Chill: Witness to a Murder

Yesterday, Chill, last time, etc.

The envoys convene at Britt Lepus' place and talk about what they know so far (not much) and what they might do next. Amelia Rostov senses the Unknown and sees (hears, really) that it seems to be lingering around them. Nicholas Failor considers how best to use his Sensing school of the Art, but without a specific place or target, he's kind of flying blind. 

Somewhere in here, Dustin Holmes texts Britt: "2nd date?" Last night he had promised to tell her something that was bothering him, but that it was more of a "second date" kind of conversation. She agrees and leaves to go meet him for a beer. Nicholas contacts Danika Baburin, one of the other people affected by all this, since probably she should have someone looking out for her. Amelia goes to look through the papers that have caused all this trouble and see if there's anything else in there that might be helpful. Mercy Williams wonders if her Heal discipline can fix Jean Cameron's leg (they poured molten sugar on their leg a week ago), so heads to their house.

Amelia looks through the old SAVE notes and manages to put some of it in context. There are six schools of the Art: Protective, Incorporeal, Sensing, Kinetic, Restorative, and Communicative. There are notes on several of them, but the Incorporeal notes are what keep getting them in trouble. She learns that attuning to the Incorporeal school requires doing kind of the opposite of what envoys are usually taught to do - that is, steel themselves against outside (Unknown) influence. Learning the Incorporeal school requires opening oneself up, and it's recommended that you never try that without having someone skilled in the Protective school (like Amelia) handy to intervene if something goes wrong. 

Amelia finds notes about "Leave the Body" (astral projection) and "Voice of the Dead" (channeling incorporeal beings, like ghosts). There's also a section on "Astral Attack," which would allow a physical being to strike a non-physical one, but bits of that are missing. Amelia is considering all this when her phone bloops at her...

Nicholas grabs a bite to eat with Danika and talks about her relationship with her three friends. She tells him that the one she's worried about is Rochelle - she seems like there's something bothering her, but Danika isn't sure what and Rochelle isn't being forthcoming. She knows that Rochelle is more focused on her kids, but is worried that if this "Unknown" thing really gets out of hand that she won't have anyone to turn to. Nicholas suggests maybe they drop in on her and see if they can figure it out, and Rochelle agrees. They're heading over there (Danika drives) when Nicholas' phone sounds...

Mercy goes to Jean's place (she calls first) and Jean tells her to keep quiet; their son, Dale, is finally sleeping. Mercy tells Jean that she's interested to see if she can heal a wound that's kind of supernatural in origin, or if it'll react in any way. At worst, she can change the dressing. Jean agrees and puts on a pair of shorts, and Mercy focuses. The wound starts to heal - it's not totally gone, but it's a lot better. Jean thanks her profusely and gives her a little box of honeycomb to take to the others ("nobody leaves here without something sweet"). And then Mercy's phone goes off...

Britt meets up with Dustin for a drink, and he takes a deep breath and, as he says, rips off the bandage. When he and his three friends were about 11, they witnessed a murder. 

They were cutting class (his idea) from Seward Middle School, and cut through the wooded area between the school and Rochelle's house. As they did, they saw a man and a woman walking into the woods, about 30 yards away from them. They were talking, though the kids couldn't hear what they said. And then the man grabbed the woman and started to choke her. She threw him off and he actually flew through the air and hit a tree, but then she tried to run, tripped, and he came up behind her and stomped on her head until she stopped moving. And then he dragged her off, but they ran.

Britt, stunned, asks if they ever reported it, and Dustin says they didn't. They were all too terrified, and it was so surreal that they kind of convinced themselves it didn't happen. Plus, they never saw anything about it on the news, no bodies found, nothing like that, so maybe they didn't see it? But that was the event, he says, that eventually led him to reiki and energy work - he started reading about true crime, then paranormal phenomena, then spiritual stuff. He knows that Rochelle started going to church with her grandmother more after that, and that Danika and Jean went back there by themselves once to see if they could find anything.

Britt, a freakishly fast texter, puts all of this into the group chat for the envoys, and the three of them all see it come through. She also asks if Dustin told the others he was planning to tell her, and Dustin takes a moment and pings his friends to say that he did. Danika sees that text as she and Nicholas pull up to Rochelle's house, and acknowledges that it's true. Jean, likewise, talks with Mercy about it. Mercy asks about them going back to the site, and Jean says they did (with Danika). They didn't find any sign of violence, but Jean got a feeling that they likened to the sudden dread of realizing your toddler has been quiet for too long. They say they didn't understand the feeling then, and it was much more intense. 

