Note: Ain't Slayed Nobody is produced for the ear and includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.

NIGHT BUS, EPISODE 1: STONE PENGE

cuppycup (Keeper): Ain’t Slayed Nobody is a produced actual play podcast intended for adults and may contain material that some people find disturbing. Please see the episode notes for content warnings and listen with care.

cuppycup (Freddy): Night Bus was written by Scott Dorward for the Blasphemous Tome volume 8. This series of three episodes will present dialog-edited actual play, but is not fully produced with music and sound effects. We plan to run more series like this, including a new improv series with Scott, so that we can produce content more regularly.

Scott (Keeper): So the night buses are, as the name implies, buses that run overnight. And in this case you're taking the N3 night bus out from central London, Piccadilly Circus, primarily out to southeast London and the suburbs out there. The bus passes through such wondrous places as Crystal Palace, Penge, then out to Beckenham and finally Bromley North. Generally, the people who travel on the night bus are people who've missed their last trains home for whatever reason, shift workers or people who've just been out in the piss all night. And as a result, the atmosphere on them tends to be quite drunk and occasionally boisterous, sometimes violent. It's not unusual for any trip home on the night bus to involve blood and vomit.

Kat (Gracie): I get that all day at work and all day on the way home.

Scott (Keeper): *laughs* Yes. Like I say, you are all traveling on the night bus. You've left central London at about quarter to 3 a.m.. Let's quickly introduce who you're playing and then I'll set the scene.

cuppycup (Freddy): Yeah. So I'm cuppycup. And I'm, my name's Freddie Chasley. I'm a security guard. As you can tell, I'm from Leeds, based on my accent. And I worked the night shift at at the hospital. I had a bit of a tummyache during my shift, so I left early. And I'm thinking, I've seen Kat at work, maybe, I mean Gracie, but I don't think I know her.

Kat (Gracie): Do we work at the same hospital?

cuppycup (Freddy): I think so, which is why I didn't name it in case you did. Been working on that Leeds accent for 7 seconds.

Kat (Gracie): There was a moment when you had said hospital, and I was pretty sure it was a Cthulhuian word. And I thought I might have to roll SANITY. *laughs*

Scott (Keeper): *laughs* He was using the Acklo term.

cuppycup (Freddy): Fortunately, my reputation precedes me now for these accents.

Kat (Gracie): I guess following that, I know Freddy. Hey, so I'm Gracie. Yeah, I'm a nurse, and I work quite a lot, you know, like, really long shifts and stuff. And I'm just really want to get home now because I'm fed up and I just really, really need to sleep. But I've got to sit on this bus and wait. So Gracie is quite...she's all limbs. She's got really long arms, really long legs. She's quite a stick from constantly running around in A&E. Everything about her seems oddly thin and she's often smoking a cigarette. I don't know if this is the time when smoking was banned on buses, but I'm assuming that even if it is banned, people are probably still smoking. So she's got a cigarette in hand and she's probably sitting near Freddy, just in case somebody gets rowdy.

cuppycup (Freddy): I forgot to describe Freddy. He's kind of fat, muscular, the opposite of Gracie, I think.

Danny (Jack): So I'm Danny, and I'll be playing Jack Phillips. And let's see how my Cockney is. So he's a decent-looking bloke. He's got a nice smile and he's got large black plugs on both of his ears. He's got a septum piercing as well, and these sort of hipster glasses and short buzzed hair, he wears a black cap and a plain white t-shirt. He's used to this, right? He's a bartender and he often works the closing shift. These people that he sees, he probably recognizes a lot of them and might even recognize you, too, but probably wouldn't know your names.

Scott (Keeper): It's London. People don't talk to each other on public transport unless they really have to.

Kat (Gracie): Gracie probably refers to you as "nose ring", which eventually got shortened to just "nose".

Danny (Jack): Nice.

Scott (Keeper): You've been on the bus for a little bit at this stage. So it's gone through Brixton in Crystal Palace and it's now heading out onto Penge High Street. There are three other people on the bus, including the driver. So the driver is a white bloke in middle age, a bit of a potbelly, very ruddy face, thin gray hair. There is a young woman who is sitting on the bottom deck who is sitting up front, or at least as close to up front as she can get. She is dressed in office casual wear. She has got headphones on. She has not made eye contact with anyone for the trip. She's got long, dark hair and has basically just been shutting out the world, as people, I think, quite often do on the night bus. And then there's a bloke who's been sitting on the back seat on the bottom deck. He's probably in his thirties, might be older, might be younger - he's just got one of those faces - but a bit overweight. He's wearing a fairly cheap suit, tie at half mast. But at some point during the start of the journey, he'd gotten a takeaway from McDonald's and had basically scoffed the whole thing down. His tie is now covered in special sauce, and he's sprawled across the back seat, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Where is everyone else sitting? Are you sitting upstairs? Downstairs? This is a classic London red double-decker bus.

cuppycup (Freddy): I don't think Freddy would want to do the stairs, so he's going to be kind of in the middle on the bottom.

Kat (Gracie): I'll be sat next to Freddy, but not exactly next to Freddy, like the seats across, so on the other aisle, and I'll have my feet kind of up on the seat because I've been on my feet all day. So the last thing I want to do is sit normally and I'll kind of be giving the guy on the back seat the evils.

Scott (Keeper): He's fast asleep. He doesn't care.

cuppycup (Freddy): Freddy's giving Gracie the evils for having her feet up on the seat.

Danny (Jack): Well, I think Jack would go up to the top, the second story of the bus, and he'd be looking out the window, just kind of thinking about stuff. Admiring the view.

