The company starts rolling dice, making (and learning from) mistakes, and investigating what lies beyond the light.
Created and hosted by Matt (@merelymj)
In association with Blackshaw Theatre Company (www.blackshawonline.com)
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Episode transcript
The story so far
Vikki: This is the story so far.
Matt: You are Blackshaw Theatre - who, fewer people know, are also investigators of inexplicable happenings…
You find yourselves outside a theatre - the Ariadne…
The owner-manager of this venue, whose name is Tess...
Matt (as Bee): Oh, er, hi, I'm - I'm Phoebe, I'm the tech manager here.
Matt (as Errol): Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew you were coming, yeah. I'm Errol.
Alex (in character): Oh, hi Errol. So what do you do here?
Matt: You realise this is not coffee...
It smells distinctly beefy…
Vikki: Oh, it’s Bovril!
Strat: Oh, mate! It’s Bovril!
Matt (as Bee): Companies come in here and they don't stay. There's been the odd accident…
Matt: You start to get that feeling…
Alex: Like we're being watched...
Matt: Yeah. Like somewhere out there in the darkness, something is observing…
Just on the very edge of the light, as the light shades into pitch darkness, you catch a glimpse of what might be a humanoid outline…
Vikki: Life’s a game, the world's a stage, and we're all merely players.
Ariadne, Act Two
Matt: So Ellie and Alex are staying on the stage in the wings setting up; Strat and Vikki are heading up to the tech box. You head up through that route - again, you've got to go past the kitchen, that corridor is still dark.
Strat: Phone torches out.
Matt: Phone torches out. Vikki, you feel this now.
Vikki: I say:
Vikki (in character): Oh, isn’t that funny. I'm having that - that sensation that Alex was describing earlier.
Strat (in character): Yeah?
Matt: There is in fact a sort of ... it's not just a feeling of a presence behind you, there's a feeling of expectant-ness?
Vikki: Nice.
Matt: If there is a presence watching you, it is waiting for you to do something.
Vikki: Hmm.
Matt: Seems to be awaiting some form of action or performance or act, is the sensation you get from it.
Vikki (in character): I can see - I can see what Alex meant earlier. Like, I'm having that feeling, he's had that feeling…
Strat (in character): Oh yeah, it’s a weird feeling.
Vikki (in character): …you’ve had the feeling. Like, it's just odd that it's like, located in this - in this one spot.
Strat (in character): I don't know. This is the one dark spooky corridor, so…
Vikki (in character): I feel like if we turned the light on we would feel better.
Strat (in character): Absolutely, yeah.
Matt: So you go past the kitchen to the end of the corridor and your phone torches reveal a light switch.
Strat: I press that light switch.
Matt: The light comes on.
Vikki: Hooray!
Strat (in character): Do you feel better?
Vikki (in character): I do feel better.
Strat (in character): I feel better too.
Matt: It's right by - so the light switch is right by the entrance to Tess's office.
Strat: Okay, fair enough.
Vikki: Can we see into Tess's office? Or is the door - oh, there's no windows in the door.
Matt: The door is shut now.
Strat: Okay, well, we continue on to see…
Matt: Says ‘Manager’ on it.
Vikki: Okay.
Matt: So you continue on to the tech box. So you're going…
Vikki: Up the next flight of stairs.
Matt: ...up another set of stairs, you find Phoebe in the tech box, drinking a Bovril.
Strat (in character): What is it with you people and Bovril?
Matt (as Bee): Oh, we, uh ... Errol makes them. We sort of just indulge him now.
Vikki (in character): Huh.
Strat (in character): Oh.
Vikki (in character): We couldn't even really believe you had it in the kitchen.
Matt (as Bee): It's really odd. We like, send him to the kitchen and say “can we have a coffee” or “can we have a tea” and he comes back with a Bovril!
Strat (in character): I must say, like - we came here to talk about like, any weird things that might happen in this theatre. So far I don't think anything you could tell us is weirder...
Vikki (in character): Is weirder than that.
Strat (in character): ...than Errol and his Bovril.
Matt (as Bee): Oh no, he's - he’s - he means well.
Strat (in character): Oh, I'm sure he does, but it's still Bovril. And by the way, a light was off downstairs in the corridor up to Tess's … up to Tess's office. Don't know if you … don’t know if you’ve got any problems with the lighting or anything, but maybe…
Matt (as Bee): Not that I know of. I don't have any control of like, the building lights from here, just the ones on stage.
Strat (in character): Okay, well, well.. It was off. We turned it on. Good story, right? The reason we came up to talk to you, um ... we were interested in some of ... you saying about hearing about, you know, weird stuff, odd stuff about the theatre. Is it like, anything, anything, you know, specific about like, any particular stories or apparitions, anything like that kicking around?
Matt (as Bee): Apparitions? I ... I only really know about like, the accidents. But some of the companies that left, like, they ... I don't think they left just because of an accident. Like they … there was something that they didn't like about the place.
Strat (in character): Do you ever … is there anything you don't like about the … obviously you’re here a lot. Ever experienced anything odd?
Vikki (in character): Like weird vibes, weird feelings.
Matt: Can both of you please make … we’re gonna do the first roll. So this is - this is - this is the dice rolling bit of the game. Whenever somebody wants to do something that is contested by another person or that runs the risk of interesting failure, you roll two six-sided dice and you add the relevant statistic from your sheet. Can you please roll - please both roll plus Mind.
(sound of dice rolling)
Vikki: Uh oh.
Strat: Three.
Matt: Strat’s got a three.
Vikki: My Mind is a zero, so…
(sound of dice rolling)
Vikki: Four.
Matt: So the way this works is, a 10 and above is a total success and you get to effectively narrate how you succeed. A seven to nine is a mixed success, where I'll let you succeed if you agree to like, a bargain. And anything six or below is a failure, and…
Strat: We failed.
Matt: You don't succeed.
Vikki: We do not succeed.
Matt: So the thing you were rolling for there was to basically see whether Bee is hiding anything from you.
Strat: Right.
Matt: And neither of you reckon she is. You now learn from your mistakes, though. So the two of you both … I get to make a little mark on your little sheets here, and as a result of that failure, you get to either gain a new ability or trait on your sheet, or increase your Mind, Body or Soul by one.
Strat: Oh, well, that was a good failure to have at the start of the game!
Ellie: Yeah, I’m jealous of your failure!
