Stories with Dice
Stories with Dice is an actual-play podcast where a fellowship of everyday gamers explores fantastical worlds, distant futures, and parallel realities through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) from Free League Publishing, Chaosium, Modiphius Entertainment, and more.
Over the years, we’ve told stories around our virtual table in the worlds of Tales from the Loop, Pendragon, Mutant Year Zero, Star Trek Adventures, The One Ring, The Electric State, Forbidden Lands, Legend of the Five Rings, and Symbaroum. Going forward, we’re focusing on a smaller lineup of games, giving us more opportunities to return to each story sooner. As campaigns reach their natural conclusions, we’ll add new stories from the worlds of Twilight: 2000, Vampire: The Masquerade, The Walking Dead, and more.
We’re not voice actors, professional entertainers, or trained performers—just friends from around the globe sharing virtual dice, stories, and a laugh or two as the game unfolds.
Stories with Dice
Mysteries of the Loop S1 E4: A Tales from the Loop Actual Play Podcast
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Welcome back to Mysteries of the Loop! Outside the toy factory, Susie and Anthony face off with the security guard. Meanwhile, the other kids sneak into the factory, only to encounter an unexpected danger that sends them all running.
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Introduction to Tales from the Loop
SPEAKER_03Hello and welcome to Stories with Dice, an actual play podcast of some of our favorite tabletop role-playing games.
SPEAKER_00Hi, welcome back to Stories with Dice, my actual play podcast of Tales from the Lee. I'm Ed, and joining with me as always is Marco. Hello. And my lovely players, or our lovely players, say hi. Hi. Hi.
SPEAKER_06Hello. Hello, wonderful friends of ours. We've progressed to friends. I still had you down as acquaintance. Um where's the where's where's the quit button?
SPEAKER_00Hang on. No, no, don't do that. Um well welcome everybody to episode four of Tales from the Loop. If you've joined us, great. Hopefully you've listened to our previous ones. If you could do us a favor and give us a thumbs up, a like, subscribe, a follow, and everything else that you require for social media to say we're amazing and great, please join our Discord, which is called Stories with Dice. If you so wish, we also would like you to join our Patreon. We have a free option, but if you'd like to give us some money, well, who are us to complain? Anyway, let's just get on with the game. I'm gonna pick on one of my players this time, just to give us a little short roundup as to what happened last session and where we left off. In fact, I'm gonna roll a dice. I don't do this very often, which is great. Well, that's terrifying. And it's gonna be Sol. Of course it is. Of course.
SPEAKER_06Last time on Reswith Dice. Serves me, you bastard. Uh Marco's character, the young Anthony, tried to get me to roll up a DD character, but I was saved by the arrival of the other characters. La the the session before, we made a little discovery as to get an address on one of the mechanical arms from the back room of the toy shop. So I went to go get my bike. Everyone else had their bikes there, but I had to go get my bike, and we we headed over to the other side of town, where the factory was, where I put together a cunning plan that totally wasn't an absolutely useless underthought plan in at all. I was I was very focused on it. So focused I didn't notice when Anthony was complaining about something moving within his bag, the other lot opened it to find two of the toys that we'd collected from the toy shop the previous session. One of one was a Decepticon or something, and the other one was one of the other ones. And they came to life, and they'd like we tussled with them, caught them, and then let them go, and they they ran off. Except Susie, my character, still doesn't believe that actually any of that really happened, and that they're just sort of mechanical. And Anthony didn't like that I didn't believe him, and I feel bad for him. So bad for him, I feel like I'm gonna feel even more for him this session because of where we left it last session. Where did we leave it last session? Well, we put the plan in action, I rushed up ahead, a set of it's a kind of magic by Queen on my tape cassette player, while the other two or the others snuck up at the other side of the compound. And then Anthony made a dash for the guard hut, only to be caught, and that is where we left it. Amazing sum up.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much, sir. Indeed, that is where we left it as the security guard and today got Anthony by the scruff of his of his collar. Oi! What are you doing? And he looks at you, the guard with his sort of like greying hair, greying tash.
SPEAKER_06I think I think Susie feels very much to blame and so rushes forward just as the tape recorder clicks off of it's a kind of magic, just to the the you know, white noise of the tape going round.
