Episode 51

full
Published on:

14th Aug 2023

Lonely TTRPG EP 51 - Tears of Cassandra by John McKinstry

You can find Tears of Cassandra at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/364817/The-Tears-Of-Cassandra-FATE-AWAITS-solo-journaling.php?affiliate_id=3362048

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Transcript
SteelStash:

Hey, everyone, before we get started, a huge content warning

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on this episode as we talk about things like addiction, death, suicide

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whole bunch of, whole bunch of stuff.

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This is a little dark, a little heavy, so if you're not in a good

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place for that type of stuff, hey just just go ahead and skip it.

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All right?

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But without further ado, let's get on with the show.

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Greetings, weary wander and welcome back to Lonely, T T R P G, the Solo

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Actual Play and Review podcast.

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This week we are playing the Tears of Cassandra by John McKinstry,

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so this is gonna be a journaling game of a fantasy and horror.

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The basic premise is, y'all remember Cassandra from your Greek myth, right?

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The famous seer and prophet who was cursed with being able to accurately predict the

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future, but no one would ever believe her.

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One of the burdens, one of the curses, the people of Troy suffered by the Greek

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gods during the Trojan War and the Iliad,

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and of course the Iliad.

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Rumor to be written by multiple people, not just Homer, kind of carrying on

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a tradition of everybody building on top of the other one, or, as my

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favorite fan theory goes basically the T T R P G game of its day.

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But Cassandra cursed by Apollo never to be believed for her accurate prophecies.

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And in this game.

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Cassandra takes that curse and is actually able to bestow her prophetic

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visions upon others through her tears.

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And of course, this is a curse on those others as well, because

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as soon as Apollo finds out about them, Apollo begins his hunt.

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So this will be played in two parts.

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Part the first going about doing your seer stuff part.

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The second Apollo is aware and has sent his hellish hounds after you.

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Now, as always, in games like this, there is a content warning.

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Okay?

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We're gonna be talking about a lot of death in here.

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We're gonna be talking about horror and the inevitability of fate.

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So as always, do what you need to do when playing this game.

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If you need to take a break, take a break.

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If you need to put it away, put it away.

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All of this stuff is perfectly fine and encouraged by the author.

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Now if you notice, we kind of breezed past a lot of the

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background and everything on this.

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That is because

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this is a 56 page book and.

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You get halfway through before you get to your prompts.

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And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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There is a lot of well done writing in here, but that's a lot to

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cover and I'm not, I'm not reading you all of this right up front.

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So for the basic gameplay, okay, we're gonna use a deck of cards.

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We're gonna respond to the prompts on the deck of cards.

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Very standard card prompt game in that regard.

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Now there are some slight differences.

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So that first card that we draw, we're gonna remember what that suit

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is because as soon as we draw nine more cards in that suit, that will

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transition us from act one to act two.

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And then as soon as we draw 10 cards from that suit in act

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two, that is the end of the game

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now.

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We will not be playing the full two acts here tonight.

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We're gonna be playing just a little bit, get a little bit of a taste for it,

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show you guys what some of the prompts are and what some of the things you can

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do are, but this is designed to like, You're gonna run through most of the deck.

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If you're playing this game as written, you're gonna run through most of

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the deck both times until you get 10 cards in that first suit twice, and

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that is how you're going to do this.

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So for character creation, basically you just need some basic, you

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know, Hey, what's your name and what's your general temperament?

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Now there are some great questions in here for helping you get a feeling for.

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What type of setting you want, what type of seer you had, that sort of thing.

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Lot of great stuff for that and some examples on gameplay, anointment,

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all of that great stuff in here.

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I highly recommend you go check this out.

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But again, a lot of reading that we're not gonna necessarily do tonight.

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So with that, we are actually just gonna go into our gameplay.

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In the mythology we have Cassandra being immortal, being unable to die.

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So we're gonna be kind of a we're gonna be kind of a modern seer.

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Kind of ragamuffin.

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Alright.

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We, we think more highly of ourselves than we actually are.

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We are, I mean, we're basically in skid row, so that's gonna be the

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kind of environment that we're in, that we're going to go from there.

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So first things first, we need to draw our first card, and we're gonna

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be using a physical deck for this.

