484 - Chiron's Doom with Jeffrey Nils Gardner
Jeffrey is a director, audio artist, and sound designer with Audacious Machine Creative, creators of such incredible podcasts as Unwell: A Midwestern Gothic Mystery, World Gone Wrong, and their newest show, The Harbingers. We sat down to explore a cursed monument and witness the death of a group of explorers in Chiron's Doom by Nick Bate.
AUDACIOUS MACHINE CREATIVE: https://www.audaciousmachinecreative.com/
WORLD GONE WRONG: https://www.audaciousmachinecreative.com/world-gone-wrong
THE HARBINGER: https://www.audaciousmachinecreative.com/the-harbingers
CHIRON'S DOOM: https://ickbat.itch.io/chirons-doom
ALL MY FANTASY CHILDREN: https://moonshotpods.com/all-my-fantasy-children/
PARTY OF ONE DISCORD: https://discordapp.com/invite/SxpQKmK
SUPPORT JEFF ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/jeffstormer
FOLLOW JEFF ON TWITCH: https://www.twitch.tv/gmjeffstormer
THEME SONG: Mega Ran feat. D&D Sluggers, “Infinite Lives,” RandomBeats LLC, www.megaran.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, where's the people?
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome once again to the Parti of One Podcast, the actual play RPG podcast where the gaming table is always set for two.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rose's always Jeff Stormer, and this week on the show, I'm joined by Jeffrey Nill's Gardner for a game of Kyron's Doom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Audacious Machine Creative is an audio fiction studio and production house responsible for some incredible podcasts that we've talked about before on the show, including World Gone Wrong, a fictional chat show about friendship at the end of the world, and their new show The Harbingers.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Harbingers is an audio fiction podcast created in Britain by Gabriel Irbina about magic and messy relationships.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is about the only two people in thousands of years capable of doing magic, and the complicated relationship that they share from being bitter rivals, the ideological opposites, the fact that they went out on a date once that they really prefer if everyone forgot about that last thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is an incredible podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is masterful fiction.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a joy to listen to.
[SPEAKER_03]: You should absolutely go check it out.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can get it wherever you get your podcasts or you can check the show notes for more information.
[SPEAKER_03]: I sat down with Jeffrey to play Kyron's Doom by Nick Bate, a game about an ill-fated exposition to Mr. A mysterious monument on the edge of the world and the absolutely doomed explorers that are on their way to investigate this weird supernatural occurrence.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is
[SPEAKER_03]: freaky and dramatic and tense, and it was such a wonderful experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: I cannot wait for you to hear it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can learn more about the game at ikbat.nitch.io or check the show notes for more information.
[SPEAKER_03]: And with all that said, let's go ahead and throw it over to me in the past so that he can get started with the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Take it past me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, you cheer me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so stoked.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have been looking forward to this game all day.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sitting down with Jeffrey Nose Gardner, Jeffrey.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for coming on part of you one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled about the game that we're playing, I'm thrilled that we're sitting down together.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is going to be an absolute delight.
[SPEAKER_03]: Before we get into that though, why don't you take a moment, let our lovely listeners at home know about what we got going on, that you might want them to know about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, so my name's Jeffrey, I am an audio fiction, sound designer, director.
[SPEAKER_00]: and creator.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I was going to tell the crowd of folks listening to this podcast, the one thing they should go listen to, that is the Harbingers, my company Audacious Machine
[SPEAKER_00]: fantasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been calling it alternately the West Wing with magic or if you want to take it from another angle.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens if you met the only other person in the world who could do magic and it was your ex so
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a fun show.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a fucking pig.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just getting rolling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about a pair of archaeology grad students who become the world's first musicians.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a ton of fun and it's just getting rolling.
[SPEAKER_03]: What, what, I, I, nothing hits harder than a real good pitch.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what, what if the only other person that did magic was your ex has got me legitimately fired up?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so stoked.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so, uh, I'm really thrilled about the game that we were playing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been looking for an opportunity to play this game and crack this open for a very long time and I'm very thrilled about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are playing Kai Rons Doom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, there is a monument on the edge of civilization, an enigmatic structure known as Kyron's Doom.
[SPEAKER_03]: No one knows what it does, or who made it, or why, it has defied all previous attempts at understanding, countless expeditions have torn themselves apart trying to learn its secret.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no reason to believe your expedition will be any different, but here you are.
[SPEAKER_03]: Three explorers standing before the monument driven to try where all others have failed, how much are you willing to sacrifice to solve the mystery of Kyron's Doom?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so excited about this game.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking over some of the options, and this just jumped out at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, old cyclopian ruins, and the fascinating kind of decay and age and mystery that are all hints at, I think it's really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a really wonderfully written,
[SPEAKER_03]: just a approachable book I found the book layout of and the writing of it is really like I love I mean you know to Jeff as designer and Jeff as book guy like the way that it's really designed so that it's like here's it you know you can pick this up and play it from moment one flip to the next page and get going like it's Jeff who has the learn games very quickly is
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... so let me talk to you like what are you what are where is your head at like what are the what are the inspiration points to come to mind like what is it where are you where are you at what do you bring into the table as we sit down to play oh gosh so the things that jumped out at me um... i uh... on first reading this book are some of these lovely like
[SPEAKER_00]: supernatural or kind of stories that blend supernatural horror with science fiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking like Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun, which you slowly realize is a story about
[SPEAKER_00]: um, a far, far future earth where the sun is going out, and, um, you know, uh, temson mures, um, locked tomb series, or, uh, you know, maybe even something like, um, oh gosh, what's the Sam Neal movie where their ship goes to hell?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, is that a vet?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a vet her.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vet horizon, yeah, you know, um, I think I am fascinated by
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, any story where there is kind of something where you're like, this is technology, but we kind of have to approach it as magic, because we just don't understand anything that's happening with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I think a lot of those influence was we're jumping out as really exciting to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm coming at this from a very similar perspective, and also I'm coming at this with like, there's the first season of the TV show, the terror when they're in the boat.
[SPEAKER_03]: The crash isn't like it wrapped up in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that, but also partially the fact that for years in the back of my mind, and I don't really know why this is the case, other than that they were like prestige shows on the AMC network
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact that, like, in my head, it is almost impossible for me to, like, fully separate the terror and the Nick and there's something about, like, old timey doctors in a horror situation that's really, like, my brain is struggle to wrap my head around it?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, there's absolutely some shared DNA there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, both fantastic shows, fascinating shows.