Strat: Level up!
Vikki: Do I want a new ability or do I want to increase my Mind by one?
Strat: I’m getting ... I want a new ability.
Vikki: I'm gonna increase my Mind by one. That’s okay, right?
Matt: Yeah, go ahead.
Strat: So I would like … because the other one I wanted … the ability I have got, the one that I wanted was the ability to literally explain things away. So I'm gonna go with that one.
Matt: Okay, good. That'll be a plus Mind roll. But as a result of failing you don't get any new information out of Phoebe about odd happenings in the theatre.
Vikki: Maybe we were the wrong people to ask.
Strat: Well, we weren’t expecting any anyway, were we?
Vikki: Nope, we were not.
Strat: There we go. Vindicated!
Vikki: Got what we wanted.
Strat: Nothing’s going on.
Ellie: Alex is livid.
Vikki: We are such arseholes.
Alex: You had one … one job. One job.
Strat: We did that job. Whe didn't hide anything from us. We asked her.
Vikki: We're so good at getting information out of people.
Strat: So good at getting information out of people! Got all the information.
Vikki (in character): So have we got any other tech questions for Phoebe while we're here?
Strat (in character): No, I mean, we could start plotting. While we’re here. Might as well.
Vikki (in character): Yeah, but we're gonna go down and finish setting up the set.
Strat (in character): Well, we've finished doing the set.
Vikki (in character): It’s all done.
Strat (in character): So if you want to stay up here in your box, which is often where you are, and I'll head downstairs and…
Vikki (in character): Okay.
Strat (in character): We can talk to each other on … Oh! Phoebe, are there any mikes or anything we can have on, so we can … two-way communication between, say, to the box?
Matt (as Bee): So there's … there's a set of cans in each wing.
Strat (in character): Yeah.
Matt (as Bee): They're wired in, so you can't really, like, you can only go as far as the cable while you're wearing them, but yeah, you can talk to the tech box from those.
Strat (in character): Okay, cool. I’ll let Ellie know.
Matt (as Bee): Before we can plot, though, I need to … I need to patch, and so before I can do that I need to go into the patch room and just like, unpatch everything, so it's gonna go dark on the stage for a little bit if that's okay?
Strat (in character): Err … yeah, sure.
Vikki (in character): We should probably let…
Strat (in character): Yeah, we should probably let…
Vikki (in character): ...Alex and Ellie know.
Strat (in character): ...Alex know, because otherwise he’ll whine.
Matt (as Bee): There's a button here for the tannoy, so that'll talk through into the backstage area.
Vikki (in character): I’m gonna make use of that.
Matt: She heads off towards the patch room.
Vikki: I'm using the tannoy.
Vikki (in character): Hey, Alex and Ellie, Phoebe's just about to unpatch everything - hey guys! - Phoebe's just about unpatch everything, so everything's gonna go dark on the stage for a moment, but then the lights will come back on once she repatches and we start plotting. Okay? So we're ready to start plotting.
Ellie: We nod vigorously.
Alex: We nod vigorously…
Vikki: Thumbs up.
Alex: I'm not happy about it.
Matt: So moments later the lights start to go out on the stage, above the stage. So there’s still … the house lights are still up to a low level out in the auditorium, but there's now no light at all on the stage, including … the ghost light’s out as well.
Ellie: Yeah. So if we're starting to do light stuff, I would probably want to be sitting in the audience so that I can see the stage. But that would mean leaving, potentially, Alex on his own on the dark stage, because he's got to be one standing in the lights. So I’d probably have a conversation with Alex about that.
Alex: Okay.
Alex (in character): So … so you're just … do you have to go now? Can we not wait until the lights, some lights come back on?
Ellie (in character): Yeah, we can wait, that’s fine.
Alex (in character): That’s probably, it’s probably … I mean, from a health and safety perspective.
Ellie (in character): Well, I’d just use my torch, wouldn’t I, on my phone.
Alex (in character): Yeah, I mean, obviously, but I’m … please don’t.
Vikki: From Alex’s health and safety perspective.
Ellie: So I'm sort of trapped then, really.
Matt: Weirdly enough … so obviously, the fact that you're saying this suggests like, you've got a certain level of foreboding going on, but standing on the dark stage, you don't have any of that feeling of being watched that you had earlier.
Alex (in character): This is annoying. The one time when I thought the kind of, feeling of danger or sort of, something lurking would be here, it isn't.
Ellie (in character): Maybe it's because I’m here.
Alex (in character): Maybe.
Ellie (in character): You’re not as worried.
Alex (in character): Okay, that's a possibility. I feel that you could go down to the stalls now if you wanted to.
Ellie (in character): You sure?
Alex (in character): Yeah.
Ellie (in character): You can put the light on your phone on to keep yourself lit a bit.
Alex (in character): It’s not a problem, because I’ll be able to see where you are.
Ellie (in character): Yeah, and you can … I can hear you.
Alex (in character): Exactly, yeah. You go down to the auditorium, don’t worry about it.
Matt: As you’re speaking, a spot comes on right above the two of you. So you're just … you're now in this very hard-edged shaft of light coming straight down from the grid. And that feeling you had in the corridor intensifies like a hundredfold.
Alex: Whoa. Okay.
Matt: And it feels like … it feels like this presence, and Ellie, you feel it now as well, also in this spotlight, even though you were just turning to leave … it feels very close. It feels like it's sort of all around like, just outside the edges of the light. And the two of you, looking outside of the shaft, like looking into the darkness beyond the shaft of light, slightly dazzled, you can't quite tell whether it's just those dazzle patterns on your retinas or whether it's the light, thesort of, the spill of the light falling on actual figures, but you see the vague outlines of faces and humanoid bodies.
Ellie: Okay.
Alex: I’m like … I say to Ellie:
Alex (in character): Do you see this?
Ellie: And I’d be like:
Ellie (in character): Yes I do!
Alex: At which point, can I take action? Take an action and use the … my psychic shield?
Matt: Absolutely.
Alex: Because I'm feeling very threatened. So I shout at the top of my voice, hoping that like, Vikki can hear…
Ellie: What do you shout? “Activate shield!”?
Alex: No no no. Like, one: I just activate that particular ability. And then I shout to Vikki:
Alex (in character): Vikki, are you controlling this light? Can you see this? What the hell's going on?
Matt: First you need to roll to … both of you need to roll to keep it together.