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We are gonna be using our Mickey Mouse deck, which I believe is almost

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as old, if not older than I am.

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But it's one of the only decks I have lying around where I

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know where all the cards are.

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So, I kind of gotta use it for tonight.

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By the way, any deck makers out there, if anybody designs decks look,

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I'm a sucker for, I'm a sucker for anybody asking me to use their stuff.

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How do you think I get all these wonderful games?

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Designers say, Hey, I made a thing.

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Do you want to check it out?

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And I'm like, of course.

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I wanna check it out.

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Send me your game.

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I will absolutely do the same thing For Decks Dice.

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Anything you wanna send, just reach out Black Dragon Dungeon company@gmail.com.

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But for our first card, we got ourselves the nine of Spades, and that

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means spades is our, is our suit the one that we have to watch out for?

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And if I was a superstitious man, I would say that ace of spades

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would always be the transition only because of old grandfather death.

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But who are we kidding?

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I am a superstitious man.

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But again, depends on if it comes up or not.

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All right, we're gonna, like I said, we're gonna play a

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little bit and see how it goes.

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So we're not a spades.

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We have a rabble-rouser runs a series of lurid stories about fake psychics.

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And in these stories, they focus on the people who claim

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to be able to see in the future.

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When these stories are running, you experience a vision of a person who

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is murdered in a fit of rage by their abusive partner When you meet that

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person, Though you discover that they're a fan of the rabble rouser tales and

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unwilling to believe a word you say, the rabble rouser will learn shortly

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after this person's violent death that you went to talk to them and became

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intrigued by you and your gifts.

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So right off the rip.

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That's a great one.

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That's a great one.

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I'm gonna say that, I'm gonna say that we were kind of skeptical about this type

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of stuff as well until we were anointed.

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And this is our first vision.

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This is our first vision.

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It is a violent death.

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We go to try to warn the person, and of course they are using all

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the same arguments and all the same.

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Rhetoric that we would have just two nights ago before our ointment.

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And I think this one's gonna hit us the hardest.

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Like this one's definitely gonna hit pretty hard because.

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We came from such a similar spot.

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We should have, we should have been able to reach out to them.

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We should have been able to figure it out.

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We couldn't.

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And then on top of all of that, we have this personality who is now harassing us.

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And the extent of that harassment, we're not sure, but like we.

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We have definitely gotten a couple voicemails a couple notes on like our

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apartment, and we are just trying to politely ignore it and see what happens.

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All right, for our next card, we got the king of hearts.

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For our next card, we got the king of hearts.

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Someone comes into your life, a new love interest or an old flame, and

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there is an immediate attraction.

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Do you already have a partner?

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Will a heart be broken?

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Will their love be unrequited or will this be the sort of a passionate relationship?

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Regardless of how it must eventually end, this person's very presence in your life,

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at least at first, bring a little joy to your pain filled world for a while.

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Add them as the person you love.

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Okay.

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All right, so one thing about this game

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is that part of Cassandra's Curse was to see everyone that she loved died,

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and that's part of the curse that was kind of bestowed on us as well.

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So,

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We'll say, we'll say it's been a couple weeks since that first vision like

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ever since the anno, like we broke up around the anointment and then like a

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couple days later we had the vision.

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We had our little, we had our little breakdown.

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We kind of sequestered ourself away.

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We basically ghosted this person and now they're back and we

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don't know how to explain it.

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I think

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part of me wants to keep them at, like, part of me wants to keep them

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kind of at arm's length, like we.

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We kind of take solace in each other that night that they show up, but I kind of

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want keep them at arms length right now.

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This is all, this is all still too new.

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It's not like we've gotten used to the fact that we're gonna be

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constantly seeing the fate of people.

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So yeah, we're definitely gonna be keeping them at arms length,

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but we are doing it out of some like misguided sense of nobility.

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All right, next up we got the eight of spades, so that's

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gonna be our second spade.

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And for the eight you encounter a person who listens.

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The person appears when you most need them, and they listen

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and do not judge what you say.

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You form a strong connection with them and may add them as a person

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you love if you wish to do so.

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All right, so I have a, I have a very weird vision for this

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and.

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I want you all to picture

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Groundhog Day and the older person living on the street.

