commune with it. And now that they can do this ritual, and the triad of the celestial bodies overhead, rhyming with the triad here below, their power shall be focused and undefeatable. And the last thing that you're left with is just the image in your head, rotating, rotating, rotating of that Penrose triangle.
Paula Deming 18:46
One, yes.
Paula Deming 19:39
As our lips part, I think I am now intoning the same string of numbers along with everyone else.
Scott Dorward 19:46
Oh.
Ross Bryant 19:48
Please roll Sanity.
Paula Deming 19:49
Oh, 77 over 69.
Paula Deming 19:52
I fail.
Ross Bryant 19:53
We like that.
Paula Deming 19:55
It feels right in this moment.
Ross Bryant 19:57
That's four points of Sanity loss, Lucy Flowers.
Paula Deming 19:59
Oof, okay.
cuppycup 20:02
Could we say that Jordan, being restrained to this chair, sees Lucy and Jeremy kissing, and that Jordan has been secretly in love with Lucy all this time. But...
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 20:14
Oh, but I was too!
cuppycup 20:15
But he's been getting bad advice from Marty. [laughter] He's been writing into The Record under the name "Soaring Heart" for advice about his feelings for Lucy. And he's like, "Oh, be aloof."
Scott Dorward 20:25
Yeah. Marty's just been replying saying,
Marty Shell (Scott) 20:27
If it's meant to happen, it's meant to happen, just don't push it. Don't push it.
cuppycup 20:31
Uh huh. Seeing that kiss, he's gonna try to break out of his restraints. He's getting like, this...
Paula Deming 20:35
Nice.
cuppycup 20:36
This burst of true love.
Ross Bryant 20:38
I love this. Jordan, you are rolling for love power. Trying to break out of these restraints with (singing) the power of love. [laughter]
cuppycup 20:47
Yes.
Ross Bryant 20:47
I think that this could be just a Strength roll. I'll say this, if you make an extreme Strength roll, you might be able to get a hand free.
cuppycup 20:56
Okay.
Ross Bryant 20:57
If you make a regular Power roll, you can get two hands free.
cuppycup 21:02
Oh, okay, let's see. As you know, my San's low, so my Power also is low. I have 91 over 35 for Power. I do have 91 over 70 for Strength.
Scott Dorward 21:14
Can you push it?
cuppycup 21:15
Yeah. Which one do I wanna push?
Ross Bryant 21:17
Push, please.
cuppycup 21:17
I'll push the Power roll. That seems more reasonable. So I'm gonna push it by professing my love out loud. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 21:26
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Jordan Benning (cuppycup) 21:28
Lucy!
Rashawn Scott 21:29
That's so vulnerable.
cuppycup 21:31
Lucy, I love you. I love you so much. Ever since the day I ran into you and you spilled your pear martini on me. [laughter] Even though they started calling me "Pear Jordan," [laughter] I've just had these feelings bursting out of me, kind of the way Pamela seems to be bursting out of her body right now.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 21:48
Ow, my hand! Ahhh! [laughter]
cuppycup 21:50
And I will push that roll. Oh, I passed! I rolled 27 under 35. Amazing.
Ross Bryant 21:57
Amazing.
cuppycup 21:58
What can't love do?
Paula Deming 22:00
What can't it do?
Ross Bryant 22:01
[MUSIC: ethereal] The amazing power of love fills your body, and you are suddenly able to wrench your wrists free from the restraints, and your arms are free. You may be able to, in a little while, like work off the ones on your neck and on your legs.
Ross Bryant 22:15
Oh, good. Well, I love Pamela and Marty too, so we'll work with that later. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 22:24
Wonderful. Marty, we haven't touched base with you in a second. Marty, what do you think you're doing?
Scott Dorward 22:25
Yeah, seeing Jordan professing his love for Lucy like this, and realizing the truth of the terrible advice that he's given and perhaps the true nature of love that he's been blind to all this time, Marty just staggers out into the middle of all these chanting people and is saying,
Marty Shell (Scott) 22:44
No, no, you don't understand. You can't just quantify love as numbers. You can't just break it down. It's not something you can analyze like that. It's something deeper. It's something that doesn't fit into numbers.
Scott Dorward 22:58
And just see whether I can put them off like that.