Ellie: Okay.
Matt: Which is a roll plus Mind.
Ellie: Yeah,
Alex: Great.
Matt: Because you are being faced with an intense strange phenomenon for the first time.
Alex: Do I get to use my element of defending others?
Matt: I think you can make an argument for that, yes.
Alex: Okay, so what’s that plus?
Matt: It's plus one.
Alex: Plus one. Oh that’s good, so I’m at zero. That's better than…
(sound of dice rolling)
Vikki: Oh, nice work mate. That's a nine.
Alex: That’s a nine, so that's a partial success.
Ellie: I’ve got five, so six.
Matt: Okay, so Ellie, you do not keep it together.
Ellie: Aw, man!
Matt: You start losing it, so shade off a little bit of your quiche.
Vikki: Or pizza.
Matt: We’ll resolve you first.
Vikki: For those who aren’t quiche fans.
Matt: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Ellie: Good.
Matt: You get plus one to something or a new ability.
Ellie: Oh, awesome. Hmm.
Vikki: You had some other abilities that you were looking at.
Matt: I can get the sheet out again if you like.
Ellie: Can’t remember what they were.
Matt: While you're thinking about that…
Vikki: There was the one about being there to help others. Like, anticipating a need. And then there was one about historical knowledge.
Ellie: Let's go for…
Vikki: Or you could plus one your Mind. You could have stronger Mind.
Matt: Quickly while you're thinking about that, Alex, that's a partial success, so you do hold it together enough to do the action you wanted to do, which was your…
Alex: Psychic shield.
Matt: ...psychic defenses, which I'll get you to roll for in a second.
Alex: Okay. I’m on board.
Matt: But because it's only a partial success, you also start to lose it a little bit.
Alex: Mother fletcher.
Matt: And like, don't shade these in too heavily, because you can get those back by being talked down. So Ellie?
Ellie: I'd like historical knowledge.
Matt: Okay. So that is…
Ellie: How … can you give me example of how I would use that? Because I'm not fully…
Matt: So, if you are interested in … so it is kind of useful for all the stuff that you've been trying to figure out in this so far.
Ellie: Can I retroactively suddenly remember stuff?
Matt: You can't like retroactively…
Vikki: You can ask Matt and get a yes, I think, on stuff.
Matt: Yeah, you can … so it needs to be a specific query like, “Have there been any significant tragedies in the history of this theatre?” or something along those lines, and you’ll roll and I'll see whether you remember anything.
Ellie: Okay, I see. Sure.
Matt: Okay, so you've gained that. Alex, roll plus Soul for me, please. And you still get your plus one from defending others.
Alex: So that’s plus two.
(sound of dice rolling)
Alex: Oh dear. That’s a partial…
Vikki: Seven, eight, nine.
Alex: ...another partial success.
Matt: Okay, so you can raise your psychic defenses, your psychic shield, and shield both you and Ellie from whatever this is. But … let's keep it simple for now. But I think you will, in the process, lose it even more.
Alex: Okay. So I've got two points of…
Matt: If you … so you don't have to accept that.
Vikki: You could decide not to use your shield.
Matt: You could not lose it but then you don't get the shield.
Alex: I’m keeping the shield, I like it.
Matt: Okay, so you’re losing it a bit. And I would like to see that in the way that you are roleplaying.
Alex: Okay.
Vikki: Fifty percent lost it.
Alex: (wails)
Ellie: You have fifty percent lost it!
Matt: I'm gonna slightly put you on the spot. So what does it look like when … what does activating your psychic shield look like? Like what would Ellie see you do?
Alex: I don't think you'd actually see anything like … there's no physical barrier, and you can walk through it, it just stops bad things getting to you. But basically you can see some sort of like, light coming out of my fists and I basically just kind of go…
(sound of a small concussion)
Alex: Like that, and it's like a big … it's like a big dome that kind of evaporates out of the … my two sort of clenched fists. And I do that and it just goes:
(sound of energy warping)
Matt: And is this something Ellie might have seen you do before?
Alex: Almost certainly yes.
Ellie: Whenever he gets scared.
Alex: Yeah. Not whenever!
Vikki: Can I see this? I can see this in the tech box, right?
Alex: It’s not like “Eeek! A spider! SHIELD”. Because a spider can get through.
Matt: Yes, you, Vikki, in the tech box, can see Alex do this.
Vikki: I’m going … rolling my eyes.
Alex: It's got a very sort of grounded stance to it. Sort of like martial arts-y, Wing Chun sort of like…
(sound of energy warping)
Vikki: I think I am gonna react by … I'm pressing the tannoy and I'm like:
Vikki (in character): Hey, what's going on down there?
Vikki: Because if he's doing that, I know that that means like…
Alex: Well, I've been shouting up to her, so can she hear me?
Vikki: No, I can't hear you.
Matt: Because you're not on the cans. So what you notice … Ellie, you have no point of comparison, because you haven't encountered this phenomenon up till this point.
Ellie: Right.
Matt: Alex, what you notice is that, standing in this tight hard-edged spot, the phenomenon out around the edges of the light is much more defined and much more intense than it felt in the corridor, when you were sort of noodling around with your phone torch. And you can almost sort of like, that feeling of being observed, and that expectant feeling, is almost becoming like a physical vibration now.
Alex: Okay.
Matt: That you can … you feel like you can almost hear it as a sort of a:
(low rumbling sound)
Alex: Oh, so it’s like a low-res humming.
Ellie: Ominous tone.
Matt: So … and you, the two of you … so Ellie, you've just seen … you've spotted this going on outside the light. You've seen Alex…
Ellie: Activate.
Matt: ...put up defences around the two of you and you can just hear Vikki's voice coming through the tannoy from the corridor with the dressing room, saying “What's going on?”
Vikki: Yeah.
Matt: What would the two of you like to do?
Ellie: I think I would probably phone Vikki, because I know that she can't hear us. Alex is shouting wildly at her but I know she can’t hear us. Because I don't think … because I think we need Vikki to turn on more lights to make … because they're not going inside the light, are they? They're only in the dark bit.
Alex: So far.
Ellie: So I would reason that we need to flood the place with light.
Matt: Okay. You phone Vikki. Vikki, your phone rings.
Ellie: And for once, you answer.
Alex: Oooh, sick burn from the outside world!