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And that's, and that's what this person is, this is an older

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person this is an older gen.

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They're living on the streets.

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They have their issues with addiction and.

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We,

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we have our, we, we start our bond basically because I turn

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to self-medication and this has gotten really dark, really fast.

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I'm three cards in good night.

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But we've turned to self-medication and.

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One night while self-medicating we made the decision that misery loves company

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and this person had just listened without judgment, without anything.

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And yeah, I think, I think we start a regular conversation with them.

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Kind of hard to kind of hard to see how that's gonna go going

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forward, but we definitely start a regular conversation with them and,

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and that might be a point of friction with Our love Minnie, because again,

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we're keeping her at arms distance.

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We're keeping Minnie at arm's distance and like here we are

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sitting almost in the gutter drinking with Bob on a regular basis.

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And yeah, that's not, that's not great for the relationship.

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But it does accomplish the goal of keeping keeping Minnie at arm's distance.

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So wins.

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All right, next up we got the two of clubs.

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The two of clubs.

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All right, so two clubs.

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You're falsely accused of a serious crime.

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Your credibility is questioned by law enforcement, but you do eventually manage

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to convince them of your innocence.

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While held captive, you experience a slew of dreams of those whose

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fates you are sure you could have saved, but have been left unable

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to do so, your close to despair.

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And although you continue your life once released, it is with a heavy heart.

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So it seems like the rabble-rouser, Pete.

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In his frustration at not being able to really get a talk with

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us, and maybe in their attempt at proving that psychics are not real,

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they phone Pete phoned in some anonymous tip or anonymous tip.

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That we were connected with, you know, just one of the recent

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one of the recent murders.

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And like, of course, it's

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of course it's easy enough to

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get dismissed.

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Because after all, we, it wasn't, it wasn't in our area.

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It wasn't anything connected to us.

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It had nothing to do with us.

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It had nothing to do with any of the work we've been doing.

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We had an alibi for that night.

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Between Minnie and Bob, we, we definitely have.

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The alibis and you know, our landlord definitely attesting to the fact that,

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you know, while yes things have been getting strange, we have not been, we

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have not been going out at strange hours.

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But the problem is, as it so often is we live on skid row,

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which means we have no money.

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Which means we spend weeks in jail because this is a serious crime.

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This is murder, and we're being held without bail.

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Not that we could afford bail even if there was one set.

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And we're relying on a public defender, which means that, you know, the

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system is going as slow as possible.

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Like the only time the system would actually go slower is if it was a

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rich man trying to avoid at something.

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But no, it is just going at slow jurisprudence.

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It's going at a slow pace as everything else is being done,

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and we are just being held while that's happening because on paper.

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We do not look like we would be

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responsible enough to be out on our own.

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However, the court defines that, and I

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think being surrounded like.

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Being in jail, being surrounded by so many different people, it, it really

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starts to amplify and intrude on us.

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Because you know, yeah, we run into people's on a daily basis in our

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regular life, but like here we are surrounded by people who have been

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in the vicinity of violence and pain and suffering, and whether or not

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they actually did anything to cause that they have been surrounded by it.

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They are undergoing it.

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Just by the mere of fact that they are in prison instead of

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with their family, especially when they're innocent, especially the

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innocent ones that are being held.

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And we are seeing,

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we're seeing the pain of missed family events leading to.

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Leading to suicides, we're seeing the pain of a system that doesn't care leading

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to poor decisions and stands or, and future stands off with the police that

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don't end well because they never do.

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We're seeing, we're seeing all these things just from all these

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people that we're surrounded by and.

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Yeah, this is it.

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It weighs on us.

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It weighs very heavy on us.

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And when we are finally, when we're finally released I don't, I

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don't even think we, I don't even think we self-medicate with Bob.

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I think we, I think we just lock ourselves in our apartment with a bottle and.

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Yeah, try to try to try to drown out those visions.

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But.

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What we are gonna say.

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All right.

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What we're gonna say is we are gonna say that the power of the

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intensity of what we experienced alerted Apollo to our presence.

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So we are moving on from act one to act two.

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Apollo knows we exist, which means that Apollo is now hunting us.

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So now the real horror can begin.

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Anything is better than this depression.