Nicholas and Danika knock on Rochelle's door. An older lady with a Russian accent (actually, speaking mostly Russian) answers and lets them in. Rochelle hands off a one-year-old to the woman (her mother) and sits down with them. 

If Rochelle has had any paranormal incidents, she's not talking about them. She tells them that she's trying to raise her kids and just live her life (her mother occasionally interjects with Russian phrases, but neither Danika nor Nicholas understand). Nicholas says that losing his crew was what propelled him to investigate this, and finding a new crew (the envoys) gives him the strength and structure he needs to continue. Rochelle says she'd do anything for her friends...but her babies have to come first. She does agree to contact Nicholas if anything weird happens.

Danika leaves (she offers to drive Nicholas back to his car, but he'd rather walk), and the envoys decide to convene at the community center. They obviously need to go to the murder site so Nicholas can have a look, but they also wonder if the SAVE pages themselves might be carrying something Unknown. Mercy does a little internet sleuthing, but doesn't find anything murder-related from the time that seems to fit. The envoys do note, however, that this happened in May of 2000, which was about the time that the Anchorage and Seward chapters of SAVE vanished. 

They head out to the wooded area (there's an athletic field for the nearby schools there now, but still a bit of woods), and find the place Dustin pointed out. Nicholas focuses and looks back 24 years...

A man and a woman walking into the woods. Both white, both late 30s or early 40s. The woman is wearing blue jeans, a light jacket, and an "Alaska SeaLife Center" t-shirt. The man is wearing cargo pants, a blue long-sleeve tee, and a Seattle Mariners baseball cap. They have a brief conversation:

WOMAN: You feel anything yet?
MAN: No, but it was right around here.
WOMAN: I really think we should contact the others.
MAN: Sure. You want to call someone? My phone is dead. 
WOMAN: If they’ll even answer. It’s gotten really hard to- hang on. Do you feel that?
MAN (smiling widely): What, that feeling like something really bad is about to happen? 
WOMAN: Yeah, but-
She turns to him, he grabs her by the throat, and starts to strangle her. She throws him off and against a tree and tries to run. He points at her and she trips, he walks over and stomps on the back of her neck until she stops moving.
MAN: Dammit. Guess I’m walking around like this for a while yet. 
He drags her into the woods to a hole with a shovel nearby and buries her.  

Nicholas snaps back to the present and relates all this to envoys. The pretty much guess this to be a SAVE team (or what's left of it), but they don't know who these people are or even what city they're from. They look around and find the spot where the hole was, but they don't have shovels or tools. (They also figure they need more light, since after 24 years there isn't going to be much left of this woman.) They mark the area and decide to come back tomorrow, and start heading to their cars.

But they don't get there. Time and light stretch out, and the lights on the street never seem to be getting closer. They stop and walk back to the clearing with the grave (that's still accessible). Amelia uses Disrupt on herself and everyone's perspective shifts - the lights get "closer" for everyone - but then they snap back. She considers raising a Sphere of Protection, but if she does that she can't walk. She uses Disrupt on Nicholas and he sees the lights change, but no one else does.

Britt figures that this means whatever is doing this is using Amelia as a conduit. Amelia draws a Line of Defense around herself, and the effect ends for the others. They decide that the SAVE papers might be carrying something, so Nicholas and Britt will go back to the trailer and try and figure that out. Mercy will stay here with Amelia and make sure she's OK. ("Go and get us some lobster rolls, huh?")

Mercy and Amelia hang out and talk, but suddenly Mercy feels pain in her spine. It starts at the base of her neck and moves down, getting more and more intense, until finally she falls to the ground, muscles in spasm. Amelia uses Blessing and tells her to get into the circle, and Mercy manages to push herself into it without breaking the line. The pain disappears, and the two of them sit there panting. "And I dropped my damn sandwich," mutters Mercy.

Meanwhile, Nicholas and Britt aren't having much luck, either. They go to the trailer to try and do some sensing on the papers, but both utterly fail to feel anything (they both botched the roll, with the same roll, which is impressive). They gather up the papers that Amelia was going over earlier, and head back out to the grave. 