SPEAKER_00You can see that that the the security guard has got Anthony by the scruff of the uh scruff of the neck and has almost picked him off his feet, he's just on his tiptoes and he's looking at you, he's got really close to you. You can smell that he's got uh pizza breath and uh he's kind of like looking at you and he's going, What are you doing here, boy? What are you doing here? Hey you, leave him alone.
SPEAKER_04Your breath is is so terrible. It's that's like oh god, what have you been eating?
SPEAKER_00Cat food? Oh he looks at you sort of like you can see he's got like big rings under his eyes. Uh it looks like he's not slept for days. He kind of just looks at you and then turns to you, Susie, as you come running up and he puts his hand out to ward you off. Stay where you are, young lady.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think she'll stop, but she's gonna have a quick look around to see if she can see any of those moving toys from before, like within the compound within line of sight. Okay. Could you make an investigate roll? Sure. I'm not great at it, but we'll give it a go. I think I will push this. So a little I'm a I'm a little scared. I'm a little scared. You're a little scared.
SPEAKER_00God, the dice are not with us today. You're you're absolutely scared, you're like so like nervous about the security guard that you don't notice anything else.
SPEAKER_06You know, it's a fast whole area. I feel like the adrenaline kicked in and then has very much kicked out when she's realized she's got Anthony into a lot of trouble.
SPEAKER_00He's a big guy, he's he's definitely overweight, he spent a lot of his time sitting in a chair eating pizza, pretzels, you name it, and Doritos. What is Sven and Anders doing from the relative safety of your ditch?
SPEAKER_01I'm staying totally hidden, although it's all gone south. I don't want to get the blame for this. So I'm just gonna let it play out and make sure I'm not involved.
SPEAKER_02Very carefully very just think on the way to the back of the guard. So it's kind of um I guess academics follower, I can squeeze, circular and see me and see what's gonna happen. We'll see if I rush into action or just use this to get in.
SPEAKER_00Sure. But if you could please make a stealth roll for me, that would be great. So you got a couple of successes through all the kind of hurrah and stuff that the security guard's
The Plan in Action
SPEAKER_00doing, he is clearly a hundred percent focusing on Anthony and Susie, and you managed to sort of like rush right up behind the guardhouse and basically plonk yourself down. So you can hear this. It's almost like right in your feet, you know, right in front of you. So he the the security guard has got Anthony by the scruff and says, Right, what's your what's what's your mum's telephone number? I'm gonna give her a call now. Come on, what's it?
SPEAKER_04I don't have to tell you anything.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's right. Don't tell her, don't tell him Anthony.
SPEAKER_00He starts starts rummaging around in your uh in your pocket and your rucksack and your buttons. I kick him in the shins. You kick him in the shins and you realize that he doesn't seem to do a lot and he kind of lifts you even more, you just feel completely and utterly uh unable to do anything. You can see he kind of looks at you with a very stern gaze. Come on then. He turns to uh Susie and says, Well, come on then. And he basically pushes you to the little guardhouse, says, Let's call your mum and yours, he says to Susie as he looks around. Unless you'd like to leave.
SPEAKER_06I can take him home. He he just wanted to get the toy that he said that had had headed this way. That's the problem.
SPEAKER_00He looks at Susie and looks at Anthony and says, What? Go on, tell him, Anthony.
SPEAKER_04We know what you're hiding in that factory, and maybe we should call the cops. Maybe we should call the cops on you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's call the police. That seems like a good plan. I'll do that. Let's not do that. He basically come on. Frogs box you into the little into the little shack, and he basically pushes you onto a chair, and he stands between you and the door, and he picks up the phone and he goes, You got a choice, kid. I can either call your folks or I can call the police. What would you prefer? Can I pull the phone line off the out of the wall? Sure. You could do that. You just grab the phone line and yank it out of the wall. You see that his his kind of like vaguely amused expression from the whole thing changes, and he's definitely got that very serious adult face. And you're you're just like, oh, there's that line you've just crossed. Right. I'm gonna ask you one more time, what is the telephone number of your of your parents?