Scott (Keeper): You have a wonderful view of Penge High Street. Basically, it is lots of shuttered shops and restaurants, an awful lot of places selling varieties of chicken. There's a church coming up on the left and there's not really a lot to see. I mean, there's obviously street lights on, but there isn't a lot of traffic out there. But suddenly, the street lights just go out and you can't really see anything outside. Those of you downstairs can hear the driver up front saying,

Bus Driver: Fuck me, what's that?

Scott (Keeper): And then there is a slam, a smashing sound of the bus hitting something hard and it skids and screeches wildly. You can see stones flying past the downstairs windows. The driver is just swearing to himself up front. The bus is rocking backwards and forwards. There is another screech. The bus goes slamming down onto its side, hard, onto the left hand side. There is rending metal, breaking glass. It slides forwards, there's sparking across the ground, and then there is a slam as it comes to a catastrophically sudden halt.

Gracie: *terrified* Oh my God!

Danny (Jack): *laughs* Wow.

cuppycup (Freddy): I was going to ask, how did we do there?

Kat (Gracie): Is it just basically Gracie going, "Shit"?

cuppycup (Freddy): I think I was on the right side of the bus. So does this mean I'm falling to the other side?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah, it's landed on the left hand side, so, ses.

cuppycup (Freddy): Yeah.

Kat (Gracie): Oh no, has Freddy landed on me?

Scott (Keeper): Well, I guess we'll find out.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh, gosh. That's not going to be good for anybody.

Scott (Keeper): Can I have DEX rolls off everyone, just to see what they can grab hold of something?

Danny (Jack): I got a 92, so that's a FAIL.

cuppycup (Freddy): I wrote a 35 under 40, so I got a REGULAR SUCCESS.

Kat (Gracie): I got under half.

Scott (Keeper): So Freddy and Gracie have managed to grab hold of something and stop themselves being thrown around too wildly. But Jack takes 2 HIT POINTS of DAMAGE as he is thrown, basically hits the seat in front of him, goes tumbling forwards, lands heavily on what is now the ground, but was until a few moments ago the left hand side of the bus.

Danny (Jack): Whoa.

Scott (Keeper): The lights are flickering inside the bus now, and there is the occasional crack crack sound of glass splintering. There is the slow tick, tick, tick of what's left of the engine cooling down.

Kat (Gracie): Can I pull myself up as well as I can and look around at the the lady who was wearing the headphones and the bloke in the back seat and the bus driver? Any of them severely injured?

Scott (Keeper): The one you can see most easily is the woman who was sitting in the front seat. She is lying over a couple of the seats in the flickering light. There does seem to be quite a lot of blood, but you'll need to get closer to take a look. You can't actually see the man who was on the back seat. When you look up to the front of the bus, it doesn't look like there's much of the driver's cab left. There is some huge chunk of rock maybe pushing through what's left of the windscreen and the whole front of the bus is caved in.

Freddy: Holy shit.

cuppycup (Freddy): I imagine Freddy's like, suspended himself above the seats where Gracie is, like, kind of holding on to two seats, looking right down at her.

Freddy: Are you okay, miss? We got to get the fuck out of here. I've seen a lot of movies. This thing could blow.

Gracie: Blow? We need to check that, like, none of these people are, like, hurt. There was a guy, wasn't there, upstairs? Like, can you not just...you check on him, I'll check on her.

Freddy: The fuck am I going to do? *sighs* Shit.

Kat (Gracie): And then Gracie's going to try and pull myself along towards the lady and see if she's alive.

Scott (Keeper): Moving around is difficult because now the ground is effectively seats. Obviously there's the windows as well, so you can walk along the side of the seats, crunching over the broken glass. You can see that when the bus slammed to this sudden halt here, her head must have hit something, because there is a very noticeable not just tearing in the skin, a lot of blood, but an indentation in the front of her skull.

Kat (Gracie): Can I check her pulse?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah, you can check her pulse. And, yeah, she does still have one.

Gracie: Shit.

Kat (Gracie):  And I roll FIRST AID to see if I can compress this and stop this bleeding.

Scott (Keeper): Sure, yeah, yeah. Give me a FIRST AID. I'll see whether you can stabilize her.

Kat (Gracie): Ok. I have 70 in FIRST AID, and I rolled a 45. So NORMAL SUCCESS.

Scott (Keeper): So yeah, you can certainly staunch the bleeding fairly readily. I mean, it would help an awful lot if you had a first aid kit. There might be one in the driver's cab, but well, there doesn't seem to be much of a driver's cab left. But you certainly managed to, like I say, staunch the bleeding and you've kept her airways clear and all the important stuff. Could you give me a MEDICINE roll as well, please, just to see whether you can pick up on something?

Kat (Gracie): Yes, sure. I got an EXTREME SUCCESS.

Scott (Keeper): You are fairly certain from, I mean, not just the head wound itself, but the way that her skin seems to be reddening and she seems to be heating up a bit, that there is probably some kind of bleed in her brain and that she, for a start, seems to be in a coma. She is going to need some kind of emergency surgery in the not-too-distant future if she's going to stand any chance of survival.

cuppycup (Freddy): Do a SURGERY roll.

Kat (Gracie): I can McGyver this!*laughs* Yeah, I'm going to turn to Freddy, and I'm just going to look pale because there's nothing I can do.

Scott (Keeper): Was Freddy going upstairs? Or rather across to the top deck of the bus to check on the person who was up there?

cuppycup (Freddy): I think Freddy was just going to kind of walk toward the opening a little bit and then yell up there.

Freddy: If there's anybody alive up there, get on down.

cuppycup (Freddy): I lost my good accent. *laughs*

Scott (Keeper): *amused* You come from the south of Leeds.