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All right, so for our first card for act two, we got the king of diamonds.

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Now, remember, spades is the hunt card,

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but king of diamonds.

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You save someone, and that person then goes on to believe that having cheated

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death once, that they're now blessed or invincible, you observe as they start to

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do things to prove themselves and others.

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I.

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That they're invulnerable.

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They announce that they're going to tackle an extremely dangerous task

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or stunt of some kind and beg you to be there so that if a vision comes

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to you, they know not to proceed.

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You refuse, and they double down on their claims telling the world

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that they're about to do something extremely risky the night before.

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You have a dream of them standing beside a grave, but this grave is not their

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own, but of someone very close to them.

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All right.

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So yeah.

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Yeah, we've been we've been kind of doing this for a little while now.

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We've started to develop a little bit of a reputation and yeah, it would

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seem that, It would seem that Jimmy

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has taken this as a money making opportunity, which, you know,

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not a surprise, this is Skid Row.

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Everybody's looking for a way to get off of Skid Row,

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and at least Jimmy is at least Jimmy is using it as Himself and not trying to

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use me as his money-making opportunity, but I keep trying to tell him.

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I keep trying to tell him, Jimmy, look, this was a one-time thing.

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I don't know what to tell you.

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I am not going to be there and watch, try and kill yourself.

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And I can't.

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I can't be there every time that you want to do this thing.

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This I.

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I am not a fan of this life and I can't do it.

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And then we have the dream

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and

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yeah, then we have the dream and it is Jimmy's girlfriend.

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It's his girlfriend's grave that he's standing at.

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Apparently whatever stunt he pulled was gonna go wrong and it

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was going to cost her and not him.

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And so,

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Yeah, so we, yeah, we call Jimmy up right away.

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We, we, we call him up and we tell him, we let, and we say, Hey, look.

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I, I don't know what it is, but I.

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Whatever happens.

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I saw you standing next to your girlfriend's grave and,

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and Jimmy believes us.

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That's, that's not the problem.

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Jimmy believes us.

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Jimmy knows because, you know, we did, we, we saved Jimmy's life, so he

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convinces his girlfriend to stay home.

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Which is fine because she didn't want to go out and watch him

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do this asinine stunt anyway.

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And

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you know, while she's

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while she's sitting in the apartment waiting for him to come home, there

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is a screech of tires outside.

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Followed by a couple shots and a stray round goes through the window and hits her

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as skid row claims.

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Another one.

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Alright, next card, 10 of diamonds.

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A large fierce dog adopts you.

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It seems to be astray, but when you ask around, it seems to be

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the dog was previously owned by a woman who claimed to be able to see

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the future, but who died recently.

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In strange circumstances, the dog is completely loyal to you, but can

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become ferocious around other people.

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It has what looks like burn marks on its body as if it's been

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burned by a fire in recent past.

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All right.

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That's not at all.

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That's not at all suspicious.

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You know, that is not at all suspicious considering our current circumstances, but

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yeah.

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Yeah, we're definitely gonna adopt this dog and.

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What shall we call him?

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All right, let's call him Halogi

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little bit of a little bit of a play right there.

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Halogi looks like he's been burned and.

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Halogi is the Norse joten of fire

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or one of the joten of fire.

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But yeah, no, we're definitely gonna keep this companion and

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yeah, it's nice to have 'em, right?

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It's, it's a comfort.

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Luckily he seems to get along with Bob and Minnie, even though Minnie doesn't come

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around so much anymore, which is good.

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I mean, it's not good.

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We're, we're now at the point where we have learned to enjoy what we can enjoy.

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But

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we have already done irreparable damage to this relationship.

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So it is,

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it's never gonna be fulfilling or.

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Healthy.

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It can only ever be two people at the end of their rope commiserating

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with each other just in a different way than commiserate with Bob.

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So thank God for Halogi.

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For a little bit of healthy love in an otherwise unhealthy, bleak life.

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All right, and then up next we got the Ace of diamonds pulling a lot

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of diamonds tonight in this act.

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All right.

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You experience violence when the friend or partner of someone you fail to say,

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finds you and assault you in public.

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They're arrested before they can wound you fatally.

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They tell the true but unbelievable story of who you really are and

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what you can do to law enforcement.