Ross Bryant 23:03
What a passionate appeal for the ineffable power of love that cannot be quantified, that is totally subjective.
Rashawn Scott 23:09
Love don't cost a thing, we know this.
Ross Bryant 23:10
Yes, yes, your love don't cost a thing. You can't buy me love.
Paula Deming 23:10
It's so true.
Ross Bryant 23:10
What do you think that is, that sounds like almost a Persuasion to me or a...
Scott Dorward 23:18
Or a Pow roll maybe again?
Ross Bryant 23:21
Yeah, Power. Power sounds great. Go for a Power.
Scott Dorward 23:23
Yeah, I'm terrible at that. So this seems to fit. [laughter] That's 50 over 40. But you know, I'm going to spend the 10 points of Luck on this. I think this is well worth 10 points of Luck.
Ross Bryant 23:35
[MUSIC: epic instrumental] The awesome power of Marty Shell's advice fills the room. [laughter]
Paula Deming 23:43
Yes, finally.
Ross Bryant 23:44
Perhaps, for the first time, he's speaking with true authority and good advice before this crowd, and their chanting slows and stops as they look at you, hearing what in this room is blasphemy. As you say that this is unquantifiable, that numbers have no place here, as they gaze at you with disgust. Lucy, you're kind of reeling back this image in your head. Jordan, your arms are free. Maybe you're picking at the restraint around your throat. Pamela, yes, your hand is a damn gun. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 24:19
Now, who has just heard this passionate appeal from Jordan, maybe still holding your shoulders, Lucy, is Jeremy L. Derrigan. And he looks at you, Jordan, it's like,
Jared L. Derrigan (Ross) 24:30
You love her? I can give her everything. I suppose, perhaps Lucy, you should choose. What is it you want? Humble, true love or the security that comes from a professional person [laughter] with a good job in a big city and big connections with elemental, non-Euclidean deities that can give you everything your heart desires?
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 25:00
Well, most couples do fight over finances. [laughter]
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 25:12
But deep down inside, I've always been afraid to admit that I also have loved you, Jordan. I just thought you didn't have feelings for me. I thought that you liked Melissa. Earlier, when we were drinking our appletinis, and we asked, "do you have feelings? Do you have a crush on Melissa?" And I looked at you very closely, and you probably didn't notice because I thought you never noticed me. But you were noticing me all that time.
Rashawn Scott 25:12
Oh, my goodness.
Paula Deming 25:38
And I'm gonna try to go over to him.
Ross Bryant 25:41
Great. So you are now assisting, maybe help free him?
Paula Deming 25:44
Yes, yes, I will do that.
Ross Bryant 25:46
[MUSIC: ominous drone] A beam of light comes down a column from the ceiling, piercing the center of this space, and you realize that perhaps just above you, through the strange and nonsensically paradoxical route that you took here, somewhere, and some when up above you is that same penthouse you saw with its glass interior. And what you're seeing right now is a moon beam shooting right down into the center of this space. As the triangulation is complete. You are tugging at this metal restraint on Jordan's throat and Pamela, you can feel more arms on you as they're trying to wrestle you into the seat. And maybe Marty, you're the only one who notices that the chair that Melissa Huntington is in is beginning to move. And the arms are moving sideways, one moving up, one moving down. [SFX: stretching vinyl] The legs are moving apart and bending, and you realize that this chair is fully articulated, that each hinge point is swinging around, turning on an unseen axis, bending with the body of Melissa Huntington, wrenching it out of its natural shape.
Paula Deming 27:02
Oh, no. [disgust]
Ross Bryant 27:05
That's a Sanity roll, I think, probably.
Scott Dorward 27:08
Yeah, I think so. I think so.
Paula Deming 27:11
You said, and Marty's the only one who's seen this, right?
Ross Bryant 27:15
Yeah, I think so. At this moment anyway.
Scott Dorward 27:18
Despite my terrible Sanity, I passed.
Paula Deming 27:21
Hey! [laughter]
Ross Bryant 27:22
Oh, okay, you just take one point of Sanity loss.
Paula Deming 27:25
Don't sound so disappointed, Ross. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 27:27
Yeah.
Scott Dorward 27:28
Yeah. [laughter]
Paula Deming 27:31
Are you trying to do anything at this moment, Marty?