When they get there, they find Mercy and Amelia both in the circle. They hand over the papers to Amelia, hoping that maybe if the papers are in the circle, the effect will end. Amelia senses the Unknown and feels something, but not from the papers. It's apparently hanging around her (or maybe her and Mercy). A peal of thunder above them, and a raindrop...a rainstorm will definitely break the circle.

Mercy steps out of the circle and she, Nicholas, and Britt leave the woods. They get back to the car and try to figure out where Amelia is, but they can't see her. When Amelia uses Disrupt again, she "appears", but then vanishes a second later. 

The rain starts to get more intense. Amelia decides to go for broke. She braces herself, activates Disrupt, and runs. She manages to get through the barrier in the few seconds she has before the Unknown reasserts herself, but in the process she loses a few of the papers in the wind.

The envoys get back in the car and collect themselves, trying to figure out what exactly they're up against here. 

Movie #877: Nobody

Nobody is an action/comedy starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, Aleksei Serebryakov, Michael Ironside, Billy MacLellan, and Colin Salmon. It shares a lot of similarity, including the writer, with John Wick, but it's a very different movie.

Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is a normal family man in a bit of a rut. He works for his father-in-law Eddie (Ironside) as an accountant for a tool and die company, and seems kind of disassociated with his life. And then a couple of idiots (Humberly Gonzaléz and Edsson Morales) break into his house, steal his watch, and assault his son (Gage Munroe), and he apparently freezes up rather than defending his family.

The next night, when he learns that the thieves apparently also took his daughter's bracelet (Paisley Cadorath - the daughter, not the bracelet), that's kind of his breaking point, and he hunts them down and gets the watch back. He's clearly itching for violence, but learns that these thieves only did it because they have a sick baby at home, and Hutch isn't a total asshole, so he leaves. But then on the bus on the way home, five thugs jump on and start harassing people, and Hutch just takes them apart, leaving one (Aleksander Pal) with a crushed windpipe. 

See, it turns out Hutch was an "auditor", a kind of cleaner who comes in to "three letter agencies" and cleans house when necessary. He's long been retired and he loves his family, but when the violence starts up he finds himself absolutely back in his element and happy about it, and that is where this movie differs from John Wick.

John Wick is unhappy in his retired life because he's lost it, not because he wants his old life back. He gets back into the life because someone takes away what little life he had left. Hutch, meanwhile, isn't happy in his retired life, though he recognizes that he was. The robbers offer him a way back in, and he chooses to become part of that life again by beating up the dudes on the bus (they even throw him out of the bus at one point, and he chooses to go back in for more). 

The dude with the crushed windpipe turns out to be the brother of a Russian crime boss (Serebryakov, and yes, the Russians are the bad guys again, but I'll get to that), and he finds out who Hutch is and goes after his family. This all leads to a big ol' showdown in the tool and die factory with Hutch battling Russian mobsters alongside his equally badass father (Lloyd) and brother (RZA). 

There's a lot to love about this movie. I'd never have picked Bob Odenkirk as an action star, but he worked his ass off to play this role, and he and the stunt crew did amazing things. The fight choreography is spectacular (David Leitch, who directed Atomic Blonde and co-directed John Wick, was a producer), and the film does an amazing job of ramping up the action as it goes. I like that there are little nods to Hutch's job not being entirely secret; one of my favorite bits is him going into a tattoo shop, a guy hanging around (Stephen McIntyre) recognizes his tattoo, just about shits himself, says "thank you for your service" and gets the hell out. And what I love about it is that the other guys there, who had been about ready to try and rob Hutch, immediately recognize that there is more going on here than they understand and back the fuck down. 

Another cool thing: The bad guys are Russian mobsters, yes, but the director is Russian, and one of the things he said in the making-of shorts was that Russians don't tend to mind being the bad guys, but they do mind when the filmmakers don't get it right. So he cast actual Russians as Russians, and had them speaking Russian when they were together, which as a language nerd makes me very happy. 

But the other thing I like is the consistent theming around wanting to get out of this world of shadowy violence vs. wanting to be in it vs. wanting to be both in and out. Yulian the Mob Boss wants out - he's perfectly willing to kill a motherfucker with a martini glass, but he's done and would rather retire...but he isn't willing to take the risk and winds up dead. Harry, Hutch's brother, wants to be out and in hiding, but he's willing to come back for his brother. David, Hutch's father, is out apparently due to his age, but when he comes back he looks like he's having a grand old time.