SPEAKER_04You know, my dad is a very important person at the loop.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_04He can he can have your job.
SPEAKER_00Brilliant, he says. I'll take that telephone number of your dad then.
SPEAKER_04How are you gonna call him? You're very amused for a s you know, bemused for a second. I mean, I'm happy to give it to you, but like how are you gonna call him? Your phone is broken.
SPEAKER_00Do you like music, Mr. Security Guard? He turns around and he looks at you, Susie, and says, What's your name? I said, Do you like music, Mr. Security Guard? What's your name? I'm Susie. Okay. And this is Anthony. Uh do you know Anthony's last name? No, we've only just met. What's your last name? Queen. You see that he kind of like smiles and says, Right.
Confronting the Security Guard
SPEAKER_00Well, Susie Queen, I suggest that you take your little friend here. And take him home. Yeah. He basically pulls your Anthony's rucksack and pulls it off, and he pushes you around, takes everything out of your rucksack, or out of your backpack. Do you have anything identifiable in your backpack, Anthony, to tell you who you are?
SPEAKER_04Unfortunately, yes. So the DD Player's Handbook, he's got his he has his name written on the inside. That's brilliant. His full n his full name, Anthony Russo.
SPEAKER_00He basically takes a note of it and says, Right, little American child, I will find out where you live, and I will come and visit your parents. He puts the uh the bag back in your backpack. Where did where did he write that down? He wrote it down in his little notebook that he's got, which he then puts into his into his trousers. He then basically throbes you out of the out of the door and says, Don't you come back. Go on, get lost.
SPEAKER_05I flip him the bird.
SPEAKER_06I I like catch that finger, put it down. Like and and kind of wave goodbye and sort of huddle Anthony away.
SPEAKER_00Sven, you can hear him mumbling to himself. Oh, for the love of just how am I gonna? You can hear like some creaking noises coming from inside the shack. He's clearly obviously trying to figure out how to put the phone line back together. He comes out of the shack, he shuts the door to the shack, and then he goes over to the little fence gate, unlocks the fence gate, walks in, shuts the fence gate, and then wanders over to one of the buildings.
SPEAKER_01I'm watching him walk across to the building.
SPEAKER_00You can see he takes a long time to get to the building, but he's got a he's taking with him like a little pail and a little coffee flask.
SPEAKER_02Go and very close in clean and go to this museum menu.
SPEAKER_00Okay, you want to try the uh the the chain link gate?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's often now it's unlocked.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, he's unlocked it and he just shut it. So you're gonna open it? Yep, you can go in. Anders, come on.
SPEAKER_01I take a look at the building to make sure the old boy's got in there.
SPEAKER_00Uh he's still walking. It's a little more it's a bit of a way for him to walk. He's at least not in the best of health.
SPEAKER_01So I'll be creeping towards the gate until he disappears in the building, and then I'm just gonna sprint from my life to get to the gate.
SPEAKER_00Susie and Anthony, you're just gonna basically walk towards the your your bikes at the end of the road, I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but also looking around to see where Sven and Anders are, and if we see them You do.
SPEAKER_00Then it's quite difficult to hide.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, then I then I will tug on Susie's arm. Look, look, look, they're they're making a break for it.
SPEAKER_05Don't give the game away. We're still in it. Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. We're gonna get to our bikes.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so then I follow Suzy to where we left our bikes. How quick can you ride, Anthony? How quick can you ride? I can ride like shadow facts from the Lord of the Rings. Are they quick?
SPEAKER_00That's cool. Back to Sven and um you kind of like open the gate, you get in. It's a very empty open asphalt thing. You can just make out the guard as he's getting to the main two-story building, and he kind of goes into one of the the front entrance, which is on the right hand side of the um building, and he wanders off in, leaving you alone essentially to this entire area. Okay, you guys rush to the small building.
SPEAKER_02Either it's a small window or something I would like to look inside.
SPEAKER_00There are some windows, but you know they're quite they're sort of like about six, seven foot up. You need someone to give you a lift up to kind of look inside.