[SPEAKER_03]: Really, really, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there is really something like the the any I am such an absolute sucker for any time I fake I get to see someone face the impulse of Not it's not quite the same as a horror movie don't go in that door.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going in that door, but it is that sense of like
[SPEAKER_03]: we know that the more that we pursue this this knowledge or this like revelation or this mystery the know it's going to destroy us and we can see it happening but at this point the only the the sunk cost experience of like
[SPEAKER_03]: the only thing we can do is dig it is dig it deeper and see if see if something makes all of this worth it at the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and that's that's such a fun thing to play with in games like this where you're like, I, you know, I'm not worried about my characters surviving to a next session and in fact, it's probably better if some more all of them die and so let's just leave it all on the
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so excited.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really stoked.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm ready to dive right in and to do that, we have to first decide what the genre of story that we're in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what are you, are you how sci-fi, how fantasy, like, what comes to mind when you visualize our explorers approaching the monument of Cairon's doom?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, I am definitely picturing kind of survival space suits, um, and I think, um, but I think there's something exciting about
[SPEAKER_00]: this monument that is both technological and so incredibly old that it's, you know, it is rotting and maybe a little, a little gothic in that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm gonna throw in, I'm gonna throw in, throw some seasoning into the broth because like with a lot of, thinking a lot of these like reference points, a lot of where my head is at when I think about survival spacesuits and I'm visually like, the thing that really comes to mind or maybe like the thing that like, I keep kind of jabbing at, and I think maybe it's because I'm thinking of like the terror in the neck and like this like very specific aesthetic.
[SPEAKER_03]: like the only way that I can describe this is like uh... hg wells as space to divers to oh yeah i salute guys in a bullet who have been shot into space uh-huh yes great fantastic yeah there that hits yeah brass is it this is all very brass
[SPEAKER_03]: great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I think that we've got to vibe.
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to build our monument and the first way that we can do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a table if you want to pull on a card or two to get some words and ideas or if you've just got like visual reference points, images, images, textures, feelings, smells, etc.
[SPEAKER_03]: Either what comes to mind or if you want to pull
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the idea of pulling cards here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that kind of random generation is rad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's pull.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why don't we each pull?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to pull from the first two, which I think our hearts and you pull from these first two with these four decks, which are separated by cards, and I'll pull from the back two.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've got eight and the eight of spades and the king of clubs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, six of diamonds and the five of hearts.
[SPEAKER_03]: The, let's say the king of clubs, colossal, colossal is good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, colossal feels natural and then the eight of spades.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the king of clubs is actually incomplete.
[SPEAKER_00]: colossal looks like this is the ace.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was the up.
[SPEAKER_03]: You actually absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was I was counting my numbers wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, incomplete incomplete and demonic are a power combination and looks like from diamonds and hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have humming and grotesque.
[SPEAKER_00]: Woo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... so are we sure we want to go to the monolith knowing all these things now i mean i mean we're going like that that march decided uh... i'm not back and out now uh... but fuck uh... i get the if there's something so compelling about like incomplete
[SPEAKER_03]: In completing grotesque about like this has been this is some kind of horrible like Demonic really pulls to me like Fleshy as like like fleshy like there's there's fleshy and there's bone and there's bodies and Things have been like bent into a shape in that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure
[SPEAKER_03]: I get body horror vibes almost immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little bit geeger if humans had been incorporated into it too, maybe a little bit of like hell razor flavor.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I almost the visual like pulling on, pulling on like a super specific ref.
[SPEAKER_03]: I almost get like the visual that I almost get is like end of Akira.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fleshy explosion, fleshy explosion comes to like feels like it's really, it's really floating in my head.
[SPEAKER_03]: What about you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What are what's what things are taking shape for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so incomplete.
[SPEAKER_00]: really is lighting up my brain because if this is a built structure, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: Incomplete says to me that something happened to the people or the creatures or the food that was building it, that stopped it part of the way through, and whether that was something inherent to the structure itself, whether it killed the people who were building it and incorporated their bodies into itself,
[SPEAKER_00]: or if someone else came along and said, whoa, this grotesque, fleshy thing, you cannot, we will not stand to have this in our solar system.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think either of those are really exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think either, either, so here thinking about, because I've been thinking a similar thing, and I want to throw you a really specific visual wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: elephant graveyard is what pops into my head like it's extremely or like like the cartoon picture of an elephant graveyard of like dinosaur bones shutting out that are larger than the larger than than comprehensible like jutting out of the earth all around this uh...
[SPEAKER_03]: all around this uh... this monument is really is really got me got me uh... creeped out but in a very fun way oh yeah no that's that's delicious uh... and and the way that like
[SPEAKER_00]: It leads, and I love pulling in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that colossal wasn't actually what we pulled, but I want to pull that in anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's juicy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's juicy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to tell you that these bones are way bigger than is comfortable, and then the tower, the monument is even taller than that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's that really hits that really hits.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got our our we've got our picture of our monument.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got our we've got like the world that we are occupying now we're going to flip three cards and that is going to give us a picture of who our three explorers are.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will throw this to like the three cards that we flipped are we're just pulling the numbers here the three numbers are a six a practitioner or forbidden sciences
[SPEAKER_03]: we've got a five, which is an expert in alien intent.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this is, this is all mapping very nicely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we've already, this is it that we've built out here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And an eight, an artist, now this is, now this has got, this has got some, some own, but an artist with an uncanny vision.
[SPEAKER_03]: What, what details do you want to add to these three characters?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, uh, is there, like, uh, who, which of the, what, what, what, what, what the words?
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you, uh, what's coming to mind?
[SPEAKER_03]: As you look at these prompts about who these three explorers are?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so, you know, I think for me, the first question in a group of three people like this is is one of these people in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I want to put a, like, thumb on the scale for the artist with the incanny vision is in charge of this expedition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there is, there is a way in which having, like, I see why the other two people
[SPEAKER_00]: on a on a trip to a thing like this, but I feel like an artist with an uncanny vision like that feels like someone who
[SPEAKER_00]: might have put this whole thing together and said, oh, I need to, I need to see this for myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that hits, that hits really hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so we've got this list of prompts here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if I'm trying to think if there's any of the details that I want to throw in before starting to throw these prompts at the wall, because we're gonna answer a prompt from one perspective of one explorer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, there's a, there's a secret.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of them is what secret are you hiding from the other explorers?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I want to throw, we've built a very nice bonfire here, and I want, and just the opportunity to throw as much gasoline on this as possible.
[SPEAKER_03]: The secret that our expert in alien intelligence is hiding from the other explorers is that they were the sole survivor of a previous expedition.
[SPEAKER_03]: they've they've seen what the monument can they've seen what the monument holds in some capacity uh and they've seen you know the ways in which it breaks reality uh they have they have born witness to it and they've seen some number which I am leaving blank to discover as we go but some number of people have been
[SPEAKER_03]: left have been have been killed in the wake of this monument and they are very very aware of that fact and it raises the very big question of like, why are you why are you back here?