Freddy: Anybody alive up there? Come on down now. We're getting the fuck off the bus.

Jack: Yeah, I think I'm hurt, but I'm alright.

Freddy: Can you walk?

Danny (Jack): Can I walk? I assume I can.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. You're a bit banged up, maybe a few grazes and cuts, and your ears are ringing and stuff like that. But you are mobile.

Danny (Jack): There's no one else on the top part of the deck where I was, right?

Scott (Keeper): No, you were up here alone.

Danny (Jack): Yeah. I'll start heading toward them.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah, It's a bit of a weird journey, because it's a small spiral staircase, effectively, like a single turn, and you're having to clamber across it. But, yeah, you can do that without too much difficulty.

Jack: Oy, what's happened?

cuppycup (Freddy): Are the stairs in the front or the back of the bus? I've never been on one of these things.

Scott (Keeper): They're towards the front. So the way the layout is, is there's an entrance and there's an exit to the bus, both of which are the left hand side. So basically, they're both underneath you now.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh, no. Ok. When I see him coming out, I'm going to start ignoring him, realizing he's ok. And I'm going to look back to Gracie and say,

Freddy: You're a nurse, ain't you?

Kat (Gracie): Well, yeah, but I don't know how to do like, 3 hours of surgery. This lady seriously needs it.

Freddy: We got to get her out of here, get her to the hospital.

Kat (Gracie): And thus something was summoned down and we all die.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'm going to say it as many times as I can. Everything else is American Midwest. But that's going to be my word that is butchered constantly.

Gracie: We need to get out of here and we need to call an ambulance right now.

Freddy: Well, yeah. How the fuck are we going to get out of here?

cuppycup (Freddy): Is there an opening at the cab, Scott, where the thing's caved in?

Scott (Keeper): You can go up and take a look.

Freddy: Hey, you!

cuppycup (Freddy): Pointing to Jack.

Freddy:  Go see if there's a way out. We got to get this lady to a hospital.

Jack: Ok. Right. Right.

Danny (Jack): I'll head to the front end and try to... Maybe a window is open that we could climb through the windows.

Scott (Keeper): Barring the windscreen, they're basically all along the ground now. And there's other ones that are overhead; you might be able to clamber up through one of those. A few of those are cracked, but the whole of the front of the bus is basically just collapsed. There is this huge rock, what looks like a huge rock, some kind of black stone, a bit shiny that is poking through the front. There's going to be no getting past that. The driver's cab is completely crushed and the only sign of the driver you can see is just a drip, drip, drip of blood coming out of it.

Jack: I think we got hit by a meteor or something. It's like the whole front of the bus is blocked.

Freddy: Yeah, I don't think it was a meteor.

cuppycup (Freddy): Can I dial 999 or whatever it is over there? Because I'm assuming we all have phones.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. You pull your phone out and you don't have any service. I think pretty much by law they've got to be able to at least put through an emergency call, even if they're not showing any bars. But you're not even getting through to 999.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh shit.

Kat (Gracie): There's, usually where the back seat is, that back window will be an emergency door. Can I go to the back and see if that is actually there?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. As you're doing that, you turn around to go back and look and you can see that you're not the first person who's had this idea. The guy who was asleep on the back seat now seems to be up and about. He's still looking a bit bleary. But yeah, he is in the process of releasing the catch. He looks back at you and says,

Doomed Passenger: Yeah, it's all right, love. I think I've got it working.

Scott (Keeper): And he goes clank and crash outside. And he pokes his head out the back and...

Doomed Passenger:  Fuck me!

Scott (Keeper):  And you can just see him crawling out through the hole muttering to himself.

Doomed Passenger: Fucking hell.

Kat (Gracie): I suppose I'll follow tentatively that try and crawl over the seats past Freddy and Jack and just see if I can see him out the window.

Scott (Keeper): It takes a bit of time to get down there because, yeah, you are clambering over all these seats, or around them, and there's a lot of broken glass and bits of broken metal to avoid. But you get down there and you can see that this man's now standing outside. You can see his legs and maybe his upper torso as you're looking through the back window and he's standing out on the street, that doesn't really look like the street. There's a lot of broken glass there, but it looks like he's standing on...again, it looks like black volcanic rock of some kind. There's the occasional flickering of light from overhead, light from lightning, but you can't hear a storm. And he just goes,

Doomed Passenger: Fuck me. What's that?

Gracie: Oy, mate! What do you mean, what's that?

Doomed Passenger: This thing! What the..?

Scott (Keeper): Then all of a sudden, there's a bloodcurdling cry and then a very wet sound as something, it just seems to be like a mass of motion, just lots of glinting things moving around very quickly that just bumps into him. And there's suddenly a spray of blood and a wet crunching sound. He sways backwards and forwards and then he just falls to one side. You can see pretty much it's just the lower half of his body and some intestines that hit the ground.

Gracie: *panicking* Oh God!

Freddy: Everything alright back there?

Gracie: He just got eaten!

Freddy:  Eaten?

Gracie:  Eaten!

Jack: Eaten?

Gracie: Something ate 'im!

cuppycup (Freddy):  I'm going to look at Jack and say,

Freddy: Well, she's fucking crazy.

Jack: She's lost it. Maybe 'it 'er 'ead when the bus tipped over.

Freddy: Fucking night bus lunatics.

Jack: That's why... this is why you don't talk to anyone.

Scott (Keeper): Can I have a SAN roll for Gracie, please?

Kat (Gracie): Yes, you can. *grimace* Ooh.