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And one person in law enforcement then starts to take a keen

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interest in your recent activities.

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So,

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yeah.

SteelStash:

Yeah.

SteelStash:

We are,

SteelStash:

we're at the hospital.

SteelStash:

I.

SteelStash:

In the emergency room, after all, like, I mean, we can't even afford the

SteelStash:

emergency room, but at least the state has programs for people in the er.

SteelStash:

There's not a whole lot we can do.

SteelStash:

After all, we, we just got beat pretty badly and.

SteelStash:

And you know, Pete is there.

SteelStash:

Pete has been, Pete has been trying to get at us.

SteelStash:

Because this is a perfect opportunity for Pete because, I mean, after all,

SteelStash:

it's not like we can go anywhere and.

SteelStash:

Between the, between the suspect's statements and everything that

SteelStash:

Pete keeps feeding the cops to try to get to me, it seems Officer

SteelStash:

Paulson has also taken an interest.

SteelStash:

Which

SteelStash:

is lovely.

SteelStash:

I'm really happy for that.

SteelStash:

Not that

SteelStash:

I.

SteelStash:

Not that I ever did anything wrong, but

SteelStash:

you know, between the previous arrest and the claims from Pete

SteelStash:

and the claims from the person who beat me and all of this other stuff

SteelStash:

Yeah.

SteelStash:

Yeah.

SteelStash:

It's, they, they're taking a, they're taking a different, in, definite interest

SteelStash:

in who I am, the various claims that I've had against me, the various things that

SteelStash:

have happened to some of the people around me.

SteelStash:

You know, here, and here it was.

SteelStash:

Everybody thought that, you know, skid Row was just lucky in the past couple years.

SteelStash:

But now you know, may, maybe it was me, who knows?

SteelStash:

I certainly don't I, but.

SteelStash:

What I do know is that the emergency room is cold and bright

SteelStash:

and lonely at night, even like,

SteelStash:

like I almost would like Pete or Officer Parsons here.

SteelStash:

Unfortunately, Halogi is not here.

SteelStash:

Obviously can't have a large dog in here.

SteelStash:

Bob is not here.

SteelStash:

Minnie is not here.

SteelStash:

I am alone in a strange room,

SteelStash:

in this cold, sterile building.

SteelStash:

When I notice a bead of sweat on my forehead and.

SteelStash:

That's weird because again, it is so cold in here that I'm under two blankets

SteelStash:

just to try and find some comfort.

SteelStash:

I mean, say what you will about my apartment in Skid Row.

SteelStash:

You know, at least asbestos keeps it warm.

SteelStash:

Might not be the best for my health, but, but I'm starting to sweat.

SteelStash:

And I hear a growl, and as I turn my head to the side, I feel the flames

SteelStash:

as they consume me.

SteelStash:

And that is Tears of Cassandra by John McKinstry.

SteelStash:

Yeah, like I said, we played an abbreviated version.

SteelStash:

We weren't playing the entire thing tonight.

SteelStash:

Just wanna give you a taste.

SteelStash:

That got really dark.

SteelStash:

I was not expecting that to go as dark as it did.

SteelStash:

Remember TT RPGs are not therapy.

SteelStash:

They may be therapeutic, but they're not therapy.

SteelStash:

So I'm sorry, y'all had to deal with a therapeutic session with me.

SteelStash:

But that's okay because at the end of the day, we are all okay here.

SteelStash:

Everything is good, everything is fine.

SteelStash:

It's all fine now.

SteelStash:

I'm fine.

SteelStash:

How are you?

SteelStash:

I, no that is, this is a lot more emotional of a game than I was expecting.

SteelStash:

So it's very different from other prompt games that I've played.

SteelStash:

I've played a lot of card prompt games.

SteelStash:

I've played a lot of wretched and the alone style games, and

SteelStash:

where most of those ga, like most prompt games.

SteelStash:

I give you a short description and like an open-ended sentence,

SteelStash:

like feelings are open-ended.

SteelStash:

There's a question there.

SteelStash:

There's something there, like there's something there.

SteelStash:

Everything is very open-ended.

SteelStash:

This is a lot more definitive in its prompts and I don't

SteelStash:

know how I feel about that.