And then there's Hutch, who needs both his family and his life as a badass, and at the end, what seems to have happened is that he has that - he and his wife (Nielsen) are shopping for a house and she is apparently on board (actually, there's some dialog to indicate that she's at least somewhat aware of what he used to do; this isn't like A History of Violence where it's a completely surprise). I haven't seen the sequel yet, but I'm interested to know how it plays out. 

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High 

Next up: Nosferatu (2024) 

Character Creation: Sentients

Well, this morning's blag post was supposed to be a Tidal Blades session write-up, but then I had the worst POTS flare I've had in years last night, lost the ability to speak for an hour, and wound up hanging out with my friends watching Nobody instead. So our takeaways are: POTS sucks, I'd rather be a robot.

The Game: Sentients
The Publisher: Tedbot Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, but the system isn't a million miles from Forged in the Dark
Books Required: Just the one, but there's a dope-ass character builder on their site

In Sentients, you play robots who have become, well, sentient. The wording is deliberate, because while they've always arguably been sapient, now they can feel emotions. Obviously, this game hits a bunch of the same themes that Promethean: The Created did, so I'm very interested. Also, it's clean and easy to read, and the interstitial fiction is good and not any longer than it needs to be. I haven't finished reading the book, but I want to do 9 characters this month so I don't want to wait anymore. I'm definitely coming back to this, though, because I want to run it at some point.

Oh, the other thing I found affecting about this book is how uncomfortably topical the history feels. It's set in 2071, there's been a Second Civil War but it wasn't so much a war in the traditional sense as it was the MAGAts (they're not called that, but politically it's the same thing - brainwashed fascists licking corporate/billionaire boot while they literally die of disease and starvation) flat-out murdering anyone they deem "non-American." The USA has officially crumbled, and we're in the Archipelago, a string of city-states across North America. Cities have basically repopulated and become functional, except we just couldn't keep our greasy brains off of capitalism so there's still rich people. But now, helper robots!

"Arthroids", as they're called (because "androids" is gendered, which I get, but "arthroids" is harder to say and sounds like a deep-sea creature feature from the 90s - Arthroids, starring Brad Dourif!) are manufactured by one of several different companies and are used in all manner of ways as labor. There's a lively - one might even say violent - debate over whether arthroids becoming sentient is even possible and what the practical and spiritual implications are. 

OK, enough waffle, let's get to this.

I'm meant to start with some backstory. I don't have any particular ideas today (apart from "man I wish my head would stop spinning") so I'm gonna use the random tables. First one they give me is who manufactured me, for which I need a d8. Roll...1, Dynapse! They specialize in warfare and policing, but they're also one of the earliest producers of arthroids, so figure I have some room to breathe. 

There's a big list of potential robo-jobs, so using a convoluted method that would have been so much easier if I just told random.org to pick a number from 1-46 but then wouldn't have let me roll shiny math rocks, I get "bartender." I like that a lot, actually. There's absolutely an alternate universe in which I became a bartender; I like the craft of mixing drinks and I like listening to people. I think playing a robot mixologist would be fun.

(I've been into a Yubtub channel called "How To Drink" of late, and one of the things he did a while back was play with this machines that purport to mix cocktails for you. They were almost universally awful, but the video is really funny.) 

So let's say my arthroid was a birthday present for Mickey Campor. Mickey owned Sully's Bar, an Irish pub ("dive" might be closer to the truth) in some city with a large Irish-American population (first choice would be Boston). After the USA fell, after all those people died, after the Archipelago rose and things started to get back to normal, Sully's was still open (it dates back to the early 1900s, started by Mickey's great-great-great-grandfather). 

Mickey got wounded in the Second Civil War and wound up needing a wheelchair, which is fine, except Sully's isn't very accessible. Mickey's daughter Kiara bought him an arthroid (she clearly has some money, which is a plotline I'd be interested in exploring if we were playing this game) to help out around the place, and plumped for the "mixology software" package so it could tend bar. HH-827 ("HouseHold series, model 827", you see) became a fixture in the place, and eventually got nicknamed "Sully," because the locals like to joke that the robot owns the place. Mickey hates that joke, and he's not fond of the robot generally, but he has to admit that it never over-pours, never needs a sick day, and isn't going to knock up a waitress, so like, it's OK. 

And now we add Components! I get 14 Design Points to do so, and components change my base stats. This is where the builder comes in handy. Just a moment.