Scott (Keeper): So that is a resounding FAILURE. You only lose 4 points of SAN. It could have been a lot worse.

Kat (Gracie): Ok.

Scott (Keeper): But I think you still stumble backwards and fall over in amongst all the broken glass. Now that you're down to the ground, you're getting a much better view of just this swirling, massive of something. It's dark, and you can't quite make out what it is. But the main thing that your eye is picking up on is just lots and lots of very quick motion.

Kat (Gracie): But I'm still inside the bus, aren't I? I'm just on the floor.

Scott (Keeper): You are.

Kat (Gracie): Ok, good. I'm going to close that door.

Scott (Keeper): Oh, ok.

Kat (Gracie): So we're inside and they can't get in.

Scott (Keeper): This thing isn't too far away. If you're going to try to do that quickly, because it's not really designed to be closed once it's opened, if you're trying to do that, particularly in a hurry, I want a MECHANICAL REPAIR roll.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oooh.

Scott (Keeper): *laughs*

Kat (Gracie): Ok. I have 10% and I rolled 24. Oh... I'm going to spend 14 points of LUCK to make that a SUCCESS.

cuppycup (Freddy): Nice. You won't need that.

Scott (Keeper): Ok, so, yeah, you do manage to slam it shut and just manage to somehow jiggle the catch in such a way that it locks into place, or at least temporarily holds. And you can see that this thing, whatever it is that just tore that man to shreds, is moving in the other direction. The other thing you can see while this is going on is that there is something happening with the man's body. There's something coming out of it. There's something rising up. It looks kind of round and glowing, a bluish-green color. It's about the size of a football, just rising up out of his body.

Freddy: Hey, open that door back up.

Kat (Gracie): Gracie is just making incoherent noises now.

Scott (Keeper): You just see this thing floating off somewhere away from the bus. But the other thing, the thing that tore him to bits, has now moved over towards the back of the bus. And you can hear a sort of ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping sound as if someone's throwing a lot of stones at the back of the bus in quick succession.

Danny (Jack): Do we hear that too?

Scott (Keeper): Oh, yeah.

cuppycup (Freddy): Did we see any of the weird stuff or we're just watching Gracie?

Scott (Keeper): I think you're getting all this vicariously through Gracie.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok.

Freddy: Sorry, miss, but we're going to need to open that up, see if we can get a signal so we can call for help.

Gracie: No, no, no. There's something out there, and it just ripped a man in half, and now it's trying to shoot us.

Jack: What are you getting on at? What?

Gracie: Ok. So that bloke on the back seat, right? He's dead. He's in half. There is not a top part of him anymore. He's gone, ok? He's dead. It's like splatter and, like, some kind of weird balloon came out, and he's all, like, bleh.

Jack:  *disbelief* A balloon?!

Gracie:  Yeah, and it's like attacking us now, and it's trying to get in the door. Like, can we please leave a different way?

Danny (Jack): I've heard enough. I'm going to head to the exit door, sust kind of, like, barge my way through.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'll kind of follow him back there.

Kat (Gracie): I'm going to press myself back against the bus, like, "No." *laughs*

Danny (Jack): With every other seat that I pass I'm grumbling.

Jack: A balloon cutting off? What is she getting on about? Ridiculous.

Freddy: She needs a hospital, too.

Kat (Gracie): Yeah. No one listened to the woman in Alien either. And they all died. Just sayin'.

cuppycup (Freddy): Is there a cat on this bus?

Scott (Keeper): So as you get towards the emergency exit in the back, you can see that there is just this massive motion outside. It's almost like you're looking at the window at a car wash or something like that, just lots of stuff moving quickly around the back window, except here there's definitely stuff impacting with the window and the glass is beginning to chip.

Freddy: Is that the emergency crew?

Jack: Might be the sort of like Jaws of Life or something.

Freddy: Help! We're in here! Help us!

Jack: There's three of us in here. There's someone 'urt, too.

Freddy: One of them's out of their mind!

Gracie: Guys, you need to get away from the window before it turns you into paste like it did the other guy!

cuppycup (Freddy): I'm going to press my face to the window to see what she's talking about.

Scott (Keeper): *amused* Ok, you get in nice and close, and the window is beginning to crack at this stage. You can also see that, yeah, there is quite a lot of blood splattered over the glass.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok.

Scott (Keeper): You can give me a SPOT HIDDEN roll as well.

cuppycup (Freddy): I would love to do that. I rolled 93 over 70. Is there any way to either reopen the door or finish cracking the window to get a real good look at what's happening out there?

Scott (Keeper): You absolutely could, yeah, if you wanted to get a better look. It is quite difficult because the glass is badly cracked. So, yeah, I guess if you pushed what's left of it out...

cuppycup (Freddy): I did PASS. I got a HARD SUCCESS. 27.

Scott (Keeper): Oh, nice. Ok, so you do push just a little bit and not enough to let this thing in yet.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok. *laughs*

Scott (Keeper): And what you do spot is you get a better idea of the shape of this, that it seems to be made up of hundreds, maybe thousands of little shards of stone moving around, almost like objects orbiting a planetary star, just very, very quickly, whizzing round in all directions, in orbit around what you can just make out. In the center of it is this glowing bluish-green mass.

Freddy: What the fuck? It's like one of those clear vacuum cleaners. What the fuck?

cuppycup (Freddy):  Do I need to roll SAN on that, by the way?

Scott (Keeper): I think so, yes.

Kat (Gracie): Oh, it's a Dyson Sphere.

Scott (Keeper): For fuck's sake.

Kat (Gracie): *laughs* I'll just excuse myself.

cuppycup (Freddy): I did well in my stupidity. I got a 14 out of 60.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. You don't lose any.

cuppycup (Freddy): Very good.