Scott Dorward 27:33
I think so. I'm gonna run over and throw myself on Melissa, just in panic, almost. Almost like a passionate hug, hold on to her and try to just hold her body together and stop it being pulled in all these weird directions.
Melissa Huntington (Ross) 27:53
Ahh!
Ross Bryant 27:53
She's like awake out of her stupor.
Melissa Huntington (Ross) 27:56
Marty, you've always been more than a side character to me. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 28:02
[SFX: flesh movement] Bending, bending, bending, impossibly. I'm sorry this is very horrible and violent. But yes, Marty, in your arms, you can feel her body being pulled into a grotesque parody of its former shape, and you feel her life is somehow not snuffed out. As you open your eyes and see that she is just kind of (gasping) gazing up at you and that she has been bent into a Penrose triangle.
Rashawn Scott 28:31
Oh gross, dude!
Ross Bryant 28:34
Her insides are her outsides. [disgust]
cuppycup 28:40
Jesus.
Paula Deming 28:40
Oh no.
Ross Bryant 28:41
The chair that you are on, Jordan, is beginning to move. Let's get a Lockpick.
cuppycup 28:46
I'm worried. Yes.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 28:47
No, no, I have to stop it. How do I stop it? Oh.
Ross Bryant 28:51
Why don't we get a Lockpick or a Mechanical Repair roll from somebody.
Paula Deming 28:55
Oh my gosh.
Ross Bryant 28:57
Or maybe just a Strength roll to wrench yourself free.
cuppycup 29:00
Whatever roll we end up doing, Ross, now that both hands are free, could I potentially do a bump of cocaine to get a bonus die? [laughter]
Ross Bryant 29:09
You want to do a bump of cocaine to go Popeye mode on this thing?
cuppycup 29:12
Yeah, exactly. Although I'm worried about the health messaging we're sending, because I think in the last one, I was smoking cigarettes to keep my cool. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 29:19
Okay, yes.
Rashawn Scott 29:21
You want to do some mindful breathing before Ross kills you? [laughter]
cuppycup 29:25
Yeah, there you go.
Ross Bryant 29:26
Yeah, do you want to have a sip of kale juice? No, you okay, of course, you take a rip. [laughter] You're absolutely zooted off your fuckin' coke airplane, and you want a bonus die to something? [laughter]
cuppycup 29:39
Just asking, yeah. I could do Strength, or it could be Lucy using Lockpick.
Paula Deming 29:44
I don't got any Locksmith.
cuppycup 29:46
Oh, I thought you did.
Paula Deming 29:48
No, I would have to use Strength.
Ross Bryant 29:50
As we have established, the power of love was able to free part of your restraints. So perhaps if you make a Power roll.
cuppycup 29:56
Oh no.
Ross Bryant 29:57
You can do it with advantage, not only because of the revivifying power of cocaine, but also because Lucy Flowers, your beloved, is helping you, you can get free.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 30:06
We can do this together, like a partnership.
cuppycup 30:10
I rolled an eight, which...
Ross Bryant 30:12
Oh my God!
cuppycup 30:12
For me, isn't extreme somehow, but I'll spend a point of Luck to make it extreme, if that helps at all. And I think he's kind of like tearing at the neck restraint, and just saying,
Jordan Benning (cuppycup) 30:21
I'm sorry, I got some bad advice, Lucy. We got to get out of here, start our lives together.
Paula Deming 30:28
All that matters is we're together now. We're gonna survive this.
Ross Bryant 30:30
Yes, and you manage to, (singing) with the power of love, you manage to get yourself free in just the second before this thing snaps your leg.
cuppycup 30:40
Yeah.
Ross Bryant 30:40
And twists it like grotesquely out of joint, and you tumble out onto the floor, and you see this grotesque and horrible, tortuous chair, like bending and moving impossibly into an impossible shape. And perhaps this is when you notice what has happened to Melissa Huntington. Please make Sanity rolls, you two.
cuppycup 31:02
Yes.
Paula Deming 31:02
Oh yeah.
cuppycup 31:02
Although I do think that he's definitely favoring Lucy over Melissa at this point.
Rashawn Scott 31:07
Well, no duh.
cuppycup 31:08
Oh my gosh. I passed. 25 under 31.