Well, I want Biosense Chemical Sensors, which effectively gives me a sense of smell. Not only is it useful to know if the cream has gone bad before you start mixing White Russians, but it's helpful to know if someone's barfed on the floor as soon as it happens. I'll take an Extended Mesh Adapter, which improves my access to the Mesh (basically this world's internet). I'll take a Coprocessor so my Neural Complexity is a little higher. That's probably enough in my head. What about a sleeve?

As much as I would love for Sully to appear human, I think it's more likely that he has some armor, both because he's from Dynapse and because he'll probably need to break up fights. So I'll give him the XR-9 Active Armor, which lets me reduce incoming kinetic damage at a cost of my charge.

Chassis? Arms? Legs? Well, a couple for Chassis - I want the Bioreactor (I can "eat" scraps of organic matter and turn them into charge, which means that when folks in the pub don't finish their wings or whatever they never go to waste), and improved haptic feedback (good for spinning bottles and the like).

That's 11 points, anything else? Yeah, I'll take Silent Servos (I feel like the noise would be something Mickey wouldn't like, and this lets me movie quietly) and Synthetic Flexors (improves mobility and agility). 

Cool, that's my points! Now I get 3 Processes at level 1. I'll take Take the Initiative (lets me suss out a situation quickly), Phase Precession (boost my Neural Complexity), and Stress Analysis (analyze a target and gain a boost on social actions). 

Imprints! These are behavioral and programming parameters that I have to obey (rather, if I try not to I have to make a Control check). I have to pick at least one, but I can pick up to 4. 

Well, I seriously doubt Mickey entered these, so what would his daughter put in? Obey Owner, clearly. Ooh, of course she'd want it to protect her father, so Protect Owner. And then I like Minimize Collateral Damage (these are just examples, I could make them up, too). I think that's good, though. I have to set a level at each of these, 1-5, so let's say Obey at 3, Protect at 5, Minimize Damage at 2. 

I start with 0 Stress and 2 Control, that's easy.

Patterns! These are basically Skills, and I get different amounts depending on the subcategory. Nifty. Can't go over 3 in any one Pattern.

Emotive Patterns: I get 4. I'll put one in Emotional Intelligence, two in Empathy, one in Expression. 

Core: 6 points. Awareness needs a bunch, obviously, so I'll put three there, and one into the others (Aim, Melee, and Dynamism).

Knowledge: 6 points again. Three into Local, of course. And then I think the other three into Humans. That's kinda what Sully is about. Actually, I want one in Science, so I'll pull one out of Local. 

Skills: 10 whopping points! Well, I want Deception and Persuasion to be at least 2, so let's start there. I feel like Sully should know how to drive, so I'll put 1 into Vehicles. I'll stick 1 in Stealth (I get a bonus from my silent servos). Oh, I need Medicine. I think just 1 should be fine? He's not trained to do surgery or anything. I'll stick one into Technology and one into Planning. That leaves one, I'll give myself a third point of Persuasion. 

Backstory I've kinda done. Significant Relationships are obviously with Mickey and Kiara (and would include other arthroids if I had other PCs to think about), Significant Locations is pretty much just the bar. 

And the only other thing would be equipment, but I'm fine without doing that. Oh, wait, I have to set Age and Affect. I'll say Age is 2 (Sully is a gen 2, so he's a little older, which might be why Kiara could afford him). His Affect is 4 (he's pretty emotionally responsive, which only makes sense).

Sully is obviously a robot - he can't pass for human. He's got dull metal parts covered in light blue plastic, and he takes good care of his hands (that's where the haptics are located). He's got an Irish flag painted on his back and his arms and legs have been painted green so often that they have a permanent sheen to them. He doesn't mind. 

Oh, now, this is annoying. The character builder doesn't generate a sheet, and there's not a fillable one. Do I feel like printing one out and copying everything over? I think I do not. 

 

Movie #876: Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho is a neo-noir/horror/thriller kind of thing directed by Edgar Wright and starring Thomasin Mackenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Michael Ajao (who looked vaguely familiar to me and it wasn't until we'd finished the movie that Michelle told me he played one of the little kids in Attack the Block), Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Matt Smith, and Synnøve Karlsen. 

Young Eloise Turner (Mackenzie) gets accepted to fashion school in London and leaves Cornwall for the first time. She's immediately overwhelmed by it all, and unfortunately winds up with an absolute cunt for a roommate (Karlsen), so moves out of her dorm and rents a room from a kindly old lady (Rigg) who's been here forever. Eloise ("Ellie") is also obsessed with the London of the 60s, and on her first night in this new place she dreams of a woman named Sandie (Taylor-Joy) trying to become a nightclub performer and meeting up with a fellow named Jack (Smith) who gets her an audition at a club. 