Freddy: Hey. Hey, fella. Come look at this. What do you think this is?

cuppycup (Freddy): Gesturing to Jack.

Jack: Definitely not a balloon, that's for sure.

Kat (Gracie): While those two idiots are getting themselves killed, can I, like, try and climb up to the next deck away from where this thing is probably going to get in?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. You can certainly go across the staircase easily enough to the next deck, and obviously there's back windows there as well. And you can see that some of them are a bit cracked now, where these stones have been impacting those as well. But this thing, whatever it is, does seem to be concentrating more on the lower deck where people are apparently baiting it.

Kat (Gracie): I'll leave it alone.

Danny (Jack): I'll peek out, since Freddy asked me to look. Do I see the same thing?

Scott (Keeper): You can give me a SPOT HIDDEN roll.

Danny (Jack): Alright, I have 51 and I got a 31. So that's a REGULAR SUCCESS.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. So yeah, you see exactly what I just described a moment ago. So, yeah, you get to make a SAN roll as well.

Freddy: It's like a vacuum, don't you think?

Danny (Jack): I got a 6! Yeah! Out of 50 SAN. So I SUCCEEDED.

cuppycup (Freddy): We don't give a shit.

Jack: Well, it does look like a balloon, but I don't see how that could rip someone in half.

Freddy: It is like a balloon! Yeah.

Scott (Keeper): *laughs* By the way, I guess as Gracie has traveled a fair bit on these buses, you can give me, let's say, an EDUCATION roll to have picked up on some of the other safety features.

Kat (Gracie): I rolled 100. I know nothing.

Scott (Keeper): Ok...Yeah...

Kat (Gracie): *laughs* I know about the safety features that aren't safety features.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. You are fairly convinced that there is another emergency exit at the back of this level as well. You can't see a handle for it up here, but maybe if you look hard enough, you'll be able to find one.

Kat (Gracie): But that's back where the vortex thing is.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. Well, there's the front as well, which is all smashed in with this big rock.

Kat (Gracie): I will edge closer to the back window because it's currently distracted by the low back window.

Scott (Keeper): There's a lot of damage back there. You can't see the handle. But maybe if you spent enough time digging through the wreckage, you'll find it eventually.

Freddy: What do you think we should do, buddy? I don't...

Jack: I don't know. Those things outside are kinda weird.

Freddy: I don't think it's a good idea to go out there.

Jack: I don't either. *calls* Hello? Is there anyone out there?

Freddy: Good idea. *calls* Hello?

Jack: So that's weird. If they were first responders, they should be responding.

Freddy: Exactly. Exactly.

Kat (Gracie): Is there a fire extinguisher on this bus?

cuppycup (Freddy): Well, you rolled 100. You wouldn't know.

Scott (Keeper): You're fairly certain there is. Maybe it's back here by the emergency exit.

Kat (Gracie): I'm gonnalook for that by the emergency exit.

Danny (Jack): What does it look like above? There's windows above us too, right?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah, looking at above, it looks like a cloudy night out there. You can't see any light from the street lamps, but looking straight up, you can see clouds scurrying overhead, thick, dark clouds. And every now and then, you do see flashes of lightning running through them, but you don't hear any thunder. By the way, could everyone give me a SPOT HIDDEN roll, please?

Kat (Gracie): Is this where I find a handle?

cuppycup (Freddy): Is this a SAN draining type of SPOT HIDDEN or a helpful one?

Scott (Keeper): I guess we'll find out.

Danny (Jack): 52 out of 51. I will spend 1 LUCK to SUCCEED.

Kat (Gracie): Oh, I see nothing. I got 71 and my SPOT HIDDEN is 60.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh, I rolled 24. I got a HARD SUCCESS on that.

Scott (Keeper): So Gracie is too busy concentrating on trying to find this fucking handle. It's got to be here somewhere. But what the lads pick up on is there's a smell of diesel in the air.

Jack: That's not good.

Freddy: I told you, this fucking bus is going to blow. Hey, why do you put all that shit in your face?

Jack: *defensive* Yeah, it looks neat, alright?

Freddy: It doesn't look as neat as that.

cuppycup (Freddy): Pointing out to the vacuum orb.

Scott (Keeper): Just as the glass cracks a bit more.

Kat (Gracie): Are there any other broken windows on this level?

Scott (Keeper): Not in the back. But if you look up... I'll tell you what. Give me a LUCK roll.

Kat (Gracie): *nervous laugh* No.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. No, where you are, the windows do seem to be fairly intact, the ones above you. You're fairly certain that some of the ones on the lower deck were broken.

Kat (Gracie): Cool. In which case, I shall abandon my quest for the handle, which clearly is just very well manufactured and thus hidden very well, and head back down towards the other two. And I'll just be saying,

Gracie: We need to get out. We need to get out now. Stop looking at the Dyson sphere and let's just get out of here, ok?

Freddy: First, I owe you an apology. There is something weird out there.

Jack: I saw the balloon.

Freddy: Yeah, we, we saw it, too.

Gracie: I don't need you to stoke my pride right now. I just think we need to really get off this bus.

Freddy: Do you smell gas? I smell gas.

Jack: I smell it.

Freddy: Yeah. Ok. I think it's a good idea. Maybe toward the front, if there's anything toward the front, we can find the hospital and get you there, get this other girl there.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'll grab ID off her if I can. Just so we know who she is. 

Scott (Keeper): You're not going to try helping her, you're just going to steal her purse.

cuppycup (Freddy): Effectively.

cuppycup (Freddy): Well, I can't give her brain surgery, but I want to be able to identify who else is missing when we do get to the hospital.