SPEAKER_01Are there uh windows on the south side of the building? Uh there are. All right, I'll I'll indicate for Sven to come along and I'll yeah, do the leaning back against the wall and clasp my hands together to show that I'll give him a lift up.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, you get a you get a lift up and you um you kind of get up to the window. Inside you can see it's a warehouse. The warehouse is quite large. It is essentially a very large, one big room. There are loads of shelves and stuff on on the uh on on the floor, and stacked on the shelves are loads of packs of boxes, which looks very eerily similar to the packs of boxes that you saw in the toy shop. You can then see just out of the corner of your eye, a group of robots, probably about 15 of them, walking from the main two-story building. Some of them are sort of like the big 15-inch ones, some of them are sort of like five inches, some of them are sort of like 10 inches, depending on the size of the robot, and they appear to be making their way towards your direction. As you look a little bit closer, you can see that uh they appear to be holding what look like scalpels and packing knives, and they are starting to pick up pace. Is it look normal here?
SPEAKER_01No, and they're armed.
SPEAKER_02Well, they're fine. Go to the other side of the building if we can.
SPEAKER_00Well, you want to go to the left-hand side of the building.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm trying to see if there's a door
Escaping the Factory
SPEAKER_02behind or something.
SPEAKER_00They start to move at some speed. As you kind of leave, as you turn around to kind of like run away, you can see a couple of them are turning into some of the um into some of the vehicles, and they start to drive quicker along the um along the asphalt. Run. If you guys can make a move roll, that'll be great. And so you can see their sort of they're rushing towards you. Adders and Sven, you manage to get around the side. Where are you gonna go from here? There's nothing on the far side except more windows. Uh there is a there's a fire exit, but there's no door handle or anything to to get into the fire exit.
SPEAKER_01Well, they're between us and the exit at the moment, so this is true. So I think we'll just keep running looking for either a doorway to get in or somewhere to climb up, or just somewhere to get away from them.
SPEAKER_00As you kind of as you're kind of like looking around, you can hear a buzzing noise, and in front of you, you can see a helicopter, a helicopter gunship, in fact, heading in your direction from the north.
SPEAKER_02I grab a s a stone and I throw it to the helicopter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you just pick up a stone and you throw it. Okay, do you want to make a false roll for me? That'd be great. Nice. You pick up the other stone and you throw it, it hits it hits the helicopter, smack bang, and the helicopter breaks up into a couple of parts and and crashes to the floor, leaving you space to run.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I like high five.
SPEAKER_00Hey, you high five. So as you do that, you've got a choice. You can either run north or go around the building so the other robots will be chasing you and head back through the the gate, or did you want to try and hide somewhere in the um in the compound?
SPEAKER_02I I will be curious about what's going on, and perhaps I would propose to go to the big bit and going in. I mean, one of these adults must know what's going on. I mean, this is very weird.
SPEAKER_00As you um as you as you kind of like look and kind of start to point over, you can see one of the uh one of the machines. It looks like one of the actually kind of lieutenants from the um from the deceivers. Uh it's the uh the black snowmobile. The the robot basically shouts with like a bit of an antenna sort of like sound, and it says, Stop where you are!
SPEAKER_01I just look at with raised eyebrows, turn the other way, and I just sprint off in the other direction.
SPEAKER_00Okay. See basically they're chasing you, you're sort of like running around the facility. It's at that point you see the security guard come out, and in fact, you run around as you've gone around the the side and up through the top part of the facility, and you've come running back around, hoping to kind of like cut off. And that's when you run almost into the security guard. And the security guard puts his hands up and goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01We I just point at the little robots and go, they're chasing us.
SPEAKER_00He says, You shouldn't be here, get out. What about them? He says, I would leave, go follow your friends. He basically points towards the um the gate.
SPEAKER_02Nobody tells me what to do. I mean, what's going on here? This is very weird.
SPEAKER_00As you as you say that, you see that he pulls out like a like a bushcraft knife from his uh from his belt, and then he stops and he he he just goes really dead pan and he says, Leave, or you won't ever leave.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I haven't even stopped to see this. Yeah, you're just running. I've just carried to run fully.
SPEAKER_02I'm looking at him. Does it look to me like he could be a robot?