Vikki: For everyone listening, Vikki has a bit of a habit of checking her phone really frequently but never actually being able to answer her phone when it rings. Well done me.
Matt: I almost feel like I should make you roll for this.
Vikki: Yeah, shall I roll? Does Vikki hear her phone? Is Ellie successful in getting me to hear my phone?
Strat: Is there signal?
Matt: Yeah, there’s signal. I don't want to do like, the hackneyed…
Ellie: Oh, yeah.
Matt: Oh, cell … mobile phones ruin ghost stories so there's just no signal.
Vikki: Let’s just incorporate them.
Matt: Yeah. So your phone rings, you feel it vibrate or you hear it ring and you answer, and the two of you are connected.
Vikki (in character): What the heck is going on down there?
Ellie (in character): There … I think that Alex was partially right. There's some kind of weird stuff going on.
Alex (in character): Partially right?! Damn near bang on it!
Ellie (in character): He's losing a bit. Ignore it, ignore what he’s saying. There’s definitely some kind of presence. They seem to be only occupying the dark space. They're not inside the spotlight. Obviously you can see shields have gone up.
Vikki (in character): Yeah, I did think … I wasn't sure if it was premature or not.
Ellie (in character): Well I mean, you know what he's like, but no…
Alex (in character): It’s better to be safe than sorry!
Vikki (in character): Fair enough, fair enough.
Ellie (in character): So I think probably, possibly, the next move’s to turn all the lights on if we can. Can you get someone to do that?
Vikki (in character): I think Phoebe's doing … she's doing the patch, which means the lights are off, so I think they'll be coming on one at a time, if we just can hang tight for a few seconds. But I could try and go and find her and get her to hurry up.
Ellie (in character): I don't know which is better to do. I don't want you getting stuck somewhere dark.
Vikki (in character): No, that's okay, I'm sure, like … I can just go and like, I think she's just around on the gantry like, sorting some stuff out, or like, round on the patch room. So I'm sure I can go and find her and then we’ll sort it out.
Ellie (in character): Okay, can you stay on the line?
Vikki (in character): Yeah, okay, I'm staying on the line.
Matt: Okay, you exit the tech box, heading for the patch room. Strat, you have just left the tech box.
Strat: Yes.
Matt: Before all of this went off.
Strat: Yeah.
Matt: Heading back to the stage?
Strat: Back to the stage, yeah.
Matt: So you are, presumably, at this point, in the corridor, probably just passing sort of Tess's office and the kitchen.
Strat: Okay.
Matt: The light’s still on.
Strat: Cool. Is everything … everything’s just as is?
Matt: Everything seems peachy from your point of view.
Strat: Fantastic! Well I'm just going to stroll down and try and go through … because I'm heading for cans.
Matt: Okay. So you’re heading towards the wings.
Strat: Yes, so I head towards the wings.
Matt: Okay. So you start heading downstairs, towards the door back into the stage.
Strat: Cool.
Matt: Alex and Ellie, you're hanging tight in the middle of the stage?
Alex: Absolutely. I am … I'm currently losing it, so I am just like…
Ellie: Tilly’s hissing.
Matt: Tilly is very much hissing.
Alex: Oh yeah! Tilly’s hissing.
Alex (in character): Is Tilly okay?
(sound of a cat hissing)
Matt: The longer you hang tight in this spot, in this shield, the more intense that vibration outside of the light seems to become, until it like … both of you feel this as a quite audible:
(rumbling sound rising in pitch)
Matt: …sort of hum.
Ellie (in character): Sounds like it's building up to something.
Alex (in character): Yeah, I know, I don't know if we should move out of the light, I don't know if we should lower defenses, what do you think we should do?
Ellie: I'm gonna need to use my ability to analyse a course - best course of action.
Matt: Okay. So the way this will work is, tell me what course of action you're thinking about, or maybe like, two possible courses of action, and roll. And we'll see if you get me to tell you which one works better.
Ellie: Okay, so I think the two courses of action would be, one is to get Vikki to hurry up, to get the lights on. The other would be for us to start to try and move, but keep the shield up, but like, to move into the darkness, but I could like, put my … we could put our phone … I could use both mine and Alex’s phones to put torches on, to see if we can use that as kind of like a mobile lighting thing. But even if we go into the dark, presumably they can't do anything to us because we've got the shields up.
Matt: You assume.
Ellie: And that would be to get into a room where there is light, so to get into the green room or to get … whatever the nearest lit room is.
Matt: Which would be the backstage corridor with the dressing room. Okay, so your two courses of action that you're weighing up are basically, effectively, hang tight and wait for Vikki and like, gee her up over the phone, or move.
Ellie: Yeah.
Matt: Okay, roll Mind.
Ellie: Oh dear. Do I get anything extra for the fact I'm taking the lead?
Vikki: I think so.
Matt: Yeah.
Ellie: And I’ve got Tilly. She’s not doing anything though.
Matt: Yeah, I’m not sure how Tilly would boost you here.
Ellie: She could just hiss.
Vikki: I think taking the lead boosts you though.
Strat: Yeah, that’s plus two, so.
(sound of dice rolling)
Ellie: That’s eight…
Vikki: Ten.
Strat: Yes!
Matt: That's a total success.
Vikki: Yes Pitkin!
Matt: Okay, here's what I'll tell you.
Ellie: Here is what I’ll see.
Matt: But rather than say like, X course of action is better, without like, any context behind it, I’m just gonna give you the like, the extra context. So having analysed everything about the situation and the phenomenon that you've seen so far, what seems to be the, sort of, the conditions for manifestation seems to be when you are lit and there is darkness beyond the light.
Ellie: Hmm.
Matt: So that seems to be the conditions for this phenomenon to appear outside the light. So basically if you stay put and this light remains on and the rest of the stage remains dark, the phenomenon will remain in its current state, and its current state is like, accelerating in some sense. If you start moving, if you move out of the light, based on what you have observed of this so far, you would sort of no longer be subject to it, because it seems to affect you when you're lit and it's not.
Ellie: I see.
Matt: But maybe if you put torches on…
Ellie: Then we maintain us being lit, which we don’t want.
Matt: Then you would … like, it would, the light wouldn't be on you, so … which is why it seems the phenomenon was different in the corridor and you only … Alex only felt it as an itch on the back of his neck. Because he … the light wasn't lighting him, it was lighting his way, so it was sort of reduced. And it's much more intense now because it is you guys who are lit.