Jack: Maybe we can push the meteor out of the way.

Gracie: *disbelief* The big rock?

Freddy: Maybe we go the other direction.

Kat (Gracie): Does that rock look like it can be moved? Or is it more like we've hit a cliff?

Scott (Keeper): Basically, it seemed to cover all of the front windows when you were upstairs as well as downstairs.

Danny (Jack): So it's really big. Ok.

cuppycup (Freddy): There's not like a CB radio that's still accessible or something like that, since it's all smashed in?

Scott (Keeper): There's almost certainly going to be a radio in the driver's cab, but there isn't really much of a driver's cab anymore.

cuppycup (Freddy): Yeah. Ok.

Kat (Gracie): I'm going to look for a broken window, if there is one.

Scott (Keeper): Yeah, there are a few certainly overhead that are cracked and are missing bits of glass. It'd be enough to push one of those out.

cuppycup (Freddy): I think I have a club too, so I could give it a push.

Scott (Keeper): *disbelief* You have a club...?

cuppycup (Freddy): I'm a security guard, right? Don't they carry clubs in Britain?

Danny (Jack):  Off duty?

Scott (Keeper): You tend to leave those behind at the office.

cuppycup (Freddy): I thought I would wear it on my belt. Ok, that's fine. I'm just looking for a weapon.

Scott (Keeper): Well, if you're looking around for a weapon, do you want to give me a SPOT HIDDEN roll to see whether you can spot anything that you can use as an improvised weapon?

cuppycup (Freddy): 10 out of a lot. Out of 70. EXTREME SUCCESS.

Scott (Keeper): Well, in which case, I'll say you notice a few things. There is a fire extinguisher in a little nook behind the driver's cab. It does look like it's taken a bit of damage, but it's probably intact. There is a broken pole, it's still slightly anchored in, but you reckon you could pull it free and perhaps use it as a spear or a club. And there's a bit of broken seatback that you might be able to use as a club or even a shield.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok.

Freddy: Hey, buddy, why don't you...

cuppycup (Freddy):  Talking to Jack, obviously.

Freddy: Well, why don't you get that fire extinguisher out of there and I'll, I'll get this pole.

cuppycup (Freddy):  And start pulling on it as hard as I can, trying to yank it free.

Danny (Jack): I'll go for the extinguisher.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. Yeah, You can pull that free easily enough. Freddy is trying to pull the pole free at this point. The back window cracks and the shape starts forcing its way in through the hole. You can see that it's glistening now as if there are now bits of broken glass and metal that are orbiting it along with all the rock.

Freddy: Fuck.

Scott (Keeper): It's starting to tear up the seatbacks as it's moving up the aisle towards you.

Kat (Gracie): I'm just going to go for that window. Just push, kick, scrabble.

Danny (Jack): I'll see you're doing that and try to give her a boost to just, instinctively...

Kat (Gracie): Yeah.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. Yeah. If you're giving her a boost, I'll still ask for a DEX roll, but not a CLIMB roll, because he's still doing this quickly. So let's have a DEX roll as you try to push that window out and clamber free.

Kat (Gracie): My DEX is 40. I FAILED.

Scott (Keeper): So you're there on Jack's hands, wobbling precariously, one foot on the seatback, trying to push this glass out, and it is cracking and beginning to give. But the problem is that there's still enough of the frame that's in place, and if you carry on like this, you are going to risk cutting your hands up.

Kat (Gracie): Can I PUSH the roll?

Scott (Keeper): You absolutely can, yeah, if you're willing just to try to push this broken glass out and clear it out of the way, you can absolutely PUSH the roll.

Kat (Gracie): Yay! I got a SUCCESS! *laughs* 

Danny (Jack): Yay!

cuppycup (Freddy): Nice.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. The safety glass largely comes away in one chunk, and you can push it off to one side. And then from there, it's relatively easy just to pull yourself up onto the side of the bus, what's now the top of the bus. Let me just describe what you see out there.

Kat (Gracie): Oh God.

Danny (Jack): Uh oh.

cuppycup (Freddy): Bye, Kat. *laughs*

Kat (Gracie): You let it in the bus!

Scott (Keeper): So what you can see out there is very, very much not Penge. You are on a large rocky plane, maybe made of this black rock that you saw poking through the driver's cab. There is a silent storm raging overhead. When the lightning flashes, you also see that there are patterns of phosphorescent light that are moving across the ground as well. They're moving away from you, moving further down this plane. I mean, a plane, it might be a plateau. And looking around there is just basically steep rock up to a couple of the sides and looking off into the distance when the lightning flashes, you can see huge black peaks towering overhead. Where this light is leading down towards, you can see that there's a rocky outcrop a few hundred yards down from there. There's a lot of rubble in front of it. And then from the rocky outcrop, there is incongruously what appears to be a monstrous arm poking out of the ground, clutched in a fist, maybe about 100 feet tall.

Kat (Gracie): Shit!

Scott (Keeper): Do you want to give me a SAN roll?

Kat (Gracie): Yes!

Freddy: How's it going? You find an exit?

Jack: Give me your hand!

Kat (Gracie): 22. I'm ok with this.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh. *laughs*

Kat (Gracie): This is safer than inside the bus.

cuppycup (Freddy): It's a dream.

Scott (Keeper): The other thing you can just see is this little ball of bluish-green light disappearing into the bottom of the arm.

Gracie: Shit. That meteorite totally took out London.

Kat (Gracie): I'll dive my hands down a bit.

Gracie: Quick, quick, love! Nose, get up here!

Danny (Jack): I try to climb up.