Paula Deming 31:13
I did too. I rolled a four.
cuppycup 31:15
Poor Ross.
Paula Deming 31:16
So I'm looking, I'm just like, shutting down. I'm, I think basically it's like survival mode. You're just shutting down your ability to process what you're seeing. So you're like, that's not real. That's not real. It's just not real. So it doesn't matter.
Ross Bryant 31:30
This is just insulting, but you each lose one point of Sanity. [laughter]
Paula Deming 31:35
I mean, I've lost six total.
Ross Bryant 31:38
Alright, the three of you are currently free, but now that the beam of light is creating this column in the center of this space, the chanting is beginning again with slight uncertainty. Your ode to the unquantifiability of love put them off for a moment. And they were disgusted by it. They ceased their chanting, but they are now back on their game. Having seen that the conjunction of these celestial bodies has occurred, that this is the consummation of all their plans. [MUSIC: rumbling drone] You can see some of them beginning to move towards you now. (as a cultist) "Silence. Uncreation is too good for you. We will find strange and exquisite shapes to bend you into. Shapes that no mind could ever unravel, Mr. Shell." They are moving towards you. Pamela, you feel hands on you as they're trying to press you down into your chair. You know it's coming.
Rashawn Scott 32:34
I just shoot. Oh God, I know it's gonna be horrible. [laughing] Through my hand. I'm just trying to take as many head shots as I can.
Ross Bryant 32:44
Okay, so you've got people around you, so I think this would be point blank. You can shoot three times if you want, but you take disadvantage on your second two shots.
Rashawn Scott 32:54
Okay, first one is a 12.
cuppycup 32:56
What?
Paula Deming 32:57
Yes.
cuppycup 32:57
I love this for you.
Rashawn Scott 32:58
Second one, disadvantage you said?
Ross Bryant 33:01
That's right.
Rashawn Scott 33:02
Okay, so I rolled 95 on the second one.
Ross Bryant 33:04
Okay, that's a miss.
Rashawn Scott 33:05
And a 75 on the third one.
Ross Bryant 33:09
Okay, so you managed to get off one clean shot. But as I said, you will take some damage as well. Roll your damage on that one successful shot.
Rashawn Scott 33:17
That was a d8. Four.
Scott Dorward 33:20
If you spent a bit of luck and buy that down to an extreme success, you'll add an extra eight points of damage to it.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 33:27
I remember reading this in a column once. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 33:33
Good advice, Marty Shell. [laughter] Good for all your romantic and combat mechanical needs. [laughter]
Rashawn Scott 33:43
Okay, so that was four damage plus eight.
Ross Bryant 33:46
Okay, yes. So here's what happens. From the other side of the room, through the din of the chanting, you hear just [SFX: gunshots] bang, bang, bang resonate out in this space. Two of the bullets fly wild. You just see one head of this person who's trying to push you down into the chair just erupts in a gout of blood and bone. [SFX: bullet impact] They reel off to the side and tumble down stone dead. You have blown their head off. In order to do that, you had to shoot through the flesh of your hand with your "hand gun." Let's see how much damage you did to yourself.
Paula Deming 34:22
Horrible.
Ross Bryant 34:23
Your gun does d8 damage and I just rolled an eight. [laughter]
cuppycup 34:29
That Pamela was all hands. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 34:33
That doesn't seem fair to me, because it's a hand... you're shooting through the flesh of your hand, so I'm gonna halve that and say you took four damage from that shot.
Paula Deming 34:42
Oof.
cuppycup 34:44
Are we seeing Pamela shoot a flesh gun through herself? Because...
Ross Bryant 34:49
One thousand percent. That sounds like Sanity rolls to me. [laughter]
cuppycup 34:52
Yeah.
Paula Deming 34:52
Oh.
Rashawn Scott 34:54
No.
Paula Deming 34:56
I still somehow pass 57 under 64.
cuppycup 34:59
I've finally failed one with a 70 over 30.
Scott Dorward 35:03
Yeah, and I failed too.
Ross Bryant 35:05
Okay, the failures take three points of damage for that horrible supernatural violence. The person who passed no Sanity loss.
Paula Deming 35:13
Okay, this is not real. This is a dream. This is not real.
cuppycup 35:16
I am Indefinitely Insane. That pushed me over by one.