[SPEAKER_00]: What promise have you sworn to fulfill?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who have you promised it to?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is maybe it could be a little bit of a secret, but for this practitioner of forbidden sciences, I love the idea that they have our here to try to destroy the monument.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they have made a promise to whatever kind of organization or school or hidden cults is teaching these forbidden sciences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are here to bring the monument down.
[SPEAKER_03]: That feels great.
[SPEAKER_03]: That feels incredible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I am pulled towards the prompt, uh, the first prompt here for our, our artist, what drove you to seek out Kyra on Zoom.
[SPEAKER_03]: If they are leading this, uh, this, this expedition, what immediately comes to mind and I'll throw this to you, uh, to see like, if you've got anything to add to this or we're taking a different direction or like what you're feeling, but like what immediately comes to mind
[SPEAKER_03]: this, this, the fact that there are so many previous expeditions, the fact that so many people have chased after this, uh, this monument and the fact that like the blood and flesh of people is baked into this thing, like
[SPEAKER_03]: This is, in some way, like, a story and a, a, a, a human experience or a, a colossal experience that is larger than any of the people that have died in pursuit of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so like to be able to.
[SPEAKER_03]: encapsulate that or to be the person to truly like catalog that story or to tell this to be the person to be gifted with the ability to tell this story is like a like is a life is like
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... i have the culmination of generate like there are generations lost to this monument and i will be the person to reap the rewards of those generations i i love this i think um... the spin i want to put on the character is uh... uh... did you see velvet buzzsaw
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it is, it is an uneven movie, but the piece that is not even uneven is, um, uh, oh, gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also in rounders, um, John Melkovich's performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he's so good, but, but in that he is an incredibly talented artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: who has gotten to a point in his career where everyone just says whatever he does is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, that is really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's, you know, we'll never have to, he'll never need more money or anything like that, but he still is pursuing like real art.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he has at a point of success where no one can say to, like no one is willing to say,
[SPEAKER_00]: No, this is not good or like you've become irrelevant and you are you're no longer saying anything and this person is chasing that true like I can create something that means something by going here and and telling the story in the way that none of these other people have been able to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: that that hits so fucking hard is the thing uh... that feels so good uh... do we want to slaps do we have to we have names pronouns uh... anything that we want to add to these characters oh uh... i'm throwing her eyes in out as a first name for our artist because her eyes in as a name hits i love it i think what's the what's it what's the last name
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, they're, they're an artist, maybe it's just horizon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just horizon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Horizon is our artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our practitioner for Ben's sciences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um,
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy, I don't know why this is, but I'm looking for something that fits in that HG well space without going into corny, yeah, maybe something like able.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I don't know why the last name, uh, Dr.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've written down because I wrote down as you were talking like I was just writing down notes and I wrote down two things together that are funny, uh, but like, uh, Dr.
[SPEAKER_03]: Able Farmhouse or S. Quieter as somebody with multiple degrees and that's the different fields like as a as a as a as a thing like that feels very good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, like, there's something compelling to me about, like, the name, like...
[SPEAKER_03]: X, the letter X, and I'm thinking and tell me if a last name comes to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Something like X, anonymous, or X, card, holder, or X, something where this person for their background and for their expertise and has so deep in the weeds that their name is just a series of anonymizers
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... like that is the it is the equivalent of their their name is the equivalent of like a three-level encryption uh... encryption cipher that has been placed on tax that's where my head is at uh... yeah you know something like x-43 blue x-43 blue
[SPEAKER_03]: It's 43 blue is really good.
[SPEAKER_03]: X43 blue hits blue X 40 blue X 43 hits it hits it like it's hard as a name that is utterly incomprehensible men is and but can be hypothetically like ciphered back if you were to break it down into an identity.
[SPEAKER_03]: This this is great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so I'm so thrilled to watch these characters have nothing bad
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so we've built this monument, we've built our explorers.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are going to prepare our deck, which means we're going to prepare an expedition deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a collection of cards that we will draw and answer prompts that represent the many days of our expedition and we're also going to put together disaster decks, which are the obstacles that we might encounter.
[SPEAKER_03]: Traditionally, we would pull these from
[SPEAKER_03]: and we're done.
[SPEAKER_03]: The guards are in place.
[SPEAKER_03]: Better living through technology.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we're going to learn from this game is that the relentless pursuit of technology will only benefit us.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's I am sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's I think that's what we're getting towards.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: With that, we're now ready for to begin our expedition.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... this opens with a prologue that sets the scene for the challenges to come then we are gonna flip cards from our expedition deck to find out what happens with each flip of the card representing a new day for our ill-fated heroes the expedition will begin to unravel slowly at first before finally spiraling into disaster uh... and our goal is to uncover the hypothetically six revelation cards that are buried in our deck
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, before we are, uh, before we are killed or we abandoned the mission or all of our lives are completely unraveled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we begin with a prologue, the column before the storm, a chance to introduce our explorers, explore their relationships, and get a glimpse of the monument through their eyes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Each of us will choose to respond to one of the following scene prompts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our characters arrival will take days who the last one to arrive to the monument is and how they're greeted by the others.
[SPEAKER_03]: their last meal, the final meal together before they head out, or private vignettes that take place on the night before the expedition one for each explorer.
[SPEAKER_03]: What scene?
[SPEAKER_03]: Which of these three scenes do you want to to set up?
[SPEAKER_03]: I will set up the arrival.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is the last person to arrive at the monument?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it's got to be our artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: that feels great as they are the leader being the last person to show up and as someone who professionally gets artists to show up on time actually I joke about that my actors are phenomenally punctual and often early so I have really looked out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: If anything, I said, yeah, I make the same joke when realizing that the first of the disposed frequently late to party of one recordings is me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like, I have to own that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to know who I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know what, I also, I hang out with a lot of musicians and never have they been even closed on time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, that's a bad, that's real, that's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so I'm what I, what is so exciting to me, and I guess I want to hear it like they're like here like pitch this to you of me like here your thoughts like that means that blue x 43 and doctor farmhouse are like There at the same time without the person that has ostensibly hired them.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are they talking about?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like how much do they share with one another?
[SPEAKER_03]: What is the dynamic between these two when they are not when the when the boss is not around?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I mean, okay, let me let me throw out a picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think blue x43 is actually invested in making a good impression.
[SPEAKER_00]: on Dr. Phamparzer because they have been to the monument and know how badly things can go and know that they need to be able to work together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they need to be on good terms but also are actively trying to hide secrets and so don't get anything from kind of being standoffish
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and I think building on that, like, thinking about it from Dr. Farmhouse's perspective, like he's here to destroy this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like he is, he has been hired to, you know, embark to this thing and be here on this expedition.