Ellie: I’ve figured out, I think, the motivation behind what the entity wants. Sort of. A bit of motivation. It’s…
Matt: Go ahead, hit us with a theory.
Ellie: So if it's, when it's … it likes us being lit and it's all like, looking at us and intense, because it wants a show.
Strat: We’ve been saying there's this expectation.
Ellie: Yeah. So it wants...
Strat: Ghost audience!
Ellie: ...a performance. So as long as we’re … stick in the darkness, they don't see us as the performers. But as soon as we're lit, it's like, “Ah, a stage show. Let’s go be really creepy over there.
Vikki: Are you drawing on some kind of historical knowledge, Ellie Pitkin?
Ellie: I’m not currently, but I feel like there might be some historical stuff to back it up. Is now that time or should I hold fire on that?
Matt: I think what … I would like to know what you're gonna do as a result of this, like, learning this as we resolve your good roll.
Ellie: We are definitely gonna be moving.
Matt: Okay.
Ellie: So I'm gonna tell Vikki on the phone that that's what we're doing.
Vikki: Okay.
Ellie: So I'm gonna relay the fact … I won’t repeat it now but I've relayed the fact that I think this is what's happening and this is the motivation. So we're gonna move into the dark.
Vikki: So what I say is:
Vikki (in character): Do you really want me to turn more lights on or not?
Ellie (in character): So no. No lights on the stage please. If anything, turn them off.
Vikki (in character): Okay, so I'm still going to Phoebe, but I'm telling her what you're experiencing and then I'm gonna tell her no more lights on.
Ellie (in character): Yeah.
Alex: Because I'm like, halfway losing it, I'm like:
Alex (in character): Do you want me to keep these shields up? Do you think the lights going off is a good thing? I mean I don't like it being dark! Aaaahh!
Ellie (in character): That’s right. I’m going to try and talk you down. The crazy!
Matt: So Alex, I think we’ll say you can move the shield, but it’ll like, it’ll start diminishing as you … but I think probably...
Alex: It's more … it's more bigger, it's not, it’s stronger and larger when I'm rooted and grounded.
Matt: Yeah, I think it’ll … basically, if you stay rooted, it'll last indefinitely, and if you try and move with it, it'll start eroding. So what are you guys … what are you two doing?
Ellie: We are going to just … we don't really wanna stay on the stage at all, because potentially Bee’s gonna put on more lights. So we probably wanna make our way to … I don't know.
Matt: So you're thinking about moving and you're also thinking about talking Alex down, maybe at the same time.
Ellie: Yeah, I’d be, I’d be like, coaching him through the moving.
Matt: While you guys just figure out your course of action, let's … so Vikki, what are you gonna do?
Vikki: So I am out of the tech box. I'm going to go and try and find the patch room.
Matt: You’re looking for the patch room.
Vikki: Which I have realised I'm not totally sure where it is.
Matt: Yep. You know it's on this floor.
Vikki: Yeah. And it must be … I think it must be near … very nearby.
Matt: Yeah. So you exit the tech box. The lights are still on in this corridor, and basically the next door down actually has a sign on it saying patch room.
Vikki: That's what I was hoping for.
Matt: You can hear pottering inside.
Vikki: Okay, so I open the door to the patch room and I kind of like, half step in and say:
Vikki (in character): Hey, Bee.
Matt (as Bee): Oh, hey!
Vikki (in character): So there's something really weird going on in the auditorium, and I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna be totally frank with you, because I know you know about some of the work that we've been doing, you know, aside from the theatre stuff. But there seems to be some kind of spiritual manifestation that at least Alex and Ellie are experiencing on the stage, and they are convinced that, if we can not turn the lights on on the stage, that will be for the best. So I know you were about to patch new lights on so we can start plotting, but if we can just make everything go dark for a moment, that might be helpful.
Matt (as Bee): Oh god, oh god, oh god … Okay, okay, I can do that.
Matt: She throws a big master switch, and the light over you guys goes off. You are in total pitch darkness. Unless your shield gives off any kind of glow?
Alex: It doesn't … there's a tiny amount of like, energy, sort of field around my fist, but other than that, no sort of big glowing orb.
Matt: Okay. Strat, you reach the door into the wings.
Strat: Cool. Can I go through?
Matt: You can go through. You are now in pitch dark … well, light floods onto the stage from the door, and you can almost hear like, a sort of, like a whispering scattering away, almost. And around the edges of the sort of, the shaft of light coming from the door you can see, again, more intense than you experienced outside the kitchen, you can see these vague half-lit outlines and silhouettes and shadows. And you two on the stage see the door open and the light … so the light over you goes off, and the door in the wings opens, and light floods on. And you can, again, you can see the phenomenon manifesting either side of the door.
Strat: So I’m just going to stroll in.
Alex: I shout:
Alex (in character): Strat, get out of the light! They’re attracted to the light! Step out of the light!
Strat: Wait - how...
Ellie: Strat doesn’t know anything you’re talking about.
Strat: Okay, I just, I'm gonna step out of the light, because you know, we need to …
Strat (in character): I'm just gonna go to the cans so I can talk to Vikki. I think they're over here.
Strat: So I'm gonna get my phone out, I'm gonna put the thing on, and it's like:
Strat (in character): You’re meant to be testing the lights!
Ellie: And I'd say:
Ellie (in character): Turn your torch off!
Strat (in character): How … if I turn the torch off, I'm not gonna be able to find the cans.
Strat: So I go searching for the cans.
Matt: Okay. So you go searching for the cans. You guys, are you moving?
Alex: I don't know what I’m doing. I just know that I’m keeping this up and I'm basically…
Ellie: No, but I'd be telling you to take your shield down now.
Ellie (in character): We're in the dark, they can't … they only come…
Alex (in character): Are you sure? Are you positive? I don’t feel very safe!
Ellie (in character): Well, you’re losing it, and you cannot maintain that shield forever. So take the shield down.
Alex (in character): Okay.
Alex: I take the shield down.
Matt: You take the shield down.
Ellie: And die immediately.
Matt: That … so the, that sound that was, that vibration that was growing in intensity comes down in intensity ever so slightly. And then it sort of maintains. But it is still … you can still … you are still … there is light on you from the open door to the corridor, so you're not lit from above any more…
Ellie (in character): Were you born in a barn?