SPEAKER_00Or he's just could be, who knows? I mean, you'd probably have to spend a bit more time examining him. But if you do that, chances are you'll be caught. And he's now like a fully fledged adult holding a knife.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, for one moment, I'm like like looking at the. So what you can see is that just on the side of his head, one part of his hair is shaved, and you can see a bruise and a couple of stitches just behind his left ear. At the moment, I just ran away. And then you guys run as you run towards the the entrance. Back to Susie and and Anthony. So where are we at our bicycles?
SPEAKER_05You're on your bicycles. What do we what do we do now, Susie?
SPEAKER_06I'm gonna pedal as fast as possible up to that front gate, and then like start doing doing circles, ringing that bell as much as we can. Teach that guy a lesson. What is that gonna do? Trust me. Okay. And at that point she like race you and then start start pedaling. Yeah, you start pedaling. You both pedal with all your words. Well no, she's she she pedals slowly to allow Andy to catch up.
SPEAKER_00I see. Okay. Alright. Well, you pedal up the road as you see both Sven and Anders running away from the security guard as they where where are they running from? They're running from what looks like the second large building away from the security guard towards the the entrance to get out of the um facility.
SPEAKER_06Anthony, change of plan. We get to the end, we spin around and let them hop on the back. She just rings the bell and then presses play, and it it plays, it's a kind of magic again after having rewinded it on the way back. Okay. Don't you have like the police on that tape recorder?
SPEAKER_00It's in my bag. Next time. Sven and and Anders, you've got Susie and Anthony are basically
Regrouping on Bikes
SPEAKER_00waiting for you on their bikes. You can quite easily get through the chain link gate. And as you do that, it's the the the sun is sort of like starting to settle and it's starting to get just a little bit dark, just as early part of the late afternoon. And you cycle like crazy and run like crazy back to your bikes at the end of the road, and you realize you're probably gonna have to be home in the next sort of half hour or so.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, like well, obviously uh drop Sven off at his bike.
SPEAKER_05Come on, we gotta go, we gotta go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you manage to kind of get away from the factory and you drop them, you drop Sven back at his bike. You then get on your bikes. What's the plan? Are you gonna go home? Are you gonna just stop and have a debrief quickly and have a quick catch?
SPEAKER_06I think it's the I think it's the once you got far enough away, slow down, catch our breath.
unknownWoo!
SPEAKER_04What what happened in there, Sven? That was crazy. Did you see? He chased you out, but what what did you guys see in there?
SPEAKER_01The robots. They'd all come to life. They were chasing us. They had knives. Whoa. And whatever's going on, the security guard's in on it. Yeah, I must I and stands out some old guys, standards, you guys wonder?
SPEAKER_06Sven, please don't offer that to Anthony.
SPEAKER_02Anthony, don't accept it.
SPEAKER_06Don't accept it. It's not cool. I already I already tried it once and I didn't like it. Right. Well, I think that's uh enough fun for me tonight. Oh it's all it's also nearly dinner time.
SPEAKER_01Shouldn't we be telling someone about what's happening there? Like who? I don't know. The people from the toy shop? The police? Somebody.
SPEAKER_06Maybe we'll think about it and and discuss this tomorrow? Fresh eyes?
SPEAKER_05But what if they're up to something really bad? Tomorrow might be too late. The trick is, is people who do bad things, they they also have to sleep. But robots don't have to sleep.
SPEAKER_06It'll be alright, won't it, Anders? Yeah?
SPEAKER_01I look wide-eyed and shrug. Maybe uh maybe you should barricade your doors tonight just in case. Make sure you've got anything open that something robot-sized can sneak in.
SPEAKER_02They're not leave Anthony going alone, not even thinking about him.
SPEAKER_04But we gotta tell Johannes. He he he has one of those toys. Oh yeah. He's in trouble.
SPEAKER_06He's in danger. Well, maybe maybe Anderson Sven could could go and check on Johannes. Anthony, it's getting really late.
SPEAKER_02I go to Anthony and I I grabbed him by the shoulder and I look, man, you really need to close down your door. Put a chair against the the door of your house and and really lock the window. Take all your name. The robber's can comfort you.
SPEAKER_05Sven, don't scare him.