[SPEAKER_03]: and he also is operating with the ulterior motive and you know I think even probably even more so when he sees the size and the scope of it and like is confronted by the reality of what this thing really is
[SPEAKER_03]: it's going to take every he's he's not going to be able to do this on his own so like he's also read like he's almost certainly being also fake friendly in a way to like quietly get blue x43 on board for when it's going to happen uh... for when the real mission kicks in
[SPEAKER_03]: So there is like such an energy, there is like such an energy of fain depositivity of these two people interacting in this space before horizon shows up and like I guess the question for the question for you is like
[SPEAKER_03]: Do I either want like do either or both of them pick up on the fakeness of the of the platitudes or are they both kind of or do they both kind of buy into it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look I think I think when you're trying to keep a secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: you often forget to look for something suspicious on the other person's part.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless you're in a larger group dynamic, but when you're had a one on one with someone, I think they both are keeping such a close eye on what they are revealing.
[SPEAKER_00]: that they're not picking up on the fact that the other person is also hiding something.
[SPEAKER_03]: That, that goes so hard is the thing that they both think I'm play in the other person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, just like a fiddle.
[SPEAKER_03]: That goes so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I,
[SPEAKER_03]: How does her horizons are rival?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what is that arrival look like and how does that alter what we are?
[SPEAKER_03]: What we are seeing from these interactions?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love your notion of a kind of torpedo human delivery system in part because it implies there is, you know, a ship in orbit.
[SPEAKER_00]: and also that like getting out is not as simple as getting back into a craft and leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think maybe it is a certainly more comfortable but kind of small
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, craft delivery system that impacts the Earth a ways away from camp and then horizon needs to walk into the base camp.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that, and I love that it, it by default, like the arrival of this, like by deflect, like there's no way for that, there's, that means that there's no way for a rival to be subtle.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, it means that Blue X43 and Dr. Farmhouser immediately know that Horizon is here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And like, for two people that are hiding secrets, they both know that like, oh, I got it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, they've already switched it on for each other, but like,
[SPEAKER_03]: it means that they have to, it gives them time to prepare.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's such a compelling dynamic.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would love to segue into our last meal together, which I think is like, I think the character detail that comes out to me in this, or that I really want to throw into this, because I think it sets up a lot of things for later.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think,
[SPEAKER_03]: like I think they are provided like they've been given there are rations that have been on the rockets they are they've all brought rations and supplies and the one set of rations that they have that is different than the rest is for tonight you know they've got survival rations for every meal going forward but they've got like
[SPEAKER_03]: A bottle of wine, they've got like a rotisserie chicken like they've got like actually like nice nice dinner Together, you know, or the or the or the MRE equivalent or like the the I've loaded you in a rocket equivalent of like a nice meal before you embark.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and I think go ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I was going to say that I think there's the opportunity for that very, you know, age of sale, weirdness of like this is an expeditionship, um, and, you know, people are living on really thin rations and all of those things, but also,
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a full set of China and silver dishware because the officers are gentlemen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe there was a fourth torpedo that came down with a full set of silverware and a white linen tablecloth.
[SPEAKER_00]: For this meal and they kind of all know that we are going to be going out and roughing it from here, but
[SPEAKER_00]: here we have this really, you know, strange juxtaposition of blasted landscape and silver candleabras.
[SPEAKER_03]: So and silver and and and silver candleabras with while people in like arc like our Arctic survival gear with like dive suits sitting nearby are like our
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the intercharacter detail that I think is really significant to for me that sets up a really fun character dynamic is that horizon horizon has seek has sought out these other these two individuals horizon like has sought these people out and I think horizon saw them out in part because
[SPEAKER_03]: I could get anybody, I could get whatever, I could get whatever yes men wanted to feed my ego by accompanying me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I sought out people who in my opinion will tell me no, you know, if this whole, if they are so driven by this desire to be told no or to feel like they are among peers,
[SPEAKER_03]: they are desperate for.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they are so desperate for this that they don't realize that sure enough, Louis X43 and Dr. Farmhouse are immediately start feeding there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like they are for the first time in a very long time horizon is susceptible to having their ego fed because they're like, I picked out the people that would never do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people who are experts in their field, they are, you know, to some degree defined by the fact that they are the people who know about these esoteric sciences and alien intelligence.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so like, and so, and they're both coming at this with I need to play the game and I need to make sure that horizon doesn't think something is going on and horizon is like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, this is a good dynamic to be kicking things off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: With all of that said, we have set our stage, we have met our characters, we've got some very fun dynamics laid out here in front of us.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you like to, would you like to draw, actually, I think I ain't no button?
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you like to draw our first card off of the expedition deck?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: the meaning of diamonds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, that is a revelation.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this will go, this is a secret revealed.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have revealed a secret.
[SPEAKER_03]: And our first day, we have the ship has embarked.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are in the thick of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the prompt for you to, for you to describe here is that the explorers take a big risk and it pays off.
[SPEAKER_03]: What was the risk and did it pay off in the way that they expected?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the, the first thing they have to do is to reach the monument.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: if this is kind of a graveyard of bones, it would be possible to kind of travel slowly around and get in through kind of a safer, but that would add weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: to this expedition, or you can cut straight through the thicket of bones and do it in days.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think the big risk is going directly to the monument and I think I'm going to pitch
[SPEAKER_00]: They reach the monument quickly, but maybe
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in doing this overland travel, they have kind of sleds of supplies and gear and technology that they are hauling and at least one of those sludges gets stuck or broken or lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they are reaching
[SPEAKER_00]: the monument without everything that they had kind of assessed, like, okay, if we have X number of rations and the, you know, 400 feet of rope and this number of ptons and gears and things like that, we can safely do this and they have not only chosen to rip it to rush, but our
[SPEAKER_03]: are now not as prepared as they should be I would love to propose another way that this pays a pays off in three separate sets of quotation marks because this also I think immediately kicks off the horror and it pays off in a second way as well because we are now like in the guts of this graveyard we are
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, inching towards the guts, uh, we are inching towards the monument itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we are, we are in the, the inwards of chiron's doom and I think like the thing that occurs and I, I think it is, uh, it is blue X43 that has this moment, uh, because I think it's really compelling to have that it happens to the person that has been here before, uh, thing that has not happened to them before.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the monument starts talking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that there is like a whisper, maybe it's at the first moment like a whisper on the wind.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like maybe words that are not even legible at first, but like voices start coming in almost immediate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like once we get into the guts of it and start this overlay and travel like whispers and whispers and words and sentences start trickling their way in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me pitch on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one of the descriptors that we pulled was humming and if everyone else is hearing this ominous humming and glue X43 is starting to pick out words and they're not sure oh is this because I've been here before is this something especially speaking to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: that hits that hits really hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's real good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good first card draw.