Matt: You’re not lit from above, but you are sort of side-lit, if we’re looking at the stage. Strat, you find the cans.
Strat: I put them on.
Matt: You put them on.
Strat: And I'm gonna press the button and go:
Strat (in character): Vikki?
Matt: Vikki doesn't hear anything, because she's not in the tech box.
Strat: I say:
Strat (in character): Vikki?
Alex (in character): She's not in the text box … tech box! She's gone to the patch room!
Strat (in character): Why has she gone to the patch room?
Alex (in character): To stop the lights coming on! They're attracted to the light, Strat! Strat, they’re attracted to the light!
Ellie (in character): All right, guys, calm down. Basically…
Strat (in character): Is he losing it a bit?
Ellie: (in character): He’s losing it a bit.
Vikki: Fifty percent losing it.
Ellie (in character): I’ve tried talking him down. So far, not very successful.
Alex (in character): No, you haven’t, no. That hasn't occurred.
Matt: You haven't done like, the in-game talking him down roll. You can do that if you want.
Ellie: Do you think I should?
Vikki: Yes, for the love of god, try to talk him down.
Ellie: Okay, I’m gonna try and talk him down.
Matt: Okay, so roll plus Trust with Alex.
Ellie: Two.
Matt: Yeah, so plus two.
Vikki: Ellie is the best person to be talking anyone down.
Matt: I reckon this is still you taking the lead, so you get plus one on top of that.
(sound of dice rolling)
Ellie: Four, five, six, seven.
Matt: So that’s a mixed success. So you can wipe out one of Alex's shaded quadrants … How do we do a mixed success on this? I don't want every failure to just be more losing it, but … but I think in this case that's all it would be … Yeah, I think in in the process of like, shaking Alex and talking him down…
Elli: I work myself up.
Matt: You sort of work, get yourself…
Ellie: That makes makes me as losing it as he was.
Matt: Yeah.
Vikki: But it's now a choice, like … right? That...
Matt: Yeah, so you don't … so this is, this is a bargain. Like, you think…
Ellie: So can I choose to…
Matt: You can choose to not talk him down, or you can choose to talk him down at the cost of working yourself up.
Ellie: No, I’m going to leave him being mental then, because I’m okay to … I’d rather have … because I'm already losing it one quadrant, so I need to stay sensible, because even when he's at baseline, he's quite one-sided because of how invested he is in the spiritual side of things, whereas I'm more in the middle. So I'm going to decide to keep things as they are. So my explanation to Strat’s now going to be punctuated with outcry from him. So what I'm saying to Strat is:
Ellie (in character): We need to turn all the lights off because it seems that Alex is somewhat correct. There's certainly something going on that reacts to…
Alex (in character): Told you!
Strat (in character): What?
Ellie (in character): ...us being lit...
Strat (in character): Wait wait wait, tell me exactly what happened.
Ellie (in character): We've been at … we were on the stage, there's a single spotlight, just surrounding the two of us, and then we could see - faces? shapes? people? - surrounding us, becoming more and more intense…
Alex (in character): There was a vibrating noise, can you hear it?
Ellie (in character): It was like the same feeling Alex described but much more intense, and then this ominous tone, which you might be able to hear because it's still happening right now.
Matt: It is now intensifying ever so slightly.
Strat: I, at this point … Oh, these guys. I'm going to attempt to just explain it away.
Matt: Okay.
Strat: Gonna use my new ability.
Vikki: Explaining away skills!
Strat: To see if I can explain it away.
Matt: So this is, roll plus Mind.
Strat: Which is … do I add my focus to the moment?
Matt: Uhhh…
Vikki: Alex is losing it.
Matt: Alex is being quite distracting.
Strat: This is me just kind of like, I just need to get on with the work and get them out of this.
Matt: So that … I mean, the way you described this when you were setting up the skill was, it was about being able to focus and sort of, not be distracted?
Strat: That’s true.
Matt: So I think this … that probably doesn't apply in this case.
Strat: Okay, so six.
Matt: Okay, so … I mean the good news is you start … well, you don't learn from your mistake yet, because you need two for the next one, but that is a failure. You attempt to … so tell me how you attempt to explain the phenomenon away.
Strat: Oh well, you know, it's … it's clearly, if you're seeing like, shadows or something, someone's probably just left a gobo on the light and it was throwing some weird shadows about. It just makes sense. And you know, funny buzzy noises? You get those from lights and speakers in theatres all the time, so what’s the deal?
Matt: As you're speaking, that…
(rumbling sound rising in pitch)
Matt: …vibration intensifies and becomes a quite recognisable…
Matt (as ghost audience) Booooooooo.
Matt: And you can now see, where before, on the edges of the light, all you could see was vague outlines, silhouettes, as of people in the dark that were sort of still and expectant and spectating, you now see one of them begin to move. And as you are trying to explain this as the effect of a gobo up in the flies, you see this entity … its arms move towards its chest, and it's almost as if it's reaching inside itself, and it flings something at you, and you guys see, actually being flung across the barrier into the light, a gob of inky shadow coming towards Strat. Strat, what do you do?
Interval
Matt: Hello, this is Matt, and this is the interval. I hope you're enjoying your ice cream. Just wanted to jump in with a few quick announcements. First of all a thank you, thanks for continuing to listen to this second main episode. We're on our regular update schedule now after a slightly wibbly launch. So we launched on a Friday with two episodes and a trailer, largely because filling your feed with more than one episode is a great way to make sure that all of the podcast services like iTunes and Stitcher and everywhere recognise that you are a real show. But we're now on a regular Tuesday update schedule, so there will be a new episode every Tuesday, a main story act every other Tuesday, with bonus episodes … bonus Backstage episodes in between. So this time next week, next Tuesday, will be another bonus episode, where you'll hear another of the company filling in their character sheet, and the Tuesday after that will be Act Three of the story, and so on and so on. I can reveal that Ariadne is a four episode, four act story. So you'll be going with this story until early December, I believe, if I've done all my maths right. We went with Tuesday because I feel like a lot of people listen to podcasts on their commutes and I didn't think Friday was a very good day to give people a new episode and say, “Here, listen to this on your commute,” because people might not pick it up till the evening and might not have a commute until three days later. So it's Tuesday - let us know what you think of that. You can find us @MerelyRoleplay on Twitter and at Merely Roleplayers on Facebook. Also, talking about launching, talking about podcast services, you should be able to find us easily on iTunes and Stitcher now. Failing that, there is the RSS feed which you can get off the main website. In fact, the main home page, merelyroleplayers.podbean.com, is still a good first port of call, because that's got all of the iTunes links and Stitcher links and everything on it, but if you listen with a particular app or use a particular subscription service, we should be showing up in the search for those now, and if we're not, let me know on Twitter or Facebook and I'll see what I can do about that. But we should be coming through on all of those now.