Ellie starts incorporating Sandie's look into her designs and all is well for a second, and then the dreams get considerably darker. Jack pimps Sandie out and she gradually becomes bitter and angry. Ellie's roommate Jocasta is still a cunt. She doesn't fit in especially well, despite overtures from John, a very nice young man from South London (Ajao), and the dreams start intruding on her waking life. A mysterious older man (Stamp) seems to be following her. And then while hooking up with John, she sees Jack murder Sandie and freaks the entire fuck out (as you do), and from there the visions become full-on hallucinations. She starts trying to figure out what exactly happened to Sandie and gets some justice for her, but it doesn't go quite the way she thinks. 

Spoilers for a movie that's four years old, on a blog that no one reads.

OK, so: Sandie is the kindly old lady that owns the house. She didn't die, she killed Jack, and then killed a bunch of johns and hid their bodies in the walls. She tries to kill Ellie and John (she knows that Ellie went to the cops and doesn't want the investigation to lead back to her; John just kinda gets in the way), but the house burns and Ellie and John escape. Presumably the bodies of her victims are discovered. 

I'd meant to see this movie when it came out and then just didn't get around to it, and then heard kind of mixed things about it so never watched it. And then it was streaming on Peacock with ads, and fuck that, bring back Blockbuster. But anyway, it's actually really good. It doesn't have the same symmetry as other Wright films (the Cornetto Trilogy, Baby Driver), and it goes harder into classic gothic horror and noir than some of his other films. It's beautifully shot and lit, and the scenes where Ellie is Sandie's reflection for the first time and she's just experiencing all this glamour as a dream is probably my favorite sequence in the movie.

I also enjoy that, in true noir fashion, no one is clean. Sandie is a serial murderer, yes, and Jack probably deserved it. Did the rest of her victims? I mean, they might have been kind of scummy, but they probably didn't deserve to get brutally sliced up and stuffed into floorboards. Sandie sure thinks they deserved it, and Ellie acknowledges her feelings, but also doesn't seem to approve. At the same time, she refuses to avenge them when their spirits ask. I love that they (the ghosts) are still afraid of Sandie, too; I was really expecting them to rise up and attack her, but the most we get is Jack's ghost taking a swing at her, once.

Thomasin Mackenzie was only 18 when they made this movie and her wide-eyed innocence and ambition is perfect. She's a pretty singular character, but she's believable as someone with a very particular focus (London in the 60s) and she loses some of the romance of that focus, but never all of it (and at the end, when we see her show, she's still using those designs, indicating that she's accepted what's happened). Anya Taylor-Joy is really impressive as Sandie, who manages to command a room when she walks into it and doesn't get ground down by the city so much as die by inches despite herself. 

I love ghost stories, I love noir, and I love Wright's films, so this is a nice intersection of those things. The soundtrack is pretty stellar, too. 

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium-high, maybe?

Next up: Nobody 

D&D: Romance in the Dead Valley

We catch up with our heroes as they strike out into the Dead Valley! Here's last time. 

The characters had handily taken on some zombies and animated armor and so on, and decide to continue on, carefully, east into the valley. They let Dara take lead, as she can see through the murk easily, and keep to the valley walls to avoid getting jumped or surrounded. As they progress, Dara sees two figures in the distance. As she gets closer, she realizes that they're two-headed giants, locking horns and fighting. She can smell them, too - they have, shall we say, a strong, musky odor.

Dara recognizes these things as ettins, evil giant-like creatures that will eat basically anything organic. Aisling recognizes the behavior. These are rutting males, vying for the attention of a female. That probably means there's one nearby, and Dara remembers the females of the species being bigger and more dangerous. The heroes hang back and rest, letting the two males fight for a while, and eventually one of them sniffs the air and catches the characters' scent. He points down the valley and spots them - "THERE! SOMETHING MEATY FOR THE MAIN COURSE!"

The other one scrabbles to his feet. "No! I'll get them all for you! I'M SO FULL OF LOVE! I CAN BARELY EAT!" 

Aisling wastes no time; she throws a hypnotic spell at them and stuns them both. Zook follows that up with a fireball and cooks them; this shocks them out of the spell, but now they're crispy round the edges. One of them grabs an ax and charges in, slashing at Dara, the other tries to rally and get moving, but Zook fills it full of magic missiles. Clara punches the other one and knocks its heads together, and they both fall dead.