Ross Bryant 35:19
Okay.
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 35:21
No, we just fell in love,
cuppycup 35:22
Yeah, but now we can be crazy in love. [laughter]
cuppycup 35:23
Yes, Crazy in Love, which just came out.
Rashawn Scott 35:30
(singing) Uh-oh, uh-oh, no, no.
Ross Bryant 35:32
Yes. Jordan, love has got you feeling so crazy right now, because you realize that this unrequited passion that you've been nurturing for years, for Lucy Flowers, a woman whose artistic acumen and generous spirit you've seen go disregarded for so long and unappreciated that you've always yearned to be her man, her better half. That she is the wind beneath your fresh wings, that you know that there's a way that you could be together forever. That you two could share as it were, the same body. [laughter] That all physical matter is material for an underlying mathematical intelligence. And those who know it's arcane and esoteric language can forge new and incredible flesh together.
Jordan Benning (cuppycup) 36:22
What is an airplane but a duck with an engine? [laughter]
Lucy Flowers (Paula) 36:24
What are you talking about? That sounds crazy, Jordan. [laughter]
Jordan Benning (cuppycup) 36:26
Oh, did I say that out loud? [laughter]
cuppycup 36:32
I think he's gonna grab Lucy around the hip and say, uh,
Jordan Benning (cuppycup) 36:35
Lucy, this is your captain speaking. Fly with me.
cuppycup 36:39
And he's gonna try to, like, merge the bodies, maybe, like, moving toward the chair.
Rashawn Scott 36:45
(singing) Fly me to the moon.
Paula Deming 36:46
No, no, no. No, we're not going toward the chair. No, no, no, no. We just got away from that. We have to go help Pamela.
Ross Bryant 36:53
Oh no, that sounds like a contested Strength roll, maybe.
cuppycup 36:56
Oh no, I'm good at Strength. That could be bad.
Paula Deming 36:58
Oh no, I'm not. Come on. I got a lot of Luck though.
cuppycup 37:04
At least the cocaine's wearing off. [laughter]
Paula Deming 37:07
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
cuppycup 37:10
I have a hard success. 29 under 70.
Paula Deming 37:14
I rolled a 96 over 45, can I... You can't push contested rolls? Ahh!
cuppycup 37:19
you could spend a bunch of Luck to get extreme.
Paula Deming 37:22
I would have to spend 96 to get an extreme. I would have to spend 80 something. I don't have, yeah, I have 75 luck. But it's... there's not enough Luck to make that work.
Ross Bryant 37:38
Oh, dear. [laughter]
Paula Deming 37:42
Don't sound so smug about it, Ross. [laughter]
cuppycup 37:48
Love works in mysterious ways.
Ross Bryant 37:50
Love indeed works in mysterious ways. You never know when it'll strike. You never know when it'll hit like a bolt from the blue. You never know when love will pinion you together onto a articulated ritual device [laughter] of strange and eldritch power. [MUSIC: ominous strings] And you will feel yourself bent into non-Euclidean shapes as you become one of the chosen, not a sacrifice, but an offering. You are taking on a form more perfect than the one that you had before, as you and Jordan are woven together on this chair. [SFX: mutating flesh] And what was occurring in your mind a few moments ago as Jeremy L. Derrigan kissed you is now happening in actual fact, as you and Jordan are merged on this chair.
Paula Deming 38:41
Oh.
Ross Bryant 38:43
Pamela, you blew this guy's head off. The other two shots went wild. I think that people are kind of like pushing you out of the way and like running around. One person flings their black and white jacket off, and you suddenly see a face you didn't recognize, but a torso you do recognize. It's Bo, as he...
Paula Deming 39:04
It's Towel Guy! [laughter]
Ross Bryant 39:04
As he sits down in the chair, he looks at you in the eye, and he says,
Towel Guy (Ross) 39:07
I think I learned something today. I grew up a little bit. I've been takin' and takin' and takin'. But what love really requires is sacrifice.
Ross Bryant 39:15
[MUSIC: ominous synth] And it begins to bend him into unknown and strange shapes. [SFX: flesh warp]
Paula Deming 39:23
He's so giving! [laughter]
Towel Guy (Ross) 39:24
[distorted] It's all for you.