[SPEAKER_03]: Real fired up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to flip our next card.
[SPEAKER_03]: We begin the second day of our exposit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Incredible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect timing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've drawn the two of clubs and two's have a particularly interesting effect.
[SPEAKER_03]: a little bit about the layout of our expedition deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: I should explain to the listener what cards are in here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our expedition deck contains the king of diamonds, five more diamond cards that are drawn randomly, and the two of hearts clubs and spades at the start of our game, that is what is included.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kings always represent one of our explorers dying, so the king of diamonds, one of us could die at any moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... five diamond cards represent uh... revelations about about the monument so we've learned things about the monument whenever we draw diamond our goal is to draw all six of those diamonds choose
[SPEAKER_03]: represent disaster.
[SPEAKER_03]: What this means is that when we draw two, something goes horribly wrong, and the situation worsens, we will describe how the Terrier Asian manifests and shuffle cards from one of the disaster decks into our expedition deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, this is the two of clubs.
[SPEAKER_03]: The monument resists?
[SPEAKER_03]: Good, good, good, good, good.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are deep in this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are traveling by, we are traveling over land.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got our sleds dragging behind us and like a body invading cells.
[SPEAKER_03]: The monument starts to resist the explorers' intrusions.
[SPEAKER_03]: Describe the physical manifestation of this resistance and shuffle the clubs disaster deck into the Expedition deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great, we are adding this to the deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are shuffling this deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is that resistance look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: immediately, uh, the first thing that comes to mind is that the landscapes starts changing and that like bone, what we had perceived as bone fragment, start naturally occurring throughout the monument in ways that like both put us in danger, like a sudden, a sudden spike of a rib of a rib like punctures the earth and nearly stabs one of our explorers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and I'm going to do, we're going to work, we're going for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, like, I had described the, the makeup of the monument as like flashy sort of a kira-esque of like flesh and metal and bone all kind of like strewn together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think like the, um, as our explorers are traversing by land.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... what i'd said happens like a rib like a sharp jagged rib like a rubs out of a out of like a sand dune or like a cluster of rock and like
[SPEAKER_03]: narrowly avoids impaling one of our explorers.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I am going to say probably because he's in the front.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like Dr. Farmhouser is like narrowly avoids getting impaled and does get like a scratch along the neck right where the neck meets the chin like the slightest scratch.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think like, you know, it's like, you know, he wraps.
[SPEAKER_03]: He got a wraps bandages around his neck.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's got his neck bandage up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that night, as he lays down, he got a stiffness in his shoulder.
[SPEAKER_03]: And like when he goes and he like takes off his survival gear and looks, there is like a bow, he can see through the skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: like a bone cluster forming that is like a foreign body entity of like oh fuck oh no oh and I think I think blue x43 has seen this on their previous expedition and doesn't warn Dr. Farmhouse or what is happening because that would feel that they had seen this before.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that would reveal they can't, they can't know this, but I think there is a like there there is at the same time a moment that maybe farmhouse or like does it notice when it happens, but maybe starts to like think about in retrospect where like when they are kind of eating their survival rations at dinner.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe like farmhouse or goes to like like opens a thermos of water or soup and like goes to pour some into into into into blue x43's bowl and blue x43 like jerks back in a way that's like no no I could I'm I'm already I've had my fill today But in a way that's like why would you get so defensive about it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_03]: That's okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you like to flip our next card, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Six of clubs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six of clubs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The monument induces an unpleasant physical or emotional sensation in one or more of the explorers.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it cost them to resist or power through it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think
[SPEAKER_00]: The monument is now whispering in X43's, you know, the back of their subconscious, um, you know, that it's happening again with Dr. Farmhouser and that,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if he has been wounded like this so early, they have no chance of really getting inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it cost them to resist or power through?
[SPEAKER_00]: they are now also ignoring kind of their better instincts and some of the kind of actual safety warnings of their subconscious and so they are taking more risks as they go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that feels great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, this is hitting.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is all hitting real hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh boy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it just keeps getting better.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've now got the queen of the queen of clubs.
[SPEAKER_03]: New information casts a previous discovery about the monument in a sinister or frightening light.
[SPEAKER_03]: What has changed and how does it cast it out on the whole expedition?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is absolutely when X43 lets it slip.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, because I think what happens.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I don't know why TikTok has been has been re-asserving me at.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why the trend that I've been rocked into on TikTok lately has been people recreating moments in movies when somebody figures out who the villain is because of a slip-up.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a specific thing to be getting served, but I'm getting served so many clips.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's one of those moments of, um, here's the scene I want to set up.
[SPEAKER_03]: it's the end of the day they've been traveling um and uh farmhouse are i think there's a confrontation maybe horizon like maybe horizon angrily confronts farmhouse or and is like you know uh we all agreed to we all agreed to do our part we all agreed to take part
[SPEAKER_03]: literally and figuratively have not been carrying your weight in the last day.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have been dragging these sleds of equipment and like you are you are awkwardly managing it with one arm and farmhouse or has to like let's let like like reveal like yeah it's because
[SPEAKER_03]: and he takes off his like he like pulls up his shirt and like the bone fragment is pierced the skin and the arm is like like tendons of metal are visible in the arm and like it is it has like it has escalated dramatically he starts to show this and he starts to show this and uh... x-43
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's lip, uh, and it started to like explain what has happened, and uh, and it's like, yeah, it's because like I was cut and it started to change me and like I don't know what's happening, but if you think I'm going to carry, if you think that I'm physically capable, if you think I'm physically capable of carrying my weight, you're wrong because something is going wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, I'm hurt and I'm tired and X43 quietly, like, like, let's still look like, like, uh, uh, in, in a way that seems like they're giving support quietly, let's look like, and nauseous and, uh, and farm housing gives us a stop of like, I haven't been nauseous.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you, why would you, why would you leap, why would you jump so readily to nauseous?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let me, and I think the spin I want to put on that is that it's not until later that night when Dr. Farmhouser is woken by just horrific stomach cramps, that they realize that
[SPEAKER_03]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because that means that farmhouse and farmhouse and wakes up the group and wakes up the group not only being sick but also being like, hey, I'm nauseous and we need to have a fucking talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, we need to talk about some things because why am I now?
[SPEAKER_03]: Why am I nauseous now?
[SPEAKER_03]: That hits.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what does that do to the dynamic between the three of them do you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's such a good question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think that there's like a...
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a...
