Edge of Midnight | Ep. 3 | Crooked

Briggs (0:02)

Welcome to Legends of Avantris.

I'm Briggs the Cutlass Cratch, you have heard of me, haven't you? And you're listening to Edge of Midnight. Here's what happened last time.

SPEAKER_2 (0:14)

Don't let go of your hope.

Marius (0:16)

The death of hope is the loss of soul. Philip Druskenwald, it's your service.

Erika (0:21)

Lord of Druskenwald and the Crescent Pork.

Marius (0:23)

And this glum looking fellow is Yorgrim. He's the last member of your band of midnight witch hunters.

Erika (0:27)

Say hello to our new pals, Yorgrim. Pleasure doing business with you, my witch hunters.

SPEAKER_2 (0:34)

And to sweeten the deal, I've even thrown in a house for you all to stay in whenever you choose while you're here in Druskenwald.

Erika (0:39)

Now I have a witch problem and I need it gone. You get the overall spooky vibe that you are not alone.

Erika (0:45)

If you'd like to shit your pants, that's free. Someone must ask where or how I know my mission.

SPEAKER_6 (0:55)

I will follow through.

SPEAKER_7 (0:56)

The where, the below.

Erika (1:01)

There must be a basement.

Erika (1:16)

It was a dark and stormy night, as much of a cliché as that is.

Marius (1:20)

It's the gospel truth with all the usual tropes.

Erika (1:25)

The wind is howling, the rain is falling, the thunder's booming, and the barren branches whip back and forth as if they're trying to uproot and run away from the Crooked House on the hill, where dark things look below, cackle above, and skitter through the walls. It's in that doomed place where the strangers in this all-too-strange land reached out to speak with the dead, and the dead talked back.

You all sit in the darkened parlor of the Loughwood estate around a spirit ward that has just gone dormant after communing with the spirit that called itself Petrini. The chill of the long-abandoned house returns almost immediately, despite the fire that had roared in the room moments prior. As the quiet swallows the six of you and is suddenly shattered by the slam against the side of the house that causes the walls to shake and bits of debris to flake from the ceiling and land on the floor. Your jostle back and forth is once again that familiar slam racks all of your bodies. The spirit board clatters to the side on the table.

The planchette hovers for a second and then clatters as well, completely dormant.

Briggs (2:39)

All right, are we sure this is what we're supposed to do? Or you think this is some kind of trick?

Lethica (2:45)

It could be both.

SPEAKER_9 (2:50)

Well, how could it be both?

Lethica (2:53)

Well, it could be what we are supposed to do, but it is the spirit's will. It could be trying to trick us.

Erika (3:00)

If there are any innocents in danger, we must go quickly.

Yorgrim (3:07)

It would be easy to check upstairs for Petrini's book to see if it's what it's instructed.

Lethica (3:19)

What of character?

Erika (3:21)

So I didn't write down the message. You say you wrote down the...

Yeah, please. That would be good. It was help. Something about the children, the walls.

Jericho (3:30)

Jörgen, he does speak to ghosts regularly.

Yorgrim (3:34)

I have an idatic memory.

Yorgrim (3:36)

Allow me to recite more perfectly.

Briggs (3:40)

It was just three seconds.

Briggs (3:46)

What do you want?

Erika (3:54)

There was...

Briggs (3:55)

Something about all messages.

Erika (3:56)

Upstairs, yeah. Upstairs, the walls. There was the final message.

SPEAKER_6 (4:00)

The children, right?

Yorgrim (4:02)

Yeah. Find kids. My book upstairs.

Farewell.

Erika (4:08)

Okay, okay, okay. Yes, so that's what Marius would be referencing, is find the kids, find the children.

Jericho (4:16)

Well, I guess we have two options if we want to go start head upstairs right away or we want to explore the rest of this spooky first floor to make sure there's nothing lurking about that's going to follow us up there.

Erika (4:29)

I don't believe that there's any reason to delay. We know where we must go.

Lethica (4:35)

Well, I suppose that's true.

Jericho (4:37)

I'd like to find those kids. Virgil is very intent on finding the children too.

Briggs (4:43)

Well, I think, do we know how much of a sense of urgency we need? I mean, this place has been like this for years.

Or at least a long time, I think.

Jericho (4:55)

I think Mr. Druskin said it was near around 20 Two whole decades.

Yorgrim (5:03)

It's because it's been so many years that we should rush. We shouldn't let the ghosts of these kids suffer any longer.