Ross Bryant 39:26
The Trinity is now complete, and with these three woven forms, the beam of light in the center of this space takes on material corporeality, bends itself. And now manifesting in the center of this triangular space is a rotating, duplicating, fractalizing Penrose triangle, hovering suspended in mid-air, rotating there in front of you. It is a center of gravity somehow. You can see the body, the twisted body of Melissa Huntington there, like,
Melissa Huntington (Ross) 40:04
(gasp) It's beautiful.
Ross Bryant 40:08
As she in this shape, suddenly is squeezed out of the chair and like a thread, like pulled apart by the power of gravity is sucked into the center of this rotating triangle. [SFX: flesh movement] Someone of Jordan's knowledge of Astronomy might know it's like one of the qualities of a black hole, as she is like crushed down to atoms. This is something that astronomers and astrophysicists refer to as spaghettification. [laughter and clapping]
Paula Deming 40:42
Oh! There it is.
Scott Dorward 40:44
Yep. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 40:46
She is drawn. Her human body becoming a thread of gore and viscera reaching out towards the triangle. Jordan and Lucy, your bodies, similarly, are being crushed. Your crush has found you, [laughter] and you are being just absolutely pulverized down into atoms. The thread now moving towards this Penrose square. Bo, also likewise bent and misshapen, is moving to its third thread. Each one of these threads of flesh meets an axis of the Penrose triangle, and as it rotates, it seems to bundle them up like an obscene cat's cradle, winding them into still more non-Euclidean shapes. You can see Roger Madigan holding his bleeding leg there, kneeling on the ground like pale with pain, but just with a huge rictus of joy on his face.
Roger Madigan (Ross) 41:37
Do you see him? Do you see her? Do you see it? The love triangle.
Paula Deming 41:48
Lucy's last moments of consciousness, she just suddenly has a flash of an idea for her next book that she's certain she'll be able to write, "Patterson the Duck meets M.C. Escher." [laughter] As she (makes draining noise). [laughter]
cuppycup 42:05
And Jordan just has this final wave of relief that no one's ever gonna learn that he didn't actually have a pilot's license. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 42:15
Seeing all this, the members of this organization, the holders of the Keystone all around you, continuing to chant their numbers. Is there anything you would like to do, Pamela and Marty?
Rashawn Scott 42:28
If they're all enraptured in this chant...
Ross Bryant 42:30
Trying to run?
Rashawn Scott 42:31
Yeah, if I can get out of there.
Scott Dorward 42:33
Yeah, yeah.
Ross Bryant 42:34
You run. They're not even paying attention to you. It takes a lot of strength to run, because the gravity in this room has changed. Up is somehow different. Down is somehow different. The down seems to be wherever this triangle is. It seems to be pulling you towards it, but you're... it's not quite fully manifested yet. Pamela, Marty, you burst out of this room through the door that you came through. It sort of seals behind you, and remember, you're back now in that warren of rooms and staircases.
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 43:05
If down is up and up is down, just do the opposite of what we think we should be doing.
Marty Shell (Scott) 43:11
Does it even matter now, Pamela? Does it matter? Does it even matter if we get out of here?
Pamela Forge (Rashawn) 43:16
What's the... what are we supposed to do? Just stay in this infinite labyrinth forever. Don't you have a column to get out? I, you know, I've got things that need to be...
Marty Shell (Scott) 43:26
No, I mean, I realize now that I've been wrong about everything and what's in there, it's terrible, it's the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's true,
Scott Dorward 43:36
And I'm going to go back, and I'm going to open that door and go back in. [gasps]
Ross Bryant 43:40
(chuckles) Wonderful. [MUSIC: dreamy synth] Marty opens the door and he doesn't go back in. He falls back in, because when that door is opened, suddenly that is down, he plummets down into the triangle, and as the door, kind of like shuts behind him. [SFX: heavy door closes]
Ross Bryant 43:58
Literally falling in love. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 44:01
Yes, falling into love. [laughter] And you feel that gravitational force dragging you towards it for a moment, until the door shuts. Pamela, I will let you roll, either Navigate or Track to find your way out of this non-Euclidean space.
Scott Dorward 44:15
Oh, shit. I had Navigate. Sorry. [laughter]
Rashawn Scott 44:21
I rolled 72. My Navigate is 20, and Track would have been 25 so.