Scott (Keeper): Then you're trying to do this in a hurry. So I do want a DEX roll again for Jack. This thing is now inside the bus and is moving towards Freddy.

Danny (Jack): 63 out of 70. That's a REGULAR SUCCESS.

Scott (Keeper): So yeah, you can clamber up onto the top as well. And again, I will ask you for a SAN roll for seeing Not Penge.

Danny (Jack):  42 out of 50. That's a SUCCESS.

Scott (Keeper): You are oddly ok with this too. There is still obviously the unconscious, comatose woman who's still down there.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh no.

Scott (Keeper): There's still Freddy, who is pulling this bit of metal free. Do you want to give me a STRENGTH roll, just to see whether you can do this quickly?

cuppycup (Freddy): A STRENGTH roll... I'm guessing 98 is not good.

Scott (Keeper): Is your STRENGTH over 50?

cuppycup (Freddy): It's not a FUMBLE. I have a 70 STRENGTH.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. It's almost free. I mean, it's damaged, but it's obviously still quite well bolted in. This thing is coming closer. You might be able to pull it free or snap it if you really put your weight into it.

Freddy: Fuck, fuck.

Scott (Keeper): There's always a chance that you fall over if you do that and be prone when this thing arrives.

cuppycup (Freddy): For the first time ever, Scott, I'm going to quit on this effort. I'm not going to PUSH the roll. I'm not even sure this would be effective against whatever this thing is. It's that swirling rocks that are coming toward me?

Scott (Keeper): It is, yeah.

cuppycup (Freddy): Can the other two see what I'm doing? So if I did something heinous, they would see that?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. You can see down through the windows.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok. My thought was that that woman is not going to make it anyway. She has permanent brain damage.

Kat (Gracie): Oh!

cuppycup (Freddy): I just want to see, like, if she touches the swirling rocks, is she going to be okay or is it going to eviscerate her?

Kat (Gracie): Oh my God. Damn, Freddy's cold.

cuppycup (Freddy): No, but I mean, obviously, obviously, she's not going to survive, so at least we could learn something from her.

Kat (Gracie): You're the mad scientist who's, like, "all in the name of science."

cuppycup (Freddy): But you know what? If they can see me, I'm not going to do that. I think if I was alone, I would try that.

Scott (Keeper): They can absolutely see your murder antics.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'm actually going to yell up there.

Freddy: Do you think...

cuppycup (Freddy):  I'm going to gesture to the woman.

Freddy:  Should I try to send her into the mass to see what happens?

Jack: What?! No! Just get her up here! It's coming!

Freddy: Alright. That's fine. We'll come back for you, Miss.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'm going to say that as I try to climb up.

Kat (Gracie): I love that moment of trying to recapture your heroism, but really you're just a murdering psychopath.

Scott (Keeper): But you're still leaving the comatose woman down there to whatever horrible fate awaits.

cuppycup (Freddy): This is a moral question for the monster, really, not me. I'm not doing anything actively to kill her. It would be really hard to drag her out. I can't even pass a STRENGTH roll to rip the pole out. So I think I'm just going to try to get out of here.

Kat (Gracie): It's ok. You don't need to justify it to anybody but yourself.

cuppycup (Freddy): Scott's judging me.

Scott (Keeper): I absolutely am.

cuppycup (Freddy): Well, Jack could come back and get her. I mean, it's not all on me, right?

Danny (Jack): I'm scrappy. I can't get her.

cuppycup (Freddy): Yeah, if the nurse can't save her... Does she have mace or anything on her? Like something I could take with me.

Kat (Gracie): I'd like to loot the corpse before I sacrifice it to the monster vacuum.

Scott (Keeper): Oh, you're going to wait around and search her?

cuppycup (Freddy): No, if you're going to delay me, I'm just going to get out.

Scott (Keeper): I totally am.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok.

Freddy: Help me up!

Scott (Keeper): Give me a DEX roll, then. You can have a BONUS DIE if the other two are helping you out.

cuppycup (Freddy): Are they? I just, I asked for help. I don't know if they were.

Danny (Jack): Yeah, definitely trying to help.

Kat (Gracie): I mean. Yeah. Yeah.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh, I need the BONUS. FAILED the first one, and I FAILED the second one by less. So I have 57 out of 40. Oh, my God. I feel like I'm going to die either way.

Scott (Keeper): Your head is basically up above the window, but your legs are still desperately flapping around, trying to find purchase down below. In fact, enough of you is up that I'd say, let's have that SAN roll now.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh, God, I'm going to get the SAN hit and then die in this. Yeah, ok. I failed, 84 out of 60.

Scott (Keeper): You lose... Oh, only 3 points of SAN.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'm worried that people are going to think I deserve my fate because of what I considered doing, but I didn't actually do it.

Scott (Keeper): I'm not worried about that.

Kat (Gracie): I'm just going to say maybe these rolls are karma.

Scott (Keeper): I think it's fair to say that as an involuntary action, as you do that, you just let go and fall back down within the bus.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok, that's great. Is there any other path out on the first level, anything that looks promising?

Scott (Keeper): There is obviously the emergency exit to the back, if there weren't this ravening monster between you and it. By the way, I mean, the others are in a fine position to shout down suggestions to Freddy.

Kat (Gracie): So we can see that Freddy is obviously about to die.

Danny (Jack): I got the fire extinguisher.

Gracie:  Freddy! Extinguish the crap out of it!

cuppycup (Freddy): If he drops it down, I'll try to spray it first.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. Yeah. I mean, the fire extinguisher is down there. He dropped it on his way out. Give me a LUCK roll to see whether it got damaged in the crash.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok. And I'm going to spray at the base because I know how to put out fires. Goddamnit. I FAILED that.