SteelStash:

I don't, because on the one hand

SteelStash:

it closes off a lot of opportunity for role play.

SteelStash:

Like it closes off a lot of opportunity because it is flat

SteelStash:

out telling you this happened.

SteelStash:

This is what you're feeling.

SteelStash:

But on the other hand, I do like putting pieces together.

SteelStash:

I do like the, I do like putting pieces together, that verbal puzzle of.

SteelStash:

Well, I got this and I got this.

SteelStash:

So how do these all kind of fit in together and how does

SteelStash:

this story kind of come about?

SteelStash:

This definitely feels stronger as some sort of writing prompt,

SteelStash:

and I get the feeling that

SteelStash:

this wanted to be a story.

SteelStash:

I.

SteelStash:

This wanted to be a story.

SteelStash:

This is craving to be a story.

SteelStash:

That's why the intro is as well written and it fleshed out as it is.

SteelStash:

That's why everything is as well written and fleshed out as it is,

SteelStash:

and that's not a bad thing,

SteelStash:

but it also makes it difficult.

SteelStash:

Because.

SteelStash:

Because it feels like it wants to be a story so bad.

SteelStash:

It's kind of hard to just play if you're in the mood, to just sit

SteelStash:

down and play even if you like, even if you're playing for catharsis.

SteelStash:

It's kind of hard to do that here.

SteelStash:

You have to be intentional in your play here.

SteelStash:

And again, not a bad thing.

SteelStash:

I don't mind it.

SteelStash:

Of course, it's also part of the reason why this episode is late.

SteelStash:

The other part is work sucks, but but yeah, this.

SteelStash:

Even with some of the other dark heavy games that I've played, there's

SteelStash:

always been a bit of a lightness about them that helped you feel

SteelStash:

like, oh, this is just a game.

SteelStash:

Even, even with the open-ended trying, like forcing you to pull from yourself.

SteelStash:

And I don't know, maybe this is actually easier to play.

SteelStash:

Like I said, there's a lot more definitive stuff.

SteelStash:

It's like, it feels a lot more like putting plot points down in order.

SteelStash:

And you're just kind of connecting the plot dots and like, like I said,

SteelStash:

I just ended up I ended up going for catharsis and a little bit of

SteelStash:

therapeutic feelings, and I might've just gone a little too far into this.

SteelStash:

But overall, all in all, I do enjoy it.

SteelStash:

Like I did enjoy it.

SteelStash:

I it's really weird to say I enjoyed the feelings as I di didn't, but.

SteelStash:

I enjoyed the fact that I didn't enjoy what I felt.

SteelStash:

Yeah, it's,

SteelStash:

this is a good game.

SteelStash:

This is a good game.

SteelStash:

This is something you should definitely check out if you like horror, if you like.

SteelStash:

Psychological.

SteelStash:

This is definitely something to, this is definitely something you should check out.

SteelStash:

This is something you should look at.

SteelStash:

This is very great for all of that.

SteelStash:

If you wanna pick up your own copy of tiers of Cassandra, you can

SteelStash:

find it on drive through R p G.

SteelStash:

Just search the tiers of Cassandra Fate Awaits.

SteelStash:

Or you can click on the link down below.

SteelStash:

Please click the link if you wanna do it.

SteelStash:

I am an affiliate , so no extra charge to you, and I get a couple cents

SteelStash:

to help support my gaming habits.

SteelStash:

So that would be much appreciated.

SteelStash:

I would highly love that.

SteelStash:

But like I said, you can find it on drive through R P G for 4 99.

SteelStash:

If you go pick it up, remember to leave a review and let 'em

SteelStash:

know that SteelStash sent you.

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About the Podcast

Lonely TTRPG
A Solo Play Podcast
Lonely TTRPG is a show where I play and review solo TTRPGs.

Every other week, we play another solo TTRPG from across the indie community.

So join us as we roll, draw, and journal our way through some fantastic games.

About your host

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John Stum

Black Dragon Dungeon Company is a TTRPG podcast. We do weekly actual play podcasts and bi-weekly discussion podcasts where we talk about certain things about the TTRPG world.

You can reach us at blackdragondungeoncompany@gmail.com or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bddc_pod