Ross Bryant 44:27
You don't have that much Luck?
Rashawn Scott 44:28
No, I have 43 Luck left.
Ross Bryant 44:31
The difference is 29.
Rashawn Scott 44:34
Yeah, I would have to beat a 25.
Paula Deming 44:38
Just a few points short.
Ross Bryant 44:40
Okay, so Lucy, Jordan, you are one with this thing, one with each other. Marty, I think you are one with it also. But what is one, really?
Rashawn Scott 44:52
It's the loneliest number. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 44:54
Yeah. Is there a multiplicity in one? Within the space of this entity, these quantifiable descriptions seem to lose their meaning and fall apart like sand in your fingers. You have transcended such duality. You are part of the triangle now. Pamela, you're in this space. Can I hear something about like, what... Just a coda from you in this zone.
Rashawn Scott 45:23
I think Pamela is feeling... As a person who's like, you know, in the nightlife and is around all of these people, and probably feels love and warmth from just like social interactions with just being like, kind of an "it" girl, and realizing that all of her people have like fallen off, have paired up, and she is now truly alone, trapped in this space. I guess she is overcome with the fact that she'll have to settle for this being her fate. That she didn't get to decide.
Ross Bryant 45:57
That's so sad. Imagine Pamela days later. Hungry, thirsty, walking upside down, up a down staircase, descending upright in a spiral staircase that seems to move laterally through a tower in these bizarre Giovanni Piranesi inverted dungeons, these MC Escher-esque zones. As you come to a door that seems to move into another room, but as you approach it is obviously facing directly downward somehow. You see there, not dressed in a towel, but I'm gonna say fully, angelically nude. [laughter] Bo. He's holding in his hand a Penrose triangle that is suspended above his palm, rotating in several dimensions at once, just tesseracting there in his palm.
Towel Guy (Ross) 46:54
It seems you're lost. You could, of course, join us.
Rashawn Scott 47:03
And I feel like this is a true Reese Witherspoon in "Sweet Home Alabama" like going back to the one who started it all. And she recalls coming out of Melissa's apartment and seeing this guy who just always has this door open, and would make eyes with her, and she never thought to approach it, because it was, you know, too close for girl code. But I guess none of that matters now. And she like, wraps her arms around him to, like, give him a big kiss to like... if there's one part of this I can enjoy, it'll be this, and the leg like pops up, trying to make it as cute and as picturesque as possible before the most violent thing happens to her. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 47:50
Yes, beautiful. Yeah, like in there in a beautiful embrace there, in this impossible, paradoxical space. What is love if not a paradox?
Towel Guy (Ross) 48:01
So glad that you made this choice. You'll love it here. It's beautiful. Because here every Wednesday is spaghetti night. [laughter]
cuppycup 48:18
Oh my God.
Scott Dorward 48:19
Nice.
Paula Deming 48:20
Keith Philby's somewhere, wondering why everyone stopped responding to his emails. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 48:27
And I'll leave you with Keith Philby just kind of looking down in his hands, glum, looking at his Blackberry. Waiting, waiting, waiting for a message in his one bedroom apartment, sighing. Sets it down, walks over to the window to look out over the Lower East Side, and as he parts the blinds, [MUSIC: eerie synth] what he sees is the sun has been replaced by an altogether different shape, and all of Manhattan is folding towards him.
Paula Deming 49:00
Oh, my gosh!
cuppycup 49:00
Wow.
Ross Bryant 49:03
As the entire space bends and turns on unseen and paradoxical axes and folded down, in, out, black, white, all dualities brought together in the triangle forever and never. The end. [laughter and clapping]
cuppycup 49:26
Very nice. Oh, great job, Ross.
Scott Dorward 49:29
That was fantastic.
Rashawn Scott 49:30
Exceptionally creepy, very well done.
Paula Deming 49:32
Body horror.
cuppycup 49:33
Thank you, everybody. That was a lot of fun. And thank you, Sig-Free and Coy and Your! Friend! Nate! I'm sure this is exactly where they thought this would go. [laughter]
Paula Deming 49:48
Now, honestly, I kind of want some spaghetti, if I'm honest. [laughter]
Ross Bryant 49:52
Yeah.
Scott Dorward 49:53
Yes.