Next, this is your regular reminder that Blackshaw Theatre is a real theatre company. Ellie really does run it, Strat really does build set, and so on. They've actually just announced their next big production which is going to be called The Final Adventure of Frankie Fightwell by Chris Buxey. This is a show that Chris submitted a short extract from at one of Blackshaw’s New Writing Nights, which is a regular thing that they do in London, and since getting some feedback from that New Writing Night, he's written up the full show. Blackshaw is going to be producing it at the Wandsworth Arts Festival 2018. So the dates are still TBC, I think the venue is still TBC at this point, but keep an eye on the Blackshaw Twitter, BlackshawUpdate, and the Blackshaw website, blackshawonline.com, and all sorts of those places for more updates about that. The extract was really funny and kind of meta and I think it'll be an enjoyable thing, so keep an eye on that.
Final thing before I take you back to the story. We are friends of Kaiju FM, which is a podcast network. There are three shows on there at the moment and I know that they're looking to expand over the next couple of months - I think they're launching a new show in December and another one on in the new year. We are not a Kaiju FM show, but we are friends of the network. They've started running … if you if you listen to any of their shows, they've got a show called The Prestige, if you listen to The Prestige, you might have heard a trailer for this show on there. Maybe that's how you found this show. That would be amazing. That would be everything working exactly as intended. But … so we aren't a member of the network, but we are friends of the network with a bit of a mutual cross promotion thing going. They’re running ads for this show to try and launch us, which is great, really appreciate the help, and in return we are running some ads for their shows, which I'm very happy to do. I've listened to them all and I endorse them heartily. So before I let you get back to the story, I will leave you with this trailer for Kaiju FM's first and flagship show, The Prestige.
Promo
Rob Kaiju: You love movies, right? Of course you do - everyone likes movies. Well, me and my friend Sam, we love movies. So each week, we get together and we talk about movies. Sam has got a master’s, and a doctorate in English, and he's the smartest man I know. And I spent 10 years working in the British film industry. Each week we come together and make a podcast called The Prestige. Each episode we pick a film, we talk about that film, who made that film, why they made that film, and some of the more sort of film theory, literary theory ideas it presents. If you want to have a deep dive into film and film theory, this is the podcast for you. Each week, we’re out on Kaiju FM. You can find us everywhere you get podcasts. If you like movies, come check us out.
Ariadne, Act Two continued
Strat: I’m gonna try and dodge it. Try and jump out the way.
Matt: Right, roll Body.
Strat: That's more like it. That's a ten.
Matt: That is a full success! So tell me how you escape this thing hitting you.
Strat: Essentially, like … I'm still attached to the cans. I’m attached to the wall. But it's quite a slow moving figure, apparently, so as it kind of throws it to me, I'm just going to kind of step to one side, and just kind of lift the wire so I don't get any splodge on any of the equipment, because I don't want Blackshaw to be charged for any damage.
Vikki: Amazing.
Strat: And it can just hit the wall.
Alex: He’s so thoughtful.
Strat: And I’m just going to kind of look at the blob and look at the other thing, and I just kind of go:
Strat (in character): (sighs)
Strat: …in silent resignation that maybe, like the other time where I put a question mark down, Alex might be on to something.
Alex: Vindication!
Vikki: Does this help him not be losing it so much?
Matt: So you see this blob of something come towards you. You move out of the way. It impacts and splatters against the wall behind you and immediately seems to sort of evaporate, but there is a very faint sort of outline of kind of a residue on the wall.
Strat: I’m gonna turn to the figure.
Strat (in character): Oi! Stop that!
Matt: Vikki. You've…
Vikki: I'm up in the patch room.
Matt: You've been up in the patch room. Bee has thrown the big switch. As far as you're aware, that's killed any lights that are patched in through this room. What are you doing?
Vikki: I'm … well, I think … is our phone line still open?
Ellie: Yeah.
Vikki: So I'm like:
Vikki (in character): Hey, did that work?
Ellie: And I'm like:
Ellie (in character): Alex is crazy still, but yes, we're in darkness.
Vikki: Because I feel like this is just, this conversation is happening before Strat’s made his entrance, right?
Matt: No, I think this is … let's not do too much backwards and forwards. I think this is sort of, as this is happening to Strat, you're having this conversation.
Vikki: Okay.
Ellie: Yeah.
Vikki: And then you're probably like…
Ellie: Relaying it to you.
Vikki: Okay. And I'm like:
Vikki (in character): What the hell is going on down there?
Ellie: So I'm saying we need to shut that door.
Ellie (in character): Shut that door!
Vikki: And I’m like:
Vikki (in character): What door?
Ellie (in character): Yeah, so, I need to go and shut that door.
Vikki: Okay, I'm like:
Vikki (in character): Okay I'm gonna hang up now.
Ellie (in character): Because you’re gonna come down to us?
Vikki (in character): Yeah, because I'm gonna come down.
Ellie: Okay, and I'd be like:
Ellie (in character): Don't use your torch. Don't turn on any lights.
Vikki: I'm like:
Vikki (in character): Okay then. What the hell is going on?
Ellie (in character): Just fumble in the dark.
Vikki (in character): I’mma ask Bee some questions while I'm up here.
Strat (in character): Wait, wait, wait.
Ellie (in character): Well, you’ve not had much success with that so far.
Vikki (in character): Yeah, well I’m trying again.
Strat: At this point I'm asking:
Strat (in character): Why … why can't we turn any lights on? What's … what's the problem with lights?
Ellie: So I'll try to explain to you again that…
Ellie (in character): These things seem to react when we are lit. So if we're in … if we’re in total darkness, they don't seem interested. So to test that theory, let's shut the door.
Strat (in character): Wait, wait … so if they're in dark and we're in light, bad.
Ellie (in character): Yeah, if there is dark and light, and we’re in light, bad.
Strat (in character): Okay, can I make the suggestion that rather than going all dark, we then just make it all light?