Scott (Keeper): You pulled the pin on it and just pull back the handle and it goes *splutter*

cuppycup (Freddy): Plan D, I'm going to take that loose seatback, and what I'm going to try to do is use it like a shield to push myself past this swirling vortex. 

Scott (Keeper): It's going to be difficult pushing past it, but you might be able to drive it back with it.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh, it's that wide, it's kind of filling the whole bus? Yeah, I feel like pushing it back is very temporary. I guess while I make my next plan, I'll at least do that to protect myself and see how much it's tearing up the seat.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. What is your DEX?

cuppycup (Freddy): It's not good, Scott. It's 40.

Scott (Keeper): Ok. This thing's DEX is a lot better than yours.

cuppycup (Freddy): That's a shock.

Scott (Keeper): Obviously, as you're getting the seat back into position, it is now moving in towards you, and it is going to try to shred you into tiny little pieces.

cuppycup (Freddy): I didn't know it could think, Scott.

Scott (Keeper): Well, are you going to try attacking it? Are you going to try dodging?

cuppycup (Freddy): What is dodging with the seatback? What does that do?

Scott (Keeper): I'll give you a BONUS die on that if you just want to try to get out of the way and use the seatback as the distraction, yeah.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh God. Ok, so I need 20. Uh, 92 on the first. 22. I will spend 2 points of LUCK.

Danny (Jack): Yes!

Scott (Keeper): Ok. It's clearly trying to get in towards you, but it's confused by the fact that you've put this seat back in the way and you can hear the ping, ping, ping of stones and glass and metal now hitting the seat back that you've got. And it's shredding off bits of fabric and stuffing; the seat back is vibrating in your hand. But you do seem to have held it off, at least for the moment.

cuppycup (Freddy): Does it look like it's retreating or is it still pressing onward?

Scott (Keeper): It's still pressing onwards.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok.

Scott (Keeper): But it is your action now. So if you wanted to do something offensive or defensive or weird, now is your moment.

cuppycup (Freddy): I think now Freddy's pretty confident that if he did throw the woman into the path, that would not end well. It's not really a useful experiment anymore. So I've abandoned that part of my plan. Is there like a corner of the bus where I feel like this thing might go past me? I'm looking for a place to hide, basically.

Scott (Keeper): Not really, no, because as it's been moving up the bus, it's basically been tearing up the seats.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok. Since I survived a round, can I try to climb back out again?

Scott (Keeper): Yeah. I mean, you are going to be leaving yourself vulnerable. If this goes wrong, there's a good chance that it will basically just rip your legs off if this fails.

cuppycup (Freddy): I mean yeah, that sounds great.

Danny (Jack): From the top, like the window, I'm going to, like, really lean over and say to Gracie,

Jack: Grab my feet, grab my waist, make sure I don't fall.

Danny (Jack): Like, really try to help out, like leaning in as far as I can without falling through.

Gracie: Alright, love.

Kat (Gracie): And I'm going to put my arms around and brace my feet, try and hold them as best I can.

Scott (Keeper): Ok.

cuppycup (Freddy): This may be self-defeating, but my size is 80.

Scott (Keeper): On the other hand, you have two people now helping you. So what I'll say is, as you did manage to disengage with the DODGE roll before, you can have this as your action this round, try to get away. With two people helping you, I will give you 2 BONUS dice on this roll.

cuppycup (Freddy): Is it DEX?

Scott (Keeper): It is.

cuppycup (Freddy): Ok. I rolled a 55. Let's see if I can just get a PASS on another roll here. And an 85... Oh, and a 15. So the 15 is a HARD SUCCESS.

Danny (Jack): Yes!

Scott (Keeper): Then yeah, basically you're there with your legs just flapping in the air, just jumping up as the others are grabbing hold of your clothing. Initially, it feels like they're just going to pull your shirt off, but they do manage to get enough purchase on you and pull you out just as this thing tears up the seat that you were standing on.

cuppycup (Freddy): I'll yell down behind me to the woman,

Freddy: Grab my leg!

Jack: Who are you talking to?

Freddy: I was trying to help the woman. The one the nurse left behind.

Kat (Gracie): *splutters* Oh, Gracie will remember this night.

Danny (Jack): Are you gaslighting her?

Kat (Gracie): Ok, well, I know who I'm going to stab in the neck later on this session.

Scott (Keeper): And with that, yeah, the creature rolls forwards and there is a spray of blood and meat that just covers the windows underneath you.

cuppycup (Freddy): Oh.

Gracie: Alright, I don't really want to stay and hang out and become that. So, like, shall we just try and find somewhere safe?

Kat (Gracie): And I'm going to start trying to climb down the side of the bus to get off the bus.

Scott (Keeper): Could I have a GROUP LUCK roll?

cuppycup (Freddy): GROUP LUCK? Who has the lowest? Isn't that what that means?

Scott (Keeper): Yes.

cuppycup (Freddy):  I have 65.

Danny (Jack): 74.

Kat (Gracie): I got a 93 and my LUCK is 46.

Scott (Keeper): As you're looking down, looking for a safe way down, you can see the slowly spreading fire that's moving out from the bottom of the bus.

cuppycup (Keeper): You are listening to Ain’t Slayed Nobody. For ad-free episodes, heaps of bonus content, and special programming please join our posse at patreon.com/aintslayed or subscribe to Ain’t Slayed Nobody+ at Apple Podcasts. See the show notes for full credits, and help us grow by posting friendly reviews and spreading the word to your friends and followers. Thank you and good luck out there!