SPEAKER_04Maybe I should sleep at the hideout tonight. In that case, I'm gonna stay with you. We'll have a sleepover. We can play DD all night.
SPEAKER_06Are you sure, Sven? Are you sure your parents are gonna be okay with that? Make sure Auntie's parents know. Right.
SPEAKER_00Well you cycle home. So you're gonna go home and get your stuff and then go to the hideout, I'm guessing. Like with a sleeping bag and a blanket and the sorts of things you would expect you'd need, like, I don't know, a flashlight and some biscuits.
SPEAKER_06So Susie's not. Again, Susie really does not believe that any of that has just actually happened and that it's still just a game, and she thinks that the two boys are scaring Anthony, and she wasn't very happy with that. And she sort of talks like this to her mum over the counter, and that she's really worried for him. We just wanted to have a look, and the security guard was really grumpy, and you know he was mean to Anthony, it was so unnecessary. He just lost a toy over the fence.
SPEAKER_00Like right, okay, yeah, yeah, okay. Mum listens and she sort of make sure you're make sure you're okay. And um, if you have any conditions, your mum is your anchor, so you can get rid of your conditions.
SPEAKER_06Cool. She yeah, I'm not scared anymore. No, um mum is sort of you know justifying my thoughts and all of that and backing me up.
SPEAKER_00She she she mostly is very happy that you're making friends, so she's sort of like very kind of supportive of that. Then we'll uh we'll jump to uh Sven. I take it you're not really gonna say much to your dad. In fact, Sven, you go home, your dad's not there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and whatever in our perhaps I would give up one of these PB diner, you know, problems and stuff. I will use up one or two and uh then we'll have that but yeah, there's no one there to to stop you from doing it.
SPEAKER_00Dad's not there, and it doesn't look like he's been at home at all. Then uh we'll uh we'll jump to adders.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'll I'll explain to my father that we're uh we're probably gonna have a night out at the camp, you know, playing games and stuff like that. Because I'm not working tomorrow, so we'll be alright. So I'll get my sleeping bag and a blanket and make myself up a sandwich and a flask of drink, like I would do if I was going out to work for the day.
SPEAKER_00Your mum will will help you with that. What is it you do to uh to earn money? I mean, I know you're you're 14, so presumably you help out at a shop or a store, or I suppose or you in the farm, don't you? You help them. Yeah, yeah, doing farm work and contracting and stuff like that. Yeah. That's fine. Yeah, they're actually they're not at each other's throats tonight, and they both are quite happy to help you out with making some food and stuff. And in fact, having you out of the house are probably helpful for them. They can have a chat and not worry about you getting upset with them and stuff like that. Okay, that's fine. Off you and then off you trot, leaving. Anthony, how are you gonna do this with your um with your parents?
SPEAKER_04So Anthony is upset and he's also scared, right? Those are his those are his two conditions.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_04And and Sven made him even more scared by tell by telling him to like, you know, put a chair up against the door and all that stuff. So he doesn't even go home. He goes right to the hideout. Okay. And he hides in the hideout. Okay. Somewhere, I imagine there's like a some place that maybe he's behind a you know, a stack of shelves or something, or yeah, on under a desk. Maybe he covers the desk with like a blanket and he's underneath it. Because you know, no one would check under there.
SPEAKER_00No, you've got like a top and you kind of like make the best fault that you could possibly make to kind of like keep out anything. That's cool. So you go and do that. I like that.
SPEAKER_04And he's and he's just like, you know, reading his player's handbook to occupy himself and try to try to be less scared.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you kind of you read the the player's handbook, and you're sort of like you move on to sort of like some of the some of the other books and stuff, and then you start sort of like freak yourself out a little bit because uh you can hear noises wandering around in the hideout,
Camp Out Adventures
SPEAKER_00and you end up in this sort of like state of still being scared by the time Anders and Sven turn up.
SPEAKER_04Who's out there?
SPEAKER_00No, it's just us, Anthony.
SPEAKER_01Oh, shoo. I thought you were those assassin robots. Yeah, I'm not sure they know where our camp is at the moment, but did they follow you? I don't think so. But I was thinking maybe we can spend some time uh setting up some traps or tripwires just in case.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I made this cool fort.