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so interesting because like immediately like that aligns or drawn in a lot of directions very quickly like there's an immediate reaction of and I think it's an question that you and I haven't actually discussed are that like a blank space blank space on our on our docket that I think is fascinating to dig into it this moment which is
[SPEAKER_03]: Why is X43 here?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think the confrontation is the two of them, like, is like, they drag this out of Blue X43.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they have to have the big question of, so you were here before.
[SPEAKER_03]: why are you back like what like why lie to us so that you could come back here and I think like there is the big confrontation whether x43 is honest or not about it of hey you need to you need to tell us what the fuck you're playing at because why did you lie about not being here before what are you what are you are clearly playing at something and not telling us what that is
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and X43 is the expert in alien intelligence, it's correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy, um, did they see something on the last, um, trip that makes them think that the monument is, you know, clearly there are biological components, but that the monument
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so good because, especially, careful with the fact that they've been, they've been hearing it, speak to them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to build, okay, that I'm going to build on that and say, like, it is, they had a moment with the captain of their previous expedition, right before he died.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was an interaction that they had before he walked off of the ship into the mist into the depths of the monument it was never seen again where he said that the monument was calling to him and that the monument had the sea the monument was ready to share the secret that was going to make sense of it all and in the back of X43's
[SPEAKER_03]: there's the lingering question of what if he was telling the truth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And sure enough, now they're hearing words and they're hearing whispers.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now it's seeming like that captain might have been telling the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or have been, was fooled by the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so like I think the dynamic changes because like now X I think and I think like that gives X 43 a tremendous amount of power in that moment of Here's here's what I'm hiding and here's why I think that it's all working out like here's why I think that I'm in control here Which I think would make horizon even more excited about like yes
[SPEAKER_00]: you lied to me, but like we need to redouble our efforts and keep going rather than, okay, like you're going home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if BlueX43 has some kind of connection, that is just more that horizon can kind of draw out of the, of the monument.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, give us our next card.
[SPEAKER_03]: King of Diamonds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fuck.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we said that we said that we really wanted somebody to die.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's get, let's get murderers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: King of Diamonds.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the explorers dies in an accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: What secret does their death reveal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that they reach the bottom of the monument, and are having to scale the surface to get into the lowest entry point, and they have not quite enough
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, polis and carabiners and rope.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they've kind of Jerry rigged some things and they, you know, blue X43 climbs up first and is able to anchor a point so that they can belay up from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And horizon goes up next and gets up.
[SPEAKER_00]: is climbing with one arm and as this kind of bio-mechanical thing grows in his shoulder, it is spread further and further.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after, you know, halfway up, the rope snaps and
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think the other two are kind of recovering from this gathering their equipment.
[SPEAKER_00]: They make a small camp just right within
[SPEAKER_00]: the door of the monument or the opening, the orifice of the monument, and partway through the night here, a noise, look down, and they see Dr. Farmhausen get up and skitter away across the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Huh, fuck yeah, fuck yeah having, you know, the biomechanical things spreading through them having taken over and and taking the body into the, uh, into the monument through some other metaphor.
[SPEAKER_03]: yeah that's great that hits that's hard that's great uh cool we've learned some more about this uh this monument uh and honestly feels great the more I learned the heavier I am
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... i love i love how many clubs that we're pulling i love that this monument is really making our lives bad it feels so good uh... this is the five of clubs the monument takes something from the explorers what is it who needed at the most and how are they affected by its absence um...
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, X 43 and Horizon are dragging now three people's worth of sleds, uh, piece by piece and they've kind of got their base camp, uh, but they can only carry so much on them at a given time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like they've lost one person's worth of carrying capacity.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they've kind of had to like set up the base camp.
[SPEAKER_03]: and take only what they could need for a day's expedition like as they descend to each individual cave of this mammoth structure of bone and flesh and metal they can really only take what the essential survival supplies and as they are embarking back to base camp one day you know they've got they've got they've got their their hooks and ropes and they're kind of
[SPEAKER_03]: as like they are they are walking through the tunnel they kind of see like the opening into a clearing where base camp is set up and they watch a mass of flesh and metal reach out on both sides.
[SPEAKER_03]: and quite literally like shove the base camp into the ground, like into the fleshy pits of the ground, and the entire base camp and the supplies are consumed.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now they are in these caves with only what they have had carried on their back.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like maybe it may be a days each worth of survival rations some rope a hook like and, you know, I think that horizon in particular is like mortified not because of the survival supplies, but because
[SPEAKER_03]: all of their art supplies that they were using to like catalog this are gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oof.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means they are just that more desperate to kind of preserve it within their own head.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which means they're desperate to even go deeper.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ha ha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two of diamonds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, uh, the two diamonds changes the game even further because the two of diamonds, uh, the monument changes dramatically and the mystery deepens describe the transformation, alter a descriptor or add a new one and then I'm gonna shuffle an additional diamond card into our deck.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to pull a card from up here, all right, four of spades, course, course, I, you know, where I want to put that is actually in the, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the air, and in the kind of oral landscape, there's been this humming, and as they are going deeper, it becomes kind of a grading and,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, of pieces of metal grinding against bone and other metal and what seemed from the outside to be kind of this beautiful harmony, it feels like this tower is incomplete, this monument is incomplete and it's fighting itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just watched a couple weeks ago a racer head for the first time, so yeah, I know exactly what all of this sounds like, we're in David Lynch's vision of my beloved Philadelphia.
[SPEAKER_03]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: There we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Woof.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh we've got the two of hearts uh which means that the that we are now shuffling our hearts disaster deck into the into our deck uh things are getting even worse great uh hearts represent
[SPEAKER_03]: Where, what are hearts?
[SPEAKER_03]: Hearts are secret revealed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hearts are, where's the, where's the detention's rise?
[SPEAKER_03]: Tensions rise.
[SPEAKER_03]: The explorers have a major falling out, describe the cause and then shuffle these cards into the deck.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, bodies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, babies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, sweet, sweet angels.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're you're for sure splitting the party.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they are.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just of course gonna go good, which is gonna go great for everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I think like, I think it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's that it's the it's the voices like they are X 43 has been told like it's uh X 40 it's got to be rooted in X 43 being told things and it's got to be that X 43 is told uh oh, I know what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so glad I said that out loud to jog my memory and force me into this uh the voice is change and they get a lot more specific.
[SPEAKER_03]: And X43 isn't just hearing words in the home.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a very clear crystalline pair of voices that X43 hears.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in fact, I'm going to push it even further and say that like it has now expanded to horizon also here like they both hear a different voice horizon here's farmhouse and on the wind and it's you can find me you can save me you can bring me home you have to go down the left tunnel.
[SPEAKER_03]: X43 here's almost the same thing in the voice of their previous captain and it's it's it's it's X43 here's you know I found it I found the secret I found what you and I were both looking for I made contact it's down the right tunnel.