Ellie (in character): Oh, and eradicate all darkness?
Strat (in character): Yeah, if we just turn all the lights on, then we can see and they're not in shadow. But if we turn off the lights off, we can't see what's going on, and who knows what happens then?
Ellie (in character): I think it's worth trying, but I am concerned that there's still likely to be some shadow somewhere.
Strat (in character): That's true. But … we can see what we're doing. I'd rather try that one to be honest with you.
Ellie (in character): Okay.
Alex (in character): I’m with Strat!
Ellie (in character): But Bee hasn’t finished patching the lights, so we can't get a full stage.
Alex and Strat (in character): Just get the house lights on!
Strat (in character): House lights and workers, house lights and workers.
Ellie (in character): Okay. So…
Alex (in character): Because it might just … it might just…
Ellie: So I’m gonna call Vikki back.
Matt: Vikki, you’re probably like, out the door and halfway down the corridor by this point.
Vikki: I’ve got some questions for Bee.
Matt: Oh, okay, you haven’t, you haven’t…
Vikki: You didn’t give me my time!
Matt: I’m sorry. Okay, so let’s start…
Vikki: I'm investigating right now.
Matt: Let's start that conversation and your phone, I guess, is gonna ring partway through.
Vikki: Yeah, okay.
Vikki (in character): But before you pulled the master … like, you don't seem freaked out. You don't seem, you don't seem particularly…
Matt (as Bee): Oh, I’m totally freaked out.
Vikki (in character): But like, but, but, you didn't even seem to question my suggestion that something … something weird was going on, which makes me think that this has happened before.
Matt (as Bee): I mean, I mean, I've heard about stuff you guys have done before, and…
Matt: What you can't hear is Vikki's stony stare at this point.
Ellie: It just says, “I don't believe you”.
Matt: As it's working on me, I think it’s gonna work on the character as well.
Vikki: I’m so sorry. This is the face I pull with people I work with all the time when I need them to do stuff they don’t want to. Okay, carry on.
Matt: So what would … you what are you trying to find out from her?
Vikki (in character): So I want to know what information you have about, like … that they're saying something about like, turning all the lights off and whether that's a good idea or not. And I want to know from you like, what experience you have of doing this in the past, and if this is a problem that we can like, resolve.
Matt: She says:
Matt (as Bee): I mean you're … you're the experts in this stuff. I only know what some of the other companies have said. Like, none of them really came to me like this about it. But I know they were … some of them were talking about things in the dark, and that they wanted a show? That's all I really know.
Vikki (in character): But this isn't something you've ever experienced for yourself?
Matt (as Bee): Not for myself, no.
Vikki (in character): So all the time that you're here, when you're like, on the stage, doing some stuff, or you're like, around in the corridor … like, I felt it in the corridor earlier.
Matt (as Bee): I mean, it's a spooky building, right?
Vikki (in character): O-kay.
Ellie: Bee…
Matt (as Bee): Sometimes you feel stuff, like something’s … you know, like someone's there, you kind of ignore it, right?
Vikki (in character): But it's never … it's never been so intense that you feel like you don't want to be here anymore?
Matt (as Bee): It's … so, the way some people have described it, it's like it wanted them to do something. I've never felt that. I've never felt like … I’ve felt like stuff's been watching, but not like it expected stuff from me.
Vikki (in character): Huh. Okay. Well, they're saying … so my phone is ringing. Hey, Ellie?
Ellie (in character): Hi, Vikki.
Vikki (in character): What’s going on?
Ellie (in character): Okay, so, Strat has a theory which is that maybe turning all of the lights on would be a better thing to do.
Vikki (in character): Okay, right. They're saying turn all the lights on…
Ellie (in character): But is that…
Vikki (in character): ...is what we want to do. So what lights? Like, we're patching them right now.
Ellie (in character): If patching them’s going to take a while, then can we do just all workers and all house lights?
Vikki (in character): All workers, all house lights. Do we need to go back to the tech box to do that?
Matt (as Bee): Yeah, that's where that's controlled from.
Vikki (in character): Okay, so I'm gonna go back to the tech box and…
Matt (as Bee): I'm gonna patch as much as I can in here while you're doing that.
Vikki (in character): Okay, and I'm gonna go and turn the house lights and the workers on for you guys right now.
Ellie (in character): Okay, thank you.
Vikki: I go back to the tech box.
Matt: Okay, what are you guys doing on the stage in the meantime?
Alex: I'm still losing it so…
Ellie: I would say in the meantime we should shut the door. Even if we've got to stand in darkness for a while. In the time it takes them to turn the lights on, all this ominous noise is getting noisier.
Alex: Okay, as I'm losing it, that’s probably what I would do, so I just bolt to the door and slam it shut.
Matt: Okay.
Alex: Or I'll probably pull it shut.
Matt: Please roll plus Body to make it to the door in…
Vikki: One piece?
Matt: Yeah.
Strat: Without tripping up and falling on your face.
Vikki: And cracking your head open.
(sound of dice rolling)
Alex: That’s a three. That is a fail.
Vikki: Oh god, Alex.
Alex: But it’s a fail, so I get a skill, right? So that's a good thing.
Matt: You do indeed. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Vikki: You can pump up your Body.
Matt: You can pump something or you can learn something.
Alex: I’m going to learn … basically if I get hit by something, I'm gonna … shut up!
Vikki: Tell us what Ellie was pointing at.
Alex: Ellie has just pointed at the one that says “talk yourself down”.
Vikki: Alex is not interested in that.
Ellie: He should be.
Vikki: He's got minus one for Mind, he does not want that skill.
Alex: Shut it down! I'm gonna seize fragments of power.
Matt: Ooh, okay. Okay, so what this means is, if something weird and supernatural tries to hurt you, you can take that opportunity to make a plus Soul roll to try and take some of its essence.
Vikki: Solid.
Matt: We’ll work out what that means in context.
Strat: Nice.
Matt: Meanwhile the result of that total fail is, you find yourself … you take two steps and then find that your third step meets only air, and you find yourself falling…
Ellie: Oh, no.
Matt: …as the trap door swings open underneath you, and you land in a heap on a crash mat underneath the stage. So down here in the understage, all you can really see at this point is the crash mat that you've landed on, and a fresnel on a stand, lighting that crash mat. And the rest of the space is pitch dark.