SPEAKER_01Hey, that is cool. Uh I think there's some candles over in the desk drawer over there. We can use them to save the batteries on the torches.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it's a good idea.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So you all kind of like camp out. And it's kind of fun. Once you sort of like the the the initial sort of worry happens. Um actually camping out, although uh you both realise that Anthony has nothing to camp out with, so you have to like share some of your food and like a blanket with him and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02I know they got my uh right there on the table and I will open it and this is a mason I used to use every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, actually, once you kind of like get together and you kind of have a have a bit of a conversation stuff, and the other two are here, things don't seem as bad, and you can heal a condition of your choice. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_02Can I do the same tool, Ed?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, you yeah, if you if um if any if uh any of you three have got any kind of conditions, you can l lose one of them because you're all sort of like in the hideout, you're all chatting to each other, you're bolstering each other, sort of like, yeah, you know, everything's fine, you know, you've got like a a supply of like band-aids and some other bits that you use for your inverter, commas first aid kit if you were hurt. Yeah, so that's fine.
SPEAKER_04You kind of like chill out and rest for a step and so I I remove the upset condition, but I left the scared because I feel like even though he's feeling a little more relaxed, he's eating some of the like the mashed potatoes or whatever in the TV dinner, and and he's kind of feeling like, you know, oh, this is cool. We're like, I'm hanging out with the older kids and we're having a sleepover kind of a thing. He's still in the back of his mind, he's worried.
SPEAKER_00Cool. So, uh Marco, does your mum and dad know about the other kids? No. No, okay. The evening goes by uneventfully, no one seems to come get you, and you kind of wake up in the morning to another cold day. The one thing that was, it was a little bit chilly out in in the um in the hideout night. But other than that, it was relatively fine. Uh you wake up, uh, what's
Morning After the Sleepover
SPEAKER_00the plan? First thing in the morning.
SPEAKER_01Uh I'll take the the extra large wrench that I found and kept beside me when I was sleeping, just in case. Yeah, yeah. And I'll go and put that back in its place and get my flask out and drink what was left of inside it. Okay. I was gonna say, and then go and find the uh the old smashed-up lavatory in uh again in the factory. Sure.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna take a peek outside and just kind of like you know There's this fog that's kind of like come in.
SPEAKER_00So because you're on the um Mallaran Islands, every morning and evening there's like a fog that kind of comes in, especially when the temperature's changing and stuff like that. And it kind of comes off of the actual lake and it kind of covers the islands in this very low kind of fog. And that's exactly what it's done this morning. It's really early, like really early. You look at sort of like I take it you've got something like a Casio digital watch or something.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh yeah, it's like it's like 6 a.m. in the morning, it's really early. It's really quiet as well.
SPEAKER_04Sven, take a look at this this fog. It's like it's like that Stephen King novel. Do you think the robe do you think the robots are in there? Do you think they're doing the fog? Like they're making it? No, that's just normal.
SPEAKER_02Don't worry about it. I mean spend the night, see? Nothing happened. We protecting you, right? Yeah, yeah. I was wondering, Anthony. Perhaps uh you wanna go home and get a shower? Why do I smell? I don't know. Did you get showered?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yesterday I did.
SPEAKER_02I can go and get some breakfast if you guys want. I and I've bakered. You can go quickly with a bike.
SPEAKER_04Can we go to the can we go to the diner? Do you think do you think that's safe?
SPEAKER_02You're with us.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's panic, you know, when you keep wear around. Yeah, the diner opens up at seven. You um you will kind of like get yourself ready to to go and do that. I will jump over to Susie. Susie, you get woken up with uh sort of like shake of the shoulder. Yeah? It's your mum. Well you were with that Anthony kid, right? Yeah, is he alright? And as you as you as you as you sit up in your bed, you can see sort of like a a blonde-haired girl behind your mum. And as your eyes kind of go into focus, you can see she's wearing a police uniform, and your mum says, He didn't go home last night, and his and the police want to know where he is.
SPEAKER_06Well, I think I think Susie will immediately just say, Sven, and sorry.
SPEAKER_00And I think that seems the good place to leave it for this episode. Thank you very much for listening, and that's it for for episode four.