The heroes take a breath, but then hear a huffing and scraping from a cave near where the ettins were fighting. A much larger ettin pulls itself from the cave, looks the heroes over, and licks her chops...and produces an ax. 

Zook casts at her, and she closes in on the gnome hungrily (and maybe smart enough to know to kill the casters first). Dara throws a moonbeam on her, and Aisling beats on her little drum and casts bane, which wound up having a pretty good impact on things. Clara dives between her legs to distract her, giving others a chance to strike, and while she dishes out some punishment (she winds up felling Dara at one point), Clara runs up her arm and kicks her heads in.

The heroes investigate the cave, and rather wish they hadn't - it smells moist and biological. There's a shaft in the back that the ettin has apparently been using as a latrine, and it's not remotely deep enough. Also, skeletons and hides of cows (she apparently just rips the skin off and uses it for clothes or bedding), and the occasional human skeleton. Clara finds a few gold pieces amongst the offal, but otherwise there's nothing here but stink.

The heroes move along, and eventually come to what looks like a watchtower that has slid down the side of the valley to the ground. It's still on its stilts, but they're cracked and clearly unsteady. The adventurers consider that someone could theoretically still be in there, and Clara grabs a rope and climbs up. Inside, she finds a suit of plate armor and a greatsword lying in a corner, covered in dust and dirt. She also spots a human skull, but ignores that as evidence that whatever happened here, she missed it.

She touches the helm of the armor to see if there's a body in it, and it jumps up, grabs its sword, and slashes at her! The skull, meanwhile, hovers up to the edge of the tower and throws green fire from its eyes at the other three!

Zook, however, is on his game and counters that spell (which is good, because fireballs are painful). Aisling fires an arrow at it, and Dara changes into a hawk and flies up to help Clara. Clara, however, isn't going to try and fight these foes in such close quarters, and jumps out, rolling expertly to the ground. Dara-hawk grabs the skull and flies off, perhaps thinking to drop it and smash it, but it cackles insanely and belches fire - which loops right around and strikes the hawk. This blasts Dara back into elf-form and she and the skull plummet to the ground. (Rather, she plummets and the skull hovers harmlessly.)

The suit of armor leaps from the tower and lands, slashing at Clara. Clara backs up - beating armor with her fists doesn't seem like it's going to work very well. Zook throws magic missiles at the skull, but they just disappear in a green flash before they hit ("dammit, it's got a shield spell!"). Dara throws up a moonbeam and it burns the skull, and the skull screams out "Garbhán, kill the elf!"

The armor - Garbhán, apparently - charges straight through the moonbeam without so much as a crackle and drops Dara with one strike of its sword. Aisling yells a healing word to revive her, and puts up a cloud of daggers to clip the creature. Zook throws magic missiles, but they don't penetrate ("DOES EVERYONE HAVE A SHIELD?!"), so he switches to a witch-bolt and strikes the skull with lightning. 

The skull laughs maniacally, and a ball of green fire explodes into being behind Aisling and Zook. Zook intensifies the witch-bolt, and the skull cracks and screams: "Now that the end's in sight!" It disintegrates, the flaming sphere vanishes, and the adventurers hope for one second that the armor will fall as well.

No dice. Garbhán presses the attack, slashing at all of the heroes as he can, dodging out of the cloud of daggers. Aisling body-checks him back into the daggers, and he slashes at her and the cloud falls. Clara rallies and focuses her ki, and leaps up, kicking the helmet and spinning it around. This manages to stun the creature for just a moment, enough for Dara to strike with a shillelagh and Clara to land a follow-up blow. The helmet flies off and the armor collapses, a pile of metal near the pile of bone-fragments where the skull crumbled.

The adventurers regroup, and decide they'd better take shelter and rest. They talk briefly about trying to shore up the watchtower, but decide that would be more risk and work than they want to put in (they're all pretty badly injured and out of magic), so they fall back to the smelly cave to sleep. 

Next time, we'll see what other horrors await them! 

Movie #875: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is what the director (Ana Lily Amirpour) calls a "Iranian vampire spaghetti Western", which is a fun jumble of ideas. It stars Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Marshall Manesh, Dominic Rains, Mozhan Navabi, and Milad Eghbali. It's set in Iran, but was filmed in California because, as Amirpour says, she was not on a suicide mission. 