[SPEAKER_03]: and there is there is this moment at this fork in the road where they both are like, I know what is waiting for me is down the opposite tunnel, and like they both have this kind of like standoff moment before almost without words going down their separate tunnels, and ultimately sealing their fate, because that's not a good idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, let me
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me put a little spin on the end there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I think I think because horizon still is thinks of themselves as in charge of the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when blue x43 says, oh, I'm going this direction and horizon is certain that it's in the other direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they agree and make camp there and in the middle of the night X43 slips off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, flip us our next card.
[SPEAKER_03]: Two of Spain.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, boy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, buddy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, baby.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, spades represent
[SPEAKER_03]: The world intrudes, the outside world, people, politics, money, power.
[SPEAKER_03]: What does that intrusion look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: And now we have shuffled also the spades deck into our into our expedition deck, which means everything that can go wrong is now in a different direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that Dr. Farmhausen had backup.
[SPEAKER_00]: from, he had a group of people who he secretly signaled and was able to use horizons influence here to get through whatever cordons and blockades around this planet, maybe they snuck along
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Horizon and X43 here, other people wondering through the monument where they thought there should be none.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's really great.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's really great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, uh, I think to to kick it to 11 immediately since we're probably just going to flip two or three more cards and then just see how things looking at the clock we're going to flip two or three more cards and unless they altered out to be diamonds immediately like we're going to describe how how things break bad for our characters I think like
[SPEAKER_03]: There is such a juicy opportunity for the monument to, uh, for the monument to lash out directly where there's this expert, this second expedition of like armed, uh, armed, uh, academic research soldiers,
[SPEAKER_03]: and like they turn a corner and like a fleshy wall of a cave like tears open and what should be unceremoniously dumped in front of our squadron of soldiers but the but the lifeless body of Dr. Farmhausen dumped in front of them to be like look your guy's dead oh what a shame what a horror what a what a terrible thing
[SPEAKER_03]: the people that he was with probably have answers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who could say?
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got the 10 of diamonds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Day eight of the expedition.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is, it's been a bad week.
[SPEAKER_03]: The explorers experience a dramatic shift in perspective, metaphorical or physical.
[SPEAKER_03]: What happened?
[SPEAKER_03]: What does their new view reveal?
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... this is horizon and horizon has a moment where the thing that drew horizon here becomes viscerally apparent and real and uh... almost all consuming because they have a moment uh... as they as they they have a moment as they like uh... sit in their camp alone
[SPEAKER_03]: were suddenly they are in three places at once seeing things from seven or eight different perspectives their own and also blue x 43 down a separate set of tunnels.
[SPEAKER_03]: and also the five or so soldiers that are looking at the body of farmhouse and down in entirely separate set of tunnels.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they realize they came here.
[SPEAKER_03]: to be the avatar of like generations of dead voiceless that we're here to investigate the monument and they realize how viscerally real that is that the monument has bridged their consciousness even for a moment with all of the other people that are scattered in these caves.
[SPEAKER_00]: what a, what a beautiful and terrifying thing to suddenly have that kind of hive mind experience, but also like I feel like as an artist you are constantly asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, I wish I could understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I think in some ways art is about trying to express like, this is what it's like locked inside my body do you recognize anything here and to be able to actually experience that is is such a delicious taste of revelation.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm feeling it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Give us day nine.
[SPEAKER_03]: seven of diamonds.
[SPEAKER_03]: We might make it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We might make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The monument does something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has never done before.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did the explorers trigger it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, here's here's my thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that it's actually
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, that wouldn't be true because the, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for the first time, the monument lets someone out unharmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, what is is one of these academic soldiers has put farm housing in a body bag and they,
[SPEAKER_00]: And they have dragged the body out to an exit and are signalling off the planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it's that X43 had been to the monument, but had never gotten inside it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the first person who has been left, has been inside the monument and has left the planet safely, but they are doing so with a small piece of the biomechanical thing in this hermetic bag, leaving the planet.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: That hit so hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I'm so nervous.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm now so nervous.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're so close that I'm nervous about flipping.
[SPEAKER_03]: There it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've we get one if we get one more time and we're in we're done.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have the explorers have uncovered a hidden inscription.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the five of diamonds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, what does it say?
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, X43.
[SPEAKER_03]: wandering these tunnels comes across like an open clearing and it says our bodies are everyone, our bodies are everything, our bodies are everywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: This, this here sits the birthplace
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me do a, let me do a city pitch on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, pitch on because they're translating this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here sits the nexus of we.
[SPEAKER_03]: We fuck that's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, here sits the nexus of we.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, damn.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Give me an X guard.
[SPEAKER_03]: We got it.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Diamond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Queen of space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that is the world intrudes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Public opinion shifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does this impact the expedition?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that I, the,
[SPEAKER_00]: these academic soldiers who came here with the mission of destroying the monument have also been hearing whispers and also been feeling this kind of synthesis between them and are now
[SPEAKER_00]: working, thinking of themselves as working with the monument and wanting to, um, they are now trying to hunt down the last two remaining explorers because they don't know if maybe Dr. Farmhouse and convinced them that they should destroy the monument.
[SPEAKER_00]: the soldiers.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's really good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, uh, and I've lifted our next card.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, the Queen of Hearts tensions rise, uh, two explorers glow, grow closer, leaving the third feeling spurred.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, oh, oh, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm, I'm pivoting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm, I'm, I'm taking a spin on this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm, I'm pivoting this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um,
[SPEAKER_03]: x43 like that the hunters come upon x43 the hunter at you know what it's not x43 the hunters come upon horizon in part because horizon knows that they're coming because horizon has been having all of these moments of being in all all of these places at once
[SPEAKER_03]: and horizon with knowledge that they absolutely should not have is able to convince them that like they are not in they are not in pursuit of trying to kill this thing they are in pursuit of trying to like tell its story to the world and that if and that they can be trusted.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the person that broke away and pursued their own goals and kept secrets.
[SPEAKER_03]: If one person cannot be trusted here, if one person has fallen victim to shifting goals and hidden allegiances, it's the other person that's hidden in these tunnels.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Woo.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, give us this next guard.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: nine of hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone falls ill or is injured.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does this change the dynamic of the expedition?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think X43 is digging themselves deeper and deeper into the
[SPEAKER_00]: into the monument, they find more and more of this writing and they are, you know, looking at a slab of bone carved with this writing where flesh has grown up above it and they try to kind of scrape the flesh back and there is a spur of bone that they did not see and their hand gets a small cut and they now know that they also have the ticking clock of
[SPEAKER_00]: this thing that they have seen killed Dr. Farmshausen and their previous group is has now infected them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know I could flip the next car.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to flip the next car and if it's not a diamond, we're going to flip the next car.
[SPEAKER_03]: If it's not a diamond, I'm going to throw this car away and describe how this all goes horribly wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, you know what it's like in that work.
[SPEAKER_03]: It works because kings are when somebody dies and this is the king of clubs, which is that the monument takes one of the explorers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: The hunters arrive.
[SPEAKER_03]: The hunters in her, the hunters in her eyes in a rife.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is supposed to kill one of our explorers.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure either of explorers are making it out at this moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me peel one of what happens here.
[SPEAKER_03]: The hunters, because in my back of my mind, I was like, that's the moment the hunters arrive.
[SPEAKER_03]: They arrive to see Blue X43 clawing and digging and ripping at the walls of this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: As they perceive it, the person that they have been that has been seduced by the whispers,
[SPEAKER_03]: He's trying to follow through on their murderous intent on the monument, as they see it, everything horizon has told them is true.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, as Blue X43 sees it, uh, help, the help has arrived just in time to see them become a doomed person by way of getting this cut and becoming consumed by the monument itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: They arrive before Blue X43 has an opportunity to tell them to stop and to explain, uh, gunfire goes off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Blue X43 is gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: In that moment, you know, Horizon steps forward, like, relieved in the knowledge that they have saved the monument and they can tell its story.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they start to speak those words aloud.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are everywhere, we are everything, we are everyone, and this is the nexus of we, and as they read those words.
[SPEAKER_03]: bone spurs and metal pipes start creaking out of the back of the other soldiers here and like running of the veins running up their neck and in ways that horizon fully is not cognizant of
[SPEAKER_03]: they are the monument has taken them by way of they are alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are surrounded.
[SPEAKER_03]: The monument has claimed everyone and everything that could come and help them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And at this moment, they are in the belly of the beast, beset on all sides.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there is no escape from this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in that moment, Horizon has the terrible revelation of I, I see and I fully understand that like perfect human connection and understanding of another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am the only human being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will not live to see another human being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I have achieved the thing I wished and that I wanted and I will never be actually be able to share it or show it to another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is both like the artistic dream fulfilled and also made worthless and ripped out of their hands at the last moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: i'm shaking uh... i think that's game and i'm physically uh... physically shaking at this uh... what a game uh... we got six that there is one diamond left i'm just gonna flip caught i got to know oh it was literally the last card in the deck
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, there were all of the the next card was the king.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was no getting to this time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, so like the what a fantastic game.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I'm overjoyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your favorite moment from play?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the surprise of
[SPEAKER_00]: your creation of the tablet that kind of led to us creating this thing as a hive mind and is a like or not a hive mind but a thing that was absorbing everything around it and taking everything in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was delightful.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, uh, I think for me, the moment that most dramatically like, uh, dropped my jaw was really when you, when you just like dropped in, oh yeah, now there's a squad of hunters wandering the hallways.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's so immediately changed the stakes of everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: These characters already in such a place of desperation and going, well, now check off his place
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of fascinated by the whole spades deck because it feels like a game where my instinct is to go to isolation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think having the outside world intrude is a really great way of making you consider like, okay, how does this not become stale?
[SPEAKER_00]: How does this not become just?
[SPEAKER_00]: the explorers versus the monolith, but like all of the other factors, or just the explorers versus the explorers, you know, like that there is this whole other realm of like
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but like who knows what else can intrude here and it definitely felt like the most jarring of the intrusions in a very positive way of like you're right like guys were so we're so locked in this tight little world that the second it's like hey the there is a world happening outside of this you're like he's there and it like it's so immediately like
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... and uh... that the moment that didn't happen that almost happened was when the the card of like public opinion shifts for split second i really thought we were going to go in a direction where uh... time and space of fully left us behind and we have already the the people that left have already gotten back to earth and uh... the monument has already spread to the entirety of earth uh... which like
[SPEAKER_03]: it on its own like is such a it tells you love the like how big those swings are and like like when you get that moment of like the world has entered rooted you're like okay now I got to visualize what the world's relationship to all of the fucked up things that i have put on this board are incredible thank you so much for this i'm thank you enjoyed this was the light real quick before we wrap things up working people find you in your work online
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, my work can be found.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you can find, uh, all of the podcasts I make at audacious machine creative.com are companies called audacious machine creative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, as I said, we make audio fiction podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and, uh, we've got several shows, both completed and still ongoing there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So go check them out.
[SPEAKER_03]: fantastic.
[SPEAKER_03]: This has been such a fucking joy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to be beaming about this for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you again and for now I'm going to throw it over to me in the future so that he can wrap up with the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Take a future, mate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, past me and thanks again to Jeffrey for coming on the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fuck, that game was incredible.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just so caught up in the entire experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was breathless, the recording was breathless, editing it was, I was just, I was shaking the entire time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's such a joy to get to have these experiences and sit down and play these games.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what it's all about at the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to pick up your own copy of Kairan's Doom at ikbat.h.io or check the show notes for more information, and be sure to check out the Harbingers wherever you get your podcasts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or you can check the show notes for links to the Harbingers, World Gone Wrong, and everything else the Jeffree has going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to hear about more incredible games and guests, you can follow us on social media at Parti of One Podcast, you can head to partyofonepodcast.com, or you can subscribe to our newsletter at buttondown.com slash party of one podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, if you really enjoyed this game, you enjoyed this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Two things you can do to really help continue to grow the show is you can leave us a nice review on iTunes or Spotify.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those do a tremendous job of driving new listeners to the show, but more specifically, they help us present the show as something cool and exciting to guests, which we are pitching bigger and bigger names, and it is an ongoing project for the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or you can throw us a couple bucks a month on Patreon and get access to bonus episodes of the show, namely Party of One episodes where you play games with their own designer, which is like a subset of the show that we've kind of moved away from in the last year.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can also find, you know, Party of One says Go Birds live shows, side podcasts like Batman, Bump and the Knight and Superman walk in the sun, and just other projects that I work on over the course of a given month.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can find all of that at patreon.com slash Jeff Stormer.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're looking for another podcast to check out, you can check out all my fantasy children, our sister show in which my best friend, Aaron Katano, Sias and I, taking a listener submitted prompt every single episode and spin it into an original fantasy character, populate-exhaired universe one story at a time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Party of one is produced in edited as always by Jeff Stomer and Jen Frank, music for the show comes from the song Infinite Lives by Megarin featuring the D&D sluggers, and the party of one logo is by Evan Roland.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to inquire about advertising rates, press coverage or about a guest appearance on the show, you can email me at party of one podcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I believe that's all we do here so until next time remember to fight the forces of fascism every single day remember that self love and self care are radical and defying acts of resistance and as always.
[SPEAKER_01]: Party on everybody.