Arash (Marandi) is a handyman and hard worker taking care of his heroin-addicted father (Manesh) in "Bad City," an Iranian oil town. He runs afoul of a pimp called Saeed (Rains) who takes his car to cover his father's debts, but Saeed almost immediately runs afoul of The Girl (Vand), a vampire in a chador wandering the streets at night and feeding on the evil and impure (more on this in a moment). 

Arash meets the vampire after a party while he's high as balls, and they form a kind of romantic relationship, culminating in her killing his father when he forcibly injects a prostitute (Navabi) with heroin and the vampire hears. And then Arash and the vampire leave town, with Arash slowly realizing that she killed his father and wondering what exactly to do about that.

I'd heard about this movie a lot over the years; back in 2014 when it came out (jesus), it got some initial Oscar buzz, but then didn't get any nominations and it kind of fell off my radar. I got it as a birthday present this year, and I have to say, I really love it. It's a vampire story, yes, but it reminds me just as much of El Mariachi or Dead Man - there's a tight group of characters, the movie is about their relationships and how they interact and harm each other, and one of them happens to be a vampire, yes, but she arguably does less damage to the world than Saeed does. And in the midst of it, there's Arash, very (and justifiably) proud of how hard he worked to afford his car, but also perfectly willing to steal and deal drugs when the opportunities present themselves. 

If you think about it, then, almost all of the characters are vampires after a fashion. The Girl feeds on blood directly, but she actually has a higher moral standard than, say, Saeed or even Arash. She'll menace and even threaten others, but she doesn't feed on the kid she finds wandering the streets (Eghbali; the kid, not the streets), though she does take his skateboard. 

The movie is very slow. It lingers on shots for what seems like forever, but it reads as characters trying to figure out what to do or plucking up the courage to say something. The Girl rarely speaks, and it comes off as her not wanting to answer unless asked something she's interested in responding to. We never get a sense of how old she is, how she became a vampire, or what a "vampire" in this context really is apart from the very basics (fangs, blood, etc.). The movie is shot in black and white, and the word "stark" came to mind more than once. It's really beautifully shot, and while I admit to wanting the pace to pick up a little, it's very clearly made with intent and that intent works.

The other thing I found myself thinking while watching it is that apart from the fact that it's got an almost hopeful ending (Arash and the Girl fleeing Bad City, and Arash choosing not to confront her about his father, at least not now), it's very much a game of Fiasco, and it's always fun to see those.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Low 

Next up: Last Night in Soho 

Board Game: Rainbow Pirates

YAR.

The Game: Rainbow Pirates
The Publisher: Sweet Bros
Time: 15 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Gus, Megan

Gameplay: It's a card game! You've got sets of cards numbered 1 to 7, each with a distinct color and artwork (so like, 1 is red and is the "Mom" card), some wild cards, some Rainbow Pirate cards, and some black cards that allow actions like stealing other folks' cards or checking the first four cards in the deck and rearranging them. 

Step one: Shuffle

On your turn, you rearrange your cards, putting them down in front of you (your "island") in matching sets of three or more, or in sequential sets of three or more. Rainbow pirates just get put straight onto the island and don't join sets, they just chill out until it's time to score (or someone steals them). You can play black cards on your turn, but each black card has a counter. The Pirate Thief, for example, can be countered by His Mom (the "1" card), so if you try to use it on an opponent they can play a 1 card and cancel it.

Islands taking shape

You end your turn by either taking the two face-up cards on the table, or drawing two from the deck. I like that that ends your turn, because it's a nice clear signal to the next player - you drew, now you're done, on we go. 

I WAS JUST TAKING A PICTURE GUS I'M NOT TRYING TO SEE YOUR HAND

 The game goes until someone goes out, which requires two full rainbows (cards 1 through 7) and no cards in your hand. It can also end if the draw pile runs out, but that didn't happen for us. At that point, you score on point for every card in your island, 5 points for every Rainbow Pirate, and 5 points if you went out first. Easy-peasy.

My victorious island

Opinions: I mean, it's very similar to any number of other "make sets or runs of cards" games, so that's not a big innovation. I have to say, though, it's been a while since I've played a game that we could just pick up and play without having to poke through the rules little by little and figure them all out, and it's nice to do that every so often. Plus, the artwork is really fun and colorful, the game play allows for some strategy but it moves pretty quickly, and it's absolutely replayable. 

Gus, victorious. Victorigus?

Keep? Yarp.